Black Champagne

by George B Mair

  The needle entered a thick vein on Ferguson’s forearm and Grant waited till the effect of his gas had passed off before sucking a drop or two of blood into the barrel. Ferguson was in semi-possession of his faculties as Grant slowly pressed the plunger and watched with clinical impassivity as the prisoner again closed his eyes.

  Grant was now fighting not only the clock, but wondering if the improved Epontol would be affected by Juin’s gas. The situation was tricky and he gave the smallest possible dose before asking his first question.

  Ferguson was either a consummate actor or the thing worked.

  Grant sighed deeply with relief and cross checked other data.

  The man had told the truth.

  He had clammed up when conscious only when it had come to the name of the top executive in the organisation. But now when he heard it even Grant was impressed by the implications. A world figure! Respected in U.N.O. and with the doors of every Government House in five continents open to him, plus a red carpet at every airport. No one would believe it without super plus evidence in detail.

  Headquarters was tucked in the highlands where China merged into Sinkiang, while important operations were also conducted from the Island of St. Thomas in the American Virgins. And the set-up made sense. St. Thomas was within striking distance by jet from Miami, Cuba, South America and New York. It was also a mere jump from international air ports linking with the Far East and Europe.

  Charlotte Amalie, the little capital, was one of the world’s most beautiful resorts to which multi-millionaire yachts or cruise ships with privileged holiday makers came in droves. It was the ideal centre in which to contact anyone with no questions asked, because an exclusive resort for top people could be a perfect cover for rendezvous with anarchy!

  Only then did he come to the thing which mattered most to him personally. And when he spoke his voice was quivering with tension. ‘The antidote, Ferguson. What dose, how often and the exact name or chemical formula?’

  He repeated the question five times at intervals over the next ten minutes and then he relaxed. Cross checking had been dead accurate so there could be no slip up on that angle at least. He then withdrew the needle, lit a cigarette and, for the first time that night lowered a double brandy.

  There were still twenty-eight minutes to zero hour when he released Ferguson and watched him recover consciousness. The drug had a hangover which left most subjects elated and he was curious to see how the prisoner would react. There was still a cup or two left in the percolator and he watched Ferguson gulp it down with a defiant gesture which was difficult to understand. ‘Anything else to say?’

  The prisoner stared at him coldly. ‘Been playing with drugs?’

  Grant shrugged his shoulders. ‘You took too much brandy.’

  Ferguson pointed to a wisp of cellophane. ‘That, dear David, is part of the wrapping used for pre-sterilised syringes. So I take it you gave me the works? And I seem to remember surfacing to get a glimpse of you at work.’

  ‘Think what you like.’ Grant was indifferent.

  ‘And how much time have I got?’

  Grant glanced at his watch. ‘About twenty minutes.’

  Ferguson forced a smile. ‘Any rooms rented in rue Méchain?’

  It seemed a pointless question until Grant remembered the street which ran parallel with Boulevard Arago and from which a man could get a good view of the guillotine from windows facing south on to Arago. Landladies made a packet on these rare occasions when there was a public execution, because police cordoned off such a vast area around the scaffold that only a few members of the public could see anything. And although executions were held in daylight, in practice the thing was done at dawn. So rue Méchain was at times in high demand, and a room on the top floor of some few houses could earn three months normal income for grasping owners who catered for perverts. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said.

  ‘Balls!’ Ferguson was curt and offensive. ‘They allow me newspapers and I read that six rooms have been let for over five hundred quid each. So I’ve a pretty high news value.’

  ‘That should comfort you a lot.’ Grant felt curiously relaxed and wished only that it was over.

  ‘And who will be high priest at this particular human sacrifice?’

  Grant shook his head. ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Pity.’ Ferguson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I’ve always regretted that I never met Deibler. He was the real maestro. I once read that his record was eighteen seconds from the subject first heaving into sight and being put into the basket. Or are they going to use wood? Are baskets washed out?’

  It happened that this was a question Grant could answer. In fact he had heard a mention from the Governor on the previous day. ‘Baskets,’ he said curtly. ‘And evening dress.’

