The Miracle by Irving Wallace Read Free Book Online

Dr. Ivan Karp wants you to stop by and see him today."
    "I'll give him a call," said Tikhanov.
    Izakov had gone to his desk to find the memorandum slip, and he reread the message on it as he returned to Tikhanov. "He seems to have been most emphatic about wanting to see you in person." He handed the slip over to the frowning Tikhanov. "Of course, you'll know whether it's important enough to bother about."

    "It's not important," said Tikhanov quickly. "Just a report on the results of a routine checkup. All right, I'll arrange to look in on him." But he knew that this explanation might not be enough. He was certain that Izakov filed regular reports on everyone's activities to the KGB. Plainly, Izakov had never heard of Dr. Karp and might be curious. In this case it was nonsense, but Tikhanov liked to be orderly. "My physician in Moscow was out of the city when I left, and I knew my annual physical was long overdue. Someone mentioned that, since I was going to New York, this Dr. Karp, a Russian by birth, was reliable. So I saw him briefly the day I came in. He's a bit fussy and pedantic. I guess that's why he wants to see me. But it'll be the usual. More exercise. Diet. Less drinking."
    "They always say less drinking," Izakov agreed.
    "I'll arrange to see him after five—still a lot to do today—and I want to leave time for our dinner." He set down his empty glass. "Let me get hold of Dr. Karp, and then I'll call Moscow."
    Tikhanov sat at the small dining table in the alcove off Dr. Ivan Karp's office, on the fourth floor of an old building around the comer from Park Avenue, impatiently waiting for the physician to finish his ritual of pouring a strong brew of tea from the china pot sitting on top of his antique brass samovar.
    Tikhanov had decided upon a routine physical checkup, because one was long overdue and because he had been troubled by mild anxiety over the unevenness of his gait. He had not wanted to bother with a strange physician abroad, had intended to see his regular doctor in Moscow, but the doctor had been away on a vacation and the trip to New York had been ordered almost overnight. Tikhanov had planned to look in on the staff doctor for the Soviet UN Mission, but on second thought had decided against it because the Mission physician would certainly be a KGB agent. Tikhanov had determined to find an American who was dependable and who would not report any of his bad habits to the KGB. A chess companion in Moscow, a merchant who often visited New York and was a longtime friend of Tikhanov, had recommended that he see Dr. Ivan Karp. This Karp, a Jewish emigre of many years, now an American citizen, was intellectually sympathetic to the Marxist philosophy.
    Upon his arrival in Manhattan, Tikhanov had contacted Dr. Karp, who had agreed to give him his general checkup at a modern midtown medical facihty. Leaving his security guards in the doctor's reception room, Tikhanov had submitted to a thorough examination. At its completion, Karp had said that he wanted to take his patient upstairs for

    some further tests by a colleague who was a neurologist. "We don't have to drag along all your KGB guards, do we?" Karp had inquired. "We can slip out the private door to my suite." Tikhanov had been more than agreeable.
    Now, brought to Dr. Karp's private office for the test results, Tikhanov was becoming irritated by the deliberate movements of the doctor. Tikhanov wanted to get down to business, be done with it in time for dinner, and then be off to Paris and Lisbon and Yalta to await his summons to power.
    He watched Dr. Karp, a gnomish man with a tiny pointed beard, setting out the teacup and a plate of kvhorost biscuits.
    "Thank you," said Tikhanov. "I don't have much time, doctor. We might as well get right down to it. Since there is always something, what is it this time? High blood pressure? Heart murmur? An indication of diabetes?"
    Sitting across from him, Dr. Karp finished sipping his tea, and said gently, "I wish