Bluebolt One (4 page)

Shaw, who was watching Latymer intently, nodded.

“Well, you don’t change that overnight, Shaw, in fact in my humble opinion you don’t change it even in a couple of generations. And I can tell you this: There’s some pretty queer goings-on in Jinda itself from time to time, and other cities too. You know the sort of thing, I dare say—ritual murders, carved-up bodies found in odd places, sexual orgies in apparently harmless night-spots. Believe me, the ju-ju man is still the law over a very wide sector of Africa and if you ask me he’ll be so for a hell of a long time yet. But it’s not the long-term prospect I’m concerned with—it’s the present, Shaw.” He gave a tight grin. “Want to know why—or are you still convinced I’m talking drivel?”

“I don’t think that, sir,” Shaw told him. “As a matter of fact I do know these things go on.”

“Good! Well now—I’d better explain that Africa is full of things they call Cults, which are based on voodoo and originated mainly in the Melanesian Islands in the South Pacific. They’re not exactly secret societies ... they’re really a kind of permeation of ideas, of pagan beliefs again, d’you see, rather than concrete forms which you can pin down in the way you could a secret society. These ideas start with perhaps one man and then spread like wildfire. Once a particular Cult, backed by voodoo, takes a grip on the imagination, it means that immense power passes into the hands of the man who dreamed it up. His followers are like clay to a modeller, completely malleable—he can do anything with them, get them to do just as he wants. Of course, by and large all the Cults are reasonably harmless. But now a new one’s come up, according to our man in Jinda and also reports from the base itself. And it’s at really big thing, a fantastic thing in its whole conception. It’s known as the Cult of Edo. God alone knows who, or what, Edo is, but his name’s spread right through Nogolia in a very short time indeed. The Edo Cult is behind the attempt to get rid of the Bluebolt station, and of course Edo’s been given a flying start by the general anti-white feeling in the rest of the continent and the way all white influence is being cut out.”

“Yes, quite.” Shaw’s brow wrinkled. “Just what do they mean to do, sir?”

“I don’t know. We can only make guesses—that’s all—as to what method they’ll use. The objective’s clear enough, though: To force Tshemambi into withdrawing the treaty rights. My own guess would be that the general riot situation which Nogolia shares with the rest of Africa, though until recently not so badly, is Edo-inspired in Nogolia’s own case—that’s to say, he’s cashed in on a prepared exterior situation—and he hopes to force Tshemambi’s hand that way. Anyway, this rioting has been very much more widespread lately, though it hasn’t yet reached proportions serious enough to make the politicians sit up and take notice—you see, you have to look at it within the framework of the rest of Africa. When the whole damn continent’s aflame Nogolia’s troubles appear almost minor—
at present
, to those who can’t or won’t think ahead. Now, in addition to the rioting, there have been reports of large-scale go-slow movements in the basic industries, and that’s going to affect the country’s economy before long, and there’ll be more rioting as a result of that alone. I understand from our man in Jinda that Edo hasn’t yet manifested himself to his followers, so it’s a fair guess, I think, that his coming will in itself be the signal for something really big to start. Meanwhile they’re nicely softened up and the situation’s getting grimmer every day. When it starts it’ll develop very fast—and quite apart from Bluebolt, that’d be a sorry thing to happen in a country which so far has managed to remain friendly in spite of all the current problems between black and white.”

Shaw nodded slowly. He asked, “Who have we in Jinda, sir?”

“You mean who had we.” Latymer’s face hardened. “We had John Stringer. And Stringer’s dead.”

“Killed?”

“Yes. Killed before he could get anything more through to us than what I’ve already told you. He was found right in a rnain street of Jinda, just before dawn a day or two ago. I didn’t get the news right away. When they picked him up he. . . just fell to pieces.” Latymer’s face was pale now, the massive skin-grafts standing out grotesquely. “He’d been very cleverly dismembered, and then equally cleverly fitted together again. . . until he was moved, you see. It’s odd, isn’t it— Stringer and Mason both dead! As usual, all mention of Stringer’s work has been kept out of the papers, but I’m told there’s been an intensive investigation on the spot and all that’s emerged so far is quite negative. No one knows a thing. But something was found branded on to his forehead. This.”

