'I'll assign you Helmut, sir. A very reliable servant.'
'What do I need him for?'
The old soldier-turned-butler seemed a touch surprised. 'Why, sir, he'll do for you. Something like a batman, an orderly, sir.'
Frank sighed. It would be an advantage to have somebody who could show him the ropes. He didn't even know his way around the corridors. He said, 'All right, but tell him the less I see of him, the better.'
'Sir, Helmut will never intrude unless summoned. Is there anything else, sir?'
Frank looked around. There was even a heavy wooden bar, which looked handcarved, set up against one wall. 'I suppose not,' he said. 'Thanks, Sepp.'
'Not at all, sir. I was always a great admirer of your father, sir. In the fracas in which I lost my leg, he carried me over a kilometer through enemy fire to the nearest field hospital.' He coughed before adding, 'Although he was wounded himself.'
Frank couldn't think of anything to say to that, and the ramrod-erect old man turned to leave.
When he reached the door and was about to open it, he hesitated momentarily, then half turned and said, 'Don't trust any of them, Mr. Pinell.'
Chapter Sixteen: Frank Pinell
In the Grafs informal office, Lothar von Brandenburg was saying to his aide, 'What do you think of him, Peter?'
Peter said slowly, 'Frank seems a straight-speaking young man. Adequate education, all that sort of thing.'
The Graf looked at him. 'You seem to have reservations.'
'Well, not really. But you seem to accept him rather wholeheartedly. He is frightfully young to be taken into our inner circles.'
The older man gave one of his rare, gray smiles without humor. 'He is older than you were when I first met you, Peter.'
The Englishman waggled a hand in rejection. 'Perhaps we went to different schools.'
'We shall sound him out further at dinner, but meanwhile, I am quite impressed,' the Graf told him. 'Ram Panikkar and that Australian fellow didn't hoodwink him for a moment. Meanwhile, let us be about the day's developments. Where is Margit?'
It wasn't a question that needed an answer. Margit entered immediately, obviously having been summoned.
She said briskly, 'Lothar, Peter,' and took her chair.
Peter said, 'There's one item, Chief, on which we should get cracking. This Roy Cos, who signed a standard Deathwish Policy in Nassau.'
'The Wobbly organizer? Yes, of course. I thought we notified Cellini, in New York, to put a couple of top men on him.'
'Jolly well,' Windsor said in disgust, 'but our Mr. Cos is still with us and Brett-James, who sold the contract, is screaming like a chap with the blue spiders. Cos and his business manager, a Forrest Brown, are spending money like autumn leaves on the wind. Ordinarily, the poor bloody clods who sign these contracts have neither the imagination to spend a fraction of their million pseudo-dollars a day available, nor to avoid our people. They usually go on a drunken, woman-chasing binge in some expensive resort. They take the most posh suites and they buy— dear God, do they buy!'
The Graf eyed him in incomprehension. 'But what does this Cos fellow do?'
'He's spending, right up to the hilt each day, on prime Tri-Di time for his lectures. He's also renting huge auditoriums for his rallies, and hiring a large staff of bodyguards and aides, such as publicity men and speech writers.'
Margit said, 'Can't he be reached through bodyguards or other employees?'
Windsor shook his head. 'Not so far. We had a publicity man lined up but he was discovered. The bodyguards are all trusted Wobblies and the attempts to bribe them into defecting have all met with violence. But that's not the only difficulty. His message is beginning to get over. For a century and a half the few radicals of the United States have been a laughingstock. Nobody bothered to listen to their demands for fundamental changes, don't you know? But now the proles, caught up in the emotion of his plight, are beginning to consider his program. I've heard from two members of the Central Committee of the World Club. This man is a potential danger to the overall program. They demand that he be liquidated posthaste.'
The Graf said, 'Notify Cellini to drop all else and concentrate on this man. Why can't he be picked off by a sniper from a distance?'
'Because wherever he goes there are mobs around him. Not just bodyguards—there are eight of them now —but his staff and thousands of gawking curiosity seekers, most of them at least partially in his favor. A hit man can't get near him without running into considerable danger, and from a distance, there are so many people about him that a man with a rifle can't get a clear bead on the sod.'
The Graf said impatiently, 'That is for Cellini to solve, Peter. And that brings up the matter of the World Club. How did the operation against Harold Dunninger work out?'
'Completely as planned. A really good show. Nils Ostrander deserves a bit of a bonus.'
The mercenary head looked at his secretary. 'Refresh me on the details, Fraulein.'
Margit's eyes went vague. She recited, 'Harold Dunninger, international tycoon. Candidate member of the Central Committee of the World Club and, until his recent death, considered most likely to be admitted to the Central Committee upon the retirement of Grace Cabot-Hudson. He belonged to the so-called liberal element in the Central Committee, which includes such people as Jeremiah Auburn, Fong Hui, and Mendel Amschel, who wish to see the forming of a world state based on more democratic principles than most. The liberal element is opposed by such members as Harrington Chase, John Warfield Moyer, and the Committee's secretary, Sheila Duff-Roberts. Also, of course, by such candidate members as the Prophet of the United Church and yourself. It became necessary that Harold Dunninger be eliminated to increase your chances of being nominated a full member of the Committee. Obviously, it could not be handled in the usual manner or suspicion would immediately fall upon Mercenaries, Incorporated. So our mole in the Nihilists was instructed to kidnap Dunninger and hold him for a ransom of fifty million pseudo-dollars, with his life forfeit if the ransom was not paid.'
The Graf interrupted, speaking to Peter Windsor. 'Suppose he had paid the ransom. Then the Nihilists would have had no escuse to execute him.'
Peter yawned and said, 'We looked into it thoroughly. He was on the outs with his wife, don't you know? And she was in control of his interests in his absence. We were quite certain that she would never pay such a sum. She didn't. He's dead and the killing laid at the doorstep of the Nihilists.'
The Graf thought about it and finally nodded in agreement. 'Very well, I understand that the Central Committee is in session in Rome. You will go there as my deputy, Peter, and exert what pressure you can to have me entered as a full member into the Committee. I assume that your strongest competitor for the honor will be the Prophet.'
Windsor said thoughtfully, 'Don't you think it would be better, Chief, if you went yourself? You've been a Candidate
Member for years but none of the Committee have ever met you. You'd throw more weight if you attended, I shouldn't wonder.'
The Graf grunted contempt of that opinion. 'Peter, I have not left the Wolfschloss for twenty years. The last time I did, three separate attempts were made on my life. The last nearly succeeded. No, I'll stay here. Keep in mind that the Prophet will also be represented by a deputy. He has no intention of permitting a rumor that he is so worldly as to belong to the World Club. Is there anything else?'
Peter said, 'One other item that ordinarily I wouldn't bother you with. A black named Horace Hampton, who seems, ah, an enigma. He is an active member of the Anti-Racist League in America and indications are that he will soon be raised to membership in their National Executive Committee. This Anti-Racist League has come under the scrutiny of the World Club. So long as they were confined to North America alone they could be largely ignored. But with the Central Committee about to take steps to expand the United States of the Americas, these militant anti- racists take on a new posture.'
'How do you mean?' the Graf said impatiently. 'The next step in the erecting of a World State is to invite
