Sunstrike_The next gripping Commander Shaw thriller

by Philip McCutchan

  No use: the brain was clogged. Maybe I should never have come back to 6D2, maybe I was way beyond it. Because when the answer did come to me it was simple and ought to have come at first thought as it were: I had to break; I had to see that Nodd was going to win out and that the best thing anyone from the West could do was to follow that good old adage, if you can’t beat them, join them. I just had to be convincing, that was all: Nodd would meet me half-way, I was certain, since he must still have a use for me.

  I lifted my voice towards the bug that was sure to be somewhere in the cell, in the concealment of an air duct probably, since search had revealed nothing. In English I said I wanted to talk privately to Professor Nodd. I said it three times, injecting a little panic into the third repeat.

  *

  “Claustrophobia,” I said to Nodd, and he gave a high cackle. The great Commander Shaw, he said, to suffer from claustrophobia, it was a good joke.

  I said, “No joke, but solid fact. Everyone has something. Even you, I dare say.”

  “Nothing.”

  I gave him a sour look. The face was as flat as ever; even the stupid cackle hadn’t altered the lack of expression, not even temporarily. I thought again about sex, but decided Nodd was sexless, had probably never felt the urge at all and never mind what Felicity had said. We were not in his control-room, but in a private office, windowless like everywhere else under the concrete dome, fed with air by an intake fan that gave a feeling of increased pressure in the atmosphere. Nodd was seated behind a large desk, bare but for an electric lamp, an Anglepoise in red enamel. The carpet was thick: no expense had been spared in the whole complex, which must have cost very many millions. The big head loomed; it was like something you see in distorting mirrors in a fun fair. Nodd, fixing me with his gaze, said, “You have come not entirely about your claustrophobia.”

  “No,” I agreed, “but it’s part of the deal.”

  He seemed surprised. “Deal?”

  “Deal,” I repeated firmly. “If I’m to help you, you have to reciprocate. I want out of that cell. All cells. I can’t take any more.”

  “A padded one, perhaps?”

  “No deal,” I said. “And I’m not crazy. I just don’t like being shut up, that’s all.”

  “Then let us, without any promise being made, talk about this deal, Commander Shaw. I let you roam at will within my base. What do you offer in return?”

  “Co-operation,” I said.

  He looked suspicious; I didn’t blame him, really. He asked, “Why this change, Commander Shaw?”

  “Because,” I said, “you’ve convinced me you can succeed, that you will succeed.” He had said he had nothing in the way of weaknesses like claustrophobia, but there was a weakness he did have and I knew exactly what it was: bloody great conceit. People who have the colossal conceit of Nodd are wonderfully susceptible to flattery and I laid it on thick without going too far. “It’s a big setup,” I said, and waved a hand around encompassingly. “Well protected —”

  “Yes. Proof against missiles, all missiles, and against neutron bombs and anything else the West has, currently or projected.”

  “Really?”

  He stared flatly. “I detect doubt. Please explain.”

  Airily I said, “No, no, no. You’ve planned well and I wouldn’t presume to doubt you, Professor Nodd. The power is yours and I have to accept that. World power has never, historically, come until now to one man.” And it isn’t bloody going to this time, I said to myself. I went on, “You must feel a great sense of achievement and of future purpose.”

  “Yes.”

  “That UV concentrate of yours —”

  “You were impressed by the death of Rackstall?”

  I nodded. “Very. May I ask what tests you made along the line?”

  “Chinese,” he said off-handedly. “Coolies. At first there were snags, the concentrate produced half-death.”

  “The guinea pigs being still alive?”

  Nodd said, “Oh, yes. Interesting subjects for study, perhaps for further experiments. Somewhat vegetative, and without proper functions in a bodily sense, you understand — but alive.”

  “I’d like to see them sometime,” I said, feeling sick. “Were they provided by the Party?”

