The Domino Conspiracy

by Joseph Heywood

  The accounting took an hour. The thirteen missing included Babadzhanyan, his crew of three, five officers from the proving grounds and three Moscow VIPs: General Kolpakchi, the General Staff’s chief of combat training; Perevertkin, deputy chairman of the KGB; and General Gaffe, a deputy of Varentsov, marshal of the tactical missile forces.

  Bailov’s first call went to the unit assigned to take out the demolition laboratory, which was located in a forested area above a stretch of isolated beach forty kilometers east of Odessa. “Moon Strike, this is Centurion.”

  “This is Moon Strike,” Ezdovo replied immediately. “Mission complete here. No casualties. The facility is secured, so you can take your time out there.”

  Finally some good luck. Bailov allowed himself to relax. “Hold it until I get there. Nobody gets out. Detain any visitors.”

  His second call went to Talia in Moscow via a communications relay in Odessa. “One out of two,” he reported. “We have the explosives facility, but we weren’t so lucky at the proving ground.” Quickly he explained what had happened.

  “Survivors?”

  “None.”

  “Assume that the crash was no accident,” Talia said. “Be thorough,” she added before hanging up.

  142WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1961, 9:20 P.M.Moscow

  Boris Shelepin’s reputation for womanizing was a well-kept secret outside the Kremlin; he was discreet, but in his position as director of the KGB he kept his personal security unit informed of his whereabouts even when he visited his consorts. Yepishev had learned that tonight Shelepin would visit a Romanian woman who lived on the same street as the offices of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. The building was not far from the Foreign Ministry and was leased to the Romanian government for use as a guest house. Shelepin’s hostess would be the twenty-year-old daughter of the deputy director of the Romanian secret police.

  Talia parked her car near the church offices, walked slowly around the gentle curve of the narrow street and stopped in the shadows of the street’s only light. A black Zil was parked near the gate to the house, with two men in black leather coats lingering in the entryway and two smaller vehicles parked farther down the street.

  She stopped within a hundred meters of the house, turned her back to the security people and took a walkie-talkie from her coat. “This is Talia,” she said. “Three vehicles. Two men on the sidewalk immediately in front by the Zil and two black Pobedas down the street to the west. Copy?”

  “Copy,” a voice said. “That’s all?”

  “All that I can see. Start now.”

  “One minute,” the voice said. “Keep your head down in case they’re not cooperative.”

  A man got out of the Zil and began walking toward her. She turned her face to him and made a flame with a small lighter. The man stopped and looked back at the Zil, as if he were expecting instructions.

  Ropes slapped against the sides of buildings up and down the street and black-clad Spetsnaz silently rappeled down to the dark street. Twenty of Bailov’s soldiers sprinted along the walls, and within seconds had the security detachment under control. Down the street she saw the interior lights flicker on, then off, in the Pobedas. She never heard the doors open or shut but she knew that Bailov’s men now had control of the area. She was impressed at how quickly and quietly they had attacked.

  The young woman who came to the door had piled her shiny black hair hurriedly on her head. She had dark brown eyes that betrayed fear as she looked out at Talia and the two uniformed Spetsnaz behind her. “I’ve come to see Comrade Shelepin,” Talia said as she pushed her way in. “Tell him I’m waiting.”

  The girl ran up the winding wooden staircase, clutching a red robe around her.

  Shelepin appeared moments later, stopping on the landing to adjust his tie. He was forty-three but looked much younger; he was trim and handsome, with thick black hair and an easy, disarming smile. It had been Khrushchev who had moved him from the Komsomol to the KGB and ordered him to repair its public image—part of the General Secretary’s cosmetics to make the Soviet Union more palatable to the West. When he got to the bottom of the stairs Talia held the Red Badge out to him.

  “Very impressive,” he said, “but hardly necessary. An appointment could have been arranged. I’m a simple civil servant.”

  “I don’t like to be patronized,” she said. “Please follow me.”

