The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  “I’m starved,” Sylvia said.

  There was a café at the end of the block with a blue-and-white tile floor and sepia photographs of gondolas tacked to the wall. They ordered antipasto and pasta with clams. A dry red wine puckered their mouths.

  Their waiter was friendly. “Tourists?” he asked.

  “For a few days.”

  “Good time to be here. Too hot in the summer.” He rolled his eyes and snapped his hand like a whip for added effect.

  When Valentine asked about the Fregosi woman, the waiter made a face. “That one,” he said, not finishing his sentence. “But she makes good suits if you can afford them.”

  “We were supposed to meet her tonight, but we were late. What time does she get to the shop in the morning?”

  “She opens up at ten, just like the rest of us.”

  “Does she come in from Venice?”

  The waiter grinned. “She walks.”

  Valentine looked confused and the man seemed amused by this. “She lives close by?”

  Another nod, and a raised eyebrow. “Ninety seconds.”

  Valentine pointed up. “Above the shop?”

  “Behind it,” the waiter said. “It’s her grandfather’s house. There’s a passageway under the alley. It’s not unusual on the Lido; in the old days there were smugglers here, especially after the war.”

  “Convenient,” Sylvia chimed in.

  “Not for me,” the man said. “Too close to work. But for her, work is all she has. God’s will, I think, that she’s alone, since she’s not hard on the eyes. Me, I live an hour away. When I close up, I’m finished.” He brushed his hands together. “I don’t think about work when it’s over, and even if I did it’s too far to come back.”

  “A tunnel,” Valentine repeated.

  “Directly under the shop,” the man said. “A hundred meters long.”

  They could see the house from the alley. It was surrounded by a high wall with pieces of broken glass on top. “You climb,” Sylvia said.

  She circled to the side that fronted on the lagoon; on the far shore of the bay the lights of Venice twinkled seductively and she saw the lights of boats on the water. Valentine found the ground-floor patio door closed and locked. He got in from an oak tree, crossing to the second-floor balcony with a short leap, and explored for ten minutes, then came out the front door and trotted down to the shore. A seawall held back waves. There was a cement building with a flat roof. He looked inside; it was a boat slip. There were fresh gasoline fumes and the sea doors were open. He opened the gate and Sylvia joined him. “They’re gone,” he said. “By boat.”

  “Maybe she likes midnight rides.”

  “There were whiskers in a bathroom sink and a space in the closet, as if somebody had pulled out a bunch of clothes. Two cups and plates. Only one cup had lipstick.”

  “We’d better get help,” Sylvia said wearily.

  124MONDAY, APRIL 24, 1961, 12:38 P.M.Tirana, Albania

  By Party edict there were no streetlamps after dark, and the lights in all buildings were blacked out in the same paranoid way that Moscow was darkened. This practice was a legacy from Stalin, now fallen and, like Tirana’s lights, only a dark memory. In Albania a siege mentality still reigned.

  By 9:00 P.M. everything was dark, but it was still too early for her task. Taras Ivanovich had been explicit in his instructions: Give them time to get to sleep. She still did not understand why she had agreed to do this. Love, that accursed word again! Lust is a better motivation, she reminded herself; at least it’s short-term, over and done with and no looking back—or ahead. Love made you think in terms of the future, which was always a mistake. Now was the only time frame with power. It was her own fault, she knew; she could have refused him, and she had wanted to, but he had made it impossible by not pressing her. At night when they lay pressed against each other in the darkness she had told him of her research trips to Albania and about her friend Debra; Taras Ivanovich had listened more attentively than she had realized. Mostly she had talked about birds but sometimes had drifted to other subjects: the lack of automobiles in the backward little country, its bland food, the lack of recreation, distorted Albanian values, little laughter, sex only for procreation, the pervasive drabness.

