The Touch

by Brian Lumley

  Now he jerked awkwardly to his feet to explain what he’d been tasked with and how he had gone about it:

  “My brief was to connect things up, start putting the bits of the puzzle together. I was to explore several lines of inquiry: St. John’s background, his wife, his interest in this so-called psychic healer Simon Salcombe, Salcombe’s location or center of operations in Switzerland, and at least one murder in which Salcombe was suspected of being involved. I’ve been working on all this flat out for a couple of days now, so if I look a bit frayed around the edges, that’s the reason.

  “Very well, so in that order:

  “I found nothing especially weird in St. John’s background . . . but I should point out that he’s not just another man. Something of a linguist, which is how he earns his keep, a patriot, and a martial arts expert: he’s not exactly your typical ‘regular guy.’ But like I said, nothing weird in his life—well, at least until his wife died.

  “Kelly St. John passed away here in London of some exotic, unknown wasting disease. Her life went into a sudden steep dive and didn’t pull out. Then St. John more or less went to pieces; but then, too, it appears that he acquired something special. I mean on the psychic front. We don’t yet know exactly what it is that he’s got, but as we’ve just heard from our experts he does know how to shield himself. And those same experts tell us that whatever it is it’s getting stronger.

  “In connection with Kelly’s death: St. John seems to think Simon Salcombe was somehow responsible; just like us, he’s been trying to track the man down. Up until our bugs were discovered we knew that he was making some headway: he at least knows that Salcombe lives or is situated at a place called Schloss Zonigen in the Swiss Alps. In fact, we’ve used what he had discovered to go one step further and pinpoint the place: it’s a hollow crag, an alleged cryogenic suspension ‘refuge.’ Salcombe is just one of three principals who run the place. But as for finding something—or anything—out about them, forget it! I’ve managed to break into the Swiss Polizei’s main computer; it appears that on three or four occasions they began their own investigations, which always got stalled at the local level. They never seem to progress beyond general police inquiries in the alpine villages around this Schloss Zonigen place. Oh, yes, and by the way: despite our ‘Cosmic Security’ links with Interpol—not to mention seventy percent of the rest of the world’s security services—I was obliged to hack into the Swiss computer. That was because this Schloss Zonigen place has ‘restricted’ pasted all over it!

  “As for what the Swiss investigations were all about:

  “Unsolved abductions/disappearances; accusations of blackmail and alleged ransom demands; financial and banking ‘irregularities,’ and we know how keen the Swiss are on money matters, and so on. It would seem there’s been plenty of charges against Salcombe and Co. but nothing proved: investigations that didn’t go anywhere or got stopped dead in their tracks. It’s almost as if we’re dealing with the Swiss Mafia or something!”

  “Or something,” said Trask, drily. “But do go on . . . well, if there’s anything left to tell.”

  “Only one thing left to talk about,” said Kellway, finally relaxing a little and taking his seat again. “One subject, anyway. And that’s these gruesome murders that Salcombe is thought to have been involved in.”

  Murders? thought Trask. Plural? But it could be a slip of the tongue, so for the time being he let it go.

  “It’s a subject which is of special interest to the boss,” Kellway continued. “Er, which is to say Mr. Trask here; because while everything else in this case has proved to be strange and baffling enough, opposition minister Gregory Stamper’s death—his, er, ‘evagination’?—was right over the top, as weird as hell! But then, so are the other, similar deaths that I’ve been coming across . . .”

  “Deaths?” said Trask, no longer able to let it pass. “Hold on a minute! Other deaths? Like Gregory Stamper’s? But didn’t I give that Stamper job to—”

  “Me,” said David Chung, drawing his attention. “You said I should get someone to look into it, someone who didn’t have too much on his plate. So I gave it to—”

  “Me,” said Kellway, gaunt and nervous again. “I would have reported my findings sooner, this morning perhaps, but you were very busy. And anyway I kept finding these other cases.”

