Scorpion [Scorpions 01] Read online

  ‘Harry, I want to ask a favor,’ Chris said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Did Les ever mention an article he was planning on the nuclear energy problem?’

  Farnum smiled. ‘He hardly ever stopped mentioning it. Why?’

  ‘Because he’d already done a lot of work on it before he died,’ Chris said.

  ‘Pity it isn’t finished.’

  ‘It practically is. Except for tidying up and adding one last bit of information.’

  ‘Maybe we can do something with it,’ Farnum said. ‘I should think one of the boys could pull it into shape.’

  ‘Harry, that’s the favor I want to ask.’ Chris paused. ‘Let me finish the article, follow up the last piece of information.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Farnum said. ‘For one thing you’re no journalist. What would the union say if they knew I’d let a non-member take over a story? Jesus, girl, when you ask a favor you damn well know how to ask!’

  ‘Harry, this is important to me. If it hadn’t been for Les, the Long Point Protestors would have lost a lot of their strength. I know how hard he fought for us. You made him sweat for every word he got in the paper about our demonstrations and our policy. I think we both owe him something.’

  Farnum leaned back in his chair. He wagged a finger at Chris. ‘You play dirty, young lady,’ he said. ‘If you ever think of giving up being a painter I reckon you could make a good living behind a news desk.’

  ‘Coming from you, Harry, that’s a compliment,’ Chris said. ‘Now what do you say?’

  ‘All right,’ Farnum said. ‘But keep it quiet. Make sure of your facts before you bring it to me. I’ll check it and word it so it’ll read like Les’s work. If it’s okay it can go out under his byline - it’ll be easy enough to imply that he wrote it before his death.’

  ‘Thanks, Harry.’

  ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this,’ Farnum grumbled. ‘I just hope I don’t regret it.’ He glared at Chris. ‘By the way, just what is this revelation you’re about to make?’

  ‘It concerns the Long Point Plant. Les’s notes hinted at something the public weren’t supposed to know about.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  Chris smiled. ‘I thought that was all a good newsman would need to send him out yelling ‘Hold the front page’.’

  ‘You can cut that out,’ Farnum said. ‘Playing the Hollywood editor is my gimmick.’

  ‘But there is something else, Harry,’ Chris said. ‘After the demo last week, when we had all that trouble, I caught one of the security men off-guard. We had a few words and I said something to the effect that there must have been something to hide if he had to set us up like that. He didn’t say anything, but I keep remembering the look on his face - just as if I’d caught him out.’

  Farnum opened a drawer in his desk and took out a thick newspaper. He laid it out on the desk for Chris to look at.

  ‘I’d almost forgotten about this,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know whether you’d seen it. Apparently whoever did the story hung on to it until the Sunday editions.’

  Chris felt her anger rise as she scanned the front-page spread. There were big headlines and pictures. The whole article was slanted towards smearing the protest group as nothing more than a bunch of hippy-type layabouts with nothing else to do but interfere with the running of an important government establishment. Chris glanced up at Farnum. He shrugged slightly.

  ‘He chose his paper well. Real muck-raker, that one. They could run a story on the Pope and make him read like a drug-taking moron. That kind of paper makes me sick - but there’s always somebody who wants to read about the worst in us.’

  ‘How do they get away with it?’

  ‘How? By being clever, by vetting every word before they print it. They seldom ever openly accuse, it’s all done by implication - which is close to accusation but not so close that anyone can point the finger at them. The theory is that if you read something dirty into what they’ve written then it must be true and all you’ve done is find yourself guilty. Like I said, it’s clever - but it bloody stinks!’

  Chris stood up. ‘If that’s the way it works, Harry, then it’s proved to me that there is something being hidden. And I’ll find it.’

  ‘Chris!’ Farnum called as she reached the door. ‘You be careful now.’

  ‘Don’t worry, chief, I’ll bring you the scoop of a lifetime!’

  PART 2

  ENGAGEMENT

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The small motor launch drifted slowly over the calm surface of the sea. There was no wind. The only sound was the ceaseless smack of the waves against the smooth worn rocks at the foot of the high cliffs that formed this part of the coastline.

