We cannot banish dangers,
but we can banish fears.
David
Sarnoff
Prologue: Summer 2083
Colonel Blue had been in
charge of Spectrum for almost a year.
The first commander-in-chief, Colonel – now General - White, had taken
partial retirement and was living, and working as a consultant for Spectrum, in
the UK. In the 15 years since
its inception, Spectrum had grown exponentially as the need to fight the
Mysterons and their deadly threats dictated, but not everyone appreciated the
reasons why. There was a growing faction that wanted
Spectrum brought down to size and some of the other military chiefs of staff
were in the vanguard of this.
Colonel Blue, well-aware that although the newly-elected World President
understood Spectrum’s unique problem, he was under considerable political
pressure to cut defence spending, was hoping to pre-empt any salami slicing of
his resources by a comprehensive and authoritative report into exactly what was
already out there.
In his opinion, General
White was the man to do just that and he had flown from Cloudbase to visit his
old commander-in-chief in his new home, in order to ask for his advice and
assistance. They were sitting in the
comfortable living room of the Grays’ house, situated
in an idyllic village in the English Home Counties. The weather was perfect – bright
sunshine and a gentle breeze - and in the immaculate garden beyond the French
windows the roses that were the general’s obsession were putting on a display of
colourful and aromatic splendour.
It was easy to forget that this beautiful planet, and all the life on it, was
under the constant threat of annihilation by an implacable alien entity.
“I hope you don’t find
yourself hoist by your own petard, Adam,” Sir Charles Gray said to his
step-son-in-law, when asked to conduct the audit.
“I don’t see how I can avoid it, Charles. Either we do it voluntarily, or President
Kobayashi will have to bring in outsiders – or worse, Spectrum Intelligence –
and they’ll be all over us like maggots looking to cut anything they see as
superfluous spending. He needs to make his mark and stamp his authority on the
military after the years of President Roberts throwing
money at every possible scheme and project the Chiefs of Staff could come up
with. But we’re already
operating at breaking point in some sectors and even Major Scarlet can’t carry
the entire burden of the fight alone.”
“How is Scarlet?”
Blue shrugged. “Much as ever: seemingly tireless. He’s
working with Green now.” He gave a slight sigh. “I guess we’re really starting
to see the non-combative effects of his retrometabolism; the rest of us are
slowing down, waking to a few discreet aches and pains, and Scarlet – well, he
doesn’t change.”
General White’s dark
eyebrows rose as he considered this.
“A word of caution, Adam,” he said, pausing as his wife entered the room with a
tray of tea cups and biscuits. He
smiled at her and then turned back to the younger man. “Don’t exclude him. He may look like he’s 31, but he’s the
same age as you and from what we’ve observed his character is maturing at the
same rate as everyone else. We can’t
know how it will pan out over what may be many decades, but right now, I would
say Scarlet needs the company of his peers – not the brashness of the new intake
of officers.”
“I’m not excluding him,”
Blue asserted, without realising there was a hint of defensiveness in his tone.
“Not consciously,” White
agreed. “But consider what you do,
how you speak to him. That’s all I’m
saying. You’re his commanding
officer now, but my guess is that he needs you as his friend as much as ever. Perhaps more so, now that Rhapsody is no
longer on Cloudbase.”
The American said
nothing but gave a thoughtful nod. His introspection was interrupted by Amanda
Gray offering him a teacup and saucer.
He glanced up at her with a hesitant smile.
“It’s coffee,” she
assured him, with an affectionate smile in response.
“So you haven’t
surrendered to the lure of the Englishman’s tea addiction?” he asked her, as he
took the cup.
“I have always liked the
odd cup of tea,” she replied.
“The very odd cup of tea,” her husband
interjected. “I’ve had to train her
in the art of making a decent cuppa.”
The affection between
the couple was so obvious that Blue couldn’t help but join in their amusement.
“Will you go and see
Dianne and the children before you return to base?” Amanda Gray asked, as she
took a place on the sofa beside her son-in-law.
“If I get the chance;
I’m expecting a summons to Futura at any minute.”
“The new Head of Global
Security making her mark as well, is she?”
“If I know Senator Arnorsdottir, yes, she will be.”
White smiled at the
memory of the feisty World Senator and her formidable strength of character.
“Well, at least they appointed someone with a working knowledge of Spectrum and
our mission,” he reasoned. “And I
always thought she had a soft spot for you – and Scarlet.”
Blue actually flushed as
he shook his head.
There was a prickly
silence until Amanda asked with some hesitancy, “Have you heard from Karen?”
“Not recently.” Blue sipped his coffee before asking,
with a lightness he did not feel:
“Have you?”
“Just a text message
every so often. I assume she’s busy
at Glenn Field?”
“Yes, the new intake of
trainee Angel pilots is undergoing intensive training. It’s the busiest time of
the training year with assessments and gradings to be
done. I’m hopeful that we’ll finally
be able to build up the additional squadrons we’ve been planning for the past
few years. The major terrestrial
bases could do with airborne support and we’ve got some excellent candidates
this time.”
General White knew his
former officer well enough to know when he was not prepared to discuss a topic
any further. He caught his wife’s
troubled gaze and, in order to
prevent her from continuing with the subject of her daughter’s floundering
marriage, he said, “What resources can you let me have while I’m doing this
review, Adam?” and the awkwardness dissipated.
The road from Winchester
was traffic-free as Colonel Blue approached the Metcalfe home of Longwood Abbey,
nestling in the fold of its quiet valley. The sun was shining and through the
open window of his car he could smell the heady aroma of the roses in the large,
well-tended garden as he swept up the drive to the front door.
He was greeted by the
enthusiastic squeals of his godchildren and the smiling countenances of Dianne
Metcalfe and her mother-in-law, Mary.
Lady Dianne Metcalfe - the former Rhapsody Angel of Spectrum - had chosen
to move in with her in-laws instead of her own family so that her husband, Major
Scarlet, would be able to visit regularly without anyone commenting on any
aspect of his apparently miraculous returns to health, or escapes from certain
death after a mission. General and
Mrs Metcalfe were both privy to the secret of Scarlet’s retrometabolism and
provided Dianne with the emotional support she needed whenever reports came in
that Spectrum - and almost
certainly, her husband - were involved in
some dangerous mission.
Fortunately, the women got along excellently and the decision had been a winner
all round.
However, Blue barely had
time to satisfy their questions about the well-being of his friend and the
circumstances of his latest mission, before there was a beep from his
watch-communicator and he had to excuse himself to take the call in the library.
“Was it important?”
Dianne asked as he came back into the living room, where his 6-year old godson and namesake was
noisily banging a construction kit together while his 4-year old sister was
impatiently watching her grandmother undress the latest ‘must-have’ baby doll
he’d given her, so that she could continue her own game of ‘mummy and baby’.
“I’m afraid so; but it
isn’t all gloom. Paul will be here
in about 40 minutes. The summons
I’ve been expecting has arrived. I’m
required in Futura for tomorrow.”
“Will you have time to
eat before you have to go?” Mary Metcalfe asked, ever practical, “or shall I
make up some sandwiches – again?”
Blue chuckled and gave
them both one of his dazzling smiles.
“I reckon we can squeeze time to eat something, Mrs. M. Especially if it is one of your wonderful
dinners.”
“Flattery will get you
nowhere…” she teased, as she handed the doll to her grand-daughter and stood to
leave the room. She placed a hand on
his arm as she moved to the door.
“I’ll get on with it, Adam-dear.”
As the door closed
behind her, Blue turned to the young woman sitting on the sofa and asked, “How’s
Karen?”
“You don’t know?”
“I received her
quarterly stats last week, so I know she’s been busy. Her mother told me she’d had the
occasional text message but nothing more.”
“What makes you think
I’d have heard more?”
“Because whatever I’ve
done wrong – or have not done that is
wrong – this time, she’d rely on you to tell me,” he explained, sitting opposite
her.
“Like that again, is
it?”
“It’s always like that,
these days.”
“She hasn’t said
anything much…” Dianne said hesitantly.
“Ah; a new boyfriend.”
“Adam…”
“Oh, don’t worry; I’m
used to it.”
Dianne recognised the
hurt and suppressed anger in those few words.
She ached to be able to do or say something that would repair the damage
her friend was doing to the man she’d married.
“She does love you,” she
said compassionately.
“She has a damned funny
way of showing it,” Blue snapped.
He sighed and tried to reassure his friend with a smile. “As long as she’s happy.”
Dianne shook her head.
“No, I don’t think she is. I think she hates herself every moment
she’s not with you…”
“And she hates me every
moment she is with me,” he concluded
quietly.
“She doesn’t hate you,”
Dianne cried. “She’s disappointed;
she feels she’s let you down.”
“No; she thinks I let
her down. And maybe I did?”
“Oh, Adam,” Dianne
began, but her son interrupted them with a demand that ‘Uncle Adam’ examine the
plane he’d created from the construction kit he’d just given him.
There didn’t seem to be
an occasion to continue the conversation after that, and before long the
Spectrum helijet arrived on the field beyond the
garden shortly afterwards, and Major Scarlet strode in to see his family.
Futura City was the hub of the
World Government; the actual work might be done in New York, Buenos Aires,
London, Beijing or numerous other cities, but Futura
was the global icon that signified that authority to every citizen of the
planet. During the hurricane season
the place was on constant standby to evacuate the World President and the
members of the senate and the administration that were based there, but the
day-to-day work of the government went on as much as possible.
The newly-elected World
President, Yoshio Kobayashi, although anxious to make his mark, was an old hand
at playing Futura’s style of politics. He had emerged as the favoured candidate
from the four nominees the World Senate had been given, having served his fixed
two terms as a Vice-President. The
Electoral College of the Senate appointed four new vice-presidents with the
election of every new World President, and together with the four who remained
in post, these formed an Executive Cabinet designed to provide credible
replacements in the event of something happening to the World President during
the 7-year tenure of office.
It was from these Vice-Presidents that the next President would probably emerge
to be confirmed in post by the Electoral College.
Having risen to the top
job over his fellow Vice-Presidents, Kobayashi exercised his authority by
holding a cabinet reshuffle and appointing the new intake to the administrative
briefs that oversaw the various arms of the World Government’s responsibilities.
It was the unspoken but accepted fact that the VP in charge of Security was
senior amongst the peers and the competition was fierce for that particular
brief. The appointment of a relatively
inexperienced, first-term Vice-President was controversial, and the fact that
she was a woman had given several of the chiefs of staff apoplexy.
“How long is the meeting
likely to go on?” Scarlet asked, as Blue got ready to leave the flight deck of
the SPJ now parked on the tarmac at Futura.
“I’m not sure. I expect Senator
Arnorsdottir
will want to make her position quite clear to the military chiefs before they
can start campaigning for more money.
I’m just hoping she doesn’t intend to actually make any cuts – in our
budget or theirs.”
“You’ll be lucky. But,
if I may offer a word of advice?
Just remember she’s a V-P now and you’ll walk it.”
“Damn; yes, I’d better
make sure I remember that small fact. Valdis isn’t always that forgiving. Well, you’ve always said I’m lucky; let’s
hope you’re right, Paul.”
“You sure you don’t want
me to wait?”
Blue nodded as he zipped
his briefcase closed. “No, I want
you to get back to Cloudbase and make sure everything’s okay. In fact, you can
review the cover-up operation after that production plant explosion. Far too much detail was leaked to the
press. I want Spectrum: Madrid brought up to
scratch. If you have to, send
Magenta and one of the youngsters down to kick ass.”
“S.I.G.; Patrick will
enjoy that. He’s been practising
swearing in Spanish lately.”
Blue smiled. “Job
satisfaction is what I’m all about,” he said sardonically.
Scarlet chuckled. “Oh, sure you are. I’ll be off then. Give the Vice-President my love.”
The conference room was
at the top of one of the many WG office blocks that made up the administrative
district of Futura. They had been built to ‘blend in’
with the landscape and ran long and low across the shallow cliffs of the
coastline. Nevertheless, there was a
magnificent view out across the low-lying island to the turquoise-blue of the
shallow Bahamian seas. It was
a sight Colonel Blue was familiar with from long-ago family holidays spent
cruising the warm waters in his father’s motor yacht.
He stood by the window reminiscing and drinking in the subtle changes of
colour as the restless seas swayed around the land that barred their way in
their eternal mission to circle the globe.
He loved the sea in all
its moods: from the deceptively peaceful swell here, to the roaring power of the
waves off Hawaii or the Australian Gold Coast. He had surfed and dived in almost every
part of the world and enjoyed nothing more than being on the coast. He was experienced enough to know
that even calm seas were dangerous and that things could change very quickly. He glanced down at the printout
he’d received from Cloudbase about a potential tropical storm building away over
the Caribbean Sea; with luck they should be finished here before it became a
factor. They didn’t always amount to
anything, but, all the same, he had ordered his officers to keep him updated; he
didn’t want Valdis’s first high level conference to
end in an undignified scramble to an evacuation helijet.
He heard the door close
behind him and turned to see who had arrived.
The Vice-President was
standing by the entrance smiling at him.
After a moment’s hesitation he smiled back.
Valdis
Arnorsdottir
knew how to dress to impress and the stylist who designed her outfits was very
good at their job. She was wearing a
below-the-knee-length sheath dress of her trademark black-and-white check, with
an unusual detailed neckline. Over
it she wore a crisp, white, tailored jacket, and the towering heels of her
open-toed shoes completed the overall impression of height. She looked professional and business-like
and overwhelmingly feminine.
It was a combination that many male politicians couldn’t handle and Blue could
well understand why.
“They told me you’d
arrived early. I can’t say I was
surprised; after all, punctuality is one of your obsessions; but this time I was
glad of it. I wanted to talk to you
before the meeting,” she said in the slightly husky voice that always sent
shivers down Blue’s spine.
“May I congratulate you
on your appointment, Madame Vice-President,” he replied, sounding far less
formal than his words. “Major
Scarlet sends his… best wishes.”
She chuckled as she
removed her jacket and placed it on the back of a chair. “Scarlet wouldn’t be so restrained. Are you sure it wasn’t something warmer
than mere good wishes, Adam?”
“He sends his love,”
Blue admitted, smiling.
“How kind of him,” she
said, with a grin. “And how typical.
Please thank him from me, when you see him again.”
“Of course, Madame
Vice-President.”
She gave a little ‘tcha’ of
disapproval as she walked towards him.
“Always so formal, Colonel Blue; it makes me feel you are not pleased to
see me.” The smile on her lips
caused a dimple to appear in her cheek as she continued: “So I am not going to
ask if that is a gun in your pocket…”
Blue’s reserve broke and
he laughed aloud, a grin on his face.
He took the hand she was offering and embraced her, dipping his face to
hers to exchange a chaste kiss of friendship.
Valdis broke the clinch and
went to the cupboard against the wall where refreshments were laid out. Turning her back to him, so that he
couldn’t see the heightened colour in her cheeks,
she poured herself a glass of fruit juice and offered to get him one, but
the colonel gestured to a glass on the conference table, implying he already had
one.
“What did you need to
speak me about?” he asked.
Having regained her
poise, she came back to stand beside him and looked out at the scenery. “Money, of course. Isn’t it always the
topic on everyone’s mind?”
Blue was unable to keep
the resentment from his voice as he asked, “Are you going to tell me that you
need to cut Spectrum’s budget?”
