Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

“I’ll ride the mail car if you think it’s a good idea.”

Cutley considered it.

“The Club can spring for four compartments,” put in Edwin, airily. “If you’re all in First Class, no one will mind if you wander. With any other tickets, Richard and Danny wouldn’t be allowed where interesting business might be going on.”

“Whatever you think best,” said Cutley. “If money’s no object, we might as well all get the gold toilet seats and mints on the pillows. Dickie will qualify for a half-fare anyway.”

The academic was used to working on the cheap, in fear of a redbrick budget review. He also wasn’t happy to be given command of a group then undercut in front of them. Edwin had made Cutley “Most Valued Member”, but was prone to step out from behind the desk and upstage his successor. Catriona laid a hand on Edwin’s elbow, chiding with a gesture only the recipient and Richard noticed.

“Keep all the chits,” said Cutley. “Bus tickets, and so forth. My procedure is big on chits, comprenons-oui ?”

Now, Cutley was needling Richard because he couldn’t afford to prick back at Edwin. Richard was getting a headache with the politics.

“This is a haunted house on wheels,” Cutley told them. “There are boring procedures for haunted houses, which will be followed. Background check, on-the-spot investigation, listing of observable phenomena and effects. Once that’s over, I will assess findings and make recommendations. If the haunting can be dispelled through scientific or spiritual efforts, no one will complain. Annette, I’d appreciate a run-down of possible rituals of exorcism or dispellment. Bell, book and railwayman’s lamp? Of course, we can always advise the train be taken out of service and the line abandoned. If there are no passengers to be haunted, it doesn’t matter if spectres drag their sorry shrouds along the rails.”

Richard put his hand up, as if in class.

Cutley, annoyed, noticed. “What is it, boy?”

“A thought, sir. If the train could be put out of service, it already would have been. There must be a reason to keep it running.”

Richard looked at Edwin. So did everyone else. Catriona massaged his arm.

At length, Edwin responded. “No use trying to keep secrets in a roomful of Talents, obviously.”

Danny Myles whistled.

“What is it?” asked Cutley, catching up.

“The Scotch Streak must stay in service. The Special Contingencies School is now a submarine base. A vital component in our national deterrent.”

“The gun we have to their heads while theirs is stuck into our tummy,” put in Catriona.

“Cat goes on Aldermaston marches and wants to ban the Bomb,” Edwin explained. “As a private individual, it is within her rights to hold such a position. In this Club, we do not decide government policy and can only advise . . .”

Annette almost snorted. She obviously knew Edwin Winthrop better.

“Every forty-eight hours,” Edwin continued, “mathematicians convene in Washington DC and use a computer to generate number-strings which are fed into an electronic communications network accessible only from secure locations at the Pentagon and our own Ministry of War. There’s another terminal in Paris, but it’s a dummy – the French can fiddle all they want, but can’t alter the workings of the big machine. We wouldn’t want them getting offended by the creeping use of terms like ‘le week-end’ and kicking off World War Three in a fit of haughty pique. Annie, the French half of you didn’t hear that.

“Once the numbers are in the net, they have to be conveyed to the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Great Britain and selected officers on the front-lines of the Western Alliance. We don’t use telephone, telegraph, telegram or passenger pigeon – we send couriers. The number-strings are known as the ‘Go-Codes’. Unless they are keyed properly on special typewriters, orders cannot be given to arm a warhead, launch a missile or drop a bomb. Without the Go-Codes, we have no nuclear weapons.”

“And with them, we can end the world,” put in Catriona.

“So,” said Myles, waving his hands for emphasis, “we’ve B-52s zooming over the Arctic, nuclear subs cruising the seven seas, ranks of computers the size of Jodrell Bank, and brave soldier boys in the trenches ready to respond to any dire threat from the godless commie horde . . . but it all depends on some git catching a seven o’clock steam train from Euston every other evening?”

“That’s it, exactly,” said Edwin

“Crazy, man,” said Myles, snapping his fingers.

“As I said, matters of defence policy are beyond our remit. You understand now why governments are in a lather. If the Streak isn’t secure, NATO wobbles. Quite apart from the haunting, they’re worried about spies. One reason the Go-Codes are still carried by train is that our fiendish intelligence friends think the Russkies don’t believe we’d really entrust so vital a duty to a couple of junior ratings on an overnight puff-puff.”

“I hope I meet a spy,” said Annette, posing languidly. “I always saw myself as Mata Hari. Can I lure young lieutenants to their doom?”

“Leave them alone, Annie,” said Edwin. “They’ve enough on their plates, what with World Peace in their pockets. There’s been a high turnover on that detail. One nervous collapse, one self-inflicted gunshot wound, one sudden convert off in a monastery somewhere. Do not let it be known outside this room, but in the past year there have been four separate blocks of up to eighteen hours when our defences were compromised because the Go-Codes didn’t arrive without incident.

“Consider the poor general whose burdensome duty it is to inform the President of this situation, let alone the possibility the Other Side might get wind of a first-strike opportunity. If we do hold a gun to their head, they’d best not find out the firing pin is wonky.”

Richard felt sickness in the pit of his stomach, as if he had washed down a half-pint of salted cockles with a strawberry milkshake. Despite Cutley’s “boring procedures for haunted houses”, this was a bigger deal than pottering around Borley Rectory feeling out cold spots. The nausea passed and, to his embarrassment, he found he was physically in a state of high excitement. He gathered this was common in the corridors of power – though, since his voice broke, it seemed the minutes of the day when he wasn’t sporting a raging erection were more noteworthy. Tight trousers did not make him any more comfortable. He blushed as Annette, perhaps peeping indelicately into his immediate future, smiled at him.

“Will the Yanks know we’re aboard?” asked Cutley.

“In theory, at the highest level. The boys on the train don’t know anything. They’ve been encouraged to believe they’re a decoy, and that their envelopes are to do with an inter-services gambling ring organised by a motor pool sergeant in Fort Baxter, Kansas. Spot the couriers if you must, but don’t get too close. Come back with concrete intelligence about whatever threats are gathering in the dark. I’ve always wanted to end a briefing by saying ‘this mission could shorten the War by six months’. The next best thing is ‘the fate of the free world depends on you’, which, I am sorry to say, it does. I’m sure you’ll do us proud, Harry.”

The lecturer shot glances at his group. Richard knew what Cutley thought of Annette, Magic Fingers and him. Two beatniks and a ted, not an elbow-patch between them, just the sorts Hard-Luck Harry hoped to get away from, bloody students !

“We’ll make the best of it, Ed,” said Cutley.

IV

Richard walked under the Doric arches of Euston Station at five o’clock, two hours before the Scotch Streak was due to depart. He was among crowds, streaming from city offices to commuter trains.