Hamp didn’t like that but he accepted it. He said, “That’s only the Jews.”
Roy made a gesture of contempt. “It’d be a lot of others, too. Racism isn’t an accident, it’s deliberately fostered in a class society. When there aren’t enough good jobs to go around, then it’s handy for a ruling class to have the proles fight among themselves. Supposedly the reason the blacks can’t get decent jobs is because the whites take them all, and whites say they can’t get jobs because the blacks are moving in on them, or the Chicanos, or the Orientals, or whoever. Divide and rule. Keep the proles at each other’s throats so they’ll never sit down and figure out that they have a common enemy.”
Hamp said in disgust, “You people have one-track minds. Whatever’s wrong, you blame it on the socioeconomic system.”
“That’s where the blame usually is,” Roy said, obviously too soul-weary to want to argue. “The proles go out to fight their war, division by division. One division carries a banner inscribed Pacifism, another Women’s Lib, another All Power to the Worker’s Councils, another Down with Racism, another Clean Up the Environment, End Pollution, and on and on. None of them seem to see that basically it’s the same war and that if they unite their divisions they’d have an army, instead of going out separately—and down to defeat.”
Hamp said, “Probably a good simile. But now we get to the real reason I came up here tonight. That Deathwish Policy of yours. Are there any provisions restricting your travel?”
Roy looked at him and shook his head. “None at all. I can go anywhere in the world that I want.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the world. I was thinking about Lagrange Five, or, better still, the Asteroid Belt Islands.”
All of them were gaping at him now.
Hamp said to Roy, “Look, basically you’ve done what you started out to do. You’ve brought to the attention of the whole world the program of the Wobblies. People are digesting it. Whether or not they’ll buy it is another thing. I’m inclined to doubt it. As it stands now, your time is probably limited to hours. The Graf’s hit men are the most experienced on Earth and now, I believe, they’re all concentrated on you—all of them in this country, at least. So you take off from the Space Shuttleport in New Mexico for Space Station Goddard. There you transfer to a shuttle headed for Island One of the Lagrange Five Project. From there you take the next ore freighter to the Asteroid Belt, select an Island most suited to your needs, and spend the rest of your life there, probably bankrupting whatever damned company signed that Deathwish Policy of yours.”
Billy said doubtfully, though liking it, “Okay. But then he doesn’t get the message over.”
Hamp glowered at him. “Damn it, he’s already got the message over. But he can continue spouting his propaganda from the Belt! All he has to do is tape his talks and beam them back Earthside for broadcasting. Besides that, he’d have lots of time on his hands. He wouldn’t be leading the life of a hunted animal. He could write a book about the Wobbly program. He could turn out a raft of pamphlets and articles.”
“Good grief,” Mary Ann said, her eyes wide. She looked at her lover, who was still staring at the black man. There was hope in her face.
Hamp said, urgency in his voice, “Don’t you see? You’d be safe out there. Among other things, there are no hit men flitting around on the Islands. It takes all the clearance in the world to get into space at all. And it takes a full year for a spacecraft to get from Lagrange Five to the Asteroid Belt, which is halfway to Jupiter. If one of the Graf’s men tried to get through to you, they’d have him spotted months before he ever arrived. And he’d be well aware of the fact that even if he did get through and did you in, there’d be no way he could get safely back. Lagrangists are a rough and ready lot.”
Billy said, “If Roy goes, Les and I go too, and probably Ron, just to be sure.”
Mary Ann nodded. “And so do I.”
Roy took a deep, tired breath and said, “None of us goes.” He turned his eyes to Hamp. “Thanks for the good intentions but the restrictions on going into space are endless. You’ve got to have some ability that they need out there. You’ve got to be a scientist, or some kind of technician or highly experienced worker in construction, or electronics, or whatever. I don’t have any such ability, and I doubt if any of the rest of us here do. One of their strictest requirements is that you have an I.Q. of at least 130. I don’t. You have to have a far above average Ability Quotient. I don’t. I’d be a parasite out there, even if they’d let me come, which they wouldn’t.”
