Hartinger's Mouse (Commander Shaw Book 12)

by Philip McCutchan

  I probed my own intelligence and found the result appalling. What Fesse had said sounded mad enough, extreme enough, but I had good reason to know that WUSWIPP had the ability to bring their mad schemes very, very close to effect. This thing could upset the balance right throughout the world until someone in the West found the antidote, and even then the West would be at a disadvantage since they wouldn’t know in advance which area was under threat. They couldn’t prevaccinate half the world. Once a similar thing had happened a couple of times, acting as a warning, they might be able to foresee an outbreak in any given political situation that developed, and then take precautions accordingly, but this thing could still cause all kinds of chaos.

  Crazy!

  Fesse started again. “When you think about this, Commander, you will see that the possibilities are legion. Sickness … sweeping through governments whose policies are not in accord with what WUSWIPP likes to see. The elimination of all whites and white influence in, say, Africa … and the resulting power vacuum. Red-raw passions aroused in the white communities living with coloured immigrants — for the whites will most surely hold the coloureds to blame for bringing the disease to them, and will be the more inflamed simply because the coloured peoples themselves do not contract it. As a result of this, there may well be a clamour from certain parts of the world for the protection of human rights, for the coloured people not to be molested. You will appreciate the implications in this. Finally, whenever WUSWIPP chooses, the great onslaught can begin against Western Imperialism, leading to the collapse of Europe and the North American continent under the full spread of the sickness — just as you in Britain are now suffering.”

  Moon disease, moon madness. Oh yes, it was mad all right — highly improbable. But possible. My mind dwelt on the likelihood of the West finding that antidote for themselves. There was no reason to suppose Fesse was more brilliant than anyone in the States, or anyone else in Britain come to that. He had no monopoly of intelligence or ability. We would find it, sooner or later. It would be being worked on right now, of course. But it still wouldn’t be enough. The advantage would always lie with the spreader, who could work a damn sight faster than the alleviator.

  There was just the one thing that would work one hundred per cent and that was to destroy this place, and all its secrets, and Fesse with it. That was what I had to aim for; or anyway it was one of the things. The other was that I had to get the antidote, both formula and stocks, to the world above us. The two things didn’t quite tie up and I would need to sort out the priorities. I didn’t see a single hope of being able to achieve a thing. Nor did Jagger, when I asked him on Fesse’s departure.

  *

  I slept a bit, later on. It was a dreamless sleep, oddly enough in the circumstances, and I awoke feeling much refreshed though I had a nasty taste in my mouth, brought on, I think, by the dependence on conditioned air. I longed for the freshness of the hills and glens above, to be free of the fearful contamination of this place. I wondered again how we were to die, and I presumed it would be as a part of some other experiment unless Fesse let the loch water in whether or no there was any outside interference. I reckoned he might regard this tunnel, the whole Scottish set-up, as expendable. Whatever happened he would eventually be moving on and establishing himself within the closer ambit of WUSWIPP. I discussed this with Jagger. There didn’t seem to be much point left in keeping quiet on account of possible bugs. We really hadn’t any secrets left and provided we didn’t shout aloud any plans we might dream up for breaking out, I felt it could do no harm to natter and conjecture about Fesse’s movements. I didn’t care if it did give him a laugh.

  But Jagger wasn’t interested in conjecture and Fesse’s movements; he wanted, and I couldn’t blame him, to get on with the escape programme. He mouthed this much at me, with his face turned away from the television camera. I mouthed back at him to be careful. He was. He managed to convey, with very little actual sound, that he’d thought of something and I asked what.

  He framed the words, “The bog, sailor. When they come to take us to the bog. Have a look round.” He was being careful to the point of incomprehensibility.

  “Ha,” I said. I’d once got myself into the Soviet Union by way of the ladies’ lavatory on a railway station … a place called Khamchevko on the Russo-Hungarian border, I remembered. That lavatory had enabled me to join the Budapest-Smolensk Transfrontier Express in spite of the guards with their Simonovs and Kalashnikovas. But I didn’t see much of a hope in the gents underneath Loch Cuillart.

  “Have another think,” I told him.

  He said something more about the bog, but I couldn’t quite make it out, and I didn’t want to make him talk louder, just in case, so I stopped the conversation. I thought about his vague suggestion, however, as we lay there in silence, and then recalled that Jagger had visited the lavatory with two orderlies more recently than I. It was just possible he had discovered something that hadn’t been there before, God knew what, and it might be worth my while to run a close eye over the place on my next visit. If he was on to something like a loose brick, however, I wasn’t. All we would get by prising out loose bricks would be a sudden flush in the wrong place.

  Soon after this, the BBC was fed through again. The situation summary was much as before and in general things sounded worse, which was not much of a surprise. The recovery rate in patients was taking a down turn. Things just couldn’t get any better until the antidote became available and though the United States authorities were doing everything possible to help there was as yet no sign of any progress. Although Fesse hadn’t said so, I began to get the idea that Hartinger himself had been the really big boy on the moon-disease research and that without him it was a case of the blind leading the blind.

