The Deadly Drug Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  "Six. He ate only about half of the last one."

  "And you had but two. Still, considering the difference in body weights, I should think you would show some effect. What else did Mr. Slate ingest that you didn't?"

  "Well, he had a hamburger while I had a grilled cheese sandwich. We both ordered coffee, but neither of us drank it, because it was awful"

  Brow looked at Waverly. "Perhaps the drug is administered in meat."

  Waverly shook his head. "In a farming community such as Pig Wallow, the farmers tend to slaughter and dress most of their own meat. I think Miss Dancer's guess that the drug is in baking products is probably right. Something must have made her immune to the drug. Or perhaps some people have a natural immunity."

  "Maybe cheese is an antidote," Randy suggested

  April smiled at the boy, Waverly frowned, but Dr. Brow gave the suggestion serious consideration.

  "Something seems to have given Miss Dancer immunity," he said. "Can you think of anything else you ate which Mr. Slate didn't?"

  The girl shook her head. "We both lunched on the plane from St. Louis to Barth and our meals were identical and we both had coffee. Neither of us had anything else since breakfast."

  "Perhaps it was the cheese," Brow said. "When and if you obtain samples of this drug, Mr. Waverly, your research chemists should test cheese as a possible antidote."

  "I'll keep it in mind," Waverly said a trifle dubiously. "Meanwhile, what about Mr. Slate?"

  "I would assume the effects of the drug are short-lived," the psychiatrist said. "Otherwise it wouldn't be necessary to administer it in a medium which people consume day after day. I suggest he simply be kept under observation until it wears off. Suppose I deliver him to the clinic upstairs and let him sleep there tonight?"

  "Good idea, doctor," Waverly said. "Would you be good enough to do that?"

  Dr. Brow motioned Slate to his feet and led him from the room. Slate went out, unresisting.

  Mr. Waverly rounded his desk, sank into his chair and said, "Sit down, Miss Dancer, and let us review what we've learned."

  Randy hurried to push one of the two chairs the psychiatrist had pulled away from the desk back into place. When April sat, he remained standing alongside of her.

  Leaning back in his chair, Waverly said, "It is now obvious why Mr. Rank and Miss Elias are so interested in this new tranquilizer whose dosage doesn't matter.

  "Apparently, from the conversation you overhead between the two of them, and also from the unusual number of funerals occurring in Pig Wallow, the drug is fatal in too large cumulative doses. Since different people consume quite different quantities of bread and other baking products daily, control of dosage is impossible when the drug is distributed in this manner. Building the same properties possessed by Tehedrin zero fifty-five into their drug would solve their problem."

  Randy said, "Once the bugs are ironed out so that the drug isn't fatal to a portion of the population, I suppose they plan to flood the country with their baking products."

  Waverly examined him benignly. "Of course, Mr. Kovac. And with the entire population in a state of complete loss of will, yet still able to carry out its usual tasks, the country can be taken over without a struggle. Even the president is a great bread eater."

  There was a low buzz from the panel of switches on Waverly's desk and one of them lit up.

  "Houston headquarters," Waverly murmured, and flicked the switch upward.

  A glass screen on the wall lit up. Napoleon Solo's suave, handsome face appeared on the screen.

  "Yes, Mr. Solo?" Waverly said.

  "Hello, April," Solo said. "Hi, Randy."

  When both had replied to the greeting, Waverly said patiently, "I assume this is not a social call, Mr. Solo. Get to the point."

  "Yes, sir. Illya and I arrived too late, sir."

  Waverly frowned. "Even after we sent Dr. Bromberger warning? Didn't he take any precautions?"

  "Yes, sir. He hired a night watchman and placed his supply of Tehedrin zero fifty-five in the clinic safe, but they got to it anyway. Dr. Bromberger reports nothing taken but the drug, and they took all of that."

  "Unfortunate," Waverly said. "THRUSH, of course."

  "The caper shows all the signs of their technique. The watchman was drugged, the lock of the clinic door picked without breaking it and the safe was expertly cracked. There were no clues left, of course."

