The Cummings Report

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  Victor went to the drink table, and mixed himself a stiff whisky. Christine had not troubled to draw the curtains, and he stood there for a few seconds, peering out into the bright moonlight. It filtered through those proud, erect pines that marked the boundary of the little garden, then catching in its path upon the statue of Peter Pan, a replica of the one in Kensington Gardens. Somehow that statue, though ‘un-American’ in the literal sense, seemed to symbolize the world he had chosen to turn his back on. The strong summer moonlight picked out the deep lines that furrowed Victor’s rather hollow cheeks, and highlighted his sad, friendly, disillusioned eyes. Standing there, with his slight stoop and rather limp posture, he looked like a tired, defeated man.

  “It’s Ian,” said Christine, “who’s going to suffer most. To him you weren’t just a father, you were practically a god. I at least knew you were human; but children don’t make such allowances.”

  “Does he know?”

  “No, of course not. But one day he will. Because, Timber, you are not sophisticated enough to get away with what you’re doing without being caught in the end. For me, that is the worst part; not that you have done this thing — I love you and understand you too well for that — but because of the certain knowledge that you will, sooner or later, be caught. From now on, every time the phone rings, or somebody comes to the door, I shall be wondering, with a chilling dread, whether you have been found out. It will be bad enough for me, loving you as I do; but for Ian it will be the end of the world. Did you think of him — and Betty — when you decided to do this awful thing?”

  “Decide?” Victor walked across the room and peered into the Regency mirror over the fireplace. He looked at his reflection, as if seeking to find something there that might reveal the truth. “Does onedecide such things? No, they creep up on you, like a cancerous disease. Between the moment you are healthy and the moment you are infected there is no sharp dividing line. It’s a slow process of metamorphosis that occurs while the deadly infection attacks, and the body grows weak enough to succumb.

  “I won’t make excuses — least of all to you. But you know the things that weakened me; though no doubt the weakest thing of all was my own character.” He turned to her. “What are you going to do?”

  “My dear Victor! What would any wife who loved her husband do? Betray him? No, I could never do that. All I have to do is to wait, and to look after Ian and Betty — and you, Timber — until the inevitable happens. And a man of your insight must know what that will be like.”

  “My God, Christine! You don’t imagine I haven’t gone through torture thinking about that, do you? But my one hope was that I would be too clever to be found out, even by you.”

  There was even a little pathetic humour in her smile. “Poor Victor, so you even thought you could fool me, after all these years!”

  Victor sat down beside her, and tentatively — almost feeling untouchable yet trying to give comfort — took her hand in his. “One thing I promise you, Christine, though it must be a poor consolation. Whatever you may think about my capabilities as a traitor — and don’t let’s mince words, that is what I am — I shall never be found out. Neither you nor my children will ever suffer that particular humiliation.”

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully, “in a way you’re right. Because I know what will ultimately happen. One day you’ll wake up from your nightmare. You’ll see that you have been stabbing, not just your country, but yourself and your own family in the back! And you will know what you must do. You will go to the police, or someone in authority, and tell them everything. Because that is the sort of person you are. You hate any sort of cheating more than anything in the world; and when you realize what a cheat you have been there will be only one thing youcan do.”

  He seemed hardly to have heard her. “You see, I can no longerbelievein the things I used to believe in,” he said. “Before ...it... happened, I was fooling myself all the time. I was Little Adler, believing in something which fell down like a castle made from a deck of cards when it was put to the test. How could I go on believing in it? Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and common justice based onfact, rather than hysteria? When even my intimate colleagues — some of whom I had thought were also my friends — turned against me; when the man who delivered the milk whispered to the next door neighbours; when my children’s friends tormented them with fantastic accusations; and when you, Christine, of all people, were barred — oh how tactfully! — from the country club where we’d been members for twenty years, all because of the personal ambitions and raving lunacy of a small group of politicians — howcould I go on believing in what is known in propaganda as the ‘American Way of Life?’

  “I can never go back now. I have made a choice, and I will stick to it. And I can believe in it as an alternative because it hasn’t failed me.”

  “It hasn’t had much of a chance to, yet.”

  “And it never will. Don’t you see, if I didn’t believe in it one hundred per cent, how could I possibly revoke everything I have known, turn my back on something that is in my blood, unless I wassure? Never before has so-called civilization hit such an all-time low. It needs stronger medicine than a return of the Democrats — and I did believe, most passionately, in Franklin D., as you know — to rescue politics and the way of life of millions from the hands of would-be dictators. How Christian would you say some of the methods of our political leading lights are today? How many prominent senators are at the heads of mammoth corporations, of which the profits are directly affected by the words these men utter in the name of truth and national prosperity, right there in Washington — the very centre of our so-called democracy? And this phoney economy of ours, with its carefully planned over-production and gargantuan expenditure on weapons of war — where will it all end? Do you realize that if there weren’t a war every now and then, this nation would go bankrupt!”

  Christine gently withdrew her hand. “Do you mind if I say something a little sententious?” she said.

  “You couldn’t be sententious, Christine,” said Victor more calmly, “you’re far too wise a person for that.”

