The Tightrope Men / The Enemy

by Desmond Bagley

  Carey shrugged. ‘I’m coming up to retirement and what have I got? All my life I’ve lived on a thin edge and my nerves are so tight I’ve got a flaming big ulcer. I’ve shot men and I’ve been shot at; during the war the Gestapo did things to me I don’t care to remember. And all for what? When I retire I get a pension that’ll do little more than keep me in tobacco and whisky.’

  ‘Cast away like an old glove,’ said Kidder mockingly.

  ‘You can laugh,’ said Carey with asperity. ‘But wait until you’re my age.’

  ‘Okay, okay!’ said Kidder soothingly. ‘I believe you. You’re an old guy and you deserve a break. I know your British Treasury is penny-pinching. You should have worked our side of the fence—do you know what the CIA appropriation is?’

  ‘Now who is making light conversation?’ said Carey acidly. ‘But now that we’re talking of money you’d better make sure that the sum agreed goes into that Swiss bank account.’

  ‘You know us,’ said Kidder. ‘You know we’ll play fair—if you do. Now how about opening that safe?’

  Denison could not believe what he was hearing. All the mental and physical anguish he had suffered was going for nothing because Carey—Carey, of all people—was selling out. It would have been unbelievable had he not heard it from Carey’s own lips. Selling out to the bloody Americans.

  He considered the situation. From what he had heard there were only the two of them in the library. Carey was where he could be seen, over by the safe. Kidder faced him and had his back to the door—presumably. It was a good presumption because nobody conducts a lengthy conversation with his back to the person he is talking to. But Kidder had a gun and, window dressing or not, it could still shoot.

  Denison looked around. Lyn was still standing in the same position but he could not ask for her help. He saw a large vase on the hall table, took one step, and scooped it up. When he got back to the door he saw that Carey had opened the safe and was taking out papers and stacking them on top.

  Kidder was saying, ‘…I know we agreed to chase Meyrick and McCready just to make it look good but I didn’t expect all those goddamn fireworks. Hell, I might have been killed.’ He sounded aggrieved.

  Carey stooped to pull out more papers. ‘But you weren’t.’

  Denison eased open the door. Kidder was standing with his back to him, a pistol held negligently by his side, and Carey had his head half-way inside the safe. Denison took one quick pace and brought down the vase hard on Kidder’s head. It smashed into fragments and Kidder, buckling at the knees, collapsed to the floor.

  Carey was taken by surprise. He jerked his head and cracked it on top of the safe. That gave Denison time to pick up the pistol which had dropped from Kidder’s hand. When Carey had recovered he found Denison pointing it at him.

  Denison was breathing heavily. ‘You lousy bastard! I didn’t go through that little bit of hell just for you to make a monkey of me.’

  Before Carey could say anything McCready skidded into the room at top speed. He saw the gun in Denison’s hand and where it was pointing, and came to a sudden halt. ‘Have you gone m…’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Denison savagely. ‘I suppose you’re in it, too. I thought it strange that Carey should have got rid of Diana and Armstrong so fast. Just what’s so bloody important in London that Diana should have been put on a plane without even time to change her clothes, Carey?’

  Carey took a step forward. ‘Give me that gun,’ he said authoritatively.

  ‘Stay where you are.’

  From the doorway Lyn said, ‘Giles, what is all this?’

  ‘These bloody patriots are selling out,’ said Denison. ‘Just for money in a Swiss bank account.’ He jerked the gun at Carey who had taken another pace. ‘I told you to stay still.’

  Carey ignored him. ‘You young idiot!’ he said. ‘Give me that gun and we’ll talk about it more calmly.’ He went nearer to Denison.

  Denison involuntarily took a step backwards. ‘Carey, I’m warning you.’ He held out the gun at arm’s length. ‘Come any closer and I’ll shoot.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said Carey with certainty, and took another step.

  Denison’s finger tightened on the trigger and Carey’s arm shot out, the hand held palm outwards like a policeman giving a stop sign. He pressed his hand on the muzzle of the pistol as Denison squeezed the trigger.

