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

Автор книги: Michael Avallone

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The Two Mad Bombers

U.N.C.L.E. Enforcement Agent Walter Fleming was on duty on the third floor of the complex. The corridor was a long, gray steel file, bisected with sliding doors that bridged the gap between the walls. Fleming was busy checking his weapon for possible malfunctions. This was the machine pistol which had sent a "mercy" bullet into Fried Rice at the apartment building. The thing had been acting up lately and Fleming planned to turn it over to the armorer the very next day. It was close to midnight and Walter Fleming stifled a yawn. He would be relieved soon and it was time enough. Sometimes, in spite of the excitement earlier that night, things did get a bit quiet around Headquarters. Why even now, the whole damn building was as silent as a tomb—

Walter Fleming frowned.

That wasn't right. He suddenly realized that he had not heard an elevator hum or so much as a signal beep that he could remember these past few minutes. That shouldn't be. Not with the midnight shift arriving and setting up, taking over for the personnel they would be relieving. There was always some sort of sound. Fleming climbed out of his chair at the corridor's very end, where it forked in both directions toward the elevators and scanned the foyer briefly. For a moment, he was on his guard, all of his senses alert. Then he heard the elevator and the sound of footsteps walking casually, unconcernedly somewhere behind him. He turned.

Down the corridor, stepping through sliding doors just hissing shut, came a big, bear-shouldered man in gray turtleneck sweater and taut trousers. Walter Fleming started. Zorki! But no, it had to be James Wilder in the special trick makeup and costume that Mr. Waverly had prescribed for the assignment. Fleming knew about that. He did relax when he saw the U.N.C.L.E. odd-shaped badge card pinned to the breast of the sweater.

Still—

Walter Fleming trained the machine pistol on the bull-necked man marching toward him. This Zorki waved, smiling, showing small white teeth.

"Wouldn't shoot a pal, would you, Walter?"

Fleming chuckled, shaking his head. "Damme, Jimmy, but that's some disguise. Never realized you looked so much like Zorki. Even with the extra touches. Sure he isn't your brother?"

"My Big Brother," gloated James Wilder, for it was indeed he and not Alek Yakov Zorki. However, it did not make much difference, which was something Walter Fleming did not know.

"What's up, Jimmy?"

"Have to see Mr. Waverly. The Russky wants to talk to him about something. I don't know but what it might be important."

"Never hurts to try," Fleming assented.

As the dual Zorki brushed by him, Walter Fleming felt a sharp sting on the bare skin of his right hand. He emitted a sudden bleat of surprise and stepped back. When he saw the puncture mark on the hairy surface of his hand, he looked up quickly. When he saw the look in James Wilder's eyes, he tried to bring up his machine pistol. The bogus Zorki didn't make a move. It was not necessary.

Walter Fleming's eyeballs rolled and he collapsed in half, sliding to the smooth floor. He was dead before he could watch his murderer return by the way he had come to the sliding panels that bisected the corridor.

The panels hissed apart.

Alek Yakov Zorki barreled through, his big figure animated and agitated. Pinned to his facsimile sweater was another of the odd-shaped badge cards. His small eyes gleamed at the sight of the fallen agent.

James Wilder motioned to him, as he reset the hypodermic needle in the stem of his watch. THRUSH poisons worked with the speed of light.

"Come on," James Wilder whispered. "We've got just five minutes to make the roof. And that's all the time that those systems will stay out of order. I had to work fast."

"Da," Alek Yakov Zorki rumbled, sweat standing out on his bull face. "Kolya, it cannot be soon enough for me."

"Let's save the reunion for later."

"As you say."

They whipped around the fork in the corridor and headed for the stairway, James Wilder leading the way. Zorki lunged behind him. Two large men in a great hurry.

They were reflections of each other. Veritable twins. Two peas in a pod.

Only their mother could have told them apart.

And she had always had quite a time of it, in the very beginning, when they were two little boys growing up in Tatarstan, Russia.

Alek and Nicolai Zorki.

Alek had always called Nicolai "Kolya."

April Dancer, Mr. Waverly, Mark Slate and Joanna Paula Jones didn't need a diagram. The two cells that had held Alek Yakov Zorki and his impersonator, James Wilder, separated by some five feet of concrete bunker, were empty.

Slate, hastily summoned by a vocal chain of commands to the other agents scampering all over the complex and trying to locate the source of the malfunctioning systems, was properly attired now. His loud weskit, flaming red beneath a blue blazer, set him off like a playboy at a funeral parlor.

