Black Champagne

by George B Mair

  Grant nodded doubtfully. ‘More likely they want to know our own set-up. Neither Ferguson nor his friend from Asia can afford to go into action if there’s a chance of the C.I.A. stepping in.’

  Krystelle switched the subject. ‘What day is it?’

  ‘I’m bloody hungry. It could be anything.’

  The girl held out her watch. ‘There’s a figure for dates. If this hasn’t been interfered with we’ve lost one full day. Which means we were heavily doped or else we got concussion good.’

  She pointed to the basin. ‘But now that we’ve surfaced visitors may check in at any time. Get washed, David, and then lower some coffee. Do you good.’

  He was unexpectedly sarcastic. ‘How about trying a spot of white magic, honey chile? This looks like being one time it could come in handy.’

  She flushed, but let it ride. ‘Maybe later. But first get yourself fixed, there’s a sort of loo in the other corner behind that screen. They think of everything.’

  Grant ran his hand over his beard. ‘Two days about,’ he said at last. ‘Any razor?’

  Krystelle made a mental note that, in future, she would use a larger pochette and carry a spare Lektronic. Grant was fussy about his beard and loathed the untidy feel which need for a shave gave him. ‘Since they’ve been so thoughtful about other things maybe Ferguson’ll give you a shave before getting down to bizney. Keep your fingers crossed.’

  Ten minutes later Grant had lowered his second coffee and was beginning to feel back to normal when the door clicked open and Ferguson strolled in accompanied by three teenagers all of whom were dressed in the same rig, white shorts with crimson polo necks, while each was black as the ace of spades. Their eyes were shot with milky yellow, but one was more bizarre than the rest since his hair was a shock of white dropping over his neck to caress his shoulders so that, at first sight, he might have been a girl. Though pelvis, thorax and jaw ruled that out. He was a freak, either the offspring of a mixed marriage or else the victim of a Mendelian recessive. ‘My staff. Or part of it,’ said Ferguson amiably. ‘Meet Peter, James and John. Peter has the blond hair. James is the wee chap with broad shoulders and John has slinky hands which like to strangle cats. Anyhow, David, we meet again and you’re alive only because you kept your word in Paris. I owed you one life but now the debt is square and if you get out alive it will only be because you’re more clever than I think.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘We’re really playing with most of the cards on our tables and there are one or two smallish points which I’d like cleared up.’

  ‘As we would,’ interrupted Grant. ‘For example what about our friend who disappeared on his way to the airport. Any information?’

  ‘Or my friends from an important private yacht,’ drawled Ferguson. ‘Have you any information?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Ferguson had begun, again, to fiddle with his fingers and Grant never forgot this sure sign of tension. ‘Then if you want to improve the atmosphere why not start talking?’

  ‘And if you want to get anywhere along these lines the talking could be two-way.’ Grant was casting a very dry fly and hoping for a rise.

  ‘Can I sum up?’ said Ferguson. ‘I may not be expert with truth drugs, but I can hire men who are. And I can get the full story out of you before tomorrow if necessary. But we are civilised people or try to be, so let’s handle this in a civilised way, and before we start I’ll tell you precisely how you stand.

  ‘First, you were captured so expertly by some of my special commandos that I doubt if any witnesses really know what happened.

  ‘Second, you were removed to a place which almost certainly can’t be found.

  ‘Third, I find that earlier on two of my more reliable men disappeared after having been sent to destroy Miss Courcelle and yourself at your hotel.

  ‘Fourth, they have clearly failed to bump you off, and since they haven’t returned to base one must assume that they’ve either been killed or made prisoner. So I want an exact answer to that one.

  ‘Fifth, your friends recently visited a certain yacht where one of them stole a capsule containing important chemicals. He was later arrested by my own people while on his way to the airport. But I don’t know whether he was travelling as your own messenger, or whether he was doing a double cross in order to cash in on what he might have felt was a promising job offering vast dividends. And I’ll need an answer to that as well.

