‘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.
EPILOGUES
Dallas. 22 November 1963
They wanted to blame it on Havana. That’s why the fall guy, Lee Harvey Oswald, was told to become a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and to make a big show of handing out pro-Castro leaflets. The truth was otherwise. The gang still wanted Cuba back and that was one of the reasons Kennedy had to die.
Moscow. 14 October 1964
The plotting had begun months before. It wasn’t just agricultural failures; it was the lingering humiliation of what they called ‘the Caribbean Crisis’. The plotter in chief said as much when he suggested the coup to Head of KGB, Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny.
‘I’m worried,’ said the plotter on the day, ‘if Nikita Sergeyevich finds out about this, he’ll have us all shot.’
‘Don’t worry. Everything is in place.’
‘What if he phones for help?’
‘He no longer has a phone that works. I’ve taken control of the whole communication system.’
In the end Khrushchev went quietly and no one was shot. That evening, he wanted to be alone and there were tears in his eyes. Of all things he was proudest of having denounced Stalin and created a new era. ‘The fear is gone. That’s my contribution. I won’t put up a fight.’
Algiers. 1965
Algiers, Algeria
24 February 1965
Dear Carlos,
I have just spoken at the Afro-Asian Conference. The enclosed article, ‘The Cuban Revolution Today’, includes many of the ideas I expressed. I hope you will publish it in March.
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.
Che
From somewhere in the world
4 April 1967
Dear Compañeros,
I cannot be with you at the Tricontinental Conference. But I have included a speech that I would like to be read on my behalf. Remember one thing:
To die under the flag of Vietnam, of Venezuela, of Guatemala, of Laos, of Guinea, of Colombia, of Bolivia, of Brazil – to name only a few scenes of today’s armed struggle – would be equally glorious and desirable for an American, an Asian, an African, even a European.
Che
La Higuera, Bolivia. 8–9 October 1967
The prisoner wasn’t behaving himself. Despite being shot in the leg, he managed to kick one officer against a wall when the officer tried to confiscate his pipe as a souvenir. Later, a Rear Admiral arrived by helicopter to have a look at their prize prey. The prisoner was lying on his back on a table in the one room of the village school. He was smoking the pipe that he had managed to retain and staring at the ceiling. The Rear Admiral bent over to look in the prisoner’s face to see if it was really him. Che removed his pipe and smiled at the visitor. He then spat in the Rear Admiral’s face.
Che’s first visitor the next morning was the schoolteacher. He had asked to see her. At first, twenty-two-year-old Julia Cortez was frightened by the sight of a man with his clothes in rags and his long unkempt hair caked with mud and blood. She then saw that he was ‘nice looking’ and had soft gentle eyes. But Julia Cortez could not bear to look in those eyes because his glance was so piercing, but yet so serene.
‘How,’ said Che, ‘can you teach campesino children in a schoolhouse in such poor condition? You have so few books – and yet your government officials drive new Mercedes cars and live in villas.’
The young teacher could no sooner speak to him than look in his intense unblinking eyes.
Che gestured at the crumbling schoolroom. ‘The injustice of this poverty is what we are fighting against.’
At noon more visitors began to arrive. There was a pinch-faced man who spoke Spanish with a German accent, whom everyone referred to as Señor Altmann – except for an American officer who insisted on calling him ‘Herr Barbie’, which seemed to annoy Altmann.
Just before one o’clock the final order was received from the Bolivian president. Che was to be executed. Colonel Arnaldo Saucedo Parada, an intelligence officer, came into the schoolroom to tell Che that he was going to die.
Che stared at the ceiling for a long moment. When he spoke it was in a calm voice. ‘I knew you were going to shoot me – I should never have been taken alive. Tell Fidel that this failure does not mean the end of the revolution, that it will triumph elsewhere. Tell Aleida to forget this, to remarry and be happy, and to keep the children studying. Ask the soldiers to aim well.’
Santa Monica Bluffs. June, 1968
Catesby had been invited to California to help out with a book. The author was very busy because he was running for President of the United States, but the editor was trying to interview as many people as possible who were involved with the events of October, 1962. They wanted to publish as soon as possible. If the author did win his party’s nomination, it was hoped that the book would show the candidate as a good and responsible leader.
The first thing that Catesby did was to show the invitation to his superiors at SIS to ask for advice. C was very enthusiastic. ‘You must go, William, it will be a wonderful opportunity to add to our profile on this chap. It looks likely that he’s going to be the next president.’ C paused. ‘I’m certain, of course, that you will be discreet to the point of blandness.’
