Day of the Bomb

by Steve Stroble

  “Yeah? So who took the photo? You?”

  “No, sir. Mr. Adamski did.”

  “George Adamski?”

  “Yes, sir. You know him?”

  “I never met him but I read an article by him about life on other planets.”

  “Mr. Adamski’s an expert on that and flying saucers too.”

  “So is he around?”

  “No, sir. He’s up in Long Beach today getting ready for his talk tonight.” He handed Dave a flyer. “That’s the time and address. He can answer all your questions for you.”

  Dave bummed another ride as far as Temecula, where he caught the next bus for Los Angeles. The bus depot in Long Beach crawled with an assortment of humanity that made him wonder if he had touched down on one of Adamski’s far-off planets that he claimed hosted life. Those who had recently come ashore or who waited to go to sea, drunks, prostitutes and their pimps, jazz musicians on their way to or from one of the city’s clubs, and ordinary travelers bound for somewhere or nowhere in particular milled in and around the dingy hub for buses headed every direction except west. Dave hailed the first available cab.

  “Where to?”

  “Here’s the address.” Dave handed the cab driver the leaflet.

  “Okay.” The driver lowered the arm of his meter, cradled a microphone, and told his dispatcher their destination.

  “So, how’s tricks?”

  “Huh?”

  “You know. What’s cooking?”

  The cabbie flashed a smile of teeth so white that Dave thought they gleamed in the car’s dark interior. “You don’t have to talk that kind of jive with me, sir. Just because I’m a Negro does not mean you cannot carry on talking like you usually do. Besides, I’m no cool cat. If I get cut up or shot I’ll bleed red blood the same as you.”

  “Uh, okay. That bus station back there always crawling with that many weirdoes?”

  “They only come out at night, my friend. They only come out at night. The way you talk I can tell you’re not from around here, especially with that accent. Where do you hail from?”

  “The desert out past San Bernardino.”

  “I mean originally. Not many folks in and around L. A. were born here.”

  “Philadelphia.”

  “Philly? No lie? I grew up around Newark, New Jersey.”

  “You miss it?”

  “Not really. Home’s where the heart is like my old lady says.”

  By the time the driver dropped Dave at the meeting, cabbie and fare had become friends, strangers in a strange land who felt more at ease in the familiar territories of their youth than in what they agreed was the “land of fruits and nuts.”

  “Can you pick me back up in a couple hours?”

  “Be glad to. See you then, my friend.”

  Dave checked his watch and smiled because he was twenty minutes early, time enough to meet the UFO cult’s leading proponent. Inside the meeting room, rows of chairs held couples that seemed oblivious of each other or lone searchers for the truth. The most avid devotees orbited around a well-dressed man standing near the lectern. When Dave wandered into their periphery no one noticed him. All eyes focused on their prophet.

  “Mr. Adamski, do you think they will reveal themselves to us soon?”

  “It is only a matter of time. Now that they revealed one of their mother ships to me, even allowing it to be photographed, the time draws near for full disclosure.”

  “What else have they revealed to you?”

  On and on the questions and answers flowed. At times Dave thought Adamski to be a slick politician, glib with answers. But on the whole he radiated a spiritual aura that Dave thought belonged only to priests, rabbis, and ministers. His angular facial features, perfectly combed silver gray hair, and well-cut suit qualified him as a leading character in a B motion picture, Dave concluded. He tried to latch onto the hodge-podge of mysticism, aliens, and flying saucers that Adamski spouted. Then someone asked the question most relevant for Dave.

  “Mr. Adamski, are the aliens coming to Earth to warn us of a coming nuclear war?”

  Dave teetered on the edge of his metal chair.

  “Yes. And unless we heed their warnings, World War III may destroy the Earth.”

  Dave met Charles and his cab at the prearranged time.

  “Where to now?”

  “Back to the bus station, Charles. I have to be back to work tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, sir.” He pulled his cab into the traffic. “How was the talk?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Just okay?”

