The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  But now, gorging himself on the veal, it was as if his confidence was being tangibly restored. Perhaps his book, declaring Lee Harvey Oswald a dupe, a fall guy for foreign assassins, deserved one more effort at immediate authentication. There still existed the single known source that might prove or again disprove his historic beat, and this source remained Hazel’s so-called Russian “friend,” whom Doyle knew to be none other than Nikolai Rostov. The blinding thought came to him: If Hazel would not speak to Rostov again, then he, Doyle, might personally seek out Rostov and provoke him into admitting the truth.

  He realized that Matt Brennan had tried the entire week to see Rostov and had been rebuffed at every turn. But that was another matter. To Rostov, it was likely that Brennan was a sprig of poison ivy, to be avoided. But to Rostov, the name of Jay Thomas Doyle might stand for something else, something less troublesome, something even useful for propaganda purposes.

  The conviction grew in Doyle that if he applied to Rostov for an ANA interview (after all, ANA was also the faithless Hazel’s outlet and one that had always been fair to the Soviet Union) or even for an Earnshaw interview to be ghosted by himself, his request for the interview might be immediately approved. Once having managed to confront Rostov, he would cleverly squeeze out the remaining facts about the old conspiracy.

  A lone obstacle remained. He must find the conductor that would lead him to Rostov. He dared not attempt to use Hazel for this. He wanted someone else. Preferably a Russian, someone he knew and who knew Rostov. Someone like Igor Novik.

  He turned toward Novik, sensing that the presence of the knowledgeable Russian journalist beside him had probably unconsciously inspired his whole train of thinking. He must find out if Novik knew Rostov well, or even knew the Minister at all.

  He realized that Novik, who was looking past him at Goupil, was engaged in some kind of conversation with the founder.

  Impatiently, Doyle waited.

  “The French wine here is excellent, excellent, fine bouquet,” Novik was saying with amiability. “I meant only that a foreigner, raised on his native drink, can rarely adopt the drink of another country as a substitute for his own. We are conditioned by our environment. That is why I confess that even in Paris I miss my vodka.”

  “Vodka!” Goupil snorted disagreeably. “Vodka is nothing. Vodka is the aunt of wine.”

  Novik grinned teasingly. “Those words, Comrade Goupil, are from a Russian proverb.”

  “Then your Monsieur Proverbe stole them from me,” snarled Goupil, and instantly, he turned his attention elsewhere.

  Igor Novik shrugged and met Doyle’s eyes, and they both laughed.

  The moment that they had recovered, Doyle sought to take advantage of their mutual pleasure over this harassment of the insufferable gourmet and the warmth that had been generated between them.

  “Igor, earlier, you asked me what I’d been up to all week, and I told you I’d spent it eating,” Doyle began. “Of course, I was pulling your leg.”

  Wiping his mouth with his napkin, as he prepared for the dessert, Novik said, “I knew that, for I know you to be the most industrious American of my acquaintance. I supposed you had no wish to discuss your work.”

  “Nothing like that, nothing secret,” said Doyle. “It’s simply that I was a little ashamed, because the stuff I’ve been writing for ex-President Earnshaw has been fairly routine and dull. Actually, to keep myself busy, keep my hand in more serious politics, and pick up a few extra rubles, I’ve been helping a friend of mine write a book about Russia.”

  “At last, you have come to Russia, tovarich”

  Doyle made a self-deprecating gesture. “I’m not contributing much to it, Igor. My friend researched and wrote this book, but he’s not a writer, he’s a—well—a former diplomat. He needed someone to sort of polish it for him, so I’ve undertaken the job. But along the way, I’ve found some holes in his material, and I told him I’d try to fill them in. There are a couple of your Russian government people I’ll have to try to interview while they’re still here in Paris. One in particular. I’d like to see him, ask him some questions. I wonder if you know him. He’s Assistant Minister for Far Eastern Affairs.”

  “Nikolai Rostov?” said Novik immediately.

  “That’s the one.”

  Igor Novik laughed. “Know him? Of all people. Certainly, I know Rostov. I have known him ever since we went to school together.”

  “You went to school with him?”

