The Eight

by Katherine Neville

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Grand Master Fiske is not feeling well. As a kindness, Grand Master Solarin has stopped the clock and agreed to a brief recess so that Mr. Fiske can have a breath of fresh air. Mr. Fiske, you will seal your next move for the arbiters, and we will resume play in thirty minutes.”

  Fiske wrote his move with trembling hand and put it in an envelope, sealing it and handing it to the arbiter. Solarin marched swiftly out of the room before the reporters could grab him and strode off down the hall. The room was in a great deal of agitation, everyone buzzing and whispering in small groups. I turned to Lily.

  “What happened? What’s going on?”

  “This is incredible,” she said. “Solarin can’t stop the clocks. The arbiter has to do that. It’s completely against the rules, they should have called the game. The arbiter stops the clocks if everyone agrees to a recess. But only after Fiske has sealed his next move.”

  “So Solarin gave Fiske some free time off the clock,” I said. “Why did he do that?”

  Lily looked at me, her gray eyes nearly colorless. She seemed surprised by her own thoughts. “He knew it wasn’t Fiske’s style of play,” she said. She was silent for a moment, then went on, replaying it in her mind. “Solarin offered Fiske an exchange of Queens. He didn’t have to within the parameters of the game. It was almost as if he were offering Fiske a test. Everyone knows how Fiske hates to lose his Queen.”

  “So Fiske accepted?” I asked.

  “No,” said Lily, still lost in her own thoughts. “He didn’t. He picked up his Queen, then put it down. He tried to pretend it was j’adoube.”

  “What’s j’adoube?”

  “I touch, I adjust. It’s quite legitimate to adjust a piece in the middle of play.”

  “So what was wrong?” I said.

  “Nothing at all,” said Lily. “But you must say, ‘J’adoube,’ before you touch the piece. Not after you’ve already moved it.”

  “Maybe he didn’t realize …”

  “He’s a grand master,” Lily said. She looked at me for a long time. “He realized.”

  Lily sat there looking at her pegboard. I didn’t want to disturb her, but everyone had left the room by now, and we were alone. I sat beside her, trying to figure out with my limited knowledge of chess exactly what all of this meant.

  “Do you want to know what I think?” Lily said at last. “I think Grand Master Fiske was cheating. I think he’s wired to a transmitter.”

  If I had known then how right she was, it might have changed events that were soon to follow. But how could I have guessed at the time what had really been happening—only ten feet away from me—as Solarin was studying the board?

  Solarin had been looking down at the chessboard when he’d first noticed it. At first it had been only a flash at the corner of his eye. But the third time he’d noticed it, he had associated it with the move. Fiske had put his hands in his lap every time Solarin stopped his clock and Fiske’s started. Solarin had looked at Fiske’s hands the next time he made a move. It was the ring. Fiske had never worn a ring before.

  Fiske was playing recklessly. He was taking chances. He was playing more interesting chess in a way, but every time he took a risk Solarin looked at his face. And it was not the face of a risk taker. That was when Solarin started watching the ring.

  Fiske was wired. There was no question. Solarin was playing someone or something else. It wasn’t in the room, and it surely wasn’t Fiske. Solarin looked up at his KGB man, who sat against the far wall. If he were to take a gamble and lose the bloody game, he’d be out of the tournament. But he needed to know who wired Fiske. And why.

  Solarin started playing dangerous chess to see if he could establish a pattern in Fiske’s responses. This nearly drove Fiske up the wall. Then Solarin got the idea to force an exchange of Queens that had nothing to do with the game. He moved his Queen into position, offering her, opening her up, heedless of the outcome. He would force Fiske into playing his own game or revealing that he was a cheat. That was when Fiske fell apart.

  For a moment it seemed that Fiske would actually accept the exchange, take his Queen. Then Solarin could call in the judges and resign the game. He wouldn’t play against a machine, or whatever Fiske was wired to. But Fiske had backed off and instead asked for j’adoube. Solarin jumped up and leaned over Fiske.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he whispered. “We’ll recess now until you’ve come to your senses. Do you realize that’s the KGB over there? One word of this to them and your chess-playing days are over.”