  “I don’t know. He answered every single question. Nothing seemed to stump him. It seemed too…”

  “Phony?” You know, too slick?”

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “Driving a cab you get to see it all. I’ve driven big shots around and people so broke that they had me take them as far as the money they carried could and then they had to get out and walk the rest of the way. I felt sorry for them but I got to pay to rent this cab so on real slow nights I can lose money.”

  “What do you think about his spiel of life on other planets?”

  Charles chuckled. “I don’t have much time to be wondering about such things, what with a wife and four kids to take care of and all.”

  “You think he might be a con man? He seemed so sincere.”

  Charles laughed. “The best con men are. Like I told you, I’ve run all kinds of folks around in cabs for the last five years. I met some fancy dressed dudes who smuggle Chinese girls right off the boat into cathouses over around Chinatown. One time a coyote had me haul five Mexicans to some house way out in East L. A.”

  “What’s a coyote?”

  “The one that smuggles them over the border.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know who the biggest talkers are?”

  “Who?”

  “Those Hollywood people. I picked up a couple just a few nights back. They were all excited about working on a movie they said was going to be called War of the Worlds. Remember how Orson Welles panicked half of America when he did it on the radio?”

  “Yeah. I thought it was really Martians invading Earth.”

  “You should’ve seen us.” He slapped the steering wheel. “When we heard them saying the Martians had landed in New Jersey we ran and hid under our bed. It took Mama an hour to get us out from under there.”

  Chapter 17

  Two-year-old Dan Rhinehardt and two and a half year-old Stanley Dalrumple struggled with the building blocks. After a few minutes they understood that the notched ends were meant to support the notched end of another log. A miniature cabin began to take shape. Their parents and Dan’s older brother Karl were content to digest the Thanksgiving feast they had lingered over for an hour. The males sat by the radio and listened to a football game, the women sat with sore feet resting on recliners.

  “One down, one to go.” Thelma said.

  “What do you mean? We have to feed them again after the game ends?” Sally pointed at those hypnotized by the play-by-play announcer whose voice grew loud with every big play.

  “No. I was thinking of the craziness from now until Christmas. What’s that I heard about Fred telling Jason that you’re going to visit your folks then?”

  Sally lowered her voice. “Fred still wants to move back East. I bet he’s going to try to get my parents on his side.”

  In the insurance game for the past three years, Fred had mastered every selling technique and invented a few along the way. There was the cold call, in which he introduced himself to whoever happened to be seated next to him in a diner, in line at a checkout register, or shuffling out in a crowd from church, the movies, or sporting event. He always used a variation on a theme: “Good (food, merchandize, sermon, show, game).” If the stranger’s response was neutral or favorable, Fred plowed ahead. “You know, good insurance is important also but you’d be shocked at how many die and leave loved ones behind who were depending on them. It’s reall
y sad.” At worst one of Fred’s business cards was passed to the prospect, at best an appointment was scheduled.

  Using his tactics for a move he lusted after, Fred went deep as he tried to sell Sally on their need to relocate during the last hundred miles to her childhood home north of Lexington, Kentucky.

  “Wow. This countryside all around your stomping grounds is beautiful.”

  “I know what you’re after. You want to move back this way.” Sally folded her arms. “Where is it this time? Baltimore or Boston?”

  “Neither. Right here. I figure living close to one set of grandparents is important to our kids. I have to admit I was selfish to try and get you to move near my folks in Boston. Like Jason always says, ‘I saw the light.’ Kentucky is the place for us.” He started to hum My Old Kentucky Home.

  “But we’ve already set down roots in Madisin.”

  “Honey, the kids are still young enough that a move won’t bother them. What do you say boys?” Fred glanced in the rearview mirror at Karl and Dan. “You want to move here near Grandma and Grandpa?”