  Ferguson nodded approval. ‘Sticklers for tradition, the French,’ he said. ‘And quite nice to go the same way as Louis with his wife. I’ve always admired these people. Wonderful how they went out with the flag flying. Indeed I’ve admired Marie Antoinette ever since I saw David’s sketch of her on the tumbril.’ He smiled slightly. ‘I used to stand, at times, near a corner of rue Saint-Honoré and try to visualise that poor woman—even although I’m a Communist and she was a queen—standing, defiant, while the mob called her a whore and all the rest of it. But she had guts. She knew how to die.’

  ‘Will you?’ Grant was hardly interested, but at least it was something to say.

  Ferguson’s brow was moist with sweat, and Grant saw that his lips had begun to blench with tension. Yet, even so, the man was putting on a good show. ‘I’ll try.’

  Even during some of his worst months at school Ferguson had occasionally shown flashes of unusual charm, and now, quite suddenly some of his old magic came to the surface. ‘That girl in Tiffany’s was a wow! I’ve often wondered about her. Even now, twenty-five years later I wouldn’t mind knowing. We used to do quick steps and things to Harry Roy or someone. She was terrific.’

  Grant hardly remembered the girl. ‘No idea. Probably a grandmother by now.’ He glanced at his watch. Less than twelve minutes. ‘Care for more brandy?’

  Ferguson shook his head. ‘But you may feel like one. Help yourself. The bill for this party’s on the Republic. And talking about bills,’ he continued, ‘you always had a reputation for being what people call a gentleman. Will you keep your word? I take it our dog will be okay and that you’ll lay off my girl. She’s done no harm and it wouldn’t be in character for you to send her down, even for six months.’

  ‘She’ll be left alone, same as the dog.’

  ‘And my head?’

  ‘Will be buried with the rest of you. The Department can find another subject, someone dying after a motor accident or so. Ought to be easy enough.’ He hesitated as a jab kicked his wrist. It was the special alarm which reminded him that five minutes were left. ‘Any last requests?’

  ‘I’ll have that brandy. Nothing else.’ Ferguson lifted his glass and toasted Grant with something of his old élan. ‘To David Grant. And may he enjoy things when his own time comes. Which ought,’ he added briefly as he daubed his lips, ‘to be in not more than six months, even allowing for appeals.’

  ‘Time will tell.’ Grant heard foot-steps in the corridor. ‘This is it, Ferguson.’

  The prisoner stood up. ‘On second thoughts one absolutely final request. Don’t let them strap my arms or manacle me. I want to die a free man.’

  It was an odd thing to say, and Grant turned abruptly to the door where the Governor was waiting with the public executioner and two assistants. ‘No straps or manacles. He’ll go quietly.’

  The Governor hesitated as the four men eyed one another doubtfully. ‘I asked if he had any last request,’ Grant explained. ‘And he isn’t asking for more than a little dignity. Why not let him get the chance to earn it?’

  Grant knew that Ferguson could hear every word and glimpsed the prisoner standing motionless behind him, his glass still in his right hand but with an air
of expectation which was somehow almost operatic.

  The Governor finally shrugged his shoulder. ‘You accept personal responsibility?’

  Grant turned towards the man in the cell. ‘You heard what the Governor said. Can I trust you? Have you enough guts?’

  Ferguson raised his left hand in a cynical gesture. ‘I doubt if anyone can ever trust anyone. But I do have plenty of guts.’

  ‘And gendarmes are guarding each end of the street?’ Grant checked on final arrangements.

  ‘Yes.’ The Governor was unusually formal. ‘There are the usual two cordons, and the nearest member of the general public will be about two hundred metres.’

  ‘Press?’

  ‘All doubled checked and in position.’

  Grant nodded towards Ferguson and the executioners. ‘March. You go out a free man.’

  The prisoner smiled as an assistant fell in on either side and held him by the arms. ‘“No manacles” I think were the orders. I was to go out free.’

