by John Gardner
‘And once it’s in the water.’ Aloud, pleased he had at least followed the gist of Skidmore’s explanation. ‘All you have to do is nip out and get the canisters.’
‘Well, I don’t.’ Skidmore rumbled a belly laugh. ‘Getting too old and fat for that. Me senior assistant, Fortescue, is too old and thin. But I’ve got a first rate junior—Russell Palfreyman. Dab hand with the old frogman suit. He’ll go out in a boat. We’ve got a mock-up of a Chronic Illness in the island villa. Russell can remove the whole trinity of canisters in a matter of ten minutes. Should give him ample time. We’ve got thirty minutes after the vehicle hits the water before it blows.’
Boysie quickly went over the whole operation in his mind. Something puzzled him. It had nothing to do with electronics, beams, computers, radar, or germ warfare.
‘Could you explain one thing, Professor?’
‘Certainly, my boy.’ Cheerful Uncle Skidmore.
‘What the devil’s Amber Nine got to do with it?’
‘Didn’t I tell you? We’ve called the operation Amber Nine because we’re re-routing UR/39 along the first leg of the commercial air lane known as A90—Amber Nine. Runs from Genoa across the Voghera beacon to the Monte Ceneri beacon here, then on through Zürich, Stuttgart ...’ He was cut short by the telephone coming to life on Klara’s desk. She answered it, covered the mouthpiece and looked at Skidmore.
‘You’re wanted in the Control Room, Professor, they say it’s urgent.’
‘Oh?’ Grumpy. ‘Do they now? We’d best all go. You can have a look at my toys.’ This last to Boysie.
Mostyn and Klara led the way. Boysie tagging behind with Skidmore. As they turned into the main passage the Professor took Boysie’s arm and spoke in a low voice.
‘That chap—what’s his name? Other security fellow? Frostin? What?’
‘Mostyn. Colonel Mostyn,’ corrected Boysie.
‘Bit dim isn’t he? Strange sort of chap.’
Boysie jumped at the opportunity. ‘He’s getting on a bit, sir. Seen a lot of action. Mustn’t be too hard on him.’
‘Funny chap. Very strange chap indeed.’
*
Kadjawaji liked grappa—that pernicious liquor which is virtually the dregs and residue from the distillation of brandy. To Kadjawaji, grappa was a delicacy normally difficult to obtain. Here he could drink his fill. Carefully he poured the colourless fluid from his liqueur glass into a demi tasse of thick coffee. A minute finger and thumb closed round the cup’s handle. A sip. A pleased expression. The two men and the girl, watching from the other side of the room, all felt a flicker of irritation. They did not particularly care for Kadjawaji, but they were professionals doing a job. Kadjawaji came with the job. They wished, however, that he would stop dramatising—playing the mastermind. They knew his reputation but—if this morning’s panic was anything to go by—the dwarf was deteriorating.
A second sip. Another smile. Then the piping voice. A violin badly tuned. ‘I require the whole group—all members of Assault One—up here at three o’clock. There are to be some slight modifications to our landing procedure.’
One of the men moved as if to leave.
‘I’ve not yet finished.’ A big deal screech. Then, more controlled, ‘The local operative from Locarno—the one who’s been acting as our radio link. The one we have not yet been allowed to meet. He’s received instructions. He will be coming with us tonight. Details later.’
Another sip of coffee, and the tiny man slid from his chair —an agile monkey, or some terribly deformed child.
‘You may go.’ Arrogant.
Sullenly the three group members left the room. Kadjawaji opened the windows and stumped out on to the terrace which formed the top of the boathouse. He stood for five minutes, his eyes straining across the lake in the direction of the Isole di Brissago.
*
Across the Continent, Major Tusykov looked out of the crew-room window. It was always a bleak time of day—just before they began the long patrol. The hours of concentration. Out on the apron the ground staff were making final adjustments to 05—his TU-20. NATO had code-named the TU-20, Bear. A. good name for this monster—unique in its field, the only turbo-jet strategic bomber combining airscrews and a swept-wing design. In fact the only turbo-jet strategic bomber in service with any air arm.
