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

by Michael Avallone

  "How do you mean, Mr. Waverly?"

  "You recall Zorki's miraculous escape from death the day he was exposed to the radium bullets? And his subsequent boast about a drug that guaranteed life everlasting?"

  "But that's—fiddlesticks," April blurted. "He's an egomaniac. A fluke saved him. Possibly the machine wasn't working at full power. As for his boast, well, he only thinks he's the greatest living scientist in the world, doesn't he?"

  Mark Slate prodded his weary eyes with his hands. "I go along with April on that, sir. It's all beer and skittles."

  "Is it?" Waverly smiled fondly at them both. "I wish I could say that I shared your certainty. I'm afraid I cannot. What explanation is there then for the efforts of Thrush to regain his services? For abducting you, Mr. Slate? And you, Miss Dancer? Look how extensive their plain out-and-out efforts were. The business with this blue truck of theirs. The circus aspects of the thing. Your captors. This mysterious Mr. Riddle and the Van Atta woman. No, I am quite convinced in my mind. Which is why I chose to fly to the capitol and discuss the matter with some VIP's. We shall have to treat Mr. Zorki as if he indeed is the discoverer of the most shocking panacea of them all. There is no other alternative."

  April shrugged. "We have the man. Isn't that enough?"

  "It is, certainly. But I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Thrush in the matter. They are still in the wings, ready to come on. I'm sure of it."

  "He could be brainwashed," April suggested.

  "Perhaps. But not just yet. I have planned a diversion. You see, Dr. Egret is in this somewhere. The communique I received re your capture, Mr. Slate, was signed with that name."

  "Egret?" April murmured the name; she and Slate exchanged impressed glances.

  "Yes, Egret. The diabolical, the unknown. The woman of a thousand faces and disguises." Mr. Waverly unsteepled his fingers and leaned forward across the polished table. "What of this Van Atta woman, Miss Dancer?"

  "She checks out, sir. All the way down the line. Born in New York, raised here. Career woman from the word go. No romantic affiliations. She does work at the UN as a translator. Her sole means of support, barring any funds she receives from Thrush. No, she's not Egret. She couldn't be. Just a gorgeous magpie who flew with the bright, new movement. An intellectual radical. And a bit of a case for the analysts. Ask Slate."

  Slate nodded. "They must have contacted her for this assignment. She was figurative head of this League of Nations gang. The man called Mr. Riddle seemed to be the top man but I'd stake my last penny that our redhead was the one calling the plays."

  "Neither of you saw this person at any time?"

  "Just a voice to me," April recalled. "A flat emotionless voice. Like someone reading a grocery list. Really a hard voice to pin down to a definite category."

  Mark Slate coughed. "I saw half of him when they crowded around that serving board they had me laid out on. The voice sounded muffled then, half-clear, as though the man was wearing a mask of sorts."

  "Man," Mr. Waverly repeated. "Then you would both rule out the possibility that it could be a woman disguising her natural speaking voice?"

  "I wouldn't commit myself," April answered, trying to hear once again that flat voice coming into their cell room. "If it was a woman talking like a man, then Dr. Egret must be a marvelous mimic."

  "She is, Miss Dancer. She once posed as an eighty-year-old Nobel prizewinner and fooled the police of three countries for five months. Mr. Slate?"

  Mark shook his head. It was impossible to say for sure.

  Waverly pursed his lips.

  "Let's recap, shall we? Might clear the air a bit. Alek Yakov Zorki comes here to do a bit of damage, indulging in his old fondness for bombings. We apprehend him. Thrush knows almost immediately that we have. A troubling thought about our Headquarters Security system, incidentally. Now, Thrush captures Mr. Slate through the ingenuity of this Van Atta woman. She is equipped with an entourage of international help—the Chinese, the Frenchman and the poor Hindu you mentioned, Miss Dancer. His corpse, as well as the truckdriver's is probably in the rubble back there at that burned-out factory in the Bronx. We'll know better in the morning. The note from Egret suggests a swap of agents at midnight in Grand Central Station, or at the very least a continuance of negotiations. We have put a stop to that by having you both back safe and sound. The next move is Egret's. Will she or won't she get in touch with me? All fairly simple now, save for two odd factors." The head of U.N.C.L.E. fixed his stern but parental gaze on April and Mark Slate. "Who and what is Mr. Riddle and where did he get off to? And that dear little girl you found in the lockers—Joanna Paula Jones?—odd name that—where does she fit into the picture? We are contacting Naval Intelligence now to see if such a person was assigned to this matter. When I was in Washington, the Navy Chief did mention some interest in Zorki. But we shall have to wait. As I see it, that about represents all we have so far. Have I left anything out?"

