Deathwish World Page 15

  Lee said, confused, “But what does motivate the Central Committee, if not what Sheila calls the dream?”

  He shot a look over at her, even as he maneuvered through the narrow streets. “Did our good Sheila tell you anything about the composition of the Central Committee?”

  “No, not yet. Aside from you, she mentioned Grace Cabot-Hudson.”

  “And what do you know about Grace?”

  “Not much, really. Isn’t she supposed to be the richest woman in the world?”

  “Uh huh. And what do you know about me?”

  “Well, aside from the news media nonsense, not much. Oh, yes, I’ve heard that you were possibly the richest man in the world.”

  Jerry laughed outright. “Harrington Chase would hate you for that.”

  “You mean that anti-Semitic Texan who supports those ultra-right wing organizations. Good heavens, what has he got to do with it?”

  “Harrington’s a member of the Central Committee, my dear. So is Mendel Amschel, for that matter, which sometimes drives poor Harrington up the wall.”

  “The Viennese banker? He’s another one that’s sometimes called the richest man. Why should Mr. Chase object to him?”

  “If you count his whole family, Mendel may control more wealth than anyone else. The irony is that while he’s a Jew, I doubt if he’s religious at all. Ah, here we are.”

  The Hostaria dell’Orso was located in a medieval palace, elegant and very expensive. Jerry Auburn asked the maitre d’ for a private dining room and they were immediately escorted to the second floor.

  “Sorry,” Jerry said to Lee. “There are still some who remember my face, especially women. Unfortunately, I’m seldom mentioned without that ‘most eligible bachelor’ label being hung around my neck, as though anybody bothered to get married anymore. But even in a place like this, it can be a hazard. Especially when radicals sometimes send a nut case to nice joints on the off chance that they can take a shot at some bloated aristocrat like me.”

  “No wonder you’re a recluse,” she told him in a low voice, as they were shown into a luxurious private room.

  The maitre d’ turned them over to a captain and bowed himself out. The captain gave them menus and stood back, his face stolid.

  “Are you a bloated aristocrat too?” Jerry said as they scanned their cartes.

  “I suppose so,” she sighed. “But not as bloated as you are. I’m sure I’m not bloated enough for a Nihilist to take a crack at me, as you put it.”

  He looked over at her appreciatively and said, “Bloat is not the word. Zaftig, guapa, sleek—those are the words.”

  “Oh, hush,” she said, laughing.

  When the captain was gone, Lee looked at him accusingly. She said, “Very well, then. If you don’t have the dream, why are you a member of the Central Committee?”

  He thought about that a moment. “Probably to protect my own interests.”

  “And all of the other members?”

  “To protect theirs. That’s what motivates almost everyone, you know—their own interests.”

  She looked at him in disbelief. “Sheila said that it was the World Club which pushed through the assimilating of the United States of the Americas. In my opinion that is the outstanding political development of this century. How did that protect your interests, Mr. Auburn?”

  He smiled mockingly at her and said with deliberate pomposity, “Ms. Garrett, the greater part of my investments are in multinational corporations. Almost all corporations of any size are multinationals these days, staffed by the most competent people the computers can locate. But we still have our Cubas to deal with. Americans owned practically everything in basic Cuban industry until Castro took it over. No buy-out, nothing; lady, the investors took some lumps. Why d’you think the CIA financed the Bay of Pigs invasion? To let us get ‘our’ Cuba back! We feared Allende, in Chile, might take the Castro route, so Allende was murdered and a military junta took over, demolishing what was left of democracy in Chile. However, we could never be sure that our properties were safe. Now, Ms. Garrett, with the establishment of the United States of the Americas, they are safe. And so are all the raw materials of Latin America, in return for a comparatively small amount of GAS to keep the peons pacified.”

  She was inwardly upset. “I still say it was a wonderful step of progress.”

