Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 23

bequeathed to him by some revenant of Alec Kyle's talent.

First the bomb blast. A true vision out of future time or simply a connection, a glimpse, brought about by Darcy's story of a nuclear device discovere d in Hyde Park? Harry wasn't sure he'd been told enough ab out that as yet, and like it or not he suspected he'd have to 'give it some thought' aft er all. Or if not thought, some conversation at le ast.

But turning to Darcy, he saw that his head was down where he slumped in the corner of the seat. Looking back, Trask said, 'He's had a tough day. Let him sleep. Did you want something?'

'Did Darcy tell me the whole story about the bomb?' Harry had always felt easy talking to Trask. You couldn't lie to him, no, but at the same time he wasn't likely to lie back. 'I mean, how did Andropov find out about it? How can we be sure this was the work of the Tibetans, or "our" Tibetans, these monks?'

Trask understood his query and answered. The Soviets have always been interested in parapsychology, as witness The Opposition, the Russian version of E-Branch. Brezhnev was very keen on his mindspy organization. So when the Chateau Bronnitsy fell and the best of the Russian espers were taken out, he wanted it built up again - not the chateau but the organization. He fixed it for a convention of espers in Moscow, perhaps to see what he was up against. We sent along a pair of our lesser lights; they wouldn't glean a h.e.l.l of a lot, but they wouldn't give too much away either. The Chinese had a delegation, too, from their outfit on Kwijiang Avenue, Chungking. The Tibetans got into Moscow with them. We presume that what's left of the Soviet ESP-organization was in on the convention, and that they found out what was going down.'

'Chinese bombs, planted by the members of a Tibetan sect,' Harry mused. 'So in fact - since the devices are Chinese, and the Tibetans were part of China's delegation - the Chinese are responsible after all, and the Tibetans were only their dupes. Probably because the Chinese knew that they'd be the ones the Russians were watching, not the monks. But Darcy said the Chinese weren't to blame.'

They aren't,' Trask answered. The bombs were stolen. And something Darcy didn't tell you: there's a third bomb in Chungking! Andropov's using it as a bargaining chip in the Sino-Soviet border disputes. He isn't saying where it is or who planted it, just that it's there ... and that there's this little strip of dirt in yak- land that belongs to Mother Russia, and he would very much like the little yellow soldiers out, thank you.'

'Blackmail?'

'And of the worst sort Political, nuclear, nasty. But our locators have found the bomb; or rat her, they know where it is, approximatel y. And now we've given Andropov a deadline: he has two weeks to tell the Chinese what he really must - what he's simply got to te ll them: the location of the bomb, which city, where - or our government will. Which will take any kudos away from him. Now Harry, this is all highly cla.s.sified, obviously, on a top secret, need-to-know basis.

Which is why Darcy didn't mention it On the other hand, since you do "need to know"...'

And when Harry tailed to reply: 'Is there anything else?'

But the Necroscope shook his head, sat back again, and was soon lost deep in thought...

He considered his other visions, or Visitations.'

After the devastation of the imagined nuclear bomb blast, he had tried to tell Darcy and Ben what he'd seen: a glimpse of some future cataclysm, or an oblique warning that such a calamity was likely to occur. All of which seemed to find an explanation in what Ben had just told him. But the word 'future' had been like an invocation or trigger, and again he had been whirled away to some unknown place... or rather, an unknown face!

Those eyes that were simultaneously severe and smiling - blazing with humanity and mystic ism both - and blazing full on Harry. 'Ah, son of my visions!' the owner of the face had said 'Or are you in fact the father?' (But the father of what, this mystic's visions?) And then: 'Away with you now, for I am a.s.sured that as yet it is not your time.'

Not the Necroscope's time? So did that mean that his time was coming? But what time?

For a long time Harry pondered it, and got nowhere except to accept that the mystic had not posed a threat.

If anything, he had seemed to offer shelter against some unknown storm...

And then there had been the final visitation, or perhaps visit was a better word, for certainly Harry had been transported somewhere: A crossroads with a low wall to one side, sheltering the untendedplots and leaning headstones of a graveyard. While on the other side a signpost pointed to Meersburg...

