‘I think I should join them, sir. It’s the only way to find out more about this mysterious thinker in Moscow.’
‘Very well. You’ll be given sick leave suffering from complications following an injury received whilst on holiday and that fact will duly be posted in the gossip columns. You’ll then be officially sent to a nursing home, and as a red herring that may turn the heat off for a spell at Sokolnikov’s end. But carry on.’ He added grimly. ‘Suppose you join them and you’re sent on sick leave. What next.’
‘I imagine Chang will settle for giving me all available information about the target for our exercise and leave it to me to deal with him.’
‘How do you expect to enter the Kremlin, kill a man and get out alive complete with papers? If any.’
Grant settled deep into his arm-chair and explained. There was only one way. Kremlin security was pretty good, the place stiff with soldiers or plain-clothes guards and open only at certain hours. Not even a parcel could be carried into the ground without inspection at the gate, but even so one simple dodge remained whereby a man might, with luck, get through the walls and stay inside until he was ready to leave in his own good time.
The Admiral stuffed his wad of glowing tobacco back into its bowl and rubbed a nicotine-stained finger on his waistcoat. He had known Grant intimately for over three years and rated him as the best man in ADSAD. Cold. Calculating. Decisive. He neither under-estimated a risk or over-estimated his own ability. Where routine stuff was concerned he was a dead loss, but given a tricky situation like this and he stood a better chance than anyone else of pulling it off.
As Grant outlined his ideas he listened with growing interest although at first sight they sounded impossible. But the more you thought about them the more you realised that they might just, and with a little luck, work. He seemed to know the Kremlin backwards, at least that part of it into which the public were allowed, and his tactical approach was cut and dried.
After firing question after question he leaned back, satisfied. ‘Worth trying. So now you’ll want our Medical Director.’
Grant found himself sweating. There was more strain in selling an idea than carrying it out. But Miss Sidders was already on the line speaking to an unseen exchange. ‘Professor Juin. Urgent.’
Two minutes later the phone rang. ‘That you, Professor? Please come round immediately.’ Without further comment the Admiral replaced the receiver and lifted a file. ‘See you shortly son. Give my secretary your report whilst you’re waiting.’
Back in the ante-room Grant was partially restored to favour. ‘This may be the beginning of another mission, Doctor,’ said Miss Sidders with a faint smile. ‘But how do you rate your chances if the Admiral sends you back to Moscow? Won’t they pick you up on suspicion whenever you arrive? General Sokolnikov seems to think that you killed at least two of his men and he is very angry about the ballerina incident.’
Grant shrugged his shoulders, free at last of pain every time he did so. ‘Sokolnikov won’t do a thing, ma’am, until he’s discovered what I’m doing. After all, why should they run me in the minute I arrive? The General will argue that once I’m back in the country I can be pinched at any time. So why not give me enough rope to hang myself properly?’
‘But do you really think you can get out again?’ The woman was looking at him curiously and Grant realised that she was genuinely anxious, that her inside knowledge of many assignments had made her expert in assessing risk.
‘Sure,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll get out. Provided ADSAD gives me the assignment, that is. But a lot will depend on the Professor. Whether he plays ball or not.’
Miss Sidders sat carefully upon a gleaming office chair and cautiously leaned back as though doubting if the thing could take her weight. ‘If Professor Juin turns down your suggestion have you got a second string to your bow?’
‘No.’ Grant’s voice was final. ‘This is the only way. Juin is probably the world’s leading authority on experimental physiology. He’s got the resources to do what we want and he’s got to be talked round into seeing this my way. After all, I’m the one who is taking the chances. What has he to lose?’
Miss Sidders fumbled for a moment with the hem of her skirt, drawing it tightly across her knees, and then she smiled. ‘You’re a great individualist, Doctor. But don’t keep saying “I” or “my” so much. This is a department problem and the department, not to mention the Alliance, may well be taking as big a chance on its future as you will.’