  “Wizard,” he said. “I didn’t say that the Central Committee worked against the interests of the majority of people. It was to the personal interest of Washington, Jefferson, John Hancock, and Franklin to win independence from England. They were all rich men. But it was also a good thing for the poorer colonists as well.”

  She looked confused, doubtful.

  He grinned wryly and said, “Believe me, Lee, in taking all of Latin America into the United States, the multinationals didn’t exactly lose money. Oh, in some of the poorer countries and islands, we drew blanks temporarily. But how do we know what riches might lie under the jungles of, say, Paraguay? Just imagine taking over such nations as Brazil, potentially almost as rich as the original United States. Not to speak of Mexico, Venezuela, and Bolivia, with all their unexploited raw materials. We get contracts for high-rise apartments for all the new recipients of GAS. And somebody has to get richer building roads, public transportation, communications systems, power distribution systems. Believe me, Lee, the multi-nationals did not lose money when the States invited Latin America to join our union.”

  She said, still arguing, “But the expense of putting all of those millions on GAS. Your taxes have skyrocketed. It surely must have counterbalanced…”

  He was smiling still. “No. You’d be amazed how cheaply a prole can be maintained from the cradle to the grave. Planned obsolescence has disappeared, so far as the prole is concerned. Everything he consumes has been produced by the most advanced automated equipment. He wears textiles that last damn near forever. He lives in prefab buildings that can be erected overnight. He eats mass-produced foods manufactured largely in factories: His entertainment is canned. His medical care is computerized and automated, as is the pitiful education he wants. I repeat: it costs practically nothing to send a prole from the cradle to the grave.”

  The waiter entered with Jerry Auburn’s cognac, put it on the table, and stepped back.

  Lee felt puzzlement but did not know why. Perhaps it was something subtle in the waiter’s movements.

  Suddenly, Jerry Auburn knocked back his chair and spun. His foot lashed out and upward with the grace of a ballet dancer and kicked the small automatic in the hand of the slim, now snarling, Italian waiter. The weapon struck the ceiling before falling to the side.

  The waiter cursed in some dialect that neither of the two diners understood and snatched for something in his clothing.

  Jerry reversed himself, his back to the other, and lashed out with his foot again, high. The shoe connected with the chin and mouth of the attacker, who was slammed back viciously against the wall behind him. In a daze, he slid down to the floor. Jerry did not see the automatic.

  Lee got out in a gasp, “Where did you ever learn Savate?”

  “From the first guy who used it on me,” he said. “We bloated aristocrats learn fast, don’t we?”

  “Yes, we do,” she said, and displayed the automatic in her hand.

  Chapter Eleven: The Graf

  On the Eastern side of the Rhine, between the Grisons and Lake Constance, lies a tiny baroque toy of a country, Liechtenstein, the last remnant of the Holy Roman Empire and, save for Switzerland, the only nation in western Europe still aloof from the loose confederation called Common Europe. It boasts a population of some 22,000 and an area of 62 square miles, supposedly still a monarchy under His Highness Prince Johann Alois Heinrich Benediktus Gerhardus von und zu Liechtenstein und Duke von Troppau und Jaegerndorf. The prince had gone bankrupt a quarter of a century earlier and these days lived a rocket-set existence on the proceeds of the outright sale of his country. The buyer was Graf Lothar von Brandenburg, who now re
sided in the Wolfschloss. The schloss, once a robber-baron stronghold, had been built in the 13th century, burned in the Swabian Wars of 1499, then last overhauled in the late 20th century. The Wolfschloss was a forty-minute climb by path northeast of Vaduz, the tiny capital of Liechtenstein, or a few minutes by modem road ending in a cablecar terminal which provided access to the castle. The climb was forbidden to such tourists as still came to the country, and the road was private—unbelievably well patrolled. There were various roadblocks along it.

