It's Getting Harder All The Time Page 3

  My eyebrows arched quizzically. “What country are we talking about? Red China?”

  He shook his head. “No, they’re as worried about it as we are.”

  My eyebrows inched higher. “Then who? Russia?”

  “No. They’re in the same boat as us and Red China.”

  “Then who? Surely not France.”

  “No. DeGaulle has given us more than a fair share of troubles lately, but this isn’t one of them.”

  Then who?”

  He chuckled mirthlessly. “That’s the question which, until three weeks ago, has had all of us –Russia, China, France and the United States—going around in circles. Finally, out of desperation, all four nations pooled their resources, and now, thanks to Red China, we’ve come up with a candidate. The United States is counting on you to get that candidate elected – rejeaed.”

  I scratched my head. “If you’re trying to confuse me, you’re doing a damned good job of it.”

  He smiled. “Well, let me start at the beginning. Then maybe the whole thing’ll make sense.”

  I smiled back—bitterly. “I’m waiting.”

  He leaned forward in his chair, and his eyes took on a far-away look. “On February first,” he began, “U.S. monitors detected a ‘clean’ hydrogen bomb blast in the south Atlantic. The explosion was above-ground, which violated the nuclear test ban treaty of nineteen sixty-two. So naturally we checked with the other signatories of the treaty –Russia, Britian and France –to see if it was their bomb. All three insisted that it wasn’t, and after all the evidence was weighed, we became convinced that they were telling the truth. The finger of suspicion then pointed at the only other nuclear power, Red China But evidently Red China was as much in the dark about the blast as we were, because Mao, through his embassy in Paris, put out feelers to us, Britain, France and Russia. He said, in effect, that if the bomb didn’t belong to any of us, he’d be willing to join us in a collaborative mission to find out who it actually did belong to.”

  “And we believed him?”

  “Yes. You see, the bomb was sophisticated, but it wasn’t as sophisticated as the previous bomb Red China had exploded. This suggested to us that whoever had exploded it was a new nation, a nation which previously did not have nuclear capabilities. Consequently we sent a delegate to an ultra-top-secret, five-power conference at Geneva, designed to determine who actually had exploded the bomb. An investigation was conducted and the conclusion was that our original suspicion had been correct. The country which exploded the bomb was a new nation, a previously nonnuclear nation.”

  “But which nation?”

  “That, dear Damon, was the question. The United States and Britain suspected one of the Communist-bloc countries-perhaps Yugoslavia or Albania. But we had the assurances of Russia and Red China that no Communist-bloc nation had been supported in a nuclear program, and these assurances, all things being considered, were enough to satisfy us. France, meanwhile, believed that a United States-backed country was the culprit-perhaps Australia or Nationalist China. But we were able to prove to everyone’s satisfaction that neither of these nations nor any of our other close allies was involved. Russia suspected Israel, and produced evidence that the Israeli do in fact have the nuclear ‘secret’ However, the Geneva commission investigation showed that, while Israel might have had the secret, it certainly did not have the money to support advanced testing of the sort which had taken place in the south Atlantic, especially after the six-day war with Nasser and hi allies. Finally Red China voiced its suspicions, and the country it named came as such a surprise to all the other nuclear powers that we could scarcely believe Mao and his people weren’t joking. But the evidence now in hand suggests that the Red Chinese not only were deadly serious but also were dead right”

  “For Pete’s sake, which country did they suspect?”

  A small smile curled his lips. “Would you believe,” he asked, savoring the suspenseful moment, “Belgravia?”

  My eyebrows strained upward until they threatened to merge with my hairline. “Belgravia?” I echoed. “Where in hell is Belgravia?”

  He chuckled reprovingly. “Evidently you’ve been too busy with sex research to keep abreast of developments among Africa’s so-called emerging nations. Belgravia is a new country in the historical as well as in the nuclear sense. In fact, it’s only eight-and-a-half years old. It’s one of the five republics which once constituted French Equatorial Africa.”