  ‘Then get on with it.’ Grant fell in beside the Governor and the party walked at almost the double into the bleak courtyard. Cobbles were damp with dew and the sky beginning to turn from lilac to cream when, beyond the gate, he had a glimpse of the scaffold with the guillotine standing gaunt in silhouette against the morning light. Ferguson was now walking smartly and Grant saw that his sandals were ready to be kicked off in the second that he mounted the steps and was laid on to the lunette, that half-moon-shaped block which clamped his neck beneath the suspended knife. Another few metres and they would be through the gate! Grant’s hands were moist with sweat and he remembered that he had left his gun in the prisoner’s cell. But it could be fetched by a warder while they all had a quick drink ‘afterwards’.

  He glanced at the houses entered from rue Méchain and wondered if Ferguson’s story had been true. Probably was. There were people at several windows, and he caught a glimpse of light flashing from some lens or other, either binoculars or a telefoto camera just as it happened.

  He had been aware of a throbbing noise but ignored the sound until suddenly it made sense! And then, as he glanced from the windows he saw a helicopter dipping down above the cordon at one end of the Boulevard while grey shapes lobbed like darts from house windows towards the police cordons and another screeched towards the guillotine itself. There were two clouds of smoke and suddenly his horizon was narrowed to a bowl surrounded by grey green fumes which blotted out almost everything. Then came a crack of breaking wood as uprights of the guillotine crashed on the scaffold and the helicopter hovered immediately above them. There had been a direct hit from some sort of rocket!

  He dived for Ferguson but tripped over the body of a man. It was the Governor, and Grant remembered seeing him stagger as though kicked on the chest by a mule. A rifle with silencer, he thought viciously and leapt for Ferguson’s legs as the man grasped a trapeze-like gadget dangling from the chopper. Both assistant executioners had been wounded and their chief killed, while journalists were scurrying about like demented wasps round a honey pot. It was only when Ferguson laughed that Grant felt blood trickling down his own wrist and saw a stream running from the rip in his shirt, but even then he remembered enough surgery to realise that the bullet must have missed both lungs and heart.

  The noise from the helicopter was now deafening but Grant heard Ferguson’s last words before it lifted off. ‘Thanks, David.’

  The pilot was masked by a stocking over his head, and the man beside him was winching Ferguson into the fuselage of the machine when a final shell was lobbed from an upper window, Grant saw it coming and flung himself to the ground as it exploded ten metres or less away. The chopper was then high above the cordon at the Place Denfert Rochereau end of the Boulevard and etched black against swirling smoke below.

  The explosion had rocked everything around and he could hear the tinkle of glass as blast smashed windows when a stone struck him full on the side of the head. It knocked him out, and he fell on a puddle of blood pouring from a gash in the side of a pressman’s neck.

  His second last memory was of Ferguson smiling in his cell. ‘To David Grant, and may he enjoy things when his own time comes.’ But his last thought during that final millionth of a second between being alive and jerked into deep concussion was the certainty that the time had come, that this was IT. FINIS.

  Chapter Two – ‘It all sounded too easy’

  ‘Paris in the spring!’

  Admiral John Silas Cooper almost snarled out the words as he gazed from an office window towards the stream of ants below, traffic running bumper to bumper in a haze of cancer-killing exhaust fumes. ‘And the Hell with it!’ he added bleakly, not knowing that in this at least he felt the same sense of bathos which had possessed his own top man only a few hours earlier.

  He heard the click of knitting needles, and waited, patiently, as the woman holding three stiletto-like rods of steel counted a few stitches, cast off, and packed her knitting into a gaudily coloured cloth bag embroidered with one word—Madeira. The slight frown which etched her forehead showed that she was thinking, and Cooper had learned not to interrupt when Miss Sidders was measuring pros against cons. ‘It’s a good thing that Professor Juin arranged for Dr Grant to interview Ferguson under the protection of a good transmitting device carried in his brief-case. But it surprises me that he said as much as he did when conscious.’

