'I hadn't last night; but I have now.' Otto's face suddenly became grim. 'I woke about seven and succeeded in getting another look round the cave. I found that it is really a big curved tunnel. Its other entrance is from another broad out jutting shelf that cannot be seen from the valley below because it is hidden by a spur of the mountain. On it Lothar has a rocket, a mass of gear and...'
'A rocket!'
'Yes. As he has any amount of money he would have had no difficulty in getting a rocket shell and parts made to his specification, and he could assemble them himself. But, of course, it wouldn't have been any use to him unless he could get proper fuel and a war-head; so those he had to steal. Anyhow, on the far shelf outside the cave a twenty-five-foot rocket is lying, the drums containing my fuel are in a stack nearby, and for a launching pad he could not have a better base than the solid rock.'
'Good God, man!' C.B. exclaimed, aghast. 'D'you mean that he is intending to launch it?'
'There doesn't seem much doubt about that. At seven o'clock he, Colonel Washington, and a thick-set dark man were all hard at work round a forge, adapting the casing of the warhead from the bomb to serve as a cone for the rocket.'
At that minute Colonel Richter was shown in. When Verney told him the alarming news his rat-trap mouth worked silently for a few moments, then he said, 'Well, we've got something to be thankful for. Neither the fuel nor the H-bomb head have reached the Russians; and it doesn't look as though they are likely to.'
'But. . .' Verney began.
'I know, Colonel; I know,' the American cut in. 'Instead of having been left standing by an enemy agent, we have a madman on our hands. And the sort of party he may start with that warhead is no laughing matter. Still, with luck we might locate and grab him before he has a chance to set it off. If not it's going to be just too bad for quite a lot of Swiss.'
'I can't offer any concrete proof that this place is in Switzerland,' Otto said a shade hesitantly, 'although I've the strongest possible feeling that it is. But saying I'm right, there must be hundreds of valleys similar to the one I saw in my vision, and I've no means of directing you to it.'
'Only a small percentage of them would have cable railways,' replied Richter quickly. 'But what I don't get is why this crank should want to launch a rocket. And why do it in Switzerland? What does he expect to gain by killing a lot of Swiss? Mad he may be, but there must be some object that his crazy brain is aiming to achieve.'
'Because he launches it from Switzerland it doesn't follow that the war-head will explode there,' remarked C.B. Then he turned to Otto and asked, 'Can you give us any idea how far the fuel he's got would carry his rocket?'
After thinking for a moment the scientist said, 'I can give only an answer that may be widely out. So much depends on the weight of his rocket but, if it conforms to normal standards, I'd say that with my new fuel he could send a rocket of that size anything from four to eight hundred miles.'
Richter's heavily-lidded eyes opened wide, and he exclaimed, 'Snakes alive! Then if he has the know-how to direct it accurately he might put it down on Paris, London or Berlin.'
'He has the know-how all right,' Otto replied glumly. 'He has been a top-line rocket scientist from the Peenemunde days, and that is sixteen years ago. But he won't put it on Berlin. My family is of German extraction, and Lothar has always had a passion for the Fatherland.'
The door opened and Barney came in. He made a quick apology to his Chief for being late, explaining that a learner-driver had run into his taxi, so held him up while a policeman was taking notes. Then he said excitedly,
'I've got something here, Sir, that may prove important. Mrs. Morden thrust it on me just before we left the Cedars on Saturday night. Owing to all that happened afterwards I forgot about it, and yesterday afternoon I was so dead beat that I simply threw my clothes on the floor and flopped into bed. This morning when I picked them up I came across it in my pocket. It's a spool of recorder tape.'
Verney took the small nail-varnish carton and shook out the spool; then he switched on the inter-com. and asked for a tape-recorder machine to be sent up. Five minutes later the tape was inserted in the machine and being played back.
An American voice said harshly, 'Get your clothes off,' then Mary's voice came, panic-stricken and pleading that she really had not meant to run away. Next second her piercing screams rang through the room, followed by a ghastly sobbing, then silence.
Beads of sweat had broken out on Barney's face. Fiercely he exclaimed, 'The swine! The swine! Then she did try to escape from him but he caught her. Oh, the swine! What did he do to her!'
'Shut up,' snapped C.B., for Mary's voice was coming from the machine again, but now it was quite normal. She was saying, 'I behaved very stupidly yesterday when you were telling me about human sacrifice. If I am to be a really good witch I ought to prepare myself to witness such ceremonies...'
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.'
CHAPTER XXIV 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 thing 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 came 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.
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