Grandmaster (50 page)

The game was over. He had lost. Zharkov sat at the table, staring at the position in helpless rage. Then he rose without looking at Gilead and walked away from the table.

He left quickly. Rather than move and lose the game with his moves, he chose instead to let his clock run out. When the red flag dropped on his clock, Zharkov would have lost on time. But he would not have to be there to see it. He walked out of the room without looking back.

Justin Gilead did not see him. He was still looking off into a space beyond space. He fingered the coiled golden snake around his neck and thought only one thought.

You are the game.

And the game is almost over.

 

 

T
here were no messages from Starcher at the front desk
. Justin asked for Zharkov's room number, walked up to the third floor, and pounded on the door. It was time to find out where Starcher was.

No one answered.

He gripped the doorknob in his hand and twisted. The metal pins in the lock held for a moment, then snapped with a loud crack under the force of Justin's hand. He pushed the door open wide and stepped inside.

The room was empty. Justin searched through Zharkov's nightstand and his dresser drawers, looking for an address or telephone number, something that would tell him what he wanted to know.

Zharkov traveled light. There were no papers, no reports or books, no address and phone directories. All Justin found was a pile of chess magazines on a table near the windows, alongside a chess set with the pieces arranged for the start of a game. The sight of the chess set enraged Gilead, and he angrily swept all the black pieces onto the floor with his arm. He picked up the black king and laid it on the board, on its side, in the universal chess gesture that said the game was lost. It meant the king was dead.

When Zharkov returned, he would know what it meant: That the Grandmaster was going to kill him.

"What are you doing here?" The words came from a big man standing in the doorway to the room. Justin had not seen him before, but he had the appearance of a bodyguard and a Russian.

"Looking for Zharkov," Justin said as he walked toward the door.

"He is not here."

"I can see that. Where is he?"

"I do not know. What I do know is that burglars are not welcome in this hotel. Who are you?"

Justin ignored the question. "I guess you don't know where Andrew Starcher is either, do you?" he asked.

"Who?"

The puzzled look on the man's face told Justin that he was telling the truth. He did not know Starcher.

Justin was standing in front of the man now, but the guard said, "You're not leaving quite so quickly. I think we'll call the house detectives first to see exactly who you are."

"Don't make trouble for yourself," Justin said.

"It's no trouble." The guard was big, but his move to his hip holster inside his jacket was practiced and fast. The gun was in his hand. Justin's move was faster, and when the guard's temple bone shattered under the forward thrust of Justin's knuckles, the man dropped heavily to the floor. He had not lived long enough even to groan.

Justin dragged the man into the room, closed the door, and walked away.

Another death. When would it end? Justin thought. How many persons would have to go before the black king fell?

When he opened the door to his own room, he saw a pink slip of memo paper on the floor. It read simply: "Call your friend with the tattoo."

Justin used a pay phone in the lobby to call the Purple Shell. Pablo Olivares answered.

"This is Justin Gilead. We met last night. I received a message to call you.”

"Si.
Wait. I will take this call in my office."

Justin heard the phone being set down. A few moments later, another line was picked up. Then he heard the click as the first telephone was replaced on the receiver base.

"Señor Gilead, you are there?"

"Yes."

"I don't know if this means anything, but maybe—"

"What is it?" Justin snapped.

"There was a Russian sailor in here this morning. The Russians drink vodka well, but they cannot drink rum. This sailor was no different. He drank too much, and he talked too much. He said that there is a small cabin cruiser out in the harbor. It is anchored in the middle of three big Russian ships, and there are small patrol boats cruising around it day and night. I wondered if that might mean anything."

"He doesn't know what the boat is doing there?" Justin asked.

"No, señor. I tried, but he said it had been there since yesterday, just anchored there, and no one knows anything about it. But he thought it was important because the small patrol boats are around it. Could it be important?"

"It might be," Justin said.

"Good. I thought about our friend who is missing."

"Perhaps. Thank you, Señor Olivares," Justin said.

"One more thing, Señor Gilead. The men riding in those patrol boats. They are heavily armed, this drunken Russian said."

"Thank you."

"Are you going out there?" Olivares asked.

"Yes."

