Who's on First

by William F. Buckley

  There had been just that one night when they discussed such matters as Soviet authoritarianism explicitly. It was after she told him yes, she would marry him; told him she would never have married any other man, if he had not asked her, and he had broken down with the joy that filled him, and they hugged, and walked and walked until the dawn came in that crystal night during the whole of which the snowflakes came down gently as sanctifying grace.

  He talked then about Vorkuta. She knew, of course, about his background. But graduates of katorga are disinclined to talk about it, except among themselves. Viktor, in several hours, gave her an idea, but found himself incapable of saying it all. She had heard him speak frequently of his best friend, Vadim Platov, and now he reiterated that he owed to Vadim his survival. “I remember after the first week, I made a very conscious decision. That decision was to die. That was when Vadim wrestled with me. He wrestled with me as desperately as if he had come upon me drowning in the middle of a lake and was determined to bring me to the shore alive with him. It wasn’t easy to do. During the work hours we were not permitted to talk, except at the fifteen-minute break for lunch. And at night; in whispers, in the barracks. Vadim took me on. He would force me to listen, force me to use my mind, force me to give attention to what he said. He clearly knew he was engaged in therapy, but he never by any word or movement suggested that I was fainthearted, or crippled, or anything but a human being, with a soul, a mind, and a body that could—theoretically—survive. It took a very, very long time. I came out of it in six months, though I was pessimistic even after that, right up until The Death. We used to play with statistics”—arm in arm they crossed the street, on which traffic had all but disappeared. Tamara knew about Viktor’s prowess with figures—“and the statistics weren’t reassuring. But Vadim had a way of putting it: ‘If there is one survivor in one thousand, there is no objective reason why you should not be that survivor. In fact, there are more than one-per-thousand survivors—so there’s room for me, too.’ I have to confess, Tamara, that if something had happened to Vadim, I am quite certain that I would have edged back to desperation, then lassitude, stupor, death. We saw it happen. Over and over again. They could have worn placards: ‘PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB. I AM ENGAGED IN DYING. IT WILL TAKE A WHILE. PARDON THE INCONVENIENCE.’”

  He spoke then about his detestation of the system. “Stalin was certainly unique. There cannot have been two Stalins in the history of just one planet. Stalin in a zoo, that would have redeemed the socialist experiment. Stalin as chief of state: that is a condemnation of a system. But I have made up my mind, and you are the principal reason for it. I will never speak about the system. About Soviet politics. Not to anybody. Not”—he gripped her hand—“to you, after tonight. It is the only way. Total abstinence. I am a political celibate, as of this moment and, you will soon discover”—he grinned, and there was, way back there, the trace of the sometime boy—“all my tensions, from the time we marry, will be priapic.” Tamara smiled, and rested her head on his shoulder, as he went on talking.

  And that was, and remained, the protocol.

  But over the next few years, although they never broke the code, it was a part of their intimacy to experience together the frustrations particular to the system, the forms, the interrogations, the inquiries about fellow workers, the obviously intercepted mail, the eavesdropping, the telephone taps. “I have two tasks ahead of me,” Viktor had said on that white night as he held her back suddenly to avoid a speeding official car. “The first is to help design a rocket that will reach either the moon or Washington, D.C.; the second is to find an apartment for us. The first is an immensely complex project and will almost certainly prove easier than the second.”

  They lingered in East Berlin for very nearly two hours, sitting in the hot airplane, and of course no explanation was given. Finally they were airborne, and beer and cold sandwiches were passed around. Viktor munched on his and said, “I wonder if there will be any deviation from the sort of thing we did in Rome?”

  “Not according to the schedule.”

  Indeed their time was to be taken up from breakfast until their return to the hotel, the Grand. She fished out a sheaf of papers from her purse, and began to read aloud: “Monday. 0730: Convene for breakfast. 0830: Bus departs for Lycée. 0900–1200: Sessions, Lycée. 1210: Depart on bus to hotel. 1300: Lunch. 1400: Return to Lycée by bus. 1430–1700: Lycée. 1700–1830: Bus tour of Paris. 1900: Reception, Soviet Embassy … Shall I go on?”

  “Do we get to see Versailles?”

