Bluebolt One

by Philip McCutchan

  He had checked everything now, in those first few minutes of the operation. Main beaming motivator... monitoring control. . . target-setting transmission. . .recall-control transmitter. . .check-signal receiving gear. . . they were all warmed through and ready now.

  Shaw watched with Gillian Ross, standing motionless and tense in the middle of a group of the uniformed constables. Revolvers were pressed close into their spines and the hands holding those guns were itchy on the triggers—it was easy enough to sense that. Hartog, who was obviously well steeped in whisky but entirely in control of himself and his nerves, was silent and intent as he sat before the big spread of instruments and dials and gauges which reminded Shaw of the controls on the flight-deck of an airliner. Now and again Hartog glanced at the revolving, illuminated globe-rep-resentation with its small dot of brilliant green light moving across the world’s seas and continents, the green dot which was Bluebolt so far out in space and which seemed to move so slowly and inexorably on that ingenious flat ‘globe.’ Just now that dot was coming down from the Eastern Mediterranean, slanting towards Cape Town as Hartog began his preliminary transmission to the satellite.

  Without turning he said, “I shan’t be ready to send the load away till that dot’s gone right round and is starting to travel south again. When she’s right over the Hazen Strait in the Parry Islands north-east of Alaska, I’ll make the launching signal. And that’ll be it, Wiley.”

  Slowly, his face one triumphant, unspeakably evil grin, Edo nodded.

  Shaw was sweating, feeling his palms damp and sticky, his mind whirling.

  Those policemen were watching him and the girl closely; he simply wouldn’t have a hope of doing anything useful, could achieve nothing other than a bullet in the back now, and that wouldn’t help anybody at all. He would have taken that chance willingly if he could have seen any point in it. It was agony to have to stand there and do nothing; but he just had to sweat this thing out and watch wholesale murder being committed before his eyes. Somewhere in Africa— north, south, east, or west, it wouldn’t really make any difference except to the peoples where the load landed—a lot of innocent Africans were now under sentence of dreadful death. Men and women at this moment going about their humdrum evening tasks were never even going to know what hit them. With any luck, Bluebolt’s load might fall in some sparsely populated spot—but even so, the fall-out area would still be immense. And even that was nothing more than a hope. It could just as easily come down on some big settlement, a city—Freetown, Accra, Lagos, Leopoldville, Nairobi, Durban, Johannesburg . . . anywhere at all. There was no knowing.

  Hartog turned slightly in his seat. He said, “I’m picking up her signals faintly now.” The green dot showed Bluebolt bound north, heading up the Pacific somewhere above Sydney. “I shall make contact shortly.”

  Wiley asked, “How long ... before you actually bring down the load?”

  “Oh. . . half an hour, give or take a minute.” Hartog wiped his face with a handkerchief. His voice rose sharply. “I’d like silence now, please.” He reached out and turned a knob on the instrument panel, delicately, and a crackling sound came into the control-tower through a loudspeaker set in the wall above the panel, a background of interference against which they could hear the automatic transmission coming from Bluebolt two hundred miles up.

  Bleep . . bleep-bleep. Bleep . . . bleep-bleep. Bleep . . . bleep-bleep.

  On and on and on. . . and then suddenly a change of note as Hartog pressed a key.

  “Made contact.” Hartog’s voice was brittle. “I shall now send out the impulse which should bring back the check-signal to confirm that we’re in touch.”

  His left hand moved slightly, depressed a second key.

  The bleeping altered, sending back a different Morse character this time. Hartog announced, “Check-signal received. We’re all okay.”

  The satellite’s transmission altered again, back to the original bleep . . . bleep-bleep. Soon those signals increased in strength, and Hartog, as the green dot sped out over the Pacific and began to close the North American coastline in the region of Queen Charlotte Island, reached out for a key to his right. His hand hovered for a moment and then came down smartly, sending out the first of a series of impulses which would streak into the delicate receivers aboard Bluebolt and make a number of connexions which would start the process of releasing the enormous cone-headed bomb load, sending it off towards the earth, plunging down, after Hartog pressed the target-setting and gave the final release-impulse, to burst its way back into the atmosphere and head for its devastation area.

