by Dean Ing
Deathwish World
Dean Ing
On a future Earth wracked by strife and shortages, Roy Cos buys into a lifetime of ease through the Deathwish Policy, but his privileged status makes him a target for killers hired by the elite World government.
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, stil
l 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 th
en 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."