The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  Rakimov was sixty, short, obese, ruddy-cheeked and a heavy smoker, the sort who exuded a remarkable natural affinity and affability for anyone he encountered. The holder of three university degrees, he spoke English with a Midwestern American accent, and could talk knowledgeably about American culture, from the lackluster sales of the 1959 Edsel to National Football League standings and the accounting practices of the Hollywood studio system. Raconteur, eclectic, linguist, he was that rare individual who would rise to the top no matter where he was born.

  Ezdovo first met Rakimov on Sunday to arrange a twice-daily review of incoming requests for press credentials. The Siberian’s authority derived from a letter from Khrushchev, which Rakimov barely glanced at. Ten minutes into their initial meeting he asked Ezdovo to call him Volodya, and proceeded to relate how he had recently divorced his wife of thirty-four years and married a woman who would turn thirty-five in mid-June, adding that he was anxious about having left his beautiful bride alone in Moscow. “Zhenya had lots of boyfriends, legions of them,” he said, “but she chose me. Who can understand women?”

  Ezdovo was not deceived by Rakimov’s breezy style. If the woman had picked him over so many others, no doubt she had done so in part because she wanted access to his power. His looks and age certainly had not attracted her.

  The plan was for the Siberian to come to the embassy at noon and again at 7:00 P.M. each day. On each visit the KGB man would have a new list ready for him.

  This morning Rakimov was his usual ebullient self. “I had a telephone conversation with Zhenya last night,” he said immediately. “She misses me terribly and says she needs no birthday gift other than my safe return. Can you imagine?” He lowered his voice. “I worry about our—compatibility,” he confessed. “Right now it’s fantastic, but I’m no longer a young man. Is your wife younger than you?”

  Ezdovo recognized that Rakimov was fishing. Reveal a few personal details that may or may not be true, then use them to troll for information. It was like priming a pump, but even though he recognized it for what it was, Ezdovo was impressed. Volodya was so friendly and open that you had to fight the desire to tell him what he wanted to know. Stalin’s people had been much different, using brute force rather than charm. In this regard there had been changes in the sort of men who held power in the Kremlin, and in how they operated. The old ones had been iron-fisted party hacks whose major qualification was a willingness to do Stalin’s bidding. The new ones are different, the Siberian thought, and probably more effective, though their goal—to preserve the status quo—is identical. He decided that the best way to handle Rakimov was to ignore his questions.

  “Where’s the list?”

  “Nothing exciting,” Rakimov said, paying no attention to the rebuff. This was also his style. Cast and retrieve, cast and retrieve; no matter what happens, keep the bait in the water. “It’s no wonder Americans can’t protect their secrets. Too many reporters, each following his own scent. Even so, they’re an interesting lot. Enterprising as hell, which no doubt is a product of capitalism. Or,” he went on, casting again, “perhaps they’re capitalists because they’re enterprising, the system reflecting the people rather than the other way around. What do you think?”

  “What’s the total now?” Ezdovo asked as he scanned the new list.

  “Just under one thousand. Ever been in the States?”

  “No.”

  “In America you have to have a strong sense of self-interest, otherwise you perish. The Americans maintain that we’re no different.” He was fishing for some indication of political reliability. “Perhaps they’re right.”

  “Our people are unique,” Ezdovo said.

  “Remarkable place,” Rakimov prattled on. “Absolute chaos. They’re like pack animals at each other’s throat. To have too much freedom is to have no freedom at all. If we were to pluck an ordinary citizen out of—” Rakimov paused. “Where did you say you were from, comrade?”

  “I didn’t,” Ezdovo said coolly.

  “As I was saying, pluck an ordinary citizen from a Byelorussian collective, put him in New York and he would think he had been abducted by aliens from outer space. Trust me on this. I’ve seen it. Spent eight years in New York. My first wife loathed it, all but the food. She was fat as a prize sow.”

  Ezdovo slid the folder back across the desk. “Thank you,” he said.

