Bombshell

Chapter Nine Rescue Mission

In the Presidential Suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Nikita Khrushchev lay on his back in bed like a beached sea beast, arms and legs spread wide, in an X-formation. Darkness enveloped the room and he could not see the ceiling at which he stared. The most powerful man in Russia felt like the most impotent man in America, and he did not like it one bit.

In the suite next door, his wife Nina and their older daughter Julia (Rada and her husband Alexei had their own room), would be slumbering soundly, not a care in the world, visions of capitalist sightseeing dancing in their untroubled minds. Nina had not shared a bed with her husband for some years, because (she said) of his thrashing about, when he couldn’t sleep, and his night-rending snoring, when he could. Tonight was one of the “couldn’t” ones; though it was well after midnight, and he was thoroughly exhausted — both mentally and physically — Nikita had not yet even tried to court slumber. His mind danced furiously, racing from one outrage to another, from assaults by the press to poor security from the American government, the premier incensed over the generally boorish, disrespectful treatment he had received during his short stay in Los Angeles, especially from that vyesh brakovanaya mayor, Poulson.

Beyond that, the premier was disheartened, feeling more depressed than he had in years. The stakes were so high now: these Americans, in their arrogance, could not seem to fathom the reality of potential Armageddon. He had not felt such despondence since World War II, when he was left at the front to fight the overpowering Germans, while Stalin hid under the bed back at his dacha, having his latest nervous breakdown.

Nikita’s trip to America had not gone at all well. He could not fault himself — hadn’t he been on his best behavior, throughout? He realized his occasional so-called “outbursts” had brought criticism and not just in the American press; but Nikita could not have looked the other way when he was insulted, because to insult him was to insult Russia; it was not a matter of pride, rather the projection of strength.

But so much, so very much might have been accomplished by a successful visit, affecting positively the future of Soviet Russia, the United States, the very world itself.

Didn’t the egotistical Americans realize they were playing with atomic fire? That when you got burned in such a game, the result was more than just blisters… or had they forgotten Hiroshima? Maybe so, since it had been the enemy on the receiving end. Well, if the Americans weren’t concerned about disarmament, then so be it! The Russians already had nuclear rockets aimed at every one of the USA’s major cities… and there could easily be more Russian rockets to aim at more American cities…

Nikita rolled onto his right side, and the bedsprings seemed to cry in agony.

Rage gave birth to frustration. The problem with this arms race was that all these missiles cost money… money that was necessary for seed to feed the Russian people. And the people needed to be working the farms, not making rockets, or out fighting wars. When farmers traded wheat fields for battlefields, where were the crops?

Why, in this modern world, must men still harvest death?

The Soviet Union was not like the affluent, decadent United States, where waging war turned a profit, benefitting big business; even Eisenhower had warned of the power of the U.S. military industrial complex, had he not?

But for Russia, another war would only bring starvation and further suffering… and the Russian people had suffered enough! And so, when the Americans challenged him, he blustered and threatened. They might think him a bully or a thug, but what else could he do? He had to show America his… his country’s… might.

After all, if they ever came to his country, and had a good look around… they would see just how poor Russia really was.

Nikita rolled onto his back again and the bedsprings whined and he put his hands behind his head, elbows splayed out on the pillow, his eyes searching unsuccessfully for the ceiling. His insomniac’s mind leapt to another indignity, one that seemed especially galling to him.

Why couldn’t he go to Disneyland?

The State Department had promised he could! He had made so few specific requests that by denying him, the Americans had served up yet another insult. And he had so been looking forward to it. After his journalist son-in-law had visited America several years ago, Mikhail had enthusiastically described the park’s magnificent “rides” and “attractions,” as the Americans called them.

But whenever he’d brought up the subject to his hosts, Nikita had been treated like a child denied his fun, when he knew full and well the Americans were protecting the park from prying eyes, treating it like another state secret.

And they were right: if he could have even the most cursory tour of the site, he could copy the idea for his country. After all, he built the Moscow subway by patterning it upon the New York one; he could certainly make the plans for a similar amusement park.

Russia’s amusement park would not be named after one man — the California park was named for this “Walt Disney,” in a debauched deification of a capitalist entertainer — and he would resist any effort to have it called Khrushchevland. After the abuses of Stalin, who had changed the name of Leningrad to Stalingrad, Nikita had forbidden anything — city, building, or otherwise — to be named after a politician… even himself… because it might elevate that person to a “cult personality,” a concept that flew in the face of true Lenin doctrine.

