Bombshell

by Allan, Barbara

  And if he did build this “amusement” park, there would certainly not be anything as insignificant as a tiny field mouse appointed as its chief emissary! Anyway, Nikita failed to see what was so funny about this Mickey Mouse, a cartoon that talked and sang in a squeaky little voice…. No, Russia would have something big as its envoy—what else but a bear!… a dancing, growling bear that could, if it so desired, step on and squash such a squeaky little mouse.

  Now that would be amusing!

  Smiling, Nikita rolled onto his left side, then sighed. Just about the only bright spot in the otherwise bleak day had been his encounter with the lovely actress, this Marilyn Monroe. She was even more beautiful in person than in the glamorous photos he’d seen of her on display at the American National Exhibition in Moscow. That’s where he got the idea of meeting her during his trip to the United States.

  In the privacy of his mind, he allowed himself to wonder if the heavy, garish make-up the woman had worn had added to, or detracted from, her beauty. Had his own conception of beauty been corrupted by Hollywood customs? He wished he could see her stripped of that paint, those pretty features free of Western decadence, that wonderful smile shining bright without the crimson frame….

  He frowned. But why hadn’t she been at the show at Fox Studios? She just disappeared after the meal—which had been yet another American insult. Red potatoes and corn! He well understood the disparaging symbolism of that menu—that he was an unsophisticated “red” (and Mikhail had explained the slang term “corny” to him). Did they think the premier of Russia would be so unworldly as think it appropriate that a “French cafe” would serve such a farmhand’s meal?

  Shifting to his right side, Nikita sighed again, chest deep. The goddess Marilyn Monroe, he thought, had probably been too repulsed by him, by his many chins and warts and his corpulence, to sit at his side during the filming of that bawdy picture, what was it called? Can-Can! More pseudo-Parisian tripe.

  Ha! What stupid, silly trash! Russia, East Germany, even Romania, all made much better musicals than this gaudy Hollywood nonsense. What could Twentieth Century Fox come up with to compete with the likes of The Bright Path, or My Wife Wants to Sing, or Volga Volga?

  The latter film, admittedly, had worn its welcome out with Nikita—an epic agricultural operetta, Volga Volga had been shown so many times by Stalin at his private dinners that Khrushchev had for a time hoped to never hear another song or, for that matter, see another tractor.

  Even so, the musicals the Soviets made had real meaning, designed to stir the masses and give them hope and inspire them to become better communists. The Eastern Bloc films weren’t about a bunch of trollops twirling around and flashing their undergarments and showing off their legs and exhibiting their backsides—although, he had to admit, in the secrecy of his insomnia, that those were shapely backsides, and in fact were preferable to the face of Mayor Poulson. Still, what idiocy, those girls prancing in front of a camera that clearly didn’t have any film in it.

  That might have been what had wounded Nikita the most, the worst of all the insults: the Americans considered him nothing more than a country bumpkin they could fool and trick. Did they suppose he’d never been in a movie studio before?

  Well, they could go to this hell they claimed to believe in.

  Back on his back, he stared up at the blackness, his chin crinkling, lips trembling. Could a country bumpkin have outwitted Stalin, the most evil, treacherous man in the world? A world that had included Adolf Hitler—who had been a piker in the genocide business, compared to old Joe. And could a country bumpkin have been the only man in Stalin’s inner circle to survive his perfidious purges?

  And yet some uneducated fool from the American press could have the gall to ask Nikita where he was when Stalin was murdering innocent people….

  The Ukraine—that was where Nikita Khrushchev was!… Saving thousands of people from starvation… unaware of Stalin’s atrocities!

  Afterward, his translator Troyanovsky had asked him, respectfully, why Nikita had not responded with the truth of it.

  “Because,” Nikita had snapped, “there is no good answer to a stupid question!”

  Of course Nikita had supported Stalin, even worked for him—as the saying went, “If you ride in another man’s cart, you must join in his song!” To oppose Stalin would have meant certain death. And the dead cannot help the living.

