"Return?" Waverly said.
"You're near the location now?"
"I'm about two blocks from the studio."
In a testy voice Waverly said, "Those tapes have first priority, Miss Dancer. You may make your rescue attempt when that job is completed."
"You can't be serious, sir," April said indignantly. "Mark's life is in danger!"
Randy Kovac's voice broke in: "Mr. Slate's life is more important than those old tapes, sir. You can't just let him die."
There was a moment of silence; then Waverly said heavily, "This business tends to distort values. It's one of the dangers of any bureaucratic organization that executive minds more and more work like computers, evaluating situations in terms only of efficiency and forgetting human values. I spend too much time at my desk, no doubt. Of course Mr. Slate's safety has first priority. I leave the matter to your judgment, Miss Dancer."
"Thank you, sir," April said gratefully.
"Incidentally, some assistance is en route, Miss Dancer, but I doubt that it will arrive in time to help you with Mr. Slate. Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin have completed their mission in Nigeria and were en route home when I rerouted them to Lombodia. They will land at the Vina Rosa airport in about two hours. I just talked to Mr. Solo and informed him you and Mr. Slate were staying at the Hotel La Paz. You should be able to reach them there in about two and a half hours."
"Fine," April said. "We can use all the help we can get."
Through the booth door she saw a uniformed taxi driver enter the tavern.
"My taxi just arrived, sir," she said. "I'll have to sign off."
"Very well, Miss Dancer. Good luck."
When Mark Slate awoke, he found himself lying on a huge, high-backed double bed of old-fashioned design. The cold-eyed Pedro Martinez was seated in a chair facing the bed a few feet away, his thirty-eight automatic balanced on his knee.
Except for a slight light-headedness, Slate felt no after-effect from the drug. He flexed his muscles and realized he was no longer bound hand and foot. He was still bare to the waist, however.
Glancing around, he saw that he was in a large, high-ceilinged bedroom with walls of stone and tall, narrow windows. He must be in the castle Moreno had referred to, he thought.
He spotted his coat, waistcoat, shirt, undershirt and tie lying on a chair near one of the windows.
Pedro said, "Decided to rejoin us, eh?" rose from his chair, went over to the wall and pulled a hanging bell cord.
After a few moments Sancho Moreno came into the room. He came over to the foot of the bed and smiled down at Slate.
"Ah, Mr. Slate. I hope you rested well."
"Just fine," Slate said politely.
"I'm embarrassed that I keep dropping off this way."
"You needn't apologize," Moreno said dryly. "It's quite understandable."
"What time is it?" Slate asked.
"Only about eleven-thirty. You rested for about an hour. You may get up, if you wish."
Slate swung his legs over the side of the bed and came to his feet. By now he felt quite normal.
Pedro's automatic was covering him. Slate took a tentative step toward his clothing on the chair near the window, when no one objected, went over and began to put it on. Casually he felt in his coat pockets.
"If you are looking for the little vial of metal dissolving fluid, we appropriated it," Moreno told him. "No doubt I will get a commendation from Central Headquarters when THRUSH research scientists have completed analyzing it."
With a shrug Slate resumed dressing. There was an enormous marble-topped dresser with a mirror reaching nearly to the ceiling against one wall. He used the mirror to knot his tie, tucked in his shirt-tails and donned his waistcoat and coat.
"A typical Englishman," Moreno said mockingly. "Now that you are properly attired, I suppose you feel capable of facing anything."
"It does help the old morale," Slate admitted.
"You will need it," Moreno told him. "Follow me, please."
He left the room and Pedro gestured with his gun for Slate to follow. In single file they went along a narrow hallway which had electric bulbs installed in ancient candelabra which were affixed to the walls at intervals.
At the end of the hall they went down broad stone steps into a huge, high-ceilinged banquet room. The room was about the size of a hotel lobby, and in addition to a long banquet table, was furnished with numerous sofas and chairs.