‘Sorry again, ma’am.’ Grant cursed himself for talking too much. ‘I meant the department, of course.’ How was it, he asked again, that this little woman could make him feel like a small boy caught stealing apples. Vaguely she reminded him of his first schoolmistress at kindergarten, and she was the only living person who could cut him down to size with a look.
She sensed exactly what he was feeling, but refused to put him at ease. A little discipline did no one any harm and she guessed that he would be the better for an uncomfortable half hour. Individualism was all right in its proper place, but it had run riot with David Grant. ‘Then say what you mean. And mean what you say. You men are all alike. You think that the sun rises and sets on your achievements and forget the team work which makes them possible.’
‘How about the report?’ Grant’s manner was taut with restraint.
Miss Sidders knew when to stop, and smiling affably switched on the tape. ‘Just dictate it at normal speed, and I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?’
Without waiting for a reply she poured out his favourite midday aperitif, a white Cinzano lashed with fresh lemon, and for herself a small neat whisky. ‘To your success.’
He smiled cynically over the rim of his glass. ‘To our team’s success, ma’am.’
He dictated steadily for over half an hour and then relaxed, lighting his first pipe of the day as Miss Sidders dated, indexed and filed the reel. The room was sound-proof but he guessed that the Professor must have arrived and that the Admiral was giving him the background to a story in which he would have to play a critical part. They had met on several occasions, but never professionally, and he did not know enough to guess how the Professor would react to his proposition. Juin was an Alsatian by birth but a cosmopolitan through experience and with an international reputation for his specialised knowledge of chemical warfare. He had been Medical Director of the new N.A.T.O. Department of Bio-Physical Research for over four years and Grant realised that if the Professor could not help him probably no one else would.
Miss Sidders lifted the office intercom as the light flashed. ‘We’ll be right in, sir.’
The two men were drinking coffee. ‘I’ve just been telling the Professor about some of your ideas,’ said the Admiral. ‘Care to fill in the details yourself?’
Grant knew that his proposition might be impossible. He also accepted that it might be difficult to ensure co-operation from other departments and that even then it might still be impossible to create the gadgets he desired. He knew little or nothing about chemical warfare, and the whole problem hinged around the highly technical problem as to whether some immunity might be built up against certain paralysing nerve gases.
The Professor stared at him thoughtfully. ‘We’re not really certain. Some lab work has been done with monkeys, and results are encouraging, though to date we have no data about effects on the human subject.’
‘But there is no reason to suppose that they would be different?’
Professor Juin hesitated. ‘I suppose not. We have one so-called “nerve gas” which is a highly secret weapon. Half a dozen or so loaded containers could supersaturate a continent, provided winds were right, of course, and paralyse all living creatures for upwards of a fortnight.’
‘How long would it take to build up a complete tolerance to the action of this chemical, sir?’
‘You are asking impossible questions,’ laughed Juin, ‘but I would imagine that a month at least would be necessary, and that the dosage in such an e
xperiment would have to be calculated to a millionth of a milligram. There would also be some danger.’
‘But at most the risk would be paralysis for some days, and a week or two at most.’
‘Yes. But then again we have no idea how long any such tolerance would continue until we try.’
‘Suppose it was reinforced by a sniff from some suitably made capsule every other day?’
The Professor looked at Grant expressively. ‘That would imply a major technical achievement in capsule manufacture. This gas is stored in fluid form. The capsule would have to contain only a minute quantity, because when liberated it would immediately turn gaseous and the effect would depend on distance from the source. There would be dilution through a mixture with air, and a sniff at two feet would be different in its effects from a sniff at twenty.’
‘I realise that,’ said Grant impatiently. The point was elementary. ‘But if you were able to build up a tolerance I could still carry around a supply of capsules containing just enough gas to boost that tolerance if I sniffed it every few days. And if I did my sniffing in the open air the quantity of gas used could so be calculated that by the time it had diffused a bit the thing would be harmless to other people. Whereas I would have had my sniff at close quarters.’
Juin reluctantly agreed. ‘But that is all theory. We would have to test the whole proposition under laboratory conditions.’