She glanced up at him
over her shoulder in order to assess his reaction. “The spending round will be a tough one,
but I wanted to reassure you that the World President fully understands the
necessity of maintaining the world’s defences against the Mysterons.”
“Why do I sense a ‘but’
coming here?” he interjected.
“I really have no idea,
because I made sure he read the confidential dossier and – I confess – I told
him some of the things I’ve learned about it all. I can’t promise any more funding, Adam –
but you won’t get any less.” She
frowned at the look of exasperation that appeared on his face and continued:
“I wanted to tell you this before the
other military arrive. They are
going to have to cope with substantial cuts.”
He took a moment to
digest this information. “How
substantial?”
“Significant,” she
replied, with the politician’s skill at evasion. “I fully expect them all to be outraged.”
“Are you asking me to
back you up in the meeting?” he asked warily.
She gave a slight shake
of her head. “No. I can handle the chiefs of staff. You will just need to fight your corner,
as you would do anyway.”
He was looking at her
expectantly, obviously anticipating there would be some price to pay for this
tip off. Impulsively, she explained,
“I don’t want them ganging up on you.
They’re not going to be pleased when Spectrum emerges relatively unscathed from
the cuts.”
He snorted. “I wouldn’t call a funding freeze
‘relatively unscathed’.”
“Wait till you hear the
rest of the settlement,” she said sharply.
Blue ignored that and
continued, “I have commissioned General White to do a resources review, it’ll
take a few months, but I’ll be able to supply you with a much clearer picture of
our need for upgrades.”
She turned away and
shook her head. “I can’t promise you
a dime more than last year, Adam. Be
grateful for that – the Air Force is going to have to make draconian cuts.”
The pilot in him
rebelled against the very idea. “Why
single out the Air Force?”
“Perhaps you’re the
person who can explain to me why there are still so many distinct air forces?” Valdis responded.
“The World Army Air Force was supposed to combine all of the ground and
air forces, but all the Army did was invest in more planes for itself and the
air forces continued on their own sweet ways. And don’t get me started about the
Navy! Did you know that even the WASPs have their own planes and pilots?
Heaven knows why – they operate submarines, for God’s sake – but every one of
you, including Spectrum, has dedicated squadrons of aircraft and pilots.”
“Cloudbase couldn’t
function without planes,” he interjected, and she nodded, accepting that fact. He continued, “You don’t seem to
understand, Valdis: it’s horses for courses…”
“Don’t bring the cavalry into this,” she
remarked with a flash of her usual geniality. “Just tell me why, if every
service has to have an air force that is suited to whatever its own area of
expertise happens to be, why we need
an air force that is dedicated to flying planes and nothing more?”
He opened his mouth to
reply and closed it again, a frown appearing on his face. The concept was almost too radical for
him to grasp immediately and he felt that whatever he said she’d have an answer
for – after all, she’d been preparing to reveal this bombshell for some time.
“You know you’re going
to get lynched, don’t you?” he warned her, evading the question.
“I know,”
she responded, with a wry smile. Then after a moment she laid a hand on
his arm and admitted, “That’s partly why I wanted to see you before the meeting;
that and I didn’t want to meet you with every military chief in the world
watching. I can hear their
accusations of favouritism already.”
He patted her hand.
“You would never do that!”
“I’m glad you think so.
Sometimes I’m not so sure though; Spectrum means a lot to me.”
He removed his hand and
walked away from her to refill his glass, although he didn’t actually want
another drink.
They had known each
other for almost five years, ever since Blue and Scarlet had saved Senator Arnorsdottir from a Mysteron threat. During that time the three of them had
met several times on Spectrum business and had grown to be friends, implicitly
trusting in each other’s probity; so much so, that Valdis
Arnorsdottir was one of the few people outside of
Spectrum who not only knew the secret of the nature of the threat the Mysterons
posed to the safety of the world, but of Scarlet’s alien-induced
indestructibility.
But it hadn’t just
stopped there: not for the two of them, at least. It was never spoken about, but it was
understood that there was a deep and abiding attraction between them. Captain Scarlet had sensed it the first
time they’d all met, but his flippant comments had aroused such a fervent denial
from his field partner, that he had – apparently – become convinced there was
nothing in it.
And there isn’t, Blue thought now, as he kept his
back turned and sipped at the cool juice.
But the struggle to keep things
that way is getting harder with every meeting.
Valdis was unmarried. She had a select coterie of male escorts
for her public appearances, and Blue didn’t doubt that some of them provided
more than an arm, when asked. She
made little secret of her attraction to him – at least between themselves – but
he was married and she knew that meant something to him and respected his
opinion.
Still, she can’t resist giving me a nudge every now and
again just to see if my resolution has crumbled... God, one of these days she is
going to be buried in an avalanche…
He was still wrestling
with what to say next as he sensed her approach, when the door clicked open and
the first of the chiefs of staff entered.
Without any apparent
change of direction, the Vice-President moved towards him, her hand outstretched
and her professional politician’s smile on her face.
Blue turned and greeted
the Supreme Commander Earth Forces with a friendly salute and a warm handshake,
and the perilous moment passed by, once again.
As predicted, the
meeting was a turbulent one and Colonel Blue found much to admire in the way the
Vice-President handled it. She was
not above using the fact that she was a woman to make the men moderate their
expressions of outrage, but she drew the line at claiming she was merely obeying
orders, or that she sympathised with their predicament. She stood her ground and countered
their protests with cogent arguments of her own.
Not that Colonel Blue agreed with them.
“Gentlemen,” Valdis said a little wearily, as one o’clock approached, “I
feel we need to take a break. Lunch
has been prepared in the adjacent room.
Shall we reconvene in ninety minutes?
I am sure you all need to discuss matters with your service personnel…
and amongst yourselves. Supreme Commander, Colonel Blue, perhaps you would care
to accompany me?”
Blue glanced at the
other service chiefs, most of who had expressed their feelings about Spectrum
all too eloquently, and accepted the offer with a polite inclination of his
head. The Supreme Commander also
accepted and Valdis led them into a smaller room on
the other side of the conference room, where a table had been laid for three
people.
They politely conducted
the Vice President to her seat and the three of them settled down to a freshly
prepared meal, spoilt for Blue by the preponderance of sea food, to which he had
an allergy.
“I never knew you were
allergic to sea food, Adam,” Valdis said. “I do apologise. I am sure the chef could get something
else for you.”
He settled for a steak.
Douglas Blackwood was Scottish, a veteran army officer and probably World
President Roberts’ most successful appointment. Experienced and intelligent, he
would have been Colonel Blue’s choice for the thankless task of Supreme
Commander – if anyone had asked. Although he was technically a World Government
appointee, it was hardly surprising that he was opposed to the proposed
reductions in conventional military spending and he had made that quite clear.
Nevertheless, in the face of considerable protest from his subordinate
chiefs of staff, he had supported the proposed financial settlement for Spectrum
because, as he explained, he trusted the organisation to do whatever was
necessary to prevent the Mysterons from carrying out their subversive threats.
Blue was aware that, as his predecessors in the post had done, Blackwood
knew the full facts about the Mysterons and the nature of the threat they posed,
but not about the special attributes of Major Scarlet. He was grateful to Blackwood for his
support and for the way he had slapped down some of the more vociferous
complaints from the military commanders.
Listening to Blackwood’s
avuncular tones as they made small talk over the food and wine, it was almost
possible to forget that, next to the World President, this was the single most
powerful man on the planet, but Blue knew – as did the other dignitaries present
– that an order from Blackwood was an order – however gently it was phrased.
Although, technically, Blackwood’s remit did not cover Spectrum or its sphere of
activity because the commander-in–chief of Spectrum answered only to the World
President, Blue was well aware that with the SC:EF on his side, he stood a much
better chance of both retaining the funding necessary to keep Spectrum at
maximum efficiency and gaining the co-operation of the conventional service
chiefs, which was essential to ensure continued success against the aliens. He was, therefore, more than willing to
court Blackwood’s friendship.
Over the meal the
conversation had steered clear of the politics and negotiations of the morning,
although as they lingered over coffee, Blackwood made a few attempts to pump
Blue for details of Spectrum’s current complement.
“You must come to
Cloudbase, Supreme Commander,” Blue said genially. “I‘d be delighted to show you around. It’s a remarkable piece of engineering.”
“Thank you, Colonel.
I’ll get my people to talk to your people and we’ll fix that up.”
“Oh, Cloudbase is
amazing,” Valdis confirmed. “Perhaps I will come with you, Douglas. It’s been a while since I was there. Colonel White – as he was then – was kind
enough to invite me to tour the facility.”
“How is the general
these days? Do you know, Colonel?”
“I saw him recently.
He’s very well – settled down into his new home and making the best of his
retirement. His rose garden is a work of art.”
“A truly great man,”
Blackwood remarked. “I had the
pleasure of meeting him a few times before his retirement, and of course, I
remember reading about his exploits while he was in the navy. They don’t make them like him any more.”
“How true,” Blue agreed,
smiling.
“I expect you know him
very well,” Blackwood continued.
“Yes, I do. He is a
great man and he served the World Government well.”
“And he’s extremely good looking,” Valdis interjected. “I think that must’ve been on the
service requirements when they recruited the first intake for Spectrum.” Her companions both smirked. “What?” she asked with amusement. “You think because I am a politician I
don’t have eyes to appreciate a handsome man in a uniform? Why do you think I asked for the security
brief?”
She winked.
Blackwood laughed. “I think you have the measure of every
man in the meeting, dear lady. Any
man trying to do what you did in there would’ve been lucky to walk out still in
one piece.”
“Oh, you’re all just
pussy-cats really,” she teased.
“Well, I’m glad you
think so,” Blackwood replied seriously, adding, “There will be a good deal of
opposition to the proposals and it might take longer than you’d like for any
progress to be made on implementing them.”
Valdis sipped her wine
thoughtfully and then said: “They can take as long as they like if they’re
prepared to do it for nothing. The
funding will stop next year: the World
Government will not continue to pay for non-essential bases or equipment.
That is the reality we all have to face, Supreme Commander.
Your predecessors failed to bite the bullet when the World Army Air Force was
created and people have forgotten that the intention was to merge services and make savings.”
“I agree, maybe more
should have been done,” Blackwood reasoned.
“But twelve months is no time at all, Madame Vice-President.”
She gave a slight nod. “I’m afraid President Kobayashi has
little room for manoeuvre. I don’t
want to make a political issue of this, but President Roberts vastly over-spent
on the conventional military and there simply isn’t the money to continue
funding at those levels.”
Blackwood inclined his
head and sighed. “Perhaps over five
years we might be able to run down bases and redeploy
people and equipment…” he began.
“It can’t be done,” Valdis said sharply.
“Consider this: although
Spectrum has done a fine job in keeping the Mysterons at bay, they have still
caused significant damage over the years to important installations,
infrastructure and – most importantly – food production. The loss of production
caused by the destruction of the irrigation plant at Najama
– for just one example - is only now starting to be made up again. The weather hasn’t helped; crop failures
have left people malnourished. They have to be our priority, Douglas.”
“You will have a
significant number of disgruntled military men with armaments and equipment,”
Blackwood warned.
“You think they’d
attempt a coup?” she asked sceptically, raising an eyebrow.
Blue interjected:
“Spectrum couldn’t allow that, Supreme Commander. We still have our remit as a
counter-terrorism force.”
“I don’t know what they
might do, Madame Vice-President.
There is the usual sprinkling of hot heads amongst the senior staff, but I think
I can control them. Don’t expect to
win any popularity contests any time soon, though.”
“I am a rare politician,
Douglas; I live in the real world,” she replied, with a sad smile.
“If they want to vilify me, I can’t stop them, but I won’t let it stop
me, either. When the contest is
between feeding a starving child and buying a jet plane, I know which I would
choose.”
Cloudbase: December 2083
Captain Magenta heard
the door to the Officers’ Lounge opening and glanced across to see who had
arrived. He got to his feet and was
about to salute when Colonel Blue said:
“At ease, Captain.”
“Were you looking for
someone, sir, or can I help you?” Magenta asked, resuming his seat as Blue sat
down on the long bench that ran along the side of the main seating area.
“No, it was you I
wanted, Pat,” Blue said. They were
the only two in the room and he was not one to stand on ceremony with his old
colleagues.
“Fire away,” said
Magenta.
“When you were in Madrid
this summer, did you sense any unrest?”
“At the Spectrum base?
No; the senior brass were anxious not to get a rocket, of course, but they
passed the inspection, as you’d expect.”
Blue didn’t respond and
after a moment, Magenta asked: “Why?
Has something else happened?”
In reply his commanding
officer handed him a slim file with the logo of Spectrum Intelligence on it.
Rolling his eyes at the
provenance, Magenta opened it and glanced at the single sheet inside. He looked
up at Blue with a frown.
“You believe this?”
Blue shrugged. “SI is reporting that there is some sort
of conspiracy going on in the Spanish military.
Even if Spectrum isn’t directly involved, I don’t like it.”
“Even if the military
are… restless, it isn’t anything we should deal with,” Magenta replied. “Send it to the Triumvirate in Brussels
and let them sort it out.”
Blue nodded, but without
conviction, and extended his hand for the file. “I’m not so sure this is as
straightforward as that.”
“Why ever not?”
“Tomorrow,
Vice-President Arnorsdottir is attending an inaugural
charity performance of ‘Carmen’ at the
new Teatro Moderno in aid
of the President’s Christmas Appeal.”
Magenta nodded slowly.
“And the military are not happy with Arnorsdottir… I
see your point. Want me to go and poke about a bit?”
“Yes, I rather think I
do. I will speak to the
Vice-President, but I doubt I’ll be able to stop her attending.”
“I’ll get straight on to
it, Adam.”
“Thanks; keep me
informed – and Pat: keep this under your hat as far as possible. If the press get wind of it, there could
be panic.”
“S.I.G., Colonel.”
“Adam, how nice to see you!” The attractive face of
Valdis
Arnorsdottir filled the screen in Colonel Blue’s
‘ready room’. He had decided it was
prudent to make the call in private, as the Vice-President was sometimes a
little too informal for his liking over the video-phone.
“Madame Vice-President,
it is good to see you too.”
“Ah, I am in your bad books and we’re being formal. I’m sorry, Colonel; what have I done to
upset Spectrum now?”
“Nothing – yet. Madame Vice-President, we have received a
report suggesting that you may be in some… some danger if you attend the Gala
tomorrow evening.”
“Do you like opera, Colonel?”
Blue sighed and ruefully
accepted that he was going to have work at this conversation more than he’d
hoped. “Depends on the opera,”
he replied evasively.
“Hmm; well, I suppose that at least means you’re not going
to say the danger comes from the music. But then it is ‘Carmen’ and everyone
likes ‘Carmen’.” She sang a few bars.
“Toréador, en garde! Toréador!
Toréador!”
“Valdis,
please; take this seriously. The
Spanish military-”
“Oh – that.
You’re too late, Colonel. The
Supreme Commander told me about that, days ago. They plan to burn me in effigy,
it seems. I have been wondering if I should send them one of my old dresses… I’d
hate to be on the newscasts going up in flames looking anything except my best.
”
“Valdis!”
“Adam! I appreciate your concern – really I do. But I don’t think it is a problem. There
will be security guards and hundreds of people about. They’re unlikely to get anywhere near me.
