The Tashkent Crisis

by William Craig

  Andrei Parchuk was a member of the prestigious Soviet Academy of Sciences. He was also a controversial figure. Five years before, he had sent a letter to the Presidium demanding the release from prison of several Soviet intellectuals jailed for writing articles against the régime. For this act, Parchuk had suffered harassment from the state security police, who warned him that further protests would result in banishment from his chair at the university and possible imprisonment. Parchuk never again spoke out publicly against the Kremlin.

  The elderly scientist was afraid. He knew they might beat him, and he was certain he could not stand up to it. Parchuk had heard of notorious methods used to elicit information from suspects. He realized that Rudenko must have broken and that Rudenko was a far stronger man than he.

  The state security men had scrupulously avoided touching the director to that moment. Parchuk had sparred with them intellectually, feinting and staffing, trying to avoid any damning admission. As sunlight flooded against the window, the interrogators pursued him relentlessly.

  “When were you last in Moscow, Professor?”

  “Let me see, it was around the sixth of September, for two days. But you can check that easily by referring to my schedule here.”

  “And what did you do there?”

  “I was summoned to a meeting of the Presidium. Marshal Moskanko wished to confirm some aspects of my initial report on the first test-firing of the laser. He conducted a lengthy seminar on the implications of the weapon in the struggle with the West.”

  “Where did you stay, Professor, while you were in the city?”

  “At the Rossia. I have recipts from there if you want to see them.”

  “Did you get to do any shopping?”

  Parchuk hesitated briefly. He looked at the grim-faced men before him and lied: “No, I didn’t have any time for that.”

  “You didn’t go to the GUM store at all?”

  Parchuk was frightened as they tried to corner him.

  “No, I had no free time.”

  One security officer rose from his chair, walked swiftly over to Parchuk, and slapped him on the cheek. The scientist covered himself with his hands, while his eyes filled with tears. The security man hovered over him menacingly. “You are nothing but trouble, Parchuk. We have been watching you for years.”

  Parchuk shook his head while trying to compose himself. The security officer pried his hands loose from his face and with one powerful blow broke his jaw. Parchuk fell to the floor, unconscious.

  “Pick the bastard up and take him to Moscow. We’ll show him to Rudenko and see what he says then.” Parchuk was dragged out of his office and hoisted into the back seat of a car.

  In the compound of scientists’ homes, several curtains parted to watch the abduction. Behind one, a man cursed as he saw Parchuk shoved unconscious into the black government car. The man clutched the drapes in his fist until the car drove off at high speed. He went to the kitchen table, put his head down, and sobbed in anguish at losing part of his life.

  The man was Anatoly Serkin, a thin-faced, bespectacled, thirty-eight-year-old physicist. He was Parchuk’s protégé, his prize pupil. They had met at Leningrad Government University, where Parchuk held a chair in quantum physics and optics. Parchuk liked the intense, volatile Serkin, partly because the younger man was struggling under the burden of supporting a wife and a child while attempting to earn his doctorate. Serkin and his wife, Nadia, lived in a one-room apartment with a bed in the middle of the floor and children’s toys scattered everywhere. When Serkin invited Parchuk to dinner one night, the professor was deeply touched at the way the young couple tried to please him. He was even more impressed when he sat down at the pink table that served for every meal. His steaming bowl of soup fell off the shaky leaf onto his lap. After a moment’s shock, Parchuk began to laugh uproariously while the embarrassed couple mopped the floor and his suit. The accident dissolved any social barriers between the hosts and their guest. After brandy, coffee, and Prokofiev’s Symphony Number 3, played on Serkin’s decrepit record machine, the professor left the dingy apartment happy for the first time in months. His wife had been a victim of the Nazi massacre at Kharkov, and Parchuk had been a very lonely man for all the long years since. Childless, he had only memories of a wonderful woman to sustain him in his twilight. It was not enough. Though he wrapped himself in a protective cocoon of books, music, and research, Parchuk needed people to talk with, to listen to him, and care for him. The Serkins provided that during the next years.

