The Burning Air Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  “Yes, sir. I---”

  “Never mind that. You are not to go around acting like an U.N.C.L.E. agent any more. You are to work to prepare yourself to be such an agent.”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said in a voice so low it was scarcely audible.

  “However,” the grim lines of the U.N.C.L.E. chief's face relaxed. “However, if tonight's performance is any indication of the way you will work as an agent for us later, I have no hesitation in saying that you will make an excellent one. Excellent, Mr. Kovac.”

  “Oh!” the boy cried breathlessly. “Thank you, Mr. Waverly. You mean I'll be like Mr. Slate?”

  “No,” Waverly said. “There is only one Mr. Slate, as there are only one Napoleon Solo, one Illya Kuryakin, and one April Dancer. It will be sufficient if you are just one Randy Kovac.”

  “Yes, sir,” Randy said. “And--¬oh, yes, Mr. Waverly, I spent some money making the phone calls and for taxi fare. Is it all right if I put in an expense account?”

  Waverly grimaced. “Perhaps I was hasty,” he said. “You might just be another Mark Slate after all.

  “Yes, file an account, but use Miss Dancer for a model instead of Mr. Slate. Our budget can only stand one like him.”

  When he broke the connection with Randy, Waverly turned to Mark. “This man is taking April back to Los Angeles. Presumably he is still trying to find this lost trigger bomb,” he said. “We have a quite competent staff in Los Angeles. However, if you feel you have anything to contribute, you can join in the search.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mark said quickly. “I'd very much like to go out.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I think I'd start at the cocktail lounge where Royce planted the bomb in April's purse. It seems quite coincidental that she should have been the one woman of Los Angeles' millions that he picked.”

  “No, it wasn't,” the U.N.C.L.E. chief said. “Miss Dancer filed a complete report while she was waiting for an answer to the planted ad. She made contact with Royce under her assumed identity. She was not aware that he had defected from THRUSH. She was looking for a lead on that spy case you two were on.”

  “I see,” Mark said. “Then when the THRUSH liquidators closed in he had to get rid of it quickly. April was the nearest.”

  “He, of course, did not then know of her connection with U.N.C.L.E. When he eluded his pursuers he came back to recover the weapon.”

  "Well, if April dropped it into the dirt around one of the potted palms in the lounge, it would seem to me---"

  "I am just a step ahead of you, Mr. Slate," Waverly interrupted, "I had one of our Los Angeles agents search for it. He found nothing."

  "Did somebody else find it? If April said she put it there, then she put it there," Mark said.

  "All I know is that something THRUSH scientists think capable of setting the air on nuclear fire is loose somewhere," Waverly said. "This must not fall into Royce's hands. In his present mental condition, this man is perfectly capable of carrying out his threat to THRUSH that he will commit suicide and take the whole world with him!"

  "Yes, sir," Mark said. The terrible gravity of the situation left him more subdued than Waverly could remember ever seeing the brash young man before. "Have you any special orders, sir?"

  "Just find April Dancer," Mr. Waverly said. "She is the key to this whole thing. Find her!"

  ELEVEN

  “I’LL BURN THE WORLD!”

  The first conscious thing April Dancer recalled was the voice of Franklyn Royce saying, "Doctor, is it necessary for me to get nasty?"

  April turned her head. There was a heavy throb inside her temples. Her body was weak, leaving her with a drained feeling. For a moment everything was indistinct. Then she made out Royce sitting on the edge of a cluttered desk with a phone in his hand.

  His not unhandsome face was twisted in an ugly, frustrated grimace. It was rapidly darkening with the rush of angry blood to his head.

  Suddenly he broke in on the obvious protest at the other end of the line.

  "I don't care if it kills her or not! She has information I must have," he cried. "I know these stupid fools from U.N.C.L.E. Waverly brainwashes them to the point it is impossible to get any information from them by normal means."

  He listened for a moment, then he burst out again. "I tell you I don't care if the treatment is fatal, provided I get the information I need first."

