The Logan File

by Philip McCutchan

  “Yes,” Logan said.

  “And that —”

  “There is a little over three days left, my friend. Three days for the West to agree to what I have demanded, and if they do not, then …” The voice faded away again.

  Shard prompted. “The rabies, Logan?”

  Logan laughed again. “Not the rabies. There was no rabies. There is no new strain, no speeded-up proliferation of the disease.”

  “It was all bluff, Logan?”

  “Oh, no, no! Not bluff. Merely a ploy to distract your security people in the wrong direction. I tell you this now, because shortly your government will also be told … when it is too late. It’s all ready now.” Logan paused; his eyes were very bright as he stared at Shard through the blinding snow, and there was hate and triumph mixed in his voice as he went on. “Not rabies. Botulin. Botulin, in all the reservoirs throughout Britain.”

  11

  At the railway station Hedge had made an important discovery: there was no train for Berlin until very late that evening; this was due to an unprecedentedly heavy fall of snow along the track. This would take time to clear; and this was not all. Trees had been brought down across the railway line owing to the weight of the snow, a great many of them. The booking clerk spoke a little English, and had been able to convey this information. Hedge thanked him, and moved disconsolately about the windswept tracks, in and out of an empty waiting room — there were no other intending passengers — that he found bleak and bare. There was another problem: money. The notes given him by the kind men outside the café were not sufficient for the fare, so he had bought no ticket. As a result he was in a dilemma as to how he was to board the train, because the booking clerk would know he was without a ticket. But he believed he could overcome that, with luck. He had been told the train was likely to be a long one and the end coaches might not come right into the station proper. He should be able to move right to the end, get down by the track, and climb aboard, heaving himself up onto the running-board and opening a door. He was unworried as to what would happen on arrival ticketless; he was also unworried about security checks as the train entered Berlin. There were two reasons for this lack of worry: one, he would be close to the safety of the Consulate-General whose officials would not only vouch for him but would also send money for the ticket and provide a car to bring him to the safety he found, now, that he couldn’t wait for. And two, there was absolutely nothing else he could do in any case, no alternative that he would need to ponder. Walking the station in misery, Hedge sent a prayer upwards through the falling snow and then once again retreated to the horrible barrenness of the waiting room.

  *

  The booking clerk had imparted train information not only to the Englishman but also to two men who produced their police identity cards. Yes, the Englishman had enquired about the trains to Berlin. No, he had not bought a ticket.

  “Yet he is still here.”

  “He is still here, yes. He intends, I think, to wait for the train’s arrival.”

  “To wait all day?”

  “If he wishes to reach Berlin, he will have to wait all day,” the booking clerk said with a touch of malice. He didn’t like the English, he had read much about lager louts and abominable behaviour at international football matches and although the Englishman had not looked like a lager lout you couldn’t always go by appearances. The booking clerk had read in his newspapers that English stockbrokers and city businessmen and lawyers and accountants were accustomed to getting drunk on leaving their offices and laid about themselves when boarding the suburban trains and molested the undrunk female passengers.

  The plain-clothes men thanked him. “Say nothing, do you understand, to the Englishman?”

  They then retreated out of the railway station, conferring together, huddling against the snow in a doorway down the road from the station buildings. One of them used his radio; orders came back that they were to remain in the vicinity and watch the Englishman as before, a cold and unwelcome vigil but necessary for the security of the state.

  While the men watched, communication was made with the Russian sector of Berlin; East Berlin in turn communicated with Moscow. In Moscow it was considered that Hedge had no present intention of contacting suspicious persons but if he was allowed to reach Berlin then very likely he would be forever lost to the East — there would be jiggery-pokery from the British Consul-General, obviously.

  That evening, the train from Dresden to Berlin left without Hedge aboard.

  *

  Logan had been right: while Hedge shivered in the Dresden railway station, and while Shard waited for night-time in the derelict truck, word reached Whitehall by a telephone call from an unknown source. The caller, a man, spoke good English but there was an obvious German accent. The message was brief and was conveyed at once to the Prime Minister.

