Blaine was able to snare a seat in the VIP section with the help of Stimson’s pass. He had a clear view of the podium, and if he had come here to assassinate the radical, he couldn’t have hoped for a better angle.
He had spent the better part of the morning going over the vast files Stimson had provided on Sahhan. The PVR leader was taking fanaticism and making it almost respectable. He was seen pictured with diplomats, congressmen, foreign leaders, important businessmen. One press clipping reported in depth the story of a predominantly black work crew walking off the job in an Alabama factory. Things got violent in a hurry. Sahhan made peace and kept it long enough for him to work out a new contract with the company which was substantially better than anything the striking workers had reason to hope for. In another instance, when a major urban electric company up north shut off power to poor families in the ghetto who couldn’t pay their bills, Sahhan not only paid the bills for them, he did it by personally delivering an individual check directly to each affected family.
Sporadic clapping began in the front rows as the leader of the People’s Voice of Revolution strode out onto the stage without benefit of introduction. The applause picked up as soon as the remainder of the audience saw him. Sahhan smiled and raised his hand to the crowd as he approached the podium. The spotlights’ glare bounced off his dark sunglasses.
Blaine was not at all impressed with his physical appearance, utterly unlike the prepossessing stature of a Malcolm X or Louis Farrakhan. Sahhan was small and thin. His hair was worn in a tight Afro over skin of a dark copper shade. He wore a medium gray, finely tailored and obviously expensive suit. His hands had barely grasped the microphone and torn it from its stand, when his thick voice filled the auditorium.
“Brothers,” he began, and paused immediately. “That’s right, I address you all as brothers. I wear these glasses so I won’t be able to tell the exact color of your skin and expression on your faces. I assume because you’ve come here today that there is something in your hearts that cries out for justice. Brothers and sisters, I hear those cries and have heard those cries. I’ve traveled this country and seen the pain and the hardship of so many blacks and whites too. I’ve shed tears, but the tears wash away. I’ve changed from a man of prayer to a man of action. I’m a general, brothers and sisters, and I come here today hoping you will find it in your souls to join my army.”
McCracken felt a chill at Sahhan’s fateful metaphor. How many in this auditorium suspected the truth? What thought was the PVR leader trying to plant in their heads?
Sahhan moved slowly to the front of the stage and then moved around it as he continued.
“Brothers and sisters, there is a conspiracy in this nation, a conspiracy so large in scope that it threatens to choke off the life blood of an entire people. I am speaking of us, brothers and sisters, the blacks of America. Those in the audience whose flesh is not black, search your hearts for pain and injustice. You are here because you, too, have been hurt and cheated, unrighteously stripped of something precious that belongs to you. You may stand against my words and my cause, but beware someday that you are not a victim of the same offenses I have come here to speak of today. For these offenses and cruelties and injustices are not limited to race or culture. They are spreading and soon, very soon, color will no longer divide us.”
Sahhan raised his free hand, as if to God. “Yes, there is a conspiracy and my people have fallen victim to it. Those who have walked these roads before me, men like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, were all struck down for their words and deeds, for speaking the truth. They were men of peace and they offered a hand of friendship to the society that scorned them only to be destroyed.” He pulled his hand from the air and balled it into a fist. “I will make no such offer. The time for extending unilateral friendship is past. We must make a stand and refuse to accept the awful conditions under which we have been forced to live.”
Sahhan moved back toward the podium and slammed his fist down upon it. The room shook from the pressure of the echo coming through the speakers.
“Do not listen to their lies!” he screamed into the microphone. “Do not think for one moment that urban renewal or affirmative action have made a difference. They are merely screens put in place by the conspirators to distract your attention from the truth. And the truth is that there never was any such plan as the Great Society. I was there those many years ago when all the papers were signed and promises made. But the promises wilted and the papers gathered dust and the Great Society became just another screen.” He lowered his voice and seemed to relax a little. “So where does that leave us, brothers and sisters?” Sahhan asked from behind his dark glasses, hesitating, as if he expected someone to answer. “It leaves us living on the outskirts of society with no hope of ever being allowed in. The roadblocks will be in place permanently, always impeding our way, denying our hope. The roadblocks will remain forever … unless we take steps to move them ourselves.”
Applause splintered the end of Sahhan’s words. Blaine heard a few screams and whistles of support, but also noticed more than a few members of the audience rising to leave. He realized for the first time that Sahhan was speaking without benefit of notes or prepared text, which added all the more fire to his presentation.
“And so who do we count among the guilty, brothers and sisters? Who do we take as the enemies we must strike down? Look at the Shylocks who own the heatless buildings we share with rats. We pay them rents we can’t afford and they return the favor by selling their roach-infested buildings and sending us out into the street when it serves them better financially. They own the banks, and the newspapers, and the television stations. They carry politicians in their back pockets and those politicians insure that the roadblocks remain in place. They …”
Blaine was beginning to understand how truly dangerous Sahhan was. For the audience he was a mirror of their deepest frustrations. For most the feeling would not linger. For others these radical preachings would be hard to shrug off. For a few, by far the smallest segment of all, action would be demanded.
These were the ones Sahhan had come here to reach.
“So, my brothers and sisters,” he went on, “we remain a people without a home of our own. In this world of the few over the many, we must draw our line and stand firm. It is not just the landlords and bankers who stand on the other side, of course, but countless others who think and act against us. All of them, too, are our enemies. All of them, too, must be shown that we will take no more pain and injustice. …”
Sahhan continued to spout off his rapid-fire teachings at a machine-gun pace. To Blaine he seemed to be repeating himself now, rehashing old ideas. McCracken let his eyes wander along with his mind. He wasn’t expecting to find anything in particular and was thus quite surprised when he caught a glimpse of a fat black man standing just in front of the backstage area Sahhan had first emerged from.
The man’s name was Luther Krell.
And he was an arms broker.
Chapter 13
Blaine had known Luther Krell during his tenure in Africa in his last days of good standing with the Company. Krell had brokered deals for various revolutionary groups, arranging shipments, transfers, and all the rest for an exorbitant fee. Krell played no favorites, and politics mattered to him only so far as it could fill his pockets. Liberal or conservative, reactionary or radical, it mattered not at all.