"How old is she, for Pete's sake?"

"I'm not sure whether it's seventy-two or eighty-two. Something like that."

"This will look bee-u-ti-ful in a report from S.B. to back up our expenses claim on U.N.C.L.E.!"

Sama Pam heard this last remark as he finished his radio contacts.

"Something else will look bee-u-ti-ful in your report," he observed. "Your London boys have lost Dr. Karadin—and his daughter. The clinic received a fake call in our code and released the girl. Karadin was picked up when he left his helicopter, but the squad car was rammed, the two guards coshed, and Karadin rescued."

"Oh, great!" said April. "Just great! Who runs the security back there?" She glared at Mark. "One of your Jeff's aunts?"

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE WRECKERS

OUTSIDE Le Havre they dropped April at the small heliport, where a car waited to take her to the laboratory.

"You'll contact Mr. Waverly?" said Mark. "And ask Paris to stand by? That will help us keep radio silence."

She nodded. "Watch yourself, lover boy. See you in New York."

"I hope so. And April, me old darling, try to have a quick word with Robbo in London and get him to send on my new gear, will you? I'm fresh out of new weskits."

She laughed. "Shame! Okay, I'll see what I can do. I've some clothes I need sending on too. 'Bye now!"

They watched her drive away. Sama Paru said:

"There goes one exceptional lady."

"Mmm," said Mark. "It's good English you speak, old boy, but deuced mild, if I may say so." Then he shrugged. "Not that I know any English words to really describe April Dancer." His manner became brisk. "Now—how about Kazan? Let's have some grub and take a look at maps while your chopper is being refueled."

"Ah!" said Sama. "The food and some rest are most necessary—but there is a night ban on helicopter flying, so we shall have to rest whether or not we need it."

"But it was dark when we flew in. The hell with bans."

"No, thank you," said Sama. "Choppers are easy targets for police bullets. I received permission to land by saying I had engine trouble over the Channel and could not turn back to England."

"I suppose you know your own red tape best. How about chartering a small plane?"

"By the time we get a plane it will be time to leave here. Kazan is somewhere among the forests back of the hills. A plane would not help us much. Not to worry, mon ami, it is the best way."

Mark didn't really regret the delay. Sama borrowed a tiny Renault car, drove like a demon for some six kilometers to a bistro where he was welcomed like a prodigal son by Madame and her three daughters. One was twelve and about to go to bed. The other two were of a more mature age. It was the most enjoyable night Mark had spent in a long while.

Sama Paru had known the family Lecheron since he was a boy. Adele and Lia shared an apartment in Paris, Adele, the eldest, working as a model, Lia still at University. They were a strangely happy family. Strange, because there was no bickering or jealousies which, in Mark's experience, usually beset families consisting only of women. Papa Lecheron had died two years ago.

Adele and Lia were on holiday from Paris and, apart from their company and the truly excellent meal, they gave Mark and Sama a hot lead in this affair of the Global Globules—as Mark now referred to it.

"Tin dresses?" said Sama Paru. "Tell us again."

Lia giggled. "It is so funny. A lot of the girls—they want to be models, like Adele, you see. But it is not all so easy and big fun like they think. It is very much training and long hours, and many jealousies and back-kicking."

"Biting," said Sama. "Back-biting."

"Ah yes—these English sayings! So, you see, it is all a dream with these girls."

"And no big money just for the asking," said Adele. She shrugged. "Oh! I do not complain. I have plenty of work, but it has taken a long time to become known. These stupid little innocents, they think all the couturieres—and, oh yes, the men—will fall over themselves to offer jobs and mink coats."

Lia roared with laughter. "So when a man chooses many of these girls and offers them big money, they all fall—plomp! They think of gorgeous gowns, and costumes and furs, and what do they model in? Tin dresses!"

Mark and Sama exchanged glances.

"An advertising agency, eh?" Mark suggested.

"Not advertising," said Adele. "They were picked by a—how you say?—a big no-good. He is an agent, yes, but not for the real model business. The fringe man—very nasty."

"But he offered high fees—or payment of some sort?"

"In pieces," said Lia. "First he say: you model these dresses where we tell you. We pay you five thousand francs. These girls—their little eyes go pop and they sign the papers. Like a contract it is, and they receive one hundred francs and their ticket to Lyons or Chartres or Monte Carlo—lots of towns. Then they are paid another hundred when they wear these tin dresses. So they don't have five thousand francs in one big piece like they think."

"To Lia, it is a joke," said Adele. "And to me at first, because always there are these silly girls who call themselves models. But I think it is a bad joke. Some of these girls are in strange towns with little or no money. Some have not returned to Paris. Such business should be stopped, but there is no law against it, only—what is it you say?—expiation?"

"Exploitation," said Mark. "Are these girls trained, or told who are the buyers of these tin dresses?"

"Ah no—not trained," said Adele. "But one or two older girls—not so good girls, you know what I mean?—took these jobs, went away for a time. Training, they said, but they had plenty of money. And they have been taught to ride little motor bikes. I think perhaps these tin dresses might be a new kind of 'mod-gear', like they say in London."

Mark questioned them further, but they knew only a few first-hand facts and a great deal of rumor. He left for a while, saying he needed some fresh air, found a pay-phone and got through to the Le Havre laboratory.

April was annoyed at the interruption.

"This is going to take hours to crack—maybe weeks. Why are you still local?" She listened. "Oh, yes? Well, sorry I sparked off—this is certainly another angle. The chicks in Carnaby Street were a mixture of ga-ga teenagers kidding they were models and some hard-bitten floosies. There's a whale of a market all over for that mixture—a veritable army could be mobilized. This means there must be training and selection centers where the tough ones are picked, probably as leaders or local organizers."

"Separate centers from the distilling and testing and packing centers," Mark suggested.

"Well—those don't have to be very large. Moorfell could produce enough K.S.R.6 for a mammoth spraying fiesta. Any large country house in a quiet area subject to fogs, mists or above-average rainfall would do. But a training and selection center would attract more attention. I'm contacting Mr. Waverly at four a.m., our time. I'll pass this idea of yours to him. Is that all, Mark?"

"For now, for me—it's enough. The idea of thousands of bright young bints welded into a tin-dress army, captained by floosies, riding Noddy bikes through every town in the country scares the sanctimonious hell out of me! Cheerio, darling—be good and clever!"

"Aren't I always?"