"Shooting down an airplane carrying the Q-bomb would have the same effect?" Freddie asked. "Precisely," said Mountjoy. "It's an unattackable weapon."
"And unusable," said Freddie.
"I wouldn't bet on that," the Count said. "Would you?"
"I don't know," Freddie responded.
There were a few moments of silence and then Freddie said, "You should know that our own analysis of Russian policy shows no indication that the Soviet Union has the slightest desire to acquire our oil wealth. They have oil supplies of their own. Their industry is not as extensive as that of the Western world. Their reliance on oil for energy is much less."
"May I remind you," said Mountjoy, "that the fundamental doctrine of the Marxists is that the collapse of the capitalist West will come about through economic disaster. The rule book says that every method must be used which will hasten that disaster. I can think of nothing so effective as the depriving of the West of the greater portion of the oil needed to run its industry and sustain its standard of living.
"In this sense, I regret to say, the American oil companies who have been buying their oil cheaply from you and selling it at a grossly inflated price have become the allies of the communists. Capitalism and communism have, alas, only tunnel vision." He thought for a moment of the lions and the unicorns on the ceiling of his bedroom painted by Derek of Pirenne in the fifteenth century. "We unicorns," he said, "see further. Ours is a panoramic view."
"Unicorns?" echoed Freddie.
"Thinkers. Artists," said Mountjoy. "You are surely such and not merely a very wealthy young man with all the material delights of the world at his disposal."
"Why should you make that assumption?" asked Freddie.
"A matter of observation," replied the Count. "You own a Maserati. Nothing vulgar. And you have refrained from painting it a bright red."
Mountjoy rose slowly and walked to a humidor on his huge desk (for they were talking in his study) and selected a Corona panatela, which he first examined carefully to see by its color that it was mature, and then, having sniffed it delicately for further assurance, lit slowly with a large wooden match.
"It's curious," he said, "and sad that one lives too short a life for meditating on these things. But I find myself amused that I decided I could trust the Q-bomb to you and with it hundreds of millions of lives while I have been highly disturbed for some days about trusting you with Her Grace, Gloriana the Twelfth."
"Oh, you had reason to be disturbed," said Freddie coolly. "A man such as I has but one purpose for the greater number of women he meets. They are there to be enjoyed and then comes a parting, with gifts, of course, when they may find some other man. But I have found in your Duchess another quality. Something unique which should not be used nor hurt. She is a rider of the wind, and under the hand of Allah."
"A rider of the wind?" said Mountjoy. "I don't follow."
"'Those who move as swift as desert wind
Find all about them silent, calm and mild.
The unmoving mountains moan under its wrath.
The riders of the wind but hear and smile.'
"The translation is not good. But perhaps it will give you a sense of what I find in your graceful Duchess. I will dream of her often. I will not harm her."
Mountjoy watched a blue spiral of cigar smoke writhe upward from the end of his panatela and said, "Perhaps it is only in the West that chivalry is dead. Perhaps among your people, a touch yet remains. I salute you, sir."
He raised his glass and while sipping the wine wondered whether some centuries before an earlier Mountjoy, carrying the red cross of a crusader over his coat of mail, might not have in the same manner saluted some warrior of the great Suleiman. He thought it probable. Life was little if it had no continuance, generation to generation, no echo from one century to another.
"I shall send the Q-bomb to your country tomorrow," he said. And so it was agreed.
CHAPTER XVI
The Q-bomb did not actually leave for Saudi Arabia until two weeks later, and then of course it left by the helicopter which Mountjoy had borrowed from Birelli and was able to pass through national frontiers without inspection as being an official aircraft on a diplomatic mission. Up to that point the helicopter had been used to fly in the oil-drilling equipment needed for the Grand Fenwick oil strike. It could not be spared earlier. When it was sent on its mission, the pilot did not know what he was flying and only Mountjoy, Bentner, Gloriana and Dr. Kokintz in all Grand Fenwick knew that the Q-bomb was about to leave the Duchy.
