Famine (9 page)

“How do you mean – stupidly?” asked Conlon, the American ambassador.

“They don't attempt to conceal themselves, but make an attack and rely on their physical strength to get away.” When no one commented, Palfrey went on: “We know some appear as rabbits, at least one as cat, so they might adopt other disguises to make themselves less noticeable.”

“They've a hell of a lot of courage,” Conlon said. “Palfrey, what is your assessment of the danger?”

Palfrey answered briskly: “Ten of these creatures in this room could probably kill us all. If the colony found near Salisbury is the only one in England we might be able to find and contain it, but, if there are others, food stocks throughout Britain will soon be in danger, and so will any people who attempt to protect them.”

“This is absurd. They must be found and exterminated.” The voice was that of Hertz, the South African ambassador.

“Where are they from?” Halik of Russia asked in his heavily-accented English.

“Are
they human?” another demanded.

“Could
they come from another planet?”

“Now, that's crazy!”

“It is understandably alarming,” said the ambassador from Lozania. “But is there no hope that this has been grossly exaggerated?”

“Palfrey would hardly exaggerate,” Conlon objected.

“Gentlemen!” called the British Prime Minister sharply. “Each of you has been informed, each must report to his government as he thinks fit. We in Great Britain consider this to be potentially a very grave emergency, and arrangements are already in hand for the armed forces to help protect existing food supplies and crops. Dr. Palfrey will keep us all informed of new developments, and I shall continue to give him all facilities. Now, if you care to lunch–”

 

In a few moments he was in the centre of a group of anxious, excited ambassadors, Palfrey in the midst of another. He saw the ambassador from Lozania looking at him with obvious anxiety, and saw several other ambassadors join Clemente Taza. Then he had a sudden, devastating shock. Taza was an unusually good-looking man, with regular features, smooth skin, and controlled grace of movements; Lozanians being renowned for their good looks, and that undefinable quality which marked them as a race apart.

It came to him now that Clemente Taza's features were quite unmistakably like those of the creatures he had seen. It was in the bone structure of the face, the set of the eyes, the shape of the mouth. The similarity could not be mistaken once it had been noticed.

 

The best man to work on Taza was Jim Baretta, Palfrey decided. He could not get to a telephone quickly enough.

 

 

Clemente Taza, one of the most efficient and successful career diplomats in South America and an outstanding representative of his own country toyed with a small sliver of
pâté de foie gras,
then hurried from the Assembly Room. His chauffeur was waiting for him, and he was driven off immediately. The Lozanian Embassy was in Prince's Gate, and the traffic through Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge was very dense that lunch hour. By the time Taza reached the fine old Georgian house, Jim Baretta was already sitting, double-parked, in a Mini-Cooper which did not earn a second glance. Two more Z5 agents were also watching the house; and others would come. Until Taza had been completely cleared of suspicion, he would be watched day and night. Every move he made, even his telephone calls, would be reported. Inside the Embassy were two Lozanians, each fiercely loyal to
Z5;
Baretta would be in constant touch with them.

Taza went inside.
“Tense and worried,”
Baretta later reported.

Taza went straight to the first secretary.

“They were together for an hour,”
one of the Z5 agents reported.
“A tape recording will be sent as soon as practicable. I do not know yet what subject was under discussion.”

The first secretary left the house in Prince's Gate immediately after his long talk with Taza.

“He went direct to London Airport,”
one of Z5's agents reported.

An hour later, another report from inside the Embassy reached Palfrey, who was now back at his office.

“The first secretary was on board the eight o'clock flight to New York.”

Within an hour, another message reached Palfrey from the Lozanian Consulate in New York City.

“Two seats have been booked on tomorrow's early flight from Kennedy Airport to Lozan.”

Lozan was the capital of Lozania.

“No other member of the Embassy staff appears to be aware of the reason for the first secretary's journey,”
stated another report.
“The ambassador is now conducting normal daily business. He is obviously preoccupied.”

Palfrey studied these, and many other reports, during the late afternoon, feeling a new weight of anxiety and depression. He kept his mind as unprejudiced as he could, but the possibility of early results made him hope that the secret of the rabbit men and the midgets might be found before too much damage was done. In the early evening he was standing and studying the spines of some of the leather bound books in his study, when Joyce telephoned. He snatched up the receiver.

“Yes?”

“The tape from the Lozanian Embassy is on the way. Baretta is bringing it.”

“Thank God for that,” Palfrey said. “It's almost certain that Lozania's involved.”

“How can you be so sure?” demanded Joyce.

“No other message has gone to Lozan today. It is the only Embassy which has not sent coded messages back to the government at home.”

