Ride of the Valkyries

by Stuart Slade

  "You really think we've done so badly Seer? We've given birth to a new country here, perhaps this is how people want to live. Everybody here knows who his local boss is. If they have a beef, they see him direct about it. If the sidewalk has holes, he fills them in, If somebody is disturbing the tranquility, he reasons with them. He kicks some of his income upstairs to his superior and he lives on what's left. The button man lives in his block. Everybody there knows where to find him, they know where he eats, where he has coffee, the neighborhood women know his wife and comare and can take their special problems to them. A smart button man listens to his people because that keeps things quiet and keeps the money flowing in.

  "If a button man is good - if his neighborhood is quiet and the people in it are happy and he kicks up his share to his superior, he gets moved to a bigger and/or more prosperous block where he earns more and kicks more upstairs. If he doesn't make the grade, he'll get pushed down, sent back to the mainland or (if he's caused trouble) he vanishes. If he continues to do well, eventually he gets Made and will have several Soldiers and associates reporting to him. And so it goes; he can either advance, stay in place or sink, all determined by his ability.

  "The families have areas of the cities which are theirs to run. If there is a dispute between two people it goes to the next level management who have a Sit-Down. The superior listens to both parties and makes a judgement. And don't get me wrong Seer, when a Captain makes a decision it's a "this is like it is - capiche?" judgement. Nobody's going to argue it. Right at the top is the Commission and wouldn't you like to know who they are? Well, I'll tell you because they all live here. It's the heads of the five New York families plus the major non-New York people. They're the top of the tree and everybody's kick backs eventually end up with them. That so different from income tax, Seer?"

  "Look, that sounds good on paper Meyer but the system works because there are huge amounts of money flowing in at all levels and this funds everything. Everybody involved has got to know that if the money stops, the system with all its luxury and freedom will fall apart. Just how long is this place going to last before somebody decided to grab the pot while the going is good?"

  "You tell me, you're the Seer, the great strategist. They say you can see into the future. Well, Mister Strategist, how much of a future does our Cuba have?"

  The Seer leaned back, his eyes defocused as the strands of possibilities played in his mind. "A lot depends on you Meyer, you're holding this place together. What happens when you die? Anybody going to step into your shoes? If nobody does, there's going to be a power struggle over who takes your place. The various families will end up fighting over the prize and the place will tear itself apart.

  "Then we'll have to invade and stabilize the place our way with Uncle Sam's Misguided Children. Oh, it may hang together as long as the present Commission survives but how long will that be? Will their replacements see things the same way? Meyer, what you've got here is pretty unstable unless you've got a succession set up. My guess is that you have, in part at least. You're training successors in your image, the scrupulously honest crook who's a member of nothing but trusted by everybody."

  "The question is if you've got time to get a successor trained and accepted. That's something only the gods can answer. Even allowing for that, I guess your Cuba, Mob-run Cuba, isn't going to survive. It has another 15 years at a minimum, twenty five at a max. Might make thirty but it's going to be hard."

  "Meyer, you're not giving birth to a new country here; at best your midwifing it. Look around, the process has already started. MGM and TWA are moving in with hotel-Casinos of their own. They're better at running businesses than you are, they'll make more money at them than you will. In time, they'll buy into the ones you own. You'll sell because you'll make more money from your share than you did from when you owned it all."

  "Eventually, you'll all be minority shareowners here and the Casinos will be owned by legitimate business. They'll want laws. Settling a dispute by sending ‘the boys' around to give somebody the elbow won't cut it anymore. As much as everything you have here seems to work, the bureaucracy needed for civic functions is hard to come by. You're buying it at the moment but as this place grows, so will demands for things like education, water purity, sewage disposal and so on. The problem is the lack of people qualified to run large scale services like water, power, healthcare and who are willing to work under the "sleeping with fishes" method of management. Particularly as it would have to be exercised at all levels of the organization. The only way out will be paying large sums for the professional expertise and that's going to cut the profit margins by a fair deal.

  "And your Mob is already changing. How many of your lower rank guys are Italian and how many Cuban? Those Cubans will work their way up and the Mob here will become more Cuban than anything else. They'll become legitimate. The families will become political parties, the Commission will become the government. It's a fast-forward repeat of what's always happened. The biggest, toughest, smartest criminals and warlords seize power, become the government, then they give themselves fancy titles and pretend they never were anything other than the ruling class."

  "What matters now is how you stamp them. You train them to do things your way, Meyer, Cuba has a good chance of stabilizing. In twenty five or thirty years, people will look back on these days with nostalgia, they'll say how much better things were when the Mob ran everything. There'll be real crime then, because there always is. You've already got the first elements of an island-wide police force. People will point to today and ask why things ever changed. But they won't really want to go back."

