Andromeda Breakthrough

CHAPTER SEVEN STORM CENTRE

MADELEINE DAWNAY'S visit to the President was an impulsive action, resulting from an argument with Kaufman.

The German was constantly roaming around the establishment, keeping himself informed of any tit-bit of information which might help to ingratiate himself with his superiors.

Although all senior staff were in theory employees of the Azaranian Government, in practice it was Intel which made the decisions. Consequently Kaufman, as the senior Intel representative regularly available, was regarded as a liaison officer by the directors.

Dawnay's bio-chemical experiments had progressed far enough for field-testing. Study of the terrain suggested that a coastal area near the Persian Gulf would be a good one. But she wanted to analyse the tidal strip to ascertain what effect wind and sea had had on the soil. On one of Kaufman's visits to her laboratory she asked for him to arrange transport for her to make a series of trips, imagining it would be a routine matter.

The German immediately became suspicious. He demanded to know the reason, and her natural retort that he would not understand seemed to anger him.

But Dawnay could be very obstinate when she chose. She insisted that if she was to carry out her work the arrangements must be made. Kaufman muttered that he would have to get a government permit.

'Fine,' Dawnay said. 'You can jump in your car and get it right away, can't you ?'

He frowned. 'At this moment, almost impossible.'

This was more than Dawnay was inclined to take. She removed her overall and picked up her sun hat. 'If you enjoy putting up ridiculous obstacles then I'll see the President myself.'

'I wouldn't count too much on the President,' he said, 'but by all means go if you want.' He went to the reception desk to call her a staff car. When it came he opened the door for her with a studied flourish.

On the short journey to the Presidential palace Dawnay's anger seethed and she reminded herself of Fleming's pessimistic views on the whole set-up. She determined to discuss more than a trip to the coast with the President. After all, she told herself, he was head of State and if a challenge came Intel could no more win than mammoth oil companies in half a dozen little states had been able to do.

The streets seemed very empty, although this did not particularly arouse her interest. She had visited the capital so rarely that she had no means of comparison.

The car slowed at the palace gates until it was waved on by a lounging sentry. The man showed no interest in it.

Dawnay alighted and passed through the doorless portico.

A bearded Arab in native costume bowed and put his hands to his forehead in greeting. The palace was beautiful and very old, unspoiled by any attempt to repair the crescent arches or the filigree stonework with plaster.

A little incongruously, the old Arab picked up a house telephone fixed to the wall behind a pillar. After some murmured words he returned to Dawnay and said in halting English that his master would see her.

A little negro boy tripped down the stairs, greeted her with a dazzling smile and in his soft soprano voice asked her to follow him. They went to the first floor and along a labyrinth of passages, silent with age-long peace. The boy knocked on big double doors and threw them open.

The president advanced towards Dawnay, his hand extended.

His creased face, she thought, was that of a very old man - older than she knew he actually was. But his eyes were bright and intelligent, and he was meticulously neat and tidy, his beard trimmed short, and his large sensitive fingers soft and gentle when they shook hands. The jarring note was his Western dress - an old-fashioned though well-cut tweed jacket and breeches of the kind English aristocrats wore on weekends fifty years before. Dawnay envisaged some London tailor carefully repeating a bespoke order originally given in the spacious age of pre-1914.

His courtesy was as genteely old-fashioned as his appearance.

Delighted to be entertaining an English lady, he explained that he had been looking through his film slides and hoped she would be interested in seeing some of them.

'Photography is my hobby,' he said. 'A way to have mementoes of my country - it's people, its valuable archaeological and historical features, and of course the improvements which, with Allah's help, I have been able to make.'

The negro boy was already standing beside the projector.

At a nod from his master he switched off the ceiling lights and began the screening. Dawnay hid her impatience and made polite and appropriate remarks as her host carefully explained each picture. The show ended at last. The boy switched on the lights and was told to leave.

The President took a chair facing her and folded his arms in his lap. 'And now, why did you want to see me?' he asked.

Urgently Dawnay recited the words she had been rehearsing to herself as she watched the slides. She hoped she was cogent, objective, and fair. She told him of the origin of the computer design, of the bio-chemical experiments which culminated in the creation of the girl, and finally of the reasons why Fleming had contrived the destruction of the machine in Scotland.