  The Russian journalist nodded, stuffed some peach meringue in his mouth, and said, as he chewed, “But we went our separate ways. I worked for Izvestia, and then became foreign editor and correspondent for the Central Committee’s Pravda in Moscow. Rostov went off to the Far East, and then into the diplomatic corps. But we had reunions at international conferences where he was sent and which I was assigned to cover. When I am in Moscow, I sometimes see him—three, four times a year. We both like”—Novik shot a look at Goupil, and grinned at Doyle—“the aunt of wine, and to make talk about life.”

  “Have you seen him here in Paris?”

  “Once, twice, maybe. He is too busy. I tried to lure him out to one of my favorite restaurants, but it is no use. He has no taste for food.” Novik swallowed some red wine, then winked. “His taste is for women. I’ve heard he has for many years a mistress in Moscow, English or American, I think.”

  “American,” said Doyle quietly.

  “You have heard, too? Of course, in this day nothing is private. Well, I do not blame Rostov. If my wife cooked as abominably as his wife, I would also look outside for my pleasure… Try the pêche meringuêe, comrade, excellent… Where was I? Yes. Food. Natasha Rostov, nice old woman, terrible cook. I remember once I was in Moscow, six months ago maybe, Rostov invited me to his apartment for dinner. It was an important dinner party, Marshal Zabbin, some—some foreign guests—so I could not refuse. I told myself this time Rostov will not permit his wife to cook, will bring in a cook, for such guests. But no, Natasha insisted to cook. She outdid herself. Who in the world can make a bad borscht? No good kasha? And spoil the chebureki? You guessed, comrade. Natasha. Awful meal. Anyway, I say this, even Rostov understood and was ashamed. So to repair the evening, the very next night in Moscow, Rostov took the same guests, Zabbin and the Chinese, too, to the Peking restaurant in Ulitza Bolshaya Sadovaya, and while the dishes were not of the best, they were an improvement on Natasha’s.”

  Doyle had heard every word, but he had to be sure he’d heard them correctly. He tried to speak casually. “Igor, were you along when Rostov took his Chinese guests out to dinner?”

  “Was I—?” Igor Novik’s expression suddenly changed from one offering gossipy reminiscence to one surprised and immediately protective. “What did you ask?”

  “If you were along when Rostov took his Chinese guests out in Moscow.”

  Novik frowned. “Chinese guests? What do you mean? Did I say that? No, no. The guests were from Yugoslavia. My poor memory, when I eat so much, it leaves me. Chinese in Moscow?” He gave a short laugh. “Can you imagine such a thing these days? Anyway, enough of that, enough of Rostov.”

  “I asked if you knew him, Igor, only because I thought you might help me get an interview with him.”

  “With Rostov here? No, no, I think he is too busy for the press.”

  Doyle observed that Novik’s manner had quite obviously changed. He was guarded. Doyle persisted. “I don’t want to see him as a journalist trying to get an interview for publication,” said Doyle. “Remember, I told you I’m helping a friend, a former diplomat who’s written a book about Russia. I want to assist him in getting his facts right. Rostov happens to be one of the few men who were in Vienna back in 1961 when President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev met there. Rostov could tell me what’s wrong in that section of the book and what’s right. He wouldn’t be quoted by name in the book.”

  “This book,” said Novik warily. “Exactly what is it about?”

  At the moment of engaging No
vik in this conversation Doyle had remembered something of Brennan’s scheme to save Medora, and he had decided to adapt one small part of that scheme to his own purposes. He did not dare mention his real conspiracy book, so he had chosen to use another book written by another author, hoping to hold Novik’s attention by it, knowing full well that Novik might then run to Rostov with the news and Rostov, in turn, would be sufficiently curious to receive Doyle. “What’s it about? Well, just between us, Igor, meaning strictly us only, my friend has written a documentary account of the whole conspiracy that started in Vienna in 1961 to get rid of—of Premier Khrushchev and all other Russian revisionist leaders opposing a grand alliance of Russia with Communist China.”

  Igor Novik’s chubby countenance was a portrait of innocence. “What an amusing story. Where did your friend ever hear it? I have never heard of such a story, in Vienna or anywhere.”

