Grandmaster (A Suspense and Espionage Thriller)

by Molly Cochran

  "I was removed to be enrolled at the Institute of International Relations."

  "It was unnecessary. We would have used you in the KGB. You were a bright boy. You would have made an adequate analyst."

  Exactly, Zharkov thought. Kadar would have liked nothing better than to bury Vassily Zharkov’s son in an intelligence analyst's job for the rest of his life. Vassily had permitted the boy to train for two of the three years required of the KGB intelligence program—enough time to learn the basics of tradecraft, without being slotted into a specialty.

  "But why should I go at all?" young Zharkov had protested to his father. "Kadar hates you. He'll make my life miserable."

  "Because you must learn everything. For Nichevo, you must know everything. Two years of personal unhappiness is not too high a price to pay," the elder Zharkov said. "And he will not dare to make your life too miserable."

  Nichevo would be his destiny; both Zharkov and his father had known that from the beginning. There was only one place for a man like Alexander Zharkov in the Soviet Union, and that was at the head of Nichevo. Not the KGB, with its hundreds of thousands of agents enmired in a morass of bureaucracy so deep that most of them spent their time either duplicating the efforts of others or wastefully watching one another. Not the Kremlin, where the gamesmanship of power politics counted above ability. Certainly not in science or law or economics, where only part of Zharkov's mind would be put to use, and that part for projects not of his choosing. Only two endeavors could tax a mind like his to its limits: Nichevo and chess.

  And Nichevo was chess. Small, independent, and deadly, there was no room for mistakes in Nichevo, just as there was no room for mistakes in the game. The wrong man at the head of Nichevo could destroy it, and there was only one right man, with his genius and careful education and his father's formidable power behind him. For Zharkov, it was always Nichevo, only Nichevo.

  "Graduated from the institute at twenty-one," Kadar continued, sounding bored. "Enlisted in the army. Attained rank of full colonel"—he set down the papers—"when you seized Nichevo at age thirty-five."

  "I was appointed to the position by Premier Brezhnev," Zharkov said flatly.

  "Because your father left no records."

  You ought to know, Zharkov said to himself. Kadar had personally raided Vassily Zharkov's office within an hour after Zharkov was taken to the hospital. He found nothing.

  "My father was very careful," Zharkov said. "Nichevo is, after all, a secret organization."

  Kadar clasped his hands together, extending his index fingers, and rested his chin on them. For the first time, the shark's eyes registered a response, and Zharkov thought with some amusement that the word "records" must be the most frightening in the world for tyrants. It must haunt their dreams, the thought that someone, somewhere, was in possession of facts and history that could be used to tell the world what kind of men they were.

  "It is now my secret organization," Kadar said. "It exists for me. You are aware of that, aren't you?"

  Zharkov nodded. "Under certain circumstances."

  "Under any circumstances. I own Nichevo. I own you." From the bottom of his pile of papers, Kadar took a photograph. It was from the Samarkand Hotel, showing the gold coiled snake medallion dangling from Frank Riesling's shattered hand. "Look familiar?"

  "It once belonged to an agent," Zharkov said.

  "An American agent, Colonel. One you have met several times."

  "We have met twice as adults. By coincidence."

  "And is the mark on your neck a coincidence as well?"

  Ostrakov, Zharkov thought. Lozovan had told all she knew about Corfus to Ostrakov, and Ostrakov had taken it and his filthy tape recordings from Katarina's apartment and had laid them all on the premier’s desk. Kadar must now feel that he had a noose to put around Zharkov's throat if he wished. The Nichevo head restrained a smile. He wondered how far Kadar would go.

  "I think the Tribunal would be most interested to see the emblem you carry. It is perhaps the same as this Justin Gilead's?" Kadar dangled a green folder between his fingers, toying with it like a boy about to tear the legs off a fly. "It seems you have a lot in common with Mr. Gilead. You even played chess together as children. A very early association. Perhaps your father arranged it, Colonel. Since he conveniently destroyed Nichevo's records before his death, one has no way of knowing just how extensive are your family's relationships with the CIA. Perhaps that is why you told General Ostrakov to let the chess player Kutsenko go when it is known he plans to defect?"

