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

Автор книги: Michael Avallone

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"Now, I've a question for you both. Which one of the men that you see is indeed our Russian friend?"

"It's an amazing duplication," Slate marveled. "But I'd place my pennies on the joker that's stalking like a bear."

"And you, Miss Dancer. Take your pick."

"I'm not being contrary," April laughed, "but I'd have to say the one staring at the floor. I don't base that opinion on any flaw in the disguise, though."

"Oh." Mr. Waverly sounded amused. "Why do you select the reflective Zorki as the real one?"

"He's wearing a wristwatch. And we don't allow our prisoners anything like that."

"Tallyho," Mark Slate laughed. "You're right."

"And so she is," Waverly agreed, clicking the buttons on his desk again. The screens went dark. "I shall have to remind Mr. Wilder about that. Though it does no harm at the moment."

"Wilder?" April echoed. "That was James Wilder? Yes, yes—I see now. He's built like Zorki, the face and hair is close enough and with makeup—"

"Quite. You really wouldn't be able to tell them apart if they stood in the center of this room."

"But," Slate interrupted. "There's no need now for this game of Zorki, is there, sir? You've no place to go with him."

"You forget, Mr. Slate," Waverly's expression was grim. "We have yet to hear from Egret again. And don't worry. We will hear from her. I'm sure of it."

"It's close to eleven o'clock," April said blandly, reaching for a cigarette. "Do we get any beauty sleep tonight?"

Mr. Waverly's teeth showed for one of the few times in their long acquaintance with him.

"I would be the first to suggest you do not need sleep to augment your beauty, Miss Dancer. Getting back to reality, however, I would prefer you both remain at Headquarters tonight. I expect to be hearing from the teletypes and I shall want you on hand."

"Roger, sir." Mark Slate rose to his feet, still incongruous in Basque shirt and blue jeans. "The bunks aren't bad in this hotel."

"Do change to more suitable raiment, Mr. Slate."

"Yes, sir," he said soberly.

April got up too and straightened her skirt. She replaced the unlit cigarette in her pack. Waverly regarded her keenly.

"A suggestion, Miss Dancer." April looked at him.

"Since Miss Van Atta is a woman and her ankle has been seen to in the interim, I think she will be in the mood to talk. At any rate, I should like you to try before you settle down for the night. Can't tell. A declawed tigress sometimes is apt to growl a different tune. She just might be ready to trade information as a price for her crimes."

"The idea was on the tip of my tongue," April smiled.

"Of course it was," Mr. Waverly agreed and dismissed them both with a wave of his hand. When they had closed the door behind them, they could hear him on the transmitter, asking for a call to be relayed to Napoleon Solo in Rangoon. It was still daylight in Rangoon.

Arnolda Van Atta's cell was one in a row of cubicles in the underground maze that housed the facilities of U.N.C.L.E. Mark Slate had taken a turn to the left, down a corridor running north toward the sleeping quarters, but April walked quickly toward Arnolda Van Atta's pen. It was late, very late, and she wasn't in much of a mood to talk to the redheaded woman, but Mr. Waverly's idea was sound. A badly broken ankle and a plot gone awry could work wonders with a woman like Arnolda.

Take away the comforts, the luxuries and the command, and sometimes these cold, calculating types did a faster fold-up than their less complex counterparts.

It worked that way sometimes.

The peculiar gray light that dominated the corridors and halls of U.N.C.L.E, Headquarters cast a steady glow over the interior of the building. April passed through many steel doors and electric-eye protective devices that would have set off a whole battery of alarm systems were it not for the chemically treated badge card pinned to her dress. It was an easy building to get lost in. A far easier building for the wrong person to get in trouble in. Just no place for anyone who had no business there.

She found the cell. It was set in the middle of a long passageway, where a host of other cells loomed emptily. Fried Rice and Pig Alley, being male, would be in another section of the building.

Arnolda Van Atta was lying on her bunk, face turned toward the gray wall. The gleam of white bandages and plaster of paris cast on her damaged leg stood out almost like an electric light in the dim shadows of the cubicle. April reached the grilled bars and looked in. The woman couldn't be sleeping. Not now. Not with the pain of that ankle. Even if they had given her sedatives—

Once again, woman though she was, April could appreciate and even envy the long, shapely, statuesque figure of Arnolda Van Atta. The splendid hips and slender legs and flaming red hair were stunning physical assets in a female.

April placed her hands on the bars.

"Miss Van Atta," she said cheerily. "I know you're not sleeping. I want to talk to you."

The redhead did not stir.

