Atom Bomb Angel

by Peter James

  She looked at me, and some of the shock went from her face. She grinned. I had last seen her a shade over two years ago, as she had walked into the departure lounge at Kennedy Airport, and disappeared from my life. She hadn’t been very pleased with me on that occasion, after I had caused her treasured Jensen to be riddled with bullet holes and badly bashed, but from the expression on her face, and her actions of the last couple of minutes, it appeared she wasn’t still quite so upset about it.

  ‘You look terrific, Sumpy.’

  ‘You look like a chicken,’ she said; ‘I’ll untruss you. Have you been reading your manual upside down?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You got it all wrong: they should have been tied up and you should have had the gun.’

  ‘It’s funny you should mention it – I had a feeling something was wrong.’

  She untied my hands and started working on the cord around my legs. Her name was Mary-Ellen Joffe, but I called her Sumpy on account of a passion she had for making love whilst soused from head to foot in Johnson’s Baby Oil, her name being taken, in the nicest possible way, from the oil sump of a motor car. My legs came free, and I sat up. I sent Sumpy back to her compartment, and told her to order a stiff drink for each of us.

  I set about trying to clean up the compartment. I rolled back the carpet and lifted up the hatch to where Sparrow lay. The accommodation hadn’t been designed for five, but none of them were in any shape to do any complaining. I washed the bloodstains off the carpet and seats with the towels, and threw them out of the window. Then I went along to Sumpy’s compartment.

  She had drunk both the drinks, and two more were on their way. A bit of colour had come back to her face. The steward delivered two double Scotches. I picked up one glass. ‘To the human atom bomb!’ I said.

  She shook her head. ‘Angel,’ she said, ‘your little guardian angel.’

  24

  Outside, beyond the black window, the dim glow of the snowbound Canadian emptiness passed by. The train rattled noisily and shook gently. Cold air poured in through a dozen different places, and the heater was fighting a losing battle against it. I felt goose pimples on my shoulders, bare arms, and on that part of my chest which wasn’t warmed by Sumpy’s sleeping head.

  Trying not to disturb her, I tilted my wrist and looked at my watch. It was a quarter past one in the morning; at a quarter to two, the train would stop at North Bay. In a few minutes, I had to start getting dressed.

  ‘What’s the time, Max?’

  She was awake. I told her the time.

  ‘I wish you were staying,’ she said.

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Why don’t you go in the morning?’

  ‘It is the morning. Every hour is important at the moment. I have to get to Slan. If any American power station blows and the Americans find out Britain knew about Operation Angel all along, there’ll be more than just merry hell.’

  ‘Why does Fifeshire play everything so close to his vest?’

  ‘He doesn’t trust anyone. He figures that the less people that know anything, the less chance of a leak. Whether he’s right or wrong this time, we’ll find out soon enough.’

  ‘He never even gave me a hint it was going to be you on this train.’

  ‘Obviously he was pleased with you,’ I said, ‘he wanted to give you a really sensational treat. He even had me gift-wrapped.’

  ‘I never had to shoot Santa Claus when I was a kid.’

  ‘That’s part of the fun of growing up.’

  ‘Great,’ she said, without a lot of enthusiasm. ‘Who’s going to win, Max, do you think? Fifeshire or Operation Angel?’

  ‘I have no idea. If I can get a complete list of the American targets from Slan – and I’m sure I’m going to be able to – with Sleder dead, he’ll talk, then we’ll stop anything from happening in the States. Canada too, I hope. But England depends on finding those shipments, and we still don’t have anyone to talk to. The two people who could help us have both vanished: one’s gone on holiday with his wife, and disappeared; and the other one’s just up-sticked and vanished. At the rate things are going, we’re going to end up saving every other bloody country, and losing England – or at least a damn great chunk of it.’

  ‘One of those “other bloody countries” happens to be mine,’ said Sumpy. ‘I am American, remember?’

  ‘We all have our cross to bear.’

  ‘Fifeshire’s crazy – I don’t think he should be keeping this quiet any more.’

