“If we could just have a word with him.”
A hardness about the eyes; a professional alertness. Some instinct prevented her from inviting them in from the bitter cold. “Wait a moment, please.”
It was a full minute before she found a skeletally thin, middle-aged man with thick spectacles and red, spiky hair seated at the kitchen table with the Ellis woman. A near-empty bottle of Jim Beam stood between them. The girl had her elbows on the table and was resting her head in cupped hands, staring into Sacheverell’s blue eyes with open admiration. Sacheverell, thus encouraged, was extolling the merits of legalizing cannabis, itemizing the points with the aid of his bony fingers.
“Herby, two men for you,” Mrs. Sacheverell said, looking through the Ellis female. “They look sort of official. Have you been naughty?”
Herby shook his head in bewilderment. He stood up carefully, oriented himself towards the open kitchen door and navigated towards it with exaggerated steadiness.
“Enjoying the party?” Mrs. Sacheverell asked.
“Oh yes, Mrs. S. Herby is really good to me.”
“Tell me, have you tried anything for that big spot on your chin?” Mrs. Sacheverell asked, curling her lips into a smile.
The smile was returned. “I’m using a cream. It’s supposed to be good for wrinkles too—I’ll hand it in to you some time.”
“That would be lovely, dear. Do keep drinking.”
A minute later, the doorbell rang again. Herb Sacheverell stood between the two men. He was tight-lipped, and his face was white and strained. “I’ll be gone a few days. Urgent business.”
She glanced in alarm at the men on either side of her son.
“There’s something going on here. Who are these people?”
“Mom, it’s okay. But one thing. It’s important that you tell nobody about this. If anyone asks, friends have turned up and I’m taking a few days’ holiday.”
Hilary Sacheverell’s suspicion was overlaid by her sense of the practical. “Let me pack a suitcase for you.”
“There’s no time. They’ll look after me. Now I have to go.”
Hilary Sacheverell watched the dark Buick snake through the driveway and then, on the road, accelerate swiftly away. She wended a path back to the living room, a smile firmly fixed on her face.
North Atlantic, 0650 GMT
“You’ve got the wrong man. I’m not a medical doctor.”
“This isn’t a rescue mission. If you’re Webb, you’re wanted on board.”
“Who are you people?”
“We don’t have a lot of time, sir!” the airman shouted.
“The hell with you!” Webb shouted back.
“Sir, I am authorized to use force.”
“Don’t try it. On whose authority?”
“We don’t have a lot of time, sir.” The airman took a step forward. Webb instinctively turned to run but, looking into the whirling blizzard and the blackness beyond, immediately saw that such an action would be a lethal folly. He raised his hands in an angry gesture of surrender and furrowed his way through the snow back to his tent. The down-draught from the big rotor was threatening to flatten it and the guy ropes were straining at the pegs. Inside, the noise of the flapping canvas was deafening and the paraffin lamp was swaying dangerously. Papers were fluttering around the tent. He gathered them up, grabbed a laptop computer, turned off the lamp and ploughed back towards the lieutenant, tightly gripping papers and computer. The airman pointed towards
the white blizzard and the man ran forwards into it; under the big rotor, the downdraught was fierce, and he felt as if he was being freeze-dried. The airman shouted “Hold on!” and slipped a harness around him. Then Webb’s feet were off the ground and he was gripping the papers fiercely as the winch swung and spun them upwards through the gusting wind.
A Christmas tree, tied tightly, and with baubles attached, lay along the length of the machine. Half a dozen sacks with “Santa” in red letters lay on the floor. Two civilians, men in their fifties, were at the back of the helicopter. They were identically dressed in headphones, grey parkas and bright yellow lifejackets. Webb recognized one of them but couldn’t believe his eyes.
The airman pointed and he tottered to the front, flopping down on the chair behind the pilot. The wet sweater felt horrible against his skin.
The pilot turned. He had a red, farm-boy face and seemed even younger than his navigator. His helmet identified him as W.J. Tolman, and “Bill T.” was printed on the back of his flying suit.
Manley said, “It’s force eight out there, mister; we’re not supposed to fly in this. Put on the lifejacket!”
