the two faces of the double clock in the shiny, domed case looked out across the chess-board like the eyes of some huge sea monster that had peered over the edge of the table to watch the game.
the two faces of the chess clock showed different times. kronsteen's showed twenty minutes to one. the long red pendulum that ticked off the seconds was moving in its staccato sweep across the bottom half of his clock's face, while the enemy clock was silent and its pendulum motionless down the face. but makharov's clock said five minutes to one. he had wasted time in the middle of the game and he now had only five minutes to go. he was in bad `time-trouble' and unless kronsteen made some lunatic mistake, which was unthinkable, he was beaten.
kronsteen sat motionless and erect, as malevolently inscrutable as a parrot. his elbows were on the table and his big head rested on clenched fists that pressed into his cheeks, squashing the pursed lips into a pout of hauteur and disdain. under the wide, bulging brow the rather slanting black eyes looked down with deadly calm on his winning board. but, behind the mask, the blood was throbbing in the dynamo of his brain, and a thick worm-like vein in his right temple pulsed at a beat of over ninety. he had sweated away a pound of weight in the last two hours and ten minutes, and the spectre of a false move still had one hand at his throat. but to makharov, and to the spectators, he was still `the wizard of ice' whose game had been compared to a man eating fish. first he stripped off the skin, then he picked out the bones, then he ate the fish. kronsteen had been champion of moscow two years running, was now in the final for the third time and, if he won this game, would be a contender for grand mastership.
in the pool of silence round the roped-off top table there was no sound except the loud tripping feet of kronsteen's clock. the two umpires sat motionless in their raised chairs. they knew, as did makharov, that this was certainly the kill. kronsteen had introduced a brilliant twist into the meran variation of the queen's gambit declined. makharov had kept up with him until the 28th move. he had lost time on that move. perhaps he had made a mistake there, and perhaps again on the 31st and 33rd moves. who could say? it would be a game to be debated all over russia for weeks to come.
there came a sigh from the crowded tiers opposite the championship game. kronsteen had slowly removed the right hand from his cheek and had stretched it across the board. like the pincers of a pink crab, his thumb and forefinger had opened, then they had descended. the hand, holding a piece, moved up and sideways and down. then the hand was slowly brought back to the face.
the spectators buzzed and whispered as they saw, on the great wall map, the 41st move duplicated with a shift of one of the three-foot placards. r-kt8. that must be the kill!
kronsteen reached deliberately over and pressed down the lever at the bottom of his clock. his red pendulum went dead. his clock showed a quarter to one. at the same instant, makharov's pendulum came to life and started its loud, inexorable beat.
kronsteen sat back. he placed his hands flat on the table and looked coldly across at the glistening, lowered face of the man whose guts he knew, for he too had suffered defeat in his time, would be writhing in agony like an eel pierced with a spear. makharov, champion of georgia. well, tomorrow comrade makharov could go back to georgia and stay there. at any rate this year he would not be moving with his family up to moscow.
a man in plain clothes slipped under the ropes and whispered to one of the umpires. he handed him a white envelope. the umpire shook his head, pointing at makharov's clock, which now said three minutes to one. the main in plain clothes whispered one short sentence which made the umpire sullenly bow his head. he pinged a handbell.
`there is an urgent personal message for comrade kronsteen', he announced into the microphone. `there will be a three minutes' pause.'
a mutter went round the hall. even though makharov now courteously raised his eyes from the board and sat immobile, gazing up into the recesses of the high, vaulted ceiling, the spectators knew that the position of the game was engraved on his brain. a three minutes' pause simply meant three extra minutes for makharov.
kronsteen felt the same stab of annoyance, but his face was expressionless as the umpire stepped down from his chair and handed him a plain, unaddressed envelope. kronsteen ripped it open with his thumb and extracted the anonymous sheet of paper. it said, in the large typewritten characters he knew so well, `you are required this instant'. no signature and no address.
