Stark (31 page)

151: PRISONER OF STARK

W
here Zimmerman was, was tied to a chair in a Portacabin on the Stark construction site. He faced both Sly and Tyron, neither of whom appeared inclined to be friendly. They had been extremely badly shaken by Zimm’s little party at the airport, especially when, after a telephone consultation with Durf, they realized that they had lost the journalist. A journalist who had already tried to alert the CIA to their activities and who knew all about the murder of Linda Reeve.

‘Temporarily lost,’ asserted Ocker Tyron, who was pacing about the room in the manner made popular by British actors playing Nazi officers in fifties films.

Tyron and Sly had not been having an easy morning in the first place. They had been in the middle of a fairly epic row when security had come through with the bad news.

152: THE PROBLEMS AND THE ETHICS OF PREPARING FOR DOMESDAY

L
isten, Tyron, you’re talking and acting like the stupid bigheaded wanker that you are,’ Sly had snapped, making, it has to be said, very little effort at a conciliatory manner.

‘Rome wasn’t built in a day and a whole new world wasn’t either,’ he continued. ‘I am preparing the site as quickly as is humanly possible and your coming up here and throwing your weight around is not going to speed anything up.’

But Tyron had his own problems, certainly enough of them to make anyone act like a stupid big-headed wanker, even if they were not naturally predisposed to do so, which Tyron was.

‘You want to know what I’ve got in my garage, Moorcock?’ he shouted. ‘I’ll tell you. I’ve got seven enormous boxes which contain the components of a processing plant that will extract water from perma-frost to a geo-depth of one kilometre. There is no room for my fucking cars…’

Sly could not believe it, he had hundreds of men working around the clock on a construction project the speed and size of which defied imagination — and this idiot was talking about cars!

‘Listen, I have stuff to do, OK?’ Sly said. ‘If you want to talk junk, go to one of your stupid mother’s dumb jumble sales.’

Tyron’s lid came off, he was not about to have his mother’s name taken in vain by anyone.

‘You leave my mother out of this or I’ll bust your fucking head, Moorcock,’ he said in his best boardroom manner.

‘Sure, I’ll leave her out of it,’ said Sly, adding viciously, ‘after all, that’s what you’ll be doing when the shit hits the fan. Isn’t that right? Bye bye Mumsy.’

Sly had hit a very major nerve. Like all members of the Stark consortium, Sly included, Tyron had spent not a little time in the past few months pondering the subject of life and death; and more importantly on whom should he confer the former and to whom should he leave the latter. One thing was for sure, as Sly had shrewdly guessed, Mumsy was fucked. Tyron declined to discuss his mother further and returned to the subject of his garage.

‘Listen I’m here to discuss distribution, or more importantly, the lack of it. The reason my garage contains a space-age artesian well, is because I have managed to completely cover a four hundred acre site with stuff that you are supposed to be taking delivery of and installing! I have a two hundred grand Ferrari standing in the street for Christ’s sake! The birds are crapping on a two hundred grand Ferrari! My wife has to park by the public pavement. You have got my wife walking the streets, Moorcock!’ Before Sly had a moment to argue that the Domesday Group’s predictions were now so fore-shortened and the demands of Stark so urgent that he was being asked to perform a near impossible task, the phone rang and they were informed of the screw up at the airport. They had lost the girl, but had captured her rescuer and had him held in the Security cabin.

Sly had hoped to lose Tyron before trying to deal with this new crisis, but to no avail. Tyron had nothing to do and was a born interferer; he was one of those people who are incapable of believing that anyone else could possibly do anything as well as he. Had he visited Van Gogh in his studio Tyron would have simply itched to grab the brush and say, ‘Oh for God’s sake let me do it’. One of the reasons Tyron had had no kids was that he could not believe that something which he so manifestly could not do was worth doing.

And so they both boarded a helicopter for the short flight across the construction site in order to go and interview their captive. Actually they could have driven the distance more conveniently but years of incredible riches had led them both to always instinctively take the most expensive option in any situation.

153: TRAPPED IN THE LION’S PORTACABIN

O
n entering the room they dismissed the guards who had been standing nervously around a severely trussed and bound Zimmerman ever since his arrival. The guards hadn’t known who he was, or what he wanted, but they knew him to be dangerous. He had, after all, hospitalized three of their colleagues (if you included Pete with the broken arm) and it had taken the armed intervention of the Bullens Creek Police to bring him in. This long-hair with the slightly greying beard was the hardest case that any of the cocky little security figures had ever come across and when Sly summarily dismissed them they were more than happy to get him off their hands. ‘Out! All of you. The Colonel will keep an eye on the prisoner,’ Sly shouted — not because he was a natural shouter, he wasn’t really, but they were, after all in the middle of an enormous building site cushioned from it only by a flimsy Portacabin. The noise was fairly horrendous.

‘Colonel’ Du Pont was the head of on-site security. His rank was self-conferred and was a commission in the world army of arrogant macho pricks. He was an unpleasant, officious bully of a man. He had taken up bullying as a profession partly because of his nose — it was a whopper, made gross by the pitted scars of countless failed experiments in plastic surgery. The terrible complex of impotent, bitter rage that his conk gave him had made Du Pont take up bullying for a living.

