Andromeda Breakthrough

CHAPTER ELEVEN TORNADO

True to her word, Janine Gamboul arranged priority for any order Dawnay gave. The resources of Intel were such that even in the chaotic conditions of Europe the materials were located, purchased and brought to Azaran by air. Even more remarkable was the speed with which young and brilliant chemists were found, specialists in bacteriology or the molecular construction of nucleic acids. Two were newly graduated students from Zurich, one a girl chemist from the research department of Germany's biggest drug firm. Questioning by Dawnay showed that they had come quite voluntarily, tempted not merely by the lavish salary but for the chance of doing what they had been told was an exciting new channel of research, in what they hoped was a less tempestuous part of the world. They had no idea of the true purposes of Intel, or of the potential nightmare that lay behind the weather disaster. The public everywhere still hoped that the worst would soon blow over.

Dawnay told her helpers the facts of the situation as it was; but she omitted the theories about the origin of the bacteria.

She worked them to the limit of endurance. They caught the sense of urgency and became her devoted servants. She was at work when they turned up in the morning, and was still there when they wearily went to their rest in the evening.

Results began to show sooner than Dawnay had dared hope.

Precisely ten days after they had begun in earnest the first droplet of synthetic bacterium was sprayed on a minute copper screen and placed in the electronic microscope. It was a dramatic moment as Dawnay adjusted the magnification, her assistants standing around her. Up to 500,000; then to a million. One and a quarter million. It was there: a many sided formation, spiked, symmetrical. And it wasn't an inert crystal. It lived.

Silently she motioned to her staff to look. One after the other they shared in the triumph. Life, infinitely tiny, had been created.

Almost diffidently Dawnay had to bring herself and her assistants back to reality. This was really no more than a scientific curiosity. The real test lay ahead. The bacterium had to be bred in its billions - enough to fill a test tube. And then it had to be sent into battle against the organism which was its pre-destined enemy.

The precious and all too few droplets were sprayed into a dozen different culture soups. For six long hours there was nothing to do but wait. Tests showed dead bacteria in nine of the tubes; the other three had reached maximum saturation.

From these three, larger cultures were started. They all flourished. It was past midnight when Dawnay decided the real test could begin.

Dawnay drew a test tube of opaque bacteria-sodden sea water from the tank. It was sealed with a sterile rubber stopper. An assistant filled a hypodermic from the culture and handed it to Dawnay. The needle pierced the rubber stopper and the fluid produced a tiny swirl as it flowed into the opacity.

'Now another wait,' said Dawnay. Only a slight tremor in her voice indicated the tension she felt. 'So let's have some coffee.'

She had not told anyone outside the laboratory how close she believed she was to success, dreading the risk of anticlimax.

But Abu Zeki, drawn by the blaze of light from the laboratory windows, came over when the waiting period was almost over.

'Come in,' Dawnay said, 'you're in time to share in a success or help us find excuses for a failure.'

'It's working?' he asked hopefully.

Dawnay laughed uncertainly. 'In theory, yes. In practice - well, we'll know in a moment.'

She crossed to the bench where the test tube had been clamped inside a sterile cabinet. Gingerly she withdrew it and held it to the light as the others grouped around her.

Two-thirds of the water was clear and sparkling. She kept it aloft, staring, and even as they watched a few tiny heads of freed gas rose jauntily to the top of the tube.

Dawnay shook herself, bringing herself back to reality.

'It's been in the tube for precisely sixty-three minutes,' she murmured. 'Now we will test it in the tank.'

No need for sterility precautions or niceties of measurement now. Two tubes of culture were poured into the tank, and they all gathered round again to watch. Gradually little pools of clear water appeared, while fat, lazy bubbles appeared on the surface, burst, and were replaced by new bubbles.

'That's the nitrogen being released,' Dawnay said. 'The air pressure's altering.'

It was true. The barograph needle was moving up slowly but steadily.

'You haf done it!' exclaimed the girl from Zurich.

'We've done it,' Dawnay corrected. 'The rest is simply mechanics. Producing on a large enough scale. We must get an hour or so's rest and then check growth rates, the effects of temperature and salinity.' She turned to Abu. 'They'd better start planning mass production. Go and see Gamboul or Kaufman. Tell them I must have an interview as soon as possible tomorrow - I mean - this morning.'

She had no need to go into Baleb to see Gamboul. The Intel chief came to her, arriving at Dawnay's quarters while she was snatching a hurried breakfast. Gamboul asked merely for instructions, as if she were a secretary.

