by John Creasey
“It is obvious why he advocates it,” said Khavi of Egypt. “It is the only way in which he might cover his own failures. Do I worry about the British Navy? As an Egyptian, no. As a member of this international group – yes, of course I do. Also – the Suez Canal could be in very great danger from this man. It is our lifeline.”
“So that’s it,” said Mandell. “It looks as if Palfrey was right, Mr President. Our motives aren’t exactly pure.” When he paused he looked even more like the Russian delegate. “I would like to hear Palfrey’s case.”
“There is no case. A whole navy, one sixth of the naval strength of the world, against one woman.” Swartz, of South Africa, was hard-voiced, hard-eyed.
“Dr Palfrey?” said the President and glanced about him commandingly, as if to make sure that no one interrupted. “Would you reject this ultimatum?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In spite of what you yourself admit might happen?”
“Yes, sir,” said Palfrey. “I don’t know of any other way in which we can gain time to search for the headquarters of this man. It is as simple as that. We know now that he operates from under water. We have been in urgent touch with all countries, all naval and air authorities, military and civil, to keep a sharp look out. The Russian and the American atom-powered submarines are making special searches; so are many conventional submarines. We may find an essential clue this way, but—”
“Surely we are bound to,” interposed Smythe.
“I don’t think so,” Palfrey said. “If this headquarters were easy to find, I think we would have had some intimation from submarines before. I think we have to contend with two possibilities. First, that there are mobile submarine stations – possibly very large submarines – carrying offensive weapons developed specially to create these waves. There is no difficulty about creating such waves, provided one can be sure of controlling the effect of them, or if one doesn’t care what the effect is. A wave is dangerous only to surface shipping, to harbours and to coastlines in the wave area. It is not dangerous to anything which is below, say, a hundred fathoms. The deep water of the oceans is hardly disturbed. I don’t think we need concern ourselves too much with how these waves are created, only with the fact that we have to find where they come from and who starts them. Certainly one of two possibilities must be accepted. Either there are a number of different permanent stations from which the waves are created – we now have proof of their incidence in all of the oceans of the world – or else there is a highly mobile submarine base.”
Palfrey paused again.
“Which do you think more likely?” inquired Mandell.
“I don’t think I would like to guess,” Palfrey said. “But if I had to, I would say that there are a large number of bases either on the sea bed, or anchored in the water—”
“Absurd,” breathed Khavi.
“I don’t think it is really absurd, Mr President,” Palfrey said mildly. “We would have called space stations on the way to the moon and the other planets absurd a few years ago, but now they are accepted as normal. Underwater stations might be easier – in fact they would be easier to maintain. I think if we were faced with mobile stations we would have had reports of them from time to time. We have had none, except these reports of freak waves which, until very recently, we assumed were from natural causes.”
He broke off.
“Have you any idea at all how many of these—ah—under-sea stations exist?” inquired the President.
“None at all, sir.”
“None,” breathed the Egyptian. “You see.”
“My own view differs from Palfrey’s. I would think it much more likely that we are coping with a single, highly mobile underwater vessel,” said Smythe. He rubbed the side of his thin, pinched nose.
“It seems to me that the vital fact is that we can’t trace either fixed or mobile stations,” observed Mandell. “And you think that by holding this woman you might be able to trace one, Palfrey. You might be able, in due course, to make her talk.”
“It’s the only possibility that I can see,” said Palfrey.
“Is there really a chance?” inquired Smythe. “If there were, almost any sacrifice might be worthwhile, but – the British Navy remains one of our strongest sea powers. If we have to fight a new kind of sea war, the experience of British sailors, the power of British ships, are surely essential.”
“You forget something,” Palfrey said.
“What do I forget?”
“If this man wants to destroy any navy, he can. If it ever comes to open warfare, unless we know what he is and where he is, we will be helpless. Any conventional navy is completely powerless. Destruction will be only a matter of time. Somehow we have to find different methods to fight him with. In this case, I submit, we must use his anxiety about the woman Leah, whom I believe might be his daughter. If we release her, as he orders, then we have nothing left to fight with except conventional forces. I don’t think he will risk losing her. I think he believes me when I say that if he destroys the Navy, I will kill her with my own hands.” Palfrey wiped his hand across his wet forehead as he went on: “That is the chance I think we ought to take. It depends what is the more important thing to him: this woman, alive, or victory over us. I think she is very important. I think she is the one contact we have with him, the one person who might be able to lead us to him.
“So, I feel sure we ought to hold her.”
After a long pause, a man asked: “Would you kill her, Palfrey?”
Palfrey said: “It has always been agreed that the tactics should be left to me. I hope it will stay that way. Unless, of course, you have lost confidence in me completely.”
“Do you mean you regard this as a vote of confidence?” asked Merritt, uneasily.
