He studied each of the ministers in turn, trying to calculate from his expression which way he would go when the crucial vote came. Just to his right sat the President of the Soviet Union, Nikolai Bulganov, a rubber-nosed old apparachik. Although he was nominally the chief of state and senior to all of them, in reality his position had become largely ceremonial. Bulganov had survived by going along and he would undoubtedly vote with the majority.
On Fyedorenko’s left was Yuri Suvarov, son of the nephew of the great field marshal, whose famous maxim, “Train hard, fight easy,” had become the watchword of the Red Army. Suvarov had a gray anonymous face made even more anonymous by the shapeless gray suits he always wore. Once Irina, Fyedorenko’s late wife, had said of Suvarov, “Put him in a field of ashes and he’d be invisible.” As Premier, Suvarov shared the top of the table with Fyedorenko and Bulganov, thereby maintaining the fiction that since the death of the old man, the Soviet Union was ruled by what the western press called “the three-man troika.”
Of the three of them Fyedorenko, as general secretary of the CPSU, was nominally the most junior. And in theory they were all equal, each Politburo member having only one vote. But nothing is ever as it seems in Russia. In reality, Bulganov had little power and in the months since the old man’s death, Fyedorenko had severely undercut the scope of Suvarov’s authority. As party secretary and chairman of the Central Committee, Fyedorenko, like the Pope, was primum inter pares, “the first among equals.” Once Suvarov had been a superb in-fighter, who had helped to depose Khrushchev after the Cuban fiasco. Recently he had been in ill health and seemed to lack the stamina to withstand Fyedorenko’s incursions, yet he was still a formidable presence, for all his facelessness, and Fyedorenko had no idea whether or not he would support the Molotov Plan.
The remainder of the ministers were seated down the length of the table. Nearest to Bulganov sat Alexei Andreyev, the head of the KGB and at fifty-nine, the youngest minister in the room. He was stylishly dressed in a three-piece suit and was considered attractive by the KGB secretaries among whom he cut such a wide and democratic swathe that he was facetiously called “the Father of Soviet Intelligence” among the KGB small-fry. Fyedorenko knew he could count on Andreyev’s support, since the Molotov Plan had been a KGB operation from the beginning.
Directly across from Andreyev, Marshal Orlov, defense minister and head of the Red Army, was nervously drumming his pen against the note pad, impatient for Fyedorenko to begin. He was the only other man in the room who knew of the Molotov Plan and was its strongest supporter, having maintained for years that the outcome of the revolutionary struggle against the West would inevitably require a military solution. A tall, grizzled, but still powerful man in his seventies, he had fought under Marshal Zhukov, whom he regarded as the savior of Mother Russia, during the Great Patriotic War against the Nazis, and it was no secret that he thought of himself as Zhukov’s natural successor.
Next to Orlov sat the foreign minister, Ivan Kishinev, a suave diplomat in banker’s pinstripes, his salt and pepper hair slicked neatly back. He had the sleek air of a fat cat, the kind who would be equally at home at an embassy party or a conference of businessmen in Brussels. Indeed, the slang expression for a fat cat, nachalstvo, occurred to Fyedorenko. Kishinev was “smooth enough to piss down your back and convince you it was raining,” as the old Russian saying went. His was the face most familiar to westerners, always providing a façade of reasonableness to the zigs and zags of Soviet policy. In truth, Kishinev was a bit too enamored of the West, Fyedorenko thought with a frown. If he was to have opposition, it would come from Kishinev.
Across from Kishinev, Myshkin, the rapier-thin senior party theoretician, the scourge of “deviationism,” which had become the latest buzzword in Pravda, the philosopher whose gushy celebrations of the ideal stakhanovite worker were a regular feature of Izvestia, was anxiously glancing around the room, as if seeking out the slightest crumbs of revisionism even here in the Holy of Holies. Fyedorenko thought that Myshkin would go along with Molotov Plan as the next stage in the historically inevitable course of Marxist-Leninist destiny.