  How else, but by such compromise, could Nikita have survived the dangerous years to reach the pinnacle of power, where he was finally in a position to change bad conditions for the better? Hadn’t he then thrown out all of Stalin’s men after the dictator’s death?

  Hadn’t he then denounced Stalin and everything that butcher stood for?

  Hadn’t he released tens of millions of innocent people from the prisons, given them back their homes and jobs and reputations?

  Hadn’t he relaxed the Lenin doctrine by allowing for a few western ideas, even at the expense of angering hard-line party members, including the Republic of China?

  Hadn’t he improved agriculture, education, technology, and the human spirit of the Russian people?

  Could a country bumpkin do all that?

  Worked up, sweating despite the air-conditioning in the suite, Nikita rolled over on his left side, mind racing.

  And that mayor, that stupid mayor, digging up Nikita’s statement about “burying” capitalism… it was a proven fact, throughout history, that first comes feudalism, then capitalism, then communism. So why didn’t these Americans (if they were so smart) learn from history and just skip a step and adopt communism, and save themselves and everybody else a whole world of trouble?

  After all, communism was the only true and fair government—the only system that put the people first. It was just an unfortunate accident of history that a murderous snake called Joe Stalin had been in charge of that system for twenty-five years….

  Another thought would no doubt have formed—Nikita was hours away from sleep—but a sound interrupted, something small but insistent, coming from across the room. Nikita’s eyes tightened, his ears perked—he turned his head and listened close.

  Nothing.

  Had he imagined it? With a sigh, he flopped onto his back, the bedsprings protesting, and then, after a moment of silence, the noise started up again: a tapping.

  A tiny tap, tap, tapping…

  Nikita leaned on an elbow in the bed, and reached for the Tokarev Model TT-30 that he always kept under the pillow on his absent wife’s side of the bed.

  But the pistol wasn’t there.

  Wide awake now, sitting up, knowing that the only way the gun (which he’d tucked under that pillow personally) could be gone was if someone had stolen it… and he doubted a maid had done so… Nikita Khrushchev listened as the tapping persisted.

  Nikita crawled out of bed, as quietly as possible—which wasn’t quiet at all, the bedsprings screeching—and padded in his bare feet and silk burgundy pajamas across to the bathroom, where he did not turn on the light. In his shaving kit he found his straight razor; he flipped open the blade and a sliver of light from somewhere in the room winked off its deadly steel.

  The tapping continued… picking up in pace, a frantic edge to its unspecified message.

  Peering through the darkness, Nikita—razor at the ready—moved slowly toward the sound, which revealed itself as coming from one of the velvet-curtained windows. A guard was stationed on the fire escape beyond… was he signaling Nikita?

  Was something wrong?

  Cautiously, at one side, he touched the heavy, drawn drapes and peeked around their edge.

  Out on the black wrought-iron balcony of the fire escape, the guard was nowhere to be seen—but a young woman was, crouching on the other side of the window. The fingers of one of her hands were tapping on the glass, and her eyes were wide in the moonlight.

  Could it be… ?

  No, his eyes must be betraying him. Was he dreaming? Yet the sharp-edged blade in his hand was real
. Still, he closed his eyes, and opened them again.

  Yes, it was her!

  Marilyn Monroe… outside his bedroom window….

  Nikita Khrushchev had no idea what the actress wanted; he was a faithful husband and a good communist, but he was also a man whose blood was at least as red as his politics, and he was not about to take lightly such a visitor. He moved around and drew the curtains wide. Quickly he unlatched the window, raising it up high.

  She gasped.

  Then she said, “Hello. Remember me?”

  He just stared at her.

  She was wearing American blue jeans with sandals, a red-and-blue plaid blouse knotted at her waist. Her hair was tousled, a tangle of blond curls, her face free of any make-up.

