O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 03 - I, Lucifer, page 19
Now Seff had rented it. The house was built in the shape of a T, with a long front facing towards the sea and a stem running back into a wide cleft of the cone-shaped mountain which towered directly behind.
On either side, the slopes of the mountain plunged into thick jungle, a dark tangle of trees and vines set in dank humus and extending down to the rocky and convoluted shoreline, so that mountain and jungle between them formed a massive barrier across the neck of land, isolating the house and the bay. The only access was by sea.
The house was in two storeys, the upper storey of the long front being set back to provide a terrace. The roof was flat, with a low parapet of stone. All windows carried bars, a precaution taken by the rich Malayan against the danger of a Moro raid. A water tank was set on the short steel tower that rose from the roof at the far end of the stem of the T.
At some time an attempt had been made to establish a garden to the right of the house, so that poinsettias, hibiscus and brilliant orchids rioted in a great wave of colour against the dark jungle fringe.
It was three days since the party had arrived here, after a four day journey through the side-routes of Europe and Asia.
It had begun on the yacht Riorca, but that leg of the journey had lasted only a few hours, for the yacht had doubled back to the south, to Wesermunde, Modesty believed, where two cars had carried the party to a small airfield where a charter plane was waiting.
Thinking back, Modesty decided quietly that Willie Garvin could have had no hope of tracing the tortuous route, even with Tarrant’s help. She wondered briefly what angle Willie would be working on, then put speculation aside as profitless.
For the moment her main concern was Steve Collier. They had been given little chance to talk together, though it was not in fact forbidden by Seff. She had tried to give Collier reassurance with a look and with a word whenever opportunity offered, but she was still afraid that he might crack.
He was not a weak character, but neither was he a fool; he had enough intelligence to assess the future objectively, and he must know that when his usefulness to Seff was ended he would die. He knew, too, that her own life hung even more tenuously on Lucifer’s good will. For the moment that still remained, and in this one thing Lucifer could not be manipulated, either by Seff or Bowker.
She thought that the strain showing in Collier’s face arose out of fear for her rather than for himself. But perhaps the thing that gnawed more viciously at him was not so much the knowledge that sooner or later they would die, as the more nerve-snapping knowledge that they both carried instant death with them in their bodies every second of the day and night.
Bowker had placed it there, under Seff’s supervision.
She remembered lying face down on a blanket-covered table in a small room of the house on Sylt, with Jack Wish holding a gun to her head. Stripped to the waist, she had felt the prick of a needle under her left shoulder blade; and then, sixty seconds later, Bowker had taken a scalpel to the area numbed by novocaine and worked in silence while Seff explained to her and to Collier exactly what was being done.
A half-inch incision, a quick separation of the muscle fibres, and the thin plastic capsule was inserted, embedded in the muscle. Swab, an alum coagulant, a stitch; a strip of plaster over a dry dressing, and the thing was done. It had taken six minutes.
Then it was Collier’s turn. She remembered his face, pale with shock as she rose from the table and began to put on her tunic, incredulous horror in his eyes. She had subdued her own shock, holding it down, sealing off her emotions and watching impassively as the thing was done to Collier, glad to watch because the knowledge might later be vital.
She had seen the second capsule, held between tweezers in Seff’s bony fingers. It was white, lozenge shaped, and no thicker than a match; an inch long and perhaps a quarter of an inch across.
She had heard Seff’s voice as Bowker bent to make the incision in Collier’s back: ‘You will not be incommoded by this. The small incision will heal in a day or so. But you will, of course, be effectively compelled to obedience. It is best that you should have no doubt of this, so I will tell you precisely how the capsule functions …’
Willie Garvin would have understood the detailed technicalities. Modesty’s own knowledge of miniaturisation was sufficient for her to know that Seff was not speaking in the realms of fantasy.
