by Greg Dinallo
“But what does she want?” Zeitzev interrupted.
“I couldn’t hear what they were saying,” Marco replied in a perplexed whine. “But I can find out.”
Gorodin swung a skeptical look to Zeitzev.
“It’s the truth,” Marco said, seeing it. “What reason would I have to make it up?”
“I can think of at least five hundred thousand,” Gorodin said. He grasped one of Marco’s arms, and pushed up the sleeve. The veins ran in pale gray streaks. He shrugged at the absence of needle marks.
“Maybe, this Miss Winslow is the prevaricator,” the rezident ventured.
“Are you suggesting she’s a professional?”
“It’s possible.”
Gorodin shook his head. “It doesn’t sound like the Company’s way of doing business. Besides, what could Boulton find out about Comrade Deschin that he doesn’t already know?”
Zeitzev’s eyes speculated.
Gorodin nodded grudgingly at the implication.
“The usual hundred thousand lire,” Zeitzev said, dismissing Marco. “My secretary will take care of it.”
Marco sighed and left the office, closing the door after him.
Zeitzev crossed to the half-fridge and opened it. The rank odor in the office intensified. He removed a wedge of cheese, and unwrapped it. “We’ll have to find out what this Miss Winslow’s up to,” he said, then clarifying, added, “But she’s my problem. You deal with Churcher.”
“My orders are to refrain from interfering with Churcher as long as he sticks to business,” Gorodin replied, deciding he’d better establish his authority. “Moscow doesn’t want to raise suspicion that the services were involved in his father’s death.”
“Yes, my briefing included that task, but not why it was necessary,” Zetizev replied solicitously.
“With good reason,” Gorodin said sharply. “Its classification prohibits it. I can tell you, comrade, that the Politburo wants the flow of hard currency from the Arabians to continue. They’re counting on Andrew Churcher to peddle them. And we have no proof he’s doing otherwise.”
The rezident nodded, accepting the sudden turn in their positions reluctantly.
“Who will you use on the woman,” Gorodin asked, purposely maintaining the reversal.
“Marco.”
“The schpick?”
“He’s the best student on my roster,” Zeitzev said. “And he’s already in position.”
Gorodin let out a weary breath, and shrugged.
* * * * * *
Chapter Twenty-six
After filling out the official requisition forms, Melanie Winslow followed the supervisor through a thick wooden door that led to the rooms directly below the university’s Records Building. They went down an old staircase that twisted back on itself. Bare light bulbs threw angled shadows across the walls. Cobwebs hung like drapery from darkened corners. The eerie descent brought them into a damp stone room, where they walked between rows of wooden tables that held cloth-bound ledgers.
Melanie was thinking of the reclusive men who had spent lifetimes in such places, painstakingly inscribing each entry by candlelight, when the supervisor stopped walking and gestured to a table beneath a bare bulb.
“You can work there,” she said.
Melanie’s head was filled with musty air, her skin was crawling with the dampness, and she was having second thoughts about her suggestion.
“Have any idea where I should start?” she asked. The anxiety had dried her throat, and her voice cracked when she spoke.
“Well, it doesn’t look like whoever brought all of this material down here was big on alphabetizing,” the supervisor replied. “But those might be what you’re after.”
She pointed to an alcove where boxes and file folders and ledgers were piled on wooden tables. The stacks tottered and leaned threatening to fall, the floor littered with those that already had.
“Good luck,” she said.
“Thanks, I’ll need it.”
“You’ll be fine,” the supervisor said with a smile. “By the way, I’m Lena, Lena Catania.”
Melanie grasped the hand she offered, and shook it lightly, feeling a little more relaxed. “Where’d you learn your English?”
“California. I think I was four when we moved there. My father was working for a wine exporter at the time. Well, see you later.” Lena turned to the staircase, paused, and turned back. “We leave at five, and the door is locked. Make sure you’re out by then.”