kronsteen folded the paper and carefully placed it in his inside breast pocket. later it would be recovered from him and destroyed. he looked up at the face of the plain-clothes man standing beside the umpire. the eyes were watching him impatiently, commandingly. to hell with these people, thought kronsteen. he would not resign with only three minutes to go. it was unthinkable. it was an insult to the people's sport. but, as he made a gesture to the umpire that the game could continue, he trembled inside, and he avoided the eyes of the plain-clothes man who remained standing, in coiled immobility, inside the ropes.
the bell pinged. `the game proceeds.'
makharov slowly bent down his head. the hand of his clock slipped past the hour and he was still alive.
kronsteen continued to tremble inside. what he had done was unheard of in an employee of smersh, or of any other state agency. he would certainly be reported. gross disobedience. dereliction of duty. what might be the consequences? at the best a tongue-lashing from general g., and a black mark on his zapiska. at the worst? kronsteen couldn't imagine. he didn't like to think. whatever happened, the sweets of victory had turned bitter in his mouth.
but now it was the end. with five seconds to go on his clock, makharov raised his whipped eyes no higher than the pouting lips of his opponent and bent his head in the brief, formal bow of surrender. at the double ping of the umpire's bell, the crowded hall rose to its feet with a thunder of applause.
kronsteen stood up and bowed to his opponent, to the umpires, and finally, deeply, to the spectators. then, with the plain-clothes man in his wake, he ducked under the ropes and fought his way coldly and rudely through the mass of his clamouring admirers towards the main exit.
outside the tournament hall, in the middle of the wide pushkin ulitza, with its engine running, stood the usual anonymous black zik saloon, kronsteen climbed into the back and shut the door. as the plain-clothes man jumped on to the running-board and squeezed into the front seat, the driver crashed his gears and the car tore off down the street.
kronsteen knew it would be a waste of breath to apologize to the plain-clothes guard. it would also be contrary to discipline. after all, he was head of the planning department of smersh, with the honorary rank of full colonel. and his brain was worth diamonds to the organization. perhaps he could argue his way out of the mess. he gazed out of the window at the dark streets, already wet with the work of the night cleaning squad, and bent his mind to his defence. then there came a straight street at the end of which the moon rode fast between the onion spires of the kremlin, and they were there.
when the guard handed kronsteen over to the a.d.c., he also handed the a.d.c. a slip of paper. the a.d.c. glanced at it and looked coldly up at kronsteen with half-raised eyebrows. kronsteen looked calmly back without saying anything. the a.d.c. shrugged his shoulders and picked up the office telephone and announced him.
when they went into the big room and kronsteen had been waved to a chair and had nodded acknowledgment of the brief pursed smile of colonel klebb, the a.d.c. went up to general g. and handed him the piece of paper. the general read it and looked hard across at kronsteen. while the a.d.c. walked to the door and went out, the general went on looking at kronsteen. when the door was shut, general g. opened his mouth and said softly, `well, comrade?'
kronsteen was calm. he knew the story that would appeal. he spoke quietly and with authority. `to the public, comrade general, i am a professional chess player. tonight i became champion of moscow for the third year in succession. if, with only three minutes to go, i had received a message that my wife was being murdered outside the door of the tournament hall, i would not have raised a finger to save her. my public know that. they are as dedicated to the game as myself. tonight, if i had resigned the game and had come immediately on receipt of that message, five thousand people would have known that it could only be on the orders of such a department as this. there would have been a storm of gossip. my future goings and comings would have been watched for clues. it would have been the end of my cover. in the interests of state security, i waited three minutes before obeying the order. even so, my hurried departure will be the subject of much comment. i shall have to say that one of my children is gravely ill. i shall have to put a child into hospital for a week to support the story. i deeply apologize for the delay in carrying out the order. but the decision was a difficult one. i did what i thought best in the interests of the department.'
general g. looked thoughtfully into the dark slanting eyes. the man was guilty, but the defence was good. he read the paper again as if weighing up the size of the offence, then he took out his lighter and burned it. he dropped the last burning corner on to the glass top of his desk and blew the ashes sideways on to the floor. he said nothing to reveal his thoughts, but the burning of the evidence was all that mattered to kronsteen. now nothing could go on his zapiska. he was deeply relieved and grateful. he would bend all his ingenuity to the matter on hand. the general had performed an act of great clemency. kronsteen would repay him with the full coin of his mind.