  I gulped. “How does a two-bit country like that become a nuclear power?”

  His chuckle expanded into a full-blown, bitterly mirth- less laugh. “Red China has a theory, and as much as the United States might hate to admit it, the theory makes sense. I’ll tell you about the theory in a minute, but first let me cue you in on something of Belgravia’s history and current politics.”

  I leaned back in my seat. ’Cue away.”

  He snapped open a loose-leaf notebook labeled “US. Department of State Background Notes” and leafed through the pages. Finally he found the page he wanted and began reading: “Belgravia, covering an area of forty-two thousand square miles, lies just south of the Equator on the west coast of Africa. It is bordered on the north by Gabon, on the east and south by Republic of Congo and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, Except for its capital, Rodin, and its principal city, Port duBeers, nearly all of the country is covered by dense equatorial rain forest The climate is hot and humid. From June to September there is virtually no rain but high humidity. In December and January there is occasional rain. During the remaining months rainfall is heavy. At Rodin the annual average rain- fall is more than one hundred inches. On the northwest coast it is one hundred and fifty inches.”

  “It sounds like a great place to live if you happen to be a fish.”

  “From what I’ve heard, even the fish don’t like it. But of course we’re not asking you to live there—only to visit.”

  “Thanks,” I murmured dryly. “I’m always grateful for small favors.”

  Ignoring the comment, he continued reading.

  “With only about three hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, Belgravia is one of the least populated of any of the five republics of former French Equatorial Africa. The capital city of Rodin has a population of about eighteen thousand, and Port duBeers, the principal seaport, has a population of about twenty-two thousand. The remainder of the population is concentrated in villages along rivers and roads, while large areas of the interior lie empty. During the last one hundred years there has been a decline in population because of disease, but increased medical care and social services have recently halted this trend.”

  “I’m glad to hear that it’s been halted,” I confessed.

  “Don’t worry, well inoculate you against anything communicable before you go.” He dipped back into his notebook and resumed reading. “Almost all the Belgravians are Bantu. There are at least twenty tribal groups with separate languages and cultures. The largest tribe in the Guwai, numbering about sixty thousand. Next largest is the Ogana with twenty thousand. Then are the Keross with eight thousand. The remainder of the population is divided among seventeen other tribes. Tribal boundaries are less sharply drawn than anywhere else in Africa with the possible exception of Gabon. French, the official national language, is a unifying force.”

  “Vive l’unite!” I quipped.

  “Belgravia,” he went on, not pausing to acknowledge my side-splitting humor, “was first visited by Europeans in the fifteenth century, when Portugese explorers came seeking slaves. Dutch, British, French and Belgian traders followed in the sixteenth century. Belgravia first came under French protection by treaties with the coastal chiefs in 1840, then was ceded to Belgium under a treaty with King Leopold II, signed in 1907. The country achieved in- dependence on June thirtieth, 1960, the same day that the Belgian government granted independence to its better-known African possession, the Congo. Since that time, Belgravia has been a republic with a presidential form of government. Under the constitution
of 1961, it has a unicameral National Assembly of thirty-five members. The Assembly is elected for five years, but may be dismissed by the President if he deems such a dismissal to be in the national interest. The President, who is chief of state and chief of government, is elected for seven years. AU other members of the government are appointed by the President, who can also recall any of them.”

  “And to think,” I mused, “that some Americans complain about our president’s power.”

  Walrus-moustache smiled. “Well,” he conceded, looking up from his notebook, “the Belgravian presidency is somewhat autocratic. And frankly, the current office holder, Dr. Albert Douzi, might appear to Western observers as something of a cross between Spain’s Generalissimo Franco and the Black Muslims’ Elijah Mohammed. But when all is said and done, Dr. Douzi un- questionably commands the support of the vast majority of his constituents.”

  “How? With machine guns?”

