Queen’s Pawn Gambit
Bill Newman
Andrew Cosgrove sat on a patio chair on the balcony of his twelfth floor apartment in Ottawa’s west
end, watching the sailboats on Lac Deschenes. Turning his attention away from the far distance, he
picked up the daily paper lying beside him. “UK jails Russian assassin,” the headline said. Before he
could read the story, the phone rang. He’d brought the cordless onto the balcony, a bad habit from his
pre-retirement days. That’ll be Jim with tomorrow’s tee-off time. No, the call display said otherwise,
announcing a private number.
“Mr Cosgrove?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Ogilvie. We’d like you to come over this afternoon. One-thirty at the front desk. Ask for Taylor.”
“Why?”
“Just passing on the message, sir. Please confirm you will be there.”
“One-thirty, to see Taylor.”
“Correct,” the caller replied, and hung up.
Damn! What the hell do they want?
Now into his second month of retirement, Cosgrove lived alone, so no one heard the curse, and no one
responded to the question. He looked at his watch—ten-thirty. He decided to have lunch in the market;
it was on the way.
He showered and changed and headed out to the market. Finding a restaurant with an outdoor patio,
he sat down to ponder the likely scenarios. While demolishing a chicken penne and Caesar salad, the
best he could come up with was that there had been a leak of the design of the encrypted radios he’d
been developing at the government communications research lab. Surely not?
For fuck’s sake Andrew, get a grip, he told himself. It’s probably routine follow-up stuff. He paid his bill
and left.
Cosgrove did not need a map to find the location of the afternoon meeting place. He’d been there
many times. 1941 Ogilvie Road is the address of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s
headquarters.
Taylor’s office looked north towards the river. “I report to the ADO AEA,” Taylor said, as though this
would make everything abundantly clear.
Assistant to the director of operations for Asia, Europe, and the Americas, Cosgrove deduced. Oh,
perhaps it is something to do with encrypted radios. They were being used in Afghanistan.
“Cast your mind back to 1974.”
“Yes, my last year at McGill. I was …” Cosgrove’s voice trailed off.
“You were at a chess tournament in Moscow. You were representing Canada in some sort of goodwill
games for students.” Taylor’s tone made the contest sound like a fraternity event for vodka-swilling
youngsters.
“It was the World Student Chess Championship,” Cosgrove said. His heart-rate quickened. Definitely
not the radios, he thought—worse.
Taylor ignored Cosgrove’s correction. “But your role wasn’t limited to playing chess was it?”
“No.”
“Can you tell me what it was?”
“No. I signed a document to say I’d keep it a secret.”
Taylor opened a file folder on his desk and handed Cosgrove the top sheet. Cosgrove read it.
“You’ll notice it’s signed by the minister,” Taylor said.
“I assume you have another document for me to sign to say I’ve read this one.”
Taylor smiled for the first time, and handed Cosgrove the next two sheets of paper in the file. “Sign at
the bottom opposite your name, on both sheets, but read it first. Then I’ll witness them.”
With the formalities out of the way, Taylor visibly relaxed. “We want you to go back to Moscow and
perform your magic again.”
Cosgrove noticed that Taylor no longer seemed interested in what he’d been doing at the chess
tournament. He guessed it was probably in the file.
“You must be joking! For starters, I’m no longer a chess master. And unless it had escaped your
attention, I’m fifty-five years old. The brain doesn’t work as fast as it did back then.”
“I’m sure you’re doing yourself an injustice. You’ve only just retired from that encryption job at
communications research.”
The bugger has been doing his homework, Cosgrove thought. I bet he also knows I haven’t stopped
playing chess in the intervening years. “Isn’t the cold war over? Why are we still spying on the
Russians?” He realized as soon as he said it how naïve he must have sounded.
Taylor smiled again. “Let’s go grab some coffee and donuts to boost the brain cells and I’ll explain what
we want you to do. To do for your country, that is. Both of them, we’ll be sharing this stuff with MI6.”
Is that supposed to make me feel better? Cosgrove thought.
They returned to Taylor’s office after their caffeine and sugar boost. “There’s one thing that isn’t in the
file, Andrew”—in the break Taylor had become less formal—“and that’s the exact method of passing
the information.”
“I never told anyone, and the director wanted it kept that way,” Cosgrove said.
“To protect the source?”
“Yes.”
“Can you explain it to me?”
“Do you have clearance?”