Kokintz had had to be brought in on the secret, for it was necessary that he first inspect the bomb and make it safe for transport. He spent two days working on it. He insisted on being alone, and packed the bomb, swaddled in the fleeces of Grand Fenwick, in a wine cask as a guarantee against its detonation by any vibration, however heavy, to which it might be subjected. He wrote out a long list of step-by-step instructions for removing the bomb from the cask so that it might be placed in an appropriate strongroom, under guard, when it arrived in Saudi Arabia.
Then the bomb was sent off to the relief of Bentner, though Gloriana had her misgivings.
"It's curious," she said. "But I've lived with it so long in the dungeon of the castle that, appalling as it is, I've come to think of it as part of Grand Fenwick. Maybe what I really think is that we are the only nation in the world that can be trusted with it." Kokintz, who had been busy in his laboratory for weeks now, and who had devised a novel kite for Katherine, was present when this statement was made.
"Do not worry, Your Grace," he said. "No harm will come to anybody. I am quite sure about that." He had a kindly way of speaking and Gloriana found herself curiously reassured by what he said.
Drilling at Perne's Folly having proceeded now for several days with a high-speed rotary drill, equipped with a multiple-head diamond bit, the Grand Fenwick well had reached a depth of over six thousand feet and Mountjoy felt that it was getting to be time to announce that oil had been struck.
He therefore consulted with Birelli and they agreed on November 7 of that year for the delivery of the first tank trucks of oil (by night, of course) to Grand Fenwick. The oil would be pumped from the tank trucks through the short pipeline leading from the Grand Fenwick frontier to the well. From there it would go to a small storage tank erected nearby to give the appearance that it was oil from the well, and from the storage tank to the dungeon of Grand Fenwick castle, accompanied by the joyous news of an oil strike.
Two tank trucks of oil, it was thought, would be enough for the first delivery, for the business of pumping the heavy mud down the well as a piece of essential showmanship, together with the erection of the Christmas tree over the wellhead, had also to be attended to. Thereafter a fleet of tank trucks would be on hand, pumping oil into the dungeon while the pretense was maintained that the oil was coming from the dungeon, having originated in the well.
These details arranged, November 8 was agreed as the day when Mountjoy would announce to the House of Freemen that oil had been struck in the Duchy, that the reservoir of oil was enormous, amounting to twenty billion barrels at a conservative estimate, and that the oil would be sold to all desiring it at fifteen dollars a barrel, which was twenty dollars a barrel lower than the lowest price offered by any of the OPEC nations.
The two geologists, Karl and Johannes, had of course predicted time and again that oil would be struck. The French radio and media generally through Europe and even the United States regarded the whole thing as a hoax, particularly after having looked into the technical qualifications of Johannes and Karl. "Grand Fenwick oil strike" became a phrase in popular use to indicate something thought ludicrous. When for instance Soviet scientists announced that they had produced a hybrid of rye and Indian corn which increased egg production in the USSR by 80 percent, people just smiled and said, "Sure. And they've struck oil in Grand Fenwick." Similarly when the President of the United States announced that if reelected he would cut taxes and at the same
time balance the budget that was called a "Grand Fenwick oil strike."
The night preceding the day selected had been cloudy, and the evening air heavy with an unnatural, summerlike heat. People predicted that there would be a thunderstorm, and Ted Weathers, who had for years been complaining of pains in his head caused by radiation emitted by the Q-bomb, announced that these pains were now worse and there was going to be both a thunderstorm and a deluge of rain. He therefore spent an extra two hours in the bar of the Grey Goose and said that he remembered in his father's time there had been a like night and that it portended a big change in the Duchy's affairs.
