SPRING, 1976
Sergei Lerner was running close to broke. He'd frittered away his inheritance from Constance Stewart-Patten's estate on various business ventures which had collapsed; rates on the big house near Bishopton 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'd no longer command 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 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'd been domiciled in the British Isles---information which should be worth a deal of money to certain very interested foreign parties.
In short, Sergei Lerner was a spy---or at least, it had been intended that he should become one when Katin Semnyonovich first sent him out of the Soviet Union, 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 hard for Lerner to get into Great Britain in the guise of a political refugee.
After that, and especially after meeting, marrying and murdering Constance Stewart, Lerner had found himself so well-fixed that he had reneged on his Soviet boss and settled to genuine citizenship. Still, he hadn't forgotten his true 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 realize 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 organization.
Which was shy, this sparkling May morning, Lerner had written a carefully coded letter to old "pen-friend" in Berlin---one who hadn't 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 Katin Semnyonovich in Moscow. That letter was in the post even now, and Lerner had just returned home in his dilapidated Ford from the Bishopton post office.
But coming across the river on the stone bridge that led to his driveway, Lerner had been startled to feel in himself a weird churning which he'd at once recognized of old, a strange energy which turned his spine chilly and tugged at his hair like static electricity. On the bridge, leaning over the parapet and peering into the rivers slow swirl, an attractive young woman in a scarf and overcoat had lifted her head and stared into Lerner's car. Her inscrutable almond-shaped brown eyes had seemed to burn right through the car's bodywork, touching Lerner with their cold gaze. And the Russian had known that the stranger was endowed with more than Nature's everyday talents, that she commanded more than Humankind's normal powers of perception. He had known it absolutely, for Lerner, himself, was gifted. He was a "spotter": his talent lay in the instant recognition of another ESP-endowed person.
As to who the young woman could be, the significance of her appearing her 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 Lerner had stumbled across such a person. But ESP came in a range of strengths and colors, and this one had been strong indeed and scarlet---a crimson-tinged cloud in Lerner's mind. Or her presence her could be deliberate: she may have been sent here. The British branch must also have its spotters, and Lerner may well have been detected and trailed. In light of his recent trips to London---and what he had subsequently discovered of the British ESPionage branch---this theory was by no means farfetched and sent something of a panic surging through him. No, more than just panic. There was something else in Lerner 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 bitch against the parapet wall. The emotion was hatred, the deep and abiding hatred he felt toward 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'd learned how to control it---almost. But if only he hadn't sent that letter to Semnyonovich. That might have been a big mistake. Maybe he should have offered his services direct to the British instead; maybe he still should, and without delay. Before they could investigate him any further...
Such were his thoughts when the doorbell rang, and because they were guilty thoughts he gave a violent start.
Lerner'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 through 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, damn you!" 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 Lerner knew at once: it was that of the young woman from the bridge.
Lerner 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 people. Again a tide of panic and passion arose 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.....
"Hello, guv'nuh," said Molly Stewart, smiling and extending her hand. "Sergei Lerner, are you? I believe you give private tuition in German and Russian?"
Lerner did not take Stewart's hand but just stood and stared at her. For her own part, Molly stared back. And for all that she continued to smile, still her flesh crawled in the knowledge that she now stood face to face with her mother's killer. She put the thought aside; for the moment it was enough to just look at the other and absorb what she could of this stranger whom she intended to destroy.
The Russian was in his late forties but somehow looked ten years older. He had a paunch and his dark hair was streaked with gray; 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 gray. He didn't seem to be in good health, but Stewart 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 (Stewart now allowed herself to remember) he was a killer whose blood was cold as ice.
"Uh, you do give language lessons, don't you?"
Lerner's face cracked into something approaching a smile. A nervous tie tugged at the flesh at the corner of his mouth. "Indeed I do," he answered, his voice liquid, deep, with just a hint of his native accent. "I take it I was recommended? Who, er, sent you to me?"
"Recommended?" Stewart answered. "No, not quite. I've seen your ads in the papers, that's all. No one sent me."
"Ah!" Lerner was cautious. "And you need lessons, is that it? Forgive me if I'm slow on the uptake, but nobody seems much interested in languages these days. I have one or two regulars, but that's about it. I can't really afford the time to take on anyone else right now. Also, I'm rather expensive. But didn't you get enough of them at school? Languages, I mean."
