"No, you," Pedrito smiled politely. "Always let the man in flippers take the first steps. It's a spy tradition."
"Oh, okay," Smith said and entered a lavish submarine wardroom.
On the other side of the wardroom, a man stood behind a table and turned to face them. He wore a general's uniform, but no cap. He had a yellow moonface, dark almond eyes and ridiculous dangUng Fu Manchu mustaches. He spread his arms wide in an enthusiastic greeting, displaying immaculately long fingernails.
"Ai! Pedritos!" he said with a glad cry. "Welcome to the Chinese Secret Service! We're happy to have you here."
As he discussed his plans and his country's offer, the Chinese general sat on one side of the rectangular table. Across from him Smith and Pedrito took seats beside each other but not too close.
At the head of the table, Bolo folded his hands in front of him, very pleased and confident. He had changed clothes into the uniform of a colonel of the Chinese Army with a wide array of medals on his chest. .. but who could teU if it was just another disguise?
Bolo said, "Yes, I pretended to cooperate with Colonels Enrique and Ivan, but all along we were just testing you both. On-the-job training, you might say, to see if you have the right stuffs to work for us."
The Chinese general was very jovial and relaxed, tugging on his drooping mustaches. "You see," he said, waving one long-nailed hand, "we have secret influence all around the world that can't be traced to us. We'll straighten out this siUy misunderstanding with both your governments, and you can both go home as heroes—and double agents."
"Triple agents, actually," Bolo said.
Smith and Pedrito just sat there, unable to believe what the Chinese general was offering.
"What do you get out of this?" Smith asked.
The general chuckled, very pleased with himself. "My government will have spies in both places. We can even switch you around, if you like! Oh, we're so wily when we want to be."
"Isn't that a cliche?" Smith asked. Pedrito and Smith snapped their heads around to lock gazes as it all became clear. They had heard the hackneyed old stereotype many times before. "Damned clever, these Chinese!" they said to each other.
With a shrug, they reached out to shake the general's hand. "We accept!"
Bolo sat at the end of the table, smiling his secret smile.
About the Authors
L. Ron Hubbard
BORN IN A RUGGED and adventurous Montana, L. Ron Hubbard lived a life of truly legendary proportions. Before the age often, he had already broken his first bronco and earned that rare status of blood brother to the Blackfeet Indians. By age eighteen, he had logged more than a quarter of a million miles, twice crossing the Pacific—before the advent of commercial aviation—to a then still mysterious Asia. Returning to the United States in 1928, he entered the George Washington University where, drawing from far-flung experience, he began to shape some of this century's most enduring tales.
By the mid-1930s the name L. Ron Hubbard had graced the pages of some two hundred classic publications of the day, including Argosy, Top-Notch and Thrilling Adventures. Amonghis more than fifteen million words of pre-1950 fiction were tales spanning all primary genres: action, suspense, mystery, westerns, and even the occasional romance. Enlisted to "humanize" a machine-dominated science fiction, the name L. Ron Hubbard next became synonymous with such utterly classic titles as Final Blackout and To the Stars —rightfully described as among the most defining works in the whole of the genre. No less memorable were his fantasies of the era, including the perennially applauded Fear, described as a pillar of all modern horror.
After the founding of Dianetics® and Scientology® (the fruition of research actually financed through those fifteen million words of fiction), Ron returned to the world of popular fiction with two monumental blockbusters: the internationally best-selling Battlefield Earth and the ten-volume Mission Earth® series—each volume likewise topping international bestseller Hsts in what amounted to an unprecedented pubhshing event.
In 1983, and in what has been described as the culmination of a lifetime commitment to fellow authors, L. Ron Hubbard directed his estate to found the Writers of the Future® Contest. Dedicated to the discovery and encouragement of new talent within the realms of speculative fiction, the contest has since proven both an integral part of the greater L. Ron Hubbard literary legacy and the most successful competition of its kind. Accordingly, contest judges have comprised the most celebrated names of the genre, including Frederik Pohl, Orson Scott Card and Frank Herbert. To date, the contest has helped place some two hundred novels from new authors on worldwide shelves, very much including the works of Kevin J. Anderson.
Kevin J. Anderson
BORN IN 1962, and raised in the small town of Oregon, Wisconsin, Kevin J. Anderson truly represents a rising star of speculative fiction. Entering the Writers of the Future Contest for eleven consecutive quarters, he eventually broke into professional ranks with Resurrection before the age of twenty-five. Within the last four years, twenty-three of his subsequent novels have appeared on national bestseller lists, including Lifeline (co-authored with Doug Beason) and his Star Wars "Jedi Academy" trilogy—all three New York Times bestsellers and top-selling science fiction titles of 1994. Kevin J. Anderson is ftirther the author of three novels based on the X-Files television series—all likewise international bestsellers. Kevin J. Anderson has also established a very unique writing relationship with his wife, Rebecca Moesta. Together they have authored no less than fourteen volumes of the "Young Jedi Knights" series.
By way of research for his novelization of L. Ron Hubbard's Ai! Pedrito! Kevin J. Anderson traveled extensively through the Andean mountains of Ecuador, tropical rain forests and Amazonian tributaries. He is currently at work on three prequels to Frank Herbert's Dune series—to be authored in conjunction with the late author's son, Brian Herbert.
Ai! Pedrito! When Intelligence Goes Wrong Page 25