Redcap (9 page)

Shaw interrupted, “Lubin actually worked on the Russian end of fixing up REDCAP. I expect you knew that?”

Gresham nodded. “Yes, that’s quite true—he did. Well, d’you see, there it is. Lubin knows how REDCAP works. If they can get hold of it or put it out of action, just look at the world power they’ve got! At any rate, for a breathing-space. You see, all the other nations would still be hitched, as it were, to the REDCAP bandwagon. It takes a little time to re-adapt the stockpiles to individual and independent use, to throw-off the adaptors. If they get hold of REDCAP, MAPIACCIND’s done for. China would be left sitting pretty, all ready to blackmail the world, all ready to send the balloon up before anyone else is ready.”

“Do you think they’re actually preparing for that now?” Gresham shrugged. “It’s very likely, in the light of what you tell me about Lubin and those troop movements. Remember, China’s a big country and a difficult one for our inspection teams to keep fully covered and report back on, and the reports from there have never been very comprehensive. It’s always been my opinion that the teams could be easily bamboozled—and they could even be liquidated when convenient, if the Chinese are up to anything.” He shook his head, glanced up with a quick, bird-like movement. “Mind you, I’m not posing as an expert with any very special inside knowledge, that a lot of other people who know China well can’t be presumed to have. I’m just putting two and two together. Hope to God I’m wrong.”

There was a silence for some moments, and then Sir Donald asked: “Do you think the ship’s in danger?”

“Anything may happen, if what Shaw says is a fact, and all I’m saying is that I think it
could
be.” Gresham gnawed at his moustache for a moment, and a faraway look came into his eyes. “You can rely on me for any help you want, y’know.” He went on rather naively, “I’m awfully keen on this MAPIACCIND thing. It’s really a great concept, Shaw, a great concept. It’s really rather a hobby of mine, all this, if you can speak of such a terribly important thing as being a hobby. Peace is so awfully worth working for, giving one’s best for and—and all that.”

Obliquely Shaw studied the colonel’s face. There was a kind of inner light when he spoke of MAPIACCIND, and it was obvious it did lie very close to his heart. Perhaps, Shaw thought, the contrast between this and his previous life as a man of war had something to do with that. Anyway, he decided he liked the sandy little man; there was something immensely good and rather childlike about him, and Shaw rather liked the way he’d stopped suddenly and almost blushed when he thought he’d said too much about his private hopes and beliefs. Shaw said, “Well, let’s hope it won’t come to a complete destruction of MAPIACCIND, Colonel. It’s our job to prevent that anyway, if we can.” He turned to the Captain. “Now, sir. The ways and means. There’s not a lot I can do until some one shows himself, but there are one or two things I can get on with, with your permission.”

Sir Donald stubbed out his cigarette. “Go ahead, Shaw.”

“First, I’d like to go through all the passengers’ papers—

I believe there’s some form that has to be completed, isn’t there, with all their details?”

Sir Donald nodded. “There is. For Australian ports, there’s a damn great form called a P2, which has to be filled in with exhaustive details of every soul in the passenger list —including babies! There’s something similar for the en route disembarkations.”

“And a list of the crew?”

“Oh yes. Full details of all crew are required by the Australian immigration. I’ll see if the Purser’s got all the guif in yet, and I’ll let you know when it’s all ready.”

“Thank you, sir. And would it be possible for me to have a look at REDCAP?”

Sir Donald said, “Certainly, so far as I’m concerned. You’ll take him along, Colonel?”

“Yes, of course. After dinner do, Shaw?”

“That’s fine.”

Sir Donald said heavily, “And now, what about my ship? You’ve talked a lot about the possibility that REDCAP might be blown up. I think a thorough search ought to be made of the ship, just in case there’s some gadget planted somewhere.” Shaw hesitated, looked doubtful. He said, “I’d rather not, sir. Not yet, anyhow. Suppose we did search now, and found nothing—it’s early days yet. What’s to stop some one planting something afterwards, when they know the coast’s clear? A search would give them the tip right away. You see, I’ve got to find Lubin if he’s aboard, and I don’t want to scare the birds too soon.”

“By not doing so, you may lose a hell of a lot of lives, Shaw.”

