Who's on First (13 page)

This was code—and signified that Blackford should park the car at a safe remove from Rufus's apartment and take special care that he was not followed.

“Okay. See you in a bit.” Blackford hung up, walked back into the lobby, and notified the cadaverous doorman he wished his car brought up from the garage. He gave him the stub and three hundred-franc bills.

He idled for a few minutes, looking at the morning paper's headlines and lead stories. He had not understood Rufus's reference to the Kremlin—until he read the news of Khrushchev's palace coup. Malenkov, one story reported, was being dispatched to manage a hydroelectric plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk in East Kazakhstan. Blackford made a mental note to be sure to call on Malenkov the next time he was in East Kazakhstan. The Kremlin reported that there would be “no prosecutions” of the dissidents, thus exposing, as
Pravda
had put it, “myths being spread by some Western journalists about the persecution of the members of the antiparty group.” Blackford wondered whether Malenkov had been offered as an alternative to Ust-Kamenogorsk the chance of being shot. The doorman approached him. “Monsieur, your car.”

He walked around to the driver's seat, slid the car into gear, and turned right down the Rue St.-Honoré. As ever, he looked hard at the rearview mirror, and so he saw the gray Fiat pull out, heading in the same direction. He slowed down long enough to catch the first couple of letters of the license plate, “AJ.” He would remember AJ, at least for a little while, in case it came in handy. It was then that he heard the voice speaking in accented but perfectly fluent English.

“I have a .38 revolver pointed at your neck. Head straight the way you're going, into the Rivoli. Close your window. Do exactly as I say or else I shall blow your brains out.”

Blackford proceeded through the heavy traffic and attempted through the rearview mirror to look behind him. He couldn't see a head or a torso, but he could see a gloved-hand gripping a revolver aimed directly at the back of his head. His heart was beating rapidly and he felt moisture on his brow.

“Who are you?” He affected a kind of clinical curiosity.

“We will talk later—if you are alive later.”

“Why do you say, ‘if I am alive later'?”

“Because if we are stopped; or if you have an ‘accident'; or if the car goes out of control, I shall shoot you—and there will be no opportunity to talk later.”

“I see. You are telling me to drive carefully.”

“If you wish to stay alive.”

“Where are we going?”

“To where I direct you.”

Blackford now knew the national origin of the backseat driver.

“You're from Hungary. What do you want from me?”

“I said we would
talk later,
and that is the last thing I shall say except to give you instructions. Do you know the turn to Fontainebleau?”

“Which one?”

“Past Place d'Italie.”

“Yes.”

“Take it.”

Blackford looked again in the mirror. A gray Fiat was behind him. He attempted to read the initials but it was behind him by a hundred yards and he didn't dare slow down.

His mind raced. If he had been followed ever since arriving in Paris, then they—whoever the Hungarian represented—knew about the Château St.-Firmin. Hell, if they had followed him right through the whole bus sequence with Kapitsa, the Russians knew everything. But he was confident he hadn't been followed. Surely if they knew about St.-Firmin, they'd have acted quickly to get Kapitsa back, and Rufus would have got wind of it?
Rufus!
Had it
been
Rufus on the telephone? It was a poor connection. Could it have been an imposter? But if they had eliminated Rufus, and had enticed Blackford to go to Rufus's apartment in order to snatch him, why would they bother with a midmorning, center-of-Paris kidnapping? Blackford felt he must try hard to control his judgment. Think purposively. Challenge assumptions. In the first place, why a Hungarian? Who
was
“they”? Automatically, he reminded himself, one thinks in this business that “they” is the Russians. But the Russians, though they had Hungarian agents, wouldn't very likely be using them in Paris—to pick up an American agent.

“One hundred kilometers per hour, no slower, no faster,” the voice behind him said. He pressed down the pedal, and prayed that the French police would not be exercising one of their occasional check stops, because he did not doubt that if this happened the man in the rear would indeed pull the trigger. One bullet would dispose of Oakes. That would leave five for the policeman, not bad odds.

