Frederik Pohl - The Cool War

“But I’m still on the first level! I’m a minister!”

“What rot,” she said scornfully. “And next you’re going to tell me you went to the Team headquarters just to get a diet cola?”

“Well,” he said uncomfortably, and stopped.

“You see? No answer! You can’t even make up a decent lie! Very bad briefing they gave you!”

Hake had to agree that he couldn’t give her an answer— not any answer at all, not after Curmudgeon’s very explicit orders. But he agreed silently. It was a pity no one had explained to him what to do in a case like this. Where were the poison capsules in the false teeth, or the secret radio that would alert Headquarters and bring a hundred agents slinking in to save him?

The girl was waiting for a response. He said desperately, “All I can tell you is the truth. The papers you have tell it the way it is. I’m a Unitarian minister. Period.”

“No, Hake,” she said angrily, “not period. What would a minister be doing where we picked you up?”

“Ah, well,” he said guardedly, “yes, I was asked to come there.”

“To talk about toys for Russia!”

“No! Nobody said a word about toys!”

“Then why were you there?”

“My God, don’t you think I wish I knew? All they said was they wanted somebody with a Near East background who wouldn’t be missed if anything went—” Belatedly he clamped his lips together.

His captors were looking at each other. “Near East?”

“It isn’t the first time that source got it wrong.”

“You think—?”

“So maybe this one isn’t the toy man,” said the man with the .32.

The girl nodded slowly. “So maybe we’re into something entirely different.”

“So maybe it’s time for Phase Two,” said the gunman.

“Yeah. Tell you what, Hake,” she said, turning back to him. “That sort of changes things, doesn’t it? I guess we’ve made some kind of mistake. Here, have some coffee while we figure out what to do next.”

He accepted the cup morosely. The four of them withdrew to the other room and whispered together, glancing through the doorway at him from time to time. He could not hear what they were saying. It did not seem to matter. Let them conspire; there was nothing he could do about it, except to let it happen. Even the coffee was not very good, though not as bad as his precarious situation. These people did not seem like very expert kidnappers or spies or whatever they were; but how much expertise did you need to pull the trigger on a gun? He took another sip of the coffee—

As he was lifting the cup for a third sip, it belatedly occurred to him that it might not be wise to drink something just because it said “Drink Me.” Poison, truth serum, knockout drops— But that was two sips too late. The cup dropped out of his hand, and his head dropped to meet the typewriter case on the table.

When he woke up the typewriter was in his lap, and none of them were anywhere in sight.

He was back on the Metroliner, heading back to Newark. Across the aisle two tiny, elderly ladies were staring at him. “He’s sobering up,” said one loudly.

Equally loudly the other one replied, “Disgusting! If I were his wife I wouldn’t have helped him on the bus, I’d’ve just let him rot there. And serve him right”

The next morning the sermon went beautifully—“So fresh and enlightening,” said the president of the congregation, wringing his hand. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that she had heard him give the same sermon, word for word, two years before. He didn’t have the head for it, either, because the only head he had was throbbing violently. Whatever had been in the coffee had given him the finest hangover he had ever owned, and without even a night’s drinking to justify it. Had to have been truth drug, he decided. They wouldn’t have let him go until they were quite sure he had nothing worth telling to tell them. When you came down to it, he hadn’t.

The coffee hour after the service was pure pain, but there was no way out of it. He didn’t always hear what was said to him. But reflexes took over:

“You’ve given me a lot to think about, Horny.”

“So glad you liked it”

And meanwhile his mind, between thuds of pain, was considering the world about him in a new light. The game the Team was asking him to join—was it being played aft around him? That raft of water lilies that floated in every river: was that just a freak of nature, or were other nations playing that game against his own?

“Horny, the methane-burner’s acting up again.”

“I’m so pleased you liked it.”

He thought of all the power blackouts that had hit in the past few years. Defective switches, overstressed transformers? Or somebody helping the accidents along? He recalled the dozen petty pandemics of coughs and trots, the strikes, the walkouts. The incredibly detailed rumors of corruption in high places, and perverse orgies of the powerful, that had turned half the country off to its elected officials. All of them! How many were thrown up by chance? How many were calculated strategies devised in Moscow or Beijing, or even Ottawa?

“Horny, I want to thank you for all of us. We’ve decided to give the marriage another chance.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed—oh, Alys! Yes. What did you say?”

“I said you’ve made us want to try again, Horny.”

“That’s really fine. Yes.” As she started to move off he detained her; she was one of the brightest of the parishioners, with a doctoral degree, he remembered, in history. “Alys,” he said, “how would you go about researching some recent events?”

“What kind of recent events, Horny?”

“Well—I don’t know exactly how to describe them.” He pondered for a moment, and then offered: “It seems to me that everything has got kind of, you know, crappy over the last few years. Like the lilies that are clogging up the water intakes for all those cities in the north. Where did they come from?”

“I think they were first reported in Yugoslavia,” she said helpfully. “Or was it Ireland?”

“Well, that sort of thing. If I made up a list of say thirty things that are going on that, uh, that seem to damage the quality of life, how would I go about seeing where they started, and what sort of correlations there are, and so on?”

She pursed her lips, fending off a couple of other parishioners pressing toward them. “I suppose you’re researching a sermon?”

“Something like that,” he lied.

“I thought so.” She nodded. “Well, for openers, there’s the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature. And Current Topics. Then you might want to look at the New York Times microfilms, with the subject index. I’m afraid you’d have to go to New York for some of the stuff. Unless—” She looked carefully at his face. “Unless you’d like me to help you with it?”

“Would you? I’d really appreciate that.”

“Why, certainly, Horny,” she said, impulsively pressing his arm. “I’ll come around tomorrow to talk to you about it. You’ve been so good to all of us, why, I couldn’t deny you anything at all!” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek before she turned away.

It almost seemed that the headache was less, Hake thought gratefully. He did not think Curmudgeon would approve, but he decided to know what was going on. And with a trained researcher to help him, maybe he could find out.

On the steps of the church, a gray-haired man whose name he could not quite place stopped him and said: “Reverend Hake, may I have a word with you?”

“I’m so glad you enjoyed the sermon.”

“Well, uh, yes, I did. But that wasn’t what I was going to ask you. You see, I’m with International Pets and Flowers. We’re expanding our operations here in New Jersey. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of it, but we’ve acquired the old Fort Monmouth tract in Eatontown, and we like to have responsible local representation on our district Board of Directors in a thing like this. Could you accept a directorship?”