by Paul Kenyon
She took a tentative step or two, and then, without warning, a powerful hand seized her by the throat. She cursed her stupidity. He'd popped up from behind, from a hole in the floor. There must be a counterweighted block of stone that served as a trapdoor. A hand with a knife in it appeared in front of her, streaking toward a point precisely between her breasts.
It was an interesting problem. She didn't have time to think about it. She didn't have to. The little computer program that had been burned into her brain by the hundreds and hundreds of hours of unarmed combat practice sorted out the alternatives, came up with the only possible combination, and fed it to her reflexes in something like two fifths of a second.
First the knife. Never mind the choking grip that was cutting off oxygen to her brain. It would take at least another couple of seconds before she'd be too fuzzy to think. Don't grab the wrist, no matter what your instincts say. You don't have enough leverage to keep the knife from plunging into your flesh. She brought her left hand up from waist level and got it inside the thrust of the knife hand. She pivoted her forearm on its elbow. His forearm slid along hers like an arrow along a bow, only the bow was moving outward, deflecting the direction of the thrust. All the strength and quickness that her heart could pump into her arm was in that movement, and it was just barely enough. The knife point dragged along her ribs. It burned like a streak of fire. But it was past her ribs now, behind her, and she could trap it under her arms for a brief moment, long enough to buy some time.
Now the fingers at her throat. Don't try to break the grip. Use only one hand, the free hand. It was easy. There was a standard karate defense. She grabbed his little finger and pulled outward. There was a shriek of pain from him as the finger snapped. She never would have been able to do anything with his whole hand.
There was an instant slackening of his grip. Now! Before he remembered the knife! She drove a sharp elbow into his ribs. He grunted with the shock of it. His grip wasn't worth mentioning now. She whirled around in his loose embrace and took the knife away from him. Two hands. Grab the wrist just so. With the other hand, break his other little finger. Catch the knife when it drops. There! Now drive it into his liver. Twist it and pull it out. Still alive, is he? Stubborn bastard! She bent over the dying man and cut his throat before he had time to scream again.
She stood there, panting, the bloody knife in her hand. She looked down at his face. It was poor Muir. She saw why he'd looked black and oily. He was wearing a scuba diver's wet suit. It was still damp and oily from the film that was washing up on beaches along the North Sea these days. Muir must have been on some errand in the loch. It connected with Crombie Firth and the ocean.
That was damned peculiar! She frowned.
She had a problem now. She had to get rid of a body with a knife wound in it. She couldn't just dump it out a window. The splash might be heard. The body would be discovered sooner or later with that telltale wound.
She dragged Muir's body back to her room and propped it in a sitting position against the wall. She moistened a finger in her mouth and stuck it out the window. She was in luck! The wind was blowing out to sea.
She found the right bra for him in her luggage. She'd been saving it for an emergency, and this was an emergency. She hooked his arms through the shoulder straps so that the bra flopped loosely on his back. She peeled off the welting that surrounded the rims of the cups on the inside, and, folding the bra over, pressed the rims together so that the two cups made a shape like a football. The special adhesive took hold and made an airtight seal.
The body sprawled obscenely, the egg of wrinkled fabric on its back like some peculiar knapsack. She dragged it over to the window and sat it in the niche, its back facing outside.
It wouldn't do to have that football inside for what she was going to do next.
From her makeup kit she took a can of hair spray. There were three cans there. Only one of them was real. The one she'd chosen was called Bouffant. It was a good name for what was inside.
She fitted the valve of the hair-spray can to the hidden valve in the bra and twisted to attach it. There was a hiss of escaping hydrogen. The gas had been incredibly compressed, liquefied. Now it rushed eagerly into the cups. A space-age polymer began to stretch under gas pressure. It was a classified elastomer intended for gigantic oxygen storage tanks on the first Mars expedition. The public wouldn't know about it for twenty years.
The cups of the bra puffed out, from a football to a beachball to a great billowing blimp. It took only a few seconds. Muir's body was jerked backward, off the window ledge. The Baroness leaned out to watch it go.
