Twelve Hours To Destiny (15 page)

They pulled up beside several other cars and got out. Stretching his legs, Carradine forced himself to relax completely. So far, so good. But they were not out of the woods yet, not by a long way. He swept his glance around the site. The long, low building in front of which they have stopped was clearly a reception room with a small canteen to one side. Beyond it lay two L-shaped concrete-and-glass laboratories and off to one side, almost hidden by earthen mounds was a perfectly flat piece of ground, built up by tons of dirt and rubble so that it was perhaps thirty feet above the rest of the site. In the centre of it, covered by some form of plastic sheeting was a large, ungainly shape at whose contours he could only guess. He felt a sudden quickening of his pulse. That must be the new weapon they intended to test!

A short, stocky man, wearing a white coat came out of the reception building and walked towards them. He bowed slightly. “I am Lao Ti,” he said deferentially. “Personal assistant to Kao Fi Min, the Director of this project. If you will please come with me, I will take you to the others.”

*

It was the kind of conference room one would have expected to find in the American missile base at Cape Kennedy, rather than in this isolated, out-of-the-way place inside China, so mistakenly considered to be one of the more backward of the great powers when it came to scientific achievement. It was about thirty feet square with rows of deep chairs and a raised podium at one end, the walls and ceilings painted a pale, egg-shell blue and a thick carpet on the floor between the aisles.

As he lowered himself into one of the chairs, with Tao Chia-Tu beside him, he felt it difficult to suppress his natural surprise. If London ever got to hear about this, they would almost certainly revise their opinions of the Chinese. While Carradine took in the scene, Lao Ti came in, preceded by a tall, thin, bespectacled man in spotless, white overalls. This, he felt sure, would be Kao Fi Min, the brains behind this project.

The latter proceeded to the chair behind the desk on the rostrum, sat down as Lao Ti stepped forward. The hubbub of conversation among the thirty or so of military officers in the room died down.

Lao Ti began quietly: “I am extremely honoured to welcome you all to this laboratory so that you may witness one of the greatest advancements for Chinese science.” He inclined his head a fraction in the direction of the tall, thin figure seated in the chair nearby. “You all know our revered Kao Fi Min, one of our foremost scientists and the designer of the instrument you’re about to see. A weapon which will place China in the forefront of the world powers. A year ago, under pressure from the American Imperialists, the Soviet Union withdrew its support of our scientific effort and also denied us further supplies of nuclear fuel. No doubt they considered that this would place us at a disadvantage as far as the development of weapons was concerned. However, what you are going to witness today will provide proof, if any were needed, that we do not have to rely on other nations for our own defence, or for our ability to further the cause of communism. We had foreseen this change in the Soviet policy and taking the necessary steps to ensure that any effect would be only temporary. It is true that so far, we have only reached the stage of experimental detonations of atomic weapons and have not yet succeeded in constructing a hydrogen bomb to equal those of the Soviets and the Americans, but their leads are being narrowed rapidly. In the meantime, unknown to any other country, we have been quietly experimenting with other novel weapons. Kao Fi Min will now describe to you what we have achieved and the potentialities of this new weapon.”

Carradine switched his gaze as the skeletal figure rose to its feet, moved forward. For a moment, the mental image of Sax Rohmer’s Doctor Fu Manchu flitted through his mind. The man must surely be just as that author had visualised him; the villain of the piece, the man who dreamed up mass destruction. Was that really fair? All over the world, and on the other side of the Iron Curtain to, there were men like Kao Fi Min, working in highly secret laboratories, scheming up such terrible weapons, firmly believing that they were working to further the cause of democracy and freedom for the individual. Who was to say which side was in the wrong? When the bombs began to fall, they did so indiscriminately, destroying the innocent and the guilty alike.

He forced himself to concentrate on what the other was saying, hampered somewhat by his lack of fluency of the language. Fortunately the other spoke slowly and deliberately.