  "Very well, Mr. Solo. You and Mr. Kuryakin may as well return to New York. Thanks for your report."

  He depressed the lighted switch and the screen darkened.

  "Well, it looks as though Miss Elias now has a supply of Tehedrin zero fifty-five to experiment with," Waverly said. "There is nothing more we can do tonight. We'll see how Mr. Slate is in the morning, and all meet here at nine A.M."

  EIGHT

  LOOKING FOR A JOB

  April Dancer arrived at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters at 8: 45 the following morning. She went directly to the clinic, only to find that Mark Slate had already been released and was down in Mr. Waverly’s office.

  When she got to Waverly's office, she found Slate and Randy there. Slate rose from his chair and smiled at her. Randy, as usual, was already standing.

  "Morning, dove," Slate said in his normal tone.

  "You're all better," April said in a relieved voice. "We were worried about you."

  "The Slates are noted for their physical stamina," he said. "It's only our minds that are weak. Randy's been telling me how I behaved yesterday. I must have been something."

  "Do you remember any of it?" April asked.

  "All of it. It seems to be a peculiar faculty of this drug that you don't realize anything is wrong with you. I have a clear recollection of everything that happened yesterday, and I didn't realize until Randy told me that I was behaving peculiarly."

  Mr. Waverly came in, looked Slate over carefully and said, "You seem to have recovered, Mr. Slate."

  "Yes, sir," Slate said. "Sorry about yesterday."

  "Perfectly excusable," Waverly said. "Actually your experience added something to our knowledge of this drug. We now know definitely that its effects wear off in less than twenty-four hours, and if it isn't continuously administered, people return to normal."

  He rounded his huge desk, sank into his chair and gestured April and Slate to sit. Randy remained standing.

  For Slate's benefit Waverly briefly went over the conclusions he, April and Randy had come to the night before. Then he said, "As Miss Dancer or Mr. Kovac may have told you, we learned last night that the entire experimental supply of Tehedrin 055 has disappeared from Dr. Bromberger's Houston clinic. It is almost certain that this is in the hands of THRUSH, or more specifically, in the hands of Miss Dorcus Elias."

  Slate said, "Randy told me."

  "Our next move is to determine just what the drug is that THRUSH is experimenting with. Mr. Slate, I want you to return to Pig Wallow. Your first mission will be to obtain us a sample of the drug. The easiest and most obvious way to do that is simply to purchase a large supply of baked goods from the same store where you obtained those cookies. Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin are due back from Houston today. I will send one of them with you to bring back the samples."

  "Why can't I bring them back?" Slate asked.

  "Because you are to remain in Pig Wallow. I want you to visit and talk to everyone in the village in order to determine if one hundred percent have been affected by the drug. If you discover any who are not under its influence, try to determine why. There may be some who eat no bread or other baked goods because they are on special diets.

  "But if you encounter any bread eaters who seem to be immune to the drug, question them closely as to their other dietary habits. In particular learn if they regularly eat cheese."

  "Cheese, sir?" Slate said.

  "Dr. Brow thinks Miss Dancer's grill cheese sandwich may have caused her immunity."

  Slate glanced at April with raised brows. Then he shrugged and said, "Yes, sir."

/>   "I also wish you to find out how much the death rate has risen since the new baking company opened in Pig Wallow."

  "Yes, sir," Slate said soberly.

  "Do you want me to leave for there today?"

  Waverly shook his head. "I talked to Dr. Brow on the phone this morning and he advises keeping you under observation for a day or two. It is possible this is a psychedelic drug, and Dr. Brow says that symptoms of such drugs sometimes recur after the initial effect has worn off. If you are still all right by Tuesday, the doctor thinks it will be safe to assume there will be no recurrence."

  Waverly turned to April. "Your assignment is in St. Louis, Miss Dancer. You are to learn what success, if any, Miss Elias is having in analyzing Tehedrin zero fifty-five and building its unique property into their own drug."

