Джеффри Лорд - Dimension Of Horror

Ponderously Big Ben tolled midnight. The lean balding man on the couch awoke and sat up in the semidarkness, tossing off his blanket. He swung his bare feet to the carpeted floor and sat a moment in his rumpled undershirt and drawers, stretching and gathering strength, trying to shake off a paralyzing dread that clung to him from a nightmare he only dimly remembered. He had had many such nightmares in recent weeks.

«Damn,» he grumbled. «Bloody nuisance.»

The only reply was the muffled murmur of the city.

He stood up and groped toward the shadowy mass of his desk. The telephone rang as he knew it would. He picked up the receiver.

«Twenty-four hundred hours, sir,» came a bored masculine voice. «You wanted to be called… «

«Thank you, Peters. Could you have the car brought 'round?»

«Right away, sir. Main entrance or side?»

«Main. No, wait. Make that the side, on Lothbury.»

«As you wish, sir.»

He hung up and lit his desk lamp.

His craggy face, illuminated from below, was for a moment a ghastly mask of black and white patterns, a face of unguessable age, the face of a man whose demanding profession had never allowed him the luxury of growing old. Blinking, sighing and shivering in the muggy cold, he peered moodily around his barren office cubicle, leaning against his heavy teakwood desk. There were three chairs: two uncomfortable wooden ones in front of the desk and one comfortable leather-upholstered one behind the desk, his only self-indulgence. No pictures hung on the wall, not even a calendar. The tall black filing cabinets were, as-always, locked. The black metal wastebasket was stuffed with paper that would, as usual, be carefully shredded and burned before leaving the building.

The two tall arched windows that ordinarily provided a view of Lothbury's congested traffic now had been transformed by the fog into irregular mirrors that distorted his reflection into a mocking caricature. Looking at this face that was his, yet not his, he felt the dread returning. He wondered, Is this a hunch? Should I call the whole thing off? He paid attention to hunches. Because of hunches, he had outlived nearly all the men he had known in his youth, though his was not a profession noted for longevity.

«Not this time,» he reassured himself out loud. «My deuced imagination is acting up again. Mustn't let it bowl me over.»

He strode to his closet, opened the door, and peered within. There hung his white shirt, his blue-striped Cambridge school tie, his waistcoat, his dark-gray suitcoat, his pinstriped gray and white trousers. His rolled umbrella leaned against the wall, gray suede gloves draped over the handle, next to his dark brown attache case. All in all, the uniform of a successful stockbroker, if you added the black bowler that rested on the shelf above eye level; but he was not a stockbroker.

A stockbroker would not have had in his closet, hanging casually from a peg, a shoulder holster containing an old Webley service revolver. He kept the weapon cleaned, oiled and loaded at all times, though he had not worn it, except at the practice range, for over twenty years. He did not wear it now.

Instead he shaved, then dressed quickly.

The stockbroker image was almost too perfect. Surely this was one of Britain's captains of industry: vigorous, aggressive, yet imperturbable and urbane! He not only looked his part, he felt it too. Setting his derby on his head at a jaunty angle, he grinned defiance at his reflection. Nothing to worry about. What are a few bad dreams, eh?

As he left his office he locked the door behind him, then, as always, tried it to make sure it was locked.

Outside the Lothbury Street exit a black four-door Rolls Royce awaited him at the curb, polished chrome gleaming. A gray-uniformed chauffeur sprang to attention and, opening the car's rear door, said crisply, «Your car, sir.»

«Not so military, Watkins.»

«Sorry, sir.»

The seeming stockbroker glanced at the building behind him, a towering Victorian monstrosity that had survived two world wars. It had never been damaged or, it would appear, cleaned. On the grimy brick wall a well-burnished plaque identified the New East India Copra and Processing Co. Ltd. There was indeed such a company within, but there was also the headquarters of MI6A, a very special branch of the Special Branch of the SIS, or Secret Intelligence Services.

Once this seeming stockbroker had had a name, but he had all but forgotten it. Now he was known only as «J,» head of MI6A, answerable only to the Prime Minister. To even be informed that J existed, it was necessary to demonstrate what the intelligence community called a «need to know,» yet J had more than once bent the course of history in Britain's favor, always working quietly, behind the scenes.

J climbed into the Rolls and settled himself into the seat with a grunt of satisfaction.

Watkins slammed the door, then bent over to ask, «Where to, sir?»

«The London Tower, Watkins.»

J closed his eyes as the powerful vehicle nosed out into the stream of traffic. He thought, Everything seems fine, but something's wrong. I can feel it!

The fog thickened as they neared the Thames, slowing their progress considerably as they threaded their way down Great Tower Street. J made an unsuccessful attempt to read his pocket-watch, then snapped it shut with a muttered curse and jammed it into his waistcoat pocket.

At last the vast angular bulk of the Tower of London complex hove into view, almost invisible in spite of the floodlights that shone on the central «White Tower.» That there were eleven other lesser towers clustered around it was something that had to be taken on faith.

At the curb Watkins held the door while J stepped to the sidewalk.

«Shall I wait for you, sir?»

«No. Come back in an hour and a half.»

«As you wish, sir.»

J watched the red-haloed taillights of the Rolls dwindle and fade, then started toward the rear of the Tower grounds, using his rolled umbrella as a blind man uses a white cane.

Out of the blackness an amused light baritone voice asked, «Nice evening for a stroll along the Thames, eh what?»

«Is that you, Richard?»

«Of course.» Richard's familiar heavy platinum cigarette lighter flamed, revealing an ironic half-smile on the younger man's rugged features. This was indeed Richard Blade, calmly lighting a Benson hen cutting off the flame with a click.

The men shook hands with a warmth that would have surprised some of J's associates. J had a reputation, for the most part deserved, for being a man without human feelings, able to order other men to their deaths without hesitation. Though he knew it was unprofessional, J had been unable to avoid caring about Blade. Was it because they had worked together so long? J had personally recruited Richard at Oxford, been Richard's superior officer through twenty years of espionage that included some rather sticky capers and more than their share of what the Russians call mokrye dela, «wet stuff,» executive actions involving bloodshed.

Or was it because J, a lifelong bachelor, had made of Richard a kind of unofficial adopted son? J had pondered the question often but had never discussed it with anyone: a gentleman does not express his feelings.

The two men walked slowly in silence.

At last J said, «I understand it won't take very long.»

Blade laughed.

«And what,» J demanded, «do you find so amusing?»

«'Won't take very long.'. Those are, if memory serves, the exact words you used to summon me by phone for the first one of these little experiments. 'A few hours at the most,' you told me. Those few hours have become years, sir.»