  ‘Then the sixth point is almost equally vital. You didn’t receive all these roses yesterday simply because someone in France liked your bonny blue eyes. So one can assume that they were a message in code and I must have the message, since, presumably it puts you up to date on what dear Miss Sidders and the Admiral have been doing during your absence.

  ‘Seven is less essential, but why did you buy an out-of-date Playboy? And then destroy it? Because that last bit is the angle which fascinates me most. Why destroy it? And again we are forced to the virtual certainty that it was used to transmit yet another code message which must have been jolly important else you wouldn’t have burned it. So, dear David, you’d better pour out your heart about that as well.’

  Grant looked at him coldly. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘One thing only.’ Ferguson was unexpectedly relaxed. ‘I would like to know how you got on to me so swiftly. So you may earn the right to live if you wise me up on that. Now any questions from you before we get down to business?’

  ‘May I speak?’ interrupted Krystelle. ‘I would like to know where we are. Is it permitted to ask?’

  Ferguson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Sure,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll set a good example and talk. And when I’ve finished you’ll understand just how hopeless your position is.’

  He nodded to the Negro youth with the blond hair. ‘A glass of lime juice but lace it with crushed ice, a spot of Ron Bacardi and three dashes of bitters. So!’ He turned back to Grant. ‘We are now living literally under the sea. In a vast series of caverns which inter-connect through natural doors or passages below the sea bed and linking with the surface only through a few tiny islets where there are sorts of natural ventilation shafts. These islands are deserted, they are all tiny and they are crowned by rocky knolls which no one would be terribly interested to climb. But even if they did, fortunately for our security, each entrance shaft cuts pretty obliquely down and doesn’t lure even enthusiastic potholers to explore the depths.

  ‘But if it did, they would drop between one and three hundred feet before they had finished exploring our rather handsome set-up.

  ‘This room, for example, is exactly eighty metres below the sea bed and near the lowest part of the formation. But we have perfect ventilation through the careful use of pumps. We also generate a fairish supply of electricity and maintain an all-year-round temperature of seventy Fahrenheit—plus or minus two or three degrees. We enter either through an atoll, or else through an ingenious air-lock which has been fixed in relation to an artificial opening on the sea bed where the water is shallow and there is no undue risk of heavy water pressure causing problems. But we seldom use that entrance since it involves skin-diving rig and a lot of nuisance. It is really more a kind of insurance against trouble, since we generally have a fast launch within a short distance of where we would surface and the means to contact a pilot if an emergency did arrive.’

  He looked curiously at Grant. ‘Got the set-up? It’s a bit like the Grotto of Neptune in Sardinia, only much more so, and of course the corridors or passages which unite the various bits of this labyrinth are much longer. Though some of the chambers are probably even more beautiful than anything I’ve seen in Europe. Fabulous stalactites and stalagmites in two or three of them, and one with a rather fine lake—which, I may say, we do not use for swimming, because it’s a breeding ground for piranha, those ferocious little fish from the Amazon. We brought a lot of them over a few years ago and they dispose of a great deal of sewage. Every scrap of meat and the like is chucked in, and whoof
! It’s gone in seconds. A most ingenious and hygienic affair I tell you. Anyhow that’s that, bedrooms, living rooms and so forth have been excavated out of the soft rock . . . carbonate deposits chiefly — and we are exceedingly comfortable, though humidity is rather high.

  ‘Our laboratories function easily in one particularly well placed chamber where the height of the roof plus some air-conditioning gets rid of fumes, and all in all we’re well organised. There’s even a single narrow gauge electric rail linking a few places for transport of baggage. Or other things—like yourselves for example, and of course there’s little need for refrigeration since we keep one small part without heating units and the natural temperature is low enough to satisfy any reasonable requirement.’

  Ferguson had contrived to lower the emotional temperature and Grant was interested in spite of himself. ‘How many can you support?’ he asked casually.

