The Last Frontier

‘About the Russians, inevitably?’

‘Inevitably.’

‘And Mr Reynolds was all for conversion by annihilation?’

‘More or less.’ Jansci smiled. ‘It’s not so long since you felt the same way yourself.’

‘Age comes to us all.’ The Count crossed to a wall-cabinet, drew out a dark bottle, poured himself a half-tumblerful of liquid and looked at Reynolds. ‘Barack – apricot brandy, you would call it. Deadly. Avoid it like the plague. Home-made.’ As Reynolds watched in astonishment, he drank the contents without stopping, then refilled the glass. ‘You have not yet come to the business of the day?’

‘I’m coming to it now.’ Reynolds pushed back his plate, drank some more wine. ‘You gentlemen have heard, perhaps, of Dr Harold Jennings?’

Jansci’s eyes narrowed. ‘We have indeed. Who hasn’t?’

‘Exactly. Then you know what he’s like – an elderly dodderer well over seventy, short-sighted, amiable, a typically absent-minded professor in every respect but one. He has a brain like an electronic computer and is the world’s greatest expert and authority on the higher mathematics of ballistics and ballistic missiles.’

‘Which was why he was induced to defect to the Russians,’ the Count murmured.

‘He didn’t,’ Reynolds said flatly. ‘The world thinks he did, but the world is wrong.’

‘You are sure of this?’ Jansci was leaning far forward in his seat.

‘Certainly. Listen. At the time of the defection of other British scientists, old Jennings spoke out strongly, if unwisely, in their defence. He bitterly condemned what he called out-worn nationalism, and said that any man had the right to act according to the dictates of his mind, conscience and ideals. Almost immediately, as we expected, he was contacted by the Russians. He rebuffed them, told them to get the hell back to Moscow and said he fancied their brand of nationalism a damn’ sight less than his own: he had only been talking generally, he said.’

‘How can you be sure of this?’

‘We are sure – we had a tape recording of the entire conversation – we had the whole house wired. But we never made public the recording, and, after he had gone over to the Russians, it would have been too late – nobody would have believed us.’

‘Obviously,’ Jansci murmured. ‘And then, also obviously, you called off the watchdogs?’

‘We did,’ Reynolds admitted. ‘It would have made no difference anyway – we were watching the wrong party. Less than two months after the old boy’s interview with the Russian agents, Mrs Jennings and her sixteen-year-old schoolboy son, Brian – the professor married late in life – went to Switzerland for a holiday. Jennings was to have gone with them, but was held up by some important business at the last minute, so he let them go on alone, intending to rejoin them in two or three days in their Zurich hotel. He found his wife and son gone.’

‘Abducted, of course,’ Jansci said slowly. ‘And the Swiss-Austrian frontier is no barrier to determined men; but more likely, perhaps, by boat, at night.’

‘That’s what we thought,’ Reynolds nodded. ‘Lake Constance. Anyway, what’s certain is that Jennings was contacted within minutes of arriving at the hotel, told what had happened, and left in no doubt as to what lay in store for his wife and son if he didn’t immediately follow them behind the iron curtain. Jennings may be an old dodderer, but he’s not an old fool: he knew these people weren’t kidding, so he went at once.’

‘And now, of course, you want him back?’

‘We want him back. That’s why I’m here.’

Jansci smiled faintly. ‘It will be interesting to learn just how you propose to rescue him, Mr Reynolds, and, of course, his wife and son, for without them you achieve nothing. Three people, Mr Reynolds, an old man, a woman and a boy, a thousand miles to Moscow, and the snow lies deep upon the steppes.’

‘Not three people, Jansci: just one – the professor. And I don’t have to go to Moscow for him. He’s not two miles from where we’re sitting now, right here in Budapest.’

Jansci made no effort to conceal his astonishment.

‘Here? You’re sure of that, Mr Reynolds?’

‘Colonel Mackintosh was.’

‘Then Jennings must be here, he must be.’ Jansci twisted in his seat and looked at the Count. ‘Had you heard of this?’