Webb looked out. Daylight was trying to penetrate the gloom. Across the glen, he could just make out sheets of snow marching horizontally against the backdrop of granite mountains. The top of the ridge opposite was hidden in dark, sweeping cloud. He began to feel faint.
The pilot pulled on the collective and the big machine rose sharply upwards. Webb’s stomach churned. Tolman looked over his shoulder. “What gives with this trip? Are you some sort of James Bond?”
The helicopter began to buck violently. Webb looked down and glimpsed his hurricane tent, a tiny black dot against the massive, white top of the Big Herdsman. Then the machine was roaring over the Lost Valley and they were rising bumpily
towards the Three Sisters. As it reached the summit it was hit by the unshielded force of the blizzard. It lurched and tilted on its side, throwing Webb against the fuselage. “Jesus Holy Mary Mother of Christ!” the pilot yelled. Then the helicopter had righted and was thrusting roughly into the wind, its wipers clicking in vain against a wall of white, while another wall, made of granite, skimmed past.
Webb stared out. His faintness had given way to terror. Below, white Highland peaks came and went through dark scudding clouds; and then they were passing along Loch Linnhe and the Sound of Mull; and then they were heading out over an ocean made of white churning milk; and the waves on the milk moved in slow stately progression; and they were bigger than houses.
The pilot turned again. “I was supposed to meet a nurse tonight,” he said accusingly. “Knockers like melons and game for anything. James bloody Bond on a secret mission I do not need. By the way, your pals from
SMERSH
are waiting.”
The young man made his way unsteadily to the back of the machine. “You don’t mind if I smoke, Webb?” asked the Astronomer Royal, lighting up a Sherlock Holmes pipe. He was buckled into a seat at a small circular table screwed into the metal floor. There was no telling what lay behind his blue eyes and Webb judged that the man on the chair next to him wasn’t an artless rustic either. He collapsed into a seat opposite, buckled in and put on the headphones in front of him.
“This is the fellow,” said the AR.
“Walkinshaw,” the stranger said. He looked like a headmaster, half-moon spectacles mounted on a grey skull-like head. It was a civil servant’s handshake: prudent, cautious, economical. The helicopter was into its stride, moving briskly if roughly about five hundred feet above the big waves. The civil servant glanced forward at the airmen; they too were wearing earphones.
“I expect you’re wondering what’s going on, Webb,” said the Astronomer Royal, unscrewing the lid of a flask.
“The question did flicker across my mind, Sir Bertrand,” said Webb angrily. “I have, after all, just been kidnapped.”
“Don’t exaggerate. The Sea King is transporting us to Skye.”
“Skye?”
“Skye. Where Walkinshaw and I will be dropped off. You, however, will continue on to Iceland.”
“Iceland?”
“Webb, try not to sound like a parrot. I am informed that we have only twenty minutes to brief you. Six of these have already gone.” A match flared and Webb waited while the King’s Astronomer got up more smoke. “Father smoked an ounce a day, lived to be ninety. Walkinshaw here is from some God Knows What department of the Foreign Office. Webb, we have a problem.”
“Just a moment, Sir Bertrand. Sorry to interrupt your Christmas vacation, Doctor Webb.” Walkinshaw nodded at the sheets of A4 paper, covered with handwritten mathematical equations, which the man was still unconsciously clutching. “Although you seem to be on a working holiday.”
“Will someone tell me what is going on here?” Webb said. He was trembling, through a compound of shock, fear, anger and cold. He folded the papers up and slipped them into his back pocket.
“First there are a couple of formalities. Number One.” Walkinshaw leaned forward and passed over a little plastic card. Webb held it towards the nearest window. There was a Polaroid photograph of the civil servant, looking like a funeral undertaker, over an illegible signature. Next to the photo was a statement that
W.M. Walkinshaw, Grade Six, whose photograph and signature are adjacent hereto, is employed by His Britannic Majesty’s Government in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department of Information Research.
Webb nodded warily and returned the card.
“And Number Two.” The civil servant reached into his briefcase again and handed over a sheet of paper. “An E.24, quite routine. If you would just sign there.”
The Astronomer Royal unzipped his parka. “It’s hot in here,” he said, holding out a pen. Webb ignored it and read
OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT
To be signed by members of Government Departments on appointment and, where desirable, by non-civil servants on first being given access to Government information.