He had a large staff of lesser thugs — with lesser noses — but he was the only goon to have been indoctrinated into Stark. The brave new future that Stark would create was to be self- regulating. The last thing those involved wanted was anyone bringing along a private army.

Du Pont stood behind Zimmerman whilst Sly addressed him and Tyron paced about.

Zimmerman was gashed, bruised and bound but he did not in any way cut a sad figure. There was a latent strength and dignity about this cornered animal that made him appear like a rather noble early Christian martyr or something similar — until he opened his mouth that is.

‘Oh man, I mean, what is the point, for sure, you know, I mean what is the point right? Like, all this tying up stuff and bashing in the face scene is a very long way from being cool, you dig? I mean, sure I know I totalled a couple of your guys and like, I’m sorry, but you know? I mean they were hassling the chick right? Like four goons hassling a chick is — ’

‘Shut the fuck up, you stupid fool,’ barked Sly, who was very disturbed indeed to find that the mysterious hippy was the same one who had eaten his burger at Facefull’s revolting restaurant. Was there some kind of shadowy conspiracy on their tail? Hippies? Financial journalists? Beautiful girls, what the hell was going on? ‘Who sent you? Who pays you? Who are you and how long have you been working with that girl you saved?’ said Sly, trying not to appear scared in front of Tyron.

Zimmerman saw no reason or profit in lying.

‘I just met the chick at the airport, right. I don’t work for anyone, no one pays me, I’m just a concerned dude, right? You know, social responsibility, dig?’

In fact neither Sly nor Tyron dug very clearly. Of course they both knew the term ‘social responsibility’ but it held very little meaning for either of them.

‘It’s like we told you at that chicken shit burger disaster area,’ continued Zimmerman; who despite his disadvantaged position, still felt that the onus of explanation lay with him.

‘We’re green terrorists. Ever since we heard you sicking those Nazis on our Ab’ friends, we’ve been wondering what goes down.’

Sly shot an angry glance at Tyron, who came as close as he was capable to coming of blushing — which wasn’t very close.

‘What does go down here, by the way?’ asked Zimmerman curiously.

‘Like I told you, you interfering bastard, we’re building hotels. Now where are your — ’ Sly was nervous and angry, but not half as much as he was about to become.

‘Oh come on man, I mean like, for sure, you know? I mean, do I look like I’ve had my brains removed man? Do I look like some kind of space case, lobotomized air-head man?’ Zimmerman asked.

It was a stupid question.

‘Yes,’ interjected Tyron. ‘Now what do you know?’

‘I know you ain’t building nothing but trouble here, man, big trouble. Like you got it all pretty covered man but the chopper your goons brought me from Bullens in was close to the ground, like real low man. Man, I was with the fighting forty-third in ‘Nam for five years. I know a launch site when I see one, and I seen a big one man! One mother-of-a-fucking enormous launch site. Silos, towers, you got it all! That’s the first time I ever heard of a hotel with enough fire-power to take out the whole of South-East Asia.’

Sly and Tyron stared at the apparition in the chair as if their nemesis had just risen up out of the floor and stuffed a pie in their face. Sly nearly shot him dead there and then.

Of course Zimmerman was aware that by exposing so much of what he knew and what he had guessed, he was basically asking to be killed. But he reasoned correctly that whatever it was they were planning, he was in far too deep for them to trust him alive anyway. Therefore his best bet was to make himself appear dangerous. That way, they would be all the more anxious to find his companions and hence be forced to keep him alive to help them.

‘Where are the others, the ones who were with you last night on the wire?’ Sly asked, confirming Zimmerman’s theory.

‘There were no others, man,’ he replied, ‘your goons were so shit scared, I reckon they just must have multiplied me up a few times.’

‘Don’t crap me, mate!’ Sly shouted, making each word sound like an individual and very special threat. ‘Or I’ll have your bollocks,’ he added, making, in Zimmerman’s case, no threat at all.

‘I doubt it, man,’ said Zimm, ‘you’d have to go back to ‘Nam for a start and then you’d have to find the right tree, OK? Which would be incredibly difficult, and even then man, like even if you did all that, I really don’t think they’ll still be there.’

Sly didn’t follow any of this and so decided to get back to the interrogation. ‘There were four of you at the restaurant; you, the other hippy, the pratt in shades and a girl. The one who came prying around, asking questions.’

Tyron stared at Sly angrily.

‘Questions?’ he barked, ‘I thought you said that nobody had been asking questions? I specifically asked you if anybody had been asking questions and you said that nobody had…’

‘Yeah, well, if you hadn’t got your useless pig of a brother to drag in a bunch of incompetent Nazis then nobody would have been asking any questions in the first place, would they?’

‘That’s not the point, Moorcock. I specifically asked you —’

‘Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys,’ Zimmerman pleaded. ‘You know, you two really have to talk this thing out. You have a definite confrontation problem. You need to discuss your frustrations about each other honestly in the presence of a disinterested third party. But excuse me if I don’t volunteer. Like, these ropes are cutting into me so can we maybe put the family row on ice for a while, right? You know?’