And I wouldn’t be much of a politician if I couldn’t take a little personal
abuse, now would I?”
He cut straight to the
point. “I don’t think you
should go.”
She thought for a moment
and her expression softened as she realised that his anxiety was for her, rather
than her office. “If it was just me and you asked me not to, I
would not go,” she replied. “But it isn’t just me. The World President and every one of the
Vice-Presidents are all attending charity functions somewhere tomorrow evening.
I can’t pull out without a good excuse; and, my dear friend, your concern for me
– while I appreciate it - isn’t a good enough excuse.”
“Then I want Major
Scarlet to accompany you,” Blue demanded.
“Does Paul like opera?”
“Not much, but he won’t
be there to enjoy the performance.”
“I have a better idea.
Why don’t you come? The
Supreme Commander is here to play chaperone and I promise to respect your
virtue…”
“Valdis…”
He couldn’t help but smile at her.
“Paul is a better bet.”
“I don’t want a bet, I want a promise…” She pouted, and then
smiled winsomely.
Struggling to keep a
straight face, he replied, “I will send Major Scarlet down to join Captain
Magenta and they will oversee the security.
Paul scrubs up well and owns a tuxedo, so he won’t embarrass you.”
“Scarlet and Magenta?
I had better make sure my outfit doesn’t clash.”
He shook his head in
surrender at her refusal to take the risk seriously. “I’ll be in touch, Val.”
“Glad to hear it, Adam.”
THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE
MYSTERONS. WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR US, EARTHMEN. YOU STARTED THE SHOCKWAVE WITH YOUR
UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON OUR MARTIAN COMPLEX. OUR RETALIATION WILL BE SLOW BUT
NONETHELESS EFFECTIVE. THERE WILL BE NO CHARITY WHEN WE ELIMINATE THE GLOBAL
SUPPORTS OF THE WORLD GOVERNMENT. WE WILL CONTINUE TO TAKE OUR REVENGE. YOU WILL
PAY IN FULL FOR YOUR AGGRESSION.
“Play it again, Lieutenant,” Colonel Blue ordered.
The flat, deep tones of the Mysterons reverberated around the Conference
Room again, as the men and women sitting round the circular table racked their
brains for the meaning behind the threat.
“Global supports? Who writes
their stuff?” Captain Ochre muttered in bewilderment, running a hand through his
dark hair.
“What supports the World Government?” Major Scarlet asked rhetorically.
“Money?”
“How do you terminate money?” Captain Green responded.
“You put it in my bank account where it vanishes like a mist,” Ochre
replied. “Take my word for it.”
Despite the solemnity of the situation, his colleagues smirked at Ochre’s
remarks and the mood of the meeting lifted slightly.
“No,” Blue said thoughtfully.
“It isn’t ‘what’ supports the World Government, but ‘who’.”
“And you think that because?” asked Scarlet.
“Their use of ‘charity’.
You’ve probably heard that the World President has arranged for gala concerts
around the globe to raise money for his Famine Relief Programme,” Blue
explained. “These concerts will be attended by the
President himself and the Vice-Presidents, in locations around the globe.”
“You think they’re after the President as well?” asked Ochre. “I know they’ve gone for World Presidents
before, and they’re not given to repeating themselves, but I guess a new
incumbent means they have the chance to try again.”
Blue shook his head. “It is
possible, but I think they’re threatening the Vice-Presidents – the ‘supports’
for the World Government which in turn ‘supports’ the World President.”
“Far be it from me to argue with you, Colonel – you have a track record
for working these things out…” Scarlet began.
“But?” Blue invited further comment from his friend. The brain-storming
sessions that followed any cryptic Mysteron threat were open to every theory and
interpretation in the search for a definite response to prevent the aliens
succeeding.
Scarlet shrugged. “Are you
sure about this? You’re splitting
hairs somewhat with that interpretation.
At least, I think so.”
“Perhaps they’re going to go after all of the executive powers?” Green
suggested. “It’d be a devastating
blow if they achieved even part of their threat.”
“All eight – or nine - of them?”
interjected Melody Angel, the designated Leader of the Premier Angel Squadron on
Cloudbase. “That’s a big ask, even
for the Mysterons. They’ve usually
concentrated on two targets at most when they’ve threatened assassinations
before.”
“Three,” Scarlet muttered. His
colleagues, with the exception of the colonel,
looked expectantly at him and with a wry grin he explained, “They
threatened the Triumvirate of Europe, back in the early days of the war, only
Blue and I were quick enough to stop them after they’d only made an attempt on
two of the politicians.”
“Ah, yes; I had forgotten that,” Melody said, with a smile. “The electronics genius, right? The guy who bamboozled us into thinking
our secure base was under attack by playing a recording of tanks?”
Scarlet nodded. “He also
reminded us – to his somewhat… fatal cost - that our responses to these threats
don’t have to be as convoluted or as high-tech as the threats themselves appear
to be.”
“There does have to be a response though,” Blue observed, bringing the
meeting firmly back on track before the reminiscences got too prolonged.
“S.I.G., Colonel,” said Scarlet, with a friendly nod towards his oldest
and closest friend.
“They said ‘supports’ plural,”
Captain Grey mused, picking up the current conversation where it had left off to
go wandering down Memory Lane. “I
agree with Blue – I mean, the colonel - they must be going after all of the
Vice-Presidents.”
Melody replied, “Even if they did use the plural, it could still mean that
they won’t go for them all – only one or two of the most important, maybe?”
“But we don’t know which ones they
consider to be important,” Major Scarlet reasoned. “Would you like to play spin the bottle
to see which ones we don’t protect?”
Melody shook her head and glanced at Harmony Angel who was sitting beside
her. “I guess we’re all going to
have to be in this one,” she said.
Harmony nodded in agreement.
“Lieutenant Flaxen, do we know where the Vice-Presidents are?” the colonel
asked.
“Yes, sir. They’re all over
the place attending the charity galas.”
“Should we take the World President into safe-keeping?” Captain Green
asked.
Scarlet shook his head again. “He wouldn’t go if you tried,” he said. “But I think the colonel’s right. The Mysterons may be threatening more
individuals than usual but they’re focussing on one category, if you like – the
Vice-Presidents. That’d be in keeping with their usual modus operandi. If
anything happens to Kobayashi, it will be collateral damage.”
“That’s not really a comfort,” Colonel Blue said ruefully.
“President Kobayashi is in Futura, Colonel,”
Flaxen informed him. “He’s hosting
his own charity concert which will be attended by hundreds of VIPs. None of the
Vice-Presidents will be there, though.”
Blue looked around the room.
It was his duty to assign an officer to each of the eight Vice-Presidents and
ensure the World President’s safety as well.
He consulted the list Lieutenant Flaxen had handed him.
“Okay. Captain Magenta is
already in Madrid with Vice-President Arnorsdottir. Major Scarlet, you take the World
President in Futura.
Captain Grey, Mackenzie in London.
Captain Ochre, Demidov in Moscow. Captain Green, Da
Silva in Sầo Paolo. Lieutenant Claret,
Ibrahim
in Jakarta. Melody Angel, you will
accompany Vice-President Mulenga in Cape Town and
Harmony, Vice-President Sechen in Tokyo. Use local forces to back you up.”
There was a chorus of ‘S.I.G.’ as the officers dispersed, except for Major
Scarlet.
“Melody does have a point; this is spreading us a bit thin,” he commented.
“Do we have a choice?”
Scarlet looked Blue in the eye and asked, “Do you have a hunch which one
of them it will be?”
“I don’t have hunches.”
“You do; you just don’t call them that.”
There was no immediate reply, so Scarlet gathered his documents ready to
leave. “Adam?” he asked, just before
he turned to go.
“Before the threat arrived, I was planning to send you to Madrid,” Blue
admitted. “It seems the Spanish military are
getting mutinous over the World Government’s cuts to the air forces. I think they may be planning to attack Valdis.”
“Shouldn’t I go there then?
The Mysterons have been known to piggy-back on purely human unrest and malice
before now.”
Blue looked up and met his friend’s steady gaze. “I can’t risk anything happening to
Kobayashi. I need my best man
there.”
“But?-”
“There are no ‘buts’. You have
to go to Futura City, Major Scarlet, as quick as you
can.”
Scarlet hesitated. He knew
Blue as well as he knew himself and he was well aware that the colonel
considered Arnorsdottir as a friend – a close friend. Momentarily he weighed the possibility
that his commander’s judgement was being affected by this simple fact. Blue returned his gaze with a stern
composure.
Scarlet drew in a deep breath and said:
“S.I.G., Colonel. I hope
you’re right.”
Blue watched him walk out and muttered to himself, “So do I.”
Captain Magenta met Commandante Rioz, the head of
Spectrum’s Madrid office, in his office close to the administrative offices of
the World Government and the European Triumvirate. Rioz was
a small, dapper man – barely regulation height – who was some years younger than
his visitor, and was a little too sensitive to anything that threatened his
authority over his command. He
greeted the colour-captain, who outranked him, with a polite deference that was
nevertheless tinged with resentment.
The inspection of the recent summer had been a tough one and Rioz was on edge at a repeat visit so soon.
Magenta snapped off a smart text-book salute, deciding that they’d get
things done much more efficiently if he deferred to his host - in the company of
others, at least.
“Pleased to see you again, sir.”
The smaller man’s attitude thawed slightly and he invited the American to
sit down.
Magenta was delighted to discover Rioz’s
reputation for efficiency really was well-deserved; he had already arranged for the two of
them to meet Teniente General Herrera, the commanding officer
of the nearest conventional force airbase to Madrid as well as a large
proportion of the air force’s personnel and equipment, that very afternoon.
Given the approaching deadline of the gala concert, there wasn’t enough time to
waste on formalities.
Teniente General Herrera was punctiliously polite and coldly formal when they were ushered
into his presence soon after lunchtime.
“How may I help you, gentlemen?”
Magenta wondered flippantly if they’d interrupted his siesta, and went on
to explain about the report they’d received concerning the anticipated protest
against the World Government’s plans, in the presence of Vice-President Arnorsdottir.
“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, General, that Spectrum needs to ensure
nothing untoward comes from this. We
have received a terrorist threat against the Vice-Presidents, and obviously
Spain is now considered as one of the potential flash-points. Therefore, I am asking you to do all you
can to make the men delay their protest until we have been able to prevent harm
to Madame Arnorsdottir.”
“Capitán
Magenta, I can assure you that when my men will make their protest, they will
not harm the Vice-President. But
many officers and enlisted men feel that the World Government has acted with
disrespect of our service to our country and to them. Señora Arnorsdottir is the
representative of this Government; indeed, she is the instigator of these
proposals. To abolish every air
force is not to be tolerated! I
cannot deny my men the opportunity to show their objections.”
“Of course not, sir. The World
Government is all in favour of free speech.
I am merely requesting that you delay making your representations for the
moment. In addition, I have to
inform you that Spectrum will have armed security men at the Teatro Moderno. We’re not looking for trouble, sir, but
we have to take precautions. It is
not inconceivable that your protest might be hijacked by less… honourable men.”
“These Mysterons we hear so much
about and no one ever sees?” Herrera’s scepticism was obvious.
Magenta nodded. “Believe me,
General, you do not want to face the Mysterons,” he said sombrely.
“No, for if we do and do so
successfully, the truth that Spectrum is a mere booster to the World President’s
ego will be revealed. Is that not
the case?”
“No, it is not the case!” Major Rioz retorted,
before Magenta could reply. “With
respect, General, the Mysterons are a
greater threat than you can imagine.”
“I doubt that,
Capitán,” Herrera said.
“You would be surprised to know what I can imagine.”
He pressed a button on his desk and the door burst open. Several armed men rushed in and
when Rioz drew his gun, he was savagely bludgeoned to the floor
with a rifle butt. The men
surrounded Magenta, hustling him into a corner to prevent him helping his
colleague.
Herrera came from behind his desk and moved towards the Spectrum Captain.
The men parted to let him through.
“You will do as we say,” he told Magenta.
“And if I don’t?” he asked.
“You are expendable, Capitán, but the Mysterons have a mind to let you live to
witness our triumph. The supports of
the World Government will crumble; you will see.”
Although a wave of shock washed over him, Magenta wasn’t completely
surprised by this revelation. The
Mysterons’ intentions were often unfathomable and he didn’t discount the notion
that he might be killed and retrometabolised later on
in the cause of furthering their plans.
He considered his options: staying alive in case he could somehow thwart
whatever plans Herrera had in hand, seemed the most logical.
He remained silent, but gave a brief nod and waited to hear what was
required.
“What do you mean,
‘Captain Magenta’s missed his report deadline’?” Colonel Blue demanded.
“I can’t raise him sir,”
Lieutenant Flaxen admitted. She had
rarely seen Blue this agitated. “I
have tried all frequencies.”
“Where was he going?”
“To see the Air Force
General at his base, Colonel.”
“When?”
“He was due to report in
30 minutes ago,” Flaxen replied, checking her records.
“Keep trying,
Lieutenant, and get me Vice–President Arnorsdottir
immediately.”
“S.I.G.”
It took about 10 minutes
to get Arnorsdottir to the phone. She was looking a little flustered as she
sat down at the booth. Her hand went
to her hair and she tidied it up, slipping one strand behind her ear as she
focused on the screen and said:
“Hello, Colonel.”
“Madame Vice-President,
are you all right?”
She frowned a little.
“Perfectly; is there a problem?”
“Captain Magenta has
failed to make his scheduled report.
We’re unable to contact him or trace his whereabouts at this present
time. I’m concerned; he’s due to
escort you tonight.”
“Yes, I got the message that Major Scarlet was going to Futura,” she replied and gave a wry tilt of her head.
“I thought the Mysterons are after the Vice-Presidents only?”
“That’s what we believe
their threat implied, but we can’t risk anything happening to the World
President. Of course, I’ll arrange
for another officer to accompany you.”
She glanced over her
shoulder and leant towards the screen, lowering her voice. “Adam,
I am… worried about the Supreme Commander.
He had a meeting with General Herrera this morning and he’s… well, he’s
very distant. We were getting on so
well and now he seems to have had a sense of humour failure.”
“Blackwood?” Blue’s mind raced. “He’s going with you tonight?”
She nodded. “Yes,
he will be at the opera too. But
right now, he’s put the hotel and the theatre under a security cordon. There’s no need, I’m sure of that. These soldiers are angry – but they’re
not going to hurt me. What would it
gain them?”
“A security cordon?”
She nodded. “I
didn’t tell him about the threat, by the way; so it can’t be the Mysterons he’s
worried about, but no one’s being allowed in unless Blackwood agrees. I wanted to go out and do some shopping,
but he says it is too dangerous...”
“He’s right – it is – but not for the reason he
thinks, if you haven’t told him about the Mysterons’ threat. Valdis, I want
you to keep away from him.”
“What?”
“I think there is a
possibility that Blackwood may be a Mysteron.”
She gave a sharp
exclamation of shocked surprise. “You mean they may have killed him and…
recreated him again?”
“I’m afraid so. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve
attacked a Supreme Commander and if you look at it in even broader terms than we
considered, the post of the Supreme Commander Earth Forces could be considered a
‘support’ of the World Government – one we wouldn’t have suspected to be a
danger.”
“But that is terrible! I can
hardly believe it, Adam. No, it
can’t be true or why doesn’t he just kill me?
