Page 465 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"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."

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

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 Viktor 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 sa

ys 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 masterstroke that would make Gorbachev the leader irrevocably.

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