[The Girl From UNCLE 01] - The Birds of a Feather Affair - Avallone Michael - Страница 25

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"Hmmm. Perhaps. But what else do you suggest?"

"I guess I'm just thinking out loud, sir. All we can do is what you say and hunt high and low for our traitor and his—bomb."

Mr. Waverly nodded, as if that were all he wanted to hear. He moved to his chair, arranging the battery of panels and communication buttons before him. His scholar's face was pensive. April was keenly appreciative of the enormous load of responsibility resting on her superior's shoulders. The midnight shift of personnel would be arriving shortly and a normal complement of U.N.C.L.E. people could total as many as fifty. Then there was the amazing million-dollar complex itself—the tons of equipment, devices, weapons and warehouses of filing data that had taken years and the blood of dozens of good agents to accumulate. The history of U.N.C.L.E., its many successes and its few failures, had always had that costly price placed on it. All agents faced death.

"Give Mr. Slate another half hour's rest, Dancer. Then call him. I'll busy myself with the details of our manhunt."

"Right, Mr. Waverly."

"Meanwhile I suggest—"

He paused as a beeping sound filled the office. A blue light glowed on the panel before him. Mr. Waverly depressed a buzzer, his face suddenly alert.

"Yes?"

A crisp man's voice filled the room.

"Prisoner, Mr. Waverly. Loitering in the doorway of Del Fiona's. She tried to pick the lock and set off the alarm. We have her now in the Restraint Room."

"Hmm. The shop was closed, of course. Anything else?"

"Young, very attractive, butch haircut. Pug nose. Says her name is Joanna Paula Jones and she's from U.S. Naval Intelligence."

April was out of her chair in a flash. Excitement and pleasure flooded her. Mr. Waverly spoke quietly into the transmitter, looking steadily at his agent.

"Send Miss Jones up."

"Yes, sir."

"That's her," April crowed. "Not bad for a youngster. Finding us like this. Getting out of that building alive. She must know something—"

"Let us hope so," Mr. Waverly said calmly and quietly. "We are in the need of knowledge. And miracles, I might add."

At second sight, Joanna Paula Jones seemed even younger and more adolescent than ever. Her boyishly bobbed hair, creamy white skin and tilted nose belonged on a pixie, not an agent of the armed services. Somewhere, she too had found time and wherewithal to change her attire and repair the damage of the wettest escape since the Deluge. When she saw April, her face lit up.

"Hi, there. Am I glad to see you!" She paused in embarrassment, hesitant before the solemnity of Mr. Waverly's presence. He bowed slightly, waving her to a chair.

"Ditto," April said. "But first tell me how you got out of that fix we were in. I floated downriver until I snagged the shoreline in Bronx Park."

"Miss Jones," Mr. Waverly said. "Feel free to answer Miss Dancer, I shall ask you some questions directly."

"That's very nice of you, Mr.—"

"Waverly."

"—Waverly." Joanna Paula Jones sighed, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't know. Miracle, I guess. I was washed away too. But I woke up a long way off from that building, I can tell you. Since then I've been busier than a beaver."

"I can imagine," April said. "Go on."

"I contacted my people and they told me to find you people. That was a chore. Took me all night. But I managed. You see, Naval Intelligence wants us to pool our efforts, in a sort of unofficial way, of course, depending on how things work out with Mr. Zorki." She turned to Mr. Waverly, eagerly. "You still have him as prisoner?"

Waverly nodded, not wanting to interrupt the girlish flow of her story. April hid a smile, for Joanna made her think back to her own first days as an U.N.C.L.E. agent. Possibly she had come on just as feminine and gushy as Joanna Paula Jones did now. A girl learned only with time.

"That's fine. He belongs locked up. A terrible man. Well, here I am and I want to help. I thought letting you people catch me was the simplest way. It worked too, didn't it?"

"It certainly did," April laughed. "How did you know about Del Floria's?"

Joanna Paula Jones looked surprised. "Oh, I've known that a long time. Doesn't everyone?"

Mr. Waverly now interrupted. Almost coldly.

"Everyone does not. Answer the question, please."

"When they caught me—that bunch of fanatics—and put me in that locker. Well, they asked me a lot of questions and I overheard them discussing Uncle. All about the place. The tailor shop entrance. All of it."

"Who spoke of it, Miss Jones? Try to remember."

"It was the woman." Joanna Paula Jones screwed up her piquant face thoughtfully. "Yes, that redhead. All about how they had a man planted here. Someone who had a fine Uncle record and would never be suspected. I thought you'd want to know that."

April leaned forward. "Please, Joanna. Think hard. Was the man's name ever mentioned?" Waverly tensed.

"No—I don't—wait a minute. You see, I got on to them because I met a man from Uncle a month ago. Just about the time Zorki was captured. He sort of let me in on things. Well, it was he who suggested I follow that blue truck. You know the League of Nations thing. It was a great tip. Only thing was I got caught. Almost got killed too. I would have if it hadn't been for you, Miss Dancer."

Mr. Waverly and April Dancer couldn't believe their ears. The glances they exchanged could have been emblazoned in Macy's front window for all the world to see. Was it possible that this incredibly naive young woman held the key to all their difficulties? Held the key and was unaware of it?

"Oh—" Joanna Paula Jones clapped a hand to her mouth. Her eyes popped. "How stupid I've been! You both mean that the man who talked to me is the man who's responsible for all this trouble with Mr. Zorki?"

Mr. Alexander Waverly leaned across the round table. His brown eyes targeted in on Joanna Paula Jones. There was electricity in every line of his lean body.

"Miss Jones," he said slowly, kindly, very very carefully. "Who was that man from Uncle?"

"Wilder," she said promptly, smiling to cover her error in logic. "James Wilder. He was ever so cooperative."

She repressed a shriek of dismay at the amount of activity her innocuous statement triggered. Mr. Waverly sprang back to his panel board, thumbing buzzers. April shot over to the place where her own chair was and unhooked the intercom that loomed up like a cobra head before her. She started rattling instructions into the mouthpiece, urgently calling Mark Slate's name. No static came or sounded.

Mr. Waverly thumbed on the buttons that governed the televisor screens lining the wall. Nothing happened. They remained dark and inactive. The head of U.N.C.L.E. abandoned the set, his craggy features set in hard lines. He marched rapidly toward the office door.

"Come along, Miss Dancer. You too, Miss Jones. It is no less than I expect. I only hope we aren't too late."

April nodded, following him, jerking Joanna Paula Jones out of her chair. The traitor had already made his next move. Not one of the systems in the office was functioning properly. Whatever he had decided to do was already underway. Operation Free Zorki was on the march.

All systems for that one were Go, Go. Go!

Far over the East River, fairly invisible in the dark of night, a giant helicopter chopped briskly through the skies. The riding lights were minimal, tiny stars lost in a vast arena of heaven. The full-throated roar of the motor and the mammoth circular rotation of the powerful rotary propellors were almost lost in the multiplicity of noises filling the New York night. Tugs and seagoing freighters mooed like enormous cows in the harbor. Jets zoomed across the skies. The clamor and violence of a great city still awake, still alive, still operating.

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