`pass over the photographs, comrade colonel,' said general g., as if the brief court-martial had not occurred. `the matter is as follows. . . .'
so it is another death, thought kronsteen, as the general talked and he examined the dark ruthless face that gazed levelly at him from the blown-up passport photograph. while kronsteen listened with half his mind to what the general was saying, he picked out the salient facts-english spy. great scandal desired. no soviet involvement. expert killer. weakness for women (therefore not homosexual, thought kronsteen). drinks (but nothing is said about drugs). unbribable (who knows? there is a price for every man). no expense would be spared. all equipment and personnel available from all intelligence departments. success to be achieved within three months. broad ideas required now. details to be worked out later.
general g. fastened his sharp eyes on colonel klebb. `what are your immediate reactions, comrade colonel?'
the square-cut rimless glass of the spectacles flashed in the light of the chandelier as the woman straightened from her position of bowed concentration and looked across the desk at the general. the pale moist lips below the sheen of nicotine-stained fur over the mouth parted and started moving rapidly up and down as the woman gave her views. to kronsteen, watching the face across the table, the square, expressionless opening and shutting of the lips reminded him of the boxlike jabber of a puppet.
the voice was hoarse and flat and without emotion, `. . . resembles in some respects the case of stolzenberg. if you remember, comrade general, this also was a matter of destroying a reputation as well as a life. on that occasion the matter was simple. the spy was also a pervert. if you recall...'
kronsteen stopped listening. he knew all these cases. he had handled the planning of most of them and they were filed away in his memory like so many chess gambits. instead, with closed ears, he examined the face of this dreadful woman and wondered casually how much longer she would last in her job-how much longer he would have to work with her.
dreadful? kronsteen was not interested in human beings-not even in his own children. nor did the categories of `good' and `bad' have a place in his vocabulary. to him all people were chess pieces. he was only interested in their reactions to the movements of other pieces. to foretell their reactions, which was the greater part of his job, one had to understand their individual characteristics. their basic instincts were immutable. self-preservation, sex and the instinct of the herd-in that order. their temperaments could be sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric or melancholic. the temperament of an individual would largely decide the comparative strength of his emotions and his sentiments. character would greatly depend on upbringing and, whatever pavlov and the behaviourists might say, to a certain extent on the character of the parents. and, of course, people's lives and behaviour would be partly conditioned by physical strengths and weaknesses.
it was with these basic classifications at the back of his mind that kronsteen's cold brain considered the woman across the table. it was the hundredth time he had summed her up, but now they had weeks of joint work in front of them and it was as well to refresh the memory so that a sudden intrusion of the human element in their partnership should not come as a surprise.
of course rosa klebb had a strong will to survive, or she would not have become one of the most powerful women in the state, and certainly the most feared. her rise, kronsteen remembered, had begun with the spanish civil war. then, as a double agent inside p.o.u.m.-that is, working for the o.g.p.u. in moscow as well as for communist intelligence in spain-she had been the right hand, and some sort of a mistress, they said, of her chief, the famous andreas nin. she had worked with him from 1935 to 1937. then, on the orders of moscow, he was murdered and, it was rumoured, murdered by her. whether this was true or not, from then on she had progressed slowly but straight up the ladder of power, surviving setbacks, surviving wars, surviving, because she forged no allegiances and joined no factions, all the purges, until, in 1953, with the death of beria, the bloodstained hands grasped the rung, so few from the very top, that was head of the operations department of smersh.
and, reflected kronsteen, much of her success was due to the peculiar nature of her next most important instinct, the sex instinct. for rosa klebb undoubtedly belonged to the rarest of all sexual types. she was a neuter.
kronsteen was certain of it. the stories of men and, yes, of women, were too circumstantial to be doubted. she might enjoy the act physically, but the instrument was of no importance. for her, sex was nothing more than an itch. and this psychological and physiological neutrality of hers at once relieved her of so many human emotions and sentiments and desires. sexual neutrality was the essence of coldness in an individual. it was a great and wonderful thing to be born with.