  There was no shot.

  Denison found his arm being forced back under the steady pressure of Carey’s hand against the muzzle of the gun. He pulled the trigger again and again but nothing happened. And then it was too late because Carey’s other hand came around edge on and chopped savagely at his neck. His vision blurred and, at the last, he was aware of but two things; one was Carey’s fist growing larger as it approached, and the other was Lyn’s scream.

  McCready’s face was pale as he looked at the sprawled figure of Denison. He let out his breath in a long whistle. ‘You’re lucky he had the safety catch on.’

  Carey picked up the pistol. ‘He didn’t,’ he said sharply.

  Lyn ran over to where Denison lay and bent over his face. She turned her head. ‘You’ve hurt him, damn you!’

  Carey’s voice was mild. ‘He tried to kill me.’

  McCready said, ‘You mean the safety catch wasn’t on. Then how…’

  Carey bounced the pistol in his hand. ‘Kidder went shopping for this locally,’ he said. ‘On the principle of “patronize your local gunsmith”, I suppose. It’s a Husqvarna, Model 40—Swedish army issue. A nice gun with but one fault—there’s about a sixteenth of an inch play in the barrel. If the barrel is forced back, the trigger won’t pull.’ He pressed the muzzle with the palm of his left hand and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. ‘See!’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to stake my life on it,’ said McCready fervently. ‘Apart from that will it shoot normally?’

  Carey cocked an eye at him. ‘I suppose Kidder has friends outside. Let’s invite them in.’ He looked about. ‘I never did like that style of vase, anyway.’ He raised the gun and aimed it at a vase at the other end of the room, a companion to the one Denison had broken over Kidder’s head. He fired and the vase exploded into pieces.

  Carey held the gun by his side. ‘That ought to bring them.’

  They waited quietly in an odd tableau. Lyn was too busy trying to revive Denison to pay much attention to what was happening. She had started at the shot and then resolutely ignored Carey. Kidder lay unconscious. The bandages around his lower jaw had come adrift revealing what seemed to be bloody pockmarks from the birdshot he had received in the marsh of Sompio. Carey and McCready stood in the middle of the room, silent and attentive.

  The drawn curtain in front of the french window billowed as though blown by a sudden breeze. A woman’s voice said, ‘Drop the gun, Mr Carey.’

  Carey laid down the pistol on the table and stepped aside from it. The curtains parted and Mrs Kidder stepped into the room. She was still the same mousy, insignificant little woman but what was shockingly incongruous was the pistol she held in her hand. There were two large men behind her.

  ‘What happened?’ Her voice was different; it was uncharacteristically incisive.

  Carey gestured towards Denison. ‘Our friend butted in unexpectedly. He crowned your husband—if that’s what he is.’

  Mrs Kidder lowered the gun and muttered over her shoulder. One of the men crossed the room and bent over Kidder. ‘And the papers?’ she asked.

  ‘On top of the safe,’ said Carey. ‘No problems.’

  ‘No?’ she asked. ‘What about the girl?’ The gun came up and pointed at Lyn’s back.

  ‘I said it and meant it,’ said Carey in a hard voice. ‘No problems.’

  She shrugged. ‘You’re carrying the can.’

  The other man crossed to the safe and began shovelling papers into a canvas bag. Carey glanced at McCready and then his eyes slid away to Kidder who was just coming round. He muttered something, not loudly but loud enough for Carey to hear
.

  He was speaking in Russian.

  The mumbling stopped suddenly as the man who was bending over Kidder picked him up. He carried him to the french window and, although Carey could not see properly, he had the strong impression that a big hand was clamped over Kidder’s mouth.

  The man at the safe finished filling the bag and went back to the window. Mrs Kidder said, ‘If this is what we want you’ll get your money as arranged.’

  ‘Don’t make any mistake about that,’ said Carey. ‘I’m saving up for my old age.’

  She looked at him contemptuously and stepped back through the window without answering, and the man with the canvas bag followed her. Carey waited in silence for a moment and then walked over and closed the window and shot the bolts. He came back into the middle of the room and began to fill his pipe.

