A Cure for Cancer, Page 3

  Sabotage was only a sideline with Jerry Cornelius, but he prided himself that he was good at it.

  “What do you achieve,” a girl had once asked him, stroking the muscles of his stomach, “what do you achieve by the destruction of the odd library? There are so many. How much can one man do?”

  “What he can,” Cornelius had told her, rolling on her. “It’s History that’s caused all the trouble in the past.”

  * * *

  Jerry glanced at the huge green-dialled watch on his left wrist. 14.41.

  He sent the Phantom VI racing forward, heading away from the City, his headlamps changing the colour of the mist rather than piercing it. Muscles and silk rippled together as he raised one jet-black hand to smooth his white hair from the jet-black forehead. He swung the wheel suddenly to avoid the back of a bus, hooted his horn as he passed on into the mist, fingertips on wheel. Tower Bridge was ahead, open to traffic, and he raced over it, made the Elephant and Castle roundabout, whisked round it and reached eighty miles an hour as he passed over Waterloo Bridge where the mist was thinner, and the West End, whose great, jewelled towers were the city’s distinctive feature, was ahead of him.

  “Oh, psychedelic!” he murmured.

  He had to be in Greek Street in five minutes. He would make it easily now.

  He had to meet Spiro Koutrouboussis, his chief contact with the organisation.

  Koutrouboussis, one of a number of handsome young Greek millionaires who belonged to the organisation, was dark-haired and slender, from Petrai originally, but now a refugee, a nationalised Israeli subject, proving just how far-sighted he was.

  Leaving the thrumming Rolls in the street outside the Mercury Club, Koutrouboussis’s favourite meeting place, Jerry stepped over the mist-silvered pavement and entered the warm, neon-lit club where he was greeted with some enthusiasm by the doorman who gratefully received the twenty-dollar tip.

  Cornelius ignored the dining part of the club, where people sat in red plush seats and ate off golden plates the finest French cuisine available anywhere in the world.

  He took the stairs two at a time and bumped into Koutrouboussis who was waiting there. Koutrouboussis rubbed his side, his eyes looking rapidly from Jerry’s right foot to his left and back again.

  “The same old shoes, I see,” he said spitefully, and wheeled about to lead Cornelius into the private room he had on permanent hire.

  2. EX-BANK CLERK SLAVE GIRL IN PRIVATE SIN PALACE

  “How did you manage to get through this,” Koutrouboussis asked, burying himself in the shadows of a leather armchair by the fire while a sequinned girl poured them Pernod from a gleaming decanter on her hip, “time?”

  Jerry stroked his glass. “They thought I was a visiting disc jockey from France. It worked well enough and long enough.” There were few long-range airships and, to its joy, the nation was blockaded by the radio ships. Jerry downed the yellow drink and held out his glass. The girl was an organisation convert and very successful and very happy; she smiled sweetly at Cornelius as she filled his glass; she had once been a clerk in a bank, had worn a green overall and counted money. Her place had been taken by another convert who had originally worked as a hostess just round the corner. The organisation was very neat, on the whole.

  Koutrouboussis’s eyes glowed from the shadows as he darted a look of jealousy at Cornelius. The poor man had sacrificed himself for others, but he could not help resenting them from time to time.

  “Ah,” he said.

  “The organisation got the French delivery?” Cornelius said. “Thirty-two. Fifteen men, seventeen women?”

  “Oh, yes. In good time,” Koutrouboussis said with a secret in his mellowing eyes.

  “That was important,” Cornelius murmured. “I’m glad. You were to settle here.”

  “It’s been arranged. Sixty-four thousand pounds in hard yen in your London account under the name of Aserinsky. Well worth it.”

  Jerry worked on a strict commission basis. It preserved autonomy and had been part of the original contract when he had surrendered admin control to the Greeks. “Have they been processed yet?”

  “A few. It should be a successful batch, I think.”

  Jerry held out his glass for another drink; Pernod was the only alcohol he really liked and in this he was a child.

