Hostage (8 page)

The Roke’s Tining bomb is Shallope’s own baby, not a standard production; so it will be fairly primitive – not amateur of course but of basic simplicity and made to fit into an outer container, the drain pipe, which we have specified. It must be as difficult to ensure the separation of the two charges of U235 as to drive them together. The foolproof, radiation proof tamping – what happens to that? Obviously it has to vanish instantaneously so that there is no risk of scattering the fissile material before it goes critical. That means that the explosive must be special stuff, producing a very high temperature and perhaps of little value as a propellant or for demolition.

So I cannot see anybody but Shallope himself with the knowledge to place explosive and detonators precisely, wire up and prevent recoil. Meanwhile it must be possible without the slightest risk to crash down the drain pipe on a pile of others or force it into a disused sewer outlet. The final preparation therefore must be done on the final site, sliding the bomb out of its pipe, arming it and sliding it back again.

No Shallope, no bomb. I think I can lay that down with certainty.

There is an obvious alternative to killing him; but I cannot bring myself as yet to communicate, even anonymously, with the police and give them the facts so far as I know them. Illogical? Possibly. I could never face myself after such a betrayal. I must act alone. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But hypocrisy again! The truth is that if the police arrest Shallope, Clotilde and the few persons he can identify they will at once be forced to let them go and still will be without any clue to the present site of the bomb. As for me, I go back to gaol.

The day before yesterday Herbert Johnson made a business trip to Bristol, sold a few books in the morning and in the afternoon explored Clifton Down on foot. It turned out to be a square mile or more of open country, too clown-like and natural to be called a park, stretching between the Avon Gorge and the streets of Clifton and Bristol and on the far side falling away into farmland and suburbs. In places it vaguely reminded me of savannah country with trees and bushes of hawthorn sometimes isolated, sometimes in clumps, scattered over the grassland. Plenty of people were strolling about or playing games but the Down held them easily and I was sure that in the early morning not a tenth of them would be there.

Provided that I could make some friendly contact with Shallope and provided the bushes gave sure cover for an instant the thing could be done. An instant was all I needed, for I intended to use the knife silently and decisively as I had been taught in Uruguay so that he would be dead when I lowered him to the ground.

His flat was close to the Down. Next morning I watched him leave the house and got ahead of him once I was sure of his route. He walked briskly north over the grass, his hair ruffled by the damp wind which blew up from the muddy Avon far below at the bottom of its gorge. He was wearing a heavy yellow sweater which enabled me to keep him in sight whenever bushes intervened between us.

When he had walked nearly a mile he turned and came back across the open where I had not a hope of attack, so I decided to meet him face to face. He would certainly recognise me, giving me a chance to enter into conversation and walk off with him into cover. It was, I must admit, an impatient, early-morning decision, for if anything went wrong he could describe me. But so he could anyway if I failed to kill him.

He behaved oddly. When he was a few yards from me he turned away towards the gorge. A slight beckoning movement at the end of the swinging arm appeared to mean that I was to follow. I suspected a trap, but it was more likely that he wished to tell me something.

I kept him in sight on a parallel course well out in the open. The patch of yellow vanished into some bushes at the edge of the gorge and did not reappear. As soon as I was sure that no one was following me or showing any interest I strolled casually over to a point where I could see behind the cover he had chosen and at a safe distance from it.

I found that I was on the edge of a valley with a steep slope, rough and partly covered by scrub, which fell down to a road running up from the Avon to Clifton. The slope was topped by a low face of rock, eroded and easy to climb down. On the strip of turf at the bottom one was completely hidden unless somebody looked over the edge of the little cliff.

At first Shallope was nowhere to be seen: but when I peeped round a buttress of rock, there he was sitting on a ledge with a narrow terrace of turf at his feet calmly lighting a pipe and quite obviously waiting for me. I was very willing to oblige. If he expected conversation it could end whenever I wished in a perfect spot where his body might not be found until some pair of lovers slid down to that private and inviting terrace.

