Dennis Wheatley - The Satanist

Turning, she made her way back more slowly, exploring as she went the shallow sheds that lined the walls of the cave. Some contained stores of various kinds, including a big cache of tinned food, others were sleeping cabins; and one was obviously the Great Ram's work room, as it had maps pinned up on its walls and contained a table-desk and filing cabinets.

In several places between blocks of two or three sheds there were lower tunnels running in at right angles to the sides of the big one. She cautiously explored them in turn, to find that some of them had pieces of machinery in them. They were all quite short and ended abruptly in a sloping rugged surface; so she thought it probable that most, if not all, of this big hole in the mountain owed its existence to mining operations which had later been abandoned.

Near the end of the tunnel to which the cable railway mounted, she came upon three other cabins of special interest. One was evidently the Great Ram's bedroom, the next a bathroom and the last equipped with wireless apparatus.

The bedroom she did not dare to enter. A glimpse of a small altar in it on which stood a human skull that had been made into a chalice was enough to make her shut the door quickly and pass on; but in the radio room she stood for a long time, wondering if she could possibly send a message by the set. Unfortunately she was totally ignorant of everything to do with such things and had never even learned the Morse alphabet, so she was forced to abandon the idea.

However, the bathroom was a most welcome discovery, as it provided her with the means of whiling away an hour or two and, having collected from her suitcase her toilet and manicure things, she spent the rest of the morning there.

Wash and Mirkoss took barely a quarter-of-an-hour over their lunch, then hurried back to work; so she was again left to her own devices for the whole afternoon. With the idea that she might possibly suborn the Chinese cook, she visited his galley and attempted to enter into conversation with him; but she found that he did not understand a word of English, or French, which was the only foreign language of which she had a smattering. The other Chinese, she concluded, lived down below in the engine-house, and were brought up only when required for special jobs; so it seemed that there was very little chance of her getting a message out by one of them.

Nowhere could she find anything to read, even if she could have settled to it; so in desperation she returned to the bathroom where she spent a good part of the afternoon washing her hair and trying out different methods of arranging it so as to render as little conspicuous as possible the quarter inch of undyed gold that had grown up from her scalp.

Somehow she got through the hours until the early evening and when Wash and Mirkoss had bathed she joined them for dinner. The Hungarian was perforce, as usual, silent, but Wash was nearly silent too, which was most unusual for him; so Mary asked him the reason.

At first he hedged, saying that he had had a long day, and on heavy work of a kind to which he was not accustomed. But when Mirkoss had left them she pressed him further, and he said in a low voice,

'I'm having kittens, honey. The Big Chief's playing some deep game of his own. He's flat lied to me over this rocket set-up, and if he'll do that about one thing he'll do it about another. Could be that now he's gotten all the help he wanted from me, he means to do me dirt.'

'That's bad,' she whispered back with quick concern. 'What sort of he has he told you?'

'He said he meant to aim the rocket to fall on a little burg called Sannen. You heard him, last night. Well, we worked like buck niggers all day and the rocket's set up. Wants only the right amount of gas pumped in and she'll be ready to go. But her mechanism is not adjusted to send her in the right direction. Saanen is over the range to the west of here. Must be if it's half-way between Lausanne and Interlaken. The rocket is oriented near due north-east, so he must mean to send it some place else.'

'Did you question him about it?'

Wash ran a hand through his almost white hair before he replied in the same hushed, conspiratorial voice, 'Nope. My Satanic name's not Twisting Snake for nothing. Times are when it pays best to let the other feller think he's got away with playing you for a sap. He's more like to show his hand then. Gives you a better chance of saying snap.'

'Have you any idea where he might mean to send the rocket?'

'I had one notion. It can't be right, though. Doesn't make sense. Yet if I were right you and I have got no future. I'd give a mighty fat wad to be a hundred-per-cent certain that I'm wrong.'

'I think you could, without much difficulty.'

He gave her a quick look. 'Tell, honey.'

'While you were all working this morning I explored the whole place pretty thoroughly. Near the far end of the tunnel he has an office. There are maps on the walls and papers scattered over the desk. All his calculations must be there somewhere. If you could get in...'

'That's certainly an idea. Wonder if he keeps it locked.'

'As he doesn't bother to lock it in the daytime, I don't see why he should at night. Up here there is certainly no risk of burglars.'

'Sure, honey, sure.' Wash gave a sudden grin. 'Then we'll go along presently and have a look-see. Whether he ever sleeps or not I wouldn't know, but there's Mirkoss and the cook, so we'd best give the place a chance to settle down.'

For another hour and a half they continued sitting at the table, occasionally exchanging a remark or taking a sip of the Apricot Brandy, then Wash stood up and said in a whisper, 'Let's get weaving. Go quiet as you can. I'll follow you. Pull up on the outer curve of the tunnel ten yards before you come to his office. Point it out to me as I pass, then keep your eyes and ears on stalks. Anyone coming don't cough; just start walking on again natural. I trained my hearing young on the prairie, so I'll catch your footfalls and be out alongside you time you come opposite the office door. Then if its the Big Chief I'll tell him I was taking you to have a sight of the rocket in the moonlight. O.K.?'

She nodded and he followed her out. The lights along the roof of the tunnel were kept on night and day, and in all the cabins there were pilot lights that gave out a faint blue radiance, like those in the sleepers of International Pullman cars. Very quietly they walked down two-thirds of the length of the tunnel, then she halted and followed his instructions. The door of the office was not locked and he was in there a good ten minutes. To her it seemed an interminable time as she strained her ears for approaching footsteps, and her eyes into the semi-gloom behind her. But at last he emerged, and closed the door gently after him.

Taking her arm, and still walking softly, without uttering a word he led her back to the dining cabin. There, in the brighter light, she saw that his normally ruddy face had gone a queer shade of grey, and that his black eyes held a murderous glint.

'Well,' she asked in a whisper.

He sat down heavily, and muttered, 'What I thought a crazy idea was right. It's all worked out there. He's aiming to put it on Moscow.'

At first Mary did not realize the full implications, so she said, 'I can't help feeling sorry for the Russians; but thank God it's not London.'

For a moment he stared at her then, his voice still low, he broke into a tense spate of words, 'Be your age, woman! The Russians will take it that the West launched the rocket at them. They'll not wait to ask questions. They'll think we've tried to shoot 'em sitting down. Before what's left of Moscow's gone up in smoke they'll press the button. Within twenty minutes New York, Washington, Pittsburg, Detroit will be just heaps of poisonous ruins-and London too. The West will react with all its got; land-based rockets, rockets from subs and cruisers, H bombs from aircraft. Russia's got subs, cruisers and long-range aircraft too -plenty. I'd give it three days, and every city west of a line Urals, Persia, India will have had it. Tens of millions dead, hundreds of millions dying; the whole of civilization as we know it to hell and gone.'