Secret of The Red Planet

by Chris Hawley

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  IVAN’S DREAM

  I awoke as the plane hit the runway. It bounced twice and then settled into a steady run, reducing speed slowly. I looked out of the window and saw that it was dark. Sonia was sleeping opposite me.

  As soon as the plane came to a halt, the doors were opened and Sonia and I were shepherded down the steps into a waiting car, which sped away into the darkness. Only a minute later, the car came to a halt and we were led into a building near the airstrip. A door opened and we entered a square room, bare save for a desk and four upright chairs. A single bare bulb glared from the ceiling, instinctively causing my eyes to narrow. It was then that I was spoken to for the first time.

  ‘Sit down in that chair,’ said the blue-eyed, blond-haired man, turning to me. ‘And you there,’ he said to Sonia. He left the room, leaving only the short man, who stood up against the wall on one leg, with the other crossed over it, toe to the floor. He wore baggy dirty grey trousers and a thick, brown and yellow checked, long-sleeved shirt. Like that we waited for what seemed like ages. I turned to the man and told him that Sonia was not well and should be allowed to go to bed. He stared at me but didn’t answer.

  At last another man entered the room and behind him a woman. They pulled up chairs to the table and sat down facing Sonia and me. For a long time they didn’t speak. The man was intently studying some papers that he had picked out of a folder on the desk. He was about forty, with a large, wrinkled and pitted face, wide mouth and grey eyes. His hair was fair and thin. He wore a blue-grey polo neck sweater. At last he put down the sheaf of papers, removed his glasses and stared at me. He gave me the faintest hint of a smile.

  ‘I hope you had a comfortable journey,’ he said in a thick accent, having difficulty with the word ‘comfortable.’

  ‘But my friend is not well and she needs to go to bed,’ I repeated. ‘And I am very tired.’

  He turned and spoke to the woman, addressing her as Svetlana. She was tall, slim and good-looking. Immediately she got up and, taking Sonia by the arm, she led her out of the room.

  ‘She will be taken care of,’ said the man, scratching the side of his face.

  I smiled a weak thank you and waited for him to speak again.

  ‘My name is Ivan,’ he said, ‘and you are Bill.’

  I said nothing. He must know a lot about me already, I thought.

  ‘I know you are tired but we have some talking to do before you can sleep. It is good if we talk soon, then we can both sleep.’

  I knew what he meant. He wanted information and he was not going to let me sleep until he got it. He cleared his throat and scratched the side of his face again before continuing.

  ‘You are in Russia, my friend. You are here as a guest of the Russian Government. You will be treated well…….. that is………….if you agree to cooperate.’

  Again I knew the meaning of his words. Fear gripped me again. I sent a plea for help into the night sky for Michu to intervene.

  ‘We have time, so relax. I am a patient man. But even my patience has a limit. Do not exceed that limit, whatever you do.’ He looked at me with his cold grey eyes and then went on in his halting English.

  ‘You are familiar with Russian history, I hope? It was a question.

  I nodded. I had learnt about the hundreds of years of Tsarist domination and the coming of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, followed by more than thirty years of Stalin’s dictatorship and the final collapse of communism.

  ‘Under communism, the Soviet Union was ahead of the world in technology. The year 1961 was a great year for our country, the year cosmonaut Gagarin was the first man in space.’ Ivan sighed. ‘The Americans got to the moon first, I know, but we were having some small problems. After 1990, when the Soviet Union broke up into many small states, Russia was weakened and the United States of America,’ he almost spat out the words, ‘went far ahead. Russia will again be strong.’ Ivan spoke with conviction, his eyes blazing with patriotism.

  ‘My friend, Russia will soon again be great, under the powerful leadership of the P.M. Putin. America has had its day. In the future our rival for world leadership will be China. But Russia will take its rightful place on the world stage, not to dominate but to lead. We want to live in peace with our neighbours. War is no good for us or the world.

  ‘I am just a small cog in the wheel of progress. And you are also a cog but smaller still. But take out one cog and the machine stops, No?’

  I looked at Ivan’s pitted face and his fair bushy eyebrows. He put on his glasses again and took up a sheet of paper, reading through it quietly. He scratched the side of his face as he read. I wondered when this nightmare was going to end. To Ivan I was to be a cog in the machine of Russian leadership of the world. I didn’t like the role he had cast for me. Finally he put down the sheet of paper, removed his glasses and spoke again.

  ‘I have seen that you are a brilliant student and will one day become a scientist and help to save the planet,’ he said, looking intently at me. ‘Russia needs brains like yours and Russia rewards those who contribute to its greatness.’

