Ferguson looked at him scornfully. ‘Don’t overplay your hand. The French don’t execute women. The last one to die was Geneviève Danielle who was shot at Montrouge along with Roger Calame for being a Gestapo agent, and though they did her in spite of public opinion on June 8th, 1948 they won’t dare do it again.’
Grant nodded. ‘She deserved it. The worst woman in Paris during this century I imagine. But,’ he added softly, ‘they aren’t so squeamish in some South American countries or the Middle East. Not to mention Africa. Would you fancy being a white head on a black body? Or would you rather go Spanish? A lot of women have died in Cuba, and some of the new African states are getting themselves organised. But take it from me that the situation is under control. She will be used for a highly technical experiment instead of being shot . . . as would have happened if my people hadn’t wanted a suitable, intelligent, healthy subject and come to terms with the government concerned. But of course,’ he smiled, ‘it wouldn’t be in the public interest to say anything about it. So if the experiment comes off you’ll live in glorious isolation, though surrounded by every comfort, and under continuous medical observation until the press, television and so forth have developed calculated leaks and conditioned people into accepting freaks as normal. In fact into accepting a woman with a man’s head as a sort of pseudo-hermaphrodite monster which could be part of our wonderful world of tomorrow.’
Grant had shot his bolt. It was now up to luck, and to Ferguson. But silence was now the surest way to force an issue. He lit another cigarette, poured a dash of brandy and leaned comfortably in his chair. ‘I’ll give you fifteen minutes,’ he said.
Ferguson stared at him for as long as it took to enjoy one long drag from a cigarette and Grant never wholly forgot the look in his eyes. Fear. Disbelief. Cynicism. Doubt. Rage. And then final decision. The decision that Grant wasn’t bluffing. It showed when his hand trembled as he sipped the heavy glass of brandy. Grant had remembered that Ferguson hated ‘blacks’ as he called them, and that the remotest possibility of being united to a coloured woman had shocked his deepest subconscious instincts into a revulsion which would end in confession. He hoped!
And then, as though absentmindedly, Grant opened his wallet, remembering also a press cut-out of riots in Uganda. There was a jet black woman in the foreground, shouting and shaking her fist at a policeman. ‘That one,’ he said curtly. The clipping had been preserved because of an address, but he was playing Ferguson by ear and thanked God he had stored it in the wallet.
Grant watched his target tense as he glanced at the picture, and once again the fingers writhed in athetoid indecision. ‘Coffee?’ said Grant mildly, and lifted the percolator.
It was the last straw. His air of total confidence penetrated, and Ferguson’s eyes began to glance desperately round the cell. ‘Not a hope,’ said Grant. ‘The warder is outside with the Governor and squads of police.’
‘Then give me a cigarette.’ Ferguson appreciated Benson and Hedges, and Grant’s pocket bulged with a packet which could just be seen sticking out below a flap.
He flipped the box over and offered a light. ‘You’ve got less than ten minutes.’
Ferguson hesitated and then Grant saw him make a massive effort to regain his nerve. His jaw muscles tautened: his eyes became hooded as he allowed the lids to droop: and his muscles began to relax, almost one by one, before he spoke. But when he did, his voice was suave as a professional radio announcer. ‘You want something. So ask. And, as they say somewhere, it shall be given.’
‘Your rating with S.A.T.A.N.?’
‘I was in charge of European import control.’
‘Then you know the addresses of S.A.T.A.N. contacts. The people who connived with a crook organisation.’
Ferguson shook his head. ‘They did not connive. Most of S.A.T.A.N.’s success was due to the fact that the people who operated it were above suspicion.’
‘But you know their chief contacts in five continents.’
‘Six.’ Ferguson appeared to derive a bizarre satisfaction from the correction. ‘We also had a man in Antarctica from time to time.’
‘Why?’
‘Because both penguins and seals yield a special sort of fat which when mixed with other chemicals produces a drug with kicks.’
‘The one you gave to Maya?’
‘Plus others.’
‘And its special properties?’ Grant was on delicate ground. Ferguson could lie about this and almost certainly get away with it.
The prisoner smiled slightly. ‘We can make people do pretty well whatever they are told.’
‘And how do you take it?’
‘Mixed with food, in soft drinks like Seven Up, in cigarettes, or even as snuff.’
‘And the object of your exercise?’
‘To create a diversion which will keep the police fully occupied while top people get properly organised and pull off worth while jobs which fetch big money.’
‘Such as what?’
‘The mail train style of thing. Jobs running into six figures. Or seven if we are lucky. But I’ve no details of the future.’
‘Then use your imagination if you want to die decently.’ Grant knew enough to accept the story and estimated that it tied up with hints on Departmental files.
‘There are jewellers who can be got at both in U.K. and Continental Europe. Top business magnates can be corrupted to bear or bull the exchange of the world. At least two international banking houses are already prepared to do anything. Furs have a market in odd places. Television producers and many top executives can be persuaded to accept scripts with enough dirt to corrupt viewers and raise petty crime like local gangsterdom or gambling.’
Grant brooded. He had always expected to find S.A.T.A.N. back on its feet under new management. But who was the new key man?
