“I don’t understand,” Merrivale said. He studied Gammel’s rocky face, seeking a clue to this odd conversation.
“It was Hellstrom calling us,” Gammel said. “He says he has one of your people with him - and—do you have an Eddie Janvert?”
“Shorty? Shorty led the team that—”
Gammel put a hand to lips to shut him off.
Merrivale nodded.
Gammel said, “Hellstrom tells me we’d better listen to your man or they will blow this town and half the state of Oregon off the planet.”
“What?”
“He says that wasn’t an earthquake we all felt. It was some weapon he claims can rip the planet apart. How trustworthy is your man Janvert?”
Merrivale answered automatically, “Completely!” Immediately, he wished he had not said that. It had been a thoughtless response to a question that demanded he defend the Agency’s capabilities. Janvert might not be completely trustworthy, or it might be necessary to show doubt of his actual trustworthiness. Too late now, though. His answer had trapped him, reduced the range of possible responses.
“Janvert is on that phone and wants to talk to you,” Gammel said. “He tells me he can verify Hellstrom’s threat and that he can explain why one of our cars is failing to respond on the radio.”
Merrivale stalled for time to assess the situation. “I thought you told me the phone to the farm was out of order. Are they calling from the farm?”
“As far as we know. One of my men is out right now trying to work a trace. Hellstrom apparently had the phone fixed himself, or it—”
“Janvert says our people are merely unconscious, but he refused to say why or explain. He insisted we get you first. I told him you might be asleep, but—” Gammel nodded at the telephone.
Merrivale swallowed in a dry throat. Blow up half the state? Poppycock! He crossed to the phone with as much confidence as he could muster, picked it up, spoke in his best British accent. “Merrivale here.”
Gammel moved to a tape recorder spinning away behind the transceiver, jacked an earphone into it, and listened, nodding for Merrivale to continue.
That’s old Jollyvale all right, Janvert thought as he heard the voice. Wonder why they sent him?
Clovis stood directly across from Janvert, still frightened, but no longer sobbing. He found it odd that her nudity didn’t excite him.
Janvert nodded to Hellstrom, who stood a pace away in the gloomy room above the barn-studio. Hellstrom’s face appeared deathly pale in the green light that came from banks of what appeared to Janvert as TV screens.
“Tell him,” Hellstrom said.
Merrivale’s voice was being broadcast to the entire aerie room from a speaker on the control bank.
“Hello, Joe,” Janvert said, deliberately using Merrivale’s first name for the first time. “This is Eddie Janvert. I’m sure you recognize my voice, but I’ll identify myself further if you want. I’m the one you gave the president’s Signal Corps number and code to, remember?”
Damn him! Merrivale thought, resenting that admission as much as the familiar tone and use of his first name. It was Janvert, though. No doubt of it.
“Tell me what is going on,” Merrivale said.
“Unless you want this whole planet to become one giant morgue, you’d better listen carefully to what I tell you and you’d better believe me,” Janvert said.
“Now, see here, Shorty,” Merrivale said. “What’s all this nonsense they’ve been telling me about blowing up—”
“You shut up and listen!” Janvert snapped. “You hear me? Hellstrom has a weapon that makes an atom bomb look like a child’s popgun. Those guys in the car, those FBI agents your buddy was worried about—they were knocked out by a little hand version of this weapon. That hand-held weapon can kill people at a distance or just knock them out. Believe me, I’ve seen it. Now, you—”
“Shorty,” Merrivale interrupted, “I think you’d better let me come up there and—”
“Oh, you’ll come up here all right,” Janvert said, “but if you have any doubts, get rid of them. And if you try to attack this place again—well, if I even suspect you might do that, I’m going to use that number and code you gave me and I’m going to call the president to give him a full—”
“Now, Shorty! Your government wouldn’t—”
“Fuck the government! Hellstrom’s weapon is zeroed in right now on the Capitol. They’ve already demonstrated its effectiveness. Why don’t you check that?”
“Check what? That little earthquake we—”
“The new island off the coast of Japan,” Janvert said. “Hellstrom’s people have a tap on the Pentagon’s satellite teletype relay. They know about it and there’s a seismic sea wave warning all around the Pacific Basin already.”
“What in the bloody hell are you talking about, Shorty?” Merrivale demanded. As he spoke, Merrivale bent over the table, clawed a notepad and pencil into position, and scrawled, “Gammel—check that!” Gammel bent to read the note, nodded, and pointed to it for another of the agents to obey, then whispered an explanation.
Janvert was talking again, his voice coming out clear and precise as though he were trying to explain something to a disobedient child. “I warned you to listen carefully,” Janvert said. “Hellstrom’s hive is just one tiny extrusion from a giant complex of tunnels. Those tunnels spread out to hell and they go down more than five thousand feet. They are lined with a special concrete that Hellstrom says is proof against a fission bomb. I believe him. There are some fifty thousand people living in these tunnels. Believe me—please believe me.”
Merrivale found his attention caught in fascination by the spinning reels on Gammel’s tape recorder, lifted his gaze to meet a look of shock in the SAIC’s eyes.
Merrivale thought: Bloody hell! If Shorty’s right, this isn’t a job for us, it’s a job for the military. Somehow, Shorty was to be believed. It just wasn’t possible that a statement so shocking could be false. Merrivale bent to the notepad and wrote, “Call army.”
Glancing at the words, Gammel hesitated, then motioned another of his aides to read it and obey. The aide looked at the pad, stared questioningly at Gammel, who nodded vigorously to reinforce the command, then motioned for the man to bend close. Gammel whispered for a moment and the aide’s face paled. He dashed out of the room.
“As unbelievable as your story sounds,” Merrivale said, “I will take your word for it at the moment. However, you must know what I will have to do in response. This is far too big a situation for me to—”
“You son of a bitch! If you attack, the whole planet’s done for!”
Merrivale froze in shock, the phone pressed against his ear, detecting a glint of shared response in Gammel’s eyes. That was not how one addressed a superior!
In the Hive aerie, Hellstrom leaned close to Janvert and whispered, “Tell him the Hive wishes to negotiate. Temporize. Ask him why he hasn’t investigated with the Pentagon about the new island. Tell him we are quite ready to vaporize an area of several hundred square miles around Washington, D.C., if he needs further demonstrations.”
Janvert relayed this message.
“Have you seen this weapon?” Merrivale asked.
“Yes!”
“Describe it”
“Are you nuts? They won’t let me describe it. But I’ve seen it and I’ve seen the little hand version of it.”
The first aide Gammel had sent from the room returned, whispered hoarsely in the SAIC’s ear. Gammel scribbled on the notepad, “Pentagon confirms. They sending assault team.”
Merrivale said, “Shorty, do you really believe they can do this?”
“I’ve been telling you nothing else, goddammit! Haven’t you checked with the Pentagon yet?”
“Shorty, I hate to say this, but it seems to me that several fission bombs, one right on top of the other into—”