Juggernaut

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1985

Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1985

Cover layout design Richard Augustus © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780008211394

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008211400 Version: 2017-06-29

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Juggernaut

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

The telephone call came when I was down by the big circular pool chatting up the two frauleins I had cut out of the herd. I didn’t rate my chances too highly. They were of an age which regards any man of over thirty-five as falling apart at the seams; but what the hell, it was improving my German.

I looked up at the brown face of the waiter and said incredulously, ‘A phone call for me?’

‘Yes, sir. From London.’ He seemed impressed.

I sighed and grabbed my beach robe. ‘I’ll be back,’ I promised, and followed the waiter up the steps towards the hotel. At the top I paused. ‘I’ll take it in my room,’ I said, and cut across the front of the hotel towards the cabana I rented.

Inside it was cool, almost cold, and the air conditioning unit uttered a muted roar. I took a can of beer from the refrigerator, opened it, and picked up the telephone. As I suspected, it was Geddes. ‘What are you doing in Kenya?’ he asked. The line was good; he could have been in the next room.

I drank some beer. ‘What do you care where I take my vacations?’

‘You’re on the right continent. It’s a pity you have to come back to London. What’s the weather like there?’

‘It’s hot. What would you expect on the equator?’

‘It’s raining here,’ he said, ‘and a bit cold.’

I’d got used to the British by now. As with the Arabs there is always an exchange of small talk before the serious issues arise but the British always talk about the weather. I sometimes find it hard to take. ‘You didn’t ring me for a weather report. What’s this about London?’

‘Playtime is over, I’m afraid. We have a job for you. I’d like to see you in my office the day after tomorrow.’

I figured it out. Half an hour to check out, another hour to Mombasa to turn in the rented car. The afternoon flight to Nairobi and then the midnight flight to London. And the rest of that day to recover. ‘I might just make it,’ I conceded, ‘but I’d like to know why.’

‘Too complicated now. See you in London.’

‘Okay,’ I said grouchily. ‘How did you know I was here, by the way?’

Geddes laughed lightly. ‘We have our methods, Watson, we have our methods.’ There was a click and the line went dead.

I replaced the handset in disgust. That was another thing about the British – they were always flinging quotations at you, especially from Sherlock Holmes and Alice in Wonderland. Or Winnie the Pooh, for God’s sake!

I went outside the cabana and stood on the balcony while I finished the beer. The Indian Ocean was calm and palm fronds fluttered in a light breeze. The girls were splashing in the pool, having a mock fight, and their shrill laughter cut through the heated air. Two young men were watching them with interest. Goodbyes were unnecessary, I thought, so I finished the beer and went inside to pack.

A word about the company I work for. British Electric is about as British as Shell Oil is Dutch – it’s gone multinational, which is why I was one of the many Americans in its employ. You can’t buy a two kilowatt electric heater from British Electric, nor yet a five cubic foot refrigerator, but if you want the giant-sized economy pack which produces current measured in megawatts then we’re your boys. We’re at the heavy end of the industry.

Nominally I’m an engineer but it must have been ten years since I actually built or designed anything. The higher a man rises in a corporation like ours the less he is concerned with purely technical problems. Of course, the jargon of modern management makes everything