Read Online Last Call for Blackford Oakes by William F.; Buckley - Free Book Online Page A

what have you been able to find out about how many of our friends were in on the Singleton episode?”
    â€œI’ve run,” Gus Windels said, frowning deeply, “into the solidest stone wall I’ve ever butted up against.” He tried to lean back in the unyielding railroad seat, finally lifting his hips and stretching out his legs. “Let’s go over the story. Yeah, we know it, but doing it this way, I think, we can lay it out like a computer folder, see how it looks. To us—and to them.
    â€œTwo American characters come to Moscow, Harry Singleton—that’s you, Dad—and Jerry Singleton, that’s me, your son. They are pretending to be here to look for an old Ukrainian aunt, thought long dead, but there was that sign of life in a letter to her sister that arrived just before—Mom’s death. So the Singletons, father and son, are determined to discover whether Aunt Avrani is alive, and, if she is, to arrange to give her a little material comfort.
    â€œBut actually—” Gus stretched open his arms as if addressing not a solitary colleague, but a tearful wake of mourners. “But actually”—Gus spoke now in a stage whisper—“Dad’s mission is to communicate with his old antagonist, the retired spy Boris Bolgin, to instruct him that he has to abort the plot to assassinate Gorbachev.
    â€œAny corrections?”
    â€œGo on, Gus.”
    â€œI will. Maybe my real vocation is for the theater.
    â€œAnyway, the senior Singleton contacts the KGB defector, who is conniving in the assassination of the premier, and says: Boris, you can’t do that! The United States would not like it at all. And if you don’t break up the conspiracy, Harry Singleton, acting for the president of the United States, will.
    â€œSo what happens? The bomb goes off and kills not Gorby, but an aide. The KGB swoop down and get one of the four conspirators. Now—pay rapt attention, Dad— none of the conspirators knew you were in town under the name Singleton . So how did Galina get to talk to me about ‘Mr. Singleton’?”
    Blackford looked over from his seat, opposite. “You forgot a little detail.”
    â€œOh well, er—”
    â€œOh no you don’t. You wanted to play Laurence Olivier. Well, I can do that, too. What you left out is that young Jerry Singleton, although he had been told not to take any chances, couldn’t refrain from accompanying a young lady from the embassy home to her apartment and screwing her just in time for the KGB to come in, photograph him, and haul his ass off to jail. They were looking for drugs—they said—and they didn’t hold you for very long. But they had plenty of time to stare at your passport, and to record the name.”
    â€œWhich was Singleton,” Gus nodded, soberly.
    â€œWhich was Singleton.”
    â€œAll right. But how did an American guy called Singleton, shacking up with an American girl, held overnight on drug suspicion, get to be known by Galina, a prostitute, as involved in an operation to assassinate Gorbachev? An operation in which, as we both know, the only role the U.S. did play was to get there and try to abort the whole thing.”
    Blackford said he could not come up with an answer to the question. None of the assassins had brushed up against either of the Singletons. The senior Singleton had returned to duty in Washington. Gus, the junior Singleton, had also returned, but was quickly reassigned to Moscow under his own name. His superior had consulted the Moscow embassy and learned that Gus did not appear to have been listed on any active Soviet ledgers as persona non grata. If he was later identified, he would simply be recalled, pursuant to Moscow–Washington standard practice when spies were detected under diplomatic cover.
    So how might Galina’s friend have known there was an American called Singleton in the picture?
    â€œOdd stuff.