"Jesus," Frank Jones said. "Is this the guy who almost clobbered that whale-sized Cossack in Torremolinos?"
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"I didn't know you were there that night," Mike said. "But at least I can say you look more authentic than I do."
"Like hell I do," Jones growled. "You were born to be a bishop. Let's adjourn to the bar. I had to practically slug that young jerk Masters to keep the thing in the place."
Mike remembered and raised his eyebrows and pointed to his ear. Jones stared at him for a minute, then caught on.
"Oh," he said. "No. No microphones, no secret police under the bed, nothing like that."
Mike looked at him.
Frank said reasonably. "Do you think that there's anybody more competent to check it out than I am?
I'm equipped with every electronic mop put out by the Department of Dirty Tricks in the Bureau of International Investigations. The fact of the matter is, the Russkies couldn't care less what we do-just so long as we don't sound off against the government or Andrei Zorin, or any of the other top bureaucrats."
That's what I thought," Mike said. "It's a bad sign for the West. The Russkies don't bother to have secrets any more."
He said to Frank, in front of the autobar, "What would you like? I could become an alcoholic playing with this gadget. We ought to introduce them into the States."
"Don't think they won't," Frank said glumly. "And throw a few hundred thousand bartenders out of work. They can mix better drinks than the average bartender. Let me have pivo."
"What's a pivo?" Mike said.
"What's wrong with your Russian? Beer. Russian beer is so thick you can pit it out of your teeth, but it's better than Spanish beer."
"Anything not thick enough to eat is better to drink than Spanish beer," Mike said, dialing himself a chilled Stolitschnaja vodka. "How're things going?"
Frank Jones took a chair and knocked back an initial swallow of his drink. "Mostly we've been waiting for you to arrive. However, we've done the preliminary groundwork. The country's ripe for it. Rotten ripe."
Mike found a chair too and looked at his companion, interested. "How do you know, Frank?"
The other took a pull of his beer again and scowled, looking for an example. "Well, for one thing…
listen, do you know a character named Galushko? Nicolas Galushko?"
"Nick? Sure. He was one of my tourists in Torremolinos. The last batch I had. He was about average.
He drank too much."
"Well, he doesn't any more," Frank said definitely. "He's just been making a tour through the Ukraine.
Converted several thousand farm people already."
Mike stared at him. "Converted them to what?"
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"Some land of a new religion all his own. Teaches moderation. Once we get going, I think we can swing them into our organization."
"Holy smokes," Mike said, awed. He knocked back his vodka. "I gave him the idea one night on a tapa tour through Malaga."
There came a timid knock on the door that joined the suite to the room of Reverend Masters.
Mike said, "Ditch these glasses, Frank. We don't want to louse up our images before the hired help."
Frank put the glasses in the disposal chute of the bar, and went over to the door and opened it.
It was young Masters and he had a book in his hand and puzzlement on his bland face. He had his thumb marking a page in the book.
Mike said, "What is it, son?"
"Bishop Edwards," the other said hesitantly, "Remember that Biblical quotation you gave me as we were driving from the airport?"
"Certainly."
"Well sir, I looked it up, just to be certain that I had it correctly. Genesis XIX. 5."
Oh, oh. He'd been caught out. He hadn't the vaguest idea what that Book, Chapter and Verse was.
However, he'd have to face his subordinate down.
"Well?" he said severely.
David Masters read, "And they called to Lot and said to him, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can cornhole them."
"What!" Mike blurted.
Frank Jones went over to the Reverend Masters and took the book from his hands. "What edition of the Bible is this?"
He looked at the cover. " The Holy Bible in Modern Idiom." What in the devil is this all about?"
The younger man was evidently set back by his superior's vehemence. He said, looking back and forth between Frank and Mike, "It's a new edition brought out so that the present generation can understand it.
The King James version sometimes confuses them."
Mike, muttering, took up his own Bible from where it had been sitting on a table. He looked up the quotation, and read: "And they called unto Lot and said unto him, Where are them which come in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them."
"Humm," he grunted, under his breath. "I always wondered what that meant."
He put the book down again and turned severely to his assistant cum secretary. "That'll be all, Reverend Page 67
Masters. I'm a busy man and don't like to be bothered with such trivials."
Yes, Bishop Edwards." The other turned hurriedly to leave. Frank handed back to him his Bible in Idiom.
As a parting, Mike said, "One last thing, son. Verily he who holds doubts of the words of the Prophet shall come to a bitter end. Song of Solomon , Chapter 11, 3."
"Oh, yes, Your Reverence. How well put."
"Indeed, yes," Frank said piously.
The other baked through the door to his room, apologetically.
Frank Jones looked after him. "For Christ sakes," he said. "Do you mean to tell me that one's got an I.Q. of at least 125?" He looked at his watch. "We better get going, Mike. I've arranged for a meeting with the Minister of Culture, Alex Mikhailov."
"What for?" Mike said.
"1'll tell you on the way down," Jones said. "We've got to get TV time, and maybe get onto the newscasts. Possibly we can talk them into doing a movie about the Old Time Religion Church."
Mike let himself be led to the door. "You're getting too optimistic, aren't you? Why in the hell should they do a movie about us, or allow us TV time, for that matter? I doubt if they'd even sell us time."
Jones explained on the way down in the elevator. "You've got some surprises coming. You know how lousy the TV programs are back in the States? Well, they've got the same problem here. They've gone through every bag of tricks of every producer and writer and have scraped the bottom of the barrel as far as every idea is concerned."
They were in the street now, and Frank Jones pressed a button set next to the New Metropole's main entrance. In a moment, an aircushion taxi disengaged itself from the traffic flow and pulled up to the curb before them.
Mike Edwards forced himself to climb in. He was far from happy about driverless cabs. The Russkies certainly went all out in their efforts to save labor.
Jones dialed the address co-ordinates and went on with his point. "They're on an automation kick.
Twenty years ago they put a million youngsters into their universities to study time and motion engineering and became automation technicians. Now they're reaping the harvest. And every time some new discovery comes along that would ordinarily toss a couple of hundred thousand people into the ranks of the unemployed, they just lower the work week for everybody in that industry. It's got down to an average of ten hours now."
"What's all that got to do with television programs?" Mike said.
Jones shrugged glumly. "In the States we've got twenty million unemployed living high on the hog on unemployment insurance and spending their time glued to the idiot box. Over here they're all supposedly employed but everybody works only ten hours a week, thirty weeks a year. The rest of the time they're looking for entertainment and the Minister of Culture in the Soviet Complex gets just as big an ulcer trying Page 68
to provide his country with new TV ideas as a Madison Avenue tycoon does in our country."