Bagley, Desmond - The Tightrope Men

by The Tightrope Men

  McCready snapped his fingers. 'As easy as walking down Piccadilly.'

  'But Meyrick was snatched,' said Carey. 'And you were substituted.'

  'Yes,' said Denison heavily. 'Why me?'

  'I don't think we need to go too deeply into that,' said Carey delicately. He did not want Denison to ruminate about his past life and go off into a fugue. 'I think it could have been anybody who looked enough like Meyrick to need the least possible surgery.'

  There was a whole list of other qualifications -- someone who would not be missed too easily, someone who had the right psychological make-up, someone very easily accessible. It had been a job which had bee n carefully set up in England and back in London there was a team of ten men sifting through the minutiae of Denison's life in the hope of coming up with a clue to his kidnapping. It was a pity that Denison could not be directly questioned but Harding was dead against it, and Carey had a need for Denison -- he did not want an insane man on his hands.

  'Which brings us to the next step,' said Carey. 'Someone -- call them Crowd X -- has pinched Meyrick, but they're not going to broadcast the fact. They don't know if we've tumbled to the substitution or not -- and we're not going to tell them.' He looked steadily at Denison. 'Which is why we need your co-operation, Mr Denison.'

  'In what way?' asked Denison cautiously.

  'We want you to carry on being Meyrick, and we want you to go to Finland.'

  Denison's jaw dropped. 'But that's impossible,' he said. 'I'd never get away with it. I can't speak Finnish.'

  'You've got away with it up to now,' pointed out Carey. 'You fooled Mrs Hansen and you're doing very well with Meyrick's daughter. It's quite true what Harding said -- you're very competent.'

  'But the language! Meyrick speaks Finnish.'

  'He speaks Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and English fluently and idiomatically,' said Carey easily. 'His French passes but his Italian and Spanish aren't too hot.'

  'Then how the hell can I get away with it?' demanded Denison. 'All I have is English and schoolboy French.'

  'Take it easy. Let me tell you a story.' Carey began to fill his pipe again. 'At the end of the First World War quite a number of the British troops married French wives and stayed in France. A lot of them were given jobs by the War Graves Commission -- looking after the war cemeteries. Twenty years after, there came another war and another British Expeditionary Force. The new young soldiers found that the old soldiers had completely lost their English -- their mother tongue -- and could speak only French.'

  He struck a match. 'And that's what's going to happen to Meyrick. He hasn't been back to Finland since he was seventeen; I don't think it's unreasonable to suppose he'd lose the language.

  'But why do you want me? I can't lead you to the papers -- only Meyrick can do that.'

  Carey said, 'When this happened my first impulse was to abandon the operation, but then I started to think about it. Firstly, we don't know that Meyrick was snatched because of this operation -- it might have been for a different reason. In that case the papers are reasonably safe. Secondly, it occurred to me that you could be a good distracting influence -- we could use you to confuse the opposition as much as they've confused us. If you go to Finland as Meyrick they won't know what the hell to think. In the ensuing brouhaha we might get a chance at the papers. What do you think?'

  'I think you're crazy,' said Denison.

  Carey shrugged. 'Mine is a crazy profession -- I've seen crazier ploys come off. Look at Major Martin -- the man who never was.'

  'He didn't have to stand up to questioning,' said Denison. 'The whole thing is bloody ridiculous.'

  'You'd be paid, of course,' said Carey casually. 'Well paid, as a matter of fact. You'd also get a compensatory grant for the injuries that have been done to you, and Mr Ireland is ready and willing to bring you back to normality.'

  'Dr Harding, too?'

  'Dr Harding, too,' confirmed Carey. He wondered to what extent Denison knew his mental processes to be abnormal.

  'Suppose I turn you down,' said Denison. 'Do I still get the services of Iredale and Harding?'

  McCready tensed, wondering what Carey would say. Carey placidly blew a smoke ring. 'Of course.'

  'So it's not a matter of blackmail,' said Denison.

  The unshockable Carey arranged his features in an expression of shock. 'There is no question of blackmail,' he said stiffly.

  'Why are Merikken's papers so important? What's in them?'

