Hartinger's Mouse (Commander Shaw Book 12)

by Philip McCutchan

  I was in something of a daze now. “Hasn’t Fesse explained about the selectivity, about how the disease seems not to affect coloured people because of their pigmentation? Isn’t that something new?”

  Weiler nodded. “Yes, of course. This we know, and it is true, it has been proved. I am in agreement with Professor Fesse that if ever required there is this special use for the moon derivative. But this is not the point. The point is this, Commander: Fesse does not have the antidote! There is no means of controlling this disease, thus it is useless — and more than useless, dangerous to any country to which it is brought. So we do not wish it to be sent across to —”

  “Just a moment,” I butted in again. “I’m no scientist, Weiler, but I have to disagree with you. Fesse has got that controlling means. His antidote cured me and Jagger and the girl. He must have told you that.”

  Weiler said, staring at me steadily and solemnly, “Oh yes, he told me this. But he is still wrong, Commander. Yes, he is still very wrong. I have said Fesse is brilliant. He is, make no mistake. But Dr Ewart Hartinger was the more significant man in this line of research, and unfortunately he deviated from us — because, I think, he knew there was no antidote. Now he is dead, as you know, Commander, I too am a scientist — I too have much knowledge. I too have worked on this disease, as a result of information supplied to me personally by Fesse and also as a result of Soviet moon landings. I have made my own experiments. All the persons, injected with the disease by myself, failed to respond to Fesse’s so-called antidote.”

  “I can only present you with living proof,” I said, “that you’re dead wrong.”

  Weiler shook his head vehemently. “Not so,” he said. “You and your friend Jagger and the girl, Jane Airdrie. With all of you, it worked, or appeared to work. But you forget one thing: in each case, you had contracted the disease mildly at the start. Do you not see?”

  I whistled. “Natural immunity, natural innoculation by contraction!”

  “Yes, precisely. A mild attack such as you had, prevented from developing by the fast wash down, ensures that if a person then catches it again, he will not die, but will recover fully. And after that second attack, the full attack, he will not get the sickness a third time. This second attack gives complete immunity.”

  “Are you sure of this, Weiler?”

  “I am quite positive. There is no known antidote but your own immunity —”

  “What about that ointment Fesse used, the one that made the skin grow again?”

  Weiler shook his head impatiently. “This is a different thing. There is no connexion between cure of the disease itself and the repair of the skin. I do not dispute that the ointment works well enough, but I repeat, there is no antidote to the disease. And Fesse will not accept this. He refuses to believe the facts. There is the danger.” He threw up his hands. “I appeal to you for help.”

  I sat dazed, just staring at him. I thought of Britain, and all the suffering and heartbreak, all the horror of the unknown, a thing for which there was after all no cure. What was the point of my bothering to escape at all, with such a negative message of despair? I swallowed and said. “An appeal for help is a strange thing to hear from you, Weiler. I don’t see how I can help you. What’s in your mind?”

  “I wish to prevent this thing, this thing that is uncontrollable if in Fesse’s hands, reaching my own country. I am sorry for what has happened in yours. Do not let this blind you to the wellbeing of others. Fesse must not be allowed to loose this sickness upon the Continent.”

  “Isn’t that up to you? If Fesse can’t control the disease, can’t you at least control Fesse?”

  Weiler gave a grim smile. “I have said Fesse is not mad. I have begun to wonder, however … certainly he has a fixation, I think this is the best word — a fixation about what he has done and what he can still do. And Fesse has always been in full control here at this experimental base — and I have been powerless when he would not listen to me. But now Fesse has gone and because he has taken all his notes and samples with him, I believe he will not come back. He will try to reach the Continent or Scandinavia. He will not reach the vessel that brought me, for the helicopter will come in only upon my own signal. But he may yet succeed in leaving Britain and this we must try to prevent. I say again — we must try to prevent. Do you understand?”

  I stared at him; I dare say I looked fairly fish-like. I said blankly, “Understand? No, I don’t, not exactly.”

