Colin Forbes - Terminal

She thumped his arm and they made their way to the bank of lifts. The celebration was being held in the large reception room between the lobby and the terrace restaurant. The floor was covered with priceless carpets, including one huge Persian hunting carpet. A large buffet table had been furnished with champagne glasses and a selection of food. There were a lot of people there already. Newman held Nancy back by the arm.

`Let's just see who is here and where they are. Tonight could be very decisive…'

Blanche Signer was talking to Beck. She wore an emerald green dress with a mandarin collar which showed off her superb figure to full advantage. Her small feet were sheathed in gold shoes.

`Your next conquest?' Nancy enquired.

`I was wondering what Beck is doing here…'

In a chair offside with his back to the wall sat Lee Foley, holding his glass as his cold eyes studied each person in the room. Tweed, looking uncomfortable in his dinner jacket, sat near Foley, watching the room with no particular expression.

`I think that must be Grange over there, holding court,' Nancy whispered.

At the back of the room, surrounded by half-a-dozen men, a tall, very heavily-built man wearing tinted glasses was talking while others listened. His left hand was close to his side, the fingers stretched downwards while his right hand held a glass. There was a gap in the crowd and Newman had a good view of him. A large head, his complexion pale, his lips appeared hardly to move as he spoke. The feature about him which intrigued Newman was his sheer immobility.

`Is that Professor Grange over there in the corner?' Nancy asked a passing waiter with a tray of glasses.

`Yes, it is, madame. May I offer you champagne?'

They both took a glass for appearance's sake. Newman sipped at his champagne, listening to the babble of voices, the clink of glasses. Another large man brushed past him without apology and made his way, very erect and confident, over to join Grange's group. Victor Signer had arrived.

`I can't see Kobler,' Newman whispered. 'That worries me…'

`Someone has to mind the store back at the Clinic, I suppose…'

`You're probably right. Let's circulate – horrible word. When are you going to challenge Grange..

`Bob!' She grabbed his arm. 'Wait! Look at that…'

Newman was looking at the weird incident. Grange had just greeted Signer when a waiter tipped a full glass of champagne off his tray. The liquid spilt down the lower half of Grange's dinner jacket and the upper half of his trousers. The waiter, obviously appalled, took the napkin folded over his sleeve, ran to the buffet, dipped it in a jug of water, returned to Grange and began to sponge the damp material.

The uncanny aspect of the incident was that as the waiter sponged and dabbed at the damp cloth Grange remained totally motionless, his left arm still close to his side, his large figure more Buddha-like than ever as he listened to Signer, ignoring the waiter as though nothing had happened. It was abnormal, unnatural. Newman stared incredulously as Nancy spoke in a low, tense tone.

`My God! No sane man has that amount of self-control. I think he's unbalanced – and I've had psychiatric training…'

It was the first doubt raised in Newman's mind as to Professor Grange's sanity.

Jesse Kennedy opened his eyes and blinked. What the hell was going on? He was lying full-length on a trolley which was being wheeled somewhere. He couldn't see properly – a mask of some sort had been placed over his head and face. He was gazing through eyepieces up at a white sheet pulled over the mask thing. The trolley was moving downhill now.

He tried to move his hands and realized both were strapped down by the wrists. He attempted to shift the position of his legs and found they too were strapped down round the ankles. He was completely immobilized. What was happening to him?

Then he recalled his last memory. They had injected him with a sedative. Not Novak. That bitch, Astrid, had done the job. He fought down a feeling of panic, of claustrophobia, and began to flex his fingers to get some strength back into them. The same with his feet – but cautiously. He sensed that the orderlies pushing the trolley, which was now tilted at an angle as it moved down a steep slope, must not know he was preparing himself for escape.

The sound of hydraulically-operated doors closing. The angle of the decline increased. He blinked again. It was more difficult to see even the sheet: the eyepieces were steaming up. He was suddenly wide awake and became aware of other sensations and sounds. The squeak of the trolley's wheels, the dryness in his throat, the circulation returning to his arms and legs. Another door opened and they moved on to a level surface. Weird, animal-like sounds – was he going out of his mind? He closed his eyes when the trolley stopped moving.

The sheet was whipped off him. There should be voices, the voices of the orderlies. Why weren't they talking to each other? The absence of voices got on his nerves, was frightening – together with the continuous animal-like gibbering. It recalled monkeys chattering inside cages in a zoo. Ridiculous…

They were removing the straps now. One near the head of the trolley taking off the straps binding his wrists, the other unfastening the ankle straps. Then he was free. He remained inert, eyes closed. Hands grasped both his forearms, jerked him upright. In a sitting position he was swivelled round until his legs dangled over the edge of the trolley. He let his head flop, still keeping his eyes shut. Holding him by both arms, they hauled him off the trolley and held him upright. They shook him roughly. He opened his eyes and gasped in horror.

He was wearing a heavy dressing gown over his pyjamas, the cord round his waist tied firmly. He was inside the laboratory, he was convinced of it. It was colder. The steam cleared completely from the eyepieces. Plastic green curtains were closed over long narrow windows. The huge room was filled with large benches. The tops of the benches were crowded with cages – wire cages. Inside the cages, which varied in size, were the animals he had heard. It was a nightmare.

The two orderlies wore gas masks Soulless eyes stared at him. From their height, their build, he guessed they were the two men he had heard called Graf and Munz. A third man stood further back, also wearing a mask, pacing among the cages. His way of moving told Jesse this was Bruno Kobler. Jesse pretended to sway unsteadily on his feet as Munz and Graf approached him.

A variety of animals occupied the cages: mice, rats and a lot of chimpanzees which chattered incessantly, their faces grinning hideously at him seen through the Plexiglas of the eyepieces. This section of the laboratory was dimly lit by low-power neon strips which cast an eerie light over the horrific scene.

Still swaying, stooping, Jesse noticed a giant door which was open, the door to the atombunker. A fourth man appeared from inside, a man carrying a metal cylinder in each hand, cylinders which reminded Jesse of mortar bombs he had once seen in a war film. Graf took hold of the side of Jesse's mask and eased it upwards so he could speak.

`This is the final stage of treatment, a revolutionary technique invented by Professor Grange. It may cure you – but you must fallow instructions. When we take you outside you run down the slope – down. I will point the way…'

Could the chimpanzees sense that something evil was about to be perpetrated, Jesse wondered. They were going wild, their chattering increasing in volume as they scrambled up and down inside their cages, clutching at the wires, staring at Jesse as the two men grasped him firmly by both arms and led him to a door Kobler had opened. Icy cold night air flooded into the laboratory and Jesse shivered. They had slipped walking shoes on to his feet, his own shoes, while he had lain unconscious.