Nova 3 Read online

  Inside, it was already dim but Kosloff could make out the forms of three men seated cross-legged on a rug. They were dressed in brown wool djellabahs, the hoods over their heads so that their features could not be made out very well. However, the one in the center had a certain air of command, even through the clothing. The one on his right had a pistol in his hand and it was directed at Paul Kosloff’s stomach.

  The one in the center said softly, “Harun,” and the one to his left came to his feet and approached the newcomer, taking care not to get between Paul Kosloff and the gun. He ran his hands over the international troubleshooter’s body in a practiced frisk, then turned and spoke in Arabic and resumed his seat on the rug.

  Paul Kosloff said, “Colonel Inan? I am Kenneth Smithson, of the American State Department, assigned to open preliminary negotiations with you.”

  “So we have been informed. This is Colonel Harun Idriss, my Chief of Staff, and this Major Abd ibn-Tashfin, the leading theoretician of our movement. Please be seated, Mr. Smithson.”

  Paul Kosloff also assumed the cross-legged position on a rug opposite them. He had to play this right. It couldn’t be too obvious, or he’d never get his opening. He had to look authentic.

  He said, “Frankly, Colonel Inan, my superiors have doubts about some elements of your program and would like them resolved before they grant you the all-out support the State Department will possibly provide.”

  The colonel pushed back the hood of his djellabah to reveal a dark, handsome face in the Semitic tradition. His nose was large and hooked, his eyes bright and piercing and intelligent.

  He said, in his excellent English, “Of course, Mr. Smithson. Proceed.”

  Paul Kosloff said earnestly, “Of prime importance is your proposal to double or more the price of the raw materials we are at present buying from Maghrib. Can we assume that this is but a campaign promise, as our politicians call them in the States? That is, that you don’t really plan to go through with it?”

  The colonel shook his head. “No. It is no empty promise, Mr. Smithson.”

  “If the other underdeveloped nations go along with you, it could eventually mean the collapse of the economies of the West.”

  Abou Inan nodded his head this time. “Yes, the collapse of the economies of the West, as we know them today.” Paul Kosloff stared at him.

  Major Abd ibn-Tashfin spoke up. “You see, Mr. Smithson, the economies of the West are destroying our world with their ever-expanding production. Within decades, there will literally be no more raw materials. Our oil, our minerals, our forests, will have disappeared. The economies of the West, including your United States, must be forced to face reality and readjust. Yours is a waste economy. Let me use a few examples of planned obsolesence in your country. You build automobiles that will break down within three years or so, when it is quite possible to build them to last fifty years. You make lead batteries for your cars that are deliberately designed to wear out after a year and a half, where it is possible to build them to last the life of the car. You make electric light bulbs that bum out in one thousand hours, when they could be manufactured to last for practically the life of the house. The houses you build are slum houses in less than twenty years, while your grandparents could build them to last a century or more. All this, of course, to increase sales, to increase profits. Your socioeconomic system is one based on production for profit, not for use. It is a mad system and we of the more backward countries must do something to force you to change, or when you go down to economic chaos, you will drag us with you.”

  Paul Kosloff was taken aback. He said, “But we’ve got to have your raw materials if we’re to keep going. We no longer have our own. And you’ve got to have the money we pay you for them, if you’re ever to become a developed country.”

  The colonel said softly, “That is the point, Mr. Smithson. We are never going to become a developed country. Nor are any of the other underdeveloped nations. For one thing, there isn’t enough copper, lead, zinc and other basic necessities of industry to allow the backward countries to ever catch up with you. You’ve totally wasted these irreplacable gifts of nature in your mad scramble for increased gross national product.”

  “There are some other elements too, admittedly,” his Chief of Staff said. “The population of the underdeveloped countries is growing far faster than the small industrial and agricultural growth they have achieved. And there seems to be no end. India, for instance, has a smaller per capita product today than she had when Ghandi and Nehru took over from England. How this problem can be solved, we do not know. Perhaps through all-out collaboration of all countries. Thus far, there is no such thing. The advanced nations do not really care about our problems. We must force them to care.”

