There was a far from subtle change in Colonel Pryce’s tone. ‘It’s quite unnecessary to threaten me.’
‘One moment. Lord Worth’s just arrived.’ Mitchell gave a brief résumé of what he had said, making sure that Pryce could hear every word that was spoken.
‘Nuclear bloody bombs! That’s why Cronkite said he could blast us out of the water!’ Lord Worth snatched the phone from Mitchell. ‘Lord Worth here. I have a hot line to the Secretary of State, Dr Belton. I could catch him in fifteen seconds. Want I should do that?’
‘That will not be necessary, Lord Worth.’
‘Then give us a detailed description of those damned evil things and tell us how they work.’
Pryce, almost eagerly, gave the description. It was almost precisely similar to the one that Captain Martin had given to the bogus Colonel Farquharson. ‘But Martin was a new officer and shaky on his details. The nuclear devices you–can hardly call them bombs–are probably twice as effective as he said. They took the wrong type–those devices have no black button to shut off in an emergency. And they have a ninety-minute setting, not sixty. And they can be radio activated.’
‘Something complicated? I mean, a VHF number or something of the kind?’
‘Something very uncomplicated. You can’t expect a soldier in the heat of battle to remember abstruse numbers. It’s simply a pear-shaped device with a plastic seal. Strip that off and turn a black switch through three hundred and sixty degrees. It is important to remember that turning this switch off will de-activate the detonating mechanism in the nuclear device. It can be turned on again at any time.’
‘If it should be used against us? We have a huge oil storage tank nearby. Wouldn’t this cause a massive oil slick?’
‘My dear fellow, oil is by nature combustible and much more easily vaporized than steel.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Seems to be you want a squadron of supersonic fighter-bombers out there. But I’ll have to get Pentagon permission first.’
‘Thank you again.’
Lord Worth and Mitchell left for the former’s quarters. Lord Worth said: ‘Two things. We’re only assuming, although it would be dangerous not to assume, that those damned things are meant for us. Besides, if we keep our radar, sonar and sensory posts manned I don’t see how Cronkite could approach and deliver those damned things.’
‘It’s difficult to see how. But then it’s difficult to figure out that devious devil’s cast of mind.’
From Lord Worth’s helicopter Gregson made contact with the Georgia. ‘We’re fifteen miles out.’
Cronkite himself replied. ‘We’ll be airborne in ten.’
A wall radio crackled in Lord Worth’s room. ‘Helicopters approaching from the north-east.’
‘No worry. Relief crew.’
Lord Worth had gone back to his shower when the relief helicopter touched down. Mitchell was in his laboratory, looking very professional in his white coat and glasses. Dr Greenshaw was still asleep.
Apart from gagging and manacling the pilots, the helicopter passengers offered them no violence. They disembarked in quiet and orderly fashion. The drill duty crew observed their arrival without any particular interest. They had been well trained to mind their own business and had highly personal reasons for not fraternizing with unknowns. And the new arrivals were unknowns. Off the coast Lord Worth owned no fewer than nine oil rigs–all legally leased and paid for–and, for reasons best known to his devious self, was in the habit of regularly rotating his drill crews. The new arrivals carried the standard shoulder-slung clothes-bags. Those bags did indeed contain a minimal amount of clothes, but not clothing designed to be worn: the clothes were there merely to conceal and muffle the shape of the machine-pistols and other more deadly weapons inside the bags.
Thanks to the instructions he had received from Cronkite via Durand, Gregson knew exactly where to go. He noted the presence of two idly patrolling guards and marked them down for death.
He led his men to the Oriental quarters where they placed their bags on the platform and unzipped them. Windows were smashed and what followed was sheer savage massacre. Within half a dozen seconds of machine-gun fire, bazooka fire and incinerating flame-throwers, all of which had been preceded by a flurry of tear-gas bombs, all screaming inside had ceased. The two advancing guards were mown down even as they drew their guns. The only survivor was Larsen, who had been in his own private room in the back: Palermo and all his men were dead.
