Grandmaster (A Suspense and Espionage Thriller)

by Molly Cochran

  Justin thought the speech was fine but that it might have rung more true if Castro had not spent the last decade sending Cuban guerrillas to stir up trouble in Central and South America and in Africa. And as for the free exchange of ideas, a free Cuban press might be a start in that direction. The man was a politician, after all; he said one thing, but practiced another.

  Justin noticed Zharkov glance at his watch; then, under the guise of turning in his chair to get a sip of water from the glass behind him, he looked up toward the air-conditioning vent at the back of the large ballroom.

  Now, Justin thought.

  He rose quietly and walked toward the far door where an army contingent of a half-dozen men stood behind a security captain in full dress uniform.

  As he drew near the captain, Justin turned and saw Zharkov's eyes trained on him. That was just what Justin had wanted. Two tables behind Zharkov, the places of Ivan Kutsenko and his wife were now empty. The world chess champion and his wife had left the room already, and Zharkov had not noticed.

  "Captain," Justin said to the security guard, "I think there's trouble."

  "Trouble, señor? What is that?"

  Justin drew closer to the captain. "In the balcony at the back of the room, there is a large air-conditioning vent. There's a grate in front of it. I just saw a man climb into that vent. He has a rifle in his hand."

  The captain backed away from Justin and searched the American's eyes for a moment.

  "Es verdad," Justin said. "It is the truth. Look for yourself."

  The captain looked back toward the vent; saw the shadow inside it, and instantly stepped forward into the room. While he snapped a walkie-talkie from his belt, he barked at the guards behind Castro: "Protect the premier. Protect the premier." The uniformed soldiers jumped forward, pulled Castro from the lectern, and shielded him with their bodies.

  The captain barked orders into the walkie-talkie. As Justin watched, two of the soldiers on the balcony ran over to the air-conditioning vent. They raised their weapons and began blasting bullets through the grate.

  The crowd in the auditorium had been confused and hushed when the captain had stepped forward into the room, shouting. Now, as the shots sounded, some screamed. Most turned to look for the source of the sound; many ducked under tables.

  Justin Gilead looked across the room. Zharkov was standing. From under his jacket, he pulled his Tokarev pistol and aimed it at Justin.

  The Grandmaster lightly saluted Zharkov with the tips of his fingers, then moved behind the captain, through the door, and out into the service hallway.

  He ran back toward the rear exit of the building. Outside, he walked slowly past the soldiers down the steps.

  Across the street he saw Starcher waiting in the car. The Kutsenkos were in the back seat.

  Night had fallen on Havana.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Despite Starcher's map and directions received at three different bodegas, they got lost twice before Justin found the small dirt road that led from the smooth two-lane blacktop highway off through a stand of scrub pine toward the ocean.

  It was 10:45 P.M.

  The road ended abruptly at a wall of trees. All four of them got out of the car.

  There were no houses in sight, and the night was clear and dark, illuminated by a brilliant white moon. Starcher was grumbling. He had hoped for rain, fog, an overcast night, anything that would reduce visibility. In spite of his black-painted boat, Saarinen would be as obvious out in the water as a Roman candle in a coal mine.

  If he even showed up. It had all come down to this, Starcher thought ruefully. A lifelong career of service to the United States, and now he was reduced to trying to flee Cuba with his life in the hands of a renegade Finnish pirate who would drink antifreeze if he had to and would do anything for a dollar.

  He hoped that Riesling had been right in his assessment of the Finn. The dead agent had once said that Saarinen was fearless and that his promise could be put in the bank and it would draw interest.

  At one of the bodegas they had purchased five fifty-foot lengths of clothesline. They took them from the car and plodded through the thick trees and brush toward the cliff they hoped would be waiting beyond.

  The Kutsenkos were silent, frightened to the point of panic. If their escape attempt was not successful, their lives were ruined, even if they lived. Prison, or worse, awaited them if they were returned to Russia.

  The chess champion and his wife had simply huddled together in the back seat of the car, listening with Justin and Starcher to the news bulletins on the Cuban station that the automobile radio picked up.

