Red traitor, p.14
Red Traitor, page 14
“So. How’s Cuba?”
“Cuba is more Soviet than ever. By which I mean—it’s gotten very popular among Soviet tourists. Many of whom seem to be engineers on vacation. And Armed Forces members. Hard to tell, of course, when they’re in their shorts on the beach. But I’m guessing.”
They paused as a bottle of Armenian cognac appeared, accompanied by a tray of minced spinach and green bean pkhali vegetable balls. Kuznetsov poured before Vasin could object and proposed a brief toast to the Service. They clinked glasses and drank off the cognac.
“Vadim. I need you to make sense of some information. Let’s do this on a clear head. So enough, for the moment.”
“Guessed as much. Don’t worry. Head: clear. Clearer, in fact, than before that shot. Go ahead.”
Vasin fished in his jacket pocket for a sheaf of his own handwritten notes and smoothed them flat on the brilliant white tablecloth. He cleared his throat and read in a low voice.
“ ‘September seventeenth, 1962. Confidential Soviet Defense Ministry memorandum on progress of Operation Anadyr. First consignment of medium-range R-12 missiles safely landed on Cuba September sixth. Second consignment intermediate-range R-12s delivered September sixteenth. Missiles successfully transported to bases.’ ”
Vasin looked up at his companion, whose face had lost its joviality. The two men weighed each other’s eyes.
“Bravo. Vasin, you are impressively well informed, as usual. And your question was—does that mean anything to me? My answer is yes, it does. Next question.”
“Interesting. Well let’s start with this—that information does not tally with what I have been reading in our Soviet newspapers.” Vasin flipped over to another page in his notes. “Here we have Izvestia, dated September seventh. ‘Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin has told the United Nations that the USSR is supplying only defensive weapons to Cuba. Dobrynin categorically denies all reports of offensive weapons.’ And here’s another, dated September eleventh from TASS: ‘The USSR officially warns Western Imperialist aggressors that a US attack either on Cuba or on Soviet ships that are carrying supplies to the island will be considered an act of war’…and that ‘the peace-loving peoples of the USSR have no need or intention to introduce offensive nuclear missiles into Cuba.’ ”
“Oh my dear Vasin. Dare I tell you this awful secret? Okay. I dare. Sasha—the Soviet press doesn’t always tell the truth.”
“Hilarious, again. I get that. Our diplomats are denying that we are sending missiles to Cuba. But we’ve already delivered the nukes, apparently. That true?”
Kuznetsov made a moue, his little hands giving the sides of his beard a nervous rub as he leaned back from the table. The waiter reappeared with a steaming khatchapuri cheese bread, a pot of hot stewed kidney beans, a plate of white cheese in a bed of fresh tarragon and coriander leaves, and a salad of tomatoes and sliced green onions. His assistant entered with a bottle of white wine, and began to open it with due ceremony before registering his guests’ frigid smiles and uncorking it quickly and retreating.
“Yes,” Kuznetsov answered without preamble. “Yes. We’re delivering the rockets. Good number of ’em already on the island. Forty-four, to be precise, since we’re speaking among friends.”
“Okay. Good start. You’ve seen them?”
“I have. Got stuck in a traffic jam behind one of them a few weeks back. They’re kind of hard to miss. The locals were standing on the road cheering them as they went past, since you ask.”
“Cheering?”
“Yeah. Mind you—they’ll cheer anything, the Cubans. An exuberant lot.”
“The missiles weren’t concealed?”
“Well, they were covered in tarpaulins. And under heavy escort. But I think the enlightened proletariat of Cuba kind of got the idea.”
“So now tell me this. What does the designation R-12 mean to you?”
“You couldn’t look that one up?”
“Let’s say that’s what I’m doing right now.”
Kuznetsov sighed and sloshed wine into both their glasses.
“R-12s are ballistic missiles. In the lingo. Come in two flavors—medium range and intermediate. That’s two-thousand-kilometer and forty-five-hundred-kilometer range to you. Single-stage, road-transportable, surface-launched, storable liquid-propellant-fueled missiles. Point is—you can move them about. Cheering crowds or no.”