I joined him, standing well below him. Where he himself sat, comfortable as in a chair, he could be seen from a bend in the road quarter of a mile below. He said good morning cheerfully, without any of that jumpiness which Elise and I had noticed. Now that his job was done he was much more at ease. That offended me. He was very near to ease for ever. But at his next remark I drew back my hand from the sheathed knife hanging under my left shoulder.

‘It’s fortunate we met at Blackmoor Gate,’ he said. ‘I would not have led you here otherwise.’

‘We reckoned on that,’ I replied, giving nothing away.

He left his perch and sat on the strip of turf, I followed his example. To judge by cigarette ends, a couple of paper bags and a used french letter this idyllic spot was known to a few connoisseurs who appreciated its privacy.

‘Is this method to continue?’ he asked.

‘You mean meeting on the Down?’

‘Yes, I do.’

He sounded a shade suspicious. Evidently there was something I ought to explain.

Playing for time, I said that one must always change the approach; and then, wondering what our usual method of contacting him was and how I would do it myself, I arrived at the solution. Shallope sat down on his rocky throne at a set time and anyone who wanted to talk to him had only to walk along the road below to see him.

‘The yellow sweater and the same person often on the road at the same hour could attract attention, you see,’ I explained.

‘You think there is any danger?’

‘There is always danger.’

‘You know, I doubt if up to the present we have committed any crime.’

He made that astonishing remark with such an air of worried innocence that he had another reprieve. He must at least be given time to talk.

‘And when it goes off?’

‘Perhaps you can tell me. You’ve all assured me that I needn’t fuss, but I still do not see how you can keep the shipping lanes clear. A warning goes out giving the exact time and position. That can be done and I accept it. Shipping will have an hour or more to sheer off. I accept that too. But suppose a destroyer or speed boat tried to reach the spot in time? It might be practically melted.’

I began to see where all this was leading.

‘There’s still some doubt whether the bomb will be on a raft or buoy,’ I said.

‘Oh, a buoy! I thought that was settled. It will be broadcasting: Keep Off. Keep Off.’

His academic voice had taken on a higher pitch in correcting me. His ‘Keep Off’ sounded very like the seagull which might be sitting on the buoy.

I asked him if it would have the desired effect, whatever that was supposed to be. I meant the explosive effect but he took my question in a different sense.

‘I know it will. It must. People have forgotten. We nuclear physicists have made it all look so safe with our underground explosions and Pacific tests and Siberian tests. What does this generation know of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Just a horror of war, they say. Not much worse than the firestorm in Dresden, they say. I tell you, it has to be seen. The effect of that damnable weapon has to be seen. And it will be – from the French coast, from the south-west and from Ireland. That will show them how easily fissile material can be acquired and how appalling is the result. Just imagine a gang of anarchists getting hold of such a bomb! Once we can exhibit its power our anti-nuclear forces will gain strength all over the world, even in Russia.’

‘The material was not very easily acquired, Dr Shallope. It was an extremely expensive operation which cost a man’s life.’

‘Did it indeed? I am sorry. I am very sorry. But what is a man’s life when our demonstration may save millions?’

I pointed out to him that his doubts about this Atlantic operation were fully justified and that if he worked out the details for himself instead of accepting authority he would see it. The people who had studied his strong feelings and his conscience, inventing this improbable story to fit them, were not a secret anti-nuclear society at all, and the bomb which he had made at Roke’s Tining – I threw in the name to show him how much I knew – was in fact for the use of what he called a gang of anarchists.

‘Who are you? Why should I believe you?’ he shouted.

I then had the difficult and unexpected task of persuading him to believe what he didn’t want to believe, for I needed all the information he could give me.

The fictitious scheme of an exemplary Atlantic explosion was impressive though I can see no way of avoiding a disastrous effect on shipping. Shallope knew that but would not admit it. I have no doubt that he had been brain-washed for months and Rex or the bearded tiger or some foreigner of their calibre eventually produced a dozen foolscap pages of operational analysis which finally blinded our technician with unfamiliar, paramilitary techniques.

