‘Exactly!’ Khrushchev pointed to the KGB report on Operation Mongoose that Dimka was still clutching. ‘And that will convince the Politburo to support me. Poisoned cigars. Ha!’
‘Our official line has been that we will not deploy nuclear weapons in Cuba,’ Dimka said, in the manner of one who presents incidental information, rather than in an argumentative tone. ‘We have given the Americans that reassurance several times, and publicly.’
Khrushchev grinned with impish delight. ‘Then Kennedy will be all the more surprised!’
Khrushchev scared Dimka in this mood. The First Secretary was not a fool, but he was a gambler. If this scheme went wrong it could lead to a diplomatic humiliation that might bring about Khrushchev’s downfall as leader – and, by way of collateral damage, end Dimka’s career. Worse, it might provoke the American invasion of Cuba that it was intended to prevent – and his beloved sister was in Cuba. There was even a chance that it would spark the nuclear war that would end capitalism, Communism and, quite possibly, the human race.
On the other hand, Dimka could not help feeling excited. What a tremendous blow would be struck against the rich, smug Kennedy boys, against the global bully that was the United States, and against the whole capitalist-imperialist power bloc. If the gamble paid off, what a triumph it would be for the USSR and Khrushchev.
What should he do? He switched to practical mode and strained to think of ways to reduce the apocalyptic risks of the scheme. ‘We could start by signing a peace treaty with Cuba,’ he said. ‘The Americans could hardly object to that without admitting that they were planning to attack a poor Third World country.’ Khrushchev looked unenthusiastic but said nothing, so Dimka went on. ‘Then we could step up the supply of conventional weapons. Again, it would be awkward for Kennedy to protest: why shouldn’t a country buy guns for its army? Finally we could send the missiles—’
‘No,’ said Khrushchev abruptly. He never liked gradualism, Dimka reflected. ‘This is what we’ll do,’ Khrushchev went on. ‘We’ll ship the missiles secretly. We’ll put them in boxes labelled “drainage pipes”, anything. Even the ships’ captains won’t know what’s inside. We’ll send our artillerymen over to Cuba to assemble the launchers. The Americans won’t have any idea what we’re up to.’
Dimka felt a little sick, with both fear and exhilaration. It would be extraordinarily difficult to keep such a big project secret, even in the Soviet Union. Thousands of men would be involved in crating the weapons, sending them by train to the ports, opening them in Cuba and deploying them. Was it even possible to keep them all quiet?
However, he said nothing.
Khrushchev went on: ‘And then, when the weapons are launch-ready, we’ll make an announcement. It will be a fait accompli – the Americans will be helpless to do anything about it.’
It was just the kind of grand dramatic gesture Khrushchev loved, and Dimka realized he would never talk him out of it. He said cautiously: ‘I wonder how President Kennedy will react to such an announcement.’
Khrushchev made a scornful noise. ‘He’s a boy – inexperienced, timid, weak.’
‘Of course,’ said Dimka, though he feared Khrushchev might be underestimating the young President. ‘But they have midterm elections on the sixth of November. If we revealed the missiles during the campaign, Kennedy would come under heavy pressure to do something drastic, to avoid humiliation at the polls.’
‘Then you have to keep the secret until the sixth of November.’
Dimka said: ‘Who does?’
‘You do. I’m putting you in charge of this project. You’ll be my liaison with the Defence Ministry, who will have to carry it out. It will be your job to make sure they don’t let the secret leak before we’re ready.’
Dimka was shocked enough to blurt out: ‘Why me?’
‘You hate that prick Filipov. Therefore I can trust you to ride him hard.’
Dimka was too aghast to wonder how Khrushchev knew he hated Filipov. The army was being given a near-impossible task – and Dimka would get the blame if it went wrong. This was a catastrophe.
But he knew better than to say so. ‘Thank you, Nikita Sergeyevitch,’ he said formally. ‘You can rely on me.’
15
The GAZ-13 limousine was called a Seagull because of its streamlined American-style rear wings. It could reach one hundred miles per hour, just, although it was uncomfortable at such speeds on Soviet roads. It was available in two-tone burgundy and cream with whitewall tyres, but Dimka’s was black.
He sat in the back as it drove on to the quayside at Sevastopol, Ukraine. The town stood on the tip of the Crimean Peninsula where it poked out into the Black Sea. Twenty years ago it had been flattened by German bombing and artillery fire. After the war it had been rebuilt as a cheerful seaside resort with Mediterranean balconies and Venetian arches.