  “I assure you, my friend heard it,” said Doyle.

  Novik threw up his hands. “Ah, well, comrade, everyone hears everything these days, and most often not one syllable of it is truth.” He reached for his wine. “I will speak to Minister Rostov about your interview request if I have the opportunity. But I can advise you now, there is no likelihood he will find the time to see you. If I were you, I would forget it.”

  “Too bad,” said Doyle.

  But by that time Igor Novik was already speaking to someone else.

  After that, Doyle could not wait to leave Lasserre. He made a show of listening to Goupil, to other members of the Société, but all that he could hear was Novik’s words:

  The very next night in Moscow, Rostov took the same guests, Zabbin and the Chinese, too, to the Peking restaurant. Hours ago, in the Hotel Lancaster, Doyle had heard Earnshaw relate how a Chinese leader had angrily implied that Russia was China’s ally. Now, minutes ago, Doyle had heard—with his own ears he had heard—a Russian inadvertently let slip that Chinese had been in Moscow in recent months, dining with Soviet officials like Zabbin and Rostov.

  For the first time, Doyle believed that there might be some truth to Brennan’s theory of a secret international Communist union that would supersede what was going on at the Summit. In the Palais Rose the doves were meeting. But in Moscow and Peking the hawks were working.

  For the first time, too, Doyle began to take Brennan’s suggestion, made this morning, seriously. When Hazel’s news had seemed to demolish Doyle’s book on the conspiracy against Kennedy. Brennan had suggested that there might be an equally important book, one as sensational, in his clues to a secret partnership between two of the earth’s three greatest powers Now Doyle’s excitement about the possibility of developing such a project began to match, even momentarily overshadow, his interest in fully resuscitating a project that he was having difficulty in keeping alive.

  And there was something else, something else nagging. What had Igor Novik said? That he and Rostov had been schoolmates before he had gone into journalism. Novik had joined Pravda. and Rostov had gone into government. Well, now. What had been Hazel’s story in Vienna so long ago? Her “friend”—of course, Rostov—had been approached by an old classmate who now wrote for one of the Pravdas and who wanted Rostov to enlist in a conspiracy against K.

  Doyle weighed it coolly. Vienna. Igor Novik representing the conspirators and going to his old friend Nikolai Rostov to draw him into an intrigue. Possible. Even probable. Lending credence to Novik’s slip about the Chinese in Russia, but offering little more, because from now on Novik would be as talkative as a Vladivostok clam.

  Doyle felt real excitement. He wanted only to leave, so that he could call Brennan and repeat to him every word he had heard in Lasserre tonight. He wanted to hedge his bets, have two hopes instead of one. To possess a second hope, he had to be on Brennan’s team, to contribute, so that he could be the historian of what might come of this.

  Nor did Doyle feel any disloyalty to his precious main hope. He would be no traitor to truth. In his heart of hearts, he knew that not Oswald but two or more conspirators had assassinated Kennedy. No matter what Rostov had told Hazel, no matter what the majority of Americans believed, Doyle remained convinced from other evidence that the death in Dallas was still an unsolved murder. As long as he lived, for what was left of his life, Doyle silently vowed, he would ceaselessly pursue that mystery until he had resolved it. Meanwhile, he must survive, find new hopes, fresh dreams, easier and surer ones. In Brennan’s findings there was the best chance for an overnight success. Suddenly, the future was brighter.

  He heard old Goupil saying to the others, “If the parents of the human race ruined themselves for an apple, what might they not have done for a truffled turkey?”

  Doyle heard himself laughing with all the others. What difference if Brillat-Savarin had said it first? All that mattered was that Claude Goupil had said it now and said it better. Good old Goupil. Witty old Goupil. Thank you for a lifesaving dinner, O Wise and Generous King of Gastronomes.

  STANDING THERE, trying to balance his long-stemmed glass of vintage champagne in the midst of the crush of notable people crowding the Salle des Gardes, the first-floor reception room of the Hotel de Lauzun, Emmett A. Earnshaw felt thoroughly uncomfortable.

