Read Online Skyprobe by Philip McCutchan - Free Book Online

thanking God I don’t have to take that final decision by myself.”
    “Sure—I know.” The general was sympathetic now. “It’s a hell of a strain, don’t imagine I don’t know that. There’s a strain on us too—the possibility of a full-scale nuclear war developing if anybody’s allowed to interfere with that capsule. And I still say it’d be a dam sight safer down, and that’s how I’m going to report.” He reached out a hand and took Klaber’s, and smiled. “Sorry. I reckon I’ll be back before long.”
    When he had seen the Air Force chief and his aides into the car Klaber went along to his own office leading off the conference room. He spoke to Lutz, who went across to a cupboard and poured two stiff whiskies. Lutz came back to where Klaber was standing and passed his chief a tumbler. Klaber took the whisky at a gulp and said, “That’s better.” He looked up at his PA. “What’s on your mind now, Harry?”
    Harry Lutz said, “The Press, Mr. Klaber.” Lutz had a perpetually anxious look, as if he were everlastingly wondering what he had left undone.
    “The Press?” Klaber lifted an eyebrow. “So what?”
    “So this: suppose something leaks, either here or in Britain? Suppose the Press boys get to this before we release it?” The anxious look deepened. “You thought of that, Mr. Klaber?”
    “So far as I know, Harry, I’ve thought of everything.” The space chief smiled bleakly, without humour. “That’s just one of the points. The Press won’t be told a thing without my say-so, and they won’t release it even then, till I say.”
    “You sure of that, Mr. Klaber?” Lutz ran a hand over his face. He was always apprehensive of the Press.
    Klaber said grimly, “They had better not, Harry.” He looked at his watch, checked it with the atomic-action clock on the wall of his office. “I’m going down for a bite to eat, Harry. Call me at once if Washington’s on the line again.”
    * * *
    They came for Shaw when a faint daylight had been trying hard for the last three hours to filter through a dirty, cobweb-festooned grating that admitted air to the cellar. He heard the creak as the door opened and then, briefly, footsteps on the stone. The footsteps stopped short of half way down and the outline of a man showed up against the light of day coming more strongly through the door from the passageway beyond.
    It was the man Rencke had spoken of as Horn, the one who had been alongside Shaw in the car. Horn sounded American. He called down, “Right, mac. On your feet. You’re wanted.”
    The light glinted on metal; it was a .45 revolver and it was wearing a silencer. The Essex riverside probably wasn’t quite the place for the sub-machine-gun Rencke had been carrying the day before, but that heavy revolver could blow a hole in a man’s body big enough to run a fist through. Shaw got to his feet, sliding about on loose coal, unable to steady himself with his tied hands. The American didn’t help out; he just stood there on the steps, behind the gun, enjoying a sense of power. Shaw moved towards the steps and the gunman backed up ahead of him. At the top he was told to turn to the left, and he walked ahead of the gun along a passage until he was halted by a door standing ajar. He was told to kick this door open and when he did so he was pushed ahead into a cloakroom. Moss was waiting inside, finishing a cigarette. While the American covered Shaw with the revolver Moss untied his hands, then leaned back against a tiled wall and, with the hand that didn’t hold a gun, started picking his nose.
    “Wash,” Horn said. “We don’t like dirt around here. There’s a shaver ready for you, too. Your host is very particular, mac.” He indicated an electric shaver, already plugged in to a point alongside a mirror. There was also a new toothbrush and an unused tube of paste. The service was good, once away from the cellar. Shaw got to work on himself gladly, and sluiced away the coal-dust.