  When, more in tribute to his scientific brilliance than his politics, the Presidium of the Soviet Union bestowed the leadership of the laser program on Parchuk, he took Dr. Serkin with him to Tashkent. All scientists were confined to a restricted area, but the authorities tried to make life there as pleasant as possible. Each family had its own home. Food was plentiful. Recreation, though limited, was available. The Serkins and their child, Galina, loved the desert and the very infrequent trips into the city of Tashkent, where they examined vestiges of the Mongol and Tartar cultures that had made Tashkent a world-famous capital.

  Parchuk was absorbed in his work and rarely left the grounds. But nearly every evening he wandered over to the Serkins for dinner. He and Anatoly would talk of Dostoyevsky and Gorki and of the exciting advances being made around the world in their specialty. For each it was a safety valve from the pressures imposed on them by officials demanding results on the laser.

  It was Parchuk and Serkin who solved the greatest problem connected with the laser, controlling the diffusion of the concentration of light once it encountered the ionosphere layer. When the two men worked out the theoretical approach to containing the intense beam, it was merely a matter of time before the Russians managed to test-fire a prototype into a forest in Siberia near Irkutsk.

  Elated with the results, Parchuk went to Moscow to report progress to the Presidium. After that first trip, he came back to Tashkent deeply troubled. The Soviet marshals had indicated great interest in the offensive capabilities of the laser. When he was summoned to Moscow the next time, he took the blueprints and other data with him, not telling anyone, not even Serkin, what he was thinking of doing with them. It was on that second trip that Marshal Moskanko, the Soviet defense minister, had ordered him to annihilate the Israeli atomic center as a first step in world domination. The next target would be the United States of America. Parchuk and Serkin had never thought their creation might be used to enslave the world. They had believed the laser was just a defensive weapon, and had not reckoned with the Soviet military leaders. On his second day in Moscow that time, Parchuk got in touch with the only man he felt he could trust in such a situation, Grigor Rudenko, husband of his niece, Tamara.

  He returned to Tashkent with equal feelings of grief and guilt. When they aimed the laser into the Sinai and killed more than a thousand human beings, Parchuk felt too ashamed to face Serkin. The younger man, too, was appalled at what they had done.

  Now Parchuk was gone, and Serkin wept for him on the kitchen table. Nadia found him there when she came to make breakfast. She collapsed when he told her what had happened to their dearest friend. While Nadia tried to recover, Anatoly Serkin went to his record player and put on Prokofiev’s Third Symphony, Parchuk’s favorite.

  Joe Safcek liked his hideout. In exploring the mosque, he had found a subterranean vault, containing the remains of warriors and holy men from centuries past. They had been laid to rest in scooped-out caverns in the walls. Safcek unceremoniously moved fragments of bone to one side and tenderly placed the rectangular package holding the atomic bomb.

  While he surveyed the rest of the building, Luba and Peter laid out their collection of handguns and automatic rifles. On the second floor, Boris set up the radio, which had an effective range of six hundred miles.

  At 8 A.M., Safcek returned and said: “We couldn’t have found a better place. No traffic outside. At about one we’ll take a scouting trip. In the meantime, why don’t we relax a bit? Anything
to eat, Luba?”

  Luba, who had not regained her former vivacity, busied herself getting cartons of rations from a knapsack. She handed them out to the men without a word and went back to a corner, where she eased down onto the dirt floor and opened up her breakfast. Joe Safcek munched his cold rations slowly and asked Luba for some coffee. She got up again and started to prepare it over a tiny field stove. When it was offered to him, Safcek smiled at the girl and asked, “Something on your mind I should know about?”

  She hesitated for just a moment, then shook her head and went back to her position. Joe watched her settle down and then drank the strong coffee slowly. It burned his tongue but he liked it too much to care. Safcek tried to ignore Luba’s moodiness while he mentally arranged the next hours in his mind.

