The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  If Thompson was surprised by this announcement, he concealed it well.

  The two fliers would be released on Wednesday morning and transported to Spasso House in Moscow. They would be repatriated by commercial air service and the U.S.S.R. would pay their expenses; Khrushchev quickly added that he would allow Mr. Kennedy to make the announcement, then immediately repeated his position that an early meeting with the president would be in the best interests of both countries. The whole point of the release was to put the onus on Kennedy.

  When Thompson and his lackey had gone, Khrushchev clapped his hands, then poured vodka for his subordinates. Neither Dobrynin nor Kuznetsov said anything, but both were thinking the same thing: Khrushchev was acting on his own, following his peculiar urges. Why did he behave this way? In 1956 he had attacked the cult of personality that Stalin had created for himself; now he was doing the same thing and there were rumblings in the Presidium. This latest stunt would just make matters worse.

  “We have no hold on them anyway,” the General Secretary said suddenly as if he had read their thoughts. “We took them down over international waters as a retaliation for Powers. We stopped their U-2 flights, then made them wary of operating even along our borders. It was a necessary gamble. But you see how it has worked to our advantage? They were intruders, but now we release them as a gesture of peace. To get a harvest you must first put your seeds in the earth.”

  Neither Dobrynin nor Kuznetsov responded to this, and as soon as their vodka was finished they departed. Nikita Sergeievich knew that they did not approve of his course of action, but he was accustomed to less than enthusiastic responses to his ideas. Eventually they would see that he was right. He always was.

  18 SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 1961, 11:30 P.M.Moscow

  Roman Trubkin was in a holding pattern of little sleep and deep concern. The information from Mandrich had given him a new direction but he had suddenly turned cautious. He had ruled out going directly to Shelepin and instead concentrated on his staff, all the while reminding himself that he was in a minefield. If Shelepin caught wind of his snooping he knew he would soon be locked away in Le Fortovo or worse. Would Khrushchev back him then?

  Shelepin ran a tight ship, meaning he had a small personal staff, but Trubkin was able to find out that the KGB director sometimes employed secretaries from the agency’s central pool and that this list was a short one: an elderly woman who typed budget statements and two younger women who transcribed shorthand notes taken by his regular secretary, a man named Velak who had come over to the KGB with Shelepin from Komsomol. One of the two younger women was said to be romantically involved with Shelepin, but the other one seemed unencumbered. Katya Dirikova was thirty-two, with the plump face of an angel and short blond hair. He followed her for nearly two weeks before making his move, and even then he opted for a gradual approach, though he could see that she was openly impressed to have dates with a famous cosmonaut and glowed when they dined together in small cafés.

  One night he took her to dinner again and only as they were putting on their coats invited her to spend the night with him. She blushed but quickly accepted, then confessed to a lack of experience in such matters. When they reached his flat he gave her a brandy, which she drank in loud gulps, all the while averting her eyes. When he told her it was time to go to bed she undressed with her back to him, turned out the lights and got under the covers, but she made up for her inexperience with her enthusiasm and kept him awake most of the night.

  She rose at 5:00 A.M., sponged herself, went to work and was back again that night and several more, each time, shedding a little more shyness.

  Her head was on his chest now, her hand tracing his pectorals, her breathing slow and relaxed. “Someone at the office asked me today if I had a boyfriend. She said I was glowing.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing! What I do on my own time is my business.”

  “That’s sensible,” he said, waiting for a reaction, but she simply nodded agreement.

  “That was my thought. I’ve always had common sense.”

  In the time he had known her Katya had proved to be quite talkative and Trubkin had gotten considerable information about the inner workings and petty politics of Shelepin’s staff. The director was well-organized and efficient, and readily delegated decisions to his deputies. “He’s not at all like Serov,” she said of the previous KGB chief. “Serov had to put his scent on every detail.”

  Each night she chattered about the minutiae of her day. “Today I nearly had a row with Shelepin,” she whispered.

  “Over what?”

  “He didn’t understand some of my transcriptions. The selection group has been meeting for most of the week. They talk and talk and waste page after page while saying nothing.”

  “You attend such meetings?”

  “Never. Velak sometimes goes to take minutes and I transcribe them later. When Velak isn’t there, they use a tape recorder, and each time someone speaks he’s supposed to identify himself, but they often forget and then it falls to me to figure out who said what. I know all their voices, but it’s still confusing, and this particular meeting was more confusing than most. There was an argument and I transposed several names. Shelepin berated me and told me to pay more attention to my work. I wanted to tell him that if the big shots followed the rules, this would never happen. If he attended the meetings he could see to it.”

  “Shelepin doesn’t attend?”

  “Almost never. He delegates it to his deputy Perevertkin. But of course I simply apologized and promised to be more diligent. It does no good to correct your superior; good positions are so difficult to find, and if you’re tossed out of the KGB, who dares hire you?”

  Shelepin did not attend the meetings and sent a deputy in his place. “What sort of man is Perevertkin?”

  Katya laughed and held out her arms to him. “A rabbit, but not the cuddly sort. He says little and does exactly what Shelepin wants, so we call him the Rubber Stamp. Come back to bed.”

