Hostage

by Geoffrey Household

  He followed me into the body of the Tabernacle where I first tried the main door which was already locked. The cache of the bomb was obvious, though inconceivable to anyone who did not know it existed. On each side of the entrance and at the right distance from it was a tall, handsome, oak panel inscribed with the Ten Commandments, half on one side, half on the other. So far as I could reckon by eye, the panels inside the church corresponded, with an unimportant overlap, to the half pillars on the outside, but which pillar had been holed by the truck and repaired I could not know. I guessed at the right-hand one, since below it was an open bookcase containing hymn books for the congregation. The catch releasing the panel could be concealed behind it whereas the white-washed wall under the opposite panel had no visible crack, recess or protruding brick.

  So I plunged for the panel on the right, asking McConnell to give me a hand with the bookcase. That at last convinced him of my bona fides – which was a relief and made it unnecessary to draw Clotilde’s automatic. I could never till then rule out the possibility that he might be the obstinate type who turns hero at the last minute.

  The very simplicity of the work was enough to avert suspicion. The top shelf of the bookcase was flush with the bottom of the panel and pegged loosely into the uprights. One had only to lift it, with its light load of Sunday School leaflets and missionary pamphlets, to reveal a slit with a spring catch in it. Pull out the catch with one finger and the whole panel could be swung back on interior hinges.

  I doubt if the reversing truck could have knocked down any of the main wall behind the flimsy façade of the half pillar. The late Jim Ridge must have persuaded the innocent pastor – with McConnell’s help – that the brickwork had been weakened; and so after repairing the pillar he took down the necessary section of the inner wall and replaced Commandments four to ten over the hollow.

  McConnell protested against swinging back the panel. The windows at the side of the Tabernacle were of clear glass in small diamond panes, too high above the ground to allow a passer-by to look into the nave but not too high for him to see the upper part of the panel. I insisted that it must be open, pointing out that it was hinged on the window side and that nobody could see behind it. If noticed at all, one would assume it was being cleaned or polished.

  At last, with panel swung half back, I was face to face with Shallope’s creation lightly clamped to the bare brick of the half pillar. Since it was in a church it reminded me at once of a large organ pipe with a diameter of rather more than a foot. It was all of dull steel except for a lower section or breech block made of brass and about seven inches long. It was this which Shallope had told me I must unscrew.

  To deceive McConnell there was a stand of three Armalite rifles on one side and on the other two good old Lee Enfields leant contemptuously against the wall but in guardroom condition. Underneath the bomb were two small cases of ammunition for both and an open box with five detonators remaining in it. I said casually to McConnell that the new cylindrical packing for explosives was most effective.

  ‘Oh, that’s what it is!’ he answered. ‘I wondered.’

  I examined the base of the bomb with the utmost caution. Running my fingers gently behind it I found a tight wire soldered to the steel and threaded into the brass cap. Try to unscrew the cap and the slightest turn would break the wire. Neat. There appeared to be no way of removing the charge of conventional explosive without detonating it. I wish to God I had known that the only purpose of the wire was to detect any attempted interference.

  The wire threw no light on the question of whether the bomb was to be exploded electronically or by clock. Breaking it could by-pass either. Rex had spoken of hoping to be far enough away ‘when the hands of the clock come round’ adding that he believed his nuclear physicist found a clock unscientific. But Shallope had not confirmed that. He said he had prepared it all and definitely mentioned a timing device for his explosion in the Western Approaches.

  Magma possessed and had developed a number of reliable devices and I thought it unlikely they would go in for electronics. Without knowing much about the possibilities I could see that the transmitter would have to be powerful, at a safe distance and operating on a wave length nobody else could be using even temporarily. A tall order except for the armed forces and an unnecessary complication. So I was fairly sure it would be timed.

  I asked McConnell at what time the chief had called. He replied that it was about half past eleven the previous night. I found that my knees were involuntarily knocking together. It was then twenty past ten. If the chief had set the timing device the explosion could not be later than half past eleven. One does not make the clock circle more than once. At any moment it must go off.

  I felt an overwhelming, unthinking temptation to tell McConnell what the long cylinder really was and get him to telephone police while I myself escaped. But what the hell was the use of that? There was no escape. Whether I stayed or ran the result would be the same.

  The tabernacle was silent. McConnell was silent. The tube was menacingly silent. I put my ear to the breech block and could detect no ticking. Higher up against the cold steel I expected, quite illogically, to hear something, perhaps a fizzling as if the thing were getting steam up although I knew perfectly well that the two masses of U235 would remain dead as two packets of dust till they were joined in matrimony. Nothing that Shallope had told me helped.

  McConnell confirmed that he did not expect the pastor, that he had been in earlier and did not usually return till midday. At least that gave me time without interruption, failing the final interruption. I wanted, I said, to get at the top of the column and needed a step ladder. He fetched one, for he was now nervously obeying. He had read enough in the papers of bombs in drain pipes and was putting two and two together. He must also have heard the rumours passing from mouth to mouth and pub to pub and office to office of an atomic bomb.

