The Mesmerizing Mist Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  Mark continued to peer through the dirty window in an apparently aimless manner.

  He saw a girl struggling through the press, on the sidewalk across the street. If he hadn't been concentrating on that particular patch of cement, he could easily have missed her. She was almost indistinguishable from the hurried and harried looking young housewives who milled about her.

  Wisps of black hair hung damply over one eye. Her loose-fitting, coarsely-woven black sweater was hiked up on one side by a feverishly clutched parcel. A bulging shopping-bag pulled a shoulder down into an awkward slope.

  Slate's eyes continued to scan the scurrying form approvingly. Stretch pants, a size too large to attract wolf whistles. Teetering high heels on black open-sandals. Over-painted mouth opening and closing rapidly on a blob of chewing-gum.

  He smiled inwardly. It was very unlikely that anyone in the business and resort capitals of the world, who had been exposed to the charms of April Dancer would associate this dowdy young shopper with the glamorous girl from U.N.C.L.E. April blended like a chameleon into the humdrum backdrop.

  Slate ran an expert eye over the nearby pedestrians, then searched further back for a possible "tail." Nothing suspicious that he could see.

  April Dancer slowed down to a shuffle. She and Mark had timed this carefully. She would not walk into the tiny tailor shop that loomed just ahead until assured she was not being followed.

  Her eyes roamed across the street and met those of the man behind the grimy tavern window. Slate raised the tankard of ale to his lips. It was the all-clear signal. Shifting the unwieldy parcel to a higher position, with a quick lift of a hip, she turned into the dingy shop.

  Slate continued to sit idly at the bar. April would be on the U.N.C.L.E. side of a secret panel in a matter of moments. Even the possibility that a "tail," unobserved by him, might dash into the store after her, didn't worry him too much. The camouflage was virtually fool-proof. He knew from experience.

  The tailor-shop was the top secret strategic entrance to the maize of electrically monitored corridors, offices, computers, experimental laboratories and high-powered transmitters that comprise the central headquarters of U.N.C.L.E. It was located innocently within the shadow of the United Nations Building on Manhattan's bustling East-side.

  Slate looked at his wrist-watch, then walked to the man behind the Racing Form and handed him a dollar bill. Resisting the urge to overtip, he rummaged through the change handed to him and placed a frugal fifteen cents on the mahogany before taking his departure.

  The little gray-haired man at the steam-pressing machine looked up indifferently as Slate entered the tailor-shop. The girl behind the counter finished slipping a plastic cover over a blue suit and handed it to the shop's sole customer, a bald-headed man, wearing the twin to the covered suit he was now carrying.

  Slate spoke to the girl behind the counter as the man was walking through the door. "I've lost my receipt. Mind if I look through the suits that have come back from the cleaner? Can't miss it. It's gray flannel with a red pin-stripe."

  As the door closed, behind the bald-headed man, the girl pointed to the racked suits at the rear of the shop. Slate strolled to the racks, looked them over, gave his head a negative shake and disappeared behind another crowded rack.

  The man at the pressing machine pushed a lever. Clouds of vapor issued from the exhaust and obscured an opening panel in the wall. Slate stepped through into a small anteroom. The panel closed behind him. He knew he was being scrutinized closely. A panel on the opposite side opened and he walked into the first of a labyrinth of monitored corridors that eventually brought him into Mr. Waverly's swank reception room.

  The girl at the reception desk smiled a greeting, and gestured toward a door. "Mr. Waverly is expecting you."

  An electric eye opened the door as Mark Slate approached. He walked into an office containing a single large desk, dotted with telephones, a flashing communications panel, several comfortable looking chairs and a divan.

  Alexander Waverly extended a hand of greeting. Randy Kovac, one of the brilliant youngsters being groomed as future U.N.C.L.E. agents, waved to Mark from his post at the communications panel.

  A slightly breathless April Dancer was just sinking onto the divan as Slate entered. The newcomer noticed with amusement that the girl from U.N.C.L.E. had made a quick change into more alluring habiliment before the scheduled briefing in Mr. Waverly's office. One of the features of central headquarters was a well-equipped wardrobe room, where clothes tailored to each agent's measurement were available at an instant's notice.

