Corpse (Commander Shaw Book 15)

by Philip McCutchan

  “Just like crazy,” he said, shaking his head. “Can you imagine it. Commander?”

  “Very easily,” I told him. “Let’s hope it doesn’t happen.”

  “They wouldn’t try it on us, I reckon. Too big a land mass, and too far for CORPSE to extend effectively.”

  “You could be right,” I said non-committally. I believed he was, in fact. CORPSE would probably be satisfied with Britain, would have enough on their plate, and by the time they were ready to consider expansion the world would have come to grips with the problem of nuclear-waste-carrying ships. I went on, “Currently I’m more concerned with right here. I think I can do some good, with your negative assistance.”

  Jefferson stared. “Come again?”

  I swept an arm towards the coaster, sudden death beneath the backdrop of the distant mountains. “A look-see, that’s all.” I explained my theories as to why CORPSE wouldn’t blow at the first boarding, and he was with me. I asked, “Do you happen to have a blind eye?”

  He grinned, teeth beautifully white in the moon. “Like Nelson?”

  I grinned back. “Just like Nelson. Strike a blow for freedom, why not?”

  “Well … so long as my name doesn’t go down in history.”

  I took his point: I assured him he would not be implicated. He wasn’t all eyes, especially when looking intently the other way to ensure that his coxswain kept well on target for the Gareloch entry. Just give me a start, I said, and he could raise all hell afterwards, and could use his four gold stripes and brass hat to keep the cutter well away from the Johann Klompé in case CORPSE should grow apprehensive about too many boarders.

  I watched my time, and Captain Jefferson watched anything but me, and I slid over the gunwale aft at the precise moment that the crew of the guard cutter had the Johann Klompé between themselves and the gasoline gig so had no view of the latter. I went deep and aimed true, and surfaced almost on target. A few more strokes and I was hauling myself on to the lower platform of the accommodation-ladder. As I ran up to the deck dripping water, I became aware of distant consternation and heard Jefferson’s voice yelling through a megaphone at the cutter’s crew, something to the effect that Commander Shaw had gone arse over tit and they better had converge on the gasoline gig to look for him, which they did. Reaching the deck I became aware of a low hum coming from somewhere below, and a pronounced vibration in the plates. I went through a door into the superstructure, closing the door behind me. All the lighting had been switched off and I had to grope around for a switch. I found I was where I’d expected to be: I was in an enclosed alley with no ports. I didn’t want the shore authorities to see the lights coming on, so thereafter I banged down deadlights before lighting up the cabins, saloon and other compartments. It was all very ordinary: clothing lying around, personal possessions, girlie magazines, bottles of schnapps, cigarettes — all just as though the crew expected they might come back. Curious … but of course they’d stuffed their pockets with all they could manage — the nick had been like an off-licence. I went through the master’s accommodation with extra care, and soon came upon his safe. This I had no means of opening, and if there was anything of any interest to an intruder, it would be in the safe, so I drew’ a blank.

  I went down to the engine-room, the source of all power. As I went lower in the ship I found the vibration and the hum increasing. That, I guessed, would be the water-cooling system for the nuclear-waste flasks. I took a quick look around, then climbed for the bridge and chart-house: again, all very ordinary. The radio room beckoned and I went towards it; it focused my attention on things like signal transmissions and device-tripping codes. I was about to go in, or anyway to try the door which could well have been locked, when I became aware of a racket coming closer across the Clyde.

  Pausing, I listened.

  A desperate voice was booming out through a loud hailer, and it seemed Commander Shaw was required urgently. I cursed, but stepped out into the bridge wing.

  I saw a boat lying off; a moment later a searchlight played on to the Johann Klompé and in its back-glow I saw a police inspector and the man from the Foreign Office, braver than I had thought likely. He was going mad, waving his arms and shouting. When he saw me, he became more coherent.

  “You are to get into the boat immediately. I speak for the Prime Minister. Come on down.”

