The Smog

by John Creasey

  He opened the message, and read every word.

  It was exactly what Storr had said to Costain with one short paragraph added:

  No one else can possibly hope to find the gas we need, and if you – or any nation or any authority – seek out and destroy the laboratories where Storr is working, there will be no hope at all. Will you do nothing – and persuade all the authorities to do nothing – until the experiment here is finished and we know what hope is left.

  Palfrey looked almost blindly at young Collins, who was sitting at the wheel pretending to read a newspaper.

  Cold courage – Collins – Costain.

  He stood up slowly, and Collins watching out of the corner of his eye, put the newspaper down.

  “Good or bad, sir?”

  “I don’t know. Tell Joyce to ask the Prime Minister if I can have ten minutes at the morning Cabinet meeting. Tell Joyce I am going to ask the British Government to suspend all research and investigation, and ask her to telephone Stefan Andromovitch to put a similar request to the Soviet Government. Oh, and have two of our fastest aircraft ready to fly to Pale Valley, non-stop. You can pilot one—we’ll need pilot, co-pilot and, say, two passengers in each plane. Professor Erasmus Smith with me, someone else in another. Be ready to take off at twelve noon.”

  “Whoopee!” cried Collins, and started the engine with a roar.

  As Palfrey watched him go, he smelt the stench of the exhaust. It seemed stronger than any he had known before.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Reply

  “But dammit, Palfrey,” expostulated Clitheroe, “if you wanted a hearing at a Cabinet meeting, you should have made the approach through me. I am the Minister dealing with this particular problem.”

  He looked, thought Palfrey, like an indignant rabbit.

  “Surely you understand that.”

  “No,” said Palfrey, sitting in a luxuriously panelled office in front of an enormous pedestal desk. “I don’t agree at all. You forget, Minister, that I am not a servant of the crown.”

  “But as an Englishman—”

  “I don’t serve this country only, sir. I serve people of all nations. I am authorised to deal directly and personally with the heads of governments, and am now conferring with you as the representative of the British Government on Home Affairs. This is no longer a matter of Home Affairs.”

  “Then why did you come here?” demanded Clitheroe, crossly.

  “As a matter of courtesy, Minister,” Palfrey said gently. “And I shall hope for your support.”

  “If you would give me details in advance, I—” Clitheroe broke off as the door opened and a youngish man entered, his manner almost that of an acolyte before a priest. “I said I was not to be disturbed,” Clitheroe rebuked pettishly.

  “The Prime Minister says that the Cabinet will meet in five minutes, sir to hear a statement from Dr. Palfrey.”

  “Oh, I see. Yes. Very well.” Clitheroe waited until the door was closed, and then stood up. “I am not at all sure that I am happy about your position, Palfrey.” Palfrey also stood up and they moved towards the door. “Either you are an Englishman, with the proper loyalties, or—”

  “Minister,” interrupted Palfrey, “if I abide by the conventional loyalties to Britain, London could be wiped out as surely as the village of Sane. If I accept a broader allegiance, there is a chance of saving not only London, but the major cities of the world.”

  Clitheroe, staring at him, closed the door and silently led the way down the narrow staircase of Number 11, Downing Street. A servant opened the door. A police sergeant stood immediately outside, while a number of other policemen made a crescent around the doorway of both houses. At each end of Downing Street, more police were forming cordons, while crowds of people craned their necks and stood on tiptoe to see what was going on.

  The door of Number 10 opened.

  “Palfrey,” said Clitheroe, in a subdued voice, “this is all too much for me. I—er—accept your broader loyalties, of course, but I am simply an Englishman. I can’t help my own limitations.”

  “There isn’t the slightest reason why you should, sir,” Palfrey said.

  They went inside, and into the Cabinet Room.

  Palfrey was almost as familiar with it as with his own room. The length of the table, the panelling, the austerity, the men sitting at their places—twenty-one he saw, including Sir Norton Bray, the Prime Minister, at the head of the table. Clitheroe bobbed as if to an altar and took one of several vacant chairs. Bray half rose from his seat.

  “Good morning, Dr. Palfrey. I understand your statement is one of great urgency. Sit or stand, as you prefer. We are all vitally interested and anxious to know what you can tell us.”

  Palfrey moved to a vacant chair at one end of the table, but did not sit down. He placed his hands on the back of the chair and began to speak.

  “I am extremely grateful, Prime Minister. There has been a development, an unexpected, a grave one, but not without hope, in fact with some built-in reassurance. We are not under threat from any hostile group—nor is any nation. We …”

  He told them exactly what there was in the message, and there was utter silence as he spoke; when it was done, he passed his copy along to the Prime Minister, who placed it on one side and said quietly: “I am sure you have omitted nothing of significance, Dr. Palfrey. And I am equally sure that you expect us to understand the full implications of the message. A few days ago you asked us to recommend to all nations that they intensify their efforts to find the cause of the alarming increase in the smog content of the atmosphere. Now, you desire us to support a different recommendation—that no action be taken until there is further word from—” he glanced down at some notes he had made, and added: “Professor Storr. Do I understand you correctly?”

