Slate examined her dubiously.
"I could shinny over it, but do you think you could make it in a skirt without splitting something?"
"We'll go through it," she said.
She took a piece of gum from her bag and popped it into her mouth.
Slate gave her a delighted smile.
"That's what I like about you, April. You're a girl of direct action. You believe the shortest distance between two points is a straight line."
"Why be subtle?" she asked.
"Eventually they'll discover we're gone anyway. Why should we care if we leave our escape route well marked?"
She took a rubber band from her purse and fitted it over two fingers. Taking the wad of gum from her mouth, she worked it into a tight ball, fitted it into the rubber band and drew it back between her veed fingers. Carefully aiming, she let fly at a point on the ground only inches in front of the fence.
There was a puff of smoke and a muffled explosion. When the smoke cleared, there was a gaping hole in the fence three feet high and three feet across.
April ran to the hole and crawled through first. Slate was right behind her. They had darted across the street and had run to the busy intersection of the main street fronting the studio grounds before there was any reaction from the studio area.
Standing on the corner amid twin streams of passing pedestrians, they looked back. One or two pedestrians had paused and were looking that way too, but for the most part people on the street paid no attention to the explosion. Like New Yorkers, they probably didn't want to be involved, April thought.
About a dozen people inside the fence were staring at the hole in it. Among them April recognized Sancho Moreno, Consuela Cortez and Pedro Martinez.
Mark Slate flagged a passing taxi over to the curb. As he held the door open for her, April glanced back again. Sancho Moreno had spotted them and was glaring their way.
April waved to him and stepped into the cab.
En route back to the hotel April said, "What do you suppose an Upsa-Daisy is?"
"Candy bar, I imagine," Slate said. "You chew 'em, and it can't be tobacco or gum, because you also gulp 'em down."
April made a face. "I'll add 'em to my list of products I never intend to buy. Lito's Fritos and Upsa-Daisies."
They rode in silence for some blocks. Presently April said, "Shouldn't we report to Mr. Waverly, Mark?"
When there was no answer, she glanced at him. He was gazing abstractedly at the back of the driver's neck.
"Mark!" she said.
Slate blinked and turned his head. "Yes?"
"You let her get to you again!" she accused. "Didn't you have sense enough not to watch and listen?"
After a momentary expression of startlement, he turned on a rueful smile. "That blasted jingle was going through my mind," he admitted. "But I don't think it has me hooked. I only had one exposure, and it took a full week of watching the other one several times a night to get to me."
"You were off in space just now."
"The thing is still fresh in my mind. I'll clamp down a mental lid every time I start to think of it from now on. I'm sure I don't need another brainwash."
After studying him, she nodded.
"I'll take your word for it. But if you continue staring off into space periodically, we're going to catch a plane for New York."
The cab pulled up in front of the Hotel La Paz.
They got out and Slate paid the driver.
On the way up in the elevator, Mark Slate suddenly gave his head a violent shake. April looked at him inquiringly.
"It tried to slip into my mind again," he said ruefully. "I clamped down the lid before the first line could fully form. See, I'm able to control it."
"I hope so," she said without much assurance.
Slate's room was nearest to the elevator. They both entered it. April Dancer took the earplug from her bag and slipped it into her ear. After listening for a moment, she removed it and dropped it back into her purse.
"You're a suspicious young lady," Slate said.
"Our names are in that registration book," she reminded him. "Also our local address. They could have sent someone over to bug our rooms."
"Except that they wouldn't have bothered," he pointed out with masculine logic. "They had us in custody and never meant to release us alive, or at least not until we were raving mad.
"Why would they bug a couple of rooms they never expected us to return to?"
She made a face at him. Taking her pen-communicator from her bag, she called Section II at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters.
When Mr. Waverly's voice said, "Yes, Miss Dancer?" she reported at length about their visit to the studio grounds and what they had learned there.
When she finished, Waverly said, "You think all three jingles are already taped, eh?"
"From what Moreno said, it sounded as though they had just finished taping the second one before we sneaked into the recording studio. We didn't actually see or hear it, though." After a pause, she added, "Thank goodness for that little thing."
"I see your point," Waverly said. "Is the one you heard as horrible as the Lito's Fritos jingle?"
"Worse."
"Is that possible?" Waverly asked with mild surprise. "You don't believe they are planning to tape any more in the near future, though?"
"Their writers haven't been able to come up with any more jingles satisfactory to Sancho Moreno, sir. He indicated that it might be weeks before they do."
"Then here are your orders, Miss Dancer. Before they have a chance to ship the completed tapes to Wescott and Coombs, you and Mr. Slate must get hold of all copies and destroy them."
"Yes, sir. But won't they just remake them?"
"Delaying tactics, Miss Dancer.
Eventually we will have to come up with a plan to end the operation permanently. Meantime it is imperative to prevent the tapes already completed from appearing on American television."
"Yes, sir," April said, a little dubiously.
"You sound as though you do not approve, Miss Dancer."