  “No.” There was something in his tone that suggested the Party had never been consulted. “They were local peasants rounded up by my helpers, from the villages, also some bandits from the hills and forests.” He leaned forward suddenly, and aimed a finger at me. “You ask many questions, Commander Shaw. Now it is my turn. What is the true purpose of this conversation?”

  Staring him in the eye I said quietly, “I’ve done a lot of thinking. I repeat, in my opinion you have everything going for you. In a sense I’m lucky I’m no longer in the West — at the receiving end. Do you understand what I’m getting at, Professor Nodd?”

  “Yes, I do. You wish to join me.” Once again, he cackled. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first from your profession, Commander Shaw. The defections have in fact been very many.” He named some agents’ names: no less than a dozen bigshots from the UK; just a foursome from the United States, plus of course the known minnows like Ellum and Roosenbacher; several from West Germany and other places. All men we’d suspected, when they had disappeared, of going East or to WUSWIPP. This was just the confirmation. “As it happens …”

  “Yes?”

  “You can be of use, but first I shall require something positive from you that will enable me to trust you.”

  I shrugged. “Try me.”

  “Sit down,” he said, and I sat in a comfortable chair facing his desk. He asked a number of questions — political, military in regard to both offence and defence, diplomatic. I answered the lot, and all truthfully. I got the impression he knew the answers already, which proved that his intelligence machine was good. Anyway, I seemed to pass his test thus far, but he hadn’t finished. There were things apparently he didn’t know and he wanted the gaps filled in. I filled them in where I could, and again truthfully: maybe it was treasonable, but I was only too dead certain of a couple of facts, which were, that if Nodd went into action it just wouldn’t matter any more, and I was the only person currently who had some hope of putting a stopper on and because of that it was my duty to use every means to stay alive and to have my freedom of movement. In short, I felt fully justified. At the end Nodd asked one question that seemed to bother him a good deal: I had been cagey, doubtful in his view, as to his complete safety from Western missiles. I was please to elaborate. I did: I told him about a brand-new missile, a sort of super Cruise that had been a long time in the blue-print and experimental stages. As it happened this was the last piece of classified information I’d been entrusted with before my brief retirement from 6D2, and Max’s Chief of Staff had brought me up to date on it when I’d rejoined: the missile was now in production but was still on the Top Secret list. Its name was Cruise Distant, I told Nodd; it had a range of twelve thousand miles and it packed the sort of punch that could split his concrete dome like a hammer on a doll’s house.

  Nodd was unworried. “My whereabouts are not known, so this missile cannot be homed on to me.”

  I said, “You’ve got it all tied up. I congratulate you. Do I get on the payroll?”

  “Not so fast, Commander Shaw. I want more details of this new missile. For instance, where is it being built?”

  I told him all about it. I knew the next step: Nodd’s radio transmitter in China’s northern territories would send his spy teams into action, and with my precise information in their possession they would come up with the confirmation that would ease my way into Nodd’s confidence. If anything should leak in the West, my name would be mud. Not that it would matter, if Nodd pressed the last button; but I was still very much aware of the size of my gamble and I felt very bad about my revelation, to date a very well kept secret indeed. Before I left Nodd’s office for what I hoped and expected would be only a short return to my cell, I made a demand. I wanted
Miss Mandrake released as well.

  “Does she suffer from claustrophobia also?” he asked.

  “Not claustrophobia.”

  “Then —”

  “But she’s a woman. And I’m a man.”

  “Ah, I see.” There was a funny look in Nodd’s eyes and just for a moment the face itself lost a fraction of its flatness, its deadness of expression. Perhaps I’d seen what Felicity had seen; somewhere, the mere hint of sex may possibly have penetrated, but I was far from sure. Anyway Nodd said, “This will be considered in due course,” then he pressed a button on his desk and the guards came back in with their guns and I was taken down below again. Time resumed its interminable, snail-like crawl. I don’t know how long it was before the noise came, but it came like overhead thunder, and my cell along with the whole complex shook to a series of tremors that seemed as though they must rip Nodd’s fortress-base apart despite its manifest toughness of construction.

