Part 17 (2/2)

Rex Donaldson looked at him interestedly, ”And? What are your plans?”

Homer Crawford's face worked. ”My plans right at present are to stay alive, and you finding me so easily isn't heartening. However, it brings to mind some other problems which need solving, too.”

The rest of them fell silent, looking at him. His usual casual humor had dropped away, and his personality gripped them.

He stopped his pacing, and frowned down at them.

”El Ha.s.san is going to have to remain on the move. Always. There can be no capital city, no definite base, and it's going to be a poor idea to sleep twice in the same place.” He shook his head emphatically as though to deny reb.u.t.tal, which they hadn't actually made. ”El Ha.s.san's enemies mustn't know his location within twenty miles.”

”Twenty miles!” Cliff blurted.

Crawford stared at him, but unseeingly. ”Yes. At least half a dozen of our opponents possess nuclear weapons.”

Donaldson demured, sourly. ”A nuclear weapon hasn't been exploded for donkey's years and--”

”Of course not,” Homer snapped. ”Nor would anyone dare, anywhere else except in the wastes of the Sahara. A nuclear explosion in the Ahaggar would not go undetected and a controversy might go up in the Reunited Nations. But who could prove who had done it? And who, actually, would care if in the explosion a common foe of all was eliminated? But let the Arab Union, or possibly the Soviet Complex, or even others, learn definitely where El Ha.s.san is and a bomb could well devastate twenty square miles seeking him out.” Crawford shook his head. ”No, we've simply got to keep on the move.”

Donaldson said, even as he nodded agreement, ”And what other problems were you talking about?”

”Oh?” Homer said. ”Well, keeping on the move will serve to add mystery to the El Ha.s.san legend. It isn't good for this Tuareg encampment, for instance, to see too much of El Ha.s.san. A leader claiming domination of half a continent looks small potatoes in a desert camp of a few score tents. On the move, showing up here, there, the other place, for only a day or two at a time, is another proposition.”

He thought a moment. ”Remember DeGaulle?”

”How could we forget?” Rex Donaldson said wryly.

”He had one angle that couldn't be more correct. He said a leader had to keep remote, ever mysterious. He can't afford to have real intimates. Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin. None of them had a real friend to their name. The nearest to friends that Adolph the Aryan ever had, his old comrades of the beerhall days, such as Rhoem, he butchered in the blood purge. And Stalin? He managed to do away with every Old Bolshevik he knew in the days before the Party came to power.”

Cliff was staring at him. ”Hey,” he said. ”The one other thing one of these mystical leader types needs is a belief in his own destiny. To the point of clobbering all his intimates if he thinks they stand in his way.”

Homer broke into a sudden short laugh. ”Any qualms, Cliff?”

Cliff growled, ”I don't know. This dream of yours is growing. Where it might end--I don't know.”

As they were talking the cries of _Ul-Ul-Ul-Allah Akbar!_ had broken out again.

”Heavens to Betsy,” Isobel said. ”Another contingent of camelmen?”

But this time the newcomers were three in number and rode in air cus.h.i.+on hover-lorries, the twins of that used by Homer Crawford.

Rex Donaldson brought them up to the tent, saying, ”I didn't think you chaps were quite so close.”

Homer, Cliff and Isobel faced the new recruits. The three were dressed in khaki bushs.h.i.+rts, shorts and heavy walking shoes--British style.

Two were so obviously relatives that they could have been twins except for an age discrepancy of two or three years. They were smaller in stature than the Americans present, almost chunky, but their faces held education and cultivation. The third was slight of build, almost as wiry as Rex Donaldson, and seemed ever at ease.

The small, bent Bahaman made introductions. ”Gentlemen, let me present El Ha.s.san--Homer Crawford to you--formerly of the Reunited Nations African Development Project, formerly of the United States of the Americas.” His face twisted in his sour grimace of a grin. ”Now running for the office of tyrant of North Africa.”

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