They drove in the summer heat up past Orly onto the two-lane highway, which bore no speed limits. They were fifty kilometers out of Paris and suddenly he found himself, through the mirror, looking straight into the face of a young man of slender countenance, light-haired, with regular features, wearing a light blue shirt, workman's smock, no tie, eyes barely discernible behind the squat eyelids. The man glanced hastily out the rear window, clearly to satisfy himself that his car was following. A few minutes later he said to Blackford, “Slow down. You will turn left about a half a kilometer from here on the country road.”

It was a mile and one half from that turnoff that his captor directed him to drive through an unused, open gate. “Go toward that barn.” Blackford did so, and at that point the Fiat that had followed them off the highway pulled alongside. He looked at a girl in the front seat, dark, with sad eyes and a pale complexion, her hair austerely arranged. She wore a blouse and light blue cotton skirt, and in the summer heat she was perspiring. Her face was strikingly familiar. On her left was a man equally young, of heavy build, his hair carefully groomed, wearing a light brown, ill-cut suit, a set and grim expression on his face.

“What now?”

“Get out of the car.”

Blackford did so, and the driver of the adjacent car drew Blackford's hands behind him and tied them securely with electric cord.

“All right, Harry,” the man said eye to eye, pointing to the barn door. “Get in there.”

“Harry!” Instantly. Blackford knew. Great God Almighty, I'm going to be made to pay for the death of Theophilus Molnar!

The irony tormented him, and he actually feared he would be literally speechless. The girl. Frieda! He had last seen her arm in arm with Theo whom she kissed as he left her to come into the tavern for one of those meetings with Blackford.

He entered the dilapidated barn and stopped. He came close to retching, barely controlling himself. There, hanging over an old beam, the light from the open door casting a broad shaft of light illuminating the bottom third of the line, was a noose.

16

Ivan Dyakov went eagerly to the newsstand of the hotel, took out his voucher from his wallet, and—knowing no French—pointed to it, smiling. The old man behind the counter took it, went over to a drawer, shuffled through the packages of developed pictures, and drew out the fattest one.

“
Ça fait sept milles huit cent francs
.”

Dyakov shrugged his shoulders. “
Nyet français
.”

The old man wearily wrote out the figure on a scratch pad, Dyakov pulled some notes from his wallet, clutched the packet, grabbed his briefcase, and trotted out lest he delay the bus. He sat next to Valentin Sapolayev, a tall gaunt bearded theoretician whose attention was undistracted from his work. Sapolayev had groaned with impatience on receiving the news that he would be a member of the scientific delegation traveling to Paris. Once arrived, he participated gladly enough in the scientific exchanges, but he went on the afternoon sight-seeing trips only because he was given no alternative. Now, trapped by the genial Dyakov, he had to sit and look at 128 photographs taken by his chattering colleague. He bore up through the first eight rolls, but after plowing through ten different but indifferent shots of the Eiffel Tower, he put his arm over the other's shoulder and said, “Dear Ivan, I think you are a perfectly wonderful photographer. But I think it is unfair to let me monopolize these. Here”—he picked up the pile on his lap, reached over the back of the chair in front of him, and dropped the lot on the lap of Pyotr Viksne.

Viksne, in his bored, businesslike way, inspected the pictures while behind him Dyakov, with squeals of delight, continued to show more and more pictures to the distraught Sapolayev. Suddenly Viksne stopped and stared at one picture. He leaned back at Dyakov.

“You didn't tell me you took a picture of Kapitsa?”

“You mean after the bus accident?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” Dyakov chuckled. “Obviously I did, though to tell the truth, I had forgotten. Why? There are lots of pictures of Viktor, of Tamara, of you, of everybody.”

“Can I borrow this one for a bit?”

“Certainly. Would you like to borrow any of the others? Perhaps have duplicates made? I am sure Mrs. Viksne would be very grateful.”

“No. I have a particular interest in this one.”

“Well, don't lose it. I'd like to keep my collection complete.”

At the Lycée, Viksne told Academician Nesmayanov that Viksne had been called to the embassy and must miss some of the morning's sessions. That in the (unlikely) event he had not returned by noon, Nesmayanov should escort the delegation back to the hotel, then back to the Lycée for the afternoon session.