  “Botulin!”

  “Yes, Prime Minister.” The Home Secretary was making the report by the security line from the Home Office. “In every one of our reservoirs and their ancillary … er … pumping stations and so on. I —”

  “They’ll never get away with it, they can’t possibly! Not now we’ve been warned.”

  “Prime Minister … they wouldn’t have sent the warning unless they felt certain we couldn’t circumvent their plans —”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, Walter. They’d surely need to give us time — time to consider their demands — time to concede, if that was what we decided upon. Not that we would, of course. What was that?” The Home Secretary had muttered something indistinct.

  “I said this is a very different threat from rabies, Prime Minister. I don’t think any of us really believed in the rabies. Too cumbersome, too slow in spite of what Logan seemed to be claiming. And none of those compounds existed, and only the one case — that Scottish policeman, and quite unconnected. But botulin! In all the reservoirs! Our whole population at immediate risk the moment they drank a glass of water —”

  “Water can be boiled, surely?”

  “Certainly, Prime Minister. But I already have a summary before me of the effects of botulism.” The Home Secretary paused and read some of it out. “‘The spores are very highly resistant to heat. They can withstand a hundred degrees centigrade for some three to four hours.’ There would be bound to be a spread, it would be absolutely inevitable. I do think this alters the situation, Prime Minister.”

  “H’m. To the point of war with the Soviet Union, Walter?”

  “A very difficult thing to suggest to the nation, of course.”

  “There would be no question of suggesting it, Walter,” Mrs Heffer said with asperity. “I would decide and the general public would find out later. One does not govern by asking the people first. However, I take your point. And I do not propose to concede anything, Walter. Now, tell me more about botulin.”

  *

  There were few toxins more virulent, more lethal than botulin. Found chiefly in soil and animal faeces, material which was naturally very widespread, it was not welcome in water supplies. Something like an egg-cupful of the spores could contaminate an entire reservoir of great size. There were seven distinct antigenic varieties, categorised A-G. A, B, and E were associated chiefly with human illness; inter alia, C produced limberneck in fowl, D produced botulism in cattle.

  “Do come to the point, Walter,” Mrs Heffer said impatiently.

  “Yes, Prime Minister.”

  The Home Secretary proceeded with his painstaking exposition. The category to be used by Logan could be presumed to be either A or B or E. The lethal human dose was about one to two ugs.

  “Ugs?”

  “Micrograms, Prime Minister.”

  “I see. Go on.”

  The toxin, the Home Secretary said, acted by blocking the release of acetylcholine at synapses and neuromuscular junctions. The result to the human body was flaccid paralysis. The symptoms would commence from eighteen to ninety-six hours after ingestion. “Drinking the water,” the Home Secretary put in h
elpfully and there was an exclamation of annoyance down the line. Visual disturbances would be noticed — incoordination of the eye muscles, and double vision — and there would come an inability to swallow, plus speech difficulty. Signs of bulbar paralysis would come and these would be progressive to the point of death, which would occur from respiratory paralysis or cardiac arrest. There would be no fever; and the patient would remain fully conscious until on the point of death.

  “And the fatality rate, Walter?”

  “Extremely high, Prime Minister —”

  “Yes. Now then: what about the cure?”

  There was a pause. “Guanidine hydrochloride should be given, Prime Minister, and respiration should be artificially maintained —”

  “The kiss of life?”

  “I expect so, Prime Minister, but since a whole household and even a whole community would be affected together —”

  “Yes, all right, Walter.”

  “I suggest we contact the Communicable Diseases Control Centre in Colindale, Prime Minister, for further advice.”

  “Yes, good thinking, Walter, do that immediately. Get the Department of Health onto them. Is there anything else, anything we can do to lessen the effects if not provide a cure?”

  “Well … there is salt, Prime Minister.”

  “Salt? Ordinary salt?”

