Deathwish World

Copyright © 1986 by The Literary Estate of Mack Reynolds

All rights reserved.

Foreword

The greatest land acquisitions by any power in the history of the world took place without even the faintest threat of arms. Not a shot was fired by the conqueror in this unprecedented colonization program. Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane were tyros, by comparison, for none of them ruled a whole continent, much less two, with scores of neighboring islands.

And it was possibly the softest sell of all time. The United States Government simply issued a declaration that it welcomed any countries in North, Central, or South America, or the Caribbean, to join it, conferring all rights pertaining to American citizens, including the Guaranteed Annual Stipend, or GAS—sometimes called Negative Income Tax. Our English friends called it "the dole." They had seen it before. The English had seen everything before—including permanent decline.

Though the United States of America became the United States of the Americas without force, all was not simplicity. Military dictatorships, particularly in the banana republics, did all in their power to remain separate. Armies were ordered to fire upon mobs demanding admission to the new United States. But the soldiers laughed. One had to reach the rank of major to attain an income equal to that of a citizen of the United States on GAS.

So, with little strain on the Yankees, the Western Hemisphere assimilated into the United States of the Americas.

And, in the eyes of some, that was only the beginning…

Chapter One: Horace Hampton

A battered hovercar pulled up in the parking lot behind the aged apartment building. There were few other vehicles there.

Three men got out and headed across the parking area for the back door. The one in the middle carried a cane and affected a slight limp. The other two carried tired-looking attaché cases. All three were dressed neatly, though their clothing was only a thin cut better than prole level.

The one in the middle looked up at the paint-flaked wooden building which was their destination. "You could sell it for an antique," he said.

One of the others grunted and told him, "You could sell all New Salem as an antique. Restore it—something like colonial Williamsburg over in Virginia. You could put up a big sign for the tourists: 'New Salem, Bible Belt Town, Circa 1900.' "

They ascended the stairs to the second floor. Thus far they had seen nobody at all, which was understandable. They had counted on the total population being down at the park for the political rally. Aside from Tri-Di, there was precious little in the way of local entertainment.

On the second floor, the largest of the three men looked up and down the hall, dipped a hand into his side pocket, and brought forth a pair of thin black gloves. His right hand went back into the pocket of his shorts and came forth with a key. He unlocked the door and all three filed through quickly. He locked the door behind him.

The other two put their attaché cases and the cane on the room's center table and also donned gloves. They seemed in no hurry. They took out handkerchiefs and carefully wiped the cane and case with professional care.

Their leader, a black, went through the small apartment, which consisted of bedroom, bath, and kitchen, besides the living room into which they had entered, and checked it out carefully. He, too, had left his attaché case on the table after wiping it clean.

His companions looked about at the nondescript furniture, which included a broken couch and an old-fashioned rocking chair.

The two were of dark complexion, but there the resemblance ended. One was tall, wiry, and cougarlike of movement, black of hair and eye. The other was below average height, stocky, muscular. He tended to smile, while his companion was stoic of expression in keeping with his Amerind tradition. The smaller man was Latino.

The stocky one said, "Look, civilization." He pointed at the sole representative of modern furnishing, a small Tri-Di set.

The black, who had checked out the other rooms, returned and said, "Wizard, let's get the show roadbound."

Jose Zavalla took up the walking stick and began to unscrew the handle. His limp was gone. The handle came away and he upended the cane to let its contents slide gently into his right hand. It was a metallic tube about three feet long, threaded on one end externally, internally on the other. He laid it back on the table.

"Jesus, it's light," he said.

Tom Horse, the Indian, who was opening the two attaché cases, said, "Titanium alloy."

The sole contents of the hand luggage consisted of seven items, all carefully wrapped in foam rubber. Tom took them out gingerly, one by one, and laid them in a row on the table.

He said, "How's it look up the road, Hamp?"

Hamp was the black, a well-built, dark-chocolate man with features more Caucasian than Bantu. He went over to the middle of the three curtained windows that lined the street side of the room. He pulled one curtain aside a bit and peered out, looking toward the north. From a jacket pocket he brought forth a small monoscope, twisted it open, and took off both lens shields. He put the eyepiece to his right eye, adjusted the focus.

He said, "Quite a turnout. Must be triple the population of the town."

"You don't hear the governor sound off every day in New Salem and environs," Tom told him, unwrapping his packages with love care.

"Nice big banner above the speaker's stand," Hamp said. "Says, America for the Americans. Very sentimental. American flags at both ends. They look a little out of date. How many stars in the flag these days?"

"Who keeps track? About a hundred," Tom said. He had taken up the tube Joe had extracted from the hollow cane and was carefully screwing one of the other objects—a stubby rectangular affair—into the threads of its interior.

He said bitterly, "America for the Americans. You can be an Englishman or German whose parents came over twenty years ago and took out citizenship papers and you're an American. But you can have ancestors going back twenty thousand years on this continent and you're on the shit list."

Hamp said, still surveying with his monoscope, "You damn redskins are always complaining. Wait a minute, I think they've erected that speaker's stand thirty meters farther up than we figured on."

"Hell," the Indian said, taking up an aluminum rod from the table. One end of it was threaded. "I had it all zeroed, sighted-in, calibrated."

Joe, watching the assembly job, said, "That's the smallest breech I've ever seen."

"Uh huh," Tom said, winding the aluminum rod into a hole at the end of the deadly device. "This is a single-shot bolt action. But the bolt doesn't stick out to the side, it's this little knob on the top."

"What's that?" Joe said of the steel rod the other was manipulating. He had obviously never seen the thing before, assembled or otherwise.

"Part of the skeleton stock," Tom told him, tightening it firmly. The rod canted downward from the breech at an angle.

Hamp came back to the table where Tom Horse and Jose Zavalla were assembling the gun.

Tom was saying to Joe, "Hand me that other rod."

Hamp brought a quarter-liter bottle from an inner pocket. He studied its label for a moment, then unscrewed the top. He held it to his lips and took a long pull.

"What's that?" Tom said, not looking particularly happy as he twirled the new rod into its place.

"Cognac," Hamp told him. "Brandy. Have a slug. Listen, what effect is it going to have, their erecting that stand in the wrong place?"

"No thanks," the Indian said, still not happy about the liquor. "I'm driving. Besides, didn't you know we savages can't handle firewater?"

Joe said, "Brandy?" reaching for the bottle. "You mean aguardiente? Man, you blacks really live it up. I haven't had anything but syntho-gin for as long as I can remember." He took a hearty pull, brought the bottle down, and stared at the label admiringly. "V.S.O.P. What the hell's that mean?"

"It means it's worth its weight in diamonds," Hamp said. "Cloddies like us can't afford it. It's forced on me by admiring women who lust for my body. I brought it along as medicine—never know when I might get sick. How about the range, Tom?"

Tom had finished screwing the shorter aluminum rod into the back of the breech. It stuck out at a shallower angle, so that the two rods looked like two sides of a narrow triangle. Joe handed him the short, curved base, padded with holes drilled into it near both ends. There was no threading now. Tom simply inserted the aluminum rods in the holes and gave the base a whack with the heel of his right hand, driving it tightly home.

He said to the black, "It's not important. This scope we've got is an Auto-Range. Latest thing. Combines a range finder with a regular telescopic sight. No sweat. Hand me that silencer, Joe."

"You're sure?" Hamp said, pushing the back of his left hand over his mouth.

"Sure I'm sure," the other told him. "Take a minute or so to get it all sighted in again.'' He took the long tube Joe handed over and began screwing it into the barrel. It projected about a foot and a half when he had it tightly fitted. The silencer was about two and a half times the diameter of the barrel.

Tom said, "Where'd you get this sweetheart, Hamp? It's a handmade work of art."

"News reporter I used to know. Used to collect offbeat guns. He picked it up in one of the bush wars over in Africa. Assassin gun. For all I know, it's the only one ever made."

"He was crazy, giving this away," Tom said. "It's a real collector's item."

Joe handed him the telescopic sight. There were grooves gouged into the metal top of the barrel. The Indian carefully eased the sights into them. On the top and right-hand side of the instrument were small vernier screws for adjusting the crossed hairs inside the scope.

"Where's the fuckin' trigger?" Tom said, holding out his hand.

"Mind your fuckin' language," the Chicano told him. "I'm a lady on my mother's side." He brought forth from one of the attaché cases a twirl of tissue paper, unwrapped it, and handed the contents over.

The sliver of a trigger was slightly curved and there were threads on one end. Tom Horse began screwing it into place below the breech.

"Why couldn't that have been built in?" Joe said.

The Indian took up the assembled gun and handled it admiringly. "Same reason there's no protruding bolt. This whole thing is constructed to disassemble into parts that any man could carry around while wearing an overcoat. Most of it would go into deep pockets. The barrel would be the only thing that's clumsy. You'd have to suspend it from your belt, or maybe by a strap under your shoulder."

Hamp took another slug of the cognac and looked at his watch. He said, "The governor and his committee ought to be showing up any time. Let's move this table over to the window."

While the others were doing that, Tom went to one side of the room and selected a straight chair. He put the chair next to the end of the table, which now stood against the middle window, and took from one of the attaché cases a very light, bipod rifle support. It was of aluminum, held in place by an elastic strap. He slipped it over the end of the rifle and its attached silencer.

He said to the black, "How does it look now, Hamp?"

Hamp had his monoscope to his eye again. "Wizard. They're filing onto the speaker's stand, everybody shaking hands and smiling at each other. Very jolly. They've really got a turnout. The crowd must have come from all over the county."

"The more the merrier," Joe growled. "Bastards will have something to see this time."

Hamp said, "Now here's the setup, one last time, Tom, just to be sure. The speaker's stand is about twenty-five feet high. Old Drive 'Em Out Teeter stands way above the assembled mob so that they have to throw their heads back to gawk at him. He likes to speak with a rail before him so he can lean on it and thump it from time to time. Somewhere along the line he must have seen some of the old historic films of Mussolini hassling the wops from his balcony."

"All right, all right," Tom said impatiently, bringing forth from one of the attaché cases a black rubber block in which were stuck three long, pointed cartridges. They were of small caliber but necked down from a large casing. He pulled one round out and put it on the table next to him. The brass casing gleamed softly in subdued light.

Hamp was saying, "Teeter doesn't like to speak directly into a mike. Instead, he has two of them hooked into the railing to each side of him, about two meters apart."

"Right," Tom muttered, brushing the window curtain slightly to one side so that he could see up the street. "So I focus a meter beyond the mike nearest us."

Hamp pushed his left hand over his mouth again. "Wizard."

Joe had stationed himself at the window behind where the Indian was setting up his assassin rifle. He said, "You better get your ass in a hustle. Here comes the chairman."

"Plenty of time," Tom said evenly.

Hamp took up the small bottle of brandy, now nearly empty, and took a quick swig before setting it down on the table. Tom shot him a disapproving glance but said nothing.

The Indian glued his right eye to the telescopic sight. It had already been sighted in, but he reached out delicately and adjusted the focus. The chairman's face leapt into clarity before him.

The marksman took the nub of the bolt in his thumb and index finger and gave it a counterclockwise twist, pulling the bolt back in its groove to reveal the trough for the long bullet. He took up the cartridge and inserted it, thumbed the bolt back home and flicked it clockwise, smoothly locking it into place.

He settled comfortably into his chair, pushed the curtain of the window back a little more.

"Open it," he said softly.

Hamp pushed the window up sufficiently to make room for firing.

The Indian snuggled into position behind the scope eyepiece. "All right, Governor Teeter, last of the racist rabble-rousers," he murmured softly. "You've sounded off once too often."

On the outskirts of the teeming crowd which had gathered to hear Teeter, two blacks stood inconspicuously in the shade of an ancient live oak, near the trunk. From their distance, the white-clad speaker was hardly distinguishable, but the loudspeaker system brought his words clearly enough and his fist-shaking gestures of emphasis could not be misunderstood.

One of the blacks said softly, "Old Drive 'Em Out is in full voice today. I'm beginning to suspect he doesn't like bloods."

Without warning, the figure on the speaker's stand came to a shocked stiffening; red blossomed out in a large blot on his white shirt. He staggered for a moment and then slowly crumbled, falling out of sight.

One of the blacks shook his head. "Drunk as a lord," he said.

The other surreptitiously brought a transceiver from his pocket, activated it, and said softly, "Bullseye." He put the communication device back into his pocket and said urgently, "Let's get the hell out of here, Jackie."

In the run-down apartment, Hamp picked up the assassin rifle by its fore end, its bipod still hanging free, and took it into the bedroom. He pulled the bipod off, held up the aged mattress with one hand, and stuck the gun and stand under it. He smoothed out the bed neatly and returned to the other two.

Joe said, in deprecation, "It won't take them long to find that."

"Who cares?" Hamp said. "It's untraceable."

He picked up the rubber container holding the two unspent rounds and dropped it into a side pocket, then took the small flask of brandy. After offering it to both Tom and Joe Zavalla, who shook their heads, he finished it. "Let's drag ass," he said.

He unlocked the door, let them precede him, and then relocked it. They headed for the stairs, unhurried as before. They'd left the cane and attaché cases behind.

Down in the parking lot, they stopped before a waste receptacle, stripped the gloves from their hands, and dropped them in. Hamp also discarded the empty bottle and the unused ammunition after wiping them.

They got into their hovercar, all three in front, the black driving, and unhurriedly left the parking area.

They emerged onto the main street and headed away from the park where the rally had been taking place. Even at this distance, they could hear the swell of shouts and screams, though almost drowned by police sirens.

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," said Joe, who was sitting by the window, his vague smile on his lips. "I wonder how many men, women, and children have been killed as a result of his racist rantings?"

They left the environs of New Salem and headed, at a moderate speed, out into the countryside. They passed a sign welcoming all to New Salem.

"Salem," Tom said, musing. "Wasn't that where they burned all the witches?"

"Yes," Hamp told him softly. "This time we reversed it and clobbered a witch hunter. Joe, there's a bottle in that glove compartment."

But the Indian beside him shot the black one of his looks from the side of his eyes and said quickly, "Take it easy, Hamp. The day's not over. We wouldn't want them to hang a drunk driving romp on you."

"Wizard," Hamp said. "But I'm not drunk."

"You don't have to be. They'd book you anyway, if you showed any indication at all of drinking. Joe, throw that bottle out."

Joe took the half-liter of booze from the dash compartment and looked at the label sadly before tossing the bottle far off the road into a field of sweet corn.

For a while, they drove along silently, each absorbed in his own thoughts in the anticlimax of what they'd just been through.

Joe said finally, "That was a good spot to pot him from. How'd you locate it?"

Hamp said, "Not much trouble. Teeter always starts off his campaigns in New Salem. It's the oldest town of any size in the state. That apartment was ideal. The renter lives alone and goes up to Chicago six months of the year to work on some part-time job. He hates the big city, so he returns here for the rest of the year. As it turned out, we needed the place just when he didn't."

Tom looked over at him. "How'd we find out about it?"

"One of our whitey members came to town and hung around for a while in bars in the neighborhoods we were interested in. He finally got to talking to this fellow."

They held silence for a while. There was a certain tenseness in waiting for what they knew was to come, the inevitable.

Hamp said, "Oh, oh. Here it is. Road block."

Up ahead were two State Police vehicles barring the way. There were also two police hovercycles. Of the seven officers, two carried automatic Gyrojet carbines; the others, bolstered side arms. There were red lights flashing above the cars.

Hamp said, "Play it cool. No temper, Joe, and no wisecracks." They came to a halt some thirty feet from the barricade.

Two of the police troopers strolled toward them. About twenty feet off, one of them stopped and stood there, his legs parted, his holster unsnapped. The second trooper came up to the driver's window and looked in at them.

Hamp said, his voice modulated, "What's the difficulty, officer?"

The state trooper said, "I'll ask the questions, boy. Now, you three get out of there and line up against the side of this here car. Spread your legs and lean your hands up against it."

Hamp said, his voice still quietly even, "What's the charge, officer?"

Joe had brought a pocket transceiver out, flicked back the cover, activated it, and said, "We have been stopped by police and ordered from our vehicle, evidently to be searched. The police officer's badge number is 358."

The trooper looked at him coldly. He was a rawboned, lanky type, probably in his late twenties. His uniform boasted all the glory of a Hungarian brigadier. He said, "Who you talking to?"

Joe smiled. "A friend."

Hamp repeated, "What is the charge, officer? Isn't a warrant required to search a citizen?"

"Don't smartass me, boy," the trooper said grimly. He dropped his hand to his Gyrojet pistol.

The black said, still mildly, "My name isn't Boy. It's Horace Greeley Hampton. And I consider myself acting under duress."

He opened the door of the hovercar and got out, followed by Tom and Joe, but not until Joe had said into his transceiver, "The police officer called Mr. Hampton 'boy' contemptuously and made a gesture toward his sidearm, reinforcing his demand that we be searched."

The three lined up against the car, as ordered, and the second trooper came up to help in frisking them. They were thorough.

The second state policeman said, as though disappointed, "They're clean, Ranee."

Ranee said, "Go through the car." While the other was obeying, he said to Hamp, Tom, and Joe, "Okay, you three. Let's see your ID."

They handed over their Universal Credit Cards, which performed the functions of identity cards, driver's licenses, and everything else a prole needed for identification.

He looked at them carefully, brought forth a police transceiver, and read off names and identity numbers into it, then asked for a police dossier check of the data banks.

He turned his pale eyes to them. "Horace Greeley Hampton, Tom Horse, Jose Angel Mario Zavalla. Born in Ohio, Colorado, and Texas. All on Guaranteed Annual Stipend." He sneered at that—an overly done, artificial sneer. "What're you doing in this state?"

"We are on our way through," Hamp said, his accent still that of an educated man.

"Where'd you just come from?"

"New Salem."

"Oh, you did, eh? What were you doing there?"

"We went over to see the rally, listen to the governor's opening campaign speech."

"Then what're you doing here?"

"The crowd was so large that we couldn't get anywhere near the speaker's stand. Besides, there had been quite a bit of drinking. Some of the, ah, gentlemen in the crowd didn't seem to like our complexions. At any rate, we decided to return to where we're staying."

"Where's that?"

Joe said into his transceiver, "We're being questioned, although thus far no charge has been made and we have not even been told whether or not we're under arrest. Our vehicle is being searched without our permission and without a warrant."

Ranee glared at him but forced his eyes back to Hamp, who seemed to be the spokesman of this unorthodox trio.

Hamp said, "We're staying at the We Shall Overcome Motel, near Leesville."

The washed out, grayish eyes of the trooper tightened infinitesimally. He looked at Joe and said, "And that's who you're talking to?"

Joe smiled his constant smile. "That's right, Mr. Policeman, sir."

Hamp looked over at him and slightly shook his head.

The second trooper emerged from the vehicle. He said, grudgingly, "It's clean, Ranee."

Ranee's police transceiver buzzed and he listened to the report on the police dossiers of the three, his face less than pleased.

Joe said, in his communication device, "We have been checked out in the police data banks and have obviously been cleared; however, we are still being held without charge, without warrant, and…"

Ranee began to go red around his neck. "Take that damned thing away from him," he snapped to the other trooper, who was leaning back against the car, arms folded. He came erect gladly and started in the Mexican-American's direction.

Joe began to retreat backward, saying quickly into his transceiver, "State Police officer Number 358 has ordered my transceiver taken. One of us is a black; notify the nearest Nat Turner Team. One of us is an Amerind; notify the Sons of Wounded Knee. I am a Chicano; get in touch with the Foes of the Alamo. Notify our legal department! Notify Civil Liberties. Alert the Reunited Nations Human Relations…"

The trooper was on him, grabbing the transceiver away. Joe smiled and winked at him.