Next to Myshkin was Uri Arbatov, the minister of industrial development and across from him sat Nikolai Suganin, the tough head of the trade unions. Next to Arbatov sat Korchnoi, the bouncy minister of agriculture. Opposite him was Vladimir Komarovsky, Comintern secretary and liaison to Communist parties worldwide. He was nervously licking his thin lips, upset by the unmistakable sense of crisis in the room. He had grown increasingly more uneasy during the last months, as Fyedorenko had nibbled away at Suvarov’s authority. A certain No vote, Fyedorenko decided.
At the foot of the table was Cherkassy, the Ukrainian party secretary from Kiev and across from him, Liepka, his Latvian counterpart from Riga. These last two were the required token non-Russians. Despite many ruthless tests, they had proven their loyalty to Moscow over and over, but still, the Soviet soul is incapable of ever truly trusting anyone who isn’t a Great Russian by birth. Well, they would get another test today, Fyedorenko mused.
“Comrades,” he began and everyone in the room stirred at the unmistakable note of urgency in his voice. Kishinev and Myshkin looked significantly at each other, their suspicions confirmed. Like the sharks they were, they immediately recognized the scent of blood. Fyedorenko took a deep breath before proceeding. He had no doubt whatsoever that he was about to make history.
“I request that we dispense with today’s agenda in order to deal with a matter of some urgency,” Fyedorenko said.
There were affirmative nods around the table. The scent of blood was in the air and no mistaking it.
“I am as anxious as the rest to hear what the party chairman has to say,” Arbatov interjected, “but I would remind the members that final approval of the new Five-Year Plan cannot be delayed much longer.”
“Your point is well taken, Uri. But I’m sure the party secretary would not dispense with the agenda unless the matter was fully urgent,” Kishinev put in smoothly. Fyedorenko smiled his thanks to the foreign minister. Your point, you bastard, he thought.
“Also the plans for the forthcoming Trade Union Congress must be finalized,” Suganin said.
“Duly noted, comrade. But I know that we all want to hear the party secretary’s views,” Suvarov said. Fyedorenko leaned forward and stared intently down the length of the table.
“Over the last decade our confrontation with the West has degenerated into stalemate,” he began. “It is true that we have had our successes, notably in Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Third World. Most importantly in the improvement of our defenses and the expansion of the Red Army into the most formidable military machine the world has ever known.”
Marshal Orlov nodded in acknowledgement of Fyedorenko’s praise. He took full credit for the build-up and everyone knew it.
“But candor forces us to admit that we have also had our reverses as well, comrades. The space race, Afghanistan, Poland, the U.S.—China alliance, and most importantly, the massive military build-up in the West,” Fyedorenko ticked them off.
“Comrades, let us face facts,” Fyedorenko’s cutting voice jolting them to attention. “We have reached the high-water mark. Our industrial capacity is strained to the limit. The cost of our military build-up has been high, very high. Our satellites are restive, the forces of revisionism, hooliganism and dissidence grow more impudent daily. This year, for the first time in history, we shall have to import oil. And we cannot hope to match the western military build-up indefinitely. Time”—Fyedorenko let the word hang in the air like a bird of ill omen—“is no longer on our side, comrades.”
There was an uneasy stir around the table. Fyedorenko’s remarks sounded uncomfortably close to personal criticism of virtually every man there.
“During the last months of the late party secretary’s rule,” Fyedorenko went on, “it became apparent that the status quo was no longer tenable, despite the nuclear impasse between us and the Americans. Wit
h the old man’s full approval, a top-secret operation designed to break the ice-jam”—he used a coarse Russian expression that evoked a thrusting penis—“and bring the West to its knees once and for all was put into effect. In honor of the late and may I say, visionary, foreign minister, this operation was code-named the Molotov Plan.”
The room was as hushed as a cathedral. The members who were hearing about it for the first time glanced at each other in shock. It was inconceivable. A full-fledged operation being launched without prior Politburo approval. They looked with fear at Fyedorenko, who seemed to have grown suddenly taller. Not since Stalin had anyone dared to assume so much power.