  ‘A good many.’ Ferguson sipped at his lime juice and then packed the bowl of his pipe with heavy flake tobacco. ‘Okay, David. I’ll be more specific. We can keep about two hundred people down here, and don’t think that that amount of traffic is bound to cause comment shoreside. Because it doesn’t. We can take over fifty at a time on a shallow draft vessel to our air lock on the sea bed and offload in half an hour. But where there are only half dozens we use a lift built to surface on one of the atolls. Very ingenious that lift—or elevator, take your choice, and one hundred per cent masked at surface level. In fact we used it to bring you down, and a link with the railroad starts at the bottom. So you must grant that some years of use have made this place pretty perfect.’ He paused. ‘Recently we’ve also used some gimmicks evolved by these chaps who are designing transworld submarines and rigged ultra-violet rays in certain corridors or rooms so that you can even work up a tan. In others we’ve created artificial draughts and fixed infra-red rays to give an illusion of fresh air and a light breeze.’

  ‘Clever,’ said Grant. ‘But why these boys, and why the uniform?’

  Ferguson laughed. ‘I was sure that would be your next question. Do you remember my telling you about P.U.C.S.A., or the People’s United Communist States of Asia? Well, the crimson polo neck is the crimson of communism and white naturally is the sign of purity. Leather is used because we need durable material and the boys who wear it are my own commandos. They are all born from casual relationships between white fathers and coloured women in either America or the Indies, and they’ve been disowned by society. They feel outcasts. Some suffered through the Americans failing to integrate schools in the deep south. Others are orphans as a result of parents having been killed during race riots in American cities, while others have had families murdered by the Ku-Klux-Klan. So they share one passionate ideological hate—white men’s attitude to blacks. Their greatest pleasure is to win some sort of impersonal revenge by killing or corrupting whites and they are being trained as the backbone for developments when we do our take-over.’

  Grant paused. This was a new hint. ‘They are pretty young,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘Young or not they’re able to take on almost anyone,’ said Ferguson. ‘In fact, I propose to show you just how good they are because a combination of fanaticism and training can be dramatic.’ He apparently changed the subject. ‘Incidentally we captured one of your men. A chap with a famous name. Winston. He flogged you that Playboy. Remember? But it happens that he also caused trouble, so we’ve decided to eliminate him, though since we’re civilised people we’ll give him a chance. He’s due to fight Peter here in about one hour’s time. And he’s been allowed choice of weapons since we follow the old tradition of duelling. He’s opted for knives and Peter should take him in about five to ten minutes. But you’ll be able to see exactly how competent Peter and his friends can be when it comes to combat.’

  Winston was the swiftest thing in A.D.S.A.D. and Grant found it difficult to believe that this man, who moved like a streak of light, could have been captured by anyone.

  Ferguson smiled sarcastically. ‘Everything is comparative. Winston is quick. But Peter is quicker. We’ll see the show from a window and they’ll fight on the beach beside the lake. The loser will make a decent meal for the piranha because it must be ten days since they had a human subject for luncheon and they’ve been kept hungry for some hours. But the object of our exercise is to show you what you’re up against. And since my team of commandos is only one of several you’ll appreciate that we’re quite well prepared with top flight troops to deal with the type of warfare which we visualise. These boys are due to keep race riots going in the States until America has been brought to its knees and conditioned for full-scale civil war. They’ll also play a part in Hong Kong and Macao, not forgetting St. Kitts, the Guianas and other sensitive areas. But any more questions?’

  ‘Why must you kill Winston?’ Grant forced himself to be clinically impersonal. The man was a prisoner and there was no immediate chance of saving him.

  ‘Because he’s one of your team. A good enough reason for anyone in my position. Anything else?’

  Grant risked a delicate question. ‘Why not my friend Harry?’

  Ferguson looked at him coldly. ‘Your friend Harry isn’t among those present. And I would give a good deal to know his whereabouts. Which is where Miss Courcelle comes in because she knows his movements. And if she doesn’t talk she’ll have the experience of fighting James here, who has a special distaste for her since he doesn’t care for coloured females who prostitute themselves to Caucasians. All clear?’

