or may not have been made, but they were sent out of the
country again before five days had passed. They were sent
out, re-routed elsewhere.'
But what's the idea of that?'
'The idea seems to be,' said Munro, 'that they were never
really intended for West Africa. Payments were made and
they were sent on somewhere .else. It seems possible that
they went on from Africa to the Near East. To the Persian
Gulf, to Greece and to Turkey. Also, a consignment of planes
was sent to Egypt. From Egypt they were sent to India, from
India they were sent to Russia.'
'I thought they were sent from Russia.'
'--And from Russia they went to Prague. The whole
thing's mad.'
'I don't understand,' said Sir George, 'one wonders--'
'Somewhere there seems to be some central organization
which is directing the supplies of various things. Planes,
armaments, bombs, both explosive and those that are used
in germ warfare. All these consignments are moving in unexpected
directions. They are delivered by various crosscountry
routes to trouble-spots, and used by leaders and
regiments--if you like to call them that--of the Youth
rower. They mostly go to the leaders of young guerrilla movements, professed anarchists who preach anarchy, and
accept--though one doubts if they ever pay for--some of tue latest most up-to-date models.'
"o you mean to say we're facing something like war on y.' ^orld scale?' Cedric Lazenby was shocked.
123
] .1 The mild man with the Asiatic face who sat lower d
at the table, and had not yet spoken, lifted up his face h
the Mongolian smile, and said:
"That is what one is now forced to believe. Our observa
tions tell us--'
Lazenby interrupted.
'You'll have to stop observing. UNO will have to take
arms itself and put all this down.'
The quiet face remained unmoved.
That would be against our principles,' he said.
Colonel Munro raised his voice and went on with his
summing up.
'There's fighting in some parts of every country. SouthEast
Asia claimed Independence long ago and there are
four, five different divisions of power in South America,
Cuba, Peru, Guatemala and so on. As for the United States,
you know Washington was practically burnt out--the West
is overrun with Youth Power Armed Forces--Chicago is under
Martial Law. You know about Sam Cortman? Shot last night
on the steps of the American Embassy here.'
'He was to attend here today,' said Lazenby. "He was
going to have given us his views of the situation.'
'I don't suppose that would have helped much,' said
Colonel Munro. 'Quite a nice chap--but hardly a live wire.'
'But who's behind all this?' Lazenby's voice rose fretfully.
It could be the Russians, of course--' He looked hopeful.
He sdll envisaged himself flying to Moscow.
Colonel Munro shook his head. 'Doubt it,' he said.
'A personal appeal,' said Lazenby. His face brightened
with hope. 'An entirely new sphere of influence. The Chinese
...?'
'Nor the Chinese,' said Colonel Munro. 'But''you know there's been a big revival in Neo-Fascism in Germany.'
'You don't really think the Germans could possibly . . .'
'I don't think they're behind all this necessarily, but
when you say possibly--yes, I think possibly they easily
could. They've done it before, you know. Prepared things
years before, planned them, everything ready, waiting t01 the word GO. Good planners, very good planners. Staff work
excellent. I admire them, you know. Can't help it.'
'But Germany seemed to be so peaceful and well
'Yes, of course it is up to a point. But do you
South America is practically alive with Germans, with
Neo-Fascists, and they've got a big Youth Federation
Call themselves the Super-Aryans, or something of tha Sund.
124
You know, a bit of the old stuff still, swastikas and salutes,
and someone who's running it, called the Young Wotan or the
Young Siegfried or something like that. Lot of Aryan" nonsense.'
There was a knock on the door and the secretary entered.
'Professor Eckstein is here, sir.'
*We'd better have him in,' said Cedric Lazenby. 'After aB,
if anyone can tell us what our latest research weapons are,
he's the man. We may have something up our sleeve that can
soon put an end to all this nonsense.' Besides being a professional
traveller to foreign parts in the, r61e of peacemaker,
Mr Lazenby had an incurable fund of optimism seldom
Justified by results.
'We could do with a good secret weapon,' said the Air
Marshal hopefully.
