Hartog turned slightly in his seat. He said, “I’m picking up her signals faintly now.” The green dot showed Bluebolt bound north, heading up the Pacific somewhere above Sydney. “I shall make contact shortly.”
Wiley asked, “How long… before you actually bring down the load?”
“Oh… half an hour, give or take a minute.” Hartog wiped his face with a handkerchief. His voice rose sharply. “I’d like silence now, please.” He reached out and turned a knob on the instrument panel, delicately, and a crackling sound came into the control-tower through a loudspeaker set in the wall above the panel, a background of interference against which they could hear the automatic transmission coming from Bluebolt two hundred miles up.
Bleep. bleep-bleep. Bleep… bleep-bleep. Bleep… bleep-bleep.
On and on and on… and then suddenly a change of note as Hartog pressed a key.
“Made contact.” Hartog’s voice was brittle. “I shall now send out the impulse which should bring back the check-signal to confirm that we’re in touch.”
His left hand moved slightly, depressed a second key.
The bleeping altered, sending back a different Morse character this time. Hartog announced, “Check-signal received. We’re all okay.”
The satellite’s transmission altered again, back to the original bleep… bleep-bleep. Soon those signals increased in strength, and Hartog, as the green dot sped out over the Pacific and began to close the North American coastline in the region of Queen Charlotte Island, reached out for a key to his right. His hand hovered for a moment and then came down smartly, sending out the first of a series of impulses which would streak into the delicate receivers aboard Bluebolt and make a number of connexions which would start the process of releasing the enormous cone-headed bomb load, sending it off towards the earth, plunging down, after Hartog pressed the target-setting and gave the final release-impulse, to burst its way back into the atmosphere and head for its devastation area.
Bluebolt’s transmission changed once more, again sending the check-signal. Hartog, watching the dials before him narrowly, said suddenly, “She’s nearly there. Stand by.”
Shaw was hardly breathing.
“I am now about to make the target-setting.”
There was absolute silence now from every one in the tower and the great satellite’s bleeping dropped startlingly into that hush. Hartog reached out again and turned a pointer fractionally, and then with his right hand he pressed a red button in the target-indicator box. Almost at once the satellite’s transmission speeded up, the note became higher, more jangling, and the interrupted bleeping changed into a continuous bar of sound which sawed and juddered at the nerves.
“On target… target-setting checked back. Watch the green dot now, watch it carefully… when she’s on top of Hazen Strait I’ll send the final dispatch-impulse—”
“Hartog — for God’s sake, man—”
“Pack it in, Shaw!”
“Do you understand what you’re doing?” Shaw moved slightly and at once his arms were twisted up agonizingly behind his back.
Hartog said, “You might just as well shut up and watch, Shaw. It’s going to be very interesting. Take my advice — don’t risk missing it. Those boys’ll shoot you if you try anything.” Shaw’s nails dug viciously into his palms. Hartog went on with his operating procedure, calmly following dials, keeping pointers lined up. The globe showed the dot coming up now to Borden Island… Mackenzie King Island… the Hazen Strait.
Hartog’s hand was poised; as the dot approached Hazen Strait he laughed. It was a horrifying sound of hysteria; its high-pitched note filled the control-tower. Hartog’s gaze was on the dials before him, and as that laugh died away and the dot was right over Hazen Strait his poised fingers swooped, came down on a key, jabbed it once… twice… three times.
He gave a quick, satisfied glance round his instruments again and then at the green dot continuing in its orbit. He leaned over to his left and rapidly turned a small wheel. A pointer spun on a dial, and Hartog made one more transmission.
He said, “Automatic tracker set. That’s all, Wiley. All we do now is sit and wait.”
He swung his revolving seat round to face his silent audience. He said, almost gaily, “As I said, gentlemen, that’s the lot. In fifteen minutes approximately, Bluebolt’s missile will strike the earth. Wiley, I’ve put on settings which should bring it down in Ghana—”
There was a choking sound from Shaw. He burst out, “Hartog, what you—”
“Shut up!” The words were a whiplash. One of the African constables leaned forward and smashed a fist into Shaw’s mouth. He spat out blood. Hartog went on, speaking to Wiley again, “I can’t absolutely guarantee that it’ll be dead accurate. The normal targets would naturally be in the Iron Curtain countries, and I’ve had to improvise a little. But— well, I’ve done my best and I shan’t be far out if at all. I suggest you go and do your stuff with your people out there.” He gestured through the window towards the perimeter of the station and then pointed up at the mast. He said, “It’s quite safe now. There won’t be any more transmissions. Here.” He removed a small part from the panel and handed it to Wiley. “That’s just so you feel safer. I can’t operate without that. Well — you know the way up.”
Wiley nodded his crinkly, greying head. His face was utterly triumphant now, uplifted in an obscene kind of way. He pushed through towards Shaw, stood in front of him. Without speaking, he gave the agent two vicious, stinging slaps across the face, slaps which brought a rush of blood to Shaw’s flesh. Then Wiley turned away and left the control-tower. A moment later Shaw heard the sound of footsteps on a steel ladder which ran up the sides of the tower, and then, looking up through the glass dome, he saw Wiley climbing along the metal inspection-ladder across the dome itself, going towards the foot of the beaming mast. Then Shaw looked across at Hartog. The man had lit a cigarette, was grinning, and the look in his face, in his red-rimmed, bleary eyes, was crazier than ever. He said, “Shaw, this isn’t finished yet — oh, and by the way, none of these black bastards here can speak English, I made damn sure of that” He waved his cigarette towards the African constables, who were gazing raptly upward through the dome at their leader. “So they won’t tick over about what I’m saying. Now, I advise you to keep calm and not start anything you may regret. You wouldn’t do any good anyhow. These men have their orders, and those orders are still to prevent you getting anywhere near the instruments.” Shaw noticed that Hartog kept on glancing upward through the dome, to where Wiley, going slowly and very carefully, was reaching out for the steel webbing of the mast. “Listen, Shaw. Wiley — Edo — is about to show himself to his dutiful followers from a nice, high point. Incidentally, that was my suggestion, when I spoke to him earlier by radio, but it was so tactfully put that he thinks it’s his own unaided idea… you see, he’s rather inclined to see himself as the god he’s supposed to be, and after the ants messed up his little bonfire he had to have an alternative. Well now, from his superior, god-like eminence, he’s going to address them. He’s going to give them a lot of baloney. He’s going to tell ’em — and he doesn’t know I know this — that the white man whom he trusted — that’s me — has double-crossed him. He’s going to tell them that I had promised to bring the bomb down harmlessly in the sea, which is where these policemen think it’s going right now as a matter of fact. But instead, the wicked white man — me — has so directed the bomb that it will land on African soil and slaughter their brothers. Well now — when he’s put that line across, he’ll call on his peoples out there to avenge their brothers, whereupon they will storm the station and kill all of us—"