October's Ghost

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  The DDI stood and picked up the phone on Merriweather’s desk without prompting, calling the Records Section of the Latin America Desk to confirm the information himself. Leak or no leak, this he had to ask.

  Merriweather was genuinely unconcerned, for his own reasons, and it showed. He was going to play this out just for the NSA’s benefit, and at the end there would be a very clear lesson in it for him: Don’t screw with my ops!

  “So just how did this happen? The Russians miscount or something?”

  All right, asshole. “The Cubans took one. Snatched it just before the pullout was supposed to happen.” Bud went on to explain the contents of the tape, portions of which he had heard over the phone with an FBI agent in Los Angeles translating.

  “Wait right there.” Merriweather laughed openly. “Are you trying to tell me you believe the Russians would have allowed Castro to steal one of their nukes? Well, James, take me through the looking glass. I’m waiting.”

  It was time for some reciprocation. “History, right, Anthony?” He knew it was. “How long did Khrushchev last after the crisis? Eh? Less than two years. Tell me, do you think he would have lasted that long if he’d had to go to war with an ally? Christ, he just had his face slapped by Kennedy, practically, and you think he had the wherewithal to face something even more embarrassing?”

  “Confirmed,” Drummond said, hanging the phone up. “Francisco Portero was the backup interpreter. Trained by Sergei Leonov,” the DDI added, referring to the headmaster at Moscow’s Higher Institute of Languages in the fifties.

  Bud looked to the DCI. His expression had changed a bit.

  Parry and thrust. “Your point is well taken, but how would Khrushchev have kept this quiet? His inner circle, particularly the military, would not have accepted him just saying ‘Oh, by the way, the Cubans have decided they wish to retain one of our nuclear weapons.’” He smirked, seemingly unconvinced.

  “The tape indicates that Castro forced Khrushchev into a cover story, something about an explosion just before the pullout was announced. That was how he could explain the loss of the missile crew and the warhead. Just burned up in a fireball.” Bud wondered if the Soviet government of the day had questioned the potential of fallout from a good amount of plutonium going up in smoke. Right—the same folks who tested aboveground weapons just fifty miles from populated areas. The care factor was never much to mention on their part.

  Fireball? Missile crew? Something clicked in the DDI’s head, but he wasn’t sure what exactly it was.

  “It is a very engaging story, James, but more fable than thesis, I would say.” So far there was nothing, Merriweather knew. Nothing to worry about. It was all right to push a little. “But, given the seriousness of the possibility, I suppose you are planning to confirm this.”

  “And just how do you propose we do that?” Bud asked angrily, tired of the DCI’s minimalization of the risk.

  “We?” Merriweather laughed, an event uncharacteristic enough to be noteworthy. “You, James. The Agency is quite busy at the moment. I mean, an entire missile! Not everything went up in smoke in that fireball, I presume. There must be something to corroborate the story.”

  That’s it! Drummond shouted inwardly. “There may be.”

  Merriweather’s head swung sharply toward his deputy. “What are you talking about?”

  The DDI looked to both men, choosing the NSA to explain to. “Our man down in Cuba reported coming upon a graveyard with a couple dozen Russian names on the headstones. No birth years, but the date of passing was ‘62 on those he could read.”

  The NSA saw Merriweather bite his lip. “You were part of the review conference back in ‘92, Greg, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Thirtieth anniversary and all. I also did a paper for the study group on the basing scheme chosen by the Soviets back then. Jeez, that was ‘78, I think.” The DDI had come right out of the Air Force and into the Agency, working his way up to chief analyst, Soviet Desk, in a very short time. His position now was the culmination of a hell of a lot of hard work and some risky calls that had panned out.

  “Where was the burial site?” Bud asked.

  “South of Santa Clara.” The DDI paused, verifying the information in his mental register. “Yeah. An old Jesuit monastery was there. The section chief is still running all the stuff down for the reports.” Drummond lit up. The NSA’s train of thought was now apparent. “Did he know where the missile was taken from?”