“Thanks,” Melanie replied as she sat at the wooden table, like the monks she had imagined. She didn’t know exactly when Aleksei Deschin had attended the university, so she began with the first class of the modern era, a thick folder dated 1935. It gave off the dank odor of mildew, and the turn of each page filled the air with particles of dust that made her throat scratchy. The folder contained not only academic qualifications and evaluations but also personal histories and family backgrounds, the kind of information she sought, which heartened her.
She had been at it for several hours when she heard a creaking sound above, and cocked her head curiously. “Lena?” she called out. “That you?”
There was no response.
Melanie shifted in her chair uneasily, and looked at her watch. It was almost four thirty. A few pages remained in the folder she was examining. She decided to leave now, and take it with her. That’s when she heard footsteps on the stairs. First one, then another, like someone carefully placing each foot, to make as little noise as possible. She got up from the table and crossed to the staircase.
“Lena?” she called out again.
Again no response.
She started up the stairs. Cautiously, at first, craning to see around each turn as she approached it. Then, anxiety building, she started climbing faster.
Suddenly, there was a loud click and the lights went out, plunging the space into absolute blackness.
Melanie froze on the staircase.
“Excuse me?” she called out. “There’s someone down here! Please wait!”
Now the footsteps ascended—quickly, noisily.
She grasped the railing, and started running up the stairs in the darkness. Her shins smacked into the treads. She groped and stumbled and fell. The door hinge creaked above. She got to her feet and resumed climbing. Faster and faster, through one turn in the twisting staircase, then another. It couldn’t be much further now. It couldn’t. Oh God, it could! She shuddered at the memory of demons chasing her up a staircase that had no end; night after night as a child, she had climbed it in sweat-soaked terror until her father would hear the thrashing and hold her in his arms until she was sleeping peacefully again. She came through still another turn. The door lay dead ahead. A shaft of light came from between the frame and the thick wooden edge. It was still open! She dashed up the last few steps, and lunged for it.
On the opposite side, Marco Profetta listened as the onrushing footsteps came closer and closer. He waited until the very last moment, and then he slammed the massive door shut, and threw the deadbolt home.
Melanie’s palms slapped against the wood just as it closed with a heavy thud, and clang of the bolt.
“There’s someone in here!” she shouted. “Open the door, please! Lena! Marco! Anybody?”
Marco stepped back from the door, and snickered. A short time ago when Zeitzev called, Marco assured him he’d find a way to deal with the pushy American woman. And he derived a perverse pleasure from the method he’d chosen. He turned, and sauntered back to the rows of gray steel cabinets, and resumed filing.
Though the time was barely 4:40 P.M., no one else was there to hear Melanie’s pleas for help. A short time earlier, Lena and the others had been quite pleased that Marco had volunteered to stay until five and cover for them. In Rome, the chance to get a headstart on rush hour traffic, especially on Friday, is not taken lightly.
Melanie stopped shouting and leaned against the door. The thought of being locked in the dank obsidian basement for
the entire weekend made her shiver.
* * * * * *
The scent of perfume no longer permeated Suite 610 in the Hassler. After removing the page with the astonishing message from the typewriter, Andrew put a match to one corner, tossed it into the waste-basket, then flushed the ashes down the toilet. Traces of the acrid fumes still hung in the air.
Andrew had fallen onto the huge bed to nap; but he was restless and anxious, and every five minutes, or so it seemed, he checked his watch to see if it was time to leave—time to meet the Russian woman whom he assumed had typed it; then called, alerting him to it.
He returned phone calls to pass the time. Most clients just wanted to be assured that he’d still be attending the auctions in the Soviet Union despite his father’s death. He’d returned Borsa’s call first. But Italy’s Defense Minister was working the weekend, and left the number of his office in the Quiranale, the Seat of Federal Government. The line had been busy for hours, and Andrew tried it a half dozen times before he finally got through.
“Minister Borsa?—Andrew Churcher.”
“Andrew,” Borsa said in a solemn voice, “I am stunned about your father. My sincere condolences.”
“Thank you, sir. I know how close you both were, and how much he respected your leadership in the equestrian community. Your help will be invaluable.”
