The Devastators (23 page)

Standing there, I could hear shouts and gunshots from the cove. Suddenly there were some sharp crackling noises in there, and for a moment I thought Les must have charged the stairs and carried the fight right down to the landing area, which seemed crazy. Then a small boat poked its nose around the shoulder of rock. It came into sight, driven by a racketing outboard motor and guided by a man I recognized. Basil was making his escape at full throttle. The gray box he’d been carrying lay on the seat beside him.

I didn’t have time to think about it, which was just as well. There were half a dozen small animals crawling over my feet, anyway, which made it seem a desirable place to leave. I just dove, throwing myself well out from the cliff. Suicide was not part of the plan, but for a moment, as I hung in the air, I thought I’d overdone it and would plunge headfirst right through the boat, undoubtedly breaking my neck in the process. Then Basil glanced up, startled, and threw the tiller hard over, and gravity took hold of me, and I hit well short of the craft.

The impact almost fractured my skull. The solid water was like a club. Dazed, I felt myself rushing down and down, without strength enough to make the upward turn. There were a couple of moments when I didn’t even know which way the surface was. By the time I got things sorted out down there in the bitter-cold water, I was running out of air. I paddled upward weakly, burst through the surface, and something glanced heavily off my shoulder as I gasped for breath. I saw Basil standing in the boat, swinging an oar for another try at my head. Apparently his panicky swerve to escape me had stalled his motor somehow, or he’d killed it to keep from capsizing.

I let myself go under again, and saw the oar blade slice through the silvery surface, grabbed it, and pulled hard. He came right to me like a good boy. He was no trouble at all. He couldn’t swim any better than I could, and I paid my debt to Vadya—and maybe to Nancy Glenmore, too—with hardly any effort. He didn’t seem to be even trying. When I got him back to the boat, I saw at least part of the reason. He had only one hand to use. The other wrist was chained to the gray box.

I managed to get the body half into the boat without swamping the little craft. I swam around to the other side, heaved myself in, and pulled him aboard. I took a quick look at the metal box, recognizing it now: it was one of the standard courier cases. The weight indicated something inside besides paper: it was undoubtedly booby-trapped against tampering, with a charge that would go off if the handcuff was opened with anything but the right key, if the chain was cut, or if the box itself was attacked by a jimmy or other unauthorized instrument.

I didn’t have the slightest doubt what the non-explosive contents were. Tricky to the last, Madame Ling hadn’t been willing to entrust the results of her experiments wholly to the vessel in which she expected to make her getaway. In fact, she’d probably intended to use herself as a decoy if things went wrong, drawing attention from the preliminary copy of her report that she was sending to some trusted agent along the coast, using Basil as her messenger.

Like Vadya, I’d been a little surprised that she’d been unwilling to stick by her agreement and sell the man out. Certainly I’d never seen a woman less likely to be troubled by considerations of personal loyalty. But now her reasoning made sense, because Basil was the ideal courier here. A braver man, carrying a secret of this value, might have been tempted to cash in on it somehow, but not Basil. He wouldn’t have had the nerve to let anyone tinker with the booby-trapped case to which he was attached no matter what the possible profit might be. Chained to a bomb, he would think of nothing but getting rid of it quickly and safely, by delivering it to the person who had the handcuff key…

In any case, I had the secret of Dr. Archibald McRow’s super-bug. I also, no doubt, had the secret of the serum that would combat it—well, sixty per cent worth.

I turned to the outboard motor and yanked at the cord. Somebody was shooting at me from the shore; I’d drifted into sight of the cove. A boat was beached there, much larger than mine, piled high with cages, but the loading process had come to a standstill now. A couple of men were wading into the water toward me, trying to close the range. I yanked at the cord again, wishing I knew more about those lousy little two-cycle motors: it’s a form of machinery with which I’ve had hardly any experience.

A burp gun opened up, and I heard the ricochets whine past, and saw the bullet-splashes move in my direction. Then the whole world seemed to tremble, and the cliff came down.

