Prisoner of Fire

by Cooper, Edmund

  “You see?” said Professor Raeder. “It has all been just a shade too much for you. But, with a good night’s sleep behind you, you will feel like a new man.” He laughed. “Yes, positively like a new man. À bientôt, Dr. Badel.”

  Roland tried to say something. But his chest heaved and his heart pounded, and the words would not form. He allowed himself to be helped out of the room by Vanessa and Alfred. He had been dead; and now he was alive once more. But the life to which he had returned seemed like a kind of dying.

  22

  WHEN VANESSA RETURNED to Professor Raeder, she found that the others had been dismissed. Alfred, who came back with her, was dismissed also.

  “I trust Dr. Badel is now resting?”

  “He is in bed, Professor Raeder. I don’t know if he is resting.”

  “Well, I will attend to him presently. You need have no fear child. I will keep my part of the bargain. Presently, he will be as good as new.”

  “How could you do that to him? How could you do a thing like that?” Vanessa was shaking. She tried to stop herself, but she could not.

  Professor Raeder observed her calmly. “Rage. Anger. Frustration. You would like me to die horribly before your very eyes… All perfectly natural. All perfectly natural. I do not blame you… But try—at least try—to see it from my point of view, Vanessa. I am about to rid this country of a tyrant—a despicable tyrant who will stop at nothing to achieve his ends. He ordered your death, Vanessa. Do not forget that.”

  “A tyrant—a despicable tyrant,” she echoed, meeting Professor Raeder’s gaze. “You give a very accurate description.”

  He smiled. “I take your point. There is an old adage about fighting fire with fire, is there not? The difference between Humboldt and myself is that I do not like the methods I am forced to use: he does… Now, sit down, child. I realise it is late and you must rest. But there are matters we have to discuss. You must understand clearly what I require of you. Soon your ordeal will be over, and you and Dr. Badel will be free to do whatever you wish. It was necessary to stage this little demonstration to convince you that you should co-operate fully with me. In later years, doubtless, you will be glad that you did.”

  “In later years,” said Vanessa, “I shall hate myself.”

  “So. That is your privilege. But now let us attend to the present. You are a unique paranormal, Vanessa. I have studied your records and I have discovered that you have the greatest receptivity quotient ever tested—at least, in this country. You can receive the telergetic insertions of several paranormals simultaneously. You can handle the input, store it, and release it as required. I have access to the case history Dr. Lindemann has written. His experiments were crude, but the results are phenomenal.”

  “I did only what Dr. Lindemann asked me to do,” said Vanessa. “I don’t know anything about telergetic insertions or receptivity quotients.”

  “Dear child, there is no reason why you should. Leave all the theorising to me. Sufficient to say that tomorrow evening, with your help, I shall destroy Sir Joseph Humboldt. You will be the transmitter of the impulse, that is all.”

  “Why do you need me?” cried Vanessa. “Why must I be involved? Why can’t you kill the Prime Minister like—like you killed Roland?”

  Professor Raeder sighed. “My dear, Dr. Badel was in the immediate proximity of my little team. He was unprotected, he was in a stress situation, he was psychologically vulnerable, he was open to suggestion. He was a sitting duck… Some decades ago, in certain African tribes, the witch-doctor—a man respected and feared by the community—could command someone to die. The command would be carried out—not because the witch-doctor was all-powerful but because the victim believed him to be all-powerful. Such, roughly, was the case with Dr. Badel. He was a student when I was at the height of my professional career. He knows my work and he knows that I am one of the greatest living paranormal psychologists. Apart from Dimitrov in Russia and Dr. Sun in China, I am probably the best… He was already subconsciously conditioned to accept my authority. He believed that I could kill him because he knew that I believed I could kill him. I might even have managed it without the assistance of our young friends. An interesting thought… The acceptance by the educated mind of the witch-doctor motif. I might write a monograph upon it… Still, I digress. You ask why I need you. I will tell you why. Or I will try to tell you why… Do you know anything about gravity, or electro-magnetic radiation or the law of inverse squares?’”

