Black Gambit Read online

  ‘Would you say this is a safe place to talk?’ Sunnenden asked at last.

  One of Cory’s abilities was to take people as seriously as they would like to be taken. He too looked round theatrically. ‘As safe as any, I’d guess — unless you’d like to take a walk.’

  Sunnenden spooned a piece of pie, began to raise it and then placed the spoon back on the plate. ‘How easy would it be to get a man out of Moscow?’

  ‘Does he want to go?’

  ‘That’s assumed.’

  ‘Is he at all well-known?’

  Sunnenden nodded.

  Cory leaned across the table. ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sunnenden.

  Suddenly the other’s reaction had made it all very real. Cory leaned back again. ‘Then I think I’ll have second thoughts on what I said earlier. We might have to take that walk after all.’

  But they did not walk. Instead they drove in Sunnenden’s Ford along the Potomac, found a parking area, and doused the lights.

  Only then did Sunnenden return to the subject. ‘It’s serious enough. We want to know if it could work. That’s why we need your help.’

  ‘We? Is it official?’ Cory knew it could not be — he would not have been approached in this way. Still, he wanted to know the ground rules from the start.

  Sunnenden paused. One of the first questions he had asked himself when the subject was raised was Why us? Why not go talk to the CIA? They’re paid for this kind of thing. Sunnenden had debated asking Scott the same question. But he already knew the answer. The CIA was going through a difficult period. Vietnam, Watergate and detente had each dealt it blows; Bill Colby, its director since the previous July, was being pressured to phase out much of the agency’s covert side. Scott would reckon the only way to get official CIA help on a project like this was for Kissinger to give a direct order. Too risky if things went wrong.

  ‘Yes, we,’ said Sunnenden. ‘But not official. If anything went wrong, our principals would not like to be embarrassed.’

  Cory smiled to himself: ‘Principals’ — Sunnenden had even researched the jargon!

  Sunnenden paused, wondering if that was enough. Cory said nothing. Obviously it was not. ‘All I can say is that it goes up high, very high.’

  So, thought Cory, did Watergate. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Tell me how it is, the bare details first.’

  After the brief outline Sunnenden was asked to tell the story again, this time elaborating as much as he wished. From time to time Cory interrupted with a question.

  When Sunnenden had finished, Cory leaned forward, his chin supported in his hands. ‘You say it would be unofficial. But could we get help?’

  ‘Some,’ replied Sunnenden. ‘But of course it would be best to keep it to a minimum.’ He paused. ‘You’ve got good contacts …’

  It was more a statement than a question, but Cory decided to disregard the point. ‘Let’s go, shall we?’

  For the whole journey to Georgetown Cory sat in the same bent position. When the car stopped he didn’t move. Sunnenden broke the silence. Anything that was to be said had to be raised now.

  ‘Well,’ he asked, ‘could it be done?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Cory. He opened the door and started to slide out.

  ‘I’ll think a while and call you,’ he said. Then very formally, ‘And thank you for a pleasant evening. Tell Janet I missed her.’

  *

  At the door Cory paused, caught for a few seconds in the Ford’s lights as Sunnenden turned in the road. It was a big house, too big for one man. At regular intervals realtors wrote, telephoned or even called in person to suggest he sell it. None of them seemed to understand that he neither needed nor wanted the money.

  He did want the house. For years, living in the field, he had worked out of a suitcase. When he returned to the house left to him by an aunt, he had embarked on an orgy of collecting. Apart from the sculpture, there had been secondhand books, wine, and objects impossible to categorize — anything that caught his fancy, from an old horn gramophone that sat next to the hi-fi to a set of Degas lithographs that he had given himself the day he decided he had finally come through the breakdown.

  Friends said Cory wore his wealth like an old slipper. Never having been without money, he took its existence for granted. Until his return he had spent little of it. He continued to increase his fortune not from diligence or financial brilliance, but from a number of relatives, all moderately rich and childless, who seemed to take it in turns to die and leave him yet another legacy.

