El Hassan, would-be tyrant of all North Africa, was on the run.
His followers at this point numbered six, one of whom was a wisp of a twenty-four year old girl. Arrayed against him and his dream, he knew, was the combined power of the world in the form of the Reunited Nations, and, in addition, such individual powers as the United States of the Americas, the Soviet Complex, Common Europe, the French Community, the British Commonwealth and the Arab Union, working both together and unilaterally.
Immediate survival depended upon getting into the Great Erg of the Sahara where even the greatest powers the world had ever developed would have their work cut out locating El Hassan and his people.
Bey-ag-Akhamouk who was riding next to Elmer Allen in the lead air cushion hover-lorry, held a hand high. Both of the solar powered desert vehicles ground to a halt.
Homer Crawford vaulted out of the seat of the second lorry before it had settled to the sand. “What’s up, Bey?” he called.
Bey pointed to the south and west. They were in the vicinity of Tessalit, in what was once known as French Sudan, and immediately to the south of Algeria. They were deliberately avoiding what little existed in this area in the way of trails, the Tanezrouft route which crossed the Sahara from Colomb-Béchar to Gao, on the Niger, was some fifty miles to the west.
Homer Crawford stared up into the sky in the direction Bey pointed and his face went wan.
The others were piling out of the vehicles.
“What is it?” Isobel Cunningham said, squinting and trying to catch what the others had already spotted.
“Aircraft,” Bey growled. “A rocket-plane.”
“Which means the military in this part of the world,” Homer said.
The rest of them looked to him for instructions, but Bey suddenly took over. He said to Homer, “You better get on over beneath that outcropping of rock. The rest of us will handle this.”
Homer looked at him.
Bey said, flatly, “If one of the rest of us gets it, or even if all of us do, the El Hassan movement goes on. But if something happens to you, the movement dies. We’ve already taken our stand and too much is at stake to risk your life.”
Homer Crawford opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. He reached inside the solar-powered lorry and fetched forth a Tommy-Noiseless and started for the rock outcropping at a trot. Having made his decision, he wasn’t going to cramp Bey-ag-Akhamouk’s style with needless palaver.
Isobel Cunningham, Cliff Jackson, Elmer Allen and Kenny Ballalou gathered around the tall, American educated Tuareg.
“What’s the plan?” Elmer said. Either he or Kenny Ballalou could have taken over as competently, but they were as capable of taking orders as giving them, a desirable trait in fighting men.
Bey was still staring at the oncoming speck. He growled, “We can’t even hope he hasn’t seen the pillars of sand and dust these vehicles throw up. He’s spotted us all right. And we’ve got to figure he’s looking for us, even though we can hope he’s not.”
The side of his mouth began to tic, characteristically. “He’ll make three passes. The first one high, as an initial check. The second time he’ll come in low just to make sure. The third pass and he’ll clobber us.”
The aircraft was coming on, high but nearer now.
“So,” Elmer said reasonably, “we either get him the second pass he makes, or we’ve had it.” The young Jamaican’s lips were thinned back over his excellent teeth, as always when he went into combat.
“That’s it,” Bey agreed. “Kenny, you and Cliff get the flac rifle, and have it handy in the back of the second truck. Be sure he doesn’t see it on this first pass. Elmer, get on the radio and check anything he sends.”
Kenny Ballalou and the hulking Cliff Jackson ran to carry out orders.
Isobel said, “Got an extra gun for me?”
Bey scowled at her. “You better get over there with Homer where it’s safer.”
She said evenly, “I’ve always considered myself a pacifist, but when somebody starts shooting at me, I forget about it and am inclined to shoot back.”
“I haven’t got time to argue with you,” Bey said. “There aren’t any extra guns except handguns and they’d be useless.” As he spoke, he pulled his own Tommy-Noiseless from its scabbard on the front door of the air cushion lorry, and checked its clip of two hundred .10 caliber ultra-high velocity rounds. He flicked the selector to the explosive side of the clip.
The plane was roaring in on what would be its first pass, if Bey had guessed correctly. If he had guessed incorrectly, this might be the end. A charge of napalm would fry everything for a quarter of a mile around, or the craft might even be equipped with a mini-fission bomb. In this area a minor nuclear explosion would probably go undetected.
