The driver stared into his eyes then pushed the rear door open. “Get in,” he said. “You c’n talk on the move. We’re going through to Kansas City.”
“Fine,” Shaw said as he got in, into the dry. “I’ll talk when I get to headquarters and all I’m going to say for now is this: if you don’t want the Pentagon on your backs, don’t mention to anyone outside H.Q. that you picked up a limey from an earthquake zone!”
The driver gave him a long look and then reached down by his side and brought up a flask of hot coffee which he passed behind, together with a cigarette. The coffee, the smoke and the warmth relaxed Shaw and within a few minutes he was asleep and when he awoke he found the car had pulled into police headquarters and the driver was shaking him.
He had a lengthy interview with the police captain in charge; he didn’t tell the officer everything, but he told him enough. A top priority call was put through to Washington, where reports had been received of earth tremors in open country, and then the captain saw to it that Shaw had a good meal, after which he had four hours’ essential sleep. Within half an hour of waking he had been fitted out with fresh clothing and was in a fast patrol car heading out for the airfield, where a V.I.P. reservation had been made for him in a cover name on an internal schedule for Washington.
From the ports of the cabin Shaw watched the Missouri landscape fall away below as the aircraft gained height. Somewhere down there, back across the Kansas state border, ‘President’ Tucker, convinced he was dead, would be putting the final touches to his preparations for the holocaust. The Negro had every reason to be supremely confident that in two days’ time he would be sitting in glory, right on top of the United States, second in world power only to the Chinese leader in Peking.
Shaw had those two days in which to put an end to that dream. And to get Flame away to safety.
Chapter Twenty-One
In Washington Shaw was met at the airport by a blank-faced man wearing rimless spectacles and a bulge beneath his left shoulder. This man studied Shaw searchingly. He said little but kept his right hand hooked inside the double-breasted light grey jacket as he hustled Shaw out to a Lincoln Continental. Once in the car he said, “You’ve worked in the States before, right?”
“Yes. For the Navy Department.”
“Sure. Well, the description and the photos check for now, but we’ll have to ask you some questions in the Pentagon.” They drove fast for the Pentagon building, and once through the routine security check the elevator whisked them skyward and the blank-faced man took Shaw for a marathon walk down a long corridor and into an anteroom. Two more doors led off this room. One of the doors opened and an efficient-looking young woman came out; the man with the rimless spectacles greeted her. He said, “This is Commander Shaw of the British Defence Intelligence Staff.” A cold eye glittered at Shaw. “He says.”
The girl gave the man a sweeping glance and smiled at Shaw. “Glad to know you,” she said warmly. “General Kirkham will see you right away. Will you follow me, please.”
She walked across to the other door, knocked, and went in. Shaw followed, with his escort bringing up the rear. The young woman made the introductions and a short, square man with a friendly grin got up from behind a desk. He said briskly, “Glad to know you, Commander.” He waved Shaw to a chair. The blank-faced man stood, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded. Kirkham went on, “We won’t waste any time. I gather you have something big to tell us, and I can assure you we’re interested. You do the talking, I’ll listen.”
Shaw said, “Right. By the way, I assume my chief has already let your people know I was over on a job?”
Kirkham smiled briefly. “Your chief has certainly been in touch,” he said, “just as a matter of courtesy, you understand. But now it seems we’re directly involved — so you start right in and tell me how.”
Concisely Shaw passed the whole story, beginning with his summons to Latymer’s office and his preliminary investigations into the activities of the Dead Line. Kirkham’s face showed little reaction as Shaw went on to tell him about ‘President’ Tucker and the Kansas hide-out; nothing beyond a tightening of the lips and a quick glance at the blank-faced man when Shaw spelled out the Peking-backed strike plan.
When Shaw had finished Kirkham asked, “What’s your opinion, Commander? You’ve met this jig, seen his set-up for yourself. I’d appreciate your impressions. Is he just plain crazy… or could it work out?”
Shaw said, “He’s probably crazy from a psychiatrist’s viewpoint, but I think the plan can work, with Peking behind it to organize and support it. There’s one thing I’m dead certain of, and that is that Tucker will carry out his end of it to the letter. He certainly wasn’t fooling and there was no question of bluff in anything he said to me.”
Kirkham drummed his fingers on his desk and blew out his cheeks. “I don’t have to tell you this goes beyond my department. What I have to do now is to put the facts, and you to talk about them, before the top brass. That is, the Secretary of Defence and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And I reckon the first priority is going to be the protection of the personnel in Norfolk.” He hesitated. “One more thing… will this Tucker alter his plans now you’ve got away, or do you reckon they’re too far advanced? Was there, for instance, any hint of an alternative plan?”
“Not so far as he told me. But I can say this — it’s absolutely safe to proceed on the assumption that he won’t make any alterations on my account. He’s convinced I’m dead. I was seen beyond any possibility of doubt to drop into that rift in the ground. I was seen by this man Sanderson and a troop of Negroes as well as by Flame Delaney. It could never have occurred to anybody that I’d hit a ledge and roll to safety or they’d have waited around a while longer to make sure, whatever the possible danger to themselves. You can bank on that, General. They’d never have faced Tucker any other way.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I can promise you Tucker’s time is about up, Commander. Now we know his plan and his aims and his whereabouts, we’ll have the whole thing torn apart in no time at all — that is, as regards the United States end. How to deal with Peking… that’s going to be the chief headache for the brass. I reckon in this country, we’ll start by bringing in some of the big names behind the various Negro organizations. He looked hard at Shaw. “Tell me, Commander — from what you know, from what this Tucker told you, do you believe that once we’ve dealt with the jigs Peking’s likely to back down?”
Shaw said firmly, “I do not. I’d hate to bank on anything like that. Tucker knows what he’s about and he’s fully confident of complete success. He certainly has no thoughts whatever of being let down by the Chinese. I’m quite positive on that point. And in my opinion, for what it’s worth, even if you let Peking know through the usual channels that the story’s leaked, and threaten China with retaliation before the event… well, that could be used against the West too. The Chinese could say it was all faked up, just a plot to discredit them and the Negro people — an excuse, let’s say, for general brutality, and victimization of the Black peoples in White countries. You know the way the Communist mind works, the kind of arguments they love to use.”
Kirkham nodded. “Sure, I know that!”
“In any case, General, even if you arrest Tucker now, which I assume is in your mind to advise the Chiefs of Staff to do, then the basic organization, in the world-wide sense at any rate, will still be there. It’ll still be intact underground, even inside America — unless Tucker can be made to talk and reveal the details of the organizations here and elsewhere, and I’d say he wouldn’t talk easily. And anyhow… one day soon, some other Tucker would take over where this one left off, and we’d face the same problem all over again.” He paused. “There’s another aspect, too, if you’ll allow me to put it, and it’s this: you can’t take too tough a line with the Negroes over here. Just as an instance, you don’t want to be put in the position of having to gun them down. If that happened, American Whites would at once be branded by all the Communist propaganda agencies as the aggressors, and that way, as things are in the world today, you could give the Chinese the excuse to attack, to start some sort of liberation war. Don’t forget all those bodies that have been paraded through Peking over the last few months. If Tucker’s right, and I see no reason whatever to doubt him, the millions of comrades in China are currently in a very inflamed mood, and they may push their leaders over the brink — if they need any pushing!”