Gardner, John (25 page)

'Yes.' The Laird gave a small sigh, almost of regret. 'Unhappily you have not only interfered a little early, but caused me great grief. Franco's death is, I gather, being treated simply as some gangland vendetta. They have yet to identify him.' He sighed again. 'The common flatworm,' he muttered.
'Leptoplana tremellaris.
It seems strange that my dear Mary-Jane has perished at the hands of the common flatworm. We've spent many years together, Mr Bond. Now you have been the cause of her death.'

Bond asked coolly if Murik would have mourned greatly had the death been that of his intended victim.

'Not in the least,' Murik flared. 'She is a useless little strumpet. Unnecessary. Mary-Jane was a brilliant scientist . . .' He lapsed into silence, as though the death of his mistress and its repercussions had only just made themselves felt. Then he repeated, 'The common flatworm.'

Bond pressed home on the man's emotional disadvantage, asking what he meant by the common flatworm.

'Killed her.' The Laird became matter-of-fact now. 'There's no getting away from it, Franco was a clever devil: an organiser of ingenuity and a killer of even greater skill. He explained it to me, Bond, after I had arranged things.'

Franco, it appeared, had access to scientific work on untraceable poisons. In great detail, as if talking to himself, Murik explained. 'For years we've known that a poison produced by the epidermal skin glands of the flatworm brings about cardiac arrest in animals. Very quick. A heart attack. It is only in the last year that an extract removed from the flatworm's skin has been made strong enough to bring about the same reaction in humans. A very small amount will bring on a perfectly natural heart attack in a matter of minutes, or seconds.'

Franco had arranged with his tame scientists to prepare a delivery system for the poison: a gelatine capsule of just the right thickness, fired over a specific distance, through a specific weapon, in this case the powerful Anschütz -22 air rifle. The passage of the projectile, both through the barrel and, at its maximum velocity during its trajectory, would strip some of the gelatine away, leaving only a very thin layer. 'In fact it overshot the calculated distance.' For the first time Murik smiled. 'Yet still worked. A tiny sting-hardly felt by the recipient-but strong enough to just break the skin and inject the poison into the wound. Enough to produce a heart attack —and death.'

Bond asked if the authorities suspected anything. No, not a thing Murik told him. As far as everyone was concerned, Mary-Jane Mashkin had suffered cardiac arrest. 'I have the certificate.' He patted his pocket. 'We shall bury her when Meltdown is complete.' As he said it, the Laird's mood changed, as though he had become his old self again. 'She was a soldier, killed in action for my cause. It would be wrong to mourn. Now, there are more important things to be done. Really, Mr Bond, it is a pity we cannot work together. I have to admit some admiration for you. The play-acting after our arrival at Perpignan airport was worthy of a professional. But, then, it appears that you are a professional of some kind, aren't you?'

'If you say so.' Bond was tight-lipped. It must now be well after one in the morning. Already two attempts to beat Anton Murik had failed. Third time lucky - if there was to be a third time; for the sands were trickling out fast. Less than twelve hours to go before the sinister Laird's Meltdown project went into action, with Warlock leading the way.

Murik leaned forward with one of his little pecking movements. Strange, Bond thought, how the man could look so distinguished, with that mane of white hair, yet give the impression of being a bulldog and a bird at one and the same time.

'The man whose face you smashed up in the telephone booth, Mr Bond.' Murik smiled again. 'He heard the words you used. I can only presume that you are 007 — a code of some kind. Who is M?'

Bond shook his head. 'Haven't the foggiest.'

'Well, I have.' The Laird of Murcaldy leant further across the desk. 'In my time as a nuclear physicist, I too have signed the Official Secrets Act. I have been privy to what the novelists call the secret world. M, if I am correct, is the designation used for the person romantics like to call the head of the British Secret Service.'

'Really?' Bond raised his eyebrows. Put your mind into overdrive, he told himself; knowing that, at the very least, the London headquarters would be able to identify the general locality of his telephone call. If they had already done so, Murik and his crew would have been flushed out by now—a depressing thought. He consoled himself with the fact that M would eventually put his finger on Aldan Aerospace. Yet there was no use pretending. It was going to be a damned close run thing.