  Chris Lane stood at the rail of the launch. Beside her was a lean, sunburned man dressed in a thick fisherman’s sweater and salt-bleached trousers. Bernard Guillerman was sixty years old and he had been sailing this part of the coast for over forty of those years. It had been Guillerman’s name on Les Mason’s manuscript.

  ‘Been trouble along ‘ere ever since they started up that place,’ he said bitterly. ‘They laid that blasted pipe across the top of the cliffs, feedin’ it all the way down and run it into the water. An’ when they set that there atom station goin’, all that hot water they got from keepin’ it cool come down the pipe an’ into the sea. Anyways it started to upset right off. Every fish round ‘ere upped and vanished, swam off up the coast. An’ no wonder. Water in this ‘ere cove was too hot for ‘em.’

  Chris stared round the area. She could see why this place had been ideal for the drainage from the plant. The formation of the cliffs formed a deep half-circle, a lonely cove without a beach. There was no access from either above or below. The cliff was too high and too sheer, offering no attraction, almost deliberately discouraging interest. Raising her eyes she was able to see the silver glint of the steel pipe where it showed at the top of the cliffs. It curved out over the edge, then wormed its way down the sheer rock. It must have presented the construction engineers with quite a task, she thought, as she followed the pipe all the way down to the foot of the cliffs. Here it had been laid across a short concrete wall, the three-foot wide pipe gradually curving down to vanish beneath the restless waves. And down there it disgorged, day and night, its superheated, excess water. Water that had been used to cool the contained, raw energy created in the heart of the nuclear plant.

  ‘Then something else happened about eighteen months ago?’

  Guillerman nodded. He was poking dark tobacco into a worn old pipe. He struck a match and lit the pipe, sucking noisily until he had it burning fiercely.

  ‘I come by one mornin’. Early it was. Calm, just like it is now. An’ there were dead fish floatin’ on the water. Lot of ‘em. I reckoned maybe the water ‘ad got too hot for ‘em. See, they’d started to come back into the cove again. Not as many as used to be ‘ere, but enough. Any’ow, the gulls were ’avin’ a fine old time snatchin’ up them fish. About a week later though there were a lot of dead gulls about. It crossed my mind the two things might be connected, but you know ’ow things get pushed aside. I started havin’ trouble with the boat, ’ad to dry-dock her for a good while. By the time I ‘ad ’er afloat again I’d forgotten about them dead fish. Must have been six month or more ‘fore it happened again. I come by one day an’ there were more dead fish. Only this time they weren’t just dead. They was all… they ‘ad lumps on ‘em… an’ open sores. Flesh all rotted off. Some of ‘em looked like they’d gone blind. Oh, I seen some terrible things that day. Any’ow, couple of days later when I come sailin’ by there was a Royal Navy motorboat anchored just by the cove ‘ere. They got all upset when I appeared. Told me to clear the area. When I asked ‘em why they told me to mind my business and clear off. So I did - but I sneaked a look. They ‘ad another boat in close to the cliffs. There were fellers in big bulky suits clamberin’ round on the rocks there. They was doing all sorts of things round that pipe yonder. Carryin’ all kinds of gadge
ts. I think they ‘ad them things called geigy-counters. That there Navy boat hung about for about a month. I got used to seein’ it runnin’ up and down the coast. Mainly though it stayed near the cove ’ere. Every so often I’d go by an’ those fellers in the rubber suits would be there checkin’ the area. Then, after about five weeks, I come by one mornin’ an’ they were all still there - the fellers with the gadgets an’ the Navy boat. I come home close on dusk. When I passed the cove they were all gone, boat an’ all. An’ I never saw any of ‘em again.’

  Chris had been writing as Guillerman spoke. When he’d finished she looked up, her face flushed with excitement. The old man noticed her agitation and smiled.

  ‘Given you somethin’ to chew on ’ave I?’

  ‘You certainly have, Mr. Guillerman.’

  ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘Judging from what you’ve told me,’ Chris said, ‘I think there was some kind of radiation leakage from the plant. The water that is piped into the sea is used to keep the radioactive pile cool during operation. A fault must have developed, allowing radioactivity to contaminate the water. It must have been a slight leakage, not enough to register on the monitoring system, but if it continued over the period of time you mentioned - six months - then it would add up to a fairly strong amount. Either it was finally discovered in the plant or they found out about the dead fish. Lord, there must have been one hell of a panic then. No wonder there was all that activity in the cove here. Once they’d found the leak they’d have to keep a check on the radiation level until it fell below danger level.’

  Guillerman looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Seems they managed to keep it pretty quiet,’ he said knowingly. ‘I mean, I never read anythin’ about it in the papers, or saw anythin’ on the television.’

  ‘That was because they wouldn’t want anyone to know. If the Government had to admit that a leak had gone undiscovered for six months it might have given the anti-nuclear movement enough power to bring real pressure to bear. Even force a shutdown of the plant.’

  ‘You seen enough?’ Guillerman asked.

  ‘Just let me get a few shots of the cove and the pipe,’ Chris said. She put away her notepad and lifted the camera she had on a shoulder strap. She took half a dozen shots of the cove, the steel pipe and the clifftop. Satisfied, she put the camera back in its case and turned to Guillerman. ‘Now I’ve seen enough,’ she said.

  ***

  An hour later they were moored beside the harbor wall flanking the tiny village where Guillerman had his home. The old man followed Chris off the boat and along the jetty to where she’d parked her car.

  ‘I was sorry to ‘ear about that young feller dying. We’d only spoke on the phone a couple of times. He seemed pretty interested in what I wanted to tell ’im. I saw the report of the inquest in the paper. They any nearer findin’ out what caused it?’

  Chris shook her head. ‘No. Just some kind of insect sting that went wrong.’

  ‘You gettin’ over it now?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  Guillerman nodded. ‘I ’ope what I told you ’elps. Be a shame not to use it. He sounded a genuine young feller. Concerned.’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Chris said, and thought, so am I now.

  ***

  ‘But is it enough, Chris?’

  Jack Webster stared over the rim of his coffee cup as he sat in Chris’s cottage, the notepad with Guillerman’s story held in his other hand. His earnest face still bore the marks of the injuries he’d received during the brawl at the recent demonstration.

  ‘I think we need more, love,’ he went on, then seeing the expression on Chris’s face he hastened to add: ‘Oh hell, Chris, I don’t mean to knock what you’ve done. It was great!’

  ‘No, it’s all right. I see what you mean,’ Chris agreed. She sank back in her own chair. ‘What we need is to get some kind of positive official action. Something that would prove we’ve really got a worthwhile story.’

  Webster said: ‘Maybe we can rock the boat a little.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘If we gave Meacham a hint that we know something it might be enough to panic the authorities.’

  ‘Well, we’ve nothing to lose,’ Chris said. ‘Harry Farnum isn’t going to print this story unless he’s one hundred per cent certain that every word is true.’

  Webster grinned. ‘Leave it to me, Chris,’ he said. ‘Just sit on that article and wait for the fireworks.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘The less you know the better,’ Webster said.

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, love. I don’t aim to get involved physically. No, our friend Meacham is going to receive an anonymous phone call, and if it works out the way it’s supposed to he’s going to be screaming for Whitehall to ride to the rescue. Chris, I’ve got a feeling things are going to start happening! Any time now!’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘You tear my tights and you’ll buy me a new pair!’

  The girl’s voice rose to an excited squeal as probing fingers reached the junction of her thighs and began to stroke the soft mound of flesh beneath the clinging briefs.

  ‘Take them off then,’ Steve Prebble suggested. His voice was low, muffled, his face buried in the girl’s long brown hair.

  Judy Lewis giggled. She sat up and brushed grass from her skirt. She gazed around, though she knew that she and Steve were the only ones in the area. A few yards away Steve’s old Escort van was parked just off the road.

  ‘Come on, Judy,’ Steve said hoarsely. He was kneeling beside her, and even in the early dusk light Judy could see the hot flush rising in his face.