  “Thanks for the hand-out,” she replied, “but I can assure you I am far from infallible. We all are, you know. Which is rather my point. You remember the old saying of the Ancient Romans, don’t you?Even Homer Nods! Well, all human beings make mistakes, and even Americans are human!

  “So it’s a matter of choice, as you say. But it’s a choice between two evils. Nobody pretends our democracy is perfect — human beings aren’t capable of perfection, though many strive for it. In your way I think you do, and that is your undoing. For I think you’ll find, in the end, that the country you are betraying — what a frightening word it is, isn’t it? — has more room for people like you, who strive for perfection, even if they make mistakes in the process, than has the Power you are offering our secrets to. For that Power doesn’t permit mistakes at all.” She pushed away those hairs that were always falling across his eyes. “You see, darling, it’s because people like you were brave enough and upright enough to stand firm against the ruthless people who chose you as a target, that they were ultimately discredited. If everyone had submitted like lambs to unjustified cross-examination, in which they were invited to pass the buck on to other people by ‘exposing’ them too, God only knows what might have happened by now. But it’s because this country is capable of producing people like you, who fight what they believe is wrong and therefore lead the way for others, that I believe in it. Don’t further the damage to that belief, Timber, by remaining blind too long ...”

  *

  “... I made a decision, and I must stick to it,” said Victor Buche to Peter Loring.

  But to Loring it sounded almost as if Buche was trying to convince himself. A swift exchange of glances passed between Abe Shapello and the fair-haired young man — an exchange which Buche did not miss. And he had no illusion as to what his ultimate fate would be, if he were to remain in the hands of this modern, stream
lined band of robbers. The prospect, therefore, of boarding the flying-boat for a far country was hardly an attractive one. (But at this time Buche probably still intended to go through with it. His change of heart was to follow later — three days later only, to be exact.)

  And so, for the first time, as he stared across at the two other men in that squalid little room, he realized how perilous his own position had become. From now on, no matter what he said or did, no matter how efficiently he might complete the work which Hugh Palate had begun, first under his legitimate chief, Steinhart (who was still unaware that Palate had turned traitor) and then in that special laboratory that had been built for him in an innocent-looking country house, Buche would never again be able to convince his ignominious colleagues that his new loyalties were undivided, because he could no longer convince himself. ‘This is where the amateur spy must inevitably fail, where the less sincere type of conspirator (like Shapello, who was certainly not interested in any ethical issues) could maintain the confidence of his fellow plotters whatever his inner feelings (if any) might be on the subject.

  “Let’s get on with it,” said Buche tersely.

  “All right,” said Peter Loring. “Moscow want to know when you are ready to start the final tests.”

  “Tell them,” said Buche flatly, “that the British equipment is now installed. We are ready any time.”

  “You tell them,” said Loring. “They want to talk to you direct.”

  “But ... isn’t that dangerous?”

  “It’s all dangerous,” said Loring drily. “It gets more dangerous as you go along. But this is a pushover. That is, if your scrambler works like you say it does.”

  Buche walked over to the radio set. “Switch on the transmitter power,” he snapped. “Let’s not waste any more time ...”

  *

  Joe Kyle frowned. He was watching the cathode ray tube before him, which was behaving rather oddly.

  “Take a look at this, Mike.” he called to the man who was making the coffee — that eternal coffee that kept the night shift in the monitor shack approximately human.

  “What is it, Joe?” he shouted irritably. Joe was always seeing on his C.R. tube strange and wonderful things that usually turned out to be figments of his imagination.

  “It’s probably nothing,” said Joe cautiously, well aware of a string of earlier humiliations. But it was his job to look for unusual goings-on among the static, propaganda and plug-music that saturated the radio antenna high above the roof of the hut. “But then again, you never know.”

  “You never know,” echoed Mike, with heavy sarcasm in his voice. “That’s all you ever say. You never know.”

  Joe turned on the speaker, and a strange cacophony of sounds shattered the comparative silence of the place. Mike spilled the coffee down his shirt.

  “Nowlook what you’ve done, you knob-twiddling son of a bitch. What the hell’s that, anyway? The sound effects fromThe War of the Worlds? For Pete’s sake turn it down a bit; I think my left ear just dropped off.”

  Joe’s reply was to turn the volume control full up, hard against the stop. “Not till you come and look!” he shouted triumphantly.

  Mike came and looked, and his manner changed abruptly. “Run a tape on that!” he snapped.

  “I already did,” said Joe with a beaming smile. “It’s a great little noise, isn’t it?”

  “Okay, cut the cross-talk. I think you’ve hit something this time. Get a bearing on it, and I’ll call up ’Frisco to get a cross-bearing.”

  “You needn’t worry,” said Joe smugly, “it’s stopped. You better gimme some coffee. And next time perhaps you’ll believe me quick enough to do something about it.”

  “Okay,o-kay, genius! So I slipped. Anyway, like you said, it’s probably nothing. Pity we didn’t get that bearing, though ...

  *

  “You say this came through just after midnight?” said Colonel Frean.

  “Yes sir,” said Kyle. “On a frequency of around two megacycles.”

