Skyprobe (8 page)

“Spalinski,” Shaw said between his teeth, “didn’t say a word more. And, if he had, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Well spoken, indeed.” Thixey murmured. “Very British, very old-school-tie and white-man’s-burden and all that, but, like so much else we used to value, it’s also just a trifle old-fashioned these days and extremely foolish as well. Take the fag-end away, Beatty, there’s a good girl.” Beatty did as she was told. Shaw felt the sweat running down his face. The two men still held his arms and Thixey’s Luger was still aimed at the middle of his rib-cage. The American asked, “Don’t intend to leave it at that, Mr. Thixey, do you?”

There was a barely perceptible pause before Thixey answered easily. “He may be telling the simple truth, you know, Horn. We know Spalinski didn’t have long to talk to him.” He glanced at Rencke. “Right?”

“Right so far,” Rencke said thickly. “But it is still my belief that Spalinski had time for saying more than Shaw has told us.”

Beatty said suddenly, “Too flaming right!” She turned to Thixey. “Hilary, Mr. Rencke’s right. Dead right. Don’t you stick yer neck out for this joker. You know the orders.”

“Of course.” Thixey, Shaw felt, didn’t like the agony angle all that much; he wasn’t basically a sadist like Rencke and Beatty, but he wasn’t strong enough to swim too far against the tide. “All right, we’ll move into Stage Two, then. Tell Kortweiler, Horn.”

“Okay.” Horn let go Shaw’s arm; so did Moss. Horn dug his gun into Shaw’s spine, hard. “On your feet, Limey.”

Shaw got up. As he did so, he side-stepped, neat and fast, grabbed hold of Horn and swung the man in front of Ms body, with one hand like a vice on the American’s gun-wrist. He twisted and the gun dropped. Shaw flung Horn smack into Moss, bent quickly and picked up the revolver. Rencke fired and missed by a hair’s-breadth. Then Shaw had both Rencke and Thixey covered, and as Moss and Horn picked themselves up from the floor he backed away to the door.

Thixey looked undecided as to whether or not to chance beating Shaw to the next bullet, and it was Beatty who decided the issue. As quick as light she had reached inside her skirt and Shaw never even saw the lightweight leather thong flicking through the air towards him before it had wMpped the gun from Ms hand. Beatty jerked the gun towards her and levelled it at Shaw just as Horn and Moss were closing in again.

After that Thixey took charge.

“Leave it!” he rapped as the two men looked like starting to rough Shaw up. Then his tone became bantering. “Calm yourselves, gentlemen! Leave it to Kortweiler.” He walked over towards Shaw. “Don’t try that sort of thing again, old man. It really doesn’t pay, you know. Beatty’s a useful girl to have around. She used to work in a circus, hence the handiness with the wMp.” He glanced at the American and said, “Right-ho, Horn.”

Horn got behind Shaw and this time the prod of the gun was full of meaning and intent. Horn ordered him out of the room and once again they headed for the cellar, this time in full possession, with Moss, Thixey and the girl astern of them. Only Rencke remained behind. As they came up to the cellar door Horn pressed a switch outside and they went on down into light. For the first time Shaw was able to take a full, unhurried look at the place. There was something he hadn’t been aware of in the darkness that had followed close on last night’s fall into the coal, or in the faint flickers of daylight through the grille that morning, and this was a heavy manhole cover in the floor of the cellar with, above it, what looked gruesomely like a makeshift gallows.

Thixey seemed about to say something concerning this gallows when Moss uttered. “Here’s Kortweiler,” he said.

There was a shuffling sound on the stone steps and Shaw, turning, saw a dwarf descending into the cellar. This dwarf had a long, dead-white face, and enormous hands dangling by Ms sides, and he was dressed entirely in black. Beneath a scalp as bald as Rencke,’s he wore a mask, his eyes reflecting the light, beadily, through the slits. Only the axe was missing from the picture. . . .

Maybe, Shaw thought, this latter-day executioner was another circus turn, like Beatty.

* * *

Already in America certain preliminary precautions had been taken. Units of the United States Sixth Fleet, detailed as the recovery force for the Skyprobe project and standing by in Key West, had been ordered to sea and were proceeding at full speed for the splashdown area in the Caribbean in case the programme should have to be speeded up. Only the Commanding Officers and certain senior specialists in the ships knew that they might be called upon actually to pick up the capsule ahead of time; all other personnel, as well as the Press, had been told that the early movement was merely part of an exercise designed to eliminate any possible hitch in the smooth progress of America’s biggest-ever prestige probe into space. The only exceptions in the lower echelons were those men, including aircraft crews, whose job it would be to operate the equipment that would be watching out for any hostile submarines in the area.