  Her friend Debra Jelisu had taken her to official receptions at the university and to an occasional gathering of friends and colleagues. These were afternoon affairs, and by and large polite. Albanian academics lacked ardor; even in small groups of established friends opinions seldom strayed from what was politically correct, which struck Raya as odd. At home, especially in private, Russian academics were quick to criticize the system and its failings, but in Tirana she heard no such criticism; even Debra, who was more sister than colleague, refused to engage in such talk unless they were outside, and then only when they were alone.

  Despite Albanian circumspectness, Raya had heard bits and pieces about life in the backward country. She did not remember telling Bailov about the historian who was cataloging events of the pre-Party days and had compiled a list of traitors who supported Zog; schoolchildren, he had proclaimed with righteousness, would use his work to memorize the names of their sworn enemies. She remembered similar lists from her youth; getting even was a new regime’s first order of business. Certainly she had no more than mentioned the man as one more gull in a cacophonous flock of scavengers, but Bailov had remembered, filed it away and played it back. Though she had agreed to come to Tirana, she still did not understand the real reason why it was important. It’s too dangerous, Taras Ivanovich had told her; it’s better you don’t know.

  He had questioned her closely. Did she know if the man had an office? Yes, she thought it was in the same hall with the other members of the social sciences department. How difficult would it be to get into his office? Nothing is locked, she reminded him; it was the law. Officially there was no crime in Albania, so locks were not only unnecessary but an open refutation of the Party’s declaration. He asked her to get information from the historian’s file and she had agreed, then wondered if this was the start of just what she had always feared. She had friends and colleagues who had been stupid enough to be drawn into the darker corners of the system, and at a terrible price. Once you were in, there was no way out.

  There was no moon when Raya finally slipped into the night air dressed in black. Lone security men patrolled the area but did not enter the university offices—another edict. It was three hundred meters to the building that housed the social sciences department. Once she had to stop and duck into the shadows while a guard lit a cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating his features. She was acutely aware of her frayed nerves. Were there people who did this sort of thing all the time, or did it fall to innocent citizens to do their dirty work for them? Her anger had not yet dissipated—anger with herself as much as with men, who were forever using women in their games. Why had she thought Taras Ivanovich would be different?

  She got into the building without being detected and began her search immediately. Names were not painted on the office doors because individuals had no importance. She had no choice but to go from room to room and hope that there were no academicians with nocturnal habits. The office she sought was at the far end of the first floor, one above ground level. She could not remember the professor’s name until she found his appointment book. The room’s walls were lined with black metal filing cabinets, which gleamed under her flashlight beam. The cabinets were locked. She fought her anxiety and tried to think. In the basement she found a maintenance room with tools scattered, as if somebody had walked away in mid-task. She took a screwdriver. The drawers resisted but with some effort she opened them. The files were alphabetical within each drawer, but there was no system from drawer to drawer. The front of the alphabet was next to the back. She found the one she wanted in the fourth drawer, a thick folder marked FRASCETTI. The elder Frascetti had been married once; his wife had delivered a bastard before marrying him. Myslim was the first, Ali the second, b
oth hers by different partners. There was a big age difference between the two. She photographed the papers, returned the folder to the drawer, put the screwdriver back and made her way out.

  It was after 4:00 A.M. and the sky had clouded over. Aeroflot’s special flight to Albania operated only twice a week, but Bailov had told her that this time there would be flights on three consecutive days, which would give her some options. He did not say it, but she sensed that he had the authority to arrange this, which heightened her fear. Who was he?

  Returning to her hotel, Raya changed into a dress and fretted about the weather. How long would it be before someone discovered that the locks on the drawers had been forced? What if the weather made it impossible for her to fly? Though it was cool in the room, she spent the rest of the night worrying and perspiring heavily. When she got back to Moscow, she promised herself, she would take a long hot bath and give Taras Ivanovich a piece of her mind. Were there monsters who did this kind of work willingly? She felt nauseated. Damn him.