  “There was mention of ‘associated units’ departing from La Isabela. North central coast, I think.”

  “Right.” Drummond’s mind checked the information just presented with the data he still retained from his research for the basing report. “Sagua la Grande. Just south of La Isabela. Dammit, yes. The Russians had several MRBMs in the area. The one known as MRBM Site One carried out a full mating exercise the day before the pull out. It went on into the evening. The low-level recon couldn’t see it anymore after that.”

  “Mating what?” the DCI demanded more than asked. His cool hold on events was starting to slip.

  “Part of a readiness check,” Drummond began. “They bring the warhead out of storage and mate it up with the booster. Then they fuel the thing and put it on the pad.”

  “KGB had the warheads, though,” Merriweather countered. “How would you get them out of the way?”

  The DDI thought for a moment. “This was the night before the pullout. If I remember correctly, the KGB units started a move to secure the ports late that evening. We always suspected they had some advance warning before the Radio Moscow broadcast the next morning. Anyway, they had to split their force, leaving only a token force with each warhead. Remember, most were in storage, all grouped together. They had fifteen-man details augmented by Cuban forces when they did one of these mating exercises. Cut that in half, and you have seven men, plus twenty or so generally unarmed missile crewmen.”

  “Cubans helped in the security?” Bud asked. Merriweather met the look the NSA shot his way this time.

  “Right.”

  “They had opportunity, Anthony,” Bud said. “I doubt you’ll argue that Castro had the motivation.”

  How could he? The DCI knew his history better than most. The Cuban leader had been furious when the Soviets pulled out their missiles, at one point even demanding that they fire the weapons at the United States if an invasion appeared imminent. Castro’s knowledge of the withdrawal before it occurred had been alleged, even substantiated, by former Soviet Politburo members. Why wouldn’t Castro have wanted to humiliate Khrushchev, and get his hands on a very big bargaining chip in the process?

  “Motive and opportunity, Anthony. And a smoking gun,” Bud said.

  The DCI could say nothing. His parry had been negated and his thrust had dissipated to nothingness. Could it really be? “That’s pretty thin smoke you’re blowing.”

  “Thin, my ass!” Bud exploded. “You want to wait ‘til he has an opportunity to use it?”

  “If it actually exists,” Merriweather shot back. He wasn’t going to go so easily. Couldn’t go easily. “All you have is a recording alleging to portray the events you described. It’s a good story, I’ll grant you, but it’s more fable than thesis. And the names in the graveyard— they’re Russian. So what? How many Russians have served in Cuba? Maybe a plane went down, or a truck turned over. Why don’t you try and confirm that they aren’t just a platoon of infantrymen killed in a crash?”

  He would have to do that, the NSA knew. But the reality of that was not a hindrance; it was an opportunity. How to do it was the problem that was mated to the opportunity. How would he do it? They couldn’t just ask the Russians for the information, because that would likely lead to a revelation of what had been discovered. Not good timing, telling the Russians that the Cubans had one of their old nukes when their radars were down. Plus there were enough hard-liners in government that any revelation to the Russian president might find its way through them to Castro. One more stab at the imperialist West
. And if this turned out to be a real threat, what would Castro do if he discovered that his enemies to the north were aware of the missile? Use it or lose it. No, anticipating that it was credible, their best defense at the moment was secrecy. To get the Russians to open up their records was just not... Of course!

  “A good idea, Anthony. That way we’ll have corroboration.”

  What? “How...?”

  Bud explained for just a minute.

  “You can’t just go off and use my people to play your games! I sure as hell won’t authorize it, and that means your only hope is with the—”

  “With the Man,” Bud completed the sentence with his own twist. “But first he has to be filled in.” The NSA stood. “You want to join me, Anthony?”

  This ride to the White House, though silent and filled with contemplation of a very serious matter, would be one of the most enjoyable Bud DiContino had ever taken. Welcome to my turf, Mr. Director.