"Not school," Stewart corrected him, "college." She 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 traveling, you see, and I thought----"
"You'd like to brush up on your German, eh?"
"And my Russian."
Alarm bells rang in Lerner's mind, vying with the pressures already there. This was all a lie and he knew it. Also, there was more to this young lady than some strange ESP talent. Lerner had the strange feeling that he knew her from somewhere. "Oh?" he finally said. "You are a strange one indeed, young lady. Not many Britons go to Russia nowadays, and fewer still want to learn the language! Is your visit to be business or....?"
"Pleasure," Stewart cut him off. "May I come in?"
Lerner didn't want her in the house, would greatly prefer to slam the door in her face. But at the same time he must find out about her. He stood aside and Stewart entered, and the door closing behind her sounded like a lid coming down on a coffin. She could almost feel the Russian's animosity, could almost taste his hatred. But why should Lerner hate her? He didn't even know her.
"I didn't catch your name," said the Russian, leading the way to his study.
Stewart was ready for that. She 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 Molly. Molly Stewart....Stepfather."
In front of her, Lerner had almost reached his desk. Now he froze, poised for a moment as if turned to stone, then quickly turned to face his visitor. Stewart 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 said? Molly Stewart? Is this some kind of infantile-----?" But now he looked closer and knew why he had thought he'd known this young woman before. She had been only a child then, but the features were the same. Yes, and her mother had had them before her. In fact, now that he knew who this was, the resemblance was uncanny. What was more, the girl seemed to have acquired something of her wild talent, too.
Her talent! The girl was a psychic, a medium, inherited from her mother! That was it! That was what Lerner could detect in her---echoes of her mother's talent!
"Stepfather?" said Stewart, faking worry. "Are you all right?" She offered a hand but the other backed away from it into his desk. He clawed his way around 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 hold of himself, sighed his relief and breathed more deeply, more freely. "A great shock."
"I didn't mean to startle you," Stewart said. "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've got with my past, my early childhood---my mother."
"Your mother?" Lerner immediately went on the defensive. His face was regaining a little of its former color as he quickly composed himself. Obviously his fears that he'd been discovered by the British ESP Agency were groundless. Stewart was just paying him a belated visit, returning to his roots; she was genuinely interested in her past. But if that was so.....
"Then what was all that bullshit 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," Stewart 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 recognize me before I told you who I was." He kept the smile on his face. Lerner was in control of himself again, his anger plain and making his face ugly. Now seemed a good time to drop a second bomb. "Anyway, I speak both German and Russian far more fluently than you ever could, stepfather. In fact, I could teach you."
Lerner prided himself on his linguistic ability. He could hardly believe his ears. What was this bitch talking about, she could "teach" him? Was she insane? Lerner had been teaching languages since before Molly Stewart 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 honors 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, Molly Stewart, but they don't make much sense! Do you honestly think that two GCEs can match the work of a lifetime? Or are you deliberately trying to annoy me?"
Stewart kept right on smiling, but it was now a smile with hard edges. She took a chair opposite Lerner and smiled that hard smile right across the desk and into the other's scornful face. And she reached out her mind to an old friend of hers, Burkhard Burchardt, an ex-POW who had married an English girl and settled in Liverpool after the war. Burchardt had died of a stroke in 1956 and was buried in the Bootle cemetery. It made no difference that was 163 miles away! Now Burchardt answered Molly, spoke to her---through her---spoke in a rapid, fluent German, directly across Sergei Lerner's desk and into his face:
"And how's this for German, Stepfather? You'll probably recognize that this is how it's spoken around Hamburg." Molly paused, and in the next moment changed hers/Burchardt's accent: "Or maybe 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," Lerner sneeringly admitted. His eyes had widened while Molly 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-style in thirty minutes! Russian is a different matter entirely."
Stewart's grin grew tighter. She thanked Burkhard Burchardt and switched her mind elsewhere----to a cemetery in nearby Edinburgh. She'd been there recently to spend a little time with her Russian grandmother, dead some months before she'd been born. Now she found her again, used her to speak to her stepfather in his native tongue. With Maruska's unwavering command of the language, indeed with her mind, she commenced a diatribe on "the failure of the repressive Communist system," only pausing after several astonishing minutes when finally Lerner cried.
