Deathwish World

by Mack Reynolds

  “But my mother is dead now.”

  The Graf’s usually expressionless face registered surprise. “I didn’t know that. I should have kept a closer check on you as the years have gone by. But still, I hadn’t wished to interfere with your mother’s plans for your education and upbringing. It was the only thing for which she would draw upon your father’s accumulated fortune and, even then, frugally. I had planned to make contact with you upon its completion.”

  “It’s completed now,” Frank said flatly.

  “I see. And the employment computers didn’t select you for a position in whatever field you had selected?”

  “That’s correct. In any of the fields I selected.”

  “Why not?” the Graf said bluntly.

  “Because there are jobs in our economy for only about five percent of the population. But the fault is largely mine. I switched subjects too often. I started in aviation, but after a few years, I could see that it was becoming so highly automated that there were going to be practically no positions available. So I switched to space and spent a few years cramming so that I might be chosen to go to Lagrange Five or the Asteroid Belt. But then the government began cutting back drastically on new space expenditures, so drastically that it was all but impossible to get out to the space islands. So then…”

  “Very well. I can see your problem. So when you finished your schooling you were unable to find employment.”

  “Actually, I’ve never quite finished it, though it became more difficult after my mother’s death and my source of income was cut off. She never gave me access to my father’s resources, hating them as she did. I’m not even sure that she could have. I don’t know what the legal arrangements were. Since then, I’ve largely been on GAS. However, I’ve held a few small jobs out of the ken of the computers. In between I continued my studies as best I could.”

  The Graf leaned back in the couch. “You might consider a position in my organization, Franklin.”

  Peter Windsor had been listening, his eyebrows a little high. Obviously, much of this was new to him but he learned best by listening.

  Frank Pinell, who had been gaining confidence over the past fifteen minutes, shook his head at the old mercenary’s words. He said, “I have certain reservations. Nat Fraser and Colonel Panikkar gave me a rundown on the position you assume on the things you do in your, uh, organization. However, I suspect that toward the end, at least, my father might have had some of the same reservations. What did they call him? The Lee Christmas of the 21st century. I’ve read a little about Lee Christmas. I wonder if he ever went in for outright political assassination.”

  “Possibly not. I checked on this early American mercenary after Fraulein Krebs gave me a bit of his background the other day. He was an uncouth, uneducated man—a railroad worker, I understand, before becoming a soldier of fortune. Undoubtedly, he had the usual prejudices of his time and his upbringing.”

  The Graf’s voice was becoming a bit impatient. “See here, Franklin, you must realize that mankind accepts the fact of killing his fellow man under acceptable circumstances. What are acceptable circumstances is the bone of contention. Even the assassin can become a hero—given circumstances. Let us take a few examples from the history of your own very aggressive nation. Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Colonel Travis, heroes of the Alamo, were not Texans. They were American adventurers; mercenaries. The Alamo was not garrisoned by Texans, it was garrisoned by men of many nations sent to that part of Mexico to seek their fortunes with their guns. The flag that flew over the Alamo was that of a troop of New Orleans volunteers. How many true Texans were there I do not know, but certainly Crockett was not one of them. He had been a Representative in Congress from Tennessee.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Frank murmured.

  The Graf went on. “A group of American mercenaries during the First World War formed the Lafayette Escadrille, a pursuit squadron in the French Air Force. By American law, this should have deprived them of American citizenship. Instead, as soon as the United States entered the conflict, they became heroes, and their squadron became part of the American forces. The Flying Tigers who fought as mercenaries under Chiang Kai-shek against the Japanese before Pearl Harbor? These men were all highly trained pilots from American army, navy, and air force schools, and they flew the latest in American fighters. They were paid for each plane they shot down, with American money funneled to China. But they were mercenaries, and became American heroes, instead of losing their citizenship.

  “So much for mercenaries; let us consider assassins. Suppose that in my own country the General Staff had been successful in assassinating Hitler. Would they not now be heroes?”

  The young American was unhappy. He said, “Panikkar and Nat Fraser gave me similar arguments. They didn’t convince me.”

  Peter Windsor said, “Let’s face reality. Man kills his fellow man for profit, don’t you know? Take the owner of a colliery. The mine is unsafe because he has ignored expensive safety devices. It caves in and fifty of his miners are buried alive. Indirectly, he has killed them—for profit. Is he ever brought to trial? I fancy not. He is a pillar of the community.”

  The Graf said, “But enough of this for now. You must be tired, Franklin. We’ll meet for dinner. No need for you to make a decision at this time.”

  Evidently, he had signaled somehow since Sepp, the liveried butler, materialized. “Bitte, Herr Graf,” he said, bowing.

  “Sepp,” the elderly mercenary said, “this is Mr. Franklin Pinell. See him to his suite. I suppose his bags have been delivered by now. And see that he is assigned a valet.”

  “Ja, Herr Graf.” Sepp turned to Frank. “Mr. Pinell?” Frank nodded at Peter Windsor, came to his feet, and followed the stone-faced servant out a side door.

  In the medieval stone corridor along which Frank followed Sepp, the elderly servitor said politely, “If I may say so, sir, you resemble your father remarkably.”

