A Cure for Cancer

1
50,000 victims of kill-crazy prince charming

Beale, claws together under his chin, eyed Jerry Cornelius only for a moment then moved suddenly, rising and falling across the room on his flamingo legs, the woollen frock-coat, which was Burton's latest autumn offer, rumpling and floating.

The room was long, lined with books, the ceiling so large and heavy that it seemed about to fall with a thud. Cornelius glanced upwards and settled warily into the swivel armchair, knowing that, if the ceiling did fall, even he would not have a chance of surviving.

'Which book? We have fifty thousand.' Beale's sibilant voice took a long time to reach Jerry.

'The names,' murmured Jerry, ready to slip hand to vibragun if the situation demanded.

'London, the city of dolorous mist,' hissed Beale. 'The names, Mr Cornelius, yes; the confidential names. You say he's called S?'

'According to Okharna.'

'Nothing else?'

'Something in code about a mouse strangler of Munich, I'm told. But that could be a reference to an anagram of Mephis-tophilis...'

'Catching, Mr Aserinsky, hmph,' Beale said, as if in reply to a question, and began to cough.

'Not in my book, general. It's oh, oh, five and wild skidoo.'

'Unused — unusual...' Beale began, puzzled, as well he might be.

It was only a ruse on Jerry's part to get into the library, but he could not move yet, could not be certain that the ceiling would not fall; and he suspected the chair.

He got up. Beale gasped, hastily reaching for a book.

Jerry knew it was now or never.

He drew the chromium-plated vibragun from its silken holster and pointed it at Beale who fell on his knees and began to shake.

When Beale had shaken to pieces, Jerry slid the warm gun back in place, stepped over the corpse, checked doors and the many windows, and got to work, pulling the books from their shelves until every last one was on the floor. Wading through this rubble, he picked up a volume at random and opened it. As he expected it contained six months' issues of the Sunday Times Colour Supplement. It would do to start with.

From his pocket he extracted matches and a tin of lighter fluid, squirted the fluid over the book and lit it. The rest of the fluid he squirted at random over the piles of books.

Someone was coming.

He ran to the door and drew the bolts; ran, stumbling to the doors at the far end of the gallery and bolted those too. The fire was beginning to take hold. It was getting warm. He drew his vibragun and gave the huge central window a touch of ultrasonics so that it shattered instantly and he was through it, peering down into the misty street.

Swinging himself onto the ledge, he began to slide down the drainpipe, scraping the heel of his right hand quite nastily, and reached the ground where his Phantom VI, its motor turning over, waited for him.

Two or three streets away, he stopped for a moment and looked back and upwards to where he could see the white stone of the library building and the orange flames and rich, black smoke that whipped and boiled from the window he had broken.

Sabotage was only a sideline with Jerry Cornelius, but he prided himself that he was good at it.

'What do you achieve,' a girl had once asked him, stroking the muscles of his stomach, 'what do you achieve by the destruction of the odd library? There are so many. How much can one man do?'

'What he can,' Cornelius had told her, rolling on her.

Jerry glanced at the huge green-dialled watch on his left wrist .14.41.

He sent the Phantom VI racing forward, heading away from the City, his headlamps changing the colour of the mist rather than piercing it. Muscles and silk rippled together as he raised one jet-black hand to smooth his white hair from the jet-black forehead. He swung the wheel suddenly to avoid the back of a bus, hooted his horn as he passed on into the mist, finger-tips on wheel. Tower Bridge was ahead, open to traffic, and he raced over it, made the Elephant and Castle roundabout, whisked round it and reached eighty miles an hour as he passed over Waterloo Bridge where the mist was thinner, and the West End, whose great, jewelled towers were the city's distinctive feature, was ahead of him.

'Oh, psychedelic!' he murmured.

He had to be in Greek Street in five minutes. He would make it easily now.

He had to meet Spiro Koutrouboussis, his chief contact with the organization.

Koutrouboussis, one of a number of handsome young Greek millionaires who belonged to the organization, was dark-haired and slender, from Petrai originally, but now a refugee, a nationalized Israeli subject, proving just how far-sighted he was.

Leaving the thrumming Rolls in the street outside the Mercury Club, Koutrouboussis's favourite meeting place, Jerry stepped over the mist-silvered pavement and entered the warm, neon-lit club where he was greeted with some enthusiasm by the doorman who gratefully received the twenty-dollar tip.

Cornelius ignored the dining part of the club, where people sat in red plush seats and ate off golden plates the finest French cuisine available anywhere in the world.

