Last Call for Blackford Oakes

by Buckley, William F. ;

  That luxury would last until the housing commissar imposed a fresh person to share the apartment. Ursina let herself fantasize—the first night when, clothesline tucked out of sight, she celebrated her privacy with Blackford—that somehow, something could be done to maintain a single apartment. It would not be easy. The marriage license Rufina had now got required a strict reporting of which space in a municipal apartment, previously taken, would now be available.

  But things take time, Ursina thought. What she sensed as timeless was her love for this romantic sixty-year-old American, who seemed to know everything, and who certainly did not need any professional attention from Dr. Chadinov when asserting his manhood, in their long embraces, night after night.

  CHAPTER 18

  Nikolai Dmitriev enjoyed his dacha and was grateful to his late friend, Konstantin Chernenko, for giving it to him. Kuntsevo had a very special history. It was there that Josef Stalin finally died on March 5, 1953, after lying insensate for four days, attended by frightened doctors and courtiers.

  For three years after that fateful day, the abandoned dacha, twenty minutes from Moscow, was under military supervision. It was thought, generally, that it would one day be made a national memorial site. But when Khrushchev delivered his historic speech to the 20th Congress in 1956, denouncing Stalin and his works, Kuntsevo began a long life of studied neglect. A small posting of military police maintained watch at the gatehouse at the beginning of the long roadway that led to the dacha. No one was permitted on the property, and no one of any importance was designated to look after it in any custodial sense. It was eerily reminiscent of Tsarskoe Selo, the palace inhabited by Nicholas and Alexandra before they were taken to Siberia to be shot.

  Kuntsevo sat there until Konstantin Chernenko decided to do something about it. On being named general secretary, he had begun to act on a number of private resolutions he had stored up, one of them to pull the dacha out of limbo. It would not do to attempt, after thirty years, to create a memorial site associated with Stalin, but it would be sheer waste to demolish so carefully constructed and capacious a country house. The best way to demystify Kuntsevo was to award it to a Soviet official.

  This was one of several items Chernenko planned to discuss at a private dinner meeting with Nikolai Dmitriev, his most trusted friend in the Politburo. General Baranov had spent much anxious time on the matter of possible arms talks with President Ronald Reagan and was eager to take up the question with the new general secretary. Before meeting with Baranov, Chernenko wanted Dmitriev’s advice on attendant political problems.

  They had a genial dinner, with wine, discussing matters on Chernenko’s agenda. After twenty minutes on Star Wars, Chernenko ticked off that topic on his notepad. “Now, Kolya, I propose that action be taken on the matter of Stalin’s dacha at Kuntsevo. I think that it should be reoccupied, and I propose that you should make it your own.”

  Dmitriev knew well the old associations of his senior political friend, the general secretary. Chernenko, now seventy-two, had been forty-one years old when Josef Stalin died. As was so with many members of the Politburo, he had had close associations with Stalin. Dmitriev therefore greeted this news with caution.

  He began—of course—by expressing his gratitude that such a—he thought better than to call it an “honor,” which would risk passing by insouciantly the demythologization of Stalin. And so he expressed gratitude for such “deference as turning over to him so splendid a … property.”

  “You will need a great deal of work done on it before it is habitable. I have therefore designated it a historical ‘site’ but intend to keep it that way only until the workmen are finished repairing the house and the lawn and surrounding woods—were you ever there, Kolya?”

  “No, Kostya, I never was.”

  “Well I was. Twice. In fact the second time, in February, was only one month before … the monster”—Dmitriev was glad to hear him use the word—“died. They will be arguing into the next millennium whether the doctors in attendance gave him adequate advice, the wrong advice, or perhaps killed him. Anyway, it is, as you say, a splendid property, and it is now—yours.”

  Dmitriev bowed his head, to suggest his gratitude.

  “We move now to the matter of President Reagan’s re-election. We should consider replacing our ambassador. Yes. And”—he looked down at his notes—“we need to find an … asymmetrical means of responding to the CIA’s arming of the rebels in Afghanistan.”

