In the Company of Spies

by Stephen Barlay

  Which was not easy advice to take and remember when, after feeding him, the girl climbed into the bed next to Rust and lay there, under the one pillow, without at all pretending to sleep.

  Saturday, September 8

  Ex-President Truman declares: Eisenhower was “the laziest President we ever had”; he blames Ike for the current Cuban situation because “he didn’t have the guts to enforce the Monroe Doctrine” and “we’re now paying the penalty for eight years of a do-nothing Administration.” Bertrand Russell subscribes to the quaint belief that “man has a future on this planet” though it’s “six to four in favor of war and the risk is growing.”

  *

  THE COLORS AND GENERAL POOR QUALITY OF THE HUGE map on the wall would have been fit for a village school rather than the Kremlin’s underground war room, but the details were exceptionally accurate, and that was all that mattered to young Missile General Biryuzov. His voice would have guaranteed instant sleep to confirmed insomniacs, but again, that did not matter because his audience was too anxious to hear him. He picked up a pair of wooden beam compasses and pinned one leg, with a single thrust, to San Cristóbal, west of Havana, in Cuba, and drew two circles.

  “To summarize it, the first circle represents fifteen hundred kilometers, the second three thousand kilometers. Our medium and intermediate ranges. The first extends almost to Washington, beyond Ho-ooston and Mexico City; the second takes in most of Canada and almost all the ‘main enemy’ territory all the way to Los Angeles. Progress is satisfactory, and we hope to be fully operational by the middle of October.”

  A heavily decorated general fingered his magnificent row of combat medals and listened impassively. His eyes wandered toward Khrushchev and a select few of his colleagues. There was silence. Nobody reacted to the summary. Not until Khrushchev did. When his left fist hit his right palm and he snorted a single sound of laughter, everybody clapped and laughed with him. The general turned to the rotund marshal of the artillery, who looked away immediately as if they had never met. He got the same reaction from the baby-blue eyes of hognose, who sat next to Brezhnev in the third row.

  Biryuzov gave a few more details. The marshal viewed him with undisguised hatred: the younger man was openly after his own job. He had buried a few such aspirants over the years, but Biryuzov was different and would have to be watched. He only half heard Khrushchev saying: “And when we’re ready, the Kennedys will opt for a compromise.”

  “They might choose to hit us instead, hit us hard,” the marshal said. He did not mean to say it. He was absentminded, off his guard for a second. Biryuzov’s fault, clearly. But there was no chance to take it back.

  Khrushchev’s fist came down on the bench in front and sent documents flying. “I didn’t invite questions and comments, did I? Did I, comrade? I made a statement. A clear statement, that they’ll compromise. Why did I say that? Why? Because I’m a fool?” He paused, then burst into a wide smile that tried to embrace the whole room, including the marshal. “I’ll tell you why. Because I know. And I have proof. That’s why.” He tapped his nose with his forefinger. “We know. To catch a bedbug, you must pour boiling water into his ear. But to do that, you must know where the bedbug is, and how it behaves. The best is to ask the bedbug first.”

  During the outburst of compulsory appreciation and merriment, the marshal excused himself. He had to go through a series of heavy, manually operated bombproof doors (Khrushchev distrusted pushbutton devices) and down a maze of vaults for selected survival. He expected to be followed, after a respectable delay, by that hognosed Brezhnev aide. It would be an innocent exchange of a few glances and even fewer words. It was a risk, but only a slight one, he hoped. After five minutes, when still nobody joined him at the urinals, he began to feel ridiculous and uneasy standing with his fly open, facing the wall. Then his nerves began to fray. He might be being watched. He might be being set up by the others. Perhaps he ought to stay away from the next meeting in Granovsky. And let the world sink into a shit pit under a mushroom cloud. He could not wait any longer and hurried back to the war room.

  The meeting was just breaking up. Hognose took the marshal’s arm and suggested a short walk. The marshal glanced at his watch: yes, it was past seven o’clock, there would be no more tourists or sightseers left in the Kremlin grounds, it would be pleasant and safe to talk under the glittering onion domes.

