Red traitor, p.28
Red Traitor, page 28
Vasin bumped the Moskvich into a sidewalk parking spot by the Barrikadnaya metro station, just opposite one of the largest banks of public telephones in central Moscow. He found an empty booth immediately, and dialed the dormitory block where Sofia lived. The shared phone on Sofia’s landing rang out. Vasin dialed and redialed. An elderly man who had been waiting for the phone booth began to admonish him by tapping with a coin on the window, but Vasin ignored him.
Another call to the building’s concierge got him through to some evil matron who told him to mind his own business. Vasin threw down the receiver with a loud curse. It was still four and a half hours until his appointed call to Tokarev, and he did not dare call the man at home.
Vasin pushed his way out through the sprung door of the phone booth. He slammed the car door behind him and forced himself to think through his options. For a moment he considered parking near the dead-letter drop and watching for a pickup, but quickly dismissed it as too risky. The Americans would doubtless case the area before collection, and a man sitting in a stationary car watching the building could scare them off. And in any case the place had too many entrances to be surveilled by a single watcher.
Easier to tick off the things Vasin couldn’t do until he knew that his plan had worked. Go home. Go to the office. See anyone who knew him.
That left only Sofia to deal with. The woman was loose in Moscow. If her fear had turned to fury at Morozov’s betrayal, the danger to his plan would be clear and present. Vasin had seen her anger before, the visceral spitting rage. He had to find her, talk the edge off her nerves. Stop her from doing something stupid—like going to her bosses. Or the KGB. Unless, Vasin realized with cold, dawning fear, she’d done that already.
15
B-59, Sargasso Sea
Sunday, 28 October 1962, 05:32 EDT / 12:32 Moscow Time
The forward torpedo compartment in B-59’s nose was, after the diesel engine room, the largest space on the submarine. It had to be, in order to accommodate the racks of six-meter-long T-5 torpedoes arranged on both sides of a narrow passageway between the weapons, six torpedoes on each side. At the front of the compartment were two vertical rows of three torpedo tubes, each steel breech door decorated with a large red star. Each tube was big enough for a man to crawl inside. Five were already loaded with conventional torpedoes. One—the middle port tube—remained empty to allow the unhindered loading of the special weapon.
At first glance the nuclear T-5 looked like the other torpedoes—except that its nose was painted in distinctive yellow and black checkerboard squares. Like the rest, most of the weapon’s length was given over to tanks of compressed oxygen and kerosene, the propellant that would drive its twin oppositional propellers for up to ten kilometers toward its target. But the front portion, a meter and a half long, lay open. Arkhipov approached as if the thing were some kind of sacred object. He’d never seen the inside of an atomic bomb.
The warhead itself was surprisingly tiny: a half-meter-wide steel sphere nestled in the nose of the torpedo. Arkhipov knew from his briefings in Moscow that the thing contained a hollow ball of highly enriched uranium surrounded by shaped TNT charges. As Arkhipov, Maslennikov, and the Captain approached, Blinov was concentrating on attaching a series of wires to the warhead, tapping each one to a polished steel knob on the rack that held the torpedo before he pressed it home. The Lieutenant turned to his superiors as he worked.
“Got to ground these cables to make sure there’s no residual charge in the wires!” Blinov chirped, composing his face respectfully. “Or else there could be unpleasantness.”
Holy Jesus, Arkhipov thought. The boy is arming a nuclear warhead as though he’s assembling a tractor engine.
“And now—the detonator battery. Comrade Maslennikov—a hand?”
With difficulty, Blinov and the Political Officer hoisted a heavy, half-meter-long battery array into the final remaining space in the torpedo. The apparatus clanged painfully several times against the steel housing before they got it in. With exaggerated caution, Binov wiped off the four connectors on his overalls and grounded them against the racks one by one before attaching them to the detonator control. As soon as the last was connected, a green light blinked on. Satisfied, Blinov produced a voltmeter from his pocket and carefully checked that every circuit was at zero before declaring his work done.