The result was that an hour later the Intel short-wave radio system was transmitting a long stream of orders to the cartel's headquarters in Vienna. Bulk chemical supplies of phosphates, proteins, and amino acids were to be sent by plane and ship irrespective of cost or country of origin.

Engineers were to be recruited to work on the Azaran oil installations, clearing the tanks of petroleum and making them ready as breeding tanks. Old pipelines were to be adapted, and new ones laid, to pump the anti-bacteria straight into the Persian Gulf.

The message was merely acknowledged. There were no queries, no promises nor excuses. That night the first squadron of transports flew to Baleb with engineers and cargoes of chemicals. Two of them had crashed in a violent air storm over the eastern Mediterranean and a third blew up when a miniature whirlwind caught it just as it was touching down. The rest got through.

The air lift went on the next day without respite, and the first ocean freighter, hurriedly loaded at Capetown, radioed her estimated time of arrival.

A week after the original test the first bulk supplies of anti-bacteria were poured into the sea at ten points on the Azaran coast, carefully selected after a study of tidal currents. The effect was noticeable within twelve hours.

Fleming, who had been allowed to go with Dawnay to the coast, stood at the edge of the water, where the desert sloped down to make long golden beaches, and watched fascinated as the great nitrogen bubbles came bursting to the surface of the waves. Even the storminess of the sea could not hide them, and in his lungs he could feel a tingling freshness of regenerated air.

He and Dawnay drove back on the third day. 'Now we must try to smuggle out some of the stuff with Neilson,' she said. 'This is all very fine, but it's merely local, and as you see, the weather remains quite unaffected by such a minor activity.'

'No hope of Intel sending it?' Fleming peered through a windscreen opaque from a sudden downpour of hail and storm rain.

'Not a chance,' Dawnay replied. 'They won't release it to anyone except on their own terms. And what those terms are they haven't yet said. But I can imagine.' Her words were drowned in a scream of wind which made the car shudder.

'The weather's worse,' she said, and there was a streak of alarm in her voice. 'I wonder if we're doing right, after all.

You see what's happening, John?'

He nodded, leaning forward to see the blurred image of the road. 'We're treating the sea around here and nowhere else. Millions of cubic feet of nitrogen are being released. It's building up a cone of high pressure in a localised zone; everywhere else the pressure's dam' nigh a vacuum, and the original bacteria will be sucking in the nitrogen as fast as we can pump it out. We'll never win this way, all we'll do is breed hurricanes.'

'God, how futile and helpless it all makes one feel,' muttered Dawnay.

For an hour Fleming drove on in silence, concentrating on keeping the car going in a land which was just a kaleidoscope of rain, mud, and wind.

Some ten miles from Baleb the wind dropped, though the rain continued. The air was abnormally clear, giving an illusion that objects were nearer than in fact they were.

'Look at that!' Fleming jerked his head towards the mountains along the horizon.

They stood out sharp and clear, lighter in colour than the purplish black clouds swirling above the crests. And right above them rose an immense spiral of greyish cloud, the top mushrooming and changing shape all the time.

'Tornado centre,' said Dawnay. 'We're in the calm area around it. Let's hope to God it doesn't move this way.'

'That funnel is right over Abu's village, I think,' muttered Fleming. 'His family must be getting it badly, unless they saw the clouds building up and got to the caves where Neilson is.'

But only Lemka had reached the cave when the tornado struck. She had clambered up the mountain with her daily basket of food for Neilson. He refused to let her go back when he noticed the abnormal calm and saw the clouds racing together towards the south.

At first Lemka protested. Her mother and the baby would be terrified by the storm. Besides, Yusel had promised to come with information about getting Neilson out with some contraband bacteria. But when the full fury of the tornado drove them into the recess of the cave she subsided into frightened silence.

'He'll be all right, and your family,' Neilson insisted with a cheerfulness he did not feel.

But things were not all right with any of them. Yusel had arrived at Abu's house shortly after Lemka had left with the food for Neilson. He had intended to set out earlier, hoping to accompany his sister because he had some good news for the American: he could smuggle a message to London the next day.

In his excitement he had not been very careful about his trip. He had not seen, through the rain and sandstorms, a car following a mile behind his.

Consequently he was absolutely unprepared when the door of Abu's house burst open and Kaufman pushed in with a couple of soldiers. Without orders, the soldiers pinioned Yusel and soon had him gagged and trussed in a chair, his arms and legs tied to it with rope.

