Last Call for Blackford Oakes

by Buckley, William F. ;

  Life was becoming faintly tolerable when the telephone rang. Maybe it would be Rufina. And she would have news of Kostya. But it wasn’t Rufina. “Comrade Martins. I am calling from the office of Colonel Bykov. He wishes to see you. A car will be outside your door in ten minutes.”

  Philby dressed and walked down the two flights of stairs. In a warm black woolen coat, his fedora plopped down on his head, he stepped into the waiting car.

  He was led straightway to the third-floor office. The receptionist looked up and nodded. He followed her, and she opened the door.

  Bykov was seated at his desk, a lamp with a green shade illuminating one end of it. A floor lamp lighted the other end. The colonel rose, shook hands, and indicated the chair next to him, where Philby sat down.

  “Now, Andrei Fyodorovich, what the hell is going on?”

  A half hour later Bykov leaned back in his chair. “Andrei Fyodorovich, you have been a long time here without a cigarette.”

  Philby was not wholly surprised. The men who peered over at him every day and followed him wherever he went, every week, every year, would certainly have reported on his personal habits. Still, it was a little exhibitionistic for Bykov to rub it in, Philby’s addiction to tobacco. He would have hugely enjoyed replying, “Oh no, Mikhail Pavlovich. I gave up smoking five years ago.” None of that, Harold Adrian Russell Philby. Besides, he longed for a cigarette. He accepted the one proffered to him.

  Bykov did not take one himself, but put the pack down on his desk. He leaned back again. “Comrade Chadinov has presented us with a very serious problem. It is one for which we are technically responsible. But in the last two days I have read our full file on the professor. There is nothing whatever to indicate any suspicion of political untrustworthiness. There are reports that she is outspoken, a bit imperious”—he was looking down at some notes under the lamp—“ambitious, inventive, a good student, good teacher …

  “So we made no obvious mistake in designating her as one of the twelve welcomers. It has to be as you suspected, that her lover transformed her. And how ironic”—Bykov began amused, yielding to indignation—“that she should have been seduced physically and intellectually by one of the foremost spies.” He gave a half smile. “Foremost American spies. You of course, Comrade Andrei Fyodorovich, are the foremost spy.”

  Philby acknowledged the compliment with a nod.

  “But her prominence on the program, and the fact that dozens and dozens—that’s the way these things always happen—notice it and start talking about it—that puts attention on her case, attention that is very unwelcome. Our conventional arrangements would only draw more attention at this moment to her defection. The culture minister would not welcome that, and certainly not the general secretary, when his stress is on ‘changing ways.’” There was a faint derision in Bykov’s pronouncing of those words.

  “Has she done anything … indiscreet since Monday?” Philby thought himself at liberty to ask.

  “No, and she has been carefully watched. The American spy left at noon on Tuesday. She has been instructed to make no overtures in any direction until she has met with the culture minister. That appointment with Comrade Roman Belov is set for next Monday. Much thought needs to be given to what he should say to her, to what we … will do with her.”

  Philby detected the dismissive motion of Bykov’s hand. It said, “Our meeting is over.”

  Philby got up. “I have a personal interest in this case, Colonel. As you probably know, the suspect has been a very close friend of my wife’s. And the American—he has been, for many years, a major antagonist.”

  CHAPTER 36

  The ideological orientation of the peace forum’s schedule was carefully planned to be unexacting. This meant—Culture Minister Belov nodded, on being advised by diplomatic expert Anatoly Dobrynin, the influential former Soviet ambassador to Washington—“leaving plenty of time for cultural pursuits, in which the subject of nuclear disarmament is just a benevolent backdrop.” The delegates were invited to visit museums, to attend the ballet, and to explore Moscow’s historic churches. The churches they visited were of course “nonfunctioning.” And there was the program Gus Windels had described in his memo, featuring Kris Kristofferson’s call to eschew women and whiskey and to think in terms of world peace.

