Sole Survivor td-72
Page 9
"His son, then."
"The son of a Soviet hero would not stoop to operating a car-wash machine in America."
"Why not? The best citizens of the world come to these shores. America is a land of opportunity. All are welcome here."
"Those words seem hollow coming from so exalted a personage."
"At least we agree on one thing," said Chiun, watching the fly buzz the wipers curiously.
"That you are full of hot air?"
Chiun made a face. "No, that I am an exalted personage. Although I much prefer the term 'awesome.' 'Illustrious' is good too."
"Yuri Gagarin is the name given to the Soviet spacecraft I am seeking. See those tracks of burned rubber on the road? I believe they were made by the craft. They lead directly to the car-wash building."
"So?" asked Chiun, turning off the wipers and pretending to look elsewhere.
"So this is no coincidence," said Anna Chutesov. "The enterprising owner of yon car-wash machine renamed it in honor of the exiled Gagarin after the craft named after him ventured through his establishment. Perhaps it was his first customer. American merchants always celebrate the first customer-although everyone knows it is the customer you are dealing with at a given moment who is the most important." And without looking at the windshield, he hit the wiper switch. The fly became a smear on the glass. The smear was obliterated on the reverse sweep, causing the Master of Sinanju to smile delightedly.
"The Yuri Gagarin would not deviate from its mission merely to undergo a wash-and-wax treatment," answered Anna Chutesov huffily.
"No! Did you not tell me that there are no such machines as these in your native Russia?"
"What has that to do with anything?"
"Have you a better explanation than the one the Master of Sinanju has put forth?"
"No," said Anna Chutesov miserably, as the yawning entrance loomed nearer, like a great cubistic cavern.
"Our turn has come," said Chiun, and he sent the car bouncing and lurching into the darkened interior of the Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash.
A uniformed attendant stepped up to Chiun's side of the car.
"Put the car into neutral and take your foot off the brake," he instructed.
"What is neutral?" asked Chiun, noticing the attendant's nametag.
"You kiddin' me, bud?"
"Never mind, I will do it," said Anna, batting the gearshift lever into the neutral position.
"You got a funny accent there, lady," said the attendant. "Where're you from?"
"Moscow."
"That near Russia?" he asked suspiciously.
"Too near," said Anna Chutesov.
"I don't like them Russians," the attendant opined.
"It is mutual, I am sure," said Anna Chutesov in a voice like a brook freezing over.
"What do we do next?" asked Chiun.
"Don't you know?" said the attendant.
"We are new," said Chiun, "to the mysteries of American car washing."
"Just roll up your windows and enjoy the ride."
"But how will I converse with the menials who do the washing? I may wish to urge them on in their important tasks."
The attendant laughed. "There ain't no other meat machi-I mean men, here. Just me. Machines do all the work."
"Machines?" said Anna Chutesov. "Then you are the owner?"
"Nope. He's in the booth at the other end. I just make sure the cars go in okay."
"But you said you were the only person here," Anna pointed out.
"I am," said the attendant as he set the chocks that locked the car onto the moving track. The car began to glide toward hanging black leather strips. Anna shut the electric windows.
"That poor man," said Chiun sadly.
"What about him?"
"He has fallen greatly in life."
"You know him?"
"He was once of royal blood. Now he tends machines."
"How can you tell he is royalty?"
"The monogram device over his pocket. It said that he was once an earl."
"Oh," said Anna Chutesov as the black leather strips slapped the windshield and nozzles on either side began spouting water. "He reminded me of the fat military males of my country. He would look more at home with a weapon in his hands."
"Hush," commanded the Master of Sinanju imperiously. "I wish to enjoy this uniquely American experience in peace."
Anna Chutesov lapsed into silence. She too was interested in the mechanical features of the car wash. But most of all she was interested in having a talk with the owner in the booth once they reached the other end-the man who had named his establishment after a Soviet people's hero but who hired Russian-hating staff.
The automatic track dragged the car through the first series of water jets. Then came the kelplike leather strips that danced before the windshield and dragged against the hood and sides.
"Wheee!" squealed Chiun. "It's like being underwater."
"It is like being eaten by a whale," said Anna Chutesov, who despite her sophistication felt her skin tighten with an almost supernatural fear. She was not afraid of machines, ordinarily. But this was an incomprehensible machine, and she was a Russian in a foreign land. Never having seen the inside of a car wash before, she did not know what to expect. It made her uneasy.
The Master of Sinanju was anything but uneasy. He was out of his seat, trying to see in all directions at once.
"Look!" he cried, pointing ahead. "Giant sponges." There were not sponges. They were buffers, composed of bright red and blue plastic bristles. They attacked the car body like whirling dervishes, making the metal hood and fenders hum with their assault.
Chiun reached for the window switch. Anna placed her hand on his, but she could not move it.
"What are you doing?" she cried.
"I want to touch it," said Chiun.
"Why?"
"Perhaps I can obtain a bristle, a single solitary bristle, as a souvenir."
"But what if there is more water?"