  She scanned the three sheets of paper.

  “No. But we get to see the Museum of the 1870 Commune.”

  “Louvre?”

  “Yes, Wednesday.”

  “Maybe some evening, after we are taken back to the hotel, we can get out?”

  “It says here, ‘No member of the delegation shall leave the hotel except as specified in this schedule. Any emergencies should be discussed with Pyotr Viksne.’” Viksne served them now, even as on the trip to Rome, as (a) tour director, (b) political officer, and (c) KGB agent. On the guest list given to the French, he was referred to as “Academician Viksne.”

  “Perhaps we should call him at two in the morning and tell him the toilet doesn’t work?”

  “Better not. The plumbers’ union in Paris may be a Communist union, and we’d be nailed with an Article 58.”

  Both of them recognized they were flirting with a transgression of The Protocol. No doubt flying over free territory—they were nearing the Rhine—had made them licentious.

  They returned to their reading and, as they crossed Paris on the approach to Orly, craned to view the city they had read about since childhood. Tamara spotted the Eiffel Tower and yelled out her pleasure so loudly that other members of the delegation in turn strained to see out the little cloudy windows of the plane. Ivan Dyakov, with his omnipresent camera, leaned high over Viktor and Tamara to take a picture. At the platform a welcoming committee from the Union of Democratic Scientists met them and there were two or three reporters and photographers. The reporters asked, through interpreters, when the Russians would launch a satellite. Academician Nesmayanov, on behalf of the delegation, smiled, and pulling out a notebook read out in rapid French: “Nous sommes très heureux de visiter en France pour aider les travaux scientifiques pour la libération du peuples opprimés. Nous seront bien heureux de recevoir, en septembre, les distingués scientistes français pour leur retourner l’hommage qu’ils nous offerent.” He folded the note neatly, put it in his pocket, and proceeded down the corridor followed by his delegation, without any further thought given to the press.

  “What did he say?”—Viktor had trouble with French spoken rapidly—he asked Tamara.

  “The usual business. Thanked our hosts, said we democratic scientists have a lot in common, and we will be glad to see them in September.”

  Viktor said nothing. As requested, he handed his own and Tamara’s passports to Viksne, who muttered in Russian that he would return them on the plane going back. “You won’t need them until then.” And there, as always, was the bus, parked only a few paces from the baggage compartment.

  8

  Boris Andreyevich Bolgin was in Paris on his monthly visit from London and, as ever, occupied the office of the military attaché, who obligingly moved—somewhere; Bolgin did not bother to ask and did not care where. Everybody was obliging to Bolgin, ambassadors included, because Bolgin’s dispositions tended to be accepted in Moscow as final. The wonder of it was that he had survived the purge of Beria, notwithstanding Bolgin’s high standing as chief of KGB counterintelligence for Western Europe and therefore his presumed closeness to his boss. Twelve long years earlier, when Stalin reinstated the katorga and appeared hungry to send there everyone who ever worked for him, Bolgin had reached a calm decision, the fruit of that serenity uniquely disposed of by many who had already experienced katorga, as Bolgin had, during a purge in the thirties. He never traveled without his cyanide pill; that was his daytime rule
. His nighttime rule: Never go to sleep sober. A corollary of this rule was: Never seek companionship, male or female, at dinner or later. As a younger man he liked to talk, and he liked especially to talk when he was well lubricated. When they let him out of the camp, requiring as they did his language skills in the war, he was a changed man, receiving stoically the news of his wife’s divorce and disappearance with their child. He simply went to work, using his skills as a linguist and his cunning as a spy, and then spymaster. He had made it a rule to resist as forcefully as he could any promotion. In that way he never troubled his superiors or his peers. He pleaded with Ilyich not to give him all of Western Europe. But Ilyich had insisted, and Bolgin reluctantly accepted the assignment, on the understanding that all disciplinary arrangements would be made by Moscow, directly. In that way he survived, combining an apparent fair-mindedness with absolute personal privacy and that mysteriousness that came from nobody’s knowing, as ambassadors and agents came and went, whether they had been summoned to Moscow, for reward or for punishment, as the result of one of Boris Andreyevich Bolgin’s personal communications.