  “But we’re having trouble,” Koutrouboussis added. “Opposition…”

  “That’s not—”

  “—unusual, I know. But in this case the opposition seems to realise what we’re up to. I mean, they understand what we’re doing.”

  “A tip-off?”

  “Could be. But does—it doesn’t matter.”

  “No.”

  “This group,” continued Koutrouboussis, “is an international one with its headquarters in America…”

  “Where else? Official?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps. The difficulties…”

  “Difficult for them to operate and for us to reach them, of course. But do you…?”

  “We don’t want you to go there.”

  Jerry leaned back in his chair. He looked nervously at the flickering fire in the grate nearby, but it offered no danger. He relaxed.

  “It’s the German chapter that seems to be offering us the serious threat at this stage.” Koutrouboussis cleaned his nails with a toothpick. “We know one of them—a woman. She’s a dental surgeon living in Cologne. Already she’s deconverted some half-dozen of our German people.”

  “Turned them on and turned them back?”

  “Exactly. The usual method. But much smoother.”

  “So she’s got a good idea of our process.”

  “To the last detail, apparently. Some Russian source, I think—the leak. Maybe the Patriarch himself, eh?”

  “You want me to kill her?”

  “How you work is up to you.” Koutrouboussis fingered his lips.

  Jerry’s black face glistened in the firelight. He frowned. “We’d prefer a conversion, I suppose.”

  “Always. But if you can’t save a soul, get rid of it.” Koutrouboussis smirked with self-approval (although normally he did not at all approve of his self).

  “The organisation isn’t in agreement on that issue,” Jerry pointed out. “Repent or die.”

  “Quite.”

  “Well. I’ll see what I can do.” Jerry stroked the girl’s pelvis. “And I go to Cologne, eh?”

  “It might be an idea,” Koutrouboussis said uncertainly. “To get yourself fully in the picture—but you needn’t do anything there. She’s coming to Britain, we gather, shortly, to organise the British chapter.”

  Unsettled by the Greek’s somewhat puritanical attitude (natural, he supposed, for a man who had given up so much), Jerry drank another glass of Pernod, feeling a trifle lightheaded. The flavour of the aniseed was firmly on his palate now. If he were going to enjoy his dinner, he had better stop.

  “Bring me a glass of ice-water, darling, will you please?” He patted the girl’s thigh.

  “That would be the best time to strike,” Koutrouboussis suggested. “Off her own territory and on yours.”

  Jerry reached out for the water and drank it slowly. “What’s her name?”

  “Name?”

  “What’s she called?”

  “Name.”

  * * *

  Koutrouboussis made an urgent, spasmodic gesture with his right hand. He breathed heavily.

  * * *

  “Doctor…” he began. “Karen—Karen…”

  Jerry reached up and pulled the girl to him. They kissed each other firmly and pulling off their clothes lay down on the floor and fucked with hot and hasty passion.

  * * *

  “… von…”

  Snorting and quivering, they came.

  “… Krupp.”

  “What was that again?” Jerry did up his trousers.

  “Dr Karen von Krupp. It’s a lot to remember.”

  “Got it.”

  Jerry felt only pity. For some me
n, immortality was not enough.

  “Her address in Cologne?”

  “She lives outside Cologne. A small town to the west. Nibelburg. Look for the old Gothic stone tower. That’s where she has her surgery.”

  * * *

  “So I go to her and ask her to check my teeth.” Jerry tapped his whitened choppers.

  “She’ll guess who you are.”

  “Will she try to detail me?”

  “Make sure she doesn’t,” Koutrouboussis said nervously. “Not you, Cornelius. We can’t afford it.”

  Jerry smiled. He could smell the first course, moules marinière, just before there was a knock on the door and the waiter pushed the trolley into the room.

