Combat Page 7
"O.K., Paco," he said. "Let's go. In search of the pin-up girl--Moscowstyle."
They walked down to the lobby and started for the door.
One of the Intourist guides who had brought them from the railroadstation stood to one side of the stairs. "Going for a walk, gentlemen?I suggest you stroll up Gorky Street, it's the main shopping center."
Paco said, "How about going over into Red Square to see thespaceship?"
The guide shrugged. "I don't believe the guards will allow you to gettoo near. It would be undesirable to bother the Galactic delegates tothe Soviet Union."
That was one way of wording it, Hank thought glumly. _The Galacticdelegates to the Soviet Union._ Not to the Earth, but to the SovietUnion. He wondered what the neutrals in such countries as India werethinking.
But at least there were no restrictions on Paco and him.
They strolled up Gorky Street, jam packed with fellow pedestrians.Shoppers, window-shoppers, men on the prowl for girls, girls on theprowl for men, Ivan and his wife taking the baby for a stroll, streetcleaners at the endless job of keeping Moscow's streets the neatest inthe world.
Paco pointed out this to Hank, Hank pointed out that to Paco. Somehowit seemed more than a visit to a western European nation. This wasMoscow. This was the head of the Soviet snake.
And then Hank had to laugh inwardly at himself as two youngsters,running along playing tag in a grown-up world of long legs and stolidpace, all but tripped him up. Head of a snake it might be, butMoscow's people looked astonishingly like those of Portland, Maine orPortland, Oregon.
"How do you like those two, coming now?" Paco said.
Those two coming now consisted of two better than averagely dressedgirls who would run somewhere in their early twenties. A little toomuch make-up by western standards, and clumsily applied.
"Blondes," Paco said soulfully.
"They're all blondes here," Hank said.
"Wonderful, isn't it?"
The girls smiled at them in passing and Paco turned to look after, butthey didn't stop. Hank and Paco went on.
It didn't take Hank long to get onto Paco's system. It was beautifullysimple. He merely smiled widely at every girl that went by. If shesmiled back, he stopped and tried to start a conversation with her.
He got quite a few rebuffs but--Hank remembered an old joke--on theother hand he got quite a bit of response.
Before they had completed a block and a half of strolling, they werestanding on a corner, trying to talk with two of Moscow's youngerset--female variety. Here again, Paco was a wonder. His languages wereevidently Spanish, English and French but he was in there pitchingwith a language the full vocabulary of which consisted of _Da_ and_Neit_ so far as he was concerned.
Hank stood back a little, smiling, trying to stay in character, but inamused dismay at the other's aggressive abilities.
Paco said, "Listen, I think I can get these two to come up to theroom. Which one do you like?"
Hank said, "If they'll come up to the room, then they'reprofessionals."
Paco grinned at him. "I'm a professional, too. A lawyer by trade. It'sjust a matter of different professions."
A middle-aged pedestrian, passing by, said to the girls in Russian,"Have you no shame before the foreign tourists?"
They didn't bother to answer. Paco went back to his attempt to make adeal with the taller of the two.
The smaller, who sported astonishingly big and blue eyes, said to Hankin Russian, "You're too good to associate with _metrofanushka_ girls?"
Hank frowned puzzlement. "I don't speak Russian," he said.
She laughed lightly, almost a giggle, and, in the same low voice herpartner was using on Paco, said, "I think you do, Mr. Kuran. In theafternoon, tomorrow, avoid whatever tour the Intourist people wish totake you on and wander about Sovietska Park." She giggled some more.The world-wide epitome of a girl being picked up on the street.
Hank took her in more closely. Possibly twenty-five years of age. Theskirt she was wearing was probably Russian, it looked sturdy anddurable, but the sweater was one of the new American fabrics. Hershoes were probably western too, the latest flared heel effect. Atypical _stilyagi_ or _metrofanushka_ girl, he assumed. Except for onething--her eyes were cool and alert, intelligent beyond those of astreet pickup.
