She greeted Kerry effusively before she allowed herself to be introduced to the two agents. "Secret agents!" she exclaimed when Kerry had completed the introductions. She pumped their hands heartily and Illya and Napoleon noted to themselves that if her grip were any indication, she could indeed take care of herself.
"Secret agents!" she repeated wonderingly as she led them into a small cluttered living room and swept piles of books and papers from a couch and two chairs. "And I always thought technical writers only met engineers and dull executives!" She looked admiringly at Napoleon and Illya, who were looking admiringly at Kerry and Lee. "What on earth are you doing driving all over Wisconsin with secret agents?"
"You'll never believe it, but it's my Uncle Willard. He's been kidnapped by an international organization called Thrush. You see, he invented this device that makes things invisible, and..." Kerry talked non-stop for several minutes, explaining in detail everything that had happened since she had started to help with her uncle's proposal.
When she concluded, leaving Lee at a loss for words, Napoleon got in a question hurriedly. "I don't suppose that in your hikes you've noticed anything that looks like a secret dirigible hangar...?"
Lee appeared to be considering it for a moment, then blurted out, "Good heavens, no! Of course, I haven't been looking for dirigibles; but, then, they aren't the sort of thing one could easily overlook, are they?"
"Not very well," Illya said. "They're rather large. This one is probably at least five hundred feet long."
Lee thought for a moment. "There are a few placed where one
could
be hidden, I suppose. Are you sure it's in this county?"
"No," Napoleon replied, "but we know they took the OTSMID on U.S. 14, and presumably the hangar is in a rugged area, which leaves us with Richland and the area west to the Mississippi."
"Yes, that would seem to narrow it down that far, at least. But that's still a pretty large area to search."
Napoleon smiled disarmingly. "We had thought that perhaps you could pinpoint any likely areas on these maps for us," he suggested, producing the ordnance maps he had brought from Milwaukee.
Lee stood up excitedly. "Why don't I come along and show you? It would be a lot quicker than making you follow a map." At Napoleon's dubious look, she laughed. "Don't worry about me; I can take care of myself," she said and sprinted out of the room. A moment later, she returned carrying a Smith & Wesson K--38 target revolver and a box of ammunition. "I've never shot at a person, but I placed fourth in the women's state pistol championship two years ago!"
Napoleon shrugged. "If you insist."
"Give me a minute to get on some hiking boots and find some for Kerry. I'll be right back."
As they prepared to leave a few minutes later, Illya remembered Kerry's remark about Lee's cooking. A polite comment produced another five-minute delay and a half dozen peanut butter sandwiches. "They're very well cooked," Illya observed to Kerry as they followed Lee and Napoleon out the door.
* * *
The afternoon was spent in a fruitless search of the northern reaches of Richland County and parts of adjoining Vernon. Hours of driving bumpy back roads and clambering into gullies and over rocks revealed nothing but more rocks, gullies, and roads. It was almost eight-thirty when they started back to Richland Center.
"We'd better see about a place to stay tonight," Napoleon said as they pulled up in front of Lee's house, "before all the motels are full."
"Kerry can stay with me," Lee volunteered, "and I'll fix supper for all of us."
"Keep my car," Kerry said, "and come back here after you've checked in."
The motel was typical of a small-town tourist area, which meant that the walls were thick enough to keep one from seeing the TV set in the next room but didn't interfere greatly with the audio. The rooms were clean, however, and the water hot. Half an hour later, a much refreshed pair of U.N.C.L.E. agents drove back to Lee MacGregor's house.
Somehow, dinner hadn't gotten started over the two girls' conversation, so Napoleon insisted on taking them out for dinner. "After all, we've all had a hard day, and I'm sure nobody feels like cooking or washing dishes afterward. Besides, Illya and I are on an expense account; I think it will stand a pair of extra dinners."
"Don't let Mr. Waverly hear you say that," Illya warned him.
The girls acquiesced rapidly and Lee glanced at her watch. "It's after nine o'clock," she said, "so we don't really have much of a choice where to go. Aside from a couple of all-night hamburger stands, about the only place open is the 'Scotch Broth.' I really shouldn't be seen there, though."
"Oh? Why not?"