“I see what you mean,” Joyce said. “Do you want to take extra copies of the tape?”

“Yes” said Palfrey. “And I would like you, Galsworthy and Bonifacio to be present.” Bonifacio could make a simultaneous translation into English, both for his, Palfrey's benefit and for the recordings which might be essential. He waited for the tape to reach Z5 headquarters with almost feverish anxiety. Baretta was one of the best agents, he would have a man in front and two behind him for protection, each wearing a plastic strip round his throat. There was every reason to believe they were strongly safeguarded.

 

Certainly Jim Baretta was not worried. This short powerful Italian had steel bracelets round his wrists and neck, aware that he might have to fight off one of the creatures.

Outside the Lozanian Embassy he noticed as did the men watching him, a small post office van pulled up near the house as the driver walked to a pillar box, opened it, and took out letters. None of the Z5 men gave this man any further thought. The agent who had planted the tape came out and placed it quite casually on the wing of a car parked nearby. Baretta strolled along and picked it up, slipped it into his pocket and got into the green/white Mini-Cooper. One agent in front was on a motor-cycle, two behind were in an open T.R.3, vivid scarlet; there were times when the best way to hide was to draw attention to oneself.

The little cavalcade moved off.

When Baretta stopped, opposite Green Park underground station, a post office van drew up, not far behind. Its driver got out, and opened the back doors.

A furry streak leapt past him; a second, a third, a fourth.

Two men and a girl, almost level with the van, gaped as the four cat-like creatures leapt past the van towards Baretta. He heard a scream and a honking on the horn of the T.R.3. He swung round, hands up to protect his face, but four of the creatures leapt at him at once, and as he felt their impact, others raced from the post office van. The motor-cyclist jumped off his machine and ran forward – and four of the creatures hurtled at him. He went crashing down. As the other two men jumped up from the T.R.3, four more of the rabbit men sprang at them.

By now, a medley of people were rushing to help, women were screaming, men shouting, a woman cried
“Police, police!”
Huge red buses groaned to a stop, tyres screeched, cars and taxis slithered or jolted to a standstill, a cyclist fell so heavily that he lay stunned.

And more of the creatures came.

They snarled as they leapt at hands and bodies, eyes and faces, until in front of the horrified gaze of hundreds of people, human beings were torn to shreds, mangled, ripped, left unrecognisable. Two policemen, truncheons drawn, rushed up to try to save Baretta, but each was attacked savagely, each felt talons sink into his throat, each fell, dying. A small boy, terrified, turned and ran, slipped – and was suddenly buried by the seething fury of the creatures who looked like cats.

Now, police whistles were screeching, men from buses, cars and taxis recognised the danger, mobile police and the more responsible civilians began to draw the crowd away. One man arranged for a barrier of cars across Piccadilly in one direction, three buses were turned round in the other, to keep the crowd back. Traffic from Hyde Park Corner and from the Mall and St. James's, was held up in a jam thick and solid and unmoving. Emergency calls were made for more police, and for firemen, and others went out for troops.

Near the Mini-Cooper, the T.R.3. and the motor-cycle, were the remains of four of Palfrey's men.

Others, watching, hurried to report to Palfrey.

The Czechoslovakian ambassador to the Court of Queen Elizabeth who had been briefed by Palfrey and was having dinner at a penthouse overlooking Green Park, and very near the scene, heard the commotion and looked out. He saw the crowds gathered near the park railings pressing close, deckchairs and park seats neglected. Then he saw what looked like cats leaping over the railings and among the crowd, the sudden, awful panic. Women and girls in light summer dresses went down beneath a terrible onslaught, throats and faces crimsoned with blood. Two children ran, screaming. The whole park close to the railings was a seething mass of panic-stricken people, running, stumbling, crawling away from the ferocious creatures with the soft, cat-like fur.

The ambassador's colour drained away, and he turned for a telephone.

Newspaper reporters saw what happened and besieged the kiosks and the telephones of shops and offices. Two tourists with eight millimetre cine cameras stood fast, keeping their finger on the trigger, shooting the dreadful scenes.

And on a corner of Dover Street, Betty Fordham stood, unmoving, showing no expression.

Among the crowds in the traffic jams were no less than five ambassadors, and of those five none now could doubt what Palfrey had said.

 

The news of disaster reached Palfrey within ten minutes of it starting. He was out of his office and going towards the lift when Joyce ran after him, pleading “Don't go, Sap, don't take chances.” He ignored her. There was danger, always danger, and one could protect oneself too much. Other agents joined him as he hurried towards the shambles, and when he saw the extent of it he was appalled.

He saw Mrs Fordham – and thought of her as Beth.