Tusykov was more than usually nervous today. The Commandant had given strict instructions that they were to remain in the crew-room until summoned to the aircraft by telephone. Usually they wandered out among the ground staff. It eased the tension. Major Tusykov recalled that the tension had never seemed so bad when they were carrying the Kangaroo missile. It was since their role had altered he had sensed a change in himself and the others. Perhaps it was because they never felt completely in control when patrolling with the Chronic Illness. There were half-a-dozen technicians from the laboratories working on the weapon now, scurrying in and out underneath the aircraft. They too had been edgy—especially since the incident last year when UR/25 went shooting off towards Rome.
Tusykov shrugged and looked away from the aircraft, over the field to the small dot of concrete that was the control bunker. Inside they would now be tracking 04 which carried UR/29. That was Illovych. Good pilot. He would be making his final turn before the long retracing return. Inside the bunker they would also be preparing the tapes for the weapon firmly clamped to the belly of Tusykov’s Bear. UR/39.
A mile or so on past the control bunker Tusykov could see the tips of the rocket testing gantries. Funny how the wind moaned through the great metal skeletons. It was a sound which persisted in this place. A moan like the cries from a large number of sick people.
*
Klara led them straight up the main passage, past the intersection—which branched off to Seniors’ quarters on one side, and cells on the other—to the large steel vault door which brought the central underground corridor to a dead end. Earlier Boysie had not been close enough to the door to make any thorough examination. Now he saw it lay flush with the wall—no sign of any hinges, handles or bolts. Just a flat shining slab of steel with a tiny perforated circle, the size of a penny, in the centre.
‘Let me,’ said the Professor, arms doing the crawl to get past Klara and Mostyn. ‘Always liked working this thing.’ He stood close to the door, lips near the perforated circle.
‘Five, four, two, eight. A stroke CX. Open says me.’ The door slid upward revealing a lift cage.
‘Don’t really need the “open says me”,’ grinned Skidmore to Boysie. ‘Me own bit of nonsense. You get it? Open says me. Open sesame. Aladdin.’ Guffaw.
‘Very comical, Professor. Popeye does it as well.’ Mostyn without feeling. Skidmore looked at Boysie and mouthed a silent, ‘Strange bloke.’
The lift took them up into the island villa—out on to a staircase landing: empty, bare walls, creaking floorboards, a silt of dust. Boysie had the impression of vast ante-rooms, chambers, alcoves, halls and long passages, a rustle of the eighteenth century; far below, over the banisters, a tiled floor. Cobwebs. It was a ridiculous place for an operation as totally contemporary as this.
‘Only way into our humble little dwelling,’ said Skidmore indicating the lift. ‘Doors and windows all sealed off with steel shutters.’
‘They would have to scale the walls—some of the upper windows are accessible. They could get in by climbing the walls.’ Klara, pausing by a door.
They went through into a big, square, high room—literally filled with a radar scanner, its massive metal bowl looking ludicrously out of place.
‘They don’t seem this large sitting on the edge of an airfield do they?’ Mostyn was leaning back, impressed for a change.
‘Works on a lift. Straight through the roof. Had to get the floor and walls reinforced,’ explained the Professor. ‘Once it’s up and turning we’re in business. Only shove it up at night—like the conservatives, eh? Might frighten the locals to see a damn great thing like that whizzing round on top of the house.’<
br />
There was room to walk round the scanner to the next door, which opened before they reached it. A shrunken weed of a man came out. A dehydrated human being. A body of bone and loose skin terminating in a sharp, wrinkled face with whispy white hair.
‘Oh, Professor. I’m so glad you’ve returned, sir. So glad. This is more unfortunate. Most. I warned him. Be careful, Russell, I said ...’
Skidmore raised one hand. The thin whinny of chatter stopped as though someone had sliced through the aged one’s vocal chords.
‘This is Fortescue. Been with me almost since I graduated. Me regular old scrotum—the wrinkled retainer, what?’