  Dmitriev took notes. Good man, Konstantin Ustinovich, he thought. But would he go on to advise the Politburo to name Dmitriev as his successor?

  CHAPTER 19

  Vice Chairman Dmitriev hadn’t visited privately with his old friend General Leonid Baranov for several months. On a cold day in January, Dmitriev decided to give Baranov a tour of Kuntsevo. They got about first in an army jeep, the vice chairman at the wheel. The acreage was small, by czarist, or for that matter post-czarist, standards, not much spacier than an eighteen-hole golf course. “When he was here,” Dmitriev explained, “the security was like that of a penitentiary, with electrical grids and guards posted at regular intervals. All traces of such, you will notice, Leonya, have been removed. I make do with just the two men at the gatehouse. To be sure, we have ample electronic communication.”

  “If you had been named general secretary, would you have used this as your official dacha?”

  “I don’t mind telling you I gave that some thought. And decided—I would not, I would move to another dacha. In that sense, the ghost of Stalin does not sleep. If, on my ascendancy, the world had turned its attention to Kuntsevo and gone on and on on the subject of him, I would not have welcomed that.”

  “Understood. And of course you know that I myself would have welcomed your election.”

  The jeep pulled into the big shed alongside the main building. Dmitriev, springing from the jeep, signaled to the general, who moved more sedately, to follow him. “We’ll perhaps talk about some of the implications of my having been passed by for general secretary. At dinner. Meanwhile, a quick tour. Here,” he opened the door into a heavy room, a squat felt-lined table, heavy bookcases, a projector and screen, eight chairs, one of them especially prominent, with traces of gilt at the crest rail. “That is where he sat … He drank a lot, but when he met here with his people—were you ever before in this room, Leonya?”

  The general shook his head. “I knew that there was an inner sanctum, but never got this far.”

  “I was saying, he customarily convened his visitors at two in the morning. I was talking about his drinking. He drank a lot but never at such meetings as he held here. He encouraged his court to drink. Some of them went to the bathroom down the hall needing actually to throw up, but they mostly had to return, drink more. Molotov was a special target when detected going regularly out to vomit. When Stalin wanted to stay sober, he was served a flavored sparkling water.

  “With a tip of the hat to history, I have arranged for our own dinner to be served here, after you bathe. Shall we meet in the salon, just outside, at—”

  “Two A.M.?” Baranov laughed.

  Dmitriev managed a smile. “At eight P.M.”

  Several hours later, with coffee, cigars, and liqueur on the table, Dmitriev, well along in nostalgia, reaffirmed the special relationship he felt with his guest. “You, Leonya, were commander of the Frunze Academy when I received my commission as a second lieutenant. And in the thirty-five years that have gone by, I have always relied on you for important strategic advice.”

  “Is strategic advice what we need to explore this weekend?” Leonid Baranov asked.

  Dmitriev replied warily. “Yes. Advice on the strategic challenges faced by our motherland. But not—I prefer not—about contingent measures to be taken if things do not go right. The army remains securely in your hands.

  “But let us recapitulate. The general secretary is finally showing some sense on Afghanistan. He has permitted the president we set up there to declare that all Soviet
troops will withdraw from Afghanistan in twelve months. At last there is an end in sight to this lesion on our country’s morale.

  “But Comrade Gorbachev’s domestic policies! Perestroika and glasnost are doing to morale in Soviet society what Afghanistan is doing to the military. If he continues on this road, it is impossible to foresee the consequences.

  “Quickly, then, my illustrious general and friend: The enemy is, always, the United States. Our leader has proposed a treaty that would prohibit nuclear testing. It is obvious what Comrade Gorbachev has in mind, and here we back him wholeheartedly: Any diplomatic contrivance whatever that succeeds in discouraging active U.S. work on an antimissile system is welcome.”

  “But what is by no means plain,” the old warrior broke in, “is what to do if the United States refuses to derail its antimissile program.”

  “Yes,” Dmitriev agreed, “by no means plain. There is no way we can spend more on the scientific-military enterprise. We have ten thousand Russian scientists working on antimissile development already.

