There was a dead silence in the saloon.
The air seemed to Shaw to have grown suddenly colder, and outside the wind, backing around Cape Horn, whipped up the cold grey water and brought heavy clouds blackly across the rock face.
Chapter Twenty
Shaw had felt dazed, unable to comprehend what he was hearing. All he could say was, ‘Fleck, you spoke of an earnest, didn’t you? Isn’t this… total obliteration?’
‘Yes,’ Fleck admitted, ‘I’m very afraid it is, at any rate close to that. But… well, I was wrong to speak simply of an earnest, possibly. There is no time for half-measures now. You see, my Directorate in Germany has reason to believe that Russia may start something under pressure from Peking if we don’t give her a really decisive indication of what is liable to happen to her. And also we have plans in regard to the United States.’
‘You spoke of not wanting to kill, not long ago.’
‘I was referring to individuals. Did I not make that clear?’
‘Even if you did… doesn’t mass murder count, then? You can reconcile the two things in your mind?’
Fleck nodded. ‘Yes, I can. I don’t know if I can make you understand.’ He frowned. ‘What you call mass murder is in fact an act of warfare. You would agree with that, of course. Not to allow individuals to live — whenever possible, that is — in circumstances which have not become war… that is murder in very truth!’
Shaw snapped, ‘I don’t like double talk, so we’ll leave the point. What happens to the States afterwards?’
‘Our Agencies will take over,’ Fleck said smoothly. ‘It is all planned, down to the last detail. An orderly movement of our members will already be taking place from the areas to be affected, and control points — headquarter units to deal with such matters as policing, food, medical supplies and health generally, transportation and so on — will be setting up ready to go into action in the safe areas to bring about America’s re-emergence under our control.’ Fleck leaned forward, his face working. ‘This, now, is in fact the start of the ultimate aim of the Party — the re-emergence of the Reich but this time as a world power — and we cannot possibly fail now!’
It was so terrifyingly logical. Shaw could see that when he was alone in his cabin again. It had sounded mad at first, but it wasn’t when you came to look at it carefully.
It could all happen exactly as planned.
Schillenhorst had expanded a little on the detail and it was clever — and it could work! They might be lunatics, these people, but similar lunatics had seized the supreme power in Germany way back in the thirties. The only difference was that in those days they hadn’t been able to monkey around with nuclear weapons and radio beams. The Nazi mind remained precisely the same; only the period of history was different — that, and the means. The mind that hadn’t baulked at the concentration camps and the gas chambers wouldn’t turn a hair at what was now proposed. Indeed, the probability was that, though the death-roll would be colossal, less people would in fact die next Friday than had died in the Nazi gas chambers — the difference being that in the States next Friday they would mostly die all at once and quickly except for those hit by the fall-out, whereas in the camps they had died piecemeal over the slow, torturing years.
Yes, it could happen all right and no one in the outside world could prevent it because no one else knew what was going to happen. Only him. And he couldn’t get away, couldn’t get a word through to Pullman to have that test delayed, cancelled until this Nazi horror-nest was obliterated. And afterwards, after Schillenhorst had pressed the button and much of America lay in ruins and poisoned with fall-out, no one need ever know why the test had gone wrong — unless Fleck and his associates decided to tell the story. The catastrophe would appear simply as a technical error, a criminally technical error on a colossal scale, and the survivors would automatically and quite naturally put the whole blame on what was left of the U.S Government. It would look like national suicide. The American people might — probably would — turn dazedly to the Nazis — only they wouldn’t be called Nazis — as being the one authority left in being to succour and re-form the nation.
So — what to do now?
Shaw moved restlessly up and down the cabin, two steps one way, two the other. His head felt as though it must burst with the knowledge that was in it, the knowledge that he had to pass on if America was to live… though indeed he wondered if anyone would believe him.
How could he possibly get off the Moehne—how, if he did, if he got ashore even, could he get far in this dreadful, trackless territory? He would be hunted down like a deer. He wouldn’t have a hope, it would be a foregone conclusion, a matter of time alone.
There was in fact only one way out and that was the obvious one — the Moehne’s only physical contact with the outside world, the helicopter. But he couldn’t fly a helicopter, and even if he could, to expect to get hold of it would be like expecting a snowflake to fall in hell.
And he had seven days left, it seemed.
Chapter Twenty-One
That afternoon, after Shaw had listened impotently to hectoring voices coming faintly from the next-door cabin, and then a girl’s sobbing, Hans Schillenhorst came to see him. The scientist, with a Luger in his hand and the seaman sentry behind him with his automatic, stood silently in the doorway looking at Shaw.
‘Well?’ Shaw snapped.
‘I beg your pardon.’ Schillenhorst’s voice was still correct, still harsh and unmelodious. ‘It has occurred to me that you might be interested in seeing my control room. If you so wish, I will show you round the installations.’
Shaw lifted an eyebrow. They must be very certain, and rightly so of course, that he couldn’t get away if they were going to let him look around. Probably this fanatic couldn’t resist letting him see how clever they had been. He smiled sardonically and said, ‘All right. There’s no point in sulking, is there? I’ll come and admire your brainwork, Schillenhorst. When?’
‘Now, if you are ready.’
‘I’m ready,’ Shaw said ironically. ‘I’m not going anywhere special.’
There wasn’t a flicker in Schillenhorst’s face. He backed to the door. The sentry stood aside and then, as Shaw came out into the alleyway, he heard the man’s step behind him and a moment later his arms were grasped and forced behind his back and he felt the harsh grip of handcuffs close around his wrists.
‘I am so sorry.’ Schillenhorst looked at him coldly. ‘It is in case you run amok, and attempt to smash anything up.’
‘It was in my mind to attempt quite a smash,’ Shaw said nastily. ‘I congratulate you on your excellent thought-reading, Herr Schillenhorst.’
‘Doctor Schillenhorst.’ The scientist gave a tight, stiff bow and turned away. ‘Follow,’ he added over his shoulder. ‘The sailor is behind you with the gun.’
They went off up the ladder that Shaw had descended two night previously, and emerged on to the catwalk running alongside the helicopter’s landing deck. This was the first time Shaw had actually been on the upper deck in daylight and as they walked for’ard he glanced around with considerable interest, picking up properly now the familiar but overlaid pattern of a British naval vessel despite the disguise. He looked at the masts, and at all the ancillary equipment, some of which he had glimpsed from his cabin port. The aerials were still turning as they watched and waited for Warmaster and, presumably, any Russian missiles as well.