While Lemka's mother cringed against the wall, holding the baby, Kaufman began methodically slapping Yusel's face with the back of his hand. The blows were not unduly severe, but they were relentlessly repeated, first on one side of the head, then on the other. Yusel grew dizzy, then half-conscious.

Kaufman stepped back, breathing heavily. The look on the old woman's eyes above her veil made him uneasy. There had been people many years before who had looked like that - people who had perhaps cringed a little but whose spirit had still defied him. 'Take the old woman and the child out of here,' he growled.

As soon as a soldier had pushed the woman and baby into the kitchen Kaufman ungagged Yusel. 'Now for some sense from you,' he said, giving him another slap across the face to restore his senses. 'I'm a reasonable man and I do not like to use force, but you must realise the unpleasant things which could happen. They won't if you answer a simple question.

Who have you brought into the country?'

Yusel looked up at him with glazed eyes. He gulped and hesitated; Kaufman hit him again. Yusel's brain reeled. His head slumped forward and began to lose consciousness. One of the guards revived him with a small, painful jab with a bayonet and Kaufman repeated his question.

'Professor Neilson,' Yusel muttered.

Kaufman drew in his breath sharply. 'Neilson!'

'The father,' mumbled Yusel. 'The father of the young scientist...'

Kaufman closed his eyes in relief. For a split second he had had a vision of a ghost. 'Why have you brought him?' he snarled. 'Where is he?'

Yusel sat silent. He watched Kaufman's hands clench into fists and slowly rise to shoulder height. He bent his head in shame and fear. 'He's in a cave above the temple,' he whispered.

'More,' ordered Kaufman.

Once he started talking, Yusel found it easy to go on.

When he faltered Kaufman hit him again or a soldier prodded him with his bayonet, until they had the whole story.

Kaufman grunted with satisfaction and turned to the soldiers. 'One of you take him down to the car. Keep him tied up. And you' - he turned to the second guard - 'come with me. We'll get this American.'

He walked outside, accompanied by the soldier. It was still calm, but there was a weird humming sound to the right, its note dropping steadily into a roar of wind. Eager to get to his quarry, Kaufman did no more than glance towards the spiralling mass of blackness sweeping along the distant mountain crests at the far end of the range.

The tornado hit them when they were within sight of the temple. Half drowned by an avalanche of water, unable to stand erect in the wind, they slithered forwards to the slight shelter the great fallen marble columns provided. And there they both lay shivering and in mortal fear, until the storm passed as abruptly as it had started.

'We'll get back,' panted Kaufman, 'before another storm.

See if our comrade and the prisoner are still all right. I will go and see what's happened to the old woman and the child.'

He had some vague idea of holding them as hostages, but when he got back to the village the house no longer existed.

the flat stone roof had shifted in the wind and brought the walls down. Kaufman looked through the gaping hole where the window had been. He turned away abruptly: the crushed body of a woman was not a pleasant sight ....

He found the soldier tinkering with the car. Water had got on the ignition leads and it was half an hour before they got the engine started. Yusel lay gagged and bound at the back. Kaufman spent the time standing around, looking up at the temple, then at the ruined house which was the tomb of the old woman and presumably the child. His mind was filled with fear and, though he would not let himself admit it, something like remorse.

The engine of the car coughed to life and began to run smoothly, Kaufman got in beside the driver. 'As fast as you can go,' he ordered, 'before another storm catches us out in the desert. And drive straight to the residence of Mm'selle Gamboul. I'll take our prisoner. Mm'selle Gamboul will want to question him herself.'

They made it just as the sky again darkened to the blackness of night. As he alighted he could hear the scream of a second tornado approaching from the far side of the city. He ran for the shelter of the house, leaving Yusel in the car.

Gamboul was seated at her desk as usual. Her face was a blur in the gloom. The electricity had failed, and the heavy curtains had been torn away from the windows where the little intricately shaped panes had been blown out.

She looked up as Kaufman came close to the desk. 'Ah, there you are,' she said impatiently. 'I want you to get out to the compound as soon as the storm eases and phone Vienna.

Tell them that we're in charge now and they must take orders from us.'

He showed no surprise. 'I shall not phone Vienna,' he said slowly and deliberately. 'There are some things you can't make a deal in, and this is one of them. I have been out in it. And I've important news.'

She stood up and approached the window, moving to the side in case more glass was blown out. 'You're afraid, you too, are you?' she sneered. 'Everyone is afraid of responsibility, of taking risks. This afternoon I visited the girl. She is dying, that one. And raving as she dies. She told me that the computer was wrong, that the message did not tell me this.

