"Turn one off."
Then only one voice emerged from the speaker, alternating something like a high pitched Bronx cheer with an unearthly titter. Dr. Egret listened intently. "Can you take that tape and slow it down?" she asked the Tech.
"Yeah – at least to quarter-speed." He started a second recorder going, stopped the first and rewound the tape a short distance. A knob was turned and the tape-started again. Another switch gave them the sound, grotesquely stretched.
The Bronx cheer became a staccato heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh lasting several seconds and the titter seemed almost articulated.,
"It almost sounds like it's saying, 'Erdeycum, erdeycum' said the Guard, and Dr. Egret nodded.
"It is strange," she agreed. "That almost seems to be a word. I'll check it in Flint's Vocabulary. I think I recognise the other sound it's a kind of laugh a dolphin gives when he's about to play a joke on an unsuspecting victim* Most of them seem to be fond of practical jokes. I've occasionally thought they might be willing to trade services for underwater versions of a whoopee cushion or an electric buzzer." She shook her head. "How long have they been at this?"
"About a quarter of an hour. They just started up all of a sudden'. We didn't even hear them approach the stations."
"You wouldn't. Switch back to the monitors, please. Let's see what they're up to now."
The tape playback stopped, and only a faint hiss and thrum of open sea filled the room. The Tech flicked a couple of switches, then looked up and shrugged his shoulders. "Huh! They're gone."
Dr. Egret snorted. "There was probably nothing to it," she said. "I'll never understand dolphins – I don't think a human being can. In some ways they're far better than people. But in most ways they're just very different."
"But a whole bunch of them – at least four, anyway – swimming up to our detectors and jabbering? What could they possibly been up to?"
"I have no idea. Some alien game, probably. I remember a couple of years ago there was one in this area who came by two or three times a week. I think it was the same one every time – it used to come up to one or another of our stations and say, 'Hello, Doctor Lilly, hello Doctor Lilly,' over and over for a few minutes before swimming away. Kept this up for a couple of months before it lost interest."
"Oh well," said the Guard, "as long as it doesn't mean anything…"
Ten miles west of the island two submarines rode low in the dark water, linked by a short catwalk two feet above the gentle swells from the darkened bridge of the command sub to the top hatch of the Squid, where a faint greenish light showed. Alexander Waverly, bundled in his camel's-hair coat, hat settled firmly on his head, stood in the bridge compartment to see the first assault group under way. One at a time they went up the ladder to the starlit top deck and across after a final checkout of assignment and equipment. The pilot who would put them ashore and pull back, went first, followed by Sanders and Goldin who would accompany Illya to the powerhouse, to settle their explosives comfortably for the short ride to shore. Voices were low, as a directional pick-up on the shore could still spot them over open sea. Dim golden lights on the eastern horizon indicated their goal.
"The main landing forces are in position," Mr. Waverly said. "They will hit the beach approximately ninety seconds after the power goes off."
"And the power should go off about thirty seconds after I've hit the telephone exchange and started the jammer," Napoleon said. "I could do it in my sleep."
"I trust you can do it awake. Mr. Kuryakin?"
"All set, sir."
A voice spoke quietly down the hatch from above. "Ready for the rest of you."
Short and Mills, Waverly's personally chosen support for Napoleon and Joan, hoisted their packs and clambered up into the warm tropical night. Illya followed them, and Joan followed Illya. Napoleon paused a moment at the foot of the ladder and turned to face his chief, uncertain of just what he wanted to say.
Mr. Waverly spoke instead. "Good luck, Mr. Solo. Just don't take any unnecessary chances." He extended his hand unexpectedly, and Napoleon took it.
"We've got them licked, sir," he said as they shook hands. "You may get the Nobel Prize for this night's work."
"I'd rather have you all back," said Waverly gruffly. "Now get going. The entire invasion is waiting on you. And remember, they don't know they're licked. It's up to us to convince them."
Quickly Napoleon turned and swarmed up the ladder. The hatch closed behind him before he was into the Squid, and then they were on their way.
Surf murmured on the sand behind them as the Squid silently withdrew and vanished beneath the inky surface. Ahead a black bulk blocked the stars and rising third-quarter moon which shone palely on the sloping coral a short distance to their right past the Barn. Both teams had rehearsed endlessly on photographs of this beachhead during the past twenty hours, and each individual knew his part like a trained dancer. Not a word was spoken as seven figures clad in conmando black shared out equipment and separated into two groups.
Four went to the right, to the nearer corner of the high windowless wall which rose above them, the rear of the huge stone barn, almost as big as the Big House, which it nearly adjoined at the diagonally opposite corner. Three went to the left, moving like darker shadows in the star-pierced darkness, with neat bundles of high explosives and silenced sidearms at the ready.
Illya led his team around the corner, and saw that lights burned in three windows of the Big House even at this late hour. Two Guards walked the terrace. And seventy feet of blank wall stretched from the rear corner where the U.N.C.L.E. team crouched to the side door, lighted but unguarded, which would lead them to the generator room. And forty feet of neatly trimmed lawn separated the door from the wide terrace.
They hugged the grey stone wall in the darkness and watched, timing the ritual pacing of the two Thrush Guards. Infrared sniper-scoped rifles slung at the ready could turn night into day for them at the flick of a finger.
Illya shifted slightly to peer at his watch. Eight minutes left before Napoleon could be sure of his position and the generators must go. Still, he could afford another sixty seconds while booted figures paced slowly on the terrace.
Once around his corner and into the moonlight, Napoleon left his group in a series of quick, quiet dashes from one shadow to another, spying out ahead for sentries. They paused at last behind the front corner of the Barn. At the other end of the building they could see the Big House; to their right a long dark lane between two long, low buildings -Mr. Waverly's report said they were built as slave pens, but nothing of how many they must have held. Somehow appropriate that Thrush should now be using them. The communications exchange was on the upper floor of the second building. There was a convenient light directly over the double door at the near end.
Illya dropped his arm and started forward toward the distant door just as the second Guard turned away. He knew without looking back his team was with him; the three slipped into the lighted interior, crouching below the level of the glass pane in the door as it sighed slowly closed. They moved quickly out of view and looked around. Stairs ahead, descending to a deep hum and a smell of power. Six minutes to go.
Napoleon surveyed the wide yard, not to mention all but the rear of the Big House, from which they would be clearly visible, and wondered how to break unobserved across a moonlit stage. He leaned his head close to huddle with his team.
"All right, gang," he said. "There's no reason to expect a total curfew, is there, Joan?"
"Not unless whatever's left of Central declares an official state of siege, and they wouldn't likely do that if they've had no warning at all we know of their existence."
"Could we have gotten this far if there had been a state of siege declared?" asked Bob Short.