  “This is not an opportune moment,” he said with a glance over his shoulder. The Romanian girl had crept down to the landing and was watching.

  “That’s a matter of perspective.”

  “Shall I fetch my overcoat?”

  “No need. We’ll bring you back to your . . .”—Talia paused—“engagement.”

  A sedan was waiting outside. “Tell your dogs to behave while we’re away,” she told Shelepin as they passed his security people. The Spetsnaz commander had collected his men in the garden beside the front walk.

  “Everything is under control,” Shelepin said to his men. “I’ll be back.” He got into the backseat beside Talia. “Now,” he said in a weak attempt to assert control, “what’s this all about?”

  “It’s a matter of state security.”

  The KGB director smiled. “State security is my concern.”

  “Not when you are the focus.” Talia thought she saw him tense, but he recovered quickly and hid his emotions well.

  “Whom do you represent?”

  “An interest in the truth. Where’s Perevertkin?”

  “I’m not certain.”

  She guessed he was stalling in order to assess the situation. “Then you’re not doing your job, comrade.” She took some papers from her purse, turned on the overhead light and handed them to him.

  “What are these?”

  “Read.”

  Shelepin was visibly nervous now. “What about them?” he said after a quick scan of the documents.

  “You initialed them.”

  “I sign hundreds of papers every week.”

  “Look closer.”

  He pulled the papers nearer to his face. “This light is poor in here,” he complained. “They look like my initials.”

  “They’re not.”

  His confident demeanor was gone now. “Say what’s on your mind.”

  Was he fighting anger or fear? Both, she guessed. “These were forged by the late Comrade Velak. They were the cause of his death.”

  “Nonesense. Velak died of a heart attack.”

  “He was murdered. He engineered the transfer of a man named Villam Lumbas, now also dead. The investigator assigned to find Lumbas found his way to Velak and was himself murdered. The investigator had made contact with Katya Dirikova—”

  “Dirikova?” The name seemed to stump Shelepin.

  “She’s a secretary in your central administrative section; she transcribes the tapes of the security selection committee meetings. She didn’t know what the investigator wanted, but she was suspicious of his motives and informed Velak, who told her he would take care of it. Two days later the investigator was dead, and soon after Velak as well.”

  “This is some sort of crazy fairy tale.”

  “Comrade Denisov was also murdered,” she went on.

  “Suicide-murder,” Shelepin said quickly. “His wife was much younger than he and unstable. The family has a history of certain instabilities.”

  “Denisov’s daughter, son-in-law and children were murdered the same day.”

  “There was a robbery. Our investigation concluded that they came home during the crime and were killed.”

  “It was an attempted robbery,” Talia said, “but their fate was sealed from the outset. Denisov’s son-in-law had stumbled on a series of special accounts that were connected to the Odessa Military District, off-the-books accounts used to fund certain sensitive operations. When the original investigator on the Lumbas case was killed I took over.”

  “What operations?”

  “That’s what you’re going to tell me.”
/>
  “Why should I? You have no clearance for such information.”

  “My badge gives me all the authority I need. I believe Velak forged your initials. Your frequent absence from committee meetings made it easy for him. He wanted Lumbas transferred, and you gave him the opportunity to do it.”

  “I don’t know anything about these fantasies of yours.”

  She stared at him for a long time, then turned off the overhead light. “For now I will accept that, but in my estimation Velak was not the sort to work on his own.”

  “He was Perevertkin’s man,” Shelepin said.

  “In what way?”

  “Velak was his administrator. Perevertkin is more the type for grand schemes, but only if the risks are low.”

  “He was Serov’s longtime deputy. How did he react when you replaced Serov?”

  “Perevertkin could teach the Chinese to kowtow. He has no ambition for greater power.”

  “Had,” she said. “He was killed today in a helicopter crash at the Nikolayev Proving Ground.”

  Shelepin stared at her for a long time. “He told me that General Babadzhanyan asked him to attend a missile demonstration,” he said.

