There followed her conversation with Wash which had culminated in his describing to her exactly how her husband had been murdered. Then there came another short silence.
'By jove, she's got us the goods!' Even C.B. could not suppress the excitement in his voice. 'What courage! Just think what she must have gone through without giving in; and the skill she showed in leading him into the trap. She deserves a decoration.'
Mary's voice came again, but this time so low that it was hardly more than a whisper. She said, 'This is Mary Morden with a message for Colonel Verney, care of Special Branch, Scotland Yard. Mary Morden for Colonel Verney. Anyone who comes into possession of this spool should take it at once to the nearest police station. You will have heard my screams. I was being tortured by a Colonel Washington of the U.S. Air Force in a house called the Cedars near Fulgoham. It was he, too, whom you heard give particulars of the murder of my husband. Colonel Washington brought me here last Saturday night from a Satanist Temple at Cremorne . . .'
While they listened with bated breath Mary went on to relate how she had gone to the Temple because she had recognized her dead husband's shoes on Ratnadatta's feet. After describing them she again spoke of Wash, giving a brief outline of his personality and background. Then she said,
'If Colonel Washington's confession to having witnessed the murder of my husband is not sufficient to arrest him on, some pretext for removing him from his command should be found at once; because he may endanger peace. He says his flying career may soon be brought to an end by the introduction of rockets, and I believe he is planning to start a new career by going over to the Russians. He says that Russia will never attack the U.S., but the U.S. may be driven by economic reasons to attack Russia. He thinks that given peace Russia will be able to wreck the commerce of the West and so dominate the world in ten years time. Therefore she would lay down the red carpet for anyone who could bring about the abolition of all nuclear weapons. A way to do this would be to drop an H bomb on Switzerland. Neither side would take action while trying to find out who dropped the bomb. Meanwhile, eyewitness reports of the horrors caused would lead to the democratic Governments of the West being forced by their people to agree a pact with the Soviet Government to scrap all nuclear weapons. The Russians could then go ahead without fear with their programme of underselling the West in the world's markets and conquest by peaceful penetration. Colonel Washington could fly one of his big aircraft out at any time, drop an H bomb on Switzerland, and fly on to reap a great reward in Russia. It is imperative that he should be deprived of the power to do so. Mary Morden for Colonel Verney, care of Scotland Yard.'
Dramatically the whispering ceased and the tape came to an end. For a moment the four men standing round the machine remained white-faced and silent. Then C.B. looked across at Otto and said,
'You were right. They are in Switzerland. But why, instead of taking one of his bombers and dropping the bomb, did Washington take only the war-head for use with the rocket?'
'Because in the Satanic hierarchy Lothar is his boss, and Lothar wanted it that way,' replied the scientist.
'But why?' Verney asked again.
'Only one answer to that,' snapped Richter. 'Lothar doesn't mean the big bang to take place in Switzerland. He has just kidded Washington along about that. He means to launch his rocket so that it hits some place else; and that could start a world war.'
'No,' C.B. shook his head. 'Forewarned is forearmed. He's got only one war-head. God knows that's bad enough. But as the Russians won't have launched it they will believe one of ours has gone off through some ghastly accident; so they won't follow it up with others. We must send out a signal to all concerned that we are expecting a maniac to launch one, and that the Russians have no hand in it, so there is to be no retaliation.'
'You are assuming that he will aim it on London or Paris,' said Otto quickly.
'Of course. He is a Communist, or at all events he worked willingly for the Russians for years.'
'He worked for the Russians, but he was never a Communist. He is a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi. Over and above that, though, he is a Satanist. His aim is to disrupt all stable forms of government; to create a state of world anarchy, so that it becomes every man for himself, and in a new era of complete lawlessness and disorder the Devil will come into his own again.'
'Well, what do you deduce from that?' asked Richter sharply.