Taylor extracted the letter the minister had signed. “You’ll remember we stipulated that all tradecraft
must be shared with us.” He pointed to the relevant paragraph.
“Why the change in policy?”
“We want to use it in a broader context.”
“So why don’t I just tell one of your more youthful agents how it’s done, and then he or she can go in
my place?”
Taylor frowned. “This particular source has asked that it be you and nobody else, otherwise we would.”
Cosgrove recoiled a fraction and widened his eyes. “Vladimir?”
“Yes, Vladimir Kulchenko.”
“He must be…” Cosgrove did the math. “Sixty-five.”
“Yes. He would have died in a gulag somewhere if the old order had remained in place, but he spent
only ten years in jail, and is a free man now.”
“How did they catch him?” Cosgrove asked, worried that it might have been a slip-up on his part.
“A double agent in Washington coughed up his name.”
“Poor Vlad.” Cosgrove paused and stared straight at Taylor. “How do you know he didn’t finger me?”
“You’ve been to Russia on vacation since then. You took your kids, I believe.”
“Oh, yes, of course. But getting back to the present, how would Kulchenko have access to secret
information?”
“We don’t know. What we do know is that he is only willing to pass information through you. Basically,
he doesn’t trust anyone else.”
“Yet he contacted CSIS somehow.”
“The CIA, actually. You know how it works.”
He did. If an agent has information he leaves a prearranged marker or passes on an innocuous
message. Somehow Kulchenko must have worked Cosgrove’s name into the message, which would
have been verbal, nothing written down.
“I’ll think about it.”
“We don’t expect you to do this as a charitable donation to offset your taxes. Your consultation fee
starts the moment you say yes.” Taylor inserted air quotes around “consultation fee.”
“Can you wait twenty-four hours?”
“Of course. But you’ll be six-hundred bucks worse off in that time.”
“Is that the daily rate?” It was twice what he’d been earning before he retired.
“Yes, plus expenses.”
Cosgrove drove back home, grabbed a bottle of brandy and a glass from the liquor cabinet, and sat
down. Taylor had told him the date was crucial—one week hence. There would be a big chess
tournament in Moscow, and people would be playing the game in the parks in front of TV screens that
showed the Grand Masters in action. It would be the ideal spot for a tourist to accept the offer of a
game from a local man, without arousing suspicion.
Cosgrove had asked Taylor for a photograph. “Otherwise I won’t recognise him.” Taylor had produced
one but wouldn’t let Cosgrove keep it. “I’ll show it to you again when you depart.”
The sixty-five year-old Kulchenko looked more like eighty-five. His heavily lined face bore the scars of a
life of espionage and ten years hard labour. Would he be as nimble-minded as he’d been in his thirties?
In 1974, Kulchenko had passed Cosgrove messages while they had been playing chess. Warned of
hidden microphones on the tables where Westerners were playing, Cosgrove had devised an infallible
way of communicating with the Russian.
Kulchenko tapped out Morse code with his forefinger on the chess piece about to be moved. One
letter per move, A through T. A represented 1, B represented 2, and so on to T, which was 20.
Kulchenko and Cosgrove had identical copies of the book they used to code and decode the message.
In order to determine where to start, the first two letters would be used for the page number. Thus BT
would be page 220. The actual coded message started at the first letter of the designated page in the
book, and then moved a variable number of characters down the page as determined by the next
Morse code letter tapped on the chess piece. The code had a few more complications to handle
spaces and punctuation characters, but fundamentally could not have been simpler.
Since nothing could be committed to paper, Cosgrove had to remember a sequence of thirty to forty
random letters. One mistake and the whole message would be garbled.
After each game he’d decode the message into its abbreviated version of English. For example, BRZ
was short for Chairman Brezhnev, while XMW meant a ten megaton nuclear warhead.
The book they had used was an English translation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Cosgrove had bought
it in a Moscow bookstore in 1974. He still had it, but would Kulchenko have managed to hang onto his
identical copy? A reprint would be no use; the formatting would have changed.
When Cosgrove had described the mechanism to Taylor, he hadn’t got past the Morse code part
before the CSIS man stopped him. “You’re gonna have to write this down.” Cosgrove did so and when
he’d finished, Taylor said, “I don’t know how you kept all that information in your head and played
chess at the same time.” Cosgrove had noted the encouraging flattery. All part of the act, he figured.
He didn’t bother to tell Taylor he had an IQ of 148; it was in the personnel file.