  Bluebolt’s transmission changed once more, again sending the check-signal. Hartog, watching the dials before him narrowly, said suddenly, “She’s nearly there. Stand by.”

  Shaw was hardly breathing.

  “I am now about to make the target-setting.”

  There was absolute silence now from every one in the tower and the great satellite’s bleeping dropped startlingly into that hush. Hartog reached out again and turned a pointer fractionally, and then with his right hand he pressed a red button in the target-indicator box. Almost at once the satellite’s transmission speeded up, the note became higher, more jangling, and the interrupted bleeping changed into a continuous bar of sound which sawed and juddered at the nerves.

  “On target. . . target-setting checked back. Watch the green dot now, watch it carefully. . . when she’s on top of Hazen Strait I’ll send the final dispatch-impulse—”

  “Hartog—for God’s sake, man—”

  “Pack it in, Shaw!”

  “Do you understand what you’re doing?” Shaw moved slightly and at once his arms were twisted up agonizingly behind his back.

  Hartog said, “You might just as well shut up and watch, Shaw. It’s going to be very interesting. Take my advice—don’t risk missing it. Those boys’ll shoot you if you try anything.” Shaw’s nails dug viciously into his palms. Hartog went on with his operating procedure, calmly following dials, keeping pointers lined up. The globe showed the dot coming up now to Borden Island... Mackenzie King Island... the Hazen Strait.

  Hartog’s hand was poised; as the dot approached Hazen Strait he laughed. It was a horrifying sound of hysteria; its high-pitched note filled the control-tower. Hartog’s gaze was on the dials before him, and as that laugh died away and the dot was right over Hazen Strait his poised fingers swooped, came down on a key, jabbed it once. . . twice . . . three times.

  He gave a quick, satisfied glance round his instruments again and then at the green dot continuing in its orbit. He leaned over to his left and rapidly turned a small wheel. A pointer spun on a dial, and Hartog made one more transmission.

  He said, “Automatic tracker set. That’s all, Wiley. All we do now is sit and wait.”

  He swung his revolving seat round to face his silent audience. He said, almost gaily, “As I said, gentlemen, that’s the lot. In fifteen minutes approximately, Bluebolt’s missile will strike the earth. Wiley, I’ve put on settings which should bring it down in Ghana—”

  There was a choking sound from Shaw. He burst out, “Hartog, what you—-”

  “Shut up!” The words were a whiplash. One of the African constables leaned forward and smashed a fist into Shaw’s mouth. He spat out blood. Hartog went on, speaking to Wiley again, “I can’t absolutely guarantee that it’ll be dead accurate. The normal targets would naturally be in the Iron Curtain countries, and I’ve had to improvise a little. But— well, I’ve done my best and I shan’t be far out if at all. I suggest you go and do your stuff with your people out there.” He gestured through the window towards the perimeter of the station and then pointed up at the mast. He said, “It’s quite safe now. There won’t be any more transmissions. Here.” He removed a small part from the panel and handed it to Wiley. “That’s just so you feel safer. I can’t operate without that. Well—you know the way up.”

