Warren Murphy: Look Into My Eyes

"Don't believe everything you hear or see. I'm here. What are you going to do, shoot your own mother?"

"No, never. "

"Put down the gun," said his mother.

But that was unnecessary. Yuri was already lowering the gun. And the man with the sad brown eyes was gone. "Mama, have you seen a little guy with brown eyes?"

"He went back to the village. Go relax."

Yuri looked down the road. It stretched a mile toward the village, with no hills or bushes where anyone could hide. The little fellow had disappeared. He looked behind him, to see if the little fellow had somehow snuck by. But that road was empty also. It was quiet and empty, and the still, chill night made clouds of every breath, and the man was not there. Only his gray-haired mother, hands gnarled from arthritis, waving to him as she passed the guard post. The officer ran out through the door and put his pistol to Yuri's mother's head. Yuri raised his rifle. This he could kill for. This he had to kill for.

He fired a dozen automatic rounds with his Kalishnikov, plastering the wooden guard post with pieces of the second lieutenant and the magazine he had been reading.

The next day at the board of inquiry, Yuri explained he couldn't help himself. He had a right to defend his mother. The lieutenant was going to kill her.

Strangely, every officer seemed to understand, even though Yuri admitted tearfully (because now he was sure he was going to be shot) that his mother had been dead for four years.

"All right. Don't worry. What did the man say to you? Remember everything," ordered the KGB commandant assigned to the village area.

"But I shot my commanding officer."

"Doesn't matter. What did Rabinowitz say?"

"His name was Rabinowitz, sir?"

"Yes. What did he say?"

"He said he wanted to be left alone."

"Anything else?"

"He said he was sure I wouldn't shoot him. He seemed happy to say the word no. He made such an awful big thing of it."

"Anything else?"

"That's all I remember. I had to shoot the lieutenant. Wouldn't you if your commander was going to kill your mother?"

"No. I'm KGB. But never mind about shooting your officer. What did your mother say?"

"She told me not to shoot."

"Anything else?"

"She said don't believe everything you see. And things like that."

"Did she say where she was going?"

"She's been dead four years," sobed Yuri.

"Never mind that. Did she say where she was going?"

"No. "

"She didn't mention anything about Israel?"

"Why would she? She's not-wasn't-a Jew."

"Yes. Of course," said the KGB commandant.

There was one advantage the commandant saw. They were already at the parapsychology village and the sergeant would not have to be sent here to relive his experiences perfectly. Rabinowitz might have said something that would lead them to him again, and then it was just a matter of giving Rabinowitz whatever he wanted. Heads were going to roll for this one and it was not going to be some poor little sergeant in the regular army.

Someone had lost Vassily Rabinowitz, and there would have to be some pretty good answers all the way to the Politburo.

The picture of the sad-eyed, middle-aged man was sent to every KGB unit in the Soviet Union and especially to border countries of the Eastern bloc. The instructions were strange. No one was to try to stop Vassily Rabinowitz. They were only to report his presence to Moscow, unless Rabinowitz was spotted near any border to the West. Then without talking to the man, without looking into his eyes, they were to shoot him.

The secret police of East Germany, Poland, Albania, and Rumania found the next message totally confusing. They were to report to Moscow the sighting by any guard at any post of anyone strange, such as a relative who had been dead for many years, or a close friend.

"Appearing where?" the satellite police asked.

"Anywhere they shouldn't," answered the Moscow KGB. There were questions, too, about how the dead could appear.

And the answer was that they really didn't but the guards would be sure they had.

In Moscow, a Rabinowitz desk was set up. It had three functions. First to get him back, and second to find out who had failed to give him what he wanted. The third objective was to get him what he wanted.

Even as it tracked Rabinowitz's route away from the parapsychology village, the inquiry revealed a problem that should have been worked out.

The officer assigned personally to Rabinowitz, who knew his life was at stake, explained it.

"When he wanted women, we gave him women. We gave him blond women and dark-eyed women. We gave him African women and South American women. We gave him women from the Middle East and women from the Middle West. Kurds and Koreans did we supply," came the statement.

"And what was his reaction?"

"He said we never came up with the right one."

"And who was the right one?"

"The one we hadn't come up with."

Rabinowitz had been given a catalog from Neiman-Marcus, a great American department store, and told to mark off the items he wanted and they would be delivered. Exotic foodstuffs, hams and smoked salmon and tropical fruits by the barrel, rotted in his basement. Military priority for any item destined for Rabinowitz had been declared in four major defense command zones. In a world of luxury, Rabinowitz had lived in the highest luxury.

Every morning, noon, and evening someone from the KGB command came to his home or laboratory to ask him what he wanted. And when they weren't doing that, generals and commissars were phoning him personally to ask if they could do favors for him. He had lots of friends in high places, people who needed him and would not take his loss lightly.

Even though the KGB commandant of that village could prove beyond any doubt he had given Rabinowitz everything a human being could want, someone was going to have to pay. And the price would be death.

In growing horror, Moscow command tracked the route of the strange incidents, from east to west.

A conductor on a train headed west through Kazan, south of Moscow, was demanding a traveling pass when he realized he was talking to his pet dog. He reported this strange incident when he got home to Kuybyshev because there he found his pet had been at home all the time. Therefore he was suffering some form of mental breakdown; therefore he was due a vacation. The conductor was surprised that it was not the hospital board that examined him but the KGB.

In Kiev, an Aeroflot stewardess confessed she had allowed her favorite uncle onto the airplane without a ticket. She confessed her deed because she was sure she was going crazy; she had seated the favorite uncle twice on the same flight, both in the luxurious rear cabin and in the crammed front seats. She had walked back and forth three times to confirm that he was sitting in both seats.

The uncle who got off in Warsaw was the one she would have bet was the real one. But when the one she thought was the impostor went to bed with her aunt, she was sure she was going crazy.

And then from a bus in Prague, the Rabinowitz desk got their first breakthrough.

A passenger was asking questions about Berlin. This was not unusual, except a fight occurred on the bus where several people tried to take care of him, thinking he was a close relative. Then the bus driver suffered a migraine headache. He told all the passengers they would have to wait half an hour or so while he wished he were dead; then the migraine would pass.

But the passenger with the multiple family ties went to the front of the bus, spoke to the driver, and the driver drove off singing, his headache gone. Of course the driver changed his route to drive further west, closer to Berlin. But no one minded. After all, who would deny such a small thing to his closest relative?