  "So my recommendation to our government is that we hold the ring for you. We'll make it known that Cuba really is under our protection, we'll do what we can to back up your own security arrangements. Meyer, whatever happens here, keep it peaceful, keep it civilized and we'll leave things to work their own way out. If there's gun battles in the streets and our citizens are in mortal danger as a result, we'll send in the Marines."

  "So, the future is very much up to you Meyer. You're in a unique position in more ways than you know. It's very rare for a single person to hold the keys to how a country develops. You get your succession set up, you get the Commission to accept that they won't be the power here forever, that the seeds sown in Cuba will outgrow them and what you're helping build here will last."

  Lansky nodded. "I'm a professional gambler Seer, I always have been. And I know how to calculate odds. I'm betting we can pull it off, that a rich, stable Cuba will grow out of this. Want to drink to that?" The two men touched their glasses and looked down at the blazing mass of lights that marked Havana's Golden Boulevard. The Boulevard lead somewhere; where to was something only time would tell.

  EPILOGUE

  Tea Room, Raffles Hotel, Singapore

  "‘Want me to be mother, ducks?" Nell sat forward slightly and lifted the "Chinese" willow pattern teapot. She didn't get much of a chance to act as hostess at a traditional tea party and was making every moment of this one count.

  "If you would please Nell." She smiled and filled The Seer's cup with China tea. Any good hostess knew her guest's preferences and Nell was a very good hostess indeed. She'd learned the art living in Pall Mall and the skills had never left her. "How's your principal doing in there?"

  "There" was the conference room where the final parts of the South Sea Islands agreement were being hammered out. The American presence was a formality, as was that of Thailand and Australia. The three nations were ‘observers' only. The real negotiations were between Indian and Japan. Thailand and Australia had some interests in the final settlement but the presence of the new Secretary of State, William P. Rogers, was purely a courtesy. As Nixon had remarked in Cabinet, sending the Secretary of State to remind everybody to play nice was cheaper than keeping bombers circling the conference room.

  As Roger's Executive Assistant, Nell had made sure her principal had everything he needed to hand. But, he hadn't needed
much help, just the patience to sit there and look sinister.

  "Pretty well. He commended everybody on making peace so promptly and on repatriating the prisoners of war in good health. Said the United States had noted that both sides were treating the wounded in an honorable and decent manner. Then he kept quiet. Did very well indeed." Nell delicately offered a tray of finger sandwiches around. She'd very carefully specified the fillings and made sure the crusts had been trimmed in the approved manner.

  The Seer took one and nibbled it. A fish spread and cucumber. "You know people, this reminds me of Avebury. Those were good days back then." He sighed and finished his sandwich.

  "Ladies, Gentlemen, please excuse my temerity in interrupting you but I would like to pay my respects to the Executive Assistant to the Secretary of State. My name is Lai Krishna Advani, I am the new leader of the BJP in India."

  "Welcome Sir. India or China?" Nell smiled gently at her new guest. Most depictions of her had her speaking with a cockney accent. In fact, her accent was Oxford English. Advani smiled when he heard it.

  "India please. With a little milk but no sugar."

  Nell poured on his tea. As she did so. The Seer took the chance to introduce himself. "Please take a seat Sir. I believe congratulations are in order. I hear you have replaced Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the leader of the BJP?"

  "I have that honor although I am not so sure that congratulations are entirely merited. Being the new party leader means I have much to do to reassemble our party. Between them Jaswant Singh and Mister Vajpayee have split the BJP badly. It is my decision to steer a middle path, avoiding the excess nationalism of the previous government while pursuing a less centralized and more liberal economic policy than Congress. Between ourselves though, I fear though that we will not have a chance of regaining power for some years. I fear that I will carry the burden of rebuilding the party but my successor will gain the rewards. Mister Vajpayee was......"

  Advani stopped, searching for the proper English phrase.

  "A dozy great pillock?" Nell offered demurely.

  Advani grinned with delight. "Yes, that's it. That's exactly it. That is the description I was searching for." He sighed slightly. "English is such an expressive language sometimes; what would we do without it?"

  Nell offered around the silver tray containing the little iced sponge cakes, each with a spot of cream on top, under the icing. "It's so hard to get real cream cakes in America. Most of them have a horrible artificial cream. Sir, if you visit our country, I advise that you avoid them, they are a sad disappointment." She took one of the little cakes herself and bit into it. To her delight, the cream was real and fresh. The Raffles was living up to its reputation.

  Advani exchanged a few more pleasantries before taking his leave. The Raffles staff refilled the teapots, one of the waiters appearing with a small tray carrying finger-pieces of cheesecake. Nell raised an eyebrow at the delivery.

  "Ma'am, the Ambassador-Plenipotentiary from Thailand was asking after your party and is on her way here now. Raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake is her favorite delicacy. So the staff thought you should be prepared."