  Liechtenstein had once owed its prosperity to tourism, the winter sport industry, and its many editions of colorful stamps. Since its acquisition by Graf Lothar von Brandenburg it was no longer prosperous, save for Vaduz, whose working population was largely employed by the Graf himself. Tourism was barely tolerated, certainly not encouraged, and the ski resorts were either closed down or sparsely patronized. The once-famous art collection of the Vaduz Museum was now largely to be found in the Wolfschloss.

  The office of the Graf contained no desk, and had precious little else to resemble a business office. One whole wall was of glass and looked out on an unsurpassed view of the Rhine Valley over part of the castle’s ward. There was but one article of decoration, a Franz Hals, which dominated another wall. The office presented an air of Spartan luxury, as it were: austere but very, very expensive.

  This morning it was occupied by three people.

  Lothar von Brandenburg, at sixty-five, was still hale and in season skied each morning, or hunted his extensive game preserves. He also made a point of swimming thirty laps of the large swimming pool he’d had installed in the courtyard of a schloss so extensive that a regiment of cavalry could have paraded there. He was only five feet four but had a lean, athletic build. His short hair, once blond, was now a platinum white. It was his eyes that were most remarkable. The irises were of flecked smoky grey and they had no expression. Whatever went on behind the smokescreen, nothing came through. With few exceptions, people newly introduced to Lothar von Brandenburg were uncomfortable about his eyes. He dressed during the day in formal business wear, complete with dark cravat, although ties had seldom been worn for half a century. His suits were invariably faultless; though it was untrue that he never wore one twice, still they gave that impression.

  Peter Windsor was of a very different sort. Possibly twenty years younger than the man he served as second in command, he was fresh of face, lime green of eye, handsome in the English aristocrat manner. Over six feet tall, his lank body gave an impression of indolence if not downright laziness, he being inclined to sprawl rather than sit. From this graceful indolence, one could easily reach a wrong impression. Peter Windsor, which was not the name with which he had been christened, had come to the attention of the Graf some twenty-five years in the past when the pink-cheeked lad gained a field promotion to brigade commander in a desperately close-fought action in East Africa. Most of the senior mercenary officers were casualties. The Graf had immediately drawn Windsor under his wing, knowing a good thing when he saw one.

  The third person was Margit Krebs, long-time secretary, stenographer, girl Friday, and brain trust of the Graf. Her hair was black, unlikely for a Dane, and her face was not Scandinavian, but broad with a wide chin and Magyar cheekbones—the kind of face that aged slowly. Indeed, she could have passed for anywhere between thirty and fifty. She invariably dressed in British tweeds during the business day, which understated her marvelous legs and figure.

  The Graf lowered himself precisely into his favorite heavy leather chair and nodded to his two underlings. “Margit, Peter,” he said, even as he pressed a button set into the side of the chair’s arm.

  “Good morning, chief,” Peter Windsor said.

  And, “Good morning, Herr Graf,” Margit told him.

  A side door opened and a servant entered. He was garbed in the medieval livery of a Germanic court and bore a tray with coffee things. All were of gold save the Dresden cups. The servant, granite of expression, put the tray on the small table about which the three sat.

  “Thank you, Sepp,” the Graf said and reached for the pot.

  “Bitte,” Sepp murmured, then bowed and backed from the room.

  Peter, as he watched the other pour, said, “Lothar, if the organization ever goes broke we can flog this service of yours and retire in comfort, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  His superior didn’t smile but said, “It was ever my boyhood ambition, Peter, to start the day off having one’s breakfast and morning beverage served on gold.”

  When all had their coffee in hand, the Graf turned his enigmatic gaze on his second. “Und zo, Peter: the day’s crises?”

  The tall Englishman, dressed with all-out informality in sweatshirt, slacks, and tennis shoes, had a clipboard beside him. He took it up saying, “No real crises this morning, Chief.” He looked at the top sheet on the clipboard. “A contract has come through to have Senator Miles Deillon hit. One of his business competitors.”

  “Ah, the American agricultural tycoon? Why bring it to my attention? Couldn’t you have handled such a routine matter? A senator, eh, and a major landowner at that. It would be a double-A contract, very lucrative.”

