14
Back inside, back to imprisonment and Nodd, with annihilation waiting for all of us inside the base unless I could inhibit Nodd and then announce to the world that I had done so. Soon after I got back to my cell Mr Sigg came along in person to bring me before Nodd.
Nodd, awakened from sleep and wearing pyjamas, was sardonic. “Did you satisfy Mr Yu?” he asked.
“I imagine I did.”
“Why?”
“If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been returned here, would I?”
Nodd made no answer to that, but he seemed to be chewing it over in his mind. He asked me what had taken place, and I said it had been an interrogation session along the lines he himself had prognosticated, which was, my expertise in matters of Western security, plus a further probe into just how it was I had managed to make an illegal landing on Chinese territory. I embroidered a little further and Nodd seemed reasonably happy. Though neither of us referred directly to the point, I believe he felt that if I’d talked out of turn about his affairs I would scarcely have re-delivered myself as a lamb to the slaughter and to hell with Felicity — after all, the bastard. For his part he gave nothing away to me about the furtherance of his strike; he dismissed me abruptly and I went back to my cell to catch up on some sleep. When I awoke it was to find Felicity bending over me and lunch waiting. Felicity seemed concerned that I’d slept so long and I said I’d been into Yamchow.
That shook her, and for the benefit of any bugs I told her no more than I’d told Nodd. She played up beautifully and quite unconsciously. “I never believed you’d rat that far,” she said in a voice of ice.
I shrugged. “Needs must. Things have gone too far.”
“I thought you had guts.”
I repeated, “Dear Miss Mandrake, things have gone too far. What do a few secrets matter now? If we’re joining Nodd, there’s no point in half measures.”
At first she didn’t respond, then she said dully, “I suppose there’s nothing else you could have done in the circumstances.”
“Nothing,” I said. She sat in silence while I ate my lunch. As for me, I was thinking, and I was thinking about what use Nodd might have for me in exchange for my within-the-base freedom — he’d made the point that I could be useful, and I meant to be. Via use, deliverance could come, with luck. I wouldn’t have a hope of inhibiting anything unless and until I was in physical proximity to the buttons and levers as it were, and frankly there wasn’t a lot of hope even then. My technical know-how was non-existent, so what did I do? Throw myself with abandon and heroism on one of the panels of lights and dials and whatnot in Nodd’s control-room, and pray that I’d chosen a really effective one? I might just as easily do no more than balls up the direction of flight of one of his satellites and bring the UV down on the House of Commons — or even, God help us all, the TUC in session at Blackpool, if they were in session. Of course, there is always one panacea in such circumstances, and that is to find the power source and cut it off or blow it up. Easier said than done …
When I had finished eating I suggested exercise.
“On the roof?” Felicity asked. I said, where else? We walked along to Mr Sigg’s office for permission, and on the way we noted an increase in activity on the part of the base staff. Men hurried along, looking preoccupied; the subterranean sounds of electric machinery had suddenly become more noticeable and from time to time there was a deep rumble, though not on the same scale as the upheaval that had rocked my cell the day before. When we reached Mr Sigg’s sanctum, he said we would have to wait, but he wouldn’t say why.
“Come back in an hour’s time,” he said, with an internal telephone clamped to each ear. Obediently, we went away. I supposed the guards were currently employed on other duties, and I began to worry about what those duties might be. At the end of one of the electrically-lit passaged we found a door with notices on it in several languages: the English one read, NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT AUTHORITY.
“Let’s try it,” I said, and pushed. It was not locked, and we went through. We found ourselves on a high catwalk, a narrow platform running round the inside of the concrete dome. Here the noise increased, and we looked down on a hive of industry under floodlights: it seemed as though the launch pads were being prepared for blast-off. There were six pads, and one held a lofty pointed space vehicle with its cone almost touching the dome. Into it was led a brace of metalled hose lines, moving gently to the impulse of pumps. One would be the fuel line, the other most probably Nodd’s aerosol expellant gas — or maybe his UV concentrate for all I knew. But my guess was chlorofluorocarbons: let the sun do the work for him! The UV concentrate was more likely to be for use at close quarters. I could imagine its appalling effect on, say, an infantry formation if blown from a Nodd version of the old-style flame-thrower. I hadn’t time for any more cerebration before Felicity nudged me and said, “Watch out, we’ve been seen.”
