Seawitch Part 9

"Security-consciousness. Do you know that there are literally dozens of shops where I cpuld buy, perfectly legally, a general's uniform. Those are the specialty shops that cater primarily to the film and stage industries. If I walked in dressed in such a uniform, would you accept me for what my uniform proclaimed me to be?"

"I suppose I would, sir."

"Well, don't. Not ever again." He glanced at his ident.i.ty card lying on the desk. "Forging one of those presents no problems. When a stranger makes an appearance in a top security place like this, always, always, check his ident.i.ty with Area Command. And always talk only to the commanding officer."

"Yes, sir. Do you happen to know his name? Fm new here."

"Major-General Harsworth."

Martin had the corporal at the front desk put him through. On the first ring a voice answered. "Area Command."

The voice did not in fact come from Area Command. It came from a man less than half a mile away, seated at the base of a telephone pole. He had with him a battery-powered transceiver. An insulated copper line from that led 144.

up to an alligator clip attached to one of the telephone wires.

Martin said: "Netley Rowan a.r.s.enal. Captain Martin. I'd like to speak to General Harsworth."

"Hold on, please." There was a series of clicks, a pause of some seconds, then the same voice said: "On the line, Captain."

Martin said: "General Harsworth."

"Speaking." The man by the telephone pole had deepened his voice by an octave. "Problems, Captain Martin?"

"I have Colonel Farquharson with me. He insists that I check out his ident.i.ty with you."

The voice at the other end was sympathetic. "Been getting a security lecture?"

"I'm afraid I have, sir."

"The colonel's very hot on security. He's with Lieutenant-Colonel Dewings and Major Breck-ley?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, it's hardly the end of your professional career. But he's right, you know."

Farquharson himself took the wheel of the car on the three-mile journey, a chastened, compliant Martin sitting up front beside him. A fifteen-foot-high electrical-warning barbed-wire fence surrounded the a.r.s.enal, a squat, gray, windowless building covering almost half an acre of land. A sentry with a machine carbine barred the entrance to the compound. He recognized Captain 145.

Alistair MacLcan Martin, stepped back and saluted. Farquharson drove up to the one and only door of the building and halted. The four men got out. Farquharson said to Martin: "Major Breckley has never been inside a TNW installation before. A few illuminating comments, perhaps?" It would be illuminating for Farquharson also. He had never been inside an a.r.s.enal of any description in his life.

"Yes, sir, TNW-Tactical Nuclear Warfare, Walls thirty-three inches thick, alternating steel and ferroconcrete. Door ten inches tungsten steels. Both walls and door capable of resisting the equivalent of a fourteen-inch armor-piercing naval sh.e.l.l. This gla.s.s panel is recording us on TV videotape. This meshed grill is a two-way speaker which also records our voices." He pressed a b.u.t.ton sunk in the concrete.

A voice came through the grill. "Identification, please?"

"Captain Martin with Colonel Farquharson and security inspection." "Code?"

"Geronimo." The ma.s.sive door began to slide open and they could hear the hum of a powerful electrical motor. It took all of ten seconds for the door to open to its fullest extent. Martin led them inside.

A corporal saluted their entrance. Martin said: "Security inspection tour."

"Yes, sir." The corporal didn't seem too happy.

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Farquharson said: "You worried about something, soldier?"

"No, sir."

"Then you should be."

Martin said: "Something wrong, sir?" He was patently nervous.

"Four things." Martin dipped his head so that Farquharson couldn't see his nervous swallowing. One thing would have been bad enough.

"In the first place, that sentry gate should be kept permanently locked. It should only be opened after a phone call to your HQ and an electronic link for opening the gate installed in your office. What's to prevent a person or persons with a silenced automatic disposing of your sentry and driving straight up here? Second, what would prevent people walking through the open doorway and spraying us all with submachine guns? That door should have been shut the moment we pa.s.sed through." The corporal started to move but Farquharson stopped him with upraised hand.

"Third, all people who are not base personnel-such as we-should be fingerprinted on arrival. I will arrange to have your guards trained in those techniques. Fourth, and most important, show me the controls for those doors."

"This way, sir." The corporal led the way to a small console. "The red b.u.t.ton opens, the green one closes."

Farquharson pressed the green b.u.t.ton. The 147.

MacLean ma.s.sive door hissed slowly closed. "Unsatisfactory. Totally. Those are the only controls to operate the door?"

