by Simon Latter
Slowly he edged a few inches at a time to a position directly behind the pilot, making it almost impossible for the man to sight him quickly. But Gaston became suspicious. He glanced back, hefting a stubby automatic.
"Don't try anything," he warned. "I'm putting down in a few minutes. If we crash, you'll be killed first—I'll see to that."
Kazan fired once, then leapt, his hand a searing edge slashing across the back of Gaston's neck. The gun fired upwards. The bullet sped through the perspex canopy and pinged off one of the rotor blades.
The helicopter juddered and began to slip sideways, then dipped sharply earthwards. Kazan had to use all his supple strength to roll the senseless pilot clear of the controls and then fight the now dangerously sliding chopper. The whole frame juddered as the chipped rotor caused an uneven swing. He cut power as low as he dared and kept the machine dipping and sliding in slowly descending spirals. A forest passed beneath him––then miraculously a tiny apron of a landing site appeared on his port side.
The thought occurred to him that this was the very landing site for which Gaston had been aiming. Kazan shrugged.
After all, whoever was waiting would not know Gaston was not in control. The radio was off, and to ground watchers the chopper obviously was in trouble. He snatched vital seconds to secure the gun lying between the seats before he coasted the machine to a lop-sided landing and switched off. The helicopter scuttled sideways, hopping crab-like. The action shot Kazan out of the hatchway.
He landed, cat-like, rolled several times to give his body impetus and any marksman a difficult target, then scrabbled to his feet and raced for the trees. He went deep among them to a small clearing with paths leading across it and sat beside a bush, gulping in air. Once his breath was under control he pulled out his communicator and called up Paris H.Q.
"Channel D—Channel D. Hear me. Kazan, helicopter, in woods north about twenty kilometers from Monte Carlo. Chopper damaged. Am making my way to a road. Will contact when clear of woods." Suddenly he saw movements glinting among the trees. Movements from all sides of him. He watched them come closer and closer until they ringed him with a circle of shimmering metal-clad forms.
"Mon Dieu!" said Kazan. "Rush me also a can opener—I am surrounded by canned goods! Over and out."
CHAPTER FIVE: THE PLUS FACTOR
DARTMOOR rain has a quality all its own. There is Dartmoor fog, and Dartmoor mist, and Dartmoor haze. Low cloud sweeping over the tors often will provide a mixture of all four, giving areas of sheets of penetrating rain over the highest points. On the slopes these will produce a form of fog—actually a whitish shroud of miniscule moisture globules which lies on clothing, hair, beards or eyebrows in tiny quivering haloes.
In the depressions and hollows and over the rare level areas of ground this becomes a fairy mist—light, gossamer, and cruelly unreliable. It will caress you damply one minute, give a glowing effect around you, causing an illusion of sunshine about to burst through the clouds. The next minute you are lost and stumbling through a thick grey wall. Then, according to your proximity to a tor, the wind direction and force, it will speed away, allowing you to discover you should have been on a track somewhere else. As you hurry towards another path, thankful for deliverance, the fairy mist swoops up behind you, to again wrap you in its ghostie embrace.
You forge ahead in a straight line, not realizing that one of the most joyous results of being caught in it is that you immediately walk in a circle. You usually discover this when you sink oozily in a patch of bog, or break your leg in fissure or over a rock. For the walker caught on Dartmoor in such conditions there is one golden rule—don't. Don't walk, don't move. Stay put.
The so-called enlightened Victorians knew all about Dartmoor. They knew and appreciated its wild beauty, its sweep of purple-gold, undulating to the serene summer horizon. Here, a man could walk free with only the sky and the wheeling hawks above him, the heather beneath his feet, the shy ballet dance of gamboling sheep over the hillside, and the tumbling streams, fish-laden, joyously bubbling. Which is why they built a massive grey granite prison to house the most desperate of their criminals here on Dartmoor.