He took the stairs two at a time and bumped into Koutrou- boussis who was waiting there. Koutrouboussis rubbed his side, his eyes looking rapidly from Jerry's right foot to his left and back again.

'The same old shoes, I see,' he said spitefully, and wheeled about to lead Cornelius into the private room he had on permanent hire.

2 Ex-bank clerk slave girl in private sin palace

'How did you manage to get through this,' Koutrouboussis asked, burying himself in the shadows of a leather armchair by the fire while a sequined girl poured them Pernod from a gleaming decanter on her hip, 'time?'

Jerry stroked his glass. They thought I was a visiting disc jockey from France. It worked well enough and long enough.' There were few long-range aircraft and, to its joy, the nation was blockaded by the radio ships. Jerry downed the yellow drink and held out his glass. The girl was an organization convert and very successful and very happy; she smiled sweetly at Cornelius as she filled his glass; she had once been a clerk in a bank, had worn a green overall and counted money. Her place had been taken by another convert who had originally worked as a hostess just around the corner. The organization was very neat, on the whole.

Koutrouboussis's eyes glowed from the shadows as he darted a look of jealousy at Cornelius. The poor man had sacrificed himself for others, but he could not help resenting them from time to time.

'Ah,' he said.

The organization got the French delivery?' Cornelius said. Thirty two. Fifteen men, seventeen women?'

'Oh yes. In good time,' Koutrouboussis said with a secret in his mellowing eyes.

That was important,' Cornelius murmured. 'I'm glad. You were to settle here.'

'It's been arranged. Sixty-four thousand pounds in hard yen in your London account under the name of Aserinsky. Well worth it.'

Jerry worked on a strict commission basis. It preserved autonomy and had been part of the original contract when he had surrendered admin control to the Greeks. 'Have they been processed yet?'

'A few. It should be a successful batch, I think.'

Jerry held out his glass for another drink; Pernod was the only alcohol he really liked and in this he was a child.

'But we're having trouble,' Koutrouboussis added. 'Opposition...'

That's not -'

'- unusual, I know. But in this case the opposition seems to realize what we're up to. I mean, they understand what we're doing.'

'A tip-off?'

'Could be. But does — it doesn't matter.'

'No.'

'This group,' continued Koutrouboussis, 'is an international one with its headquarters in America...'

'Where else? Official?'

'I don't know. Perhaps. The difficulties...'

'Difficult for them to operate and for us to reach them, of course But do you...?'

'We don't want you to go there.'

Jerry leant back in his chair. He looked nervously at the flickering fire in the grate nearby, but it offered no danger. He relaxed.

'It's the German chapter that seems to be offering us the serious threat at this stage,' Koutrouboussis cleaned his nails with a toothpick. 'We know one of them — a woman. She's a dental surgeon living in Cologne. Already she's deconverted some half-dozen of our German people.'

'Turned them on and turned them back?'

'Exactly. The usual method. But much smoother.'

'So she's got a good idea of our process.'

'To the last detail, apparently. Some Russian source, I think the leak. Maybe the Patriarch himself, eh?'

'You want me to kill her?'

'How you work is up to you.' Koutrouboussis fingered his lips.

Jerry's black face glistened in the firelight. He frowned. 'We'd prefer a conversion, I suppose.'

'Always. But if you can't save a soul, get rid of it.' Koutrouboussis smirked with self approval (although normally he did not at all approve of his self).

The organization isn't in agreement on that issue,' Jerry pointed out. 'Repent or die.'

'Quite.' . .

'Well. I'll see what I can do.' Jerry stroked the girl's pelvis. 'And ( go to Cologne, eh?'

'It might be an idea,' Koutrouboussis said uncertainly. To get yourself fully in the picture — but you needn't do anything there. She's coming to Britain, we gather, shortly, to organize the British chapter.'

Unsettled by the Greek's somewhat puritanical attitude (natural, he supposed, for a man who had given up so much), Jerry drank another glass of Pernod, feeling a trifle light-headed. The flavour of the liquorice was firmly on his palate now. If he were going to enjoy his dinner, he had better stop.

'Bring me a glass of ice-water, darling, will you please?' He patted the girl's thigh.

That would be the best time to strike,' Koutrouboussis suggested. 'Off her own territory and on yours.'

Jerry reached out for the water and drank it slowly. 'What's her name?'

'Name?'

'What's she called?'

'Name.'

Koutrouboussis made an urgent, spasmodic gesture with his right hand. He breathed heavily.

'Doctor...' he began. 'Karen — Karen...'

Jerry reached up and pulled the girl to him. They kissed each other firmly and pulling off their clothes lay down on the floor and fucked with hot and hasty passion.

