Michael Moorcock - A Cure for Cancer

'That's right.'

'There you are, sir.' She handed him the bills. Two hundred fifty dollars, please.'

'I can give you American Express traveler's checks.'

'I'm sorry, sir.'

'Carte Blanche...?'

'Cash only, sir. It's the new rule.'

Jerry slipped his hand into his back pocket and saw that the man in the trench coat was approaching Karen, a triumphant look in his eyes.

Jerry gave the girl his last three hundred-dollar bills.

'Keep the change.' _

'I can't do that, sir.' She gave a prim gasp.

'It's all shifting backwards, pilgrim.' Jerry got to Karen before the man who looked like Mr Silver. If it was Mr Silver he pretended he didn't remember Jerry.

'Let me see your passports.'

'We're foreign nationals...' Jerry realized that this was no longer protection. They were on their own. But then, hadn't he always been on his own? He frowned.

'You don't look well,' said Mr Silver. 'Anything worrying you?'

'How should I know?'

'What are you calling yourself?' A look of disdain crossed Mr Silver's face.

'Jeremiah Cornelius. Jeremiah Cornelius.'

'Okay. You're suspected of aiding agents of forces hostile to the United States government. We'll have to search your luggage.'

'Go ahead.' Then Jerry noted the expression on Karen's face.

Silver signalled to two tall men in plastileather trench coats. Taylor. Dunlop.' They picked up the expensive bags.

The keys?' Mr Silver held out his damp hand.

'They're unlocked.'

Taylor opened Jerry's case first and pawed disgustedly through the coloured silks. When he looked back up Jerry knew he didn't have a chance.

'What about her?' Jerry indicated Karen. 'Let her on the plane, won't you? She's just a girl who came along. A secretary...'

'You employ her, do you?' Dunlop laughed.

'She's not your wife, is she?' Mr Silver curled his lip. 'You aliens! Check her case.'

Jerry hung loose. He lit a Romeo y Julieta.

'That's a nice cigar,' said Silver sniffing. He nodded as his men brought something out of Karen's bag. 'You've got it. I like the smell of a good cigar.' It was a small gold model of an Apollo rocket. 'Okay. Now let's see those passports.'

Karen glanced at Jerry as she gave her passport to Silver. Had she been conned by Protz and Zhazhda? How elaborate was the set-up? Silver knew there were ambiguities but wasn't admitting it. He was going after them merely because he didn't like them. That was how things were.

'German,' said Silver. 'And British, eh? Where you from, bwah?'

'Britain.'

'Before that?'

'Heaven?'

'That in the West Indies?'

'My father didn't say.'

Til keep the passports. They look like crude forgeries to me. Your picture's in negative, even.'

'Check it.'

'We will. Taylor. Dunlop. Get them on the bus with the rest.'

The two tall men took Jerry and Karen by the arm and guided them through the lobby, then through the swing doors to where a big airport bus waited. There were a lot of people already inside.

As they came out on the sidewalk Jerry saw people run and cars swerve as a Boeing 707 swung off the runway and, jets screaming, taxied between the airport buildings to cross the highway at an angle and slither across a field.

'You boys certainly have everything working for you.' Jerry threw his cigar in the gutter.

'On the bus,' said Taylor.

Jerry and Karen climbed aboard. The bus was decorated in chrome and light blue. All the seats were full of nervous people, mostly middle-aged and middle-class. That was something, thought Jerry.

One well-set-up man in a grey topcoat and hat held an expensive briefcase against his chest. He wore brown leather gloves. 'I'm Feldman,' he said. Teldman. I'm Feldman.'

'That's it,' Dunlop told the driver. 'You can close the doors.'

Feldman dashed forward as the doors began to shut. Taylor hit him in the face. Feldman staggered back, his nose bleeding.

The bus moved out with Jerry and Karen clinging to the slippery central pole. From the hotel came the sound of Thompson sub-machine guns.

The bus reached an intersection and turned inland, away from New York.

Soon they were on Interstate 80.

Jerry felt a tugging at his jacket and he looked down into the heavily made-up face of an old woman with a blue rinse who sat in the nearest seat. 'Young man,' she whispered, 'is this the Ithaca bus?'

'You'd better ask the driver, ma'am,' Jerry told her. 'I'm not sure we're going that far.'

Somewhere in Pennsylvania, in thickly wooded hills overlooking the Delaware, the bus stopped by a tall barbed wire fence bearing a wooden notice board that said KEEP OUT — GOVT PROTECTED EXPERIMENTAL NATURE RESERVE.

'Okay, everybody.' The driver took a Swiss M11 Carbine from under his seat. 'Here's where you spend your vacation.'

Taylor and Dunlop glanced at him disapprovingly. The blue doors hissed open and the passengers piled out into the narrow dirt road that ran beside the wire.

Jerry's spirits were rising. As he left the bus, he tipped the driver a dollar.

This way,' said Dunlop.

Struggling with their heavy suitcases, the passengers followed Taylor and Dunlop until they reached a decorative wrought-iron gate in front of, a small Bavarian-style lodge from which three armed militiamen, in the black uniforms, the mirror sunglasses and the motor-cycle helmets, emerged.

A fourth militiaman poked his head out of the whimsically carved doorway. 'Wait there. I'll call the camp.'

Jerry gripped two curling bits of black metal and peered through the gate, breathing in the gentle scent of pines. A wide track led between the trees on the other side of the wire and disappeared over a rise. Beyond the rise a diesel engine whined and a big Ford articulated freight truck came bumping into sight and, sounding the twin golden horns on its roof, swung round in the clearing near the lodge. The driver jumped down from his cab and ran to open the sliding doors of the truck.

One of the militiamen unlocked the wrought-iron gate. 'Okay. Come on through.'

The passengers trudged up to the freight wagon and got awkwardly aboard.

Jerry helped the old lady clamber in.

'It stinks of meat.' She leaned on his shoulder. 'Of animals. What the hell is the company doing to us?'

'It's only a short ride, ma'am. ' Jerry assisted Karen, relishing. the texture of the rough tweed on his palm. 'We'll soon be there.'

As the doors of the car slid shut and the engine started up, Jerry crouched in a corner in the semi-darkness and they bumped through the woods. Five minutes later the truck braked and the outside air rang with cheerful shouts until it moved on a few yards, stopped again, and cut off its engine.

They blinked as the doors slid open to reveal a surly sergeant who waved them out with his rifle.