  Slate always made his wardrobe changes after the briefings, but a look at the rapt countenance of young Randy Kovac and the admiring glint in the boss's eyes, not only explained but, in his opinion, completely justified April's lightning transformation from the dowdy to the delectable.

  Mr. Waverly waited until April was seated before returning to his chair behind the desk. Slate sat down beside his glamorous colleague, on the divan.

  "First of all," Mr. Waverly said, "I want to thank you both personally for a job well done. Establishing a definite link between the Bahalia Movement and THRUSH was most important. You also did an excellent bit of work on the THRUSH aircraft. Mr. Slate, your sketches and written descriptions have proved helpful to our aerodynamics experts. So have your pictures, Miss Dancer. Now, let us talk about the future. We still have a tremendous task to accomplish. "

  His gaze was quizzical as he surveyed them. "You were probably mystified at my allowing young Walton to be spirited away from his grandmother's estate. I can tell you now that I counted on the abduction. "

  He raised a restraining hand as April started to speak. "Thanks to your persuasive powers, Miss April, we now have an agent located at the very heart of the THRUSH conspiracy. No one on our staff could have possibly gone behind the scenes as young Walton has---I see you have a question, Mr. Slate."

  "Two, if you please, sir. Where is Bob Walton? And how do we contact him?"

  "Before I give you and Miss Dancer your instructions, I'm going to test your powers of deduction. Where would you look for Mr. Walton?"

  Mark Slate shrugged. "Deduction is not my cup of tea, but, at a rough guess, I'd say he and his grandmother could be at THRUSH headquarters in Tibet."

  "And you, Miss Dancer?"

  "Please forgive me if I seem to ramble, Mr. Waverly, but in studying your list of Bahalia's rich widows and their assets, I note that each one is a majority stockholder in an aviation company, a transcontinental bus or trucking company, or a railroad. This indicates a plot by THRUSH to take over America's transportation complex.

  "The presence of former Nazi terrorist Kurt von Krause suggests that this transportation control could be a prelude to military action. THRUSH would want to establish a base reasonably close to the heart of America's transportation system, yet isolated enough to escape observation. When Bob Walton made it impossible for them to operate from his grandmother's Palm Beach estate, because his disappearance would be immediately investigated, they shifted to an even more secluded spot in the United States."

  April shot a quick glance at Mr. Waverly. His features revealed nothing. She continued slowly. "I'm sure you have another list with the location of the American resort estates owned by all of Bahalia's fat cats. Now, you intend to pin two tails on the donkey who owns an estate, not too far removed from a metropolitan complex, but even more difficult of access than the Twombley place in Palm Beach."

  Mr. Waverly's snort could have meant anything; even amusement. He cast a furtive glance at Randy Kovac. The young man at the control board caught the look and blushed a bright red.

  "So help me, Mr. Waverly. I didn't tell---"

  Mr. Waverly displayed one of his rare smiles. "Mr. Kovac," he said, "you have my complete confidence. I know you didn't tell Miss Dancer where she and Mr. Slate are being assigned."

  He turned back to the waiting pair. "I am going to pin two tails named April Dancer and Mark Slate on a d
onkey named Penelope Pine. Mrs. Pine owns the most logical hideaway for THRUSH. Her wooded acres in New England are on an island that rises a sheer two thousand feet above the water. There is no way to get to the walled-in estate on the plateau except up a privately-owned cable-lift. You will both check in at a nearby ski resort named Franconick. It is only a short boat ride from Mrs. Pine's island.”

  Waverly rose to his feet, extended a hand, first to April, then to Mark, and handed them separate briefcases. "Detailed instructions are inside. Contact me when you locate Mr. Walton. Not before. Good-by and good luck."

  SEVEN

  LITTLE INDIAN---BIG MEDICINE

  Members of the international set, who considered it an honor to be house guest on Penelope Pine's lofty acres, thought of her island estate as the last word in fashionable seclusion. National magazines ran picture-spreads of the mansion, the gardens, the view of the surrounding mountains from the top of its sheer cliffs and the electric cable-car that furnished the sole means of entry and exit.

