Реджинальд Хилл - Matlock's System

“That’s better,” said Matlock. “Now I can lean forward and get a decent shot. I’m going to count three and then press the trigger. My force-gun is pointing, you will observe, more or less between your legs. The turtle’s nest. Frying tonight, as they used to say. One… two…”

“All right,” said the driver. He pulled the car into the kerb. “If you want to stop that badly, then here I stop. Now what?”

Matlock hit him in the same place. Then he and Francis got out and began dragging the two messengers from the front.

“Think you can drive this thing?” asked Francis.

“I was relying on you.”

“One of us better had. Listen!”

The clang of the Curfew Wagon bell came drifting to them from a nearby street.

They let the limp bodies of the messengers drop on the road and got quickly into the car, Francis in the driving seat.

“Right, let’s go.”

“How?” said Francis searching furiously round. “Tell me how and off I’ll go.”

The control panel was simplicity itself. A speedometer, a fuel gauge. Two switches.

Matlock leaned over and pressed one.

Nothing happened.

“What’s that do?”

“Say again, please, and identify yourself,” crackled a loud but somehow distant voice in Francis’ ear.

He shifted the switch to its former position.

“Try the other.”

Matlock twisted urgently round in his seat. They were parked almost opposite an intersection. Suddenly trundling into view along the road running parallel to theirs and about fifty yards away came a Curfew Wagon. Matlock held his breath and prayed. He prayed that in the twenty yards or so in which they were in sight of each other, the Wagon would not notice them. Or that if it did, it would not consider a stationary Red worth investigating.

Francis pressed the other switch.

Rhythmic as hysteria, a great pulsating shriek tore the air apart and sent frightening waves of sound in all directions.

It only lasted a couple of seconds till Francis threw the switch back.

“Siren,” he said unnecessarily.

The Curfew Wagon which had almost moved out of sight now came to a halt, then reversed into the centre of the crossroads. The periscopes twinkled round till all four were peering down the street, towards them. They remained in that position, four blank but all seeing eyes, while the great bulk beneath them shifted round and began to move directly towards the little Red.

“Key,” said Matlock, and plunged out of the car and round to the driver. He was just recovering consciousness and had half risen on his elbow. Matlock pulled his arm away from under him so that he collapsed on the road again. Then he began to prise the man’s clenched fist open. It was locked like a clamp. The dreadful bell sounded nearer and nearer. He lifted the fist to his mouth and dug his teeth into the ball of the thumb.

There was an anguished screech. The fist became a hand. On the palm lay a small cylinder of metal.

The Wagon was nearly upon them. As he leapt back into the car, he saw the hatches at the front begin to slide open. He leaned over to the control panel and looked desperately for somewhere to put the key. There wasn’t an aperture to be seen. He ran his fingers along under the dashboard. Suddenly he felt a slight unevenness. A hollow. He took the cylinder and thrust it in.

Nothing.

He pressed harder. There was a click.

At first he thought there was still nothing. Then he noticed the slight trembling of the fuel pressure gauge.

“We’re running. Let’s go.”

Francis slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

The other messenger suddenly rose to his feet and staggered in front of them trying to draw his gun. The Red surged forward with such force that he was flung over the bonnet into the road behind.

“Christ!” spat Francis between pale lips.

Matlock peered through the back window. The driver was up as well now, waving his arms. A black tube like the lash of a bull-whip snaked out of the now fully open aperture of the Curfew Wagon, coiled round him and dragged him screaming into the darkness.

“I think you might have done that fellow a favour,” said Matlock.

“You think so?”

They spun round a corner and the Wagon went out of view.

“Why didn’t they fire at us?”

“Who knows? They like their quarry alive, they say. And a parked Red might just have been a parked Red after all. But never fear. There’ll be plenty of stuff out to intercept us now.”

“Let it,” said Francis.

“What’s the time?”

“Nearly noon.”

“Just in time.”

He swung the wheel hard over and the Red raced crazily up the ramp of a fifteen-storey garage. Round and round the spiral ramp they circled at the same terrifying speed till suddenly they ran out on the level plateau of the top parking lot.

There was only one other vehicle there,a large out-of-date transporter.

The Red halted dead and Matlock used the impetus to take him out of the door.

“That?” he said incredulously to Francis.

“That.”

As they ran up to the transporter, the rear board slowly unfolded. Francis had leapt on before it reached the ground. Turning, he pulled Matlock up behind him.

“Welcome aboard.”

Inside the transporter, looking absurdly small, was a helicopter. At the controls in long flowing robes was a monk.

“Greetings, Brothers. Climb up, do. Will there be any others?”

“No. Get going,” snapped Francis.

Others. Where are the others? wondered Matlock as he crouched in his seat.

“Something’s coming up the ramp! Go!” screamed Francis.

The pilot pressed a button. Above them, the roof of the transporter split open letting in the deep blue of the sky. The helicopter’s vanes began to whirl, her ground jets blasted and slowly, carefully they rose from the chrysallis of the great truck, then climbed more rapidly as a small car pulled off the ramp on to the roof. Out of it jumped a solitary figure who began to run towards the transporter, waving.

“Wait,” shouted Matlock. “It’s Colin! It’s Colin!”

“Too late,” said Francis, pointing.

Two other cars, large and official, had run off the ramp. Half a dozen uniformed figures jumped out of each and ran towards the waving man. They were antlike now, and so indistinguishable when together that to Matlock it looked as if Colin had been swallowed up.

He strained his eyes to see what was happening down there, but soon he couldn’t even make out the building clearly.

Then he sat back and closed his eyes.

And wondered how it was all going to end.

You “must be tired, Mr. Matlock,” said the Abbot.

“Not too tired to talk, Abbot,” said Matlock, determined to take an early initiative. But in fact great waves of exhaustion were swelling over his eyes and nothing seemed more attractive than sleep.

The old wrinkled face looked at him kindly and there were the beginnings of a smile round the mouth.

“Yes, I think to talk. There is much to talk about, Mr. Matlock, and I would not have you feel that you were at any disadvantage. A few hours’ sleep first. You have had a trying time.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” yawned Matlock.

“I hope you will be comfortable. We pay more attention to comfort here in the Strangers’ House than in our own cells, but our store is not great, and the demands on it are many.”

Matlock looked round the simply furnished room. A narrow bed, a chair, a cupboard.

“This is fine,” he said, sitting on the bed.

“I will see you later then, Mr. Matlock.”

“Of course.”

Matlock drew his legs up on to the bed then allowed his head to sink back on the pillow.