  Solarin waved to the arbiters with one hand as he stopped the clocks with the other. He told the arbiter Fiske was ill and would seal his next move.

  “And it had better be a Queen, sir,” he said, bending over Fiske again. Fiske would not look up. He was twisting his ring in his lap as if it were too tight. Solarin stormed out of the room.

  The KGB man met him in the hall with a questioning look. He was a short, pale man with heavy eyebrows. His name was Gogol.

  “Go have a slivovitz,” said Solarin. “Let me take care of this.”

  “What’s happened?” Gogol asked. “Why did he ask for j’adoube? It was irregular. You shouldn’t have stopped the clocks, they might have disqualified you.”

  “Fiske is wired. I must know to whom, and why. All you could do is to make him more frightened. Go away and pretend you don’t know anything. I can take care of it.”

  “But Brodski is here,” said Gogol in a whisper. Brodski was in the upper echelons of the secret service and well outranked Solarin’s guard.

  “Invite him to join you, then,” Solarin snapped. “Just keep him away from me for the next half hour. I want no action on this. No action, do you understand me, Gogol?”

  The bodyguard looked frightened, but he went off down the hallway to the stairs. Solarin followed as far as the end of the balcony, then ducked into a doorway and waited for Fiske to leave the gaming room.

  Fiske walked quickly along the balcony and down the wide stairs, hurrying across the foyer. He did not look over his shoulder to see Solarin watching him from above. He went outside and crossed the courtyard, past the massive wrought-iron gates. In the far corner of the court, diagonal to the club entrance, was a door leading to the smaller Canadian Club. Fiske entered and went up the steps.

  Solarin moved silently across the court. He pushed open the glass door of the Canadian Club just in time to see the door of the men’s room swing shut behind Fiske. He paused for a moment, then moved carefully up the few short steps to the door, slipped inside, and remained motionless. Fiske stood across the room, eyes closed, his body swaying against the urinal wall. Solarin watched silently as Fiske dropped to his knees. He began to sob—low, dry sobs—then, leaning over, his stomach heaved once, and he vomited into the porcelain basin. When it was finished he leaned his forehead in exhaustion against the bowl.

  From the corner of his eye, Solarin saw Fiske’s head jerk up as he heard the sound of the faucet. Solarin stood motionless at the sink, watching cold water splash into the basin. Fiske was an Englishman; he would feel humiliated at someone watching him vomit like an animal.

  “You will need this,” Solarin said aloud, not turning from the basin.

  Fiske looked about, unsure whether Solarin was addressing him. But the room seemed to be empty except for the two of them. Hesitantly he rose from his knees and walked toward Solarin, who was wringing a paper towel into the basin. The towel smelled of damp oatmeal.

  Solarin turned and sponged Fiske’s forehead and temples. “If you submerge your wrists, it will cool the blood throughout your body,” he said, unfastening Fiske’s cuffs. He tossed the damp towel into the trash bin. Fiske silently dropped his wrists into the water-filled basin, keeping his fingers, Solarin noticed, from getting wet.

  Solarin was scribbling with a pencil stub on the back of a dry paper towel. Fiske glanced over, his wrists still submerged, and Solarin showed him the writing. It
read, “Is the transmission one way or two?”

  Fiske looked up, and the blood flooded back into his face. Solarin was looking at him with an intent expression, then he bent over the paper again and added for clarification, “Can they hear us?”

  Fiske took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Then he shook his head in the negative. He took his hand from the bowl and reached for the paper towel, but Solarin handed him another one.

  “Not this towel,” he said, taking out a small gold lighter and setting fire to the towel on which he’d written his note. He let it burn nearly all the way down, then carried it to a toilet, tossed it in, and flushed. “You are certain?” he asked, returning to the sink. “It is important.”

  “Yes,” said Fiske uncomfortably. “It … was explained to me.”

  “Fine, then we can speak.” Solarin still held the gold lighter in his hand. “In which ear is it planted, the left or the right?” Fiske tapped his left ear. Solarin nodded. He opened the bottom of the lighter and removed a small hinged object, which he pried apart. It was a pincerlike tweezer.