All eyes went back to Hamp. Mary Ann’s were sick, as though he had overfed a false hope.
“That’s where I come in,” Hamp said. He brought forth his pocket transceiver, activated it, and said, “Information? Put me through to Ian Venner of the Lagrangia Asteroid Belt Federation. He is now in New York as their representative.” He waited long moments for the connection to be put through. Silence permeated the suite’s living room.
There came a tiny voice from the transceiver and Hamp said, “Venner? This is Auburn. I’m calling you about that favor sooner than I had expected.”
He paused, then said, “Good. I am in the company of Roy Cos. Perhaps you have heard of the Deathwish Wobbly. Yes, that’s him. I want him, and several of his friends, to become space colonists in the Belt. They won’t meet your usual requirements. They will undoubtedly remain for the rest of their lives, unless some very basic changes take place here Earthside.”
He listened for long moments, then said, “Wizard. Oh, Venner? I consider your obligation to me now terminated. Thanks and goodbye.”
He switched off the communicator and looked back at Roy. He said softly, “If you can make it to the Shuttleport, Venner’s people will take over there.”
The Wobbly organizer’s lips were pale.
It was then the phone screen buzzed. Mary Ann, in a daze, went to it. She said blankly, “It’s Ron, at the hospital.”
Billy got it out first. “How’s Forry?”
But Mary Ann was listening, shaking her head as though in disbelief. Finally, she switched the screen off.
She turned back to them and said simply, “He—didn’t make it. And then, “It wasn’t a heart attack. It was murder.”
“It couldn’t have been,” Roy blurted. “I was right there!”
Mary Ann said emptily, “Something long, very thin, very sharp. Something like an antique woman’s hatpin. Stuck up through the diaphragm, perforating the heart and flooding it with blood.”
“He would have yelled,” Les said in utter disbelief.
She said, “Maybe. But from what the doctors told Ron, at first he’d only feel mild discomfort, and especially if he had any lung or stomach or digestive disorders, he wouldn’t particularly have noticed the pain. But then the pressure would slow the heart down until it stopped. He’d feel faint, breathless, dizzy, as though he’d had a small aortal attack. He’d be dead in five minutes.”
Roy said emptily, “It was meant for me.”
Hamp stood up and looked at the Wobbly organizer. “No. It was meant for Forrest Brown. The guards were too tight around you. It’s gotten to the point where the Graf’s men are out to get anybody associated with you, anybody helping you.” He looked at Roy Cos’s secretary. “Including Ms. Elwyn. That’s why you’d better make a beeline for that shuttleport in New Mexico, Cos.”
Roy Cos stood too, and said, “What’s all this to you, Hampton? I don’t even know you. Certainly, you’re no Wobbly. But you’ve gone far out of your way to extend a life I’d given up.”
Hamp tossed his head, brushing it off. “You’re a man, Cos, and I believe in a man having a chance to have his say.
“What was the quote of Voltaire? ‘I disagree with what you say but will defend with my life your right to say it.’ A lot of your program doesn’t come through to me. For one thing, I think you’re out of the times. Maybe, up there in the Belt, you’ll learn some things and update what you stand for. And maybe—just maybe—they
’ll learn some things from you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Jeremiah Auburn
Hamp stood before the identity screen on the hotel door and looked at it sardonically. The door buzzed open and he entered. The room was on the small, austere side considering that this was the age-old prestigious Drake.
Frank Pinell was seated, watching a news commentator. Now he took in the chocolate features of the newcomer without expression. Without waiting for an invitation, Hamp went over to the autobar and dialed himself a double brandy. He brought the snifter glass back and settled himself into the room’s second chair.
Frank reached over to click the screen off but Hamp said, “No, just a minute. What’s he saying?”
The commentator was saying, “…and if the victim’s identification is genuine, the notorious Luca Cellini, long suspected by the IABI to be Lothar von Brandenburg’s top representative in the Americas, has been shot to death on the streets of New York.”
