After a few weeks, a hard intimacy generated, and under the subtle ministrations of Pavel, the older Andrei confessed first his disillusion with the regime, in due course his abhorrence of it. But he stopped well short of sharing with Pavel his acceptance of the mission of the Narodniki. To go that far he would need the permission of Nikolai, so firm in his insistence that insurrectionary sentiments be carefully suppressed when speaking to others. Meanwhile, Andrei in turn took the interrogatory initiative, curious to know how far Pavel’s heretofore amorphous resentments would carry him. He was startled to be told late one night after karate practice in the gym, and after substantial refreshments, that on a day in March, at dawn, in Afghanistan, before an offensive scheduled to begin fifteen seconds later, Pavel had taken careful aim at the back of the head of a lieutenant who was peering over a foxhole fifty meters ahead.
The night before, Pavel explained, blowing cigarette smoke through his nose, his voice faint and husky, he had walked by a detention enclosure on his way to the food line. He stopped at an unlit entrance to a command tent and saw the lieutenant in question inserting a lighted cigarette into first one, then the second eye of a rebel whose arms were pinioned by two enlisted officers.
Pavel doubted, he told Andrei, that he could ever efface from his memory the screams of the now blinded peasant, a young man about his own age. He learned later in the evening from a crusty captain in the regular army that there had been no tactical objective in the torture of the rebel. “The lieutenant just likes to relax a little every now and then. And he thinks that it does no harm for word to get out among the mujahedin that resistance to the Soviet army is very, very dangerous business.”
“I waited until the general firing began,” Pavel said tersely, seated at a quiet end of the bar. “I needed plenty of cover. It wasn’t long, a minute, two at the most. There was firing everywhere, in every direction it seemed. I squeezed the trigger and hit him in the neck. He jerked up and then fell down in his own blood. The soldiers at either side were too preoccupied with the firefight to bother with him. When a pause came, one of them grabbed him by the helmet and drew his head back. He must have decided he was dead. He just let him fall down again. If anybody suspected the shot came from behind, we never heard about it.”
They met together, the six of them, at an abandoned barn at Okateyvsky, one hour from Moscow, a short walk from the bus station. The barn had not been used for several years, but the smell of dried manure was still there. The barn was on the farm where Mariya and Vitaly’s parents had worked when they were growing up. Nikolai Trimov was the tacit leader, Andrei Belinkov, his deputy. Viktor Pletnev had become in effect the coordinator. Pavel Pogodin was their principal window on official Moscow.
The meeting began at eleven in the morning, and the whole day stretched before them. The purpose, Nikolai explained, was to become acquainted. Vitaly Primakov and his sister Mariya, devoted friends of Viktor, whom they had known since they were teenagers, would take on any duty assigned them, Nikolai explained. They both worked in the post office in Moscow’s Lyubertsy district. The need now was to light again the fire of the Narodniki, a fire for liberty that had been doused by the regime against which they were now committed. The absolute requirement: Every one of them must be prepared to lose his life. If there was any hesitation on this point, it was imperative that such hesitation be expressed now.
Nikolai waited. No one spoke up.
They were seated on objects of convenience in the old building, Nikolai on a mound of hay, Viktor on a large log. Pavel and the Primakous—redheaded, with blustery complexions that belied their clerical work, long days spent indoors—on what was left of a long bench. Nikolai told the little band that Pavel, as a cadet at the police academy, had been formally instructed in some of the security procedures for guarding the chief of state. After considerable study, he and Pavel had come up with a plan.
On October 2, Gorbachev would attend the opening of the Bolshoi Ballet. He had done this the year before, his first year in office. It had become traditional for the chief of state to celebrate the ballet’s annual opening. Chernenko had missed out, but then he was chronically ill. But Andropov had done it once; Brezhnev, year after year.