  I wondered how he knew about that and then I remembered I had mentioned it in my e-mail to Michu.

  At that moment, Svetlana entered the room and spoke briefly to Ivan, before going out again.

  ‘Sonia has been checked by our doctor. You will be pleased to know that she is recovering from her concussion well. She is eating now and then we will see that she sleeps until the morning.’

  I was thankful for the information. At least these people have some compassion, I thought. Don’t let him lull you into a false sense of security, Bill, my more cautious side was telling me. Ivan continued.

  ‘We know a lot about you, my young friend,’ he said. ‘Ever since your local newspaper printed the story on Sunday, our agents have been watching you and finding out all about you.’

  I thought about the two men who had followed me in the park but that was before the story came out. My mind saw the two men who had come into the library, when was it? Yesterday morning! It was hardly possible, so much had happened since then.

  ‘The disguises were good, my friend, but they would have to be much better than that to fool our secret service. Yes, you are right, the men who watched you in the library were Russian agents.’ He smiled a thin smile.

  I remembered the time I had sneezed in the library and the false moustache had flown off and landed on the floor. I had thought they had not noticed but trained agents don’t miss a thing but at the same time they don’t let on.

  ‘MI5 was also interested in your story. But they don’t have a James Bond these days.’ He smiled at his own sense of humour. ‘The early bird catches the maggot, I think you say.’

  I didn’t correct him.

  ‘Let us get back to business, shall we?’ he said. ‘You have a story to tell, a story that is very important to us. The Americans are short-sighted. They would have exterminated you, like they exterminated those aliens that time. If only they had sent an ambassador with them back to their planet, just think what they could have learnt. But the American Government is paranoid about anything that might disturb their world. We need the information you have and you are going to give it to us. Our Government believes you have the key to the door to Russia regaining her rightful place as the leader in space exploration.’

  ‘How are you sure I will cooperate?’ I asked bravely.

  ‘We have our ways of making people cooperate, my friend. In your case I think those ways will not be necessary.’ His voice carried a good deal of confidence.

  ‘How do you know I wouldn’t rather die?’

  ‘For two reasons, first, because there are many ways of dying, some quickly and painlessly and the other kind of death.’

  ‘And the second reason?’

  ‘Secondly, because you also need help.’

  ‘What help is that?’

  ‘Your Martian friends are in trouble, I think. Your letter to your Martian friend was
very revealing. You will expand on it, of course, because there are some gaps. You see, you help us and we help you. I scratch your stomach and you scratch mine.’

  I couldn’t resist a smile at his attempts at English proverbs. Then I thought of my meeting with Zeris and his warnings of a Zogg invasion of Mars. I wondered then if Russia really could help Similaria combat their enemies. Again my cautious side warned me not to weaken in the face of either threats or promises of help. Let the Martians decide that, not you Bill.

  He took up another sheet of paper and put on his glasses to read it. When he had finished he leant back in his chair and closed his eyes. I waited for him to continue. I felt myself nodding off in my chair. A nudge on my shoulder brought me back to my senses. It was the man who had been leaning on the wall behind me. He was there to ensure I didn’t sleep. At last Ivan opened his eyes and sat forward in his chair.

  ‘Russia will again be strong,’ he said with passion. ‘America is following a dangerous path and they will become weak. They have a leader who allows his personal feelings to cloud his reason. As a world leader that is very dangerous. America is involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, like they got involved in Vietnam. Who will be next, Syria? Or Iran? Russia learnt her lesson in Afghanistan and will not repeat the mistake. Russia must follow the path of scientific development. We lost fifteen years but we will catch up.’ Ivan was passionate in his love for his country, that was clear.

  ‘Shall we start? The best place to start is at the beginning, so start at the beginning, my friend.’

  I moved in my chair. Shall I tell him or not, I thought, torn between the wish to sleep and the fear of betraying my friends. I had no idea if Ivan would honour his promise to help Similaria.

  ‘I need time to think about it,’ I said.

  He looked at me and I guessed he also had a decision to make. After some time he must have concluded that there was the possibility that I may willingly tell him my story and decided to allow me to sleep.

  ‘Very well my friend,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow we will continue.’

  I was led out of the room by the other man who had stood against the wall. He led me into another room nearby. On one side stood a bed and on the other side by the wall, a basin and water jug stood on a wooden table. Another door next to the table led to a small toilet.

  The man, who said his name was Alexei, went out and locked the door behind him. I pulled aside the brown curtains that covered the window and saw that it was heavily barred. Beyond the bars lay the blackness of the night.

  After visiting the toilet I lay on the bed, exhausted, and was soon lost in a deep sleep.