The spring of '76 ...
Viktor Shukshin was running close to broke. He had frittered away his inheritance from Mary Keogh-Snaith's estate on various business ventures which had fallen through; rates on the big house near Bonnyrigg were high; the money he made from his private tutoring was insufficient to keep him. He would sell the house but it had fallen into such a state of disrepair that it would no longer realise a high price; also, he needed the seclusion that the place gave him. To let some of the rooms would likewise diminish his privacy, and in any case the structural and decorative repairs necessary before any letting could even be considered were quite beyond his means.
His linguistic talent was not the only one he commanded, however, and so, over the period of the last few months, he had made several discreet trips into London to follow up and check out certain points of information he had acquired in the years he had been domiciled in the British Isles - information which should be worth a deal of money to certain very interested foreign parties.
In short, Viktor Shukshin was a spy - or at least, it had been intended that he should become one when Gregor Borowitz first sent him out of the USSR, in 1957. Of course, there had been a hardening of East-West relationships at that time - and a general hardening of Russia's policy towards her dissidents - so that it hadn't been too difficult for Shukshin to get into Great Britain in the guise of a political refugee.
After that, and especially after meeting, marrying murdering Mary Keogh, Shukshin had found himself so well-fixed that he had reneged on his Soviet boss and settled to actual citizenship. Still, he had not forgotten his original reason for coming to Great Britain, and as a hedge against the future had long since set about amassing information which might eventually be useful to his mother country. It was only recently, though, because of his financial difficulties, that he had begun to realise what a good position he was in. If the Soviets would not pay him the price he demanded for his information, then he could threaten them with the release to the British of his knowledge of a certain Russian organisation.
Which was why, this sparkling May morning, Shukshin had written a carefully coded letter to an old 'pen-friend' in Berlin - one who had not heard from him in over fifteen years, and had thought never to hear from him again - who would forward his letter through East Germany and on to Gregor Borowitz himself in Moscow. That letter was in the post even now, and Shukshin had just returned home in his battered Ford from the Bonnyrigg post office.
But coming across the river on the stone bridge that led to his driveway, Shukshin had been startled to feel in himself a strange churning which he'd at once recognised of old, a weird energy which turned his spine chilly and tugged at his hair like static electricity. On the bridge, leaning over the parapet and staring into the river's slow swirl, a slim young man in a scarf and overcoat had lifted his head and stared at Shukshin's car. His pale blue serious eyes had seemed to burn right through the car's bodywork, touching Shukshin with their cold gaze. And the Russian had known that the stranger was endowed with more than Nature's ordinary talents, that he commanded more than man's normal powers of perception.
He had known it absolutely, for Shukshin, too, was gifted. He was a 'spotter': his talent lay in the instant recognition of another ESP-endowed person.
As to who the youth could be, the significance of his appearing here at this time: there were several possibilities. It could be coincidence, an accidental meeting; this would not be the first time nor even the fiftieth that Shukshin had stumbled across such a person. But ESP came in a range of strengths and colours, and this one had been strong indeed and scarlet - a red-tinged cloud in Shukshin's mind. Or his presence here could be deliberate: he may have been sent here. The British branch must also have its spotters, and Shukshin may well have been detected and trailed. In the light of his recent trips to London - and what he had subsequently discovered of the British ESPionage branch - this theory was by no means far-fetched and sent something of a panic surging through him. Panic and more than panic. There was something else in Shukshin now, something he must control. Something which made his eyes narrow as he thought how easily he might have swerved his car to crush the stranger against the parapet wall. The emotion was hatred, the deep and abiding hatred he felt towards all ESPers.
His rage slowly subsided and he looked at his hands. The knuckles of his fingers were white where he gripped the edges of his desk. He forced himself to release his grip and sat back, breathing deeply. It was always this way, but he had learned how to control it - almost. But if only he had not sent that letter to Borowitz. That might have been a big mistake. Perhaps he should have offered his services direct to the British instead; perhaps he still should, and without delay. Before they could investigate him any further...
Such were his thoughts when the doorbell rang, because they were guilty thoughts he gave a violent start.
Shukshin's study was downstairs in a room to the rear of the house that opened through patio windows into its own courtyard. Now he stood up from his desk, passed from bright spring sunshine into gloom as he hurried through the ground floor rooms and corridors towards the front, and midway started again as the doorbell once more tore at his nerve-endings.
'I'm coming, I'm coming!' he called ahead - but he slowed down and came to a halt on the interior threshold of the long, glazed porch. Out there beyond the frosted glass stood a well-muffled figure which Shukshin knew at once: it was that of the young man from the bridge.
Shukshin knew it in two ways, one of which was simple observation and could be in error. The other way was more certain, as positive as a fingerprint: he felt again the surge of rare energy-fields and the heat of his instinctive hatred for all such ESP-talented men. Again a tide of panic and passion rose up in him, which he forcibly put down before moving to the door. Well, he had wondered about the stranger, hadn't he? Now it seemed that he was not to be kept in suspense. One way or the other he would soon discover what was going on here.
He opened the door...
'How do you do,' said Harry Keogh, smiling and extending his hand. 'You must be Viktor Shukshin, and I believe you give private tuition in German and Russian?'
Shukshin did not take Keogh's hand but simply stood and stared at him. For his own part, Harry stared back. And for all that he continued to smile, still his flesh crawled in the knowledge that he now stood face to face with his mother's murderer. He put the thought aside; for the moment it was sufficient to just look at the other and absorb what he could of this stranger who he intended to destroy.
The Russian was in his late forties but looked at least ten years older. He had a paunch and his dark hair was streaked with grey; his sideburns ran into a neatly trimmed, pointed beard beneath a fleshy mouth; his dark eyes were red-rimmed and deeply sunken in a face lined and grey. He did not appear in good health, but Keogh suspected that there was a dangerous strength in him. Also, his hands were huge, his shoulders broad for all that they were a little hunched, and if he had stood upright he would be well over six feet tall. All in all, he was a grotesquely impressive figure of a man. And (Keogh now allowed himself to remember) he was a murderer whose blood was cold as ice.
'Er, you do give language lessons, don't you?'
Shukshin's face cracked into something approaching a smile. A nervous tic tugged at the flesh at the corner of his mouth. 'Indeed I do,' he answered, his voice liquid and deep, retaining a trace of his native accent. 'I take it I was recommended? Who, er, sent you to me?'
'Recommended?' Keogh answered. 'No, not exactly. I've seen your ads in the papers, that's all. No one sent me.'
'Ah!' Shukshin was cautious. 'And you require lessons, is that it? Excuse me if I'm slow on the uptake, but no one seems much interested in languages these days. I have one or two regulars. That's about it. I can't really afford the time to take on anyone else just now. Also, I'm rather expensive. But didn't you get enough of them at school? Languages, I mean?'
