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

by Michael Avallone

  April Dancer smiled. It had come to her. Yes, the only solution to the bomb she could not find.

  "Yes, water. I want some too. Lots of it, honey. All the water in the world."

  So saying, she turned on the tap full blast, making certain to employ the rotting rubber stopper to close off the drain. The girl watched in bewilderment as April clambered like a monkey toward the crisscrossing maze of pipes. April stood on her toes to crank one of the large round valve handles. Suddenly, from a broken section of piping, rust-colored water shot down to the cobbled basement floor, rushing like a cataract to meet the walls of the room. April came down from the pipes, raced to the locked door, whipping off the shirt she had wrested from the corpse and stuffing it effectively into the crevice where the wood met the stone floor. She looked around the basement like a wild woman, spied another valve and busied herself once again. The strange girl shrank back against the lockers, frightened by this maniacal behavior. But April persevered. She was moving like some galvanized mechanical toy, setting all the water outlets in the basement to full power.

  THRUSH had left the water power on. She meant to put it to good use.

  The girl shivered, moaned again, as the wet, rusty waves washed over her shoes, staining her silk stockings.

  "What are you trying to do?" she whispered. "Drown us both?"

  April was grinning from the center of the basement, admiring the slow but definite rise of the water level. Her long hair was quite wet and dangling now but the grim smile that played about her mouth was almost a happy one.

  "Water, water, everywhere," she quoted, "nor any drop to drink."

  The girl goggled at her. "That's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"—what is your name?" She was whispering again, as if to ensure April that she was ready to trust her, no matter how erratically she was behaving.

  "April Dancer here. Performing the Gunga Din ritual. I generally work for an organization known as Uncle."

  The girl's eyes bulged.

  "U.N.C.L.E.?" she spelled quickly. "Well, why didn't you say so?"

  ''You didn't ask me. But we girls have to stick together. Now, honey, you are—"

  "Paula Jones," the girl said. "Joanna Paula Jones. But I prefer Paula so don't laugh, please. It's a name my father gave me because he was in the Navy for forty years. Oh, dear. What's the use! I'm with U.S. Naval Intelligence, Miss Dancer."

  April couldn't resist a smirk. She gazed about them at the water building on all sides. The cast iron legs of the sink were slowly being submerged under the force of the rising tide.

  "You're in your element, Miss Jones. And we do have the lockers, too. However, back to my request. It's very necessary that we stay as close together as possible. I expect some concussion, perhaps a tidal wave to tell the truth. We'll be better off like two peas in a pod. Topsy and Eva, you know."

  "But where," Joanna Paula Jones blurted, "can we go?" It was as if she understood for the first time why April was banking everything on the water. "We still don't know where they put the thing—if there is a thing—"

  "No," April said soberly, taking the girl's hand and leading her toward the lockers. "But let's play my hunch. To be on the safe side."

  The Jones girl tried not to cry, following April dumbly, letting herself be led to the lockers once more. April knew the classic symptoms. First big assignment. First big scare when a girl realized she could actually get killed playing Spies. She urged the girl on quickly. Below all her own banter, a facade against terror, she was genuinely worried. A lot of valuable time had elapsed. Suppose the water didn't rise fast enough? What if the bomb were planted elsewhere, other than in the basement?

  She pulled one of the lockers toward the furthest corner of the basement. Far from the center of the room, far from the clutter of the place. It was a risk against uncertain odds, but it was the only hope for survival.

  The water would help.

  If there was enough time.

  Joanna Paula Jones laughed suddenly. A merry, skittery little laugh that made her body vibrate like a tambourine. April held onto her tightly, as she pushed her into the metal locker and made room for herself. It was a tight squeeze.

  "Laughter in Paradise, Miss Jones, or are you getting a case of hysterics? I'll slap you if you really need it."

  "No," the girl muttered. "It's just that this would be exactly like dying at sea, wouldn't it? Dad always wanted me to stay away from ships."

  "Sardines," April Dancer said, cramming herself into the narrow space beside her new acquaintance, "do not die at sea.'"

