“All right,” she said, and didn’t ask why her cell rather than mine. Maybe she understood: to me, after what had met me below the floor of my own cell, it didn’t seem a fitting place at all. With the guns of the guards behind us until we’d cleared the open area, we went down and navigated the passages until we found the cells and we went into hers. It was an unpropitious place, and an uncomfortable one, but that didn’t matter when mutual need was strong and surging. Satisfying the need brought a little serenity until we both heard the heavy breathing that filled the cell from somewhere out of sight — as in my own cell, from somewhere in the vicinity of the forced-draught duct whence Nodd’s voice had come to me earlier. It was not unlikely there was also a concealed camera for closed-circuit TV. I said, “So that’s it. The sod’s a voyeur.” I picked up my trousers from the cell floor and draped them over the duct.
*
Back in my own cell, I pondered: I was pretty sure I had not been seen when I had removed the lifted block and dropped through the hole. If I had been, surely Nodd would have remarked upon it afterwards? Or maybe not; there was almost certainly no way out and he would have felt safe enough and perhaps wished any hidden camera to remain undisclosed. It would be useful to know for sure, just in case I wanted to descend again. The assumption I made was that a camera existed but that perhaps a twenty-four hour watch was not maintained. In any case there was not much time given to me for further thought: the intercom came alive, ordering me to report pronto to Nodd’s office. When I got there, Nodd’s flat face was livid and he was glaring at a uniformed Chinese whom he introduced as Yu Yung-kuei, military commander of the Twelfth Region of the People’s Liberation Army. Yu looked every inch a general, though my knowledge of China prevented me from addressing him as such: all formal military and naval ranks had been abolished back in 1965 and persons were known only by their functions. Anyway, his presence appeared to be unpleasing to Nodd, who said stonily to me, “Military Commander Yu has been sent by Peking to take you into Yamchow.”
“By personal order of the Chairman of the People’s Republic,” Yu supplemented in excellent English. He gave Nodd a cold look: I sensed that there had been argument. “The Chairman is not to be disobeyed.”
Nodd snapped, “A temporary absence only. You’ll be returned. I hope that’s clear, Military Commander Yu?”
“It is clear, Commander Shaw will be returned. That is guaranteed by Chairman Hua.”
“What’s wanted of me?” I asked.
Nodd said, “You will be questioned about your knowledge of Western security. I’ve told Mr Yu that I’ve already done that and am prepared to make a transcript of your answers available, but he says that’s not enough.”
I didn’t like the sound of this: what I had said to Nodd was for Nodd’s ears only, and if kept within his complex the treasonable element didn’t matter since it had been a case of risk all to win all, sink or swim. In the wider China it might matter a great deal. If something, somewhere, had come adrift and the Chinese were pulling out Nodd’s supports from under him — and somehow I had the idea this could be the case, judging from the coldly formidable look of Military Commander Yu and the suddenness of my withdrawal from Nodd — then I had spilled far too many beans for Western comfort. However, I was in no position either to backtrack or refuse to go to Yamchow; all I could do would be to keep a clamp on my tongue no matter what. I thought about Felicity, and Nodd dealt with my unspoken thoughts. He said, “Miss Mandrake stays here, I’ve insisted on that.” The weird look was in his eyes again. “I believe you’ll want to see her again, Commander Shaw.”
“I believe I will,” I said, and met his eye. He was signalling something, and it was not hard to guess what: on no account was I to reveal what he’d said about paper tigers and the real power being WUSWIPP’s. Poor Nodd was facing a rather nasty problem. He must have known that I was going to shop him good and proper. His inhibition against refusal to release me was his knowledge that the People’s Liberation Army consisted of some 140 divisions or some 3,000,000 embodied troops, plus a reserve of some 12,000,000 in the People’s Militia, and he couldn’t afford to fall out with them. As for me, my Achilles heel was going to be Miss Mandrake.
