"So I was a decoy?" Benjamin said, with obvious distaste.
"Not at all," Wolfe said. "Everything you did was vitally necessary. And something I couldn't have done myself. They never would have let me get this far. Hauser would have been unchained a lot sooner. As I told you at the Foundation, they were letting us serve as the hounds, to chase out the fox. The fox being Leverotov's journal, if it existed. I'm not sure they believed it did. But with me out of the picture, they gave you your head, let you pursue the leads." He tossed off his vodka, absentmindedly held out his glass for Nikolai to refill it. "And while they were pursuing you, I could pursue them. "
"You mean, you were following me the whole time?"
"I knew you would go to D.C. and look up either Anton or Natalya, or both. And I knew you would visit the library. Meanwhile I could keep a watchful eye on you, make sure they didn't press too close. But you were a shade too clever and nearly fouled that up."
"What do you mean?"
"A friend of mine was keeping tabs on you in the Library of Congress. That was a nice trick you did, giving him the slip."
"That was your friend?" Benjamin said with alarm.
Wolfe nodded. "That panicked me for a while, when he called and said you'd disappeared. I thought maybe Hauser had reeled you in after all. But that didn't make sense; you hadn't made contact with Ms. Orlova yet."
"Then you didn't know about Nikolai's 'relics'?"
Wolfe shook his head. "No, nobody did. Not even Fletcher. They were the key nobody knew existed. Except Nikolai."
"And I didn't know what lock they are key for," Nikolai said. "Each of us has piece of puzzle, but nobody has whole puzzle."
"A puzzle leading to that box you so heroically retrieved," Wolfe said. "A box of great interest to a great many people- if it existed."
Benjamin saw his glass was full again. The throbbing in his shoulder had stopped, so he drank off the vodka. This time it didn't burn at all. Perhaps, he thought, he was acclimating to vodka the same way he had to scotch.
"So that man on St. Honorat who gave us the passports," Benjamin said. "That friend of Guy's. He was really sent by you?"
Wolfe looked askance at Anton, who ignored him, then back at Benjamin. "Uh, no, he wasn't one of mine… but I imagine he wasn't one of Hauser's, either. Right, Anton?"
Anton looked at him, huffed, and said only one word. "Obvious."
Benjamin thought back, looked at Anton suspiciously. "Hauser said they had Dr. Fletcher's computer back. You didn't give it to them?"
Anton wiggled his hand. "Sort of," he said. "I explain. Samuel calls me, while you driving to D.C., tells me everything, figures maybe I can finish TEACUP program. But without knowing what diary and Stzenariy 55 are, only get little closer. Samuel decide, make copy of program, let them have computer, then they leave me alone, follow you."
"And how did you do that?" asked Benjamin.
"Well," said Wolfe, "they didn't want to inform the authorities you'd skipped from the Foundation with sensitive information, not unless they could control who found you. But a well-placed phone call, the police show up, find Anton gone, the computer there with the Foundation's name on it…" Wolfe opened his arms as if to say "problem solved."
Now Benjamin actually was beginning to get angry.
"Then why didn't you contact us in Dubna? Why didn't you get to Nikolai, explain what was going on?"
"Ah," said Wolfe. "The best-laid plans. I never imagined Ms. Orlova would be so resourceful." He saluted her with his glass. "It took us a while to track you to Nice, and then Anton came up with her connection to Dubna, and Nikolai, from Myorkin's letter. We got to Dubna, yes, and went to Nikolai's. But he'd already left."
"And that's how I almost betray you," said Nikolai. "In Moscow, when I'm changing planes for Krasnoyarsk, two guys appear, one with FSB badge, beard, dark skin, other very tall, blond hair…"
"Hauser," said Benjamin.
"Exactly so," answered Nikolai. "They told me they have my daughter, and unless I tell them what I told you, they will kill her. Like a fool, I believe them. They bring me here, hide me in Uzhur when you and Natalya arrive."
"So Hauser bribed Boris," Benjamin said. "That betrayal I understand." He turned and glared at Natalya. "But yours?"