‘One other point,’ interrupted Grant. ‘I take it that a further set of capsules might be made with enough gas in them to paralyse, say, a roomful of people, if it was liberated within four walls.’
The Professor agreed at once. ‘That would be easy.’
‘And if the thing was vaporised under heat the effect would be almost immediate.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then could the capsules be made of thin glass covered with phosphorus and passed off as matches?’ asked Grant.
There was a long silence as the Professor slowly nodded. ‘I see what you mean. And very ingenious too.’ He turned towards the Admiral. ‘But tell me, monsieur. Is the objective you have in mind worth all this dangerous research?’
The old man rammed home his ash with pointed vigour. ‘Yes. But we’ll know more in a day or two after David has collected further information. Meanwhile we only want to know if his ideas are potentially feasible.’
Professor Juin hesitated. It was impossible to say for sure. But the suggestion could be worth investigating. Though research would have to be done in the right place. Most of the chemical gases had been stored in either the Highlands of Scotland or a certain valley in the Pyrenees, since they had to be kept remote from densely populated areas. And this work would demand total isolation.
‘Where do you suggest?’ The Admiral’s manner was non-committal, but Grant guessed how his mind was ticking. Scotland was the only possible choice. Population density in the Highlands at one or less per square mile could not be bettered in Western Europe, excepting in certain selected areas of the Pyrenees which lacked other facilities. The Americans had already set up a so-called Rest House in Perthshire, officially for rehabilitating sick men from the Polaris Base on Holy Loch, but in reality used also by key ADSAD agents who had reached the end of their resources. The Big House, as it was called, was a mid-Victorian shooting lodge within easy reach of Perth, Aberdeen and Inverness, but tucked away in a fold of the hills which isolated it from inquisitive observers. Grant had already passed ten days there after a bad beating up in East Berlin and had guessed that its use was at the disposal of his Chief. Official caretakers were accepted locally as a retired gentle-couple living on a pension plus capital. Being elderly and apparently in poor health, little was expected of them. They attended church regularly, occasionally entertained the local parson or doctor and annually held open house during the shooting season. The locals believed that they had four sons, and young men were often seen on the estate. And frequently with friends. Sometimes even with girl friends, but since they all lived a very quiet life the whole set-up had gradually become an accepted part of the background to a small, uninquisitive community which minded its own business, so long as the foreigners (as every stranger including Englishmen and Americans were called) minded theirs.
‘If the Scottish Nursing Home is free at present we could do the work there,’ continued the Professor. ‘You may remember that we have installed one pressurised room which would be ideal for our purpose. There is nothing comparable on the continent without risk to surrounding population and I would be happier in what you are pleased to call the Big House. Quite apart from the fact that the security angle is likely to be safer in Scotland than on the Spanish frontier.’
‘And your own programme? How will that be affected?’ Grant saw that the old man wasn’t yet sold on the idea of Scotland.
‘We are at a stage when I can safely leave things for a few weeks. And this work takes priority.’
‘Facilities up north are adequate?’
‘Yes. And we can always send up anything necessary to fill the gaps.’
‘I don’t like it. The British’ll raise hell if they suspect that we are messing about with poison gases. They haven’t yet got over the shock of that death from Pneumonic Plague at their Micro-biological Station in ’62. That exposed one state secret and seriously upset public morale. A combination of plague bugs, nerve gases and a Polaris Base would just about blow the roof off Anglo-American relations if anything goes wrong.’
‘Nothing will go wrong, monsieur.’ Professor Juin’s calm confidence was infectious. ‘We shall go alone and I shall do all the work myself. If the impossible does happen we shall simply die and you can say that we were heart cases. In Scottish law there is no autopsy in cases of sudden death and that is another advantage. There would be no post-mortems or shrewd pathologist to discover the skeleton in our cupboard.’
The Admiral laughed aloud. ‘That crack slipped out without thinking, Professor. But I’ll see you. Discuss details tomorrow. And you, David. Scram.’
