by Jeremy Duns
Brezhnev returned to his seat at the head of the table, and clasped his hands together.
‘I would like some more detailed information on the B52s,’ he said, his baritone now almost cracking. ‘If they breach our no-go zone, I will give the order to launch a strike on our major targets in the West.’
I was also sweating now, and the room seemed to be closing in around me. In a few seconds, Brezhnev had placed the Soviet Union one step away from launching a nuclear attack. It sounded as if he were considering a tactical strike, rather than releasing the country’s entire stockpile of missiles at once – what was referred to as ‘R Hour’ in Britain. But it made little difference. Even if he were to order a tactical strike, the West would retaliate at once and we would be facing full-scale nuclear war in a few hours’ time, with Washington, London, Moscow and many other cities destroyed. Brezhnev didn’t even need to order a strike at all for that to happen. If Washington got wind of the fact that part of the Soviets’ nuclear arsenal had been moved to this position, they might themselves fear an imminent attack and choose to strike pre-emptively.
By believing the Americans were about to launch an attack, Brezhnev might have just pushed them into making one.
There must be some way to stop this.
‘Call your consulate in Åland,’ I said. ‘I can’t remember the precise coordinates, but the U-boat is south-east of an island called Söderviken. Get them to send one of their divers down, or if you don’t have any find a local and pay them to do it. Once they’ve found the canisters, they can radio back the confirmation that they have leaked.’
Brezhnev tilted his head at Yuri. ‘I think we have had quite enough of this man now. Is there anything else we wish to know from him?’
‘Thank you for your patience, General Secretary,’ said Yuri, and just the sound of his voice was now making me nauseated. ‘I believe he may know the West’s likely targets and the order in which they are likely to be attacked, but this may not be a fitting place to extract the information from him.’
‘Give him to me,’ said Andropov. ‘My men will be able to break him in less than an hour.’
My stay in Steklyashka had been far from pleasant, but the KGB’s headquarters, the Lubyanka, was notorious – it was known as Moscow’s tallest building, on account of the floors of cellars it was rumoured to have.
‘Thank you for the offer of assistance, Yuri Vladimirovich,’ said Yuri coolly. ‘But I think we have a way to apply pressure in this case.’
‘I think KGB and GRU should work together on this,’ said Brezhnev. ‘Yuri Vladimirovich, please have the prisoner taken into custody by your men. Fedor Fedorovich, I would like you to accompany him in order to exert your pressure, and to report back here with the results within the hour.’
Fedor Fedorovich, or Yuri as I still thought of him, looked a little paler, but nodded. ‘Of course, General Secretary.’ Andropov flicked the switch on his chair, while Yuri started packing his papers into his attaché case.
‘This won’t help,’ I said, unable to keep the desperation from my voice. ‘You’re making a terrible mistake.’
Brezhnev ignored me, and helped himself to a glass of water. The door opened and two guards marched in, wearing brown coats with blue collar tabs: KGB. They were both armed, so I didn’t resist as they escorted me out of the room, led by Yuri.
‘I’ve told the truth, you fools!’ I screamed as the door closed. But there was no reply, and they led me down the passageway and back to the lift.
V
The ZiL was still parked on the street, and I was pushed towards it, the barrel of a submachine-gun pushed hard against my spine. Snow was falling gently, and as a gust of it caught me in the face, I shivered in my thin suit, the sweat already cooling and sticking to my skin.
Sasha stepped out of the car and walked towards us. Yuri began speaking to him, but his voice was carried away by the wind and I didn’t catch it: presumably he was explaining Brezhnev’s Solomon-like decree that they were to cooperate with the KGB in torturing me. I wondered if any of them apart from Yuri had any inkling of what was being decided in the bunker, or that they would be left outside it to die with the rest of the population when the missiles hit. Perhaps Sasha did, which was why he had hesitated when Yuri had motioned for him to leave earlier.