"And what change came about then?" he was asked. He took a cautious sip of his wine and said, "Vine rot. There was only ten good barrels of Pinot produced in the whole country and I remember my dad saying that right here in this tavern they was selling Sauterne from France—aye, and beginning to like it. Surprising what people will get used to drinking when they has to," he added. "But mark my words. Something's in the air. Something is going to happen that will affect us all."
There were heavy thunderstorms that night, together with displays of lightning which threw the massy crag of Grand Fenwick Peak into brutal relief against the sky. For several hours the thunder rumbled about the mountains and then died away, and after deluges of rain, morning came quiet as a maiden and sweet with birdsong.
Mountjoy, breakfasting in his silken dressing gown as usual, told Meadows to lay out the dark formal suit from Tillot of Bond Street with the cutaway coat, which, though generations out of date, he wore for special sessions of the House of Freemen. He requested a small white rosebud for his buttonhole and brushed his silver hair with special care before the full-length oval tilting mirror, a gift to one of his ancestors from Metternich following the Congress of Vienna.
(The story is related in the history books of Grand Fenwick, and it is deserving of the credence given to the accounts in the histories of other nations, that when Napoleon tried to rally the remnants of the Guard at Waterloo for one great thrust on Wellington's center, they were met by a volley of arrows from the stout Grand Fenwick contingent, which threw the Guard into unprecedented confusion so that Blücher had time to arrive on the field and win the day.)
He breakfasted off the tray of Regency silver, his dress scrupulously attended to, his rosebud in place and the silver chain of his monocle looping gracefully from his waist pocket. Mountjoy then sent a message to Her Grace that he trusted he would have the pleasure of seeing her enter the chamber in half an hour. Gloriana, who had been awaiting the message, assured him that she would be there and got out of bed. She was a quick dresser, and was beautifully attired in twenty minutes and on her way, though conscious that her left shoe was a little loose and she should have stuffed some tissue paper in the toe.
The whole House arose when Her Grace entered and, bowing to both sides (Mountjoy's Conservatives and Bentner's Laborites), took her seat on the thronelike chair above and behind the Speaker, provided for her.
She was a bit nervous. She was about to hear, for the first time in her life, a big fat lie told to the parliament and people of Grand Fenwick by the government in the person of the Count of Mountjoy, whom she adored. She hoped that at the very last Mountjoy would repent and not go through with it. He'd given her examples, the evening before, of real whoppers told by people like Palmerston and Disraeli and even Gladstone whom everybody knew was the greatest statesman England ever had. But that didn't really comfort her. She didn't think of the British as foreigners, of course, but on the other hand they were not of Grand Fenwick. So it might be all right for them to lie and be devious, but it just wasn't right for Grand Fenwick, which she always felt represented no mighty and imperialistic power, but just the smaller people of the earth everywhere.
"If they find out we're lying," she said to Mountjoy, "they'll just have nobody to go to for the truth."
"It will not be Grand Fenwick that lies but I," replied Mountjoy, "and I will take the shame—if discovered. It is a poor man indeed who will not lie for his nation."
"I just think the whole thing isn't necessary," Gloriana replied.
The business of the day opened with the readings of some small bills with which members were fully acquainted, and for which they had already expressed their hates and loves. A bill to import Swedish larch for the improvement of the forest of Grand Fenwick. That was one of them. It was going to be voted down despite the support of arbiculturalists, because nobody wanted Swedish trees growing in the forest of Grand Fenwick. A bill to prohibit for all time the building of a nuclear power station in Grand Fenwick. That was another, and it was likely to be heavily amended before passage. The younger people were vigorously for it and had marched through the Duchy with signs proclaiming "No Nukes" and "Remember Three Mile Island," which puzzled those in the Duchy who had never heard of Three Mile Island. In the same way they had marched during the Chavez attempt to organize the grape workers of California with signs shouting "Don't Buy Grapes" though 60 percent of the country's revenue derived from grapes.