Four people appeared almost at the same instant from the quarters at the end of the block. Soundproofed though those quarters were, the noise outside had been too penetrating not to be heard. There were four of them, two men in white coats, a man in a Japanese kimono and a black-haired guard in a wrap. One of Gregson’s men fired twice at the nearest white-coated figure and Mitchell staggered and fell backwards to the deck. Gregson brutally smashed the wrist of the man who had fired, who screamed in agony as the gun fell from his shattered hand.
‘You bastard idiot!’ Gregson’s voice was as vicious as his appearance. The hard men only, Mr Cronkite said.’
Gregson was nothing if not organized. He detailed five groups of two men. One group herded the drilling rig crew into the Oriental quarters. The second, third and fourth went respectively to the sensory room, the sonar room and the radar room. There they tied up but did not otherwise harm the operators, before they riddled all the equipment with a burst of machine-gun bullets. For all practical purposes the Seawitch was now blind, deaf and benumbed. The fifth group went to the radio room, where the operator was tied up but his equipment left intact.
Dr Greenshaw approached Gregson. ‘You are the leader?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m a doctor.’ He nodded to Mitchell, whose white coat accentuated his blood and who was rolling about in a convincing manner, Marina bending over him with bitter tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘He’s hurt bad. Can I take him into the sickbay and patch him up?’
‘We have no quarrel with you,’ Gregson said, which was, unwittingly, the most foolish remark he’d ever made in his life.
Dr Greenshaw helped the weak and staggering Mitchell into the sickbay where, the door closed behind him, he made an immediate and remarkable recovery. Marina stared at him in astonishment, then in something approaching anger.
‘Why you deceiving, double-crossing–’
‘That’s no way to talk to a sick man.’ He was pulling off his white coat, jacket and shirt. ‘Never seen you cry before. Makes you look even more beautiful. And that’s real blood.’ He turned to Dr Greenshaw. ‘Superficial wound on the left shoulder, a scratch on the right forearm. Dead-eyed Dick himself. Now make a real good job on me, Doc. Right forearm bandaged from elbow to wrist. Left arm bandaged from shoulder to above the elbow with a lovely big sling. Marina, even ravishing beauties like you carry talcum powder. I hope you’re no exception.’
Not yet mollified, she said stiffly: ‘I have some. Baby powder,’ she added nastily.
‘Get it, please.’
Five minutes later Mitchell had been rendered into the epitome of the walking wounded. His right arm was heavily bandaged and his left arm was swathed in white from shoulder to wrist. The sling was nothing short of voluminous. His face was very pale indeed. He left for his room and returned a few seconds later.
‘Where have you been?’ Marina asked suspiciously.
He reached inside the depths of the sling and pulled out his silenced .38. ‘Fully loaded.’ He returned it to its hiding place where it was quite invisible.
‘Never give up, do you?’ Her voice held a curious mixture of awe and bitterness.
‘Not when I’m about to be vaporized.’
Dr Greenshaw stared at him. ‘What in God’s name do you mean?’
‘Our good friend Cronkite has pinched a couple of tactical nuclear weapons. He intends to finish off the Seawitch in a style of befitting splendour. He should be here about now. Now, Doc, I would like you to do something for me.
Take the biggest medical bag you have and tell Gregson that it is your humanitarian duty to go inside that shambles that used to be the Oriental quarters to succour any that may be dying or, if necessary, to put them out of their agony. They have, I know, a respectable supply of hand-grenades in there. I’d like some.’
‘No sooner said than done. God, you look awful. Destroys my faith in myself as a doctor.’
They went outside. Cronkite’s helicopter was indeed just touching down. Cronkite himself was the first out, followed by Mulhooney, the three bogus officers who had stolen the nuclear weapons, the commandeered pilot and lastly Easton. Easton was the unknown quantity. Mitchell did not appreciate it at the time but Easton’s Starlight had been so badly damaged by the depth-charge that it was no longer serviceable. Less than four miles away what appeared to be a coastguard cutter was heading straight for the Seawitch. It required no guessing to realize that this was the missing Hammond, the infamous Questar, the present Georgia.
Dr Greenshaw approached Gregson. ‘Mind if I have a look at the little you’ve left of those quarters? Maybe there’s someone still alive in there: more likely there’s someone who requires a little kindly euthanasia.’