  “Perhaps you should talk to Perevertkin and ask him to remind the committee of proper procedure.”

  “Just like a pilot to be so direct. In the KGB you learn that indirect is safer. Here,” she said, lying back. “Enough boring talk. Let’s do something more interesting.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” he said as he crawled back onto the bed. “If Shelepin reviews the minutes of everything he ought to see how difficult it is for you to create the reports.”

  She smiled, then kissed him hungrily. “I don’t do all of them, so what does he care what I think? If I were beautiful he’d care, but I’m not. He reviews everything and maintains files, but all he cares about are results. How a report was botched is not his concern.”

  “So you get to clean up their mistakes.”

  “The whole section does,” she said as his penis came to life in her small hand. “We have to work together.” She giggled.

  “You probably have to maintain the files as well,” he said as she guided him inside.

  Perevertkin was Shelepin’s stand-in, and there were minutes of the meetings Shelepin rarely attended. Did this provide opportunity for mischief? While Katya made love to him Trubkin tried to think of ways he could get access to the committee’s minutes.

  19 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1961, 4:00 P.M.Greenwich Village, New York

  The Broadway Central Hotel on Bleecker Street was nine decades old and looked more. There had been a fresh coat of snow during the night and the soot-covered exterior was temporarily white; dozens of gray and green pigeons were huddled on the ledges above the sidewalk alert for food and targets. Valentine scooped up a handful of wet snow, packed it firmly into a ball and hurled it at the birds, coming close enough to send several of them fluttering for safer perches. “Winged rats,” he muttered.

  The lobby was gray and tired, carpets threadbare, light bulbs burned out, furniture soiled. To the right was an entrance to an unnamed lounge with five small oak tables and
an ornate but chipped marble bar. Valentine took a table that put his back to a wall papered with a pattern of pink roses. The bartender was an obese black man with white hair, gold teeth, rings on both little fingers and minimal conversational skills.

  “Drink?”

  “Bottle of beer.”

  “Flavor?”

  “Rheingold.”

  The man carried the bottle by its long neck and set it heavily on Valentine’s table. The bottle was beaded with moisture.

  “How about a glass?” Valentine asked.

  “All dirty. Two bits. Pay as you go, no tabs, house rule.”

  Valentine gave him a quarter and felt better when the man retreated behind the bar to resume staring at the entrance. On the wall behind him was a brass-and-wood plaque that read national baseball league NATIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUE ORGANIZED IN THIS ROOM, 1876.

  The whole thing was preposterous. Had he made a mistake? After his meeting with Arizona, Valentine had gone back to Galveston, arranged for the business to be looked after by his assistant and then had flown to New York. Arizona had told him to check into the Algonquin Hotel. He was to expect contact there and follow whatever instruction he received by someone with the code name Karageorg, which translated loosely as Black George. That had been two days ago.

  Yesterday a note had been left for him at the desk overlooking the hotel’s lounge. He was to come to the bar of the Broadway Central Hotel at four o’clock and wait until seven. If there was no contact, he was to keep returning every day until someone appeared. It was a simple plan.

  At four-thirty-five, Valentine went to the toilet; when he returned there was somebody at his table.

  “You?” he said when he saw the woman’s face.

  “Karageorg,” she said.

  “You came to Galveston to check me out,” Valentine said, not sure how he felt about this.

  “Arizona said you’d be quick on the uptake.” She smiled. “I’m going to be your partner,” she added, holding out her hand. “Sylvia Charles.”

  He ignored the hand. “I’ve always worked alone.”

  “Right tense,” she said. “Wrong concept. From this moment on we work together.”

  Valentine pushed back from the table and gave her a big smile. “Just like Galveston?”

  Though her voice went cold, Sylvia kept smiling. “Not a chance,” she said. “What was, was. What is, is. And what the Company wants is your standard Company relationship, meaning this is strictly business and no hanky-panky. We make decisions together, we keep each other tuned in, and we play it by the book. That’s the deal.”

  “Doesn’t seem like much fun.”

  “Finding our man isn’t about fun,” Sylvia said, placing an envelope on the table. “Our tickets.”

  “Belgrade?”

  “To start with,” Sylvia said. Arizona had insisted that Valentine was the right man for the job, but she had serious doubts. The man she had met in Galveston was charming in a peculiar way but lost in his own existence, mired in self-pity, bored. She had reported all this to her superior and recommended they pass on him, but Arizona had ignored her recommendation. “He’s a little rusty” was all he had said. She hoped now for her own sake that the rust had not attacked his vital parts. “You got a problem with this?”

  “I’m game.”

  We’ll see, Sylvia thought. It was an inauspicious beginning.