  In killing Hartinger off Fesse had really set the seal on his filthy plans.

  *

  Later I heard footsteps coming along the tunnel and stopping outside our door. When the door was opened up Weiler came in. I hadn’t seen him for a long time now, but he didn’t seem to have changed — a little grayer, perhaps, that was all. He was just as much of a bastard, no doubt. With Fesse he came towards the table where I was strapped down and he gave me a broad smile, looking happy and carefree. He said, “How nice to see you once again, Commander Shaw.”

  “Yes, it must be,” I said, “tied down. What have you come over for? To gloat?”

  “Not to gloat. None of us wish to see suffering.”

  “Oh, no, of course not. I quite understand. It’s all very unfortunate, but it has to be. Right? So what have you seen on your way here? I know you can’t wait to tell me all about it, Weiler.”

  Weiler lifted his shoulders and put on a sad-dog look that didn’t fool me. He had a mobile face and was clever in the way he used it. He said sombrely, “I have heard of suffering, it is true, but I have seen nothing for myself. The remote parts of Scotland have mostly escaped.”

  “You landed in Scotland?”

  He nodded. “There is a vessel, out of sight from the coast. I was put ashore by helicopter — it was easy.”

  “You’ll be going out that way, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “With Fesse?”

  “Yes, and all the personnel from here.”

  “When?”

  “This is not yet decided.”

  “Uh-huh.” I stared at him for a few moments and then said, “Why did you come here, anyway? Can’t Fesse manage on his own?”

  “Fesse can manage very well on his own,” he answered, and gave Fesse a smile. “You must allow me my foibles, Commander. I am interested to see for myself what my friend has done. Is this not reasonable?”

  “You mean you’re going on a tour of inspection?”

  “Not that, no. Not of your country. Only of this place, the laboratories.”

  “I hope you have a most enjoyable time, Weiler.”

  He smiled again. “Thank you. Shall we go on, my dear Konrad?”

  Fesse gave a stiffly form
al bow, his hands at his sides. He was being cold towards Weiler for some reason; though Weiler was higher up the WUSWIPP scale — or so I assumed — there was no obsequiousness in Fesse, who was the more dominant personality by far. They went out with the orderlies and left us, and as he reached the door Weiler turned his head and looked at me. It was a very brief look; Fesse hadn’t seen it and somehow I got the idea he wasn’t meant to.

  I couldn’t interpret that look of Weiler’s but I was intrigued by it — very intrigued, because I had the curious but strong feeling there was something between Weiler and Fesse, some basic disagreement that hadn’t been resolved. As I have said, Weiler had a mobile face and when he wanted it to be, it was highly expressive. But why he should have used it on me, I didn’t know. I thought about it for a time, then I gave it up. Something might emerge later, but in the meantime there was a more pressing matter to be thought about, and that was how to get away from the tunnel. When I thought about that, I made no more progress than I had made earlier; and I knew we had to do something very fast now, because Weiler wouldn’t be lingering too long in Britain and I guessed that his appearance must mean that things were coming to their fruition and the boys were all set for out.

  I looked across at Jagger and remembered how he’d tried to say something about the bog. Everything had to be given its chance so I raised my voice at the television camera in the upper corner of the room and announced that I wanted an escort to the lavatory. I repeated this two or three times in case the screen or the bugs weren’t being listened to as conscientiously as they might, and after a long wait I heard the bolts coming off the door and an orderly came in. As usual, of course, the man was armed and he had a mate waiting by the door while he unstrapped me. I was led along the tunnel to the lavatory. The orderlies stood on guard outside the door and I took my time and had a good look around. There were no loose bricks, but there was an electric cable running down the wall behind the pan, a cable that vanished into the wall to my right as I sat and pondered. Well, I supposed that cable could link in with all the other electrics down here, and if it could be fractured we might be able to plunge the place into a useful darkness — if it could be fractured. There would be little point in being electrocuted and I had no access to any insulated wire cutters or indeed any cutters at all. If that was what Jagger had had in mind, I didn’t go along with him. Then all of a sudden I realized something else: the lavatory unit was similar to the kind of thing one found in submarines, and Jagger, who had spent some weeks aboard a submarine when he’d assisted me in the Antarctic ice scare, had evidently ticked over faster than I had. When you wanted to flush that lavatory, you had to go through quite a complicated series of lever manipulations and if you didn’t do them properly there was a kind of blow-back and you got the lot in your face. On the other hand, when you operated the mechanism properly, there was a forceful discharge in the right direction — seawards. Or, in this case, lochwards. So there was just a chance, and I fancied this was what Jagger may have had in mind, that a message written on toughish paper, or preferably cloth, would find its way to the surface. And a very much slimmer chance that someone would pick it up. One day, anyhow. Most likely too late to be of any help to us, and of course there was no guarantee that even if found it would fall into the intended hands.

  Too shaky to depend on at all, but perhaps no harm in trying it. That was, if I could find a ballpoint and a piece of linen. I didn’t think the orderlies would see anything very sinister in it if I asked for the return of my handkerchief, for instance, at some convenient opportunity. I had no ideas about the ballpoint.