Hamp, his face very serious, turned to Ranee and said, "You're in the dill now, officer."

The trooper's face was suddenly wan and he was breathing deeply. He looked from Hamp to Tom and Joe, then back again. His tongue came out and licked dry lips.

"All right," he said. "Okay. You can go. We have nothing to hold you on. The governor was shot in New Salem an hour or so ago." He took in a deep breath. "It's our job. No hard feelings, fellas."

Joe smiled, "In that case, fuzzy, how about a donation for the Anti-Racist League?"

"Get the hell out of here," Ranee snarled. He turned to the other trooper, who was looking at him in surprise. "Give them back that transceiver and their IDs."

When the three had left, the second trooper looked at his companion. He said, "What the hell, Ranee. You practically kissed their asses and they were driving right from New Salem."

The other glowered at him. "How'd you like somebody to toss a grenade into your living room? Those bastards never quit, once you're on their list. They don't care if it takes years. Sooner or later they hit you."

Hamp, Tom, and Joe drove along in silence for a time, letting the tension drain away, until Hamp turned to Joe and said, "What in the hell's a Nat Turner Team?"

And Tom Horse added, "Or the Sons of Wounded Knee?"

"Damned if I know," Joe said, grinning. "I made them up as I went along. Same with the Foes of the Alamo. What's the old gag? If there'd been a back door to the Alamo there would never have been a Texas."

The We Shall Overcome Motel was well done. Extending over quite a few acres, it was completely surrounded by a high, heavy, barbed-wire fence. A strong steel gate spanned the dressed stone entrance and, behind it, several public buildings, including a large store, a recreation hall, and a restaurant. An auto-bar clubroom stood off to one side of these, near a good-sized swimming pool, which was crowded with swimmers and sunbathers, mostly of dark complexion but with a scattering of whites.

In the center of the compound was a sizable grove of trees, largely pines. A person could wander into the pine grove, find a bit of a clearing, and spread out on his back, to stare up at clouds or stars and feel, so temporarily, free.

The area around the little forest was devoted to mobile homes and campers of all varieties. At present, a small mobile town with an art colony theme—some forty homes in all—was temporarily parked en route to Mexico and parts south. Not all proles on GAS crammed themselves into mini-apartments in high-rise buildings in the cities.

Hamp pulled up before the administration building, dropped the vehicle's lift lever, and switched off the engine.

Maximillian Finklestein issued from the office and strolled over toward them. He was a tallish, sparse, stoop-shouldered man of about forty-five. As they emerged from the hovercar he came up and said, "How was the rally, chum-pals?"

Tom shrugged and said, "We didn't stay. Too big a crowd. We heard there was a lot of excitement after we left. Somebody took a shot at the governor."

Finklestein clucked his tongue. "Imagine that. Was he hurt?"

Joe said, "We got the impression he was hit. Didn't you see it on Tri-Di?"

"I was working," Max told him. "Come on in and have a drink; we'll check the news."

Hamp said, "Your invitation appeals to me strangely, especially the drink part, but I want to stretch my legs a little first."

"Me, too," Tom said. "A little stroll before the firewater."

The three of them, accompanied by Max, set out leisurely for the wooded area.

They entered the trees, for the time holding silence. After a couple of hundred feet they reached a small clearing, the ground well covered by pine needles and leaves. Then, in silent agreement, they all stretched out on their faces in a starlike arrangement, their heads close together. Their faces were to the ground, partially into the needles and leaves. Even the best shotgun mike would play hell listening to them now.

Max said softly, "What happened?"

"Plumb center," Tom whispered. "The capslug shattered right on his chest and splattered red goo all over his shirt. I could see his face go pale and his eyes pop. He fainted."

The motel manager growled, "The loudmouth bastard'll know it could have been the real thing. Might even rethink his racist campaigning if he's smarter than he is bigoted. How tough were the fuzzies?"

Hamp took over the report, also whispering into the leaves. "About as expected. They hated it, every minute of it, and they hated us and our uppity ways, but they weren't about to stick their necks out. They'll toss it all into the laps of the IABI. They've heard all the silly rumors about how tough we are. They had no intention of becoming martyrs for a state cop's pay."

Finklestein said, "I've already got instructions for you. You three will be under special observation. The IABI isn't completely dull. They might not dig up proof but they'll strongly suspect you of the burlesque assassination. Your dossiers will tell them you're members of the Anti-Racist League. You were admittedly present in New Salem and Governor Teeter was an anachronism, the last of the really all-out rabid politician racists. They know it was just a matter of time before we zeroed in on him. They'll probably be surprised we didn't actually bump him off."

"Swell," Tom said into the leaves, a note of extreme weariness in his voice. "So what do we do now?"

"You break up as a team. None of you will continue to operate in this section." Max fished in a jacket pocket. "Tom, you go to southern Illinois. You're an unknown there. Go to a town named Zeigler and report to the section leader. Here's the address." He handed the paper over.

Tom looked at it and said, "What do I do there?"

Max seemed surprised at the question. "I haven't the vaguest idea," he told the Indian. "I understand that it's a pretty backward part of the country: fundamentalists, high illiteracy rate—you've seen it all before. But I don't know what they'll have you doing. You might as well take off. No need for you to know where Hamp and Joe are assigned."

"Yeah," Tom said, scrambling to his feet and stuffing the address into his shorts pocket. He looked down at the other two, hesitated for a moment, then said gruffly, "Hang loose, chum-pals."

They both looked up from the leaves and nodded. The team hadn't operated together for very long, but they'd been more than unusually compatible.

"So long, Redskin," Joe said softly.

When the other was gone, the remaining three returned their lips to the pine needles and leaves.

Max said, "Joe, you head south for Mexico City. Here's your contact." He handed another note to the Chicano.

"Mexico?" Joe said. "I've never been down there. What do I do?"

"No need for me to know. But the way I understand it, there seems to be an unlikely situation, particularly in the big centers like Mexico City and Monterrey, where all the best positions wind up in the hands of whites of Spanish descent. Next in the highest job and power echelons are those with a high percentage of Spanish blood. Mestizos, they call them. And, surprise, surprise! Guess who's the low man on the totem pole?"

"The full-blooded Indian," Hamp growled. "How do they get around the computers supposedly selecting the best citizens for whatever job comes up?"

Max grunted at that. "Undoubtedly, the same way they do here. The rumors continue that sometimes the data banks are jimmied, rigged. But the programmers know angles. And that will probably be one of Joe's tasks."

Joe sighed. "Same old story," he said. "Fuck the colored races. What's my cover?"

"The obvious one, most nearly the truth. You're on GAS and can't find a job up north. So, since you're bilingual, you head south hoping to use your two languages to advantage in getting work." Max hesitated a moment before adding, "You'd better get underway, too. You never know. The IABI could show at any time to pick you three up."

Joe came to his feet. He smiled at Hamp, warmer than his usual humorless smile. "Nice knowing you, Blood."

Hamp said, "Feeling's mutual, companero. Luck."

Joe left.

The two remaining readdressed themselves to the ground.

Hamp said, "What about me?"

Max said, "Your request for a leave of absence has been okayed." He looked over at the black from the side of his eyes. "How come, Hamp? There's a hell of a shortage of top men and, from what I understand, you're continually taking leaves."

"Wizard," Hamp said in deprecation. "But we'll have fewer field men than ever if you wear us down to the point where we lose efficiency. I've been in the trenches too often in the past couple of months. I need a breather. I think I'll spend some time in New York. Where do I report when I'm unwound?"

Max handed him a note. "To me. As usual, I haven't the vaguest idea of what your next assignment will be. However, there's one item of business on your way back east, a new contact. A Lee Garrett, who lives in Greenpoint, Pennsylvania."

"A new contact?" Hamp said, moderately indignant. "Have I sunk to the level where you're using me for elementary propaganda?"

"Headquarters seems to think that this one is a better prospect than usual. A whitey. Not on GAS. Better than usual education. Our local section isn't too top-level, so they want a good agent to make the initial contact with Garrett." Max handed the black another note.

"Wizard," Hamp said, coming to his feet and brushing pine needles from his shorts and jacket. "Do I leave now, like Tom and Joe?"

Max stood, too. "Why don't you come over to my place and we'll talk some shop and have a couple of quick ones. Tom and Joe never did get that drink I promised them."

"They're dedicated," the other snorted. "Both of them hardly touch the stuff. Lead me to it. As a matter of fact, I've got some good French brandy in my luggage. We can crack that."

Max Finklestein wondered vaguely how the other could afford a bottle of imported brandy. It would take a month of GAS credits to buy such a potable.

Chapter Two: Franklin Pinell

When the two corrections officers from the prison handed Franklin Pinell over to the court bailiffs in the Justice Department Building, he was still handcuffed to the heavier-set, tougher-looking guard. While the second officer was getting a bailiff to sign the receipt for their charge, the prisoner was freed of his cuffs. The guard dialed the appropriate number on the shackles and then put his thumbprint on the tiny screen. The titanium alloy handcuffs came away.

"There he is," he said, obviously bored. "Frank Pinell. Supposed to be tough. Haven't you got cuffs for him?"

"No," the bailiff said. "We don't usually use them."

The prison guard looked the two court officers up and down. The older one was pushing sixty, much overweight, and the second didn't look much more competent.

"He's supposed to be tough," the guard repeated. "A killer. You fellas heeled?"

"We don't usually carry guns," the other said.

Frank Pinell stood there rubbing the wrist that had been confined. He looked at the prison guards emptily as they turned to leave. "Be seeing you," he said.

The one to whom he had been handcuffed snorted tack over his shoulder. "Not where you're going, chum-pal."

When they were gone, Pinell looked at the bailiffs.

"This way, son," the older one said, and then added gruffly, "Tough luck. I've got a son your age."

The three of them ascended marble stairs to the second floor and then proceeded to the left down the wide corridor.

The younger bailiff said, "Those types see too many crime Tri-Di shows. What good do they think it would do you to escape? Without a credit card you couldn't buy a stick of chewing gum, or a ride on the metro, not to speak of a meal.

You have no home and it's a felony for any friend to take you in."

"Stop it, stop it," Pinell said without tone. "You're breaking my heart."

He was twenty-five years of age, looked surprisingly athletic as proles went, was medium tall, clean and neat even in less than top quality garb, and his bearing would have passed muster in any upper class gathering. His dark brown hair was worn full and combed directly back. His eyes were a dark green and his rather long face had a Scottish cast. In less plebeian dress he might have been typed as a graduate student or a junior executive.

"Okay, son," the older one said. "Here we are." He opened half of a heavy double door and the bailiffs led their charge through before them.

The judge looked up from his desk. He was dressed in his traditional black robes and resembled the older and kindlier of his two court officers. That is, he was about sixty, overweight, his face lined not with an immediate weariness but with one that had accumulated down through the years.

"Franklin Pinell, Your Honor," the younger bailiff said.

"Yes, of course, James." The judge looked at the prisoner. "Be seated, Pinell." Then back at the guards. "Please wait outside. I believe you already have your instructions."

"Yes, Your Honor." The younger bailiff hesitated, then said, "Judge, the corrections officers from the prison said Pinell is reputed to be dangerous."

"Indeed?" John Worthington looked at the youthful prisoner. "Are you?"

Frank Pinell hesitated, then let air out of his lungs and said, "Under the circumstances, no." He took the chair across from the judge's desk.

"Very well, that will be all, James, Bertram."

The bailiffs left and the judge sighed, studying the prisoner for a moment. Pinell returned the scrutiny, his expression saying, it's your ball, start bouncing it.

The judge sighed again and took up a report from before him. He said, "I am afraid we have bad news for you, Franklin."

"I expected it."

The judge ignored that, looked at the report, and said,

"The legal computers have found you guilty and recommend deportation."

Frank Pinell's face went blank. "Deportation? But I've got only one major…"

The other was shaking his head. "Your criminal dossier lists four felonies. As a four-time loser, your sentence becomes deportation for life."

"But Your Honor, those first two romps were kid stuff. I was only in my early teens."

"But you served time for your offenses, no matter how short, as you did for your third, ah, romp. The fact that your first felony amounted to no more than taking an unguarded hovercar for a joyride is beside the point. You served several months in a youth detention camp. And your second offense and third…"

"All right. Who can argue with a damned computer? Isn't there any way I can appeal?"

"Not at this point," the judge told him. "If you can claim new evidence later and it is made available to the data banks, you can then appeal. Appeals are seldom successful. The computers don't make mistakes, Franklin. Judges and juries used to, perhaps, but computers don't."

"It's a hell of a thing to call justice," the younger man said bitterly. "Being thrown out of your own country."

The judge looked at him in weariness and said, "What was it the old cynic asked? 'Come now, the truth; who among us would be satisfied with justice?' The fact is, your fourth crime was the only really reprehensible one. But it was homicide, and under rather strange circumstances. Had that been your only felony, you would not have been deported. Our penal system allows for rehabilitation even of murderers. But with three other felonies on your record, the computers opted for deportation."

"I don't want to live anywhere except in the States," Pinell said.

"Unfortunately, that is now out of your hands, Franklin. You should have considered it sooner. Deportation makes sense, from the viewpoint of the government. Some decades ago, when the penal laws were revamped, they found that it cost more to keep a criminal in prison than to send him to Harvard. As it is now, the government will no longer be put to the expense of keeping you in prison, or even on GAS. Nor will you be free to commit new felonies upon serving your time or being paroled."

The older man put that part of it behind him and said, "You will be issued one thousand pseudo-dollars in the form of Swiss gold francs. You will be deprived of your Universal Credit Card, and you are forbidden ever again to enter this country."

"What happens when the thousand runs out?" the other said, his voice still low.

"That is not the concern of the United States of the Americas. You make what arrangements you can in your host country."

Frank Pinell squared his shoulders. "All right. What country are you sending me to?"

"To a certain point, that is your decision. Obviously, the advanced nations will not accept you. However, some Third-World nations will take you under certain circumstances. Their situation is something like Australia and the American colony of Georgia when they were first colonized. They needed population desperately, so England allowed convicts to decide whether to spend their sentences in jail or to be hanged, as the case might be, or to become colonists."

***proffedto here***

"What's that got to do with here and now?" Pinell said, impatient at the older man's ramblings.

"In some nations, particularly in Africa and Indonesia, even partially educated persons are in very short supply. Some of them, upon gaining independence from the former colonial powers, had no university graduates whatsoever. No doctors, no engineers, no lawyers—no one really competent to hold high government office. Later, with the support of the Reunited Nations and the assistance of the more advanced countries, they were able to send students to America and Europe, in hopes of alleviating this problem. Unfortunately, the majority of such students chose to remain in the advanced countries or, at least, to emigrate to nations less backward than their own. A facet of the brain drain, in short."

"So I've got to choose a country so desperate for even semi-educated manpower that they'll admit killers as immigrants."

"I'm afraid that's it, Franklin. Mozambique, for instance, or the Seychelles, where the climate is said to be excellent, though the islands are rather small and isolated."

"Any place where there'd be more whites? More people I could speak the language with?" The prisoner's voice had grown sullen.

The judge took up a sheaf of papers from his desk. He perused it a few minutes before saying, "According to your dossier, your schooling was far above average for these days. And while you were never chosen for regular employment by the National Data Banks, you have on several occasions held down minor, short-term positions. This would undoubtedly make you eligible for residence in Morocco, or at least Tangier."

"Tangier?"

The judge, his tone unhappy, said, "A disreputable city immediately across from Gibraltar on the North African coast. Although nominally part of the Sherifian Empire, and subject to the Sultan, it's an International Zone where few laws seem to apply. There is no extradition, for instance, and few taxes. With the possible exceptions of Nassau and Malta, it is usually considered to be the, ah, most wide-open city in the world."

"Many Americans there?"

"The population is international. You'd find many English-speaking residents. However, anyone seeking to rehabilitate himself would find Tangier an unhealthy atmosphere, I should think. Its reputation is rank indeed."

Frank Pinell grunted, impatient again. "Who said anything about rehabilitation? All right, I'll take Tangier."

Pinell was kept in a detention cell in a high-security prison in New Jersey only two nights before the plainclothes agents came for him. They were typical of the breed, lower echelon operatives of the largest police organization in the world— unless the Soviet Complex held that honor. The Inter-American Bureau of Investigation was a product of its times, which led to amalgamation of just about all areas of the productive or governmental systems. In this case, it applied to the police. The all-embracing IABI included what had once been the FBI, the CIA, all military espionage and counterespionage services, the Secret Service, all state police, and all local police forces. Each former group had a certain amount of autonomy, but ultimately they were all a part of the great law enforcement octopus which was the IABI, presided over by Director John Warfield Moyer. For more than two decades Moyer had dominated the American police system like a colossus.

The two were inconspicuous young men of averages, deliberately chosen to blend into a group—average of height, weight, coloring, facial characteristics, and dressed to conform. Frank Pinell had come in contact with them before, particularly in the past two months since his latest and most serious fall. They could all have been clones from one source.

When the cell door opened, one of them said, "Okay, Pinell, get your things. You're on your way."

He had two suitcases. They were packed with all of his earthly belongings, save the suit he wore. It was a conservative suit, government issue, just slightly above usual prole standards. Even so, it was as good as Franklin Pinell had ever worn. They were also to issue him a thousand pseudo-dollars in the form of Swiss gold coinage, the judge had told him. He had never had, at one time, such a sum. There was something ironic about the fact that as a criminal deportee, the State was sending him off in better shape than he had ever enjoyed as a free citizen.

He took up the bags and went out into the corridor saying, "You mean everything has already been cleared for me to emigrate to Morocco?"

"Tangier," one of them said. "It's not exactly Morocco. And as far as allowing you to immigrate, they'd take Jack the Ripper in that town. Come on, Pinell. I'm MacDonald and this is Roskin. We're your escort. Just for the record, we're under orders to shoot if you try to escape between here and the Tangier airport."

"My chum-pals," Frank muttered.

"And just for the record," Roskin added, "if you crack smart you'll wind up with dentures."

MacDonald brought forth handcuffs and joined his left wrist to Frank's right.

Frank said, "For Christ's sake, how can I carry my bags, shackled like this?"

"You carry one of them under your left arm and the other by its handle," Roskin told him. "You didn't expect us to act as your porters, did you? If it's too much, you can leave one of them. They probably don't contain anything worth having anyway. Whoever heard of a prole with anything worth owning? He'd flog it to buy syntho-beer."

Frank looked at him coldly, even as he fumbled the smaller of the two suitcases up under his left arm and took the other in his left hand. The weight of the two put him somewhat off balance. He said, "I have a few family mementos. My father wasn't exactly a prole."

MacDonald grunted disinterest. "Oh? Well, he didn't seem to pass anything great along to you. What happened to him?"

"He was shot to death," Frank said flatly. "Are we or aren't we getting out of this stinkhole?"

"Don't press your luck, smartass," Roskin told him, leading the way down the prison corridor toward freedom.

At the Long Island shuttleport they were lobbed over to the International Supersonic Port, which floated some twenty miles off the coast, and from there took the next laserboost to a similar jetport stationed off Lisbon. A shuttlecraft lobbed them over to Madrid. Next stop: Tangier.

While Roskin was checking out their reservations, Mac-Donald and Frank Pinell waited in the terminal.

The IABI man said, "Too bad you can't take time out to see Madrid, Pinell. Great town for a fling. Prettiest mopsies in Common Europe. You pick them up at Chicote's bar, where they've got the biggest collection of guzzle in the world. Oh, you'd love Chicote's. They've got a jog of Chinese brandy going back to the Ming Dynasty. Something like a thousand years old."