"Our birds have flown," Mr. Waverly said. "The question is where?"

"They can't get out of Headquarters without being seen," Slate said. "That's one sure thing."

"Not at all, Mr. Slate," Waverly demurred. "If we have a traitor in our midst, there is no guaranteeing anything, is there? He certainly is familiar with all our security measures and must have prepared himself in advance."

April bit her lip, breaking her long-standing resolution not to do so in company.

"It doesn't make sense, does it? Unless—"

She halted. Thinking out loud was a bad habit, too. Especially with Mr. Waverly in charge.

Slate frowned at her. "You were about to say?"

"It's probably a wild guess, Mark."

"The wilder the better," he laughed. "And that is a deliberate pun."

April stared at Mr. Waverly.

The head of U.N.C.L.E. smiled tolerantly. His cragged face was lined with apprehension. He nodded toward April, waiting for her to think her thought out. Slate made an impatient noise in his throat. But his superior, harried, perplexed and bewildered in the extreme, was in a mood to clutch at straws.

"Go on, Dancer. Say it outright. If you've thought of something, let's have it."

"Well, look," April continued. "Our man knows this building. All of it. He's fouled all the systems for a reason."

"To help Zorki escape, of course," Waverly murmured.

"That's just it. So what does he have? He's not going to walk out our front door. The alarm setups are out of commission but he'd run into fifty of our people going that way. He knows that, same as he knows it's midnight. And the new shift is coming in. True, this building is pretty soundproof, but I know what I'd do if I was a fink like James Wilder freeing a Russian bear."

Joanna Paula Jones was breathless with excitement. Her eyes swept from Mr. Waverly to April Dancer to Mark Slate, whom her girlish heart found thoroughly groovy.

"Come on, April," Mark snapped, his amused eyes suddenly very serious. "Out with it. The hunch, girl!"

"The roof," April said. "I'd head for the roof. We've only the radar screens and the burglar setups there. Nothing else. No sentries, no agents—no people with eyes to see."

Mr. Waverly paused, thinking about that. He pursed his lips.

"True enough but the roof would present a bigger problem. How could they hope to get off the roof? Unless—by the eternal! Of course!"

"Yes," April nodded. "The roof is the only place where they could be picked up."

Slate unlimbered his service pistol. It had an extra-large drum attachment, to the right of the firing chamber. His eyes twinkled. He'd been the deadest shot in the RAF and his firing range exploits were the talk of Headquarters.

"Charge, sir?"

"Charge," Waverly agreed, "sooner the better. We'll stop by the armorer's on our way up. This may be a bigger emergency than even I supposed."

"Come on, Joanna," April urged. "Or Paula, or whatever you like to be called. You stay behind me. And keep an eye open for low-flying airplanes."

Mr. Waverly flung her an astonished look before he set off toward the elevators once more. Amazing how Miss Dancer could always go to the heart of a matter in a flash. Woman's intuition, he supposed. Something intangible, that even technology couldn't ever cope with. After all, how did she deduce that THRUSH might be sending a plane to pick up their runaway agents? He'd only just thought of it himself, remembering the occasion when a similar stunt had been performed. The Arctic Affair, wasn't it? He was sure that was before Miss Dancer's time but he didn't pause to certify the thought.

Zorki must be stopped at all costs.

And James Wilder, too, who now represented an even greater threat to U.N.C.L.E. than the great Zorki. Wilder was that very uncommon denominator—a homegrown traitor.

If he ever got back to THRUSH alive, with what he knew about the inner workings of Headquarters, then indeed, Judgment Day would follow. And Armageddon. And Finality.

The devil take the life everlasting formula. If there was such a heinous, ungodly concoction.

Joanna Paula Jones, thrilled at being in the midst of such an important mission, was bubbling with vivacity and excitement. April recognized the symptoms. As for Mark Slate, he was very studiously and thoroughly checking his weapon as the soundproof elevator rose swiftly.

"Mr. Slate," Waverly said.

"Sir?"

"No fireworks unless absolutely unavoidable."

Slate nodded but his eyes were still twinkling with that infernal delight that could only spring from the heart and soul of an agent who truly loves his work.

Mr. Waverly knew the breed.

Men like Slate and his two top agents in Rangoon kept U.N.C.L.E. at its high level of performance in resisting world domination by subversive forces. Until now U.N.C.L.E. had been able to stay ahead.

