Hostage Tower u-1 Page 8

  ‘We’re honoured,’ Graham ventured. Leah ignored him, and then led the way to the stable block. They passed through a tunnel into another, smaller yard, where a massive black stallion was coupling with a whinnying mare. Further bursts of gunfire, and the brutal lunging of the impatient horse, lent the graciously proportioned buildings an unwanted air of animal savagery.

  Claude nervously gave the rutting stallion a wide berth, and passed with Leah into the long, pine-panelled gun-room. There, a cold table had been laid out, with chilled manzanilla sherry and aperitif wines flanking a quadrille of lobsters, crabs and choice hams.

  ‘Mister Smith thought you might prefer to lunch here, and get to know each other properly, since you’re going to be thrown together rather a lot in the days to come. So … enjoy each other’s company. Mike, Sabrina and C.W. — you haven’t in any case met Pei and Tote properly.

  ‘Pei’s from — Indonesia, is it?’ — the happy little Asian nodded, and grinned even more spectacularly — ‘and Tote here is Finnish. We’ve never been able to spell his name, let alone pronounce it. but he’s quite happy to be known as Tote.’ The immensely broad and squat gorilla looked as though happiness was a condition entirely foreign to him, but he twisted his lips into what he clearly imagined to be a pleasant expression, though the effect on the three Americans lay somewhere between a snarl and a snake-bite. Pei, however, seemed to approve, and slapped Tote smartly on the back.

  ‘Shall we be seeing Mister Smith soon?’ Sabrina asked. She was curious to get her first sight of the man who, she had inferred from snatches of conversation with Philpott, was capable of causing untold harm to UNACO — and the world.

  ‘No,’ Leah said. ‘In fact, you won’t see him today at all. You’ll meet him tomorrow morning, though. When we’ve finished lunch, I’ll take you to your rooms, and you can settle in. Later, we’ll go on a quick tour of the château and the training grounds. May I caution you once more that you are not in any way to seek to communicate with, shall we say, the outside world. The telephones here are not for your use. Members of the staff will not carry messages for you. Even an attempt to make contact with anyone, no matter whom, will be construed as treachery. And you know the penalty for treachery.’

  Their rooms at the château were self-contained suites, named after people, places or periods of French history, and decorated appropriately. Sabrina felt specially honoured to be Le Roi Soleil, while Pei and Tote, who insisted on sharing Thermidor, were entirely ignorant of the French Revolutionary Calendar, but liked the working models of guillotines. Louis Seize was over-stylized for C.W., while Graham found Napoleon stark, but militarily compulsive.

  As soon as she could, Sabrina slipped along to Louis Seize, and found C.W. in the king-sized bath, decently camouflaged with foam. She perched on the toilet seat, as C.W. groaned and slid even further down into the water. ‘I know I’m madly attractive,’ he said, ‘but couldn’t you even wait for me to scrub off?’

  ‘It’s not your body I want, C.W.’ she grinned. ‘Not this time, anyway. It’s Mike Graham.’

  ‘Well why don’t you go and sit on his can, then?’ C.W. complained, not unreasonably.

  Sabrina laughed, and said, ‘This is serious. Can you stand a drop more water?’ He nodded. She turned both taps on, and pulled the toilet flush. Above the noise, she said, ‘Graham used to be a top man in the CIA. Now he’s a defector. He taught me on a weapons course once. He’s bound to have recognized me. We could be sunk, finished.’

  C.W. said, ‘Oh. Jeeze, I see what you mean.’ He sat up in the rapidly overflowing tub, and told her he had previously checked the bathroom for bugs, and found none. ‘So kill the plumbing, will you? Apart from anything else, you’ve diluted my sarong.’ Sabrina looked down into the water and said, ‘So I have. Hey — cute.’

  She turned off the taps, and asked. ‘What do we do?’

  C.W. made a circular motion with his hand, and she obediently averted her gaze. ‘OK,’ he ordered. She looked back. He was in a white terry-cloth robe, patting dry his glowing black skin.

  ‘Has Graham given any sign, anything, that he knows you?’ Sabrina shook her head. ‘But I don’t see how he can have failed to recognize me,’ she insisted.

