Grandmaster by Molly Cochran Read Free Book Online Page B

exchanged glances tentatively. Years of secret meetings had inured them both against demonstrative Russian welcomes in full sunlight.
    "Comrade," Zharkov said, with the briefest nod toward the brown envelope. He unlocked the front door. It closed behind them with a double click. Zharkov led the heavyset man through the front parlor and into a small office containing little more than a desk, a few uncomfortable wooden chairs, and a wall of new metal file cabinets on which rested incongruously an ornate chessboard inlaid with ebony and ivory.
    "You are well, Sergei?" Zharkov said with more warmth once they were away from the inquisitive eyes of the people on the street.
    "Well enough. My son wishes to change his course of study at the university. He wants to take up art," the man with the envelope said with a shrug.
    Zharkov smiled at the man's obvious discomfort. General Sergei Ostrakov was KGB in the style of Stalin: a trained bear of a man who obeyed blindly, killed easily, lived automatically, and spared little thought for the inconsequentials of life, which included every activity not directly linked to his personal survival. "Art is a worthwhile study," Zharkov said.
    "Not for the son of a fighting man. Disgraceful. You are lucky not to be fettered with the burden of a family, Alyosha." He used the friendly Russian diminutive for Alexander, but the name seemed to come from his mouth only with effort.
    "Your coat?" Zharkov said.
    The KGB man shook his head. "No. I'll just stay a minute." He tossed the envelope onto Zharkov's desk. "There's something in there that might interest you."
    He was fishing for something, Zharkov knew, and he refused to rise to the bait. He sat on the soft leather chair behind his desk and slowly lit a cigarette. The envelope remained untouched on the desk.
    After a few seconds of awkward silence, Ostrakov spoke again. "This is something in your field of interest," he said. "Kutsenko is attempting to defect to the Americans. He met with an agent last night."
    "Which agent?" Zharkov asked mildly, his hooded eyes still looking down at his cigarette.
    "We think it was Frank Riesling. He divested himself of any identification before he died, but our researchers made him from some photographs." He thrust his chin toward the brown envelope. "He worked out of Helsinki, taking defectors out through the northern route."
    "And what happened?" Zharkov asked.
    "Nothing," Ostrakov said. "It's in the envelope."
    Zharkov leaned forward and pulled a sheaf of photographs from the envelope. The first was of a fat woman posing for her portrait in front of a mural. The second showed another woman, arms outstretched, falling as her face exploded into fragments.
    "Some of these are inconsequential," Ostrakov said offhandedly. He gestured to the photo of the woman in her moment of death. "An accident," he said.
    Angrily, Zharkov slammed the photos down on his desk without looking at the rest.
    "What happened to Riesling?"
    "He's dead."
    "Your men killed him?"
    "Yes."
    "And Kutsenko?"
    "He is being watched. I've had him watched for two weeks now," Ostrakov said. "Ever since I learned he was planning to defect. I had his wife fired from her job at the hospital," he said proudly.
    "You idiot," Zharkov snapped.
    Ostrakov bristled, but Zharkov ignored him and began to look again through the rest of the photos. He blew out a lungful of smoke in disgust. Nichevo had given him a certain power over the KGB, but it would never be enough power to change the mentality of its people. The KGB was cluttered with heavy-handed fools.
    "That's the agent," Ostrakov said. The third photograph showed a man reeling to the floor in agony, his shoulder blown away. In the foreground were several shadows hovering around neatly upholstered furniture.
    "Where were these taken?" Zharkov asked incredulously.
    "At the Samarkand Hotel, around eight o'clock yesterday evening. There was a man taking pictures of the incident, an East German tourist."
    "A