The Midnight Swimmer (42 page)

‘It’s nearly closing time.
Shall we go for a walk?’

Feklisov nodded.
‘By the way, I got here early to have a look at the American collections.
Many of them have been put in “
temporary
storage”.
What a pity that Winslow Homer should be saved for survivor posterity,’ he gestured at the painting, ‘but the Monets left to burn?’

The National Mall is lined by American elms and stretches for a mile.
The massive ‘grand avenue’ of lawn and reflecting pools begins at the Capitol.
Two-thirds the way along its length, the
Washington
Monument sticks up like a giant exclamation mark.
The Mall finally terminates at another presidential memorial where 160 tons of marble Lincoln sits staring back at Congress.

‘The Kremlin,’ said Feklisov admiring the view from a park bench, ‘is so much smaller than this, but so much older.’

‘And so is Trafalgar Square.’

‘Zhenka is a good man.
Have you passed his message on to the Americans?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you for telling me.
It makes me less worried, more hopeful.’
Feklisov lowered his voice.
‘There are other things going on, but I’m not sure it’s enough to avoid war.
Thank you for meeting me.’

‘There’s something else,’ said Catesby in a rough, tired voice.

‘Yes.’

Catesby swallowed hard.
He had never had to convey a message like this before.
He wanted to get each word correct.
‘I have been authorised by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to give you the following message to pass on to First Secretary Khrushchev.
If the Soviet Union removes all R-12 and R-14 nuclear missiles from Cuba, the United Kingdom will reciprocate by permanently
removing
all sixty Thor nuclear missiles now located on British soil.’

‘What’s the timescale?’

‘The first Thor will be removed next month.
No Thor will remain on British soil beyond the end of August next year.’

‘You can’t give me any of this in writing?’

‘No,’ smiled Catesby, ‘we’re not real people.
We’re back-channel shades gibbering and squeaking in the wind.’

Feklisov took Catesby’s hand and squeezed it hard.
‘I think this offer might be enough to stop midnight coming.
We’ll see.’

‘You know that Zhenka is dead.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘Give my condolences to Katya,’ said Catesby.

‘I will, my friend.’

They got up to go their separate ways like ships passing in a narrow dangerous channel.

L
ieutenant Commander Pavlov was not only in charge of the nuclear torpedo on the B-59, he slept beside the polished grey tube like a fond lover.
When Captain Savitsky gave the order to prepare the torpedo for firing Pavlov felt two competing pangs of regret.
One, he was going to be separated from a complex piece of
machinery
and advanced technology that he had looked after with
obsessive
care for many months.
Two, he was almost certainly going to die and never see his homeland or his loved ones again.
But Pavlov overcame those feelings and began the final preparation rituals.
It was impossible not to think of the enormity of his actions and the lives that would be extinguished.
Pavlov assumed that the world was already at war and that he had to carry out his duties as part of a greater scheme that he could not question.
He unscrewed a cover to make a final check on the coils and electrical connections that
connected
detonator and warhead.
When that was done, he completed the final task.
Pavlov could not keep his hands from shaking as he removed the green ‘safety connector plug’ and replaced it with the red ‘arming plug’.

The submarine’s second in command, Vasili Alexandrovich
Arkhipov
, came from a peasant family and had made his way up the ranks through technical expertise and calm judgement.
The previous year he had helped save a nuclear submarine with a coolant leak that resulted in the deaths of eight sailors and threatened to blow up the reactor.
Arkhipov received a heavy dose of radiation, but helped devise a jury-rigged coolant system that saved the submarine.
Arkhipov
was now trying to save the world.

The authorisation of all three senior officers aboard was needed to launch the nuclear torpedo.
The Political Officer, Ivan
Semonovich
Maslennikov, was in accord with Captain Savitsky that war had broken out.
The submarine had been buffeted by four more explosions.
Although the crew of the B-59 had no way of knowing, the explosions had been caused by hand grenades dropped by a destroyer that had joined the
Beale
.
Both Savitsky and Maslennikov
felt they were now bound by honour and duty to attack the US aircraft carrier leading the task group.
‘We have no choice,’ said Maslennikov, ‘we need to defend Soviet forces from further attacks.
This is war.’

‘If,’ said Arkhipov, ‘the Americans were trying to sink us we would already be dead.’

‘They’re incompetent,’ said Savitsky, ‘and we’ve been taking evasive action.’

‘They may be incompetent, but they are not trying to sink us.
They have not dropped fully-armed depth charges.
If we are not certain that a state of war exists, we cannot take the risk of starting a war that will kill tens of millions of our citizens.
I refuse,’ said
Arkhipov
, ‘to give my authorisation to use that torpedo.
If you ignore my refusal, you are both disobeying standing orders.
In any case, it will soon be night.
I suggest we surface under cover of darkness and radio Moscow for further instructions.’

Savitsky looked hard at Arkhipov.
He then angrily picked up the internal telephone connecting the control centre to the torpedo room.