"Maybe I'll see that guzzle museum someday."

The other laughed nastily. "Not you, chum-pal. You'll spend the rest of your life in Taniger, knocking back rotgut absinthe—when you can afford it. The asshole of creation, Tangier"

"How big is it?"

"A few square miles. Before you can get up a good dog trot, you're over the International Zone boundary, which is taboo. Then the Moroccan police throw you in the slammer. The dungeons in Morocco go back to the days of Harun-al-Rashid. Not that you've ever heard of him."

"Calif of Baghdad in the Arabian Nights," Frank replied. "He never got to Morocco."

Roskin came back with their reservations and hurried them up. "Royal Air Maroc," he said. "This airline you've got to see to believe."

"Flying carpets?" Pinell muttered.

The flying equipment of Royal Air Maroc was obviously secondhand from more prosperous lines, but the old-fashioned jet got them there. They landed at the shabby airport on the outskirts of Tangier in the afternoon.

The three had been the only passengers from Madrid, save for two swarthy-looking types, both wearing red fezzes but garbed in European dress, and wearing it as though it was a penance. On the way down Frank had heard them talking in some language he had never heard before.

He asked Roskin about it. "What do they speak in Tangier?"

"Just about everything," the other had told him, begrudging the information. "Mostly a Rifian version of Arabic. But any native you're apt to have anything to do with usually speaks either French or Spanish." He snorted with contempt at his prisoner. "Do you speak either?"

"I took some French," Frank said. He didn't add that it hadn't been much. To hell with these guys.

Roskin removed the handcuffs at the foot of the aircraft's ladder and the three waited for a few minutes until the plane's crew had brought their luggage.

Only one customs examiner stood in the administration building. Frank put his bags on the long, low table and, at the other's gesture, opened them. The Moroccan official was two days unshaven, had a stub of a cigarette in his mouth, and though he wore a uniform, it looked as though it had never been laundered since leaving the factory. His shirt was unbuttoned two buttons.

He dug roughly into Frank Pinell's things with dirty hands, making no attempt at neatness. He came upon a sub-miniature Leica-Polaroid camera which had once belonged to Frank's father and pocketed it.

"Hey, for Christ's sake," Frank exclaimed.

"Take it easy," Roskin told him. "And just hope he doesn't see anything else he thinks is worth flogging."

Seething inwardly, Frank held his peace. His cursory ex-animations completed, the customs officer took up a piece of blue chalk and marked each bag with an Arabic scribble, then made a contemptuous gesture of dismissal. He looked at the overnight bags that Roskin and MacDonald were carrying, but the latter said something in French which Frank didn't get, and the Moroccan shrugged and moved off.

"This way," MacDonald said, gesturing with his head toward an office door.

There was no identity screen on the office door. The IABI men didn't bother to knock, but simply pushed the door open and ushered their prisoner in. The office beyond was as filthy as the large hall outside and the fat official behind the sole desk was almost as disreputable in appearance as the customs man. He had a warm bottle of some orange-colored drink sitting to his left and from time to time took a swallow of it. The day wasn't particularly hot, but his round, lardy face was oozing oily sweat.

The three came up to the desk and MacDonald spoke in French, then brought forth several papers and put them before the other. The Mokkadem took them up and looked expressionlessly at Frank Pinell for a long moment, then down at the papers. MacDonald took from his pocket a small gold coin and put it on the desk. The Moroccan swept it with a fat hand into his top desk drawer and grunted.

"That came from you," the IABI man told his charge. "We'll settle later."

Frank sucked in breath but said nothing. It was their top, all he could do was let them keep spinning it.

The Moroccan official took up a rubber stamp and banged it on several of the papers, handed two of them to Frank, and put the rest in his desk. He looked up at MacDonald, then over to Frank, then returned to scanning the tattered pornographic magazine he had been perusing when they entered.

Frank said, "You mean that's all? That's all that's involved in my entering this country for good?"

They turned and left. As they went, Roskin said to him, "Not quite. Tomorrow morning you go to police headquarters on the Place de Mohammed Fifth and register. They'll want to see your papers, photograph and fingerprint you, find out where you're staying. Every time you move, you have to report your new address."

"That brings us to my money," Frank said.

MacDonald brought forth a booklet, opened it, and took a stylo from the pocket of his shirt. "Sign this receipt," he said.

Frank scanned it quickly. One thousand pseudo-dollars in gold Swiss francs.

As he signed, he said, "What do they use as a means of exchange in Tangier?"

"They use currency," Roskin said. "In Morocco, it's the dirham. Five dirham are approximately one pseudo-dollar."

MacDonald returned his receipt booklet to his pocket, brought forth some small gold coins, and counted them out into Frank's outstretched hand. "There's your severance pay," he said.

Frank said, "I owe you one for that bribe you gave the official."

"Never mind," the IABI man said, amused. "Let's say it's on me."

That set Frank back. He looked down at the small number of Swiss coins in his hand and looked at one to check its denomination.

"How many francs to the pseudo-dollar?" he said, scowling.

"Two," Roskin told him.

Frank calculated quickly and looked up. "This comes to only two hundred pseudo-dollars.''

MacDonald said to his fellow agent, "He's not only an intellectual but a mathematician."

"I'm supposed to get a thousand," Frank said, his voice tight.

MacDonald scoffed at him. "What'd you do with a thousand pseudo-dollars? Probably waste it. Go through it in a week. As it is, Roskin and I will lay over in Madrid on our way home, and we'll hoist a couple of drinks to you in Chicote's."

Frank stared from one of them to the other. "You miserable bastards," he said, his lips going white. He took a step forward.

The other two stepped back warily, and Roskin's hand slipped inside his jacket.

MacDonald said, his voice low, "You know what the Moroccan police would do if we shot you, here and now?

Exactly nothing; they couldn't care less. Your type is a dime a dozen in Tangier."

As Frank glared, Roskin smiled. "Over there's the exit to the taxi stand. The fare into town is five dirhams. Don't pay more. You can't trust these gooks."

The two IABI men turned and left him standing there. Frank Pinell glared after them for a long moment. There was nothing he could do. Sure, once he got organized, he could write a letter of protest to Judge John Worthington. And a fat pile of crap that'd get him. He'd been silly enough to sign the receipt for one thousand pseudo-dollars, hadn't he? Signed it before getting the funds in his hands.

He picked up his bags, made his way to the cambio booth, and exchanged fifty Swiss francs into dirhams. The Moroccan money came in coins rather than paper currency.

From the money exchange booth he went on through the door to the taxi stand. The driver was a small, evil-looking type with a dirty rag of an orange turban wrapped carelessly around his head. The garment he wore looked like a seamless bathrobe made of brown homespun and there were yellow, backless leather slippers on his feet.

Frank looked in the window of the ancient cab, even as he sharply slapped the hand of an urchin who was trying to pick his pocket. He said, "Do you speak English?"

The cabby's shifty eyes took him in, evidently deciding his potential fare was American, rather than British. He said, "I talk everything, Jack."

Frank put his bags in the back of the small cab and sat up front next to the driver. The cabby evidently wasn't accustomed to bathing. Frank rolled down the window and said, "Take me to the cheapest hotel in Tangier."

The other grinned at him, displaying teeth like a broken-down picket fence. "The cheapest European type hotel, eh, Jack?"

"The cheapest hotel, period," Frank said definitely.

"You ever slept in a caravansary, Jack? Very cheap. One dirham a night. You sleep on a pile of straw, eh? Twenty other people in the same room, eh? Donkeys and goats, sometimes maybe even a camel. Other people are Rifs, down from the mountains to bring their things to the souk to sell, eh? Very bad people, some of these Rifs. Stick a knife in you if they figure you got ten, maybe twenty dirhams in your pockets."

Frank sighed. "All right, take me to the cheapest European hotel," he said in surrender.

The cabby dropped the lift lever of the prehistoric cab and, when they were aircushion borne, tromped on the accelerator, at first without result. He kicked it viciously and they started up. The American realized that the vehicle must be battery powered, rather than using power packs or picking up juice from the highway. Obviously, the gravel road wasn't automated. However, from what he had read, Morocco wasn't energy-poor. At least a third of the southern stretches of the country were in the Sahara and, in common with neighboring Algeria, the Sherifian Empire of Morocco had been among the first to use major solar power stations with Reunited Nations assistance. Endless square miles of them had been built before the satellite solar power stations began microwaving energy down from orbit.

He had thought himself prepared for poverty of the North African variety, but he wasn't. He couldn't imagine any American being so prepared. The thought came to him: could parts of Latin America have been like this, before joining the United States of the Americas?

From time to time, they passed small communities consisting of single-room dwellings made of wood scraps, cardboard, tin cans beaten flat, small boulders, and mud. There was no pretense of streets, or even alleys, obviously no running water, and garbage and refuse lay heaped in filthy piles, often with naked children playing on their summits. Flies and other insects droned in such swarms that Frank rolled up the window again, despite the stench of his driver.

The cabby grinned evilly over at him. "Not so good, eh, Jack?"

Frank didn't answer.

After suburbs of such appalling filth, Tangier itself came as a surprise. The part of it they entered was European in appearance, rather than Moslem. That figured. The French had once owned this town on the Straits of Hercules, even before the International Zone. And the French might have loony logic, but they didn't live in midden heaps.

The driver assumed the role of travel guide. "This is Route de Tetouan, eh, Jack? And this here we come into is Place d'Europe."

They proceeded to the right and merged into what street signs proclaimed to be the Avenue de Madrid. At least, that's what the French proclaimed. Frank couldn't decipher the Arabic scrawl.

They turned left on the Boulevard Mohammed Fifth. The city continued to improve, and now there was considerably more traffic. Tangier had no restrictions on surface traffic. From time to time they were even held up by minor traffic jams. Most of the cars and trucks seemed as elderly as the hovercab.

"Pasteur Boulevard, she the center of European town, eh? She just two streets up. You like, I think. Cheap hotel."

They turned down Rue Moussai Ben Moussair, barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass, and two blocks later pulled up before a sadly decrepit four-story structure.

"Hotel Rome," the driver said expansively. "Very cheap. Almost clean. Not much bugs, eh, Jack?"

Frank looked out blankly. "Where?" he said.

"She's on second floor, third floor, fourth floor. You don't pay more than ten dirhams, eh? Luigi, he's a crook. He try to charge you more, eh? You can't trust Italianos. Okay, Jack. That'll be fifteen dirhams, Jack. Cheap. All the way from the airport."

Frank got out of his side of the cab, brought forth his Moroccan coins, and handed six dirhams through the window. "The rate's five dirhams and here's one more for a tip," he said.

The other was furious. "Fifteen, you cheap Yankee," he yelled.

"Five," Frank said flatly and reached for the door to the back of the hovercab to recover his bags.

Before he could get it open, the vehicle surged ahead, wrenching his hand from the doorknob and nearly knocking him sprawling.

His eyes bulging, Frank stared aghast at the hovercab careening up the street with his luggage. He searched desperately for its license plate, and could see none. His eyes darted around to other vehicles parked in the street. None of them had license plates. Evidently, there was no such thing in the International Zone of Tangier.

He groaned audibly. He knew nothing about the layout of this town. He didn't know where he could find the police. He didn't know the cabby's name. And the taxi looked like every other one he had seen in this—this ripoff Mecca.

He stood there, staring after it, until the vehicle swerved around a corner and was gone from sight.

Less than two hundred pseudo-dollars to his name and his every belonging stolen.

He finally took a deep breath and turned. Now he could make out the faded sign for the Hotel Rome. It was over a drab wooden stairway. The ground floor of the building was taken up by two stores which seemed almost identical. They resembled, in their window contents, the general stores in American small towns of long ago, selling everything from groceries to textiles, and toys, liquor, non-prescription drugs, shaving supplies, and what not.

The lobby of the Hotel Rome was on the second floor. Only one window overlooked the street. It was furnished with an aged reception desk, keys openly displayed on a rack behind it, and several thoroughly defeated chairs, their upholstery looking as though wild animals had savaged it. In one of the chairs snored an obese man, as disreputable as the furniture.

"Hey!"

The other opened first one eye, then the other. He brushed a fly from the top of his almost bald head and looked accusingly at the man who had awakened him. What do bald, fat Italians dream of, Frank wondered.

"Who do I see about getting a room here?"

"Me," the other grunted, somehow getting his bulk erect. "I'm Luigi. This place, it's mine."

Frank said, "I want the cheapest room you've got."

Luigi took him in, his plump face expressionless. "You got no luggage? You pay right now. Twenty dirhams."

"Ten," Frank said wearily, fishing in his pocket for two five-dirham coins.

"This way," Luigi said, shrugging.

The room was on the same floor as the lobby. It had one primitive electric bulb hanging from the ceiling, one sagging bed, one straight chair, one chipped dresser with a drawer missing. No bath, nor running water. Not even a window. There was a toilet down the hall, but no bath there, either. Seemingly, the tenants of the Hotel Rome didn't bathe, unless they managed a sponge bath out of the filthy lavatory, crammed next to the toilet bowl.

When Luigi was gone, Frank Pinell looked about his room.

"Home at last," he said acidly, running a hand down over his long face.

In another part of town, a stranger to Frank Pinell was speaking into his pocket transceiver. He was saying, "He pulled in on the three o'clock from Madrid. At the airport, those sons of bitches, MacDonald and Roskin, pulled their usual little romp. He got into Hamad's cab and Hamari took him to Luigi's and was able to take off with his luggage. He must be running scared by now. It looks as though we've found our patsy."

Chapter Three: Roy Cos

Roy Cos looked out over the small, shabby hall in Baltimore with its pitiful group, members of the Industrial Workers of the World—"Wobblies," in their own jargon. Inwardly, he felt depressed and weary. It was the same old story: there were sixteen in the audience. At least ten of these were either Wobblies or sympathizers who had heard or read all that he had to say a hundred times. They were there not to learn but to give him support. Another two or three, looking bored, had drifted in from the street out of mild curiosity, or because they had nothing else to do. Another trio, seated together at the rear with identical condescending sneers, were hecklers come to give him a bad time. Only one stranger, who sat in the last row on one of the rickety folding chairs, looked at all like promising material. He was a small man, better dressed than the prole audience, and he had a notepad on his lap. From time to time he took notes. But for all Roy Cos knew, the man could be an IABI agent checking out just how subversive the speaker might be.

Roy took in the tattered banners which the committee members had hung about the walls. SOLIDARITY! UNITE! And, the longest of them all, PEOPLES OF THE WORLD UNITE. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS. Roy Cos knew that such signs had once read, WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE. But there were no workers any more, for all practical purposes. Over ninety percent of the population was on GAS. Two percent were affluent members of the upper class, who did not worry about employment. And five percent were actually all that were needed to produce an abundance of goods and supply the services of this automated, computerized society. And they, the professional technicians, engineers, scientists, doctors, and teachers, seldom thought of themselves as workers. Their pay was such that they identified with the upper class, rather than the proles on GAS.

Roy Cos, a second-generation radical, was in his early forties. He was an outwardly average, unprepossessing man, faded brown of hair, hazel of eye, earnest of expression, but projecting a hint that somehow he realized that life had passed him by and that his efforts were meaningless in the long run. He was some ten pounds overweight. Too many hours studying, too many hours sitting around tables, arguing dialectics, too many hours talking, talking, talking, largely to people not really interested in blueprints of Utopia.

He was saying: "And is this the final destiny of man? The overwhelming majority living on the verge of poverty? The history of the human race has been a hard and proud one. Since first our ancestors emerged from the caves, we have fought upward. And from the beginning we have been the thinking animals, the tool users. Who first utilized fire, we cannot know. What early men first developed the hand ax, the knife, the spear, the bow and arrow is unknown to us. But each generation that came along added its contribution to human knowledge and we slowly acquired agriculture, the domestication of animals, the wheel, the hoe, the plow. And as each generation emerged, its geniuses now forgotten, our knowledge grew. The arts and the sciences began to emerge."

"Great!" one of the three cynical listeners called out. "So what? Get to the point."

Roy nodded and went on. "The point is that all of these developments, this accumulated knowledge down through the centuries, is the common heritage of all mankind. They are not the property of a few, but of the race as a whole. A modern, automated factory is possible only because these tools were handed down to us over the centuries. The products of modern society should be the common property of the race, not of a mere fraction of it. And if this is true, where is justice today when a few live idle, in luxury, while the rest of us are forgotten? As John Ball, centuries ago, put it in a sermon to English poorer class rebels:

" 'When Adam dalfe and Eve span Who was thanne a gentil man?' "

The stranger made a note on his pad. He was thin, gray-faced, probably in his mid-forties, and Roy largely directed his talk toward the man. If you could make one convert at a typical Wobbly meeting you were doing fine. One valid convert, potentially an activist, would more than pay for an otherwise depressing evening.

He went on to explain the Wobbly program: organizing all presently employed workers so that they could use the only clout that really counted—the control of production, distribution, communications.

When the question period came, the chairman took over again. No one seemed prepared to ask an initial question of the speaker. As usual, in such a case, one of the Wobbly members stood up and started the ball rolling.

He said, "Since so few people support the Wobbly program, won't it take one hell of a long time for it to ever come about?"

Roy took over the podium again, nodded, and said, "Good question. And the answer is, no… not necessarily. What counts is the correctness of the program, the extent to which it solves our common problems. Our support can grow very quickly, given a breakdown in the current system and an obvious need for change. Take the American Revolution of 1776, for instance. Had you suggested to the average colonist in 1774 that he needed to throw off the rule of King George in favor of an independent union, he probably would have taken a patriotic swing at you. But the need was there and, overnight, a handful of farseeing men like Tom Paine, Sam Adams, Jefferson, pointed out the way. The revolution wasn't long in coming."

One of the hecklers held up his hand. When Roy Cos recognized him, he came to his feet and yelled, louder than was called for, "Aren't you people just a bunch of soreheads? There's only so many jobs around these days. The computers select the best men and women to hold them. Those that get jobs, deserve the extra money. The rest of us are lucky to get GAS. It's a pretty good system when everybody eats regular and is taken care of, even if he's not chosen for a job. What the hell are you beefing about?"

Roy nodded, and paused a moment before answering. "In the first place, let's not give those computers more credit than

they deserve. Science is great but it mustn't be a sacred cow. Computers can be programmed into shortcomings."

"Like what!" one of the hecklers called out. His friends laughed, backing him. Several of the Wobblies, seated down front, turned and glared at them.

Roy said, "Well, let's take a couple of scientists that the computers would have passed by. Two of their big requirements are a good education and a top-notch Ability Quotient. Thomas Edison had only a couple of years of formal education—he never got through grammar school. The computers wouldn't have picked him for a job. Steinmetz was a hunchback cripple, in spite of his I.Q., and would never have gotten a high Ability Quotient, much of which depends on physical attributes.

"But science isn't the only thing. Lincoln had practically no formal schooling and wouldn't have been chosen. Winston Churchill was a rotten student. Among writers, Jack London had very little schooling and was an alcoholic from his teens onward. O. Henry, poorly educated, also had a prison record. Scott Fitzgerald was a dropout at Princeton and never did learn much grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Hemingway finished high school but certainly took no honors there. Let's face it: few outstanding artists, musicians, or actors would stand up to the scrutiny of the computers. No, I'm afraid the computers are not yet programmed for judging the arts. And we Wobblies look forward to going further into the arts as well as the sciences. Millions of citizens could be employed in the arts."

There were few questions. Roy had been hoping for one or more from the note-taker in the back row. You could usually tell the extent of a newcomer's real interest by his questions.

