A Very Private Plot (26 page)

There was a moment's silence, after which Nikolai clambered out, looked about in his tool kit, and pulled out a small screwdriver and pliers. He edged back into the cubbyhole on his back. Pavel and Maritsa could see the strain in the wire leading to the desk lamp—obviously Nikolai was examining it. Yes, and simultaneously he was measuring with the length of his forearm two critical distances. First the length of wire running from the floor receptacle up to the small hole in the desktop through which it passed to the desk lamp. Second, the width of the desk drawer and the distance between the lamp cord and the drawer front's bottom lip. A few seconds later he edged out from under the desk and said brightly, “I know what we need, Pavel,” he said. “Take me, please, to the utility shop.”

Pavel turned to Maritsa. Would she be good enough to call the steward at the shop—yes, thanks, Pavel knew where it was located—and inform him what this was all about? Maritsa nodded, and after letting the two men out sat down at her desk and took up the telephone.

Pavel and Nikolai were admitted into a subterranean chamber of very large dimensions. It had once been an armory, was now still that but also many other things, including the repository for several hundred ornate chairs used at state functions. In a far corner there was the equivalent of a large hardware store.

Nikolai took out a notepad. He looked about and got hold of a reasonable length of two-conductor cord. He proceeded, while the steward looked on, to strip the sheathing from one end of the cord, exposing two separately insulated conductor wires of copper strand. One of these he cut back, removing a length equal to one half the width of the desk drawer.

The overseeing steward lost interest, returning to his desk.

Nikolai turned to the next task. He prepared a strip of copper. It would be about the width of two thumbs, designed to fit across the bottom of Gorbachev's desk drawer, directly behind its bottom-front lip. Into this copper strip Nikolai drilled several holes. Small wood screws through these holes would fasten the strip to the drawer's wooden bottom. He equipped himself with electrical tape for insulation and disguise.

Back in the General Secretary's office, under the desk and on his back, he quickly screwed the copper strip into place. Turning onto his stomach, he worked at the floor receptacle's metal coverplate, removing two screws.

Emerging from under the desk, the coverplate in hand, he explained that part of the problem had been the fault of one of the two screw anchors, which had broken in the floor. Briefly waving the plate in the air, he said he would drill another hole in it so that a new screw could secure it solidly to the floorboards.

Snatching the battery-powered hand drill out of the toolbox, he fitted a drill bit into the chuck. Now, shifting position on the floor, he gave the impression that he was at work on the coverplate.

Leaning against the drawer front, he pressed his shoulder firmly upward to hold the drawer steady. Pavel and Maritsa heard a brief whine from the drill. A hole now existed reaching from the rear of the drawer front, diagonally up through the wood to the back of the brass rosette handle.

Nikolai shoved himself around again on the floor, murmuring out his discomfort. He asked Pavel to come around and help by putting his foot on one end of the coverplate to steady it against the drill. Together they held the metal plate firmly while Nikolai quickly drilled the necessary extra hole.

He dropped the drill back into the box and, spraddling back down onto the floor, slid underneath the desk. Thrusting his legs about to give him the leverage necessary to slide in under the desk on his back, Nikolai caused Pavel to step to one side, by Maritsa, both avoiding the thrashing legs. They heard an exasperated grunt from Nikolai. He inched his way back into view, took a couple of deep breaths and muttered, “I'm glad I'm an electrical engineer, not an electrician!” And then, to Maritsa: “Sorry, but we'll need to cut the current now. I have to fix the wiring down inside the receptacle.”

The guard had been alerted and the lights in the big office now went off.

With his flashlight, Nikolai started back under the desk but paused briefly, apparently preparing his equipment. In that moment he slipped a long, thin woodscrew through the hole he'd sunk moments before. He felt the long screw jam securely against the rosette. He took the extra two-conductor cord and tightly wound one of its exposed copper strands around the screw's protruding extra length. He then bedded the rest of the insulated wire across a taped-over portion of the copper strip, bending the wire further and leading it leftward along the strip's far side. There he jammed the conductor's raw metal between the copper strip and the drawer bottom.

