Encounter Group td-56 Read online

  "They are not stupid, and no one believes in the glorious revolution anymore, Chuz," Pavel had replied as the two-hour wait for a waitress dragged past. Normally, it would have been a three-hour wait, but the Zarnitsa brothers had clout.

  "The democracies are crumbling," Chuzhoi repeated.

  Pavel sighed. "Is this what you have learned among the ham-handed GRU?" He felt sad. Most Russians outgrew such talk after they left the Young Communist League. It was indoctrination, nothing more. Pavel tried to explain geopolitical reality to his brother, to explain to him that even as an enemy, America was a friend to Russia.

  "We need them. The Americans keep the Chinese in check. Without America, China might attack us. Even the Politburo knows this."

  "You have been watching that television program again," Chuzhoi laughed, referring to a popular Russian show that every week televised the adventures of KGB agents fighting black marketeers, traitors and CIA agents in the Soviet Union. The GRU had always resented the fact that the KGB had its own television program and were public heroes, just as the FBI had been the heroes of the Americans until recently. But there was a good reason that there was no GRU program. Average Russians were not told of the GRU's existence.

  Pavel shrugged off the suggestion. Sometimes Chuzhoi could be obtuse, and perhaps he belonged in the GRU after all. So he changed the subject and they talked of their boyhood in Kirovograd, in the Ukraine.

  Since that chance meeting, the brothers drifted further apart. The last Pavel had heard of him, Chuzhoi was hard at work in one of the GRU's gadget-making factories. Another childish GRU fetish.

  Then Pavel had been assigned to infiltrate Aeroflot's New York office to root out and expose GRU operatives when the GRU got the better of the KGB in a budget crunch.

  * * *

  Pavel Zarnitsa discovered that America was wonderful. He loved America. Unlike some, he did not love America because it was so much better than Russia. No, Pavel Zarnitsa was not that kind of Russian. He loved America because it was so much like Russia. It was like coming home to a place that he had forgotten from his youth, so that it was hauntingly familiar and new at the same time.

  Oddly, this revelation disturbed Pavel. And he redefined his geopolitical theories.

  America and Russia were on an inevitable collision course, Pavel decided. It wasn't because of the differences between the two countries. Actually, it was their similarities that were the problem. Just the reverse of what his brother believed.

  Both America and Russia were large industrial nations whose frontiers had been wrested from hostile barbarians by Europeans or Slavs. The Americans had their Indians and the Russians their Mongols and Tatars. One country's redskin was the other's yellowskin.

  In time both nations filled out their natural boundaries and sought to expand beyond them. In America, it was the acquisition of new states and territories, like Alaska and Guam. With Russia, it had been the Ukraine and Byelorussia, then client states, most of which had been acquired after World War II. Then these client states had been brought into line only to act as a buffer against the dangerous western part of Europe, which had always been war prone and would always be war prone.

  And then there were the Asians. Huge China and its hungry masses. China would always be a problem, even a Communist China. Especially a Communist China.

  America, which had more or less friendly neighbor countries and nothing but ocean to the east and west, never understood that.

  Could Russia be blamed for entering the war against Japan only after the Nazis had fallen, and only two days after the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, (thus insuring victory for the Allies), even if all Russia did was enter the northern part of Japanese-held Korea and fire a few rounds? When, less than a month later, the Japanese surrendered, Russia, technically one of the victorious occupying armies, swallowed up half of Korea.

  Shrewd. But that was the Russian way. America was shrewd, too. Perhaps not quite as shrewd, but Americans were canny. Hadn't they acquired Alaska from us in such a way that it at first seemed as if America had the worst of the deal? An admirable people. Just like the Russians.

  Which is why Russia would one day have to crush America. There was no room for two identical superpowers on this planet. It had been this way back in the beginning of the War— for Russia, there was only one War, World War II— with Stalin and Hitler. They were too much alike, shared too many similar goals. Allies at first, they had split, not over their differences, but over the recognition that only one of them could achieve the goal both sought. If only Americans were more like the Chinese, Pavel thought, it would be different. A war could be fought over differences, settled, and business would revert to normal.

