Текст книги "[The Girl From UNCLE 01] - The Birds of a Feather Affair"

Автор книги: Michael Avallone

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The Chief of the Marine Corps snorted.

"That's a mouthful of frogs, Waverly. What could be that big? Another cobalt bomb? Germ warfare?"

"No," Waverly said quietly. "We could combat those evils."

The Chief of the Navy looked less skeptical than the rest of his colleagues. A slow, unworried smile crossed his face.

"Mr. Waverly, I've had some indications about your man, Zorki. Fact is, our own G-2 has been working on him but—you'd have to go some to top the bomb. Overkill is nothing new, you know."

"I realize that, sir, but what else is there to surpass the simple, unalterable truth that Alek Yakov Zorki, Thrush agent and scientist extraordinary, has discovered a chemical agent which guarantees everlasting life?" Mr. Waverly phrased the words very slowly and very carefully. "Nobody will ever die once they are innoculated with this amazing solution. Life everlasting against the fast statistics of old age, accidents and even intentional homicide. Think of it."

The Joint Chiefs of Staff began to laugh. The low ripple of mirth played about the table. The laughter reached the Secretary of Defense. He bit his lips, and reluctantly rapped his gavel for silence. A sudden quiet greeted the hollow thud of the hammer, as if all the participants were somewhat embarrassed by their own reactions.

The Defense Secretary leveled a stern gaze at Waverly.

"You can prove this preposterous revelation?"

"I can, sir," Waverly said, without hesitation. "I wish to God I was in error."

"But that's absurd!" The Army Chief exploded.

"Incredible and impossible," agreed the head of the Marine Corps. "Why if—"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," the Defense Secretary cut in. "It isn't in our province to discuss the niceties of the matter. I'm sure we are all aware of the consequences of such a discovery."

"Precisely, gentlemen," Mr. Waverly said firmly. "They go on living, we go on dying, in the normal order of things. And soon we would have a world of people who think alike and live alike for all time. Thrush people. Thrush conquerors and dictators. And Thrush, of course, will gain what it has sought since the very day of its birth. World dominance."

The Defense Secretary nodded.

"I'll talk to the President. This calls for an executive decision. Meanwhile, I suggest you take that plane back to New York, Mr. Waverly. You hold onto Mr. Zorki until you hear from me. I'll leave the details to you. I'm sure our Washington scientists will want to know all there is to know about this—ah—discovery."

"Thank you, Mr. Secretary."

The Chiefs of Staff exchanged hopeless looks and incredulous gestures. A man of some merit and obvious importance had said a most remarkable thing. Was it true? Could it be true—even in this amazing day and age?

"Proof," barked the Chief of the Army. "You mentioned you had proof. What kind of proof can you have of a thing like this?"

Mr. Waverly stood up, bowing to the officials surrounding him. His leathery face was furrowed.

"The proof is Mr. Zorki himself. When we first got our hands on him, we put him through the usual tests. Physical, mental, etcetera. A Security precaution. There was an accident the first day in the laboratory. One of my men left a ray machine on which fires, literally, radium bullets. Mr. Zorki received enough radioactive particles to kill a roomful of people. He survived with no more than a mild headache. When we questioned him about it, he made his boast about his chemical. We believed him. The proof was before our eyes. That was about a week ago, and Mr. Zorki is still very much alive. Need I say more? Obviously, he himself is innoculated with this drug of his."

"I can think of an easier way to test him," the Army head growled. "Line him up on a firing range and cut him in two with some automatic weapons. Life everlasting! It's ridiculous, I tell you."

Mr. Waverly had no more to say of an important nature.

"Thank you for your attention. I'll be going now. Please remember that we at Uncle will do all in our power to hold on to Mr. Zorki."

The War Room was quiet long after Mr. Alexander Waverly had left the table.

Not even the outspoken Army Chief dared repeat his infamous suggestion. As practical as it would be, the government just didn't operate that way, did it?

Outside the Pentagon building, a long dark touring car was waiting for Mr. Waverly. He entered it quickly and settled himself in the interior. His kindly brown eyes were unaccustomably grim.

"Airport," he said tersely to his special driver.

The nation's capital lay quiet and serene in the gathering darkness; the mammoth illumination of numberless lights and glares gave the impression of an immense, lit-up stage where great dramas were about to unfold.

Mr. Waverly's special car shot away from the curb, wheels spinning on the gravel, grinding almost in protest.

Away All Girls

The explosion, when it came, was something to remember the rest of one's life.

