The Indian smiled and shook his head. "No, of course not. He supports a permanent staff spotted about the world, such as my operation here in Tangier. Senior executives such as myself, office workers, and so on. He also has on retainer, between actual contracts, a cadre of officers who can spring to duty within hours; all experienced veterans. He then has, on call, thousands of available infantrymen, pilots, tank men, logistics specialists, and so on, ready to enlist at any time for any duration. They are not on the permanent crew. They usually exist on GAS, or its equivalent in the advanced countries, between employments."
Frank said, "You've suggested that you took on other contracts besides wars and revolutions."
Panikkar nodded. "Yes, many. Last month we conducted a commando action which involved only twenty men. One of our best officers, a Major Shannon, and nineteen veteran non-coms.It seems that there was a half-mad dictator on one of the smaller Caribbean islands. His people overwhelmingly wished to join the United States but he, understandably, refused. He and his family were vampires upon that island's population. However, funds were raised, and the commando detachment was sent to take him out."
"Then you actually do individual assassinations." The Aussie chuckled again but stuck to his drink, rather than joining into the conversation.
The colonel shrugged. "On occasion. We see little difference, morally speaking, between entering into a full-fledged war or killing an individual. But see here, you are an educated young man. You must have read of Genghis Khan, one of the great military men of all time. He rose from being a simple chieftain of a small nomadic tribe in Central Asia to conquer the largest empire the world had ever seen. He destroyed whole civilizations. He slaughtered millions of sedentary peoples so their lands could be devoted to his flocks. Only one thing stopped his hordes from engulfing Europe: he died. Now, tell me, my good Frank, what would the world have been saved had our Genghis Khan been assassinated when he was a young man?" Frank was nonplussed.
The Indian went on. "It goes both ways. Suppose your Abraham Lincoln had been suitably guarded against assassination. What would have been the difference if this good man had lived on to preside over the reconstruction of your South?
It took a hundred years for the South to fully recover from your Civil War."
Frank said hesitantly, "Your Graf provides bodyguards, I take it."
"Naturally. He has the most efficient bodyguards in the world."
"I hope so. Assassination is—well, hell, it isn't civilized!"
"But it can improve civilization." Panikkar finished his second large whiskey. "Take Mahem Dhu, who recently proclaimed himself the Mahdi in Central Africa."
' 'Never heard of him.''
"The Mahdi is a figure of Moslem mythology," Panikkar explained. "Something like a messiah, he is to return as the world is about to end, unite all believers, and destroy those who are evil. It is a most primitive aspect of Islam. The last major leader who proclaimed himself the Mahdi was Mohammed Ahmed in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in the 19th Century. He called for a holy war and in a few years his followers overwhelmed an area half the size of Europe, slaughtering hundreds of thousands. They beat the British army and killed General Gordon."
"But this new one?" Frank said.
"Mahem Dhu. He's trying the same thing in Central and Northern Africa. He refuses to join the United Church, while many Islamic sects are joining. If he continues, millions of uneducated blacks and Arabs will die. If he should be, ah, removed, their lives will be spared and, with the help of United Church missionaries, their countries will be rapidly upgraded."
"I see your point," Frank admitted. He pulled at his drink unhappily. "Still…"
Nat Fraser scoffed. "Mate," he said. "You bloody well told me that the Yanks deported you for homicide. What's the buggering difference? You knock off some cove on your own, or you do it for the Graf for mucking good pay. And you don't have to take a contract if you don't like it. Strewth, I've turned down more than one."
Frank looked back at the colonel. "I don't see what use I'd be to you. I'm no soldier."
Ram Panikkar shrugged it off. "It's not important, Frank. Sleep on it. We might find you a position appropriate to your abilities, seeing that you're a most personable and a reasonably educated young man." He looked at his wrist chronometer. "But you must be tired after all your troubles today. And you must be hungry." He looked at the Australian. "Nat, I suggest that you see that Frank gets a good meal and then put him up for the night in one of the dormitories. I'd suggest the non-com quarters. Tomorrow morning he can return to his hotel."
"Too right, Colonel," Nat said, coming to his feet.
Frank stood too and began his thanks but the colonel waved' them aside, smiling, and returned to the papers on his desk without further words.
Next morning, driven to his hotel by Nat Fraser, Frank found not only his suitcases and the personal things that had been stolen from him by the muggers, but a pile of Swiss francs and Moroccan dirhams atop the rickety dresser. They totalled a full equivalent of a thousand pseudo-dollars, slightly more than he had been robbed of. After all, he had owed the cab driver five dirhams and had paid Luigi ten dirhams for room rent, and had bought a round of drinks at Paul's Bar. Even his camera was in one of the suitcases. The colonel had clout.
A vague thought came to him. How had Panikkar known he was staying at the Hotel Rome? He had told neither the Indian nor Nat Fraser.
Chapter Nine: Roy Cos
The shuttle from Nassau to Greater Miami was brief and uneventful. Both men were so deep in their thoughts that Roy Cos didn't even bother to stare out the heavy glass ports at the sea and islets below. Obviously, he was having second thoughts about this whole project. How had he ever allowed the damned newsman to talk him into it?
Forry Brown squinted over at him and tried to rise to the occasion. He knew very well what was in Roy's mind; he even had a twinge of guilt about it. But, the whole thing was now irreversible. He said, "You know the trouble with you Utopians?"
Roy sighed and said, "No."
"You won't like Utopia."
Roy sighed again and said, "There is no such thing as Utopia. As soon as you get to your goal, there's a better one beckoning. No science is more in a condition of continual change than socioeconomics. Utopian? Our revolutionary forefathers in 1776 thought they were creating a Utopia. They didn't."
"Fine," Forry said. "But whatever you call it, most of you won't like it."
"Why?"
"Because you all have a different picture of it. Vegetarians will picture the future society as one in which no meat will be eaten. Prohibitionists expect the end of booze but a good Italian radical would be aghast at the idea that wine and good food, including meat, would be taboo. Nudists expect nudism, puritans expect purity—in petticoats, at that. Serious straight-laced Wobblies expect the world of the future to be very serious and very efficient, but the easygoing ones look forward to a frivolous, bang-up time for everybody. And the differences on the sex question are going to be wild! I'll bet the march toward complete promiscuity will continue but I've noted that most of the Wobblies I've met are on the conservative side."
Roy sighed once again and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Wobblies don't believe that establishing our social system will solve all problems. We only contend that it will solve a good many of the most pressing problems."
Forry grunted and rubbed along his wisp of a mustache with a thumbnail. "I wish I could smoke in this flying sardine can," he said. "What the hell ever happened to socialism? I don't believe I've even heard the word for years."
"Scientific socialism stopped being scientific about a century and a half ago," Roy told him. "It got to the point where everybody was called socialist, from Roosevelt to Hitler. Sweden was socialist. So was Russia, not to speak of England, which still had a royal family left over from feudalism. It stopped making sense. The only group in the States that would have been called socialists are the Libertarians."