  “Not quite. You see, Douzi is a favorite son of the dominant Guwai tribe. Hi father was chief of the tribe and a very benign leader. Douzi was educated in European schools, got his A.B. and M.A. degrees from Oxford, then his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Sorbonne. He specialized in psychiatry, and was faculty member at the Sorbonne until 1959, when he returned to Belgravia He was a principal force in the nation’s drive for independence and almost single-handedly drew up the present constitution.”

  “Which explains, no doubt, why the president enjoys virtually unlimited powers.”

  “Perhaps. In any case, most Belgravians feel that, were it not for Douzi, the country would still be a Belgian colony, and a rather miserable one at that. Before independence, the average per capita income among Belgravians was about three million gui1leux a year, or roughly forty American dollars. Laborers in the duBeers diamond mines, Belgravia’s only significant industry, worked at what were literally starvation wages Many people lived only by killing what game they could in the rain forests. And as I mentioned earlier, disease was so rampant that the country had a rapidly dwindling population rate—this despite the face that the use of contraceptives was all but unknown. The infant mortality rate was something like a thousand times that of the United States. Douzi’s new government changed all that. He nationalized the diamond mines and began paying workers a fair wage. He established medical clinics not only in the cities of Rodin and Port duBeers, but also in the outlying districts. Schools were set up, and parents whose children became students automatically received a generous government subsidy. In short, under Douzi, Belgravia moved in eight. and a half years from a poverty-stricken, disease-infested hellhole to a thriving, prosperous independent state. The price which the people of Belgravia paid for this prosperity was that of accepting Douzi’s dictatorship. But even under Douzi’s autocratic form of government they enjoy more of a say in the management of their own affairs than they did when Belgravia was a Belgian colony. So, any way you slice it, they’ve came a long way and they’re pretty happy with their situation. Or mm precisely, they were pretty happy with their situation until PUF started stirring up trouble.”

  “Puff? As in ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon’?”

  “No, as in Peoples” United Front. But your ‘Magic Dragon’ reference is on target, because PUF is a Commie front. More specifically it’s a Red Chinese front. The situation is somewhat similar to that in Vietnam, where the so-called National Liberation Front is in action.”

  “I don’t see the parallel. Vietnam’s NLF is opposed to the Saigon regime for a number of very good reasons. If Dr. Albert Douzi’s government is as benign and socially oriented as you say, exactly what is PUF opposed to?”

  He sighed. “It’s one of those complex situations, Damon, that make international politics the crazy game that it is. True, Douzi has brought about a lot of reforms. But the PUF people have persuaded a lot of Belgraviane that more reforms are called for. According to PUF, Douzi’s work has already been done and the time has come for an even more representative democracy than Belgravia now enjoys. Frankly the United States might sympathize with PUF’s demands were they made within a constitutional context. But PUF advocates a violent –i. e., military –overthrow of Douzi and his people. It’s the old Commie pattern of getting a foot in the door, then a leg, then the whole body. PUF started by demanding that Douzi relinquish the right to dismiss the assembly. The United States, which until recently was quite friendly with Douzi, suggested that he not only do that but that he also institute additional reforms which would bring his government closer to what we like to think of as the democratic ideal. Unfortunately he couldn’t see thing our way. He responded to the PUF challenge by waging a campaign of military suppression. Press censorship was instituted, and leaders of dissident political groups were jailed. This naturally gave PUF more to harp about and they’ve been harping incessantly ever since. Douzi, meanwhile, has become more inflexible than ever. The result is that Belgravia today has become almost a police state. From where we sit, Douzi appears determined not to budge one inch, and PUF appears more determined than ever that Douzi must be overthrown. The situation is very explosive. According to U.S. State Department on-the-scene observers, civil war may break out almost any day now. The majority of Belgravians, to be sure, still side with Douzi. But a substantial and ever-gowning minority sees thing the Commie way.”

  “Where does the mysterious hydrogen bomb blast fit into this picture?”

  “Red China, as I said before, has a theory which links the bomb to Douzi’s government, and as much as the United States might hate to admit that Mao and his people are one up on us spy-wise, the theory makes sense.”

  “What exactly is “the theory?”