Professor Eckstein, considered by many to be Britain's
top scientist, when you first looked at him seemed supremely
unimportant. He was a small man with old-fashioned muttonchop
whiskers and an asthmatic cough. He had the manner
of one anxious to apologize for his existence. He made
noises like 'ah', tirrumph', 'mrrh', blew his nose, coughed
asthmatically again and shook hands in a shy manner, as he
was introduced to those present. A good many of them he
already knew and these he greeted with nervous nods of the
head. He sat down on the chair indicated and looked round
him vaguely. He raised a hand to his mouth and began to
bite his nails.
"The heads of the Services are here,' said Sir George
Packham. 'We are very anxious to have your opinion as
to what can be done.'
'Oh,' said Professor Eckstein, 'done? Yes, yes, done?'
There was a silence.
'The world is fast passing into a state of anarchy,' said
Sir George.
'Seems so, doesn't it? At least, from what I read in the
Paper. Not that I trust to that. Really, the things journalists "unk up. Never any accuracy in their statements.'
I understand you've made some most important discoveries
lately. Professor,' said Cedric Lazenby encouragingly. ^ yes, so we have. So we have.' Professor Eckstein cheered
P a little. 'Got a lot of very nasty chemical warfare fixed
P. If we ever wanted it. Germ warfare, you know, biologwu stuff, gas laid on through normal gas outlets, air pollution
Poisoning of water supplies. Yes, if you wanted it, I
"Ppose we could kill half the population of England given
125
about three days to do it in.' He rubbed his hands.
what you want?'
'No, no indeed. Oh dear, of course not.' Mr La
looked horrified.
'Well, that's what I mean, you know. It's'not a quesi ,n
of not having enough lethal weapons. We've got too mi ;� Everything we've got is too lethal. The difficulty would oe
in keeping anybody alive, even ourselves. Eh? All the people
at the top, you know. Well--us, for instance.' He gave a
wheezy, happy little chuckle.
'But that isn't what we want,' Mr Lazenby insisted.
'It's not a question of what you want, it's a question of
what we've got. Everything we've got is terrifically lethal.
If you want everybody under thirty wiped off the map,
I expect you could do it. Mind you, you'd have to take a
lot of the older ones as well. It's difficult to segregate one
lot from the other, you know. Personally, I should be against
that. We've got some very good young Research fellows.
Bloody-minded, but clever.'
'What's gone wrong with the world?' asked Kenwood
suddenly.
That's the point,' said Professor Eckstein. 'We don't know.
We don't know up at our place in spite of all we do know
about this, that and the other. We know a bit more about
the moon nowadays, we know a lot about biology, we can
transplant hearts and livers; brains, too, soon, I expect,
though I don't know how that'll work out. But we don't
know who is doing this. Somebody is, you know. It's a sort
of high-powered background stuff. Oh yes, we've got it
cropping up in different ways. You know, crime rings, drug
rings, all that sort of thing. A high-powered lot, directed by
a few good, shrewd brains behind the scenes. We've had it
going on in this country or that country, occasionally on a
European scale. But it's going a bit further now, other side
of the globe--Southern Hemisphere. Down to the Antarctic Circle before we've finished, I expect* He appeared to be
pleased with his diagnosis.
People of ill-will--'
'Well, you could put it like that. El-wffl for fflw"- sake or ill-will for the sake of money or power. Diffic1"11 you know, to get at the point of it all. The poor dc^sbodiK themselves don't know. They want violence and t .? "K violence. They don't like the world, they don't -s ou materialistic attitude. They don't like a lot of o ^
126
ways of making money, they don't like a lot of the fiddles
we do. They don't like seeing poverty. They want a better
world. Well, you could make a better world, perhaps, if
you thought about it long enough. But the trouble is, if
you insist on taking away something first, you've got to
put something back in its place. Nature won't have a vacuum--an
old saying, but true. Dash it all, it's like a heart
transplant. You take one heart away but you've got to put
another one there. One that works. And you've got to arrange
about the heart you're going to put there before you take
away the faulty heart that somebody's got at present. Matter
of fact, I think a lot of those things are better left alone
altogether, but nobody would listen to me, I suppose. And
anyway it's not my subject.'
