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The Towers of Melnon

Blade Book 15

By Jeffrey Lord

Chapter ONE

^»

Englandis a small and crowded country. Enough vacant land for the type of training center the secret

intelligence agency MI6 wanted to build is often hard to come by. MI6 wanted at least a square mile with

buildings, which doesn't grow on bushes along every cowpath and byway.

But it so happened that, just as MI6's search was beginning, a certain earl was being buried. This earl

had been atEton with the man called J, the head of MI6, in the days before World War I. This was so

long ago that neither of the men enjoyed being reminded of how long ago it had been. But the friendship

had lasted down the years. It had lasted as J rose to be one of the most distinguished spymasters in the

free world, and as the earl rose to be a general, complete with VC and DSO, and later became a

distinguished member of Parliament. But no amount of distinction can ensure that a man will not fall from

a horse and break his neck, and the earl did just that.

J attended the funeral at the earl's family seat. Afterwards the new earl ushered him into the great,

gloomy, oak-paneled library. There he made J a proposition concerning the disposal of the family

estate—or at least of part of it.

"You know what death duties are like, sir," said the younger man. "We should be able to hold on to

the main estate. But father was rather old-fashioned. He preferred to keep as much in land as possible.

We don't have much cash, so we're going to have to sell off the Herefordshire estate."

"Indeed?" said J, with deceptive placidity.

"Yes. It's not a great huge thing, less than fifteen hundred acres. And the house is a great wretched

Victorian pile that sheds tiles and chimney pots on alternate Thursdays. But the stables are in good shape,

and there's plenty of room. Also a good bit of privacy. The land's heavily wooded, and the walls and

fences have been kept up fairly well. My father was a bit—ah, shirty, when it came to trespassers. Got in

trouble with the county over that a few times."

"I know," said J. He had been a guest at this same estate a number of times before, during, and after

World War II.

"The thing of it is," said the young earl, "I think father would have liked you to have a chance at the

Herefordshire estate."

"Why me?" said J. His placidity was even more deceptive now.

"Well, he always said he thought you were in some sort of—well, secret intelligence work. MI5 or

something like that. You know, James Bond stuff?"

"Suppose I were?" said J. "What does that have to do with the estate?"

"If you were, it occurred to father that you might want a training center of some sort. A nice secluded

training center, someplace where a lot of tourists and passersby won't be butting in."

J nodded. He kept his professional poker face, so he did not light up like a Christmas tree with sheer

delight. At least not on the outside. But he did take a deep breath before saying, "I see."

"We'd have to sell it," the young earl went on. "I doubt if the law would just let us donate it. But I'll

see about keeping the price down as far as I can. I know the intelligence agencies aren't exactly rolling in

money these days."

"Except inAmerica ," said J with a wry grin. The wealth of people and equipment that his American

colleagues had was always a sore point with him, sometimes a major one. They could claim at least a

dozen estates of the size the young earl was offering.

"True," said the younger man. "But I think father would have wanted you to get it cheap. He was

always very big on the patriotic type of stuff—doing your bit forEngland and all that sort of thing."

"Yes," said J in an even voice. "He was 'very big' on servingEngland . He risked his life doing it in two

wars, as a matter of fact."

The young earl flushed slightly, recognizing a polite putdown when he heard one. To cover his

embarrassment he went over to the sideboard and mixed two stiff Scotch-and-sodas. Then he returned

to his chair and the two men got down to business.

Once they did, it was a simple matter of two phone calls toLondon —one apiece—and a few lines

scribbled on a sheet of paper torn from the note pad next to the telephone. And MI6 found itself

prospectively in possession of fifteen hundred acres of Herefordshire, at something less than ten pounds

per acre.

After that, J went out to his Rover and put in two more calls on his scrambler-equipped

radio-telephone. Both of these were also toLondon . One was to a man named Lord Leighton.

"Leighton, we've got the place for the new training center."

"Splendid work. Where?"

"Not even on a scrambled line, if you don't mind."

"Oh, to be sure, to be sure."

"I'm starting back toLondon in a few minutes. Can you meet me for lunch at my club? Tomorrow at

noon?"

"Certainly."

"See you then."

The second call was to a man named Richard Blade.

"Richard, my boy. How are you?"

"Tolerably well, sir. Just got back fromScotland . Fishing, a little rock-climbing, you know."

