Wild Cards IV

by George R. R. Martin

  “I see you’ve taken up reading spy novels,” Polyakov said. “I’m more interested in … let’s call it a political analysis. Is it possible that he will become president of the United States?”

  “Very possible. Reagan has been crippled by his current crisis and is not, in my judgment, a well man. He has no obvious successor, and the American economy is likely to worsen before the election.”

  The first piece of the puzzle: There is one American politician who has left in his wake a series of mysterious deaths worthy of Beria or Stalin.… The second: The same politician is kidnapped—twice. And escapes under mysterious circumstances—twice.

  “The Democrats have several candidates, none without major weaknesses. Hart is sure to eliminate himself. Biden, Dukakis, any of the others could disappear tomorrow. If Hartmann can put together a strong organization, and if the right opening occurs, he could win.”

  A recent Moscow Center briefing had predicted that Dole would be the next U.S. president. Strategists at the American Institute were already creating an expert psychological model of the senator from Kansas. But these were the same analysts who predicted Ford over Carter and Carter over Reagan. On the principle that events never turn out the way experts say, Polyakov was inclined to believe Tachyon.

  Even the theoretical possibility of a Hartmann presidency was important … if he was an ace! He needed to be watched, stopped if necessary, but Moscow Center would never authorize such a move, especially if it contradicted its expensive little studies.

  The driver, by prearrangement, headed back toward Grosvenor House. The rest of the trip was spent in reminiscence of the two Berlins, even of Hamburg. “You aren’t satisfied, are you?” Tachyon said finally. “You want more from me than a superficial political analysis, surely.”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “I have no secret documents to give you. I’m hardly inconspicuous enough to work as a spy.”

  “You have your powers, Tachyon—”

  “And my limitations! You know what I will and will not do.”

  “I’m not your enemy, Tachyon! I’m the only one who even remembers your debt, and in August I’ll be retired. At this point I’m just an old man trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle.”

  “Then tell me about your puzzle—”

  “You know better than that.”

  “Then how can I possibly help you?” Polyakov didn’t answer. “You’re afraid that by even asking me a direct question, I’ll learn too much. Russians!”

  For a moment Polyakov wished for a wild card power that would let him read minds. Tachyon had many human characteristics, but he was Takisian … all of Polyakov’s years of training did not help him decide whether or not he was lying. Must he depend on Takisian honor?

  The cab pulled up to the curb and the driver opened the door. But Tachyon didn’t get out. “What’s going to happen to you?”

  What, indeed? Polyakov thought. “I’m going to become an honored pensioner, like Khrushchev, able to go to the front of a queue, spending my days reading and reliving my exploits over a bottle of vodka for men who will not believe them.”

  Tachyon hesitated. “For years I hated you … not for exploiting my weakness, but for saving my life. I was in Hamburg because I wanted to die. But now, finally, I have something to live for … it’s only been very recent. So I am grateful, you know.”

  Then he got out of the cab and slammed the door. “I’ll see you again,” he said, hoping for a denial.

  “Yes,” Polyakov said, “you will.” The driver pulled away. In the rearview mirror Polyakov saw that the Takisian watched them drive off before going into his hotel.

  No doubt he wondered where and when Polyakov would turn up again. Polyakov wondered too. He was all alone now … mocked by his colleagues, discarded by the Party, loyal to some ideal that he only barely remembered. Like poor Mólniya in a way, sent out on some misguided mission and then abandoned.

  The fate of a Soviet ace is to be betrayed.

  He was scheduled to remain in London for several weeks yet, but if he could no longer extract useful information from a relatively cooperative source such as the Dancer, there was no point in staying. That night he packed for the return to Moscow and his retirement. After a dinner in which he was joined only by a bottle of Stolichnaya, Polyakov left the hotel and took a walk down Sloane, past the fashionable boutiques. What did they call the young women who shopped here? Yes, Sloane Rangers. The Rangers, to judge from the stray samples still hurrying home at this hour, or from the bizarre mannequins in the windows, were thin, wraithlike creatures. Too fragile for Polyakov.

