Smart Bombs

by Len Levinson

  Natalia said goodbye to the officer and then took Butler’s arm and walked him to some telephone booths. I’m going to call Sonia now, she told him in sign language.

  He nodded approval.

  She went into a phone booth and dropped in a coin. Then she dialed the number. It rang and rang on the other end. Finally somebody picked it up.

  “Hello?” said a sleepy female voice in Russian.

  “Sonia?” asked Natalia.

  “Yes,” Sonia said cautiously.

  “Do you remember your cousins from Stavropol?”

  There was silence on the other end for a few seconds, then, “I don’t remember any cousins from Stravopol, but I believe I do have some in Grozny.”

  “There are two of us,” Natalia said with urgency. “Can we come over now?”

  “Urn, I have a friend with me, but that’s all right. It isn’t every day that my cousins from Stravopol come here.”

  “We are using the names Boris and Katerina Noginsk.”

  “Ah, yes, my father’s sister’s children,” Sonia said to fool whoever was with her. “How nice to hear from you. Do you know how to get here?”

  “We have subway directions.”

  “Good. I’ll make some coffee. See you soon.”

  Natalia hung up the phone and looked at Butler. In sign language she said, We’re going over there now, but she has someone with her.

  Who?

  I don’t know. Maybe a lover.

  They took an escalator down into the subway station which Butler considered palatial compared with the ones in New York. Passing a mirror, he looked at himself and saw a grungy fellow in a crooked cap who need a shave. They boarded a subway train and rode for awhile, then got off, boarded another, and rode that one for awhile. Then they left the train and climbed stairs into the fabled city of Moscow.

  They found themselves in a neighborhood of tall apartment buildings made of concrete, all identical. The architect must have drawn them in his sleep. Street lamps still were on and the sun rose in the east. Natalia led him to a building and they went inside to the elevator, pressing the button. When it came it disgorged seven sullen men and three sullen women. Then Butler and Natalia got on, riding to the seventh floor. They walked down the corridor and knocked on a door.

  There were footsteps on the other side and Butler wondered if something had gone wrong. A KGB agent was waiting with his gun out, but the door was opened by a beautiful young woman with platinum blonde hair worn short. Her skin was pale as snow.

  “Sonia?” asked Natalia in Russian.

  Sonia nodded and smiled. “Yes, dear.”

  They hugged and kissed with great feeling, considering that they’d never seen each other before in their lives. Natalia introduced Butler and dumbly he smiled. Sonia looked at him curiously, then said loudly in Russian, “How wonderful it is to see my dear cousins from Stravopol again.” Then she invited them inside and closed the door.

  “Are we alone?” Natalia asked, looking around the small room. There was a bed, easy chair, and desk with another chair in front of it.

  “Yes,” said Sonia, wearing a diaphanous blue gown.

  “I thought you had someone here with you.”

  “I told her my cousins from Stravopol were on the way over, so she left.”

  Natalia looked at Butler. “He is an American and does not speak our language. We should speak English from now on, but very softly, because he is supposed to be a deaf-mute.”

  “I see,” said Sonia in accented Russian. She looked at Butler and whispered, “Your costume is very good.”

  “So is yours.”

  She blushed. “This is a very small apartment. The only place I can offer you to sit is the bed.” She indicated it with her delicate hand, and Butler wondered what she’d been doing on it all night with her girlfriend.

  The bed, big enough for two to sleep comfortably, was against the wall, and they all sat on it, leaning their backs against the wall Butler was in the middle, with the women on either side of him.

  “What is it you want me to do?” Sonia asked.

  Butler answered her. “We want you to put us up for awhile, while I try to get some information on a new weapon being developed at the Vasilkov Munitions Plant”

  “Ah, I have a friend there!” Sonia exclaimed.

  “You do?”

  “Yes. Grushenka Kutozov. She is a doctor at the Vasilkov Munitions Plant. We both are members of the Moscow Doctors’ Union.”