This affair had reached its final stage. The goal was the halting of Zorki's flight from Headquarters and the arrest of James Wilder.

In any event, Mr. Waverly would stop at nothing to achieve that goal. When all was said and done, the final issue was—the survival of the fittest.

THRUSH or U.N.C.L.E.

The roof of the building was a complicated arrangement of steel girders, air-conditioning cupolas and skylights. The huge, square billboard, which faced the Queens shoreline, and was in reality a cover for the high-frequency shortwave setup that was capable of relaying messages as far away as remote Tibet, loomed like a monster in the darkness. A dim full glow of neon suffused the tarred surface of the roof, streaming up from the city below. Asleep or not, the city's neons stayed on.

As James Wilder and Alek Yakov Zorki ran out on the tarred roof, through the metal door of the top landing, they dodged among the girders and skylights. Now, their eyes and ears were filled with thunder. The blasting roar came from just above them. They strained to look. The gigantic helicopter hovered, a bare twenty feet above the height of the billboard. Wilder led the way, knowing the pitfalls of the roof. There was no need for a flashlight, anyway. A rope ladder had snaked down from the mighty whirling mass above them.

A cool night wind fanned across the rooftop. The tremendous down-wash of the rotary blades sucked this up and created an almost stifling vacuum.

The rope ladder dangled but a hand's span from the tarred floor beneath their feet.

"Up with you," Wilder yelled. "Quick now."

Zorki flung him a wild glance, seized the stout rungs of the rope ladder and swung himself up. His powerful body, for all its bulk, climbed like an agile chimpanzee. Soon, the darkness above swallowed his moving figure.

The roar of the helicopter was deafening.

James Wilder grasped the ladder, found his footing and leaped up. He began to climb, looking back the while toward the roof door. Now, to his great dismay and fear, that door swung outward. Figures spilled out onto the tarred surface. He saw Mr. Waverly, recognized April Dancer and Mark Slate. For a terrifying moment, he felt himself caught in the middle of life and death. With his left hand, he unlimbered a long-snouted gun and aimed it back toward the roof door. The figures fanned out, scattering, including the other woman whom he didn't recognize right away. It didn't matter who she was.

"Stop!" Mark Slate yelled, trying to be heard above the rhythmic pound of the helicopter's engine. James Wilder squeezed off three quick shots, climbing again as quickly as he could. The copter churned, began to move away, with him on the rope ladder. The figures below on the roof began to recede, grow smaller. A tremendous exhilaration shot through him, as he felt the billowing updraft of new wind fill out his clothes, wash across his face and hands.

Mark Slate braced the gun in his hand across his left forearm, sighted high and fired with the deadly calmness and level-headedness of a man who knows what guns are made for and how to use them.

One shot served.

The crack and flash of the weapon was buried somewhere in the pounding noise and confusion of the mighty helicopter clawing away from the top of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters.

It was a shot that was to be the talk of U.N.C.L.E. for years to come. Legends grew up around that single unerring blast from Slate's gun.

The bullet caught James Wilder just between the place where his neck joined his shoulders. It slammed him into the rope ladder and then the ladder snaked backward and his dead hands lost their hold. He fell straight downward, missing the roof of the building, plummeting like a stone to the sidewalk far down below. The helicopter banked steeply, bearing South, cutting across the building, swinging out in a wide turn but rising upward with all the speed of a fast-moving elevator.

April Dancer was ready for that too.

She had brought to the roof one of the light, compact guns that had been harvested from the arsenal found in the blue panel truck which had advertised ROMEO'S LEAGUE OF NATIONS EXHIBIT. A .45 caliber, Thompson submachine gun, one of the deadliest automatic weapons ever devised by the United States Army.

At close range, it was a practically unbeatable destroyer. As the helicopter flashed over the building top, rising like a bat, the range was something less than thirty yards. April braced the gun on one of the cross-girders before her, anchoring her shoulder against a convenient skylight to accept the recoil. She opened up, keeping the trigger depressed. Bursting, chattering, blazing lead erupted from the weapon, thudding into the undercarriage of the helicopter. For one full second April was able to pour it on. Pounds of lead buried themselves somewhere in the helicopter's fuselage. She had tried for the engine, one of the blades, anything.

The copter clawed briskly away, heading out over the river. April sagged against the machine gun. Spent, exhausted, her hands vibrating from the tension. Mr. Waverly had placed an arm on her shoulder. The roaring blast of the whirlybird filled the darkness of the night, and receded. The echoes of the machine gun's chatter seemed to resound on the roof. But it was an illusion.