'A gas?' suggested Colonel Munro.
Professor Eckstein brightened.
'Oh, we've got all sorts of gases in stock. Mind you, some
of them are reasonably harmless. Mild deterrents, shall we
say. We've got all those.' He beamed like a complacent hardware
dealer,
'Don't you monkey with that You don't want a radioactive
England, do you, or a radio-active continent, for that
matter?'
'So you can't help us,' said Colonel Munro.
'Not until somebody's found out a bit more about all
this,' said Professor Eckstein. 'Well, I'm sorry. But I must impress upon you that most of the things we're working
on nowadays are dangerous.' He stressed the word. 'Really dangerous.'
He looked at them anxiously, as a nervous uncle might
look at a group of children left with a box of matches to
play with, and who might quite easily set the house on fire.
'Well, thank you. Professor Eckstein,' said Mr Lazenby.
He did not sound particularly thankful.
The Professor gathering correctly that he was released,
smiled all round and trotted out of the room.
Mr Lazenby hardly waited for the door to close before
venting his feelings.
All alike, these scientists,' he said bitterly. 'Never any
Practical good. Never come up with anything sensible. All ^y can do is split the atom--and then tell us not to mess ^out with it!'
lust as well if we never had,' said Admiral Blunt, again
127
bluntly. 'What we want is something homely and dome
like a kind of selective weedkiller which would--' He pai
abruptly. 'Now what the devil--?'
'Yes, Admiral?' said the Prime Minister politely.
'Nothing--just reminded me of something. Can't renumber
what--
The Prime Minister sighed.
'Any more scientific experts waiting on the mat?' asked
Gordon Chetwynd, glancing hopefully at his wristwatch.
'Old Pikeaway is here, I believe,' said Lazenby. 'Got a
picture--or a drawing--or a map or something or other he
wants us to look at--'
'What's it all about?'
'I don't know. It seems to be all bubbles,' said Mr Lazenby
vaguely.
'Bubbles? Why bubbles?1 'I've no idea. Well,' he sighed, Sve'd better have a look
at it.'
'Horsham's here, too--'
'He may have something new to tell us,' said Chetwynd.
Colonel Pikeaway stumped in. He was supporting a rolledup
burden which with Horsham's aid was unrolled and which
with some difficulty was propped up so that those sitting
round the table could look at it.
'Not exactly drawn to scale yet, but it gives yor
idea,' said Colonel Pikeaway.
'What does it mean, if anything?'
128
'Bubbles?' murmured Sir George. An idea came to him.
Is it a gas? A new gas?'
'You'd better deliver the lecture, Horsham,' said Pikeaway.
You know the general idea.'
'I only know what I've been told. It's a rough diagram of an association of world control.'
'By whom?'
'By groups who own or control the sources of power--the
raw materials of power.'
And the letters of the alphabet?'
Stand for a person or a code name for a special group.
They are intersecting circles that by now cover the globe.
'That circle marked "A" stands for armaments. Someone,
or some group is in control of armaments. All types of
armaments. Explosives, guns, rifles. All over the world armaments
are being produced according to plan, dispatched
ostensibly to under-developed nations, backward nations,
nations at war. But they don't remain where they are sent.
They are re-routed almost immediately elsewhere. To guerrilla
warfare in the South American Continent--to rioting and
fighting in the USA--to Depots of Black Power--to various
countries in Europe.
* "D" represents drugs--a network of suppliers run them
from various depots and stockpiles. All kinds of drugs, from
the more harmless varieties up to the true killers. The headquarters
seem likely to be situated in the Levant, and to
pass out through Turkey, Pakistan, India and Central Asia.'
They make money out of it?'
'Enormous sums of money. But it's more than just an
association of Pushers. It has a more sinister side to it. It's
being used to finish off the weaklings amongst the young,
shall we say, to make them complete slaves. Slaves so that
they cannot live and exist or do jobs for their employers
without a supply of drugs.'
Kenwood whistled.