  “Professor Raeder, I am seventeen years old and for most of my life I have been nothing but a guinea pig for people like Dr. Lindemann.”

  “I see. Lamentable. But surely you understand the term telergy?”

  “It is telepathic energy, I think.”

  “Yes, it is telepathic energy. A most mysterious entity. Like gravity, its source can be discovered and its effects defined and measured. But one cannot treat a beam of telergy like, for example, a beam of light, and measure its intensity and wave-length. On the other hand, one can focus telergy just as one can use a lens to focus light… Now, let us consider the analogue of light for a moment. Imagine the headlamp of an ordinary hovercar on a misty night. You can see the beam defined in the mist. What shape is it?”

  “Like a great bar,” said Vanessa.

  “No, child,” snapped Professor Raeder testily. “It is not like a great bar. Your imagination serves you ill. It is an extended cone. The apex is the source of light, the filament in the lamp, and the diameter of the base of the cone increases in proportion to its distance from the apex. Thus the intensity of the light delivered to the base varies inversely to the distance from the light emitted at source. Do I make myself clear?”

  “No. I can’t understand you.”

  Professor Raeder gave a deep sigh. “Good grief! We are raising a generation of illiterates… No matter… Let us try again. Let us take a different approach. We will stay with the analogue of light. Suppose I had a powerful searchlight, and suppose on a very clear night, I shone it upon an aircraft high in the sky. Would the beam of light that hit the aircraft be the same width as the beam emitted at source?”

  Vanessa thought for a moment. “No. It would be broader.”

  “Precisely, And therefore less intense. But suppose I used a laser beam—a beam of coherent light?”

  “It would retain its intensity,” said Vanessa, suddenly perceiving what Professor Raeder was getting at.

  “Precisely. Now, in telergetic terms, you have the capacity of changing a conventional beamed transmission into a coherent beamed transmission. In short, Vanessa, if telergy is channelled through you, you will be even better than a lens. You will transform it into a kind of telepathic laser beam… Sir Joseph Humboldt, unlike Dr. Badel, is far from us in physical terms.

  Moreover, he is protected by a highly trained group of paranormals who could easily block any weak transmissions. But they will not be able to block a telepathic laser. So, tomorrow evening, we will take Sir Joseph when he least expects it. Tomorrow, I happen to know that, after the dinner he is giving for the Israeli Prime Minister, he will leave Number Ten and spend the night with his mistress. She has a very discreet flat in Belgravia. The dogs will be there, of course. But Sir Joseph will be relaxed. And that is when we will strike.”

  “And afterwards? When Sir Joseph is dead?”

  Professor Raeder smiled. “Let us think about that when Sir Joseph is dead, my dear. Now run along and get some sleep. Tomorrow, you will be given a simple conditioning technique. Then we shall be ready.”

  23

  JENNY PARGETTER WOKE up screaming. Simon switched on the light.

  “What is it love? What’s happening? Did you have a nightmare?”

  “Yes, I had a nightmare.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Vanessa. She is in the hands of a madman. He is called Reader or Raeder. Something like that. He has a collection of terrifying children—not his. Children who have escaped from schools for paranormals. It’s in Sco
tland, I think.”

  “Raeder,” mused Simon. “The name strikes a bell. There was a scandal some time ago… A parapsychologist… I think he had been doing naughty things with naughty little boys. Something like that… Raeder … Yes that was it. Professor Marius Raeder.”

  Jenny gave a deep sigh. “He’s got Vanessa in Scotland. She doesn’t know where, so I don’t know where… This Raeder—he intends to use her to assassinate Black Joe.” Jenny held her head in her hands. “Don’t ask me how. I don’t know how. I only pick up echoes from this child I rejected… Simon, we must call the police, or security, or whatever.”

  He looked at her searchingly. “Must we? Why? I thought you didn’t care too much for Black Joe. He is the one who gave orders for Vanessa to be taken out. So it would be poetic justice if he gets taken out instead.”