"All right, Miss Dancer. We did our best."

"Slate got one of them," she exulted. "What a shot."

"But which one?" Mark wondered. "Better get down to see about that cadaver. I hope to God it was Wilder."

Joanna Paula Jones who had been rooted in fear and wonder at the door to the rooftop, suddenly blurted. Her high, feminine shriek was like a dash of cold water in the face.

"Look!" she shrilled. "Look!"

They looked.

Far away, yet close enough to seem like the very death of a meteor, they saw the ball of fire light up the evening sky. A gigantic flash of light which flung out as much illumination as all the neon in New York.

The helicopter was on fire. They could see the red trickle of flame, then the building, explosive flash as the whole thing ignited like a Roman candle. For one second, the whirlybird hung poised, giant blades standing out starkly in the red glare.

And then it skyrocketed downwards, extinguishing itself somewhere in the quietly running waters of the East River.

There was a din of violence, a mammoth geyser of water erupting. And then silence, and darkness.

April blinked, unable to believe her eyes. How lucky could you get? Maybe one, just one of the tommy gun's drum, had found the gas line of the copter. She patted the stock of the weapon, her fingers still trembling from the recoil.

"Bull's-eye, April," Mark Slate said proudly, eyes shining. "Perfect skeet shooting. On the wing."

Mr. Waverly almost clapped his hands together in delight. But he recovered his composure and nodded almost to himself. He clucked approvingly, smiling at April.

"Well, now. That alters matters considerably. Let's all get below, shall we, and see what's to be done about the possibility of a bomb in Headquarters."

That sobered everyone up. It was no time for celebrations. Not really.

Mr. Waverly had one last comment before they quit the vicinity of the roof.

"Life everlasting formula or not, I didn't suppose there was anything Mr. Zorki could do about complete disintegration of his earthly body, was there?"

He was talking to himself because neither April nor Mark Slate nor certainly Joanna Paula Jones could have answered that question.

Mr. Riddle

"It will take another twenty four hours to clear up the details of this affair," Mr. Waverly said, from the comfort and control of his desk. "I suggest you all go home and get some sleep. Time enough tomorrow to unwind things."

April shook herself, blinking the fatigue out of her eyes. "But the bomb—"

Waverly smiled patiently.

"The hunt is on right this moment, all over the building. Far more technical minds than ours are busy with that problem. I feel Egret was bluffing now. With two of their people in here, I don't think they would have gone through with it, no matter how highly they would regard our ultimate destruction. Especially counting the priceless secret contained in Zorki's brain."

Mark Slate flexed his shoulders, his face grim.

"April tells me how our redheaded lady was killed tonight. Knife and all that. Wilder?"

"It would appear so. Knowing the woman was the sort obviously to crack sooner or later, he must have seen fit to take the time to silence her. As he did poor Fleming. Nasty business, that. Agents being killed under our very noses. Shall have to tighten the security as much as possible. I don't want these things to happen again."

"It's not your fault," April said loyally. "James Wilder has been with us for years. I didn't think he was one of theirs. Who would? And looking so much like Zorki, well—we'll probably find out they're brothers or something and the time had come for Thrush to make use of him."

"You do have a way of getting to the truth, Miss Dancer.

Most commendable." Mr. Waverly once more was amazed at her perception. Should he tell her that he had had some doubts about Wilder, which was why he had attempted the dual impersonation in the first place? No, certainly not. That made him only more liable for what had happened. He should have had James Wilder watched more closely. But in the morning, when the corpse in the street was classified for fingerprints, identifying marks and such—if it was Wilder that Slate had felled with his remarkable marksmanship– why, they would know much more.

Joanna Paula Jones was still goggle-eyed with excitement. "All I can say is, things sure happen around this place. Naval Intelligence is dull by comparison."

Mr. Waverly smiled thinly.

"Mr. Slate, will you see these young ladies home?"

"Pleasure, sir." Slate unwound his long, athletic body from his chair and stood up. He nodded to his superior and bowed toward the door. "Ladies."

April rose, indicating to Joanna Paula Jones to follow.

"Good night, Mr. Waverly. See you tomorrow."

"Take your time, Miss Dancer. You too, Mr. Slate. You've both earned a bit of a holiday. I'll contact you both should the need arise."

"There's still Mr. Riddle," April pointed out. "Unless he was the pilot of that helicopter."

"Not likely," Waverly murmured. "Too important a person for menial work like that. Well, we'll see. Good night to all of you."