  He was one of six Soviet agents in Europe who had the privilege of a personal code. When he elected to use that code, which was frequently, he would eject the operator from the encoding room and tap out his message himself. He would be brought replies, or instructions, from Moscow in the same code, undecipherable except by himself.

  When he cabled from London the number of the flight on which he would be arriving, all the customary arrangements had been made. He was met by a KGB embassy guard in an unassuming Renault, his little hotel suite at the Montalembert was booked, and the locked suitcase, stored in the embassy in his absence, was in the room waiting for him. In it he kept a dozen paperback copies of Dostoevski, Tolstoi, Pushkin, Gogol, and several liters of vodka, in plastic containers.

  He ordered the cable traffic from European capitals, and from Moscow and Washington, brought in. One, from Moscow, was addressed to him personally. It read: “DID WE PICK UP BLACKFORD OAKES IN PARIS REPLY ILYICH.” Bolgin picked up the office telephone and sent for the code clerk. “Bring in Saturday’s cables from Washington.”

  He leafed through them. At 1713 on Saturday, this cable had been received by the Paris chief of station, Sverdlov: “AGENT BLACKFORD OAKES DEPARTED 1000 EDT PANAM FLIGHT #104 DESTINATION PARIS:” He did some quick calculation. The transatlantic flight, eastbound, would take ten or eleven hours. Oakes would therefore have arrived in Paris sometime after midnight. He picked up the telephone: “Sverdlov.” He was put through instantly: “Bolgin. Come, please.”

  The chief of station, a stocky, light-skinned man wearing an ill-fitting brown suit and gray vest, came to attention in front of Bolgin’s desk—Bolgin had the rank of colonel. “Relax.” Bolgin waved him toward the chair adjacent, under the picture of Lenin. He passed the cable over to him.

  “No, Colonel, we didn’t pick him up. We have only that one picture of Oakes, you know. You’re the only person in the European theater who has ever seen him, since we lost Erika. The plane was chock-full. We managed to get a look at the manifest, but there was no Oakes listed. So we don’t even know what name he’s traveling under. And he hasn’t been near the U.S. Embassy, which of course isn’t surprising.”

  “Have you begun a hotel search?”

  “No, sir. I knew you were coming in, so I thought I’d wait and see whether you wanted to do a search. I am aware, Colonel, of your instructions not to overuse our hotel contacts.”

  Boris Bolgin tapped his fingers on the desk while he reflected. He pointed to the cable that had just come in. “Moscow wants to know: Did we pick him up? What, my dear Sverdlov, do you wish me to reply? ‘No.’—or ‘Not yet’?”

  “I understand, sir. You wish the full dragnet?”

  “Let me see the picture you have.”

  Sverdlov reached for the telephone, and presently a stout woman arrived with a folder.

  Bolgin looked at it. “Sometimes I cannot understand our Washington office. For three years we have asked for a more up-to-date picture of Oakes. They follow him around even to airports, but they don’t bother to get more pictures. It is lucky for them I am not in charge of the Washington office. Still … this is only … five years old. I don’t suppose that handsome fox has grown a beard”—he tugged at his own goatee. He depressed a button and a stenographer came in. “This is to Washington, Seryogin. ‘RE OAKES CONTACT ORLY UNMADE. PROCEEDING WITH SEARCH. ADVISE IF HE DEPARTED USING ANY DISGUISE.’” And to Sverdlov: “They won’t wake Seryogin up for that, so we won’t get an answer until after lunch. Hold up the search until then, so we’ll know what we’re looking for.” Sverdlov rose to go. As he reached the door, Bolgin, while scanning the next cable, said, “By the way, Sverdlov, are you related to the Sverdlov who ordered the execution of the Czar?”

  Sverdlov drew his shoulders back. “I have the honor, Colonel, to be his grandson.”

  “Well, well. Yes. Well, that was a very efficient operation. Yes. Eleven people were there, and we got them all using only seventy-seven bullets.”

  Sverdlov watched his superior closely, attempting to frame an appropriate reply. He decided to be cautious.

  “As you say, Colonel.”

  That young man will go far, thought Bolgin, waving his finger in dismissal as he returned to the cables.