  The reports were sketchy but said that an unidentified gunman had been shot and killed at the José Marti Hotel where Premier Castro was delivering a speech to the players in an international chess match. The gunman was stopped by the quick action of Cuban security guards. While he had not been identified, the announcer left no doubt of who he thought was responsible for the attack by stressing pointedly that one of the teams playing in the match was from the United States.

  Starcher cursed when he heard the announcer. Justin clapped him on the knee. "Calm down," he said. "They'll get it all sorted out soon enough."

  Although the moon was bright, the path through the trees where they moved was as dark as if they were underground. It was a relief to break through the brush onto a flat shelf of rock overlooking the smooth waters of the Caribbean. The table of rock was ringed in a semicircle by tall trees.

  Looking seaward, Starcher glanced at his watch. "Ten minutes," he said.

  Justin went to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The rock wall dropped straight to a sandy beach a hundred feet below.

  He lowered himself to his haunches on the cliff and lashed three of the fifty-foot lengths of rope together. Then he tied large, lumpy knots in the rope every five feet.

  "What's that for?" Starcher asked.

  "Just easier to hold on to. You can hang on to these knots a lot more easily than on to a thin, smooth rope. Your feet can even get a purchase on them if you have to."

  "All right. I guess you know what you're doing," Starcher said. He looked to the dark waves of the sea and then hissed, "He's there."

  Justin turned to see a yellow light flashing from about a hundred fifty yards offshore.

  Starcher counted the flashes. "Three ... four ... five. Wait. One, two, three, four, five. That's him." He held up a cigar lighter, lit it, then used his hand to cover and uncover it, to give the impression of four answering signals. A rapid series of flashes came from the boat. "Okay," Starcher said. "Let's get this show on the road."

  Justin pulled one end of the rope back to one of the largest trees and wrapped it around the trunk twice before knotting it tightly at the base of the tree. He came back and tossed the rope over the cliff. It just touched the sand below.

  He tied the two remaining sections of rope into one long line, then knotted a large loop into one end of it.

  "Saarinen'll bring an inflatable boat in," Starcher said.

  The Kutsenkos had been watching from off to the side, holding each other as if they were cold on this warm night.

  "All right, Ivan," Justin said. "You'll go first. Hook this rope under your arms." He helped Kutsenko slip the large looped rope over his head and pulled it up tight under his arms.

  "Climb down the rope to the sand. I'll be up here holding this other rope so I'll have most of your weight. You won't fall. When you get to the bottom, slip out of this harness, and I'll pull it back up and send your wife down."

  "Can she manage to climb down?" Kutsenko asked. There was doubt in his voice.

  "She'll have this harness around her just as you will. Don't worry," Justin said.

  The world chess champion took a deep, nervous breath. "All right," he said. "Fine. Okay. I'm ready."

  He took a firm grip on the long vertical rope, smiled wanly at his wife, and started down the side of the cliff. Justin sat atop the cliff, his legs braced against a l
arge outcrop of rock. He held the harness rope around his back, feeding it out a few feet at a time. Starcher watched from the edge of the cliff.

  "As smooth as glass," he called out approvingly. "He's almost at the bottom."

  Justin felt the weight release on the rope across his shoulders.

  "He's there," Starcher said. "Bring the rope back up."

  Justin quickly pulled the rope up and adjusted the chest loop around the smaller Lena Kutsenko. "Now don't be afraid," he told her. "You won't fall because I've got your weight."

  "Mr. Gilead," she said with a smile that shone brightly in the moonlight, "before I decided to go to medical school, I was a member of the Russian gymnastics team. If Ivan can get down this cliff, I can do it with one hand."

  "Use two hands and do it twice as fast," Justin said.

  Dr. Kutsenko leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the lips. "Thank you," she said. Then without hesitation she grasped the lifeline and scrambled over the edge of the cliff.

  There was not much difference between her weight and her husband's, Justin thought, as he fed out the safety line. But she was obviously more agile; she was pulling on the safety line, and he had to feed it out faster to keep up with her descent down the rock face.

