Defilers

by Brian Lumley

  “Then there’s Palataki,” Trask went on, “or the ‘Little Palace,’ as the locals refer to it. We can’t be absolutely certain what’s there, but whatever it is it has to be of Vavara’s doing. She’s been here long enough to have created some sort of garden like that nightmarish cavern under the Pleasure Dome in Xanadu. It’s mainly guesswork, I admit, but going on what Liz and David seem to have detected there it’s our best bet. Malinari, Vavara, and presumably Szwart, too … it looks like they’ve been lying low while they created these bloody vampire mushroom farms. And I won’t insult your intelligence by attempting to explain their purpose. But when I think of Szwart, somewhere under London … my God!” Trask lurched upright, clenched his fists in a mixture of fury and frustration, and commenced pacing the floor in what little space there was.

  And when he’d got himself under control again: “So then, what have we got going for us, and what are we up against? Or I’ll put it another way. Since we seem to have very little going for us, what’s against us?

  “Well, the answer to that is just about every-bloody-thing! If I thought we had time to spare, it might be possible to call for air strikes from a British warship in the Med. But for that they’d need pinpoint accuracy—grid references off an Ordnance Survey map simply wouldn’t do it—and we don’t have our techs out here as yet. And of course this weather, all of the sunspot activity and what have you, is playing merry hell with our gadgets back home, so that even if we could talk to our people we couldn’t use satellite surveillance.

  “So that’s about it. It’s highly unlikely we’ll be able to call for naval support, time definitely isn’t on our side, and the longer we sit twiddling our thumbs, the greater the chance we’ll be discovered.

  “In which event there are two possibilities. One, that Malinari and Vavara will try to take us out, which seems unlikely; he’s met up with us before and knows we aren’t a pushover. Two, that they’ll turn those nuns loose to cover their escape. I for one have had enough of Malinari escaping. I feel tike—I don’t know—tike Nayland Smith, I suppose, on the trail of Fu Manchu: I want the bastard dead!”

  Trask stopped pacing, flopped down on his bed, and finally finished off with, “Well, that’s where we’re at. Right now I’m waiting to talk to London HQ, let them know how things are, and find out what’s happening with them. But it’s not all bad news. Yiannis stopped me as we came in; he was all excited about the weather, going on about how it’s breaking over northern Europe, and how the sunspot activity is easing off. Fine, but even if I get a clear line later tonight, still we can’t expect any reinforcements before midday tomorrow. Until then we’re on our own. So that’s me done, people, and now it’s your turn. I could use some clever ideas, because frankly I’m fresh out …”

  He looked at Manolis, said, “You had something to say?”

  Manolis nodded. “Today, on our way back from Skala Rachoniou, myself and Andreas, we went to take a look at thee marble quarry and thee airport. It’s a Sunday, nobody doing thee work … just security guards at both places. Huh! Security guards! But this is Greece—or more especially a Greek island—and security isn’t what it used to be. No one tries too hard on an island where you can’t make a getaway. And what is there worth stealing in a marble quarry anyway, eh? Or a deserted, disused airport, for that matter?”

  “You tell me,” said Trask, frowning.

  “Dynamite!” said Manolis. “In thee quarry, a shack with a rusty padlock, watched over by an ouzo-soaked, sleepy old man who looks more like a shepherd than a watchman. It will be—how do you say it—tike taking thee lollipop from thee baby?”

  “Candy,” said Liz.

  “Ah, yes, thee candy!” Manolis nodded. “Thee big sticks of very powerful candy. And at thee airport, an underground reservoir of high-octane aviation gasoline. Avgas, Ben, with access through a hangar. And standing in thee hangar, a loaded tanker waiting for tomorrow morning, to be driven to Krassos town and ferried across to thee mainland. At least, that’s where it was destined for. But now … ?”

  Trask thought about it, smiled grimly, and asked, “Can you do it? You and your men?”

