Miss Turquoise

by George B Mair

  Administrative Department controlling Security measures relating to Attack and Defence . . . ADSAD . . . had been built upon this ultimate refinement of the cell system and upon Cooper’s belief that treachery through fifth column infiltration of enemy agents into the most vulnerable government offices was now a standard part of the Cold War. But, even so, thought Grant, as he shook hands, and warmed again at the sight of twinkling blue eyes grinning from behind a mask of brown wrinkles, the reasons behind events of the past twenty-four hours must be more than usually top-secret.

  He still felt slightly off-colour and grinned sourly when he saw that Miss Sidders was going to sit in at the meeting. She could be worse than any inquisitor and had an unholy knack of cutting him down to size on the slightest provocation.

  ‘She’s got a better brain than either of us,’ grunted the Admiral, who guessed how he felt but rated her as more important than his own right hand, ‘and I want her to know that she can interrupt at any time she feels I may not properly be explaining a situation which is, to say the least of it, vital to our long-term survival as a nation.’

  ‘Or as an alliance,’ corrected Miss Sidders. ‘Europe has also earned a right to live.’

  Admiral Cooper sucked noisily at his briar. ‘Stand corrected. Call it the Free World if you wish, but if America fails to win the space race there may be no Free World left, and it so happens that David has blabbed one of our top secrets to the Russians. Indeed, right now the name Grant is mud from White House to Downing Street.’

  ‘Sir!’ Grant was sitting on the edge of his chair, his knuckles suddenly blenched white as he forced himself to control a flaring surge of temper which was one of his most dangerous temperamental weaknesses. ‘What secret did I give away?’

  ‘Cool off, boy,’ snapped the Admiral. ‘That was just my kinda joking gambit for introducing the subject. Of course, it wasn’t done intentionally, but it certainly does seem as though you’ve blundered on America’s most private and possessively guarded secret. And if our information is correct you told Lieutenant-General Sokolnikov how Uncle Sam uses a hundred per cent effective alloy for insulating space capsules against radiation. Now give, son. Is that correct or not?’

  Grant felt as though the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. During that last night in the Kremlin’s torture tower, when he had been bluffing for his life, he had taken Sokolnikov aback by saying just such a thing. But it had been bluff, a blind headline thrown out to take a man off guard.

  ‘Sure,’ said the Admiral. ‘And I believe you, because I know you. But by a most uncommonly cruel coincidence it happens to be a fact. America does have an alloy to protect her capsules against gamma radiation from the Van Allan or other space-belts. And not only does this alloy insulate against gamma radiation but it also absorbs certain cosmic and solar rays which may yet prove to be even more dangerous. But let me also add that the said alloy is in mighty short supply. In fact, unless we can get a hell of a lot more of it in the most immediate future our time schedule will be thrown seriously out of gear.’

  ‘But so far as we know the Soviet Union still doesn’t know what the alloy is, or where the ore comes from,’ added Miss Sidders. ‘Though since you have told them that we have an answer to space radiation there is a chance that they might try to bring down one of our orbiting machines on Soviet territory. Which means, of course, that we can’t send up any more men until this problem has been ironed out.’

  ‘In fact, son,’ said the Admiral, ‘moon flights or really advanced and manned space probes will be out of the question until both men and sensitive electronic or other equipment are fully insulated against all cosmic, solar and gamma radiation. That is a plain fact disputed by none, and Soviet scientists have come up against a dead wall because they lack this one essential thing without which they can’t make any sig-nif-i-cant further advance. Indeed that may have been a principle factor influencing their signature to a test-ban agreement in sixty-three and the rumours which later arose that they were no longer interested in landing astronauts on the moon. But America still monopolizes a limited supply of this essential ore, which is one reason why she has been moving under a more calculated time sheet. But,’ he added slowly, ‘I must repeat that world supply is very small and if its source becomes known there could be a fight for control which might end in open war.’

