Grandmaster (46 page)

"Americans are running dogs, capitalistic imperialist warmongers who would enslave the minds of all freedom-loving peoples everywhere," the bartender said. "But in the interests of international harmony, I will take American money. As much as you have." He grinned a crooked smile. "You are American?"

Justin nodded. The bartender said, "This is not a usual stop for Americans visiting the Caribbean."

"I'm a chess player," Justin said. "Are you Pablo Olivares?"

At the term "chess player," the bartender stiffened momentarily. "
Si
," he said.

"We have a mutual friend," Justin said. "Harry Andrew?"

The bartender looked blank, and Justin leaned forward and said, "Maybe you know his name as Starcher."

The bartender quickly shook his head. "I know no one of that name, señor."

He reached for the five dollar bill, but Justin took the man's arm.

"Amigo,"
he said, "I mean you no harm. Starcher came with me. I also know Harry Kael, who is somebody else in the United States that you know. I'm looking now for Starcher. Do you know where he is?"

"I know no Starcher," Olivares insisted. He pulled away from Justin and made change at the register, then brought back a few Cuban bills and put them on the bar. Justin said, "Stay and listen." When he noticed that the men at the end of the bar were looking toward him, trying to overhear their conversation, he stood and leaned close to Olivares.

"Señor Olivares, you mean nothing to me. Starcher is my friend, but I have no reservations about calling the Cuban secret police and telling them that you work for Harry Kael in the CIA. I won't mind telling them that your girlfriend is involved, even if she isn't. I won't mind telling them that you were Andrew Starcher's contact when the CIA sent him to Havana. Señor, it doesn't mean anything to me, and if you do not speak to me, with honesty in your heart and in your words, I will do all those things."

The bartender's sad eyes grew sadder as he seemed to weigh his alternatives. Then he said, "Let us talk in the back. There are too many open ears here." He turned away.

"Luis," he called out. "Watch the bar. My friend and I have to speak privately."

He led Justin through the empty dining room to a small office in the rear of the low one-story building.

"What is your name?" Olivares asked when he had closed the door tightly behind them.

"Justin Gilead."

"You have identification?"

Gilead showed him his passport, and Olivares said, "You look older."

"I feel older," Justin said.

The Cuban had reached a decision, and he said, "Starcher told me about you.

"Then you know I'm his friend and you can trust me. He was supposed to call me tonight, but he didn't. I'm worried about him. He's old and not too well. Do you know where he is?"

"I'm sorry, señor. He was here, and we talked much of the night. He is very tenacious, your Mr. Starcher. But I know of nothing the Soviets have planned here. I have heard nothing from their sailors, even though many of them come here to drink on shore leave, but I hear nothing. My woman knows nothing of what I do, nothing. Mr. Starcher—how do you say it?— he picked at my brain all night but we found nothing there. He left, telling me to notify him if I hear anything. But I have heard nothing."

"Did he say anything to you of his suspicions?" Justin asked. "Did he tell you where he might go or who else he might speak to?"

"No." Olivares shook his head sadly. He looked like a basset hound who'd missed a meal. "Apparently he told you nothing, and he told me the same."

"Did he say he would come back here?" Justin asked.

"He wished me well, señor, and said that he would speak highly of me to some friends of his. I'm sorry I cannot be more help."

"Thank you, then. I appreciate your kindness in talking to me."

"One thing, Señor Gilead. I gave Mr. Starcher a gun that I once took from a sailor. He is not unarmed."

"Good," Justin said. He walked toward the door. "Do taxicabs pass here?" he asked.

"Taxicabs pass almost nowhere in Havana," Olivares said. "But if you walk two blocks away from the harbor, that is Avenida de la Revolucíon. Sometimes one can find a taxicab there." Justin nodded, and Olivares said, "I would be careful wearing that golden medal around your neck so openly. This is not a peaceable area of the city."

"I am not a peaceable man," Justin said.

When he walked out through the bar again, the stools were all filled. Justin left his change on the bar and went out into the cool evening air.