  "Yes," April interjected. "You mentioned some diversion you had planned in regard to Zorki—"

  "Ah, yes." Mr. Waverly smiled. "You will turn your attention to the far wall." He glanced at his watch. "It's a bit late but in any case, you will be able to judge for yourself the efficacy of our experiment."

  April and Slate wheeled around in their chairs to face the elevated row of closed television circuit screens aligned on the far wall. Mr. Waverly pressed a button in the recess of the table where he sat.

  One of the screens lit up, instantly. A bright, clear picture, unmuddled, without snow. As clear as a glass of water. They could see a man, dressed in a gray turtleneck sweater and trousers; the massive body and bull head were familiar.

  "The Great Zorki," April murmured. "Caged Russian bear."

  "And now this," Waverly said and pressed another button. The screen adjacent to the picture lit up. It was uncanny. The same man, only this time the mood was different. The bull head was propped on a pillow, the bushy eyebrows were knit in concentration, the face staring at the floor of the cell. This Zorki was deep in reflection. The garments were identical. Gray turtleneck sweater, whipcord trousers. Mr. Waverly chuckled drily as both men came to life on the screen.

  "Now, I've a question for you both. Which one of the men that you see is indeed our Russian friend?"

  "It's an amazing duplication," Slate marveled. "But I'd place my pennies on the joker that's stalking like a bear."

  "And you, Miss Dancer. Take your pick."

  "I'm not being contrary," April laughed, "but I'd have to say the one staring at the floor. I don't base that opinion on any flaw in the disguise, though."

  "Oh." Mr. Waverly sounded amused. "Why do you select the reflective Zorki as the real one?"

  "He's wearing a wristwatch. And we don't allow our prisoners anything like that."

  "Tallyho," Mark Slate laughed. "You're right."

  "And so she is," Waverly agreed, clicking the buttons on his desk again. The screens went dark. "I shall have to remind Mr. Wilder about that. Though it does no harm at the moment."

  "Wilder?" April echoed. "That was James Wilder? Yes, yes—I see now. He's built like Zorki, the face and hair is close enough and with makeup—"

  "Quite. You really wouldn't be able to tell them apart if they stood in the center of this room."

  "But," Slate interrupted. "There's no need now for this game of Zorki, is there, sir? You've no place to go with him."

  "You forget, Mr. Slate," Waverly's expression was grim. "We have yet to hear from Egret again. And don't worry. We will hear from her. I'm sure of it."

  "It's close to eleven o'clock," April said blandly, reaching for a cigarette. "Do we get any beauty sleep tonight?"

  Mr. Waverly's teeth showed for one of the few times in their long acquaintance with him.

  "I would be the first to suggest you do not need sleep to augment your beauty, Miss Dancer. Getting back to reality, however, I would prefer you both remain at Headquarters tonight. I expect to be hearing from the teletypes and I shall
want you on hand."

  "Roger, sir." Mark Slate rose to his feet, still incongruous in Basque shirt and blue jeans. "The bunks aren't bad in this hotel."

  "Do change to more suitable raiment, Mr. Slate."

  "Yes, sir," he said soberly.

  April got up too and straightened her skirt. She replaced the unlit cigarette in her pack. Waverly regarded her keenly.

  "A suggestion, Miss Dancer." April looked at him.

  "Since Miss Van Atta is a woman and her ankle has been seen to in the interim, I think she will be in the mood to talk. At any rate, I should like you to try before you settle down for the night. Can't tell. A declawed tigress sometimes is apt to growl a different tune. She just might be ready to trade information as a price for her crimes."

  "The idea was on the tip of my tongue," April smiled.

