by John Creasey
“I am not joking. In my considered view smog is becoming a killer-gas against which there is no defence. Physicists everywhere in the world are working day and night to find if there is a natural cause of the startling increases. It is for the authorities to seek out any other, man-made, cause, and stamp it out. Better that the rate of human social progress should be delayed by a decade or so, than that civilisation should be wiped out.”
Country after country had turned to Palfrey and Z5 to find if there were a man-made source, and the nations, through U.N.O., had taken the almost unprecedented step of putting all their resources of research, police and security at the Department’s disposal. There were local and national conferences, at various levels; and one was to be held here, at Z5’s headquarters, this evening.
So far, there had been no clues; nothing except the continuing and terrifying rate of increase in air pollution even in areas normally clear. But never before had there been a report of anything like the concentrated pollution at Sane. And never before had the once-thought ‘alarmist’ prophecies of Professor Smith been so terrifyingly fulfilled.
Palfrey was toying with his hair.
“Nothing else reported on the Sane scale?” he asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” Joyce assured him. “It’s the first time there’s been any indication that there might be a deliberate attempt to—” she broke off again. “But you’re going to tell the Conference all this.”
“Yes,” agreed Palfrey. “Is the Conference Room ready?”
“Of course.”
“Wall map, the lot?”
“Everything.”
“Did any of those coming protest at being asked to attend?”
“I think they’re very curious,” Joyce said.
Palfrey smiled, a little vaguely, patted the hair down onto his forehead, pondered, and then looked down at the lists of towns and cities so grievously affected. At last, he looked up.
“Is there any further word from Winchester?”
“Professor Storr has taken three apartments on the same floor of a block of flats on the East Cliff, at Bournemouth, but that’s all.”
“He doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet. Costain?”
“With Professor Storr’s party at the Winchester Hotel.”
“There’s not much doubt that Drummond was involved,” Palfrey said thoughtfully. “It’s quite possible that his wife may have known something of what he was doing, or at least, whom he worked with. Where is she?”
“Here.”
“Conscious?”
“She was still under sedation when I saw her at two o’clock but I think they were allowing her to come round,” said Joyce. “Shall I find out?”
“I’ll go along and see for myself,” Palfrey said.
Joyce watched him go, frowningly. She knew him in all of his moods, in his hopes and fears, and had no shadow of doubt that he was deeply worried, which meant only one thing: he was utterly baffled. He had a quality which was quite uncanny, of seeing the potential danger of almost any situation and he saw the ultimate effects in his imagination before anyone else began to understand – except, possibly, Professor Erasmus Smith.
On the lowest floor was the Z5 hospital, fully equipped for every kind of surgery and treatment, with physiotherapy rooms, heat treatment, massage, sauna baths. And there were rooms for treatment as well as for convalescence. Palfrey went down in the lift and walked along well lit passages until he came to the hospital administration offices. A young woman in a white smock and wearing a nurse’s cap took him to Dr. Crabtree, who was in charge. Crabtree was a short man with a swarthy face, heavy features, thick lips – one of the least prepossessing men Palfrey knew. He was also one of the gentlest and kindest. His smile brightened his face and relieved it of the almost simian expression.
They shook hands, Palfrey towering head and shoulders above the other.
“Of course you have come about the new patient,” Crabtree guessed. “I went to see her myself only half an hour ago, and she was coming round. I am not hopeful, however. Nor is Dr. Masak, who is in charge of her case. Would you like to see him in Mrs. Drummond’s room?”
“Please,” Palfrey said.
“Then come.” Crabtree put on a white smock which, obviously not made for him, stretched over his rounded shoulders awkwardly. Palfrey put on a loose fitting smock and they went along aseptically clean passages until reaching swing doors marked: ‘Observation Rooms’. Here were six small rooms in which patients could be kept under the closest observation not only medically but by means of closed-circuit television, and tape-recorders which could pick up the slightest whisper. Occasionally, a word or two uttered in sleep would give Z5 some vital clue in a case of great importance.
A very tall, dark-skinned man in a white smock was standing in front of one of the windows, earphones clamped to his pear-shaped head. He turned as the others approached, and took the earphones off. Immediately, noise came from them – squeaks of sound rather like atmospherics from a radio. But as they drew closer, the squeaks obviously became screams which, if not muted by the earphones, could be high-pitched and wild.
“Dr. Palfrey,” acknowledged the tall dark man, Dr. Masak. “I am afraid she will have to rest for a much longer period. She came round and immediately tried to kill herself.”
Palfrey and Crabtree reached the one way window. In the room beyond, two male nurses were holding Mrs. Drummond down as she screamed and hurled her body about. A young woman stood, hypodermic in hand, ready to give an injection which would bring at least temporary comfort.
Gradually, one phrase forced itself onto Palfrey’s conscience, a single phrase repeated over and over again.
“Let me die!” she screamed. “Let me die! … Let me die!”