  But America was not China. It was another Russia— big, sprawling, ingenious, and hearty. Pavel knew, too, that the only thing worse would be a Communist America. Here was the flaw in his brother Chuzhoi's view. From close observation, Pavel recognized that if any country could make Communism work, it would be the United States. Americans were that way. And if that ever happened, the few differences between the two great superpowers would evaporate, and so would the things that allowed them to coexist. If Americans proved themselves to be better Communists than the Russians, the Soviets could never tolerate that. The two nations would come together like mighty lodestones, bringing destruction to both, and possibly to the world.

  But that ultimate conflict could be avoided, Pavel knew. Russia could secretly undermine and outlast the United States as a world power before that time. It might not happen for generations, but it was inevitable. Pavel only hoped he would not see that day, because it would be a sad one. He really liked America. It had everything Russia had, and more of it. And one thing Russia did not have.

  Tacos.

  There was no food like the taco in all of Russia.

  Pavel Zarnitsa had discovered tacos during his first week in New York. He had resolved to sample the food of every restaurant in a widening spiral around his apartment building until he had found a dozen or so in which he could regularly dine. Pavel liked his food, and restaurant eating. With the exception of a Chinese restaurant, which Pavel refused to enter, Pavel found American restaurants to be quite good. He could not believe the fast service, and had to learn to wait until he was actually hungry before going in, not two or three hours before he expected to be hungry, as he had to do in Russia. But when he entered a dingy establishment called the Whacko Taco, Pavel forgot all about all the others.

  Pavel didn't even know what a taco was, but it was the cheapest item on the menu, so he ordered two.

  When they arrived, looking as limp as uncooked fish, he didn't even know how to eat one. He had to watch other diners until he understood that one didn't use the plastic knife and fork but simply lifted the folded corn tortilla to one's mouth and bit off one end while some of the meat filling dropped out the other end to fall on the plate. This could be eaten with a fork later.

  That first taco had been interesting. But it wasn't until he had wolfed down the second that Pavel experienced the sensation he would later dub, borrowing from American drug slang, the "taco rush."

  It began with a hot feeling in the pit of the stomach, which spread outward from the solar plexus and was accompanied by a burning in the mouth and a running of the nose. The brain usually felt clearer and sharper at these times. It was not a meal, it was an experience. From that time on, Pavel Zarnitsa became a taco addict.

  Doing research, he discovered that tacos were the perfect food. The folded corn tortilla contained something from most of the major food groups, except fish. For fish, Pavel sometimes added a shrimp for garnish, which he washed down with a dark German lager beer.

  To experiment, Pavel tried other Mexican foods. Most of these were made of the same basic ingredients as tacos, except that they were served differently, rolled or flat, but not folded like a taco. Somehow, it was never the same, and Pavel stuck with tacos.

  "It must be the design," Pavel said as h
e picked up his date in front of the downtown Manhattan building that sported a winged hammer and sickle emblem and the name AEROFLOT in Cyrillic letters.

  His date was Natalya Tushenka, who was 22 and attractive in a slim-hipped way and who had the glossiest black hair Pavel had ever seen. She had agreed to date him unaware that Pavel was KGB and that she was one of three Aeroflot reservation clerks whom he had not in his mind cleared of any GRU affiliation. Tonight he would find out for sure. In his apartment. But not before they dined sumptuously at the Whacko Taco.

  "I do not understand, Pavel," Natalya asked, wide-eyed. Her eyes were so blue, they hurt. They were the eyes of an innocent. "How can the design of a— a taco have anything to do with the pleasure obtained from eating such a thing?"

  "I do not understand either," admitted the KGB agent. "I only know that somehow it is different with tacos than other food. Like it is different with some women." He gave Natalya a steady glance as they parked near the restaurant.