I’m here and more or less defenceless – he could just kill me now! So why doesn’t he, if he is a Mysteron?”
“The Mysterons like to
cause as much terror and panic as they can.
I suspect they intend to make their move in front of the World News
networks – tonight.”
“Oh, my God… like it was some kind of spectator sport?” Her face went
pale.
Blue tried to reassure
her. “They want to spread
panic, that’s all, shake people’s faith in their government.
Now, tell me: are there any Spectrum agents with you inside the cordon?”
She thought and then
shook her head. “No. Lieutenant Nieto was
here, but Blackwood sent him back to his base for some reason. There are Spanish military here and some
of Blackwood’s own staff and mine – all three of them – but that’s all.”
“Get me the report from Lieutenant Nieto,
Flaxen.” He paused, lost in thought,
and she waited with commendable patience for his deliberations to reach a
conclusion. “There’s one person
Blackwood can’t keep outside of the cordon: me.
I will be with you as soon as I can; until then – stay away from him, Valdis. Better
still, stay in your room!”
“Very well; I have some work I can do. Please hurry, Adam.”
“S.I.G., Madame
Vice-President.”
Captain Magenta was
getting frustrated.
Herrera had ordered his
men to put the Spectrum officers in the brig and removed their radio caps,
throwing them onto his desk.
The guards had dragged Rioz through the corridors and across the courtyard to the
cells, hustling Magenta along and ignoring his attempts to speak to them. By the time they reached the cells and
were locked into one together, he had come to realise that they were all
Mysteron agents. He spared a thought for the men they had
been and lifted Rioz onto the narrow camp bed to
examine him.
Gradually the commandante came
to his senses and accepted the tin mug of tepid water Magenta offered him with
gratitude.
They heard the sound of
vehicles leaving the courtyard and then a deathly silence fell over the base.
Magenta rummaged in his
tunic pocket and produced a tiny credit-card sized data chip. Then he perched on the end of one of the
bunks and started tapping away, applying the card’s flat surface to the palm
reader of the electronic lock every so often, without success.
“What’s the matter with
you Spaniards,” he grumbled to his companion, as his latest attempt to spring
the lock failed. “Don’t you have
normal palm-prints?”
Rioz watched the colour
captain and didn’t dare speak in case he disturbed Magenta’s concentration.
“What are you trying to
do?” Rioz asked eventually.
“Crack the lock. This device will access the local memory
bank of approved palm prints and reproduce one.
Well, it should – that’s the theory.
“And then what?”
“Then we get out of here
and go back to Madrid, of course.”
Rioz stood up and went to
peer out of the small barred window.
“Capitán, I cannot
see anyone moving about the base.
Nor any vehicles. Our SSC has gone
and the jeeps. I think the base is
deserted, sir.”
“There are houses beyond
the base, right?”
“Si.”
“Then we requisition a
car, Commandante. And if they won’t give us one willingly;
well, we’ll just have to add auto-theft to our rap sheet, won’t we?”
“We won’t be in time to
escort the Vice-President, Capitán, if we don’t leave soon.”
Magenta turned his back
and went back to his attempts to crack the lock, muttering: “And to think I
thought it was only Ochre who stated the blooming obvious whenever we were up
against it…”
Blue’s SPJ touched down
at the airport and Lieutenant Nieto conducted him to the waiting SSC with much
deference.
“I am sorry, Coronel, but Commandante Rioz went with
Capitán
Magenta and has not returned.”
“Just get me to the
Vice-President’s hotel as soon as you can, Lieutenant,” Blue ordered.
“S.I.G., Coronel.”
En route to the hotel, Blue contacted
Cloudbase, now under the command of the imperturbable Doctor Fawn, and asked
Lieutenant Flaxen for an update.
“The other officers have
arrived at the Vice-Presidents’ locations, sir,” she explained. “Still no report from Captain Magenta.
The World President has sent a message saying that he wants Spectrum to protect
the Vice-Presidents, but that the galas must not be cancelled.”
“Reply in my name that
we’re doing all we can, Lieutenant.”
“S.I.G, sir.”
The central streets of
the city were thronged with traffic as the time for the gala performance
approached. The route to the hotel
passed the Teatro Moderno, which
was the centrepiece of Madrid’s regeneration after the Atomic War had devastated
part of the city. Funded by
the World Government and the European Triumvirate, it was a radical design set
in a broad plaza and surrounded by new shopping arcades and gardens, with
fountains and exotic flower beds.
The glass- and steel-built foyer represented the prow of a ship, to signify
Spain’s proud maritime history, and the huge, acoustically perfect auditorium
was in the main part of the building, while the gently rising marble-clad slope
that formed the third section of the building held a warren of rehearsal rooms,
storage bays and workshops.
Blue could see the banks of
television lights, cameras, reporters and spectators that were already in place.
Valdis Arnorsdottir was very much the ‘pin-up girl’ of the World
Government and there was a devoted fan base eager to see and hear whatever she
was doing; it seemed that a great many of them had turned up tonight to witness
the opening of the new theatre in such a glittering presence. He was even more certain that her life
was in jeopardy. The Mysterons could
be sure of creating widespread dismay and panic if such a prominent politician
was murdered in front of the cameras of the world’s media.
He sighed as his car
crept past the crowds.
If anything happens tonight it’s inevitable that Spectrum
will be blamed for failing to prevent the attack. Without Valdis,
our funding could well be reduced, handing those alien bastards their victory on
a plate.
He leant forward from
the back seat and snapped irritably, “Can’t you go any faster, Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Nieto
shrugged apologetically, sounded an imperious fanfare on the motor horn and
increased speed as much as he dared in the crowded streets, but he slowed down
again as they approached the security cordon around the hotel. He lowered the window and entered into a
vociferous conversation with the armed sergeant who approached the car.
Blue’s Spanish was
pretty good, but even he had difficulty keeping up with the voluble flow. Finally, he leant forward again and said
sharply, in Spanish, “I am the commander-in-chief of Spectrum. I do not expect to be told that anyone,
except the World President himself, is forbidding me entry to anywhere I
want to go. Now, before I have you
and this entire troop arrested on charges of insubordination, get the hell out of my way!”
The sergeant stared in
surprise and staggered back, waving his men aside for the car to pass through.
Nieto glanced at the
American with admiration. “That was
sure telling him,
Coronel.”
“Arrogance runs in my
family, Lieutenant,” Blue replied dryly.
“Now, hand me that Mysteron detector and bring my suitcase with you.
We’re going in.”
Valdis looked up from her desk
at the sound of the commotion in the corridor outside her suite. She stood and turned towards the door,
feeling that if she faced her enemies they might not be so ready to do her harm.
She wished she had a gun or some weapon – any weapon – and reached down to pick
up the thin, steel-bladed letter opener she’d been using.
The door was opened and
a young Spectrum officer, dressed in the charcoal-grey tunic of a terrestrial
posting, entered, carrying a large light-blue case. He paused and gave her a cheesy grin,
followed by a hasty salute.
Now the door was open
she could hear more clearly what was going on outside and, easily recognising
the loudest voice, she was smiling when Blue walked in and ordered Lieutenant
Nieto out with a peremptory wave of his hand.
“You certainly know how
to make an entrance,” she said, relief flooding into her face as she watched
him.
“Blackwood has got them
all so worked up they wanted me to wait for him to ‘check me’ before they’d let
me up here. Well, I’m not having
that!”
“Of course not.” She came to his side and smiled up into
his clear blue eyes. She stood on
tiptoe to kiss his cheek, toppling gently against him as she lost her balance.
“Hey, watch what you’re
doing with that letter opener, or I might have to check you with the Mysteron
detector,” he teased.
“What do you mean,
might? You will anyway,” she
retorted and went to put her improvised dagger down, feeling rather foolish. She heard the click of the camera-shaped
device as her back was turned.
She turned towards him
to see him frowning at the small display on the back.
“You have a perfectly
straight spine,” he remarked, and grinned at her.
“Have you checked
Blackwood?”
“No; I want to meet him
on my chosen ground, not his.”
“And you chose here?
In my suite?” She pursed her lips at him. “Some protector you are.”
He was acute enough to
sense the uncertainty in her remark, however jovial she sounded, and he was
quick to reassure her.
“I have to be with you
to protect you. You’re a virtual
prisoner in here, so here is where I am.
I’ve made plans, don’t worry.
Nieto has his orders.”
“I’m not worried – now.”
“Good.” He bent to open his suitcase and then
straightened up with something in his hand.
He held it out to her. “I
want you to have this. Keep it with
you whatever happens.”
Frowning inquisitively,
she reached to take the small pouch.
Inside she found a miniature gun and a tiny disc. She grimaced with distaste at the weapon,
and asked what the other item was.
“It’s a tracer. Fix it to your clothing, or it should
have an adhesive pad on the back if you prefer to stick it to your body. Spectrum will be able to pinpoint your
position – whatever happens.”
“Can they transport me
out of danger?” She glanced up at him.
“Is there a password? ‘Beam me up, Cloudbase’?”
He shook his head. “No, we’re not that technologically
advanced – sadly. Please, Val, wear
it – for my peace of mind, if nothing else?”
“Of course; and I will
even put the gun in my evening bag.”
“Thank you.”
He stooped to the
suitcase once more and lifted a hanger with a carefully folded suit cover
hanging from it. “Now, where can I
put my tuxedo so it doesn’t crease?”
Laughing, she directed
him to the wardrobe and he was still busy there when, after a peremptory knock,
the door opened to admit the Supreme Commander.
He glanced around the
room, frowning when he did not immediately see Colonel Blue, who was screened
from view by the open wardrobe door.
“Madame Vice-President,
I understand people were seeking admittance to your rooms,” Blackwood began.
Blue stepped back and
faced the Supreme Commander.
“Some of your men – at
least, I assume they were yours – tried to prevent me seeing the Vice-President.
Would that have been on your authority, Supreme Commander?” he asked coldly.
“Blue – thank God. Yes, I’ve been trying to ensure no one
gets in here. I’d give a good deal
to know how you managed it.”
“I pulled rank. You have no jurisdiction over Spectrum
and certainly none over me.”
“I suppose that’s true,
although no one’s ever put it in quite such blunt terms before. Anyway, I’m glad to see you,” Blackwood
began and moved towards them.
“Stay where you are,”
Blue ordered, moving protectively in front of Valdis.
“For goodness sake, man;
I’m not the threat here,” Blackwood snapped.
“Then you won’t object
to me taking your picture,” Blue replied, drawing the Mysteron detector from his
tunic pocket.
Blackwood submitted to the test, and Blue
handed Valdis the machine when the small screen showed
a skeletal image.
“What’ve you been doing?
Your behaviour’s alarmed the Vice-President,” Blue demanded.
“Before I explain, I’m
sure you won’t mind if I give you the same test,” said Blackwood, reaching for
the device.
Valdis handed it over and
stood beside Blue as the Supreme Commander reassured himself neither of them
were Mysteron agents. He
handed the Mysteron Detector back and sighed with relief.
“I met Herrera this
morning. He was quite blatant about
the situation amongst the air force personnel here – and some of the other
forces too. They feel that if the
air force is disbanded they may be drawn into conflicts they do not wish to
participate in, while being vulnerable to attack from the air.
The memory of Guernica and the Civil War casts
a long shadow, not to mention the pounding the city took in the Atomic War. ”
“The World Government
guarantees the safety of all its members, Supreme Commander,” Valdis protested.
“If Bereznik, or anywhere else, attacked Spain,
they would have the armed forces of the World Government to call on, the same as
everyone else.”
“You don’t have to
convince me, Madame; but the Spanish are not as convinced the World Government
would act to defend them.”
Valdis slapped her palm to her
forehead in exasperation. “Tcha! Men!”
“It is more than that,
Madame; it is the national psyche,” Blackwood said, a little tetchily. “However, the fact remains that they are
vehemently opposed to the World Government’s plans and they have formed an
association to argue against it.
They plan to bring their cause to public attention by kidnapping you and holding
you to ransom. Their plan is to do
it in front of the world’s media at the opera tonight.”
“This is nothing new,”
Blue interjected.
“No; but I know Herrera
well and he wasn’t the same man; I’d stake my life on it. I said nothing to him, but when I got
back here I dismissed all the guards who had been on duty while he was in
command, and brought in my own men, with orders to stop everyone – I couldn’t
risk drawing attention to my suspicions by just banning Herrera’s men.”
“You think Herrera is a
Mysteron?” Valdis asked.
Blackwood explained,
with just a hint of exasperation, “I don’t know – he may just have been angry
and annoyed, but he wasn’t as I expected him to be. Spectrum is so protective of their
technology that even I don’t have
access to a Mysteron detector, or I would have made sure. Either way, I felt
that better safe than sorry was the way to go.”
“But you didn’t think to
explain to the Vice-President?” Blue reasoned.
“If the Mysterons are
active in Madrid, they may have already replaced her with their agent, and I
wasn’t going to volunteer to be Mysteronised by
letting on what I suspected.”
Valdis glanced at them both
and sighed. “Okay, so now we know
we’re all human and we’re all trapped in here by an army of possible Mysterons,
what’re we going to do?”
Captain Magenta floored
the accelerator of the car he and Commandante Rioz had requisitioned
from a surprised resident of the village near the airbase, and swerved to avoid
a motorcyclist that appeared suddenly from a side alley. The Commandante was navigating them back to the city after they
had managed to escape from the prison cell and there was little time to spare.
Before they’d left the
base, however, he had taken the time to retrieve their radio caps, only to
discover the microphones broken off and the system out of action. A search had revealed a communications
room and he’d been able to patch a call through to Cloudbase and tell them what
they’d learned.
Fawn heard them out and
then told them that Colonel Blue was in Madrid with the Vice-President.
“So who’s driving
Cloudbase?” Magenta gasped in alarm, momentarily distracted by the idea of
Lieutenant Flaxen – one of the most accident-prone officers they had – being in
charge.
Fawn’s laconic comment of not to worry because
he’d passed his driving test many years ago, had made him blush. They all tended to forget that the Head
of Spectrum Medical was also a serving officer with the same command training
the rest of them had.
Fawn continued: “I think you better get to the city as soon as
you can and liaise with Major Scarlet-”
“Scarlet went to
Futura, Doc,” Magenta exclaimed.
“When the
colonel left me in charge, I felt it was only my duty to inform Cloudbase’s second-in-command of the situation,” the
doctor said primly. “Major Scarlet confirmed me in my post and
made an executive decision to – and I quote – ‘get the hell over to there before
Blue gets himself into all sorts of trouble’. He should be arriving in the next hour.”
“Oh, I get you,” Magenta
said, with a wry smile. “Nevertheless, it turns out that was a smart move, Doc.
Mind you, Blue will probably court-martial him – and maybe you too - when this
is over.”
“That, I would like to see,” Fawn remarked, doubtfully. “Now,
I’ll warn Scarlet about Herrera and tell him what’s happened and where you’re
going. I’ll tell him to bring you an
emergency communicator too.”
“S.I.G., Doc, and
thanks!”
Major Scarlet’s plane
landed close to the terminal and he almost sprinted down the steps and into the
building. He saw Captain Magenta
waiting anxiously by the main entrance and hurried across.
“What news?” he asked.
“No idea,” Magenta
replied. “The pilots disabled my
communication system. But, over there on the news screen it looks like
excitement is mounting at the theatre.”
