Ogoun's Bomb

PART 0

Ogoun’s Bomb

A Novel

by Pentland Hick

Copyright Pentland Hick

Smashwords edititon June 2009, 40 years late!

Pentland89@gmail.com

Cover design by Dennis Keith

The picture is of Idi Amin - whom Ogoun surely admired!

FOR MYSPECIAL LADIES DEBORAH, JO AND JAMIE

Not forgetting Mark and Aileen and Nora who cannot be with us

PART ONE

Chapter 1-1

Ogoun saw fear behind the white faces of passers by as they drew back from his brooding figure. Yet he knew that in their false hearts they were mocking him. They flowed round him, none daring to come too close, leaving him a lone figures among the bustling confusion in the center of this greatest of American cities. Their fear was good, no more than was due to him. A man of destiny was to be respected, even at a moment of setback, and they would not mock him for long.

His mind seethed with hot anger as he glared at the newspaper in his hand - his photograph was on the back page, a good likeness, the linesman cowering from the violence etched upon the bearded face behind the racket. He had done well not to hit the man and yet his mask had slipped a little, and that was not good. He must show even greater control when he was cheated, prove how sane he was, fit to rule his country when his destiny was upon him, fit to lead it to glory.

The effort not to hit the linesman had been great. And now this filth in the paper! The bomb in his head was ticking. Time was running out if he was to conceal this upwelling of resentment. He must reach the safety of his room and unleash the explosion of his greatness in private.

Suddenly he moved, releasing some of his inner rage by kicking a newspaper placard into the street. Still he hit nobody; he was not mad, he could control his rage.

He hurried towards the subway as he read the story, his six foot two carried easily and gracefully on those athlete’s legs that covered a tennis court so dramatically despite his bulk, his fleshy lips moving as he puzzled out the despicable words.

‘... today, in New York, a stupid dispute with a linesman, indeed a black linesman, presumably chosen to please him...’

To please him! How could that be? The man had a stern look and mocking eyes - it might as well have been his father. What justice could be hoped for from such a man?

‘... an unnecessary and unpleasantly violent dispute in which the player was clearly in the wrong led to loss of concentration and defeat instead of victory in that vital semi-final...’

He looked up as he reached the bottom of the escalator, swept into the bowels of the earth by the heedless crowds, anger still rising in him. Everywhere newspapers were sprouting, all around people were reading this filth, believing him to be an ignorant savage.

‘... no wonder this unpredictable young man is such a crowd puller, able as he is to move so gracefully, like a great jungle cat, a black panther perhaps. He has all the talents to beat the very best if only his unstable temperament will let him...’

Unstable! Him! It was not to be borne! He would like to take the man who had written these lies into his hands and squeeze him to death, but there was no remedy to be had amongst this sea of featureless white faces, nothing he could do to relieve his wrath.

Now he stood beside the tracks. They curved out of a dark nowhere and lay waiting before him, to carry him where destiny decreed, like the unalterable path of his life. The ticking in his head rose with the sound of the approaching train. It was becoming unbearable. He hit his head with his fist. As he listened to the rising note of the train as it was about to issue from the tunnel at his right hand, he saw a man fold his paper to the back page, study the photograph there, and smile. Smiling! Mocking! Sneering! It was a black man who derided him, a man with a look of the linesman, of his father. He felt the shame of his ancestors, the cunning statesmen, the forgers of weapons, the mighty warriors, as if they too were being so shamefully belittled.

Slowly, ever so slowly, there was plenty of time, he moved behind the linesman, towering over him, pressed against him by the rush-hour throngs as the voice of the train drummed like thunder in his skull, kill, slay, kill, slay, kill kill kill...

He dropped his own newspaper. It would be so easy, so very easy, now he must bend forward to pick up the paper and his shoulder would collide with the body of this evil linesman and the man’s screams would merge with those of the train as he fell beneath it.

... avenge avenge avenge...

But no! Oh no! His righteous revenge would not be understood. With a supreme effort he let the unworthy man live, he was not worthy of Ogoun’s attention.

Now, as he relaxed in a seat that nobody disputed, he felt the cold sweat spring to his brow. What control he had shown in conquering his wrath, what wisdom, what sanity! Soothing thoughts entered his head, thoughts of the stables he would establish in Maronterre when he ruled his country and the white women he would tether there.

The images of long white legs squirming beneath him as he rode were enough to turn back the tide of anger. The ticking in his head became fainter, ceased, the convulsions had been averted.

Other men of destiny had the falling sickness also, Caesar had had it.

But did Caesar froth upon his anger? Did rage display his greatness? Could Caesar attract men of power through his prowess at a game? Could Caesar have controlled his actions if he were cheated at so critical a juncture in his destiny? If Caesar had to make his conquests in the world of today, could he succeed? There were new difficulties but also there were new opportunities. Caesar had possessed the bomb in the head but he had known nothing of the glory of real bombs, the beauty or the power of them, the sheer power of them in this age of the atom!