Somehow, it seemed natural that she should be there; not until afterwards did he wonder at the coincidence. She was very pale. As they walked together towards the scene, he noticed for the first time how tall she was; almost as tall as he. For a moment their hands touched.

“Wait here,” Palfrey said.

He pushed his way through the crowd towards the spot where the Mini-Cooper stood, splashed with Baretta's blood. None of the animals was in sight now, except one which had been run over by a bus. Palfrey made himself walk forward, and go through Baretta's pockets, clenching his teeth, fighting back nausea. There was nothing there. He found the tape near the kerb, out of its box, damaged beyond repair, and he knew it would serve no useful purpose. More. He knew that it had been taken out of that packet by one of the creatures, who seemed to have human intelligence, knowing exactly what it wanted and how to get it. He turned back to the pavement and to Betty, whose eyes were level with his above the heads of the crowd. She did not look away. A superintendent of police, who knew him, came up and asked: “Anything we can do for you, Dr. Palfrey?”

“No thanks.”

“Can we get the traffic moving yet?”

“I don't see why not.”

“Have to wash the road down,” the Superintendent said. “I've never seen anything like it. It's worse than a battlefield.”

Palfrey muttered: “Yes.” It was worse, because so many women and children, boys and girls, had been dreadfully injured, or had died. Worse, because everyone had been so defenceless. Worse, because there had been no warning, and because the savage fury of the killer creatures had been released so swiftly. And in a way, worse because if he had broadcast word of the danger, some of these people might have been prepared – and protected.

At heart, he did not believe this. The world must know now, but at least a little time had been given to governments, to prepare their people, and there was less danger of panic. He could not understand why the attack had been made – possibly to get the tape, possibly – and this he feared most – the creatures, once angered, could not control their savagery. It was as if they had a natural bloodlust.

He put this out of his mind, and reached Betty, thinking: “Why is she here?”

He forced a smile.

“I can't stop,” he said.

He went on, with men surrounding him and carrying the tiny tape, the useless tape. He knew that the next thing he must do was see Clemente Taza, but even as the realisation passed through his mind he wondered whether the ambassador was still in England.

He had to find out soon. But first he had to send further warnings out, had to make quite sure that no one underestimated the danger, even though he himself could not yet assess it fully. Back at the office he did all that he had to, and before leaving for the Lozanian Embassy, called in an agent named Armitage. Armitage was a very able agent, almost devoid of imagination, with complete command of several languages, and remarkable resource in emergency. The essence of Armitage's quality was his single-mindedness, and his freedom from emotion. Palfrey had never known him influenced in any way by a woman no matter how beautiful, nor how helpless, and he had never known him influenced by any human situation. He did not believe there was anyone in the world more detached; nor did he believe that anything or anyone could ever corrupt that man, or his coldly intellectual conviction that the world must one day be governed by a World Force. He was a normal enough man in social attitudes, and only those who knew him well realised there was passion behind his intellectual detachment. No one knew why he was known as Tig.

“Tig,” Palfrey said. “I want you personally to check on a Mrs. Betty Fordham very closely. Find out what we've already discovered about her, and then have her watched and followed wherever she goes.”

“Right,” said Armitage.

“Let me hear from you two or three times each day.”

“Right.”

“Thanks,” said Palfrey.

In a strange way, he felt a sense almost of betrayal, but that was nonsense. He would have anyone watched if there were the slightest grounds for suspicion. It was illogical to feel that Betty, or Beth, Fordham should be treated otherwise.

When he reached Piccadilly again, firemen were sluicing down the road with their hoses at half-pressure, but no traffic was yet moving. Large reinforcements of police had been brought up, and were controlling the crowd. There was no possible doubt that this story, with pictures, would reach the early evening papers and television, and it had come too swiftly for him to influence the manner of it. As he stepped into a car with armour-plated sides and bullet-proof windows, he wondered whether he should have telephoned the Prime Minister. Sometimes it was difficult even for him to realise that he owed allegiance to the world first, and to his own country second. There was a radio in the car and he could call Number 10 from here, but he decided not to.

Soon, he was being admitted to the front hall of the Lozanian Embassy, in a quiet, pleasant street in London which seemed far removed from horror. He had been told that Clemente Taza had not left the Embassy, but would hardly have been surprised had he been told that his Excellency was out.

Instead, within two minutes the second secretary was saying: “His Excellency will see you, sir.”

The ambassador was in the front room on the first floor. On a closer inspection, Palfrey saw that the amazing good looks and regularity of features that had so startled him held a curious lifelessness. That was particularly odd in a Latin, Palfrey reflected. The handclasp, however, was firm, the greeting most disarming, especially as it was accompanied by a charming smile.