  He heard Starcher say, "Saarinen's coming. I see him."

  The woman reached the sand at the bottom of the cliff, waved up to him that she was all right, then slipped out of the harness. As Justin hauled the rope in through the dark, he could see the faint outline of an inflatable boat moving toward the shore. The crafty Finn had outfitted the boat with a small electric trolling motor which, while not powerful, ran almost silently, emitting only the faint whirring sound of its propeller.

  Justin stood up for a moment to stretch his legs, then said, "Okay, Starcher, you're next."

  But there was another answering voice, a voice that chilled Justin's soul.

  It said, "No one's next."

  Twenty feet away, standing with his back to the wall of trees, was Alexander Zharkov, pointing a pistol at the two men.

  A cloud crossed the moon, and the night went dark.

  Starcher has a gun, too, Justin thought, the one he took from the Russian agent on the cabin cruiser. He remembered it as he found Starcher moving slowly away from him, separating the two men to give Zharkov two more difficult targets. It would be harder for the Russian to cover both men. If Justin could get Zharkov's attention solely on him, Starcher might be able to get to his gun and use it.

  Starcher was talking to Zharkov while he continued to edge slowly away from Justin. He was not moving smoothly because Zharkov would immediately have noticed that. Instead, he was talking and taking steps, as if to punctuate his conversation.

  "Now, don't do anything rash, Zharkov," said Starcher. "There isn't any need." Step.

  "Shut up. What do you know about my need?"

  "So your plan didn't work." Starcher held his hand out in front of him. Another step. "A lot of plans don't work. They won't blame you. Try again some other day." Another step.

  "I told you, shut up. And stop moving."

  The clouds grew thicker over the moon, and the night was becoming steadily darker. It was hard now for Justin to see Zharkov's face, although the Russian was no more than twenty feet away.

  Justin moved a step to his left, away from Starcher, and dropped the rope he was holding. At that moment, Starcher reached behind him into his belt, pulled out the pistol and dropped to the ground.

  A shot rang out.

  Justin lunged forward, covering the distance to Zharkov in three long strides. With one swipe of his hand, he knocked the gun away into the heavy brush behind the Russian. With his left hand, he grabbed Zharkov's throat in a grip of steel.

  He squeezed. He could feel the muscles tighten in the Russian's throat.

  He heard a groan and looked back. Starcher lay on the ground, on his back, his gun lying useless at his side. The old man's body twitched in pain. He had been shot.

  With a cry of rage, Justin swung his right fist into Zharkov's face and felled the Russian, then ran to Starcher's side. Behind him, Zharkov dropped like a wet cloth onto the rock table of the cliff.

  Even in the darkness, Justin could see the red stain of blood spreading over Starcher's shirt. He had been shot in the right side.

  "It's all right, Justin," said Starcher, his breathing labored. "Take care of yourself. This is a good way for me to die."

  Suddenly Justin heard Zharkov's voice, choking on his own blood. "Katarina. Shoot him! Shoot him!"

  The Grandmaster looked up as a woman holding a gun stepped from the other side of the semicircle of trees and walked deliberately toward him. She moved stiffly, zombielike, holding the gun low in front of her.

  She walked up to him. Only a few feet separated them, and she began to raise the gun toward Justin.

  The moon slipped out from behind the cloud. Suddenly, the rock plateau was flooded with light again as Justin looked up at her face, and his heart skipped as he recognized her.

  Duma.

  The girl of his boyhood at Rashimpur. The young girl who had died at Varja's hands.

  She had the pistol pointed at Gilead's face, and then her face contorted, first with doubt, then confusion, then in blind pain. Two tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

  Zharkov was scrambling to his feet. "Shoot him, Katarina," he shouted. His mouth sprayed blood. "Shoot him."

  "Patanjali," Katarina Velanova whispered, "it is you."

  "Shoot him," Zharkov screamed. "He is the Grandmaster. Kill him!"

  Katarina didn't move. The pistol, shaking violently in her hands, was still aimed at Justin.