  Grant knew that his unspoken question would be answered only when the chief saw fit. He realized that two pairs of eyes were studying him intently, that a sort of invisible tic-tac of communication was flowing between them until, at last, Miss Sidders lifted her crochet work and picked up a strand of fragile thread.

  ‘Do you appreciate what has happened in the last twenty-four hours, Doctor?’ she asked. ‘That you have been officially certified dead by your closest friends, that you have been coffined and prepared for burial. That your obituary is presently in type and that the French police have closed your dossier with the statement that you killed a man who wounded you to death. That your parents have been told you were murdered by an armed burglar and that a cremation service has been arranged for tomorrow. That your estate ought to be wound up within a few months and that, in fact, you have ceased to exist.’

  ‘Your ballerina girlfriend, Maya Koren, can now marry anyone she chooses and that young floozie Jacqueline will soon be working for another boss,’ added the Admiral. ‘In fact quite a lot has been started, but it is up to you whether we go on with it. So make up your mind. Do you have a miraculous recovery tomorrow or do you carry on with the programme?’

  Grant fumbled with his pipe and then thought better of it as he caught Miss Sidders’ eye. ‘I shall do whatever you think best, sir. If I made a bloomer it’s up to me to try and straighten out the mess.’

  ‘Right.’ The Admiral had slipped into his quarter-deck voice and unconsciously dropped his off-duty manner. ‘You speak some Arabic and a fair amount of Spanish, facts which helped us to choose you for this mission, because you will be operating along a desert frontier capable of being disputed by Spain, Algeria and Morocco, not forgetting Mauretania. Tactics can be left to your own ingenuity, but the object of your exercise must be to secure facilities for America to remove from its site the entire supply of a new element which has been called riodorium.

  ‘The name comes from Rio de Oro which, you may recollect, was the name they used to give to that strip of Africa just opposite to the Canaries but which is now called Spanish Sahara, a colony which has virtually been sealed to all foreigners since Franco took over, so that probably the only people who now know anything about it are a few American geologists hired by Madrid to prospect for oil.

  ‘Anyhow,’ continued the Admiral, having relit his pipe with a lighter which always left a stench of gas behind, ‘they found mighty little oil until 1962, and then something was struck inland from Villa Cisneros, a one-horse—or camel—dump which is supposed to be the largest port. But in 1960 they also found something a darned sight more valuable, although at first sight it was nothing but a hunk of naked rock stuck in the sand just about dead on the frontier where it touches Mauretania, not far from Morocco and on the edge of Algeria. The rock seemed kinda unusual and a specimen was sent to the United States, where expert opinion finally labelled it as a large meteorite and for a month or so the thing raised only curiosity interest. But around the fall of that same year one of America’s scientists proved that it was an entirely new element and that amongst its other properties it was completely resistant to the effects of radiation. In fact it is light in weight, easily worked, capable of fusion with other substances and still capable of retaining its gamma/cosmic/solar radiation/resistant properties even as an alloy.

  ‘You can believe me when I say that Washington suddenly felt as though Santa Claus was round the corner and that he had switched addresses from north pole, the earth, to Sahara, Spain. Instructions were then sent to the field surveyors to assess the extent of the meteorite and tentative negotiations were opened with the elderly Caid o
r Sheikh upon whose territory the thing had been discovered.’

  ‘And I may add,’ interrupted Miss Sidders, ‘that Madrid still knows nothing about it. American experts were employed only to discover oil and there has never been any question about reporting on anything else.’

  ‘Then why negotiate with the Caid?’ asked Grant. ‘Where does he come in?’

  ‘He comes in the front row,’ snapped the Admiral. ‘Spanish Sahara isn’t a tidy little country like Austria or Portugal or your own United Kingdom. There are no obvious frontiers and the interior is run on feudal lines with big-shot desert families dictating policy so far as it affects their own affairs.

