But once he had, the information he acquired only complicated the problem of retrieving the jeweled phallus. After stealing the temple art from Nepal, the gang had not only crossed back into India, but had kept going across the narrow Gangtok passage until they'd crossed the border of East Pakistan. It was here that they had a contact with an international fence who took the loot off their hands for a fragment of its actual value.
The complexities of tracing the idol further once Singh had established these facts stemmed from the delicate international relations between Nepal, India, and East Pakistan. Nepal is traditionally a country of determined isolationists. The mountains ringing it provide a natural geographic barrier to keep foreigners out. The attitude of the government is to maintain and strengthen this barrier. Thus the only part of Nepal which foreigners are allowed to visit is the Valley of Kathmandu. Officially, no outlander has ever set foot in any other part of Nepal. And, it's only since 1927 that even Kathmandu has been open to foreigners. At that time a narrow- gauge railway was built from the Indian border town of Raxaul to Kathmandu. Today special permission from the Maharajadhiraj himself is still required for the non-Nepalese to travel this railroad. And it is still the only means of transport into the country.
One of the reasons for this is that the Indians and the Nepalese still regard each other as natural enemies. This stems from the active role of the Gurkhas in maintaining British rule in India until the recent present. Another is the fact that Nepal still maintains cordial relations with Tibet, which it also borders, and the Indians consider Tibet a satellite of Red China and are fearful of Nepal being used as an invasion route by the Red Chinese.
Nor has Nepal particularly cordial relations with East Pakistan. There too the role of the Gurkhas in fighting for the British is still remembered bitterly. But East Pakistan is today far more concerned with its running quarrel with India to vent more than a historical dislike on Nepal. And the bitterness of this quarrel is such that there is no reciprocal extradition agreement between the two countries.
Thus Singh was faced with a gang of thieves which had shrewdly crossed two borders – the Nepal-India border, and the India-East Pakistan border – and involved three countries in their activities, three countries whose police refused to cooperate with each other. Realizing this, Singh gave up on the idea of trying to catch and prosecute the thieves. Instead, he decided to concentrate on the job of getting the priceless phallus back.
To do this, Singh went to East Pakistan and himself picked up the trail of the fence who had received the stolen works of art. The Raj Guru provided Singh with some minor sculptures to peddle to the fence. Passing himself off as a Gangtok hill bandit, Singh did this and then arranged to have the fence followed day and night. He led Singh back to India, clear across the country to New Delhi. Here an organization relieved the fence of his stolen goods. That organization was S.M.U.T.
Another year's work was involved before Singh was able to piece together the fantastic details of the S.M.U.T. operation. What it came to was this: the New Delhi chapter of S.M.U.T. was on the surface an organization pursuing two legitimate aims. One of these was a strong propaganda campaign against the birth-control program then being put into effect by the Indian government. No country in the world was suffering from the population explosion so much as India, but that didn't stop S.M.U.T. from actively opposing it on the grounds that it was a diabolical plan for the U.N. to take over India for the purpose of turning it into a colony of the U.S. which was supplying the bulk of the funds for the birth-control program as part of its imperialist plot to dominate India.
S.M.U.T.'s second public function in New Delhi was similar to its activities in the U.S. and other parts of the world. It was engaged in a crusade against pornography and pushing a drive to have all such objects, books, etc., confiscated and taken out of circulation. In India, where religion itself is interwoven with sex, there was much for S.M.U.T. to crusade against.
But Singh learned that these surface activities were also a smokescreen to obscure another activity of S.M.U.T. It was this activity which enabled S.M.U.T. to acquire the large sums of money needed to finance its operations around the world. It was this activity which lay behind the thefts of the jeweled phallus.
S.M.U.T. was the receiver of many priceless relics from temples all over Asia. All of these objects had one things in common. They were all erotic in one way or another.
Having acquired them at a fraction of their real value from bands of thieves dealing with fences in many parts of Asia, S.M.U.T.'s real profit lay in disposing of them. This was done under the table in cities all over the world. But the really nefarious thing was that after it was done, S.M.U.T. would blow the whistle on the buyers for possessing pornographic items, have the local police confiscate them, and then have a front man step in claiming to be the real owner. Since the buyer had come into illegal possession, he would be hard put to prove his claim. Usually the police were anxious to dispose of the case, and 'proof of ownership' took them off the hook and saved them the trouble of prosecuting. The S.M.U.T. front man would promise to take the offending object out of the country, and this was usually enough to smooth things out all around. And he would take it out of the country – to some other part of the world where the whole process would be repeated.
Singh learned that this was what had been done with the jeweled phallus. At the time that he learned it, the object had just been sold to a wealthy Texan, and the process of recovering it with the cooperation of an extremely crooked local sheriff had been about to begin. So Singh had wangled an assignment from S.M.U.T. to go to New York and dispose of some other items to undercover buyers. His thought had been that once in New York he might continue on to Texas and somehow recover the jeweled phallus.
But he was too late. The phallus had been reconfiscated and shipped out of the country by the time he arrived in New York. Learning this, he had no choice but to continue his role as a S.M.U.T. representative and try to find out where the object had been sent. In line with this, he had contacted the New York S.M.U.T. office and accepted the invitation to go along on the brothel raid. It was his thought that by ingratiating himself in this way, he would be able to milk some information regarding the fate of the four-foot phallus.
It was quite a story, and it fit in with what I knew about S.M.U.T. as far as it went. But it didn't tell me how such Singh knew about me and my assignment. More important, it didn't explain
'You said before that you know who I am and what my mission is,' I told him. 'What did you mean by that?'
'When I discovered the scope of S.M.U.T.'s activities, I became concerned as to what their real objective was. So, back in New Delhi, I made contact with an agent from Nepal and he relayed my concern back to the Maharajadhiraj. He took it up with the British envoy who is permanently attached to the court. As you know, Mr. Victor, our relations with the British are extremely close and extremely friendly. They go back for more than a century and are of mutual benefit. We supply Gurkha troops to the British and today they guarantee our borders against Indian aggression. Well, it seems that the British were already concerned about S.M.U.T. themselves. The word brought back to me from the Maharajadhiraj was to make contact with their secret agents and co-operate with them in every way possible. When I arranged to come to New York, the British consulted with the Americans and decided to fill me in on your involvement on the chance that our paths might cross and I might be of some help to you.'
'Just what did they tell you about me?' I asked cautiously.
'That you are the man from O.R.G.Y. acting in the interests of your government. And that your purpose in infiltrating S.M.U.T. is to locate a Russian woman known as Dr. Nyet who defected from the Soviet to S.M.U.T. They did not tell me, however, just why this woman is so important.'
'Well, we all have to keep some little secrets,' I pointed out to Singh.
'Then you won't tell me, either. Very well. Despite your suspicions, I have some information which may be useful to you. You have been much closer to the lady you seek than you would ever dream.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean that you have met her. Tonight. She was one of the three girls from S.M.U.T. whom you helped to escape from the brothel.'
'I don't believe it! Why would they take the risk of sending her there?'
'To hide her. What better place? You see, they know you are a secret agent. They knew you were coming, and they suspected what you might be after.'
'How could they know?'
'The Russians gave you away.'
'The Russians? But that's crazy! I haven't had anything to do with the Russians.'
'Not recently. That's true. But,' Singh explained, 'you have crossed swords with the N.K.V.D. in the past, haven't you?'
'Yes,' I admitted.
'Then I'm afraid you and your government have underrated them. They had you under surveillance all the time
