Bombshell

Chapter Thirteen Rocket To the Moon

Hands on his hips, Nikita Khrushchev stood in front of the entrance to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, gazing up at the façade where a portrait of a frog — in human clothes, hands on his hips — grinned down at him.

This amused Nikita — or, that is, he was amused by the grotesque humorlessness of these odd things that Americans found funny.

In the darkness, Marilyn’s hand touched his. His eyes turned toward the attractive woman; the American fascination with Marilyn Monroe was much easier for him to fathom than a comical toad.

“I think the control box is over there,” she said, nodding toward the inside wall of the castle’s alcove.

She walked him there and, once again, Nikita removed a heavy brown shoe and brought this portable, multi-purpose tool slamming down on the steel box, springing its silver cover, which fell to the sidewalk with a metallic clunk. He peered back over his shoulder at Marilyn, who looked about apprehensively, a hand covering her mouth, as if someone might have heard them.

A jolt of memory froze him for a moment.

He was reminded of Galina, his first wife, that sweet young thing who had stood just so, watching nervously as he broke the lock to a government grain facility during the Ukrainian famine of 1922, so that he could provide food for his family. The children survived; Galina had not.

Nikita touched the girl’s shoulder. “We’re alone here. No need be frightened.”

She smiled and shrugged. “Besides — diplomatic immunity, right?”

“Is right.”

Nikita returned his attention to the metal box and flipped the toggle switch.

Suddenly the small castle was ablaze with lights, and from someplace — he couldn’t tell where exactly — music blared, voices singing slow and low at first, then becoming higher pitched, like a phonograph playing too fast.

What did the words of the strange song mean?

Why were the people singing on their way to nowhere? And not just nowhere, but nowhere “in particular!” English — such a terrible language, so cluttered with the refuse of other languages, no poetry at all.

And besides, what sort of fools go somewhere they don’t know they’re going?

Then, to Nikita’s breathless amazement, double doors flew open — at the right of the alcove — and an automobile came bouncing out, an old-fashioned one… he recognized it, an American Model T, jostling to a stop in front of them, chugging and wheezing like a living thing.

Marilyn, giddy with laughter, shouted above all the noise and clatter. “Come on, Nikkie! Get in!”

“Nikkie! Who is Nikkie?”

“You are, silly!”

And she gave him a nudge with her elbow.

Maybe he was Nikkie, and maybe he was silly, too, because Nikita — though he wasn’t certain he wanted to, and like the singers knew not where he was going — followed her valentine of a bottom up into the two-seater, climbing aboard.

Going nowhere in particular.

Marilyn pulled a metal bar back across their laps.

Nikita was alarmed by the absence in the Model T of a key element in the operation of an automobile; even that teacup had had one! “Where is wheel?” Nikita asked, raising his voice above the chugging and clanking din.

“There is no wheel, silly!”

“With no wheel,” Nikita informed her, patience strained, “we cannot drive car.”

Marilyn gave him a sideways look. “Nikkie, we don’t drive the car… Mr. Toad drives the car. It’s his wild ride, remember?”

He recalled her story about the foolish frog.

“Then this is bad ride,” Nikita concluded. “Frog, he is terrible driver. You yourself say this.”

Giggling, Marilyn slumped down in her seat. “No,” she responded, “this is fun!”

“More of your fun?”

“More of our fun, Nikkie!… Better hang on!”

And the car jumped forward on some kind of track, Nikita clenching the metal bar tightly — and his teeth.

The duo went rattling along toward another set of doors at the other end of the alcove, yet the car made no attempt to slow down. In fact, if anything, the automobile was increasing its speed.

Thinking that Americans had a sense of “fun” as strange as their sense of “humor,” Nikita braced for the crash. But at the last moment, the doors yawned inwardly open, and the car zipped through.

The premier of Russia sighed with relief; his stomach felt funny, like when, as a child, he had gone sliding down a steep, icy, snowy slope on his backside.

The automobile was hurtling along at a great speed, or so it seemed, lurching at every turn along a cartoon countryside. Nikita could make out part of a bright yellow haystack, coming up ahead, and a big barn, its red doors shut tight.

“Look out, Nikkie!” Marilyn yelled, and buried her face in his chest. He threw his arms around her and fought the urge to close his eyes; but he believed he understood this ride now, and — he was no frightened child, after all — he bravely kept his eyes open wide, comforting the scared girl in his arms.

Once again, at the last moment, the red doors burst open, and the two passengers in the Model T sailed through the barn amidst flying, clucking chickens and frightened, mooing cows.