None of wh ich made any sense, had any meaning (he'd never heard of Meersburg), or seemed in any way menacing to the Necroscope; for graveyards and lichen-covered slabs were familiar motifs i n his world, by no means frightening. Yet this glimpse had ushered out the last trace of Alec Kyle's talent, had been its last throw. It was gone forever now, burned out of Harry's ident.i.ty. And if only because it was the last throw... surely it must have meant something?

r 228.'Harry?' Ben Trask's voice. Harry looked up, shook his head to clear it, wondered, Have I been sleeping, too?

Darcy Clarke was stretching, yawning, and Ben was looking in his mirror at both of them. Well be there in four or five minutes,' he said. Then he switched on the car's police radio, tuned in and identified himself, spoke into the handset And: 'Uh-oh!' he said. The Greenham crones - sans knitting - are gathering for the execution!'

'Problems?' Darcy was alert in a moment 'Shouldn't think so. A couple of CND bigwigs, along with the usual tribe of r.e.t.a.r.ds.'

"You have no tolerance,' Darcy tut-tutted.

'I know the difference between the truth and a lie,' Ben told him. 'Nukes are a bad thing: true. But without them we'd have been into World War Three years ago: also true. The organizers of this sort of thing know it, yet still use the terrorism of lies for their own political ends: definitely true. Biased? Sure I am. How can I be otherwise with a talent like mine? It's the old question: are espers blessed or cursed?'

They drove along a country road, turned into a lane leading to a huge wire-fenced enclosure. And a sign told them that this was the US Air Force Base at Greenham Common.

Darcy held up his ID, and a uniformed police officer saluted and waved them on. On both sides, walls of policemen held back a crowd composed mainly of angry women. The striped guardroom gate went up, and Ben drove through. But as the car began to cross the threshold a fat, red-faced young woman broke free of the cordon and threw a clod of wet earth at the windscreen. Ben avoided her, used his wipers to twitch the muck aside.

'A hairy one,' he grunted, as the clod fell away.

The mudball?' Darcy said.

'No, the silly cow who threw it!' Ben replied. "What, ban the bomb? That one could fall on a b.l.o.o.d.y bomb and smother it!' Then they were into the base and all the ballyhoo left behind.

Harry wanted to know: 'How did they know we were coming?'

Darcy shrugged. "When the police come out in force, someone is coming. Doesn't matter who it is, it's always the same reception.'

Then a huge black American A ir Force officer flagged them down, got in the car, and took them where they wanted to go...

Trask drove down a ramp into a 'hangar' that wasn't switched off his lights in the floodlit interior. Their pa.s.senger directed him into an elevator that could have taken a tank, and Ben drove in and stopped when red lights blinked on. A warning bell clanged, and the cage 229.

descended three levels. And as the doors opened: 'Roll her forward six or so feet,' the officer said.

Ben did so, and applied the brake.

'Leave yo' ve-hicle half-in, half-out the cage,' the American, a Colonel, told them as they got out of the car.

The door works on electric eyes and won't close on the ve-hicle. And the ele vator can't move with the door open. That trap s the elevator down heah and ensures some privacy. And incidentiy, yo'all are trapped down heah too, until I see some ID.' He took out an automatic pistol from his belt and c.o.c.ked it Darcy showed him his ID, and the Colonel goggled. 'Man, yo' has more right bein' heah than I do!' He put away his gun, took them out of the elevator and down a vast arched-over, and apparently endless corridor, over echoing expanses of empty, floodlit concrete, and past a dozen ste el-panelled doors to one that wa s hung with a red-stencilled sign on a white board: NO ENTRY!.

Unlocking the door, shoving it open with a ma.s.sive, muscular shoulder, the Colonel said, 'I takes it yo'all knows what yo's doin? Look all yo' want but don't touch the gla.s.s 'cos it's alarmed. Yoll have the whole d.a.m.n camp down heah - and they's every one crazy as me! It's the job.' He grinned, saluted, and left them to it. His footsteps moved away from the door - but not too far.

Darcy Clarke had been here before. He led the others to a dais in the centre of the floor, climbed steel steps and leaned on the side of a tank-like container to look down on the contents. 'And here's our bomb,' he said, 'all nice and tidy - and safe - under gla.s.s.'

Harry moved to one side of him, Ben to the other. The Necroscope was fascinated. This is an atomic bomb?

