Gresham said genially, “Well, well, Bormann. All right, what?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Good. Well now, we just want to take a look round,” he told the guard breezily. “Shaw, you’d like to see how it works?”
“I would indeed.”
“I can show you the control panel.” Gresham spoke briefly to the German guard and handed him a key. The man unfastened a lock and very carefully removed a section of the big crate. Shaw went forward, looked with interest at a panel of dials and knobs and small circles of thick coloured glass. Here before him, open to his touch, was the very key to world peace and security. It gave him almost a sense of awe, made him reluctant to approach it too closely.
Gresham’s voice, when he spoke, was hushed as though in reverence. He said, “General idea is this, Shaw. Once news is received of any member-nation going into action on a nuclear basis, all the Governments would first of all confer on scramble lines. If they then all agree, a unanimous authorization is sent to the Secretary-General of MAPIACCIND in Geneva. He then passes an order to the officer in charge of operating, which incidentally is me while we’re in transit to B'andagong, and that officer, using the appropriate signal from the list, starts the first transmission — it’s made in two parts, d’you see. That’s the key he uses.” Gresham indicated a Morse key at the side of the control panel. “Right? Now, after the first transmission, he has to wait until an identical and automatic signal is received back from the set attached to the stockpiles concerned. It’s a kind of safety-check, you follow, to make quite sure it’s working on the correct three-letter group and so forth. Eliminates the human element so far as possible. Checks the frequency too, of course.”
Shaw asked, “Suppose any country should smash the receivers on their stockpiles?”
“They couldn’t do that — they’re under strong MAPIACCIND guard. That guard couldn’t be overpowered so suddenly that there wouldn’t be time for a radio warning to be sent out.”
Shaw murmured, “Which would invite an immediate transmission from REDCAP, I suppose. But what about if anyone got on to one of those frequencies by chance, and transmitted an identical signal?”
Gresham chuckled. “Ah — this check-back would negate anything like that. You see, until the signal is actually repeated back, and then a second and different group sent out, the receiving end doesn’t come into operation at all. D’you follow?”
Shaw grinned. “Not really, but I get the drift. I’m no technician!”
“Neither was I, till I started on this. Awfully absorbing, I find it. A great, wonderful thing… however. That check-signal comes back, as I said, and the operator hears it. At the same time, if the signal is correct as it should be, this lamp glows red.” He touched one of the glass circles. “The operator reports contact to Geneva, using this other Morse key.” He indicated the second key at the other side of the panel. “Then, if the offending country hasn’t backed down in the meantime — it would be given a chance to do that — the first key, after a set interval, transmits again, using the second signal from the list. Exactly one minute before, the MAPIACCIND detachments go to ground in specially prepared and fully stored deep concrete shelters, and just wait.”
“And then?”
Gresham said simply, “Well, then the stockpiles are blown and the country concerned vanishes — as a nuclear Power, at any rate.” He blew out his cheeks. “Pouf… like that!” He grinned almost happily. “It’s so frightful, so dreadful even to think of, that I don’t believe for one moment anyone would risk aggression. Do you? It’s a great concept, wonderful really.”
He seemed to have forgotten about the threat from China. Shaw reminded him; and Gresham said, “Ah, well, that’s in a different category. What I said was, that China would perhaps try to interfere with REDCAP in some way. I don’t suggest she’s thinking in terms of direct, outright aggression— that is, of risking the reprisal. What I think she’s after is some way of circumventing it first. I thought I’d made that plain.”
“Yes, you had.” Shaw frowned. “But I don’t think you quite get what I mean. Before she does get hold of REDCAP, or blows it up, can’t we transmit and blow up China’s stockpiles? Or at least threaten it?”
Gresham was nonplussed. He gnawed at his moustache for a moment, then said stiffly, “That’s the theory — yes, certainly. But, you know, Shaw… going into operation is very extreme. The casualties would be astronomical, terrible.
I doubt if you’d ever get agreement of all the powers — and you must have a unanimous decision under the constitution of MAPIACCIND — unless you could advance extraordinarily convincing reasons. They’d never do it on mere suspicion.”
Shaw said ominously, “Exactly, Colonel. That’s probably just what China realizes too. And that’s precisely the difficulty, isn’t it? Part of my job’s to find that convincing reason — if it exists. Meanwhile, we may be standing in danger all this time.”
“Well, yes. But it’s only meant to be a deterrent. Not a weapon in any sense.”
Shaw gave a bitter laugh. “When is a deterrent not a deterrent? If every one knows it won’t ever be used, which is rather what you’re suggesting, it ceases to be a deterrent at all, doesn’t it? It seems to me that this is exactly the kind of case REDCAP’s designed to stop, and it’s just not working.”
Gresham flushed. He said, “Oh, come, that’s not quite right. If we can get real proof of an extreme threat, Geneva would consider the matter, naturally.” With embarrassed haste, as Shaw moved a little closer to the control panel, Gresham took up the wood section and replaced it. Shaw was amused; it was almost as though Gresham thought he was about to operate his toy. He found himself hoping that all the MAPIACCIND directorate wasn’t quite so idealistic as this little sandy colonel. Drawing Gresham aside a moment later, he asked quietly:
“By the way, these signals. The list of three-letter groups — I understand Lubin wouldn’t know what they are, and we can assume that goes for Karstad too. Mind if I ask where you keep them?”
“Of course not. They’re in the safe in my stateroom. That’s pretty secure. You’ve seen yours — your safe, I mean?”
“Yes. Have all the staterooms got one?”
Gresham nodded. “All combination locks. I’ve put a setting on mine that no one’ll ever break!” He chuckled, put his mouth closer to Shaw’s ear and whispered: “Doesn’t matter if they do, really. It won’t help ’em. They’re just a fake set. Real one’s in the Captain’s private safe.”
Next morning, and most of the afternoon as well, Shaw and Gresham, in the privacy of the Captain’s spare cabin, went through the P2 forms and the other documents covering in great detail every person aboard.
It was a laborious and frustrating business.
Of the two thousand five hundred-odd passengers, all had British or Commonwealth passports — all except a mere thirty-two of them. Not that this meant very much in itself; but Shaw could find nothing to arouse suspicion in any of the particulars given, and short of interviewing personally every adult aboard — which might have to be done if he couldn’t get a lead soon — he didn’t see what he could get hold of. Meanwhile all he had got was a bad headache and eyestrain.
The one man who stuck in his gullet was Mr Sigurd Andersson, known as a Swedish subject. Swedes were not so very unlike their neighbours the Norwegians, and Karstad, of course, was a Norwegian. Andersson’s country of last permanent residence was shown as England, address London; and he was emigrating to Australia where he intended to remain. He was booked to Fremantle, first Australian port of call. His profession was given as refrigerator salesman, his age as forty-eight. If he really was Karstad, then some one had done a good job on his documentation. No apparent holes could be picked in this.