Grandmaster (A Suspense and Espionage Thriller) Read online

  She reported promptly the next morning. Zharkov set her to work to develop an intelligence system for Nichevo that could operate independently of the KGB.

  They were always formally polite to each other in the office, and only occasionally did Katarina come to his apartment to spend the night with him. He never asked her what she did with her other nights; he did not need to.

  The reports that crossed his desk provided that answer. They told Zharkov what the KGB was planning, what its long-range policies were, who was winning the never-ending internal power struggles in the massive agency. He knew that Katarina bribed with sex the way some bribed with money, and a word here, a scrap of paper there, were all pieces in the protective fence she was erecting around Zharkov. She paid for the equipment with her body. They never spoke of it.

  The teakettle whistled, bringing Zharkov's thoughts back to the sterile apartment where Katarina was standing, barefoot and laughing, in the middle of the floor. She was dressed in an old shirt of Zharkov's, the bottom half of her draped in a towel that fit her like a sarong. Her wet hair clung to her head in a cap of short, glossy black curls. There was no vanity in her, Zharkov thought, and yet she was beautiful.

  "Playing chess?" she teased. She was used to Zharkov's periods of blankness, when he drew into his own thoughts and seemed oblivious to everything around him.

  He smiled. "Remembering," he said, and touched her hair.

  Her lips moved in a quick, uncertain expression before she turned away. It was the first time in nearly five years that he had shown her any affection.

  "I have news," she said, handing him a cup. The tea was strong and sweet, heavily laced with vodka; the fumes stung his eyes. "Andrew Starcher's had a heart attack. He'll probably be retired as soon as he gets out of the hospital."

  Zharkov sat bolt upright in his chair.

  "In Lenin Medical Center. A nurse on the floor where he was brought lives in my apartment building. She says there was a big to-do over the foreign dignitary in intensive care. Apparently he'll be flown back to America as soon as he can be moved. Meanwhile the door is open for you."

  He nodded, understanding immediately what she meant. The CIA's top man in Russia was ill; for a brief period, at least, his role would be filled by an inexperienced deputy named Michael Corfus. If Nichevo was to do any mischief, now would be an ideal time to do it.

  The thought brought little joy to Zharkov. There were other things on his mind. Katarina read his expression and said, "What's the matter?"

  He rose quickly and handed her the envelope of pictures that Ostrakov had given him. "Look at these."

  Katarina sucked in a swift rush of air as she examined the photograph of the woman falling to the floor as her head exploded in a red spray. "I heard about it," she said, "but I didn't know it was this gruesome. The Samarkand? Are they insane?"

  "Worse," Zharkov said with disgust. "They are stupid. Ostrakov hires terrorists and then wonders why they can't follow orders. The hotel was filled with tourists."

  "Unbelievable. Is he in trouble?"

  Zharkov shook his head. "He got out of it this time. The militia was called in. They've arrested two vagabonds, and they're calling Riesling an unidentified lowlife. The two'll be executed before anyone can check anything."

  "Riesling?" She looked up. "That's Riesling?" Zharkov nodded briefly, waving her on to continue looking through the photographs. "It's always strange," she said, "to see a face attached to the files I've read. Somehow, it's almost as if they aren't real people until—"

  She stopped dead at the sight of the picture showing the gold medallion.

  "Gilead," she said, in a soft, chilled whisper. "What does it mean?"

  "I don't know," Zharkov said.

  "Is he back?"

  "I don't know that either. And I can't ask Riesling," he said bitterly.

  "It may be just the medallion," she said. "Nothing for four years. If he were alive, we would have heard."

  "He's alive," Zharkov said stubbornly. "I know it."

  "Then kill him again." Her voice was cold.

  "And again and again and again? When will he stay dead?"

  "When you are man enough to kill him properly," she said stiffly.

  But that wasn't the point, Zharkov thought. He was man—or beast— enough to kill anyone. But was Justin Gilead man enough to die?

  Zharkov was silent as he and Katarina sat at the dining table over a spartan meal of green vegetables and rice. He was intently reading the red-covered file on Justin Gilead.