Latymer slid a hand into the drawer of his desk, brought it out, and pushed something across to Shaw. The agent picked it up. It was a small square cardboard box, which he opened. Inside, mummified and impaled on a pin, was a large black spider. It was a wicked-looking brute. Shaw stared at it in horror, as at something evil.

Latymer went on, “That’s a Black Widow. It’s the trademark of the Cult. The adherents have this image burnt into the flesh, of their right forearms, just below the bend of the elbow.”

He tapped the box. “Stringer sent this little specimen through just before they got him, and it forms just about the only real clue we’ve got.” He added, “I suppose you didn’t happen to notice if that guard last night had the mark?”

“No, sir. He had his coat on all the time.”

“Quite, that’s what I thought. . . pity, though. It would have given us something to go on, a definite lead.”

Shaw asked, “If these people are marked as you say can’t they be picked up easily enough?”

“On what charge? There’s nothing illegal in itself about belonging to a Cult. Admitted, Stringer’s murder is clearly linked with the Cult and some of the marked men have been arrested in Jinda, but they won’t open their mouths and nothing can be proved against them. Scotland Yard’ll find the same thing in the case of Handley Mason—that it’s a brick wall.” Latymer stubbed out his cigarette and lit a new one. “As to the Cult itself, if we can get hold of the men behind the scenes and nip it in the bud in time, it’ll fade out, at least in its present form. But meanwhile it’s gathering momentum fast.”

“I suppose you want me to do the nipping, sir?”

“That’s the general idea! We can’t afford to risk the physical manifestation of this Edo feller, Shaw. He’s got to be identified and then short-circuited. He’s got to be shown up for what he is—a hired rabble-rouser who’s out to set brother against brother in Nogolia and create yet another power vacuum which’ll be filled by the Eastern Bloc. The situation throughout Africa doesn’t give me much hope that the Nogos will mind that very much, I admit, but I do believe that if Edo can be
shown to be a flop
they’ll damn soon desert from
his
ideas. There lies our hope, Shaw—and we’ve got to force him into palpable failure before things get too hot for Tshemambi to hold.” He inhaled deeply. “It’s not only that, either. I’m particularly worried about the staff up at the control-station. They’re under big pressure, they’ve been out there a long while, establishing the base and then latterly running it as an operational unit. All around them, in the other African states, there’s been nothing but trouble and riot and rape—all that sort of thing, the whole damn continent on the boil. Now they can see it moving closer to their own lives. If I know anything of that kind of existence I’d say it’s getting right under their skins, preying on them day after day. They’ve got a hell of a lot of time on their hands, time in which to do nothing but think, and in the end that can begin to affect the mind. I wouldn’t like anything to go. . . well, let’s say badly wrong, just because some one’s getting to the end of his resources.”

“What exactly have you in mind, sir?”

Latymer said slowly, “It’s just a rather unpleasant feeling. Sometimes coming events cast their shadows before them. I don’t like it, Shaw. It’s such a trigger-happy situation, and these boffins ... they’re obviously highly intelligent men, that goes without saying. When a super-intellect starts thinking too much, thinking perhaps in circles, starts feeling frustrated and hemmed-in, or is just plain anxious to the point of getting itself a neurosis—well, then anything can happen. Those particular men are sitting on a metaphorical volcano which could go up at any given moment—which
will
go up when Edo gives the word—and they know it.”

“Do you think the Edo boys may try to sabotage the base?”

Latymer said, “It’s a definite possibility, although of course it’s well defended.”

“Even against a determined mob—I mean, if these Edo people are fanatics, they won’t mind being slaughtered in hundreds, I imagine?”

Latymer shrugged. “Probably not. In a way, you know, it’s if Edo fails to move Tshemambi by the less sensational methods that things will get really dangerous for the station itself in the direct physical sense. He’ll have to use tougher methods, you see. And Tshemambi’s an obstinate old devil, for which in the main we ought to be thankful, of course . . . but I’m thinking more about the staff. When things get bad accidents tend to happen. People fly off the handle. If anything went badly wrong it would play into Edo’s hands, give him a first-class propaganda lever to sway the new, uncommitted nations against Britain and the U.S. Nogolia’s something of a testing-ground just now, in a way, and the fence-sitters will take their cues from what happens there. Now—say there’s an accident, and the boys at the station start shooting up the Africans, it’s not going to look so good, is it? A lot of Edo’s work would be done for him and the whites discredited yet again in the parts of the coloured world where we have still got some influence and friendship. And don’t forget the blacks are a reckonable force these days.”