  April said, "Yes, sir. When shall I leave?"

  "Not until Tuesday also. Your cover story will involve discovering you are out of a job when you returned from your vacation. And since presumably you were not to return to work until tomorrow, you could hardly discover it before then. If you will wait after Mr. Slate has left, we will go over the details."

  Slate rose from his seat.

  Randy Kovac said, "Mr. Slate."

  Slate looked at him. "Yes, Randy?"

  The boy grinned. "Don't eat any baked goods in Pig Wallow."

  Early Tuesday morning Mark Slate drove alone in a jeep along the rough mountain road between Barth and Pig Wallow. The back seat of the jeep was loaded with fishing gear. A helicopter hovered overhead for the whole distance, but Slate paid no attention to it.

  When he reached the cemetery outside of town, Slate pulled off the road and stopped. The helicopter circled, then gently settled in a little clearing alongside the cemetery chapel.

  Slate walked over as a lean blond man with a sensitive face and liquid brown eyes dropped lithely to the ground.

  "I should have made you drive the jeep, Illya," Slate said. "That road is awful."

  Illya Kuryakin smiled slightly."Senior agents are entitled to the smoother rides. How long do you think you'll be?"

  Slate glanced at his watch. "It's seven-thirty. I should imagine the general store opens by eight. I'll try to be back by eight-fifteen."

  Illya nodded. "I'll be here."

  Slate returned to his jeep and drove on into town.

  Again no one was on the street.

  Slate parked in front of the combination general store and drugstore and tried its door. He found it open, but no one was in the place.

  In the grocery and meat section he found a shopping cart and pushed it over to the baked goods section. All the wrapped bread here bore the trademark of the Rank Baking Company of St. Louis, he noted.

  He loaded a dozen loaves of bread into the cart, added a miscellaneous collection of rolls, cookies and cakes. He had the cart filled when the old woman appeared from what was apparently sleeping quarters in back.

  "I found the door unlocked," Slate said. "Are you open?"

  "Not until eight," she said in a colorless voice. "I'll take care of you, though. We never lock the door. Nobody around here steals."

  Slate paid for his purchases and carried them in a cardboard box out to the jeep. As he passed Ma Rooney's boarding house on his way out of town, a dark, thickset man stepped out on the porch and gazed after him curiously. From the front and profile photographs in the man's dossier at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, Slate recognized him as Anton Radak.

  When he got back to the helicopter he found that Illya Kuryakin had climbed back into it. He handed up the box of baked goods.

  "Any trouble?" Illya asked.

  Slate shook his head. "Anton Radak stepped out on the front porch of Ma Rooney's boarding house as I drove back out of town, but he probably took me for one of the locals. I imagine most of them drive jeeps. The country around here isn't suitable for anything else."

  "Well, good luck," Kuryakin said.

  He started the rotor, threw Slate a final wave of good-by and the helicopter rose from the ground. It was moving rapidly toward Barth when Slate returned to the jeep.

  April’s plane landed at Lambert Airport at ten Tuesday morning. From her purse she took the card Boris Rank had given her and phoned his office number. When she told his secretary it was April Dancer calling, he came on the phone immediately.

  "April!" he said with pleasure.

  "Where are you?"

  "At the airport," she said. "I have an hour between planes and just phoned to say hello."

  "Between planes? Where are you going?"

  "To Los Angeles," she said in a rueful tone. "When I went into work yesterday, I found myself out of a job. Gruenwald is cutting back on personnel, I had the lowest seniority in the lab, so I got bounced while on vacation."

  "Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "But why Los Angeles?"

  "I have an uncle there. I'm going to stay with him until I find a new job."

  "What's wrong with St. Louis?" Rank asked. "I have enough influence with this company to get you a job here. Go to work for us."

  "Oh, I couldn't impose on our friendship," April said demurely.

  "Nonsense. Your experience is in the food industry, even if it wasn't human food. You're a bio-chemist and Dorcus has been fussing at me to hire her another lab assistant. Why don't you cancel your reservation and stay over, at least tonight?"

