The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The Birds-Of-A-Feather Affair

by Michael Avallone

  "No, Mr. Waverly. She is expected here at ten o'clock. Word has come from the UN, however, that she has completed her drop."

  "Hmm." Waverly pyramided his fingers thoughtfully. "I take it we have had no further word of Mr. Slate."

  "No, sir. He is now an hour and a half overdue."

  Waverly's frown deepened. "Can you contact Miss Dancer?"

  "Yes. She is equipped with homing range finder and we have her triangulated."

  "Good. Instruct her to stop by Mr. Slate's flat to pick him up. Our flamboyant colleague was to be here for his briefing session on the Zorki Affair. All attempts to reach him have failed. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Mr. Waverly. That all?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  Waverly thumbed the blue button again and relaxed. His lined face lost some of its concern. He had released himself from the one anxiety of his profession. He could never eradicate a certain sense of guilt if ever he failed to deliver the maximum security of his high office to any agent or officer of U.N.C.L.E. Plus which, he had an inescapable father hen (or bear) emotion for his agents. Napoleon Solo was off in Rangoon seeing to that rumor of some devilish ray weapon that had drawn the interest of THRUSH. Mr. Kuryakin was with him, since they teamed so well on these endeavors. And now, Mark Slate and April Dancer were a bit closer to home.

  The fact that Mr. Slate had not put in his scheduled appearance at Headquarters was disturbing. He had proven his worth many times in the past, and though he was not the predictable sort of operative one might hope for, he had never been tardy for his assignments. It was most disturbing.

  Waverly was a lean, weather-beaten apparition who constantly wore baggy tweeds, his color preferences definitely leaning to brown and amber hues. He handled pipes incessantly, working his spatulate fingers over their varied bowls, but never smoking them. He seemed, for all the world, like a man from a past age—a gentle yet reproving headmaster of ancient history who tended toward absent-mindedness. Yet the cragged, leathery face was the facade for one of the finest minds in U.N.C.L.E. Five titled men, of varying nationalities, guided the organizational operations of U.N.C.L.E. And Mr. Waverly was one of the very select five.

  Now, he chose a chestnut brown briar from the center drawer of his desk and sucked on the stem experimentally. His brows were knit in a scowl. It wasn't like Mr. Slate to be late for any Headquarters matter.

  Not like him at all.

  Mark Slate's apartment was in a brownstone tenement on the East Side below Fourteenth Street. April Dancer had never exactly liked the neighborhood, even allowing for Mark Slate's individual brand of rugged personality. Like Garbo, he always wanted to be alone.

  But there was more cause for unhappiness than Slate's casual environs. April had piled out of her cab, paying the dissatisfied driver a small tip that netted her a snarl and entered the shabby old brownstone, and climbed to the second floor, where she found the door to his apartment unlocked. She knocked softly in the shave-and-haircut rhythm followed by Churchill's Beethoven V For Victory code—da da dahhhh dahhhhhhh—which Slate would recognize. But there was no response from within.

  Ringing the black porcelain buzzer to the left of the door, which chimed like a Bach fugue, only elicited more silence.

  April's face became a blank mask.

  For her UN drop of the briefcase, she had attired herself in a sensible dark skirt and jacket, brightened with a red roll-necked sweater. On her head she wore a tam curved to the tilt of her head. Her patent leather handbag was small and functional. She wore simple yet fashionable flats today. Any observer would have envied the man she was calling on.

  She toed the door inward gently, body to one side of the barrier. Light spilled out from the flat but there was no burst of gunfire or welcome of any kind. She eased herself inside, with a deft plunge to the floor, her hand leveling the black patent leather bag. A pressure on the metal clasp and the bag could fire a .32 caliber bullet.

  Rising, she felt a trifle foolish.

