The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  Doyle pointed over his shoulder and upward. “That block of empty seats with half the Sûreté around them—that’s where the Russians will be sitting.”

  Brennan turned and lifted his gaze above the occupied tiers of grandstand seats toward the level above. He made out the square of vacant reserved chairs. His gaze shifted, seeking the means of access.

  Guessing his intent, Doyle said, “There’s a wide flight of wooden steps, back where we came from, next to the snack bar. It takes you right upstairs. But I don’t know if they’d let you in.”

  “Jay, space age or no, whatever goes up has to come down. If Rostov goes up there, he’ll have to come down. And when he does, guess who’ll be waiting for him.”

  Brennan turned back to study the configuration of the almost oval grass track, and realized that half a hundred people were running and fighting for choice points of vantage at the railing. He heard the loudspeakers blaring, and he saw the prancing and wheeling colts and fillies moving out to parade on the track.

  “I’m not interested in this race,” he said to Doyle. “I’m interested in what you have to tell me.”

  Doyle was perspiring profusely in the direct heat of the afternoon sun. Beads of sweat formed and trickled down his puffed cheeks. “I’ll get sunstroke,” he muttered, searching for a vendor to sell him a head covering of any kind. There were no vendors, but then Doyle sighted something, excused himself, moved crabwise along the row, and stooped to pick up a newspaper. Triumphantly, he returned to his place, waving a folded copy of Paris-Turf, which he opened and set on his head.

  Protected at last, Doyle was all business. “It’s about your theory, Matt. The Russians and Chinese using the Summit as a Trojan Horse, to put us off guard while they play secret hanky-panky unknown and unseen inside the horse. I’ve picked up some juicy evidence for you, Matt. There’s so much, I hardly know where to begin.”

  “Why not at the beginning?”

  “Okay. Last night. Like I told you on the phone, I attended one of the dinners of the Société des Gastronomes at Lasserre. I found myself sitting next to my old friend—well, not exactly friend, but a nice guy I’ve been bumping into around the world for years—Igor Novik, the one who does foreign stuff for Pravda. His only other claim to fame is that he outweighs me by twenty pounds. Anyway, there we were, and I was still shaken up by the bomb Hazel had put under me earlier in the day. And I got to thinking, maybe Hazel couldn’t get the truth out of Rostov about the Kennedy conspiracy, but maybe I could, because I used to be better at that sort of thing. Besides, what’s to lose, making one more effort? Then I told myself another thing, that even if Matt Brennan couldn’t get to Rostov, maybe I, as an American journalist under the auspices of someone like Novik, could pull it off.”

  “A good idea,” admitted Brennan.

  “But not good enough, really. Because right away, last night, I had a better one.”

  He had pretended to Novik that he was helping a friend finish an exposé about a political schism that existed in the Soviet Union because of differences over Red China. Since Rostov’s name had come up in this exposé, Doyle hoped to verify the book’s accuracy with Rostov personally. He had wondered if Novik knew Rostov well enough to be of assistance.

  “This opened the can of peas,” said Doyle excitedly, “but you know what was inside? Beans. And inadvertently, Novik spilled the beans. He’d grown up with Rostov, it turned out. He still saw him socially—”

  As Doyle continued with his recital, Brennan was hardly aware of his surroundings, of the clang of the starter’s bell or the clamor from the racing fanatics all about them. With complete absorption, and without interruption, he listened to the very end.

  The moment that Doyle had concluded Brennan said, “You mean Rostov and Marshal Zabbin entertained some top-level Chinese in Moscow only six months ago?”

  “I don’t know if they were top-level, although they probably were if Zabbin was also a dinner guest. But it was about six months ago, yes.”

  “Unusual. From all I’ve read and heard, there hasn’t been a ranking Chinese inside Russia in several years. Premier Talansky stated time and again that he would not treat with China separately as a Communist brother, but only as a member of a family of nations.”

  “Precisely, Matt.”

  “And you trust Novik’s word?”

  “I might question it except for the circumstances. He’d been eating and drinking last night, and felt expansive. He was just rattling on, and he mentioned the Chinese in Moscow, and suddenly, when I called him on it, he tried to backtrack.”