Cosgrove poured himself a measure of brandy and downed it. He poured some more and took the
beverage out onto the balcony. The sailing boats were heading home to their marinas, and the ruby
sun had reached the point above the horizon where one could look directly at it.
It bothered him that no one knew what kind of information Kulchenko wanted to divulge. He could only
guess that it might be military or industrial secrets, or an impending terrorist attack. In 1974, the cold
war had limited the intelligence to mostly strategic military secrets. The small stuff came via the
embassy in the pouch—General Kharkov is reviewing the troops in Manchuria.
What worried him most had nothing to do with the “intel.” It was that he would inevitably have become
rusty in the intervening years. He picked up the morning paper and randomly circled thirty letters from
the front page, then committed them to memory. Tossing the paper on the floor he picked up the
brandy glass again.
He waited until the sun slid into the endless forests of Québec on the far side of the river, and wrote
down the memorized letters. Then he checked them. Yes!
That did it. He didn’t need twenty-four hours to make up his mind. He called Taylor at his home.
* * *
Taylor had told him to book the air and hotel arrangements through a regular travel agent, and they
would organize his visa. “We don’t want it coming via official channels,” the CSIS officer had told him.
Cosgrove caught Air Canada’s overnight flight to London, the town where he’d been born and lived
until his parents had emigrated. He was sixteen at the time. Even after forty years he still regarded
London as a second home. Indeed, it was tempting to stop right there. But he kept going and
connected with the British Airways morning service to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport.
“There’s not much time, and you have to switch terminals,” the travel agent had said. “I’m traveling
business class and I only have carry-on baggage.”
The cab dropped him at his hotel near Smolenskaya Metro station. The Metro is best way to get
around Moscow, the travel agent had advised. Cosgrove hadn’t told her he’d been there before. “And
the Canadian Embassy is a stone’s throw away.” I hope I won’t need it, he thought. Thanks for jinxing
me.
The hotel looked as if it had been designed by a committee of Communist party members in the fifties,
who’d been told it must look as utilitarian as possible. It resembled an apartment building in a housing
project, but a twenty-first century entrance and lobby had been added. Cosgrove joined a short line at
the reception desk, and almost bumped into a woman joining the queue. “Sorry,” he said, in Russian.
“Ladies first.”
“From your accent and manners, I can tell you’re a tourist,” she said in English.
He smiled at the woman. “Yes.”
She did not take up his offer to move ahead of him. “I’ll register later,” she said. “You’ll find the travel
guide in your room very useful.” She returned the smile, turned and left.
Alexandrovsky Gardens was only two kilometres away—a pleasant stroll in the summer sunshine. “If
you walk, it’ll look as if you’re trying to spot a tail,” Taylor had said, so Cosgrove took the Metro.
He arrived at the park at noon, and recognised Vladimir Kulchenko immediately. The old man was
watching a game in progress. Cosgrove sat down at an empty table with its inlaid chess board.
Kulchenko wandered over to him. “Would you like a game? I have the pieces?” he said, holding up a
felt bag and shaking it.
“Da, spasiba,” Cosgrove replied. You’ll be watched, and they have sophisticated directional listening
equipment, so speak only English or tourist Russian—more CSIS advice.
Kulchenko sat down, emptied the chess pieces onto the table, and they laid them out. He picked up a
white and black pawn, cupped them in both hands then offered Cosgrove two clenched fists. Cosgrove
tapped one of them—white, the pieces already in front of him.
They shook hands and the game began. Or rather, both games began.
* * *
Cosgrove hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so on the way up to his room he stopped at the front desk.
Speaking English interspersed with a few Russian nouns and pointing at the menu he ordered fish,
sauerkraut, and dumplings, and a sweet pie for dessert. Not because he particularly liked the selection,
but he knew the clerk would have no problem recognising the typical Russian fare.
Forsaking a shower, although he stank from the fear and stress of the last four hours, he wrote down
the code sequence on a sheet of hotel note paper. Then he opened the travel guide and began the
tedious process of decoding Kulchenko’s message. Ten minutes into it, there was a knock on the door.
Hmm, room service has improved since the Communist regime departed, he thought.
He stuffed the notes and the guide under his pillow and opened the door. Two uniformed police officers
stood there. “Cosgrove?” one of them asked, although it came out as “Cotsgroff.”
“Da.”
Shoving Cosgrove aside, the officers barged into the room. A third man in civilian clothing followed
them. He spoke English. “You must come with us.”