  ‘He should have armies out right now. We’re talking about something that’s going to happen in three days’ time that could kill more people than both World Wars, and here we are, the only two people out in the field on the whole damn job, making love in a train.’

  ‘Would you like to have five armies in here with us?’ She kissed me again.

  ‘Only if they looked like you.’

  ‘And you’d tire the lot out, would you, Max? Instead of one helpless little girl?’

  ‘If you’re a helpless little girl, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to meet the Bionic Woman.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you that’s who I am in my spare time?’

  ‘No, you didn’t. In fact you never did tell me who you really are at all. I had to go ask your mother.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to tell you,’ she grinned.

  ‘When this is over, and if we’re still alive, why don’t we go somewhere quiet and peaceful, and have a few days together?’

  ‘White sand? Palm trees? Rich blue ocean? Gentle breeze? Martinis on the rocks? You rubbing sun-tan lotion on my back and me rubbing it on yours? How romantic you English are! Together we save the world, and then we fly off into the sunset in a silver birdie!’

  ‘Something like that.’

  She laughed. ‘I’m sure you have a nice girl in England, with a pale English-rose complexion, a Roedean accent and a merchant banker daddy, and she adores you, thinks you’re pretty whizzo, and she goes bright red when you talk of doing rude things, and she wears pretty dresses and likes point-to-points, Ascot and Henley?’

  ‘She doesn’t go bright red when we talk of doing rude things.’

  ‘Maybe I should read more up-to-date romantic novels.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Uh oh.’ She shook her head. ‘We had a good time just now, and we had a good time two years ago in New York – we had a long good time then. Maybe in another two years we’ll meet someplace else and have another good time. I’d like that, Max. But somehow, a quiet holiday – I don’t know – I don’t know I’m really into that.’

  ‘We could arrange for a few Russians to keep crawling up around us and try and kill us – that sort of thing …’

  She laughed again. ‘Didn’t you read the rule book? It says never to form emotional attachments.’

  ‘Section 34, paragraph 12. What all good agents should remember.’

  ‘Maybe that’s our problem – both you and I, we’re good agents, eh? Pretty damn good. I’m off to Montreal. Must make sure no one discovers Sleder’s corpse who shouldn’t discover it: so far as the world is concerned, Sleder is still alive. And you’re off to Adamsville to persuade someone that he’s dead. Think that could make for a steady relationship, Max?’ She prodded me hard in the ribs. ‘Up,’ she said. ‘You want to get to Adamsville, you’d better get dressed, or you’re going to miss the last exit. And by the way, Max: Happy New Year!’

  ‘I’ll sing you “Auld Lang Syne” as I’m driving along.’

  As usual, after a close encounter with Sumpy, I was covered from head to foot in baby oil. I washed it off my hands, and dried my body as best I could with a towel then pulled my clothes on. She was exactly as she’d always been.

  On the dot of one forty-five, the train halted at North Bay Station. I didn’t particularly want to be seen leaving here, not that there were going to be too many people around at this hour, on New Year’s Day. I walked down the train until I was well past the station buildin
g, then jumped down, and, crouching, ran further away from the station.

  There was a fence along the side of the track, with some street lighting the other side of it, and I soon found an easy gap to climb through. I jumped down, and landed straight in a four-foot snow drift. I fell forward and cursed, then picked myself and my bag up. There were creaking and rattling sounds from the train. I heard a couple of voices, then the slamming of a door and the train began to move off.

  I looked around. I was in the middle of freezing bloody nowhere, with no map, no particularly warm coat, and the knowledge that Adamsville, Ohio, where I wanted to be by morning, was a good four-hundred-mile drive from here, through some of the worst possible conditions imaginable. I walked down the road and came to a row of houses, with snow-bound cars parked outside them. No good, someone might hear me, and I couldn’t risk that. I walked on, and then found what I had been hoping for: a house at the top of a long gradient, with a car in the driveway facing out. It was a massive Oldsmobile 98 station-wagon.