“Yes. . . but the question of the staff. They wouldn’t have been sent there if they were the sort likely to crack up, surely?”

Latymer said irritably, “Oh, nonsense. However closely you screen a man and however many factors you take into account, you can never be absolutely sure of his reactions under any given set of circumstances which haven’t occurred up to the time of screening. They’re all a first-class bunch out there, admittedly, and in a security sense they’re absolutely all right, but we just can’t risk any incidents at all. That’s why I want you to bowl out Edo before he has a chance to get cracking in a big way. But”—he jabbed the ebony ruler at Shaw again—“if you do take on the job, and as you know I never force a particular assignment on anyone—I don’t want you to go into this with your eyes shut. Remember, Mason was killed in a pretty nasty way last night. Stringer’s end was—messy. And voodoo has always led to killings in the past. Of course, it’s not just the Africans themselves—left alone, they’re all right. It’s the men who stir them up.” He paused. “All the same, I hope you’ll take this on, Shaw. You’re the best man I’ve got, and Washington’s perfectly happy to let you handle this.” He grinned tightly. “I’ve already taken the precaution of sounding out the Pentagon!”

Shaw stifled a sigh, shifted restlessly in his chair. Once again, it seemed, he hadn’t much choice in the matter when it was put to him like this. Not until he was pensioned off would he be able to lead the normal, ordinary life that he and Debonnair both wanted so much. Now, he swallowed his bitterness and nodded.

He said reluctantly. “Very well, sir. Where do I start—in Nogolia?”

“Not to begin with. I believe the first lead’s going to come right here in London. If I were you I’d try to find that coloured guard and see what you can dig up—his name’s Patrick MacNamara, by the way, at least that’s what he calls himself over here. Find him before Scotland Yard does, too. I don’t want this to get bogged down in a simple murder hunt.” He spread his hands on the leather desk-top and got up. “And that, I’m afraid, is all the lead I can give you, my boy.”

The rain had started by the time Esmonde Shaw left the Admiralty. He went quickly through to Whitehall and boarded a Victoria-bound bus. Getting off near Strutton Ground, he made for the administrative offices of London Transport by St. James’s Park station. A few minutes later he was sitting in the office of an old associate—Major Bob Herrick, late of Military Intelligence and now a high-up on the security side of London Transport.

Lighting a cigarette, Shaw said, “Look, Bob, I don’t know the set-up here, and this may not be your pigeon at all. But I want some help and there’s no one else I can go to. You’ll understand that. It’s this way. . . .”

Herrick, as it happened, had many of the details to hand, since the police had been in contact with him already. It turned out that Jackson, the guard who should have been on the train, had been beaten up by a gang of Teddy boys shortly before he’d been due to go on duty at Cockfosters the night before, and had been found on some waste ground by a policeman on the beat in the early hours of the morning. He’d been more dead than alive, and it looked as though his attackers had intended to kill him but had been interrupted before they could finish the job. In the meantime Patrick MacNamara had reported at the depot, saying that Jackson had been taken ill suddenly and had asked him to stand in.

MacNamara himself, who was twenty-four years old, was a Kroo from Nogolia with no family living. He had been employed as a houseboy by the manager of the Jinda branch of a British bank, who had been impressed by the lad, had taken a fatherly interest in him, and had seen that he went on to Yoganda Bay College to get a proper education. At the college the boy had taken his present British name, had done very well though not brilliantly, and about two years ago had come to London intending to study medicine. Partly because of colour prejudice, he had failed to get started, and had landed up in London Transport.

Shaw asked, “As a temporary measure?”

“Not officially, but I dare say he may have looked on it that way.”

“Has he ever been in trouble before, Bob?”

Herrick shook his head. “No. They say he’s keen, steady, reliable. A good lad all round. . . but now I suppose they’ll have him for murder.”

Shaw’s eyebrows went up. “You know it was murder, then?”