The railroad bridge faded in the gray haze behind him.
Ahead lay London Bridge, now marked only by a stream of slow-moving headlights and a harsh chorus of auto horns. The fog thinned slightly, and for a moment he could see on his right the outline of Southwark Cathedral silhouetted against a dull pink sky. Only a moment, then the fog closed in again.
He shivered. The heavy overcoat he was wearing could not quite cope with the cold, though thank G.o.d there was no wind. Under the coat he wore only a pair of swimming trunks. His body was smeared from head to foot with black oil, which gave very little protection against the weather, but made him less visible.
He looked down at his equipment, a shadowy pile in the bottom of the boat. There was his tranquilizer gun, still in its pillowcase bag. It was no Walther PPK, but it took more kindly to a dunking than any orthodox pistol. Its darts were propelled by compressed air, so it would be more reliable and quieter. Yes, a quiet weapon was important in this situation, where everything depended on surprise. Lastly, it was not a killing weapon. Richard did not want to kill his own comrades.
And there were his skin-diver"s flippers, weighted belt and mask; all a gift, like the rowboat, from the CIA.
This was all he had, but to him it seemed enough.
He removed one of the oars from its oar lock and silently dipped it into the water behind the boat, using it as if it were a sculling paddle. He could not afford even the small sound of a creaking oar lock. The boat responded, began moving toward the left bank. He paused between strokes, letting it glide.
London Bridge pa.s.sed overhead, and the stench of exhaust fumes temporarily replaced the normal salt sea smell, the unique aroma of a river that felt the ebb and flow of the ocean tides this far from the sea.
He glanced up as he emerged beyond the bridge. A young man and a young woman were looking down at him from the rail, but they were interested, it seemed, only in each other. The fog swallowed them up as Richard sculled and paused, sculled and paused. Drops of water fell from the oar shaft, making cl.u.s.ters of expanding circles that slid away behind.
For the hundredth time he reviewed his plan.
Oddly enough it was not a new, fresh scheme, hatched for this occasion, but an old scheme, or a variation of an old scheme. For years Richard had amused himself by working out ways for stealing the Crown Jewels, safely lodged-or so everyone supposed-in the Wakefield Tower, directly behind the secret entrance to Project Dimension X. He had never seriously considered putting these larcenous plots into motion, but he had often wistfully reflected, England lost a good cracksman the day J tipped me for MI6.
He knew, for example, the habits of the MI6 ops who did night duty at the Tower of London, knew that they checked the actual Traitor"s Gate only once every half-hour, knew that, though he had mentioned it several times, the guards had not understood how vulnerable the Tower of London was from the river side. To them the river was as good as a wall; to Richard the river was as good as a wide-open entrance.
He knew also that, from their usual stations, the ops could not see Traitor"s Gate.
He frowned as the fog cleared slightly.
They could scan the river.
On the right bank the cruiser H.M.S. Belfast materialized, a floating museum permanently moored to Symon"s Warf. To his left appeared the Tower Pier, with its tour boats. Beyond the pier he could begin to see the floodlit central White Tower surrounded by the darker lesser towers of the Tower of London complex.
And he could see, near what must be the Traitor"s Gate, two moving lights. Flashlights! They were moving away from the gate. The guards must have completed their half-hourly inspection. Richard congratulated himself on his timing.
He could see the guards. Could they see him?
Probably not. He could see only their lights, and he was carrying no lights.
The fog thickened again. He knew the boat could carry him no further without attracting attention. The time had come for a little swim.
He took off his overcoat. Instantly his teeth began to chatter.
He put on the weighted belt, then the flippers, then the mask, which covered his eyes and nose but not his mouth. He knotted the sack containing his tranquilizer gun to his swimming trunks. As he worked, he breathed deeply, again and again, building up the oxygen content of his blood until he was slightly dizzy.
Then, steeling himself, he crept to the rear of the boat and slowly, carefully lowered himself overboard. The Thames was cold with a bite that was actually painful, but he forced himself to bear it.
The floodlighted White Tower was becoming visible again, closer than before. He took his bearings on it, sucked one last gulp of air into his lungs, then dove, bending at the waist, ducking his head downward, and raising his feet in the air.
In the darkness under the surface there was no way to tell direction. He moved like a programmed robot, following a prearranged course, trusting to memory to supply what the senses could not. He had, he knew, slightly more than one minute before he would have to surface. He swallowed, equalizing the pressure.
With vigorous kicks he set off in what he hoped was the right direction.
How would he know when he had gone far enough? Each of us has an inborn sense of time, and Richard Blade had developed his, learned to depend on it. If the time-sense failed, there were his lungs. His lungs would tell him when he could go no further.
There was a vague saltiness in the water.
He paid little attention to that, only to the cold.
The cold!
He had not realized that it would be so numbingly, horribly cold. Fragmentary pictures flashed through his mind. Penguin Club swimmers diving through holes cut in the ice. How long did they stay in the water? n.a.z.i experiments with cold during World War II. How long did the victims survive? These were things Richard suddenly wished he had studied more carefully, wished he had added to his vast store of trivia.
