The Inferno

By John Creasey

Fires have broken out. At first they appear to be natural disasters, but they are spreading globally and into cities. Now, an ultimatum from Faustus has been issued. Governments everywhere are prepared to meet the problem by betraying Z5 and everything it stands for. Dr. Palfrey is completely discredited, but is not prepared to take the situation lying down and is determined to get to Faustus and unlock the secret behind the fires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: House of Stratus
• Release date: Oct 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780755137480

John Creasey

Master crime fiction writer John Creasey's near 600 titles have sold more than 80 million copies in over 25 languages under both his own name and ten other pseudonyms. His style varied with each identity and led to him being regarded as a literary phenomena. Amongst the many series written were 'Gideon of Scotland Yard', 'The Toff', 'The Baron', 'Dr. Palfrey' and 'Inspector West', as JJ Marric, Michael Halliday, Patrick Dawlish and others. During his lifetime Creasey enjoyed an ever increasing reputation both in the UK and overseas, especially the USA. This was further enhanced by constant revision of his works in order to assure the best possible be presented to his readers and also by many awards, not least of which was being honoured twice by the Mystery Writers of America, latterly as Grand Master. He also found time to found the Crime Writers Association and become heavily involved in British politics - standing for Parliament and founding a movement based on finding the best professionals in each sphere to run things. 'He leads a field in which Agatha Christie is also a runner.' - Sunday Times.

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Copyright & Information

The Inferno

First published in 1965

© John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1965-2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2014 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author's imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

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www.houseofstratus.com

About the Author

John Creasey

John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.

Creasey wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the 'C' section in stores. They included:

Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

He also founded the British Crime Writers' Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey's stories are as compelling today as ever.

Chapter One

The First Fire

Be careful with that fire, honey, Vivien Marlo said. It’s very dry up here.

I’ve done everything Smoky tells me, Jim Marlo assured her. His footsteps made crackling sounds on the pine needles, which were slippery in spite of their dryness. My, it’s beautiful.

He slid his arm round his wife’s waist, and they moved slowly, hips touching, bodies touching, heads touching. They were in love, and up here in the High Sierras of California they were on their own. There was no one to notice the little intimacies, no one to smile, to scoff, or to sneer.

Only a few yards from the spot where they had driven their Camper, a truck with a caravan body, the mountain seemed to fall away from them in a sheer drop to the rushing river below. Stretched out in front of them was Lake Tahoe, surrounded by snow-capped mountains which were reflected in the deep, ever-changing blue of the water. Above the more distant mountains a few fleecy clouds hovered, touched with the pink of the evening sunlight. High up the mountainsides the sugar pines and the tamarisks grew, here and there huge outcrops of grey rock showed massive and bleak.

Look over there, Vivien said. There’s a camp-fire.

A thin spiral of smoke curled up above the trees half a mile away. Someone else had ventured up the rough, rock-strewn trail to spend a night at seven thousand feet amid this haunting beauty.

I hope they put it out, Vivien remarked.

You’re very fire conscious tonight, said Jim Marlo. He squeezed her again. What’s on your mind?

That notice in the valley.

What notice?

It said the fire danger is high, Vivien reminded him. Then she laughed. I guess I’m being foolish; don’t worry about me.

Yet he did worry about her.

She was twenty-eight, he was thirty-two. They had been married for seven years, and were childless, but if all went well they wouldn’t be for very much longer; just five months. Marlo’s right hand stole round to the swelling of her body, hardly perceptible to the casual observer but very noticeable to him, for she had always had such a tiny waist. They were both cautious about the child, perhaps because they had waited so long and so hopefully, and at last the final blessing to their marriage was so near. Since the time when she had become certain, Vivien had been prone to nervous fears, but they seemed more than fears, more like premonitions. One had been of a friend who had been seriously injured in a car crash; another of a child who had drowned in shallow water; the third of a complication in Jim’s job which had compelled them to take a vacation in early June instead of August. That suited them better than the summer, but did not alter the fact that Vivien had begun to worry about a change in his job long before it had come about.

He wished she were not so preoccupied about fire. It was useless to tell himself there was no need to worry about it. He did. When they left the viewpoint, turning their backs on nature’s grandeur, he glanced towards the plume of smoke; it did not seem to be any thicker. When Vivien went into the Camper to get the bed ready, Jim strolled to the ashes of the fire on which they had barbecued steaks and potatoes in their jackets. The ashes were cold, yet he trod over them again so as to make doubly sure.

This place was a fire trap, or it would be if a fire started. Had he been wise to venture this high up the mountainside, using that one trail? Vivien’s eagerness to get as high as they could be had urged him on. Heights and distant mountain views exhilarated her, and when they had first arrived she had been radiant. The fire fear had come suddenly, halfway through dinner.

He stood looking about him, head raised, sniffing. Could he smell fire?

Nonsense!

He moved towards the door of the Camper. Vivien was already in bed, a fluffy, pale blue jacket heightening the pink of her cheeks and the blue of her eyes. She looked superb. Whenever she caught him by surprise, like this, his heart began to beat faster and he could think only of her; of being together.

He closed the door.

