Grandmaster (A Suspense and Espionage Thriller) Read online

  The sound stopped in his throat. In the distance, through the numb, senseless blackness, he saw the village of Czeskow burning.

  There was nothing left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Starcher squinted at the figure coming toward him through the door to his hospital room. It was a fat man, young, from his gait. His face was obscured, but the overhead fluorescent lights shone through the mass of fuzzy hair on his head. The man spoke softly to the American guard in the room, and the guard left.

  "Corfus," Starcher said. He had not spoken in so long that his throat was unused to producing sound.

  "Shhh. I had to get special dispensation to come here. Any plumbers come around?" He smiled broadly at his own joke. The KGB was famous for stashing surveillance devices in the most unlikely places, on the off chance that the subject in question would do or say something for the hugely overstaffed secret police to dissect and analyze.

  "I don't remember. You'd better take a look around."

  Corfus searched the small curtained area around Starcher's bed, pausing when a sullen nurse entered for a spot check. After a long, cold look at Corfus, she left, and Corfus pulled a small disc of plastic the size of a button off the electronic buzzer attached to Starcher's bed.

  "Thar she blows," the young man said, grinding the button under his heel. "There's probably more. Hold on." He took a portable tape player from his pocket and turned on loud rock music.

  "They never stop, do they?" Starcher said.

  Corfus leaned over the bed and spoke softly in Starcher's ear. "You're being flown back to HQ."

  "When?"

  "As soon as you're stable. They're afraid the goon squad'll put a bomb in your bedpan to make you talk."

  Starcher exhaled. He seemed to disappear into the folds of the sheets. "I guess this is it, then."

  "Hey," Corfus said, pushing the old man's hair out of his eyes. "You'll be back."

  "Like hell," Starcher said mildly. "Not at my age!"

  There was a long and awkward silence. Corfus put his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet, then leaned forward again. "Andy," he said quietly, "I don't know if you're still interested in the Riesling business, but I think I've got something."

  Starcher eased himself up. "What is it?"

  "The stuff in his pockets. Remember those fake passports? He was trying to get someone—two people, a man and a woman—out of the country."

  "And?"

  "And what he said to me. The stuff about Havana. I think it might tie in."

  "A code?" Starcher asked.

  "Maybe. The thing that kept sticking in my head was Havana. Why Havana? And then I read today in Pravda that there's going to be a chess challenge match in Havana in a couple of months. U.S. versus U.S.S.R. I don't know. It might just be a red herring."

  Starcher thought. "Riesling never operated in Cuba."

  "Okay," Corfus said with a nod. "But just for argument's sake, let's say he couldn't get Mr. and Mrs. X out of Moscow, or wherever they are. Maybe he turned his stuff over to me so that someone else could get them out.

  Starcher blinked.

  "And then I started to think about who would want to defect. It wouldn't be anyone military, because Riesling dealt with civilians, am I right? Scientists, that kind of thing. So when I read the piece in Pravda—"

  "A chess player."

  "Bingo. So I started going over some past issues to see if I could rout out anything about the big-deal chess players over here. Any problems. What I came up with was this." He leaned back to hand Starcher a Russian newspaper clipping. The date, October 5, was scribbled over the top:

  Tass

  HELSINKI—The International Consortium of Pediatricians convened early today at the Privm Hotel in Helsinki, Finland. The main event of the day will be a symposium on the relation between prenatal care and birth defects. The symposium will be conducted by Dr. Lena Kutsenko, chief pediatrician at Moscow University Medical Center.

  "Ring a bell?" Corfus asked.

  "Not Ivan Kutsenko," Starcher whispered incredulously.

  "The same. Her husband's the world chess champion. Pride and joy of Mother Russia."

  "Riesling's cover was as a journalist for the Associated Press in Helsinki. And he started his last run the day after this clipping."

  "It fits, Andy. She could have approached him. I don't know chess from dominoes, but I've heard rumors that Kutsenko's awful nervous about the Havana match. There's some talk out that if the team doesn't win, he may follow Boris Spassky to the land of nonpersons. Russian chess champs aren't allowed to lose."