"Well, it seems like a stopgap measure which is going to leave us with the same problem."
"It is a stopgap measure, Miss Dancer," Waverly said patiently. "Nothing more is possible at this point. We can hardly bring the Lombodia police into it. There is nothing illegal about making singing commercials, although perhaps there should be. We must have time to plan effective counter measures."
"All right, sir," April said.
"Mark and I will raid the studio tonight and attempt to destroy the tapes."
She broke the connection, replaced the pen in her purse and looked at Mark Slate.
"Were you paying attention?" she asked.
"I'm not hooked on that jingle," he said a trifle testily. "I haven't even started to think of it since it tried to drift into my mind on the elevator."
"Bravo," she said. "Ten whole minutes."
"Don't be a nag," he said. He glanced at his watch. "It's cocktail time. It'll be hours before it's dark enough to hit the studio, so we may as well relax."
"Are you buying?" April asked cautiously.
"Did you ever?" he countered. She said sweetly. "I accept your kind offer. I'll be ready in ten minutes."
She left the room and went next door to her own room.
SIX
PLACE OF NO RETURN
At this time of year it did not get completely dark until nine. April Dancer and Slate had a taxi drop them a block from the studio grounds at nine-thirty.
Slate was dressed the same way as he had been that afternoon, except for the camera, but April had changed from her native garb. Tonight she wore a tight, plain black dress and spike heels.
There was no moon, but the sky was clear and starlit. The street fronting the studio grounds was also brightly lit by street lamps. The grounds themselves were dark, however, and there were no lights in any of the buildings.
As this was primarily a commercial section, the streets were deserted at
this time of night. April and Slate paused in front of the closed main gate and peered in. No one was in sight.
The gate was padlocked. Taking the spring steel hairpin from her hair, April reached for the lock. To her surprise she found that it hadn't been snapped shut.
"It's already open," she said. She tucked the pin back into her hair.
Slate frowned. He made no move to lift the padlock from its hasp and push open the gate. Instead he carefully studied the dark buildings inside the enclosure.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" April asked.
"Uh-huh. I suspect we had better look this gift horse in the mouth. If you were Moreno, wouldn't you expect us to come back again?"
"Of course. I would make it easy to get in, and have a reception committee waiting."
"Let's find a harder route in," Slate suggested.
"It might be safer," April agreed.
They walked back the way they had come. When they reached the corner where the taxi had dropped them, they turned right for a block, then right again. They came out at the rear of the fenced area.
The street running along the rear of the studio grounds was a secondary one and was much less brightly lighted than the main street fronting the area. They found the rear gate tightly pad-locked.
April's spring steel hairpin easily opened the lock. Slate paused in the act of pushing open the gate.
"I just had a thought," he said.
"What?"
"THR USH people tend to be pretty devious. Moreno should have known we would smell fish when we found the main gate unlocked. Maybe he figured it would drive us around to this rear gate."
April peered through the wire mesh at the dark buildings. "I don't see anyone lurking in ambush."
"That doesn't necessarily mean they aren't there. I'm going in alone."
She frowned at him. "Why?"
"So only one of us will be caught if a trap has been set. You'll be free to try to get me out of it."
April could see the logic of that, but she hated to take a back seat. "All right. But why don't I go in while you wait out here?"
"Because I'm bigger than you are, and bigger people get their ways."
"Bully!" she said.
He threw her a smile, slipped through the gate and eased it shut behind him. April watched him move soundlessly toward the building where they had spied on Consuela making the singing commercial. He disappeared into its shadow.
As Mark Slate crouched next to the building, he considered the best way to escape the trap he was almost sure had been laid. So far there was no sign of one, but the unlocked front gate had been too glaringly obvious. Besides, he possessed a sort of sixth sense about danger, and alarms were clanging furiously in his brain.
If a trap had been laid, they would most likely expect him to force entry by one of the two doors into the building, he decided. Therefore it would be wise to choose a more difficult means of entry.
The most probable storage place for the tapes he was supposed to destroy was the recording room where they had been made. At least that seemed to Slate the most logical place to begin his search. He might by-pass the trap, if there was one set, and at the same time gain direct access to the tapes by slipping through the window of the recording studio.
That room was the corner one on the opposite side of the building. Silently he moved past the door by which he and April had exited from the building that afternoon. He rounded the corner and examined the window into the recording studio.
A grill consisting of narrow steel vertical bars guarded the window. The bars weren't set into the sill and the upper part of the window frame, however. There were two quarter-inch-thick bands of steel running horizontally from one side of the window frame to the other, one a couple of inches from the top of the window, the other a couple of inches above the sill. The bars were welded to these at each end.
Slate was pleased on two counts.
It hardly seemed likely that anyone inside would expect entry through a barred window, and by cutting the steel bands in only four places, it would be possible to lift the whole grill from the window.