  He paused again and then said, his voice heavy with contempt: "Murder? Is it murder to swat a gnat? That is all she is to me. I am through arguing. You get here at once! At once, do you hear---or I shall certainly see that the police get evidence sufficient to cause them to reopen the matter of your wife's untimely death!"

  The receiver squawked and Royce laughed.

  "It is my business to know about those who might be useful to me!" he said. "I will expect you at once, doctor. At once, do you hear?”

  April closed her eyes as Royce jammed the phone and turned around. She did not think it a good idea for him to know that she had heard him write her off.

  Royce paid her no attention. He hunched over the desk with a slide rule and a pencil, mumbling to himself as he worked.

  April half opened her eyes. Then, seeing him engrossed in his work, she gently tested her bonds. Both her hands and feet seemed encased in police-type handcuffs. The movement caused the ancient couch under her to creak.

  Royce jerked his head around. He got up. April struggled to sit up. He stood watching her. He made no move to help nor did he object.

  He sat down on the corner of the desk, drumming his knuckles on the top.

  "You are a very clever young woman," he said.

  "Thank you," April said. "I love compliments.”

  "You know why I brought you here, of course."

  "Yes," she said. Then, suddenly deciding flattery was the best weapon against his egomaniac type, she added, "You were too smart for me."

  "I am too smart for everybody!" he snapped, irritated by her omission.

  "So it would seem," she agreed.

  "Miss Dancer," he said. "You have something that belongs to me. I want it!"

  He snapped the words out and settled his thin lips in a straight line. He reminded April of a rebellious little boy. She decided a denial would only trigger one of his maniacal rages.

  "Mr. Royce," she said, giving him a steady look that he seemed to find disconcerting, "I also want to be more than just a cog in U.N.C.L.E.'s machine. You are holding this weapon over THRUSH's head. I am holding it over yours."

  "You are asking me to believe you would betray your beloved U.N.C.L.E.?" he said with a sneer.

  "Did you betray THRUSH?" Blood rushed to Royce's face.

  His nostrils flared. For a tense second April thought he intended to attack her with his fists. But at the last second he managed to bring his temper under control. .

  April Dancer relaxed. She had hoped he would approach her. Although her arms and ankles were fastened with handcuffs, she could still swing her legs up together, and make use of the switchblade knives hidden in the heels of her shoes.

  "No," Royce said in answer to the question which so infuriated him, "I did not betray THRUSH. THRUSH betrayed me!"

  "You are a traitor!" April Dancer cried. "A professional traitor. You betrayed your own country. You betrayed its enemies. You betrayed THRUSH. You---"

  But her attempt to goad him into coming close enough for her to launch a slashing attack with the switchblades in her heels failed again. This time it sunk on the shoals of Franklyn Royce's extreme egotism.

  His cry "THRUSH betrayed me" launched such a flood of resentment and fury that he was physically unable to hear April's taunting. He broke into a wild tirade against those who failed to appreciate him.

  "Who developed the nuclear bomb-in-orbit for the U.S. Government?" he cried. "Who developed a way to neutralize it in space for the Russians? Who laid down the mathematics for the interrogation machine for THRUSH that this fool Rottermund is claiming credit f
or?"

  He paused in his fury and beat himself on the chest with his clinched fists.

  "I!" he cried. "It was I. And those insufferable fools had the gall to try and tell me what to do!"

  "You're crazy!" April cried, trying to penetrate his fury and turn it on herself.

  Again he ignored her. "But in the end it will be I who does the telling! They are afraid of me now. It is not like it was when they were pursuing me to kill me! Now I have the upper hand. They didn't know that I had the trigger bomb model. I couldn't let them capture me with it. That is why I placed the precious object in your purse. Then, when I escaped, I sent word to THRUSH headquarters that I had it. I told them my price.

  "And that price---that price is to give me the directorship of THRUSH!"

