The Final Figure by Sam Merwin (best novels to read for beginners .TXT) 📕

Was it a wild talent that MacReedy had, or was it just prophetic genius that led him to figure out new, improved ordnance weapons and make models of them—before the armed forces had them? Whichever it was, MacReedy was both valuable and dangerous—and when the general saw MacReedy's final figure, the weapons following the mobile rocket A-missile launcher....

The General was in mufti. He stood briefly within the entrance of Models and Miniatures, Inc., feeling a mild envy of the civilians who brushed past him, coming and going. They looked so easy, so relaxed, so casual in posture and dress. He was wistfully aware of the West Point ramrod that was his spine, the razor-edged bandbox neatness of his banker's grey suit, the Herbert Hoover four-squareness of his homburg, the stiff-symmetry of his dark-blue fore-in-hand.

He found compensation in visualizing some of these casual civilians in uniform—then shuddered, and moved on into the shop, poise and assurance restored.

Save for the display-counters and wall-cases, the shop was softly lighted. And although it was well filled with customers and lookers of all ages there was about it the hushed quality of a library—or a chapel. Even the children talked softly as they pointed at and discussed this 100-gauge English locomotive or that working jet-model of a Vought-Chance Cutlass. They were well-aware of being in sight of wish and dream-fulfillment.

He moved slowly toward the rear of the shop, past the glass counters that displayed gaily-painted models of carriages, coaches and early automobiles; past the fire-engines in red and gold; past the railroads; past the planes and past the tiny ships—from Phoenician galleys and Viking vessels with gaudily-decorative sails and shields to the latest bizarre-decked atomic aircraft carrier.

He stood in front of the miniature soldiers and, for a happy moment, recaptured the glamour of parades and gay uniforms that had beckoned him into a career whose color and band-music had long since been worn off by the nerve-wracking tragedy of battle and the endless ulcerating paper-work of peace.

Busman's holiday, he thought. Sailors in a rowboat in Central Park. And he was glad he had not worn his uniform.

Each miniature-soldier manufacturer had a glass shelf to his own wares, labeled with a white-cardboard rectangle upon which his name had been neatly brushed with India ink. Here were the comparatively rude Britains, mass-produced, work-horses of toy armies throughout the Western World since before his own boyhood.

Here were the heavy and magnificent Courtleys, specializing in medieval knights and men-at-arms, beautifully caparisoned in all the colors of the rainbow. Here were the Barker Napoleonics, the one-inch Staddens, the incredible half-inch Emery Penninsulars—each a costly little work of art that defied the enlarging of a magnifying glass. Here were Comets in khaki and grey, perfect models of the guns, tanks and trucks of America, England and Soviet Russia.

To his left along the counter a chunky blond citizen, with wide cheekbones and a faint Slavic accent, was discussing a sale with the clerk. The general was only subconsciously aware of him as he moved in that direction, marveling a little at the painstaking craftsmanship, the endless hours of eye-destroying labor that had produced such microscopic perfection—as well as at some of the follies with which men had attired themselves in the name of martial glory.

He recalled having read of an order, issued at the time of the Mexican War, that the collars of all officers in the United States Army should rise to the tips of the ears. It was scarcely surprising, he thought, that the Seminoles—clad virtually in nothing at all—should have been able to stalemate an army thus uniformed in the steaming swamps of Florida.

"They're great, aren't they?"

The voice came from a lower level, and the General looked down to meet the excited blue eyes of a curly-haired male moppet who could scarcely have been more than twelve. There was an aura of friendliness about the leather-jacketed-and-corduroyed youngster, a sharing of manifest interest, that pierced the hide of the old soldier.

He smiled back and said, "Quite wonderful," and was briefly afraid his words had been too condescending. But the quick answering smile on the youngster's face revealed that he had said the right thing.

He followed the lad's rapt gaze to a shelf he had not yet studied. The name on its cardboard label read MacReedy and as soon as he saw the tiny figures it supported, his interest became focused upon it to the exclusion of all other shelves and their fascinating displays.

MacReedy was very evidently a specialist. His subject was American soldiery, with its chief emphasis on artillery—from early Colonial times to the present. As one of the highest-ranking officers in the Ordnance Department of the United States Army, the General's critical interest was aroused.

Here were the demi-culverins of the Manhattan Dutch, the brass field-pieces and mortars of the French wars and the Revolution, the light horse artillery cannon of the Mexican and Civil Wars, along with pear-shaped Dahlgren and Parrot siege-guns, each piece with its crew of aimers, loaders, rammers and ammunition bearers.

Here were the crowbar-like dynamite guns that protected New York and Boston and Baltimore against threatened British invasion during the Newfoundland fisheries disputes, back in the 1880's; and the complex disappearing cannon that followed them. Here was the old standard three-inch fieldpiece on which the General had cut his own eyeteeth; here the French 75 and 155, long and short, and the mammoth railway guns of World War One. Here was even a model of the postwar American 75—the ill-fated cannon that had proved so accurate on the firing-range, and so utterly useless after a half-mile over a bumpy road.

Here were the weapons of World War Two, from M-7 105 self-propelled howitzer to the 240-millimetre tractor-borne cannon. And here were more recent weapons, the 120-millimetre radar-aimed anti-aircraft cannon; its newer automatic 75-millimetre cousin; the new 90-millimetre turret-mount for the Walker Bulldog, the 105-gpf in the turret of its new heavy tank.