“Yes, sir, I’m aware of that.” Shaw had gone a little pale. “But believe me, it’s the only way. This thing’s so big . . . it’s vital we get hold of Lubin, sir, really vital. So long as Lubin’s about, there’ll always be a danger.” He sat forward in the chair, earnestly. “Some one will show up before long, I’m certain. Will you trust me, leave this to me a little longer, sir? If I don’t get a lead fairly soon, well, then we’ll have to think again and probably make a search. But I’d much rather it wasn’t yet.”

Sir Donald paced up and down, frowning. Then he stopped, swung round and faced Shaw. He said abruptly, “Very well, Shaw. You’re in charge of that side of things. But I hope you won’t run my ship too close to the rocks, you know. I’ve a hell of a lot of lives on my hands—and that’s
my
responsibility.”

Shaw said, “I know, sir. I’ll do my best.”

After dinner Colonel Gresham was waiting in the lounge on the veranda deck when Shaw strolled up casually, dropped into an armchair beside the sandy man. A steward brought coffee, and they struck up a desultory conversation through the strains of the ship’s orchestra tuning up for a dance in the Square, to all intents and purposes two strangers meeting. Away across the sumptuous lounge with its thick, fitted carpeting and comfortble chairs, Shaw caught sight of the man he’d seen earlier, glancing now through a magazine. He didn’t appear to have noticed Shaw. He was smoking a cigar, and he sipped now and again at a glass of brandy, looked bored until another man came up, a tall man with a pitted face and a bulbous nose. This man sat down beside him and put a pack of cards on a table between them.

In a low voice Shaw said, “Don’t look now, Colonel, but there’s a man who I think recognized me this afternoon—and I’ve a faint idea I’ve seen him before somewhere too, but the penny hasn’t dropped. You may have seen him around.” He described the man. “Just take a look in a minute, would you, and tell me if you know who he is.”

Gresham laughed. “I think I’ve guessed, but I’ll wait till I see.” Some moments later he glanced round quickly, said: “Yes, thought so. Our inveterate and intrepid card-player. Andersson. Not quite my cup of tea, y’know, but a decent enough feller. He’s a Swede.” He glanced sideways, seeming amused. “Why the cloak-and-dagger? Think he’s Lubin, what?”

He laughed, a staccato bark.

Shaw said, “Not Lubin. He doesn’t fit with a photo I saw just before I left London. . . He stopped then, very suddenly, felt a strange prickly sensation in his flesh. As he spoke of the photographs, his mind had gone back in a flash to Carberry’s office in the Admiralty, to Carberry saying they’d never had a photograph of—
Karstad
. Those eyes, those curious, penetrating eyes. Karstad had had eyes like that, Shaw remembered. He remembered so vividly now that he couldn’t think why he hadn’t cottoned on straight away. The eyes were just about all he recalled now of that brief glimpse he’d had years before of Karstad, but when he came to think of it the rest of the man did fit with the time-blurred mental image, the outline that remained . . . and he remembered too, as In a kind of flash-back, that the Karstad of years ago had been smoking a cigar—for what that was worth. He stiffened, felt himself going cold. Could that man be Karstad? In the circumstances the answer could very well be—yes. And if he had recognized Shaw that afternoon, that could have been from a photograph. Shaw didn’t doubt that his picture adorned many ‘rogues’ galleries throughout the intelligence services of the other side, and an agent might be expected to watch out for new faces boarding at Naples. But, if that man was Karstad and had recognized him, why hadn’t he come forward? The deduction stood out a mile—Karstad wasn’t on their side after all. Then why had he contacted Donovan? Shaw’s thoughts went round and round. . . .

Gresham was going on, “Quite an interesting feller, y’know. Had a chat or two with him, but he spends a good deal of his time drinking—or playing cards!” He laughed again, spoke behind his hand in a harsh whisper. “Not sure he isn’t a bit of a card-sharper, matter of fact!”

“What does he talk about that’s interesting?”

“Oh, this and that, y’know . . . he was in a German concentration camp, that’s why he and I have things in common. I happened to spend some of the war in a P.O.W. camp, d’you see. We’ve yarned about things.”

“Uh-huh . . . I’ll have a word with him myself one day. I don’t know anybody called Andersson so far as I remember, but I’m sure I’ve come across that chap. Tell me, Colonel —does the name Karstad mean anything to you?”

“Can’t say it does. Why?”