  Brennan considered the information. “Strange, and possibly significant.”

  “I thought so,” said Doyle, pleased. “Now I’ll tell you something more that happened just this morning, that might be equally significant.” He adjusted the newspaper covering his head. “I was hanging around the press room of the Palais Rose, trying to dredge up something for Earnshaw’s column. You know, it’s awfully difficult to pick up anything new. You get the press attaché’s handouts. Or you hang around until the leaders break up their meeting, and you go to one or all of the press briefings, and they’re always about the same on the points debated that day, on the progress made. One is no different from the other, except for the language they deliver it in. And the song is always familiar and always in harmony: ‘Satisfactory progress was made.’ But once in a while, if you know someone, you get an inkling of what’s truly going on. I remember one time, in Geneva, when I was still up there on top and I was covering an important eight-nation conference. All I could get from the daily press briefings was sweetness and light. But one day, just after a meeting adjourned, I saw the Secretary of State coming down the hall. We were on fairly familiar terms. So I went up to him and asked, ‘Mr. Secretary, how are the talks really going?’ And he looked at me and he said, ‘Jay, it’s piss-poor.’ So I nodded gravely, and then rushed back to the typewriter and wrote, “Inside sources at the ministers’ conference reported today that the atmosphere was unusually tense.’” Doyle looked at Brennan. “That actually happened.”

  Brennan laughed. “I believe you, Jay. I’ve done that sort of thing, too.”

  “Well, it happened to me again. It happened in the Palais Rose,” said Doyle quickly. “Just as the Big Five adjourned this morning’s session, I caught one of the officials I’d known for years, and he said something similar, cryptic but negative. So for the first time this week I gathered that there was trouble behind the closed doors of the Summit. I decided to do what most of the correspondents have no patience or need to do, and that is cover each and every one of the press briefings. As I said, the work is usually unproductive because they have an agreement to say the same thing in different languages. You remember how those briefings are conducted, don’t you, Matt? There are five short ones every noon, a few minutes apart, staggered, in different rooms of the Palais Rose. A spokesman representing each power briefs the press in his own tongue, with interpreters next to him translating everything he says into French and English.”

  “Are they employing headphones here?”

  “Yes. Like at the United Nations. And each spokesman reads off a prepared progress report, rarely more than 500 words. Anyway, I started out by attending the briefing held by the spokesman for Great Britain. Then I raced down the corridor to catch the French one, then back to catch the press briefing Neely gave for the United States. These three were absolutely the same, as if cranked out of the identical machine. As usual, satisfactory progress had been made. General accord was being achieved. ‘However, on one point—disarmament control measures—the representatives of the People’s Republic of China unexpectedly submitted a new proposal for consideration. As a result, it was agreed that the leaders of the Five Powers would have to convene for a special session tomorrow morning, Sunday, 22 June.’ Now, that is what I heard, exactly that, in the British, French, and American briefings. Then I rushed over to the Chinese briefing. Again, the wording was the same, except for
the very last announcement. The Chinese press officer said, ‘However, on one point—the vital matter of policing and inspection of nuclear disarmament—the delegates of the People’s Republic of China, Chairman Kuo Shu-tung and Marshal Chen, put forward a broader and more elastic new proposal for immediate consideration.’ Okay, that said the same thing but the wording was considerably altered. I was a little tired of all the droning announcements by then, and worried about being late to meet you, so I almost skipped the Russian briefing. But finally, I decided to look in on it. I made it just as it got underway. And again more of the same, word for word with the others, until the last, when the Russian press officer concluded, ‘However, on one point—the vital matter of policing and inspection of nuclear disarmament—the delegates of the People’s Republic of China, Chairman Kuo Shu-tung and Marshal Chen, put forward a broader and more elastic new proposal for immediate consideration.’ When I heard that from the Russian press officer, well, Matt, I tell you, I sat up. I could feel the goose pimples on my flesh. All I wanted was to get to you with it.” He searched Brennan’s face excitedly. “Did you hear everything I said? Did you get the significance of that?”