"You will probably be shot before your boat gets there."

"I'm not taking a boat," Justin said. "Thank you, señor."

 

Y
uri Durganiv opened a bottle of Los Hermanos
beer and glanced at Starcher, offering him one, but the white-haired American shook his head.

"Suit yourself," Durganiv said. "I find it calms the nerves when I have a busy night planned."

"Maybe it won't be so busy," Starcher said.

"Oh, it will. And for you, too." He drained half the bottle in one long gulp, leaning backward and upending it over his mouth, the bottle almost hidden in his huge hand.

"And what am I supposed to be doing?" Starcher asked, trying to sound casual.

"You can try to fool me into believing you are a nice person," Durganiv said, "But I know you are a paid killer for the reactionary American government and the murderous provocateurs of the Central Intelligence Agency. That you would stoop so low as to ..." Durganiv shook his head. "I never thought a civilized government would do such a thing."

He thought this very funny and laughed so hard he choked, spewing beer over the tabletop in the boat's small cabin.

What the hell is he talking about? Do what thing? The questions flashed through Starcher's mind, adding themselves to all the other questions he had asked himself. He had been on the boat since yesterday, and he still knew nothing. What was happening to Justin? To the Kutsenkos?

He said, "I think I'll have that beer now, if you don't mind."

"Of course not." Durganiv finished his bottle and took two more from a small foam locker under the table. He tossed one across to Starcher, who was sitting on his bunk. "I think I'll have one more, too," Durganiv said. "Did I say it's good for the nerves?"

Starcher twisted off the cap and the shaken beer sprayed into the air.

"Maybe if you're drunk, that'll be an excuse," Durganiv told him. "They might take that into consideration. If the mob lets you live."

The son of a bitch is enjoying this, Starcher thought. He's getting off on taunting me. I should take this gun out now and blow his goddamned face away. But then what do I have? Nothing.

He told himself he had to wait, but how much longer could he wait? Whatever Nichevo had planned, Starcher knew that he was now part of it. Had he fallen into Nichevo's hands like a fool? Was he going to take a Russian scheme and make it worse by his presence in Cuba? Maybe Harry Kael had been right. Maybe Starcher should be home in his blue pajamas, sitting in his rocking chair looking at the stock exchange tables in
The Wall Street Journal
and leaving the spy game to people young enough to play it. People with all their wits.

"Are you a Russian?" Starcher asked.

"Yes. I know, I don't look like a Russian."

"You save me the trouble of saying it."

Durganiv finished that bottle of beer and opened another. "My mother was Spanish," he said. "My father was the direct descendant of a great cossack general. Did you know I was going to be a ballet dancer? But I grew too big."

"If you jumped in the air, you'd go right through the stage when you landed," Starcher said.

"I was a very good dancer. But I was too big. So I became ... well, what I became."

"What is that?"

Durganiv looked at him, sipped his beer, and winked slyly. "A lifelong enemy of the forces of slave-mongering capitalist oppression. A man who fights the reactionary forces wherever he finds them."

"A spy for Zharkov and Nichevo," Starcher said.

"Nichevo? What's that? And who's Zharkov?"

"Never mind. Are you a killer, too? As well as a frustrated ballet dancer?"

"Only when I have to be. Like tonight. Tonight, for you I will be a killer. A very good killer. Too bad no one else will ever know."

"Why not?" Starcher asked.

"I am sharing credit. When I danced, I would not do that. See? I have mellowed as I have grown older. Now I share credit. Tonight, all the credit for my triumph will go to you. It is a shame. People will not point to me and say, there is Yuri Durganiv, the great killer of dictators. No, they will say, that poor dead body over there, that is Starcher. The CIA man. They sent him here to kill..." He stopped and drained the bottle of beer. "Enough talk. There is much to do," he said.

Suddenly, Starcher knew what Nichevo had planned. In a flash, he saw how carefully Zharkov had calculated it and what a fool Starcher had been to wind up their captive. He had made it easier for them, easier to destroy the image of the United States around the rest of the world.

It was time for the gun.

He could kill Durganiv. Maybe he couldn't get out of here, but at least Zharkov's plans would be set back.