"Now, look, Miss Van Atta. There's no use—"

She stopped, unable to fully absorb the reality of the incredible truth.

Arnolda Van Atta was not sleeping. Nor would she be able to talk to April Dancer or anyone else in this lifetime. Whatever conversation they could have had would have to be resumed in that mysterious place where all spies must go when they die. The good ones and the bad ones. There but for you, spy I.

For even standing where she was, April could now see the bone handle of the knife jutting from between the redhead's shoulder blades. It had gone all the way in, up to the hilt, plunged inward with great force and power. The velvet green dress now bore a wide area of reddish brown where the hilt poked outwards.

But for April, the chilling thought was not that of death. That was something, of course, but not really the shocker. Agents have to get used to the idea of death. Sudden or otherwise. It was a twenty-four hour, around-the-clock possibility and it was always there.

No, that wasn't it at all.

The real killer was that somewhere, right here in U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, no-man's-land for the enemy, there walked a traitor. A live, moving, thinking, deadly adversary whom no one suspected.

I Have Not Yet Begun to Spy

Mr. Waverly was not happy to know that an assassin was loose in Headquarters. Once April had sounded the alarm, setting in motion Maximum Security Regulations all over the complex, Waverly had hurried to the cell block, accompanied by a team of Lab technicians and experts.

There was nothing that could be done for Arnolda Van Atta. Death had been instantaneous.

The assassin had struck her as she lay on her cot, face to the wall apparently. She had been dead barely an hour. Mr. Waverly was extremely worried.

Someone had had the key to open Miss Van Atta's cell door. Someone knew the location of all the alarm systems. Someone was wearing an U.N.C.L.E. badge card who should not be wearing that card. Someone, perhaps one of these very men who were with him, examining Miss Van Atta's corpse, was a THRUSH agent. The idea was chilling.

"No fingerprints on the handle, Mr. Waverly," one of the technicians said brusquely.

"I thought not."

"Chances are good she didn't even see her murderer. She must have been lying there, when he opened the cell door and tiptoed in."

"Yes, I suppose so. Still, he must have been known to her. If he is one of Thrush's agents."

"Floor's empty too," another U.N.C.L.E. man said. He was holding a curious black box whose filtered bottom threw a luminous light that would have shown any form of disturbance on the stone floor. Not so much as a molecule of dust had been disturbed.

"Yes," Waverly murmured. "One who knows all our tricks. Only one of our own kind could have foreseen our using this sort of equipment to detect clues. Still, he has to be someone working against time and there is very little left."

The U.N.C.L.E. agents had nothing to say to that.

The furrows in Mr. Waverly's face deepened as he left the experts to finish their messy work. He asked April to accompany him back to his office.

"Coming, Miss Dancer?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where is Mr. Slate?"

"'Still pounding his ear. Shall I buzz him?"

"Not just yet. We may need him at the top of his form very shortly."

In the office, Mr. Waverly indicated a yellow streamer of teletype lying on the marvelous, circular table. "Read that if you will, Miss Dancer."

April scooped up the streamer. The typed words were short, to the point and not very sweet:

THRUSH FLIES HIGH. FORGET GRAND

CENTRAL. RELEASE ZORKI AT ONCE OR THE

BUILD WILL BLOW SKY-HIGH BEFORE

TOMORROW MORNING. THIS IS A LAST WARNING.

EGRET

"Do you think it's a bluff, Mr. Waverly?"

For once, the old man spread his hands helplessly. His brown eyes were bleak.

"A bluff? What more proof do we need? This woman murdered in our very midst." He eyed April sourly. "Dancer, I hadn't wished to mention this before but this makes it imperative." April felt a cold wave travel down her spine. When Mr. Waverly called her Dancer, she knew how serious things were. In times of great stress, the old man was apt to cut corners and forget the niceties of talking to a woman, even if he was her superior. "There's been a security leak at Headquarters for quite some time. A good deal of our messages have been intercepted across the Atlantic. Papers and files have disappeared at times. Nothing real serious until this. Now I can no longer chalk it up to faulty wireless or careless clerks or a breakdown in our technological equipment. I should have known it would assume these proportions. Thrush has been able to plant these messages in Del Fiona's—the first one was dropped there—and now this comes to me over our own private teletype system. It's baffling. I want Zorki, we must keep him, but if Headquarters is in danger—" He paused, as if hoping that the mere act of talking would bring the solution. April restrained a strong urge to reach her hand out to comfort him, but she couldn't do that. Must never do it. "Look how they were able to single out Mark Slate for apprehension. No, there is someone here at Headquarters responsible for the whole affair."