The first part of his speech was little more than a denunciation of the Russians, their former allies in this field. Listening to him, Carradine was not sure just how fiercely the other really felt about the way in which they had been let down, how much he had to say this because it was expected of him, a phonograph record in his mind, repeated over and over again, a childish ritual which had to be observed because without it, one might be suspected of the wrong sort of thoughts about the present regime.

Then the other came on to the subject at hand. Carradine sat up more rigidly in his chair, wondering if something in what the other might say would give him a tiny clue as to how they might destroy this weapon and all that went with it. At the moment his mind was devoid of any possibilities. Little short of half a ton of high explosive would carry out the devastation needed to ensure that nothing remained of the weapon, or the site.

“The laser is simply an instrument for delivering a coherent beam of light in which all of the vibrations, the wavelengths reinforce themselves, so that there is no cancellation of energy. The beam projected is also one which is almost ideally parallel, there being no perceptible spread of energy even over long distances. From the beginning, it was realised that if only sufficient power could be fed into such a beam, it would provide a weapon of tremendous destructive energy. The prototype models were able to burn their way through sheet steel, but there still remained the problem of feeding sufficient energy into the system. This necessitated a fundamental change in the basic design of the laser. Once this had been carried out, there was a question of harnessing a source of energy powerful enough to provide us with all that we would require.” There was a pause. The other smiled thinly. “Naturally, there is only one source of energy we could use. While the other world powers proudly proclaimed their success in harnessing nuclear energy for other than destructive uses, we went quietly ahead, building the first reactor in China beneath this laboratory. It had to be erected quickly. There was no way of telling how long it would be before someone else stumbled upon our secrets. However, it has now been functioning satisfactorily for more than seven months, providing us with light, heat and the source of energy for the weapon outside.”

For a long moment there was silence in the room. Carradine felt his skin begin to prickle and crawl uncomfortably. For a moment his thoughts went back to his last interview with the Chief in that office high above the busy London street. “
We
believe
that
Chao
Lin
has
stumbled
upon
some
information
concerning
a
secret
weapon
which
the
Chinese
are
developing
.
Your
job
will
be
to
bring
Chao
Lin
and
details
of
this
weapon
out
of
China
.”

God, if the only way in which he could stop this thing was to destroy himself along with it, he knew he would have to do that. With all of the spy planes and satellites, even with their monitoring stations placed strategically around China, their devices for picking up radioactive fallout and seismic receivers giving information about any explosions inside this country, the Americans would never guess at the magnitude of what faced them at this moment. For a second, he wondered if the loss of one of their satellites might possibly provide them with a clue, then dismissed the thought even as it crossed his mind. Long before they ever got around to working out what could conceivably have happened, it would be far too late. Tensing himself, he gathered his reserves of strength and courage, focused all of his thoughts into trying to think of some way of destroying this place, completely and utterly.

Kao Fi Min continued: “The computer we have has predicted the position of one of the American spy satellites we know to have been put into orbit so as to cross China every day. They do not know it, but this evening will be the last time it will pass over our country. By tomorrow, their scientists and technicians will be frantically striving to discover what could possibly have happened to destroy it. By then it will be too late. This weapon is only the prototype. With the knowledge we possess, it will be possible to construct more, even more powerful ones. Then no power on Earth will be able to stop us.”

And he’s right in every little detail, thought Carradine fiercely. Only a few more hours. God, was there no way to stop this? Even with Tao Chia Tu’s undoubted abilities for sabotage, it was unlikely there would be enough high explosive on this site to make even the smallest impression, even if they had the opportunity of laying their hands on it. Yet they had to do something.

The faint murmur of conversation rose from all sides as Kao Fi Min finished speaking and sat down again. Carradine went meticulously over everything filed away in his brain. There had to be something! Then it came to him and he swore angrily at himself for not having realised it earlier. The nuclear reactor beneath the site. Hell, but there was enough power there to destroy not only these laboratories but everything for miles around. Carradine sat and thought, recalling everything he knew about these things. Somewhere, there would be the nuclear cell itself in which the power was generated, possibly using uranium as fuel with perhaps boron control rods to prevent the reaction from getting out of control. The only real difference between an atomic bomb and a nuclear reactor was the rate at which the energy was liberated. In the former case, the chain reaction built up to detonation point within microseconds; in the latter, because of the absorption of neutrons by the material of the control rods, it could not pass into the exposed stage but was liberated slowly and evenly.

