Shaw said, “I seem to have heard it. But that hasn’t stopped them wooing the emergent Black nations for what they can get out of them, has it?”
“Far from it, I agree!” Latymer gave a hard laugh. “Anyway — I don’t need to emphasize that a lot of water has flowed since the Chinese exploded their first nuclear device back in sixty-four. They’re powerful now — they’ve made enormous strides, strides no-one in the West ever thought they could make in under ten years at least. They gave America enough trouble in Viet-Nam, you’ll remember — and other places. But in spite of that we’ve badly and dangerously and consistently underestimated their potential — and God alone knows what they could be up to now.” He narrowed his eyes and aimed the ebony ruler at Shaw’s head. “I’ve already talked to the Minister, together with the P.M. You’re on the job from now, Shaw, subject to the medical gentry. That job is to investigate the British end of the Dead Line — get a lead on it, find out what makes it tick, where it runs, who operates it and what the purpose behind it is — keeping this China hook-up in mind and leaving aside Russia unless the wires cross. All right?”
“Yes, sir—”
“Good! Get with it — and try not to get bent in the process.” Latymer glanced at his watch. “I’ll have to be off in a moment. Go into the interview-room with Fellowes and he’ll fill you in on detail. Then get yourself down to the medical section, and after that come and see me again. I won’t be long with the Minister.”
Chapter Three
Fellowes had in fact little to add to what he had already said and after a short session with him Shaw took the lift to the Special Services Division’s own medical section. He was due for a pretty rigorous run-around; lives, and not only the lives of agents, depended on quick thinking, fast moving, and the general alertness and perception given only to a trained mind and body acting in unison and enjoying a precision-pitch of perfect health. Jackson, the S.S.D.’s doctor, had never let anything slip past him.
After a careful examination of Shaw’s wound scars and a check on heart, lungs and blood pressure, Jackson put him through the course. Shaw stripped and was taken first to the gymnasium where, under Jackson’s eyes, he went through an exhaustive routine on the ropes, wall-bars, horizontal bars and vaulting horses. After this he was immersed in water that felt not far off boiling point and then, without pause between, in ice-cold water. From here he went to a mock but hard game of squash with a captive ball, still closely watched by Jackson, after which he was put into a compression chamber and watched for five minutes through glass panels and finally was made to run around the room for a full fifteen minutes.
After this, scars, heart, lungs and blood pressure were checked again and finally, still stripped, he was taken back to the gymnasium and told to stand with his arms outstretched, fingers extended to their fullest extent, palms down. When he had held this pose for three minutes Jackson brought a couple of wine glasses which he balanced on the backs of Shaw’s hands. Each was full to the brim with a dark-coloured fluid. A couple of minutes later, and entirely without warning, Jackson discharged a full slide from an automatic a yard away from the back of Shaw’s head.
Shaw didn’t spill a drop of the liquid. “Browning?” he asked casually.
“Luger.”
Shaw swore. “Must be slipping.”
Jackson grinned. “You’ll do,” he said. “Absolutely clean bill. I expected no less and neither did Latymer.”
“I know…” Shaw heard a click. He glanced across the gymnasium to a door at the other end. It opened and a girl came in. She stopped dead. Shaw dropped both the glasses. Jackson looked at him, followed his eyes, and cursed luridly.
“Don’t allow shock to inhibit your leg muscles, young lady!” he snapped. The girl vanished. Jackson swung round on Shaw. “My apologies, old man. That wasn’t part of the drill. I’ll find out who she is and have her told a thing or two. Women have no business around here anyway.”
“Come, come!” Shaw grinned and swept a hand through his thick hair. “You’re just getting old, Jacko, that’s all! Don’t upset the lady… she’s learned quite a lot already, I think. And come to that, she’s taught me something too.”
“Oh?” Jackson lifted an eyebrow, quizzically. “And what’s that, may I ask?”
Shaw smiled, thinking back to Newquay. He’d heard a couple of those luscious beach bunnies talking about him one dark night. “He’s so damn tantalizing,” a girl had said, her voice brittle with desire. “And he looks ruthless. And restless, too… there’s something in his eyes. I like a man with guts — and he takes the most ghastly risks for a Gremmie. But he just sort of — looks through you, as if he’s already had every girl in the world who’s got anything to offer. I tell you,” that beach bunny had said, “I’d snatch an hour of bliss with him any time he asked me. Any girl who lost her virginity to that man’d be his for life, whether he wanted her or not.” In the darkness Shaw had grinned to himself. He was being rated high; the beach bunnies didn’t feel they could match the standard, apparently — not with all their exposed brown skin and half-naked breasts swelling behind the merely symbolic strips of material. He had been interested, all right, as much as any man — more possibly, for the dangers and uncertainties of his job inclined him that way. But — he’d been in Newquay under orders to lead a life of moderation and virtue and to restore the strength and fitness temporarily shattered by the spreading burst of gunfire that had come at him from a Soho doorway. Orders were orders in the S.S.D., whoever and wherever you happened to be, on leave or otherwise — and besides, Shaw had acknowledged them to be the right orders. Some of the finest surgeons and physicians in the land had spent their time on him at the country’s expense. Oversexed women could be more dangerous than Maribu boards — or so he’d been warned.
Until now, perhaps?
Jackson repeated his question: “What has that inquisitive girl taught you?”
“That I’m still human — in spite of you and Latymer! Maybe I’ll find out for myself who she is.”
Jackson raised no objection, so that was another hurdle successfully taken. Shaw dressed, feeling a whole lot more cheerful.
On the way back to Latymer’s office Shaw had a stroke of luck: the girl of the gymnasium stepped into the lift at the second floor. They were alone, and she recognized him; she had the grace to blush a little but there was a glint of amusement in her eyes as Shaw smiled at her.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” he told her reprovingly. “Didn’t your mother ever warn you?”
Her eyes were really twinkling now, he noted. She said, “You bet.”
“But you don’t listen to warnings?”