The Sinister Satellite Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  “Oh, my goodness!” she said breathlessly. “Is that gun real?”

  Napoleon smiled grimly as his eyes swept from her hair, pulled up in an unbecoming bun, down along the lineless lines of an out-of-fashion dress to flat heeled shoes.

  “Yes,” he said, “the gun is real, but you aren't! My dear, in a Paris frock or a potato sack you will still look like April Dancer to me!”

  “Stop being funny!” she said. “I am Miss Cynthia Cavendish, a schoolteacher on vacation.

  Solo stepped inside and closed the door. “A teacher, huh? What can you teach me?”

  “What can I teach you that you haven't already learned from that what-ever-she is in that skirt split way past anything I'd have nerve enough to wear?”

  “Oh! You've met her too!”

  “Who is she'?”

  “Not what she claims to be,” Solo said. “But she must be on our side. She kept me from being shot.”

  “The same thing happened to me,” April Dancer replied, peering owlishly at him through the spectacles. “I was cornered at the airport by a couple of Red Chinese spies. I'm not sure I really needed her help, but it was decidedly welcome.”

  “No one around here knows anything about her,” Napoleon said.

  “She is a surprise to Mr. Waverly,” April said. “I called him about her.”

  “I wonder if she is helping us just to allay our suspicions,” Solo said thoughtfully. “The Communists aren't above sacrificing a few people for a purpose. I wonder---”

  “Mr. Waverly is checking on her,” April said. “How did you know I was here?”

  “She called me.”

  “Then she must have followed me from the airport. I thought I left her there.”

  Before Solo could reply there was a faint bleep from the silver fountain pen clipped to the bodice of April's spinsterish dress. She quickly removed the pen and extended the antenna to convert it into the famous pen-communicator.

  “April Dancer here, sir,” she said crisply.

  “Miss Dancer,” Waverly's voice said from New York. “We have checked. Mr. Chu has a daughter. Quite a lovely girl, I understand. She has worked very closely with her father in the past.”

  “Thank you, sir,” April said. “That is a great relief.”

  “I have also had inquiries about the young lady from both Mr. Slate and Mr. Kuryakin,” Waverly said.

  “She gets around,” April observed.

  “Apparently,” Waverly said.

  “Can you pass along the information I just gave you about her to those gentlemen when you see them?”

  “Certainly, sir,” April said. “And you might also add to Mr. Kuryakin,” Waverly said, “that I do not know the lady's phone number. That he must find out for himself!”

  “I'll tell him, sir,” April said. “Mr. Solo is here. Do you have anything for him?”

  “Yes,” Waverly said. “Mr. Solo?”

  “Yes, sir,” Napoleon said into his own pen communicator.

  “We have received additional information that THRUSH is in a state of great excitement,” the U.N.C.L.E. operations chief said. “This is proof to me that they place great hope on the outcome of this affair.”

  “I am sure that we are right, sir.”

  “Before Mr. Chu was killed, did he give you final instructions?”

  “No, sir.”

  “His daughter mentioned nothing?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Despite the automatic coders and decoders built into our pen-communicator system, I dislike discussing something so vital over the air,” Waverly said. “If you do not receive instructions soon from Chu's daughter, then I will dispatch a messenger from New York. I hope it will not be necessary.”

  “The old man may not have confided in his daughter, sir,” April said.

  “Perhaps,” Waverly said. “I wish we had more time. There is always the possibility of making a mistake when you must rush into something. And this is one affair where the slightest misstep could destroy U.N.C.L.E.”

  April Dancer turned to Napoleon Solo. “Well,” she said, pushing down the antenna to cut off the pen communicator, “what do we do now?”

  “How about dinner?”

  “Are you sure you wouldn't rather dine with that Chinese beauty than with a spinsterish schoolteacher?” April asked.

  “With you, of course!” Napoleon said with a rakish grin.

  “And if she were here instead of me?” April asked.

