The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  “The essence of my profession,” the German driver said with a mischievous smile. The air was damp and heavy and Valentine had walked so much that sweat rolled off him, fogging the windows.

  The next stop was an address on Blutgasse. “Tough district,” Hinz said as he crowded the Mercedes into the traffic stream amid several dissenting horns.

  “I’m not worried,” Valentine said. “I’ve got you for a bodyguard.”

  Hinz grinned in the mirror. “That will also cost you extra. Basically I’m a pacifist.”

  Valentine went up to Mignonne Mock’s flat, picked the lock and spent nearly two hours looking around. When he passed through the coffee house, Hinz waved at him over the day’s Frankfurter Allgemeine. When he reached the cellar he was surprised to see Ezdovo sitting in the corridor outside the photo laboratory watching smoke curl up from his cigarette. Valentine took a quick look at the laboratory, then settled onto the floor beside the Russian. “Thought you’d be at the palace with your comrades.”

  Ezdovo tapped his chest. “I don’t feel it in here,” he said in German.

  “Me either. But damned if I know what I do feel. I’ve been over tomorrow’s route so many times I could walk it in my sleep.”

  The Siberian smiled and held out a cigarette pack. “Russian,” he said. “They taste like shit.”

  Valentine took one and tapped it against the heel of his hand. “It’s becoming my favorite flavor.”

  201SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1961, 7:40 P.M.Vienna

  The gown was gray-green satin, the hue of distant pines on a cloudy day, with a cramped bodice that pushed her breasts together to form an unnatural cleavage. It had no straps and the back dipped far down to bare her spine. Sylvia had no idea where the Russians had gotten it, but it was exquisite. The stockings were real silk. The shoes were a size too large, which was better than a size too small; they were new, with unmarked soles and pencil-thin three-inch heels. There was no opportunity for a shower, much less a lingering soak in a tub of hot water and bubbles, but it didn’t matter. The clothes were enough to sanitize her spirit for what was likely to be a nerve-racking night.

  As part of the security setup, the six hundred guests would all file through a door at one end of the building, and most were already filtering in; the help and entertainment would enter at the opposite end. As a precaution the Russians were paying special attention to the employees who would cook, serve and take care of the numerous behind-the-scenes tasks required of such an affair, and would be especially alert to any last-minute developments such as late arrivals or somebody calling in sick. Every worker had an identity badge that had to be checked against a master photo in the security unit. Each face was to be matched, and each person had to sign in so that signatures could also be checked.

  After dressing, Sylvia joined Gnedin in the room where the help had entered. Half a dozen Viennese police officers were there in their dress uniforms. “Anything?” the doctor asked one of them.

  “No problems,” the man reported.

  Sylvia left Gnedin with the Austrians and went to the ceremonial room, where many of the early arrivals were hovering in anticipation of the arrival of the stars of the show. There would be no receiving lines; the guests would gather in one room for cocktails, then move to another for the dinner. They stood in small groups, generally separating themselves by nationality. Typical cocktail behavior, she thought. Waiters in tight-fitting eighteenth-century costumes and plumed hats carried trays filled with glasses of champagne. Most of the waiters were young and trim and seemed to float unobtrusively between the guests, their demeanor suggesting that this was not their first exposure to the glitterati.

  Sylvia saw Bailov among the guests; dressed in a dark suit and tie, he made brief eye contact with her, but kept moving. After a while it was easy to pick out the various security people; their eyes moved constantly, while the legitimate guests chatted and smiled. Illuminated chandeliers made the room glow. By and large the women were young and dressed elegantly, while most of the men were older. Sylvia felt strangely calm as the room filled, but she wondered what Beau was doing.

  202SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1961, 8:10 P.M.Vienna

  Hinz found them in the cellar. “The meter is running,” he announced. “It’s my duty to remind you.”

  It was not the helpful act Hinz made it out to be, Valentine thought; he was afraid his fare had skipped.

