Rollerball (Commander Shaw Book 17)

by Philip McCutchan

  I’d gone to Edinburgh partly because I had no idea where to start and Seiko was last seen in Scotland; but mainly because a report had come in that Henry Kissinger alias James Orris Donovan Broadley had been picked up again by a plain clothes man from the Yard. He’d been spotted in a dark green Mercedes on the North Circular whence he’d turned onto the Ml. The plain clothes officers had tailed in their unmarked car and the first report had in fact come from the Leicester Forest East service station, where chummy had gone for petrol and a call of nature, thus allowing one of the DCs to nip out to a telephone — they hadn’t risked using their radio. They’d got that far in record time, speed limits being disregarded by the Merc except when a mobile was sighted. The next report came from Edinburgh itself: chummy had been tailed to an address in Hartington Gardens, one of those tall old Edinburgh houses split into tenements or bed-and-breakfast establishments. He was now under surveillance by the local police, and my first call when I got in from the airport was police HQ.

  Chummy, they said, hadn’t moved out. He was there for the picking.

  I asked, “Anything known about the address?”

  “No. Nothing important, that is. Prostitution, a fight from time to time — knifings, you know the sort of thing. Drugs, once.”

  “Run of the mill?”

  “Aye, that’s about it. What do we do?”

  I said, “We leave him. I want to see where he goes if he moves. In himself he’s not important but he might have the right friends. And they may go to him, of course. I take it there’s a communal entrance?”

  “Aye, there is. We’ll not know who’s for him.”

  Again I nodded. “And I doubt if any Japs’ll show, somehow. But if they do, I’ll want to know right away. If you can’t contact me in time, I’d appreciate it if you’d have any Jap visitors tailed.”

  They promised full co-operation and I left it at that for the time being. I went out on a reconnaissance, keeping clear of Hartington Gardens, not wishing my face to scare chummy before he made his presence known. I went along to see where Rollerball had ploughed through the city. It was devastation in a dead straight line and people were still picking through the wreckage for their possessions. I overheard a lot of comment, all very adverse, about the authorities. Money shouldn’t be allowed to stand in the way of deliverance from Rollerball. Moving away to fix the availability of a hire car, I listened to my transistor radio. I got the BBC local service. Rollerball was through the Moorfoot Hills by now and rolling on towards Peebles, a little east of the town. Assuming that dead straight line, I’d already assessed its route as passing through Selkirk, Roxburghshire, across the Cheviots to a few miles east of Carlisle and Penrith and Appleby in Cumbria, then on to Kirkby Stephen, down to Hawes, then Skipton, a little west of Halifax, on to Matlock … and if it continued it would meet the sea somewhere between Brighton and Worthing in Sussex. Only it wasn’t going to go that far.

  I had established from geological sources that Rollerball’s expected track would cross the weakened ceiling in the earth’s crust in just two places: about thirty miles south of Hawick in southern Scotland and a little south of Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria. Between these two probable entry points the thin ceiling took an easterly bend, placing both of them slap across Rollerball’s line of advance. One of them had to be, to my mind, the point where we would see the last of Rollerball as it dropped through to start its confined, fissure-directed journey into the Russian land mass. At its estimated speed the rolling sphere should reach the first intersection in around fifteen hours after passing Peebles, and the second, if it failed to enter the first one, in twenty-six hours, more or less, from that.

  Not much time before it made its plunge but after that there would be a long delay while it travelled its subterranean route into Russia. Not far short of a month, in fact. But that, unfortunately, wasn’t the point. The situation was immensely sensitive and at any moment someone in the east or west might jump the gun.

  *

  I made my car hire arrangements, signed up for a Jaguar XJ6, asking for it to be delivered to police HQ, then went along to the nick myself on foot. There was no news of chummy but Focal House had been in touch and I rang back on the security line. I spoke to Max. He said that the diplomatic activity had been intense. The Soviet Ambassador, together with all the NATO representatives, had been called to the Foreign Office and the position baldly stated. By this time the Ambassador had had his instructions from Moscow and he was being aggressive, as totally disbelieving as I had said to Max would be the case.

  “Threats?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Max answered, sounding savagely frustrated. “It’s touch and go. Seiko’s been bloody clever to come across with it all as he did. East and West … we’re at each other’s throats and its escalating fast.”

  I asked about America and Max said, “Even they don’t believe us wholly. There’s talk of rocking the boat, of us trying to force Washington’s hand and gain total committal. The Foreign Secretary told them that was balls — politely — but they remain unconvinced.”

  “So what’s the scene? What’s the action?”

  Max said, “Stand by all round.”

  “Mobilisation?”

  “This isn’t 1939, Shaw. Not mobilisation … fingers poised on buttons, that’s what, though no-one’s said so precisely. It only wants some jitters around the missiles, NATO or Warsaw Pact, and that’s it. We’re all playing into Seiko’s hands.”