Each capsule contained simple, standard components. A ferrite rod an inch long provided the aerial and was connected to a piece of miniaturised circuitry which would, when triggered, discharge a Mallory mercury-cell battery no bigger than a waistcoat button. The trigger for the discharge would be a hard signal of high frequency, tone modulated for safety, so that the modulation would have to be filtered out by the encapsulated circuitry before the trigger signal would cause the battery to discharge. This prevented any random transmission acting as a trigger.
When the signal came, from the pocket transmitter Seff carried, the Mallory battery would fire a primer from an ordinary flash bulb. The primer was no bigger than a matchhead, but its firing would be sufficient to pierce the thin plastic casing of the capsule.
And a few grains of cyanide would then be released into the bloodstream, to bring immediate death.
There was a different frequency for each capsule, and the transmitter was so built that Seff could kill either captive at the touch of a switch. Throughout the journey Modesty Blaise and Steve Collier had never been more than fifty paces from Seff, and the effective range of the small transmitter was over half a mile. Also, they had never been allowed within attacking distance of Seff, and there had been supervision day and night.
Little supervision was needed now. Somewhere in the house was the transmitter Seff used for maintaining contact with Mr. Wu Smith in Macao. It had enough power to trigger the release of the cyanide at fifty miles. Seff still continued to carry the small transmitter with him, like a loaded gun. Bowker also had one now, and so did Regina.
The two prisoners were held as effectively as if their feet had been nailed to the ground.
Modesty moved her shoulder, flexing the muscles. She could not feel the presence of the capsule. The little cut had healed and the stitch had been taken out three days ago. Inserting the capsules had been a simple operation. Removing them would require great care and a steady hand, for they would first have to be accurately located in the muscle fibre.
It was impossible for her to remove her own capsule, very difficult to remove Collier’s without killing him by cyanide poisoning, but she believed she could do it for she had watched Bowker closely. It was far less likely that Collier could do the same for her. Still, the chance might have to be taken. She had stolen a razor blade from one of the bathrooms and kept it hidden in the sole of her sandal, but she had never yet been left alone with Steve Collier.
Modesty’s eyes rested unseeingly on the big bamboo raft which lifted gently on its mooring ropes fifty yards from the beach. Her mind quietly turned over the situation, exploring every facet in the hope of finding a flaw she could turn to her advantage.
Many mysteries had been unravelled for her in the past few days. She knew what Lucifer was, and what he believed himself to be. She knew how Seff used Lucifer’s powers of e.s.p. to predict death, and how he used those predictions. She knew the structure of the little group Seff had gathered about him, knew the part played by Bowker, the part played by Jack Wish. All this fitted into the pattern of the strange yet logical guesses she had made that night in London.
But she also knew now the astonishing answer to the mystery of how the submerged containers were picked up from under the sea. That was where the plump, gentle Spaniard in rumpled slacks came into the picture. Garcia.
There was no doubt that Seff was one with the rare gift of finding strange talents in men and blending those talents to serve an equally strange purpose. He had found Lucifer and Garcia, and the part that each played in Seff’s scheme staggered the imagination.
But all that she had learned offered no factors on which to build a plan for escape. An attempt to steal one of the Moro launches was pointless, for by Seff’s orders the engines were kept immobilised. There was no landward route; behind the house lay mountain and jungle and unknown territory, the bundok area of east central Luzon, perhaps, an isolation still unmapped. The going on foot would be either slow or impossible. The cyanide capsules would be triggered before Modesty and Steve Collier could cover a mile. Also, Seff had warned the Moros to stay out of the jungle fringe, for there still remained mines laid by the Japanese to guard their battery from a landing and assault from the rear.
It might be possible to steal one of the two little sailing dinghies under Garcia’s charge and then hug the coast, hiding ashore by day from the Moros searching in their launches, and moving on by night. But that would mean getting the boat itself into hiding on the rocky coast…
She left the problem, for it was secondary. Nothing at all could be attempted until the death-capsules had been cut out from their bodies. Already she had considered bribing one of the Moros to help her. She had only her body to bribe with, but it was not this that deterred her. Apart from the risk of the Moro betraying her to Seff, there was the problem of communication. She did not speak the chabacano dialect, the ‘bamboo Spanish’ of the Moros, and she could not believe that she would be able to explain what had to be doneor that a Moro could do it without piercing the capsule and killing her.
