Bluebolt One

by Philip McCutchan

  Shaw said, “So that’s it, I might have guessed.” Mentally he went over what he knew of Bluebolt, the big armed satellite recently put into orbit from Cape Canaveral in Florida, U.S.A. Developed by a joint U.S.-British Navy team (who, incidentally, had stuck like leeches to their offspring against weighty opposition from the Army and Air Force, each of whom had tried to take it over on its successful completion) Bluebolt was the ultimate weapon, and as yet there was no known defence against it. The huge satellite carried one enormous nuclear missile which packed a punch having the equivalent of a fully loaded Polaris submarine’s entire destruction potential, and, depending on its position in space at any given time, that load could be despatched on to almost any earth target, with one hundred per cent, accuracy, by electronic impulses beamed from the Naka Valley control-station. To date, Bluebolt was still on the secret list, and so no operational details whatever had been released to the Press on either side of the Atlantic. To the unsuspecting public it was just another rather pointless satellite, one of many chunks of metal to be watched from the garden at night as it sped on its shining way around the world, while the control-station itself was, for purposes of public consumption, designated merely as a point for beaming signals to radiocommunications balloon satellites.

  Shaw had often wondered why the decision had ever been taken (though admittedly it had been taken before events had reached their current ‘low’) to put the control-station in Africa, considering the perennially turbulent state of that continent. In fact, whatever the friendly feelings of the Nogolian Government, he had privately considered the decision to be unwise and dangerous; but the official view had been clear and adamant: It was a risk, but it was the lesser of two risks, and it was considered a fair one. It was essential, under the new concept of ‘dispersed defence’ favoured by the Western Powers, to site the control-station outside the land masses of Europe and North America, so that it could be used as a major ‘strike-back’ threat which could be put into effect even after an attack had already been mounted and those land masses had come under very heavy saturation. Undoubtedly, the official mind had argued, so far as the British Isles at all events were concerned, any attack would be far too concentrated and saturating for the Services to be able to rely on a control point surviving it; and any risk was preferable to that of siting such a post on territory absolutely certain to be attacked at a very early stage. Africa had been the only reasonable answer.

  Latymer was looking impatient. He snapped, “I said, I suppose you do realize how damned important Bluebolt is?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Yes, I do indeed—”

  “It’s all very well to talk about Polaris the way they do. With up-to-date anti-submarine know-how, and techniques being devised by Russia for the detection even of craft lying stopped on the ocean bed, Polaris isn’t anything like as secure as the public imagines. On the other hand, the Bluebolt control-station is almost invisible from the air, right smack in a small jungle clearing, well away from any large target. And there’s a lot of territory in those parts, Shaw, which would need a great number of long-range nuclear missiles to saturate it. It’s not like pinpointing the big targets such as cities or troop concentrations. After all, these I.C.B.M.’s aren’t all that accurate. While the station’s intact, we’re sitting very pretty indeed—it gives us great security and it gives us great influence too. Wonderful for power-bargaining at conferences. We’re relying a lot on it.” Again he levelled the ruler at Shaw, “We don’t want anything to go wrong.”

  “Of course not. But do you mean there’s a definite threat developing to the station, sir?”

  Latymer smiled and with some sarcasm said, “I always knew you had genius, Shaw. How the devil did you guess, hey? Yes, I think there is. So far, there’s been nothing more than a few straws in the wind, possibly rather vague straws, but I don’t like the general picture, the way things seem to be going. The difficulty is, we’re so utterly in the dark as to hard facts. If anyone really knew anything I’d say it was Handley Mason. And he’s dead because of it.” Latymer sat back, pushed a cigarette-box across the desk towards Shaw. The agent, who had been needing a smoke ever since he came in, took one thankfully. He flicked his lighter, held it out to Latymer, and then lit his own. Latymer went on, “All I know is that the natives are being stirred up to something, and that something is—to drive the remaining whites right out of Nogolia, get rid of the Bluebolt station, and negate the treaty under which it was put there in the first place. And—need I add it?—Guess Who’s behind that!"

  “Quite, sir. But how are they going to go about it? It’s a pretty tall order, surely, when the Nogolian Government themselves are backing us?”