  Natalya laughed like a faraway silver bell. She blushed, too.

  And because she blushed, Pavel knew she was GRU, and it saddened him so much that he ate only five tacos that night instead of his usual six. But reality was reality, and no 22-year-old Russian woman who worked for Aeroflot would be so innocent as to blush. It was as impossible as a coffee-shop waitress refusing a millionaire's offer of marriage.

  At his apartment, Pavel offered Natalya a vodka and a Turkish cigarette, both of which she accepted. He joined her in the vodka, but didn't smoke because he had given her a marijuana cigarette, which she did not realize until she was sufficiently high for him to record her on sound film for his superiors. The vodka ensured that.

  When Natalya Tushenka was giggling like a schoolgirl and babbling that she didn't really work for Aeroflot, but couldn't say which secret agency she really worked for because it was a secret, silly, Pavel shut off the concealed camera and escorted her down to a taxi and gave the driver instructions to drop her off at the Russian consulate, where her indiscretion would be witnessed by others. The sound film would ensure that she would be dropped from the GRU and returned to Russia in disgrace. Drugs were a serious offense in Russia and unforgivable for an agent.

  Because he was unhappy, Pavel Zarnitsa went for a walk, and his feet led him back to the Whacko Taco, where he had that sixth taco he had been unable to eat earlier. After that, he felt better. It was too bad about the girl. But KGB was KGB and GRU was GRU. Besides, she had shown absolutely no appreciation of tacos. She would be happier married and with children, Pavel told himself. And fatter. Definitely fatter. That part made him feel sad all over again.

  Before going to bed, Pavel read a late edition, and what he read in that newspaper chased his drowsiness away. There was an item in which the U.S. Air Force officially denied that there had been an accident with a Titan missile in Oklahoma. At the same time the official spokesman denied this, he also denied that another incident had taken place in Arkansas only a few days before. The item was full of words like "alleged" and "unconfirmed" and "sources who wish to remain nameless," and Pavel would not have paid it any attention, but the report was on a back page, in a box and was only three paragraphs long. Therefore he knew it was important. All important news in Russia was printed that way.

  Pavel decided that something significant was happening within America's Strategic Air Command and, whatever it was, he had to find out the truth.

  Especially if the Unitted States was going to blow itself up before Pavel Zarnitsa discovered the secret of perfect tacos.

  ?Chapter Eight

  Only two days ago, Ethel Sump had been simply the receptionist for FOES, a group she joined not so much because of her interest in Unidentified Flying Objects, but because belonging to any group made it easier to meet attractive men. At 24, slightly on the plump side, and still unmarried, she knew that time was running out. It was interesting work, even if it didn't pay money, and she got to meet more people than she had at the drive-in pizza place, even if she did miss the $3.70 an hour she was paid at the pizzeria.

  Not many dates, though. But Ethel Sump got used to that as her interest in flying saucers grew. After extensive research in UFO magazines and national tabloids, she had arrived at the theory that flying saucers were really from another dimension, which coexisted alongside ours, but which was invisible and intangible until you crossed over into it, and that ghosts, in which she also fervently believed, were really inhabitants of that other dimension and that they became visible only under certain conditions. What those conditions were, Ethel didn't exactly know, but she was sure it had something to do with sunspots.

  She was delighted to discover that her theory was correct and to hear it confirmed from the lips— assuming he had lips— of that wonderful teacher, the World Master, who had changed her from an ordinary dateless receptionist to an important member of Preparation Group Two, which would carry on the work of Preparation Group One.

  "What happened to Preparation Group One?" Ethel had asked when it came her turn to enter the UFO alone. When the group had been called back after the strange incident in the woods, Amanda Bull had invited all FOES members to speak privately with the World Master, who explained in exquisite detail his plans for the planet Earth.

