[The Girl From UNCLE 01] - The Birds of a Feather Affair - Avallone Michael. Страница 20

"Your skin is so smooth and soft," Arnolda Van Atta purred. "A man's back. Strong, well-muscled and admirable. It is too bad for you that sex holds no appeal for me. We could have spent this hour otherwise."

No appeal. That was a horselaugh. She was a pervert. A sadist. For whom cruelty and pain were pleasure. The Krafft-Ebing boys would have loved this redheaded bitch. Mark Slate could only fight for time.

"I see you've lost all interest in any usefulness I might have as an informant, is that it?"

She paused, her cool fingers freezing on his back.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I would speak up now to save my skin. You think me a bloody fool? Get me off this table and I'll tell you all you want to know."

"You fool," she laughed. "I'll learn what I must my way. You'll talk even more freely under the lash. I wouldn't for a moment consider untieing you."

"I scream rather loudly," he pointed out.

"Go ahead. No one will hear you. This is a soundproofed room. Why do you think we brought you here in the first place?"

"You think of everything, don't you?"

"Of course."

"Then you'd better unhook that machine gun contraption of yours unless you want to redesign the walls of this room in bullet holes. I tend to jump high in the air when I am struck across the back with a whip."

Now, she truly laughed. A good-humored laugh. Her silvery tones rose and pealed like bells.

"My compliments," she trailed off, still chuckling. "You are quite a man, Mark Slate. Always the cool head even in the most extreme circumstances."

He closed his eyes and set his teeth together.

"Get on with it and be damned," he said. He opened his eyes again.

He heard the jade pendant again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the green velvet dress move. Twitching, as though she had to bend over. He was instantly on the alert, ready. He could sense her breathing close; she had had to bend down to unhook the long wire that ran like a lanyard to the trigger of the Browning gun. When he was sure she had disconnected the wire, saw it dangle to the floor loosely, like a discarded piece of string, so that now the Browning had been rendered a harmless ornament of the room's furnishings, he took his last desperate gamble.

He heaved violently on the table. As shackled as he was, ankles and wrists, his body dominated the entire top of the table. He weighed one hundred and seventy-five pounds and every one of those pounds was the finely conditioned, coordinated pound of an athlete. The table canted sharply, left the floor on one side and swung over. Mark rolled his body as far to the right as he could overbalancing the whole. Arnolda Van Atta cried out angrily. The riding crop sang in the air of the room. It bit into Slate's back, sending a long trail of fiery agony across his flesh. But the table crashed to the floor, taking Slate with it.

He was far more successful than he could have hoped. He had only wanted to buy time, to upset her schedule, to harry her into some other course of action. But miraculously, the narrow size of the room had come to his aid. The table, Mark Slate and all, came down on Arnolda Van Atta's left ankle as she tried to skip back. Her scream of bone-breaking torment rose like a banshee's shriek in the confining space of the room.

For a frenzied moment, the room was a madhouse.

Slate, pinned face down to the table, could not see a thing. He could only feel his own weight, dragging against the bonds, pushing down on Arnolda Van Atta. Feebly, she was crying and flailing out at him with the riding crop, her curses and gurgles of pain sounding like those of a madwoman. The end of the leather crop fell short, missing him by inches. Finally, she gave up all together and sprawled out on the floor, her face buried in her arms, crying piteously. The table, laden with Slate's weight, had crushed her ankle.

The soundproof room was a mockery, now.

Arnolda Van Atta could not cry out for help.

And Mark Slate could do nothing for her.

Unless she cooperated.

"Pussycat," he said quickly, breathing hard. "There's nothing for it, unless you do your damndest to untie my hands. Then I can get this bloody table off your leg. You hear me! Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Your leg will only get worse if you don't do what I tell you—"

"The pain—" she moaned. "I can't—think straight—" A moan of agony was torn from her again.

"Think," he commanded. "Twist yourself around. Can't you reach my right hand? Just my right hand? That's all you need to do."

"I'll kill you for this," she gasped. "I'll have you—" She stopped talking as another fierce whimper escaped her. But he could feel her moving, wrenching herself, trying to curve her body around so she could reach the hand closest to her.

She was THRUSH, all right. But she was still a woman in agony.

Mark Slate waited, hoping she could make it before the others came around looking for her.

You always had a chance when the big shots gave in to one of their weird tendencies. Like a private torture chamber and all that Sax Rohmer nonsense.

"Come on, Miss Van Atta," he whispered. "Keep on coming."

The room echoed with the fierce order.

Mr. Riddle and Fried Rice and Pig Alley were restless. The tinny clock on the wooden bureau beyond the table where their gin rummy game was in progress now said eight thirty-five.

Pig Alley was sweating visibly. Tiny globules of perspiration stood forth on his Gallic face. His dark eyes kept looking toward the door.

"Sacre," he muttered under his breath.

"Patience," Fried Rice said, "and shuffle the cards. That is an estimable quote from Cervantes."

Pig Alley stuck out his tongue in disgust and glanced angrily at Mr. Riddle. Frankenstein's leer was intact, as it always would be. But the thin, lanky figure was ill at ease. It was apparent in the tilt of the head toward the door and the drumming of the fingers of both hands on the table top.

"Yes," Mr. Riddle said. "It is a nuisance, gentlemen. But we must wait on the lady and her whims. She is directing this operation."

Pig Alley snorted. "And why you, dear Riddle? With that mask and all this Halloween business. I thought you were in charge—"

"So I am," he agreed coldly. "But I still answer to Miss Van Atta. If you knew her true identity, you wouldn't dare question her for a moment."

"And that is—"

Fried Rice looked up sharply at Mr. Riddle as Pig Alley flung the question. But the Frankenstein head nodded.

"How long do you want to live, Pig Alley?"

"In other words, it is not my affair. Mind my own business."

"Exactly."

"Very well, but in God's name what more can she want to do to that poor Uncle agent?"

Mr. Riddle sighed funereally.

"I agree with you on that. Zorki is far more important than this diversion. But there is time, she said. And what she says, I am afraid, is what we will do when the time comes."

Fried Rice flicked a voluminous sleeve and drew a card from the much-used deck. He turned up an ace of spades. He chuckled in his dry, thin voice.

"The Death Card," he said. "I should say Mr. Slate is very close to death by this time."

Mr. Riddle pushed back his chair and stood up. Hidden when he sat was the almost spectral quality of his body. It was as thin as a skeleton, sharply contrasting with the fullsome Frankenstein mask.