  Hidden from the windows by the open panel, I went slowly up the ladder rapping the steel casing and listening. There seemed to be a slight difference of resonance a little less than halfway up which could possibly represent the space between the two charges, the bigger mass above, the small mass resting on some kind of bottom plate above the explosive.

  McConnell seemed to be a meticulous caretaker when he wasn’t balancing accounts. I asked him if he could lay his hands on pliers and a vice. In silence he produced both from a little tool cupboard at the bottom of the church, and then asked me in the sort of awe-struck tone with which he might have addressed the devil:

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Ask the chief when you next see him.’

  I set up the vice on the shelf of a pew and began to withdraw the bullets from the Armalite ammunition, pouring out the propellant on to a sheet of newspaper. I was not at all sure what was in the compound beside TNT or whether it would cut steel. I hoped it would if there was enough of it in a necklace in close contact with the column. The job was a long one and I hardly expected to be able to finish it, but as time passed I began to feel more confident that either the dock or the detonator had failed.

  When I had about a couple of pounds I packed them in a choirboy’s gown screwing it up tightly and tying it round the cylinder just below the point where the larger mass of uranium should be, and inserted the five left-over detonators with one in the middle and four round it – a target I could not miss with a rifle bullet from halfway down the aisle. The plan was wild, but in view of the delicacy of the construction I hoped that any explosion would disturb it; either the upper mass would fall out or the channel inside the tube would be so distorted that the lower mass, when fired upwards, would shoot out at an angle and fail to combine.

  Concentrating on my work of sabotage I was careless, never thinking of any world outside. If the pastor returned unexpectedly he could hammer on the door as long as he liked. True, there could be expendable partisans left behind to keep watch on the tabernacle who might have telephoned the committee that a suspicious character was about. But
there was nothing that they, in safety many miles away, could do about it.

  I had chosen at leisure one of the Lee Enfields and was loading it when I heard a car stop at the side of the tabernacle and the vestry door being opened. I expected that it would be the priest who would naturally be able to let himself in and cursed myself for not leaving the key in the lock. I dashed halfway down the aisle and threw myself flat between two pews. Whatever McConnell said to the intruder – if it was not the priest – I could get a shot at the rose of detonators from that position. Two people entered. I heard McConnell go forward to meet them with an exclamation of relief.

  I did not dare to raise my head to see who they were until I heard a shot and the fall of a body – an event which could be trusted to draw the attention of all concerned away from the pews. The new arrivals were Mallant and Clotilde.

  The position of the body showed that Mallant had coolly executed McConnell. For a moment I could not understand why, since McConnell knew all about the cache and had been convinced that it contained only explosives and a few small arms. The panel of Commandments was wide open but there might be a dozen reasons for that. Mallant’s only motive for so ruthless a murder must be to eliminate an awkward witness who, if he escaped, could identify the pair of them. If he escaped? But then there was a risk that he might, and we were none of us quite so near to annihilation as I believed.

  And what was Clotilde doing with Mallant? One possible explanation was that she had been brought in as an expert, as good a one as Magma had, who already knew of the existence of the bomb but not till now where it was hidden.

  In that first moment I could make a guess at what had happened though some of it may be hindsight. I had always been puzzled by the late setting of the clock. A delay of three or four hours was more than enough to get out of range of the explosion and the fire storm; a delay of eleven was unnecessary folly. Of course the answer was that either the detonator or the timing device had failed. The chief who, according to McConnell, had called at the tabernacle around 11.30 p.m. was Mallant himself. It ought to have been Jim Ridge, perhaps the only other man completely familiar with every detail. Mallant had set the clock, but a brilliant Chief of Intelligence does not necessarily have the experience of his trained partisans. Dare I surmise that the mind was too brilliant and that after congratulating himself on completing the menial task of meticulously checking and re-checking the wiring he had forgotten to wind the clock?

  Clotilde’s first act was to cut the wire which I had not risked touching. An effective fake. She gave the brass breech block a half turn to ensure that it was in order. Then she went up the steps to remove the necklace. She knew what that was for though not, I imagine, what effect it would have on the bomb. I had to decide. I could have waited. I could have let her unscrew the rest of the breech block. But I might be unable to stop her resetting the timing. I might be discovered and killed by Mallant before I could interfere. It was a split second decision, partly influenced by the fact that Mallant had started to investigate the pews and glance under the altar. When he was turned away from me I raised the rifle and fired.

  How long is it since I had any free will? Her head was nothing but a formless mass of red and gold. On to the pink-grey jelly that had been Clotilde poured a continual trickle of harmless, colourless gravel which was U235. The top of Shallope’s monster had been blown clear off.

  Jim Ridge’s repairs to the outer face of the pillar had also suffered. Through the cloud of dust was a streak of daylight. I had a quick shot from the waist at Mallant and missed him. He replied, but I don’t know where his shots went. He was near enough to the blast to be shocked and shaky. Then I was out of the vestry door and in his waiting car still carrying the rifle, hand automatically stuck to it. I had to get clear and back to the basement quickly. Julian Despard’s fingerprints were all over the steel of the tube, lightly at the bottom, very well impressed on what remained of the top.