  “Will she cooperate with us?”

  “Not with you, but with me. We are … very good friends.”

  From the hesitation in her voice, Butler realized that Sonia and Grushenka had made it together.

  “Was she the friend of yours who was here last night?”

  “No, that was another friend of mine,” Sonia replied, embarrassed.

  “How soon can you talk to her?”

  “Tonight, if I can reach her during the day today. What do you want me to find out?”

  “There is a research project being supervised by a Professor Lebaykin. It has to do with a new microwave weapon that can change the power balance in the world and thereby bring about a situation where the Soviet Union might feel emboldened to launch World War Three. We must get copies of the plans so that we can distribute them throughout the world and thus restore the balance of power.”

  “I’ll ask her about it tonight.”

  “Can you trust her?”

  “Yes, we’re very close,” Sonia said. She looked at her watch. “I had better get ready for work. It wouldn’t be good for me to be late. Especially now that you’re here.”

  “Go ahead,” Butler said.

  Sonia got off the bed, took some clothes out of the closet, and carried them to the bathroom.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Sonia stopped on her way to the bathroom and looked curiously at Butler and Natalia.

  Butler pointed to the door and whispered. “You’d better answer it.”

  Sonia draped her clothes over a chair, went to the door, and opened it up. Two men in overcoats and slouch hats were there, and the one in front held out a badge of some sort. Sonia’s face drained of what little color it had. Butler’s heart shuddered as he looked at Natalia, who was smiling.

  The two men strolled into the little room. “Is there someone here named Natalia Kahlovka?” one of them asked in Russian.

  “That is I, Comrade,” Natalia replied, getting off the bed and walking toward them. “Place these two spies under arrest.”

  Butler didn’t understand Russian but he knew something awful was going down. The two men took out guns and pointed them at Butler and Sonia.

  “You’re under arrest!” one of the men said in Russian.

  Sonia nearly fainted. Natalia looked at Butler and smiled triumphantly. “Let me translate for you, fool,” she said. “You are now a prisoner of the Soviet Union. These two men are KGB agents, and so am I. Hereafter you will refer to me as Captain Novoshakhtinsk.”

  “I don’t think I can pronounce that.”

  “You’ll learn soon enough, capitalist pig.” She turned to Sonia. “Put your clothes on, sex degenerate. You’re going to jail.” Then she looked at Butler again. “Perhaps you’re wondering how I notified the KGB?”

  “I imagine you told that Army officer.”

  “Correct. I had you so blinded with lust that you didn’t even suspect me.”

  “That’s not true exactly, dear. We always suspected you, but we had to play along with you. The fate of the world hung in the balance. And by the way, you give great blow jobs.”

  Sparks flew out of her eyes. She stormed toward him and punched him in the mouth, but he was a big fellow and didn’t flinch. “Pig!” she screamed.

  “Whore.”

  She punched him again, and this time a small trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. Butler decided it was time to stop taunting her. Sonia, meanwhile, was putting on a dress and coat over her nightgown.
Her hands were trembling and Butler felt sorry for her. She’d been a mole for five years, and now on her first assignment got nailed before she even left her apartment. They’d send her to a labor camp in Siberia and that would be the end of her, because she was a frail, delicate thing, so pale and ethereal.

  “Why don’t you let her go?” Butler asked Natalia. “She hasn’t done anything.”

  Natalia held her finger in the air. “But she was going to do something if she had the chance. She was going to strike a blow against the worker’s state which educated her and made her a doctor.”

  “Give her a break, Natalia.”

  “I’ll give her a break, I’ll break her dirty revisionist neck!” She looked at the two men with guns. “Take them away,” she ordered.

  Chapter Ten

  A black paddy wagon was waiting out front, with a Zim automobile behind it. Butler and Sonia were herded into the back of the paddy wagon, and Natalia got into the car with the two KGB agents. The paddy wagon drove away, with the car close behind it.