“I’d been planning to assist you, Andrew. And, under the circumstances, I feel doubly bound to do so; but I’m afraid my time at the show will be greatly diminished this year. That’s why I called.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that, sir. What’s the problem?”
“Always the same—Americans and Russians.”
An ironic smile broke across Andrew’s face.
“I’m returning to Geneva tonight,” Borsa went on. “But I plan to be in Rome next week to host the benefit auction for World Peace, as I do every year. And I am in need of some breeding stock from Tersk. Would it be possible for us to meet, then?”
“Absolutely. At your convenience.”
“Good. Tuesday, around noon. Come to my private box in the amphitheater,” he said. “Perhaps I will sell you a horse. It is a most worthy cause.”
Andrew made a few more calls, then he started feeling light-headed and realized that he was somewhere over the Atlantic when he’d last eaten. He was reaching for the phone to call room service when he decided he couldn’t spend another minute in the suite. Earlier, he had promised Fausto that he would let him know if he was going out, but Andrew wanted to be alone; he wanted to walk, and get some fresh air, and think about the woman he’d be meeting; the woman who had made the bold claim—“He was murdered. I know why.”
Andrew grabbed his jacket, and an apple from the bowl on the credenza, and left.
Valery Gorodin was in the bar off to one side of the Hassler’s ornate lobby. A copy of Le Monde, the French evening newspaper, was spread out on the table in front of him. Indeed, it was as M. Coudray that he lifted a glass containing the dregs of a Campari and soda, and rattled the ice cubes at a passing waiter.
“Garcon?” Gorodin called out. “Garcon, en outre, s’il vous—” he paused, feigning he was correcting himself, and said, “Encora. Encora per favore.”
Hours ago, too many hours ago Gorodin thought, he had settled at this table along the glass wall from where he could monitor the bank of elevators. In his enthusiastic return to field work, he had conveniently forgotten about the waiting, the boredom, the effort to remain alert while trying to appear disinterested and casual, that are often part of it. His right calf had fallen asleep. He had reached under the table and was massaging it when he spotted Andrew coming across the lobby from the elevator.
Andrew plucked a street map from the concierge’s desk, and headed toward the doors that led to the street.
Gorodin almost cheered at the sight of him. He casually folded his paper, tossed some lire on the table, and limped out of the bar into the lobby.
Andrew came out of the hotel onto Via Sistina, studying the map; then crossed the street and started down the Spanish Steps, heading for the area of knotted streets around Fontana di Trevi. The city was alive with vehicles and pedestrians, and the crisp twilight of the cold night raised his spirits. He jammed his hands in his pockets and quickened his step.
Gorodin gauged Andrew’s direction from within the lobby. Then he exited, crossed to the top of the broad staircase, and watched him descend. His calf was still all pins and needles. He shook his leg in an effort to restore the circulation, and waited until Andrew had reached the piazza below before starting down himself.
* * * * * *
About a half mile away, a battered Fiat was parked adjacent to the high stucco wall that parallels Via Ludovisi, opposite the Hotel Eden. Kovlek sat in the darkness, next to a KGB driver, patiently watching the windows of a second floor room. Occasionally, a shadow could be seen moving across the sheer curtains. In less than an hour, Raina Maiskaya would leave the hotel for her meeting with Andrew Churcher.
* * * * * *
Chapter Twenty-seven
That afternoon in Geneva, Switzerland, Philip Keating and Gisela Pomerantz sat opposite each other at a long table beneath a canopy of chandeliers in the United Nations Palace. The disarmament negotiators were meeting for their first bargaining session.
Mikhail Pykonen, the wiley Soviet, held up a copy of the book by former U.S. Negotiator Arthur Nicholson—published after Boulton eased CIA censorship—entitled THE KEY QUESTION. On the cover was a photo of a hand inserting a launch key in the arming mechanism of a Minuteman Missile.
Keating sighed, anticipating a windy tirade on how past negotiators distorted Soviet positions.
“A most powerful work by Mr. Nicholson,” Pykonen began. “And to open these proceedings, I would like to read a scenario he has hypothesized, one which may well be prophetic should these talks fail.”