"What is this, Molly? More rubbish learned parrot-fashion? What's the reason behind all this trickery?" But for all his bluster, still Lerner's heart beat a little faster, a little heavier in his chest. The girl sounded so much like----like someone else. Someone she had detected.
Still using her grandmother's Russian but speaking now from her own mind, Stewart 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 girl, stepfather. More talented than you could possibly imagine. Far more talented than ever my poor mother was......"
Lerner stood up and leaned on his desk, and the hatred washed out of him in a tide, seeming almost physically to break on Stewart like a wave. "All right, so you're a clever little bitch!" he answered in Russian. "So what? And that's twice you've mentioned your mother. What are you getting at, Molly Stewart? It's almost as if you were threatening me."
Molly continued to use Lerner's own tongue: "Threatening? But why should I threaten you, stepfather? I only came to see you, that's all......and to ask a favor."
"What? You try to make me look like a fool and then have the audacity to ask favors? What is it you want of me?"
It was now time to drop the third bomb. Stewart also got to her feet. "I'm told that my mother loved to skate," she said, her 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. Maybe 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, Lerner reeled, clutched at his desk. Then his eyes started to burn with hatred and his fleshy lips drew back from his teeth. He could no longer contain his anger and hatred. He must strike this arrogant bitch, knock her down. He must----must---must----
As Lerner began to sidle around the desk towards him, Molly realized she was in danger and backed towards the door of the study. She wasn't finished yet, however. There was one final thing she must do. Reaching into her overcoat pocket, she drew something out. "I've brought something for you," she said, this time speaking in English. "Something from the old days, when I was very little. Something that belongs to you."
"Get out!" Lerner snarled. "Get out while you're still in 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-bitch! Go and make a fool of someone else. Go now, before..."
"Don't worry," said Molly, "I'm going, for now. But first----catch!" and she tossed something. Then she turned and walked through the door into the shadowy house and out of sight.
Lerner automatically caught what she'd thrown, stared at it for a second. Then his mind reeled nd 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....408Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXBr04tJxKZ
From the air, the Castillo Mikhailov seemed not to have changed a great deal from the old days. No one would guess that it housed the world's greatest ESPionage unit, Katin Semnyonovich's E-Branch, or that it was anything but a tottering old pile. But that was just the way Semnyonovich 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 little helipad, which was simply a square of whitewashed concrete emblazoned with a green circle, lying between a huddle of outbuildings and the Castillo itself.
"Outbuildings," yes---that's 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 Castillo. And this, too, was exactly to Semnyonovich'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 Castillo and its perimeter wall. Other pillboxes 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 Soviet Union. Certainly it vied favorably with the joint nuclear and plasma research station at Gargetya, lost in the Urals, whose principle asset was its isolation; but in one major aspect it was superior to both Bakikonur and Gargetya,: namely it was "secret" in the fullest sense of the word. Apart from Semnyonovich's operatives, nobody but a double-handful of men even suspected that the Castillo 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 Semnyonovich here on several occasions; another, less happily, was Yuri Andropov, who had not visited and never would---not in Semnyonovich's invitation.
The helicopter settled to its pad and its rotor slowed Semnyonovich slid back the door and swung out his legs. A security man, ducking low, ran in under the whirling vanes and helped him down. Clutching his hat, Semnyonvich let himself be assisted away from the aircraft and through an arched doorway into that area of the Castillo which once had been the courtyard. Now it was roofed over and partitioned into airy conservatories and laboratories, where branch operatives might study and practice their odd talents in comparative comfort or whatever condition or environment best suited their work.
Semnyonovich had been late out of bed this morning, which was why he'd called for the helicopter to fly in in from his dacha. Even so, he was still an hour late for his meeting with Dragan. Passing through the outer complex of the Castillo and into the main building, then up to flights of time-hollowed stone stairs into the tower where he had his office, he grinned wolfishly at the thought of Dragan awaiting him. The necromancer was himself a stickler for punctuality; by now he would be furious. That was all for the best. 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 Semnyonovich was past master.