'That if his rocket had the range to do it he would try to land it on New York; because it is the United States that he hates with a positive fanaticism. As it is he'll probably put it down on the other side of the Iron Curtain, hoping that the Russians will retaliate and blow most of the American cities off the map.'
'Maybe you've got something there,' the American admitted. 'I doubt though if Moscow would fall for that. He could aim it at Prague or Budapest, but I don't see the Russians entering on an all-out war because one of their satellites has been blitzed. They'll not risk their own cities being laid in ruins. It would be a different story if he could put it down in Moscow, but Moscow is thirteen hundred miles from Switzerland; so praised be the Lord, he can't.'
'One moment,' Barney cut in, addressing Otto. 'Have you any idea how high above sea level this cave is where Lothar has his rocket?'
'From what I know of the Alps it would be anything between eight and ten thousand feet.'
'Well, the atmosphere must be much more rarefied at that height. Isn't that going to decrease the resistance to the rocket on its take-off and greatly increase its range?'
Otto stared at him appalled. 'You're right!' he muttered. 'You're right! It could double it. It could give him the thirteen hundred miles he'd need to land it on Moscow.'
'God help us all, that's it then!' Verney smashed his fist down on his desk. 'Even if we warn the Russians in advance they'll never believe that we didn't launch the rocket. Within minutes of its landing they'll retaliate on America and Britain with everything they've got. At any moment now the world may go up in flames.'
24. In the Cave
Mary sat hunched in the aircraft. In front of her Wash's huge shoulders blocked out the greater part of the dimly lit instrument panel. Faintly she could hear him humming to himself and, now that he was in his favourite element - the air - he seemed completely happy and relaxed. Behind her Lothar was sitting. She had caught only a glimpse of him as Wash had hurried her into the 'plane, but she was terribly conscious of his nearness to her and could actually feel on her spine the chill that emanated from him.
Wash's abrupt disclosure that he was taking her with him to Russia had shattered her completely. More, even, than the Great Ram's threat to put a curse upon her. About a curse there was something nebulous. For some inexplicable reason it might not mature; given unshakeable faith in one's own powers of resistance it could be made to rebound on its initiator or, if one could find a priest of sufficient saintliness one could get it lifted. But to be carried off to a distant country from which there was very little chance of ever getting back was a down-to-earth matter; and it was actually happening to her.
The lights of the air base had already disappeared and the 'plane was climbing steeply. In a matter of minutes now they would have left England behind and be flying through the dark night out over the North Sea. Dully her mind sought to probe the future. It would be utterly different from anything she had ever known. Never again would she see any of the friends she had made while married to Teddy, or live again in the pleasant little flat at Wimbledon on which she had lavished so much care. Her only link with the past - the only person she would know who could even speak her own language - would be Wash; and although he had the power to arouse her physically she felt no faintest spark of love for him. On the contrary, knowing the cruel and evil nature that lay below his casual cheerfulness, she hated him more bitterly every time she recalled, with shame, her own weakness in having let herself respond to his passion.
And when he had tired of her, what then? He had shown very clearly that when he wanted a t
hing he would stop at nothing to get it - and get it quickly. Rather than wait twenty-four hours he had made himself liable to an onerous penalty by carrying her off to the country instead of attending the Walpurgis Eve ceremony. Since, he had developed such an obsession for her that, only an hour ago, he had taken the appalling risk of defying the Great Ram rather than have her spoiled for him as a mistress. But such fierce obsessions never lasted. Within a few weeks, or months at most, any man who had made a habit all his life of sleeping with one pretty girl after another would tire of his new plaything. Mary had no doubt at all that his desire for her would cease as swiftly as it had begun; and that overnight he would throw her out for some fresh charmer. Where would he throw her? Presumably to the Great Ram to be cursed - unless with his revenues from the United States cut off he found himself in need of money. If that happened the chances were that he would postpone letting the Great Ram know that he had done with her, and first sell her into a Russian brothel.