  Society's inner circle thought its fortress-like isolation was due to "Penny" Pine's snobbish desire to avoid the proletariat, but Penny's long-since discarded friends of the Prohibition Era knew different. They were aware that she and her now deceased husband, Barney Pine, had selected this plateau, high above the placid waters of Lake Charlot, because it furnished them with a surprise-proof hideaway from the avenging guns of rival rum-runners. Like many of the now respectable fortunes, the Pine millions had emerged from the blood baths of the illicit booze era.

  Penny sat before a mirror in her suite at the mansion and looked at her reflection with a Mona Lisa smile. She frowned her annoyance as the mirror revealed the figure of her personal maid in the background. Penny's eyes traveled between her image and her maid. Maria would have to leave. She was far too elderly and sedate for the dynamic executive Penny had become.

  "Yes, Maria?" she said impatiently.

  "Pardon me, Madam, but Miss Gandura asked me to remind you that there will be a mystic conclave in the music room within a half hour."

  Penny nodded and waved a curt dismissal. Her eyes shone with the fervor of the fanatic, as she continued to admire her reflection in the mirror. She smiled happily as she recalled the ruthless way she had resumed active management of her trucking and bus enterprises under Bahalia's direction. She had lopped off heads in high places. Key men in Krishna's brain-trust had taken their jobs.

  One of the fired executives had committed suicide. Penny had laughed like a hyena when she heard the news.

  As Mrs. Pine neared the music room she sighted Annabelle Twombley walking in the same direction. The two linked arms. They surveyed the group in the large, mirrored room.

  Penny saw Annabelle's grandson, Robert Walton, in animated conversation with Gandura. She thought again how fortunate they were to have young Walton as a house guest. Dr. Conrad was a dear. So were Krishna, his aide, Fritz Waller, Dr. Conrad and Dr. Habib Mahommed, but Annabelle's strapping grandson was the only man on her mountaintop retreat who danced the frug, the watusi and other way-out dances, with the verve of youth and the facility of an expert.

  "I'm so glad Robert decided to become a disciple," Penny said. She and Annabelle Twombley sank into deep comfortable chairs and smiled a greeting to the other disciples.

  Mrs. Twombley nodded agreement. "The dear boy! I'm so proud of him. He's the first male convert. Isn't it strange the way the men in our set continue to resist the truth?"

  "Not so strange," Penny said complacently. "The men are the ones who have plunged the world into the condition it's in. It's high time we took over, with the help of the divine spirit. Every day I see it more clearly. The only way we can halt this continuing descent into the abyss of war is through submission to Bahalia. Isn't it thrilling to play an important part in the divine spirit's plan for taking over the world by controlling its thinking?"

  Penny drew a deep breath and sat more erect. "I love the feeling of power that it gives me to communicate directly with Bahalia. You and I and the other disciples will be the leaders of the new world."

  Bob Walton left Gandura and sank into a chair beside his grand-mother.

  Doctor Mahommed and Gandura took their places on the dais.

  As the tiny Indian beauty and the Hindu mystic began a singsong chant, a barely discernible mist of sweet-smelling anesthesia filtered into the room.

  The built-in ventilation fans in the wall behind the dais blew the fumes away from Gandura and the mystic, but they did not have to depend entirely upon the fans for protection from the mist's insidious effects. Both had spent a half hour, previous to the conclave, inhaling an atmospheric antidote to the fumes.

  Gandura's eyes swept over the disciples. They sat erect and at ease. They would remain in a drugged state for four hours. During that time they would receive individual instructions from "Bahalia." Each would leave the room and carry out those orders to the letter. None of the assignments were important. They were routine. This particular conclave was simply another in a series of experiments to prove that a combination of the mist and the spoken word could mesmerize an unsuspecting populace into obeying orders.

  Gandura sighed softly as her eyes rested on young Walton. The pretty little Indian had no compunctions about using arrogant, overbearing dowagers for experimental purposes and as guided automatons, but she was disturbed about the brainwashing effects of the mist on this fresh-faced boy.

