The Wind From Nowhere

6 Death in a Bunker

Pausing in the doorway to allow the shower of plaster falling from the ceiling to spend itself, Marshall stepped through into the Intelligence Unit. A skeleton staff of three-Andrew Symington, a corporal and one of the navy typists-sat in the dim light of the emergency bunker, surrounded by the jumble of teletypes, radio consoles and TV screens. The scene reminded Marshall of the last hours in Hitler's fuhrerbunker. Discarded bulletins and typed memos lay around everywhere, a clutter of unwashed teacups stood on the lid of a forgotten suitcase, cigarette ash spilled across the desks.

Above the chatter of the teletypes and the muted cross-talk of the R/T he could hear the sounds of the wind echoing through the ventilator shaft that reached up to the Mall 6o feet above. Almost everyone had gone now. The last War Office and COE personnel had left in their Centurions early that morning for the peripheral command posts. Admiralty Arch had collapsed half an hour later, pulling down with it the complex of offices that had housed COE for the previous three weeks. Intelligence was by now a luxury that would soon be dispensed with.

The wind had reached 250 mph and the organized resistance left was more interested in securing the minimal survival necessities-food, warmth and 50 feet of concrete overhead-than in finding out what the rest of the world was doing, knowing full well that everywhere people were doing exactly the same thing. Civilization was hiding. The earth itself was being stripped to its seams, almost literally-six feet of topsoil were now traveling through the air.

He sat down on the desk behind Symington, patted the plump bald man on his shoulder, then waved at the other two. The girl wore headphones over her straggling hair, and was too harassed answering the calls coming in endlessly from mobile cars and units trapped in basements and deep shelters to have had any time to look after her appearance, attractive as she had once been (Marshall had deliberately kept her on at COE as a morale booster) but when she saw him she ran a hand over her hair and gave him a brave smile.

"How's it going, Andrew?"

Symington sat back, massaged his eyes for a moment before replying. He looked exhausted and ashen faced, but managed a thin smile.

"Well, chief, I guess we can start getting ready to surrender. Looks to me as if the war's over."

Marshall laughed. "I was just thinking the place feels as if the Russians are two hundred yards away. How are the PM and the Chief of Staff?"

"They reached Leytonheath a couple of hours ago. The mine at Sutton Coldfield had been flooded by underground springs-water must have driven through a fault leading in from the North Sea -so they've been forced to dig into the shelters at the airfield. They're O.K. there for three weeks, but after that there'll have to be a general election."

A wry smile crossed Marshall 's face. For a moment he looked reflectively at Symington, then said: "What's the latest from the Met people? Any hope of a breakthrough on the weather front?"

Symington shrugged. "They went off the air about an hour ago. Pulled out to Duiwich. I don't think they've known any more for the last week than you or I. Just about all they've done is lick their fingers and hold them over their heads. The latest wind speed is 255. That's an increase of 4.7 over 11 A.M. yesterday."

"An effective drop, though," Marshall said hopefully.

"Yes, but it's accounted for by the tremendous mass of soil particles being carried. The sky's jet black now."

"What about overseas?"

"Had a signal in from a USAF field in New Jersey. Apparently New York is a total write-off. Manhattan 's under hundred-foot waves, most of the big skyscrapers and office blocks are down. Empire State Building toppled like a falling chimney stack. Same story everywhere else. Casualty lists in the millions. Paris, Berlin, Rome -nothing but rubble, people hanging on in cellars."

The bunker shuddered under the impact of a building falling above, like a depth charge shaking a submarine. The light bulbs danced on the ends of their flexes. Dust filtered down from the ceiling. Involuntarily Marshall 's eyes moved to the mouth of the ventilator shaft, his mind crossing the interval of compacted clay up to the garage in the basement above where the big supertractor waited to take him to safety.

The corporal by the TV screens spoke up. "When do we pack this lot in, sir?" he asked anxiously. "Seems to me we're cutting it a bit fine."

"Don't worry," Marshall told him. "We'll get out safely enough. Let's try to hang on here as long as we can. You three are just about the only intact intelligence outfit still operating in the whole of Europe." There was a hint of pride in Marshall 's voice, the pride of a man who has created a perfect team and hates to see it disbanded even after it's outlived its purpose. He gave them all a wide encouraging grin. "You never know, Crighton; you may be the first person to see the wind reach its peak and slack off."

