Wild Cards: Aces Abroad

by George R. R. Martin

  “What do you want?”

  “To meet, what else? To see you.”

  “This is hardly the place—”

  “There’s a cab waiting out front. It’ll be easy to spot. It’s the only one at the moment.”

  “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  Polyakov hung up and hurried out to the cab, not forgetting to nod to the concierge again.

  “Any luck?”

  “Enough. Thank you.”

  He slipped into the cab and closed the door. His heart was pounding. My God, he thought, I’m like a teenager waiting for a girl!

  Before long the door opened. Immediately Polyakov was awash in the Dancer’s scent. He extended his hand in the Western fashion. “Dr. Tachyon, I presume.”

  The driver was a young Uzbek from the Embassy whose professional specialty was economic analysis, but whose greatest virtue was his ability to keep his mouth shut. His total lack of interest in Polyakov’s activities and the challenge of navigating London’s busy streets allowed Polyakov and Tachyon some privacy.

  Polyakov’s wild card had no face, so he had never been suspected of being an ace or joker. That, and the fact that he had only used his powers twice:

  The first time was in the long, brutal winter of 1946–47, the winter following the release of the virus. Polyakov was a senior lieutenant then, having spent the Great Patriotic War as a zampolit, or political officer, at the munitions factories in the Urals. When the Nazis surrendered, Moscow Center assigned him to the counterinsurgency forces fighting Ukrainian nationalists—the “men from the forests” who had fought with the Nazis and had no intentions of giving up. (In fact they continued fighting until 1952.)

  Polyakov’s boss there was a thug named Suvin, who confessed drunkenly one night that he had been an executioner in the Lubiyanka during the Purge. Suvin had developed a real taste for torture; Polyakov wondered if that was the only possible response to a job that daily required one to shoot a fellow Party member in the back of the neck. One evening Polyakov brought in a Ukrainian teenager, a boy, for questioning. Suvin had been drinking and began to beat a confession out of the kid, which was a waste of time: the boy had already confessed to stealing food. But Suvin wanted to link him to the rebels.

  Polyakov remembered, mostly, that he had been tired. Like everyone in the Soviet Union in that year, including those at the very highest levels, he was often hungry. It was the fatigue, he thought shamefully now, not human compassion, that made him leap at Suvin and shove him aside. Suvin turned on him and they fought. From underneath the other man, Polyakov managed to get his hands on his throat. There was no chance he could choke him . . . yet Suvin suddenly turned red—dangerously red—and literally burst into flames.

  The young prisoner was unconscious and knew nothing. Since fatalities in the war zone were routinely ascribed to enemy action, the bully Suvin was officially reported to have died “heroically” of “extreme thoracic trauma” and “burns,” euphemisms for being fried to a cinder. The incident terrified Polyakov. At first he didn’t even realize what had happened; information on the wild card virus was restricted. But eventually he realized that he had a power . . . that he was an ace. And he swore never to use the power again.

  He had only broken that promise once.

  By the autumn of 1955, Georgy Vladimirovich Polyakov, now a captain in the “organs,” was using the legend of a junior Tass reporter in West Berlin. Aces and jokers were much in the news in those days. The Tass men monitored the Washington hearings with horror—it reminded some of them of the Purge—and delight. The mighty American aces were being neutralized by their own countrymen!

  It was known that some aces and their Takisian puppet master (as Pravda described him) had fled the U.S. following the first HUAC hearings. They became high-priority targets for the Eighth Directorate, the KGB department responsible for Western Europe. Tachyon in particular was a personal target for Polyakov. Perhaps the Takisian held some clue to the secret of the wild card virus . . . something to explain it . . . something to make it go away. When he heard that the Takisian was on the skids in Hamburg, he was off.

  Since Polyakov had made prior “research” trips to Hamburg’s red-light district, he knew which brothels were likely to cater to an unusual client such as Tachyon. He found the alien in the third establishment he tried. It was near dawn; the Takisian was drunk, passed out, and out of money. Tachyon should have been grateful: the Germans as a race had little liking for drunken indigents; masters of Hamburg whorehouses had even less. Tachyon would have been lucky to have been dumped in the canal . . . alive.

  Polyakov had him taken to a safe house in East Berlin, where, after a prolonged argument among the rezidenti, he was supplied with controlled amounts of alcohol and women while he slowly regained his health . . . and while Polyakov and at least a dozen others questioned him. Even Shelepin himself took time out from his plotting back in Moscow to visit.

  Within three weeks it was clear that Tachyon had nothing left to give. More likely, Polyakov suspected, the Takisian had regained sufficient strength to withstand any further interrogation. Nevertheless, he had supplied them with so much data on the American aces, on Takisian history and science, and on the wild card virus itself, that Polyakov half-expected his superiors to give the alien a medal and a pension.

  They did almost as much. Like the German rocket engineers captured after the war, Tachyon’s ultimate fate was to be quietly repatriated . . . in this case to West Berlin. They transferred Polyakov to the illegals residence there at the same time, hoping for residual contacts, and allowing both men a simultaneous introduction to the city. Because of East Berlin, they would never be friends. Because of their time in the western sector, they could never be total enemies.

  “In forty years on this world I’ve learned to alter my expectations every day,” Tachyon told him. “I honestly thought you were dead.”

  “Soon enough I will be,” Polyakov said. “But you look better now that you did in Berlin. The years truly pass slowly for your kind.”

  “Too slowly at times.” They rode in silence for a while, each pretending to enjoy the scenery while each ordered his memories of the other.

  “Why are you here?” Tachyon asked.

  “To collect on a debt.”

  Tachyon nodded slightly, a gesture that showed how thoroughly assimilated he had become. “That’s what I thought.”

  “You knew it would happen one day.”

  “Of course! Please don’t misunderstand! My people honor their commitments. You saved my life. You have a right to anything I can give you.” Then he smiled tightly. “This one time.”

  “How close are you to Senator Gregg Hartmann?”

  “He’s a senior member of this tour, so I’ve had some contact with him. Obviously not much lately, following that terrible business in Berlin.”

  “What do you think of him . . . as a man?”

  “I don’t know him well enough to judge. He’s a politician, and as a rule I despise politicians. In that sense he strikes me as the best of a bad lot. He seems to be genuine in his support for jokers, for example. This is probably not an issue in your country, but it’s a very emotional one in America, comparable to abortion rights.” He paused. “I doubt very much he would be susceptible to any kind of . . . arrangement, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “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—twi
ce.

  “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 car. 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 should 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 ma
naged 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.