Taking off his hat and jacket as he went, finally Semnyonovich arrived at the second-floor landing and tiny anteroom which also served as an office for his secretary, where he found Dragan pacing the floor and scowling darkly. The necromancer made no effort to alter his expression as his bossed passed through 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 Semnyonovich'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 unusually when he was most deadly.
Semnyonovich'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, naturally, were of bulletproof glass. The stone floor was covered in a fairly luxurious pile carpet, burned here and there from Semnyonovich'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, Vladimir, will you? But do please see if you can leave your scowl out there, that's a good fellow....."
Dragan entered, closing the door a little more forcefully than necessary, and crossed catlike to Semnyonovich'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."
"You certainly are, Vladimir," Semnyonovich agreed, unsmiling now, "and I think I just said good morning to you."
"It was when I got here!" said Dragan, tight-lipped. "May I sit down?"
"No," Semnyonovich growled, "you may not. Nor may you pace, as pacing irritates me. You may simply stand there where you are and---listen---to---me!"
Never in his life had Dragan been spoken to like that. It took the wind right out of his sails. He looked as if someone had slapped him. "Katin, I...." he started again.
"What?" Semnyonovich roared. "Katin, is it? This is business, agent Dragan, not a social call! Save your familiarity for your friends----if you have 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!"
Dragan, 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 Semyonovich's turn to scowl. "According to your worksheets very little---not for the last six months, anyway! But that's something we're going to rectify. 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."
Dragan bit his lip, did as he was told.
Semnyonovich started at him, toyed with a pencil, finally said, "It appears we're not unique."
Dragan waited, said nothing.
"Not at all unique. Of course we've known for some time that the Americans were fooling around with ESP as an espionage concept----but that's all it is, fooling around. 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 II---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 Dragan, puzzled. "I know we're ahead of the Americans. So what?"
Semnyonovich ignored him. "The same goes for the Chinese," he said. "They've got some clever minds over there in Peking, but they're not using them right. Can you imagine? The race that invented acupuncture doubting the efficacy of ESP? They're stuck with the same kind of mental block we had forty years ago: if it's not a tractor it won't work!"
Dragan kept silent. He knew he must let Semnyonovich get to the point in his own good time.
"Then there's the French and the West Germans. Oddly enough, they're coming along quite well. We actually have some of the 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 sometimes we let them have tidbits, stuff their orthodox intelligence agencies would pick up anyway, just to keep them in business. But when it come to the big stuff---then we feed them bullshit, which dents their credibility and so helps us keep right ahead of them.
Semnyonovich was bored now with toying with his pencil; he put it down, lifted his head and stared into Dragan'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, Katin Semnyonovich! 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 that we were so far ahead that no one else could catch up to us. I believed we were unique. And we would be, Dragan, we would be----if it were not for the damned 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 Dragan had heard so far was old hat. Obviously Semnyonovich 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 Semnyonovich's machine, he was interested. He leaned forward and 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," Semnyonovich nodded grimly, "but they're not. Which means I know far less about them than I thought I knew. Which in turn means they may be even farther ahead. And if they are really 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 III, Dragan, and if you were a member of British Intelligence knowing about the Castillo Mikhailov, where would you advise your airforce to drop its first bombs, eh? Where would you direct your first missile?"
Dragan 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.....
Semnyonovich seemed to have regained something of his old humor. He grinned, however wryly, and stood up. "Come," he said. "We can talk as we go. But let's you and me 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 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, Dragan at his heels and almost trotting to keep pace.
They went down into the old part of the Castillo, which Semnyonovich called "the workshops." This was a maximum 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 Castillo it was designed to ensure that no single operative could ever be sole recipient of any piece of information. And it was Semnyonovich'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 Semnyonovich'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, as one would expect, was held by Semnyonovich himself.
In a corridor lit by blue fluorescent light, he now inserted that key in its slot and Dragan 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 constantly updated meteorological information from sources all over the world. This might be the anteroom of some observatory, or the air-controller's office in a small airport, but it was neither of those things. Dragan 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 Semnyonovich 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 colored disks, two green, two blue. The green ones were fairly close in the Tyrhennian Sea, midway 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 Semnyonovich and Dragan watched, the two ESPers settled down again to their "work," sitting at the desk with their chins in their hands, just staring at the disks on the chart.