"Fishing for what, Richard?" J knew that Blade was rather a woman-chaser, although he was always

a gentleman about it. J neither approved nor disapproved.

"Salmon, sir. Nothing else," Blade replied with a hint of mock reproach in his voice.

"Very good, very good. Now—we've picked up a place to use for that training facility I mentioned."

"The one for the new agents—if and when?"

"Precisely."

"Any progress on finding anybody to train there?"

"None that I've heard of lately. The PM promised me a report ten days ago, but nothing's come

through."

"Well, with the election coming up the man must have a lot on his mind."

"To be sure." That was one of the reasons J had not only made Richard Blade one of MI6's top

agents, but also loved him like a son. Richard could always guess what the other person might be doing,

and why. It was a social asset at home and a survival skill in the field. It could help a man charm a

hostess at a Mayfair cocktail party and outwit a Russian SMERSH agent in the mountains

ofCzechoslovakia . Blade had done both.

"In any case," J continued, "I'd like you to meet me for lunch at my club. Say noon tomorrow. Lord

Leighton will be there also."

"I'll be there, sir."

"Fine, Richard, fine."

J shut off the radio-telephone, started the car, and wheeled the Rover down the driveway and out

through the front gate. The roof of the big sprawling eighteenth century house shone in the sun after the

morning's rain. J grinned. The young earl who now ruled that house might scoff at patriotism and "doing

his bit forEngland ," but he had just done it in spite of himself. He had given Project Dimension X

something it had been seeking for quite some time.

Actually, Project Dimension X had been seeking quite a number of different and sometimes

incompatible things for quite a long time. Sometimes the Project reminded J of a gigantic fox-hunt over a

mist-shrouded and treacherous field, with only a dozen or so hunters and at least twenty foxes. You

couldn't hope to catch all of the beasts, but you could at least try chivying them all along in more or less

the same direction.

But there was no doubt that helping Project Dimension X was helpingEngland . In a nutshell, the

Project involved sending a man into a succession of alternate dimensions, to survive or die. Hopefully he

would survive and explore the dimension. And if it had resources or techniques or devices unknown in

Home Dimension, he would bring them back toEngland with him.

Dropping down from the abstract to the concrete details (all ten thousand of them or so), Project

Dimension X was a little less simple. It had begun by accident the day Lord Leighton connected Richard

Blade's mind to a computer. Lord Leighton had been and still wasEngland 's most brilliant scientist—not

to mention the most maddening one to work with. He had conceived the idea of creating a combination

of human and electronic intelligences, superior to either man or computer alone. Well and good.

For the experiment he had needed the most nearly perfect physical and mental specimen he could

find. That specimen had been Richard Blade. With nearly twenty years as a top MI6 agent already under

his belt, Blade had forgotten more about survival than most men could ever learn. Leighton plugged his

specimen into the computer—and Blade wound up in what came to be called Dimension X. He arrived

as naked as the day he was born, but his superb mind and body kept him alive. Eventually Lord Leighton

was able to reverse the process that had sent Blade winging off into Dimension X. Blade came back

toEngland , back to the computer complex under theTowerofLondon . It had been very simple, the first

time.

But Project Dimension X promptly started shooting out complications in all directions, like the

tentacles of an octopus.England 's best scientists were unable to duplicate any of the samples of

advanced materials or technology that Blade brought home from Dimension X. Sooner or later they

would make a breakthrough, of course. But in the meantime the Prime Minister was not particularly

happy. He had to justify the millions of pounds the Project had swallowed to inquisitive members of

Parliament, so his unhappiness was hardly surprising.

It might have helped if they had been able to send Blade back to the same dimension again and again.

But so far that was impossible. They had to fire him off in the general direction of Dimension X and hope

he would land somewhere he could survive. This "shooting into the blind" improved neither the efficiency

of the Project nor the tempers of Lord Leighton, J, the Prime Minister, or Richard Blade.

And of course there was always the problem of Blade himself. Not that there was anything wrong

with him. He had suffered psychological problems of various sorts at one time—drinking, impotence, and

the like. That was the result of unexpected reactions of his brain to the computer. But he seemed to have

stabilized now. After fourteen successive trips into Dimension X, he was still the most nearly perfect

physical and mental specimen available.