  "Preparation Group One has done its work and been rewarded— as you will be," the World Master had said in that funny, high-pitched voice. It was too bad he had to stay hidden behind the glass, but Ethel understood he had to breathe his own air.

  Ethel smiled and nodded. She liked rewards. She often gave herself rewards of root beer and Cheeze-its, which were the main contributors to her ungirlish plumpness.

  "When the new age dawns, Ethel Sump, you will have a prominent place in it."

  "Will I be able to get a date, too?"

  "Men will grovel at your feet in the new order."

  "I thought you said earlier that we would all be equal then."

  "Yes. All men shall grovel at your feet equally. Would you like that, Ethel Sump?"

  "Yes, sir. I would."

  "Excellent. You understand that my plans necessitate the neutralization of all dangerous weapons on Earth, beginning with nuclear weapons."

  "I do," said Ethel Sump, who envisioned herself soon saying "I do" under entirely different circumstances.

  "Good," said the figure behind the glass panel. His oversized head reminded Ethel of a tulip bulb moving in a breeze. "And you are prepared to work toward this important goal and obey without question the orders of Group Leader Bull?"

  "Sure. But before we do that, can you answer a teeny little question for me?"

  "Ask."

  "I always thought your people came from another dimension."

  "We do."

  "But earlier you said you came from— from Betelgeuse."

  "Yes, that is true, too," the reedy voice assured her.

  "I don't get it. How can they both be true?"

  "While my planet does circle that star, in order to traverse the great distances between my world and yours, our ships travel through the Fourth Dimension."

  "Oh, I understand now," Ethel Sump beamed.

  * * *

  And when she compared notes with the others and discovered that the World Master had told Marsha Gasse that, yes, his people did come from a subterranean city under the North Pole, and then had informed Martin Cannell that it was true that his people had visited Earth in prehistoric times and created the human race from primeval slime, everyone became puzzled, arid they took the matter to Amanda Bull, who was busily organizing the group for the ride back to Oklahoma City.

  "Hmmmm," said Amanda, who rubbed the hair on the bridge of her nose in thought. The spaceship was still in the woods, and she briefly considered returning to it to ask the World Master to explain, when she saw the craft rise slowly above the trees and, wobbling, move west. She wondered if the World Master hovered in the atmosphere or had a secret base somewhere.

  "The World Master wouldn't lie," Amanda said slowly,
which caused the heads of all assembled to nod in agreement. "So they must all be true."

  "Why, that makes perfect sense," Martin Cannell said. And that seemed to settle the matter, for they all piled into the van, eager for their first training session.

  Ethel Sump enjoyed training, even training with the rifle Amanda gave her, which at first had frightened her. It gave her a sense of purpose and worth. She enjoyed life more in the past two days than in all the years gone before. She even ate less.

  Two days of training didn't seem very much, but Amanda had told them all this morning that tonight they would make their first move. The World Master had contacted her somehow and told her so. Amanda had seemed a little worried about that, but as Ethel had reminded her, "The World Master wouldn't let us go out on this important mission unless he knew we were ready," and Amanda said she had to agree.

  That would be tonight. But for now, they were pretending to conduct business as usual at FOES headquarters. They were all here, except for that Remo person, who had not been seen since an unauthorized intruder had interrupted their first encounter two nights before. Amanda said that Remo had probably gotten lost in the woods and that he wasn't important because "he was only a man." Ethel didn't see what that had to do with anything; Remo seemed rather attractive. Especially the way he walked. But then, he had claimed to have had a close encounter with a penguin, and nothing had been said about penguins ever since, so maybe Remo didn't matter after all.

  So excited was Ethel Sump that she didn't notice the old Oriental gentleman until he had entered the reception area, despite not having been buzzed in.

  "Tell whoever is in charge of this place that an important personage has come to see him," said the old man. He couldn't be more than five feet tall or weigh more than 90 pounds, yet he spoke with greater authority than Ethel's old high school principal.

  "What important person?" she asked.