Red traitor, p.17
Red Traitor, page 17
Junior Lieutenant Kostev half grinned and flicked on a switch to put the AM signal on speaker. A low, roaring jumble of noise gave way to the tail end of a piece of rock-and-roll music.
“A Miami station coming through more or less okay, sir.”
“Anything more about Kennedy?”
Eight hours earlier, during the previous surface run, Kostev had picked up a news bulletin trailing an important announcement by the American President. It had gone out on the airwaves while they’d been running submerged. Kostev—one of the few English-speaking officers on board—had spent the last hour sweating over his radio, hunting out a clear signal to catch up on the news.
“Two minutes to the seven p.m. evening news bulletin, Captain. Patch it through to the skipper’s cabin?”
Arkhipov nodded and hurried forward to the Captain’s quarters. Savitsky and Political Officer Maslennikov were waiting for him. Arkhipov squeezed in beside his two colleagues on the two-meter-long bench that doubled as the skipper’s berth. Savitsky flicked on the radio speaker built into the bulkhead over his small map table. He adjusted the volume as the signal hummed in and out, before settling on a moment of silence and a series of electronic pips.
“This is WLRN, Miami, and this is the evening news at seven o’clock on Monday, October twenty-second, 1962, brought to you by Total. President Kennedy announced this evening that…” A burst of static obliterated the American announcer’s next words. By the time the signal stabilized a few moments later a recording of Kennedy’s reedy, Boston-accented voice was playing: “…shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
Again the signal faded, and Savitsky gave the radio set a hefty slap as if chastising an irritating child. The announcer’s voice wavered back into audibility. “…any Soviet ships attempting to violate the US naval quarantine of Cuba will be considered an act of war.”
The three officers bowed their heads in concentration as they struggled to make out the words through the static, but the radio signal was swallowed into the magnetic swirl of the receding storm to the northwest.
“Did he stay ‘a state of war’?” Arkhipov reread his scribbled notes. “Did you hear that, Maslennikov? And what the hell is a naval ‘quarantine’?”
The Political Officer’s Naval Staff College English was the least rusty of the three.
“An act of war, he said, Captain. I think. And by ‘quarantine’ I assume he means a naval blockade. So Kennedy’s made an ultimatum. Running the blockade will be considered an act of war. That’s what I heard.”
Savitsky flicked off the whining speaker. The three men shared a long moment of silence. Savitsky picked a chart of the eastern Caribbean off his table. Their current position was marked on the chart’s clear plastic case in blue wax pencil.
“We are roughly one thousand six hundred and sixty kilometers from Cuba. To get there we can go three ways. We can run straight in to Santiago de Cuba, as we had planned, between Haiti and the Turks and Caicos. Or we can take the northerly route, picking a way through the Bahamas. Or we can go south past Puerto Rico and skirt along the south coast of the Dominican Republic.”
“Wait.” Arkhipov leaned across Maslennikov to peer at the chart. “We have to assume that the Americans will be using exactly those islands as part of their blockade.”
Picking up the skipper’s wax pencil, Arkhipov traced a broad arc from the tip of Florida, zigzagging a little through the scattered islands of the Bahamas archipelago, then the West Indies, all the way down to the island of Hispaniola. He picked the pencil up off the plastic and resumed the line on the south coast of Hispaniola, sweeping through Jamaica and into the Caymans.
“That’s the blockade, Comrades. Four hundred islands between Puerto Rico and Miami alone. Coral reefs, most of ’em. Shallow, clear water. That’s where the Yankees will be waiting for us.”
Savitsky, leaning close to the chart, began to mutter half to himself.
“Running on the surface at top speed for eight hours of darkness, we make two hundred seventy kilometers. Then we run for eight hours submerged, another two hundred forty. Three hours at snorkeling depth at one-third speed to recharge the batteries…thirty clicks more.” Savitsky traced a finger across the chart. “This time tomorrow, we’re here, on the nose of a thousand kilometers from Santiago. One day more and we—”
“One more day and we run directly into the American blockade,” Arkhipov interrupted. “Most probably sooner.”