  I tried to get my flat skeleton key into the door lock, but the lock was frozen solid. I lit my cigarette lighter and put the key over the flame for several seconds; it then slid easily into the lock, and turned. There was a clunk that sounded, in the quiet of the falling snow, like a twenty-one-gun salute, as the electro-magnetic central locking device shot all four door-pins into the up position. I opened the door; it hadn’t been oiled in years and creaked badly. I put the key in the ignition and fiddled it about for several seconds, until it turned, and the steering wheel lock disengaged. I did not attempt to start the car, but climbed out and cleared the snow off the wind-shield. Then I sat back in the car, removed the parking brake, put the gear shift into neutral, and we started to coast down the hill.

  I had to use all my weight on the brake pedal, and my strength on the steering wheel, as, without the engine running, the power assistance was not operative. When I was a sufficient distance from the house, I flattened the accelerator, turned my key hard over, and came as near to having a fatal heart attack as I hope I ever shall. The engine fired, first time, on all eight cylinders, all seven point nine litres of brute Yank V8, built in the heady days before oil shortages and pollution were of concern to the automobile world. It burst into life and the rev counter shot straight up to the three-thousand mark. The noise of the engine shattered the still of the night, and must have shattered it for a good many miles around: the bloody car had no silencer. I snapped on the lights, shoved the shift into drive, and headed away as quickly as I could.

  Down towards Lake Michigan, the weather was a bit better, and the roads were clear of snow. I arrived in Adamsville shortly after nine o’clock, and was directed to the American Fossilized plant which was several miles out of the town.

  By nine forty-five Slan hadn’t arrived. He was late, the receptionist informed me. He was usually in before she got there. She thought maybe he’d celebrated New Year’s Eve a bit too hard and was sleeping it off. By ten o’clock, he still hadn’t arrived. The girl gave me his home telephone number. I dialled it; the phone rang several times, and then it was answered by a hysterical woman who said, ‘No, I can’t speak now, not – now – you’ll have to call back, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God,’ and then hung up.

  I decided I’d better go pay Harry Slan a visit at his home, and quickly. But I was too late. The entrance road to the smart middle-management-bracket housing estate was blocked by a patrol car. Behind it I could see a fire engine, an ambulance and two more patrol cars, and then the house. One side of the house looked an awful mess. A state trooper got out of the patrol car as I approached.

  ‘I’m sorry, you can’t come past here,’ he said.

  ‘I have to see Mr Slan – it’s urgent.’

  The trooper looked me slowly up and down. I was unshaven for two days, white, and shaking from no sleep and a long drive. ‘You want to see Mr Slan, you’re going to have to make an appointment with the Almighty.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you a newspaper man?’

  He seemed disappointed when I told him no, I wasn’t a newspaper man. He had obviously been hoping to be quoted.

  ‘Dead,’ he said. ‘They’re scraping him off the garage wall. Must have been messing around with one of his nuke devices in the garage. People shouldn’t ought to mess around with nuke devices in their garages.’

  I didn’t want to disillusion the Maigret of Ohio by informing him that if Harry Slan had been messing around with nuclear devices in his garage, nobody would be scraping Harry Slan off his garage wall: they would be scraping Adamsville, Ohio, off the map.

  Someone had got to Harry Slan before I had. They’d made an awful mess of him, his garage and my plans. My list of helpful contacts was thinning out a damn sight too quickly for my liking. I didn’t have the time to go and rummage in Slan’s drawers, even if anyone had let me, which was doubtful, and I didn’t have the time to start interviewing the five thousand people who worked at American Fossilized. Someone was going to have to break the good news to the CIA and break it quickly, and for that news to carry any weight, it was going to have to be broken by someone who appeared to have a lot more authority than an unshaven white-faced man in a stolen car with no silencer. I turned, and headed as fast as I could for Detroit and a plane for England, stopping en route for an overdue cup of coffee, mouthful of food, and a very long phone call to Fifeshire.

  25

  The newspaper vendor put a boiled sweet into his mouth and shuffled it around his toothless gums. He sorted out an itch on his cheek, checked for wax in his ears, and then put a hand up to see if it was raining.