A hundred feet forward Pavlov lifted the clanging phone off its hook.
He felt a shiver go down his spine as he heard the captain’s voice bark out the crisp order.
Pavlov wasn’t sure that he had heard correctly, so he asked the captain to repeat the order for
confirmation.
Savitsky’s voice sounded even more irritated than it had the first time.
Pavlov replied, ‘Order understood.
I will carry out instruction immediately.’

Pavlov put the phone down and returned to the torpedo.
His hands were completely calm as he removed the arming plug and replaced it with the safety connector plug.
Tears were flowing down his cheeks as he stroked the torpedo tube.
‘Not now my sweetest, maybe never.’

In the end, the B-59 was not able to have a quiet chat with Moscow.
She surfaced on to a night sea surrounded by American ships that were shining search lights at her conning tower.
One of the
destroyers
had a jazz band on deck playing loud amplified music.
The idea was to show the Soviet submarine officers that war had not broken out.
As the B-59 broke the surface, the band shifted from ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’ to ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’.

When Captain Savitsky appeared from the hatch he was greeted with ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’.
He ordered the sailors who followed him not to smile or make eye contact with the Americans.
‘Behave with dignity,’ he said, ‘they are trying to humiliate us.’

A large group of American sailors were dancing on the jazz band ship’s deck in time to the music.
Others were throwing packages of cigarettes and Coca-Cola at the Soviet submariners.
Most of the offerings fell into the sea, but the ones that landed on the submarine were ignored and left to the washing waves.

Captain Maultsby realised he was finally and definitely going in the right direction when he saw the faint red glow of nautical twilight on the eastern horizon.
It was now some time since he had heard Russian folk music on his radio.
There was just enough light to see the ground – and it was the snow-covered ground of Alaska and not Siberia.
The MiGs had given up pursuit and the USAF F-102s sent to protect him were now guides showing him the way to a
primitive
airstrip just above the Arctic Circle.
Ten minutes later Captain Maultsby had safely landed.
He quickly climbed out of the U-2 cockpit, unzipped his flying suit and peed onto a bank of pure white snow.

It was 5 p.m.
in Moscow and 9 a.m.
in Washington on Sunday, 29 October 1962.
The Russian radio announcer introduced the news by saying that he was about to read a letter written by Nikita
Sergeyevich
Khrushchev to John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Without
hesitation
or further explanation he read the letter:

On 29 November 1962, exactly one month after General Pliyev had begun dismantling the Soviet R-12 sites in Cuba, the
commanding
officer of RAF Breighton in the East Riding of Yorkshire was ordered to stand down his three Thor IRBMs.
The nuclear missiles
most difficult part of the immobilisation process is draining the fuel.
Rockets are essentially fuel canisters.
In its ready-to-launch state, a Thor weighed 110,000 pounds – of which 98,500 pounds was rocket fuel.
An RAF Wing Commander and the RAF Regiment Squadron Leader in charge of security looked on from a distance as the
white-suited
technicians began to drain the highly volatile liquid oxygen from Beach Buggy into storage tanks.

‘I wonder what this nonsense is all about,’ said the squadron leader.

The Wing Co shrugged.
‘I think they’re going to be redeployed somewhere else.
Ours is not to question why.’

‘C
an I give you some advice, William?’

Catesby shrugged.

‘Never ever tell anyone about the Thor business.
Not even a wink or a raised eyebrow.
If a leak is traced back to you, you are going to be hung, drawn and quartered – or simply shot as was your
Gunpowder
Plot ancestor.’

‘Did ours make a difference?
The rumour mill says that
Khrushchev
agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for Kennedy taking his missiles out of Turkey and Italy.’

‘Look at the maths.
There are thirty Jupiter missiles in Turkey and fifteen in Italy – all of which are obsolete and scheduled for decommissioning.
There are sixty Thors in England with larger
payloads
.
We were the dog that didn’t bark in the night.
We broke the deadlock.’

‘I wish you could hear yourself, Henry.’

‘Why?’

‘The whole business is so infinitely childish, infantile.
It belongs to the playground world of conkers, Chinese burns, bulldog and blind man’s bluff.’

‘But infinitely dangerous.’

The two men were sitting on a bench in Green Park.
It was a bleak December day.
They were wearing bowler hats and city suits.
They had not yet become anachronisms and London had not yet begun to swing.
But the old order was cracking.
Catesby was both shocked and amused to find that his sister was living in a commune in the south of France devoted to the study of Eastern philosophy – and the practice of free love.

‘How,’ said Bone, ‘were things in Cuba when you got back?’

‘Fidel and Che pretend to be incensed that the Sovs have backed down.
But I’m sure that was for public display.
Privately, I suspect they are relieved.’

‘And, if you don’t mind my referring to the childish world you so much despise, what about the tactical and cruise nukes?’

‘I am sure, Henry, they are still well hidden in Cuba – and will
be for years to come.
That’s the real reason why the Kennedys have given a non-invasion pledge.’

‘I think, William, you deserve some leave.’

Catesby smiled.
He liked the idea of paying his sister a visit at the commune.
He wondered if he would have to wear a white robe and practise meditation.
But what he really wanted was a personal visit to Moscow, but he knew that would never be permitted by either side.