  Rakimov tapped the folder with his pipe. “If I knew what you were looking for, comrade, perhaps I could be of more help.”

  Ezdovo smiled. “Where did you say you were from?”

  Rakimov’s grin faded. “I’ll have an update for you tonight,” he said, turning to pick up the telephone.

  171TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1961, 6:15 P.M.Georgetown

  Venema’s office was in a stone building in Gothic style on the periphery of what served as the Georgetown University campus. The ground level contained two laboratories and a small conference room. The sign outside read INTERVIEW RESEARCH INSTITUTE. Arizona wondered how the Jesuit powers would react if they knew that IRI had been wholly financed by the Company. With a yawn, he decided. Georgetown had built its academic prowess around international studies, and probably had more government consultants than any academic institution in the country. The Jesuit order had lost its once-immense power because the various governments they served came to fear them; in time the fear passed, the order had been rechartered, and now the Jesuits were back on familiar ground, hand in glove with politicans. Some things never change.

  Arizona was escorted to Venema’s upstairs office by a heavyset brunette who spoke English with a Polish accent. Venema was behind a mound of papers at a huge oak desk, tipped back in a swivel chair, a folder in his lap, feet up, a pipe clenched in his teeth. Arizona had called him after talking to Sylvia. “That his file?” the CIA man asked as he sat down.

  “I’d say that our Mr. Frash is coming unglued,” Venema said. “You think of him as a rogue, but I see him as something else. People like this have their own patterns. We know he’s schizophrenic, with two personalities battling for superiority in the same brain.”

  “Spare me the medical bullshit,” Arizona growled.

  “The bullshit, as you put it, is essential to our being able to predict his behavior. Schizophrenia is not unusual in killers like this who strike randomly.”

  “Fuck random. The bastard knows what he’s doing.”

  Venema paused to regroup. “Let’s not play semantic games. The killings are random. In this type what you find are two distinct personalities and conflicting value systems. Two for the price of one. Statics is afforded by a crude but efficient division of labor, each personality taking on certain roles and functions split along some arbitrary line of demarcation, often a moral one.”

  “Like one likes sweet, the other likes sour?”

  “It’s not that clear cut or simplistic, but that’s the general idea. In this case our man appeared to be fixated on overthrowing the present Albanian regime. His father was cast out by those who held office. Frash carries the stigma, the father’s sins inherited by the son, probably with the mother as the conduit, which again is predictable.”

  “The Albanian fixation causes the schizophrenia?”

  “You’re looking for sin when you ought to be looking for chemistry,” Venema said. “A tiger is born a tiger. Frash was born with schizophrenia, just as he was born with a certain eye and hair color. A lot of people don’t buy that but I do. It was there from the start. The Albanian trigger came into play later. A father fails at something; the son tries to succeed as a means of atonement. These things exacerbate rather than cause. Failure can motivate everything in its wake, especially where there is a perceived higher order of morality. Royalty often engages in such fanaticism; in fact, one could argue convincingly that royalists are the products of such a force. As evidence we have Russian expatriates protecting the myth of the identity of Anastasia for decades. Or networks of ex-Nazis dedicated to reestablishing Aryan supremacy. Irish Catholics and Pr
otestants in America buy weapons for factions in Northern Ireland. Our Jews send money to Israel and provide information to the Mossad. Armenians in Detroit seek revenge against Turks and Russians. Kurds bide their time for revenge against Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey and the Soviet Union. Latvian expatriates are raised on their native language and customs, the idea being to preserve the culture until the country can be reclaimed. These motivations take on lives of their own, but as time passes the first-generation passion tends to ebb. For most members of such groups there’s token support for the perceived holy mission, a shared vision that helps keep them together in an environment seen as essentially foreign and hostile. It’s only a small number of these fires that burn brightly, and these people become the priests of the cause, the true believers.”

  “Frash’s parents?”