  Brennan strove to shut out the increasing clamor in the grandstand behind them and digest what Doyle had reported.

  It was becoming difficult to concentrate. “It doesn’t seem to—” He stopped. “By God, I think I see it, Jay. There was something—”

  “You’re goddam right there was!” Doyle exclaimed. “The British, French, American, Chinese, Russian press spokesmen all parroted one another on all points of the press announcement except the last. On the last, the new proposal, the British, French, American press officers took the same line in almost the very same words. But on that point, the Chinese, since the new controls proposal was their own and concerned them, reworded it and expanded it. And the Russians, who would normally use the same line and language as the others, this time repeated that point of the announcement exactly as the Chinese had rewritten and expanded it. A small difference, but vive la différence, Matt. I’m sure no other reporters covered all the briefings, or if any did, they overlooked this. But you’ve got me alert for those oddities, and there it was. You see what it adds up to?”

  Brennan’s excitement matched Doyle’s own. “It adds up to collaboration.”

  “On the side, between the Chinese and Russian press officers, who don’t even recognize each other in public. How do you like that?”

  “I like it very much,” murmured Brennan.

  “There you have it, my hard-won booty.”

  “I appreciate it very much, Jay. I wish I could repay you in kind, but I’m afraid I can’t offer anything to support your Kennedy conspiracy theory.”

  “To hell with that,” said Doyle, yanking the newspaper off his head and balling it up. “You can offer me something better, much better and more practical.”

  “I can?”

  “And how. You remember, on the phone, I said there was a personal matter I wanted to discuss with you also.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “This is it,” said Doyle. Perspiration was again ringing his forehead, and his eager expression was now giving way to anxiety. “Matt, I’m going to be frank with you. From the start, I was like Hazel. I didn’t believe that the things you were hearing about the Russians and Chinese meant anything. I thought your theory was way out, and I attributed your taking it seriously to the fact that you’d been off alone too long, out of touch, brooding, so that you had become susceptible to seeing phantoms where there were none. But recently all of your incessant suspicions put me on my toes, even against my will. I began to see things the way you’ve been seeing them. And I realized that everything that had happened to you in exile had not had a detrimental effect, but rather had sharpened your senses, made them keener than other people’s, like the way dogs are equipped by nature to hear higher decibels of sound in the air than the duller human ear can pick up. Your perceptions and awareness simply had become more acute than my own or Hazel’s. Last night, I saw it all in a blinding flash of light. You were way ahead of us, above us, the prophet—”

  “Maybe a false prophet, Jay.”

  “No, the real thing, the McCoy of prophets, the True Prophet, and now I’ve got religion, I’m the True Believer. And here’s what I honestly wanted to say to you, Matt. Even if I’m a Johnny-come-lately, I’m with you, and I’d give a good deal of myself for a piece of the action.” Doyle hesitated, embarrassed, and finally resumed. “In the cause of your theory, I’d give you not only my allegiance and loyalty but my services, based on years of know-how. All I ask is—well, let me put it this way—yesterday, when you, Hazel and I were in Le Drug Store and my Kennedy project was torpedoed, you suggested I undertake a book about the material you’ve been uncovering. I was too upset to consider it. But now I’ve settled down. I don’t know if you made the offer because you were sorry for me or if you—”

  “I meant it, Jay. It was a sincere offer.”

  Doyle beamed. “I accept it. The Conspirators Who Killed Kennedy is dead. Long live The Secret Civil War Inside Russia Today—or whatever that title was you invented for the make-believe book that Earnshaw was to bait the Ormsbys with. Only now I’m as determined as you are to make both the book and title real.”

  “I appreciate that, Jay.” Brennan hesitated. “You mean you’re finally giving up the Kennedy assassination book?”

  Doyle stared back at Brennan for several seconds. Slowly, he shook his head. “No, I’m not giving it up, Matt. I’ll never give it up. When I said it was dead, I meant that only as a figure of speech. Inside me, it’s alive. It’ll always be alive, as long as I am. Oswald didn’t do it, you know. There were others. And I’ll prove it someday.” He began to smile again. “The same way I now intend to help you prove your theory is a fact. You’re onto something, Matt, and I’m with you all the way. I repeat, we’re going to make your book and title real.”

