Last Call for Blackford Oakes

by Buckley, William F. ;

  “Always glad to be of service, Mikhail Pavlovich.”

  CHAPTER 38

  It was just before eight o’clock that the telephone rang. Philby had paced the floor and smoked and drunk for two hours, awaiting the call. He had tried after his return from the Lubyanka to put in a call to Rufina, even though it would be too early yet to give her news on the … operation. He wondered why she hadn’t herself got through to him. But long distance was difficult, and when the connection failed, he went back to his reading and lit another cigarette.

  The call at eight was not from Kiev. The operator on the line said he was to hold for Colonel Bykov.

  Bykov, in a minute or two, came on the line. Philby was not surprised by the formality in his tone of voice or by the salutation.

  “Comrade Martins? Is this the correct telephone number for Comrade Rufina Ivanovna Martins?”

  “Yes. This is her husband, Andrei Fyodorovich.”

  “Ah, yes, we have had dealings. Your wife is not in?”

  “No, she is in Kiev.”

  “Well, be so good as to communicate the following to her. It has to do with her close friend Dr. Ursina Chadinov. It is a very short note from Dr. Kirill Shumberg, and I will read it to you.

  “‘The patient, Ursina Chadinov, submitted to abdominal surgery after she was diagnosed by the university hospital obstetrician with an ectopic pregnancy. The patient, Chadinov, a medical doctor and a university professor, made use of contacts in order to locate a surgeon experienced in this problem. My name was given to her because it is known that I have in the past twice preserved the life of the fetus, successfully moving it from the Fallopian tube to the uterus. This patient was most anxious to effect the survival of her unborn child. Unfortunately, she went into shock on the operating table and we were not able to save her life.’

  “You will get that message through to Comrade Rufina Ivanovna?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Now on the medical form Dr. Chadinov filled out at the hospital, where it asks the name of the father, she wrote down, ‘Harry Doubleday.’ For address, she wrote only, ‘USIA, American Embassy.’ The hospital will attempt to locate Mr. Doubleday by ringing the embassy tomorrow. And you will pass the news to Comrade Rufina Ivanovna?”

  “Yes. But listen, Colonel, I have not been able to get through to Kiev. Would you do me the kindness of having someone in your office call me here with the code number for the long-distance operator who expedites telephone calls?”

  “Yes, comrade. We can attend to that. Good night.”

  Philby rose from the chair by the telephone and moved to his armchair. He did not reach for his glass, nor light a cigarette. But after a while he stood and walked to one of his bookcases and took up a copy of his own book, My Silent War. In that book he had recorded, without emotional distress, elliptically, some idea of the deeds he had done for the Soviet Union and its movement over a period of twenty-five years, when posing as a British agent.

  He had been careful, in the memoirs, not to dwell on details of his craft, of what he had done, which would have made for difficult reading for those Westerners who did not understand the totality of his commitment to his cause. There were no details of the men caught and hanged in Albania. There were over sixty of them, and the coordinates of their parachute landings had been handed to the Albanian security police by … himself. The Communist security force had lain in waiting and taken them, one after another, to the gallows.

  Oh, there were other details of what he had done and of what followed from his betrayals, which he did not disclose in his memoirs. It was enough, in that book, to remind the reader, as he had done at the outset, that he was not an Englishman loyal to king and country who, along the way, had decided to betray king and country.

  Why hadn’t the telephone rung, bringing him the code?

  He flicked open the book, easily found the right page, and read out loud the words in Russian: “All through my career, I have been a straight penetration agent working in the Soviet interest. My connection with MI6 must be seen against my prior, total commitment to the Soviet Union, which I regarded then, as I do now,” he raised his eyes and head, as if to reaffirm what he had written twenty years ago, “as the inner fortress of the world movement.” If he were producing a new edition of his book today, would he tell of his role in taking care of such a problem as Ursina had presented?

  Of course not. If he were to recount today’s proceedings—in which he took professional satisfaction—such a narrative would be kept in ultra-secret archives of the KGB, and the principals would not be identified by name.