The procedure, Nikolai went on, was at once routine and carefully orchestrated. The procession of automobiles, eight or ten, drove into Theatre Square, the lead car gradually turning left on approaching the entrance to the old theater. The second car, and then the other cars, followed suit, and the caravan drew to a halt simultaneously when alongside the pavement that led up to the wide marble steps—sixteen of them, ascending to the entrance. The crowd that inevitably materialized to ogle was grouped by the police to the right and to the left of the spacious marble ascent, down the center of which the long red carpet would stretch, reaching from the top step to the bottom.
Nikolai turned to Pavel. “Tell us what happens then.”
“What happens is that whichever car the General Secretary is in, and no one can know which it will be, is the car that parks directly alongside the red carpet. Four men step out of cars ahead and behind and approach the critical car. Gorbachev steps out. The guards flank him and he climbs up the red carpet. Everybody on either side claps and shouts. Thirty, forty seconds is all it takes to climb the stairs.
“But”—Pavel lifted his right hand to signal an important detail—“we were shown a film of the whole operation during our training, to give us an example of how his protection is effected. Brezhnev and Andropov never paused while mounting the steps. But Gorbachev likes crowds. This film of Gorbachev shows him responding to the applause. Suddenly he darted to the left, well ahead of his security guards, and took the arm of a girl who was waving at him. He shook two, even three more hands before moving back to the red carpet and up the entrance to the hall.” Pavel paused now, deferring to Nikolai, who said:
“We have to be patient. But we must not lose any opportunity. My plan is to attempt the assassination provided Gorbachev does the same thing he did last year, which was, as Pavel told us, to swerve left and clasp hands.”
Nikolai went to his briefcase and pulled out what, unfolded, turned out to be a large sheet of drawing paper, four feet square. He thrust one corner of the paper onto a rusty protruding nail in one of the wooden pillars behind him and asked Mariya to hold up the other end.
They could see his sketch of the marble staircase, the red carpet, the cordons on either side, a penciled line describing every stair. He pointed up to the twelfth step on the left.
“My plan is that one of us, armed, will be standing there right up by the cordon, wearing a police uniform. In the film Pavel saw there were policemen scattered on both sides of the staircase. Pavel,” Nikolai’s fingers moved two or three inches down, “will be here, approximately at the eighth step. If Gorbachev swerves to the left, our member”—he pointed back to the first position—“will fire as many rounds as possible into Gorbachev’s head.
“And almost simultaneously …” Nikolai hesitated, his voice caught, affected by what he had now to say, “Pavel will aim his police revolver and kill our member.”
There was silence.
“The objective,” Nikolai cleared his throat, “is plain. If our Narodnik is caught alive, which almost certainly would otherwise happen, within hours all of us will be apprehended, tortured, and executed. He cannot be permitted to survive the episode.” He watched them. The barn was still, except for the creaking of the bench as Mariya swung her booted feet gently.
“Now, is there disagreement on this point?”
Once again there was silence.
“In that case, it only remains for us to draw straws, to see who will be that person on October 2. We will do so at our next meeting.” He decided to explain the reason, though they all knew. “It is prudent to allow time to go by, in the event any one of us wishes to rethink the plan or his commitment to the enterprise.”
CHAPTER 17
MAY 1995
Nobody had quite anticip
ated the furor that arose from putting Blackford Oakes in jail. A festering popular resentment against what the Wall Street Journal labeled the “disestablishment of American security” became vocal. People here and there, on talk shows, in the letters columns of newspapers, hotly questioned the moral passions of Senator Hugh Blanton and the “elephantiasis of Senate pride,” as Rush Limbaugh put it. The tabloids teemed with fanciful tales of adventures allegedly had by super-spy Blackford Oakes himself, or else done under his supervision. These included everything from seizing the minutes of Khrushchev’s Twentieth Party Congress speech in 1956, denouncing the crimes of Josef Stalin, to hand-delivering the Stingers that had finally brought the Soviet juggernaut to a stop in Afghanistan. Blackford soon was linked to every turn of history in Soviet-American relations that benefited the West, including the defection of Nureyev, the escape to the West of Solzhenitsyn, the spotting of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba …
“Really, darling,” Sally said to him in the one telephone call to her he was permitted every day, “I had absolutely no idea that you single-handedly managed to win the Cold War. Tell me, Blacky, did you hypnotize Gorbachev into instituting glasnost? Perestroika?… But I shouldn’t tease, my love. To tell the truth, I’m rather enjoying it, because I think it must be some comfort for you in that awful place they have you. Oh darling, why don’t you just swallow your pride, agree to appear, and take the Fifth Amendment?”
