“No, I’m not. And I want you very much, you must know that. But he’s my friend. An old man. You’re probably his last love. We can’t do it to him.”
“Whatever you say. It’s only that I was so pleased that you remembered me.”
“You’re a memorable girl, sweetheart.” He did not want to call her sweetheart. But it would have been cruel to ask her now what her real name was.
Tuesday, October 16
Monday television interview with McGeorge Bundy, special assistant to the President, is quoted by the press: “I know there’s no present evidence” or likelihood that Cuba and the Soviet Union “would, in combination, attempt to install a major offensive capability … ”
*
THE SHIPPING AGENT WITH ACCESS TO LLOYD’S MARITIME intelligence searched the available reports diligently but drew a blank on the Bucharest. He could have left it at that, except that he owed a favor or two to Rust, who would telephone him again later in the morning. Why Rust was interested, why he had asked for speed and secrecy, why Rust had called from a public phone instead of dropping in, the agent did not want to know. He looked through the Lloyd’s list, found the Istanbul agent’s number, and put through a telephone call. He spoke to a young man who, judging from the trill in the voice, must have been tickled pink by the transatlantic inquiry. His conclusion was correct. Young Ercihan, looking out across the Bosphorus, was anxious to savor every second of his own importance. Only his knowledge of the cost involved persuaded him not to demand an explanation for the slightly irregular approach. “No, it’s not surprising, kind sir, that the sailing of the aforementioned tanker is not making an appearance in the list, because it has passed through our esteemed view only two hours ago.”
When Rust called the shipping agent once again, he was told that the Bucharest was on her way and would probably reach a Cuban port in about eight to ten days. I must be crazy, thought Rust, but he could think of no excuse for not going to Cuba. There was something suspicious about his father, but he had to be rescued if he was on the run. And Rust was uncertain what urged him to help Yelena. It might be love, lust or infatuation. Or a debt to be paid.
*
The fresh U-2 photographs were proof beyond doubt to the photo analysts of the CIA. The four-slash configuration on the ground was just like that in the pictures of intercontinental ballistic missile sites in the Soviet Union. In the light of these, the four-to-six-week-old photographs of Soviet ships attained additional significance. Both the Omsk and Poltava in the pictures were “long-hatch” freighters. Both rode unusually high in the water, indicating relatively light but space-demanding “bulk cargo” in the sealed holds. Both had trucks and other ominously shaped objects under canvas on their decks. The final interpretation was: missiles on board, missiles that were much larger than the defensive SAMs.
Internally, the CIA owed apologies and lavish praise to the analyst whose early warning had been ignored. Also internally, CIA Security assigned immediately an officer to investigate who if anyone had possibly been responsible for the disregard of the warning and who if anyone had deliberately delayed/limited/sabotaged the U-2 program by that potentially disastrous suspension of missions over western Cuba.
Yet the main problem was to submit the evidence to the President. Would he believe it? He was known to be suspicious of all CIA offerings ever since the Bay of Pigs venture. “Once burned, twice shy” was the way some senior Company operatives described his attitude, and nobody could blame him for it: the Pentagon, individual generals, Senators, special-interest lobbyists and, indeed, the CIA itself had at various times tried to fry their own bacon in the Cuban campfire.
Defence Secretary McNamara was not convinced that the evidence was sufficient to alert the President. “A missile is a missile. It makes no great difference whether you are killed by a missile fired from the Soviet Union or from Cuba,” he said, demonstrating his disbelief in Penkovsky’s reports that Moscow was still incapable of hitting America from Soviet soil. Yet at 8:00 on that Tuesday morning, special presidential assistant McGeorge Bundy was briefed by analysts in a cramped basement office of the White House. He felt that the President must be told and took the private elevator to Kennedy’s bedroom. The pajama-clad President, sitting on the edge of his bed, dropped the morning papers and read the fresh report. He decided that further detailed evidence must be pursued without delay, that a pretence of continued ignorance must be kept up at all costs, and that a most secret committee to deal with the problem must be set up right away.
