Part 23 (2/2)

”Bey's a top man,” Homer told him. ”The best. He'll have some ideas on our tactics. Meanwhile, we can turn over most of his men to one of the new recruits, and head them down to take Fort Lamy. With Fort Lamy and Lake Chad in our hands we'll control a chunk of Africa so big everybody else will start wondering why they shouldn't jump on the bandwagon while the going is good.”

Dave said, ”Well, that brings up something else, Homer. These new recruits. In the past couple of days, forty or fifty men who used to be connected with African programs sponsored by everybody from the Reunited Nations to this gobblydygook outfit Cliff and Isobel once worked for, the AFAA, have come over to El Ha.s.san. The number will probably double by tomorrow, and triple the next day.”

”Fine,” Homer said. ”What's wrong with that? These are the people that will really count in the long run.”

”Nothing's wrong with it, within reason. But we're going to have to start becoming selective, Homer. We've got to watch what jobs we let these people have, how much responsibility we give them.”

Homer Crawford was frowning at him. ”How do you mean?”

”See here,” the wiry South African said plaintively, ”when El Ha.s.san started off there were only a half dozen or so who had the dream, as you call it. O.K. You could trust any one of them. Bey, Kenny, Elmer, Cliff, this Jake Armstrong that you've sent to New York, Rex Donaldson, then Jimmy and Jack Peters and myself. We all came in when the going was rough, if not impossible. But now things are different.

_It looks as though El Ha.s.san might actually win._”

”So?” Homer didn't get it.

”So from now on, you're going to have an infiltration of cloak and dagger lads from every outfit with an interest in North Africa.

Potential traitors, potential a.s.sa.s.sins, subversives and what not.”

Homer was scowling at him. ”Confound it, what do you suggest? That these Johnny-Come-Latelies be second-cla.s.s citizens?”

”Not exactly that, but this isn't funny. We've got to screen them. The trouble with this movement is that it's a one-man deal, and has to be.

The average African is either a barbarian or an actual savage, one ethnic degree lower. He wants a hero-symbol to follow. O.K., you're it. But remember both Moctezuma and Atahualpa. Their socio-economic systems pyramided up to them. The Spanish conquistadores, being old hands at sophisticated European-type intrigue, quickly sized up the situation. They kidnaped the hero-symbol, the big cheese, and later killed him. And the Inca and the Aztec cultures collapsed.”

Homer was scowling at him unhappily.

Dave summed it up. ”All we need is one fuzzy minded commie from the Soviet Complex, or one super-dooper democrat who thinks that El Ha.s.san stands in the way of _freedom_, whatever that is, and bingo a couple of bullets in your tummy and the El Ha.s.san movement folds its tents like the Arabs and takes a powder, as the old expression goes.”

”You have your point,” Homer Crawford admitted. ”Follow through, Dave.

Figure out some screening program.”

Cliff came in. ”Hey, Homer. Guess what old Jake has done.”

”Jake Armstrong?”

”He's swung the Africa for Africans a.s.sociation in New York over to us. They've raised a million bucks. What'll we do with it? How can he get anything to us?”

”We'll have him plow it back into publicity and further fund raising campaigns,” Homer said. ”That's the way it's done. You raise some money for some cause and then spend it all on a bigger campaign to raise still more money, and what you get from that one you plow into a still bigger campaign.”

Cliff said, ”Don't you _ever_ get anything out of it?”

Dave and Homer both laughed.

Cliff said, ”I've got some still better news.”

”Good news, we can use,” Homer said.

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