  Dan clapped his hands and Karl cheered. During their visit to Madisin last summer, their grandparents had loved them to excess, which made the 1275-mile roundtrip to visit them now worthwhile. “Yes, Dad. When are we moving?” Karl asked.

  Fred smiled. Three to one so far, just need to get the in-laws to talk some sense into Sally. His wife shook her head and groaned. She knew her husband had already asked her father how much houses cost in Lexington. Fred’s having tapped out the prospects along his annual northern and southern runs for new clients worried her. She knew he needed new territory. The population centers west of Madisin were few and far between. Those to the east of Lexington were a gold mine waiting for his sales pitch. That was what he now said to try and close the deal.

  Desperate, Fred confided in his father-in-law Hank as they drove to the store nearest to the 100-acre Richmond farm. “I haven’t told Sally this because I don’t want to scare her but I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to folks in Madisin once they start testing the A-bombs out by Las Vegas.”

  “Isn’t that far enough away?”

  “Depends on who you talk to. One of the scientists I met during the tests in the Marshall Islands told me he thought the radioactive fallout might be able to travel thousands of miles. Madisin is only about 1,000 miles as the crow flies from Las Vegas. At least if I could get her to move this far East we’d be further away from the test sites. He also told me that it looked like fallout could cause defects in babies born to mothers who are exposed to it. So far Dan acts normal but his friend Stanley seems to be slow in the head.”

  “Hmm. Tell you what. I know a feller who might be able to help us out. He lives over in Washington. Good thing you told me about this now. I can call him from the store’s payphone. We’re still so far out in the boondocks that we don’t have one yet at the house.”

  Hank smiled as he told of his first meeting with Bill Sampson. At the time Bill was a U.S. Treasury Agent and Hank a part time moonshine runner during Prohibition. Being a fair-minded enforcer of the law, Bill had confiscated the bottles of illegal alcohol and let Hank go with a warning. During a second encounter the reformed Hank had bought Bill lunch. Addresses were exchanged and a long-distance correspondence begun. Both men liked such friendships, which provided for a relationship with less chance of it becoming strained than if they had lived nearby. During a recent visit when Bill had passed through Lexington as Bill “Barnes” on an assignment, the two had concocted a method for contact by phone. If Hank were calling for help with a personal problem, he was to say he was considering a visit to Washington “to see all the monuments.”

  “We were wondering about coming out your way to see all the monuments.”

  “I’m in the middle of something here,” Bill said. “I’ll call you back later.” The second sentence was code for “I’ll call you back in ten minutes.” Hank enjoyed the secret agent routine.

  “Okay.” Hank sat in the chair next to the payphone. “Grab us a cup of coffee from the lunch counter, Fred. It’ll be a while.”

  “Okay.”

  Bill told his wife and three children that he had to run to the store for “one last present.” His children’s’ eyes lit up, his wife ordered him to hurry home. When the temperature dropped fifty degrees as he stepped from the entryway onto the brick walkway, Bill fished the stocking cap from his overcoat and pulled it over his ears. The nearest pay phone was four blocks away. By the time he reached it, his fingers were tingling.

  What a hassle. There’s got to be an easier way. Maybe so but Bill took no chances, especially when it came to his career. Cloak and dagger work glamorous? Hardly. Thankless was a better description. It meant watching your p’s and q’s twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He had no inkling of what Hank wanted to know but whatever it was, Bill did not want his superiors to know about it.

  Maybe Beth is right. Maybe I am getting just a little bit too paranoid for my own good. But like I told her, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

  He had no way to learn if his phone line at home was being tapped. But after too many years of surveillance duty as an FBI agent he was no longer certain of much of anything. Spying on those on FDR’s hit list had left a perpetual bad taste in Bill’s mouth. He had hoped that transferring to the Army’s version of Hoover’s bureau would be an escape from the worst years of a career that would last over forty years. Now, because of the whispered stories about the new boys on the block, the Central Intelligence Agency, all bets were off. If just half of what Bill had heard was true, he had reason to wonder if Standard Operating Procedure included the bugging of the home phones of agents such as he.