  “So everybody’s been telling me. You knew my father?”

  “I had the honor to serve with him in two campaigns, sir,” Sepp said, his voice politely inflectionless. “Before I lost my leg.”

  Involuntarily, Frank glanced down and now noticed that the servant limped lightly.

  Frank said, “I had gathered that the Graf made a policy of granting suitable compensations for his wounded men. Shouldn’t you be living in comfortable retirement somewhere?”

  “Well, yes, sir. But you see, I am wanted by both Interpol and the American IABI. I am safe here.”

  “That you are,” Frank smiled. “From what I’ve seen of it, this castle has many attributes of a resort. Shouldn’t you be able to retire right here?”

  They had reached a heavy wooden door and, for a moment, the servant stood with his hand on the knob. For the first time Frank saw a slight expression on the other’s usually immobile face. It was ruefulness. He said, “I suppose so, sir. However, the Herr Graf is used to my service. And… besides, it is of interest to be here in the center of things.”

  He opened the door and they stepped inside. Frank’s luggage lay in the living room’s center. The suite was spacious—an extensive living room with ornate wooden furniture, a bedroom with an enormous canopied bed, a large bath, and what Frank assumed was a small study. He was again surprised at the art of whatever interior decorator had redesigned the donjon of the Wolfschloss. The man had been a genius in merging the old and new. That the rooms were those of a Dark Ages castle was obvious, but they were modern in the best sense of comfort. That they had once been cold, damp, and grim could easily be imagined, but not with the modem conveniences added. The suite was absolutely palatial.

  “It is satisfactory, sir?” Sepp said with polite anxiety.

  At this height in the keep, it had undoubtedly never been necessary to continue the narrow bowmen’s apertures that prevailed on the lower levels. The windows were spacious and looked out on a picturesque setting of Alps, glaciers, streams, and the upper reaches of the Rhine.
r />   Frank shook his head. “It’s a beautiful suite, Sepp. What was this about a valet?”

  “I’ll assign you Helmut, sir. A very reliable servant.”

  “What do I need him for?”

  The old soldier-turned-butler seemed a touch surprised. “Why, sir, he’ll do for you. Something like a batman, an orderly, sir.”

  Frank sighed. It would be an advantage to have somebody who could show him the ropes. He didn’t even know his way around the corridors. He said, “All right, but tell him the less I see of him, the better.”

  “Sir, Helmut will never intrude unless summoned. Is there anything else, sir?”

  Frank looked around. There was even a heavy wooden bar, which looked hand-carved, set up against one wall. “I suppose not,” he said. “Thanks, Sepp.”

  “Not at all, sir. I was always a great admirer of your father, sir. In the fracas in which I lost my leg, he carried me over a kilometer through enemy fire to the nearest field hospital.” He coughed before adding, “Although he was wounded himself.”

  Frank couldn’t think of anything to say to that, and the ramrod-erect old man turned to leave.

  When he reached the door and was about to open it, he hesitated momentarily, then half turned and said, “Don’t trust any of them, Mr. Pinell.”

  Chapter Sixteen: Frank Pinell

  In the Graf’s informal office, Lothar von Brandenburg was saying to his aide, “What do you think of him, Peter?”

  Peter said slowly, “Frank seems a straight-speaking young man. Adequate education, all that sort of thing.”

  The Graf looked at him. “You seem to have reservations.”

  “Well, not really. But you seem to accept him rather wholeheartedly. He is frightfully young to be taken into our inner circles.”

  The older man gave one of his rare, gray smiles without humor. “He is older than you were when I first met you, Peter.”

  The Englishman waggled a hand in rejection. “Perhaps we went to different schools.”

  “We shall sound him out further at dinner, but meanwhile, I am quite impressed,” the Graf told him. “Ram Panikkar and that Australian fellow didn’t hoodwink him for a moment. Meanwhile, let us be about the day’s developments. Where is Margit?”

  It wasn’t a question that needed an answer. Margit entered immediately, obviously having been summoned.

  She said briskly, “Lothar, Peter,” and took her chair. Peter said, “There’s one item, Chief, on which we should get cracking. This Roy Cos, who signed a standard Deathwish Policy in Nassau.”

  “The Wobbly organizer? Yes, of course. I thought we notified Cellini, in New York, to put a couple of top men on him.”

  “Jolly well,” Windsor said in disgust, “but our Mr. Cos is still with us and Brett-James, who sold the contract, is screaming like a chap with the blue spiders. Cos and his business manager, a Forrest Brown, are spending money like autumn leaves on the wind. Ordinarily, the poor bloody clods who sign these contracts have neither the imagination to spend a fraction of their million pseudodollars a day available, nor to avoid our people. They usually go on a drunken, woman-chasing binge in some expensive resort. They take the most posh suites and they buy—dear God, do they buy!”

  The Graf eyed him in incomprehension. “But what does this Cos fellow do?”

  “He’s spending, right up to the hilt each day, on prime Tri-Di time for his lectures. He’s also renting huge auditoriums for his rallies, and hiring a large staff of bodyguards and aides, such as publicity men and speech writers.”

