The Sky is Falling td-63

by Warren Murphy

  The colonel told him exactly who had given him the orders to run Remo around.

  "Thank you, old boy," said Remo.

  Just off Piccadilly Circus, in an old Tudor building, stood the office of MI-12. It was inconspicuous in the extreme. Seemingly a tobacconist's shop on street level, a side door led up a single staircase to a second floor with dusty windows. Actually, they were ground opaque, impenetrable to eyesight or listening device, and looked remarkably like the windows in a quaint library. But inside, a crack team of British Special Service chaps lurked as a cunning trap for anyone daring to penetrate MI-12.

  This was the building, the colonel said, that housed the station chief who gave him orders. Would Remo be so kind as to give him back the use of his legs?

  "Later," said Remo. He got the same promise from the driver by running his hands down the spinal column and creating a small nerve block in a lower spinal vertebra.

  "Be right back, old boy," said Remo.

  Remo opened the door and saw the stairway leading up to the second floor. The place could have bottled the must and sold it. The wooden steps creaked. They were dry and old and brittle. They would have creaked under a mouse. But Remo did not like making noise when he moved. His system rebelled against it. He set his balance to ease the wood, to be part of the age of the wood, so that he now moved quietly upward. But he had made the first noise.

  A door opened at the top of the stairs and an elderly man called down:

  "Who is it? Can we be of service?"

  "Absolutely," Remo said. "I've come to see the station chief of MI-12, whatever that is."

  "This is the Royal Society of Heraldry Manuscripts. We are sort of a library," came back the voice.

  "Good. I'll look at your manuscripts," said Remo.

  "Well, can't be done, old boy."

  "It's going to be done."

  "Please be so kind as to stay where you are," said the elderly man.

  "Not at all," said Remo.

  "I am afraid we are going to have to give you your last warning."

  "Good," said Remo. There wasn't going to be any surprise. He already heard the feet. They had the steady light movement of athletes: trained feet, trained bodies. Hard. They were getting into position upstairs. There were seven of them.

  "All right, come on up if you wish," said the man.

  By the time Remo got to the top of the stairs he could smell their lunches. The men had had beef and perk. The odor was about a half-hour strong in their bodies. They would move slower.

  As Remo entered the room, two men came up behind him with what were supposed to be catlike movements. Remo ignored them.

  "Suppose you tell us, young man, why you think this is MI-12?" said the elderly gentleman who had answered the door.

  "Because I dragged a colonel two hundred yards along one of your lovely roads until he told me it was," said Remo. "But look, I don't have time for pleasantries. Take me to the station chief."

  The cool muzzle of a small-caliber pistol came up to Remo's head.

  "I am afraid you are going to have to make time for pleasantries," said a deep voice. At that point, the pistol nudged the back of Remo's head, presumably to make Remo more cooperative.

  "Let me guess," said Remo. "This is where I'm supposed to spin around, see the gun, and turn to quivering jelly. Right?"

  "Quite," said the elderly man.

  Remo snapped back an elbow far enough to catch the pistol and send it into the ancient ceiling like a rock into dried mud. The pistol went with its owner. A shower of old plaster and Spackle exploded over the room like a snowstorm.

  A bulky commando type stepped out from a wall with a short stabbing dagger, angling for Remo's solar plexus. Remo sent him back into the wall with a side kick. The elderly man ducked, and from behind him appeared a lieutenant in full uniform, who began firing a submachine gun. The first burst came straight at Remo. There was no second burst because the bullets appeared to Remo like a line of softballs coming at him. Fast enough to hurt, but slow enough to dance around, even before they had left the barrel. His body allowed itself to sense the slow stream, and move through and then beyond it to its source.

  The lieutenant, lacking such skill, found himself without gun and very much smashing backward into the steel door he had vowed with his life to defend.

  The door shivered on its drop-forged pins and came down in the next room like a bridge over a moat.

  Remo stepped over the unconscious officer into an office.

  A man in gray sports jacket looked up from his desk to see that his penetration-proof cover had been penetrated by a thick-wristed young man in dark slacks, T-shirt and loafers, using no other weapon, apparently, than a knowing smile.

  "Hi," said Remo. "I'm from America. You're expecting the one Colonel Winstead-Jones was supposed to dilly around London with wine, drugs; and women."

  "Oh yes. Top-secret and all that. Well, welcome, Remo. What can we do for you?" asked the man, lighting a meerschaum pipe carved to resemble the head of some British queen. He had a long-nosed, gaunt-cheeked patrician face and a toothy smile. His sandy hair might have been combed by a lawn mower. He didn't rise. He didn't even look upset. He most certainly did not look like a man whose defenses had been turned to broken plaster. "We have a problem with something that's poking holes in the ozone layer, and the possibility that if we don't fry slow from the sun, we are going to fry fast from Russian nukes," said Remo.

  "Would you kindly explain to me how this involves you barging in here and throwing our people around? I would ever so much like to know why."