  “Has there,” I called, “been a reaction from our friends?”

  “Yes!” he screamed. “And two and two added up to you!”

  I went down, and fast. One thing seemed proved: CORPSE had the claimed ability to spot intruders. I wouldn’t get another chance, but we knew where we stood beyond doubt. As I stepped into the boat, the Foreign Office man gabbled at me: CORPSE had contacted Whitehall by radio and the message had come instantly to the Clyde. The intruder must be taken off or within thirty minutes there would be a local bang, the first in the series. I looked at my watch: I’d already been aboard not all that far short of thirty minutes and I began to feel a sense of rush all of a sudden. The Foreign Office man was quite frantic, keen to be away fast. He kept dabbing at his trousers with a handkerchief; the suit had probably come from Savile Row, and a good deal of the Clyde had slopped over it.

  *

  I was due for a surprise later, and a stroke of good fortune that I could well do with, though it didn’t appear to be quite that at the time it happened. My police driver had returned in the interval to Glasgow, and I was provided with another car from local resources, and off we set, as next day’s small hours slid into dawn, for the airport and my waiting plane. We had just joined the motorway from the A8 when my driver and I became aware of another police car behind us, coming up fast and using its light and siren. On the trail of some domestic villain, I thought, but no: the mobile, passing us, slowed to our speed and put on its POLICE STOP sign, and we pulled behind it on to the hard shoulder and two uniformed men got out, one of them an inspector, and marched back towards us. The inspector took the driver’s side and the constable came to my window. Not a word was said but two automatics stared at us. When we’d taken that in, the bogus inspector uttered.

  “Out and take it easy or you’re dead men.”

  I glanced at my driver, and nodded. Then I turned to the armed man at my window. “Okay,” I said. Both my driver and I tried the old trick, in the same instant: we slid the catches and rammed our doors open, crash. The man on my side must have been a rookie at the game; he fell for it, literally, going flat, and I was out and on him before he could stagger up. A boot in his face and he dropped his gun, which I picked up. When I saw the other man coming for me,I fired point blank and dropped him, dead with a bullet right through the heart. My driver hadn’t been as lucky as me: his assailant had nipped back in time and used his gun effectively before running round to his mate’s assistance. The genuine copper was as dead as the fake inspector, I found a few moments later. Keeping my gun on the fake constable, who had no doubt at all that I would use it as soon as I had to, I used the two-way radio and called Greenock nick. And watched all the cars speed past … sane people don’t stop at shoot-ups, nor if they can help it do they stop anywhere near police cars on motorways. I had just put down the radio when I saw a figure sliding out of the fake cop car, and because I couldn’t leave chummy unattended in order to apprehend the emergent person, I opened fire and dropped him. Screams came back and I saw the man trying to drag himself to safety, without success. He flopped down, moaning and blaspheming, in a pool of blood. I had to let him lie until reinforcements came in from Greenock. When they arrived I was able to investigate my wounded villain, and that was when I got the surprise, for a man known to be dead stared me in the face. Dead Polecat Brennan in fact, not dead at all though in a fairly sorry state from the bullet wound. To say I was flummoxed would be to put it mildly. You only die once, according to James Bond.