And if he did build this “amusement” park, there would certainly not be anything as insignificant as a tiny field mouse appointed as its chief emissary! Anyway, Nikita failed to see what was so funny about this Mickey Mouse, a cartoon that talked and sang in a squeaky little voice… No, Russia would have something big as its envoy — what else but a bear!… a dancing, growling bear that could, if it so desired, step on and squash such a squeaky little mouse.

Now that would be amusing!

Smiling, Nikita rolled onto his left side, then sighed. Just about the only bright spot in the otherwise bleak day had been his encounter with the lovely actress, this Marilyn Monroe. She was even more beautiful in person than in the glamorous photos he’d seen of her on display at the American National Exhibition in Moscow. That’s where he got the idea of meeting her during his trip to the United States.

In the privacy of his mind, he allowed himself to wonder if the heavy, garish make-up the woman had worn had added to, or detracted from, her beauty. Had his own conception of beauty been corrupted by Hollywood customs? He wished he could see her stripped of that paint, those pretty features free of Western decadence, that wonderful smile shining bright without the crimson frame…

He frowned. But why hadn’t she been at the show at Fox Studios? She just disappeared after the meal — which had been yet another American insult. Red potatoes and corn! He well understood the disparaging symbolism of that menu — that he was an unsophisticated “red” (and Mikhail had explained the slang term “corny” to him). Did they think the premier of Russia would be so unworldly as think it appropriate that a “French cafe” would serve such a farmhand’s meal?

Shifting to his right side, Nikita sighed again, chest deep. The goddess Marilyn Monroe, he thought, had probably been too repulsed by him, by his many chins and warts and his corpulence, to sit at his side during the filming of that bawdy picture, what was it called? Can-Can! More pseudo-Parisian tripe.

Ha! What stupid, silly trash! Russia, East Germany, even Romania, all made much better musicals than this gaudy Hollywood nonsense. What could Twentieth Century Fox come up with to compete with the likes of The Bright Path, or My Wife Wants to Sing, or Volga Volga?

The latter film, admittedly, had worn its welcome out with Nikita — an epic agricultural operetta, Volga Volga had been shown so many times by Stalin at his private dinners that Khrushchev had for a time hoped to never hear another song or, for that matter, see another tractor.

Even so, the musicals the Soviets made had real meaning, designed to stir the masses and give them hope and inspire them to become better communists. The Eastern Bloc films weren’t about a bunch of trollops twirling around and flashing their undergarments and showing off their legs and exhibiting their backsides — although, he had to admit, in the secrecy of his insomnia, that those were shapely backsides, and in fact were preferable to the face of Mayor Poulson. Still, what idiocy, those girls prancing in front of a camera that clearly didn’t have any film in it.

That might have been what had wounded Nikita the most, the worst of all the insults: the Americans considered him nothing more than a country bumpkin they could fool and trick. Did they suppose he’d never been in a movie studio before?

Well, they could go to this hell they claimed to believe in.

Back on his back, he stared up at the blackness, his chin crinkling, lips trembling. Could a country bumpkin have outwitted Stalin, the most evil, treacherous man in the world? A world that had included Adolph Hitler — who had been a piker in the genocide business, compared to old Joe. And could a country bumpkin have been the only man in Stalin’s inner circle to survive his perfidious purges?

And yet some uneducated fool from the American press could have the gall to ask Nikita where he was when Stalin was murdering innocent people…

The Ukraine — that was where Nikita Khrushchev was!… Saving thousands of people from starvation… unaware of Stalin’s atrocities!

Afterward, his translator Troyanovsky had asked him, respectfully, why Nikita had not responded with the truth of it.

“Because,” Nikita had snapped, “there is no good answer to a stupid question!”

Of course Nikita had supported Stalin, even worked for him — as the saying went, “If you ride in another man’s cart, you must join in his song!” To oppose Stalin would have meant certain death. And the dead cannot help the living.

How else, but by such compromise, could Nikita have survived the dangerous years to reach the pinnacle of power, where he was finally in a position to change bad conditions for the better? Hadn’t he then thrown out all of Stalin’s men after the dictator’s death?

Hadn’t he then denounced Stalin and everything that butcher stood for?

Hadn’t he released tens of millions of innocent people from the prisons, given them back their homes and jobs and reputations?

Hadn’t he relaxed the Lenin doctrine by allowing for a few western ideas, even at the expense of angering hard-line party members, including the Republic of China?

Hadn’t he improved agriculture, education, technology, and the human spirit of the Russian people?

Could a country bumpkin do all that?

Worked up, sweating despite the air conditioning in the suite, Nikita rolled over on his left side, mind racing.