There are more houses now, but the prison still stands, the moors and quarries around it—an ugly, monstrous excrement of a monument to the glory of justice and retribution so beloved by those who built it. Occasionally some prisoners escape. A few have succeeded in breaking out of the moor itself, and reaching towns. But mostly they run from working parties outside the prison, seeking shelter in the fairy mist which proves to be a more unholy prison than the grey granite walls. Many are only too glad to be recaptured. Some die—lonely and afraid in the sibilant silence of the rain and mist—or lie wracked with pneumonia after falling into the river Dart—from which the moor is named—and slowly collapse in the shivering mist.
April Dancer had read a lot about Dartmoor. In her student days she had visited the prison as part of her studies on criminal codes, patterns and behaviors as well as to aid her work on a social science degree. She could, in fact, have told Dr. Karadin a lot about Dartmoor. She'd stayed in at least three of the villages and hiked over its tors from each direction, as she also had done on Exmoor—a northerly range of hills and moors edged by the Bristol Channel. So she wondered why Karadin and the obviously wealthy organization behind him had chosen a house on Dartmoor as a research base.
Remoteness, quietness, away from prying eyes and gossiping mouths—those were reasonable factors; but were offset by the conditions of climate, time taken to reach town centers and London, and the normal difficulties of provisioning and communications, for in the very bad winters many parts of Dartmoor are cut off. Yet, she reasoned, organizations calculate all factors and their decisions are reached on the plus factor. What was the plus factor of Moorfell? If her own hunch was right, the climate itself could be this plus factor.
For that matter, why England at all? Karadin was French. Wouldn't he know of many isolated places in France? April Dancer had not yet received sufficient proof that THRUSH was the organization back of Karadin, but there were pointers which made her feel it safer to assume that this—whatever it was—had all the mark of a THRUSH project. And THRUSH had the world to choose from. She didn't believe for one moment that research into air pollution was Dr. Karadin's sole purpose in England. The British were well aware of their own air-pollution problems. Still, they might welcome Karadin and grant him certain facilities—such as permits to obtain drugs or chemicals needed for research, or to smooth the way a little by allowing a helicopter to land and take off near his base.
April had long since given up trying to analyze hunches which, in the past, had saved her life or that of a companion. She was aware that it was illogical and against the concepts of her training, but when these hunches were linked to fact they had previously been proved valid. It was too early for full understanding of the forces at work, and why, but with out doubt there was a tie-up between Carnaby Street, Karadin and incidents in America and Paris.
She had another hunch that Mark Slate would be discovering other links through the over-obvious attachment of Suzanne. April had knowledge that the vast network of U.N.C.L.E. was now following up her early reports, so that from a purely personal endeavor she now was on an assignment. She stepped from the helicopter, calmly dignified, having shed her Miss Babbling Tourist character and freed herself of the uncomfortable sticking plaster.
"I'm so glad I got to you." She smiled sweetly at Karadin. "Up to the moment when you pulled a gun on me and struck me with it, you were, as far as I'm concerned, completely within the law. Now you're guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, assault upon the person and detention by force. You're really not very bright are you?"
"Your trick was more clever than you think." He guided her towards the car. "My wife was a virago, a screaming shrew who babbled and screeched until she wore me out. So I am particularly vulnerable on that score. But I do not believe any great harm has been done. Once inside Moorfell you
would have discovered you were a prisoner. Your torment of me merely caused that knowledge to be advanced."
They entered a closed car. The two attendants squeezed on to small occasional seats facing them. They were swarthy, impassive men.
"Manou and Greco," said Karadin. "Nice fellows, unless you upset them. They look like brothers but are not."
"You have some funny types working for you," said April. "Almost as if you expected prisoners."
"All secret projects must have a security force. I have overriding authority, but it is not strictly my affair. Once I hand you over to Sirdar's department, I am free of you."
"Sirdar the Turk?" said April. "I thought these two play mates looked familiar. Although you see their breed in every country. They all look as if they had the same mother—or perhaps I mean father?"