“I’ll be damned,” Hamp said. “Peter Windsor is even more efficient than I thought.”
The younger man had been staring bug-eyed at the commentator. Now he shakily reached out and turned down the audio. He sucked in air before saying to the black, “You know Peter Windsor?”
“Yes. One of the most competent snakes this side of the Garden of Eden. How he learned that Cellini had sold out, I’ll probably never know.”
“Sold out?” Frank said. “I… I was just talking to him a few days ago.”
“Yes, I know,” Hamp said, taking an appreciative sip of his cognac. “He was how I found out that Windsor and the Graf had sent you to finish me off.”
Frank said, a touch of irritation in his voice, “If you knew that, why in the devil have you come here? Aren’t you afraid I’ll carry out the assignment?”
“No,” Hamp said. “Why did they send you?”
“I’m not too clear about the details. Evidently, it was more or less a standard assignment. Somebody in the World Club wanted you eliminated.”
Hamp stared at him. “The World Club! Wanted Horace Hampton eliminated?”
“Yes. If I understand correctly, they’re becoming increasingly conscious of the part the Anti-Racist League might play when the World State begins to embrace third-world countries.”
“But why me? I’m not even a member of the Executive Committee. Just a field worker.”
“If I have it right, there are some strange angles to your Dossier Complete. You’re kind of a mystery figure. You’re also said to be the Anti-Racist League’s most efficient man. Somebody figured that if half a dozen of your key members were eliminated, it would be considerably easier to control the organization.”
“I’ll be damned,” Hamp said thoughtfully. He finished his brandy, went back to the autobar and dialed another. He looked at his reluctant host. “Want a drink? It’s a pleasure for me to be knocking back guzzle that the Graf will eventually pay for.”
“Beer,” Frank said.
Hamp dialed the brew, brought it over, and resumed his own place.
Frank said cautiously, “Why did you think I wasn’t a danger to you?”
“Because you’re a fake. When I told you I own the bank your father used in Berne, I wasn’t joking. I own controlling interests in various other banks as well. When Cellini told me you’d been sent to hit me, I had you checked out and then your father as well.”
“All right, great. But why do you say I’m a fake?”
“You were deported, picking Tangier. Tangier is the biggest base of Mercenaries, Incorporated outside Liechtenstein. Anybody wanting to make contact with the organization couldn’t do better than to go there. You were deported because you had supposedly committed four felonies and the legal computers automatically ordered your deportation.”
“What do you mean supposedly?” Frank said, his voice flat.
“The first two felonies, well, they were probably genuine. Certainly the first one, back when you were a kid. Kind of a kid’s prank which turned sour. But the third one and the fourth? Nope; you faked them. The murder, the crime that made it definite that you’d be deported, you didn’t commit. You confessed to it, but you didn’t do it. The way my agents reconstructed the thing, you hung around in the most rugged area of Detroit, possibly the toughest big city in the country, during the most dangerous time of night, for a period of weeks. Eventually, you found what you were looking for, a fresh corpse. You set the stage for getting the blame and you got it, guaranteeing deportation.” Hamp took another pull at his brandy. “You’re no killer, Pinell. It was all a scheme to get next to the Graf and it evidently worked out even better than you must have hoped.”
Frank glared at him. “Why would I do that?”
Hamp shrugged. “It would seem obvious that you want to get your hands on that money your father left. Forty-five million pseudodollars isn’t chicken feed—not a poultry sum, as the expression goes.”
The younger man ignored the pun and said sullenly, “I had no idea it was that much.”
“It wasn’t originally, but it’s been sitting there in Berne for almost twenty years, invested in Swiss gilt-edged securities.”
“It’s my money,” Frank said. “I didn’t even know about it until my mother told me on her deathbed. She hated the very thought of the stuff but she hated the Graf even more and didn’t want him to get his hands on it. I’m my father’s only living relative. My mother suspected, but had no proof, that my father was killed by the Graf. The last time she saw him, he hinted that they were on the outs with each other. My father, it would seem, didn’t like some of the new fields into which Brandenburg was expanding. My father was a soldier of fortune, not a hit man.”