'Not school,' Keogh corrected him, 'college.' He shrugged. 'It's the old story, I'm afraid: I had no time for it when it was free, and so now I'll have to pay for it. I intend to do a lot of travelling, you see. and I thought -'
'You'd like to brush up on your German, eh?'
'And my Russian.'
Alarm bells rang in Shukshin's mind, vying with the pressures already there. This was all false and he knew it. Also, there was more to this young man than some weird ESP talent. Shukshin had the odd feeling that he knew him from somewhere. 'Oh?' he finally said. 'Then you're a rare one. Not many Englishmen go to Russia these days, and fewer still want to learn the language! Is your visit to be business or - ?'
'Purely pleasure,' Keogh cut him off. 'May I come in?'
Shukshin didn't want him in the house, would greatly prefer to slam the door in his face. But at the same time he must find out about him. He stood aside and Keogh entered, and the door closing behind him sounded to him like a lid coming down on a coffin. He could almost feel the Russian's animosity, could almost taste his hatred. But why should Shukshin hate him? He didn't even know him.
'I didn't catch your name,' said the Russian, leading the way to his study.
Keogh was prepared for that. He waited a moment, following on the other's heels until they reached the airy study with its natural light flooding in through the patio windows, then said:
'My name is Harry. Harry Keogh... Stepfather.'
In front of him, Shukshin had almost reached his desk. Now he froze, poised for a moment as if turned to stone, then quickly turned to face his visitor. Keogh had expected a response something like this, but nothing quite so dramatic. The man's face had turned to chalk in the frame of his darker sideburns and beard. His jelly lips trembled with a mixture of fear, shock... and rage?
'What?' his voice was hoarse now, a gasp. 'What's that you say? Harry Keogh? Is this some kind of practical - ?'
But now he looked closer and knew why he had thought he'd known this youth before. He had been only a child then, but the features were the same. Yes, and his mother had had them before him. In fact, now that he knew who this was, the resemblance was remarkable. What was more, the boy seemed to have acquired something of her wild talent, too.
Her talent! The boy was a psychic, a medium, inherited from his mother! That was it! That was what Shukshin could detect in him - echoes of his mother's talent!
'Stepfather?' said Keogh, feigning concern. 'Are you all right?' He offered a hand but the other backed away from it into his desk. He clawed his way round the desk, flopped into his chair. 'It's a ... shock,' he said then. 'I mean seeing you, here, after all these years.' He got a grip of himself, sighed his relief and breathed more deeply, more freely. 'A great shock.'
'I didn't mean to startle you,' Keogh lied. 'I thought you'd be pleased to see me, to learn how well I'm doing. Also, I thought it was time I got to know you. I mean, you're the only real link I have with my past, my early childhood - my mother.'
'Your mother?' Shukshin immediately went on the defensive. His face was regaining a little of its former colour as he quickly composed himself. Obviously his fears that he'd been discovered by the British ESP Agency were unfounded. Keogh was simply paying him a belated visit, returning to his roots; he was genuinely interested in his past. But if that was so -
'Then what was all that rubbish about wanting to learn German and Russian?' he snapped. 'Was it really necessary to go through all that just to get to see me?'
'Oh,' Keogh answered with a shrug, 'yes, I admit that was just a ploy to get to see you - but it was in no way malicious. I just wanted to see if you'd recognise me before I told you who I was.' He kept the smile on his face. Shukshin was in control of himself again, his anger plain and making his face ugly. Now seemed a good time to drop a second bombshell. 'Anyway, I speak both German and Russian far more fluently than you ever could, stepfather. In fact, I could instruct you'
Shukshin prided himself on his linguistic ability. He could hardly believe his ears. What was this pup talking about, he could Instruct' him? Was he insane? Shukshin had been teaching languages since before Harry Keogh was born! The Russian's pride took precedence over his churning emotions and the hatred inside him which the presence of any ESPer invariably invoked.
'Hah!' he barked. 'Ridiculous! Why, I was born a Russian. I took honours in my mother tongue when I was just seventeen. I had a diploma in German before I was twenty. I don't know where you get your funny ideas, Harry Keogh, but they don't make much sense! Do you honestly think that a couple of GCEs can match the work of a lifetime? Or are you deliberately trying to annoy me?'
Keogh continued to smile, but it was now a smile with hard edges. He took a chair opposite Shukshin and smiled that hard smile right across the desk and into the other's scornful face. And he reached out his mind to an old friend of his, Klaus Grunbaum, an ex-POW who had married an English girl and settled in Hartlepool after the war. Grunbaum had died of a stroke in '55 and was buried in the Grayfields Estate cemetery. It made no difference that that was one hundred and fifty miles away! Now Grunbaum answered Harry, spoke to him - through him - spoke in a rapid, fluent German, directly across Viktor Shukshin's desk and into his face:
'And how's this for German, Stepfather? You'll probably recognise that this is how it's spoken around Ham burg.' Harry paused, and in the next moment changed
his/Grunbaum's accent: 'Or perhaps you'd prefer this? It's Hoch Deutsch, as spoken by the sophisticated elite, the gentry, and aped by the masses. Or would you like me to do something really clever - something grammatical, maybe? Would that convince you?'
'Clever,' Shukshin sneeringly admitted. His eyes had widened while Harry talked but now he narrowed them. 'A very clever exercise in dialectal German, yes, and quite fluent. But anyone could learn a few sentences like that parrot-fashion in half an hour! Russian is a different matter entirely.'
Keogh's grin grew tighter. He thanked Klaus Grunbaum and switched his mind elsewhere - to a cemetery in nearby Edinburgh. He'd been there recently to spend a little time with his Russian grandmother, dead some months before he'd been born. Now he found her again, used her to speak to his stepfather in his native tongue. With Natasha's unwavering command of the language, indeed with her mind, he commenced a diatribe on 'the failure of the repressive Communist system,' only pausing after several astonishing minutes when finally Shukshin cried:
'What is this, Harry? More rubbish learned parrot-fashion? What's the purpose of all this trickery?' But for all his bluster, still Shukshin's heart beat a little faster, a little heavier in his chest. The boy sounded so much like... like someone else. Someone he had detested.
Still using his grandmother's Russian but speaking now from his own mind, Keogh answered: 'Oh, and could I learn this parrot-fashion? Are you so blind that you can't see the truth when you meet it face to face? I'm a talented man, stepfather. More talented than you could possibly imagine. Far more talented than ever my poor mother was Shukshin stood up and leaned on his desk, and the
hatred washed out from him in a tide, seeming almost physically to break on Keogh like a wave. 'All right, so you're a clever young bastard!' he answered in Russian. 'So what? And that's twice you've mentioned your mother. What are you getting at, Harry Keogh? It's almost as if you were threatening me.'
