Hostage

by Geoffrey Household

  ‘Why, Gil? Why do the Libyans with all that oil to provide electricity want a prestige luxury which they cannot possibly handle without foreign technicians? To score off Israel and possibly Egypt. Where there is nuclear power there is also the possibility of a weapon. And from the French point of view a reactor in Libya is a bait to attract still more contracts from the Third World which has no oil. Do you know anything about nuclear fission?’

  ‘A lot less than any student of physics and a little more than general knowledge.’

  ‘That’s about enough. The Libyans insisted that the fuel rods for their reactor should be manufactured in Libya, thus alarming their neighbours and reinforcing the bluff. The French didn’t think much of that and had to refuse. Fuel rods are right at the limit of technical knowledge. You can’t run them up in a shed with a team of half-educated colonels from the Ministry of Science, even allowing for all the enthusiasm of awakening Islam.

  ‘So then it was the Libyans’ turn to have an attack of glorious nationalism. They demanded that all materials for Nuclear Reactor and Test Bomb must be documented and pass through Customs, though the inspectors wouldn’t know a fuel rod from a stick of Brighton Rock with a coat of paint on it. Very understandable. Customs officials have families to support. Men are enviably happy with the simplicities of Islam, Gil, especially when reinforced by bribes which make the simplicities no longer necessary.

  ‘So the French had no objection. They needed good will all round and were experienced in the ways of North African officials. Imports to prepare the foundations and start the erection of the reactor were quite straightforward – specialised building materials together with tons of explosives. But some of the imports for the test bomb were of course very tricky.’

  Rex broke off to tell me that the International Committee of Magma had often debated the theft of fissionable substances. They had planned on paper the hijacking of a transporter carrying irradiated fuel to the reprocessing plant, but decided that the threat of the stuff was limited. Let it loose, and you would have a few unpleasant deaths in a few years’ time. Nothing dramatic. No public panic. Plutonium might also be obtained, but to manufacture an H bomb from it – though there was a myth that any advanced student of nuclear physics could succeed – required deuterium, lithium, an extensive, shielded establishment and a considerable staff. When, however, they heard of U235 going begging …

  ‘The test bomb was to be assembled on site. The materials in themselves were not particularly sinister apart from steel vessels containing liquids which should not be allowed out. As for plutonium, a customs inspector could stroke a slug of it if he liked. I understand that it is harmless in that form but feels hot to the hand – which would put the fear of Allah into that brass-hatted Arab and make him a lot more amenable to leaving alone what ought to be left alone.

  ‘The only substance which is cataclysmally explosive is, oddly enough, as safe in small packets as any other mineral. That is the pure isotope of uranium, U235, of which the Hiroshima bomb was made. It is still the essential trigger for the H bomb and in these days is used for little else.

  ‘The French did not want that to get into the hands of Libyans, Palestinians or, say, you and me; so they hit on the ingenious idea of shipping it ostensibly for the reactor and marking the crates as Graphite. It looks a little like it. You landed ten kilos of it at Blackmoor Gate. What did you think it was?’

  I don’t know what I answered. I had been curious, yes, but it was none of my business. Now that it was my business I felt as if I had been transferred into another personality far more important than my own. I must have mumbled something about biological warfare, for Rex replied that it was too indiscriminate, that we must always be sure that our future Lenins were left alive to exploit disorder.

  ‘The French were too confident,’ he went on. ‘Due to transport, packing and marking on the contractor’s premises, the nature of the graphite was leaked to a low level. One of our partisans – interested in quite a different project – found out and reported to the International Committee.

  ‘About the rest the less you know the better, Gil, but I’ll give you enough for you to imagine the details from your own experience. We pointed out to the Palestinians and their friends loose in Libya that the security surrounding the test bomb materials was overwhelming and that they couldn’t do anything with plutonium even if they got it. So they had better concentrate on the theft of ammonite and gelignite.

  ‘They had some rather contemptuous official help, customs officers being allowed – possibly encouraged – to look the other way while freedom fighters acquired their wants. Our partisans among them saw to it that a case of graphite was among the loot. Transport from the docks will amuse you. It was done in a nice, new Combine Harvester which had cleared customs. How useful allies can be when they haven’t closely defined what they are allies of!

  ‘The truck which should have delivered the explosives to the Chaharazad arrived a little late. Sugar in the tank, I believe. Our truck with the graphite arrived a little early. As simple as all that!’

  ‘May I know where our crate is now?’ I asked.

  I caught myself imperceptibly hesitating over the word ‘our’. It must have been due to surprise, as of a man who had won half a million in the pools and found himself for the first time saying ‘my’ half million.

  ‘In the country, Gil. Try and find it!’

  ‘Geiger counter?’

  ‘No, that doesn’t react to alpha rays. There are other more complex devices which might detect it, but not when it is removed to London. Impossible to test every house, cellar, factory yard, bit of waste ground! It might even be in Thames mud opposite the Houses of Parliament.’

  ‘What amazes me is that the Government believed the threat and released Clotilde.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they? They know from the French that ten kilos were stolen. Anonymously we have told them by whom.’

