‘— He’s all hot and steaming,’ announced Mrs Zopie, firmly striding in with the marmalade.
‘Who is?’
‘The tub,’ she said. ‘When you’ve finished, clean it directly. Else we won’t get nobody to go near the place no more. More toast?’
‘Yes please,’ I said, stacking plates. ‘Your eggs were delicious.’
‘Of course. Ain’t no battery hens in my yard. They all has names. And if they don’t lay proper I shut they up for a day till they don’t know where they’re to. That,’ she said emphatically, ‘be better than all your egg-forcing. Hurry up with that.’
I hurried up, directing Duncan with the butter knife to complete his résumé. ‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘that they labelled your father a communist or something.’
‘Sure they did. He wasn’t a red but he was drinking a lot by the time they’d finished — and felt disgraced completely without reason — and so it was his reason he lost. But not before he taught me to think. He always wanted me to honour the flag ... he was simple in that way ... And so I did, and do, and will do. But he got worried about the guys who were waving it. The old man got to wondering, in the end, whether he’d brought me up right. He wanted me to learn to think but didn’t know whether it was too late for me to start. He died last year ... still not knowing.’
*
The manna of clean sheets should have been supreme comfort; instead they chilled me with gut-twisting fears for Louise.
She was incapable fundamentally of playing devious games at someone else’s expense. This had to mean that those secret eyes plotted exclusively at her own. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I should have known — that on some level I did know — why she had tricked me at the tunnel entrance.
My aches were not sexual starvation. Such claims seem to me to be boastfully crude. Beauty is not like that. I clutched no pillow to my body in synthesis and no latent eroticism accounted for the fact that I lay with my eyes wide open. Although I could picture with catastrophic vividness her precise colouring, the exact brush-stroke of tenderly sensual lips, the lustre of willing skin flexing to the touch ... none of this was valid for its sensation alone, but rather for the human warmth generated by the fact of her being. Where are you? I found myself saying, and there were tears for both of us. Like that I slept at last, mistaking my own hair for hers.
Duncan gave me four hours, then had Mrs Zopie call me with tea. I was up and dressed in fifteen minutes, feeling fresh. The sea air had invigorated me; the contagious cheerfulness of the cottage, with its reassuring atmosphere of permanence no matter what, lent zest and hopefulness to my morale without any other reason.
Downstairs, Duncan went over plans with me and we arrived at a simple sequence of actions which would have seemed pretty naive to anyone in that televised conference room with Group Three.
This pallid, almost frail-looking man who spoke so softly had acquired immediate authority. He had no chips on his shoulder accrued through trigger-happy, fearborne aggression. Here was a man who had the steady eyes of one who selects his targets without hatred, and therefore with enviable conviction.
‘Item: You are a wanted man. The alarm is out; and my British allies’ — he said this without irony — ‘only know what they’re allowed to know. You are subject to arrest on sight. You can reckon on a totally distorted account of your actions being circulated both among the police and among all government departments.’
‘I was expecting that.’
‘Right. Item: My own position is this way: at present the mechanical minds of Group Three are necessarily governed by strict procedural law. In that sense they arc hoist by their own petard; the rules that give them power are the same rules that protect me from them. The computer is the space-age rubber stamp. Until it thumps the ink pad I have full access to Group Three headquarters. That can’t last — the hearing concerning Seale Taggard’s activities was adjourned at six p.m. EST — that’s six hours ago — but already my name has come up. Once those computers get going in earnest there’s a price on my head.
‘Item: They now suspect that you were aboard the foundered submarine K-41. Your movements have been plotted and your man Simmonds has been twice interviewed by the Ministry of Aviation. As far as I know he’s said nothing’
‘— I know he wouldn’t —’
‘— but the radar boys were on to him. So he’s in trouble. Item: Under certain obscure conditions Group Three can get automatic clearance to arm and launch NCBMS.’
‘For God’s sake — how?’
‘A loophole in the automated system. I don’t know it all but it’s a combination of events. First off, if a sub sinks due to enemy action — and it was entered as such — the screw turns one revolution. Second, if the Russians go to Amber and our spy ships receive electronic confirmation of this, then Group Three gets a Flashing Red ... that’s one stage before a Steady Red, which means action.’
‘But the Russians must have stepped up because of Group Three’s claim that the sub was attacked!’
‘Sure. The thing goes around in circles all the time. Face it: what difference does it make right now? You can’t straighten that out. The screw has done another complete turn. As it does in Vietnam over and over.’
I asked: ‘What if your president gets on the hot line?’
‘Hot lines don’t cool anything off once things get out of step like this. Both sides overreact and neither can afford to await the risk of the other anticipating them. We have a situation where complex computers on both sides are programming events just before they actually stimulate those events by mutual escalation. The chain reaction can’t be slowed unless both sides possess the exact same amount of information at the exact same time. When the process involves sequences measurable in microseconds what chance is there of that? You can bank on every Early Warning System going flat out and one tiny blip — a private aircraft off-course or even a flight of seagulls — is enough to turn the screw that last revolution needed for the big deal. It very nearly happened in Cuba — and that was when computers were practically antediluvian by modern standards.’ He leaned forward. ‘And get this: Some of those NCBMS can be equipped with the Gas.’
