interrupted by another squeal, and then the radio resumed emitting nothing more than snaps, crackles, pops
and waterfalls. Ginsberg said:
‘That was Radio Zurich. There’s been an H-bomb explosion in the States, in Death Valley. Either the war’s started again, or
some dud’s gone off belatedly.’
‘Hmm,’ Baines said. ‘Well, better there than here… although, now that I come to think of it, it isn’t entirelyunpromising. But Doctor Ware, I think you hadn’t quite finished?’
‘I was only going to add that “being of some help” to demons in this context makes no practical sense, either. Their hand
is turned against everyone on Earth, and there is certainly no way that we could help them to carry their war to Heaven, even
presuming that any of Heaven still stands. Someone of Father Domenico’s school might just possibly manage to enter the Aristotelian
spheres – though I doubt it – but I certainly couldn’t.’
‘That bomb explosion seems to show that
somebody
is still fighting back,’ Baines said. ‘Providing that Jack isn’t right about its being a dud or a stray. My guess is that
it’s the Strategic Air Command, and that they’ve just found out who the real enemy is. They had the world’s finest data processing
centre there under Denver, and in addition, McKnight had first-class civilian help, including Džejms Šatvje himself and a
RAND man that I tried to get the Mamaroneck Research Institute to outbid the government for.’
‘I still don’t quite see where that leaves us.’
‘I know McKnight very well; he’s steered a lot of Defence Department orders my way, and I was going to have LeFebre make him
president of Consolidated Warfare Service when he retired – as he was quite well aware. He’s good in his field, which is reconnaissance,
but he also has something of a one-track mind. If he’s bombing demons, it might be a very good idea for me to suggest to him
that he stop it-and why.’
‘It might at that,’ Ware said reflectively. ‘How will you get there?’
‘A technicality. Radio Zurich is still operating, which almost surely means that their airfield is operating too. Jack can
fly a plane if necessary, but it probably won’t be necessary; we had a very well-staffed office in Zurich, in fact it was
officially our central headquarters, and I’ve got access to two Swiss bank accounts, the company’s and my own. I’d damn well
better put the money to some use before somebody with a little imagination realize that the vaults might much better be occupied
by himself, his family and twenty thousand cases of canned beans.’
The project, Ware decided, had its merits. At least it would rid him, however temporarily, of Baines, whose society he was
beginning to find a little tiresome, and of Jack Ginsberg, whom he distantly but positively loathed. It would of course also
mean that he would be deprived of all human company if the Goat should after all come for him, but this did not bother him
in the least; he had known for years that in that last confrontation, every man is always alone, and most especially, every
magician.
Perhaps he had also always known, somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind, that he would indeed eventually take that
last step into Satanism, but if so, he had very successfully suppressed it. And he had not quite taken it yet; he had committed
himself to nothing, he had only agreed that Baines should go away, and Ginsberg too, to counsel someone he did not know to
an inaction which might be quite without significance…
And while they were gone, perhaps he would be able to think of something better. It was the tiniest of small hopes, and doubtless
vain; but now he was beginning to be prepared to feed it. If he played his cards right, he might yet mingle with the regiment
of angels who rebelled not, yet avowed to God no loyalty, of whom it is said that deep Hell refuses them, for, beside such,
the