"If there is a bomb, Mr. Waverly, we can find it. The message doesn't give us a deadline on time."

"That is precisely what troubles me the most. It's so cocksure, so dead certain. Oh, we can screen everyone in the building now. I can have our Lab men and demolitions experts cover the maze from top to bottom. But that will take hours. Hours we may not have to spare. So I must use the ace in the hole that I have saved for this moment. I will set Wilder loose. Let them see that Zorki is walking away from this building, a free man."

April shuddered. "But where's our guarantee? Who will disarm the bomb—if there is a bomb? If they get Zorki, won't they just go ahead and put us out of business?"

"Hmmm. Perhaps. But what else do you suggest?"

"I guess I'm just thinking out loud, sir. All we can do is what you say and hunt high and low for our traitor and his—bomb."

Mr. Waverly nodded, as if that were all he wanted to hear. He moved to his chair, arranging the battery of panels and communication buttons before him. His scholar's face was pensive. April was keenly appreciative of the enormous load of responsibility resting on her superior's shoulders. The midnight shift of personnel would be arriving shortly and a normal complement of U.N.C.L.E. people could total as many as fifty. Then there was the amazing million-dollar complex itself—the tons of equipment, devices, weapons and warehouses of filing data that had taken years and the blood of dozens of good agents to accumulate. The history of U.N.C.L.E., its many successes and its few failures, had always had that costly price placed on it. All agents faced death.

"Give Mr. Slate another half hour's rest, Dancer. Then call him. I'll busy myself with the details of our manhunt."

"Right, Mr. Waverly."

"Meanwhile I suggest—"

He paused as a beeping sound filled the office. A blue light glowed on the panel before him. Mr. Waverly depressed a buzzer, his face suddenly alert.

"Yes?"

A crisp man's voice filled the room.

"Prisoner, Mr. Waverly. Loitering in the doorway of Del Fiona's. She tried to pick the lock and set off the alarm. We have her now in the Restraint Room."

"Hmm. The shop was closed, of course. Anything else?"

"Young, very attractive, butch haircut. Pug nose. Says her name is Joanna Paula Jones and she's from U.S. Naval Intelligence."

April was out of her chair in a flash. Excitement and pleasure flooded her. Mr. Waverly spoke quietly into the transmitter, looking steadily at his agent.

"Send Miss Jones up."

"Yes, sir."

"That's her," April crowed. "Not bad for a youngster. Finding us like this. Getting out of that building alive. She must know something—"

"Let us hope so," Mr. Waverly said calmly and quietly. "We are in the need of knowledge. And miracles, I might add."

At second sight, Joanna Paula Jones seemed even younger and more adolescent than ever. Her boyishly bobbed hair, creamy white skin and tilted nose belonged on a pixie, not an agent of the armed services. Somewhere, she too had found time and wherewithal to change her attire and repair the damage of the wettest escape since the Deluge. When she saw April, her face lit up.

"Hi, there. Am I glad to see you!" She paused in embarrassment, hesitant before the solemnity of Mr. Waverly's presence. He bowed slightly, waving her to a chair.

"Ditto," April said. "But first tell me how you got out of that fix we were in. I floated downriver until I snagged the shoreline in Bronx Park."

"Miss Jones," Mr. Waverly said. "Feel free to answer Miss Dancer, I shall ask you some questions directly."

"That's very nice of you, Mr.—"

"Waverly."

"—Waverly." Joanna Paula Jones sighed, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't know. Miracle, I guess. I was washed away too. But I woke up a long way off from that building, I can tell you. Since then I've been busier than a beaver."

"I can imagine," April said. "Go on."

"I contacted my people and they told me to find you people. That was a chore. Took me all night. But I managed. You see, Naval Intelligence wants us to pool our efforts, in a sort of unofficial way, of course, depending on how things work out with Mr. Zorki." She turned to Mr. Waverly, eagerly. "You still have him as prisoner?"

Waverly nodded, not wanting to interrupt the girlish flow of her story. April hid a smile, for Joanna made her think back to her own first days as an U.N.C.L.E. agent. Possibly she had come on just as feminine and gushy as Joanna Paula Jones did now. A girl learned only with time.

"That's fine. He belongs locked up. A terrible man. Well, here I am and I want to help. I thought letting you people catch me was the simplest way. It worked too, didn't it?"

"It certainly did," April laughed. "How did you know about Del Floria's?"

Joanna Paula Jones looked surprised. "Oh, I've known that a long time. Doesn't everyone?"

Mr. Waverly now interrupted. Almost coldly.