  ‘You know that Kidder tried to con me into believing he was with the CIA. I always thought that American accent of his was too good to be true. It was idiomatic, all right, but he used too much idiom—no American speaks with a constant stream of American clichés.’ He struck a match. ‘It seems the Russians were with us, after all.’

  ‘Sometimes you get a bit too sneaky for me,’ said McCready.

  ‘And me,’ said Lyn. ‘Giles was right—you’re a thoroughgoing bastard.’

  Carey puffed his pipe into life. ‘George: our friend, Giles, has had a rough day. Let’s put him to bed.’

  FORTY

  Denison walked across St James’s Park enjoying the bland, late October sunshine. He crossed the road at the Guards Memorial and strolled across Horse Guards Parade and through the Palace arch into Whitehall itself, neatly avoiding a guardsman who clinked a sabre at him. At this time of the year the tourists were thin on the ground and there was not much of a crowd.

  He crossed Whitehall and went into the big stone building opposite, wondering for the thousandth time who it was wanted to see him. It could only have to do with what had happened in Scandinavia. He gave his name to the porter and stroked his beard while the porter consulted the appointment book. Not a bad growth in the time, he thought somewhat vaingloriously.

  The porter looked up. ‘Yes, Mr Denison; Room 541. I’ll get someone to take you up. Just sign this form, if you please, sir.’

  Denison scribbled his signature and followed an acned youth along dusty corridors, into an ancient lift, and along more corridors. ‘This is it,’ said the youth, and opened a door. ‘Mr Denison.’

  Denison walked in and the door closed behind him. He looked at the desk but there was no one behind it and then he turned as he saw a movement by the window. ‘I saw you crossing Whitehall,’ said Carey. ‘I only recognized you by your movements. God, how you’ve changed.’

  Denison stood immobile. ‘Is it you I’ve come to see?’

  ‘No,’ said Carey. ‘I’m just here to do the preparatory bit. Don’t just stand there. Come in and sit down. That’s a comfortable chair.’

  Denison walked forward and sat in the leather club chair. Carey leaned against the desk. ‘I hope your stay in hospital wasn’t too uncomfortable.’

  ‘No,’ said Denison shortly. It had been damned uncomfortable but he was not going to give Carey even that much.

  ‘I know,’ said Carey. ‘You were annoyed and worried. Even more worried than annoyed. You’re worried because I’m still with my department; you would like to lay a complaint, but you don’t know who to complain to. You are frightened that the Official Secrets Act might get in the way and that you’ll find yourself in trouble. At the same time you don’t want me to get away with it—whatever it is you think I’m getting away with.’ He took out his pipe. ‘My guess is that you and Lyn Meyrick have been doing a lot of serious talking during the last fortnight. Am I correct?

  Carey could be a frightening man. It was as though he had been reading Denison’s mind. ‘We have been thinking something like that,’ he said unwillingly.

  ‘Quite understandable. Our problem is to stop you talking. Of course, if you did talk we could crucify you, but by then it would be too late. In some other countries it would be simple—we’d make sure that you never talked again, to anyone, at any time, about anything—but we don’t do things that way here.’ He frowned. ‘At least, not if I can help it. So we have to convince you that talking would be wrong. That’s why Sir William Lyng is coming here to convince you of that.’

  Even Denison had heard of Lyng; he was somebody in the Department of Defence. ‘He’ll have his work cut out.’

  Carey grinned and glanced at his watch. ‘He’s a bit late so you’d better read this. It’s secret, but not all that much. It represents a line of thought that’s in the air these days.’ He took a folder from the desk and tossed it into Denison’s lap. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  He left the office and Denison opened the folder. As he read a baffled look came over his face, and the more he read the more bewildered he became. He came to the end of the few pages in the folder and then started to read from the beginning again. It had begun to make a weird kind of sense.

  Carey came back half an hour later; with him was a short, dapper man, almost birdlike in the quickness and precision of his movements. ‘Giles Denison—Sir William Lyng.’