  Friday, September 13

  In the Atlantic Ocean, the Soviet task force had not slowed its progress toward the east coast of the United States. For the first fifty hours of the ultimatum period, the twenty-two ships had maintained strict radio silence to avoid eavesdropping by American units shepherding them nervously westward. By a form of gentlemen’s agreement, each force had left the other alone.

  They were companions on a strange odyssey. Unwelcome, the Russians nevertheless plodded onward into the territorial waters adjacent to America’s heavily populated seaboard. American officers on the shadowing escorts had no idea what the Soviet plans were, but strict orders from the White House forbade any interference with the invading host.

  At 1:54 A.M., the Soviet cruiser Kutuzov broke radio silence:

  Arrival Montauk area 2000 hours tomorrow. Will be prepared to receive envoys any time after that hour.

  The message, directed to Soviet Naval HQ, Kronstadt, was sent in ordinary Morse code.

  Astounded American eavesdroppers forwarded the wording to the Situation Room of the White House for further analysis.

  At 2:06 A.M;, William Stark was awakened by the ring of his bedside telephone. He had taken two sleeping pills to allow him to get some rest before the frenzy of what might be his last day, but the phone intruded immediately on his forced slumber. When informed of the intercepted message, Stark was strangely cool. He thanked the duty officer and told him to pass the text on to Randall when he arrived at seven A.M. The bewildered colonel agreed and hung up. Stark lay back on the pillow. When Pamela asked what was wrong, he shrugged. “The other side is trying to ruin my catnap, that’s all.” He put the light out and went back to sleep.

  On the other side of the world, in the dry heat of midday in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, the Operation Scratch team was about to move out on its first reconnaissance of the laser works. Joe Safcek sent Peter outside to bury evidence of their visit to the mosque. Luba rushed outside to help Kirov, and the two agents carried out the garbage of the first few hours—ration boxes, ammunition cases, and rifle cratings.

  On the desert, in the shadow of the mosque, Kirov quickly dug a hole and dropped in the telltale signs of their presence.

  When the last spadeful of earth was carefully smoothed over, Luba wandered away into the shimmering heat. Peter called to her, but she kept walking, and he ran to catch up.

  She smiled as he came alongside.

  “It’s so beautiful out here.”

  “You lived nearby, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes, to the north and east;” and she pointed past the white-walled huts and the modern apartment buildings barely visible on the horizon. “My mother is up there now, and I can almost hear her singing as she cooks.”

  Luba had stopped smiling.

  “It’s so terrible not to be able to see her.”

  “I know just how you feel, Luba. I feel that way myself now and then, about my own home.”

  She brightened. “I know your city. My father took me there when I was sixteen. We stayed with my aunt in Beketovka.”

  “Beketovka, sure. I lived about three miles north of there in the suburbs of Volgograd. Did you ever climb Mamaev?”

  “That’s the memory I treasure most from that summer. I can still hear the funeral music in the rotunda of the mass grave.”

  “And the granite fist coming up from the floor and holding the eternal flame?”

  “Oh, God, yes. It’s so moving and yet so depressing. All those bodies in there, just wasted lives.”

  They had walked nearly a quarter mile into the vastness of the parched plain. Behind them the crumbling blue dome of the mosque stood serenely under the glare of the sun.

  “One other place I remember well,” she said, “is the grain elevator on the south side of the town. The guide told us that forty men had been holed up in there for weeks before the last one was captured. It’s incredible when you see that place now to imagine that any such horror story ever took place. The grain is being stored as before. Workmen swarm around it. I could not really believe that so many died there.”

  Kirov shook his head. “You can tell, Luba, if you get up close. The bullet holes are everywhere in the cement silos. Some have been filled in, but I guess they got tired at some point and left the rest.”

  Luba stared at Peter in calculated appraisal. “You’re right, absolutely right. I forgot about the holes. They really are the only clue.”