  Trask’s lower jaw had fallen partly open. But now his eyes glinted as he leaned forward and repeated Kellway’s words. “You kept finding these other—?” He paused, took a deep breath, and went on: “Okay. Yes, I understand—and you’re right: I was up to here in work this morning. So maybe you’ll tell us all about it now?”

  And suddenly the room was deathly quiet, waiting for Kellway to clear his throat and carry on . . .

  27

  Taking out an old, battered notebook and opening it, Kellway said, “I have a fair list here, but I’ll try to be brief.

  “Initially we have Stamper: that happened here in the UK, and if Scott St. John is correct in what he believes, his wife is another UK victim; but as yet we’ve no proof of that. Kelly St. John wasn’t damaged or altered to the same incredible, unbelievable degree. But her death certainly seems inexplicable, and she did have a contentious history with Simon Salcombe.

  “And now we move abroad.

  “Some three or four months before the Berlin Wall came down—which is to say, around the middle of July last year—a leading light in the Stasi, East Germany’s Ministry for State Security, a man called Ernst Stenger, disappeared. Stenger, a corrupt, brutal man, with a list of crimes as long as his arm, must have seen what was coming and decided it was time to get out. Since then the Russian, German, British, and a handful of other security services have been looking for him. It was generally believed he’d vanished into Switzerland where for years he’d been squirrelling away Kremlin gold misappropriated out of payments to Stasi underlings. We didn’t find him or the gold, but it appears that someone else did.

  “His body was discovered just a week ago in an expensive villa he’d bought in Innsbruck, Austria; his landlord had gone round to ask about unpaid bills, and the smell took him to the outdoor pool where the water was green as soup and Stenger was floating in it like a large piece of raw, badly butchered meat. He was ‘evaginated,’ yes. He’d been living there under an assumed identity with his twenty years younger wife; she wasn’t to be found, hadn’t been seen for three months. Erika Stenger is still missing, but Ernst’s DNA is what gave him—or his body—away. A funny thing about that DNA, though: it was his, but it was oddly sequenced . . . Don’t ask me; I’m no expert in DNA. Various documents in the villa were seen to contain references to someone called Frau Gerda Lessing at—you’ve guessed it—Schloss Zonigen. Also uncovered at Stenger’s villa: a handful, but just a handful, of Krugerrands. Strange that, because when his maid returned from a visit to her ailing father in Vienna, she told the police she’d frequently come across Stenger counting these coins, each containing a troy ounce of fine gold, in dozens of stacks of twenty, like a big winner’s roulette chips in a casino . . . !

  “All this from our friends in German Intelligence via Interpol. And next, we’re off to Africa:

  “When the UN moved a company of soldiers into Zuganda as a peacekeeping force after General Wilson Gundawei got his, some people from MI6 went with them. The UN didn’t have a lot to do; there wasn’t much trouble; neighbouring Kasabi was satisfied to see its old enemy General Gundawei dead . . . now all the Kasabis wanted was to reestablish their old borders, get back the territory Zuganda had stolen from them. But the UN picked up one of Gundawei’s surviving army officers—one of his bodyguards—a captain who said he’d witnessed the end of it.

  “This fellow put the blame for his General’s death on someone called Guyler Schweitzer, who had flown into Zuganda in his private jet to claim monies—again in gold—that Gundawei was alleged to owe him: some kind of bad debt, apparently. And I’m sure that by now you’ll have noticed how this gold theme keeps croppin
g up like . . . like I don’t know, something from a James Bond novel? Anyway, about Gundawei:

  “His palace had been ransacked and set afire, but in the room where his body was found, apparently his bedroom or harem, there hadn’t been too much damage; there’d been little enough flammable stuff in there, mainly his bed. The General and his son, Peter, were both there, both dead, both murdered—well, according to the Captain. Murdered by Guyler Schweitzer, or so he alleged. But it was the Captain’s bullets that they dug out of the corpses.

  “Peter Gundawei: it was possible he had been dead of AIDS before he was shot. As for his father . . . no one has figured out just why he’d been shot! UN pathologists agreed that it was the bullets that killed him, but he would have died anyway from his, er—”

  “Evagination?” Trask prompted him.