  “I'd tell her she was the only one, naturally!” Napoleon said, his smile flashing. “Lying is the only way to get along with a girl!”

  “Except that some women have the ability to spot a charming liar as far as she can see him!”

  The voice---it was still bell-like, but it was harsh iron bells now---spoke behind them. The two from U.N.C.L.E. whirled to see the Chinese girl standing in the far corner of the room. She had changed her dress. This one had a golden dragon embroidered in a spiral across the front. As she breathed the rise and fall caused light to run down the golden threads so the dragon appeared to be alive itself.

  “I'd give a pretty penny to have your ability to walk through walls,” Napoleon said.

  She gave him the wisp of a smile.

  “It is very simple, Mr. Solo,” she said. “The workmen who built this tourist palace worked little secret passages into the plan for future use in a sort of personal lend-lease program---without the tourists being aware that they were lending. It is my good fortune to know the secret. That is why I had Miss Dancer located in this room. It will permit us to leave without being observed.”

  “Where are we going?” April asked.

  The Chinese beauty shifted her eyes from Solo to April Dancer. She gave the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. a steady stare that seemed to Solo to hold a slight touch of wariness.

  “On the first step as directed by your secret orders,” the girl said. “The orders your Mr. Waverly just discussed with you.”

  “This kid must be an U.N.C.L.E. undercover agent,” Solo said.

  April only gave the Chinese girl a steady, thoughtful stare.

  “If you please,” the girl said. She pushed against a section of the paneled wall. It moved in just enough to permit them to squeeze through.

  “These hotel thieves must have been midgets,” Solo said as he wiggled his way through the narrow space between the walls.

  “Be quiet” the Chinese girl said. “Someone may hear you through the walls. We are passing other rooms now.”

  They squeezed down to the ground floor and then had to crawl through a tunnel to come out in a section of the park overlooking the Keelung River as it snaked through Taipei.

  For the first time the Chinese girl appeared nervous.

  “Wait here,” she whispered. “I must check to make sure that we can pass safely. Do not even breathe if you can help it. You are in the most mortal danger. They are looking everywhere for you.”

  “Who?” April asked.

  “The men from Peiping,” she replied. “The spy master is furious because they failed to kill Mr. Solo last night. He has threatened that those concerned with another failure will be shot.”

  “How did Peiping know we are here?” April asked.

  “Peiping knows everything,” the Chinese girl replied.

  “Everything?” April repeated.

  “Everything!” the girl insisted.

  “And it could well mean your deaths unless you are extremely lucky!”

  SEVEN

  BETRAYED?

  To April Dancer and Napoleon Solo, jammed in the narrow confines of the tunnel, it seemed that the Chinese girl had been gone for ages. It was hot. The moist earth smelled like the interior of an ancient grave.

  “If I'm going to be buried, I'd prefer it done after I'm dead,” Solo grumbled. “I've waited just about as long as I'm going to. If she doesn't come back soon, I'm---”

  “Napoleon! What was that?” April interrupted.

  “I didn't hear anything.”


  “It sounded like a scream in the distance,” April said.

  The earth suddenly buckled beneath them. A shock wave came rolling down the tunnel upon them. It knocked Solo back against April. Dirt from the top of the hole came cascading down upon them. The earth kept shaking.

  “An earthquake!” April gasped as the collapsing tunnel roof half covered them.

  “No!” Solo choked out the word. “It was an explosion!”

  “We have to get out of here. Peiping killers or no,” April said hurriedly. “If the rest of roof falls in, we've had it.”

  “Go ahead,” Solo said. “I'll follow as soon as I can get my legs loose.”

  April dug in her pack and came out with a flashlight no larger than an old fashioned match stick. Another masterpiece from the U.N.C.L.E. labs, it threw a beam as powerful as a larger flashlight.

  The light moved across Solo, buried to the waist in dirt.