1-2

The stewardess hoped that the delay in disembarking would not cause any trouble. She was tired enough after the long journey from London, her last trip on this tour of duty, thank the Lord.

The big man with the family was the only one who looked like being a problem. An impatient one, that. Maybe a couple of drinks too many? He looked like a big shot business executive, she thought. What one would call young middle aged, satisfied and successful. The wife was cute, a petite redhead, and very pregnant, obviously exhausted.

The children sat in front of them. There was a big age difference between the handsome young man and the plain little girl with those pigtails and unbecoming glasses. The young man was the right age, but was he her type? She looked again. No way! She’d rather go for the father!

Fairfax took his eyes reluctantly from the trim figure of the stewardess and glowered out through the aircraft window at the slanting rain.

They had touched down at New York’s Idlewilde Airport a few minutes ahead of schedule, yet now the plane squatted on the glistening concrete, immobile as a moth overtaken by dawn.

He bit back his irritation with a conscious effort and glanced at the finely spun red hair of the woman in the window seat beside him.

He fancied the journey might have tired her a little.

He was not a sentimental man - God forbid! - but sometimes he imagined that the tendrils of that red-gold hair were twisted into his heart. Miranda sat primly beside him, elegantly calm as always. The doctor had advised against this journey, but Fairfax had soon overruled that nonsense. He had a low opinion of the medical profession at the best of times. She was his, his to protect and his to cherish.

Her small hand crept into the harbour of his big one, and he put his arm round her, holding her to him until he sensed her discomfort. He drew away reluctantly, embarrassed that he had embarrassed her. She had been like this during the previous pregnancy also. Already she was not his Randy at all. He sighed. What a contrast to her usual sexy self - now she was as much use in bed as a suet pudding. The pregnancy had better be worth while: it had better be a boy this time.

The stewardess had nice hair and welcoming eyes and a very supple walk, and he thought she was interested in him. What would she be like between the sheets? It was inevitable that such thoughts would stir him so strongly just now. He realized that he would have yielded to temptation given the chance. The thrills of business expansion always fed his appetite for casual sex.

It meant nothing...

He moved restlessly in his seat and frowned as he glanced at Roberta, screwed up in the window seat of the row in front with that dammed doll in her thin arms. Roberta was eight - or was it nine? - bright as a button, but what use was a girl? She could never succeed him in the business.

His glance livened as it passed to Mark, sitting beside her. The son of his first marriage was his pride, his promise of immortality, the future of the firm and the bearer of his name.

Outside, the rain had eased, improving visibility. He noticed that a small rostrum had been erected under an awning near the terminal buildings, and people were assembling in front of it.

Now another plane rolled up almost alongside theirs, much smaller, ‘Cubana’ inscribed in fancy letters on its fuselage. Suddenly all was activity as a red carpet was unrolled from the rostrum, where a group of officials were gathering beside the cluster of microphones.

The door of the other plane folded back. They could just hear the cheers of the crowd in front of the terminal as a brisk young man emerged and stood in the opening, somehow managing to appear shy in spite of the air of authority that set him apart. He seemed surprised that the people were friendly and his face lit up as he smiled and waved.

He was over six feet tall, erect, swarthy and heavily bearded, wearing a faded battle dress and a field cap, his roving black eyes radiating pride.

All that fuss for a wog! muttered Fairfax in disgust.

My God, Father! exclaimed Mark, twisting round in his seat. It’s about time you got over your thing about colour! That man’s a dictator, he rules over Cuba! Anyway, he’s Spanish! Don’t you recognize him? It’s Castro, Fidel Castro!

They were all wogs in the war!

I suppose if he offered us a contract you’d turn it down?

Never done business with wogs, said Fairfax gruffly.

Oh but -

Where’s he from, Mark? It was Roberta, so often the peacemaker.

Cuba, stupid, I said.

Is he the boss of Cuba, then?

He most certainly is!

Castro descended the steps jauntily and strode to the rostrum, opening up to the applause like a flower in the sun. He paused at the microphone to make a short speech they could not hear, but for the people in front of him the warmth of his personality seemed to overcome the return of the rain. Soon he had then cheering and waving hats and flags.

I know a story about him, Mark said, as Castro swaggered into the terminal, followed by his retinue. It was when he was at the University of Havana. He rode a bicycle straight into a brick wall.

Bloody stupid!

But Dad, he was trying to show will power, prove to himself he could do anything he set out to do! Maybe I’ll have to do something like that. To run the American office my way!

No problem, Mark my boy! That’s what you’re here for!

No interference then, eh Dad?

When at last they disembarked, Fairfax glanced about as if he owned this paltry airport and was deciding how to improve it. It was characteristic of him that he should lead the way towards immigration as if speed were the only object of their visit.