Ferguson rapped the table with his restless fingers. ‘An Asiatic potentate who doesn’t care too much for Western civilisation.’
‘Name?’
‘I am second ring. Only the top brass knows. And they won’t talk.’
‘No clues?’
Ferguson paused, and Grant knew that once again he could get away with a lie. ‘Somewhere between Trabzon in Turkey and Hunza, Pakistan. He lives quietly and attracts minimal attention. He might be anyone. No clues.’
‘But he manufactures the drug?’
‘Correct.’
‘Exporting it how?’
‘Diluted when necessary in high quality luxury goods sold by shops who deal in status symbols. We cater for very top people indeed. But it also comes raw.’
‘And symptoms?’
‘At first a sense of power and self-reliance, followed after a few months by irritability relieved only when addicts are taught the reasons behind their personality changes.’
‘And no one has complained?’
Ferguson forced a smile. ‘Ask yourself some questions. Why did Baron von Thyssen sell his business to the state? Why did the Aga Khan organise a highly select colony in Sardinia, and what goes on there? Why did Lyndon B. J. decide to step up the war in Viet Nam? Why did a world figure go indiscreet in Canada Summer 67? Why does the Général still oppose U.K. entry to the Common Market except under exacting conditions? What mad hooligans in Holland go anti-royalist? Why did Detroit burn or the U.S.A. have a day of national prayer a short time later? Why do right wing factions in Germany break their party up into fragments with no real power? Why does the U.K. still support removal of troops East of Suez? Why did someone pull out U.N.O. forces from Israel and Egypt in ’67? There are scores of odd happenings taking place. How many of them could be due to a drug taken by men who didn’t know what they were doing? At first at least.’
‘Address of the main distributor?’
Ferguson hesitated, and Grant again laid his photograph of the coloured woman on the table. The prisoner glanced at it and Grant saw his knuckles blench as he closed his fist. ‘Park Lane. But only at times. Few times. Because he doesn’t often visit
the U.K. Or if he does we don’t know. But he spends a lot of time in South East Asia.’
There was sudden tension in the air as Grant sensed that the man in front of him was moving on to dangerous territory and nearing one crux of the problem. ‘Does South East Asia mean Viet Nam or Malaysia? Come down to brass tacks.’
Ferguson sipped more brandy and lit another cigarette. His eyes were glowing with some sort of deep emotion which Grant couldn’t understand and his whole body seemed to radiate purpose. It was a moment for silence and he slowly counted one hundred before rising to go. ‘Okay, Ferguson,’ he said. ‘I told you I mean business. This is your last chance. Start talking about South East Asia and keep nothing back.’
The prisoner looked at Grant with malicious satisfaction. ‘At least you broke before I did. I knew I had you on the hook and that you wouldn’t dare leave here without following the lead. I can’t imagine how you ever got where you did. You’re too impulsive. Ever try playing things cool?’
‘Talk.’ Grant was angry. He detested this assignment with all the memories of a long forgotten past which it was reawakening, and he knew that, to date, Ferguson had shown up better than he. But then, of course, the man had nothing to lose. In an hour or so he would be a mutilated hunk of a corpse trundling along to a common grave for criminals. And he would die to rest on ground which had never been consecrated. But he was still in command of the situation, because only he knew what was happening. So he could name his price while Grant could only play it by ear and bluff. He paused on the ball of his right foot as he was about to make for the door and then slowly turned towards the percolator. ‘Still some coffee left. Want some?’
The man smiled. ‘Black with a slash of brandy. And another sandwich. Wing this time.’
It gave him pleasure to have Grant serve him and he nodded contentedly as Grant offered the plate. ‘I recall hearing that other people have told you to play things more cool. Remember?’
The question brought Grant back to memories of his days with the woman from Peking who had almost killed him at the Ritz during an hour which no one present would ever forget. It was the clue for which he had been waiting. ‘So you tie up with Jacqueline de Massacré and Peking?’
Ferguson shook his head. ‘Not really. I tie up with two groups. S.A.T.A.N. was my bread and butter, not to mention one helluva lot of jam. But the other thing is more delicate. A sort of faith if you get me?’
Grant was interested. He had never associated Ferguson with faith in anything except worship of power and money. ‘We all need faith,’ he said flatly. ‘Care to tell me more?’
Ferguson cautiously laid down his glass. It was his fourth brandy but he had also lowered two coffees which would slightly neutralise the alcoholic stimulus. On the other hand some barbiturate had been added to the sugar lumps in the bowl beside his cup and the barbiturate-alcohol combination was now beginning to work. The prisoner was more talkative. His tension had relaxed and he was wearing an air of defiance which was a good sign. Euphoria was the word! And once again Grant offered silent thanks to Professor Juin who thought of everything . . . or almost everything.
And as Ferguson slowly began to explain, Grant saw that this was it. The biggest thing of all. An enterprise which rivalled even S.A.T.A.N. in danger potential.
Ferguson’s faith was profound. And it sprang from Marx. He was disappointed in the Kremlin. He even felt that Peking hadn’t been passionate enough in forcing true one hundred percent full-blooded Marxian Communism throughout Asia. For him the hope of the world lay in Viet Nam plus total defeat of America and all her allies.