  ‘Riodorium was found plumb in the centre of a stretch of country roughly thirty miles square but which has been governed since time began—or so the guy would make appear—by the Caid Bobaida Farrachi. Described, incidentally, by Madrid as a “grand seigneur of the interior”. Well, the grand seigneur had an eye to the main chance and was willing to sell some rock to the Americans. But being a Moor he cut his wisdom teeth long before he was born, so Uncle Sam just couldn’t afford to make him suspicious. The stuff was got on the pretext that scientists wanted to look see if it could give a clue to where there might be oil, because if Washington had come along with an offer to buy the lot Farrachi would have smelled a rat and contacted an opposition firm to check up on the competitive market value.

  ‘No, son, the whole deal had to be played real cool and it went well enough at first. We got one hundred tons of riodorium flown out during the next six months, and then, when we were figuring how to touch the top man for another load, he died on us, leaving a son of the same name who jes’ hates America on principle. Now he won’t even let our geologists near his territory, and Madrid don’t give a cuss, because it knows that our boys have finished surveying that stretch and that any oil must lie further south. So there you have it.’

  He counted the points on his fingers. ‘One. By some fabulous coincidence you blurted out a bluff in Moscow which happens to be true, and since the Russians believe you it follows that they will be working round the clock to discover every darned thing Americans have been doing in the field of mineralogy.

  ‘Two. On that basis American intelligence cannot afford to deploy interest Saharawards.

  ‘Three. We know that about eleven hundred tons of meteorite remain to be cut up and flown to a safe place.

  ‘Four. Possession of this new element is vital to the West.

  ‘Five. America cannot now risk putting an insulated space capsule into orbit lest it be stolen and brought down on Soviet territory: this being technically possible, and it being remembered that the Russians are desperate to discover something about insulation methods or the possibility of new alloys being used.

  ‘Six. The stuff is lying almost on top of the ground and can easily be lifted, given permission to start work.

  ‘Seven. The Sheikh who matters in the area is anti-American and not open to a straight-forward commercial approach.

  ‘Because, eight, if he guessed that we wanted it he would tip off world markets and within the week we would have all the nuclear powers, including China, clamouring to buy. Or possibly getting ready to fight.

  ‘Nine. But the stakes are so high that some sort of local war might then become unavoidable. France would argue that it was on Mauretanian territory. The Communists would support Morocco or Algeria, and America would be out on a limb with Madrid no more use to her than a sick headache. Indeed Madrid would be raising hell because it hadn’t been notified about the discovery of an element more valuable than plutonium and the price might rock even American resources.

  ‘Then finally, and ten, supplies are so limited that it is against Free World interests to share it out.’

  ‘And my mission?’ asked Grant quietly.

  ‘To enter Spanish Sahara, referred to by some people as The Forbidden Coast; to establish a friendly relationship with the new Caid; to confirm that the meteorite is still untouched; to contrive a method of establishing control over the area and then to notify me through my agents as to how and when the whole thing can be removed. By fair-price treaty if possible.’

  ‘As a matter of interest,’ said Grant slowly, ‘how would it be removed?’

  The Admiral grunted. ‘Beside the point. Other people’s problem. But at a guess I would say they will cut it up with laser rays.’

  Miss Sidders looked up, curious. ‘A new name to me, Admiral.’

  The old man laughed. ‘Laser work doesn’t affect us as a department at this stage in time, but since it is so seldom I get the chance of telling you something you don’t know I’ll give you the gen.

  ‘The word stands for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation” and before the end of the century it should be as familiar to all of us as electricity or bullets. Dr. Theodore Maiman, then of the Hughes Aircraft Company in the United States, was the first man to introduce a real “laser”. But his work was based on some very remarkable calculations by Einstein, and put into simple language laser is simply the production of light accurately tuned into a narrow frequency band, instead of, as we find with ordinary light, the immensely broad band of the electro-magnetic spectrum which ranges from radio waves a kilometre long to the micro waves of infra-red. When properly “tuned” and applied laser can drill holes in metal: even through diamonds. And I am of the belief that with the latest laser knives American scientists can now cut up rock like butter.’

  Miss Sidders half smiled. ‘If Dr. Grant understands as little of that as I do he won’t be much the wiser.’

