“What are you going to do, John?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll need a rifle. Your Swift will do.”
Geissler shook his head. “I’m in too far already. If I lend you one of my guns …’
Fortune pulled out a handful of bills and stuffed them into Geissler’s shirt pocket. “It isn’t your gun. I bought it from you weeks ago—now, get it!” They walked through the clutter of storage sheds and up the slight hill to where Geissler’s white bungalow looked out over the Atlantic. While Geissler went in for the rifle Fortune stood on the front steps looking at the distant line of floodlights which marked the fence. The gun site was at the end of a broad spit and the only land access to it was by a single gravel track. Geissler had strung a high steel fence from one side of the spit to the other, with a remotely-controlled gate where it intersected the track. It was half a mile from the bungalow to the gate but the sound of the waiting turbojeep’s horn was carried down on the wind, mixed with the uneasy sibilance of the surf.
Geissler came out with the rifle and thrust it into Fortune’s hand. “The scope is zeroed at three hundred yards,” Geissler said glumly. “You’ll need to aim a couple of inches low for close work.”
“I don’t expect to use it,” Fortune assured him. “It’s just insurance. All you need to think about is zeroing on that satellite.” He slung the Swift on his shoulder and walked along the moonlit track, resisting the buffeting of the wind. As he entered the amber radiance of the floodlights a tall, slightly familiar figure in grey civilian clothes got out of the vehicle’s driving seat.
It was Pavel Efimov.
Fortune’s first, wounded thought was—I needed you, Christine! Then, as his intellect reasserted itself—what the hell is going on here? He looked more closely at the green turbojeep and saw it was not one of the Unit’s fleet, but a semi-military job from the UNO hostel in Reykjavik.
“You again, Efimov? When do you start squawking, ‘Nevermore’?” Fortune made his voice sound bored, but he became aware of the buckle of the rifle sling cutting into his fingers and relaxed his grip. Time was needed, not action.
Efimov came forward, his lean face looking skeletal in the lurid brilliance, and held up a document. “I have here a copy of an injunction issued by the office of the District Magistrate. It was issued at the request of my embassy against Geissler Orbital Deliveries. It forbids the company to violate international law by launching an orbital vehicle without first filing full orbital data with the central reference authority in Berlin, and without giving eight days’ notice of the launching.”
“She told you then?”
Efimov permitted himself a faint smile. “We will leave personal relationships out of this matter, colonel. Please instruct Mr. Geissler to open the gate or I will be forced to break it down.”
Fortune shook his head. “Mr. Geissler is too busy to see anyone at the moment, but he’ll be happy to have a word with you in …’ he looked at his watch, ‘… ninety minutes from now.”
“This is a serious matter, colonel. Mr. Geissler’s business may be closed down permanently.”
“Should you not have police here to back you up?”
“They’ll be here,” Efimov announced confidently.
“What’s your interest in it, anyway, Efimov?”
“You forget, colonel, that I know exactly why this missile is being launched. The satellite concerned belongs to my country.”
“I can almost hear the balalaikas,” Fortune said, ‘but you must know as well as I do that the question of ownership is very much in debate.”
“The law is still the law,” Efimov replied, ‘regardless of who owns the satellite.” A note of something like primness had crept into his voice.
Very suddenly Fortune made an intuitive leap, understanding the other man so perfectly that for an instant he almost physically saw himself through Efimov’s eyes. “It isn’t easy with Christine—is it, Efimov? You’d never stand the pace with her, you know. She drinks jealousy the way you drink vodka. It’s because of her, isn’t it?”
“We will leave personal relationships aside, colonel. I am interested only in preventing an ill-considered action by Mr. Geissler—one which will do him a lot of harm.”
“It’s because of Christine,” Fortune elaborated. “I’ve no doubt that you really are some kind of cut-price agent—but you’re doing this because I’m Christine’s husband. You’re doing it because our little bit of quart and tierce last night didn’t work out the way you expected.”
Efimov took a deep breath and walked right up to the gate. “Are you going to get the gate opened, colonel? Or do I drive through it?”
Fortune unslung the Swift without speaking and bolted in the first cartridge.
“I don’t think you’d go as far as killing anyone, colonel.” Efimov went back to the vehicle and climbed in. A second later its turbine screamed up to maximum revolutions and gravel spattered from under the wheels as it hunched forward. Fortune sighted on the lower rim of the circular intake grille and squeezed off one shot. The vehicle bucked violently and slid to a halt as shattered blades chewed their way back through the turbine. demolishing the engine as they went. The air filled with kerosene fumes and Efimov leapt out of the cab.
“That was not very clever, colonel.” He seemed strangely unperturbed, almost pleased.
Fortune ejected the empty brass case which had caused such an astonishing amount of damage and bolted in the next round. He slapped the rifle uncertainly, wondering if he looked as stupid and childish as he felt. He had gone too far to think of turning back, and yet everything had gone subtly wrong. The line of amber lights running from nowhere to nowhere, the gate and the immobilised turbojeep made a meaningless setting for a pointless play. He lowered himself carefully on to a rain-slimed rock, ate some chocolate, and watched Efimov, who loitered contentedly on the track beyond the vehicle, occasionally kicking pebbles.
Behind Fortune, out at the end of the spit, the lights of the gun site shone brilliantly against the blackness of the ocean. There were still seventy-five minutes until the firing. As far as he could see things had reached a perfect impasse—yet Efimov looked like a man who was waiting patiently for something he expected to happen.
A few minutes later Fortune saw lights moving far back along the shore. The lights grew brighter until he made out the massive bulk of a police cruiser swaying along the track like a motor launch in rough water. Fortune assessed the new situation and his initial alarm subsided. Efimov had not been bluffing. He really had stirred up the civil police, but even if the police were armed they would still have a natural human aversion to walking through a gate defended by a madman equipped with a high-velocity rifle. And that, Fortune admitted, was exactly what he was. He lay down behind the rock, positioned his elbows comfortably and watched Efimov through the rifle sight.
The police cruiser halted fifty yards beyond the turbojeep and its lights died, the reflectors glowing redly for an instant. Efimov ran to it, climbed aboard and slammed the door after him. Fortune lay waiting, his finger tight on the trigger, but the minutes went by and nothing happened. He was beginning to relax, imagining Efimov haranguing reluctant policemen, when he noticed the cruiser’s radio mast which had been run up to its full height and was whipping gently in the wind.
Of course! The Unit’s headquarters staff had not known where he was and, up until half an hour ago, telling them would not have done much good—or harm, depending on one’s point of view. The Nesster landing was drawing near, but Fortune had left Major Baillie in full command was entitled to visit Geissler if he wanted. Any wild story of his having deserted would have produced no more than a few preliminary phone calls from the phlegmatic Baillie.