Harry continued to use Shukshin's own tongue: 'Threatening? But why should I threaten you, stepfather? I only came to see you, that's all - and to ask a favour.'
'What? You try to make me look like a fool and then have the audacity to ask favours? What is it you want of me?'
It was time for the third bombshell. Keogh also got to his feet. 'I'm told that my mother loved to skate,' he said, his Russian still perfect. 'There's a river out there, down beyond the bottom of the garden. I'd like to come back in the winter and visit you again. Perhaps you'll be less excitable then and we'll be able to talk more calmly. And maybe I'll bring my skates and go on the frozen river, like my mother used to, down there where the garden ends.'
Once more ashen, Shukshin reeled, clutched at his desk. Then his eyes began to burn with hatred and his fleshy lips drew back from his teeth. He could no longer contain his anger, his hatred. He must strike this arrogant pup, knock him down. He must... must... must-
As Shukshin began to sidle round the desk towards him, Harry realised his danger and backed towards the door of the study. He wasn't finished yet, however. There was one last thing he must do. Reaching into his overcoat pocket, he drew something out. 'I've brought something for you,' he said, this time speaking in English. 'Something from the old days, when I was very small. Something that belongs to you.'
'Get out!' Shukshin snarled. 'Get out while you're still
one piece. You and your damned insinuations! You want to visit me again, in the winter? I forbid it! I want nothing more of you, step-brat! Go and make a fool of someone else. Go now, before - '
'Don't worry,' said Harry, 'I'm going, for now. But first - catch!' and he tossed something. Then he turned and walked through the door into the shadowy house and out of sight.
Shukshin automatically caught what he'd thrown, stared at it for a second. Then his mind reeled and he went to his knees. Long after he'd heard the front door slam he continued to stare at the impossible thing in his hand.
The gold was burnished as if brand new, and the solitary cat's-eye stone seemed to stare back at him in a cold speculation all its own...
From the air, the Chateau Bronnitsy seemed not to have changed a great deal from the old days. No one would guess that it housed the world's finest ESPionage unit, Gregor Borowitz's E-Branch, or that it was anything but a tottering old pile. But that was exactly the way Borowitz wanted it, and he silently complimented himself on work well planned and executed as his helicopter fanned low over the towers and rooftops of the place and down towards the tiny helipad, which was simply a square of whitewashed concrete emblazoned with a green circle, lying between a huddle of outbuildings and the chateau itself.
'Outbuildings,' yes - that is what they looked like from up here - old barns or sheds long fallen into disrepair and allowed to settle and crumble until they were little more than low humps of masonry dotted about the greater mass of the chateau. And this, too, was precisely to Borowitz's specifications. They were in fact defensive
positions, machine-gun posts, completely functional and fully efficient, giving them a total arc of fire to cover the entire open area between the chateau and its perimeter wall. Other pill-boxes had been built into the wall itself, whose external face could become an electrical barrier at the throw of a switch.
Second only to the space-base at Baikonur, E-Branch was now housed in one of the best-fortified installations in the USSR. Certainly it vied favourably with the joint atomic and plasma research station at Gargetya, lost in the Urals, whose chief asset was its isolation; but in one major aspect it was superior to both Baikonur and Gargetya: namely it was 'secret' in the fullest sense of the word. Apart from Borowitz's operatives, no one but a double-handful of men even suspected that the chateau in its present form existed, and of these only three or four knew that it housed E-Branch. One of these was the Premier himself, who had visited Borowitz here on several occasions; another, less happily, was Yuri Andropov, who had not visited and never would - not on Borowitz's invitation.
The helicopter settled to its pad and as its rotor slowed Borowitz slid back his door and swung out his legs. A security man, ducking low, ran in under the whirling vanes and helped him down. Clutching his hat, Borowitz let himself be assisted away from the aircraft and through an arched doorway into that area of the chateau which once had been the courtyard. Now it was roofed over and partitioned into airy conservatories and laboratories, where branch operatives might study and practise their peculiar talents in comparative comfort or whatever condition or environment best suited their work.
Borowitz had been late out of bed this morning, which was why he'd called for the branch helicopter to fly him in from his dacha. Even so, he was still an hour late for
his meeting with Dragosani. Passing through the outer complex of the chateau and into the main building, then up two flights of time-hollowed stone stairs into the tower where he had his office, he grinned wolfishly at the thought of Dragosani waiting for him. The necromancer was himself a stickler for punctuality; by now he would be furious. That was all to the good. His mind and tongue would be sharper than ever, setting the stage perfectly for his deflation. It did men good to be brought down now and then, an art in which Borowitz was past master. Taking off his hat and jacket as he went, finally Borowitz arrived at the second-floor landing and tiny anteroom which also served as an office for his secretary, where he found Dragosani pacing the floor and scowling darkly. The necromancer made no effort to alter his expression as his boss passed through with a breezy 'Good morning!' on the way to his own more spacious office. There he deftly kicked the door shut behind him, hung up his hat and jacket and stood scratching his chin for a moment or two as he pondered the best way to deliver the bad news. For in fact it was very bad news and Borowitz's temper was far shorter this morning than appearances might suggest. But as everyone who knew him was well aware, when the boss of E-Branch appeared in a good mood, that was usually when he was most deadly.
Borowitz's office was a spacious affair of great bay windows looking out and down from the tower's curving stone wall over rough grounds towards the distant woodland. The windows, of course, were of bullet-proof glass. The stone floor was covered in a fairly luxurious pile carpet, burned here and there from Borowitz's careless smoking habits, and his desk - a huge block of a thing in solid oak - stood in a corner where it had both the
protection of thick walls and the benefit of maximum light from the bays.
There he now seated himself, sighing a little and lighting a cigarette before pressing a button on his intercom and saying: 'Come in, Boris, will you? But do please see if you can leave your scowl out there, that's a good fellow...'
Dragosani entered, closing the door a little more forcefully than necessary, and crossed catlike to Borowitz's desk. He had 'left his scowl out there', and in its place presented a face of cold, barely disguised insolence. 'Well,' he said, 'I'm here.'
'Indeed you are, Boris,' Borowitz agreed, unsmiling now, 'and I believe I said good morning to you.'
'It was when I got here!' said Dragosani, tight-lipped. 'May I sit down?'
'No,' Borowitz growled, 'you may not. Nor may you pace, for pacing irritates me. You may simply stand there where you are and - listen -to- me!'
Never in his life had Dragosani been spoken to like that. It took the wind right out of his sails. He looked as if someone had slapped him. 'Gregor, I - ' he began again.
'What?' Borowitz roared. 'Gregor, is it? This is business, agent Dragosani, not a social call! Save your familiarity for your friends - if you've any left, with that snotty manner of yours - and not for your superiors. You're a long way off taking over the branch yet, and unless you get certain fundamentals sorted out in your hot little head you may never take it over at all!'