Once again she bemoaned her folly in having let herself become caught in this terrible web through having recognized Teddy's shoes on Ratnadatta's feet. If only she had kept her promise to Barney! Well, at least she had saved him from paying with his life for her stupidity. She wondered if while struggling with his captors he realized that it was she who had enabled him to break free, and thought it unlikely. If that was so he would not even feel that he owed her anything. Neither could he have any idea how desperately she loved him. When he did give her a casual thought in the months ahead it would only be as Wash's mistress, and a born whore who, having delighted in the licentious rights practised by Satanists, had willingly left the country with her great brute of a lover.
The tears coursed silently down her cheeks until at length she drifted off to sleep.
She was woken by the aircraft beginning to bump. It was in cloud, but she could sense that it was descending, and shortly afterwards it broke clear so that on looking down she could see the extraordinary panorama that lay spread below them. They were flying over what seemed an endless vista of deep valleys and snow-capped mountains. The sun was still low and on their left, so that it lit only one side of each peak, and the valleys, in sharp contrast to the blinding whiteness of the snow-clad heights, were still irregular chasms of night-shrouded blackness.
As they came lower the bumping became much worse, so Wash took the aircraft up again to just below cloud level. Even there it was far from comfortable, and every few moments the 'plane dropped like a stone from fifty to a hundred feet. Several times now Wash changed course, and in one case circled right round a giant peak. Then he evidently got his bearings and in a series of shallow dives brought the 'plane right down until it was flying between two ranges of mountains. Turning where they opened out he came back, now perilously skirting great jutting crags. But he was a superb pilot and still seemed perfectly relaxed as he lay back with his long legs stretched out, his great hands firmly on the controls.
It was lighter now. Mary could see the dark woods on the lower slopes, and the green of fields in the bottom of the valley. They passed over a cluster of dwellings, came lower, gently now, and in another minute were running low over a long stretch of meadow. But Wash did not land. In a steep climb he took the 'plane out of the far end of the valley, circled and eame in again, still more slowly. The 'plane bumped once, twice, then ran on smoothly for several hundred yards, until he braked it to a halt in front of an open hangar.
A short, swarthy man with a shock of dark wiry hair ran out from it, followed by two Chinese one of whom was carrying a ladder. Wash stretched a long arm back and undid the clamps of the aircraft's door. The ladder was put against it and, pushing past Mary, the Great Ram stepped out. Seizing his hand, the swarthy man kissed his ring, greeted him in some foreign language and helped him down the last few rungs.
When he had left the aircraft Mary found her voice. She was staring in surprise at the Chinese, and said to Wash, 'Where are we? Surely there are no great mountains like these in Russia. Have you brought us down in . . . no, it couldn't possibly be Tibet; we haven't been in the air long enough.'
He laughed. 'This is Switzerland. We're stopping off here for a day or so on our way to Moscow; that's all.' As he spoke he ducked his head and thrust his great body through the doorway. Springing down, he turned at the foot of the ladder, held out his arms, and told her to jump.
Lothar was speaking to the swarthy man. When he had done, he turned to Wash and said, 'This is our brother Mirkoss. He is an Hungarian and a very clever engineer. He also speaks fluent Chinese, but he does not understand English. I have told him that you and your woman will be staying with us until the great work is completed, and that his men are to unload the crate with the greatest care. He will bring it and the luggage along later in the box car. We three will go on ahead.'
Mirkoss and Wash exchanged grins, then the latter, with Mary beside him, followed Lothar across the field to a narrow road running alongside a rock-strewn stream that foamed and hurtled along the valley bottom. On the road a car was waiting with another Chinese at its wheel. Lothar got in beside him, the other two got into the back, and it set off up the valley.
The road was steep and winding; soon it became no more than a rough track. It was bitterly cold and with a shiver Mary drew her coat more closely about her. They climbed for about two miles then, round a sudden bend, the track ended at what looked like a big barn with a chalet roof. From it steel cables looped upward from a succession of tall steel pylons set in the mountainside, to end far above the snow line at what looked like a small black hole.