  In any case, his ultimate destination … his farewell to London and the West … was King’s Cross, where the women were more substantial.

  On reaching Pont Street, however, he noticed an off-duty black cab following him. In moments he considered possible assailants, ranging from renegade American agents to Light of Allah terrorists to English hoodlums … until he read, in the reflection from a shop window, the license number of a vehicle belonging to the Soviet Embassy. Further examination revealed that the driver was Yurchenko.

  Polyakov dropped his evasions and simply met the ear. In the back was a man he didn’t know. “Georgy Vladimirovich,” Yurchenko shouted. “Get in!”

  “There’s no need to yell,” Polyakov said. “You’ll draw attention.” Yurchenko was one of those polished young men for whom tradecraft came so easily that, unless reminded, he often neglected to use it.

  As soon as Polyakov was aboard in the front seat, the car jumped into traffic. They were quite obviously going for a ride.

  “We thought we were losing you,” Yurchenko said pleasantly.

  “What’s this all about?” Polyakov said. He indicated the silent man in the backseat. “Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Dolgov of the GRU. He’s presented me with some very disturbing news.”

  For the first time in years Polyakov felt real fear. Was this to be his retirement? An “accidental” death in a foreign country?

  “Don’t keep me in suspense, Yurchenko. The last time I checked, I was still your boss.”

  Yurchenko couldn’t look at him. “The Takisian is a double agent. He’s working for the Americans and has for thirty years.”

  Polyakov turned toward the GRU man. “So now the GRU is sharing its precious intelligence. What a great day for the Soviet Union. I suppose I’m suspected of being an agent.”

  The GRU man spoke for the first time. “What did the Takisian give you?”

  “I’m not talking to you. What my agents give me is KGB business—”

  “The GRU will share with you, then. Tachyon has a grandson named Blaise, whom he found in Paris last month. Blaise is a new kind of ace … potentially the most powerful and dangerous in the world. And he was snatched right out of our hands to be taken to America.”

  The car was crossing Lambeth Bridge, heading toward a gray and depressing industrial district, a perfect location for a safe house … the perfect setting for an execution.

  Tachyon had a grandson with powers! Suppose this child came into contact with Hartmann—the potential was horrifying. Life in a world threatened by nuclear destruction was safe compared to one dominated by a wild card Ronald Reagan. How could he have been so stupid?

  “I didn’t know,” he said finally. “Dancer was not an active agent. There was no reason to place him under surveillance.”

  “But there was,” Dolgov persisted. “He’s a goddamned alien, for one thing! And if his presence on the tour itself wasn’t enough, there was the situation in Paris!”

  It was easy for the GRU to spy on someone in Paris: the embassy there was full of its operatives. Of course the sister service hadn’t bothered to pass its vital information along to the KGB. Polyakov would have acted differently with Mólniya had he known about Blaise!

  Now he needed time to think. He realized he had been holding his breath. A bad habit. “This is serious. We shou
ld obviously be working together. I’m ready to do whatever I can—”

  “Then why are you packed?” Yurchenko interrupted, sounding genuinely anguished.

  “You’ve been watching me?” He looked from Yurchenko to Dolgov. My God, they actually thought he was going to defect!

  Polyakov turned slightly, his hand brushing Yurchenko, who recoiled as if slapped. But Polyakov didn’t let go. The cab sideswiped a parked car and skidded back into traffic just as Polyakov saw Yurchenko’s eyes roll up … the heat had already boiled his brain.

  Dolgov threw himself into the front seat, grabbing for the wheel, and managed to steer right into another parked car, where they stopped. Polyakov had braced for the impact, which threw Yurchenko’s smoking body off him … freeing him to reach out for Dolgov, who made the mistake of grabbing back.

  For an instant Dolgov’s face was the face of the Great Leader … the Benevolent Father of the Soviet People … himself turned into a murderous joker. Polyakov was just a young courier who carried messages between the Kremlin and Stalin’s dacha—sufficiently trusted that he was allowed to know the secret of Great Stalin’s curse—not an assassin. He had never intended to be an assassin. But Stalin had already ordered the execution of all wild cards.…

  If it was his destiny to carry this power, it must also be his destiny to use it. As he had eliminated Stalin, so he eliminated Dolgov. He didn’t allow the man to say a word, not even the final gesture of defiance, as he burned the life out of him.

