The Scorpia Menace (6 page)

He opened his eyes suddenly, fixing Cringle with a glance that made him flinch. He turned back to his glass.

"Unfortunately she's come across the Scorpia in her research. And pirate bands who continue to thrive through hundreds of years are rather unusual. Do you follow me, Cringle?"

"Certainly, Otto," said Cringle, looking up quickly.

"Pay attention then," said Koch. His voice cracked like a pistol in the quiet room.

"So that attracts the attention of a television station, that runs a talk show beamed into possibly 20,000 homes."

Koch picked up his glass again and looked into its depths reflectively.

"That's twenty-thousand possibilities too many," he said. "So where do we go from here? Or rather, where does Diana Palmer go from here?"

He got up again and stood in the center of the room.

"Now are the TV people going to run another show in two weeks? And if they are, will Miss Palmer have come up with anything? In other words, will she have uncovered anything else about Scorpia by then?"

"What is there to find out about Scorpia in books?" Cringle asked.

"I don't know," said Otto imperturbably. "But are we justified in taking that risk?"

He started pacing up and down the quiet room, interrupting his sentry walk by an occasional sip from the glass picked up from the arm of the couch.

"Supposing network television gets onto this?" he said, turning back to Cringle.

"Diana Palmer's famous. It's a possibility. And Scorpia's existence might then become public knowledge throughout the country."

He shook his head and finished off the drink.

"No, no. On reconsideration, we cannot risk it. I read the situation as a Red Alert."

Cringle straightened up and put his glass down as Otto Koch drew himself up to his full height.

"We'll contact Center and ask for instructions," he said crisply.

Colonel Crang's massive head, like a pineapple on top of his bulky body, appeared above the Castle battlements so suddenly that the sentry below, taken unaware, almost dropped his rifle as he came to attention. But Crang had no time for him today. He gazed down from the Castle walls, raising his eyes from the paved courtyard, to where the dark blue of the sea met the lighter rim of the sky beyond.

The Colonel's tanned features were set and stern as he gazed around him. He was in charge of security and the Baron had been increasingly critical of late. He sighed and resumed his solitary pacing along the battlements. His white tropical cap was surmounted with an eagle and crest denoting his rank. His thick, black mustache dropped across his cheeks, making the whiteness of his teeth almost startling, when he opened his mouth to converse or give an order.

He wore a light grey tropical uniform which carried his badges of rank, and the gold epaulettes denoted that he was also the Baron's personal equerry. His figure was so broad that he looked almost squat, although he was just a shade under six feet tall. A Browning revolver in a brown leather holster was buckled round his waist, and his boots were polished so brightly that they reflected the sun like a mirror. Scarlet piping ran down the sides of his trousers indicating his rank to subordinates long before he approached them.

Down below, the sea broke softly on wicked-looking rocks which rose to a craggy precipice over two hundred feet high, on top of which Castle Toeplitz was perched. The castle itself, centuries old, with its turreted towers and serrated battlements, was smothered by vegetation and tropical vines, but even the scarlet flowers of the vines could do little to soften its harsh and forbidding lines. Once a ruin, the Castle had now been lavishly restored and garrisoned.

Crang paused at the end of his tour of the ramparts and frowned. From this angle he could look across the miles of thick green jungle of the island itself. He took the stub of his cigar out of his mouth with an impatient gesture and flicked it over the ramparts. It made a little arc of sparks in the air and then scattered as it hit a projecting stone buttress and disappeared into the jungle below.

Crang consulted his wrist watch. He frowned again. He was two minutes late on his rounds because of his daydreaming. He started walking smartly around the angle of the parapet and down a flight of thick, twisting steps that led to a lower level. Here, the incongruous mass of a steel radio mast jutted out of the stonework high above him. He hurried over to a red-painted door set in the ancient wall.

The door bore the legend in white letters: RADIO SHACK. Crang opened the door and climbed a narrow, winding staircase that was lit only by small, glassed-in slits that had once been used for firing arrows. The air was dry and musty, as though no one had breathed it for centuries.

Presently, Crang came to a stone landing above which a solitary electric bulb burned in a metal socket set into the solid wall. There was a grey-painted door here. Crang turned the handle and walked in. The high, thin notes of morse code split the air and there was a humming and a crackling noise. An officer turned from a table and saluted as Crang approached.

"Message just coming through from Otto Koch," he whispered.

Colonel Crang nodded and sat down in a padded leather chair. He stared over to where a soldier hunched beneath the steel circlet of his earphones writing the message on the signal pad in front of him. In rows around the rough stone walls were grey-painted transmitters and receivers.

The only compartment in use was one which had UNITED STATES painted on a board screwed to the wall above it. The message continued for about ten minutes. The officer clicked his teeth in impatience as the operator bent over his morse key again. He asked for a repeat on a section of the message. The officer was already leaning over the operator's shoulder, copying the first two groups of coded letters on his own pad. He went to the signal book and flipped the pages.

Then he turned to the Colonel, his eyes wide and surprised.

"It's a Red Alert, sir," he said. "I'm afraid you'll have to decode the message yourself. I don't have the authority."

