In the Company of Spies

by Stephen Barlay

  Bobby Kennedy reported Dobrynin’s argument: “His line is that if the President has some evidence of offensive missiles in Cuba, why didn’t he mention it to Gromyko when they met?”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “I told him that Gromyko must have known the truth, and you were so shocked by his blatant lies that you concluded that in these circumstances, no intelligent exchange of views would be viable.”

  A bottle of fine old Napoleon brandy was opened, and the three men talked about the two gravest, most immediate risks: ill-considered, hastily issued directives and some blind, stubborn, trigger-happy men in command of ships on both sides. Evidently, Khrushchev might need more time to think and convince his own hawks in the government if he was at all willing to back down. But to give him more time would be just the premature backing off the President could not afford. It was a vicious circle with the opponents paralyzed in a self-imposed pugilistic stance. Ormsby-Gore rose to the occasion. He pointed out that the quarantine line had been fixed at eight hundred miles from Cuba to keep the Navy outside the Cuban MIG fighters’ range. His suggestion was to withdraw the ships quietly, and station them five hundred miles from the island — maintaining a strict, uncompromising blockade, but giving the freighters more time on course.

  “You’ve earned your next cognac and perhaps the world’s gratitude, David,” said the President and called McNamara right away. The Defence Secretary was located at a dinner party where, with his host’s permission, he used the privacy of a bedroom telephone to issue new orders to the blockade task force.

  Wednesday, October 24

  Cuba complains to Security Council. Warsaw Pact forces are placed on full alert. Kennedy sends Dean Acheson on Paris visit to brief NATO on U.S. security measures against Cuba. Khrushchev answers Bertrand Russell’s pacifist appeal with assurance that the Soviet Union “will never make any reckless decisions.” Four ambitious newcomers, calling themselves the Beatles, make the pop charts at No. 48 with “Love Me Do.”

  *

  WAITING, WAITING AND KNOWING NOTHING ABOUT THE outside world was the worst. Rust had only a .38 gun, a couple of hand grenades and a loaf of bread for company all day. Sylvia went into Havana trying to make contacts and find out about the Bucharest. After they had separated from Orlando and the raiders, she installed him in a dilapidated hut behind Morales’s small, deserted house, because she hoped it was the least likely place where anybody would look for them. In the few days since Morales’s escape the house had been reduced to an uninhabitable ruin. It bore all the hallmarks of repeated searches by counterintelligence, systematic pilfering by the members of the political police, who would have first choice, and then by neighbors, friends, enemies and passersby. There were no doors left. Some windows were broken, others were missing lock, pane and frame. When Rust shook his head sadly at the sight, the girl urged him not to judge her people too hastily: “Their needs are great with nowhere to turn for help.”

  By midafternoon, Rust felt jittery. Every time a dog barked somewhere out of sight or a truck passed by, he kept peering out between two broken planks until his eyes began to hurt. The sun went down, and there was still no sign of the girl. If anything happened to her, he would have to try to reach the crocodile farm on his own. If she was caught, she would soon tell them where he was hiding. And from the hut it was impossible to see all the approaches. He left the hut and hid among bushes on the marsh behind. Wet, cold and worn out, he felt unsure about everything. What was the use of risking everything and saving his father or Yelena or both when there would be war anyway?

  *

  Washington, too, had a day of waiting and more waiting. The fleet know as Task Force 136 took up the assigned position encircling Cuba at a five-hundred-mile radius. The latest reports confirmed that all the Soviet ships were still on course.

  At 10:00 in the morning, a radio message reached the President: the presence of an enemy submarine had been detected among the Soviet ships. Was Essex, the nearest aircraft carrier, required to contact it by sonar and use depth charges to force it to surface? Naval confrontation, the first positive step to war, was some twenty minutes away. At 10:15, orders had to go out: the quarantine line was not to be crossed without American permission. Permission would not be granted to any ship without certainty that no offensive missile was on board for Cuba. At 10:20, six ships and the submarine below were still approaching Task Force 136. Among the ships: the Poltava. Ten to fifteen minutes to go. At 10:25, the six ships stopped dead in the water. It was a good sign.

