Grandmaster (A Suspense and Espionage Thriller)

by Molly Cochran

  Zharkov had lost his game with Carey. He had tried to block the American's pawn advance with his king, but had failed to protect his own pawns. One of them had fallen, and, faced with a clear pawn deficit and no way to prevent its being promoted into a queen, Zharkov had resigned.

  The score stood in favor of the Americans: two wins, one loss, one draw. Five points for the United States, three points for Russia.

  The Kutsenkos did not appear. The Americans talked mainly about chess. Carey said he had figured out why all those Russian warships were in the harbor.

  "If we win, they're going to blast the hotel," he said.

  Just after ten o'clock, Justin went back to his room. Starcher had not returned by eleven, and Justin felt a stab of anxiety for the old man. The number of KGB men traveling with the Russian team had surprised Gilead. He thought fleetingly that if something had happened to Starcher, he would be free of his promise. Nothing would stop him from going after Zharkov right now.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Starcher returned before breakfast the following morning and listened quietly as Justin told him of the traces of fingerprint tape that he'd found in the bathroom. Starcher turned the radio on loudly before answering. "Zharkov'll know who I am, then," he said. "If he doesn't already."

  Justin did not like Starcher’s attitude. He had expected Starcher to be concerned about his cover being blown so thoroughly, so quickly, but instead, the veteran CIA man seemed jaunty, almost happy.

  "You don't seem very worried," Justin said.

  "In this business, you only worry about the things you can do something about. Leave the worrying to me. I'm good at it."

  "Now you tell me," Justin said. "I worried half the night when you didn't come back."

  Starcher turned on the radio and spoke under its sound. "I met Kael's man."

  "Who is he?"

  "His name is Pablo Olivares. He owns a bar called the Purple Shell on the waterfront. I spent the night there talking to him."

  "What'd you find out?"

  "Nothing," Starcher said. "He's got one of the cleaner waterfront bars, and a lot of the Russian sailors from those warships go in there. But they don't even know what they're doing here. Who tells enlisted men anything?" Justin waited, and Starcher said, "The ships have been there now for a couple of months, and all the while, there've been Russian threats about interventions in Cuba. But Olivares hasn't heard a word."

  "Is it possible that the Americans have something planned here that you don't know anything about?"

  "No." Starcher hesitated, then said again, more surely, "No, I don't think so. When I was in Moscow, I would have heard something. And since then ... well, I just don't think Harry Kael is smart enough to lie to me and get away with it. He said we don't have anything going for us here, and I believe it."

  Justin shrugged, went to the mirror, and knotted a tie around his neck. Many chess players showed up at matches looking as if they had just walked out of a service station where they were pumping gas. But the Russians always dressed like gentlemen, and Justin liked the tradition, so he always dressed for a game, too.

  Starcher perched on the edge of the dresser, talking in a whisper. "Anyway," he said, "Olivares doesn't know anything. And his girlfriend—she works for the director of Castro's national police—she doesn't know anything either."

  "This Olivares must be under deep cover to be able to work for you and romance a secret police official, too," Justin said.

  "He's a native. Been here all his life and is just sour on Castro. I'm glad, by the way, that we set up that other pickup point with Saarinen. The waterfront is crawling with Cuban cops and agents. We'd have our hands full trying to get out of Havana by sea. Did you talk to our friends again?"

  "No. There's a guard on their door, and I think they're taking meals in their room. I'll try today."

  "Tell them they'll have to be ready to leave with no notice at all. Saarinen's going to be in the pickup position between eleven and one o'clock for the next three nights. It'll be one of those times."

  "Suppose we don't find out what Zharkov's planning?" Justin asked. "Suppose he has nothing planned?"

  "He didn't come here just to play chess," Starcher said. "Not the head of Nichevo. He's up to something."

  "All right. Still, suppose we don't find out what?"

  "You'll still take the Kutsenkos out," Starcher said.

  "I noticed that 'you.' What about you?"

  Starcher shrugged. "I don't know. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

  "Start thinking about crossing the bridge," Justin said. "I want to know what and when. Remember, I have business here, too," he said.

  "I won't forget," Starcher said.

  "And from now on, if you're going to be out, call me in the evening between six-thirty and seven. Let me know you're alive."

  "All right," Starcher agreed with uncharacteristic meekness.

  Zharkov walked impatiently to the telephone, dialed the number of another room, and snapped quickly, "Any report yet?"

  His face illustrated the negative reply. "As soon as you get something, bring it to me ... Yes, that's right... even during the game."

  He hung up the telephone wondering who Harry Andrew was. Who was the Grandmaster's traveling companion?

  Starcher decided that this day he would do something very important: He would find a store and buy a box of Cuban cigars.

  Justin had been right. Starcher was not at all worried that Zharkov might by now know who he was. He welcomed the possibility because he regarded it as his only chance of finding out what Nichevo was up to. He was sure there was something, and if it took making himself vulnerable to capture to find out what it was, then that was what he had decided to do.

  He was glad that Justin knew the pickup points and the schedule for Saarinen's boat. If anything went wrong, the Grandmaster would be able to get the Kutsenkos out of Cuba.

