King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game

by Paul Hoffman

  He was glum nonetheless. They had a brief, dispassionate discussion about where he went wrong. For him, the rest of the tournament was downhill. He overlooked simple attacks. He gave away pieces for no reason. His play was unrecognizable. He started coughing a lot during the penultimate round, and I handed him my Poland Spring. He told me after the game that he thought he was running a fever.

  The next day he seemed tired but healthy, and I asked him why the game had made him ill. Was he mad at himself for forgetting his Slav analysis? Was he unhappy that Irina had completely dominated him? Nope, he said, it was because the game reminded him of something she wanted—to play chess with him at home—that he could not bring himself to do. “I was upset,” he said, “because I know I can’t satisfy her.”

  AT 10:00 A.M. ON JUNE 17, 2004, PASCAL AND I BOARDED A BRITISH AIRWAYS Airbus A320 for the three-hour, 1,470-mile flight from London to Tripoli. The boarding process was long. I recognized several chess stars among our fifty fellow passengers: thirty-three-year-old Michael Adams of England, the world’s number seven player; Alexander Ivanov, a Russian émigré from Massachusetts who has the curious habit, in the middle of a tense chess game, of cocking his head all the way back and staring at the ceiling for minutes at a time; and the American talent Hikaru Nakamura and his stepfather Sunil Weeramantry, the top player in Sri Lanka.

  We had been buckled into our seats for half an hour when the pilot came on the loudspeaker and apologized for the delay. “We haven’t left the gate,” he announced, “because we must accommodate oversized cargo that is not easy to fit into the storage bay.” I looked out the window and saw four men struggling with a huge wooden coffin. I wondered whether there was a corpse inside or whether it was being sent to Tripoli to retrieve the headless body of a hapless British citizen. Oversized cargo? I love pilot-speak. They talk of a near-miss when they really mean a near-collision, but collision is too scary a word to utter thirty thousand feet above the ground. The men finally got the oversized cargo into the storage bay, and the rest of the flight was uneventful.

  Pascal and I were seated next to a Libyan national who introduced himself as an oil tanker captain. I realized how little we knew about his country. Back in the States I had failed to find a travel guide to Libya, and I wasn’t any more successful in a bookstore at Heathrow, despite the direct flights to Tripoli. There was some information on the Internet, but it was geared more to people who planned to visit the desert. One Web page warned against swimming anywhere in Tripoli, including pools, because of African insects that carried disease.

  The captain was friendly and told me about the capital city while Pascal slept. He wrote out a list of his favorite restaurants and the best traditional dishes to order. He did not live in the city, he said, but gave me the name and phone number of a fellow oilman in Tripoli and insisted we call him if we ever needed help. Help with what? the paranoid in me wondered. Why would we need help? He told me not to swim in the Mediterranean in Tripoli—it was polluted—but to go to the most beautiful beaches in the world thirty miles away. He warned me that alcohol was illegal in his country, but he thought that our hotel, because it catered to foreigners, might slip us some on the sly. I was amused by our mutual prejudices. I feared that all Libyans were closet terrorists and he thought that all Americans were lushes.

  We arrived in Tripoli a little after 3:00 P.M., and the dozen of us on the plane who were heading to the tournament were greeted by Walid, a man in his mid-twenties who worked for the Libyan Olympic Committee. “Welcome, chess players!” he said.

  “Shookran” (“Thank you” in Arabic), I replied.

  “You are Libyan I see! Very good!”

  Walid gathered our passports and gave them to a group of immigration officers huddled in a glassed-in office in the corner. Two other flights arrived, bearing another ten players and their companions, from China and India, and Walid took their passports, too. We were kept waiting in a stuffy receiving area whose muffled sound system played Celine Dion in French. On one wall near a prayer room was a giant portrait of Muammar Gadhafi, the first of many we would see in Tripoli. He looked like a dandy, in his turquoise jacket with a bright yellow lapel, oversize shades, and natty brown hat. His nose jutted upward in an arrogant, I’m-above-it-all pose. Next to the portrait were two trilingual signs, in Arabic, French, and English. One said: “Partners Not Wage Workers.” The other read: “No Democracy Without Peoples Congresses and Committees Everywhere.”

