Red Traitor, page 31
Arkhipov picked his way carefully past the sleeping Captain and made his way to his cabin. He had to get his head down. He left the door open in case there was a sudden rush of men to the forward torpedo compartment. And as soon as his head hit the bunk, he was fast asleep.
3
Bolshaya Gruzinskaya, Moscow
Sunday, 28 October 1962, 19:40 Moscow Time / 12:40 EDT
Vasin shifted in the fiendishly uncomfortable seat of his car, stretching a leg that had been cramping on and off for three hours. Night had spread like spilled ink across the street outside Sofia’s apartment, starting in the shadows of the archways and spilling onto the shaded areas under the lindens. Lights flicked on all over the building as a stream of trolleybuses disgorged their loads of tired, homebound citizens. Small groups of young men and women in uniform arrived at the Defense Ministry housing block in chatty gaggles. He checked his watch. Past seven thirty. How long could he maintain his hungry, coffee-less vigil outside her front door?
Vasin cursed himself for letting Sofia go. She was the weak link, the most imminent threat to his whole scheme. A scheme that seemed more insane the more Vasin thought about it. How could he know that Morozov hadn’t given the Americans a danger signal rather than the all clear? What had Morozov really photographed on the microfilm roll? And while Morozov’s instinct for self-preservation would probably hold, what was Sofia’s motive for keeping her mouth shut? Patriotism? That could land either way.
Most of all, Vasin was tortured by the constant thought that maybe, just maybe, his mad gamble had worked. He tried to imagine the CIA men in the American Embassy developing and reading the message he had written out for Morozov. The coded telexes flashing across the Atlantic. The Yankee generals and admirals debating the warning around conference tables. Even President Kennedy, his careworn but intelligent young face crumpling in concern as he read the message that he—Vasin—had sent. The message that would avert war…
Christ, Vasin. He tipped his head until it rested on the back of his steel-framed car seat and closed his eyes. You believed that this would actually work?
He could not wait for Sofia any longer. For all he knew, she and Morozov could be holed up in some hotel room having a romantic reconciliation. Or could both be under arrest. Vasin had no idea. And he needed a plan. If his idea of warning the Americans had failed, he would need to escape, somehow. If it had worked, perhaps he could talk Orlov into forgiveness. Somehow.
To make a plan he had to find out what the hell had really happened. And Vasin knew who could tell him. His old surveillance team, stewing in their stuffy apartment with their eyes constantly on Morozov’s apartment.
4
KGB Headquarters, Moscow
Sunday, 28 October 1962, 20:03 Moscow Time / 13:03 EDT
Famously, no man had ever visited every corner of the vast Lubyanka complex. Certainly, very few people had ever found their way to Special Repository 9/84. The small suite of rooms was, unlike all the other prison spaces of the Lubyanka, actually on the ninth floor. As he rode one of the building’s many elevators upward, Orlov had a fleeting memory of leafing through the memoirs of Casanova. Must have been back when he was a theology student in the seminary, and his interest in the dead Italian’s rakish stories had been frankly masturbatory. But he recalled Casanova’s account of his incarceration under the baking-hot roofs of the Doge’s Palace in Venice. A stinking hellhole of a prison, perched high above the heads of the great and the good who went about their business down below.
Orlov reached the suite of secure rooms via a series of corridors and vigilant sentries who checked his papers rather than wave him through, though he had appointed all of them personally. There were heavy bars on the windows that overlooked the Lubyanka’s internal courtyard, but otherwise the Special Repository had more the air of a secure archive than of a prison. And in fact an archive was exactly what it had once been, before some discreet transformations commissioned by Beria himself.
In the anteroom of the innermost part of the suite sat two of Orlov’s trusted personal bodyguards. Two more were inside the cell itself. The young sentries jumped to their feet, saluting in silence. Nothing to report. Good. Orlov opened the heavy padlock and hauled open the steel door of the windowless archive room. The sour, heavy stink of the latrine bucket, mixed with the smell of sweaty uniforms, assaulted his senses. Morozov sat on a camp bed, his left hand shackled to a steel bookshelf that was bolted to the wall. Two sergeants sprang to attention, tipping over their folding chairs as they hurriedly stood.