The General felt a stir of alarm. There had been a leak somewhere; release on this model was not scheduled for another month. He would have to report it, of course. Then he shrugged, inwardly. Leak or not there was small cause for alarm; They must long-since have managed to scrounge test-run photographs, if not copies of the blueprints themselves.

Still, a leak was bad business with the country so precariously balanced in a combustible world-situation. He looked at the next weapon, the last in the line.

And froze....

Here was the XT-101, with its rear-mounted turret and twin dual-purpose automatic 75-millimetre cannon. Here was a weapon, complete, that had not been completed in actuality—there was trouble with the turret, of course, there always was....

It couldn't be—but it was. The General discovered that his mouth had slackened in surprise; he closed it firmly. He eyed the turret of the miniature, noted how the automatic range-finding devices, that were causing trouble at Aberdeen, were incorporated into the turret itself, in a neat armored sheath.

He thought, Lord! I wonder if that's the answer.... Then he thought that, if it were, the whole world would soon know it.

"A honey, isn't it?" said the curly-headed lad. He added, wistfully, "It costs twelve dollars and eighty-six cents, with tax."

"It's a honey, all right," said the General automatically. Actually, he was appalled—a possibly decisive weapon on sale to all and sundry for twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Of course the intricate inner workings weren't there. But They knew enough about radar and automatic cannon to be able to figure it out from the model.

The General took direct action. He went to the clerk and said, "How many have you?" pointing to the subject of his question.

"Neat—perfect workmanship," said the clerk, donning his selling clothes.

"How many?" the General repeated.

"Only the one in the case left," the clerk replied. "I just sold the last one in stock a moment ago. We've only had four delivered so far."

"I'll take it," said the General in a fever of impatience. He had to get it out of public view at once—although he had a sick sensation of already being too late. He recalled the Slavic appearance, the accent of the man who had made the last purchase.

When the clerk had wrapped it up, and he had paid for it, the General asked to see the manager, who proved to be a pleasantly tweedy individual. He produced his card and said, "I'm afraid this man MacReedy has violated security-regulations. Where else is his stuff marketed?"

The manager's expression was not friendly. He said, "Mr. MacReedy's miniatures are marketed nowhere else; he has an exclusive contract with us." He evidently resented the General's gruff approach as much as the General resented not being addressed by title.

Civilians! the General thought. The damned fools don't understand—they haven't the slightest idea....

Aloud he said, "Where can I find Mr. MacReedy? I'm afraid I'm going to have to talk to him."

"Uncle Angus? He lives next door. I'm going home now—I can show you."

The General had forgotten the male moppet. He looked down in surprise, then up at the manager, who said, "It's quite true. This is Toby. He helps Mr. MacReedy; he's a collector himself in a small way."

The General took Toby back with him to the hotel. He knew he should be burning up the wires to Washington with news of his horrendous discovery, but somehow he wanted to see it through himself—as far as he was able. Besides, there were certain puzzling facets that would scarcely look plausible in the dehydrated prose of an official report to Security.

It smacked almost of the supernatural. Eyeing his small guest, who was happily and rather messily devouring a piece of French pastry, accompanied by a bottle of ginger-ale—sent up by room service—the General suppressed a chill that rose from his coccyx to his cervical vertebrae.

Like most veteran men of action, the General did not decry the supernatural—such decrying was the property of armchair logicians. In the course of his long career he had seen too many things that defied logic or logical explanation. He said, "Ready to take off, Toby?"

"Yes, sir," said the lad. He was properly impressed with the General's rank—revealed to him by the assistant manager in the lobby. Then, with a sudden shadow of anxiety, "You aren't going to arrest Uncle Angus, are you, sir?"

The General managed a chuckle. No sense in getting the lad scared. "No, I just want to talk to him."

"I'll go with you," the lad offered. "Most grownups have a hard time talking to Uncle Angus. Even dad...." Whatever was his father's problem with the prophetic model-maker remained unstated, as Toby managed to wrap lips and teeth around a large final piece of pastry. He then went to the bathroom to wash his hands before they went downstairs, to where the General's car was waiting.

2

The sight of the huge olive-drab Cadillac limousine with its two-starred flag and white trimmed and be-fourragered sergeant-chauffeur seemed to awe Toby, who lapsed into mere occasional monosyllables during the drive through the late afternoon to his Long Island home. It was as if, since the General was in mufti, the lad had not quite been able to believe in his reality—until official car and chauffeur offered proof.

This was quite all right with the General, who was desperately trying to rearrange the chaos of his thoughts into some sort of order. He knew he was being dangerously imaginative for a man in his position. But what if this MacReedy actually could foresee the future, at least in its military manifestations?

Granting this impossibility, how could the man be used? The General shuddered at the thought of "selling" anyone with such a gift to the Combined Chiefs of Staff—those quiet-eyed, low-voiced, strictly pragmatic men on whom, perhaps, the future of country and world depended. Even if they by some wild chance accepted the impossibility, he knew full well what would be the tenor of their thoughts—and therefore of their questions.

One of them would be sure to say, "Very well, General, but if we put our planning in the hands of this man—seeking a short route to decisive superiority of armament—how do we know he won't make a mistake, or lead us up the garden path? How do we know he hasn't been planted for this very purpose?"

How did he know? The General decided he didn't. Yet how could any man with such a private power be permitted to exercise his rights of free citizenship? He damned MacReedy, the