  9

  Sitting in the driver’s seat of the French taxicab, Blackford Oakes rehearsed yet again what he had gone over so many times with Rufus and Trust. It might very well not work, in which case the alternative plan, concededly less expeditious, would be put into operation the next day. So much depended on whether Soviet-trained Russians could act spontaneously. Vadim thought it workable. “On the second hand, I do not know Viksne. If he is one hundred percent the martinet, then we might have our trouble.”

  “If he’s one hundred percent martinet,” Rufus had answered, “what would he do? Order another bus? From where? There are no streetcars to the Grand from there. They’ve got to take taxis. It’s certainly too far to walk.”

  Blackford was dressed in a black beret and the blue painter’s smock so common among French taxi drivers. He was eating slowly, visibly, from a lunch box and from time to time filling a small glass from an unmarked half liter of red wine. He had resolved that if addressed by anyone he would speak the few words of French he knew in a heavy German accent, there being a couple of dozen Germans who drove cabs in Paris. He thought it unlikely that anyone would accost him, parked as he was by a warehouse on the other side of the street from the Lycée. His Off Duty sign was clearly lit. The seat on his right was hidden by parcels that reached almost to the ceiling of the car. Other parcels occupied a full one third of the rear area. He was apparently engaged in deliveries, taking a quick break for lunch, and not, therefore, available to passengers. He checked, under his dashboard, the battery level of the detonating device and immediately reproached himself for feeling any necessity to do so again, having checked it only fifteen minutes earlier. The route so carefully prepared would take him by a total of fifteen red lights before the access point to the highway. He had rehearsed a driving speed calculated to arrive when each of the lights was green. This required him in some stretches to go as slowly as fifteen miles per hour; in others, as fast as thirty-five miles per hour. In order to activate this schedule, it was required that he pass the first light, at Faubourg St.-Antoine, exactly at midpoint during the full minute it stayed green. On easing into Rue Faidherbe, he could expect to see Trust’s blue Mercedes. Blackford would adapt his speed so as to trail the Mercedes, which would stopwatch the preselected maze.

  At 12:12 he saw the column of figures walking out of the Lycée toward the bus. The figure in the lead was a man whose picture he had carefully studied—Viksne, a small, chunky man obviously accustomed to giving orders, and to setting the pace. It was warm and sunny but Viksne was amply dressed, vest included, and carried a raincoat in one hand, a briefcase in the other. There followed, in
groups of two and three, the dozen scientists and the two interpreters. The scientists carried briefcases, including the girl, Tamara, who walked arm in arm with the lithe, tall, slightly bent-over figure of Viktor Kapitsa. Two of the scientists, wearing cameras about their necks, paused to take pictures, of the Lycée, of themselves, of the bus. They were an animated, but well-harnessed lot. As they walked into the bus, some loitered to permit others to enter first: There is no more rigid hierarchy than in classless societies. Even Viksne was deferring to the venerable Nesmayanov—but no, Viksne was in fact letting all his wards get into the bus before doing so himself, occupying the seat opposite the driver, who cranked up the engine at exactly 12:16. Blackford turned on his motor and eased his Off Duty taxicab behind the bus, keeping a distance of about two thirds of a block.

  Down they went, on the Avenue Daumesnil, across the Place Félix Eboué, up the slight rise to the Rue de Reuilly. As the bus approached the Boulevard Diderot, with its hefty, placid apartment buildings on either side, an area where no policemen doing regular duty could be found, Blackford took a breath, put his hand under the dashboard, fingered the toggle switch on the detonating mechanism, and clicked it down. Instantly there was an explosion inside the engine of the bus. It ground to a halt as smoke issued from the motor. The delegation filed out in some excitement; the bus driver gesticulated wildly while attempting to open the hood of the bus without success. Viksne and Nesmayanov were animated as they spoke and one or two cars passed the bus, no one volunteering any help.

  Now! thought Blackford—and guided his taxi to that part of the street where Tamara stood, stopping within a foot of her.

  Smiling, he said in French: “Where are you headed?”

  Tamara looked at Viktor for guidance. Viktor approached the ingratiating languid taxi driver, and in awkward French, managed to say: “To the Hôtel-Grand, at Rue Scribe. Are you by any chance going by there?”