  “From what I could assemble, it was primarily the mother,” Venema said, “but I’m dealing with bits and pieces, so I have to interpolate. We know that the progeny of such people tend either to reject the basic premise entirely, or else take it to new extremes. In the latter case the child feels guilt for not having suffered as extensively as the parent has, so he embraces the cause with greater intensity as a way of demonstrating his worthiness. As time goes by the elders adapt to new realities, but the neophyte doesn’t, and therefore he tends to become an isolated soldier in the cause; factions often sprout from such seed. Depending on the time of onset, the process of adolescence complicates matters. In the case of males, there’s the natural complication of adolescent rebelliousness, a figurative killing of the father so that the boy can pass into adulthood. As part of this, he may begin to assign blame to his father.”

  “Frash begins to think that Zog fell because of his father’s inadequacies, so the group shame becomes his individual shame? Therefore he decides to do something about it?”

  “That’s pretty much how it works. It would seem foolish to normal folk, but it’s quite real to a believer.”

  “Meaning that the Albanian operation was real in his mind?”

  “I’d say it was his raison d’être. He was its spiritual head, architect and general, and eventually he would be its primary beneficiary.”

  “But he was also running the Russian agent.”

  “This is schizophrenia hitting on all cylinders. Because of his parents’ dual lives the man-boy has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. He strives to achieve, and whatever he undertakes, he does well; that is, he ran the Russian agent effectively because it was his job, what you expected. One part of him concentrated on reality while the other part focused on the mythical cause. Both parts serve different masters and serve them well until the moment comes when one must be chosen over the other.”

  “The killing of Lumbas.”

  “Possibly,” Venema said, “but it doesn’t really matter. What we do know is that something provoked a crisis; whatever it was has now knocked him off balance, so there’s probably a war between his competing personalities. He’s probably oscillating back and forth; first one personality gets control, then the other, with frequent and unpredictable reversals. The result is an escalating internal combat to see which will ultimately prevail.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Patterns,” Venema said. “Both parts work as one to acquire confederates. One part uses them—to wit, the Dutch woman—and leaves it at that. The other part uses people, then kills them, as in Venice, and again in Austria. From what we’ve seen we can surmise that our Mr. Frash will undoubtedly recruit another female to help him resolve his morality play. Gender is crucial. Because he’s at war with his father, his mother becomes his ally. He clings to her because she’s the opposite of his father, and because she provides a way to reject the father, yet maintain loyalty to the family unit and therefore to the cause. Women are tools to be employed in his quest; if Frash is in Vienna you can bet there’ll be a woman with him. Find her and you’ll find him.”

  Most of the foregoing was mumbo jumbo to Arizona, but this last bit might be useful. “What sort of woman?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Venema said. “She’ll be a risk taker, aggressive I would think, somebody looking to change her own circumstances in some way. I expect that she’ll have some degree of competence—a career, perhaps. She’ll be attractive but not easily swayed by just any man who comes along. Don’t look for hotel maids or hausfraus. Whatever environment she’s in she’ll stand out in some way, perhaps negatively because she’s not likely to conform to the community’s expectations for women.”

  “Will he kill her?”

  “When he’s finished with her.”

  “We should look for the woman rather than him?”

  “It’s an option. My guess is that he’ll use her as a shield, so only she will be visible.”

  “Say we find him, how do you suggest we approach him?”

  Venema dumped his pipe into an ashtray. “That’s more in your line of expertise.”

  172WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1961, 9:20 A.M.Vienna

  Every journalist requesting accreditation had to visit the summit press center in the ministry offices near the Schönbrunn Palace, but Mignonne Mock was not the sort to be hemmed in by details; her own credentials had already been vetted and now she wanted speedy approval for her new partner. To avoid bureaucratic entanglements she went directly to the Hofburg Palace to see an old friend, the senior press aide to Austrian president Adolf Schärf.

  Richard Wehrmann was thirty, blond, tall, square-jawed, outgoing and known to his closest friends as Dickie. In 1956 he had been a favorite for a downhill medal in the Winter Olympics, but he had taken a catastrophic spill in a practice run and now had several steel pins holding together his right leg. Always a media favorite, Wehrmann’s appointment to the president’s staff had been widely applauded. He wore nicely tailored double-breasted dark suits and walked with the assistance of a cane whose handgrip was a brass skier.