Following the meeting, while the balance of the small audience drifted from the hall, the membership gathered around to shake his hand and congratulate him. As a National Organizer, he was used to the plaudits of his fellows who were unable to express themselves in public speaking. So far as he was concerned, the meeting was a flop and he could see that the chairman felt the same way. Not even the little stranger in the rear had remained.

When the other members had gone their way, the chairman asked Roy if he'd like to come home with him for pseudo-coffee and talk. He was the local Group Organizer, a good man, but Roy was aware of the fact that the man's wife was rabidly against the Wobblies, in fact was a militant member of the United Church who considered all radicals slated for hell. Besides, Roy Cos was emotionally exhausted. His depression had been growing over a period of weeks.

"No thanks, Jim," he said. "I think I'll get on to bed. I have to take the vac tube to Newark tomorrow for another meeting. And you know Newark. The membership there is so apathetic they probably haven't gotten around to hiring a hall. I'll wind up on a soapbox in the park and damned few people are out in the parks anymore."

"Yeah," Jim said. "Only those who have no place else to go and screw. Well, see you on your next trip around, Comrade."

Roy said wearily, "Jim, for God's sake: please, please, don't call me comrade. I hate the word. If you use it, ninety-nine people out of a hundred think you're a Euro communist, or some other reactionary bastard."

They separated at the door and Roy Cos headed for his third-class hotel. His mind was empty.

The streets were deserted as usual at this time of night, especially of the few vehicles that were allowed surface traffic. He was surprised when two figures materialized to either side of him and he could hear the footsteps of a third close behind him. His first inclination was to think it was three of the organization members who happened to be going in his direction.

The voice of the one to his right disillusioned him on that score. It snarled, "We didn't like what you had to say, chum-pal."

Roy's mind raced for options, but found none. He continued to stroll at the same speed. "Sorry," he said. "It was what I believe." He had been through this sort of thing before. He expected a beating. Probably not bad enough to hospitalize him, this time, since they didn't seem particularly heated up, but probably enough of a working over to keep him from the Newark meeting.

The other said, "We reckon you need a little lesson in Americanism."

"Your version of…" Roy began, but was interrupted by a heavy blow from the man on his left, then another in his back, even as he reeled sideways.

Neither blow was crippling, but between them, they threw him against the wall of the decrepit building, so that he banged his head against the bricks. Stars flashed before his eyes, red heat bloomed in his brain, and he began to fall. The pain was such that he hardly felt the kick in his side. The three were surging in, babbling incoherently about their anger, their frustrations, their hate of the nonconformist. All three were younger and in all probability in better shape than he. His chances of meaningful resistance were all but nil. He struggled to bring his arms up over his head, unable to restrain a groan of pain—though he tried.

More kicks came. They weren't pros and the beating was less damaging than it might have been. His best bet was to wait it out, curling into a fetal crouch to guard his head and groin.

But then came a shout and a pounding of feet. "Halt! Get away from that man! Halt or I'll fire!"

Cursing in surprise, the three were off in as many directions.

Panting, he staggered erect and tried to assess the damages. Except for bruises, there weren't any. His three assailants hadn't had the time for a complete mauling. He brushed at his street-grimed clothing with shaking hands.

He looked around. Down the avenue he heard another order to halt but, unless his rescuer was actually willing to shoot, he wasn't going to have much luck.

Only a few doors down was the entrance to a prole autobar. He staggered toward it, still brushing his jacket. Just before he entered, he straightened up as best he could, but the attempt was needless. The sorry little bistro was empty of customers.

He fumbled himself into a chair at the first table he could get to and for a time sat there, catching his breath. For all he knew, the police officer would return and pick him up on general principles, and before he could make adequate explanations, he might wind up in the banger. He might even louse up his schedule and miss the Newark meeting.

He brought forth his Universal Credit Card, put it into the table payment slot, and dialed a syntho-beer. He knew that his monthly GAS credits were low and there were several days to go before next month's deposit was credited to his account, but he needed that drink. Largely, national organizers of the Wobblies had to be self-supporting. The membership made minor contributions to the National Fund, but since they were all on GAS themselves and needed their credits for their own survival, it couldn't be much.

The beer had come and he had taken his initial swallow before the newcomer entered the autobar, looked around, and then descended on his table.

Roy Cos brought his gaze up. He had expected a uniform, but the other was in ordinary garb. Then Roy recognized him. He was the note-taking stranger.

The gray-faced man couldn't have weighed more than fifty kilos. He wore a wispy mustache, in a day when facial hair was long out of style, and his faded eyes had a perpetual squint. He slid into the chair opposite Roy.

Roy said, in resignation, "I thought you were an IABI man. But thanks, anyway. You came up like the Seventh cavalry rescuing the wagon train."

"Who, me?" the other said in false innocence, dialing for a drink. He looked at Roy's beer. "You look as though you could use something stronger than that. How about a whiskey?"

"Can't afford it. You mean you're not a cop?"

"No, I'm a reporter. And I can afford it." He dialed for the whiskey, his own credit card in the table slot.

Roy eyed him. "What was all that about, 'Halt, or I fire'?"

The other grunted sour amusement and fished a package of cigarettes from a side pocket. "If I'd shouted, 'Halt or I'll write,' they'd be kicking my butt right now. I figured they'd hardly hang around demanding to see my badge."

He stuck a smoke into his thin pale mouth and lit it with a lighter. To Roy's surprise, it wasn't marijuana, but tobacco. You couldn't mistake the odor of this forbidden narcotic.

Roy said, "Well, thanks again. You think you ought to be smoking like that in a public place?"

"There's nobody here but us. What happened?"

"You know as much about it as I do. I suppose it was those three hecklers. Who in the hell are you?"

The other extended a scrawny hand. "Forrest Brown. Call me Forry. I'm from the local area Tri-Di news—stuff that you don't get on the national networks."

As they shook hands, Roy said, "You're a news commentator?"

Brown shook his head. The smoke drifted up his face from the cigarette that drooped in his mouth, making him squint still more.

"Just a leg man. Oh, I go on video occasionally, when one of the regular men is off. But I never reached commentator level. I suppose I wasn't pretty enough. You've got to project personality to hit commentator level."

The center of the table had sunk and returned with the whiskey. Roy took a glass, still shaky, and said in defiance, "Here's to the revolution," and knocked it all back.

The gray little man nodded and swallowed a third of his own booze. "You think it'll ever come—at this rate?"

Roy ignored that and focused on his job again with professional ease. "You were going to do a story on the Wobbly movement?"

The other shook his head. "No, actually I just stopped by your meeting from sheer boredom. I had nothing else to do."

Roy was bitter. "The conspiracy of silence, eh? It's like pulling teeth to get any of our meetings or demands into the news. But what should 1 expect? The news media are owned by the enemy."

But Forry Brown shook his head again. "You people overemphasize that. Oh, it applies to a certain extent. Word from above is to not give too much coverage to any minority organizations. Not just your Wobblies, but the Neo-Nihilists, the Libertarians, the Luddites, the Gay Libbers, and all the rest. But there's no taboo, no conspiracy of total silence. The thing is, you people aren't news. Nobody cares about your programs. They want something exciting. You're not exciting. A good murder, some scandal about the latest Tri-Di sex symbol, government corruption, one of the bush wars in Africa or Asia, even a hurricane or earthquake, bring in more viewers than some yawner about a Wobbly meeting attended by fifteen people. But that isn't the big reason I'm not filing a story on you, even after you were attacked by members of your audience. If they'd killed you, maybe somebody would have a story." He took another cigarette and lit it from the butt of his last.

Roy Cos forgot his bruises temporarily and said, "Damn it,

I'd almost be willing. How can we present our program to the people if we can't get any media coverage?"

The little man's grimace was sour. "Wish I could help you, but just this morning the computers spelled me down. I'm surprised that I was able to hang on this long, even as a second-rate legman in a backwater Tri-Di area. It's not enough being selected by the damned computers for a job. Each year a new batch of journalism graduates apply for positions. As you said in your talk, over ninety percent of the population is unemployed. We who have jobs try desperately to hang onto them, and sometimes the experience we've accumulated helps out. But sooner or later some new kid with a higher Ability Quotient steps into your boots." He shrugged. "I've been expecting the axe for a long time."

Roy Cos had never held a job in his life—not that he hadn't religiously applied each year. He said, in compassion, "I'm sorry. What happens now? Do you get a pension or something from your Tri-Di network?"

The other snorted and finished his drink. "Hell, no. I go back on GAS. Theoretically, I should've saved a portion of the pseudo-dollar credits I earned while I was working and invested them in Variable Basic government stock, or one of the private corporations. The dividends would supplement my GAS." He snorted again, took his cigarette from his mouth and looked at it. "I'm afraid I developed some expensive habits. Lady Nicotine doesn't come cheap these days."

The Wobbly organizer took him in. He had never met anyone before who was actually hooked on tobacco. He didn't move in the circles that could afford it. He also had the usual prejudice against the use of the poisonous weed.

Roy said, "Why didn't you ever take the cure?"

Brown laughed dryly. "Because, once you take it, you're allergic to nicotine for the rest of your life. I guess I didn't really want to be cured. I like to eat better than you proles can afford, like to drink better, travel better. I even took a trip around the world once and I've been in Europe a couple of times. Free rocket shuttle fare as a newsman, but the other expenses were largely on me. You ought to see some of the bordellos they have in the East." He sighed. "That's one thing they'll never automate. Knock on wood."

As a Wobbly, Roy Cos didn't approve of prostitution any more than he did of the deadly nicotine, so underneath was a certain smug satisfaction when he said, "So now you're in the same position as all the rest of us. You should join the Wobbly movement."

Brown ground out his cigarette and brought forth another. "Not me," he said. "What I've got to do is dream up some other manner of supporting my vices."

Roy switched subjects, knowing the unlikelihood of the ex-newsman ever accomplishing that. "Any idea how we could get more media coverage? It's a sore point with us. When those old American revolutionists wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it never occurred to them that freedom of speech and of press and assembly would one day become meaningless. In those days you got up in the village square, or the town meeting, and stated your beliefs. If your program had merit, it was probably accepted. Starting a newspaper was in the range of almost any individual, or certainly of any small group. But today, unless you can get on Tri-Di, you simply aren't heard. Freedom of the press is fine; sure, you're perfectly free to get out a little magazine and circulate it as best you can. But who reads it? A few hundred people, most of whom already have the same beliefs you do. Freedom of speech is meaningless if all you can do is stand on the beach and shout your message to the wind."

Forrest Brown thought about it, squinting through curls of smoke. He said finally, "You've got to have enough money to buy Tri-Di time, but above all, you've got to be newsworthy. You've got to have something that makes people want to listen to you, watch you."

"Great," Roy said sarcastically. "And how do I accomplish that?"

The newsman, half joking, said, "Start a religion. Become a Tri-Di star. Take out a Deathwish Policy."

The Wobbly organizer scowled at him. "What for?"

"You'd have the credits to buy Tri-Di time. Deathwishers are news. Everybody'd be in a tizzy wondering how long it'd be before you got hit. There'd be standing room only at your hall lectures. You'd be out in the open and they'd come in hopes that they'd be there when the Graf's boys, or whoever, got to you. Something like in the old days in Spain and Latin

America, where they'd pony up for bullfight tickets in hopes they'd see the matador gored to death."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Roy said. "What's a Deathwish Policy?"

Forry grunted and dialed another two whiskeys before lighting a new smoke off the old. "Oh," he said, "just a jargon term we use in the news game. You've probably never heard it. You have your life insured in return for having an international drawing account for a million pseudo-dollar credits continually at your disposal—for as long as you live."

"Never heard of… oh, wait a minute. I guess I did. Something in the news about six months ago. Somebody was blown up with a grenade or something. His life had been insured for something like five million pseudo-dollars only a few days before. I forget the details. I don't usually follow crime news."

"It's crime, all right," Forry said, putting his thumbprint on the table's payment screen to pay for the new drinks. His credit card was still in the slot. "The thing is, so far, the law hasn't been able to get at them. It's too complicated. Most of the insured are Americans. But you never sign the policy with an American company. The outfit that's going to collect the benefits is usually based in the Bahamas, or Malta, or Tangier, or somewhere else where practically anything goes. They shop out the deal to Lloyd's of London, where they'll insure anything—dancer's legs, a violinist's fingers. Hell, they'll insure an outdoor entertainment against loss due to rain. So you've got four countries involved: the insured is usually a citizen of the States, the beneficiary is in the Bahamas or wherever, Lloyds of London is in England, and your credits come from Switzerland. For that matter, you might say five different countries are involved, since it's said that the Graf has his headquarters in Liechtenstein."

"Now, wait a minute," Roy Cos said, taking up his new drink and swallowing part of it. For the first time in years, he felt the itch of intrigue. "Start at the beginning."

Forry shrugged thin shoulders. "You sign a contract that grants you what amounts to an unlimited credit account for as long as you live. If and when you die, the beneficiary collects the benefits. The company you've signed with pays huge daily premiums. It's a gamble, as all insurance has always been since the days when Phoenician ships set sail from Tyre to Cadiz for a cargo of tin. The insurer was gambling that the ship would get back safely and the insuree was gambling that the ship would sink. Well, in this case, the insuree is gambling that you'll die before the premiums paid mount up to more than the benefits he'll collect when you kick off. Lloyd's is gambling the other way: that you'll live so long that the premiums accumulated are higher than the life insurance benefits."

Roy looked at him blankly. "But suppose you lived for years? And you have a million pseudo-dollar account to draw on to any extent you wish? Hell, the company that's the beneficiary would go broke paying the premiums plus your expenditures."

Forry Brown laughed shortly. "Don't be a dizzard. From the moment that policy goes into effect, you're on the run. Some of the insured don't live the first day out."

Roy stared, then tried a tenative smile. "You're kidding, of course."

"Yeah? The Grafs hit men are the best-trained pros in the world. He usually gets the contract, I understand."

Roy slumped down into his chair. "Jesus," he said. "Who'd be silly enough to sign up for that?"

The newsman let smoke dribble from his nostrils. "Somebody who had already decided to commit suicide but couldn't bring himself to do it and decided he might as well go out in a burst of glory, living in one of the biggest hotels in one of the swankest resorts in the world, drinking champagne and gorging himself with caviar.''

"I can see that, but nobody else would sign."

Forry finished his second drink and said slowly, "You underestimate human desperation. Take some prole who's fed up with living right at the edge of poverty on GAS. He figures he might as well live it up for a few weeks, or hopefully months. Frankly, this guy's a dreamer. His chances of lasting for any length of time at all are just about nil. Most of them think they've figured out some dodge to beat the odds, some special gimmick. They haven't. They can't."

"Now wait a minute," Roy said, increasingly intrigued by one more example of the degeneracy of the present system. "What you're saying is that an assassin…"

"More than one, I'd think," Forry put in. "… is immediately sent after the person who's signed this contract. All right, what happens if the killer's caught?"

"He's arrested, of course, and they throw the book at him. But they can't prove anything except his own guilt. None of the advanced countries have capital punishment any more. If he's caught in America, he's subject to deportation. If they nail him in, say, Common Europe, he's thrown into the banger for, say, twenty years. But the Graf takes care of his own. Who ever heard of one of the Grafs boys spending much time in jail? One way or the other, he's soon out, usually legally, since the Graf keeps the best criminal lawyers in the world. But if not legally, then illegally. His escape is greased and he drops out of sight, possibly to Tangier, where there are no extradition laws. He remains on pension for the rest of his life, unless they get him some local job. One of the Graf's big centers is Tangier."

"Who the hell's this Graf?" Roy Cos said. "It's a German title, something like a British earl. He's the boss of Mercenaries, Incorporated," the little man told him. "Haven't you ever heard of the Graf?"

"No, I told you I didn't bother with crime news. But this thing fascinates me. What are some of the tricks the victims try to pull to remain alive?"

"Oh, I've heard of various scams. Often they'll try to hole up in some manner so that the hit men can't get at them. They'll rent the whole top floor of some luxury hotel and try to seal themselves in, like Howard Hughes in the old days. Bodyguards and all. But in those cases, the assassin usually bribes one of the poor bastard's hirelings to slip a cyanide mickey into one of his drinks, or whatever. Once or twice, it turned out that one of the bodyguards was a Graf man. Curtains."

Roy Cos shook his head in amazement. "A million pseudo-dollars, always available. But suppose he spent that much in one day, and then the next day spent that much again, and so on?"

"It'd be damned hard to do," the newsman told him. "There are clauses in the contract. He's not allowed to buy presents that cost more than two hundred pseudo-dollars. He's not allowed to donate to any cause. Once a crackpot religious fanatic decided to sign up and donate hundreds of thousands to the United Church, but that wasn't allowed. On top of that, the company becomes your heir. Everything you buy reverts to them, after your death. You buy something expensive, like a luxury car, or a big house, or jewelry, and they take it over when you die."

Roy shook his head. "I'd think the Lloyd's underwriters would get leery."

Fony shrugged again. "Like I said, it's a gamble. To keep it that way, the daily premium is sky high. If the insured lives more than a few days, Lloyd's wins. As usual, the computers of both the policyholders and the insurers have figured it out down to a hairline."

Roy finished his drink, thought about it some more, shook his head again. Then he scowled and looked over at the other. He said, "What was that you mentioned about my taking out one of these Deathwish Policies?"

And Fony Brown said softly, "A million pseudo-dollars. Like I said, you'd have plenty to buy yourself premium Tri-Di time. Every day, until they got you. And you'd also be top news. Everybody and his cousin would listen in. You'd have your chance to put your Wobbly message across such as no minority organization has ever had."

There was a prolonged blank silence until Roy Cos said finally, "Where do you come in on this, Forry Brown?"

Forry looked him straight in the eye, squinting through his cigarette smoke. "Somebody's got to run interference for you, keep you alive long enough to do your thing. And I need a job—one that doesn't have to match the computers of the National Data Banks."

"You must think I'm drivel-happy," Roy said in disgust.

"No, I think you're a dedicated Wobbly and as things stand now you'll spend your life trying to put over a message that no one hears. Have you ever read of Sacco and Vanzetti?"

Roy frowned. "Vaguely. A couple of early 20th century radicals."

"That's right. They were railroaded, charged with a payroll robbery where two men were killed. Because they were philosophical anarchists, they were sentenced to death. You wouldn't believe the reaction that went up all over the world. American consulates and embassies in a dozen countries were marched upon. There were riots and demonstrations everywhere. Tens of thousands of letters of protest, ranging from students to world-famous intellectuals; hundreds of petitions, signed by hundreds of thousands. American officials were astonished. The President, getting reports from his ambassadors, is reported to have asked, 'Who in the hell are Sacco and Vanzetti?' But in spite of it all, after going through all possible appeals, they were executed." A pause. "I'll put it more strongly: they were martyred."

"I guess I have read something about it," Roy said vaguely, still scowling.

The newsman brought forth his wallet and fished in it. "This is one of the final things Bartolomeo Vanzetti wrote. He was self-educated."

Forry Brown read softly from the tattered clipping: "If it had not been for this thing, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in all our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man, as now we do by accident.

' 'Our words—our lives—our pains: nothing! The taking of our lives—lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler-all! That last moment belongs to us. That agony is our triumph."

Forry Brown looked up from the clipping. "Their deaths weren't the end. Hundreds of articles about them were published for years. Best-selling books were written about the Sacco-Vanzetti case. There was even a long-running play on Broadway, and a hit movie film. In becoming martyrs, Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco at long last put over their message. Decades later, they were vindicated by the State of Massachussetts. They hadn't even been guilty." Across the table, the eyes of Roy Cos were shining.