Dimka got out and looked at the ship moored at the dock, a timber freighter with oversize hatches designed to take tree trunks. Under the hot summer sun, stevedores were loading skis and clearly labelled cartons of cold-weather clothing, to give the impression that the ship was headed to the frozen north. Dimka had devised the deliberately misleading code name Operation Anadyr, after a town in Siberia.
A second Seagull pulled on to the dock and parked behind Dimka’s. Four men in Red Army Intelligence uniforms got out and stood waiting for his instructions.
A railway line ran alongside the dock, and a massive gantry straddled the line, positioned to shift cargo directly from railcar to ship. Dimka looked at his wristwatch. ‘The fucking train should be here by now.’
Dimka was wound up tight. He had never been so tense in all his life. He had not even known what stress was until he started this project.
The senior Red Army man was a colonel called Pankov. Despite his rank, he addressed Dimka with formal respect. ‘You want me to make a call, Dmitriy Ilich?’
A second officer, Lieutenant Meyer, said: ‘I think it’s coming.’
Dimka looked along the track. In the distance he could see, approaching slowly, a line of low-slung open railcars loaded with long wooden crates.
Dimka said: ‘Why does everyone think it’s all right to be fifteen fucking minutes late?’
Dimka was worried about spies. He had visited the chief of the local KGB station and reviewed his list of suspected people in the area. They were all dissidents: poets, priests, painters of abstract art and Jews who wanted to go to Israel – typical Soviet malcontents, about as threatening as a cycling club. Dimka had them all arrested anyway, but not one looked dangerous. Almost certainly there were real CIA agents in Sevastopol, but the KGB did not know who they were.
A man in captain’s uniform came from the ship across the gangway and addressed Pankov. ‘Are you in charge here, Colonel?’
Pankov inclined his head towards Dimka.
The captain became less deferential. ‘My ship can’t go to Siberia,’ he said.
‘Your destination is classified information,’ Dimka said. ‘Do not speak of it.’ In Dimka’s pocket was a sealed envelope that the captain was to open after he had sailed from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. At that point he would learn he was going to Cuba.
‘I need cold-weather lubricating oil, antifreeze, de-icing equipment—’
Dimka said: ‘Shut the fuck up.’
‘But I have to protest. Siberian conditions—’
Dimka said to Lieutenant Meyer: ‘Punch him in the mouth.’
Meyer was a big man and he hit hard. The captain fell back, his lips bleeding.
Dimka said: ‘Go back aboard your ship, wait for orders, and keep your stupid mouth shut.’
The captain left, and the men on the quay turned their attention back to the approaching train.
Operation Anadyr was huge. The approaching train was the first of nineteen similar, all required to bring just this first missile regiment to Sevastopol. Altogether, Dimka was sending fifty thousand men and 230,000 tons of equipment to Cuba. He had a fleet of eighty-five ships.
He still did not see how he was to keep the whole thing secret.
Many of the men in authority in the Soviet Union were careless, lazy, drunk, and just plain stupid. They misunderstood their instructions, they forgot, they approached challenging tasks half-heartedly then gave up, and sometimes they just decided they knew better. Reasoning with them was useless; charm was worse. Being nice to them made them think you were a fool who could be ignored.
The train inched alongside the ship, its steel-on-steel brakes squealing. Each purpose-built railcar carried just one wooden crate eighty feet long and nine feet square. A crane operator mounted the gantry and entered its control cabin. Stevedores leaped on to the railcars and began readying the crates for loading. A company of soldiers had travelled with the train, and now they began to help the stevedores. Dimka was relieved to see that the missile regiment flashes had been removed from their uniforms, in accordance with his instructions.
A man in a civilian suit jumped down off a car, and Dimka was irritated to see that it was Yevgeny Filipov, his opposite number at the Defence Ministry. Filipov approached Pankov, as the captain had, but Pankov said: ‘Comrade Dvorkin is in command here.’
Filipov shrugged. ‘Just a few minutes late,’ he said with a satisfied air. ‘We were delayed—’
Dimka noticed something. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Fuck it.’
Filipov said: ‘Something wrong?’
Dimka stamped his foot on the concrete quay. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’
‘What is it?’
Dimka looked at him in fury. ‘Who’s in charge on the train?’
‘Colonel Kats is with us.’