Savitsky grimaced.
“Doubtless we will.”
“Maybe you have a plan for getting through undetected by the massed sonar of the US Second Fleet, Savitsky?”
“We play the usual cat-and-mouse game. Sonar evasion. We’ve practiced it a thousand times.”
“In open ocean, we might be able to do that. But we’ve practiced against just a handful of hunters. Not the entire American Atlantic Fleet.”
“There are places we can go deep in the Caribbean, too. The Puerto Rico Trench, right here. We could run at a depth of a hundred meters and still have eight thousand meters under the keel. We go fast along the Hispaniola Basin at maximum depth, stick close to the steep side of the canyon…”
“Savitsky—are you proposing trusting our lives to our Admiralty charts? I don’t personally fancy running into an underwater rock wall at fifteen knots. The Yankees know these waters. We certainly don’t.”
Savitsky sat back and folded his arms across his chest, fixing Arkhipov with a withering look. The tension in the cabin tightened like a stretched hawser.
“Your suggestion? We wait around here for the Americans to find us? Head home? Did radiation poisoning rob you of your balls, Comrade Captain?”
Arkhipov blinked in shock at Savitsky’s gross breach of courtesy. The skipper was a little older than Arkhipov, and they held the same rank of Captain, First Class. As flotilla commander, Arkhipov’s authority exceeded Savitsky’s. But B-59 was Savitsky’s boat, and in this cramped steel world he was Tsar and God.
“Chto ty skazal? What did you say?” In his indignation Arkhipov had inadvertently slipped into the familiar form of address—which was insultingly disrespectful unless used between close friends. It was fighting talk.
Maslennikov, sitting squashed between the two captains, gave a small cough. Savitsky and Arkhipov’s eyes settled on the young political officer.
“Comrade Captains. May I point out that until they are countermanded, we still have our orders? Comrade Captain Savitsky is correct. We actually have no choice but to proceed to Cuba.”
There was never much love lost between sea officers and the politruk. But Arkhipov had taken a particular dislike to this one. Especially since the damn man was right. A half-heard news bulletin from a local Miami station wasn’t enough to abandon the orders of Admiral Gorshkov himself.
“Naturally, we proceed.” Arkhipov fought to keep the irritation out of his voice and addressed himself largely to Savitsky, as if the presumptuous Maslennikov had not spoken. “We keep a keen lookout. If we reestablish contact with any of the other boats tonight, we signal her by underwater phone or semaphore to confirm our course to Cuba. We do not break radio silence.”
“And if we make contact with the Americans, Captains?” Maslennikov looked left and right into the stony faces of his two chiefs.
Arkhipov stood without answering. Because he had no answer.
10
Sargasso Sea
23 October 1962, 18:48 Eastern Daylight Time
All the hatches on the bridge of the US destroyer Bache stood open as the ship wallowed at dead slow speed through the long swells of the Sargasso Sea. The waves were still high, but the furious winds of Hurricane Ella had died down to a stiff southerly breeze that blew up hot and humid from the Dominican Republic. The tropical heat, now mercifully cooling with the dusk, had been made even more unbearable by the banks of electrical equipment that were packed at the rear of the bridge—the latest radar and sonar rigs from Lockheed Martin. The Navy Department had bought the best, and lots of it, for its newest generation of sub-hunting destroyers.
Captain Dave Billings scanned the darkening sea from the lee side of the flying bridge that formed a high balcony around the front of the ship’s superstructure. Twenty-five other US Navy ships—twenty-two destroyers, two cruisers, and the aircraft carrier Randolph—sailed in a four-hundred-mile-long arc that stretched far beyond the horizon, all slowly sweeping the patch of ocean north and east of Hispaniola like a line of gundogs flushing out game.
