Falling Star

by Philip Chen

  "Mildred, I'd like to take him in myself. Can you back me up?"

  "You okay?"

  "Yes."

  Mildred discretely took out her Beretta, checked the magazine, chambered a round, and placed it at her side. She purposefully stood to the side of the doorway, out of view.

  Martha knocked on the door.

  "Come in," called out the familiar voice of Arthur Morrison.

  "Mr. Morrison?" said Martha as she entered the familiar classroom. Nothing much had changed inside the room. The atmosphere was still the upbeat, cheerful, computer friendly classroom it had been when fourteen-year-old Martha Ann first entered twelve years ago.

  At the front of the classroom, a white-haired man in his early sixties sat reading a book. He was a largish man, his flesh pale and white with reddish splotches. Even though it was a warm summer afternoon, the old man was dressed in a white shirt, blue and red striped necktie, and a light gray wool tweed jacket, smelling faintly of camphor.

  Although the man's desk obscured the rest of his clothing, Martha knew from memory that his outfit was completed by dark gray wool trousers with cuffs, blue silk socks, and cordovan wing tipped shoes. Morrison wore this outfit all year round.

  As he read, he drew on a burlwood pipe and sleepy wisps of bluish gray smoke floated toward the ceiling in the still air of the room. The smell of Old Sail tobacco brought back pleasant memories to Martha, who continued to struggle with the truth.

  Arthur Morrison looked up from his reading, recognition lit up his face. "Martha Ann, how nice to see you again. What brings you back to Cambridge? I haven't seen you since you graduated from M.I.T. Where did you go to work again?" He rummaged through his desk drawer. "Oh, yes. You went to work for the federal government. What agency was that again, Martha Ann?"

  "It was the FBI, Mr. Morrison."

  "Oh yes, I remember now," said Arthur Morrison as he brought the snub-nosed .38 caliber Police Special from underneath the desk and pointed it at Martha. "This is such a tragedy, Martha Ann. You always were my favorite student."

  "Why?" said Martha Ann. "Why have you done this?"

  "Oh, come on now, Agent Thomas. This started as part of the eternal struggle between two powerful adversaries and now has gotten a life of its own. You and your pitiful colleagues at CSAC and the FBI will never be a match for the organization that I have established in this weak, decadent country of yours."

  "You won't get away with this, Morrison."

  "So, it's Morrison now, Martha Ann. You always had a flair for the dramatic. I'm surprised that you came alone, I thought you capitalist apparatchiks always traveled in groups. But then, you always were impetuous, Martha Ann. It made you so charming in high school."

  "You might be able to get me, but there will be others."

  "I think not. If I know you, Martha Ann, you probably saw this in heroic terms. High Noon with Gary Cooper, or maybe you thought you were Dirty Harry. I suspect you had to confront me by yourself. Now, please hand me your weapon carefully, Agent Thomas."

  There was little that Martha could do but comply. She reached into her purse and carefully brought out her pistol and laid it on Morrison's desk.

  "Now, that's a good girl," said Morrison, as he put Martha's gun in his waistband. "Now we're going for a little ride. What I must do cannot be done in this hallowed classroom. That would be a sacrilege."

  "Obviously you're not Arthur Morrison," said Martha. "Who are you?"

  "Now, now, my dear Martha Ann, that would be a state secret. But it doesn't matter anymore, since it will go nowhere. I am Gregor Ivanovich Lechenkov, Colonel General of the Army of the United Soviet Socialist Republics and a director-resident of the KGB, assigned to command the forces of the Motherland in this decadent land under Project Cicada.

  "As the leader of the hundreds of dedicated men and women of Project Cicada, I have a duty to them. A duty that transcends even the national pride that first brought us to these degenerate shores. I must shepherd them, justify their existence. So you see, my dear Martha Ann, you have stumbled on to the biggest catch you could have ever made in your career with the FBI. Too bad it has to work out this way."

  Perplexed, Martha said, "But why now, with Russia and America moving toward unrestrained cooperation? Doesn't that eliminate the need for your mission?"

