Black Gambit

by Clark, Eric

  ‘For fuck’s sake …! Everybody but you and you out of here NOW.’ He was pointing to Scott and Sunnenden. He turned to the Secretary and said briefly, ‘And you, Henry.’

  He waited until the rest had left the room. He was standing with his back to the desk, his hands clasped in front of him, perspiration beading his upper lip. ‘Okay, now let’s have the rest.’

  Sunnenden was allowed to talk without interruption. When he had finished, Nixon asked the Secretary, ‘You know anything about this?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Nixon asked Scott the same question. Sunnenden only half heard the betrayal: ‘I knew some, but not all this.’ The voice was pained.

  Sunnenden thought the bad moments had passed. Then the President exploded. ‘Who the fuck employed you to do this — the Kennedy crowd? What in the name of God made you start such a shitty thing?’ His hands were shaking, and his left cheek was making twitchy movements.

  Nixon’s voice became a low babble as he frantically thought aloud — ‘this on top of everything else that’s happening. Christ, what would the press make of it. God almighty, if this shit ever hits the fan …’

  He made a conscious effort to pull himself together. Turning to the one aide who had remained in the room, he ordered ‘Joe, you personally get straight on to everyone who was here NOW and tell them they heard nothing.’ He turned back to Sunnenden. ‘You started this fucking thing. Now you get out there and stop it. I don’t care how. Just stop it.’

  He turned his back. Kissinger moved towards Scott and Sunnenden and ushered them into the outer office.

  ‘You two, get lost for an hour,’ he said. ‘Then be in my office.’ Kissinger turned and went back into the Oval Room. The last Sunnenden saw was his back, standing next to the President, staring through the windows.

  Sunnenden walked towards the street, his mind overwhelmed with nightmarish thoughts. If only he could turn the clock back fifteen minutes! What in God’s name had he done? Scott was beside him.

  ‘Why’d you say you knew nothing?’ Sunnenden asked him.

  Scott took his arm. ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna need a friend, and if I go down too, who’s going to help you?’

  They reached the street. Sunnenden realized he needed a drink.

  Scott was wondering whether there was any way of gaining advantage from Sunnenden’s outburst. Did they need to actually do anything? Why not let everything go ahead as planned; hadn’t he already come to the conclusion that the President’s days were numbered. But he quickly rejected that possibility. It had two things against it? First, it took no account of Kissinger; he would go on and he would not want to take any risks now. Secondly, continuing would involve Scott being knowingly implicated.

  He began looking up and down the street for a cab. No, he thought, there was only one way: stop it and be seen to be the man who had done so. Sunnenden would have to drown but …

  Scott realised Sunnenden was speaking. ‘What do we do?’

  Anger broke in the older man. ‘What the hell did you have to say anything for? Did you expect medals? All you had to do was keep your mouth shut until it was all over.’

  ‘But what do we do?’

  ‘Do? Stop the goddamned thing, that’s what. Didn’t you hear the man?’

  Sunnenden looked at his watch. It was two minutes before eleven. Almost 7 p.m. in Moscow.

  ‘We can’t,’ he said. ‘It’s too late.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  FOR SIX DAYS Parker had done everything expected of him and had even begun to enjoy himself.

  He quickly established a reputation as someone who kept to himself. He attended all the planned excursions, and in the afternoons he wandered alone, a copy of the Moscow Guide Book for Tourists in hand. He was not being followed as far as he could tell. After four days the rest of his group had left; he kept away from the tourists who replaced them.

  His fear gave way to a sense of something oddly like power: toying with a drink, he watched fellow guests and savoured excitement and pride at knowing what he alone knew. Nevertheless he continued to do all the ‘right’ things and none of the ‘wrong’ ones. He shopped — caviar, vodka, wooden dolls. He studiously bought his daily Morning Star, the British Communist Party newspaper. He reconciled himself to queuing as a way of life; he discussed the toilet paper with other Westerners at the bar.