  Would he, in such an account—or in any account, ever—confess to the important subjective motive in what he had done? Certainly not. But he didn’t have to conceal it from himself. The objective purpose was to relieve the state of the Chadinov problem—the professor of medicine who was prepared to denounce the whole Communist enterprise at a public gathering, an international public gathering! A gathering of distinguished guests of the general secretary! Yes, the state was now relieved of the diplomatic problem of administering justice to such a betrayer.

  But, of course, he had another purpose in mind. He would hand it back to Blackford Oakes! Come to Moscow and seduce one of our prominent young professionals! Accept the hospitality of my own house at my own wedding—

  The telephone rang.

  “What is the number you are attempting to call, comrade?”

  He gave it.

  He heard the telephone ringing. It was answered by Natasha, Kostya’s wife.

  “This is Andrei calling. How is Kostya?”

  “He is better. They think they know the problem. But he is still in the hospital, and Rufina is—Wait! Andrei, she is just at the door.”

  He held on, digging his nails into his palm.

  “Andrei! I’ve tried three times to call you, but could not get through. Natasha says people always have this problem.”

  “I understand that Kostya is better.”

  “Yes, with thanks to Dr. Gulin. They have found the right medicine and already the pain is decreased.”

  “Rufina, I have very bad news. And I shall tell it to you directly. Ursina”—he hesitated for a moment—“Ursina was having abdominal pains and bleeding, and the doctor told her she had to have immediate surgery—”

  “Oh my God. She is all right, I hope!”

  “Rufina, dear Rufina. Ursina died on the operating table at seven o’clock tonight.”

  He could do nothing about her pain. He held the telephone in his hand and let her sob and weep.

  After a minute or two he said, “Dear Rufina, I must hang up. There is nothing we can do. All love to you.”

  BOOK THREE

  CHAPTER 39

  At 373 Merriwell Lane, the Federal Express driver rang the bell a second time. If nobody was home, was he to leave the envelope at the door? He scanned the airbill, his eyes focusing on item number eight. The sender of the letter was supposed to “Sign to authorize delivery without obtaining signature.” Had the sender done so?

  The deliveryman could make out carboned traces of what had been the sender’s pen, or pencil, but nothing like a legible signature. For the one hundredth time, the elderly carrier cursed silently the designer of the Federal Express airbill. What he was now attempting to read was the “FedEx Copy,” a carbon copy, the original waybill having been retained by the sender. No telephone numbers had been given, neither the sender’s in Vienna nor the recipient’s in Virginia.

  Okay. These things happen. He knew the practice: The home office would try one more delivery—tomorrow, same time—and then, if there was still no one home, send it back to—his eyes idled on the sender’s address. Well, it had “strasse” in it. They all did, from that part of the world. Poised to return to his truck, he had lowered his cap against the setting sun when the door swung open. The Latino lady wearing an apron nodded her head.

  “Package here for Mr. Oakes. Will you sign here please, ma’am?”


  The woman with the Aztec face adjusted her eyeglasses and took the pencil in hand. “I don’ write en English.”

  The driver pointed to the bottom of the page. “That’s okay, ma’am. Is Mr. Oakes at home? To receive this?”

  She drew forward, standing on the doorsill, to emphasize that the courier was not to come into the house. “Mr. Oakes is here. He is … Mr. Oakes is … Mr. Oakes is …”—she tilted her head, raising an open hand to her cheek—“slipping.”

  “Okay, well just—just make a check mark on this line”—he pointed.

  She drew an X, returned the pencil, and accepted the FedEx envelope.

  “Take care, ma’am.”

  “Yes,” she said, with a quick smile. Envelope in hand, she turned, pushing the door shut with her rump. Inside the hall, she placed the stiff envelope on the broad mahogany ledge above the heater. She needed to push back the stack of unread magazines to make room for it. She walked to the telephone in the coatroom, picked up the receiver, and dialed the intercom number 15.

  “Llegó otra carta, está de Federal Express, señor.” She spoke to Oakes in Spanish. Josefina González spoke only in Spanish. “I put it with the other mail.

  “Will you let me prepare something different for supper? You have had the beans and cheese and the tortillas yesterday. And the day before yesterday. And the day before the day before yesterday.” She had raised her voice.