The face above me said, “I am terribly sorry, sir. About your friend. He sank before we could reach him.”

“My friend?” My voice seemed to come from miles away.

“The man you were trying to rescue. There’s no need to blame yourself, sir. You did your best. Now just hold still, please, while I bandage this gash on your shoulder. You are lucky to be alive. Your boat was smashed to kindling… Oh, just one question, sir. Was your friend carrying explosives of some kind? I mean, there was an odd underwater disturbance a minute or so after he went down…”

By this time I was aware that I was lying on the deck of a boat or small ship. I also could remember being hurled into the water and swimming, it seemed, miles with Basil’s inert body, dragged downward by that damn metal box. Apparently it had been booby-trapped as I’d guessed, and the water-pressure had sprung the sides as it sank, setting off the charge. That took care of McRow’s immortal contribution to science. It also took care of my contribution toward saving the world. That was up to other people now.

I said, “Colonel Stark.”

“The Colonel is in the wireless shack, sir,” said the man bandaging me. “I don’t know just what you told him, but he wanted to get it on the air right away. He will be back shortly.”

“There was a ship or submarine or something lying offshore…”

“It has been taken care of, sir. There you are. A little rest and you’ll be good as new, sir.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

I sat up and looked shorewards over the ship’s low rail. Under the gray clouds, the shore had a different shape from what I remembered. Where there had been a headland of sorts, crowned by the remnants of Brossach Castle, there was now only a scar on the face of the cliff. I thought of Les Crowe-Barham, and of Vadya. Then I thought, for some reason, of the big Highland ox. I hoped he, at least, had escaped.

Footsteps came briskly along the deck, and I turned to see a stocky, gray-haired man in tweeds, with a fierce gray moustache. I had no doubt this was Colonel Stark, and I had a pretty good idea, having been through similar situations before, of the kind of elaborate official routine he’d put me through now. The only consolation was that I was going to have the fun of telling him that he’d have to quarantine this whole ship, himself included, until it was determined just how contagious I was…

It was two weeks before I was pronounced safe to associate with the human race again, after having so many samples taken of me that for a while it seemed likely there’d be nothing left. I was glad to see that an American doctor had been invited to participate in the experiments. Otherwise, I’d have had to rush to offer my unique plague-proof blood to my own country after the British got through analyzing it. As it was, I felt justified in getting off by myself for a day, to sort out a few uncomfortable thoughts I hadn’t been able to deal with while serving as a scientific specimen.

They’d given me back the little red car, which they’d found somewhere and had tuned and filled with gas—excuse me, petrol. I thought that was pretty nice of them. I drove away from Glasgow through the usual Scottish drizzle and, after getting lost a couple of times, managed to locate a small village named Dalbright. I parked outside the churchyard and went in through the iron gate.

The rain had stopped, but the place was dripping wet. There seemed to be nobody around. The little white church was shut up tight. I walked around slowly, examining the gravestones. Every fourth one, approximately, was a Glenmore. Back in the corner stood a large memorial monument dedicated, apparently, to family members who’d once been buried elsewhere and then dug up and re-interred here by someone who felt the family spirits should spend eternity together. Here I found the gentleman of whom I’d been told, who’d been beheaded for spying for the wrong side, or for being caught at it; I also found one who’d died in a duel. I couldn’t help thinking that, while we don’t have many dealings nowadays with the dueling sword or pistol, or the headsman’s axe, we still seem to find interesting ways of getting ourselves killed.

It gave me a guilty, regretful feeling to stand there alone. I remembered a girl who’d died in London who’d have liked very much to see this. Then I heard the gate creak, and I looked around and thought a ghost had come alive. I mean, it was a girl, and she was wearing a sweater and the blue-and-green hunting tartan: a kilt-skirt closed by a big safety pin.

I stood quite still, watching her close the gate carefully, a little awkward because of the flowers she carried. Then she turned toward me. It was not Nancy Glenmore, of course. This was another girl, not quite as pretty, but with that fresh look they have up there. She gave me a questioning glance, and went on to a new grave near the church, and began to arrange her flowers carefully before it.