  His eyes flashed. "Silly girl. Do you really believe that because a few old weak men in Moscow decide to turn on the Motherland, in favor of whining women and misdirected children, that the cause is lost? Like the proverbial bear, the cause must go into hibernation to survive this chill, this cold wind from the west. In time, even the so-called Newly Independent States will realize that only central planning can deliver a full stomach. Then, Martha Ann, then my people will rise again. No, the struggle didn't die simply because that drunken traitor Yeltsin climbed on to a tank. No, it has just begun.”

  All the while, Lechenkov got more agitated. He pushed back his chair and stood balancing by one hand as he kept his pistol aimed at his former student.

  "The same pressures that compelled the formation of the Soviet Union in 1917 are once again at play. The centuries-old wounds, such as between the Serbs and the Croatians, resurfaced immediately when they were granted your so-called freedom. All that your so-called liberty has done is to kill innocents so that some zealot can avenge some long lost hatred. So much for your freedom. Only the might of the central government of the Soviet Union could channel those hatreds and jealousies toward a common good, which it did for more than seventy glorious years. No, my dear Martha Ann, my services will be needed for a long time to come, despite the crude attempts to terminate my valuable mission.

  "What right do these revisionists have to redefine our goals at such a late date? What right do they have to tell us that only 38,000 out of 500,000 KGB agents will survive to continue in the service of the glorious state? What do they realistically expect the remaining 462,000 trained agents will do? Disappear into the shadows of life? Become taxicab drivers, shopkeepers, pensioners? Come on, Martha Ann, surely you can see my point."

  "But, Mr. Morrison, surely you have …"

  Lechenkov's voice became even more strident.

  "What right do they have to take my heritage away, my years of work, and leave me with crumbs? I have served the Motherland well and this is what they, the so-called saviors of the Russian nation, give me in return? They don't have a right to liquidate my mission and order me to simply cease and desist. What is left for me at home, no apartment, no dacha, not even food on the table? What is the inheritance I shall leave my grandchildren?

  "Hero of the Soviet, bah! I spit on it. You can't eat medals and accolades. These old men and their whimpering women are fools. My troops are conditioned to respond to no one but me -- not to the weaklings in the Kremlin or their suckling lap dogs in Lubyanka. They will do as I want and I shall be in a position to take the Motherland back to the clear thinking that would have never permitted the travails of Glasnost or Perestroika. We have resources that even the Politburo never imagined it had. The funny thing is that I haven't needed the fools in Lubyanka for years. They just didn't notice.

  "We can survive in this weak land of yours for decades, rising to serve the Motherland when the time is right. Like the noble cicada, my troops shall hibernate for years, for decades, until I give them the signal to attack. The information that your CSAC people have been transmitting will surely be useful to the few of my trusted comrades who remain in Lubyanka, who serve to wait for the right moment to strike and restore the glory of the October Revolution.

  "Even if the Motherland doesn't come to its senses, there will be others: the Bosnians, the Croats, the Serbs, the Iraqis, the Syrians, the Colombians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and, yes, even groups inside your own decadent nation who will find good use for our services. Yes, there are groups that would welcome the discipline and mastery of skills that my troops have developed. Even more than Mao Tze Tung, I have learned to swim like the fish in the sea.<
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  "My men and women are specialists in all forms of military conquest. There are weapons specialists, sappers, pilots, marine experts, you name it. They merely await my word and they strike. They live their lives quietly. They could be your neighbor, your co-worker, the bus driver, your best friend, or even your lover. But they are all cicadas and they belong to me."

  "What about Ted Grayson?" said Martha.

  "Such a poor boy, never could get along with his mates. After he was suitably alienated from his schoolmates, it was a simple matter to bring him in."

  "You exploited your own son?"

  Lechenkov shrugged. "Exploit is a harsh word. I did nothing more than any American parent in guiding my son into the family business. He has a special skill, a skill that enabled us to know what you were doing at all times."

  The matter was concluded. Martha now knew the startling truth. The attacks on CSAC personnel were not directed from Moscow or any other foreign government. They were the last futile strikes of Colonel General Gregor Lechenkov, totally without orders from his superiors. The creature that Russia had created in the Cold War survived even as its creator did not.

