Spain’s grin disappeared. “What’s the matter with you, Hutch? I was only trying to borrow a sharpener.”
Hutchman went to the inner door to Muriel’s office and slammed it shut. “That’s a lie,” he stated flatly. “And the reason I know it’s a lie is that you’ve been though my desk so many times you could find the sharpener in the dark. No, Spain, the truth of the matter is that you’re a creepy, prying little bastard.”
Brick-coloured smudges appeared in the gray of Spain’s cheeks. “Who do you…?”
“And if I ever find you in this office again I’ll squash you.”
A look of incredulity flitted across Spain’s face, followed by one of anger. “Don’t get carried away, Hutch. I’ve no interest in your bloody scrawls, and I’m not going to let a big drink of water like you talk to me as…”
Lifting the varnished pebble paperweight from his desk, Hutchman made as if to throw it. Spain ducked aside with comic agility and vanished into Muriel’s office. Hutchman sat down at his desk and waited for his nerves to settle. He had wanted to do that for years, but perhaps it would have been better to hold himself in check a little longer. His little display would be widely reported by Spain and Muriel throughout Westfield’s just at a time when he wanted to blend into the background.
He inspected the secure drawer and was relieved to find that his mailing list of government departments, politicians, and influential scientists was close to the bottom and folded in such a way that Spain would probably have passed it by. From now on he would keep all his paperwork on his person, but what about the machine itself?
Hutchman slumped in his chair and stared through the office windows, scored diagonally by occasional raindrops, at autumncoloured trees. The machine, which was barely portable, could not stay at the Jeavons. To blackmail the nuclear powers, to convert megadeaths to megalives, he would have to set the machine up in a secret place. It would not matter if it was traced eventually, because his would only be the first — once the knowledge of how to build it was disseminated others would be produced from time to time, in hidden rooms. And nobody would be able to risk owning baubles of gray metal. Ever again, Vicky. Ever again.
Hutchman stood up and regarded his image in the glass partition, allowing himself a moment of paranoic indulgence. The shadow man he was looking at, the tall figure with sculptured black hair and long dry hands thrown into prominence by a stray beam of light, was the Lucas Hutchman the rest of the world saw. That Lucas Hutchman — keep on referring to yourself in the third person, Hutch, classical symptom — was going to take on the whole world single-handed. And one day that man’s wife would understand, finally, when it was too late. And that man’s wife would know her own guilt.
Disturbed at the pleasure the game gave him, Hutchman sat down abruptly and shuffled through his notes and sketches. They were all done on Westfield graph paper but that could be rendered anonymous by trimming the name from the top. The trouble was that his scribbles might be impossible for a foreigner to decipher — and it would be better if his handwriting did not appear anywhere in the folio. He went into Muriel’s claustrophobic office and, ignoring her wary gaze, took a sheaf of plain copy paper from her desk without speaking. It took him almost an hour to write out the entire maths for a neutron resonator and to detail his version of the hardware, using block letters throughout.
As soon as the job was finished he put the paperwork into his briefcase, and began to think about a suitable hiding place for the machine. Somewhere along the south coast, perhaps? He looked at the classified phone directory, found six names of estate agents in Crymchurch, and began calling them in alphabetical order. The second one was able to offer him a cottage in Hastings. Hutchman reached for his scrap pad to write down the address and discovered he had left it on his bookcase. He swore impatiently, then jotted the information on the side of a new green eraser.
“This sounds as though it could be just what I’m looking for,” he told the girl at the other end of the line. “I’ll call at your office later today.”
He told Muriel, by way of the intercom, that he was going out on private business for an hour, and took his briefcase out to his car. It was warm for November but a despairing sky was sagging between the tops of trees and buildings, and rain was falling with the quiet assurance that it would continue for the rest of the day. As he drove into Crymchurch water droplets crawled along the side-windows like frantic amoebae. Hutchman parked in the town center then went to an office-equipment supplier and bought a used copying machine and a supply of paper for £60. He paid in cash, using the money Vicky had given him to replenish their current account, and avoided giving his name. With the copier stowed in the back of his car he walked slowly along the glistening main street looking for the office of the estate agent he had telephoned. It was the third he reached and in the window was a photograph of the house. It was a terrace house, to rent on a winter-only basis. Hutchman estimated that Hastings was about sixty miles away — a ninety-minute drive — which would be about right for his purpose. It was convenient enough to let him install the machine there without suspicious absences from home, yet far enough away so that he could hide efficiently when the time came. He went into the agent’s office and in less than half an hour had rented the house until the beginning of April, claiming he was a writer who wanted to get away in solitude to complete a book. Again he gave a false name, paid the full rental in advance by cash, and came out with two new keys and the unfamiliar address written on a scrap of paper in his pocket.
His next call was as Woolworth’s, where he bought several hundred cheap envelopes of a kind which were on sale all over the country. At the general post office he bought sheets of airmail and inland stamps, and put them into his briefcase. A check on the time showed him it was close to his lunch hour so he went into one of his favorite inns in Crymchurch. Joe’s was a dismal little place which scorned the midday soup-and-coffee trade but supplied hot Irish whiskey exactly the way he liked it. Seated in a dim corner, with the sweet aromatic drink at hand, he took a sheet of paper from his case and began to compose a letter.
He started with the words, “To whom it may concern.” They were dismayingly unoriginal, but Hutchman considered them relevant. He had two more whiskies while finishing the draft letter, then read it over.
“This letter is the most important that you will ever read.
“Its contents are of supreme importance to the security of your country, and to the welfare of the entire human race.
“When you have read it you will be personally responsible for ensuring that the proper steps are taken.
“Your own conscience must decide what those steps are.
“The documents accompanying this letter are:
“a.A mathematical proof that it is possible to build a neutron resonator based on a cestron laser. The radiation will be self-propogating and will have the effect of artificially stimulating neutron flux in all concentrations of fissionable material approaching critical mass. In other words, activation of the device will cause virtually instantaneous detonation of every nuclear bomb on this planet!
“b.A schematic showing one simple form of neutron resonator which can be built in a matter of days.
“Read the following paragraph carefully:
“THIS MACHINE IS ALREADY IN EXISTENCE. IT WILL BE ACTIVATED AT NOON GMT ON 10TH NOVEMBER 1988. YOU MUST NOW ACT ACCORDINGLY!”
To Hutchman’s critical gaze, the letter was reminiscent of one of the injunctions he often received from book clubs, but he was satisfied that it would serve its purpose. All the salesmanship that was required would be carried out on his behalf by the closely written pages of maths. They would present his credentials to every member of the world fraternity of mathematicians who were capable of working on that plane, who would in turn influence others, who would in turn… The letter itself, he realized suddenly, was a form of neutron resonator. One which would produce a chain reaction on the human level.