A Very Private Plot (8 page)

Blaustein smiled perfunctorily, shook hands, and peered into the hallway, awaiting instructions.

“Just follow me. We'll go to my study.” Leading the way, Blackford took Blaustein through the comfortable living room, decorated in discreet ranch style, with here and there a touch of Mexico, as in the blue tiles that framed the fireplace. They went into the book-lined study, dotted with the paraphernalia of a complete computer life. Blackford pointed to a sofa and sat opposite Blaustein in an easy chair. Blaustein put down his briefcase and removed a folder and the standard yellow legal pad.

His first question was, “Are you by any chance, Mr. Oakes, recording our conversation?”

“If I were, Mr. Blaustein, I wouldn't feel obliged to tell you.”

Blaustein's expression did not change. He spoke in a deep bass-baritone. “I am here, as you will have supposed, to explore the possibility of keeping you from having to go to jail tomorrow. You should know that Senator Blanton has considerable professional respect for you but that he is genuinely concerned, especially now that the Cold War is over, to put an end to covert activity. And he feels that he can best persuade his colleagues on the Hill to join him in approving an end to such activity by apprising them of the dangers we ran in concrete situations in recent history.”

He paused. His design was clearly dramatic. He cleared his throat. “Of course, we know about many covert activities, for instance those that were exposed by the Church and Rockefeller Committees in 1975. But they were, for the most part, idiosyncratic in character, like the business of poisoned cigars for Fidel Castro. We know that you have engaged in many covert operations, and we have an idea what some of these were. Indeed we know that you were discharged from the CIA in”—Blaustein consulted a folder—“in 1957 for failure to give the Agency notice that a high-tech satellite unit was being shipped across to the Soviet Union—”

“I don't know where you are headed on this matter, Mr. Blaustein. But the reason I did as I did in 1957 is complicated, and had to do with sparing the lives of two Soviet scientists who had defected. What is your point in bringing the matter up?”

“My point is that we have information about some of your activity, but we don't have the information we most want—information which, in the opinion of Senator Blanton, would conclusively establish the need for an end to this kind of thing.”

“May I make a diplomatic point?”

“Why of course, Mr. Oakes.”

“It really isn't very …
endearing
of you to refer to what I have devoted my life to as ‘this kind of thing.'”

“I apologize. I have no training as a diplomat. I should have said, ‘the kind of thing to which you have devoted your quite extraordinary skills.'”

“You could say that about Goebbels.”

“Why don't we then, as they say in court, just strike that phrase?”

“You will not succeed in erasing from my memory your having used it. And anyway, I am not a juror, for you to instruct what to remember, and to forget.”

Blaustein reddened, paused. And then began again. “I have been authorized by Senator Blanton to say that he is prepared, in his capacity as chairman of the committee before which your contempt was executed, to call the U.S. Attorney and ask him to suspend the arrest order for thirty days, during which he will advise the Senate that the contempt has been purged.”

“So what is expected of me, in exchange for my liberty?”

“
The full story of Cyclops
.”

Blackford was genuinely astonished.

Who? How? Where? When?

He said, as matter-of-factly as he could manage, “What brings you to use that name?”

“Such knowledge as we have been able to assemble about … Cyclops.”

“You will need to catch me up on the matter.”

“It is precisely we who need to be caught up on the matter. Who was he? What was the nature of the CIA's dealings with him? And what was the disposition of the Cyclops operation?” He leaned forward. “We know this much: That you were the officer in charge of dealing with him. And that the late William Casey left no notes, nothing whatever, that so much as mentioned the Cyclops operation. Nor have we come upon any officer in the Agency now, or active in it ten years ago, who admits to knowing anything about Cyclops.”

“What causes you to believe that I have a link to this … this Cyclops?”

“That much the committee has established. That and more, but not enough.”

Blackford shrugged his shoulders. “Why is it so important to you, Mr. Blaustein?”

“Because—because, Mr. Oakes, we intend to demonstrate to the Congress that the Cyclops operation might have resulted in … a nuclear war.”