At 11:45, in a windowless room, a group of top men met in utmost secrecy. With the President and Bobby Kennedy playing leading parts in the discussions, this group was to gather several times a day from now on. It was to become known as EXCOM, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, but temporarily, it would have to remain “nonexistent.” Its task was to decide if World War III was about to begin. Members, even ministers, were to take their own notes and type their own reports. Concerning the confetti in Cuba, their options were summed up by the President: “The alternatives are to go in by air and wipe them out, or to take other steps to render the weapons inoperable.” A showdown between the champions of peaceful and military solutions had begun.
*
Two bodyguards traveled with Rust as he drove along U.S. Highway 1. Leaving the main road, they met Schramm for lunch in a small restaurant near Sausage Tree, overlooking Biscayne Bay.
“Two bits of news for you,” said Schramm. “One is that I’ve picked up some very hush-hush vibes that your information and efforts seem to have been fully vindicated. Congratulations.”
“What’s the other?”
“You seem to be very edgy this morning.”
“Then give me the other bit of news.”
“Ell’s coming out here.”
“Visiting?”
“Maybe a transfer. At least temporarily.”
“Could mean one of two things,” Rust pondered aloud. “They may want him to work with me or Mongoose. He’s an expert on both.”
“He’ll have nothing to do with us — I mean, you and me — at the moment.”
“So it’s Mongoose. Is it going ahead?”
“Looks like it.”
“Full invasion?”
“Don’t know. My guess is as good as yours. But there’s a lot going on.”
At 4:15 in the afternoon, their car stopped at El Paraíso. The bar was almost deserted, and Schramm decided to stay in the car. Only a bodyguard followed Rust inside. The Cuban girl was already there, perching on a shaky stool, sipping some pink and fruity concoction through a straw. Rust ordered a drink, then excused himself and nodded toward the bodyguard: yes, stay put, I’m only going to the bathroom.
Morales was waiting for him, but Rust could tell he was not pleased: It was not the most agreeable place to wait for someone. Rust apologized both for the delay and for having no time to chat. “I’m delighted you’re here and out of danger. You’ll have to tell me what happened.”
“It’s simple, really — ”
“Not now. Not here.” Seeing his disappointment, Rust felt a dash of brazen flattery was called for. “But I must say, you still have one hell of a girl. Wow! Don’t you ever grow old? At your age, how can you keep her so happy and satisfied?” The appeal to his machismo clearly did the trick.
“Don’t waste time, amigo,” Morales reprimanded him. “What’s up?”
“I expect someone to arrive at the crocodile farm.”
“The Bucharest?”
“You must have guessed.”
“Male? Female?”
“Maybe both. And I must get them out.”
“Ouch. I can’t go back.”
“I know. I’ll go myself.”
“No way.”
“Not unless you help me. I want to join the next raiding party.”
“What raiding party?”
“Come on, Morales, let’s not waste time. Mongoos
e. That’s what I’m talking about. They’d welcome me because I know the waters between Cay Sal and the coast. You arrange it.”
“It’s not enough for you to get into Cuba, amigo. How’ll you get about? How’ll you get to the crocodile farm? Your Spanish isn’t good enough.”
“I’ll manage.”
“And then all the way back. With your fugitives. You must have a guide.”
“Are you volunteering after all?”
“The trouble is that my presence would be an added risk rather than help. But I’ll see what I can do.”
Rust gestured to silence him because there was some noise from outside. “I’ll be in touch,” he whispered and slipped out.
“Sorry I kept you waiting, sweetheart,” he said to the girl at the bar, remembering only now with anger that he had forgotten to ask Morales what her name was.
*
Khrushchev was determined to maintain the pretence of “no offensive weapons in Cuba” no matter what the Americans’ aerial photography might have discovered. His hopes that the U-2 had found out nothing were not unjustifiable. It had been two days since the overflight and there were no angry shouts coming across the ocean. He summoned U.S. Ambassador Kohler and gave him a bellyful of jolly assurances.