Honey, you look beautiful!

Darling, you look kind of scary, she retorted, and laughed. Nervousness about fire seemed to have gone from her mind, but strangely Jim could still sense the wind of fire in his nostrils. He went across and bent over her.

Happy?

So happy, honey.

Just five more months and you’ll be even happier!

You don’t have to tell me, she said. You don’t have to. Soon, they were together; soon, they were asleep.

Outside the Camper the mountainside seemed to be covered by a pale grey mist. The centre of it was at the spot where the plume had been earlier in the evening. Although the light of the sun had faded, the glimmer of the stars and the pale glow of a rising moon spread over the mountains, and there was a faint shimmer of reflected light from the still surface of the lake.

The mist was not rising from the lake, and was not near it.

The mist was on the side of the mountain, spreading slowly as mist does, creeping towards the sleeping couple. It was darker here in the shadows, and coiled and wreathed about the young trees and the bark of the big trees, about the carpet of pine needles and dead and dry bark.

With it, there was the perfumed aroma of pine, burning. This did not penetrate the insulated van but crept about it, writhing, foraging, as if seeking a way in.

Suddenly, where the plume of smoke had been, there was a red flash.

No one noticed it.

After the flash there came a red glow, not deep or intense at first, but like one which might come from the embers of a fire wafted by a gentle wind, yet there was no stirring of wind in the night’s stillness.

The glow reddened and grew fiercer. With the reddening there came a crackling, of burning pine needles, and the burning spread, making a carpet of fire which did not burst into flame but smouldered, sultry and ominous. It spread almost evenly, with an ever-widening range, like the ripples from a stone dropped into calm water, wider and wider, the smouldering widespread, creeping towards the van. It began to creep up the trunks of the trees, also very slowly. It reached jagged rocks and smooth boulders and was halted by them, but licked its way round the bases and encircled them before creeping farther and yet farther up.

Soon the fire circle was thirty or forty feet across.

Smoke rose now, thick and rich-smelling, more dense at the centre than at the edges but becoming thicker everywhere.

Soon it writhed about the doors and windows of the Camper, and rose above the roof, completely enclosing the vehicle and everything in it. Then suddenly there was a flash, like red lightening, a sharp crack, and a roar of fire.

Vivien Marlo woke, screaming: Jim! There’s fire! Fire!

Chapter Two

The First Victims

Jim Marlo sprang up as Vivien screamed, felt her clutching him, saw her face lit up by a red glow, as by an inferno. Everything in the Camper was aglow, shining surfaces glistened red, their clothes were tinged, the walls, the ceiling, the floor. But by far the worst was the fierce burning at the windows, a red-hot fury which seemed to snarl at the glass and surge against it.

Vivien’s face was distorted in terror, her body stiff with fear. The red glow on her eyes seemed to reflect madness, her lips were distended, all her beauty was gone.

It’s all right, Jim said senselessly. It’s all right! He sprang out of bed, stark naked, and as his feet touched the floor he felt the heat. His heart was beating with panic, the fire at the windows seemed like the breath of a thousand demons. He reached the door and touched it – and felt the heat.

What was it like outside?

What would happen if he opened the door?

He turned in despair to Vivien, and the horror on her face appalled him.

Viv— he choked, but the name was stifled in his throat, seared by the heat. Now it was an oven heat, much greater than when he had woken, as if every second was increasing it. The very breath seemed to burn inside his mouth, the heat struck at his eyes, his nose, his hair – God!

In front of his eyes, Vivien’s hair burst into flames. He made one convulsive move towards her, but before he could reach her the whole of her body seemed to be swallowed up in flame. He felt the heat and the burning. Awful agony possessed him, lasting only a few seconds although it seemed like an age. In that time he seemed to see the fire he had himself kindled, and felt a terrifying sense of guilt.

Then the fire swallowed him; devoured them both.

Two men camping by the side of a stream which cascaded down the rocks as it wound its way into Lake Tahoe were sitting on either side of the embers of their own fire. At seven thousand feet it was cold, and they were glad of their thick lumber jackets and caps with flaps which covered their ears. They were swapping hunting yarns, feeling replete with the trout they had caught in a pool not twenty feet away from their tent.

Suddenly the pale night was lit up by a flash, more red than white, and quite unfamiliar.

You see that? Sydney Klammer asked, startled.

Sure I saw it, Ron O’Malley said. Both men stared towards the spot where the flash seemed to have started. That’s the first time I’ve seen red lightning.

There’s no storm around, Klammer remarked. Do you see that red glow?

You mean that fire. O’Malley stood up. Boy—is that spreading fast! He shifted his position as he added: It’s pretty close to that Camper we saw early this evening. They’ve been fool enough to leave a fire burning. You coming?

Where?

To the house we passed on the way up. They’ve got a telephone, and that fire’s going to spread.

We don’t need to call anybody, Klammer protested. It can be seen from north to south. They’ll know down at the lakeside quicker’n we could tell them.

I’m not so sure, argued O’Malley. It’s in a fold of the hills, and it could spread a long way before anyone below starts to do anything about it.

