The meeting was now over. The embassy staff filed out of the room in silence as if leaving a funeral service. The only two left behind were Catesby and the military attaché. The attaché was an RAF Wing Commander approaching retirement. Wing Co, as everyone called him, was a keen fisherman who spent endless hours at his fly tying vice weaving damsel nymphs, hoppers, brown zonkers, coachmen and dog nobblers. Fly fishing was just as much about deception as espionage.
‘You look,’ said Wing Co, ‘as if you need an anti-malarial?’
Catesby nodded.
Wing Co opened his brown leather briefcase and fished out a hipflask. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, ‘I’ve only packed the snakebite medicine, I hope you don’t mind. It’s a single malt from Islay – a gillie friend gave it to me.’
Catesby smiled at the coincidence. It was the same whisky that he had fed Galen. ‘It’s lovely stuff. I’ve drunk it before.’
‘Well have some more.’
Catesby accepted the flask and sipped. The Wing Co’s whisky tasted even more mellow and rich. He swirled it around in his mouth as if it were a precious nectar and handed back the flask.
Wing Co then took a drink and closed his eyes to complete the act of comradely communion. They were brother officers on a darkling plain.
‘Now if I were young Fidel,’ said Wing Co, ‘I would petition the Russkies to lend me a dozen or so Luna 2K6s. You’ve heard of them?’
‘No,’ Catesby lied. ‘What are they?’
Wing Co raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m surprised you don’t know. Surprised indeed.’
‘Are they some sort of missile?’
‘Quite. The Luna 2K6 is a very handy bit of kit.’
‘Does it make a big boom?’ said Catesby.
‘Rather – about two kilotons worth. Of course, that’s less than a tenth of the bomb the Americans popped over Hiroshima, but all the more useful for battlefield use. In fact, if Rommel had had a half-dozen Lunas available to him at Normandy he would have obliterated the D-Day beachheads. A single Luna will immediately kill any soldier within a thousand yards of the blast – and destroy any tank within 500 yards. Any survivors would die of radiation in less than a fortnight. As I said, handy bit of kit.’
‘So it wouldn’t take many Lunas to defeat a US invasion of Cuba?’
‘They wouldn’t just defeat the Yanks, they would incinerate them on the beaches …’ – Wing Co buttoned up his briefcase – ‘… and their radiated ashes would blow away on the wind. We live, as our Chinese friends say, in interesting times. But I’m going to have a quiet evening listening to Elgar and attempting to tie Marabous and Greenwell’s Glories – a deuced difficult fly to get right. Sleep well, Mr Catesby.’
Catesby listened to Wing Co’s footsteps. He walked with a slight shuffle because of a bad crash-landing when his Hurricane was shot to pieces. Catesby liked Wing Co. Behind the old buffer façade was a kind man who hated war. He also suspected that Wing Co, who was no fool, knew more about the Luna 2K6s than he was letting on.
The midnight rendezvous was as inevitable as the conclusion of a Greek tragedy. Character and historical forces create unavoidable reckonings. Catesby somehow knew that the car would come up behind him on Avenida Séptima. He knew that it would slow to a walking pace beside him, with the Volga’s big engine throaty on low revs and growling at him like a predatory cat. The rear door would open in silent welcome. Catesby would recognise the face in the shadows of the rear seat. The face would look older and sadder than ever before.
‘You’ve come back,’ said Catesby.
‘So I have. Would you like to come for a ride?’
Catesby got in. He knew it would be the end.
‘This is where the Marines will come ashore.’ General Alekseev swept his arm towards a low flat stony beach. Catesby knew they were near Santa Cruz del Norte, twenty-five miles east of Havana, because he could see the tower of the big electric power station silhouetted against the night sky. The tower’s red aircraft warning lights had been blacked out in anticipation of an invasion.