  Jenny put her hands over her eyes. “Oh, God, I need a drink.”

  “Hot milk?”

  “Don’t be bloody silly… I’m sorry, darling. Brandy, whisky, vodka—any damn rotgut. Bring the bottle.”

  When Simon returned with a bottle of brandy and glasses, he tried to lighten the mood. “How about an orgy? Having an orgy with one’s own wife could be rather trendy.” It was the wrong thing to say.

  Jenny withered him with a look. “We have to call the police—or security or whoever. It’s obvious.”

  Simon handed her a very large brandy and poured one for himself. “Why is it obvious?”

  “Because if Black Joe is killed—and, my God, I wish he’d drop dead from natural and painful causes—it is a stone cold certainty that this Raeder person will be able to pin the blame entirely on Vanessa. Then she will be in a worse fix than ever.”

  “She couldn’t be,” Simon pointed out. “Officially, she doesn’t exist and unofficially she has to be killed anyway.” He sipped his brandy and was silent for a few moments. Then he went on: “If Humboldt is killed, the present government will fall. If a general election were held, it’s odds on that Tom Green would come out of it laughing. Can you imagine him giving orders to have Vanessa taken out? More likely she’d get the King’s Pardon, a nominal sentence, and a life peerage within five years.” He laughed. “That would be bloody marvellous, wouldn’t it? Your little long-lost daughter changing the course of history.”

  Jenny swallowed her brandy and sat in bed, thinking. “This man Raeder is probably right round the twist,” she said at length. “But people like that are very cunning. Suppose his plan—whatever it is—succeeds. He might then fix it so that Vanessa takes the entire blame, with him coming out of it looking whiter than white. Alternatively, having used her, he might just kill her. As you pointed out, she does not now officially exist. So how could he get smashed for killing a non-existent girl? No, Simon, much as I would like to see Joe Humboldt dead, we must call the police. It’s Vanessa’s only hope. If they can find her in time, this man Raeder can be made to talk, and her innocence will be established.” She held out her glass for more brandy. “Even a wretch like Humboldt ought to be grateful for having his life saved.”

  Simon poured more brandy for Jenny and for himself. “Come back to reality, sweetheart. If we call the police or security now, they just might conceivably trace Vanessa before this crackpot Raeder can put his plans—whatever they are—into operation. In which case, they will quietly eliminate both of them. You must know that as well as I do. But if they don’t find Vanessa until after the deed is done, the result will still be the same. It will take time for Tom Green to gain power and assume authority over the security forces. By the time he is in a position to establish her existence, commend her innocence, etcetera, she will be dead. I do not think posthumous recognition will mean much to her or to you. So, let us not call the police.”

  “I am going to.” Jenny gazed at him, white-faced. “It’s her only chance.”

  “No, love, you are not.” For once, Simon was adamant. “Because if you do, you and I are both dead. Officially, Vanessa does not exist. If we now claim that she does, Humboldt’s boys will probe us again for information then silence us.” He gave a grim laugh. “Or do you think they will give us a vote of thanks for being co-operative?”

  “I already loathe myself so much I’m not even sure I want to live,” moaned Jenny. “And you are saying that I have to abandon her yet again.”

  “It’s the only way to give her a chance.”

  “I must do something!”

  “Right. We will do something,” said Simon. “We’ll take the hovercar to Scotland and go looking for her.”

  “But I don’t know where she is… I can’t even be absolutely sure it is Scotland.”

  “You might get more information from her en route—particularly if you try to doze or keep your mind open… I know it’s a lousy gamble, darling. But it is all I can suggest. At least it is something to do.”

  “Yes,” echoed Jenny, “at least it is something to do.”

  Sir Joseph Humboldt had had a liaison with Maria Mancini for several years. Signora Mancini was the widow of an Italian ambassador who had died in a plane crash shortly after Sir Joseph had begun to take an interest in his wife.

