Warren Murphy: Oil Slick

"Yeah. That was it. Sinanju," said Mobley, and then he fell from Remo's grip and died on the floor.

Remo looked down at the dead body. He took the useless gun from the man's disabled hand and put it back in the shoulder holster. He did not know why he did this, but it somehow seemed appropriate.

Then he walked out into the California sun. The two fake FBI men had been poisoned by the drink. They had been supposed to stay alive long enough so Remo would know who he was facing this time.

Well, they had, and he did.

He had been challenged again by Nuihc, the evil offspring of Sinanju and its mysterious arts.

CHAPTER FIVE

In the Grand Islamic Council of the Revolutionary People's Free Arab Republic, formerly Lobynia, Col. Muammar Baraka listened to the endless reports that had been typed in triplicate by British typists on German typewriters with electricity supplied by American generators run by Belgian mechanics.

The council met in the old king's palace, a building constructed by an Italian nobleman, designed by a Japanese architect, with American air conditioning, British wiring, Danish furniture, and East German flooring.

Lobynia's green and orange flag with the yellow crescent and star sometimes fluttered, but more often drooped in the windless heat. It had been made, designed, and manufactured in Lobynia by Lobynian technicians and was perfectly good except that it had to be replaced each week since the grommets through which the flag rope passed regularly fell out every seven days.

Baraka listened. Near his right hand was a Texas Instruments pocket calculator. Since he had become president four years before, he had written down on a little pad how much oil his country had in estimated reserves. On another pad, he estimated how much money was leaving the country. The amount of money leaving grew and grew, and soon needed electronic calculation. Estimated oil reserves shrank at a steady rate and remained on the same pad on which he had first written them down when he deposed King Adras. For the last four years, he thought about the difference every day. He thought about it when he watched the wing fall off a hangared Mirage jet because it had just rusted off. The hangar was too near the sea. A plane that never flew should not be hangared near the sea. He thought about the difference when the Russian-built office complex collapsed because of a combination of poor building materials and no maintenance. And he thought about it very strongly when he heard an Italian engineer explain to a Russian that anything built in Lobynia should need no more skill to operate than an oasis.

"But an oasis is just there," said the Russian.

"Ahhh," said the Italian. "Now you know how to build for the Lobynians. Unless you plan to have Russians in the country on permanent maintenance duty."

Colonel Baraka remembered this conversation as he watched his country's wealth being pumped from its sands, never to return again, and buildings crumbled and planes fell apart in their hangars and everyone wanted to sell him something because they were "friends of the Arabs."

"So when he heard even such a small expense as two hundred fifty thousand dollars American, he questioned it.

"What are the Lobynian people getting for this two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"

"Colonel?" asked the Minister of Intelligence. He was almost as young as the Colonel, but his face had gotten fat and he had started to wear uniforms of expensive cloth from Britain. He had taken a promotion to lieutenant general after the revolution. It had been he who delivered the crucial armored corps at the crucial moment, namely the jeep that worked and could get Colonel Baraka to the radio station. In Baraka's voice, the people found a memory of strength and trust. It was his voice that was the revolution and his spirit was the light of the people. And all the officers sitting at the conference table in the palace knew it. They knew that they held their ranks by his word and by nothing else. Even the soldiers had to be told from time to time that it was the colonel's orders, before they did something. Now Lieutenant General Jaafar Ali Amin looked up from the long list of monthly intelligence expenses, amazement wrinkling his face and blanching a long white scar that ran down his left cheek.

"Colonel, I don't understand."

"I am asking," said Baraka, "what did we get for that two hundred fifty thousand dollars American? That's what I asked. What did the Lobynian people get that they can say this is what our leaders got for us with the fruits of our land?"

"Well, it's under the heading of American projects which is roughly twenty million dollars this month. That includes, I might add, financing student organizations in which we are picking up broad support far beyond investments, growing favor for our cause among minority groups in America, payments to friends and to that United States senator who on public television ..."

"Wait. Hold it. Hold it. Spare me the list of your successes. Just tell me, specifically and unalterably and finally, what did we get for that two hundred and fifty thousand American dollars, eh?"

The colonel's sharp, Italian-looking features tightened in frustration as he spoke. His neck reddened.

"Incidentals. Two," said Lt. General Jaafar Ali Amin in an almost inaudible voice. He did not look up from the typed papers.

"Was that one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars an incidental, or was one incidental two hundred thousand dollars and the other, being an even more incidental incidental, only fifty thousand dollars?" asked Baraka.

"It doesn't say, Colonel."

"Don't you know? Aren't intelligence operations in your department?"

"But, Colonel," said General Ali Amin, looking up from the paper at last. "In my budget, that amount is less than one one-hundredth. Do you know where every hundredth of something you spent has gone?"

"Yes," Baraka said. "Now you find out. I remember when outside this building there was not two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that belonged to the people of my tribe or my father's tribe or the tribe of his father's father."

"Things are different today, oh, leader, especially since you have led the way in raising world prices of oil four times higher than they had been before."

"Yes," said Baraka. His face broke into a sudden smile and his ministers smiled with him, largely in relief. "Now instead of a mere two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of incidentals we could for the same amount of oil leaving the land get one million dollars worth of incidentals." Baraka paused. The smiles disappeared around the table.

"Four times as much, gentlemen," Baraka said. "Now I will tell you what we will all do. We will all wait here until General Ali Amin finds out what has been done with the people's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars American."

"With exactitude," said the General. He saluted smartly and left, shutting the door behind him. Twenty minutes later, as the fingers drummed on a table surrounded by sheepish men and one man furious to the limits of his tether, General All Amin returned with a fat file folder in his hands and a confident smile on his face.

"The two incidentals, sir, went for a Mobley and a Philbin with the European capital letter T on it. Exactly, Colonel," and he saluted again, put the paper back in the folder and sat down.

"Capital T, you said?"

"Yes, Colonel. A capital T exactly. Specifically. Just as exactly as the American shot to the moon."

"And would you mind telling us what this capital T means?"

"Sir?"

"Get the Frenchman."

"Sir?"

"The civilian aide who runs your whole department while you are out cornholing little boys in the streets of our capital. Yes, I know what you do."

General Ali Amin shrugged. His attempt at self-respect had failed in the face of the onslaught of reality. He summoned the Frenchman.