  Margit said, “Can’t he be reached through bodyguards or other employees?”

  Windsor shook his head. “Not so far. We had a publicity man lined up but he was discovered. The bodyguards are all trusted Wobblies and the attempts to bribe them into defecting have all met with violence. But that’s not the only difficulty. His message is beginning to get over. For a century and a half the few radicals of the United States have been a laughingstock. Nobody bothered to listen to their demands for fundamental changes, don’t you know? But now the proles, caught up in the emotion of his plight, are beginning to consider his program. I’ve heard from two members of the Central Committee of the World Club. This man is a potential danger to the overall program. They demand that he be liquidated posthaste.”

  The Graf said, “Notify Cellini to drop all else and concentrate on this man. Why can’t he be picked off by a sniper from a distance?”

  “Because wherever he goes there are mobs around him. Not just bodyguards—there are eight of them now—but his staff and thousands of gawking curiosity seekers, most of them at least partially in his favor. A hit man can’t get near him without running into considerable danger, and from a distance, there are so many people about him that a man with a rifle can’t get a clear bead on the sod.”

  The Graf said impatiently, “That is for Cellini to solve, Peter. And that brings up the matter of the World Club. How did the operation against Harold Dunninger work out?”

  “Completely as planned. A really good show. Nils Ostrander deserves a bit of a bonus.”

  The mercenary head looked at his secretary. “Refresh me on the details, Fraulein.”

  Margit’s eyes went vague. She recited, “Harold Dunninger, international tycoon. Candidate member of the Central Committee of the World Club and, until his recent death, considered most likely to be admitted to the Central Committee upon the retirement of Grace Cabot-Hudson. He belonged to the so-called liberal element in the Central Committee, which includes such people as Jeremiah Auburn, Fong Hui, and Mendel Amschel, who wish to see the forming of a world state based on more democratic principles than most. The liberal element is opposed by such members as Harrington Chase, John Warfield Moyer, and the Committee’s secretary, Sheila Duff-Roberts. Also, of course, by such candidate members as the Prophet of the United Church and yourself. It became necessary that Harold Dunninger be eliminated to increase your chances of being nominated a full member of the Committee. Obviously, it could not be handled in the usual manner or suspicion would immediately fall upon Mercenaries, Incorporated. So our mole in the Nihilists was instructed to kidnap Dunninger and hold him for a ransom of fifty million pseudodollars, with his life forfeit if the ransom was not paid.”

  The Graf interrupted, speaking to Peter Windsor. “Suppose he had paid the ransom. Then the Nihilists would have had no excuse to execute him.”

  Peter yawned and said, “We looked into it thoroughly. He was on the outs with his wife, don’t you know? And she was in control of his interests in his absence. We were quite certain that she would never pay such a sum. She didn’t. He’s dead and the killing laid at the doorstep of the Nihilists.”

  The Graf thought about it and finally nodded in agreement. “Very well, I understand that the Central Committee is in session in Rome. You will go there as my deputy, Peter, and exert what pressure you can to have me entered as a full member into the Committee. I assume that your strongest competitor for the honor will be the Prophet.”

  Windsor said thoughtfully, “Don’t you think it would be better, Chief, if you went yourself? You’ve been a Candidate Member for years but none of the Committee have ever met you. You’d throw more weight if you attended, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  The Graf grunted contempt of that opinion. “Peter, I have not left the Wolfschloss for twenty years. The last time I did, three separate attempts were made on my life. The last nearly succeeded. No, I’ll stay here. Keep in mind that the Prophet will also be represented by a deputy. He has no intention of permitting a rumor that he is so worldly as to belong to the World Club. Is there anything else?”

  Peter said, “One other item that ordinarily I wouldn’t bother you with. A black named Horace Hampton, who seems, ah, an enigma. He is an active member of the Anti-Racist League in America and indications are that he will soon be raised to membership in their National Executive Committee. This Anti-Racist League has come under the scrutiny of the World Club. So long as they were confined
to North America alone they could be largely ignored. But with the Central Committee about to take steps to expand the United States of the Americas, these militant anti-racists take on a new posture.”

  “How do you mean?” the Graf said impatiently.

  “The next step in the erecting of a World State is to invite Australia and New Zealand to join the United States of the Americas. The computers conclude that, if invited, they will join. Perhaps Great Britain and Ireland will be next. In all four countries there are few minorities, so the anti-racists are no difficulty. However, offering membership to still other nations poses a problem. Suppose India is approached. If the Anti-Racist League were to infiltrate and influence India, her votes would swamp the new United States of the World.”

  “What has all this got to do with Horace Hampton?”

  “He is one of the more intelligent and aggressive members of the League. Sheila Duff-Roberts has given us a contract on this mystery man. I strongly suspect that the National Data Banks have been corrupted to the point of his dossier being a fake.”

  Margit said musingly, “It isn’t the easiest thing in the world to infiltrate the American National Data Banks.”

  “No, it bloody well isn’t,” Peter said. “And it seems unlikely that an organization as short of funds as this League could do it.”