Slate's eyes mirrored his admiration, when April stopped talking. "So, you've already set the wheels in motion. We've got to take over that airship and its cargo, but how?"
April studied her colleague's features. "Your first reaction probably will be that I should be placed in a padded cell, but I've got a plan. Crazy as it is, I think it will work. We're going to put the two guards outside that library door to sleep with our darts, spray Herr Director with mesmerizing mist and goose-walk him through the forest to that plane.
"I'll guarantee you that every living member of the THRUSH staff with the exception of a few guards at the plane site, and the two characters we are going to put to sleep, is at the laboratory, working frantically on last-minute preparations. I even saw Gandura and Mohammed trotting into the forest, as I was coming downstairs. Krause said the plane is already loaded, with mist."
She squeezed Mark's arm and whispered: "Including the firing tubes."
Slate whistled softly. "Crazy like a fox!" he said. "If we, by some miracle, can get that man in the library to the plane without being stopped enroute, the guards will be pushovers. It's a hundred-to-one shot one of the pilots win be aboard. A shot of mist from our portables; a directive to take off from Herr Director and we'll have this entire plateau mesmerized before you can say U.N.C.L.E."
"What about the buildings?" April asked. "Won't they protect those inside? That's the one thing I've been worrying about."
Mark Slate tried not to sound too pontifical. "Every building on the plateau has circulating air. The intake vents will bring the mist in as quickly as a man outside can breathe it."
April looked properly impressed. "That removes my last doubt. Now, all we have to do is extract our Nazi friend from his protective shell, spray him with his own preservative and serve him to U.N.C.L.E. on a flying saucer."
"You make him sound almost appetizing," Slate drawled, as he shrugged into one of the portable mist-throwers filched from the THRUSH stockpile.
April donned the other portable and was peering through the partly opened pantry door, with dart-gun in hand, before Mark's gas-mask was in place.
Lifting her own mask, the girl from U.N.C.L.E. whispered, "We're in luck. Both guards are in the hall."
Slate peered over April's shoulder. "We could be luckier. The way they're standing, it's impossible to hit them both at the same time. One yelp from the remaining target and we're out of business for keeps."
He started to speak again and stood with open mouth as April suddenly pulled the trigger of her tiny pistol. The man closest to them dropped with a dull thud. April fired again. The second shot followed the first with such rapidity that the remaining guard had no time to make a sound. Mark stared, transfixed, as the second victim fell noiselessly on top of the first.
"Shades of Annie Oakley!" he mumbled. "I'm almost ready to believe you steered the second guy like a woodsman steers a falling tree. That prone body certainly cushioned the sound of his fall."
April smiled over her shoulder as she sped toward the now unguarded door. She stopped several paces from the recumbent bodies and waited for Mark Slate.
"I'll open the door, drop to one knee and start spraying," she said. "You stand over me. That way, we can give the kraut a double dose before he knows what hit him. Don't worry about aiming. Shoot straight ahead. I spotted our target through the ventilator. He's directly in line with the door."
Slate laid a detaining hand on her arm. "What if he's moved? Wouldn't it be better to open the door, jump inside and locate him, before we turn on the gas?"
"That might give him just enough time to shoot one of us," April said. She snickered. "I'll stake my life he hasn't moved an inch. The last time I saw that egomaniac, he was sitting at the desk, with his good hand tucked under his coat, making like Bonaparte and admiring his reflection in a wall mirror."
Mark Slate patted her shoulder. "I'll buy your plan. We'll do it your way."
April threw the door open and dropped to one knee. Slate grinned as they pumped the mist into the room. Herr Director's hand was still inserted between the second and third buttons of his military jacket, as he snapped into a telepathic trance.
Slate prodded their anesthetized captive into a trot and peered incredulously into the surrounding forest. "I can't believe it. We've actually bypassed the laboratory without seeing a soul. It's almost too good to be true."
April looked around carefully before replying. "Actually, it's not so strange. Everybody is too busy to use ordinary precautions. They think they've got it made. I hate to bring this up, but even Krause and Conrad will be too occupied to stick their noses out the door."
Mark Slate shuddered. "I know what you mean. Poor Randy! Johnny is a hardened veteran, but I'm afraid the kid is learning the trade the gruesome way, about now."
They surveyed the spaceship carefully. There was no sign of life aboard.
"The bold approach does it," April said. She prodded the mesmerized captive into action. As they neared the plane, four crewmen in mufti stood in the hatch. They stared, puzzled.
Slate's bark was authentically Teutonic. "Herr Director is coming aboard, you dolts. Don't you know enough to salute?"
The men jerked to attention. They were sprayed into rigid immobility a moment later. The pilot was the only other man aboard. When he saw the director, he was on his feet instantly. A cloud of mist and he was a statue.
April placed a restraining hand on Mark's arm. "There's one thing we didn't think about. What about that curtain of camouflage up there?"
"No problem," Slate assured her. "This ship has no exposed moving parts. We'll go up slowly, drape the net around us and start spraying."
April looked out on the strangely silent landscape as Slate ordered the pilot to make another pass over the plateau.
"That does it," Mark Slate said, as they completed the circuit again. "We've spread enough mist down there to create a regiment of Zombies. Now, all we have to do is yank Randy and Johnny out of that snake-pit and signal our men on the lake to come up and help us put these automatons in cold storage until Mr. Waverly decides what to do with them."
Slate chuckled. "I'd love to swoop down over our gang in this sky monster, but we'd better signal them from the pavilion, as you promised, April. I'll have the pilot put us back in our parking lot. Mr. Waverly would never forgive us if we left the outside world get a peep at this crazy, mixed-up space-bird, before his technicians have a chance to analyze it. Down, boy, down. We'll put this saucer right in U.N.C.L.E.’s lap."
The Mesmerizing Mist Affair Page 13