  She knew only too well from the series of experiments they had conducted, over lengthy periods of time, that continued exposure to the anesthetizing mist transformed people into parroting puppets. Every one of the disciples in the room, with the sole exception of the boy, had long since reached that robot-like stage.

  Gandura thought of the fate that awaited the "disciples." Before she, Mahommed and Dr. Conrad had journeyed to the United States, they had tried Dr. Conrad's revolutionary mist out on captive Buddhist monks. She had been impressed with the immediate compliance of this hostile group. All answered immediately to orders given under the mist. Six months of continuous exposure had made them permanently subservient to the will of their masters.

  The tiny Indian's mind traveled in retrospect to the monastery that had served as an experimental station. The priests who continued to be exposed to the mist for as long as a year had become hopeless imbeciles. She shuddered as she thought of their senseless screams and distorted faces.

  Mahommed's touch on her arm brought her back to the present. "You first," the mystic said.

  Gandura scanned the memoranda in her hand. She began to intone instructions directed individually to the anesthetized disciples. She and Mahommed alternated. When they reached the end of the list, all of the women had left the room. Each had been followed by a turbaned attendant, who would give a detailed report on their actions later that day.

  The mystic raised a questioning eyebrow as he pointed to young Walton. Gandura said softly, "I would prefer to give Robert his instructions privately, as usual."

  Mahommed leered. "Of course, my dear." Gandura waited until the mystic had left the room before touching Bob Walton's arm.

  "You will come with me," she said.

  Walton nodded and followed her from the room. Gandura looked around cautiously as they entered her suite. There was no one in sight. She locked the door behind them and pointed to the divan.

  "Lie there and make yourself comfortable," she ordered. Again Bob Walton complied. A moment later, she was attaching the tubes that would bring the atmospheric antidote she and Mahommed used into Walton's lungs.

  "Breathe deeply, Robert. If anyone knocks on the door, do not answer. The door will be locked. I will unlock it when I return. We will go for a nice walk in the fresh air after your rest."

  A moment later, the graceful figure was moving toward the door. The sound of a key turning in the lock was followed by the click of heels, fading into' the distance. Gandura reached the front door without incident. Donning fur-lined boots and a babushka, she shrugg
ed into her warmest mink coat and strolled out into the plateau's snow-covered gardens. Arriving at a pavilion that overlooked the powerhouse and the almost vertical cables that linked the hilltop with the rocky shore below, she gazed down at the ice-covered lake.

  One of her favorite pastimes was watching the tiny, skittering ice-craft that usually dotted the frozen surface of the lake. She saw one of the colorful little sail-sleds veer away from the pack toward the island's concrete pier. A bellow from a bull-horn warned them off.

  Gandura smiled sympathetically. The two tiny figures in the craft seemed to be struggling with the sail. She watched the two frantically twisting figures try vainly to halt the progress of the skidding vehicle. There were more and louder bellows from the shore, below.

  The tiny craft, apparently out of control, zigzagged ahead until it was within a few feet of the pier. As the roar of a powerful motor heralded pursuit from the shore, the sails filled magically and the ice-boat went into a flapping, careening turn. The motor-driven ice-sled that had started after it, made a leisurely swing and returned to the shore.

  Gandura was still smiling as she turned away and resumed her stroll through the gardens.

  Down in the slithering sail-craft, a girl, bundled in a hooded sealskin parka, continued to scan the receding shore through a tiny telescope. The man at the tiller called out to her. She shook her head and lowered the telescope.

  Mark Slate cast a disappointed look over his shoulder as he manipulated the ice-boat onto the fringe of a rotating group of similar craft.

  "I was hoping you made contact while I was wrestling with the tiller and making like a novice," he said.

  April Dancer sighed. "Not a peep. I don't mind telling you, I'm worried. We know THRUSH is holed up on that hilltop, but we don't know if Bob is with them. Worse still, we don't know if the guy is alive."

  "It's maddening, all right. All we have to show for three days of going round and round that island fortress is a wind-burned nose apiece." Slate changed course and sailed along parallel to the island. "Let's give the blind side of the island a try."