It rose into the night, the gigantic bubble on its back still expanding, dangling from the harness made by the bra straps. The wind picked it up and began to carry it seaward. It was on a course that would take it somewhere between Norway and the Shetland Islands. Maybe months from now and hundreds of miles out to sea some Norwegian fisherman would find the dead body of a scuba diver floating in the water wearing a bra on his back and wonder what the hell it was all about.
She drew her head back into the room. It hadn't been a bad night's work so far. She'd exorcised the Bane castle's pet ghost.
But there was a lot more to do.
First she put an elastoplast over the knife scrape on her ribs. God, she was turning into a sight with her bruises and scratches and bandages! She pulled on a black skin-tight body suit with a utility belt; she didn't fancy padding around naked anymore in Castle Bane's damp secret passages. A little penlight in her hand, she climbed once again through the hole behind the tapestry.
There were pully-and-chain arrangements all along the passages adjoining the bed chambers. Sir Angus and his ancestors seemed to have had a taste for peeping. Curious, she tried one. A great block of stone eased out of the wall and settled to the floor of the passage. She peeked past the edge of the tapestry that covered the gap.
The fat German in the kilt was sprawled in a carved armchair. His face was corned-beef red and he was puffing asthmatically. His eyes were unfocused. Between his spread legs the kilt was flapping up and down.
His panting grew abruptly faster. He shuddered and gave a wheezing cry. The kilt stopped bobbing. A head came out from underneath it. It was one of the dour-looking serving women. She was wearing a cotton dust-cap. She had a long, horsy face with large teeth. She spat delicately into a lace handkerchief.
"Erstaunlich!" he sighed. "How much, Frau Muir?"
"Och, now, let me figure. Six pounds and fifty new pence."
He got the money out of his sporran and counted it out. She gathered up a pile of old bed linens and started to leave.
He grabbed her skinny arm. "A kiss, liebchen," he said.
"Och, that would na' be proper, Herr Konrad," she said severely. She went out the door with her laundry.
Penelope was just about to replace the block of stone when there was a knock on Konrad's door. Konrad got out of his chair, arranging the pleats of his kilt, and answered. Schmidt came in and closed the door behind him.
"Beautiful skirt, Konrad," he said jovially.
Konrad laughed. "When in Rome," he said. "It pleases Sir Angus."
"Have you talked to him?"
"Yes, after the banquet."
"When will the new strain of arthrobacter be ready?"
"There's been a slight delay."
"What do you mean?"
"Wenzl is dead. The Israelis must have gotten on to him. The sample he stole is missing. And they've suddenly strengthened security at the Tel Aviv Institute."
Crouched in the passageway, the Baroness smiled like a she-wolf. The beefed-up security was Farnsworth's doing. He'd gone to the very highest government levels in Israel and let them in on the secrets of four governments about SPOILER'S blackmail. Nobody would be getting bacteria seed stock from Israel anymore.
"Can't Sir Angus work with the germs he already has?" Schmidt said.
"It's dangerous. He needs time to duplicate the work with the gene tran
splant. He's working with a promising virus now."
Schmidt shook his head. "We haven't got time to wait. If we fail to make good on our threats, we lose our credibility. The stakes are too big."
Konrad took on a dreary look. "Just think of it, Schmidt, payments equal to the entire oil revenues of the world. That would be one hundred billion dollars a year from the Arab countries alone! With that kind of money under our control, we can run the entire world."
"Yes," Schmidt said dryly. "But first we have to get the British under our thumb."
"Perhaps they'll knuckle under when the next supertanker sinks."
"Perhaps. But they're being stubborn."
"After all, it's the first of the new megaton class. A million tons, just think of it!"
The Baroness drew in her breath sharply. They were talking about the Leviathan. Paul was aboard. He'd be halfway down the coast of Africa by now.
"Our man will infect the tanker with the same germ we used before, the dangerous one?"