Natalya looked as though she might start cursing again, but Nikolai interrupted her.
"You do not understand. They tell Natalya the same thing. I am here, and unless she helps them get the treasure of shakhta thirty-four, they will kill me. "
He turned to Natalya. "I heard you and Boris talking that night. That's what he told you? That they had your father?"
Natalya nodded. "Boris promised they only wanted what was in the silo, and everyone would be safe. Like a fool," she shook tears from her eyes, "I believed them. But when I heard that shot…" She lowered her head, then raised it again. "I am very sorry, Benjamin. I…"
Benjamin held out his good arm and Natalya came to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, buried her head against his.
After a moment, Benjamin turned to Wolfe. "And Boris?"
"We haven't had a chance to… discuss things with Boris. Hauser's shot grazed his head-"
"Lucky bastard," said Natalya with some heat.
"-and he's been unconscious since. Perhaps an overenthusiastic dose of painkiller." Wolfe frowned. "Anyway, all arrows pointed here, where it all began forty years ago."
" Shakhta thirty-four," said Nikolai.
"Then you were the one who shot Hauser?" Benjamin asked Wolfe.
Wolfe nodded. "Sorry it took two shots. I'm a bit rusty. If you hadn't wounded him in the arm…" Benjamin could see that Wolfe had, for the moment anyway, shed his cynical grin. He looked suddenly quite serious-and quite relieved. "I'm very glad you're alive, young man. That was a very brave thing you did."
Either due to the vodka or the medication, Benjamin was feeling light-headed again. He started to stand up, weaved, and fell back into the chair.
"Enough," Natalya said. "You need to rest." And she helped him to stand, walked him toward the bedroom door.
Benjamin stopped her at the door, turned around.
"Oh, by the way," he said, "I've figured out what that is." He pointed toward the metal box with LEVEROTOV stenciled on the cover that was sitting, open, on the wood plank table. "What Scenario 55 is all about."
Wolfe looked up at him. "Have you," he said. He sounded skeptical.
"From what Nikolai told us." But he was feeling weaker, and he could barely get out the rest of his thought. "It was a first-strike plan, so they could seize power… But something went wrong."
Wolfe and Anton looked at each other, smiled. Anton turned around in his chair.
"Exact opposite," he said.
"What?" Benjamin started to walk back into the room.
"Nyet," said Natalya, steering him back into the bedroom. "Later."
Once in the bedroom, she helped him to lie down on the bed, checked his bandage again, pulled the covers over him. "First you sleep, then we'll explain everything."
"Explain… what," Benjamin said. He could barely keep his eyes open.
She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.
"Only the biggest fraud in history," she said.
Or that's what he thought she said. He couldn't be sure. Everything was going fuzzy and black… and then the warmth of unconsciousness closed over him.
CHAPTER 51
What woke Benjamin the second time was the smell of something cooking, something with beef and onions. He realized suddenly that he was quite hungry.
This time, it was easier to get out of bed and stand up. Boris was still snoring on the cot. Whatever they'd given him, he thought, it must have been a very enthusiastic dose, indeed.
He shuffled to the door, opened it, and went out into the other room.
Through the windows of Boris's cabin he could see it was pitch-black outside, and snow was still falling, now heavily. Inside, the fireplace was casting a warm glow,
and there were several oil lanterns set around the room.
Natalya was huddled over the stove, Nikolai at her side. They were arguing about something-apparently the proper amount of spices for whatever they were cooking. Wolfe and Anton were sitting around the wooden table, hunched over a set of papers spread across its surface. As he entered the room, everyone looked up.
"He riseth," said Wolfe. "And looking a trifle sounder. I do believe Boris's vodka is magic after all."
Natalya left the stove, came over to him, guided him to a chair at the table.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," Benjamin answered. "I've never been shot before. How should I feel?"
She kissed him. "You're very strong," she said, "for an academician." Then she returned to the stove, leaving Benjamin to muse over the wondrous ambiguity of Russian compliments.
Benjamin looked down at the papers on the table, apparently the material that had been in Leverotov's box.