  Paul Kosloff said, “Then you are deliberately planning to wreck the economies of the West?”

  “Not wreck them. Force them to change. If you are made to pay triple for your copper, I doubt if you will continue to make such items as ladies’ lipstick containers out of it. If you pay triple for your chrome, I doubt if you will continue to make your cars garish with it. Somehow, we of the backward countries and you of the advanced, must amalgamate in such a way that we can improve our living standards without industrialization, but only by judicious exploitation of our raw materials and agriculture.”

  Paul Kosloff pretended to think about it. He came to his feet and said, “Just a moment. I wish to return to the hut in which you quartered me and get a device there with which I can communicate by tight-beam to Greater Washington. What you have said is most interesting. We weren’t aware of your motivations.”

  “Of course,” the colonel nodded.

  Paul Kosloff left and returned to the hut where Nafi was still waiting.

  He said to the young agent, “Give me my gun.”

  The other frowned at him.

  Kosloff said impatiently, “They want to see an example of the type of weapons we can supply for the revolution.” The other handed the gun over and Paul Kosloff put it into his belt, under his coat. He turned and left the hut again and headed back toward the one occupied by Colonel Inan and his two top men. It was dark now and the streets were empty. He supposed that the colonel had deliberately kept his followers away from the secret conference, knowing that any spies might have reported the contact with an American emissary.

  He squared his shoulders as he walked. It was simplicity itself. All he had to do was walk in and start firing. They would never suspect him of having a gun, since he had already been searched. He doubted if they were very old hands at intrigue. They were obviously too idealistic, too honest.

  A slightly accented voice from behind him said, “Very well, Paul Kosloff. Put your hands behind your neck.”

  He did as he was told and a hand came around from behind him and plucked the .38 Recoilless from his belt.

  The voice said, “Turn now.”

  Paul Kosloff turned and said, “Hello, Sverdlov. You’re making a mistake, this time.”

  The Russian KGB man was slightly smaller than Paul Kosloff but perhaps more lithe. His teeth were white and his smile good, but there was something about his eyes. It was said in international espionage circles that he had killed more men than the plague.

  “Ah?” he said. “Please elucidate, Kosloff.”

  “This time, I have the same assignment you have. We’re on the same side.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I’ve been sent here to eliminate Colonel Inan and his two lieutenants. My government wants to see the regime of Moulay Ismail continue.”

  “Ah, but mine doesn’t,” the other said softly.

  Paul Kosloff bug-eyed him.

  The Russian agent chuckled. “You see, Kosloff, in spite of the fact that we of the Soviet Complex and you of America have reached detente, the battle for men’s minds goes on and will not end until one of our sides or the other prevails. We wish to see Colonel Inan’s revolution succeed. If it does, his regime will be the first major element to
collapse your economy. We have not been able to control Moulay Ismail, in spite of the fact that he calls himself a Marxist, but we won’t have to control the colonel. He wants to do exactly what we would like him to do. We of the Soviet Complex have within our borders all the raw materials we need. You don’t.”

  Paul Kosloff looked at him for a long empty moment. He said, “You mean that I, an agent of the West, have been sent to rescue a Marxist regime, and you, an agent of the Soviet Complex, have been sent to insure a capitalist takeover?”

  Serge Sverdlov chuckled again. “Quite a contradiction, eh?” His finger began to tighten on the trigger of the large military revolver he carried.

  A voice clipped from the darkness of a narrow alleyway between two mud huts, “That will be all.”

  Serge Sverdlov spun and, simultaneously, from the doorway of another hut a laser beam hissed out. Paul Kosloff took no time to discover who was the target of the deadly ray gun. He fell to the ground and rolled desperately.

  Somebody had screamed agony.

  The Russian was also on the ground but seemingly not out of action. Footsteps came pounding down the street from the direction of the car.

  Paul Kosloff had recognized the voice that had interrupted Serge Sverdlov as that of Colonel Inan. Evidently, the three revolutionists hadn’t been as naive as he had thought. They had followed him to check what he was doing.