  Grant’s thoughts were far away. He had already heard of laser rays and their fantastic destructive properties. ‘So if the rock can be cut into manageable slabs it is just a question of airlift. At five tons each lift that would mean two hundred and twenty flights. How’s the desert in these parts from the point of view of landing reasonable-sized machines?’

  Admiral Cooper shrugged his shoulders. ‘Can’t say for sure. But they’ve already lifted a hundred tons. And it came out by air. Purely a question of organization.’

  ‘So what is the drill?’

  Miss Sidders carefully laid down her crochet. ‘The Admiral has asked me to explain all that.’

  Grant wriggled uncomfortably. ‘Very good, ma’am.’

  She smiled approvingly. ‘And smoke if you wish.’

  ‘We have tried to build up an accurate image of this new Caid or Sheikh and the overall picture should be good enough to use as a working basis. He is, of course, a Berber, whose conduct is governed by tribal laws and taboos. He has never known any formal education and has left his country only to make a few short visits to Las Palmas or Lanzarotte. But he is religious, a Muslim, and so to that extent possibly slightly anti-Communist, though he is not politically conscious, so his hatred for America has no political edge to it. In fact it really seems he hasn’t hit it off too well with the few Americans he has met on his Gran Canaria excursions and the whole of the United States has simply been damned in consequence. So he’s both sensitive and childish.

  ‘He has three wives but no family, and belief that he is sterile has made him introspective. This neurosis also drives him to prove that he is a man and from time to time he breaks out into orgies of cruelty. During these brain-storms he is capable of almost anything, but in between times he runs his oasis quite well.

  ‘His territory is a stopping place on what we believe to be one of the trans-African slave routes and there have been rumours of open slave markets in the manner of the bad old days, with Caid Bobaida getting a percentage cut on every sale. So you might pose as a vice magnate.

  ‘There is, however,’ she continued, ‘another angle. The Caid is crazy about the only daughter of a dead brother. Her mother is said to have been a Castillian Spaniard and she is a really exotic beauty. But she is also intelligent and was educated in Madrid, where she took a university degree in languages. It is also said that she is the power behind the scenes at
the oases and that her uncle will now do nothing which matters without first getting her opinion.

  ‘But it is here that the girl is so unusual, because in spite of Western-style formal education she adapts herself overnight to tribal life and follows local habits even to the extent of painting herself blue while living on the desert. Though when abroad she is the most sophisticated sophisticate imaginable and spends money like water during her shopping sprees in Las Palmas.

  ‘Incidentally,’ she added dryly, ‘there is a shopping expedition at least every six months and our advice is that she can be expected to break out within a few weeks.

  ‘Money probably comes from uncle’s percentage on slave deals. And she may tie up timing of slave caravans . . . most of which are airborne to Saudi Arabia or the Red Sea coast and Portuguese East. So I daresay you would have no difficulty in arranging an introduction, or even a pick-up whilst she is in Las Palmas for her next visit. And at least you can think it over.

  ‘However,’ said Miss Sidders slowly, ‘there is an even more practical possibility. The new Caid is scared of disease and there is no hospital nearer than Villa Cisneros where medical services are run by Catholics. But since Islam has no medical facilities he feels that he would lose face by allowing a Catholic doctor to treat him. So he is desperate to have some sort of medical unit on his oases and it seems to us that this is where you might do very well. Scrape up a meeting with the niece and get it across that you are a qualified doctor. Given a little luck that could later become a passport to a job right within the target area.’

  She snipped a thread and did some swiftly intricate stabbing with her crochet hook before laying down her workbag. ‘You might take the identity of an East German refugee with a medical degree from Leipzig. And such a man did exist. He qualified in 1946, but escaped to America in forty-seven and received permission to practice in the state of Arkansas, where he died last year. His name was Dietrich Gunten and we suggest that you use his identity, although I agree that as a front it wouldn’t hold water for twenty-four hours in Eastern Europe or China where counter-intelligence is competent. So now, Doctor, any questions?’