Psychosphere (13 page)

“When Schroeder died some ten years ago Koenig went to work for Garrison. For some reason known only to himself, the old Colonel not only made sure his money was transferred to Garrison but also his main man. So, a link, however tenuous, with Nazism.

“And another link is a guy called Gareth Wyatt. Wyatt was a doctor, a psychiatrist whom many supposed to be a quack. Certain parties tried to tie him in with a British escape route for the type of Nazis who
were
villains.

“Well, when the IRA had their second bash at Garrison, they also had a go at Wyatt. We don't know why, except that Garrison had been undergoing treatment at Wyatt's place. The psychiatrist had a house in Sussex. I say he
had
a house, because when the IRA or whoever were finished there was no more house. They took it out. They also took out Wyatt and Garrison's wife. That is to say, the two died in the explosion—if it was an explosion….” He paused and frowned.

“Now this is a funny thing. Funny peculiar, not ha-ha. Wyatt's house was big and old, your old country home sort of place in its own grounds, much like this one. Just what happened there—what
really
happened—will never be known. But the house isn't there anymore. Not a brick. The grass grows green over the place where it stood. Underneath—” he shrugged, “the foundations are fused like blast furnace slag!

“Anyway, about the same time we also have the disappearance of Willy Koenig. Not dead, no, simply…let's say ‘retired.' Where to, who knows? But definitely not dead. Koenig is a very rich man in his own right, as well you might expect if you remember the SS gold, and he still makes good use of his money. A lot of it is tied up with Garrison's. But ‘disappeared' is certainly the right word because no one seems to know where he is. He simply isn't seen anymore…

“Let's go back to Garrison's blindness. To put the record straight, and no matter what the old medical records say, Garrison is
not
blind! He hasn't been for at least two years, since about the same time as his wife and Wyatt got hit. One theory in my branch is that his blindness was psychosomatic, and that Wyatt was treating him and was successful. That might also explain the link between them. Anyway he
was
blind, isn't now, but continues to wear a pair of blind-man specs. So does the new woman in his life, this Vicki Maler.

“Now for a long time, apparently, Garrison has had dealings with a German firm of oculists—or not exactly oculists but specialists in mechanical aids to sight. This firm supplied him with a lot of expensive equipment when he really was blind. Their latest job for him is the manufacture of several sets of contact lenses, for both him and Vicki Maler. But these are to be very special lenses. Contact lenses to let light in but not out! Like one-way windows. He wants to be able to see things without his eyes being seen. Okay, but surely ordinary contact lenses would suffice? Or again, maybe it's a special condition of his eyes.” He paused, stood for a moment longer, said: “A break, I think, gents. You'll excuse me but I'd like a cigarette; also I'd like to sit a while. Would you mind if I carry on seated and smoking?”

No one minded. All of them were fascinated. MI6 sat, produced cigarettes, lit one and relaxed a little in his chair before continuing. “Okay, we were talking about special conditions, anomalies and such. Garrison's lady, Vicki Maler, is just such an anomaly. She's in the process of becoming British but holds a German passport which says she was born in 1947. That would make her thirty-six years old but she looks ten years younger than that. Red hair, elfin features, lovely figure—beautiful!

“They travel a fair bit, Garrison and the woman, and they use airports. Her passport has been checked out—discreetly. It's genuine and was issued in Hamburg in 1960 when she was thirteen. The only thing is—” he paused, cleared his throat and looked at the faces watching him, “—that the Vicki Maler the passport was issued to died in 1974! Oh, and one other thing. She, too, was blind…

“Fine, so for some unknown reason Garrison's woman has ‘assumed' an identity other than her real one…Or has she? Well, here are a couple of pretty macabre facts for you:

“One—in the early summer of 1974 the body of one Vicki Maler was placed in so-called ‘cryogenic suspension' at Schloss Zonigen in the Swiss Alps.

“Two—this was done on the posthumous instructions of Thomas Schroeder, dead since '73…

“And three—two years ago that same Vicki Maler's frozen remains disappeared right out of the Schloss!

