Summit (12 page)

The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union met every Thursday morning in an ornate room in an ancient Kremlin building. Its dozen or so members discussed an agenda carefully prepared for them by powerful secretaries of the Party's Central Committee. Theoretically, there was supposed to be discussion of the items on this agenda, but little disagreement. Internal disagreement made people nervous. A divided Politburo meant a divided nation, and a divided nation lay exposed and helpless before its enemies. If the Politburo members could not reach a consensus on an issue, it was better that the issue be ignored.

Unfortunately, issues that are ignored do not disappear; they fester. And if they fester long enough, they become as much a threat to the state as disagreement.

Pavel Fyodorovich Grigoriev, General Secretary of the Communist Party and head of the Soviet state, understood this problem completely. But understanding it did not mean that he was capable of solving it. To solve it required more power than he possessed—the power to eliminate opposition, to purge the Party of obstructionists and adventurists, to decree the path to be taken instead of negotiating over it. No one—least of all Grigoriev—wanted a return to the Cult of Personality, but that didn't mean Grigoriev couldn't dream about a more accommodating world.

That was precisely what he was dreaming about as he sat at the long table with his fellow members and listened to Igor Volnikov. Volnikov was head of the Committee on State Security—the KGB—and the bane of Grigoriev's existence.
"Endorphins.
..," Volnikov was saying,
"natural opiates... a drug that permanently alters behavior without altering intelligence..."

Volnikov had a spy high up in the American government, and the spy had come upon something very interesting. Just obtaining the spy's more mundane information was an unprecedented achievement, and there had been other triumphs lately as well. Volnikov's star was rising, and that meant you crossed him at your own peril; you didn't know if someday he would have control over your life.

"We must obtain that drug," Marshal Falin, the defense minister said. "Its military implications are enormous."

"I agree," Volnikov replied. "I have given orders that this be the top priority of our American asset."

It depressed Grigoriev how much Volnikov and Falin were agreeing with each other lately. The military and the KGB were natural rivals; an alliance between them did not bode well for those excluded from it.

"May I ask why we are so far behind in developing a drug like this ourselves?" asked Kuznetsov, the blunt Ukrainian party boss.

Volnikov glared at him. The KGB chairman was a large man with black eyes that stared out of a fleshy face. Grigoriev was sure those eyes had reduced many a man to jelly; they had an effect even on Kuznetsov. "We have chosen to emphasize other areas of research," Volnikov responded. "And those choices have in their own way been immensely successful. Can anyone quarrel with what the woman psychic has done for us?"

No one was inclined to quarrel.

"Can we be sure your American asset is telling the truth about this drug?" Stashinsky, the foreign minister, wanted to know.

Volnikov leveled a particularly cold stare at Stashinsky, who was Grigoriev's strongest ally. "He has never let us down," Volnikov said. "He has never lied to us. He is a brave and loyal servant of the cause."

"All right, but it could be American disinformation," Stashinsky persisted. "Getting us to commit resources to a project that has no chance of success."

"We will obtain the drug, and then we will know," Volnikov growled.

Grigoriev waited to see if anyone had anything further to add. No one did. "The next item on the agenda is the arms-reduction treaty," he said. "As you can see from the summary of the negotiations, the Americans remain intransigent on several key points, but I believe the peace campaign we have started, along with a couple of well-publicized concessions, will force President Winn to reach a comprehensive agreement with us, ideally by the time of the summit. The summary also includes recommendations as to the kinds of concessions we might be prepared to make. For example, the reduction in Warsaw Pact forces—"

"Treason," Falin muttered, and the old man thrust the paper away from him.

"Now, Mikhail Vladimirovich, we have been over this before," Grigoriev said in a soft, reproachful tone. Falin had to be pacified each time the issue was raised. There was no help for it, though; it was only by being patient yet relentless that Grigoriev could hope to prevail.

"No matter how many times you go over it, it is still treason," the defense minister said. The other Politburo members shifted in their chairs and waited for Grigoriev to make the familiar case.

"Is it treason to want the motherland to prosper?" Grigoriev asked. "Military expenditures are destroying us, Misha, as surely as American bombs would. We spend twice as much on defense as the United States, as a percentage of gross national product. Hundreds of thousands of workers in the prime of life are tied up in the military, manning tanks and cleaning guns when they could be manufacturing light bulbs or toilet paper. Our citizens have been deprived of too much for too long."

"Our citizens welcome sacrifices," Falin said, striking his hand against the table. "In the Great Patriotic War—"

Grigoriev was so tired of the Great Patriotic War. "The war did not last forty years, Misha. The old people are tired and the young people are restless. You know about the riots—"

"We took care of those riots," Volnikov stated. "And we will take care of any more that occur."

"Repression does not solve the problem, it only postpones it," Grigoriev replied.

"Disarmament and economic hocus-pocus may or may not solve the problem, but it will certainly place the motherland in grave danger," Falin said.

Grigoriev stifled an urge to throttle the stubborn old man. "We will protect the motherland," he said softly. "But we must also face reality. And the reality is that nowadays more guns do not necessarily translate into better protection."

Falin shrugged. "You will have it your way, I know. But it makes me very worried."

"We will strive to relieve your worries, Misha. Are there any other comments about the negotiations?"