  “The general secretary understands that, too. But he has now met for the third time with the United States president. He seems to be altogether too close to this bourgeois warmonger. Who knows what agreement he will sign with him next?

  “Leonya,” Dmitriev paused, and stared down into his brandy. “There is one central problem. And it is a human problem.”

  Dmitriev had not seated himself in the principal chair at the dining table. It was there, opposite. Stalin’s chair. Empty.

  Looking over at it, Vice Chairman Nikolai Dmitriev said, “He would have known what to do.”

  Dmitriev and his guest left the table.

  Major Uliev, his earphones on, waited a minute in the hidden trailer. Then he signaled to the technician at his side. “That’s enough. We have what we want.” He would have known what to do! Indeed. But Comrade Gorbachev, when he hears this tape, will also know what to do.

  CHAPTER 20

  Ursina was delighted but not surprised when Rufina told her that not only was she expected at the wedding celebration, “but also your beloved American publisher.”

  It was cold that Sunday afternoon, but brilliantly sunny, and Ursina proposed to Blackford that en route to the apartment house on Uspensky Street they should walk through Pushkin Square, which she admired in part because of its beauty, in part because it celebrated “the greatest Russian ever. Pushkin,” she said, “discovered the Russian soul.”

  As they approached the stout apartment building with the ornate entrance, Blackford asked, “Who else is invited? Or do you know?”

  “Rufina didn’t give me a list. There would not, in that apartment, be more than eight or ten, I should think. She knows we’re going on to the ballet later, so she won’t expect us to stay long. The last time I was there they invited two students of Andrei’s, the Gromovs, Maksim and Irina. Two very large middle-aged Russians. I don’t know what Andrei teaches them. He speaks not at all—ever—about anything to do with his own life. Oh—” she stopped to correct herself. Blackford admired the sunshine on the fur around the blue hat she wore, concealing most of her hair. “Oh, yes, he did reveal that night I was there that, however perfunctorily, he had crossed paths with three British authors. Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Malcolm Muggeridge.”

  “That would be good to talk about at the reception, right?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I remember asking for some details of his friendship, or exchanges, with those people, and getting nowhere.”

  “Well, I’ll give it a try.”

  They climbed the two sets of stairs. Rufina was at the door. Ursina hugged her and handed her the little package, wrapped and tied with yellow ribbon. It was a half kilo of the caviar she knew Rufina especially liked, but could seldom afford to buy.

  “Well, darling, this does make it a celebration,” said Rufina in a delighted tone. “That, and of course Andrei’s passport coming through, finally. It is odd, after all these months together, that we get officially married only today because we had to wait for Andrei’s passport to be renewed. As if that mattered! But come come come in. The Gromovs—you remember them?—are here already, and also the registrar Morosov and his wife, Lidya, who sings. That’s all! Andrei has been practicing his toast in Russian—like his marriage proposal, which he did in Russian—and is really quite nervous about it. Imagine!”

  They walked through the hallway into the salon/dining room, where the guests milled about. Rufina led Blackford to her husband. “Andrei, you can speak in English all you want with Ursina’s special friend.”

  Blackford smiled and extended his hand, and managed to say in the Russian language, “My congratulations, Comrade Andrei, and may you both have a long and happy life.”

  Andrei acknowledged the greeting and spoke back in his own Russian. Blackford was able to discern the words, to the effect that he and Rufina were very grateful to Ursina, and he was pleased to meet Ursina’s good friend and—he lapsed into English—“companion. You are, Mr. Doubleday, from the United States?”

  Glasses of wine were pressed into Blackford’s hand by Ursina and into Andrei’s hand by Rufina.

  “Yes. New York. But also Washington. I do occasional service for the United States Information Agency. In fact, I’m here to help plan for the cultural-exchange exhibit in Gorky. And—as a freelance agent—to urge the circulation of some books in the English language.”

  “Which books?”

