A Time for Choosing
by
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"Is this place debugged?" Brad Hollingsworth demanded as the door to Mike O’Hare’s private office closed behind him. "Clean as a hound’s tooth," O’Hare assured him, rising to shake the tall, slim New Yorker’s hand. Since Brad was executive vice-president in charge of international operations for a major soft drink company, his visit to the U. S. Embassy’s commercial office aroused no suspicion. "I assume your message is extremely important." "Extremely?" he exclaimed, providing only a perfunctory handshake before dropping into the chair to the left of Mike’s desk. "Wanta talk world news? The six-thirty edition with Cronkite? Getting tossed out of Tanzania on your diplomatic ass?" "You are an unsettling bastard," O’Hare muttered, reclaiming his swivel. "Unsettling," he scoffed. "What an understatement." He looked around like one possessed. "I need a drink," he muttered. By then O’Hare was as jittery as a plains animal with a hungry lion prowling nearby. He hauled out a bottle of Scotch reserved for friends. It was half empty, but not because of friends nowadays. He grabbed two tumblers from the same drawer and splashed several fingers of whiskey into each. "To Dar and her beauty," Mike toasted inanely when they both had glasses in hand. "Drink that same toast two minutes from now." "My God, Brad, nothing can be that bad!" Except with the CIA bosses in Langley it could be. He downed his own drink in one long draught. "Satisfied?" he demanded when Hollingsworth did the same. "Give me another dose." He paused for barely an instant as Mike again splashed as much and a little more in both glasses. "Okay, Mike, I can’t destroy Dar’s beauty but I sure as hell will destroy your appreciation of it." He drank deeply. "You know that old beached dhow I pay homage to whenever I arrive?" Mike nodded, well acquainted with the mysterious boat near the Kilimanjaro Hotel, gray with age and weathering, left squatting on the beach for only God knew how long. "I was there last night before attacking sleep. It provided a good reminder that if Dar’s loveliness could withstand the Arabs, she can damn well withstand us and our insane bosses at Langley. And yet . . ." Brad’s trailing off left O’Hare in a blind-eyed stare. "If you intended to rattle me, you have!" he exploded as Brad emptied his glass, then sat playing with it, turning it slowly in his hand, running the palm of his other hand along the bottom. "So give, damnit!" "Sorry, Mike," he murmured slowly, bolstered by the Scotch. Mike emptied his own glass. "It’s just that I’ve had nightmares ever since the order arrived." He hesitated, his head swinging angrily. "It turns my stomach." He stopped again, then stated in a voice which only deepened O’Hare’s concern. "And I’m only the courier." "Thank God you weren’t involved in the Creation! You’d still be deciding whether the trees or the flowers should come first. Since I get the dirty work, what in hell is it?" "Ever hear of Lin Chang?" "Number two Chinaman. Radical. Out to destroy the West with a nuclear holocaust once he’s in Mao’s seat and China has enough weapons. Or so he says. Why?" "He’s headed for Dar." "Nothing about it around here," Mike said, searching for some tidbit he might have overlooked on the cocktail circuit or heard floating about the Embassy. "Are you certain?" "Langley is." So Chang was coming. "When?" "In on July sixth, out on the eleventh. Visits to Dar, Tanga, Moshi, Arusha, and Mbeya. Intends to cement relations with Tanzania’s people and evaluate what’s happening with the TanZam survey." "I’ve been expecting a check on the railroad once Mao committed those shillings," O’Hare said. "Sending Chang is the only surprise." His full attention returned to Brad. "What’s so damned upsetting about that?"
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About the Book
In 1970 Communist China desperately wanted to restore its influence in Africa. Tanzania offered the perfect location because it needed financing for a new railroad which would connect its aging line with landlocked Zambia. When all Western powers, the World Bank, and the Soviet Union backed off from financing the railroad and opted instead for an all-weather highway, Mao seized the opportunity and designated the money for the railroad. That much is a matter of public record. What has not been known until now because the CIA suppressed the facts is what happened when Deputy Chairman Lin Chang was assigned the job of evaluating China’s vast expenditure. Armed with inside information on Chang’s visit to Tanzania long before it became public knowledge, the CIA stunned the Tanzanian CIA station chief, Mike O’Hare, with an order no intelligence operative should ever receive. With Mike’s personal life already in turmoil, his beloved Tanzania promptly deteriorated into a living hell.
About the Author
Dale Soderberg had an artistic mother and a determined father. The result was a creative personality which led him from organizing and leading his own band while in high school and working as a radio announcer to majoring in English at Gettysburg College and in Systematic Theology at Gettysburg Seminary. While in college he was inspired to begin creative writing by professors who saw the glimmer of talent which was developed by writing sermons, short stories, and novels over a ten year stint in the Lutheran ministry in Clarion, PA; Horseheads, NY; and Syracuse, NY. However, it did not come to fruition until he became a high school English teacher who specialized in teaching Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James A. Michener, Nevil Shute, and other modern authors. His first novel, published in 1980, was an adventure/thriller built around the 1967 Israeli/Arab war. Since then writing has been a daily discipline and led to a second adventure/thriller: The Amsterdam Connection. Among other creative pursuits, he originated, organized, and directed tours to Europe, the Middle East, and Lutheran mission fields in Guyana, Liberia, Tanzania, and India, many lands that have provided settings for his writing. An avid photographer, he took a picture of the Taj Mahal, which was chosen by Holiday magazine in 1960 as the 'Picture of the Month.' Early in his teaching career he decided that if one were to teach Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, it was imperative that he know something about the Feria de San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain. Although he has never run with the bulls, he has watched the running during seven fiestas and become an American aficionado of the bullfight aided by his friendship with many English aficionados who know exactly what a proper bullfight should be. Once retired he and his wife, Marjorie, expanded their activities to include working in Yellowstone National Park in 1993 and serving as volunteer missionaries in Papua New Guinea where Dale taught at the University’s Teachers’ College at Goroka in the Eastern Highlands Province. Before and after they had the opportunity to travel extensively in New Zealand, Australia, and Southeast Asia. The consequence of his many creative activities over the years has brought him inclusion in the Marquis editions of Who’s Who in the East, American Education, the World, and America. He has also been honored in the Dictionary of International Biography published in Cambridge, England. He and Marjorie live in Hamilton, NY, where the two have close ties with Colgate University. Marjorie worked in the University library and Dale was an advisor to graduate degree student teachers of English at Hamilton Central School.