“Considering the alternatives”—the Secretary of State paused—“yes.” He hesitated for a moment. Alex would remember that pause later, in the light of his own knowledge of events. “He has assured me that he will act at the next Politburo meeting, that he will put the stamp of consensus on it.”
“He is the man,” the President said. “He controls. They may intrigue against him. They may rant and rave, but he is the dominating force. Dimitrov gets what he wants.” The President shook his head and stood up, then pointed to the envelope.
“The problem is in there. His time is running out.”
“I see.” Alex nodded.
“What I saw,” Secretary Carlyle said, “was an exhausted man, weakened to the point of total collapse. I was driven to his dacha, where he lives literally in a state of self-imposed siege, both mentally and physically. Add that to the traditional paranoia of Soviet rulers and you can imagine his mental state. The dacha has been fitted with a complete medical facility and all tests have been conducted with elaborate subterfuge. Luckily I speak Russian and he was able to convey his fears.”
“I don’t understand,” Alex said, eying the envelope.
“He trusts us more than his own people. That’s not so strange. Many Russians are the first to admit that they don’t trust each other,” Secretary Carlyle said. “Oh, Dimitrov was quite frank about it. He said they were waiting like vultures to pick his carcass and he has warned us that his death will bring down the whole structure of our mutual policy.
“At this point he trusts no one,” the Secretary continued. “He claims that there is a faction in the KGB working against him, but he has managed so far to keep them at bay. He also assures us that he still has the other members of the Politburo and the Army under his control. The only thing he has not been able to keep at bay is this.” He pointed to the envelope. “Although he has maintained massive security about his illness, his secret enemies in the Politburo, the KGB and elsewhere suspect he is suffering from some form of terminal disease. He distrusts Soviet doctors in the political sense. He also distrusts the state of the medical art in his own country.”
“He should,” Alex said. “It is definitely well behind us.”
“He knows this,” Secretary Carlyle repeated. “And he asked me to convey his medical records to the President, in the hope that we could prolong his life. We have, of course, a vested interest in it. At least until the Politburo meeting.”
“And then?” Alex asked.
Secretary Carlyle shrugged, obviously sidestepping the question.
“I told him that we would submit his records to the foremost leukemia specialist in the country. I also told him that I would get word back to him within seventy-two hours. He is quite realistic about his condition, a most interesting man. Even he points out that it is a question of time. ‘You must find a way to buy me time,’ he pleaded, the implication being that time would allow him to cleanse the oligarchy of adventurers and handpick his successor.”
Alex could feel both men looking at him, waiting. He felt inadequate to the sudden barrage of information. As he struggled to assess the incoming details, the quick lesson in geopolitical realities, the Machiavellian scheming, so foreign to his experience, he still felt reluctant to become involved.
“I do admit some expertise in the field of leukemia,” Alex said. “But the study of this disease is still in its infancy. We have made progress. We have managed to achieve some remission with chemotherapy. But we can never promise recovery. In science, gentlemen, you are never an authority. You are always in a state of transition. There are others surely that are equally qualified for this job.”
“You’re being modest,” the Secretary said. “Besides, we need someone who speaks Russian. We couldn’t have manufactured a better candidate.”
“So I’ve popped up on the computer,” Alex said.
“You put it quaintly, Dr. Cousins,” the President said, detecting his annoyance. “When it comes to Russian ancestry the CIA is ridiculously efficient. We know your grandfather was a Czarist exile, who just beat the Bolsheviks out of Siberia. We know your father was with Graves. We were looking for you, Dr. Cousins.”
“May I?” Alex asked, pointing to the envelope.
The President nodded. Alex broke the seal as they watched him. He pulled out the pile of papers, forms, X rays. All of the notations were written in Russian.
I must stay detached, he told himself, concentrating on the reports and documents, as his mind clicked into the Russian language. Russian had been his first language. His mother had barely learned English by the time he was born. She had come from Vladivostok, where his father had met her in 1919. Only a schoolgirl then, she and the young officer had become correspondents. Ten years later he had brought her to America to become his wife. Alex had actually entered kindergarten knowing only a few words of English.
