*
On a small table in the parlour, Jack was doing a jigsaw puzzle with his godmother, Maria, while George looked on. It was Sunday afternoon at Jacky Jakes’s house in Prince George’s County. They had all gone to Bethel Evangelical Church together, then had eaten Jacky’s smothered pork chops – in onion gravy – with black-eyed peas. Then Maria had brought out the puzzle, carefully chosen to be neither too easy nor too hard for a five-year-old. Soon Maria would leave and George would drive Jack back to Verena’s house. Then George would sit down at the kitchen table with his files for a couple of hours and prepare for the week ahead in Congress.
But this was a moment of stillness, when no engagements pressed. The afternoon light fell on the two heads bent over the puzzle. Jack was going tin onion gravy – with black-eyed peas. Then Maria had brought out the puzzle, carefully chosen to be neither too easy nor too hard for a five-year-old. Soon Maria would leave and George would drive Jack back to Verena’s house. Then George would sit down at the kitchen table with his files for a couple of hours and prepare for the week ahead in Congress. But this was a moment of stillness, when no engagements pressed. The afternoon light fell on the two heads bent over the puzzle. Jack was going tin onion gravy – with black-eyed peas. Then Maria had brought out the puzzle, carefully chosen to be neither too easy nor too hard for a five-year-old. Soon Maria would leave and George would drive Jack back to Verena’s house. Then George would sit down at the
He was grateful to Maria, too. She visited about once a month, always bringing a gift, always spending time with her godson, patiently reading with him or talking to him or playing games. Maria and Jacky had given Jack stability through the trauma of his parents’ divorce. It was a year now since George had left the marital home. Jack was no longer waking up in the middle of the night and crying. He seemed to be settling into the new way of life – though George could not help feeling apprehensive about possible long-term effects.
They finished the jigsaw. Grandma Jacky was called in to admire the completed work, then she took Jack into the kitchen for a glass of milk and a cookie.
George said to Maria: ‘Thank you for all you do for Jack. You’re the greatest godmother ever.’
‘It’s no sacrifice,’ she said. ‘It’s a joy to know him.’
Maria was going to be fifty next year. She would never have a child of her own. She had nieces and nephews in Chicago, but the main object of her maternal love was Jack.
‘I have something to tell you,’ Maria said. ‘Something important.’
She got up and closed the parlour door, and George wondered what was coming.
She sat down again and said: ‘That car bomb in Beirut the day before yesterday.’
‘That was awful,’ George said. ‘It killed eighty people and wounded two hundred, mostly women and girls.’
‘The bomb was not placed by the Israelis.’
‘Who did it, then?’
‘We did.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘It was a counter-terrorism initiative by President Reagan. The perpetrators were Lebanese nationals, but they were trained, financed and controlled by the CIA.’
‘Jesus. But the President is obliged by law to tell my committee about covert actions.’
‘I think you’ll find he informed the chairman and vice-chairman.’
‘This is horrible,’ George said. ‘But you sound pretty sure of it.’
‘I was told by a senior CIA person. A lot of Agency veterans were against this whole programme. But the President wanted it and Bill Casey forced it through.’
‘What on earth got into them?’ George wondered. ‘They committed mass murder!’
‘They’re desperate to put a stop to the kidnappings. They think Fadlallah is the mastermind. They were trying to take him out.’
‘And they fucked it up.’
‘But good.’
‘This has to come out.’
‘That’s what I think.’
Jacky came in. ‘Our young man is ready to go back to his mother.’
‘I’m coming.’ George stood up. ‘All right,’ he said to Maria. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘Thanks.’
George got into the car with Jack and drove slowly through the suburban streets to Verena’s house. Jasper Murray’s bronze Cadillac was on the driveway beside Verena’s red Jaguar. That was opportune, if it meant Jasper was there.
Verena came to the door in a black T-shirt and faded blue jeans. George went inside and Verena took Jack away for his bath. Jasper came out of the kitchen, and George said: ‘A word with you, if I may.’
Jasper looked wary, but said: ‘Sure.’
‘Shall we go into—’ George almost said my study, but corrected himself – ‘the study?’
‘Okay.’
He saw with a pang that Jasper’s typewriter was on his old desk, along with a stack of reference books a journalist might need: Who’s Who in America, Atlas of the World, Pears Cyclopaedia, The Almanac of American Politics.
The study was a small room with one armchair. Neither man wanted to take the chair behind the desk. After an awkward hesitation, Jasper pulled out the desk chair and placed it opposite the armchair, and they both sat down.
George told him what Maria had said, without naming her. As he talked, in the back of his mind he wondered why Verena preferred Jasper to him. Jasper had a hard edge of self-interested ruthlessness, in George’s opinion. George had put this question to his mother, who had said: ‘Jasper’s a TV star. Verena’s father is a movie star. She spent seven years working for Martin Luther King, who was the star of the civil rights movement. Maybe she needs her man to be a star. But what do I know?’