My pulse nearly stopped there. ‘The Gas? — Which?’
‘Compound. Nerve and Germ. It’s spread by fallout. Quite a small plutonium charge lays a carpet in the sky. They compute exact wind velocities and pressure patterns as to drop the carpet in just the right area.’
‘It’s obscene.’
‘It’s real.’
‘Are they loading them up?’
‘I don’t have access to that information. Only the PV Group knows the missile content.’
‘PV?’
‘Pyramid Vertex. They like these cryptic phrases. Stergen is one of them. Did you meet a man called Andomin?’
I recalled the official in Vince Halliard’s yacht. ‘Yes. Six years back he was with CIA.’
‘He’s come a long way in six years. But even then, Andomin was one of the few who were in on it. He’s in the PV now.’ Duncan declined a cigarette but I lit one myself with an unsteady hand. ‘Only four of those you saw on that television picture know all of it. Some of them would be shocked into calling the White House direct if only I could be sure enough about PV’S intentions to start the real scare. But I need time to get proof and we don’t have time on our side. If they get the Steady Red, lift-off is scheduled for twenty-three ten hours, British time, tomorrow evening.’
So Chindale was basically right. He’d jumped a few stages but they were really of no importance. I knew instinctively that the button was live unless we ourselves could neutralize it.
‘Okay,’ said Duncan. ‘You take it from here. You had a reason for breaking in, last night. Let’s hear now.’
But I wasn’t going to attempt my assessments. Instead I cut right through them and asked ‘How dependent is this Group Three operation on electricity?’
He shook his head. ‘Not a chance. The instant you c
ut their internal power they can switch to the main supply. They have a direct cable that runs right the way from here down the tunnel to Elstree.’
I said: ‘Just suppose we could starve them of power?’
‘It’s a big “if”. But okay, it would do them in. They have half a dozen reasons for needing power ... arming, tracking, tele-metering. — That multideck place you thought was a kingsize fluidic computer is in fact the control set for a whole battery of biological thinkpower. Brain-units, no less!’
‘Christ! Ninety-eight point four ... ! I should have got it! But those perspex slats —’
‘— are not,’ he agreed, ‘the grey matter itself. The units are right through in the next sealed compartment. Near Helicals B and C ... the theatres —’
‘— I know about the Helicals!’ My brain was racing. A horrible conviction was seizing me. ‘Helicals ... like the one I saw down here?’
‘Right. There are four altogether.’
‘Where they do the brain op? — like Thorne? ... But Louise! That’s where she was heading when! —’
He shouted suddenly at me. ‘Don’t say it! Don’t think it! You can do nothing. Not now!’ He checked himself against the only outburst he’d allowed himself in all that time. ‘Nigel. Think only of the job. Only of the job. From now on. Do you understand?’
My voice sounded weirdly remote from me. But I heard it say: ‘Carry on with what you were saying.’
He rested a hand on my shoulder. ‘Good boy ...’ Even Duncan had to collect himself at that point.
My own mind was rocked by a foreboding unmatched by all that had been so far said. I couldn’t face it I couldn’t face it but I knew. At that exact finite point in time.
The only thing that could have explained so many of the mysteries of Louise, so many of the uneasy hunches of mine, and all the time she knew what she might, in the last resort, face up to in the cold blood of decision.
So it was the only way. So there are some ‘only-ways’ that surely should never be contemplated.
Duncan was saying sharply: ‘Nigel! For Pete’s sake hang on!’
‘Yes, but ...’
I couldn’t, my brain was spinning. Spinning down and down into hell.
Couldn’t people even die any more? ...
Duncan could see it was hopeless going on at the moment. So he said: ‘Nigel. She wants to help. Can’t you understand? White cell annihilation. Her body could — not — go — ON!’
I managed to utter a volley of words. ‘Do you know for certain what she’s done? What’s been done to her? Tell me and swear it.’
‘I swear I do not! But when you told me that she’d gone in ahead of you I jumped to the same conclusion.’
‘Do you think they offered her this course? — in the first place? Did she know? — All that time? And not tell me? ... Oh, God! I suppose she must’ve!’
‘If they did offer it,’ he said calmly, ‘they would hardly have guessed for what purpose she might consent.’
I raised my eyes slowly up to his. ‘You mean ...’ and my voice cracked on me. ‘You mean she wants to help us from the inside? — As one of —’ I vomited, apologized, recovered.
‘What else? She could get in among the others —’
‘— But you said you didn’t know!’
‘I don’t. You have my word. My thoughts are following yours. It’s possible.’
I leapt up. ‘She can’t! She must die, if that’s what the score is. I must get back up there and —’
‘— and commit murder?’
‘It wouldn’t be murder.’
‘It would if it meant you were depriving her of what she wants.’
‘Being alive like that? I saw Thorne!’
