"Let me guess," said Remo. "This is where I'm supposed to spin around, see the gun, and turn to quivering jelly. Right?"
"Quite," said the elderly man.
Remo snapped back an elbow far enough to catch the pistol and send it into the ancient ceiling like a rock into dried mud. The pistol went with its owner. A shower of old plaster and Spackle exploded over the room like a snowstorm.
A bulky commando type stepped out from a wall with a short stabbing dagger, angling for Remo's solar plexus. Remo sent him back into the wall with a side kick. The elderly man ducked, and from behind him appeared a lieutenant in full uniform, who began firing a submachine gun. The first burst came straight at Remo. There was no second burst because the bullets appeared to Remo like a line of softballs coming at him. Fast enough to hurt, but slow enough to dance around, even before they had left the barrel. His body allowed itself to sense the slow stream, and move through and then beyond it to its source.
The lieutenant, lacking such skill, found himself without gun and very much smashing backward into the steel door he had vowed with his life to defend.
The door shivered on its drop-forged pins and came down in the next room like a bridge over a moat.
Remo stepped over the unconscious officer into an office.
A man in gray sports jacket looked up from his desk to see that his penetration-proof cover had been penetrated by a thick-wristed young man in dark slacks, T-shirt and loafers, using no other weapon, apparently, than a knowing smile.
"Hi," said Remo. "I'm from America. You're expecting the one Colonel Winstead-Jones was supposed to dilly around London with wine, drugs; and women."
"Oh yes. Top-secret and all that. Well, welcome, Remo. What can we do for you?" asked the man, lighting a meerschaum pipe carved to resemble the head of some British queen. He had a long-nosed, gaunt-cheeked patrician face and a toothy smile. His sandy hair might have been combed by a lawn mower. He didn't rise. He didn't even look upset. He most certainly did not look like a man whose defenses had been turned to broken plaster. "We have a problem with something that's poking holes in the ozone layer, and the possibility that if we don't fry slow from the sun, we are going to fry fast from Russian nukes," said Remo.
"Would you kindly explain to me how this involves you barging in here and throwing our people around? I would ever so much like to know why."
The station chief took a puff of his pipe. He had spoken most pleasantly. Remo most pleasantly slapped the pipe out of his mouth, along with some frontal teeth thal looked too long for anything from a human head outside of the British Isles.
Remo apologized for his American rudeness.
"I'm trying to head off World War III, so I'm in kind of a rush," said Remo.
"Well, that does put a bit of a different complexion on the matter," admitted the station chief, shaking his head. He did not shake too hard because blood was coming from his nose. He thought a brisk shake might loosen some of the brain matter above his nostrils. "Yes. Well, orders came from the Admiralty."
"Why the Admiralty?"
"You can kill me, old top, but I never will tell you," he said. But when Remo took a step toward him, he hastily added; "Because I don't know. Haven't the foggiest."
Remo took the station chief along. He took him by the waist, careful not to bloody things as he trundled him downstairs past his own dazed guards into the car. At the Admiralty, he found the officer identified by the station chief. He explained about the tradition of American-English cooperation.
The commander in charge of a special intelligence detail appreciated this long friendship. He also appreciated the use of his lungs which Remo promised to leave in his body. Considering that the way Remo was stretching his ribs, losing the lungs was a distinct possibility. The commander made every effort to figure out what Remo was talking about.
Since Remo was never good at explaining technical matters, this was not easy. It sounded like the sky was opening up for some reason. Then the commander, in great pain, recognized what Remo was looking for. The Jodrell Bank telescope fellows had tracked something. Remo brought the naval officer along. It was becoming crowded in the back seat. In the entire crowd no one could tell him why they were not willingly cooperating with their best ally.
"Well, sir, if you didn't use violence we would be significantly more cooperative." This from Winstead-Jones, who had told the others about being dragged outside the car.
"I didn't use it till you weren't," said Remo. The car was very comfortable. The Jodrell Bank fellows, as they were called, were surprisingly cooperative. Strangely, they were the only ones not part of the British defense establishment.
Yes, they had tracked the beam. Somewhere west. Probably America. They were delighted to explain the details of the tracking. Basically one could tell precisely where the ozone shield was penetrated, and thus determine precisely where the unfiltered rays landed by the angle of the sun in relation to the earth.
Remo knew where they had landed in England early that morning. That was why he was here. The Jodrell Bank fellows knew a little more. The unfiltered rays had penetrated above the fishing village of Malden.
Remo returned to the car with the good news. No one was moving. Everyone knew someone should have left the car for help against the brutal American but the problem had been who. They had ordered the driver to do just that. The driver said his orders were to stay at the wheel, so the little piece of defense establishment was waiting for Remo.
"Hello. Good to see you back," said the colonel. The station chief stayed conscious as a way of greeting and the commander breathed.
"We're going to Malden," said Remo cheerfully.
"Oh, so you found it," said the colonel. "You won't need us then."
"You knew everything I was looking for. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Orders."
"From whom?"
"You know, those people who always give orders and then aren't there when the blood begins to flow, I would say."
"But we're allies," said Remo. "This thing threatens the whole world."
"Orders don't have to make sense. If they made sense anyone could obey them. The real test of a soldier is following orders no matter how unfounded they are in common sense."
On the way to Malden Remo tried to find out who had ordered them not to be cooperative. Did they know something he didn't know?
"It's intelligence, old man. No one trusts anyone else," said the station chief.
"I trust you," said Remo.
"Then who ordered you here?"
"You wouldn't understand," said Remo. "But take my word for it, the world is going to go up. Even with your separate departments."
Remo noticed a radio telephone near the driver's leg. He wondered if he could use it. The driver explained it was very simple. The problem was whether to talk over a very open line. If they didn't get that thing penetrating the ozone shield, there wouldn't be any reason for secrecy. He used the radiophone into which the whole world could listen.
"Open line, Smitty," said Remo when he heard Smith answer.
"Okay. Go ahead."
"Located source."
"Good."
"It's definitely the east coast."
"We already knew that. Could you be a bit more specific? The east coast is larger than most countries."
"That's what I have so far."
"Yes, well. Good. Thank you. I take it there will be more."
"Soonest."
"Good luck. Don't worry about open lines. Anything you get. Anything."
"Right," said Remo. It was the first time he had ever heard Smith's voice crack.
In Malden, everybody seemed to know everybody else's business. It was a small quaint village and yes, there was an experiment going on, some people thought by their own government.
In a small field, white-frocked technicians examined cages. Everyone but Remo looked at the field. Remo's training had given his instinct the full power others had stifled. And the main part of that power was a sense of danger. It was not the field he looked at.