  “I told Ostrakov to leave Kutsenko alone and to make sure his wife is reinstated in her post at the hospital,” Zharkov said hotly. “I want that done. Kutsenko is just a pawn in a bigger game."

  "Oh?" Kadar fingered the edges of the photograph on his desk.

  "I saw to it that Dr. Lena Kutsenko went to Helsinki and made contact with that CIA agent, Frank Riesling. The one that Ostrakov's gorillas shot up like some Chicago massacre. I ordered the extra patrols at the Finnish border to make sure that Kutsenko could not get out along Riesling's regular escape route. The chess player plans to defect during the world challenge chess match in Havana three months from now."

  "And you will help him to defect, I suppose," the premier said dryly.

  Zharkov smiled. "To a point. Havana will be swarming with CIA agents."

  "And?"

  "And Fidel Castro will be assassinated.”

  Kadar spun around in his chair. The shark eyes had come to life.

  "The CIA will be blamed," Zharkov said. "I know it has been a plan of the KGB for the last three years to eliminate Castro when it becomes possible to do so. Cuba costs us too much, and it causes entirely too much trouble in the world. It is unsettling, and Castro is unstable. Nichevo is going to do for you what your own men were incapable of doing."

  Kadar rested his chin on his fist. His glance darted around the ceiling in thought. "Why did you kidnap Corfus?"

  "I needed to know the password by which the CIA contact in Havana will identify himself to Kutsenko. He is the man on whom we will blame the killing of Castro."

  "You could not get that information and let Corfus live?"

  "He was already dying when I saw him. Lozovan saw to that. The American did not deserve the kind of death she arranged. So I gave him an easier way to die."

  Kadar looked down at the papers on his desk. "And this Justin Gilead. Who is he?"

  "He was an agent of the CIA. I thought I’d killed him in Poland four years ago, but I have learned he is still alive. I don't know where."

  "Is he important? The Committee knows next to nothing about him."

  "The Committee has never known anything that requires thought," Zharkov said. He saw Kadar bristle. "Important? Justin Gilead is perhaps the most dangerous man on earth."

  "Come, now," Kadar said with a forced urbanity. "No man is so powerful as that."

  Zharkov fixed him with a look that sent a shiver up the premier's neck. "There are things even the premier of the Soviet Union cannot know about men. Or power," he said finally.

  Neither man spoke for several minutes as Kadar made a show of riffling through the papers on his desk. Zharkov was the first to break the silence. "He will be in Havana."

  "Gilead? Is he a chess player, too?"

  Zharkov nodded. "A grandmaster. The Grandmaster."

  He rose, unasked.

  "You have a great deal of confidence, Comrade Colonel," Kadar said. "No one else would have spoken to me the way you did."

  "And remained alive," Zharkov finished.

  Kadar attempted a smile. "Times change."

  "Nichevo does not change."

  The premier rose. "We have never had this meeting," he said. "I know nothing of what Nichevo is doing, in Cuba or elsewhere."

  "That is correct," Zharkov said, and prepared to leave. He stopped near the doorway. "One more thing. Did you authorize Ostrakov to put a microphone in Comrade Velanova's apartment?"

  Kadar made a dismi
ssive gesture. "Of course not. Ostrakov's games do not concern me. Who is this woman to you?"

  "A woman," Zharkov said. "If Ostrakov was acting on his own, I will have to repay him for that particular 'game.'"

  "You are a chess player," Kadar said, the dead eyes lighting with a hint of amusement. "What will be the nature of your countermove?"

  Zharkov deliberated for a moment, then said, "I will trade queens," before walking out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Zharkov's instructions to Katarina were brief: "Leave the office now. Buy some men's clothes that fit you and wait for me at my apartment."

  "What is going on?"

  "I'll explain it all later," he said as he hung up the telephone in the street-corner booth.