They left the car and went into the chalet, which Mary now saw was an engine-house, with an opening at one end near which stood the cabin of the cable railway. The cabin was divided by a partition, the front section having benches to seat four passengers; the rear section was empty and evidently for carrying up stores. A fourth Chinese came out from a room at the back of the chalet and started the engine up, the others got into the cabin. There was a grinding sound as it ran the few yards along its landing rails, then, as it swung out into the open, silence.
The cabin moved steadily at a moderate pace but the ascent took nearly a quarter-of-an-hour. First they passed over rough grassy slopes, then a deep belt of dark fir trees, the branches of those in the higher part of which were powdered with snow. Beyond them the mountain was much steeper and, except where here and there grey rocks broke through, a convoluted sheet of dazzling white.
The sun had now risen above the chain of mountains opposite, so that only a part of the valley was left in deep shadow and Mary, who was seated facing it, found the scene one of almost terrifying grandeur. She had never before been up a mountain and would have enjoyed the experience had her mind not been distracted by thoughts of the grim company she was in.
Suddenly there came a clatter of steel on steel, and she looked round in alarm, but was reassured on seeing that they had reached the top. The cabin ground to a halt on a broad flat shelf of rock.
She now saw that the black spot she had seen from below was in fact the entrance to a cave at least twenty feet in height. It was lit by a row of electric bulbs spaced out along its ceiling, and along one side of it ran a range of low-roofed shallow wooden sheds; but it curved away into the mountain so she could not see its end.
As they got out, a blast of icy wind, carrying a flurry of snow, struck her with such force that she could hardly stand against it; but Wash took her by the arm and hurried her into the cave. Ten feet inside it they were sheltered from the wind and it was comparatively warm there, although she never discovered whether it contained some normal heating installation or conditions in it were made bearable by the Great Ram's Satanic powers.
He led the way down it and they passed the open doorway of a lean-to made from stout planks in which a Chinese cook was busy at a stove. The next shed along was a small dining-room. It was not even deep enough to have a bench along the far side of the table, which was formed by a flap projecting from the wall, but
it was long enough to seat six people in a row on the near side und at its far end had shelves on which were a number of bottles. Their host pointed to the shelves and said:
'No doubt you would like something to warm you up. Food will be brought to you presently, but I shall not join you. I have learnt to do without such things for long intervals. You will also need sleep. But you will not sleep together. While you are here I forbid it; because it would arouse vibrations on the animal plane which could disturb the transcendental links that I have created.'
For Mary this last ordinance was a crumb of comfort, and Wash took it philosophically, remarking to her as Lothar left them, 'Me, I'm all for remaining just a simple Mage. What's the fun in becoming an Ipsissimus when it means that most all the time you're on an astral plane so high you've no use for your body. But don't fret, honey, we'll not be stuck here more than thirty-six hours. Come Tuesday night at latest we'll be in little 'ole Moscow, and by then we'll have gotten a fine edge on our appetites.'
He took a bottle from the shelf and two broad-bottomed rummers, poured three fingers of Bourbon for her and three-quarters filled the other big glass for himself, swore because there was no ice container, and instead splashed a little water into both. She was still cold, so she took a long drink from the one he handed her. As the almost neat spirit went down she shuddered; but its reaction was swift and gave her the courage to ask,
'Why have we stopped off here, anyway?'
'See that big crate in the tail of the aircraft?' he grinned. 'That's the reason. It has in it the war-head of an H bomb.'
Realizing that he must have stolen it for some nefarious purpose she stared at him for a moment in consternation; then she exclaimed, 'But why? What do you mean to do with it?'
He swallowed a good half of his drink, set the glass down and replied, 'You're such a smart kid I'd have thought you'd have guessed, after what I told you a few nights back.'
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