Blackford gently reminded her that the night before he turned himself in to the Justice Department ten days ago she had pledged not to argue that line again, for the sake of domestic tranquility. “To tell the truth,” he said, “I don’t particularly mind that the whole subject of covert activity is coming up a month or so before Blanton files his report. A few weeks ago I’d have predicted his no-covert-activity bill would sail through Congress. I’m not so sure anymore. What we need is a little friendly nudge from the White House. All the right arguments are being laid out, though of course the case could be made stronger if we could actually talk history, and talk about the uses of covert activity right now. But anyway, it gives me something to do, watching it all. I don’t have much to do except read the papers and watch television. If I’m in here another week I’m going to end up reading Norman Mailer’s novel on the CIA.”
“And doing your push-ups?”
“And doing my push-ups. I do those, and I say my prayers, and I miss you desperately, and might even reread Jane Austen. By the way, Sally, does anybody ever confess to just plain ‘reading’ Jane Austen? I know only people who ‘reread’ Jane Austen. Goodbye, darling. They’re waving me away from the phone. I’ll call tomorrow.”
Blackford was glad he hadn’t missed the David Brinkley program. The guest was Senator Blanton, the subject was the incarceration of Blackford Oakes and all that it implied. George Will was now questioning Senator Blanton.
Will wanted to know why covert action should end just because the Cold War had ended. Blanton said that since the survival of the United States was not in question, we could certainly do without “CIA-sponsored lying, bribery, blackmail, and murder.”
Will asked the senator to comment on a hypothetical situation. “A TWA airplane is hijacked by an organization called the … the ‘Muslim Order for Justice,’ a Palestinian-based terrorist group. Three Americans are killed, two are taken hostage, the Boeing 747 is destroyed. The hijackers disappear into the Libyan mists—”
Senator Blanton interrupted to say that he had always favored very strong legislation against hijackers.
Will went on without comment to say that the day after the TWA episode, the President meets with his National Security Council and wants to know about this Muslim Order for Justice. The Director of the CIA is able to tell him that it’s a new outfit with headquarters in Tripoli, organized by Abu Ben Casa, a young firebrand previously with the PLO. Okay, the President says. Now what are you going to do about this outfit? The Director proposes a—Senator Blanton interrupted: “Covert plan?” Will raised his hand, and Brinkley told him to go ahead, and asked Senator Blanton please to listen.
What the CIA comes up with, said Will, pursuing his hypothetical situation, is a recruit anxious to earn a cash reward. His documents are in good order. He has grievances against Israel, and has had extensive training in anti-terrorist disciplines.
“Now skip ahead a year,” Will said to Blanton. He describes a Delta 747 preparing to leave Zurich en route to Cairo. Suddenly six Swiss plainclothesmen materialize, in from the shadows. They quietly approach the boarding ladder and remove two passengers. Their briefcases contain dreaded, security-defying firearms and hand grenades.
How did this happen? “Well, the young recruit penetrated the Muslim Order for Justice. In order to get inside to its leader, he had to perform a ritual execution—which he did. He bribed several intermediaries, forged credentials, tapped phones, and got the details of the whole operation in time to get word to the Swiss police.”
Will was ready now for his question: “Senator Blanton, in the case I have outlined, has the CIA sponsored lying, bribery, blackmail, and murder? Of the kind you would make illegal?”
Senator Blanton was visibly flustered. “Let me put it this way, Mr. Will. a) You cannot repeal the strictures against murdering and lying and cheating, and b) your hypothetical situations are too neat.”
