host country.'
Frank Pinell squared his shoulders. 'All right. What country are you sending me to?'
'To a certain point, that is your decision. Obviously, the advanced nations will not accept you. However, some Third-World nations will take you under certain circumstances. Their situation is something like Australia and the American colony of Georgia when they were first colonized. They needed population desperately, so England allowed convicts to decide whether to spend their sentences in jail or to be hanged, as the case might be, or to become colonists.'
***proffedto here***
'What's that got to do with here and now?' Pinell said, impatient at the older man's ramblings.
'In some nations, particularly in Africa and Indonesia, even partially educated persons are in very short supply. Some of them, upon gaining independence from the former colonial powers, had no university graduates whatsoever. No doctors, no engineers, no lawyers—no one really competent to hold high government office. Later, with the support of the Reunited Nations and the assistance of the more advanced countries, they were able to send students to America and Europe, in hopes of alleviating this problem. Unfortunately, the majority of such students chose to remain in the advanced countries or, at least, to emigrate to nations less backward than their own. A facet of the brain drain, in short.'
'So I've got to choose a country so desperate for even semi-educated manpower that they'll admit killers as immigrants.'
'I'm afraid that's it, Franklin. Mozambique, for instance, or the Seychelles, where the climate is said to be excellent, though the islands are rather small and isolated.'
'Any place where there'd be more whites? More people I could speak the language with?' The prisoner's voice had grown sullen.
The judge took up a sheaf of papers from his desk. He perused it a few minutes before saying, 'According to your dossier, your schooling was far above average for these days. And while you were never chosen for regular employment by the National Data Banks, you have on several occasions held down minor, short-term positions. This would undoubtedly make you eligible for residence in Morocco, or at least Tangier.'
'Tangier?'
The judge, his tone unhappy, said, 'A disreputable city immediately across from Gibraltar on the North African coast. Although nominally part of the Sherifian Empire, and subject to the Sultan, it's an International Zone where few laws seem to apply. There is no extradition, for instance, and few taxes. With the possible exceptions of Nassau and Malta, it is usually considered to be the, ah, most wide-open city in the world.'
'Many Americans there?'
'The population is international. You'd find many English-speaking residents. However, anyone seeking to rehabilitate himself would find Tangier an unhealthy atmosphere, I should think. Its reputation is rank indeed.'
Frank Pinell grunted, impatient again. 'Who said anything about rehabilitation? All right, I'll take Tangier.'
Pinell was kept in a detention cell in a high-security prison in New Jersey only two nights before the plainclothes agents came for him. They were typical of the breed, lower echelon operatives of the largest police organization in the world— unless the Soviet Complex held that honor. The Inter-American Bureau of Investigation was a product of its times, which led to amalgamation of just about all areas of the productive or governmental systems. In this case, it applied to the police. The all-embracing IABI included what had once been the FBI, the CIA, all military espionage and counterespionage services, the Secret Service, all state police, and all local police forces. Each former group had a certain amount of autonomy, but ultimately they were all a part of the great law enforcement octopus which was the IABI, presided over by Director John Warfield Moyer. For more than two decades Moyer had dominated the American police system like a colossus.
The two were inconspicuous young men of averages, deliberately chosen to blend into a group—average of height, weight, coloring, facial characteristics, and dressed to conform. Frank Pinell had come in contact with them before, particularly in the past two months since his latest and most serious fall. They could all have been clones from one source.
When the cell door opened, one of them said, 'Okay, Pinell, get your things. You're on your way.'
He had two suitcases. They were packed with all of his earthly belongings, save the suit he wore. It was a conservative suit, government issue, just slightly above usual prole standards. Even so, it was as good as Franklin Pinell had ever worn. They were also to issue him a thousand pseudo-dollars in the form of Swiss gold coinage, the judge had told him. He had never had, at one time, such a sum. There was something ironic about the fact that as a criminal deportee, the State was sending him off in better shape than he had ever enjoyed as a free citizen.
He took up the bags and went out into the corridor saying, 'You mean everything has already been cleared for me to emigrate to Morocco?'
'Tangier,' one of them said. 'It's not exactly Morocco. And as far as allowing you to immigrate, they'd take Jack the Ripper in that town. Come on, Pinell. I'm MacDonald and this is Roskin. We're your escort. Just for the record, we're under orders to shoot if you try to escape between here and the Tangier airport.'
'My chum-pals,' Frank muttered.
'And just for the record,' Roskin added, 'if you crack smart you'll wind up with dentures.'
MacDonald brought forth handcuffs and joined his left wrist to Frank's right.
Frank said, 'For Christ's sake, how can I carry my bags, shackled like this?'
'You carry one of them under your left arm and the other by its handle,' Roskin told him. 'You didn't expect us to act as your porters, did you? If it's too much, you can leave one of them. They probably don't contain anything worth having anyway. Whoever heard of a prole with anything worth owning? He'd flog it to buy syntho-beer.'
Frank looked at him coldly, even as he fumbled the smaller of the two suitcases up under his left arm and took the other in his left hand. The weight of the two put him somewhat off balance. He said, 'I have a few family mementos. My father wasn't exactly a prole.'
MacDonald grunted disinterest. 'Oh? Well, he didn't seem to pass anything great along to you. What happened to him?'
'He was shot to death,' Frank said flatly. 'Are we or aren't we getting out of this stinkhole?'
'Don't press your luck, smartass,' Roskin told him, leading the way down the prison corridor toward freedom.
At the Long Island shuttleport they were lobbed over to the International Supersonic Port, which floated some twenty miles off the coast, and from there took the next laserboost to a similar jetport stationed off Lisbon. A shuttlecraft lobbed them over to Madrid. Next stop: Tangier.
While Roskin was checking out their reservations, Mac-Donald and Frank Pinell waited in the terminal.
The IABI man said, 'Too bad you can't take time out to see Madrid, Pinell. Great town for a fling. Prettiest mopsies in Common Europe. You pick them up at Chicote's bar, where they've got the biggest collection of guzzle in the world. Oh, you'd love Chicote's. They've got a jog of Chinese brandy going back to the Ming Dynasty. Something like a thousand years old.'
'Maybe I'll see that guzzle museum someday.'
The other laughed nastily. 'Not you, chum-pal. You'll spend the rest of your life in Taniger, knocking back rotgut absinthe—when you can afford it. The asshole of creation, Tangier'
'How big is it?'
'A few square miles. Before you can get up a good dog trot, you're over the International Zone boundary, which is taboo. Then the Moroccan police throw you in the slammer. The dungeons in Morocco go back to the days of Harun-al-Rashid. Not that you've ever heard of him.'
'Calif of Baghdad in the
Roskin came back with their reservations and hurried them up. 'Royal Air Maroc,' he said. 'This airline you've got to see to believe.'
'Flying carpets?' Pinell muttered.
The flying equipment of Royal Air Maroc was obviously secondhand from more prosperous lines, but the old- fashioned jet got them there. They landed at the shabby airport on the outskirts of Tangier in the afternoon.
The three had been the only passengers from Madrid, save for two swarthy-looking types, both wearing red fezzes but garbed in European dress, and wearing it as though it was a penance. On the way down Frank had heard