  Weiler leaned forward, his mouth working. “Fesse must be apprehended, Commander. It is likely he will try to spread the contagion further in this country, into areas so far not affected. If you do not care about other lands, this must be of concern to you! You must act. I myself cannot allow my comrades in WUSWIPP to know that I gave information that will result in his arrest by your police. This only you can do. I beg that you trust me now, Commander.”

  I said, “I still don’t get it, Weiler. You’ll need to do a lot more explaining yet. How do I inform anybody of anything, can you tell me that?”

  His face was earnest and his voice sincere, I thought, when he said, shatteringly, “I shall arrange for your escape. This alone should be proof enough that I am genuine! Now — you will do as I ask, and help?”

  To say I was astonished would be a ludicrous understatement. I really didn’t know what to say. Naturally, I wanted to get out. Equally naturally, I wanted to get Fesse. So I suppose it all added up to the fact that I wanted to go along with Weiler. Yet trusting Weiler was a contradiction in terms, and the whole of this thing went right against nature, right against all my past experience of the man. In the end I asked cautiously, “How do I escape, then, in such a way that I don’t get shot in the process — and in such a way, presumably, that you don’t implicate yourself?”

  He said, “There is a way. I have thought this out.”

  “You’d better tell me all about it, then. I’m reserving my position till I know some more.”

  Weiler talked for some minutes in a fast, deeply earnest voice. And, for good or ill, by the time he went to the door to recall the orderlies for my escort back to the tunnel, I was committed.

  11

  IT was a highly curious experience, to be working on Weiler’s side; working for him, in a sense. I was still in a state of amazement at the turn of events as the orderlies strapped me down to the operating table again and then went off with my clothes. Also, I felt sheer despair. If there was no antidote for this thing, the prospects for Britain were alarming to say the least and there was nothing I could do about that. However, I thought, let’s take one thing at a time. Escape was the first priority now, escape along the lines laid down by Weiler, and after that, well — we would see. Frankly, I still believed Fesse’s theory that, in general, nature had provided handy cures for all the ills she wrought — the idea of the nettles and the dock leaves again — and that Fesse in captivity might be pressured into some diligent work so that he did find a formula. There were snags in this reasoning, however: nature, whatever Fesse had said, could be a different thing up there on the moon; and I was prepared to believe Weiler when he had hinted that Fesse’s “fixation” bordered on madness. This was only too likely, if the man believed his antidote to work when (according to Weiler) it demonstrably did not. It might be unrealistic to expect a sane and swift research operation from a borderline madman, especially an unwilling one.

  But we hadn’t got that far yet. I said to myself once again, one thing at a time. Weiler’s scheme was fairly simple and straightforward, if dangerous. It was not to suffer any delays, either. Events were scheduled to get moving in half an hour’s time and they would start with a phony message from the house, originated by Weiler, that troops had been sighted. There would be a panic and Weiler himself would start to flood the tunnel. After that, it would be up to me, with a little discreet assistance from outside. Jagger, naturally enough, was wide-eyed with curiosity but I was playing this dead safe so I used the mouthing technique to tell him to shut up for no
w and I would explain all just as soon as I could. One of the things I had to explain to him was that he wouldn’t be coming along with me, neither would Jane Airdrie, whom we hadn’t seen since the first day but who, according to Weiler, was well. I suppose it was perfectly natural that Weiler wasn’t going to trust me right along the line. When I had put it to him — because I wanted to know the whole score — that Fesse would probably yell his head off to the British authorities about all the secrets of WUSWIPP, he had said this wouldn’t be the case since Fesse wasn’t going to remain in British hands for longer than it took me to redeliver him to Weiler. That was neat, in its way. I was to fix it in my own manner — Weiler was quite convinced I could — immediately Fesse was pulled in. Really, the idea was just for the British military and police to be the stooges, Weiler’s tools, the simple arresting agents; and Jagger and Jane Airdrie were to be the hostages. If anything should happen to go wrong, they wouldn’t be seen alive again. Weiler had added that in any case Fesse didn’t know enough about the intricacies of WUSWIPP to be much use to the British authorities; WUSWIPP, as of course I knew, had always worked on the separate-compartments principle and its operatives moved strictly within their own narrow circles of contacts. For my part, it was going to be an extremely tricky manoeuvre, because I still wanted Fesse in British hands so that he could be made to work on the antidote; but I certainly had no wish to sacrifice Jagger or that innocent girl. In any case I was by no means as convinced as Weiler was, that I could bring off that part of the bargain. It was a big risk for Weiler and he must have realized that, but he evidently felt strongly enough about stopping Fesse reaching the Continent to take the chance. He had made the point to me that the fact the Soviets happened to have pretty well as much information about moon diseases as the United States, and maybe as much as Fesse, simply didn’t signify when set against what Fesse might do with his knowledge. Such know-how, Weiler had insisted during our discussion on the escape plan, was absolutely safe in official Soviet hands, but as for Fesse … God, he just didn’t trust that man!