My attention has been drawn to the provisions of the Official Secrets Act set out on the back of this document and I am fully aware of the serious consequences which may follow any breach of these provisions.
Webb felt the hairs prickling on the back of his head. On the back, he read that if any person having in his possession or control any secret official code word, password, sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, or information which relates to or is used in a prohibited place or any thing in such a place, or which has been made or obtained in contravention of this Act, or which has been entrusted in confidence to him by any person holding office under His Majesty or which he obtained or to which he has had access owing to his position as a person who holds or has held a contract made on behalf of His Majesty, or as a person who is or has been employed under a person who holds or has held such an office or contract, communicates . . . or uses . . . or retains . . . or fails to take reasonable care of, or so conducts himself as to endanger the safety of, the sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, secret official code or password or information, then that person shall be guilty of misdemeanour.
He handed it back unsigned.
The Astronomer Royal made no attempt to hide his annoyance; his teeth audibly tightened on his pipe. He returned the pen to an inside pocket, and glanced quickly at Walkinshaw. The latter nodded briefly.
Tolman’s voice cut sharply into the intercom: “Do not smoke. Put that pipe out immediately.”
Sir Bertrand continued to puff. Bleak Atlantic light from a window had turned his wrinkled face into a mountainous terrain. The helicopter was filling with blue smoke. He said, speaking carefully: “The Americans suspect that an asteroid has been clandestinely diverted on to a collision course with their country.”
Webb stared at him, aware of a sudden light-headedness as he struggled to take it in. “
What?
You could be talking a million megatons.”
“Webb, I’m aware that you think I’m just an establishment hack. However even I can multiply a mass by the square of its velocity.” Sir Bertrand pushed a little metal stubber into his pipe. “The Americans informed their NATO allies late last night—the Eastern bloc partners excepted of course—and the Foreign Office requested my assistance at four o’clock this morning. But as you know asteroids are not my field.”
“An asteroid like that would devastate half the planet. This has to be wrong.”
“If only.”
“Which asteroid?”
“You’re missing the point,” said the AR. “The idea is that you tell us.”
Webb tried to grasp what he had just been told. The AR and the civil servant watched him closely. “Okay, you’ve scared me. What you’re asking is insane. It would be easier to find a needle in a haystack.”
“Nevertheless it must be done and done quickly. The Americans will need to find some way of diverting it.”
“You must have some information about it.”
The AR shook his head. “None whatsoever. All we can say is that at some unknown future time it will manifest itself over American skies as a meteor of ferocious intensity.”
“An asteroid impact on North America could leave two hundred million dead. Suppose I fail, or make a wrong identification? I can’t take responsibility for that.”
“There is nobody else. And I would prefer a more respectful tone.”
Webb felt his mouth beginning to dry up. “I’m sorry, Sir Bertrand, but the moment I say yes, I’m swallowed up in God knows what. Get someone else.”
The Astronomer Royal’s voice dripped with acid. “I know this will sound absurdly quaint in this day and age, Webb, but there is the small matter of one’s obligations to humanity.”
“Hold on a minute. I went to Glen Etive for a reason.” He tapped his back pocket with the papers. “Listen. I’m on the verge of something. I think I can put some meat into general relativity. You know GR is just a phenomenology, it lacks a basis in physical theory, and that Sakharov conjectured . . .”
The Astronomer Royal’s tone was icy. “You were instructed not to spend time on speculative theoretical exercises.”
“I happen to be on leave, trying to do some real science for a change. You have a problem with an asteroid? Get someone else to look into it.”
The Astronomer Royal took the pipe from his mouth, his face wrinkling with angry disbelief. He made to speak but Walkinshaw quickly raised his hand. “Please, Bertrand.” The civil servant lowered his head, as if in thought. Then he leaned forward, to be heard above the engine. “Doctor Webb, I apologize for the melodramatic descent from the skies, but the fact is that we are engaged in a race, with an asteroid, which we must not lose.” The helicopter was tilting and Webb gripped the table. He sensed that his face was grey. “The
Americans are trying to put together a small team to look into this. They have specifically requested a British contribution. We do not know when impact will occur but it must be clear that time is vital. We must get you to New York instantly. As Sir Bertrand says, there is nobody else in this country.”