  3. US NAVY SHIPS TURNED ‘PIRATE’!!!

  Koutrouboussis had given him his route plan, but how he crossed from Dover to Ostend was his own affair. It was more than twenty miles of sea, and three miles out was the tight circle of well-armed US ‘pirate’ radio ships.

  Jerry’s Phantom VI, a streak of pink power on the white, sparkling road, roared through the clear sunlight of the autumn afternoon, making for Dover.

  Wearing his pandaskin coat and a white silk turban in which was set a jewelled clasp supporting a spray of peacock feathers, Jerry stretched comfortably in his seat. He was disguised sufficiently to fool a casual observer and he hoped, too, that Karen von Krupp would not immediately recognise him for what he was.

  Jerry saw the bright ruin of the silver bridge that had once spanned the sea between England and France and which had collapsed in a tangle of flashing strands shortly after it had been built. Above it a metal ornithopter wheeled.

  Now he could see the sea ahead, the little blue waves glinting in the sun, and the road began to slope towards it. Jerry decelerated gradually, switching controls in the convertible until, when the road slid into the sea, the Phantom VI had become a speedboat.

  * * *

  Gracefully, and without slackening speed, the Rolls cut across the water and before long the outlines of the ring of ships could be seen. Jerry touched another control.

  This was his first opportunity to try out the car’s new feature, for which he had paid a hundred and fifty thousand marks.

  There was a soft, muttering sound and the Rolls-Royce began to sink beneath the ocean. It was capable of submerging only a matter of feet and for short distances, but it would probably see him through.

  His speed had decreased considerably now. He peered through the murky water, looking upwards, and soon saw the keels of the radio ships ahead. Their sonar was bound to detect him and they would begin dropping depth charges almost at once, but with luck they would detonate well below him and a vessel as small as his would be hard to pinpoint with any great accuracy.

  * * *

  They had a fix.

  He saw the first charge plunge into the water on his right and fall towards the ocean bed.

  Then another fell close to it, and another on his left, another behind him.

  He watched them sink.

  One by one the shock waves rose, threatening to blow him to the surface under the Yankees’ guns.

  The car rocked. Its forward course was deflected by a further series of shock waves.

  Jerry kept firm control of the wheel, letting the car move with the waves, waiting until they had died before pressing on, beneath the ships’ keels and beyond them.

  More depth charges struck the water and floated down.

  One of the blue steel canisters brushed the side of the car and he swung violently away as, below him, it exploded, catching the rear and almost turning the Rolls end over end.

  Jerry was thrown forward against the wheel. Another charge went off. The water was cloudy. He lost his bearings.

  The car spiralled to a dangerous depth; he managed to switch on the interior lights and regain control as he began to somersault.

  * * *

  Checking the instruments, he judged he was out of range. He began to rise.

  Breaking through the waves, the limousine continued its stately way across the surface. Looking back, Jerry could see the ships behind him.

  A few guns blew black smoke from their muzzles, he heard the roar as they fired, saw the shells splash into the sea and burst on either side of him, spraying the canopy of the car with water and momentarily making him lose visibility.

  He smiled. Before they got his range, he would be over the horizon.

  Until the radio ships thought of putting down anti-sub nets, the car would be useful.

  Dashing like a dolphin through the warm water, the Rolls-Royce was soon in sight of Ostend and a similar concrete roadway. It hit the road smoothly under Cornelius’s control, reconverted and was bowling along the road to Brussels without a moment’s interruption.

  * * *

  He bought a paper at a roadside kiosk, saw that Israel had annexed Ukraine and that another hundred thousand US military advisors had been flown into European HQ, Bonn.

  And the sun was setting.

  The act of running the radio-ship blockade had tired him a trifle and he planned to spend the night at an organisation-approved hotel in Brussels.

  Soon Brussels lay ahead, all baroque red and gold in the sunset, sweet city of nostalgia.

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  1. DOPE PUSHING PREACHER WAS PEEPING TOM

  Bishop Beesley placed a bar of Turkish Delight into his large, wet mouth, smiled as he chewed the soft chocolate and jelly, and unwrapped another bar. He swallowed, licked his lips with his grey tongue, and picked up his pen.