  “You do indeed, sir.”

  “I see. Do you know what the alternative is?”

  “One investigating team, believing itself to be near success, and out of sheer ignorance, might bring about a catastrophe in a major city or cities.”

  The Prime Minister glanced round at his colleagues, severe-looking men markedly professorial in manner, and said generally: “I imagine that I voice the opinion of most of us here when I say that the man Costain, about whom so little is known, might have been deceived by Storr.” He turned to Palfrey. “You appear to have been persuaded that Storr can be believed. Clearly, he could be lying: he could be asking you and the nations to suspend their investigation so that he can strengthen his own position to a point of dominance.”

  “In other words,” put in Ogden, the bearded, bespectacled Foreign Minister who looked (and often talked) like an Old Testament Prophet, “Storr may be a megalomaniac who has world domination at heart and be using Palfrey to gain time. His story may have a basis of truth and yet be a concoction of lies.”

  Palfrey was twisting some strands of hair about his forefinger.

  “It may indeed,” he said.

  “You admit that?” Ogden boomed.

  “You realise that?” another man said.

  “Of course,” said Palfrey briskly, and he untwisted the hair and patted it down. “If he’s lying, he’s gaining a little time. If he’s telling the truth, he needs time and must have it. If we refuse his request we may bring disaster down on many world cities. So—I think we should accede to what he asks, while using this opportunity of finding out the truth to the utmost.”

  “And how will you do that?” squeaked Clitheroe.

  “By going there myself,” said Palfrey, “and making it a condition of our recommendation to the nations that I may go in person. I have already made arrangements to leave at twelve noon. I have also recommended that the second-in-command of Z5 ask his government to add their voice to yours in support of the new proposals.”

  After a brief pause,
the Prime Minister said: “You mean Andromovitch of Russia?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You cannot possibly believe that the Kremlin—” began Ogden, but his voice had lost much of its resonance, and fell away to a whisper as he repeated: “You cannot possibly believe that the Kremlin would agree.”

  “We should soon know,” Palfrey said. “I have asked Andromovitch to put it to the Presidium as quickly and urgently as possible.”

  Stefan Andromovitch was a huge man; among a crowd, even of big people, a giant. There were those who said that his features were too big for him to be called handsome, but many looked into his face and had a strange sensation, almost of awe. Even those steeped in prejudice against everything and everyone Russian had been known to say: “It is like looking on the face of a saint.”

  Others, less dramatic, would simply say: “This man is good.”

  He had worked with Palfrey during the war when the Allies had needed a secret service in the common interest. He had been the liaison between Moscow and the West when Moscow had suspected that Z5 watched only the interests of the Western Powers. He had been the man who, talking to a secret session of the Warsaw Pact Countries, had persuaded them that Z5 was as vital to Russia and Communist nations as to the West, since both sides had common enemies and, on some issues, must join in common cause.

  Now, he towered over the meeting of the Party Presidium. Only seven were present, one of their number being in Pekin in a desperate effort to find a bridge between Pekin and Moscow. But Zobovkin, the Chairman, was there, in the middle of the seven, a bull of a man whose thick neck seemed to flow into his broad shoulders, and who looked like Karl Marx reborn.

  Stefan talked – as Palfrey talked in Downing Street – briskly and lucidly, and after he had stopped there was a long, and what could so easily be a frightening, pause. There were the hawks and the doves on the bench before him; there were no fools but there were men who, out of prejudice, could act like fools. As each one of them looked at him he showed no change of expression, standing without the slightest movement, even of his lips; but his heart was thumping and he felt icy cold.

  Afterwards, he said to Palfrey: “It was as if I were standing there on trial for treason; and they were the judges.”

  It was Zobovkin who broke the silence.

  “What if this man Storr is a tool of the West?”

  “There is nothing to suggest he is any man’s tool, comrade.”

  “He is said to own the wealth of a nation.”

  “He may also hold our safety and the world’s safety in his hands.”

  “What will you do, if you find he is lying to you?”

  “I will come back and tell you that I was wrong,” Stefan said.

  “By then it may be too late.”

  There was another long pause, while each man stared accusingly and Stefan felt as if all hope were dying. But he did not look away from Zobovkin as he said clearly: “If we delay much longer, it may already be too late. Surely it is better to have a chance in a million than no chance at all.”

  That was when Zobovkin dismissed him to wait outside for the Presidium’s decision. And he was there, looking through a small, barred window out at the Armory with its priceless collection, when he was sent for.

  “An aeroplane is waiting at the airport for you,” Zobovkin said. “Talk, first, to Palfrey.”

  “We will meet at Yellowstone Park airport,” Palfrey decided, “and make our plans from there. And I’ll send word by radio that we are coming and want free entry into the Pale Valley. We should know Storr’s reply en route.”