  Joanna Paula Jones stopped laughing and buried her face on April's shoulder. Her figure shook. April held her tight, cradling the boyishly bobbed head against her shoulder. Behind them, she could hear the roaring, rushing slap-slap-slap of the rust-colored water as it angrily crested the top of the porcelain sink.

  What if the water went over their heads before the bomb detonated?

  How jolly.

  That, she had to admit, was something that had never even occurred to her.

  Alek Yakov Zorki came awake with a slow start. He blinked as he caught sight of the smooth, perforated ceiling. His cell at U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters. Of course. How long had he slept? He craned his neck and stared about the cubicle. There was the chair, the plain deal table. The chrome decanter of water. The locked door mocked him. Curiously, he had no recollection of falling asleep. He dimly remembered an interview at some earlier time in the day with Waverly. That pedantic fool. With his tweeds and his English fair play and school-tie nonsense. What did he know? How did such men rise to power? Still, it was disturbing to return to wakefulness like this, with the sensation of having lost a day

  He sat up on the cot, flexing his large shoulders. He felt his face. He had never had much growth of hair on his skin so it was difficult to assess the amount of time lost as other men could. He had no watch. They had seen fit to strip him of all his personal possessions and assorted equipment. Well, why not? Were he in their place, he would have done nothing less.

  He did remember somehow that Waverly had not been too amenable to the plan to make a fair exchange of agents. He, Zorki, for the U.N.C.L.E. captives. Chort Znayet! The Devil Knows. Would Riddle and the Van Atta woman ever succeed? He had begun to doubt even the vast superiority of THRUSH itself. A simple affair like this and he sensed it was being bungled all the way.

  What was the delay?

  Sighing grumpily, he reached into his inner pocket for the cigarettes they had allowed him to keep, after properly fluorescing the contents of the pack, and each cylinder of tobacco, under their special infrared light devices. It was when he reached for one of the butts that he first noticed the white business card inserted between the cellophane and the package proper.

  Amazed, Zorki held the card up. The light of the cubicle was dim. When he saw the small, hand-stenciled words printed there, he could barely restrain a bleat of joy. It said:

  BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER

  EGRET

  Zorki, aware that his movements in the square cubicle might be under a closed Television circuit supervision, stifled a yawn and extracted a cigarette. He was proud of the fact that his hand did not shake with the excitement he felt.

  THRUSH was here! In the very heart of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters. Somehow they would liberate him. Free him to go on with his great plan to institute the program that would assuredly guarantee the domination of the civilized world.

  Da, THRUSH would fly over the world. As befitted the eagle of the skies.

  If he had had any doubts about the organization's belief in himself and his plan, they were totally dispelled by the greatest consideration of all. It was a tremendous honor, all in all.

  Dr. Egret was tending to his escape herself.

  The legendary, terrifying, extraordinary woman who was all that THRUSH itself stood for.

  Clean Slate

  Mark Slate was very unhappy. It didn't show on his angular, handsome face. The Briton was one of those men who
have the ability, usually something they have worked hard for years to attain, of keeping a poker-faced countenance. This control of his intelligent features, and the wry amusement usually found in his eyes, was something that not even his closest associates at U.N.C.L.E. had ever been able to fathom. Including his fellow agent and dearest chum, April Dancer.

  To Mr. Riddle, and Arnolda Van Atta, Slate's face was inscrutable. He might have been a Chinaman for all they could tell about him. The true Englishman has an almost Oriental indifference in his nature, thanks to centuries of wars won on the playing fields of Eton. Slate had gone to Cambridge, of course; he could be roasted alive before he would say as much as, "Ow, that hurts."

  The ride in the panel truck had ended.

  Slate had come to, following a blow on his skull in the darkened corridor, to find himself in another complex situation. Someone had had the decency to outfit him in a pair of blue jeans and a Basque shirt of sorts. But the Christian impulses had ended right there.