Dragosani, always pale, now turned paler still. 'I ... I don't know what's got into you,' he said. 'Have I done something?'
'You, done something?' now it was Borowitz's turn to scowl. 'According to your work sheets very little - not for
the last six months, anyway! But that's something we're going to remedy. Anyway, maybe you'd better sit down. I've quite a lot of talking to do and it's all serious stuff. Pull up a chair.'
Dragosani bit his lip, did as he was told.
Borowitz stared at him, toyed with a pencil, finally said: 'It appears we're not unique.'
Dragosani waited, said nothing.
'Not at all unique. Of course we've known for some time that the Americans were fooling about with extra sensory perception as an espionage concept - but that's
all it is, fooling about. They find it "cute". Everything is "cute" to the Americans. There's little of direction or purpose to anything they're doing in this field. With them it's all experimentation and no action. They don't take it seriously; they have no real field agents; they're playing with it in much the same way they played with radar before they came into World War Two - and look what that got them! In short, they don't yet trust ESP, which gives us a big lead on them. Huh! That makes a nice change.'
'This is not new to me,' said Dragosani, puzzled. 'I know we're ahead of the Americans. So what?'
Borowitz ignored him. 'The same goes for the Chinese,' he said. 'They've got some clever minds over there in Peking, but they aren't using them right. Can you imagine? The race that invented acupuncture doubting the efficacy of ESP? They're stuck with the same sort of mental block we had forty years ago: if it isn't a tractor it won't work!'
Dragosani kept silent. He knew he must let Borowitz get to the point in his own good time, t hen there's the French and the West Germans. Oddly enough, they're coming along quite well. We actually have some of their ESPers here in Moscow, field agents
working out of the embassies. They attend parties and functions, purely to see if they're able to glean anything. And occasionally we let them have titbits, stuff their orthodox intelligence agencies would pick up anyway, just to keep them in business. But when it comes to the big stuff - then we feed them rubbish, which dents their credibility and so helps us keep right ahead of them.'
Borowitz was bored now with toying with his pencil; he put it down, lifted his head and stared into Dragosani's eyes. His own eyes had taken on a bleak gleam. 'Of course,' he finally continued, 'we do have one gigantic advantage. We have me, Gregor Borowitz! That is to say, E-Branch answers to me and me alone. There are no politicians looking over my shoulder, no robot policemen spying on my spying, no ten-a-penny officials watching my expense account. Unlike the Americans I know that ESP is the future of intelligence gathering. I know that it is not "cute". And unlike the espionage bosses of the rest of the world I have developed our branch until it is an amazingly accurate and truly effective weapon in its own right. In this - in our achievements in this field -I had started to believe we were so far ahead that no one else could catch us. I believed we were unique. And we would be, Dragosani, we would be -if it were not for the British! Forget your Americans and Chinese, your Germans and your French; with them the science is still in its infancy, experimental. But the British are a different kettle of fish entirely
With the exception of the last, everything Dragosani had heard so far was old hat. Obviously Borowitz had received disturbing information from somewhere or other, information concerning the British. Since the necromancer rarely got to see or hear about the rest of Borowitz's machine, he was interested. He leaned for ward, said: 'What about the British? Why are you suddenly so concerned? I thought they were miles behind us, like all the rest.'
'So did I,' Borowitz grimly nodded, 'but they're not. I Which means I know far less about them than I thought I 1 knew. Which in turn means they may be even farther ahead. And if they really are good at it, then how much do they know about us? Even a small amount of knowledge about us would put them ahead. If there was a World War Three, Dragosani, and if you were a member of British Intelligence knowing about the Chateau Bronnitsy, where would you advise your airforce to drop its first bombs, eh? Where would you direct your first missile?'
Dragosani found this too dramatic. He felt driven to answer: 'They could hardly know that much about us. I work for you and I don't know that much! And I'm the one who always assumed he'd be the next head of the branch...'
Borowitz seemed to have regained something of hishumour. He grinned, however wrily, and stood up. 'Come,' he said. 'We can talk as we go. But let's you andme go see what we have here, in this old place. Let's have a closer look at this infant brain of ours, this nucleus. For it is still a child, be sure of it. A child now, yes, but the future brain behind Mother Russia's brawn.' And shirt-sleeves flapping, the stubby boss of E-Branch forged out of his office, Dragosani at his heels and almost trotting to keep pace.
They went down into the old part of the chateau, which Borowitz called 'the workshops'. This was a total security area, where each operative as he worked was watched over and assisted by a man of equal status within the branch. It might seem to be what the western world would call the 'buddy' system, but here in the chateau it was designed to ensure that no single operative could ever be sole recipient of any piece of information. And it
Borowitz's way of ensuring that he personally got to know everything of any importance.
Gone now the padlocks and security guards and KGB men. There were none of Andropov's lot here now, where Borowitz's own agents themselves took care of internal security on a rota system, and the doors to the ESP-cells were controlled electrically by coded keys contained in plastic cards. And only one master card, which of course was held by Borowitz himself.
In a corridor lit by blue fluorescent light, he now inserted that key in its slot and Dragosani followed him into a room of computer screens and wall charts, and shelf upon shelf of maps and atlases, oceanographical charts, fine-detail street plans of the world's major cities and ports, and a display screen upon which there came and went a stream of continually updated meteorological information from sources world-wide. This might be the anteroom of some observatory, or the air-controller's office in a small airport, but it was neither of these things. Dragosani had been here before and knew exactly what the room held, but it fascinated him anyway.
The two agents in the room had stirred themselves and stood up as Borowitz entered; now he waved them back to work and stood watching as they took their places at a central desk. Spread out before them was a complex chart of the Mediterranean, upon which were positioned four small coloured discs, two green and two blue. The green ones were fairly close together in the Tyrhennian Sea, mid-way between Naples and Palermo. One of the blue ones was in deep water three hundred miles east of Malta, the other was in the Ionian Sea off the Gulf of Taranto. Even as Borowitz and Dragosani watched, the two ESPers settled down again to their 'work', sitting at the desk with their chins in their hands, simply staring at the discs on the chart.
'Do you understand the colour code?' Borowitz hoarsely whispered.
Dragosani shook his head.
'Green is French, blue is American. Do you know what they're doing?'
'Charting the location and the movement of submarines,' said Dragosani, low-voiced.
'Atomic submarines,' Borowitz corrected him. 'Part of the West's so-called "nuclear deterrent". Do you know how they do it?'
Dragosani again shook his head, hazarded a guess: Telepathy, I suppose.'
Borowitz raised a bushy eyebrow. 'Oh? Just like that? Mere telepathy? You understand telepathy, then, do you, Dragosani? It's a new talent of yours, is it?'
