“As he knew it, sir, yes. Undoubtedly. I knew him very well. He always made certain. That was his chief characteristic — absolute certainty. But his source! That does worry me. Why on earth should Karstad of all people suddenly develop a solicitude for us?”
“Well, quite. But we just don’t know. Personally, like you, I’m prepared to take Donovan’s word — and the explanation of Karstad’s part in it, was no doubt in what Donovan hadn’t time to say.” He added, “I always felt as sure as you that Donovan had been framed. I’d have trusted him anywhere. Still do.”
Shaw nodded. “What do you think all this means?” he asked.
Latymer’s eyes were half closed now. He said slowly, “I’m not sure. I don’t like the fact that China seems to be involved — I draw that inference from what Donovan said about the feeling between Russia and China, and also from certain other news I had only yesterday — I’ll come back to that in a moment. I know there’s not a great deal to go on, but we can’t afford to take any chances at all in my opinion. I’m trying to have Karstad located so that we can get the rest of the message, but there’s been no luck so far and I’m not hopeful. He’s probably very shy of contacting an officially accredited agent of the West, even of his own people. We all know his record, even if has managed to get away with it.” Latymer jabbed his cigarette towards Shaw. “Meanwhile, if this threat, whatever it is, is genuine, there’s any God’s amount of trouble ahead. I suppose you realize just how damn hot this MAPIACCIND thing is?” He leaned forward, tapped his hand on the desk in emphasis. “If just one thing goes badly wrong, the world’ll lose confidence— and that’ll virtually mean the end of the agreement. You know how suspicious every one is basically. It’s quite vital to maintain implicit belief in MAPIACCIND. That’s paramount.”
“I know that, sir.” Shaw was well aware of the dangers. MAPIACCIND had come about as a concrete extension of the old Western European Union and as the result of nearly three years of mostly acrimonious discussion, largely in closed session, in Geneva — discussion which had taken place almost in desperation latterly because of a rapidly deteriorating world political climate following upon the failure of the earlier Big Four talks and the collapse of the A-test ban. Subsequently Britain, U.S.A., France, and Russia had been joined as nuclear Powers by both Western and Eastern Germany, Italy and China, while Canada and Australia as well as some smaller second-flight Powers, had also developed their own independent nuclear programme and were well equipped with H-bombs. As a direct result of this increase in the nuclear club, sheer naked fright throughout the world had led to a welcome display of common sense and a resumption of talks, talks which had been wholly and surprisingly successfuclass="underline" all these countries were now founder-members of the MAPIACCIND Agreement and were thus subject to a rigid control by the International Inspectorate set up by MAPIACCIND’s World Headquarters at Geneva. This Inspectorate was responsible for ensuring, by aerial reconnaissance as well as by on-the-spot examination by the MAPIACCIND teams in the member-nations’ territories, that stocks of nuclear devices of a warlike character were confined to those existing at the time of the signing of the agreement. There was in addition the other, and overriding, safeguard: all the nations concerned had agreed to have their own nuclear stockpiles so co-ordinated and adapted that they were no longer capable of independent use; these stockpiles had been placed under guards of MAPIACCIND teams, whose leaders held certain keys and controls; the stocks themselves were linked by radio to one central control point known as REDCAP — Radio Regular Equipment for Defence Co-Ordination, Atom Powers. Radio signals, transmitted on extremely high frequencies from REDCAP, could, subject to certain checks, operate receivers on the stockpiles themselves, and these receivers would detonate primers, which would in turn blow up the entire nuclear potential of any nation showing signs of intended aggression. Naturally it was never visualized that this extreme measure would ever actually be put into effect; it was very much a last resort, and it was hoped that the threat alone would suffice, that no country would be insane enough to court the devastating risk entailed by any act of aggression, that wars had for ever ceased to be a possibility. REDCAP was in fact the ultimate and terrible deterrent.
Latymer was going on: “After your call came through, I sought an audience with the Minister.” His voice was tight, angry. “And ‘sought an audience’ is the right term. That little man is really quite impossible to deal with.” He shrugged. “However… Now, the first thing that occurred to me was that, considering Donovan said Lubin had been gone some time, it was odd that the Russians had never, so far as we knew, appeared to be in a stew over his disappearance. So a call was put through at once to the Kremlin, at a very high level indeed. And what d’you think the Kremlin said?” Latymer leaned forward, hands flat on the desk. “They said Lubin’s still in Russia, but he’s been a very sick man for a long time and he’s living in retirement on an isolated farm in the Voronezh area.”
Shaw stared. “That confuses the issue rather, doesn’t it? But if that’s the case, why haven’t they given that out before now?”
Latymer said briefly, “Prestige. To admit that their star electronics man was at his last gasp wouldn’t help their bargaining power in world affairs. They wouldn’t come clean until they had to, d’you see, and until now that hasn’t arisen. Anyway, that’s my theory. There’s no accounting for the Russian mind, you know. Well — they were asked to check that Lubin really was still there, and a call came back not long ago.” Latymer stubbed out his cigarette. “He’s there all right — according to them. In bed, and very, very sick. Matter of fact, they say he’s ga-ga, can’t get any sense out of him — I suppose they realize they can’t go on keeping it dark now. Odd, isn’t it?”
Shaw said, “Very odd indeed. He can’t be in two places at once.”
Latymer snorted irritably. “Dammit, you sound just like the Minister! I don’t know the answer, I regret to say, but I’ll make a guess. If Donovan’s right — and I agree with you, he wouldn’t speak unless he was certain — then Lubin’s got a double and the Russians have been very nicely fooled. Or they’re cooking up something with China, but personally I’d doubt that very strongly. As Donovan said, the Chinese and the Russians aren’t at all friendly these days.” He rapped his fingers hard on the desk and looked searchingly at Shaw. “There’s something building up, I’m sure of that, partly because of that other news I mentioned.”
“Yes, sir?”
Latymer said, “It’s something that seems to me to tie up, and I don’t like it.” He leaned across the desk again, his steely gaze boring into Shaw. He said quietly, “The Chinese are mobilizing some of the People’s Militia. It’s all very well to talk about reductions and limitations of manpower — we know that’s been done in all the MAPIACCIND countries, but just look at China’s population, and the huge numbers that have already had military training. They’ve got something like twelve million men available for combat in the Militia, according to the latest figures, apart from four million always under arms. Well — some of those armies are on the move, Shaw. Some artillery units, so I hear, are moving into areas which, according to earlier reports from Geneva, contain many of China’s nuclear stockpiles. And those gunner units have had training in handling nuclear missiles — rockets and so on. Now d’you see?”
Shaw’s face had whitened. “Yes, I do.”
Latymer took up a heavy, round ebony ruler, rolled it in his hands. He said, “I don’t know what all this adds up to, but it worries me. The troop movements could be sheer coincidence, I know, but taking them in conjunction with what Donovan told you, I don’t think they can be dismissed that easily. If only Donovan could have lived just a little longer… it’s all so damn fishy, when you come to think how deeply Lubin was mixed up with the MAPIACCIND thing. He was one of the really big backroom boys, and what he doesn’t know, technically, isn’t worth knowing. Matter of fact, he was actually working on REDCAP itself— and now we hear from Donovan that it’s REDCAP that’s directly concerned in this threat.”