Symington shifted a stack of teletype memos, spread them out on his desk, anchoring them from the draught with a stack of pennies.

"This is the provincial set-up. Birmingham: an estimated 300,000 people are sheltering in the coal mines around the city. Ninety-nine per cent of the city is down. Tremendous fires from the refineries at West Bromwich swept across the ruins yesterday, finished off what little the wind had left. Estimated casualties: 200,000."

"Sounds low," Marshall commented dourly.

"Probably is. Homo sapiens is pretty tenacious, but if London is any guide most people went down into their basements with -one packet of sandwiches and a thermos of cocoa." He went on, " Manchester: heavy casualties were caused yesterday when the roof of London Road station caved in. For some reason the authorities have been concentrating people there, there were something like 20,000 packed between the platforms."

Marshall nodded while Symington continued in a low steady voice. There seemed to be a depressing uniformity about the reports. When he had heard one he had heard them all. The same picture emerged; the entire population of one of the world's most highly industrialized nations, equipped with an elaborate communications and transport system, huge stores of fuel and food, large armed services, yet caught completely unprepared by a comparatively slight increase in one of the oldest constants of its natural environment.

On the whole, people had shown less resourcefulness and flexibility, less foresight, than a wild bird or animal would. Their basic survival instincts had been so dulled, so overlaid by mechanisms designed to serve secondary appetites, that they were totally unable to protect themselves. As Symington had implied, they were the helpless victims of a deep-rooted optimism about their right to survival, their dominance of the natural order which would guarantee them against everything but their own folly, that they had made gross assumptions about their own superiority.

Now they were paying the price for this, in truth reaping the whirlwind!

He listened to Symington complete the picture.

"A few navy units are operating bases around the Portsmouth and Plymouth areas-the defenses and arsenals there are tunneled deep underground, but in general military control is breaking down. Rescue operations are virtually over. There are a few army patrols with the crowds in the London Underground system, but how long they can keep command is anybody's guess."

Marshall nodded. He moved across to the bank of TV receivers. There were six of them, relaying pictures transmitted from automatic cameras mounted in sealed concrete towers that Marshall had had built at points all over London. The sets were labeled: Camden Hill, Westminster, Hampstead, Mile End Road, Battersea, Waterloo. The pictures flickered and were lashed with interference patterns, but the scenes they revealed were plain enough. The right-hand screen, labeled Mile End Road, was blank, and the corporal was adjusting the controls in an effort to get a picture.

Marshall studied one of the other screens, then tapped Crighton on the shoulder.

"I shouldn't bother." He indicated the Hampstead screen, pointed through the blur of dust swept off the shattered rooftops. The camera was traversing automatically from left to right in three-second sweeps; as it neared its leftward stop Marshall put his finger on the screen, pointing to a stub of gray concrete sticking up above the desolation several miles away on the horizon. As the duststorm cleared for a moment, revealing the rectangular outlines of the Mile End tower, they could see that a pile of debris lay across its waist, the remains of a ten-story building that had been carried bodily across the ground. The tower was still standing, but the camera turret, 50 feet above ground, had been snapped off.

Marshall switched off the set, then sat down in front of the screen covering the Westminster area. Its transmitting tower was mounted on a traffic island at the bottom of Whitehall only a few hundred yards from where they were sitting. It had been fitted with a 180° traverse, and was pointing up Whitehall toward Trafalgar Square. The road had disappeared below enormous mounds of rubble driven across the pavement from the shells of the ministries on the eastern side. The War Office and Ministry of Agriculture were down. Beyond them, the spires of Whitehall Court had vanished; only spurs of masonry were sticking up against the backdrop of the blackened sky.

The camera swung, following the battered remains of a doubledecker bus rolling across the rubble. Tossed over the ruins of the Foreign Office and Downing Street, it bounced off the remains of the Home Office portico and then was carried away across St. James's Park. Along the horizon were the low ragged outlines of the National Gallery and the clubs down Pall Mall, with here and there the gaunt rectangular outline of a hotel or office block.

Marshall watched the last moments of the Piccadilly Hotel. The intervening area, Haymarket and the south side of the Circus, was down, and the hotel was standing out alone above the tempest. The colonnade between the wings was still intact, but just as the camera moved across it two of the columns buckled and crashed back into the face of the hotel, driving tremendous rents through the wall. Instantly, before the camera had time to move away, the entire front of the hotel collapsed in an explosion of dust and masonry. One of the wings tipped over and then crashed to the ground, carrying with it the remains of a small office block that had sheltered behind it. The other wing rode high above the chaos like the bows of a greater liner breasting a vast sea, and then slipped and cascaded to the ground in a soundless avalanche.