His sense of time said, "One minute." He unbuckled his weighted belt and let it drop, then drifted, not moving a muscle, letting his natural buoyancy lift him slowly, all too slowly, toward the surface.
His head broke water!
He rolled onto his back and inhaled joyfully once, twice, three times, while he took his bearings.
Yes, he was near the Tower embankment.
Yes, he was sheltered by that embankment from the view from the probable location of the guards.
Thank G.o.d, he thought, and went on breathing.
In the distance he could see his boat, almost invisible in the darkness and fog. The current would soon take it far downriver. He turned onto his belly, breathing more normally, and treaded water. He too was drifting, drifting beyond the place where he"d hoped to land. He thrust his feet downward.
As he"d expected, there was sand down there.
Smiling, though he was shivering uncontrollably, he waded against the current.
There, exactly where he"d expected it, was the Queen"s Stair leading up out of the water. He sat on a step, just above the water level, and removed his flippers and mask. He would need them no longer. He lowered them noiselessly into the black water and let them go.
When he felt he had fully recovered his wind, he started up the stairs. At the top, he knew, he would be exposed, but not for long.
At the head of the stairs he crouched, waiting for the fog to thicken, listening for the guards. There was nothing to be heard but the usual murmuring roar of the city and an occasional auto horn. He raised his head and peered around.
The fog closed in.
He sprang up and ran, clutching his tranquilizer pistol so it wouldn"t bang on his thigh. He glimpsed a few leafless trees, an ancient cannon pointed riverward, then he was over the rail and into the filled-in moat. Keeping low, he padded toward St. Thomas"s Tower, where he vaulted another fence and found himself in the broad archway of the Traitor"s Gate, leaning against the ma.s.sive grillwork.
He listened.
Nothing.
He looked around.
Nothing but slow-moving mist.
He located the heavy combination padlock at the center of the gate, dangling from a length of chain. Richard knew the ways of padlocks! He set to work.
One tumbler. Two.
It was easy, particularly since, having once seen the lock opened, he had a fair idea of the combination already.
The lock released on the first try.
He opened the ponderous gate, and it creaked. Had anyone heard? Apparently not. He slipped inside and resecured the chain, relocked the padlock.
In the yellow light from a single bare bulb in the ceiling, he crossed the inner chamber and located the secret door. It opened easily.
He pa.s.sed through and trotted along the dim damp tunnel beyond, through the maze of subbas.e.m.e.nts, on to the familiar elevator door.
Would his thumbprint still be stored in the computer"s memory banks? Why not? Everyone thought he was on the other side of the planet. Why would they bother to change the banks?
He pressed, the elevator b.u.t.ton firmly, letting the b.u.t.ton read his print; wondering what he would do if the computer rejected him.
With a swish the elevator arrived and opened.
Richard stepped inside. The door slid shut.
As the elevator plunged downward, he opened the mouth of his pillowcase bag, wondering, Will there be someone on duty at the entrance to the complex, next to the elevator door? Sometimes there was and sometimes there wasn"t. Special Services had become rather lax in the placement of its human guards for years now, putting too much confidence in supersophisticated electronic devices. Richard had warned them about that, but n.o.body had listened. Now he would give them a demonstration.
The elevator slowed to a stop. The heavy bronze door rolled open.
There was someone on duty, sitting at the olive drab desk in the brightly-lit foyer, reading a magazine, a lean fellow in green coveralls. As he looked up, surprised, Richard recognized him as Bill Jemison, one of Lord Leighton"s techmen.
"h.e.l.lo, Bill," Richard said casually, stepping from the elevator into the welcome warmth of the underground installation. The door closed behind him.
"Well, if it isn"t Richard Blade," Jemison answered. "I didn"t know you were back from the states."
"Leighton called me back for a mission." Richard noted that there was an intercom unit on Jemison"s desk. It would not do for Jemison to punch a b.u.t.ton on that unit and give the alarm.
"I see you"re already greased up," said Jemison.
"That"s right."
"I"m glad to see you looking so well. I heard the last trip was a rough one. Ferguson told me you might be hospitalized for a long while."
Good old Ferguson, Richard thought with irony. He said, "It wasn"t as bad as they thought. I"m fine now."
Jemison leaned back with a sigh. "So it"s one last mission, eh, before they close down the show? It"ll have to be a quick one if you"re going to be back before the PM"s boys come in the morning to pull our plug once and for all."
"In the morning? Yes, quite." This was the first Richard had heard of the new deadline, but he did not let his surprise show. Inwardly he was asking himself, Does that change my plans? No, I can"t let it.
Jemison said, "I"ll tell Lord Leighton you"re here." He leaned forward, reaching for the intercom b.u.t.ton.
Richard s.n.a.t.c.hed the tranquilizer pistol from its sack and pulled the trigger. There was a snick like the small explosive hiss of an angry cat. The dart lodged in Jemison"s neck.