The President was quiet for some moments when she had finished. 'I have only your word for all this,' he said quietly.

'It is, as you will understand, somewhat difficult to accept, or, perhaps I should say, understand.'

'I'm sorry it can't be made more clear, your excellency. We don't understand a great deal of it ourselves. Dr Fleming has always suspected its purpose.'

'And do you?'

She pondered on her reply. 'I think there are right ways and wrong ways of using it,' she eventually said.

He darted a glance at her. 'And we are using it in the wrong way?'

'Not you, but Intel.'

'We are in their hands,' he sighed, like a weary old man.

'This is a difficult time.'

He stood up and crossed to the window, pulling the heavy draperies aside and letting an almost blinding shaft of sunlight into the dim room. For a time he looked out on the city which dropped away below the palace. 'When one is in my position, a government has to show results or it does not survive. Intel gives results.'

He returned to the middle of the room but remained standing.

'I am a moderate,' he smiled. 'There are factions here which are fiery, youthful, impatient. They are also powerful.

I need all the help I can get to retain the people's loyalty.'

The door had opened, and the little negro boy had appeared.

In his hand he held a telephone. He plugged it into a wall jack and then stood before the President, holding the instrument free of the cradle. The President took the phone and listened. He said a few words in Arabic and then gave the phone back to the boy.

He walked across the room and stood once more before the window. A soft thud, a long way off, sent a tiny vibration through the old building. It was followed by the harsh reverberation of automatic fire. The President pulled the curtain back across the window and looked at his guest.

'I do not think, Professor, that I shall be in a position to help you. The telephone call was from Colonel Salim, an efficient and ambitious of officer.' He paused to listen to the distant rumble of heavy engines and the racket of caterpillar tracks which rapidly grew in volume on the roadway below the palace. 'That, I imagine, is the proof of what he told me.'

Only half understanding, Dawnay stood up and hesitantly moved to the door, thanking him for his patience in listening.

She remembered too late that she had not asked for a permit to visit the coast.

'Goodbye, Professor,' the old man said. He did not look at her. He had sat down, very erect, very still, in an old-fashioned high backed chair. Dawnay had the impression of a king who had only his dignity left to sustain him.

The negro boy was standing in the passage outside. His eyes were big with fear or perhaps excitement. He almost ran in his anxiety to escort her to the courtyard.

The car she had come in had gone. Instead, two soldiers came across and stood on either side of her. They motioned with their guns that she was to wait near the doorway. Presently an army scout car came to a halt beyond the portico.

The soldiers jerked their heads to show she was to enter it.

A young officer saluted her. 'We take you back, Miss,' he said in halting English.

The driver had frequently to pull out of the way as mobile columns roared towards Baleb. There were a few half-tracks and some light tanks. Their crews were in war kit but they were standing in their vehicles. They obviously did not expect serious shooting.

The gates to the Intel compound were open but an armoured car was stationed outside, and there were groups of helmeted troops everywhere. Dawnay was driven straight to her quarters, where more guards were patrolling. The young officer who had accompanied her indicated courteously but firmly that she was to remain in her room until further orders.

The military coup organised by Salim had been based on three actions - to close all frontier roads and ports, take over control of the capital, and to secure the Intel establishment.

The Intel action, was, of course, a formality, thanks to Janine Gamboul.

The first clue Fleming had as to what was happening came from Abu Zeki. The two men had quarrelled for the second time. Abu had proudly told Fleming that the destruction of the missile equation sheets had been futile because the punched master tape was intact. He had gone on to boast of the power and might his country would have with the defence devices the computer could design.

'Already we are grasping that power. Even now Colonel Salim's troops are taking over our protection.'

'From the President?' Fleming asked.

'The President's a tired, senile old man. He's finished.'

'And Intel?'

'They're taking over with Intel,' Abu Zeki replied. He saw Fleming glance towards the empty sensory bay. 'If you're looking for the girl she's not in the building. She is in our custody.'

Fleming hurried from the building and ran across to the residential area. Two armed guards stood before the door of Andre's quarters. He tried to push between them but they did not budge.