"Do you understand the color code?" Semnyonovich hoarsely whispered.
Dragan 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 Dragan, low-voiced.
"Atomic submarines," Semnyonovich corrected him. "Part of the West's so-called 'nuclear deterrent.' Do you know how they do it?"
Dragan again shook his head, hazarded a guess. "Telepathy?"
Semnyonovich raised a bushy eyebrow. "Oh? Just like that? Mere telepathy? You understand telepathy, then, do you, Dragan? It's a new talent of yours, is it?"
Yes, you old fuck! Dragan 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's not going anywhere! But aloud he said: "I understand it 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 spy 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 screen's base and a green spot of light simulating the location of the submarine to the east of Malta started to blink on and off. He tapped more keys and as he worked Semyonovich said:
"That Froggie sub has just changed course. He's putting the new course coordinates into the computer. He's not 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," Dragan commented. "Why didn't the other?"
"See?" said Semnyonovich. "You don't know it all, do you, Dragan? The one who 'picked it up' isn't a telepath at all. He's just a sensitive---but what he's sensitive to is nuclear activity. He knows the location of every nuclear 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 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 starts to move very quickly on that map, towards us, for example...." Semnyonovich 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 his 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 Dragan was impressed, his expression didn't register it. Semnyonovich snorted, moved towards the door, said: "Come on, let's see some more."
Dragan 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?"
Semnyonovich turned to him. "If you more fully understand what we've got here, Dragan, then you'll be better equipped to appreciate the kind of outfit we think they've got in England. Emphasis on we think. At least, the emphasis used to be on we think...."
He suddenly grabbed Dragan's arms and pinioned them to his sides, saying: "Dragan, 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?"
Dragan shrugged, but not in a way that might cause offense. He was genuinely mystified, no less than his boss. "You tell me."
Semnyonovich let him go. "What if the British have ESPers in their E-Branch who can blank out our boys as easily as a scrambler on a telephone? For if that's the case, Dragan, then they truly are ahead!"
"And you think this 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 organization. I think you'll like him."
Dragan sighed inwardly. His boss would eventually come to the point, the necromancer knew that. It was just that he was so devious in everything he did, including coming to a point. It was better to relax and suffer in silence, and let things happen in Semnyonovich'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, Dragan 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 Castillo. Also, a good ventilation system had been installed. To one side, in a kind of anteroom just off the main cell, a mini-operating room had been set up such as was used by veterinary surgeon; 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, rats, birds and even two 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 Dragan and Semnyonovich approached, he turned to face them. The man was slant-eyed, his skin a light yellowy-olive color. 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 Semnyonovich and then to Dragan. 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 Dragan, he would exactly suit a brown cassock and slippers.
"Dragan," said Semnyonovich, "meet Sam Tabur, who claims he can trace his blood right back to the Great Khans."
Dragan nodded and reached out a hand. "A Mongol," he said. "I suppose they can all trace their blood back to the Khans."
"In my case it's true, Comrade Dragan," said Tabur, his voice soft as silk. He took Dragan's hand hard, gave 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 on them. The old ways have come down through the years. When I was born they still obeyed the ancient laws. My grandfather was a bastard, and my father, and so am I. When 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....."
"Uh, Sam has a very high IQ, said Semnyonovich, smiling sheepishly. "He was educated in Omsk, opted out of civilization and went back to Mongolia to herd goats. But then he had an argument with a jealous neighbor and killed him."
"He accused me of putting a spell on his goats," Tabur explained, "so that they died. I could've done it, certainly, but I didn't. I told him so but he called me a liar. That is a very bad thing in those parts. So I killedhim."
"Oh?" Dragan tried hard not to smile. He couldn't imagine this inoffensive little fellow killing anyone.
"Yes," said Semnyonovich. "I read about it and was interested in the, er, nature of the murder. That is, in the method Sam employed."
"His method?" Dragan was enjoying this. "He threatened his neighbor, who at once laughed himself to death. Is that it?"
"No, Comrade Dragan," Tabur 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."
