Skyprobe (23 page)

Rencke called out to him; he turned, face glistening.

Sharply he said, “At last!” As Rencke began going into explanations the Russian cut him short. “All this will do later,” he said. “For now, do not let us divide our attention. Fortunately,” he added, “they have not arrived too late. That is all that matters. The spacecraft is going to be a little over its time, I believe.” He signed to the guards and Shaw was taken with Ingrid, whose right upper arm was dripping blood from a graze where one of the bullets had nicked the flesh, towards the microphone where he was to broadcast his rehearsed message. Kalitzkin had a quiet word with Rencke, who ordered the guards to move Ingrid six paces clear of Shaw. Rencke then positioned himself a couple of paces from her and gave an order to the guards. While one of the men kept her covered with his gun, the other came forward and stripped away the clothing she had taken from the Chinese. Rencke reached into a pocket and brought out a cigarette-lighter which he flicked on. After examining the jet of butane gas, he snapped it off again. Kalitzkin was about to say something more when a klaxon sounded loudly on the central control panel and at the same moment the television screen showed the attractor-plate moving a little, its operating face lifting slightly on the axis of its stalk as if it were turning like some grotesque sunflower towards its source of energy.

Automatic radar control had now taken over.

A moment later the automated system switched the power through, cutting out the lengthier processes of manual control as used in the final test of the day before. The red beam-ready lamp glowed brightly as the remaining fights dimmed. Kalitzkin, sweating more than ever with the emotion of the instant of action and imminent success to crown years of work, tensed into immobility as a tannoy clicked on and an excited voice announced in Russian, in what was practically a scream of triumph “
The capsule has now re-entered the atmosphere and is within the Mazurov Beam
.”

All eyes were now following the dials and radar screens and gauges; men with earphones clamped over their heads sat motionless, intent. Then the reports began to come over the tannoy again: “
Capsule on descent course over Phoenix Islands in Pacific . . . speed normal . . . descent slowing now but probably under pull of drogue parachute only . . . no beam effect yet established. Jamming signals are being sent out by US stations but this is not effective
.” There was a pause; the air was electric now with the tremendous tension, heady with a sense of achievement and consummation. Kalitzkin’s face held a look of ecstasy. He had fully expected a delay before the effect of the Mazurov Beam became apparent. This would take over very soon now —it took time for the re-set controls to overcome gravity and the high speed of fall, but everything in fact was going according to plan.

* * *

There had been a bright orange light outside the capsule as it streaked downward through the heat passage, where the temperature outside the heat shield stood at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit. The capsule had rocked and swayed, a horrible and violent motion, but Danvers-Marshall had managed to hold his gun steadily enough. Then, as the flare of orange had begun to diminish, Schuster knew the worst of the actual descent was over, that at least they were through the heat passage. Suddenly, his mind now freed to some extent of his technical concentration, he felt they might yet be able to get away with it. Below him in the Pacific he could see ships, ships that must surely be units of the American fleet, and islands—American islands, British islands. Apart from the enforced shift of splashdown rendezvous, nothing untoward had in fact happened . . . he gave a hoarse yell, “
Wayne . . . oh boy, we’re going to make it—the Red bastards haven’t pulled it off after all!”
Then he saw Wayne Morris’s face, the way his co-pilot’s eyes were staring at the cluttered instrument panel. He looked at the dials. His sudden ebullient feeling died and a cold fear gripped him.
Everything was moving over, the whole of the control system was being reset before his eyes.
This was the outside interference that Washington’s signal had suggested, the interference by radio or whatever it was . . . there was continuous radio jamming from somewhere, most probably the various tracking stations and the ships below, but that was having no effect whatever. Already the capsule was starting fractionally to alter its direction of fall. Desperately now, like MacAllister over the Kuriles, Schuster fought the controls, tried to bring them back to a proper descent for splashdown. It was no use; nothing was responding. Schuster tried his radio, found he was totally unable to transmit. He said flatly, “All right, so I was wrong. The bastards have us after all.” He swung round on Danvers-Marshall, his face working, demoniac. He stared into the Britisher’s gun.

Danvers-Marshall said, “You’re right, Greg. This is it. They’ve taken us over and we’re in the beam. Don’t try anything. Sit tight and we’ll be okay, I promise you that. If you try anything, I’ll shoot and chance it. You can’t stop them anyway, Greg. We’re in their hands now.”