Blackford touched his lips with his tongue. He knew that a lifetime's practice in the histrionic arts was quite sufficient to handle Blaustein in any way Blackford chose, intending any effect. It was therefore a careful calculation that led him to respond as he did. Tomorrow at this time, he said to himself, I will be behind bars thanks to the manipulations of this bastard and his team. So what the hell, why not let him feel what I think of him?

“Mr. Blaustein, permit me to say that while you were an undergraduate screaming and yelling about our defense expenditures, some of us were doing what we could to avoid the need to
use
the American military. As you know, I was one of those … ‘soldiers,' if the term does not offend you. And I will advise you, and you may repeat what I say to Senator Blanton, that there is no reason to suppose that I'd have enjoyed a nuclear war any more than you'd have done. I speak here, while I am at it, in behalf of my wife and stepson. I remind you, and Mr. Blanton, that the kind of people who have offended you since you were at college are the people who won the Cold War and, at least for a while, gave the whole world immunity from a nuclear exchange. How this was done and how credit for it should be apportioned is something historians will decide. Meanwhile, my judgment of it is that the country will not be helped by the immobilization of the CIA. The story of Cyclops the Soviets were not able to get from me. It is unlikely that you will succeed in doing so. Do you feel like going home? Because I very much feel like your going home.”

Arthur Blaustein reached for his briefcase and inserted in it the folder and the legal pad. Blackford led him to the front door. Blaustein hesitantly proffered his hand. Blackford took it, quietly closed the door, and went to the telephone.

“Bob? Black.”

“I've been pacing the floor. What did the mortician want?”

“He thought it might be patriotic for me to commit suicide.”

“Come on. It's late.”

“He said Blanton would get the jail order vacated if I spilled my beans to Blaustein about a certain Agency operation in the past. He was willing to spare me the humiliation of spilling the beans to the whole committee.”

“And you said?”

“I guess the only way to put it is that I spilled my … thoughts on him.”

“Told him off?”

“Told him off. But you know something, Bob? I don't feel particularly good about it. It left me feeling sanctimonious, and I try to avoid that—maybe you've noticed; I hope so. I guess I just couldn't help it. No. That's not right. I could have controlled myself. I elected not to.”

“Has he got anything on you?”

Blackford paused. “No. Just wants information on My Secret Life, and I'm saving that for a higher bidder. Know anybody at the
National Enquirer
, Bob?… Bob. Bob? Still there?”

“Yes. I just finished letting out a sigh. They don't register, most sighs don't, over the phone. I'm surprised mine didn't, though. It was a whopper.…

“Well, Black, I guess there's nothing more to it than tomorrow. I'll come by and pick you up.”

“Bob, I've been thinking about that. I appreciate it, of course, but you know, I don't see any reason for me to go with my lawyer at hand to the sergeant at arms en route to whatever detention center they're going to plop me into. I mean, there's nothing you can do. And if I go with a lawyer, somehow, it seems to me, there's an aroma of guilty-not guilty, and I'm not eager to pitch my problem to the press in those terms. Do you see what I mean?”

Bob Lounsbury was silent for a while. And then said, “I understand. You make your own way. If you need me, I'll be there in a flash.”

“Yes, Bob. I appreciate that. But don't be in such a hurry you forget to put on your clothes.”

“Fuck you, Blackford.”

“Thank you, Bob. I'm doing my best.”

Blackford hung up and went then to Sally in her own study. She was waiting for him.

He caught her up. And requested that they drop the subject for the rest of the evening.

“All right, darling.” She played with her pearls after they sat down, and Blackford remembered when he had first seen her do this, the night before she had to defend her dissertation at Yale. He could never imagine her without her pearls. But then he couldn't imagine anything without Sally.