  ‘OK,’ C.W. said. ‘You’re probably right. But there’s nothing else we can do except play it by ear. If he drops the word to Smith, publicly or privately, we’ll know about it soon enough when somebody takes us out to the stables and uses us for target practice. If he doesn’t tell Smith, then either you’re wrong, and he hasn’t spotted you, or he’s up to some devious little game of his own. In which case we keep cool until we find out what it is. Check?’

  ‘Check. If it’s target practice, though, I don’t intend to go quietly.’

  ‘You’re on,’ C.W. said approvingly. ‘If I have to go, I’ll take Smith with me.’

  * * *

  The castle library was a sumptuous room, panelled in rosewood, with marvellously embossed cornices and a delicately tinted ceiling. An enormous Indian carpet covered the central well, and there were steps leading to the bookshelves, with trolley-ladders to reach to the highest. Reading-desks lit by anglepoise lamps stood in the well, and around them a series of delicate little occasional tables, veneered in rosewood and overlaid with marquetry, sat expectantly before long, cushioned sofas in maroon leather. Drinks and savouries were laid out, and the new arrivals waited with Leah and Claude for the Seigneur of Château Clérignault.

  As always when Smith was due to appear, Claude prowled the room, checking everything, suspecting everyone, trusting no one. Mike Graham lounged on a chesterfield, sipping white port and munching cheese-biscuits topped with Beluga caviare. Sabrina sat as far from him as she could get without arousing suspicion; Pei and Tote inspected the room together, and chuckled over a volume of oriental erotica. C.W. noted with amusement a pamphlet title that read: ‘TOP SECRET. US ARMY ORDNANCE. BAT GUIDANCE SYSTEM’. He picked it up and scanned it. It was genuine.

  Smith walked through the open door. He had changed his appearance since Leah last saw him — in the Jacuzzi that morning — and Claude failed to recognize him at first. His hair was now dark-brown, his face slightly fuller. He looked taller, younger, more commanding. He was dressed in superbly cut riding clothes, with ludicrously polished boots. He held a riding crop in one hand, methodically tapping the other with the fringed end, and when he spoke it was in the accents of the English upper classes. The white stock at his throat was held in place by a black pearl stickpin.

  ‘Good day to you,’ he said, ‘and to those of you whom I have not met before — welcome. I am Mister Smith. Not a strikingly original name, I grant you. Merely the latest, and most adequate for my purposes.’

  He looked intently from face to face, studying the features, marking their expressions. His gaze lingered on Sabrina, and Leah’s lips tightened fractionally. But living with Smith induced chronic fatalism, and she knew that if she had to resign her place in Smith’s bed to the ravishing newcomer, she would do so with as good a grace as she could muster, and wait her time.

  Only Pei and Tote looked uncomfortable under Smith’s prolonged scrutiny. Graham stared nonchalantly back at his host, while C.W. grinned amiably and said, ‘Hi, there.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Smith beamed — then added to C.W., ‘Except that when you speak to me, you will always address me as “Mister Smith”. That rule is invariable. Understood?’

  ‘Sure,’ C.W. acknowledged. He let fifteen seconds pass, and said, ‘Uh — Mister Smith.’

  Smith gave the slightest of bows. ‘You will be pleased to learn, I am sure, that your identity checks and backgrounds have emerged unsullied from our computers. You are whom you claim to be, and you are the people I want for the little scheme I have in mind. However, it is — though important — of little use that I am satisfied with you if, on the other hand, you are dissatisfied with each other, or with me for that matter. Does any of you know, or suspect, something concerning one of the others which you
believe could jeopardize my plans? If you do, now is the time to speak.’

  C.W. tensed his body, and his brain grew ice-cold. Now, he thought; it’s now, or never. He checked the position of Claude, whom he calculated was the only armed man in the room. His eyes flickered beyond the library door. The stable yard weapons instructor stood in the hall, arms folded, his back turned to them, a sub-machine gun slung carelessly on his shoulder, finger hovering near the trigger guard.

  C.W. let his gaze sweep the room, and saw things he had missed before. The cornice corner mouldings concealed television cameras. One of the ceiling bosses was surely a machine-gun snout. Or was he getting paranoiac? Graham was taking his time, he thought; sadistic bastard.

  Mike Graham looked Sabrina full in the eyes. Hers were cast down, but the knowledge that Graham’s piercing stare was transfixing her, compelled her to jerk her head up and let her eyes meet his. He gave a half-smile of acknowledgement — and sat back and laced his fingers together meditatively.