'They'll not let you in; I'm afraid they no longer trust you, Dr Fleming,' said a familiar voice.

He wheeled round. Kaufman was walking slowly towards him, grinning. 'Anyway, the girl is not here,' the German went on. 'She is being cared for. Meanwhile Mademoiselle Gamboul wishes to see you.'

'Where?' Fleming grunted. 'And when?'

Kaufman's smile disappeared. 'Now,' he said. 'You will come with me.' He led the way to his car.

They drove to Salim's house. There were no soldiers there and no servants met them as they went upstairs. Kaufman opened a door and motioned to Fleming to enter. The door closed and he was left alone.

He walked round the familiar room where he had first met Salim, and then wandered out on the balcony. It was a few moments before he moved to the far end where some cane furniture stood around a table. On the table were bottles of whisky and glasses. He felt he needed a drink.

His approach to the table took him past a sun screen and alongside a chaise-longue. He let out an involuntary shocked gasp.

Janine Gamboul was sprawled on her side, her head drooped over the edge and her arm hanging limply to the floor. Her face looked pale as wax, except for the red line of her lipstick and dark pencilling of her eyebrows, and her eyes were half open and glazed.

Fleming's immediate reaction was that she was dead. He bent down and put his hand under her head, lifting it back on to the chaise-longue. She moaned.

Then, as he pulled her arm against her body he saw the glass on the floor. He sniffed it: it smelt of whisky.

He was just about to leave her when she opened her eyes fully and laughed. She hauled herself up with difficulty into a half-sitting position and waved clumsily at him.

'You thought I was dead?' she giggled. 'I'm not, as you see. I told Kaufman to ask you here. I wanted to talk.' With studied effort she put her feet on the ground and stood unsteadily. 'Lemme get you a drink.' She staggered the few paces to the table.

She slopped some whisky into two glasses and then gaped around. 'No siphon,' she muttered thickly. 'Been drinking it neat, but you like soda - yes? Salim must have it in his room.' She managed to pick up the two glasses and waveringly started for the door from the balcony. Fleming stood motionless, watching her.

She stopped and half turned. 'What are you looking at me like that for?' she said thickly. Then, with an arch smile, 'It's no use getting ideas about me; not till I've learned more about the other woman, your woman .... '

She started off once more, putting the two glasses down on a heavy sideboard while she swayed over the cupboard beneath.

There were two siphons there but apparently it was too great an effort to lift one out. Instead she bent down with the glasses in turn and squirted in the soda. Fleming, who had moved no nearer than the doorway, did not see how deliberately and accurately she half-filled one glass from each.

She was humming a little French love song as she swayed towards him. She gave him one glass, and fell into an easy chair with the other.

'Tell me all about your girl friends,' she murmured, looking at him over her drink.

'Hasn't Abu Zeki told you all you need to know?' he said sullenly.

She giggled. 'Oh, something quite fantastic. So absurd that of course I believe it - and want to know more. A votre sant!' She raised her glass.

Fleming hesitated and then sipped his drink. The bite of the whisky on his palate made him feel better. He decided to play along for a little while. She was still acting drunkenly, her speech slurred and her body limp. It made her more attractive than usual.

'What have you against us?' she asked. 'The smell of commerce? The dirt that's supposed to stick to money?'

'Partly,' he grunted.

'We haven't such a bad record in this country,' she continued.

'There was nothing here till we came. Now that Salim's taken over we can progress still more.' Her eyes were bright with excitement. 'Perhaps we shall become fabulous and great, like medieval Venice or the East India Company.

Anyway soon no one will be able to compete with us. The whole world will be at our feet.'

'Or at hers,' he observed, sipping again from his glass.

She leaned forward. 'Hers?' she repeated. 'Why don't you tell me about her? There is something she alone knows? Something she will do?'

Her eyes were fixed on him, unblinking, malevolent. He had a ridiculous feeling that she was mesmerising him. To break it he looked away and gulped the rest of the whisky.

As he put the glass down he knew the drink had been drugged. His legs felt weak and he couldn't stop his mind wandering purposelessly into vagaries about the past. He groped for a chair he couldn't properly see and slumped in it.

Immediately Gamboul was across and standing over him.

'Now you'll tell me,' she ordered.