  “The general was in the same helicopter. Is it normal for a deputy director of the KGB to attend such events?”

  Shelepin was visibly shaken and shook his head solemnly. “They were old friends. I took it to be an excuse to spend time with a friend. That sort of thing is not unusual.”

  “I have a line of bodies that suggests otherwise. Every time I move the line of investigation in a new direction, bodies pile up. I don’t believe in multiple coincidences.”

  “What is this all about?” Shelepin asked, his voice weak.

  “I’m not at liberty to say. What I expect from you is complete details on these.” Annochka and her husband had died while saving the records of the Odessa accounts. Talia placed copies of them in Shelepin’s lap. “I also want complete dossiers on Perevertkin, Babadzhanyan, Lumbas and Velak.”

  The KGB director didn’t look at the files. “How do I reach you?”

  “Collect them and I’ll reach you.” She could smell his sweat.

  When they returned to the Romanian woman’s house, Shelepin lingered in the backseat. “I know nothing about any of this,” he whispered.

  “That’s a poor testament to your fitness to hold such high office,” Talia said. She was pressing hard, she knew, but the entire team had gone too far to turn back now. “Enjoy your evening,” she called to him when he got out and stood on the sidewalk, blinking wildly.

  143THURSDAY, MAY 4, 1961, 3:50 A.M.Odessa

  As the chopper let down the occupants could see where Ezdovo’s trucks had crashed through three rows of electrified concertina wire. The Siberian and several Spetsnaz were waiting outside a low, cinder-block building. “You won’t believe this place,” he said by way of greeting Bailov and Melko.

  “It went smoothly?”

  Ezdovo laughed. “There’s only one man here. No security. Television cameras monitor the fence, and the grounds are one big minefield.”

  “But your trucks got through?”

  “The mines are electrically controlled from inside, and luckily the switch was off. Comrade Chelitnikov was lost in his work when we came through.”

  “Chelitnikov.” Bailov remembered the day he had spent with the bomb designer years before. He was tall, with shaggy brown hair, hollow cheeks and a strap-on artificial leg—when he sat down for any length of time he removed the leg and used it as an ashtray.

  As the three of them walked through the building Bailov saw that the various rooms were filled with wooden crates, metal tubes with shredded paper packing, long workbenches covered with timers and detonators, ammo cases and an entire wall with shock-resistant nitro containers; the place was like a museum of explosives and munitions. When they reached the laboratory they found Chelitnikov sitting on a stack of ammo cases, his artificial leg off, a cigarette in hand, butts all over the floor, a technical manual on his lap, his eyeglasses perched on the end of his nose.

  “Good,” Chelitnikov said with a smile; then his expression changed. “I remember you. Spetsnaz, right? You had some vibration charges that weren’t working. It was the chemical core. I changed it and it solved your problem, right?”

  “We didn’t come here to talk about the past.”

  The explosives expert pointed his cigarette at them and laughed. “All talk is about the past. As soon as you make a sound it’s not the present anymore. Something went wrong with the device I made for Perevertkin, is that it?”

  “You made a bomb for him?”

  “Device, not bomb. A bomb is stupid, but a device is an extension of my intelligence. I installed it myself on the helicopter. I wired it to the radio.”

  “Why?”

  Chelitnikov shrugged. “None of my business. I don’t concern myself with reasons, just what, how and when.”

  “Perevertkin was on the helicopter when it exploded.”

  “A pity, I’m sure, but not my fault. The detonator was rigged to activate the device the second time a certain radio frequency was used on the second engine-start of the day.”

  “Perevertkin ordered the device?”

  “Actually my main contact was Colonel Gaponov. When devices were needed, he usually provided the specifications and I did the rest.”

  “Gaponov ordered the device you installed on the helicopter?”

  Chelitnikov stared at his cigarette and grunted. “Sometime back.”

  “You have records of this?”