*
Yu and I plus escort were trucked from Nodd’s complex, through the night to Yamchow and not so far off the Gulf of Tongking and the USS Hampton Roads. It was a highly curious feeling, to be proceeding, in a sense, homewards yet under guard and still so close to Nodd and his wicked schemes. Yu was uncommunicative, and after a couple of attempts to draw him out I gave up and sat in silence worrying about what was to come. In due course we entered the town and were driven to the same barracks as Felicity and I had been taken to with Ellum’s body immediately after being picked up; but not, this time, to the office where we had been questioned or to the subterranean cell beneath the trap door. With the escort behind me and their guns in my back, I was taken to a long room like a mess-room, with a long table around which sat fifteen men in denim jackets, men with grave accusing faces, men who were not made known to me by name but looked like the whole of the State Council descended from Peking to tear the British agent apart limb by limb. There was one man who was not Chinese: he was tall and thin and elegantly dressed and he carried a brief-case; he looked British. He also looked dead worried, not to say scared, though he was doing his best to keep his cool. At the far end of the room was a raised platform, like a stage. I was led towards this, past the silent faces and the staring eyes, and it was indicated that I should stand there facing the table. Then the escorting soldiers withdrew, clanking with their weapons back towards the door. They went out and the door was locked behind them.
We were evidently in secret session.
The man at the head of the table, a man who looked like a retired butcher, spoke. He didn’t speak much. In fact all he said was, in English, “Speak.”
I asked, “Speak what?”
“All you know.”
“That,” I said, “would take a long time. Please be specific.”
“Speak of Professor Nodd and of WUSWIPP.”
I gave a bit of a start; this, I had not expected. It made me feel as though I could be amongst friends. I said with a touch of wonderment, “I believe you know what Nodd is going to do?”
“We know.”
“Then —”
“Speak of Nodd. There were many who in the first place knew nothing, while at the same time there were those who knew all.”
Well, it was Chinese to me, but I did as I was told and spoke of Nodd, though there was a deadness somewhere in my brain when I thought about Felicity and what might happen to her. I had no alternative, of course, but to do what was my clear and unavoidable duty, but that made it no easier. I talked convincingly nevertheless, because my feelings against Nodd were strong. It was a slow business for every now and again I was told to stop while an interpretation was made for the benefit of the non-English-speaking brethren. I came clean about that paper tiger, and it was plain that got under all skins present except the Briton’s. WUSWIPP, I said, was to be the only one to gain and as soon as Nodd had used the great land of China for his purposes, then his burn-up plans were likely to be turned against the Chinese people. I lifted my hand in a dramatic gesture in the general direction of Nodd’s complex and intoned that it was also a virtual charnel house for very many Chinese people who were in a state of half-life, and that other Chinese people had been made to suffer instant cremation as part of Nodd’s tests for things to come — to come to China in the end. I said that with my own eyes I had seen the half-deads, poor stumbling chunks of quivering flesh existing in agony and filth and stench, decent Chinese peasants who until taken by Nodd had peacefully tilled the fields of their villages to the greater good of China … I laid it on with plenty of genuine feeling: I could never forget the sight I’d seen. WUSWIPP, I told the silent faces of the assembled leaders, as I felt them to be, was the biggest and most vile capitalist in all the world and never mind its pr
etensions of Communism. WUSWIPP took all and where possible, or in its own interests desirable, killed all — and gave nothing. Nodd had taken man’s friend the sun and turned it into an enemy of all mankind. China was being duped, I insisted. China had for some while past moved steadily towards the West, towards rapprochement and against the great marauding bear of Russia, perennially massing its forces along the Sino-Soviet border in the north. Why had there been a change?
I reached, at last, the end of what had become a peroration; I was met by silence, but there was a very noticeable change in the atmosphere. Heads nodded and conferred but the silence was scarcely touched by their whispers. I wondered what I had done to Felicity Mandrake. After a while the Chinese filed out, hoisting baggy-denimed bottoms from the chairs, and I was left with the man I’d thought was English, and was.
He said, “The name’s Fuller-Platt.”
“Ah.”