  “Lie on the floor and place your head in such a position that it will not move, your left ear up toward me. Do not move about suddenly, I don’t wish to perforate your eardrum.”

  Fiske did as he was told. He seemed almost relieved to place himself in Solarin’s hands and never questioned why a fellow grand master would be adept at removing hidden transmitters. Solarin squatted and bent over Fiske’s ear. After a moment he pulled out a small object, which he turned about in the pincers. It was slightly larger than a pinhead.

  “Ah,” said Solarin. “Not so small as ours. Now tell me, my dear Fiske, who put it there? Who is behind all of this?” He dropped the small transmitter into his palm.

  Fiske sat up abruptly and looked at Solarin. For the first time he seemed to realize who Solarin was: not only a fellow chess player, but a Russian. He had a KGB escort prowling about the building somewhere to reinforce this terrible fact. Fiske moaned aloud and dropped his head into his hands.

  “You must tell me. You see that, don’t you?” Solarin glanced down at Fiske’s ring. He picked up the hand and studied the ring closely. Fiske looked up in fear.

  It was an oversized signet with a crest on the surface, made of a goldlike metal with the surface inset separately. Solarin pressed the signet, and there was a low whirring click that was barely perceptible even at so close a range. Fiske could press the ring in a code to communicate what move had last been made, and his associates would send his next move through the transmitter in his ear.

  “Were you warned not to remove this ring?” Solarin asked. “It is large enough to contain a small explosive as well as a detonator.”

  “A detonator!” cried Fiske.

  “Enough to remove most of this room,” Solarin replied, smiling. “At least, the part where we are seated. Are you an agent of the Irish? They’re very good at small bombs, like letter bombs. I should know, most of them are trained in Russia.” Fiske looked green, but Solarin continued, “I’ve no idea what your friends are after, my dear Fiske. But if an agent should betray my government as you’ve betrayed those who sent you, they’d have a means to silence him quickly and completely.”

  “But … I am not an agent!” Fiske cried.

  Solarin looked into his face for a moment, then he smiled. “No, I don’t believe you are. My God, but they have made a sloppy job of this.” Fiske twisted his hands as Solarin thought silently for a moment.

  “Look, my dear Fiske,” he said. “You are in a dangerous game. We could be disturbed here at any moment, and then both our lives would greatly depreciate in value. The people who’ve asked you to do this are not very nice. Do you understand? You must tell me everything you can about them, and quickly. Only then can I help you.” Solarin stood up and gave his hand to Fiske, pulling him to his feet. Fiske looked down at the ground uncomfortably as if he were about to cry. Solarin placed his hand gently on the older man’s shoulder.

  “You were approached by someone who wanted you to win this game. You must tell me who and why.”

  “The director …” Fiske’s voice trembled. “When I … many years ago I became ill and could no longer play chess. The British government gave me a position teaching mathematics at university, a government stipend. Last month the director of my department came to me and asked me to see some men. I don’t know who they were. They told me that in the interest of national security I must play chess in this tournament. I would be under no stress at all.…” Fiske began laughing and started to look about the room wildly. He was twisting the ring on his hand. Solarin took Fiske’s hand in his, letting his other hand rest on Fiske’s shoulder.

  “You would be under no stress,” said Solarin calmly, “because you would not really be playing. You’d be following instructions from someone else?”

  Fiske nodded, tears in his eyes, and had to swallow hard several times before he could continue. He seemed to be breaking apart before Solarin’s eyes.

  “I told them I couldn’t do it, not to choose me,” he said, his voice rising. “I begged them not to make me play. But they had no one else. I was completely in their control. They could cut off my stipend at any time they wished. They told me that …” He gulped down air, and Solarin became alarmed. Fiske could not focus his thoughts, and he twisted the ring as if it pinched his hand. He was looking around the room with wild eyes.

  “They wouldn’t listen to me. They said they must have the formula at all cost. They said—”

  “The formula!” said Solarin, gripping Fiske’s shoulder forcefully. “They said the formula?”