“The Molotov Plan was conceived as a joint KGB-GRU operation, in association with the Red Army. The objective of the plan is to bring the West to heel once and for all, while achieving our age-old foreign objectives of total dominance, secure warm-water ports and control of worldwide resources. I have asked Comrade Svetlov to provide an overview of the operation,” Fyedorenko said, summoning Svetlov with a flick of his finger. While Svetlov stood anxiously by the wall, Fyedorenko’s secretary set up a large wall map. The room buzzed with conversation as each minister tried to be noncommital about whether he had any foreknowledge of the operation.
“Comrades,” Svetlov’s bull-frog voice boomed out. With his squat body, shapeless gray suit, bulging eyes and a face pitted from a terrible case of childhood chicken pox that had almost killed him, Svetlov looked like a talking toad. But that deep frog’s voice of his was unmistakable and despite his evident nervousness at addressing the Politburo, it had authority and power. Turning to the map, Svetlov gestured at the Straits of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
“This is the Achilles’ heel of the West. Through these waters pass the oil lifelines of the major western powers. Roughly three quarters of Japan’s oil, sixty per cent of Western Europe’s oil and about a third of America’s imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf, most of that coming from Saudi Arabia. Whoever controls this oil, controls the world. Make no mistake about that, comrades,” Svetlov said, his eyes boring into them.
“The Molotov Plan was designed to place control of this oil into our hands,” he declared. The room buzzed with excitement.
“The plan was coordinated in the Middle East by a mole recruited by the KGB when he was a student,” Svetlov went on. “Today, he is a wealthy and influential Bahraini businessman. Under our orders, he established contact with Prince Abdul Sa’ad of Arabia and together they began to plot a coup against King Salim. Abdul Sa’ad leads a fanatically antiwestern Wahabi faction in the Saudi royal family. He is also Deputy Commander of the Royal Saudi Army, numbering some fifty thousand troops, who are loyal to their commanders. The object of the coup is to give us control of the oil. In exchange, we will support Abdul Sa’ad as King of Arabia.
“We expect Abdul Sa’ad’s army to be opposed by the Saudi National Guard, which is fiercely loyal to the king. In a one-to-one fight they would be an even match for the army, but Abdul Sa’ad won’t be fighting alone.
“As you can see by the map, control of Arabia really rests upon the control of three key areas: the Hejaz, particularly the holy city of Mecca, Riyadh the capital, and the oil facilities at Ras Tanura. The Molotov Plan will place all three areas under our control,” Svetlov declared.
“To begin with, troops from the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen spearheaded by Cuban units, under a secret protocol with North Yemen arranged by us, are to march up the coast of the Red Sea and take Mecca. They will not be opposed by the Saudi Army which will be busy fighting the National Guard. Other Yemeni units will move against the tiny states of Oman and the Arab Emirates, which although weak are strategic.
“Secondly, the capital city of Riyadh will be taken over by the Saudi Army, supported by armed PLO guerrillas and Shiite cells in Riyadh and Hofuf. These have been despised minorities in Arabia and we can properly proclaim our support of these ‘liberation’ forces.
“Finally, the oil facilities around Dommam, Dhahran and especially Ras Tanura are to be taken by special commando units of the PLO who will be ferried across Iraq to the oil fields by Syrian aircraft. Both Iraq and Syria are client states and there will be no trouble from either of them. As a matter of fact, Iraq’s President Hosnani is taking advantage of the situation and is moving ten thousand troops from Basra to the border with Kuwait. We anticipate that he will take Kuwait, which he has long coveted. Kuwait has only a token army, about enough for a military band,” Svetlov joked.
“The signal for the coup will be the assassination of King Salim. Without the king to lead them, the National Guard will be fragmented and the royal family divided between Abdul Sa’ad and other factions. Everything depends upon a clear swift removal of the king. We estimate with high probability that with Salim out of the way, Abdul Sa’ad will need only one week to take over Arabia and shut off the oil faucet. The Americans, including most of their military, have enough oil stockpiled to last about sixty days. After that, their only option is surrender.”
