Get Smart 7 - Max Smart - The Spy Who Went Out to the Cold

by William Johnston

“Self-defense,” von BOOM guessed. “They want to get you out of here as quickly as they can.”

  “And the food is marvelous, too,” 99 said, eating. “This goulash is simply out of this world.”

  “These French fries are terrible,” von BOOM grumbled. “The Russians just can’t make French fries the way the Americans can.”

  “How is your salad?” Max asked.

  “Worse. The Russians don’t know the first thing about making a Russian dressing.”

  “That hamburger looks good, though,” 99 said.

  “Horrible,” von BOOM growled. “The idiots made it with ham.”

  The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. When it was finished, the waiter left the check at the table.

  “Does anybody know how much to tip a Russian waiter?” Max asked.

  Von BOOM got up and headed toward the far end of the dining car.

  “Max! Get him!” 99 said.

  “It’s all right, 99. He’s going to the kitchen. He wants to complain to the chef.”

  “But, Max, you said ‘tip.’ ”

  “I’m aware of that, 99,” Max replied. “I still contend that he’s going to the kitchen, though. Think, 99. Where are we? We’re in a dining car. A dining car is a restaurant on wheels. Would it make any sense to leave a restaurant to go to a restaurant? I knew when I said it that, as long as we were in a restaurant, anyway, it was perfectly safe to say ‘tip.’ ”

  “Max, I’m just— Max! The train is stopping! Something has happened to Professor von BOOM!”

  “Nonsense, 99. You’re a worry-wort. Look out the window. This is a regular stop, that’s all. See the little village?”

  “Oh. Oh . . . yes. You’re right, Max, I was foolish to worry.”

  “Of course, 99. See? The train is starting up again. It probably stopped to let off a passenger—somebody who lives in that little village. Now, it will— There—look, 99. See that dumpy little man on the platform? He’s probably the one who got off. There was absolutely—”

  “Max!” 99 screeched. “That dumpy little man! That’s Professor von BOOM!”

  Max peered out the window. “He is dumpy, 99. But I don’t—”

  “Max, I know it’s him!”

  “Follow me, 99. We’ll check it out.”

  They got up and walked to the end of the car. “Did you see a dumpy—” Max started to say to a waiter who was standing there.

  “He got off at the last stop,” the waiter broke in.

  “Quick, Max! After him!” 99 cried.

  With Max in the lead, they rushed out to the platform. The train had picked up a good bit of speed.

  “Jump, 99!”

  Together, they leaped from the platform, and together they hit the ground and then rolled, ending up in a tangle in a ditch. The train sped on, leaving them.

  “It’s a good thing Control gives its agents parachute training,” Max said, rising and helping 99 to her feet. “Otherwise, we might have been killed.”

  “Max, I don’t see him.”

  “Of course not, 99. We must be at least a mile from the station. Hurry.”

  Running as fast as they could, they rushed back to the village, then began going from restaurant to restaurant asking about von BOOM. Since there were only two restaurants, the task did not take long. At the first restaurant they were advised that the last little dumpy man who had been there was a Frenchman named Napoleon who had stopped for a sandwich on his way to Moscow. The proprietor of the second restaurant was more helpful, however.

  “Dumpy?” he said. “How dumpy? About like you?”

  “Much dumpier,” Max replied crisply.

  “I saw him,” the proprietor replied. “He passed the restaurant only a few minutes ago.”

  “Passed?” Max said, surprised.

  “He went thataway,” the proprietor nodded, pointing up the street.

  Max and 99 hurried in the direction the man had pointed. They soon reached the end of the business district.

  “Gone, Max!” 99 wailed.

  “He must be in one of these houses, 99.”

  “But he should be in a restaurant.”

  “Maybe he smelled home-cooking. Come on. We’ll just have to go from door to door until we find him.”

  At the first house, there was no answer to their knock. At the second house, the woman who answered said that she hadn’t seen a dumpy little man since her neighbor, the man next door, had left for Leningrad two weeks earlier. At the third house, the door was opened by a dumpy little man.