  He leaned back in his seat. Again his eyes took on a faraway look. “About eight months before the hydrogen bomb blast, a classified ad appeared in leading newspapers throughout the world seeking the services of a virile male for mysterious sexual experiments in Belgravia.” He slipped an envelope from inside his jacket, extracted a clipping of the ad that had appeared in The New York Times, and handed it to me. “About two months after the ad appeared, Belgravia began inviting prominent physicists to lecture at its newly founded National University. The physicists who were invited had three things in common: they were all from Communist-bloc countries, they were all intimately connected with their countries’ nuclear development programs, and they were all female. All told, nine such physicists went to Belgravia None ever returned.”

  “In other words,” I put in, “Red China thinks that Douzi lured the female physicists to Belgravia to give lectures, then enticed them to stay there and work on his nuclear program by offering them the service of the virile male he had hired through his classified ads.”

  “Precisely. And as I said, the theory makes a lot of sense. As everyone knows, sex behind the Iron Curtain is very much a forbidden thing. It’s not hard to imagine how frustrated the nine female physicists might have become in their antisexual Communist homelands. Douzi could have helped this sexual hunger along with drugs. If Douzi’s ad did in fact procure for Belgravia the services of a super-stud, and if Douzi did in fact make this super-stud’s services available to the female physicists, it’s not unreasonable to believe that some of them might have been persuaded to stay. Those who weren’t persuaded might either have been killed or forceably detained.”

  “Very feasible,” I confessed.

  “So,” he went on, “if the Red Chinese theory is valid, as we now believe it is, Douzi is maintaining something of a harem-in-reverse. He has his super-stud servicing the female physicists, and when the dolls aren’t being serviced, they’re working on the Belgravian nuclear program. It’s a master stroke of psychology, and Douzi, as a psychiatrist, is the perfect bay to have dreamed it up.”

  “But,” I reminded him, “you spoke earlier about an extraordinarily sophisticated bomb, a bomb which, if I remember correctly, makes the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb look in comparison- like a couple of Fourth of July firecrackers. Yet, the hydrogen bomb that was
exploded on February first is, according to you, less so phiiticated than the hydrogen bomb Red China had exploded previously. How do you explain this?”

  He smiled sadly. “The bomb exploded on February first was indeed less sophisticated than the Red Chinese hydrogen bomb. But another bomb was exploded in March, and another in May. These last two bombs were, according to the best information available to us, as sophisticated as any bombs either Russia or China has exploded. The new bombs appear to be built on a nitrogen rather than hydrogen base, and their potential for destruction is far greater than that of any bomb any nation, including the United States, has ever exploded. From where we now sit, Belgravia has only to work out certain technicalities and it’ll have a bomb far more formidable than anything in the arsenal of any of the world’s other five nuclear powers.”

  “But,” I said, “there isn’t any real evidence that Belgravia is the developer of the new bomb. So far, all we’ve got is Red China’s theory that this is the case. The theory is plausible, certainly. But mere plausibility doesn’t constitute proof.”

  “You can rest assured, Damon,” he replied quietly, “that the United States would be the last country in the world to go along with the theory if Red China hadn’t provided some data to back it up. As a matter of fact, they’ve provided considerable data While the other four nuclear powers have been observing a strictly hands-off policy toward Belgravia, Red China, thanks to its interest in the Peoples’ United Front, has really been in the thick of things. In fact, they’ve been so much in the thick of Wigs that they’ve managed to get a spy inside Douzi’s harem of female physicists. The spy has provided China with everything from an architect’s drawing of the harem to the name of the super-stud on Doui’s payroll.”

  “And who,” I asked, my professional interest aroused, “might that super-stud be?”

  “He goes under the name Of –believe it or not –Superman. He’s a former Cuban, who worked as a male prostitute in Havana during the days of the Batista regime. When Castro took power in 1959, he went into exile and hasn’t been heard from sin –until he resurfaced in Belgravia this year. According to reports, he’s the hottest thing to come along since sex was invented.”