Outside he signaled a cab and gave the address of the Soviet Embassy. At the entrance, never mind that he had been to the embassy every day since Monday, and was perfectly well known to the guard at the desk, his papers were carefully inspected before the telephone operator was given his name. Sverdlov's secretary, a bosomy Georgian striding uneasily on high French heels, greeted him perfunctorily. In the elevator, neither of them spoke. At Sverdlov's office, Viksne disregarded the greeting and dropped the photograph on Sverdlov's desk. At first the meaning of it did not register. Suddenly it occurred to Viksne that Sverdlov had probably never seen a picture of Kapitsa.

“That was the kidnapping!
That
”—he pointed to the young, smiling face of the car's driver, caught at the moment he offered a ride to Tamara—“is a picture of the kidnapper.”

Without further ado Sverdlov rose, photograph in hand, and the two went to the office of the military attaché and asked the secretary to advise Colonel Bolgin that something important had come up. She came out of Bolgin's office holding the door open.

“What is it?” Bolgin asked.

Viksne snatched the picture from Sverdlov and thrust it at Bolgin. “The kidnapper! Now we have a picture of him! Maybe we can get a lead on who he is, what branch of the FLN he's associated with.”

Bolgin took the picture, and reached into his pocket for his powerful reading glasses. He looked at the picture. For a moment Viksne thought Bolgin had stopped breathing. His color was changing as they looked at him. His eyes did not leave the photograph. His head turned up, his eyes were closed, and he said simply, “Oh my God!” He then addressed Viksne. He had to clear his voice to speak. “Return to the delegation. Make no further mention of the picture. Call me at noon. If I am unavailable, call me every half hour until you reach me. Understood?”

“Yes, Colonel.” He left the room.

“Sverdlov. Find out if Blackford Oakes is at the France et Choiseul
right now
. Last night I concluded arrangements that make it highly probable that he is
not
at the hotel and will never return to it. But
conceivably
he is there still, in which case disperse three men outside the hotel to follow him wherever he goes.
They are not to lose him on any account
. If they do, I guarantee that they will lose their lives. Call me the instant you find out. Quickly”—he motioned impatiently to the door.

He then took out his address book and, applying the code, hunted up the telephone numbers of József Nady. Pray God he could stop him in time.

He rang the home telephone. He let it ring six times. No answer.

He rang the radio shop. A woman answered. József Nady was not in.

“When do you expect him?”

“Don't know. He called in sick this morning. Maybe later on, maybe tomorrow. If it's an emergency, I have his home telephone number somewhere.” She yelled out, “
Jean? Jean! Écoutes, Jean
…”

Bolgin tried to recapture her attention over the phone. He shouted, “Madame, madame!” But she was bent on getting Jean.…

Bolgin hung up. He bowed his head in thought. He jammed his finger on the bell and his secretary walked in. “I am going to the code room. Will be there for a considerable period. Interrupt me only if Sverdlov advises you he has located our party at the hotel. Understand?”

He went out the door and, eschewing the elevator, bounded down the three flights to the code room.

In the room, alone with his personal code, he paused, and wondered. Already his shirt was soaked through with sweat. Would he survive this one? No question about it, if it had been four years earlier, with the Georgian monster at the helm, this would have been the moment to swallow that pill. Well, not now: tonight, after a good read, and a … terminal shot of vodka. The situation in Moscow, now that Khrushchev was fully in charge—no doubt about that—might be confused enough not to react against KGB-Europe with draconian ferocity. But what would be the reaction to this? The phrasing of the communication must be done carefully. It should subtly suggest that Bolgin was a little suspicious right from the beginning. But how? After all the back-and-forth on the matter of the
Chekhov
. Great God, the
Chekhov!
He looked at his watch. It would already be out of the Dardanelles. Perhaps it had already received instructions to head west. No matter. It could always be directed to return … but not until Kapitsa was back. Would he come back? For a few minutes the confusion, the variables, the contingencies, almost overwhelmed him. He loosened his tie. How grateful he was that no one else was in the room. His improvisation of the night before, which could mean that Oakes was now dead and could never lead them to Kapitsa, he had fortunately not communicated to anyone. Nor would he. He would pay off József from secret funds, then get rid of him. That would be easy.… Normally, he would have approached the encoder and batted out, with two fingers, the message directly. But now he took a pencil, and the large pad, and made a draft in heavy block letters.