He glanced at his watch and said, “The performance is due to start in less than
an hour, and Arnorsdottir is due to arrive about fifteen minutes before
the curtain goes up.”
Scarlet handed over the
emergency communicator kit and watched the TV screen as Magenta effected a
repair.
The crowd around the Teatro Moderno was
excited, and cheering everyone as they arrived.
There were pop stars giving impromptu performances to elicit charitable
contributions, aristocrats rubbing shoulders with politicians, and actors and
models ‘strutting their stuff’ on the red carpet.
Scarlet had never quite
understood why making an ass of yourself in public was supposed to encourage
charitable giving, although he considered it might be either a sympathy donation
or a bribe to make the mendicant go away. He watched some pneumatically-enhanced
chanteuse warbling off-key to rapturous applause, and shuddered.
“Tell me Spectrum isn’t
involved in that parade of mediocrity,” he said to Magenta.
“Nope, we’re just there
as security guards – at least we should be.”
The newscaster seemed to
be having hysterics as she squeaked in excitement.
Magenta looked up at the
screen and explained: “Seems like Arnorsdottir
has arrived early. That’s her car.”
“What on earth for?”
Scarlet demanded, although there was no one who could answer that.
They watched in concern
as the flash guns went off and the chauffeur, dressed in a Spectrum uniform,
opened the back door of the limo.
The Supreme Commander,
dressed in an evening suit, got out and moved to the other side of the door from
the chauffeur.
“Didn’t Blue think he
was a Mysteron?” Scarlet asked.
“That’s what Fawn said,
yes,” Magenta replied. “I guess he
isn’t.”
“Or we’re already too
late,” Scarlet muttered to himself.
The commentator was
almost breathless as the Vice-President began to emerge from the car.
“What’s she saying?”
Scarlet asked.
“It’s all about her
dress,” Magenta said disapprovingly.
“Nothing about the charity or the new theatre or the army.”
“I suppose it is a
pretty dress,” Scarlet remarked. “If
you like that kind of thing.”
The camera followed Valdis some way along the carpet until she stopped and
turned back. It panned round to see
what she was waiting for and, to their astonishment, the Spectrum officers saw
Colonel Blue, in full evening dress, briskly walk past the Supreme Commander to
her side. He offered her his arm and
she took it, walking beside him smiling and waving to the cheering crowds.
“Make a handsome pair,
don’t they?” Magenta said.
“What?” Scarlet stared
at him in surprise.
“That’s what the
commentator just said. She hasn’t
given his name though; he must’ve had the sense to keep it from them. They think he’s her new beau.”
“Yeah, right,” Scarlet
said dismissively and made a decision.
“Let’s get over there as soon as we can.
They may’ve wrong-footed the Mysterons by arriving early, but that
doesn’t mean the threat is over.”
Inside
the theatre, everything was bright and new.
With the Spanish flair for design, the building was unusual and pleasing to the
eye. The lighting was designed to make the
best of the open spaces and set a suitable backdrop for the finery of the
audience members.
Colonel Blue was
familiar with a great many opera houses.
His mother was a devotee and had dragged her children to notable
performances around the world as part of her eclectic cultural education
programme. He had sat through plenty
of operas that he did not enjoy and a few that he did. Consequently he looked perfectly at home
amongst the crowd of opera-goers.
He remained on the
alert, his Spectrum hand gun in his jacket pocket and kept a close eye on Valdis as she ‘pressed flesh’ with the VIPs and media stars.
It was easy enough for him to say ‘no comprendez’ and
speak Swedish to the individuals that sought to engage him in conversation and
gradually he was left alone.
On
the other hand, the Supreme Commander was a known personality, and consequently
he was surrounded by people and having difficulty keeping an eye on
Valdis. So Blue moved to a part of the room where
he could watch the whole scene and kept his hand on his gun. There was no sign of any military
personnel amongst the gaudy crowd, but there was no way of telling an off-duty
officer, and the Mysterons rarely played by any rules but their own.
Eventually, Valdis managed to excuse herself from her admirers and came
over to him.
“Okay?” Luckily, she used probably the one word
that was understood in every language and it allowed him to respond in Swedish –
just in case they were overheard.
“Yes; I’m too much of a
nobody for anyone to bother with me.
Plus I don’t speak English or Spanish – a serious disability in such a
society.”
After a moment she
replied, “Your accent isn’t bad, for an American.”
“Nor is yours for an
Icelander…”
They both chuckled and
she leant her forehead against his shoulder for a brief moment.
“My Norwegian is
better,” she said, actually blushing a little.
“Mine’s worse,” he
admitted.
“So, you haven’t seen
anyone I should avoid then?” she asked. “I’ve been drumming up donations for the
charity funds - a politician’s work is never done - but I haven’t come across
anyone who seemed to be holding a grudge or out to get me.”
“Not that I can see.
Be careful though; I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.”
“Of course. Oh, and if anyone asks, you’re an old
friend of mine by the name of Sven Andersson. So nice and neutral, isn’t it?”
“I think I can remember that,” he agreed, with
a smile.
There was a movement towards the auditorium as
the doors opened and the crowd began to thin as people went to take their
places.
“I’d better go and
powder my nose,” Valdis said.
“Wait a minute… you
can’t go in there alone,” Blue said.
“Well, somehow I don’t
think they’ll let you come with me,” she replied, genially. “And I have to go… especially now I’ve
thought of it.”
He looked around for
someone in authority who could be sent to clear the washroom. “Damn,” he muttered as every official
seemed to have disappeared.
“This is getting to be
an issue…” she said, fidgeting.
“If you gotta go, you gotta go, I suppose…
Come on.”
They walked towards the
Ladies’ toilets together. The
Supreme Commander, finally free from hangers-on, came to join them.
“What’s going on?”
“I am going in there,” said Valdis,
pointing. “You two are waiting – out here.”
“Just put your head
round the door and see if there is anyone else in there and let us know,” Blue
instructed her.
“Hey, there’s always a
queue in the Ladies’ loo.”
“Maybe we could turf
everyone out of the Gents and you could go in there,” Blackwood suggested, but
she pulled a face and rolled her eyes.
“I need to pee, guys….”
“We ought to get the
place checked by Security before you go in,” Blue reasoned.
“Be too late by then.
I drank too much coffee this afternoon,” Valdis
complained.
As they stood debating,
an usherette approached and drew Valdis aside,
indicating a separate VIP facility, cleverly built under the curve of a
staircase that ascended to the restaurant in the ‘prow’ of the building, and
virtually hidden by the decorative foliage that grew up a slender column
supporting the stairs. With a bright smile and a cheeky wave of
her fingers to her escorts, she went with the usherette.
The men exchanged wry
glances.
“Women, huh?” Blackwood
said.
“They’re wired
differently – at least that seems to explain most things,” Blue replied affably.
Blackwood chuckled, and
there was an awkward pause until he said, “I’m surprised the Mysterons haven’t
made their move.”
“It may come during the
performance,” Blue said sombrely. “A
lot of people in an enclosed space make an effective target.”
“Then why are we letting
her go in?” Blackwood asked, appalled.
“Have you tried stopping
her?”
Blackwood rolled his
eyes. “Granted; she won’t listen.”
Unconsciously, their
faces assumed the universal look of nonchalance common to every man fated to
wait for his companion to emerge from a mysterious female compound, be it a
washroom, beauty parlour or seraglio.
Blue was the first to
notice the commotion that had broken out near the main entrance. There was shouting and squealing as
people were jostled and thrust aside.
As the door to the VIP
washroom started to open he heard someone shout:
“Where is Arnorsdottir?”
“Good God,” muttered
Blackwood and he started to move forward.
Blue turned back to the door and saw Valdis
emerging.
“Get back in there and
keep quiet!” he snapped, pulling the door closed and taking guard in front of
it.
“What’s going on?” he
heard her calling, but he didn’t answer as his attention was focused on
Blackwood.
The Supreme Commander
had taken a position in the middle of the foyer and was demanding:
“What is the meaning of
this? Where is your commanding
officer? I’ll have him and every one
of you court-martialled if you don’t get out of here immediately. This is a
disgrace!”
The vanguard of the
invading military hesitated in the face of this unexpected defiance, until they
parted to admit the man Blue recognised as General Herrera.
“I am sorry, Supreme
Commander,” Herrera said. “We have
come for the Vice-President; we want you and her to accompany us.”
“Well, that is not going
to happen,” Blackwood replied firmly.
“Get these men out of here. I
will not tolerate-”
“You have no choice, Earthman,” said Herrera and shot him.
Pandemonium resulted as
the civilians tried to get away from the soldiers. More shots were fired as the soldiers
were prevented from moving further into the foyer by the press of the crowd
trying to get out.
Outside of the building
there was more firing, accompanied by the screams of bystanders and the wail of
police and emergency sirens.
Valdis opened the door a
fraction to peer out and Blue yanked it close again.
“Stay there,” he
ordered. He had heard Herrera’s
words and the realisation that they were facing a force of Mysteron agents
chilled his blood. He castigated
himself for allowing himself to be distracted by Valdis,
and failing to weigh every possibility and all of the options thoroughly.
By not doing so, I’ve exposed her to untold danger. And
for what –so I can look like some frigging hero?
I should know better: I’ve been acting like some raw recruit desperate to
get in some chick’s panties. White
would’ve cashiered any officer who
acted like I’ve done and risked the life of a civilian, he thought.
This is a resigning matter – if I survive long enough to resign. Until then, I’d better do what I can to
resolve this before it becomes an unmitigated disaster.
He dodged his way
through the crowd to where the Supreme Commander lay in a pool of blood. He stooped down, one eye on the soldiers
herding the crowd away from the exits, and placed a practised finger against
Blackwood’s neck. Feeling a
weak pulse, he placed his hands under the man’s shoulders and dragged him back
to the washroom, kicking on the door with his heel as he backed up to it.
“Open the door!” he
shouted in Swedish, hoping that would convince her it really was him. Thankfully, it was enough and the door
was flung open.
He dragged Blackwood
through and heard her lock the door behind him.
“Is he dead?” she
gasped, coming to kneel beside them.
“No, or I wouldn’t have
brought him here. The risk that he
might be Mysteronised is too great. At least we can see what’s happening to
him in here.”
“But he might die!”
“He’s the Supreme
Commander of the Earth’s Military Forces, I expect he considers that an
occupational hazard. I know I do.”
She stared at him as if
she’d never really known him at all.
“He’s not like Scarlet; for him it will be the
only time he dies,” she gasped.
He spared a moment from
his first aid work to glance at her. He saw the fear in her eyes but couldn’t
help snapping back: “Just like it
will be for me and for you, if they find us.
Now, put your finger there and keep up a constant pressure until the
bleeding stops. I am going to see if
there is a back way out of here. They’ll try to get in here soon enough and that
lock won’t hold them for long.”
Major Scarlet sprang
from the SSC before it actually stopped moving and ran towards the Teatro Moderno,
pushing his way through the milling crowds and pressmen struggling to see what
was happening.
He saw a Spectrum
lieutenant on the edge of the red carpet and grabbed him by the shoulders,
spinning him round to face him.
“Where is the
Vice-President?” he shouted.
Lieutenant Nieto pointed
into the building. “She, the colonel
and the Supreme Commander went in there.
They have not come out.”
Scarlet let him go and
stood contemplating his next move.
Hesitantly, Nieto asked,
“How did you get here so soon? I
only contacted base when I saw General Herrera arrive.”
“I’m psychic,” Scarlet
replied, absently. He turned his
attention back to the lieutenant and demanded, “Does Blue know Herrera is a
Mysteron? Maybe all his men too?”
Magenta had arrived at
that moment with Rioz beside him.
Nieto shook his head.
“We do not know this, Capitán.”
The Spaniard started to
correct Nieto. “Idiot, this is Major Scarlet.”
Scarlet waved Nieto’s
stammered apology aside as an irrelevance.
“Never mind that now; we have to get inside and find Blue, Arnorsdottir and the Supreme Commander.”
Magenta noticed the
order of the names and hid a smile.
Scarlet never quite managed to follow the regulation that insisted
Spectrum personnel put others before their colleagues.
Mind you, neither has the rest of the elite squadron, he thought, and
diverted his thoughts to consider the problem.
“Can we contact the
colonel?” Scarlet demanded.
Nieto shook his head.
“I have been trying, Major, sir. I
got Cloudbase to try too, but there is no response.
They think it must be a faulty communicator, or the colonel does not have it
with him.”
Scarlet shook his head
at the suggestion that Blue would not have a communicating device with him.
“We really need to replace some of this equipment; the failure rates are getting
too high,” he muttered to himself.
Nieto continued, “The
Vice-President, she is wearing a tracer and that says she is inside the
building.”
“Well, that’s a lot of
help,” Scarlet grumbled, “considering we already know that much. What we don’t know is where inside the building,
exactly, and how we get inside to where she is.”
“The stage door,”
Magenta said suddenly, as inspiration hit him. Scarlet stared at him blankly.
“Round the side, there must be a performers’ entrance – where the groupies hang
out for autographs and so forth. We
can get in that way.”
“Great – where is it?”
Scarlet demanded.
Magenta shrugged. “We must be able to get some plans of the
building…”
“That’ll take too long,”
Scarlet snapped. “Surely someone
must know?”
Nieto admitted that he
knew and so it was that moments later he and Scarlet were running through the
crowds towards the back of the building, leaving Magenta and Rioz to provide a diversion at the front of the building
when necessary.
Inside the theatre,
Herrera was marshalling his troops and hustling those civilians who had failed
to get out of the building back into the auditorium. He had sent men up into the balcony and
boxes to see if they could find Arnorsdottir and
others were still searching the ground floor.
With a bodyguard of three troopers he went out onto the steps of the
building and addressed the waiting press.
“The World Government
has announced plans to disband the air forces of the world and hand authority
over to the World Army Air Force and Spectrum.
The Army is already too powerful and Spectrum is a threat to democracy,
being as it is above the democratic control of the people of the world. We, the Spanish air force and military,
call on the World President to reconsider this decision and agree to continue to
fund the air forces of the world.”
Captain Magenta was
watching from the crowd and felt some of the cameras swing towards him as the
most obvious representative of Spectrum present. He pulled his cap down over his eyes and
tried to melt into the background.
He did not want his face flashed around the globe attracting unwanted attention
from his former gangster associates.
Spectrum had developed a device that ‘fogged’ cameras, but he had never
felt entirely sure they worked.
Herrera continued: “We
give the World Government two hours to respond to our demands. If they do not, then we shall begin to
execute one hostage for every hour they delay.”
The reporters reacted in
a frenzy of questions, one of which rose above the others:
Do you have the Vice-President?
Herrera’s face darkened. “Vice-President
Arnorsdottir
is within the building,” he said curtly, and turned on his heels to walk back
inside.
Colonel Blue threw the defunct communicator
down with a look of disgust. It
explained why he’d heard nothing for so long.
Well, we’re really on our own now, he thought, glancing
at Valdis who was conscientiously pressing her fingers
against the wound on Blackwood’s collarbone.
He looked around the
washroom, which was ornately decorated with a dainty chair in front of a
wall-mounted mirror and shelf with a selection of individual cosmetic sachets
and tissues.
Nothing useful there – except maybe the chair…
The room had an
artistically pleasing arch of stained glass running along one side, but it
obviously didn’t lead to the outside given the amount of ‘daylight’ that was
streaming through it.