  If anything went wrong. In this business, something almost always did.

  Justin's second-round opponent was Victor Keverin. The aging Russian had twice played for the world championship, twice losing, both times to other Russians. There were rumors that in the second match, Keverin, who was Jewish, had been ordered to lose. Justin was inclined to believe the rumors, because Keverin's play in that second match had been spotty and erratic, totally out of character for a man whose games for almost forty years had been characterized by precise, careful, methodical play.

  Not for Keverin was the bold attacking stroke, the decisive sacrifice, the sparkling combination that left an opponent battered and reeling, and spectators applauding. Instead, he won chess games the way oysters create pearls—one small layer after another, each layer apparently of no value in itself—and then, late in the game, an opponent would take stock and realize that the infinitesimal advantages, all added together, had given Keverin an overwhelming positional superiority. Justin had played him twice before. He had drawn one game and lost the other when the old master had refuted Justin's proposed bishop sacrifice by ignoring it, continuing to push pawns down the board instead. It was the way Keverin won games.

  Justin had no illusions about the quality of his own game. He had played well yesterday, but the young Russian he had beaten had not been sharp. And for his own part, Justin was simply not tournament tough. It took a lot of play at the highest levels, plus ongoing practice and analysis, to keep one's game sharp, to save oneself from a suicidal lapse at the table, to have one's mind so tuned to chess that one could instantly disregard time-wasting possibilities on the board and move into the flow of potential moves that bore with them some hope of gaining an advantage. Justin simply was not there yet. He made too many errors at the board.

  There was a truism in chess that the winner of the game was the player who made the next-to-last mistake. Justin was still quite capable of making the last error and losing.

  He had the white pieces today. He decided to move the game away early from the established, carefully anal
yzed lines in which Keverin was just too well read for Justin to compete, opting instead for a tricky, trappy kind of contest where, with good play and some luck, Justin might find some kind of game-winning resource.

  So he moved the pawn in front of his king bishop ahead two squares. It was Bird's opening, popular at the end of the nineteenth century, but rarely seen in serious chess anymore. Keverin glanced at the bishop pawn for only a few seconds, then smiled and played his own queen pawn forward two squares.

  Justin glanced away from the board and saw Zharkov's burly back at the chess table and felt a wave of hatred wash over him.

  Why am I playing chess? he asked himself. Why is that man still alive? Justin longed to end it all now, once and for all, but he struggled to remind himself that he could not give his attention to Zharkov and have any chance of winning against Keverin. As he started to look back down toward the board, he saw one of the KGB men, the big one in the light tan suit, walk up to Zharkov and gesture to him.

  The Russian left the table, and the KGB man whispered something in his ear. Zharkov nodded. His face was turned in profile to the Grandmaster, and Gilead saw it crease into a small but real smile. Something had just pleased Zharkov. What was it?

  Zharkov whispered something to the KGB agent, and the man nodded and walked away. Zharkov returned to his seat at the chess table and a moment later was leaning forward over the board again, his concentration totally on the pieces and the position.

  Justin clenched his jaw. He understood what the exchange between the two Russians had been about. He knows about Starcher, Justin thought. He knows who Harry Andrew is.

  Starcher knew the tail was on him only a few minutes after leaving the coffee shop of the José Marti.

  He had not told Justin Gilead, because he hadn't wanted to worry him, but he had picked up a weapon the night before from Pablo Olivares. It was a four-shot .22-caliber revolver, as small as a derringer. Starcher now had it taped to the back of his left ankle, under his sock.

  He whistled as he strolled slowly toward the park. He didn't want to lose the tail.

  The game was virtually over.

  Justin Gilead had come out of the opening with good development and a toehold in the center of the board. He had tried three different attacks on Keverin's position, but the Russian chess master had repelled all of them, each time gaining another slight edge in position over Justin.

  As his small advantages grew into a large advantage, Keverin had begun trading off pieces. Now the game had turned into Justin's king, rook, and three pawns against equal manpower on Keverin's side. But Keverin's pawns were placed better, and it seemed to Justin inevitable that eventually the Russian would move one of his pawns to the opposite end of the board where it could be promoted to a queen. That overwhelming material superiority would guarantee Keverin the win.

  Justin glanced at the clock. As usual he had played quickly. Keverin had just completed his thirty-second move and had about eighteen minutes left on his clock. It was Justin's move. There were forty minutes left on his clock, but it was ticking.

  He concentrated on the board, trying to find something in the position, some hidden resource that could give him an edge, or at least stop Keverin's inexorable pawn march down the board.

  As he often did, he looked up from the board, the position fixed and clearly visualized in his mind, and gazed off into the distance. He found it a comfortable way to concentrate, away from the disruptions and distractions of the real world. But no voice came as it had yesterday. There was no magical sense of entering into the world of the chess pieces, feeling their power, and letting them direct the flow of the game.

  His eyes drifted casually around the room. He saw Ivan Kutsenko move a piece, hit his clock to start his American opponent's time running, and then walk toward the door that led to the rest rooms.