They then turned inland and walked a couple of hundred yards across rough scrubby ground. They were heading towards the main coast road. The shadows of large Soviet military trucks moved slowly without lights along the road. The road had been blocked to all non-military traffic. There were no more jeans and checked shirts. With war imminent, the Russians had changed into military uniforms for the first time since their deployment. In order to get through the checkpoints Catesby had to don a Soviet uniform as well. He was wearing the distinctive field grey camouflage of the KGB Ninth Directorate. His shoulder boards bore the three stars of a colonel. It didn’t matter that his Russian was heavily accented. The Soviet Union comprised several nationalities – and no one was going to query the origins of a Ninth Directorate colonel. The only other person who knew Catesby was bogus was Viktor, Alekseev’s driver. Viktor seemed to be completely trusted.
They continued walking towards a large clump of prickly brush. When they got to it, Alekseev drew back the camouflage netting that had been carefully arranged to disguise the profile of the tracked vehicle and the Luna 2K6 tactical nuclear missile that lay ready for elevation and launch upon the transporter. Catesby clambered up on to the tracked transporter and began taking photos of the Luna missile with the Fedka 3 camera that Alekseev had given him, ‘a present’. He snapped the serial numbers in particular, for it was important that the evidence be complete and irrefutable.
When he was finished, Catesby jumped down and Alekseev replaced the camouflage netting. He had already snapped four other Luna 2K6s of the twelve that Alekseev claimed were deployed. But even more sinister were the FKR cruise missiles. No one had predicted, or even wildly guessed, that the FKRs would be present in Cuba. The missiles were fourteen kilotons, the same as the Hiroshima bomb, and would wipe out an approaching US fleet. Alekseev said that thirty-six had already been deployed – and several were aimed at the US Guantánamo base. Catesby had photographed ten of the FKRs earlier in the evening. They had been hidden in a palm grove near the port of Mariel. The missiles looked like small pilotless jet planes and were towed on launch trailers behind big GAZ 63 trucks. Viktor was normally one of the drivers.
‘I hope you’ve got enough photos,’ said Alekseev as they walked back to the car.
‘More than enough.’
‘I can’t, of course, give you an underwater tour, but our submarines are equipped with nuclear torpedoes that could destroy an American carrier group – and the submarine commanders are authorised to fire them without authorisation from Moscow.’
‘And what about Pliyev?’ Catesby was referring to the commander of the 41,000 Soviet troops in Cuba.
‘He’s authorised to use the Lunas if there is a US landing.’
‘It’s become a nightmare.’
‘I’ve heard,’ said Alekseev, ‘that Khrushchev realises that he made a mistake and wants to find a face-saving way out. He fears, however, that if he shows a lack of firmness, then the Americans will take it as weakness and attack.’
‘That’s exactly how wars start.’
Alekseev unbuttoned the top of his tunic. ‘It’s a very hot evening.’
Catesby looked out to sea. He was longing for a swim.
The vodka and the caviar were cold and crisp although the night was hot and clammy. Viktor had built a driftwood fire where he toasted brown bread for the caviar. Catesby was still in his Soviet colonel’s uniform even though they had left the restricted military area. He tried to imagine what it would have been like to have been a comrade of Alekseev’s that cold spring day in Berlin.
As if reading Catesby’s thoughts Alekseev said, ‘It was a Panzerfaust.’ The weapon, literally ‘armour-fist’, was a German anti-tank weapon fired by a single soldier. ‘The boy wasted it on me, instead of waiting for the following tank. He must have been so frightened. Have some vodka.’
‘Thank you, Yevgeny Ivanovich.’ Catesby held out his glass which was frosted from the ice chest.
‘Why be so formal?’ Alekseev’s eyes sparkled in the firelight as he poured the drink. ‘We are, in a way, friends. Please call me Zhenka.’
Catesby raised his glass, ‘To you, Zhenka.’
Alekseev nodded and drank. ‘And what is your preferred diminutive?’
‘Will,’ said Catesby, although the only person who called him Will was his sister. Even his mother called him Catesby.
Alekseev returned the toast, ‘To you, Will.’ And by that simple act of communion, an enemy spy entered an intimate family circle.
Catesby looked at the Russian. He knew that Alekseev, like himself, would never play his country false. If either disobeyed orders it was out of patriotism, not betrayal.