  When she reached the airport the weather was marginal and deteriorating but there was no problem with her exit check. An older man in a gray uniform glanced at her passport and gave it back. “You should have stayed in your hotel,” he said. “Even Soviet pilots can’t fly in this soup.” He grinned good-naturedly and picked up his copy of the Albanian Workers’ Party newspaper.

  There were three other passengers in the lounge, all males in ill-fitting suits. Two of them looked fresh, while the third needed a shave and had a fresh scratch down his left cheek; his light blue suit was badly wrinkled and the knees of his pants were soiled. Eventually an Aeroflot stewardess came in and motioned for them to follow her. She was short and heavy, with greasy brown hair and muscular calves.

  They were halfway to the aircraft when four armed, uniformed men suddenly materialized from the mist and trotted toward them, their rifles angled upward. Raya froze. Had they discovered the break-in? Behind her she heard footsteps and turned to see the passenger in the blue suit running away. More armed men appeared and intercepted him; one of them calmly stepped forward and knocked the man down with a slow-motion sweep of his rifle butt. The man rolled over and over, holding his head. Albanian soldiers dragged him toward the terminal, and after they disappeared into the fog she heard shouts and a single gunshot. Her heart was racing and she had difficulty breathing as more soldiers led her and the two remaining passengers back to the terminal.

  A handsome Albanian wearing a charcoal-gray sweater and black slacks came into the lounge and stared penetratingly at her and the other passengers. He was tall and slender, with dark hair graying on the sides. After a few moments he limped away. Then another Albanian in a black uniform entered and announced that no flights could leave because the weather was below minimum visibility. He did not offer an explanation of what they had just seen. Raya felt light-headed. Next an Aeroflot pilot arrived and began a hushed debate with several airport officials. The discussion lasted ten minutes; during this time the officials looked increasingly angry, until finally one of them threw up his hands in frustration and stalked away, slamming the door behind him.

  The pilot grinned, then motioned for Raya and the two men to follow him. The clouds were now so low that she could no longer see the tower. The pilot fell into step with her. “Comrade Orlava?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice betraying her fear. “How can we fly in this?”

  “Would you rather remain here?”

  “No,” she said with conviction.

  When the man slipped his arm around her shoulders, she instinctively pulled away, but he held her tight and leaned close to whisper, “Relax. My colonel would skin me if I let anything happen to you now.”

  “Colonel?”

  The answer was an acknowledging squeeze.

  The aircraft was an antique trimotor with dents in the fuselage and faded decals. Wires hung off the left wing, a landing light was broken, and it was damp and cold inside. Raya tried to strap herself in but the seat belt was broken. She hoped that the engines were in better shape than the rest of the plane.

  The pilot sat down beside her and lit a cigarette. “Shouldn’t you be up there?” she asked, pointing at the cockpit.

  “I’d only be in the way,” he confessed. “A costume,” he said, touching his tunic. “I’m not a pilot.” He grinned. “Not even an officer,” he added with pride.

  She tensed when the aircraft began its takeoff and did not relax until one of the real pilots came back to fetch a cup of tea. When he passed he smiled at her. Raya turned her head away and tried to will herself to sleep; her relief at rescue was fast turning to anger at Taras Ivanovich.

  125MONDAY, APRIL 24, 1961, 7:20 A.M.Venice

  Antonio Spinola sat on the foredeck of the Palazzo, puffing his pipe and enjoying the fresh morning air. The barge ahead of the tug was filled with chunks of shiny black coal. Was it really possible that coal could be squeezed down to diamonds? With a barge filled with diamonds he could buy a real boat, go to sea and be a real sailor. But wishes paid no bills or fed seven children, and his was not such a bad life, he reminded himself, especially with his son in the wheelhouse. The boy was only sixteen, but already he handled the tug with the confidence of a veteran. Spinola counted himself a lucky man.

  “Papa,” his son called down, waving to starboard.

