“I’m returning to Geneva tonight,” Borsa went on. “But I plan to be in Rome next week to host the benefit auction for World Peace, as I do every year. And I am in need of some breeding stock from Tersk. Would it be possible for us to meet, then?”
“Absolutely. At your convenience.”
“Good. Tuesday, around noon. Come to my private box in the amphitheater,” he said. “Perhaps I will sell you a horse. It is a most worthy cause.”
Andrew made a few more calls, then he started feeling light-headed and realized that he was somewhere over the Atlantic when he’d last eaten. He was reaching for the phone to call room service when he decided he couldn’t spend another minute in the suite. Earlier, he had promised Fausto that he would let him know if he was going out, but Andrew wanted to be alone; he wanted to walk, and get some fresh air, and think about the woman he’d be meeting; the woman who had made the bold claim—“He was murdered. I know why.”
Andrew grabbed his jacket, and an apple from the bowl on the credenza, and left.
Valery Gorodin was in the bar off to one side of the Hassler’s ornate lobby. A copy of Le Monde, the French evening newspaper, was spread out on the table in front of him. Indeed, it was as M. Coudray that he lifted a glass containing the dregs of a Campari and soda, and rattled the ice cubes at a passing waiter.
“Garcon?” Gorodin called out. “Garcon, en outre, s’il vous—” he paused, feigning he was correcting himself, and said, “Encora. Encora per favore.”
Hours ago, too many hours ago Gorodin thought, he had settled at this table along the glass wall from where he could monitor the bank of elevators. In his enthusiastic return to field work, he had conveniently forgotten about the waiting, the boredom, the effort to remain alert while trying to appear disinterested and casual, that are often part of it. His right calf had fallen asleep. He had reached under the table and was massaging it when he spotted Andrew coming across the lobby from the elevator.
Andrew plucked a street map from the concierge’s desk, and headed toward the doors that led to the street.
Gorodin almost cheered at the sight of him. He casually folded his paper, tossed some lire on the table, and limped out of the bar into the lobby.
Andrew came out of the hotel onto Via Sistina, studying the map; then crossed the street and started down the Spanish Steps, heading for the area of knotted streets around Fontana di Trevi. The city was alive with vehicles and pedestrians, and the crisp twilight of the cold night raised his spirits. He jammed his hands in his pockets and quickened his step.
Gorodin gauged Andrew’s direction from within the lobby. Then he exited, crossed to the top of the broad staircase, and watched him descend. His calf was still all pins and needles. He shook his leg in an effort to restore the circulation, and waited until Andrew had reached the piazza below before starting down himself.
About a half mile away, a battered Fiat was parked adjacent to the high stucco wall that parallels Via Ludovisi, opposite the Hotel Eden. Kovlek sat in the darkness, next to a KGB driver, patiently watching the windows of a second floor room. Occasionally, a shadow could be seen moving across the sheer curtains. In less than an hour, Raina Maiskaya would leave the hotel for her meeting with Andrew Churcher.
Chapter Twenty-seven
That afternoon in Geneva, Switzerland, Philip Keating and Gisela Pomerantz sat opposite each other at a long table beneath a canopy of chandeliers in the United Nations Palace. The disarmament negotiators were meeting for their first bargaining session.
Mikhail Pykonen, the wiley Soviet, held up a copy of the book by former U.S. Negotiator Arthur Nicholson — published after Boulton eased CIA censorship — entitled THE KEY QUESTION. On the cover was a photo of a hand inserting a launch key in the arming mechanism of a Minuteman Missile.
Keating sighed, anticipating a windy tirade on how past negotiators distorted Soviet positions.
“A most powerful work by Mr. Nicholson,” Pykonen began. “And to open these proceedings, I would like to read a scenario he has hypothesized, one which may well be prophetic should these talks fail.”
Pykonen paused dramatically, opening the book.
“Mr. Nicholson writes—‘The precept of mutual deterrence should be held inviolable. The unchecked deployment of advanced first-strike weapons will undermine this cardinal rule, and breed preemptive strategies. Within this “do it to them before they do it to us” mentality lurks the ultimate nuclear threat. And one day, a Russian or an American military strategist will be forced to make such a recommendation—because of the technologies thrust upon him.’ Then Mr. Nicholson goes on to ask the key question—‘Are leaders in Moscow and Washington willing to recognize this threat and defuse it?’”
Pykonen swept his eyes over the group. “Yes!” he said fervently. “Those in Moscow are. Those in Moscow will.”
The delegates around the table broke into applause.
“And they now propose,” Pykonen went on, “an immediate bilateral freeze, during which deployed systems will be verified on-site, those in development divulged, followed by elimination of first-strike weaponry and deployment of bilateral strategic defense systems.”
This elicited another round of applause — which Phil Keating hoped would be lengthy. He needed time to think. Despite the dying Soviet Premier’s obsession, Keating hadn’t expected his negotiator to discard the standard hard-line attitude so early on. And Keating had prepared remarks to counter it. Now, he had to abandon them, and make an extemporaneous reply. He had recently seen a PBS production of Chekov’s The Three Sisters, and as the faces around the table turned to him, Keating’s mind leapt to the Soviet dramatist.
“Minister Pykonen has most generously quoted an American author,” Keating began. “I would like to quote one from his country, in turn. Though not a disarmament expert, Anton Chekov unknowingly outlined the crux of our task in a letter to his friend A. S. Souvorin when he said—‘Remember, a gun on the wall in the first act is sure to fire in the third.’”
Keating paused, catching a look from Pomerantz, who was thinking, Chekov? Bleak, pessimistic, futile Chekov?
“We are well into the first act,” Keating resumed. “And there is not one, but thirty thousand guns on the wall — thirty thousand nuclear warheads between the two superpowers alone.”
Pomerantz brightened, thinking, not bad.
“And each carries almost ten times the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima,” Keating went on, building to his finish. “Unlike Chekov, our job is to structure an imperfect drama; to make certain that neither his precept nor Mr. Nicholson’s scenario become part of it. Our job is to make certain that not one of those thirty thousand guns ever fires.”
When the ensuing applause subsided, Keating added, “And in light of Minister Pykonen’s remarks, I have no doubt we can do just that.”
The sun had gone down, and a thin wash of purple light reflected from the winter sky when the DCI’s armored limousine pulled up to the south portico of the White House. The results of an intensive DDI analysis of the data transmitted earlier that day from ASW were contained in Boulton’s briefcase, and in a slide projector carried by an aide. The two men stepped from the limousine to an entrance that gave them direct access to the Oval Office.
The President was on the phone with Keating in Geneva. When he hung up, he tilted back in his chair and leveled an apprehensive look at his DCI.