Yes, you old bastard! Dragosani wanted to say. Yes, and if I wanted to, right now I could contact a telepath you just wouldn't believe! And I don't need to 'chart his course' because I know he isn't going anywhere! But out loud he said: 'I understand it about as much as they'd understand necromancy. No, I couldn't sit there like them and stare at a chart and tell you where killer subs are hiding or where they're going; but can they slice open a dead enemy agent and suck his secrets right out of his raw guts? Each to his own skills, Comrade General.'
As he spoke one of the agents at the desk gave a start, came to his feet and went to a wall screen depicting an aerial view of the Mediterranean as seen from a Soviet satellite. Italy was covered in cloud and the Aegean was uncharacteristically misty, but the rest of the picture was brilliantly clear, if flickering a little. The agent tapped keys on a keyboard at the base of the screen and a green spot of light simulating the location of the submarine to the east of Malta began to blink on and off. He tapped more keys and as he worked Borowitz said:
as Borowitz's way of ensuring that he personally got to know everything of any importance.
Gone now the padlocks and security guards and KGB men. There were none of Andropov's lot here now, where Borowitz's own agents themselves took care of internal security on a rota system, and the doors to the ESP-cells were controlled electrically by coded keys contained in plastic cards. And only one master card, which of course was held by Borowitz himself.
In a corridor lit by blue fluorescent light, he now inserted that key in its slot and Dragosani followed him into a room of computer screens and wall charts, and shelf upon shelf of maps and atlases, oceanographical charts, fine-detail street plans of the world's major cities and ports, and a display screen upon which there came and went a stream of continually updated meteorological information from sources world-wide. This might be the anteroom of some observatory, or the air-controller's office in a small airport, but it was neither of these things. Dragosani had been here before and knew exactly what the room held, but it fascinated him anyway.
The two agents in the room had stirred themselves and stood up as Borowitz entered; now he waved them back to work and stood watching as they took their places at a central desk. Spread out before them was a complex chart of the Mediterranean, upon which were positioned four small coloured discs, two green and two blue. The green ones were fairly close together in the Tyrhennian Sea, mid-way between Naples and Palermo. One of the blue ones was in deep water three hundred miles east of Malta, the other was in the Ionian Sea off the Gulf of Taranto. Even as Borowitz and Dragosani watched, the two ESPers settled down again to their 'work', sitting at the desk with their chins in their hands, simply staring at the discs on the chart.
'Do you understand the colour code?' Borowitz hoarsely whispered.
Dragosani shook his head.
'Green is French, blue is American. Do you know what they're doing?'
'Charting the location and the movement of submarines,' said Dragosani, low-voiced.
'Atomic submarines,' Borowitz corrected him. 'Part of the West's so-called "nuclear deterrent". Do you know how they do it?' Dragosani again shook his head, hazarded a guess:
'Telepathy, I suppose.'
Borowitz raised a bushy eyebrow. 'Oh? Just like that? Mere telepathy? You understand telepathy, then, do you, Dragosani? It's a new talent of yours, is it?'
Yes, you old bastard! Dragosani wanted to say. Yes, and if I wanted to, right now I could contact a telepath you just wouldn't believe! And I don't need to "chart his course' because I know he isn't going anywhere! But out loud he said: 'I understand it about as much as they'd understand necromancy. No, I couldn't sit there like them and stare at a chart and tell you where killer subs are hiding or where they're going; but can they slice open a
dead enemy agent and suck his secrets right out of his raw guts? Each to his own skills, Comrade General.'
As he spoke one of the agents at the desk gave a start, came to his feet and went to a wall screen depicting an aerial view of the Mediterranean as seen from a Soviet satellite. Italy was covered in cloud and the Aegean was uncharacteristically misty, but the rest of the picture was brilliantly clear, if flickering a little. The agent tappedkeys on a keyboard at the base of the screen and a green spot of light simulating the location of the submarine to the east of Malta began to blink on and off. He tapped more keys and as he worked Borowitz said:
'That Froggie sub has just changed course. He's putting the new course co-ordinates into the computer. He isn't much on accuracy, however, but in any case we'll be getting confirmation from our satellites in an hour or so. The point is, we had the information first. These men are two of our best.'
'But only one of them picked up the course alteration,' Dragosani commented. 'Why didn't the other?'
'See?' said Borowitz. 'You don't know it all, do you, Dragosani? The one who "picked it up" isn't a telepath at all. He's simply a sensitive - but what he's sensitive to is nuclear activity. He knows the location of every atomic power station, every nuclear waste dumping ground, every atomic bomb, missile and ammo dump, and every atomic submarine in the world - with one big exception. I'll get on to that in a minute. But locked in that man's mind is a nuclear "map" of the world, which he reads as clearly as a Moscow street map. And if something moves on that map of his it's a sub - or it's the Americans shuffling their rockets around. And if something begins to move very quickly on that map, towards us, for instance...' Borowitz paused for effect, and after a moment continued:
'It's the other one who's the telepath. Now he'll concentrate on that single sub, see if he can sneak into its navigator's mind, try to correct any error in the course his partner has just set up on the screen. They get better every day. Practice makes perfect.'
If Dragosani was impressed, his expression didn't register it. Borowitz snorted, moved towards the door, said: 'Come on, let's see some more.'
Dragosani followed him out into the corridor. 'What is it that's happened, Comrade General?' he asked. 'Why are you filling me in on all these fine details now?'
Borowitz turned to him. 'If you more fully understand
what we have here, Dragosani, then you'll be better equipped to appreciate the sort of outfit they might have in England. Emphasis on might. At least, the emphasis used to be on might...'
He suddenly grabbed Dragosani's arms and pinioned
them to his sides, saying: 'Dragosani, in the last eighteen months we haven't had a single British Polaris sub on those screens in there. We just don't know where they go or what they do. Oh, the shielding's good on their engines, no doubt about it, and that would explain why our satellites can't track them - but what about our sensitive in there? What about our telepaths?' Dragosani shrugged, but not in a way that might cause
offence. He was genuinely mystified, no less than his
boss. 'You tell me,' he said.
Borowitz released him. 'What if the British have got ESPers in their E-Branch who can blank out our boys as easy as a scrambler on a telephone? For if that's the case, Dragosani, then they really are ahead!' 'Do you think it's likely?'
'Now I do, yes. It would explain a lot of things. As to what it is that's brought all this to a head - I've had a letter from an old friend of mine in England. I use the term loosely. When we go back upstairs I'll tell you all about it. But first let me introduce you to a new member of our little team. I think you'll find him very interesting.' Dragosani sighed inwardly. His boss would eventually arrive at the matter in hand, the necromancer knew that. It was just that he was so devious in everything he did, including coming to a point. So ... better to relax and suffer in silence, and let things happen in Borowitz's own good time.