I guess you’re right, Klammer conceded reluctantly. It isn’t going to be so good finding our way down in the dark, but we’d better try. When they reached their station wagon, he took the wheel. As they moved off the night seemed clear and calm, and the light of the moon had a translucent quality which seemed to make all thought of an inferno absurd.

One by one the towns around the lake received the alarm. The first call, from a party of revivalists at a mountain convention camp, was to the police at Tahoe City. The second reached Tahoe Vista’s sheriff from an excited woman who was driving home from friends in Crystal Bay. One after another the calls were passed on, and gradually the fire-fighting services in the whole of the High Sierras area around Lake Tahoe were called. By the time word had gone as far as Reno and Truckee for help to confine the fire, the whole of the slopes where the blaze had started was a raging inferno. Volunteer services were called out one after another from Carson City and Virginia City, from Sparks to South Lake Tahoe. Men with years of experience in forest fire-fighting began to encircle the inferno, knowing that all that could be done was to contain it. Fire-breaks were widened, patches where the trees grew sparsely were cleared. Lumbermen from the whole of the High Sierras area were called out for more tree felling, soon no one cared about the age and the beauty of trees which were brought crashing; all that mattered was to contain the fire.

As dawn broke ugly rumours began to spread.

Radio and television, which broadcast round the clock, began to crackle with the excitement and the fear of what would happen if the fire could not be overcome. Small resorts in the mountains were put on an hourly alert. Even the owners of the bigger resorts on the lakeside began to fear that disaster could sweep down from the burning forests to the cities and the private homes. Gamblers from the State Line clubs and casinos left the slot machines and the tables, and thronged into the streets, crashing over the fences and reaching the water’s edge on the South Shore. Tension increased with the fears and with the failure of the fire-fighting services to make any real progress. Men who had grown old in the services toiled desperately, handicapped by lack of water, able only to concentrate on the homes which seemed under direct threat.

One of these men was Larry Denver.

Three hundred feet from the fringe of the fire, almost roasted by the heat, hearing the squeals of frightened animals already trapped and running, and the screech of others before they died, Denver wiped the sweat off his forehead, shaded his eyes against the savage red flames, and then suddenly heard a sharp crackling sound almost by his side. He jumped round. Only two feet away, a tree with a girth of at least twelve feet was glowing from the ground upwards, flames were licking up the thick bark, and seemed to creep upwards at an even pace all round. As he gaped, the red-hot section of the tree seemed to rise several inches.

Overhead, sparks were flying; underfoot, the pine needles and the grass were cracking and splitting as the heat dried them, but Denver knew that the fire close to him had started at the base of the tree itself. He spun round. Only twenty yards away other men were beating at the encroaching flames, but no trees were affected except in their topmost branches. He shouted to the nearest men, but they did not hear. He went stumbling towards them, but before he reached the spot the tree which he had seen start burning from the base upwards creaked, lurched, and crashed down.

Its lowest branch pinned Denver to the ground, crushing his body, killing him on the instant. No one even saw him fall.

Chapter Three

Disaster Averted

Carl, young Simister asked, how are we doing?

We’re licking it, son.

It doesn’t look licked to me, retorted Simister.

You don’t know the signs. Carl Daniels, sixty-three years old, had probably fought more forest fires than anyone else among the thousands who were on the mountainside that night. It’s not so red as it was.

Couldn’t that be because dawn’s breaking? Simister demanded. He was tall and very thin; not yet eighteen, this was his first major fire.

Could be because of the dawn, agreed Daniels. But it ain’t. It’s queer, all the same.

What’s queer?

The fire dying out.

What makes it queer? Isn’t that what we came to do?

Daniels said: That’s exactly right, son. In his slow-speaking way he showed all the patience a man could have. Only we didn’t.

You’re talking in riddles, Carl.

Just blame that on my old age, Daniels said. Son, that fire’s dying. There’s no devil in it any more. But we didn’t stop it from spreading—not as suddenly as all that, anyway. By all the rules it would have taken us another twelve hours to drive it back.

So you’re complaining, Simister half sneered.

Daniels looked at him thoughtfully, and said: Son, you’re tired. Why don’t you go home and take a spell? You’ve done plenty tonight, more than most, take that from me.

I’m not tired, Simister denied brusquely. He was staring at the carpet of fire two hundred feet away. Only a minute before it had almost seared their feet, and seemed to be coming on faster than they could beat it out. Now there was only a darkened ring of earth, which looked quite cool to touch.

Other men were staring, too, dozens of them, astounded by what they saw.

"It’s going back," Simister breathed.

That’s right, agreed Carl Daniels. No one around here is working on it, but it’s receding. That’s the most peculiar fire I ever saw in my life. He moved forward and trod on the black earth. Dawn was coming quickly now, spreading its brightness upon the scene of black desolation, on the begrimed men and the now branchless trees which had withstood the worst of the burning. That’s right, son. That fire behaved in the craziest way I’ve ever seen. He took off one of his asbestos gloves, bent down, and put his hand gingerly towards the pale floor. It ain’t even hot, he added in a bewildered voice. Not to say hot. He lowered his bare hand farther.

Don’t do that! cried Simister.

Daniels ignored him, and