But I know, Herr Kaufman, I know! The power and the knowledge are all in my hands. No one else's.'

Kaufman crossed the room and stood beside her. Somewhere in the town a fire had started. Despite the rain, the wind was whipping it into a small holocaust.

'Reports of everything you have done for the past month have been smuggled out of the country,' he said. 'There is a man who has been here for some time. He is waiting to take a specimen of the bacteria to London.'

She wheeled on him. 'You will stop him, of course,' she warned.

He shook his head. 'I shall not.' His voice was almost gentle as he went on, 'You are not sane. You would lead us all into destruction.'

'You poor little man.' She showed no anger, only contempt.

'You are like all the rest. You have not the imagination to see. Come here!'

Abruptly she walked to the glass door leading to the balcony and turned the handle. She had to lean against it with all her weight to force it open against the wind.

'Come!' she repeated. 'Come and see the elements at work.

Working for me!' He stayed stubbornly where he was.

'You are frightened?' she laughed. 'There is no need. It will not touch us. It cannot.'

She walked majestically on to the balcony, her hair blowing back from her forehead, and paused at the balustrade, stretching her arms towards the sky. Kaufman caught the sound of her ecstatic laughter in the howling wind.

On an impulse he crossed to the door and pulled it shut.

The bedlam outside lessened as if it had moved away. Suddenly there was a crescendo of noise and the great old house shook. A piece of coping crashed on the balcony, smashing into a score of pieces.

He saw Gamboul stare down at a lump of jagged marble just as a cascade of sand struck her. She bent quickly, rubbing her fists in her eyes. Blindly she stumbled to the door and began beating on it. The thick, decorative glass broke. Her fist ran with blood. He could see her mouth opening and shutting as she screamed at him.

He backed into the gloom of the room, watching impassively.

The bursts of wind were coming faster now, until one merged into another. The house groaned and trembled.

At last it came: a roaring, crumbling mass of stone which crashed on to the balcony and, tearing it out by its concrete roots, hurled it down into the courtyard below. The dust of debris mixed with the sand like eddying smoke. Kaufman walked forward, pressing his face myopically against the glass to see what had happened.

It was all very indistinct, but he thought he could see a twisted body among the rubble below. He kept on looking for a minute or so. He felt none of the disquiet that the sight of the old Arab woman had given him. Eventually he sought a chair well away from the crumbling walls. With a completely steady hand he lighted a cigarello.

'When the storm is past,' he said aloud to the empty room, 'I shall make myself a call to London. There is the matter of relations with the English.'

He frowned, hoping that this would not be too great a problem. Professor Dawnay might be amenable; but Fleming was a formidable adversary. There had, after all, been so many unfortunate incidents between them in the past. The English mentality when it got obstinate ideas was something he had never understood.

The storm weakened, the clouds thinned and light returned though the wind blew nearly as hard as before. He went down to the courtyard. Yusel had been taken into the cellars, a guard reported. Kaufman heard himself giving orders for him to be kept under guard but decently treated, and then went and looked at Gamboul's body. It lay, twisted and broken, among the fallen stonework, and her dark eyes, rimmed with blood, stared lifelessly up at him.

One of her cars was undamaged, and Kaufman ordered the driver to take him to the computer compound. Damage on the route through the town's outskirts was appalling. A scattering of Arabs were looting destroyed shops; they fled at the sight of the car with the Intel insignia. There were no troops or police anywhere.

The squat, solid buildings inside the compound seemed reasonably intact; a few windows were blown in, and some of the garish, modernistic fripperies at the entrance to the executive building had toppled. Kaufman drove past them, straight to the laboratories.

Dawnay was alone, injecting bacteria into rows of test tubes. The disorderly array of apparatus occupying every bench and table she had been able to commandeer was strangely reassuring after the desolation outside.

'Ah, Professor Dawnay,' Kaufman beamed, 'you were not damaged by the storm, I trust?'

'No,' she said shortly.

'I have to inform you,' he went on, 'that Fraulein Gamboul is dead.' He enjoyed her look of amazement. 'She was killed by the tornado. I am now the senior representative of Intel in this country. I ask you to help me. Our measures against the bacteria causing the storms: they are successful, yes?'

'It looks like it, now, and in the sea here,' she replied.

'Wunderbar.' he said. 'Everywhere else things go from bad to worse - unless we give them your cure.'

'And quickly.'