As Kortweiler reached the bottom of the steps Thixey nodded at Moss; Moss and Horn lined up on either side of Shaw. Kortweiler moved round behind and gave him a sudden violent blow in the small of his back while Horn neatly kicked his feet from under him. Moss and Horn grabbed his shoulders and lowered him to the floor of the cellar. While Horn knelt on his chest, Moss looped readymade lengths of rope over his wrists and ankles. These were hauled taut to heavy iron ring-bolts set in the stone floor. Looking detached, Kortweiler moved away.

Moss looked up. “All ready,” he reported.

Thixey’s face looked white in the glare from the bare electric blub hanging from the centre of the ceiling. He said, “Right-ho, Mossy,” then addressed Shaw. “Now look here, old man. I do want you to realize we’re going to make you talk. There’s really no sense whatever in your being noble and undergoing a lot of discomfort, because you’re bound to crack in the end. You know that as well as I do. We’re all human, old man.”

“Don’t put me in the same bracket as yourself. Thixey.” Thixey flushed. “I know what you must think of me. I’m not going to give you a lecture on the philosophies I’ve come to believe in.”

“Fine. I still haven’t anything to say, though.”

“Well, it’s up to you, then, old man.” Thixey nodded at the dwarf. “Go ahead, Kortweiler.”

Kortweiler lumbered forward again, heavy and slow, breath hissing through a broken-down set of teeth. He seemed to be asthmatical. It was impossible to guess his age. He was no more than five foot in height, with a chest like a rum cask in comparison. There was little intelligence in the low forehead, but the beady eyes showed any amount of cunning as they peered through the slits in the black mask. Shaw felt his flesh creep as Kortweiler approached him, moving on soft-soled shoes across the littered floor of the cellar. He stopped six inches away from Shaw. Everyone was watching closely. The girl Beatty had a bead of sweat gathering on her upper lip and her eyes seemed glazed; her breasts rose and fell rapidly. She was enjoying this; Shaw had a feeling that Rencke, who must have been otherwise and importantly engaged, would be sorry to miss whatever was coming next.

Suddenly, without any warning, without any sound or preliminary movement, without even appearing to bend his knees, Kortweiler jumped.

It was as though he were motivated by some invisible interior spring that acted through the soles of his feet, similar to the action of the spring-hafted steel spike that Rencke had used to kill Spalinski and P. J. Fetters. Shaw knew what was coming; his stomach muscles tautened instinctively and a second later Kortweiler’s full weight crashed down on his midriff. He twitched convulsively, pulling against the holding ropes. He felt agonizing pain. Kortweiler moved away and through a drumming of blood in his ears Shaw heard Thixey’s voice.

“You don’t want that to happen again, do you, old man?” Thixey asked. When Shaw didn’t respond Kortweiler duly jumped again. As before Shaw’s stomach muscles tensed and again there was the searing pain as though his guts were being wrenched out, drawn from his protesting body with red-hot irons, and then came an agonizing retching. Kortweiler jumped once more and dimly after that Shaw heard Thixey ordering a halt for the time being, then he passed out.

* * *

When Shaw came round the others had gone and Thixey was standing over him. When he opened his eyes Thixey squatted on the floor beside him; even in a situation like this, Thixey had an eye for his immaculate appearance— he was taking pains to keep his expensive pants off the coal-dust. His joints creaked a little from the effort. He said, “Well, old man. Are you going to talk now?”

“Not a syllable, Thixey. You’re wasting your time.”

Thixey looked at him thoughtfully. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “we’re not. I believe you’ll talk in the end, but you’re not going to harm our plans in any way if you don’t. You can just make things a little smoother, that’s all—for us and for yourself. We shall succeed, whatever you choose not to do. Shall I tell you something?”

Shaw’s guts felt as if they were on fire. “If you want to,” he said thickly. “Don’t let me stop you.”

Thixey smiled, sat back a little and dropped his bombshell. “Danvers-Marshall is with us,” he said.

Shaw’s body jerked against the ropes. “
Danvers-Marshall!
Are you trying to tell me he’s a traitor . . . the same sort of bastard as you, Thixey? You expect me to believe that?”

Thixey nodded. “Yes, I do, old man, because it’s absolutely true. As a matter of fact, he’s been passing information to the East for some time.” He gave a discreet cough. “I—er—understand you already know about his wife’s natural daughter, old man?”