  The startling information of today, that appeared behind the mesh grill at the side of his news stand, printed to give the appearance of urgent handwriting was: Volcanoes Kill Hundreds. Thousands Flee Two Eruptions. I had not needed to pay money to this wrinkled purveyor of vegetable-rack liners and fly-swatters in order to slake my curiosity about his two eruptions. A customer, either of his, or of one of his eight thousand look-alikes had kindly left me a Telegraph in the back of the cab. The light changed to green, and with a menacing rattle of the diesel, we forged forward again down Knightsbridge.

  One volcano was on an island called Coguana des Tyq in the South Atlantic Ocean, part of the same group of islands to which Tristan da Cunha, which had been devastated by a volcanic eruption twenty years before, belonged. The seismic readings and earthquakes resulting from the Coguana des Tyq activity made it the worst volcanic eruption of the twentieth century. A second volcano, Mount St Helens in washington State, which had erupted previously in 1980, had now begun to erupt again, and the reason was being blamed on Coguana des Tyq. The prophets were having a field day, and dusty scrolls portending that two volcanoes simultaneously erupting signalled the end of the world were being pulled from a million doom-mongers’ closets. For once, for many people, there was a damn sight more than a mere grain of truth in their prophesies. In a strange way, I found it comforting to remember that in a world full of sick people lusting for destruction, Mother Nature could rear her head in any way she liked, at any time she liked, and create acts of havoc that could make all human acts of destruction pale into insignificance.

  The volcano in Fifeshire’s mouth glowed a vivid red at the tip, and then the red faded away, leaving the tip a silvery grey colour; he opened his mouth and shot a plume of smoke out into the room.

  The only other person in Fifeshire’s office, apart from myself and Fifeshire, was Sir Isaac Quoit. It was eleven o’clock Saturday morning, 2 January. In two days’ time, provided that England was still standing, Quoit would be permitted to come out of hiding. In spite of that, he didn’t look particularly cheerful, and still continued to eye me with a mixture of fear and contempt. It was Fifeshire who spoke first.

  ‘Seventy-two fuel bundles were shipped from Hamburg to Shoreham in Sussex on a small freighter, the Jan Marie, on 28 December, concealed in a consignment of kitchen equipment. The Jan Marie is at sea again a
t the moment, so the crew have not yet been questioned, but it is unlikely they would know much about what happened to their cargo once it went ashore. The consignment cleared UK customs on 30 December, and was in the forwarding agents’ warehouse at Shoreham awaiting delivery to the customer – an East London discount retailing group. On the night of 31 December, the warehouse was broken into, and four crates were stolen. According to a check on the inventory list, these four crates contained spare elements for microwave oven units – a clever description, because, to someone unfamiliar, as most people are, with the inside of microwave ovens, they could easily be forgiven for thinking that’s what the bundles were. Seventy-two bundles is two day’s fresh fuel for one reactor, or one day’s fresh fuel for two. Is that not right, Isaac?’

  Quoit nodded.

  ‘The rogue elements are probably concealed among these. If we can find these bundles, then our problems are over, wouldn’t you agree?’ He looked at Quoit.

  ‘I would hope so.’

  ‘At least, provided everyone else can find theirs too. I have here a report from Admiralty House. Naturally they know nothing of what is going on. This is a standard weekly intelligence report. The NATO fleet has observed that the Russians have been clearing all their shipping, both military and commercial, from the Atlantic Ocean, English Channel and North Sea. It’s apparently causing some concern.’

  ‘Submarines too?’ I asked.

  ‘No, only surface vessels.’

  ‘Because they’re worried about fall-out?’

  ‘It must be. I can’t think of any other reason – and the Admiralty can’t think of any reason at all. If it was just military shipping, one might perhaps think there was a different reason, but civilian shipping as well – it all fits. Would you not agree, Isaac?’

  ‘Ships are as vulnerable to fall-out as anything else. Most modern warships do have air-tight hatches and a system for washing down their decks automatically in the event of being subjected to fall-out, but no commercial shipping does to my knowledge.’