  “Depending, Jay, on whether what we’ve found out to date is real. Like your Kennedy theory, this hypothesis of ours means nothing unless we can prove it.”

  “I’m willing to gamble,” said Doyle fervently. “From now on I hear evil, see evil, speak in search of evil.” Momentarily distracted, he grabbed at Brennan’s arm. “Matt, the third race!”

  Startled, Brennan looked up. On the track, sleek horses, their jockeys mounted, were parading from left to right past the grandstand. “Is this the one?”

  Doyle had his program open. “This is it The Prix du Sommet. And here’s the Russian hope—Prince Yuri—Number 7.”

  Simultaneously Brennan and Doyle twisted around and stared up at the reserved section of the mezzanine. All of the seats except three were occupied. “I can’t make out their faces,” said Brennan.

  “Here, use these.” Doyle handed him the miniature binoculars.

  Brennan removed his sunglasses and brought the binoculars to his eyes. The reserved section above was fuzzy. Brennan rolled his finger across the control knob, and suddenly, the Russians sharpened into focus. Moving the magnifying lens across,the Slavic faces, each almost as large and clear as Doyle’s face beside him, he sought the familiar visage of Nikolai Rostov. His lens passed across the three rows above, once, then twice. He counted nine Russians, and not one did he recognize.

  Slowly, Brennan lowered the glasses.

  Doyle looked at him inquiringly. “Well?”

  “Nope.” He handed the binoculars back to Doyle. “Rostov didn’t come.”

  “What about Premier Talansky and Zabbin?”

  “Not up there. They didn’t come either.”

  Doyle was crestfallen. “I’m sorry, Matt.”

  Brennan shrugged. “It’s disappointing, but there’s nothing to be sorry about. There was no guarantee he’d come.”

  “No. But I figured if the Premier and Marshal were coming, Rostov would tag along.” He thought about it. “The Premier and Zabbin were coming. They were on Novik’s list. I wonder why they didn�
��t.” With a wheeze, he stood up. “I’m going to see if I can find out. The kid with ANA, Fowler, he may have heard. Maybe they’re just late. Want to come along?”

  “No,” said Brennan, once more dispirited. “I’ll just stay for the race and get back to the hotel.”

  Doyle edged past Brennan’s knees and waited in the aisle. “If you’re going to watch the race, you might as well put down a bet.” He glanced at the program and handed it to Brennan. “Which do you like? Prince Yuri? Unbeaten at Moscow’s Hippodrome.”

  “No, thanks. I’m through betting on Russians.” He scanned the list of nine horses and the early odds that Doyle had penciled in alongside each name. Then he took a 100-franc note from his wallet and handed it and the program up to Doyle. “Even though he’s five to one, I’ll play a hunch for old time’s sake. Lay it all on the nose. Number 2. Diplomatique. It says, ‘Couleur blanche, étoiles bleu-clair.’”

  “I’ll take the Portuguese filly,” said Doyle, “I guess because I knew one once, and she was mighty fast. All right. You’ve got Diplomatique. Number 2. I’ve got the one called Iberian. She’s number 5. Couleurs rouge et violette. I’ll try to get back before the bell. Right now, I want to see Fowler.” He shaded his eyes and looked up toward the Russians again. “I wonder why they didn’t show.”

  He stepped down and waddled off to the rear of the grandstand.

  After a few minutes, Brennan rose and glanced up at the mezzanine. Nothing had changed. He wandered to the white railing, leaned against it, and stared gloomily down at the bright green grass of the homestretch. Presently, realizing that the railing to either side of him was becoming crowded with spectators, mostly French families, he looked across the way. The opposite railing was lined with spectators, too, and the throng was especially heavy before the infield clubhouse with the pagodalike roof. Brennan guessed that was probably the finish pole. Beyond the clubhouse, in the distance, he could make out the thoroughbreds parading irregularly around the curve toward what appeared to be three strands of white webbing.