  Sure enough, the Ambassador appeared almost immediately and sat down with a cup of China tea and the first of a series of pieces of the cheesecake. "Your Secretary of State is doing well, Seer; he is conveying just the right air of genial menace. But I think it is unnecessary. The agreements are all very much as we originally contemplated."

  "Good to hear Snake. On both counts. This was an avoidable incident, one we could all have done without."

  The Ambassador blinked at the implied criticism. "It's easy for you Seer, America is the undisputed world hegemon and you maintain that position by decisively smacking down any who would challenge that position. You have very few allies so maintaining the alliances you do have is easy. But what would you do if Russia suddenly started going off and attempting some adventures of its own. It could happen, you know."

  "It could. It's not likely at this time but it's certainly a possibility." The Seer looked pensive for a few seconds. "It is a good point, one we'll have to address. That's the weakness with any alliance system. Governments don't have permanent friends, they have permanent interests."

  "And ours are more permanent than most." Lillith's quip came out mixed with sponge cake.

  "That is so, but it makes little difference here. At the moment, Russian and American interests are so closely aligned that the present close alliance is almost inevitable. Russia is a military power certainly, a very strong one, but its immense manpower losses in the War mean it's also very vulnerable. Our firepower offsets that and in exchange we get the bases to project that firepower. Our money is helping to fund Russian economic recovery but that money is dependent on an economy supported by access to Siberian Oil. Yet, that oil is only easily recoverable because of our technology. We and the Russians are linked into a lockstep and it'll be at least two generations before that situation changes. By then our security and economic interests are likely to be so tightly integrated that we couldn't disentangle them even if we wanted to."

  "Which is very good for you but it doesn't apply to us. The Triple Alliance is based on our national objectives certainly but the degree of convergence is much less. The trouble in Indonesia is a good example of that. There, we are in direct conflict with both of our partners and them with us. The Indonesian authorities themselves are not much help in keeping things on a low key. They have never forgiven the Australians for making off with their largely-Christian easternmost islands and turning them into a Australian protectorate. The Indians have their interests also. Bali for example is mostly Hindu and is a de-facto Indian protectorate. That means each of us is likely to wander off in their own direction at regular intervals."

  "Then you're going to have to find ways of binding the components of your alliance together. Come on Snake, you've had enough practice at this sort of thing."

  "I know. That is what I wanted to talk to you about. The Australian Government and our own have decided to make a start building undersea colonies. To try and recover the mineral reserves on the seabed and exploit offshore oil and gas reserves. The undersea world is barely explored; we know little of it. Who knows what treasures we will find down there? The economic rewards will be great and the joint effort will help to bind the alliance together more closely. The project will be of the greatest value from many points of view. In some ways, it could almost be described as a lifeboat." The Seer looked up sharply at the last word but the Ambassador carried on, apparently without noticing. "We need expertise though, in offshore deep water work, like oil drilling from surface rigs. Is there a way this can be arranged?"

  "Probably. The simplest way is to start genuine offshore drilling rigs by selling exploration rights with a caveat that any production facilities must employ local labor. We can take it from there. There are any number of companies who would be interested in getting in on the ground floor of a project that large. "

  "Beware boss, strangers approaching." Lillith's voice was quiet but urgent. Two Japanese were approaching, an older man, obviously the senior of the pair and a younger. They strode through the tearoom, ignoring everybody in their path. The other clients scattered before them. Ignoring was probably the wrong word, Lillith reflected. That meant being conscious of the other's existence. These two gave no sign that they were aware of the presence of the other occupants. That budged them as firmly as their insignia-less uniforms. They were Kempeitai.

  "His Excellency the Foreign Minister has asked us to convey to your Secretary of State the appreciation of our Government for your assistance in bringing this unfortunate affair to a close and wishes to arrange for a meeting with him so that we can, perhaps, resolve some of the issues that have divided our two countries." The older of the two men spoke in a monotone.

  "I will advise Secretary Rogers of your kind words and he will, I am sure, make a point of seeing you at the earliest possible opportunity."

  The two Ja
panese nodded sharply in acknowledgment, then prepared to leave but as they did so, their eyes flicked over the assembled group with surprise that only just stopped short of amazement. Then they turned on their heels and left.

  In their wake, the tea party also stared at each other, dumbfounded by the light that was flickering in the backs of their minds. The strange sensation that they experienced when meeting others of their kind. A familiar, almost welcome, feeling yet one that was utterly unexpected. They knew that the two men from the Kempeitai had the same feeling and had been equally stunned. Were they even aware there were others like them?

  "Both of them?" The Seer asked quietly.

  The Ambassador, Lillith and Nell exchanged glances and nodded. "No doubt about it ducks. Both of them."

  "Now that," said The Seer, "is a complication."

  THE END