  Cory removed his raincoat, kicked off his shoes and settled back into a deep leather chair, his feet raised on a leather footstool in front. Without moving from the chair, he reached over and turned on the tape-recorder. Telemann filled the room. Then, from the table at his side, he poured Armagnac from a decanter, sipped — and began to think.

  He had to confess that he liked the idea of bringing someone out of Moscow.

  A major reason for his quitting the CIA was that he had feared the possibility of being shunted off to some sinecure, to ride the desk as so many other career men did, until the day of retirement. What he liked about espionage was precisely the kind of problem and challenge that lay before him now.

  And then, of course, there was Sunnenden. He felt he owed the younger man something for preventing him from vegetating. It was Sunnenden who had persuaded him to return to government as a part-time consultant. They had met while Sunnenden was at Defense. Cory was detailed to brief him on some Soviet ‘advisers’ who were active in Chile. Sunnenden had been impressed by the man’s knowledge and approach.

  They met again after Cory’s illness, at an exhibition of Eskimo sculpture. It was one of Janet’s passions and one, it emerged, of Cory’s. A loose friendship developed. After moving to State Sunnenden propositioned the Department about a job that he thought ought to be created: they needed someone with immense background knowledge to sift reports of Soviet intentions and assess whether or not they were genuine.

  Cory closed his eyes, remembering Moscow. Images unrolled like a film track. He walked across Red Square on the coldest day of the year; he huddled in a taxi, talking with the old woman driver in bad Russian, breathing that mixture of smells found nowhere else — sweat and garlic and rough tobacco; he fumbled under a bench and removed a small metal container … His thoughts began to drift. He sipped and fell into a light sleep. Pictures, pleasant ones, flashed through his mind. Then there was another: the twisted car, a severed arm, a smell of blood in his nostrils. And then Sue’s face. For a second he felt it all again.

  He pulled himself up, his head pounding. The tape had finished. He poured more brandy and drank quickly, breathing deeply. It was all right. He checked all the alarms and went to bed.

  *

  Cory had intended to go back on to valium the following morning — just to be on the safe side. It had been months since the vision had returned. But he felt too good to bother. He was working and the problem fascinated him. He needed to work; he needed this kind of challenge to stretch him and test him and make him feel fully alive again. He looked down at his hands: when he was with other people, he could control them. Alone, his fingers shook. Today, for the first time for months, they were steady.

  Cory ate breakfast in the small bay-windowed room overlooking the street. It was a remarkably small room — large enough for a dining table and, at most, three chairs — yet it enjoyed a prime position in the house. He had never understood what quirk in the original owner or designer had made them build it that way.

  By the side of the plate he had a Russian guidebook open to a map of the city. He kept looking at it as though this would give him the inspiration he needed to solve Sunnenden’s problem.

  There were actually two problems to be solved. The first was the straight mechanics of moving a person out of the country; the second was covering the man’s absence from his home and usual haunts while you did it. The simplest solution to the second prob
lem might be to have the man taken ill. But before he knew if that would work he would need answers to many questions: How closely did the KGB watch? If Zorin was apparently confined to bed, would they call? Would a doctor be summoned — and if so, who?

  Cory poured more coffee from the jug on the electric tray. He dunked a piece of roll, splashing coffee on to the plain oak surface.

  Move him out as baggage or as a person? By rail, road, air, sea, or on foot?

  Cory had never before tried to get anyone out of Russia. East Germany, yes, and once out of Poland. But he had been on the spot and there had been routes. Compared to Russia, they were easy.

  Cory poured the rest of the coffee into his cup and carried it into his work room. Despite the elaborate alarms that guarded the house, he kept the door locked. Inside, a dark mahogany table ran over half the length of the room. The table was covered with books and papers; the piles looked haphazard, but Cory knew what every one contained. He cleared a space on the table and proceeeded to fill it with books he took from his shelves: guides, timetables …

  He read until 12.30, when he walked down to Martin’s Tavern for some fried scallops and two glasses of beer.