'... von...'., Snorting and quivering, they came.

'... Krupp.'

'What was that again?' Jerry did up his trousers.

'Doctor Karen von Krupp. It's a lot to remember.'

'Got it.'

Jerry felt only pity. For some men, immortality was not enough. 'Her address in Cologne?'

'She lives outside Cologne. A small town to the west. Nibel-burg. Look for the old Gothic stone tower. That's where she has her surgery.'

'So I go to her and ask her to check my teeth.' Jerry tapped his whitened choppers.

'She'll guess who you are.'

'Will she try to detain me?'

'Make sure she doesn't,' Koutrouboussis said nervously. 'Not you, Cornelius. We can't afford it.'

Jerry smiled. He could smell the first course, moules mariniere, just before there was a knock on the door and the waiter pushed the trolley into the room.

3 U. S. Navy ships turned 'pirate'!!!

Koutrouboussis had given him his route plan, but how he crossed from Dover to Ostend was his own affair. It was more than twenty miles of sea, and three miles out was the tight circle of well-armed U. S. 'pirate' radio ships.

Jerry's Phantom VI, a streak of pink power on the white, sparkling road, roared through the clear sunlight of the autumn afternoon, making for Dover.

Wearing his Panda-skin coat and a white silk turban in which was set a jewelled clasp supporting a spray of peacock feathers, Jerry stretched comfortably in his seat. He was disguised sufficiently to fool a casual observer and he hoped, too, that Karen von Krupp would not immediately recognize him for what he was.

Jerry saw the bright ruin of the silver bridge that had once spanned the sea between England and France and which had collapsed in a tangle of flashing strands shortly after it had been built. Above it a metal ornithopter wheeled.

Now he could see the sea ahead, the little blue waves glinting in the sun; and the road began to slope towards it. Jerry decelerated gradually, switching controls in the convertible until, when the road slid into the sea, the Phantom VI had become a speedboat.

Gracefully, and without slackening speed, the Rolls cut across the water and before long the outlines of the ring of ships could be seen. Jerry touched another control.

This was his first opportunity to try out the car's new feature, for which he had paid a hundred and fifty thousand marks.

There was a soft, muttering sound and the Rolls-Royce began to sink beneath the ocean. It was capable of submerging only a matter of feet and for short distances, but it would probably see him through.

His speed had decreased considerably now. He peered through the murky water, looking upwards, and soon saw the keels of the radio ships ahead. Their sonar was bound to detect him and they would begin dropping depth charges almost at once, but with luck they would detonate well below him and a vessel as small as his would be hard to pinpoint with any great accuracy.

They had a fix.

He saw the first charge plunge into the water on his right and fall towards the ocean bed.

Then another fell close to it, and another on his left, another behind him.

He watched them sink.

One by one the shock waves rose, threatening to blow him to the surface under the Yankee's guns.

The car rocked. Its forward course was deflected by a further series of shock waves.

Jerry kept firm control of the wheel, letting the car move with the waves, waiting until they had died before pressing on, beneath the ships' keels and beyond them.

More depth charges struck the water and floated down.

One of the blue steel cannisters brushed the side of the car and he swung violently away as, below him, it exploded, catching the rear and almost turning the Rolls end over end.

Jerry was thrown forward against the wheel. Another charge went off. The water was cloudy. He lost his bearings.

The car spiralled to a dangerous depth; he managed to switch on the interior lights and regain control as he began to somersault.

Checking the instruments, he judged he was out of range. He began to rise.

Breaking through the waves, the limousine continued its stately way across the surface. Looking back, Jerry could see the ships behind him.

A few guns blew black smoke from their muzzles, he heard the roar as they fired, saw the shells splash into the sea and burst on either side of him, spraying the canopy of the car with water and momentarily making him lose visibility.

He smiled. Before they got his range, he would be over the horizon.

Until the radio ships thought of putting down anti-sub nets, the car would be useful.

Dashing like a dolphin through the warm water, the Rolls-Royce was soon in sight of Ostend and a similar concrete roadway. It hit the road smoothly under Cornelius's control, reconverted and was bowling along the road to Brussels without a moment's interruption.

He bought a paper at a roadside kiosk, saw that Israel had annexed Bulgaria and that another hundred thousand U. S. military advisors had been flown into European H. Q., Bonn.

And the sun was setting.

The act of running the radio-ship blockade had tired him a trifle and he planned to spend the night at an organization-approved hotel in Brussels.

Soon Brussels lay ahead, all baroque red and gold in the sunset, sweet city of nostalgia.