Kaufman nodded. 'That is what I have thought.' He dropped his voice. 'You know, Professor, Fraulein Gamboul was prepared to let it go on until the world accepted her terms, outrageous terms. She was insane, of course. Did you know that she killed Salim, shot him dead herself? She was a woman possessed. She would have left everything too late.

We should all have perished.'

Dawnay looked at him coldly. 'We may still.'

He licked his lips nervously and removed his glasses, polishing the lenses over and over again. 'There has been an appeal from London over the radio. I shall answer it when communications are restored. And I shall prove we can help by sending your own personal report on the anti-bacterium.

Professor Neilson shall take it on the first available plane.'

He saw her startled look.

'Oh yes,' he said triumphantly, replacing his glasses and staring at her. 'I know all about Professor Neilson being here.

He will not wish to trust me. He does not yet understand that I am just a business man, and a good business man sees through calamity to brighter things.'

Dawnay could not disguise her relief. 'So Neilson will explain how you can give bulk supplies to the world?'

He shook his head impatiently. 'Not at once,' he said.

'People will be prepared to pay a great deal. I told you I am a business man.' He turned to the door. His smile had gone.

'You will have a typed report ready for despatch in an hour.'

For a while Dawnay went on with her work like an automaton. She had not counted on Kaufman haggling over the price of life.

She crossed to the computer building in search of someone to talk to; there was superficial damage to the entrance bay and the cooling tower, but the computer appeared unharmed, No guards were left, but an electrician appeared from the staff rest room. He said he had no idea where Dr Fleming was. Abu Zeki, he believed, had left immediately after the first of the afternoon's storms to visit his family.

Dawnay thanked him and made her way to the sick quarters.

The nurse put up makeshift barricades of screens over the broken windows. The girl smiled with relief at seeing someone at last.

'Miss Andre has slept through it all,' she whispered. 'I think she is a little stronger.'

Dawnay sat down by the bed. The nurse was right. Bad as the light was, Dawnay could see a better colour in Andre's cheeks.

'Is it - is it working?' Andre had not opened her eyes or moved when she whispered her question.

Dawnay clasped the fragile hand. 'Yes, it's working,' she murmured. 'The barograph in the lab is still going up. How long it will last I don't know.'

Andre struggled to sit up. 'It was not in the message that we must...' She stopped and lay back, exhausted. 'I tried to tell her. She would not listen. She came last night. I told her to listen to me, not to the computer. But - '

'Gamboul, you mean?' said Dawnay gently. 'She's dead, Andre. Kaufman is now in charge.'

Andre nodded slowly, as if she knew. Her fingers tried to find Dawnay's. 'Do you believe me?' she asked. She saw Dawnay nod. The fingers relaxed and she lay back with her eyes closed once more. 'Tell me all that has happened and I will tell you what to do.'

As rapidly as she could, Dawnay gave a survey of the situation as far as she knew it. Before she had finished she thought Andre had fallen asleep or had lapsed into a coma, she was so utterly motionless. But after a full two minutes, the girl began speaking in a level monotone.

Dawnay listened intently. The responsibility Andre was thrusting on her shoulders was tremendous. It was intimidating; yet it was inspiring too. The rational, reasoned motives were all that her scientific mind needed. When Andre finished Dawnay made just one brief answer.

'I'll go right away,' she said.

Half an hour later she was ordering a servant at the Presidential palace to take her immediately to his master.

She had driven herself in a car she had found undamaged in the Intel parking lot. It was the first time she had been behind a car wheel since her young days as a student. Her erratic course did not matter. Flood water had destroyed the road in many places. Rubble from tottering houses had to be avoided or driven over. No guards stood outside the palace.

The President saw her immediately. He was seated in his high-backed chair, looking years older than when she had last taken her leave of him.

His ritualistic courtesy had not deserted him. He rose and bent over her hand, and indicated a chair. The faithful little negro boy was still there. The President told him to go and see if he could find someone to make coffee. Then he returned to his seat.

'The country is dying, Professor Dawnay,' he said simply.

'The whole world may be,' Dawnay replied. 'That is why I have come. It is in your power to help. You have been informed that Miss Gamboul is dead?' The President nodded.

'So you are free.'

'Free!' he said bitterly. 'It is a little late.'

'It may not be,' she insisted. 'It partly depends on you, your Excellency. If the anti-bacteria I have made is handled by Intel, and if it works, then it will be Intel's world. Kaufman will fix their price for them.'