Customs disgorged them in the end, and as his father marched forward Mark angled off to buy a newspaper, Roberta trotting at his heels like an adoring puppy. The front page was devoted to the forthcoming United Nations General Assembly, but he turned straight to the sports coverage.

He’s done it again!

Who? Roberta snatched the bulky newspaper. The man in that picture? The black man? Golly, isn’t he - fierce? dangerous? How do you say his name?

O-goon.

Is he a loony, then? He should be, with a name like that!

Steady on, kid! Actually, though, I think some people do say so. He’s a good tennis player, really great, but he’s always rowing with linesmen and referees, and specially photographers. He breaks their cameras just because he doesn’t like having his picture taken. Something about Voodoo, believe it or not! And now he’s blown a great chance, he’ll have to sit the final out.

Maybe he needs this Public Relations stuff!

What!

Maybe he needs this public relations stuff if people think he’s a loony.

Oh my God! Mark stopped and slapped his forehead. Why didn’t I think of that! Roberta, you’re a genius! Perhaps he’ll be my first client!

Dad won’t allow that, not a black man.

New York is mine, isn’t it?

Well -

Come on kid, we’ll soon sort out my brick wall! They caught up with their father at the car-hire desk. Hey, Father, know who I want to sign as my first client? Ogoun!

Who? Fairfax was preoccupied with the frustrating formalities of hiring a car. It’s your show, the new office, don’t bother me, just invite their top people to the reception.

He’s a tennis player, not a firm. I don’t quite think the reception though!

Tennis? Of course the reception. A sports firm will be good. A couple more signatures and the car keys were his.

Look, said Mark, about Ogoun, I’d like to invite him, but he’s -

I don’t care what he is, if you want to invite him, invite him, snapped Fairfax, guiding Miranda to the waiting Pontiac. This is your show isn’t it, don’t bother me with trifles.

Or prejudices?

What, me? Don’t talk rubbish.

OK, OK, so be it! Mark turned to Roberta. See, it’s up to me. Dad said.

Yes, she hissed in a whisper, but you know Dad...

Relax, kid. He bundled her into the car with her mother. You’ll be safer in the back. They know how to steer clear of Dad in London. Here, they use the wrong side of the road.

Roberta was unimpressed. That won’t bother my Daddy, she said haughtily. He can handle anything.

1-3

The BALTIKA steamed slowly up the estuary towards New York. She was surrounded by dozens of small boats hooting and fussing, with all manner of demonstrators aboard.

Nikita Khrushchev leaned over the rails, savouring the scene. It was all so different from the Soviet Union, so undisciplined.

It was a wet and dreary day, a little fog rolling up the river. So this is September in America, he thought: September 19th 1960, the day when Khrushchev is to step upon American soil. He was looking forward to the General assembly of the United Nations with immense gusto. What a propaganda opportunity the ridiculous charade offered!

His interpreter translated some of the slogans the little boats carried. ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, Stalin dropped dead, why don’t you!’ He chuckled. Back home this would not be possible! What an effete nation he was visiting! Here was another choice specimen - ‘Dear K, drop dead you bum!’

A bum? When at last his prissy interpreter gave him the correct Russian equivalent, he realized that that was exactly what he was. A bum! Yes. He owned no boots as a child in that little peasant village three hundred miles from Moscow. I’ve travelled a long way in sixty-five years, he thought. I used to go barefoot and in rags, I herded cows for kopeks.

He remembered his father’s lifelong ambition to buy a horse. His father never did manage to get that horse but now he, little Nikita, was undisputed ruler of all the Republics, successor to Stalin. How had he done it? He had clung to the ladder whilst those above him shook each other off!

What a joke life was!

The BALTIKA pulled in to a Pier. Pier 73. What a sad, grim place, dilapidated and filthy. He would never permit a foreign big-shot to arrive in Russia in conditions like these! But a red carpet was laid out, and there was a small crowd, rain dripping on them. That filthy skylight, cracked and leaking, what a disgrace, peeling paint and the stench of urine.

He pulled a yellow overcoat over his dark suit and descended the gangplank, pudgy hands clasped above his head in greeting.

On the dock, he put on his silver-rimmed reading glasses and declaimed a statement inviting President Eisenhower to a summit meeting to reduce world tension, keeping his chuckles to himself.

When it was done he folded his glasses away and turned to greet the eight little Russian girls who held out flowers to him, before settling into the shining new Cadillac for the drive to the Soviet Mission in Manhattan.

1-4

Ogoun walked reluctantly as he approached the Shelburne Hotel, where the Cuban delegation was staying, conveniently close to the United Nations building.

He came with gall in his heart, for he suspected that the loss of a mere tennis match would have made this matter harder.