He talked hesitantly at first, sentences unfinished, subjects trivial and unconnected; but by the end of half an hour she had learned the whole story.

She sat looking at the half-conscious Fleming sprawled awkwardly in his chair for a long time after the questioning.

She wondered if this enigmatic but highly desirable Englishman had somehow outwitted her and faked his reaction to the truth drug. She dismissed the idea as absurd; she knew all there was to know about its effects.

She picked up the house phone on Salim's cleared desk and gave an order for Fleming to be taken back to his quarters.

For herself she called for a car to be brought round.

Twenty minutes later she arrived at Andre's quarters. The door was open and only one guard was near. She asked him in Arabic where the white girl was, and the man answered that she had come out and gone to the building opposite.

Frightened, he added that they had not been ordered to use force to prevent her moving within the station.

Gamboul went to the computer building. Abu Zeki was not there; only two guards walked ceaselessly up and down the main corridor. She saw Andre sitting quietly before the sensory screen in the communication section.

'What are you doing here?' Gamboul asked suspiciously.

Andre smiled at her. 'I am waiting,' she said tonelessly.

'For you. You are the logical choice.' She looked intently at the darkened screen. 'What have you forced Dr Fleming to tell you ?'

'You -you know about that?' Gamboul exclaimed.

Andre nodded. 'It is all predictable. No doubt you could not believe all he said. But I will show you. Sit beside me. Do not be frightened. There is no need.'

Gamboul pulled across a chair. Andre gave her a reassuring nod and then placed her hands on the sensory controls.

The screen produced a dot of light which expanded and faded. Then came a vague, misty imagery in halftones.

'What is that?' Gamboul whispered.

Andre's voice was flat and mechanical. 'Watch,' she said.

'I will explain. It is where the message comes from. Soon you will know what has been calculated for you to do.'

Far into the night the two women sat before the screen, the frail, slight figure of Andre taut and somehow proud; Gamboul, motionless, transfixed, as her eyes tried to assimilate the strange figurations which hovered, cleared and grew misty on the screen, while her brain absorbed the low murmur of Andre's interpretation.

Abu Zeki was the only person, apart from the uninterested guards, who saw them there. Recognising Gamboul, he turned away. The woman intimidated him, and he disliked her. In any event, he had heard of her intimacy with Colonel Salim. It would not be wise to get involved with the new dictator's mistress.

He went to his quarters and lay on his bed. He knew he would not be able to sleep properly, the time was too momentous. He thought happily about the brave new world that had been born at the moment the state radio announced the change of government. Yet there was a niggling premonition of disaster at the back of his mind. He recognised that this was the result of his talk with Fleming. He liked Fleming; liked the way he saw through the trappings of a problem to the heart of it. Abu wanted to learn to be like that.

Deliberately he forced his mind to shift to pleasanter things - his wife, his baby son. But it was no good. The low hum of the computer seemed to permeate the very air. He dozed

***TEXT MISSING***

The hum. So it was still operating. He sat up and looked at his watch. The luminous hands showed 3.30. If the women were still there they had been working for at least eight hours.

He got up. Already the eastern sky had a pinkish tinge. He ran across the compound to the computer block. A guard, asleep on his feet, started with fright. Abu identified himself and the man lolled back against the wall.

Inside the block the lights were bright, and the air was heavy and warm after the sharpness of the night air from the desert. Abu crept forward slowly. The two women were still there, staring at the screen. Andre's voice was so low that he could not make out what she was saying even when he stopped a few feet behind them.

'Mam'selle Gamboul,' he said. 'What is happening? Miss Andre, it is I - Abu Zeki.'

For all the notice they took he might have been a voiceless ghost. He felt a prickle of fear and crept quietly away.

Outside he stopped and breathed deeply the fresh, lovely air. He felt better and it cleared his mind. He realised what he must do next.

He ran to Fleming's quarters. A guard outside, wide awake, barred his way. The soldier called over his shoulder and the door opened. Kaufman came out.

'I must see Dr Fleming,' Abu said.

Kaufman grunted that he could come in. Fleming was sprawled, fully clothed, on his bed. A couple of chairs facing each other showed where Kaufman had been resting while watching him.