  “No, I haven’t seen anybody in town lately,” he replied to Max’s question. “I just got off the Trans Siberian Railway. I’ve been in Leningrad for the past two weeks.”

  Max clapped a hand to his brow. “Von BOOM!”

  “No need to shout,” the dumpy little man said.

  “We’re sorry,” 99 told him. “We thought you were somebody else.”

  “Two weeks in Leningrad changes a person,” the dumpy little man said. He closed the door.

  “Max, do you realize what this means?” 99 said. “Professor von BOOM is still on the train! We’ve lost him!”

  “Not yet, 99. Let’s get to the airport, hire a plane, and catch the train at the next stop.”

  “Brilliant, Max!”

  They rushed back to the second restaurant.

  “Quick!” Max said to the proprietor. “Where’s the airport?”

  The proprietor frowned thoughtfully. “Behind the bag of onions?” he guessed.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Max asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never even played this game before.”

  “It isn’t a game,” Max said. “We have to get to the airport. We need a fast plane—and fast!”

  “You’re asking directions from the wrong person,” the proprietor said. “I didn’t even know we had an airport until you mentioned it.”

  “No airport, Max!” 99 groaned.

  “All right, we’ll just have to settle for a fast car,” Max said. “Is there a fast car in town?” he asked the proprietor.

  “You know it, buddy!” the proprietor beamed. “We got an American car. Zoom! It’s the same kind of car all you Americans drive on your super highways. Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! It’s what you Americans call a bestseller. Everybody in the United States who is anybody has a car like this. Zoom!”

  “A Ford!” Max said. “Great. Now—”

  The proprietor was shaking his head.

  “A Chevy?” Max said.

  “You don’t know much about America,” the proprietor said. “This is the most popular car on the road. Ready? An Edsel!”

  “We’ll give it a try,” Max said gloomily.

  The proprietor telephoned his brother-in-law, the owner of the Edsel, and a few minutes later he drove up to the restaurant. Max and 99 got in and the car sped off, headed for the town at which the train was scheduled to stop next.

  “Will we make it?” Max asked the driver.

  “In a breeze,” he replied. “I wound the key as tight as it would go.”

  “This is a wind-up car!” Max said, appalled.

  “My own invention,” the driver replied. “It saves on gas.”

  They reached the town just as the train, which had stopped, was pulling out again. Max and 99 jumped from the car, raced along the platform, and leaped aboard the train, catching it at the very moment that it started to pick up speed.

  “By a whisker!” Max breathed. “Now—let’s find von BOOM!”

  They ran along the aisle toward the front of the train. Other passengers dived to the left and right to avoid getting run down. A few moments later, they reached the dining car. Max spotted the waiter who had served them.

  “A dumpy little man—did you see him?” he panted.

  “I hope I never see him again,” the waiter replied irritably. “First, he spent about an hour in the kitchen, complaining about the food. Then he committed an unpardonable sin.”

  “Von BOOM?” Max said doubtfully.
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  “You don’t have to shout,” the waiter said.

  “What did he do?”

  “Well, when he came back from the kitchen, I handed him the check, and he paid it. Then I said, ‘What about my tip?’ and he turned on his heel and walked up the aisle and then got off the train.”

  “Oh, no!” 99 wept.

  “Yep,” the waiter nodded. “Got off the train. At that last stop there.”

  “You shouldn’t have mentioned ‘tip!’ ” Max scolded. “Come on,” he said to 99. “It’s Geronimo time again!”

  Max and 99 ran toward the end of the car.

  “What do you mean, shouldn’t have mentioned tip?” the waiter shouted after them. “Don’t you bums know anything about American customs!”

  Max and 99 reached the platform.

  “Geronimo!” Max cried.

  They jumped, hit the ground, rolled, and ended up in a tangle.

  “Max, we’re miles from the station,” 99 said, struggling up.

  “I can’t even see the Professor,” Max said.

  “Max . . . didn’t we get those lines mixed up?”