  ‘If you want ‘em off,’ she said, ‘you take ‘em off.’ She lay back in the grass, stretching her arms above her head, the action lifting and emphasizing the shape of her taut young breasts under her thin blouse.

  She heard a soft rustle of sound as Steve moved closer to her. Judy closed her eyes and lay in tingling anticipation. After a few seconds Steve’s fingers began to fumble with the zip of her skirt. He finally loosened it and drew the zip open. He tugged the skirt down over her slim hips, jerking it from beneath her buttocks. His agitated breathing ceased as the skirt slid down Judy’s supple legs, and she could almost feel his eyes on her exposed limbs. Then his hands were at her waist again, eager fingers hooking over the top of her tights. He peeled them away from her body, the sheer nylon slipping easily down her smooth, shapely legs. Judy felt him loosen and remove her shoes so he could take her tights all the way off. She wriggled her bare toes, feeling the warm air touch her flesh. Steve began to stroke her thighs, his trembling fingers gently exploring the firm flesh. He hesitated when he touched her briefs, almost as if he was afraid to go further. Judy moved her hips in what she hoped was a suggestive way, and was rewarded by the contact of Steve’s fingers, his touch arousing her already stimulated senses.

  ‘Oh, Steve,’ she murmured softly, drawing her raised arms down, reaching for the buttons of her blouse. One by one she undid them, then slowly eased the thin garment away from her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra - at eighteen Judy had a beautifully developed body that still retained the firm tautness of youth. Now, as she exposed her full breasts to the soft warmth of the evening air, her nipples began to pucker and rise, the tender pinkness enlarging, rising to stiff, flushed erectness.

  Steve uttered a low groan, and yanked her briefs down with an almost desperate abruptness. He rocked back on his heels and gazed down at her naked body. He was aware of his own rising hardness, and he experienced the age-old desire, the inherent weakness of the male when confronted by the yielded secrets of the feminine form. He could never have put into words just what it was - that formless power generated by the supple lines and curves, the flesh-warm shadows and the silk smooth beckoning of that wonderful body.

  Judy had opened her eyes to look up at him, smiling to herself as she saw his lingering immobility. She was well aware of the effect her body
had on the boys she had known. She sat up now, letting the blouse slip easily from her firm white shoulders. Automatically she turned her head, glancing in each direction. Her flesh tingled; she felt a spreading heat between her thighs; moisture flowed sensually from the tender flesh below the dark bush of pubic hair.

  ‘Steve,’ she coaxed, gazing at him through half-closed eyes. She leaned forward and touched the front of his trousers, the tips of her fingers tracing the outline of the jutting hardness.

  Her touch seemed to break the spell. Steve pulled at his clothing in a frantic effort to remove it, and then he was kneeling beside her. His naked body looked almost boyishly slim in the half-light. Judy’s eyes sought his rigid penis and she saw with satisfaction that there was nothing boyish there. She reached up to touch it, her slim fingers teasing the thickened shaft. She heard Steve’s sharp intake of breath. Her left hand slid across his hip, and she began to ease him down on to her. She parted her thighs in readiness, her body quivering in anticipation, arching up to meet his. Her fingers guided his penis, leading it to the soft, swollen, waiting flesh. Steve tensed as he became aware of his position. He made a tentative, probing movement, and then, sure, prepared to penetrate her fully.

  The moment lengthened… and then froze…

  Judy opened her eyes wide, puzzled and a little disappointed. Steve wasn’t even looking at her. His head was turned, twisted back so that he could see over his shoulder. Judy pushed herself up on to her elbows, a frown creasing her face, words forming on her lips.

  And Steve screamed, the terrible sound filling her ears, stunning her with its shocking depth. Before she could move, Steve twisted away from her, his body arching in some agony of pain. He fell to the ground, writhing, jerking, and all the time screaming…

  Judy scrambled to her feet and stared about in horror, trying to understand what was happening. She ran towards Steve, her mind filled with wild, jumbled thoughts. He was on his back, arms and legs outstretched, his body humping and squirming.