  ‘Mentioning Magma?’

  ‘No, not yet. We sent the warning in the name of Palestinians.’

  I found it hard to steady the tone of my next question. I did not want to show too calm an acceptance of the situation or to admit an excitement which could be taken as too fanatical enthusiasm.

  ‘And would you in fact set it off?’

  ‘I understand it is quite easy for a nuclear technician,’ he replied avoiding a direct answer. ‘Steel tube – an old gun barrel, for example. A large charge of U235 at one end and a smaller charge at the other. Blow the two charges into close contact by conventional explosive, and then the high temperature and neutrons do the rest. A large and very dirty bomb. One hopes to be far enough away when the hands of the clock come round – or whatever it is. I believe our man finds a clock unscientific.’

  ‘And my London cells?’

  ‘They would be ordered out in time. You may have noticed that none of your partisans has a family.’

  ‘Would the public be warned?’

  ‘That’s up to the Government. My own guess is that the public would be told nothing till ordered to evacuate London. Fear, Gil, fear! That alone will bring the chaos. Fear that can be revived and renewed whenever we choose.’

  I asked what would happen if the Government decided it was bluff. Rex replied that Magma’s plans were to prove very convincingly that it was not. Bourgeois democracy would have a better chance to obey than the Japanese were given.

  July 15th

  A nuclear technician, he said. Also he said that our man found a clock unscientific. So we must have got one and be sure of him. More than one? Possible but unlikely. Rex never used the plural. To be able to recruit the one is a triumph, for experts in nuclear fission must be very closely vetted. When I remember colleagues of mine engaged in atomic energy research I am sure they were all too dedicated to become politically active.

  I know the man by sight. He must be the very agitated, tall, weedy-looking fellow at Blackmoor Gate. But I do not know his name or where he works. Both are going to be
difficult to discover.

  Why do I want to discover what is no business of mine? For the same reason, I think, that I began this diary. I am trained to collect facts and statistics and to draw from them logical conclusions; so it is second nature to me to record the few facts available. Two of those are important: the identity of the nuclear expert and the true identity of myself. Who am I? Gil to the Committee and my cells. Herbert Johnson, publisher’s salesman, to my neighbours and business associates. Julian Despard to myself.

  My life, unlike that of most teachers, has become inseparable from what I taught. Now that thought has become action, the relevant details of my life must be examined. The mere effort of analysis, written analysis, may clarify past and present intentions.

  Neither society at large nor my university approved of my lectures. I was too freely quoted and too popular among rebellious youth. My purpose was to encourage my students to question the aim and object of governing. If that aroused a desire for revolutionary action in men and women who were active idealists I was content. I must have had more influence than I believed.

  His society executed Socrates for questioning. I draw no other parallel, for none of my thinking was original. What I did was to show the reasons for the discontent which exists in the western world and what I sought to do was to turn those myriad complaints into one overpowering, reasoned resentment. Without anger the New Revolution cannot be born.

  And so society executed me, not deliberately or consciously. I think it almost certain that the police believed their own evidence. I would be more hopeful of the future if they had framed me. The short-term object of Magma is to compel the State into measures of such amorality and injustice that the people revolt.

  Yes, what to me was disappointing was that the prosecution honestly believed the charge of conspiracy. I was innocent. I knew nothing of the Blackpool operation which was planned and I was not a member of any cell. The friends who met at my house asked me if action was justified as a protest against the conviction of our German comrades. I replied – and I admitted it in court – that the destruction of worthless property was eminently justifiable and that loss of human life was not.

  Is that my opinion now? It seems to me pusillanimous. What is a human life compared to the welfare of humanity? Avoidable starvation, avoidable injustice, the utter folly of war destroy their thousands daily. The Spanish anarchists were right when they used to say that the worse things get, the better for our world.

  I, as I am, approve the blasting of the Blackpool Winter Gardens three days before the annual conference of the Conservative Party was due to be held there. That gesture of terrorism drove home our contempt for the party politicians of capitalist mass democracy. But would Julian Despard, as he was, have approved if he had known of the plan beforehand? Probably not.

  The operation was nearly identical with that of the fanatical Zionists who blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by delivering barrels of explosive, supposed to be beer, to the hotel cellars. That was more than thirty years ago – enough time for the trick to be forgotten. Then no warning was given. Being nationalists, they intended to kill.

  Since barrels are no longer a natural delivery, our people thought at first that to repeat the trick would be folly. However, inquiries, inside information and fake telephone calls all suggested that it might work – on the pretext that many conference delegates were likely to appreciate good bitter drawn from the wood while less sophisticated socialists were content with the usual practice of drawing from tanks under pressure. The more absurd and trifling a reason, the more likely it is in our civilisation to be believed. The delivery was made: two casks of explosives and four of petrol. So far Julian and Gil are united in admiration.