  I tore off eastwards, looking for somewhere to abandon the car. Among the crowd rushing towards the tabernacle when the dust had settled someone must have noticed colour and number and the clergyman with a rifle in his hand. It was unlikely that I had more than five minutes before a complete description of me was coming over the radio in every police car.

  It then occurred to me that one of the station car parks was the obvious refuge and, better still, one of the many depots and goods yards behind St Pancras. After ripping off my clerical collar I turned into the first I saw. Nobody paid any attention to me and I had time to think I was wedded to that rifle. Clotilde’s .32 had only two rounds left in the magazine – not enough for the incalculable future of Despard. All the same I had no lunatic intention of taking the rifle with me down my leg and under my coat until I saw on the back seat a green, hooded cloak which Clotilde must have used to obscure her face while driving through London streets.

  So I rolled my awkward friend in her cloak, securing the ends with the parson’s dicky ripped in half. A damned odd parcel! But with its neat black bows at each end it looked respectable. A sapling from my garden to plant on grandpa’s grave perhaps. Nobody showed any curiosity about it when I dived into the Underground.

  At Liverpool Street I took the first bus I saw, then got off and walked a little and took another bus, hoping that I had thrown off direct pursuit and could go safely home to the basement. The danger of being recognised as the bomber had wiped out all fear of being spotted by some brilliant constable or passing police car as a possible Julian Despard.

  I slipped safely and unobtrusively into the squattery. Several of the idle on doorsteps must have seen me arrive. I could only hope that they had not looked closely enough to identify the long-haired, tee-shirted lay-about, the visiting parson who had left at breakfast time and this latest caller arriving with a roll of secondhand carpet as one and the same person.

  Sir Frederick was sitting on his bedroll with his back against the wall, outwardly calm and now carving the silhouette of an ash to accompany his beech. The tranquillity of the man was superb. He could live on a desert island with his faith to preserve his spirit and a couple of sharpened oyster shells to add something new to his restricted world.

  I told him where the bomb had been and how I had disabled it. I omitted any mention of Mallant and Clotilde but it was harder to leave out McConnell. By this time Gammel knew my face and expression too well. My curt story of locking the churchwarden in the vestry made him jump to the right conclusion.

  ‘You can tell me if he was injured by the explosion,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. He is dead.’

  ‘Will the police know you are responsible, directly or indirectly?’

  I replied that they would at least know I was among those present. In fact they must have had three murders chalked up to my account, not reckoning Jim Ridge.

  ‘And that parcel is the rifle?’

  ‘Yes. I thought I had better not leave it.’

  He said that he would make it the work of what remained of his life to see that justice was done to me. I let that go. A fat chance he had! I had helped to smuggle in the uranium. I was in the secret till I could no longer bear it. The judge, anxious to believe the shreds it was possible to believe, might ask me if I never had any respect for human life, to which I could only answer: as much and as little as a soldier.

  No, it is more likely that in the future, if I can escape, it will be I who tries to ensure that justice is done to my reverend baronet.

  We have decided that on the whole it is better to remain where we are until we have seen the evening papers. Unfortunately we have no radio. Nor do we know where to go.

  Later

  It is unbelievable. Yet I should have foreseen that the first thought of any democratic government announcing that an atomic bomb had been found and disarmed would be: how many votes are in it for us?

  On and on goes the now-it-can-be-told communiqué, modestly emphasising the agonising decisions of the Cabinet to give a little here and to resist bla
ckmail there. The skill and patience of our gallant police in their exhaustive inquiries is very properly mentioned, with the revelation that they were in hourly touch with the Prime Minister and Home Secretary. I’ll bet they were – with the politicians of course at a safe distance from London. Then we have the customary compliment to the citizens who did not panic in spite of rumours and the meaningless threats of social nihilism. That ‘meaningless’ is shameless impudence, implying that the Government was in command of the situation throughout.

  And yet for anyone reading between the lines a month hence – if anyone ever bothers to look back at what the politicians said a whole month before – it should be obvious that the police had nothing whatever to do with the discovery of the bomb.

  The plain facts of the story, so far as the newsmen have been able to master them, are correct. We have the death of Alexandra Baratov by a premature explosion (why at the wrong end?) and the murder of Mr Ivor McConnell of 71 Argyll Square – according to the pastor of the tabernacle, a faithful servant of the Lord ever foremost in the fight against the insidious advances of our misguided Roman brethren.

  The car has been found; it had false number plates. Julian Despard, alias Herbert Johnson, and Sir Frederick Gammel are wanted by the police. Inner pages give their life stories, Sir Frederick’s is not so full of gaps as mine and, he assures me, a remarkable feat of imagination in the very short time the writer had to compose it. He is concerned about the headline MAD BARONET. He has always considered himself healthy in mind and body.

  There is no word of Mallant. I wonder what he did. Well, he had the same five minutes before the arrival of police that I myself counted on. It might not have been too difficult to hide between pews and join the first bold spirits to enter the tabernacle. He will still remain unsuspected even when fingerprints are taken from the car. His must be somewhere on it as well as mine, but it’s a thousand to one his are not on record. In any case it will be taken for granted that I drove the car with Clotilde at my side.