'He will be all right presently.'
Fleming got gingerly to his feet. 'What's the matter, Abu?'
he asked, ignoring the German.
'I do not understand what is happening,' Abu said: 'Mm'selle Gamboul came to the computer yesterday evening.
She was with the girl. I went to bed. They are still there - in the communication unit. I spoke to them, but they took no notice. They did not seem to know I was with them. They were watching the display tube.'
Fleming ran his fingers through his hair. 'Oh my God! I should have guessed.' He crossed to the door. Kaufman moved in front of it, his plump hand round the handle.
'I have orders,' he said uneasily.
Fleming braced himself for a show-down. Hastily Abu intervened. 'He must come,' he shouted at Kaufman; 'he is needed for the computer.'
Kaufman looked doubtfully from one to the other. He was bewildered. The computer was everything. His job was above all else to serve it.
'If he must, he must,' he grumbled. 'But I will escort you,'
he said to Fleming. 'My orders are to watch you.'
'Hold my bloody hand if you want,' snarled Fleming; 'but for God's sake let's go.' He turned to Abu. 'Go and wake Professor Dawnay,' he ordered. 'Tell her to come over to the computer block right away.'
The air and the short walk did him good. The fuzziness in his brain cleared and he soon felt he had proper control of his limbs. He slammed through the swing doors and loped towards the computer section. Immediately a guard pointed his automatic rifle at him. Kaufman took a step to one side.
Fleming stopped, the muzzle against his chest. Down the lighted corridor he could see Gamboul rising from her chair.
A different Gamboul. She was meekly listening to something Andre was saying. Then she nodded and came towards them.
Kaufman moved behind Fleming and gripped his arms, pinioning them against his body. Gamboul passed them all as if they did not exist. Her head was tilted back and there was a vaue smile on her lips.
Fleming struggled to free himself. 'Stop her,' he yelled.
'For God's sake don't let her get out of here.'
He struggled violently, but Kaufman held him. 'You will stay with me!'
Gamboul had passed through the entrance hall and there was the sound of her car moving off before Madeleine Dawnay came hurrying in.
Kaufman released his grip on Fleming and nodded to the guard. 'They may pass.'
Fleming ran to the console and bent over Andre. She glanced at him and then leaned back, lost in reverie. Dawnay came up. She Was alarmed at the death-like pallor of the girl.
'What is it, John?' she asked. 'What's happened?'
Fleming grasped the back of the swivel chair and pulled Andre round so that she could not avoid his gaze.
'What have you done?' he whispered.
She smiled serenely. 'What had to be done,' she murmured.
'Mademoiselle Gamboul knows what to do.' Her lip curled almost contemptuously. 'She was not afraid when I showed her the meaning.'
Suddenly her strength and assurance left her and she crumpled up like a sick, helpless child.
Dawnay bent over her. 'She's desperately ill, John,' she said gently. 'Let's get her to the sick bay.'
Fleming snapped an order to Kaufman. Frightened and servile, the German came forward, lifting Andre by the shoulders while Fleming took her feet. They carried her to the sick bay, where Dawnay ordered them outside while she and the nurse got the girl to bed.
Kaufman tried to talk to Fleming, anxious for reassurance; he sensed that he was somehow involved in a disaster and would be blamed for it. Fleming ignored him and the German walked away disconsolately.
When Dawnay came out she drew Fleming away from the door. 'She's weak, terribly weak,' she whispered, 'as if she'd been making some enormous effort. But she's falling asleep.
The nurse will tell us if there's any change. Come across to my room and I'll make some coffee.'
While the percolator was heating Dawnay asked if there was any news from outside. 'Colonel Salim's taken over completely, I suppose?'
'I don't know much,' said Fleming wearily. 'I was drugged last night - by the Gamboul woman. Made me tell her about Andre. Probably the same drug as they used on you in London. Afterwards she must have come straight here to the computer and found Andre waiting for her.'
'But why?' Dawnay demanded.
Fleming sighed. 'The computer has selected Gamboul as the boss. I thought it would choose Salim, but this is cleverer.
Through her the machine will take power.'
'How?'
'I don't know. Somehow the machine communicated to her what Andre couldn't put into words for me. I suppose it managed to give Gamboul the sort of appalling, momentary flash of revelation saints and prophets are said to have. It's all so damnably logical and inevitable. Like Andre's always saying, the whole thing's predictable.'
The coffee was bubbling. Dawnay poured out two cups and handed one to Fleming. 'I've never had quite this feeling before,' she said. 'Of everything closing in.'
He laughed shortly. 'You know I have. And I also proved that appealing to someone, Osborne for instance, or taking destructive action, didn't really help.' He stirred his coffee violently, splashing it in the saucer. 'Now the computer's won. The whole thing's out of our hands - for good. We're finished.'
Appropriately, as if for effect, a gust of wind moaned across the compound and scratched grittily against the outside walls. Dawnay went to shut the door while sand spattered against the window.
She stopped, seeing Abu Zeki running across to them. He stood panting when he arrived, getting his breath. 'Dr Fleming,'
he got out at last. 'Colonel Salim is dead.'
Fleming nodded, as if he felt no surprise. 'And all his army stooges?'
Abu licked his lips. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't really understand. The army guards have gone from here. There are just the Intel wardens and orderlies. But they are now armed. I cannot understand.'
Fleming stood up and stared out of the door. 'I'll tell you what's happened,' he said. 'Gamboul's taken control. She either had Salim murdered or did it herself. She is perfectly capable of killing, even if an exterior force didn't tell her to.
There can't be hitches in this plan, so if Salim's coup has failed it isn't a mishap but a stage in the general scheme.
What about the old man?'
'The President, you mean?' Abu asked. 'He is still in his palace. The message announcing Colonel Salim's death came from him, personally.'
Another gust of wind swept through the compound. Fleming bent his head and sand stung his eyes. He turned and shut the door. 'The President will be the lady's front man.
She'll pull the strings and he'll twitch. We'll all be her puppets soon.'
Dawnay slowly drained the last of her coffee. 'John,' she said thoughtfully, 'it's very strange.'
'Strange? What's strange about it? Gamboul's doing just what she's compelled to do. Part of the programme.'
She shook her head impatiently. 'I don't mean the political thing. But the wind. Here it doesn't normally blow like this, not at this time of the year.'
'Doesn't it?' he answered absent-mindedly. 'A nice reminder of Thorness. The weather was hell when Andre and I were hiding up on that island.'
'Yes,' she agreed. 'Conditions were abnormal there as well.
I think I'll do some work in the lab.' She looked already preoccupied, as if she were working. 'I wish I could get those sea samples I wanted.'
'Lucky to have something to do,' Fleming said. 'I don't feel anxious to report as an obedient serf to that electronic dictator across the way.' He looked at Abu. 'But someone had better be there, Abu. Go over and hang around for instructions.
I've no doubt Gamboul will be sending her Teutonic stooge with some orders.'
Fleming wandered back to his own quarters. The wind still blew, sweeping momentarily stinging gusts of sand and then subsiding as quickly as it had come.