  *

  Things, the Glasgow police told me later, were in a bad way down south. Too early for the morning papers, of course, but
word from Plymouth had reached London overnight: some private telephone calls, indeed a lot of private telephone calls until the exchange had pulled out the plugs on orders received, had informed the lay population of London that a lot of people were coming home to mum and dad for a while, and the news had spread like the plague. It had reached down into the underground lavatories at Piccadilly Circus and the junkies and hippies had ascended like maggots to the surface and had demonstrated noisily in Trafalgar Square, although one of them, asked by a police constable what he was demonstrating about, had replied, “Shit, daddy, I don’t know, do I, man?” The Met were expecting crowds outside the Defence Ministry and at the entrance to Downing Street from Whitehall, where the police barriers were already up. The police stations all over London had been besieged with anxious enquiries. So far, I was told, no one seemed to have cottoned-on as to the cargo content of the Garsdale Head but it was probably only a matter of time now. Meanwhile I had to be on my travels again: back south to London by air, plus Polecat Brennan in a stretcher with attendant nurse. Max. contacted by me, had pulled strings rapidly and though the Glasgow police protested routinely they were overruled and Brennan and the fake constable were handed over to 6D2, which meant me. Polecat Brennan and his mate were going to go under a very highly concentrated grill. We have some excellent grillers inside Focal House; and as a matter of fact Brennan had done a little talking already — to me, by special pressure, for there were things I had to know. When I reached FH and the suite, and after Max had been woken from some snatched sleep, I told him what Brennan had coughed and at the same time confessed my previous error of identity.

  “The man I saw fall to his death … I could have sworn he was Brennan. A good likeness, which was either a lucky break for WUSWIPP in finding him, or some good work from make-up enough to fool me. And why? Well, according to Brennan, who was quite well aware of his ‘death’, it was simply because WUSWIPP wanted me to believe he was dead. That, in its turn, was because — ”

  “Because the living Brennan’s still working for CORPSE, and WUSWIPP wanted to keep him at it, unknown to you, for their own purposes. That’s obvious.” Max looked sardonic.

  “Not at all,” I told him. “It’s not the fact — not in the way you mean … which is, isn’t it, that WUSWIPP’s trying genuinely to put the skids under CORPSE?”

  Max’s eyebrows went up. “Aren’t they?”

  “No,” I said. “WUSWIPP’s in with CORPSE. This is a joint attack after all.” Max showed immense surprise as well he might, but I went on: “The apparent death of Brennan for reasons as given to me by the WUSWIPP representative was intended to convince me that WUSWIPP was still anti-CORPSE and would help in the fight against them if and when they could. All of which Brennan has now revealed … he was in a bad way and he was indiscreet. I’d have pressed further, only he went out like a light and stayed there.”

  Max let out a long breath. “And now?”

  “He may have come round,” I said. “If he hasn’t. I’ll wait till he has, then I’ll be going down to join the grill.” I changed the subject. “Has anything emerged from Downing Street, anything positive as to government thinking?”

  Max shrugged and answered, “Not exactly positive. The cabinet’s still in session and the Chiefs of Staff are with them. And the Commissioner … and the Chief Constables of immediately affected areas. I understand they’re formulating contingency plans and as a first step the government’s likely to shift inland.”

  “Evacuation of London?”

  “Impossible, as I’ve said before. Nasty if it happens, but there we are.” Max hesitated, and I saw his eyes go above my head to where there was a head-and-shoulders portrait of the Queen in Garter Robes. “Buckingham Palace has been contacted.”

  “And?”

  “The Royal Family’s returning there from Windsor. They won’t leave again unless a general evacuation’s ordered, which I repeat is impossible.” Max paused again. “Got her father’s guts … I remember the war.” I believe he was about to say more, but was cut short by the burr of his internal line via Mrs Dodge, loyally remaining at her post throughout the night, the same as her master. Max answered; Brennan, it seemed, had come round.

  I got up. “Right,” I said. “I’ll go down and report soonest possible.”

  “Are you going to put the boot in, Shaw?”

  I said I was.

  “You’re a bastard sometimes, aren’t you,” Max said, but there was a grin lurking round his eyes. He could be a bastard, too.

  TEN

  The WUSWIPP man who’d arranged the death that wasn’t Brennan’s had told me that he hoped Brennan had talked before he ‘died’. By now, of course, that was phony history but Brennan, the real Brennan, was now all set up, and talk, I determined, he would, wounded or not — I’d smashed his right shoulder and hip-bone with my bullets — and one of the things he was going to talk about was Miss Mandrake: I’d had the girl on my mind solidly, and was hating myself for not being able to do anything for her. In the circumstances we were faced with, she couldn’t be a top priority but she was not far below so far as I was concerned. Once again the deadline hit me: we now had thirty hours left, and so had Felicity Mandrake.

