Free Back Channel by Stephen L. Carter Page B

surprised. Their empire was young, and yet already they were spoiled. Theirs was the only industrial nation left untouched by the Great Patriotic War. Naturally, the monopolists took advantage of this position, but the deluded workers believed their corrupt politicians, who told them that their advantage was a result of the capitalist system. It was lunch hour. He watched the men and women streaming through the park and wondered whether Marx was right, that in some peculiar way America might prove immune from the socialist tide that was bound to sweep the world—and if Lenin was right that, in time, the proper form of industrial relations would have to be forced upon them.
    Some of his colleagues believed that Operation Anadyr was a necessary step in realizing Comrade Lenin’s dream. Viktor hoped that this was true. The Americans were many things—decadent, greedy, oppressed, uncultured—but they were not cowards.
    “Good afternoon.”
    Ziegler had arrived, and sat on the bench beside him, unwrapping a chicken sandwich and pretending to read a newspaper. They spoke in English, knowing that the crowds surrounding them provided the requisite anonymity.
    “They found the body,” the American continued in a murmur.
    “What body is this, please?”
    “The body of the man who heard Fischer talking about Smyslov’s message and passed it on to our intelligence people. The man you cut up and left in the East River.”
    Viktor shrugged. “He did not wish to share what he knew.”
    “He didn’t know anything. He was a conduit. And the body shouldn’t have washed up for weeks. What exactly did you call yourself doing? I thought you were a professional.”
    “Perhaps the weighting was improperly done. I shall talk to my people.”
    “I need you to do more than talk to them, Viktor. Your people, as you call them, need a little more discipline, it seems to me.”
    The man called Viktor suppressed his anger. Typical bourgeois, he reminded himself: all impatience and disapproval, full of what Comrade Stalin used to call the jargon of the huckster—the use of words for effect on the listener, without proper attention to their meaning.
    “Do you have any additional information for me?”
    “I have the particulars on our agent. They’re in my lunch bag.”
    “I have warned you what might happen to this agent at the hands of my colleagues. You will allow us to treat one of your citizens so?”
    “I told you. Your territory. Your rules.” Ziegler finished his sandwich. He brushed his hands on his shirt. “But I don’t understand what you people are doing over there. You know the message came from Smyslov. Why isn’t he arrested? I’m sure he’d tell you in two minutes who he got it from.”
    Viktor briefly removed his gold-rimmed spectacles. He marveled that so boorish a man as Ziegler could rise so high. This was among the most serious contradictions of bourgeois culture: it claimed to value music and art, but insufficiently rewarded refinement, and therefore often elevated the unrefined. Viktor suspected that the man sitting beside him had never been to the ballet in his life.
    “You have no understanding of our system,” said Viktor. He slipped the glasses back on. “You worked in intelligence, but you are subject to the same illusions as your deluded workers. We are a people’s democracy, not a police state. We have laws and procedures. We cannot simply arrest and interrogate a man who four years ago was the chess champion of the world. In Soviet Russia, authority is divided and balanced. Smyslov has powerful protectors in the Party. This is as it should be, for he is a valuable national symbol. Until we have proof of his treachery, therefore, we must seek alternative measures.”
    “That’s a very nice speech, Viktor, but you and I both know that if you really wanted him you could get him.” Now he, too, was feeding the birds. “Because let’s remember what’s at stake here. We have a common