The reaction could be speeded up or slowed down by the degree to which the control rods were inserted into the reaction medium. Now if they could be fully withdrawn, removed entirely, how long before the whole thing went up in a blaze of radiation, a boiling of that now familiar and terrifying mushroom cloud?

He felt his stomach muscles quiver a little. Did it really matter? If there was sufficient time, then it was possible they might get out of the danger zone before everything went up. But if not, then it was just too bad, but at least he would have succeeded and if Chao Lin managed to get back to Hong Kong somehow, he could send on word to the Chief in London and their tiny squiggles on the seismographs throughout the Western world would be, in part, explained.

CHAPTER 8

HOLOCAUST!

The electric clock on the wall showed seven-fifteen. Outside, the sun was lowering swiftly towards the hills on the horizon to the west, throwing long shadows over the plain, purpling the distance with a deep haze. Some of the heat of the day was beginning to dissipate as a cooling wind blew from the north. It was approaching the end of another day and somewhere on the far side of the world, hurtling through the alternating darkness and light of space, the satellite continued on its endless circuit, the relays crackling as the cameras scanned the mottled surface below, cameras which would pierce cloud and haze and pick up details on the ground with an ease and clarity which almost passed belief.

On the artificial plateau to the east of the laboratories, the plastic covers had been removed from the gleaming metal and lenses of the weapon and now it lay ready, sleek and innocent-looking, the long cables running from it into the ground and down towards the long, quiet room far below.

There were three men inside the room, white-coated technicians whose job it was to watch the faintly flickering needles on the dials and gauges, to control the tremendous surge of power that passed through those armoured cables, thicker than a man’s arm. One man sat at the desk in the centre of the room, a desk bare except for the small communicator at one end and the white telephone at the other.

Here, in spite of the sticky heat above ground, it was always pleasantly cool; in spite of the fact that less than twenty yards away, behind the tremendous shielding of lead and steel, nature in the raw was burning away at something approaching a million degrees centigrade, hotter than the surface of the Sun. If the men knew anything of this, they gave no sign. To the untrained eye, the scene would have been one of calm, unhurried efficiency, an air of everything being under complete control. Only these three men knew that everything was balanced on a razor-edge of uncertainty. So must those British and American scientists and military men have felt during the final preparations for the first test in the New Mexico desert. Now, after many years of research, the West had progressed to the stage where such nuclear power stations were almost completely automatic with the latest safety devices built in so that there was virtually complete security. But this was not so here. The order to have this weapon ready had come down from Peking, from the highest authority and development into the laser had not been equally matched by that which had gone into the building of this reactor. There had been phases in its construction when they had worked almost by guesswork and rule of thumb. Not that the military and the political leaders knew anything of this. As far as they were concerned, everything was functioning perfectly.

Outside, in the long, gleaming corridor, two armed guards paced monotonously back and forth. Their presence there was purely a decorative one. The perimeter of the site was so well guarded that no one could possibly get inside and their duties consisted mainly of parading the corridor for six hours each day, then going off duty. Life was good for these men. Except for a day such as this one when a special show was needed to impress the high-ranking officers, discipline was noticeably lax. There was plenty of good food and rice wine to be had in the canteen and if a man got a little too drunk, no one paid much attention, certainly not the scientists who were running the place. They merely regarded the military as a necessary inconvenience and ignored their presence almost completely.

There was no one at the door on the left as Carradine and the others reached it. The doors were open, inviting. He gave a quick look up and down the corridor, then motioned them inside. It had been relatively easy to slip away from the rest of the crowd. The gleaming weapon on its concrete stand had been the centre of attraction and as far as he had been able to make out, they had been given the run of the place, with little if any restriction on their movements. No doubt if any of the senior scientists found them down in the reactor room, there may be some awkward questions to answer, but that was a risk they had to take. When the stakes were high, necessarily the risks were also.

