ever sleeps or not I wouldn't know, but there's Mirkoss and the cook, so we'd best give the place a chance to settle down.'
For another hour and a half they continued sitting at the table, occasionally exchanging a remark or taking a sip of the Apricot Brandy, then Wash stood up and said in a whisper, 'Let's get weaving. Go quiet as you can. I'll follow you. Pull up on the outer curve of the tunnel ten yards before you come to his office. Point it out to me as I pass, then keep your eyes and ears on stalks. Anyone coming don't cough; just start walking on again natural. I trained my hearing young on the prairie, so I'll catch your footfalls and be out alongside you time you come opposite the office door. Then if its the Big Chief I'll tell him I was taking you to have a sight of the rocket in the moonlight. O.K.?'
She nodded and he followed her out. The lights along the roof of the tunnel were kept on night and day, and in all the cabins there were pilot lights that gave out a faint blue radiance, like those in the sleepers of International Pullman cars. Very quietly they walked down two-thirds of the length of the tunnel, then she halted and followed his instructions. The door of the office was not locked and he was in there a good ten minutes. To her it seemed an interminable time as she strained her ears for approaching footsteps, and her eyes into the semi-gloom behind her. But at last he emerged, and closed the door gently after him.
Taking her arm, and still walking softly, without uttering a word he led her back to the dining cabin. There, in the brighter light, she saw that his normally ruddy face had gone a queer shade of grey, and that his black eyes held a murderous glint.
'Well,' she asked in a whisper.
He sat down heavily, and muttered, 'What I thought a crazy idea was right. It's all worked out there. He's aiming to put it on Moscow.'
At first Mary did not realize the full implications, so she said, 'I can't help feeling sorry for the Russians; but thank God it's not London.'
For a moment he stared at her then, his voice still low, he broke into a tense spate of words, 'Be your age, woman! The Russians will take it that the West launched the rocket at them. They'll not wait to ask questions. They'll think we've tried to shoot 'em sitting down. Before what's left of Moscow's gone up in smoke they'll press the button. Within twenty minutes New York, Washington, Pittsburg, Detroit will be just heaps of poisonous ruins- and London too. The West will react with all its got; land-based rockets, rockets from subs and cruisers, H bombs from aircraft. Russia's got subs, cruisers and long-range aircraft too -plenty. I'd give it three days, and every city west of a line Urals, Persia, India will have had it. Tens of millions dead, hundreds of millions dying; the whole of civilization as we know it to hell and gone.'
'Oh God!' she breathed, 'Oh God! Somehow we must stop it!'
'That's easy to say; but you know the man we're up against. I'd never be able to argue him out of anything he's set on.'
'But why, why does he want to do this frightful thing?'
'I'd hazard a guess. Another hunch. But things he's said fit into the picture. He knows that Russian Communism isn't Communism any more. The Soviet is reverting to a bourgeois state. I'd seen that one for myself. It's why I figured it to be the best bet as a place to spend the rest of my life in ease and plenty. But it's no longer good soil for sowing the seeds of the Old religion. And that's all the Great Ram gives a cuss about. 'Do what thou wilt shall be the Whole of the Law.' As long as there's settled Governments, doing that means risking a stretch in prison. But with a state of universal anarchy; well, ask yourself? Our Lord Satan would come into his own again in a real big way, wouldn't he?'
Suddenly Mary's blue eyes lit up and she stormed at him, 'It's you who are to blame for this! It's you who have made this horror possible! You let him fool you into giving him your bloody bomb. He is a real Satanist. You are not, any more than I am. You've just made use of the cult because it suits you. You only wanted rich living for yourself; to loll around on the profits of girls you have forced into prostitution; to listen to music while fine food is being prepared for you, then take your fill of drink and women.'
For a moment she thought he was going to strike her. But instead he gave himself a quick shake, then seemed to sag, and admitted, 'Maybe you've got something there. The Old Faith is the right one though. Prince Lucifer is the Lord of this World, and those who serve him come out tops.'
'Do they?' she countered hotly. 'Then what about yourself? Instead of being a Hero of the Soviet Union this time next week, you'll either be dead or trying to catch a stray dog to eat.'
'There's no going back on what's done,' he muttered miserably. 'It's by Our Lord Satan's will that it should be this way, and we've just got to take it.'
'No.' Mary stamped her foot. 'You can save yourself and countless innocent people. You must sabotage that rocket.'
'I can't. I wouldn't dare,' he protested. 'Just think what I'd let myself in for. If I threw a spanner in Our Lord Satan's work I'd be whipped down to Hell and slow roast while a thousand devils nipped bits off me till the world goes cold.'
'There is a power greater than Satan's that would protect you.'
'Maybe that's what you think. But no one's ever proved it.'
'Yes. I have. You saw me throw that crucifix. It was only a little thing of wood and ivory; but look what it did to your Great Ram. It rendered him as weak as water. For ten minutes he hadn't the power left to harm a rabbit.'
Wash's dark eyes opened in wonder. 'That's true,' he murmured. 'Sure, I saw it happen. Somehow I'd never thought of it like that.'
'Think of it now then. If the Powers of Good can intervene to save an individual, what wouldn't they do to protect a man who saved all humanity? Wash, you must sabotage this rocket. It's your great chance to make a come-back. Every evil thing you've
? ever done will be forgiven. You could sabotage it, couldn't you?' He considered for a minute. 'Yeah. Not completely. Now it's been erected I couldn't get at the war-head. But I could drill a small hole in the casing, that wouldn't be spotted. Be large enough though to cause the fuel to leak when it jerked into flight. That'd ensure it coming down somewhere this side of the Iron Curtain.'
With a sudden uplift of the heart Mary realized that he was on the brink of surrendering to her. Grasping him by the arms she pulled him to his feet, gave him a quick kiss on the mouth, and cried, 'Come on then! What are we waiting for??