“And the warheads?”
“Thermonuclear. Biggest they can carry is one megaton, far as I remember.”
The very word megaton sent Vasin’s mind back to his and Kuznetsov’s days among the elite bomb makers of Arzamas-16. The dry vocabulary of destruction. A bomb the size of a million tons of TNT.
“Enough? Satisfied? Just please don’t tell me why you’re asking.”
“Two shiploads delivered in September and more to come. So they’ve already been deployed to their launch stations in Cuba?”
“Correct.”
“But did you know that the Americans know?”
Kuznetsov set his glass back down on the table and leaned toward Vasin.
“You mean all that fuss in Congress? Doesn’t mean the Yankees know. They suspect, maybe.”
“Kuznetsov—they know. I’m telling you. You said yourself that half the island saw the rockets being trucked to their bases. So now listen to this.” Vasin found his place in his notes. “Wait…here it is. ‘September twentieth. Confidential Defense Ministry memorandum. Notes concern about reports from numerous Soviet agents in Miami that Cuban population has remarked on passage of “very long canvas-covered cylindrical objects that could not make turns through towns without backing up and maneuvering.” Many such reports passed on to US intelligence in Miami. They warn of potential security breach as defensive missiles are much shorter than R-12s.’ ”
Kuznetsov paused for a moment before silently spooning beans and cheese bread onto his plate. He ate hungrily for a couple of minutes before forming a response.
“So what? If the missiles are already in place right under the Americans’ noses, it’s too late. Point and shoot. That’s the thing about R-12s. Transportable. Easily hidden. Too late for the Yankees to protest now. What are they going to do—nuke Cuba? Nuke us? They’ll never do it. The Americans have been shitting themselves ever since that big bomb we tested last year, if you remember? So…they wouldn’t dare.”
Vasin could still see the Tupolev bomber on the tarmac at the Arctic airbase at Olenya, its silver belly cut away to accommodate the giant bulk of the most powerful nuclear bomb ever created. The RDS-220 that Professor Adamov had feared could set the earth’s atmosphere ablaze. Oh yes. Vasin remembered it.
“The Defense Ministry brass thinks the big bomb makes us immune? Allows us to do whatever we like?”
“Vasin—tell me why we’re discussing the finer points of Soviet military-strategic doctrine instead of tucking into our excellent Georgian dinner?”
“Let’s imagine that the Americans have an agent. Here in Moscow. And that agent might be able to confirm to them the details of the R-12 missile delivery to Cuba. Prove that we are lying about it?”
Kuznetsov picked up a spring onion and a piece of white cheese and stuffed them into his mouth, washing them down with a large slug of wine.
“Mean? It means nothing. The Americans will find out for themselves soon enough. The first clear day, and the Yankee spy planes will spot them. But like I say—it’s too late. The boy Kennedy’s just going to have to get used to it. Just like we have to live with his Jupiter missiles in Turkey.”
“Jupiter?”
With a theatrical movement, Kuznetsov brought his open palm to his face, placed his middle finger in the center of his brow, and grimaced as if fending off a migraine.
“Lord God, Vasin. And I thought you were up there with the cloud dwellers who know everything. Up on your special ninth floor. You don’t know what R-12s are. You don’t know what Jupiter is. I thought you’d been up the ass of Operation Anadyr for months. These are the bloody basics, man.”
Vasin weighed a selection of sarcastic ripostes but thought better of it. Instead he picked up his glass of white wine and gulped it down.
“Jupiters are American medium-range nuclear rockets,” Kuznetsov continued. “Been deployed in Izmir, Turkey, since 1959, pointing right at Soviet Ukraine. Right in our own backyard, for the last two years. So Cuba is just tit for tat. If the Americans kick up a fuss about Cuba, we just offer to withdraw as long as the Yankees pull theirs out of Turkey. It’s called strategy, Vasin. Leave it to the professionals. Can we talk about women and football now?”