  U Thant, Acting Secretary General of the United Nations, appealed to Kennedy and Khrushchev simultaneously. He asked for restraint on both sides and urgent negotiations. Khrushchev returned Kennedy’s quarantine proclamation as unlawful and unacceptable, but sought private contacts to the U.S. administration, as if he could not trust his own official diplomatic channels. Was he just maneuvering or was he fighting his internal opposition? By now six Russian submarines were detected and harassed in the quarantine area.

  *

  Rust decided to wait for the girl’s return until midnight. Beyond that, the risk of staying there would be too great. It was shortly before midnight that she arrived back. A man Rust failed to recognize was with her. He introduced himself as Miguel. He was the manager of the crocodile farm who had arranged the Odessa escape route. “Our latest information is that the Bucharest is still on course.”

  “When would she get here?” Rust asked.

  “Tomorrow afternoon if all goes well. Maybe evening.”

  “And the tank is on board.”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Who’s inside it?”

  “Wouldn’t know.”

  “How many people?”

  “No idea.”

  The ship was expected at Matanzas. The crocodile tank would be put on shore and might be left there for days, even weeks. Alternatively, it might be taken by road to the farm right away. If it was left at Matanzas overnight, it would be best to free the refugees at once if possible. They agreed to wait for the ship’s arrival at the port. But the question remained: would she ever arrive?

  Thursday, October 25

  Stock market steadies. For the first time, with three days’ delay, Pravda publishes “groundless American lies” that Moscow has installed offensive missiles in Cuba. Russians are informed that America has declared war on little defenceless Cuba.

  *

  RUSSIAN SUBMARINES WERE FORCED TO SURFACE. THEN at 7:50, the Bucharest approached the line of warships and received instructions to identify herself by radio. Her captain declared that the ship carried nothing but petroleum. At 8:00, she was permitted to pass through the quarantine zone. Five minutes later, an East German ship with fifteen hundred passengers on board was allowed to go through. Navy reconnaissance reported that twelve Soviet ships had definitely turned back. But Cuban overflights brought worrying news: work on the missile sites progressed relentlessly, with extra labor, faster than ever.

  The confrontation shifted to the session of the U.N. Security Council. Adlai Stevenson challenged Zorin, the Soviet representative: “Do you deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba?” Zorin tried to stall. “Yes or no?” Stevenson pressed him. “Don’t wait for the translation. Yes or no?” Zorin protested that this was not a court of law and he should not be questioned in prosecutor style. But he sensed that something much more devastating than debating power was to hit him. Stevenson produced the photographic evidence. Zorin chose to ridicule the pictures and their validity. Those enlarged dots, blobs and shadows could be just about anything. Scratches on the lens or ice-cream vans on the ground. But it was obvious that his words were only for the record. He fooled nobody — not the delegates, not the TV cameras.

  *

  “We’ll use my truck,” said Miguel and watched Rust, who was changing into loose-fitting calico pants and shirt. “I have papers for three t
o enter the port, but she’ll sit with me up front. She may need to sweet-talk us through checkpoints.” He handed a wide-brimmed raffia hat to Rust. “You’re not to say anything whatever happens. Your Spanish isn’t good enough.”

  “I’ll be deaf and dumb.” He laughed and gave a few inarticulate sounds, but it was not funny. “Even better — I’ll have a stroke.” He was rummaging through his own clothes, which lay in a heap on the floor of the hut. He found what he wanted: a packet of chewing gum. He let one corner of his mouth drop, popped in a stick of gum, and with the aid of his tongue, let his saliva drip freely. He made an effort to say something, but his drooping face and lazily searching tongue seemed to prevent the formation of any intelligible word.

  “Will do,” said Miguel. “Are you armed?”

  Rust hesitated.

  “Don’t be. They might search us at the entrance of the port. You wouldn’t have a chance to shoot your way through.”

  They hid Rust’s clothes and gun. Rust climbed onto the back of the truck. He could not suppress the surging déjà vu — the ambulance, Yelena and Florian, the roadblock at the Moscow exit.

  Much of the time they had the road to themselves, but near Matanzas, they ran into a huge traffic jam. All the vehicles were abandoned: people walked almost a mile down the road to find out what was going on.