"Yes, sir." Martin looked very unhappy indeed.

"We shall have another electronic link established with your HO, which will render those b.u.t.tons inoperable until the correct signal is sent." Farquharson was showing signs of irritation. "I would have thought ah* those things were self-evident."

Martin smiled weakly. "They are now, sir."

"What percentage of explosives, bombs and sh.e.l.ls stored here are conventional?"

"Close to ninety-five per cent, sir."

"Fd like to see the nuclear weapons first."

"Of course, sir." A now thoroughly demoralized Martin led the way.

The TNW section was compartmented off but not sealed. One side was lined with what appeared to be sh.e.l.ls, stowed on racks; the other, with pear-shaped metal canisters about thirty inches high, with b.u.t.tons, a clockface and a large knurled screw on top. Beyond them were stacked suitcases, each with two leather handles.

Breckley indicated the pear-shaped canisters. "What are those? Bombs?"

"Both bombs and land mines." Martin seemed glad to talk and take his mind off his troubles. "Those controls on top are relatively simple. Before you get at those two red switches you 14*

have to unscrew those two transparent plastic covers. The switches have then to be turned ninety degrees to the right. They are then still in the safe position. They then have to be flipped ninety degrees to the left. This is the ready-to-activate position.

"Before that is done, you have to put the time setting on the clock. That is done by means of this knurled k.n.o.b here. One complete turn means a one-minute time delay which will show up on this clockface here. It registers in seconds, as you can see. Total time delay is thirty minutes- thirty turns."

"And this black b.u.t.ton?"

"The most important of them all. No cover and no turning. You might want to get at it in a hurry. Depressing that stops the clock and, in fact, deactivates the bomb."

"What's the area of damage?"

"Compared to the conventional atom bomb, tiny. The vaporization area would be a quarter-mile radius. Perhaps less. The blast, shock and radiation areas would, of course, be considerably greater."

"You mean they can be used as both bombs and mines?"

"Instead of mines, maybe I should have said an explosive device for use on land. As bombs the setting would probably be only six seconds- in tactical warfare they would be carried by low-flying supersonic planes. They'd be about two 149.

miles clear by the time the bomb went off and moving too fast for the shock waves to catch up with them. For land use-well, say you wanted to infiltrate an ammunition dump. You'd check how long it would take you to infiltrate there, calculate how long it would take you to get out and clear of the blast zone, and set the timer accordingly.

"The missiles here-"

"We've seen and heard enough," Farquharson said. "Kindly put your hands up."

Five minutes later, with the furiously reluctant a.s.sistance of Martin, they had loaded two of the bombs, safely concealed in their carrying cases, into the trunk of their car. In the process the purpose of the two carrying handles became clear: each bomb must have weighed at least ninety pounds.

Farquharson went back inside, looked indifferently at the two bound men, pressed the b.u.t.ton and slipped through the doorway as the door began to close. He waited until the door was completely shut, then climbed into the front seat beside Martin, who was at the wheel this time. Farquharson said: "Remember, one false move and you're a dead man. We will, of course, have to kill the sentry too."

There were no false moves. About a mile from the building the car stopped by a thicket of stunted trees. Martin was marched deep into the thicket, bound, gagged and attached to a tree 15*

just in case he might have any ideas about jack-knifing his way down to the roadside. Farquhar-son looked down at him.

"Your security was lousy. We'll phone your HQ in an hour or so, let them know where they can find you. I trust there are not too many rattlesnakes around."

151.

Chapter 6.

JttoBERTSON looked up from the radio console. "Chief McGarrity."

Mitch.e.l.l took the phone. "Mitch.e.l.l? We've found the kidnapers' estate wagon. Down by the Wyanee Swamp." McGarrity sounded positively elated. "I'm going there personally. Tracker dogs. Til wait for you at the Walnut Tree crossing." Mitch.e.l.l replaced the receiver and said to Roomer: "McGarrity's got it all wrapped up. He's found the estate wagon. Well . . . someone did, but of course it will be made clear eventually that it was McGarrity."

"Empty, of course. Doesn't that old fool know 152.

that this makes it more difficult, not easier? At least we knew what transport they were using. Not any more. He didn't mention anything about bringing along a newspaper photographer that he just sort of accidentally b.u.mped into?"

"Tracker dogs were all he mentioned."