At last they had her still enough to plunge the needle into her arm, and the effect was almost instantaneous. The screaming stopped, and she lay still as the corpse her anguish made her want to be.
“Guard her every minute, every second,” Palfrey said. “She mustn’t harm herself, and she must be ready for questioning by tomorrow morning at the absolute latest.”
“If it is possible,” said Dr. Masak in his courteous way, “it will be so.”
Chapter Nine
The Conference
“Dr. Palfrey,” Crabtree said, when they were back in his office.
“Yes?”
“You know that if we use stimulant drugs on that woman she might not recover.”
“I know that only too well.”
“Is it so essential to make her talk?”
“I think so,” Palfrey said.
“Forgive me—but is it good enough to ‘think’ so when a life—or at the very least, sanity—is at stake?”
Palfrey looked at him and saw the pleading in his brown eyes. One reason, perhaps the chief reason, why Crabtree was in charge here was the depth of his compassion and the fact that he would fight desperately for every patient. This meant, in turn, that Palfrey or whoever was making decisions would be compelled to think deeply. No risk with anyone’s life or sanity would ever be taken unless the risk offered the only hope of finding answers which might save not one, but hundreds, thousands, at times millions of human beings.
Palfrey smiled.
“Before we use the drugs,” he said, “I will be absolutely sure.”
He went away, straight up to the Operations Room. He was so used to it that the big chamber did not have the impact on him that it would have on a stranger, and still had on agents who saw it only occasionally. It was the nerve centre of Z5, and it was the creation of Palfrey and several electronic experts who had built it over the years. It had one high wall, built in a half-circle, which showed the whole world in a Mercator relief with embellishments which made the identification of every part of it easier to follow.
Two of the minders of this wall – each a physicist of high repute – were always on duty; there was a staff of eight, with a relief for each man.
On the wall immediately opposite this was the control panel. From this Z5 could get in touch with its tens of thousands of agents throughout the world, and take reports from all of them. In the room beyond this panel were the records of the agents, dossiers on each one giving every conceivable detail about their activities and their potential. There had been times when assaults had been made on the agents and as recently as the past year there had been widespread defections caused by a brain-washing drug which had caused divided loyalties.[1] But this was over. Today, every agent in every country in the world was known to be absolutely reliable.
And on the previous day each had been instructed to check the local situation for carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide – in other words, smog. These were the reports which Joyce had referred to and now Palfrey studied the reports more closely. He had an almost photographic memory but he had never concentrated more than he did that day to assess the facts, so that he could present them to those who would be at the conference.
At five minutes to six, chairs had been placed in the Operations Room as for a small meeting on a revolving ‘stage’ so that if Palfrey wanted to refer his audience to the world map or to the Control and Report panels, they would find themselves being turned round. This was a recent innovation which had never been used extensively before.
At three minutes to six, the Home Secretary – Mr. Alan Clitheroe – arrived with Sir Maxwell Denton, the Commissioner of Police at Scotland Yard. They were followed closely by the others who had been briefed to attend. Almost the last to come in, by Palfrey’s special invitation, was a short, tubby, cherubic-looking man with a mop of iron-grey hair. This was Professor Erasmus Smith.
When they were all seated, Palfrey explained briefly how they would be rotated on the turntable, and then, his back to the map wall, he began to talk of his fears.
“You understand, gentlemen,” he said, “that I am not directly responsible to the British or to any one government, but to all. The danger of smog is hardly a new one, and might not be considered a case for Z5 to investigate but for the fact that there is no world authority attempting to deal with the problem. We all know the gravity of air pollution in certain cities; what hasn’t been obvious until the past year or two is the increased danger in many of them—and in parts of the countryside of highly populated countries where there is a concentration of automobiles.”
He paused; and one of the Civil Servants asked: “Isn’t there some degree of exaggeration in assessments of the pollution, Dr. Palfrey?”
Erasmus Smith turned a snort into a sharp cough.
“Conceivably,” said Palfrey, evading Smith’s eye. “But there is much greater danger in underestimating the pollution. At the request of national and international conferences, we have been watching the situation very closely. There was a purely arbitrary figure of .05% as the maximum safety level—any greater proportion being irritating to all human beings and animals, dangerous to some, even lethal to others. There have been estimates also of the danger to plant life and to fruit and vegetables of any higher proportion than .05%. In Los Angeles, when the cloud-cover has been low or when there has been no wind, the concentration has sometimes been as high as .09% but this was exceptional. Only on certain days and in certain atmospheric conditions is this likely. However, at the beginning of Z5’s inquiries, only eleven cities reached the danger level of .05% pollution on more than ten days in a year. Certain facts were then known. Photo-chemical smog does not occur by night, for instance. Sulphurous pollution is usually stronger in cold weather than in warm, while the widespread use of air-conditioning in the United States of America also creates a high rate of sulphurous pollution. Winds, rain and temperature, these, too, have an effect on the density of smog. Irrespective of these factors, however, the overall degree of increase has been quite startling.” He paused, and some figures were thrown onto a small screen close to him. “Here are the original ten cities: Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Chicago, New York, Milan, Glasgow, Essen, Pittsburgh and Detroit.”