  "Well," Starcher said, "it's a good theory ... but Kutsenko."

  "There's something else. I tried to get hold of Lena Kutsenko at Moscow University Medical Center. Guess who's out of a job."

  "They fired her?"

  Corfus shrugged. "She's not there. They said she left because of ill health, but they wouldn't say when. It makes me wonder if it isn't tied in somehow with the incident at the Samarkand."

  Starcher snorted. "I wouldn't be surprised. Damn, I wish I weren't out of this. Grabbing Kutsenko would at least give some credibility to this travesty we're running over here. The KGB boys practically laugh in my face as it is. They've got God knows how many thousands of agents operating in the States, while all we've got is an embassy and a handful of... hell, they might as well be commandos for all the cover they've got."

  He was breathing heavily under the strain of his anger. "The balls of them, shooting Riesling in a public place. Arrogant bastards. And it's not just us. The West in general is about as threatening to them as a Chiclet. Remember Ben Barnes?"

  Corfus said he'd read about the case. The Agency had come out of that one looking like the fool of the Western Hemisphere. After an espionage ring in New York was uncovered, seven highly placed Soviet agents including a Russian mole named Morody Gotst, who went under the name Ben Barnes, were arrested. The Soviets agreed to a trade, but there were so few Western spies in Russia that the Soviets could only produce one prisoner in exchange for the seven convicted Soviet spies, and the prisoner they did have was no more than a low-level intermediary—utterly out of Barnes's league. It was a bad trade, but the best the Western powers could manage. After the incident, there was a flurry of arbitrary arrests of Western tourists in Moscow. These innocent people were offered, in what Starcher considered an act of brazen arrogance, as trades for convicted Soviet espionage agents incarcerated in the United States and Western Europe.

  "They've got all the latitude," Corfus said. "They can sit in on sessions of Congress, go through the CIA files ..."

  "We're a joke to them. But with Kutsenko ..." He curled his hand into a fist and laughed out loud, then lowered his voice again while the rock music tape blared on. "Mike, see that whoever replaces me follows through on this, will you? I'd give my arm to see the faces in the Politburo if Kutsenko ducked out."

  "I'll see to it, boss," Corfus said, smiling.

  Starcher nodded. "I guess this is goodbye, then."

  "I guess so. You'll be going home soon. I've turned in all the paperwork."

  "Good," Starcher said. "You've done well, Mike. Maybe I'll see you again."

  Corfus took his hand. "I hope so." He clicked off the tape playing rock music and the room was marvelously silent.

  But as Corfus lumbered away, Starcher knew he would never see him again. American spies didn't have reunions the way the Brits did, with their toasts and honors to their secret heroes of yesteryear. There was something ludicrous in the practice anyway, Starcher thought, as if a charade of camaraderie could dispel the truth that intelligence agents were as disposable as Kleenex. They functioned while they could, and then they disappeared. No goodbyes, no gold watches. A short silence, perhaps, before the quiet walk down the road to where death waited.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The snow was swirling into whirlpools as Corfus walked toward the metro on Ulyanovskaya Street. The old ladies with their brooms were out in fo
rce, but they seemed more to chase the turbulent snow than to sweep it as the wind hurled itself against their stocky, heavily clothed bodies.

  Corfus never could get used to the sight of women laborers. Moscow, even in winter, offered a panorama of sexual equality, from the women who poured pitch into the potholes, to the old babushkas who cleaned the streets. The Soviet ideology had triumphed: wherever there was work to be done, there were women to perform the lowest, dirtiest tasks. Corfus remembered an old joke about two Russians swilling vodka and playing cards. A third entered, asking where their wives were. "The masses," came the reply, "are in the fields."

  Up ahead, a woman swathed in sable stepped from a silver Mercedes 450. The top of her fur hat bobbed up and down comically as she walked around the car as if surveying a lot for a subdivision.

  "Excuse me," she shouted above the wind to passersby. "Could you ..." Her accent was atrocious, very Western. Probably American, Corfus thought, dressed in her new Russian sable while the Russians could hardly keep themselves warm. No wonder they hate us, he said to himself.