  13

  The sounds and the shakes went on for some while, then suddenly stopped. Just before they stopped I heard an ominous cracking noise as though the cell itself were breaking up. It wasn’t, of course, quite; but there was some buckling of the floor, which was laid in blocks of something or other — not concrete. One of these blocks had risen slightly. I pushed at the lifted edge with a foot; there was some crumble and the block moved a little. I reckoned that in fact the racket had been simply Nodd’s dome lifting back into its two half-sections, and that down here in the cells it was more noticeable than it had been in the control-room up topsides. The implications of that were as yet imponderable, and I could only hope my intervention had not precipitated Nodd into immediate attack by missiles bearing his filthy UV concentrate. The more immediate effects were intriguing: this base was not as strong as Nodd had believed. Perhaps many liftings of the dome had had their cumulative effect. If they went on, the whole thing could with luck collapse about his ears, but I doubted that proposition. Meanwhile, there was that shifted block; and within the next half minute I became aware of an appalling smell wafting through as though my cell was perched right above the drainage system, even the sewers themselves if there were any. It grew worse until I felt on the point of vomiting, but some action was called for and I took it: there could, just could, be a way out and even though I didn’t propose taking it at this moment the knowledge of it could in the end prove salvation. It was a long shot, but I got my hands round that block and heaved it clear of its slot and shoved it away from the hole. It wasn’t particularly heavy despite its size; I don’t know what the material was. Something Chinese, perhaps, light but strong. Economy? I doubted that, though even WUSWIPP was not immune to world-wide inflation. Fire-proofing, perhaps. It was about two feet square, and left a hole sizeable enough to admit a body. I thought about bodies. The smell enveloped me foully. I probed down and met first space, about three feet of it, then resistance — something solid that was probably the top layer of the foundations.

  I took a deep breath and eased myself down the hole, and once down I got on my stomach and inched away from the pool of light into intense blackness, feeling ahead of me with outstretched fingers as I went. The surface, which I fancy was concrete, felt clean but the stench was still with me, and seemed to be on the increase. Farther on I saw a streak of light, just a chink coming through what was probably a wall. I crawled on, panting in the increasingly airless atmosphere, until I was up against the light. There was quite a sizeable split in the wall, evidently another casualty of the thunderous shaking, and I looked through.

  That was a very bad moment.

  I looked in helpless horror at what I can only call things. Things sat, or lay on the floor, or in some cases stood. Clearly this was Nodd’s stowage for his test failures, the half deads from the UV concentrate before it had been perfected. To say I was appalled is totally inadequate. Trembling bodies, jelly-like slobbers, no discernible faces … this was worse, far worse than the outrage committed by Nodd on Ludwig Ercks. The human suffering was horrible, grotesque, uniquely cruel. Nodd was a fiend … I was, in that dreadful moment, physically sick and I think I nearly passed out, but I kept a grip and turned away, shaken to the core. I crawled back to the welcoming light coming down from my cell, hurrying now in case anyone should enter, and I reached up and dragged myself through the hole to clean surroundings. I shoved the block back into place, feeling drained. I sat then, and thought murderous thoughts about Nodd. In fantasy I saw my hands around his neck, cracking the bone like a stick and then dragging off that great head with brute force and flinging it from the roof of his bloody dome.

  *

  By the time they came for me again I had recovered my equilibrium and the smell had been blown from the cell by the forced-draught system. Looking as normal I was brought once more before Nodd in his office. I asked what all the upheaval had been about.

  “Testing,” Nodd said briefly. “I’m nearly ready.” He stared at me. “I’m told you were right about Cruise Distant.”

  I nodded with an I-told-you-didn’t-I sort of look.

  Nodd said, “It’s an interesting fact and I thank you, but it makes no difference to my plans.”

  “I didn’t think it would.”

  “Quite. Or you would not, perhaps, have been so ready to abandon a West that might yet succeed against me.”

  “Check,” I said. “I do tend to keep my options open till they close.”

