"So you will have a surplus of oil," said Clogg, "and your nation cannot live on oil stockpiles."
"Please dispense with the economics lesson. I take it you have a proposal."
"Yes, I have. Continue the American embargo. However, grant Oxonoco the right to drill on one or several of your offshore islands, with a clear contract that any oil we find is ours to use."
"There is no oil in the offshore islands."
Clogg smiled, a narrow twist of his mouth that made him, God forbid, even uglier than God had planned.
"As they say in my country, so what? Constructing an underground pipeline from this center to the offshore island would be a matter of only months. We could drain off your surplus oil and sell it as our own. Lobynia would get a great deal of private income-for you to dispose of as you see fit."
"And your company would control America's economy," Baraka said.
"Of course."
Baraka stared at his oil wells. A month ago, he would have shot Clogg before the man could finish the first sentence. The effrontery of offering Baraka a bribe. But that was a month ago, when he had still believed that this land could be governed, and he could himself live to an old age in honor and glory. But now there was the prophecy against his life. So Nuihc had promised to protect him from the American assassins. But who would protect him from Nuihc? Baraka found that he had neither stomach nor tolerance to be ordered around like a child for as long as he ruled. He had thought the other day of what life might be like in Switzerland. He looked out now and saw a Lobynian workman trying to open a threaded plug with a wrench. It took him six tries before he found the right wrench. In Switzerland, people made watches and clocks. In Lobynia, people made mess and confusion.
"Could it be kept a secret?" Baraka asked.
"Certainly. Part of our agreement would be that only Lobynian personnel could man the new oil installations for Oxonoco. And ..."
"You need not finish. I know full well that our Lobynian craftsmen could work in a false oil depot for fifty years without ever suspecting that there was anything odd about oil coming out of a faucet."
Clogg shrugged. He was glad Baraka had said it and not him. Sometimes these camel-herders were sensitive about the shortcomings of their people.
It might work, Baraka decided. And Clogg, of course, was right. Without some such plan to drain off Lobynia's surplus oil, the economy of the country, already on the edge of disaster, would slide over the brink.
He would have to be careful to keep the plan from Nuihc. But it would work. It would work.
"There is a problem, though," said Clogg, intruding on Baraka's thoughts. Baraka turned to the oil man.
"There is an American," Clogg said. "He has discovered a substitute for oil. His name is Remo Goldberg."
"He has contacted me," said Baraka. "He is a fraud."
Clogg shook his head. "No, he is not. I had him checked by our people. His is one of the most brilliant scientific minds in our country. If allowed to proceed, he could hurt not only your country but my company as well."
"I am not permitted to move against him," said Baraka.
"Not permitted?"
Baraka realized his slip and backed off quickly. "I cannot risk confrontation with the United States government by simply removing one of their citizens."
"Still," Clogg urged, "an accident..."
"There have been a number of accidents involving American oil researchers lately," said Baraka.
"I thought you might know something about that," said Clogg.
"And I thought you might know something about it." The two men looked at each other, knowing the way men sometimes do, that each spoke the truth. Baraka wondered though who was right and "who was wrong about this Remo Goldberg. An oil scientist or an assassin? Perhaps both. One never knew the lengths of perfidy to which the United States would go.
Clogg looked ahead and mused aloud, "Accidents happen to many people."
"Well, of course, I cannot be held responsible for accidents," Baraka said, giving Clogg what he wanted: a license to remove Remo Goldberg.
The two men talked some more, comparing notes on Remo Goldberg. Both realized that the only person who had any contact with him in Lobynia had been Jessie Jenkins, the buxom black American revolutionary. It was agreed that Baraka would allow one of Clogg's men to be admitted to the Third World compound, where he could keep an eye on Jessie. Baraka also gave his agreement to the plan, but said its announcement must wait a few weeks until "some small business" was accomplished.
Clogg nodded, then leaned forward and blew the vehicle's horn. As if from nowhere, the chauffeur reappeared and was back in his seat, driving the car toward Dapoli.
Baraka noticed the chauffeur was a young Lobynian, barely out of his teens, with smooth light skin, long black curly hair and the petulant lips of a woman. He looked at the chauffeur in mild distaste then asked Clogg if he had enjoyed the pleasures of the city.
Clogg smiled but did not answer. He, too, was looking at the chauffeur.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jessie Jenkins wore a white dress as she waited behind the two guards who stood at attention at the only entrance to the fenced-in compound that housed the jerry-built barracks used by the delegates of the Third World International Youth Conference.
The compound was surrounded by eight-foot-high hurricane fencing, topped by another two feet of barbed wire angled to prevent anyone inside from climbing out.
Remo saw Jessie from a distance as he approached the gate. He also saw a young American with red hair leaning against a nearby barracks building, casually smoking and very uncasually watching Jessie.
Remo stopped just short of the two armed guards and called past them to the young black woman.
"Hi. Can you come out and play?"
"My keepers won't let me." She nodded toward the guards.
"Is that right, gentlemen?" Remo asked them.
"No one is permitted to leave without a written pass."
"And who issues these passes?" asked Remo.
"No one," said the guard. The other stifled a smile.
"Thank you for your courtesy," said Remo. "Come on down here," he called to Jessie, motioning with his head along the fence.
She walked on her side, he on his, until they were a full hundred feet away from the guards. Glancing over his shoulder, Remo noticed that the redheaded American had moved along with them, still lurking back in the shadows of the compound.
The fence with its inward-facing barbed wire was meant to keep prisoners in, but not to keep visitors out.
Remo waited until he and Jessie had strolled into am area that was on the perimeter of a floodlight's reach, then he grabbed the top of the bar atop the hurricane fencing with both hands, ran two steps up the fence, and thrust out with both feet. The thrusting straightened his body; the upward momentum whirled it around as if he were a weight on the end of a string. His body flipped straight up in the air, then came down, still stiff, on Jessie's side of the fence. Just before his swinging body would have hit the barbed wire, he loosened his grip, tucked his upper body in, cleared the barbed wire, and landed noiselessly on his feet, alongside the amazed Jessie.
"How'd you do that?" she said when she finally spoke.
"Clean living."
"Well, now that you're in, what do we do?"
"Go out, of course."
He led Jessie back toward the front gate.
"How'd the conference go?" he asked.
"Don't ask," she said.
"If I promise not to ask, do you promise not to talk about racism, lack of opportunity, the ghetto, genocide, and oppression?"