‘The thing,’ said Alekseev, ‘that was odd about Berlin was that there were so many child soldiers. We seemed to be fighting whole battalions of twelve-year-old boys. We had seen fourteen-year-olds before, but in Berlin some of the soldiers were as young as ten. And the Germans said that we were barbarians for using adult women as pilots and snipers.’
Catesby looked closely at Alekseev. The tragedy of Europe was etched on the Russian’s face. It was a tragedy that turned some into dumb oxen, others into escape artists and racketeers – and made a few even more monstrous and brutal than before. But for many, like Alekseev, it was a tragedy that deepened wells of compassion and wisdom – and fine-tuned their benign intelligence. Suffering didn’t turn their hearts into stone, but made them more generous and warm.
‘Of course,’ said Alekseev, ‘we still had to kill the German boys. They were, after all, armed enemy soldiers trying to kill us. But the one who rose from the rubble of the underground station was so small – he wasn’t even as tall as the Panzerfaust that he lifted to his shoulder. He was so small that I made a mistake and paused. I don’t think that he was more than ten – and a frail ten-year-old with spectacles. He seemed to have difficulty raising the heavy weapon to his shoulder – it caught his spectacles and they nearly slipped off. He needed help. I ought to have shot him then.’
Viktor brought more driftwood for the fire and stirred it.
‘Thank you,’ said Alekseev.
Viktor disappeared again into the shadows.
‘Why didn’t I pull the trigger? Was it an imprinted instinct? Something evolutionary that ensured our survival as a species – an instinct to preserve the young even to our own cost? Survival of the group is more important than survival of the individual.’ Alekseev smiled. ‘Nuclear missiles don’t possess such obsolete sentiments. More vodka?’
Catesby nodded.
‘In any case, evolutionary speculation aside, I had paused for whatever reason. The boy meanwhile wobbled, but finally managed to balance the Panzerfaust on his shoulder. At that moment, I pointed my gun at him and pulled the trigger. But it was too late. My little world had turned into fire and, literally, brimstone. The Panzerfaust exploded on the cobblestones in front of me.’ Alekseev laughed. ‘The doctors later told me I was lucky not to lose a leg. And, oddly, I still feel guilty about the boy. I’ll never know what happened to him. Let’s eat the caviar.’
Viktor emerged out of the shadows bearing plates with thin slices of toasted bread and heaped caviar.
‘Never,’ said Alekseev, ‘eat caviar with a metal spoon – it transfers a metallic taste. These spoons are made from mother of pearl. I inherited them from my grandmother.’
They ate the meal in reflective silence. Viktor sat away from them and stared into the fire. The young man wasn’t a professional soldier, but a conscript. Catesby wondered if Viktor would ever see his family or sweetheart again. He wondered if Viktor was conjuring his family’s faces out of the flames.
Alekseev leaned towards Catesby and spoke in a whisper. ‘Do you love Katya?’
‘Yes.’
‘I love her too and will never stop loving her.’
‘Are you jealous?’
‘I used to be. But there’s no longer any point.’
‘In some ways,’ said Catesby, ‘I wish that Katya was married to someone else.’
Alekseev laughed. ‘I don’t.’
‘I mean someone that I didn’t respect.’
‘Someone you wouldn’t have minded hurting – and humiliating.’
‘That’s right. I once had an affair with a woman. I was genuinely attracted to her, but I hated her husband. I enjoyed torturing him with jealousy and seeing him make a fool of himself in public.’
Alekseev stared hard at Catesby. ‘But have you ever been jealous?’
‘Yes, enormously.’
‘Enough to kill someone.’
‘I think so.’
‘Then you will forgive me.’
‘Are you going to kill me?’
‘No.’
Catesby smiled. ‘Thank you, Zhenka.’
‘More vodka?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘It was wrong of me to ask forgiveness. It isn’t yours to give. But I do want you to understand my feelings. I want you to understand the rage, the insanity perhaps, that led me to kill someone out of jealousy.’
Catesby knew that the last piece was about to fit in to the puzzle.