As the camera swung full left onto the House of Parliament, Marshall saw heavy waves breaking among the ruins of the Lords. Driven into the estuary by the wind, powerful seas were flooding into the Thames and being carried up as far as Windsor, sweeping away the locks and spilling over the banks, where they completed the task of destruction started by the wind. The time-familiar river façade of Westminster had vanished, and high seas washed across the ragged lines of foundation stones, spilling over the supine remains of Big Ben, stripping the clock faces as they lay among the rubble in Palace Yard.

Suddenly the corporal jumped forward, pointing to the set receiving the Hammersmith picture.

"Sir! Quickly! They're trying to come out!"

They crowded around the set, watching the screen. The camera was mounted over Hammersmith Broadway. Directly below in the street, a hundred feet away from them, was the entrance to Hammersmith Underground. The tall office buildings in the street were down to their first stories, walls poking up through piles of rubble, but the entrance to the station had been fortified with a heavy concrete breastwork that jutted out into the roadway, three circular doors fitted into its domed roof.

These were open now, and emerging from them was a press of struggling people, fighting and pulling past each other in a frantic effort to escape from the station. The doorways were packed with them, some peering out hesitantly when they reached the entrance, then being propelled out into the open street by the pressure of the mob behind them.

Like petals torn from a wind-blown flower they detached themselves from the doorways, took a few helpless steps out into the street and were whipped off their feet and hurled across the road, bouncing head over heels like sacks of feathers that burst and disintegrated as they ripped into the ragged teeth of reinforcing bars protruding from the debris.

The camera swung away from the scene and pointed eastward into the face of the storm, the panorama obscured by the clouds of, flying stones that poured into the face of the camera like countless machine-gun tracers in a heavy bombardment.

Symington was sitting limply in his chair, grimly watching the screen. On the other side of the table Crighton and the Wren typist watched silently, their faces gray and pinched. Above them the light bulbs shook spasmodically as the bunker trembled, illuminating the thin dust falling from the ceiling. It drifted slowly across the room to the mouth of the ventilator shaft, where it swirled away.

The camera returned to the Underground station. The stream of people were still trying to get out, but somehow they had realized the futility of stepping straight into the wind and were trying to make their way along the protecting wall of the concrete breastwork. But no sooner had they gone 10 or 15 feet when they again felt the full undiminished force of the wind stream and were twisted helplessly from their hand holds and spun away into the air.

Marshall slammed one fist into the other. "What are they trying to do?" he shouted in exasperation. "Why don't the fools stay where they are, for God's sake?"

Symington shook his head slowly. "The tunnels must be flooded. The river's only half a mile away and water's probably pumping in under enormous pressure." He glanced up at Marshall, smiled bleakly. "Or maybe they're just worn out, terrified to the point where escape is the only possible solution, even if it's just escape to death."

Marshall nodded, then glanced at his watch. He looked around the room for a moment, taking in each of his three companions, nodded to them and began to move for – the door where banks of teletypes stood against the wall.

"Not much coming through," he said to Symington. "Looks as if we ought to start pulling out. Might take anything up to a couple of days to reach the U.S. base at Brandon Hall. No point in trying to be heroes. Get in touch with them and see if traffic there can pick us up today. I'll look in again in half an hour."

He made his way quickly along the darkened corridor to the small stairway at the end of the floor, then hurried up it to the level above. His office was halfway down, backing onto the elevator shaft and emergency exit.

Unlocking the door, 'he let himself in. Deborah Mason, a heavy trench coat belted around her trim waist, was sitting on the sofa next to her suitcase. She stood up as he came in, put her arms on Marshall 's shoulders.

"Are you ready now, Simon?" she asked anxiously. "I can't wait to get out of here."

Marshall held her close to him and smiled into her smooth face, touching her lips lightly with his own. "Don't worry, darling. All set now.

The small room was stacked with gear. A carton of gas masks and an R/T set cluttered the desk, crates and suitcases stood against the walls. First testing the door to make certain it was locked, Marshall sat down at his desk and dialed the transport shelter above.