  The liaison was an open secret in political and diplomatic circles—the kind of open secret that, in Britain, was whispered about rather than talked about. A gutter-press journalist who had linked their names together in his column less for political idealism than for personal advancement apparently committed suicide three days later. A tri-di anchor man who made some unfortunate allusion during a programme on the Prime Minister’s career went berserk one evening in Oxford Street and was later committed to an asylum for the criminally insane.

  Although over the years Sir Joseph had taken and continued to take—despite his advanced years—much pleasure in the sensual delights afforded by Maria Mancini’s well-endowed and extremely Italian body, he had never felt the slightest inclination to marry her. It would have been politically undesirable. Sir Joseph was by no means handsome, but he knew that he was physically impressive. He had been compared by various political commentators with Lloyd George in his prime. Lloyd George could never have been described as handsome; but he had certainly been magnetic. Sir Joseph knew that he, also, had a similar effect—particularly upon the predatory middle-aged women who, if not the backbone of his party, were certainly its mailed fist. A fat Italian wife, however delightful between the sheets, would have cost him at least a million votes. It was too high a price to pay for pneumatic bliss.

  But though Sir Joseph was unwilling to give Signora Mancini the marriage she desperately craved, he had managed to provide her with compensations. She was received at Court, she dined at the best houses, she had unlimited credit and an extraordinary collection of jewellery, and she could use aspiring junior ministers as errand boys. It was something to be seen with the royals at Ascot. It was something to be consulted by the Italian premier about Britain’s policy towards the Middle East oil countries. She was wise enough not to demand too much.

  As Sir Joseph called Signora Mancini on the scrambled V-phone in his bedroom, he was wondering not how to counter the Israeli Prime Minister’s protest at Britain’s failure to deliver five nuclear strike submarines because of pressure from the oil-bearing Arab states, but how to cope with a recent and inexplicable loss of sexual potency.

  Maria Mancini’s face came on the screen. “Darleeng,” she said. “How sweet of you to call. I was not expecting it because of thees Israeli business. Is eet a dreadful bore?”

  Sir Joseph, as always, was entranced by her accent and her insistence on using British slang that had died with Somerset Maugham.

  “It is a dreadful bore, my love. Quite tiresome.” He found himself slipping emphatically into the same kind of idiom. “I shall probably have to concede two submarines by the end of this year, and three by the end of next. Secretly, of course. In public, Mr. Mendelson will scream about betrayal, and in public I shall utter wisely on the balance of power… The dinner should be over by ten, my sweet. I will giv
e instructions that it must be over by ten. Therefore I should be with you by ten-thirty.”

  Signora Mancini registered the information about the submarines for transmission to Rome. It might be good for a million new lire. Then she recalled her role as alluring mistress, and made sure that the V-lens caught her bosom. The dress she wore was décolleté—about as décolleté as you could get.

  “Will you wish to eat?” she enquired.

  “My love,” responded Sir Joseph gallantly, “I will wish to eat you.”

  “No. Stupid of me. You will not wish to eat,” she pouted. “However, you may like a spoonful of caviar, perhaps, to be washed down with Veuve Clicquot.”

  “My dear, I shall eat you.”

  She laughed, a full-throated Italian laugh. “I still have bruises from your last meal.”

  Sir Joseph Humboldt picked up his cue, found his exit line. “Unto them that hath shall be given,” he quoted. Then he cut the connection just in case Maria did not understand and required an explanation.

  24

  THERE SEEMED TO be unending fog in Roland Badel’s mind. He could not think very clearly, he could not remember things, he felt desperately tired. Some time ago, a youth—Alfred?—had brought him something to eat and drink. Was it meant to be breakfast or lunch? He didn’t know. Perhaps it was not important. After he had eaten, he had felt more sleepy than ever. He had been thankful just to lie down on his bed and relax. He had an idea that Vanessa had visited him, accompanied by that maniac Raeder. But it could have been a dream. Only a dream.

  Groping desperately through the fog, Roland tried to pull himself together. The food or the drink had obviously been drugged. That would be the paranoid professor’s style.

  The paranoid professor…

  He giggled foolishly.