  The people on the street gawked disdainfully at her expensive trappings and moved on. "Oh, Christ," she finally shouted in despair. "Doesn't anyone in this godforsaken country speak English?"

  "That's my cue," Corfus said, striding up alongside the car. "Michael Corfus, American embassy, at your service." He gave an elaborate bow.

  "Thank heaven," the woman said with a desperate relief in her broad New England finishing school tones. "You can't imagine how awful it is being stranded out here in this horrible weather among these rude people. No one even stopped to ask what the problem was."

  Corfus laughed. "As far as the average Muscovite's concerned, anybody with a fur coat and a Mercedes doesn't have any problems."

  "And as far as you're concerned?" she said.

  "Your only problem is that you're stuck in a snowbank. You back out and I'll push."

  A moment later, the woman's car was out in the snow-slicked street.

  "Marvelous," she said. "Thank you so much. You said your name was...

  "Corfus. Mike Corfus."

  "Beatrice Kane. Can I give you a lift?"

  "No, that's all right."

  "I insist. Actually, I'd prefer it if someone else drove for a while. I've had just about all I can stand of Moscow winter traffic. Or Moscow, for that matter."

  She slid over into the passenger seat, and Corfus got behind the wheel. He had never driven a Mercedes. "Are you a tourist?" he asked.

  "In a way. My husband's a furrier here on business. This is his idea of a vacation for the two of us."

  "The garden spot of the totalitarian bloc," Corfus said, craning his neck to see above the snarled traffic. "Where are you from?"

  "Boston originally. Now I live in Los Angeles."

  "I thought Californians all had tans."

  "I detest the sun," she said wearily. "How long are we going to be tied up here?"

  The stream of cars inched forward.

  "Your guess is as good as mine." He checked his watch: 4:45. There was no point in returning to the embassy now.

  "Mike, I wonder if I might ask you a favor, as one American to another?" She looked up at him appealingly.

  She was a beauty, Corfus thought. A hothouse stateside flower, princessus americanus, pampered and coddled into a state of perennial youth. "Do you want me to drive you home?"

  "I can't tell you how much I'd appreciate it. John and I are staying with some friends of my husband's outside the city. They're very rich, I think, although no one around here will admit to that. Zak works for the Kremlin."

  "Zak?"

  "My husband's friend. I couldn't begin to pronounce the last name. But I'm sure he's important. The house has twelve bedrooms and an indoor swimming pool. Too bad they're such dreary people. They've all gone off to spend the day at a mink farm somewhere in the hinterlands. I opted to go shopping. What a waste."

  "I suppose the government stores are a far cry from Rodeo Drive," Corfus said.

  "Never again. If I need clothes while I'm here, I'm going to have them imported. Anyway, if you'd be kind enough to get me out of this swamp, I'll see that you get home comfortably. They took Zak's driver with them, but they ought to be back by now. You can stay for dinner and meet everyone. Oh, please."

  Corfus almost laughed out loud. The idea of a CIA agent having dinner at the illegal mansion of a high-level Kremlin employee was too good to resist. "Madam, I see my mission, and will not fail," he said.

  "Good," she said softly. She placed her hand on his knee. It was a fine, manicured hand with a huge diamond on its third finger. It rested on his thigh, weightless, for a moment, then began almost imperceptibly to move upward. Astonished, he looked over to her face. The fur of her hat was dappled with melted snow. Beneath it, she smiled at him with waiting copper-colored eyes. "Good."

  He edged out of the traffic and onto the Moscow Ring Road, trying to ignore the advances of Mrs. Kane. The boys at Langley would never believe this, he thought giddily. Corfus had always been the lump, the joker, the one girls sought as a "friend," the extra man at dinner. His work at school had been excellent, and he'd distinguished himself sufficiently at Langley to be sent, at the age of twenty-five, to Moscow. But the bald fact of being unattractive to women had bothered him like a sore tooth since high school. The biggest compliment he'd ever received from a girl was that he bore a resemblance to the conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. And now he was sitting next to a gorgeous woman of obvious means who was trying everything short of rape to get at him.