Chapter Four: Horace Hampton

Horace Greeley Hampton looked about appreciatively at the Mini-city of Greenpoint when he emerged from the vacuum tube metro station. He had been in similar towns before, but never this one. Located scenically in the rolling hills of Eastern Pennsylvania, it was composed of four ultra-modern high-rise apartment buildings, the condominiums of the 21st century. Each seemed approximately fifty stories in height, twin-towered and sheathed in aluminum and glass. Not as imposing as the hundred-floor apartment buildings of the big cities, yet large enough to contain all the amenities—an ultra-market, automated kitchens, parking areas, theatres, auditoriums, sports arenas. Much of it lay in the several basement levels below ground. The restaurants throughout each of the buildings would be in wide variety, ranging from Malay and Polynesian to vegetarian, by the way of every well-known cuisine the world offered. Greenpoint offered all of the amenities, far beyond those available to the high-rises devoted to proles.

In the early days of the mini-cities, there had been comparatively little class discrimination. An ultra-condo would house five thousand or more families, ranging from proles on GAS in apartments on the lower levels, to the extremely wealthy in the rarefied heights, in swank penthouses and terrace apartments. The higher you ascended in the towering buildings, the larger and more expensive became the apartments. Needless to say, the more posh became the restaurants, nightclubs, and theatres.

Around each of the four apartment towers of Greenpoint lay a square mile of gardens, lakes, small streams, carefully tended woods. It was complete with bridle and bike paths, sports and picnic grounds, playgrounds, sidewalk cafes, and skating areas. Very attractive indeed.

Greenpoint was a new development in the progress of the mini-city. Hamp doubted that a single prole family was in residence, not even in the lowest levels. The only proles in Green-point would be service workers commuting from other nearby towns. Private cars and even hovercabs were, of course, prohibited on the surface; small electric buses wound slowly around the narrow roads that connected all points, all buildings. Hamp looked again at his note, checked a bus schedule on a bulletin board next to the entry to the metro terminal, and waited to be taken to the William Penn Building.

It was late afternoon and he hoped to be in Manhattan by evening. This line of League work was strange to him. In the years that he had been active in the organization, he had never been utilized for making initial contacts with possible recruits. He was aware of the continuing necessity of the work and the League system. Someone would attend a lecture and sign the card handed around at its end. Or someone would hear a League Tri-Di broadcast and write in for more information. Or someone would read a League pamphlet or book and be moved to request a visit from a member for discussion. But Hamp had quickly risen from the ranks, had been sent to the training school for field operatives, and had participated in trouble-shooting ever since.

But it would seem that Lee Garrett was a possible recruit worthy of special attention. Max Finklestein had said the new contact was white, which was easy to believe. Hamp doubted that there were many blacks or other racial minorities residing in Greenpoint. Not that there would be any restriction, theoretically. The nation's laws wouldn't stand for that, but non-whites would be made to feel less than welcome.

He entered the sumptuous lobby of the William Penn Building, very well done in marble, beautifully furnished and decorated in an early Pennsylvania motif, and approached one of the small bank of reception desks. He sat across from the reception screen and said, "I wish to visit Lee Garrett. I believe that I am expected."

"Your identity, please, sir," the screen said.

Hamp brought forth his card, put it in the slot with his right thumb on the appropriate square.

"Thank you," the mechanical voice said.

He retrieved the credit card and relaxed in the chair.

After only a couple of minutes, the screen said, "You are expected, sir. Apartment 1012. Please take elevator seven, eight, or nine."

Hamp stood, looked about, and located the elevators. A few people in the lobby looked at him with mild surprise. Not only was he black, but his clothes, though a bit above the usual prole level, were hardly of the quality most often seen in Greenpoint. He had expected such interest and ignored it.

Elevator eight was empty. He stepped in and said, "Apartment 1012, please."

The elevator's screen said, "Your identity card, please."

He put it in the slot, pressed his thumb on the identity square of the screen.

"Thank you, sir." The door closed and the elevator smoothly began to rise.

He emerged on the tenth floor and arrived shortly at Apartment 1012. Its identity screen picked him up as he stood before it and the door opened. He entered and found himself in a small entrada.

A feminine voice called out, "In here. You'll have to forgive me, but I'm busy."

Hamp shifted his shoulders in a shrug and walked into a living room. He blinked slightly at its opulence. The Anti-Racist League had its wealthy members, but there must have been few who lived on a higher scale than this. One whole wall, facing a terrace with a superb view beyond, was glass. The furnishings were a little on the ultra-modern side, and Hamp was somewhat taken aback by its feminity. It was hardly a man's room. Could this Lee Garrett be gay?

At the far side, a young woman was busily stirring the contents of a crystal mixing glass. She concentrated as though counting the exact number of turns of the long green swizzle stick in her hand.

She looked over at him as he entered and offered a dazzling smile. "I guessed that a martini would be in order, right?"

It wasn't an autobar, and sitting on its top were an Imperial quart of British gin, whose label Hamp recognized, and a fifth of French vermouth. Excellent guzzle!

"It sounds wizard," he admitted. "Uh, my name is Horace Hampton. I had an appointment with Mr. Garrett."

"Ms. Garrett," she said, smiling again as she poured drinks into two cocktail glasses. "I'm Lee Garrett."

Hamp stared. He'd had no indication from Max Finklestein that this new contact was a youthful blonde, startlingly blue of eye, immaculately turned out and, frankly, implausibly beautiful. She wore a gold and red afternoon frock that would have cost half a year's credit to a prole on GAS. Her hairdo and her cosmetics were such that surely she had just emerged from a beauty salon, or a dressing room of an advertising agency.

She strode over gracefully, handed him one of the martinis, and smiled again, devastating him. "Shall we toast the end of all conflict?"

"I can't fight that," Hamp told her.

They sipped, Hamp taking her in all over again, not quite believing it. In real life, they just didn't come so downright pretty.

She said, "Please be seated, Mr. Hampton. I'll have to confess that this is all new to me. I've never joined any sort of organization before.''

Hamp sat on a couch and took another sip of the cocktail. "About eight to one," he judged.

"Seven," she told him. "My father's formula. He was a fanatic. A perfect martini had to be made just so. I believe he actually dropped one friend because the man insisted on putting in an olive rather than a twist of lime rind." Hamp said, "Well, I can't fault him on this formula." Lee Garrett had seated herself on the couch with him. Now she leaned forward and put her half empty glass on the cocktail table before them.

She said, "Tell me all about the Anti-Racist League, Mr. Hampton. I've read quite a bit of the standard literature this past month or so and I'm in complete agreement with your stated goals. But it occurred to me that there must be restrictions on what you can openly publish."

"How do you mean, Ms. Garrett?" He put his own glass down, empty. It had been a lifesaver. He had put away too much brandy the night before and was now wondering if she'd offer another.

She said, "Oh, call me Lee. After all, if we're to be comrades in arms, we shouldn't stand on formality."

Hamp said, "Comrades in arms call me Hamp."

"What I mean is, the League is no namby-pamby organization. But it certainly can't come right out and advocate force and violence. That's illegal. So it doesn't say that in so many words in the public literature. Is there other written material, meant only for members?"

"Not that I know of. Just what did you want to know about the League that you couldn't find in our books?"

"Well…" She frowned prettily. "Just about everything, I suppose. I mean, tell me all about it."

"You know, I'm surprised at your interest. Why should you be concerned with racism?" He smiled to take the edge off his words. "Back in Adolf the Aryan's day, you would have been considered the Nordic ideal."

She thought about it, finally coming up with, "Well, I suppose I'm a do-gooder, at heart. And I'm developing a bit of guilt over all this," she waved at the elegant furnishings, "when so many, especially among minorities—or in some countries where the colored are actually the majority—have so little and suffer so much. My father left me more than I need for the rest of my life. But… well, I do nothing. I'm fed up with my friends and relatives all in the same position. I want to do something worthwhile."

Hamp nodded. "It's not an unknown reaction. Engels, the collaborator of Karl Marx, was a wealthy manufacturer. The Russian anarchist Kropotkin was a prince. Norman Thomas, the American socialist, was married to a very wealthy woman." He grinned suddenly. "But they rose above it."

"So tell me more about racism and how you… we… can go about ending it.''

Hamp took a breath and said, "You must realize that racism is one of our oldest American traditions. The United States declared its independence, utilizing some of the most noble language in the history of the fight for man's freedom, in 1776. One hundred years later marked the last major battle between the whites and American Indians. The Sioux won the battle but lost the war. One century. In that short span whole tribes disappeared. Many tens of thousands were killed outright; many more died of starvation. Some went down before the white man's diseases: measles, smallpox, and so on. At any rate, here was racism at its naked worst."

Lee nodded, her eyes serious, then glanced at his drink. "Good heavens, I'm a terrible hostess. Could I give you a refill?"

He handed his glass to her and she went over to the ornate little bar. She brought the new ones in champagne glasses, so that they were at least doubles. Hamp made no complaint.

She told him, her voice very sincere, "I couldn't agree with you more in regard to the Indians. Most white Americans will concede the Amerind got a raw deal."

"Now that it's too late," Hamp said.

"Well, but we actually invited Chinese labor." Perhaps, he thought, she was testing him.

"Sure—coolie labor, back in the 19th century, to do manual work on the railroads. The discrimination was pretty tough. Among other things, they weren't allowed to bring over their wives and families, under the Oriental Exclusion Laws. No women at all. They resorted to all sorts of tricks to get around that. The smuggling of Chinese women into the United States from Mexico was very common. Even Jack London, in his yacht, The Snark, participated in that." He saw the blank look on her face and added, "Jack London was an American writer of the rough and tough school. Quite a radical. Damn' good man."

"Those, I like," she replied, and took more of her martini. "Goon."

"The Chinese and later Japanese were hard workers. The whites in the Western states, especially California, could see the handwriting on the wall. Soon Orientals, even when born American citizens, were forbidden to own land. The Japs, who were wonderful farmers, got around that by leasing land for ninety-nine years. They become real competition to the United Farmers, multi-millionaire whites living as far off as New York, who were the first in the world to invent so-called factories-in-the-field. These were farms of hundreds of thousands of acres, tilled by wage workers using the latest agricultural machinery and fertilizer. At any rate, the Japanese, with their driving industry, had just about achieved a monopoly in truck farming, involving a great deal of hand labor. When the Second World War came along, the whites solved this by having all Japanese on the west coast rounded up and shipped to concentration camps. Their property went for sacrifice prices. Even after the war, they never really recovered."

He took a sizable swallow of his drink and she got up to replenish his glass, bringing what remained with her to the cocktail table.

"In actuality," she told him, "I've become most interested in you blacks and what you're doing to fight back. I want to know what I can do to help."

Hamp was feeling the soothing qualities of the drink now, and stretched his legs before him in comfort. "Well," he said, "you've undoubtedly read most of it in our literature. Blacks were brought over as slaves. At least a slave had comparative security. As valuable property, he was clothed, fed, sheltered, and given some medical care. After the Civil War freed him, he worked for pay and if he became ill, injured, or old, he was fired and had no way of maintaining himself."

"Weren't lots of whites treated the same way?"

"Some," he admitted. "But blacks could take it for granted. By the 1950s they began to revolt nationwide. They held parades and rallies, fought segregation in the courts, the whole bit. It helped, but not enough. By the 1970s, more teenage blacks were unemployed than ever, to the point of fifty percent in some cities. Twice as many blacks as whites dropped out of school in their early teens."

She leaned forward. "So how do you expect to change that now?"

Hamp nodded, took another swallow, then leaned forward and poured more from the mixing glass. He said, "The trouble was, they were too polite, too easygoing about their fight for equality. They paraded and protested and petitioned and tried to vote for politicians, sometimes blacks, who supposedly supported their cause. The politicians must have had many a private laugh, including the black ones, who were just as crooked as their white colleagues. In short, our people turned the other cheek, rather than really fighting. When such outfits as the Ku Klux Klan came into their segregated areas to burn their homes, schools, and churches, they most often ran in terror. When some militant blacks were killed, they did no more than protest to the police and the Civil Liberties Union, which gave them some support."

There was a shine in Lee Garrett's eyes. "So how have you changed your program now?"

He moved over, slightly closer to her, and looked into her face, his own very serious. "Now we fight back—a tooth for a tooth, as the Good Book says. We no longer run in terror when the Klan dons its silly white sheets and begins burning crosses. Today the Klan hardly exists as an active organization. They're the ones who are afraid now. We've combined with Chicanes, Puerto Ricans, Amerinds, Jews, and so on. And we fight on every level, from the streets to the senate floor, and we never give an inch in any field. We return, blow for blow, every intrusion on our rights as American citizens… and members in good standing of the human race."

"You accept conflict," she said.

He moved still closer to her, his face slightly slack, as though from the drink, and put an arm around her shoulders. At that she stiffened slightly.

"Yes," he said. "We fight. No longer do we bob apologetically and call all white men, 'Captain,' or say, 'Yes, suh.' No longer do we step down off the curb when a white comes along. We'll fight that to the death."

"You mean, you've actually participated in… killing people who stand in the way of minority rights?"

He moved still closer and scowled his surprise. "Oh, of course not. A few extreme cases have taken place—blacks who have returned gunfire, that sort of thing. But not League members. We don't condone violence. That would just give the enemy an opening, a wedge to get at us." He moved closer still.

She tried to maneuver away from him, without being too obvious about it, but his arm was a restraint around her shoulders.

She got out, "Yes… but, you just said that now you fought back."

His dark eyes were hotly on her own blue ones now. There was a slur in his voice. "That was, uh, figuratively speaking, not literally meant."

She was breathing in short gasps as his left hand came forward and rested on her belly. Suddenly, her eyes widened in fear and she pushed back violently. "Don't… don't!" she shrilled. "Let me loose, you nigger!"

Hamp stood up and looked down at her, shrinking against the far end of the couch. He laughed. Gone were all signs of his drinking.

She panted, "What are you laughing at, you black bastard?"

He rubbed the knuckles of his left hand over his mouth and, laughing still, said, "You make a hell of an agent provocateur, Ms. Garrett. I'm afraid you're the victim of your own prejudiced beliefs. You see, one of the oldest wive's tales is the one about blacks lusting for the fair white bodies of Caucasians. On the face of it, it's nonsense. Didn't it ever occur to you that possibly you're not attractive to blacks? Your fine blonde hair might lack appeal. Didn't it ever occur to you that blacks might prefer brunette beauty, that perhaps your nose might be much too thin, your complexion—forgive me—washed out, perhaps all but repulsive? If I had to pick the most attractive whites, it would be the girls of southern Italy and Sicily, of Andalusian Spain, or Greece. Brunettes with dark complexions. But Scandinavians? No thank you, I don't screw blondes."

"You're disgusting," she said contemptuously. "Every word of this is being taped, of course."

He laughed again, preparatory to leaving. "I suspected it. I always suspect it. But you see, Ms. Garrett, I have said nothing to you that isn't to be found in our literature—our leaflets, pamphlets, and books."

"You said that these days you're fighting back. An eye for an eye and so forth."

He smiled at her. "All figurative, Ms. Garrett, as I pointed out to you. The League does not condone violence. And now, thank you for the excellent martinis, and good day."

He turned and left.

On his way down to the ground floor he wondered who had sent her. Possibly the IABI? Or, just possibly, she might have been working on her own. He had been poorly managed, whoever had set it up. Undoubtedly, they had thought that her obvious wealth and position would immediately gain her access to the higher echelons of the Anti-Racist League, where she could infiltrate and secure inside information. He shook his head again. They simply couldn't realize that the

League, although it had a scattering of white members, wasn't particularly impressed by either their whiteness or money. The usual militant in the League was better educated than most, though often self-educated, and was dedicated, disciplined, and competent.

He retraced his way to the transportation terminal and retrieved the suitcase he had checked earlier. He took the first ' centy-seater scheduled for Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal. On his way, he brought forth his transceiver and reported to the National Activities Committee the results of his contact with Lee Garrett.

He hailed an automated hovercab, the only vehicle allowed on the surface in the city, and dialed a renowned men's store. Manhattan was still a center for those who ignored the ultra-markets and resorted to privately owned swank shops.

There, he quickly disillusioned the clerk, who eyed his color, shabby suit, and battered suitcase, saying, "I'm just in from the Coast where I've been roughing it. gathering material for my latest novel. I want a complete utitfit in which I can walk out of here. The very best, of course."

"Oh, yes, sir," the other said. "I'm sure we can accommodate you."

When Hamp left, an hour or so later, he not only wore the latest in expensive men's wear, but also had two new pieces of imported British luggage. He had paid with an International Credit Card issued on a Berne, Switzerland bank.

The boys carrying his luggage took everything out to the curb and summoned another hovercab for him. He dialed and settled back. His destination turned out to be one of the taller, more impressive office buildings the island boasted. The cab had been directed to a minor entrance on a side street. He entered alone. There was no doorman nor any other building employee nor resident to be seen. He brought a key ring from his pocket, selected a small silver key, and opened the door of an elevator.

The elevator compartment, without a command as to his destination, accelerated not too quickly but for a lengthy period before reaching its ultimate speed. He was able to adjust without bending his knees.

He emerged finally into a large office reception room which was unoccupied and strolled across it to a heavy door.

Though metallic, it was attractively well done to disguise its strength. He opened it with another key.

Beyond was a roomy office with four desks and beyond that, a still more ample one with a single large desk. He passed through both of the silent rooms and on into an extensive terrace apartment.

Obviously at ease, he made his way to a master bedroom, where he put down his bags and stripped, then entered the bath, which had a connecting dressing room. In the bath, he used still another small key to open a medical cabinet, from which he brought forth a hypodermic needle, a small bottle, and a jar.

Expertly, he loaded the syringe and injected himself. He then sat before the dressing-room mirror and removed the contact lenses from his eyes, revealing their natural dark blue. He put the fingernails of his two little fingers into his nostrils and brought forth two ring-like metal spreaders which altered the shape of his nose. He returned to the bathroom, took up the jar he had taken from the medical cabinet, and entered the shower stall. When he had adjusted the spray to his satisfaction he began vigorously to shampoo his hair with dabs of the contents of the jar. He entered the shower with black wiry hair and left it with darkish red hair, considerably straighten and looking like a young athlete's crew cut.

He checked in a mirror, found that the injection hadn't begun to work. In a white silk kimono and matching slippers, he shuffled back into the living room and the extensive study.

He sat at the desk and flicked on the TV phone, activating the stud which would prevent his own face from being transmitted, punched two numbers, and waited until the screen lit up. He said to the subservient face there, "Simmons, I shall be in residence, here in Manhattan, for an indefinite period. Please summon the staff immediately. I wish to dine here this evening. Inform Henri that I expect him to surpass himself. I have been subjected to atrocious food for longer than I care to think about."

"Very good, sir."

The face of Simmons faded and Horace Hampton punched two more numbers. The new face was that of an efficient businessman somewhere in his early middle years.

Hamp said, "Barry, I'm back in the States, here in Manhattan. Have one of the office teams assembled. Include yourself and, let me see, Ted, and, ah, Lester. Among other things, we'll have to do some immediate work on the investments in Lagrange Five and the Asteroid Islands."

"Yes, sir," Barry said. "Sir, something has come up. I tried to contact you by every means but… well, with the usual results. It seems we have a situation fraught with…"

"Tell me about it when you get here," Hamp said brusquely. "What's the enjoyment in being a recluse if every senior member of your staff can get in touch with you every time he thinks an emergency has surfaced?"

"Yes, sir." There was resigned disapproval in the other's face.

Hamp faded him off, arose from his chair, and stretched his shoulder muscles. In spite of the time of day, he went over to the bar and brought forth a bottle of stone age Armagnac and a snifter glass. He poured a sizable jolt, then went over to the bookshelves, searching for a moment before selecting a copy of Cheikh Anta Diop's The African Origin of Civilization in the original French, and returned with it to his chair.