Jemison looked toward Richard with amazement, then his eyes clouded and he began to slip forward out of his chair. Richard sprang forward and caught him, carefully lowering him onto the desk, head pillowed on arms. They"ll think you"re asleep, Richard mused with grim amus.e.m.e.nt. That"s nothing unusual around here. Still, someone might appear at any moment and try to wake him, and then all h.e.l.l would break loose.
Richard sprinted from the foyer and down a series of long door-lined corridors. Even for this late hour, the rooms along the hall were unusually silent, as if the project had already shut down. Why would anyone work, knowing it was all for nothing?
But the electronic sensors were still on duty no doubt, tracking his every step, weighing him, measuring him, listening to his heartbeat, his breathing, identifying him as one of those few men who could walk these pa.s.sageways without setting off an alarm. At the end of the final pa.s.sage a ma.s.sive door slid open, cued by the electronic surveillance system, and he entered the central computer complex.
The tiny blinking lights on the consoles indicated that the computers were not active, but were on standby. The lighting in the room was muted, but he could make out a glint of chrome here, a smooth plastic surface there, a maze of matt green cabinets covered with dials, switches and lights, with an occasional cathode ray tube, green-glowing like an otherworldly television screen.
Abruptly Richard was startled by an animalistic snort and wheeze, amplified and echoed by the bare rock walls. A snores Richard advanced and found, awkwardly sprawled in a chair before a readout unit, the dwarfish twisted form of the hunchbacked Leighton. On the worktable of the readout unit stood three empty bottles. There were other bottles on the floor. The air was filled with the reek of alcohol.
Richard stepped closer. There was a sheet of diagram paper on the table and several pencils. Had Leighton been working on something as he drank? Richard read the heading: "KALI program 280." Richard had never learned how to program computers, but over the years he had learned to read some parts of Leighton"s planning sheets. His eye scanned the columns, looking for something that would identify the purpose of this program.
He found it.
In the place set aside for the height and weight of the person to be sent into the X dimensions, Richard found not his own specifications, but Leighton"s. Leighton had been working on a program to send himself into the X dimensions! This frail old man was planning to launch himself on a journey that brought madness and death to voyagers who were young and strong. And if he survived, how could he return after the PM closed down the project? But of counse! Lord Leighton did not want to return. With his beloved project ended, what was left for him in this world?
Noiselessly Richard pa.s.sed the sleeping scientist and continued on.
The ma.s.sive vault door of KALI"s inner sanctum, her holy of holies, opened itself and stood open, waiting for him. Richard entered with a feeling of awe. The door swung shut. For the first time in his life, Richard was alone with the computers, without J, without the gnomelike Leighton. He seemed to sense, as he could never sense before, the presence of something . . . no, someone. The computer had perhaps been a mere machine once, when the project had begun, but now it was more. Where is the line that divides mechanical computation from conscious thought? Who can say? Richard only knew that somewhere, sometime in the years they"d been working on Project Dimension X, that line had been crossed without them noticing it.
KALI was not a thing.
KALI was a person.
Like a worshipper approaching an altar, Richard approached the control console. A small red light shone like a ruby eye above the only two switches that were active, the Program Stop and the Program Start. KALI was on standby. She was waiting for him. He laid aside his tranquilizer pistol. He knew she would not transport it. He slipped off his swimming trunks. He knew from experience they would not follow him into the worlds beyond the gateway, into other s.p.a.ce-time continuums, other universes. Only naked would she take him. Only naked would she give him a new birth on a different plane of existence.
He glanced at the box in which he would stand when he was launched. How like a coffin it was! And at the same time, how like a womb. Its copper-colored many-segmented interior gleamed in the subdued light. It stood open, waiting.
Like a hand. Like a mouth. Like a Venus"s-flytrap.
Richard hesitated no longer, but stepped forward and firmly pressed Program Start. The red light went out. A green-glowing digital clock lit up and began the countdown.
He crossed to the center of the room, to the wire-bedecked sarcophagus, as KALI inexorably raced through her preliminary sequences.
He stepped inside, leaned back against the cold metal, and thought about the Ngaa. I"m coming, Ngaa. Nothing stands in my way now.
And he thought of Zoe. He thought of Zoe for a long time.
The clock went on flickering, moving into the low numbers. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve.
Suddenly Richard heard the vault door open with a swish. He turned his head.
Lord Leighton was standing in the doorway, swaying drunkenly.
Behind his thick gla.s.ses, the little hunchback"s eyes were round and owl-like, black pupils rimmed with yellow. His mottled face was ashen, his halo of white hair a disheveled mop, his green smock more dirty and rumpled than Blade had ever seen it before. He took a halting step forward on his ruined legs, then almost fell, catching himself with an outthrust bird claw of a hand on the door jamb.
Only one word did the old man utter, but that word he shouted, setting the echoes ringing in the high-ceilinged rock-walled room.
"No!"
Richard watched him helplessly. It was too late to leave the launch box to try to stop Leighton. In an instant the box would shut, and he did not want to be outside then.