The three of them trooped from the office. April couldn't vouch for the rest of them but she was certainly dragging her feet. It had been the busiest twenty-four hours of her career at U.N.C.L.E.

They took the outside elevator down. Joanna Paula Jones was still bubbling. "Do you people have this sort of fun everyday?"

Mark Slate stared down at her with mock sternness.

"Fun, Miss Jones? Oh, yes. All larks and sprees, aren't they, April?"

"Uh huh," April smiled. "Takes all the kinks out."

Upstairs, Mr. Waverly had returned to the wealth of data and detail on his desk. The quiet of the room was comforting. He buried himself in the stack of reports and sheets before him. There was a lined weariness to his craggy, leathery features. But his eyes held all the wisdom and contentment of the ages. Once more, THRUSH had been foiled.

Oh, perhaps Egret had once more slipped through their fingers but what of that? The Zorki Affair, at least, had been resolved. Time enough to worry about Dr. Egret—or Mr. Riddle, if that was one and the same person. The important consideration was that Alek Yakov Zorki, KKK on the files—The Bomber—had plunged into the East River in a flaming aircraft and no amount of miracles could have kept his body intact. Whether or not he had been truthful in his boasts of life-everlasting formulas for the future, he nevertheless was ashes now.

He decided that when Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin came back from Rangoon he would set them on the trail of Dr. Egret.

Experimentally, he toyed with the buzzers on his panel board and was pleased when the televised screens lit up as always. The systems had been restored to their normal function. whatever James Wilder had done to them. Good. The technicians and experts were on the job, as usual. He quailed at the prospect of running this vast complex without his highly trained men.

The radio transmitter on his desk beeped.

Waverly spoke into the mike setup.

"Yes?"

"All clear, Mr. Waverly. If there is a bomb in Headquarters, it's invisible. The Engineers say No Bomb."

"Splendid. Anything else?"

"The corpse in the street was James Wilder. Positive identification. Mole on knee, dental report and fingerprints. He's in the Morgue Room. Harbor Patrol reports complete destruction of the plane."

"He'll keep, thank you. Good work."

"Yes, sir."

Waverly relaxed and sank back into his chair. He closed his eyes. For him, there was no home but U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters. It was the only place in the world where he felt comfortable and happy.

Still, one amazing thought kept recurring to him.

How different all things would be right now if Mark Slate was not phenomenal with weapons or if Miss Dancer hadn't been so fortuitous with the machine gun.

Somehow, he decided, in April Dancer's case, luck had nothing to do with it.

The greatest comfort of all was that both of them were agents for U.N.C.L.E.

"You room with me, tonight at any rate. Okay, Joanna?"

"That would be fine with me. Doesn't Mr. Slate live in this building?"

"No," April said evenly as Mark Slate waved good-bye, wheeling the sedan down the block, turning the corner and zooming out of sight with a roar. A deep, pitch-black night hung over the city, the solitary corner street light shining with the radiance of a full moon. April sighed and took Joanna Paula Jones' arm. "Come on. It's only one flight up. Not a bad duplex. You'll see."

When she had first come to town to take up her duties fulltime as an U.N.C.L.E. agent, April had decided that a woman of her age and appearance and dress, would seem less conspicuous living in the environs of a neighborhood such as the fashionable East Thirties. Also, it placed her at a convenient distance from Headquarters. If any inquiries had been made or her postal matters checked, it would have been seen that on the first or second of every month she received a substantial check from Augusta, Maine. From her parents, of course. Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Dancer. The Dancers were rather well-fixed and did a lot of traveling around the world, so why shouldn't they provide for their beautiful young offspring in the wilds of New York?

April had actually been born in the little town of Old Orchard on the coast of Maine. Her father had been a dedicated Army man, having attained the rank of full colonel before being killed by a sniper's bullet in the early days of the Vietnamese conflict. April had been a service brat all her formative years, living on one military base after the other. From Hawaii to England to California. Until she had had to come home to finish her education at Radcliffe. Her mother had died only two months after her father's death. So, in truth, she was an orphan. But the world didn't know that. U.N.C.L.E. had seen to that. If anyone investigated, there was still a Colonel and Mrs. Dancer, alive and kicking, traveling about the globe on special military duties.

"This is keen," Joanna Paula Jones marveled. "It's really super."

It was.