“Of course I do. If you let that woman go, I believe you throw away the only chance we have. I would make any sacrifice to keep the chance.” Palfrey shrugged his shoulders as he looked round. “Don’t you see it as a vote of confidence?” The President raised his hand, and said: “I think you had best retire, Dr Palfrey. We will discuss this, and recall you soon.”
“I hope so,” Palfrey said. “We’ve been talking for three quarters of an hour – we have little more than three hours left.”
Chapter Nineteen
DECISION
Stefan Andromovitch was sitting in Palfrey’s office, studying the charts on the wall. Many more marks had been placed on these charts since Palfrey had been in France. More reports were coming in every hour. Palfrey went to a corner cupboard, poured himself a brandy and water, and tossed it down. Stefan would not drink spirits – the only alcohol he ever touched was wine with his evening meal.
He looked round.
“Have they made their decision?”
“They’ve been two hours trying to,” said Palfrey. “Stefan—”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“Sometimes I think that we have learned nothing,” said Stefan. His cheeks were pale, obviously he was still angry. “To argue and bicker about national interests – do you think that ‘he’ has sent threats to individual countries?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Sap – have we a chance?”
In that brief question there was a world of doubts and fears.
“We don’t yet know what the man wants,” he said. “If you mean have we a chance of locating him if we let Leah go – I don’t see one. Has anything come in to help?”
“Nothing.”
“There’s one thing we have to admit,” Palfrey said, heavily. “This man has fooled us for a long time.” He began to walk about the office. “The one hope I see is holding Leah – but if he should carry out his threat—”
“Which way do you think the vote will go?” Stefan asked.
“Mandel
l and Tarov might sway it our way,” Palfrey said. “I wouldn’t like to make a guess. Best thing I can do is get up to date with these reports.” He smiled. “You’ll withdraw your resignation, I hope.”
“I will not,” said Stefan. “If they vote against you, I have finished. Sap, I am going out. I must go and try to think.” He gave a tight-lipped smile, turned and went out of the office.
Palfrey felt quite sure that he meant exactly what he said, and knew why he wanted to be alone. Sometimes, solitude was essential to clear thinking.
Palfrey began to study the reports, and the time dragged on. He kept looking at his wrist watch, but more often at the telephone.
Would it never summon him?
It was an hour before the telephone bell rang, and Joyce said:
“Will you come in, Dr Palfrey, please?”
He went in, acutely conscious of being on his own. The first thing he saw was Joyce staring down at the papers on her desk; that did not seem a good omen. Merritt stared straight ahead of him, as if unwilling to meet his eye. Tarov’s chin was thrust forward. The President was sitting very still.
“Dr Palfrey,” he said, “the Assembly has decided that as a matter of policy and expediency, the woman Leah shall be sent out to sea, as stipulated. The Assembly also feels that in view of your personal disagreement with this decision, it would be unwise and unfair to ask you to implement it.”
Smythe was smiling, tight-lipped.
Palfrey went up through one of the shafts to the heart of London. Dawn was just breaking on a fine, clear sky. Over a thousand miles away, under this sky, preparations were already being made to release the woman Leah. There was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do, to prevent it. The Assembly had accepted a major defeat at the Patriarch’s hands, and there were a thousand arguments to justify them.
He walked alone, even more conscious of loneliness, wishing Stefan were here.
He simply did not know what to do. If S.I.B. had no confidence in his judgement or in what he had been doing, how could he fail to follow Stefan’s example?
Resign?
The very word seemed to stab.
He heard Big Ben chime the quarter; it was the same time here as in France, in fifteen minutes the woman in the coma would be on her way in that speed boat. In fifteen minutes.
He could imagine the satisfaction of the French officer who had taken over from him at the radiation shelter.
The same French officer, with an officer of the equivalent rank in the French Navy and the French Air Force, two American and two British military attaches, were standing at the jetty near Nice. This was one of the few jetties which had not been damaged in the great wave. The speed boat was already in position, and a seaman was testing the engine; now and again, it whined, stopped, whined again. A group of officers and ratings stood on a motor-torpedo boat of the French Navy, watching. The sleeping Leah was in an ambulance, drawn alongside the jetty; it would be a matter only of a few seconds to transfer her to the boat.
A French officer was saying:
“We understand exactly what is to be done. At five o’clock precisely the boat is to be set on its course and the engine started. No aircraft may be used in pursuit. All sea areas have been cleared for twenty-five miles in all directions. You have seen all the precautions, gentlemen – are you agreed that they are sufficient?”
There were nods, murmurs of agreement, a shuffling of feet.
“In ten minutes, then …”
The Frenchman seemed unable to stop talking. The Americans looked ill-at-ease and impatient. The Englishmen stood at ease, staring out to sea. Some distance off, the engine of a motor boat started up. The Frenchman glared towards the sound.
“It is in the harbour,” he said. “It is not important.”
No one else spoke.
