“Believe me, they won’t be able to miss each other. They’ll be like a magnet and iron filings.”
Hammond smiled. “When are you going back to Leningrad?”
“As soon as I can find a ship that needs a third mate. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you informed. Now I’d better get back before they start to become suspicious.” Dimitri shook hands with both men, closed the door, and returned to the front room to find that Elena had gone to bed and Alex couldn’t take his eyes off James Cagney.
He looked closely at the young man, and wondered if it was too great a risk.
* * *
Elena and Dimitri were both up by six the following morning, and were soon discussing their nocturnal visitors.
“Can they be trusted?” asked Elena, taking a couple of three-minute eggs out of a saucepan of boiling water.
“Compared to the KGB, they’re angels. But don’t forget, they can make or break your chances of becoming an American citizen,” said Dimitri as Alex burst into the room.
“OK, you guys, my name is Agent Karpenko, and I’m putting you both under arrest.”
“On what charge?” Dimitri demanded.
“Brewing illegal alcohol in the basement of this establishment.”
They both burst out laughing.
“Then you’d better drink your milk, Alex, before you go to school. And I need to get moving too, if I’m going to keep my job.”
“That job isn’t good enough for you, Mama. You ought to be working in a real restaurant, not a pizza joint.”
“It’s fine for the time being,” said Elena. “And it’s not a joint. The pay’s not bad, and yesterday they let me make my first pizza.”
“Real chefs don?
?t make pizzas.”
“They do when it’s the only job in town.”
* * *
Alex couldn’t wait to be interviewed by a special agent from the CIA. He borrowed a book from the library the following morning, entitled The CIA and Its Role in the Modern World, and read it from cover to cover, twice. He had so many questions he wanted to ask a real agent.
He was on his way to the market the following Saturday when he saw them for the first time. An assorted group of men and women of various ages and nationalities, all with one thing in common: a love of chess. He recalled Dimitri telling him about Players’ Square, so he decided to find out for himself. Their heads were bowed as they studied the boards. There must have been a dozen of them, perhaps more, waiting for their opponents’ next move.
Alex hadn’t played chess since he’d arrived in America, and like a drug addict who’s been deprived of his next fix, he joined the onlookers, moving quickly from game to game until he came across a heavyset middle-aged man dressed in jeans and a sweater, who was seated on his own. None of the other players seemed willing to take the seat opposite him. Alex decided there was only one way to find out why.
“Hi,” he said. “My name is Alex.”
“Ivan,” the man replied. “But before you sit down, have you got a dollar to lose? Because that’s what it’s going to cost you when I win.”
Alex did have a dollar, two in fact, which Elena had given him along with a list of groceries she needed for the weekend.
He sat down, extracted a bill from his pocket, and held it up. “Now let’s see yours.”
The man chuckled. “You’ll only see mine if you beat me.” He moved his king’s bishop’s pawn two squares forward.
Alex immediately recognized an opening often used by Boris Spassky, and countered by moving his queen’s pawn forward one square.
The undisputed champion of Brighton Beach gave him a second look before moving his king’s knight in front of his pawns. It only took a few more moves for Ivan to realize he would have to concentrate if he was going to defeat his young challenger.
Neither noticed that a small crowd had begun to gather around them, wondering if it could be possible that “the champ” was about to be defeated for the first time in months. It was another forty minutes before a round of applause broke out when Alex delivered the word “checkmate.”