“You're hurt,” said Jonnie.
“No, no, it's nothing. A Drawkin officer wouldn't surrender. I had to chase him with a marine attack plane! Imagine it, him on foot running up the side of a mountain, Ben Lomond, and me having to stun him, not kill him, just stun him, mind you, with a blast cannon! And then when I landed and got out, he was just playing dead and he shot me and I had to stun him again with a handgun. Oh, laddie, it has been a wild time!”
“What have you been demanded Jonnie, making no sense of it.
“Catching prisoners! They left marines and pilots scattered around the Singapore site, some wounded, some not. They didn't bother to pick up their wounded in Russia. Dunneldeen must have shot down thirty enemy planes around Edinburgh and pilots that ejected are scattered to the west and in the
Highlands. It takes some doing, let me tell you, to pick them up. They think they'll be tortured or sprinkled with virus or killed. And they don't surrender easily!”
“All by yourself?”
“Except for half-a-dozen bank guards. And they're French, Jonnie. They're not soldiers. They can maybe guard a vault or carry valuables-”
"Stormalong, I had radios in all those places! You must have had your set on. People must have seen you!” None of it made any sense to Jonnie.
“It’s MacAdam, Jonnie. He wouldn't let me answer. And anybody we saw, he told them they mustn't put on the air they'd seen us. I told him you would be worried. But he said, no, no. Radio silence utterly and absolutely! I am sorry, Jonnie.”
With careful patience, Jonnie said, “Begin at the beginning. Did you deliver the copies of the talk I had with the small gray men?”
Stormalong sank down on an ammunition box. He verified they were out of sight and hearing of everyone. “I got there about dawn and I went right to MacAdam's bedroom, and when he heard I was from you, he put the whole thing on a projector. Then he called the German and grabbed six bank guards and a whole basketload of Galactic bank notes, and he told a girl in his office not to give out any information at all and we got airborne. He just plain kidnapped me!
“We've been to every battleground looking for officers. He had a list of nationalities and he wanted several of each. Jonnie, those French bank guards are no help! I had to do all the flying and fighting. But I did get some rest. Every time we'd collect some officers...did you know both he and the German speak excellent Psychlo? I was surprised they'd been studying so hard...they'd interrogate them and I’d get a couple of hours of catnap. Then we'd load the prisoners aboard, all tied up...the bank guards could sit there with a gun on them...and off we'd go to another location.”
“What was he asking them?”
“Oh, I don't know. He didn't use torture. Sometimes he handed out a fistful of Galactic bank notes. They talked.”
Jonnie looked out the bunker entrance at the plane. There were the bank guards all right. They were dressed in gray uniforms. But they weren't pushing prisoners. They were unloading boxes and some Chinese were bringing up some mine carts and rushing loads into the bowl. “I don't see any prisoners,” said Jonnie.
“Oh, well,” said Stormalong, “we came back to Luxembourg and picked up some boxes and he got a couple more bank guards– Germans this time-and we flew down to the Victoria minesite. I got a pretty good rest there because he spent so much time talking to the captives we already had there. Then we dumped out prisoners and came on and here we are. And that's the whole thing.”
It was a long way from the whole thing, Jonnie thought. He told Stormalong to go get some food and rest and went out to find the banker.
MacAdam, short and stocky, his black beard flecked with gray, was pointing this way and that and rushing people along. He stopped abruptly when he saw Jonnie and shook his hand vigorously. Then he turned and beckoned another man to come over.
“I don't believe you ever met Baron von Roth,” said MacAdam, “the other member of the Earth Planetary Bank.”
The German was a huge man, as tall as Jonnie and heavier. He was bluff and hearty, red of face. "Ach, but I am pleased!” he bellowed and promptly gave Jonnie a huge hug.
MacAdam had vanished into the bowl and the German picked up a heavy box and rushed after him.
Jonnie knew something of the German. Although he had made a fortune in dairy and other foodstuffs, he was descended from a family that was supposed to have controlled European banking for centuries before the Psychlo invasion. He looked like a very tough, capable man.
The last of the baggage from the marine attack plane was being wheeled into the entrance. Jonnie couldn't figure out what they were up to.
Inside, a crew of Chinese and some bank guards, under the direction of Chong-won, were hanging huge mine tarpaulins all around the pagoda eaves to completely hide the firing platform itself. Some more Chinese were stringing mine cables and hanging tarps on them to make a covered passage from a bunker to the console. They were totally hiding the platform and all operation of it.
MacAdam was talking with Angus, and although they smiled at him when Jonnie came up, MacAdam was very rushed and he said, “Later, later.”
All the baggage had vanished into the covered bunker. The Chinese children and dogs were all gone. Some Chinese were cleaning the bowl up. Some emissaries wandered out and watched what was happening with the tarpaulins and then, showing little curiosity, wandered off showing each other bits and points in the brochure.
Dunneldeen was on the job in the ops room and told Jonnie that he'd talked Stormalong into getting his beard trimmed like “Sir Francis Drake.” No, nothing new from Edinburgh except that the North Chinese now working there were doing fine. Did Jonnie know they were much bigger men? Oh, yes, and Ker and two bank guards were holding blast rifles on fifty new prisoners at Victoria.
Jonnie glanced up at the sky. If worse came to worst, he had his own way to handle this: a way which might make a fatal future but which might have to be done.
He went to his room to get into less spectacular clothes. They had a few short days. But days had a habit of passing awfully fast when you needed them.
The final confrontation, the last battle, was all too near.
Chapter 7
The fateful moment of the bank meeting arrived.
Five days had passed.
Jonnie sat alone in the small meeting room that had been prepared and waited for the others to arrive.
There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that this was going to be a battle bigger than he had ever fought before.
Being Jonnie, he had been unwilling to simply sit idly by while MacAdam and Baron von Roth prepared.
They had been busy enough. For five days and nights, the hum of the teleportation rig had resounded through the bowl. Things had come and things had gone on the platform behind the tarpaulins.
But they did no talking less they be overheard and the only words that sounded were, “Motors off!" “No planes approaching!” “Stand by!” and “Fire!” Whenever anyone, especially emissaries or the small gray men, had come near the tarpaulins or the curtained corridor to a bunker, stern bank guards had pushed them back peremptorily. All Jonnie got from MacAdam was, “Later. Later!” Not even Angus was talking.
He had gotten an estimate that it would be several days. Mr. Tsung had told Jonnie that the negotiations of finance and banking were very specialized things. He had added one phrase that had stuck in Jonnie's mind: “The power of money and gold over the souls of men passes all wondering.”