  “Exactly. The pathologist’s report also says the General’s condition must have been due to the intense heat from the burning bed; well, that and his corpulence. Gundawei’s innards, his vital organs, must have somehow overheated and boiled right out of him. Even his brain had come out through his ear. And all of his flesh had sort of curled back from his bones.

  “As for this Guyler Schweitzer—”

  “Schloss Zonigen, right?” This was Trask again.

  “It looks that way. The airport at Zuganda isn’t much, but at least they keep records. Schweitzer’s private jet isn’t his; registered in Geneva, it’s kept at an airstrip in Berne. That’s where its owner/pilot lives, and he hires himself and his plane out to whoever can afford it. But let’s move on:

  “To another Ernst. This time Ernst Zittermensch, the self-styled ‘Lord’ Zittermensch.”

  And again Trask cut in with: “He’s still alive?”

  Kellway nodded. “I even tried to speak to him on the telephone, in connection with his connection to Simon Salcombe, but he wouldn’t talk to me. His butler, however, assured me that he was alive and well and entertaining a young lady! Not bad for a man with inoperable stomach cancer, whose doctors gave him only a few weeks to live—and that was three years ago!”

  Ian Goodly spoke up. “You tried to speak to Zittermensch? But surely you understand how this is dangerous ground and how carefully we need to be treading here? What did you intend saying to him, anyway?”

  Kellway shrugged, but in no way negligently. “I was going to tell him I was seriously ill and thought I might learn something from his experience. Was he satisfied with the treatment he’d received from Simon Salcombe? . . . Something of that nature. I would have used a pseudonym, of course, and if I’d been questioned inordinately would have cut it short. Our secure line is untraceable, and it strikes me that sooner or later we’ll probably be wanting to talk to Zittermensch anyway.”

  “That’s right,” said Trask. “And likewise to this pilot in Berne and anyone else who’s connected. Greg Stamper’s wife, for instance. But go on. What else do you have?”

  “Well there’s quite a bit; I’m still writing up my report, which you’ll have as soon as I’m finished. But there’s at least one more thing I’d better tell you about right now . . .” Kellway paused, then asked, “The Americans haven’t favoured us too much in the past, right?”

  Trask nodded. “It’s true they can be a bit standoffish, a bit jealous where intelligence is concerned. I’m told they sometimes have problems with their own interagency communications. Why do you ask? What’s happened now? They’re not playing ball?”

  “On the contrary,” said Kellway. “In fact, the CIA at Langley have been most accommodating.”

  “The CIA?” said Trask, drily. “I’m amazed!”

  “Oh, they were sort of cool at first,” Kellway continued, “but after we’d matched up ‘inexplicable deaths’ with ‘gold’—then they were onto me like leeches! They had Wilson Gundawei’s death in the computer already, also that of some big Texas oil magnate I’ve never heard of; but when I added Gregory Stamper’s name to the equation—just a mention, without compromising anything or anyone—then they really opened up. Would you believe an intruder, a gold bullion thief . . . at Fort Knox?”

  Still frowning, Trask held up a hand and said, “Wait! Greg Stamper and Fort Knox? Where’s the connection? What’s the CIA’s interest in a dead English Labour politician?”

  “In a word,” Kellway answered, “gold!”

  “Ah!” Trask nodded. “I see where you’re coming from. Stamper’s interests in precious-metal mining concerns.”

  “He was a collector of the stuff!” said Kellway. “Of gold, I mean. And now his wife says she’s nearly broke!”

  Again Trask’s nod. “Okay,” he said. “But now tell us about this Fort Knox thing. What, an intruder, a thief, in Fort Knox? How is that possible?”

  “That’s what the CIA wants to know,” said Kellway. “But at least I can tell you what they told me, and what they showed me on my computer screen.”

  “Wait!” said Trask again. “Did you record it?”

  “Oh, yes. I have it on video, in my office.”

  “Then let’s go to your office. Because as the saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words.”

