Bombshell by Max Collins (pdf ebook reader TXT) 📕

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