. That's a bad show, isn't it? Don't you know at all who
those Drug Pushers are?'
Some of them, yes. But only the lesser fry. Not the real
ntrollers. Drug headquarters are, so far as we can judge,
" Central Asia and the Levant. They get delivered from
ere ;n the tyres of cars, in cement, in concrete, in all
"ds of machinery and industrial goods. They're delivered
over the world and passed on as ordinary trade goods
-where they are ""^ant to go.
^ r stands for finance. Money! A money spider's web
129 E
p.t.p.
in the centre of it all. You'll have to go to Mr Roi- ,!;son
to tell you about money. According to a memo here, "^-.ney
is coming very largely from America and there's ;;;..;,, a
headquarters in Bavaria. There's a vast reserve in '^i ^ Africa, based on gold and diamonds. Most of the mc-r;.r;.y ^ going to South America. One of the principal cont- ;ks
if I may so put it, of money, is a very powerful and talented
woman. She's old now: must be near to death. But she is
still strong and active. Her name was Charlotte Krapp. Her
father owned the vast Krapp yards in Germany. She was a
financial genius herself and operated in Wall Street. She
accumulated fortune after fortune by investments in all parts
of the world. She owns transport, she owns machinery, she
owns industrial concerns. All these things. She lives in a vast
castle in Bavaria--from there she directs a flow of money to
different parts of the globe.
' "S" represents science--the new knowledge of chemical
and biological warfare--Various young scientists have defected--There
is a nucleus of them in the US, we believe,
vowed and dedicated to the cause of anarchy.'
'Fighting for anarchy? A contradiction in terms. Can
there be such a thing?'
'You believe in anarchy if you are young. You want a
new world, and to begin with you must pull down the old
one--just as you pull down a house before you build a
new one to replace it. But if you don't know where you are
going, if you don't know where you are being lured to go,
or even pushed to go, what will the new world be like, and
where will the believers be when they get it? Some of
them slaves, some of them blinded by hate, some by violence
and sadism, both preached and practised. Some of them--
and God help those--still idealistic, still believing as people
did in Prance at the time of the French Revolution that
that revolution would bring prosperity, peace, happiness, contentment to its people.'
'And what are we doing about all this? What are we
proposing to do about it?' It was Admiral Blunt who spoke.
'What are we doing about it? All that we can. '. assure
you, all you who are here, we are doing all that we can
We have people working for us in every country, '^e have
agents, inquirers, those who gather information, a" ' bring
it back here--' �. i
'Which is very necessary,' said Colonel Pikeawa lrs we've got to know--know who's who, who's witt an
who's against us. And after that we've got to see what, if
anything, can be done.'
'Our name for this diagram is The Ring. Here's a list
of what we know about the Ring leaders. Those with a
query mean that we know only the name they go by--or
alternatively we only suspect that they are the ones we want.'
THE RING
IF Big Charlotte --Bavaria
A Eric Olafsson --Sweden, Industrialist, Armaments
Said to go by
the name of
Demetrios Dr Sarolensky
--Smyrna, Drugs
--Colorado, USA, PhysicistChemist.
Suspicion only
--A woman. Goes by Code
name of Juanita. Said to be
dangerous. No knowledge of
her real name.
Chapter 15
AUNT MATILDA TAKES A CURE
'A cure of some kind, I thought?' Lady Matilda hazarded.
'A cure?' said Dr Donaldson. He looked faintly puzzled
for a moment, losing his air of medical omniscience, which,
of course, so Lady Matilda reflected, was one of the slight
disadvantages attached to having a younger doctor attending
one rather than the older specimen to whom one has been
accustomed for several years.
'That's what we used to call them,' Lady Matilda exPlamed.
'In my young days, you know, you went for the '.ure. Marienbad, Carlsbad, Baden-Baden, all the rest of it
"ist the other day I read about this new place in the
Paper. Quite new and up to date. Said to be all new ideas ^"d things like that. Not that I'm really sold on new ideas,
Dr h i^0111'111'1 "^aUy be afraid of them. I mean, they would
' �'"a-bly be all the same things all over again. Water tasting