Now he let the older man usher him in through another door and into a cell considerably larger than the last. Little more than a week ago this had been a storeroom,
Dragosani knew, but now there had been a number of changes. The place was much more airy, for one thing; windows had been let into the far wall and looked out just above basement level onto the grounds of the chateau. Also, a good ventilation system had been installed. To one side, in a sort of anteroom just off the main cell, a mini-operating theatre had been set up such as was used by veterinary surgeons; and indeed about the walls of both rooms, small cages stood on steel shelves and displayed a variety of captive animals. There were white mice and rats, various birds, even a pair of ferrets.
Talking to these creatures as he moved from cage to cage, a white-smocked figure not more than five feet three or four chuckled and joked and called them pet names, tickling them where he could with his stubby fingers through the bars. As Dragosani and Borowitz approached, he turned to face them. The man was slant-eyed, his skin a light yellowy-olive colour. Heavy-jowled, still he managed to look jolly; when he smiled his entire face seemed wreathed in wrinkles, out of which incredibly deep green eyes sparkled with a life of their own. He bowed from the waist, first to Borowitz and then to Dragosani. When he did so the ring of fluffy brown hair round the bald dome of his head looked for all the world like a halo which had slipped a little. There was something monkish about him, thought Dragosani; he would exactly suit a brown cassock and slippers.
'Dragosani,' said Borowitz, 'meet Max Batu, who claims he can trace his blood right back to the Great Khans.'
Dragosani nodded and reached out a hand. 'A Mongol,' he said. 4I suppose they can all trace their blood back to the Khans.'
'But I really can, Comrade Dragosani,' said Batu, his voice soft as silk. He took Dragosani's hand, gave it a firm shake. 'The Khans had many bastards. So as not to be usurped, they gave these illegitimates wealth but no position, no power, no rank. Without rank they could not aspire to the throne. Also, they were not allowed to take wives or husbands. If they in their turn did manage to produce offspring, the same strictures were placed upon them. The old ways have come down the years. When I was born they still obey the old laws. My grandfather was a bastard, and my father, and so am I. Where I have a child, it too will be a bastard. Yes, and there is more than this in my blood. Among the Khans' bastards were great shamans. They knew things, those old wizards. They could do things.' He shrugged. 'I do not know a lot, for all that I am told I am more intelligent than others of my race - but there are certain things I can do...'
'Er, Max has a very high IQ,' said Borowitz, smiling wolfishly. 'He was educated in Omsk, opted out of civilisation and went back to Mongolia to herd goats. But then he had an argument with a jealous neighbour andkilled him.'
'He accused me of putting a spell on his goats,' Batuexplained, 'so that they died. I could have done it, certainly, but I did not. I told him so but he called me a liar. That is a very bad thing in those parts. So I killed him.'
'Oh?' Dragosani tried hard not to smile. He couldn't imagine this inoffensive little fellow killing anyone.
'Yes,' said Borowitz. 'I read about it and was interested in the, er, nature of the murder. That is, in the method Max employed.'
'His method?' Dragosani was enjoying this. 'He threatened his neighbour, who at once laughed himself to death! Is that it?'
'No, Comrade Dragosani,' Batu answered for himself,
his smile fixed now, square teeth gleaming yellow as ivory, 'that was not how it happened. But your suggestion is very, very amusing.'
'Max has the evil eye, Boris,' said Borowitz, dropping the surname at last; which in itself would normally warn Dragosani that something unpleasant was coming. Warning bells did ring, but not quite loudly enough.
'The evil eye?' Dragosani tried to look serious. He even managed to frown at the little Mongol.
'Precisely,' Borowitz nodded. 'Those green eyes of his. Did you ever see such a green, Boris? They are purest poison, believe me! I intervened in the trial, of course; Max was not sentenced but came to us instead. In his way he's as unique as you are. Max - ' he spoke directly to the Mongol ' - could you give Comrade Dragosani something by way of a demonstration?'
'Certainly,' said Batu. He fixed Dragosani with his eyes. And Borowitz was right: they were absolutely exquisite in their depth, in the completely solid nature of their substance. It was as if they were made of jade, with nothing of flesh about them. And now the warning bells rang a little louder.
'Comrade Dragosani,' said Batu, 'observe please the white rats.' He pointed a stubby finger at a cage containing a pair of the animals. 'They are happy creatures, and so they should be. She - on the left - is happy because she is well fed and has a mate. He is happy for the same reasons, also because he has just had her. See how he lies there, a little spent?'
Dragosani looked, glanced at Borowitz, raised an eyebrow.
'Watch!' Borowitz growled, his own eyes fixed firmly on what was happening.
'First we attract his attention,' said Batu - and immediately he fell into a grotesque crouch, resembling nothing so much as a great squat frog where he confronted the cage half-way across the room. The male rat at once sprang upright, its pink eyes wide in terror. It made a leap at the bars of its cage, clung there staring at Batu. 'And then -' said the Mongol' - then - we - kill?
Batu had squatted even lower, almost in the stance of a Japanese wrestler before the charge. Dragosani, standing side-on to him, saw his expression change. His right eye seemed to bulge outward until it almost left its orbit; his lips drew back from his teeth in an utterly animal snarl of sheer bestiality; his nostrils gaped into yawning black pits in his face and great cords of sinew stood out on his neck and up under his jaw. And the rat screamed!
It screamed - an almost human scream of terror and agony - and vibrated against the bars as if electrocuted, then it released its hold, shuddered, flopped over on to its back on the floor of the cage. There it lay perfectly still, blood seeping from the corners of its glazed, bulging pink eyes. The rat was quite dead, Dragosani knew it for a certainty, without closer examination. The female scurried forward and sniffed the corpse of her mate, then peered out through the bars uncertainly at the three human beings.Dragosani did not know how or why the male rat had died. The words which now sprang to his lips were more a question than a statement of fact or any sort of accusation: 'It... it has to be a trick!'
Borowitz had expected that; it was typical of Dragosani leap before looking, to rush in where angels might well fear to tiptoe. The boss of E-Branch stepped well back as
Batu, still crouching, swivelled to face the necromancer.
The Mongol was smiling again, holding his head questioningly on one side. 'A trick?' he said. 'I meant only -' Dragosani hastily began.
'That is almost the same as calling me a liar,' said Batu - and his face at once underwent its monstrous transformation. Now Dragosani got the full frontal view of what Borowitz had termed 'the evil eye'. And without the slightest shadow of a doubt it was evil! It was as if Dragosani's blood congealed in his veins. He felt his muscles stiffening, as if rigor mortis were already setting in. His heart gave a massive lurch in his chest, and its pain caused him to cry out and sent him staggering. But the necromancer's reflexes were lightning itself.