"I thank you, Lieutenant," said Crang smoothly, his mind exploring the possibilities. He was too old a hand to get excited about Red Alerts. His past experience had proved that they were seldom justified, especially with the operators they were forced to use these days; they seemed to think any sign of police activity called for the highest priority to Center. On the other hand, Otto Koch was one of the most skilled and experienced operators in the Western Hemisphere. He seldom got excited about anything unless it was out of the ordinary.

Crang frowned. He had better decode it at once. But his tones had their accustomed smoothness and control as he told the Lieutenent, "I will take the codebooks into your office. Perhaps you would be good enough to bring the balance of the message in when it is completed."

The officer saluted again and bent over the operator's shoulder as Crang gathered up the books. He made himself comfortable at the desk in the Lieutenant's small office and looked idly out of the window as he waited. The view from here was most disappointing. But then it would be, as Crang's own suite had one of the finest and most spectacular views in the Castle, except when compared to the Baron's.

He waited five minutes, and only the soft drumming of his stubby fingers on the desk indicated his inward impatience. He brushed aside the Lieutenant's apologies and took the coded message from him with a muttered thanks. He was pleased to see that the officer had torn off the four sheets beneath the top copy, thus preventing the operator from reading the impressions of the letters and figures beneath. Crang now detached these sheets and set fire to them with a lighter taken from the pocket of his uniform jacket. He watched them crumple to powder in the metal wastebas- ket at his feet.

Then he set to work decoding Koch's message. It took him less than fifteen minutes. He had not absorbed the meaning of it and it took another minute or two before the essence of the decoded version became clear. He put the

original signal in his pocket and prepared a typed decoded version for the Baron.

He then burned the balance of the papers so that only the operator's coded signal and his own typed version in English remained. There was a knock on the door as he finished. The Lieutenant entered, saluting.

His face tried to conceal his curiosity.

"I trust it's nothing serious, sir?"

"It will be serious if you don't stop prying into top-secret signals," said the Colonel. "I've warned you before. The Cipher Officer at Toeplitz cannot be too discreet."

The Lieutenent turned a dull pink.

"Sorry, sir," he said. "It won't happen again."

Crang smiled briefly.

"Just make sure it doesn't," he said.

He saluted and went out. He felt a sense of apprehension as he climbed the battlements on his way to the Baron's private apartments.

6

BARON SOJIN'S EYRIE

There were two sentries on duty at the base of the strange, turreted tower which soared more than fifty feet from the center of the highest courtyard of the castle. They both presented arms as Crang hurried across toward them. The Baron Sojin's apartments were in the top of the tower commanding the highest point of the island. Just below the Baron's quarters was the armory and below that, the members of the Baron's selected Household Guard had their own apartments on the courtyard level. Crang smiled again. The Baron's own chambers were almost invulnerable.

Crang's suite was just below this final courtyard, overlooking the sea. He was only a minute or so from the Baron if he should need him, and it often pleased the strange master of the Island of Scorpia to call the Colonel out in the middle of the night. He was used to that, however. It was what he was paid for. And his salary was on an astronomical level as befitted an officer who was in the Baron's confidence and his right-hand man. Now he saluted again as the guards presented arms.

"Colonel Crang to see the Baron on urgent personal business," he said into the voice-box set into the wall at the side of the sentry shelter. The sentries knew well enough who he was, and the Baron probably already knew he was on his way up, but protocol had to be observed. A metallic voice echoed back from the metal grill in the side of the box.

"Will the Colonel please go on up."

The Colonel recognized the duty Commander of the Guard who had probably scrutinized him through the closed-circuit television camera. The sentries saluted Crang again as the Colonel slid back the steel door in the wall. He
got into the mahogany panelled elevator cage and pressed the button which bore the symbol of the Baron's own quarters. He had to use an electronic key in the elevator circuit before he could operate the button. The elevator shot swiftly upward. Through a small window at the side of the cage Crang could now see the castle and the surface of a gently undulating sea.

As he went higher he could then see the Baron's personal standard, a scarlet Scorpion on a yellow background, flying from the Castle flagpole, a sure sign that the Baron was in residence. The cage jerked to a halt. Crang waited until the electronic time locks operated, then pressed the button which activated the doors. He went through into a metal corridor. His feet echoed eerily as he marched along it. There was a thick glass wall at one end, and through it a magnificent panorama of the whole south side of the island was visible.

Crang never failed to get a thrill at the sight, but he had no time to admire the view today. A small television screen next to the chrome steel door blinked into life, and the figure of the Baron surveyed him. The voice echoed tinnily through the speaker.

"I trust you have a good reason for disturbing me at this time of day, Colonel?"

"Indeed, sir," said Crang, directing his voice toward the metal microphone at the side of the door. He knew his own image would be visible on the monitor screen on the Baron's desk.

"We have just received a Red Alert from the United States."

"Indeed!"

The Baron's voice was cool and well-modulated. His figure on the TV screen stirred slightly at the desk.

"Yes, that would appear to be sufficient reason for your appearance in my Headquarters at this hour. You may enter."

The screen went blank as the chrome steel door started to ramble back. The Colonel marched through. He found himself in a tropical jungle. Plants writhed upward toward the light, and scarlet and yellow flowers gave off a sickly odor. The large conservatory windows repeated the spectacular view seen from the corridor outside. Crang's feet clattered across a metal ramp as he picked his way through the riot of vegetation. He opened the glass door at the far side and went through into a very different world.