Nikita frowned — the lighting was dim, but… were the animals real?

As the pair in the auto emerged from the barn, Nikita turned to look at Marilyn, who had tears in her eyes from laughing, which proved infectious: he joined her with his own loud, raucous laughter, until his sides ached.

Unlike the foolish spinning teacups, this ride had such wonderful tricks!

What would happen next? he wondered.

A faint whistle seemed to answer his question.

In Marilyn’s nearest ear, he shouted, “What is that?”

Her response was to raise her eyebrows and shrug; but her smile was knowing…

The whistle came again, this time louder. This whistle, it was familiar… it reminded him of the whistle of… a train!

Suddenly, the car veered off the road — he wasn’t sure how this was accomplished; it had happened so fast! — and then they were careening and rumbling down train tracks. Nikita stared ahead in astonishment at the unmistakable bright white light of a locomotive, coming straight at them, the chugging of its engine growing louder and louder, its whistle blowing a warning, “WHOO-WHOO!”

As before, the automobile continued onward into the mouth of danger itself — my, this Mr. Toad was a brave fellow! — bumping along the tracks, ignoring a crossing guard where red lights flashed blindingly, and loud bells sounded a warning of the approaching train.

Marilyn covered her eyes with her hands as the train — the noise now deafening — continued to bear down on them, its headlight growing huge, the train mere yards away. But this time Nikita would not be a child fooled by tricks… The automobile would surely swerve off the tracks at the very last moment.

Only, it didn’t — he was startled to see the car hold its ground, the big bright light of the train now only a few feet away, and he gasped as they seemed to pass right through the train, as if it were only a ghost… or were they the ghosts?

In his seat, Nikita craned around quickly and saw that the “train” was only a big light running on its own track above them, accompanied by the recorded sound of a real locomotive.

So that was how they pulled off this trick! How clever, these Americans! What a smart man, this Disney was. The premier threw back his head and hollered with glee.

But his laughter echoed ominously as he filled his eyes with new surroundings: the world about them had turned red as blood, and smoke hissed with sinister contempt from out of rock walls. Here and there small black creatures with horns on their heads, and pitchforks for tails, danced mockingly.

Nikita understood at once that this meant they had been “killed” by the train, and gone straight to hell. He laughed all the harder, tears streaming down his cheeks.

But Marilyn was no longer laughing.

She was sitting up straight, and tugged at his shoulder, pointing out a figure that had stepped from the darkness of hell. While the dancing demons were clever puppets, this latest “trick” was a disappointment to Nikita.

Was the figure in their path supposed to be the devil himself? If so, he wasn’t very frightening. Where was his costume? Black clothing? This was a devil? Where was his pitchfork, his horns, his red flesh?

“Of this I am not scared,” Nikita grumbled, looking at Marilyn…

…but she appeared to be. “He’s not supposed to be here!”

Nikita looked again at the figure, clearly a real man with jet black hair and now, out of the smoke, emerged an Oriental cast to cold features.

The devil in black was holding a handgun, an automatic with noise suppresser, pointing it at them, taking aim…

With a lurch, Nikita threw his massive body over Marilyn just as the weapon fired.

Unlike the other illusions on this ride, the automatic sounded real, its muffled report echoing in the chamber — real, too, was the searing pain Nikita felt in his left shoulder, and the spreading dampness that followed.

Nikita stood in the seat of the trembling Model T, at least as far as the metal bar would allow, and as the auto glided by the assassin — who was taking aim again, about to fire a second time — Nikita used his good arm, his right one, to backhand the bastard.

The blow was powerful, tremendous, worthy of a provoked Siberian bear, and the assassin tumbled backward into the smoky darkness, as if swallowed up by hell itself.

The Model T burst through the double doors into the cool outside world, the automobile slowing, ending Mr. Toad’s wild ride… and theirs.

Not waiting for the auto to stop, Nikita and Marilyn scrambled out, running from the miniature castle, only to head in different directions, each pausing in mid-stride to look back at the other.

“We go to Buick!” Nikita said.

Marilyn rushed to him, and with two hands took him by the good arm, tugging him. “No! That’s what he’ll expect,” she said in a rush. “He followed us here, right? So we go the opposite direction.”

She took him by the right hand, and led the way. They fled down the midway, away from the revealing lights of the Toad attraction. He slipped a hand into his pocket and withdrew the straight razor, keeping it hidden in his closed hand, not wanting to further alarm the young woman. He kept up with her, even as pain shot through his wounded shoulder, a sensation Nikita ignored — he had suffered much worse at the battle of Kharkov.