  Katarina watched him wordlessly as he pushed vegetables around his plate, only a few of them ever reaching his mouth.

  Finally she said, "I know where Justin Gilead is."

  He looked up quickly.

  "Yes," she said. "He's a shoe salesman in Schenectady, New York. He has a fat wife and four children."

  Zharkov appreciated her attempt to cheer him and smiled sadly. "No. He would be playing chess somewhere. I would have read about his games."

  "Chess. Always chess. Was he that good?"

  "Justin Gilead," Zharkov said, "was probably the most brilliant chess player who ever lived. He started playing again in 1970, when he was twenty-six. A year later, he was declared an international grandmaster."

  "Then why wasn't he ever world champion?" she asked with a touch of asperity.

  "You know the answer to that," Zharkov said. "You wrote this report."

  "My report was filled with conjecture and speculation," she said. "Not with hard fact."

  "All right. This is hard fact. For ten years, Justin Gilead was doing the CIA's work, harassing Nichevo. In every city he went to for a tournament, he managed to do some mischief before he left. Sometimes he did not show up for games and lost points on disqualification. Other times, he would adjourn a game that he had clearly won, and the next day would not come back to resume it. So he would lose another point for a forfeit. For ten years, he was an American agent and tried to play chess, too."

  He began to recite as if from a memorized litany.

  "In 1972, Nixon visited China. My father headed Nichevo then. He had an interesting welcome planned for Nixon. He had his top agents standing by in Hong Kong. Gilead played in a tournament in Hong Kong, and my father's agents were never heard from again. Gilead finished third in the tournament.

  "In 1975, he played in a tournament in Toronto. Soon after the tournament, a dozen of our top people in Canada were expelled for spying. Gilead finished second in the tournament.

  "In 1977, he played in a tournament in Djakarta. When it was over, the CIA arrested one of its own men who had been a double agent, working for Nichevo. Gilead missed the last three games and forfeited the tournament.

  "In 1978, he played in South Africa. My father had carefully set up a supply route to get arms to the rebels there. Two weeks after the tournament ended, the South African police broke the supply line. Gilead tied for first in that tournament.

  "And in 1979, when I took over Nichevo, I planned riots in Panama when the Americans gave the Panama Canal back. Gilead was playing in Panama City at the time. The riots never happened. My men were all arrested by the police. Gilead finished second in that tournament."

  "And those were all Gilead's doings?" she asked. "Are you sure?"

  Zharkov nodded. "My father knew and later I knew. The KGB never knew. It still doesn't. But then, the Committee never knows anything."

  "Then why didn't you kill him during those years?" she asked. "You knew that one day you'd have to."

  "He was too slippery. My father tried many times," Zharkov said. "It was only in Poland four years ago that we got the real chance. Katarina, I saw him in his grave. And now he lives." The Russian shook his head.

  "Maybe he doesn't live," she said. "Maybe he was injured so badly that he's a vegetable now, lying in a nursing home, peeing in a pot."

  "And maybe he is just waiting for his moment to strike," Zharkov said.

  Katarina smiled and rose to clear away the din
ner dishes. "I don't know about him, but I know I'm waiting for my moment to strike. Will you come to bed?"

  He said distractedly, "In a moment."

  "I know what that means," she said. "I hate Justin Gilead. If he lives, I want nothing more in life than to kill him for you." After she removed the dishes, she came back, kissed him softly on the cheek and walked quietly to the bedroom doorway. "All we know is that someone found his medallion," she said. "The Grandmaster may be a ghost."

  Perhaps she was right. Perhaps the unkillable man had died after all. Not in Poland, where he had officially expired—Zharkov knew that Gilead had somehow, miraculously, tricked death then as he had tricked it once before at Zharkov's hands—but dead all the same. An automobile accident, an illness. Agents did die normal deaths more often than not.

  But not the Grandmaster. Something inside Zharkov simply could not believe that the recovered medallion, handed to Starcher's aide, signified nothing. Justin Gilead was about to surface. Zharkov knew that as surely as he knew his own name.