  “It would look odd if we weren’t curious,” said Miguel. “Let’s go.”

  Some four miles from Matanzas, Cuban soldiers and uniformly check-shirted civilians held the crowd back to ensure free passage for cumbersome, elongated transporters moving slowly on a crossroad. Their heavy load was under canvas. Missile trailers, Rust would have sworn. He noticed the road sign to the right: Cuevas de Bellamar. The endless maze of caves, famous for the beauty of their stalactite and stalagmite formations in massive halls — a safe and natural hiding place some two hundred feet underground. Rust looked at Miguel. The Cuban nodded. “The same’s happening in the caves of the Valle de Vinales,” he murmured on their way back to the truck. They must be trying to protect them from the eyes of the U-2s, Rust concluded with a touch of pride. The problem was how to rush the news to Washington.

  Because of the long delay, it was well after nightfall when they reached Matanzas. The harbor was full of lights and bustle. Miguel’s papers and Rust’s intensely disgusting salivation helped them through the two checkpoints. To their dismay, they saw the Bucharest at anchor way out near the mouth of the bay.

  “Stay here,” said Miguel. “I’m going to find out what’s happening.”

  Rust used his absence to discuss their route of retreat with Sylvia. She would contact her friends in the resistance and arrange their return to Orlando, who would take them as far as Cay Sal.

  “How many are we taking?” she asked.

  “At least one. Maybe two — I hope.”

  “Is she good, chico?” She made it sound a light and innocuous question. But Rust detected a touch of jealousy.

  “What makes you think that it’s a girl?”

  “You fidget like a man waiting for a lover.”

  Miguel returned. “They’ll unload the tank and take it by road to the farm.”

  Twenty minutes later, a floating crane sidled up to the Bucharest. The tank was lifted off and carried slowly, dangling in midair, to a jetty where a truck with a long, open platform was waiting. “I know where it goes,” said Miguel. “It’s better not to follow it but go the long way around.”

  They drove out of the port, down the Via Blanca, then turned right toward Jaguey Grande and the Bay of Pigs. The stench of the swamps was familiar to Rust as they reached the Laguna del Tesoro, where, according to legend, escaping Indians had once sunk all their fabulous treasures. Rust stared at the murky waters and wondered for a moment if he was surveying his grave. “This is as far as you go,” he told the girl. He saw she was about to argue, but his fingers gently sealed her lips. “And that’s final. I’ll need you on the lake. Be here at eleven tomorrow evening and wait for the light signal we agreed on. If I don’t show up by midnight, come back the same time the following two nights. If you don’t see my signal, don’t try to find me. You must then get back to Morales and tell him about the missiles in the caves.” Again he had to hush her. “It’s more important than anything you can do for me. Believe me.”

  She left them without ever glancing back. Herons and pink flamingos stirred and escaped from her path through the reeds. She had a good hour’s walk to the hut where a friendly fisherman would hide and feed her.

  Miguel rowed in silence. His oars sank into the water, pulled at an even pace and reemerged noiselessly as he maneuvered the boat among the motionless gray bumps on the surface of the lagoon. This time Rust needed no warning not to tempt those “bumps” with a hand over the edge of the boat. Even so, occasionally a huge scaly body came to life. It would snap at an oar or slide purposefully under the boat and give it a mighty jolt.

  “Are you never afraid of them?” Rust asked.

  “Are you never afraid in your work?” Miguel reversed the question.

  “Always,” said Rust.

  “Same here,” said Miguel. “Except that your kind of work would give me heart attacks three times a day.”

  “Then why are you helping me?”

  Miguel shrugged his shoulders. “I’m helping Morales.”

  “Why?”

  “Fidel’s cheated us. He promised a different revolution. Somebody must let him see that we know.”

  “Why you?”

  “Why not me?”