The older voters wanted to amend the bill to limit its provisions to ten years, arguing that it was wrong to legislate with finality for the unborn of Grand Fenwick, which would make the dead the rulers of the living. So another bill was being prepared which limited the effectiveness of any statute to twenty years and that was likely to meet heavy opposition too. All these necessary but (in the circumstances, petty) proposals had to be dealt with even at this special session before, having caught the Speaker's eye, Mountjoy rose to make his announcement.
He first obtained complete silence and then examined the whole House, his face grave and determined. It seemed to Bentner as Mountjoy fingered his monocle, which he always put in his right eye when about to make an announcement of some importance, that his fingers trembled slightly.
Bentner's heart went out to him. They'd been political enemies for over a score of years. Bentner turned to his nearest companion and said, his eyes still on the Count, "Here it comes. Poor bastard."
"Your Grace, Mr. Speaker, honorable members of the House," said Mountjoy. "I have an announcement to make of the utmost importance to the people of the Duchy and indeed to the people of the Western world, as also to the people of those nations whom we have referred to in the past as the Middle East. It is an announcement perhaps not unexpected, and yet one which I trust will fill you both with pleasure and an increased sense of the responsibility of this Duchy to the world at large.
"You are all aware that following a geological survey made in the Duchy by two distinguished Swiss geologists, drilling operations were started just a few weeks ago in the area known to you as Perne's Folly.
"For the past week, due to certain indications reported by the drilling crew, the area of operations has been blocked off from public access. Drilling for oil is not without its dangers. However, I have been keeping in close touch with the drilling operations and have been sent daily samples of the cores obtained from the well. These cores, as you perhaps know, are samples of the strata being drilled through and are an indication of what is likely to be found in or beyond them.
"The House might like to hear details of these cores for the last few days." (Some members groaned. Mountjoy was more than usually wordy, they thought, and they didn't give a hang about the cores.)
"Several hundred feet of granite had first to be penetrated," Mountjoy continued, "when a stratum of limestone, which is of course of marine origin, was entered. Then came more granitic rock in what are called 'dikes,' that is, uppourings of magma from the center of the earth. Then some sandstone and in the last three days, the type of limestone, or marine formation, which indicated an ancient coral reef."
These details of coring had actually been supplied by Johannes and Karl to the Count, and he was surprised that two so deficient in geological knowledge still had sufficient imagination to come up with them. He presumed they had taken them from some successful well drilled elsewhere.
"This
morning, at five-fifteen, when drilling operations were resumed after the storm, a large amount of gas started to emerge from the wellhead. It was controlled with the appropriate mud. The mud was then lightened when the gas pressure had been ascertained and brought under control. And I am delighted to inform you that oil of the highest quality has been struck, of which there are now several hundred gallons in storage in the dungeon of this castle."
He paused, and in a silence which could almost be heard, the members looked at each other, surprised, and then slowly back at the Count. Only Bentner looked at his hands, his ears beginning to grow red.
Mountjoy was unperturbed.
"The geological report is," he continued, "that this Duchy has beneath it a vast sea—I might say ocean—of oil. I do not pretend to understand the scientific means by which such an estimate can be made. They involve the use of complicated instruments based on some principle concerning sound waves with which I will not trouble members. But the estimate—a conservative one—is that the usable oil reservoir amounts to twenty billion barrels. Grand Fenwick, then, is in a position to take its place among the OPEC nations of the world as not so long ago we took our place among the atomic powers.
"If we call upon those virtues of prudence and wisdom which have served us so well in the past, I believe we can, with such reserves of oil at our disposal, bring back some sense not only to the world oil supply situation, but to the price at which that oil is supplied. We can, in short, avert the economic catastrophe which faces the Western world in its energy crisis." He stopped speaking again and the same silence of incredulity and amazement seized the House. To be sure, Karl and Johannes had talked about the probability of striking oil in Perne's Folly and kept on talking. But so had French radio and the world media and such was the effect of this mocking propaganda that many in Grand Fenwick had come to regard the two geologists as enthusiastic cranks.
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