“Comrade Commanders. Reporting: special weapon ready to deploy once armed. The firing circuits are ready for testing.”
Wordlessly, Savitsky stepped forward and put his left hand on the T-5’s casing. With his right, he reached inside his undershirt and pulled out a steel key.
“Your arming key, Maslennikov.”
The Political Officer and Arkhipov exchanged a glance before Maslennikov obeyed, pulling the chain from around his neck and handing his own key to the Captain. Savitsky took the two halves and fitted them together to make a complete key, then slipped it into a slot on the detonator. He paused a moment to shoot a withering look at Arkhipov, then turned the arming mechanism. The indicator light on the detonator turned from green to red. Involuntarily, all three men stepped back from the weapon as though it were electric.
“Firing circuit functional. Thank you, Captain.” Blinov’s voice trembled a little with excitement. Savitsky leaned forward gingerly, as though putting his hand into a briar bush, then carefully turned and removed the arming key. The indicator flicked back to green. The Captain stepped back and raised his arms to put both key chains over his head.
“Sir? My key?” Maslennikov extended a hand. Savitsky waited a beat before nodding curtly, untangling the chains, and reluctantly handing one of the keys back to the Political Officer.
“Permission to complete final assembly, sir?” Blinov stood at attention, one of the casing plates under his arm. The Captain nodded. Slowly, almost tenderly, Blinov began to carefully screw the casings home.
Arkhipov and Maslennikov stood aside as the Captain stomped out of the torpedo compartment. While the special weapon was being armed, Arkhipov and the seven torpedo-room hands who bunked at the rear of the compartment had watched the process as though bearing witness to some very terrible sacrament. All except Blinov, who had spent years of his life around the special weapon and seemed to treat the machine like a friend, or a lover. The lad seemed unfazed that this was the first time he had ever actually armed a nuclear T-5 for real.
As Blinov worked, Arkhipov fought hard to make himself calm. His mind raced, forcing himself to retrace his training exercises.
A torpedo on the rack is not a torpedo in the tube, he told himself. As a junior officer, Arkhipov had done the loading maneuver so many times that he performed it in his dreams. First, the smooth traverse of well-greased ceiling-mounted gantries into position directly over the weapon. The rumble of the chain loops that led to the overhead winches—every link encased in a ball of rubber to reduce noise as they ran. The slow lowering of the winch hooks to the steel eyes set into the bodies of the torpedoes, then another rumble to hoist them clear of their racks. Five centimeters’ clearance, and they should be perfectly aligned with the tubes. A seaman standing by with the meter-long detachable wrench that opened the breech. It took a hard, full-body haul to move the locking mechanism, and another haul to swing open the heavy steel door of the torpedo tube. Then, guiding the torpedo’s nose into the breech by hand—an officer’s job, because of the risk of crushed fingers. A fiddly business connecting the nose to the protruding thumb of the loading slide, followed by several minutes of hard winching to feed the torpedo into its tube all the way until the loading thumb turned downward at the forward extremity of its chain. Close breech. Flood tube. Trim the boat to compensate for the extra weight of water. Open outer torpedo hatch. And then—finally—the weapons officer’s hand would go to the red-painted handle on the starboard side that released compressed air into the tube to eject the torpedo into the water. Arkhipov’s own hand had made that hard, backward jerk a hundred times. Suddenly, his thoughts scrolled back a beat.
He had it.
The last bolt fastened, Blinov allowed himself an affectionate pat of his weapon, smoothing the painted steel skin like that of a prize animal. As at every moment of his waking life on board, Arkhipov felt the eyes of other men on him.
“Good job, Lieutenant.” Arkhipov clapped Blinov on the shoulder, paused, and turned confidingly to Maslennikov. “You didn’t see the film, did you, Ivan?”
Maslennikov’s eyes went wide at being addressed informally by his first name.
“Er, no, Comrade Captain. Which film?”
“They showed all the commanders a classified reel of the tests of the special weapon. You neither, I guess, Blinov?”
