George Bartram - Under the Freeze

“I thought this was your playing field.”

“This? This ?” He spun the chair in a full circle. “ This is not the arena, Monsieur Selous… this is the — the—” He laughed. “The locker room, maybe. The training field.” He laughed again, apparently genuinely amused. “Will you come to my party? I want some people to look at you.”

“Am I a specimen?”

“You are a possibility. Will you come?”

“I saw you in Havana.”

“Did you. Did you! Yes, that stupid spectacle of mass sentimentality. Yet one sometimes makes a point by joining with such idiots. It is very important that we keep nuclear weapons out of countries like Cuba, don’t you think? But that is another matter. Will you come to my party?”

“Thank you, of course.”

“You must dress. Black tie. We are rather out-of-date. Do you like women? There will be some very decorative women. Are decorative women the purpose of wealth?” He laughed. “Hardly! Come, I will show you my factory.”

“My time is up.”

“I told you, I want to look you over. Your time will be up when I tell you. My clock keeps the time here.”

“Why am I being looked over?”

“Maybe it amuses me. Maybe I think you would make a good playmate for my cat. Maybe I want to employ you. Who knows?”

They spent two hours going from building to building, and Tarp felt that there was little of the complex that he did not see. The wheelchair moved fast; between buildings they moved much faster in electric wagons that were always waiting for them. Schneider was careful always to tell him exactly where they were, as if he wanted to make sure that Tarp understood everything, in two buildings they had to wear protective clothing and masks. They passed through greenhouses where the smell of humus was almost threatening, like a cemetery in the rain. They went through a computerized warehouse worked by robot machines on monorails. Under a watery sun they drove along the edge of test fields where green shoots were poking through chemically treated soil far out of place in their seasonal cycle.

“The goal is to grow foods in less space, at lower cost, than ever before.” Schneider seemed rather bored. They had already visited a laboratory where figures in space suits worked with electron microscopes. Through genetic engineering, Schneider said, they hoped to produce disease-free crops with greater climatic tolerance.

“A great boon to the world’s poor,” Tarp said.

“Yes, I have thought of that. I suppose I should be developing something to kill them at the same time, so we won’t be overrun.” He grinned at Tarp. “Come, monsieur, you don’t find that humorous? You are less intelligent than I thought, then.”

“I was thinking that what you said is at odds with the Celebration of Nuclear-Free Peace.”

“Not entirely. What I said was, you will remember, I want to keep nuclear weapons out of countries like Cuba .”

They had lunch in a small dining room near the windowed office. There were four other men there; Tarp could not escape the sense that he was being watched and the conversation, which was all about politics and American failures and hemispheric power struggles, was staged for him. Yet something seemed wrong to him, and what seemed wrong was his own belief that Schneider was connected directly with Maxudov. If they know who I am , why the examination ? he wondered as he ate a clear soup. Or are these five the patrons of a death squad , looking over a victim ? But they seemed very leisurely about it. It was very easy to believe that Schneider and his companions could be willing to buy plutonium for the greater glory of Argentina and fascism, but their behavior was utterly at odds with any idea of conspiracy. Unless, of course, they liked elaborate jokes.

He sought out Grice at the Press Club bar late that afternoon after spending several hours with two other journalists who were supposed to know what really went on in Argentina. Grice was impressed that he had been shown the Schneider complex and had actually been asked for lunch.

“What’d he serve you, carrot juice and a slice of beetroot? He’s a lunatic about food, they say.”

“It was very good. Yes, lots of vegetables. Fruit.”

“The man’s demented about his health, of course. But I am impressed, Selous — lunch in the great man’s private room! That’s light-years farther than the rest of us have ever got. Whatever did you talk about?”

Tarp was thinking that Grice had not survived the Malvinas war in Buenos Aires by being an entirely loyal British subject. He must have had some way of paying off Argentine authority — like reporting to somebody about what people like Tarp said. “Oh — achievement,” Tarp said vaguely. “Things like that.”

“Achievement!” Grice guffawed. “What the hell does that mean to a man like Schneider?”

“He wants to develop disease-free vegetables.”

“Oh, Christ, that’s all his wife’s work, not his! She was the scientific brains. Always. He’s a money man, a businessman. Is that what he calls achievement? Turning her scientific genius into cash?” Grice laughed too loudly. He seemed angry. “Christ! The cheek of these bloody millionaires. Well, there’s a story in it, anyhow. Right? Eh? We are going to get our story, aren’t we?”

“I’m going to a party at his place tonight.”

Grice stared at him. “At his home ?”

“Yes.”

“What — the apartment?”

“Yes. Is that so unusual?”

Grice put down his empty beer glass. “That’s too much. That’s just too much. God, I can’t take that on beer.” He rose halfway from his stool. “Here, bartender! A double whiskey here — pronto !”

Schneider’s apartment took up an entire floor of a new building near the Congressional Palace. A uniformed doorman saluted and showed his teeth and fiercely directed two boys who parked cars with what seemed to be enormous glee. The elevators were open glass boxes that seemed to rise quickly into the night itself, to glide smoothly to a perch at Schneider’s door.

A butler took his coat. The man pretended not to notice the gun, which was heavy in one pocket; perhaps he had been handling gun-heavy coats all night. Tarp had considered leaving the weapon behind, but he was very uneasy. However, there was no way he could carry the gun in the tight-fitting dinner jacket he had picked for himself that afternoon. He might as well have carried it in his hand.

There was another butler at an inner door. He pointed, said something about drinks, and looked away. He had a hard, dark face, and Tarp wondered if he was Indian. In the large room beyond the doorway, there were two more such men, as if, having seen a film that had an English butler in it, Schneider had decided to have a corps of them. These men looked to Tarp like bodyguards, however, and he supposed they were doing double duty. He took a glass of champagne and wondered if they were Schneider’s death squad. It would be handy for a millionaire, probably, to have one always on call.

He moved slowly around the room. He acknowledged Schneider’s nod from the center of a cluster of pink-faced men, where a beautiful female back seemed to share attention with the industrialist himself. Schneider had said there would be women; as Tarp looked around he had to admit that Schneider had been right. Many of the women were stunning, and most of them were years younger than the men they were with.

“Rather handsome lot, ain’t they?” a voice said next to him. It was a pleasant, rather hearty voice, with a British gusto that sounded somehow out-of-date. “Lot of raving damned beauties, in fact!”