  “My favorite meddler,” Wehrmann greeted Mock. He took her hand and touched his nose to it. “Radiant,” he said, looking at her sleeveless white cotton dress and wide-brimmed straw hat. He knew she had dressed up for him, which meant that she was after something. They had been friends for several years, and though both had once considered the possibility of an affair, they had each decided that it would ruin their friendship, and because of this they had rejected intimacy. Now Wehrmann was married to an attractive woman who played the cello in the Vienna Philharmonic.

  “You look well, Dickie. You must make sweet music with your wife. It shows on your face.”

  Wehrmann laughed and waved her to a high-backed chair by his desk. His office looked as if it had been lifted from the nineteenth century. One wall held a sepia study of a nude by Gustav Klimt. “The life of a musician is worse than a skier’s,” he said. “Practice, practice. I tell Ann-Sophie not to be so driven, but she counters, ‘As you were not driven?’” Wehrmann had been known as a perfectionist who practiced relentlessly while his teammates soaked in spas and partied. He laughed at his wife’s words. “She knows me too well.”

  “As do I,” Mock said. “I have myself a photographer, a brilliant Italian. He’s unknown for now, but he does exquisite work. I need credentials for him.”

  “Previous press experience?”

  “None. He thinks he’s an artist,” she answered with a laugh.

  Wehrmann smiled, returned to his desk and took a piece of stationery from a lacquered box. Mock opened her purse and put Sirini’s identity papers on the leather desk pad. The press aide scanned them and jotted down the necessary information. “You should request credentials through normal channels,” he reminded her as he wrote.

  “You know very well that I hate standing in lines,” she said. “I want to put him to work right away—which reminds me, any interesting tidbits to share off the record?”

  Wehrmann grinned. Good friend or not, Mock’s reputation as a journalistic shark was legendary. “I can process the application, but you understand that y
our Italian will have to be vetted by both the Americans and the Russians. However, there should be no problem as long as I vouch for him. I’ll ask them to hurry. Come back tonight at six.”

  She pretended to pout. “So late?”

  Wehrmann pushed the papers back to her and shook his head. She never let up. “All right, make it four. I’ll take care of this personally.”

  “And once again I’ll be in your debt, Dickie.”

  “Which, like all the others, will never be repaid,” Wehrmann said with a laugh as he walked her to the door. “Is the Italian also sharing your bed?”

  She kissed him on the cheek. “You’re a naughty boy to ask such a personal question. You had your chance.”

  Frash was waiting on the street. “Any problem?”

  “I have to come back at four.”

  “It’s that easy?”

  “It pays to have connections,” Mock said, getting into the automobile.

  Dickie Wehrmann was standing on the balcony outside his office savoring his morning cigar when he saw her emerge from the entrance and fall into step with a man. Her car was parked where it didn’t belong, of course. Was that her photographer? Probably not; he looked only vaguely like the photograph on the passport she had given him. It would be an inconvenience to take care of her request, but one’s duty to a friend ranked second only to obligations to one’s family.

  173WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1961, 6:00 P.M.Vienna

  Bailov went to the summit security center and roused the Soviet duty officer, a clean-shaven Red Army major with burn scars on the left side of his face. The major was a by-the-book sort; the authorization letter from Khrushchev did not satisfy him, and in the end Bailov was forced to show him his Red Badge, which made him more cooperative but not happily so. Within minutes he produced an Austrian police officer, but when Bailov dismissed the major, he showed his displeasure by slamming the door as he left. It occurred to the Spetsnaz commander that life in the Soviet Union was changing and that the days of the Red Badge’s unquestioned authority were disappearing. After learning what was required, the policeman made two telephone calls, then directed Bailov to the Zoning and Deeds Office in the New Town Hall on Rathausplatz. The Soviet major turned his back as Bailov passed him in an outer office.