  Wiley nodded his crinkly, greying head. His face was utterly triumphant now, uplifted in an obsce
ne kind of way. He pushed through towards Shaw, stood in front of him. Without speaking, he gave the agent two vicious, stinging slaps across the face, slaps which brought a rush of blood to Shaw’s flesh. Then Wiley turned away and left the control-tower. A moment later Shaw heard the sound of footsteps on a steel ladder which ran up the sides of the tower, and then, looking up through the glass dome, he saw Wiley climbing along the metal inspection-ladder across the dome itself, going towards the foot of the beaming mast. Then Shaw looked across at Hartog. The man had lit a cigarette, was grinning, and the look in his face, in his red-rimmed, bleary eyes, was crazier than ever. He said, “Shaw, this isn’t finished yet—oh, and by the way, none of these black bastards here can speak English, I made damn sure of that” He waved his cigarette towards the African constables, who were gazing raptly upward through the dome at their leader. “So they won’t tick over about what I’m saying. Now, I advise you to keep calm and not start anything you may regret. You wouldn’t do any good anyhow. These men have their orders, and those orders are still to prevent you getting anywhere near the instruments.” Shaw noticed that Hartog kept on glancing upward through the dome, to where Wiley, going slowly and very carefully, was reaching out for the steel webbing of the mast. “Listen, Shaw. Wiley—Edo—is about to show himself to his dutiful followers from a nice, high point. Incidentally, that was my suggestion, when I spoke to him earlier by radio, but it was so tactfully put that he thinks it’s his own unaided idea. . . you see, he’s rather inclined to see himself as the god he’s supposed to be, and after the ants messed up his little bonfire he had to have an alternative. Well now, from his superior, god-like eminence, he’s going to address them. He’s going to give them a lot of baloney. He’s going to tell ’em—and he doesn’t know I know this—that the white man whom he trusted—that’s me—has double-crossed him. He’s going to tell them that I had promised to bring the bomb down harmlessly in the sea, which is where these policemen think it’s going right now as a matter of fact. But instead, the wicked white man—me—has so directed the bomb that it will land on African soil and slaughter their brothers. Well now—when he’s put that line across, he’ll call on his peoples out there to avenge their brothers, whereupon they will storm the station and kill all of us—"

  “How’s he going to explain away the fact that all the station staff are locked up—they couldn’t have operated—”

  Hartog raised a hand. “Patience, patience! For his own purposes in the field of propaganda later, he does in fact intend to put around a story that the whole station staff were acting under orders from London and Washington to bring the load down on Africa, just to teach the blacks a lesson—”

  “Which no one would ever believe—”

  “Oh, yes? Just try contradicting it after the event—that’s all! Just let me finish, Shaw. Because of this, as soon as he’s done speaking, the staff will be released—so that they can be killed by the mob, who won’t stop to ask ’em any questions. So that they can’t talk and deny Edo’s story. Now d’you see? Dead men tell no tales. And denials from London and Washington . . . well, they’ll just be a waste of breath.”

  “What about you? Are you going to be killed too?” Hartog laughed. “According to what I’ve been told, of course not. I’m to be smuggled to Russia and glory. But I do happen to have found out that the double-crossing bastard does in fact mean to throw me to the mob. Then I can never talk either. But you’ll notice that I’m not unduly worried-about that.... However, to get back to the theory behind Edo’s stunt: once that thing’s hit Africa, and the news breaks in the Press all over the world, the idea is that the Cult goes into action at once and on the crest of a wave, see? There will be wholesale risings in every part of the world, backed by an enormous propaganda machine from the East. India, the West Indies, Malaya, the southern states of the U.S.—they’ll all go the same way as Africa’s gone already, only much more so. And then the Eastern Bloc will step into the power-vacuum that’ll have been created, and all advanced Western defence outposts will cease to exist immediately. That’s Edo’s plan. Like it?”

  “Do you?”

  “No.” Hartog tapped ash off his cigarette and glanced at the moving dot of green. “That’s why it’s not going to come off. Because I don’t like it, I mean.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “You will. Unfortunately for Edo, I haven’t finished the transmission yet, and when I said the automatic tracker was set, well—it wasn’t. And that bit of metal I gave him doesn’t mean a thing. And I’ll tell you something else. The target-settings I’ve put on aren’t for Africa at all. In a few minutes I shall transmit again—when the dot reaches Cape Farewell at the southern tip of Greenland, and then the missile will come down somewhere much more interesting than Africa. That’s why I had to wait the full time after the flop this morning. It’s what I planned all along, Shaw, or almost all along, and I’m going to do it within the next few minutes.” His eyes blazed, and Shaw noticed the shake of his fingers now as the man jabbed a hand towards him in emphasis—or was it entreaty? Hartog went on, “One day you’ll live to thank me for what I’m going to do___yes,

  Shaw, you’ll live, and so will millions of other men and women and children, which I truly believe wouldn’t be the case if I didn’t do this thing. I believe, you see, that the West is wasting time, has already wasted almost too much time, and my way is the only way to bring this home to the people, to force the governments into action, to settle the world for all time, to finish for ever with uncertainties and fears, and surrenders to the East. It is an action for peace—you must believe that!” His face shone with sweat, the eyes stared madly at Shaw.