Consuela Cortez and the cadaverous Barth were seated side-by-side on a sofa. Coffee cups sat on a low table in front of the sofa, both cups empty.
The woman's predatory eyes examined Slate.
"Why did you let him dress?" she asked Moreno.
"He is an Englishman. A man must be allowed to die with dignity. For an Englishman to die without his cravat properly knotted is like a gunman of the old American west dying with his boots on."
"Sentimentalist," Consuelo sniffed.
Slate grunted. Sancho Moreno impressed him as about as sentimental as the Marquis de Sade.
Glancing around, Slate said, "I don't see any servants. Do you do all the housework in a big place like this yourself, Sancho?"
“The servants live in the other front tower," Moreno said. "There are four towers, one at each corner of the walls surrounding the courtyard. I only had the two front ones restored, as they alone comprise more room than the average mansion."
He turned and entered a hall which Slate guessed led to the rear of the building. Pedro prodded Slate after him with his gun. Consuelo and Barth rose and trailed after them.
This hallway was also lighted by candelabra converted to electricity. They passed one or two doors and finally came to a door which seemed to be to a kitchen. Moreno told Pedro to wait there with Slate and went into the kitchen. When he returned, he was carrying a huge hunk of raw meat which must have weighed four pounds.
Slate examined it dubiously.
Remembering Sancho, Moreno's reference to his "pets" he wondered with a slight chill what sort of pets were fed four pounds of meat as a midnight snack.
The procession resumed its march down the hall, still in single file, until the corridor ended at an arched, iron-studded oaken door.
Moreno grasped a large iron ring and pulled the door open. Unused hinges rasped protestingly.
"I keep forgetting to have those oiled," Moreno said apologetically. "This door is used so seldom."
He flicked a wall switch and a light went on below. Moreno led the way down narrow stone stairs into the castle's dungeons.
The stairs ended in a large room which still contained medieval instruments of torture. There was a rack, a thumb screw, a flogging post, and rusted manacles hung from the walls where victims were once suspended by their wrists with their feet unable to touch the floor.
Moreno saw Slate looking at a rusted iron cage about five feet high, five feet long and three feet wide.
"The Spanish conquistador who built this place was a lay member of the Inquisition, Mr. Slate," he said. "That is one of the more imaginative yet simple devices of the Spanish Inquisition. You can't quite stand up in it, you can't quite lie down in it. After a few years the occupant began to become rather uncomfortable."
Slate made a face and glanced around. A half dozen doorways led off the torture chamber into individual cells. The doors were all closed. He saw a face peering through the barred aperture of one.
Seeing Slate look that way, Moreno smiled. "Merely a temporary occupant, Mr. Slate. A new recruit for our jingle writing team. As soon as his orientation and training is completed, he will be transferred to the studio grounds."
He went over to another of the heavy oaken doors and pulled it open. He flicked a wall switch just outside the door and a light went on inside.
Going in, he motioned Slate to follow. Pedro paused in the doorway, his gun covering Slate. Consuela and Barth remained outside.
The room was about twelve feet square, with damp stone walls and a floor of stone blocks. Only h
alf of it was floored, however. Six feet from the door the floor abruptly ended at a pit six feet across and running the length of the room. The light Moreno had turned on, a single bare bulb, was suspended over the pit.
Moreno motioned Slate over to the edge of the pit. About ten feet below was the surface of still, foul-smelling water.
"Clever man, Count Don Morales," Moreno said. "He was the Spanish nobleman who built this castle. This pit connects by underground channel to the moat surrounding the castle. The count deliberately left this route of escape open for prisoners whom it would not have been politically expedient to murder outright."
Slate cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him.
"Sometimes just the glow of light is enough to make them come to investigate," Moreno said. "But I haven't been down here in some time, and they have short memories. This should bring them."
He tossed the chunk of raw meat down into the water.
Nothing happened for several seconds. Then the water began to roll and froth as something below the surface churned it up. Slate saw the tips of several large scaly tails break the surface momentarily as their owners fought over the meat.