  Anxiously April swept the light overhead to get some idea how the ceiling was holding. She knew it was going to take several minutes to dig Napoleon out. He was buried deeper than he had indicated. The rescue was complicated because of the narrowness of the tunnel. It was difficult for her to get in a position to help him dig at the dirt.

  The moving beam of light showed the top of the tunnel to be fairly solid.

  “I think it will hold unless there is another explosion,” April said.

  “I think you should get out,” Napoleon said. “I can work my way out eventually. We can't take a chance on both of us getting killed.”

  “I think the ceiling will hold,” April said.

  Solo's voice turned hard. “April, we've been friends for a long time and shared some tough adventures together. But friendship has nothing to do with it. We absolutely cannot afford to risk both our lives. The mission is more important than either of us. I'd leave, much as it would hurt me, if our positions were reversed.”

  “You're right, Napoleon,” April said in a small voice. “Thanks for reminding me---and I hate you for doing it!”

  “Tell me about it over a plate of chop suey later,” he said.

  “It's a date,” she said.

  After giving his hand a hard grip, she started to crawl down the tunnel. She did not know exactly how far it was to the end. The Chinese girl had left them where she did because the tunnel was slightly wider there and made a better place to wait. Then their guide had gone on to make sure it was safe for them to leave.

  As she crawled forward, April Dancer wondered what had happened to the Chinese girl. Possibly it wasn't safe for them to go out in the open. After all it was mid-morning and broad daylight, but April thought the girl could have relieved their anxiety by coming back to tell them there would be a delay.

  The tunnel suddenly curved sharply. A short distance ahead April saw a dull gleam of light. She moved on as quickly as she could and found the light came from cracks in heavy boards that formed a door over the tunnel entrance.

  She put her eye to one of the cracks. She saw what appeared to be a room in a dilapidated shack. As best she could tell, the room was empty.

  She placed her hands against the makeshift door and pushed. It did not so much as tremble. Worried now, she turned around and put her feet against it. She pushed with all her strength, but the door remained solid.

  She backed off to survey the situation. In her purse, along with numerous other of the sub-miniaturized U.N.C.L.E. safety devices, she had some “pill explosives.” No larger than children's aspirin, they had sufficient power to knock down a wall.

  Unfortunately she had to abandon the idea of using one now. The explosion might bring down the rest of the ceiling, completely burying Napoleon Solo. Equally important, the noise would give them away. If the Chinese girl was correct, this could mean their death.

  She crawled back to Solo. He was laboriously scooping handfuls of dirt from about his imprisoned torso and pushing it back.

  “We're locked in, Napoleon,” she told him.

  April quickly described the blockade.

  “Despite Waverly's checkout on her I wonder about that girl,” Napoleon grunted as he clawed away at the dirt.

  “Do you smell smoke?” April asked, lifting her head.

  “Yes, I do,” Napoleon said. “I think that explosion was in the hotel. What we are smelling is smoke from the resulting fire being sucked down the tunnel.”

  “That was a terrific jolt,” April said. “If it was the hotel, I doubt that anything is left standing.”

  “Maybe this daughter of Fu Manchu knew what she was doing when she smuggled us out,” Napoleon said as he kept clawing at the dirt.

  “I think she knows very well what she is doing,” April said. “She is obviously as capable as she is beautiful, much as I hate to admit either!”

  “The smoke is getting stronger,” Solo said. His tone grew flatter, an indication to April that he was getting more worried.

  A particularly strong cloud engulfed them, leaving both coughing and with smarting eyes.

  “This passageway begins on the third floor,” April said between bouts of coughing. “If that place is burning down there'll be sufficient pressure to force enough smoke down here to suffocate us!”

  “You're not telling me a thing I don't know!” Solo said, redoubling his efforts to dig himself out. “Look, April, get back to that door. Blow it down, if you must. I know it's sure to attract attention, but you can face that trouble when it comes. You've got to get out of here.”