  * * *

  Two BTR-60PB armored personnel carriers led the way along the road. It was paved, much to the delight of the convoy’s commanding officer. His unit had been running supplies since the opening of hostilities, and most of those runs had been on the overused dirt tracks that cut through the more vegetated, and less open, areas of the countryside. The cover he was thankful for, but the speed was a third, at best, of that which he could make on the paved surface.

  This time, however, it had been not a decision of choice, but of necessity. The ten fully loaded tank trucks behind his escorting BTRs would have bogged down before passing through Cienfuegos. That was not the stretch of the journey that concerned him, though. It was the road he was on now. And he was running it under a bright moon.

  “Lieutenant, the troops at the rear of the convoy report that one of the tankers has broken down.”

  “Damn!” the lieutenant swore at the situation reported by his driver. “Leave it. Tell them to have the driver try and repair it. We must move on.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The lieutenant, standing in the BTR’s open hatch, looked to the bright white ball that was sinking slowly toward the hills northwest of Cienfuegos and willed it to hurry into its rest for the night. Darkness was a convoy runner’s friend. Darkness and speed, he reminded himself, adding luck almost as an afterthought.

  * * *

  “Wait for the escorts to pass,” the sergeant told the gunners just in front of him. It was a perfectly laid ambush using just twenty men, though he could have done it with ten. The targets, after all, were like whales upon the beach.

  The thirteen vehicles had been spotted an hour before by a two-man scout unit overwatching the refinery facilities at Los Guaos. Then there had been one more, but the disappearance of one vehicle was not to be worried about.

  What was-approaching was plenty to make quite a noise.

  “Ready...”

  * * *

  The lieutenant saw the flashes just an instant before he felt the hot sting on his right side. He turned that way but never completed the move, a second volley of machine-gun fire from the hillside ending his life and sending him sliding downward into the BTR. An RPG antitank rocket fired from close in on the opposite side of the road farther up finished off the vehicle itself, the HEAT warhead impacting just forward of the fuel tanks. The white-hot jet of explosive gasses was sufficient to ignite the normally stable diesel. The green vehicle disappeared into a ball of orange-yellow before anyone could get out.

  The second BTR made it a bit farther, its driver jinking to the right away from the smoke trail he had seen swoop down on his commander’s vehicle. But the farthest he got was the soft shoulder of the two-lane highway. Another RPG came straight down at the BTR’s front and punched a hole directly into the driver’s compartment, incinerating the upper half of his body instantly and causing the vehicle to continue awkwardly over the roadside. It ended its roll at a nose-down attitude, its hatch-covered top exposed to the hillside. APCs, like all armored fighting vehicles, are lightly armored on top, the thickness in proportion to its thicker side armor. The BTR’s side armor was pathetic.

  Two heavy machine guns sprayed the top of the BTR simultaneously from opposite sides of the road, opening its roof up like a sieve. A fire started quickly, followed by several small explosions as the soldiers’ ammo began to cook off in the heat. No one from either lead escort survived, a similar fate befalling the single BTR at the rear.

  The convoy was doomed.

  It took little time for the hunter squads to turn the long line of tank trucks into a burning snake of twisted metal. Several of the trucks, strangely, did not burn as furiously as the others, their refrigerated contents venting into the atmosphere as a river of fire flowed down the slightly inclined road from the front to the back.

  “Done,” the sergeant said. “Let’s get...”

  The sound came from behind. It had been masked by the roar of the raging inferno below, and smoke had obscured any view that might have warned them. The sergeant saw it first and wanted to run, but it was no use. They had killed everyone below, but someone had obviously not died quickly enough.

  * * *

  “Bastards!” Major Orelio Guevarra screamed, his weapons officer in the front of the Mi-28 Havoc giving a thumbs-up at the sight before them on the FLIR display. “Destroy them, Chiuaigel!”

  Sergeant Chiuaigel Montes did just that. A salvo of rockets leaped out of the pods on each side of the attack helicopter as it approached the ambush from the west. Before the first salvo impacted, Montes rippled off another. This he continued as the Havoc flew fast over the length of the burning convoy. Fired from three hundred feet, the rockets spread out to a hundred feet on either side of the highway and created a zone of almost certain death the entire length of the destruction below.