I looked round: an armed guard was coming for us around the cat-walk, moving fast and looking as though he might well shoot on the first move. We waited and he tramped up and started hectoring us in Russian: we had been given a degree of freedom and must not abuse it. We moved back for the door and he pushed us through with his gun. In the passage I said to Felicity, “Nodd’s not far off ready.”
She was still in a withdrawn, critical mood. She laughed, a brittle sound, her nerves playing her up. She said, “You surprise me, Commander Shaw. What makes you think that?”
“Oh, forget it,” I said impatiently. My own nerves were not too brilliant by now. Time was passing, and I’d got nowhere, at least in regard to Felicity and me and those six US Navy men. If Cruise Distant blasted off before I’d sorted things out and flown from under, it was goodbye; but at least we wouldn’t be knowing much about it. I wouldn’t be knowing much about what Max would undoubtedly call my failure, for failure it would be to have the missiles fly and drop on a killing run. It would not be easy to explain to UNO. In theory it was still up to me to bring this thing to as quiet an end as possible with no diplomacy fractured. Some hope! And, of course, I had to face the even worse fact that, however confident I’d felt earlier, neither Peking nor the Pentagon might play along the lines of my appeal in any case. Peking was no doubt still looking for proof of what I’d said; and it didn’t take much imagination to appreciate America’s quandary: the last thing in the world the average Yank outside Government would want, would be for the ICBMs to take off across the world without even a declaration of war. It was no election winner, let’s say.
We filled in more time in what, to me, was an extraordinary atmosphere: we had a pot of coffee between us, plus an assortment of biscuits, in a subterranean café with a happy Continental atmosphere, a place that could have been an ordinary establishment in, say, South Kensington: we even had a view, a painted one but effective under concealed lighting, of what I think was meant to be a Swiss lake with background mountains and snow under a lovely blue sky. It was a highly curious juxtaposition with the murderous silos close at hand, not to mention a couple of off-duty guards lounging with their sub machine-guns too handy for me to have a hope of snatching them. Nodd, it appeared, did his best to make his killing base a home from home for his staff both scientific and manual. Anyway, the coffee drunk we reported again to Mr Sigg, who gave us the okay, and we ascended to actual blue skies and bright sunlight: no smoke visible.
“Right,” I said to Felicity. “Explanations. Come close.”
She did so; her fair hair fanning against my face in a light wind, she listened without interrupting while I told her what had really gone on in Yamchow. I could feel the tension in her body when I came to the crunch line that spelled out death — death unless. The death that would show its first chill by smoke. She didn’t say anything, but her face was white. We stood there together, looking out on nature’s freshness, watched by the armed troops of Nodd, staring out south-eastwards for smoke over Yamchow. All at once I laughed: I couldn’t help it, thinking of cowboys and Red Indians, and smok
e signals. The world didn’t change all that much.
But no smoke came.
Back to square one, and back to me. The West had chickened out. Or Peking was still in pawn to WUSWIPP.
*
Felicity and I had been given permission to use the washrooms, which were unisex. I was washing, as they say, down as far as possible, and up as far as possible, omitting possible, alongside a fat mid-European lady who was vigorously soaping her bare breasts and well forested underarms, when the Tannoy broke harshly into the domestic scene in a variety of languages and I picked up the English: “All duty personnel assemble in the launch area. Stand-by personnel are to be in readiness but are not immediately required.” The Tannoy went off, the fat lady clicked her tongue but, possibly because she was only on stand-by, removed her drawers and washed downwards. I stood transfixed: she was very fat indeed. Then the Tannoy started up again, this time in English only. “Commander Shaw and Miss Mandrake to report at once to Mr Sigg.”