For April, it marked the beginning of a new appreciation for the effects of a detonation under water. She had gambled on the physical principle that liquid would dissipate the bursting concussion of a charge of explosives. She had counted on the rolling force of torrents of water, pushed by the powerful thrust of the blast, wherever it might come from, to collapse the walls of the basement. But she had not reckoned on the maelstrom that would ensue.

Eternities seemed to have passed since she and Joanna Paula Jones (Lord, what a name that was!) first huddled in the locker. The swirling, dirty waters had flooded their narrow stall, rising in a steady surge. It had sloshed against their chests, reaching their chins—a thunderous cataract of noise.... And then had come the biggest noise of all. A cyclonic, ear-pounding whoooommmmpppp of sound and fury. The world had turned upside down.

A skyrocketing, roller-coastering universe in which the heavens opened wide and the waters of the deluge carried them away like two bits of flotsam in a roaring ocean. Wherever the explosives had been planted, there was no escaping the waterfall. The watery room split into mountainous columns of flying foam and rubble. The locker cubicle that held herself and the girl buckled apart, the tin sides flying. Their two helpless figures whipped forward, like two grains in an elevator chute. Tons of water and wreckage poured through the collapsed walls of the building where the mammoth, gaping holes allowed them passage. April tried to hang onto something, sought to reach the girl, but it was useless. She was swept along on a tidal wave of such force that the breath almost burst from her lungs.

It was a mad miracle of daylight and darkness, life and death.

They were outside the building now, shooting along a narrow, dim alley, their bodies buffeted and catapulted like corks in the sea. April let her body relax and go limp; it was the only thing her training had left her as a conditioned reflex. The rest was confusion, and the exhilarating hope that she might get out of this mess alive. She uttered one last prayer that Joanna Paula Jones would do likewise.

Behind her, she sensed the thundering vibration of destruction. There was a cataclysm of violence and disintegration in the air. Then her lungs were full of the foul, wretched water. She sputtered, struck her hands out like flails, trying blindly to check her headlong propulsion. It was a veritable Perils of Pauline situation—

It was then that her head struck the cobbled sides of the building.

The rest was darkness in the surrounding fierce thunder of holocaust.

She awoke to the keening of sirens and an earthquake of sound. When she opened her eyes, she didn't know where she was. She lay quietly, composing herself. She counted slowly, waiting for the clamor in her bosom to slow down. She could feel her heart thumping.

She checked herself gingerly, expertly for broken bones and more severe injuries. Darkness surrounded her, intermittently pierced by the probing beam of a searchlight. She took stock of her surroundings; weariness throbbed through all the muscles in her body.

She was lying on her side somewhere, half of her soaking in water. She stared up; the cubed, dark outline of a span of concrete rose above her. A bridge. She was under a bridge, lying on a damp, muddy shore with her naked feet still extended into a low body of gently running water. She made herself sit up, conscious of a tingling in her limbs. Her arms and legs ached. Her ribs felt sore and bruised. She shook herself, trying to locate all the uproar and confusion of the night. It was not far away.

She lay back on her right side, studying the bridge ramp arcing overhead. Dark and ghostly. Beyond it, to the left, she made out a fiery hue lighting up the night sky. From one point, she heard the clang of sirens, the hoarse shouts of fiercely busy men. Dimly, she made out the tops of the green trees, forming a solid mass of cover to the East. She looked down the river and remembered where she was.

The factory. The explosion. Bronx Park. Yes, she had been hurled outward by the blast, carried through the wall, out into the alley and then—of course. She had been swept to the river and dragged along until her body had anchored in low water close to the shore, under this very bridge. She wasn't that far from the building. And the girl—

Joanna Paula Jones was nowhere in sight.

She raised herself stiffly. A sharp pain centered its hot knives in her right thigh, letting her know she had torn a ligament somewhere. She had gotton off easily, though. It was a miracle to be alive. The girl, obviously—

April then put aside the thought of her. She blocked out the bedlam that reigned some five hundred yards away. On her feet, she tested her legs. Stiff but they'd have to do. She hobbled toward an incline of ground at the side of the bridge. A paved walk lay in a wash of moonlight. As she had suspected, because of the bridge, she was close to a park exit. She fumbled at her soaked clothes. The baggy man's pants were like ridiculous balloons. Her bra, taut from immersion, was strangling her breasts. Firmly and with great effort, she tore the trouser bottoms below the knees and fashioned a semishirt to cover her torso. It was a farce but it would have to do. She had lost the oversized shoes that had adorned the feet of the man she had killed.