Paco said, "What do you think, Hank? This one will come back to thehotel with me."
"Romeo, Romeo," Hank sighed, "wherefore do thou think thou art?"
Paco shrugged. "What's the difference? Buenos Aires, New York,Moscow. Women are women."
"And men are evidently men," Hank said. "You do what you want."
"O.K., friend. Do you mind staying out of the room for a time?"
"Don't worry about me, but you'll have to get rid of Loo, and hehasn't had his eighteen hours sleep yet today."
Paco had his girl by the arm. "I'll roll him into the hall. He'llnever wake up."
Hank's girl made a moue at him, shrugged as though laughing off thefact that she had been rejected, and disappeared into the crowds. Hankstuck his hands in his pockets and went on with his stroll.
The contact with the underground had been made.
* * * * *
Maintaining his front as an American tourist he wandered into severalstores, picked up some amber brooches at a bargain rate, fingeredthrough various books in English in an international bookshop. Thatwas one thing that hit hard. The bookshops were packed. Prices wereremarkably low and people were buying. In fact, he'd never seen acountry so full of people reading and studying. The park benches wereloaded with them, they read as the rode on streetcar and bus, theyread as they walked along the street. He had an uneasy feeling thatthe jet-set kids were a small minority, that the juvenile delinquentproblem here wasn't a fraction what it was in the West.
He'd expected to be followed. In fact, that had puzzled him when hefirst was given this unwanted assignment by Sheridan Hennessey. Howwas he going to contact this so-called underground if he was watchedthe way he had been led to believe Westerners were?
But he recalled their conducted tour of the Hermitage Museum inLeningrad. The Intourist guide had started off with twenty-fivepersons and had clucked over them like a hen all afternoon. In spiteof her frantic efforts to keep them together, however, she returned tothe Astoria Hotel that evening with eight missing--including Hank andLoo who had wandered off to get a beer.
The idea of the KGB putting tails on the tens of thousands of touriststhat swarmed Moscow and Leningrad, became a little on the ridiculousside. Besides, what secret does a tourist know, or what secrets couldhe discover?
At any rate, Hank found no interference in his wanderings. Hedeliberately avoided Red Square and its spaceship, taking no chanceson bringing himself to attention. Short of that locality, he wanderedfreely.
At noon they ate at the Grand and the Intourist guide outlined theafternoon program which involved a general sightseeing tour rangingfrom the University to the Park of Rest and Culture, Moscow'sequivalent of Coney Island.
Loo said, "That all sounds very tiring, do we have time for a napbefore leaving?"
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Motlamelle," the guide told him.
Paco shook his head. "I've seen a university, and I've seen a sportstadium and I've seen statues and monuments. I'll sit this one out."
"I think I'll lie this one out," Loo said. He complained plaintivelyto Hank. "You know what happened to me this morning, just as I wasnapping up in our room?"
"Yes," Hank said, "I was with our Argentine Casanova when he pickedher up."
* * * * *
Hank took the conducted tour with the rest. If he was going to beg offthe next day, he'd be less conspicuous tagging along on this one.Besides it gave him the lay of the land.
And he took the morning trip the next day, the automobile factories onthe outskirts of town. It had been possibly fifteen years since Hankhad been
through Detroit but he doubted greatly that automation haddeveloped as far in his own country as it seemed to have here. Or,perhaps, this was merely a showplace. But he drew himself up at thatthought. That was one attitude the Western world couldn'tafford--deprecating Soviet progress. This was the very thing that hadled to such shocks as the launching of the early Sputniks.Underestimate your adversary and sooner or later you paid for it.
The Soviets had at long last built up a productive machine as great asany. Possibly greater. In sheer tonnage they were turning out moregross national product than the West. This was no time to beunderestimating them.
All this was a double interest to a field man in Morton Twombly'sdepartment, working against the Soviets in