Kaparov nodded emphatically. “The ultimate triumph of disinformation, my friend,” he replied. “We fooled the Americans and their U-2s. Fooled them into thinking they had forced the Soviet might to withdraw and promise to never do such naughty things again.”
“And,” Deschin chimed in, “that act of contrition kicked off a plan that has gone like clockwork.”
“In other words, that proval the Americans called the Cuban missile crisis was actually a victory?” Pykonen asked, almost afraid to say it.
“Indeed, the celebration rocked the walls of the Kremlin for days,” Kaparov replied devilishly. “Of course, no one outside heard the cheering, and few inside. Premier Khrushchev confided only in those involved directly with its implementation. To this day, many Politburo members and military leaders have never been briefed.”
Pykonen shook his head as if clearing it, and took a moment to collect his thoughts.
The hiss of the dialysis machine filled the silence.
“But what about Penkovskiy?” he finally asked, referring to Colonel Oleg Penkovskiy, the high-ranking Soviet officer inside the Kremlin who was spying for the West at the time. “He kept Washington informed of our every move. The Americans knew everything. How could they not know it was a deception?”
A look flicked between Kaparov and Deschin.
“True, my friend. Penkovskiy told them everything,” Kaparov replied with feigned solemnity, before adding, “everything Premier Khrushchev wanted them to know.”
“He was part of it?” Pykonen asked, awestruck.
“The best part,” the Premier said, adding with a facetious smile, “Imagine how shocked we were when we found out what that nasty traitor had been up to?”
“But Penkovskiy was shot,” Pykonen protested.
“There’s an elderly gentleman living quite comfortably in a dacha in Zhukovka who would find it very hard to agree,” Kaparov replied puckishly.
Pykonen’s jaw dropped. “I had no idea,” he said, feeling left out. “This plan — it’s nearing completion now?”
“Yes, Mikhasha,” the Premier replied, with paternal fondness. “And you are the key to it.”
“Incredible,” Pykonen muttered.
“More so than you think,” Deschin said. “We now have what the world believes the U-2s forever denied us.”
The bushy upswept ends of Pykonen’s brows twitched as if electrified. “We have a missile base in the Western Hemisphere?” he asked in an amazed whisper.
Deschin nodded slowly. “Far superior to Cuba. Similar strategic advantages of course; but, as you might imagine, much more impervious to detection.”
“An astounding scheme,” Pykonen said.
“Indeed. We had spirit in the KGB in those days, Mikhail,” Kaparov said, laughing at a recollection. “We nicknamed the project—MEDZHECH.”
Pykonen looked at him puzzled. “An acronym?”
“Precisely,” the Premier said. “A combination of MEDLYENNIY and ABZHECH.”
“Ah,” Pykonen said, pausing appreciatively at the implication. “A very SLOW BURN, indeed. Slow and most painful to the Americans,” he went on, realizing that now he could negotiate for virtual elimination of American and Soviet nuclear arsenals, and still retain a first strike capability which no one knew existed.
“Indeed,” Kaparov said. “You see, the defections we’ve nurtured, the codes we’ve broken, the double agents we’ve compromised over the years — they were all merely inconveniences that forced the Americans to work harder. This—this, once strategically revealed, will force them to make concessions. We’ll be able to lean on them, the way they think they leaned on us in Cuba.” Kaparov raised his brows speculatively, then swiveled to the green telephone and pushed a button.
A woman doctor with bunned hair, a white lab smock over her dress, immediately entered the office and crossed to the Premier.
“Is there a problem?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes,” Kaparov replied. He gestured impatiently to the tubes coming from the shunt in his forearm.
“Untie me from this hissing leech.”
The doctor frowned admonishingly. She stepped to the dialysis machine and studied the gauges, checking the levels of blood gasses and toxins, then silenced the air-driven pumps. She took Kaparov’s arm and quickly disconnected the red-stained cannulas from the shunt, wiped the connectors clean, and tucked the plastic loop into the opening in his sleeve.
The Premier stood and stretched his atrophied muscles. Then, leaning on Pykonen and Deschin for support, he directed them to a window that overlooked Red Square and Lenin’s mausoleum directly below.
“The Kremlin Wall will soon have another resident, my friends,” Kaparov said.
Pykonen’s eyes protested.
“Within three months, I’m told,” the Premier went on. “But when that day comes, because of SLOW BURN I will rest in peace. Come, Mikhail, we’ll show you the details. I know you’ll appreciate the sheer ingenuity of this installation.”
They turned from the window and left the office.
The heavy doors closed slowly, as if exhausted by the centuries of turbulent history. The halves of the latch came together with a metallic clang that echoed in the domed space.
The life-prolonging dialysis machine waited silently to resume its futile task. The label on the stainless steel fascia read, “Churchco Medical Products.”
Chapter Three
The men with whom Theodor Churcher did business had names like Boone, Clint, Ross, Bunker, and Tex. And some, despite lengthy separation from public office, were still called congressman, governor, or senator.
The talk was always of oil, natural gas, ranching, real estate, communications, space exploration, and defense, of mergers and takeovers — of investing. Not in dollars, but in what they called units.
In most parts of the country, talk of units conjured up images of real estate deals. In Houston, ever since Churcher coined it some three decades ago, a unit was a measure of wealth. At the time, Churcher wanted a clever phrase to symbolize what he had accumulated and indicate his intention to acquire more. Having estimated his holdings to be worth one hundred million dollars, he promptly declared he had — one unit. At last count, he had well over ten.
The incident with the Van Gogh that morning, not the growth of his billion-dollar empire, had been foremost on his mind, distracting him all that day and into the early evening.
Now, he restlessly prowled his suite of offices atop the sixty-five-story Churchco Tower, evaluating countermoves. He went to the arched window that framed the shimmering Mexican Gulf thirty miles to the south, and gazed at the lights of the drilling platforms twinkling on the horizon.
Those sons-a-bitches! he thought. Then, realizing he was alone, the last to leave, as always, he shouted, “Those dirty sons-a-bitches!”
He turned from the vista and crossed the black carpet to an immense slab of glass which seemed to float in the center of the room.
There, on the neatly ordered desk lay the leather portfolio, and next to it, taunting him, the Van Gogh.
Churcher returned “Dr. Felix Rey’s” penetrating glare for a long moment before two quick thrusts of his forefinger turned on his speakerphone and initiated an automatic dialing sequence.
The East Coast was in the frigid grasp of the worst winter in over half a century. Week after week, the nation’s capital had been battered by blizzards, freezing rain, and subzero temperatures.