  As they walked past the Czar Bell, rounding the Bell Tower of Ivan the Great, the marshal said. “So, we’ve failed, I suppose.” He tried not to look too grave.

  “In a word, yes, so far.” And after a pause: “But nothing is lost. Not yet.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “I’m not sure. But most of our communications must have been blocked somewhere down the line.”

  “By whom?”

  “Who knows? Maybe our own men within the administration in Washington. Maybe by the American military, who could advocate armed aggression if we’re seen to be arming Fidel. As you know, they’re already preparing another invasion.”

  “What does Leonid Ilyich think of it?”

  The hognose twitched and the baby-blue eyes grew several shades darker. Brezhnev was not supposed to be mentioned at all. The marshal was a fool. Perhaps it was a mistake to involve him. Too late to exclude him now. “I think … “ He paused, only to start again. “I think that we must now explore more unorthodox channels. We’re scraping the barrel in that respect, but the situation is not without hope. There’re several avenues, and any of them may lead to our goal, I don’t mind which, as long as it’s untraceable to us. In Florida, for instance … “

  “I don’t want to know,” the marshal interrupted.

  “Neither do I. And I wouldn’t want to tell you if I knew. I don’t even know whom we’ve instructed to make the effort to relay the tip-off to Kennedy. But I can tell you that unorthodox channels are used even by Nikita Sergeyevich himself. In Florida we’ve picked up some information that he’s communicated with Kennedy through a third-rate businessman.”

  “Why?”

  “Presumably, he can’t quite trust our own diplomats. Or the people who surround the President.”

  The marshal pulled his overcoat tighter on his chest. “I hope you know whom we can trust.” The setting sun was bright and made him squint, but the breeze was chilly: it might be signaling a short autumn and a long, cold winter.

  *

  It was midafternoon and the heat was dizzying when Morales returned with a red-check sports shirt, baggy slacks and a guayabera, Castro’s favorite loose-fitting jacket, for Rust. He watched his visitor and the girl, both fully dressed now, to satisfy himself that his warning had been heeded.

  “Put these on,” he said finally, “and leave all your own things here. Everything.”

  “How about shoes?”

  “What shoes?” Morales laughed. “You’re a drunk from the Russian camp at Sagua la Grande and lost your shoes. If we’re stopped, you just keep singing and yelling at everybody in Russian.”

  Rust changed his clothes and noted the Russian label in the shirt. He gave Morales a look full of admiration.

  The Cuban was pleased. “They all wear this,” he said with pride. “Now turn around.” And from behind, he poured a good half-bottle of rum on Rust. The girl giggled in the background. “Now you’re genuine Russian. Russian shirts soak up Cuban rum well.”

  Morales drove a multicolored Dodge which was open at the back not so much by design as by bomb damage, rust and old age, and his foul-smelling passenger never thought it would make it all the way down the Zapata Peninsula.

  Rust noticed a soccer field. The goal posts were freshly painted. “What’s that? Soccer in Cuba?”

  Morales spat out, “For our permanent visitors. They’re building them all over the place.” Offhand he remembered four such locations.

  Rust was not interested. “Since you know so much about the Russkis here, you must have heard about the sailor who jumped ship a
bout ten days ago.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “It isn’t. Because there wasn’t one.”

  “There was,” Rust insisted.

  “But not ten days ago. More like a month it was.”

  The man must have tried to get away from Cuba for weeks, until he was desperate enough to join that foolish and doomed escape attempt. Rust hoped he had died without much pain. He was grateful to the sailor for delivering his father’s message, perhaps with his last breath.

  Rust’s olfactory nerves had been thoroughly desensitized by the rum in his clothes, but even so his nose told him that they were well into the several hundred square miles of uninhabitable marshland. Cool breezes, whiffs of citrus and pungent bellflowers had been left behind; the stench of the swamp was inescapable. Only alligator hunters and fugitives left the road to the Bay of Pigs beyond Jaguey Grande. And, of course, the man they had set out to visit. Morales stopped the car on the shore of the Laguna del Tesoro, frightened away a pair of flamingos with his choice of a hiding place for it, and led Rust to a waiting boat.