A couple of days before, the US Navy had intercepted a Soviet Project 641 submarine—a Foxtrot-class, diesel-electric hunter-killer, in NATO parlance—up near the coast of Florida. She’d been wallowing on the surface, near stationary and making no attempt to hide. Her captain reported engine damage. The sub had been in international waters, so the US Navy had no right to board or sink her. So as far as Billings knew, she was still just sitting there under the watchful eye of the Coast Guard, waiting for a Soviet tender to show up and tow her home. But there was little doubt, according to the eggheads at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Suitland, Maryland, that she’d been intending to sneak past the blockade and head for Cuba. So now the whole US Second Fleet—and above all, her sub-hunters like the Bache—was on high alert for more subs like her.
Fucking submarines.
Billings had been in his bunk on the heavy cruiser USS Chester when she’d been hit amidships by a Japanese torpedo off the New Hebrides Islands. October 20, 1942—Billings’s first taste of combat, twenty years ago almost to the day. He had been deep in the black, dreamless sleep of an exhausted midshipman when the torpedo exploded. The detonation made the steel hull of the nine-thousand-ton cruiser ring like a giant brass bell. The titanic shock wave had tipped him right out of his berth onto the floor, where he woke screaming in the dark, trampled by the staggering bare feet of the other midshipmen of his watch. Through the steel of the floor, Billings could swear that he’d heard the inrush of water and the creak of straining steel.
By the time Billings had pulled on his uniform pants, Mae West life jacket, and flash hood and scrambled to his battle station, the Japanese submarine was long gone. The Chester had lost eleven men and was holed below the waterline. But she’d managed to limp into Espiritu Santo, in Vanuatu, for repairs. Double lookouts on all stations to watch for a renewed attack as the cruiser wallowed, lopsided from two flooded compartments, across the open Pacific, her pumps running full tilt all the way. Billings remembered the heady fear-hate he’d felt during his watches. Come on, Jap assholes. Come on. Just show yourselves. And we’ll kill you.
Like most surface sailors, Billings feared and hated submarines. But unlike most of his young crew, he’d actually seen what they could do to a warship with his own eyes. The Captain lowered his binoculars, tipped his cap, and wiped his brow on his sleeve. Man. Those Sovs were really getting to him.
Billings’s executive officer walked onto the flying bridge, steadying himself hand over hand against the roll of the ship. Pete Kimble’s salute was as close to a casual howdy as humanly possible. The two men’s friendship went back all the way to their cadet days at Annapolis. Long enough for Billings to know that under Kimble’s slow Carolina gentleman’s manners lurked the instinct of a killer. A torpedo boat commander in his day, Kimble had a reputation for bravery. Recklessness, even. Which was maybe why it was Billings who wore a captain’s scrambled egg on his cap and not Kimble. But when they’d hunted quail together outside Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, in Georgia, Kimble had held his shotgun as though the damned birds were out to get him. He’d not left a single one in the sky, nearly blowing Billings’s head off more than once as he’d swung through dangerous ground-hugging shots.
Kimble took the binoculars that his chief silently handed to him and made his own slow scan of the spreading Caribbean night as it darkened the eastern horizon.
“You reckon the Sov Navy’s all headin’ home like the President told ’em to, Captain?”
“Sure, Pete. Sounds exactly right.”
“Would you tell on me if I said I sure as hell hope they don’t?”
“Spoiling for a fight, Pete?”
The USS Bache’s executive officer didn’t answer, but lowered his binoculars and smiled grimly at his old shipmate. Billings recognized the look. Kimble was in a killing mood.
11
TsSKA Stadium, Moscow
23 October 1962
Vasin trudged along the touchline of the Central Soviet Army Sports Club’s soccer field. The stands were deserted; a pair of janitors in brown overalls were sweeping leaves on the far side of the muddy grass. Beyond lay a low-rise concrete oval marked track and field below the red star logo of the club. A diminutive soldier in an oversize uniform stood guarding the doorway but stepped aside at the sight of Vasin’s ID card. Passing through the tunnel that led to the athletic field, Vasin emerged into the arena, deserted apart from four bodyguards armed with Kalashnikovs and a lonely, squat figure plodding slowly around the gravel track.
Orlov’s face was streaked with sweat and rain as he drew level with Vasin. The General spared his subordinate a single glance as he passed, then jogged on. Vasin and the guards all followed Orlov with their eyes as he made two more laborious circuits. Six men, each alone in their own way under the Moscow rain.