  Justin felt tears welling in his eyes. Duma.

  She was alive. The girl Varja had torn out of his heart had never died, after all. Now, after a lifetime of longing for her, he saw that she was alive.

  And she belonged to Zharkov.

  Fate had tricked him before, but this final cheat was more than he could bear.

  "He was the one you were saved for," he said bitterly.

  A sob escaped from her, as sudden as the snap of a thread. "I was made to hate you." She flung the gun away with distaste. "Patanjali, I was not saved," she cried. "I was dead. I am dead still."

  Zharkov ran across the plateau and picked up the pistol where Katarina had thrown it.

  "No!" she screamed, and an instant before Zharkov pulled the trigger, she leaped at Justin, enveloping his body with her own.

  The bullet took her in the back. Her body muffled the sound of the shot, but bits of flesh and a fine spray of blood spattered into the air, as visible in the bright moonlight as warm breath on a cold night. Katarina's widespread hands slid down Justin's legs as she slipped bonelessly to the ground. She landed huddled at his feet, the gaping red hole in her shirt widening with bright blood.

  Justin and Zharkov both stared at the crumpled figure for a moment, stunned. Then, with an animal roar from deep inside his throat, Justin sprang at Zharkov, knocking the gun from the Russian's hand. Zharkov turned to flee, but Justin grabbed him by the shoulder.

  As if Zharkov were a child, the Grandmaster lifted him over his head, walked to the edge of the cliff, and hurled him over.

  Zharkov screamed as he fell. The scream ended in a heavy, wet thud as his body hit the hard-packed damp sand a hundred feet below.

  Justin ran back to Katarina and knelt beside her. Gently he lifted her to cradle her in his arms. Her eyes were open, but not yet glazed with death. She coughed, and a spurt of blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth. A drop of water fell and mingled with the blood. Justin wiped it away, realizing only then that he was touching his own tears.

  She struggled to speak, but her breathing was raspy and choking. "... always loved you," she said softly. Her eyes melting into Justin's, she smiled. "But they made me forget."

  It was the apology of a small girl, the little girl Varja and Zharkov had not permitted her to remember,
the young girl Justin had loved.

  "I always loved you, too, Duma," Justin answered. "And I never forgot."

  He lifted her in his arms to hold her against his chest. She coughed again, spraying him with her blood. Then she sighed, long and ragged, and her head dropped forward as if she were trying to hide from the world inside Justin's arms, and he knew she was dead.

  Starcher groaned again.

  With a start, Justin laid Katarina's body aside and went to him. He had nearly forgotten the old man. Starcher's shirt was soaked with blood. Without medical attention, he would die, too.

  Justin looked over the cliff edge and saw the Kutsenkos sitting in the inflatable rubber boat with Saarinen. The Finn was moving back and forth, parallel with the shoreline twenty yards away, obviously deliberating whether to flee or stay.

  Duma was dead. Nothing could change that now. But Starcher was alive. And he could live. One death Zharkov could not claim.

  Justin called down, "We're coming. Starcher's hurt."

  Easily, he lifted the CIA man and placed him across his shoulders, then started down the knotted rope, moving as swiftly and smoothly as if he were walking down a stairway.

  When his feet touched sand, he ran toward the water. Saarinen had pulled the boat in close to shore and was wading ashore to help Justin. Together, they put Starcher into the small boat.

  The CIA man looked up and saw Justin next to him.

  "Stay with me," he said weakly.

  "I will, Starcher. I will."

  The Grandmaster jumped onto the bow of the rubber boat as Saarinen turned up the throttle on the electric motor and aimed it out to his waiting boat. The new Kronen was just a black speck far out in the water.

  Justin looked back toward shore. On the sand, he saw the crumpled lump that was Zharkov's body.

  The Black King had fallen at last. As he turned back to look toward Saarinen's boat his eyes caught something else, perhaps fifty yards away. But the moon again moved behind a cloud and the night darkened, and though he strained to see, the vision was gone. He was not sure what it had been. Bats, perhaps, coming to pick at Zharkov's eyes.