“Not yet. You think Kennedy plans to just sit back and do nothing about nuclear warheads being secretly deployed on his doorstep? I think you’re wrong.” Vasin leafed through his notes again. “Our missiles in Cuba? They’re becoming the worst-kept secret in the world. Here. Listen to this: ‘September twenty-second. Soviet Foreign Ministry memorandum of meeting between Cuban ambassador in Moscow and USSR foreign minister re: US Congress Joint Resolution 230. US Congress expresses resolve to prevent the creation of an externally supported military establishment in Cuba. US announces a major military exercise in the Caribbean, PHIBRIGLEX-62. Memo confirms joint public position of USSR and Cuba that US actions are a deliberate provocation and proof that the US is planning to invade Cuba.’ ”
Kuznetsov nodded as he munched.
“Nonsense. They’re not gonna invade. Like I said—the Yankees are closing the stable door when the horse is gone. The R-12s are already in place. What’s an American naval blockade gonna do about that?”
“Except we’re deploying a naval force to the Caribbean, too. Here. This memo is the newest one I have. From five days ago. Ready? ‘September twenty-eighth—Defense Ministry memorandum on disposition of Soviet naval forces deployed to Cuba. Four destroyers, twelve fleet auxiliaries already in position within one day’s sailing of northern Caribbean. Submarine fleet of four B-class boats reported ready for sea. Authorized to sail from Severomorsk for Cuba from October second.’ Yesterday. So what do we make of that, Vadim? Their Navy deployed. Our Navy deployed. Both sides talking about acts of war.”
Vasin’s companion merely shrugged.
“Listen, Sasha. In politics, there are things you do for show and things you do that really matter. The R-12 deployment? That matters. Our rockets are now pointing at America’s belly, just like the Americans have the Jupiter rockets pointing at ours. So it’s a stalemate. One all. Which suits us just fine. And the naval stuff, on both sides? That’s just for show. Like most of the Navy, actually. Pointless, if you ask me—all of it except our strategic nuclear missile submarines. They’re actually good for something. As for all those surface boats? Only good for sailing up and down showing off. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen with this Soviet task force you’re so worried about.”
“Wait—we’re sending nuclear missile submarines to Cuba?”
“No idea. You’d have to ask the boys in green. Or blue. You have some military and Navy boys on your hook, I guess?”
“Maybe I do. But what I really wanted to ask you was…”
Vasin looked down again at his notes—even though what he wanted to say wasn’t written there.
“Was this, Vadim. I’ve been thinking. Sending missiles to Cuba—fine. I see the logic of that. The tit-for-tat logic, as you said. But this Soviet flotilla. The huge fleet. The submarines. It’s overkill. It’s…too much. And…and I can’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, someone on our side actually wants to start a war?”
Kuznetsov settled back onto the padded cushions of the banquette behind him.
“You were always a one for the big theory, Sasha. Give you that.” Vasin felt his friend’s eyes appraising him with a look that was harder than his amiably composed face. “But I’m thinking that maybe it’s not just you who have been having these strange thoughts. I’m thinking—maybe you have heard this somewhere. Maybe it’s something that people are saying. I mean”—Kuznetsov pointed to the ceiling—“people up there. That right, Sasha? Some little bird been whispering in your ear? You can tell me. Who are these people who want war? And why? And who says so?”
Both men started as the velvet curtain was abruptly jerked aside. A young waiter appeared in the opening, bearing a tray covered in steaming plates. The headwaiter followed and began to reverently unload them onto the table, along with a running commentary on the dishes: chicken with walnut sauce, lamb neck and minced meat kebabs, khinkali dumplings.
As the table was being filled with a feast fit for half a dozen men, Vasin in turn settled back into the broad seat. The intelligence professional in him knew that he had reached the end of Kuznetsov’s cooperation. The man was starting to push back, ask questions of his own. And they were not questions that Vasin was ready to answer.
The waiters withdrew, with the air of acolytes to a sacred rite of gluttony. Vasin and Kuznetsov both sat forward once more, eyeing the indecent array of food with appreciation.
“Right. That’s the official part over. Dig in, Kuznetsov. And since I’m buying, I’m going to tell you, at length, what a fucking pain in the ass my wife, Vera, is being.”