Orlov finally lumbered to a halt, panting, his hands on his knees. He snatched a rain-sodden towel from the railing and pointlessly wiped his wet face and neck with it. Turning to Vasin, he beckoned his subordinate toward him.
“Something urgent. I see it in your face, Sasha. But not quite urgent enough to stop for just yet.” Orlov tossed Vasin the soaking towel. “Got one more circuit in me. Come.”
Vasin swore under his breath and broke into a run to catch up with the retreating figure on the track.
“Sir. I wanted to say that I have received sensational intelligence…” Fifty yards into the run and Vasin was already out of breath.
“If you’d nailed that motherfucker Morozov you’d have a grin on your face. But you look like you’re about to lay a goose egg through your asshole. So I assume you haven’t.”
“No, sir. But Major Tokarev came to me. It’s most urgent.”
They made the first turn of the track, Vasin’s feet chafing against his heavy leather shoes.
“And what does Tokarev want in return for this sensational information of his?”
“An exchange, General. You had his wife committed to a kontora mental facility. Tokarev hopes that it will no longer be necessary to keep pulling the hook. He says it’s critical, sir.”
“Before the fisherman slackens the line, Sasha, he needs to reel in what he has caught. So what has Tokarev brought us?”
Vasin glanced over to Orlov, who stared resolutely forward as he ran.
“It’s to do with Cuba, sir.”
Orlov did not reply as they rounded the second turn. His breathing was heavy. Vasin pressed on.
“It’s a matter of gravest national security, sir.”
The third turn. Vasin was starting to fight for breath, cursing every Orbita he ever smoked.
The fourth and final turn was approaching. Vasin prayed that Orlov would not attempt another circuit. Mercifully, the General halted, panting. Doubled over, he put a hand out. It took Vasin a second to realize that he was demanding the towel which Vasin had been holding, ridiculously, all the way around. Orlov straightened, spat, and grinned.
“You know me so little, Vasin. The more you tease me, the less I believe. Answer me this. If our comrade Tokarev has already sung his song, why do we still need him? Or need to do anything for him?”
Vasin felt the blood throbbing in his temples from the unexpected exercise. He could not immediately fathom what Orlov was saying. His boss continued smoothly.
“We have administered a shock to the poor wife. I think we can assume that as a result of this shock, Tokarev is no longer our friend? No. Very much not. He provides us this information on a purely transactional basis. Which already makes it suspicious, of course.”
“Comrade General…” Vasin scrambled to find words that could counter Orlov’s logic. “I have verified key parts of his story already, it’s—”
Orlov cut him off midsentence with a raised hand as he shrugged on the uniform greatcoat that one of the guards had brought.
“Important, you say?”
The General’s tone was frankly mocking. Vasin nodded slowly, glancing meaningfully at the young guards that now surrounded them. Orlov tipped his head in the birdlike way he had and narrowed his eyes appraisingly. Without taking his gaze off Vasin, he half turned to the nearest bodyguard.
“Tell Khrustalev to phone the office from the car. I’ll be half an hour late.” And then to Vasin, “Let’s go warm up.”
The sauna smelled of fresh male sweat, pine soap, and detergent. The walls were decorated with mosaics of soldiers in uniform striking athletic poses. Orlov unceremoniously kicked off his wet tracksuit bottoms and underpants, revealing a plump but powerful pink body. As Vasin hurriedly stripped, a pair of young men hurried out of the steam room.
“All yours, Comrade General.” The burly bath attendant looked like a cartoon bandit from the mountains of the Caucasus, all hair and muscle. “Massage?”
“No time today, Grisha.”
Orlov beckoned Vasin to follow. The pine-planked Russian sauna had been heated to an infernal temperature, which Orlov made even more unbearable by scooping a wooden ladleful of water and tossing it on the iron furnace. Vasin had always hated the gruff physicality of the banya, the appalling heat and pouring sweat of it. Orlov settled heavily on a tiered bench, his muscular thighs spreading on the hot boards. Vasin struggled to keep his mind focused as the steam heat rose.
