Terror's Cradle

He hesitated and then committed himself. 'That's right. It's too bad. But I said we'll help you if we can. What alternative have you got? You're here. You'll be held here. You're helpless. There's nothing you can do. Right?'

I nodded wearily, knowing what Elliot said was true. I was in a little box at the end of the road and nobody was going to let me out. There was no way for me to reach Anderson now.

Elliot said, 'Help us. We help you. A deal?'

Ìt's a bloody awful deal!'

He thought he was winning and gave a satisfied little nod. `Not the best. It's a sticky world.'

`What happens,' I asked, 'after all this? Do I stay locked up?'

`We'll cross that when we have to. What do you know, Sellers?'

`Very little.'

`Great. It's gonna be a long hard night.'

Willingham said, 'You can't play it soft with one like this.'

Ì can try. What did you find in the girl's room, Sellers?' `Nothing.'

Elliot sighed softly. 'Oh, Jesus! I thought— '

I said, 'I'll tell you why I'm here, though. She's got a friend up here.'

`Who?'

Ì don't know,' I lied. 'I just know she's got a close friend in the Shetlands.'

Ìt's not enough. You didn't fly up here just because she has a friend.'

À close friend. She was out of the hotel quite a while. You think and I think that she got, rid of whatever it was she was carrying then. I think the fire in the hotel letter box had scared her off that and she posted it elsewhere.'

Willingham said, 'Who's Anderson, Jarlshof, Sandnes, Norway?'

`Who knows?' I said. 'Who's Brown, Smith Street, Cardiff, Wales? I was sending you in the wrong direction.' At least they hadn't discovered yet that there was another Sandness, another Jarlshof. They were in the police station but not using the knowledge it contained; playing things too close to their chests. If they'd mentioned either word to one of the local coppers . . . but the instinct for secrecy was too strong. Willingham grinned. 'You were pathetically easy to follow. That call from Elstree. From Elstree! You were tracked on radar the whole way. Bloody amateurs!'

I said to Elliot. 'Are we talking seriously? Or is your dog going to bite me?'

`Go on,' he said softly.

`She's got a friend in the Shetlands. You can't get much more remote than this. Nobody'd look here. You wouldn't be looking in this direction if I hadn't led you here. Nor would anyone else.'

Elliot said sourly, 'I don't think I believe you, Sellers.'

I shrugged. 'You told me I'd no alternative. Neither have you. But there is something else.'

Òkay?'

I fished in my inside jacket pocket, pulled out the wad of photocopies I'd made and begun to unfold them.

`That's why there was nothing,' Elliot said. 'You took those papers from her room.'

I shook my head. 'This wasn't in her room.'

`Her desk, then.'

`Not there either.' I was straightening the folds, sorting out the photocopy I remembered. I put it on the table and flattened the creases with my hand. It wasn't a particularly good copy; the folds had shaken off some of the black xerox powder, and my hand brushed off more. 'This was at the printing works.'

Elliot came and stood beside me to look at it. The title Russian Life was blocked in sketchily across the top of the rough layout.

`Front cover, right?'

I said, 'Alsa didn't draw this one'

He glanced sideways at me quickly. 'You sure?'

`You can see the difference. The others are her own roughs. This one was done by an artist.'

`So?'

`So who drew it and why was she carrying it?' I said. `She didn't have an artist on hand in Sweden, so she brought it out of Russia with the rest. Maybe she didn't even know she'd got it. It's another thing somebody loaded on to her.'

`Mm.' He was studying the design, frowning. 'Those flags. What d'you reckon they mean?'

Ìt's a layout gimmick, I should think. You see the flags are only drawn in outline. I'd guess the idea was to put a picture inside each flag. It's not original and it's not brilliant, but that's what I think it is.'

Elliot studied the paper in silence for a while, then straightened. 'Maybe there's something. I don't see what. It looks like a layout. No more than that.'

I said, 'You've missed the point. It's a lousy copy and the lines have faded, but the flags are supposed to be stuck in a map of European Russia.'

He looked again. 'Yeah. I see it now!' There was excitement in his voice. 'Any ideas what the flags represent?' 'None.'

His excitement, flattened. 'If she was gonna put pictures in those slots, what pictures would they be?'

'I don't know. Maybe the flags represent cities. But it's not accurate finished artwork. It's a freehand job.' Then I noticed something. I'd missed it earlier, in the plane, when I'd studied the thing. 'But look at these. Look at the flag-sticks. The pencil lines are precise, aren't they? A neat finish to each stroke. No, hang on !' I picked up the paper and held it to the light. 'Look at the start of each stroke! That's precise, everything else is rough pencil, but not that ! Whoever drew this started the stroke at the bottom, at a precise point, and drew upward only a little way, then the line goes free again. No artist would do that, until he was doing the finished job.'

Elliot turned to Willingham.. 'Go get a map. Any kind of map. An atlas will do.'

Willingham looked unhappy. 'It's half-past eleven. Where the hell–'

'I don't care where,' Elliot said savagely. 'It's your country we're in. Get one. We waited ten minutes, then there was a knock on the door. Elliot opened it and the station sergeant came in with a blue school atlas in his hand. 'You want this, sir?'

'Yeah, thanks.' Elliot took it quickly. 'That's all, sergeant.'

'Yes, sir. Just one thing, sir. It belongs to my lad. I went away home to get it. He'll be needing it for the school tomorrow.'

'He'll be – !' Elliot gave a short surprised laugh. 'Okay, sergeant. He'll have it. Thanks a lot. Where's Mr Willingham?'

'Downstairs, sir. Said he'd be up in a moment.'

`Right.' Elliot opened the dog-eared atlas, which looked as though it served more often as a classroom weapon than as an instrument of learning. 'Okay, here we have it. European Russia.' He picked up the photocopy, laid it over the map

and grinned. 'Wrong scale, naturally.'

I said, 'We can work it out, I think. Fetch that desk lamp over here.'

I bent the spine of the atlas back, holding all the other pages out of the way, then told him to hold the map of Russia against the lamp. I picked up the photocopy. The paper was thickish, but it might still work. I held it up and moved it back and forth until the line of the eastern border of the Soviet Union and the shapes of the Gulf of Bothnia, the White Sea and the Black Sea coincided. Then I tried to hold it steady and see what places on the map coincided with the flagsticks. It took a few minutes. Each time I identified a city Elliot marked the atlas with a pen, then we started the alignment all over again and picked out the next place.

Finally I could put the photocopy down and together we

He was running his eyes over the names again. 'Moscow. Orel, Sumy, Kremenchug, Gorlovka, Zaporozhye, Pervomaysk, Vinnitsa.

`Well?'

Elliot scowled. 'Small places, most of these. Some I never even heard of.'

`So it's no help?'

He was running his eyes over the names again. 'Moscow. Okay, Moscow. Anything could be happening there. But these others. We'll need to get a real analysis done on this. See what collated intelligence makes of it. And that'll take time, damn it.'

I said, 'Maybe it's just a layout. No more.'

`Maybe.' Elliot's tone meant he didn't believe it. I didn't' either. '

`Missile sites?' I asked in my innocence.

Àh, hell no. We know the missile sites.' He read the words aloud again, one after the other, trying to worry sense out of the string of names. The type in the, school atlas was small and Elliot had bent close to the paper to read it. It occurred to me suddenly that I could hit him and try to get away. I straightened and stood listening as he pronounced the Russian names. He said without looking up,