Angrily Duncan said: ‘No! No. If she has a will to act, then she lives. To kill now is wrong and murderous. You’re thinking of yourself.’
‘Agreed if by still being human I have something in common with other men who love: a passion for life!’
‘Then prove it and do something about it and beat these maniacs along with the filthy weapons they’ve got aimed at millions.’
There was a long pause. I broke it, calmly now, with just one last attempt: ‘What are the chances of getting back down the tunnel? If Louise is still —’
‘— The chances are zero. You started an all-time hunt by taking that TV out of the rack. They’ve sealed all bulkhead doors and switched on closed-circuit video.’ He let this sink in. ‘Now. May we continue?’
So I chucked my mouth organ on to the table top, then pointed through the window. On the skyline the glass towers of the nuclear power station glossed in the gold of the sunrise. ‘I’m going to switch off that power station,’ I said.
‘Just like that? — With a mouth organ? ... and half the police of England in pursuit?’ He allowed himself a sceptical grin. ‘It sounds interesting. You better tell me how!’
FIFTEEN
Wednesday came.
Duncan and I were parked during the p.m. on the exact spot where the crazed children had amputated a few inoffensive weeds.
Throughout my experience in security I had avoided games of hide-and-seek — such things as disguised farm trucks for snooping or phone-bugs planted in high places — but of necessity we had on this occasion to use subterfuge, since something like a full-scale manhunt had been mounted. Positive proof of this came later ... as if we needed it.
So our means of transport at this time was a farm tractor. We watched, now, the slow-but-sure increase of general activity around the airfield. Private aircraft, glossy and funloving enough in appearance, brought in a number of very unfunny people — as our field binoculars testified. Though nothing was visible out to sea, you could see from the aerial layout of UHF equipment that microwave communications were at the ready. The dishes of the telemetering and radar arrays were positioned so as to track any initial lift-off of missiles on a bearing which conformed exactly with the surfacing position of my sub. There was no doubt about this. A sighting taken by Duncan on a line passing through the axis of the biggest radar structure married, to within a degree, the angle we plotted on the one-inch map. The signs were unmistakable wherever you looked.
Yet not a ripple disturbed the tedious prattle of non-news reported on radio. Apart from the increasing tension in Prague — which seemed to everyone else remote from events on our own doorstep — there was not a trace of awareness to the fearful events now building towards their climax in beautiful downtown Bishops Bight ...
Duncan said, ‘How do you intend to have a crack at the electric supply?’
‘In two ways. First, by waiting for the peak electricity demand —’
‘— That’s the TV show?’
‘During the first commercial break, yes.’
‘But in summer with all the heating off? —’
‘I’ve got to knock out at least two stations in addition to the nuclear power plant on the Bight.’
‘You must know a lot of saboteurs.’
‘One’s enough —’
‘— provided he’s in the right place? — Who is it?’
‘Louise’s brother.’
*
By 1500 hours I had established myself in the phonebox from which I was to make the call to Jack. By now. Duncan had gone back to Group Three; and until our intended regrouping later on I would be on my own.
In the phonebox — which stood in the lane not two hundred yards from Mrs Zopie’s cottage — it so happened there was a very nasty smell. I didn’t stop to consider what it was. Which was a pity. But then a lot of things were competing for priority in my brain.
Mike Duncan had arranged by telephone on Tuesday for the theft of a detailed plan of the nuclear power station and surrounding area. This had been swiped from the building contractors, then transmitted by electronic scanner, the nearest available receiving circuit being in a Bristol newspaper office. The print clearly marked the duplicate tunnels — actually they were cable-ducts — running roughly north-south with
in the station grounds, which were so vital to my plan. No less so was my phone call of now.
For an apparently mild man Jack was hardly mild with me ... ‘I have a right to know what’s happened to Louise. She promised to call me yesterday. I was more worried about her health than you seemed to be. Now I can’t trace her anywhere. Where the hell is she? If it’s your fault. Nigel —’
‘— I consider it very much my fault but it probably isn’t what you think. We’re up against life and death issues —’
‘Whose? Hers?’
At this point I could hear people talking in the background. ‘Can’t you get to another phone?’
A long pause while he chewed this over. ‘I’ll try. What’s your number?’
— So I had to hang on six nail-biting minutes. But there was plenty going on near by to keep me from getting bored.
A police car swung around the junction, just beyond where I was, and pulled up with a screech outside Mrs Zopie’s cottage. The four doors opened simultaneously and a carload of cops emerged in a hurry, went straight to her door.
I had to watch Mrs Zopie trying to chat them up. I could imagine the dialogue only too well. There were gestures and signs, and good old Mrs Zopie — what a card she was! — meticulously pointing the wrong way. But how was I going to last the day with a hunt out like this?
Damn the man! How long does it take to call back?
Just after the police left the cottage (I couldn’t go back there for sure) a helicopter flew low overhead ... too low, in fact, to see me. I was masked by a roof of the telephone box. I couldn’t hope for such luck to endure; it was now clear that I’d have to make the powerhouse on foot; by dodging in among the hedges I would be less visible from the air.
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