  He paused, a look of self-righteous dignity on his face. His voice trembled with what he must have thought was sincerity.

  "I am not doing this for myself, you understand," Royce said. His manner was almost a burlesque of the cartoonist's portrait of a ham politician.

  "Not for myself, but for the benefit of humanity!" he cried. "With the resources of THRUSH I will weld the world into a single government. This will outlaw war and bring equal prosperity to every former country.

  "I, of course, will be the World President. Not that I aspire to any reward for my efforts to establish a planetary government. But I will be forced to take the job because there is no one else capable."

  Royce's eyes flashed. His hands clinched until the knuckles were white. "Then I'll burn the world! I'll turn the earth into a blazing star!"

  "I don't believe you can do it," April Dancer said, still trying to goad him into striking at, her as he once started to do. "You are a fraud! And your trigger bomb is as phony as you are!"

  To April's surprise Royce laughed at her outburst instead of raging.

  "It does not matter what you think," he said contemptuously. "THRUSH knows the bomb will work. That is why I decided to control THRUSH rather than U.N.C.L.E. They know I can send this planet of fools back to the primeval fire it came from! They know I can and will!"

  On the desk behind him a phone bell chimed softly. Royce turned and scooped it up.

  "Doctor Clermont?" he said. "Good! You are at the hotel? That is the correct location. You hardly expected me to stay in such an exposed location. After all I am being hounded by both THRUSH and U.N.C.L.E. I must be more clever than both of them."

  He paused to listen to the speaker at the other end of the line.

  "I don't care!" he snapped. "Did you bring the drug? Excellent! Here are your orders: I am in my house. The one THRUSH built for me in Pacific Palisades. But what THRUSH does not know is that in the construction I had a secret private laboratory built under the split level. It is not accessible from the main house. Do not go there, for THRUSH has men in the house. They think I must return to the regular laboratory to get my secrets. I planned too well for them. They are all here!

  "Now leave the hotel and go to the cocktail lounge known as the Golden Cock on Sunset. Call me from there. I will give you further instructions. By all means be on the lookout for any person trying to follow you. Do not panic if either THRUSH or U.N.C.L.E. agents are following. I'll take care of them."

  He hung up the phone and smiled pleasantly at April.

  "You see," he said, "I am too clever for these fools. I happen to know from the private detectives I have employed that this man who was with you in THRUSH Headquarters---this Mark Slate---has a stakeout at the Golden Cock."

  April's eyes narrowed. This was the lounge where the Burning Air Affair began. Lacking any kind of lead, Mark would naturally have gone there. Knowing that April had ditched the trigger bomb in the lounge, he would assume that as soon as Royce learned of this, the logical thing would be for him to try to recover it.

  She---not knowing that U.N.C.L.E. agents had searched the potted plants without finding the bomb---thought they would recover it. Then it would only be a matter of Slate keeping a watch for Royce. Once Royce was captured, any future threat from him would be eliminated.

  Sure now that she would never be able to entice the criminal close enough for her to attack with the shoe knives, she switched to a new plan.

  If Royce's information about Mark watching the Golden Cock was true, then the heart of her plan depended upon getting the would-be world-destroyer over there himself. This she hoped to do by telling him where she hid the trigger bomb.

  She thought there was no danger in this, for Mr. Waverly knew where she hid it. She was certain someone from U.N.C.L.E. had long since repossessed it.

  The problem as she saw it now was to reveal the hiding place without making Royce suspicious that she was leading him into a trap. She knew that it must be done under some kind of pressure.

  Unfortunately for April, Royce was seemingly not interested in it any longer. He hunched over the desk, covering page after page with complicated mathematical formulae. Several times she tried to talk to him, but he was so engrossed in his work that he did not act as if he was aware of her presence.

  April took heart from this. Although her hands and ankles were secured with the handcuffs, she could maneuver herself slightly. She got up slowly. The play in the linking chain between the leg cuffs permitted her to shuffle forward an inch a step.