Finally the turmoil subsided. A half dozen huge snouts rose to the surface and beady eyes glared up-ward.
Enormous jaws opened and there was a chorus of bellowing roars from below.
"Alligators," Moreno said with pride. "The smallest measures twelve feet. We feed them regularly, of course, because otherwise they would die. But we always keep them about half starved, so that they remain alert sentries."
After staring down at the beasts for a time, Slate looked at Moreno. "Surely these can't be the same ones your Count Morales stocked the moat with. They would be four hundred years old!"
"Oh, no," Moreno said. "The moat had dried up and had filled with debris when I bought the castle. I had it redug and restocked with alligators from the Lombodia River. But it was the count's original idea. There are quite detailed historical records on the castle, and it was once a national museum before it was allowed to fall into ruins. I spent considerable money restoring it."
"Your own or THRUSH's?" Slate asked.
Moreno gave him a non-committal smile. Pointing to a small microphone and an equally small speaker fixed to the wall near the ceiling on the opposite side of the pit, he said, "Through those you will be able to converse with me at any time you wish, Mr. Slate. Being English, and also having been indoctrinated by U.N.C.L.E., I don't suppose you will wish to. But I want you to have every opportunity to save your life by telling us where to find Miss Dancer."
"How would I know?" Slate said. "I haven't seen her for hours."
"Perhaps you'll be able to hazard a guess after a time," Moreno said. "I really haven't much hope that you will talk, but it would be foolish not to try to make you. Good-by, Mr. Slate."
Pedro stepped aside to let Moreno pass through the door, then backed out himself. The door closed and a key turned. Slate went over to look through the small barred aperture in the door and saw the whole group moving toward the stairs. They disappeared up them and the light in the torture chamber went out. The one in Slate's cell over the pit remained on, however.
Slate tried the cell door, not really expecting to find it open, and was not disappointed that it was locked. With a shrug he walked over to the pit and looked down at the alligators.
At sight of him they set up a hungry roar.
What did Moreno expect to accomplish by this nonsense, he wondered? The huge reptiles were no danger so long as he stayed where he was. And he certainly had no intention of trying the underground tunnel as an escape route.
A rumbling sound caused him to turn and glance upward. A half-inch-thick sheet of steel the width of the room was sliding down from the ceiling to cover the door and the wall on that whole side of the room.
He went over to examine it, but did not touch it. Aside from effectively blocking any attempt to force the door, he failed to divine its purpose.
Sancho Moreno's voice came from the speaker on the other side of the pit. "You have noticed the new steel wall of your cell, I assume, Mr. Slate."
"Uh-huh," Slate said.
"Please note where it rests on the floor. That is, note the distance from the steel wall to the first cracks between the floor stones nearest to the wall."
Slate looked down at the floor. "About eight inches," he said. "What of it?"
"Nothing at the moment. Just keep it in mind."
Five minutes passed in silence.
Slate amused himself by making faces at the bellowing monsters below.
Moreno's voice came from the speaker again. "Mr. Slate?"
"Yeah?" Slate said.
"Please note where the steel plate rests on the floor now."
Slate turned and walked over to the wall. His heart began to thump when he saw that the crack between the stones which he had used as a point of reference was no longer visible. The floor stones were about two feet square, and the steel wall had moved a good four inches beyond the first crack.
In a controlled voice he said, "It seems that the room has shrunk about a foot."
"Exactly, Mr. Slate. The steel wall will continue to move toward the pit at the rate of a foot every five minutes. That gives you exactly twenty-five minutes more to decide if your loyalty to U.N.C.L.E. is worth a swim with my pets. At any time you decide to talk about Miss Dancer, I will be glad to reverse the wall's direction."
Slate said, "This must be your innovation, Sancho. Your conquistador friend didn't install this thing."
"Of course not, Mr. Slate. I possess a little imagination too. Incidentally, it will do you no good to try to hold back the steel wall. It is' powered by hydraulic pressure of several tons. It will stop automatically when it reaches the edge of the pit, but no force but my finger flicking a switch could halt it sooner."