  'I can't tell you that, Mr Denison,' said Carey deliberately.

  'Can't or won't?'

  Carey shrugged. 'All right, then -- won't.'

  Then I'm turning you down,' said Denison.

  Carey put down his pipe. 'This is a question of state security, Denison; and we work on the principle of "need to know". Mrs Hansen doesn't need to know. Ian Armstrong doesn't need to know. You don't need to know.'

  'I've been kidnapped and stabbed,' said Denison. 'My face has been altered and my mind has been jiggered with.' He raised his hand. 'Oh, I know that -- Harding got that much across -- and I'm scared to the marrow about thinking of who I once was. Now you're asking me to go on with this charade, to go to Finland and put myself in danger again.' His voice was shaking. 'And when I ask why you have the gall to tell me I don't need to know.'

  'I'm sorry,' said Carey.

  'I don't care how sorry you are. You can book me on a flight to London.'

  'Now who is using blackmail?' said Carey ironically.

  'It's a reasonable request,' said McCready.

  'I know it is, damn it!' Carey looked at Denison with cold eyes. 'If you breathe a word of what I'm going to tell you you'll be behind bars for the rest of your life. I'll see to that personally. Understand?'

  Denison nodded. 'I've still got to know,' he said stubbornly.

  Carey forced the words through reluctant lips. He said slowly, 'It seems that in 1937 or 1938 Hannu Merikken discovered a way of reflecting X-rays.'

  Denison looked at him blankly. 'Is that all?'

  'That's all,' said Carey curtly. He stood up and stretched.

  'It isn't enough,' said Denison. 'What's so bloody important about that?'

  'You've been told what you want to know. Be satisfied.'

  'It isn't enough. I must know the significance.'

  Carey sighed. 'All right, George; tell him.'

  'I felt like that at first,' said McCready. 'Like you, I didn't see what all the fuss was about. Merikken was doing a bit of pure research when he came across this effect before the war and in those days there wasn't much use for it. All the uses of X-rays depended upon their penetrative power and who'd want to reflect them. So Merikken filed it away as curious but useless and he didn't publish a paper on it.'

  He grinned. The joke is that now every defence laboratory in the world is working out how to reflect X-rays, but no one has figured out a way to do it.'

  'What happened to make it important?' asked Denison.

  'The laser happened,' said Carey in a voice of iron, 'Do you know how a laser works?' When Denison shook his head, McCready said, 'Let's have a look at the very first laser as it was invented in 1960. It was a rod of synthetic ruby about four inches long and less than half an inch in diameter. One end was silvered to form a reflective surface, and the other end was half-silvered. Coiled around the rod was a spiral gas discharge lamp something like the flash used in photography. Got that?'

  'All clear so far.'

  'There's a lot more power in these electronic flashes than people imagine,' said McCready. 'For instance, an ordinary flash, as used by a professional photographer, develops about 4,000 horse power in the brief fraction of a second when the condensers discharge. The flash used in the early lasers was more powerful than that -- let's call it 20,000 horse power. When the flash is used the light enters the ruby rod and something peculiar happens; the light goes up and down the rod, reflected from the silvered ends, and all the light photons are brought in step with each other. The boffins call that
coherent light, unlike ordinary light where all the photons are out of step.

  'Now, because the photons are in step the light pressure builds up. If you can imagine a crowd of men trying to batter down a door, they're more likely to succeed if they charge at once than if they try singly. The photons are all -- charging at once and they burst out of the half-silvered end of the rod as a pulse of light -- and that light pulse has nearly all the 20,000 horse power of energy that was put into the rod.'

  McCready grinned. The boffins had great fun with that. They discovered that it was possible to drill a hole through a razor blade at a range of six feet. At one time it was suggested that the power of a laser should be measured in Gillettes.'

  'Stick to the point,' said Carey irritably.

  'The military .possibilities were easily seen,' said McCready. 'You could use a laser as a range-finder, for instance. Fire it at a target and measure the light bouncing back and you could tell the range to an inch. There were other uses -- but there was one dispiriting fact. The laser used light and light can be stopped quite easily. It doesn't take much cloud to stop a beam of light, no matter how powerful it is.'