  Warning was given and the Winter Gardens were evacuated. The police easily found a small bomb, wisely suspected that they were intended to find it and went on searching until they discovered and triumphantly removed a suitcase with a timing device and forty pounds of gelignite. The cordon was then relaxed, and public staff permitted to return – this a good ten minutes before the time of the main explosion. To avoid disastrous loss of life young Grainger, one of the cell responsible, managed to slip into the cellar and at once fired the charge manually. There were injuries from flying glass and debris, but his was the only death. At the trial the fact of his heroism never came out; it was assumed that he blew himself up accidentally.

  I have very shortly recapitulated for myself the story of the sabotage. The martyrdom of Grainger was the essential point I wished to reach in order to reconsider my reaction to it. Did I admire him? Yes. Do I now admire him? Again yes, but as an individual not as a partisan.

  There was nothing of him left. Vaporised except for a foot in a shoe. But the police had two clues. Grainger, a student of mine staying at a Blackpool hotel, was missing without a trace. A person answering his description had been seen rushing into the building ahead of the public. By the time their investigation was complete they had a cast-iron case against two of our partisans and a charge of conspiracy against me which was good enough for a jury. Fifteen years apiece for the two, five for me.

  I think that I felt no bitterness. Is that true? No, it is not. It would not be true for any prisoner. What I mean is that I had no grounds for resentment. The discussions in my house had been concerned only with the theory of the New Revolution, but I could not deny my influence and was proud of it.

  The judge, a little uneasy one afternoon, asked what in fact I did believe and had taught. I made matters worse for myself by giving him an honest answer. To create a passionate longing for a new order among all classes of society you must, I said, first create the maximum disorder. There are two sure methods, legal and illegal. The first, the legal, is to propagate unrest among industrial workers, especially workers in the production of energy.

  ‘You are a communist?’ he asked me.

  ‘No, my lord. I see no advantage whatever in exchanging capitalist democracy for state capitalism.’

  ‘I see. And the illegal weapon?’

  ‘In theory, violence.’

  He wanted more and got it. Violence, I explained to him, spreads like an epidemic, becoming universal. When the disease grows intolerable, the only answer to it is the brutality of the police state which creates still more injustice and disorder, thus bringing about the revolt of humanity and the return to a new health.

  He snorted under his wig. It was the only comment open to him, for he could hardly indulge in political argument with a prisoner in the dock. I therefore closed this dialogue – in intent merciful – with a confession of faith:

  ‘My lord, I admit that if there were an organisation which could unite within itself all the Commensals of Death I should approve it.’

  In gaol my dedication became absolute, reinforced when my escape was dangerously and devotedly effected by Magma after I had served a year. The organisation of which I dreamed had noted my defiance and revealed its existence. That same day I was passed into the care of the International Committee.

  My identity was changed, supported by unchallengeable documentation. Bone structure in nose and face was damaged, and I resembled a boxer in a travelling fair until plastic surgery resurrected me as Gil. So to Jordan and North Korea for guerrilla training and via Uruguay home.

  A job was found for me as a publisher’s representative – a very convenient job which allows me to travel. So long as the orders keep coming in to the sales department my employers do not bother where I am. Gil’s activities can be combined with Herbert Johnson’s round of the bookshops. My cover as a good citizen is perfect. Income Tax paid. Cards stamped up to date. What a farce! My real life is now to practise what I preached. Do I approve? I do.

  Even if I wished to break away I could not. I cannot betray Magma without serving the rest of my sentence with years added to it for acts of sabotage in which, this time, I have indeed been engaged. And I’ll bet the police can prove it, for I have been careless about fingerprints. So they
must know that Julian Despard is still an active terrorist though they can have no clue to his present name and appearance.

  But do I wish to break away? Answer the question! What about Grainger whom Julian admires but Gil condemns as an individual out of step. Is it conceivable to break away in this hour of undreamed-of success when at last a government is at our mercy and the epidemic about to spread over the whole globe? Rhetoric, Gil! Answer!

  I answer that it is the wrong question. Gil does not wish to break away. It is Julian who is determined to oppose, to prevent, to become the stray neutron which causes fissile material to cremate itself before the chain reaction can take place.

  My reading also tells me that stray neutrons must be eliminated. I am sure Rex and the committee would agree.

  July 20th

  The first panic which led to the release of Clotilde seems to have died down. Since knowledge of the threat is evidently confined to the Cabinet and their top advisers, it is impossible to judge what may be going on in Whitehall. Civil Defence has not been alerted, and one can only guess what is behind the apparent lack of interest in the media. Does it mean that the Government has decided that the threat is a bluff or that front pages are fully and hysterically occupied by a couple of murders on an oil rig – more to do with matrimonial trouble at home, I think, than mysterious assassins. Magma may have had a hand in that as well. As was discovered in the last war, lies about the infidelity of wives can be more destructive of morale than a bomb down the street.

  Rumours are often more effective than explosives. You can’t knock twenty pence off the value of the pound or bring out a car factory on strike by acts of terrorism. My latest orders are to set rumours going in pubs – Fleet Street pubs included – that an atom bomb has been stolen and is hidden in London. My cells have of course no idea that it is true or nearly true.