  As the two walked out the door, Lechenkov held Martha's right arm tightly with his left hand. His right hand held the snub-nosed .38 hidden in his jacket pocket.

  Lechenkov looked out the door to the hallway. All he saw were a few students loitering in the hall and an old lady in a silk summer dress and dark blue blazer drinking water from one of the porcelain fountains in the hall.

  "Please don't make any wrong moves, Martha Ann, or innocent people will be hurt," whispered Lechenkov, as he and Martha left his classroom.

  "Hi, Mr. Morrison!" said one young girl, looking for the world like a young Martha Ann Thomas, so bright and full of energy. Her honey blond hair bounced as she tilted her smiling head in greeting. The student was a part of the Cambridge Summer Fun program, in which gifted and talented students could take one or two courses for extra credit.

  "Hi, Sue Ellen. Now don't forget your computer project is due next week," said computer teacher Arthur Morrison.

  "Okay, Mr. Morrison. Don't worry, it's almost done." She bounced along her way, her silky hair swinging in time with her walk.

  Taking Martha firmly by the arm, Lechenkov started down the long corridor toward the stairs, past the white-haired old woman drinking from the porcelain water fountain.

  As the two walked past her, Mildred spun around, aimed her Beretta at the back of Lechenkov's head and pulled the trigger several times. The loud reports of the Beretta echoed through the brick and wood corridor, kids flattened themselves on the highly polished linoleum floor, and Sue Ellen started screaming hysterically.

  The three bullets found their mark in the right rear of the Lechenkov's head. The small caliber slugs of the Beretta did not tear his skull apart but they did their deadly duty nonetheless. Only one of them exited from his forehead leaving a comparatively small exit wound and eventually lodging in the opposite wall.

  Searing pain turned to brilliant whiteness and was followed by utter blackness as Lechenkov's lifeless body jackknifed and fell to the hard floor. His grip on Martha' right arm loosened as he collapsed in a pool of red blood, his right hand still clutching the snub-nosed .38 in his right suit jacket. In his death throes, his right hand squeezed the trigger of the .38, the loud report and ricochet of the slug echoed in the hallway.

  Martha Ann knelt down to cradle the bloodied lifeless head of the man she had come to know as her second father, the genius who had taught her the world of computer science, and the marvelous things that those computers could do. Martha gently closed the eyelids of Arthur Morrison, eyes that stared lifelessly at his favorite pupil.

  As Martha knelt, her emotions welled up in her hazel eyes. She remembered the gentle, exciting computer science teacher who had such a way with his students.

  Martha put her forehead in her right hand as she hugged herself in pain. All she could say was, "Damn, damn, damn."

  Mildred came up, holding her gold Defense Intelligence Agency badge for all to see. "Are you okay?"

  "Yes, Mildred. You saved my life, but God it hurts."

  2100 Hours: Wednesday, June 30, 1993: Arlington Heights Apartment, Arlington, Virginia

  A tired and mentally exhausted Martha opened the door to her apartment in Arlington Heights, overlooking the maze of roads called the "Mixing Bowl" by all the radio traffic announcers. This had been the worst day in her life. The emotional drain of watching Arthur Morrison die left Martha shocked and depleted. It was hard for her to separate Arthur Morrison, the beloved computer science teacher, from Gregor Ivanovich Lechenkov, the despised enemy agent.

  After locking the door, Martha turned on her personal PS/2 computer and checked her E-mail. The blue screen indicated that she had mail. Martha keyed in the code to open her mailbox. There was only one new message. It said: "I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE."

  Martha stared at the ominous message. Muttering to herself, "You perverted fuck, you can't scare me," Martha reached inside her handbag and took out her .40 caliber Glock 22 pistol. With her gun in the ready position, Martha carefully checked out her small third-story apartment room by room, including the balcony off her living room. Having satisfied that she was alone, Martha dialed the Hyatt Regency in Bethesda, Maryland, where Mike and Mildred had established their headquarters.

  "Hi, Mildred," said Martha as Mildred answered the telephone.

  "Oh, hi, Martha. How are you? Long time no see," answered Mildred, as she put down the burlwood pipe she had been admiring.