  She stopped abruptly and began to retrace her steps to the mosque. Surprised at this sudden move, Peter hastily turned and rejoined her. Luba had taken off her hat and was now combing her fingers through her short blond hair.

  “I heard you talking to Boris about the winters in Volgograd,” she continued. “What’s it like when the Volga ices over?”

  “Well, its funny. The Volga isn’t like most of our rivers. First, the ice comes down from the north in little chunks. Then bigger floes appear and make navigation almost impossible. But because the river runs so far south it isn’t until January that the ice crashes together and forms a solid mass. From then until spring you can walk across and, if you want, even fish through the ice. It’s very beautiful then.”

  “In January, it freezes?”

  “Right. Up until that time the river is filled with dangerous chunks of ice moving south.”

  They had reached the mosque, and Luba had retreated once again into a moody silence. Peter stooped, picked a wild-flower from the ground, and handed it to her. She took it without comment and re-entered the subterranean chamber, where Safcek waited.

  The colonel had just finished marking an alternate route on a map, in case the primary road to the laser was unaccountably blocked. Safcek was furious. His blue eyes narrowed as he confronted Kirov and Luba.

  “Where the hell have you two been? I sent you out to do a simple job, and it takes you nearly thirty minutes.”

  Peter rushed to explain, while Luba stood silent with the wildflower dangling from her hand.

  “We just walked around a little bit, talking about the old days.”

  “Old days, my ass. Today is all that counts for us. What if someone had seen you? Or did that even occur to you?”

  Safcek folded the map and stormed out to the car. Peter followed sheepishly, while Boris Gorlov snuffed out a candle and took it with him.

  Without a word, Luba walked to the front of the car and got in beside Safcek, who rammed the car into reverse and backed out of the hiding place.

  All wore their regulation Soviet Army uniforms. Each had forged identification papers, signifying name, rank, and serial number in the Soviet Army. On another paper was noted their general specialty in the army and their current assignments. Ostensibly, the four were on detached duty from a training camp near Bukhara to observe troop activities at a base forty miles north of Tashkent in the same direction as the laser works.

  Safcek drove slowly, confidently, onto the main road into Tashkent. Only one car saw them pull onto the highway from the dirt trail. Its occupants did not slow to observe them.

  The colonel’s stomach rolled slightly as he headed into the sprawling metropolis. It was his first view of Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan. Richter had fille
d him in briefly on the plane about this almost legendary city of more than one million people drawn from all over the Soviet Union. Only twelve percent were European Russians. The rest were a mixture of ancient races, the Kirghiz, Tajiks, and, like Luba’s mother, the Uzbeks, descendants of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, who once ruled the circle of their world from this hub.

  The city was an oasis surrounded by cracked and scorched desert. Here in the Chirchiz River valley, the Soviet government had brought to flower a green carpet on the arid earthern floor of Central Asia. They had constructed apartment houses, government buildings, cotton-harvester plants, and tractor factories, even a huge stadium and a museum of history. Because of earthquakes, no building was higher than five stories, but there were thousands of them rising in the midst of forested parks and giant lanes of rose bushes.

  The tension of being out in the midst of an enemy host gripped Safcek, but he remembered his days in Hanoi. He had survived that encounter, he told himself, and could survive this one. He reached his hand out to Luba and squeezed her arm softly. “Act like a tourist, young lady.” For the first time in hours, she smiled back at him.

  The streets were suddenly congested with vehicular traffic. The old Tashkent and the new Soviet society blended swiftly into a blurred montage of incredible Oriental beauty and stark modern architecture. Citizens mingled in western and eastern dress. From the desert, men and women in flowing robes and burnooses brushed against their countrymen from European Russia. Safcek maneuvered through this mainstream, calculating from memory the route he had been given at Peshawar. He kept watching for Soviet Army roadblocks or checkpoints, but guessed that in the bustling center of Tashkent he would not have to pass any inspections or close scrutiny. He was right. In thirty minutes, Safcek had gone through the city and reached the northern highway leading to the laser works and beyond.