“My hypothetical situation, Senator, happened—in 1979. The reason you never heard about it is that the plane—it was PanAm, not Delta—left Zurich and landed in Cairo, and nobody there, including the pilots, knew what it was that almost happened.”
Blackford leaned back in his chair. He remembered the briefing he had given the young recruit before he left for Libya. He was a very brave young man; living in Rio when last heard from, raising a family.
CHAPTER 18
MAY 1995
When Mack walked in, Allie, who had been taking dictation, knew to get up with her steno pad and leave the office.
President Clinton came right to the point. “Can you tell me, is there anything else in the world other than his goddamn bill that Hugh Blanton would settle for?”
“I guess he would accept the Democratic nomination next year.”
The President was not amused. “We’ve got a bum situation here.” He reached down and picked up that morning’s issue of the Washington Post. “Did you see the organizations lined up behind the Blanton bill? Which by the way he hasn’t yet submitted, am I right?”
“You are right.” Mack laughed lightly. “He’s waiting for the testimony of Blackford Oakes. Actually, we know that his bill is already written out, word for word. But Blanton wants to give the impression that the testimony of Oakes is absolutely critical. Not, obviously, to the language of the bill, but as supporting material. He wants everybody to believe that the kind of activity he wants to outlaw damn near got us into a world war.”
The President protruded his famous jaw. His bulldog pose. “That’s crap of course. Isn’t it, Mack?”
“Well, I’d say so. I’ve been brought up to believe that the Soviets didn’t go to war because they didn’t want their nice country turned into ashes by our stuff.”
“So what then is Blanton talking about?”
“Arthur Blaustein—his chief counsel, and the Eagle Scout bent on driving that bill into law—thinks he’s on to some caper Oakes engaged in which, he thinks, nearly got us into a hell of a mess. But he doesn’t have the details, and apparently Oakes is the only person alive, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, who knows the story.”
“Well, if President Reagan, under the intelligence laws, had to inform the congressional intelligence chairman about every covert operation, how come they don’t know about it?”
“Don’t know the answer to that, Chief. But Blaustein looked into every corner of every file and every computer being used in 1985–86. Couldn’t find anything.”
“Exactly what did they look for? What’d he say, ‘Dear Computer, please give me the file on the covert action that almo
st precipitated a nuclear strike, sometime around 1985, 1986?’”
“The key word is ‘Cyclops.’”
“Oh. Well, did Blaustein approach Reagan?”
“He sent him a very nice letter, you know, full of duty-honor-country language, lots of praise for the Reagan administration—”
“Bombed?”
“Yeah, sort of. Reagan was very polite. He said, What did Senator Blanton’s committee want to know? Blanton said he wanted to look into a covert operation called ‘Cyclops.’ The President replied, Sorry, have no memory of Cyclops. He added a postscript, that he remembered when Boris Karloff was asked to play Cyclops in a horror movie, but said no, because he couldn’t stand one of his eyes being pasted over all day.”
The President, who smiled on the least provocation, did not now do so. “Okay, so Reagan is out. Wisely. What about the Soviet end? Have they tried—hell, have they tried Gorbachev?”
“Interesting you came up with that, because that’s exactly what Blanton now plans to do.”
“Through whom? Our guy? Has he got the authority to ask my ambassador to forward that inquiry?”
“He’d have to go through the Secretary of State.”
“And the Secretary of State, theoretically, has to ask me, right?”
“Right, unless he simply assumes that you would say yes as a matter of executive-legislative cooperation.”
The President paused. “Let’s think that one over, going to Gorbachev. Let’s just take the obvious things, okay? One, Mikhail Gorbachev is not going to tell a United States senator that he came close to ordering a nuclear strike against the United States, and that’s what it was, agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Two, if Gorbachev was actually tempted to act against the United States in a really aggressive way during ’85-’86, that would have been because we either threatened him or aced him in some critical situation. Agreed?”
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