  He could be right about the Soviet, at that. Two biological death-research camps, one West, the other East, both official, had effectively cancelled each other out to date.

  One could but hope for the future.

  *

  That half-hour stretched into eternity for me. I lay on the table with my nerves playing me up and making me hear sounds that didn’t exist but when it happened there was no possible doubt about it. I heard alarm bells ringing, echoing along the tunnel. Jagger gave a sharp cry and forgot the bugs. “What the bloody hell’s that?” he asked.

  Well, it was a natural reaction, of course, and would be expected by any telly-watchers; but I still couldn’t tell him what was going on — not just yet. I said, “I’m damned if I know.” The bells kept it up for about a couple of minutes and before they stopped I heard feet pounding along the tunnel outside our door and I heard men shouting. I fancied I heard a slop of water. Then the door came open with a jerk and an orderly entered, panting and looking upset. He ran for me, carrying a gun, and said urgently, “You are to come with me, Shaw. At once.” He started to unfasten the straps.

  I asked, “What’s going on, then?”

  “No questions.” The straps fell away and just before the man moved out of range I sat up and lifted my handcuffed wrists and brought them down hard on the back of his neck. He fell across the table as I squirmed clear. He was yelling like a crazy man but he didn’t yell for long because I knelt on his spine, and pressed hard with my knees, and shifted my handcuffs around between the table and his face, and jerked backwards and sideways till I heard the click that signalled a broken neck. Then I got off him and stood up, and felt with my fingers for his keys. I found them in a pocket, attached to a chain clipped to his waist-belt. Using fingers and teeth I dragged them clear, selected the smaller of the two on the ring, and managed to get it into my handcuffs and turn it. So far so good — for me if not, after all, for Weiler. During that half-hour’s wait I had settled at least one of my worries; and as a result of much thought had decided not to obey orders strictly to the letter. I had not been intended to attack that orderly quite so soon. That was supposed to happen out in the tunnel, just as I got to the entry chamber at the end, when I was to take advantage of the prevailing panic. But I’d decided I simply couldn’t leave Jagger and the girl. I didn’t know how things would turn out vis-à-vis the rest of the escape now, but there it was. So when my hands were free I did a quick job on Jagger and he stood up. I said, “No questions for now, just like the man said. But we’re on our way as soon as we’ve found Jane Airdrie.”

  “Okay,” he said, and his face lit with excitement and relief. It must have been hard on his nerves too, lying there and waiting for me to tell him where I’d been while I was away. We went for the door and I looked out behind the orderly’s gun. I’d been right about the slop of water; there was a couple of inches in the tunnel already, swirling down from the house end, and I could hear the distant roar from an inflow. There was shouting from the direction of the entry chamber but for the present I couldn’t see anyone around. I jerked a thumb at Jagger and we both went out, naked. I led the way fast along to the door of the room where we had seen Jane Airdrie the day we were brought in. She was still there, strapped and handcuffed like we had been, and naked too. I had her off the operating table in no time and while I was doing this Jagger rooted in a painted steel cupboard and brought out three of the green medical gowns and three pieces of green headgear. Quickly I put a gown around the girl and another on myself.