  But then she put down the phone, tightening her lips. Señor Oakes had hung up. Again.

  Anthony Trust, tanned and relaxed, slim and well dressed in a camel’s hair jacket, waited at the bar of the Chevy Chase Country Club. He was drinking a beer and knew to order an old-fashioned for Jake, who would appear in five minutes or so. Jake would never go directly to the bar after his golf game. He would go to the shower room, and come up after that. Anthony had once teased him on his inflexibility, but never again. “You’re talking to someone who went thirteen months without a shower,” Jake Shulz had answered, expressionless.

  Drawing attention to his time as a prisoner of war in Korea had been unlike Jake. Seated at a table in the bar, working on his second old-fashioned, he had apologized for the melodramatic answer he had given. “I’m sorry about that—I’m sorry I made that reference there.” He wouldn’t even now use the word “shower,” so embarrassed was he over having used it in the first place.

  But Anthony was good in tight corners. He brushed back his long hair. “You want to hear a joke, Jake? Hmm. Joke-Jake. Jake-Joke. Quiet! I’ll tell the joke and you don’t have to listen to it. There was this guy I knew, just out of college, had never laid eyes on the director, not once. And he walks into the head over at the Dulles briefing section, pulls on the handle, and the door doesn’t want to come open, so he gives it a big hard yank. It opens now and he meets the director, who’s sitting on the can.”

  “When do we get to the joke?”

  “Well … The director says, ‘I haven’t been to the can for thirteen months.’”

  Jake’s laugh was hearty.

  Trust could do that to people. He and Blackford Oakes had labored and disported together for more than thirty years. It was Oakes he wanted, this March afternoon, to talk to Jake about. Blackford, their colleague in the agency for so many years; their boss on several missions. It had been more than a month since Blackford Oakes’s abrupt resignation. He had given no explanation, leaving his resignation letter on the director’s desk, with a note giving the name of Bob Lounsbury, his lawyer, if paperwork were immediately required. In the letter, he consented to meet, at the Merriwell Diner, only with the deputy director, if there was a need to discuss agency operations Oakes had special knowledge of. Summons to such meetings were to be given to Josefina. “Meeting today five o’clock” was all that was needed, and about all that Josefina could handle.

  Jake was sipping his drink.

  Anthony Trust talked to him now almost as if he were giving him a briefing.

  “I’ve done a little sleuthing, Jake. We people know a little about sleuthing, don’t we? Among the three of us we have, what? a hundred years in the agency? Black, me, you. Sleuthing is what we do to Soviet types, you’re thinking, I know I know.”

  Jake nodded his head. Indeed, that was what he was thinking.

  “Never mind that. It’s been a long time since the day Black just up and quit.” He looked down at a notepad. “February 1, 1988. Here are some bits and pieces I’ve put together. On February 2, he canceled his newspaper service. No more Washington Post, no more New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today.”

  “You got to envy him, somehow.”

  “I got through to … the right people in the phone company. His phone use is rare, but the service hasn’t been canceled. Calls come in every now and then. Josefina turns the callers off unless the code word is spoken in Spanish—then she calls him to the phone. That has happened only two or three times. Outgoing, there’s a long-distance call to Mexico City every Saturday, always at the same time—8:45 A.M. The number in Mexico picks up right away, before the second ring.”

  “He’s calling Tony?”

  “No. The call is to the old number, Sally’s number. It was never disconnected. The call from Merriwell is actually to Sally’s old maid, who still works there, does cleaning and laundry for Tony and the old lady, Tony’s great-aunt. Beatriz González is Josefina’s sister, Tony’s old nurse. She knows—obviously—that the call that comes in regularly on Saturdays at 8:45 A.M. is from her sister calling from Merriwell.”

  Jake’s expression was alarmed. The patch over his right eye made him look especially solemn when talking in this mood.

  “Did you bug the phone?” He paused. “I mean, Anthony, you have a reputation for thoroughness.”