Tyron strode across the room and punched the defenceless Zimmerman in the face.

‘Tell us where your friends are right now!’

‘Leave that kind of thing out of it, all right Tyron. We’re not savages,’ Sly admonished.

‘Maybe we are, maybe we aren’t,’ Tyron replied, nursing his grazed knuckles. ‘But this is a fight for survival, either way; the law of the jungle, and it seems that there are people out there who may know plenty. We need to find out who they are.’

‘Well I ain’t going to tell you, man! Like you know, I’m a peaceable soul but I don’t reckon I’d tell you fellahs if your car was on fire. So fuck off!’ Clearly lines were being drawn in this discussion and Tyron and Zimmerman stood pretty resolutely on different sides. Tyron was about to hit Zimmerman again. Sly asked him to step outside for a moment.

154: SUCCESS BY A NOSE

Z
immerman was left alone with Colonel Du Pont.

‘My name is Colonel Du Pont,’ said Colonel Du Pont, who was also acting like a Nazi officer in a film. ‘Now you will please tell me the names and whereabouts of your fellow conspirators. Or…‘ and there was a tiny pause for maximum effect — which was minimal effect on Zimmerman because anyone who had spent fifteen years living with Walter was used to pauses. ‘Or…I shall be obliged to inflict upon you pain beyond belief. Beyond your wildest dreams…’

Whether or not Du Pont would have been capable of this is a moot point. After all, a man who has seen his own testicles hanging from a tree knows a fair bit about pain. Plus, somebody who had done as many different and dangerous drugs as Zimmerman would, in his time, have had some pretty wild dreams.

Anyway, Zimm was left with no time to debate this point with Du Pont, because unexpectedly a plan of action presented itself.

Du Pont had been making a pretty major issue out of strutting and posturing in front of Zimmerman. This was because recently most of his time had been spent working out guard rosters and he was relishing the chance to pretend that he really was in the Gestapo. To this end, at the end of his little promise about pain, Du Pont had thrust his face to within an inch of the bound Zimmgrman’s. He did this because he felt it was intimidating and impressive. It gave him the opportunity to spit his words directly into Zimm’s face, and hence gain for them the maximum effect.

This had been his mistake, for in a sudden and wholly surprising move (to both of them) Zimm had pushed his own face forward and grabbed Du Pont’s substantial nose firmly between his teeth. Understandably Du Pont was rather shocked, momentarily too shocked to utter, a fact which gave Zimmerman a chance to speak (with difficulty) a few well chosen words.

‘Listen, creep mother-fucker!’ he spoke up Du Pont’s nose. ‘I’m gonna bite it off I swear. I truly swear by the Lord I’ll bite it off if you squeak man, if you squeak at all.’

Zimmerman was not an easy man to follow at the best of times, and speaking with a nose in his mouth obviously did not make his speech patterns any clearer. However, Du Pont could not help but be impressed by the extremely threatening tone Zimm was employing. ‘I swear I will bite it off if you squeak man!’ Zimm reiterated. To demonstrate his point he bit hard and Du Pont could feel the skin break and the bone and cartilage creak. It may not seem the most awesome threat in the world, ‘don’t move or I’ll bite your nose off, but in fact, if one thinks about it, as Du Pont was being forced to do, it’s actually a pretty heavy deal. The pain and disfigurement would be considerable to say the least.

Du Pont made an effort, he was after all a security officer. His hand moved to the pistol hanging at his side. Instantly Zimmerman twisted his head right down to the left, nearly breaking Du Pont’s neck but keeping an ever firmer grip on his honker.

‘Don’t fuck with me, man,’ Zimmerman spat and Du Pont could feel Zimm’s saliva running down over his upper lip, adding nausea to the list of Du Pont’s ailments. ‘Now don’t fuck with me!’ mad Zimm repeated. And with horrible force spun his head from his left shoulder right over to his right shoulder, and then back again, taking Du Pont’s nose, head and indeed whole body with him. Inevitably the nose broke and Du Pont nearly fainted with pain. Zimm spoke quickly.

‘It’s broke but you still got it! Man, you make a squeak I swear I’ll be crapping it out with what’s left of my breakfast! Now you untie me, man, you untie me or else I’ll bite off your nose and suck out your eyes!!!’

Mad Zimmerman was an intimidating force indeed when he was being mad. In fact what with Zimm’s unusual speech impediment, and the considerable noise coming from the building site, Du Pont was not really following the finer points of Zimm’s monologue. But it was quite clear to him what Zimm must want, and how best to end the terrible pain.

Du Pont’s salt tears ran into Zimm’s mouth as Du Pont reached behind Zimm in a strange embrace and fumbled blindly with the knots. They came away and Zimmerman’s arms were free. He took Du Pont’s gun and released his nose, spitting as he did it and grabbing a quick gargle from the jug on the table — these are, after all, paranoid times. Then with one deft little chop of his hand he knocked Du Pont unconscious and headed for the window, pausing only to pick up the Judge Dread and Phantom comics that had been left on the desk by the guards who brought him from the airport.