Even as he reeled back against the wall his hand slid inside his jacket, came out grasping his pistol. He now knew - or at least thought - that this man could kill him. And survival was uppermost in Dragosani's mind. Quite simply, he must kill the Mongol first.
Borowitz stepped between them. 'That's enough!' he snapped. 'Dragosani, put it away!'
'That bastard almost finished me!' the necromancer gasped, his body trembling with reaction. He tried to move Borowitz out of his line of fire but the older man was like stone.
'I said that's enough? he repeated. 'What, would you shoot your partner?'
'My what?' Dragosani couldn't believe his ears. 'My partner? I don't need a partner. What sort of partner? Is this some sort of joke?'
Borowitz reached out a hand and carefully took Dragosani's gun. 'There,' he said. 'That's better. And now we can go back to my office.' On their way out, as he herded a shaken Dragosani before him, he turned to the Mongol and said: 'Thank you, Max.'
'My pleasure,' said the other, his face once more wreathed in a smile. He bowed from the waist as Borowitz closed the door on him.
Out in the corridor Dragosani was furious. He snatched back his gun and put it away. "You and your damned weird sense of humour!' he snarled. 'Man, I nearly died in there!'
'No you didn't,' Borowitz seemed unperturbed, 'not even nearly. If you had a weak heart it would have killed you, just as it killed his neighbour. Or if you were old and infirm. But you're young and very strong. No, no, I knew he couldn't kill you. He himself told me that he couldn't kill a strong man. It takes a lot out of him to do what he does, so much indeed that he would be the one to die, not you, if he really tried it on. So you see, I had faith in your strength.'
'You had faith in my strength? You crazy old sadist -and what if you'd been wrong?'
'But I wasn't wrong,' said Borowitz, starting back the way they had come.
Dragosani wouldn't be placated. He still felt shaken, weak at the knees. Staggering after Borowitz, he said: 'What happened back there was a deliberate set-up and you bloody well know it!'
His boss whirled and pointed directly at Dragosani's chest. His grin was savage as a snarl. 'But now you believe, yes? Now you have seen and you have felt. Now you know what he can do! You no longer think it's a trick. It's a new talent, Dragosani, and one we haven't seen before. And who's to say what other talents there are throughout the world, eh?'
'But why did you let me - no, make me - go up against something like that? It makes no sense.'
Borowitz turned and hurried on. 'It makes lots of sense. It's practice, Dragosani, and like I'm always telling you-'
'Practice makes perfect, I know. But practice for what?'
'I only wish I knew,' Borowitz tossed over his shoulder. 'Who can say what you'll come up against - in England!'
'What?' Dragosani's jaw dropped. He chased after the older man. 'England? What about England? And you still haven't told me what you meant when you said Batu was my partner. Gregor, I don't understand any of this.'
They had reached Borowitz's offices. Borowitz swept through the anteroom and turned on his heel just across the threshold of his private room. Dragosani came to a halt facing him, stared at him accusingly. 'What is it you've got up your sleeve - Comrade?'
'So you're still accusing people of trickery, eh, Boris?' said the other. 'Will you never learn your lesson the first time around? I don't need to resort to trickery, my friend. I give orders, and you obey! This is my next order: you're going back to school for a few months to brush up on your English. Not only the language but the entire English system. That way you'll fit better into the embassy over there. Max will go with you - and I'll bet he learns faster, too. After that, when we've made certain arrangements -a little field trip...'
'To England?'
'Exactly. You and your partner. There's a man over there called Keenan Gormley, Ex-MI5. "Sir" Keenan Gormley, no less. Now he's the boss of their E-Branch. I want him dead! That's Max's job, for Gormley has a bad heart. After that -'
Dragosani saw it all now. 'You want him "interrogated",' he said. 'You want him emptied of secrets. You want to know all about him and his E-Branch down to the last detail.'
'Right first time,' Borowitz gave a sharp nod of his head. 'And that's your job, Boris. You're the necromancer, inquisitor of the dead. It's what you get paid for...'
And before Dragosani could answer, completely expressionless for once, Borowitz closed the door in his face.
A Saturday evening in the early summer of 1976. Sir Keenan Gormley was relaxing with a book in his study at home in South Kensington, an after-dinner drink on the
occasional table before him, when the telephone rang in the house proper. He heard it, and a few moments later his wife's voice calling: 'Darling, it's for you.'
'Coming!' he called, and sighing put down his book and went through. As he took the telephone from her, his wife gave him a smile and returned to her own reading. Gormley carried the telephone to a wicker chair and sat down before glass doors which stood open on a large, secluded garden. 'Gormley here?' he said into the mouthpiece.
'Sir Keenan? This is Harmon. Jack Harmon in Hartlepool. How's the world been treating you ail these years?'
'Harmon? Jack! How the devil are you!? My God! How long's it been. It must be twelve years at least!'
'Thirteen,' came the answer, tinny with the effects of static. 'Last time we spoke was at that dinner they threw for you when you left "shhh! - you know who!" And that was back in 'sixty-three.'
'Thirteen years!' Gormley breathed, amazed. 'Where does time go to, eh?'
'Where indeed? Retirement hasn't killed you off, then?'
Gormley chuckled dryly. 'Ah! Well, I only half-retired, as I believe you know. I still do this and that in the city. And you - are you still stout as ever? I seem to remember you'd got yourself the head's job at Hartlepool Tech?'
That's right, and I'm still there. Headmaster? - Christ, it was easier in Burma!'
Gormley laughed out loud. 'It's very good to hear from you again, Jack, especially since you seem in such good health. Now then, what can I do for you?'
There was something of a pause before Harmon finally answered: 'Actually, I feel a bit of a fool. I've been on the point of calling you several times in the last week or so, but always changed my mind. It's such a damned strange business!'
Gormley was at once interested. He'd been dealing with 'strange businesses' for many years now. His own fine-tuned talent told him that something new was about to break, and maybe it was something big. His scalp tingled as he answered: 'Go on, Jack, what is it? And don't worry that I may think it daft. I remember you for a very level-headed chap.'
'Yes, but this is very - you know - difficult to put into words. I mean, I'm close to this thing, I've seen it with my own eyes, and yet -'
'Jack,' Gormley was patient, 'do you remember the night of that dinner, how you and I got talking afterwards? I'd had quite a bit to drink that night - too much, maybe - and I seem to remember mentioning things I shouldn't have. It was just that you seemed so well-placed - I mean, as a headmaster and all...'
'But that's exactly why I'm calling you now!' Harmon answered. 'Because of that chat of ours. How on earth could you possibly know that?'
Gormley chuckled. 'Call it intuition,' he said. 'But do go on.'