CHAPTER 9

SEPTEMBER 1985

Nikolai took the metro, got off at Kievskaya, and set out on foot to number 2 Kutuzovsky Prospekt. He wondered idly if anywhere in the entire world there was a larger apartment building. Certainly there could not anywhere exist a building of this size in which more apartments were crammed. To get to the single room he shared with Andrei Belinkov he needed to go through the main archway and across the large courtyard, often bulging with old furniture and bags, lamps and mattresses and ancient trunks—people from number 2 Kutuzovsky moving out, others moving in. To reach his entrance he needed to walk across the courtyard at an angle of five degrees. He would climb six flights of stairs to apartment 6K. Yes, there was an elevator designed to serve his apartment section and the adjacent section, but it hadn't worked during the two months Nikolai had lived at number 2 Kutuzovsky.

A few minutes later Andrei said to him, huffing from the six flights up which he lugged the week's provisions, which included three bottles of his precious vodka, “Nikolai, you goat, it suddenly occurs to me that you are
an electrical engineer
. So, you were not able to find a job in Moscow as an electrical engineer, and you do not wish to move from Moscow. I understand that. I know the reasons for that. What I do not understand is why you do not practice your profession
right here at number 2
, and fix that accursed elevator.”

Nikolai helped Andrei store the rations. “I did go down and have a look, four, five weeks ago. The generator is dead. I asked the superintendent when the new generator would come in.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Comrade, maybe before Christmas. But if you wish to quit your apartment, I know someone who would be happy to take it off your hands, and pay you a nice bonus in addition.'”

Andrei sprawled his large frame on the couch opposite the single bed. “Yes,” he muttered. “Incredible as it may seem, there are people who envy our palazzo. Is that the right word for it in Italian? The fancy word for palace?”

“That is the word you are searching for, Andrei. But listen. I have something very important to read to you. But let's wait until after supper.”

It was Nikolai's day to cook. He fiddled with the electric hotplate and began to boil water. “We can have one of our eggs, hard-boiled, with your vodka and my tea. And
my sugar
”—he reached up into the cupboard and picked out two cubes of sugar. He drew water from the same basin in which they washed dishes, brushed their teeth, drew water to sponge their bodies, and urinated. The single toilet and shower room for their floor was at the end of the hallway, shared by the twelve occupants of that landing. The pot in place on the electric hotplate, Nikolai sat down in the upright chair, waiting for the water to boil. “Yes, Andrei, we are lucky.”

“
I
am lucky.
You
were given the apartment as a disabled veteran with the proviso that it had to be shared. And you share it with me. I will toast to you, Nikolai.” Andrei lifted his glass of vodka and breathed a grateful sigh. “Ah, Nikolai, this fucking country.”

Nikolai turned on him. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Andrei! You have violated a covenant between us.
Never never never ever criticize anything relating to the government
!” The other part of his reprimand went unspoken but was clearly understood: You could jeopardize our mission.

Andrei had recognized the violation even as he blurted out the word. He was genuinely contrite. He had made the pact with Nikolai on that frozen night at the military base outside Kandahãr after Nikolai spoke out his intentions. Andrei had no inclination to deviate from his commitment, but he had made it, he knew, without fully understanding its solemnity and the derivative self-disciplinary requirements.

“I'm sorry, Nikolai”—he reduced his own voice to a whisper, casting a ritual gaze about him as if he could sweep the room of imaginary KGB listening devices with the penetrating force of his eyes.

It was unlikely that the KGB would bug the one-room apartment of two discharged veterans, one of them occupied as a teacher, the second as a physical education instructor in the Moscow Police Academy. It was the principle of the thing. Besides, one could never
absolutely
know that there were no listening devices about. You cannot take anything for granted, he reflected. Meanwhile, Andrei was thinking to himself: There is in fact
no human being
in Russia I absolutely trust, other than Nikolai. My parents are dead, my only brother is an ardent party functionary in Sverdlovsk, and I certainly do not trust Nina. I love her, especially to sleep with, but I know very well that if some porky commissar came about and offered to get her a better apartment, she'd migrate there and then.

Yes—he looked up at Nikolai, who was now lifting the egg from the pot—yes, he is the only one I absolutely trust.