  On Thursday, the day before the final assembly that would vote out a resolution, Pierre Trudeau, former prime minister of Canada, issued a few invitations to a private social gathering to be held that evening in a suite at the Cosmos Hotel. Trudeau had strong political instincts and made it a point to invite one or two guests who were not the kind of people to whom he’d naturally gravitate. Yoko Ono was invited, as also three Latin American writers. Not one Soviet representative was asked. “Just tell your boss,” he said to Aleksei, the Soviet official who had been put in charge of looking after him and making him comfortable, “that I’m not inviting any of your people because I think of them as hosts. This little get-together will be for guests, not hosts.” Aleksei didn’t argue the question, and the invitations went out.

  Only about a dozen delegates showed up, there being so many competing events. Trudeau, standing near the door, dressed in a light gray suit, perfectly tailored, was listening to Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes when from the corner of his eye he spotted Graham Greene. Fuentes had been talking about the liberation movement in Nicaragua and others being fomented in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America. Trudeau nodded and shot out his hand to greet Graham Greene. He motioned him to join in the conversation. “And I’ll get you some real champagne,” Trudeau said. “I wish I could say I had brought it from Canada, but Quebec separatism hasn’t got that far. Accordingly, we have had to rely on French champagne.”

  Greene took the glass and sipped from it.

  “That was a stirring speech you gave,” Trudeau said. “It is a novel idea, that the time has come for Catholics and Communists to work together.”

  “Not all that novel, Pierre. I have hinted at that theme in several of my books.”

  “Of course. And you have derided the notion that the differences between the two faiths are irreconcilable. On the other hand, Graham, you have derided the notion that sin and non-sin are irreconcilable.”

  “I didn’t say quite that, Pierre.”

  Trudeau smiled impishly. “I was in London when The End of the Affair came out. The wisecrack I remember—in The Tablet, I think it appeared—was, ‘Mr. Greene seems to be saying that Christ preached, “If you love me, break my commandments.”’”

  Greene laughed, though not heartily. “Carlos here will explain to you what I am talking about.”

  “Señor Fuentes—”

  “Please, Prime Minister, call me Carlos.”

  “Pierre, please. Well, Carlos, you, like Mr. Greene, have spent time in Cuba since the advent of President Castro. How can Catholics in Cuba be expected to work together with Fidel Castro, when Castro persecutes the Catholics?”

  Greene broke in. “There is a great deal of exaggeration on that subject, Pierre. I have been in Cuba several times and spent some time with Mr. Castro—”

  “Spent some time with him! You are recorded as having been with him until five o’clock in the morning.”

  Greene smiled and refused the tray of hors d’oeuvre being passed, but then changed his mind and picked out a cracker thick with caviar. “Yes, Castro keeps late hours. Some people tend to do so. Are you up late at night, Pierre?”

  “That depends on the alternative. I suppose it is appropriate to pledge that we should all stay up late at night if required to avoid nuclear war.”

  Greene did not think that especially amusing. “I have stayed up late at night, without feeling any inclination to do so, ever since Ronald Reagan was re-elected president of the United States.”

  “Yes,” Trudeau said, picking up the remaining cracker with caviar. “In fact, I remember your saying four years ago that you would desert the West to live in a Communist country if Reagan was re-elected.”r />
  “That alternative was exaggerated.”

  “By the press, or by you?”

  Carlos Fuentes spoke up. “But, Prime Minister—Pierre—what Mr. Greene spoke of Tuesday afternoon is a real phenomenon, not just a figment of his imagination.”

  “Graham Greene has a very famous imagination. In Our Man in Havana, he wrote as if in Cuba—it was merely laughable, back when the novel was published—a Communist dictator was actually in the wings!”

  There was silence. The irony was difficult to cope with. Then Fuentes said, “I know, of course, that Castro has … insisted on … having his own way in Cuba. But we surely would not deny, Pierre, the good that he has done?”

  “I would not deny it. No. But neither would I deny the indefensible that he has done. Graham, for many years you refused permission for your books to be published in the Soviet Union, protesting the denial of human rights.”

