Mark dropped to one knee, eyes keened for more photocells. There should be a pattern of them to identify the size of objects caught in their beam. He saw the next highest; then saw something else. The window nearest to him was curtained by a sheet of the metal material and was stretched across the inside frame. A tiny chink of yellow light showed at one corner; otherwise the window reflected only moonlight.
Crouching to keep his body at the same height as the animals, he followed the goats around the path. He was nearly caught when a door opened. He heard the snick of the catch, darted close to the house wall, dropped flat. No light flowed from the open door, but the man there was clearly etched against the sky. Even his gun was in sharp relief. He swore in a guttural voice. "These goddamn goats are loose again. That's all it was. Cut out the scanners and send Longess out to round them up." The door closed.
Mark exhaled slowly. "Scanners too!" He blew a kiss towards the goats, who now were scoffing flowers from the large bed in which the aerial mast was set. "I'll never call you 'stinkers' again!" He eased upright, then sped on soundless feet across the front of the house, around the patio, and up the side of the pool. He took a chance that April was there and leapt for the patch of shadows. She almost rammed the gas gun nozzle into his ear.
"Some horse!" she whispered from under her mask.
"Some break! The goats got loose. I didn't need the horses. No booby traps, darling—just masses of cells and scanners. They've switched off until—ah, here be is! Wait here!" A man had come out from this end of the house.
Shadow leaping, silent—a swift pad-pad of feet balancing, body poised, arms reaching.
The man halted, swung around, mouth open. Eyeballs white, wild against the moonlight, glazing fast as flexed-steel hands struck once, twice. The senseless figure crumpled. Human sack among the flowers. The goats went on eating.
April anticipated the next move. A small side door was open. Mark joined her. They stepped inside, closed the door softly. A lobby, Spanish style, wall benches, hooks, overalls hanging. Riding boots, sand-yellow, a straw sombrero, the smell of garlic. Then a door, light-glow slanting through. She tiptoed past him, peered, backed up, signaled three. He nodded. They went in.
A large kitchen, fitted ranch-style, split level. Three men, cards on a plastic-topped table, were there smoking, waiting for the fourth, now sleeping among the flowers. Two were big men, one small, and they scarcely glanced up as Mark sat in the fourth chair.
"Took you long..." said one man, and broke off as the gas gun hissed.
They reared up, puking, gasping, mouths working at words which were strangled at source, then sank to the floor like jelly-babies, in all shapes.
April caught the smallest man and eased him on to the floor, steadying the tilting chair before it crashed. Mark slammed the other two over the table, patted their clothes, and drew out two guns. April bad already taken the third. She took the two from Mark, went across to the stove, and lifted a stew-pot lid. Steam eddied up. She dropped the gun inside, replaced the lid, and came back, eyes smiling.
There was a short passage before them now, high-ceilinged, one wall a whole mural, a desert scene glowing with light. On the other wall were crossed sabers, an old muzzle-loader rifle, a board with Spanish daggers akimbo. And along the pine floor was a long, narrow Jacobean antique linen chest. Mojave rugs lead to a ghastly pseudo-Moroccan archway, draped with an Indian blanket.
Beyond the drape was a large oval room, aseptic in its clinical lay-out, a ghost room, silvered with moonlight from huge picture windows. It had sound-absorbing tiles from floor to ceiling. Fluted air-conditioning vents pulsed sibilantly, loud in the emptiness, invalid chairs, their tubular chrome glistening, stood headstoning the long white graves of massage couches. There were white leather lounge chairs, canopied sun chairs, tall spindly chairs, all mocking an empty curving bar. This was the hub of the nut hatch, thought Mark. Yes indeedee.
He noticed two white doors, smooth, all smooth, with no handles, no locks, no hinges. They set to work methodically, but fast, training, experience, knowledge culled from a thousand minutes, compressed and drawn on in less than five. System, mechanism, alarms. Contacts, method, effect.
Mark made signs, not daring to use personal radios, and drew out his U.N.C.L.E. device, held it, questioning. April nodded agreement, took her cigarette lighter, adjusted it into a cutting torch. Mark traced the hair-wires, separated them, clipped on the device to one, then spat on his fingers and arced the wires. Blue light danced from finger-tip to device. A puff of white smoke, a tiny "phut"—and the alarm circuit was broken.
The torch flame burned blue-white, following the line of the alarm wires into the door post, burning deep, clean, through steel contact plate. Paint blistered in a small halo. Mark came around April, to place the palms of his hands hard on the smooth door surface, each palm holding a suction pad. The torch flame died. The blistered halo glowed half an orange bubbling, then slowly dulled to a bruise blue. The door jerked, beginning to whip back on its glides. Mark held it, saving the crashing thud when it would have hit the stops.
At the same time this action allowed an aperture for their vision and April peered through. There was a danger sign. Four—no, five—men. Noise now, too, booming out into the ghostly room. Voices, voices, voices—jabbering, murmuring; static crackling, F.M. waves pulsing sound. Mark now controlled the door with one hand, the first release impulse having gone, his head pressed against hers.
In their fan of vision stretched part of a console: TV screens, radio and radar dials, switches, colored lights. Above the console was a light-glowed map—not contoured––a linking chart of all major towns, many smaller but important centers, with Washington D.C. as the radial heart. Next in size of markings came New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and an outer perimeter of symbols linking these with the main points.
There was to be no wrecking—that had been a clear order, and a difficult order too; for this meant having to attack personnel only. C.I.A. and F.B.I. boffins must have clued on to this fantastic desert set-up, perhaps not too hard a task, once the area had been hair-lined in their checking sights. Yet it was the sort of thing that could go undetected for a long time until someone broke through to beam the concentrated forces of detection upon it.
It would be simple then to make a frontal assault—a press of men, a blaze of guns, a few grenades even—and all this pretty-pretty, grimly efficient center would go... kerump!
Then they would have to piece it all together again to find out how the place ticked and why, and how the hell all this could be assembled and operated under, or nearly under, a lot of noses. Still, Mark sighed, no wrecking; just seal off the area and shut out all the highly efficient communication aids.
Keep the finger off the button, he thought grimly. Don't call us—we'll call you. And two of them were valiant. Two volunteers—you and you! Heads close, turning, eyes gazing through the mask visors. Clear and steady, a glint of the buccaneer, a flash of the bright high spirit. Ready when you are. A reaction gaze—okay, here we go!