  “Jake. We’re talking about trying to help a pal. No, we didn’t put a bug on the phone. So we know only that Josefina has her weekly talk with Beatriz, and maybe reports to Beatriz, who maybe reports to Tony, that Blackford is—alive.”

  “But hardly well.”

  “But hardly well. What more can we look into? I checked at the Merriwell Mart. Black took me there once.” Anthony’s face brightened at the memory. “Sally was needing salt and pepper or artichokes or whatever it was she had forgotten, and she was hysterical because one of her guests had already arrived. Anyway, I told the guy at the Mart that I was with Pure Food and Drug and needed to check what had gone out to the house in the last few weeks.”

  “Was there anything worth looking at?”

  “Well, no. Josefina does all the shopping. Merriwell Mart delivers about once a week, heavy on Mexican foods. The guy who runs it is Hispanic, and Josefina tells him what to bring on the next trip. Black’s not going to starve. And he’s not going to run out of whiskey.”

  Jake, his drink almost finished, signaled to the bartender for another.

  “That’s the kind of thing some people do, Jake. Right? Wife living in Mexico dies. After a while he’s off on an assignment in Moscow. Comes back looking good as ever. Then—whatever happened … happened. He seems just to have quit life. You cut off your friends, tune out, and—”

  “Try to drink yourself to death,” Jake said, draining his glass.

  CHAPTER 40

  There was no formal connection between the invitation to Philby to visit Cuba, and his wedding to Rufina. Sentimental acts weren’t entitled to recognition, in the orthodoxy of the society Philby lived in and had spied for. The Soviet Union was big on rewards, not valentines. But the invitation to visit Fidel Castro’s Cuba did in fact arrive a few days after the wedding and was delightedly accepted. Of course there would be burdens, duties to perform in Cuba, but there were burdens in all of life, and the ratio here of exertion to reward was favorable.

  They had originally planned to leave February 2, but in the shock of Ursina’s death, Rufina begged to postpone the trip. Shock, but also duty: Ursina had no surviving family. Rufina, her closest friend, saw to all that needed doing. But she would be glad to get away
later in the month, she told Andrei.

  They would travel on a freighter, non-stop, Leningrad to Havana. They would have a personal guide, Gennady, to look after them, and they would be looked after, upon arrival, by an official Soviet presence.

  At sea for two weeks! Philby and Rufina treated this as if it were a honeymoon. Occupying one of the three staterooms on the freighter that carried goods for the straitened Castro regime, they would rise every morning and walk around the deck, discerning, whenever land was observable, just where they were on the globe. A very exciting moment came for Philby when the boat found itself within viewing distance of Eastbourne, on Britain’s south coast. Through the morning fog, he thought he could make out his old school.

  The crew was hospitable, and the couple’s privacy was respected. It was surprising, given the sea traffic in the Atlantic, that they saw not a single other vessel after leaving the English Channel. There had been the one disturbing episode, an airplane overhead. A small plane, but it descended low enough to make the pilot visible. Gennady hustled his wards below. Did he really think there was any possibility of an alien force flying in that little airplane? Intending to do what? Call in a flotilla to wrest Philby back into the hands of Western justice? Silly. But Gennady was their escort officer and responsible for the success of the passage, so they followed his instructions.

  They arrived in Havana after a fifteen-day passage and were greeted most heartily by the Cuban authorities. Examining the schedule they were given on landing in Havana, they were both pleased and appalled at the thoroughness of their itinerary, which would take them to all corners of Cuba. There were comfortable breaks, one of them in a luxurious setting in Baradero, with a beach stretching further than the eye could see in either direction. Philby declined to use that beach. He told Rufina he thought it a survival of capitalist degeneracy. But he did not deny her access to it, which she happily took.

  Philby noticed that there was no place on the schedule that called for a personal meeting with Fidel Castro. His radio brought in daily BBC broadcasts, and he did not need to be reminded that Castro was fully occupied—for one thing, in simply feeding his people. That was a perpetual problem. There were specific distractions. Two men were arrested on suspicion of spying, both native Cubans, one of them an exile. And then there was the noisy defection of an influential general, who had flown himself in a Cessna, landed in Key West, and pleaded for asylum.