'Well, you said that I'd be seeing a lot of youngsters pass through my hands, and I should keep my eyes open for any that I thought were rather... special.'
Gormley licked his lips, said: 'Hang on a moment, Jack, there's a good chap.' He called out to his wife, 'Jackie, be a love and fetch me my drink, would you?' And to the telephone: 'Sorry, Jack, but I'm suddenly quite dry. And now you've found a kid who's a bit different, have you?'
'A bit? Harry Keogh's a lot different, you can take my word for it! Frankly, I don't know what to make of him.'
'Well then, tell me and let's see what I can make of him.'
'Harry Keogh,' Harmon began, 'is ... one hell of a weird fellow. He was first brought to my attention by a teacher at the boys' school in Harden a little farther up the coast. At that time he was described to me as an "instinctive mathematician". In fact he was a near genius! Anyway, he sat a form of examination and passed it -hell, he flew through it! - and so came to the Tech. But his English was terrible. I used to get on to him about it ...
'Anyway, when I spoke to this fellow up at Harden -the young teacher, I mean, a fellow called George Hannant - I somehow got the impression that he didn't like Keogh. Or maybe that's a bit strong; maybe Keogh simply made him uneasy. Well, I've recently had cause to speak to Hannant again, and that's how the whole thing came to light. By that I mean that Hannant's observations of five years ago match mine exactly. He too, at that time, believed that Harry Keogh... that he...'
'That he what?' Gormley urged. 'What's this lad's talent, Jack?'
Talent? My God! That's not how I would describe it.'
'Well?'
'Let me tell it my way. It's not that I'm shy of my conclusions, you understand, just that I believe the evidence should be heard first. I've said that Keogh's English was bad and I used to urge him to do better. Well, he improved rapidly. Before he left the school two years ago he'd sold his first short story. Since then there have been two books full of them. They've sold right across the English-speaking world! It's a bit off-putting to say the least! I mean, I've been trying to sell my stories for thirty years, and here's Keogh not yet nineteen, and - '
'And is that your concern?' Gormley cut him off. 'That he's become a successful author so young?'
'Eh? Heavens, no! I'm delighted for him. Or at least I was. I still would be if only ... if only he didn't write the damn things that way...'He paused.
'What way?'
'He ... he has, well, collaborators.'
Something about the way Hannant said the last word made Gormley's scalp tingle again. 'Collaborators? But surely a lot of writers have collaborators? At eighteen years of age I imagine he probably needs someone to tidy his stuff up for him, and so on.'
'No, no,' said the other, with an edge to his voice that hinted of frustration, of wanting to say something outright but not knowing how to. 'No, that's not what I meant at all. Actually, his short stories don't need tidying up -they're all jewels. I myself typed the earliest of them for him, from the rough work, because he didn't have a machine. I even typed up a few after he'd bought a typewriter, until he got the idea of how a good manuscript should look. Since then he's done it all himself - until recently. His new work, which he's just completed, is a novel. He's called it, of all things, Diary of a Seventeenth-century Rake!'
Gormley couldn't suppress a chuckle. 'So he's sexually precocious too, is he?'
'Actually, I think he is. Anyway, I've worked with him quite a bit on the novel, too: that is, I've arranged it into chapters for him and generally tidied it up. Nothing wrong with Keogh's history or his use of the seventeenth-century language - in fact it's amazingly accurate - but his spelling is still atrocious and on this book at least he was repetitive and disjointed. But one thing I can promise you: it will earn him an awful lot of money!'
Now Gormley frowned. 'How can his short stories be "jewels" while his novel is repetitive and disjointed Does that follow logically?'
'Nothing follows logically in Keogh's case. The reason the novel differs from the shorter works is simple: his collaborator on the shorts was a literary type who knew what he was doing, whereas his collaborator for the novel was quite simply ... a seventeenth-century rake!'
'Eh?' Gormley was startled. 'I don't follow.'
'No, I don't suppose you do. I wish to God I didn't! Listen: there was a very successful writer of short stories who lived and died in Hartlepool thirty years ago. His real name doesn't matter but he had three or four pseudonyms. Keogh uses pseudonyms very close to the originals.'
'The "originals"? I still don't -'
'As for the seventeenth-century rake: he was the son of an earl. Very notorious in these parts between 1660 and 1672. Finally an outraged husband shot him dead. He wasn't a writer, but he did have a vivid imagination! These two men... they are Keogh's collaborators!'
Gormley's scalp was crawling now. 'Go on,' he said.
'I've talked to Keogh's girlfriend,' Harmon continued. 'She's a nice kid and dotes on him. And she won't hear a word against him. But in conversation she let it slip that he has this idea about something called a necroscope. It's something he presented to her as fiction, a figment of his own imagination. A necroscope, he told her, is someone -'
' - who can look in on the thoughts of the dead?' Gormley cut in.
'Yes,' the other sighed his relief. 'Exactly.'
'A spirit medium?'
'What? Why, yes, I suppose you could say that. But a real one, Keenan! A man who genuinely talks to the
dead! I mean, it's monstrous! I've actually seen him sitting there, writing - in the local graveyard!'
'Have you told anyone else?' Gormley's voice was sharp now. 'Does Keogh know what you suspect?'
'No.'
'Then don't breathe another word about this to a soul. Do you understand?'
'Yes, but -'
'No buts, Jack. This discovery of yours might be very important indeed, and I'm delighted you got in touch with me. But it must go no farther. There are people who could use it in entirely the wrong way.'
'You believe me, then, about this terrible thing?' the other's relief was plain. *I mean, is it even possible?'
'Possible, impossible - the longer I live the more I wonder just what might or mightn't be! Anyway, I can understand your concern, and it's right that you should be concerned. But as for this being "a terrible thing": I'm afraid I have to reserve my judgement on that. If you are correct, then this Harry Keogh of yours has a terrific talent. Just think how he might use it!'
'I shudder to think!'
'What? And you a headmaster? Shame on you, Jack!'
'I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure I - '
'But wouldn't you yourself like the chance to talk to the greatest teachers, theorists and scientists of all time? To Einstein, Newton, Da Vinci, Aristotle?'
'My God!' the voice at the other end of the line almost choked. 'But surely that would be -I mean, quite literally - utterly impossible!'
'Yes, well you just keep believing that, Jack, and forget all about this conversation of ours, right?'
'But you -'
'Right, Jack?'
'Very well. What do you intend to - ?'
'Jack, I work for a very queer outfit, a very funny crowd. And even telling you that much is to tell you too much. However, you have my word that I'll look into this thing. And I want your word that this is your last word on it to anyone.'
'Very well, if you say so.'
Thanks for calling.'
'You're welcome. I - '
'Goodbye, Jack. We must talk again some time.'
'Yes, goodbye...'
Thoughtfully, Gormley put the phone down.