by Philip Wylie
Forrest—Mobile MacB. Forrest—what the hell was his real name?—had crashed through the front doors—in a Soviet truck!
Eaper shuddered, remembering.
It was like an explosion—that roar of engine and scream of burst portals. He could see the vehicle now—a beat-up, two-ton Zotz loaded with four huge hogsheads. And this—damn it!—Grove, right! Grove!—at the wheel … alone. He could even remember the words on the truck’s body, printed in battered cyrillic. The Russian escaped him but not the translation.
People’s Soft Drink Cooperative
Giantgorsk, Rostov-on-Don
Trembling, he recalled how nearly he had bit down on his suicide capsule, sure the wrenched-open door meant capture. But that Grove fellow had yelled in time. “Hold it, Pop! I’m taking you out!”
He had leaped from the cab after the shout, dragging scuba-like gear he’d stolen from the Soviet naval base at Pleek, stolen from the cruiser Stalin, in fact. (How the hell did he even board her? Eaper had never asked. And there had been little enough time, then or later.)
The man, always a happy-looking type, had explained swiftly: “I’m on my way to the Luxembourg Soft Drink World Fair. Russia is exhibiting some stuff—orange pop and lemon, also cider—to show off the Soviet victory spirit. You’ll ride in a barrel, with the breathing gear. Papers are all set. I’ll nail you in while we get clear of this hellhole and let you out again—till we approach the border. Nail you back in when we’re near the checkpoint. Okay?”
Dazed, Eaper had still functioned. Another matter for self-congratulation. “You mean, I’ll be in a hogshead of cider? Orange pop? With Soviet frogman gear? But, man, when we stop, I’ll bubble!”
“Sure! All four barrels will bubble! We’ll go out near Ponz, two hundred-odd kilometers from here. I’ll explain to the muzhiks about the trip; and about breakdowns, and the result: the whole cargo fermenting. It’ll be hilarious!”
“My God!” He recalled saying that, or the equivalent.
Grove hardly noticed. He was already dragging Oglethorpe’s body toward a long-unused vat, wooden and rotted. He lifted the corpse and threw it in. No splash or rat squeal followed. Weeks later Eaper realized Grove had picked up and tossed, literally, a dead, 185-pound man into an empty beer vat higher than he was.
“Hop in!” Grove had thus easily and swiftly disposed of the fifth best man they’d placed behind Red lines.
Still, Eaper had hesitated. Grove understood and smiled!
“They’re two streets away: NKVD, in civvies,” he said. “Navy lurking too. But they all might as well wear uniforms. Got any better idea?”
So Eaper had clambered aboard the truck and been helped into a hogshead three quarters full of what smelled like rotten apples (and was, in part). The lid came down, a hammer whacked and soon the motor revved up, missing a few beats. The truck backed and rattled on cobblestone streets, still loudly fecund of dangerous engine sounds: of skipping, par for USSR vehicles.
He was let out when they reached an empty plain as immense as the sea. There was plenty of such unused and weedy terrain in the People’s Paradise.
He emerged sticky, soaked, stinking and shivering with cold. He passed that night on the truck bed: rusty steel. Toward dawn, and after two tire changes, Grove put him back in the oversize barrel, topped it off from a muddy stream, and checked out his passenger for the critical events to come.
The Russian gear was unfamiliar but Eaper managed to use it, with Grove’s help.
As he remembered the next part, the director rose to walk about the bare, red-hued room, not stepping on certain areas of carpet with the automatic precision of long habit. That ride! The temporary frontier was reached after a thousand years he’d spent gargling in mud and water with a rotten apple flavor. But now the other three casks, like his own, were hissing, burping and glugging—their seams open and the chemical Grove had added working with gassy effectiveness.
At the border, it was “hilarious”: for the Soviet guards, at least; and, possibly, even for Grove, who’d predicted that condition.
Eaper couldn’t hear the words but he dimly caught some of the soldierly laughter. And he shook as the casks were rapped.
It was, as Grove had prophesied, a successful gambit. Nothing that outrageous could surprise the soldiers, not even the idea that Stalin, or somebody near Stalin, had decided to make a premature victory gesture by sending vats of soft drink to a Luxembourg fiesta.