"Ah yes, of course—you would know of Sirdar the Turk in your business. It shows what an innocent I am in these international affairs. I had never heard of him. Have you ever met him?"
"Once," said April. "I broke both his arms."
"Oh dear!" said Karadin. "Then he will not like you very much, will he? But not to worry. He is not in England right now."
"He's prospered during these last few years. There seems to be limitless money to hire bodyguards, security guards and other thick-necked scum of our modern society. Oh, by the way, Doctor, I forgot to tell you..."
The car had entered a curving driveway. Karadin was moving in his seat, hand on door. He paused and looked back at her. "Yes?"
"Oh, nothing!" She smiled brightly. "It'll keep." The house was squat, dark-stoned under the dripping canopy of the trees surrounding it. Once a small moorland house, it obviously had been enlarged by wings at each side and a glass-enclosed verandah stretching from end to end, so that the original upper floor and roof appeared to have been stuck on as a builder's afterthought.
The hail was bright with fluorescent lighting, reflecting from white paint on walls and a number of smooth-paneled doors. A stone-flagged floor with a large refectory table dead center gave the place the air of a morgue. In an alcove beside the front door, an elderly man sat at a console of switches and dials. April noticed also a short-wave sender/ receiver radio.
Karadin said: "Your purse, Miss Dancer." He held out his hand.
"Oh, please!" she protested. "There's only a lady's doodads in it. Let me keep my self-respect!"
As she already had transferred certain vital U.N.C.L.E. devices to special pockets in her attractively fitting costume, she didn't really care whether or not they took it. She was not surprised when Greco snatched it from her.
Karadin searched it, tipping out the contents on to the table. The safety-catch was on the compact, so that when he flipped it open it appeared to be a harmless toiletry, as did the stiletto comb and the lipstick. April had had to take a chance on these remaining if she were made prisoner. No modern miss would be without such items in her purse. She left one red-herring—an obsolete U.N.C.L.E. communicator.
"Ah!" said Karadin, seizing it. "This is one lady's doodad you will not need!" He shrugged. "Otherwise—who wants such clutter?" He prodded the lining, then threw the purse across the table.
As her real communicator was tucked safely on her person she made a show of protest by swearing softly in French, a fact which seemed to please Karadin. He patted her hand.
"You must believe me—I am so sorry you forced me to take this action. I am not a fanatic, though many have called me one. I am sorry too that with your beauty and talents you should have chosen such a hazardous and unrewarding career." He gave a despairing gesture with his hands. "Oh, I do not mean money—no doubt you are highly paid—but you could have been a physicist, a doctor, a great sociologist—the world was yours to choose. I was one teacher who gave you the foundation on which to build. You took my teaching but laughed at my ideals and my ideas. Now, you are still the pupil and I am still the master, but this time your lesson is going to be painful—and possibly final."
"Yet you would send me to it?" she enquired.
Again he spread his hands. "As I would send a child for correction. If you will not learn, then you must suffer. If you seek only to destroy all that you do not understand or agree with, then it may be necessary that you be destroyed."
She stared at him with level, unblinking gaze.
"I believe you are planning to create a currency chaos. If you do so, then you and your associates may become the rulers of the world. Would you expect us to stand by and applaud your efforts to achieve a near-world domination?"
His eyes glittered. "Oh yes, indeed you are dangerous, my dear Miss Dancer. And I am an emotional old fool to even try respecting your womanhood. Your brain is fast and deep, and I think you too have your dreams of power, yet you deny them to others." He snapped his fingers at Manou and Greco. "Take her—you know where."
She let them—in fact, made them—carry her up the stairs. They dumped her on a divan bed in a small, sparsely furnished room overlooking the rear of the house. The window was barred, but close inspection showed these were old fittings from the days when the room might have been a nursery.
"Well, sweetie," she said to herself, "you've got yourself just where you wanted to be—nicely helped along by K, the nutcase. We will now get organized." She began testing various items of equipment, and rearranging the U.N.C.L.E. devices about her person.
