Fischer had a hatred of Jews that mirrored Gogolov's own. Fischer called the Jews "filthy, lying bastard people." He raged in public against his enemies as "Jews, secret Jews, or CIA rats who work for the Jews." He attacked the U.S. government as a "brutal, evil dictatorship." He studied Mein Kampf, slept under a framed picture of Adolf Hitler, and once told a friend that he admired Hitler so much "because he imposed his will on the world."
And Fischer didn't just destroy the Soviet grand masters, he crushed their will to play. In 1972, at the tender age of twenty-nine, Fischer came from behind — two games to nothing — to annihilate Boris Spassky, one of the great Soviet champions. "Now he feels like a god," Spassky fumed at the time. "Fischer thinks all his problems are over — that he will have many friends, people will love him, history will obey him. But it is not so. I am afraid what will happen to him now."
What would it feel like? Gogolov remembered thinking when he'd read that quote. To be a god? To make the world love you and history obey you, not because you could determine the fate of little marble statues, but because you could truly command the fate of real kings and kingdoms?
Gogolov had never liked speed chess. His game was careful and quiet. He would bide his time, plan his moves. He would follow his father's wishes, rise through the Soviet military ranks, and emerge as a Spetsnatz special forces commander. But that would only be the beginning. Deep down, in places he never spoke of, Yuri Gogolov wanted to live the reckless, ruthless life of Bobby Fischer, perhaps the greatest chess player to have ever lived. To be him. To transcend him. To destroy him, and the country of Fischer's birth. Now he found himself thirteen stories above Tehran — alone with his thoughts, transfixed by the coverage from Gaza. Thus far, the operation was going far better than expected, and these were only the early stages.
Gogolov soon found himself on the New York Times home page and began scrolling through America's newspaper of record. The lead headline: "Presi dent Denounces Gaza Attacks; Israeli Forces Go on Full Alert." He clicked on the story and scanned through it quickly to see if there were any tidbits he didn't yet know. And there, in the last paragraph, he hit pay dirt. "White House Press Secretary Charles A. Murray refused to comment when asked who the U.S. suspected was behind the multiple assassinations. But he confirmed that senior presidential advisor Jonathan M. Bennett escaped from the scene unharmed and is being kept in a secure, undisclosed location until his safe return to Washington can be arranged." Jonathan M. Bennett.
The name jumped off the screen at Gogolov. He knew very little about him, and neither Jibril nor any of the rest of his team seemed to know much either. But his name kept popping up on the radar again and again. Gogolov muted the television screens for a while and thought about that. "A secure, undisclosed location." What did that mean? Could Bennett have already gotten out of Gaza? The weather didn't permit a helicopter extraction, either by the Americans or the Israelis. The only way out of the Strip was in a car or truck or vehicle of some kind. But Al-Nakbah operatives either controlled or were monitoring most of the major roads in and out of Gaza, though neither the Israelis nor the Americans knew it.
There'd been no word of Bennett's limousine getting past his men. It was still early. Was it possible that Bennett had eluded them and slipped out before Jibril's noose had tightened? Possible, but unlikely. More likely, thought Gogolov, was that Bennett was still inside the Strip. But for that to be true, for the White House press secretary to say that Bennett was in "a secure, undisclosed location" would mean, by definition, that the U.S. had a secure, undisclosed location inside Gaza. That would be news to Gogolov. A U.N.R.W.A. facility? That might be undisclosed — for the moment — but it would hardly be secure. Same with the Red Cross and Red Crescent fa cilities. None of them were secure against Palestinian military forces, and the U.S. had to know that, particularly given the current conditions. What could possibly be a secure location inside of Gaza for a White House advisor on the run?
He would keep pondering that thought. But for now he wanted to know more about Bennett. Linked to the current story was a lead headline from The New York Times's Sunday edition. Gogolov had read it a few days before, when it first came out. But now it intrigued him even more. "Point Man for Peace: Can Wall Street Wizard Really Cut Elusive Mideast Deal?" Gogolov took a sip of his piping hot Russian chai, and double-clicked to read it again.
"The eyes of the world are on Jonathan Meyers Bennett, a Wall Street strategist turned senior advisor to the president, as he and the U.S. Secretary of State head to the Middle East Monday to meet Israeli prime minister David Doron and Palestinian chairman Yasser Arafat. The mission is to jump-start peace talks in the bloody aftermath of the recent war with Iraq, but many questions are being raised about the man behind the mission.
"Bennett who? It's a reasonable question, admit senior administration sources, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. At forty, the New York City native may be one of the nation's sawiest and stealthiest financial deal makers. Colleagues say Bennett has an uncanny ability to find 'buried treasure,' obscure or low-profile companies whose products and stock prices are poised to explode in value. The story of how he was drafted into a White House job just last month, then seriously wounded in a hail of terrorist gunfire in Jerusalem, is told here exclusively for the first time."
Gogolov took another sip of chai.
"But White House colleagues concede the president's new point man for peace is inexperienced in the art of Washington politics, much less global diplomacy. Still, the president has tapped Mr. Bennett to be the chief architect of a dramatic and potentially historic peace plan about to be unveiled this week."
Gogolov kept reading.
Bennett's father, Solomon, had died of a heart attack just a few weeks ago. Gogolov hadn't known that. Nor that Bennett's mother, Ruth, now lived all alone in Florida, in a retirement community just outside of Orlando. Inter esting, Gogolov thought, and his mind began to wander. Orlando. How far was that from Savannah? It couldn't be more than a few hours. He mulled the idea over for a few minutes, then logged off the Internet, clicked off the TVs, and closed his eyes.
They've sent a rookie to challenge the grand master, Gogolov thought to himself. Better yet, they don't even realize what kind of game they 're actually playing.
Changed into dry clothes, Bennett was ready.
He sat down in the small conference room off the main control room and sipped a cup of freshly brewed coffee as Tariq gave him a microphone to clip on, set up a digital video camera, and prepared to make the video feed to the White House go live.
A few moments later, McCoy entered Gaza Station's main control room. Bennett saw her through the doorway and did a double-take. She hadn't had a chance to take a shower yet, but she was drying her hair with a towel, and even in borrowed navy blue sweatpants and a white cotton T-shirt, she looked incredible. Fortunately, she didn't catch Bennett's startled reaction, and for that he couldn't have been more thankful.
"Can I borrow that?" McCoy asked Ziegler.
"Be my guest."
She grabbed a rubber band off his desk and put her hair up in a ponytail. Then she spotted a Yankees baseball cap sitting on a file cabinet. She snagged that, too, adjusted the plastic straps to make it smaller, put it on and thanked Ziegler and Tariq for their hospitality. Then she came into the conference room and sat down next to Bennett.