It looks more like the engine of an experimental, medium-sized motorbike!'

'Just a bit more powerful,' Darcy said, with typical British phlegm. Darcy's casual att.i.tude spoke volumes for the safety of the device.

'How much does it weigh?' Harry looked down through plate gla.s.s at twin metal cylinders - like a pair of elongated dumbbells, joined in the middle by an eight-inch diameter stainless steel pipe, with the entire surface machine-routed into grooves that were packed with wiring and sealed over with plastic laminate. The whole thing had been set on a rubber-wheeled trolley for ease of movement Two large suitcases worth,' Darcy answered. 'About a hundred and ten pounds.'

'And they could smuggle this into Moscow?' It seemed unbelievable.

Darcy shrugged. 'And through Gatwick - don't ask me how! But 231.

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take it from me, there's all h.e.l.l going on right now. Airport security will never be the same again.'

Darcy took three paces along the dais to a second container. Harry joined him, looked down through the gla.s.s cover at a small safe with a combination lock, and said, What?'

The trigger,' Darcy told him. The firing mechanism. It's locked in the safe. Which is supposed to make the bomb safe, or safer.' He shrugged again, uncomfortably this time. 'And so it does - but to my mind there are enough of the homegrown and far more deadly variety of nuclea r devices in this complex already, without they should worry too much about this one. That's what all those women at the gates are up in arms about nukes - of which this is just one more.'

The trigger?' Harry looked for clarification.

'Basically, it's a radio receiver with an electrical lead that plugs into a socket in the middle sectionof the bomb. The bomb would be armed remotely, by radio signal, and set off the same way. 'Hie people here have rigged a duplicate receiver in an operations room where the only thing it will activate is an alarm. There's a twenty-four hour watch, so that they'll know if or when the signals come in. That'll be the moment that London would have gone sky high.'

'But the bomb is totally safe?'

'Absolutely. It's leaking a little radiation, that's all, which is why they've isolated it down here in a lead-lined container. But if you take the trigger out of that safe, which you can't, plug it in and extend the antenna a little: bingo! It's all set up again, just waiting for those special signals out of Tibet. Which right now it can't receive ... else I wouldn't be here.'

Harry took a pace to the right, looked at the bomb again. Somehow it had changed: it was now obscene. And the Necroscope s.h.i.+vered. 'Sudden death,' he said, in a small voice.

Tor millions, yes,' Darcy agreed. 'But the bomb itself- this bomb - would only be the trigger. I mean the real trigger. The starting pistol for a nuclear holocaust, and a nuclear winter to follow. Not just World War Three but probably the beginning of a new Dark Ages...'

And in a little while Trask came in with: 'Well, and have we interested you, Harry?'

Ha rry looked at him. 'I... don't any longer work for the Branch,' he said. 'But on the other hand, this is something we all should b e interested in. Any madman who is capable of this could try to do it again.'

Darcy said, 'Exactly. So you will help us out, if you can? I mean, we know most of it, except why and who.

The reason, and the mad mind that reasoned it. But finding the answers to those things will take a very special kind of investigator.' He knew he was taking something of a chance here but risked it anyway.

... But when he saw the sick look that the Necroscope gave him then, he wished he hadn't It was as if Harry wanted to say something, as if he wanted to help but didn't know how. For the fact was that he was no longer willing -nor able - to admit what he was and what he alone could do. And such was his obsession he wouldn't accept that there were others who already knew about him.

And though Darcy had had doubts before, now he was happy with the arrangements he'd made with Dr James Anderson. For he knew that Harry must be put back to rights. So taking the Necroscope's arm, he said, 'Anyway, if s late and we have to be on our way. So don't worry about any of this now. You asked to see the bomb, and now you've seen it'

By now, too, Anderson would be waiting for them back at E-Branch HQ in London- -Except he wasn't And despite that later that night, until the small hours, Darcy called, and called, he got no answer. And after he'd sent a car round to find out what was going on, still no answer. For Doctor James Anderson wasn't at home. By which time Harry Keogh Necroscope, was fast asleep, and E-Branch HQ was very still and quiet And yet unquiet too.

Which was always the way of it at E-Branch HQ ...