  The bomb maker dropped his cigarette into the artificial leg, lit another and tapped his head. “I work alone, so I keep everything up here. It’s safer that way. No need for records, which could fall into the wrong hands, and it’s less expense for the state. Perevertkin came here last night—or did I already tell you that?”

  The three men exchanged glances. “For what?” Ezdovo asked.

  “He told me he wanted the new device installed on the helicopter this morning and I explained how it worked.”

  “That was it?”

  “Thirty minutes. He seemed extremely nervous, but if you ask me that’s not unusual for political types.”

  “Did you see him today?” Bailov asked.

  “This morning while I installed the device, but we didn’t talk. I just did my job.”

  Bailov tried to think. It didn’t make sense that Perevertkin would kill himself, so something had to have gone wrong. Had the KGB man intended the bomb for Babadzhanyan? “Is there a way such a device could malfunction?”

  “None,” Chelitnikov said confidently.

  “The vibration mines didn’t work correctly,” Bailov reminded him.

  Chelitnikov looked annoyed and glared at him. “They were not my design. You called me to fix someone else’s problem, and I did. This device was set for the second flight of the day, and I assume that’s when it detonated.”

  “It was the second flight,” Melko said suddenly. “Someone told me that the flight was the idea of the man called Kolpakchi.”

  “Chief of combat training for the general staff,” Bailov said.

  “Apparently he wanted a closer look at the missile intercept,” Melko said. “I heard this from several people in the bunker. Perevertkin didn’t want to go and made a fuss, but Kolpakchi prevailed.”

  “Where was Perevertkin’s body found?” Bailov asked.

  Melko took a notebook from his pocket, leafed through the pages, passed it to Bailov and pointed at a crude diagram. “What was left of him was hung up on the copilot’s control column. There was part of a leg stuck in the ladder that probably led up to the crew deck. We never found his head.”

  Bailov was familiar with this model of helicopter. “There are no jump seats in choppers. Could he have been standing on the ladder behind the pilots?”

  “No way to tell,” Melko said. “But all the others were either still strapped in, or there were harness fragments embedded in the
ir torsos.”

  “We know that Kolpakchi wanted a closer look, and Perevertkin was apparently forced to go along. But he knew about the bomb, which left him no choice but to try and stop the general and his copilot from using the radio.”

  “At the risk of alerting the others to the bomb,” Melko reminded him.

  “He knew he’d die if he didn’t. Why did Kolpakchi want the flight?” Bailov passed the notebook back.

  “We’ll never know,” Melko said. “Live generals rarely give reasons, and dead ones not at all.”

  “So,” Chelitnikov said, “if we’re finished, I’d like to get back to my work.”

  “Did you ever make a device with watch gears?” Bailov asked. There was something about this man that made his skin crawl.

  Chelitnikov nodded with obvious pleasure. “Just one, and it was a masterpiece. A quarter kilo of plastique with a double switch, the whole thing no bigger than two packs of cigarettes.”

  “Installed on an aircraft?”

  “That was the one. Ingenious. The detonation was designed to push the engine down into the slipstream, which in turn would cause the wing to separate. A pop more than a bang. Very subtle. I had to be careful to brace the device’s supports properly or the aircraft’s vibrations might have disconnected it, or worse.”

  “You installed it yourself?”

  “Of course.”

  “When?”

  Chelitnikov pursed his lips and mumbled to himself while he counted on his fingers. “Six weeks ago.”

  The bomb that killed Gaponov had exploded on April 25. “Where?”

  “Moscow.”

  “Vnukovo?”

  “No, it was at some sort of special airport north of the city. Just a small place, with no fighters. Mostly old stuff, twin-engine scows.”

  “How did you keep it from activating for six weeks?”

  The bomb maker raised an eyebrow. “I made a new stem for the watch. It worked like a safety pin. As long as the stem was pulled out and safetied there was no danger. Once the stem was in, the timer started.”

  “But somebody had to disconnect the safety. You?”