* * *

The tannoy in the Kuriles control room had come up again, loud, excited, the voice hoarse. “
Change of direction now apparent on radar,
” and this was followed a split second later by a near-hysterical shout and the message, “Capsule slowing perceptibly in descent.” And then, "
Capsule is now altering course definitely towards this base
.”

Kalitzkin, with his eyes blazing strangely, turned on Shaw. “Start talking,” he ordered in a high voice. “At once, please!” He reached out towards the microphone switch, ready to flip it on. Shaw’s lips felt as dry as dust; he moistened them with his tongue, glancing across at Ingrid as he did so. Her body was taut, breasts rigid—but her eyes were telling him he must not speak. Rencke, grinning almost insanely, had his finger on the wheel of the butane-gas fighter. He flicked it into life and an ignited jet spurted out. He directed this at Ingrid’s body.

Shaw sweated.

Quite apart from what would happen to the girl if he tried anything, he knew he would never get a wrong word into the microphone. Kalitzkin was much too fly for that. Nevertheless, it was all he could hope to do now. Kalitzkin was getting impatient by this time. The Russian snapped, “You will speak instantly, Commander—instantly, I say!” Six paces away Rencke’s hand moved. The lighted jet singed Ingrid’s breast. She writhed, and, as the rough hands of the guards held her still, she gave a high, tearing scream.

* * *

Aboard the ships searching in the Pacific the radar sets had picked up the spacecraft and then had spotted the change in the capsule’s direction of descent. Urgent messages had been flashed immediately to Kennedy and to Washington, and the ships had steamed at full speed on a chase northwards, a chase that everyone knew in his heart would prove utterly futile.

From the White House orders went out for the nuclear missile crews to stand by for blast-off within the next few minutes. The general commanding Strategic Air Command already had his bombers launched towards their targets inside the Soviet Union and they were streaking on their pre-selected routes for positive control point, and the President was ready to send out the go-code, when Shaw came on the air from the Kuriles.

* * *

Shaw’s teeth had clamped down on his lip when that scream was torn from Ingrid. He said savagely, “All right, Rencke . . . you can stop that. I’ll talk.” This was the moment when he had to take a big chance; if he failed, no-one would be any the worse off for his having tried. War would come in any case—unless he could tell the West the truth about the innocent, official Communist leadership.

Kalitzkin snapped, “Talk first.”

“No. The flame off first or I won’t open my mouth. And any minute now it’s going to be too late . . . isn’t it, Kalitzkin?”

Kalitzkin’s face contorted but he gestured violently at Rencke. “Stop!” he shouted.

Reluctantly Rencke flipped the flame off. One of the armed guards, on Kalitzkin’s order, jabbed his submachine-gun into Shaw’s stomach. Kalitzkin reached again for the microphone switch. “At once!” he ordered, and flicked the switch.

Distinctly, and as rehearsed, Shaw said into the microphone, “This is Commander Shaw of British Defence Intelligence speaking to London and Washington. Hold everything. This message is vital. Call off all, repeat all, countermeasures. I have control of the diversion base.” His eyes flickered to Kalitzkin’s face and he spoke rapidly thereafter.

“The base is in—”

Kalitzkin, who had been watching him very closely, at once threw off the switch. The microphone died. Kalitzkin had seen the words forming on Shaw’s Ups; he had been quick, but Shaw was quicker—much quicker. He grabbed for the switch and the guard lunged out to stop his hand and that gave him his chance. Like lightning he changed direction and his fist came down in a vicious blow on the back of the man’s wrist. The gun went down and Shaw sent the man flying into Rencke, who staggered, cursing. Shaw bent for the dropped gun; the guards let go of Ingrid and swung their weapons on Shaw. As they opened fire he ducked and threw himself on Rencke, who still hadn’t fully recovered his balance. Shaw put a lock on the man and swung him across his body as a shield against the guns. By this time he was right in front of the central control unit and some of the bullets, before the firing stopped on Rencke’s screamed command, had smashed into the control mechanism. Glass splintered, flying everywhere around. Shaw dragged Rencke back bodily towards the computer-like control unit. The bullets, unfortunately, didn’t appear to have done any damage to any vital part of the system—everything looked as though it was functioning still. Somehow Shaw had to interrupt the process, do something—anything that would throw off the Mazurov Beam so that the men in the capsule could regain their control of Skyprobe, ditch safely in the Pacific and wait for recovery by the ships and helicopters on station. Rapidly he looked over the panel, at the dials and gauges and press-buttons.