“At ease, boys. Go get a cup of tea. Take the piss pot with you.”
Orlov stood aside as the pair filed out with grateful salutes. The General waited until they were gone before addressing Morozov. The man, forced by his cuffed wrist to sit on the low bed, looked like a punctured balloon. His Sunday sports jacket was crumpled and his hair lay plastered to his forehead with sweat.
“I have no time to hear out your denials, Comrade Morozov. I’ll be sending some other people to do that for me. You can waste their time, but not mine. I’m here to talk—” Morozov began to speak over Orlov, a high-pitched whine of indignation which the General cut short with a backhanded slap across his face. “No! I talk, you listen. Understood? So listen very carefully. We have Sofia. We have Vasin. We have your microfilm. And…we have your American contact. Caught red-handed emptying your dead-letter drop. Oh, and I almost forgot. Your wife and daughter are also in custody. Is there any part of that you didn’t understand?”
Morozov spread his uncuffed arm in a gesture of desperate pleading, and once again began speaking. Again, Orlov cut him off with a slap. The stinging impact felt sweet on Orlov’s knuckles.
“One. Word. Do you confess?”
This time Morozov merely shook his head.
“Have it your way. I’ll be back later. The American will talk.”
Orlov stalked out of the cell, motioning the next two bodyguards to take their places guarding the prisoner—along with a young lieutenant from Special Cases who waited with a sheaf of papers ready to record Morozov’s frightened babbling. He locked them all in once more with his personal padlock.
Oh, that was good, Orlov told himself as he stalked back toward his own suite of offices. Very nice. Leave the poor bastard Morozov with the hope. If the American doesn’t talk, I’ll be fine, the traitor would be thinking. They have nothing to pin on me. Just the word of the crazy renegade KGB officer, Vasin. Yes—Morozov would be lying his head off for the next few hours, trying to save his hide. Orlov even allowed himself a quick, barking laugh as he returned to his private study, startling his secretary.
Of course the American spy would never talk. But it didn’t matter.
There was no way that Jacob could know what Morozov looked like. It followed logically that Morozov didn’t know what Jacob looked like either. The real Jacob could never identify Morozov in a lineup, Orlov felt sure, even if he wanted to. So the answer was simple—he would conjure another Jacob. Any pale, jug-eared Baltic-born kontora officer could play the part, as long as he was half-smart. Make him look a little roughed-up, coach him on exaggerating his non-Russian accent. Put him in a room with Morozov, and after a suitable pause for protests and denials—maybe accompanied by a few punches to the head—have the kid eventually point an accusing finger. Positive identification by an American CIA officer. Then the film canister. The blowup of the crazy message with its bizarre warnings of nuclear torpedoes and secret submarine flotillas.
Orlov was holding a full house. He knew he’d have Morozov’s confession by morning.
Then he’d deal with Vasin. Just as soon as he could find the traitorous bastard.
5
B-59, Sargasso Sea
Sunday, 28 October 1962, 14:03 EDT / 21:03 Moscow Time
Arkhipov breathed deep. The metallic odor of the new instruments reminded him of hot solder. The polymer sealant that surrounded the banks of electronic indicators gave off a reassuring antiseptic tang. And underneath it the familiar, human submarine stink—the smell of unwashed men and strong tobacco, the taste of sweet Navy tea in his mouth. At the furthest edge of his consciousness, Arkhipov heard muttering voices and the reassuring exchange of orders. In his mind’s eye he saw the second hand of the electric clock purring forward, and his bladder tightened in anxiety. He knew that in a moment he would see the instrument panel of K-19 blossom with red warning lights.