  “Better safe than sorry,” Bill’s mother had instilled in her children. So here he was, freezing on Christmas Eve in a glass phone booth that blocked most of the wind but none of the damp cold that penetrated his bones. But Hank was a friend, which made him worth the drudgery of leaving the comforts only family and home can offer.

  “Hello, operator. I need to place a long distance call to Blue Lick Springs, Kentucky. The number is…” His fingers shook as he unfolded the paper he had scribbled the number on and read it to the one connecting him. “Okay, thank you.” He inserted enough quarters to cover the first three minutes. The phone only rang once at the other end.

  “Hello.”

  “Make it quick, Hank. I left the house with just enough change for three minutes.”

  “Okay. I need to know how far any radioactive stuff will travel once they start testing atomic bombs by Las Vegas.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my daughter and her family live quite a ways west of here.”

  “Hang on a minute.” Bill removed the phone from his ear and cradled it in both hands as he shut his eyes. His mind traveled back to his assignment as Bill Pryzinski, maintenance man on temporary duty at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Before him sat Dave Freight and his dog Saturn, both of them stuffed with Mexican food. On the wall hung a map of America. Superimposed on it were wind patterns originating around Las Vegas, with the heaviest concentration of projected fallout ending…

  “Bill, you still there?”

  “Just a minute, Hank. Please.” Bill yelled down at the mouthpiece. Ending at…The map came into sharper focus. “The worst fallout will probably travel as far as Indiana and the western parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and most of Mississippi. Listen, that’s just a guess, an estimate. And in no way is it from anyone official. And you did not hear this from me. If say you did, I don’t know you.”

  “Right. Thank you, Bill and Merry…”

  “Your three minutes are up, sir.” The operator interrupted. “Please deposit another…”

  “Merry Christmas to you, Hank. And you too, operator.”

  “Merry Christmas, sir. Goodbye.”

  The dial tone resonated down his ear’s canal into his numb mind. As he hung up the phone
Bill noticed his fingertips were blue. He rubbed his hands together, blew clouds of steam on them and shoved them into his pockets. It took twenty minutes before he found a store still open. Armed with three chocolate bars for his children and a half-dozen roses for his wife as final stocking stuffers, he ambled home. His thoughts alternated between fallout drifting from the deserts of Nevada as far as his suburban home or a Russian bomber getting through and dropping a big one on Washington. Those damn Soviets had stolen enough secrets that had let them join the nuclear club last summer. Suddenly the Cold War had become uncomfortably hot.

  Chapter 18

  “Happy New Year, Arkhip.”

  No response.

  “I said Happy New Year, Comrade Arkhip.” Wilhelm waved his palm in front of her face. Her eyes slowly focused on his distraction, flesh without a single callus or other evidence of manual labor.

  “What?” I wonder how many calluses inhabit his brain.

  “For the third time, Happy New year.” He toasted her with his glass of vodka.

  “Happy New Year.” She continued to stare out of the window at the stars to the north and wondered if her father was doing what they had on holidays when she was a child.

  “And that is the Big Dipper and that…” Her father had pointed at planets and constellations as her gaze followed.

  “Arkhip, this is the fourth New Year’s party I have attended with you. With each one you have been more sad that the last one. Why? What troubles you so?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “What is wrong?”

  “What is right?”

  “We finally got an atomic bomb to work.”

  “And for that I should be happy?”

  “At least the fallout is not raining down on your countrymen.”

  She sighed. “No. Just the Chinese comrades right next door to here. And that nearby village also. Maybe Comrade Stalin considers them a threat too. He might as well. He fears everyone else.”

  Wilhelm studied his empty glass. “I wish it were schnapps instead. I’ve served the Russians for five years now and still am not used to your vodka.”

  “Served them?” Arkhip turned to glare at him. “You’re their slave, Wilhelm. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “That makes me your slave then. You are Russian.”