I dried myself and pulled on my shirt and went off. When I reached Sigg’s office, Felicity was already there and once again Mr Sigg was busy on his telephones. When I went in he glanced up, reached out, and pressed a button. Four armed men came in, tough men with thuggish faces and thick wrists and much muscle, and without a word spoken grabbed Felicity and me, brought our wrists together, and clamped handcuffs on. This done, they moved behind us and stuck gun muzzles in our spines. Sigg put down his phones and stared at us. He said, “You’re wanted in the control-room.”
“Why?” I asked.
“You’ll find out.”
“Why the cuffs? Don’t you trust us?”
“No,” Mr Sigg said in a nasty voice. That was all; he clammed up after that and the armed men pressed with their gun muzzles, one of their number moved ahead of us as guide, and we were marched away. The overt activity on the part of the staff had now diminished; no doubt they would be at their stations awaiting the word from Nodd. But the ominous sounds of electrically-driven machinery and whatnot were there and increasing, as it seemed to me: something unknown was coming up to a high whine as we neared the control-room and again the structure was shaking, though in a more contained sort of way than previously. It didn’t feel, unfortunately, as though anything was going to shatter. When we were marched into the seat of power, Nodd was once again playing at God as he surveyed his computers and a full muster of operators at their individual panels. The place was all light: concealed fluorescence made it like day, while the panels winked red and green and blue. The TV screen was currently dead, but Nodd was gazing at another toy: a vast globe, the world slowly a-spin while around it a collection of miniature space vehicles made their various orbits. I don’t know how it was done, but it was clever, and it was effective. The world suddenly looked extremely vulnerable and there was dawning joy in Nodd’s horrible flat face as he turned at our approach on to his gallery.
“Ah, Commander Shaw and Miss Mandrake.”
I lifted my handcuffed wrists. “Why these, Professor Nodd?”
Nodd, meaning, I think, to smile, grimaced. “You are standing precisely where Admiral Rackstall stood,” he said.
I felt sick, suddenly. Nodd was right: exactly here had Rackstall undergone instant prefabricated cremation. I asked in a strained voice, “So what?”
“He was foolish. He gave way to emotion. I would not wish you to act in a similar way, Commander Shaw.”
“Evidently,” I said, “I’ve not fully convinced you I’ve joined WUSWIPP. I told you about Cruise Distant. What more proof do you want of me?”
There was another grimace. “I’ll not trouble you. Instead I’ll tell you a little story, a very short one: WUSWIPP slipped up badly in not finding out about Cruise Distant, but then, on occasions American security is first class and all those who need to know happen to be loyal United States citizens who keep close lips. That was the case with Cruise Distant. And those in Britain who needed to know were just as careful. But it is very, very seldom that WUSWIPP slips up. Like the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Commander Shaw, our motto could be said to be Ubique — everywhere! Do you follow me?”
I began to get the drift and I felt the rapid sink of my heart and all my hopes. Without waiting for any verbal response from me, Nodd went on with his little story. Back in Yamchow, not all those venerable comrades had been quite what they seemed: the links, the tentacles of WUSWIPP were immensely strong and they had held … whilst in full flight of his exultation Nodd was interrupted by a flashing white light from his personal master control panel and he broke off to take up a telephone handset. He listened for a moment, then banged the thing back on its bracket and turned to me again.
“Something you should see,” he said, and pressed a button on his master control. The vast TV screen flickered and came alive in brilliant colour. I saw the white concrete of the protective dome above our heads, I saw the thick green foliage over the tree-covered hills. I saw something else as the eye of the camera lifted on its travels towards Yamchow: flame white and red, and rising billows of heavy smoke that began to stream on the wind towards Nodd’s awesome fortress. The Peking-Washington axis had given a go after all, but what use would it be now? I caught Nodd’s eye and I was given my answer.
“Forty-eight hours from next midnight was, I think, your arranged time,” Nodd said. “I do not need that long.”