  Latymer didn’t answer directly. Instead, he asked, “Have you ever heard of voodoo, Shaw?”

  “I’ve heard of it, of course. But—”

  “Well, just listen to me for a while.” Latymer leaned forward, his face serious, looking hard at Shaw. “You may not believe in it, but it’s a brave man or a foolish one who denies the tremendous power of voodoo over the native mind, even if he doesn’t believe in it himself. Agree?”

  Shaw pursed his lips. He said doubtfully, “I suppose I do, sir.”

  “If you don’t,” Latymer informed him shortly, giving an irritable movement of his hand, “you’re a damned fool. It’s hard fact, not supposition. Well now. Africa’s still a land of gods, Shaw, of ju-ju men and black magic, mainly, of course, in the remoter villages up country, but to a considerable extent in the towns as well. Whatever the progress that’s been made, whatever the education programme, the African remains basically the same as he’s always been. He can’t help that, Shaw—he’s been conditioned that way by a thousand years of mystery and sacrifice and pagan beliefs that go back into time itself, beliefs so deep-seated that they can hardly begin to conceive of life without pagan gods and ancient ceremonial rites, and that conditioning process has been drummed into ’em by resident witch-doctors who make damn sure no one deviates! It’s right inside the African, Shaw, in his blood, his bones, his whole mind and outlook.”

  “What about the civilized ones, sir?”

  Latymer said, “I suppose it’s a truism to repeat that civilization’s only a veneer, and a pretty thin one at that. It can crack almost at a moment’s notice. Take a town like Jinda.” Latymer waved a hand. “Capital of Nogolia, fine modem buildings. Skyscrapers, some of them, built to American designs by American architects and local labour. Electric lifts, air-conditioning, refrigeration—the lot. And almost entirely run by the Nogos themselves now. Place is full of big stores with all the latest gadgets and fashions and all that. The Jindans, or a lot of them, anyway, go around in the local equivalent of the white collar, and they hold down a whole variety of top jobs in the professions and commerce. They govern their own country—on the English model, even now—and they do it very well indeed. They’re good at finance and law and administration and even diplomacy. But they’re still Africans, Shaw. One generation back their fathers were unskilled, underpaid slaves in the copper or tin-mines, or running about bare-arsed in the jungle and living in mud-and-grass huts, making sacrifices to the appropriate gods, under the thumb of the ju-ju man and their very ancient heritage of superstitious god-appeasement. Right?”

  Shaw, who was watching Latymer intently, nodded.

  “Well, you don’t change that overnight, Shaw, in fact in my humble opinion you don’t change it even in a couple of generations. And I can tell you this: There’s some pretty queer goings-on in Jinda itself from time to time, and other cities too. You know the sort of thing, I dare say—ritual murders, carved-up bodies found in odd places, sexual orgies in apparently harmless night-spots. Believe me, the ju-ju man is still the law over a very wide sector of Africa and if you ask me he’ll be so for a hell of a long time yet. But it’s not the long-term prospect I’m concerned with—it’s the present, Shaw.” He gave a tight grin. “Want to know why—or are you still convinced I’m talking drivel?”

 
; “I don’t think that, sir,” Shaw told him. “As a matter of fact I do know these things go on.”

  “Good! Well now—I’d better explain that Africa is full of things they call Cults, which are based on voodoo and originated mainly in the Melanesian Islands in the South Pacific. They’re not exactly secret societies ... they’re really a kind of permeation of ideas, of pagan beliefs again, d’you see, rather than concrete forms which you can pin down in the way you could a secret society. These ideas start with perhaps one man and then spread like wildfire. Once a particular Cult, backed by voodoo, takes a grip on the imagination, it means that immense power passes into the hands of the man who dreamed it up. His followers are like clay to a modeller, completely malleable—he can do anything with them, get them to do just as he wants. Of course, by and large all the Cults are reasonably harmless. But now a new one’s come up, according to our man in Jinda and also reports from the base itself. And it’s at really big thing, a fantastic thing in its whole conception. It’s known as the Cult of Edo. God alone knows who, or what, Edo is, but his name’s spread right through Nogolia in a very short time indeed. The Edo Cult is behind the attempt to get rid of the Bluebolt station, and of course Edo’s been given a flying start by the general anti-white feeling in the rest of the continent and the way all white influence is being cut out.”