Bey yelled, “Don’t anybody even try to fire at him at this range. He’ll be back. It takes half the sky to turn around in with that crate, but he’ll be back, lower next time.”
Cliff Jackson said cheerlessly, “Maybe he’s just looking for us. He won’t necessarily take a crack at us.”
Bey grunted. “Elmer?”
“Nothing on the radio,” Elmer said. “If he was just scouting us out, he’d report to his base. But if his orders are to clobber us, then he wouldn’t put it on the air.”
The plane was turning in the sky, coming back.
Cliff argued, “Well, we can’t fire unless we know if he’s just hunting us out, or trying to do us in.”
Elmer said patiently, “For just finding us, that first pass would be all he needed. He could radio back that he’d found us. But if he comes in again, he’s looking for trouble.”
“Here he comes!” Bey yelled. “Kenny-Cliff ... the rifle!”
Isobel suddenly dashed out into the sands a dozen yards or so from the vehicles and began running around and around in a circle as though demented.
Bey stared at her. “Get back here,” he roared. “Under one of the trucks!”
She ignored him.
The rocket-plane was coming in, low and obviously as slow as the pilot could retard its speed.
The flac rifle began jumping and tracers reached out from it—inaccurately. The Tommy-Noiseless automatics in the hands of Bey and Elmer Allen gave their silenced flic flic flic sounds, equally ineffective.
On the ultra-stubby wings of the fast moving aircraft, a row of brilliant cherries flickered and a row of explosive shells plowed across the desert, digging twin ditches, miraculously going between the air cushion lorries but missing both. It was upon them, over and gone, before the men on the ground could turn to fire after.
Elmer Allen muttered an obscenity under his breath.
Cliff Jackson looked around in desperation. “What can we do now? He won’t come close enough for us to even fire at him, next time.”
Bey said nothing. Isobel had collapsed into the sand. Elmer Allen looked over at her. “Nice try, Isobel,” he said. “I think he came in lower and slower than he would have otherwise—trying to see what the devil it was you were doing.”
She shrugged, hopelessly.
“Hey!” Kenny Ballalou pointed.
The rocketcraft was wobbling, shuddering, in the sky. Suddenly it burst into a black cloud of fire and smoke and explosion.
At the same moment, Homer Crawford got up from the sand dune behind which he’d stationed himself and plowed awkwardly through the sand toward them.
Bey glared at him.
Homer shrugged and said, “I checked the way he came in the first time and figured he’d repeat the run. Then I got behind that dune there and faced in the other direction and started firing where I thought he’d be, a few seconds before he came over. He evidently ran right into it.”
Bey said indignantly, “Look, wise guy, you’re no longer the leader of a five-man Reunited Nations African Development Project team. Then, you were expendable. Now, you’re El Hassan. You give the orders. Other people are expendable.”
Homer Crawford grinned at him, somewhat ruefully and held up his hands as though in supplication. “Listen to the man, is that any way to talk to El Hassan?”
Elmer Allen said worriedly, “He’s right, though, Homer. You shouldn’t take chances.”
Homer Crawford went serious. “Actually, none of us should, if we can avoid it. In a way, El Hassan isn’t one person. It’s this team here, and Jake Armstrong, who by this time I hope is on his way to the States.”
Bey was shaking his head in stubborn determination. “No,” he said. “I’m not sure that you comprehend this yourself, Homer, but you’re Number One. You’re the symbol, the hero these people are going to follow if we put this thing over. They couldn’t understand a sextet leadership. They want a leader, someone to dominate and tell them what to do. A team you need, admittedly, but not so much as the team needs you. Remember Alexander? He had a team starting off with Aristotle for a brain-trust, and Parmenion, one of the greatest generals of all time for his right-hand man. Then he had a group of field men such as Ptolemy, Antipater, Antigonus and Seleucus—not to be rivaled until Napoleon built his team, two thousand years later. And what happened to this super-team when Alexander died?”
Homer looked at him thoughtfully.
Bey wound it up doggedly. “You’re our Alexander. Our Caesar. Our Napoleon. So don’t go getting yourself killed, damn it. Excuse me, Isobel.”
Isobel grinned her pixielike grin. “I agree,” she said. “Dammit.”