Grant remembered the reel of tape. ‘I’ll take it back if you don’t mind, sir. Mr. Chang will fell happier when it is in his own safe-keeping.’
‘Do,’ said the Admiral dryly. ‘That’s one guy we want to keep sweet—for the present, at least,’ he added coldly.
Chapter Eight – Agreement to kill
Grant flew back to London next morning and after luncheon in his club drove down to Lyveden Hall for dinner. The house-party had broken up that morning and the four men sat in Sir Jonah’s study. John G. Alvis was still doodling, sitting by the fire looking like a modern Abraham Lincoln, his gaunt head shadowing weirdly against the flames. Sir Jonah, as ever, seemed self-controlled and confident, but Grant saw that his eyes were glinting expectantly and that he had a trick of dropping his head and staring into the distance. He had not, so far, contacted the Admiral and was leaving early ADSAD liaison to Grant. Chang and Alvis had accepted Lyveden as one of themselves, a lone wolf whose interests coincided with their own and who could fight free from any political tie-up. Neither suspected any link with top-grade Intelligence.
Mr. Chang alone seemed wholly normal, his manner that of a cultivated cosmopolitan at ease in comfortable surroundings. ‘Have you made up your mind yet?’ he asked.
Grant chose a chair well in the background and relaxed into its snug leather depths. ‘Yes. I’ll have a go at it.’
‘Splendid. But before we say any more, what about the reel of tape which you removed two days ago?’
Grant had been expecting the question. He looked at him as though surprised and then broke into a broad smile as he jumped to his feet and walked swiftly out of the room. ‘Sorry. I shoved it into a side pocket of the car whilst you were playing watchdog. Remember?’
He walked back from the garage hoping that his acting had been convincing and glad that he had extended the hire of the Jag for a week. ‘There you are,’ he smiled. ‘No harm done. I guess all our nerves were strung up a bit that day.’
Sir Jonah
opened the safe. ‘That blessed thing’s never been out of our minds, David. Glad to see it under lock and key.’
Chang gazed impassively into the fire. ‘You are not supposed to be forgetful in our kind of work, Doctor. Has this reel left your possession at any time since you saw us last?’
Grant lifted his glass of sherry and sipped it with irritating precision before replying. ‘My life may depend upon your ignorance of all my movements. You should only really be interested in results and I don’t intend to answer any questions either now or in the future.’
Chang was persistent. ‘My question says nothing about tactics or methods. It simply wants to know if anyone else has handled that tape.’
‘And on principle I don’t intend to answer,’ snapped Grant. ‘If I answer one question I may end up by having to answer dozens. So we’ll start the way I mean to continue.’
‘Even although we may assume from your behaviour that you did show the tape to someone and that you are not prepared to lie about it?’
Grant carefully packed his briar and then glanced up. ‘You can assume anything you please.’
Alvis was carefully drawing an elegant swan on a fresh sheet of paper from his pad. ‘Why are you so aggressive, Doctor? We have treated you well. Surely we are entitled to more consideration?’
Grant looked at him coldly. ‘I was recommended to you by Sir Jonah as being the best man available for your purpose. But you both still had me investigated by your own people, and to my mind this shows lack of confidence in Sir Jonah’s judgement. Chang has also suggested grounds for criticism which I feel are unrealistic and I resent his personal questions. You want me only because I’m the best man for the job. So let’s carry on from there and keep personal emotions out of it.’
‘Very well,’ said Alvis formally, his sensitive features tense with irritation. ‘Here are your orders. First you will discover if this new disease does or does not exist. Assuming that it does you will check that Professor Michael Gusev is in charge of research, and if so you must find out precisely what has been discovered. Has the germ been isolated? Is there an immunising vaccine available? And is there a serum for treatment of the active case? You must also secure specimens of the germ in culture and deliver them safely to ourselves or our agents. Then again you must discover where stores of this germ are being kept and destroy them. Finally you must kill Gusev and any other member of his team able to continue the work, or with power to influence his government.’
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