'I have been told very little, but I can gather the trend of events. And what can I do to stop this man Kaufman? He is like the others - Salim, Mm'selle Gamboul....'

'We will deal with Kaufman,' Dawnay promised. 'While you send out the bacteria as a gift from Azaran. It will be the first action of a free nation.'

He gazed at her with his sad, intelligent eyes.' 'Or the last,'

he suggested.

'Not if every laboratory in the world receives a supply.

Then we've got a chance. If we can do it in the right way, through the right people.' She thought back to their long battles with the authorities at Thorness. 'Ever since the message was first picked up and a computer built to handle it, a few people have been struggling to keep this power out of the wrong hands and put it into the right ones.'

'And what are mine?' he asked mildly.

'What we will make them for you!'

The boy entered with a tray. The President poured out some coffee and handed Dawnay a cup. He slowly sipped his own before he spoke again.

'So you are right?' he murmured, eyeing her keenly. 'And to whom will you be responsible? Hundreds of thousands of people have died because - you will forgive me - of these experiments of yours.'

Dawnay felt blood flooding into her neck and cheeks: a visible sign of her feeling of enormous guilt. 'It was an accident,' she said inadequately. 'It could have happened with any experiment. I made a mistake.'

Some of the fire of the revolutionary of years before flamed briefly in the President's face as he stood up and confronted her.

'Hundreds of thousands more may have to die correcting your mistake,' he said. 'The errors of politicians are sometimes expensive, and business men sometimes do their best to profit from them. But you scientists, you kill half the world.

And the other half cannot live without you.'

His anger faded. He sighed and permitted himself a slight smile. 'I am in your hands, Professor Dawnay. You will forgive me if I add that I wish I were not.'

Dawnay drove back to the compound determined to mould events the way she knew they had to be; but the responsibility appalled her. She badly needed the catharsis of Fleming's critical mind.

She found him in the servicing bay behind the computer.

He was working at the desk, which was a litter of papers.

'Hello,' he said lazily. 'I holed up here - safe from the desert breezes and from interruption.' He glanced at his wrist watch. 'God, is that the time? I've been trying to work out this thing for Andre. I've done most of the chemical conversions. They don't make a hell of a lot of sense.'

He threw across some calculations. She read them cursorily.

'It would be lethal if it's wrong,' she said shortly.

'She's dying anyway, isn't she? I've been trying all ways...'

She interrupted him impatiently. 'John, there isn't time for that.'

He looked up at her. 'Make 'em and break 'em, eh?'

Dawnay flushed. 'There's something else that comes first.

Or have you forgotten what's still raging over the greater part of the world?'

'No, I haven't forgotten,' he said.

'We've made a lot of mistakes,' she went on. 'Both of us.

I'm trying to get things right because it's the only hope we have. What happens to the world depends on us, on whether we take over or whether Kaufman does.'

His grin was sardonic. 'Have you been having the treatment, like Gamboul ?'

'Gamboul is dead,' she said evenly.

'Dead?' Fleming jumped to his feet. 'Then the machine misfired! It's had a go at us and it's failed.'

Dawnay shook her head.

'It hasn't done either. Gamboul was only supposed to protect us until we were in a position to use our own judgement.'

He nodded towards the massive panels of the computer.

'Or its...'

'Our own judgement, John,' she repeated. 'We make the decisions now. Don't you see that this can be the beginning of a new life?'

He gathered the papers on the desk into an untidy pile.

'Except for Andre,' he said harshly.

'She'll have to wait. There are other people dying besides her.'

He had to accept the logic of the statement. It did not make him dislike it less. He admired and was fond of Madeleine Dawnay, and was all the more nauseated by the familiar, corrupting scent of power which he now sensed around her.

'To hell with everything,' he said. 'I can't think any more tonight. We may as well try to get a little sleep before the wind decides to blow the roof off.'

They walked from the building together. The residential area was a shambles of mud and rubble. But their quarters provided makeshift shelter. Fleming wished Dawnay goodnight and went to his own chalet. The windows had gone and he could look past the shattered palm trees to the building opposite where the sick quarters were. The nurse had found a hurricane lamp from somewhere. It was the only light in the pitch black darkness - a dull yellow blob which drew his eyes like a magnet, mesmerising his mind. He fell into a half sleep, thinking of the life that still flickered near that puny flame.

He was roused by Abu Zeki.

'Much has happened,' Abu said, struggling to control his emotions. 'The storm, yesterday, it was very bad in the mountains. My home has gone.'

Your family?' Fleming sat up.