  “I believe so, 99. Let’s try it again. You first.”

  “Max, I can’t even see the Professor.”

  “We’re miles from the station, 99.”

  Running as fast as they could, Max and 99 hurried back to the village they had just left. Reaching there, they asked the station master if he had seen von BOOM.

  “Dumpy little fellow? Sure,” the man replied. “He asked me where he could find the nearest restaurant. I told him we don’t have a restaurant. So he decided to move on. There was some fellow here with one of those big, sleek American cars, so this other fellow hired him to take him to the next stop so he could catch the train again. They just left. Zoom!—that ol’ key unwindin’ like a madman!”

  “Quick—is there another fast car in town?” Max asked.

  “Fellow, this town hasn’t even got a restaurant.”

  “Sunk!” Max groaned. “We’ll never catch him now.”

  “If you want to catch that train, why don’t you just hike out to the airport and hire yourself a fast plane?” the station master suggested.

  “You don’t have a restaurant, yet you have an airport?”

  “You’re in a country where all the decisions are made in Moscow,” the man replied. “With a system like that, one town gets a restaurant and another gets an airport—but neither get both.”

  Running as fast as they could, Max and 99 rushed to the airfield. After a few minutes of bargaining with a pilot who did not speak English they were finally able to make themselves understood. And seconds later they took off. It was a short flight to the next train stop. When they landed, they leaped from the plane and rushed into town to the station. They reached it just as the train was pulling out.

  Max and 99 jumped aboard, then raced down the aisle toward the front of the train. The other passengers, tired of diving to the left and right, ignored them—and a number of them got run down.

  Max and 99 rushed into the compartment that Max shared with von BOOM. The Professor was seated by the window, reading a newspaper.

  “Safe!” 99 cried joyfully.

  “Has somebody been chasing you?” von BOOM inquired.

  “Not exactly,” Max replied, dropping into the seat that faced him. “We’ve been chasing you, Professor—all over Russia. We lost you, but then we found you—almost—and then we lost you, and then . . . well, here we are. Saved again!”

  “Again?” von BOOM asked.

  “Remember that experience with those hundreds and hundreds of bulls?” Max replied. “That was the first time. So, this makes the second time.”

  “That’s a lot of bulls,” von BOOM said, retreating behind the newspaper.

  8.

  THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON when Max, 99 and von BOOM were relaxing in the observation car, the train halted at a small town—then remained sitting. Curious, Max motioned to a conductor.

  “Why aren’t we moving?” he asked.

  “We’re picking up a special car,” the conductor replied. “In a few minutes, you’ll feel a bump. Then, if you look at the rear window, you’ll see another car attached to the train.”

  Max’s eyes narrowed. “Russian secret police?” he asked.

  The conductor shook his head. “We Russian secret police go around disguised as ordinary citizens,” he replied. “Like waiters and traveling salesmen and . . . uh . . .”

  “Train conductors?”

  “Right—train conductors. It’d be stupid for us to ride around in special cars and get attached to regular trains in the middle of the day in little out-of-the-way villages. When the special car was being hitched-on and the passengers felt the bump, they’d say, ‘There’re the secret police again.’ ”

  “Then who is in the special car?” Max asked.

  “Who knows? I’m like everybody else. Since I know it isn’t the secret police, I don’t pay any attention.”

  The conductor moved on.

  “Very strange,” Max mused.

  “The conductor doesn’t think it’s strange, Max,” 99 pointed out. “So it must happen quite often.”

  “99, for all I know, that conductor is not a member of the Russian secret police, but a KAOS agent, who slipped aboard, did away with the real conductor, who was not a real conductor, but a member of the Russian secret police, then took his place, so that when I asked why the train was sitting in the station, he could allay my suspicions by pretending to be the conductor who was a member of the Russian secret police and telling me that picking up a special car is an everyday occurence, when, in fact, he knows that the special car is carrying KAOS agents who are bent on kidnapping Professor von BOOM.”