  After a few minutes out on the lake, they entered a huge lagoon, and Morales warned Rust to keep his hands away from the edge of the boat. The reason would soon be obvious: the sluggish water was alive with crocodiles. Now and again a head appeared, lethal teeth snapped at thin air, a tail gave a nudge to the boat and made Rust swear.

  The man they had come to see met them at a slippery, disused pier. Half his face was in the shadow of the wide brim of a straw hat, the other half was covered by his arm. His first sentence was to ask Rust never to look at him.

  “No offense, señor, but if you’re caught and beaten, you’ll tell them everything, and when they tear your nails out, you’ll remember what you think you never knew. Why make it easy to describe me? Best if you turn your back to me.”

  He was some sort of manager of the crocodile farm, where baby crocs were bred in large quantities, mainly for export. He led them along shaky wooden catwalks, barely above the reach of all those mincing machines with the ancient, lifeless eyes. They stopped on a platform which seemed to have more gaps than planks, but Rust was assured that at least they would be safe there both from the sunbathing pack of reptiles and the G2 men of the policía secreta.

  The discussion was brief and to the point. The man was indebted to Morales, who, in turn, was indebted to Rust. Help, therefore, would be forthcoming if the only possible proposition was acceptable.

  Until recently, the Russians had required skins only. Now they wanted “live” consignments. The baby crocs traveled in huge, specially constructed tanks aboard cargo ships, mostly the Omsk and the Poltava, which plied regularly between Havana and Odessa. The empty tanks were always returned, and Rust’s friend could make the journey hiding in one of those.

  “We always have a croc farmer in charge of the babies, and he returns with the empties. Normally, he’s staying at the Hotel Tsentralnaya, and your friend must contact him there. Your friend’s biggest problem will be to enter the port itself and get to the ship. And that’s not easy. I hear these ships bring us cohetes and other cargo on some secret list, and they are loaded in a restricted dock used only by the military. So how he gets there is his business. Does that help you, señor?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to see. But I’ll be grateful to you even for just trying to help.”

  The man gave Rust the name to look for in the Tsentralnaya. That was a risk he had to take. Rust shook hands with him behind his back. That gave him the added advantage of keeping his eyes on the scaly carpet of crocs. For the return journey, they took a freshly killed baby croc as an alibi for the visit if caught.

  Sunday, September 9

  Havana’s TV is filled with old Walt Disney cartoons and exhortations for greater productivity. U-2 shot down over China; pilot missing, presumed dead.

  *

  ORLANDO TOOK RUST OUT OF CUBA BEFORE DAYBREAK.

  He was worried about the young men they had left with Hal. “We can’t just kill them. Or leave them there to die. But if I bring them back, they’ll probably report me.” His thumb drew a line across his throat.

  Rust suggested that Orlando should go with him to Florida. “I can’t live away from home. Not that I love it, but it’s home.”

  His problem was solved when they reached the island. Hal “Jus’-juice” Sheridan was alone. “They both ran away,” he said and looked out toward the shark-infested waters.

  “They couldn’t swim,” Orlando whispered in shock.

  Hal raised his shoulders slowly, then dropped them in a gesture of helplessness. Rust knew it would be pointless to question him.

  *

  At Hyannisport, everybody seemed to enjoy the peace of a balmy Sunday, everybody except the President’s doctor and bodyguards. They watched the game of touch football in progress on the big lawn in the Kennedy compound. They winced every time the part-time quarterback full-time President was brought to the ground when an overexuberant player tackled him.