‘This is dynamite,’ Jasper said when George had told him the whole story. ‘Are you sure of your source?’
‘It’s the same as my source for the other stories I’ve given you. Completely trustworthy.’
‘This makes President Reagan a mass murderer.’
‘Yes,’ said George. ‘I know.’
58
On that Sunday, while Jacky and George and Maria and little Jack were in church, singing ‘Shall We Gather at the River’, Konstantin Chernenko died in Moscow.
It happened at twenty minutes past seven in the evening, Moscow time. Dimka and Natalya were at home, eating bean soup for supper with their daughter Katya, a schoolgirl of fifteen, and Dimka’s son Grisha, a university student of twenty-one. The phone rang at seven-thirty. Natalya picked it up. As soon as she said: ‘Hello, Andrei,’ Dimka guessed what had happened.
Chernenko had been dying ever since he became leader, a mere thirteen months ago. Now he was in hospital with cirrhosis and emphysema. All Moscow was waiting impatiently for him to expire. Natalya had bribed Andrei, a nurse at the hospital, to call her as soon as Chernenko breathed his last. Now she hung up the phone and confirmed it. ‘He’s dead,’ she said.
This was the moment of hope. For the third time in less than three years, a tired old conservative leader had died. Once again there was a chance for a new young man to step in and change the Soviet Union into the kind of country in which Dimka wanted Grisha and Katya to live and raise his grandchildren. But that hope had been disappointed twice before. Would the same happen again?
Dimka pushed his plate away. ‘We have to act now,’ he said. ‘The succession will be decided in the next few hours.’
Natalya nodded agreement. ‘The only thing that matters is who chairs the next meeting of the Politburo,’ she said.
Dimka thought she was right. That was how things worked in the Soviet Union. As soon as one contender nosed ahead, no one would bet on any other horse in the race.
Mikhail Gorbachev was Second Secretary, and therefore officially deputy to the late leader. However, his appointment to that position had been hotly contested by the old guard, who had wanted Moscow party boss Victor Grishin, seventy years old and no reformer. Gorbachev had won that race by only one vote.
Dimka and Natalya left the dining table and went into the bedroom, not wanting to discuss this in front of the children. Dimka stood at the window, looking out at the lights of Moscow, while Natalya sat on the edge of the bed. They did not have much time.
Dimka said: ‘With Chernenko dead, there are exactly ten full members of the Politburo, including Gorbachev and Grishin.’ The full members were the inner circle of Soviet power. ‘By my calculation, they divide right down the middle: Gorbachev has four supporters and Grishin has the same.’
‘But they aren’t all in town,’ Natalya pointed out. ‘Two of Grishin’s men are away: Shcherbitsky is in the United States, and Kunayev is at home in Kazakhstan, a five-hour flight away.’
‘And one of Gorbachev’s men: Vorotnikov is in Yugoslavia.’
‘Still, that gives us a majority of three against two – for the next few hours.’
‘Gorbachev must call a meeting of full members tonight. I’ll suggest he says it’s to plan the funeral. Having called the meeting, he can chair it. And once he’s chaired that meeting, it will seem automatic that he chairs all subsequent meetings and then becomes leader.’
Natalya frowned. ‘You’re right, but I’d like to nail it down. I don’t want the absentees to fly in tomorrow and say everything has to be discussed all over again because they weren’t here.’
Dimka thought for a minute. ‘I don’t know what else we can do,’ he said.
Dimka called Gorbachev on the bedroom phone. Gorbachev already knew that Chernenko was dead – he, too, had his spies. He agreed with Dimka that he should call the meeting immediately.
Dimka and Natalya put on their heavy winter coats and boots and drove to the Kremlin.
An hour later the most powerful men in the Soviet Union were gathering in the Presidium Room. Dimka was still worrying. Gorbachev’s group needed a master stroke that would make Gorbachev the leader irrevocably.
Just before the meeting, Gorbachev pulled a rabbit out of the hat. He approached his arch-rival, Victor Grishin, and said formally: ‘Victor Vasilievitch, would you like to chair this meeting?’
Dimka, standing close enough to hear, was astounded. What the hell was Gorbachev doing – conceding defeat?
But Natalya, right next to Dimka, was smiling triumphantly. ‘Brilliant!’ she said with quiet elation. ‘If Grishin is proposed as chair the others will vote him down anyway. It’s a false offer, an empty gift box.’
Grishin thought for a moment and obviously came to the same conclusion. ‘No, Comrade,’ he said. ‘You should chair this meeting.’
And then Dimka realized, with growing jubilation, that Gorbachev had closed a trap. Now that Grishin had refused, it would be difficult for him to change his mind and demand the chairmanship tomorrow, when his supporters arrived. Any proposal to make Grishin chair would meet the argument that he had already turned down the position. And if he resisted that argument he would look like a ditherer anyway.
So, Dimka concluded, smiling broadly, Gorbachev would become the new leader of the Soviet Union.
And that was exactly what happened.