  I joined 6D2 Britain’s top interrogator, a man known simply as Number Four, late major in the Intelligence Corps with service in Northern Ireland. We sat behind a plain deal table covered with ink stains and precious little else. Number Four loomed across it, heavy and pugnacious, really more like a military policeman than an Intelligence officer. He had big shoulders and a large square head, and big hairy hands that he laid flat on the table as bandaged Polecat Brennan was carried in by two of our tough squad, one an ex-sergeant of the Met, the other a former Guards NCO. These two big boys stood one on either side of Brennan as he was held upright facing the table. Behind, another man took up station, coming into the room with a fourth guard who stood back against the door cradling a sub-machine gun. It was all over-dramatised, but with a purpose. Brennan must have known we wouldn’t use that sub-machine gun, but all the same he eyed it nervously. One thing he was positive about was that strictly we had no right to be holding him: as accessory to a killing he was police property and never mind Max. That cut no ice. I said, “Whatever happens to you in our custody, Brennan, will not be made public. We even,” I said, tongue-in-cheek, “have a corpse disposal unit and you can take that both ways at once if you like.”

  That seemed actually to rock him; when you’ve been brought up to WUSWIPP ideals, and then CORPSE ones, I reckon you really believe such extravagances, and Brennan had plenty of reason in the past to know that 6D2 were very, very effective. Also that we didn’t stick to the rules, which was where we had the edge over the police and the rest of the Establishment agencies. I went on, “Considering where you were during last night, you’ll also know we have the entire crew of the Johann Klompé. Dedication’s all very well, but some are more dedicated than others. There’ll be talking very soon. Those who talk will get … let’s say, preferential treatment afterwards. If I were you, Brennan, I’d consider that very carefully indeed.” I felt a touch on my shoulder: it was Number Four, who whispered in my ear. He whispered nothing of any significance, but whispers are a pretty useful softening-up agent. The man whispered about doesn’t like it at all. I responded in more whispers, then Number Four nodded and got up.

  He walked slowly over to Brennan and stood there looking sour and moving his shoulders like a rugby scrum-half. “Two things first,” he said. “Where do we find the CORPSE bosses, and where is Miss Mandrake?”

  “That’s all?”

  “For now.”

  Brennan said, “I don’t know, fry something else.” He appeared cocky, but there was a tremble in his lips: Number Four’s very slowness and solidity and calmness had a kind of built-in effect of their own. He’d been highly successful in Belfast.

  Number Four said, “All right, I will.” He reached out his hands, stared at them. Hexed the fingers, then looke
d again at Polecat Brennan. “We shall want to know’ a whole lot of things: the names of persons already planted in Britain for the running of the country. The arrangements made for bringing in support — times, places, numbers. Their present dispositions. The method by which CORPSE knows when one of those death ships is boarded. Names of persons in other countries who might usefully be brought in by the authorities acting in co-operation with the British Government. You know the sort of thing we need, Brennan.”

  “I don’t know the answers.”

  Number Four disregarded that. He said, “Let’s go back to Miss Mandrake, shall we, from whom all else could very easily How. I believe you know where she’s being held, Brennan — ”

  “Things change,” Brennan broke in. “Wherever she was yesterday, and I don’t even know that, she might not be there today.”

  “Possibly, but a starting off point’s always useful, don’t you think, Brennan?”

  “I don’t know where she is.” Brennan sounded sulky.

  “I think you have some ideas nevertheless. When they emerge, they’d better be the truth I’m sure I needn’t elaborate. I’ll just add this: time’s remarkably short now, and we haven’t enough of it to go in for long term persuasion. Know what I mean? Face against the wall, arms lifted, no sleep, continual noise. It’s effective, but time-consuming.” Number Four paused, eyebrows lifted. “You’ll talk?”