  In the moonlight, she was even more beautiful than she had been at the luncheon. It was as he’d mused: without the Hollywood paint, she was radiant, like a young, fresh-faced, well-scrubbed Russian peasant girl. To gaze on such beauty made his heart ache.

  “You have to get out of here!” she whispered. The woman’s forehead was taut with terror.

  Her distress took him aback; the missing pistol gave the woman credibility, but how was she part of anything that might concern him… ?

  She narrowed her eyes and shook her head, clearly frustrated, obviously distraught. “How can I make you understand?… I only know a little Russian…. I don’t know how to tell you in your language….”

  “I understand you perfectly,” Nikita said in English.

  Her eyes became large. “You… you do?”

  He nodded.

  “But… but… your interpreter… ?”

  Nikita shrugged. “Letting others think I speak no English gives me advantage.”

  “Oh,” the movie star said, impressed, “I see… how clever of you!”

  Her reaction pleased him, and he was wondering if he should invite her into his bedroom; but he was a married man, a husband, a father, and the woman was young and beautiful… and they were both what Americans called a “V.I.P.,” and the danger presented by the missing pistol was matched by the scent of scandal.

  These thoughts passed through Nikita’s mind in a moment.

  “Why have you come?” he asked, leaning a hand on the sill, playing portly Juliet to her comely Romeo.

  The terror returned to her eyes. “I’m afraid something bad is going to happen to you,” she said, “if we don’t leave here at once.”

  Holding the razor behind him—he did not suspect her, he instinctively trusted the woman, but he did not want to frighten her—Nikita smiled. He was flattered that the famous Hollywood actress was concerned for him, and it affirmed his belief that the American people and its government were not necessarily of the same mind.

  “What could happen to me here?” he said with a chuckle and a shrug. “Over one hundred people are on this floor and around hotel ground, to guard and protect me.”

  “Well, if that’s true,” she said, eyes big and seemingly innocent, “then how come I made it up this fire escape and nobody stopped me?”

  Nikita felt his smile fade. The woman had made a valid point. Where was the guard supposedly stationed on the fire escape? Had the guard gone to that same place as the pistol under his pillow?

  Nikita crouched down, face to face with Marilyn now, the windowsill between them, his eyes locking onto hers. “Why is it you think I am in danger?” he asked.

  He listened intently as she told him of overhearing a troubling conversation today in a men’s room between two of his trusted KGB guards; she suspected a conspiracy to assassinate him among his own people.

  In these circumstances—in this unfriendly town, in a hotel room where his personal pistol and the guard guarding his window had both vanished—the woman’s words rang all too true.

  “Please,” she pleaded as he pondered, “it’s almost two o’clock! That’s the time they say ‘goodbye’ to you! You must come with me….”

  He frowned, confused. “Come with you… ?”

  “I rented a car for us—hurry up!” She reached out with both hands, grabbed onto his pajama top, and tugged, trying to pull him out onto the fire-escape balcony.

  “Please,” he said, pulling away with dignity, holding up one hand. “You must allow me to get pants.”

  “All right—but shake a leg!”

  Having no idea how shaking a leg would quicken the act of putting on pants, Nikita rose from the window. Should he believe her? He gazed down at her sweet, earnest face. Yes—of course he should.

  This instinctive belief in Marilyn—along with other gut instincts that had saved his life more than once over many a harrowing year—now urged him to flee.

  He snatched his tan trousers from a nearby chair, pulled them quickly over his pajama bottoms, then plucked up his brown shoes. He closed the straight razor and slipped it in his pants pocket.

  “Hurry, hurry!” Marilyn cried from the window.

  No time for socks, and for a shirt the pajama top would have to do. Shoes in hand, Nikita climbed through the window, and swiftly, agilely, followed Marilyn down the fire escape, even as behind him he heard the splintering of the door to his locked room…

  … then the unmistakable snick, snick, snick of a sound-suppressed automatic pistol, as bullets chewed up the bed where fortunately—thanks to Marilyn Monroe—he was no longer at rest… though had she not come, sleep would finally have come to him.