Abu shook Fleming roughly by the shoulder. 'Doctor Fleming,' he begged, 'you must come right away!'

Fleming groaned, opened his eyes, and screwed up his face. 'What time is it?' he mumbled.

'Nearly four.'

Fleming sat up with a start. He fought off a bout of dizziness.

'The doctor has had a little drug,' Kaufman explained.

'He will be all right presently.'

Fleming got gingerly to his feet. 'What's the matter, Abu?'

he asked, ignoring the German.

'I do not understand what is happening,' Abu said: 'Mm'selle Gamboul came to the computer yesterday evening.

She was with the girl. I went to bed. They are still there - in the communication unit. I spoke to them, but they took no notice. They did not seem to know I was with them. They were watching the display tube.'

Fleming ran his fingers through his hair. 'Oh my God! I should have guessed.' He crossed to the door. Kaufman moved in front of it, his plump hand round the handle.

'I have orders,' he said uneasily.

Fleming braced himself for a show-down. Hastily Abu intervened. 'He must come,' he shouted at Kaufman; 'he is needed for the computer.'

Kaufman looked doubtfully from one to the other. He was bewildered. The computer was everything. His job was above all else to serve it.

'If he must, he must,' he grumbled. 'But I will escort you,'

he said to Fleming. 'My orders are to watch you.'

'Hold my bloody hand if you want,' snarled Fleming; 'but for God's sake let's go.' He turned to Abu. 'Go and wake Professor Dawnay,' he ordered. 'Tell her to come over to the computer block right away.'

The air and the short walk did him good. The fuzziness in his brain cleared and he soon felt he had proper control of his limbs. He slammed through the swing doors and loped towards the computer section. Immediately a guard pointed his automatic rifle at him. Kaufman took a step to one side.

Fleming stopped, the muzzle against his chest. Down the lighted corridor he could see Gamboul rising from her chair.

A different Gamboul. She was meekly listening to something Andre was saying. Then she nodded and came towards them.

Kaufman moved behind Fleming and gripped his arms, pinioning them against his body. Gamboul passed them all as if they did not exist. Her head was tilted back and there was a vaue smile on her lips.

Fleming struggled to free himself. 'Stop her,' he yelled.

'For God's sake don't let her get out of here.'

He struggled violently, but Kaufman held him. 'You will stay with me!'

Gamboul had passed through the entrance hall and there was the sound of her car moving off before Madeleine Dawnay came hurrying in.

Kaufman released his grip on Fleming and nodded to the guard. 'They may pass.'

Fleming ran to the console and bent over Andre. She glanced at him and then leaned back, lost in reverie. Dawnay came up. She Was alarmed at the death-like pallor of the girl.

'What is it, John?' she asked. 'What's happened?'

Fleming grasped the back of the swivel chair and pulled Andre round so that she could not avoid his gaze.

'What have you done?' he whispered.

She smiled serenely. 'What had to be done,' she murmured.

'Mademoiselle Gamboul knows what to do.' Her lip curled almost contemptuously. 'She was not afraid when I showed her the meaning.'

Suddenly her strength and assurance left her and she crumpled up like a sick, helpless child.

Dawnay bent over her. 'She's desperately ill, John,' she said gently. 'Let's get her to the sick bay.'

Fleming snapped an order to Kaufman. Frightened and servile, the German came forward, lifting Andre by the shoulders while Fleming took her feet. They carried her to the sick bay, where Dawnay ordered them outside while she and the nurse got the girl to bed.

Kaufman tried to talk to Fleming, anxious for reassurance; he sensed that he was somehow involved in a disaster and would be blamed for it. Fleming ignored him and the German walked away disconsolately.

When Dawnay came out she drew Fleming away from the door. 'She's weak, terribly weak,' she whispered, 'as if she'd been making some enormous effort. But she's falling asleep.

The nurse will tell us if there's any change. Come across to my room and I'll make some coffee.'

While the percolator was heating Dawnay asked if there was any news from outside. 'Colonel Salim's taken over completely, I suppose?'

'I don't know much,' said Fleming wearily. 'I was drugged last night - by the Gamboul woman. Made me tell her about Andre. Probably the same drug as they used on you in London. Afterwards she must have come straight here to the computer and found Andre waiting for her.'