Soon the path they were on grew dark, and Nikita wondered where they were going, when a large signpost sprouted like a skinny tree among the sleeping flowers, one word on its rocket-shaped face: Tomorrowland.

That was where he had wanted to go most of all in Disneyland! Soviet Intelligence had told him to keep a sharp eye out for any new technology he might spy there.

The path curved to the right, and they were rounding the bend, when a fantastic sight stopped Nikita in his tracks.

Silhouetted against the night sky was the top of a rocket ship, like a sleek white bombshell striped red and blue, with the letters TWA on its side. So they did have rocket launching pads here! Why had his son-in-law not told him!

As Nikita stood transfixed, mouth agape, Marilyn tugged at his pajama sleeve. “Come on,” she whispered. “This is no time for sightseeing — we have to find a place to hide!”

Nikita picked up his pace as the path curved around a man-made waterway, only to halt once again in amazement.

They had come to a lagoon where several old-fashioned steamboats were docked; but more importantly, many submarines were submerged but visible there — never would Nikita have imagined that a whole fleet would be hidden away in a “children’s” park! This explained much about the “last minute” cancellation of his visit to Disneyland. This Eisenhower was more clever that he had thought.

“Nikkie!” Marilyn whispered urgently, beckoning him with a finger, eyebrows riding high on her forehead. “Hurry!”

He caught up to her. Soon the pathway came to an end at a large white building where a movie-type poster bore a picture of the sleek spaceship, as well as the words:

So clever — concealing the rocket right out in the open, just another “attraction,” another “ride.” Soviet Intelligence had much to answer for.

The structure displaying this and other “TOMORROWLAND” posters had a peculiar modernistic shape, with a curved roof and two big round balls growing out of it, reminding Nikita of the two-headed giant in a Russian fairy tale. He had supervised the design of many new facilities in Moscow and considered this so-called “building of tomorrow” very impractical… unless the domes held some technological secrets and were perhaps laden with explosives.

While Marilyn ran to the front entrance of the futuristic building to see if they could get inside, Nikita turned his attention to what was next to it: the spaceship. That razor still clasped in his hand, he stayed alert as he approached the craft, which rose dramatically into the sky, nose poking at the stars on this clear, moonswept night.

Upon closer inspection, however, the spaceship didn’t seem as tall as it had looked from a distance — standing seventy feet at best — not like their towering Russian rockets. And this one had little circular windows running all the way from the bottom to the top — what could be the purpose of these? Why would any ship need windows where its rocket boosters were? Who would be looking out?

Nikita moved beneath the craft, between its three legs, and gazed up.

And where were the rocket boosters? There didn’t seem to be any… Could the United States have developed some new technology, abandoning the use of highly flammable rocket fuel to propel their ships into space? Atomic energy? Magnetism?

As Nikita pondered this unusual spacecraft, Marilyn returned to his side.

“The doors are all locked,” she told him, edgy. “And I don’t think your shoe would make much of a ‘key’… I don’t know what to do… where to go…”

She followed his gaze up the side of the rocket.

“Yes, yes you’re right!” she said. “We can hide in there!”

Nikita just looked at her. “You know how to get inside rocket?”

“Sure,” she said with a little shrug. “I went up, once.”

This information surprised Nikita. Never were Russian citizens allowed in Soviet spaceships, which were restricted to scientists and only the highest-ranking military and government people.

“A kid fell down and broke his leg,” she told him, “so Mr. Disney boarded it up… come on.”

As she grabbed his hand, Nikita held back. “Mr. Disney must be a powerful man to close down a government rocket.”

Marilyn blinked. “Nikkie, it’s not a real spaceship.”

“Is not?”

She shook her head; he could tell she was trying not to smile. “The ship’s an observation deck — you can see the whole park from there.”

Now he did feel silly.

“Another ride,” he said.

“Sort of… only it doesn’t go anywhere.”

Nowhere in particular.

Silly and disappointed, he felt. He supposed the submarines didn’t go anywhere, either. But he didn’t ask.

“There used to be some stairs up to the deck,” Marilyn was saying, pointing upward to where the base of the craft was nailed shut, regular boards that had been painted white to fool the eye. “If you lift me, maybe I can pull some of those boards down.”

Nikita could see spaces between the wood that had been haphazardly nailed together. Although his shoulder ached, Nikita crouched, hugged his arms around Marilyn’s hips, and lifted her up.