He reached out towards a bank of the buttons.

Kalitzkin, his eyes wild now, saw the movement and shouted out, “No, no! Do not interfere—leave those instruments alone. You—”

Savagely Shaw jammed his fist down on the buttons. They went home with a series of clicks. There was a high caclde of maniac laughter from the Russian scientist, a hysterical sound that echoed the blazing hate and fury in the man’s eyes. At the same moment a high whine came from the control unit and the bright red beam-ready lamp above it began to increase its glow until it became unbearable to watch. Kalitzkin screamed out, “You fool, you have wrecked my whole plan! But to you, it is more than that!
Do you know what you have done?
”

Shaw, still holding Rencke fast, grinned into Kalitzkin’s face. “In broad outline, yes,” he snapped, “since you confirm I’ve wrecked the whole show! That’s good enough—isn’t it?”

Kalitzkin seemed incapable of further speech. Rencke answered for him, twisting his face around towards Shaw. “Perhaps it is good enough, Commander,” he said. “What you have done is to kill your spacemen. One of the buttons you pressed increases the heat-intensity of the Mazurov Beam so that as it penetrates the casing it raises the capsule’s interior to a temperature of around 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Shaw’s body jerked. “You mean—?”

“I mean exactly what I said, Commander.”

“You . . . bastards!” Shaw’s voice cracked. “Take off the heat, Rencke. Or you, Kalitzkin. Fast!
Take it off—press the right button or I blow Rencke’s guts out!
” Sweat—the sweat of horror, poured down his face.

Kalitzkin seemed to be on the verge of tears for what had happened to his plans. He burst out, “You fool, it is already too late—much too late. It was too late immediately you had done this thing!” Shaking, he moved for the control unit and depressed another of the buttons. One of those Shaw had depressed clicked back into ‘safe’ and the whining note and the intensity of the beam-ready lamp began to diminish slowly—much more slowly than they had come on. At that moment one of the guards started shooting again from behind the cover of the crowd of technicians. More bullets went past Shaw and smacked into the control unit—and suddenly the directional handwheel began spinning madly. It seemed to have gone completely crazy. This time something vital had been hit. Shaw glanced at the television screen. The beam-plate ha.d drooped tiredly on its stalk, as it had done on Kalitzkin’s order the day before, and the stalk itself, which was still at its maximum height from the ground, had taken a downward cant so that the beam was now directed right, back onto the earth of the island. And that beam was still alive—Shaw could see the furring effect on the plate and could hear that strange hailstorm noise. One of those last bullets, he thought dazedly, must have cut out the connections to the auto-control but left the power lines intact . . . something like that . . . a thousand pities that hadn’t happened before
he’d
been fool enough to interfere with the controls! He saw Kalitzkin coming for him now, his face mottled. Shaw, keeping his lock on Rencke, rammed the gun between his knees and met Kalitzkin with a right to the point of the jaw. The Russian, his mouth hanging open and the jaw smashed, staggered backwards, tripped, and crashed heavily into a bay carrying a number of high-voltage connections. As he did so there was a vivid flash, followed by a wild scream and then an acrid strench of burning flesh. Kalitzkin’s body twitched and gyrated for a moment and then hung inert, propped between two shattered insulators. The smell of burning increased. A sound of sheer terror came from the watching technicians. The power bay was in flames, the metal parts glowing red, and the compartment was filling with smoke that stung and tore at men’s eyes. By this time Ingrid had joined Shaw with Rencke’s gun, which she had got hold of in the general confusion when Shaw had put his lock on the Swiss.

The whole place was in utter pandemonium.

The technicians had deserted their useless sets and, joined by the armed guards, were screaming and fighting through the enveloping smoke, anxious only to get clear and away from the underground compartment before the whole base caught fire and trapped them. That sight of their leader frying to death in his own power bay, like an ox dangling from some sacrificial altar, had finally unnerved them and there was no thought whatever of running out the firefighting equipment that must surely be available. This was panic, red and raw. . . . Shaw began to move back towards the microphone, dragging Rencke with him. He hadn’t quite got there when from somewhere out of the smoke and the encroaching flames a disembodied voice came to him—from some radio receiver, a monitoring set, perhaps, that was still operating. The voice was American and it was hoarse and shocked and disbelieving.