  The girl hesitated after she got erect, intently watching the working scientist. He still paid her no mind. April measured the distance between them, making a mental calculation of how long it would take her to close the distance.

  April's hands were cuffed behind her, but she thought this would be an advantage. If she could get to the edge of the desk, she could lean back, grasp the corner to, pivot on, and swing her long, strong legs up to drive the twin knife blades into Royce's sides. A tap on the shoe heels against the desk leg would expose the knives.

  When Royce paid no attention to her, April shuffled forward a few inches and stopped. Then a few inches more. And a few inches more.

  When she first got up from the couch she was tense, uncertain as to the probable outcome of her desperate attack on the dangerous criminal. But the closer she came to success, the more her excitement grew. Her face glowed with the sheer enjoyment of danger which Mark Slate had observed so often when they were in tight spots together.

  But as she moved closer, April realized that she could not approach the right position without the overhead light casting her shadow across the busy scientist's working papers.

  April Dancer hesitated, her mind working rapidly. There was no way she could avoid the shadow betraying her without working her way completely around him and approaching from the other side.

  This, she knew, was impossible. There was no way she could bring the heel knives into play without something to support her body. She had to lean her hips and hands against the desk, since both feet had to flash up together.

  April inched a little closer. Her shadow cut across the edge of the desk. April paused, again mentally calculating the remaining distance and her chances of success. While many of her actions often struck her U.N.C.L.E. co-workers as bordering on the foolhardy, such was not the case. She carefully evaluated every situation. She took some amazing chances, but everyone was done only after she assured herself that she had at least a slim chance to win. April's complete self-confidence caused her to see more of a chance than was sometimes there.

  This was the case now. There was no way she could prevent her shadow falling across the pages Royce was scribbling on. It would be impossible for him to be so absorbed that he would not notice that. Her only chance then lay in moving as rapidly as possible and hoping that surprise would delay his reaction long enough for her to strike.

  The girl from U.N.C.L.E. half stooped, gathering strength. Then she jumped, half-twisting in the air. She fell with her back to the desk. Her clutching fingers caught the edge. She gripped hard. Her legs flashed up. The naked knife blades caught the light and glittered.

  The warning shadow fell, as she knew it wo
uld. Royce jerked his head up and half rose. He caught her movement. He threw his body back.

  The chair overturned. The knives protruding from the spike heels of April's pumps ripped into the edge of the seat upholstery.

  Royce rolled free and leaped to his feet, unhurt.

  April Dancer leaned her back on the desk and flexed her knees with the wicked looking knives pointed toward Royce. The scientist circled to the left. April shifted to keep the knife barrier between them.

  She shouted at him derisively, trying to goad his explosive temper into an ill-considered attack. It might have worked for his face was growing redder with the rush of raging blood.

  But the phone rang on the desk behind her. The sound broke through Royce's rage, recalling him to the problems he had outside of April Dancer. . .

  Some of the color receded. April knew she had lost, but still she twisted, keeping the knives aimed at him as he tried to circle around to reach the phone.

  Royce retreated a few steps and picked up the overturned chair. Holding it in front of him, he advanced. April twisted and tried to shoot her weaponed shoes over the top and into him.

  He was too fast. The chair came up. The knives jammed into the upholstery.

  Before she could pull back and strike again, Royce shoved hard on the chair. April slipped back off the desk. The chair fell half across her. Royce threw his weight on the chair, pressing down so she could not move. He reached down and jerked off her shoes, threw them across the room.

  Then he jumped up to grab the still clamoring phone. April painfully pushed the chair off her. April Dancer was down, but not yet out. She looked across at the knives protruding from her shoe heels. They were too far away for her to hope to retrieve them. April looked back at Royce on the telephone. The idea of trying to ram him in the stomach with her head also had to be abandoned. His keen, hateful eyes were on her. She didn't have a chance to inch her way close enough for such a rush to be effective.