The names, placed in a column, showed up clearly on the screen.
“After three months a further twenty-nine cities were added,” Palfrey said, and this time he simply gave his audience time to read the names, now in three columns. “In another three months we were up to forty-eight cities and the latest figures show that seventy-one cities and towns are affected. The best way to show the rate of growth is through the world projection. The cities in the first list are shown with a red light—” The brightness in the room faded and tiny red lights appeared in ten places; the names of the cities showed in white. “Now, the blue light represents the first three months’ growth.” Now, lights appeared all over the projection, but there was a noticeable concentration on highly industrialised areas, particularly London, the Midlands and Manchester in England, Ohio, Illinois and New York in the United States, in Tokyo and parts of Europe. “You see there is very little in the emergent countries, more in South America, Africa, only one in China—Pekin—and only one in Russia—Moscow. However, when the next count was taken there were several small towns and districts in countries where there is little concentration of industry and where there is still very little motor traffic. These places are shown by the pink lights.”
He stopped speaking, and studied the faces of the men who sat there – each looking from one light to another, absorbing what they saw as well as what they were being told. Even Professor Smith seemed impressed by Palfrey’s grasp of the situation.
“Now—the amber lights show the new concentrations,” Palfrey went on.
The room went a little darker, and the lights against the cities showed up much more vividly. The whole world seemed to be covered; Bombay and Calcutta now appeared in India, Buenos Aires in the Argentine, Johannesburg in South Africa, Canton in China, Leningrad and one of the Ural cities in Russia, Copenhagen, Oslo and Brussels.
A man said: “This is alarming, surely.”
“A report has been sent each three months to all governments,” Palfrey said. “Some countries have taken special remedial steps, the major car manufacturing nations either have already introduced or are about to introduce legislation to control the most common form of contamination—through the exhausts of motorcars. However, powerful lobbies against this expensive control have been fairly successful, and there is not a single instance of an area having a diminishing concentration.”
“What has our attitude been in England?” one man asked.
Palfrey glanced at the Home Secretary.
“Sceptical,” answered Clitheroe, bluntly.
“Has it been taken seriously anywhere before this?” the Minister of Food and Agriculture asked. He was an elderly man, a practical farmer, an astute politician. “I confess that we have been sceptical despite warnings from the United States.”
“I’d like to go into what warnings there have been later,” Palfrey said. “Certainly the danger from smog has been taken more seriously in America than elsewhere but powerful lobbies in Washington have slowed down legislation. One thing should be made clear, however. Until yesterday there was no indication anywhere in the world that the contamination of the atmosphere was other than incidental—the gradual growth of the motorcar and greater concentrations of industry. Professor Smith—” he nodded towards Smith and others turned towards the tubby little man – “warned us that it was possibly a natural phenomenon, but also made it clear that it might be due to some additive constituent in fuel. We are looking for any such. And in the Hampshire village of Sane, only yesterday morning, there was a concentration of smog so great that—”
Palfrey stopped speaking, and instead of the lists of zones, a moving picture appeared – of the village of Sane buried under the pall of smog. There were pictures of the surrounding country
side, of the roofs of houses and the church tower, of the Manor, of the way the smog had crept towards the Manor only that morning.
At last, Palfrey began to speak again.
“As you will have read, there were no survivors in the village. It is likely to be weeks before the affected area can be decontaminated. There is little doubt that this morning’s release of the gas was quite deliberate.”
“But why?” demanded one of the Army representatives.
“Possibly as a demonstration of what can be done,” Palfrey replied. “It hardly needs saying that if concentrations of the smog were to be released through any major service—gas, water, sewage or even electric conduit, a whole town could be wiped out as quickly and as easily as the village was. And that is my concern, gentlemen,” Palfrey added, grimly. “The possible imminence of the danger.”
After a long pause, Clitheroe said: “I don’t really understand you, Palfrey. Why should this one instance suggest widespread danger? The cumulative harmful effect I can understand, but I don’t follow your reasoning over the Sane disaster.”
Palfrey didn’t speak at once.
“Good question,” said the Army representative.
“Yes, indeed,” said the Minister of Food.
“Easy to answer,” said a man named Endicott who was from Fulton, one of the nation’s leading experts on poison gases. He was a tall, bald-headed man wearing heavy, horn-rimmed spectacles. “You need to know why the concentrations all round the world are so much greater, don’t you, Palfrey? Is it the gradual increase due to greater use of petrol and other oils, aided and abetted by neglect, or has it been created wilfully? If the latter, there must be supplies in certain areas and means of distribution easily available.”