Time and more time was needed in the race to complete the missile sites. No amount of deception was to be too much to achieve that. A full range of Soviet diplomats from foreign minister downward were ordered to give signs of goodwill at all public and confidential levels. Kohler’s report would only serve to corroborate the all-around cover-up.
Thursday, October 18
In Washington, Premier Ben Bella of Algeria appeals to Kennedy personally for urgent U.S. aid, then flies to Havana where he calls U.S. shipping restrictions “a blow to Cuban independence” and issues communique with Castro demanding the abandonment of American Guantanamo base. New Russian rocket “for space exploration” tested in the Pacific. Khrushchev drops heavy hints: he wants another summit with Kennedy; he is ready to go to UN in November.
*
FLORIDA WAS ROCKED BY RUMORS. SWANK HOTELS AND pensioned-singles-only hunting grounds were filled up with marines and Airborne troops in the vicinity of Miami and Key West. Baseball parks were turned into motor pools. All roads carried truck convoys. Heavy transport aircraft kept landing at all hours. Civilians self-imposed a hurricane alert: sandbag screens went up to protect school windows; there was a run on candles, water containers and canned food. The departures of submarine squadrons, destroyers and motley other vessels of war depopulated all the thoroughfares of honky-tonk establishments. Along Miami’s Biscayne Boulevard, near the refugee offices, swarms of Cubans swapped rumors for canards day and night. The Spanish-speaking U.S. Army unit and the Cuban Revolutionary Council were suddenly swamped by volunteers.
Rust had established contact with Orlando, his Cuban smuggling partner, and a raiding party had agreed to take him to meet Orlando on Cay Sal on Monday, October 22, but now all the arrangements had to be reviewed in the light of the upsurge of military presence. The ceaseless naval activity indicated the possibility of some sort of invasion or blockade, and Rust was worried that he might not get through in time to meet the Bucharest. He had to consult Morales at once, but it was hard to avoid Schramm’s watchful eyes. Yet he was determined not to let his old friend or anyone else know about his plans.
You must be paranoid, you’ve lost the ability to trust anyone, he scolded himself repeatedly, but the warnings remained ineffectual. And for the first time, he sympathized with Charles and Ell and Schramm, whose actions seemed to be guided by the recurring signs of incurable and pathological suspicion. A suspicion of everything and everybody at all times. I’d hate to live like that, Rust concluded and began to live just like that.
He used Morales and his girl shamelessly, and misled the leader of the raiding party about details of the arrangements with Orlando. The lies to Orlando himself were inevitable: the smuggler would never show up at the rendezvous if he knew that others but Rust were to be present.
“We must bring zero hour forward,” he said to Morales in the lavatory of El Paraíso.
“Can’t be done.”
“Must go in on the twentieth.”
“Impossible.”
“Tell them I’ll be waiting for them as arranged, at twenty-three hundred hours, but on the twentieth. Tell them it’s no go otherwise. Tell them it may be their last chance to grab a bit of glory and show that the Cubans are men, not only America’s puppets.” It was below the belt, and he knew that Morales might just walk out on him. But that was a risk he had to take.
*
U-2 missions photographed the progress of Cuban missile installations six or seven times a day. The Wednesday pictures revealed at least sixteen and possibly thirty-two thousand-mile missiles which could apparently be fully operational within a week. According to military assessment, a few minutes after their being launched eighty million Americans would be dead.
The windowless room on the seventh floor of the State Department was in almost continuous use: the leather armchairs that lined the huge mahogany table were semipermanent homes for members of EXCOM. The hawks, suspected of playing down or actually withholding information about missiles until too late to prevent their installation, demanded an immediate military solution. They argued for options ranging from pinpoint bombing raids to take out the missiles to outright invasion. They claimed that diplomatic moves would only be ridiculed by Khrushchev, while a full naval blockade of a Cuba already bristling with missiles would only be bolting the door after the horse had been stolen. The President was disinclined to shoot first. He refused to do “a Pearl Harbor in reverse” because it was estimated that even if surgical precision was achieved, the pinpoint bombing would kill at least 25,000 Cuban civilians.