"Kroll?" he asked in a low voice. " Marshall here. Get ready to pull out in about ten minutes." He paused, looking away from Deborah and dropping his voice. "Meanwhile, can you come down to my office? Take the rear stairway by the elevator shaft. I'll need your help with something."

Slipping the phone back into its cradle, Marshall glanced up at Deborah, who was watching him suspiciously, her mouth fretting slightly.

"Simon, why do you want Kroll to come down here?"

Marshall began to shrug, but Deborah cut in: "Symington and the other two are coming with us, aren't they? You're not going to leave them behind?"

"Symington? Of course not, darling. He's invaluable to us. But we'll need Kroll to help persuade him to come along."

He stood up and walked over to one of the suitcases, but Deborah stopped him.

"What about Crighton and the girl?" she pressed. "You're not going to leave them, or try anything-"

Marshall hesitated, looking Deborah in the face, his eyes motionless.

"Simon!" Deborah seized his arms. "They've worked for you for months; both of them trust you completely. You can't just throw their lives away. Hardoon can use them somewhere."

Marshall clenched his teeth, pushed Deborah away. "For heaven's sake, Deborah, don't start sentimentalizing. I hate to do it, but these are tough times. People are dying out there by the million. Are you willing to swap places with one of them?"

"No, I'm not," Deborah said firmly, "but that's not the point, is it? You've got a place for them."

"In the Titan, yes. But at the Tower-I can't be sure. Hardoon is unpredictable; I've no real authority with him. I'd leave them here, but they'll put out an alert within five minutes and we'd be picked up before we'd gone ten miles." He looked down at Deborah, her mouth clenched determinedly, then burst out in a growl of irritation:

"All right then, I'll take a chance. It's a hell of a risk, though."

He picked up the suitcase, carried it over to the sofa. The case was of medium size, with heavy metal ribs that appeared to have been mounted at a date later than its original manufacture.

Taking a keychain from his pocket, Marshall opened the two locks and carefully raised the lid. Inside was a small vhf radio transceiver, equipped with a powerful scrambler.

Marshall switched on the scrambler, then reached down to the floor behind the sofa and picked up a long piece of loose wire. The end had been fitted with a plug and he clipped this into the aerial socket of the transceiver. Following the wire behind the sofa to the corner, he traced it along the skirting board behind his desk to the emergency door, where it disappeared through a small aperture.

Satisfied, he returned to the set, unwound a power lead and plugged it into his desk light. As he switched on he listened to the set hum into life, then quietly adjusted the tuning dial until the red fixed-beam answering bulb lit up. Then he pulled on the headphones and picked up the miniature microphone.

" Hardoon Tower, this is Black Admiral calling Hardoon Tower," he began to repeat rapidly. Deborah came and stood at his shoulder, and he put his free arm around her.

As the answering call came through, the narrow door behind Marshall 's desk opened slowly. A tall, heavily built man in black plastic storm suit and fiberglass helmet stepped softly into the r6om. His face was hidden by the deep visor of the helmet and the broad metal chinstrap, but between them were a tight scarred mouth, a sharp nose and cheekbones, hard eyes. The man's hands were gloveless, rubber seals at the sleeves of the suit clasping his thick wrists. In the center of his helmet was a single large white triangle, like a pyramid in profile.

Marshall waved him into the room, gesturing him to lock the door behind him, then crouched over the set.

"… tell R.H. we're leaving in about five minutes, estimated time of arrival at the Tower-" he glanced at his watch "-0400 hours. Everything here is closing down, all government agencies pulled out yesterday. The Titan will carry U.S. Navy insignia-it's too dangerous to move around now without any markings and the only other big tractors are American, so no one will try to stop us. What's that?"

Marshall paused, watching the tall figure of Kroll standing beside him as the question was repeated. "I'll be bringing them along. They're top communications people; they'll be useful to us. What? There are only three of them. Don't worry, I'll see R.H. personally about it." Marshall 's face began to knot, his deep jaw lengthening as he listened impatiently to the voice in his earphones. He started to say: "Listen, I don't care what orders R.H. made-" then abruptly uncupped his headphones and switched the set off.

"Bloody fool!" he snapped. "Who does that operator think he is?" His face clouded with anger, then slowly relaxed. He pulled out the aerial, then folded away the earphones and hand microphone and closed the case.