James Anderson had never made it in through his front door. He had made it through the wrought-iron gate, and two of the three short paces through the terracotta-potted shrubbery of the narrow strip of frontage, but at the arched-over porch to the door itself he had paused, blinked and frowned, and wondered why the pair of yellow globe timer-lights flanking the entrance on ornate stands were out A blown fuse? Probably.

At which he'd gasped and taken a pace backwards, as a pair of lithe dark figures stepped from the darkness behind the last of the potted plants and reached for him. And he had known that whatever this was it wasn't a friendly reception. Then, turning to run, he'd b.u.mped into two more dark figures right behind him and inside the gate.

A grin was all the doctor had seen and all he would later remember - feral eyes that seemed to glow yellow in the dark, and a gaping mouth full of pointed white teeth - as the men in front of him pinioned him. and one of the pair from the bushes put an arm round his neck to cut off any shouting.

Then he had struggled briefly, frantically, and started to kick as he began to run out of air. At once the pressure on his windpipe had been relieved, but as he'd inhaled ma.s.sively something had been clamped 232 233.

over his nose and mouth. Something that smelted of... .. .Chlorofor m!

Darkly quiet voices woke Anderson up. They came to him faintly at first as his aching mind surfaced through the slowly fading reek of chloroform fumes, and his dry mouth cracked open as if his lips had been sealed with sugar-sweet crusts of the stuff. He might well have vomited then, but daren't because he didn't know where he was, or why, or who the sounds of sickness would alert And so he kept it in, swallowed hard and painfully, and listened to the voices.

'... all yours,' one voice was saying. 'Big Joe owed your bosses a favour, and this was it. But now we're out of it and the rest of it -whatever's going down here - is your business. Just understand this: anything goes wrong... that's your business, too! Joe's legitimate now; he's all paid-up; he owes no money, no allegiance to any potbellied pigs in Palermo. No offence, you understand. But this is England, and Sicily is a long way off.

So you boys are on our turf now. Just fine - as long as you don't go staking any long-term claims in it.'

'Hey - it was a favour, you're right,' a second, far more coa.r.s.e and sinister voice hissed, rising and falling in timbre and heavy with unmistakable Italian accents. 'A little favour. But you've been well paid for it, OK?

Well, who can say when Big Joe might need a favour, too, eh? So what's this with all the threats? We don't need it and we don't scare any too easy, you know? Just be sure to tell Joe we appreciate his help. And remember to say thanks, from Tony and Francesco Francezci.'

'Huh!' the first voice grunted, followed by the sounds of footsteps moving away, and a door closing.

And as full consciousness returned to Anderson there were other sounds, too: along with an evenly s.p.a.ced, echoing drip, a steady rus.h.i.+ng sound or sensation, as of vast amounts of water, even a river, sluicing along directly beneath him. But beneath him?

He was upright, seated in (no, bound to) a chair. Underfoot, rough wooden boards creaked as he s.h.i.+fted his weight to ease the cramp starting up in his legs. And gradually, experimentally, he tried to force open eyelids that felt gummed down as from sleeping too long or deeply. Then, before he could open them all the way, he froze on hearing what could only be a boat or ferry, the haunted phoom! -phoooom! of its foghorn.

Somewhere on the river, then? A cold, damp foggy night on the river. What, a houseboat, m aybe? Or a pier? And - and what the h.e.l.l? - Someone had to b e making a terrible mistake here! Whatever this was all about, they'd got the wrong man!

Finally his eyelids came unstuck, and Anderson lifted his head from his chest. That was painful, too, sending brilliant, jagged flashes of lightning through his skull. He hadn't been hit, had he? Hit on the head? No, it was the chloroform, which he'd received in what must have been close to an overdose.

Chloroform? Kidnapped? James Anderson, who didn't have an enemy in the world? Who would want to do anything like this to him? And why?

He drew a huge draft of air to yell for help, and...

... A door opened behind him, and a light came on. It was dim, that light - a single unshaded bulb hanging from twisted flex - but it came so abruptly and unexpectedly that he jerked back in his chair, gave an involuntary yelp of terror, and tried to turn his head. Which only caused him more pain.