  20 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1961, 7:00 P.M.Moscow

  Katya Dirikova was only a clerk typist in the KGB director’s central secretarial pool but she was imbued with the same suspicious nature as her fellow employees and had a sense of self-survival second to none. The recent nights with Roman Trubkin had been a welcome respite from a dull existence, but she had realized soon after their first time in bed that he was using her to get information; she was using him as well, she knew, but in a different way. The realization had come as a shock, but when she thought further she was certain her assessment was correct. What would a cosmonaut want with the likes of her? Not that the decision was so easy; after all, her nights had been enlightening as well as enjoyable, but there was no doubt that he was using her for some scheme. The big decision was not so much to disclose what was happening as deciding whom to tell. In the end she had rejected going to Shelepin or Perevertkin and chose instead to confide in the white-haired Velak, who was a gentle and sympathetic sort and always came to her after her tiffs with Shelepin to tell her not to worry. “Think of me as your father,” he had said. “Always available when you need me.” When she told Velak about Trubkin he told her that she had done the right thing in confiding in him, and having told him, she should stop seeing Trubkin and put him out of her mind. She had half expected Velak to make a pass at her but he had been a perfect gentleman. Maybe this would come later; if so, she decided it would be a small price to pay for a clear conscience and a pristine security record. She had no regrets about her decision; done was done. If Roman had nothing to hide there would be no problem; if he did, then justice would be done. Velak had said as much and assured her that there was probably nothing to the whole episode other than the usual male need to take advantage of an honest girl.

  21 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1961,9:30 P.M.Moscow

  The Asian sat high in the arena among a sparse crowd. The Red Army team had taken a five-goal lead over Moscow Spartak midway through the second period; the previous year’s Olympic upset by the Americans had turned the Soviet ice hockey federation upside down, and all of the major teams in the first division except Red Army had been infused with young legs and inexperience as the federation began its drive to develop a new cadre of players. For now the Red Army team would dominate on experience, but next season and thereafter youth would prevail, and when the Olympics came again in 1964 the Soviet national team would be ready to resume its place on top. Though his fellow officers talked enthusiastically about the federation’s plan, Okhlopkin had no sense of how ice hockey supremacy would contribute to Lenin’s predictions of world political dominance. Better to leave such scheming to great men, he decided. His own role was more practical.

  Toward the end of the second period Okhlopkin saw his contact limp slowly up the stairs. An envelope was passed in silence, then the man was gone. He himself left soon afterward and opened the envelope only when he was in his automobile. The face in the photograph was unremarkable; the instructions were typed and said that the death was to look accidental and was to take place as soon as possible. The back of the photo had a name and an address; nothing else was necessary. To kill a man you needed only a starting point; thereafter, the options revealed themselves. None but the most powerful men contemplated the possibility of assassination, which was what made it so easy, but only a specialist understood such matters, he told himself.

  22 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1961, 12:40 A.M.Moscow

  What was wrong? Suddenly Katya had to work long hours and had no time for him. When he called she sounded the same, but she had excuse after excuse for not being able to meet him.

  No snow had been predicted, but there had been a heavy fall and it was up to mid-calf since he entered the Praga Restaurant earlier in the evening. Even though the snow was dry, Trubkin was having a difficult time staying on the sidewalk. He had been drunk before, but never had it felt quite like this. His stomach was on fire, as if he were in the early stages of flu. To be drunk, said his fellow countrymen, was to be bitten by the green snake, whose venom was vodka.

  This Lumbas business had started with plenty of thrust; initially Trubkin had been excited at the prospect of solving the mystery, especially the rewards such success might bring, but high promise had faded to dangerous options. Almost a cosmonaut, almost a hero, almost to the heart of the Lumbas mystery. Always it was almost. He wondered if there had been a Saint Almost.

  If it had not been Khrushchev who’d had Lumbas transferred, then who and why, and who had sent him there in the first place? Korolev hadn’t asked for Lumbas; he had been assigned. It would take somebody with power and conn
ections and balls. Malinovsky. Shelepin. Perevertkin. Probably not Malinovsky, he reminded himself; that just didn’t make sense. And not Khrushchev. What would he have to gain by putting together some scheme and then bringing me in to investigate? It came down to Shelepin or Perevertkin or both. Even with a bellyful of cheap vodka, the possibilities had a sobering effect, but he had a hunch he was close. If only he could find a way to see the minutes of the selection committee meetings. If Lumbas was listed, then he would have been sent legitimately and the record would say where he had come from so that Trubkin could backtrack. And if Lumbas had not been approved by the committee, that would tell him something else. Whatever the result, it had to come out of this committee or its periphery. But Katya was not helping. What was her game?

  These thoughts cluttered his mind as he discovered himself in front of the Bolshoi Theater. He had no memory of intending to go there—or had he? He had learned that Perevertkin frequented the ballet, but was there a show tonight? Difficult to sort thoughts. Generally vodka made his head hurt, but never before had it clouded his memory. Strange reaction, he thought. Zia? Could Zia be the reason?

  He had not planned to come tonight, but here he was. The building was dark; he went slowly to the rear entrance used by the performers and found an old man blowing on his hands to keep warm. He had known Zia years ago. Perhaps she would be receptive. Drunk or not, pain in his gut aside, he needed a woman. “Has everyone gone?” he asked the man. The ache in his stomach was getting worse, and though it was exceptionally cold he was sweating. Maybe the vodka was bad.

  “They clear out fast,” the old man said. “Backstage lacks the elegance of the theater itself; it’s a shithole.”