‘Do you read the papers, Dr Shallope?’

‘Not every day, I am afraid.’

‘You remember the attempted bombing of a Telephone Exchange when three persons were caught and the case against them dismissed on the ground of mistaken identity?’

‘Indeed I do. A scandal! The police are getting most careless in preparing prosecutions.’

‘Has it occurred to you that the Government could have been afraid of retaliation if the three were found guilty?’

‘Unthinkable! The Government would not be afraid of a few bombs. They have shown that very often.’

‘But they might be afraid of one single bomb.’

‘I don’t believe what you are suggesting,’ he replied in great agitation.

‘Where did your suppliers get the U235 from?’

‘Somewhere on the Continent. There are several possible sources which have caused us anxiety.’

‘Another item of news, Dr Shallope! Do you remember all the excitement about a theft of arms in Libya shipped out by a motor cruiser which subsequently disappeared?’

‘Shortage of front page drivel! One of those sensations they never follow up!’

‘Why should the Libyans have publicised a theft so insignificant that it could be carried in a motor cruiser? That was your graphite, your U235. It was brought on by ship from the Mediterranean and then, as you know, smuggled in by helicopter.’

‘I dare say! I dare say! But that does not mean it is in the hands of anarchists.’

‘The people you have met – do they strike you as belonging to a woolly, anti-nuclear society? This cunning arrangement of meetings with you? The deadly young woman with the fuzzy beard of whom I think you have been a little afraid? The brilliant organisation all the way from Libya to Roke’s Tining? Doesn’t it all suggest ruthlessness and long experience?’

‘I admit you have me very worried, Mr er …’

‘The name would be false anyway, Dr Shallope, so I shan’t bother to give you one. Can that nuclear device be set off without you?’

I was sure it could not, but I gave him this last chance for his life.

‘Yes. Yes, of course. No trouble whatever. One has only to insert detonators and a timing device.’

But then Clotilde or I or any trained partisan could do it. A man like Mick could talk some bog-hopping yobbo of the IRA into exploding the thing with no notion of what he was really setting off – a perfect example of the commensal stooging for Magma.

‘I prepared it all for them,’ he went on. ‘But as they appeared so ignorant of explosives, I expected that I myself would have to make the final arrangements.’

Then what was the use of killing him? I was silent for a little. I came to the conclusion, rather misty so far, that he was doomed in any case.

‘Can you find out where your bomb is now?’

‘I don’t see how. I don’t see how at all. I might tell them that I made a mistake which I wish to rectify. But I don’t know how to find any of them. They come to me.’

‘Who are they?’

‘An international circle. When I was first invited to meet them I was comforted by the fact that anxiety is not confined to this country. Very responsible people! I was most glad that protest would no longer be left to what you rightly called some woolly, anti-nuclear society. They explained to me that pseudonyms must be used. I agreed that it was essential. I feared at first that they might want me to supply the material but they assured me that the last thing they desired was to involve me in theft. In any case I could not have obtained U235 and to prepare an H bomb single-handed is quite impossible.’

Magma International at the top of their form! Kind of them to use London rather than a continental capital for their first experiment! A compliment to our efficiency, I hope.

I asked him if there was any chance that it would fail to explode.

‘Not the slightest,’ he replied with a shade of professional pride.

‘How would you dismantle it if you could?’

‘Very simple. Unscrew the cylinder head. The thread goes deep, and it will take a little time. Remove time device, detonators and charge, which should be handled with care. Then slide out No. 1 container. No. 2 container can be left in place since the amount of fissile material is too small ever to become critical.’

‘Protective clothing?’

‘For dismantling only? Quite unnecessary! Do these people intend to use the bomb on … on … well, on land?’

‘They intend it as a threat. The threat may be enough to gain such concessions as they require. If it is not – if, for example, the threat is considered a bluff – they will prove that it is not a bluff.’