  “Yes, quite.” Shaw’s brow wrinkled. “Just what do they mean to do, sir?”

  “I don’t know. We can only make guesses—that’s all—as to what method they’ll use. The objective’s clear enough, though: To force Tshemambi into withdrawing the treaty rights. My own guess would be that the general riot situation which Nogolia shares with the rest of Africa, though until recently not so badly, is Edo-inspired in Nogolia’s own case—that’s to say, he’s cashed in on a prepared exterior situation—and he hopes to force Tshemambi’s hand that way. Anyway, this rioting has been very much more widespread lately, though it hasn’t yet reached proportions serious enough to make the politicians sit up and take notice—you see, you have to look at it within the framework of the rest of Africa. When the whole damn continent’s aflame Nogolia’s troubles appear almost minor—at present, to those who can’t or won’t think ahead. Now, in addition to the rioting, there have been reports of large-scale go-slow movements in the basic industries, and that’s going to affect the country’s economy before long, and there’ll be more rioting as a result of that alone. I understand from our man in Jinda that Edo hasn’t yet manifested himself to his followers, so it’s a fair guess, I think, that his coming will in itself be the signal for something really big to start. Meanwhile they’re nicely softened up and the situation’s getting grimmer every day. When it starts it’ll develop very fast—and quite apart from Bluebolt, that’d be a sorry thing to happen in a country which so far has managed to remain friendly in spite of all the current problems between black and white.”

  Shaw nodded slowly. He asked, “Who have we in Jinda, sir?”

  “You mean who had we.” Latymer’s face hardened. “We had John Stringer. And Stringer’s dead.”

  “Killed?”

  “Yes. Killed before he could get anything more through to us than what I’ve already told you. He was found right in a rnain street of Jinda, just before dawn a day or two ago. I didn’t get the news right away. When they picked him up he. . . just fell to pieces.” Latymer’s face was pale now, the massive skin-grafts standing out grotesquely. “He’d been very cleverly dismembered, and then equally cleverly fitted together again. . . until he was moved, you see. It’s odd, isn’t it— Stringer and Mason both dead! As usual, all mention of Stringer’s work has been kept out of the papers, but I’m told there’s been an intensive investigation on the spot and all that’s emerged so far is quite negative. No one knows a thing. But something was found branded on to his forehead. This.”

  Latymer slid a hand into the drawer of his desk, brought it out, and pushed something across to Shaw. The agent picked it up. It was a small square cardboard box, which he opened. Inside, mummified and impaled on a pin, was a large black spider. It was a wicked-looking brute. Shaw stared at it in horror, as at something evil.

  Latymer went on, “That’s a Black Widow. It’s the trademark of the Cult. The adherents have this image burnt into the flesh, of their right forearms, just below the bend of the elbow.”

  He tapped the box. “Stringer sent this little specimen through just before they got him, and it forms just about the only real clue we’ve got.” He added, “I suppose you didn’t happen to notice if that guard last night had the mark?”

  “No, sir. He had his coat on all the time.”

  “Quite, that’s what I thought. . . pity, though. It would have given us something to go on, a definite lead.”

  Shaw asked, “If these people are marked as you say can’t they be picked up easily enough?”

  “On what charge? There’s nothing illegal in itself about belonging to a Cult. Admitted, Stringer’s murder is clearly linked with the Cult and some of the marked men have been arrested in Jinda, but they won’t open their mouths and nothing can be proved against them. Scotland Yard’ll find the same thing in the case of Handley Mason—that it’s a brick wall.” Latymer stubbed out his cigarette and lit a new one. “As to the Cult itself, if we can get hold of the men behind the scenes and nip it in the bud in time, it’ll fade out, at least in its present form. But meanwhile it’s gathering momentum fast.”

  “I suppose you want me to do the nipping, sir?”