  "Look's like that slime ball Grayson is still lurking around. He left a message on my E-mail."

  "What is E-mail, dear?" said Mildred.

  "Sorry, E-mail stands for electronic mail. Anyone who has your E-mail address can leave you a message. It looks like Grayson found my address."

  "So what's our next step?" said Mildred.

  "We probably should find out what George and his group found for starters."

  "I'll call him in the morning. Try to get some sleep, dear," said Mildred.

  That night, as Martha prepared for bed, she made one more sweep of the tastefully decorated rooms, her .40 caliber Glock 22 pistol at the ready. Her living room was neatly laid out with a moderately expensive set of matching sofa and armchair of white crushed velvet. A black wood rocking chair sat in one corner of the living room, the gold crest of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was impressed on the headrest of the chair. On Martha's parquet floor was a braided brown rug, given her by her mother.

  In the dining area of the living room, instead of a dining table, Martha had opted for a computer work station made of oak hardwood. Her IBM PS/2, Hayes Modem, and Epson 510 printer sat on the work station. Martha's bedroom was where her femininity showed. Her single bed was covered in a frilly white comforter, matched by the lace curtains on the windows. Her antique dresser and makeup table were constructed of solid oak. The entire apartment glowed with Martha's personality and her favorite perfume, Esteè Lauder White Linen.

  Having satisfied herself that Grayson was not in her apartment and having once again checked the door and window locks, Martha undressed, glad to be free of the restraints of society, and stepped into her bath for a long hot, stress-relieving shower. Her .40 caliber Glock 22 pistol sat in its holster, hanging on a towel hook within her easy reach. The hot water splattered on her tired body, each drop washing away the sadness and terror of the day.

  After her shower, Martha dried herself carefully and, wrapped in her large soft white towel, walked into her bedroom. Dropping the towel on the white wall to wall carpet in front of the full length mirror on her closet door, Martha admired her lithe, athletic body, her terrific mane of strawberry blond hair, the accent of her hazel eyes that got greener when she was excited, her flawless skin, her firm full breasts, the flat stomach that was the product of countless sit ups, and her slim hips. If Martha had any regret, it was that God had denied her fuller hips. She
turned once in the mirror checking her smooth back and well turned legs one more time. Yes, she was beautiful, but with a soft sigh she turned from the mirror.

  Still nude, Martha turned down the covers on her bed and climbed in, happy that this day was finally over. She placed her Glock pistol under her lacy pillow, turned off her table light, and fell fast asleep.

  Down in the parking lot of Martha's apartment, the round-faced driver sighed as the lights went out in Martha's third story apartment. In the relative coolness of the summer night, the interior of the car was steamy. He removed his fogged rimless eyeglasses and wiped them dry with his yellowed handkerchief. He brought to his nostrils the silk panties that he had so carefully taken during his time in her apartment. He had conducted his raid so stealthily that she would never miss this one item. He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of Esteè Lauder White Linen.

  His fantasies had run rampant as Martha's shadow had moved about the lighted apartment and especially when she appeared at the windows, checking the locks. He was happy that his message to her had concerned her; she was his.

  His hand reached for the ignition key and turned it, starting the recently stolen Oldsmobile Cutlass. Without turning on the lights, Grayson drove out of the parking lot. Once on the main road, Grayson turned on the car lights and drove to the Starlight Motel in Roslyn, where he was currently staying.

  0800 Hours: Thursday, July 1, 1993: CSAC Offices, Washington, D.C.

  "So, our boy Ted has taken a liking to you," said Smith in a weak attempt at humor.

  "I can't prove it, but I have this uneasy feeling that Grayson may have broken into my apartment. God, that gives me the creeps," Martha shuddered. "What should we do?"

  "A strange bird," said Mildred, as she looked up briefly from her knitting.

  "Martha, I'm going to post some agents to guard your apartment," said Adams, who now felt sorry that he had involved her in this tragic mess.

  The three were in a conference room in CSAC's Tenley Circle headquarters in Washington. The other people in the conference room were Mildred, Bateson, and Joyce Ellington. Smith had invited Bateson and Joyce to the meeting because he had a plan to catch the elusive Mr. Grayson.