  “As intended all along,” I said. “He barely needs Rollerball now.” I knew that wasn’t quite true. If Rollerball could be inhibited, then Britain would shine white again, announcing the end of the threat and smiles all round and Seiko would be bitched. But his confidence had been fully justified so far and he’d made it plain that Rollerball would remain in being come what may. There was just a hope, however, that a sight of Rollerball might persuade the Russians to believe the facts and I put it to Max. He’d already thought of that.

  He said, “A party of Russians plus the NATO contingent are all set to head north. You’d better be there. Where do you suggest?”

  I looked at my watch. “Rollerball’s not far off Peebles now. Helicopter them up to Hawick and I’ll have them driven north from there.”

  “Right,” Max said, and cut the call.

  Edinburgh police would cope with chummy. I asked to be kept immediately informed of any developments in that direction and took the Jaguar south towards Hawick. I passed just ahead of Rollerball as it came crunching down a hillside and churned across the A72. I reached Hawick ahead of the brass and hung about till they turned up, which was some three hours later. We were all introduced, then got into cars provided by the local police and went back north to meet Rollerball. We stopped in a secondary road in its track according to my plot, and we waited. I spoke to the assembled military and diplomatic VIPs, who were agog for what I had to tell them. I think the NATO officers were ready enough to believe me and I found the American contingent reasonable enough too though tending to play down the risk. A US colonel said that, after all, the Russians could be amenable and accommodating at times. Friendly underneath, he said in a Texas accent.

  “Like now?” I asked, and he looked across at them. They were in a withdrawn group around their Ambassador, who looked out of place leaning on a farm gate. They were all staring balefully at the rest of us, the east treating the west as lepers, and they were mainly silent in their moroseness.

  “Well, gee,” the American said with a touch of unease, “it doesn’t have to mean a thing. Does it?”

  “Time will tell,” I answered tritely. I visualised Seiko’s face and the grin that would be on it if he could see us now, brought head on to his prophecies of Russian disbelief. Clever! But maybe he would be too clever before long … a frail hope, that. Half an hour later, by which time we were all half frozen and the American had handed round a flask of Southern Comfort that helped a little, Rollerball was distantly in sight. We watched it come down upon some farm bui
ldings, barns, and crunch right through them. They flattened with a tearing, cracking sound and the sphere rolled inexorably on, leaving its trench behind it as the flanges bit into the snow-covered ground. The brass watched in awe, hardly breathing, I think, as Rollerball came slowly towards our two groups, towering over us, grim and black. The Russians backed away, scowling towards the rest of us. Rollerball dipped a little towards the roadway, then the flanges bit into the surface which began cracking as the monstrous thing headed for the other side. There was quite a racket as the tarmac went and a subdued hum came from somewhere inside the metal.

  The American gave a whistle and said, “Jesus”. I looked towards the Russians. The Ambassador had spoken briefly to one of his aides, and this man was now approaching Rollerball to walk alongside it. He looked dead scared but no doubt knew the penalty of cowardice and he carried on manfully. He was bending for a close look and after a while he seemed to find what he was looking for. He ran back to the Ambassador, who looked grimmer than ever and called in a formidable voice to the NATO group.

  “British Government markings,” he said in English. “Look, please, and confirm.”

  Shaken, we all went and looked. The Russian was dead right. Once again, Seiko had been very, very clever and this time he seemed positively to have clinched it. The Russian’s face was like a fish in ice. “Diabolical,” he said. “Such lies, such duplicity, such wickedness — it is unbelievable! A report will go immediately to the Kremlin, personally to Comrade — ”

  I wasn’t going to let that pass. I went over to the Ambassador and told him a little more than he’d been told already about Dr Seiko, who had obviously put those Defence Ministry markings there, but this was swept arrogantly aside.

  “It is lies. Always there is lying hostility to the Soviets, always, always! You British — ”

  “Then why did we ask you to come and look?” I interrupted. He waved his arms; he had an answer to that as well. The British were stupidly rigid in their routines and mental inelasticity. Everything produced in the British ordnance factories bore the British Government mark and Rollerball was no exception. We had overlooked something that was sheer routine. And in any case, we would not have expected him to look so closely. I asked another question before the Foreign Office bustled up and dropped hints about the absolute necessity for discretion. I asked heatedly, “Why the hell d’you think we told you about it in the first bloody place, for God’s sake?”

  He produced a smile, or anyway a snarl of simple pleasure in offering a flattener to a capitalist, and he said, “Never would you have been able to keep it secret in any case, so you make a very dirty clean breast to disarm immediate retaliation.”

  My, my, I thought, Seiko scores again. In spite of the huffings and puffings of the man form the FO, I asked one more question: “What can we do to convince you, then?”

  “Stop the metal sphere. Stop it before it drops down into the earth. Then matters will be different.”

  That was fair enough in a way, admittedly; but short of that impossibility we were faced with outright nuclear war. The Ambassador’s report to the Kremlin was written already, all over his snarling face as he was driven off to his helicopter and Rollerball continued inexorably on course south. When I got back, latish that afternoon, to Edinburgh, I drove on and made personal contact with Scottish Command down towards the Forth road bridge. For what it might be worth, I asked for every available man to be sent south of Hawick with earth-moving equipment, mechanical diggers, spades, entrenching tools — anything that would dig a deep trench, fast, across Rollerball’s line of advance.