  “Decently clad, if not warmly, out we go,” I said, and went ahead to the door. Jane was shaking badly and her eyes were wide and scared, but she was going to be all right. I saw a man running up fast from the far end of the tunnel, splashing through the deepening water and carrying a gun. We could do with another, very nicely. I drew back till I heard him come up level, then I moved out behind him and got him on the back of the head with the first orderly’s gun. He went out cold in the water and I grabbed his revolver and shoved it into Jagger’s hands. Then we dragged the man backwards into the room and propped him up in the steel cupboard and locked the door on him.

  “Now what?” Jagger asked, breathing hard. He looked down at the water that was swirling in deeper from the tunnel, starting to climb up the legs of the furniture.

  I snapped, “The entry chamber, and fast.”

  “Can we get out, sailor?”

  “It’s been fixed that we do,” I said. “I haven’t time to explain now. But watch it, Jagger — and you. Jane. It’s only me that’s expected up there, not you two. We may still be in for trouble. Let’s go and see.”

  We went out into the tunnel with me in the lead. Men were coming up from behind, but I fancied that in our green gowns we were unlikely to be recognized, straight off anyway. It gave us a chance and we had those two guns now. I had Jane in the middle between us, and the caps and gowns were fairly sexless. We reached the entry chamber without any difficulty at all, allowing the panicky running men to push past us until we were all clear behind. There was so much haste in the air that they scarcely looked at us; they were just concentrating on the one thing: personal safety. I wished them luck. I knew where they were going, and it was not to the upper air, which was our own goal. Weiler had explained the set-up. There was another underground compartment leading off the entry chamber, or exit chamber as I was now thinking of it pleasurably, and this compartment was not subject to flood. The staff would be safe and dry in there and would be released when all danger was past.

  We reached the entry chamber and I went in, alone to start with. According to the arrangements made with Weiler, the chamber should have been wide open at the top. It was, in fact; but it was closing. The camouflaged manhole stalk was coming down. I saw Weiler at the top and I yelled out to him and I only just missed the bullet that came down at me. It was in that split second that I remembered that god-damned TV camera. Weiler, the bastard, wo
uld be fully au fait with my sudden change of execution. I brought up the gun, it was an automatic, and I emptied the slide through that steadily closing gap. There was a yelp and I shouted out to Jagger to come up and be ready with his gun and at the same time I threw myself on the ladder and shot upwards, reaching the top just in time. I went through, fast. I managed to jam the cover; Jagger was up within seconds and I took his gun as he bent to help Jane Airdrie through. A bullet whistled past my head and I dropped flat and fired point-blank towards the gun-flash. I didn’t know if I’d hit anything and I wasn’t going to hang around and see — we all made much too good a target. I said, “Run for the road — over there.” I pointed. It was very dark but we could just make out the white ribbon of the roadway.

  We belted — on bare feet.

  It was sheer hell because the ground was prickly and also I found I hadn’t really recovered from Fesse’s wretched mantrap as completely as I’d thought and my leg still felt weak. But we made it, which was the chief thing after all. At least we made the road, and we made it without pursuit — I must have hit Weiler with that last bullet and apparently in a more vital spot than with the stream of bullets up the shaft just before. His henchmen in the dry chamber were going to have a longish spell of inactivity if that was the case. One way and another Weiler had arranged things very nicely for us.

  I sent a laugh pealing into the Scottish night.

  We ran on for civilization. I hoped we might hitch a lift, but we didn’t, and if anyone had passed I doubt if he would have stopped, really. We must have looked pretty crazy with those operating gowns flapping.

  When the dawn came up we all had sore feet. Bloody sore feet.

  *

  Of course, we hadn’t been able to keep up the speed for long. When we slowed to a fast walk I was able to explain the whole thing to Jagger and Jane. I said, “First thing we do is to contact the police and I’ll ring through to Max … if there’s anyone around still in Focal House. We need a full alert everywhere for Fesse.”