  The impact had jammed the two front doors, so Polyakov would have to crawl out the back. Before he did, he removed the silencer and the heavy service revolver Dolgov carried … the weapon he was to have pressed to the back of Polyakov’s neck. Polyakov fired a round into the air, then put the revolver back where Dolgov carried it. Scotland Yard and the GRU could think what they liked … another unsolved murder with the murderers themselves the victims of an unlucky accident.

  The fire from the two bodies reached the tiny trickle of gasoline spilled in the crash.… The crematorium would not get Dolgov.

  The explosion and flames would attract attention. Polyakov knew he should go … yet there was something attractive in the flames. As if an aged, dutiful KGB colonel were dying, too, to be reborn as a superhero, the one true Soviet ace.…

  This would be a legend of his own creation.

  iv.

  There were many signs in Russian at the British Airways terminal at Robert Tomlin International Airport, placed there by members of Jewish Relief, headquartered in nearby Brighton Beach. For Jews who managed to emigrate from the Eastern bloc, even those who dreamed of eventually settling in Palestine, this was their Ellis Island.

  Among those debarking this day in May was a stocky man in his early sixties, dressed like a typical middle-class émigré, in brown shirt buttoned to the neck and well-worn gray jacket. A woman from Relief stepped forward to help him. “Strasvitye s Soyuzom Statom,” she said in Russian, “Welcome to the United States.”

  “Thank you,” the man replied in English.

  The woman was pleased. “If you already speak the language, you will find things very easy here. May I help you?”

  “No, I know what I’m doing.”

  Out there, in the city, waited Dr. Tachyon, living in fear of their next encounter, wondering what it would mean to his very special grandson. To the south, Washington, and Senator Hartmann, a formidable target. But Polyakov would not work alone. No sooner had he gone underground in England than he had managed to contact the shattered remains of Mólniya’s network. Next week Gimli would be joining him in America.…

  As he waited for customs to clear his meager luggage, Polyakov could see through the windows that it was a beautiful American summer day.

  From The Journal of Xavier Desmond

  APRIL 27/ SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC:

  THE INTERIOR LIGHTS WERE turned out several hours ago, and most of my fellow travelers are long asleep, but the pain has kept me awake. I’ve taken some pills, and they are helping, but still I cannot sleep. Nonetheless, I feel curiously elated … almost serene. The end of my journey is near, in both the larger and smaller senses. I’ve come a long way, yes, and for once I feel good about it.

  We still have one more stop—a brief sojourn in Canada, whirlwind visits to Montreal and Toronto, a government reception in Ottawa. And then home. Tomlin International, Manhattan, Jokertown. It will be good to see the Funhouse again.

  I wish I could say that the tour had accomplished everything we set out to do, but that’s scarcely the case. We began well, perhaps, but the violence in Syria, West Germany, and France undid our unspoken dream of making the public forget the carnage of Wild Card Day. I can only hope that the majority will realize that terrorism is a bleak and ugly part of the world we live in, that it would exist with or without the wild card. The bloodbath in Berlin was instigated by a group that included jokers, aces, and nats, and we would do well to remember that and remind the world of it forcefully. To lay that carnage at the door of Gimli and his pathetic followers, or the two fugitive aces still being sought by the German police, is to play into the hands of men like Leo Barnett and the Nur al-Allah. Even if the Takisians had never brought their curse to us, the world would have no shortage of desperate, insane, and evil men.

  For me, there is a grim irony in the fact that it was Gregg’s courage and compassion that put his life at risk, and hatred that saved him, by turning his captors against each other in that fratricidal holocaust.

  Truly, this is a strange world.

  I pray that we have seen the last of Gimli, but meanwhile I can rejoice. After Syria it seems unlikely that anyone could still doubt Gregg Hartmann’s coolness under fire, but if that was indeed the case, surely all such fears have now been firmly laid to rest by Berlin. After Sara Morgenstern’s exclusive interview was published in the Post, I understand Hartmann shot up ten points in the polls. He’s almost neck and neck with Hart now. The feeling aboard the plane is that Gregg is definitely going to run.

