Charles Maine - World Without Men

He laughed, abruptly and harshly. “That’s the understatement of the year. I can see it now, how she drew me out, got me to explain to her how much I knew, what I was trying to find out… even the source of my information. Don’t worry, Lecia, I didn’t tell her that. Nobody is implicated apart from you and Rona — and myself.”

She came closer to him and placed her hands gently on his shoulders.

“When you go to see her tonight, Brad, there’ll be security men waiting for you. They’ll arrest you. And that will be the end of Brad Somer. The world will never know what happened to you and no one will ever care, anyway, except me,”

“Maybe you won’t be around to care, either, Lecia.”

Her voice whispered quietly into his ear. “I’ve got a plan, Brad. It’s the only way of escape for both of us. Look…” She fumbled in her pocket and produced a small wallet. Opening it she withdrew two pale green tickets.

“Airline reservations to America. I have a friend who works for Transplanetary Jet Services. One for you and one for me.” He accepted the ticket and scrutinized it briefly.

“Three o’clock this afternoon,” he said. “That’s quick.”

“It may not be quick enough, Brad. There’s no time to waste. Leave the hotel without delay. Disappear for a few hours. Do everything you can to shake off anyone who might be shadowing you. Then meet me at the airport just a few minutes before the flight.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I’ll be there, Lecia.”

She smiled pallidly and kissed him on the lips. “And keep your fingers crossed for both of us, darling.”

She left soon after, and only the green airline reservation remained to recall the sudden menace she had brought into his life.

After Lecia had left the room Brad crossed to the window and gazed abstractedly down and out towards the road be low. London was peaceful and quiet as yet. The morning was young and the flood tide of traffic and pedestrians was still building up. There was no hint of the sinister or the ominous in the outside world. The buildings were gray and solid, as they had been for many decades, and the people who moved about on the distant pavements were minute, animated dolls, quite ordinary and unremarkable.

Lecia could have been mistaken, though it did not seem very likely. She was too finely intelligent a woman to jump to a dramatically wrong conclusion without adequate motive, and yet, supposing her motive was different from what he had been led to believe? The airline reservations had been a little too pat — too contrived. They had followed too closely on the alarming exposure of his own danger.

Looking at the facts more leisurely, and he felt he had time to do just that, what was the net result of Lecia’s visit? That he had been stampeded into accepting an unexpected airlift to America, and more, into taking Lecia with him. It began to add up. For a long time he had suspected that Lecia’s emotional attachment towards him was stronger than the cur rent code of amorous behaviour considered delicate, and recently he had become aware of a certain restlessness in her attitude towards living. She wanted to move on, to move on with the man she loved, into the more glamorous world of hyper-civilized America, and away from the darkening, security-ridden environment of Britain. She was planning ahead, arranging the pattern of her own future, and using the dangers of the present-day, tightly controlled society to accelerate the fulfilment of her plans. For all he knew Rona, too, might be part of the plot.

He began to feel angry and resentful, and the anger was to some extent directed against his own blindness and stupidity. Men were becoming a rare commodity, and women everywhere were seeking to bind their men into a relationship that exceeded the requirements of modern male-female liaison. Lecia had been astute, but not quite astute enough. He smiled grimly to himself.

And then he saw her, far below, crossing the road outside the entrance to the hotel. He watched the tiny animated shape that was her, feeling remote and vaguely omnipotent, like some kind of all-seeing cynical god. She reached the opposite curb and began to walk towards the distant Under ground station.

It happened so suddenly that he was taken completely by surprise. A long black car curved from the inner traffic lane and abruptly stopped ahead of Lecia. Like a movie run in rapid motion, two men emerged from the car and moved to either side of the girl. There seemed to be some kind of a struggle, and she seemed to fall. Next moment she was being dragged towards the car, and, in an instant, the car had moved off and was merging with the denser traffic filtering to wards the Strand.

Astonishment petrified him for several seconds. His immediate reaction when the temporary paralysis had evaporated was to rush down into the road, seize the nearest taxi, and follow the car. But time was against him. He crossed to the phone and lifted it, intending to call the police, but replaced it slowly. An appalling thought had taken possession of his mind. Lecia had been right. He was trapped.

He picked up the airline ticket from the table, holding it firmly, almost with desperation. The sense of betrayal that he had experienced earlier now held his mind in an inflexible grip, and the need for escape obsessed him No longer was there any need to obtain factual confirmation of his news story; Lecia’s fate was confirmation enough. The world was at bay, and authority was intolerant of subversion even when it came in the form of truth.

Supposing, he thought, supposing they interrogate her and discover what she had planned. Supposing they search her and find the other airline ticket. Supposing they are waiting for me at the airport…

His brain recoiled from the torment of his suspicions, and he sought consolation in his knowledge of Lecia’s regard for him. It might even be love; sometimes people did experience the regressive emotion known as love, and when they were so possessed they became fanatically loyal to the object of their love… loyal to the point of death. She’ll destroy the ticket, and she would not talk. Brad felt convinced of that.

There was nothing he could do but pack, and leave as quickly as possible. Time was running out and the deadline was three o’clock.

The airport was busy, and the departure lounge was crowded, for which Brad was immensely thankful. Mingling with the masses of air travellers he felt safe, secluded, almost protected. His flight number was four-two-three, he had learned, and in a little over ten minutes he would be sitting in the resilient bucket seat of the jet liner, rising swiftly into the blue sky, towards safety and freedom.

He sat on a chair in an obscure corner of the lounge reading a newspaper which he held high in front of his face The seconds ticked by silently in his mind, and he was a wire each one as it passed. People moved around, ordinary people, men and women, and even a few children, and the air vibrated with a score of mingled conversations.

Although the newspaper filled his field of vision, the headlines were meaningless to his agitated eyes. Occasionally he glanced covertly above and around the sides of the paper scanning in brief darting glances the throng of people lounge, seeking the face or the figure that would sound a strident alarm in his brain. But there were no tall sinister men and no expressionless faces. He was one of a multitude of lovely, and mostly happy, people awaiting the summons of the loudspeaker to join their jet liner

“Flight four… two-three,” said the loudspeaker in crisp impersonal tones. “Runway seven. Will passengers for this flight kindly proceed to the departure point. Take off in seven minutes.

He did not move immediately. It was wise to be neither first nor last, but to remain one of the middle people, the anonymous, unnoticed ones. Presently he folded his paper and joined the throng of individuals converging on the door.