  The farm was in darkness; nothing moved. The jetty where they landed was deserted. Miguel held Rust’s hand and led him along the shaky, creaking catwalks that crisscrossed the ground barely a foot above the seemingly lifeless long gray mounds. Whenever the moon shone through the gaps in the swirling clouds, flat, staring stoplight eyes mirrored a reddish glow. Miguel stopped outside a wooden shed on stilts like a Borneo longhouse. “Wait here,” he said and climbed the two stairs to the door. He returned a few minutes later and beckoned to Rust. They entered a narrow corridor that led to door after door, stores, offices, first-aid station. Clanking of metal could be heard. Miguel raised his finger to ensure Rust’s silence, then cautiously pushed some reed shutters aside to open a window. The metallic noise, combined with the whine of some motor, grew louder. In the distance, where the catwalks converged at a wide platform adjoining high ground, the crocodile tank was being unloaded from the truck with the aid of a mobile crane. The men, four or five of them, worked and moved about sleepily. It was a good ten minutes before they finished with the tank and boarded the truck. The driver raced the engine thunderously. It seemed to take ages until the night swallowed the noisy intruder and some excited crocodiles melted back into the landscape.

  “We’ll give it a few minutes,” Miguel whispered.

  They needed massive blocks of wood to reach the top of the tank. The huge lid, moving on hinges, opened fairly easily, but it was heavy, and Rust could well imagine the noise it would make if they let it drop. He had to hold it on his own while Miguel shored it up. He strained under the weight, and his palms began to sweat, Sylvia’s words rang in his ears. Is she good, chico? You fidget like a man waiting for a lover.

  Inside the tank, they faced a second lid. It was to separate the larger baby crocs from their younger brothers. Miguel tapped the metal three times. The hollow sound was answered immediately by three taps from inside. The second lid was lighter. Miguel held it open, and Rust tried to peer down into the almost total darkness. “Come on, hurry,” he whispered in Russian. “It’s Helm, come on.” A hand reached up, and he caught it. Yelena. He helped her out. The moon broke through, and the sudden flash made her blink a few times. She then just stood dazed. Rust embraced her. No reaction. “Father?” She did not answer. He called into the lower compartment. “Father?” He glanced back at her. “Are you alone?” She stared at the sky in search of the light that had gone.

  “No, s
he’s not alone, Mr. Rust.” The voice came from the compartment. It was accompanied by a strong flashlight beam. It was Rust’s turn to be blinded. He screwed up his eyes to withstand the glare. Something glittered, and a large Tokarev entered the beam. Its barrel advanced until it touched Rust’s nose.

  “What’s keeping you?” Miguel asked impatiently. But before Rust could answer, the whole scene was lit up. They were at the junction of powerful searchlights. From below, the man holding the gun emerged. “Don’t do anything stupid, Mr. Rust. You might have overlooked our little reception committee, but it’s all around you, I can assure you. Help me out.”

  Rust was tempted to push Miguel so that the lid would drop on the man’s head, but as he looked up, he saw several submachine guns pointing at them from above. He helped the man out. He looked vaguely familiar.

  “I’m Major Boychenko of State Security. You may not remember me, but we’ve met, well, sort of met a few times, and I’m delighted really to meet you, Mr. Rust, at long last.” Rust looked at Yelena. She still seemed dazed. Maybe drugged. In her vacant eyes, no sign of fear or recognition appeared. “Moscow, at the airport, at the hotel, no? Oh well, perhaps my face isn’t all that memorable. No matter.”

  “What have you done to her?”

  “All in good time, Mr. Rust.”

  “What have you done to her, bastard?”

  “Now don’t be like that. You must have known what might happen to her when you gave her away.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then how did I find her? Eh? How? You told us, that’s how. Her Ukrainian accent. Her hatred for Comrade Khrushchev, whom she might hold personally responsible for her husband’s death in Kiev — remember? We’ll talk about it. But first we need a little rest. It’s almost midnight, and it’s been a very uncomfortable journey from the hold of the Bucharest. You should consider yourself lucky that you or this young lady didn’t need to take the whole trip from Odessa.” Boychenko looked up at the armed men above. “Help us out of here.” The handgrip of a submachine gun smashed into Miguel’s face. Two men held his feet and dragged him along the catwalk. His hands were flailing over the edge of the narrow path and caused excitement below. Yelena stared at Rust. For a second, there was a faint sign of recognition, but it was gone before Rust could say anything.