Rolling quickly on his side, he stuffed the remainder of the new wiring up alongside the drawer, back to where it could drop down to the floor receptacle. Nikolai screwed the coverplate back in place. Less than a minute later, the desk lamp's plug was sharing its electrical connection with the new wiring to the drawer.

He called out to Pavel that the current could be reestablished.

The room lit up.

Nikolai crawled out and turned the desk lamp on and off three or four times.

“Looks all right. I'll bed it down at the receptacle.” He disappeared again. In a few moments he was back up. In his left hand he held a large woodscrew. To distract attention, he pointed to a plug at the far end of the room. Pavel and Maritsa turned their eyes to it. “Might not be a bad idea, somewhere along the line, to have that looked at.” Swiftly he plugged the large screw between the side of the drawer and its mounting, jamming it in firmly. Maritsa told Nikolai that all the electrical circuitry in this wing of the Kremlin was scheduled for an overhaul.

What Nikolai cared about was the woodscrew, now safely inserted. When Gorbachev next attempted to open his drawer he would find it stuck. His right hand gripping the brass rosette, his left hand would reflexively grasp the drawer's bottom edge, seeking extra leverage. The hidden copper strip would propel current up his arm through his chest to his firm grip on the rosette, the shock spastically curling both hands to tighter contact with the conductors. His heart would stop.

Nikolai took his voltmeter. “One last test,” he said. He touched one of the prods of the voltmeter to the rosette, as if to bid it goodbye. His body hid his other hand, which touched the second prod to the copper plate. His meter read 220–240. The operation was done. Time consumed, forty-two minutes.

When Nikolai had completed the electrical circuitry, fastening together the trigger mechanism, he was sweating. Sweating markedly more than might have been expected of a young technician simply because he had to work a while under a desk. He thought it prudent, while still lying on his back, to give himself two or three minutes to quiet down before emerging from the cavity and announcing that the work had been successfully completed. He would substantiate this by turning the desk lamp on and off a few times for the benefit of Maritsa and the security officials standing by.

Accordingly he delayed his reappearance, and in a few minutes felt his heartbeat returning to normal. Emerging from under the desk, he plucked several sheets of tissue from the box at the side of the huge desk and used them on his face. He addressed himself then to Pavel Pogodin, most formally.

“I think that settles that problem, Lieutenant.”

Pavel helped Nikolai pick up his tools, scattered about between the desk and the chair.

They both bade good afternoon to Maritsa, who thanked them, and they walked, Nikolai carrying the electrician's tool kit, to the door.

“I thank you very much, Trimov. I know that the General Secretary will be relieved not to worry about that little nuisance anymore. Good day. Ah, you are going out the northeast gate? I will accompany you. I am headed there myself.”

Gorbachev began to raise his voice, something he didn't often do at meetings of the Politburo. Obviously Colonel-General Nikolai Chervov was opposed to the INF treaty. Just as obviously, Colonel-General Chervov was not prepared to express that opposition categorically. His technique was the detail, the little detail. At first Gorbachev dealt with this by patient confutation, item by item—always he was well briefed in military matters. Now the General was arguing—at 5:10 p.m., after more than two hours of general discussion—that after the INF treaty was consummated, the day might arrive when the submarine power of the United States, carefully coordinated with the power of France's
force de frappe
, could succeed in a first strike against the Soviet Union. Such a strike would be devastating. And Soviet diminished nuclear resources would leave the U.S.S.R. with insufficient nuclear heft for a retroactively deterrent second strike.

Gorbachev, preemptively anxious to meet any such argument from his active military advisers, had consulted, no less, General Vassili Pankovsky, retired but still revered as a Russia-firster who throughout his illustrious career had always demanded an almost excessive degree of Soviet military capability. That very morning, Gorbachev had received the analysis by General Pankovsky of the INF treaty, in which he gave it as his opinion that nothing contemplated by the treaty could conceivably diminish the deterrent strength of residual U.S.S.R. nuclear forces. Gorbachev had meant to bring with him the folder with General Pankovsky's analysis. But, distracted by the hovering electricians who were going to fix his accursed desk lamp, he had left the folder in the middle drawer of his desk.