And that mayor, that stupid mayor, digging up Nikita’s statement about “burying” capitalism… it was a proven fact, throughout history, that first comes feudalism, then capitalism, then communism. So why didn’t these Americans (if they were so smart) learn from history and just skip a step and adopt communism, and save themselves and everybody else a whole world of trouble?

After all, communism was the only true and fair government — the only system that put the people first. It was just an unfortunate accident of history that a murderous snake called Joe Stalin had been in charge of that system for twenty-five years…

Another thought would no doubt have formed — Nikita was hours away from sleep — but a sound interrupted, something small but insistent, coming from across the room. Nikita’s eyes tightened, his ears perked — he turned his head and listened close.

Nothing.

Had he imagined it? With a sigh, he flopped onto his back, the bedsprings protesting, and then, after a moment of silence, the noise started up again: a tapping.

A tiny tap, tap, tapping…

Nikita leaned on an elbow in the bed, and reached for the Tokarev Model TT-30 that he always kept under the pillow on his absent wife’s side of the bed.

But the pistol wasn’t there.

Wide awake now, sitting up, knowing that the only way the gun (which he’d tucked under that pillow personally) could be gone was if someone had stolen it… and he doubted a maid had done so… Nikita Khrushchev listened as the tapping persisted.

Nikita crawled out of bed, as quietly as possible — which wasn’t quiet at all, the bedsprings screeching — and padded in his bare feet and silk burgundy pajamas across to the bathroom, where he did not turn on the light. In his shaving kit he found his straight razor; he flipped open the blade and a sliver of light from somewhere in the room winked of its deadly steel.

The tapping continued… picking up in pace, a frantic edge to its unspecified message.

Peering through the darkness, Nikita — razor at the ready — moved slowly toward the sound, which revealed itself as coming from one of the velvet-curtained windows. A guard was stationed on the fire escape beyond… was he signaling Nikita?

Was something wrong?

Cautiously, at one side, he touched the heavy, drawn drapes and peeked around their edge.

Out on the black wrought-iron balcony of the fire escape, the guard was nowhere to be seen — but a young woman was, crouching on the other side of the window. The fingers of one of her hands were tapping on the glass, and her eyes were wide in the moonlight.

Could it be…?

No, his eyes must be betraying him. Was he dreaming? Yet the sharp-edged blade in his hand was real. Still, he closed his eyes, and opened them again.

Yes, it was her!

Marilyn Monroe… outside his bedroom window…

Nikita Khrushchev had no idea what the actress wanted; he was a faithful husband and a good communist, but he was also a man whose blood was at least as red as his politics, and he was not about to take lightly such a visitor. He moved around and drew the curtains wide. Quickly he unlatched the window, raising it up high.

She gasped.

Then she said, “Hello. Remember me?”

He just stared at her.

She was wearing American blue jeans with sandals, a red-and-blue plaid blouse knotted at her waist. Her hair was tousled, a tangle of blond curls, her face free of any make-up.

In the moonlight, she was even more beautiful than she had been at the luncheon. It was as he’d mused: without the Hollywood paint, she was radiant, like a young, fresh-faced, well-scrubbed Russian peasant girl. To gaze on such beauty made his heart ache.

“You have to get out of here!” she whispered. The woman’s forehead was taut with terror.

Her distress took him aback; the missing pistol gave the woman credibility, but how was she part of anything that might concern him…?

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head, clearly frustrated, obviously distraught. “How can I make you understand?… I only know a little Russian… I don’t know how to tell you in your language…”

“I understand you perfectly,” Nikita said in English.

Her eyes became large. “You… you do?”

He nodded.

“But… but… your interpreter…?”

Nikita shrugged. “Letting others think I speak no English gives me advantage.”

“Oh,” the movie star said, impressed, “I see… how clever of you!”

Her reaction pleased him, and he was wondering if he should invite her into his bedroom; but he was a married man, a husband, a father, and the woman was young and beautiful… and they were both what Americans called a “V.I.P.,” and the danger presented by the missing pistol was matched by the scent of scandal.

These thoughts passed through Nikita’s mind in a moment.

“Why have you come?” he asked, leaning a hand on the sill, playing portly Juliet to her comely Romeo.

The terror returned to her eyes. “I’m afraid something bad is going to happen to you,” she said, “if we don’t leave here at once.”

Holding the razor behind him — he did not suspect her, he instinctively trusted the woman, but he did not want to frighten her — Nikita smiled. He was flattered that the famous Hollywood actress was concerned for him, and it affirmed his belief that the American people and its government were not necessarily of the same mind.

“What could happen to me here?” he said with a chuckle and a shrug. “Over one hundred people are on this floor and around hotel ground, to guard and protect me.”

“Well, if that’s true,” she said, eyes big and seemingly innocent, “then how come I made it up this fire escape and nobody stopped me?”