  Justin noticed that for the first time Kutsenko had no KGB guard trailing him. He glanced around and saw no Russian agents in the room at all. When Zharkov whispered to the KGB man, he must have sent them all on assignment. Zharkov was still across the room, bent over the chessboard.

  Justin rose from his seat and walked to the men's room.

  He and Kutsenko were alone.

  The Russian looked nervously about, then came close to Justin and whispered.

  "My wife said you spoke to her."

  "Yes. I was a friend of Riesling's, the man you met in Moscow. I'm to help you get to the United States. We have a boat. It'll be tonight, tomorrow, or the next night."

  "What should we do?"

  "Just be ready at a moment's notice. If I can find out in advance, I'll let you know. If not, I'll probably just come to your room to get you, and we'll leave. Be ready at all times."

  "There's always a guard on our room," Kutsenko said.

  "Don't worry about the guard," Justin said.

  "Do we have a chance?" Kutsenko asked nervously.

  Justin put his strong hand on the frail man's shoulder. "More than a chance," he said. "We'll get you out of here. That's a promise."

  "I have so many questions to ask you," Kutsenko said.

  "On the boat going back," Justin said.

  "Have you done this before? I have to know."

  "Many times," Justin said. "Don't worry, Ivan. You and your wife will be all right."

  The Russian searched Justin's eyes for reassurance beyond his words, then nodded his agreement. "I believe you, Justin."

  "Now get back to your game. I'll follow in a few minutes."

  Alexander Zharkov pushed his chair back from the chessboard, took a deep breath, and relaxed for the first time since the game had started.

  Andrew Starcher.

  The old CIA chief from Moscow. The Americans could not have played into his hands more totally if they had all been on Nichevo's payroll.

  What more perfect scapegoat to blame for the Castro assassination than an American ex-spymaster? The murder would have all the trappings of a CIA enterprise. Starcher, their chief of staff in Moscow, suddenly "retires." Then just as suddenly, he surfaces in Cuba with an American chess team just before Castro is assassinated. A CIA plot, pure and simple, the kind of thing they did so often and usually bungled so badly.

  He smiled as he thought of another benefit that came with Starcher’s presence: It had rendered Justin Gilead expendable.

  As soon as he was sure that his men had captured Starcher, Zharkov would send out the word: Kill the Grandmaster.

  Kill him.

  Put bullets in his eyes and knives in his heart. Kill him.

  For once and for all.

  Kill him.

  Burn the body.

  Kill him.

  Zharkov looked back at the chessboard. His opponent, the young American, had not yet moved, but the position was hopeless. With precise play, Zharkov knew that he would force a resignation before the fortieth move so that the game would not have to be recessed and concluded tomorrow. He had other plans for tomorrow.

  Maybe.

  The Grandmaster saw a glimmer of hope in his game position, but it was a tricky maneuver, and he had to calculate the consequences exactly.

  He was disappointed. Yesterday, in his game against Ribitnov, he had felt the power come on him, even if only briefly. When that happened, the moves came almost automatically, but today that power had deserted him. He had played this game one move after another, logically and coldly, with never a sense that he was becoming absorbed in the game. Yesterday, for a few minutes, he had soared into the mathematical meanings of life and the universe; today, he was adding up large columns of figures. It was the difference between art and craft, between creation and caretaking.

  He closed his eyes and pictured the chessboard and the position of the pieces. If he moved his king up behind his row of pawns, Keverin would surely move his king up to meet him, to prevent Justin from moving ahead of his pawns. It would be a very basic defensive move by Keverin, one that required no analysis or thought.

  But then, if Just
in sacrificed a pawn to Keverin's king, and then another pawn to one of Keverin's pawns, then...

  Maybe.

  He glanced at Keverin's clock. The Russian had only six minutes left for six more moves. With time pressure, he might not see through Justin's maneuver.

  Justin moved his king forward a square. Keverin thought for a few seconds and did the same.

  Justin immediately pushed a pawn forward. He wanted to play quickly now so that Keverin would have no chance to analyze the position on Justin's time. The Russian would have to study while his own clock was running, remorselessly ticking away the precious seconds that remained before his red flag dropped and he lost to Justin on time.

  The old Russian was far too crafty, in this winning position, to let a game slip away because of the clock. Justin counted on that.

  Keverin made his decision. With his right hand, he picked up his king and moved it forward to capture Justin's pawn. Then he immediately slapped down his clock with his left hand, starting Justin's time. Almost two full minutes gone. Four minutes left.

  The Grandmaster did not hesitate. He pushed another pawn forward a single square and said, "Check."

  Keverin's face clearly showed his annoyance. Gilead should have resigned. In chess at this level, each player assumed that his opponent, given a winning edge, would carry that edge through into a victory. It was almost insulting to insist on playing out a game that was clearly lost.

  This time, Keverin pondered for only a half-minute before taking Justin's pawn with his own.

  Justin immediately moved his rook forward and checked Keverin's king. The Russian saw what had happened.

  Done. Too late. It was over.

  On the one hand, if he took the rook with his king, Justin would be in a position where he could not move without moving his king into a check, onto a square where he could be captured. That would be an illegal move. But because he was safe on the square where his king now stood, the game would be a draw. It was a position called stalemate, and neither side won.