  “Yes, but the situation is much improved under Mr. Gorbachev.”

  “I think that’s true, and let’s drink to that.”

  Gregory Peck interjected himself. “Prime Minister, may I join this exclusive little enclave?”

  “You are most welcome, Mr. Peck. You are one of my favorite actors.”

  “I wish I had been tapped for a role in Our Man in Havana.”

  “Oh?” Greene said. “Which part do you think you’d have been especially suited to play?”

  “Oh gee, I forget, Graham. But of course, actors should be able to play any role.”

  “We are doing that here, aren’t we? The role of international leaders.”

  Fuentes shook his head. “You are certainly qualified to play that role, Pierre. You have four times been elected leader of your country.”

  “Indeed, yes, Carlos. I wonder how I’d have done running for president in Cuba.”

  “Some time in the future,” Gregory Peck said, “that kind of thing can be expected, but only if we proceed to a non-nuclear age.”

  “Hear hear!” said Carlos Fuentes, raising his glass.

  “Hear hear!” said Pierre Trudeau, raising his own.

  CHAPTER 37

  En route home to Uspensky Street, Philby thought to ask the driver to detour to the post office building on Tverskaya Street. He would walk home from there after checking his mailbox, which he did once a week. He picked up the occasional letter and the non-Russian journals he subscribed to. He stuffed the letters into his pocket and carried the London Sunday Times in his hand. Back at Uspensky 78, Philby climbed up the stairs and went to his study, sinking gratefully into his beloved armchair. It had been left to him by classmate and fellow Soviet agent Guy Burgess. Rufina was always citing the relatively continent Burgess when trying to persuade Philby to drink a little less.

  It crossed his mind that at some point he would need to eat something. Rufina always kept cheese and bread and beans, which could quickly become bean soup. All of them combined well with Madeira. He liked especially the Madzhari from Georgia—“even though,” he had teased Rufina, “its alcoholic content is wimpishly low. It is no doubt produced by capitalists.” The telephone rang while he was heating the soup. He lowered the flame.

  It wasn’t Rufina calling from Kiev. It was Ursina.

  “Ursina, Rufina is not here,” he said, hoping his tone of voice did not betray his revised attitude toward her after the events of the last few days. “She is in Kiev. Kostya is ill.”

  “I’m sorry. So, as it happens, am I—ill, I mean. You know, because I authorized Rufina to tell you, that I am pregnant. It develops that I have an ectopic pregnancy. Do you know what that is?”

  “Well, I think so. A tubal pregnancy? Where the egg is stuck in the Fallopian tube instead of going down to the uterus?”

  “That’s correct. I have bleeding and dizziness and that means”—she struggled to keep her voice even—“it means that in surgery the doctor has to … well, what it amounts to is … remove the fetus.”

  “Oh my goodness, Ursina.”

  “If Rufina had been in Moscow, it would have been nice to have her at the hospital with me. But the operation can’t be postponed, because I am bleeding. They have to act quickly when that happens.”

  “When is it scheduled?”

  “For 6 P.M. tonight.”

  “You will have someone call to tell me everything went all right? I will call Rufina then, not before. It is hard to get through to Kiev, and I would only need to call her again after the operation.”

  “I will get through to you, Andrei Fyodorovich.”

  Philby finished heating the bean soup and sat down at the kitchen table with his opened bottle of Madzhari. He began to spoon the soup into his mouth. Abruptly he stopped. He got up and went into his library.

  One of his three thousand books was a medical encyclopedia. He turned to “pregnancy, ectopic,” and read down the page.

  “The major health risk of this condition is internal bleeding. Before the nineteenth century, mortality from ectopic pregnancies exceeded 50 percent. By the end of the nineteenth century, the mortality rate dropped to 5 percent because of surgical intervention.”

  He paused at the kitchen table to put a slice of cheese onto a piece of bread. He ate distractedly, and finished hastily. He grabbed his coat and went down to the entrance. Opening the door, he once again waved his hand to hail his guardians across the way.

  He waited outside for the guard to get to him.

