Grandmaster (45 page)

Kill him.

Zharkov looked back at the chessboard. His opponent, the young American, had not yet moved, but the position was hopeless. With precise play, Zharkov knew that he would force a resignation before the fortieth move so that the game would not have to be recessed and concluded tomorrow. He had other plans for tomorrow.

 

M
aybe.

The Grandmaster saw a glimmer of hope in his game position, but it was a tricky maneuver, and he had to calculate the consequences exactly.

He was disappointed. Yesterday, in his game against Ribitnov, he had felt the power come on him, even if only briefly. When that happened, the moves came almost automatically, but today that power had deserted him. He had played this game one move after another, logically and coldly, with never a sense that he was becoming absorbed in the game. Yesterday, for a few minutes, he had soared into the mathematical meanings of life and the universe; today, he was adding up large columns of figures. It was the difference between art and craft, between creation and caretaking.

He closed his eyes and pictured the chessboard and the position of the pieces. If he moved his king up behind his row of pawns, Keverin would surely move his king up to meet him, to prevent Justin from moving ahead of his pawns. It would be a very basic defensive move by Keverin, one that required no analysis or thought.

But then, if Justin sacrificed a pawn to Keverin's king, and then another pawn to one of Keverin's pawns, then...

Maybe.

He glanced at Keverin's clock. The Russian had only six minutes left for six more moves. With time pressure, he might not see through Justin's maneuver.

Justin moved his king forward a square. Keverin thought for a few seconds and did the same.

Justin immediately pushed a pawn forward. He wanted to play quickly now so that Keverin would have no chance to analyze the position on Justin's time. The Russian would have to study while his own clock was running, remorselessly ticking away the precious seconds that remained before his red flag dropped and he lost to Justin on time.

The old Russian was far too crafty, in this winning position, to let a game slip away because of the clock. Justin counted on that.

Keverin made his decision. With his right hand, he picked up his king and moved it forward to capture Justin's pawn. Then he immediately slapped down his clock with his left hand, starting Justin's time. Almost two full minutes gone. Four minutes left.

The Grandmaster did not hesitate. He pushed another pawn forward a single square and said, "Check."

Keverin's face clearly showed his annoyance. Gilead should have resigned. In chess at this level, each player assumed that his opponent, given a winning edge, would carry that edge through into a victory. It was almost insulting to insist on playing out a game that was clearly lost.

This time, Keverin pondered for only a half-minute before taking Justin's pawn with his own.

Justin immediately moved his rook forward and checked Keverin's king. The Russian saw what had happened.

Done. Too late. It was over.

On the one hand, if he took the rook with his king, Justin would be in a position where he could not move without moving his king into a check, onto a square where he could be captured. That would be an illegal move. But because he was safe on the square where his king now stood, the game would be a draw. It was a position called stalemate, and neither side won.

On the other hand, if the Russian refused to take the rook, Justin could use it to capture one of Keverin's pawns and open a path for Justin's remaining pawn to move down the board to its queening square. He would be one move ahead of Keverin's pawns, would have his queen first, and with it, a clear win.

Keverin looked at the board for two full minutes while his clock ticked silently away. Justin could see the Russian's face reddening in anger at himself for blundering away a win.

He nodded in resignation, then sighed, looked up, and smiled at Justin.

"A draw?" he said.

Justin nodded. "I'll be happy to take one against you."

Keverin pushed the button on his side of the clock down halfway. This stopped both clocks, and the two men rose and shook hands.

"Beautifully done," Keverin said.

"A swindle," Justin responded. "It was all I had left since you chopped my position up so badly."

"The older I get, the more I learn that the hardest thing to do in chess is to win a won game," Keverin said graciously. "Especially against a player like you. I had forgotten how good you are."

"And I still have never beaten you," Gilead responded.

"Go back into retirement before you have the chance again," Keverin said.

Justin knew that the Russian was speaking with real warmth. A player who had lost or been swindled out of a win first felt anger and annoyance at himself, but then usually only admiration for the player who had done it to him. Great players all viewed chess as a life-or-death struggle, but it was a wonderful kind of death because you sprang back to life as soon as the pieces were again set up on the board for the next game.

Keverin clapped Gilead around the shoulders, and the two men walked off to the tournament director to sign the official score sheets. As he walked away, Justin felt Zharkov's eyes burning into his back.

 

T
hree of them.

Starcher had spotted them while he was walking toward the giant statue of José Marti, which loomed over the Plaza de la Revolución. They were dressed like Western businessmen on their way to lunch, but their faces were either pale or blotchy red, the faces of people not used to the sun. And they had been too regular in changing their positions. One followed him; another was amidships of him; the third was in front of Starcher. But they rotated positions precisely every five minutes, and while the rotation was the correct maneuver, the rigid schedule was not.

Starcher was surprised that they had not made a move against him yet. It was late afternoon now. Were they waiting for further word from Zharkov? Justin had told him that the chess games must end no later than six o'clock each evening. Would he have to wait until dark before these men picked him up?

Starcher strolled right, down an uncrowded concrete path bordered by bushes, toward the Avenida Ayestara. The park had been emptying for the last hour. It had been filled mostly with women, many with babies, but now they had left, probably on their way home to prepare dinner.

He couldn't help feeling that it was good to be on the street again, good to be an agent again. He had spent more than three hours on the streets of Havana, most of it walking, and his heart felt fine. Maybe there was still room in the CIA for someone like him. He could be a courier, anything, just something to do that didn't involve sitting behind a desk and feeling miserable when young agents went out on missions and never reported back. So he was old, but what was age when you were good? And he
was
good.