 

"
S
houldn't you study for tomorrow's game?"
Katarina spooned a large serving of steamed fish and rice onto Zharkov's plate in the single room of her apartment.

"No. Studying is not necessary."

"Aren't you the cocky one? Win one game and now you're ready to conquer the world."

"I play the Grandmaster tomorrow."

"Gilead," she said softly. "Tell me about him. I've only seen old pictures of him. What does he look like now?" She sat across the narrow table from him, her eyes intent.

"He looks much older," Zharkov said. "I don't know where he's been the last four years, but wherever it was, it was hard on him. He is thinner and moves more stiffly. Once he moved like quicksilver. He does not move like that now."

"Good," she snapped. "I hope his every joint bleeds."

Zharkov smiled. "Why do you hate him so?"

She looked at the floor for a moment, her face bewildered. "I... just do. I feel sometimes that I was born hating him." She laughed nervously. "Of course, that's ridiculous, since I can't..." Her voice trailed off in embarrassment.

Suddenly Zharkov was filled with pity for her. "You don't remember being young at all, do you? No childhood friends, no first experiences."

She smiled, too brightly. The tip of her nose was red. "You were my first experience," she said, and kissed him. "The rest doesn't matter. If I was meant to forget, it was for a reason."

He stroked her hair. For a moment, he felt an aching tenderness for the woman with no past, the dead girl he had brought to life with his passion.

"And if I was meant to hate Justin Gilead, that was for a reason, too," she said.

There was no sentimentality to her, and he could not permit any in himself. She was a gift, a gift he would one day have to destroy. Those were the terms.

Zharkov withdrew his hand, bringing himself back under control. "You will not need to hate him much longer," he said. "He dies tonight."

She looked disappointed. "I wanted to kill him for you," she said. "It would have been my gift to you."

He wanted to touch her again, feel her trusting warmth. Would she love me so if she'd had a choice? he wondered.

He would never know. Katarina, in her way, was no more human than a robot, a manufactured person created for his use. It would be foolish to think she was something more. But, oh, so easy.

"You
are your gift to me," he said softly, and turned away.

Ahead of him, Justin could see the broad palm-lined Avenida de la Revolucíon, but before he reached the corner, a taxi came down the side street along which he was walking. It stopped for traffic, and Justin whistled and waved to the cabbie, who leaned out his window, looked nervously down the block, then motioned for Justin to get into the cab.

Justin had decided. He would go back to the hotel and squeeze out of Zharkov the whereabouts of Andrew Starcher.

He closed the cab door behind him. Another man, crouching in the front seat, rose and aimed a pistol at Justin. "You'll sit very still," he said in halting English, then told the driver to move on.

Justin recognized the man with the gun as one of the KGB guards he had seen at the chess match. Headlights glared through the rear window of the cab. Justin guessed there were more KGB men in a trailing car, just to make sure that he didn't try to escape.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"For the ride, as you Americans say," the Russian said. "Sit back and enjoy."

The locks on the back doors clicked automatically as the driver engaged them from the front of the cab. He jerked forward to move into traffic and sped down the highway away from the heart of Havana. The headlights stayed in position behind them.

With luck, Justin thought, they were taking him to where Starcher was.

 

Y
uri Durganiv pushed open the door to the cabin
, saw Starcher lying still on the cot, and stepped inside. He held his revolver in his hand as he sat on a chair at the small table, waiting for the American to waken from his sleep.

Starcher had been awake before he heard the key at the door. He had slept soundly, but he opened his eyes with a long, loud display of groaning and waking up, then looked around as if he were frightened.

"Where am I? What is this place?" He wondered who this man was. He spoke Russian fluently, but he looked Hispanic. Any ideas Starcher had about overpowering him vanished when Yuri Durganiv stood to his full six-feet-four-inch height.

"I came to see if you were hungry," Yuri said.

"Yes. I'm starved. Why am I here?"

"All things in due time," Yuri said.

"I heard you on the phone before. Was that Russian you were speaking?"

"Yes."