  “Cool down here,” Hinz said. “More comfortable than upstairs.”

  “We think better in the darkness,” Valentine said.

  The cabdriver stepped past the two men, examined the bricked-over arch at the end of the hall and kicked halfheartedly at the structure. “Relatively new bricks,” he said. “Usually these things are falling apart.”

  “What things?” Valentine asked.

  “Plugs,” Hinz answered, tapping the wall lightly.

  “Plugs?” Ezdovo asked, his first words since the cabbie had joined them.

  Hinz turned to face them. “To keep the tramps, children and other undesirables out of the underground.”

  “A subway system?” Valentine asked. He didn’t remember the city having a subway.

  Hinz laughed. “The old city had catacombs.”

  “Here?” the Siberian asked.

  “Underneath most of the central district. In some places it stretches all the way to the river.”

  Ezdovo and Valentine looked at each other. “How extensive?” the American asked.

  Hinz rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Never been down there.” Then, seeing their sudden interest, “and I have no desire to see its mysteries. The authorities deal severely with intruders,” he added.

  “How do you get down there?” Ezdovo asked.

  The two men were fluent in German, but both had accents. The fare was American, but what was he doing with a Russian, and why all this interest in the underground, which was a mere sewer that even the cops avoided. “I don’t, and I would like to be paid now,” Hinz said. “Please.”

  “I’ll double your fare if you show us how to get down below,” Valentine said.

  “I don’t need the money,” Hinz said, backing up.

  “Triple,” Valentine came back.

  “Paid now?”

  “Half now, half after you show us.”

  “I won’t go down there for any reason.”

  “Just show us.”

  Hinz led them up to the street and into a square before a huge cathedral. “Stephansdom,” he said. “You can get into the catacombs through the burial vault in the church. There are guided tours every day.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ezdovo said as he scanned St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

  “Catacombs,” Hinz said, holding out his hand. “People say that everything is connected below. It’s easiest to get in through the church.”

  “Wait here,” Valentine yelled as he began to trot toward St. Stephen’s with the Russian beside him.

  “What about my fare?” Hinz called after them.

  “When we’ve finished,” the American shouted. “Stay put.”

  203SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1961, 8:15 P.M.Vienna

  Khrushchev and Nina Petrovna were the first principals to arrive. He wore a dark business suit and tie with a muted checkerboard pattern. He looked small but beamed his infectious smile, shamelessly showing the gap in his front teeth. Sylvia thought he looked younger than sixty-seven; photographs tended to make him look older and to round off a surprisingly sturdy frame.

  The Kennedys entered ten minutes later, the president tall, tanned and seemingly aglow with good health, a man in his prime. Mrs. Kennedy looked equally tall but undernourished, more fashion model than First Lady. She wore a sleeveless pink dress and white gloves that fit tightly above her elbows. Her smile looked manufactured and she moved with her back straight and chin up. Shy, Sylvia thought. Bird legs, narrow hips, an aloof air.

  The two leaders and their wives were taken into a small room, where they remained for several minutes. When they reappe
ared, Kennedy stayed in one place, letting others pay homage, while Khrushchev restlessly worked the room, laughing and telling stories. The contrast in their styles and appearance was striking. She wondered what the two leaders had talked about during the afternoon session. In the space of six hours it would be difficult to avoid substance, she guessed. Had the Soviets criticized the Cuban fiasco?

  At eight-thirty the guests moved into the massive room called the Great Gallery, which had vaulted ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows with arches. The head table stretched nearly fifty meters. There were glittering chandeliers and huge sconces between the windows. The walls were white, and everything in the room was gaudily accented with gold leaf. The parquet floors had been polished to a mirror sheen, which seemed to multiply the effect of the gold. When the multitude was seated, waiters immediately began to serve the first of five courses, while a forty-piece orchestra played flowing waltzes against the rhythm of flatware clinking softly against bone china. The conductor looked relaxed and confident as he smiled at the head table and let his baton guide the musicians through the score.