"Sam has the evil eye, Vladimir," said Semnyonovich, dropping the surname at last; which in itself would normally warn Dragan that something unpleasant was coming. Warning bells did ring, but not quite loudly enough.
"Evil eye?" Dragan tried to look more serious. He even managed to frown at the little Mongol.
"Exactly," Semnyonovich nodded. "Those green eyes of his. Did you ever see such a green, Vladimir? They are purest poison, believe me. I intervened in the trial, of course; Sam wasn't sentenced but came to us instead. In his way he's as unique as you are. Sam...." he spoke directly to the Mongol "----could you give Comrade Dragan something by way of a demonstration?"
"Of course," said Tabur. He fixed Dragan with his eyes. And Semnyonovich was right: they were absolutely excquisite 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 Dragan," said Tabur, "observe please the white rats." He pointed a stubby finger at a cage containing two of the animals. "They are happy creatures, and so they should be. She---on the left----is happy because she's well-fed and has a mate. He's happy for the same reason, also because he has just had her. See how he lies there, a little spent?"
Dragan looked, glanced at Semnyonovich, raised an eyebrow.
"Watch!" Semnyonovich growled, his own eyes fixed firmly on what was happening.
"First we attract his attention," said Tabur----and immediately he fell into a grotesque crouch, resembling nothing so much as a great squat frog where he confronted the cage halfway 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 Tabur. "And then----" said the Mongol "----then----we----kill!"
Tabur had squatted even lower, almost in the stance of a Japanese wrestler before the charge. Dragan, 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, Dragan knew it for a certainty, no closer examination needed. The female scurried forward and sniffed the corpse of her mate, then peered out through the bars uncertainly at the three human beings.
Dragan didn't 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 kind of accusation:
"It----it must be a trick!"
Semnyonovich had expected that; it was typical of Dragan to act without thinking, to rush in where angels might well fear to tread. The boss of E-branch stepped well back as Tabur, still crouching, swiveled to face the necromancer. The Mongol was smiling again, holding his head questioningly on one said. "A trick?" he said.
"I meant....." Dragan hastily began.
"That is the same thing as calling me a liar," said Tabur---and his face at once underwent its monstrous transformation. Now Dragan got the full frontal view of what Semnyonovich had turned "the evil eye." And without the slightest shadow of a doubt it was evil! It was as if Dragan'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 Dragan's mind. Quite simply, he must kill the Mongol first.
Semnyonovich stepped between them. "Enough!" he snapped. "Dragan, put it away!"
"That bastard almost finished me!" the necromancer gasped, his body trembling with reaction. He tried to move Semnyonovich out of his line of fire but the older man was like stone.
"I said enough!" he repeated. "What, would you shoot your partner?"
"My what?" Dragan couldn't believe his ears. "My partner? I need no partner. What kind of partner? Is this some kind of a joke?"
Semnyonovich reached out a hand and carefully took Dragan'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 Dragan before him, he turned to the Mongol and said, "Thank you, Sam."
"The pleasure's all mine," said the other, his face once again wreathed in a smile. He bowed from the waist as Semnyonovich closed the door on him.
Out in the corridor Dragan was furious. He snatched back his gun and put it away. "You and your damned strange sense of humor!" he snarled. "I nearly died in there!"
"No, you didn't," Semnyonovich seemed unperturbed, "not even nearly. If you had a weak heart it would have killed you, just like it killed his neighbor. 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 had 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 you. 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 Semnyonovich, starting back the way they'd come.
Dragan wouldn't be placated. He still felt shaken, weak at the knees. Staggering after Semnyonovich, he said: "What happened back there was a deliberate set-up and you bloody well know it!"
His boss whirled and pointed directly at Dragan's chest. His grin was savage as a snarl. "But now you believe, yes? No 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, Dragan, 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 doesn't make any sense."
Semnyonovich turned and hurried on. "It makes a lot of sense. It's practice, Dragan, and like I'm always telling you...."
"Practice makes perfect, I know. But practice for what?!"
"I only wish I knew," Semnyonovich tossed over his shoulder. "Who can say what you'll come up against----in England!"
"What?" Dragan'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 Tabur was my partner. Katin, I don't understand any of this."