A small crowd, only somewhat dampened by the light rain, stood under the third-floor balcony window, chanting ‘Viva Fidel, Viva Fidel’. He knew that anti-Castro elements had also been there earlier, but the police had easily dispersed them.

He entered the lobby and asked at the desk for Fidel. Several reporters immediately converged upon him, but the manager was standing near and waved them back as the clerk lifted the house telephone.

Fear of rejection ran up and down Ogoun’s spine like spikes of coldness as he waited under the gaze of the tubby perspiring little man who was manager, but after a muttered conversation the clerk hung up and nodded.

Now the manager almost embraced him. You are to be admitted. One will come. His speech became almost hysterical. You must help me! This Castro has taken twenty suites and not paid a cent! Those Cubans are cooking chickens up there! They threaten me with guns if I ask for money! I must have a deposit of ten thousand dollars!

Perhaps I will speak for you with my good friend Fidel, said Ogoun. Perhaps not. He slapped the riding crop against his thigh and stalked after the dark little man in battle dress who had come for him.

There were armed guards everywhere, one outside El Presidente’s room. Ogoun’s reception was bleak, no embrace, no kisses. It was galling to explain, galling that Ogoun felt small before this puffed up man who would one day stand in awe of Ogoun’s mighty shadow. It was a corrupt linesman who cheated...

Pah!

There followed a stream of rapid Spanish, which the aide interpreted with a malicious grin. Fidel says, in this life one cheats, one is not cheated! Fidel says, it is as bad to be cheated as to lose fairly. Worse, it is stupid! Fidel says, he will not back a weak man who’s stupid revolution would fail. He thought you were a winner, one who would achieve great fame. What sort of an ally would a hothead be? No, no, he does not bet on losers, he was mad to think of it and now it is finish.

A red hatred seeped up in Ogoun, but he said nothing. Without this man’s help he was powerless. But he had expected this rudeness, he was a mighty statesman, a man of great forethought, naturally he had a plan to regain favour. It was some time before Castro cooled down and sent for food, and the plan could be advanced: when Ogoun had explained the beauty of it, he held his breath.

To move to a black hotel? mused Castro. To go to Harlem? It has drama!

You will overshadow even Khrushchev himself. Ogoun took a deep breath. I shall invite him to visit you there!

Invite HIM to visit ME! Castro bellowed out his laughter, then smoothed his beard in thought. You can get to him?

Of course!Am I not famous?

If I move, Khruschev had better come!

Ogoun will fetch him, never fear.

Castro looked at him. It is you who should fear, my friend. Then he relaxed, eyes twinkling. Be sure the red carpets are laid out!

Ogoun relaxed, faith in his destiny restored.

There is more. The manager here is not pleased, he may insult you, give you good reason to move. There are reporters downstairs. Let us send for them all together.

That is good, yes. Castro gave orders and presently two reporters were ushered into the room, and with them came the tubby little man who was sweating.

Castro stared at him.

Si?

Excellency, you know me, the manager.

Si?

The man broke into heated Spanish, and Castro replied with equal vigour and then, glancing at the reporters, switched to what English he had.

My men cook chickens because they fear I may be poisoned! This is an insult! An insult to the great peoples of Cuba! To demand money in public, to speak of savages, what an insult! He marched up and down, working himself into a rage. He smashed his fist into his palm. We go! Yes, we go! We do not stay here for insults! We are mountain peoples, used to sleeping under the stars! We will go to your Central Park if we must!

Castro winked at Ogoun in a flurry of chaotic action as he and seven of his aides rushed from the hotel and squeezed into an Oldsmobile. The rest of the delegation came out seeking taxis, while policemen scrambled to hold back pedestrians on the sidewalk.

The word was out. The Cubans had been insulted. They were going to the United Nations to complain.

At the UN building the Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, made arrangements for Castro and his entourage to have free accommodation elsewhere, but they were having none of it.

They waited till midnight, then drove uptown to Harlem, to the Theresa, where a great gathering of television cameras and reporters awaited and owner Woods had the red carpet out.

1-5

Miss Wycherley arrived in New York two days after Mr. Fairfax, precisely on time. Slim and composed, perhaps the wrong side of thirty, she was a very organized person, and things like aeroplanes seldom departed from their schedules when she was aboard.

She passed immigration smoothly, then customs: she had only a small case for this was a flying visit. She was booked to return first thing next morning.

As she emerged into the arrivals hall her eyes swept the people waiting there. Mr. Fairfax stood out, big and strong, a tall rock in the river of restless humanity, reliable and indestructible. His bow tie was a little crooked, but much as she longed to straighten it she knew that she would never dare to do such a thing.

How’s London, Miss Wycherley?

Under control, thank you, Mr. Fairfax.

Of course, he said. Miss Wycherley always keeps things under control. It’s just as well you can go straight back, though.

You‘ve only been gone for three days.

"A lot could have gone wrong