  I took out my digital camera and started to snap a picture of Gadhafi’s portrait. Pascal grabbed my arm. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said.

  “But the Chinese players are taking pictures,” I said.

  “Still, I wouldn’t.”

  Pascal was right. Later I asked one of the chess officials whether cameras were allowed and he said definitely not, because the airport was considered to be a military installation. He said he had seen officers confiscate cameras and smash them.

  All the chess players were sweating, and a man named Hadi, Walid’s young assistant, gave us bottled water and orange soda. After more than an hour, Walid returned the passports of all the London arrivals except me and told the group to proceed through customs. Pascal stayed behind. I asked Walid if there was a problem. He said everything was fine and that it just took time to write my visa in Arabic. He worked his cell phone as we talked and then he walked away.

  I could see a compact man in the glassed-in office waving my passport and arguing with his colleagues. I knew it was mine because of the rainbow of airport security stickers on the back that I had never removed. For some twenty minutes I watched from afar as they flipped through the passport. I had had it for nine years, and in my last full-time job, as president of Encyclopaedia Britannica, I’d hopscotched often between our foreign offices, spending a day or two in Tokyo, a night in Poznan, Poland, a few days in Budapest. The Libyans studied the myriad of passport stamps and unfolded the attached visas from Brazil and Russia. Apparently they were not familiar with the concept of business travel, and I was too dowdily dressed to be a globe-trotting prince and too square to be a rock star. Besides, someone who traveled for pleasure would spend more than one night in Tokyo or Poland. I wondered if they didn’t like my Jewish-sounding name.

  I’ve never been good at waiting, particularly when I’m hot, so I took out my official letter of invitation from Mohammed Gadhafi and the Libyan Olympic Committee, walked into the immigration office—which was surprisingly cool, unlike the waiting area—and sat down on a couch between two uniformed men. The six officers were not pleased that I had entered their space. They glared at me and shook their heads. “Maybe this will help,” I said, handing the invitation letter to a man whose name tag identified him as working for British Airways. He read the letter and calmed down. He started pleading in Arabic with the head honcho, who was holding my passport. But the man would not budge and motioned with annoyance for me to leave.

  By this time, the Chinese and Indian chess players had all departed. Pascal and I were the only travelers left in the waiting area. We had long since finished our drinks, and no new ones were offered. The two of us were dripping and we tried to guess whether the temperature was 110 degrees or 120 or maybe even more. The man from British Airways approached. He said that the Libyan government had levied a hefty fine against the airline for letting me into the country without a visa. But the players didn’t have visas when they arrived, I protested. Yes, he said, but their names and not mine were on a special list of 217 invitees. He said that he should have sent me right back to London, but it was now too late because the plane had already departed. He said that he needed to borrow my tickets and call London to see how the snafu had happened. I wanted to hold onto my tickets, but I didn’t think I had a choice. After the man left, I was anxious and I slipped Pascal the name and phone number of my contact at the Belgian embassy.

  Walid appeared, smiling. He raced with his cell phone into the immigration office and handed it to the top guy. Everyone wa
s relieved. Walid had obviously reached someone who clarified my situation. Walid and the head guy came over. “Everything is OK, Mr. Paul,” Walid said. “I ordered them to give you visa. It will take few minutes.”

  The head guy, who could not speak English, apologized to me through Walid: “I’m sorry for inconvenience.”

  “Shookran,” I said.

  Walid urged Pascal to go ahead, explaining that the last bus to the hotel would be leaving soon with his luggage and that he would personally give me a ride as soon as they wrote up my visa. Walid left to take another phone call. I was feeling guilty that Pascal had stayed with me for three hours when he could have been preparing for the World Championship. He was a little hesitant to leave me but was concerned about his baggage. I believed that my problems were over, and I urged him to take the bus. I did ask him if he’d mind switching our hotel accommodations so that we shared a room. Ostensibly this was so I could watch him when the spirit finally moved him to prepare for Bacrot, but I was now nervous about staying alone. Pascal agreed, and Walid walked him to the bus.