  "Well---"

  "I insist," he said firmly. "What hotel do you wish to stay? I'll phone and make you a reservation."

  "I'm not familiar with St. Louis hotels," she said.

  "I'll get you a room at the Chase. That's only a few blocks from the plant. The Chase is at Lindell and we're on Delmar, only a couple of blocks away."

  "All right," she agreed. "I'll cancel my reservation and have a taxi take me to the Chase."

  When April hung up, she went over to the reservation desk. On the principle that cover should always be thorough, she actually had a ticket and a reservation through to Los Angeles. If anyone became suspicious enough to check her story that she had merely been passing through St. Louis, it would be on record that she had canceled her reservation on the noon jet to Los Angeles.

  She had plenty of time after checking into the hotel to shower, make up and put on a fresh print dress.

  When she entered the lobby a fashionable five minutes late at a quarter after twelve, every man in the place turned to look at her.

  She found Boris Rank already waiting in the lobby. He took both her hands in his and breathed, "You are lovely, my dear."

  "Thank you, sir," she said demurely, dropping a mock little curtsey.

  NINE

  HOME BAKING

  They lunched at the hotel, and during lunch April Dancer allowed herself to be talked into accepting employment with the Rank Baking Company.

  "I have already talked it over with Dorcus," he said. "She asked me to bring you to the plant for an interview after lunch. I assume you have credentials with you."

  "Oh, yes," April said, producing a couple of expertly forged documents from her purse.

  She had a transcript from Columbia University showing that she had been an all-A student and held a B. S. in bio-chemistry. She also had a letter of recommendation from the Gruenwald Pet Food Company of New York, showing that she had worked in its research lab as a lab assistant for one year.

  It rated her performance as excellent and explained that she had been let go solely because of lack of seniority when the company reduced its payroll.

  With his usual thoroughness Mr. Waverly had made arrangements with both the university and the Pet Food Company so that the forgeries would be verified if they were checked back on.

  "These look fine," Rank said after examining the papers. "I'm sure you'll fit in perfectly."

  After lunch Boris Rank drove April over to the plant. It was a sizeable two-story building of brick a half-black long. The lower floor was devoted entirely to baking facilities, Rank explained. The upper floor contained the administrative offices an
d the laboratory.

  They found Dorcus alone in the main laboratory of the research division, a large room containing several work tables and the standard equipment found in any chemistry and biological lab. The woman wore a white smock and had her hair drawn back in a severe bun.

  She greeted April with the polite reserve April had come to expect of her, and again April was conscious of her suppressed hostility, Dorcus was the sort of woman who could develop real friendship with women considerably plainer than herself.

  Apparently Dorcus was enough of a scientist not to allow her feminine instincts to interfere with her work, however.

  After carefully examining April's spurious credentials, she thawed somewhat.

  "Your background is just what I need," she said. "You'll have to wear your hair up at work, though, instead of hanging like that. Part of your work will be in the experimental kitchen, and we can't have hair falling into the dough. Can you start work tomorrow?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Fine," Dorcus said. "I'll show you around now, and you can report for work at eight-thirty tomorrow morning."

  Boris Rank told April that he would leave her in Dorcus's care, but when she was through touring the lab to come to his office just down the hall and he would direct her to personnel. It would be necessary for her to make out a formal employment application, he explained. Then he left her with Dorcus.

  Dorcus took April on a tour of the room they were in first, explaining that the bulk of her work would consist of routine tests of the company's various products for quality control. A sample of each day's output of each product was tested, she explained, and had to meet certain minimum standards before it was approved for shipment.

  "We are also constantly experimenting to improve our products and cut manufacturing costs," Dorcus said. "But you will have little to do with that until you become thoroughly oriented."

  She led April into the room to the right of the laboratory, which proved to be a complete model kitchen. A young blond woman and a lanky redheaded young man, both in white smocks, were working here. Dorcus introduced them as Shelia Jennings and John Quade. Both were dieticians as well as chemists, April Dancer gathered.