  He stood at the doorway to the bedroom. Inside, her face illuminated by the light from the other room, Katarina slept. The incessant rain beat on the windows like a beast trying to get in. Zharkov longed to lie with her, to permit himself to be enveloped by her warmth. But something pulled at him, uncomfortable, agitating, a force as inexorable as madness.

  He looked at the chessboard. The white king stood defiantly out of his ranks, challenging his opponent to do combat.

  Riesling... Kutsenko... Starcher... the Grandmaster.

  The board told him that Justin Gilead was alive. He would live until the game was over, for it was the last recorded game that Justin Gilead had ever played. He had walked away from that position once and had never come back to finish the contest. The Grandmaster's life would not be ended until Zharkov had ended this game. And after four years, the game was still in doubt.

  The Russian walked over to the chessboard and picked up a piece. It was the black queen, sleek, balanced, intricately carved, beautiful. The most deadly piece on the board. Powerful enough to topple the white king if the moves were right.

  He set the queen down on a square where it gave check to the white king.

  He knew it in his bones. The white king would lead an attack against him. And the white king would then be destroyed. Finally. Forever.

  Zharkov put on a raincoat and an old cap with a visor and walked out into the rain. The black queen was waiting for him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  He walked through the driving rain to the fashionable Sivcev Vraŭek district, where the core of Moscow's power elite kept their city residences. He could have driven—he had a Chaika limousine and a driver at his disposal—but drivers talked, and official Chaikas were easy to spot after midnight curfew. What he was about to do was dangerous, and although Nichevo was powerful, there were limits to its official power, and to Zharkov's.

  Zharkov reached an area of shabby old buildings condemned but left standing despite the city's notorious housing shortage, as part of the Soviet myth of equality. Like the special stores where the cream of Soviet society purchased food and goods not available to the general public for a fraction of the price of the lesser-quality goods that ordinary people stood in line for hours to buy, and like the cars that "meritorious" members of the Party received, often as gifts, the elegant apartments in Sivcev Vražek did not officially exist. Their high windows were carefully shrouded with thick draperies. The buildings themselves were unkempt and moldering on the street side. Only from the rear courtyards could one see the gardens and the balconies, smell the fragrances of steaks and expensive perfumes, hear the luxurious whir of air conditioners.

  He pressed the intercom inside one of the buildings. A woman's voice answered.

  "Zharkov," he said. A buzzer sounded, and the drab metal door opened with a click, revealing a thickly carpeted lobby decorated with gilt mirrors and French camelback sofas upholstered in silk. The two ornate elevators were unattended at night, a sure sign of power. In even the lowliest buildings, the entrances and exits of tenants and their guests were noted by the dezhurnaya, usually old women who sat sullenly in the lobbies and foyers, watching and listening. They were paid little for their efforts, but if their observations led to an arrest, they were rewarded with food or an apartment to share with only three other families instead of the more common six.

  But no dezhurnaya sat watch here. The eyes of the state did not peer into the bastions of its privileged class.

  On the seventh floor, on the wall beside Maria Lozovan's door, was an Italian modernist painting of a woman stroking a cat. Both figures were rounded and lush, obviously luxury items. As was the painting, carelessly hung outside the apartment itself, Zharkov thought as the door swung open, offering him a waft of expensive perfume. As was the painting's owner.

  Maria Lozovan would have been a woman of notice in any city in the world, but in Moscow she was nothing less than a miracle. Cultured, charming, meticulously groomed, utterly feminine, everything about her indicated that she had been expressly created to adorn the arms of wealthy men. A blond Georgian—that in itself a rarity—she possessed the high Slavic cheekbones of her race and slanted eyes the color of copper. No one knew her age. Zharkov guessed that she was anywhere between thirty-five and fifty, but probably on the upper end of the scale, since he first learned about her activities with the KGB when he was still a young man.

