Zorki must be stopped at all costs.
And James Wilder, too, who now represented an even greater threat to U.N.C.L.E. than the great Zorki. Wilder was that very uncommon denominator—a homegrown traitor.
If he ever got back to THRUSH alive, with what he knew about the inner workings of Headquarters, then indeed, Judgment Day would follow. And Armageddon. And Finality.
The devil take the life everlasting formula. If there was such a heinous, ungodly concoction.
Joanna Paula Jones, thrilled at being in the midst of such an important mission, was bubbling with vivacity and excitement. April recognized the symptoms. As for Mark Slate, he was very studiously and thoroughly checking his weapon as the soundproof elevator rose swiftly.
"Mr. Slate," Waverly said.
"Sir?"
"No fireworks unless absolutely unavoidable."
Slate nodded but his eyes were still twinkling with that infernal delight that could only spring from the heart and soul of an agent who truly loves his work.
Mr. Waverly knew the breed.
Men like Slate and his two top agents in Rangoon kept U.N.C.L.E. at its high level of performance in resisting world domination by subversive forces. Until now U.N.C.L.E. had been able to stay ahead.
This affair had reached its final stage. The goal was the halting of Zorki's flight from Headquarters and the arrest of James Wilder.
In any event, Mr. Waverly would stop at nothing to achieve that goal. When all was said and done, the final issue was—the survival of the fittest.
THRUSH or U.N.C.L.E.
The roof of the building was a complicated arrangement of steel girders, air-conditioning cupolas and skylights. The huge, square billboard, which faced the Queens shoreline, and was in reality a cover for the high-frequency shortwave setup that was capable of relaying messages as far away as remote Tibet, loomed like a monster in the darkness. A dim full glow of neon suffused the tarred surface of the roof, streaming up from the city below. Asleep or not, the city's neons stayed on.
As James Wilder and Alek Yakov Zorki ran out on the tarred roof, through the metal door of the top landing, they dodged among the girders and skylights. Now, their eyes and ears were filled with thunder. The blasting roar came from just above them. They strained to look. The gigantic helicopter hovered, a bare twenty feet above the height of the billboard. Wilder led the way, knowing the pitfalls of the roof. There was no need for a flashlight, anyway. A rope ladder had snaked down from the mighty whirling mass above them.
A cool night wind fanned across the rooftop. The tremendous down-wash of the rotary blades sucked this up and created an almost stifling vacuum.
The rope ladder dangled but a hand's span from the tarred floor beneath their feet.
"Up with you," Wilder yelled. "Quick now."
Zorki flung him a wild glance, seized the stout rungs of the rope ladder and swung himself up. His powerful body, for all its bulk, climbed like an agile chimpanzee. Soon, the darkness above swallowed his moving figure.
The roar of the helicopter was deafening.
James Wilder grasped the ladder, found his footing and leaped up. He began to climb, looking back the while toward the roof door. Now, to his great dismay and fear, that door swung outward. Figures spilled out onto the tarred surface. He saw Mr. Waverly, recognized April Dancer and Mark Slate. For a terrifying moment, he felt himself caught in the middle of life and death. With his left hand, he unlimbered a long-snouted gun and aimed it back toward the roof door. The figures fanned out, scattering, including the other woman whom he didn't recognize right away. It didn't matter who she was.
"Stop!" Mark Slate yelled, trying to be heard above the rhythmic pound of the helicopter's engine. James Wilder squeezed off three quick shots, climbing again as quickly as he could. The copter churned, began to move away, with him on the rope ladder. The figures below on the roof began to recede, grow smaller. A tremendous exhilaration shot through him, as he felt the billowing updraft of new wind fill out his clothes, wash across his face and hands.
Mark Slate braced the gun in his hand across his left forearm, sighted high and fired with the deadly calmness and level-headedness of a man who knows what guns are made for and how to use them.
One shot served.
The crack and flash of the weapon was buried somewhere in the pounding noise and confusion of the mighty helicopter clawing away from the top of U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters.
It was a shot that was to be the talk of U.N.C.L.E. for years to come. Legends grew up around that single unerring blast from Slate's gun.
The bullet caught James Wilder just between the place where his neck joined his shoulders. It slammed him into the rope ladder and then the ladder snaked backward and his dead hands lost their hold. He fell straight downward, missing the roof of the building, plummeting like a stone to the sidewalk far down below. The helicopter banked steeply, bearing South, cutting across the building, swinging out in a wide turn but rising upward with all the speed of a fast-moving elevator.
April Dancer was ready for that too.
She had brought to the roof one of the light, compact guns that had been harvested from the arsenal found in the blue panel truck which had advertised ROMEO'S LEAGUE OF NATIONS EXHIBIT. A .45 caliber, Thompson submachine gun, one of the deadliest automatic weapons ever devised by the United States Army.
At close range, it was a practically unbeatable destroyer. As the helicopter flashed over the building top, rising like a bat, the range was something less than thirty yards. April braced the gun on one of the cross-girders before her, anchoring her shoulder against a convenient skylight to accept the recoil. She opened up, keeping the trigger depressed. Bursting, chattering, blazing lead erupted from the weapon, thudding into the undercarriage of the helicopter. For one full second April was able to pour it on. Pounds of lead buried themselves somewhere in the helicopter's fuselage. She had tried for the engine, one of the blades, anything.
The copter clawed briskly away, heading out over the river. April sagged against the machine gun. Spent, exhausted, her hands vibrating from the tension. Mr. Waverly had placed an arm on her shoulder. The roaring blast of the whirlybird filled the darkness of the night, and receded. The echoes of the machine gun's chatter seemed to resound on the roof. But it was an illusion.
"All right, Miss Dancer. We did our best."
"Slate got one of them," she exulted. "What a shot."
"But which one?" Mark wondered. "Better get down to see about that cadaver. I hope to God it was Wilder."
Joanna Paula Jones who had been rooted in fear and wonder at the door to the rooftop, suddenly blurted. Her high, feminine shriek was like a dash of cold water in the face.
"Look!" she shrilled. "Look!"
They looked.
Far away, yet close enough to seem like the very death of a meteor, they saw the ball of fire light up the evening sky. A gigantic flash of light which flung out as much illumination as all the neon in New York.
The helicopter was on fire. They could see the red trickle of flame, then the building, explosive flash as the whole thing ignited like a Roman candle. For one second, the whirlybird hung poised, giant blades standing out starkly in the red glare.