"Have to watch R.H.," he said reflectively to Kroll. "He's a tough nut, all right. Just because Communications are taking second place to Construction now the boys at the Tower are starting to get cocky."

Kroll nodded, almost imperceptibly, as if well used to a maximum conversational economy. "There's been a lot of reorganization," he said tersely. "Big changes, cutting down. Construction's taking a back seat now. Security is head department."

Marshall said nothing, pensively considering this. "Who's in charge?" he asked.

Kroll shook his head. His hard face flickered bonily; something reminiscent of a chuckle rasped out. "R.H., the boss himself." He was eying Deborah up and down with interest, and she backed away from him slightly. Kroll broke off and glanced around the office. "Let's get a move on, eh?" he added curtly.

Marshall carried the suitcase over to the desk, noting the change in Kroll's manner. "Good idea," he agreed. "Thanks for all the news. By the way, what department are you in now? Security? I take it you've been promoted."

Kroll nodded, watching Marshall without a hint of deference. He moved toward the outer door, jerked a thumb in the direction of the corridor. "Where do the others hang out? Down on the bottom level?"

"Hold on." Marshall turned to Deborah, took her by the arm and steered her toward the emergency door. "Darling, there's bound to be a little rough stuff here. You go ahead upstairs. Everything will have quieted down by the time we reach you."

The girl hesitated, but Marshall smiled at her. "Believe me, Deborah, I give you my word they'll come with us. See you in a moment."

As she stepped through the doorway, apparently satisfied by his assurance, Marshall turned back to Kroll.

"You stay here. I'll bring them up."

Kroll held his hand on the doorknob, looking over his shoulder at Marshall. The two big men seemed to fill the tiny office.

Kroll raised one shoulder slightly, listening to the sounds of Deborah's feet disappear up the stairway. "Why bother?" he asked laconically. "Fix them down there. Don't want to leave a lot of mess around your office. Somebody might stumble in and find them."

Marshall reached past Kroll, pressed his elbow firmly against Kroil's arm and edged his hand off the knob.

"I'm taking them with me," he said quietly. "We're not fixing them up here or anywhere else." He opened the door, to find it lodged almost immediately against Kroll's black leather boot. Marshall looked down at the steel toecap, placed squarely in his path, then straightened his shoulders and peered hard at Kroll, dull anger pounding in his temples.

"Get away from that door!" he snapped. "What the hell do you think you're playing at?"

He started to lean his shoulder against Kroll's, but Kroll suddenly swung around with his back to the door and slammed it shut with a sharp kick of the other heel.

He eyed Marshall carefully. "Hold it, Marshall. You got your orders from the Tower two minutes ago. R.H. isn't fooling around."

Marshall shook his head. "Listen, Kroll, just shut up and take your orders from me. I'll deal with R.H. when I reach the Tower. Meanwhile I don't want you telling me what to do. I'm taking these three people back with us."

"What for? You'll never get them in. R.H. just sealed out two hundred workers in Construction who've been on the Tower right from the beginning."

Marshall ignored him, was about to seize Kroll's shoulder and wrench him away from the door when there was a tap on the far side of the frosted glass. Kroll dived back, his right hand sliding swiftly into the center vent of his jacket and emerging a fraction of a second later with a heavy.45 automatic, a toy in his enormous fist.

Marshall waved him into the corner behind the door, then opened it to find Symington standing there, blinking in the bright light, dust streaks on his bald domed head.

"Hello, Andrew. What's the problem?" Marshall backed sideways into the office, drawing Symington after him. Kroll was behind the door.

"Sorry to bother you, chief," Symington began to explain. "Crighton heard someone come down the emergency exit and went up to the transport bay. Apparently there's one of those big American-" He broke off, noticing the huge figure of Kroll poised behind him. "What's going-" he began to say, then tried helplessly to back into the corridor as Kroll grabbed him by the shoulder with his left hand and wrenched him back off his feet, his right hand swinging the heavy barrel of the automatic at his head.

The blow had the full lethal power of Kroll's powerful physique behind it. Marshall dived for the gun hand, at the same time seizing Symington by the back of the neck and forcing him to the floor. He and Kroll locked arms and grappled with each other, as Symington struggled at their feet between them. Suddenly they sprang apart. Symington darted quickly through the doorway before the two big men could collect themselves, and slammed it in front of them.