Lee lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Liquor! Teacher, unlike parents, must do nothing which might exert a Bad Influence on the children!" She shrugged. "Oh well, I can always make up for it by selling another book; nature books are very wholesome and respectable."
* * *
The "Scotch Broth" emphasized its name with relentlessly pseudo-Scots décor. A faint blue haze from a charcoal grill and countless cigars and cigarettes, coupled with discreetly dim lighting, made Napoleon feel at home. Sometime after their orders were taken, they received their cocktails—except for Lee, who explained that simply being there was enough strain on her reputation, without her actually taking a drink—and were quietly sipping when a rugged, outdoor type walked up to the table and clapped Lee on the back.
"Lee," he said happily. "How are you? I've been hoping I'd run into a friendly face this evening."
"Rollo!" Lee exclaimed, "Pull up a chair. You might be just the person we need." She turned to Illya and Napoleon. "This is our local celebrity, Robert Oshry Lavell. He writes articles on guns and hunting and everyone in town reads them and says how wonderful they are. Unlike my books, which molder on the library shelves. Rollo knows more about this county than anyone else, probably. He knows just everybody. I anyone knows where a dir—"
She broke off suddenly as Napoleon kicked her ankle.
"Mr. Lavell—Rollo, did you say?" Napoleon ignored Lee's startled look and looked at Lavell inquiringly.
"R. O. L." Lavell replied. "My initials. Some people"—he glowered at Lee—"think acronyms are funny."
Napoleon smiled uncertainly before he went on. "I'm Napoleon Solo and this is Illya Kuryakin. We're naturalists, on a field trip from New York."
By the time they had shaken hands, Lee had recovered from the kick and introduced Kerry. She smiled and nodded across the table to Lavell. "Lee said you knew everybody in the county. Does that include those two men who were on the news this morning? The ones who saw U.S. 14 disappear in front of them?"
Lavell looked taken aback. "U.S. 14 disappeared?"
Kerry recounted what she remembered of the morning newscast. Lavell's eyes widened as she spoke, and he breathed what sounded like a sigh of relief when she concluded.
"Maybe there
is
something going on around here," he muttered, half to himself. "Or, if I am cracking up, I apparently have company in my delusions."
Napoleon displayed a sudden interest. "Delusions, Mr. Lavell? You saw a pit yourself?"
Lavell looked around the table, debating with himself. "More or less," he admitted after a moment, then plunged on. "I was down towards Maplewood this afternoon, southwest of here. There's an old gravel pit down there, and I've fixed up a little private target range. I was trying out a new scope mount, one that fits a Bushnell telescope to a Navy Arms Co. percussion revolver."
"Isn't that a little impractical?" Illya asked, ignoring Napoleon's disapproving frown at the interruption.
"You don't think the gun fraternity is practical, do you? Haven't you ever seen a target match with forty-pound muzzle loading rifles? And hundreds of us, every year, pay good money for a modern replica of a revolver that was obsolete a hundred years ago. Like all true hobbyists, we're governed by novelty, not practicality. Anyway, I was down in the gravel pit, when I thought I heard something—a motor of some sort, but up in the air. I looked up and—I know this is crazy, but..."
"Go on," Napoleon urged; "we're very interested."
"Well, when I looked up, across the gravel pit, a section of one of the sides had disappeared. It looked like someone had taken a big knife and sliced a chunk right out. And I swear, the motor sound increased, and a faint voice said 'Look out, McNulty!' It was sort of muffled and far away, and a second later, something hit the ground and splattered, not twenty feet in front of me."
"What was it?" encouraged Illya.
"A sandbag!" Lavell said. "A sandbag out of a clear, blue sky!"
"Could you show us where this happened?" Napoleon asked.
"You believe me, then?!
"In addition to being naturalists, we have a certain interest in the supernatural as well," Illya explained. "Charles Fort has documented thousands of seemingly impossible occurrences like this—blocks of ice falling from a clear sky, even live fish once. But this is a new one; Fort never mentioned sandbags in any of his books."
Before Lavell could decide whether or not he was being put on, the food arrived. He ordered a double scotch for himself and when he had downed it, agreed to take the four of them to his target range the next morning.