"Everyone does not. Answer the question, please."

"When they caught me—that bunch of fanatics—and put me in that locker. Well, they asked me a lot of questions and I overheard them discussing Uncle. All about the place. The tailor shop entrance. All of it."

"Who spoke of it, Miss Jones? Try to remember."

"It was the woman." Joanna Paula Jones screwed up her piquant face thoughtfully. "Yes, that redhead. All about how they had a man planted here. Someone who had a fine Uncle record and would never be suspected. I thought you'd want to know that."

April leaned forward. "Please, Joanna. Think hard. Was the man's name ever mentioned?" Waverly tensed.

"No—I don't—wait a minute. You see, I got on to them because I met a man from Uncle a month ago. Just about the time Zorki was captured. He sort of let me in on things. Well, it was he who suggested I follow that blue truck. You know the League of Nations thing. It was a great tip. Only thing was I got caught. Almost got killed too. I would have if it hadn't been for you, Miss Dancer."

Mr. Waverly and April Dancer couldn't believe their ears. The glances they exchanged could have been emblazoned in Macy's front window for all the world to see. Was it possible that this incredibly naive young woman held the key to all their difficulties? Held the key and was unaware of it?

"Oh—" Joanna Paula Jones clapped a hand to her mouth. Her eyes popped. "How stupid I've been! You both mean that the man who talked to me is the man who's responsible for all this trouble with Mr. Zorki?"

Mr. Alexander Waverly leaned across the round table. His brown eyes targeted in on Joanna Paula Jones. There was electricity in every line of his lean body.

"Miss Jones," he said slowly, kindly, very very carefully. "Who was that man from Uncle?"

"Wilder," she said promptly, smiling to cover her error in logic. "James Wilder. He was ever so cooperative."

She repressed a shriek of dismay at the amount of activity her innocuous statement triggered. Mr. Waverly sprang back to his panel board, thumbing buzzers. April shot over to the place where her own chair was and unhooked the intercom that loomed up like a cobra head before her. She started rattling instructions into the mouthpiece, urgently calling Mark Slate's name. No static came or sounded.

Mr. Waverly thumbed on the buttons that governed the televisor screens lining the wall. Nothing happened. They remained dark and inactive. The head of U.N.C.L.E. abandoned the set, his craggy features set in hard lines. He marched rapidly toward the office door.

"Come along, Miss Dancer. You too, Miss Jones. It is no less than I expect. I only hope we aren't too late."

April nodded, following him, jerking Joanna Paula Jones out of her chair. The traitor had already made his next move. Not one of the systems in the office was functioning properly. Whatever he had decided to do was already underway. Operation Free Zorki was on the march.

All systems for that one were Go, Go. Go!

Far over the East River, fairly invisible in the dark of night, a giant helicopter chopped briskly through the skies. The riding lights were minimal, tiny stars lost in a vast arena of heaven. The full-throated roar of the motor and the mammoth circular rotation of the powerful rotary propellors were almost lost in the multiplicity of noises filling the New York night. Tugs and seagoing freighters mooed like enormous cows in the harbor. Jets zoomed across the skies. The clamor and violence of a great city still awake, still alive, still operating.

The helicopter, traveling at six thousand feet, banked sharply where the 59th Street Bridge below lay like a child's discarded toy against the silver-spotted expanse of the river. It kept on banking, spiraling downward until the altitude loss was phenomenal. Some four hundred feet above the river line, the whirlybird ploughed south, tracing the course of the water.

Within seconds, the machine had reached 42nd Street. It banked once more, circling. Far down below somewhere, from the mass of darkened rooftops, a light blinked. Once, twice, three times. The light followed that pattern for a full minute. The helicopter seemed to stand still in mid-air hovering like an enormous flying bug.

Now, the streams of lights from vehicles racing back and forth, in both directions, along the East River Drive, were ribbons of continuous illumination in the night.

But the steady winking light blinked intermittently. Once, twice, three times. On and off. Off and on.

The helicopter moved again.

Dropping almost vertically. Hundreds of feet fell away until the last hundred between ground and sky was left. The chopper pulled up sharply, hovering again. From the street it would have been impossible to detect. The humming and throbbing of the engines and rotary blades was an enormous drone of sound that could have been attributed to the subways or the noises of a trip-hammer.

Directly below, the winking light went off for the last time. It did not go on again.

The helicopter waited, hovering. A midnight figment of a dreamer's imagination.

Down below, in the packed mass of darkness, among the huddled rooftops, directly under the chopper, stood the building that housed the organization known as U.N.C.L.E.

Headquarters.