That the cargo had been en route too long, owing to the ricketiness of the conveyance, and was now fermenting, was also accepted and even condoned as a usual mishap. The fermenting of the fruit juices would, moreover, disqualify them as “soft drinks”; but one expected such trials. The border guards were sure, too, the truck would never make that far-off and only vaguely recognized and soon forgotten country. But maybe, they said, by this time, the load might be potable? Like hard cider? Would the driver let them have a sample?
If they liked, Grove said. But at their risk, he added. Because there had been a preservative in the stuff which had somehow failed to prevent fermentation. It might be a toxic thing, for all he knew, since it plainly was a mistake. Besides, he had something a bit better; safer by far. Eaper hadn’t noticed a smaller cask in the truck, one made for nails, presumably, but half full of vodka now. Grove suggested it; his sly camouflage was complimented. His authenticity as a Soviet citizen was now complete. The keg was sampled and appropriated after Grove, who had a pronounced Don Cossack accent, got one shot.
He had argued for a while. The truck went on when he lost. For some miles, distant artillery could be heard.
An hour passed before Grove dared unnail his colleague, who by then had mere minutes of air left. Unable to stand, vomiting apple-scented muck, Eaper finally saw a British jeep there, waiting. That was the worst bit of all: two British officers not laughing, at a visible cost similar to the paroxysms of angina pectoris. And he had two more days of travel before he was able to bathe.
Yes, he remembered “Mobile MacB. Forrest.”
As seldom as possible.
The Bank C light went on—Amber in Ten.
Grove would be in Holding Two, then: Ringling Wallenda Grove. R. W. Grove—which rang another bell: a name seen in the past five-six years. R. W. Grove Products? Stock Exchange? No. Newspaper ads? Eaper got it: Grove Games. He pressed through to Whicket and looked up at the bare, pale rose wall he faced. On it, suddenly and from no discernible source, an image was projected, along with shining words in flowing type.
The image was of a skeleton—Grove’s—with what additional, opaque items he wore and had in his pockets—keys, the eyes for laces on his shoes, a fly zipper, bill clip and buttons. The words ran along, name first, and, finally:
X ray clear—not chemical-sensor-positive—radiation nil-normal—any further?
Eaper signaled to bring the man in.
Grove came smiling—always had grinned, the fool, Eaper mused; wore a cheerful expression in the worst times. Wideapart, gray eyes made the smile, mainly. He had broader shoulders than Eaper remembered; looked pretty young for—mid-fifties?—in good condition, smooth walk, and not quite a fool, either. Grove’s eyes took in the bare room swiftly, fixed on the visitor’s chair a split second and glanced from it to Eaper with an increased smile. Mocking? Eaper wondered. Perhaps so. A devil of a hard guy to euchre into a serious state of mind, Eaper recollected. Full of fun; and the hotter it got, the merrier he grew: the hotter or colder.
“Well, well…!” Eaper put on his second-best welcome face.
“Tutti-frutti,” Grove said.
Eaper’s response was automatic. “Beeman’s.”
“Nabisco.”
“ZuZu.”
“Trade and Mark Smith.”
“Katzenjammer Kids.”
They laughed, Grove with real amusement; they shook hands, taking care to do it gently.
“Hell, friend, it’s good for sore eyes!”
Grove chuckled. “Happened to be in DC
and thought of you. I’ve thought of you often, lately, in fact.”
“Take the electric chair.” Eaper still played the game. But what did Grove want, since he’d been thinking of CIA’s chief? Eaper sat as his guest did and his geniality, or his feigning of it, diminished like a receding taillight: a job, probably. The old boys get sentimental; get to wanting to try their hand again. Dated and obsolete, all the old lads who’d retired.
“You did damn well, getting—as far as you managed before you were stopped.”
“Seventeen Purple?” Grove laughed.
Eaper flinched but not, he decided, visibly. “That’s classified, Ring. It evidently leaked. We’ll have to change.”
Grove watched as Eaper slid cigarette papers from a tooled leather box and separated them. He rolled the excess tissues into pellets and snapped them at the floor. One bounded under the desk and stopped on Grove’s side. Another followed. With a third, in a lifelong and vain way, Eaper made, one-handed, a cigarette—tobacco-sack string in his teeth, cowboy style, eyes above, wary, annoyed, as he put a kitchen match to the final product. Grove patiently waited out the exhibition and then explained.
