The Satan Bug

you talked to top scientists, directors, in Mordon, and you made no secret of your opinion of the nature of the work in which they were engaged. You are not the first person to comment bitterly on the fact that this establishment, referred to in Parliamentary estimates as the Mordon Health Centre, is controlled exclusively by the War Office. You knew, of course, that Mordon is concerned mainly with the invention. and production of microbiological organisms for use in war — but you are one of the few who know just how ghastly and terrifying are the weapons that have been perfected there, that armed with those weapons a few planes could utterly destroy all life in any country in the space of a few hours. You had very strong opinions about the indiscriminate use of such a weapon against an unsuspecting and innocent civilian population. And you made your opinion known in many places and to many people inside Mordon. Too many places, too many people. So to-day you are a private detective.'

'Life's unjust,' I agreed. I rose to my feet, crossed to the door, turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. 'You must realise, Mr. Martin, that you have already said too much. The sources of your information about my activities at Mordon. You're not leaving here till you tell me.'

Martin sighed and replaced his spectacles,

'Melodramatic, understanding but totally unnecessary. Do you take me for a fool, Cavell? Do I look a fool? What I told you I had to tell you to gain your co-operation. I will put my cards on the table. Quite literally.' He drew out a wallet, found a rectangle of ivory cardboard and placed it on the table. 'Mean anything to you?'

It meant a great deal. Across the middle of the card ran the legend. 'Council for World Peace.' At the bottom right-hand corner: 'Henry Martin, London Secretary.'

Martin pulled his chair close and leaned forward, his forearms on my desk. His face was intent, serious.

'Of course you know about it, Mr. Cavell. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that it is by far the greatest force for good in the world to-day. Our council cuts across race, religion and politics. You will have heard that our Prime Minister and most members of the cabinet belong. I do not wish to comment on that. But I can state that most of the church dignitaries in Britain, whether Protestant, Catholic or Jewish, are members. Our list of titled members reads like Debrett's, of other distinguished members like Who's Who. The Foreign Office, who really know what's going on and are more afraid than any, are solidly on our side. We have the support of all the best, the wisest, the most far-seeing men in the country to-day. I have very powerful men behind me, Mr. Cavell.' He smiled faintly. 'We even have influential members in Mordon.'

All he said I knew to be true — except that bit about Mordon, and maybe that had to be true, to account for his knowledge. I wasn't a member of the council myself, not being the right type for inclusion either in Debrett's or Who's Who, but I knew that the Council for World Peace, a society semi-secret in its nature inasmuch as it recognised that diplomatic negotiations were best not conducted through newspaper headlines, was of only the most recent origin but already regarded through the western world as the last best hope for mankind.

Martin took the card from me and slipped it back in his wallet. 'All I am trying to say is that I am a respectable man working for a pre-eminently respectable body.'

'I believe that,' I said.

'Thank you.' He dipped into his brief-case again and brought out a steel container about the size and shape of a hip-flask. 'There is, Mr. Cavell, a militarist clique in this country of whom we are frankly terrified, who promise to wreck all our dreams and hopes. Madmen, who are talking, every day more loudly, of waging a preventive war against the Soviet Union. Germ warfare. It is highly unlikely that they will win their way. But it is against the most unlikely contingencies that we have to be most warily on our guard.' He spoke like a man who had rehearsed his speech a hundred times.

'Against this bacteriological assault there could and would be no defence. A vaccine against this virus has been developed, after two years of the most intensive research, but the only supplies in the world are in Mordon.' He paused, hesitated, then pushed the flask across the table to me.

'A statement that is no longer quite accurate. This flask was removed from Mordon three days ago. The contents can be cultured to produce sufficient vaccine to immunise any nation on earth. We are our brothers' keepers, Mr. Cavell.'

I stared at him. I said nothing.

'Please take this at once, to this address in Warsaw.' He pushed a slip of paper across the table. 'You will be paid a hundred pounds now, all expenses, and a hundred pounds on your return. A delicate mission, I realise, perhaps even a dangerous one, although in your case I should not think so. We have investigated you very carefully, Mr. Cavell. You are reputed to know the byways of Europe as a taxi-driver knows the streets of London: I do not foresee that frontiers will present you with much difficulty.'

'And my anti-war sympathies,' I murmured.

'Of course, of course.' The first trace of impatience. 'We had to check most carefully, you realise that. You had the best all-over qualifications. You were the only choice.'

'Well, now,' I murmured. 'This is flattering. And interesting.'

'I don't know what you mean,' he said brusquely. 'Will you do it, Mr. Cavell?'

'No.'

'No?' His face became very still. 'You say no? This, then, is the extent of your precious concern about your fellowmen? All this talk in Mordon—-'

'You said yourself that my business wasn't very brisk,' I interrupted. 'I haven't had a client for three weeks. For all indications to the contrary, I won't have one for three months. And,' I added, 'you said yourself I was the only choice.'

The thin mouth twisted in a sneer.

'You don't positively refuse to go, then?'

'I don't positively refuse.'

'How much?'

'Two hundred and fifty pounds. Each way.'

'Your last word?'

'That's it.'

'Mind if I say something, Cavell?' The man was losing his manners.

'Yes, I mind. Keep your speeches and moralities for your council. This is a business deal.'

He stared at me for a long moment, eyes hostile behind thick glasses, then reached again into his brief-case and brought out five flat packets of treasury notes, laid them neatly on the table before him and glanced up at me. 'Two hundred and fifty pounds. Exactly.'

'Maybe the London branch of the council should get itself a new secretary,' I suggested. 'Was it myself or the council that was to be defrauded of the extra ?150?'

'Neither.' The tone came with the eyes, glacial both of them. He didn't like me. 'We offered a fair price, but in a matter of such importance were prepared to meet extortion. Take your money.'

'After you've taken off the rubber bands, stacked the notes together and counted them out, fifty fivers, in front of my eyes.'

'My God!' The cool meticulous speech had gone and something almost savage came to take its place. 'No wonder you were kicked out of so many jobs.' He ripped off the bands, stacked the notes and counted them off separately. 'There you are. Fifty. Satisfied?'

'Satisfied.' I opened my right-hand drawer, picked up the notes, address and flask, dropped them into the drawer and closed it just as Martin was finishing the securing of the straps on his brief-case. Something in the atmosphere, maybe an extra stillness from my side of the table, caused him to look up sharply and then he became as immobile as myself, except for his eyes, which continued to widen until they seemed to take up all space behind the rimless glasses.

'It's a gun all right,' I assured him. 'A Japanese Hanyatti nine-shot automatic, safety-catch off and indicator, I observe, registering full. Don't worry about the scotch tape over the mouth of the barrel, that's only to protect a highly delicate mechanism. The bullet behind will go through it, it'll go through you and if you had a twin brother sitting behind you it would go through him also. Your forearms on the table.'

He put his forearms on the table. He kept pretty still, which is the way people usually do when they're peering down into the barrel from a distance of three feet, but his eyes had gone back to normal quickly and he