But to achieve this was difficult. Statesmen had to be disciplined, and some top people even in Hanoi or Cairo and Tel Aviv had been known to wish that wars could end with some sort of face saving compromise round a conference table. Peking had internal problems which use up forces otherwise capable of being filtered into North Viet Nam.
The Kremlin was more or less keeping out of it and neither Moscow nor Peking seemed to realise that it was to everyone’s advantage for America to be bogged down in Asia, pouring out millions in armour and suffering a steady loss in man power which would later reflect on her total economy. But above all which would also help to condition America itself towards real bloody revolution. The colour problem would be one fuse. Rivalries between North and South could be another. Personal grievances between government and big business might be a third. The idealism of intellectuals, would-be-do-gooders and a mass of students was a sure-fire fourth, and Ferguson’s people wanted to guarantee such a drain on every aspect of America’s resources that morale plus morals would slither into that state of degeneration essential to any revolution.
A Communist government would then take over. ‘Advisers’ would be imported from Asia and the capital would be moved from Washington as a gesture that the past was now history, that capitalist corruption was ended, and it would be plugged a gesture of confidence in the future. It would moreover, be moved south to centre on a federation of new American states which Cuba would be the first to join. Castro was the only true Communist leader in the Western Hemisphere and he might well be the first Communist president of the United States, because, he, at least, had been true to the Party and to Marx.
America’s Virgin Islands would follow, together with Dominica, and almost certainly Haiti, which would be united on the colour question. Other Caribbean islands would follow within weeks, and within months the Guianas, Venezuela and Central America would unite in one REAL union of ALL the Americas. After which Brazil plus the others would be ripe for the plucking.
While in Asia the first outpost to fall would be Macao, rapidly followed by Hong Kong, and within a year Australia would also have been absorbed into a federation of United States of Asia which would share a common frontier with Mongolia, the Soviet Union and India. East of that line there would be a new country, the People’s United Communist States of Australasia . . . P.U.C.S.A. And that was a most suitable term since it was also a dialect word in Likiang for peace.
But to achieve this two things were necessary: leaders who would continue to fight: and an exhausting war which would reduce even the United States of America to poverty and internal revolution.
Which was where drugs came in. One was already being used in every brothel visited by G.I.s throughout the Far East. Domestic staff within government buildings were trained to give just that little essential dose of another drug to their countries’ leaders as circumstances required. It was tasteless and easily disguised in salt, sugar or soft fruit drinks. One dose could generate a sense of terrific self confidence which might last for days, and this technique was used whenever a top man seemed keen to rat on the Marxist creed or was known to be considering a truce.
Then again it was also used to stimulate propaganda, because it made people ‘suggestible’. If a newsman or radio commentator was known to be pro-south Vietnamese policy a pinch of drug followed by a persuasive interview could work wonders. Powerful leaders were now controllable and top publishing or newspaper tycoons could also be corrupted by this, plus combinations of other blackmail techniques.
As for the do-gooders in both America and Europe! They were essential to the cause for which Ferguson’s men were fighting, because it was an odd facet of human behaviour that when groups of long haired ‘antis’ marched with priests and clergymen in procession ordinary people laughed and believed the more firmly in the very opposite. Which meant, in this case, tacit middle class support for continuing the war in South East Asia.
Grant felt a tiny jerk against his wrist and knew that Ferguson had sixty-five minutes to live. But his story was still just beginning. Maya! He would know the truth of that or kill the man himself. Though he would have to be careful. Much more had to be known about how the drugs were used. One seemed to condition leaders as Ferguson had described. What about the other which corrupted people swiftly, as seemed to have been done with Maya? Were there two drugs or simply modifications in the dosage of one?
Ferguson became cynical. ‘I was wondering when you’d get around to your girl friend. Two drugs. But first cousins, since the basis of each is the same. The quick-acting thing has just a little something added, and we keep it for people like your girl friend or arms tycoons who have got to be made to toe the line fast.’
Grant risked the sixty-four-thousand dollar question. Was there any antidote? Any quick acting cure? And forced himself to smoke impassively as Ferguson doodled with his finger-nails on the wax cloth which covered their table.
‘There is,’ he said at last. ‘Your girl could be cured in a couple of weeks. But you couldn’t pay the price.’
‘Which is?’
‘My life and freedom.’
Grant lifted his gun and fired a shell direct in Ferguson’s face. The man was taken completely off guard. But Grant knew what he was doing. If an antidote existed and Ferguson knew the name then he could be forced to speak. He fished out some thin nylon line from a jacket pocket and tied the man to the prison bed by arms and wrists. A slender chain shaped like handcuffs was clipped around his neck and fixed to the bed end. Grant was now moving with that slick, methodical precision which was part of the man in action against the clock. He opened a small wallet and drew out a pre-sterilised syringe, a thin needle and one ten c.c. ampoule of fluid. It was Juin’s latest improvement on Epontol, one of the things which could be used as a so-called truth drug, but which was short lasting and with no real hangover.
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