  'But X-rays are different,' said Denison thoughtfully.

  'Right! It's theoretically possible to make an X-ray laser, but for one snag. X-rays penetrate and don't reflect. No one has found a way of doing it except Merikken who did it before the war -- and the working of a laser depends entirely upon multiple reflection.'

  Denison rubbed his chin, feeling the flabbiness. Already he was becoming used to it. 'What would be the use of a gadget like that?'

  'Take a missile coming in at umpteen thousand miles an hour and loaded with an atomic warhead. You've got to knock it down so you use another missile like the American Sprint. But you don't shoot your missile directly at the enemy missile -- you aim it at where the enemy will be when your missile gets up there. That takes time to work out and a hell of a lot of computing power. With an X-ray laser you aim directly at the enemy missile because it operates with the speed of light -- 186,000 miles a second -- and you'd drill a hole right through it.'

  'Balls,' said Carey. 'You'd cut the damned thing in two.

  'My God!' said Denison. 'That's a death ray.' He frowned. 'Could it be made powerful enough?'

  'Lasers have come a long way since the first one,' said McCready soberly. 'They don't use the flash any more on the big ones -- they pour in the power with a rocket engine. Already they're up to millions of horse power -- but it's still ordinary light. With X-rays you could knock a satellite out of orbit from the ground.'

  'Now do you understand the significance?' asked Carey. When Denison nodded, he said, 'So what are you going to do about it?'

  There was a long silence while Denison thought. Carey Stood up and went to the window where he looked across to the Studenterlunden, his fingers drumming on the window sill. McCready lay back on the bed with his hands behind; his head, and inspected the ceiling closely.

  Denison stirred and unclasped his fingers. He straightened in his chair and stretched his arms, then he sighed deeply. My name is Harry Meyrick,' he said.

  THIRTEEN

  Three days later Denison, descending for breakfast, bought a newspaper at the kiosk in the lobby and scanned it over coffee. Diana Hansen joined him, and said, 'What's new?'

  He shrugged. 'The world is still going to hell in a hand-cart.. Listen to this. Item one. Two more skyjackings, one successful and one not. In the unsuccessful one -- God save the mark -- two passengers were killed. Item two -- pollution. A tanker collision in the Baltic and a fifteen mile oil slick is drifting on to Gotland; the Swedes are understandably acid. Item three. There are strikes in Britain, France and Italy, with consequent riots in London, Paris and Milan. Item four . . .' He raised his head. '. . .do you want me to go on?'

  She sipped her coffee. 'You sound a bit acid yourself.'

  'Just how would you feel in my circumstances?' he asked a little grimly.

  Diana shrugged. 'Where's Lyn?'

  The young sleep late.'

  'I have a feeling she's sharpening her claws, getting ready to scratch my eyes out,' said Diana meditatively. 'She's made one or two odd remarks lately.' She stretched over and patted Denison's hand. 'She thinks her daddy is getting into bad company.'

  'How right the child is.'

  'Child!' Diana raised her eyebrows. 'She's only eight years younger than I am. She's no child -- she's a healthy young woman with all her wits about her -- so watch your step.'

  Denison put his head on one side. 'Of course!' he said, somewhat surprised. Privately he thought that Diana was drawing the longbow a bit. He put her age at thirty-two which probably meant she was thirty-four; that would give her twelve years on Lyn, not much less than the fourteen years he had himself.

  'Carey wants to see you,' said Diana. 'If you leave the hotel, turn left and walk about three hundred yards, you'll come to a place where they're building a memorial or something. Be around there at ten o'clock.'

  'All right,' said Denison.

  'And here's your darling daughter.' Diana raised her voice. 'Good morning, Lyn.'

  Denison turned and smiled appreciatively at Lyn's chic appearance. It's the money that makes the difference, he thought; the grand ideas of the rulers of the fashion world are apt to look tatty when filtered through the salary of a junior London typist. 'Did you have a good night?'

  Tine,' said Lyn lightly, and sat down. 'I didn't expect to see you at breakfast, Mrs Hansen.' She glanced sideways at Denison. 'Did you sleep in the hotel last night?'

  'No, darling,' said Diana sweetly. 'I brought a message for your father.'