  “A trench?” they said, looking at me as though I were mad. “Look, it’s crossed tracts of country deeper than — ”

  “I know what it’s crossed,” I interrupted. “I know it’s crossed the railway line in Edinburgh, the trough between the New and Old towns, but a trench might be different. Deep, sheer sides — something that might trap it, don’t you see, something it can’t climb out of — ”

  “It would probably just go on ploughing, underground.”

  “Yes,” I said patiently. “I know. It might. But we have to do what we can and that’s the only thing I can think of right now that might have some hope of success.”

  Well, they conceded. Soon after I’d persuaded them, a message came into the nick for me and was passed on: Moscow had ordered the withdrawal of its envoy, and ours in Moscow was already packing his bags.

  10.

  There was, not unexpectedly, no news at all of Felicity Mandrake. I was satisfied she would remain alive since she was the hostage for my co-operation and though I’d given it as far as asked I believed Seiko would still retain her intact in case of further need. What might happen if the trench proved successful I tried not to think. It was too fraught. With luck, Seiko might not see my personal hand in that, ascribing it to the Army, which wouldn’t have to rub off on me. That was a short-lived hope: obviously, once he got to hear about it and never mind who had dreamed it up, he would make more threats. But late that evening, when the troops had reached the intersection point some thirty miles south of Hawick and had started the dig, he came on the air again and, oddly since his intelligence services must have been keeping him informed, he made no mention either of the trench or of Felicity.

  What he did say was that the money drafts and credits as demanded were to be deposited by four p.m. the following afternoon in open country in North Yorkshire’s Arkengarthdale at a point some eight miles beyond Reeth on an unclassified road running from Reeth to the A66 Scotch Corner to Penrith road. An envelope was to be left sealed in a canvas bag which would be collected within a couple of hours. No-one was to be left on the moor and there was to be no interference with Seiko’s men from the air or anywhere else. The currency split was now indicated: certain Swiss and Middle Eastern banks were to provide Seiko’s agents on demand with a mix of sterling, Swiss francs, dollars both US and Australian — which fortified my guess that Seiko would head for Australia — and German marks. Plus something else: gold bullion and krugerrands which were to be transferred at once by the Bank of England along with the necessary authority to draw. The encashment would be made and the gold collected before Seiko would negative Rollerball.

  I put a call through to Max. He said, “Do you know something? If it was all in krugerrands at present prices, it’d come to around thirty-three million of them. Right?”

  I said I’d take his word for it and he went on, “What I’m trying to say is this: it can’t be done. The banks simply can’t produce the money to back the drafts — ”

  “Seiko must have known that all along. As I think I said, it doesn’t really matter. Transfer what can be transferred and leave it at that.”

  “I don’t know that we’re going to meet it at all,” Max said. “In fact, I doubt it strongly. The PM’s sticking fast.”

  I said, “Get to work on the wets. We have to play for time now — that’s vital. Keep Seiko happy. And another thing: obey the instructions. Keep Arkengarthdale clear of anyone who might scare the birds. I’ll be around somewhere, watching out.”

  I cut the call before Max could say he was in charge, not me. He wouldn’t like it but he would see the point. When all this happened I was still at Scottish Command intending to drive south to see what happened when Rollerball met the trench. Before I’d got on the road word reached me from the Edinburgh police that chummy was on the move from Harrington Gardens, using an Audi that had been parked shortly after he’d arrived with his tail. The Mercedes was still there, parked on the street. I asked where chummy was heading.

  “Last reported on the A68 for Jedburgh. Orders, sir?”

  “Keep onto him,” I said.

  “And your movements?”

  “Just leaving Scottish Command. Heading south of Hawick.

  Don’t contact while I’m on the road — all reports to the police at Hawick. I’ll be at the dig.”

  I rang off. It was possible chummy was one of the cash collect
ors and if that was all he was moving south for then he could be a waste of time. On the other hand, he could lead me somewhere more interesting … Felicity was in the forefront of my mind though I was doing my best to keep her in the background. The girl had plenty of guts or she wouldn’t have opted for the field in the first place, but there are limits to what anyone can take and I didn’t like the Jap attitude towards women. She would be having a tough time in spite of the preservation-of-a-hostage angle. I drove up into Edinburgh, through the ridiculous double roundabout that no driver ever seems able to understand, amid a rush of traffic on the ring road whence eventually I made the A701 for Peebles. Beyond Hawick I saw the fresh destruction, the piles of rubble, the haunted population scrabbling in the ruins, the ambulances and the rescue teams searching for the dead and injured. The atmosphere was appalling; fear ruled now. Bad news kept on coming through on the car radio, interrupting the disc jockeys. The TUC was agitating, demanding action, demanding inaction, in a total dither except on one point: they were all agreed on a general strike if the Government didn’t stop Rollerball. One of the top men was put on the air to moan righteously about how totally unacceptable it all was and that the membership could not be expected to put up with it and that the right to live was inalienable. I agreed with that latter part but wished the TUC could begin to realise that some things, however unacceptable, just had to be faced.