  Another half an hour passed before the man from British Airways returned. “I’ve arranged with another airline to fly you to Tunisia,” he said. “You have no authority to be in Libya and must leave immediately.” I told him that while he was gone my visa had been approved. He charged over to the immigration office. A flight arrived, presumably from Tunisia, and there was not one Western face among the crowd that disembarked. The British Airways man returned with three immigration officers. “Mr. Paul,” one of them said, “you need to take this plane back to Tunisia.” I told them I wasn’t going and handed them the phone number of Nijar, the tournament organizer, and urged them to call him. They retreated to the office.

  I started pacing, something I used to do as a child when I was terrified. I thought of Ann and Alex and was relieved that they were safe. I wished I was home with them. I recited in my mind Alex’s favorite Dr. Seuss story, If I Ran the Circus, and when I thought about the Drum-Tummied Snumm, I noticed that I was surrounded by six uniformed men.

  “Mr. Paul,” the head officer said, “you arrived on this flight from Tunisia.”

  “No, I came from London.”

  “You arrived from Tunisia without a passport.”

  “I came from London, and you have my passport.”

  The men puffed out their chests and got as close to me as six men could without touching me. Walid returned at that moment. “Don’t move, Mr. Paul,” he implored. “Don’t lift your arms.” I stood still and the men did not back off. Walid stuck five fingers in the air, indicating, I thought, that he needed five more minutes to reach someone, and pleaded with my captors.

  I was clammy and dizzy and told the man whose face was in mine that I had come to Libya to play chess with Mohammed Gadhafi. The men retreated, and Walid gave me a thumbs-up and told me again that everything would be OK. The officers had a loud, panicked discussion. The plane from Tunisia took off, and Walid, on his cell phone, walked away.

  Twenty minutes later, the six men reappeared and made a half circle around me as I sat against the wall. “Since you refuse to go to Tunisia, Mr. Paul,” one said, “you must go on a plane to…,” and he skipped a beat and intoned dramatically, “Moscow. Moscow with no passport.”

  I actually laughed. This must be their idea of an American’s worst nightmare, but they were a couple of decades behind the times, and anyway I had friends in Moscow. I could always call Kasparov’s office.

  “Mr. Paul, you look faint,” the man continued. “Please step into the Jetway, where it’s cool.” I stayed put, not wanting them to shove me onto the plane.

  The men moved in closer. “I demand to speak to the Belgian embassy,” I said, “the U.S. Interests Section of the Belgian embassy.”

  Now they laughed, but my request stalled them. I had this Monty Python image of Belgians armed with waffles and French fries rushing to my defense—funny thoughts are my way of distracting myself when I’m frightened. The men backed off again and huddled. Hadi returned and sat next to me. Of all the Libyans in the airport, he spoke the best English. “Will this turn out OK?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know,” Hadi said. “I really don’t know.” While the words themselves were not encouraging, it was the first time anyone had been honest with me in Libya, and I wanted to hug him.

  When Hadi left, I took comfort in Seuss.

  Then he shakes himself loose!

  He starts down in a dive

  Such as no man on earth

  Could come out alive!

  But he smiles as he falls

  And no fear does he feel.

  His nerves are like iron,

  His muscles like steel.

  I overheard one of the men suggesting that if I refused to go to Moscow they should send me to Baghdad. He may have been joking, but Russia without a passport was starting to seem pretty good. The men moved in again, this time more menacingly. Walid reappeared and started yelling at them, punctuating his Arabic with words I understood: “Time yadda yadda yadda. New York Times yadda yadda yadda. Wall Street Journal yadda yadda yadda.” I didn’t think he was listing my writing credentials but was instead warning them that if they touched me it would become an international incident. His cell phone rang, and he looked relieved: he’d finally received the call he needed (I never learned from whom) to obtain me a visa—five or six hours after my arrival in Tripoli.