'No, no,' came that same, hoa.r.s.e, sandpapered voice - the one with the Italian accent - 'just save your strength and sit still.' And the owner of the voice stepped into view from somewhere behind Anderson and continued: "You can save your breath, too, because no one is going to hear you. And even if you were able to shout that loud... well, we're not about to let you.'

In fact there were two of them, but not the sort of heavies Anderson might have expected from the texture and tone of the voice. Tall, slender, dark in their long overcoats, their hats set to shade their eyes, they seemed more clinically sinister than the thugs his aching mind would have pictured. And he knew that these were the ones who had followed him through his gate, and that one of them at least had feral eyes and a sick, toothy grin.

They pulled up ricketty chairs, sat down facing him with the light behind them, so that only the glimmer of their eyes told him there were faces there at all in the shadows cast by the pulled-down brims of their fedoras. Their eyes, and maybe the white glint of grinning teeth, too. For long seconds nothing was said, until Anderson could stand it no longer. Then: 'What is this?' he gasped. 'What the f.u.c.k's it all about?' And he strained against the industrial tape binding his wrists, ankles, and head to the high-backed chair.

The pair looked at each other, then back at Anderson. And as he continued to curse and babble, one of them reached out a slender, almost female hand to grab his throat But the incredible strength in that hand, the almost casual way the pressure was oh so slowly increased, the deliberate and effortless constriction of the fingers. So that Anderson knew - knew with an absolute certainty - that this brute could crush his windpipe to a pulp! But even as the knowledge dawned, so the steel claw of a hand released him and withdrew.

He gulped air, desperately wanted to ma.s.sage his throat swallow, but couldn't and could no longer hold back the vomit boiling up from his stomach. His captors quickly stood up, got well out of the way as 235.

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he gagged, managed to turn his head an inch or two to the right, and threw up on the floor.

They let him get it out of his system, and as he sat there rigid, coughing, spitting out the last of the unutterable debris, came forward again. And the one with the voice said, 'Now see what you did! It must have been all that abuse - all of the unnecessary vitriol, eh? But the next time you want to be sick, just tell me, OK? I can make you sick faster than you'd ever believe."

'What... what is it you want?' Anderson tried to turn his face away from the smell of his own vomit but could only manage a few inches. Swathes of tape across his forehead held his head firmly in place.

'We want to know about E-Branch. In fact, everything about E-Branch.' The second of the two, whose voice was soft and sibilant as a hiss, leaned closer. And this was also the one with hands like steel claws.

'E-Branch?' Anderson, blinked his watering eyes. And Darcy Clarke's words came back to him... some stupid f.u.c.king warning about the Official Secrets Act? Well.yfac* the Official Secrets Act! And in any case Anderson didn't know anything about b.l.o.o.d.y E-Branch, except that it was part... part of the security serv ices?

He said as much, and the one with the gravelly voice said, 'Oh, but you do - you know a great deal about it Today we saw you with a Mr Clarke, Darcy. And a Mr Trask, Ben. Also with a Mr Kyle, Alec. And we find him - Mr Kyle - especially interesting. I mean we find all of them interesting, but especially him. So we can start there. Tell us about Mr Kyle.'

'But I don't know anyone with that name,' Anderson gulped. T wasn't with anyone of that name. Darcy Clarke, yes. And Ben Trask, too. But no... what, Kyle? No Alec Kyle, no.' He tried to shake his head, moved it to and fro, barely sufficiently to emphasize his point 'You don't know anyone called Kyle?' the hissing one said. 'But we saw you in the car with him.'

Anderson tried to nod. Trask, Clarke, and Keogh. The one you're talking about is called Harry Keogh. So you see, you're making a big mistake here.'

As the two looked at each other, Anderson saw their faces in silhouette: gaunt, angular outlines, expressionless now and somehow lifeless. Or if not lifeless, then a different kind of life...

They turned back to him. And: 'H arry Keogh,' said the one with the snake's hiss. Tell us about him.' And as if antic.i.p.ating the doctor's answer, he reached into his pocket and took something out A knife - a Stanley knife - with a k.n.o.b on the handle that he slid forward.

Anderson tried not to see the blade but couldn't take his eyes off it. 'I... I don't know anything about him,' he said. And, as the hissing one shuffled his chair closer: 'Oh, G.o.d! 11 mean ... I don't know very much about him!'