Homer said, “I’m not sure I go all along with you or not. We’ll think about it.” His voice took a sharper note. “Let’s go over and see if there’s enough left in that wreckage to give us an idea of who the pilot represented. I can’t believe it was a Reunited Nations man, and I’d like to know who, of our potential enemies, dislikes the idea of El Hassan so much that they figure we should all be bumped off before we even get under way.”
It had begun—if there is ever a beginning—in Dakar. In the offices of Sven Zetterberg the Swedish head of the Sahara Division of the African Development Project of the Reunited Nations.
Homer Crawford, head of a five-man trouble-shooting team, had reported for orders. In one hand he held them, when he was ushered into the other’s presence.
Zetterberg shook hands abruptly, said, “Sit down, Dr. Crawford.”
Homer Crawford looked at the secretary who had ushered him in.
Zetterberg said, scowling, “What’s the matter?”
“I think I have something to be discussed privately.”
The secretary shrugged and turned and left.
Zetterberg, still scowling, resumed his own place behind the desk and said, “Claud Hansen is a trusted Reunited Nations man. What could possibly be so secret...?”
Homer indicated the orders he held. “This assignment. It takes some consideration.”
Sven Zetterberg was not a patient man. He said, in irritation, “It should be perfectly clear. This El Hassan we’ve been hearing so much about. This mystery man come out of the desert attempting to unify all North America. We want to talk to him.”
“Why?” Crawford said.
“Confound it,” Zetterberg snapped. “I thought we’d gone into this yesterday. In spite of the complaints that come into this office in regard to your cavalier tactics in carrying out your assignments, you and your team are our most competent operatives. So we’ve given you the assignment of finding El Hassan.”
“I mean, why do you want to talk to him?”
The Swede glared at him for a moment, as though the American was being deliberately dense. “Dr. Crawford,” he said, “when the African Development Project was first begun we had high hopes. Seemingly all Reunited Nations members were being motivated by high humanitarian reasons. Our task was to bring all Africa to a level of progress comparable to the advanced nations. It was more than a duty, it was a crying need, a demand. Africa is and has been throughout history a have-not continent. While Europe, the Americas, Australia and now even Asia, industrialized and largely conquered man’s old socio-economic problems, Africa lagged behind. The reasons were manifold, colonialism, lingering tribal society ... various others. Now that very lagging has become a potential explosive situation. With the coming of antibiotics and other break-throughs in medicine, the African population is growing with an all but geometric progression. So fast is it growing, that what advances were being made did less than keep up the level of per capita gross product. It was bad enough to have a per capita gross product averaging less than a hundred dollars a year, but it actually sank below that point.”
Homer Crawford was nodding.
Zetterberg continued the basic lecture with which he knew the other was already completely familiar. “So the Reunited Nations took on the task of advancing as rapidly as possible the African economy and all the things that must be done before an economy can be advanced. It was self-preservation, I suppose. Have-not nations, not to speak of have-not races and have-not continents, have a tendency eventually to explode upon their wealthier neighbors.”
The Swede pressed his lips together before continuing. “Unfortunately, the Reunited Nations as the United Nations and the League of Nations before it, is composed of members each with its own irons in the fire. Each with its own plans and schemes.” His voice was bitter now. “The Arab Union with its desire to unite all Islam into one. The Soviet Complex with its ultimate dream of a soviet world. The capitalistic economies of the British Commonwealth, Common Europe, and your United States of the Americas, with their hunger for, positive need for, sources of raw materials and markets for their manufactured products. All, though playing lip service to the African Development Project, have still their own ambitions.”
Sven Zetterberg waggled a finger at Homer Crawford. “I do not charge that your United States is attempting to take over Africa, or even any section of it, in the old colonialistic sense. Even England and France have discovered that it is much simpler to dominate economically than to go through all the expense and effort of governing another people. That is the basic reason they gave up their empires. No, your United States would love to so dominate Africa that her products, her entrepreneurs, would flood the continent to the virtual exclusion of such economic competitors as Common Europe. The Commonwealth feels the same, so does the French Community. The Soviets and Arabs have different motivations, but they, too, wish to take over. The result....” The Swede tossed up his hands in a gesture more Gallic than Scandinavian.
