The Mandrake Effect– ONE– by P J Searle

The antiquated annexe of Edinburgh University offers itself uncompromisingly to a dull, forbidding, evening gloom – it is still drizzling. Harry turns his jacket collar up as he walks quickly from the car park. He unlocks the big green doors, enters then locks them again behind him. In the deserted reception area, he summons the elevator and waits. The old-fashioned iron-cage lift rattles to a halt. Harry enters, closes the door and pushes the button for the third floor. He meticulously times the assent and makes various notes on the back of his hand with his ballpoint pen. This operation he repeats two more times then returns to the ground floor. He opens the control box and removes a large section of wiring and affixes one of his two coral-coloured-pellet devices. The other he fixes into the trap door in the roof, he then replaces the covers and leaves the lift, closing the cage door behind him. As the ancient doors rattled closed he looks at his watch, his face expressing a smug, ‘everything is going to plan’ smile. He turns on the reception light, which automatically turns on the lift light, then he unlocks the big green doors and peeks out into the now-misty twilight. A car’s headlights approach. He quickly ducks back inside, leaving the door ajar, and hides in the shadows of the stairwell. A few moments pass.

Radcliff enters, twitching, neck jerking and looking villainously from side-to-side. He walks towards the lift, oblivious to Harry secreted in his hideaway. As he swaggers up to the lift door he has not a care, worry or fear in the world. Regardless he takes a last instinctive look over his shoulder, twitches one last involuntary twitch, and enters.

Harry studies his watch. He takes a small remote-control unit from his pocket and, from the darkness, points it at the lift. He has the glint of murderous-intent in his eyes as the lift starts its clattering journey upwards. Harry again looks nervously at his watch, then to the lift, then to his watch, and back to the lift. He aims the remote, his finger ready on the button. A few more moments pass, then he presses. A dull, muffled explosion followed by the sound of searing metal. The lift judders and stops dead, fused exactly where intended between floors. The escape hatch in the ceiling is also seared and welded shut. A few seconds of silence pass, then a volley of unintelligible cursing. This goes on for about a minute and then calms slightly as a coherent sentence constructs:

‘Yoo bastard Mandrrrakk! I know it’s yoo! I’m going t’ fokun’ razor ye when I catch ye. Yoo hear me, ya fokun’ git’ya? Yoo hear me, Mandrrrakk!?’

Harry falls outside the building laughing uncontrollably. He attempts to close the big green doors but he breaks-down and sinks to his knees completely overcome with mirth. He manages to stagger up as Radcliff yells his swansong from the depths of the lift well, just audible through the slowly closing door:

‘I’ll batter ye! I’ll fokun’ razor ye! I’ll fokun’ bottle ye! I’ll–’

Mercifully, the doors slam shut. Harry manages to lock the doors then staggers, still laughing uncontrollably, into the near-deserted car park. Two cars: Harry’s silver Rolls Royce and Radcliff’s maroon XK Jaguar. Harry collapses across the bonnet of the latter, splaying out the big bunch of keys, still held firmly in his hand, onto the highly waxed surface. When he manages to stand he gouges the larger of these keys along the length of the Jaguar in one continuous movement, etching deeply into the immaculate paintwork and down through the primer to the metal. He finishes the stroke like a discus thrower, hurling the keys out into the pitch-black night. Then he’s off in the direction of Heathrow, weeping with joy.

Recovered from his merriment, Harry checks in at the flight-desk. The check-in girl looks up his ticket number on the computer.

‘I’m expected in the VIP lounge.’

‘Sorry, Mr. Mandrake, your party had to leave a day early. They left a message: they’ll meet you at Kennedy airport.’

‘No need to worry your pretty blue eyes, Carol,’ he reads the name from her badge, ‘Just point me in the direction of the VIP lounge bar… I need a stiffy. Can I offer you one? Ha ha.’

‘Not just at the moment, Sir.’ says Carol, grudging a slight smile, ‘If you follow that sign you’ll find the lounge bar. Have a nice flight.’

Harry turns and walks off. Carol eyes him with more than a passing interest. He turns back quickly, catching her glance and he tips an imaginary hat. then walks on towards the bar.

A short, wavy-haired man dashes up to the desk and speaks to Carol, feigning shortness of breath. ‘Have I missed Henry Mandrake? I tried to catch him before he checked in… I take it he’s still on the Kennedy flight?’

‘Sorry, Sir, I can’t give out that information. Are you checking in?’

‘What?’ He glances past her to where Harry’s luggage is still on the ramp. He squints his eyes to read the tags.

‘I said, are you checking in, Sir?’

‘Yeah... I guess. Yes, sorry. Yes.’ He hands her his ticket.

She reads it and then pushes it back to him with an air of distaste: ‘Sorry, Mr. Casey, you’re Club, this is First-class. If you want to upgrade, go to the next desk.’

