Who's on First (8 page)

“What did he say?”—Viktor had trouble with French spoken rapidly—he asked Tamara.

“The usual business. Thanked our hosts, said we democratic scientists have a lot in common, and we will be glad to see them in September.”

Viktor said nothing. As requested, he handed his own and Tamara's passports to Viksne, who muttered in Russian that he would return them on the plane going back. “You won't need them until then.” And there, as always, was the bus, parked only a few paces from the baggage compartment.

8

Boris Andreyevich Bolgin was in Paris on his monthly visit from London and, as ever, occupied the office of the military attaché, who obligingly moved—somewhere; Bolgin did not bother to ask and did not care where. Everybody was obliging to Bolgin, ambassadors included, because Bolgin's dispositions tended to be accepted in Moscow as final. The wonder of it was that he had survived the purge of Beria, notwithstanding Bolgin's high standing as chief of KGB counterintelligence for Western Europe and therefore his presumed closeness to his boss. Twelve long years earlier, when Stalin reinstated the
katorga
and appeared hungry to send there everyone who ever worked for him, Bolgin had reached a calm decision, the fruit of that serenity uniquely disposed of by many who had already experienced
katorga,
as Bolgin had, during a purge in the thirties. He never traveled without his cyanide pill; that was his daytime rule. His nighttime rule: Never go to sleep sober. A corollary of this rule was: Never seek companionship, male or female, at dinner or later. As a younger man he liked to talk, and he liked especially to talk when he was well lubricated. When they let him out of the camp, requiring as they did his language skills in the war, he was a changed man, receiving stoically the news of his wife's divorce and disappearance with their child. He simply went to work, using his skills as a linguist and his cunning as a spy, and then spymaster. He had made it a rule to resist as forcefully as he could any promotion. In that way he never troubled his superiors or his peers. He pleaded with Ilyich not to give him all of Western Europe. But Ilyich had insisted, and Bolgin reluctantly accepted the assignment, on the understanding that all disciplinary arrangements would be made by Moscow, directly. In that way he survived, combining an apparent fair-mindedness with absolute personal privacy and that mysteriousness that came from nobody's knowing, as ambassadors and agents came and went, whether they had been summoned to Moscow, for reward or for punishment, as the result of one of Boris Andreyevich Bolgin's personal communications.

He was one of six Soviet agents in Europe who had the privilege of a personal code. When he elected to use that code, which was frequently, he would eject the operator from the encoding room and tap out his message himself. He would be brought replies, or instructions, from Moscow in the same code, undecipherable except by himself.

When he cabled from London the number of the flight on which he would be arriving, all the customary arrangements had been made. He was met by a KGB embassy guard in an unassuming Renault, his little hotel suite at the Montalembert was booked, and the locked suitcase, stored in the embassy in his absence, was in the room waiting for him. In it he kept a dozen paperback copies of Dostoevski, Tolstoi, Pushkin, Gogol, and several liters of vodka, in plastic containers.

He ordered the cable traffic from European capitals, and from Moscow and Washington, brought in. One, from Moscow, was addressed to him personally. It read: “
DID WE PICK UP BLACKFORD OAKES IN PARIS REPLY ILYICH
.” Bolgin picked up the office telephone and sent for the code clerk. “Bring in Saturday's cables from Washington.”

He leafed through them. At 1713 on Saturday, this cable had been received by the Paris chief of station, Sverdlov: “
AGENT BLACKFORD OAKES DEPARTED 1000 EDT PANAM FLIGHT #104 DESTINATION PARIS
:” He did some quick calculation. The transatlantic flight, eastbound, would take ten or eleven hours. Oakes would therefore have arrived in Paris sometime after midnight. He picked up the telephone: “Sverdlov.” He was put through instantly: “Bolgin. Come, please.”

The chief of station, a stocky, light-skinned man wearing an ill-fitting brown suit and gray vest, came to attention in front of Bolgin's desk—Bolgin had the rank of colonel. “Relax.” Bolgin waved him toward the chair adjacent, under the picture of Lenin. He passed the cable over to him.