Before Marshall could stop him, Kroll had fired through the frosted glass at the blurring image moving down the corridor. The sound of the shot roared out like an exploding bomb in the confined office. Shattered glass spat against the walls of the corridor. Through the aperture Marshall saw Symington kicked headlong by the force of the bullet, then slammed crookedly onto his face as if flung from a speeding car.

Kroll pulled back the door and dived out into the corridor. With' Marshall following him, he raced across to where Symington was lying, glanced cursorily at the figure at his feet, then started move down the corridor, the automatic raised steadily in front of him.

Marshall knelt down beside Symington. In the dim light he felt the warm wet patch spreading from the wound just below his left shoulder blade. He turned Symington over, saw that he was breathing in short exhausted pants. Fortunately the bullet had struck him obliquely, channeling out a three-inch-long furrow without penetrating the rib cage. Marshall sat Symington up, dragged him back into the office and propped him against the sofa.

Behind him the emergency door opened and Deborah peered around, her eyes wide with alarm.

"Simon, what's happening?" She gaped down at Symington uncomprehendingly. "You promised-"

Marshall pulled her down to the sofa.

"Stay with him, see what you can do. I think he's all right. Kroll's going crazy. I've got to stop him before he kills the other two."

As he re-entered the corridor Kroll was stepping cautiously down the stairway. Marshall pulled the short-barreled.38 from his shoulder holster. Thumbing off the safety catch, he moved forward after Kroll.

Kroll's helmeted head had just disappeared down the short stairway when a second shot roared out from the floor below. Crighton and the Wren typist were both armed, like Marshall, with COE.38's issued to protect them from hunger-maddened intruders.

He heard Kroll's.45 fire once, followed by two sharper reports from the communications room at the far end. He slid carefully down the steps, searching for Kroll's form among the shadows and angles of the corridor, then heard the soft pad of his rubber soles moving toward the service corridor which ringed the offices and provided a rear entrance to the emergency elevator.

Through the open doorway of the communications room Marshall caught a glimpse of Crighton's brown uniform crouched behind the line of teletypes. He ducked back as the.38 flashed out.

The service corridor led off immediately at his left, turning at right angles around the offices. Marshall edged the revolver forward, barrel pointed at the ceiling. He fired twice in quick succession, then dived across the exposed interval into the shelter of the service corridor.

As he caught his breath he heard Crighton fire again at the staircase and then shout something at the girl, his words lost in the roaring echoes.

Following Kroll, Marshall moved quickly down the darkened service corridor, peering briefly into the first of the offices, a clutter of desks under the dim glow of the single storm bulb over the doorway.

A second empty office and the elevator shaft separated him from the communications room at the far end. He edged carefully around the blind corners of the shaft. Fortunately the emergency doorway into the service corridor was blocked by the TV transmitters. As soon as they saw Kroll open it Crighton and the girl would empty their guns through the thin plywood.

Marshall turned the finM angle around the shaft and to his surprise found it empty. The emergency door was slightly open; a narrow strip of light crossed the corridor.

Stepping over to it, Marshall peered through.

The room was empty. Dull reflections of the TV screens swung slowly to and fro across the ceiling, but Crighton and the girl had gone.

Suddenly, from the main corridor, two shots roared out heavily, followed by a sharp cry of terror, and then, an agonizing second later, by a third shot. The sounds stunned the air. Flashes of light reflected off the glass panels of the open doorway.

Wrenching open the emergency door, Marshall kicked back a table carrying two of the TV sets, ran quickly across the room.

Crighton and the girl lay together in the corridor, Crighton face downward with his head tilted against the wall, hands raised in front of him. The girl was crumpled untidily behind him, unkempt hair over her face, her skirt around her waist.

Beyond them, waiting for Marshall by the staircase, stood the black figure of Kroll, the automatic jutting from his hand.

"Thanks for covering me," he said thickly. He pointed to the office near the stairway. "I was in there. Thought they'd try to make a dash for it when they heard you go around the side."

The drab air of the bunker was stained with sharp sweet fumes that stung Marshall 's eyes. He bent down over the bodies, checked them carefully. A damp strip of handkerchief was clenched in the girl's hand like a dead flower. For a long moment he stared at it, then gradually became aware of Kroll's boots two or three feet away from him.

He started to get up, then saw the automatic in Kroll's hand, leveled at his face. The heavy barrel followed him unwaveringly. Kroll's head was low between his shoulders, his eyes hidden behind the visor of his helmet.