Harry relaxes snugly inside the majestic Concorde’s first class section as it slips effortlessly and noiselessly through the sound barrier. With the terror of take-off forgotten, Harry flirts outrageously with the hostesses. The drinks flow and the company is good. Subsequently, on arriving at Kennedy airport, a mere three hours on and the terror of landing quelled with drink, Harry is, to quote the old nautical adage, ‘three sheets to the wind’.

Rex and Hamish stand waiting at arrivals. When they see Harry coming they conclude the obvious.

‘Oh my God, he’s canned.’ says Rex, covering his eyes in exasperation. ‘Over here, Hal.’

Harry waves, makes a last farewell to the hostesses then oozes over. ‘Boys! How nice of you to meet me. Where’s the old barsey-warsey, I’ve got a fearful thirst… a bit dehydrated… need to lay the dust?’

‘Damn it, Hal, I think you’ve had enough booze, don’t you? We’ve got work to do.’

‘Steady on, old love. What did you expect? I mean, don’t blame me, the bloody drinks were free, for God sake. Had to get the old monies worth… steel myself for the landing. Flimsy looking thing, how the hell it stays up there I’ll never understand. Anyway, you paid… waste not, want not, as my illustrious uncle used to say.’

‘We’ll take you to your hotel. We got you a Lincoln saloon, but you’re in no fit state to drive.’

‘A Lincoln saloon? A Lincoln! What the devil do you take me for, some out-of-town bloody cowpoke? Has it got buffalo horns on the bonnet?’

‘What the hell’s wrong with a Lincoln for Christ sake? I drive a Lincoln.’

‘Well, ex,actly. Look, old love, you don’t buy a racehorse and give it a bloody coal-cart to pull, now do you? No, a Roller, I think… Bentley at least… not new… I don’t like new things. No hurry, tomorrow will do. Now for heavens sake let’s get out of this bloody awful place.’

Harry marches off ahead. Rex and Hamish look at each other in disbelief then follow. When they catch up, Harry’s mood has changed.

‘Right,’ says he with an air of authority, ‘if that’s sorted we’ll have breakfast, then I’ll need an hours kip… sleep, that is. Then I’ll need two Mackintosh PowerBooks, version OS X, two PCs, any sort, with the latest Windows plus all the old versions 3, 2… mouse and full expansion capability and FuzzyLogic–’

Rex holds up his hand as to say hold on, ‘Jesus… anything else?’

‘Yes, a JVS 4000 slimline VCR – have you got all that? – Plus a Sony NiCam black screen with voice-activated remote, two Akai DATs with eight Bose AcoustiMass at optimum sound points, and a Krupp’s espresso coffee-maker. Oh yes, most important, a couple of girls, IT technicians… pretty, of course. Think you can manage all that? I’ll be ready for you by, let’s say 2200 hours?’

‘Let’s say one technician, and let’s say 1400 hours.’

‘I don’t think so, old luv–’ says Harry dismissively.

Rex leans into Harry’s face. ‘Listen, Mandrake, I told you, don’t fuck up. You said you’d be ready – What’s the problem?’

‘Don’t get excited, Rex, I’ve been ready for years. What I’ve got to do is put it into, shall we say, layman’s terms… It’ll take a while.’

Hamish steps in front of Rex and spits his words into Harry’s face. ’Why you jumped-up Limey punk… A rust-bucket leaking deadly radioactivity that crashed back to Earth, killing its entire fucking crew and God knows how many civilians. Is that what you mean by ‘layman’s terms’?’

‘We’ve been to the moon six times,’ adds Rex. ‘We’re light years ahead of your country’s crummy technology.’

‘I’m not talking technology, Rex,’ says Harry, smiling, ‘I’m talking Alien life-form. Look, boys, don’t get upset–’

‘We are not upset, Mandrake,’ growls Hamish, ‘we’re damn, fucking mad!’

’Look, Hamish, old luv, if I just give you my material it won’t mean a thing… that’s why I came along. It’s only when you’ve got my conjecture, tagged with evidential fact that it starts to gel. For Christ sake, there are only a half-dozen people on the planet that believe the 1950’s Mandrake Experiment is fact. Most of the thinking world sees it as fiction, the stuff of books, films, and television – ‘the stuff that dreams are made of’ – And some of those same ‘thinking people,’ let me point out, think the same about your… how many was it? six moon landings: fiction! Faked! – I mean to say, look at your faces. I can tell you’re having a hard time believing it, and you’ve bloodywell seen it with your own eyes!’

‘We believe it,’ says Rex, calming slightly.

‘Rex, I’ve got to convince not only you, but all of them. Now let’s go, I’m bloody starving.’

Harry walks off towards the Angus Steak House. Rex gives an eye-rolling glance to Hamish and follows.