She had not even considered trying to bribe Garcia, for he had no interest in her as a woman. But she had very warily tested the possibility of enlisting his aid, for Garcia was not an enemy. In a different way, he was as innocent as Lucifer. Garcia lived in a very special world of his own. It was a world made possible by Seff, and Garcia’s only anxiety was that nothing should disrupt it. Modesty’s tentative approach had troubled and bewildered him. Seeing this, she had dropped the attempt before he had begun to understand.
There remained Lucifer. His manner to her was one of kindly amusement, and it was plain that she was his protégé. She had taken the risk of telling him that Seff had placed a killing device in her back. Lucifer had laughed delightedly at her fantasy and shaken his head: ‘My servants and I have no need of human ways of destruction, Modesty. You shouldn’t try to lie to the Father of Lies himself.’
Along the beach a flash of colour caught her eye. She turned her head. Lucifer was coming towards her, wearing red trunks and taking off a black shirt as he trod the dry sand.
It was not hard to smile a welcome at him. She felt pity and some measure of affection for this physically splendid young man with the tragically deluded mind.
‘Shall we swim, Modesty?’
She nodded, and registered that this was the first time he had asked rather than commanded her. That might be significant of a subtle change in his attitude. To test it she sat still, waiting, and after a moment he reached out a hand to help her to her feet.
Beside him she walked into the warm sea, feeling the drag of the broken rollers as they swept round and back. She drew up the skirt of the cheong sam and tucked it between her legs like a loin cloth, knotting the ends of the slashed skirt over one hip. The pull of the breakers faded, and she was waist deep in the quiet stretch of water beyond. Leaning forward, she began to swim lazily towards the raft.
Lucifer surged past her. He was a powerful swimmer. Turning, he submerged, and a moment later she felt his hand on her ankle, drawing her down. She let herself sink, caught his head and forced his chin back, then broke free. They surfaced together, and Lucifer was laughing.
She knew now that he was feeling the tug of her sex, even though he might not be aware of it. This could be dangerous in the long run, for Seff would be driven to act if he saw her influence over Lucifer growing too strong. But in the short run it was good, for Lucifer alone stood between her and dispatch to the ‘lower levels’.
She splashed water in his face, then turned and swam for the raft. As she sat on the edge, wringing water from her hair, he drew himself up to sit beside her.
‘I like the sun,’ he said contentedly. ‘And swimming.’
‘Yes. It’s good.’ She looked round the bay. ‘I shall miss all this if Seff sends me down to the lower levels.’
Lucifer’s chin came up and a slight frown touched his brow. ‘That is not for him to decide, Modesty.’
‘He wants to send me, though.’
A smile. ‘That is because his power is limited, and he cannot see as I see. He mistrusts you. He thinks you are still in rebellion against me.’
‘And do you think so?’
‘I know you are not,’ he answered with complete assurance.
‘I’m glad you know it. And I’m glad you’ve given your new servant, Collier, another chance. Is he working well now?’
‘Yes,’ Lucifer thought for a moment, then added, ‘but he is slow to learn. I have been busy teaching him all afternoon, but he keeps asking me to show him again.’
In a ground floor room in the front of the house Bowker closed the drawer of a filing cabinet and lit a cigarette. He did not offer one to Collier, who sat with elbows on knees, hands hanging limply, a pale sheen of exhaustion on his face.
Seff and Regina had just entered the room. Regina moved to a couch with her usual slight hobble, sat down, slipped her shoes off, and began to rub her forehead with a menthol stick.
Seff said, ‘Are the results satisfactory, Dr. Bowker?’
Bowker nodded towards Collier. ‘He’s the expert.’