“Yes, I do.” Shaw’s head throbbed. He stared up at Thixey’s face, his mind reeling. “Yes . . . I suppose it could check.”

Thixey laughed. “It does! If—”

“How do you know I’ve heard about the daughter in Poland?”

Again Thixey laughed. “I’ve talked to the wife. Our agents in the US have also talked a good deal to her in recent weeks ... as a matter of fact she’s already en route for Russia, old man. She was driven down from Suffolk yesterday—soon after you’d been to Long Melford. You see, she told us all about your visit . . . and by the way, there won’t be any alert put out for her till it’s too late. She told her mother-in-law a prepared cover story that’ll account for her absence for quite long enough. It s all been very neatly managed, you know, and—”

“Where is she now, Thixey?”

“She was smuggled aboard a Polish freighter lying off Shellhaven—after the ship had been cleared for foreign by the customs and immigration people. That ship, she’s the motor vessel
Czestochowski
, has since sailed for Leningrad.”

“What do they want with her?”

Thixey shrugged. “Frankly, nothing. She knew her husband was going to defect, old man, and she wanted to be with him. That’s all. You slipped up in letting her through your net, didn’t you?” He grinned down at Shaw. “There’s nothing anyone can do to stop us now, you know. With Danvers-Marshall’s help, we can intercept Skyprobe at any time from now—or to be more precise, we can intercept her the moment she re-enters the earth’s atmosphere, whenever and wherever NASA orders her to ditch. If you.—” Thixey broke off as the cellar door opened and footsteps clattered down the stairway.

Horn asked as he descended, “Got any place yet, Mr. Thixey?”

Thixey shook his head, got to his feet, and dusted down his clothing fastidiously. “No,” he said. “I haven’t. We’ll have to go to the limit after all.”

Horn nodded. “That’s what I reckoned,” he said as he reached the bottom of the steps. “We’re all set, Mr. Thixey.” His hand wandered towards a knife that was thrust into the waistband of his trousers. Behind him Moss and Beatty appeared, coming down the steps. Moss was carrying two coils of rope, one stout, the other a good deal lighter. As Moss dropped his ropes on the floor, Horn caught Thixey’s eye. “Okay to go?” he asked.

Thixey said, “He’s all yours.”

“Right.” Horn looked happy. He glanced at the girl. “Okay, Beatty,” he told her. “Untie Mister Shaw.”

The girl bent and loosened the ropes from the ring-bolts, then slipped the nooses off Shaw’s wrists and ankles while Horn and Moss kept him covered. He sat up, flexing his muscles, feeling the soreness in his stomach like a knife-

thrust as he moved. Horn nodded at Moss, who went over to the manhole cover and dragged at it, pulling it clear with an effort. A dank, foul smell seeped up from the open shaft.

Horn, holding his nose in an exaggeration of nausea, said, “Lovely! Shaw’s going to like that, I guess! On your feet, Limey. Move!”

Shaw got up. Horn said, “Don’t worry, you’re not going to die—yet. You’re just going to come close to it, that’s all. To avoid actually dying, you’re going to talk, and talk better’n you talked to Mr. Thixey.” Horn grinned and waved his gun threateningly, then he gestured to Moss and Beatty. “Okay,” he said laconically. “Set up the long drop.”

Moss, dealing with his nose trouble as he did so, picked up his length of stout rope. He threaded one end of it through a hole in the centre of the manhold cover and tossed the other end towards Beatty, who caught it and draped it over a pulley on the gallows. Moss dragged several feet of the rope through the manhole cover, so that a good length appeared on the cover’s underside, made a bowline in the end of this, and jerked the loop over Shaw’s head, pulling it up beneath his arms and adjusting it to his body.

Horn said, “Move closer to the shaft, mac.” He waited for obedience. When it didn’t come he snapped, “Goddam, you heard! If you don’t want a bullet in your bum, mac, do like I said.”

Shaw shrugged and obeyed. Moss now picked up the lighter rope and with this he tied Shaw’s hands tightly behind his back. Horn then passed his gun to the girl and he and Moss lined up on either side of Shaw, taking his arms and forcing him towards the lip of the shaft while Beatty, keeping the gun steady in her right hand, used her left to take up the slack of the rope over the gallows’ pulley, so that it led in a straight line from Shaw to the gallows-head. When it was taut, Beatty turned up the end around a cleat fixed to the standing part of the structure.