  There were, he was perfectly aware, valid reasons for feeling as fretful as he did. For one thing, he disliked wearing this monkey suit, white bow tie, starched shirt, white waistcoat, tailcoat, pinching patent leather shoes. For another, in this mass of celebrity—at least two hundred persons, he guessed—he was one of the few who were outsiders, he was actually an interloper, since he had nothing to do with the Five-Power Disarmament Conference.

  From the moment that he had been driven, so resplendent in his aged inaugural top hat, toward the Île St.-Louis and into the Quai d’Anjou, passing all those peacocky police of the Garde Mobile at the bridgeheads, the swarming spectators, the jumping photographers, he had felt a fake and had wanted to turn back. But he had gone on under the loggia, through the courtyard, and up the white stone staircase to this room, because he had known that it was his duty to see the evening through. And it was duty that was the final reason for his uneasiness.

  Earnshaw had come to the French Foreign Minister’s reception, he had kept reminding himself, not as an official representative of the United States who had to engage in diplomacy, not as a distinguished private citizen who wished to enjoy the social hospitality of the host nation, but as a debtor determined to balance his ledger by performing two difficult missions.

  He missed Carol, whose understanding and natural verve were always supportive on these stiff state occasions. And, too, he was sorry Carol was missing this. The colorful guests would have excited her—over there, the British Prime Minister and his wife deep in conversation with the American Ambassador; near them, in front of an immense tapestry, the Russian and French Premiers toasting; and a stone’s throw away, a cluster of Chinese wives gathered about the Chinese Chairman and the President of the French National Assembly.

  The palace or mansion, or whatever it was, would also have thrilled Carol—all those fancy mirrors, and crystal chandeliers, and gilded candelabra, and oak tables (Louis XIII, someone had said), and Brazilian-rosewood commodes, and most of all, the green silk brocade hanging on the walls. Nobody, but nobody, could dress up a place like the French. And Carol, why, she’d have had enough material to write a dozen papers for her English and history classes when she got back to school in California.

  At once, in his old man’s ruminations, Earnshaw remembered the reason why his niece was not here to give him a hand, to help him enjoy this reception. She was nursing Medora Hart. Carol had telephoned just as Earnshaw had been about to depart for the reception. She had said that Medora had made a nice recovery, but was still weak and again asleep. Carol’s only concern had been Medora’s state of mind when she would completely awaken. Without going into the details on the telephone, Earnshaw had assured her that he and Brennan had worked out a wonderful plan. If it came off—he could not be sure it would
, but if it did—well, Medora might be saved.

  With a start, Earnshaw realized that this plan to liberate Medora was only half of the mission that had brought him to the Hotel de Lauzun. He had better get going before the entire mob was summoned upstairs to the formal dinner in the Music Room.

  He had begun to search for Sir Austin Ormsby when he saw a lady waving at him, as she pushed in his direction. He wished he’d worn his glasses, but then he made out that the woman was Fleur Ormsby with a monocled Frenchman in tow.

  Gaily swishing her long gown, to straighten it, Fleur demanded, “Emmett, what are you doing here so frightfully alone? I won’t have you behaving like a wallflower—oh, dear me, have you met the Foreign Minister’s chief of protocol? This is Monsieur Pierre Urbain—”

  “I think so,” said Earnshaw, accepting the Frenchman’s handshake.

  “We have met several times,” said Urbain. “At our recent lunch in the Quai d’Orsay. And twice before, I was so honored when you were President, Mr. Earnshaw. I hope that you are having a good time? Perhaps I can introduce you to several–”

  “No, not necessary,” said Earnshaw. “I’ve already met a large number of your guests.”

  Fleur Ormsby pouted. “Well, Emmett, I’m simply not going to let you play hermit. Monsieur Urbain was about to take me, and several other ladies, on a quickie tour of the Hotel de Lauzun. You mustn’t miss it, really.” Her delicate hand swept toward the beamed ceiling. “Utterly fabulous place, Emmett, despite its wretched history. Monsieur Urbain was telling me it was built by some dreadful son of an innkeeper—whatever was the boy’s name?”

  “Charles Gruyn,” said Urbain.