Seff’s neck groaned as he turned his head. ‘Well, Mr. Collier?’
Collier looked at him with weary loathing. ‘Lucifer’s extrasensory powers are greater than I’ve found in anyone I’ve examined. And the results are bad, from your point of view.’
‘Please explain that paradox.’
Collier looked out of the window. ‘Most people with e.s.p. have it only in a moderate degree. I mean moderate to the layman. So moderate that it only shows up in statistics. You toss a coin a thousand times and get your subject to predict each result. If he gets twenty per cent better than a chance result on the whole run, that’s something to get excited about.’
He paused, looking at Regina and wondering vaguely whether he hated the woman more than he hated Seff. After the vile puppet show last night, he thought it likely.
‘You want something different,’ he went on. ‘You want Lucifer to be at least ninety per cent accurate in predicting death by psychometry. We’ve taken a run of a thousand envelopes this afternoon, and he picked out thirteen. Then we did the same run again and he picked out fifteen. Seven of them were the same as he’d picked the first time.’
‘And what does this indicate, Mr. Collier?’
‘I haven’t worked out the maths yet, and I can’t until we eventually find out what percentage of predictions he’s got right. Bowker’s tabulation of past results isn’t in the best form for mathematical analysis, but as a broad opinion I’d say that Lucifer’s accuracy is probably diminishing.’
Collier stopped talking and looked out of the window again, hoping to see a figure in a red cheong sam, not knowing why he hoped, unless it was for reassurance that he was not alone in this nightmare world.
Seff said, ‘Forget the maths. We are purely interested in practical results. To what extent can your expertise improve Lucifer’s performance?’
‘I don’t know. For Christ’s sake, there aren’t any rules in e.s.p. Or if there are we haven’t found them yet.’
‘Kindly give thought to your language, Mr. Collier. There is a lady present,’ Seff said stiffly. He glanced at Regina, who gave him a fond, proud smile. Collier felt sick. ‘Surely,’ Seff went on, ‘you have studied the effect of external influences on the results of e.s.p. experiments?’
Collier shrugged. ‘We don’t experiment with death-predictions. But for what it’s worth, we find that the best results are gained when the subject isn’t making any effort. Conscious effort seems to block the faculty. We also find that we can get improved results by training. Lucifer’s been having daily sessions with the Rhine cards and other standard techniques since we got here. That’s not so long, but I’d have expected an improvement.’
‘Perhaps your training is at fault?’
Collier smiled without humour. ‘See what results you get if I stop it,’ he said grimly. ‘Lucifer’s going down hill in spite of it.’
‘He’s right, Seff,’ Bowker said quickly. ‘Lucifer’s tightening up. I’ve been watching him while Collier’s been watching the results. The boy’s too tense. Get him relaxed, and I think Collier’s training could put him back on the top line for accuracy.’
‘Get him relaxed…’ Seff echoed slowly. ‘That seems to be to your own address, Dr. Bowker. Have you any recommendation?’
Tve tried tranquillisers but they don’t help.’ Bowker stubbed out his cigarette thoughtfully. ‘What impresses me is the way he put a stopper on killing that Blaise girl. There’s something there, maybe. I could put it in psychiatric terms, but Jack Wish of all people came up with the idea first, back on Sylt, and he put it simply enough. Lucifer’s a big boy. Maybe he needs a girl.’
Regina tittered and a little colour came to her pallid cheeks. ‘Apart from the Moro women,’ she said coyly, ‘there’s only Modesty Blaise.’
‘That’s who I had in mind,’ said Bowker.
There was silence. Collier found himself with a seething desire to get up and walk over to Bowker and smash his fist in the man’s face. He did not imagine he would be very good at that sort of thing, but neither would Bowker for that matter. And it would be infinitely satisfying to feel something break under his fist. He took a slow, deep breath and tried to relax.
Seff was standing with hands behind his back, rising on his toes and sinking to his heels, lips pursed judicially.