  Grant had many talents, but those who knew him best believed that his greatest asset was a brain which could sieve the trivia and use it as a bluff to gain time before bluffing even further and scooping the pool. Ferguson knew plenty, but action must now move with increasing momentum, and Grant knew that they were working with a margin of only hours before they would either have been killed or scooped the pool.

  ‘I can tell you so much,’ he said at last. ‘Harry has disappeared and we’re as puzzled as you are. In fact we were at that bistro only in the hope of getting a lead. We suspected that you had kidnapped him on his way to the airport and it was always possible we might have blundered into something if we tried to make contacts around Cha-Cha Town.’ He shrugged his shoulders expressively. ‘Though I’ll admit we never expected this.’

  Ferguson stared at him thoughtfully. ‘And the box of powder?’

  Grant knew that he couldn’t lose by telling the truth. ‘I was sending him as courier to Paris. My people would have been interested in an analysis.’

  ‘And my own men who disappeared?’

  ‘Killed by Harry’s friend and fed to the sharks in the bay within an hour of losing out in their attempted murder of Miss Courcelle and myself. Your powder knocked us unconscious, as no doubt you expected it to do, but we were able to send out an SOS for our friends before falling asleep. Incidentally,’ he added sourly, ‘that was a curious coincidence. Frank used sharks while you go in for piranha. Great minds think alike!’

  ‘And this woman is sister to the man you call Frank?’

  Grant knew when to be careful. ‘They occasionally use that gimmick if working together, but they’re simply self-employed members of a private organisation which, for the present, is hired by myself. And I’m surprised you don’t know that, because they’re old S.A.T.A.N. hands, and one would have imagined that your paths could have crossed in the old days.’

  Ferguson looked doubtfully towards Krystelle. ‘If you were one of S.A.T.A.N.’s people,’ he said at last, ‘tell me more. What precisely was your job?’

  She eyed him carefully before weaving a complex web so tangled that it would have been impossible to fault. Her story ranged from deals with the Rif in Algeria to smuggling drugs out of Iraq by sewing them into camel humps. She painted a picture of deep intrigue in the desert and implicitly took credit for helping to make both the Yemen and Israel blow up.

  She dealt with few facts, but she knew enough of S.A.T.A.N’s methods to sound convin
cing and then rounded off with a heavy body blow: ‘After David had killed or jailed most of S.A.T.A.N’s board of directors I was in the same boat as yourself. Harry then crossed my path with Frank at the Casino in Beirut. And then!’ She shrugged her shoulders expressively. ‘We just tagged along together and launched a new organisation. Much as you did. So we’re birds of a feather for purchase by the highest bidder. But of course U.N.O. top people would deal only with other top people and my set-up would never have crossed their minds.’

  Ferguson smiled thinly. ‘I’ll accept that for the moment, but the fight with James is still on unless you can put us on Harry’s track. And fast.’

  Krystelle sounded convincing even to Grant, who knew that she was telling a pack of lies. ‘He always believed in securing lines of retreat. So we’ve a mini-submarine in the area and when Harry saw that the heat was on he would make for the sub and dive.’ And if Ferguson could fault that one, thought Grant, he would have to be good. It sounded in keeping with what Ferguson must have learned of the man, while sub was the sort of status symbol which would also help to knock him off balance.

  ‘If I could ask a question,’ he said quietly. ‘Winston! What sort of trouble?’

  Ferguson hesitated. ‘He bust in on my team when they were taking this Harry character to a launch and made enough trouble to let him get away.’

  ‘How?’ Ferguson stared at him coldly. ‘You ask one helluva lot of questions. But I’ll string along. He took two of my men with a gun and another with a knife while our prisoner did some fast work with knots and faded. In fact, he didn’t even wait to help the man who had made it possible.’

  ‘They are professionals,’ said Grant bleakly. ‘The job comes first and he skipped only because the capsule came before Winston.’

  ‘He had the capsule,’ Ferguson agreed.

  Grant’s voice was very quiet. ‘So I take it that the people who failed to relieve Harry of this very important packet are due to date the piranha very shortly.’