  Two djellabah-robed, hooded figures emerged from the narrow alley and spread out, seeking shadows. They both carried guns. Serge Sverdlov, from his prone position, began to bring up his revolver.

  Nafi-ben-Mohammed, his own gun at the ready, came dashing up. He took in the figures on the ground. Paul Kosloff was still trying to roll to some sort of cover.

  The Russian’s pistol barked, at the same time that the laser beam hissed from the doorway across the street again. Tokugawa Hidetada stumbled forth from the mud hut, reeling, his pistol dropping from his hand.

  Nafi’s gun came up, the .38 Recoilless went ping, ping, ping, and two of the three slugs thunked into the prone Russian agent.

  From the shadows into which the two figures from the narrow alley had faded came the colonel’s voice again. “Drop that gun, or you die, Nafi-ben-Mohammed!”

  Nafi obeyed orders, then quickly leaned down over Paul Kosloff. “You are unhurt?”

  Paul Kosloff, in disgust, came to his feet. Now he could make out the fallen body in the narrow alleyway from which the colonel had first called.

  “What is this, a damn massacre?” he growled.

  He went over to Tokugawa Hidetada. His once Japanese colleague was going out fast. Paul Kosloff knelt beside him. “Is there anything I can do?”

  The small man attempted a rueful chuckle. “In the crisis, I attempted to come to your succor, friend Paul. I am not very clear on what has happened. Whom did I shoot?”

  Paul Kosloff took a deep breath. “One of the Colonel’s men, Hidetada.”

  “It would be my fate for it to be Colonel Idriss,” the Japanese groaned. He closed his eyes in pain and never opened them again.

  Paul Kosloff stood and looked back at Sverdlov. The Russian was also dead.

  Colonel Abou Inan and Major Abd ibn-Tashfin emerged from the shadows, their guns still at the ready. The colonel’s eyes took in the two fallen secret agents, then went back to his own valued follower.

  He turned to Paul Kosloff and said, indicating the Japanese, “Who is this man?”

  “Tokugawa Hidetada. His government wished to see Moulay Ismail overthrown, but Colonel Idriss come to power rather than you.”

  “I see. And this one?” He indicated the Russian.

  “Serge Sverdlov, of the KGB. His government wanted to see your revolution a success, so that the United States would be embarrassed.”

  “I see.” The colonel looked at Paul Kosloff and Nafi for a long thoughtful moment. He said, “I heard enough of your conversation with the Russian to realize that you are not truly interested in supporting my cause. Perhaps I should kill you, Mr. Smithson, but I am not one who kills unarmed men.

  Please leave. And so far as your nations are concerned, the United States, the Soviet Complex, Japan, all I can do is paraphrase the English poet. A curse on all your houses.” Nafi blurted, “But Colonel, we came to assist you.”

  “It seems unlikely, boy. Now leave.”

  Paul Kosloff and the Maghrib youth returned to their car. In silence, they got into it and started back for Tingis.

  After a time, Paul Kosloff put his Tracy to his mouth and said, “Paul calling. Paul calling.”

  The commissioner’s thin voice came through shortly. “Yes, I receive you. What is happening?”

  Paul said flatly, “Everything and its cousin had gone to pot. Sverdlov’s dead. Tokugawa Hidetada, of Japan, is dead. I’m not, but probably should be. Your strategy laid an egg. Colonel Inan will undoubtedly take over here.”

  “You fouled this up, Kosloff!”

  “It’s according to how you look at it. It was foul before it started,” Paul Kosloff said wearily. “Oh, yes, and one more thing. I’m tired of being the Cold War’s Lawrence of Arabia. It’s getting too complicated for me. I’m resigning.”

  THE FACTORY

  By NAOMI MITCHISON

  Lady Mitchison will be seventy-five this year and has been publishing about a book a year since 1923. She spends at least three months of each year in Botswana where she is the adopted mother of the chief of the Bakgatla tribe, and still more time in Scotland where she runs a three-hundred-acre farm, as well as working as a member of the Highlands and Islands Development Council. When describing her and her manifold activities superlatives come easy—so suffice to say that this piece of fiction is a tight, grim and near perfect story about our environment.