There must be sunlight lamps arranged to give the
impression of daylight, he conjectured, wondering if that could provide anything
he could utilise in their self-defence.
He dragged the chair over and tested it
for his weight before standing on it and examining the window. There were no opening catches, so if that
was to be the way out, it was going to mean breaking it. He looked back at
Valdis. Her evening gown was a charming creation
in lace, with an impractically long train, and he wondered how she was going to
manage to scramble through a broken window.
He was distracted from
his thoughts by a dull rattle from the throat of the Supreme Commander.
“Adam!” Valdis wailed and removed her hand as she sprang back from
the body. The blood spurted out and splattered her dress.
He jumped down and came
over to see if anything could be done, but, as he’d suspected, it was no good:
Blackwood had lost too much blood and without proper medical equipment he was
beyond saving. He held the man’s
hand until the laboured breathing ceased and the pain-filled eyes filmed over to
stare bleakly at the ceiling. Behind
him he heard Valdis sob and felt her rest her head
against his back as she cried.
Blue closed the Supreme
Commander’s eyes and took a moment to put an arm around her.
“At least he didn’t
suffer too much,” he told her. “And
we did all we could.” She
nodded her head against his chest, unable to speak.
He set his expression to one of authority and said, “I want you to go into the
cubicle. Shut the door, put your
fingers in your ears and wait until I say you can come out.”
“Why?” She looked up,
frowning. Her cheeks were streaked
with tears and still moist.
Shock, he thought.
“Because what I have to
do now isn’t nice,” he explained.
“What?” She wiped the
back of her hands across her cheeks and sniffed. He handed her the clean handkerchief from
his buttonhole pocket.
“The Mysterons have the
power of retrometabolism,” he reminded her.
“The only thing we’ve discovered that weakens their ability to do this is
electricity. That’s what the
electron rifle uses – concentrated electric pulses.
But, I don’t have an electron gun with me, so I’ll have to improvise.”
“On what?”
“On the Supreme
Commander.”
“Oh no – Adam, no!”
“There’s no option-”
“He was our friend,” she
protested. “We should treat his body with respect.”
“It’s because I
respected him that I won’t let them retrometabolise
him. Now, please, go into the cubicle.”
She hesitated. “Will we get out of here?”
“Yeah,” he said
confidently, nodding his head. “Oh,
yeah, no problem. Now, please, I
have to do this quickly.”
She stumbled to her feet
and went into the cubicle, closing the door behind her. As she disappeared, Blue reached for the
small table lamp on the shelf and removed the shade and bulb – burning his
fingers in the process. He closed
his eyes briefly, sending up a prayer for his fallen comrade and, with gritted
teeth, drove the live end of the lamp into Blackwood’s eye socket, ramming it
down with as much force as he could.
The body juddered and
the smell was enough to make him retch, but he held it there until even his iron
constitution had had enough. He dragged it out and grimaced at the matter that
splattered him as he did so.
Another tuxedo ruined, he thought, almost hysterically.
He threw the lamp away and dragged the body into a corner, turning the shattered
face to the wall so that Valdis might not have to see it.
He washed his hands and
splashed water onto his face, fastidiously sponging his jacket clean. He had taken Blackwood’s jacket off him
when he’d started first aid and now he picked it up and wrapped it around his
gun. He went back to the window and fired a
shot into the corner of the glass.
It shattered and fell
with a tinkling crash and he knocked out all the jagged edges he could with the
pistol butt. Then he draped
Blackwood’s jacket over the sill and peered out.
Beyond the frame of daylight bulbs, the window looked out into a
dimly-lit corridor and the drop down from the sill wasn’t too far.
Knowing the noise would have attracted unwanted
attention he jumped down off the chair and went to fetch Valdis.
“Quickly! Come on!” He took her hand and drew her
towards the shattered window. She
swivelled her head to look around. “No – don’t look. Come on, they’ll have heard us!”
He helped her up onto
the chair and urged her to climb out.
“I can’t,” she said,
getting her feet tangled in the fancy train of the evening gown.
“Hold still.” He yanked a sharp piece of glass from the
window frame and, pulling the material taut, hacked the train off.
“This is a classic haute
couture gown,” she said sadly, appalled at the sight of the blood and grime that
bespattered her tattered dress.
“”It was,” he corrected
with a smile. “Maybe it will be
again, but right now, it is a liability.
Can you swing your legs over the sill now? Good.
Now jump.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Valdis…”
She grimaced and with a
look of abject misery, slid off the sill and down out of the room.
He peered over and saw
her get to her feet. From the other side of the door came the unmistakeable
sound of voices – and they did not sound friendly.
“Good girl.”
He vaulted down beside
her and took her hand. “Now, let’s
get out of here.”
Scarlet and Nieto pushed
their way through the performers’ entrance. It was unguarded, rather to Scarlet’s
surprise; however, they hadn’t gone far along the utilitarian corridors before
they saw a group of soldiers, armed and guarding the entrance to the wings and
stage. Scarlet moved up a metal
ladder attached to the wall, leading to walkways across the stage. There were armed men up there too and on
the stage were terrified members of the cast and orchestra, while the auditorium
was full of silent and terrified civilians.
There was no sign of the Supreme Commander,
Arnorsdottir
or Blue.
He slid down again and
placed a finger against his lips to warn Nieto to be quiet. Then he led the way into the scenery
store.
“What are we going to
do?” whispered Nieto.
“We have to find the VP,
the SC:EF and Colonel Blue. Unless
they’re holding them apart from the other hostages, they can’t have found them.
My guess is Blue is holed up somewhere.
Trouble is – from our point of view - there are thousands of places they could
be hiding and the soldiers will be searching for them too.”
“How will we find them
before the soldiers?”
“There’s no way Blue
would risk Arnorsdottir’s life by not having the
equipment he needs. If it was me,
I’d have a communicator, and a tracer. Dammit! Why
didn’t I think of this before? Maybe
they can pinpoint their position if they limit the search area? Lieutenant, we daren’t
use our radio caps – Herrera might have the place monitored for transmissions –
so you will have to go back to Magenta and get him to contact Cloudbase. Tell him to tell them to home in on the
building and concentrate on finding Blue’s tracer or the one the VP had. Tell
him not to accept any bullshit about not being able to do it; I’m damned sure
Green could’ve done it and he trained those operators. Then come back here and we’ll find them
together.”
“Shouldn’t we stay
together?” Nieto asked, although he was making ready to leave.
“No; if Herrera finds
Blue’s party, they’re going to need some help…”
“S.I.G., Commandante…”
Scarlet waited until he was sure
Nieto had successfully left the building before he acted. He moved with
stealth, slipping between the hanging backdrops towards the wings, where he
might keep a closer eye on events in the auditorium. As he peered around
the edge of one backdrop, the movement caught the eye of one young chorus
member, who was looking fearfully around.
Scarlet put his fingers to his lips and prayed the young man would keep
his nerve.
I wish my Spanish was better, he
thought, as he struggled to understand the harangue being given by one of the
military leaders. He concentrated on listening for a few words: President,
Supremo, coronel
or Blue. Whatever was occupying the attention of the military it was none
of these.
They can’t have found them… Good, I still have a chance.
He started, as there was the distant sound of a muffled gunshot and
glanced in the direction of the noise. A great many of the military looked
in that direction too.
At a gesture from the speaker, several men rushed off to investigate.
So, that was not something they were expecting to hear… Blue is sure to
have been armed… I’d better see for myself what’s going on.
He dropped back and keeping to the shadows, moved quietly and quickly in
the direction the men had taken. As he approached the public areas of the
building the décor became more elaborate and the lighting better. He watched the men go through a padded
sound-proof door into the foyer and edged forwards to peer through the small
porthole-like window. He saw the
soldiers battering away at the locked door of what he assumed was a washroom.
It didn’t stop them for long and splintered under the onslaught.
The men rushed in, guns drawn.
They’ll kill him…
Scarlet kicked the padded door open and rushed into the open foyer area,
shouting and firing into the air to distract attention away from Blue and the
Vice President. The military
reacted swiftly and started to return his fire.
He dodged behind one of the plaster columns and fired upwards at the
vast, elaborate crystal chandelier that provided the main feature of the foyer.
The pendants tinkled cheerfully as the bullets ricocheted around, shattering
them and scattering sharp shards onto the heads of the military men waiting in
the space.
There were shouts and exclamations. Scarlet dodged a few wild
gunshots and returned the shots with rather more accuracy, wounding two
soldiers.
Outside on the steps and plaza that surrounded the new theatre, there was
more activity, noise and eventually, firing.
Right on time, Pat, Scarlet thought, thankfully.
Captain Magenta had
taken control of the situation on the Plaza when the firing started inside the
building and ordered the more gung-ho elements of the Supreme Commander’s forces
to back off.
“There are thousands of
innocent people in that theatre,” he admonished them. “You could end up getting them all
killed. Hostage situations rarely end well when the buildings are stormed.”
Then the news spread
like wildfire through the soldiers and the crowd:
The Supreme Commander has been shot.
The reporters surged
forwards. Cursing, Magenta
turned and ordered Rioz to move the press corps back. There were shouts of protest from the
reporters when Rioz tried to carry out his orders and
so Magenta went over to them and held up a hand for silence.
Eventually he got it.
“You want the story,
right? You want to see every move of
the end game, right?” Those closest
to him were nodding. “Okay: I give
you two choices. Back off and you
can stay in the Plaza, or, stay where you are and in much less than ten minutes
I will have enough men here to arrest you all and throw you into a jail so far
away from the action you’ll have to read about events in the local newspapers
when they come out next week… Understand?
Good. Now – move!”
Grumbling, the cameras
and reporters moved towards the back of the plaza.
Magenta turned to Rioz. “We need a
mediator; someone the military in there will respect and listen to. Any ideas?”
Before Rioz could reply, they could clearly hear more shots being
fired and the tinkle of broken glass coming from inside the theatre.
“What do we do now?” Rioz asked, as the men of the Supreme Commander’s brigade
started to mill about and seemed to be preparing to take matters into their own
hands.
Magenta strode towards
them, shouting orders.
He was surrounded by the
argumentative men when Herrera came to the main entrance and shouted:
“You have lost,
Earthmen! Your Supreme Commander is
dead. The Vice-President will die! The supports of the World Government will
crumble! The Mysterons will be avenged!”
“Herrera!” Magenta
shouted, springing towards the entrance.
“Don’t be a fool man! Give
yourself up – Spectrum can help-”
The force of the
explosion that ripped through the foyer of the Theatro Moderno threw him to the ground as the
glass entrance hall collapsed inwards and the gaudy roof imploded.
Blue and Valdis hurried down the corridor towards the backstage areas
of the building. He held her hand
and pulled her along as they raced down two flights of stairs, dodged through
doors and round corners. So far they had been lucky and there had been no sight
of any of the military, although they were sure they were still being followed.
There was a distant echo
of firing from the front of the building and Blue stopped dead in his tracks.
“Are we safe?” Valdis panted beside him.
“No; but if there is
fighting then there are people here to rescue us. Even more reason for us to keep out of
the rebels’ clutches. However, the
likelihood is that every entrance will now be guarded, so the chances of us
getting out undetected are slight.”
He looked around,
chewing his bottom lip between his strong, white teeth as he looked for a
solution to the problem.
“We could hide,” she
suggested. “There is a door over
there; maybe we can find a place to hide?”
Blue heard the approach
of running footsteps and didn’t hesitate.
“Come on, and keep
quiet.”
He tried the door, and
yanked it open. They slipped inside;
the room was dim, the only ambient light coming from some distance away and two
small ‘security’ lights close to the two steps down to the main floor of the
room. There was no way to lock the
door from the inside, so he listened with his ear pressed to the wood and sent
up a grateful prayer of thanks as he heard the footsteps run by.
With his finger to his
lips he moved her away from the door and down the couple of steps into the long,
cavernous room with its boxes of neatly labelled stage props lined up in two
neat aisles.
“We’ve hit the jackpot,”
he whispered, as exhaustion hit her and she sank gratefully onto a
Victorian-style chaise longue. “Plenty of places to hide here. We’ll…”
There was an explosion, the rumble of falling masonry in
the corridor, and the lights went out.
Scarlet was buried under
shattered glass and the steel frames of the entrance hall by the explosion.
His face was cut and bleeding and a large shard of glass was pinning his left
arm to the floor.
Glad to be conscious and
aware that if Herrera hadn’t been killed by the blast he would be searching to
make sure the Spectrum agent had been, he gritted his teeth and with a gasp at
the pain that almost made him black out, he yanked the shard out at the third
attempt and threw it away.
Blood was flowing
copiously down his arm, making his left hand slippery, and his right hand was
lacerated from pulling the glass out.
Although pain was throbbing through his body until his mind was fuzzy with it,
he knew that his retrometabolism would repair the damage soon enough. It seemed to work much quicker in
instances where he or his colleagues were still in danger; a fact that had led
Doctor Fawn to conclude that adrenalin had an effect on the process. Shaking
from loss of blood, he undid his uniform belt and improvised a tourniquet to
stop the bleeding. Then he set
about wriggling out from under the rubble.
There must a few broken bones as well, he reasoned, as
protesting stabs of pain came from one ankle and several ribs. I doubt the others in the foyer were as
lucky.
He hauled himself to his
feet and surveyed the devastation around him. There were bodies strewn across the
foyer, partially buried under glass and rubble.
In some places the twisted metal support beams had prevent the rubble
crushing people to death, and he could see several groups of people – soldiers
and civilians – starting to emerge from these caverns.
As the dust cleared he
could see the front of the theatre had completely collapsed and debris was
strewn across the plaza outside. The
lights of the press which were powered by batteries continued to shine in the
darkness, but everywhere else the lights had gone out.
He struggled over the
rubble towards the plaza, stopping to help anyone he could, or simply reassure
those trapped that help was on its way.
He heard Captain Magenta
calling him and turned with relief to acknowledge his friend. And so it was that he did not see Herrera
fire the bullet that severed his jugular, or Magenta’s instinctive return of
fire that resulted in a wayward bullet striking a piece of masonry and the spark
it created igniting the gas that was seeping from broken pipes.
Major Scarlet was dead
before the gas exploded in a fireball that turned the theatre into a deadly
inferno.
In the gloom of their
prison Adam and Valdis took stock of their situation.
“Someone must’ve bombed
the building,” he said, turning from an unsuccessful attempt to get the door
open. They could hear the manic wail of fire alarms and some emergency lighting
was flickering intermittently on the ceiling.
“Is there another way
out?” she asked.
“There must be a window
or something; it wasn’t pitch black in here, even before these lights came on,”
he reasoned. He stared into the
distance. “But I have no idea where
to start looking. As this is a props
store it is likely to be secure…”
Valdis’s nerve gave way and her
head dropped into her hands. “We’re
trapped.”
“No, we’ll find a way
out; never fear.”
He moved towards her,
but as he approached there was a second explosion and part of the ceiling behind
them gave way, knocking him to the floor in the blast. Much of the ambient light vanished and
the emergency lighting flickered once or twice more and gave up completely. They were in darkness.
“Are you okay?” he
asked, crawling towards her. His
hand touched her. She gripped it and
clung on.
She nodded, in response
to his question and then, unsure he could even see her, replied, “Yes, but this
isn’t good, is it?”