  In the lounge of the Golden Orrery, one of the best hotels in Brussels, he was polishing up the newspaper article he was writing. It was called ‘Heroin: A Cure for Cancer?’ and would appear the following Sunday. He had written for the Christian Science Monitor for some years. Before the dissolution of the clergy, he had done the regular ‘From My Pulpit’ feature, and afterwards, when the Monitor had to change its policy to fit in with modern trends, had changed the name of his column to ‘From My Viewpoint’. Journalism, however, did not pay him sufficiently and was really just a useful sideline.

  From where he sat, Bishop Beesley could see the main entrance of the hotel and he looked up as the glass doors swung open. Through them came a man carrying a light grip and dressed in a black-and-white fur coat. The man appeared to be an Indian, for his skin was black and he wore an elaborate turban and what the bishop considered a rather vulgar silk suit. The man walked to the reception desk and spoke to the clerk who handed him a key.

  The bishop popped the unwrapped bar of Turkish Delight into his mouth and resumed work.

  It did not take him long to complete the article, put it into an envelope, address and stamp the envelope and walk to the hotel’s mailbox where he posted it.

  He looked at the clock over the reception desk and saw that dessert would be served about now. He walked across the foyer to the dining room and entered it. The dining room was half-full. Two or three family groups sat at tables along the walls, a few businessmen with their wives or secretaries ate at other tables, and at the far end sat the Indian who seemed to have chosen pheasant, the hotel’s speciality.

  Bishop Beesley hated the whole idea of meat. He hated the whole idea of vegetables, for that matter, but the orange bombes were unmatched anywhere and it was for them that he came to the Golden Orrery.

  With a great deal of dignity he sat his full buttocks down on the well-stuffed chair and put his pale hands on the cloth.

  There was no need to order.

  Very shortly a waiter appeared with the first of the six orange bombes that the bishop would eat tonight, as he ate every night when in Brussels.

  The bishop picked up fork and spoon and bent his nose over the dessert, his eyes watering with delight.

  Although absorbed in pleasure, the bishop could not help noticing the Indian when the man got up and walked past his table. He walked so lithely, there
was such a sense of physical power about him, that the bishop wondered for an instant if he were all he seemed to be.

  Though he had paused only a split second in his eating, it was enough to bring the bishop back to his fourth orange bombe with added relish.

  Rising, at length, from the table, he decided to get an early night. He had a busy morning to look forward to.

  * * *

  Jerry Cornelius took off his turban and flipped it onto the chair beside the bed. Una Persson looked a little surprised by the colour of his hair; her full lips parted and she moved her body on the bed.

  Like a big, black boa constrictor he slid from his silks and came slowly towards her, taking her shoulders in his strong hands, pulling her so that her pink breasts pressed against his ebony chest and she drew a deep breath before his lips touched her rose-soft mouth, his tongue stroked hers and love boiled in their bodies, rising, rising, rising in volume with the glory of the very finest Gregorian chant; tempo increasing, flesh flush against flesh, mouth against mouth, hands moving, bodies fusing, teeth biting, voices shouting fit to wake the dead.

  He lay beside her with the smell of her body in his nostrils, trying not to breathe too heavily so that the smell would stay there as long as possible. He put an arm around her shoulders and she settled against him, her long, fine dark brown hair brushing his skin. For a while they lay still and then he took his cigarettes from beside the bed and lit one each for them.

  He had not expected to meet another organisation operative in the Golden Orrery: Koutrouboussis had said nothing about it. But Una had recognised him in the corridor outside his room, though he did not know her.

  “What are you doing here?” he’d asked.

  “Looking for you.” Una took her opportunities while she could.

  Now he said it again.

  “I’ve just delivered a consignment,” she told him. “On my way back to England now. It was a touchy job—all kinds of trouble. Are you looking for potentials here?”