  The station chief took a puff of his pipe. He had spoken most pleasantly. Remo most pleasantly slapped the pipe out of his mouth, along with some frontal teeth thal looked too long for anything from a human head outside of the British Isles.

  Remo apologized for his American rudeness.

  "I'm trying to head off World War III, so I'm in kind of a rush," said Remo.

  "Well, that does put a bit of a different complexion on the matter," admitted the station chief, shaking his head. He did not shake too hard because blood was coming from his nose. He thought a brisk shake might loosen some of the brain matter above his nostrils. "Yes. Well, orders came from the Admiralty."

  "Why the Admiralty?"

  "You can kill me, old top, but I never will tell you," he said. But when Remo took a step toward him, he hastily added; "Because I don't know. Haven't the foggiest."

  Remo took the station chief along. He took him by the waist, careful not to bloody things as he trundled him downstairs past his own dazed guards into the car. At the Admiralty, he found the officer identified by the station chief. He explained about the tradition of American-English cooperation.

  The commander in charge of a special intelligence detail appreciated this long friendship. He also appreciated the use of his lungs which Remo promised to leave in his body. Considering that the way Remo was stretching his ribs, losing the lungs was a distinct possibility. The commander made every effort to figure out what Remo was talking about.

  Since Remo was never good at explaining technical matters, this was not easy. It sounded like the sky was opening up for some reason. Then the commander, in great pain, recognized what Remo was looking for. The Jodrell Bank telescope fellows had tracked something. Remo brought the naval officer along. It was becoming crowded in the back seat. In the entire crowd no one could tell him why they were not willingly cooperating with their best ally.

  "Well, sir, if you didn't use violence we would be significantly more cooperative." This from Winstead-Jones, who had told the others about being dragged outside the car.

  "I didn't use it till you weren't," said Remo. The car was very comfortable. The Jodrell Bank fellows, as they were called, were surprisingly cooperative. Strangely, they were the only ones not part of the British defense establishment.

  Yes, they had tracked the beam. Somewhere west. Probably America. They were delighted to explain the details of the tracking. B
asically one could tell precisely where the ozone shield was penetrated, and thus determine precisely where the unfiltered rays landed by the angle of the sun in relation to the earth.

  Remo knew where they had landed in England early that morning. That was why he was here. The Jodrell Bank fellows knew a little more. The unfiltered rays had penetrated above the fishing village of Malden.

  Remo returned to the car with the good news. No one was moving. Everyone knew someone should have left the car for help against the brutal American but the problem had been who. They had ordered the driver to do just that. The driver said his orders were to stay at the wheel, so the little piece of defense establishment was waiting for Remo.

  "Hello. Good to see you back," said the colonel. The station chief stayed conscious as a way of greeting and the commander breathed.

  "We're going to Malden," said Remo cheerfully.

  "Oh, so you found it," said the colonel. "You won't need us then."

  "You knew everything I was looking for. Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Orders."

  "From whom?"

  "You know, those people who always give orders and then aren't there when the blood begins to flow, I would say."

  "But we're allies," said Remo. "This thing threatens the whole world."

  "Orders don't have to make sense. If they made sense anyone could obey them. The real test of a soldier is following orders no matter how unfounded they are in common sense."

  On the way to Malden Remo tried to find out who had ordered them not to be cooperative. Did they know something he didn't know?

  "It's intelligence, old man. No one trusts anyone else," said the station chief.

  "I trust you," said Remo.

  "Then who ordered you here?"

  "You wouldn't understand," said Remo. "But take my word for it, the world is going to go up. Even with your separate departments."

  Remo noticed a radio telephone near the driver's leg. He wondered if he could use it. The driver explained it was very simple. The problem was whether to talk over a very open line. If they didn't get that thing penetrating the ozone shield, there wouldn't be any reason for secrecy. He used the radiophone into which the whole world could listen.

  "Open line, Smitty," said Remo when he heard Smith answer.

  "Okay. Go ahead."

  "Located source."

  "Good."

  "It's definitely the east coast."

  "We already knew that. Could you be a bit more specific? The east coast is larger than most countries."

  "That's what I have so far."

  "Yes, well. Good. Thank you. I take it there will be more."

  "Soonest."

  "Good luck. Don't worry about open lines. Anything you get. Anything."

  "Right," said Remo. It was the first time he had ever heard Smith's voice crack.

  In Malden, everybody seemed to know everybody else's business. It was a small quaint village and yes, there was an experiment going on, some people thought by their own government.

  In a small field, white-frocked technicians examined cages. Everyone but Remo looked at the field. Remo's training had given his instinct the full power others had stifled. And the main part of that power was a sense of danger. It was not the field he looked at.

  It was the sky itself that seemed to say, "Man, your time has come." In the gray gloom of clouds choked with industrial char, a small, perfect sapphire-blue circle was closing. It was not the blue of sky, but closer to neon, yet without its harshness. It was as though a blue gem had been electrified by the sun, and then its light sprinkled into a small circle in the sky. Remo watched this circle close as the driver pointed to the field and said:

  "That's it."