“Why?”
“To answer some questions.”
“What questions?”
The man didn’t reply but signalled to the police officers. One of them produced a pair of handcuffs, the
other held Cosgrove’s arms behind his back while the first officer secured him.
Cosgrove knew better than to struggle—the combined weight of the two goons he put at four-hundred-
and-fifty pounds. And figured arguing with their leader wasn’t going to be much use either.
Watched by other tourists, the police officers guided Cosgrove through the lobby and bundled him into
the back seat of their car. Cosgrove stared out of the window as they traveled south towards the river
then followed it eastwards. The driver turned north at the Kremlin complex and, skirting Red Square,
threaded through the side streets to Lubyanskaya Ploshchad. Cosgrove could not fail to recognize the
building in front of him, once home of the KGB, now occupied by its successor, the Federal Security
Service.
The Lubyanka used to be known as the transit stop on the way to Siberia. Assuming, of course, that
one survived the torture chambers and furnace in the bowels of the building. Cosgrove was shown to
slightly better accommodation: a windowless two-metre-square cell with no furniture and no facilities.
The door slammed shut removing the only source of light, coming from the corridor. They could have
removed the handcuffs, he thought, but no words had passed between him and his captors since his
arrest at the hotel.
He curled up on the cold stone floor, trying to recall the rudimentary training he’d received when he’d
undertaken the same task thirty-three years earlier. “You’re not a spy, and you can be certain they’ve
got your source. Tell them as little as you can but no heroics. We’ll get you out.”
Cosgrove never had to test the ability of his government to rescue him. However, right at that moment,
ahead of his desire to be rescued, to eat, and to drink, he wanted desperately to pee.
The sound of footsteps woke him from his shallow sleep. Two guards appeared at the door, pulled him
to his feet and shoved him out into the corridor. One grabbed his arm and they headed towards the
elevator, ascending one floor.
Cosgrove looked for a clock but this floor had nothing but doors. They entered through one of them to
a cell not unlike the one he’d left, except that it had a light and two chairs. A man in a suit and tie sat on
one of them.
“Ah, Mr. Cosgrove. Welcome to the Lubyanka,” he said in accented English. “Please sit down.” When
Cosgrove was seated, the man continued, “Vladimir Kulchenko has confessed to passing you state
secrets.”
“Who?“
“We believe you know him, and played chess with him yesterday.”
“I did?”
His interrogator nodded to one of the guards. He stepped forward and punched Cosgrove in the face.
The force knocked Cosgrove off the chair, and, still manacled, he was unable to break his fall, cracking
his head on the floor. Two guards took an arm each and lifted him back onto the chair.
“We can play it like that all day. But to save time let me tell you what we know. First, you’re British under
contract to MI6. You have dual citizenship and use your Canadian passport as a cover to enter Russia.
We also know you aren’t a professional intelligence officer.”
Cosgrove spat out one of his front teeth and bent over to wipe his bloody, broken nose on his knee.
“And we found the coded message in your hotel room. Not very sophisticated, was it?”
“Message?”
The guard crashed his fist into the side of Cosgrove’s head, a blow that knocked him unconscious.
When he recovered, the interrogator was sipping coffee. He wafted the cup under Cosgrove’s nose.
“Smells good, does it not? Not like you. I am thinking you would prefer to be in your hotel, having a
breakfast of eggs and bacon. We can arrange for you to wash and have breakfast, but you have
committed a crime. A serious crime, so you will be staying with us for a while. However, our courts are
not without compassion. They will read your confession and see that your government has duped you. I
can promise you will receive a lighter sentence if you cooperate.”
* * *
Cosgrove arrived back in Canada three months later. He had been lucky. He could have been looking
at fifteen years hard labour but had been swapped for the Russian assassin imprisoned in Britain.
Kulchenko disappeared, not to Siberia, but to his home town of Tbilisi. Tbilisi wasn’t Moscow but he
could live far more cheaply there. The caper had earned him a pardon for earlier crimes against the
state. More importantly, his old-age, state pension was reinstated.
By the time Cosgrove returned to Ottawa he’d racked up $50,000 in expenses. However, offsetting his
“good fortune,” some of that money would need to be spent on expensive dental work and replacing all
of his dead potted plants. He didn’t bother to have his nose straightened out. It would be a reminder to
avoid visiting 1941 Ogilvie Road, ever again. And Moscow.