‘Bring the dumb bastard here to me right away.’
Filipov did not like to do Dimka’s bidding, but he could hardly refuse such a request, and he went away.
Pankov looked an inquiry at Dimka.
Dimka said with weary rage: ‘Do you see what is stencilled on the side of each crate?’
Pankov nodded. ‘It’s an army code number.’
‘Exactly,’ Dimka said bitterly. ‘It means: ‘R-12 ballistic missile.’
‘Oh, shit,’ said Pankov.
Dimka shook his head in impotent fury. ‘Torture is too good for some people.’
He had feared that sooner or later he would have a showdown with the army, and on balance it suited him to have it now, over the very first shipment. And he was prepared for it.
Filipov returned with a colonel and a major. The senior man said: ‘Good morning, comrades. I’m Colonel Kats. Slight delay, but otherwise everything is going smoothly—’
‘No, it’s not, you dim-witted prick,’ said Dimka.
Kats was incredulous. ‘What did you say?’
Filipov said: ‘Look here, Dvorkin, you can’t talk to an army officer like that.’
Dimka ignored Filipov and spoke to Kats. ‘You have endangered the security of this entire operation by your disobedience. Your orders were to paint over the army numbers on the crates. You were provided with new stencils reading “Construction Grade Plastic Pipe”. You were to paint new markings on all the crates.’
Kats said indignantly: ‘There wasn’t time.’
Filipov said: ‘Be reasonable, Dvorkin.’
Dimka suspected Filipov might be happy for the secret to leak, for then Khrushchev would be discredited and might even fall from power.
Dimka pointed south, out to sea. ‘There is a NATO country just one hundred and fifty miles in that direction, Kats, you fucking idiot. Don’t you know that the Americans have spies? And that they send them to places such as Sevastopol, which is a naval base and a major Soviet port?’
‘The markings are in code—’
‘In code? What is your brain made of, dog shit? What training do you imagine is given to capitalist-imperialist spies? They are taught to recognize uniform badges – such as the missile regiment flash you are wearing on your collar, also against orders – as well as other military insignia and equipment markings. You stupid turd, every traitor and CIA informant in Europe can read the army code on these crates.’
Kats tried standing on his dignity. ‘Who do you think you are?’ he said. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that. I’ve got children older than you.’
‘You are relieved of your command,’ said Dimka.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Show him, please.’
Colonel Pankov took a sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Kats.
Dimka said: ‘As you see from the document, I have the necessary authority.’
Filipov’s jaw was hanging open, Dimka saw.
Dimka said to Kats: ‘You are under arrest as a traitor. Go with these men.’
Lieutenant Meyer and another of Pankov’s group smoothly positioned themselves either side of Kats, took his arms, and marched him to the limousine.
Filipov recovered his wits. ‘Dvorkin, for God’s sake—’
‘If you can’t say anything helpful, shut your fucking mouth,’ Dimka said to him. He turned to the missile regiment major, who had not said a word so far. ‘Are you Kats’s second-in-command?’
The man looked terrified. ‘Yes, comrade. Major Spektor at your service.’
‘You are now in command.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Take this train away. North of here is a large complex of train sheds. Arrange with the railway management to stop there for twelve hours while you repaint the crates. Bring the train back here tomorrow.’
‘Yes, Comrade.’
‘Colonel Kats is going to a labour camp in Siberia for the rest of his life, which will not be very long. So, Major Spektor, don’t make a mistake.’
‘I won’t.’
Dimka got into his limousine. As he drove away, he passed Filipov standing on the quay, looking as if he was not sure what had just happened.
* * *
Tania Dvorkin stood on the dock at Mariel, on Cuba’s north coast twenty-five miles from Havana, where a narrow inlet opened into a huge natural harbour hidden among hills. She looked anxiously at a Soviet ship moored at a concrete pier. Parked on the pier was a Soviet ZIL-130 truck pulling an eighty-foot trailer. A crane was lifting a long wooden crate from the ship’s hold and moving it through the air, with painful slowness, towards the truck. The crate was marked in Russian: ‘Construction Grade Plastic Pipe’.
She saw all this by floodlights. The ships had to be unloaded at night, by order of her brother. All other shipping had been cleared out of the harbour. Patrol boats had closed the inlet. Frogmen searched the waters around the ship to guard against an underwater threat. Dimka’s name was mentioned in tones of fear: his word was law and his wrath terrible to behold, they said.