Murik was speaking again, and Bond had to pull his attention back to the little man's words. '. . . not much of a message to M, was it? I don't think we can expect too much trouble from that source.' He gave a little cough, clearing his throat. 'In any case, I am anxious to get Meltdown underway; there's no chance of stopping that chain of events now. Our late, unlamented Franco has seen to that. And my demands will go out the moment I receive information that certain nuclear power stations are in the hands of the departed Franco's fanatical, so-called terrorists.'

'Six nuclear reactions, I believe,' Bond said smoothly. He must do everything possible to ruffle the calm surface of Murik's confidence.

The bulldog face broke into a radiant smile. 'Yes. Six.' He sounded pleased, as though he had pulled off a clever trick.

Push him, thought Bond. 'Six: one in England, one here in France, one in the Federal Republic of Germany, one in East Germany and two in the United States.'

Murik spread his hands. 'Clever, James Bond. So you know the locations; just as I know you cannot have passed them on to anyone who matters.'

The wretched little man refused to be rattled. But Bond would not give up that easily. Quickly he recited the names of the nuclear plants: 'Heysham One; Saint-Laurent-des-

Eaux Two; Nord Two-Two; Esenshamm; Indian Point Three, and San Onofre One.'

'Excellent. Yes, by the time we leave here, just before one o'clock local time, tomorrow afternoon—noon in England— Franco's hardboiled suicide squads will be preparing their individual assaults . . .'

'Which could go wrong.' Bond wanted to say something about Murik's statement that they were leaving, but held his tongue. Maybe the Laird would spill everything without being pressed. Leaving for where? And how would they leave?

'I very much doubt that,' Murik chuckled. 'Meltdown has been a long time in the making.'

'Good preparation or not, the security on those places just about precludes any serious terrorist activity.' The conversation had become bizarre. Like a pair of wargamers discussing moves. It had about it a distinct air of unreality.

'From within?' Murik asked with mock surprise. 'My dear Bond, you don't think something as important as this has been left to chance. Originally I provided poor Franco with a long list of possible targets. The ones we're going for were chosen because they were the easiest to infiltrate.' He slapped the pine desk with the flat of his hand. 'They were infiltrated about a year ago. We've had to be very patient. A year can seem a long time; but patience pays off. There are four of Franco's contacts working at each of the targets, four trusted people, there now, at each reactor. They all have skills, and they've proved their loyalty, worked hard, done their jobs. Over the year, each person has managed to reach a position where he or she is beyond reproach, his face is known to the security men; and each one has been most successful in smuggling in the equipment necessary for the task.'

'Weapons can sometimes backfire.' Bond tried hard not to crease his brow with the worry now nagging at him, opening an empty pit of horror within his mind.

'The weapons are only small things.' Murik's eyes again stirred into that unpleasant deep movement - the deadly molten lava, which seemed to betray a hint of madness. That he was wholly mad, in his genius, Bond did not doubt. Only a maniac would take the kind of risks this small monster was about to embark upon. 'The weapons are needed for one moment only. The men and women, all twenty-four of them, will be on duty in their various plants at the required moment. All have access to the control rooms. Weapons will be used as a last resort only — possibly as a threat. The takeover of the control rooms in all six plants should be quite bloodless. And the staff inside will be freed immediately.'

'How well do you know people like that?' Bond kept any hint of feeling out of his voice. Murik now began to look more like a slug than a bulldog, but one could not but have some awe for what was obviously such careful planning.

'I?' Murik looked up with surprise. 'I do not know them at all. Only Franco, and he acted on my instructions. Franco, as I've said, was a highly intelligent man. I taught him all the necessary things. In turn he instructed the teams. I do assure you, James Bond, that we even went through each phase with plans — plans of the plants concerned. Nothing has been left to chance. You see, the initial moves in the control rooms will be elementary precautions only. First, the remote switches will be cut: this means that no master control can scram the plants in question.'

'Scram?'