  “Yes. A high concentration of salt does in fact diminish the spores’ resistance to heat.”

  The Prime Minister pounced on that. “So boiling the water would become a possibility, an effective possibility, Walter?”

  “As I understand it, yes, Prime Minister.”

  “Good.” The wretched Nazi, Logan, was not going to get his way. Salt would be the salvation. The British public would put up with salty water and a lot of boiling rather than die or be plunged into war. (Like it or not, they were going to have to put up with it.) Mrs Heffer, the call finished, got up and went into her bedroom. She surveyed herself in a long wall mirror, head to foot. She tilted her head and looked quizzically at her hair. Something wrong there, not sufficiently bouffant. She fluffed at it, and went back to the telephone to call an urgent meeting of the Cabinet. After that, Buckingham Palace would have to be warned, something Mrs Heffer, considering the seriousness of the situation, would do by personal call, an urgent request for an audience.

  In the meantime — salt. Mrs Heffer clicked her tongue in self-annoyance: she should have been explicit with Walter. She called him back and the salt operation was put into immediate effect. Orders went out from the appropriate ministries for all possible salt supplies to be collected and distributed to all reservoirs throughout the country. This order included all the dumps of salt deposited along the road network for use in freezing conditions. As a first result, by that evening, there had been a series of nasty accidents in Cumbria and Northumberland and other places and the A66 from Scotch Corner to Penrith and the M6 were closed to traffic as was the road over Shap Fell and a number of lesser roads chiefly in the north.

  Orders had also gone out that the reservoirs were to be closely watched by ground patrols and by helicopters, and any lurkers arrested immediately and questioned. But in Mrs Heffer’s mind something else, something very sinister and worrying, lurked: another telephone call, one that had come in urgently from the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police subsequent to that from the Home Secretary and Mrs Heffer’s summoning of the Cabinet. That call had gone to Scotland Yard from Brosak.

  *

  Brosak was out of East Germany now.

  He had written Logan off. Logan had vanished along with Shard. Logan wouldn’t talk, of course, but it was unlikely he would take any further part in the action. That didn’t matter now; he, Brosak, was fully briefed and could carry the thing through on his own. It had just been a question of some telephone calls, already made. For a start he had made one to a woman, a German woman married to an Englishman living in Carlisle in Cumbria. The call was brief.

  “Stand by, Lotte,” was all Brosak said. The woman understood and within half an hour had made three telephone calls of her own. To the West Country, to the Peak District, and to mid-Wales. From various houses other men and women set out in their cars.

  Some hours later, after taking a call in West Berlin, a call from Carlisle, Brosak was back again on the telephone. This was his call to Scotland Yard, urgent and personal to the Commissioner. He was asked who he was. “I speak for Logan,” he said. “Heil, Hitler!” That was when the Commissioner reported to the Prime Minister direct.

  “He says it’s all ready, Prime Minister. His agents had no difficulty in getting past the foot patrols. Considering the sheer size of the operation, the sheer extent of the reservoirs, that’s scarcely surprising. The lads can’t be everywhere at once.”

  “So the supplies are already contaminated?” Mrs Heffer asked.

  “Not contaminated yet, no. Plastic bags … not quite plastic, some sort of material that will melt in forty-eight hours and release the spores. Just one small bag in each reservoir.”

  “So we have just forty-eight hours?”

  “Rather less, Prime Minister. It’ll take Brosak’s people two or three hours, he says, to fish the bags out again.”

  “I see. Once we’ve conceded?”

  “Yes, that’s it in a nutshell,” the Commissioner said.

  “Thank you very much,” Mrs Heffer snapped, and banged the receiver down hard. “Roly?”

  “Yes, Prime Minister?”

  “Contact Defence Ministry. They’re to be ready instantly.” The Foreign Secretary looked perturbed. “Does this mean you’re conceding, Prime Minister?”

  Mrs Heffer’s eyes flashed. “I never concede anything, Foreign Secretary, but it might be as well to let this man Brosak think I’m conceding. If you follow.”