“What has all this got to do with El Hassan?” Homer Crawford asked softly.
The Swede leaned forward. “If we more devoted adherents of the Reunited Nations are ever to see our hopes come true, Africa must be united and made strong. And this must be done through the efforts of Africans not Russians, British, French, Arabs ... nor even Scandinavians. Socio-economic changes should not, possibly cannot, be inflicted upon a people from without. Look at the mess the Russians made in such countries as Hungary, or the Americans in such as South Korea.”
“The people themselves must have the dream,” Crawford said softly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. Go on.”
Zetterberg said, “On the surface, great progress seems to be continuing. Afforestation of the Sahara, the solar pumps creating new oases, the water purification plants on the Atlantic and Mediterranean, pushing back the desert, the oil fields, the mines, the roads, the damming of the Niger. But already cracks can be seen. A week or so ago, a team of Cubans, supposedly, at least, in the Sudan to improve sugar refining methods, were machine-gunned to death. By whom? By the Sudanese? Unlikely. No, this Cuban massacre was one of many recent signs of conflict between the great powers in their efforts to dominate. Our problem, of course, deals only with North Africa, but I have heard rumors in Geneva that much the same situation is developing in the south as well.”
“At any rate, Dr. Crawford, when the rumors of El Hassan began to come into this office they brought with them a breath of hope. From all we have heard, he teaches our basic program—a breaking down of old tribal society, education, economic progress, Pan-African unity. Dr. Crawford, no one with whom this office is connected seems ever to have seen this El Hassan but we are most anxious to talk to him. Perhaps this is the man behind whom we can throw our support. Your task is to find him.”
Homer Crawford raked the fingers of his right hand back over his short wiry hair, and grimaced. He said, “It won’t be necessary.”
“I beg your pardon, Doctor?”
Crawford said, “It won’t be necessary to go looking for El Hassan.”
The Swede scowled his irritation at the other. “See here....”
Crawford said, “I’m El Hassan.”
Sven Zetterberg stared at him, uncomprehending.
Homer Crawford said, “I suppose it’s your turn to listen and for me to do the talking.” He shifted in his chair, uncomfortably. “Dr. Zetterberg, even before the Reunited Nations evolved the idea of the African Development Project, it became obvious that the field work was going to have to be in the hands of Negroes. The reason is doublefold. First, the African doesn’t trust the white man, for good reason. Second, the white man is a citizen of his own country, first of all, and finds it difficult not to have motives connected with his own race and nation. But the African Negro, too, has his tribal and sometimes national affiliations and cannot be trusted not to be prejudiced in their favor. The answer? The educated American Negro, such as myself.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea from whence came my ancestors, from what part of Africa, what tribe, what nation. But I am a Negro and ... well, have the dream of bettering my race. I have no irons in the fire, beyond altruistic ones. Of course, when I say American Negroes I don’t exclude Canadian ones, or those of Latin America or the Caribbean. It is simply that there are greater numbers of educated American Negroes than you find elsewhere.”
Zetterberg said impatiently, “Please, Dr. Crawford. Come to the point. That ridiculous statement you made about El Hassan.”
“Of course, I am merely giving background. Most of we field workers, not only the African Development teams, but such organizations as the Africa for Africans Association and the representatives of the African Department of the British Commonwealth, and of the French Community’s African Affairs sector, are composed of Negroes.”
Zetterberg was nodding. “All right, I know.”
Homer Crawford said, “The teams of all these organizations do their best to spur African progress, in our case, in North Africa, especially the area between the Niger and the Mediterranean. Often we disguise ourselves as natives since in that manner we are more quickly trusted. We wear the clothes, speak the local language or lingua franca.”
The American hesitated a moment, then plunged in. “Dr. Zetterberg, the African is still a primitive but newly beginning to move out of a tradition-ritual-taboo tribal society. He seeks a hero to follow, a man of towering prestige who knows the answers to all questions. We may not like this fact, we with our traditions of democracy, but it is so. The African is simply not yet at that stage of society where political democracy is applicable.”