Chiun sank back in his seat. His pleasant face wrinkled in unhappiness. "I am too late. They are gone, and it is your fault I will have no souvenirs of my first American car-wash ride. This is a golden hour, to be savored and passed on to grandchildren, and you have turned it to dross."
"I have also saved you from being soaped in the face," said Anna Chutesov as the liquid soap squirted from all sides.
"Now I cannot see. I can see nothing," Chiun wailed. he bounced about in his seat. But it was no use. Every window--front, sides, and rear-was covered with soapy bubbles.
A second wave of red and blue buffers attacked the car next, cleaning the windshield and calming the Master of Sinanju. When the windows on Anna's side cleared, she caught a glimpse of the wall beyond the machines. There were letters on the wall, huge and red and turned on their side. Anna tilted her head to read them better.
The letters were C and P.
"I wonder what C.P. stands for," Anna wondered aloud.
"Communist propaganda," answered Chiun.
"That is not funny," said Anna, who noticed that the C seemed to curl up onto the white-tiled ceiling.
"C.P.!" she shouted suddenly, rolling down her window.
She poked her head out, craning her neck to see the ceiling. Above was a tangle of latticework, but through the struts, before the ceiling passed from sight, she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of the remaining letters her heart told her would be there. But it was impossible to say for certain.
Anna Chutesov felt her blood run cold. She said nothing. She settled into the cushions of the seat like a frightened child, her blue eyes staring ahead, glassy and dazed.
"Ahhh!" she screamed. A black thing came at her face.
But then she realized it was some kind of machine, a hot-air blower with a single guiding wheel underneath. It coasted along the hood, climbed the windshield, and bumped along the car roof.
The single tire left a water track that reminded Anna of the burn marks that had led them to the Yuri Gagar
in Free Car Wash-which she now knew with near total certainly had belonged to the vanished Soviet space machine Yuri Gagarin.
After the blowers, there was more of the kelp. This time there were two swishing circles of it, dry and the color of ocher. They slapped the hood clean of water like blind unreasoning marine life.
"Ooohh," said Chiun unhappily.
"What!" Anna asked nervously.
"I think we are done."
"I am sure of it," said Anna Chutesov. "For I do not feel well."
"Carsickness," pronounced Chiun. "A well-known American malady. Put your head between your knees and it will pass like a summer cloud."
"I am afraid to do any such thing."
"Then do not do it," said the Master of Sinanju disinterestedly.
When the car broke through the final bank of leather strips into the daylight at the end of the car wash, Anna felt relief at seeing the open sky.
But then she saw the booth to one side. It was dirty and the glass filmed, unlike the rest of the place, which was very clean. Behind the smeared glass, she could see the upper half of a man who worked switches at an unseen console.
Anna screamed at him.
"Murderer! Where is the crew? Have you slaughtered them?"
A voice within the booth sounded tinnily.
"Please remain in your car. You have not been processed yet."
And then Anna saw the silvery globe hanging from the ceiling. It hung suspended like an aluminum sun. The bottom hemisphere dropped open like a mechanical shovel, exposing a dish-shaped antenna lined with many toothlike focusing elements. They buzzed.
And Anna Chutesov knew that she was looking directly at the most fearsome weapon of the Soviet arsenal, the Sword of Damocles satellite. She felt suddenly feverish.
"Quick! Drive!" she cried. "It is pointing at us."
But in the driver's seat, the Master of Sinanju did not answer. He sat limp behind the wheel, his face dull and lifeless. As Anna watched, his facial hair seemed to darken. She realized almost immediately that the phenomenon was an illusion.
For the hair of the Master of Sinanju was not growing darker. His face was turning whiter. Pale white. Corpse white.
"Damn!" said Anna Chutesov, scrambling to pull his inert figure out from behind the wheel.
Desperately she clambered over him, got behind the wheel, and wrenched the engine to life.
Anna Chutesov sent the car screeching out of the Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash as the damnably inhuman voice from the booth called after her: "Have a nice day."
Chapter 10
They rushed the hermetically sealed containers to the Air Force's Foreign Technology Assessment Department at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. FORTEC scientists emptied the contents of each box-the strangely spongy cubes which had been recovered from Kennedy International Airport's bloodslicked runway 13-Right-into separate bio-containment vessels.
The head scientist was about to insert his hands into the rubberized gloves that fitted into the examination bubbles when a man in a three-piece suit barged into the room waving a folded sheaf of official-looking paper.
"What is this man doing in here?" the FORTEC scientist cried. He was wearing protective garments, as was every other man in the room. The room had been sealed and pressurized to P-3 to prevent suspected alien microbes from leaking in or out of the containment bubbles.
"I couldn't stop him, sir," said the guard. "He has authority. "
"What do you mean, authority?" The man in the suit showed a badge.
"Federal marshal," he said. "I'm subpoenaing these specimens. "
"Subpoena? This is a restricted military laboratory. We're under quarantine."
"Until the legal technicalities are dispensed with, you are forbidden to examine these specimens."
"Forbidden! By whom?"
"Well, this suit has been filed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency," the federal man said, handing over a set of papers. "And this is one from the Department of Health and Human Services. The National Bureau of Standards, the Centers for Disease Control, the FAA, and the Sierra Club make it an even half-dozen," he finished, handing over the remaining documents.