  Sylvia had no appetite. While the soup was being served on the imperial china of the Hapsburgs, she crumpled her napkin, excused herself and went into the hall, where Gnedin and Bailov were talking in hushed tones with Melko. “No problems so far,” she heard him say. He carried a walkie-talkie on a strap slung diagonally over his back, and acknowledged her with a nod.

  “The entertainers are warming up,” Bailov reported. “When dinner is finished everyone will be moved to the other room while the Great Gallery is reconfigured.”

  Bailov checked his watch, then motioned for Melko to go back outside. “If I go back to stealing, maybe I’ll wear a monkey suit like this,” he joked as he left. “They’ll call me the most elegant thief in Moscow.”

  Sylvia and Bailov remained in the hall while Gnedin returned to the main security room. When she looked again she saw that the guests were eating thick, dark, beef fillets covered with a sauce of wild mushrooms.

  Most of the dancers were stretching in the back room. The women wore white tights; the men’s were pale blue. The men were shorter than she expected, with narrow waists and massive thighs, their toe shoes scuffed and badly worn. One of the women warmed up with a dark cheroot dangling from her lips. Another had peeled down her top and an older woman was rubbing a pungent liniment into her back, leaving the air heavy with wintergreen. A male dancer was taping his right ankle in a figure-eight pattern, while another man held a small blond woman above his head, spinning slowly, seemingly without effort, but Sylvia saw that he was perspiring heavily; grace hid his effort. The girl over his head was stiff and looked as if her back had been cemented to his hands. Intermittent bars from a waltz wafted in from the Great Gallery; the revolving dancers in the rehearsal room were not in step and suddenly looked awkward.

  In the corridor there was a trolley filled with gaudy costumes and lace petticoats. There were a dozen doors along the hallway, all closed. Behind them she heard muted voices, male and female, singing musical scales as warm-ups; each in their own world, she thought.

  Halfway down the hall sat a corpulent man in a pleated white silk shirt with a scarlet cummerbund, his bow tie undone, his jacket draped over the chairback; he was talking to two women in red dresses. “I don’t care what that cunt Minari says, or how she feels, or if she has her period. No understudies for this, and to hell with her fucking contract. She pulls this shit before every performance. Just ignore her.”

  Sylvia watched the two women trot down the hall and duck into a room. Soon there was a burst of shouting, which abated quickly.

  “What is it?” the man asked when he saw Sylvia. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “Just looking around,” she said.

  “Try the damned zoo,” he snapped. “At least the animals there have justification for their behavior. This bunch—”

  “Security,” she explained.

  He made a face and opened his briefcase.

  She drifted back to watch the dancers and saw men in brown overalls crouched against the hallway walls; when dinner was finished they would transform the Great Gallery into a theater. The dancers’ faces looked as distracted as a photo she had once seen of Marines riding toward a beach in an LST.

  204SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1961, 8:57 P.M.Vienna

  The American and the Siberian drifted slowly through the huge cathedral. For some reason it made Valentine think of the Alamo, a lousy place for a showdown. There had been a priest stationed at an iron gate that led down a set of stairs, but when they approached he said, “No more tours tonight.” Now he was gone and the heavy brass cage that surrounded the stairs was locked.

  The two men followed the north aisle back to where it connected with one of the cathedral’s towers. Several people were standing in the nave with bowed heads; compulsive worship, Valentine thought. He sat down on the floor and leaned back against the wall to think. The Siberian squatted some distance away, surveying the shadowy vaults high overhead. Odd that Ezdovo was not with his people; what was eating him?