  “Ah. But is there not an element of danger in doing that, Prime Minister?”

  “There is always danger,” Mrs Heffer said, “whenever anyone tries to do anything positive. Apart from that —”

  “I’m thinking of Hedge, you see, Prime Minister.”

  “As I — Hedge?” Mrs Heffer looked baffled.

  “Yes, my man Hedge. In —”

  “Ah — yes, I’m with you, Roly.” Mrs Heffer caught a glimpse of her hair, reflected from the glass of a large picture opposite where she sat. Still not quite right … “Hedge, such a gallant man. In Germany. What about him?”

  “He’s in East German hands still, Prime Minister.”

  “Yes. That’s most unfortunate, of course.”

  “If there’s any strike, then I would much fear for Hedge’s safety —”

  “I never suggested a strike. Don’t put words into my mouth, Roly. I said merely that I shall allow this man Brosak to think I may concede. That’s all.”

  “So that he retrieves those bags, Prime Minister?”

  Mrs Heffer gave a snort of derision. “Really, Roly, do you suppose for one moment that anyone, any vile person such as this — this Brosak seems to be, would remove his threat until he was certain he’d got what he wanted?”

  Rowland Mayes took the point. “Yes, well, quite, Prime Minister, I do see … yes.” He paused. “But in that case why —”

  “Leave the details to me, Roly, me and the police. And the armed services. We shall cope, you may be quite certain of that.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister. But I believe the effect on my man Hedge will be much the same as if you really did intend to mount a strike against the Eastern —”

  “Possibly, though I don’t see why. But Hedge must simply do his duty, that’s all. I’m sorry, of course … genuinely sorry, to put any man, any patriot, in such danger, but it simply can’t be helped. I feel quite certain your Mr Hedge will understand.” Mrs Heffer looked at her watch and clicked her tongue. “Roly, you’ll have to excuse me now. I’m due at the Palace. To give reassurance, you know — the poor Queen’s distracted by all this, naturally enough, I suppose. I shall do my best to set her mind at rest without playing down the terri
ble seriousness of the situation.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister.” The Foreign Secretary gathered up his papers and stuffed them back into his briefcase, the look of dog-like devotion on his face slipping just a little. No doubt it was perfectly right and proper that Her Majesty should receive preference from her Prime Minister, but Mrs Heffer had seemed to cut him off somewhat abruptly and he had intended making a reference to Detective Chief Superintendent Shard, also still missing and presumed to be in East Germany, and also at much risk if Great Britain should be thought — even just thought — to be marching as to war.

  *

  The helicopters, Royal Navy, Army Air Corps, RAF and police, flew on their anti-botulin sweeps over the reservoirs. The police mobiles kept their watch closely — or as closely as possible.

  A few fishermen were seen and apprehended. They were all in the clear. There was the odd tramp, also innocent so far as the police could tell. There were no lurkers as such, no persons of apparent evil intent. Piles of salt, brought by fleets of lorries that clogged the roads, were dumped beside the reservoirs and cast into the water by men with spades and in some cases by machines that spewed the salt out from metal mouths at the ends of big long necks, like horses being sick. These had been commandeered from the farming community. The farmers, the sheep and cattle and pig men, were much concerned about water for their livestock. The poultry farmers and those with hens in batteries would be on the watch for limberneck.

  *

  Hedge had been picked up during a very long afternoon. While he had been cogitating about how best to conceal himself when the train should eventually come along — conceal his intention to board, or perhaps it would be better to ride the buffers or something, which he understood was a ploy much used in the Eastern Bloc — he was approached by two men, plain-clothes men. Not the ones of the morning.

  One spoke to him, using laboured English. “You are Hedge?”

  “Yes — yes, I am.” Despite the cold, Hedge broke out into a sweat of sheer relief. Help at last — money, perhaps, for his ticket to Berlin and civilisation, the police having perhaps been instructed. “Are you from police HQ?”