KGB¶
The KGB is the Soviet security service, which in The Things in Appalachia reaches out to Dick "The Biz" Baxter through a fake sweepstakes line and trades information on the "Massachusetts matter" for a favor in Dahlonega, Georgia.
| Type | Organization (foreign intelligence) |
| Aliases | The sweepstakes front; the Canada maple syrup sweepstakes line |
| Affiliation | Soviet intelligence, still operating after the Soviet collapse |
| First appearance | Appalachia 01 |
| Contact | An unnamed voice on the sweepstakes line |
Overview¶
The KGB never appears in person. It speaks only through a sweepstakes mailer and a phone number, and it addresses only the Biz. In Appalachia 01 Andre describes the sweepstakes invitation as something the Biz "pretty much immediately twig[s] as being a KGB front". This is the only episode in which Andre or any player names the organization behind the Biz's Russian contact; in other episodes "KGB" comes up only as a figure of speech or a worry, as when Ezra wonders in Roulet Estate 02 whether a Russian rifle found at a house means "is this the KGB?" The team's other members are sent off the call and are not told what the Biz learns (Appalachia 01).
The same book code, a gutted copy of Moby-Dick, is used to decode its messages; see Moby-Dick book cipher.
History¶
The Things in Appalachia¶
In Appalachia 01 the Biz calls the number from a payphone across town. An old man's voice answers: "Hey, sweetie, this is the Canada maple syrup sweepstakes line. Do you want to hear the numbers of the day?" The numbers (13, 45, 196 and so on) decode with the Moby-Dick codebook into a message: "We have information on Massachusetts matter. Need favor. You will be sent to George I A soon. Collect equipment at old drop spot before you leave. We'll pay $10,000 and information on completion." ("Georgia" is not a word in Moby-Dick, hence "George I A".) Andre voices the speaker first as an old man and then as "she" (Appalachia 01).
The "Massachusetts matter" is the Marblehead case from the end of The Summer Service. The KGB claims to hold information about it, and the episodes never reveal what that information is.
Distrusting his old dead drop (a loose paving stone under a park bench near his old house, which the handlers had used to get money to him before), the Biz pays a homeless man about $50 to fetch the package. It contains a covert recording microphone, a compact hidden film camera and a sheet of thin paper meant to be burned or eaten. The instructions are to install the camera in room 111 of the Smith Hotel in Dahlonega before midnight in two days' time, retrieve it afterwards, and mail the undeveloped film to an address to be supplied the following day (Appalachia 01). See Spy Camera and Microphone and Room 111.
In Appalachia 02 the Biz carries out the job alone. The desk clerk tells him room 111 was booked under one name with a credit card in another, that the man who booked it offered him $100 to keep quiet, and that the man was carrying a gun, sounded Midwestern and was rude. The Biz recognizes the description: "That is him." He tucks a black, motion-sensing film camera among the cables beside the television's VCR, angled at the bed, and sticks the microphone to the drawer of the bedside table, taking care to leave no fingerprints (Appalachia 02). The episode does not name the KGB in this scene.
What remains unknown¶
- Why the KGB wants room 111 watched, and who the booker is.
- Whether the Biz ever retrieved the film or mailed it, and whether he was paid or given the promised information.
- What the "Massachusetts matter" information is.