“Nikolai Andreyevich. I assume that you respect the judgments of General Pankovsky in these matters. Well, I received from him this very morning—he is living in the Caucasus, as you probably know, but I have kept him intimately informed on all disarmament proceedings—I received from him, as I say, this very morning, a three-page analysis directed exactly to the questions you raise. I stupidly forgot to bring it along, but”—he motioned for one of the three aides seated directly behind him—“Dmitri, come here.” Dmitri was instantly at his side. “Go to my office. Open the middle drawer of my desk. The folder directly on top is labeled ‘Pankovsky.' Fetch it right away.”

Dmitri needed no further instructions.

It was a matter of what—three minutes? Surely less than five when the alarm shrieked.

It halted the heated talk at the table, even though most of the fourteen participants were unaware of the alarm's exact meaning. They sensed, of course, an emergency of some sort. But it had never once been sounded since its installation by Stalin during his last, paranoiac years. Stalin's idea, someone dimly recalled, was that the general alarm they had all just now heard would signal the gravest kind of threat, for instance an approaching air raid, even a nuclear strike.

Gorbachev blanched, stood up, and went to the door. By the time he reached it a half-dozen security officials had rushed there. The man at their head was breathless. “Comrade General Secretary. A terrorist assassin plot—to kill you! Your desk was wired! Dmitri is dead! Scorched!” He gulped in breath. “If you had been sitting at your own desk and opened the drawer, you would—! Oh, Comrade General Secretary!”

“Stop sniveling.” Gorbachev was now the general, utterly in command. “What security precautions should be taken by the gentlemen in this room? Quick now, be specific.”

The security chief composed himself. “I am sorry, comrade. There is no reason to panic. Let us proceed methodically.” He turned to the stricken members of the Politburo, still seated around the massive table, silent, waiting to be told what to do. “Comrades, the security reserves of the Kremlin are being summoned in full force. You will be met at the entrance of this building by your individual security agents in ten minutes. You are not to enter your offices until the detachment from the bomb squad inspects them and certifies them as safe. Comrade General Secretary, I must request that you depart the Kremlin immediately. Contingency ‘C' is now in effect. Your automobile and escort vehicles will be waiting for you in the courtyard at …” he looked at his watch, “five forty-five. Colonel Glinka will accompany you on your way to the assigned destination. You will have minute-by-minute reports on the security investigation upon arrival.”

The leaders of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics did exactly as they were told. When Gorbachev was advised that his caravan was ready and waiting, he left the Cabinet Room. He asked his escort officer, Colonel Glinka, whether it would be feasible for them to go first by his own office, as he was anxious to see with his own eyes what exactly had happened. Colonel Glinka was absolutely stern on the matter. No.

“The forensic unit and the security investigators will be in meticulous control of the area, Comrade General Secretary. My orders are inflexible as to Contingency ‘C.' There is to be no deviation in the route we take to remove you. And the Zeta Case will be, as usual, by your side.”

The Zeta Case was the Soviet equivalent of the U.S. “football,” the name the Secret Service years ago gave to the electronic instrument and codes through which the President of the United States can order a nuclear strike.

Gorbachev said nothing. But when he reached the automobile he stopped suddenly. He lifted his finger to Colonel Glinka. “Can it be possible that this is the work of Pogodin?”

The colonel said that every possibility was being examined.

Pavel and Nikolai had walked out side by side, exchanging not a word. They passed through security, into Manezhnaya Street. They went to the Borovitskaya metro station, a half block away. The first train came by. It slowed down for passengers headed on Run B. Pavel turned to Nikolai.

“We may never meet again. But if I live, and if I can be there, I do not care how long it is, five, fifteen years, I will, on the October 2nd after liberation, come by our stable at Okateyvsky. We will have a reunion in a free Russia.”

They embraced.

Pavel took the second train and in twenty minutes was at his mother's house, listening to the police radio. It was 6:15 when he heard the solemn notice on channel Z, to which only sets carried by police officers could tune in.