Boysie and Mostyn thought Fortescue was going to have a funny turn. He seemed to fold in two and then spring sharply back again, rocking on his heels. A strained cackle emitted from between the almost non-existent lips.
‘Always cheers him up that one. Now, my old. What’s to do,’ said Skidmore.
‘Ye’d better come in, Professor. See what you can do. Really I tried to stop him. These young men. These foolish young men. Mods and Rockers. Mods and Rockers ...’ Fortescue was toddling back from whence he had come, the little head shaking violently.
‘I wonder,’ said Mostyn, to no one in particular, ‘how Strategic Intelligence managed to get him on their strength?’
The movement which Skidmore performed was as near as he would ever come to doing a fouetté. No trace of humour across the lumpy features as he faced Mostyn. ‘Fortescue,’ he said, like doom’s crack, ‘is my most valuable man. What he knows about radio, electronics, radar and the like would—if printed in very small type—fill enough books to stock the entire shelf space of the British Museum Library. Yes, and the Brooklyn Public Library as well.’ He took two paces through the door and turned again with an after-thought. ‘You could possibly include the Folger Library in Washington. He’s a brilliant old man. I’d be grateful if you would remember that and kindly keep your comments to yourself.’
This, thought Boysie, is what it will be like if they drop the Bomb. He followed Mostyn through the door. The Second-in-Command’s shoulders were set as though in concrete.
No trace of the dusty past remained in the room. The inevitable strip-lights replaced windows. Shining hygenic walls and a floor covered with some dust-proof plastic material. Along one wall a work bench sagged with tools and an untidy collection of electronic accoutrements. The wall facing them was almost completely covered by an opaque screen, like some mammoth television—switched off at the moment, dull grey. Below it, more apparatus—steel-enclosed and, to Boysie, a meaningless battery of complexities. In the centre of the room stood a large computer consol. On either side, a pair of upright radar indicator screens and their controls. On the floor, in front of the computer, a young man lay in a position of extreme pain. His body, squeezed into a dry-type diving suit, twisted at an unnatural angle. The face, sporting a slightly Semetic aspect, had turned to that shade of parchment green which denotes considerable physical agony.
‘Russell, my dear boy. What have you done?’ Skidmore kneeling beside the luckless Russell Palfreyman, his junior assistant.
‘My leg,’ said Russell, teeth gritting. Klara moved in close, her hands feeling the bones through the rubber with undoubted medical efficiency.
‘I warned him. He would go sky-larking in that suit. With the fins on. Hooligan. Mod. Rocker.’ Fortescue hopping from one foot to another as though in urgent need of the nearest Gents.
‘But how on earth?’ Skidmore’s great head rolling from side to side like an angry bull.
‘Tripped over my flippin’ flippers,’ said Russell. ‘Just getting acclimatised and tripped over my flippers.’
‘Skylarking. I warned you.’ Fortescue going great guns.
‘I’m afraid there is a fracture. Nasty. Compound by the feel.’ Klara looked up, her hands still pressing on the damaged leg.
‘Aaaargh,’ said Russell loudly—con vivo.
‘This complicates things. Russ was the boy retriever. Canister picker-upper I seem to recall.’ Mostyn, pleased to the point of applause.
Boysie deduced that Mostyn was not altogether in tune with the work of Strategic Intelligence.
‘Indeed,’ said Skidmore, getting to his feet. ‘We’ll need someone else for the recovery. Someone to go out and get the canisters. Someone ...’
‘None of my girls are going.’ Klara quickly squashing any half-formed ideas. ‘After the business with Ingrid, and then Angela’s abominable lack of Security, I couldn’t be responsible. And neither Frederick nor Cyril are fit enough to handle any thing like this.’
‘We need,’ said Skidmore slowly, ‘somebody who is reasonably fit. A moderate swimmer—in case of accidents. One who is intelligent enough to be taught the routine within the next few hours.’
Boysie became aware that Professor Skidmore was looking straight at him. He glanced round in case someone stood behind him. Nobody did. Mostyn was looking at him—an unholy light in those piggy eyes. Now Fortescue and Klara.
‘Good luck, mate,’ groaned Russell.