Pykonen paused dramatically, opening the book.
“Mr. Nicholson writes—‘The precept of mutual deterrence should be held inviolable. The unchecked deployment of advanced first-strike weapons will undermine this cardinal rule, and breed preemptive strategies. Within this “do it to them before they do it to us” mentality lurks the ultimate nuclear threat. And one day, a Russian or an American military strategist will be forced to make such a recommendation—because of the technologies thrust upon him.’ Then Mr. Nicholson goes on to ask the key question—‘Are leaders in Moscow and Washington willing to recognize this threat and defuse it?’”
Pykonen swept his eyes over the group. “Yes!” he said fervently. “Those in Moscow are. Those in Moscow will.”
The delegates around the table broke into applause.
“And they now propose,” Pykonen went on, “an immediate bilateral freeze, during which deployed systems will be verified on-site, those in development divulged, followed by elimination of first-strike weaponry and deployment of bilateral strategic defense systems.”
This elicited another round of applause—which Phil Keating hoped would be lengthy. He needed time to think. Despite the dying Soviet Premier’s obsession, Keating hadn’t expected his negotiator to discard the standard hard-line attitude so early on. And Keating had prepared remarks to counter it. Now, he had to abandon them, and make an extemporaneous reply. He had recently seen a PBS production of Chekov’s The Three Sisters, and as the faces around the table turned to him, Keating’s mind leapt to the Soviet dramatist.
“Minister Pykonen has most generously quoted an American author,” Keating began. “I would like to quote one from his country, in turn. Though not a disarmament expert, Anton Chekov unknowingly outlined the crux of our task in a letter to his friend A. S. Souvorin when he said—‘Remember, a gun on the wall in the first act is sure to fire in the third.’”
Keating paused, catching a look from Pomerantz, who was thinking, Chekov? Bleak, pessimistic, futile Chekov?
“We are well into the first act,” Keating resumed. “And there is not one, but thirty tho
usand guns on the wall—thirty thousand nuclear warheads between the two superpowers alone.”
Pomerantz brightened, thinking, not bad.
“And each carries almost ten times the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima,” Keating went on, building to his finish. “Unlike Chekov, our job is to structure an imperfect drama; to make certain that neither his precept nor Mr. Nicholson’s scenario become part of it. Our job is to make certain that not one of those thirty thousand guns ever fires.”
When the ensuing applause subsided, Keating added, “And in light of Minister Pykonen’s remarks, I have no doubt we can do just that.”
* * * * * *
The sun had gone down, and a thin wash of purple light reflected from the winter sky when the DCI’s armored limousine pulled up to the south portico of the White House. The results of an intensive DDI analysis of the data transmitted earlier that day from ASW were contained in Boulton’s briefcase, and in a slide projector carried by an aide. The two men stepped from the limousine to an entrance that gave them direct access to the Oval Office.
The President was on the phone with Keating in Geneva. When he hung up, he tilted back in his chair and leveled an apprehensive look at his DCI.
“That was Phil,” he said. “The Russians are—different this time. They’re not rigid anymore, not frightened. They put it all on the table first crack out of the box. Phil thinks they’re up to something.”
“That’s a given, sir.”
“What do you have for me?”
“An intriguing anomaly, sir,” Boulton replied, handing him copies of the ASW data. “Vessel in question—tanker. Cargo, one hundred twenty-five thousand tons of crude. Documents analysis reveals a one-thousand-ton discrepancy between rated and delivered tonnage,” Boulton replied in his cryptographic syntax.
“Which means—” Hilliard pressed, sorting through the pages of data.
“Various scenarios that invite scrutiny arise,” Boulton replied, finishing the President’s sentence. “Conclusion due to unwavering consistency of discrepancy. Precisely one thousand tons each time.” He unbuttoned his suit jacket, and sat on the edge of the President’s desk. “Consider, Mr. President,” the DCI went on more conversationally, “That when the Kira was reoutfitted, a one thousand-ton-sized compartment was carved out of her hold—a compartment for ‘cargo’ other than oil, so to speak.”