Both of Arkhipov’s subordinates were standing at attention now, their faces frozen into exaggerated seriousness by his alarmingly personal tone.
“See, Lieutenant, I was on K-19 when we had the reactor accident. You’ve probably heard that. There are no secrets on a submarine. Comrade Maslennikov here has heard all my war stories. How the radiation poisoning made the skin of my comrades’ hands come off like rubber gloves. How we had to listen to them as they screamed, begging to die—”
“Captain Arkhipov?” interrupted Maslennikov, his voice high with alarm. “Sir, perhaps we could discuss this elsewhere?”
Arkhipov swung his eyes over Maslennikov’s shoulder to the torpedo room crew sitting silent and bowed on their bunks, pretending not to listen.
“Terrifying thing, radiation. Invisible. Tasteless. Odorless. Burns a man up from inside. See, Maslennikov, I’m the only man on board this ship that has actually seen what this thing can do to men.”
Arkhipov placed a palm on the warm steel casing of the special weapon. He felt the concentrated death inside it emanating like radiating heat.
“Undoubtedly, Captain, the weapons that our scientists have created to defend the Motherland are very terrifying.” The Political Officer dropped his voice to a hiss and moved closer to Arkhipov. “Sir! Not in front of the men.”
Arkhipov ignored him and switched to his loudest instructor’s voice to reach the back of the compartment clearly.
“Well, this weapon, for one, will have to wait for another day to defend the Motherland. Not on this cruise. Sorry, Blinov, if you were waiting to see what she could do. Can you tell me why, Lieutenant?”
“Sir?” The young Weapons Officer sounded disappointed.
“It is too late to fire this torpedo. See, Blinov, there are five enemy destroyers within two thousand meters’ range. They have been listening in to our every fart for a day now. And the minute we turn this…” Arkhipov took two paces toward the torpedo tube breeches and put his hand on the cock that flooded the tube. “Our American adversaries will hear it. And when we turn this…”
Arkhipov shifted his grip to a five-centimeter square knob at the end of a rod that ran the length of the tube to a worm gear that operated the outer torpedo hatches. On a more modern boat like the K-19, all these mechanisms were electric or hydraulic. But apart from the sonar and the newfangled targeting computer, everything on B-59 was still worked the old way—by hand.
“When we turn this they’ll definitely hear it. So, well before we get to aim and fire, the Yankees would send us to the bottom of the ocean. Understand? Remember from fleet exercises—we always go in for attacks with the tubes already open. Or we wait with open tubes for our enemy to cross our path. This is the reason why. Noise. Remember that from your tactical training, Blinov?”
“Yes, sir. I remember,” stammered the young weapons officer.
“Very good.” Arkhipov looked down the length of the compartment. By now all the torpedo room crew were unabashedly staring at him. “Men—don’t be alarmed. The weapon has been armed as a precaution only. Captain Savitsky and I will get you all home to your wives and sweethearts safely, all with commendations for your brave service. I promise you that. Glory to the USSR! Glory!”
“Glory! Glory!” The sailors’ automatic call-and-response was ragged and uneasy.
“Very good. Carry on, Blinov.”
Arkhipov waited until Maslennikov had followed him through the hatch into the central corridor of the officers’ quarters before catching the Political Officer’s arm and propelling him into his cabin. As Arkhipov slid the door closed behind him, Maslennikov began speaking, his face pale with indignation.
“Vasily Alexandrovich, how could you say such things in front of the enlisted men? I answer for the morale and political consciousness of the crew and I have to tell you that your words…”
“Is it not obvious to you, Ivan Semyonovich? I spoke because I do not wish the special weapon to be fired.”
“I see that, sir. But you are encouraging sailors to disobey their orders.”
“They will not have to disobey orders. That weapon will never be fired. Now give me your arming key.”
“Comrade Captain, you know I am forbidden to do that. The senior Party representative on board always has the second arming key. To prevent the special weapon being used contrary to the instructions of the Party.”
“You heard me back there. Any attempt to fire a torpedo will result in the total loss of this vessel, as well as our sister ship.”
