She pulled one of the lockers toward the furthest corner of the basement. Far from the center of the room, far from the clutter of the place. It was a risk against uncertain odds, but it was the only hope for survival.
The water would help.
If there was enough time.
Joanna Paula Jones laughed suddenly. A merry, skittery little laugh that made her body vibrate like a tambourine. April held onto her tightly, as she pushed her into the metal locker and made room for herself. It was a tight squeeze.
"Laughter in Paradise, Miss Jones, or are you getting a case of hysterics? I'll slap you if you really need it."
"No," the girl muttered. "It's just that this would be exactly like dying at sea, wouldn't it? Dad always wanted me to stay away from ships."
"Sardines," April Dancer said, cramming herself into the narrow space beside her new acquaintance, "do not die at sea.'"
Joanna Paula Jones stopped laughing and buried her face on April's shoulder. Her figure shook. April held her tight, cradling the boyishly bobbed head against her shoulder. Behind them, she could hear the roaring, rushing slap-slap-slap of the rust-colored water as it angrily crested the top of the porcelain sink.
What if the water went over their heads before the bomb detonated?
How jolly.
That, she had to admit, was something that had never even occurred to her.
Alek Yakov Zorki came awake with a slow start. He blinked as he caught sight of the smooth, perforated ceiling. His cell at U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters. Of course. How long had he slept? He craned his neck and stared about the cubicle. There was the chair, the plain deal table. The chrome decanter of water. The locked door mocked him. Curiously, he had no recollection of falling asleep. He dimly remembered an interview at some earlier time in the day with Waverly. That pedantic fool. With his tweeds and his English fair play and school-tie nonsense. What did he know? How did such men rise to power? Still, it was disturbing to return to wakefulness like this, with the sensation of having lost a day
He sat up on the cot, flexing his large shoulders. He felt his face. He had never had much growth of hair on his skin so it was difficult to assess the amount of time lost as other men could. He had no watch. They had seen fit to strip him of all his personal possessions and assorted equipment. Well, why not? Were he in their place, he would have done nothing less.
He did remember somehow that Waverly had not been too amenable to the plan to make a fair exchange of agents. He, Zorki, for the U.N.C.L.E. captives. Chort Znayet! The Devil Knows. Would Riddle and the Van Atta woman ever succeed? He had begun to doubt even the vast superiority of THRUSH itself. A simple affair like this and he sensed it was being bungled all the way.
What was the delay?
Sighing grumpily, he reached into his inner pocket for the cigarettes they had allowed him to keep, after properly fluorescing the contents of the pack, and each cylinder of tobacco, under their special infrared light devices. It was when he reached for one of the butts that he first noticed the white business card inserted between the cellophane and the package proper.
Amazed, Zorki held the card up. The light of the cubicle was dim. When he saw the small, hand-stenciled words printed there, he could barely restrain a bleat of joy. It said:
BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER
EGRET
Zorki, aware that his movements in the square cubicle might be under a closed Television circuit supervision, stifled a yawn and extracted a cigarette. He was proud of the fact that his hand did not shake with the excitement he felt.
THRUSH was here! In the very heart of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters. Somehow they would liberate him. Free him to go on with his great plan to institute the program that would assuredly guarantee the domination of the civilized world.
Da, THRUSH would fly over the world. As befitted the eagle of the skies.
If he had had any doubts about the organization's belief in himself and his plan, they were totally dispelled by the greatest consideration of all. It was a tremendous honor, all in all.
Dr. Egret was tending to his escape herself.
The legendary, terrifying, extraordinary woman who was all that THRUSH itself stood for.
Clean Slate
Mark Slate was very unhappy. It didn't show on his angular, handsome face. The Briton was one of those men who have the ability, usually something they have worked hard for years to attain, of keeping a poker-faced countenance. This control of his intelligent features, and the wry amusement usually found in his eyes, was something that not even his closest associates at U.N.C.L.E. had ever been able to fathom. Including his fellow agent and dearest chum, April Dancer.
To Mr. Riddle, and Arnolda Van Atta, Slate's face was inscrutable. He might have been a Chinaman for all they could tell about him. The true Englishman has an almost Oriental indifference in his nature, thanks to centuries of wars won on the playing fields of Eton. Slate had gone to Cambridge, of course; he could be roasted alive before he would say as much as, "Ow, that hurts."
The ride in the panel truck had ended.
Slate had come to, following a blow on his skull in the darkened corridor, to find himself in another complex situation. Someone had had the decency to outfit him in a pair of blue jeans and a Basque shirt of sorts. But the Christian impulses had ended right there.
He lay face down on a hard wood table, his arms spread-eagled and strapped with leather thongs to the front two legs. Similarly, his ankles were ringed and shackled to the other legs. He was puzzled by the crudity of his position until he saw the niceties of his predicament. He had to restrain a hopeless grin. THRUSH had its methods: this surely was one of the very thorniest.
By craning his face upwards, he could see directly in front of him. The sight was not heartwarming. The wall before him held a large, square recess which in turn displayed a .30 caliber Browning machine gun mounted on its tripod. The air-cooled kind of gun which American GI's used in the field. A gleaming ammunition belt fed directly into its breech from a wooden box stamped U.S. ARMY M-1. The nose of the weapon, with its peculiar, perforated barrel, was leveled directly at his face. He was literally staring into the mouth of the Browning. Further examination revealed that a length of black wiring ran from the trigger beneath the stock, ending in an attachment to one of the legs of the table below his outstretched body. A lanyard sort of affair. A tug on the wire and—boom! It did not take an Einstein to calculate the device; were he even to jar the table a fraction of an inch in the hope of freeing himself, the .30 caliber would open up.
A noisy demise and a messy one. Slate chose not to think about it.
He was too busy trying to determine the amount of time since he had last seen April Dancer.
He heard them come into his room not long after he had awakened. His keen ears picked up the sound of a woman's heels and the heavier tread of three men. They seemed to fan out around the table, surrounding him on all sides. Yet, he was certain they remained out of the line of fire of the Browning.