Program for a Puppet by Roland Perry Read Free Book Online

voice dropping to a hiss. “And governments … I’ve had presidents eating out of my hand … because without us they knew the system would collapse. We would keep reminding them…”
    The Old Man slid back into his couch, breathing heavily as the other two looked on silently, Strasburg frightened to say another word, and Brogan Junior knowing it was best to stay cool when the tyrant rose in his father. The Old Man deliberately turned off his hearing aid. The ranting was over.
    Graham started early on his second day in Vienna with a four-mile run around the city’s narrow winding streets. He liked strenuous exercise at least once a day. It had become a habit, especially when he was on assignment, living out of a suitcase. By 7:30 A.M . he had showered, dressed casually and taken a breakfast of orange juice, eggs and bacon in his room, in preparation for a full day.
    He began by making several calls.
    One was to Joachim Kruntz, who told him that the next Znorel trucking assignment would leave at about one A.M . the next day from a warehouse at the village of Stölenburg.
    Another call to a local journalist Graham knew heightened his interest in contacting IOSWOP. The journalist said that like some other obscure organizations in Vienna, it was probably a front for something, although he didn’t know what. He added that there were always Russians coming and going. One in particular was the IOSWOP’s chairman, a Professor Letovsky, who was possibly worth an interview. Graham knew of him. He was a leading trade ambassador for the Kremlin.
    Graham decided to give it a try. He phoned IOSWOP and was put through to its PR man, a German named Hart. Graham was quizzed for several minutes and had to bluff his way by claimingto be writing articles for several papers and magazines in England, Europe, America and Australia which would be about Vienna’s several prestigious international organizations, like OPEC and IOSWOP. Finally convinced, Hart invited Graham to visit IOSWOP’s office at the Opernring in the heart of Vienna. A special IOSWOP bus would take him to Stölenburg at 11:30 A.M .
    Graham arrived with his usual gear for an interview—a 35-mm. Minolta, a tape recorder, and an 8-mm. movie camera. He liked to record an important interview in as many ways as possible, and had a good working knowledge of all kinds of cameras and tape equipment.
    He found the IOSWOP office, and was greeted unsmilingly by a tall, leggy girl who asked him to wait with several other men and women. He had time to unload his gear and smoke a cigarette before the girl ushered them out to a Volkswagen bus.
    Two guards rode in the front seat with the driver, and Graham noticed they were wearing hip holsters.
    The bus rattled on its way for about twenty miles to the Stölenburg village and palace, which dated back to 1388.
    Once a summer residence of successive Hapsburg emperors, the sleepy surroundings were conducive to much wine in the warmth of the afternoon or the cool of the evening, and the Empress Maria Theresa blamed many of her sixteen children on this. It fell into disrepair after 1917. In 1970 the Austrian Government offered to renovate the palace for IOSWOP in an effort to persuade another institution to make its home in Vienna. Shortly thereafter, IOSWOP was in the palace’s red court.
    Originally the brainchild of heads of the American and Soviet foreign ministries in the 1960s, IOSWOP was hailed as contributing to scientific détente. Scientists of nations East and West could work together to find solutions to the world’s most pressing problems of pollution, energy conservation, medicine, food supply and population control, using advanced computer techniques.
    A clock struck noon just as the bus pulled up to iron gates at the front of the palace, a mighty gray and yellow edifice. Ten huge pillars supported the portico entrance, and on a balcony above, two guards watched as the