McNamara drew up a provisional list of requirements for a full-scale invasion. It contained a quarter of a million men, Marine and Airborne divisions, a hundred naval vessels and at least two thousand air sorties. The President sat tapping his front teeth with his forefinger; Bobby, the Attorney General, sat opposite, twisting his shirt into knots and tapping his teeth with his thumbnail — the familiar gestures were clear signs that the brothers were irritated by all the military options. Then the latest batch of photographs arrived. These left hardly any room for diplomatic maneuvers: the pictures showed that some missiles might become operational in eighteen hours — and several might have a two-thousand-mile range, capable of hitting any major centers as far as southern Canada and California. Inevitably, American war preparations were forced into top gear.
In the afternoon, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko was received by the President; in the evening, he was dined by the State Department. On both occasions, he kept lying through his teeth: no, there were no offensive weapons in Cuba. On both occasions, the Americans exercised tremendous self-control in not telling him they knew and could prove he was lying. Unless, of course, even he was kept somehow in the dark by Khrushchev, who would thus create yet another digger for his political grave.
Sunday, October 21
First anniversary of Stalin’s removal from Red Square mausoleum; Yevtushenko poem in Pravda appeals to government to “double, treble the guard at his gravestone so that Stalin cannot rise again.” President Kennedy interrupts campaign tour and returns to Washington. U.S. ambassadors in Western Europe get mysterious instructions to go alone and armed to meet special presidential emissaries at obscure airports.
*
RUST’S HALF PINT AND THE RAIDING PARTY’S TWO powerful V-20 boats raced through the night and reached the string of coral shoals forming the Cay Sal bank by dawn. Rust found the rendezvous island without too much difficulty — yes, it was just as uninviting as he remembered it. They hid the boats on the scrub-covered side where they would be invisible from the Nicholas Channel, then settled down for a long wait: Orlando was not expected until the night of October 22.
In the mor
ning a violent storm drenched them. At noon, a small, ancient boat with torn square sails drifted by aimlessly. The youngest of the Cubans wanted to go out and investigate if there were people on board.
“There’s no sign of life. No good to risk breaking our cover,” said the leader of the raiding party, a tense, slight man who was said to have lost all his family in Castro’s jails.
“They may be sunburned and lost and dying with no water and cracked skin and open sores and swollen and infected,” the other tried to argue. “I know what it’s like!”
“So do I,” said the leader of the party. “I was the sole survivor on my boat when I left Havana. But we can’t risk the mission for the sake of saving a couple of lives.”
“Then what’s it all about? What are we fighting for if we can’t help our own people?”
It seemed obvious that every word had stung the frail leader of the group. And he was on the defensive now. “The boat may already be watched. One of the Komar class patrol boats may show up from behind an island any moment now.” Nobody argued with him anymore, but the silence was hostile. He finally put it to the vote. Rust was pleased he had no vote on the matter. The young man turned away and began to cry. The others said nothing. Nobody voted against the leader, but everybody was ashamed of it. They resented the fact that he was right.
Rust walked away from them, climbed into the Half Pint, lay down and closed his eyes. He knew what it was like to be resentful of somebody else’s correct judgment.
“Chico”
He looked up. “Sylvia” smiled at him. She moved her shoulder and tilted her head, asking for permission to join him. He did not react. She took it as an invitation. She lay down next to him, carefully avoiding any contact, although her hip was only an inch away from his hand. Damn you, thought Rust as he closed his eyes again. Damn you, damn me, damn the world. Memories flooded his brain. He could visualize Morales quite clearly. The old man had looked older than ever before at zero hour the previous night. Rust had pressed him all evening to reveal what arrangements he had made for a guide in Cuba. Then at almost the last minute, Morales had told him: “Your guide is already on board with the rest.”
In the Company of Spies Page 35