‘The German woman who killed Andreas was working for me and under my orders. When Katya told me that Andreas had stolen the letter about the Baikonur disaster, it gave me the excuse for which I had been secretly longing.’ Alekseev poured more vodka. ‘I used the security breach as a justification to murder for jealousy. The genie was already out of the bottle – so, in a way, the killing was pointless. Andreas had already sold the letter to the Americans.’
‘How did you feel afterwards?’
‘Good at first, then empty. Perhaps I would do it again.’
‘You’re very honest.’ Catesby paused. There was something else he wanted to know. ‘Why did you let Andreas pass on a copy of the letter to me – before killing him?’
‘Because it was useful to us that London knew of our dilemma. We’ve always looked upon Britain as a potential brake upon the impetuous Americans.’
‘Because we have so much more to lose.’
‘Precisely.’
The thing, thought Catesby, that made the Cold War so dangerous was that the Russians were playing chess and the Americans poker. The Russians deployed an elaborate defence with layers of deceit to protect their vital squares. The Americans responded with upping antes, calling bluffs and flexing muscles.
‘Have you ever written poetry?’
Catesby smiled. ‘None that was any good. And you?’
Alekseev shook his head. ‘Perhaps it is better to love poetry than to write it. When I returned home after being wounded and patched I used to recite Mayakovsky to Katya:
I have no cause to wake or trouble you.
And, as they say, the incident is closed.
Love’s boat has smashed …’
Alekseev laughed. ‘I am sure the poetry helped mend my feelings more than hers.’
‘Maybe that’s why poets write poems.’
‘What an odd conversation to be having with an Englishman.’
Catesby thought of the Prime Minister lying in a shell hole with a bullet in his groin reading Aeschylus. Words were bandages.
‘Thank you for listening to me.’ Alekseev smiled bleakly and looked out to sea. ‘But it’s time to stop thinking of myself. Are you going to have time to take those photographs to Washington?’
‘I think so. The Americans need at least seventy-two hours to get their forces in position.’
‘And will you be able to see the person you mentioned?’
‘I hope so.’
‘If you have any difficulty, contact Aleksandr. He might be able to arrange it – he’s operating under the name of Fomin.’ Alekseev produced a card. ‘Here are his contact details. His direct phone line and a password.’
Catesby pocketed the card. ‘Are Aleksandr Fomin and Aleksandr Feklisov the same person?’
‘Of course.’
It was ju
st as Che had said. Feklisov had also run the atomic spy ring that stole secrets from Los Alamos. A memory from years past was nagging at a corner of Catesby’s brain. ‘Was,’ he said, ‘Feklisov at the London rezidentura in the fifties?’
‘Yes, I thought you knew that.’
Another piece of the jigsaw slotted into place. Catesby now realised that it was Feklisov who had organised the sting that trapped Kit Fournier.
‘You must trust Aleksandr,’ said Alekseev.
Catesby smiled bleakly. ‘Why?’
‘Because he is a direct line to Khrushchev.’
‘Does Aleksandr know what you’ve done?’
Alekseev paused, then said, ‘Yes.’
‘So both of you are disobeying orders and acting without authority.’
‘Aleksandr won’t get caught. There’s no proof against him – and I want to keep him in the clear.’
‘But what about you, Zhenka? I heard you had been ordered back to Moscow.’
Alekseev smiled. ‘It was a rough interrogation. But they let me go.’
‘Why?’
‘I denounced Katya. She was flown back to Moscow yesterday. Our planes crossed in the sky.’
Catesby froze and stared at the Russian.
‘Are you shocked?’
‘Why didn’t you protect her?’
‘There was too much evidence against her. Her liaisons with enemy agents such as Andreas and yourself suggested treachery. I thought about telling them that I had instructed her to have the affairs as a means of penetrating your intelligence services. But they would have seen that as a lie – and it would have indicted us both.’
Catesby turned away and looked at the night sea. He thought once again of the question that had haunted him ever since he became an intelligence officer: What is the greater crime? Betraying your country or betraying the person you love? If, thought Catesby, you were really unfortunate, you ended up doing both. And it wasn’t a matter of cowardice or weakness; it was just the way things were.
The Midnight Swimmer Page 29