  In a final Kafkaesque touch, the immigration agents called me into their office and explained that there was no blank page in my passport to which they could affix the visa. What do you mean, I said, the last four pages are empty. No they’re not, they insisted, and they opened the passport to the back and displayed blank, completely blank, pages. I was parched and feverish, my contact lenses were too dry for me to see well, and in any event I didn’t have the reading glasses I needed to wear over my contacts. But I knew there was nothing on those pages. There are country stamps here, they said, and it is illegal for us to cover them. This absurd discussion continued for five minutes, until Walid appeared, put his hand on my shoulder, and ordered them to attach the visa.

  After they obliged, Walid whisked me out of the airport and into a van with Hadi and two other Libyans. “I told you everything would work out,” he said. “I made it happen.”

  “Yes!” I high-fived him. “You’re the man!” On the forty-five-minute ride to the hotel, they joked that they were driving me to Tunisia. I laughed but began to wonder where they were actually taking me. I was relieved when the van pulled up to the tournament site, the El Mahary Hotel, a fifteen-story building located off a major highway along a section of the Mediterranean filled with tankers and cargo ships.

  Nijar Al El Haj, a large bear of a man, greeted me in the lobby. “Now that you’re finally here,” he said, “everything will be fine. You’re among chess players now. You can relax.”

  When I found Pascal, he was ashen. “I’m sorry I left you,” he said. “I’m happy you’re here.”

  “It’s OK,” I said. “I suggested that you leave. Did you do any chess?”

  “Nope,” he said. “I just wandered around, thinking about what I should do if you didn’t show up. I found the press room. I sent an e-mail to my mother telling her that you weren’t here. I thought of sending you an e-mail, but that seemed silly because I couldn’t imagine you had Internet access.” We went to our room, and I told him everything that had happened. The State Department had warned me that the room would be bugged, but that didn’t inhibit our discussion. I figured that any eavesdropper already knew about my detention in the airport.

  As we talked, the room filled with an unfamiliar pungent burning smell. It took us a while to find the source. The lampshade on the nightstand concealed the corpse of a rotten pear that was stuck to the incandescent bulb and had ballooned, as it toasted, to larger than a softball. It was now close to midnight, and Pascal wanted to go to sleep. Yet another day had passed without his preparing his openings fo
r Bacrot. Only one day, Friday, remained before the match.

  THE EL MAHARY WAS ONE OF THE OLDER HOTELS IN THE CITY THAT CATERED to businessmen, and yet by Western standards it was scarcely adequate. The first time we plugged in Pascal’s computer, which housed his all-important chess preparation, the outlet exploded and we lost electricity in that wall. Fortunately the computer was not harmed. The toilet ran loudly most of the time, and when it didn’t, it was because we had no water at all. The shower water was brown. The air-conditioning didn’t work, and so we needed to keep the sliding balcony door open at night, but the din of cars without mufflers interfered with our sleep.

  Pascal rose early on Friday, having convinced himself that he was going to put in a full day of chess preparation. After breakfast we went to the press room and he checked his e-mail. A kid at an Atlanta chess camp was complaining that Pascal still hadn’t answered his question about a game he had lost.

  I had trouble checking my e-mail because I had forgotten my password. Pascal offered to find it.

  “You can do that?” I said, wondering whether every twenty-something could pull off identity theft.

  After a few minutes of tinkering with my computer and instant-messaging a friend for advice, Pascal had recovered my password. “You’ve seen the inner nerd in me,” he said. “I usually try to hide it.” Now I knew whom to suspect if my bank balance mysteriously plummeted.

  Pascal then signed onto the Internet Chess Club under his nom de plume Charlatan and noticed that “Stanley Park,” his buddy Jack Yoos, was online. “To the extent that I’m prepared at all for Tripoli,” Pascal told me, “I owe it to Jack. I hate chess preparation. He does the heavy lifting. I’ll tell him my feelings and intuition about opening ideas, and then he’ll flesh them out or tell me why they don’t work.”