"To keep the world frightened as long as possible."
"Fine! Admirable! That is exactly what I intend doing. War is often an emotional stimulant, or at least can be given a romantic gloss. I find that fear of war is much more debilitating. So I want to continue piling crisis on crisis, making first one side panicky and then the other.
"Eventually, of course, the world will come to accept war as inevitable, and feel that they want to get it over with. At that point I shall allow war to come. Then the hysterical apathy produced by constant fear will be drowned in the reality of war's horror. That point, however, has not yet been reached." Johnson lit a cigar. "Right now there is danger of either war or peace breaking out in Europe. The aggressors can't increase their production of munitions. But their economies are based on arms manufacture; if they stop producing them, they will collapse, or be overthrown from below. Obviously, I can't let them go to war, stop producing munitions, or be overthrown. Then what is the solution, William?"
Hale saw none. The dictatorships were trapped. Unless — "No," he said. "They wouldn't do it."
"What wouldn't who do?"
"The democracies wouldn't float a loan and feed them raw materials."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Why should they? They'd be arming the people they're preparing to fight."
"Ah!" said Johnson smugly. "You haven't examined all the facts. Remember that the dictatorships have defaulted on a lot of debts to the smaller nations, who have had to take goods instead of money in payment. And, furthermore, these debts will be repudiated altogether if the dictatorships are overthrown. Which means that the smaller nations will collapse if the dictatorships do.
"Much as the democracies fear war, they fear a general political upheaval even more. I shall play on that fear. There will be a huge loan to the dictatorships, and all the raw materials they can absorb. Thus the danger of peace will be removed; everybody will be producing munitions madly; and the chronic state of crisis will be kept furiously boiling. Do you agree with me?"
Hale shook his head slowly. "I guess I'll never learn."
"Nonsense. William! It may take you a few years, perhaps even centuries. What of it? We have all eternity before us. Simply remember this." He tapped on the desk for emphasis. "Our business, let me repeat, is to torment the greatest number of people in the most efficient manner possible. War, or the fear of war, is the greatest mass torment. But there are other torments for nations, or classes within nations: unemployment, taxes, unbalanced budgets, business competition, threats of social upheavals, relief slashes, and so on. Even though the war crisis is our most absorbing problem at the moment, we must never cease using the smaller torments."
Quite naturally, Hale had been feeling increasingly unsure of himself. His motive in forcing Lucifer to give him a partnership had been nothing more satanic than a desire for wealth, luxury, security, and a little power — enough to make him feel important. He felt inadequate, though, when it came to ruling the world with Lucifer.
"What am I supposed to do while you're gone?" he asked uneasily.
"That depends entirely on you, William. If you want to experiment, I have no objections. After all, your powers are the same as mine. Do anything you want. There is a complete plan for the Western Hemisphere already in operation. If you don't feel equal to constructing a plan of your own, I'd suggest that you let that plan work out and study it in operation. But that's your problem."
"What about paying the office help?"
"The company has funds, and there will be money coming in all the time. The loan for the dictatorships, for example, will net us a very large fee, secretly, of course. We are never at a loss for money." He looked at his wrist watch. "I wish that secretary would hurry. My luggage is at the pier, and my ship leaves at noon."
Hale said, "Those files have me scared."
"No reason why they should. Every month the information in them is reduced to graphs, showing the country's economic, social, and political condition. There are several thousand drawers in the files, but they are mostly cross references, not separate entries.
"Suppose there is a rise in employment. You get in touch with our lobby in the State where it occurs; or in Washington if it's nation-wide. You begin a movement for greater taxation of profits, or of pay rolls, or anything that will keep the total national income from increasing. Or you can lower the standard of living, by raising rentals and commodity prices, which will have the same effect —"
At this point the secretary returned and gave Johnson a typed sheet. He told her to wait and waddled toward the door, motioning to Hale. He went with fussy haste to the files marked "W," and under "Wisconsin" he found a "Rockmont" card.
"Nothing here," he said. "But Rockmont is in Douglas County, and so is Superior, which is quite a large town. You see, Mr. Burke is a naturalized citizen, which eliminates him. Mrs. Burke, though, was a Greene before she married, and the Greenes have lived in and around Rockmont for generations." He flipped rapidly through the cards. "Ah, here it is ... Superior. Last entry, two weeks ago: 'Nicholas Perry, dying of lung cancer —' Here, read it yourself."
Hale said doubtfully: "I don't get this. What's Perry got to do with it? Why can't I just give them some of my own money?"
"William!" Johnson cried, shocked. "You don't know what you're saying! We're businessmen, running our business on the most efficient, economical lines possible. We can't simply hand out money every time someone needs it. Remember your old strategy."
"My old strategy?"
"Of course. Indirection, William. Make someone else pay. It spreads the misery. Did I give you money because you needed a fortune? Of course not; it wouldn't have been efficient. Indirection always works. Before you abandoned it, weren't you able to hide your motives even from me?" Hale looked up sharply; Johnson's voice had unduly stressed the last sentence. But the round face was entirely innocent. "Whenever possible, we use the hidden finger to gain our ends. Read the card. William."
Hale read: "Nicholas Perry, lung cancer, one month to live. No relatives. Wisconsin family, three generations. Estate income goes to found cancer research laboratory approx. $25,000/yr."
Johnson said: "I admit I'm tempted not to let the Burkes have Perry's money. Oh, we'll be able to find a connection between the Perrys and the Greenes, all right. Most of the old families are related in sparsely settled places like that, if they'd take the trouble to search the records. But I have a fondness for poorly capitalized research foundations. Perry wants to finance one on twenty-five thousand a year. That would pay for very meager equipment, and a small staff of second-rate technicians. Best of all, if they should miraculously discover a cure for pulmonary cancer, they won't have funds to distribute it, so the profit and possibly the credit would go elsewhere.
"It's a temptation, William. But this is our hemisphere, so, of course, the Burkes come first."
He strutted back to his office, and dictated: "Trace a connection, not illegally remote, between the Perrys of Superior and the Greenes of Rockmont, Wisconsin. Have the legal department inform Nicholas Perry that he has living relatives who have a legitimate claim on the estate. If he dies before you can do so, contest the will. That's all."
He turned to Hale. "If Perry leaves the fortune to the Burkes, the inheritance tax will cut the income to about ten or fifteen thousand. Think that's enough?"
"Plenty," replied Hale distractedly. A vague sort of nervousness had been troubling him more and more. Though he tried to act normal, he stood fidgeting behind his chair, glancing longingly at the door.
Johnson watched him curiously, but continued: "If Perry dies before we can reach him, the best settlement we can make will probably be an equal division of the state between the Burkes and the laboratory. That would hamstring the laboratory effectively enough to suit even me. In any case you can leave the matter, including collection of our fee, to our legal department. By the way, you of course realize that neither they nor any of our other subordinates know who we really are. I really must be going now."