“As for the Swiss authorities: well they've neatly tied the whole thing up and buried it—and I can't say I blame them. One thing, however, is very definite: Vicki Maler's name has been lifted from the register. That is to say, not only is there no longer a corpse answering to her description in the fridge, but the records say there never was one.

“Now, there's a lot more about Garrison that we know, some of it very interesting, some not so interesting. I don't propose to bore you with trivia, and there are those of you yet to have your say. But there are two more things of major importance. One is Garrison's money, its source. It wasn't easy to dig up all the facts out of their various crevices, and there's doubtless a lot we've missed, but most of his bedrock resources—his bulk cash and holdings—all came his way at that same time two years ago. Through Thomas Schroeder. Now Schroeder had been dead since 1973, but he'd left his executors with clear and foolproof instructions. Garrison got the lot.

“Next, I said he didn't control gambling. That's true. But he does—or did—gamble. Not so much now, not at all that I know of, but he did. This was something else that started two years ago. In fact for a period of something like four months, shortly after the Wyatt business, he seems to have done little else. And very successfully.

“He hit just about every major football pools syndicate in the world—eighteen of them in all, top wins that is—and jackpots every time! But never with any publicity. We were called in by Littlewoods to see how he was fiddling it. He wasn't. But we stuck to him anyway, and what that led us to was literally unbelievable. Gents, when Garrison gambles he doesn't lose. Ever! He doesn't even come close to losing!

“Under various pseudonyms he reduced almost every major bookmaker and gambling consortium in Great Britain to near-bankruptcy. He did the same in the world's greatest casinos, some of the smaller ones, too—and finally he took Las Vegas. And he took Las Vegas like no one ever took it before. So well that overnight he went to Number One on the Mafia hit list! Except that when they got around to it there was no one to hit. He'd simply disappeared, moved on with money and credits totalling some twenty-seven million dollars!

“And all of this done more or less openly, with only a minimum of effort to cover his tracks, as if he had absolutely nothing to fear. And why not? For as an honest, upright member of society what would he have to fear?

“Oh, he went to Vegas in a sort of disguise, with a retinue of his staff also disguised—but can you blame him? My guess is he
knew
he would clean up, knew it for a certainty, and when it was over he simply desired to fade out of sight—which is what he did. Since then he hasn't gambled a penny. It's as if it was something he wanted to try—a system, maybe, or just something in his blood—and having got it out of himself he lost all interest in it. Crazy!”

He sat shaking his head, lit a second cigarette, finally looked up. “That's me finished. My branch is still on Garrison, of course, but at a distance. We don't intend to harass him, and I'm pretty sure we won't get anything on him. He's clean…

“One very last thing: I think you'll discover pretty soon, when the rest of you have had a chance to speak, that we've all of us underestimated Garrison. It's just a feeling I have, that's all.”

“Underestimated?” The Chairman was on his feet again. “Will MI6 take a moment more to explain?”

MI6 nodded. “Okay. I think that if we could really see Garrison, all of him—I mean if we could really get under his skin—we'd find we're fooling about with one of the most powerful men in the world. Powerful in just about any way you care to mention. And barring any accident, any deterioration in his health, shall we say, I think he's destined to be
the
most powerful very shortly.”

No one spoke. After a moment The Chairman said, “Thank you.” He stood looking round the table, unsmiling, tall and gaunt and strangely cold. Finally he suggested, “A break for coffee, gentlemen? Following which we'll continue. And I think by now that we're all beginning to see just why this meeting was called.”

The seated men remained silent. Then one by one they began to stand up and stretch their legs…

A
FTER COFFEE IT WAS THE TURN OF
M
INERAL
R
IGHTS AND
M
INING
, followed by Transport, and finally Telecommunications. All told similar tales. In the last two years Garrison had gone from strength to strength; he and/or his companies were the majority shareholders in almost every big business one might care to name; he was the man
behind
the men in control. And no one outside this room knew it. But—