  He drove to one of the old districts of Moscow, a neighborhood with a heavy concentration of Arabs, where young Russian women with painted faces huddled from the cold in doorways, occasionally calling out to passersby. Prostitution was officially illegal and severely punished, but as long as the activity remained confined to certain areas, the law managed to look the other way.

  From another street corner telephone he called his office. Katarina had already left, and he spoke to one of his assistants. "Velanova has been terminated," he said. "She will be transferred for work on the Trans-Siberian railway. Prepare the necessary documents at once and put them in her file."

  He heard the man stammer. "To Siberia, Colonel?"

  "Do what I tell you."

  The young women were lined up in the identical doorways of identical tumbledown buildings. With their bare knees showing below their heavy winter coats, the girls looked like worn, uncared-for dolls on a toymaker’s shelf.

  "Looking for some fun, mister?" one of them called. She was squat and fat with yellow strawlike hair. Zharkov shook his head and continued to move down the line of doorways.

  "You," he said, pointing to a tall, thin woman with a cold-reddened nose. "Take off your hat."

  "That'll be fifty kopeks," a fat blonde called from another doorway, and two other women laughed. The tall girl stepped forward warily and removed the brown knit turban she wore. Her hair was dark and cut short like Katarina's.

  "You'll do." He motioned her to follow him down the street.

  "He picked Galina," one of the girls whispered, giggling. "Maybe he's short of cash."

  In the fading light, Zharkov examined the woman's face more carefully. "How old are you?"

  "Twenty." She looked ten years older. "Do you want to go to my apartment?"

  "I have a car." He led her to the Chaika. She fingered the leather seats as if they were made of gold. "You must be very rich," she said admiringly as she got into the passenger seat.

  He pressed the button that locked all four windows and doors. "I am an official of the Committee for State Security," he said, unbuttoning his overcoat to show his uniform. "Hand over your papers."

  She threw herself against the door, banging futilely on the closed windows.

  "Be still," he snapped. "No one's going to hurt you. Where are your papers?

  From her pocket she produced a grubby plastic wallet, but even as she handed it to him, she was pleading, "Please. Don't send me to prison. I won't do it anymore."

  "All I want is for you to take a train ride," Zharkov said.

  The girl's face froze. "Where to?"

  "The north. For a real job."

  The girl's face twisted in bewilderment for a moment, then sank into blankness. "Siberia," she said. "You're sending me to Siberia."

  In the warmth of the car, Zharkov could smell the odor of her fear.

  "You'll have handsome wages. If you save your money, when you come back you'll have enough to make yourself beautiful, perhaps buy a nice apartment and a car."

  "You're crazy," she said. "Let me out of here."

  He took her wrist and held it firmly. "If I accuse you of prostitution, you'll go to prison. If I accuse you of picking my pocket, the term will be even longer. Suppose I say you tried to steal my car. You will never get out of prison. You will do as I say."

  The girl looked up at him miserably. "Why are you doing this to me?" she squeaked, trying to hold back the tears. "There were so many others."

  Because you don't matter, Zharkov thought. Because no one will miss you, no one will look for you, no one will care when you disappear off the face of the earth. He started the car. As he drove, he took a packet from his coat and handed it to her. "These are your new papers," he said.

  She looked at them suspiciously. "Katarina Velanova. Who's she?"

  "She is you, from now on," Zharkov said.

  "I don't like this. I want to get out."

  They were stopped for a traffic light and Zharkov turned and stared at her icily. "Don't make me kill you," he said.

  She lowered her eyes. "You people can do anything."

  Zharkov pulled into the parking lot near the massive railway station. The train carrying the Siberian work volunteers was on a distant track. There were three cars, two for men and one for women. There were rows of wooden benches inside, but most of the passengers were crammed onto the floor. They were rough-looking people, each with a personal reason for volunteering to work in the hostile Siberian climate under primitive conditions. Some were going for the high wages, but an equal number were traveling to escape the law. They went because virtually no questions were asked of the volunteers.

  In the women's car, the passengers sat sullenly, jockeying for space on the seats and floor. The eyes of the women turned silently toward the young woman as she and Zharkov approached.