In the next half hour he went through a good quarter of the brandy, several times checking with the mirror. At the end of that period he was satisfied with what he saw. The face that looked back at him was that of, say, a well-tanned Frenchman.

He went back into the study and again sat at his restricted phone screen. He punched for a foreign call and then twice again.

The face that appeared was a twin of his own, including dark blue eyes, crew-cut reddish hair, and the well-tanned face of a European playboy.

Hamp said briskly, "Jim, I'm taking over for an indefinite time, probably a month or so. Go to ground. Assume your usual identity. I'll get in touch when I need you."

The other grinned. "Any suggestions?"

"You might try the Malta retreat. But be on immediate call."

"You're the boss," Jim told him. "You slave driver." The face of his stand-in faded.

Chapter Five: Franklin Pinell

Frank Pinell looked about the shabby, windowless room of the Hotel Rome in the International Zone of Tangier. Ten dirhams a day. Two pseudo-dollars. Cheap, perhaps, for any shelter at all, but with the cost of food, his bankroll would melt away in short order.

It was late afternoon, but he'd had lunch on the jet with his two escorts and wasn't yet hungry. The thing to do was to get out and start to make contacts. If there were jobs to be had, he was going to have to find one soonest. He had only been here for a couple of hours but he had seen what poverty was like in the old, old town of Tangier and wanted no part of it. Seemingly, there was no sort of government relief whatever for the poor; certainly nothing like GAS.

It was orientation time; he must contact his fellow English-speaking residents. He went into the hall, taking the key that Luigi had given him, locking the door behind. Why, he couldn't say. He had left nothing in the room. He had nothing to leave. On his way out, he hung the key on the rack behind the desk. On the face of it, anyone coming along could have taken it down, or any of the others, and stripped the place. But strip it of what? He doubted that any of the other tenants of the fleabag had much more in the way of possessions than he had.

He walked down the rickety stairs to the ground level and looked up and down Rue Moussa Ben Moussair, as drab a street as he had ever seen. The cab driver who had stolen his luggage had told him that Pasteur Boulevard, the town center, was two blocks up. He headed left, reached Rue Goya, turned left again. He carefully checked his route, having no desire to get lost.

Two blocks up, Rue Goya came into Pasteur Boulevard and the immediate change couldn't have been more definite. Its two or three blocks could have been directly out of a swank Florida or Southern California resort. The cars, many chauffeur driven, were the latest from Common Europe, the Americas, and the Asiatic League. The pedestrians were largely Europeans with a sprinkling of Orientals and a few North Africans. All seemed prosperous—the suits of the men had been cut in London, Rome, Manhattan; the clothes of the women in Paris, Budapest, Copenhagen, or Los Angeles. The women were strictly Tri-Di shows. Most of them could have passed as the latest sex symbols of the entertainment world, or as fashion models. Every hair seemed to be in place. Quite a few tripped along behind poodles and Pomeranians.

Surprised by the opulence, Frank turned left on the boulevard and walked along slowly, staring into the shop windows. Save for such centers as Manhattan in his own country, in an age when cities were crumbling, Frank Pinell had seldom seen privately owned shops before. His was an era of automated ultra-markets, through which credit could purchase anything from a safety pin to a yacht. But these that lined the main boulevard of European Tangier were the purveyors of ultimate luxury—clothing and shoe stores, art galleries, jewelry stores, gourmet food shops, liquor stores. Mingled among them were small, intimate restaurants, offering the outstanding cuisines of the world, and even more intimate cocktail lounges. On the face of it, not all of Tangier was poverty-stricken.

He stood to one side for a moment and watched the pass-ersby. An Indian woman, a red caste mark on her forehead, went past in a golden sari. He had never witnessed a more graceful female in his life. A Parisian—by the looks of her—went by, complete with arrogant champagne poodle. What had MacDonald said about the Madrid mopsies being the most beautiful in the world? Frank doubted it. Perhaps this girl wasn't a prostitute, or even a mistress, but if she was he wondered vaguely what she charged for a night's entertainment. Two men passed briskly, attache cases in hand, in business suits that looked as though they'd come from the tailor's less than half an hour previously. They had the healthy, tanned, barbered, massaged look of the ultimately successful. Then an Oriental girl tripped along in an off-white silken

cheongsam, the slits at the outer thighs mesmerizing him. He had thought the Indian in her sari the epitome of grace, but this lovely little creature looked like a Chinese doll.

He looked up and down the boulevard, wondering where to go and what to do. All his impulses were to enter one of the bars and have the drink he needed. His present finances didn't allow for alcoholic beverages, certainly not at the prices that would prevail here.

A voice from behind him said, "Cooee, mate. You look like a flashing lost soul. Dinkum you do. Could a bloke give you a steer?"

Frank turned sharply. Grinning down at him from a height of at least six foot four was a long, cheerfully rugged type, a spanking new Australian bush hat pushed back on his head, but otherwise as nattily dressed as the other males on the street. Somehow, he looked slightly uncomfortable in his tailored afternoon suit. Indeed, he was on the gawky side, and obviously meant for the ranch, rather than a city's sidewalks.

Frank said, "What?"

"You look like a Yank, strewth, a Yank or maybe a Canuck, new in this barstid town. Don't want to be cheeky, but you don't look like you know your way around, what-o?"

Frank said, "Oh. Thanks. Fact is, I just pulled in and don't know the ropes. Is there some place, a neighborhood, where Americans hang out? Not just Americans, but anybody who speaks English." He hesitated, then stuck out his hand and said, "Frank Pinell. And, yeah, American. You're Australian?"

"Too right. Nat Fraser. Bonzer to meet you, Frank." His hand was huge, dry as the outback, and strong. "Not as many Yanks, Aussies, or even Limeys in town as you'd bloody well wish. You go crazy as a kookaburra for a fresh face or two."

"You're permanent here?" Frank said, regaining his well-squeezed and -pumped hand.

"Too true, oh my word. And don't think I wouldn't do a bunk if I could. Crikey, I haven't had a contract for donkey's years. Now, let's see. A bar where the English speaking coves hang out. Well, mate, actually there's three. There's the Parade, where the toffs take on their plonk." He took in Frank's suit. "Probably too rich for your blood, what-o?"

Frank said, after letting air out of his lungs ruefully, "Sounds like it. I'm on a limited budget and I need a job."

The Australian cocked his head at him. "Going to be in this googly town for a spell, eh?"

Frank could think of no reason for disguising his status. "I'm a deportee," he said, watching the other's face to get his reaction.

There wasn't any. Nat Fraser was going on as though he hadn't heard the confession. "Then there's the Carousel, over on Rue Rubens. Not your cup of tea, cobber. What do you Yanks call them? Gays. I doubt you get your lollies that way."

"No," Frank said. "What's this third one?"

"Paul Rund's, down on the Grand Socco. That's the biggest souk in town. And Paul sells the cheapest plonk in Tangier. Drink it and you wake up with the jumping Joe Blakes in the moring, fair dinkum. As a matter of fact, cobber, I was off in that direction meself when I bagged you looking lost."

"If you don't mind, I'll tag along," Frank said. "Bloody well told. Let's go." They started up the boulevard.

Frank looked up at his elongated companion and said, "Do you think I might make a contact at this Paul's bar?"

Nat Fraser considered it. "With the two thousand Swiss francs I suppose you've got in your kick from your flashing government, I'd think you could wait it out until you're able to cobber up somebody who could give you a steer."

Frank inwardly winced but said nothing about the fact that his thousand pseudo-dollars had melted down to less than two hundred.

At the end of Pasteur Boulevard they entered an attractive square, largely lined with sidewalk cafes. "Place de France," the Aussie told Frank. The sidewalk tables were well patronized, largely by prosperous European types, most of whom were reading newspapers. Moroccan waiters, in red fezzes and baggy black pants like bloomers, scurried around taking and delivering orders. There was a superfluity of shoeshine boys.

They turned right, down a winding street considerably narrower than Pasteur Boulevard had been. The composition of the pedestrians began to change radically. As they progressed, they saw fewer people in European clothing and more in the dress of Africa, the Near East, and the Orient.

"The Rue de la Liberte," Nat Fraser told him. "Where the bloody twain meets. You know, East is East and West is West." He gave running comment on races and costume.

There were growing numbers of Rifs, Arabs, Berbers— even an occasional Blue Man down from the mountains. The name of the latter, Nat explained, sprang from the indigo dye of their robes which, when they sweated, came off on their skins, giving them an eerie look. At least half of the women still wore the djellaba or haik with veil; half the men wore the brown camel's-hair burnoose. Africa, evidently, changed slowly even in the 21st Century.

"And this is the Grand Socco, mate. Cooee, a fair cow, eh? Ever see so many wogs in your life?"

It was a large square, packed with humanity and with a hundred different varieties of stalls—flower booths, food stands, and herb stands, hashish being among the other so-called herbs. There were displays of vegetables, fruits, hand-woven textiles, yellow or white babouche slippers, and a multitude of other commodities, some seemingly desirable in the eyes of Moroccans and some aimed deliberately to attract tourists. There were still more of the Arabs and Rifs, plus sailors up from the port and European riffraff from a score of countries. Donkeys seemed to be the means of transport; no car could have gotten through the press of bodies. Odors of mint, saffron, and kif, the North African cannabis, mingled in the air.

Rather than press into the souk, the teeming native market, they turned left and did their best to get through the crowded way, the Australian in front, running interference. It seemed one hell of a strange location for an English-speaking bar.

Nat was explaining over his shoulder, "Paul's been here for donkey's years," he said. "He's so warm in half a dozen countries, he'll never be able to leave. Owes something like a hundred and fifteen years in Italy alone for smuggling, and with his TB he wouldn't last six months in one of those cold, damp, wop nicks. No extradition from Tangier. He'll never leave, oh my word. Interpol would grab him in ten minutes if he put a toe down in Gibraltar."

They arrived at Paul's Bar—there was a small faded sign hanging out in front.

Inside, it was dark and cool but hardly prepossessing. There were six or seven stools at the bar, three tables with chairs. On the walls were pasted aged clippings about the proprietor's exploits in the old days when he was allegedly a ranking lockpicker, screwsman, grifter, and smuggler. They were alternated with pinups from aged pornographic magazines. From the ceiling hung a fisherman's net and a ship's wheel which doubled as a chandelier, a vain attempt to give Paul's Bar a nautical decor.

There were only three people present—one slumped at a table, head on arms, one seated dejectedly on a stool at the bar with a bottle of beer before him, and the bartender himself. Automated bars seemed to be unknown in Tangier, at least in this part of town—the medina, as Nat had named it.

The bartender had once been a larger man. Now he was emaciated. His sallow face had a sardonic quality and he wore a moth-eaten Vandyke beard tinged with gray. He looked up when the newcomers entered and wiped the well-worn bar with a dirty bar rag, uselessly.

He said, "Cheers, Nat," then looked at Frank. It seemed that in Paul's Bar one was introduced before being served.

Nat and Frank crawled onto stools and the Austalian said, "Paul, meet Frank Pinell, a new cobber in town from the States. He's looking for a contact." Paul put a thin hand over the bar and shook hands. However, his eyes were narrow. "What kind of a contact?" he said. It was the tone that bothered Frank. He said, "Well, I don't know. Just about anything, I guess."

"You warm?" Paul Rund said. Frank thought he understood what the other meant. "Only in the States," he said. And then, not particularly liking this, added, "Why?"

Paul leaned on the bar and said, "Because this is a poxy town, Frank. There's no extradition laws, there's practically no laws at all, but what there are get pretty well obeyed, get it? This is the end of the line for a lot of grifters. There's no place else to go if they kick you out. So we're poxy careful not to foul our own nest, get it? We lay doggo, that's the word, lay doggo. We don't take no scores here in Tangier.

Absolutely. And the boys take a dim view if anybody tries it. We don't want the present easygoing laws to be no way changed."

"That's the dinkum oil," Nat said, nodding. "But you've got it wrong, Paul. Gawd strewth. Pull your head in. Frank didn't come here to do a romp. Deported from the States, he was. The poor cove's got to cobber up with somebody and get an angle."

Paul evidently took the tall Australian's word for it. He said, "Good show. Just wanted to tell you the drill here, Frank. You look like the type of sod who'd pinch something here in Tangier and put all our bloody arses in a sling. What'll it be, lads? First drink's on the bloody house, Frank."

Nat said, "Make it a couple of Storks, Paul." He looked at Frank as the bartender turned to serve them. "Not up to Aussie brew, strike me blind. But, from what I hear, better than you Yanks are turning out these days."

"It wouldn't have to be very good," Frank told him. "They make syntho-beer from sawdust or something."

The two took their bottles of beer and glasses and went to the remotest of the three tables and sat down. The beer glass wasn't clean but Frank didn't give a damn. He poured appreciatively. It was the first drink he'd had for several months and a lot of guff had been thrown at him in the past couple of days in particular.

"Not bad suds considering it's made by ragheads," his companion said, downing his whole glass in one vast draught. "The cheeky barstids don't suppose to ever enjoy a shivoo in their whole narky lives. Oh my word, no. Against Allah's buggering rules."

Frank didn't take much longer to finish his. The Aussie was right. It wasn't bad beer at all. Probably still made from malt and hops, he assumed, instead of the crap being turned out at home these days for the prole palate.

Nat said, "How about another, cobber?" He came to his feet. Frank said, "All right, but I ought to pay for this."

"Don't be a zany. You can't afford to play the toff until you get yourself settled in. Been down on the bone meself in me time. Settle down, cobber." The Aussie went over to the bar and secured another couple of bottles from the thin-faced bartender. Frank looked after him thoughtfully.

When he had returned and they had refilled their glasses, Frank held his up and said, "Thanks, Nat. Mud in your eye." Nat said, holding up his glass in toast, "Fuck Ireland." They both drank and then Frank said, "What did you say?"

"Oh. Fuck Ireland."

Frank looked at him. "Why?"

The Australian's easygoing face took an expression of being put upon. "Cooee, cobber, I don't know. That's what we say in Melbourne, strewth."

Frank said, "Look here, Nat. Do you always talk this way? I miss about half of what you mean."

Nat Fraser grinned, a ruefulness there. "A bit thick, eh? Always sets you Yanks back. I wasn't trying to cozen you."

Frank chuckled, the first occasion he could remember having done so for some time. He said, "All right, no harm done, but let's keep it on a level where we communicate."

"Fair dinkum."

The American looked about the room, then brought his eyes back to his newfound friend. "Nat," he said. "This doesn't exactly look like an employment agency. In fact, it's obviously a low-class bar where the town's less prosperous, uh, grifters, I believe is the term Paul used, hang out."

Nat looked around too, taking in the other customers, both on the seedy side. "Too right," he admitted. "Shall we do a bunk?"

"You mean get out? No," Frank told him. "Why'd you bring me here, Nat? "

The over-lengthy Aussie let his sun-faded eyebrows go up. "What-o, cobber? You think I was trying to cozen you?"

"Look," Frank said patiently, "I'm game, but not everybody's. I was walking along the street, minding my own business. Suddenly you're there, winsome as a pimp, but you sure as hell don't act like one. Fifteen minutes later, we're in this dump. Why?"

The Australian went over and got two more bottles of Stork beer and returned with them. He was grinning. "You said you were a deportee," he told Frank as he put the bottles down.

"So?"

"I'm the local recruiting sergeant, cobber."

* * *

Frank stared at him, even while upending the bottle over his glass. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Had any military training at all?"

"No."

Nat Fraser looked disappointed. "Don't twig anything about a shooter, eh? What did they nail you for, cobber?"

"I didn't say that. My old man was a gun crank. Had quite a collection. I didn't see much of him but he used to get a kick out of showing me the workings of everything from cap-and-ball revolvers to new Gyrojets. What was I nailed for? Homicide."

The easygoing Aussie took him in for a long moment.

Frank said, "Recruiting sergeant for what?"

"Mercenaries, Incorporated."

Frank scowled. "Never heard of it."

"The Graf's outfit."

"Never heard of him, either. You mean professional soldiers of fortune?"

"That's the dinkum oil. This is one of the big staging areas for many a contract. The Graf gets a contract and we put the operation together here in Tangier."

"I thought Paul said you pulled nothing off here. That Tangier was sort of neutral ground. The boys, as he called them, didn't want to foul their own nest."

"Fair dinkum. We don't do anything here in Tangier. Just recruit blokes who want to earn a little money, and put the operation together. The Graf's sometimes got other operations going. We crew some of them, too. Aren't as many bloody contracts these days as there used to be, but some. Bush wars down south between all the dictators, presidents for life, and that whole mucking lot. Some in the Far East, too. But we don't handle those operations. They're based in Singapore and Penang. The Graf's got his representatives there as well."

Frank said, "Soldiers of fortune, eh? Hiring yourself out to kill for money." There was disgust in his voice.

The ordinarily amiable Aussie looked at him coldly. "What other reason is mere to fight, cobber? A soldier's job is to win wars. If you pick that pro-bloody-fession, you wind up killing people, usually other soldiers who've picked the same trade."

Some of his exaggerated Aussie slang seemed to have dropped away.

Frank said, "The theory is that the usual soldier is fighting for his country. He's doing his duty, defending it."

"Too right. That's the theory, but it's not the reality. I'm not talking about blokes drafted during wartime. They can't get out of it, even if they want to. But your professional soldiers are a bunch of hypocrites. At least a mercenary can choose what side he fights on. But your career soldier rights whoever the politicians tell him to. Look at the Germans in the Nazi war. Were they fighting for their country? Fucking well not. They were fighting for that dingo barstid Hitler and his gang."

Frank was irritated by the other's strong opinions. He said, "Even granting that doesn't excuse a mercenary, fighting for whoever will pay him."

"Half a mo, cobber. I've never taken a contract for some rucking barstid like Hitler or any other politician I thought was buggering up his country. Sometimes I've been offered contracts where I wouldn't fight on either side."

Frank stood and said, "I'll get another, ah, buggering beer."

Nat said, reaching into a pocket, "You ought to let me shout the suds."

"Why?" Frank said. "I'm not a potential recruit. No reason I should be freeloading on you."

At the bar, while Paul Rund was getting the fresh bottles of Stork, the wizened bartender said, "Signing up with the Graf, Frank?"

Frank eyed him. "I don't think so. Do you know of any other jobs kicking around?"

The other popped off the two beer caps, then ran his thin fingers through his bedraggled Vandyke. "You might get a berth on one of the boats. Not as many of them as there used to be, but I heard Sam McQueen needed a couple of men."

"What kind of boats?"

Paul Rund looked at him as though he had hardly expected that question. "Smugglers."

Frank said, "For Christ's sake, I thought you said there was nothing illegal pulled off in Tangier!"

The bartender said patiently, "Smuggling ain't illegal. You buy a cargo of hashish or tobacco here, perfectly legit, and run it to one of the countries where it's taboo, get it? And you sell it there, so you haven't broken any law in Tangier. Smugglers are reputable citizens here, get it?"

The American shook his head and took up the two beers. To his relief, they cost only two dirhams apiece in Paul's. Back at the table, after they had both poured, Nat Eraser said, "So you're not interested?"

"I suppose not. Look, I'm not holier than thou. In fact, I suspect my father was some sort of mercenary; possibly in espionage, I don't know. He and my mother were separated when I was a kid; I didn't see him much. He was usually out of the country, I think. At any rate, he was finally shot on one of his trips. I haven't any desire to end the same way."

The other shurgged broad shoulders. "The Grafs got other operations, like I said. Maybe he could find a place in the organization for a nice presentable cove like yourself."