Gregson pointed to an iron door. ‘I’m more interested in who’s in there. Spicer–’ this to one of his men–‘a bazooka shot at that lock.’
‘That’s hardly necessary,’ Greenshaw said mildly. ‘A knock from me is all that is required. That’s Commander Larsen, the boss of the oil rig. He’s no enemy of yours. He just sleeps here because he likes his privacy.’ Dr Greenshaw knocked. ‘Commander Larsen. It’s okay. It’s me, Greenshaw. Come on out. If you don’t their are some people who are going to blast your door down and you with it. Come on, man. I’m not saying this under duress.’
There was the turning of a heavy key and Larsen emerged He looked dazed, almost shell-shocked, as well he might. He said: ‘What the hell goes on?’
‘You’ve been taken over, friend,’ Gregson said. Larsen was dressed, Greenshaw was pleased to note, in a voluminous lumber-jacket, zipped around the waist. ‘Search him.’ They searched and round nothing.
‘Where’s Scoffield?’ Larsen said.
Greenshaw said: ‘In the other quarters. He should be okay.’
‘Palermo?’
‘Dead And all his men. At least I think so. I’m just going to have a look-see.’ Stooping his shoulders to look more nearly eighty than his seventy years, Dr Greenshaw shambled along the shattered corridor, but he could have saved himself the trouble of acting. Gregson had just met Cronkite outside the doorway and the two men were talking in animated and clearly self-congratulatory terms.
After the first few steps Greenshaw realized that there could be nobody left alive in that charnel-house. Those who were dead were very dead indeed, most of them destroyed beyond recognition, either by machine-gun fire, shattered by bazookas or shrivelled by the flame throwers. But he did find the primary reason for his visit there–a box of hand-grenades in prime condition and a couple of Schmeisser sub-automatics, fully loaded. A few of the grenades he stuffed into the bottom of his medical bag. He peered out of one of the shattered windows at the back and found the area below in deep shadow. He carefully lowered some grenades to the platform and laid the two Schmeissers beside them. Then he made his way outside again.
It was apparent that Cronkite and Lord Worth had already met, although the meeting could not have been a normal one. Lord Worth was lying apparently senseless on his back, blood flowing from smashed lips and apparently broken nose, while both cheek were badly bruised. Marina was bending over him dabbing at his wounds with a flimsy handkerchief. Cronkite, his face unmarked but his knuckles bleeding, had apparently for the moment at least, lost interest in Lord Worth, no doubt waiting until Lord Worth had regained full consciousness before starting in on him again.
Lord Worth whispered between smashed lips: ‘Sorry, my darling, sorry, my beloved. My fault and all my fault. The end of the road.’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was as low as his own, but strangely there were no tears in her eyes. ‘But not for us. Not while Michael is alive.’
Lord Worth looked at Michael through rapidly closing eyes. ‘What can a cripple like that do?’
She said with low but utter conviction: ‘He’ll kill Cronkite and all his evil friends.’
He tried to smile but his smashed lips wouldn’t let him. ‘I thought you hated killing.’
‘Not vermin. Not people who do things like this to my dad.’
Mitchell spoke quietly to Dr Greenshaw, then both men approached Cronkite and Gregson, who broke off what appeared to be either a discussion or an argument. Dr Greenshaw said: ‘I’m afraid you’ve done your damn murderous work all too well, Gregson. There’s not a soul in there even recognizable as a human being.’
Cronkite said: ‘Who’s he?’
‘A doctor.’
Cronkite looked at Mitchell, who was looking worse by the minute. ‘And this?’
‘A scientist. Shot by mistake.’
‘He’s in great pain,’ Greenshaw said. ‘I’ve no X-ray equipment but I suspect the arm’s broken just below the shoulder.’
Cronkite was almost jovial, the joviality of a man now almost detached from reality. ‘An hour from now he won’t be feeling a thing.’
Greenshaw said wearily: ‘I don’t know what you mean. I just want to take him to the sickbay and give him a pain-killing injection.’
‘Certainly. I’d like everyone to be fully prepared for what’s about to happen to him.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Later, later.’