  Frean rubbed his stubbly chin for a second or two. Then: “Run the tape again, will you?”

  Several pairs of eyes were focused upon two slowly revolving reels of magnetic tape, as the sound that had caused Mike to ruin a not very new shirt reverberated harshly round the walls of Frean’s office. When the recording finished playing, Frean turned to his Expert. “What do you think?” he demanded.

  “I’d say it was some kind of scrambling,” said the Expert, “but not like anything we’ve heard before.”

  “Do you think it originates in this country?”

  The Expert paused for a moment. “That’s hard to say, sir. They didn’t get a bearing on it.” The several pairs of eyes turned, in silent inquiry, towards Mike, who suddenly looked like a shoplifter caught in the act. “The transmissions finished before I was able,” he said, studying the ceiling.

  “Pity,” said Frean.

  “That’s whatI said,” said Joe, his voice trailing off as he found that another pair of eyes — belonging to Mike — of ten times the wattage output of any others present, were boring into his like two high-speed drills. “But there wasn’t time,” he added, shifting in his seat. Mike reduced his eyepower to something like its normal level once more.

  “Well, have it sent to Washington for analysis.” ordered Frean. “You never know; though it’s probably nothing ...

  *

  Similar feelings were expressed about some unusual signals that were heard in London, by the B.B.C.’s monitoring service. As in the United States, a tape recording was made, and a copy arrived with commendable speed upon Prescott-Healey’s desk. This was normal procedure, since anything picked up on the radio that sounded remotely like code or cipher was automatically dealt with by R7, in collaboration with its sister departments in Military Intelligence.

  Prescott-Healey placed a call to Washington, and was connected almost immediately. Thanks to the new ocean cable, telephone conversations that spanned the Atlantic were no longer dependent upon the caprices of long distance radio. There was, too, the additional advantage that they could not be intercepted, except, of course, by the appropriate authorities, and the engineers who listened to the conversations to make sure that the line was working properly.

  Luckily, Colonel Frean, whom Miles knew well, had been called to Washington as a direct result of the interception of the signals by his staff. And when the call was put through to the Cipher Investigation Department at the Pentagon Frean was actually in conference with other department chiefs.

  “What I’d like to check,” said Miles, “is whether you got the same stuff as we did. I’d like to tape what you’ve got. Can you connect a machine to the line?”

  “Any time you say,” said Frean; “we have a permanent set-up here.”

  “Good. Then I’ll connect mine and play what we got down the wire. You take it down. Then you do the same back to us.”

  “Sure. We’re running ...now.”

  Prescott-Healey pressed a switch which automatically linked his tape-recorder direct with the telephone line. Then he started the motor. At the far end, in a small, sound-proofed room that lay behind guarded doors in the Pentagon, Frean and his colleagues watched the recording meter kicking up and down as the signals were re-recorded on to their tape. Then they did the same in reverse, so that both Washington and London had copies of both the intercepted signals.

  *

  In less than half an hour Frean was on the wire again.

  “We’ve made a composite tape,” he said. “And we find that the gaps in our recording are just the right length for the signals in yours.”

  “Which means,” said Prescott-Healey, “that we’ve got both ends of a conversation. Your tape is the reply to ours. Right?”

  “Right!”

  Miles grinned into the telephone. You can’t hear a grin, but Frean knew exactly what Miles was thinking.

  “Now all we have to do,” said Frean, “is to find out what the Hell it’s all about! I’ll
have our boys work on it straight away. Flow about you?”

  “You haven’t a chance!” said Miles. “We’ll have the answer before your chaps have even got it lashed up to an analyser.”

  “You want to bet?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Okay,” said Frean. “This is going to cost you plenty! That restaurant in Bloomsbury ...The White Tower; remember it?”

  “I ought to. I’ve still got an overdraft as a result of your last visit.”

  “That sure is tough,” sympathized Frean, “because this isn’t going to improve it. I’ll bet you the best dinner they can dish up —with the best wines — that we get the answer first. Are you on?”

  “My mouth is watering already,” said Miles, “and it never does that when I’m paying. When do we see you next?”

  “I think I’m due in London next month — I got business with the Military Attaché.”

  “I’ll send for a menu,” said Miles ...

  CHAPTER 14

  THERE was a sound like thunder as Ian Buche bounded down the stairs two at a time.

  “Hi, Timber!” he greeted, “what’s for breakfast? Gee, I could eat a whole chicken-run of eggs this morning!” Victor was helping himself at the sideboard. “Well, you’d better start with a couple first. Then, if necessary,

  I’ll phone for Davy’s truck and have him raid the nearest farm.”

  “Well, I’m sure glad you’re back from New York. Did you see the Dodgers?”

  “No, I didn’t see the Dodgers. They don’t start playing for another month.”

  “I know that, Timber. I know every date of every match this season. But I thought you might have had a look-see at them training.”

  “That is not what I went to New York for,” replied Victor mildly. “Sit down; you’re bobbing up and down like an inebriated turkey.”

  Ian poured out a king-size glass of milk and plonked it down on the table. “Well, whatdid you go to New York for? Go on, shoot me the whole works; I’m checking up.”