  It was its beauty that alarmed Remo. He had seen great jewels and felt the fire that other men longed for, even though he had never longed for it. He remembered one of Chiun's early lessons. Like so many teachings then, he was not to understand it until much later. But Chiun had said that things in nature of great beauty were often the ones to watch most closely.

  "The weak disguise themselves in dull colors of the ground. But the deadly flaunt themselves to attract victims."

  "Yeah. What about a butterfly?" Remo had said.

  "When you see the most beautiful butterfly in the world, stop. Do not touch. Touch nothing you are attracted to touch."

  "Sounds like a dull life."

  "Do you think I am talking about your entertainment?"

  "Sure," Remo had said. "I don't know what you are talking about."

  "Yes," Chiun had said. "You don't."

  Years later, Remo had realized Chiun was teaching him how to think. Something was beautiful for a reason. Something was attractive for a reason. Often the most venomous things cloaked themselves in glory to attract their victims. Yet in the sky, what Remo saw was not something that intended its beauty as a lure, but the awesome indifference of the universe. It could end millions of lives without caring or even intending to, because in its basic atomic logic, life did not matter. Remo looked at the beautiful blue closing ring and thought of these things as the security officer kept repeating that the field he wanted was in front of him.

  "Okay," said Remo to the car full of British security personnel. "Don't move."

  "How can we?" said the Navy commander. His uniform had lost one of the fifteen medals he had earned by never going to sea. "I haven't felt my legs for an hour."

  The field smelled of burning. This little patch of England was not green, but flecked with dead dried grass, pale white as though someone had left it in a desert for an afternoon. Several cages on metal tables held the blackened bodies of animals. Remo could smell the sweet sticky odor of burned flesh. Nothing moved in the cages. A few people in white coats stood around the tables, filling in forms. One of the white-coated workers gathered the dead grass. Another was packaging the earth into beakers and then sealing them in plastic. One of them banged his watch.

  "It doesn't work," he said. He had a sharp British accent. It was a strange thing about that language that one could measure the class by the tones, as though on a calibrated scale of one to ten: the ten being royalty and the accent being muted; the one being cockney, its accent very strong like a sharp pepper sauce. The man complaining about his watch was a seven, his broad accent of the upper classes but with a trace of cockney whine.

  "Hello," said Remo.

  "Yes, what can I do for you?" said the man, shaking his watch. Several other technicians looked at their watches.

  Two of them worked, three of them didn't. The man's face had the pale British look as though bleached of sunlight and joy. A face designed for drizzle and gloom, and possibly a shot of whiskey every so often to make it all bearable.

  Even if he hadn't spoken with an accent, Remo would have known he was British. Americans would attend to a watch problem before dealing with any stranger.

  "I am curious about this experiment. There might be some danger here, and I want to know what you're doing," said Remo.

  "We have our licenses and permits, sir," said the technician.

  "For what?" said Remo.

  "For this experiment, sir."

  "What exactly is it?"

  "It is a limited, safe, controlled test of the effects of the sun without filtration by ozone. Now may I ask whom you are with?"

  "Them," said Remo, nodding to the car filled with British security.

  "Well, they certainly look impressive, but who are they?"

  "Your security forces."

  "Do they have identification of sorts? Sorry, but I must see identification."

  Remo shrugged. He went back to the car and asked for everyone's identification. One of them, still groggy, handed up his wallet with money.

  "This isn't a robbery," said Remo.

  "I thought it was," said the dazed representative of the ultrasecret MI-12.

  "No," said Remo, adding his clearance card to the other cards and plastic face-picture badges. He brought a handful of id
entifications back to the technician. The technician looked at the identifications and gasped at one of them.

  "Gracious. You've got a staff officer in there."

  "One of them," said Remo. "There is an intelligence guy there, too."

  "Yes. Quite. So. I see," said the technician, giving back the identifications. Remo pocketed them in case he might need them again. "What would you like?" asked the technician.

  "Who are you?"

  "I am a technician from Pomfritt Laboratories of London," said the technician.

  "What are you doing here? Precisely. What's going on?"

  The man launched himself into a detailed explanation of fluorocarbon and the power of the sun, and the harnessing of the unfiltered rays of the sun and finding out in a "controlled"-he stressed "controlled "-atmosphere just what mankind could do with the sun's full power.

  "Burn ourselves to cinders," said Remo, who understood perhaps half of what the technician was talking about. "Okay, what is doing it, and where is it?"

  "A controlled fluorocarbon beam generator."

  "Good," said Remo. "Where is that fluorocarbon ... thing?"

  "At its base."

  "Right. Where?" said Remo.

  "I'm not sure, but as you can see, this experiment is marvelously controlled," said the technician. He gave his wristwatch a little tap again to get it going. It didn't.

  "Why aren't you sure?" asked Remo.

  "Because it's not our product. We're just testing it."

  "Good. For whom?"

  The technician gave Remo a name and an address. It was in America. This confirmed some of the data he had gotten from the intelligence people in the car. He returned to the car and asked for the telephone.