"Yes, but it won't matter. Sea life will eat up the remains within a few days. The arthrobacter won't have a chance to spread further, there in the open sea. But the oil reserves themselves — that's another matter."
"We took a chance in Rotterdam, at the refineries. And at the Russians' oil port on the Black Sea."
"Yes, and look what happened. Germs drifting on the winds infected the NATO armies. And half the Russian Army. Luckily, the arthrobacter died out after feeding on vehicle lubricating oil and gasoline." He shook his head. "But who knows what will happen if we deliberately infect an oil well. The germ may spread underground. It may eat up all the oil in the entire world."
Schmidt laughed. "It won't matter, Konrad. By that time, we'll have all the money in the entire world."
Konrad laughed, too. It was infectious. In a moment they were dancing around one another like schoolboys, pummeling one another good-naturedly.
Silently the Baroness raised the block of stone into place. She had her answer. Sir Angus Bane was the brains behind SPOILER. He was the one who had bred the oil-eating bacteria from the Israelis' innocent strain. The Germans, a powerful faction within the BUG pharmaceutical trust, were supplying the financing and most of the manpower. By the time they were unmasked, they'd have the world by the balls. No government would dare to move against any members of the conspiracy. It would be too risky. The world would lose its oil before they could complete the roundup.
And that put a limit on her own actions. She didn't dare do anything yet. Not till she found out exactly how they planned to infect the oil reserves under the North Sea.
She crept through the dark passageway back to her own room. How did Tony fit into all this? Or did he fit? That was another thing she'd have to find out.
The borzois lifted their heads when she popped through the hole, then went back to sleep. "Some watchdogs!" she said. She stripped off her body suit and got right into bed. It was only a couple of hours until morning. With Muir dead, she'd have to get up and walk the dogs herself.
* * *
"I think I heard Slippery Donald last night," the Baroness said. She watched sharply for Sir Angus' reaction. He'd come down to the small dining room to join her and Tony for an early breakfast.
He tried to immobilize his face with stoic reserve, but he was a Celt after all. His nostrils grew pinched and white, and a vein crawled in his forehead. He must still be trying to figure out what had happened to his ghost.
"A lot of nonsense," he said, buttering a scone. "You don't believe in him, do you?"
"Not anymore," she said.
Chapter 9
There was a whole bevy of Rolls-Royces pulled up in front of Number Ten Downing Street, custom jobs mostly, with window shades in the rear to shield Very Important Persons from the common view. The reporter from The Tattletale sidled up to one of the chauffeurs.
"Who's your boss, mate?" he said. "What's it all about?"
"Bugger off," the chauffeur said.
The reporter walked around to the rear of the car with a pad and pencil and began to copy the number plate. A man in plainclothes came out the door of the building and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Off with you now," the man said.
The reporter stood his ground. "And what about freedom of the press?"
The man sighed. He showed the reporter a blue card. "It comes under the Official Secrets Act," he said. "Your editor's already received a D notice."
"And what's so bleeding secret about the names of the people meeting with the prime minister today, mate?" the reporter said stubbornly. "The public has a right to know who they are, hasn't it?"
"Now, now," the man said kindly, "you don't want to end up in prison, do you? Run along, now. You can check with your editor if you like."
Grumbling, the reporter turned to go.
"Just a minute," the man in plainclothes said, and he deftly took the top page of the notebook.
Inside, the owners of the Rolls-Royces sat in comfortable chairs, facing the prime minister. Lord Cornston was there, small, pink, and imperturbable, along with the chairman of Anglia Petroleum, Ltd. The home secretary was there, and the chancellor of the exchequer, and the M.P. who hazily and somewhat reluctantly supervised the activities of MI5.
"Then you chaps are determined not to pay these SPOILER people?" the prime minister said.
Lord Cornston's silver mustache twitched. "Most definitely not. We'll put a stop to this blackmail here and now."
The chancellor of the exchequer spoke. "You're gambling hundreds of millions of pounds, you know."
"Well…"
"You're not expecting the government to bail you out?" the chancellor said mildly.
