The Satan Bug. Alistair MacLean

were seldom in a normal frame of mind.

      “I keep it this way to fool the Inspector of Taxes,” I explained. “How can I help you, Mr. Martin?”

      “By giving me some information about yourself.” He was no longer smiling and his eyes were no longer wandering.

      “About myself?” My voice was sharp, not razor-edged, just the voice of a man who hasn’t had a client in all the three weeks he’s been in business. “Please come to the point, Mr. Martin. I have things to do.” So I had. Lighting my pipe, reading the morning paper, things like that.

      “I’m sorry. But about yourself. I have you in mind for a very delicate and difficult mission. I must be sure you are the man I want. That is reasonable, I think?”

      “Mission?” I looked speculatively at Henry Martin and thought I could get to disliking him without too much trouble. “I don’t carry out missions, Mr. Martin. I carry out investigations.”

      “Of course. When there are investigations to carry out.” The tone was too neutral to take specific offence. “Perhaps I should supply the information. Please bear with my unusual method of approach for a few minutes, Mr. Cavell. I think I can promise that you will not be sorry.” He opened his brief-case, brought out a buff folder, abstracted a stiff sheet of paper and began to read, paraphrasing as he went along.

      “Pierre Cavell. Born Lisieux, Calvados, of Anglo-French parents. Father civil engineer, John Cavell of Kingsclere, Hampshire, mother Anne-Marie Lechamps of Lisieux. Mother of Franco-Belgian descent. One sister, Liselle. Both parents and sister killed in air attack on Rouen. Escaped fishing-boat Deauville-Newhaven. While still in late teens parachuted six times into Northern France, each time brought back information of great value. Parachuted into Normandy D-Day minus two. At end war recommended for no fewer than six decorations—three British, two French and one Belgian.”

      Henry Martin looked up and smiled thinly.

      “The first discordant note. Decorations refused. Some quotation to the effect that the war had aged you fast and that you were too old to play with toys. Joined regular British Army. Rose to Major in Intelligence Corps, understood to have co-operated closely with M.I.6—counter-espionage, I believe. Then joined police. Why did you leave the Army, Mr. Cavell?”

      I’d throw him out later. Right now I was too intrigued. How much more did he know—and how? I said, “Poor prospects.”

      “You were cashiered.” Again the brief smile. “When a junior officer elects to strike a senior officer, policy dictates that he should choose a man below field rank. You had the poor judgment to select a major-general.” He glanced at the paper again. “Joined Metropolitan Police. Rapid rise through the ranks—one must admit that you do appear to be rather gifted in your own line—to position of Inspector. In last two years seconded for special duties, nature unspecified. But we can guess. And then you resigned. Correct?”

      “Correct.”

      “On a record card, ‘Resigned’ looks much better than ‘Dismissed.’ Which is what you would have been had you remained another twenty-four hours. You do appear to have what amounts to a genius for insubordination. Something to do with an Assistant Commissioner, I understand. But you still had friends, quite powerful friends. Within a week of your resignation you had been appointed as head of security in Mordon.”

      I stopped what I was doing, which was squaring off the papers on my desk, and said quietly, “Details of my record are readily available, if you know where to look. But you have no right to possess that last item of information.” The Mordon Microbiological Research Establishment in Wiltshire had a security rating that would have made access to the Kremlin seem simple.

      “I am perfectly aware of that, Mr. Cavell. I possess a great number of items of information that I shouldn’t. Like the additional item that I know that, in keeping with your record, you were also dismissed from this post. Like yet another item—the real reason why I am here today: I know why you were dismissed.”

      The accuracy of my first deduction in the detecting business, that my client was an accountant, spoke ill for my prospects: Henry Martin wouldn’t have recognised a balance sheet if it had been handed to him on a silver salver. I wondered what his line of business might really be: but I couldn’t even begin to guess.

      “You were dismissed from Mordon,” Martin went on precisely, “primarily because you couldn’t keep a still tongue in your head. Oh, nothing to do with security, we know that.” He removed his rimless glasses and polished them thoughtfully. “After fifteen years in your line you probably don’t even tell yourself half of what you know. But you talked to top scientists, directors, in Mordon, and you made no secret of your opinion of the nature of the work in which they were engaged. You are not the first person to comment bitterly on the fact that this establishment, referred to in Parliamentary estimates as the Mordon Health Centre, is controlled exclusively by the War Office. You knew, of course, that Mordon is concerned mainly with the invention and production of microbiological organisms for use in war—but you are one of the few who know just how ghastly and terrifying are the weapons that have been perfected there, that armed with those weapons a few planes could utterly destroy all life in any country in the space of a few hours. You had very strong opinions about the indiscriminate use of such a weapon against an unsuspecting and innocent civilian population. And you made your opinion known in many places and to many people inside Mordon. Too many places, too many people. So today you are a private detective.”

      “Life’s unjust,” I agreed. I rose to my feet, crossed to the door, turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. “You must realise, Mr. Martin, that you have already said too much. The sources of your information about my activities at Mordon. You’re not leaving here till you tell me.”

      Martin sighed and replaced his spectacles.

      “Melodramatic, understanding but totally unnecessary. Do you take me for a fool, Cavell? Do I look a fool? What I told you I had to tell you to gain your co-operation. I will put my cards on the table. Quite literally.” He drew out a wallet, found a rectangle of ivory cardboard and placed it on the table. “Mean anything to you?”

      It meant a great deal. Across the middle of the card ran the legend. “Council for World Peace.” At the bottom right-hand corner: “Henry Martin, London Secretary.”

      Martin pulled his chair close and leaned forward, his forearms on my desk. His face was intent, serious.

      “Of course you know about it, Mr. Cavell. I don’t think I exaggerate when I say that it is by far the greatest force for good in the world today. Our council cuts across race, religion and politics. You will have heard that our Prime Minister and most members of the cabinet belong. I do not wish to comment on that. But I can state that most of the church dignitaries in Britain, whether Protestant, Catholic or Jewish, are members. Our list of titled members reads like Debrett’s, of other distinguished members like Who’s Who. The Foreign Office, who really know what’s going on and are more afraid than any, are solidly on our side. We have the support of all the best, the wisest, the most far-seeing men in the country today. I have very powerful men behind me, Mr. Cavell. He smiled faintly. “We even have influential members in Mordon.”

      All he said I knew to be true—except that bit about Mordon, and maybe that had to be true, to account for his knowledge. I wasn’t a member of the council myself, not being the right type for inclusion either in Debrett’s or Who’s Who, but I knew that the Council for World Peace, a society semi-secret in its nature inasmuch as it recognised that diplomatic negotiations were best not conducted through newspaper headlines, was of only the most recent origin but already regarded through the western world as the last best hope for mankind.

      Martin took the card from me and slipped it back in his wallet. “All I am trying to say is that I am a respectable man working for a pre-eminently respectable body.”

      “I believe that,” I said.

      “Thank you.” He dipped into his brief-case again and brought out a steel container about the size and