"Did he suggest anything for the dogs to sniff at?" Mitch.e.l.l shook his head, Roomer shook his and called to Jenkins. "Will you get Louise, please?"

Louise appeared very quickly. Roomer said: "We need a piece of clothing that the ladies used to wear a lot."

She looked uncertain. "I don't understand-"

"Some things we can give bloodhounds to sniff so that they pick up their scent."

"Oh." It required only a second's thought. "Their dressing gowns, of course." This with but the slightest hint of disapproval, as if the girls spent most of the day lounging about in those garments.

"Handle as little as possible, please. Put each in a separate plastic bag."

A patrol car and a small closed police van awaited them at the Walnut Tree crossing. McGarrity was standing by the police car. He was a small bouncy man who radiated goodwill and only stopped smiling when he was vehemently denouncing corruption in politics. He was a police chief of incomparable incompetence, but 153.

Alistair MacLoan was a consummate and wholly corrupt politician, whi^h was whv he was police chief. He shook the hands of Mitch.e.l.l and Roomer with all the warmth and sincerity of an inc.u.mbent coming up for re-election, which was precisely what he was.

"Glad to meet you two gentlemen at last. Heard very good reports about you." He appeared to have conveniently forgotten his allegation that thev gave a lot of trouble to the local law. "Appreciate all the co-operation you've given me-and for turning up here now. This is Ron Stewart of the Herald." He gestured through an open car window where a man, apparently festooned in cameras, sat in the back seat. "Kind of acoi< p="">

Mitch.e.l.l choked, turning it into a cough. "Too many cigarettes."

"Same failing myself. Driver's the dog handler. Driver of the van is the other one. Just follow us, please."

Five miles farther on they reached the turn-off-one of many-into the Wyanee Swamp. The foliage of the trees, almost touching overhead, quickly reduced the light to that of a late winter afternoon. The increase in the humidity was almost immediately noticeable, as was the sour, nose-wrinkl i n g miasma as they neared the swamp. A distinctly unhealthy atmosphere, or such was the first impression: but many people with a marked aversion to what pa.s.sed for civilization lived there all their lives and seemed none the worse for it.

The increasingly rutted, b.u.mpy road had become almost intolerable until they rounded a blind corner and came across the abandoned station wagon.

The first essential was, apparently, that pictures be taken, and the second that McGarrity be well-placed in each one, his hand preferably resting in a proprietorial fas.h.i.+on on the hood. That done, the cameraman fitted a flash attachment and was reaching for the rear door when Roomer clamped his wrist not too gently. "Don't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Never been on a criminal case before? Fingerprints is why not." He looked at McGarrity. "Expecting them soon?"

"Shouldn't be long. Out on a case. Check on them, Don." This to the driver, who immediately got busy on his radio. It was clear that the idea of bringing fingerprint experts along had never occurred to McGarrity.

The dogs were released from the van. Roomer and Mitch.e.l.l opened up their plastic bags and allowed the dogs to sniff the dressing gowns. McGarrity said: "What you got there?"

"The girls' dressing gowns. To give your hounds a scent. We knew you'd want something."

"Of course. But dressing gowns!" McGarrity was a past master in covering up. Something else, clearly, that had not occurred to him.

154.

153.

The dogs caught the scents at once and strained at their leashes as they nosed their way down a rutted path, for the road had come to an abrupt end. Inside a hundred yards, their path was blocked by water. It wasn't a true part of the swamp but a slow, meandering, mud-brown creek, perhaps twenty feet across, if that. There was a mooring post nearby, with a similar one at the far bank. Also by the far bank was a warped and aged craft which not even the charitable could have called a boat. It was built along the lines of an oversized coffin, with a squared-off end where the bow should have been. The ferry-probably the most kindly name for it- was attached to the two posts by an endless pulley line.

The two dog handlers hauled the boat across, got into it with understandable caution, and were joined by their dogs, who kept on * disolaying considerable signs of animation, an animation which rapidly diminished, then vanished shortly after they had landed on the far bank. After making a few fruitless circles, they lay down dejectedly on the ground.

"Well, ain't that a shame," a voice said, 'Trail gone cold, I guess."

The four men on the near bank turned to look at the source of the voice. He was a bizarre character, wearing a new panama hat with a tartan band, gleaming thigh-length leather boots (presumably as a protection against snakebites), and 156.

clothes discarded by a scarecrow. "You folks chasin' someone?"