'Lemka and Jan - they are alive. My mother-in-law. She is dead.' Abu's voice faltered. 'She had laid down with little Jan in her arms, beneath her. When I arrived - I, I thought they were both dead. Then Jan began crying. He was saturated in blood, his grandmother's blood.'

'Where is Lemka?'

'She was in a cave with Professor Neilson. She'd gone up with food. Neilson made her stay when the storm came.

They came down just after I'd rescued Jan. I'm afraid Lemka is very bitter - about all that Professor Dawnay and you - all that we have been doing here.'

'Not bitter, Abu; just right.' Fleming felt the familiar hopelessness closing down on him. 'It's no use saying I'm sorry. What about Yusel and Neilson?'

'Yusel is safe, so far. He had gone to my house to talk to Neilson about taking out the bacteria on his next flight. But Kaufman followed him. Yusel was beaten up. Then they took him back to Baleb. I suppose he'd have been killed in the house if they hadn't. Then in the early hours, while we were getting my wife and the child settled in a neighbour's house, he arrived in an Intel car. Kaufman had sent him back, with a note for Neilson. Yusel gave us the news that Mm'selle Gamboul was dead.'

'A note for Neilson!' Fleming exclaimed. 'What did it say?'

'Kaufman wanted to see him. He promised there would be no danger. Yusel insisted it was a trap, but Mr Neilson said he wanted to go. I brought him down with me. He's waiting in the reception building now for Kaufman to come from town.'

Fleming sprang off the bed. 'I'll get over there. You'd better come too, Abu. If it's one of Kaufman's usual pistol and dagger efforts I want to be around.'

Both men hurried to the executive building. In the keen light of dawn the damaged facade looked cheap and tawdry.

There had also been considerable damage in the vast entrance hall, some of it the obvious results of looting by the demoralised guards.

'Kaufman will be sitting in the seat of the mighty - in Gamboul's office. You'd better wait down here, Abu. Warn us if anyone arrives,' Fleming ordered.

He ran lightly up the staircase. One of the double doors of the director's office was slightly ajar, and he sidled along the wall until he could listen.

Kaufman's guttural voice was unctuous and polite. 'The plane is coming from Vienna, I hope, Herr Neilson,' he was saying. 'It should arrive very soon. It will be loaded immediately.

You must expect an uncomfortable flight. Conditions are still bad everywhere.'

'And some written proof of your proposals?' Neilson asked coldly.

'I have obtained a letter from the President,' said Kaufman.

'That makes this matter official, but of course, everything will be done by us.'

It was the comment Fleming had expected; had been waiting for. He pushed open the door and walked in. Kaufman looked up, startled, and then went on talking as if he had seen no one.

'We, that is to say Intel, will make the anti-bacteria and market it, though we will not hold our fellow human beings to ransom. That was Fraulein Gamboul's idea. I stopped it.'

Fleming strode forward. 'You're not in a position to dispense charity, Kaufman.'

'And you are not entitled to be in this office without permission,'

retorted Kaufman.

'There are no Azaran guards to protect you now,' Fleming said, 'not even a receptionist.' He moved closer to Neilson so that they both faced the German.

Kaufman picked up his case and extracted a cigarello. He kept the match against the glowing end for longer than necessary. His hand was shaking a little.

'It is no use bearing old grudges,' he said, removing the cigarello. 'One does what one has to do for the superiors one works for. One does as they order. But at the same time one tries to do good.' There was a whine in his voice as he uneasily watched his visitors.

Neilson stood up, clenching the edge of the desk. His knuckles were white with the pressure he put into the grip.

'You killed my son,' he said with deceptive quietness. 'He was shot before the eyes of his mother and myself at your order. If I'd had the means and if you weren't still essential to fly me out I'd have killed you the moment I entered this office.'

'Please.' said Kaufman.

'How did Gamboul die?' Fleming snapped.

'The balcony of her house. It fell. I was there. I saw it. She was mad, completely mad. I couldn't save her.'

'Did you try?'

'No,' the German yelled. 'I could have dragged her inside when the building started to fall. But I didn't. I chose to save - '

' - Your own skin?

'The world!' Kaufman stood up and faced them defiantly across the desk. He saw a faint derisive smile on Fleming's face and no smile at all on Neilson's, and before either man could move he had dodged round the chair and darted to a small door that led to a private staircase. He tore it open and then backed away. Yusel was standing there, expressionless, with a small curved Bedouin knife in his hand. Kaufman moved back to the desk. 'You cannot get in my way like this!' His voice rose. 'I am doing business fairly. I'm trying to help you all!'