  Few people would have been allowed to interrupt the noisy, traditional revelry of the Kennedy clan, but General Taylor was one of the few. The Kennedy sisters, acting as manic cheerleaders, tried to keep him away from the game, but he was too determined. He had a shock for the President: the U-2 pictures of the U.S. airfields. There were rows upon rows of bombers and fighters, wing to wing in the open, there to be blown up or strafed at will, with no room even to run for it, as if Pearl harbor had never taught anything to anyone. “It seems we have an awful lot of very ordinary people in charge,” mumbled the Attorney General. The pictures wiped away the joy of his team being in the lead by a touchdown.

  After showering in his house, the President crossed the lawn to Bobby’s home where a few friends were gathered in the sunroom. He took another look at the photographs and heard his brother talking: “I don’t know if we’ll be successful in overthrowing Castro,” said Bobby, “but we have nothing to lose in my estimate. That’s why Mongoose is top priority.”

  General Taylor noted that the President’s eyes narrowed. JFK was losing interest even in his old favorite, the development of what he called counter-insurgency units to police trouble spots in the Third World. He used to have great plans for the Green Berets who would “introduce social reforms under pressure” instead of fighting revolutions, but lately he felt that the special force was attracting the wrong men, those with a taste for action rather than hearts-and-minds campaigns.

  “Then aren’t we strong enough to finish off Fidel?” asked one of the Kennedy sisters. “Just wipe him out, can’t we?”

  “We can,” said the President in a tone that made several people twitch because they all knew what was coming, “but basically, we arm to parley.” Everybody in the room had heard him quote Churchill’s negotiating credo several times before.

  “What if Khrushchev put bombs or whatever in Cuba?”

  “That would be an entirely new ballgame,” conceded Kennedy. The conversation suddenly shifted back to a truly exciting and important topic — who had caught the most passes that afternoon.

  Monday, September 10

  The Soviet Union denounces Kennedy: the calling up of U.S. reservists is “yet another provocation” that might “plunge the world into thermonuclear war.” Khrushchev claims: Soviet missiles are so powerful “that there is no need to find sites for them in Cuba or anywhere else beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union.”

  *

  THE CUBAN KID SQUATTED UNDER A STREET LIGHT IN LITTLE Havana and carved his toenails with a switchblade. He thought he might have to kill someone when Rust offered him $10 for a few minutes’ work. Rust disliked using anyone else, but felt that the task was urgent. The kid would never be able to describe his face hidden in the shadow of a peaked sailor’s cap.

  On their way to a public phone booth, the kid understood clearly what he had to do. Rust dialed a Washington number, and the boy asked for Mr. E
lliott Repson.

  “I have a message for you, sir.”

  “From whom?”

  “It says that cohetes come from Odessa to Havana.” He paused to read the next line of the note held up by Rust.

  “Can you hang on for a second?”

  “No, I have to go. But it also says there are European soccer fields constructed near Remedios, Sagua la Grande, Guanajay and San Cristóbal.”

  “I didn’t know that Cubans played soccer.” Repson’s voice revealed nothing but indifference.

  “They don’t, but the Russians do.” Then Rust pointed at another sentence, and the kid read it. “Perhaps they mean to stay for a while.”

  “And how did you know my home number?” He paused, and when there was no answer, he added: “It’s not listed.”

  The kid looked puzzled. Rust smiled at him, pressed down the cradle, disconnecting the call, and gave him a $5 bonus.

  At the other end, Repson stared at the suddenly dead receiver in his hand. Then he shrugged his shoulders and pocketed the notes he had jotted down.

  “Ell!”

  “Yes, coming.” He replaced the receiver and turned the wheelchair toward the bedroom.

  “Who was that, honey?”

  “Nothing very important.”

  The bedroom door opened, and Anna came out. “Could you zip me up, honey?” She waited for him to wheel himself to her and lowered herself quite imperceptibly to be within his reach. But Repson noticed it. He knew and appreciated the trick that was to make him feel perfectly capable and adequate even in this respect. He kissed her bare back. The zip would have to wait. He reached around her and touched her proudly prominent breasts which would catch every TV director’s eyes during Bobby Kennedy’s press conferences — the cameras would linger on her.