Nikita felt his smile fade. The woman had made a valid point. Where was the guard supposedly stationed on the fire escape? Had the guard gone to that same place as the pistol under his pillow?

Nikita crouched down, face to face with Marilyn now, the windowsill between them, his eyes locking onto hers. “Why is it you think I am in danger?” he asked.

He listened intently as she told him of overhearing a troubling conversation today in a men’s room between two of his trusted KGB guards; she suspected a conspiracy to assassinate him among his own people.

In these circumstances — in this unfriendly town, in a hotel room where his personal pistol and the guard guarding his window had both vanished — the woman’s words rang all too true.

“Please,” she pleaded as he pondered, “it’s almost two o’clock! That’s the time they say ‘goodbye’ to you! You must come with me…”

He frowned, confused. “Come with you…?”

“I rented a car for us — hurry up!” She reached out with both hands, grabbed onto his pajama top, and tugged, trying to pull him out onto the fire-escape balcony.

“Please,” he said, pulling away with dignity, holding up one hand. “You must allow me to get pants.”

“All right — but shake a leg!”

Having no idea how shaking a leg would quicken the act of putting on pants, Nikita rose from the window. Should he believe her? He gazed down at her sweet, earnest face. Yes — of course he should.

This instinctive belief in Marilyn — along with other gut instincts that had saved his life more than once over many a harrowing year — now urged him to flee.

He snatched his tan trousers from a nearby chair, pulled them quickly over his pajama bottoms, then plucked up his brown shoes. He closed the straight razor and slipped it in his pants pocket.

“Hurry, hurry!” Marilyn cried from the window.

No time for socks, and for a shirt the pajama top would have to do. Shoes in hand, Nikita climbed through the window, and swiftly, agilely, followed Marilyn down the fire escape, even as behind him he heard the splintering of the door to his locked room…

…then the unmistakable snick, snick, snick of a sound-suppressed automatic pistol, as bullets chewed up the bed where fortunately — thanks to Marilyn Monroe — he was no longer at rest… though had she not come, sleep would finally have come to him.

Nikita and Marilyn were halfway down the fire escape when a bullet zinged off the railing just behind them, barely missing the premier.

Marilyn shrieked and froze.

Nikita grabbed her hand and pulled the trembling woman along, and they raced down the fire escape, feet clattering and clanging on the metal, and above them other feet were doing the same; then they jumped the last few steps as another bullet from the silenced gun smacked into the hotel’s wall with a poof!, spraying them with pink plaster.

Together they ran around the back of the building, and along the deserted swimming pool, the moon placid and unimpressed as it shimmered off the still water. Then the couple burst through the foliage at the pool’s end.

“This way!” Marilyn cried, taking the lead, pulling Nikita across the hotel grounds by one hand, his shoes clutched in his other, as the two went winding around and through the lavishly flower-arrayed and shrub-flung landscape. They did not hear anyone in pursuit, and maybe they’d eluded the assassin… Nikita sensed it was only one person…

As they rounded a bush, Marilyn stumbled, nearly falling over a body sprawled on the grass. She stifled a scream with her hands.

Nikita, breathing heavily, looked down at one of his Okhrana guards, lying face up, a small black hole in the forehead of his pockmarked face.

“This is guard on fire escape,” he said flatly.

Her voice was breathy, an out-of-wind whisper. “But… he was one of the men in the bathroom!”

“A traitor betrayed. Forget him.” Nikita looked at her urgently. “Where is car?”

“Over there!” Marilyn pointed to a blue vehicle parked in front of one of the hotel’s little houses. Then she dug in a pocket of her jeans and pulled out some keys.

“I’ll drive,” she said.

“It is your city,” he said.

Hand in hand, they ran to the car and climbed in, Marilyn behind the wheel, Nikita next to her.

She started the engine and drove quickly out of the hotel grounds. At the street, she turned left, the car making a protesting squeal, and sped away down a wide, all-but-deserted street bordered by palms. The famous Sunset Boulevard, a street sign

told him.

“Where are we going?” Nikita asked Marilyn, as the city

streaked by. “Police?”

“No! I don’t trust anybody right now… except you.” Bright lights in the darkness flashed around them, as he

managed a smile; he began to put on his shoes. “You are smart woman.”

“I thought of somewhere safe,” she said, her face wet with tears; but she was smiling — she seemed proud of herself. “The one place no one… no American, no Russian… will ever think to look for you… not in a million years.”

He frowned at the pretty thing. “Where is this place?”

Her eyes were a little wild as she beamed at him. “It’s called Disneyland. Didn’t you want to go there?”