Tao Chia-Tu glanced at the rows of buttons just inside the door, pressed one of them without hesitation. The doors whined shot with a faint sigh and a moment later they were going down. Carradine tried to estimate the distance. Presently, the lift sighed to a stop. The door slid open. There was the faint hum of machinery all about them and he guessed that they were in the heart of the place. Excitement welled up inside him, contracting the muscles of his throat and lifting the small hairs on the nape of his neck. The doors had opened on to another corridor, very similar to that above. Cautiously, he stepped out, then tensed. There were two guards less than twenty feet away. Even as he stepped out of the lift, they both turned, stared at him in momentary surprise.

There was nothing for it now but bluff, to try to get the men off their guard. If he made the slightest move towards the Luger, it would be the last thing he did. Tao Chia-Tu moved past him. He said something loudly which Carradine didn’t catch. For a moment, the two guards remained suspicious, then they stiffened to attention. Carradine forced his wildly thumping heart into a slower, more normal beat. Act naturally, he told himself fiercely. The men would probably have been expecting someone to come down here. After all, what more natural than someone in the ruling party wanting to see the source of the power being used for the weapon?

He walked right up to the door behind the two men, peered calmly through the glass panel, nodded as if satisfied by what he saw.

Tao said harshly, a note of authority in his voice: “This is the reactor room?”

It was evidently meant as a question and the guards nodded quickly.

“Then what is that man doing there?” Tao pointed with his left hand. The two guards would have been less than human not to fall for it. Even as they were swinging round, leaning forward slowly to look over Carradine’s shoulder into the control room beyond, a savage judo cut one of them behind the right ear. He pitched forward, head striking the wall with a sickening crunch. The second man opened his mouth to yell, fingers scrambling for the sling of his rifle. It was still halfway off his shoulder when Carradine hit him with all his strength across the adam’s apple. With a gasping bleat, the other reeled backward, eyes rolling up in his head. Catching him beneath the arms, Carradine lowered the limp body to the floor.

“Get rid of them,” he said to one of the men, “we’ll take care of the men in here.”

Opening the door, he stepped inside, with Tao close on his heels. The three technicians looked round at this unexpected interruption, then the man at the table got to his feet and came forward. There was no suspicion on his face. He bowed slightly.

“We are indeed honoured that you should have considered coming here,” he said politely, impersonally. “Perhaps there is something you wish to see?”

“We understand from what Kao Fi Min said this afternoon that this is the first nuclear reactor to be used for this purpose. They will be highly interested in our report of it in Peking.”

The mere mention of Peking was sufficient to make the other fawn even more than before. Carradine almost smiled at the way in which the three men hastened to show them everything there was in the big control room. The computer, they learned, was housed in another room further along the corridor, but here, as he had fervently hoped, were all the controls for the nuclear reactor. He listened with an increasing sense of urgency as the significance of each control panel was explained to them. Some of the words he was unable to follow, but he saw that Tao was taking it all in. If only these men knew that they were blithely signing their own death warrants, he reflected grimly.

The urge to give the order to dispose of the technicians was strong within him, yet he forced himself to have patience. It was essential that they should learn as much as they could before they committed themselves to any irrevocable step. Tao questioned the others as to the orders they would receive once the satellite they intended using as a target for the weapon came above the horizon, the exact time that the weapon was to be tested. Each question was answered without any hesitation. Obviously the others had no suspicions whatsoever. He waited until Tao finally nodded, moved towards a desk. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the other two men at the door leading into the corridor.

His fingers closed around the butt of the Luger. Slowly, he drew it out, held it so as to cover all three technicians. For a moment they stared at him in surprise, as though he had suddenly gone mad.

“Stand over against the wall,” he ordered harshly.

Reluctantly, they obeyed. Tao checked them for hidden weapons, then shook his head, smiling thinly.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded one of the men tightly. “There are guards outside and—”

“The guards are both dead,” Carradine told him tonelessly. “Unfortunately we were forced to kill them both.”