  After the first pass, the Havoc turned and approached from the east. Its rocket pods empty, Montes switched to the 30mm cannon that hung like a robotic appendage below the insect-like Havoc’s nose.

  “Two o’clock,” Guevarra reported, this time in a more controlled voice, over the helicopter’s intercom. “Right. Right.”

  The lone figure, represented by a ghostlike white image on the FLIR, was running up the hill, dodging between the trees that provided a lush canopy most of the year. Early autumn, however, was a time of growing sparseness. He had no chance.

  “Take this!” Montes said loudly, depressing the Fire button on his directional fire stick at the cockpit’s side.

  A hundred 30mm rounds burped out of the cannon in less than a second, creating a trail of dust and flying vegetation on the hillside below that ended at the running man’s back. Twenty of the high-density rounds connected, literally disintegrating the unfortunate rebel above the waist.

  They circled the area for five minutes more, firing on anything they suspected of being alive. A few minutes later it became overkill. Nothing was left. The Havoc turned southeast, heading for its base with no weapons of consequence or ammunition remaining. Just the two AA-7 air-to-air missiles hung beneath its wings, no targets having presented themselves for their use. The major was ever hopeful, though.

  * * *

  The President looked squarely at Bud, letting the possibilities of what he had just been told sink in. His next look was for the DCI. “Anthony, you obviously disagree.”

  “Vigorously, Mr. President.” Merriweather scooted forward in his chair, his chin almost even with the edge of the President’s desk. To his left was the NSA. To his right were the secretaries of state and defense. To his front was the man he had to convince. “Sir, this is so farfetched that it really is ridiculous. I am supposed to be on a plane to the Cape right now. My meeting with the CFS representatives is in six hours. Would I really be thinking of this if these crazy assertions were credible?”

  Things had gone well so far, the chief executive knew. The DCI hadn’t steered him wrong yet. “Bud, you say there’s a way to confirm this to a greater degree?”

  “Yes, sir. What we have to do is comp
are those names our officer in Cuba found with the supposedly murdered missile crew. If they match, then we cannot dispute this. We can’t afford to.”

  It made sense, the President thought. But it was a hell of a big pill to swallow. “All right, how?”

  “We have several people working on the archives project with the Russian Ministry of Defense in Moscow.”

  “Right,” the President said, “trying to verify the existence of any POWs.”

  “And to confirm deaths,” Bud said, expanding on the President’s observation. “Well, sir, one of the archivists is an Agency employee.”

  “Hold it.” The President’s expression went immediately to the far side of serious. “We have a spy among the group of archivists? Do you know what the Russians will do if they find that out? Bud, you, of all people, should realize that right now. This is supposed to be the age of trust!”

  “Not blind trust,” Bud objected, his disagreement careful in its tone. “The Russians, as much as we would like to think not, are still running heavy intelligence-gathering activities on us. The modernization program for their BMEWS does not negate that. What we have in their archives is benign by comparison. Benign and, thankfully, in the right place to help us here.”

  This wasn’t what the President had bargained for when SNAPSHOT was envisioned. It was not supposed to involve outside parties, particularly the Russians. “So what do we do with this man in Moscow? How does he get what we need?”

  “We already know from his reports that the death records of the Red Army are stored, by year, in the same area as records concerning POWs and other foreign nationals in prison camps. They’re not considered sensitive. We can notify our agent through the Moscow station chief immediately.” Bud glanced at his watch. “It’s almost seven-thirty in the morning over there, so we can get word to him before he leaves the embassy for the workday.”

  “Mr. President, I have to object,” the DCI said before the Man could make a final decision. “To use our agent in Moscow risks not only endangering the modernization program if he should be discovered, but also alienating the Russians in a larger sense. It does not matter if his work is minor, if valuable; they will still see it as a breach of trust. You are correct to be leery of that. Plus, the story purportedly told on that recording—which none of us has heard, I remind you—is factually deficient in several respects.”