The black eyed him questioningly. “Why didn’t you just go to Switzerland and demand your inheritance?”
“It’s tied up in some complicated way I don’t understand. Evidently, my father was on the way to change that when he was killed. I’m not sure about the details but I suspect that the Graf is part of the complication.”
“If Lothar von Brandenburg could get his hands on that money, he would. The sonofabitch is just about bankrupt now. His overhead is astronomical. With your father’s money he could retire, or do just about anything else he wanted to do.”
“That’s what I’ve suspected, damn it. I think there must be some kind of requirement that both of us must appear, or sign something, before either can get his hands on the amount.”
“So what the hell are you doing tailing me around? By the way, didn’t Windsor tell you I’m supposed to be a little on the dangerous side? You’re a bit inexperienced when it comes to taking me on.”
“I don’t think Peter Windsor is in on it. I don’t think the Graf has told anybody about it, not even Margit Krebs, his secretarial thinking machine.” Frank finished his beer and put the glass down. “The Graf put on a big show of friendship. Welcomed me with open arms as the son of his best friend. The implication is that I’m now one of the inner circle and they’re breaking me in to the workings of the organization.”
“And this is your first, uh, assignment, eh?”
“Not exactly. They sent me along with one of their top operatives to see a competitor named Rivas in Paris. He was invited to join up, or else. He turned down the offer, mentioning in passing that he thought the Graf was responsible for my father’s death.”
“What happened?”
“It would seem that Windsor, or somebody, had bribed all of Rivas’s people out from under him. His bodyguard knifed him to death.”
Hamp looked at him in surprise. “And you participated in a thing like that?” His tone turned sardonic. “A nice clean-cut boy like you?”
Frank flushed. “Listen,” he said. “I’m not as much of a milksop as you seem to think. As far as I’m concerned, Rivas was no better than Nat Fraser, the hit man who arranged his death. Nor Peter Windsor, the Graf, nor any of the others. I didn’t mind seeing him killed at all. Not at all! He was a professional dealer in death. He was the type of ma
n that I would have no moral reserves about seeing killed—or given the circumstances, doing it myself.”
Hamp pursed his lips and chuckled before getting up and heading for the bar again. “Another beer?” he said.
“No thanks,” Frank said nastily. “And you act as though you’re half drenched already.”
“The complaint has been made before,” Hamp told him, dialing another double brandy. “But I can still operate.”
“And I’ve heard that story before,” the younger man told him in sarcasm. “Sometimes from drivers who explain that they can drive better when they have a couple of drinks in them. Famous last words before they plow into a tree. You’re on the death list of the most dangerous people in the world and here you are getting drenched. Hell, even I could take you and, as you so nicely explained, I’m inexperienced.”
“Don’t try it,” Hamp said mildly, taking a pull at the double brandy. “But now we get to the nitty-gritty. What were you doing at the Synthesis meeting if you’re not really interested in doing chores for the Graf?”
“I had to go through the motions,” Frank said, all fed up with the conversation. “I had to look as though I was trying to get to you. For all I know, some of Peter Windsor’s other people were there.”
“They were,” Hamp told him. “What the hell did you think you were going to do to put over your act?”
“I don’t know,” the other said. “I was trying to play it by ear, hoping something would come up that would enable me to report back, admitting failure but for some good reason. I have to stay in the game, supposedly in the Graf’s good graces, until I can find out what’s going on. I haven’t the vaguest idea, so far, what kind of hold he has on my father’s fortune.”
Hamp thought about it some more. He said finally, “The reason the Graf was willing to send you after me was that he wanted to get something to hold over you. Some lever that would help him persuade you to do whatever has to be done to get his hands on your father’s fortune. If you’d killed me, as ordered, then he’d have had his lever.” He knocked back the remaining brandy in one gulp and added, “I just dropped in to let you know I was onto you and to warn you to stay off my back. So now I’ll… what the hell was that?”
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