“Sir, with respect, our operational orders give the Captain authority to use the weapon at his discretion.”
“Not if an attempt to use it results in our destruction. We do not have orders to commit suicide. Nor to start a nuclear war. Do you want to die, Maslennikov?”
Maslennikov, his uniform shirt soaked in sweat, slumped down on Arkhipov’s bunk, his hands wrung together.
“I am ready to die for my country, sir,” he replied weakly.
“Commander, this is not a test of your political convictions. We are both loyal Soviet military men. I mean, die senselessly?”
“I do not, sir.” The Political Officer’s voice was barely a whisper.
“So give me the key. That is an order.”
Maslennikov shook his head doggedly, his eyes fixed on his hands.
“I cannot. Sir, only the senior Party representative of the Red Banner Northern Fleet is authorized…”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
Arkhipov saw that he’d pushed the man far enough. Any more, and Maslennikov would run blabbing to the Captain. Maybe he would do that anyway. Arkhipov sat down on the bunk beside the Political Officer and ran a hand over his perspiring face.
“Of course you are correct, Comrade Commander. Forgive me. We will do everything by the book. Everything. Agreed?”
“Agreed, sir.”
“Glory to the Motherland!”
Maslennikov merely nodded. Both men were exhausted. Arkhipov struggled to his feet and made his way aft toward the control center. As he walked, the now-familiar rumble of muffled depth-charge detonations resonated through B-59, followed by the merciless deep gong of the American sonar.
16
GRU Headquarters, Moscow
Sunday, 28 October 1962, 14:30 Moscow Time / 07:30 EDT
“So, to recap, Morozov said nothing to you when he gave you the envelope? Not another word?”
Sofia shook her head. Her eyes were red with tears, and her face flushed with the stuffiness of the overheated office. Opposite her, on the other side of a wide oak desk, Zimin nodded and added a final line to his notes.
“You opened the envelope. It contained a metal canister which you believe to have been microfilm. And a note in Morozov’s writing with instructions for a dead-letter drop. Which you passed to this Lieutenant Colonel Vasin.”
“That’s correct, Comrade General. But sir—you still have not told me whether it’s true, what Morozov said. That this was all for you. That all his contacts with the Americans were on General Serov’s orders. Please. I have to know.”
Zimin pursed his lips and looked closely at Sofia. The woman was clearly no idiot. So how had that fat oaf Morozov ever sweet-talked her into his confidence—maybe even into his bed? Zimin had always taken Morozov for a mediocre yes-man, one of many such toadies that surrounded his boss Serov. But clearly he had underestimated the traitor’s powers of persuasion. The Morozov case would be something for the spy manuals one day—the gray man whose carapace of ordinariness hides his malice and skill. It was just a pity that the traitor had chosen such a charming creature for his unwitting victim. Perhaps Zimin might even be able to save her from the wrath of the system. But she would first have to learn the virtue of silence. And she would have to work hard to earn his favor, of course. He curled his thin lips into a regretful smile.
“I am afraid that is classified information, Sofia Rafaelovna.”
She looked around the sparsely furnished room. A framed portrait of Lenin hung on one wall above a set of plain Soviet bookshelves stocked with uniform red volumes interspersed with zinc models of tanks and aircraft. The world of high military bureaucracy. Sofia’s world, turned suddenly cold. Outside the window, the light was already draining from the day. Silently, a grave young orderly sergeant entered bearing two fresh cups of lemon tea. He leaned confidentially to whisper a message in Zimin’s ear, after which the General nodded and stood.
“Lieutenant Guzman. You did well to come to us…”
The door opened abruptly as an older man in the uniform of a colonel general of the Soviet Army barged into the room. He was of medium build, a little thick around the belly, and he immediately fixed Sofia with a cold, appraising stare. She knew the face immediately, of course, from the official photographs that hung in her own office. General Ivan Serov was no less stern in real life, and his glare was as hard as a statue’s. Sofia stood and snapped into a salute, eyes front.
“At ease, Lieutenant.”