“There are others,” said the man. He let his gaze slide from Carradine towards Tao who had moved quickly and surely to one of the control panels, was busy flicking down a row of switches, then spinning the dials rapidly between his fingers. The look of stunned surprise on the technicians’ faces changed abruptly to one of horror. The man in front of Carradine started forward, his hands outstretched as though to stop Tao. He halted abruptly as the barrel of the Luger was thrust painfully into his chest.

“You fools!” His voice rose swiftly to a high-pitched scream. Realisation must have come to him in that moment. “If you pull out the control rods, the reaction will go out of control. There will be a chain reaction which will—”

“Which will destroy everything,” Carradine told him. There was no pity in his voice. “Just as you intend to destroy the world with that weapon if the West refuses to bow down to you.”

He saw the look of desperation in the man’s glazed eyes a split second before the other leapt forward, oblivious of the gun pressed against his ribs. Carradine’s reaction was instinctive, unthinking. His fingers squeezed the trigger of its own accord. The gun slammed back against his wrist, the recoil almost breaking the bone. For a moment, the technician remained upright, his grey features blank, the jaw dropping open limply. Then his legs buckled under him, he pitched forward against Carradine’s knees, almost throwing him off-balance. The other two technicians, on the point of jumping forward, stopped in their tracks, staring in mute horror at the body on the floor at their feet.

Tao ran back from the control panel. “We must hurry now,” he said harshly. “I’ve jammed the control so that they won’t be able to reverse the boron rods.”

“How long do we have?”

“I don’t know. Minutes maybe. Possibly half an hour. I doubt if there will be much longer.”

Carradine did not wait for any more. The thought of that ravening nuclear chaos ready to run wild only a little distance away drowned out every other thought in his mind. Before either of the technicians could make a move to defend themselves or even guess at his intentions, he had lifted the heavy Luger twice, holding it by the long barrel. The butt thudded down against their unprotected heads. He did not pause to see whether they were dead or merely unconscious. Time was of the essence now. Before their bodies had crashed to the floor he was running for the door with Tao padding silently on his heels. Out into the corridor now and hurry! Inside the lift, Tao thumbed the topmost button. The door began to close. Hell, wouldn’t it close any faster? He tried to ignore the tingling in his arms and legs, the throbbing of the blood through his veins. Painfully slowly, the lift began to ascend. Standing there, his whole body tense, he realised that his nails were biting deeply, agonisingly, into the flesh of his palms. He straightened his fingers, glanced at the other men. The same thoughts were at the back of their eyes as were running through his brain. How long? Now that the restraining action of the rods had been removed and the panel smashed, there was nothing anyone could do to halt that moment of ultimate destruction.

The lift came to a halt, the door slid aside. One after the other, they tumbled out into the corridor, half-ran towards the far door. The last rays of the setting sun, just touching the topmost peaks of the distant hills, shone directly into their eyes, half-blinding them as they came out into the open. Gratefully, Carradine sucked a gust of air into his lungs.

Swiftly, he glanced about him. This was going to be a bad moment. They would have to reach the staff car in which they had come, drive out through the gate without causing suspicion. Fortunately, most of the others were still gathered around the gleaming weapon to the rear of the building. A few of the guards were visible manning the machine-gun posts around the site.

There was only bluff left to them now. Controlling the rising tide of fear in his mind, he forced himself to walk slowly and unconcernedly towards the car. The urge to break into a wild run was almost more than he could fight down. But the slightest suspicious movement would result in those gates being closed, in the general alarm being given. His breath harsh in his throat, Carradine opened the door of the car, slid into the seat. Tao crushed in beside him. Switching on the ignition, Tao put the vehicle into first gear and the car was moving slowly towards the gates. Turning his head, Carradine threw a swift glance behind him. Through the rear window, he could see one or two heads turned in their direction but as yet no one made a move.

At the gate, Tao leaned out of the window, said harshly to the waiting guard. “We have received an urgent call to report back to Canton. The others will be staying to witness the completion of the test.”