  There were rumors that Maria had originally come to Moscow illegally, as a prostitute, and was set up by a rich patron in an apartment, with residence papers permitting her to live in the city. Zharkov didn't know or care about her life before the KGB, and gave no credence to the stories about Maria Lozovan that flew around the cocktail circuit of Soviet society. She had been their favorite subject for years, ever since she "retired" from service to marry.

  Her marriage itself was a scandal of the first water. It was well known that her husband, Dimitri, a minor executive for Intourist, possessed neither the money nor the political pull known as blat to afford the spacious eight-room apartment in Sivcev Vražek. It was equally well known that Dimitri Lozovan was the lover of a highly placed homosexual member of the Politburo.

  The marriage between him and Maria had been arranged, basically, by the state as advantageous to all concerned. The Politburo member could continue his liaison with Lozovan openly, without fear of recrimination for his decadence, Lozovan was able to accept the gift of the large apartment and priceless furnishings, and Maria, in payment for her services as "beard" to the two men, was released from her assignments as a field agent to conspicuously lead the life of a Moscow socialite. Besides, there were other rumors that Maria had a lover of her own. A powerful man, of course; only the most interesting indiscretions were attributed to Maria Lozovan.

  She obviously relished her role. All her clothes came from Paris and Rome, and twice in the last decade she had traveled to South America for several months at a stretch, returning each time with a face considerably younger than the one she’d owned when she left. "Plastic surgery," the gossips whispered. "The gall! How does she get away with it here?"

  Only a handful of people not intimately involved with secret Politburo discussions guessed at some connection between Maria Lozovan's South American tours and the sudden eruptions of Communist uprisings on that continent, but they kept the matter to themselves. Nobody involved with Maria's activities was about to tell the truth about her, least of all Maria herself.

  Like everything else about her, Maria's secrecy was a studied, cultivated quality. In fact, she appeared to have no secrets at all, chatting amiably at the parties she and Dimitri hosted about her work with the KGB. "Minimal, really," she would say with the lilting laugh that was always at the ready. "Codes and ciphers, that sort of thing. Mostly it was a lot of hard work with no reward except a kind of"—here she would insert a small sigh—"deep satisfaction that I might be doing some good in the world." A smile usually followed, one of a thousand pr
acticed expressions of pleasure and mutual confidence with her listeners.

  But Zharkov knew that Maria had spent six years at Gaczyna, and none but the most promising agents-in-training were sent to Gaczyna to study. Certainly not a code or cipher clerk. Certainly not an agent who would be retired upon marriage.

  Gaczyna was probably the most unusual school in the world. It covered some 425 acres in an uninhabited part of the Russian interior stretching from the Tatar Soviet Republic to the Bashkir Soviet Republic. Agents who had been handpicked by the KGB to serve abroad, either in deep cover or as illegals, were flown in special government aircraft to the security zone some thirty miles outside Gaczyna, where a military detachment searched the plane for weapons and explosives before permitting it to fly into the vast compound. The security zone circled Gaczyna completely, and no one was permitted to enter or leave without a special pass. The school did not appear on any map. Its teachers were assigned for life, and were not permitted to leave, ever. As far as even the inhabitants of the region knew, Gaczyna did not exist.

  Zharkov himself had seen the school on only one occasion, and he had been stunned at his first sight of the place. For in Gaczyna, there were no school buildings, no desks, no blackboards. Instead, spread at distances of no more than a few hundred yards, were replicas of foreign towns exact to the last detail. There were streets, buildings, movie houses, banks, and bars. In the "English" towns, bright double-decker buses rolled down the streets. The American locales were dotted with blue mailboxes. Although most of the "classrooms" were English-speaking—no one in the area was permitted to speak Russian at any time—there were also facsimiles of some South American cities. Maria Lozovan had studied in these, as well as in the mock American areas. Her training had been exhaustive and detailed. Aside from her acquired ability to fit seamlessly into another culture, she was also well instructed in the use and identification of weapons, understood surveillance electronics to a degree, and excelled at what was called "silent sentry removal," which meant that she could kill with a wire better than any field agent in her class.