He gently withdrew his
hand and slowly got to his feet, one hand above his head to feel for the
ceiling. He could stand, but not
upright, and moved slowly forward in the direction of the supposed window. He hadn’t gone more than a few feet when
he bumped into a huge concrete block, which effectively blocked the way further
into the storage.
“There’s a block –
probably a weight-bearing lintel – that must’ve come down in the blast. The good news is that it will keep the
rest of the ceiling off us if there are any more explosions,” he reassured her.
“And the bad news?”
“Why should there be bad
news?”
“There is always bad
news,” she said and he could hear the defeat in her voice.
He dropped to his knees
and crawled back to where she was sitting.
She felt his hand on her ankle and reached to take hold of it again.
“They will find us,” he
assured her, sitting beside her on the couch.
“Who? The Mysterons?”
“Spectrum.” There was a confidence in his voice that
she wanted to believe.
“But how long will it
take them? There were hundreds of
people in the auditorium, maybe thousands.
They’ll have to get them out and then discover we aren’t amongst them
before they even start looking.”
“So, we’ll wait. They won’t give up. Besides, you’ve got the tracer with you,
haven’t you, Valdis?”
There was a pause and
then she said, “It was spoilt the line of my dress and it was uncomfortable, so
I put it in my handbag with the little gun… I never anticipated not having the
bag with me, you see… only…I left my bag in the cloakroom…”
She felt his arm go
around her and hug her in what she hoped was forgiveness.
“Better hope mine’s
working better than my communicator was then…” he said evenly.
They sat in silence,
each occupied with their thoughts as they came to terms with their situation.
Blue was fighting a
rising sense of panic in himself; he had developed a phobia of dark, enclosed
spaces following a childhood incident, and try as he might, he’d never been able
to rationalise it away. Now, as the adrenalin that had fuelled their escape
ebbed away, he felt an iron band of panic clamp around his heart which was
starting to thump with irrational fear.
Suddenly he heard Valdis
sob and realised she was crying.
“It’s okay, Val. We’re not licked yet,” he said, his voice
shakier than he’d have liked. “I’ll think of something.”
“I’m frightened!” she
screamed at him, verging on hysteria.
“I’m not some trained agent with ice in my blood! I’m scared, damn you!”
“It’s okay,” he began
again.
“No, it isn’t! Hold me – hold me, Adam! I’m so frightened…” She flung herself against his chest and
he wrapped her in his arms as she wept.
Eventually the sobs ceased and apart from an occasional sniff she was
silent.
Valdis did not attempt to
move, his embrace was so comfortingly firm around her. It was only as she grew calmer and began
to take more notice of external factors, that she realised he was shaking. She could feel the rapid rhythm of his
heartbeat and the irregularity of his breathing.
“Are you hurt?” she
asked fearfully, raising her head from where it lay on his broad chest. There was no response and fearfully she
raised her hand to his face. His
skin was clammy and he was trembling.
“Adam, what’s wrong?”
His voice was tense,
revealing his fight for self-control.
“Nothing. I… I just don’t
like dark, enclosed spaces. That’s
all. I can cope… I can cope… I can…” It sounded like a personal mantra.
She smiled, thinking she
understood. “Hey, loads of people
are claustrophobic; it’s no big deal.”
“Yeah.”
He said nothing more,
but the tension did not leave him.
Gradually she realised there was more to it than that. “Have you always been like this?”
“N-No.”
“Does it bring back
memories of something else that happened?”
She knew that when he and Scarlet were field partners they had been in some
horrific incidents and wasn’t surprised it should have left a mark on the man. “Want to talk about it? It might help.”
The silence lasted for a
very long time, and she thought he wasn’t going to accept her suggestion.
Nevertheless, she sat beside him and hoped that he found her presence as
comforting as she found his.
Then suddenly he said in
a quiet voice that shook slightly: “I was just a k-kid. I was held in a cellar: small,
dark, cold - alone.
They wanted a ransom from my folks, they said. This guy… this… m-man…” A shudder ran through his body and his
voice was louder when he continued: “No – I don’t want to go there. I’m all right. I can deal with this.”
Surprised by the gist of
what he’d said, she doubted that he would find it easy to calm himself if the
trauma of the experience had stayed with him this long. Well aware of how much her own
courage depended on him being the strong and reliable man she loved while this
incarceration lasted, she stroked the damp hair back from his forehead and
replied gently, “What happened? I
can understand that this must’ve been a terrible experience for a child, but why
does it still scare you so much?”
He moved away from her
slightly and she feared that she’d gone too far with her questions. She knew him to be a reserved man and it
was quite possible that she’d crossed some unknown boundary. She began to apologise, when he suddenly
began to speak in an unnatural gabble.
She listened in horrified silence as he blurted out the story of his
blighted childhood; she didn’t need to think about the scars it must have left
on his psyche.
“Oh, my dear,” she
gasped, aghast at his revelation.
She felt the moisture of cathartic tears against her hand, where it still lay
against his cheek. “Elskan min, I am so sorry. It’s appalling… my poor darling.”
He was crying in earnest
now, and she gathered him into her arms and he clung to her. Although his voice was muffled against
her body, she heard him mumble:
“I can control this; I
have always been in control. I am
always in control. I won’t
give way. I guess it’s just…” He broke off.
“Sssshhhh…
Elskan….sssshhhh. It’s all right, Adam, you’re not here alone; I’m here with you. There is just you and me… together we
will banish this terrible memory - exorcise this ghost of the past. Hold me, Adam, hold me tight. I’m here, I won’t let you go.”
She held him until the
muscles in her back ached with supporting his weight, but she vowed she would
not move until he did. The relief
when he shifted and sat up beside her was tremendous. She laid her head against his shoulder.
He stood up and helped
her to her feet, before lowering himself so that he could lie along the length
of the couch. She nestled
against him, sighing contentedly.
His hand came to rest on her hip and she turned towards him, sliding her knee
over his thigh to make herself more comfortable.
Then, as his embrace tightened around her, she started to chatter about anything
she could think of to distract him.
She told him about
amusing incidents at World Senate meetings, of the celebrities she’d met, of
places she’d visited.
Frequently slipping unselfconsciously into her native language, she dredged her
mind for diverting topics. He
said nothing, although she felt, rather than saw, him smile and snort with
amusement at her more outrageous anecdotes as the tension left him.
Her hand lay on his
chest, fiddling with one of the pearl buttons of his now blood- and
grime-splattered dress-shirt. She
raised herself on her elbow and reached to undo the white silk bow tie that
completed his outfit.
“We might as well be
less formal,” she said. “The gala event is – effectively – over, after all.”
“I’m sorry about your
dress.” He spoke for the first time in a while and she was relieved to hear him
sound as composed as usual.
“It’s just a dress; it
doesn’t matter.”
“It’s a very pretty
dress; you looked… gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” She was
absurdly pleased that he’d thought so.
“I can’t remember the last time I had such a handsome escort; you were a
topic of interest to quite a number of the ladies I was chatting to.”
“What did you tell
them?”
“That you were an old
friend – like I told you. I kept it
vague. One of them said you reminded
her of someone, but I didn’t give her a chance to tell me who.”
“Thanks. I guess I’m starting to remind people of
my father, or my grandfather, if they remember him. There is a Svenson ‘family mould’ and we
tend to resemble each other.”
“My sister is nothing
like me. She’s married with three
children – a real hausfrau.”
“Did you never want
that?”
“Oh yes, once upon a
time, for several hours…”
He gave a snort of
laughter.
“I admit it; I’m a
power-junkie. I like being in charge
and involved in important things.
Besides, I never found a ‘Mr Right’ that didn’t already have a ‘Mrs Right’ of
his own.”
“Valdis…”
“Don’t flatter
yourself,” she said, just a shade too quickly.
“I had a relationship with a Swiss politician for several years, until
his wife threatened to go to the press.
Neither of us cared enough for each other to risk our careers; which
shows you how genuine it was.”
She cursed herself for
sounding so cynical, but the episode had wounded her, because her feelings had
been genuine: she had felt more for the man than he for her. She hoped Adam hadn’t picked up on that
and was relieved when he continued:
“I wanted to say that… I
… well, I consider you a very dear friend.
If things had been different, I would have hoped…”
Irritated at what she
considered a sop to her feelings, she interrupted him with what she felt sure
would be the conclusion to his sentence.
“But you have a wife – and
you’ve told me often enough that you feel committed to her.” She hesitated and then
decided that, as there was every chance they’d never get out of this alive, she
might as well lay her cards on the table once and for all.
“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how I feel. You know I find you very attractive.”
There was a lengthy
pause and she began to suspect he was angry until he said dolefully: “But I’m a married man…”
Frustrated, she snapped
back: “I know; you hide behind it like a coward.”
His arm tightened around
her as if to show he was not annoyed, but he replied, “I love my wife.”
She thought she sensed
despondency in his voice and challenged him:
“Say that again: without the sadness this time…”
“I loved my wife…”
Her heart jumped as she
noticed the subtle change in his words.
Barely daring to speak in case she was rebuffed again, she whispered, “That was
then… this… this is now…And perhaps this is all there will be…”
There was a different
kind of tension in him now, the hand that had lain motionless on her hip was
moving, caressing her curves. His
breathing was faster, each breath shallow and, it seemed to her, intense with
anticipation.
She moved slightly, so
that her face was closer to his. She
could feel his breath on her cheek and slowly, by sense alone, closed in to
press her lips to his.
The kiss was long and
lingering, just two sets of lips pressed close, parted so that their breath
could mingle.
“Valdis,”
he murmured and suddenly the nature of their embrace changed. His was forceful, passionate and
demanding, while hers was equally passionate, but yielding to his touch. Both of his arms encircled her, his hands
caressing her as they traced the body that lay against his. His free hand touched her knee, where it
still lay across his thigh, and moved down to the tattered hem of her dress,
only to slide upwards beneath the cloth and over the silky fabric of her sheer
stockings. He pulled her across his
body.
Valdis straddled his hips, her
hands busy with the delicate pearl buttons of his shirt. She yanked the shirt out of the waistband
of the trousers and almost ripped the buttons open to slide her hands onto his
warm skin and upwards over the flesh that shivered beneath her touch.
Almost at a loss at how
to control her desire, she finally pulled away from him and pushed him down, so
that she might bury her tongue in the warmth of his mouth.
“I’ve waited a long time
to get this close to you,” she confessed, her cheek pressed against his.
“Please, don’t make me wait any longer.”
He turned his head to
kiss her lips, his hands once more delving beneath the fabric of her dress.
Valdis surrendered to the
long-awaited fulfilment of her cherished ambition with a tremulous sigh….
Daylight was streaking
across the sky before the fire brigades managed to get the blaze under control.
Heavy moving equipment was brought in to clear the rubble, but it was slow work. Captain Magenta summoned Doctor Fawn from
Cloudbase with an emergency team to deal with Major Scarlet’s charred body.
Fawn had taken one look and shipped Scarlet back to Cloudbase, but he stayed to
lend what assistance he could to the medical teams.
Most of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition, but the advanced design of the
theatre had prevented the flames from spreading to the auditorium and the people
still trapped in there needed treatment for shock and smoke inhalation.
“Any sign of the
Vice-President or the colonel?”
Magenta asked his colleague, as Fawn came out to the rescue command centre to
take a break.
“No; that is to say, not
that we can identify.”
Fawn looked exhausted;
his eyes were puffy and red and not all of it, Magenta expected, was due to the
smoke. He laid a sympathetic hand on
the doctor’s shoulder. Fawn’s
experiences since he’d joined Spectrum had not included mass disaster and death;
even though he had witnessed the appalling injuries Scarlet had experienced at
the hands of the Mysterons, this was a different kind of horror.
The Australian gave a
shaky smile. “I’d better get back. There’s a lot to do.”
“The World President’s
going crazy asking for news about Blue and Arnorsdottir,”
Magenta confessed. “We heard
Blackwood had been shot before all this hit the fan… that’s all I’ve been able
to tell him.”
“Don’t worry; he’ll
understand that. Any news of
Scarlet?” Fawn asked as he prepared to get back to work.
Magenta nodded. “Doctor Tan said he’s regained
consciousness and his body’s well on the way to recovery.”
“Good. Tell Tan that as soon as Scarlet asks to
be assigned back to duty, to send him down here.”
“You’re going to let him
out?” Magenta was surprised. “He was in a bad way, Doc.”
Fawn wiped a hand over
his grimy face; he was disheartened and distressed by what he’d seen, but he was
only too well aware that Scarlet wouldn’t stay put while his best friend was
missing, presumed dead. He turned to
face Magenta and explained, “One thing I’ve learned over the past decade or so,
Patrick, is that Scarlet knows better than I do what he’s capable of and when. Besides, we’re going to need all the help
we can get.”
Major Scarlet arrived
with a fresh corps of Spectrum personnel who had volunteered to help the rescue
mission, at about tea-time on Christmas Eve.
The sky was darkening again beyond the arc of fluorescent brilliance from
the search lights and there was a splattering of snow which hissed against the
hot lights and soon melted on the plaza, making it slippery and churning the
dust and ash into a sticky mud.
Magenta, dirty and
unshaven, was delighted to see Scarlet.
He noted that the Englishman’s skin looked almost baby-pink where it had
regenerated and his uniform was pristine – although that wouldn’t last.
“Good to see you,
Major,” he said, saluting.
“Thanks. You’re doing a
great job here, Pat. Grey’s in
charge of Cloudbase and Ochre’s on his way with the next group of volunteers. You’ll be able to get a rest soon.”
“That’s the best news
I’ve heard for what seems like a lifetime.”
“Have you found Blue and
Arnorsdottir?” Scarlet asked, even though he knew that Magenta would have
told him the moment he’d arrived if there was any news.
Magenta shook his head.
“We don’t even know where to look. The blast must’ve done something to block the
tracer signals. They say Blue is in there… but that’s as
good as it gets, and that’s even after Green got back and did all he could to
focus the signal.”
“I think I know where to
start looking at least. They weren’t
in the auditorium and after we heard a gun shot, I saw some of the guards
heading off” – Scarlet gestured towards the back of the theatre –“presumably to
search for them.”
“I can give you some men
and gear to look, if you like?” Magenta suggested, consulting the plans of the
building he’d downloaded onto his hand-held data pad. “It’s mostly storerooms and rehearsal
spaces over there. We haven’t got
that far yet. There’re still civilians trapped in the auditorium.”
“S.I.G.,” Scarlet said
briskly. “I’m sure Blue’s in there
somewhere. I’d stake my life on it.”
Magenta wasn’t about to
argue with one of Scarlet’s hunches.
The bond between him and Blue had always been a strong one and since they had
both been ‘cloned’ several years ago by a Mysteron-enhanced machine, they’d had
what at times had appeared to be an almost telepathic awareness of each other.
“Where there’s Blue
there’s a Vice-President?” Magenta remarked quizzically, reminding Scarlet that
they were not only searching for their comrade, but for the VIP he’d been
protecting.
“Oh yes; he won’t have
let her out of his sight.”
The muffled sound of
activity gradually became too audible to ignore and Valdis,
lying complacently in Adam’s arms, said:
“Hear that, Elskan?”
“Yes; someone’s coming.”
“Mysterons?”
There was an edge of
fear in her voice and he knew he couldn’t give her the reassurance she sought.