  The Admiral knew when to hold his tongue and saw that the woman who was his right hand was pausing only to marshall her thoughts. ‘Though Dr Grant will now have to explain his position vis-à-vis Miss Koren. Did they first hypnotise the girl, put ideas into her mind and cause her to speak on signal, or did Dr Grant really tell her anything which matters?’

  ‘Are you asking a question?’ The Admiral was trying to control his impatience—with everything.

  ‘No, sir.’ Miss Sidders smiled slightly. ‘With respect, sir, Dr Grant and you have one thing in common—restlessness. I was just thinking aloud. And anyhow since this must be cleared up we want facts, not speculation.’

  ‘Never mind facts,’ said the Admiral. ‘We don’t have any, and there’s no prospect of getting any in the immediate future. So let’s speculate to our hearts’ content.’

  ‘Then in my view Dr Grant said nothing out of place and Miss Koren is simply a small part of the plot to destroy him. But of course, before saying more I would wish to know what she is supposed to have said. If it is something highly confidential there must be a leak. If, on the other hand, it is something less important, the sort of thing which Ferguson could have known about through his work as a S.A.T.A.N. executive then it won’t be so bad.’

  ‘And this U.N.O. man?’ The Admiral had been rocked to the core when Ferguson’s confession under Epontol (plus) had come through on the tape. ‘He must know plenty about us. Surely he could leak like a sieve any time he wanted?’

  Miss Sidders nodded agreement. ‘Since we are responsible to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation we have enough contacts with this United Nations official to guarantee trouble in any angle of our work. But I hardly think that such a very top person would lend himself to Ferguson’s plans. No sir, I think we can leave the United Nations gentlemen out of it for the present at least.’

  She poured tea brewed in a small pot by the stove. ‘Thanks to Dr Grant’s precautions in putting Ferguson through that truth drug routine we have cross checks on everything which matters. So our man in Rio will bring Miss Koren home before tomorrow night. Professor Juin can then get her into shape using the antidote and we will decide in our own good time whether or not she, too, should be grilled under Epontol (plus), because we must certainly find out what she knows and why she knows it. Professor Juin’s hypnosis might also help, but anyhow we ought all to be more happy about her before the end of the week.’

  ‘And the immediate future?’ The Admiral had his own ideas, though he rated himself a strict amateur by comparison with the elderly lady who was senior confidential secretary within his own
organisation.

  ‘Dr Grant has been taken from the prison hospital to our own unit. So he, too, is under Professor Juin and can be questioned at any time. If he is given a clean sheet we could announce his death and transfer him to St. Thomas where he may be able to clear up at least part of the mess.’

  ‘And you give him an all clear in regard to the last request business? You don’t fault him on that? Because if David Grant had played it by the book Ferguson would have been manacled and strapped as per tradition. It would then have been a damn sight more difficult for him to escape and we wouldn’t now be sitting here biting our nails.’

  Miss Sidders added an extra lump to his cup of tea and stirred it gently. She had listened to every word which had come through on the tape and was in sympathy with Grant’s decision. Dr Grant was a gentleman. He would, himself, have hated to be taken to a horrible death with arms strapped against his chest or with wrists manacled. He had simply shown a sympathetic understanding towards a person with whom he had been involved in feuding since boyhood. It had, perhaps, even been unfair to give Grant the job of grilling a life-long enemy. If the thing had been less personal Grant might well have played it by the book. It was only his own involvement which had forced him to grant Ferguson’s last request. That and a tradition that people of his caste died decently. But there was nothing decent about facing the guillotine bound hand and foot.

  The Admiral listened cynically, yet one part of him agreed. The trouble with Grant was that he could not only be more ruthless than anyone in the service, he could also have bursts of sentimentalism which were dangerous. And his job was special. The Treble A-one rating which he had been given was proof enough of his ruthlessness. But his record showed fantastic courage and an almost supranormal skill in bluffing. On balance it was probable that no other agent in their service could have done better than Grant, viewing his totality of contribution over the years, even if some assignments had landed his seniors in the most appalling political messes with sensitive governments. ‘You figure to announce and have a funeral same as last time?’[2]