  “A man of prudence. Very well, Commander Shaw, I shall accept you as you offer yourself. You will have your freedom within my base and will do as I order you when required. You understand?”

  “Yes,” I said. “What about Miss Mandrake?”

  “Miss Mandrake will also be given the same internal freedom.” Again the weird look in the eyes. “You must remember that to try to escape will be considered a hostile act and you will die, also that escape is impossible in any case.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “You will not be allowed into my control-room, nor in the vicinity of my launch pads or laboratories. All these are under strong guard and you will have no authority to pass the guards, you understand?”

  I said I understood.

  “Anywhere else within the complex is open to you and to Miss Mandrake, including the exercise area on the roof of the dome. But this will be available only upon request to the head of my security force, who will arrange for armed guards. Mr Sigg, my head of security, has his office immediately below this one.”

  “Right,” I said. “And accommodation?”

  “You will remain accommodated in your cells, you and Miss Mandrake, but the doors will not be locked in future.”

  All in all, it didn’t seem much of an advance, but I had to be content. The first thing I did was to seek out Felicity: she was, in fact, just being unlocked from her cell and looking highly relieved at being out, and very much surprised. I said, “Explanations are due. You’ll have them. But first some nice fresh air.” With Felicity, I went in search of Mr Sigg, walking the enclosed alleyways of the complex until I found a kind of guardroom with three men, Europeans, lounging in it. I mentioned Mr Sigg and they ticked over: one of them spoke Russian and I was able to converse. A guide was provided and soon we were face to face with Mr Sigg, who was British like Nodd. Mr Sigg, who had a swarthy, underhung face, was a cross between an ape and a Nazi storm trooper from the Thirties. Like a storm trooper, or maybe a gaoler, he wore a thick leather belt with a bunch of keys chained to it, one of them being the mast-and-yard shaped master-key; like an ape he had arms that dangled to his knees, a good man to have on one’s side in a punch-up but an intellectual liability. Like an ape, he grunted: he grunted that guards would be provided and we would be allowed half an hour. He pressed a button on a panel behind his desk and spoke into a microphone. We waited five minutes while Mr Sigg sat and oiled a revolver, looking absorbed and gleefully spinning the chambers now and again, then a voice came up on an intercom and Mr Sigg gave a thumbs-up to our guide, who took u
s to the foot of the steps leading to the exercise area. We emerged into an evening scene, a lurid and splendid sunset, all the colours of the rainbow shooting across the darkening horizon, the hills and forest lying black beneath. The air was fresh and we gulped it in. While we gulped, we talked, heads close together, voices low. Briefly I explained the current freedom.

  “Chancy,” Miss Mandrake said, her voice prim. “Do you often reveal secrets?”

  “No,” I said, and left it at that. She could take it or leave it. I knew I’d done the only thing possible; she didn’t press.

  She asked, “What now?”

  “Play it by ear. Take things as they come.”

  “Any more platitudes, Commander Shaw?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but I’ll spare you them. What I’m aiming at is, to be in Nodd’s control-room when the bastard goes into full action. Beyond that I’ve no current plans, but something may yet strike me. How’s your stomach, Miss Mandrake?”

  She stared. “My stomach?”

  “For horror stories.” She had to know, so I told her about my crawl below my cell and what I’d seen through the chink in the wall. She looked green. I said, “The Chinese brass has been duped right the way along the line. Either Nodd has a persuasive tongue or he’s got some sort of hold over them. Deputy-Premier Ch’en struck me as a genuine enough old guy who’s been led astray. I wouldn’t say the same for Lin Fun Fang.”

  She was silent, the corners of her mouth turned down. Her hair looked almost violet in the sunset rays, the face in shadow. She moved closer to me and I felt her body tremble, felt the warm softness of her breasts pressing against me. We might not have much longer, and our opportunities had not been many. I knew what I wanted and so did she. I said, “Come on, Felicity. Let’s go down.”

  “Down?”

  I said, “A little privacy. And I suggest your cell, not mine.”