"You don't look like a Russian," Starcher said.

"And you don't look like an assassin. Or even like a big spy for the CIA," Yuri said. He was smiling.

"An assassin? You've got the wrong man."

"No, Andrew Starcher, I've got the right man."

"Why am I here?"

"You will only be here for a while," Durganiv said. "Then you have other places to go."

"Where is Zharkov?" Starcher asked.

"He is back in the city."

"Am I going to see him?"

"If he wishes. Perhaps. Perhaps not. He will let us know."

"You work for him?"

"Yes. There is food here. Sit at this table and eat."

He locked the door, then changed places as Starcher sat at the table before the platter of food. Durganiv sat on the edge of the cot, the gun still at the ready in his hand, watching carefully.

Starcher picked at a few mouthfuls, then asked, "Why did you say I was an assassin?"

"Aren't you?"

"No."

"I don't think the world will believe that, Mr. Starcher. Eat."

Starcher ate. Things were going all right. Durganiv was still underestimating him. If it became necessary, Starcher had no doubt that he'd be able to get the gun from behind his left ankle and put a bullet into the big man's eyes before he knew what killed him.

If he had to. But first he would wait and see what happened.

He ate.

 

A
half-hour out of Havana
, the cab pulled to the side of the wide highway. Justin was hustled at gunpoint into the trailing car. Two more of the KGB men he had seen at the José Marti were in the car. He was pushed into the back seat and covered by guns from front and back. The car sped off down the highway, moving east, away from Havana. None of the men spoke to Justin.

Twenty miles farther down the road, the car turned off the highway and through an opening in a long row of white fence posts that stretched for miles in either direction.

A hundred yards inside the fence posts, there was a tall chain-link fence with barbed wire atop. It bore the words "Electric Fence. Keep Out," in Spanish.

The driver opened the gate with a key, drove through, and then went back to relock the fence. Neither of the other two men moved to help; neither of them took his gun off Justin.

"What is this place?" he asked in English.

"A slaughterhouse," the man in the front seat answered. The man next to Justin said something in Russian, and all three men laughed.

Justin realized that the men did not know he spoke Russian.

The man had said, "Yes. A slaughterhouse for this one."

They planned to kill him. "What kind of slaughterhouse?" Justin asked innocently, again in English.

"This is the Agrupación Genetica de la Habana," the driver said.

"What is that?"

"A state-owned dairy and cattle farm. They do animal experiments here to improve meat and milk production. Now stop talking; you are talking too much."

"Why am I here?"

"Perhaps because you talk too much to the wrong people," the man next to Justin said.

"I don't understand what's going on. I'm a chess player. Why are you holding guns on me? What are you doing?"

"We're chess lovers. We don't want you to play Zharkov tomorrow. You might win."

"Will Zharkov be here?" Justin asked.

"No."

They were riding deeper into the country now, along a narrow, well-paved road. The driver turned sharply right. His tires spat gravel as he skidded.

"Slow down. We don't
all
want to die," the man in the front seat snapped in Russian.

They drove toward the woods now, and the narrow road became not much more than a path. There was no light ahead of them, only the funnel of light from the car's headlights.

The car moved into a blacktopped clearing. Justin could see a connected series of low buildings in front of the car's headlights.

"You're very privileged, Mr. Gilead," one of the Russians said.

"Oh?"

"You're going to be permitted to see one of the most secret installations in the world."

"I don't know what I've done to deserve the honor," Justin said.

"This is a Soviet testing center for bacteriological warfare," the man alongside him said. He was obviously the senior KGB agent; the others deferred to him.

"I thought you said this was a dairy farm, a cattle ranch," Justin said.

"It is. And there is a lot of livestock here, and a large sealed area, and here, in these buildings are tested new poisons and gases on those dairy animals. And sometimes other animals. Far out of sight of people, and with no danger to the peace-loving population of Free Democratic Cuba."

One of the other men said in Russian, "And even if there was an accident, what would we lose? Only Cubans," and all three laughed. Justin pretended he did not understand.