The Stone-­Cold Dead in the Market Affair - Oram John. Страница 10

"That's the way it looks," Illya admitted. "But don't bank on it. You might be disappointed."

Price Hughes shook his head. "You have been a nuisance," he said. "No doubt you have sent a certain amount of information back to your headquarters. But it was useless. U.N.C.L.E. can do nothing to stop us now. We have worked here undisturbed for almost six years. Our mission is practically completed. Even without your intervention we should have left Cwm Carrog within the next week. Nothing remains but to dismantle the plant. You have merely made it necessary to expedite out departure."

Blodwen said, "That doesn't make sense. None of your phony notes appeared until your man turned up stone-cold dead in the market. What have you been doing for the past six years? Just practicing?"

He cackled again. "You see?" he said. "You don't think things through. We are not common forgers. It was never our intention to circulate the currency piecemeal. During our operation, paper to the face value of one hundred million pounds has been transported from Britain and lodged in secret depositories throughout Europe and the United States. Soon it will be released — not by degrees but in a sudden flood. And the result will be world-wide chaos."

He sank back into his chair, his eyes suddenly dull. "Take them away," he said to Morgan. "Lock them up."

Illya said, "One moment. Just to satisfy my professional curiosity, how did you achieve such perfect reproductions?" He put real regret into his voice. "That I should like to have seen."

Price Hughes drummed his fingers on the tabletop considering. Then he replied, "There is no reason why you shouldn't. It can make no difference now." He looked up at Morgan. "Show them your handiwork before you put them away."

Morgan said with the pride of an artist, "It will be a pleasure."

Chapter Seven

They went back into the hall. Morgan whistled and Rafferty came from the kitchen at the double. Morgan handed him the tommy-gun and said, "Keep them covered."

He walked across to the grandfather clock, opened the glass door over the clock face, set the hands to twelve o'clock and stepped back. The clock whirred and swung away from the wall on oiled hinges, revealing a short brick corridor that opened into a brilliantly lit room. There was an acrid odor of printing ink and acid. An electric motor crooned in a high register.

Morgan led the way through the corridor. Rafferty with the gun brought up the rear.

Batteries of neon tubes in the high ceiling flooded the room with an effect approximating natural light. The place looked more like an electricity generating station than a printing plant. At one end, covering almost the entire wall, there was an ebonite panel where red, green and yellow lamps glowed and winked like small circular eyes and needles quivered against white dials. The humming sound came from a single long, low-built machine which extended down the center of the room. It was entirely enclosed by gunmetal gray panels in some form of plastic, and at intervals along its length there were shielded observation peepholes. Toward the farther end there was a domed extrusion like the gun turret of a bomber.

Stacked high against one wall of the room were flat rectangular packages that Illya guessed contained bank-note paper. Along the other wall were ranged crates bound with thin metal strips.

There was only one man in the room. He was sitting at the desk near the machine, studying a set of graphs. He wore a white laboratory coat over an open green shirt and cavalry twill slacks. His hands bore the yellow stain of acid. He looked up, did a double-take when he saw the poodle in Blodwen's arms, then returned to his work without a word.

Illya said, "Well, well! So this is the instant-currency plant. How does it work?"

"It's simple, really." Hugh ap Morgan spoke deprecatingly, in the way inventors do. "It was just a matter of applying automation to the job. The old-time forger was too slow — and too uncertain. It is not easy to copy a note by hand. The best of craftsmen made mistakes. And photo-reproduction had its drawbacks. There was the matter of numbering, for instance." His voice took on the singsong intonation of the North Welshman as he warmed to his lecture.

"Now we have cut out all that. My press works on the continuous process, and it is completely automatic. There is no place for human error. The press does everything — and does it perfectly. Only the paper is not quite right — and that is not our fault. It is made elsewhere, unfortunately. The heart of the machine, and the first stage, is the computer.

He took a pound note from his trousers pocket and called to the man in the white coat. "Mr. Jones, if you please, will you come and demonstrate?"

Jones got up from the desk, went to the ebonite control panel and made adjustments. He returned, took the note from Morgan's hand and crossed to the head of the machine.

Morgan said, "Now watch."

Jones fitted the note into what looked like the dark-slide of an old-fashioned plate camera. He dropped the slide into a slot and turned a switch. The hum of the electric motor rose to a higher pitch. Lights on the control panel danced crazily.

Morgan said, "The computer is scanning and absorbing every detail of the note. The knowledge will now be fed to the etching, printing and numbering sections. Now come with me."

He led them to the far end of the machine. They saw brand-new pound notes stacking themselves with lightning rapidity into a glass receiver.

Morgan signaled to the man in the white coat. The sound of the motor died to its original low humming. The stream of notes stopped.

Morgan picked the top dozen from the pile and splayed them fanwise. "You see? They are numbered individually — but not consecutively. When they go into circulation there'll be no chance of putting a warning out to block a series. The numbering is quite random."

"Very clever," Illya said. "It's almost a pity your boss will be picked up before the scheme has time to get under way."

"If he is," Morgan retorted surprisingly, "it won't matter. He's expendable, like the rest of us. What gave you the idea he was heading the operation?" He motioned toward the door. "You've seen all there is to see. It's time I put you to bed."

As they passed the man in the white coat he grinned and invited, "Come again."

"We should live so long," Blodwen said gloomily.

They went out through the hall and the kitchen into the yard.

Rafferty asked, "The usual?" and Morgan said, "Where else?" He led the way across the yard to the brick-built barn and opened the door. There was a warm smell of cows and hay. The concrete floor was newly washed.

A heavy oak door was set into the far wall of the barn. Morgan unlocked it and stood aside. Rafferty said, "In!" It seemed to be his favorite word. He jabbed Illya in the back with the muzzle of the tommy-gun. Illya stumbled over the threshold, almost sending Blodwen sprawling. The door slammed behind them and the key turned in the lock.

Blodwen looked around her. She said, "Charming, though perhaps a bit austere."

The chamber in which they were standing measured about ten feet by eight. Walls, ceiling and floor were smooth concrete and the inside surface of the door was a sheet of steel. There were no windows. The only light came from a low-wattage bulb behind a thick glass cover set into the ceiling. There was no furniture of any kind. The air smelled cold and damp.