  “Can thee fishes swim?” said Manolis. “So then, here is my suggestion. Since my men aren’t thee mindspies and can’t be of use in that kind of surveillance, we’ll send them to make thee necessary, er, acquisitions, which they’ll later deliver to us at a prearranged time and location somewhere on thee coast road between Palataki and thee monastery. What do you say?”

  As Manolis’s plan had unfolded, Trask’s eyes had lost something of their dullness. Now they gleamed where they looked for the approval of the rest of the team, his gaze moving from face to face. “Well?” he said.

  “It’s a very horrible thought,” Ian Goodly couldn’t manage to suppress a shudder, “but it would explain the burning … .”

  And David Chung said, “A big tanker like that, it could go right in through the monastery’s gates, tearing them open like tissue paper. And a stick of dynamite in the right place …”

  And Liz asked Manolis, “Isn’t it a lot to ask of your men? I mean, are you absolutely sure they can do it?”

  But Manolis shook his head. “Liz, there are no absolutes, no certainties here,” he said. “So what can I tell you? But if you’re asking are they qualified … believe me, they are more than equal to thee task.”

  “So how will they go about it?” Trask asked. “I don’t want the nitty-gritty, just the big picture. You’ve obviously given it some thought.”

  Manolis nodded. “Stavros here was for three years a driver in thee Greek military. Anything with wheels, he can drive it. But he goes with Andreas only as a passenger on thee first leg of their short trip.”

  Trask said, “I see. Andreas drops him off close to the airport, where he’ll, er, appropriate the tanker.”

  “He will rescue it, yes,” said Manolis. “And while he does that, Andreas will be driving on to thee quarry—”

  “—To rescue the dynamite,” Trask nodded. “But dynamite is dangerous stuff.”

  Manolis beamed. “Precisely! And before he joined me in thee drugs squad, Andreas was with antiterrorism. He is thee expert with thee explosives.”

  Andreas offered a slightly intimidating grin, puffed up his massive chest, sighed, and gave a self-deprecating shrug.

  “But it has to be tonight,” Manolis reminded everyone, “for tomorrow thee tanker won’t be there. And a thing as big as that—thee biggest weapon in our arsenal—we can’t simply take it and hide it away until it is needed. If we’re going to take it, we’re going to have to use it.”

  Again Trask nodded. “That’s understood.” He stood up. “And the beauty of it is we still have some time—several hours at least—to make up our minds. Now I suggest we take a break in The Shipwreck. This place is much too confining and I feel shut in. We’ll be a lot more comfortable in the bar, and we can have Yiannis or Katerina fix sandwiches. If we stay apart from other guests and keep the volume down, we should be able to talk just as well there as here.”

  “Good!” Lardis Lidesci grunted. “I’m hungry—not to mention thirsty. Listening to you lot prattle on … well it’s very dry work.”

  “But if you’re thinking of Metaxa,” Trask told him, “you’re allowed just one. It’s looking more and more like tonight could be the night. If so, then later we’ll be needing our wits about us.”

  “One last drink to success, then,” said Manolis. “It sounds good to me …”

  The Shipwreck was empty. But the small television set above the bar was working. The evening news was showing, and at long last it was watchable. As Yiannis had reported, the sunspot activity seemed to be waning; all the hissing and crackling, the bilious flashes of static, and the fading in and out no longer entirely obliterated either the sound from the speakers or the screen’s images. It was still a far cry from being good, but it was the best it had been for quite some time.

  Yiannis must have seen Trask and the others walking tow
ards the bar, for they had no sooner settled in their chairs than he entered and served drinks. They ordered toasted sandwiches, and Yiannis made to go off into the small kitchen annex at the rear of the bar. But before doing so he paused and spoke to Trask.

  “The news with Turkey is very bad,” he said. “Another territorial dispute. The Turks are claiming Lesbos and Samos again. These islands are very close to the Turkish mainland, and both governments are sabre-rattling. It’s all very worrying.”

  “It must be,” said Trask.

  “On the other hand,” said Yiannis, “a sort of uneasy status quo has prevailed ever since the invasion of Cyprus in the sixties. So let’s hope it’s just another bout of bad-tempered bluster.”

