Assignment - Black Viking (2 page)

“Upstairs, sir, in the main hall,” the driver said.

“Thank you.”

He was prepared for something big, but the collection of men gathered in the long, narrow chamber, fitted out as a board conference room, both startled and appalled him. He checked off faces rapidly; some he knew by sight, others he had long ago memorized from photographs. The chief Residents of every major European capital had been called here from their Centrals. Hanning of London; Georges of Paris; Klemath from Vienna and Freeman from Oslo; and a dozen others. There was a Japanese gentleman he did not know; Courbel from the Surete; a military Englishman from M-6. And General Dickinson McFee, slim and small and eternally gray, surprisingly pried out of his office in Washington.

It was rare for McFee to leave No. 20 Annapolis Street, K Section’s headquarters. Rarer still for him to come to Europe. And unheard-of for McFee ever to look troubled or concerned. But he looked worried now.

“Take a seat over there, Cajun,” McFee said quietly through the hubbub of voices. “Have a drink. You may need one. Just listen and absorb. We’ll work out the specific job for you later.”

“It looks like a gathering of Gaulish tribes. Is it the bomb?” Durell asked.

“Worse.”

“What could be worse?”

“You’ll see. Listen and learn.”

“General, if it’s a team job—”

“You’ll have your own assignment. Better have that drink.”

Count Lemogne was a tall, gracious man with thick gray hair and black-rimmed intellectual glasses. There were no servants in the room, and the members of this unprecedented conference helped themselves to refreshments from cut-glass and silver decanters on a massive oaken sideboard against the paneled wall. The heavy draperies were drawn, and the room was artificially lighted. At one end of the chamber were posted world maps, charts, graphs, and placards filled with statistics. Durell ignored the liquor and sat down, out of habit, with his back to the wall, choosing a high-backed, uncomfortable Spanish chair that must have dated back to the Duke of Alba’s regime.

They were talking about the weather.

It might have been the ordinary polite and aimless preamble to more serious business. But it was not.

The weather was their business.

“ . . . weather modification control,” a lecturer was saying. He had a pointer and tapped the world chart on the wall. He was American, a Madison-Avenue type, and he might have been discussing sales graphs and a new advertising campaign. “The National Science Foundation has given diligent attention to the manner in which man can now tamper with his environment, gentlemen. Our Special Commission has given grave attention to the advances now known to be possible in controlling our climate, attempting to estimate the political, legal, economic, and biological results of WMC—weather modification control. The implications are enormous. To the layman, they might be considered terrifying, if such control is attempted and then lost. The world as we know it could be changed in ways that make the consequences of atomic power seem minuscule by comparison.”

He tapped the chart.

“The seas could be frozen or the polar caps melted. The Sahara could be made to bloom and our rich Midwestern wheat and corn fields turned into sand deserts. Ultimately, the entire planet can be affected. The public knows, of course, about cloud seeding and such operational techniques as the dissipation of low-temperature fogs over limited areas such as airports and highways. To the best of our knowledge at the Foundation, however, research and capability have not gone much beyond this. But we have recent evidence that someone—somewhere— has made an enormous leap forward, so to speak.”

The silence of the listeners was broken by a low murmuring that expressed doubt, astonishment, and outrage. Durell looked at General McFee. The small gray man sat beside him, his walking stick against his thigh. That stick was a potential arsenal, Durell knew, constructed by the gimmick boys in K Section’s lab. There was a white phosphorus bomb, a gun, miniaturized tape recorder, a two-way transistor radio, a knife, all built into the innocent-looking blackthorn. Durell wondered if McFee ever expected to use it. He did not doubt that the General could, if needed.

Against the rising murmur of questions that lifted against him, the lecturer began to answer questions, citing specific recent phenomena of the weather that had brought about this unusual conference in the Flemish hop fields. It turned out that Count Lemogne was an expert in meteorology. Several other representatives were equally adept in the field.

Count Lemogne stood up and graciously asked for attention. His voice was quiet and cultivated, but under his composed mien there was a dark shadow, a sober and imperative concern that commanded silence.