“From the Peking Embassy.”
At that, I stared. “I thought —”
“Never mind what you thought. The name Max is familiar to you, of course.”
“Of course, but —”
Fuller-Platt held up a hand. “Certain undiplomatic things have been done — I’ll say no more. You’ll remember a recent broadcast in which an American admiral took part.”
“Yes.”
“Then a nod’s as good as a wink, and I assure you I intend no pun, the matter’s too dicey for that.” Fuller-Platt paused, rubbing a manicured finger along his nose. “You’ve impressed them, Commander Shaw.”
“Good,” I said. “What are they up to now?”
“A conference. There’ll be a result soon.”
“Good,” I said again, then added, “But why? Why did China give facilities to that bastard Nodd?”
Fuller-Platt smiled. “To answer that you’d have to understand China better than I do. I’ve made a lifetime’s study of the Chinese and their culture, and I’ve been three years in Peking, and I don’t even begin really to understand. If you want a nutshell verdict it’s this: they’re always expecting another war — the theory being that owing to continual international turbulence a world war, sooner or later, is independent of man’s will. At the same time China wants to bring about a united front in which the Second and Third Worlds would unite against expansion of the super-powers — Russia and America — in an attempt — to bring war for as long as possible back within man’s will and control. They genuinely do want peace … and they saw, or some of them saw, Nodd as a means to peace via his potential as a threat. Others knew what his real plans were — the WUSWIPP angle, I mean — and went along with him for their own ultimate ends. Ultimate personal power. At least,” Fuller-Platt added, “that’s what I’m assuming as a result of your information just given.”
“The Embassy didn’t know any of this?”
“Not until Max got in touch with word that Nodd was in China. It was utterly a closed book till then, and I make no apologies. The Chinese are popularly supposed to be inscrutable. And they are.” I shook my head in sheer wonder. I said, “They want peace — genuinely! Do they? Is a burn-up an act of peace?”
Fuller-Platt said, “In Chinese eyes, yes, the threat of it is. And they knew — I’ve just been told this — that Russia had offered facilities to Nodd. They couldn’t stomach that. It hurt their military balance potentially, and it hurt their pride. The Chinese have always thought of themselves as encouraging scientists and researchers.”
“And Nodd himself?” The Russian offer was news to me. “Why didn’t he take Russia up on that?”
Fuller-Platt shrugged. “The answer depends upon his outlook, doesn’t it, his ambitions? I believe he may have preferred the Chinese facility since ipso facto it gave him potential command of Russia from outside. That would clearly be better than the other way round in his view, I imagine.” He paused. “There’s a further point I must make about the Peking involvement, and it’s an important one.”
“Well?”
“The Chinese leadership as a whole believed, truly believed what Nodd had told them officially — that he would use his aerosol potential only as a threat, a hastener. They never wanted and never expected world-wide devastation. I believe them implicitly.”
“And when it comes?” I asked. “Because believe you me, it’s going to, and —”
I was interrupted by the return of the Chinese leaders from their private session. Quietly they filed in to take their seats again. I was conscious from the atmosphere alone that some big decision had been reached. When they were all in place round the table the chairman spoke to me. He said, “We believe what you have said and we shall make checks to prove. You will remain in Yamchow.”
“What checks?” I asked.
“A delegation to look-see, with might behind.”
“Might?”
“Force. Much force.”
I asked, “Do you mean to attack, Mr Chairman?”
“Attack, perhaps, yes. First look-see for proof of many words.”
This I did not like: there was the risk to Felicity once Nodd knew I’d ratted on him. At risk, too, would be the six men of the US Navy, who were likewise dependent on my moves. I said, “With respect, gentlemen, I advise caution. Nodd’s not an easy man to deal with, and he’ll not give way to force.”
When this had been interpreted to the others, there was another muttered conference, then the chairman asked, “What else do you suggest, Commander Shaw?”