“My team does most of its work posing as Enaden—low caste itinerant smiths of the Sahara. As such we can go any place and are everywhere accepted, a necessary sector of the Saharan economy. As such, we continually spread the ... ah, propaganda of the Reunited Nations—the need for education, the need for taking jobs on the new projects, the need for casting aside old institutions and embracing the new. Early in the game we found our words had little weight coming from simple Enaden smiths so we ... well, invented this mysterious El Hassan, and everything we said we attributed to him.”
“News spreads fast in the desert, astonishingly fast. El Hassan started with us but soon other teams, hearing about him and realizing that his message was the same as that they were trying to propagate, did the same thing. That is, attributed the messages they had to spread to El Hassan. It was amusing when a group of us got together last week in Timbuktu, to find that we’d all taken to kowtowing to this mythical desert hero who planned to unite all North Africa.”
The Swede was staring at him unbelievingly. “But, a bit earlier you said you were El Hassan.”
Homer Crawford looked into his chief’s face and nodded seriously. “I’ve been conferring with various other field workers, both Reunited Nations and otherwise. The situation calls for a real El Hassan. If we don’t provide him, someone else will. I propose to take over the position.”
Sven Zetterberg’s face was suddenly cold. “And why, Dr. Crawford, do you think you are more qualified than others?”
The American Negro could hardly fail to note the other’s disapproval. He said evenly, but definitely, “Through experience. Through education. Through ... through having the dream, Dr. Zetterberg.”
“The Reunited Nations cannot support such a project, Dr. Crawford. I absolutely forbid you to consider it.”
“Forbid me?”
It was as though a strange something entered the atmosphere of the room, almost as though a new presence was there. And almost, it seemed to Sven Zetterberg, that the already tall, solidly built man across from him grew physically as his voice seemed to swell, to reach out, to dominate. There was a new, and all but unbelievable Homer Crawford here.
The Swedish official regathered his forces. This was ridiculous. He said again, “I forbid you to....” the sentence dribbled away under the cold disdain in the air now.
Homer Crawford said flatly, “You don’t seem to understand, Zetterberg. The Reunited Nations has no control over El Hassan. Homer Crawford, as of this meeting, has resigned his post with the African Development Project. And El Hassan has begun his task of uniting all North Africa.”
Sven Zetterberg, shaken by this new and unsuspected force the other seemed to be able to bring to his command, fought back. “It will be simple to discredit you, to let it be known that you are no more than an ambitious American out to seize power illegally.”
Crawford’s scorn held an element of amusement. “Try it. I suspect your attempts to discredit El Hassan will prove unsuccessful. He has already been rumored to be everything from an Ethiopian to the Second Coming of the Messiah. Your attempt to brand him an American adventurer will be swallowed up in the flood of other rumor.”
The Swede was still shaken by the strange manner in which his once subordinate had suddenly dominated him. Sven Zetterberg was not a man to be dominated, to be made unsure.
Time folded back on itself and for a moment he was again a lad and on vacation with his father in Bavaria. They were having lunch in the famed Hofbraühaus, largest of the Munich beercellars, and even a ten-year-old could sense an anticipation in the air, particularly among the large number of brownshirted men who had gathered to one side of the ground level of the beer hall. His father was telling Sven of the history of the medieval building when a silence fell. Into the beer hall had come a pasty faced, trenchcoat garbed little man, his face set in stern lines but insufficiently to offset the ludicrous mustache. He was accompanied by an elderly soldier in the uniform of a Field Marshal, by a large tub of a man whose face beamed—but evilly—and by a pinch faced cripple. All were men of command, all except the pasty faced one, to whom they seemingly and surprisingly, deferred. And then he stood on a heavy chair and spoke. And then his power reached out and grasped all within reach of his shrill voice. Grasped them and compelled them and they became a shouting, red faced, arm brandishing mob, demanding to be led to glory. And Sven’s father had bustled the shocked boy from the building.
It came back to him now, clearly and forcefully, and he realized that whatever it was with which the Beast of Berchtesgaden had enchanted his people, that power was on call in Homer Crawford. Whether he used it for good or evil, that enchanting power was on call. And again Sven Zetterberg was shaken.
Homer Crawford was on his feet, preparatory to leaving.
The Swede simply had to reassert himself. “Dr. Crawford, the Reunited Nations is not without resources. You’ll be arrested before you leave Dakar.”