I hesitated. I mean, it would not have been difficult to strike up a conversation. A question about the family would have done it. She was obviously a distant relative, or she would not have been wearing the plaid. And I was certified safe by the doctors of two countries; I was definitely not contagious, plague-wise. Nor was anybody, to the best of my knowledge, interested in shooting at me at the moment; there should be no risk from stray bullets. Still, she looked like a nice kid, and I did seem to leave a lot of dead people behind me, one way or another…

I walked quickly back out to the roadster and drove to an inn for breakfast, having passed up the ship’s food that had been offered me. I bought a paper from a machine in the doorway. I had not, of course, been informed of what had happened up north after I’d left, or what measures had been taken. Security had been very tight, and I was, after all, a foreigner. Besides, Colonel Stark hadn’t liked me very much. He’d made it quite clear that while, officially, he was aware that I’d made a valuable contribution by escaping alive, personally he’d have thought more of me if I’d died fighting bravely at Crowe-Barham’s side. Well, he was entitled to his opinion.

Waiting for my food, I read the paper carefully. It mentioned no strange diseases. There was, however, one small item about a question being asked in the House of Commons or wherever they ask those questions, concerning the accident that had totally destroyed a secret atomic installation, previously unheard of, on the northwest coast of Scotland, near the tiny village of Kinnochrue. I closed the paper thoughtfully. Apparently they’d used a low-yield nuclear device for extermination purposes, maybe one of the tactical gizmos. It could have done the work. Maybe I could stop feeling guilty about not being able to swim well enough to keep afloat Basil’s body and the burden attached to it…

Six hours later I was in London. My instructions, transmitted through international channels, were to check back into Claridge’s, where the room was still being held for me. A code word slipped into the text told me that the room and phone were now safe for conversation. This meant, I figured, that our own people wanted the answers to a few questions they had not been able to ask while I was in British hands. I didn’t particularly look forward to another interrogation, so it wasn’t with any great eagerness that I turned the Spitfire over to the doorman, got the key from the desk, and went upstairs, limping a little. Ironically, after all the exotic things that had happened to me, the wrenched knee I’d got stepping into a hole in the ground was the only thing that still bothered me, physically speaking.

I climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and went into the big room and started to throw my coat on the bed and stopped. There were some clothes on the bed. I picked up one item: a very simple little white shift of a dress, rather wrinkled and grimy, as if it had been worn longer than it should have been. I looked around. There were some suitcases parked beyond the bed that I recognized. I went into the bathroom and looked at the small blonde girl in the enormous tub.

“Some people knock,” Winnie said. “Even husbands have been known to, not to mention people impersonating husbands. My God, it’s nice to be clean again. I’ve been locked up in an attic for three weeks. One pitcher of water a day. You’d think they had rationing or something. Hand me that big towel, will you?”

I held it for her, as she stepped out of the tub. She wrapped it around her, and used another, smaller towel to dry her dripping hair.

“They turned you loose?” I said.

“She turned me loose,” Winnie said, rubbing hard. “Do you make a habit of shooting holes in your girl friends? If so, remember I’m no friend of yours. I’m just your wife, and it’s strictly a temporary arrangement, at that.”

I cleared my throat and said, “What about Vadya?”

“She’ll live. She sent you a message.”

“Give.”

“She says she bears no hard feelings for the interrogation you put her through, since you owed her something for a similar scene in the past. She says you once let a girl go whom you should probably have killed, and now she’s doing the same. She says that makes the two of you even except for a bullet in the guts. She says she’ll be looking forward to paying off that score, some day.”

Well, that sounded like Vadya. How she’d got out of the place before it blew, in her condition, and made her way back south, I’d probably never know. How, after being in the place for hours, she’d escaped getting infected with McRow’s plague, nobody’d ever know. She was a durable girl. I drew a long breath. Suddenly I felt much better, even though I was going to have to change part of my report to read failure instead of success. After all, I’d been more or less instructed to kill her.