  “It won't work Napoleon,” April said. She broke up in a violent fit of coughing as more smoke clouded down upon them. “Remember, I've seen that door. You haven't. A charge big enough to blow it down would bring the ceiling down on me. I'd be buried worse than you are now.”

  “The smoke is getting worse, April,” Napoleon said.

  For a moment they were both so overcome with coughing that neither could speak.

  Then when he could get the words out, Napoleon added, “Regardless, April, you've got to try. Being buried is no worse than suffocating. “

  The smoke was swirling down the tunnel, pushed by heat pressure from the blazing hotel and pulled by suction through the cracks in the barrier door.

  That door, she knew, was impossible for her to move. A bomb blast in the narrow confines would be fatal. They were damned to destruction either way.

  She decided it was better to die trying to do something than to crouch there beside Solo's half-buried body and strangle from the smoke.

  She started back to the barricaded tunnel's end, but before she had gone three feet, she suddenly changed her mind. She crawled back to Napoleon.

  “Go on!” he gasped to her. “Forget about me!”

  “I've forgotten you!” she replied through her own coughs. “But not U.N.C.L.E. We have to get out of here, Napoleon!”

  Pulling herself up as much as possible on the mound of dirt that still imprisoned her companion, she tried to see past him.

  Solo's body and the dirt blocked most of the passage way so she could not wriggle past.

  She threw the beam of the match-light torch down the tunnel. Her eyes were streaming so badly she could see nothing. She pulled up the hem of her dress and wiped them.

  There was a momentary break in the swirling smoke. The light showed that the ceiling had partially collapsed all along the line. The way was so choked with fallen dirt that it would be impossible for a human body to drag its way through---even if it were desirable.

  The thieves had been content with just creating a burrow to get in and out of the hotel. No shoring of any kind had been put in the tunnel.

  The smoke came rolling back---thicker than before. April started coughing again. Her shoulder was touching Solo's back. She could feel the agonized heave of his body. She knew they only had minutes left to live.

  Unless---

  She flashed the sub-miniature torch back down the tunnel. She could see nothing now. Her eyes were streaming too badly.

  Blindly, she trie
d to form an accurate image in her mind of the dirt piles knocked down by the heaving of the explosion. It seemed to her that the largest of the ones she had seen was the third one down.

  April dropped the useless light.

  She pulled up her gun. It was the completely desperate act of a trapped person with all other hope gone.

  She closed her eyes tightly to keep out the agonizing sting of the thickening smoke. In her mind she tried to recreate the exact view of the tunnel. Her aim had to be exactly right or they would suffocate from falling dirt instead of smoke.

  She aimed at a point in the tunnel ceiling directly above where she estimated the largest pile of fallen dirt to be.

  She was coughing so badly she couldn't hold the gun steady. Laboriously she brought her other hand around, touching Napoleon's back with her elbow because of the jammed room.

  She grabbed the gun butt with both hands. One elbow she rammed into the dirt. The other was dug deep into Napoleon's back. He made no protest. He seemed to realize what April Dancer was attempting.

  The gun exploded. The noise was deafening in the narrow confines. The bullet plowed into the ceiling above the largest mounds perfectly placed as if the girl could see. The loose dirt gave way. She could hear it fall.

  She fired again. More dirt came cascading down, building up the mound, gradually choking the tunnel.

  She fired again.

  The tunnel shook slightly from the shock of the falling earth, where her bullets triggered movement of the soft ground.

  The shock moved along the roof of the tunnel. This was what she dreaded most. She had no doubt but that her shots would dislodge enough of the unstable earth to block the tunnel and keep out the smoke.

  But would the shock of the falling earth trigger a collapse over them?

  She started to claw at the dirt imprisoning Napoleon, aiding him in his struggle against death.

  The smoke was clearing now that the tunnel was blocked between them and the fire in the hotel, but dirt kept falling on top of them. It seemed to April Dancer that two handfuls fell for each one she clawed away.

  EIGHT

  SPIES FROM PEIPING