"From what you've said so far about his operations, I doubt it," Frank said, finishing his beer. He stood. Somewhat to his surprise, he could feel the drink. Possibly, Stork was stronger than the gassy anemic American brew he was used to.

He said, "Thanks anyway, Nat. I'll see you around."

"Too right, cobber. If you change your mind, I'm usually here this time of night."

Frank sent his glance out of one of the dirty windows. It was dark out on the Grand Socco. He hadn't realized they'd been talking for so long.

He left after waving to Paul Rund and stood for a moment before the door. Not a fraction of the teeming Moroccans were still on the streets or in the souk. Evidently, everything folded in the medina with the coming of night. He made his way past shuttered stalls, past steel-barred store fronts, retracing his route as best he could.

He shook his head over the experiences of the past few hours. No crime in Tangier, eh? Uh-huh. Aside from the IABI men ripping off eight hundred of his thousand pseudo-dollars, the customs officer had lifted his camera, his cab driver had stolen his luggage, he had been offered a job as a mercenary despite his lack of experience, and had been told he might land a berth on a boat smuggling narcotics.

He came to a street that might be Rue de la Liberte and headed up it. It was too dark to make out the signs. He thought the street should have had more pedestrian traffic and more lights than this. The blow that struck him on the back of the neck took him completely unawares. He felt his mouth sag open even as he crumbled.

At first, he wasn't completely out but agonizingly paralyzed. He could feel hands hastily going through his pockets, turning them inside out. Two more shadowy figures came hurriedly to his side. He tried to last but could feel no power in his limbs. One of his assailants thoughtfully kicked him in the side of the head and then the fog rolled over him.

Chapter Six: Roy Cos

From Greater Miami they were lobbed over to the island of New Providence by laser boost in approximately ten minutes.

Roy Cos, strapped into his enveloping seat, took a deep breath as acceleration loads mounted and said, "Never been in one of these things before."

"I wish I could say the same," Forry Brown told him, in his usual sour voice. "I hate the damn things."

Roy looked out the small, thick glass porthole at the unbelievable blue sea with its occasional frothed ripples of waves. "That's the Gulf Stream, eh?"

"Yeah," Forry told him. "It keeps the Bahamas at a constant year-round temperature of between seventy and eighty in the shade. George Washington was one of the first tourists here. He called them 'The Isles of Perpetual June.' "

Below, the Wobbly organizer could already see small islands. He said, "How many of them are there?"

They had reached the peak of their arc now, and for a few seconds were in free fall before their shuttle began the deceleration.

The little ex-newsman said, "Most people think of the Bahamas as only the town of Nassau, but actually, there are about 700 islands and nearly 2,000 cays and rocks." His tone took on a cynical singsong parody of a tour guide. "Scattered like a fistful of pearls in turquoise waters extending over an area of 70,000 square miles."

Roy looked over at him. "You've been here before, eh?"

"That's right. Actually, it's one of the most beautiful resort areas in the world. Ah, we're coming in."

The shuttle landed at the Windsor International Airport and Forry Brown had a cigarette in his mouth before they started down the gangway, jostling along with their fellow passengers.

Roy Cos hadn't experienced much in the way of nature's charms in his forty-some years. It cost money to seek nature out on the mainland and he'd never had more than GAS. Now, his first impression as they walked in bright sunlight toward customs was one of flower-scented breezes. Even here at the shuttleport, there were gaudy Bahamian flowers—purple and red bougainvillea, yellow and red hibiscus, pink, white, and red oleander, royal purple passionflowers. Their mingling perfumes gave a subtle fragrance to the southeast trade winds. Not that Roy Cos knew their names. Beyond roses, daisies, and tulips he was lost in the world of flowers, as his parents before him. He was a prole born, and proles seldom had gardens.

Customs was the merest of formalities. Forry Brown's attache case and Roy Cos's battered briefcase weren't even opened. However, Roy's credit card, which doubled as his passport, brought up the eyes of the black man in the Bahama immigrations uniform.

He said politely, "Suh, GAS credits are not valid in the islands."

Forry said, "Mr. Cos is my guest." He handed over his own Universal Card.

"Jolly well, suh," the other told him, returning the ex-newsman's credit card and then touching the brim of his cap in an easygoing salute.

They passed on toward the metro station, where everyone seemed to be heading.

Roy looked over at the other from the side of his eyes and said, "I didn't know that immigrations men could tell what type of pseudo-dollar credits were accredited to a Universal Credit Card by just looking at it. And what was that about GAS credits not being valid?''

"You can't spend your GAS outside the limits of the United States of the Americas," Forry told him. "The government wants you to spend it at home. Why subsidize foreign countries by spending unearned credits in them? The Bahamas, along with Cuba, are the only Caribbean islands that don't belong to the United States. The Bahamas won't join because it's more profitable to stand on the sidelines and offer gambling and offbeat banking practices, such as numbered accounts, and multinational commercial deals like

Deathwish Policies. Anything goes in the Bahamas; they haven't got the restrictive laws we rejoice in at home. They figure any adult should be allowed to go to hell in his own way, just so that doesn't interfere with anyone else."

"I'll be damned. You mean you can even buy heroin here, openly—and things like tobacco?"

"Yes," the other told him ironically, flicking his cigarette butt into a waste receptacle.

The metro system had probably been imported from the United States, Roy realized. The vacuum cars had them into downtown Nassau within minutes.

They emerged from the central metro station onto an avenue teeming with pedestrians and bicycles but even more devoid of cars than an American city would have been. This was the downtown area, the harbor immediately before them. Roy's first impression was that the whole place was a museum. Only in historical films had he seen buildings which seemed to go back to at least Victorian days.

Forry looked around too, a warmth in his squinting eyes. He obviously liked the town. He said, continuing his tour guide lecturing, "This is Bay Street, the main tourist shopping center. It's a free port, no taxes, so the tourists go hog wild. Over there is Rawson Square, with the government administration buildings. Over there's the post office, and that statue's Queen Victoria. The garden behind contains the Public Library and museum, which dates back to 1799 and was originally built as a jail."

They turned left on Bay Street, walking along as rapidly as Ae shopping traffic would allow. The buildings seemed completely devoted to tourist stores, bars, and restaurants.

Roy said, "I wouldn't think they'd have much need for jails in a place like this."

His small gray companion laughed. "In its earliest days, this island was a pirate center. Blackbeard himself built a lookout tower down the beach a ways. After the pirates were kicked out, the Bahamas went into a depression until the American revolution, when they became prosperous smuggling military supplies to the colonists. Then they went into the doldrums again until our Civil War, when they became the clearinghouse for sneaking cotton out to England and France and smuggling guns in to the Confederates. Then another depression until Prohibition, when they all got rich running rum. Eventually they hit on becoming an all-out, any thing-goes resort area. Now they've parlayed that up to include international banking—and other criminal activities. Oh, never fear, they've always been able to use a good jail here in Nassau.''

They turned down Parliament Street, and shortly the shops gave way to small business buildings and private homes. Even business was housed in ancient structures. The private homes were largely built of island limestone with upper porches that hung over the streets. To protect them from the sun, wide verandas had been built in graceful wooden construction with louvers to admit cooling breezes.

The Wobbly organizer stared at something coming down the street. He said, "I don't think I've ever seen a horse-drawn carriage before."

"That's a surrey," the other told him. "They hate cars out here. You seldom see one, except those used by government." The newsman looked at a card he drew from his jacket pocket. "This seems to be the address."

It was a prosperous-looking business establishment, in the Victorian tradition. There was a small bronze plaque which Roy couldn't make out above the entry, and a uniformed black standing before it. The man touched his cap at their approach and held open the door. They seemed to use more manpower here than in the automated States.

The interior continued the Victorian motif, with a few concessions to the tropics. There was a pervasive Britishness about it all. Roy had expected the company would be American, with some affiliation to a sinister background such as the Mafia.

Forry Brown seemed to sense what his companion was thinking and said, "This outfit is a subsidiary of one of the big insurance companies in Hartford. It's multinational, of course, specializing in Deathwish Policies, though it has some other far-out bits of business going.''

There was a sterile reception office presided over by a live receptionist, plain of face, her dull hair done up in an unfashionable bun. She wore a washed out, shapeless light dress.

Forry said, "Good morning. Mr. Roy Cos on appointment to see Mr. Oliver Brett-James."

"Very good, sir," she clipped, checking a notepad. "You are expected. Mr. Brett-James will see you immediately." She did the things receptionists do, speaking into a comm set, saying, "Yes, sir," a couple of times, and then pressing a button.

She came to her feet saying, "This way, please," and led them down a short hallway.

She held open a door and bestowed on them what she probably thought was a smile.

Roy and Forry entered a moderately large office, once again with a Londonish feel—stolid, spotless, cold. Mr. Oliver Brett-James was standing behind an old-fashioned wooden desk. He was tubby, almost naked of scalp, red rather than tanned, his complexion more from bottles man the Bahamian sun. His smile was conservatively polite, though he seemed surprised to see two of them. "Mr. Cos?" he said.

"That's right," Roy told him. Neither of them made a motion toward shaking hands. Under the circumstances, it didn't seem exactly called for.

"And you, sir?" the Englishman said to Forry.

"Forrest Brown," Forry said. "I'm Mr. Cos's business agent."

"Business agent? Well, no reason why not, I daresay. Be seated, gentlemen. Shall we get immediately to business? Here is the contract. It goes into effect tomorrow. And here is your International Credit Card, drawn on our Swiss bank in Beme. Each day, as you undoubtedly know, you will have one million pseudo-dollars at your disposal. It doesn't accumulate, of course, but each day you have that amount available."

Roy and Forry had taken chairs in front of the desk. Forry said sourly, scratching a thumbnail over his meager mustache, "Suppose we read the contract before signing."

"Certainly, old chap," the Briton said. "I merely thought that you were already cognizant of its contents, in which case there'd be no point in mucking around." He handed a three-page sheaf of paper to each of them and then leaned back patiently in his swivel chair.

His two callers read what he had given them carefully.

Forry had already dug up copies of the standard Deathwish Policy and this didn't deviate from it.

After a few minutes, while they were still reading, Brett-James cleared his throat and said, "Please take note of Clause Three. You must understand that we will not tolerate frivolous expenditures. That is, suppose you decide to purchase a diamond or a painting. If the price is over 10,000 pseudo-dollars, we will have an expert evaluate the item. We do not expect to have you spending, say, 50,000 pseudo-dollars on something which is really worth but 15,000. We expect our specialists to check out the true value, within reason. Of course the gem or painting, as the case might be, reverts to us upon your, ah, unfortunate demise."

Forry looked up finally and said, "Just how much does the policy pay off in benefits to you when Mr. Cos, ah, passes on?"

Oliver Brett-James stiffened. "I say, that isn't really a concern of yours now, is it?"

Forry took him in. "Yes," he said. "The details of this transaction will help me in supervising his interests."

The other didn't like it, but he said finally, "Our corporation will receive ten million pseudo-dollars in the way of benefits."

Forry said gently, "And how much are the daily premiums that you must pay?"

"See here, Mr., uh, Brown. This is of no interest to…"

"We think it is," the ex-newsman said. He brought a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shook forth a smoke. "We either find out, or Mr. Cos doesn't sign." He put the cigarette in his colorless lips and brought forth his lighter.

Brett-James stared at him for a long moment, but finally said, "The daily premiums are one million pseudo-dollars."

The gray-faced Forry nodded as he lit up, blowing smoke through his pinched nostrils. "Clear enough. You have to do Roy in within ten days or you start losing money."

The signing of the contract was witnessed by the receptionist and another nonentity she brought in, a young man who avoided Roy's eyes as he signed.

When the two witnesses were gone, Brett-James rubbed his hands together and said, "Jolly well. I daresay you'll be returning immediately to the mainland. Where will you be staying?"

Forry looked at him flatly. "Get serious," he said. "Do you think we'd give you that much of a head start?" He put Roy's copy of the contract into his attache case.

When they had left, the other pressed a button on his desk and four men entered, one of them the young witness. Brett-James said, "You've got the photos, the tapes and all?"

The oldest of the four nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Very well, get to work on both of them. Check out this Forrest Brown chap. We'll want to know just where he fits in." Brett-James made a motion with his hand. "All right, Maurice, tail them. Follow the instructions I gave you earlier."

As they walked back toward Bay Street, Forry looked at his wrist chronometer. "We've got over an hour before the next shuttle to Miami. We might as well eat. Blackbeard's Tavern is a good place."

"Right," Roy said, immersed deeply in bleak thoughts.

They reached the shopping center and turned left.

The little ex-newsman stopped at a shop and said, "Just a minute. I might as well stock up here."

The sign said, 'Solomon's Mines,' and they entered to find the store devoted almost exclusively to tobacco products. Roy muttered, "Jesus Christ. In the States this shop would've been raided before it opened."

His companion ordered a dozen packs of Russian Imperial Gold Tip Blacks and began stuffing them into his pockets. "A fraction of what they cost on the black market at home," he said. "Here, stick these away." He handed Roy six packs.

"Wait a minute," Roy Cos said indignantly. "Suppose they nail me with them at American customs. It's a bad policy for a member of the Wobblies. A radical can't afford to be anything else offbeat. It gives them a handle to get at you."

Forry said impatiently, "They never search your person at customs unless you're a known smuggler or have a criminal record when they check you out in the data banks."

Roy shrugged in resignation and distributed the six packages of cigarettes about his pockets.

As they left the shop, the little newsman was tearing one pack open. He shook out a gold-tipped, black-papered cigarettee and said, "Like to try one?"

"For God's sake, do I look stupid? You think I want to wind up with my lungs eaten away and my heart pounding overtime?"

Forry grinned. "They've been denouncing alcohol for centuries, but I notice you're not particularly opposed to taking a drink."

"It's only excessive use of alcohol that's condemned," Roy told him, his tone righteous. "Moderate use of alcohol has been a blessing to man since prehistory."

"By Christ, you radicals are the most conservative cloddies going. You're worse than the United Church. Excess of anything will do you in. Drink enough water and you'll drown."

They argued companionably, deliberately avoiding the subject uppermost in both their minds.

Blackbeard's Tavern turned out to be a cozy bar and restaurant, with a small calypso band playing in the background, surprisingly softly. They took a table and a white-jacketed, barefooted black was there immediately to take their order.

Forry said, with obvious anticipation, "Native Bahamians have their own food specialties that are hard to get elsewhere. Conch, for instance—a kind of shellfish. We'll have conch chowder, green turtle pie, and baked Andros crabs. And black beer to go with it."

Roy put down his menu and let the other do all of the ordering. When the waiter was gone, he said, "I think we were followed."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Forry said. "Forget about it. The contract doesn't go into effect until tomorrow. But don't forget that tomorrow starts at midnight. Meanwhile, they most certainly don't want anything to happen to you before then. That bastard tailing us is more like a bodyguard than anything else, at this stage. It'll be something else if we see him tomorrow."

The waiter brought large mugs of very dark beer and, shortly afterward, the conch chowder. They ate without joy, stolidly going through the motions while lost in their thoughts. It had been one thing, planning this coup, but getting down to the nitty-gritty in Brett-James's office had brought home reality. The contract was signed now and there was no going back; as of midnight, Roy would have a price on his pelt.

Again they avoided saying what was uppermost in both of their minds. Forry skated near it with, "Funny how societies always seem to provide for the future by accident. Ever consider that maybe this bland food is preparing us for a dull future?"

Roy frowned at his plate. "It is kind of tasteless. You mean we're getting ourselves ready for an era of the blahs?"

The little newsman said, "A slow dissolution, maybe." He nodded agreement with himself. "Without necessarily deliberate planning, society provides for the future. In this case, a future in which over ninety percent of the population became proles. The big difference between proles and slaves is that the slaves had to work to maintain the upper classes. But now machinery does practically all of the work and proles are real drones, absolutely worthless."

Roy said, scowling, "How do you mean society provided for my future? I didn't ask to become a complete drone. It was foisted on me."

The newsman nodded again and put down his fork, giving up the food for which neither of them had found enthusiasm. "You're an exception. But over a century ago society was already preparing for the day of the prole. Most kids at that time were already spending more time watching TV than they were spending in school. Oh, there were good schools in the United States, such as MIT, Johns Hopkins, Berkeley, Caltech, and so on. And the good schools turned out possibly five percent of the college graduates of the time. But the rest of the school system was a shambles. Kids got out of grammar school unable to read and write. Hell, many of them graduated from high school unable to function as adults—couldn't make out an application, couldn't keep up a checkbook. Their reading was confined to comic books or strips in the newspapers, or painfully wading through the sports pages. They got their news, to the extent they were interested at all, from TV commentators."

"I still don't see how that leads to society preparing for the future," Roy said, scowling still. This wasn't gospel as laid down by the Wobbly movement.

"Our people were being prepared for becoming proles, unemployables. In modern society you've got to have a good education to hold down a job. Fine, the five percent needed today got a good education. It's not necessary that the ninety percent have one. In fact, it's a disadvantage. An educated man, unemployed, is a potentially dangerous man. He can think, and question, and act on the answers he comes up with. Our educational system was weaning our youth away from an aggressive approach to life, taking the guts out of them, preparing them for their future as proles."

Roy said softly, still in rejection, "So what's our future? What lies ahead for us!"

"Probably more of the same. And the upper class will continue to get richer and smaller, as it eliminates the lower levels of its own class, who are thrown down into the ranks of the proles if their fortunes are lost by whatever means— including being pissed away."

The Wobbly looked at him, thoughtfully. He said, his voice slow, "You're more interested in these things than you've admitted, aren't you, Forry? How come you picked a Wobbly on this project of yours? Why not a Luddite, or Neo-Nihilist, or possibly a Libertarian? And why meT'

Forry Brown tossed his napkin to the table and looked at his wrist chronometer. "We have to get going," he said, bringing his card from his pocket. "You weren't my first choice, Roy. I approached another National Organizer of the Wobblies before you. He evidently wasn't cut out to be a martyr. He turned me down."

Chapter Seven: Lee Garrett

Gary McBride entered the Nuits St. Georges restaurant, his eyes on his wrist chronometer. He looked around hurriedly, frowned, and then went into the bar lounge.

Lee Garrett sat at a small table, a glass before her. She seemed not at all impatient.

He came up to her, his smile just slightly drawn. "Ms. Garrett, of course?" he said. He took in the glass with its light golden contents. "By George," he said. "Not a drink before eating the specialties of Burgundy?" He took the table's second chair. "I'm Gary McBride."

She smiled brightly at him, her almost unbelievably blue eyes taking in his male fashion model appearance. Not only was Gary McBride handsome, in the best upper class tradition, but he was dressed for the part. His suit, shirt, and shoes were exactly what the youthful senior executive in Manhattan was wearing, not just this year, but probably this week.

She said, after shaking hands, "Only a sherry."

"Tio Pepe, I should hope," he said. "Anything stronger or less dry would play havoc with one's palate."

She did a little laugh, as though he were joking. "Tio Pepe is so dry it gives me heartburn."

"Then not another sip of that," he told her severely. "Andre would be desolate. Shall we go to our table?"

He took her arm and led her to the dining room. Lee was dressed in green Irish tweeds which would have denigrated any figure less superb than her own. She looked very businesslike, her simple white blouse and low heels very sincere.

The maitre d' greeted them unctuously and led them to a table tucked intimately away in a small nook. The decor was early French bistro: reproductions of Toulouse Lautrec's posters, aged advertisements of Ricard, Pernod, and a Rheims champagne. The room was moderately full of prosperous diners.