A dead smile dominated her battered, dirty face.

She wasn't exactly dressed for the Riviera though the costume could have been mistaken for clam-diggers and Bikini top. She was a ragged derelict, really, and she didn't even have the necessary dime to make a phone call to Headquarters. If she tried to bum a coin from people in the streets, the chances were they would shy away from her Bowery bum appearance. Yes, it was a great life for a girl. Still, she was elated to be alive.

The street was bereft of passersby, despite the pell-mell activity in the vicinity of the blaze. Or maybe because of it. April cut over the walk, toward Boston Road, away from the center of all attention. Ahead, the street lights glowed. Automobiles flashing by, hooted their horns derisively at her, taking her for some kind of kook. She stayed away from the fire. Nobody at the scene would have believed her. Least of all any tired Bronx policemen or far too busy firemen. No, she would have to get out of this mess on her own.

There was a cab parked at the intersection of 180th Street and Boston Road. April hobbled stiffly toward the driver, standing alongside his vehicle, munching a hot dog, watching the blaze lighting up the sky.

The cabbie recoiled when he saw her, raising his frankfurter as if it were a weapon, in self-defense.

"Mister," April said in her coolest and brightest voice though she knew she felt and looked positively terrible, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you I was a very secret agent who had to get downtown in a hurry and would see that you got twenty dollars for taking me there?"

The driver made a face. "Beat it, sister."

"I don't blame you. I'll make that fifty bucks if you'll do what I ask."

The man nearly choked in disgust on his hot dog. Sour-faced, he dug into his pants pocket and flipped a coin at April. "There. Don't bother me. You'll give me indigestion."

April caught the coin. A dime. Elation shot through her. She eyed the cab and the hackie's number on the badge pinned to his peaked cap.

"Thank you, Number seven-one-three-five-nine. This may be the nicest thing you have done all year."

"Sure, sure, sister. Beat it, wilya, or I'll call a cop!"

"Gently, sir, it's Mother's Day."

She blew him a kiss with her grimy fingers, winked and limped across the street to the luncheonette where the driver had obviously bought his frankfurter. The elevated subway overhead was just disgorging a flood of passengers. April became the cynosure of all eyes as she walked into the luncheonette and headed for the telephone booth at the rear of the establishment

It didn't matter. So she wasn't the Queen of the May. At least, she had a dime.

A dime to call U.N.C.L.E. and get back to civilization again.

And get some decent clothes and a good hot tub before she forgot she was a woman altogether. She could smell herself. A foul smell.

There were only two things on her mind, really. And both of those were human beings. One male, one female.

Mark Slate. And Joanna Paula Jones.

The carpeted corridor was long and deserted. A trail of red plush headed toward the twin elevator cages. There was one lone closed door at the far end of the hall. This led to a fire stairway.

One of the elevator cages whirred open. Arnolda Van Atta stepped out. She wore a long green velvet dress that clung to her statuesque body in enticing curves. A pendant of jade stones hung about her slim throat, falling across the swell of her abundant bosom. The flaming red hair was wound into a sophisticated bun atop her classic head. She was radiantly, exquisitely beautiful. Looking at her one would find it hard to believe she was capable of the very most inhuman, cold-blooded acts.

Her green eyes glinted in the subdued lighting of the corridor. A cold smile etched her regular features into a mold of sheer iciness. The oddest of her accouterments was the black leather riding crop she held lightly between her slim, tapering fingers.

It was now eight o'clock in the evening.

She stalked down the hallway imperiously, halting only when she reached the smooth-paneled brown door to the left of the twin elevator cages. The smile on her face evaporated as she turned the knob and stepped inside.

Mr. Riddle, Fried Rice and Pig Alley looked up quickly, stopping in the midst of a busy game of gin rummy. Mr. Riddle still wore the Frankenstein mask. His lanky, cadaverous figure seemed more ludicrous than ever. But an aura of terror clung visibly to the man. Fried Rice and Pig Alley were unnerved sitting with such a parody of a human being.

But they feared Arnolda Van Atta more. They all did. It was apparent in the almost subservient way they lapsed into silence at her appearance. She drifted to the table, eyes gleaming, the riding crop waggling impatiently in her slender fingers.

"Yes, Arnolda?" Mr. Riddle asked.

"Our man at Uncle has contacted Zorki. It seems Mr. Waverly intends to play games with us. Substituting a look-alike for our dear Alek Yakov." Her words were suffused with anger. "So we know where we stand. Waiting until midnight would be a farce now."

