'Sure,' said the Corporal. 'You tell me and the Major here to check the car for bombs. You didn't say nothing about screwing his transmission equipment. Bombs, you said.'
'Correct,' said the Major. 'That's what you did say. Bombs.'
'I know I said bombs,' yelled Glaushof, 'you think I need telling?' He stopped and turned his attention lividly on the car. If the radios were still working, presumably the enemy already knew they'd been discovered, in which case...His mind raced on, following lines which led to catastrophe. He had to make a momentous decision, and now. Glaushof did. 'Right, we're going in,' he said, 'and you're going out.'
Five minutes later, in spite of his protests that he wasn't driving any fucking car thirty miles with fucking spooks following his fucking progress, not unless he had a fucking escort, the Corporal drove out of the base. The tape in the recorder had been removed and replaced with a new one, but in all other respects there was nothing to indicate that the car had been tampered with. Glaushof's instructions had been quite explicit. 'You drive right back and dump it outside his house,' he had told the Corporal. 'You've got the Major here with you to bring you back and if there's any problems, he'll take care of them. Those bastards want to know where their boy is they can start looking at home. They're going to have trouble finding him here.'
'Ain't going to have no trouble finding me,' said the Corporal, who knew never to argue with a senior officer. He should have stuck to dumb insolence.
For a moment, Glaushof watched as the two vehicles disappeared across the bleak night landscape. He had never liked it but now it had taken on an even more sinister aspect. It was across those flatlands that the wind blew from Russia non-stop from the Urals. In Glaushof's mind, it was an infected wind which, having blown around the domes and turrets of the Kremlin, threatened the very future of the world. And now somewhere out there someone was listening. Glaushof turned away. He was going to find out who those sinister listeners were.
Chapter 14
'I got the whole place wrapped up, sir, and he's still inside,' said Lieutenant Harah when Glaushof finally reached Lecture Hall 9. Glaushof didn't need telling. He had had enough trouble himself getting through the cordon the Lieutenant had thrown up around the hall and in other circumstances would have expressed himself irritably on the Lieutenant's thoroughness. But the situation was too serious for recrimination, and besides he respected his second-in-command's expertise. As head of the APPS, the Anti Perimeter Penetration Squad, Lieutenant Harah had been through training at Fort Knox, in Panama and had seen action at Greenham Common disguised as a British bobby where he had qualified for a Purple Heart after being bitten in the leg by a mother of four, an experience which had left him with a useful bias against women. Glaushof appreciated his misogyny. At least one man in Baconheath could be relied on not to lay Mona Glaushof and Harah wasn't going to play footsy with any CND women if and when they tried breaking into Baconheath.
On the other hand, he seemed to have gone too far this time. Quite apart from the six hit-squad men in gas masks by the glass fronted door to the lecture hall and a number of others crouching under the windows round the side a small group of women were standing with their heads up against the wall of the next building.
'What are those?' Glaushof asked. He had a nasty suspicion he recognized Mrs Ofrey's Scottish knitwear.
'Suspected women,' said Lieutenant Harah.
'What do you mean "suspected women"?' demanded Glaushof. 'Either they're women or they aren't.'
'They came out dressed as women, sir,' said the Lieutenant, 'doesn't mean to say they are. Could be the terrorist dressed as one. You want me to check them out?'
'No,' said Glaushof, wishing to hell he had given the order to storm the building before he had put in an appearance himself. It wasn't going to look too good spread-eagling the wife of the Chief Administrative Officer against a wall with a gun at her head, and to have her checked out sexually by Lieutenant Harah would really foul things up. On the other hand even Mrs Ofrey could hardly complain about being rescued from a possible hostage situation.
'You sure there's no way he could have got out?'
Absolute,' said the Lieutenant. 'I got marksmen on the next block in case he makes the roof and the utilities tunnels are sealed. All we got to do is toss a canister of Agent Incapacitating in there and there's going to be no trouble.'
Glaushof glanced nervously at the row of women and doubted it. There was going to be trouble and maybe it would be better if that trouble could be seen to be serious. 'I'll get those women under cover and then you go in,' he said. 'And no shooting unless he fires first. I want this guy taken for interrogation. You got that?'
'Absolute, sir,' said the Lieutenant. 'He gets a whiff of AI he wouldn't find a trigger to pull if he wanted to.'
'Okay. Give me five minutes and then go,' said Glaushof and crossed to Mrs Ofrey.
'If you ladies will just step this way,' he said, and dismissing the men who were holding them hurried the little group round the corner and into the lobby of another lecture hall. Mrs Ofrey was clearly annoyed.
'What do you mean' she began but Glaushof raised a hand. 'If you'll just let me explain,' he said, 'I realize you have been inconvenienced but we have an infiltration situation on our hands and we couldn't afford the possibility of you being held hostage.' He paused and was glad to see that even Mrs Ofrey had taken the message. 'How absolutely dreadful,' she murmured.
It was Captain Clodiak's reaction that surprised him. 'Infiltration situation? We just had the usual class no problem,' she said, 'I didn't see anybody new. Are you saying there's somebody in there we don't know about?'
Glaushof hesitated. He had hoped to keep the question of Wilt's identity as a secret agent to himself and not have news of it spreading round the base like wildfire. He certainly didn't want it getting out until he had completed his interrogation and had all the information he needed to prove that the Intelligence Section, and in particular that bland bastard Colonel Urwin, hadn't screened a foreign employee properly. That way the Colonel would take a fall and they could hardly avoid promoting Glaushof. Let Intelligence get wind of what was going on and the plan might backfire. Glaushof fell back on the 'Eyes off' routine.
'I don't think it advisable at this moment in time to elucidate the matter further. This is a top-security matter. Any leak could severely prejudice the defensive capabilities of Strategic Air Command in Europe. I must insist on a total information blackout.'
For a moment the pronouncement had the effect he had wanted. Even Mrs Ofrey looked satisfactorily stunned. Then Captain Clodiak broke the silence. 'I don't get it,' she said. 'There's us and this Wilt guy in there, nobody else. Right?' Glaushof said nothing. 'So you bring up the stormtroopers and have us pinned against the wall as soon as we walk out and now you tell us it's an infiltration situation. I don't believe you, Major, I just don't believe you. The only infiltration I know of is what that bastard sexist lieutenant did up my ass and I intend to formalize a complaint again Lieutenant Harah and you can pull as many phoney agents out of your pinhead imagination as you like, you still aren't going to stop me.'
Glaushof gulped. He could see he'd been right to describe the Captain as a feisty woman and entirely wrong to have allowed Lieutenant Harah to act on his own. He'd also been fairly wrong in his estimation of the Lieutenant's antipathy for women though even Glaushof had to admit that Captain Clodiak was a remarkably attractive woman. In an attempt to save the situation he tried a sympathetic smile. It came out lopsided. I'm sure Lieutenant Harah had no intention of' he began.