“In five minutes …”
He gave the order. The doors of the ambulance were opened and two attendants climbed inside. Soon, the girl-woman was drawn out on the stretcher; she looked exactly as Palfrey had seen her, as Higgins had seen her. The officers made a kind of guard of honour as she was lowered to the little motor boat. The roaring of the other engine sounded louder, and the French officer glanced towards it, angrily. The girl-woman was lowered. The engine was started, and ran smoothly. The wheel was locked. One of the sailors opened the throttle, then jumped ashore. The motor boat started off, as if too quickly but it kept to its set course towards the open sea. An American officer remarked:
“Who said appeasement was dead?”
“This is essential,” the Frenchman said sharply.
“I wonder where the devil she’s going,” mused an English attache.
The speed boat was already two hundred yards out to sea. It seemed to be heading unerringly, as if oblivious of the currents and the waves. The roar of its engine sounded – and the roar of another engine, too.
“I do not understand—” began the French officer.
Suddenly, from the harbour, another speed boat appeared, travelling much faster than the one carrying the girl. Two men were in it. The dawn light showed a head of iron grey hair, sticking up in all directions, and a huge man with him. The second boat was heading for the first, as if to cut it off.
“Stop that craft!” ordered the Frenchman. “Stop it!” He bellowed at the French naval officer, who shouted orders to men in the gunboat. Already the motor-torpedo boat was moving, its wake churning white, but the real interest lay in the small speed boat and the larger one, heading towards each other, as if they would collide.
“Stop that craft!” the Frenchman cried again.
“Does anyone know who the guy is?” an American asked.
“One is named Andromovitch,” said an Englishman. “I’ve met him before. The other—”
He broke off.
Everyone on the jetty seemed to draw in his breath at the same time, in a sharp hissing sound. The larger speed boat looked as if it would crash, but suddenly it was manoeuvred so that the inevitable collision was broadside on. The two boats rocked wildly. The huge man leaned over the side of the smaller one, as they were locked together. It looked as if he held them close by sheer physical strength. Two of the officers had binoculars to their eyes, but most could see exactly what was happening with the naked eye.
“He’s got her!” an American cried.
Stefan Andromovitch felt the wild swaying of the boat and the harsh spattering of spray on his face. The two boats were moving at wild, dangerous speed. Unless he judged the moment perfectly, both boats would sink.
There was an even greater danger to him; that he might be crushed between the sides.
He knelt in the larger boat, leaning over, touching that strange still figure. He pulled her by one arm closer to the side. Spray slapped him, and fell like raindrops over her face; that seemed to enhance her beauty.
He edged near. The gunwale cut into his stomach. The sides of the boats crunched and grated. He caught his little finger between them and agony shot through his hand. But the woman was closer. He had to get his arms beneath her and lift her into the boat. He slid both hands beneath a dead weight; it was as if she were in fact dead. Then a roll of the boat made her shift towards him, and he had her in his arms. Now he used every muscle in his great body, and lifted her. The boats groaned and crunched, but the moment came when the woman was clear of the smaller one. It sheered away and went racing out of control.
Slowly, fearfully, Stefan lowered his captive into the thwarts, until this part at least was done.
The pursuit vessel was hurtling through the water towards them, but it had no chance to catch up. If a gun was fired, it would risk the girl-woman’s life. Stefan did not think they would take the chance.
Palfrey, leaning against the parapet of the Embankment, with the London County Council building opposite him, Scotland Yard behind hi
m, and Big Ben in sight whenever he turned his head, stared down into the water which lapped against the jetty. It was a quarter past five. Leah would be gone now, of course, and his hope of finding out where ‘he’ lived had gone with her. He was so heavy-hearted that it seemed like the end of hope. Now and again, he caught a picture of the image of his wife, but she faded. Each time, she seemed to be trying to call out, to help him.
He heard a car approaching, but did not look round. He heard it stop. Men got out, and he heard them running across the pavement, one of them calling:
“Dr Palfrey. Palfrey!”
He turned at last.
Two uniformed men were coming from the police car parked in the street.
“It is Dr Palfrey, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Palfrey said. He had a silly thought: that distrust of him was so great that the police had been sent to detain him. He closed his eyes. The two men were big, eager, only a foot or two away from him.
“Dr Palfrey, you’re wanted back at your headquarters, at once,” said one of the policemen. “I understand that there is an urgent message for you, from Nice.”
“Nice,” echoed Palfrey, and suddenly wanted to race to headquarters.
“Sap,” said Alec Merritt, just ten minutes later, “Stefan and Dr Higgins took the law into their own hands. They kidnapped Leah, and headed towards the North African coast. All shipping in the Mediterranean, including units of the British and French navies, is on the look-out for them.”
Palfrey’s heart was thumping.
“Stefan,” he echoed.
“Yes. Sap – you know what this means, don’t you?”
“I know,” said Palfrey, in a choky voice. “’He’ won’t get his Leah back. Now we’ll find out whether he’ll carry out his threat.”
Chapter Twenty
CHECKMATE