  “That’s the general idea! We can’t afford to risk the physical manifestation of this Edo feller, Shaw. He’s got to be identified and then short-circuited. He’s got to be shown up for what he is—a hired rabble-rouser who’s out to set brother against brother in Nogolia and create yet another power vacuum which’ll be filled by the Eastern Bloc. The situation throughout Africa doesn’t give me much hope that the Nogos will mind that very much, I admit, but I do believe that if Edo can be shown to be a flop they’ll damn soon desert from his ideas. There lies our hope, Shaw—and we’ve got to force him into palpable failure before things get too hot for Tshemambi to hold.” He inhaled deeply. “It’s not only that, either. I’m particularly worried about the staff up at the control-station. They’re under big pressure, they’ve been out there a long while, establishing the base and then latterly running it as an operational unit. All around them, in the other African states, there’s been nothing but trouble and riot and rape—all that sort of thing, the whole damn continent on the boil. Now they can see it moving closer to their own lives. If I know anything of that kind of existence I’d say it’s getting right under their skins, preying on them day after day. They’ve got a hell of a lot of time on their hands, time in which to do nothing but think, and in the end that can begin to affect the mind. I wouldn’t like anything to go. . . well, let’s say badly wrong, just because some one’s getting to the end of his resources.”

  “What exactly have you in mind, sir?”

  Latymer said slowly, “It’s just a rather unpleasant feeling. Sometimes coming events cast their shadows before them. I don’t like it, Shaw. It’s such a trigger-happy situation, and these boffins ... they’re obviously highly intelligent men, that goes without saying. When a super-intellect starts thinking too much, thinking perhaps in circles, starts feeling frustrated and hemmed-in, or is just plain anxious to the point of getting itself a neurosis—well, then anything can happen. Those particular men are sitting on a metaphorical volcano which could go up at any given moment—which will go up when Edo gives the word—and they know it.”

  “Do you think the Edo boys may try to sabotage the base?”

  Latymer said, “It’s a definite possibility, although of course it’s well defended.”

  “Even against a determined mob—I mean, if these Edo people are fanatics, they won’t mind being slaughtered in hundreds, I imagine?”

  Latymer shrugged. “Probably not. In a way, you know, it’s if Edo fails to move Tshemambi by
the less sensational methods that things will get really dangerous for the station itself in the direct physical sense. He’ll have to use tougher methods, you see. And Tshemambi’s an obstinate old devil, for which in the main we ought to be thankful, of course . . . but I’m thinking more about the staff. When things get bad accidents tend to happen. People fly off the handle. If anything went badly wrong it would play into Edo’s hands, give him a first-class propaganda lever to sway the new, uncommitted nations against Britain and the U.S. Nogolia’s something of a testing-ground just now, in a way, and the fence-sitters will take their cues from what happens there. Now—say there’s an accident, and the boys at the station start shooting up the Africans, it’s not going to look so good, is it? A lot of Edo’s work would be done for him and the whites discredited yet again in the parts of the coloured world where we have still got some influence and friendship. And don’t forget the blacks are a reckonable force these days.”

  “Yes. . . but the question of the staff. They wouldn’t have been sent there if they were the sort likely to crack up, surely?”

  Latymer said irritably, “Oh, nonsense. However closely you screen a man and however many factors you take into account, you can never be absolutely sure of his reactions under any given set of circumstances which haven’t occurred up to the time of screening. They’re all a first-class bunch out there, admittedly, and in a security sense they’re absolutely all right, but we just can’t risk any incidents at all. That’s why I want you to bowl out Edo before he has a chance to get cracking in a big way. But”—he jabbed the ebony ruler at Shaw again—“if you do take on the job, and as you know I never force a particular assignment on anyone—I don’t want you to go into this with your eyes shut. Remember, Mason was killed in a pretty nasty way last night. Stringer’s end was—messy. And voodoo has always led to killings in the past. Of course, it’s not just the Africans themselves—left alone, they’re all right. It’s the men who stir them up.” He paused. “All the same, I hope you’ll take this on, Shaw. You’re the best man I’ve got, and Washington’s perfectly happy to let you handle this.” He grinned tightly. “I’ve already taken the precaution of sounding out the Pentagon!”