* * *
The gravel pit looked like myriads of others, lumpy and abandoned. Lavell drove gingerly down a rutted road to its bottom. A homemade shooting bench stood on a small mound in the center of the overgrown pit; brush had been cleared away from one of the walls to make room for a target frame. Old tin cans and odds and ends of junk were scattered everywhere. The remnants of the sandbag still lay where it had fallen. Napoleon and Illya and the girls inspected it while Lavell wandered off to inspect his target frame. Except for the legend 50 KILOGRAMS, the bag was completely blank.
Napoleon looked around thoughtfully. "You know," he said, "if I wanted to hide a dirigible, I think I'd pick one of the gullies that runs down to the river just south of here. The Wisconsin, isn't it? Not too close to the river itself, perhaps a mile or two north, where it couldn't be seen from the river. And if I were going to test it, I'd stick pretty close to home base on the initial flight, in case something went wrong."
"Something apparently did," said Illya.
"What puzzles me most is how they installed the OTSMID in the dirigible so fast. It couldn't have been here more than twenty-four hours before they were flying it."
"There really isn't much to do," Kerry said. "If they brought some batteries with them, all they had to do was bolt it down somewhere in the dirigible."
Napoleon frowned. "That easy? We'd better get moving, then," he said, motioning to Lavell to rejoin them. "Let's hope they need a few more test flights before they're ready to move. If they move it to a new location, we may
never
find it."
Illya and Napoleon and the two girls held a council of war at Lee's house. Lee and Kerry had been in favor of enlisting Lavell in the search, but Napoleon had vetoed the idea. "After all, we are supposed to be
secret
agents, and the fewer people who know about us, the better."
"But what happens if Thrush gets the OTSMID and the dirigible both operating properly before we locate them?" Kerry asked.
"We hope they don't," Illya replied. "We know the general area now. Considering the amount of space required for a dirigible hanger and the fact that trucking in anything as heavy as the OTSMID is bound to leave traces, they shouldn't be hard to locate."
"Lee, do you have a car?" Napoleon asked.
"Of course; why?"
"If we divided our forces, we can cover twice as much territory. Illya and I can keep in touch through our communicators."
Illya nodded. "It's also an advantage in case Thrush spots us first. We'll each know where the other is, and if one party disappears, the other will know where to look."
"I'll go with Illya," Kerry announced. Napoleon and Lee simultaneously looked at one another with raised eyebrows.
"I guess we go together, then," Napoleon said.
After some discussion, it was decided to use the gravel pit as a starting point. Napoleon and Lee would work toward the west and Illya and Kerry toward the east. Lee and Kerry would drive, with Napoleon and Illya observing. Lee presented Kerry with a map of the county, showing all the back roads and creeks.
"And remember," Napoleon said as they walked to their cars, "keep in constant communication, except when actually investigating a possible site. If you disappear, I want to know where."
"Don't worry," Illya assured him, "if I disappear,
I
want you to know where, too."
* * *
The day seemed to move at a much faster pace than did the search. With nothing but Lee's ubiquitous peanut butter sandwiches for sustenance, they slowly cruised the back roads. Frequent stops were made for closer examinations of the terrain, but as dusk approached, all had proved fruitless. The sun was low on the horizon as Lee and Napoleon drove down one more dusty back road. Suddenly Napoleon stiffened and peered sharply at a particularly impenetrable looking thicket on his side of the road.
"Go on down the road a few hundred yard and stop," he ordered. Speaking into the communicator, he asked, "Still with us, Illya?"
"You sound particularly pleased," came the reply. "Found something?"
"I think so. At least, one doesn't normally see a set of tire tracks turning off the road into the middle of a mass of bushes and trees."
"Are you sure about the tracks?"
"Not positive; I'll have to go back for a closer look. From the glimpse I got as we drove by, it seemed like someone had tried to erase them, but the sun was at just the right angle to highlight the depressions. They're the right distance apart for tire tracks, at least. I'll tell you more when I've checked them out."
A few minutes later, he reported. "Tracks, all right' deep ones. And someone has gone to the trouble of filling in the ruts with sod. His only error was that the sod didn't quite match the height of the surrounding grass. The thicket is phony, too. It looks like some of the trees have been transplanted, and others have been cut and arranged to make the growth look thicker than it really is. I'm going on in."