  Peter nodded. “But there may be complications.”

  The older man nodded, waiting.

  Peter said, “The senator has had his wind up for some time. Afraid of being kidnapped or worse by the American Nihilists, you know. We supply his bodyguard. Three men per shift on a round-the-clock basis—nine men in all.”

  “Yes? And the complication?” The Graf sipped his coffee, holding the cup in a small womanish hand.

  His British subordinate blinked. “I say, we can’t be hired both to assassinate a man and guard him from assassination.”

  “Why not?”

  Peter put down his own cup of coffee and closed his eyes for a moment. “Well…” he said.

  The Graf waved a hand negatively. “I assume that Luca Cellini in New York is supplying the guards. If he fails in protecting the senator, it will be a mark against his reputation in the organization. I assume your hit men will come from the ranks of Jacques’s Corsicans. They’re the best. Very well, if they are unsuccessful in their attempt, Jacques will be shamed. Luca and Jacques are good organization men but we cannot put up with incompetence. Too many contracts inefficiently carried out would lead to a bad image and our competitors would take advantage. I would dislike seeing either of these men go, but business is business. There are many young men with us who are anxious for promotion, willing and ready to step into the shoes of either Luca or Jacques.”

  Peter shook his head and made a mark with his stylo on the sheet of paper, then folded it back to scan the next one. “I’ve still got much to learn in this field.”

  The Graf said, “Speaking of competitors, it has come to my attention that our Colonel Boris Rivas, in Paris, is again taking measures to undersell us and provide a mercenary group for some chief in Mali who wishes to overthrow a neighbor. Approach the colonel once more with a suggestion that he join with us.”

  Peter said, after making his note, “There’s one small item that might be of interest. One of these so-called Deathwish Policies. We get several a day, of course, but this is an exception.”

  “Yes?” the older man said politely.

  “A chap named Roy Cos. He took a standard contract with Brett-James in Nassau. It seemed simply routine.”

  “Really, Peter, this is a minor matter.”

  “It has its element. You see, the clod’s disappeared—dropped out of sight. Hasn’t used the International Credit Card Brett-James issued him nor, for that matter, his own American card. The lads assigned to hit Cos can’t put the bloody crosshairs on him.”

  The Graf frowned. “It seems to me that we had a similar case some years ago which eventually cost us quite a bit.” He looked over at Margit, who sat quietly, hands in her lap. “Refresh me on our position in this regard, my dear Fraulein.”

  Margit said, “If the subject is liquidated with
in the first week of the contract, we receive half a million pseudodollars. However, this amount is lowered to a quarter million if he is not liquidated within the following week. If three weeks elapse before he is eliminated, instead of being recompensed at all, we pay a penalty of half a million pseudodollars for each day he survives.”

  “Indeed? Yes, now it comes back to me.” He looked at Peter Windsor. “I assume that you have investigated. Have you come to any conclusion?”

  “I checked this Roy Cos’s Dossier Complete. He is a national organizer of the Wobblies.”

  The Graf turned his empty eyes to Margit.

  She closed her eyes and began to recite in an inflectionless voice. “A revolutionary group founded in 1903 by American unionists, anarchists, and socialists, under the name Industrial Workers of the World, or I.W.W. Their program involved organizing workers into one Big Union which would take charge of the world’s economy by legal means. For a time they grew rapidly but their anarchists began to advocate sabotage and violence around 1908, and the government was able to legally crush them. By the 1930s, they had all but disappeared.

  “But not quite completely. Their goals and methods have changed until now they have few similarities to the old I.W.W. They contend that the means of production, distribution, and so forth, should be democratically owned and operated by the people as a whole rather than being private property or in the hands of the State. They believe that this would give rise to full employment and a new surge of progress.”

  Peter snorted. “Full employment? With all the automation available? They’re heading for the bend, if they’re not already around it.”