Grandmaster Read Online Free Page B

Riesling.
    Corfus's immediate predecessor had died a suicide, hanged in his home. It was the sort of "suicide" the KGB specialized in for annoying diplomatic personnel. Corfus welcomed the risk. He was fluent in Russian, was as tough as a commando, hated the Communists, and Starcher trusted him.
    "I don't understand the message," Corfus said honestly.
    "It's very simple," Starcher said. "Riesling left a message at one of our drops in Leningrad. He's got a lead on two big Russians who want to defect, and he's on his way here to set it up. Saarinen brought him in."
    "Who's Saarinen?"
    "Some degenerate Finnish fishing captain whom Riesling always uses. But the message says that Riesling's got some big news for me."
    "Hold on," Corfus said. "Two defectors. What two defectors?"
    "I don't know. I queried Helsinki, but they didn't even know Riesling took off on this run. He went without authorization."
    "Great," Corfus said sarcastically. "He's got big news for you. What news? Did he say?"
    Starcher shook his head. "I think this is going to be the last run for Riesling. He's losing his judgment."
    He reached for one of the thick Havana cigars he kept on his desk, debated whether or not to heed his doctor's orders, and the doctor lost. He bit the end off the cigar, spitting it out with guilty satisfaction.
    Corfus said, "I don't know how the hell he got through the Finnish border. The KGB is crawling up there."
    "That's what I'm afraid of," Starcher said. "Maybe he picked up a tail and knows about it. Maybe that's why he left this message so vague, just in case it got into the wrong hands."
    "So we wait?" Corfus said.
    "We wait," Starcher said as he lit the long black cigar.
    As Corfus sprawled on the leather banquette alongside the large desk, he said, "I don't understand about Finland anyway. Why did the Russkies pack the border? They own Finland."
    "They own Cuba, too," Starcher said, "and they're sending people in there, too." He blew out a thin stream of white smoke. Cuba was what he didn't understand. Finland was a perennial escape route for Russian defectors. The KGB could always make a case for beefing up personnel there, particularly with a new premier to impress.
    But Cuba? Cuba was totally in Russia's pocket. Yet the island had been getting a slow buildup of KGB agents and troops, and despite Fidel Castro's loud complaints, the new men were neither withdrawn nor explained.
    "There's no pattern," Corfus said. "That's what's confusing."
    "Oh, there's a pattern," Starcher said. "There's always a pattern. Nichevo." He sighed. It was the only explanation, and it frightened him.
    "Nichevo?" Corfus smiled, surprised. "It means 'nothing. Who cares?' It means a lot of things."
    "I know. A joke of Joseph Stalin's," Starcher said. He walked over to the window and looked down at the snow-covered street. Beneath a street lamp stood a man, shivering in the cold, surrounded by new snow. He had not moved from his spot in hours.
    Starcher laughed bitterly. "Another hero of the cold war," he said, staring at the little man below. But he felt the same twinge of envy he had felt every day since he had been posted in Moscow, consigned to stare out at the world beyond the goldfish bowl that was the embassy.
    Starcher missed the field work. He had left his aristocratic southern roots to do battle in three bloody wars and every filthy secret skirmish in between. This world, peopled with misfits—from the shivering little man on the pavement below to the secret masters who pulled the invisible strings that set earthshaking events in motion—this was the world he had chosen to live in, to die in. He had never married, never spawned the offspring from his family's ancient and promising gene pool. Because the work came first. Not the Company—the work.
    It was a perversion, he supposed, as sick and senseless as the urge to molest small children. To be in love with secrecy, to relish fear, was more than simple patriotism. A man of