in her, the herd instinct would also be dead. her urge for power demanded that she should be a wolf and not a sheep. she was a lone operator, but never a lonely one, because the warmth of company was unnecessary to her. and, of course, temperamentally, she would be a phlegmatic-imperturbable, tolerant of pain, sluggish. laziness would be her besetting vice, thought kronsteen. she would be difficult to get out of her warm, hoggish bed in the morning. her private habits would be slovenly, even dirty. it would not be pleasant, thought kronsteen, to look into the intimate side of her life, when she relaxed, out of uniform. kronsteen's pouting lips curled away from the thought and his mind hastened on, skipping her character, which was certainly cunning and strong, to her appearance.
rosa klebb would be in her late forties, he assumed, placing her by the date of the spanish war. she was short, about five foot four, and squat, and her dumpy arms and short neck, and the calves of the thick legs in the drab khaki stockings, were very strong for a woman. the devil knows, thought kronsteen, what her breasts were like, but the bulge of uniform that rested on the table-top looked like a badly packed sandbag, and in general her figure, with its big pear-shaped hips, could only be likened to a 'cello.
the tricoteuses of the french revolution must have had faces like hers, decided kronsteen, sitting back in his chair and tilting his head slightly to one side. the thinning orange hair scraped back to the tight, obscene bun; the shiny yellow-brown eyes that stared so coldly at general g. through the sharp-edged squares of glass, the wedge of thickly powdered, large-pored nose; the wet trap of a mouth, that went on opening and shutting as if it was operated by wires under the chin. those french women, as they sat and knitted and chatted while the guillotine clanged down, must have had the same pale, thick chicken's skin that scragged in little folds under the eyes and at the corners of the mouth and below the jaws, the same big peasant's ears, the same tight, hard dimpled fists, like knobkerries, that, in the case of the russian woman, now lay tightly clenched on the red velvet table-top on either side of the big bundle of bosom. and their faces must have conveyed the same impression, concluded kronsteen, of coldness and cruelty and strength as this, yes, he had to allow himself the emotive word, dreadful woman of smersh.
`thank you, comrade colonel. your review of the position is of value. and now, comrade kronsteen, have you anything to add? please be short. it is two o'clock and we all have a heavy day before us.' general g.'s eyes, bloodshot with strain and lack of sleep, stared fixedly across the desk into the fathomless brown pools below the bulging forehead. there had been no need to tell this man to be brief. kronsteen never had much to say, but each of his words was worth speeches from the rest of the staff.
kronsteen had already made up his mind, or he would not have allowed his thoughts to concentrate for so long on the woman.
he slowly tilted back his head and gazed into the nothingness of the ceiling. his voice was extremely mild, but it had the authority that commands close attention.
`comrade general, it was a frenchman, in some respects a predecessor of yours, fouché, who observed that it is no good killing a man unless you also destroy his reputation. it will, of course, be easy to kill this man bond. any paid bulgarian assassin would do it, if properly instructed. the second part of the operation, the destruction of this man's character, is more important and more difficult. at this stage it is only clear to me that the deed must be done away from england, and in a country over whose press and radio we have influence. if you ask me how the man is to be got there, i can only say that if the bait is important enough, and its capture is open to this man alone, he will be sent to seize it from wherever he may happen to be. to avoid the appearance of a trap, i would consider giving the bait a touch of eccentricity, of the unusual. the english pride themselves on their eccentricity. they treat the eccentric proposition as a challenge. i would rely partly on this reading of their psychology to have them send this important operator after the bait.'
kronsteen paused. he lowered his head so that he was looking just over general g.'s shoulder.
`i shall proceed to devise such a trap,' he said indifferently. `for the present, i can only say that if the bait is successful in attracting its prey, we are then likely to require an assassin with a perfect command of the english language.'
kronsteen's eyes moved to the red velvet table-top in front of him. thoughtfully, as if this was the kernel of the problem, he added: `we shall also require a reliable and extremely beautiful girl.'