There wasn’t much point in silence, but I neither confirmed nor denied and Nodd didn’t bother to press. There was much confidence in the air, and why the hell not: Nodd was on a winner now that the plan had leaked back to him and I could see no way the trend of victory could be reversed. I was too depressed just then even to take an interest in his proposed work-out, but he told me all the same, being unable to resist a boast: he was a very vain man. He indicated the globe, the world symbolically at his mercy inside his base, and the satellites weaving their trails around it. He would be ready to go, he said, in eight hours’ time as of now. And go he would, since the West had asked for it by lining up their missiles on his base, and since they had shown no signs of agreeing to start demilitarising the overseas outposts of capitalist imperialism. ‘Going’ was to be a complicated and computerised process of highly intricate timing and aiming, taking into account the relative positions of the sun as the earth moved in its orbital path positions relative to the targets which Nodd proposed for the first all-out fry-up. Already Nodd had enough of his chemical-bearing space vehicles in their orbits to blast chlorofluorocarbons down through the ozone layer and bring lethal UV dosages on a very wide scale: London, New York, Washington … the various military, naval and air force command headquarters and operational bases … Paris, Bonn, the army bases and installations in West Germany … you name it, Nodd had it beneath his UV projection programme’s nozzles.
I said rather stupidly, “Cruise Distant will still get you, Nodd. You’ll do some damage first, but —”
“Not so at all. I know, now, where the launch sites are, and Cruise Distant will be my first object of attack. The missiles will explode and destroy their own bases.”
“Manned aircraft,” I began, and then my mind cleared a little and I didn’t bother to continue. Manned aircraft wouldn’t carry anything big enough to smash Nodd’s dome. Nodd went on with his infernal boasting: in eight hours’ time more vehicles would have been put into orbit and many of them would in fact carry the UV concentrate that had done for poor Rackstall. Down through the opened-up ozone layer would go Nodd’s lethal dosage, not so much to exterminate life of its own accord — it would disperse too far for that — but to widen the initial hole made by the chlorofluorocarbons so that the burning force of undiluted sun could the better and the more widely do its work. I listened to the verbosity and let it sink in for future retaliatory reference but was totally unable to dream up any way of circumventing it. Handcuffs are a pretty inhibiting factor when all’s said and done … but when Nodd reached the end of his lengthy statement and said we were to go back to our cells and be locked i
n once again until he wanted us back, I found guile returning to me and I managed to secure no less than two concessions; and I secured them because I had remembered Nodd had another weakness to add to that of vanity: his voyeuristic sexual inclination.
I said firmly, “Let Miss Mandrake come to my cell. Call it the condemned man’s last request.”
The weirdo look came into his eyes straight away, an odd sort of gleam accompanied by what looked like increased blood pressure. He said this would be all right, and mutely I lifted my cuffed wrists. He took the point: with cuffs on, there wouldn’t be much to breathe deeply over. He told the guards the cuffs were to come off once we were in my cell. I knew they would go back on the moment we were sent for again, but it would be nice to be free of them for a while, and in any case a plan had shot into my mind. A somewhat desperate one, but better than just waiting for the end. Before we were removed from his gallery, Nodd outlined what would be required of me at zero hour: a final broadcast to the West, the helpless capitalist agent confirming the worst, confirming the infinite power of Nodd and calling loud and clear for agreement to be reached in the name of humankind. Nodd became prosaic for a moment: chlorofluorocarbons, space vehicles and their fuel, the UV concentrate — they all cost a bomb and even WUSWIPP’s purse wasn’t entirely without bottom. Sir Winston Churchill had once said that jaw, jaw was better than war, war and Nodd was inclined to echo the sentiment provided the result went his way. And naturally enough he mentioned Rackstall again in case a wrong word slipped out, though frankly I couldn’t see that wrong words at this stage would be any help to anyone.
*
“Well,” I said when the cuffs were off and the door had been locked.
Felicity looked at me, lifting an eyebrow. “Well, what?”
“Do we give the bastard his money’s worth?”
“I don’t see why not.” Her face was white still, and I saw the lips tremble a little. “There’s so little time …”
Sunstrike_The next gripping Commander Shaw thriller Page 17