  I said as much to Digger back in Dublin, over a Guinness and some fine Irish soda bread in our hotel, and he agreed. In fact, he went further and predicted that Hartmann would get the nomination. I wasn’t quite so certain and reminded him that Gary Hart still seems a formidable obstacle, but Downs grinned in that maddeningly cryptic way of his beneath his broken nose and said, “Yeah, well, I got this hunch that Gary is going to fuck up and do something really stupid, don’t ask me why.”

  If my health permits, I will do everything I can to rally Jokertown behind a Hartmann candidacy. I don’t think I’m alone in my commitment either. After the things we have seen, both at home and abroad, a growing number of prominent aces and jokers are likely to throw their weight behind the senator. Hiram Worchester, Peregrine, Mistral, Father Squid, Jack Braun … perhaps even Dr. Tachyon, despite his notorious distaste for politics and politicians.

  Terrorism and bloodshed notwithstanding, I do believe we accomplished some good on this journey. Our report will open some official eyes, I can only hope, and the press spotlight that has shone on us everywhere has greatly increased public awareness of the plight of jokers in the Third World.

  On a more personal level, Jack Braun did much to redeem himself and even buried his thirty-year emnity with Tachyon, Peri seems positively radiant in her pregnancy; and we did manage, however belatedly, to free poor Jeremiah Strauss from twenty years of simian bondage. I remember Strauss from the old days, when Angela owned the Funhouse and I was only the maître d’, and I offered him a booking if and when he resumes his theatrical career as the Projectionist. He was appreciative, but noncommittal. I don’t envy him his period of adjustment. For all practical purposes, he is a time traveler.

  And Dr. Tachyon … well, his new punk haircut is ugly in the extreme, he still favors his wounded leg, and by now the entire plane knows of his sexual dysfunction, but none of this seems to bother him since young Blaise came aboard in France. Tachyon has been evasive about
the boy in his public statements, but of course everyone knows the truth. The years he spent in Paris are scarcely a state secret, and if the boy’s hair was not a sufficient clue, his mind control power makes his lineage abundantly clear.

  Blaise is a strange child. He seemed a little awed by the jokers when he first joined us, particularly Chrysalis, whose transparent skin clearly fascinated him. On the other hand, he has all of the natural cruelty of an unschooled child (and believe me, any joker knows how cruel a child can be). One day in London, Tachyon got a phone call and had to leave for a few hours. While he was gone, Blaise grew bored, and to amuse himself he seized control of Mordecai Jones and made him climb onto a table and recite “I’m a Little Teapot,” which Blaise had just learned as part of an English lesson. The table collapsed under the Hammer’s weight, and I don’t think Jones is likely to forget the humiliation. He didn’t much like Dr. Tachyon to begin with.

  Of course not everyone will look back on this tour fondly. The trip was very hard on a number of us, there’s no gainsaying that. Sara Morgenstern has filed several major stories and done some of the best writing of her career, but nonetheless the woman is edgier and more neurotic with every passing day. As for her colleagues in the back of the plane, Josh McCoy seems alternately madly in love with Peregrine and absolutely furious with her, and it cannot be easy for him with the whole world knowing that he is not the father of her child. Meanwhile, Digger’s profile will never be the same.

  Downs is, at least, as irrepressible as he is irresponsible. Just the other day he was telling Tachyon that if he got an exclusive on Blaise, maybe he would be able to keep Tach’s impotence off-the-record. This gambit was not well received. Digger has also been thick as thieves with Chrysalis of late. I overheard them having a very curious conversation in the bar one night in London. “I know he is,” Digger was saying. Chrysalis told him that knowing it and proving it were two different things. Digger said something about how they smelled different to him, how he’d known ever since they met, and Chrysalis just laughed and said that was fine, but smells that no one else could detect weren’t much good as proof, and even if they were, he’d have to blow his own cover to go public. They were still going at it when I left the bar.