  He lay face down on a hard wood table, his arms spread-eagled and strapped with leather thongs to the front two legs. Similarly, his ankles were ringed and shackled to the other legs. He was puzzled by the crudity of his position until he saw the niceties of his predicament. He had to restrain a hopeless grin. THRUSH had its methods: this surely was one of the very thorniest.

  By craning his face upwards, he could see directly in front of him. The sight was not heartwarming. The wall before him held a large, square recess which in turn displayed a .30 caliber Browning machine gun mounted on its tripod. The air-cooled kind of gun which American GI's used in the field. A gleaming ammunition belt fed directly into its breech from a wooden box stamped U.S. ARMY M-1. The nose of the weapon, with its peculiar, perforated barrel, was leveled directly at his face. He was literally staring into the mouth of the Browning. Further examination revealed that a length of black wiring ran from the trigger beneath the stock, ending in an attachment to one of the legs of the table below his outstretched body. A lanyard sort of affair. A tug on the wire and—boom! It did not take an Einstein to calculate the device; were he even to jar the table a fraction of an inch in the hope of freeing himself, the .30 caliber would open up.

  A noisy demise and a messy one. Slate chose not to think about it.

  He was too busy trying to determine the amount of time since he had last seen April Dancer.

  He heard them come into his room not long after he had awakened. His keen ears picked up the sound of a woman's heels and the heavier tread of three men. They seemed to fan out around the table, surrounding him on all sides. Yet, he was certain they remained out of the line of fire of the Browning.

  Lying like that, with his back exposed to them, a helpless target for knives, ice picks or worse, did not constitute the most charming moment of his life.

  "Hail, hail, the gang's all here," he muttered, without emphasis.

  "You're all of you fools!" the woman's voice said suddenly. He remembered the sound of her and the ruse she had used on him that morning to get into his flat. He despised himself for the simple way in which she had taken him. It was a lesson he would never forget. "The stakes are life and death and yet you and your lady partner waste everyone's time with glib remarks and pointless jokes."

  "What else would you suggest, Miss Van Atta?" Slate asked. "A tea dance?"

  The woman's laugh was short and brittle.

  "We need you alive for the trade, for Zorki, Mr. Slate. That alone has kept you in one piece. Other arrangements are being tried, should we fail. But that is of no consequence to you, just yet. Consider please your present physical condition. I'm sure you have correctly deduced what will happen if you move the table so much as an inch. So—it is now almost six o'clock in the evening. Uncle has until midnight to come to terms. Do you want to stay the way you are for six more hours? I think not. Consider my alternatives."

  "What might those be?"

  "You could give us many valuable details about your Headquarters operation. Disposition of personnel, door signals, the locations of alarm systems. Waverly's private entrance to the building. That is something we have never been able to learn. You tell us some of those things and perhaps we can make you more comfortable for the rest of your stay with us."

  "Do go on."

  "A soft bed, some good food, your favorite liquors and tobacco. We will even throw in female companionship, if you feel the need."

  Mark Slate laughed a scornful laugh.

  "What is so amusing?" Arnolda Van Atta snapped. One of the men in the room made a growling noise in his throat. "Stay where you are, Fried Rice. Let him answer me."

  "My answer is no, Miss Van Atta. No, categorically, personally and with exclamation points."

  A man's voice, on Slate's left, spoke up. He recognized the flat, bland tones of the man who had addressed him and April from nowhere visible in the prison room. Mr. Riddle.

  "It's useless, Arnolda. He fancies that his friend, Miss Dancer, will come running to his rescue. Let's leave well enough alone. Leave Fried Rice and Pig Alley to deal with him. We'll wait for Waverly's answer."

  The woman chuckled a low, deadly chuckle.

  "You're right, Riddle. He's a damn hero. But let's make him feel good about things. Fried Rice—do you have the transistor?"

  "Yes," came a singsong voice. "You wish to turn it on?"

  "I do. Get a six o'clock news broadcast. There ought to be something interesting to report, don't you think?"

  Slate could not see the smiles that spread from face to face. Nor did he see the Frankenstein face of Mr. Riddle. The other two men in the room were the Chinaman and apache who had trapped April Dancer in the hallway of Slate's building. Fried Rice and Pig Alley were their code names.