  “Perhaps it’s this godawful, interminable El Niño weather!” said Trask. While his face showed his understanding of Yiannis’s concerns, still he made light of them if only to ease the young Greek’s mind and improve his mood.

  “Ah, but you could be right!” Yiannis grinned at last. “So by all means let’s blame El Niño. But as I believe I mentioned earlier, the weather is finally breaking. A cloud belt is heading south, and rain is expected as early as tomorrow afternoon. What a relief that will be!”

  “And the sunspot activity—?”

  “—Is definitely dying down,” said Yiannis. “It’s all been reported on the news. International lines and satellite communications are going to be fully operational again in just a few hours. In fact if you still want to contact London, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try now.”

  “Perhaps I’ll do just that,” said Trask, smiling and again making light of it—despite that he felt like running for the phone! “Thanks for the tip.”

  “You’re welcome.” And Yiannis went off to make sandwiches.

  Trask waited until the young Greek was out of sight, then stood up and told his people, “Save a bite for me.” And as he sauntered from the bar: “Right now I want to check my gadgets, see if they’re back on line. Or maybe I’ll just try the phone in the admin building.”

  “Do you want company?” Goodly enquired.

  Trask shook his head. “Stay here and eat. I’ll be speaking to London, and there’s nothing you can say that I can’t.”

  “Ask after Lissa,” Lardis called after him.

  “Of course,” Trask answered, looking back. And glancing at Liz, before she could embarrass herself: “I’ll be asking after everyone. That’s if I can get through.”

  And then he was gone, out of the door …

  An hour earlier, in a London where the evening’s dusk was just turning to a night that threatened storms:

  No one uses the tubes anymore, Millicent Cleary thought to herself when some unspecified trouble on the line ahead caused Millie and the plainclothes Special Branch man escorting her to leave the train at King’s Cross with maybe a dozen other stranded passengers. But then again, can anyone blame them?

  The Victoria Line was one of the few underground transport systems that still functioned, at least in part, and even that small handful was subject to frequent disruption. This was how it had been ever since the great flood of 2007. Rising sea levels and water tables, higher tides and a Thames that regularly overflowed its banks; the water came in faster than they could pump it out! Many of the older tunnels had collapsed and been washed away; some of the deeper systems were dry, depending on the strata, but had been made inaccessible or dangerous by the collapse of older, shallower levels up above. Today’s disruption was just one of many such that Millie had suffered when she travelled into the city from Finsbury Park.

  But this evening had been one of those evenings. First her escort’s car had refused to start again when he picked her up; then it had been impossible to find a taxi; the train had come in late—probably as a result of whatever problem it was that had now shut the line down—and had then stood throbbing and vibrating in the station for so long that most of the passengers had got off and left. And now …

  … Now she gave a little cry as the high heel of her left shoe got jammed in a grating right there on the platform, tearing the shoe right off her foot.

  Her escort—a tall, well-built man in a light summer suit—tut-tutted as Millie hopped around on one foot, commenting, “Just isn’t your night, is it, luv?” Taking her arm and steadying her, he went down on one knee and reported, “It seems this heel of yours is—uh!—well and truly stuck, I’m afraid.”

  “Damn it!” Millie replied hotly. “What else can go wrong, I wonder?” Looking along the platform, she felt deserted, experienced a kind of panic, on seeing the last few disgruntled passengers hurrying into the various tunnels to the stairways and elevators. The train was already backing out of the station.

  But along there, a grubby little man—a very small man, a dwarf, even—was climbing up onto a bench and reaching up with what looked like pipe-cutters to the power cables running along the tiled, arched curve of the tunnel. Now what on earth … ?

  “There,” said Millie’s escort. “That’s got it. Didn’t want to break the heel off, that’s all.” But coming upright with her shoe, he saw the puzzled look on his charge’s face changing to a frown, and heard her gasp as Millie’s telepathic probes collided with other thoughts in the psychic aether.

  My Lord, a sinister mental voice was whispering in Millie’s head. Your sabotage plan worked. She is here! And we are fortunate. With the exception of one man, she is alone!