He paused to light a cigar and noticed the three men had come together and were walking toward him. He cautioned himself not to make it too easy for them. He took a puff on his cigar, then walked briskly toward the street. He half expected to hear the sound of running feet as the Russians closed on him, but he didn't. He paused just before reaching the sidewalk and glanced back again. The three men had gone, but as he turned back, confused, a black car pulled up to the curb.

The rear door opened, and a dark-skinned man snapped in English, "Get in." He held a gun aimed at Starcher's belly.

Should he run? Would it make his capture look more real?

Before he could decide, the three men who had been following him emerged from the bushes on either side of the concrete walkway, grabbed his arms, and pushed him easily into the back seat of the car.

"What's going on here?" he snapped to the man holding the gun on him. He was a big man, much bigger than the usual Hispanic.

"This is your welcome to Havana, Mr. Starcher," the man answered. "Please put your hands in your lap and do not move them."

Wordlessly, Starcher did as he was told. He was glad they had finally captured him.

 

J
ust before six o'clock, the young American resigned
from his clearly lost game with Zharkov. After a perfunctory handshake, Zharkov went immediately to his room and dialed a telephone number.

"Do you have him?"

"Yes," said Yuri Durganiv.

"Is he giving you any trouble?"

"None at all. He's too old for trouble," Durganiv said.

"Fine. Be careful of him. He's got a bad heart, and I wouldn't want anything to disturb him. He's valuable."

"I understand," Durganiv said as Zharkov hung up.

Success. He had the CIA man, the man on whom he could hang the blame for Castro's murder.

And Justin Gilead was a dead man.

 

T
he telephone was mounted on the bulkhead
of a small cabin cruiser anchored out in Havana harbor. Yuri Durganiv, while talking to Zharkov, had stood in the doorway, aiming a snub-nosed .38 revolver at Starcher, who sat on a cot on the other side of the cabin.

Durganiv had made a mistake. He thought that Starcher could not speak Russian. The American was too old to cause trouble, Durganiv had said, and Starcher thought grimly,
I might just teach the son of a bitch he's wrong.

The Russian had made another mistake, too. When he searched Starcher he had done the cursory police search most people used, patting down the inside and outside of both legs, but ignoring the back of the legs. With a little sense of comfort, Starcher felt the weight of the small revolver still taped to the back of his left ankle.

Too old? Starcher thought. This Russian who looked like a Cuban might learn otherwise.

After
Starcher found out what Zharkov was up to.

 

T
he day's four chess games had been completed
. The Russians had duplicated the American performance of the day before: two wins, a loss, and a draw. The score at the end of two days was the United States, eight points; the Soviet Union, eight points.

The players were advised that the next day's game would start at ten o'clock instead of one. The match chairman announced that Fidel Castro would be at tomorrow night's dinner to speak and to welcome the players, and the committee needed the extra time to prepare the ballroom for his appearance.

 

 

W
hen he had received no message by eight o'clock
, Justin knew that Starcher was in trouble.

The Grandmaster pushed aside the remnants of the salad plate he had ordered from room service and closed the book of chess openings he had been studying.

He dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and walked down the steps from his room to the ornate gilded lobby of the sprawling old hotel.

 

T
he telephone rang in Zharkov's
room. "Yes?" he said.

"He is leaving now," a voice said.

"Make sure he does not return," Zharkov said.

 

S
tarcher looked through the small window
of the ship's cabin in which he was locked. Just a few yards away, he saw a sloping gray wall, but as the cabin cruiser rocked backward and he was able to glance up, he saw it was not a wall at all but the hull of a giant Soviet cruiser. From the other side of the cabin, the view was much the same, but the Soviet destroyer there was a hundred yards away and he could see its outline clearly.

Floating nearby were two small patrol craft, machine guns mounted in their sterns.

He paused for a moment to consider his predicament. He was being held captive on a boat, surrounded by warships of the Soviet navy. He might be able to use his gun to escape, to shoot his captor, but then what? He knew nothing about boats. If he could get this one started, what then? Would he even be able to get it to shore? Or would those Soviet patrol boats overtake him and gun him down before he got a hundred yards away?

By now, he knew Justin Gilead would be worried about him because he had not called. But Justin had no idea of where he was, and unless he forced the information from Zharkov, he would not be able to find him. And Starcher still had no idea what Nichevo's plans were.

He finished the last of the large mug of coffee that Durganiv had brought in to him, then lay down to rest on the narrow wood-framed cot. He would just have to wait. He had allowed himself to be captured to find out what Zharkov had planned, and it was pointless to do anything now until he had found that out.

He would wait, and he would rest. He would not act but react.

His eyes felt very heavy, and he realized how tired he was, and as he fell asleep, he thought, Starcher, you're sixty-six years old, and right now you feel every minute of it.

He touched the pistol taped to the back of his ankle. For a moment, it made him feel secure, but then he passed into a deep sleep in which he felt nothing.

 

F
rom the outside, the Purple Shell looked seedy.
The building needed painting, and the windows were dirty and fly-specked. But inside, the barroom was clean and neat, the floor spread with sawdust. At the end of the long bar was a small dining room with four square tables.

The bar was half filled by six men sitting on stools. They had the look of seamen, wearing rough sweaters and baseball caps, and their clothes emitted the smell of fish.

They talked jovially with the bartender, a tall, cadaverous man with sad, droopy eyes. He wore a white shirt and black trousers, covered by a white apron. His sleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms, and on the back of his left wrist was tattooed a purple seashell.

The bar's customers turned to look at Justin as he entered and walked to the stool at the corner of the bar, away from the main group of men. When the bartender came, he ordered a glass of red wine.

Justin put a five dollar bill on the bar, and asked softly in Spanish, "American money good?"