  I opened the door and was escorted back to bed and strapped down again. When the orderlies had gone, I caught Jagger’s eye and went into the silent mouthing routine again. “Pan?” I asked. “Message?”

  There was a fractional nod. I conveyed to him that I would have it in mind. But the more I thought about it, the less helpful it seemed. Loch Cuillart, as I had seen from my road maps, was long and extended a good distance south, probably well outside Fesse’s domain, but it might be a hell of a long time before any message floated down to those parts — which it would need to. Any locals found wandering around just hereabouts and taking an interest in the waters of the loch would probably end up dead.

  *

  The next interruption to our solitude came when two of the orderlies entered, one of them bearing my clothes. This man said, “You’re wanted. Get dressed quickly.” He unfastened the straps.

  I sat up. “Who wants me?”

  “Professor Fesse.”

  I felt the increased thump of my heart as I got off the operating table and dressed myself. I felt my pockets as I did so; I felt my wallet and a few odds and ends that included my biro and handkerchief. Talk about a stroke of luck. After Fesse had done with me, it might be a good time to ask for a lavatory visit again. I wouldn’t get an opportunity like this again, probably. Dressed, I nodded at Jagger, who was looking anxious and enquiring, then I followed the orderlies out into the tunnel and along to the entry chamber at the western end, the one on the same side of the loch as the house I had seen when I was a free man. We climbed. As we emerged through a camouflaged manhole into the fresh air I saw that it was night — down below, without my watch, I had had no idea of time or of night or day. It was wonderful to breathe that air again, to feel the breeze ruffling the loch which I could see away to my left. We went through a forest of firs for a little way, then came out into open ground and I saw the house a few hundred yards ahead, with the road running past it.

  The road was empty, but it was a link with the world. The orderlies closed in, each taking one of my arms and keeping the guns in my sides with their free hands. Two Alsatians ran up, dangerous-looking brutes. There wasn’t a hope of a break. If there had been. I would have left Jagger and Jane Airdrie and, feeling a thorough bastard. I’d have gone. I would have had to; it was as simple as that — no choice. We went towards the house, which looked as ordinary as I’d thought when looking at it from the road. We went in by a back door and went through the kitchen, which was like any farmhouse kitchen, to a stone-paved passage and then into a hall. I was pushed ahead of the guns into a living-room where a coal fire burned. Weiler was standing in front of it, warming his bottom in the chill of even a summer’s night up here. No Fesse — no-one else at all. Weiler gestured to the orderlies, who withdrew. Weiler had a gun in his hand and it was aimed at my guts.

  He said, “A little talk, Commander Shaw.”

  “I thought it was Fesse who wanted me.”

  He didn’t bother to explain. He said, “Fesse has gone out. I take the opportunity to speak with you. It is a serious matter.”

  “You must be joking!” I snapped. “Look, just what is going on? I don’t get this.”

  “You will,” he assured me. I’d never seen Weiler like this before, hadn’t heard this sort of weightiness in his voice. He was worried about something. He told me to sit down, which I did, in an easy chair by the fire. He said, “No tricks, Commander. The orderlies are outside. Also the dogs. You cannot get away and I think you would be very foolish to try. I do not mean that entirely in the sense you are thinking.”

  “How then?”

  “Because first you must hear what I have to say. This is most important. You will be much surprised — and I may add, none of this is pleasing to me.” The gun still stared me in the navel and Weiler was watching me closely throughout. Suddenly he said, “Konrad Fesse is a very clever man, a brilliant man.”

  “You didn’t bring me here to tell me that, Weiler.”

  “No, this is true, I did not. I brought you here to tell you what you must already know, which is, that brilliance can verge on madness and frequently does —”

  “Sure. And Fesse is stark, staring mad. Don’t tell me. I know.”

  Weiler shook his head. “No, Commander Shaw, you do not know. You do not understand my meaning at all. I mean that Fesse’s concept, his current plan for his disease discovery,
is of itself crazy — but not that Fesse himself is mad. He is not that. I —”

  “Just a minute,” I broke in. I looked into Weiler’s intent face. “Let’s get one thing straight first. Am I to take it you don’t want to kill, that you’ve undergone some sort of change of heart? You, of all people?”

  He shook his head. “I have undergone no change. I am loyal to WUSWIPP and its over-all aims. I do not deviate one fraction. But what Fesse is doing, what Fesse has done … it is not practicable! It is useless to us!”

  I said flatly, “I don’t know what more you want. It kills, all right! Haven’t you heard? Politically it may be all bunk — okay, I agree. But it does kill!”

  He looked at me rather wildly. “You still do not understand. It kills too well. Besides, Fesse’s whole scheme is crazy, it is full of pitfalls, and its application exists only in his own mind. How could this thing work? Do you not imagine that if we wished to control world events in the manner suggested by Fesse, we have not more simple, more efficient, more swift means of planting diseases? Do you imagine that in the East there are no such places as your Porton Down? Do you think this?”