  "Of course it was," Mr. Waverly agreed and dismissed them both with a wave of his hand. When they had closed the door behind them, they could hear him on the transmitter, asking for a call to be relayed to Napoleon Solo in Rangoon. It was still daylight in Rangoon.

  Arnolda Van Atta's cell was one in a row of cubicles in the underground maze that housed the facilities of U.N.C.L.E. Mark Slate had taken a turn to the left, down a corridor running north toward the sleeping quarters, but April walked quickly toward Arnolda Van Atta's pen. It was late, very late, and she wasn't in much of a mood to talk to the redheaded woman, but Mr. Waverly's idea was sound. A badly broken ankle and a plot gone awry could work wonders with a woman like Arnolda.

  Take away the comforts, the luxuries and the command, and sometimes these cold, calculating types did a faster fold-up than their less complex counterparts.

  It worked that way sometimes.

  The peculiar gray light that dominated the corridors and halls of U.N.C.L.E, Headquarters cast a steady glow over the interior of the building. April passed through many steel doors and electric-eye protective devices that would have set off a whole battery of alarm systems were it not for the chemically treated badge card pinned to her dress. It was an easy building to get lost in. A far easier building for the wrong person to get in trouble in. Just no place for anyone who had no business there.

  She found the cell. It was set in the middle of a long passageway, where a host of other cells loomed emptily. Fried Rice and Pig Alley, being male, would be in another section of the building.

  Arnolda Van Atta was lying on her bunk, face turned toward the gray wall. The gleam of white bandages and plaster of paris cast on her damaged leg stood out almost like an electric light in the dim shadows of the cubicle. April reached the grilled bars and looked in. The woman couldn't be sleeping. Not now. Not with the pain of that ankle. Even if they had given her sedatives—

  Once again, woman though she was, April could appreciate and even envy the long, shapely, statuesque figure of Arnolda Van Atta. The splendid hips and slender legs and flaming red hair were stunning physical assets in a female.

  April placed her hands on the bars.

  "Miss Van Atta," she said cheerily. "I know you're not sleeping. I want to talk to you."

  The redhead did not stir.

  "Now, look, Miss Van Atta. There's no use—"

  She stopped, unable to fully absorb the reality of the incredible truth.

  Arnolda Van Atta was not sleeping. Nor would she be able to talk to April Dancer or anyone else in this lifetime. Whatever conversation they could have had would have to be resumed in that mysterious place where all spies must go when they die. The good ones and the bad ones. There but for you, spy I.

  For even standing where she was, April could now see the bone handle of the knife jutting from between the redhead's shoulder blades. It had gone all the way in, up to the hilt, plunged inward with great force and power. The velvet green dress now bore a wide area of reddish brown where the hilt poked outwards.

  But for April, the chilling thought was not that of death. That was something, of course, but not really the shocker. Agents have to get used to the idea of death. Sudden or otherwise. It was a twenty-four hour, around-the-clock possibility and it was always there.

  No, that wasn't it at all.

  The real killer was that somewhere, right here in U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, no-man's-land for the enemy, there walked a traitor. A live, moving, thinking, deadly adversary whom no one suspected.

  I Have Not Yet Begun to Spy

  Mr. Waverly was not happy to know that an assassin was loose in Headquarters. Once April had sounded the alarm, setting in motion Maximum Security Regulations all over the complex, Waverly had hurried to the cell block, accompanied by a team of Lab technicians and experts.

  There was nothing that could be done for Arnolda Van Atta. Death had been instantaneous.

  The assassin had struck her as she lay on her cot, face to the wall apparently. She had been dead barely an hour. Mr. Waverly was extremely worried.

  Someone had had the key to open Miss Van Atta's cell door. Someone knew the location of all the alarm systems. Someone was wearing an U.N.C.L.E. badge card who should not be wearing that card. Someone, perhaps one of these very men who were with him, examining Miss Van Atta's corpse, was a THRUSH agent. The idea was chilling.

  "No fingerprints on the handle, Mr. Waverly," one of the technicians said brusquely.

  "I thought not."

  "Chances are good she didn't even see her murderer. She must have been lying there, when he opened the cell door and tiptoed in."