They had reached Semnyonovich's offices. Semnyonovich swept through the anteroom and turned on his heel just across the threshold of his private room. Dragan came to a halt facing him, staring at him accusingly. "What is it you've got up your sleeve----Comrade?"
"So you're still accusing people of trickery, eh, Vladimir?" 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 the orders and you obey them! 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. Sam will go with you---and I'll be he learns faster, too. After that, when we've made certain arrangements---a little field trip...."
"To England?"
Precisely. You and your partner. There's a man over there called Arthur Gerrard, Ex-MI5. 'Sir' Arthur Gerrard, no less. Now he's the boss of their E-Branch. I want him dead! That's Sam's job, for Gerrard has a bad heart. After that...."
Dragan saw it all now. "You want him 'interrogated,'" he said. "You want him drained of secrets. You want to know all about him and his E-Branch down to the last detail."
"Right first time," Semnyonovich save a sharp nod of his head. "And that's your job, Vladimir. You're the necromancer, inquisitor of the dead. It's what you get paid for...."
And before Dragan could answer, completely expressionless for once, Dragan closed the door in his face.
408Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlZ4xESPYOr
EARLY SUMMER, 1976. A SUMMER EVENING408Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqwXKpVyVxx
Sir Arthur Gerrard was relaxing with a book in his study at home in Knightsbridge, 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. Gerrard carried the telephone to a wicker chair and sat down before glass doors that stood open on a large, secluded garden. "Gerrard," he said into the mouthpiece.
"Sir Arthur? This is Barry Cox. Barry Cox in Hartlepool. How's the world been treating you all these years?"
"Cox? Barry! 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 the dinner they threw for you when you left 'shhhh!----you know who!' And that was back in 1963."
"Thirteen years!" Gerrard breathed, amazed. "Where does the time go, eh, what?"
"Where indeed? Retirement hasn't killed you off, then?"
Gerrard 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 Gloudon Tech?"
"Right. I'm still there, in fact. Headmaster?----God, it was easier in Burma!"
Gerrard laughed out loud. "It's very good to hear from you again, Barry, especially since you seem in such good health. All right, old chap, what can I do for you?"
There was something like a pause before Cox finally answered: "Actually, I feel a bit of a fool. I've been on the verge of calling you several times in the last week or so, but always changed my mind. It's such a damned strange business!"
Gerrard 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 answer: "Go on, Barry, what is it? And don't worry that I many think it's daft. I remember you for a very level-headed chap."
"Yes, but this very----you know---hard to put into words. I mean, I'm close to this thing, I've seen it with my own eyes, and yet....."
"Barry," Gerrard 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 just why I'm calling you now!" Cox answered. "Because of that chat of ours. How on earth could you possibly know that?"
Gerrard chuckled. "Man's intuition," he said. "Do go on."
"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."
Gerrard licked his lips, said: "Hang on a moment, Barry, there's a good fellow." He called out to his wife, "Sarah, be a love and fetch me my drink, would you?" And to the telephone: "Sorry, Barry, but I'm suddenly quite dry. And now you've found a kid who's a bit different, have you?"
"A bit? Molly Stewart's a lot different, you can take my word for it! Frankly, I don't know what to make of her."
"Well then, tell me and let's see what I can make of her."
"Molly Stewart," Cox began, "is----one strange little girl. She was first brought to my attention by a teacher at the girl's school in Sanford a little farther up the coast. At that time she was described to me as an 'instinctive mathematician.' In fact, she was a near genius! Anyway, she sat a form of examination and passed it---hell, she flew through it!---and so came to the Tech. But her English was horrible. I used to get on her about it....
"Anyway, when I spoke to this fellow up at Sanford----the young teacher, I mean, a fellow called Trevor Wilson----I somehow got the impression that he didn't like Stewart. Or maybe that's a bit strong; maybe Stewart just made him uneasy. Well, I've recently had cause to speak to Wilson again, and that's how the whole thing came to light. By that I mean that Wilson's observations of five years ago match mine exactly. He too, at that time, believed that Molly Stewart----that she...."
"That she what?" Gerrard urged. "What's this bird's talent, Barry?"
"Talent? My God! That's not even the word for it!"
"Well?"