  He turned down the one request from a taxi driver to sell his currency on the black market and carefully avoided pointing his camera at anything that could remotely be considered sensitive.

  By Sunday the second of June, a day he spent idling in the sun in Gorky Park, he had relaxed enough to begin thinking of being back in America. In the evening, as on every evening since his arrival, he practised donning his disguise: the beard he could set in place without a mirror, without showing gum. He knew he could transform himself as fast as was necessary.

  That Sunday evening, though, the rehearsal was different. Looking into the full-length mirror in the bathroom, he realized suddenly that tomorrow it would be real. He lay in bed that night awake until well after three.

  Could he simply not go ahead with the operation? All he had to do was — nothing. What would he do then though? Cory must have a contingency plan for just such an eventuality.

  No doubt he had men available in Moscow. Someone must have briefed Zorin. And on Parker’s second day in Moscow, the equipment he needed for the switchover had appeared in his room. If he was allowed simply to leave Russia, what would happen? Where would he go? Could he avoid being traced by Cory? Parker, remembering the way he had been released from jail, could have no doubts about Cory’s long reach. Nor of his ruthlessness.

  And then, there was always the threat to his daughter — something his mind tried not to contemplate. He had to take that seriously.

  The room grew heavy with cigarette smoke. It was, he reflected, not very different from being back in his cell; only the luxury of the immediate environment had changed.

  He thought then of the man Zorin: had he been rehearsing too? Was he feeling doubts? After all, he was at least alive and free — where would he be if this went wrong?

  At 3.32 Parker checked his watch again, fought the desire to light another cigarette or open the bottle of gift-packed vodka, and slept.

  *

  Zorin slept well until 6 a.m. on Monday the third of June, thanks to the unaccustomed barbiturate tablet and two glasses of vodka. He felt no doubts about what was to happen, though he was reconciled to the possibility that it could go wrong. He wanted something to happen now. He was a man clutching temporary safety on a mountain side; either let him be rescued, or let him fall.

  In any case he could not bear to continue living the way he had during the previous months, pretending to forsake everything he believed in. His friends put it down to an illness, a weariness of the spirit, but he knew they must talk of him, and that there must be a hardening against him every time he refused involvement in any activities.

  ‘You must not encourage the authorities to act against you,’ he had been told. At the same time, he was warned against going too far in appearing to bow before the KGB’s pressures.

  His head throbbed from the combination of drugs and alcohol. He lifted himself and lit a cigarette. He began coughing and, ludicrously at such a time, found himself thinking he would have to smoke less.

  *

  Parker skipped the morning tour of the Moscow Metro. That left him with the morning to fill — his carefully timed walk would not begin until the afternoon. It was to finish as the streets became dark.

  He strolled aimlessly, then headed for the restaurant. By now, his standard diet was soup, meat in a thick sauce, garnished with sour cream and accompanied by kasha, a kind of buckwheat gruel which, prison notwithstanding, was the only food Parker had ever encountered that he could not eat.

  He arrived early, but even so the meal took two hours, as always. When it was finished, he returned to his room. His two-day-old Morning
Star was exactly as he had left it, except for the tiny blue ballpoint mark at the dot of page four. It was the message that he had waited for: the switch was on as planned.

  Parker took an unopened bottle of Scotch from his suitcase and drank deeply. He corked the bottle, stripped and put on a fresh set of clothes: nondescript grey suit, white shirt, plain red tie. From the wardrobe he took an airline travel bag, marked Air Canada in large letters. Into it he placed the beard, a black beret and two plastic rings that, pushed inside his nostrils, would alter the shape of his nose to that of Zorin’s. On top he placed a camera, his guide book and a light cardigan.

  Parker checked his watch. Ten minutes to go, more or less, although he could always make up or lose that amount of time. He fetched a toothglass from the bathroom and poured a measure of Scotch. He drank, watching himself in the mirror of the opened wardrobe door. He placed the bottle, now a third empty, in the centre of the bed, and raised his glass to it. Not caring whether the room was bugged or not, he said ‘To you and me, you crazy bastard.’ He put down the glass. When he left the room it was just three o’clock.