“No leak, Art. Got it from Thinbutter.”
Thinbutter was Army: four stars and due to be one of the chiefs of staff, next month. If Grove knew the general, he, Axe, had better be careful. “Glad to hear it. Like to keep our—entrances and exists—as Shakespeare had it—in the family. Shifting Seventeen Purple would louse us up for a while.” He added, “You look fit.”
Grove reached for a pocket. Eaper reached for a paper knife and toyed with it while Grove got out a pack of Chesterfields: regular. He lit one with a Zippo, which had been checked as a Zippo. He blew smoke and eyed his onetime colleague.
“I’m fine, Art.” The use of that truncated first name irritated the director. He hadn’t heard it from anyone but the President, lately. But he took it with a graceful expression, in order to end this soon but urbanely. “What can we do for you, Ring?”
The other man studied his Chesterfield in, apparently, unconscious imitation of Eaper’s scrutiny of his now-shedding homemade butt. “Well—nothing, perhaps.”
“Friendly call? Dam’ decent of you! Like a drink?”
“Thanks. No.” Grove seemed unhurried. He smoked. Eaper did, too, being gingerly with his remnant and worrying behind his unworried look; noting, however, that Grove’s suit was custom-made, as was his shirt. He recalled more of Grove’s singular history: the circus parents; his language skills; others, odder. But he didn’t have any use for the man, he felt, not probing into that, much.
“You—retired? Living up there at—what is it—in western New York State?”
“Warsaw. Yes. Much of the time. Have a South Miami place too. Not exactly retired. I own a small, you’d call it, manufacturing business. Quit the stage magician trek years back.”
Eaper recalled that period—spoke of it, hiding his disdain.
“I know you’re busy,” Grove finally said. “Or should be, in seeming. Guy runs a thing like CIA must at least fake being busy. Though I remember your saying, oh, during the time we had to kill, waiting, before that Bandol bit—’44, was it?—that the bigger job a true executive held, the more time he should have for his personal interests; his pastimes or hobbies or even a nap. Sign of good organization, you said.”
Eaper didn’t remember any such statement. But he nodded. What came to mind was an endless wait during a cold mistral in a cowshed overlooking the Mediterranean. What Grove said he’d stated gave a fairly good posture. “Right,” he murmured.
“Kind of reverse Gresham’s Law,” Grove grinned. “As Tintetta Pollack would say.”
Eaper was discomfited by “Tintetta Pollack.” That was the name of the heroine of the book he’d been reading, The Cadmium Caper. And his copy was an advance one; so Grove, too, arranged to get spy yarns, prepublication. He couldn’t have known what Eaper was doing when interrupted. But Grove knew a great deal about Eaper’s eccentricities, the habits that hadn’t changed over the years, at any rate. A pretty cute guess, he decided, and he tried to figure out a connection between Gresham’s Law and the lady spy whose sexual “sacrifices” so intensely preoccupied the—exceedingly explicit—spinster author. They discussed fictional espionage for a few professional, and so, very amused, minutes.
“However,” Grove went on, his humorous glow fading into a sleepy-eyed shimmer, “I didn’t drop by to reminisce, sell anything, covet imaginary females in books or borrow money. I merely—well—wondered, say, if, perhaps—with the world the way it is—you could use an old duffer who, once—”
There it was, as feared and anticipated; as feared, because Eaper owed this avuncular-looking man a debt: his life, and not once but three times, minimally, with only a single pay-back, when he’d gotten Korslivsky just as the Russki was about to blast a clip at Grove.
But he did not want Grove in the “shop”; his word, shop; because, he suddenly saw, Grove could tell many a true tale that would not advantage the director, if Grove would tell—though, on reflection, he rather felt Grove was not that sort of boy. The risk, however trivial, remained: a motive concealing any possible other motives.
He began his usual talk for this situation, one that sounded like a tape recording. Appreciation of patriotism. Measureless value to his country of past efforts. Past efforts. And so on, topic by topic.
The finale sounded regretful.
