There was one muffled scream of agony, then silence.
April Dancer and Kuryakin had ducked back to either side of the window when the trio began running toward them. When the sound of running stopped, they peeped out. The two survivors had halted at midpoint along the wall and were staring down into the moat. Then they both turned their backs and gazed up at the third-story window where Mark Slate had appeared.
He was no longer in sight. Consuelo's voice carried clearly to April and Illya. "You three stay here and keep them pinned down," she said with frigid lack of emotion. "I'm going to get dressed and run into town for some dynamite. We'll blast the door from the courtyard into the tower open."
There was an inhuman quality about the woman, April thought. After that one quick glance into the moat where Barth and Pedro had fallen, she seemed to have dismissed them from her mind.
The man who had escaped the falling ladder with Consuelo returned to where his two partners waited next to the shuttered second-floor window of the tower. Consuela continued on toward the room where April and Illya waited.
They drew back. Illya Kuryakin produced his U.N.C.L.E. gun and April took Mark's from her purse.
Consuela climbed to the window sill and jumped to the floor inside. She must have glimpsed April's figure from the edge of her vision, because she whirled that way and stared at the barrel of April's gun.
"Don't move," Illya's voice said softly from behind her.
The woman glanced over her shoulder and saw his gun covering her also. Her eyes glittered at him.
Kuryakin said quietly, "Call those three men back in here, Consuela."
"Why should I?" the female hypnotist demanded. "You won't shoot me in cold blood."
April Dancer said sweetly, "Mark won't. He's much too gallant. But if you don't obey right now, I'm going to."
She depressed the lever on the U.N.C.L.E. gun which converted it to a killing weapon.
Consuelo examined her doubtfully. The glitter in April's eyes seemed to convince her that the girl meant it. While she might have depended on Mark not to shoot down a defenseless woman, she had no such faith in another member of her own sex.
Going over to the window, she called, "Chance! You and the others come in here!"
"All right, ma'am," a voice called back.
"Now step aside from the window," April ordered.
Consuela chose to move over next to Illya.
April Dancer flicked the lever on her gun upward. The gun made a popping sound. Consuela's eyes glazed and she toppled to the floor.
Illya Kuryakin gave April an inquiring look.
"It'll keep her quiet while we deal with the others," April said. "She might have decided to warn them at the last minute."
With a shrug Illya pressed his back to the wall alongside the window. April did the same on the other side.
A moment later the first of the three men vaulted up to the window sill, then jumped down inside. He was staring at the unconscious Consuelo when the second man landed alongside of him. The third was standing in the window before either of the first two realized the presence of someone else in the room.
They whirled, reaching for guns, then froze when they saw Illya's gun covering them. April's was directed at the man standing on the window sill.
"Come on in and join us," April said politely.
Moments later the trio had been disarmed and stood dejectedly lined up against a wall.
"Anyone else in the castle?" Illya asked generally.
When no one answered, his U.N.C.L.E. gun made a popping noise and the man farthest left collapsed.
The other two gazed down at their fallen comrade wide-eyed, then their gazes drifted over to the unconscious Consuelo. Both lay so quiet, it was impossible to tell if they were unconscious or dead.
The man who had escaped the falling ladder with Consuelo asked, "What kind of a gun is that?"
"It shoots poison darts," Illya Kuryakin said. "Kills instantly. Now I'm going to ask once more. Anyone else in the castle?"
Both men hurriedly began to speak at once, stopped, glanced at each other. Then the one who had spoken before said, "Mr. Moreno is supposed to be, but he's disappeared. Barth and Consuelo thought that the guy in the rear tower fed him to the alligators."
Illya glanced at April Dancer.
"That figures. That blood you saw must have been Sancho's." He turned back to the two men. "No one else at all around? How about servants?"
"Moreno always sends them into town when he has something special going here," the second man said. "There's only a cook and a couple of cleaning maids, and he sent them into Vina Rosa earlier. Honest to God, mister, there's nobody else here but us."
Kuryakin nodded satisfaction. "May as well call Mark down from there," he said to April.
Going over to the window, April yelled, "Mark! Mark Slate!"
Slate's head appeared from the upper window of the other tower.
"Hi, love," he yelled back.
"About time you appeared. We've been holed up in this rat-infested place for hours."
"Well, you can come down now," April called. "It's all clear."
There wasn’t room in Napoleon Solo's and Illya Kuryakin's rented car for nine people. They located the panel truck in which Mark Slate had been driven to the castle and loaded the four bound prisoners in back. Solo and Kuryakin said they would take the emaciated Juan in their car and April and Slate could follow in the panel truck.
"What are you going to do with the prisoners, though?" Solo asked. "Will it do any good to turn them over to the Lombodian police?"
April said, "With Moreno dead, I doubt that his influence will extend to protecting subordinates. They might even be quite glad to see Consuelo. What else can we do with them?"
"I guess it would be against U.N.C.L.E.'s code just to feed the alligators," Slate said. "We'll turn them in and see what happens."
It turned out that with Moreno's death, his influence among powerful Lombodians was equally dead. The police welcomed Consuelo and her three companions with maximum security cells and assured April Dancer and Mark Slate they would be out of circulation for some time.
The Velvet Voice Affair Page 12