“Gentlemen, it was pure chance that we became aware of what has been happening. An attentive and curious clerk in the Brussels weather station chose to carry out an experimental analysis of recent weather phenomena that had attracted his attention. First, on the island of Tahataha, in the Pacific South Seas, it rained for forty days and forty nights.” The Count smiled deprecatingly. “The Melanesians there considered the downpour historic, unprecedented, and most fearful. It was not the season for rain. It ruined the copra crop, ended fishing, rotted clothing and houses, and corroded their souls. The water fell with a sullen and malignant monotony. Tahataha is not an important island, as world affairs go. No one paid attention to it except the Paris bankers who held notes on the copra plantations, some of which were ruined.

“One week after that curious storm ended, a typhoon swept up out of the China Sea, skirted the Ryukyu Islands, sank seven fishing boats and two coastal freighters, and wiped out the Japanese village of Konitsu. The tempest had a furious and strange power. Forty-two men, women, and children were killed. The International Red Cross sent aid. The survivors said that the storm was impossible. You see, it was not the season for typhoons, gentlemen.

“In India, shortly thereafter, there was a delay of three weeks before the seasonal rains ended, and the fields remained untillable. It was also much colder than usual. The crops failed and special American aid in wheat shipments had to be sent to stave off a calamitous famine.

“Other incidents, gentlemen, involved the disappearance of the P & O liner
Burma Queen
off the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean; an invasion of gigantic waterspouts noted by a Russian trawler fleet; and extraordinary tornadoes along the Gulf Coast of the United States.

“Somewhat more recently, some of you will recall the cataclysmic freezing spell in Rome and northern Italy.

Three weeks ago, on the first of May, a caravan in the deep Sahara east of Marrakesh reported a six-inch snowfall where no man had ever seen snow before.

“Now, then.” Count Lemogne paused. “Our man in the Brussels weather station idled away his time by constructing this chart you see, indicating the dates and types of unusual weather afflictions in different global localities. Its significance suddenly struck him, and I know all of you see it too.”

“The track of a ship,” Durell said quietly to McFee. “On a round-the-world cruise.”

“A submarine, Samuel,” McFee said. “Perhaps nuclear-powered.”

“Soviet?”

“We’ll have a private talk later.”

“Not ours, I hope?”

“No, not ours.”

“Has anyone projected a future course?”

“It’s been extrapolated for the Baltic or Arctic Ocean,” McFee said softly. “That’s where it is now.”

“It’s a big area.”

McFee said: “The winter hasn’t ended in northern Scandinavia. The cold has been escalating. From all projections, it doesn’t look as if it’s ever going to end.”

“I haven’t read anything about that.”

“It’s been kept quiet.”

“But that could mean—”

“Doomsday,” McFee said. “Come with me.”

THEY sat in a quiet little study in a wing overlooking the courtyard where the cars were parked. The conference continued, lost in speculation and argument and some attempts at denial. McFee seemed to be quite at home in Count Lemogne’s manor, and Durell revised his opinion as to how often the little general left his sanctuary at No. 20 Annapolis Street in Washington. He watched McFee twirl a huge globe that dated back to the seventeenth century. The study was lined with books and furnished with a polished kidney desk, a rich Sarouk carpet over Belgian blocks in the floor, and tall windows against which the rain beat with solemn intensity. Durell started to wonder about the sudden rain, and then reminded himself that the weather in Flanders, subject to North Sea winds, was notoriously changeable. It didn’t have to mean anything.

“Sir,” he began.

“Yes, Samuel?”

“It’s a big operation, right?”

“Bigger than any we’ve had before.”

“Rallying all the forces from all our Centrals in Europe means a complicated web of teams on the job, right?” “You will work on this alone. Or almost alone.” McFee fixed him with a gray stare. “I know you place little reliance on teamwork, Samuel. Or perhaps it’s because you are too sensitive to the loss of members of such teams. You need have no fears. You can only kill yourself on this one.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“No need for irony. It’s quite serious.”

“Where am I going, sir?”

“Scandinavia.”

“That’s big enough.”

“You’ll have a specific target. I’ve spoken to Baron Uccelatti. He’ll take you there, on the
Vesper
. Ostensibly, a pleasure and yachting cruise to northern waters in the Baltic Sea.”

“Some of that is restricted area. The KGB won’t like it.” McFee tapped his walking stick on the dark red Belgian tiles. “You’ll be working with them, Samuel.”

