The Sentinel - Arthur C. Clarke [25]
III
There were three other men round the table in the bare but brightly lit room. They looked up with interest and more than a little awe as Stormgren entered, and a substantial pile of meat sandwiches was quickly placed before him. He could have done with a more interesting meal, for he felt extremely hungry, but it was very obvious that his captors had dined no better.
As he ate, he glanced quickly at the four men around him. Joe was by far the most outstanding character—not merely in physical bulk. The others were nondescript individuals, probably Europeans also. He would be able to place them when he heard them talk.
He pushed away the plate, and ignoring the other men spoke directly to the huge Pole.
“Well,” he said evenly, “now perhaps you’ll tell me what this is all about, and what you hope to get out of it.”
Joe cleared his throat.
“I’d like to make one thing clear,” he said. “This is nothing to do with Wainwright. He’ll be as surprised as anyone.”
Stormgren had rather expected this. It gave him relatively little satisfaction to confirm the existence of an extremist movement inside the Freedom League.
“As a matter of interest,” he said, “how did you kidnap me?”
He hardly expected a reply, and was taken aback by the other’s readiness—even eagerness—to answer. Only slowly did he guess the reason.
“It was all rather like one of those old Fritz Lang films,” said Joe cheerfully. “We weren’t sure if Karellen had a watch on you, so we took somewhat elaborate precautions. You were knocked out by gas in the air conditioner: that was easy. Then we carried you out into the car and drove off—no trouble at all. All this, I might say, wasn’t done by any of our people. We hired—er, professionals for the job. Karellen may get them—in fact, he’s supposed to—but he’ll be no wiser. When it left your house the car drove into a long road tunnel not many miles from the center of London. It came out again on schedule at the other end, still carrying a drugged man extraordinarily like the Secretary-General. About the same time a large truck loaded with metal cases emerged in the opposite direction and drove to a certain airfield where one of the cases was loaded aboard a freighter. Meanwhile the car that had done the job continued elaborate evasive action in the general direction of Scotland. Perhaps Karellen’s caught it by now: I don’t know. As you’ll see—I do hope you appreciate my frankness—our whole plan depended on one thing. We’re pretty sure that Karellen can see and hear everything that happens on the surface of the Earth—but unless he uses magic, not science, he can’t see underneath it. So he won’t know about that transfer in the tunnel. Naturally we’ve taken a risk, but there were also one or two other stages in your removal which I won’t go into now. We may have to use them again one day, and it would be a pity to give them away.”
Joe had related the whole story with such obvious gusto that Stormgren found it difficult to be appropriately furious. Yet he felt very disturbed. The plan was an ingenious one, and it seemed more than likely that whatever watch Karellen kept on him, he would have been tricked by this ruse.
The Pole was watching Stormgren’s reactions closely. He would have to appear confident, whatever his real feelings.
“You must be a lot of fools,” said Stormgren scornfully, “if you think you can trick the Overlords like this. In any case, what conceivable good would it do?”
Joe offered him a cigarette, which Stormgren refused, then lit one himself and sat on the edge of the table. There