As he reviewed the documents, the President stood up and spoke to someone on the telephone. He then nodded to Alex and left the room. Secretary Carlyle also reached for a phone and began talking in hushed tones. It was obvious to Alex that somehow their meeting with him had been the top priority of the day. When Secretary Carlyle had completed his phone call, he walked to a sideboard and poured himself a drink.
“Brandy?”
“Thank you,” Alex said. He could use one. He noted that the Secretary’s hand shook as he poured. Sipping, he continued to read.
“It is an efficient presentation,” he said, after absorbing the information in the documents.
The Secretary had dozed. Clearing his throat deliberately, Alex roused him.
“You should get some rest,” he said. The man looked wan and exhausted.
“Normally, I sleep on the plane,” Secretary Carlyle said. “But Dimitrov disturbed me. I couldn’t get him out of my mind.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “What does that tell you?” he asked, pointing to the documents which Alex had replaced in the envelope.
“From the information in these reports, I’d say the diagnosis of the Russian doctors was quite correct. Acute myeloblastic leukemia.”
“Which means?”
“His condition is tenuous.”
“How much time does he have?”
Alex sighed.
“With chemotherapy, perhaps some. I could hardly give you a complete evaluation from this.” He pointed to the envelope on his knees. “In any event the problem is that the chemotherapy must be carefully monitored. It could set off all sorts of debilitating reactions and, even under optimum circumstances, it is quite chancy. Unfortunately, Russian medicine is not sophisticated in its administration, but I’m sure that I can provide adequate instruction—”
“Dr. Cousins,” the Secretary interrupted, “I don’t think we’ve made ourselves clear.”
“I don’t understand,” Alex said, merely to prolong the inevitable.
“Dr. Cousins, Dimitrov wants you. At his side. In Russia. We’re expecting you to fly to the Soviet Union within the next twelve hours. You’ll have to wind up your affairs at home and keep your destination a secret. It won’t be easy, Dr. Cousins, I know that, but, as you now know, this is a matter of the gravest national security.”
Alex knew. He had been waiting for this announcement and his mind had been turning over various methods of refusal. It was quite possible for the chemotherapy to be administered by a reasonably competent Russian doctor who was given precise instructions over the phone. Why did he have to be part of their political intriguing? He had, long ago, reached his own conclusions about the basic immorality of politicians and all their games. Besides, despite the careful arguments of the Secretary, he had remained skeptical. The whole scenario was too fantastic to be believed.
“I would be less than honest,” the Secretary continued, “if I didn’t tell you that this assignment may involve some physical danger.”
Such a possibility had also occurred to Alex, who had never felt himself to be particularly courageous. He knew the low threshold of his own tolerance for pain.
“They will watch you constantly, listen to your conversation, follow you everywhere. They will minutely search your possessions. The loyal intelligence under Dimitrov’s direction will watch you and the potentially disloyal intelligence will watch you. Dimitrov’s enemies will want to know his condition. They will try anything to find out. After all, you will have in your possession the most important piece of information in the Soviet Union.”
Alex wanted to laugh. It was absurd. He wondered if he was not dreaming this; if he would not soon awaken in his own bed and discover the whole episode was simply the result of too many Swiss cheese sandwiches before retiring. But the Secretary was quite real. Alex watched him clean the mist again from his glasses.
“Really, Mr. Secretary!” he said finally. He had determined to show his skepticism in its mildest form.
“I assure you, Dr. Cousins, this is not speculation. I am merely paraphrasing Dimitrov.”
“And you believe this?”
“Yes.”
“You know, of course, that a terminal disease affects a man’s logic. His mental state might be drastically impaired. He could easily slip into paranoia.”
“I commented earlier on his mental state. He was depressed, but quite lucid. And I assure you that, as ridiculous as all this may sound, it is believable and probable. In the game of nations such activities are commonplace.”
Suddenly impatient, Alex tossed aside the medical documents.
“Well, it’s not my game. I’m a doctor. That’s all I know. All I care about.”
“And that’s all we’re expecting you to be.”
“It can be done long distance.”
“I’m afraid not. Dimitrov would not trust your instructions coming through third persons.”