There was a typed manuscript, in Russian, and next to that a leather-bound journal. The journal was open. Benjamin could see handwriting-very neat, precise Cyrillic-and what appeared to be long lists of numbers.
"I assume that's Leverotov's journal," Benjamin said, pointing to the leather-bound book. "But what are those pages?"
"Ah," Anton said. He swept his hand over them, as if presenting Benjamin with a valuable work of art. "Let me introduce you. Is Stzenariy 55. "
"Then it exists!" said Benjamin.
"Sort of," said Wolfe, looking up from the pages. "Just not in the way anyone imagined."
"Sam, please," said Anton. "Boy is shot, is on drugs. Don't be coy."
Wolfe leaned back in his chair, stretched.
"Let me get something besides this wretched tea," he said, standing and going over to Boris's well-stocked shelves. He picked one of the bottles, took a glass, then returned to the table, poured one for himself, Anton, and Nikolai-but Benjamin declined; he wanted to stay conscious for a while this time-and then leaned forward, folding his arms on the table.
"Now, let me tell you about Vladimir Sergeyevitch Leverotov, one of the most brilliant people, other than Jeremy Fletcher, that I've never met."
***
Vladimir Sergeyevitch Leverotov (Wolfe began) joined 12 Directorate of the Soviet Ministry of Defense in 1959, when he was twenty-six-the youngest member of a very small and very elite group of young, brilliant, earnest thinkers; and their task it was to "think the unthinkable": how to prepare for and, if necessary, wage nuclear war against the "imperialist aggressors" in the United States.
As a math prodigy, Leverotov had always been fascinated by the relatively obscure field in mathematics known as game theory. He was among the first in the Soviet Union to read the work of John Nash, an American mathematician who would later become as famous for his bouts with schizophrenia as his radical theories of gaming strategy.
He and his colleagues at the directorate were given a daunting task: develop an operational plan that would neutralize the ten-to-one advantage in nuclear weapons enjoyed by the United States. They considered the usual ruses common to centuries of warfare: dummy weapons, fake military broadcasts, nonexistent battalions. But such measures seemed like quaint antiques in the modern age of ICBMs and supersonic bombers.
One day, while buried deep in the directorate's archives searching for ideas that might have been overlooked, Leverotov had come across a dusty report written six years earlier, immediately after the first successful test of Russia's hydrogen bomb-what they had called Kuzkin otets, the "Father of All Bombs." Apparently the report had been filed away and forgotten.
Its author was anonymous, and Vladimir soon discovered why: the report suggested that, with the coming of weapons so powerful that only a few dozen were needed to utterly destroy one's enemy, and the undeniable reality that one's enemy possessed the same weapons, the greatest threat to both sides would be fear: fear of what the other side might do, fear of secrets, fear of being caught by surprise. Since the official Party line was that the Soviet Union knew no fear, it was clear why the author didn't want "credit" for this idea.
The report went on to say that such fear was as strong, if not stronger, for the Americans than for the Soviets. The United States firmly believed that the chief lesson it had learned from World War II and Pearl Harbor was simple: never get caught with your pants down. This fear, the report suggested, would cause the United States to put enormous resources into sustaining a state of "permanent alert": bombers constantly in the air, missiles ready to fire… all of which would look quite provocative to the USSR, with its own "master fear" of being surrounded by enemies, all waiting to pounce.
Thus the two fears would fit one another perfectly, becoming a folie a deux, a "shared madness" that could only end in catastrophe.
The author of this report pointed out it took only crude statistical analysis to predict that, given all the opportunities such interlocking fears would generate for misunderstandings, it was a matter of a decade, perhaps less, before the two sides would unleash their arsenals, annihilating one another.
But the author of the report had no alternative to offer. He concluded that the best the USSR could do was to build weapons as fast as possible and prepare to survive, in some manner, the inevitable apocalypse.
He wasn't as brilliant as Leverotov, who did see another option-one founded on the utterly logical math of game theory.
Leverotov knew from Nash's work that the only stable arrangement in such a "game" was one where both sides knew everything about one another's capabilities and intentions. Only by keeping nothing secret could miscalculation be avoided; only by assuring the survival of the other "player" could one ensure one's own survival.