'But why?' Dawnay demanded.

Fleming sighed. 'The computer has selected Gamboul as the boss. I thought it would choose Salim, but this is cleverer.

Through her the machine will take power.'

'How?'

'I don't know. Somehow the machine communicated to her what Andre couldn't put into words for me. I suppose it managed to give Gamboul the sort of appalling, momentary flash of revelation saints and prophets are said to have. It's all so damnably logical and inevitable. Like Andre's always saying, the whole thing's predictable.'

The coffee was bubbling. Dawnay poured out two cups and handed one to Fleming. 'I've never had quite this feeling before,' she said. 'Of everything closing in.'

He laughed shortly. 'You know I have. And I also proved that appealing to someone, Osborne for instance, or taking destructive action, didn't really help.' He stirred his coffee violently, splashing it in the saucer. 'Now the computer's won. The whole thing's out of our hands - for good. We're finished.'

Appropriately, as if for effect, a gust of wind moaned across the compound and scratched grittily against the outside walls. Dawnay went to shut the door while sand spattered against the window.

She stopped, seeing Abu Zeki running across to them. He stood panting when he arrived, getting his breath. 'Dr Fleming,'

he got out at last. 'Colonel Salim is dead.'

Fleming nodded, as if he felt no surprise. 'And all his army stooges?'

Abu licked his lips. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't really understand. The army guards have gone from here. There are just the Intel wardens and orderlies. But they are now armed. I cannot understand.'

Fleming stood up and stared out of the door. 'I'll tell you what's happened,' he said. 'Gamboul's taken control. She either had Salim murdered or did it herself. She is perfectly capable of killing, even if an exterior force didn't tell her to.

There can't be hitches in this plan, so if Salim's coup has failed it isn't a mishap but a stage in the general scheme.

What about the old man?'

'The President, you mean?' Abu asked. 'He is still in his palace. The message announcing Colonel Salim's death came from him, personally.'

Another gust of wind swept through the compound. Fleming bent his head and sand stung his eyes. He turned and shut the door. 'The President will be the lady's front man.

She'll pull the strings and he'll twitch. We'll all be her puppets soon.'

Dawnay slowly drained the last of her coffee. 'John,' she said thoughtfully, 'it's very strange.'

'Strange? What's strange about it? Gamboul's doing just what she's compelled to do. Part of the programme.'

She shook her head impatiently. 'I don't mean the political thing. But the wind. Here it doesn't normally blow like this, not at this time of the year.'

'Doesn't it?' he answered absent-mindedly. 'A nice reminder of Thorness. The weather was hell when Andre and I were hiding up on that island.'

'Yes,' she agreed. 'Conditions were abnormal there as well.

I think I'll do some work in the lab.' She looked already preoccupied, as if she were working. 'I wish I could get those sea samples I wanted.'

'Lucky to have something to do,' Fleming said. 'I don't feel anxious to report as an obedient serf to that electronic dictator across the way.' He looked at Abu. 'But someone had better be there, Abu. Go over and hang around for instructions.

I've no doubt Gamboul will be sending her Teutonic stooge with some orders.'

Fleming wandered back to his own quarters. The wind still blew, sweeping momentarily stinging gusts of sand and then subsiding as quickly as it had come.

He glanced at his watch. It was early, just after 6.30. He switched on his short-wave radio, tuned to the B.B.C. Middle East service. He wondered how long they'd be left with even this one-way link with anywhere else.

The static was bad, the voice from London fading and distorted so that it was sometimes inaudible.

' . . . No further news has come in about the situation in Azaran. The frontiers remain closed, and during the night the government station at Baleb has merely continued to retransmit the President's announcement that a military junta has been set up... '

The spluttering drowned the bulletin for a few minutes.

When it eased the newsreader was saying ' . . . similar conditions are reported from all over Western Europe and from countries bordering the Mediterranean. Gales of unusual force are being recorded as far afield as the East coast of Africa, in the vicinity of Aden, and from weather stations in Iceland and Newfoundland.'

Fleming switched off the set. He found it almost natural that the world's weather should have gone mad at a time when the world itself was moving irrevocably to a crisis.