  "My husband is a very successful man," she purred. "Unfortunately, he has little time for anything except business." Her free hand caressed his face and trailed down his chest. Corfus sucked in his stomach. "And his mistresses," she added.

  "I'm sorry to hear that," he said. His voice came out an octave lower than he'd intended.

  "You're so proper," she said, unfastening his belt. "Don't you find me attractive?"

  "I find you distracting," he said, laughing excessively.

  "The roads are clear now. You won't need all your concentration. Turn right at the crossroads ahead."

  He followed her directions onto a narrow uphill road that the snow-plows hadn't yet reached. "I don't think—"

  "Pull over." She smiled. "I want to give you a present. Come over here."

  He slid over on the seat. "I don't believe this," he said under his breath as she undid his fly expertly. He was so hard he was beginning to ache. She stroked him with her slim fingers until the pressure inside him was almost excruciating, then touched him with her lips, teasing, enveloping him, sucking him into her mouth until he was about to burst.

  "Oh, God," he said. "I'm sorry ..." He came in a violent spasm, closing his eyes and seeing color, feeling a pleasure so exquisite that it was nearly pain, and then it was pain, something jabbing hotly into his groin, and he cried out, but it sounded so weak, so far away. He was aware that he was losing consciousness fast. All he could focus on were his own clenched hands grasping tufts of fur from the woman's hat. They looked like an animal's paws.

  Maria Lozovan opened the passenger door and tossed the plastic hypodermic syringe outside. Some of the Thorazine had seeped into the lining of her sleeve. She examined the spot with annoyance as she got in behind the wheel. Corfus's bulk was sprawled over the front seat. Using both legs, she kicked him onto the floor.

  "Disgusting ox," she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The woods around the cabin sixty miles outside Moscow were quiet. The house had been a real dacha back in the days when Zharkov's father had it built, with tidy lawns and flower gardens where his mother planted pansies and marigolds. Now the grass lay long and flat beneath the snow, and the cabin itself was crumbled to disrepair.

  There was a single light burning in the basement. Zharkov could see its dull yellow glow behind the snowbanks. He entered quickly, pushing back the cobwebs and making his way down the rotting wooden slat s
tairs. The place stank of urine. At the bottom he stopped, unable to believe what he saw.

  Corfus was tied, naked, to a metal chair. His shoulders were covered with small dark circles which, on close inspection, turned out to be burns dusted with gray ash. A pile of lipstick-marked cigarette butts lay strewn on the floor beside him. His head lolled forward. Zharkov raised it carefully. The man's eyes were strapped with adhesive tape. He moaned.

  "My God," Zharkov whispered. He released the head with distaste. His hands were wet with sweat and oil, and there was blood on them from Corfus's right ear, which was streaming.

  Behind him, he heard the clatter of shoes on the stairs. Maria Lozovan smiled when she saw him. She was carrying a tray with a large bottle of water and a gasoline funnel.

  "What have you done?" Zharkov rasped. "When did you bring him?"

  "Yesterday," she said crisply. "There was no point in your coming before now. These cases usually take a little time before they're ready to answer questions." She winked, as if she were giving advice on baking. The man's torture seemed to have no effect on her whatever.

  "Are you mad?" he asked. His voice was nearly inaudible.

  She flushed, setting the tray down with a clatter. "Colonel Zharkov, perhaps you failed to realize the gravity of your crime when you had this person brought here. When we discussed alternatives to handing him over to the authorities, it seemed clear—"

  "Not this!" He pointed his arms toward Corfus, his fingers outstretched. "Look at him! This isn't war. Look at what you've done to him! Pizda," he swore at her. "Xer tebe v rot."

  "I did what was necessary," she said coldly, ignoring the insults. "Surely you didn't believe that you'd get him to talk just by asking him. That sort of naiveté has no place in our line of work."

  "Our line of work?" Zharkov snapped. "Your line of work is being a Committee whore. Your line of work and mine are not the same." Zharkov's arms were trembling. He picked up the funnel. "What's this? Another one of your 'persuasive' tactics?"