His eyes snapped open. Arkhipov focused on the clock—his own bedside clock, not the command center clock of the doomed K-19. Through the bulkhead a few centimeters from his head he heard the distinctive noise of compressed air hissing into the ballast tanks arrayed on the outside of the pressure hull. B-59 was rising.
Arkhipov was upright in a second. He made a step toward the corridor, then paused. After a second’s hesitation, he opened his wardrobe and eased his service Makarov out of its leather holster, followed by the ammunition clip, which he pressed home into the butt. He tucked the gun into the back of his trousers, covered it with his uniform shirt, and ran aft.
The command center was crowded and buzzed with palpable tension. Savitsky was on his feet, his eyes locked on the diving controls as the ship rose.
“What’s going on?” Arkhipov called.
The Captain merely thrust his unshaven chin toward Maslennikov, delegating the answer to the Political Officer.
“Two American destroyers have overtaken us,” hissed Maslennikov, his pudgy face streaked with sweat. “Just heard them charging past, five thousand meters to our port and starboard, at thirty knots. They’re trying to flank us. Cut us off.”
Kotov, the computer master, appeared at the Captain’s side holding a scrap of paper scribbled with coordinates.
“The latest firing solution for the American carrier, Comrade Captain. Good for another ten minutes.”
Savitsky took the paper, peered at it, and sat down. He reached for the main rudder control lever that protruded to the right of the commander’s seat and pulled it toward himself.
“Making our course…two seventy-three. Level the dive at firing position. Ten meters’ depth.”
Arkhipov stepped forward, directly in the Captain’s sight line.
“You really want to do it, don’t you, Valentin Grigorievich? Take a shot at the American carrier?”
Savitsky ignored him once more and turned instead to the Political Officer.
“Come, Maslennikov. We need to arm the special weapon.”
6
USS Bache, Sargasso Sea
Sunday, 28 October 1962, 14:03 EDT / 21:03 Moscow Time
After more than a day, irritation at this interminable slow-motion chase was beginning to get to Billings. Usually ice cool, the Bache’s commander found himself pacing the bridge like a tethered animal. The sonar reports came through with a regularity that was becoming monotonous. No change in the Soviets’ crawling speed or course.
Kimble, implacable, had remained on the rain-swept deck supervising the depth-charging, watch on watch. They’d used up all their practice depth charges hours before, and Kimble had set the armory chief to unpacking the high explosives from the real depth charges to leave only their detonators in place. Thank God they had hundreds of the things in the magazine.
“Captain—closest Sov boat’s rising.” The officer of the watch’s voice was triumphant as he stood, phone receiver to the sonar room tucked under his ear.
Glory fucking hallelujah, thought Billings. The assholes have finally run out of power. They heard our destroyers closing the circle around them. They’re giving up.
“And they’re changing course. Setting on…two seventy-three.”
Billings’s grin turned into a frown. He crossed the bridge to the sea chart and squinted at the smudged plastic sheet on which the duty navigator had kept track of the movements of the whole American flotilla—in blue—and the two Soviet submarines, marked in red.
Why the hell would the Soviet skipper turn?
Then he saw it. The USS Randolph stood at a bearing of 273 to the Soviet boat, five nautical miles distant. Just about the maximum range of the Soviets’ torpedoes.
“Holy God. The bastard’s lining up to fire.”
Billings turned to the officer of the watch.
“Reload all launchers with high-explosive depth charges. Tell sonar to listen hard for torpedo door noises. Engine room on standby to increase speed. And get Kimble up here. Now.”
At the first whisper of a torpedo tube flooding, Billings could hit the gas and have his destroyer right over the Soviet sub in under two minutes. Then he’d finally crush the sucker like a roach.
7
Pioneers’ Ponds, Moscow
Sunday, 28 October 1962, 21:04 Moscow Time / 14:04 EDT
Vasin made two slow circuits of Pioneers’ Ponds before parking right below Morozov’s windows. The lights were on, and somebody was moving around inside the apartment. Reassuring…maybe. A gray Volga stood on the opposite corner, its lights out, with two men inside he didn’t recognize. It had the look of a kontora radio car. Also reassuring. If a kontora team was still surveilling the place it might mean that Morozov hadn’t been arrested.