  There was a crisp crackle of electrical noise, then a raising of volume. Slate frowned, the table top inches from his jaw. What were they up to? Why should he be interested in a news broadcast?

  Arnolda Van Atta abruptly said, "Wait, wait—I think that's it now. Put the transistor close to Mr. Slate's ear."

  A bright measured voice was speaking. The clear tones seemed to echo in the room. Slate was riveted to the announcement :

  ".....a fire and explosion of undetermined origin in the Bronx today has alerted all fire departments in the vicinity of Bronx Park and East 180th Street. A five story building which had once served as a dye factory in the nineteen-thirties seemed to detonate with great violence this afternoon at approximately four-thirty five. Scores of windows, for a radius of ten blocks, were shattered by the force of the explosion.... In a moment, Sports and the Weather, after this message from...."

  "You can turn it off now, Fried Rice," Arnolda Van Atta said. The abrupt silence was excruciating for Slate. Yet his brash voice was unconcerned, light as he rested his cheek on the table and stared up at the ceiling.

  "Awful waste of a good hideout," he suggested.

  "The end justifies the means, Mr. Slate. We left your Miss Dancer back there when we departed in such a hurry. There was no possible way for her to have gotten out. Unless she had wings."

  "You misjudge April, old girl. She's an angel. A positive angel. The mistake is yours and the misfortune of Thrush, I might add."

  There was a chortle from Mr. Riddle. "Why do you bluff, you fool? The lady was blown to Kingdom Come and nothing you say or think will ever change, that."

  "Bully for you, Mr. Riddle," Mark Slate said drily.

  Pig Alley spoke for the first time. "Ma foi, this madman has the guts! I would have liked for him to have been with me at Dien Bien Phu!"

  "We're wasting time, Arnolda," Riddle said flatly. "Let's leave him to them and see about Zorki."

  "No," she said. Suddenly, she took her forefinger and thumb, seized a patch of Slate's right shoulder just below the deltoid of the arm and twisted her fingers. She twisted hard but he did not cry out. He set his teeth and closed his eyes until she relaxed her agonizing pinch. A long sigh escaped her. She was breathing hard. If he could have seen he
r face, he wouldn't have liked the weird glint of her green eyes. "Idiots!" she hissed. "All of them—idiots! I'll take care of Mr. Slate myself. But later. Not now. Come."

  Riddle murmured something and there was a grunt or two of agreement from the others. Footfalls retreated from the table. A door closed. Slate let the tears of pain wash down his face and blinked them away. He could hang on; he would hang on, but the memory of the broadcaster's words haunted him.

  He stared into the snout of the Browning .30 caliber machine gun.

  He thought about his captors. Arnolda Van Atta. What a name for a bitch of a redhead. Mr. Riddle. That flat, dead as dust, unemotional voice. A French apache called Pig Alley—well, he sounded true to the type. A Chinese named Fried Rice. He filed the information in his agent's mind. He had to admit, even to himself, that he might not live long enough to use that information.

  Zorki. Would Mr. Waverly go through with the swap?

  April. Was April really dead?

  He had to face facts.

  For all agents everywhere—death came sooner or later.

  He also wondered, almost with amusement, what Arnolda Van Atta had planned for him in the torture department.

  He began to hum. He hummed softly and rhythmically, like a man who knows his music and can truly carry the melody. The little room filled with his low, vibrant voice.

  A Rock 'n Roll tune that Elvis Presley had made world famous: "Blue Suede Shoes."

  He found himself trying to imagine how the Beatles would have treated that particular number.

  The War Room of the Pentagon building featured an enormous circular table of polished mahogany. The walls of the room were devoid of decor. A panel board of buttons rested on the table, just to the right of the chairman's seat. At all high level conferences and meetings, these buttons made it possible to provide, suddenly, large colored strategic maps and various panoramic views of the globe. By electrical and mechanical ingenuity, the maps and views could be brought into view at a moment's notice. Very extremely clever architects, from the various branches of military service, had poured their creativity into the devising of this room.