  Sabrina felt the breath pumping from her lungs. C.W. shifted uncomfortably on his aching feet, poised for what had seemed an eternity to take his flying body at Claude’s gun, to give them some sort of chance. Mike Graham spoke not a single word. Neither did any other person in the room.

  ‘Again,’ Smith said, ‘excellent. We all trust each other. We may even like each other. That helps, I find. No close attachments of course —’ his gaze wandered to Pei and Tote. ‘But friendships, yes.’

  The tension drained from the room, and Sabrina wondered whether her face had registered the panic which had come so near to erupting when Graham’s eyes had pierced her like accusing daggers. Smith spoke again.

  ‘Incidentally, is anyone afraid of heights?’ They looked at each other, and shook their heads like marionettes. ‘Good,’ Smith went on. ‘And — C.W. would you have any trouble impersonating a French chef to a French chef? There are black chefs here — I’ve checked.’

  C.W. grinned and shook his head afresh. ‘Un morceau de gâteau,’ he replied. Smith laughed, and said to Sabrina, ‘There’s one more pairing which requires specialized skills, that you and Tote possess. It’s welding. You’ll work together.’ Sabrina nodded at Tote, who blinked twice.

  ‘I think that takes care of the preliminaries, then,’ Smith announced, rapping his gloved hand sharply with the riding crop. ‘More details later, of course. Target, dates, and so on. But for the moment, there’s one important piece of information you should have. Indeed, I need it, too. Mr Graham? Perhaps you would care to tell us what a Lap-Laser is.’

  Mike sat up and said, ‘Of course. The Lap-Laser is a tactical self-searching field weapon, laser-armed, auto-recharging — stop me if I’m getting too technical … No? OK. It’s lethal to a thousand metres, and it uses a guidance system known as BAT.

  ‘Russia and America have been racing to perfect the gun for years,’ Mike went on, ‘but neither had any success until the Americans tried a new element in the guidance system. They discarded the original radar, and substituted lasers to control the gun as well as power it. Now, it really works. It’s still a little unstable and — shall we say — indiscriminate. But, my God, it works.

  ‘A month ago, the General Electric Corporation of Buffalo, New York State, shipped twelve prototype Lap-Lasers to selected US Army test sites, including one in Europe. The four which were being tested at a secret range near the base at Stuttgart were, unfortunately, stolen. The Army have kept the lid on the theft, and their investigation has been highly confidential, you could say.

  ‘Luckily for us, they were stolen by me. I would imagine they are now here.’ He looked questioningly at Smith, who nodded. ‘Great,’ said Mike. ‘In that case, whatever our target, however difficult the going is made for us, we have a fantastic edge on anyone trying to stop us. These guns are really something else. They draw enough power to run a small city, and they are so phenomenally destructive that they make the average rocket gun seem like a pea-shooter. With four of them, we could take on an army.’

  Smith chuckled. ‘Funny you should say that,’ he mused. ‘Because we may have to.’

  Sabrina and C.W. looked startled. The ponderous Tote cracked his knuckles and beamed.

  * * *

  Despite his promise, Smith decided not to reveal the details of his operation until they had finished what he termed ‘a short period of training and relocation’. Sabrina and C.W. were not too downhearted; there was no possibility, in any case, of getting the information out to Philpott. It troubled them that he almost certainly didn’t know where they were, but there was nothing they could do about that, either.

  In fact, they were wrong. Philpott knew exactly where they were. Using an Air Force ‘Blackbird’ Mach III spy plane, he had tracked the chopper to the château. Now he was even able to recognize their faces, and photograph them, and Smith and his cohorts. He had seen more of the weaponry at Château Clérignault than C.W. and Sabrina had, and he hadn’t liked what he saw. What he didn’t know was the final plan and venue. And he could think of no way of obtaining that intelligence. He and Sonya Kolchinsky waited — in some comfort — at the Ritz, for Smith to make his move. They dared not risk French or American troops against the laser-gun in an assault on the château. They had no option but to play the waiting — and watching — game.

  The time passed swiftly enough for Smith’s team. The following night, after a tour of the vast estate, Smith assembled them once more in the enclosed stable yard. Claude was relieved to see that the big stallion had slaked his lust and gone to bed.