  "Yes, I suppose so. Still, he must have been known to her. If he is one of Thrush's agents."

  "Floor's empty too," another U.N.C.L.E. man said. He was holding a curious black box whose filtered bottom threw a luminous light that would have shown any form of disturbance on the stone floor. Not so much as a molecule of dust had been disturbed.

  "Yes," Waverly murmured. "One who knows all our tricks. Only one of our own kind could have foreseen our using this sort of equipment to detect clues. Still, he has to be someone working against time and there is very little left."

  The U.N.C.L.E. agents had nothing to say to that.

  The furrows in Mr. Waverly's face deepened as he left the experts to finish their messy work. He asked April to accompany him back to his office.

  "Coming, Miss Dancer?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Where is Mr. Slate?"

  "'Still pounding his ear. Shall I buzz him?"

  "Not just yet. We may need him at the top of his form very shortly."

  In the office, Mr. Waverly indicated a yellow streamer of teletype lying on the marvelous, circular table. "Read that if you will, Miss Dancer."

  April scooped up the streamer. The typed words were short, to the point and not very sweet:

  THRUSH FLIES HIGH. FORGET GRAND

  CENTRAL. RELEASE ZORKI AT ONCE OR THE

  BUILD WILL BLOW SKY-HIGH BEFORE

  TOMORROW MORNING. THIS IS A LAST WARNING.

  EGRET

  "Do you think it's a bluff, Mr. Waverly?"

  For once, the old man spread his hands helplessly. His brown eyes were bleak.

  "A bluff? What more proof do we need? This woman murdered in our very midst." He eyed April sourly. "Dancer, I hadn't wished to mention this before but this makes it imperative." April felt a cold wave travel down her spine. When Mr. Waverly called her Dancer, she knew how serious things were. In times of great stress, the old man was apt to cut corners and forget the niceties of talking to a woman, even if he was her superior. "There's been a security leak at Headquarters for quite some time. A good deal of our messages have been intercepted across the Atlantic. Papers and files have disappeared at times. Nothing real serious until this. Now I can no longer chalk it up to faulty wireless or careless clerks or a breakdown in our technological equipment. I should have known it would assume these proportions. Thrush has been able to plant these messages in Del Fiona's—the first one was dropped there—and now this comes to me over our own private teletype system. It's baffling. I want Zorki, we must keep him, but
if Headquarters is in danger—" He paused, as if hoping that the mere act of talking would bring the solution. April restrained a strong urge to reach her hand out to comfort him, but she couldn't do that. Must never do it. "Look how they were able to single out Mark Slate for apprehension. No, there is someone here at Headquarters responsible for the whole affair."

  "If there is a bomb, Mr. Waverly, we can find it. The message doesn't give us a deadline on time."

  "That is precisely what troubles me the most. It's so cocksure, so dead certain. Oh, we can screen everyone in the building now. I can have our Lab men and demolitions experts cover the maze from top to bottom. But that will take hours. Hours we may not have to spare. So I must use the ace in the hole that I have saved for this moment. I will set Wilder loose. Let them see that Zorki is walking away from this building, a free man."

  April shuddered. "But where's our guarantee? Who will disarm the bomb—if there is a bomb? If they get Zorki, won't they just go ahead and put us out of business?"

  "Hmmm. Perhaps. But what else do you suggest?"

  "I guess I'm just thinking out loud, sir. All we can do is what you say and hunt high and low for our traitor and his—bomb."

  Mr. Waverly nodded, as if that were all he wanted to hear. He moved to his chair, arranging the battery of panels and communication buttons before him. His scholar's face was pensive. April was keenly appreciative of the enormous load of responsibility resting on her superior's shoulders. The midnight shift of personnel would be arriving shortly and a normal complement of U.N.C.L.E. people could total as many as fifty. Then there was the amazing million-dollar complex itself—the tons of equipment, devices, weapons and warehouses of filing data that had taken years and the blood of dozens of good agents to accumulate. The history of U.N.C.L.E., its many successes and its few failures, had always had that costly price placed on it. All agents faced death.

  "Give Mr. Slate another half hour's rest, Dancer. Then call him. I'll busy myself with the details of our manhunt."