Slate went back over to the edge of the pit and gazed down. The alligators spread their multi-toothed jaws and bellowed their hunger.
EIGHT
MOMENT OF TRUTH
The taxi driver was looking inquiringly along the bar when April Dancer stepped from the phone booth.
She said, "I called for you, driver."
He turned to look at her, then grinned with open admiration. He was a wiry little man of about forty and his grin exposed large buck teeth. It was such an infectious grin, though, that she instantly liked him. His face seemed vaguely familiar, and she was trying to place it when it struck her that it looked familiar because he resembled Bugs Bunny.
He held open the tavern door for her, then the rear door of the taxi parked outside. She didn't climb in immediately, however.
"Do you know Mr. Sancho Moreno?" she asked.
"The television man? Si, senorita. Senor Moreno is very big around here. A friend of the president, the mayor, the chief of police---most everyone of influence."
Oh, fine, April thought. It was just as well she hadn't phoned the police to report Mark's kidnapping.
"Do you know where he lives?" she asked.
"You mean the castle?"
"Yes," she said. "The castle."
"Si, senorita. Everybody knows where the castle is."
She climbed in back, the driver closed the door and rounded the cab to slip under the wheel.
"You wish to go to the castle, senorita?"
"Yes. How far is it?"
"About ten miles. It sits on the cliff overlooking Morales Bay."
April knew where he meant. Vina Rosa was about ten miles inland on the Lombodia River, which emptied into Morales Bay. The city had been built there instead of on the coast because the coastal area was too mountainous. She had noted the fortification guarding Morales Bay from the air when she and Mark Slate flew into Vina Rosa, but because of its strategic location, had assumed it was a government owned fort. It hadn't occurred to her that it could be a privately owned castle.
As the cab swung in a U-turn, April said, "How does Mr. Moreno happen to own a castle?"
"He bought it from the government," the driver said, "It used to be a museum, but it was not kept up, and was falling into ruins, Lombodia is not rich, and there was no money for repair, It was better to sell it to a foreigner who would restore it than let it crumble into a pile of broken stone. Who knows but maybe someday the government win inherit it back?"
A pragmatic point April thought. She said, "Tell me about the place."
"It is about four hundred years old," the little driver said. "It was built by Count Don Morales, after whom the bay is named. A quite terrible man. He brought Christianity to the Indians of Lombodia by using the machinery of the Inquisition. It is said that hundreds of natives perished in his torture chamber, as well as a number of noble Spaniards who were his political opponents."
"Sound like a nice man," April Dancer said. "Was he an ancestor of Moreno's?"
The little man chuckled. "I do not believe so, senorita. You are not fond of Senor Moreno?"
"No," April said briefly.
"I am glad. Few are, other than his high-placed friends. And it is whispered he buys their friendship. It is said he buys the friendship of beautiful young ladies also, and when you said you wished to go to the castle, I was saddened to think you might be one of those, it makes me happy that you are not."
"It makes me happy too," April said. "Tell me more about the castle."
"As I said, it had partially crumbled into ruins when Senor Moreno bought it. He completely restored and refurnished it, except for the two rear towers. There are four towers altogether, and he uses only the two front ones. The exteriors of the others have been restored, but not the interiors. Even the moat, which had dried up, was re-dug and refilled with water, and the drawbridge was repaired. Except for such modern conveniences as electricity, it is said to have been authentically restored to its original condition. I cannot vouch for this personally, because I have not been in it since Senor Moreno took it over. He does not permit tours. But that is what is said."
The route to the castle led through jungle for the first few miles, along a one-lane paved road similar to the one leading to San Cecilia. It became two-lane when they reached the mountains, because one-lane road was obviously no longer feasible in such rugged terrain. With the winding road sometimes edged by solid rock on one side and a sheer drop of fifty to a hundred feet on the other, there was nowhere to pull off to let another vehicle pass.
The Velvet Voice Affair Page 8