  “Palfrey is coming,” Storr said, “with the Russian, Andromovitch, and we shall make them welcome. But we can’t afford to wait for them, David. We have to begin our experiments with you now.”

  “If we have to begin them, let’s begin.” Costain showed neither fear nor pleasure.

  “Be ready to leave here in half an hour,” Storr said. “Marion will tell you what to do.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Testing Chambers

  Marion.

  She was with him in the chalet in which he had lived for the past two days. She had spent much of the time with him, although they had had most meals with the others in another, longer chalet in this same hillside.

  Talking very little about themselves, they had formed a kind of friendship, or companionship. She had passed on a lot of information since Storr had told him what he wanted. He knew that the research laboratories were built into the mountainside, just above the geyser level of the valley. A long series of natural caves had been turned into a tunnel, and in these a dozen test chambers had been built, each containing certain concentrations of helia, each carefully studied and controlled.

  “Some of the concentrations have been measured by instruments and chemical tests. Some have been tried on animals; some, on human beings,” Marion had told him.

  “How did you get the human beings?” he had asked.

  “They volunteered,” she had answered. “The risk was far less than yours, and they received substantial danger money.”

  She had shown him models of the chambers, and how they were approached from the chalet and from shacks which looked like hunting cabins. In the summer as many as thirty chemists and physicists worked there, in the winter perhaps only four.

  “And the testing chambers are virtually inaccessible except from the lake,” she said. “They can be reached only by iron staircases or by chair lifts.”

  “But why the secrecy?” he had demanded.

  “Stephen believed it to be essential,” she had told him. She seemed almost to reverence Storr.

  “Now,” she said: “David, you know you may not come back, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “And it doesn’t worry you?”

  “It doesn’t make me wish I weren’t going if that’s what you mean,” he said. “Don’t make a hero out of me, Marion.”

  “No hero,” she said, almost in anguish, and closed her eyes, then opened them again and said in a lighter tone: “Have you thought about the future if you do come back?”

  “No,” he said. “Not really.”

  “Have you been afraid to?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “David, you’ve lived in the past too long.”

  “I’m not living in the past now,” he said positively. “I won’t again. Marion—” he felt strangely calm and strangely sure of himself, “whenever I catch a glimpse of the future, I see you with me.”

  Her eyes lit up, and for the first time they held each other, almost fiercely, longingly; and he felt the warmth of her lips and the promise of her body.

  And they drew apart.

  “David,” she said in a faint voice, “I want to tell you what will happen now. Stephen or Arthur would have told you, but I wanted to.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “There are the twelve main chambers, each with a series of smaller inner chambers.”

  “Yes.”

  “All have a different concentration of helia and carbon and sulphur oxides,” she said. “And daylight has been simulated to create the smog. If we have found the right additive for all the different concentrations, then you will come out alive. If we haven’t—”

  “All right,” he said gruffly. “How sure are you?”

  “Stephen is nearly sure. If we fail—”

  “Everything fails.” He moved towards the railing, and saw a motor-launch coming across the lake. “How long will the whole test take?”

  “Seven days at least,” she said.

  “I’ve never been a chemist,” he remarked, and then added: “I mean, I’ve never been interested in it. Odd that I should be—” he broke off. “Stephen won’t harm Palfrey, will he?”

  “
He won’t harm anyone provided they don’t try to interfere. David, please try to understand. Stephen is a great humanitarian. No one could ever count the good he’s done, the money he’s given to the great foundations and to charities. He worked for the advancement of man, and in doing so, created by chance the devil which may destroy man. It is bad enough simply as a situation but he must feel possessed by a thousand devils, all tearing at his vitals.”

  Costain said slowly: “Yes. Yes, I can understand.”

  He saw that it would do no good to denigrate Storr, suggest that money-making was his chief concern, and that there would have been no need for the excess of tardy humanitarianism if he had not thrown an insufficiently tested product on the world. “Marion—”

  “Yes.”

  “What is he to you?” When she didn’t answer immediately, he went on: “What has he been?”

  “Everything,” she said.

  “Must you evade the question?”

  “He has been everything that is kind and good,” she repeated. “I first met him when, as the daughter of a close business associate, I worked with the Storr Foundation. Griselda already worked there. So did Arthur Harrison. Philip came in much later. We were all—partners in the helia experiments. This whole valley is overflowing with rock and ore. We found another deposit in New Zealand, in the South Island; there is probably a deposit in the Himalayas and of course there may be others. We believed when we began that it would lower the price of all fuels and so make all commodities cheaper and more plentiful. And, God forgive us, we thought that it would cleanse the air. What went wrong, where we went wrong, we don’t yet know.”

  “But if I live, you will find out,” Costain said gruffly.

  They stood close together for a few moments, and then Stephen Storr came into the living room, and a bell rang from the landing stage.