Leverotov wrote up his own report, titling it Analiz 55, after a popular-if-morbid joke of the time, to represent the fact that only by creating a situation where neither side could possibly be wrong could both sides "win."
Though he didn't use the term, not wanting to reveal that he was reading American sources, Leverotov knew such a strategy by another name: a Nash equilibrium.
Leverotov filed the report and waited for the response: praise, condemnation… or worse.
But there was no response. Nothing.
It was as if the report didn't exist.
And then Leverotov was suddenly transferred from 12 Directorate and retrained as a rocket engineer. He assumed it was someone in the directorate's idea of an ironic punishment, to be made to now sit with the deadly weapons he'd only theorized about.
And so Leverotov came to Uzhur-4.
But, as a very dangerous souvenir, he'd brought a copy of Analiz 55 with him.
CHAPTER 52
At this point, Wolfe's story was interrupted by dinner. Nikolai and Natalya set steaming plates of something that looked like stew in front of everyone, accompanied by tumblers of Boris's vodka.
Benjamin tasted his stew. It was very good, but with a flavor he couldn't quite identify.
"Do you mind," he said, "if I ask what I'm eating?"
"Only thing in Boris's freezer," Nikolai said. "Bear meat. Very good, yes?"
Benjamin smiled, dug in.
"As charming as this repast is," interjected Wolfe, "we need to be finishing and getting to town. I want a doctor to see Benjamin, and Boris for that matter. And we need to let Kalinin know what's happened… In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't sent someone out here." He glanced somewhat nervously out into the dark night.
"The phone?" asked Benjamin, wolfing down more of the stew.
"Out of order," said Nikolai.
"Well, as long as we do have a few minutes, would someone mind explaining to me what Stzenariy or Analiz 55 really is, and what it has to do with all this?"
"First understand this," said Wolfe. "At that time, in the early sixties, American theoreticians like Leverotov working at American versions of 12 Directorate were coming to the same realization he had. They could read the same probabilities and knew one of two th
ings was inevitable: nuclear war, or one side gives up. But this third alternative of Leverotov's, the Nash equilibrium… well, apparently they weren't as audacious, or as brilliant, as him. I've read all the literature of the time; there's no mention of it from the American side. At least not publically."
"Sam," Benjamin said, showing his fatigue, "I've been shot, I'm full of drugs and vodka, and now I know how to use a gun. As Anton said, could you stop being coy?"
Wolfe laughed out loud. "Sorry," he apologized. "Professional habit. But Anton should tell this part." He motioned for Anton to continue.
"What I hear is only stories, later," said Anton, sitting back for a moment from his meal. "Rumors KGB had fooled Americans by leaking some fake plan for atomic war strategy." Now Anton looked coy.
Benjamin thought for a moment. "Not Scenario 55, by any chance."
"Hah!" Anton slapped his knee, turned to Wolfe. "You were right, bright boy."
"So we did know what Scenario 55 was, clear back in the sixties?"
"No, not really," said Wolfe. "You see, apparently the KGB leaked the plan on purpose, as disinformation, to confuse us. But it had a quite unintended effect.
"Anton showed you how Fletcher had coded Myorkin's letter into octal, then made an image of it?" Wolfe continued, and Benjamin nodded. "But Anton hadn't decoded all of it yet when he talked to you. He did, later. Myorkin wrote that he'd found something else in the St. Petersburg archives, something that seemed strange to him to be in such secret archives because there didn't seem anything secret about it."
"And that something was?"
"Visa applications," said Anton. "For bunch of American academics. To come to Moscow. And then, by train, to Kuntsevo."
Why did that name sound familiar? thought Benjamin. "I'm sorry, I don't…"
"Where 12 Directorate was," said Anton, "in 1965."
"Damn strange," Nikolai interjected, "letting Americans come to Kuntsevo back then."
"I can see that," said Benjamin. "But why did Myorkin think it had anything to do with Jeremy's research?"
The shadow war Page 32