“No, Colonel, we didn't pick him up. We have only that one picture of Oakes, you know. You're the only person in the European theater who has ever seen him, since we lost Erika. The plane was chock-f. We managed to get a look at the manifest, but there was no Oakes listed. So we don't even know what name he's traveling under. And he hasn't been near the U.S. Embassy, which of course isn't surprising.”

“Have you begun a hotel search?”

“No, sir. I knew you were coming in, so I thought I'd wait and see whether you wanted to do a search. I am aware, Colonel, of your instructions not to overuse our hotel contacts.”

Boris Bolgin tapped his fingers on the desk while he reflected. He pointed to the cable that had just come in. “Moscow wants to know:
Did we pick him up?
What, my dear Sverdlov, do you wish me to reply? ‘
No
.'—or ‘
Not yet
'?”

“I understand, sir. You wish the full dragnet?”

“Let me see the picture you have.”

Sverdlov reached for the telephone, and presently a stout woman arrived with a folder.

Bolgin looked at it. “Sometimes I cannot understand our Washington office. For three years we have asked for a more up-to-date picture of Oakes. They follow him around even to airports, but they don't bother to get more pictures. It is lucky for them I am not in charge of the Washington office. Still … this is only … five years old. I don't suppose that handsome fox has grown a beard”—he tugged at his own goatee. He depressed a button and a stenographer came in. “This is to Washington, Seryogin. ‘
RE OAKES CONTACT ORLY UNMADE. PROCEEDING WITH SEARCH. ADVISE IF HE DEPARTED USING ANY DISGUISE
.'” And to Sverdlov: “They won't wake Seryogin up for that, so we won't get an answer until after lunch. Hold up the search until then, so we'll know what we're looking for.” Sverdlov rose to go. As he reached the door, Bolgin, while scanning the next cable, said, “By the way, Sverdlov, are you related to the Sverdlov who ordered the execution of the Czar?”

Sverdlov drew his shoulders back. “I have the honor, Colonel, to be his grandson.”

“Well, well. Yes. Well, that was a very efficient operation. Yes. Eleven people were there, and we got them all using only seventy-seven bullets.”

Sverdlov watched his superior closely, attempting to frame an appropriate reply. He decided to be cautious.

“As you say, Colonel.”

That young man will go far, thought Bolgin, waving his finger in dismissal as he returned to the cables.

9

Sitting in the driver's seat of the French taxicab, Blackford Oakes rehearsed yet again what he had gone over so many times with Rufus and Trust. It might very well not work, in which case the alternative plan, concededly less expeditious, would be put into operation the next day. So much depended on whether Soviet-trained Russians
could
act spontaneously. Vadim thought it workable. “On the second hand, I do not know Viksne. If he is one hundred percent the martinet, then we might have our trouble.”

“If he's one hundred percent martinet,” Rufus had answered, “what would he do? Order another bus? From where? There are no streetcars to the Grand from there. They've
got
to take taxis. It's certainly too far to walk.”

Blackford was dressed in a black beret and the blue painter's smock so common among French taxi drivers. He was eating slowly, visibly, from a lunch box and from time to time filling a small glass from an unmarked half liter of red wine. He had resolved that if addressed by anyone he would speak the few words of French he knew in a heavy German accent, there being a couple of dozen Germans who drove cabs in Paris. He thought it unlikely that anyone would accost him, parked as he was by a warehouse on the other side of the street from the Lycée. His Off Duty sign was clearly lit. The seat on his right was hidden by parcels that reached almost to the ceiling of the car. Other parcels occupied a full one third of the rear area. He was apparently engaged in deliveries, taking a quick break for lunch, and not, therefore, available to passengers. He checked, under his dashboard, the battery level of the detonating device and immediately reproached himself for feeling any necessity to do so again, having checked it only fifteen minutes earlier. The route so carefully prepared would take him by a total of fifteen red lights before the access point to the highway. He had rehearsed a driving speed calculated to arrive when each of the lights was green. This required him in some stretches to go as slowly as fifteen miles per hour; in others, as fast as thirty-five miles per hour. In order to activate this schedule, it was required that he pass the first light, at Faubourg St.-Antoine, exactly at midpoint during the full minute it stayed green. On easing into Rue Faidherbe, he could expect to see Trust's blue Mercedes. Blackford would adapt his speed so as to trail the Mercedes, which would stopwatch the preselected maze.

