[The Girl From UNCLE 01] - The Birds of a Feather Affair - Avallone Michael. Страница 13

"Ah." April smiled, as little as she felt like it. "Then perhaps you'll rack your newly air-conditioned brain and try to think where they might have left some explosive forget-me-not for both of us?"

"I can't," the girl wailed. "I just don't know. Oh, are you sure? If they do that it means the end of my assignment and—"

April shook her head.

"Honey, you haven't been listening. If there's a loud noise in here, we will both have no tomorrow."

The girl swayed, falling back against the sink for support. She saw the faucet and the tiny drip of a globule of water from the rusty tap. "I'm so thirsty," she whimpered. "I need some water—" She looked around for a glass, her eyes almost glazed. April could see that she still hadn't quite collected all her faculties. She might have been sealed in the locker for a long time.

But something the girl had said held her. It set off a bell in her brain, an alarum of warning that meant something. Something important.

"Water," April echoed. "Say that again."

"Water," the girl flared. "I want some water. What's so peculiar about that?"

April Dancer smiled. It had come to her. Yes, the only solution to the bomb she could not find.

"Yes, water. I want some too. Lots of it, honey. All the water in the world."

So saying, she turned on the tap full blast, making certain to employ the rotting rubber stopper to close off the drain. The girl watched in bewilderment as April clambered like a monkey toward the crisscrossing maze of pipes. April stood on her toes to crank one of the large round valve handles. Suddenly, from a broken section of piping, rust-colored water shot down to the cobbled basement floor, rushing like a cataract to meet the walls of the room. April came down from the pipes, raced to the locked door, whipping off the shirt she had wrested from the corpse and stuffing it effectively into the crevice where the wood met the stone floor. She looked around the basement like a wild woman, spied another valve and busied herself once again. The strange girl shrank back against the lockers, frightened by this maniacal behavior. But April persevered. She was moving like some galvanized mechanical toy, setting all the water outlets in the basement to full power.

THRUSH had left the water power on. She meant to put it to good use.

The girl shivered, moaned again, as the wet, rusty waves washed over her shoes, staining her silk stockings.

"What are you trying to do?" she whispered. "Drown us both?"

April was grinning from the center of the basement, admiring the slow but definite rise of the water level. Her long hair was quite wet and dangling now but the grim smile that played about her mouth was almost a happy one.

"Water, water, everywhere," she quoted, "nor any drop to drink."

The girl goggled at her. "That's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"—what is your name?" She was whispering again, as if to ensure April that she was ready to trust her, no matter how erratically she was behaving.

"April Dancer here. Performing the Gunga Din ritual. I generally work for an organization known as Uncle."

The girl's eyes bulged.

"U.N.C.L.E.?" she spelled quickly. "Well, why didn't you say so?"

''You didn't ask me. But we girls have to stick together. Now, honey, you are—"

"Paula Jones," the girl said. "Joanna Paula Jones. But I prefer Paula so don't laugh, please. It's a name my father gave me because he was in the Navy for forty years. Oh, dear. What's the use! I'm with U.S. Naval Intelligence, Miss Dancer."

April couldn't resist a smirk. She gazed about them at the water building on all sides. The cast iron legs of the sink were slowly being submerged under the force of the rising tide.

"You're in your element, Miss Jones. And we do have the lockers, too. However, back to my request. It's very necessary that we stay as close together as possible. I expect some concussion, perhaps a tidal wave to tell the truth. We'll be better off like two peas in a pod. Topsy and Eva, you know."

"But where," Joanna Paula Jones blurted, "can we go?" It was as if she understood for the first time why April was banking everything on the water. "We still don't know where they put the thing—if there is a thing—"

"No," April said soberly, taking the girl's hand and leading her toward the lockers. "But let's play my hunch. To be on the safe side."

The Jones girl tried not to cry, following April dumbly, letting herself be led to the lockers once more. April knew the classic symptoms. First big assignment. First big scare when a girl realized she could actually get killed playing Spies. She urged the girl on quickly. Below all her own banter, a facade against terror, she was genuinely worried. A lot of valuable time had elapsed. Suppose the water didn't rise fast enough? What if the bomb were planted elsewhere, other than in the basement?

She pulled one of the lockers toward the furthest corner of the basement. Far from the center of the room, far from the clutter of the place. It was a risk against uncertain odds, but it was the only hope for survival.

The water would help.

If there was enough time.

Joanna Paula Jones laughed suddenly. A merry, skittery little laugh that made her body vibrate like a tambourine. April held onto her tightly, as she pushed her into the metal locker and made room for herself. It was a tight squeeze.

"Laughter in Paradise, Miss Jones, or are you getting a case of hysterics? I'll slap you if you really need it."

"No," the girl muttered. "It's just that this would be exactly like dying at sea, wouldn't it? Dad always wanted me to stay away from ships."

"Sardines," April Dancer said, cramming herself into the narrow space beside her new acquaintance, "do not die at sea.'"

Joanna Paula Jones stopped laughing and buried her face on April's shoulder. Her figure shook. April held her tight, cradling the boyishly bobbed head against her shoulder. Behind them, she could hear the roaring, rushing slap-slap-slap of the rust-colored water as it angrily crested the top of the porcelain sink.

What if the water went over their heads before the bomb detonated?

How jolly.

That, she had to admit, was something that had never even occurred to her.

Alek Yakov Zorki came awake with a slow start. He blinked as he caught sight of the smooth, perforated ceiling. His cell at U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters. Of course. How long had he slept? He craned his neck and stared about the cubicle. There was the chair, the plain deal table. The chrome decanter of water. The locked door mocked him. Curiously, he had no recollection of falling asleep. He dimly remembered an interview at some earlier time in the day with Waverly. That pedantic fool. With his tweeds and his English fair play and school-tie nonsense. What did he know? How did such men rise to power? Still, it was disturbing to return to wakefulness like this, with the sensation of having lost a day

He sat up on the cot, flexing his large shoulders. He felt his face. He had never had much growth of hair on his skin so it was difficult to assess the amount of time lost as other men could. He had no watch. They had seen fit to strip him of all his personal possessions and assorted equipment. Well, why not? Were he in their place, he would have done nothing less.

He did remember somehow that Waverly had not been too amenable to the plan to make a fair exchange of agents. He, Zorki, for the U.N.C.L.E. captives. Chort Znayet! The Devil Knows. Would Riddle and the Van Atta woman ever succeed? He had begun to doubt even the vast superiority of THRUSH itself. A simple affair like this and he sensed it was being bungled all the way.