The house on Palisades Beach Road was part of the exclusive and ludicrously rich enclave of Santa Monica Bluffs. Catesby couldn’t wait to report back to Henry Bone. The place was an utter vindication of Bone’s acid views on American style and taste. The house was more than the mere vulgarity of too much money and too little taste that simply made you smile, but a leaping vulgarity that left you breathless. There was a cocktail bar in every room and gold taps on every sink. But the sweetest irony, the one that Catesby couldn’t wait to spring on Bone, was that the house was owned by a well-born English actor who was the son of a lord.
Catesby’s room was one of the smaller ones without a view of the sea, but he was still pampered by the Hispanic servants – and did avail himself of the cocktail bar. It helped him sleep. He spent most of the next day closeted with the book editor who recorded everything th
at was said. Catesby was careful not to give away state secrets, but did reveal matters that were already in the public record with hushed confidentiality as if they were, in fact, top secret. The trick suitably impressed the editor.
Catesby was then left to his own devices until evening. He had a walk along the beach which was private to the enclave. A group of nubile young women in bikinis were playing volleyball. They were, like the cocktail cabinets, part of the hospitality.
After the first shock, the water was like cool silk. It was colder than the Caribbean, but not as cold as his native North Sea – even in a sunny August. It was a moonless midnight which made the stars even brighter and fiercer. He took a deep breath and dived deep into the dark. He wanted to return to that womb – the salt sea that had surrounded his native island and mothered every life form. He stayed under for a long time and heard strange sounds. Something made him feel that Alekseev’s ghost was rising from the deep after a midnight swim of six years to join him. Catesby clawed frantically to get back to the surface. And when his head burst into the good night air, he realised that he was not alone.
‘They told me that you had gone for a swim. I thought I would join you. I hope I didn’t frighten you.’ The voice was just as disarmingly feminine as it had been in that dreadful October, perhaps even more so. But there was a new inflection in the American’s voice – one of reflection and melancholy. It was no longer the voice of a young man who hammered tables with fists and lisped angry orders.
‘You surprised me.’
‘Sorry I startled you.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I also wanted to thank you for helping with the book. The editor says you were great.’
‘I did my best, but we obviously can’t tell the whole story.’
‘Not in our lifetimes.’
Catesby laughed. ‘That’s as good as never. Dead people are awfully quiet.’
‘I know – that’s why they killed Oswald.’
‘And why you tried to kill me – twice.’
‘Being in power makes people brutal. We need to change that.’ Kennedy paused. ‘But at the time, I was trying to protect my brother. Can you understand that loyalty?’
‘Yes.’
The two men were treading water and facing each other. It reminded Catesby of the night swim with Alekseev. And once again something dark and fatal hung in the midnight air. He knew that the man opposite was America’s last chance.
‘The same people who killed my brother want to kill me.’
Catesby noticed an odd quaver in Kennedy’s voice – something ancient. It wasn’t only his story, but a story as timeless as the murders of Absalom and Caesar. High office comes with a blood chalice.
‘At first, I thought Johnson was behind it. Then I realised that LBJ hadn’t the balls. The CIA, the Mafia? Sure, they had the balls, but not the competence. That’s why you’re still alive – not to mention Castro.’
Catesby breathed the sea air. He had never felt more alive.
‘Jack was killed by big money, the Texas oil industry to be specific. They set up Oswald with a job that provided a sniper’s perch. They used Oswald with his Russian defector background because they wanted to implicate the Soviet Union and Cuba. What those bastards really wanted was a backlash against the communists that would lead to war. It’s why they hated us after the Cuba Missile Crisis. We didn’t give them the apocalypse they wanted.’
‘Is that what made you change?’
‘I began to change before Jack’s death. Cuba taught us both a lesson. We came so close to midnight. I saw what the other tough guys were like and they made me sick.’ Kennedy paused. When he spoke again there was passion in his voice. ‘We must stop this senseless slaughter in Vietnam.’
Catesby thought back to the incident in the US officers club in Berlin in 1961. He remembered all the lean young officers yearning to be let loose on Cuba, Laos and Vietnam. He wondered what their burning unquestioning eyes had seen – and if war had turned back on them and taken away their limbs and lives. Or if they had changed too – or only become hardened.
‘There is something else I should tell you about,’ said Kennedy, ‘a confession.’
Something went click in Catesby’s mind. It was a mystery that had never been resolved – a German mystery.
‘I once made a secret visit that only Jack knew about. It was the result of a back-channel negotiation with a Russian called Georgi Bolshakov. Cloak and dagger stuff. I travelled to the North German port of Bremen in disguise – fake beard and brown contact lenses. In order to leave a false trail, a rumour was started that I was an Englishman. Galling, of course, for an Irish Catholic. I was secreted aboard a Polish freighter that took me to East Germany. You must have heard rumours about the trip?’