‘No.’ Boysie backed towards the door. ‘No. No. NO.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
AMBER NINE: LAKE MAGGIORE
‘FROGMAN.’ Boysie, tightly encased, like a paupiette de veau, in the black rubber diving suit, was boiling up to high sulking point.
‘“Here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Rat,here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Mole, here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Toad, here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Badger.”‘ Quoted Mostyn. ‘Apt old Boysie. Type casting. Toad.’ He looked across the room to where Skidmore sat in front of the consol. ‘Badger. And Mole.’ Indicating Fortescue, running around the equipment like a whirling dervish.
‘And Rat,’ said Boysie, right between Mostyn’s eyes. ‘Wind in the flaming Willows. I’ve been wearing this king-size contraceptive since four. One pee, and that took ten minutes.’
‘We don’t want you getting wet, old son. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, I’ve been working as well. We’re both involved.’
Boysie admitted this was true. After the injured Palfreyman had been removed—seven hours before—Mostyn revealed that he had once done a week’s course on hovercraft. The rest followered as naturally as indigestion to a surfeit of boiled onions, Mostyn was taken off to the hovercraft, while Skidmore and Fortescue led Boysie into the basement. Some luxurious and over-flush previous owner had felt it necessary to provide the villa with an indoor swimming pool next to the wine cellar—a large pink and green monstrosity designed with all the flamboyant tastelessness of the avant garde 1930s. In the centre of the pool floated a full scale replica of the Chronic Illness missile —its long bullet body and tiny wings making it look suspiciously like a vehicle filched from a fairground Jet Plane ride. It took Boysie an hour to master the technique of lying across a stubby wing, hanging on with one hand and operating his screwdriver with the other—the water making the aluminium skin as negotiable as a greasy pole.
Then there was the long routine for the removal of the canisters—inspection plate (eight screws) off on either side, a similar plate on the drum inside the fuselage; uncoupling twelve terminals in strict rotation; unscrewing the canister nearest to him; then the forward canister; swim round to the other side; off with the two plates to get at the third canister. Practice. Practice. Boysie went through it again and again—Skidmore offering advice and Fortescue joining in with ‘That’s the way, Boysie. Practice makes perfect. Damn the Mods and Rockers. Unscrew. Unscrew ...’
‘Screw it,’ shouted Boysie after the fifteenth rehearsal. But they went on.
Later, Mostyn came down looking pleased with himself, boasting that he could manage the hovercraft blindfold.
Together, they worked out a quick means of transporting the canisters from missile to hovercraft—with Mostyn passing down a short rope and sling. Through it all again—Skidmore at the stop watch and Mostyn simulating the pull up to the hover-craft’s cockpit.
Mostyn disappeared, but Boysie went on. Scre
ws. Screws. Terminals. Canisters. Swim. Screws. Canister. By nine o’clock he could do it in fifteen minutes.
‘Call it twenty,’ said Skidmore. ‘It’ll be more difficult getting the tins out while you’re actually splashing around in the lake.’
‘That only gives us ten minutes reserve for Chrissake.’
‘Near thing. Going to be a near thing,’ chattered ancient Fortescue.
At a final briefing it was decided that the hovercraft would be moored on the north side of the island—where Boysie, Petronella and stone-cold Lynne had stolen the speedboat. Boysie and Mostyn would stay in the computer room until there was no doubt Chronic Illness UR/39 would make a successful splashdown. They would then go fast to the hovercraft and move out on to the lake—Skidmore giving them a fix and bearing by radio.
At nine thirty Boysie was allowed back into Il Portone to say goodbye to Petronella—now en route for London with Martin in attendance. Martin had returned to the school during the early evening, disenchanted, with news that he had located the Locarno telephone number in an empty flat in the Minusio area. There was an automatic recording device on the phone, but the tape was new and unused. Ingrid’s information on Amber Nine had definitely got to Locarno.
‘See you in London, then,’ said Boysie avoiding Petronella’s eyes. They stood alone in the hall. Over her shoulder he could see Martin patiently pacing by the car in front of the house.