  Butler and Sonia sat facing each other on the benches in back of the paddy wagon as it rattled over the streets of Moscow. There was a tiny window in back.

  “I’m awfully sorry about this,” Butler said.

  “It’s not your fault,” she replied in a voice barely above a whisper. “This is a dangerous world that we live in, and we have to expect this sort of thing if we take a stand against the cruelty and madness. It is better to die a wolf than a lamb.”

  “Hold on—nobody said anything about dying. We might get out of this yet.”

  She shook her head. “Once people disappear into the Gulag system, they’re never seen again.”

  “There’s always a chance,” he protested.

  She shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid not,” she shuddered as a sob passed through her body.

  Butler moved to her side of the bench and put his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t give up hope, whatever you do. I’m considered a very smart fellow. I’m sure I can get us out of this somehow. I can’t believe that a man like me will have to spend the rest of his life in the Gulag Archipelago.” He hugged her closer to him.

  She dropped her cheek on his shoulder. “Ah, it’s so sad to be so young and to be put in prison.”

  “Be strong, Sonia. I’ll think of something.”

  “You don’t know how difficult the Russian prison system is. There’s no way out unless you have influential friends, and we have no influential friends.”

  “Don’t give up hope,” he said. “I’m telling you that I’ll think of something.”

  She laughed ruefully. “You’re just saying that to cheer me up, but don’t worry about me, I can take the truth.”

  “I’m not saying it just to cheer you up.”

  “Then you’re saying it just to cheer yourself up?”

  “I’m saying it because I’m a very capable person. I’ve broken out of jails before.”

  “But never in Russia.”

  “A jail is a jail.”

  “Well, good luck,” she said, skepticism still in her voice.

  “I’ll tell you what—let’s bet on it. I’ll bet you a hundred rubles that I get us both out.”

  She shrugged. “All right—one hundred rubles. Why not? If everyone else is mad, we might as well be mad too.”

  He took her slender hand in his and shook it. “It’s a deal,” he said.

  They sat jouncing around on the bench, his arm around her shoulders and her hand in his. Their bodies rubbed against each other, and Butler began to get turned on. He was on his way to prison with a lesbian, and in the forefront of his mind was a desire to have sexual relations with her. He laughed at his foolishness and lust.

  “What is funny?” she asked, turning her pale, beautiful face toward him.

  “You wouldn’t believe it,” he replied.

  “I’d believe anything at this point. Why are you laughing.”

  “Well, here we are on the way to prison, and all I can think about is that I’d like to make love to you right now.”

  “What!”

  “I told you that you wouldn’t believe it.”

  She took his arm off her shoulders and moved away from him, looking at him with fear and suspicion. “How can you think of something like that at a time like this?”

  “You’re very lovely.”

  She sighed. “You Americans are crazy. I’ve always heard it, but now I know it’s true.”

  “I’m not crazy at all. The problem is that you don’t realize how attractive you are to men. You’ve been sleeping with women too long.”

  “Now that’s enough!”

  He pointed his finger at her. “I’m going to get your goodies someday. You just mark my words.”

  She squealed and moved farther away from him. “Don’t touch me.”

  “I’m not going to touch you now, but someday I’m going to get you.”

  “Never.”

  “Never say never.”

  She shook her head and raised her chin in the air. “Never!”

  “I’ll bet you another hundred rubles.”

  “Where are you going to get all those rubles? You’re going to jail, you idiot!”

  “We’re getting out before long. You’ll see. Come on, let’s shake on it.” He held out his hand.

  She looked at it. “You’re crazy.”

  “Come on—a hundred rubles.”

  Pinching her lips together, she grasped his hand. “It’s a bet,” she said.

  “A bet that you’re going to lose.”

  She looked at the roof of the paddy wagon. “I must be even crazier than you.”

  “You are if you think you’re going to win this bet.”