  “Above all, your—the great Encyclopaedia Britannica. And, from America, the Great Books series. We have a list of individual books, of course, but we have found from the Russians who pass through the USIA library at the embassy that there is considerable interest in primary historical documents. For instance, The Federalist Papers.”

  Andrei lifted his shoulders, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Yes, I can imagine that there is such curiosity. There is also interest, I would imagine—I have never myself been to that particular library—in other U.S. documents. Perhaps the Emancipation Proclamation? The Sherman Antitrust Act?” He struggled, against the breeze coming in from the window, to light his cigarette, but he did not want to put down his glass.

  “Let me light it for you, Comrade Andrei.” Blackford leaned forward and took the match box. Odd, this syllabus of U.S. historical documents his host found interesting. Was there an animus there?

  “Thank you, dear boy,” said Andrei, before turning to the Gromovs, who spoke to him in a slow, labored Russian, while eating zakuski hungrily.

  Blackford’s eyes lit on the overflowing bookcase nearby—where could Andrei fit a single new book? Blackford spotted the three-volume set of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. Prohibited in the Soviet Union. Perhaps Rufina—or Andrei—had got special permission. At knee level to one side there were ten or twelve identical paperback books lying on top of one another. Blackford struggled to make out the Russian lettering on the spines.

  But the formal festivities were beginning, and Blackford edged back to the celebration. Rufina was speaking in Russian and soon everyone applauded, not easy to do with wine glass in hand. Then Lidya began to sing a song. Blackford watched her, mouth open wide, eyes closed. Everyone was quiet. But Blackford Oakes’s mind was racing. He looked hard at his host when the spoon, tapping on the glass pitcher, signaled to the company that Andrei Fyodorovich Martins would now make a toast.

  “This is a joyous occasion,” he said speaking the language slowly, yet with some assurance. He had of course memorized the Russian words. “I have been a friend of Rufina for some time, and now I am happy to be recognized as her husband, united son and daughter of the Revolution.” There was applause again.

  Blackford lifted his eyes and stared at Andrei as the company applauded him.

  He was looking—he suddenly knew, with total clarity of vision—at Harold Adrian Russell Philby.

  Kim Philby.

  The most illustrious spy of the Cold War.

  The realization triggered his profess
ional training. He smiled at Philby, bit into a zakuska, drank his wine, and chatted quietly with the songstress. He must betray no emotion, no sign of recognition.

  They had been there two hours when Ursina signaled to him to end the visit. Ursina, one arm around Rufina, leaned over and gave Andrei a little maternal kiss on his broad forehead. Blackford extended his hand to Rufina. He maneuvered so as to submit to the pressure of other departing guests who edged him toward the entrance door, so that he was left able only to nod, with a smile, at Philby, as he reached for Ursina’s overcoat, and his own. If his host had been standing on the platform of a gallows, Blackford Oakes would happily have pulled the trap.

  CHAPTER 21

  Harold Adrian Russell Philby hadn’t expected special treatment from the Soviets when he defected formally in 1963. Yet those early years were a little nervous for him. He was an important figure in the spy world. He had, after all, served as the head of Section IX of MI6, the British CIA—Section IX, responsible for monitoring Soviet espionage. And he had been first secretary to the British ambassador in Washington in 1949, assigned to work with the FBI and the CIA in detecting and countering Soviet espionage. While in Washington, he had permitted his old friend Guy Burgess to be his house guest, an uncharacteristically incautious thing to do inasmuch as Burgess was now under direct suspicion of being a Soviet agent.

  In a matter of months, Burgess and his collaborator Donald Maclean had slipped away to France and points east, narrowly evading a tightening noose. Inasmuch as only Philby knew that detention threatened if they remained in the West, he presumably had warned them. The question was raised directly: Was Kim Philby himself a loyalty risk? His colleagues looked into the matter, and questioned him. Philby of course asserted his innocence, though he did not make a public protestation of it, dismissing the whole fuss as more of the tawdry business of McCarthyism, the inflammation begotten by Senator Joe McCarthy, who about that time was raising a storm nationally on the question of allegedly lax loyalty and security practices in the U.S. State Department.