  Slate's modest little flat was as familiar as ever. The same old green butterfly chairs, the 1919 secretary by the window that faced the street and the convertible couch. There was nothing else to the apartment except for a lean-to kitchen—and numerous closets. Slate had an enormous appetite for everything but food. The confirmed bachelor bought all his clothes on Carnaby Street and one of the closets was a veritable warehouse of tweeds and loud weskits. Another contained a guitar, and stacks of rock-and-roll records. In line with an inverse snobbery, belied by his indolent manner of speech and languorous movement, a third closet secreted almost everything that an RAF veteran might find worth keeping. Ever since Slate had transferred from London Headquarters to New York, he had tried to keep England with him wherever he went. But his love of women, his passion for sports cars, his Cambridge attainments and his Olympic ski skills, marked him for the international man of the world that he was. April had always been fond of him.

  The bed had not been made.

  Mark Slate was nowhere to be seen.

  But there was a woman sitting in the green butterfly chair facing the front door from the far side of the room. A woman staring at the floor as if her life depended on the fixity of her gaze.

  April froze where she was, the handbag still pointed like a gun.

  There was no time to wonder about the woman. About her flaming red hair, her wide shelf of breasts or her long white legs thrusting from a beige sheath skirt. The rising and falling of that bosom, straining against a cashmere sweater, said it all.

  The striking redhead was a complete stranger, whom April had never seen before. She did not stir, but her eyes were popping with fright, her complexion was paler than a sheet and she was strained back in the chair, unable to take her eyes off the floor. Rigid in the grip of some all-enveloping terror, April thought, for she had seen that look before. Her eyes followed the line of the redhead's vision until it reached the point where there was no need for questions. She now knew why the woman was incapable of uttering a sound. Or a whisper.

  The worn crimson carpet of Mark Slate's floor had taken on a new design. Coiled like a length of artistic rope, blending with the pattern of the linoleum, lay a reptile. It had such magical contour and color that one might have paused to admire rather than fear.

  Somehow, inexplicably, impossibly, a fer de lance was snaking along the floor toward the redhead's exposed legs. There was barely another yard and a half to cover. The triangular head was poised, the forked tongue flicking. The ropelike body danced and weaved. The woman's eyes bulged. Corded muscles stood out in her slim throat.

  April raised the handbag and sighted carefully.

  The target was small, no larger than an egg, and more than ten feet away, but there was no time left. The girl from U.N.C.L.E. moved fast.

  As the fer de lance streaked across the carpet, its snaky body uncoiled and raised high now, and the forked tongue lancing out of the venomous, fanged mouth, the handbag in April's fingers exploded with a coughing splat of sound. The woman in the chair collapsed.

  Noise echoed around the room, gobbling up echoes.

  The fer de lance's ugly head vanished in a blaze of gunfire. The shapely balance of the lovely rope twisted on the worn carpet and was still. April dropped the scorched handbag and stepped over the snake to examine the woman.

  She had fainted. April left her momentarily and hurriedly closed the door of the flat, locking it this time on the bolt-latch. Where in thunder was Mark Slate and what did this all mean? April felt her New England gorge rising. If Slate had merely been daisy-plucking and somehow the snake was part of some prank that had gone amiss—

  No answers were forthcoming. A quick search of the room and the kitchen revealed nothing awry. It simply looked as if Slate had left the apartment without converting the bed back into a couch and locking the front door. April studied the windows. Nothing but the normal flow of bustling traffic stirred below. Gunfire could have been lost amidst all the hubbub but she couldn't be sure.
>
  She realized bitterly that her English colleague had always been an enigma. U.N.C.L.E. often found it expedient to draw agents from other countries. April had known Slate only as a dedicated, conscientious agent, and there was no question of his loyalty. To April he had always been a big brother, preferring to get his kicks with other girls. That was all well and good but—

  The redhead was stirring.

  April walked over to her chair.

  She was sobbing now, head back, breathing fiercely. Her gorgeous figure was slowly being released from the grip of terror. April gave her time to unwind, as she examined the high-cheeked, full-lipped, sensual face. Was this Mark Slate's kind of woman? April admitted that she really didn't know that either. April was a 34x22x34 brunette, but Mark had never laid a hand on her. Or was this one of Them—caught in a web of her own making?

  The woman's eyes met hers suddenly. April gauged her age as somewhat short of the Thirty league.

  "If you hadn't come when you did—" The woman shuddered, her voice, in which April detected a continental accent, fading.

  "Dead lady spy?" April finished the sentence for her.