"What do you intend to do, then?"

"First I will deal with Mr. Slate. Then we will leave this place and station ourselves at a point I designated to the man at U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters. We'll get Zorki without making deals."

Pig Alley stared up at her now, wonderingly. "Sacre, but you are gorgeous, ma chère. What a charming dress!"

She ignored him and tightened her hands on the riding crop. She only had words for Mr. Riddle.

"Wait for me here. I shall be no longer than an hour. You understand?"

"Of course," Mr. Riddle's flat voice echoed hollowly in the mask. "We can play cards all night, if we must."

She laughed. A sarcastic, pealing laugh that had no humor in it. With that, she turned on her high heels and left the room. Mr. Riddle's Frankenstein head stared after her.

Pig Alley's Errol Flynn moustache twitched. He was not too young a man but he obviously found Arnolda Van Atta astounding in more ways than one.

"Did you see her? Dressed like a queen! To what end—and that whip in her hands—" He broke off, confused, staring at Mr. Riddle and Fried Rice.

"She always dresses that way," Mr. Riddle remarked, picking up his hand once more and riffling the cards. "Usually just before she is about to do something extremely vicious. What a woman."

"Yes," Fried Rice agreed, his purple mandarin's sleeves flung back to allow him to handle his cards. "I do not envy Mr. Slate the hour Miss Van Atta will spend with him."

Pig Alley swallowed nervously, dark eyes afraid.

"You mean she—"

"Sadism," Fried Rice said calmly enough. "She is a ruthless sadist. Thoroughly versed in the De Sade lores and customs. Come, cards please."

Mr. Riddle, Pig Alley and Fried Rice went back to their game. Each of them tried to concentrate on what they were doing. But it was far too interesting to dwell on what the redhead would do to the man from U.N.C.L.E.

Had they taken an informal poll among themselves, they would have found themselves in unanimous agreement on one major point.

Whatever Arnolda Van Atta was going to do, it would not be nice.

April Dancer reached Del Floria's Tailor Shop just as the bells in the church steeple five blocks away tolled the hour of eight. The taxicab driver's gift of a dime had accomplished a host of miracles. An excellent sedan, a Dodge with a motor that could achieve the speed of a Ferrari, had picked her up almost thirty minutes after her call. The driver was a tall, blank-faced U.N.C.L.E. chauffeur who made no comment about her odd appearance or battered condition. He merely drove cars and was prepared for instant duty and emergencies, as might be any one who drove an ambulance for a hospital.

Meanwhile, on the long drive into Manhattan, April had mended herself as best she could. There was a specially equipped cabinet in the rear of the sedan that came down off the wall like a dressing table. With this before her, she redid her face—washing, and applying restoring lotions and healing creams to her bruises. A complete wardrobe trunk, artfully concealed in the cushioned seat afforded her a smart, simple blue wool dress and regular pumps. By the time the sedan had reached the ramp at Pershing Square, she was, at the very least, extremely presentable once again. The only things that didn't show were the great aches and enormous fatigue that made her body scream for sleep. To combat this depressing feeling of lassitude, she sniffed freely for a full minute from a curious brown capsule. The immediate effect was one of head-clearing and complete recovery. It wasn't just spirits of ammonia or Benzedrine; it was something far more efficacious than that. Instant Wake-up, the Lab boys had labeled their discovery.

The tattered remnants of the dead man's clothes she consigned to a disposal unit on the floor of the sedan.

Darkness, pierced by neon, filled Manhattan as the sedan wheeled up to Del Floria's, literally the front door to the vast complex that made up Headquarters, U.N.C.L.E., New York.

There was a not unattractive blonde in a print dress operating the steam presser as April came in. The shop was small, neat and extremely orderly, but nothing to write home about. The blonde eyed April obliquely.

"Is my red dress ready do you know?" April inquired sweetly.

"Oh, yes. Right in there." The blonde gestured toward a dressing cubicle. April nodded to her and stepped behind the curtain that closed off a view of the shop's interior. The steam presser hissed as the blonde clamped it down again.

April waited in the cubicle, facing the rear wall. A steel panel slid to the left and she hurried through. The steel panel, actually one wall of the dressing room, closed again.

April heaved a sigh. Home again. U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters.

Before her lay the outer offices of the amazing complex. Steel files, a reception desk at which sat another woman. This one was a brunette with sharp features and steady eyes. She smiled at April as she handed her a peculiarly shaped card badge which April pinned to the bosom of her dress.