  “Yes! Yes! The bloody formula, that’s what they wanted.”

  Fiske was practically shrieking. Solarin loosened his grasp of the older man’s shoulder and tried to calm him by stroking him gently. “Tell me about the formula,” he said carefully as if treading on eggs. “Come, my dear Fiske. Why was this formula of interest to them? How did they think you would be able to obtain it by playing in this tournament?”

  “From you,” Fiske said weakly, looking at the floor. Tears were running down his face.

  “From me?” Solarin stared at Fiske. Then he glanced abruptly at the door. He thought he had heard a footfall outside.

  “We must speak quickly,” he said, lowering his voice. “How did they know that I would be here at this tournament? No one knew I was coming.”

  “They knew,” said Fiske, looking at Solarin with crazed eyes. He twisted the ring abruptly. “Oh, God, let me be! I told them I couldn’t do it! I told them I would fail!”

  “Leave that ring alone,” Solarin said sternly. He grasped Fiske by the wrist and twisted his hand around. Fiske grimaced. “What formula?”

  “The formula you had in Spain,” cried Fiske. “The formula you wagered against the game in Spain! You said you would give it to anyone who beat you! You said so! I had to win, so you would give me the formula.”

  Solarin stared at Fiske in disbelief. Then he dropped his hands and stepped away. He began to laugh.

  “You said so,” Fiske repeated dully, pulling on the ring.

  “Oh, no,” said Solarin. He threw back his head and laughed until tears came to his eyes. “My dear Fiske,” he said, choking with laughter, “not that formula! Those fools arrived at the wrong conclusion. You’ve been the pawn of a bunch of patzers. Let’s go outside and … What are you doing?!”

  He had not noticed that Fiske, becoming more and more anguished, had twisted the ring loose. Now Fiske pulled the ring from his finger with one violent wrench and tossed it into an empty basin. He was babbling aloud and screamed, “I won’t! I won’t!”

  Solarin stared for one brief second as the ring bounced into the basin. He leaped for the door as he started to count. One. Two. He hit the door and crashed through. Three. Four. Taking the steps at one leap, he landed at the bottom, tore across the small foyer. Six. Seven. Smashing the outer door open, he plowed into the courtyard, six long strides. Eight. Nine. He
took a midair dive and landed on his belly on the cobblestones. Ten. Solarin’s arms were over his head and muffled his ears. He waited. But there was no explosion.

  He looked up from beneath his arms and saw two pairs of shoes in front of him. He looked higher up to see two of the arbiters standing over him, staring down in amazement.

  “Grand Master Solarin!” said one of the judges. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m quite all right,” Solarin said, pulling himself to his feet with dignity and dusting himself off. “Grand Master Fiske is ill in the lavatory. I was just coming for medical aid. I tripped. These cobblestones are very slippery, I’m afraid.” Solarin wondered if he’d been mistaken about the ring. Perhaps its removal meant nothing, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “We had better go and see if there’s anything we can do,” said the judge. “Why did he go to the men’s room at the Canadian Club? Why not the one at the Metropolitan? Or to the first-aid station?”

  “He’s very proud,” Solarin replied. “Doubtless he didn’t want anyone to see him being ill.” The judges had not yet asked Solarin what he was doing in the same out-of-the-way restroom. Alone with his opponent.

  “Is he very ill?” asked the other judge as they walked toward the entrance.

  “Simply an upset stomach,” Solarin replied. It didn’t seem sensible to go back in there, but he hadn’t much choice.

  The three men went up the stairs, and the first judge opened the men’s room door. He turned back quickly with a gasp.

  “Don’t look!” he said. He was quite pale. Solarin pushed past him and looked into the room. Hanging by his own necktie from the toilet partition was Fiske. His face was black, and from the angle of his head his neck was clearly broken.

  “Suicide!” said the judge who’d told Solarin not to look. He himself was standing there wringing his hands as Fiske had done only a few moments earlier. When he had been alive.

  “He’s not the first chess master who’s gone that way,” replied the other judge. He fell awkwardly silent as Solarin turned and glared at him.