  *

  Zorin spent the early part of the morning wandering around the flat, picking up and inspecting possessions, looking at papers, thumbing through books — things he realized he would not see again. There was much he would have liked to take, but he had decided to carry nothing away, not even a photograph.

  Mid-morning he forced himself to stop and drink tea. The temptation was to begin now, but he waited an hour.

  For a week the KGB had been following him spasmodically. One day no one at all had shadowed him. On two other occasions he was followed to his destination and then left alone.

  Zorin suspected the reason was the extra security work necessitated by President Nixon’s impending visit. Even the KGB with its vast army of men had to cut down on other work — which meant, he hoped, that he was now low on their list of priorities.

  At noon Zorin turned an easy chair on its back, and carefully began to remove, one by one, the objects hidden within. Some were wrapped in plastic bags. Kneeling, he laid them out on the floor. When he felt sure everything was there he counted to make doubly certain.

  He placed all the items but six in a desk drawer that he had emptied for just this purpose. Suddenly nervous, he went into the kitchen. There was no reason for the KGB to mount a raid now, but he began to sweat even so.

  In the kitchen he pinned up the close-up photograph of Parker’s head next to the mirror. Over his own hair he placed a vinyl hat, like a bathing cap, which he strapped under his chin. The top was cut out, and he began to cut the hair that emerged through this hole, first with a comb to which was attachéd a razor blade, then, with clippers, and finally with the battery shaver.

  He removed the cap. Staring back at him was a bearded monk. With the razor comb he began to thin and shape the hair that remained. It took almost an hour. Longer than he had anticipated.

  Then he began on his beard, first with scissors, then the razor. This went more quickly. Twenty minutes later he tried to fit the false beard into the space that was left. He cut again until his real moustache and the false beard blended perfectly.

  Cleaning up the hair was the worst part. First there was the problem of removing it from the floor where it had drifted over a wide area. Trying to brush it into a pan proved useless — his efforts only spread the fine hairs more. Finally, he had to get down on his hands and knees and painstakingly pick up hairs between his fingers, a few at a time. The task seemed endless. And then when he thought it was completed he realized bits clung to him and his clothes and also had to be removed.

  The second problem was just as frustrating — getting rid of the hair. He placed a handful in an ashtray and set light to it. It flared and he thought he had found a solution. Within moments he realized he was wrong — the smell was too strong. He did not want the risk of neighbours coming to complain. At last he washed it down the sink as best he could.

  By the time he had finished it was almost two. He was running late. He was not hungry, but he forced himself to eat something. He ate cheese as he worked.

  Around his middle he strapped an Air Canada bag, the cardboard bottom removed, folded flat so that it followed the lines of his body. Then he dressed: a white shirt and a shapeless grey suit. He began to pack his pockets until they bulged. At last he rubbed his shaven chin with spirit.

  He waited for a minute to let its drying action take effect, then smeared on the glue with his finger-tips. A tiny amount, just as he’d been taught. When he knew the glue had reached the right stage, he stretched his facial muscles and put on the beard. After a few minutes to complete the drying, he smoothed the beard and his moustache together. Even peering closely into the mirror he could see no join. The feel was strange, the look — except for the head — was not.

  Time to leave. Zorin finished the cheese, standing.

  He put on the beret, collected the putty-coloured raincoat from the hall and, ready to leave, paused at the door, taking in the room. Whatever happened, he’d never see it again.

  His eyes focused on the photograph of Tanya, on his desk, still strewn with papers as though he was just going out for an afternoon, on the pile of unwashed clothes on a chair beside the bed.

  He reached for the door.

  On impulse he went back into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of vodka. He uncorked it and drank from the bottle. Then, without realizing he was duplicating the actions of the man with whom he was to change places, he carefully placed the bottle where anyone coming into the room could not fail to see it.