  The woman shook her head violently, the mass of red hair tumbling down her shoulders. "I don't know what you mean—who are you, anyway?"

  April's smile was friendly but her eyes were cold.

  "Oh, no, Sweetie. My turn to curtsy, your turn to bow. Who are you?"

  The redhead licked her lips, seeing for the first time the dead carcass of the fer de lance only two yards from where she sat.

  "Arnolda Van Atta. I'm a translator at the UN. Oh, my God—" She put red-painted fingers to her eyes and shuddered again. "I never dreamed that Mark was mixed up in things like this!"

  "Mark?" April said lightly. "Who's Mark?"

  "Mark Slate," the woman said from her muffled mouth. "He lives here. We're friends. I stopped by to see him. The door was open. Then as I was in here, deciding to wait for him—you see, I was certain he may have just gone for cigarettes in the candy store downstairs—that, that—thing—"

  "I get the picture. You were a lady-in-waiting and the snake walked in. Look at me when I'm talking to you, Miss Van Atta. I must talk to you. I want to watch your eyes as you answer."

  That seemed to register like a slap in the face. Arnolda Van Atta's face flamed angrily. She glared up at April.

  "Who are you to ask so many questions? You're acting like a policeman." Her eyes were bold and challenging but April stared her down. Decoys were nothing new in the espionage game. And a pretty face was always to be suspected. But a fer de lance as a death weapon was indeed an innovation. Especially in twentieth-century Manhattan. And this classy chick would have been right up Mark Slate's street.

  "I am Mark Slate's dearest friend," she said evenly. "His not being here bothers me. I wish you could make my mind happy about his well-being. I just love the way he plays the guitar."

  "I can't—I don't know about his comings and goings."

  "You'll forgive my bad manners, I know, but I don't believe you."

  "I don't care what you believe! I am going—"

  Arnolda Van Atta was starting to rise, but April placed her right hand on the cashmere shoulder and quietly slammed her back into a sitting position. The redhead gasped.

  "Who are you—really?"

  "The Avon Lady. And I'm giving away free samples if you answer all questions correctly without me having to twist your arm off."

  Before the redhead could answer, the phone shrilled into life. April recovered her scorched handbag, leveled it at Arnolda Van Atta and juggled the receiver to her ear, expertly. She didn't take her eyes off the redhead.

  "Mr. Slate?" a voice asked.

  "Mark zero, Mr. Waverly."

  "Oh—Miss Dancer. I take it you have not found Mr. Slate?"

  "No, sir. Only a dead snake and a live lady."

  Mr. Waverly's voice was very tired. "Look no further for information about Mr. Slate. We have word of his whereabouts. It's not good. Check back here immediately."

  April held her breath. "How bad?"

  Waverly sighed. "He's not dead, if that's what you mean."

  "See you shortly," April said, and hung up. An almost dizzying sense of relief charged through her. At least, Slate was alive.

  Arnolda Van Atta was showing signs of hysteria, now. April recognized the symptoms because she had seen them so many times. A delayed reaction to the threat of the snake, enhanced perhaps by the aiming of the handbag at her ripe figure.

  "Hang onto yourself, Sweetie. Rise and shine. We are getting out of here before some neighbors or police inquire, however belatedly, about the latest thing in handbags."

  "I can't," Arnolda Van Atta protested. "I'm due at the UN at one. There's to be a special session on the Vietnamese situation—"

  "We have our own situation to translate into common sense. And your help is needed. March."

  "But—" The redhead began to splutter.

  "I'm getting tired of repeating myself, Miss Van Atta."

  The redhead rose to her feet, her skirt wrinkled, the cashmere sweater riding high. A gleaming patch of naked midriff showed charmingly. April sighed. Why were THRUSH lady agents always so damned lovely? She didn't for a moment believe the fairy tale about the UN. For all his secrecy, Mark Slate would have mentioned a dish like this one some time or other in the past.

  Good old THRUSH. Ready to strangle, beat or kill you at the drop of a snake. The secret organization with roots buried all over the world, just waiting to make their move for world domination.

  "You don't believe what I told you," Arnolda Van Atta said coldly, when they had locked Slate's door and April nudged her toward the stairs.