  He worked through the whole afternoon and much of the evening. He finished reading just after 2 a.m., was up again before seven, and an hour later was on his way to Langley. Apart from his State Department assignment and his thirty years of contacts, Cory held consultancy status with the CIA. Two, perhaps three times a month he would travel out to talk, to give his opinion on documents, or an outside evaluation of how an operation was looking. Today the visit was at Cory’s request. There were files he needed to examine. He had added to his requisition list a number of files he did not need — hopefully no pattern would show.

  He spent the day reading through files on dissidents, Zorin especially, on internal security in Russia — particularly at sea and at airports — and on Soviet documentation. He left late that night, handing his badge and key to the night security officer. He sat in the back of the car, his eyes closed, his mind reeling with a kaleidoscope of facts.

  *

  Five days after first raising the subject of Zorin with Cory, Sunnenden was outside his home in Chevy Chase playing at being a gardener. He enjoyed prowling around the lawns, prodding the odd flower bed with a rake, happy in the knowledge that a professional gardener saw to the real work. It was nearly eleven o’clock, the time he had suggested Cory arrive. It would give them time to talk alone — and without risk of being overheard — in the rambling garden before the other guests arrived for brunch.

  In the previous five days Sunnenden had seen Cory only once. Cory asked him a long series of questions, refusing to answer any himself. ‘I still need to know more,’ he had explained.

  One thing he had said, chilled Sunnenden, particularly coming as it did in Cory’s gentle monotone: ‘Are you sure you need your man somewhere other than Russia? Or could he just not be there?’

  It had taken more than a moment for Sunnenden to understand. ‘You mean … ?’

  ‘I mean,’ said Cory, ‘that if your man is just an embarrassment where he is, there are easier ways of dealing with that than getting him out.’

  ‘No, we need him out.’

  ‘Fine. But it had to be discussed.’

  *

  Cory was late. It was 11.20 when the cab turned into the drive of Sunnenden’s house. Janet insisted they have coffee before Sunnenden led Cory on a tour of the garden.

  ‘Too cold?’ asked Sunnenden. Cory was wearing a turtle-neck sweater and a tweed sports jacket, but there was a damp chill in the air.

  ‘No, it’s all right, and I think we should talk. That is, if you’re still serious.’

  Twenty-four hours earlier Sunnenden would not have been sure. Nothing new had emerged. He and Scott had met once, but the subject had not been raised, even in Scott’s oblique way.

  Then had come fresh reports from the White House: they too were worried about the latest news from Israel. Obviously the pressures were not going to ease. ‘I sure hope someone somewhere is doing something,’ Scott had said to Sunnenden. ‘He’d make a lot of people very happy and do himself a heap of good.’ And Sunnenden made his decision.

  ‘Yes,’ he said to Cory. ‘We’re serious, about as serious as you can get.’

  He stopped by the swing the boys had used when they were younger. He bent and pushed the seat.

  ‘In fact,’ he confided, ‘I’m under some pressure to get something moving.’

  The two began to walk, Cory with his hands clasped behind his back. He looked exhausted. ‘Let me tell you the way it is, then. If your principals want to go into this they ought to know the problems they face. Agree?’

  Sunnenden did.

  ‘All right,’ said Cory. ‘The Soviets spend a lot of money, manpower and expertise keeping people in as well as out — and they are pretty good at it. You can’t even move from one part of the country to another without their knowing. To get into an airport or on to a train you need papers. If the informers don’t pick you out, there’s five hundred detectives on watch duty at airports alone.

  They stopped and Sunnenden picked up a tennis ball from the thick grass. He tossed it from hand to hand.

  ‘I’m following,’ he said. It was basic stuff, but Cory obviously wanted to tell it from the beginning.

  Cory rubbed his face with both hands and continued. ‘I’ve checked out your man as much as I can without arousing suspicions. He’s under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Fortunately he’s been keeping a low profile so at the moment he’s not being bothered much.