  Millie’s eyes opened wide as her head jerked around to look the other way down the platform. A pair of nuns in black hooded robes were standing there; just standing there, watching her—but their eyes were like yellow points of light in the shade of their cowls, and the dark, ugly thoughts or message had issued from one of them!

  Then, even as Millie’s hand flew to her mouth, it came again: My Lord, do you hear me? One of the nuns cocked her head on one side, enquiringly.

  But the next thought that Millie heard came from someone—or something—entirely different:

  Yes, I heard you, said that gurgling, glutinous, telepathic voice in Millie’s head. And so did she, I fancy! But tell me—is it dark?

  Too late, Millie’s escort had seen the dwarf and the shower of sparks that met the little man’s efforts with the pipe-cutters. “What in the name of … ?”

  In the next moment it went dark—dark as night, as all the lights went out—but not before Millie had jerked her head and eyes in the direction of the new, completely alien thought, and stared down at the grating under her feet! Down there, she knew she’d seen something moving … a flowing motion, like sentient sludge, in the unknown gloom of the station’s service levels.

  Then the grating tilted under her feet, sending her sprawling, and she heard her escort’s cry of alarm and outrage as he was sent flying away from her. And in a moment, floating out of the darkness, the feral-eyed nuns were upon her, hauling Millie upright, and fastening on her with hands like iron claws.

  And something black—even blacker than the darkness—was rising before her, oozing up endlessly from the underworld, and its voice was in her head, saying:

  Be sure not to harm her. She is my prize, my hostage, and I don’t want her damaged.

  Finally, seeing its eyes and its jet-black shapeless shape, Millie knew what it was for certain. And as her worst nightmare reached out for her, so she fainted.

  Following which … nothing.

  It had been Ben Trask’s intention to go to the Christos Studios administrative building and try the telephone there, but hurrying along the path between the chalets, as he was about to pass the door to his and Chung’s accommodation, he heard a telltale beeping from within.

  His gadgets might indeed be “back on line,” but it remained to be seen if they were working or just acting up.

  He swerved toward the door, let himself in, listened to the beeping. It was a portable fax, in his briefcase under his bed. Someone was wanting to send him a message, and only one someone sprang to mind: the duty officer at E-Branch HQ.
>
  Trask yanked the briefcase out, plumped it down on the bed, took out the fax machine—a flat, half-inch-thick device just big enough to take A4 paper, with a slot at one end, a keyboard, send and receive keys, and a little red light that was blinking on and off apace with the beeping—and shoved a sheet of paper into the slot before pressing the receive key.

  The machine purred, and in a count of five the A4 sheet was propelled out again. Trask snatched it out of the slot and read it:

  BT: if you’re getting gggx this please respond. xtoup 1g I have news. DO.

  There was some interference, but at least Trask had got the message. He fed another sheet of paper into the slot and typed:

  I have a decoder. So send your stuff scrambled.

  Then, after hitting the send key, he drummed his fingers on the machine’s casing and waited for the printed sheet to appear. When it did, it read:

  I have a decmtpggoder. So send yourxtpgg stuff scrambled.

  As if it wasn’t scrambled enough already! But a lot better than nothing. And in went a third sheet of paper.

  This time he had to wait a minute—then two, three, three and a ha)f—until he was just about to rave at the damn thing for going on the blink again, but eventually the machine burped and ejected its coded message.

  Meanwhile Trask had taken the decoder—a machine much like the first in shape and style but less complicated—out of his suitcase. It had no keyboard and just one switch, and contained its own printout paper.

  Now Trask pressed the switch and fumbled the sheet of gibberish into the decoder’s slot. The machine scanned the message, whirred, and the decoded printout began jerking and stammering its way out of the slot.

  Trask couldn’t wait so ripped it out and read:

  Aussie job finished. All clear. Shttpx n%ggh!? I’mrddgb redirecting the party to you. You can expect them by Tues first dhhggx light. Do you read? If so, more to follow …