  “Max, you mean—”

  “Whatever I said, that’s what I mean, 99. Don’t make me say it again.”

  There was a sudden bump. Max and 99 jumped up and ran to the rear window and looked out. Another car had been attached to the end of the train.

  “It’s probably a beehive of KAOS agents,” Max said.

  “I don’t think so, Max. I think it’s empty.”

  “99, I happen to know a beehive when—”

  “But, Max, look—” 99 pointed.

  A large number of stony-faced men were approaching the special car, marching in single line along the platform. They were dressed in dark suits, and each one was carrying an instrument case.

  “I still say it’s a beehive,” Max said. “The bees just haven’t arrived yet.”

  “Max, they’re musicians, they’re not KAOS agents.”

  “Ha! I’ll bet there’s not one man in that whole outfit who can even play the kazoo. They’re carrying machine guns in those cases, 99, not instruments. Look at those faces. Those are the faces of killers. I know exactly what they intend to do, 99. They—”

  “Watch out, Max—they’ll see you!”

  Max and 99 pulled back so that the men, who were entering the special car, could not see them. A few minutes later, they heard the door of the car slam. They looked out again. Not one of the mysterious strangers was still in sight.

  “Max . . . you may be right,” 99 said fearfully.

  “Of course I’m right. The minute this train reaches some deserted area—like a desert or something—those men will pour out of that car—machine guns at the ready—and gun down every living human being aboard—except one. That way, there will be no witnesses to their crime.”

  “Max, that’s terrible!”

  “Who is the one?” von BOOM asked, having joined Max and 99.

  “You,” Max replied.

  “That’s not so terrible,” von BOOM said.

  The train began moving again.

  “Max! What can we do?”

  “Get off this train—and fast!” Max said.

  “Not me,” von BOOM said. “I think you’re wrong, Smart. Those aren’t KAOS agents. They’re probably members of a Russian orchestra.”

  “Max . . .
he might be right,” 99 said.

  “I say they’re not even Russian,” Max replied. “And I’ll prove it.” He got a Russian-American dictionary from his pocket. “I’ll go question them. That ought to settle the matter for once and all.”

  “Max—wouldn’t that be dangerous?”

  “So would staying here and getting gunned down, 99.”

  Max left the car and, with 99 and von BOOM watching from hiding, went to the door of the rear car and knocked. A moment later, the door opened and one of the stony-faced men appeared.

  Consulting his Russian-American dictionary, Max said, “Novotny kropotkin don pilsudski?”

  The man stared at him blankly for a moment. Then he got out a Russian-American dictionary of his own, thumbed through it, then replied, “Barnonski don kropotkin?”

  “Da,” Max nodded.

  Max headed back toward his own car. Behind him, he heard the door of the special car close.

  “There you are,” Max said triumphantly, returning to where 99 and von BOOM were waiting.

  “What did he say, Max?”

  “I haven’t the faintest, 99. I don’t understand Russian.”

  “Then what did that prove?” von BOOM asked.

  “It proved that they’re not members of a Russian orchestra,” Max replied. “If that fellow had been Russian, would he have had to use a Russian-American dictionary?”

  “He’s right, Professor,” 99 said. “We better get off the train.”

  “I’m not convinced,” von BOOM replied. “You didn’t—”

  “Hold it!” Max said suddenly.

  The door of the special car had opened again. The mysterious men began emerging.

  “Back—out of the way!” Max warned.

  The door of the observation car opened. The mysterious men entered and marched by. As each one passed, he peered hard at Max, then 99, then von BOOM. But nothing was said. And finally the last of the men passed by.

  “Follow them!” Max said. “This may be it!”

  “But, Max—”

  Max was already on his way up the aisle, tracking the mysterious men. 99 and von BOOM trailed after him. They caught up a few cars later. Max was standing in a doorway, looking. straight ahead. 99 and von BOOM looked past him—and saw the mysterious men seated in the dining car, perusing menus.

  “That was close,” Max said. “I thought they were going to start the shooting.”