“It’s a possibility,” he
admitted, calmly.
“They’ll kill us, won’t
they?”
“Yes, they probably
will. But we won’t go down without a
fight, älskling.”
“How can we fight them?
There’s just the two of us and we’re trapped.”
“Well, for a start, we
can get dressed.”
Valdis exhaled a shaky snort
of laughter and kissed him gently before sitting up and stretching. Her elbow caught his head as he sat up.
They dissolved into giggles and she leant over to ‘kiss him better’.
Groping for his trousers
in the dark, Blue felt the gun in the pocket and reached for his jacket where
he’d put an additional ammunition clip.
It wasn’t much, and a conventional weapon wasn’t going to kill any
Mysteron for good, but it would slow them down and might just give them a chance
to break through.
Once they had both
dressed as best they could, they sat side by side on the chaise longue.
Blue tried to prepare Valdis for the expected
onslaught.
“If they open the door
they’re bound to use flashlights,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could.
“We’ll be dazzled after being in here for so long.
I want you to keep behind this couch; it will offer some protection.”
“What will you do?”
She grasped his hand as it brushed her arm.
“I’m going to stand
behind the door. I won’t be dazzled
and I’ll see them before they see me.”
“How many bullets do you
have?”
“Fourteen and a back-up
clip… but…”
“You don’t think you’ll
get the chance to use them all…” she concluded. There was a deep silence until
she continued, “If they’re winning, will you shoot me?”
“No; that’s not what I’m
here for,” he said fiercely.
“But I don’t want them to kill me,” she protested. “That’d be much, much worse than just dying.”
Blue had to agree;
throughout the years they had been field partners, he and Scarlet had had an
understanding that should the very worst happen, they both wanted to be killed
by an electron gun so that the Mysterons couldn’t take them over and use them –
as they used Black – to wreak havoc on the world. “I can’t say for sure, Val, that the
Mysterons can’t retrometabolise someone they were not
directly responsible for killing. We
just don’t know that kind of detail, even now.”
She placed her hand on
his shoulder and squeezed. “Then, as
a Vice-President of the World Government, I am giving you an order, Colonel
Blue. I want you to use the last
bullet you have a chance to fire on me.
If they can still retrometabolise me – well, at least
we’ll have done our best to prevent it.”
She felt his lips kiss the back of her hand and
he replied:
“S.I.G., Madame
Vice-President; but it won’t be the last bullet. That one will be for me.”
“Understood, Colonel.” Her fingers stroked his rough cheek. “Thank you, Elskan.”
Major Scarlet was
directing the operation to move the rubble away from the area where the plans of
the building he’d consulted with the rescue team, showed there was a series of
underground storage rooms. He
couldn’t be sure that he was looking in the right place, but this was the right
direction and they had, some hours ago, found the charred remains of a party of
four military men, their identity confirmed by the amount of fused metal
clinging to the corpses.
I guess they wouldn’t even find that for a Spectrum
uniform,
he mused, as he watched the paramedics
remove the sealed body bags. And both of them were dressed in civvies and
we haven’t seen any civilian bodies.
He nodded at the rescue
team leader to restart the work.
Where the hell are you,
Adam?
As he watched the
lifting gear remove a lump of concrete, his mind went back over the numerous
times he’d been buried in collapsed buildings or caves. There had been times when he’d been dead
and oblivious to the frantic work going on to retrieve him from his unpleasant
grave. There had often been times when his
retrometabolism had returned him to consciousness and he’d waited in the dark,
unable to move, without hope of contacting his partner or Cloudbase and unsure
if there was a rescue underway. The
mental anguish coupled with the physical pain and discomfort had almost made him
wish he hadn’t regained his senses and that his retrometabolism had dawdled over
his recovery.
The sound of approaching
rescue, and especially the muffled but distinctive voice of his friend, shouting
his name, had always brought a flood of overwhelming relief.
Thereafter, however tedious the wait, he had been able to bear it with
fortitude.
He moved forwards and
stood as close to the front line of the rescue work as he could.
He filled his lungs with
the dusty air and bellowed:
“Colonel! Can you hear
me? It’s Scarlet! Adam – it’s Paul. We’re coming.
Hold on!”
The Team Leader, a
grizzled veteran of more heart-rending accidents and rescue attempts than he
cared to remember, stretched out an arm towards his younger second-in-command
and shook his head.
“Leave him,” he said,
preventing him from stopping Scarlet’s act of desperation. “It does no harm and if there is anyone alive under all this, it may
well give them the hope to survive.”
The younger man looked
at the officer in the grimy red uniform, his hands cupped to his mouth as he
bellowed one name into the unknown once more, and nodded.
“God help them all…”
They sat side by side on
the couch, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder. There was nothing either could think of
to say and hardly a need for words between them.
The long hours of intimate darkness had brought them to a deep
understanding of each other, which could have taken years in normal
circumstances.
Valdis’s mind was barely
functioning consciously as she listened to the steady heartbeat of the man
beside her. She was hungry and very
thirsty, but accepted that if this was her fate she was glad it was to happen in
company with this man.
She sat up suddenly as
she felt him stiffen, and his comforting embrace stopped as he gently moved her
aside so that he could stand.
“Do you hear that?” he
whispered.
“The digging?”
“No… listen.
I can hear a voice…”
She stood beside him,
slipping her hand into his, and strained to hear what he could.
“I’m… I’m not sure…” she
whispered in reply.
Blue dropped her hand
and went to the door, banging on it with a clenched fist.
“Paul! Paul!
We’re in here! Help, Paul!”
He stopped and she went
to the door, wanting to believe he had heard something.
On the very edge of her
hearing she could just make out one distant voice and one word.
Adam!
“Oh, thank God,” she
breathed, and sank to the ground as relief shattered the remainder of her
courage and tears spilt from her eyes.
Blue continued to stand,
beating his fist on the door and shouting until his voice cracked. Then he sank down beside her and wrapped
her in his arms while they waited for their deliverance.
It was some hours before
the rescuers were close enough for Scarlet’s voice to become clearly audible.
“You’re by the door?” he called.
“Yes,” Blue croaked in
reply. “Both of us.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No; we can walk. Thirsty,” Blue replied.
“Okay; move away from the door.
We may have to knock it down.
Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“We have paramedics standing by.
You’ll get medical attention,” Scarlet went on to say. He paused.
“The press are outside on the plaza.”
Blue heard Valdis sigh, but responded: “Okay, Paul.” Blue helped her to her feet and she leant
against him. “We’re moving away.”
“Good. Not long now, Adam.”
They stumbled over to
the couch and sat down on it together, holding hands.
“You were right,” Valdis said quietly.
Her voice was huskier than ever now. “Spectrum did rescue us. Pity they can’t save us from the press.”
“You’ll be okay; they’ll
look after you.”
“What about us?” she
asked, her grip tightening on his hand.
“Us? Oh, we can’t say anything, to anyone. What happened here is between us.”
“Forever and for
always,” she responded firmly. “But
what I meant was: will I see you again – privately?”
He kissed her. “I would like that.” Nevertheless he knew how sharing danger
could affect relationships, how people acted in a way they could come to regret. Whatever she came to feel about their
time together, he wanted her to know that he would never betray her, or use
emotional blackmail to pressure her into continuing an intimacy she regretted in
the light of day.
“Whatever you want to
happen is fine by me,” he explained.
“We should both take time to take stock of what’s happened to us and between us. I don’t want to make life difficult for
you.”
She gave a weak chuckle.
“If it hadn’t been you, I would never have – what I mean is – I wanted it to
happen – all of it.”
“So did I,” he assured
her. “But outside of the theatre,
real life has claims on us both; we can’t and we shouldn’t ignore them.”
“Your wife,” she said,
bitterness permeating her voice.
“Yes,” he agreed readily, adding, “and your
career… and mine.”
“Oh yes… my career,” she
said sombrely. “People say I could
be the next World President, if I want to be,” she confessed. “You think if this got out the Senate
wouldn’t elect me?” There was now a
hint of amusement in her voice.
He chuckled. “You could
be anything you want to be; I was surprised you weren’t nominated this time
round.”
“I declined the offer to
stand,” she admitted. “I knew I was
not ready for the job – yet. When I
stand for the post it will be because I know I can do it better than anyone
else.”
“You are amazing,” he
told her, squeezing her hand. “I
wouldn’t bet against you winning whenever you decide to stand. And you would certainly have my vote – if I had one.”
She hugged him, jumping
in alarm as there was an almighty crash from beyond the door. There were now shafts of light coming
from around the door frame.
“They’re almost here,”
Blue remarked.
“Adam, let’s set a
date,” she said urgently. “Let’s
meet somewhere - somewhere we won’t be known - in a few months, for a weekend. Just the two of us – and see how we
feel.”
“You think there’s
anywhere on this planet where you won’t be recognised?”
“I am a mistress of
disguise,” she teased. “So, how about it?”
“I think it’s a great
idea. Where do you suggest?”
“Niagara Falls; it’s
always crowded so nobody recognises anybody.
And the hotels ask no questions.”
“Good grief,” he
muttered, a little concerned at the proximity – on a global scale – to Boston
and to Karen. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“I go there sometimes
when I want to escape the press.
Living in the spotlight is truly tiring.
I am sure it’d be an ideal place for me to meet my old friend Sven Andersson again.”
He laughed. “Well, maybe you’re right… we should
certainly get together and see what we feel.
We can decide on where, exactly, later.”
The door fell inwards
with a resounding crash and lights flooded into the storeroom.
Major Scarlet strode
towards them, a beaming smile on his face.
“Good to see you both,”
he said, glancing at Blue while he helped Valdis to
her feet. “Are you all right, Madame
Vice-President?”
“I am perfectly all
right; just very thirsty and a little hungry, Major.”
Rather to her alarm, he
swept her into his arms and carried her out of the storeroom to the
rubble-strewn corridor, where the paramedics had an emergency stretcher to take
her out to the ambulance.
Then he turned to help his friend over the
rubble as the paramedics whisked Valdis away.
“Can you walk out on
your own okay?” he asked Blue. “We can get another stretcher sent down if
necessary.”
“No, I’m fine; I could
do with a drink, though.”
Scarlet handed him a small bottle of
water from the shoulder bag of rations he had with him.
“Thanks,” Blue said, as
he unscrewed it and put it to his lips.
“My pleasure,” Scarlet
remarked, adding cheerfully as he glanced at his watch, “Oh, and Merry
Christmas, Colonel.”
The World Government
swung into action and its officials whisked the traumatised Vice-President away
to a private hospital for care, debriefing and recuperation, before the
reporters had a chance to pester her with questions.
Scarlet stood beside
Blue as the ambulance drove away and most of the media circus followed it. Slowly, the plaza emptied, apart from the
diehard news reporters and the recovery crews.
Captain Magenta hurried
across to stand by the colonel’s side, shielding him from the remaining
onlookers. Blue was staring after
the ambulance and didn’t seem to register his presence at all.
Magenta looked across at
Scarlet with a concerned frown.
“She’ll be fine; she’s
one tough lady,” Scarlet said reassuringly to his friend, as Blue made no effort
to move even after the ambulance had disappeared from sight. “And we’d better get you back to
Cloudbase. Doctor Fawn’s lending a
hand with the injured people here, but I reckon he’ll have issued orders for a
week’s convalescence for you, at least, with plenty of tests.”
Blue snapped out of his
reverie, acknowledged Magenta with a nod and a smile and looked at Scarlet who
was regarding him with a quizzical expression.
There was a shout from
across the plaza and, excusing himself with a salute, Magenta raced away to lend
a hand.
Once they were alone
again, Scarlet asked:
“Are you okay, Adam?”
“Yeah.” Blue’s tone was implausibly upbeat and
his friend’s dark eyebrow rose in cynical disbelief. Knowing he was going to have to give some
sort of explanation for his distraction, he continued, “You know how I hate
dark, enclosed spaces? It was pretty
grim in there for a while, but Valdis was… very
supportive; she helped me through it.”
“Oh yeah, by doing
what?” Scarlet asked, with a roguish chuckle.
“You have a dirty mind,
Scarlet,” Blue replied, but with a friendly smile. “Mostly, we talked. We even played ‘Twenty Questions’ for a
while. We discovered we have quite a
lot in common, really.”
“That was news to you?”
Scarlet was incredulous. “I’ve
thought for a long time that you two make … a… felicitous couple - in many
ways.”
Blue studied his
friend’s face, but saw nothing in his expression that suggested he had twigged
what had happened.
Scarlet misread the
glance and continued to dig himself into a hole by saying: “Well, I mean; by
having more in common than you and Karen – that’s all. I mean, Valdis
likes opera and art and all that intellectual stuff you’re into and Karen…”
“Karen doesn’t,” Blue
concluded sharply.
“She called, by the way;
while you were in there. She was
frantic with worry. I said you’d get
back to her when you were able. I
hope that was the right thing to say?
She wanted to go to Cloudbase…”
“No, no – I can’t deal
with her there. That was fine. I’ll give her a call when Fawn’s finished
giving me a once-over. Was she
okay?”
“I think so. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with Karen.” Scarlet hesitated and then confessed in a
rush, “Di told me that her latest… flirtation is over… her protégé’s moved
to another airbase.”
Blue sighed and looked
up at the clear, blue sky. “Right;
looks like I’ll be expected to provide a shoulder for her to cry on, then.”
Scarlet shook his head
and, with the privilege of a long and valued friend, said, “You’re mad, you know
that? You let her treat you like…
like this when you wouldn’t take it
from anyone else. You ought to deal
with this uncertainty once and for all, Adam; get it sorted out and move on with
your life.”
“It’s Christmas Day,
Major; what happened to ‘goodwill to all men’?
In which I include women, of course – even Karen.”
Scarlet sighed. “Then someone ought to tell Karen that
goodwill to all men includes you.
Whatever she does, she seems to think she has a right to demand you dig
her out of the pit of her own making.
And you continue to do it. I
just don’t understand why and I think it is time you stopped and let her stand
on her own high heels.”
“Sometimes, I think
you’re right…”
“You know I’m right,
Adam.”
“Sometimes.”
His friend’s voice had
taken on a hard edge and Scarlet was all too familiar with the pointlessness of
arguing with Blue about Symphony Angel.
He grinned ruefully and changed the subject.
“Come on; you look
shattered. I’ll drive you to the
airbase and fly you back home. And
this time, you are going to sit in the passenger compartment and relax…”
Blue laughed. “S.I.G., Major Scarlet. Let’s go home, Paul.”
Author’s Notes:
This is only a Christmas story in as much as it mentions
Christmas, so I hope I haven’t broken the terms of the website challenge. It is
set in the future of the Captain Scarlet TV episodes and builds on some plot
lines that I have been considering for some years.
The characters of Captains Scarlet, Blue, Magenta and Grey, as
well as Doctor Fawn, come from the original Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons™
TV show, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson in the 1960s. All other characters are my own invention
and despite my use of images of Diane Kruger, they are not intended to represent
her or any other person, living, dead, or appearing in reality TV shows.
I owe my thanks to Hazel Köhler for
beta-reading the story and for her helpful comments. My grateful thanks also go to Chris
Bishop, the creator of the website that has meant so much to me for many years. I am looking forward to the tenth
anniversary with great excitement.
And, finally, I would like to thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the story.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!
Marion Woods
19 December 2010
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