  THE FACTORY PEOPLE have been ever so nice, really they have. They needn’t have; they’d kept all the regulations, strictly kept them. We couldn’t have had the law on them in spite of what Ted and the newspaperman said. But it’s been a bit of a shock, I won’t deny that. Above forty years I’ve been on the farm and my husband he’d been born there.

  You get to belong with a place and know every brick, you do. Not that I wouldn’t sometimes say to him, “Wouldn’t you like a nice job in town and not the cows every blessed morning and evening of the year?” But that was what he wanted. You know, he wants it yet. He misses it.

  It was a calf died first and the vet, well he didn’t know what to make of it: ever such a nice man, Mr. Thompson the vet, but I haven’t seen him now, not for a year, and he used to drop in most every week and eat a slice of my cake. Kind of fits they had, the poor little dears, heifer calves they was. And then the cows began to take sick but they didn’t die, not at first, only the milk went off. You know, I wonder sometimes if anything ever ailed any of the folk that drank the milk. But then, I’ll never know. The next to go were my ducks. I found them dead in the long grass. Thought it was a stoat, I did, but there wasn’t a mark on them.

  It was then the gentleman that used to have the trout fishing began to notice there was sick fish floating belly up. That got round to Mr. Thompson and he took samples of the water and sent ’em to London. Clear water it was, all along the river; many a nice bunch of watercress I picked off the edges in the old days and looked down at it bubbling away over pebbles.

  We’d all been ever so pleased when the factory came on the old mill site. It was giving a bit of extra work and men stayed at home that would have needed to go and get work in the towns in the old days. I remember me saying to my husband, why wasn’t that there when our boys went off? Once they go, you see, there’s nothing to tell of them, they wander off. One of them’s in Australia now, a terrible long way, and then there’s our Ted. He had a job up in Yorkshire. Yes, I used to think, if the factory had only come sooner! And they could have given their Dad a hand with the Sunday milking so he could have lain in bed once in a while. Well, he can do that now.

  It was before the samples came back that poor Rover t
ook his first fit. Oh, he was ever such a good dog, he could bring the cows in on his own. We put him on the rug in front of the fire and gave him milk. But he died. Mr. Thompson, the vet, was there and he couldn’t understand it. There was my poor husband with Rover in his arms and Mr. Thompson standing there ever so upset. Mopped his eyes, he did. We were that worried about the cows too.

  I found one of the kittens dead the next day, the black and white one. That settled me. I sent off a wire to our Ted saying as how there was trouble. I didn’t tell my poor husband but I got Ted’s room in the attic all ready. He came the same day and we heard about the sample. Well, they found there was a trace of something, a long name it had and must have come from the factory. Mr. Thompson was ever so puzzled. He couldn’t see how so little could have done so much harm. But he rung up the factory and there was a man from London, a government man, who come down to see about it. That was the day my hens began to go, but they went quick, one big flutter and then dead.

  And there was our Ted in a proper rage. Talked about suing the factory. There was nowhere else could be blamed. Two of the cows had died by then, the rest were poorly. Mr. Thompson said we must stop selling the milk. Not that there was much to sell. I gave it to the kittens that were left and wondered if I should have. You know, I kept on catching myself putting out scraps for Rover.

  Ted went off up the road to the factory; his Dad tried to stop him, said it wouldn’t do any good. But Ted went steaming off and his poor Dad went back to the cows. There was another one going. One of the neighbors was giving a hand to bury them.

  Ted was a long time gone. I put the kettle on to boil and then took it off. There was a dead rat outside the door. I never thought I’d grieve to see a dead rat. It was late when Ted got back and he seemed terrible downhearted. “They showed me the regulations,” he said. “It appears they kept to them. Took me all over they did. Safeguards. Checks. Warnings. The government man, he saw them too. Nothing wrong with any of the chaps working there; special gloves and all they wore.” There wasn’t anything I could say. He went on, “You don’t know, Mum. Regulations. Stacks of them. So then this is an act of God. Where’s Dad?”