And that was the problem about Blade. He was too perfect. In fact, he was the only man in the free

world who could travel into Dimension X and return alive and sane. Even if J hadn't been concerned for

Blade personally, this was a situation that had to be changed. Preferably as fast as possible. If Blade's

luck ever ran out in Dimension X, the Project would come to a screeching halt. What the devil, it would

come to a halt if Blade were run over by a bloodyLondon taxi!

So a search was on—had been on for two years now—for somebody to take Blade's place.

Preferably several "somebodies." Once they had a regular team of Dimension X travelers, Blade could

retire. Perhaps he could handle the training end of the Project? Or perhaps if he did go into Dimension X,

he could go as the team leader? That was a possibility. Had Leighton done any thinking about any

techniques for sending several men through the computer at once? Probably. Leighton tended to think of

all sorts of wild hares. And he tended to ask for money to help him chase all of them, too.

But however they were to be used, the new men were badly needed. Sooner or later the combined

efforts of J and the Prime Minister would turn them up. And then they would need training. Training of a

highly specialized and unorthodox sort. Training which they had not received in their Secret Service or

CIA or Special Forces or Royal Marine Commando schools. Nor could they receive it in any of those

conventional facilities, without risking compromising Project Dimension X. How do you explain why an

agent is being trained in the use of medieval broadsword, longbow, and battleaxe?

So they would need a special training center, one for the Project alone, one where they could learn

all the exotic miscellany of skills they would need in Dimension X. J's purchase had just taken care of the

land for that. But he would have a good deal more to do before there was a training center out there in

Herefordshire. He would need to go over the house and grounds with a fine-tooth comb. Then he would

have to confer with Blade, with the best trainers in MI6, with the Project's psychologists. They would all

have ideas on what the center would need. He wanted to pick their brains as thoroughly as possible

before moving in as much as one stick of furniture.

And perhaps the estate would be good for more than a training center. Every one of Lord Leighton's

new ideas meant more paperwork, more office space, more laboratory space. There wasn't much room

left in the underground complex below the Tower. What there was, they were reserving for the computer

itself. That monster could not be moved at all, at least not without a million-pound bill and a year's delay

in the Project. Nor could they expand the complex much farther—at least not without another huge bill.

Carving tunnels and chambers out ofLondon 's bedrock wasn't cheap.

Moving some of the laboratories and things out to Herefordshire was definitely worth considering.

The estate could become a whole annex to theLondon complex, taking some of the strain off it. Annex

West. Yes, that might be a good name. And it certainly was a good idea. It was such a good idea, in

fact, that J kept thinking it over all the way back toLondon .

Chapter TWO

«^»

"Well, Richard, what do you say to the notion?"

Blade straightened slightly in the Chippendale chair and raised his eyes from his empty plate to J's

elegantly wrinkled face.

"I'll be more than willing to help, sir. I think it's a damned good idea, getting a training center set up

beforehand. I hope the PM will swallow it."

"He won't have to," put in Lord Leighton, his eyes gleaming wickedly like those of an old billy goat.

"We pulled the entire purchase price out of the Contingency Fund. He won't know a thing about it until

after the deed is signed, sealed, and delivered."

"To be sure," said J dryly. His eyes met Blade's for a moment. Both knew there was little love lost

between Lord Leighton and the Prime Minister. The scientific genius and the hardheaded practical

politician had come into head-on collision more than once. "But the bill for fitting the place out as a

training center and office annex is going to be more than the Contingency Fund can provide. That's why I

want Richard's help. He's our one and only Dimension X veteran. He can sit down with the

headshrinkers and the training technicians and give them some notion of what to train the new people for.

Otherwise they'll simply be guessing. And we're going to have to give the PM a complete presentation

and an accurate one, with a list of gear and a budget. Otherwise I can't imagine he'll play. He'll say it's

another of your wild-goose chases, Leighton."

The scientist ran his gnarled fingers through his fringes of white hair and shook his head. "That's all

very well, J. But you can't have Richard now. The computer is all set up with a new program. I was

planning to ask him to report tomorrow afternoon."

There was no need for Leighton to say what he wanted Blade to report for. Blade felt a quickening

of his breath and for a moment his mouth was so dry that he was not sure he could speak. He was going

into Dimension X again—on his fifteenth trip, this time. How many more, he wondered, before one of the

people to be trained at this new center replaced him—or his luck ran out? For a moment his vision

blurred. The little private dining room, the dark paneling, the white tablecloth, the red wine in the crystal

Jeffrey Lord - Blade 15 - The Towers of Melnon.pdf

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