The Greatest Sci-Fi Works (Illustrated Edition). Mack Reynolds

he was speaking, his eyes moved in a way Homer Crawford recognized. He'd seen Abe Baker in action often enough. A gun flicked out of an under-the-arm holster, but Crawford moved in anticipation. The flat of his hand darted forward, chopped and the hand weapon was on the floor.

      As Isobel screamed, Abe countered the attack. He reached forward in a jujitsu maneuver, grabbed a coat sleeve and a handful of suit coat. He twisted quickly, threw the other man over one hip and to the floor.

      But Homer Crawford was already expertly rolling with the fall, rolling out to get a fresh start.

      Abe Baker knew that in the long go, in spite of his somewhat greater heft, he wouldn't be able to take his former chief in the other man's own field. Now he threw himself on the other, on the floor. Legs and arms tangled in half realized, quickly defeated holds and maneuvers.

      Abe called, "Quick, Isobel, the gun. Get the gun and cover him."

      She shook her head, desperately. "Oh no. No!"

      Abe bit out, his teeth grinding under the punishment he was taking, "That's an order, Comrade Cunningham! Get the gun!"

      "No. No, I can't!" She turned and fled the room.

      Abe muttered an obscenity, bridged and crabbed out of the desperate position he was in. And now his fingers were but a few inches from the weapon. He stretched.

      Homer Crawford, heavy veins in his own forehead from his exertions, panted, "Abe, I can't let you get that gun. Call it quits."

      "Can't, Homer," Abe gritted. His fingers were a few fractions of an inch from the weapon.

      Crawford panted, "Abe, there's just one thing I can do. A karate blow. I can chop your windpipe with the side of my hand. Abe, if I do, only immediate surgery could save your—"

      Abe's fingers closed about the gun and Crawford, calling on his last resources, lashed out. He could feel the cartilage collapse, a sound of air, for a moment, almost like a shriek filled the room.

      The gun was meaningless now. Homer Crawford, his face agonized, was on his knees beside the other who was threshing on the floor. "Abe," he groaned. "You made me."

      Abe Baker's face was quickly going ashen in his impossible quest for oxygen. For a last second there was a gleam in his eyes and his lips moved. Crawford bent down. He wasn't sure, but he thought that somehow the other found enough air to get out a last, "Crazy man."

      When it was over, Homer Crawford stood again, and looked down at the body, his face expressionless.

      From behind him a voice said, "So I got here too late."

      Crawford turned. It was Elmer Allen, gun in hand.

      Homer Crawford said dully, "What are you doing here?"

      Elmer looked at the body, then back at his chief. "Bey figured out what must have happened at the mosque there in Timbuktu. We didn't know what might be motivating Abe, but we got here as quick as we could."

      "He was a commie," Crawford said dully. "Evidently, the Party decided I stood in its way. Where are the others?"

      "Scouring the town to find you."

      Crawford said wearily, "Find the others and bring them here. We've got to get rid of poor Abe, there, and then I've got something to tell you."

      "Very well, chief," Elmer said, holstering his gun. "Oh, just one thing before I go. You know that chap Rex Donaldson? Well, we had some discussion after you left. This'll probably surprise you Homer, but—hold onto your hat, as you Americans say—Donaldson thinks you ought to become El Hassan. And Bey, Kenny and I agree."

      Crawford said, "We'll talk about it later, Elmer."

       * * * * *

      He knocked at her door and a moment later she came. She saw who it was, opened for him and returned to the room beyond. She had obviously been crying.

      Homer Crawford said, but with no reproach in his voice, "You should have helped me, to be consistent."

      "I knew you'd win."

      "Nevertheless, once you'd switched sides, you should have attempted to help me. If you had, maybe Abe would still be alive."

      She took a quick agonized breath, and sat down in one of the two chairs, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She said, "I ... I've known Abe since my early teens."

      He said nothing.

      "In college, he was the cell leader. He enlisted me into the Party."

      Crawford still didn't speak.

      She said defiantly, "He was an idealist, Homer."

      "I know that," Crawford said. "And along with it, he's saved my life, on at least three different occasions in the past few years. He was a good man."

      It was her turn to hold silence.

      Homer hit the palm of his left hand with the fist of his right. "That's what so many don't realize. They think this is all a kind of cowboys and Indians affair. The good guys and the bad guys fighting it out. And, of course, all the good guys are on our side and their side is composed of bad guys. They don't realize that many, even most, of the enemy are fighting for an ideal, too—and are willing to die for it, or do things sometimes even harder than dying."

      He paced the floor for an agonized moment, before adding. "The fact that the ideal is a false one—or so, at least, is my opinion—is beside the point."

      He suddenly dropped it and switched subjects. "This isn't as much a surprise to me as you possibly think, Isobel. There was only one way that episode in Timbuktu could have taken place. Abe was waiting for me to pass that mosque. But I had to pass. I had to be fingered as the old gangster expression had it. And you led me into the ambush."

      He looked down at her. "But what changed his mind? Why did he offer, tonight, to let me take over the El Hassan leadership?"

      Isobel said, her voice low. "In Timbuktu, when Abe saw the way things were going, he realized you'd have to be liquidated, otherwise El Hassan would be a leader the Party couldn't control. He tried to eliminate you, and then tried again with the cognac. Last night, however, he checked with local party leaders and they decided that he'd acted too precipitately. They suggested you be given the opportunity to line up with the Party."

      "And if I didn't?" Homer said.

      "Then you were to be liquidated."

      "So the finger is still on me, eh?"

      "Yes, you'll have to be careful."

      He looked full into her face. "How do you stand now?"

      She returned his frank look. "I'm the first follower to dedicate her services to El Hassan."

      "So you want to come along?"

      "Yes," she said simply.

      "And you remember what Abe said? That in the end the Hero invariably gets clobbered? Sooner or later, North Africa will outgrow the need for a Hero to follow and then ... then El Hassan and his closest followers have a good chance of winding up before a firing squad."

      "Yes, I know that."

      Homer Crawford ran his hand back over his short hair, wearily. "O.K., Isobel. Your first instructions are to contact those two friends of yours, Jake Armstrong and Cliff Jackson. Try to convert them."

      "What are you going to be doing ... El Hassan?"

      "I'm going over to the Reunited Nations to resign from the African Development Project. I have a sneaking suspicion that in the future they will not always be seeing eye to eye with El Hassan. Nor will the other organizations currently helping to advance Africa—whilst still at the same time keeping their own irons in the fire. Possibly the commies won't be the only ones in favor of liquidating El Hassan's assets."

      Border, Breed nor Birth