  Valentine had spent a lot of time poring over the updated Frash profile along with the original report, hoping for new insight, but the words seemed to blend into meaningless mush and he had eventually pitched them aside. In the old days he had never had the patience for the scholarly approach, preferring instead to let his intuition rule. Right now even that seemed to have abandoned him. Sylvia had forced him to go with her to the palace, but he had stayed only briefly and moved on. It didn’t feel right there, but was this any better? He moved closer to the Siberian. “Why aren’t you with your comrades?”

  “I found the Austrian woman, and now I intend to find the American as well. We need to find a way to the underground. Why aren’t you there?”

  “Dunno,” Valentine said. Frash was in Vienna; no doubt about that. But why? Something to do with the Albanian operation, but not necessarily the Albanians. To intercept Shehu’s people? Not likely. The Russians had sent Lumbas to Frash, and perhaps with him the plan for the Albanian operation. But then the Russians had taken Lumbas out. Why set something in motion, then stop it? Not your Russians; their Russians. He smiled at this thought. The war had been a lot more clear-cut about who your enemies were. Does Frash want his pound of flesh? Maybe. If so, then the Russians are under the gun. But Frash is deranged, which means his logic isn’t necessarily yours.

  “The underground,” Ezdovo reminded him again.

  They found Hinz outside the cathedral’s west entrance. Several gray army trucks had backed into the square, and Viennese police were supervising the unloading and setting up of white wooden barricades. “Well?” the German cabdriver asked.

  “Locked tighter than a chastity belt,” Valentine said.

  “When do I get paid?”

  “When you’re finished. You want to earn another bonus?”

  Hinz was hesitant. “For what?”

  “An errand, that’s all.” Valentine went over the instructions several times with the cabdriver before he was satisfied that he understood what had to be done. Security at the Schönbrunn would be heavy, but if Hinz did as he was told, he should be able to make contact with Sylvia and the Russians.

  205SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1961, 9:00 P.M.Vienna

  Melko had just come outside when he heard a series of sharp popping sounds. At night it was hard to pinpoint their location precisely, but he looked instinctively toward the north perimeter and walked quickly in that direction to investigate. As he got closer he heard more pops which seemed to come from the security entrance directly ahead.

  A Spetsnaz man was nearby and had a walkie-talkie next to his face. “What was it?”

  “Just firecrackers,” the man said. “Probably political malcontents,” he added. Before the guests began arriving for the reception a large crowd had gathered outside the main entrance to the Schönbrunn; the Viennese police estimated it at four to five thousand people. Most carried placards criticizing the
American president’s presence. Some signs alluded to Yalta, which was seen by some as America’s postwar giveaway of Eastern Europe to the Soviets. “It’s nothing,” the soldier said. “Just politicals. They actually tolerate such shit here.”

  Melko continued toward the main entrance and was joined along the way by Bailov, who jogged toward him out of the darkness and passed him, forcing Melko to run to keep up.

  The guards at the entrance were laughing. “I nearly shit my pants,” one of them said. “I thought they were shooting at us.”

  Whatever real shots were fired tonight would sound more like coughs than thunderclaps, Bailov knew. “What happened here?” he asked in German.

  “Just a prank,” one of the policemen said. “A car went by and somebody threw out some fireworks. With so many journalists here everybody wants attention tonight.”

  “You saw the vehicle?”

  None of the policemen had seen anything.

  The two Russians went through the gate and met two policemen coming toward them with a paper bag. “Just firecrackers,” one of them said. “See?”

  Melko shone his flashlight into the bag. There was a blackened matchbook among the fragments of firecrackers. He saw that all of the matches had been ignited. Bailov studied it and saw that one stuck out at an angle from the rest. More than once in the old days he had seen matchbooks used this way as crude timers. You lit one match, and when it burned down it ignited the others, a simple and effective way to give you time to get away.

  They went back to the entrance. “What happened?” Bailov asked again.

  “Firecrackers,” a policeman said.

  “No, after that.”

  “Most of us ducked.” The man laughed. “A natural reaction,” he added defensively.

  “Who was here? Was anybody coming through?”