the ruler of a small rich country that is powerless to remain independent without the friendship of great powers. I can do nothing for you or against you.”
Klee nodded his head in agreement. 'Of course that is true. But Bert Audick came to visit you and I know that had to do with the oil industry.
But let me tell you that Mr. Audick is in very serious trouble in the United States. He would be a very bad ally for you to have in the coming years. '
'And you would be a very good ally?' the Sultan asked, smiling.
'Yes,' Klee said. 'I am the ally that could save you. If you cooperate with me now.'
'Explain,' the Sultan said. He was obviously angered by the implied threat.
Klee spoke very carefully. 'Bert Audick is under indictment for conspiracy against the United States government because his mercenaries or those of his company fired on our planes bombing your city of Dak. And there are other charges. His oil empire could be destroyed under certain of our laws. He is not a strong ally at this moment.'
The Sultan said slyly, 'Indicted but not convicted. I understand that will be more difficult.'
'That is true,' Klee said. 'But in a few months Francis Kennedy will be reelected. His popularity will bring in a Congress that will ratify his programs. He will be the most powerful President in the history of the United States. Then Audick is doomed, I can assure you. And the power structure of which he is a part will be destroyed.'
'I still fail to see how I can help you,' the Sultan said. And then more imperiously, 'Or how you can help me. I understand you are in a delicate position yourself in your own country.'
'That may or may not be true,' Klee said. 'As for my position, which is delicate, as you say, that will be resolved when Kennedy is reelected. I am his closest friend and closest adviser and Kennedy is noted for his loyalty. As to how we can help each other, let me be direct without intending any disrespect. May I do so?'
The Sultan seemed to be impressed and even amused by this courtesy. 'By all means,' he said.
Klee said, 'First, and most important, here is how I can help you. I can be your ally. I have the ear of the President of the United States and I have his trust. We live in difficult times.'
The Sultan interrupted smilingly, 'I have always lived in difficult times.'
'And so you can appreciate what I am saying better than most,' Klee retorted sharply.
'And what if your Kennedy does not achieve his aims?' the Sultan said.
'Accidents befall, heaven is not always kind.'
Christian Klee was cold now as he answered, 'What you are saying is, what if the plot to kill Kennedy succeeds? I am here to tell you that it will not. I don't care how clever and daring the assassins may be. And if they try and fail and there is any trace to you, then you will be destroyed.
But it doesn't have to come to that. I'm a reasonable man and I understand your position. What I propose is an exchange of information between you and myself on a personal basis. I don't know what Audick proposed to you, but I'm a better bet. If Audick and his crowd wins, you still win. He doesn't know about us. If Kennedy wins, you have me as your ally. I'm your insurance.'
The Sultan nodded and then led him to a sumptuous banquet. During the meal the sultan asked Klee innumerable questions about Kennedy. Then finally, almost hesitantly, he asked about Yabril.
Klee looked him directly in the eye. 'There is no way that Yabril can escape his fate. If his fellow terrorists think they can get him released by holding even the most important of hostages, tell them to forget about it. Kennedy will never let him go.'
The Sultan sighed. 'Your Kennedy has changed,' he said. 'He sounds like a man going berserk.' Klee didn't answer. The Sultan went on very slowly. 'I think you have convinced me,' he said. 'I think you and I should become allies.'
When Christian Klee returned to the United States, the first person he went to see was the Oracle. The old man received him in his bedroom suite, sitting in his motorized wheelchair, an English tea spread on the table in front of him, a comfortable armchair waiting for Christian opposite.
The Oracle greeted him with a slight wave to indicate that he should sit down. Christian served him tea and a tiny bit of cake and a small finger sandwich, then served himself. The Oracle took a sip of tea and crumbled the bit of cake in his mouth. They sat there for a long moment.
Then the Oracle tried to smile, a slight movement of the lips, the skin so dead it barely moved. 'You've got yourself into a fine mess for your fucking friend Kennedy,' he said.
The vulgarism, spoken as if from the mouth of an innocent child, made Christian smile. Again he wondered, was it a mark of senility, a decaying of the brain, that the Oracle who had never used profanity was now using it so freely? He waited until he had eaten one of the sandwiches and gulped down some hot tea, then he answered, 'Which fix?' he said. 'I'm in a lot of them.'
'I'm talking about that atom bomb thing,' the Oracle said. 'The rest of the shit doesn't matter. But they are accusing you of being responsible for the murder of thousands of citizens of this country.
They've got the goods on you, it seems, but I refuse to believe you to be so stupid. Inhuman, yes-after all, you're in politics. Did you really do it?' The old man was not judgmental, just curious.
Who else in the world was there to tell? Who else in the world would understand? 'What I'm astonished about,' Klee said, 'is how quickly they got on to me.'
'The human mind leaps to an understanding of evil,' the Oracle said. 'You are surprised because there is a certain innocence in the doer of an evil deed. He thinks the deed so terrible that it is inconceivable to another human being. But that is the first thing they jump at. Evil is no mystery at all, love is the mystery.' He paused for a moment, started to speak again and then relaxed back in his chair, his eyes half closed, dozing.
'You have to understand,' Christian said, 'that letting something happen is so much easier than actually doing something. There was the crisis, Francis Kennedy was going to be impeached by the Congress. And I thought just for a second, if only the atom bomb exploded it would turn things around. It was in that moment that I told Peter Cloot not to interrogate
Gresse and Tibbot. I had the time to do it. The whole thing flashed by in that one second and it was done.'
The Oracle said, 'Give me some more hot tea and another piece of cake.'
He put the cake in his mouth, tiny crumbs appearing on his scarlike lips.
'Yes or no: Did you interrogate Gresse and Tibbot before the bomb exploded? You got the information out of them and then didn't act on it?'
Christian sighed. 'They were only kids. I squeezed them dry in five minutes. That's why I couldn't have Cloot at the interrogation. But I didn't want the bomb to explode. It just went so quick.'
The Oracle started to laugh. It was a curious laugh even in so old a man.
It was a series of grunted heh, heh, heh's. 'You've got it ass backwards,' the Oracle said. 'You had already made up your mind that you would let the bomb explode. Before you told Cloot not to interrogate them. It didn't go by in a second, you planned it all out.'
Christian Klee was a little startled. What the Oracle said was true.
'And all this to save your hero, Francis Kennedy,' the Oracle said. 'The man who can do no wrong except when he sets the whole world on fire.' The Oracle had placed a box of thin Havana cigars on the table; Christian took one of them and fit it. 'You were lucky,' the Oracle said. 'Those people that were killed were mostly worthless. The drunken, the homeless, the criminal. And it's not so great a crime. Not in the history of our human race.'
'Francis really gave me the go-ahead,' Klee said. And that made the Oracle touch a button on his chair so that the back of it straightened to make his body upright and alert.
'Your saintly President' the Oracle said. 'He is far too much a victim of his own hypocrisy, as all the Kennedys were. He could never be party to such an act.'
'Maybe I'm just trying to make excuses,' Christian said. 'It was nothing explicit. But I know Francis so intimately, we're almost like brothers. I asked him for the order so that the medical interrogation team would be able to do a brain probe. That would have settled the whole atom bomb problem immediately. And Francis refused to sign the authorization. Sure, he gave his grounds, good civil libertarian and humanitarian grounds. That was in his character. But that was in his character before his daughter was killed. Not in his character afterwards. And this was afterwards. Remember, he had already ordered the destruction of Dak by this time. He gave the threat that he