  “I need to go right away to Colonel Bykov at the Lubyanka. It concerns the matter we spoke of this morning, and I have important information for him.”

  “Can you wait for the car, or do you wish me to hail you a cab? I would accompany you.”

  “Get a cab,” Philby said.

  In fifteen minutes he was again at the office in the Lubyanka. But this time he had to sit down and wait. “The colonel is at lunch. He should back very soon.”

  In his career, Philby had often had to wait, sometimes for a very very long time as, in Spain, he had twice needed to do in order to ambush his targets. But he could not, this afternoon, summon the old, patient frame of mind. He fidgeted.

  Might he smoke?

  “Not here. If you like I will lead you to another room in the building.”

  Forget it.

  He picked up an illustrated history of the Bolshoi Ballet.

  Colonel Bykov had evidently entered his office through a private door. He had not passed by Philby when the receptionist, responding to a light, announced that Colonel Bykov was ready to see him. She led Philby, for the second time that day, back to the inner sanctum.

  “Good afternoon, Andrei Fyodorovich. You have news, clearly.”

  Philby had thought through what he would say and how. He would, invoking his rank and his experience of more than thirty years, speak directly.

  “The state unquestionably acknowledges that our movement would be better off if Ursina Chadinov were dead, relieving us of several problems.”

  Bykov sat motionless.

  “She called me just now to give me critical medical news. She will be operated on at 6 P.M. for an ectopic pregnancy. It may be that you know the relevant data, but in the event you do not, I have looked them up. She is bleeding, she tells me, and is dizzy. This requires immediate medical attention—any delay threatens life.” He paused, not without drama. “It seems to me that an unusual opportunity presents itself.”

  Bykov picked up the phone. “Get me Dr. Drishkin.”

  The call went through quickly.

  “Drishkin, Bykov here. Are you familiar with ectopic pregnancies?… Yes, I have been told as much. Have any of our prison doctors officiated, in surgery, on ectopic pregnancies? Shumberg?… Well where is this Dr. Shumberg?… Lefortovo? That was Beria’s favorite prison. Good acoustics for torture. Wait.” He cupped his hand over the receiver. “Martins, the surgery is scheduled where, in the university hospital?”

  “I assume so, or she’d have told me.”

  Back on the phone. “Drishkin, you are to inform Sh
umberg that he is to preside over a surgery this afternoon at the university hospital. Then you will pass word to the doctor scheduled to perform the operation that we have arranged for our own specialist to do so instead. Shumberg’s job is to go to the hospital and dress for surgery. He will then stand by until the patient is under anesthetic.… Yes. That could be quite useful, what you say—that Professor Chadinov informed us through special channels that she wished to go to great lengths in order to save the child, even though, if I understand you, such measures can imperil the mother.…

  “Advise Shumberg how to be in touch with me.”

  He put down the telephone. This time he did light one of his cigarettes, after offering the pack to Philby.

  After a few drags, he said, “Listen now, Andrei Fyodorovich, to the sequence.

  “—Professor Chadinov calls you and tells you the operation is scheduled. She asks whether you could use your special contacts to secure the services of a doctor who, having faced such problems in the past, has succeeded in saving the life of the child.

  “—You come to me. I call a medical doctor who knows well the specialists in Moscow. He nominates Dr. Shumberg as the very best. But Dr. Shumberg is at his dacha and is out hunting.

  “—My office makes every effort to reach him and does so. He is driven to the university hospital but arrives only just at six. The patient is already under anesthesia. Dr. Shumberg dresses and enters the operating room, telling the attending doctor of his recruitment for this operation. Shumberg examines the patient and proceeds with surgery.

  “You could not hear that part of the conversation I had with Drishkin, just now, in which he informed me that Shumberg is very skillful at all aspects of assignments like the one he is being given.”

  Philby stood up. “Dr. Chadinov told me she would have me called to report on the operation, so that I could inform my wife, Rufina, in Kiev.”

  “We will see to it that someone calls you. Thank you, Andrei Fyodorovich.”