The members of the Politburo sat in stunned silence, then Premier Suvarov’s voice sputtered like a balky engine.
“But surely the old man didn’t approve this operation. This kind of adventurism is against everything he ever stood for,” Suvarov blustered.
“It was his idea,” Fyedorenko said calmly. It was an absolute lie, of course. He imagined that the old man must be spinning like a gyroscope in his grave behind the Lenin mausoleum at the very thought of the Molotov Plan.
“Well, if it was his idea …” Bulganov said doubtfully. Not one of them believed Fyedorenko about the old man, but if the KGB and the Red Amry were involved, Fyedorenko was in too strong a position to be challenged.
“This is preposterous,” Foreign Minister Kishinev broke in. “Does any of us think for a second that the Americans are going to just sit back and allow us to slit their throats like chickens and not do a damn thing about it?”
“Marshal Orlov,” Fyedorenko prompted.
“If it becomes necessary for us to intervene, the Red Army has twenty-four divisions of the Caucasus Army Group deployed south of Lake Sevan and along the Iranian border from Erivan to Baku. An additional fifty thousand troops can be airlifted from Afghanistan and we have the twenty-six-ship fleet of the Sokolov missile cruiser battle group already in position near the Gulf of Oman. We are ready to slice down through Iran with armor and armored infantry. I can be in Abadan in seventy-two hours and in control of the Arabian oil fields in a week to ten days,” Orlov declared flatly in his deep basso voice.
“What about the Americans?” Myshkin, the party theoretician, asked Orlov nervously, sensing like the others that the operation would take them into dangerous and uncharted waters.
“The American Persian Gulf fleet is headed by the U.S.S. Nimitz carrier task force. They would be an even match for the Sokolov battle group, but under combat conditions it would be impossible for them to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. But the important battle will be waged on the ground, as always. They could move a token force, say a battalion, into combat within twenty-four hours, but that is meaningless. It would take them nearly two weeks to move their Rapid Deployment Force of two divisions plus support units into position. If necessary, they might be able to move in two Marine divisions, as well. But even so they would be too late. We would already control the oil fields and if necessary, blow them up, so that in any case the West would lose the oil. The Marines have no support facilities and the temperature in that desert is one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade, comrades. And there is no shade. Not to mention the fact that their supply lines would stretch around half the world.
“Besides it doesn’t really matter. We would already be in position and we outnumber them in men and equipment by at least twelve to one. It would be a massacre,” Orlov declared in that rumbling voice that left no room for argument.
“What about the Israelis?” Cherkassy the Ukrainian asked.
“Their ground forces would be a serious factor, but they don’t have the airlift capability to move so many troops into a distant battle zone,” Orlov replied.
“Suppose they move their troops on the ground?” Liepka the Latvian asked.
“Across all of Jordan and the great Nefud desert?” the field marshal said, amused, his famous bushy eyebrows raised quizzically.
“But is it possible?” Liepka insisted.
“Is a pig kosher?” Korchnoi called out and a nervous laugh rippled around the table.
“Then if I understand you correctly, Comrade Marshal, if it comes to a limited Persian Gulf war with the Americans, you are saying that we cannot lose,” Myshkin put in.
“That is correct,” Orlov said, his arms folded complacently over his bemedalled chest.
“But what if it isn’t limited?” Kishinev put in.
“What are you saying?” Andreyev of the KGB asked.
“I’m saying, comrades, that this plan outlined by Comrade Svetlov is brilliant. In fact it is so brilliant that it leaves the Americans with only one option. Nuclear war, the insanity that we’ve been working all our lives to prevent,” Kishinev said.
“You don’t think they would actually—” Komarovsky muttered nervously.
“Nonsense,” the urbane KGB chief countered. “Given the choice between nuclear holocaust and higher oil prices, the capitalists will make the only sane decision. As a matter of fact, their oil companies will even show larger profits.”
“I disagree. The Americans have never hesitated to use force whenever their interests have been threatened, despite all their pious platitudes about peace,” Kishinev objected, wagging his finger like a schoolteacher.
Scorpion Page 10