  Lyn poured coffee. 'What are we doing today?'

  'I have a business appointment this morning,' said Denison. 'Why don't you two go shopping?'

  A shadow briefly crossed Lyn's face, but she said, 'All right.' Diana's answering smile was sickly in its sweetness.

  Denison found Carey with his rump buttressed by a coping stone and his back to the Royal Palace. He looked up at Denison's approach and said brusquely, 'We're ready to move. Are you fit?'

  Carey nodded. 'How are you getting on with the girl?'

  'I'm tired of being Daddy,' said Denison bitterly. 'I'm only getting through by the skin of my teeth. She asks the damnedest questions.'

  'What's she like?'

  'A nice kid in danger of being spoiled rotten -- but for one thing.'

  'What's that?'

  'Her parents were divorced and it's messed up her life. I'm beginning to realize what an unmitigated bastard Harry Meyrick is.' He paused. 'Or was.' He looked at Carey. 'Any news?'

  Carey flapped his hand in negation. Tell me more.'

  'Well, the mother is a rich bitch who ignores the girl. I don't think Lyn would care if she dropped dead tomorrow. But Lyn has always had a respect for her father; she doesn't like him but she respects him. She looks up to him like a ... like a sort of God.' Denison rubbed his chin and said meditatively, 'I suppose people respect God, but do they really like him? Anyway, every time she tries to get near Meyrick he slaps her down hard. That's no way to bring up a daughter and it's been breaking her up.'

  'I never did like his arrogance myself,' said Carey. 'It's the one thing that would have given you away in the end. You're not bloody-minded enough to be Meyrick.'

  'Thank God for that,' said Denison.

  'But you get on with her all right? As Meyrick?'

  Denison nodded. 'So far -- but no future guarantees.'

  'I've been thinking about her,' said Carey. 'Suppose we took her to Finland -- what would the opposition think?'

  'For God's sake!' said Denison disgustedly.

  Think about it, man,' Carey urged. 'They'd check on her, and when they find out who she is they'd be bloody flummoxed. They might think that if you're good enough to deceive Meyrick's daughter you're good enough to deceive me.'

  Denison was acid. 'That's not far short of the mark. I had to tell you who I was.'

  'You
can do it,' said Carey. 'It adds a bit of confusion, and there's nothing like confusion for creating opportunity. Right now we need all the luck we can create for ourselves. Will you ask her if she'll go with you to Helsinki tomorrow?'

  Denison was troubled. 'It's all right for me,' he said. 'I'm going into this with my eyes open -- but she's being conned. Will you guarantee her safety?'

  'Of course I will. She'll be as safe as though she were in England.'

  It was a long time before Denison made his decision. 'All right,' he said resignedly. 'I'll ask her.'

  Carey slapped him lightly on the arm. 'Which brings us back to Meyrick's character. As you said -- he's a right bastard. Bear that in mind when you're handling her.'

  'You want her in Finland,' said Denison. 'I don't. If I really act like her father she's going to run and hide like she always has. Do you want that?'

  'I can't say I do,' said Carey. 'But lean too far the other way and she'll know you're not Meyrick.'

  Denison thought of the many ways in which he had hurt Lyn by his apparent forgetfulness. As in the case of her mascot, for instance; he had idly picked it up and asked what it was. 'But you know,' said Lyn in astonishment. He had incautiously shaken his head, and she burst out, 'But you named him.' There was a hurt look in her eyes. 'You called him Thread Bear.'

  He laughed sourly. 'Don't worry; I'm hurting her enough just by being myself.'

  'It's settled then,' said Carey. 'You have an appointment at Helsinki University tomorrow afternoon with Professor Pentti Kaarianen. Your secretary arranged it.'

  'Who the devil is he?'

  'He was one of Hannu Merikken's assistants before the war. You are to introduce yourself as Merikken's son and pump him about what Merikken was doing in his laboratory from 1937 to 1939. I want to find out if there's been any other leakage about his X-ray researches.' He paused. Take the girl with you; it adds to your cover.'

  'All right.' Denison gave Carey a level look. 'And her name is Lyn. She's not a bloody puppet; she's a human being.'