  Nikita and Marilyn were halfway down the fire escape when a bullet zinged off the railing just behind them, barely missing the premier.

  Marilyn shrieked and froze.

  Nikita grabbed her hand and pulled the trembling woman along, and they raced down the fire escape, feet clattering and clanging on the metal, and above them other feet were doing the same; then they jumped the last few steps as another bullet from the silenced gun smacked into the hotel’s wall with a poof!, spraying them with pink plaster.

  Together they ran around the back of the building, and along the deserted swimming pool, the moon placid and unimpressed as it shimmered off the still water. Then the couple burst through the foliage at the pool’s end.

  “This way!” Marilyn cried, taking the lead, pulling Nikita across the hotel grounds by one hand, his shoes clutched in his other, as the two went winding around and through the lavishly flower-arrayed and shrub-flung landscape. They did not hear anyone in pursuit, and maybe they’d eluded the assassin… Nikita sensed it was only one person….

  As they rounded a bush, Marilyn stumbled, nearly falling over a body sprawled on the grass. She stifled a scream with her hands.

  Nikita, breathing heavily, looked down at one of his Okhrana guards, lying face up, a small black hole in the forehead of his pockmarked face.

  “This is guard on fire escape,” he said flatly.

  Her voice was breathy, an out-of-wind whisper. “But… he was one of the men in the bathroom!”

  “A traitor betrayed. Forget him.” Nikita looked at her urgently. “Where is car?”

  “Over there!” Marilyn pointed to a blue vehicle parked in front of one of the hotel’s little houses. Then she dug in a pocket of her jeans and pulled out some keys.

  “I’ll drive,” she said.

  “It is your city,” he said.

  Hand in hand, they ran to the car and climbed in, Marilyn behind the wheel, Nikita next to her.

  She started the engine and drove quickly out of the hotel grounds. At the street, she turned left, the car making a protesting squeal, and sped away down a wide, all-but-deserted street bordered by palms. The famous Sunset Boulevard, a street sign told him.

  “Where are we going?” Nikita asked Marilyn, as the city streaked by. “Police?”

  “No! I don’t trust anybody right now… except you.”

  Bright lights in the darkness flashed around them, as he managed a smile; he began to put on his shoes. “You are smart woman.”

  “I thought of somewhere safe,” she said, her face wet with tears; but she was smiling—she
seemed proud of herself. “The one place no one… no American, no Russian… will ever think to look for you… not in a million years.”

  He frowned at the pretty thing. “Where is this place?”

  Her eyes were a little wild as she beamed at him. “It’s called Disneyland. Didn’t you want to go there?”

  Chapter Ten

  NIGHTMARE IN RED

  IN HIS DREAM, Jack Harrigan was no longer working for the State Department; he was with the CIA, its director, Allen Dulles, having personally asked for Harrigan’s transfer, dispatching him on a dangerous foreign assignment.

  Right now Harrigan was in Hungary—or a dreamscape version of it anyway, in black-and-white and splashed with shadows like an old crime movie, the sound of a zither plunking, as the spy walked along—a Luger in a hand stuffed deep in a trenchcoat pocket—cutting down narrow, strangely-angled, rubble-littered streets, the perspective all wrong. He was in a hurry to meet his contact, who had valuable information that could save the world; but the CIA man couldn’t remember who that contact was, or where in this Caligari world he was to meet that informant.

  Then, out of the dark recess of a bombed-out doorway, stepped a beautiful blonde—Marilyn Monroe!

  Her dress was skin tight and blood-red; it looked painted on, but the paint wasn’t dry, the effect liquid, like blood, and her full lips were damp too, painted the same startling color in a world otherwise black and white. Her high heels were black and her flesh creamy white, making a startling contrast against the gray, decayed, bullet-pocked wall behind her.

  Suddenly Harrigan remembered: she was his informant!

  He leaned into the recess of the doorway, as if to kiss her; instead, he asked, “What do you have for me?”