It wasn’t 1942 any more. Or ’48. The business of information gathering had changed. Cloak and dagger stuff was now a minor factor. And where it had to be used, it was highly mechanized and technical, demanding young men, with the reflexes of youth and years of training behind them.
A disarming smile, and the demonstration followed. From Grove’s standpoint that was quite vivid, although scarcely unexpected. He saw Eaper tap with his letter opener—not, as hitherto, on the desk blotter—but against a cigarette box, lightly. With that, a tremendous, instant glare blinded him for a second; he thought the room then went dark and knew, later, that was so. In the glare or dark came a whooshing sound, a stir of air, a hushed thud—and everything returned to normal. Grove blinked away the strobe-light dazzle. Eaper was where he’d been, smiling with apology and saying, “For illustration.” But his voice now came through a loudspeaker. He reached out with the letter opener and tapped a glass barrier, then a pen set.
A sound came next, an ear-bursting scream that seemed to emerge at Grove’s brow level. He jumped. The act was involuntary and automatic but it would have interrupted any hostile move on his part for long enough to allow Eaper time to do whatever Eaper might have in mind. The strobelike flash had been identical in its effect. Even a man who could draw a weapon at record speed would falter in either situation. Even a man with the cool of a Grove would freeze or flinch briefly.
Grove’s first reaction was anger. Eaper had been a gadget buff in the OSS days but Grove had mistrusted automated devices and relied, as far as he could, on his own faculties and abilities. As a scientist, a man entitled to be called “doctor,” and as an inventor of harmless toys and games, he could imagine the mechanical resources of people now in Eaper’s employ.
He realized Eaper was talking, then—and still through a loudspeaker. “Between us is a bulletproof wall. It descends in three tenths of a second. I am now shielded and could, touching appropriate studs, paralyze you, knock you out for a predetermined time, and, of course, kill you. The chair, desk and shield, among other, up-to-date devices, have those capabilities. Sorry to throw a scare into you. But it’s the quickest means of showing the difference between old and present—call them, tricks of the trade.”
Grove’s anger was useful in a long-perfected fashion. His eyes continued to glow amiably. His mouth half smiled. He gave an oboe chuckle and with a slightly trembling hand again produced his pack of Chesterfields. In trying to take one, he dropped it on the blood-red carpet. He glanced, then, at Eaper, who nodded to permit retrieval.
The
act put Grove’s hand briefly out of the administrator’s sight. Or presumably did, he thought. Grove’s cigarette had fallen within inches of one of the tissue pellets Eaper had rolled and flipped, part of his trademark—a dexterity he did not display outside secure areas: his home, and his office if no one, or only “X-cleared” persons, were present to impress.
Grove swiftly picked up the pellet and snapped it toward Eaper’s feet on the other side of the desk, a sleight-of-hand trick very simple for a professional magician. The tiny wad stopped at Eaper’s loafer sole, proving the director’s instant glass barricade did not cover the kneehole.
Grove grinned as he pretended to fumble momentarily over the dropped Chesterfield: Eaper’s self-protective device was flawed. Any would-be assassin allowed to recover a dropped cigarette, dropped glasses or whatever would have access to the director’s legs.
That discovery took two or three seconds. Grove straightened up, lit the Chesterfield and continued to fake a tremor, which increased Eaper’s pleasure. A vase was moved, and the glass barricade whooshed away as the loudspeaker was cut out.
“I’m trying to explain—”
Grove nodded. “Made your point! Very ingenious!” He frowned quizzically. “Ever needed to use these—devices?”
“So far, three times.” Eaper’s vanity led him to explain. “One lunatic—in my own outfit. Next, a colonel, who wanted G2 to sit over CIA. I merely pacified those two. But Bulganov got in here—as an American electronic wizard with some devices he claimed would be of interest to me—and, in a sense, one was. He had a mergator.”
Seeing his old colleague’s bafflement, Eaper used a patronizing tone. “A plastic thing. A no-show on the X ray and other sensors. He was unrecognizable, give him that! Almost managed to activate the merg when I set the light on. It’s a thing firing a needle loaded with aconitine. Lethal. Having seen him produce the merg, I decided Bulganov had to go. He was in your chair and he died in seven seconds.”