"Let me put it this 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 Stewart's English was bad and I used to urge her to do better. Well, she improved rapidly. Before she left the school two years ago she'd sold her 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 Stewart not yet nineteen and...."
"And that's your worry?" Gerrard cut him off. "That she's become a successful author so young?"
"Eh? Heavens, no! I'm happy for her. Or at least I was. I still would be if only-----if only she didn't wright the damn things that way...." He paused.
"What way?"
"She---she has, well, collaborators."
Something about the way Cox said that the word made Gerrard's scalp tingle again. "Collaborators? But surely a lot of writers have collaborators? At eighteen years of age I imagine she probably needs someone to tidy her stuff up for her, and so on."
"No, no," said the other, with an edge to his voice that hinted to 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 gems. I personally typed the earliest of them for her, from the rough drafts, because she didn't have a machine. I even typed up a few after she'd bought a typewriter, until she got the idea of how a good manuscript should look. Since then she's done it all herself---until recently. Her new work, which she's just completed, is a novel. She's called it, of all things, Diary of Conan Pippery, 17th Century Womanizer!"
Gerrard couldn't suppress a chuckle. "So she's sexually precocious, is she?"
"Actually, I think she is. Anyway, I've worked with her quite a bit on the novel, too: that is, I've arranged it into chapters for her and generally cleaned it up. Nothing wrong with Stewart's history or her use of the 17th-century language----in fact it's amazingly accurate----but her spelling is still atrocious and on this book at least she was repetitive and disjointed. But one thing I can promise you: It will earn her an awful lot of money!"
Now Gerrard frowned. "How can her short stories be 'gems' while her novel is repetitive and disjointed? Does that follow logically?"
"Nothing follows logically in Stewart's case. The reason the novel differs from the shorter works is simple: her collaborator on the shorts was a literary type who knew what she was doing, whereas his collaborator for the novel was quite simply....a 17th century womanizer!"
"Eh?" Gerrard 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 pen names. Stewart uses pen names very close to the originals."
"The 'originals'? I still don't....."
"As for the 17th century womanizer: he was the son of an earl. Very notorious in these parts between 1661 and 1674. Finally an outraged husband shot him dead. He wasn't a writer, but he did have a vivid imagination! These two men---they are Stewart's collaborators!"
Gerrard's scalp was crawling now. "Go on," he said.
"I've talked to Stewart's boyfriend," Cox continued. "He's a nice kid and dotes on her. And he won't hear a word against her. But in conversation he let it slip that she calls herself a----'Mollyscope.' It's something she presented to him as fiction, a figment of her own imagination. She told him she's a Mollyscope because she can....."
"---look in on the thoughts of the dead?" Gerrard cut in.
"Yes," the other sighed his relief. "Exactly."
"A spirit medium?"
"What? Why, use, I suppose you could say that. But she's not crazy, Gerrard. She can really talk 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?" Gerrard's voice was sharp now. "Does Stewart know you suspect?"
"No."
"Then don't breathe another word about this to a soul. Do you understand?"
"Yes, but...."
"No buts, Barry. This discovery of yours might be very important indeed, and I'm delighted you got in touch with me. But it mustn't go any farther. There are people who could use it entirely the wrong way."
"You believe me, then, about this horrible 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 might not be! Anyway, I can understand your worry, and it's right that you should be worried. But as for this being 'a terrible thing.': I'm afraid I have to reserve my judgement on that. If you are right, then this Molly Stewart of yours has a terrific talent. Just think how she might use it!"
"I don't want to think about it!"
"What? And you a headmaster? Same on you, Jack!"
"I'm sorry. I'm not quite sure I....."
"But wouldn't you yourself like the chance to speak 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, Barry, and forget all about this conversation of ours, right?"
"But you....."
""Right, Barry?"
"Very well. What do you intend to....?"
"Barry, I work for a very odd outfit, a very funny crowd. And even telling you that much is to tell you too much. However, you've got my word that I'll investigate this thing. And I want your word that this is your final word on it---to anyone!"
"As you wish."408Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAuD63bKycT
"Thanks for calling."
"You're welcome, I....."
"Goodbye, Barry. We must talk again some time."
"Yes, goodbye..."
Thoughtfully, Gerrard put the phone down.
ns 18.68.41.175da2