Marshall felt his courage ebbing. "What's happening, Kroll?" he managed to say in a steady voice. He moved toward Kroll, who stepped back and let him pass, training the.45 on Marshall 's head.

"Sorry, Marshall," he said flatly. "R.H."

"What? Hardoon?" Marshall hesitated, estimating the distance to the stairway. Kroll was a few paces behind him. So Hardoon had decided to dispense with him, now that Marshall had served his purpose! He should have realized this when Kroll had been sent to collect them. "Don't be crazy," he said. "You must have your wires crossed."

When he was six feet from the stairway he suddenly dived forward, swerving from side to side, and managed to put his left hand on the stair rail.

Aiming carefully, Kroll shot him twice, first in the back, the impact of the bullet lifting Marshall onto the bottom step and knocking him off his feet, the second shot into his stomach as he toppled around, his great body uncontrollable, his arms swinging like windmills. He stumbled past Kroll, spun heavily against the wall and crashed downward into a corner.

He was about ten feet from Kroll, who waited quietly until the narrow stream of blood meandering across the concrete floor finally reached his feet, then made his way quickly up the staircase.

"Simon!"

The girl was crouched behind the door, fingers over her face. As she saw Kroll she screamed and backed away from him, almost tripping over the recumbent figure of Andrew Symington, half conscious on the floor by the sofa.

Kroll jerked the.45 back into his jacket, then stepped over to Deborah, cornering her behind the desk.

"Where is he?" she shouted at him. "Simon? What have you-"

Kroll knocked her against the wall with the back of his hand, forced her to the floor.

"Shut up!" he snarled. "Crazy yapping!"

He listened carefully to the sounds shifting around the bunker, kicking the girl sharply with his boot when her blubbering interrupted him, then picked up the phone.

As he waited he looked down at Deborah, and his right hand edged back toward the.45. His fingers flexed around the heavy butt, drawing it out.

He searched for the back of Deborah's neck, then noticed the auburn curls tipping forward over her head. They were soft and wispy, more delicate than anything Kroll had ever seen. Like a huge bull entranced by a butterfly, he watched them, fascinated, feeling his blood thicken, ignoring the voice on the phone.

His hand relaxed and withdrew from his jacket.

"All set," he said slowly into the phone. "Just one of them." He glanced down at Deborah. "I'll be about ten minutes."

Lurching painfully, Marshall dragged himself into the darkened communications room, heaved up onto his feet and then slumped into a chair in front of the radio transmitter. For a few minutes he coughed uncontrollably, fighting for air, his body drowning in the enormous lake of ice which filled his chest. As he rolled helplessly from side to side his eyes stared at the blood eddying across the floor below the chair. The trail led back into the corridor, past the two bodies to the stairway. How many hours had elapsed since he had first set out for the transmitter he could no longer remember, but the sight of the bodies revived him momentarily, making him realize that his great strength was ebbing rapidly, and he leaned forward on his elbows and began to switch on the set.

Around him the bunker was silent. The ventilator system had been turned off and the air was stale and motionless, still stained by the acrid fumes of the cordite. Along the wall behind him the teletypes were at last quiet, the sole sounds provided by the iow hum of the TV sets. Only two of the screens showed a picture,their reflections swinging left and right across the dark ceiling.

Fumbling helplessly, Marshall paused to steady himself, trying to conserve what little air he could force into his lungs. The wound through his chest wall felt as wide as a lance blade, each breath turning it between his shattered ribs.

Half an hour later, when he had almost gone, the set came alive between his fingers. Seizing the microphone with both hands, he rammed it to his lips, began to speak into it carefully, doggedly repeating his message over and over again, heedless of the replies interrupting him from the other end, until its meaning had gone and it became an insane gabble.

When he had finally finished, his voice a whisper, he let the microphone fall through his fingers to the floor, then jerked his chair slightly and faced the TV screens. Only one picture was being transmitted now, a white blur of flickering dust that crossed the screen from left to right, unvarying in its speed and direction.

The focus of his eyes fading, Marshall lay back, watching it blindly. His gray handsome face was almost in repose, the skin hollowing around his eyes and temples, draining his lips. Unaware of his own breathing, he felt himself sink down toward the bottom of the ice lake. Around him the stale air grew steadily colder. A few sounds shifted somewhere above in the empty bunker, echoing down the silent ventilator shafts and through the deserted corridors of his end.