  Denison got up as Lyng advanced. They shook hands and Lyng said chirpily, ‘So you’re Denison. We have a lot to thank you for, Mr Denison. Please sit down.’ He went behind the desk and cocked his head at Carey. ‘Has he…?’

  ‘Yes, he’s read his homework,’ said Carey.

  Lyng sat down. ‘Well, what do you think of what you’ve just read?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ said Denison, shaking his head.

  Lyng looked at the ceiling. ‘Well, what would you call it?’

  ‘An essay on naval strategy, I suppose.’

  Lyng smiled. ‘Not an essay. It’s an appreciation of naval strategy from quite a high level in the Department of Defence. It deals with naval policy should the Warsaw Pact and NATO come into conflict in a conventional war. What struck you about it? What was the main problem outlined?’

  ‘How to tell the difference between one kind of submarine and other. How to differentiate between them so that you can sink one and not the other. The subs you’d want to sink would be those that attack shipping and other submarines.’

  Lyng’s voice was sharp. ‘Assuming this country is at war with Russia, what conceivable reason can there be for not wanting to sink certain of their submarines?’

  Denison lifted the folder. ‘According to this we wouldn’t want to sink their missile-carrying submarines—the Russian equivalent of the Polaris.’

  ‘Why not?’ snapped Lyng.

  ‘Because if we sink too many of them while fighting a conventional war the Russians might find themselves losing their atomic edge. If that happened they might feel tempted to escalate into atomic warfare before they lost it all.’

  Lyng looked pleased and glanced at Carey. ‘He’s learned the lesson well.’

  ‘I told you he’s a bright boy,’ said Carey.

  Denison stirred in the chair. He did not like being discussed as though he were absent.

  Lyng said, ‘A pretty problem, isn’t it? If we don’t sink their conventional submarines we stand a chance of losing the conventional war. If we sink too many of their missile-carriers the war might escalate to atomic catastrophe. How do you distinguish one submarine from another in the middle of a battle?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Not our problem—that’s for the scientists and the technologists—but do you accept the validity of the argument?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Denison. ‘I see the point, but I don’t see what it’s got to do with what happened in Finland. I suppose that’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Yes, that’s why you’re here,’ said Lyng. He pointed to the folder in Denison’s hand. ‘That is just an example of a type of thought. Do you have anything to say, Carey?’

  Carey leaned forward. ‘Ever since the atomic bomb was invented the human race has been w
alking a tightrope. Bertrand Russell once said, “You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.”’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘Well, we’ve walked that tightrope for thirty years. Now, I want you to imagine that tightrope walker; he carries a long balancing pole. What would happen if you suddenly dropped a heavy weight so that it hung on one end of the pole?’

  ‘He’d probably fall off,’ said Denison. He began to get a glimmer of what these two were getting at.

  Lyng leaned his elbows on the desk. ‘A man called Merikken invented something which had no application when he invented it. Now it turns out to be something capable of carving up missiles in mid-flight. Mr Denison, supposing Russia developed this weapon—and no one else. What do you think might happen?’

  ‘That depends on the ratio of hawks to doves in the Russian government, but if they were sure they could stop an American strike they might just chance their arm at an atomic war.’

  ‘Meyrick blabbed in Stockholm before he came to us,’ said Carey. ‘And the news got around fast. Our problem was that the papers were in Russia, and if the Russians got to them first they’d hold on tight. Well, the Russians have got the papers—but so have we, in photocopy.’

  Denison was suspicious. ‘But you sold them to the Americans.’

  ‘Kidder was a Russian,’ said Carey. ‘I let it be known that I was willing to be bought, but the Russians knew I’d never sell myself to them. After all, I do have certain standards,’ he said modestly. ‘So they tried to pull a fast one. I didn’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Denison.

  ‘All right,’ said Carey. ‘The Russians have the secret and they’ll know, when we tell them, that we have it, too, and that we’ll pass it on to the Yanks. And we’ll let the Yanks know the Russians have it. We drop the heavy weight on both ends of the balancing pole.’