The apartment was a notable combination of the modern and old in furnishings and decor. No frills, however. There was a round inlaid coffee table set before a superb brick fireplace. The hearth was lined with fanciful pewter mugs and metal tankards; on the mantle was an impressive bust of Beethoven. April had always liked his fighter's scowl, likening it to the bulldog features of Winston Churchill, whom she also admired.

The chairs, lounge and Danish modern furniture had been selected and arranged with taste. A wide picture window was concealed behind high deep red drapes that operated by drawstring.

A low staircase spiraled to the upper level, where the bedrooms were. The carpeting on the steps matched the wall-to-wall crimson of the carpet on the floor below.

A quiet collection of oil paintings adorned the beige-colored walls. None of them were identifiable. One was a seascape, another a landscape and still another, a beautifully impressionistic version of the Manhattan skyline. Joanna, after April had taken her coat and put it in a hall closet, ran around the room, admiring one thing and cooing over another. April laughed. It was like having a kid sister home for a holiday from school, spending the weekend. The glass-doored bookcase against the wall, beside the drapes, was choked with thick, big books, of every size and description. And language.

"This is all so exquisite, April. Are you rich?"

"Just practical. You can pick up a lot of bargains in New York if you know where to look. See those paintings? Got them for a song downtown from a junk dealer who had no eye for art. Good, aren't they? As for old Beethoven, he's a gift from Mark Slate, who believe it or not, plays the guitar and likes rock 'n' roll."

"But those books—Chinese, Russian, French, Italian—"

"Oh, I read them. I traveled a lot as a kid. Guess I can handle about twelve languages. Es verdad, señorita."

Joanna Paula Jones blinked. "Are you fooling me?"

April laughed. "I just said in Spanish that it was true what I said about knowing languages. Want some coffee? Tea? A drink?"

"I could go some coffee, thanks. I'm pooped."

"Ditto." April started for the kitchen, turning on wall switches. Joanna Paula Jones followed her, exactly like the kid sister, anxious to tell all. April was humming. It had been a long, merry chase, over hill and dale, finding Mark Slate and fitting all the pieces together for old, dear U.N.C.L.E. And now it had come to the right end. The proper end. The books were closed on Mr. Zorki. Too bad they had lost Mr. Riddle and that Egret or whoever the heck she was. She turned on one jet and rummaged for some cups and saucers in the cupboard.

"How are the neighbors?" Joanna Paula Jones laughed.

"Never see them. You seldom do in places like this. People have all kinds of jobs, all hours."

"Any interesting men?"

"Just pushers and whiners and hand-trouble types. That's about all. Why? Are you shopping?"

"Mark Slate doesn't look pushy or whiny and if he had hand trouble, I don't see how that could be so awful."

April turned to look at her, wagging a spoon.

"You stay away from that poor man's Rex Harrison. I told you. He likes rock 'n' roll, guitars, fast cars and faster women. He's a swinger. Forget him unless you just like laughs."

Joanna chuckled slyly.

"Ho, ho, ho. You do like him, don't you?"

"Of course, I do. He's like a brother to me, no joke. We just never got around to thinking about birds and bees. I told you, he's a very popular fellow with the ladies. He's not hungry."

"Well, I am. Nothing interesting ever happens to me. Except for yesterday and today, I could write my biography on a post card. Oh, April, you think I could transfer from Naval Intelligence to U.N.C.L.E.?"

"Don't spell it out. It won't bite you. What would your father say? Come on, bring the cups in for me and I'll carry the pot."

They went back to the living room, toward the coffee table, with Joanna Paula Jones still yammering about how her father felt about the Navy. She stopped only because April Dancer had suddenly halted in midstride, the coffee pot clenched in her right hand. Joanna Paula Jones came around her side, took one look and tried to scream. She couldn't. The sound froze in her throat, ending in a gurgle of disbelief and fear.

There was a man seated in the cushiony chair facing the kitchen. The Frankenstein mask concealing his face was just a little more demoralizing than the long, snout-nosed pistol pointing out of a gloved right hand. The nose of the weapon was mounted with a conical perforated drum of some kind.

"Good evening, ladies," Mr. Riddle said in the curiously flat but muffled voice. "One scream, one outcry and you will both be very dead. Is it necessary for me to tell a pair of trained lady agents that there is a silencer on this gun? I think not."

"Welcome home, Mr. Riddle," April said calmly, still clutching the coffee pot. The spoons and china were rattling uncontrollably in Joanna Paula Jones' trembling hands. "I thought it was too early in the year for Halloween. I see I was mistaken."