‘Not a word. Nobody in our office knows of it, I’ll swear to that.’

‘All the world will know next week.’ Reynolds’ voice was quiet but positive. ‘When the International Scientific Conference opens here on Monday, the first paper will be read by Professor Jennings. He is being groomed to be the star of the show. It will be the Communists’ biggest propaganda triumph for years.’

‘I see, I see.’ Jansci drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table, then looked up sharply. ‘Professor Jennings, you said you only wanted the professor?’

Reynolds nodded.

‘Only the professor!’ Jansci stared at him. ‘God above, man, aren’t you aware what will happen to his wife and son? I assure you, Mr Reynolds, if you expect our assistance –’

‘Mrs Jennings is already in London.’ Reynolds held up his hand to forestall the questions. ‘She fell seriously ill about ten weeks ago, and Jennings insisted that she go to the London Clinic for treatment, and he forced the Communists to accede to his demands – you can’t coerce, torture or brainwash a man of the professor’s calibre without destroying his capacity for work, and he flatly refused to carry on working till they had granted his demands.’

‘He must be quite a man.’ The Count shook his head in admiration.

‘He’s a holy terror when something gets his back up,’ Reynolds smiled. ‘But it wasn’t all that much of an achievement. The Russians had everything to gain – the continued services of the greatest ballistic expert alive to-day – and nothing to lose. They held the two trump cards – Jennings and his son – in Russia and knew that Mrs Jennings would return: and they insisted that everything be done in the utmost secrecy. Not half a dozen people in Britain know that Mrs Jennings is in Britain; not even the surgeon who carried out the two major operations on her.’

‘She recovered?’

‘It was touch and go, but she recovered and she’s recuperating very well.’

‘The old man will be pleased,’ Jansci murmured. ‘His wife returns to Russia soon?’

‘His wife will never return to Russia again,’ Reynolds said bluntly. ‘And Jennings has no reason to be pleased. He thinks his wife is critically ill, and that what little hope there is is going fast. He thinks that, because that is what we have told him.’

‘What! What’s that?’ Jansci was on his feet now, the faded grey eyes cold and hard as tone. ‘God in heaven, Reynolds, what kind of inhuman conduct is that? You actually told the old man his wife was dying?’

‘Our people at home need him, and need him desperately: our scientists have been held up, completely blocked, on their latest project for ten weeks now, and they’re convinced that Jennings is the only man that can give them the breakthrough they must have.’

‘So they would use this despicable trick –’

‘It’s life or death, Jansci,’ Reynolds interrupted flatly. ‘It may literally be life or death for millions. Jennings must be moved and we will use every lever we can to that end.’

‘You think this is ethical, Reynolds? You think anything can justify –’

‘Whether I think these things or not doesn’t matter a damn,’ Reynolds said indifferently. ‘The pros and cons are not for me to decide. The only things that concern me are that I’ve been given a job to do: if it is possible in any way at all, I’ll get that job done.’

‘A ruthless and dangerous man,’ the Count murmured. ‘I told you. A killer, but he happens to be on the side of the law.’

‘Yes.’ Reynolds was unmoved. ‘And there’s another point. Like many other brilliant men, Jennings is rather naïve and short-sighted when it comes to matters outside his own speciality. Mrs Jennings tells us that the Russians have assured her husband that the project he is working on will be used for exclusively peaceful purposes. Jennings believes this. He’s a pacifist at heart, and so –’

‘All the best scientists are pacifists at heart.’ Jansci was sitting down now, but his eyes were still hostile. ‘All the best men everywhere are pacifists at heart.’

‘I’m not arguing. All I’m saying is that Jennings is now at the stage where he would sooner work for the Russians, if he thinks he is working for peace, than for his own people, if he knows he is working for war. Which makes him all the more difficult to move – and which – in turn, makes necessary the use of every lever that comes to hand.’