'It is a word we use. Scram means the sudden shutdown of a fission reactor. Remote control insertion of the control rods. In all but one of our target reactors there is a central master control covering several reactors. So each squad will first isolate its reactor so that it cannot be rendered safe from the master control.' His smile was as unpleasant, and nerve-twitching, as the lava look in his eyes. 'It would defeat our purpose if the squads did not have complete control over their destinies.'

Bond's muscles had gone as rigid as his tightened lips. Tension built steadily through his body. He had gone over the dozen or so possibilities which might defeat the terrorist assaults before they even had a chance to get off the ground. The facts concerning infiltration and the immediate isolation of the target reactors removed a whole range of opportunities.

'And the other thing?'

'Oh,' Murik pecked his head forward. 'The most obvious one, of course. As they separate themselves from the master control, they will also cut all communication lines to the outside world.'

'No contact at all?'

'They won't need contact. That can lead only to a dangerous lack of concentration. We cannot possibly allow any dialogue between the squads and the authorities. They have their orders; the times and details.' He gave his humourless smile once more. 'They have one, and only one, method of communication. That lies with me. It will be used most sparingly.

'Each group is equipped with a small but immensely high-powered transceiver, developed by one of my own companies. This company. It is the most important item that the teams have smuggled in; and each one is set to a particular frequency. Once they're in and completely isolated, each team will signal one code word, together with an identification. Only one person in the entire world will be able to receive those messages.' Smugly he tapped his chest. 'Myself. In turn, the groups will be the only people able to receive my message — another code word of course to inform them to abort their mission. That instruction will be given only when my demands are met in full: and it has to be received by them within twenty-four hours of their messages that the various takeovers have been successful. If they do not receive my abort signal . . .' He gave a sad little gesture with his hands. 'If they do not receive it, they'll go ahead-on the dot —with the action. They will cut off the cooling systems to each of their reactors.'

Bond's face was set like stone, his eyes locking with those of Anton Murik. 'And if they do that, millions of lives will be lost, large parts of the world will be rendered uninhabitable for a long time, there will be huge damage and pollution . . .'

Murik nodded like a Buddha. 'It is possible that the
whole
world will suffer despoilment, yes. Yes, Mr Bond, that is why the governments concerned — and, almost certainly, other governments too-will not allow it to happen. My demands will be met; of that I am one hundred per cent sure.'

'And how will the world know of your demands?'

'You will see, Bond; you will see. You'll have a ringside seat.' He chuckled. 'You'll be able to observe everything, from start to finish.'

'But . . .'

'And after it is all over.' He spread his hands in a gesture meant to convey an inevitability. 'Well, Franco had to go at some point. You have done that for me. You see, I could never have let Franco pass any of the ransom money on to his various terrorist organisations, because I need to keep it myself. It is essential that I retain every penny made from this operation, in order to bring safety to the world. This is truly a case of the end justifying the means.' Murik shifted uncomfortably in his chair, adopting a slightly sad tone as he went on, 'Of course, I do feel it a little dishonourable witholding
your
small fee. After all, you did achieve success of a sort, even if not in the way I would have wished. And I have, as I say, rather taken to you, my friend. But then you have from the beginning betrayed my trust in you. And, in the circumstances, I cannot allow you to remain in possession of the facts. However, if you have any next of kin, I am prepared to make a token . . .' Murik's voice tailed away.

'So you'll kill me?'

'Something like that. I had a nice idea originally, but since Mary-Jane's death, I think you deserve a longer agony. Surely you would like an exciting end, James Bond?'

'And Lavender?'

Murik hit the table hard, with a balled fist, 'She should already be dead, instead of my Mary-Jane. But don't worry, Bond, she'll be with you - right up to the very end.' A throaty chuckle. 'Or right down to the very end.'

'You bastard.' James Bond spoke quietly, in control of his emotions. 'You've already tried to murder your ward, and you'll do it again. Your own ward . . .'

'Who has been a thorn in my side for many years.' Murik also spoke with no trace of emotion. 'Just as you have turned out to be a thorn over the past few days. My work will continue with no possible disruption, once Miss Lavender Peacock has disappeared.'