The house was quiet. The rain pattered hesitantly against the window, easing off now, the mist clearing from the lower slopes of the moors it had shrouded. She tested the compact TV circuit. Reception was poor, but by climbing on a chair and reaching up to where a TV aerial lead-in passed the window she obtained a stronger signal.
The voice was mushy and his picture blurred, but Roberts, the link man in London, could hear her. He listened carefully to her report and gave her the information for which she'd been waiting. "Good," she said. "Just what I wanted. But the British S.B. aren't holding the girl, are they?"
"There's not really any charge against her. In fact, she could charge Mr. Slate with assault."
April chuckled softly. "I bet she would too. Now listen, Robbo—get on to Slate's friend Jeff and fix for him to hustle Suzanne into that nursing home we control in London. You know?"
"I know. Are you asking for assistance?"
"Not yet. I must find out the purpose of this place before we make any attack. This is a lone-wolf job. If we bungle it, the whole organization may fade away." She paused, hearing footsteps. "Danger comes. Over and out."
She leapt to the door, hammering on it with her fists and yelling: "Hey—you there—hey!" The lock snicked back. She had to jump away to avoid being hit by the door as it crashed inwards.
"You stop," said Greco. "No shout—see?" His big hand stretched out, dirty spatulate fingers almost touching her lips.
Revulsion filled her with sudden fury.
"Don't paw me—you big clunk!" Her hands fastened on wrist and elbow. She moved fast and sure. Greco yelled as the bone snapped in the same second that his body was impelled in a flying arc across the room. He crashed on to the washbowl, head first. It split asunder as his head lolled back among the debris. She stepped across and took the gun from his pocket.
"Oh, well!" April Dancer shrugged. "I guess I was too good to last." She walked downstairs.
The elderly man at the console stared at her. Then at the leveled gun. His fingers eeked towards a red button.
"Please don't," said April. "I dislike killing, and wounding is messy."
The man's fingers stopped moving.
"I want one thing from you, Pop—just one. On which extension can I speak to Dr. Karadin?"
"Extension 12." He flicked a finger towards the board. "You just depress this key." He grinned. "You've got guts, lass, but you'll not get out of here. Yon moor is a scary place for a girl on her own, even if you do."
"Well, well! A soft-hearted custodian. And Yorkshire to boot!"
"Aye." His eyes widened. "Nay, lass, wait..."
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The tiny sleep gun spat accurately. He clapped a hand to his chest, his eyes filled with fear.
"It's okay, Pop," she said softly, coming close. "You'll just sleep, that's all—just sleep."
His eyes glazed even as she spoke. April eased him into the corner, where the console hid him from a casual glance. She sped to the front door, turned a massive key and gently opened the heavy door. The rain had stopped. Golden shreds patterned the sky. She surveyed the path curving between shrubbery to the eastern wing, paused for a moment, then stepped hack into the morgue-like hall. She called extension 12.
"Karadin," he snapped. "Sam, I told you not to call me unless it was urgent."
"I've remembered what I wanted to tell you," said April. "We have Suzanne. She is in the Baldini Clinic in west London. Phone them and confirm it. We also have Ginger Coke—and a few others."
She heard him gasp before she lowered the handset, sped to the front door and out on to the path, ducking under a bush when she saw Karadin and two white-coated figures rushing along the verandah.
Her trained, experienced and highly intuitive mind reasoned that Moorfell was more a testing base than a research centre. The extensions to the original house, although cleverly constructed of local stone, were not more than a year old. The switchboard's intercom key tags bore only one marked LAB. April had noticed three marked TEST, and two marked RANGE. Therefore the extensions must be mainly functional and contained few sleeping and living quarters—probably only four, excluding the three rooms on the second floor—because the other key tags were numbered 8 to 12. Karadin was 12 and he'd come from this end. He wouldn't go chasing the length of the building each time he wanted to leave, or at times of test on what could well be outside areas—or ranges.