“We’ve gathered that much,” Solo offered. “We’ve had some.” He went on to tell, briefly, what they had done and experienced. “So we were able to stop the shipment,” he concluded. “Now we have time to alert the authorities and have 3-B cans condemned outright. That’s a job for the revenue men.”
Waverly nodded. “Yes. Well done. That will be taken care of. But our present and highly urgent business is to deal with the second form of the synthetic, before it is too late.”
“I don’t quite see the danger, sir,” Kuryakin interrupted gently. “I’ve seen the formula and read an account of its properties. It’s a ferment, a very fast one, increasing in volume extremely rapidly. And it’s hydrophilous—that is to say, it absorbs water at a furious rate. But—”
“Salt water, Mr. Kuryakin. Sea water!” Waverly’s quiet correction was like a series of ice-pellets into the thick silence. Kuryakin sighed, and then nodded in sudden understanding. For the rest, Waverly went on to explain.
“We tried a few milligrams in a large tank of salt water. Within minutes the whole was a fermenting mass, which stopped only because it had used up all the water. And the reaction ends by transforming into a thick jelly-like stuff that is rigid enough to be cut with a knife. The volumetric increase is simply enormous. The simple facts are these. Anyone sufficiently familiar with the prevailing tides in this geographical area would have no difficulty whatever in scattering quantities of this stuff—it wouldn’t take very much—and thereby blanketing the entire Irish sea, the west coast of England, the English Channel, large reaches of the French coast, and subsequently the North Sea, with this terrible ferment. I don’t think I need to spell it out beyond that, do I? Think of the paralysis to shipping, the choked rivers. Power stations would be put out of action, water supplies fouled and cut off. Fish would die by the million from lack of oxygen. And it wouldn’t take much of the stuff.” He paused to study the strained faces watching him, then added, “We did some rough calculations. All that I have described, and more, could be done with no more than a hundred pounds of the synthetic!”
Sarah caught a hand to her mouth in dismay. “We have a hundredweight of it already made up!” she cried, and Waverly pulled down his shaggy brows grimly.
“A hundredweight would be more than enough to paralyze Great Britain and a considerable stretch of the French coast. The same quantity again would be enough to eliminate the Balkan peninsula. One ton of it, strategically scattered, would blanket the entire North American continent in strangling jelly-sludge, and I need not spell out for you just what that would do. But it goes even further. Four fifths of the surface of this Earth of ours is ocean, gentlemen. We all of us depend on it, ultimately, for our very lives. And Dr. Michael O’Rourke has the power to foul the seas of the world, at will!”
The little room was silent as the people assembled there drew their own conclusions and built horrifying mental pictures of what could happen. Mr. Waverly waited long enough for it to sink in, then he sighed and spoke again:
“There it is, gentlemen. Dr. O’Rourke must be stopped, and quickly.”
“It’s not going to be easy,” Solo mused aloud. “That’s quite a castle—and pretty well staffed. Unless we try to undermine it. Illya?”
“It would take too long, and would be too chancy anyway, just to get one man. We’ll have to siege it frontally. We might be able to dicker, though.”
“Talk ’em into handing King Mike over, you mean? Sarah, how about that?”
“I doubt if it will do any good,” she confessed. “The Irish are great ones for sticking to a desperate cause. They’d all die rather than give in. At any rate, I know Uncle Mike would. And he’s the key one.”
“Are we sure of that?” Waverly demanded, and Kuryakin nodded.
“I heard him tell Trilli as much, myself. Bits and pieces of his discoveries are written down. I have a notebook of his that I took from a safe, and Sarah knows a little. But the basic tricks of the process are known only to him, and committed to memory. He said so. We’ve got to get him—before he can spill it to anybody else.”
“We’ll make that final, then.” Waverly sighed. “We’ve brought some heavy equipment. Mr. Solo, you’re in charge of the direct operation. Take whatever you think you’ll need. Stevens, you and Haycraft will go along with Mr. Solo. Patterson, I’d like you to hold back for a while.”
“What are you cooking for him?” Solo demanded.
“I’m trying to arrange for a helicopter; it will take a short while. Patterson can take that, along with whatever persuasion he thinks is advisable, and then he can come in and support your ground attack. You’re going to need everything we have. A castle! And it will be dawn in an hour.”
“I think we’ve thought of everything.” Solo scratched his chin. “The big thing is to get there fast, before he has time to suspect anything wrong. Where will you be, sir?” he asked Waverly as the crowd began to filter through the door.
“I shall be at our Limerick office, to pull all the strings I can to get that beer blacklisted. The authorities should be with us that far. I’ll take your reports there.”
Less than fifteen minutes later the little pickup was roaring off on its furious way once more. The generator and ultrasonic unit had been cleared from the back to give room for several much more lethal pieces of hardware. Solo drove intently, thinking ahead, trying to plan a strategy. Kuryakin was quietly busy checking his various pieces of gadgetry. There was just the chance he might have to make another foray up that drain-pipe. He hoped not, since it would be a bad place to be trapped, but he intended to be as ready as possible.
Sarah sat between them and tried not to shiver. She knew there was a big black car roaring at their heels, and in it two very competent-looking agents, plus some deadly armament. She had no idea what lay ahead, but guessed it was going to be unpleasant. This nightmare went on for a long time, she thought.
“Watch it now, Steve.” Solo spoke warningly into his transceiver. “We should be in sight of the pile in a minute or two, and they’ll see us just as fast as we see them.”
The acknowledgment came promptly. He slid the unit away and squinted ahead in the gloom. This road ran steadily uphill, the only approach, and Cooraclare commanded the crest. The original builders had chosen well. It was going to be a tough nut to crack. He saw the gray-black bulk of it now against the skyline, and could reconstruct the details from memory. A massive keep-wall ten feet high and three feet thick. One great gateway in easy view of all the windows. A wide courtyard to cross, under the muzzles of shotguns, and possibly other things as well.
The gate came near now: a hundred yards…less…It stood invitingly open. It seemed a bit too inviting. He saw a sudden spit of fire from up there on the crenelated wall of the roof, and then another. A wailstorm of shot screamed off the hood of the truck and hammered on the windshield, followed by a double bang in the distance.
That had been just a mild foretaste, he thought, as he spun the wheel hard and sent the truck jolting over turf, off the road and in the lee of the wall to the left. He twisted his head around to see the following car take the hint and roar away to the right. He cut the engine.
“So far,” he said, “so good. They can’t get out. Now let’s see if we can persuade them to let us in!”
Kuryakin shoved open the door on his side and slid out into the gloom to circle the truck and pick out a rifle complete with infrared spotter-scope and spare clip. Sarah was close on his heels.
“What can I do?” she demanded. “I’m a good shot.”
“You’re a very clever girl in many ways,” Kuryakin said, smiling in the gloom. “You come up here with me.” And he gave her a strong arm to boost her up onto the roof of the cab. “Keep your head down! Wait just a moment.” He juggled the rifle into readiness and leaned forward to be close to the wall, edging the muzzle up over it. He handed her his handkerchief. “Now—you just wave that, quickly, above the level of the wall, and then duck. Ready? Now!”