“You can’t force me to do this. Not in this country,” Alex said, surprised by his sudden outburst of belligerence.
“I know,” the Secretary said calmly. “It’s your choice.”
Alex stood up, feeling hesitant. Damn them, he thought. He disliked being forced into anything, especially decisions outside the scientific realm of abstraction. He could be bold and courageous when dealing with theoretical conclusions amid the clutter of his charts, test tubes and animals. But he had steeled himself against the cries of human suffering. He had seen too many men and women die, and he hoped it had hardened him. The process had taken years of discipline, years of controlling himself as he watched the human body wither under the onslaught of mysterious forces. But even as he pursued his scientific endeavors, he knew what he was sacrificing. He could see it in the faces of those who lived close to him—Janice, their daughter Sonia, his father. He felt isolated, blocked, cut off from humanness, as if he had forgotten its language.
He felt a shiver of that isolation now. Was there some mystical force that had sent this message to him halfway across the world, mysteriously pulling him back to his roots? No. It was just a crazy coincidence, nothing more. To believe anything else one would have to believe in fate and that was surely unscientific, beyond the limits of logic. What did he care about all this intrigue, these political stupidities wrapped in academic explanations? Even the prospect of nuclear war was an abstraction. He had speculated on its results too often not to see it as an interesting abstraction. What did he care about Dimitrov, the besieged leader, the manipulator, the keeper of the flame of all their silly dialectics? Nothing. Politics was an annoyance, a babble of words that filled newspapers. But the giant land that Dimitrov governed was very real. It was the land that called him.
“At least until the Politburo meeting,” Secretary Carlyle pleaded.
“I can promise nothing,” Alex said. He was thinking about his roots, not Dimitrov.
IVAN
Vasilyevich Godorov waddled along the passageway, his fingers balancing his ungainly body against the steel panels. He stopped to look at “The Russiya’s” timetable, which was posted under glass and screwed to the far wall of the carriage. He had memorized it, knew every line, every variation of every train that traversed the ribbon of track which snaked its way back into the black pit of his own private nightmare. Kirov, 596 miles; Sverdlovsk, 1,130 miles; Omsk, 1,688 miles; Novosibirsk, 2,077 miles and Krasnoyarsk—Krasnoyarsk!
He smiled inwardly, although his hard thick features expressed only perpetual contempt. Krasnoyarsk! It meant “beautiful.” His fist clenched, as a wave of pain shot through his deformed spine. The train was bucking like a horse. Not a single moment of his life had passed during the past thirty years without the feel, the sound, the detestable click of train wheels continually present in his mind.
Scratching his chin, he pondered again the seventeen-minute stop-over in Krasnoyarsk. He had estimated that the third car from the end, a hard class, would stop at the exact position at the end of the station where the station manager’s office was located. According to Platinov, the office would be a small whitewashed room, with one desk and a chair, charts and timetables on the wall, two wooden benches facing the desk. He had forced it all from Platinov, innocent foolish Platinov, who had stared wide-eyed and dull-faced, his nose running in the cold Moscow afternoon, as the two of them sat on a hillock overlooking the Lenin stadium.
“I knew it was Shmiot instantly,” Platinov had said, “even before I saw his name on a little plaque outside the office.”
“Did he recognize you?”
“Shmiot?”
“Who else, you ass?” Godorov calmed himself down. He must not betray his single-mindedness, he thought, fighting back the hatred that had festered inside of him for twenty years. Could Platinov know he had searched every face that had crossed his path since his release, seeking Shmiot? Every time he thought of that name, he rubbed the small of his back, digging his fingers into his pain, which condemned him never to be able to stay in one position for more than ten minutes at a time.
“But are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” He jabbed Godorov in the hard muscles of his stomach. “Do you think any one of us could forget him?” He had actually smiled as he said it, as if it no longer mattered.
“He is, of course, older,” Platinov continued. “Still very tall with that thick bull neck and those hamlike hands. It was very odd seeing him looking so respectable in his railway uniform.” Platinov paused to rub the snot off his sleeve. “It was odd seeing him out of a convict’s uniform, and the hair has grown back on his head. But the eyes are still ice cold, as cruel as ever.”