  Spinola followed the line of his son’s arm, saw what appeared to be an empty boat in the distance and signaled the boy to steer toward it. There was no wake behind the derelict; another drifter, he grumbled. Damned pleasure boats; they were forever crapping out and getting in the way of working craft. Once he had found one filled with drunks asleep in their own puke. Another time it had been a big-bosomed woman and three naked men; they had thrown their clothes overboard, then run out of diesel fuel. He didn’t bother to ask why. People—who could understand them? Sailors were different. They knew when to work and when to play, and they always respected the water.

  The drifting boat was long and narrow, the sort of craft favored by old-time smugglers, but now toys for the rich who gunned them up and down the coast, spewing rooster tails. This one wallowed helplessly in soft swells. Spinola looked up at his son and drew a hand across his throat; the engines backed off, the transmission grinding as the boy reversed them, then idled in neutral. As his son maneuvered, the elder Spinola looped a heavy line over one of the drifter’s chrome mooring posts and slowly pulled the two craft together. When the bow of the cigarboat swung around, he tightened the forward line and went aft to secure a second one. Capture complete, he told himself.

  Spinola had always been fond of cigarboats, and this one was a beauty, well cared for, with a fresh coat of varnish. He stepped into the cockpit and yelled down the narrow passageway, “Anybody in there?” There was no answer. He moved forward, bending low to keep from striking his head. The front end had once been a hold, but now it contained a small stateroom. The bed had been used. He searched the remainder of the boat, including the tiny head, but found nothing. When he returned topside, he told his son to call the harbormaster on the ship-to-shore radio.

  “Anybody?” the boy asked.

  “Ghosts,” Spinola said. “Only ghosts.”

  126MONDAY, APRIL 24, 1961, 6:50 P.M.Moscow

  It was cool, but the air felt good after being cooped up on such a long flight. Raya Orlava eased her way down the crew ladder, hoping to find Bailov; instead she was confronted by a tall, striking woman with black hair and penetrating eyes. “Raya Orlava?”

  “Yes.”

  “Taras Ivanovich sends his regrets.”

  Did the woman imply intimacy in the way she said his name? “I expected him to be here,” she said. Fool! She knows that. Am I jealous? Best hide it.

  The woman seemed to read her thoughts. “We’re colleagues, that’s all.” Her smile seemed sincere, tuned perfectly to the voice. Raya countered with her own smile.

  “Please come with me,” the woman said, her tone suggest
ing that she was accustomed to being obeyed. Raya wanted to resist, but despite her position at the university, she was accustomed to listening to the voices of authority. One kept what one had by knowing when to submit.

  The woman took her to a Pobeda parked near the airplane and they sped into the city using the express lane reserved for the Kremlin’s big shots, ignoring traffic signals along the way while white-gloved traffic militia chased inattentive pedestrians out of their way. Eventually they reached a multistory building with a small sign that said CLINICAL ANNEX. Raya scanned the façade, but saw no bars or grates on the windows. At least it wasn’t a psychiatric hospital; she had heard rumors about such places, which made them out to be even worse than Vladimir or Lubyanka. If you weren’t crazy when they took you in, you would be when you got out—if you got out, which was the exception, not the rule. She gripped the railing to steady herself and followed her escort up the steps.

  An elevator delivered them to a floor whose cleanliness amazed her; she had been through three abortions, all in places called hospitals, but run more like abattoirs. How was it that Soviet women marked their lives by abortions instead of by babies with fat, healthy faces? Abortion clinics were not painted white inside; they were built of cinder blocks, with cement floors like bunkers. This place sparkled; it was obviously intended for patients of a privileged class, and it intimidated her. Did those below her feel the same way in her presence? Probably, she decided. To be Russian was to live with fear inspired by differences. Did Taras Ivanovich fear anything? Control yourself, she ordered.

  There were several men in the corridor. They had similar builds and haircuts and were all short, even by Soviet standards; white lab coats hung to their ankles. The men stepped out of her way, and despite her beauty made no lewd remarks. Very un-Russian. Were they eunuchs? They certainly weren’t doctors.