The night was damp and chilly and the Ponds were deserted apart from a heavily muffled teenage boy who was dragging a reluctant puppy on a circuit of the park. Vasin turned up the collar of his coat and hurried through the shadows to the entranceway of the kontora watchers’ apartment, directly opposite Morozov’s on the far side of the park. He punched in the door code, took the elevator to the seventh floor, and stood outside the familiar padded door, listening. Nothing.
Orlov had never thought to demand that Vasin return the key to the surveillance post. Vasin turned the lock as quietly as he could and opened the door slowly. Silence didn’t necessarily mean there was nobody there. Vasin prayed that he would find Ears sitting at his listening post, his headphones plugged into Radio Moscow. Or young Lyubimov, sitting quietly by the window reading the latest edition of Science and Life. Or even just an anonymous kontora goon, slumped in inscrutable silence over a cooling cup of tea. But there was nobody in the kitchen or sitting room. A glance at Ears’s listening equipment told Vasin all he needed to know. The table was piled with coiled-up rolls of telephone cord and cables. An open wooden case stood half-packed with a disassembled recording machine. The kontora’s expensive long-range photographic equipment was gone. Only a standard-issue pair of military binoculars remained—the ones with a crooked eyepiece that Lyubimov had trodden on months before.
Vasin picked them up now and looked across the tops of the wind-stirred trees to Morozov’s apartment. Through a half-open curtain he caught a glimpse of several figures in uniform. One paused to pick up a pile of books or files. The man’s breeches were not military green but KGB blue.
So it was over. Morozov was blown. And Vasin’s message? Almost certainly blown, too.
From the door came a fumbling of a key in the already-open lock. The hallway light flicked on.
“Anyone home?”
It was the voice of Lyubimov. Before Vasin could answer, the kid had put his head around the door of the unlit living room and looked in to see him, standing by the window in the dark. The cheer drained from the young officer’s voice as he flicked on the light and saw his old chief’s face.
“Boss! Gave me a start. All okay? Thought you’d been…”
“Morozov?” was the only word Vasin could summon.
Lyubimov’s face creased in wariness.
“Yeah…so Colonel Pushkov told us not to, um. Say anything.”
“About what?” Vasin’s voice was barely above a husky whisper, like an alcoholic’s.
Lyubimov did not reply but looked warily around the room as though checking for accomplices. His hand slid down the inside of his coat.
“Well, sir. About Morozov’s arrest and all. But, sir, I’m sorry, but I’ve been ordered to…”
Vasin looked down at the floor. So it really was over. He had failed. When he raised his eyes again, he saw that the young officer had drawn a gun. Slowly and deliberately, Vasin put down the broken binoculars on the windowsill and smoothed his hair. He assembled a smile and aimed it at Lyubimov.
“So we got him at last? Good job, kid.”
Vasin crossed the room, his eyes on his young protégé’s and not on the Makarov he held in his hand. As he drew level, he put a friendly hand on Luybimov’s shoulder.
“You know, I always had faith in you, Misha.”
“Sir…stop! We have orders to…”
Vasin blinked in reassurance, turned, and walked calmly out the front door. The second he was out of the apartment, he began sprinting down the stairway as fast as he could.
8
B-59, Sargasso Sea
Sunday, 28 October 1962, 14:10 EDT / 21:10 Moscow Time
“You will not load the special weapon.” Arkhipov’s voice was tight with tension. “I do not authorize it.”
Savitsky paused, then continued to move toward the hatch as though the flotilla commander had not spoken. Maslennikov made no move to follow him.
“Did you hear me, Captain?” Arkhipov raised his voice to a shout. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”
The whole command station crew had frozen in mute horror. Arkhipov no longer cared.
