Supermind Part 26

7

Red Square was, somehow, disappointing. It was crowded with men and women, all looking very Russian in an undefined sort of way, and the big gla.s.s windows sparkled from every side. "I know it's silly," Luba said in a baffled voice, "but, somehow, I always expected Red Square to be red."

"And why should that be?" the MVD man next to her said. He was a burly man with a sour expression, as if he had eaten too many onions the day before.

"Well," Malone said, "it is Red Square, after all."

"But red is symbolic only," the MVD man said surlily. "Is not color.

Only symbol of glorious Russia."

"I suppose so," Luba said. "But it's still disappointing."

"You expect, perhaps, that we recruit our glorious Red Army from American Indian tribes?" the MVD man said sourly. "You are literal-minded bourgeois intellectual. This is not good thing to be."

"Somehow," Malone mused, "I didn't think it was."

"But this is different," Luba said. "The Red Army is made up of Russians. But this is just a square. You could paint it."

"After all," Malone offered, "the White House is white, isn't it?"

"White is cowardly color," the MVD man pointed out with satisfaction.

"Never mind that," Malone said. "We call it a white house, and it is a white house. You call this a red square, and it isn't even pink. Not even a little bit pink. It's just--just--"

"Just building-colored," Luba put in. Malone turned to her and executed a small bow.

"Thank you," he said.

"Think nothing of it," Luba said.

"Oh, don't worry," Malone said. "I will."

The MVD man hissed like a teakettle and both heads swung round to look at him again. Her Majesty, who had been admiring some dresses in a shop window, also turned. "My goodness," she said. "That's a terrible wheeze. Do you take something for it?"

"Is not wheeze," the MVD man said. "Is noise representing impatience with arrogance and stupidity of capitalist warmonger conversation."

"Arrogance?" Luba said.

"Stupidity?" Malone said.

Her Majesty drew herself to her full height. "We do not monger war,"

she said. "Not in the least. We are not mongers."

The MVD man looked at her, blinked, sighed and looked away. "This color discussion," he said, "it is very silly. Look at the Blue Ridge Mountains, in your country. Are they blue?"

"Well--" Malone said.

"What color, for example, is the Golden Gate Bridge?" the MVD man continued, with heavy sarcasm. "Is not even a gate. Is a bridge. Is not golden. But you say we disappoint. No. You disappoint."

There seemed to be no immediate answer to that, so Malone didn't try for one. Instead, he went back to looking at the Square, and beyond it to where the inverted turnips of the Kremlin gleamed in the moonlight.

The turnips were very pretty, if a little odd for building-tops. But Red Square, in spite of all its historic a.s.sociations, seemed to be a little dull. The buildings were just buildings, and the streets were filled with Russians. They were not bomb-throwing Russians, bearded Russians or even "Volga Boatman"-singing Russians. They were just ordinary, dull Russians of every sort, shade, race, color and previous condition of servitude.

It was just about what he'd expected after the trip. That hadn't been exciting either, he told himself. There had been no incident of any kind. None of the three spies seemed to be exactly overjoyed about being sent back to good old Mother Russia, but none seemed inclined to make much fuss about the matter, either. Malone had blandly told them that they were being deported, instead of tried, because there was no evidence that was worth the expense of a trial. And, besides that, he had particularly emphasized that the FBI did not believe any of the stories the three men had told.

"They just don't match up," he said. "You all told different stories, and there's too much disagreement between them. Frankly, we don't believe any of them--not yet, we don't. But mark my words. We'll find out the truth some day."

He'd thought it was a good speech, and Her Majesty had agreed with him. It had its desired effect, since the plane was the first place the three had had a chance to meet since their arrest. "Each one knows that he told the truth," Her Majesty said, "but n.o.body knows what the other two said."

"That's what I figured," Malone said. "They didn't have a chance to talk to each other."

"And so each one is lying his head off to the others," Her Majesty said, "and telling them all about how he, too, lied gloriously and bravely in defense of the Motherland. It's really very funny."

"Well," Malone said, "it makes them happy. And why not?"

Luba, too, had chatted with her father quite a lot of the time. Her Majesty reported that none of this conversation could possibly be understood as dangerous or harmful. It was just simple conversation.

Of course, Luba and her father hadn't talked all the time, and Malone did have a chance to get a few words in edgewise. Her Majesty made no report on those conversations, but Malone was comfortably aware that they did not belong in the harmless cla.s.s. His relations.h.i.+p with the girl seemed, he told himself happily, to be improving slightly. Now and again, he even won a round from her.

As the American plane crossed the border, it was picked up by an escort of Russian fighter craft, which stuck with them all the way into Moscow. The fighters didn't do anything; they were just there, Malone figured, for insurance. But they made him nervous when he looked out the window. The trip from the border to Moscow seemed to take a long time.

Then, at the airfield, a group of MVD men had almost elbowed the American Emba.s.sy delegation out of the way in greeting the disembarking little band. There was a lot of palaver, in Russian, English and various scrambled mixtures which n.o.body understood. The American delegation greeted Malone, Luba and Her Majesty formally, and the MVD concentrated on Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch. The three spies were hustled away, apparently to MVD Headquarters, without much fuss. Luba said goodbye to her father calmly enough, and Vasili Garbitsch seemed almost entirely unaffected by his surroundings. As the plane touched ground, he had said: "Ah, the soil of Mother Russia," but, outside of a goodbye or two, those were his last words before leaving.

One MVD man stayed behind, even after the American delegation had left. His name, he explained, was Vladimir Josefovitch Petkoff. "It will be my pleasure to show your group the many historic and interesting sights of Moskva," he announced to Malone.

"Pleasure?" Malone said. Petkoff was tall and heavy, and wore a row of medals that strung out across his chest like a newspaper headline.

"My duty," Petkoff said flatly, "is my pleasure. That is how we arrange matters in Russia."

And so the tour had started, with Red Square. Malone told himself he didn't really mind if it weren't red, but he did think it could at least look sinister. Unfortunately, the Square did not seem particularly willing to oblige.

"So this is Red Square," Malone said, after a long silence.

"You do not sound interested," Petkoff said in what sounded like a vaguely ominous voice. "Because it is not painted in capitalistic and obvious colors, it bores you?"

"Not exactly," Malone said. "But when you've seen one Square, you've seen them all, is how I feel about it. There must be somewhere else to sight-see."

"Somewhere?" Petkoff said. "There is everywhere. This is Moskva, the capital and the greatest city in Mother Russia. That is what we are told to say." He lowered his voice. "Personally," he added, "I come from Leningrad. I prefer it. But in Moskva one talks only of Moskva."

"I know just how you feel," Malone a.s.sured him. "I've been to San Francisco."

"Well, then," Petkoff said, almost smiling at him. "What is there you would like to see?"

Malone fished in his pocket for an American cigarette. He'd brought a carton with him, having once tried Russian makes. They seemed to be mostly cardboard, both the long filter and the tobacco. He lit the cigarette and thought for a second. "I don't suppose," he said cautiously, "that we could take a look around inside the Kremlin, could we?"

"Aha," Petkoff said. "I see what is in your mind."

"You do?" Malone said, startled.