As Yuri and Sasha talked, one of the KGB men spat on the ground. I followed the trajectory of the saliva through the air and it was in that moment, as I watched the globule freezing into ice, that I remembered the footage I had seen in a dark room in London one evening a decade or so earlier, of the hydrogen bomb tests we had conducted at Christmas Island in the Pacific. A flash of light had filled the entire screen, shocking even when experienced secondhand, and when it had eventually faded the image of a cloud had formed, growing and slowly expanding in new layers until it had finally plumed and billowed into the mushroom configuration, an almost obscenely beautiful formation hanging over the landscape it had just destroyed.
I closed my eyes to try to rid myself of the image, and a flake of snow came to rest on my eyelids, soft and wet, and I suddenly understood something I never really had before. I opened my eyes again and took in the tableau anew. This place, this moment, was unique in the universe. It was an ugly place, certainly, made up of concrete and saliva and ugly men in uniforms, but it was our place. And it was mine. All of it, from the grime in my teeth, the smell of the car’s engine, the crispness in the air, the patterns of the shadows on the ground, the precise interplay of every living thing in every passing moment, even these thoughts rattling through my head… All of it was under threat. All of it could be just a few hours away from extinction – unless I acted.
And it wasn’t just that if I didn’t, nobody else would. This was something I should put right, as I was directly responsible: I hadn’t destroyed the canisters, but had just left them in the U-boat. And, clearly, the hatch had not shut as firmly as I had thought it had.
But what the hell could I do?
Sasha turned and headed towards a Chaika parked across the road, while Yuri climbed into the front of the ZiL. The KGB men opened the rear door and I was again pushed into the back seat, next to Sarah.
Naturally, she was Yuri’s ‘pressure’. He had told Sasha to bring her along in case my appearance in front of the Supreme Command wasn’t received well. Sarah might not know too much about the inner workings of the Service, but Yuri had, once again, played a long game, realizing that at some stage she might prove useful in extracting information from me. And so he had kept her alive for just that purpose.
I felt like retching, and as the car started up I shuddered at the thought of what lay in store for both of us at the end of the journey. No doubt they would attach electrodes to her or some such horror in an attempt to get me to reveal the locations of missile silos and command and control bunkers. But the problem was bigger than that: once we were inside the gates of the Lubyanka, I would never be able to warn anyone in the West about what was happening, and events would continue to spiral towards a nuclear conflict.
I looked at Yuri, who was staring straight ahead, his hands resting on the attaché case on his lap.
That case.
That case could be key. Presumably it contained all the papers that had been used for the meeting, and so would detail their concerns about the B-52s and the injuries at the Estonian bases; papers that would offer firm evidence that the Soviets mistakenly thought they were about to come under attack from the West and were preparing their own strike as a result. I realized I had to get out of this car before we reached the Lubyanka, and that case had to come with me. If I could get a message to the Service, the Americans might be able to defuse the situation by bringing the B-52s back to earth and explaining that they had nothing to do with the events in Estonia, and this madness could stop before it was too late.
All of which was easier said than done – I was in a moving car with armed men. In my first few weeks in Moscow I had thought of nothing but escape
, and had drawn on old training patterns, obsessively keeping track of how many guards had been assigned to me, when they changed shifts and so on. I’d always been under cover of at least one submachine-gun on the daily walk I was allowed around the fenced pen on the roof, but I had persisted in following every move the guards made, just in case a sliver of an opportunity presented itself. It never had, and I had eventually resigned myself to the fact that I would never be free again. But now there was no choice: I had to find a way out.
But what about Sarah? I should, in normal operational circumstances, leave her behind. One man on the run had a small advantage against those seeking him – that of the needle in a haystack. But if we did manage to escape from this car, the two of us together would be a much easier target to describe, and hunt. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and even if they were, I wasn’t going to leave her to be taken back to a cell. If there were a nuclear attack it would make little odds, but if I managed to stop an attack from happening I couldn’t bear the thought of her being in the Lubyanka. No, she had to come with me.