  “Well, I’ve got more than one,” Kellway replied, standing up. “In fact, an entire sequence, copied from Fort Knox security cameras. Which also includes pictures of a guard, later discovered dead in the gold vaults. Judging by the single star on the epaulette of his fatigues, he . . . he was a lieutenant.” Pausing to lick suddenly dry lips, Kellway gulped and quietly added, “I think I should warn you, however, that you probably won’t want to see those. Not more than a glance anyway . . .”

  Alan Kellway’s “office,” like most of his E-Branch colleagues’ private work areas, was a hotel room—literally. When E-Branch had moved in here and taken over this top floor some years ago, the rooms had not been altered much; they served their purpose. Kellway had worked on most of his investigations in the big Ops Room, once a conference room; but again, like most of the other agents, he escaped whenever he could to his own place and there kept his files, his reports in various stages of completion, and his personal effects. He’d brought the video cassette here (a) to study it, and (b) to keep it secure until it could be handed in.

  Now, with a dozen colleagues crowding the small room, and with Ben Trask directly behind Kellway, watching over his shoulder, he inserted the cassette into the player, fast-forwarding until the blank screen came alive and began to display a short sequence of mainly blurred monochrome stills.

  “The shots were taken automatically, at intervals of some fifteen seconds,” Kellway explained.

  The first picture was of an enormous vaulted area, white-painted walls narrowing in perspective to a far end wall with a circular steel door in an arched-over alcove. The first impression was one of size—of a medium-sized aircraft hangar—but this gave way after just a moment’s viewing to an almost claustrophobic sense of subterranean confinement, so that even without prior knowledge the viewer would “know” that he was looking at an underground facility.

  Then the viewer’s gaze shifted to the layout and precious contents of the place. Elevated catwalks ran the full length of the vault, one at each side, while three wide aisles separated the central area into four ranks of locked, steel-barred cages each containing raised metal pallets loaded with gold bullion. Glowing reflectively in the light of neons in the high ceiling, and glaring blindingly in certain areas, the gold looked as if it were on fire. At the far end of the vault, sufficient space had been left to permit the operation of an unmanned forklift loader, which stood visible in the left-hand aisle. This first picture was starkly clear, its monochrome details standing out in sharp relief except where obscured by the brilliance of the gold.

  The screen blinked and showed a second picture, precisely the same as the first.

  Then another blink and a third picture appeared, in which the details were blurred and off-centre, as if the camera had commenced to vibrate in reaction to some off-screen activity. And there in the right-hand
aisle—having seemingly appeared out of nowhere—stood an abnormally tall, long-necked, stick-thin man in a high-collared kaftan.

  Almost everything about him was very pale: his skin like writing paper; his silvery hair worn in a high, stiff coxcomb; his kaftan so white it almost glowed. Only his eyes—black as jet, deep-seated under thin, tapering silver eyebrows—loaned his features any relief whatsoever; so that combined with the blurring effect, and much like the glare from the gold itself, the tall figure was almost painful to look at.

  “Only a fifteen-second interval?” murmured Trask under his breath. “Then where did this fellow come from?”

  “Good question,” said Kellway. “I wish I knew the answer—and so do the FBI, the CIA, and especially the military bigwigs at Fort Knox! But keep watching; the strangest is yet to come.” Needless advice, for the attention of everyone in the room was riveted to the screen.

  Blink! And the tall man was inside one of the cages, stooping to grasp a bar of gold!

  “What!?” said Trask, leaning closer. “But those cages are locked. And their bars are . . . what, maybe six inches apart? I mean, he’s not that thin, is he? Or is he?”

  Blink! There were three bars of gold on the floor of the aisle; they could only have been passed through the bars of the cage and let fall. The tall man was bent over a fourth bar, but his head was cocked in a listening attitude.

  “That’s when the sensors in the pallets would have picked him up,” said Kellway. “If you disturb the weight, the balance, you set off the alarms. And yet—”

  Blink!”—Well he doesn’t appear all that much concerned, now does he? Except maybe he’s working a little faster.”

  Blink! Another badly blurred picture appeared.