Starcher reclined on the bunk, his feet away from Durganiv so that his hand could remove the .22-caliber pistol without the Russian's seeing it.

Then he heard the sound of a small powerboat pulling alongside the cabin cruiser, and he quickly replaced the gun. The motors kept running. Durganiv smiled, drained the last drop from the beer bottle, and rose to his feet.

"We're having company."

Maybe Zharkov, Starcher thought. Good. It would be worth his own death to get Durganiv and Zharkov together. Ruin the plan and destroy the head of Nichevo, both at once. His own life would be a small price to pay for that.

But it wasn't Zharkov who came through the door to the small cabin. It was a thin, short Russian with dark hair, wearing a blue serge suit. Starcher could still hear the putting of the motorboat engine outside.

Durganiv rose and nodded to the new arrival. He spoke to him in Russian. "This is Starcher. You guard him until I call. The radiophone is on the bulkhead outside the door. Bring him when I tell you to. I have to go now to do some work."

The man nodded, not taking his eyes off the American. Starcher wondered if he should shoot Durganiv now. At least stop that part of the plan. His left hand moved toward his leg.

Durganiv switched to English. "Oh, another thing. Starcher has a gun strapped to the back of his leg. But it has no bullets in it, so don't be alarmed."

Starcher felt his heart stop for a beat. He looked at the swarthy Russian, who smiled and shrugged.

"The coffee was drugged last night," he said. "That is why you slept so well. I found the gun and took the bullets."

"Why?" Starcher asked weakly.

"I figured you would cooperate better if you thought that escape was possible. Otherwise, I'd have to be watching you all the time. Behave yourself now, old man. Georgi has not my patience or my winning ways. Don't hurt him, Georgi," he said. "But tie him up if you have to. And don't let him drink any more. I think he has a drinking problem."

The dark-haired guard nodded, and as Durganiv left the cabin, he was laughing. A few moments later, Starcher heard the small powerboat accelerate into life, and then its sound moved away from the boat.

He was trapped with no way to escape.

 

T
he Grandmaster sat on the edge of the long
string pier that jutted out into Havana Harbor. He had stashed his shoes under a garbage pail, and he dangled his bare feet down toward the water. Behind him, fishermen unloaded the day's catch. Justin had been sitting there for five minutes, and now no one noticed him. He glanced back to be sure no one was watching, then slid off the end of the pier and into the water without a sound. In the water, he again sighted out to where the Russian naval vessels were at anchor, a thousand yards from the shore. He lined himself up with those ships, dropped under the water, and swam toward them.

Water had always seemed to bring him strength, rather than drain him of it. He moved powerfully under the water, not like a human, flailing with arms and legs, sapping the body of energy, but like a fish, with a sinuous motion of his trunk. His arms were extended in front of him, primarily to control his direction, but his movement through the water looked as if a creature with the body of a man had been bred to swim with the technique of a fish.

He remembered the patient lessons of Tagore, sitting on the lakeshore near Rashimpur, nodding as Justin crawled ashore, and telling him, "Again."

And Justin would swim the lake again underwater, emerge triumphant, cold, dripping wet, and Tagore would nod and smile once more. And say, "Again."

A small powerboat passed over his head, moving toward shore. Justin looked up and saw its V-shaped wake. The boat was not the cabin cruiser he sought; its wake was too small for that. It was just a little runabout.

He swam on. He did not think of the time he had been in the water or the distance he had traveled. His body worked independently of his mind. Finally he saw a heavy mass in the water ahead of him. As he drew nearer, it loomed over him as if he were a fish and had suddenly swum to the base of Hoover Dam.

He recognized it as the hull of the one of the Russian warships, and he swam toward it, then moved upward to the water line. He broke water alongside the boat and saw the small cabin cruiser fifty yards away. Patrol boats lay on either side of it, drifting casually around, gently circling. The larger Russian warships made a big, broken, irregular ring around the small vessels. The cabin cruiser looked like a lone calf in a large corral, being watched by two lazy sheepdogs. On each of the patrol boats, Justin could see a couple of sailors. Each boat had a machine gun mounted on the stern. But the sailors were bored with their duty. On one boat, the two seamen were arguing with each other; on the other, they played matching coins.