‘The fate of his young son is, of course, a matter of indifference.’ The Count waved an airy hand. ‘Where such tremendous stakes are at issue –’

‘Brian, his son, was in Poznan all day yesterday,’ Reynolds interrupted. ‘Some exposition or other, mainly for youth organizations. Two men shadowed him from the moment he got up. By noon to-morrow – to-day, that is – he’ll be in Stettin. Twenty-four hours later he’ll be in Sweden.’

‘Ah, so. But you are too confident, Reynolds, you underestimate Russian vigilance.’ The Count was regarding him thoughtfully over the rim of his brandy glass. ‘Agents have been known to fail.’

‘These two agents have never failed. They are the best in Europe. Brian Jennings will be in Sweden tomorrow. The call-sign comes from London on a regular European transmission. Then, and not till then, we approach Jennings.’

‘So.’ The Count nodded. ‘Perhaps you have some humanity after all.’

‘Humanity!’ Jansci’s voice was cold still, almost contemptuous. ‘Just another lever to use against the poor old man – and Reynolds’ people know very well that if they left the boy to die in Russia Jennings would never work for them again.’

The Count lit another of his interminable chain of brown cigarettes.

‘Perhaps we are being too harsh. Perhaps, here, self-interest and humanity go hand in hand. “Perhaps,” I said … And what if Jennings still refuses to go?’

‘Then he’ll just have to go whether he wants to or not.’

‘Wonderful! Just wonderful!’ The Count smiled wryly. ‘What a picture for Pravda. Our friends here lugging Jennings by the heels across the border and the caption “British Secret Agent Liberates Western Scientist.” Can’t you just see it, Mr Reynolds?’

Reynolds shrugged and said nothing. He was only too keenly aware of the change of atmosphere in the past five minutes, the undercurrent of hostility that now ran strongly towards himself. But he had had to tell Jansci everything – Colonel Mackintosh had been insistent on that point, and it had been inevitable if they were to have Jansci’s help. The offer of help, if it were to be made at all, now hung in the balance – and without it, Reynolds knew, he might as well have saved himself the trouble of coming at all … Two minutes passed in silence, then Jansci and the Count looked at one another and exchanged an almost imperceptible nod. Jansci looked squarely at Reynolds.

‘If all your countrymen were like you, Mr Reynolds, I wouldn’t lift a finger to help you: cold-blooded, emotionless people to whom right and wrong, justice and injustice, and suffering are matters of academic disinterest are as guilty, by silence of consent, as the barbarous murderers of whom you so recently spoke: but I know they are not all like you: neither would I help if it were only to enable your scientists to make machines of war. But Colonel Mackintosh was – is – my friend and I think it inhuman, no matter what the cause, that an old man should die in a foreign land, among uncaring strangers, far from his family and those he loves. If it lies in our power, in any way at all, we will see to it, with God’s help, that the old man comes safely home again.’

FOUR

The inevitable cigarette holder clipped between his teeth, the inevitable Russian cigarette well alight, the Count leaned a heavy elbow on the buzzer and kept on leaning until a shirt-sleeved little man, unshaven and still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, came scurrying out from the little cubicle behind the hotel’s reception desk. The Count eyed him with disfavour.

‘Night-porters should sleep in the daytime,’ he said coldly. ‘The manager, little man, and at once.’

‘The manager? At this hour of the night?’ The night-porter stared with ill-concealed insolence at the clock above his head, transferred his stare to the Count, now innocuously dressed in a grey suit and grey raglan raincoat, and made no effort at all to conceal the truculence in his voice. ‘The manager is asleep. Come back in the morning.’

There came a sudden sound of ripping linen, a gasp of pain, and the Count, his right hand gripping the bunched folds of the porter’s shirt, had him halfway across the desk: the blood-shot, sleep-filmed eyes, widened first with surprise and then with fear, were only inches away from the wallet that had magically appeared in the Count’s free hand. A moment of stillness, a contemptuous shove and the porter was scrabbling frantically at the pigeon-holed mail racks behind him in an attempt to keep his balance.

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