  He ran his tongue over his lips and went on, “You will believe what I say, when to-night is over. I shall never have the opportunity of saying it to the world, and you must say it for me and explain my reasons ... that was why I wanted you to be here in the tower, you see.” His eyes blazed redly. “I told you I’d gone along with the Cult just to find out what was going on. That was true. But after a time I began to see what I had to do, what I must do if I was to be true to myself and my beliefs, and so my mind started to work along—other lines. I decided to take action myself. I’d been conscious for a very, very long time of the immense power which had been put into our hands, Steve’s and mine. I told him that once, if I remember.” Hartog was shaking badly now. “I was also conscious that it would never be used by the namby-pamby leaders of the West, that Bluebolt was to all intents and purposes—useless! I decided that such a tremendous weapon should be useless no longer. Ours was the power—and I had to use it, in the name of all humanity.” Hartog paused. Shaw, as he began to see just what the man was working up to, felt the hairs rise at the back of his neck and he was about to speak when Hartog went on again.

  “I decided, you see, to use these people as they’d meant to use me. I couldn’t do what I wanted without their help, for I couldn’t capture the station single-handed, and I needed at least an hour’s full and uninterrupted control in order to do it—”

  “Hartog, you—”

  “Wait one moment. I shan’t keep you much longer.” Hartog glanced over at the dot again and then swivelled quickly round in his chair. Over his shoulder he said, “No more time now. I hope I’ve made things quite clear.”

  Shaw took a deep breath, eyes seeking the dot again. He saw that brilliant green speck coming up to Cape Farewell—so aptly named, he thought bitterly. And then, within the next few seconds, everything seemed to happen at once.

  Hartog said quite calmly, “I’m going to bring it down now. On Moscow.”

  He reached out slowly for the main transmission key. Shaw had a profile view of him; his face was strangely moved and yet oddly peaceful, filled with a kind of radiance. His hand came down on the key, pressed it. There was a super-brilliant flash of blinding white light from above, a flash which laid everything starkly bare in the control-room; at once Gillian Ross gave a high, sobbing scream, and every one looked u
pward, gasped; Wiley seemed literally to be on fire . . . a keening sound came from the policemen; their attention was entirely distracted and in that split-second, Shaw took his chance.

  Flinging his body sideways he turned and smashed a fist into the face of the man who was holding the gun in his spine. He heard the sudden shattering roar of the revolver, smelt the gunsmoke, felt the sharp agony in his lower ribs as the bullet glanced across them, saw another of the policemen twist and fall as the bullet caught him in the chest, and then his left fist took the first man in the stomach and he doubled up, gasping. Instantly the place was in confusion, the rest of the Africans running in terror for the steps. As Hartog swung round, livid, a gun in his hand now, Shaw got hold of the

  policeman’s revolver and fired blind, four shots in swift succession. They took Hartog in the stomach and he slumped back, across the transmission key. Shaw heard the continuous blast of the signal whining out and up into space as Hartog’s body kept the key pressed down. The whole instrument-panel was splashed with blood, and Hartog’s stomach seemed to be hanging out. . . and then, as Shaw raced over to grab the body and free the key, his eye was caught by something which bobbed and gyrated, held on the lower webbing of the mast above his head.

  Something that smoked horribly with a small blue flame curling round it, something that looked like an overdone joint on a spit, something that was no longer a man, was just a charred, blackened lump of roasted flesh. . . .

  Edo must have taken upward of a million volts through his big body when Hartog pressed that key, and, caught in the steel webbing, he’d gone on taking them all the time the scientist’s corpse held the key down.

  Shaw picked Gillian up and ran with her out of the tower, across the compound which had now been deserted by the Africans. Reaching the store where he’d been locked up with Geisler, he smashed in the window and yelled out to the base commander, telling him briefly what had happened.