In the process, she must have touched his bloodied pajama top, because she gasped and wriggled from his grip.

“Oh you’re hurt,” Marilyn exclaimed. She obviously hadn’t noticed before; in the darkness the burgundy pajama top merely looked damp, not red. “Oh, Nikita, why didn’t you say something…?”

“Is nothing. As they say in your western pictures, he winged me… We must get in spaceship.”

“But…”

“Will be much more than arm if we don’t get inside ship.”

He bent again, hoisting Marilyn as high as he could. She squirmed a bit as he held her, working at the boards; then he heard wood cracking, and two pieces of lumber fell by his feet, thumping to the cement.

When he lowered Marilyn, her face was long with concern.

“Nikkie, you’re sure you’re all right?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Can you… can you lift me again? I think I can get up inside.”

After another hoist from “Nikkie,” Marilyn pulled herself up through the opening.

“What do we do now?” she whispered down to Nikita, her pretty face visible between the opening in the boards. “I’m not strong enough to pull you up.”

But an idea had already come to him. Quickly he removed his trousers from over his silk pajama bottoms, slipping them over his shoes.

He tossed the tan pants up to her. “Tie these around strong board,” he instructed.

“Oh. I get it.”

Nikita, using the legs of the slacks, began to climb them like a rope, favoring his right arm. Marilyn still was unaware of the razor, which he had tucked in his pajama breast pocket. The board, around which the trousers was wrapped, moaned in protest at his weight, but held.

Soon, inside the spaceship, Nikita was back in his trousers as he and Marilyn stood on a sturdy platform, taking in their surroundings. A wooden stairway, off to one side, rose dizzyingly from one landing to another, all the way to the top.

“Let me see your arm,” Marilyn said. She unbuttoned his pajama shirt and gently pulled it off his massive shoulders.

“Is nothing I tell you,” Nikita said gruffly. But he found her tenderness touching.

“I think the bullet just grazed you,” she said slowly, examining the wound on his upper left arm.

“Yes, as I say, I am winged.”

“But it’s still bleeding.”

She took his silk pajama top and tried to tear off the un-bloodied sleeve to make a bandage; however the material was too slippery to tear, and — she pointed out — probably wouldn’t stay knotted, anyway.

“I know,” she said, letting the silk top fall from her fingers. “We’ll use my shirt… It’s cotton.”

Marilyn unbuttoned her blouse and took it off. She wore nothing underneath.

Embarrassed, Nikita looked away, but the glimpse of her full, perfect breasts would reside forever in his memory.

“Don’t you just hate underwear?” she commented casually. They both were, at the moment, bare-chested. “It’s so unnatural… and I go along with nature.”

Yes she did, he thought, sneaking a sideways peek at those supple white breasts.

Marilyn tore a sleeve from her blouse, then — gently — wound the plaid fabric around and around his arm, tying it snugly.

“There,” she said at last, taking a step back, examining her work, hands on her hips, famous bosom on display. “Is that better?”

“Is wonderful.” A Russian woman would have blushed and covered her naked self. The ones that he knew, anyway.

She slipped back into the now one-sleeved blouse, buttoning but not bothering to knot it this time, letting it hang loose. “Are you ready?”

He blinked.

“To climb, Nikkie?”

“Yes. Yes! To top.”

Marilyn turned toward the wooden stairs. “We should be safe up there.”

Nikita followed her up, pausing briefly at each landing to look out its small circular window. As he climbed, he could see more and more of the amusement park, a sprawling world of rides and buildings and foliage, cloaked in the blue-ivory of the moonlit night.

At the top of the stairs he found Marilyn seated on a platform floor, her back against the curved wall of the cone of the ship. She was trying to look calm, self-composed, this he could tell; but he knew she was still frightened. Nikita settled in next to her, putting his good arm around her protectively, drawing her close to give them both warmth against the chill of the night.

“We’ll be safe here,” she repeated, her voice muffled against his bare chest.

“Yes, here we are safe.”

She yawned. “Oh… sorry. I’m just… so tired…”

“Now you will sleep,” he said.

But he would not. He would stay wide awake. Because as he’d climbed he had seen, out of one tiny window, the Oriental assassin in black, the bastard who had shot at them in Mr. Frog’s castle, coming down a pathway into Tomorrowland.

And in time, the man would find the broken boards on the ground, and discover their hiding place.

So he let the young woman nestle against him and sleep, and he kept guard — razor at the ready.