At 12:12 he saw the column of figures walking out of the Lycée toward the bus. The figure in the lead was a man whose picture he had carefully studied—Viksne, a small, chunky man obviously accustomed to giving orders, and to setting the pace. It was warm and sunny but Viksne was amply dressed, vest included, and carried a raincoat in one hand, a briefcase in the other. There followed, in groups of two and three, the dozen scientists and the two interpreters. The scientists carried briefcases, including the girl, Tamara, who walked arm in arm with the lithe, tall, slightly bent-over figure of Viktor Kapitsa. Two of the scientists, wearing cameras about their necks, paused to take pictures, of the Lycée, of themselves, of the bus. They were an animated, but well-harnessed lot. As they walked into the bus, some loitered to permit others to enter first: There is no more rigid hierarchy than in classless societies. Even Viksne was deferring to the venerable Nesmayanov—but no, Viksne was in fact letting all his wards get into the bus before doing so himself, occupying the seat opposite the driver, who cranked up the engine at exactly 12:16. Blackford turned on his motor and eased his Off Duty taxicab behind the bus, keeping a distance of about two thirds of a block.

Down they went, on the Avenue Daumesnil, across the Place Félix Eboué, up the slight rise to the Rue de Reuilly. As the bus approached the Boulevard Diderot, with its hefty, placid apartment buildings on either side, an area where no policemen doing regular duty could be found, Blackford took a breath, put his hand under the dashboard, fingered the toggle switch on the detonating mechanism, and clicked it down. Instantly there was an explosion inside the engine of the bus. It ground to a halt as smoke issued from the motor. The delegation filed out in some excitement; the bus driver gesticulated wildly while attempting to open the hood of the bus without success. Viksne and Nesmayanov were animated as they spoke and one or two cars passed the bus, no one volunteering any help.

Now! thought Blackford—and guided his taxi to that part of the street where Tamara stood, stopping within a foot of her.

Smiling, he said in French: “Where are you headed?”

Tamara looked at Viktor for guidance. Viktor approached the ingratiating languid taxi driver, and in awkward French, managed to say: “To the Hôtel-Grand, at Rue Scribe. Are you by any chance going by there?”

“Sure,” said Blackford. “That's on my way. Hop in.”

Viktor looked over at Viksne. “Shall I report the breakdown at the hotel?”

“Never mind,” Viksne snapped. And, raising his voice to address the other stranded passengers, “Everyone get cabs and we'll meet in the hotel. We'll have a fresh bus for the afternoon session.” To Blackford he said in grotesque French, “Can you make room for me?”

“I'm sorry, sir, just two. You can see, I'm delivering parcels.”

Tamara stepped in, followed by Viktor, and they began instantly babbling in Russian, although only after Tamara had addressed the driver: “
Merci beaucoup, monsieur
.”

Blackford drove forward, recording the time. 12:25:-35. It was three minutes, at thirty miles per hour, to that first light on St.-Antoine. It changed on even minutes. He ran his finger down the column of figures on the notebook by his side. He should average either eighteen or thirty-six miles per hour. The fine tuning would be done for him after he arrived at the beginning of the next block—by his escort, Anthony Trust.

And there was the blue Mercedes, moving slowly. To synchronize with it Blackford had to reduce his speed abruptly. He braked, and leaned out the window muttering to a bicyclist something in French which Tamara did not understand, the bicyclist did not understand, and Blackford did not understand; but it motivated the slowdown. The Mercedes picked up speed, as did Blackford.

He had speculated: When would his passengers become suspicious? How would they express their suspicion? Some people come instantly to terms with large cities. Others spend lifetimes visiting them and continue to depend on others to guide them about. Even Vadim did not hazard a guess as to whether Viktor would bother to study the map of Paris. As for Tamara, they had no idea. Certainly, given the distances involved, it would be seven or eight minutes at least before one or the other expressed any concern over the failure to reach the hotel. By that time, five of the fifteen lights would have been passed. Blackford would tell them amiably that one of the packages
had
to be delivered before 12:30, so he was taking a little detour, did they mind? Predictably they would not. If they did, he would go instantly into Phase 3.