  "I'm not going in there," the young whore told Zharkov.

  He jerked her arm forward.

  "This is some kind of fucking concentration camp!" She swung at him. "I'm not going, I tell you. You're pulling some kind of trick."

  A uniformed soldier came over. His blue shoulder boards indicated that he was a sergeant. "Anything wrong, Colonel?" he asked politely.

  "This person has been reassigned to work on the railway," Zharkov said.

  "I'll look after her personally, Comrade Colonel," the sergeant said, saluting. He shoved Galina roughly into the train car. The other women cursed and complained loudly as the girl tumbled over them.

  "You're a pig!" Galina screamed through the open car door at Zharkov.

  "Shut up," the sergeant said lazily. He was a young man, but he had obviously heard last-minute pleas as desperate as Galina's before. The women cackled.

  When he turned away from the train, Zharkov noticed four people standing far across the platform, watching him. It was common for the worst criminals, who were fleeing to Siberia, to wait until the final few minutes before jumping onto the train, just in case there was a last-minute police search of the railroad cars for someone wanted for a crime.

  His attention was caught by one woman. She was probably forty, but she looked sixty. Her face was ravaged by a long badly healed knife scar, and her complexion was blotched, red, and alcoholic.

  But what he noticed was the back of her right hand as she reached up to push back a tendril of dirty-looking hair that had spilled from under her black cap onto her face.

  A word was tattooed across her knuckles. Zharkov recognized the mark as a prison tattoo. Usually these spelled out the crime the person had committed. It was the convict’s self-destructive way of thumbing his nose at society.

  As Zharkov walked toward the group, the train's engines rumbled to life and the four people started running toward the railroad cars. Zharkov intercepted the woman and grabbed her by the right arm. Even through her coat, her arm felt muscularly stringy. He looked at her hand. The word tattooed across the back of her hand was "Murderer."

  "Going to Siberia?" Zharkov said.

  "Yes."

  "I suppose you will find the climate there much more comfortable than here," he said.

  "I just want to leave Moscow," she said.

  "Before the police catch you?"

  "I—" she started, but
Zharkov interrupted her.

  "Don't worry. Come over here. There is a favor I want you to do."

  A few moments later, he released the woman, who ran toward the train. She just got into the women's car before the army sergeant closed the doors.

  As he walked back to the parking lot, Zharkov thought it was a game of pawns after all. Every chess game was a game of pawns, and no game was ever decided until many pawns had fallen.

  Katarina was waiting in his apartment. She was wearing the men's clothes Zharkov had told her to buy, and she looked like a slender, hairless youth.

  "You make a handsome boy," Zharkov said with a smile.

  "Alyosha, I've been sick with worry all day. What's going on?"

  "Get in the car," he ordered. "We're in a hurry."

  Driving away, he told her about his meeting with Kadar. She asked, "What does that mean, to trade queens?"

  "It means that your life is vulnerable right now to Ostrakov's hoodlums," Zharkov said. "That's why I'm getting you out of here."

  "Where will I go?"

  "Officially, you've gone to Siberia. Didn't you always want to be a railway worker?" He tried smiling at her, but her face was glum and unhappy. "Anyway, here are your new papers," he said. He handed her the cheap plastic packet he had taken from Galina, the prostitute. Katarina did not even look at them, but stuck them in her pocket.

  After a moment she asked, "You're not really sending me to Siberia, are you?"

  Zharkov smiled. "No. You're going to Cuba."

  "But why?"

  "Because you'll be safe there." He was unable to keep the exasperation from his voice.

  "And you?"

  "I will be safe, too," Zharkov said. "Kadar cannot move against me without first finding my records, and he will never find them."

  "How can you be so sure? He can tear this country apart. He can find them."

  "He can't find them," Zharkov insisted.

  "Why not?" She was nearly shouting. "Alyosha—"

  "He can't find them because they don't exist," Zharkov said.

  Katarina's eyes registered surprise, then amusement, then admiration.