The Green Beret Read online

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Analog, January 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

 

  THE

  GREEN

  BERET

  By TOM PURDOM

  _It's not so much the decisions a man does make that mark him as a Man--but the ones he refrains from making. Like the decision "I've had enough!"_

  Illustrated by Schoenherr

  * * * * *

  Read locked the door and drew his pistol. Sergeant Rashid handedPremier Umluana the warrant.

  "We're from the UN Inspector Corps," Sergeant Rashid said. "I'mvery sorry, but we have to arrest you and bring you in for trialby the World Court."

  If Umluana noticed Read's gun, he didn't show it. He read thewarrant carefully. When he finished, he said something in Dutch.

  "I don't know your language," Rashid said.

  "Then I'll speak English." Umluana was a small man with wrinkledbrow, glasses and a mustache. His skin was a shade lighter thanRead's. "The Inspector General doesn't have the power to arrest ahead of state--especially the Premier of Belderkan. Now, ifyou'll excuse me, I must return to my party."

  In the other room people laughed and talked. Glasses clinked inthe late afternoon. Read knew two armed men stood just outsidethe door. "If you leave, Premier, I'll have to shoot you."

  "I don't think so," Umluana said. "No, if you kill me, all Africawill rise against the world. You don't want me dead. You want mein court."

  Read clicked off the safety.

  "Corporal Read is very young," Rashid said, "but he's a crackshot. That's why I brought him with me. I think he _likes_ toshoot, too."

  Umluana turned back to Rashid a second too soon. He saw thesergeant's upraised hand before it collided with his neck.

  "Help! _Kidnap._"

  Rashid judo chopped him and swung the inert body over hisshoulders. Read pulled a flat grenade from his vest pocket. Hedropped it and yellow psycho gas hissed from the valve.

  "Let's be off," Rashid said.

  The door lock snapped as they went out the window. Two men withrifles plunged into the gas; sighing, they fell to the floor in acatatonic trance.

  A little car skimmed across the lawn. Bearing the Scourge ofAfrica, Rashid struggled toward it. Read walked backward,covering their retreat.

  The car stopped, whirling blades holding it a few inches off thelawn. They climbed in.

  "How did it go?" The driver and another inspector occupied thefront seat.

  "They'll be after us in half a minute."

  The other inspector carried a light machine gun and a box ofgrenades. "I better cover," he said.

  "Thanks," Rashid said.

  The inspector slid out of the car and ran to a clump of bushes.The driver pushed in the accelerator. As they swerved toward thesouth, Read saw a dozen armed men run out of the house. A grenadearced from the bushes and the pursuers recoiled from the cloudthat rose before them.

  "Is he all right?" the driver asked.

  "I don't think I hurt him." Rashid took a syrette from his vestpocket. "Well, Read, it looks like we're in for a fight. In a fewminutes Miaka Station will know we're coming. And God knows whatwill happen at the Game Preserve."

  Read wanted to jump out of the car. He could die any minute. Buthe had set his life on a well-oiled track and he couldn't get offuntil they reached Geneva.

  "They don't know who's coming," he said. "They don't make themtough enough to stop this boy."

  Staring straight ahead, he didn't see the sergeant smile.

  * * * * *

  Two types of recruits are accepted by the UN Inspector Corps:those with a fanatic loyalty to the ideals of peace and worldorder, and those who are loyal to nothing but themselves. Readwas the second type.

  A tall, lanky Negro he had spent his school days in one of thedrab suburbs that ring every prosperous American city. It was thehome of factory workers, clerks, semiskilled technicians, all whodo the drudge work of civilization and know they will never domore. The adults spent their days with television, alcohol anddrugs; the young spent their days with gangs, sex, television andalcohol. What else was there? Those who could have told himneither studied nor taught at his schools. What he saw on theconcrete fields between the tall apartment houses marked thelimits of life's possibilities.

  He had belonged to a gang called The Golden Spacemen. "Nobodyfools with me," he bragged. "When Harry Read's out, there's atiger running loose." No one knew how many times he nearly ranfrom other clubs, how carefully he picked the safest spot on thebattle line.

  "A man ought to be a man," he once told a girl. "He ought to do aman's work. Did you ever notice how our fathers look, how theysleep so much? I don't want to be like that. I want to besomething proud."

  He joined the UN Inspector Corps at eighteen, in 1978. Theinternational cops wore green berets, high buttonless boots, bushjackets. They were very special men.

  For the first time in his life, his father said something abouthis ambitions.

  "Don't you like America, Harry? Do you _want_ to be without acountry? This is the best country in the world. All my life I'vemade a good living. Haven't you had everything you ever wanted?I've been a king compared to people overseas. Why, you stay hereand go to trade school and in two years you'll be living justlike me."

  "I don't want that," Read said.

  "What do you mean, you don't want that?"

  "You could join the American Army," his mother said. "That's asgood as a trade school. If you have to be a soldier."

  "I want to be a UN man. I've already enlisted. I'm in! What doyou care what I do?"

  The UN Inspector Corps had been founded to enforce the NuclearDisarmament Treaty of 1966. Through the years it had acquiredother jobs. UN men no longer went unarmed. Trained to use smallarms and gas weapons, they guarded certain borders, bodyguardeddiplomats and UN officials, even put down riots that threatenedinternational peace. As the UN evolved into a strong worldgovernment, the UN Inspector Corps steadily acquired new powers.

  Read went through six months training on Madagascar.

  Twice he nearly got expelled for picking fights with smaller men.Rather than resign, he accepted punishment which assigned him toweeks of dull, filthy extra labor. He hated the restrictions andthe iron fence of regulations. He hated boredom, loneliness andisolation.

  And yet he responded with enthusiasm. They had given him a job. Ajob many people considered important.

  He took his turn guarding the still disputed borders of Korea. Heserved on the rescue teams that patrol the busy Polar routes. Hemounted guard at the 1980 World's Fair in Rangoon.

  "I liked Rangoon," he even told a friend. "I even liked Korea.But I think I liked the Pole job best. You sit around playingcards and shooting the bull and then there's a plane crash orsomething and you go out and win a medal. That's great for me.I'm lazy and I like excitement."

  * * * * *

  One power implied in the UN Charter no Secretary General orInspector General had ever tried to use. The power to arrest anyhead of state whose country violated international law. Could theWorld Court try and imprison a politician who had conspired toattack another nation?

  For years Africa had been called "The South America of the OldWorld." Revolution followed revolution. Coloni
es becamedemocracies. Democracies became dictatorships or dissolved incivil war. Men planted bases on the moon and in four years,1978-82, ringed the world with matter transmitters; but the blackpopulation of Africa still struggled toward political equality.

  Umluana took control of Belderkan in 1979. The tiny, former Dutchcolony, had been a tottering democracy for ten years. The veryday he took control the new dictator and his African party beganto build up the Belderkan Army. For years he had preached a newAfrica, united, free of white masters, the home of a vigorous andperfect Negro society. His critics called him a hypocriticalracist, an opportunist using the desires of the African people tobuild himself an empire.

  He began a propaganda war