I said, “First, I must go back to Nodd’s base — that’s very important. He must not know I’ve talked to you — he may suspect it, but that’s a different kettle of fish. Nothing must be done to make him positively suspicious or he’ll simply batten down and maybe go into action right away. There has to be some lulling, which means I must go back as though nothing has happened.” I stressed the inevitable effect on Felicity and the Americans if my advice was not followed; heads were nodded sagely but there seemed to be some disagreement. After a while the chairman spoke to me again. He said, “You will be in danger, Commander Shaw.”
That was the biggest understatement I’d heard yet, but I made light of it. I said, “It’s my job, my duty. I don’t have a choice.”
“What will happen to the woman?”
“If I don’t go back, she could be used experimentally, like your own countrymen.” I took a deep breath and tried to stop the shake in my hands that came when I visualised Felicity being chucked into that frightful charnel house. “There is an alternative to land attack which I shall put to you, but first I ask the indulgence of a word in private with Mr Fuller-Platt.”
*
I won my point about going back to Nodd, but I went back on the tightest of tight ropes and one mostly of my own making. As I was driven out of Yamchow in the military truck I thought again and again about what I’d done. I didn’t want the Chinese to try to mount a land assault on that well-defended base: it wouldn’t have a hope of success and the moment it was mounted the end would come for Felicity and me and the Americans and Nodd would go into his main assault, which would almost certainly include China itself, which for all I knew would give the Soviets their chance to strike across the border — Nodd and WUSWIPP were quite wily enough to change horses successfully in mid-stream and then do yet another double-cross the moment it suited them. There had to be something better, and it was the something better that I had discussed, by Chinese permission, in low whispers with Fuller-Platt. Fuller-Platt had been plainly scared stiff at the responsibility he was assuming for world peace, at the manner in which he was being pressured by me and events to pre-empt his ambassador’s and his government’s options, but he had played up nobly. What I was asking for was a guarantee of the real big stick, the ultimate grand slam as it were, the use of British and/or American ICBM’s slap on to Nodd’s dome, to come sailing down at a specified time and blow the whole show to fragments with Nodd inside. I told Fuller-Platt, for his private information only and not for Chinese ears, that on station submerged in the Gulf
of Tongking lay the USS Hampton Roads and that she might be used by agreement with the Pentagon, but that though she carried missiles with more than enough range, those missiles would not carry enough blast potential in their warheads to be certain sure of smashing Nodd’s reinforced concrete dome, which was godalmighty strong, I said. America, on the other hand, had Cruise Distant and that did have the explosive potential to do the job first time, no warning given, assuming the missiles could be aimed true. It would be up to Fuller-Platt to pass the position of Nodd’s base very precisely to the Pentagon and to the Hampton Roads. Fuller-Platt asked, what about the violation of Chinese territory? I indicated the impassive yellow faces round the table and said he’d better put the query to them direct, which he did. I think it put the wind right up them; so far, officially, Nodd was an ally. In any case the answer to what I wanted must come from Peking, from Chairman Hua himself in fact.
From that, they couldn’t be budged — I could hardly blame them, of course. If you wrongly cause ICBMs to drop on your own country you’re liable, in China, to lose your head in a public execution. Anyway, they agreed to hold off from any other form of investigatory probe in the meantime and word would be passed to me by a subterfuge once Peking’s decision was known. Personally I didn’t doubt that Peking would give a go: once they had contacted Washington the days of rapprochement would return in the blinding light of sanity and they wouldn’t be able to wait to rid themselves of Nodd. The go-ahead signal, the subterfuge, was simple enough: from Nodd’s exercise area a wide extent of country was visible and next day, if Cruise Distant was to be brought in by Peking’s request, then a fire would be started in the forest to the south-east and from the bearing of Yamchow much smoke would rise. No smoke, no go, and no go must naturally be taken as meaning that Peking didn’t believe a word I’d said, there had been no contact with Washington, and I was being left to Nodd’s devices. If the smoke came, Cruise Distant would follow forty-eight hours later, the time being measured from the following midnight, local zone time.
Sunstrike_The next gripping Commander Shaw thriller Page 16