Catesby was genuinely surprised. ‘Yes, but I didn’t know it was you. I had a list of suspects, but you weren’t on it.’
‘We did a good job then. Our biggest fear was that the CIA would find out about the meeting – and then use it against us by leaks to their right-wing friends. So we exploited the rumour that a high-level Englishman was playing perfidious Albion and dealing with the Soviets behind our backs.’
More pieces slotted in. Catesby now understood Angleton’s vicious personal attack on himself. Kennedy had fooled the CIA too.
‘I suppose you could say,’ said Kennedy, ‘that it was an unofficial summit. But I didn’t handle it particularly well – and neither did Khrushchev. Jack wanted me to make a pitch for a nuclear test ban treaty, but Khrushchev mocked the proposal. Later on, I must have come across as too aggressive. Khrushchev got fed up and emotional and said he was prepared to put nuclear missiles in Cuba to counter ours in Turkey.’ Kennedy laughed. ‘I thought he was joking – and I must have shown my contempt and disbelief. Maybe I provoked him into it.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But there is something else that has always troubled me.’ Kennedy paused. ‘I was assured that only five of us would be present at the meeting, but there was a sixth man sitting in the shadows. It was one of the things that annoyed me. And I’m sure the guy wasn’t a Russian or a German – it was his clothes and manner, cool and supercilious.’
‘What did he look like?’
Kennedy gave a detailed description of the man. It was a perfect portrait of Henry Bone.
Catesby now understood why Bone had been so willing to take the rap. It was a double bluff. Catesby wondered if he would ever know all the details and conditions of Bone’s invitation to East Germany.
‘I’m getting cold,’ said Kennedy, ‘I don’t want to die of pneumonia. Shall we swim back?’
‘Yes, but why have you told me all this?’
‘Because I want you to trust me – and consider yourself a confidant. It’s my roundabout way of saying I want you to work for me as a foreign policy advisor – if I make it to the White House.’
Catesby laughed. ‘I’m sorry, Senator Kennedy, but I’m not going to turn traitor by working for a foreign power.’
‘What if London agreed?’
‘We’ll see.’ In his heart Catesby knew that he could never live in America, but hoped with all his heart that Robert Kennedy would change it to a more gentle and thoughtful place.
As they swam to the shore Catesby saw the dark slim figure of a woman walking along the beach. She had a graceful elegance that was unmistakable, despite the calf-length Capri pants. When they came closer he saw the woman was carrying big fluffy towels.
Kennedy towelled himself warm and dry with the help of the woman. It was obvious that they were in love. And later, it was she who would tell the doctors to turn off the respirator and she who would thumb shut his eyes forever. Catesby began to walk away. He didn’t want to intrude on their privacy. But before he left, Kennedy called out, ‘Join us tomorrow night. After the vote count, I’m going to give a little talk at the Ambassador Hotel – and then some of us are going out for a bite to eat. Look forward to seeing you.’
>
Catesby was too far away to help, but near enough to see and hear what happened. Bobby had stopped to shake hands with a young Hispanic kitchen worker in a white smock. Catesby couldn’t see more because a large man in a dark suit lurched up behind Kennedy and blocked his view. The shots were so close together that they sounded merged. It was a noise like two or three people beating simultaneously on metal panels with hammers.
There were now a lot of people shouting, ‘No, no, no, no …’ – and a chaos of flying bodies. Catesby was nearly bowled over by a big dark man crashing past. He caught a glimpse of a face that chilled him. He recognised it by the eyes: they were dead and cold. Catesby had seen their frozen lustre once before in the stairwell of a Washington hotel. The face around them was now puffed and pitted with disease and decay, but the eyes still belonged to Amleto. Meanwhile, people were swearing and someone was shouting, ‘Close the doors, close the doors …’
A heaving rush of people, including a scrum of photographers, were surging into the kitchen and causing a crush that carried Catesby forward. Two huge black athletes, who were Kennedy’s volunteer bodyguards, had pinned down a small wiry young man with frizzy hair. At first, Catesby didn’t understand why they were thumping the thin young man. Then he saw the pistol. Catesby shouted, ‘Get the other one too.’ But his voice was drowned out in the loud confusion.
Catesby was now standing above Kennedy. The Hispanic kitchen worker was cradling Bobby in his arms. The bluish neon lights made the blood look like dark chocolate. For a second, Catesby hoped that a pot of chocolate had overturned in the chaos and that Kennedy was just winded.
The Midnight Swimmer Page 32