Greenshaw and the unsteady Mitchell moved off. They reached the sickbay, passed inside, went through the opposite side and made their unobserved way to the radio room. Greenshaw stood guard just inside the door while Mitchell, ignoring the bound operator, went straight to the transceiver. He raised the Roamer inside twenty seconds,
‘Captain Conde, please.’
‘Speaking.’
‘Next circuit out to the oil tank get round behind it then head south at full speed. The Seawitch has been taken over but I’m certain there’s nobody here who can operate the anti-aircraft guns. Stop at twenty miles and issue a general warning to all ships and aircraft not to approach within twenty miles of the Seawitch. You have its co-ordinates?’
‘Yes. But why–’
‘Because there’s going to be a mighty big bang. Christ’s sake, don’t argue.’
‘Don’t argue about what?’ a voice behind Mitchell said.
Mitchell turned round slowly. The man behind the pistol was smiling a smile that somehow lacked a genuine warmth. Greenshaw had been pushed to one side and the gun moved in a slow arc covering them both. ‘I’ve a feeling that Gregson would like to see you both.’
Mitchell rose, turned, half-staggered and clutched his left forearm inside the sling Greenshaw said sharply: ‘God’s sake, man, can’t you see he’s ill?’
The man glanced at Greenshaw for a second but a second was all that Mitchell would ever require. The bullet from the silenced .38 took him through the heart. Mitchell peered through the doorway. There was a fair degree of shadow there, no one in sight and the edge of the platform not more than twenty feet away. A few seconds later the dead man vanished over the edge. Mitchell and Greenshaw returned to the main body of the company via the sickbay. Cronkite and Gregson were still deep in discussion. Larsen stood some distance apart, apparently in a state of profound dejection. Greenshaw approached him and said quietly: ‘How do you feel?’
‘How would you feel if you knew they intended to kill us all?’
‘You’ll feel better by and by. Round the back of the building, when you get the chance, you’ll find some hand-grenades which should rest comfortably inside that lumber-jacket of yours. You’ll also find two loaded Schmeissers. I have a few grenades in my medical bag here. And Mitchell has his silenced .38 inside his sling.’
Larsen took care not to show his feelings. He loo
ked as morose as ever. All he said was: ‘Boy, oh boy, oh boy.’
Lord Worth was on his feet now, supported by his daughter. Mitchell joined them. ‘How do you feel, sir?’
Lord Worth spoke or rather mouthed his words with understandable bitterness. ‘I’m in great shape.’
‘You’ll feel better soon.’ He lowered his voice and spoke to Marina. ‘When I give the word, say you want to go to the ladies’ room. But don’t go there. Go to the generator room. You’ll see a red lever there marked ‘Deck Light”. Pull it down. After you count twenty put it on again.’
Cronkite and Gregson appeared to have finished their discussion. From Cronkite’s smile it appeared that his view had prevailed. Lord Worth, Marina, Larsen, Greenshaw and Mitchell stood together, a forlorn and huddled group. Facing them were the serried ranks of Cronkite, Mulhooney, Easton, the bogus Golonel Farquharson, Lieutenant-Colonel Dewings, Major Breckley, Gregson and all his killers, a most formidable group and armed to the teeth.
Cronkite spoke to a man by his side. ‘Check.’
The man lifted a walkie-talkie, spoke into it and nodded. He said to Cronkite: ‘Charges secured in position.’
‘Excellent. Tell them to steam due north for twenty miles and remain there.’ This was done. Unfortunately for Cronkite, his view to the west was blocked by the shattered building behind him and he could not see that the Roamer was already steaming steadily to the south. Even had he had a clear view it would hardly have mattered: Conde had prudently extinguished every light aboard the Roamer.
Cronkite smiled. ‘Well, Lord Worth, it’s the end of the road for both you and the Seawitch. Even a billionaire can step out of his class. I have two nuclear devices attached to the western leg of the Seawitch.’ He dug into a pocket and produced a black pear-shaped metal container. ‘The radioactive detonating device. You will not fail to observe this small switch here. It’s supposed to be good for ninety minutes, but I have already run off forty minutes of it. Fifty more minutes and poof! the Seawitch, you, Lord Worth, and everyone aboard will be vaporized. Nobody will feel a thing, I assure you.’