I scanned the interior of the car, searching for an idea. Armed men sat either side of us, the doors either side of them were locked and beyond the doors stretched Moscow and the vast expanse of the Soviet Union. A feeling of hopelessness rose up in me. I took a breath and smothered it. Now wasn’t the time to give in; now was the time to sharpen all my senses.
Yuri motioned to the driver to take a shortcut and the car took a right turn. I caught a glimpse of a sentry box through the curtains, and realized we were crossing a bridge. We must be approaching the Kremlin. The Lubyanka was very close now.
I glanced across at Sarah. She was staring out of her window, apparently deep in thought. She looked tired, but otherwise in reasonable shape. I wasn’t exactly on top form, but I had made sure to maintain a version of my regimen in my cell, partly to keep my strength up but primarily to occupy my mind. It had mostly consisted of press-ups and running on the spot and, naturally, had been on a much lighter scale than usual: the soup they’d been feeding me hadn’t provided enough protein for anything more. But the result was that my body had become harder and leaner, and I was confident I could at least make a decent go of it.
But could she? Every couple of years, all Service officers had to take refresher training courses, usually at Fort Monckton, near Gosport, so she should know the basics. The courses admittedly tended to be a waste of time: as it was impossible to prepare for every eventuality in the field, most of the focus was on general preparedness, teaching how to remain vigilant and watch for lapses in the opposition’s vigilance, and so on. But now we were in a situation similar to one that I’d been taught at Monckton – I hoped she’d been taught it, too. The objective had been to jump from a moving car while under close guard. To execute the manoeuvre, which was known as ‘Duck and Dive’, you needed at least one accomplice and could not be guarded by more than two people. We had two in the back and two in the front, but beggars can’t be choosers.
With Duck and Dive, everything is in the timing. When the car slows, the first accomplice distracts one of the opposition. This has to be a distraction that won’t get them shot, obviously, and it has to be believable. The simplest is a loud groan and a slump, imitating a fainting fit. While the first man reacts, the second agent attacks the other guard, shoves open the door and leaps out of the car. To make matters harder, I would have to grab the attaché case from Yuri as well, and hope that in the ensuing confusion Sarah and I would both be able to get out without getting shot. But anything was preferable to what they had in store for us at the Lubyanka. The moment to trigger it would be when the car was slowing but had not yet passed any checkpoints or sentries: after that we’d be trapped inside the walls of the Kremlin.
But how could I communicate all this to Sarah? The last time I’d seen her, she’d lost her hearing. I could check whether or not it had returned by making a noise and seeing if she reacted, but any diversion now would alert the men either side of us and make it harder to execute another one. She was staring down at her hands now. I looked at her, willing her to sense my gaze and look back at me. The car jolted, and in that moment she turned and our eyes met. ‘Duck and dive,’ I mouthed, then turned away.
She had nodded. She’d had the same thought.
With the course of action determined, I should have felt happy. But now I knew we would be risking our necks in a matter of moments, doubts returned. Well, there was no choice about it. Long ago, a cheerful Cockney instructor had told me that you never knew when you might have to call on your training, but when you did, you simply had to buckle down and get on with it.
Having fed myself this rather facile exhortation and swallowed it as best I could, I took a deep breath. The car had turned into Dzerzhinsky Square, and the imposing mustard-yellow block of the Lubyanka loomed in the headlights. At first glance it could have been mistaken for a French château, but for the barred windows on the lower floors. The tallest building in Moscow…
The car slowed on the turn and I braced myself. Not yet, not yet… now. I nodded at Sarah and smiled at her as I did, one last time perhaps, something to remember. She let out a groan and slumped into her seat. The guard next to her turned to see what had happened, as did my man, and I jerked my elbow up, catching him squarely on the jaw and sending him flying into the door.