“Only that I think that chap could be Karstad.” He told Gresham what was known about the double agent. “Don’t ask me any more just now, and keep this under your hat. I’ve got just a suspicion that if Andersson is Karstad, and knows I’m aboard, something may happen pretty soon. Meanwhile, I’m going to ask you to keep your eyes skinned and watch all you say to him, Colonel.”

Gresham seemed put out at that. He said stiffly, “I’m not in the habit of talking about my work to everyone I meet.”

“I know,” Shaw said quickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Well—what about going below?”

“Very well, Shaw. Stay around for a minute or two after I leave. I’ll be down at the for’ard end of the dining-room deck, starboard side. There’s a door into the working alleyway from there, and we go from there along to the entry into the tween-deck in Number One hold.”

“Right.”

Shortly after that Colonel Gresham got up stiffly and strolled away. He stopped to chat gallantly to two old ladies, and his abrupt laugh floated back to Shaw. A little later he moved slowly away as though he was going nowhere in particular.

Shaw drank up his coffee, sat there thinking. He didn’t like the thoughts that came to him as a result of what Gresham had said in the Captain’s cabin earlier, his hints about a full-scale attack. While REDCAP was there, all was well. But without it . . . what then? A teeming country, rampantly on the march, the endless hordes sweeping Western civilization off the world’s map, those millions of men backing up the decontrolled missiles, every major power wiped out? Under such massive nuclear potential, the world could be knocked out almost before anyone realized what was going on.

Shaw gave an involuntary shiver.

Three minutes later Shaw met Gresham at the door into the working alleyway, walked along with him through passages cluttered up with domestic materials, crates of tinned food, stewards’ accessories, hatchways leading down into the bowels of the ship where the cool-rooms and the deep-freeze stores were situated. Shaw asked:

“What are the guarding arrangements, Colonel?”

Gresham laughed. “Pretty good ones! You’ll see for yourself. The entry into the tween-deck is kept locked all the time, I’ve got two armed men on watch together at the crate, and they’re in telephone communication with the bridge and with my cabin.”

“Uh-huh. Sounds all right.”

After they had gone down a short steel ladder, they came up to a firescreen door and Gresham brought out a bunch of keys on a chain round his waist. He fumbled at the lock, went through and along to a watertight door, swung the handwheel which released the clips, and pushed it open. They walked into the tween-deck running along the ship’s side above the lower hold. Well lashed to ringbolts in the bulkhead with steel-wire cable, REDCAP’s crate stood upright, vast, bulky, awesome. One of the two MAPIACCIND guards came forward, saluted Gresham.

Gresham said genially, “Well, well, Bormann. All right, what?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Good. Well now, we just want to take a look round,” he told the guard breezily. “Shaw, you’d like to see how it works?”

“I would indeed.”

“I can show you the control panel.” Gresham spoke briefly to the German guard and handed him a key. The man unfastened a lock and very carefully removed a section of the big crate. Shaw went forward, looked with interest at a panel of dials and knobs and small circles of thick coloured glass. Here before him, open to his touch, was the very key to world peace and security. It gave him almost a sense of awe, made him reluctant to approach it too closely.

Gresham’s voice, when he spoke, was hushed as though in reverence. He said, “General idea is this, Shaw. Once news is received of any member-nation going into action on a nuclear basis, all the Governments would first of all confer on scramble lines. If they then all agree, a unanimous authorization is sent to the Secretary-General of MAPIACCIND in Geneva. He then passes an order to the officer in charge of operating, which incidentally is me while we’re in transit to B'andagong, and that officer, using the appropriate signal from the list, starts the first transmission—it’s made in two parts, d’you see. That’s the key he uses.” Gresham indicated a Morse key at the side of the control panel. “Right? Now, after the first transmission, he has to wait until an identical and automatic signal is received back from the set attached to the stockpiles concerned. It’s a kind of safety-check, you follow, to make quite sure it’s working on the correct three-letter group and so forth. Eliminates the human element so far as possible. Checks the frequency too, of course.”

Shaw asked, “Suppose any country should smash the receivers on their stockpiles?”

“They couldn’t do that—they’re under strong MAPIACCIND guard. That guard couldn’t be overpowered so suddenly that there wouldn’t be time for a radio warning to be sent out.”

Shaw murmured, “Which would invite an immediate transmission from REDCAP, I suppose. But what about if anyone got on to one of those frequencies by chance, and transmitted an identical signal?”