  The evening had been soft and balmy, and all round them was silence. Smith soon stopped that. He gave an airy wave of his hand, the stable doors opened, and the night was filled with deafening noise. The scene was bathed in light from arc-lamps on the roofs, and strung to poles overlooking the yard. Smith gestured towards the interior of the stables.

  Three monster generator trucks were lined up side by side, under constant cover from ground or aerial surveillance, thick wedges of cable looping from vehicle to vehicle. Further along, banks of turbine generators hummed and flickered with suppressed power. From the last truck, a bunch of cables ran to a wooden platform which had been put up in the yard. The words ‘RESTAURANT LAROUSSE’ were stencilled on the sides of all three trucks.

  Smith had assembled practically a hundred other trainees dressed, like his top team, in jump suits, to watch the operation. He waved both arms energetically at the truck drivers, and they cut their engines. ‘This is a fairly simple but, I feel, impressive demonstration. It is not designed to demonstrate the destructive power of the Lap-Laser-guns. If I did that, my beautiful castle would almost certainly be razed to the ground.’ There was a titter of appreciation, or sympathy, or whatever.

  ‘No. I merely want to show you how the Lap-Laser can combine speed with accuracy and total efficiency. Proceed.’

  On came the engines again. On the wooden platform, Graham stood at a control panel, all flashing lights and important-looking levers. Three feet away from him, resting on its mounting, black-snouted and menacing, with its mouse-ear detectors ranging edgily, was a Lap-Laser-gun. All eyes were fixed on it. Behind Mike, Pei and C.W. worked at a computer console, monitoring the hit. Tote and Sabrina stood by, engrossed in what they saw.

  Graham stood back, patted the Lap-Laser on its stock, and gave a thumbs up sign to Smith. Smith nodded at Claude, and Claude pressed a remote-control switch activating a signal-bulb at the far end of the yard. There, behind a shield of impenetrable lead, four men lifted Russian Kalashnikov AK 47 rifles, and fired automatic tracers at orthodox targets in the same area of range that was used the day before.

  Simultaneously, Graham flicked a set of switches on the panel and a light-beam shot out from the Lap-Lasers. The tracer rounds screamed across the yard in front of the laser-gun — and disappeared. Working at unbelievable speed, the Lap-Laser made minute course and trajectory adjustments, and each time it blinked — to swiftly that the human eye could not de
tect any break in the ray — it selected and destroyed an individual bullet.

  It was a dazzling display of pyrotechnics, and a shattering experience for the spectators. Smith called for quiet again, and strolled unconcernedly over to the targets. This time he held a little hand microphone with a trailing lead.

  ‘Not a single round found its mark,’ he announced in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘The Lap-Laser destroyed every one of them. With four of these to protect us, and to mount assaults on selected targets, we shall be invulnerable.’

  Graham manipulated the controls, and the Lap-Laser subsided. The air was thick with gun-smoke; Mike was pleased with the outcome of the test. Smith walked across to the platform and said, ‘Well done, and thank you.’

  ‘Nothing to it,’ said Graham. Smith asked C.W., ‘Have you worked out the safety coding yet?’ C.W. replied, ‘I think so.’ He glanced at Sabrina, who had joined Pei and himself at the computer. Sabrina said, ‘We think it’s tuned to this at the moment.’ She indicated a metal tag that C.W. held in his hand. Graham regarded it curiously.

  ‘Presumably,’ C.W. said, ‘it can be set to any metal alloy for protection, just as it can sniff out and destroy any predetermined target. But if you don’t want it to harm something, you merely feed into the computer a description and formula of the particular element or alloy to be avoided. The object — or person — to be protected then wears a specimen of the embargoed metal, and the Lap-Laser doesn’t function. It will simply miss out that part of the target altogether.’

  ‘Are you sure of this?’ Smith enquired.

  C.W. nodded, emphatically. ‘I’d bet my life on it.’

  ‘Then why don’t you?’ drawled Mike Graham.

  C. W. smiled, slowly. For a while he made no reply. Then he said, ‘Do I hear you right, man?’ His voice was dangerously low and silky.

  ‘If you didn’t,’ Mike pronounced deliberately, ‘what I said was: why don’t you bet your life on that metal tag?’