Yuri turned to see what had happened and cursed, and I leapt forward, grabbing at the lapel of his jacket and pulling him closer. His hand flew up and I saw the case slipping from his lap. I yanked harder at his jacket, the top of my head bumping against the roof as I propelled myself between the gap in the two front seats and sprawled awkwardly between Yuri and the driver. In the driver’s mirror I saw Sarah punching her man unceremoniously in his groin.
As his scream filled the small space, the car suddenly swerved, the driver no doubt jarred by the noise, and I took advantage of it and lunged back over to Yuri’s side, my hand grabbing hold of the handle of the attaché case, which I swung up and into his face. The corner caught him under the neck and he screamed, and I wriggled the rest of my legs through the gap in the seats and slammed my free hand against Yuri’s door until it gave way and fell open. Yuri tried to grab hold of my arm, but I punched down blindly and as he fell backwards onto the seat, I managed to scramble over him and shove the door wider, then hurled myself towards the opening, tumbling through it and out onto the street, keeping my head down and my arms wrapped tightly into my chest.
The impact shook my whole body as I hit the tarmac, but training took over and I went into a roll, resisting the temptation to touch the ground with my free hand, gripping the case as tightly as I could with the other, and then I was up and running, the sound of shouting behind me becoming subsumed by the noise of blaring horns in the traffic, letting the momentum carry my legs in their natural rhythm, my heart pounding so hard I thought my ribcage might burst, searching for cover.
VI
I surged on, keeping my body as low as possible, a rush of wind biting at my ears and cheeks. I desperately wanted to look back to check on Sarah, but I was still numb from the jolt of the landing and to turn now would lose vital moments. I was conscious of sunlight breaking through low clouds, and I squinted against the glare at the morning traffic swarming around the square. A Moskvitch beeped its horn angrily as it sped past, and then I reached the enormous statue of Dzerzhinsky and could see the other side of the pavement, just a few yards away. It was packed with pedestrians, many of them gathered outside a building with enormous arched windows on the corner, and my first thought was that some sort of protest was going on. But then something deep in my consciousness stirred, and I recognized the building from photographs. It was Detsky Mir, ‘Children’s World’, Moscow’s largest toy shop. It had been just after seven o’clock when I’d entered the bunker, and the larger shops in the city opened at eight, so either the place was about to open or it had already done so and people were queuing to enter. It didn’t matter much w
hich – it was a crowd, and that could only be good, so I headed for it.
I took momentary refuge behind a banner festooned with red ribbons and an enormous portrait of Lenin. Now, finally, I could see Sarah: she was in fact ahead of me, and making her way towards the same building. She was limping on one leg and wasn’t going to beat any records, but she’d done it. Somehow, she’d done it. I took a breath and then leapt the last stretch to the pavement, my chest burning with the effort, and hurtled into the tail-end of the throng, pressing through a bank of woollen coats and getting swept along with the movement, looking to get closer to Sarah and fervently praying that the shop would be open and provide us with more options than the open air.
An elderly bábushka turned as I tried to squeeze past her, raising her arms in protest. I glared back with my most officious look, but she yelled something and grabbed hold of my sleeve. Others turned to see what the fuss was about, and as they did a gap appeared in the forest of bodies and I caught a glimpse of the KGB men emerging from the ZiL and running towards us, their guns raised. The Chaika wouldn’t be far behind, and my mind flew to the moment when they would drag us to the building on the other side of the square. I yanked my arm away from the bábushka in desperation and pushed forward, moving deeper into the crowd and calling out ‘Make way!’ in Russian, holding the case above my head, until I had reached the entrance. The doors were open, and I forced my way through them.
Beneath a curved glass roof, hundreds of shoppers teemed through the vast central hall. Gaudy, cheap-looking toys lined the walls, vying for attention, while a loudspeaker in the ceiling told parents and children to meet near the entrance if they became separated. A queue of people made three loops around the hall and disappeared up a grand-looking stairwell leading to balcony floors above.