Someone was concerned about on-site verification. They discussed it for a few minutes, and finally Grigoriev agreed to a modification to their proposal. The clock in the Spassky Tower chimed the hour. The agenda was completed; the meeting was over. Grigoriev glanced at Stashinsky as everyone filed out of the room. Stashinsky nodded his understanding.

* * *

Stashinsky was a friend as well as an ally. They had gone to the Moscow Institute of International Relations together, then risen quickly through the ranks, their paths constantly merging and diverging, as the paths of the elite will do. When Grigoriev finally reached the top (due, as always, to an irreproducible mixture of skill and luck), he naturally decided to bring his old friend with him. He had never regretted his decision.

Stashinsky sat in Grigoriev's Kremlin office and took an American cigarette out of his gold case. He offered Grigoriev one, but Grigoriev shook his head. "I'm worried, Seryochka."

"I hear there's a new drug that will calm you down, Comrade General Secretary," Stashinsky said as he lit the cigarette.

Grigoriev smiled. "If only there weren't. I have a friend or two in the KGB, Seryochka. There are, after all, some reasonable people in Dzerzhinsky Square. And one of them tells me that Volnikov has begun drawing up plans for the use of this wonder drug on the United States."

"How? Spray the country as if it were a wheat field he was protecting from bugs?"

"Perhaps. Or bring it into the country in a suitcase and, I don't know, sneak it into Congress's drinking water. My friend was hazy on the details."

Stashinsky shook his head. "Volnikov is a menace. Why didn't you bring this up at the Politburo meeting?" he asked. "That would at least keep him from taking things any further."

"How do you know that other people would agree that it's a bad idea, Seryochka? Falin, for example, might consider it a master stroke."

"Falin isn't that stupid."

"I don't know. He's an old man, and he's afraid—just as, I think, Volnikov is afraid in his own way. This is a time of change, and change makes people nervous. Perhaps to them attacking America would be less frightening than loosening the reins on the Russian people. They are both looking for easy solutions to problems that have none."

Stashinsky exhaled a cloud of smoke. He was taller than Grigoriev, and more elegantly dressed; his years in the West had left more of an impression. And that, of course, disqualified him for supreme power. The Party trusted Grigoriev more because he had been to the West and returned unchanged; it knew he was incorruptible. "Perhaps you're right," Stashinsky murmured. "It's you or Volnikov, isn't it, Pavel? And if you don't get tougher, I'm not sure who my money is on. Perhaps your reputation and your popularity will pull you through, and I certainly hope so. But I'm not convinced."

"How do I get tougher?" Grigoriev asked. "The days are gone when you could just have someone like Volnikov shot, even if he didn't have plenty of allies."

"More's the pity." Stashinsky pondered. "His star psychic could meet with an accident, though. That would put an end to one of his great triumphs, and complicate his dreams of glory."

Grigoriev gazed at his friend. "Impossible."

"Why?" Stashinsky gestured with his cigarette at the painting of Lenin that hung over Grigoriev's desk. "Would Vladimir Ilyich have hesitated? The state is more important than any individual, particularly some hick girl with a weird talent who is undoubtedly going to get killed by Volnikov's thugs someday anyway."

"Well, you may be right, but I can't do it. We must abide by the rule of law."

"What
are
you going to do, then? Allow Volnikov to force you out of power and let his craziness run rampant?"

"If the Party wants him, I will obey the wishes of the Party. I'll try to make people see reason, but if I fail, I will accept my failure."

Stashinsky shook his head and stubbed out his cigarette. "Pavel Fyodorovich, you're a fool."

Grigoriev sighed. "You're probably right, Seryochka. You're probably right."

Chapter 11

The doorman seated at the security console did not like the looks of the scruffy, unshaven man with the cloth cap pulled down over his eyes. He was wearing a tattered tweed jacket and ancient stained chinos, and he held a battered briefcase in his large left hand. He looked like a rummy who retained some pretensions of respectability. He did not belong here. "Yes?" the doorman asked, hand poised over the alarm button in case the man became abusive.

"I heff come to repair ze piano of Maestro Khorashev," the man said in a heavy accent that the doorman didn't recognize.

The doorman paused. That seemed at least conceivable. "Is Mr. Khorashev expecting you?"

The man shrugged. "Inquire, pliz. The name is Herr Bosendorfer. Daniel Bosendorfer. He has cracked sounding board. Is very serious."

The doorman decided it wouldn't do any harm to inquire. He called Khorashev's apartment. The housekeeper knew nothing about any Herr Bosendorfer, so she went to ask Khorashev himself, who immediately got on the line. "Yes, indeed," he said. "Sounding board is not only thing that is cracked. Send Herr Bosendorfer up immediately."

"Yes, sir." The doorman buzzed open the inner door. The scruffy man tipped his cloth cap and headed for the elevator.

* * *

Khorashev was at the door of the apartment to greet him. They hugged. "Daniel, my idiot friend, why don't you call like normal person?"

"If I knew the answer to that, Dmitri, maybe I'd actually be normal."

"Well, you are a sight for hurt eyes. Come in. I am just watching
The Beverly Hillbillies."

Fulton wasn't quite sure whether Khorashev fractured his clichés as a joke, or whether after thirty years in America he still hadn't mastered the language. He followed the older man inside. The apartment, as always, brought back a rush of memories. Khorashev had been his teacher at Juilliard and afterward; together they had found the genius lurking behind the talent. The experience had been exhausting and exhilarating.