4
Dogger Bank, North Sea
4 October 1962
Vasily Arkhipov was woken by the gentle rolling of B-59 as she rose toward the surface. He glanced at the luminous dial of the chronometer bolted to the wall. Ten minutes to eight p.m. Moscow time—close to the start of the first watch. He listened to the low whine of the electric engines spooling down, replaced by the reassuring thrum of the diesels starting up that reverberated through the whole ship. Snorkeling depth, close enough to the surface to put up a tube through which the engines sucked down air and ventilated the hull after nine hours on battery power. The motion of the boat became more pronounced with the swell. For as long as he’d been at sea, Arkhipov had always enjoyed the moment of surfacing. The submarine suddenly became a normal ship again, breathing God’s good air, riding the living waves rather than silently prowling below them.
Arkhipov sat up on his narrow cot and reached over to a fitted cupboard that housed his dress uniform and wet-weather gear. His cabin measured six feet by eight—luxurious by diesel submarine standards, but still far smaller than the one he’d had on the much more spacious K-19. Below his feet were two decks entirely filled with electric batteries. That meant that everything in the middle section of the sub—the officers’ and warrant officers’ quarters, the command center, navigation and torpedo-targeting rooms, galley, radio and sonar rooms—were all squeezed into the steeply curving upper third of the hull. Only in the corridor that ran down the center of this upper deck could Arkhipov stand upright without stooping.
As he pulled on his oilskin trousers, Arkhipov watched the chronometer edge toward the hour. One of the officers’ mess orderlies would be waiting outside his door, mugs of lemon tea in hand for the commanders, waiting for the same moment. The polite knock came on the dot of eight bells. In a few minutes, after dark, they’d surface fully and raise the radio masts.
Arkhipov sipped tea as he waited for the clatter of sailors changing shifts to die down. The central passageway was too narrow for two men to pass, causing constant traffic jams at each end of the compartment as the sailors squeezed against each other to make room for their shipmates as they made their way to their stations. On the other side of the steel bulkhead behind his head, Arkhipov could hear the hiss and suck of breaking waves that told him they were now running on the surface.
Once the thudding shift change was complete, Arkhipov slid open his door and headed aft to the control room. He had to pause outside the officers’ mess as the six lieutenants who berthed there filed out to make room for the space to be transformed from living quarters into a dining room for the evening meal. Inside, a pair of orderlies were busy assembling the central collapsible table and folding down three upper bunks to form the backs of three long benches. Nine of the ship’s officers could dine in the mess at a time, leaving four on duty. Arkhipov reached the round pressure hatch that led to the command center and squeezed his leg, then his body and head, through the eighty-centimeter-wide hole, ungainly in his bulky overalls.
The command center was squeezed between the curved hull wall and a series of pillar-like steel shafts that ran vertically through the center of the boat and housed the periscopes, antennas, and snorkeling gear. A man with outstretched arms could easily touch both sides of the cramped command space. Captain Savitsky, perched on the skipper’s backless chair set against the bulkhead immediately beside the hatch, acknowledged Arkhipov with a curt nod.
Arkhipov returned the greeting. A vertical steel ladder right by the commander’s seat led up to the periscope compartment that formed the lower part of the submarine’s conning tower, and Arkhipov struggled up it in his oilskins. First Officer Manuilov was at the periscope, making a slow turn as he scanned the horizon. Above the periscope compartment was the bridge—the highest part of the boat, and the only place with access to the outside air when the sea was this choppy. Arkhipov called up through the hatchway, and a sailor nimbly clattered down the ladder to make room for him.
B-59 had been designed for Arctic waters, so the bridge was enclosed except for a row of six small windows arranged across the front. And because this upper part of the conning tower was outside the pressure hull and designed to flood while the boat was submerged, it was freezing cold. A handful of shivering sailors, one from each of the ship’s seven compartments, acknowledged Arkhipov as they sucked on their cigarettes. The chilly bridge was the only part of the ship where smoking was permitted.