Fleming moved nearer the window. 'The weather is holding up,' he said. 'The plane should get through on time.

Before it arrives, you'll provide the help you talk about.

You'll confirm your orders for Professor Neilson's flight.

You'll make quite certain that it flies to London. That's the last thing you'll organise here. Get on with it.'

Kaufman hesitated, then nodded. He picked up a pen and reached to a side drawer in the desk as if to take a note-heading.

He moved amazingly quickly. In a split second he had leaped up, a gun in his hand, and moved backwards to the outer door.

'This is not your game, gentlemen,' he taunted them. 'You should not try it.' Then he turned and ran for the stairs.

Fleming and Neilson were close on his heels, but he gained his lead as he leaped recklessly downstairs. Fleming saw Abu look up and start running towards the foot of the staircase.

Fleming's shout of warning coincided with the bark of the pistol shot. Abu crumpled in a heap. Such was the onrush of Kaufman's flight that he was unable to stop in time, and he fell headlong over his victim's body.

Before he could rise Neilson was on him, quickly followed by Yusel. Fleming's thought were for Abu and he knelt down and lifted the Arab in his arms. The head fell backwards, blood vomiting from the mouth. Fleming could not be certain whether the staring eyes were sightless or trying to send him a message. Very gently he let the body rest prone on the floor.

Neilson was insanely pummelling into Kaufman. 'Leave him,' Fleming shouted. He went up to the weeping, yammering German. 'We're not going to kill you,' he said. 'There's a murder charge for you to answer in Geneva and in other places, if the courts aren't all destroyed.'

'I do not make these things happen,' Kaufman whined. 'I have to obey.'

Fleming turned away, unable to stomach any more. 'Keep hold of him, Yusel,' he ordered. 'Get him down to the airport.

Take his gun. He'll give you no trouble.'

'Wait!'

They spun around and saw Dawnay standing in the entrance.

'What are you all doing here?' she asked. Then she saw Abu's body. Fleming explained, and then allowed her to lead him back upstairs to the main offices.

'You come too,' she commanded Neilson and Kaufman.

Yusel had gone out and now returned with a white robe with which he covered the body of his dead cousin. They all went into Gamboul's room and Dawnay sat at Gamboul's desk with Kaufman facing her and guarded by Yusel. Fleming wandered uneasily over to the window, but she called him back.

'John,' she said. 'It's not as simple as you may think: we haven't finished with Herr Kaufman yet.'

She looked up into Kaufman's bruised and dejected face.

'To whom did you report in Vienna?'

Kaufman did not answer at once, but when Dawnay shifted her gaze from him to Yusel he changed his mind.

'The Board of Directors,' he said sulkily.

'To whom you reported Gamboul's death?'

'Yes.'

'And who is taking over here?'

Kaufman glanced away for a moment. 'I am.'

'But you are not a director.'

He drew himself up with a return of assurance: 'I am temporarily in charge.'

'Until?' Dawnay asked. There was another pause.

'You'd better tell us the easy way,' said Fleming.

'Or perhaps,' Neilson added, 'you'd rather I broke your neck.'

'There are three directors coming on the plane today, from Vienna,' Kaufman addressed himself entirely to Dawnay, as if to a judge whom he might expect to be lenient.

Dawnay looked only mildly surprised.

'Three?'

'They should have come before!' He began to speak quickly, with mounting passion. 'Fraulein Gamboul was not equal to it. It deranged her, but she would not have anyone else. We have been ridiculously understaffed for so great a project; but she had considerable influence with the Chairman.'

He gave a knowing, leering wink. 'She was an attractive woman. But now it is different; I have put it all on proper business footings. We will have directors, and executives and assistants - they are bringing many today.'

'Are they ?' said Dawnay with interest.

'Oh yes. And any kind of reinforcements we need. So - '

He turned triumphantly to Fleming and Neilson, but Dawnay cut him short.

'So we shall have to put you all under guard,' she said calmly. 'That can be arranged for. Meanwhile, as soon as the aircraft is in, you'll help us send a Telex in your own code to Vienna.'

'To say what?'

'That they have arrived safely and that all is well and you need no further help. You will also give us the names and full particulars of your chairman and other directors in Europe, and all addresses and telephone numbers you can find here in the office.' She turned to her American colleague. I'll give you a report to take to London, Professor Neilson, and as much of the anti-bacterium as I can. They should be able to get you there by nightfall.'