Andre put menus before them, brought forth a pad and stylo, and looked inquiringly, politely, and most earnestly at Gary McBride.

Gary McBride said to Lee, "The menu is in French. Shall I order?"

"Please do," she said, putting down her own carte.

Consulting with the headwaiter as he went, very seriously indeed, Gary McBride ordered as their first course Oeufs en Cocotte Bourguignonne, with a Meursault '48 to accompany it. When the wine arrived, Andre again presided pouring a small amount into McBride's tulip-shaped glass. He sipped it carefully, after he tested the bouquet, and thoughtfully pursed his lips.

Andre murmured, "Le vin est a votre gout?"

"Excellent," Gary McBride nodded, and the headwaiter filled both glasses two-thirds full.

Eggs a la Bourguignonne turned out to be poached in red burgundy, and for a moment, both were silent as they sampled. Gary McBride said, "A pity to discuss business while eating, my dear, but I understand that you were contacted, as planned, by a member of the Anti-Racist League." Lee nodded. "Yes," she said. "I'm afraid I muffed it."

"Not to worry, my dear. What went wrong?"

"I underestimated him. He was a black; well-educated. What tipped him off, I have no idea, but he saw through me. I suppose it was rather humorous. He pretended to get somewhat tipsy and, ah, pretended to make a rather crude play for me."

His eyebrows went up.

t rape, and revealed that I wasn't truly material for the Anti-Racists. He told me off very efficiently, greatly amused."

"I see. Then your cover is blown, so far as the Anti-Racist League is concerned."

"I'm afraid so."

"Not to worry," he said again. "Ah, the duck." The Canard a L'Orange arrived with the Richebourg '65

he had ordered, and again went through the wine-tasting ceremony.

When the waiter had retired he said, "You were not alone. The Foundation has several, ah, agents making the same attempt to penetrate the Anti-Racist League. You were but one. Others, it is to be assured, will be more successful."

She said, "I wasn't told a great deal about the purpose of my mission. Actually, in spite of my silly scene with Horace Hampton, I am not particularly prejudiced so far as minorities are concerned. I was rather surprised that the Race Research Foundation was interested in infiltrating his organization. I thought its research would be along other lines."

"It is but one ramification of a much broader project. You see, Lee, the Anti-Racist League is a racist organization itself."

"I don't understand."

"In much the same way that the Zionists were."

She frowned slightly at him. "I'm not anti-Semitic, either."

"Nor am I, nor is the Foundation. We're far above such ridiculous postures. But there are most pertinent matters involved. The Anti-Racist League was not of particular import to us so long as it was active in the original fifty states alone. The minorities they represent numbered but some sixteen percent of the population; no great danger to our status quo. However, they are now, ah, beginning to spread into Latin America and other areas of the new United States of the Americas."

She scowled down at her plate. "I don't believe I follow you."

"These new citizens have the vote, Lee. There are enough blacks in Haiti, Jamaica, and even the Guianas to assure that their senators and representatives will be represented in Congress by blacks—if steps are not taken. It's equally true for Mexico, Central America, and the parts of South America which are chiefly Indian."

"So the purpose of the Race Research Foundation is…"

"Ultimately, to maintain the status quo. To see that our people, yours and mine, do not vanish from the positions of power they now assume. Ah, but here is the cheese. I have ordered a selection of Roquefort, Brie, and Chevre."

The cheese was accompanied by a bottle of Rose d'Anjou, following which the waiter brought Crepes de Chapitre.

Lee, who had been silent and thoughtful through these culinary wonders, said at one point, "But since my cover has been blown, as you put it, I am no longer of value to the Foundation."

He smiled at her condescendingly. "We'll discuss it later in my office, my dear."

When they finished the meal, Andre returned, bowing unctuously again.

He said to Gary McBride, "Ca vous a plu, le repas, Monsieur McBride?"

"II etait superb, Andre," the other told him grandly.

Andre looked at Lee. "Et Madam?"

Lee said, ' 'Mes felicitations au chef pour ses crepes. Us etaient commes des diners de George Garin au Chateau du Clos de Veuheot. IIy avaient des autres nobles efforts."

"Merci, Madam." Andre bowed deeply and was gone.

Gary McBride gaped at her. "Parisian French," he said accusingly.

"My father was in the diplomatic corps. In Paris, I attended the Lycee Janson de Sailly. I also have Spanish, Portugese, and Italian, and can get along in German. My Russian is atrocious."

"All Russian is atrocious," he smirked, then saw irritation in her face. "Or did I make a mistake?"

She said, evenly, "Several. Never order such a wine as Richebourg with such a dish as Canard a L'Orange. Nor any other wine, for that matter. The acid of the orange sauce destroys the enjoyment of any great wine. The sole exception is Bouzy, from the Champagne district. If you must order Richebourg it is worthy of a much greater dish, such as Venison Grand Veneur or Lievre a la Royale."

"I see," he said coldly. "And what else?"

"None of the cheeses were from Burgundy. A Brillat Savarin or ripe Epoisse would have been preferable. And Rose d'Anjou, a suspect wine at best, is anathema to both Burgundy food and any cheese and most certainly should never do for the crepes, which were excellent, as I told the maitre d'. By the way, his French has a horrible Brooklyn accent."

"I see," he said. "Shall we go?" He stood, tossing his napkin to the table.

She looked up at him. "Why? My one assignment for the Race Research Foundation came a cropper. I should have looked further into the whole thing before undertaking it. If I had, possibly I would have refused the job. I was too thrilled at the prospect of actually being employed when the computer selected me to work for you, Mr. McBride. Now, even if you did have some position I could hold down, I'm not sure I would choose to be associated with such a pompous superior.''

He grinned suddenly, which completely altered his face. He said, "Good. We've got some things to discuss."

She shrugged in resignation, dropped her own napkin to the table, and stood. "I can't imagine what," she murmured.

At the desk, he brought forth his card and placed it in the payment slot, saying, "Please add a twenty percent tip."

"Thank you, sir," the screen said.

As he was returning his credit card to an inner pocket, he turned his eyes to Lee and smiled again. "How's my French?"

Her face was expressionless. "Only fair," she said. "You seldom acquire a proper French accent outside France or Switzerland. I suspect that most of your instructors were Americans. The French are fanatical about accent."

"I surrender," he said, taking her arm.

The Manhattan office of the Race Research Foundation was within easy walking distance and since it was located in the vicinity of New Columbia University, it made for a pleasant stroll. They maintained silence during the walk and Lee Garrett was surprised at the fact that he was still amused. This was a different Gary McBride. Gone was the affected front. What in the world was this all about? The fluffing of the job wasn't particularly important. But what she had told Horace Hampton had been partly correct. She was tired of the frivolous life and would have liked something worthwhile to do.

The Manhattan offices of the Race Research Foundation were modest. In the outer office were three desks, two women and a young man at them, equipped with the standard vocotypers, phone screens, and library boosters for consultation with the National Data Banks. All greeted Gary McBride by his first name, which surprised Lee. She had expected a stuffy atmosphere, at best.

He didn't bother to introduce her. His private office turned out to be a room of warmth and informality. He seated her in a comfortable chair before rounding the desk and taking his own place.

She still didn't know why she had come. Now that she had fluffed the Hampton contact, she couldn't see how she could possibly infiltrate the Anti-Racist League.

Gary McBride, smiling again, picked up a sheaf of papers from the desk and said, "This is your Dossier Complete. It reports that you attended the Lycee Janson de Sailly, one of the oldest private secondary schools in Paris. You were there for several years, invariably top in your class."

She glared indignantly at him. "What the devil are you doing with that? The Dossier Complete of any citizen can be consulted only by proper authorities for adequate cause. You need the highest priority in the National Data Banks to…" He held up a hand and grinned his boyish grin at her. "Exactly." He watched suspicions chase across her face and then nodded. "We enjoy such a priority."

She was staring at him in sudden realization. "You knew all the time, there in the restaurant, that I spoke French."

"Guilty as charged."

"But… then why did you pretend to make such a fool of yourself before that… that Brooklyn Frenchman?"

He grinned once more. "Lee, the organization of which we are but one subsidiary makes every effort to recruit the best personnel. Practically every employment position filled in the United States goes through the National Data Banks computers. The computers select the most suitable person available for each job." He paused, then winked. "But we get to the data banks before the government computers even begin their selections. We skim the cream of the crop." He could see her confusion. He tapped the sheaf of papers before him.

"Lee, the Dossier Complete is possibly the most comprehensive tally of a citizen's life ever assembled. It begins before your birth, references going beyond your grandparents. And, from your birth, every aspect of your life is checked: health, upbringing, education, sports accomplishments, criminal record, employment record, travels, and on and on. Among other things checked is your ability quotient. Your dossier builds profiles of your verbal and numerical abilities, spatial ability, memory, speed of reflexes, dexterity, mechanical aptitude, emotional maturity, veracity, sensory limits, natural charm, persistence, neurosis, powers of observation, health, and a few others."

She smiled. "Depressing idea. We're all confronted with these confounded tests every few years. That is, if we have any interest in work or running for office. Maybe I should've refused to take them. But what's all this got to do with…"

He held up a hand. "There are a few things, my dear, that can't be tested. Luck, for instance."

"Luck! There is no such thing."

"I'm afraid there is, just as there is accident-proneness, which also defies computer analysis. Even though you were given unbelievably high marks, suppose that when I entered the Nuits St. George I found you wearing two left shoes, or you were hunched up in posture, or you were dressed in khaki shorts and a man's shirt like a prole. Suppose further that when subjected to a 'pompous superior'—I believe that was your term—you were willing to accept him as your boss."

She laughed. "That was all put on! You were testing me."

He grinned back and nodded. "If you hadn't the other qualifications we were looking for, you might still have been employed—somehow. But we also wished to check your poise, grooming, physical attractiveness, and sensibilities. You passed with flying colors."

She looked at him levelly. "So, if I passed your exam that goes beyond the Ability Quotient tests, just what is this position you have in mind? I've already bombed out as an infiltrator of the Anti-Racist League."

The other leaned back in his swivel chair and was silent for a few seconds. "What do you know about the World Club?"

"Why, I suppose what everybody else knows: it's the think tank to end all think tanks—a multinational philanthropic organization which digs into socioeconomic problems confronting the world. Lagrange Five and Asteroid Belt Islands, too, for that matter."

He nodded but said, "It's a great deal more than that. It also keeps track of the population explosion, resources, pollution, religion, the tendencies toward the police state, terrorism, and… racism. For your ears only, the Race Research

Foundation is a subsidiary of the World Club. That would be a shocker even to the most diligent news media expose' experts."

She was wide-eyed now. "But what has this got to do with me?"

"You've been selected to work directly under the Central Committee, which likes a low profile. For the media, it doesn't exist."

She was too flabbergasted to speak. He took up a stylo and readied it over a paper pad. "Before we go further into that, suppose we get the details of this interview you had with the black from the Anti-Racist League. His name?"

"Horace Hampton. Known as Hamp." Gary McBride flicked on a desk screen and said into it, "Liz, check out a Horace Hampton, a.k.a. Hamp, of the Anti-Racist League, a black." Lee said, "I don't know his I.D. number." Gary smiled at her. He was a damned sight more likeable than he had been in the restaurant. He said, "He's black; a member of the Anti-Racist League. He'll be one of their better men if he was your contact. We'll have some record of him."

They did. Shortly, his dossier began flashing on the screen. From time to time, he read out some extract to her. "Seems to have some independent source of income, since seldom uses all of his GAS. No criminal record, though he is suspected of being one of the top trouble-shooters of the Anti-Racist League. Suspected in the slapstick fake assassination of Governor Teeter, though thus far there is no evidence."

Lee was taken aback by that. "He said that they were against violence."

Gary chuckled as he looked mockingly at her. "That's what he said. From what you've reported, he knew that you were a plant. What else could he say?"

"But he seemed sincere."

"Oh, he's sincere, all right. He sincerely believes that extreme racists, such as Teeter, should be dealt with." Gary McBride, still scanning the black's dossier as he spoke to her, grunted his surprise.

He glanced up at Lee. "This is strange," he said. "That's possibly the thinnest dossier I've ever seen—especially when it comes to the criminal record."

She wrinkled her forehead. "How do you mean?"

"He has none whatsoever. Not even a traffic violation. And, as a result, he has no fingerprint record." He thought about it. "I think I'll just forward the name of Horace Hampton to Rome. Perhaps they'll wish to look further into this."

"Rome?"

"That's where the World Club is based. And that's where you're going, my dear." His smile was disarming. "That is, if I can talk you into it."

Chapter Eight: Frank Pinell

A voice from a far distance was saying, "Cooee, wot in the flashing hell happened?"

Frank came alive to find, groggily, that he was sitting on the sidewalk, supported by an anxious Nat Fraser, who was hunkered down on one knee.

Frank got out, "Mugged. Two of them, I think."

"Barstids," the Australian growled. "Damned buggering ragheads. A bloke's not safe to walk up the street. Come on, cobber. We best get you to a sawbones. Never know, might have some broken ribs. They give you the bloody boot?" He got a long, sinewy arm around the fallen American's body and up under his armpits.

"I… I think so," Frank got out, trying to help himself erect.

"My car's over here. Just luck I came along. Don't usually use this street, Rue d'Angleterre, but I was heading up to Panikkar's place on Cape Spartel."

Frank half staggered, was half manhandled by his rescuer, to the small sports model hovercar which was parked, door open, at the curb.

As he was wedged into the bucket seat he got out, "I…1 can't afford a doctor."

"Don't be a bloody fool, cobber. Let me worry about that."

The Aussie slammed the door shut and went around the front of the vehicle to the driver's side and got in, not by opening the door, but by winging a long leg over the side, slipping down into place. He said, as they took off up the wandering street, "It's bonzer I did a bunk from Paul's right after you left, cobber. A bit of luck, eh?"

"In English?" Frank said. The rash of the cool night air was bringing him around.

The Australian laughed and pushed his bush hat down more firmly on his head. "We'll be there in no time flat, cobber, and then the fur'll fly. Did you see them?"

"No, not well. Couple of Moroccans, I think. Native clothes." Frank hadn't the vaguest idea what the other was talking about. What fur would fly?

The streets weren't well lighted but they seemed to have left the medina completely and were now in the European part of town. The road climbed.

"Up here's the Marshand," Nat called over to him. "The more money a bloke's got in this bloody town, the higher up on the mountain he lives."

Frank felt the back of his head gingerly. He had no doubts he'd have a beautiful knot there in the morning. He felt his ribs. Nothing seemed broken, but you never knew. He understood you could go around with a broken rib for weeks and sometimes not know it. He searched for a handkerchief and came up with one, about the only thing that his assailants hadn't taken. He coughed and spat into it. There was no blood.

They emerged from the town proper. The houses were more widely spaced and reminiscent of the Spanish Colonial architecture of Southern California and the older towns of Mexico. Most of the villas were surrounded by pine and gum trees and now the road ran along a cliff with incomparable views of the sea and the Spanish coast beyond.

Frank said, "Where'd you say we were going?" He was feeling better by the minute.

"My boss's digs. He'll have a sawbones there." Shortly afterward, Nat said, "Cape Spartel. Farthest west a bloke can get in Africa."

Frank blinked at the group of buildings they were approaching, by far the most extensive estate they had passed. They were surrounded by a wall of dressed fieldstone, possibly six feet high. Wrought-iron uprights were planted at the top, and the spaces between were entwined with vicious barbed wire.

They came to a halt outside a small fortress of a gatehouse, also of fieldstone. Frank noticed that they had passed over a trigger plate in the road.

A guard came out. He was wearing a beret, what looked like a paratrooper's combat uniform, and heavy leather boots. He carried a small submachine gun which he handled with the ease of a professional. A bright light came on from the guardhouse and zeroed in on their faces. There was a series of audible clicks and Frank got the feeling that a TV lens was on them. Okay, it was their needle, they could thread it as they liked.

Nat Fraser said, "What—o, Hercule?" The guard nodded at him but said nothing. The light went out, and in a moment the clicking sounds came again. The automated steel gate swung open and the little vehicle slithered through. The winding road that lay beyond must have been a full quarter of a kilometer in length.

They pulled up before an ornate entry and a young man dressed like the gate guard, but bearing no visible weapon, issued forth.

He approached, smiled at the Australian, and said, "Willkom-men, Herr Fraser." He looked at Frank questioningly.

Nat said, "A new Yank recruit. I vouch for him, Karl. Is the colonel in?"

"He is expecting you, Herr Fraser." Evidently, the Australian had called ahead on his transceiver on the way up. Frank hadn't noticed, but he had been in no shape to be noticing things.

Nat got out of the little hovercar the same way he had entered it—over the side—pushed his bush hat back on his head, and went around to help Frank out.

Karl assisted, seeming to find nothing strange about the appearance of the soiled and battered newcomer.

They got Frank up the four stone steps and to the door. Nat took over completely there.

Karl said, "Colonel Panikkar is in the study, Herr Fraser."

"Too right," the Aussie said, and helped Frank down the short hall that stretched ahead.

There was an identity screen on the heavy carved wooden door. Almost immediately, it clicked and opened. Beyond was the most impressive study Frank Pinell had ever seen. By the looks of it, it was a combination of library study and office. Bookshelves lined the walls, floor to ceiling, filled with leatherbound books of the old style. Tasteful paintings of both East and West were represented on the walls, none of them modern. But there were also steel files and on both of the two desks were the usual office equipment, including a voco-typer on the smaller one. The furniture was heavy and functional, but in excellent taste. Only the battleship gray of the carpeting detracted from the otherwise impressive decor. It gave a military effect.

Behind the larger of the desks, looking up at their entry, was a man of possibly sixty. Square of face, gray of hair and heavy mustache, he was dark complexioned. He wore traditional Indian clothing, including a black, frock-length coat and jodhpurs. He had a dignified military posture.

Nat said, "This is the young Yank I called you about, Colonel. Strike me blind but he's got the luck of the Irish. Been in this buggering town no more than hours but a couple of the flashing ragheads set on him and leave him on the street with a broken block."

Then he became more formal. "Colonel Ram Panikkar, Frank Pinell."

The colonel came around his desk to shake hands, western style. His face was indignant as he took in Frank's dirt-fouled clothing and bruises.

He said to Nat, "Make your man comfortable, Nat. I'll be with you in just a moment."

The Australian got his still-shaky companion into a chair.

The colonel said into a TV screen, "Doctor, could you bring your bag and join us at once in my study?" He then flicked a switch and commanded, "Get me Foud, immediately."

He looked up at Nat. "Where did this take place?"

"On the Rue D'Angleterre, just up from the bloody Grand Socco."

The Indian looked at Frank. "Just what did the hooligans get away with?"

Frank took a deep breath and said, "Most important, about two hundred pseudo-dollars worth of Swiss gold francs and dirhams. Also my Moroccan police papers which I got at the airport, my pocket transceiver, and the usual odds and ends."

A face had appeared on the phone screen—a dark, evil face crowned by an orange turban. Its owner would have had no difficulty whatsoever landing a part as a stereotype fanatic assassin on Stateside Tri-Di.

The colonel said, his voice dangerously crisp, "As-salaam alaykum, Foud."

The other answered, his own voice careful, "Alaykum as-salaam. Ram Panikkar."

The Indian spoke rapidly in what Frank assumed was Arabic. Perhaps the colonel was Pakistani, rather than Indian.

In short order, Ram Panikkar turned back to Frank and his Australian rescuer.

"Your possessions will be at your hotel in the morning, Mr. Pinell." And then to Nat, "It was Mustapha and Jabir. The dogs become bolder each month that passes." He added with satisfaction, "I let Foud know that your friend was under the protection of the Graf."