"It does fall within the realm of public policy," Lord Cornston said in a steady voice.
"Quite," the prime minister agreed. "These SPOILER people have billed the sinking of the Leviathan as a demonstration. A prelude to the destruction of our North Sea oil reserves. I may say that Her Majesty is quite concerned."
The home secretary stirred in his armchair. "There'll be bleak days ahead in England without that oil."
"And bleaker days yet," the chancellor said, "if we're required to pay out billions of pounds a year from now till the last tick."
The Anglia chairman leaped into the opening. "And that's why Lord Cornston and I agreed that we ought to… to stonewall it, as our American colleagues like to say. But we do feel that the government ought to partially underwrite the risk we're taking in their behalf."
The prime minister turned to the M.P. "What progress have your chaps made in tracking down this SPOILER crowd?"
"They're at a dead end, I gather," the M.P. said. "If the D.G. is being candid with me. Which he rarely is, entirely. Feeds me tidbits, you know. They had a man on it, Fenshaw his name was, who was on to something. But he was murdered before he could pass it on. They're still trying."
"You can tell them what happened to Fenshaw," the prime minister said.
"Lost his head, actually. Decapitated one night at the offices of Caledonian Oil. Evidently surprised the murderer at the files."
Lord Cornston said, "Oh? That's Tony Cavendish's outfit. Have you questioned him?"
"Of course. Good fellow, Cavendish. Very cooperative. But he doesn't have the foggiest notion of what SPOILER may have been after, or how Fenshaw got on to them. But he's increased security at his drilling rig."
"As we're telling secrets," the prime minister said, "what about our American friends? They were working with Fenshaw under special authorization. What leads do they have to SPOILER?"
"Washington won't tell MI5 anything," the M.P. said. "You know how those chaps are about intelligence matters. They like to take, not give. They claim that their agent is out of contact, gone underground you know, but that they'll fill us in as soon as they can, et cetera, et cetera."
"So we're totally in the dark?"
"It appears so."
Lord Cornston turned his pink, scrubbed little face towar
d the prime minister. "We're to take it, then, that the government is prepared to risk the loss of the North Sea oil fields? And take the gamble with private capital? Our capital!"
The prime minister cleared his throat. "Not quite. We haven't arrived at that decision yet. First we'd like to see what happens to the Leviathan."
"Yes," the chancellor of the exchequer said. "And I'm afraid that is your gamble. Yours and the insurance companies'."
* * *
Paul finished his cup of coffee before he left the mess room. He didn't want to be too obvious about following Loy.
There were still eight or nine men in the room, lingering over coffee, reading newspapers. There was a trio at the end of the table playing three-handed poker. None of them looked up when Paul left.
Loy was his man; he was sure of it. He'd been searching all the cabins methodically since they'd sailed from Ras Tanura, taking chances, knowing what was likely to happen if he were caught and suspected of being a thief. He'd managed to get into Loy's cabin only the night before while the man was standing watch. He'd found the inflatable life jacket and the little radio homing device and the hundred feet of rope for getting into the water. Somebody was going to pick Loy up, or so Loy thought. The most likely rendezvous point was off the coast of Somalia just before they crossed the equator — their closest approach to the African shore till they rounded the southern tip at Cape Town. That would be a matter of hours now.
Bacterial cultures have to be kept under refrigeration. He hadn't figured out how Loy had managed that until he'd seen Loy loitering around the Coke machine a few minutes ago. He'd made a little pantomime production of not getting his Coke for the benefit of anyone who might be watching, then opened up the back of the machine and pocketed something. He'd left the mess hurriedly then, without finishing his Coke.
Paul stepped out onto the companionway and closed the door quickly behind him so the light wouldn't show. It was a clear, bright night, with the tropical stars brilliant over his head, the sea running calm and deep a hundred feet below. He looked out across a field of metal that was more than a quarter-mile long. It was practically unbroken, except for the radar masts forward and midships and that central ridge of pipes and trolley track.