  ‘If he goes out for a walk, they note the time he leaves and then someone follows him. When he gets back, they check him in. And they keep an overnight watch. Incidentally, I hope you’ve made damn sure he wants to come out … Theoretically he might creep out then under cover of dark, but he’d have to pass frighteningly near their car — and apart from the upravdom we don’t know who else they might have in the block.’

  Sunnenden was still tossing the ball from hand to hand. ‘Could he shake off his tail during the day?’

  ‘Oh yes, no problem. Sometimes there’s only one, mostly there’s two, and that’s no way to keep a man in view if he wants to shake you. But what happens then? Out goes the alarm that your man is missing. I doubt they would think he was trying to get out of the country if that happened — the watch seems to be to isolate him from other dissidents and Western journalists. But as a matter of routine the alert would include railway terminals, air and sea ports, highway police and border guards. I wouldn’t give much for his chances of staying loose for more than a few hours, let alone getting out of the country.’

  ‘It sounds pretty gloomy.’

  The two men were still facing each other. Sunnenden threw the ball to the ground.

  Cory’s voice was so low that Sunnenden had to strain to hear him.

  ‘I thought I should tell you the way it is. You know your Soviets, but I don’t think you really appreciate what a marvellous machine they’ve got for repression.’ He raised his hand. ‘Oh yes, you know in theory. But I’m telling you what it means in practice if you’re to get your man out.’ He smiled, an indication that the admonition was over. After a long pause, he went on.

  ‘What I’ve outlined is only the first of the problems to be faced. We’ve still got to move him. I thought of all the normal ways of smuggling him out — across the Black Sea to Turkey, on to a seagoing boat at Leningrad — but I think they’re too damned risky. I even toyed with the idea of hijacking a plane. But I guess he’d need some help, and I wouldn’t like to do it that way. Remember the last people who tried?’ Sunnenden nodded. The twelve people who attempted to hijack a plane from Leningrad to Sweden …

  ‘I played around with concealing him on a train or in a car to cross one of the border points. The best place would be something like Vyborg into Finland. But if you’ve ever crossed that border and seen the way they’ve stripped the land bare, the w
ay they go through things …’

  He became quiet and Sunnenden wondered whether he was remembering something specific that had happened to him.

  ‘No, said Cory suddenly. ‘I’d reckon the odds are too much in their favour.’

  ‘But it can be done?’ Sunnenden demanded. ‘You have an idea?’

  Cory caught the impatience in Sunnenden’s voice. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think so.’ He turned to face Sunnenden so that he could watch his reaction. ‘We can’t bring him out as Zorin,’ he said. ‘All right then. We’ll turn him into someone else!’

  *

  On the slow walk back in the direction of the house Sunnenden fired questions, his speech more clipped than ever, his arms waving oratorically as he introduced each new query.

  Twice his voice was punctuated by Janet calling to them that brunch guests had arrived.

  Cory let the younger man exhaust his questions before beginning his replies.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘The way I see it is that the only chance of making this work is bringing our friend out as a foreigner returning home. That way the checks are minimal.’

  ‘But won’t their routine records show that whoever he’s pretending to be never arrived in Russia?’ interrupted Sunnenden. ‘Don’t they keep files on things like that?’

  ‘Oh yes. That’s the beauty of it, I think.’ Cory was smiling now. They were nearing the house.

  ‘You see, in the first place we send someone in. He changes places with Zorin, and he’s the man the KGB are watching while Zorin gets out.’

  The two men came in sight of the drive. Sunnenden saw the two-tone Buick: his sister and her husband. A jumbled succession of questions was in his mind. ‘But won’t this other man need to be a double for Zorin?’ he asked.

  ‘Only passably like him to start. We can do the rest.’

  ‘Then he’s the one stuck in Moscow. How do we get him out?’ Then with a rare hint of humour, he added: ‘Send in another double?’

  ‘A slight problem but nothing compared with getting out a well-known Russian dissident.’