“—That's just the problem, gentlemen,” The Chairman took pains to point out, when once more he had the floor. “If Garrison were the Aga Khan, or the Maharaja of Mogador, or some despot oil sheikh—if his name was Rockefeller or Getty or Onassis—if he was the President of the USA or the head of the Cosa Nostra, then we'd know what or what not to do about him. And if he had any of those backgrounds we'd more ably understand him and not need to fear him. But he isn't and he doesn't. What he is is an ex-Military Police Corporal turned big businessman—no, Super-Tycoon—who seems destined to become the richest, most powerful man in the world. And no one knows except us and a handful of others. How he does the things he does is not important—though I'd dearly love to know. What's to be done about him is important. Quite simply, if Mr. Garrison turned nasty he could pull the chairs out from under all of us! He can ruin our economy—the world's economy! He can cripple airlines, shipping, communications, industry…may have already begun to do so, if only as an exercise in the manipulation of power. Oh, yes, that's a possibility: already he may have flexed his muscles, maybe more than once or twice!”

“That is very true,” said Finance, jumping to his feet. “Look at the recent,
ahem
, fluctuations—supposedly inexplicable fluctuations—in precious metals. Look at the collapse of certain airlines, the much more devastating collapse of entire economies, the shuddery state of banking, of Wall Street and the Stock Exchange…”

“My God!” Inland Revenue wheezed, also on his feet. “But I didn't know the half of it! Not the tenth part of it!” He was trembling in every ounce of fat. He ran jelly fingers through his flaky hair. “He's made complete fools of us—must owe us millions. He's—”

“
Wait!
” The Chairman thumped the table. “Gentlemen, please remain seated…Please!” They sat. “Obviously you have seen the light. Yes, Garrison is a potential bomb, and yes he would seem to have his finger on his own trigger. But—”

“—But you'd be advised to stop right there!” MI6 broke in, his voice calm, controlled.

“I beg your pardon?” The Chairman's voice was sharp, his eyes suddenly hooded.

“Before you say anything else,” said MI6, “there's another little thing you should know.” He glanced at Government Observer, a very young man whose silence throughout had been generally mistaken for lack of understanding or experience, then stared directly at The Chairman. “I was given the option of telling or of holding back. Now I think you'd better know, all of you, before hysteria sets in. It's just one more ‘anomaly,' if you like. Simply this: Garrison is British and he
is
patriotic.”

With the exception of The Chairman, MI6's audience looked blank. The Chairman guessed what was coming and groaned inwardly. He had hoped MI6 didn't have this information…but too late now. A pity. It had all been going so well.

“Garrison has made out a will,” MI6 continued, pausing to wave the others down as they all began to question at once. “
Please!
His will is simple—within its vast scope, of course—and so worded or constructed as to be quite irrefutable, incontestable. It was received by Her Majesty's Government just a few days ago, before Garrison went abroad on holiday. He also left instructions that he didn't want to talk about it. The government is to be executor in the event of Garrison's, er, sudden demise. And everything—that is
everything
—is to go to the country, to England!”

There was stunned silence. The Chairman bit his lip. Someone must have leaked this to MI6, as it had been leaked to him. Perhaps Observer, on instructions from above…

Finally MI6 went on. “So you see he doesn't intend to pull the chairs out from under us after all. Doesn't want to be King of the World. Isn't bent on chaos, destruction. Which makes me wonder just what we're all doing…here…” As he slowed and came to a halt, so his eyebrows lowered in a dark frown. He gave a last look around at the staring faces, then turned his eyes down and began to pick at his already ragged nails.

The Chairman decided to take a chance, find out what their reactions would be. “Nothing has changed,” he said. “This…this will of his could be a blind, a ploy, a safeguard against deeper investigation. The fact remains: while he's alive Garrison is a potential bomb. But—”

“Gentlemen,” said the small yellow man. For the first time he was on his feet, smiling, bowing. He straightened up. “Now, if I may speak?” his voice was a whisper, extremely gentle and soothing, exemplifying everyone's conception of an English-speaking Chinaman. Almost a caricature. “My master arrived at these same conclusions some time ago. For which reason he has taken a special interest in Mr. Garrison. Now he wishes it to be said that whatever else may be decided, Mr. Garrison is not to die. That would not be—beneficial?”