  "No," April admitted. "But I'm open to logic of any kind. And I have been known to change my mind. Lady's privilege and all that sort of thing." She didn't comment on the small, irritating mystery that the redhead had no purse of any kind about her person.

  "You're a fool," the redhead hissed. "Even if you did save my life."

  "Yes. But I'm not a perfect one. After you, Miss Van Atta."

  The redhead moved ahead. Tall, vibrant and athletic. Her figure was enviable. April shook her head, watching the sensuous twitch of buttocks beneath the beige skirt. The legs were superb, too. Miss Van Atta was a body built for bed.

  As they started down the poorly carpeted stairs, April's sixth sense was working overtime. Not a solitary soul had come running to investigate the explosion of her handbag. That couldn't be right. Something was wrong with such an abnormal amount of things-going-on-as-usual in an apartment house. She couldn't even hear a child squalling or a TV set blasting.

  She had her answer before she and Arnolda Van Atta reached the ground-floor level.

  There was suddenly a rush of bodies, figures, men, crowding the front door which had been flung open. She stopped on the staircase, pulling Arnolda Van Atta to a full halt by tugging on the cashmere sweater. The redhead blurted "Oh!" and froze a step below her.

  Three men stood on the threshold staring up the stairs at them with an intensity that was unmistakable. They looked so curious that April involuntarily raised an eyebrow.

  They had fanned out, in a cordon, to block the door. Their faces were grave, solemn, almost animal-like in fixity of purpose. And menace.

  A turbaned Hindu stood there. Bearded and imposingly tall like a Sikh warrior, he wore civilian clothes like a uniform.

  The second man was a Chinaman in mandarin robes, with both hands out of sight, tucked into long, voluminous purple sleeves.

  The third wore the traditional beret, slacks and Basque shirt of the French apache.

  Outlandishly emblazoned across each chest front was a gaudy sash of some kind, blatantly advertising ROMEO'S LEAGUE OF NATIONS EXHIBIT.

  Talk about the United Nations. This THRUSH threat came in three different languages. April poked the handbag around Arnolda Van Atta's trembling shoulder and waited.

  "Stay where you are," the bearded S
ikh boomed up the stairwell. "We have come for you too, Miss Dancer."

  Death in Three Languages

  Arnolda Van Atta whimpered like a nervous schoolgirl. April moved quickly. Before either of the three characters in the doorway had produced a weapon, she had whipped the redhead back, encircling the slender waist with her left arm. Her right hand snaked over the cashmered shoulder, shoving the automatic handbag front and center for all to see.

  "Will the real Thrush agent please stand up?" she called down the staircase. "I've got a secret weapon."

  The Sikh scowled fiercely at his companions and then leveled his gaze upward. White teeth flashed in his swarthy face.

  "What is your friend Slate's life worth to you?" he bellowed in his more than passable English.

  "Loads," April said, keeping the redhead from twisting out of her grasp. "But he knows the rules. No bargains with the competition."

  The fantastic trio had approached the foot of the stairway. They now stood a mere seven steps from April and Arnolda Van Atta. The apache, a tawny, lion-faced man with an Errol Flynn moustache was poised as though to spring. The Chinaman, a bland and inscrutable cliché, smiled almost happily. The Hindu laughed harshly, his spade beard wagging.

  "You will not shoot in cold blood. You are too scrupulous. As are all soft-hearted, weak Americans."

  "Don't count on that," April leveled coldly. "Our soft hearts disappear when dealing with rats. Now, all of you, over against the wall. Quick, now. I must remind myself to report this apartment house to the police department. No sense of civic duty and pride. Not one head poking out of a doorway to see what's going on."

  "The building is surrounded," the Sikh said simply.

  "Sure. And so was Custer. But he took quite a few Indians with him. You want to try for a last stand? Back, I said."

  She edged Arnolda Van Atta down the stairs ahead of her, flourishing the handbag gun. The outlandish trio moved to the side wall, raising their hands slowly. Even the Chinaman had unsleeved himself. Arnolda Van Atta stumbled once, falling back against April. She could feel the hard metal band of a wristwatch or bracelet of some kind scrape the soft skin of her left hand.