  The paddy wagon stopped suddenly, and they both fell to the side. The rear door clanged open and Natalia was standing there with the two KGB men and two uniformed guards.

  “Okay—out you two!” Natalia snarled.

  “Natalia, how you’ve changed,” Butler said sadly.

  “OUT!” she screamed.

  “Why, you’re becoming a hysterical woman.” He looked at Sonia. “After you.”

  Sonia crouched toward the door and jumped off the paddy wagon, and Butler followed her. They were in front of a stone wall ten feet high, behind which were gray stone buildings.

  Sonia raised the back of her hand to her forehead. “The Kaluga Prison,” she said in dismay.

  “What’s the Kaluga prison?”

  Natalia laughed sadistically. “What’s the Kaluga Prison?” she asked. “It is the most notorious KGB prison in the Soviet Union. It’s the place where we find out what we want to know.” She looked at the guards. “Take them away.”

  The guards marched Butler and Sonia to a gate, showed identification, and were admitted to a cobblestoned prison yard. The morning sun gleamed on a vast number of concrete buildings with cupolas and spires on top. Butler thought it looked like photographs he’d seen that showed the inside of the Kremlin. Natalia and the two KGB men walked behind them, and Butler thought about what a weird, twisted little girl Natalia must be.

  They entered the main reception office of the Kaluga Prison. There was a uniformed official behind a raised desk and several armed guards standing around. Natalia barked some orders in Russian, and the official began filling out papers. Natalia signed them, and then she ordered guards to take Butler and Sonia to their cells.

  As Butler was being led out of the room, he turned to Natalia and said, “How could you do this to me, after all we’ve meant to each other?”

  “We meant nothing to each other, you idiot,” she replied, looking at him haughtily.

  “How did you beat our lie detector machines?”

  “That’s none of your business, fool. Get moving!”

  Butler waved to Sonia. “See you on the outside, kid.”

  Sonia frowned as she was led through another door. Two guards grabbed Butler by the arms and marched him out of the reception room into the dank, labyrinthi
ne corridors of the notorious Kaluga Prison. From afar they heard men groaning, sobbing, and snoring. There was little light, and the air smelled of disinfectant.

  They went down stairs, through passageways, and then up stairs. Butler became disoriented, not able to place where he was in the prison complex, which he realized was the general idea behind taking him on this circuitous route. Finally, in what appeared to be the very bowels of the prison, they entered a narrow corridor lined with cells. A guard opened one of the doors, and the other guard pushed Butler into a cell.

  “Hey, take it easy there,” Butler said, brushing himself off.

  They mumbled to each other, locked the door, and walked away. Butler sniffed the air and scratched his head, looking around. Here I am in jail again, he thought. He’d been jailed numerous times throughout his career, and always had managed to get away. This jail should be no exception, right?

  He sat on the cot attached to the wall and looked around. There was a commode in the corner and that was it. Your standard lousy prison cell—bars facing the corridor and stone walls all around, a cup of soup and a slice of bread every once in a while.

  Previously he’d been imprisoned in South America, and the jails weren’t so tough down there. But a Russian jail might very well be different, and in fact probably was. He’d been acting bluff and confident to cheer up Sonia, but actually he didn’t feel that optimistic. Even if he got out of this cell, how could he get out of the prison, how could he get out of Russia?

  There had to be a way. When they’d searched him superficially, they’d neglected to take his little laser pen. It was a harmless-looking little plastic thing and it had got him out of scrapes before. Presumably it would again. But he’d have to do it right, because he knew they wouldn’t give him a second chance.

  He hadn’t slept much on the train the night before, so he thought he might as well go to bed and try to repair his strength for the ordeal that lay ahead. He hoped Sonia was all right, as he lay down on the hard wooden cot. He didn’t feel very lustful anymore. She must be in a state of shock, poor kid. Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

  He closed his eyes and went slack on the cot. Things have to get better, he thought, because they sure as hell can’t get much worse.