Durell stood up. “The Russians? Are you making me a pigeon, sir?”

“They asked for you, Samuel.”

“I’ll bet. They’d like to have me. Since when—?” “You can understand,” McFee said quietly, “the gravity of the world situation when I tell you that K Section and the Soviet intelligence organs have had two conferences in Geneva on joint operations to track down this vessel I mentioned.”

“But if it’s not ours and not theirs—”

“We don’t know whose it is.”

“No one else in the world could work this weather control.”

“We don’t know,” McFee said again. “It’s up to you to find out.”

“With a KGB man?”

“You may have to go into Soviet territory.”

“And wind up frozen with the mammoths in Siberia?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Sir, I respectfully suggest—”

“You arc not permitted to decline this assignment.” Durell sat down again. He wished for a cigarette, but McFee refused permission to smoke in his presence. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. You always had a choice. You were a paid employee, and under certain circumstances, you had the option to quit. No one ever had, but it was there in the fine print of the annual contracts he signed. He felt a quick resentment of McFee’s implication, and quashed it, aware of a fine tremor along all his nerves. McFee had to be under enormous pressure to make such a statement, to give him no alternative.

Not that he seriously considered refusal. He waited quietly in the elaborate room, surrounded by Count Lemogne’s books, with the view of the hop fields turning dull gray in the rain beyond the tall, elegant windows.

He said finally: “What exactly am I supposed to do?” McFee tapped the huge globe that stood next to the desk. His walking stick made Durell even more nervous. “We have to find that weather modification ship. We’re sure it’s a sub. Aerial reconnaissance can’t turn it up. It’s somewhere up there, perhaps in the Arctic, perhaps in the Baltic, just off the coasts of Norway and Finland.” 

“What’s the matter with our nuclear sub fleet?”

McFee looked grim. “They are conducting a search, Samuel. They’ll help you. You’ll get a special-frequency radio to call them by, if needed.”

“And do I get a dog team and learn to yell at them in Lappish, or whatever they speak up there?”

“This is not a time for levity, Samuel.”

“Sorry, sir. But I just don’t think—”

“If you would exercise a little more patience, and control that Cajun temperament of yours, you will have enough to think about. As I said, the weather up there has begun to act most unnaturally. Every extrapolation from our computers indicates the presence of an artificial disturbing factor up there. It must be the submarine. It is affecting RSFSR territory as well as the rest of northern Scandinavia. Hence the request, however extraordinary, for cooperation from your opposite numbers at Dzerzhinsky Square.”

“How and where do we get together?”

“It will be arranged in Stockholm, when Baron Uccelatti puts you ashore there. The
Vesper
will continue to be at your disposal afterward as a cover. The Swedish Intelligence units from their Desk Five will also be at your disposal. One of their people is due here now, at any moment.” McFee looked at his gold watch and turned to contemplate the big world globe. “There are some leads. Some time ago—eight months, to be exact—one of the world’s foremost meteorological experts, and an advanced experimenter in weather modification control, vanished. A man named Professor Peter Gustaffson. An old and aristocratic family, Samuel. His disappearance did not create too much stir, I must confess. We were at fault there.”

“Any data on it?”

McFee sighed. “He was traveling in the Far East at the time. It was believed that he was the victim of petty thugs.”

Durell was sober. “Where did it happen?”

“Professor Gustaffson vanished in Hong Kong.”

“And now you think the Chicoms—?”

“We don’t think anything—yet. Naturally, we have no means of learning what Peiping thinks. But if the Soviets deny all this, to the point of being willing to join forces with us, then it leaves the Chinese as our best possibility, Samuel.”

“It’s hard to believe, sir. They don’t have the techniques—”

McFee said sharply: “We continually underestimate the dragon, Samuel. Simply because in the major portion of our lifetime, China has been asleep, a huge and weakened giant. Today it is awake. You know Chinese history. Expansionist, powerful, enormous, swallowing everything. The cycle has been resumed since Mao Tse-tung took power. Chinese inventiveness and technology were often far ahead of the Western world. It is not too much to believe that, given incentive and resources—such as the brains of Professor Gustaffson—they have evolved this new technique to disrupt the climates of the world.” “And I’m to find Gustaffson. The trail is cold. It’s had eight months to cool off.”