Taking a small bottle from his coat pocket, Mark Slate leaped up to grasp the top band with his free hand and pulled himself up until his feet rested on the sill. Carefully he pulled the bottle's cork with his teeth. Hanging onto the upper steel band with one hand, he tipped the bottle and allowed a few drops of its contents to spill onto the top of the steel band between the farthest right bar and the window frame.
There was a hissing sound, a momentary dull glow and a small cloud of vapor. Molten metal dripped downward and a narrow slit appeared in the band.
Shifting position, he poured a few drops on top of the band near the left side of the frame, then immediately dropped to the ground.
When the hissing had subsided for the second time, he treated the lower crosspiece in the same way on both sides, then quickly re-corked the bottle and dropped it back into his pocket. He was grasping bars with both hands to prevent the grill from falling before the fluid ate all the way through the metal. Gently he lowered the grill to the ground.
With the grill guarding the window, apparently it had been considered unnecessary to lock it. He found it unlatched. Pushing the lower part upward, he crawled through onto the small stage where Consuelo Cortez had stood while singing the Ups a-Daisy commercial. He found himself behind the white backdrop before which the female hypnotist had stood.
He was pleased that it was still in place. It would prevent the glow of his flashlight from being seen through the window if anyone happened to glance this way.
Rounding the backdrop, he flicked on a pencil flashlight. The camera, lights, sound recorder and record player were all in the same position they had been during the recording session. The thin beam roved around the room. It touched a long table shoved against the right wall, moved on to play over the black plywood screen in front of the door, then to the left and settled on a tier of filing cabinets along that wall.
Crossing to the cabinets, he flashed the light on the small white card centering the top drawer of the first file cabinet. It read: Correspondence. He moved the light downward over cards which read: Contracts, Personnel File and Scripts.
He moved to the second cabinet. The top drawer contained films of old movies. The other three contained the tapes of old American series shows.
He went on to the third cabinet and found what he was looking for in the top drawer.
It was labeled: Singing Commercial Tapes.
He was pulling open the drawer when the room lights suddenly went on behind him.
Slate spun, reaching for his U.N.C.L.E. gun, then froze. The cold-eyed Pedro Martinez stood next to the plywood screen blocking the doorway, his thirty-eight automatic leveled.
As Slate slowly elevated his hands, Martinez said with frigid amusement, "We expected you, Senor Slate. I have been standing behind this screen ever since it grew dark. Had you come in by either door or any of the other windows, you would have found someone waiting also."
Slate shrugged. "Why did you wait so long to announce yourself?"
"It amused me to let you almost find what you were looking for. Forgive my little joke."
"Of course," Slate said. "I like a good laugh myself."
"Turn around, please."
Slate turned his back, hands still elevated. He heard footsteps approach behind him.
Then the hard edge of a palm caught him behind the ear and he tumbled forward into darkness.
When Slate awakened, he found himself spread-eagled on a long table, his wrists and ankles each bound separately, with the ropes running over the edges of the table to be fastened to the four legs. His head was throbbing dully.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his own bare chest, and he realized he was stripped to the waist. The next thing he became conscious of was a television camera a few feet to his left.
Glancing around, he saw that he was still in the recording studi
o, The table he was on was the long one he had noticed pushed against the right wall. It had been pulled out into the center of the room, presumably to make it easier to work around all four sides of it when he was being spread-eagled on top of it.
He grew conscious of someone standing just behind him. Twisting his neck, he looked up into the predatory eyes of Consuela Cortez. A couple of people were beyond her in a corner, conversing in low tones, but Slate could just barely get an impression of them from the edge of his vision and was unable to make out who they were.
"He's awake," Consuela said in her husky voice.
The two people in the corner came over to stand either side of the table and look down at him. The one to his right was the skull-faced Barth. The other was Sancho Moreno.
"Welcome back, Mr. Slate," the wide-shouldered Moreno rumbled. "You have had a nice little nap."
"Evening, Sancho," Slate said politely. "Excuse my rudeness for dropping off in the middle of the party."
The big man's heavy features formed into a humorless smile. "Your poise exceeds your intelligence, Mr. Slate. Were you so foolish as to think we wouldn't expect another visit?"
"The thought occurred to me," Slate admitted. "I had to chance it anyway. Orders from above, you know."
Moreno snorted. "You are English, aren't you?"
"That's right, old boy."
"You stupid Britons. If you're ordered to march into cannon fire, you blindly go ahead, even though you know it's suicide."
"Stiff upper lip and all that, you know," Slate said lightly.
There was the sound of a door opening and closing again, then Pedro Martinez appeared from behind the plywood screen in front of the door.
"No sign of her," he said. "I scoured the whole area."
He must be talking of April, Slate thought. Which meant that they hadn't captured her. He felt a ray of hope. So long as April was still free he knew she would bend every effort to get him out of this.
He was glad he had insisted on going in alone.
Sancho Moreno drew his thick brows together in a frown. Looking down at the bound man, he said, "Where is Miss Dancer, Slate?'
"What time is it?" Slate countered.
The Velvet Voice Affair Page 6