  ‘If you make it,’ he whispered, ‘you’ll need it.’

  *

  The day was warm and sunny. Parker turned into Marx Prospekt, joining the strolling crowds. He walked with the pronounced limp he had affected since leaving the United States. Near the trees, where the pavement was protected from the sun, the streets were still damp. Good: he would not look strange carrying his black raincoat. The coat was not essential, but it did add one further, easy item that could be used in the changeover.

  He walked slowly, savouring the moment. The Scotch had lifted him without making him feel careless. Suddenly he was glad it had all begun. For one fleeting moment, he allowed himself to anticipate all this being over, his freedom, and a new life with his daughter.

  He passed the Hotel Nationale. At the old home of Moscow University he turned into Hertzen Street. He passed a group of Russian tourists in front of the monument to Tchaikovsky, but then people became few. Hertzen Street had, in fact, been carefully chosen because of its comparative quiet. There was never much traffic, nor were there stores or cafes to attract crowds. It was, in short, the perfect street in which to check if you were being followed.

  It was hot in the sun, and Parker looped the raincoat over the airline bag and loosened his tie. Near the end of the street, he paused, leaned against a fence, and removed his shoe. He held it up, staring inside as though looking for a stone, then tapped it and put it back on. He slid the false heel-piece into his pocket. When he set off again he no longer limped.

  In the week he had been in Moscow he had carefully avoided this route, familiar to him from photographs and films. As soon as he saw the Writers’ House he knew what his next view would be.

  As Parker left Hertzen Street and entered Uprising Square, there was a short, sudden flurry of rain a matter of seconds, no more. The rain scurried like leaves fetched down from a tree by a sudden gust of wind, then stopped. The sun was still bright.

  The square was noisy after the quiet of Hertzen Street. On his right, rebuilding was taking place: a crane held a steel pylon suspended over the vast hole that had once been a building. In front of him was a skyscraper. Even without staring he knew, from his briefings, that it was twenty-two storeys high, that it had a spire ninety-eight feet tall surmounted by a five-pointed star, and that the ground floor was a cinema and the first floor a food store.

  He t
ook a seat on a bench and began to stare at his guide-book. His reading finished, he lit a cigarette, removed his glasses, stood and walked into Krasnaya Presnya Street. He kept the glasses off.

  The area was obviously an industrial district. He checked the map and made his way towards the Krasnaya Presnya Museum, passing metal working plants, a shoe factory, small engineering shops. Finally he reached his goal, 4 Bolshevistakaya Street, headquarters of the district’s Military Revolutionary Committee that guided operations there during the 1917 uprising, and now a museum of the history of the revolution.

  The museum had been chosen as yet another convenient point on his tour, but once inside Parker began to feel why the surrounding area meant so much to the Communists. In 1905 thousands of workers had risen and fought the Tsarist soldiers. A thousand or more died. Lenin later paid tribute: ‘They trained the ranks of the fighters who triumphed in 1917.’

  Parker toured the ground floor; the house was almost empty. He stopped in front of one painting, a depiction of two women carrying a banner bearing the words ‘Soldiers, don’t fire on us.’

  He looked at it for a long time, and then made for the exit. At the door, momentarily blinded by the sun, he reached into his bag and took out a black beret which he put on as he entered the street.

  *

  There had been considerable discussion as to where Zorin should spend his afternoon. Finally the National Economic Exhibition had been Sunnenden’s idea. Cory agreed, liking the choice for two reasons. The first was its size: 550 acres, with nearly eighty separate pavilions. Secondly, if Zorin was followed there, he could hardly be seen doing anything less anti-Soviet.

  He took the Metro, always a good way of checking whether you were being followed. He was almost sure that he was. When he transferred to the rizhskaya Line he was certain: a small man, dressed despite the weather in a heavy dark suit. Zorin made no attempt to lose him. He had plenty of time for that.

  The airline case strapped to his stomach made walking surprisingly uncomfortable. It was a relief to get on the train and sit.