Beyond this anteroom lay the elevators and then the honeycomb of rooms and offices which comprised the inner workings of the organization. April, still occupied with her fears for Mark Slate, now had only him on her mind.

"Will you buzz Mr. Waverly for me, please?"

The brunette apologized. "Sorry. He left for Washington. Won't be back until ten or eleven, I expect."

April tried not to bite her lip. With the old man gone, she would have to take the assignment by the horns. God knew there was little time to lose.

"Then would you alert Section Two, for me? I'll be in the Weapons Room for twenty minutes and I'll be ready for a conference at eight thirty."

"Yes, Miss Dancer."

She paused a second longer before going on up to Weapons to rearm herself with the matériel and equipment that her capture by THRUSH had destroyed.

"Any word from Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin?"

The brunette's face warmed a trifle.

"They contacted us that they were leaving Rangoon tomorrow. That should put them back here by Wednesday at the earliest."

"Thanks."

April took an elevator that whisked her up to the Weapons Room. With Mark Slate hors de combat and Lord knew what else, it would have been a comfort to have had Solo and his Russian colleague on deck to call some of the shots.

This way, it all fell on her shoulders. Not that she lacked self-confidence. Far from it. It was just that she was willing to take all the help she could get.

On the way up in the steel elevator, she wondered who was left in the Enforcements pool that she could use. There was James Wilder, of "course. Pete Barnes, Walter Fleming. Perhaps even Randy Kovac. No, Randy was still a trainee. Eighteen years old, smart as a whip, and almost fey, he was so Irish. No, no—this was no operation for a trainee. U.N.C.L.E.? Randy was still a Nephew.

She had reached the door of the Weapons Room when the truth descended upon her like a ton of bricks. Good Lord, what an idiot she had been! And all the time she had lost, just because she had been a half-drowned kitten lost somewhere in the Bronx. It had been staring her in the face all the time and it had just this moment come to her. The one possible way she could trace the whereabouts of Mark Slate and his brutal captors. Her eyes blazed with anger as she realized her stupidity.

If anything happened to Slate now and they were too late, it would be her own fault. Nobody else's. She had goofed mightily—a luxury no agent could afford. Least of all, Mark Slate.

She raced for the communication set on the desk in the Weapons Room, nearly tripping in her haste. She batted the lever on.

"Section Four," a man's voice said.

This was the Intelligence and Communications Section. A most valuable arm of the organization.

"April Dancer here," she said crisply into the transmitter, all of her mental capacities focused on the very important information she was about to deliver. There must be no slipups, no forgetting of a single detail, if she were ever to see Mark alive again.

"Yes, Miss Dancer?"

"I have an All Points. We must locate, as soon as possible, a blue panel truck. The occupants are a Chinaman, a Hindu and a French Apache type. They are advertising a three-ring circus of some kind called 'Romeo's League of Nations Exhibit.' Repeat—" She went through the whole spiel again, itemizing every detail of description she could remember. The Hindu's beard, the Errol Flynn moustache on the Frenchman and the Chinaman's purple mandarin robes. She included a vivid description of Arnolda Van Atta, hoping that such a weird menage of people must certainly have been seen by somebody during the last few hours. They would have no reason to discard their disguises because they must have been pretty sure they had wiped out April in the factory explosion. She had never seen Mr. Riddle, of course, so she left him out of her message.

The man in Section Four barked a Roger at her and April clicked the set up, taking a deep breath.

There. At least, she had done that much.

The rest was up to efficiency and luck.

Luck always played a large part in any operation. It was the one intangible, imponderable aspect of every single moment of an agent's life.

With her report out of the way, she busied herself with the special equipment and protective devices of offense and defense that occupied the shelves of the Weapons Room. Mr. Waverly was going to have a fit when she presented her expense account at the end of the month. She had lost an entire set of personal tools. Something she had rarely ever done. Mr. Waverly had always commended her on her frugality and thrift, often chiding Slate, Solo and Kuryakin for their constant loss of equipment and very high lists of expenditures.

Still, that wasn't what was really bothering her.

Not even her New England background could make her forget for a moment that Mark was in the hands of the opposition.

If anything happened to that dear fool, she'd never forgive herself.

Suddenly she also realized with a start that she hadn't had a thing to eat all day. Not since breakfast. Her stomach was beginning to rebel.

She called the commissary, hoping to sneak in a sandwich and a cup of hot tea before the conference with Enforcement.

She also remembered to jot a memo down on a scrap pad. A reminder to herself to take care of the unwilling Samaritan of a cab driver.

Number seven-one-three-five-nine.