"Do you realize we may be dealing with some kind of extraterrestrial matter here? By the time this drags through the courts, these specimens may deteriorate beyond study. If there's a threat to our national security involved, we won't be able to deal with it. Do you understand that?"
"I understand my job," said the federal marshal as he left the room. "That's all they pay me to understand."
The President of the United States was not happy. The Air Force, Coast Guard, and National Guard had called off their search. There was no sign of the lost shuttle Yuri Gagarin within the search radius, which had been expanded another thirty miles in all directions. The gist of the reports from the three military branches was that the Gagarin was unfindable.
"Unfindable," the President grumbled. "They gave up. That's what it is. They finked out on us."
"There's another possibility, Mr. President," interjected the Secretary of Defense, who was ultimately responsible for the actions of America's military machine.
"What's that?" the President asked. He was seated at his desk in the Oval Office.
"The shuttle might have been taking some sort of evasive action when it went off our radarscopes. It could have flown out to sea, close to the deck, as they say in the Navy, and off to Europe and Russia."
"Then why are the Soviets still screaming for their shuttle through diplomatic channels?"
"Conceivably, the shuttle might not have made it home."
"And what about the man who was seen climbing aboard the thing at Kennedy. Any word on him?"
"The latest intelligence reports are sketchy, Mr. President. According to the CIA, the FBI has identified an abandoned pickup truck with Missouri license plates left at the airport. It's registered to a farmer who reported it stolen several days ago. It's believed that the pickup was stolen by a federal fugitive named Earl Armalide, who is wanted for income-tax evasion, flight to avoid arrest, and the murders of several LEOs."
"Lions?"
"Law-enforcement officers," said the Secretary. "You may have seen this man's siege on the networks."
"The survivalist with the hilltop fortress? That's the man who escaped into a Russian shuttle?"
"I know it sounds unlikely, but that's what our friends over at the CIA think the FBI has uncovered."
"Think? Why not ask the FBI directly? Don't they return CIA calls?"
"Well, Mr. President, there's such a thing as interagency rivalry. The CIA feels if they ask the FBI for a favor now, the FBI may want it returned at an inconvenient time. You know."
"I know that we're all supposed to be on the same team. That's what I know," the President said furiously. He grabbed the phone and asked the operator to get the director of the FBI.
"What else do we know?" the President asked the Secretary of Defense while he waited.
"We have a problem with the specimens removed from the airport runway. The FORTEC people have been unable to analyze them. It seems that there have been several injunctions filed against them."
"Injunctions?" The President's face shook with controlled fury. He could not believe what he was hearing. "Well, yes. It seems the CDC, DARPA, and a few others are claiming that the recovery and analysis duties on those specimens were their individual provinces."
"If I could, I'd fire the whole bunch of them!" shouted the President. Into the phone he said, "What? No, not you, Mr. Director. I was talking to the Secretary of Defense. Wait." The President put the FBI director on hold and turned to the other man. "Quash those suits. I don't care what you have to do. Divide the specimens among everyone. Just get them analyzed. We have a major incursion by a Soviet space vehicle and no one is functioning. This is the United States government, not Romper Room!"
"Yes, Mr. President," said the Secretary of Defense sheepishly as he left the Oval Office.
"Mr. President, we think he was Earl Armalide, a self-avowed survivalist and federal fugitive. We theorize that the Soviet spacecraft was hijacked by an accomplice of Armalide's and that the two men have escaped to an unknown third country, but we admit the evidence is circumstantial."
"The idea is beyond the absurd-wouldn't you also say that as well?" demanded the President.
"Well, it would seem unlikely. Armalide did not become a wanted criminal until days before the Soviet shuttle was launched. Not enough lead time to plan an operation this major. And the Bureau doesn't consider it likely that the Soviets themselves would land the shuttle at Kennedy to rendezvous with Armalide."
"It's a long way to go to evade income tax," the President agreed dryly.
"But the Air Force personnel on the runway have identified photos of the man, so we are ninety percent certain that Armalide did board the Gagarin prior to its taking off."
"I find it difficult to swallow. Is there anything else?"
"Yes, we have a recent report that Armalide was sighted at a fast-food restaurant near Rye, New York." There was silence on the line.
"Mr. President. Are you still there?"
The President's voice, when he spoke, was remote and metallic. "Isn't Rye within the supposed crash radius of the shuttle?"
"Yes, it is. Which is why we lend credence to the report. But our agents have turned up no trace of the man."
"Excuse me," said the President. "I have another call to make. An important one."
The President slipped out of the Oval Office, informing his staff that he was going to take a short nap. He knew one of them would leak it to the press, but that was unimportant. If the world only knew what he was really doing when he took his supposed naps ... Well ... The President smiled inwardly. They might impeach him. Then again, they might repeal the Twenty-second Amendment and give him another term of office.
The President sat on the edge of his bed and opened his locked nightstand drawer. He removed a telephone. It was a standard AT cept it was hot-coal red and had no dial or push buttons. The President lifted the handset to his ear and waited.