Castro's Bomb (29 page)

"What does FROG stand for?" Kennedy asked.
 
"I can't imagine a rocket named after an amphibian."

Even Taylor smiled.
 
"I can't either, sir.
 
It stands for Free Rocket Over Ground."

McCone continued.
 
"According to Sokolov, Pliyev is launching full scale efforts to find them, along with aggressively covering his ass for losing them in the first place, and no, there is no fighting between Cuba and the Soviets.
 
All Soviet efforts are centered on recovering the missing nukes.
 
They will be difficult to find since the launchers are mounted on tracked vehicles, basically tank chassis, and could simply be covered up and driven down a road without anybody much noticing."

He passed around a photo.
 
It showed a rocket in a semi-upright position on a tank chassis.
 
It had a bulbous warhead and Kennedy thought it looked like a caricature of an erection.

"Christ," LeMay said.
 
"I just had a thought.
 
What would happen if one of our planes hit one of those vehicles carrying a nuke?
 
Would the bomb detonate?"

"Quite possibly," McCone said.
 
"Sokolov is proving a fountain of information.
 
Apparently, Soviet nuclear tactics are quite different from ours.
 
We think of nukes as weapons of last resort, while the Russians think they should be used right off.
 
So, yes, it is entirely possible, even likely, that Fidel's nukes are armed and ready to go and that Castro will use them the first chance he has."

"Assuming that he really has them in the first place," Taylor injected.

Kennedy felt a headache coming on and his back was hurting.
 
Why the hell had he ever wanted to run for president in the first place?
 
Because his father had wanted him to, that's why.
 
Damn it.

"Okay," he said.
 
"Here's what we're going to do.
 
Or not do, if you prefer.
 
First, we tell nobody a thing about Castro having tactical nukes.
 
Second, the invasion is on hold until further notice.
 
You can gather forces and plan for an ultimate attack on Gitmo, but nothing moves without my say-so.
 
Third, hold off on bombing any trucks or other tracked vehicles."

LeMay interrupted.
 
"That means we don't bomb anything ‘cause we can't always tell from several thousand feet up whether a vehicle has wheels or tracks.
 
It we wait until we're on top of them, it could put our planes in danger from their anti-aircraft fire.
 
That's unacceptable."

Kennedy thought quickly and changed his mind.
 
"You're right.
 
And the hell with Castro if we hit one of those bombs and it goes off.
 
Keep bombing the shit out of anything that moves.
 
If one does go off, it'll be his fault that part of Cuba glows in the dark, and there will be one less bomb he can use against us."

"Along with a good sized hole in Cuban earth," LeMay said happily.

Kennedy saw agreement from the military and it pleased him.
 
"Fourth, I want contacts with Russia to find out what they're doing, and fifth, I want this Sokolov's story proved or disproved and I want that done quickly."

And sixth, he thought, I want a damn drink.
 
Maybe that will help my back.

Ross hadn't wanted Cathy to accompany them, but the alternative was to leave her alone at their temporary base camp and that was a prospect that horrified her.
 
Given what he thought had happened to her, there was no other option but to bring her along on a mission that was as risky as anything they'd yet done.

Nor was she his only worry as they waited by the large field they'd identified as a drop point on the one call they'd managed to make to the States.
 
Andrew worried that they hadn't gotten the coordinates right, or that they were right and any relief effort wouldn't find the field.
 
Or, worse, the Cubans had picked up on the transmission and were waiting just behind the next tree.
 
It was night and he could almost feel Cuban soldiers moving through the brush.
 
It was the stuff of nightmares.

They waited until the right time and lit the fire in the middle of the field.
 
"Sure as hell that's gonna bring Cubans," Cullen muttered.

"Maybe not," Andrew said hopefully, "We're a ways from any road or human habitation, and it isn't that big a fire."
 
And what other choice did they have?

They waited.
 
The silence was deafening.
 
They looked away from the fire so its glare wouldn't destroy their night vision.

They heard a noise.
 
It was the whine of a plane's engine.
 
Suddenly, a dark shape lifted above the tree line, seemed to hover, and dropped to the ground, taxiing only a short distance before it was still.
 
They could only stare in disbelief at the small plane as its doors opened and someone inside pushed out a number of boxes and containers.
 
They started to move towards it, silhouetted against the fire, but the plane turned on the ground and headed back.
 
It lifted off and cleared the trees by maybe a few inches.
 
It was gone as quickly as it had come.

Andrew shook his head.
 
Had it really happened?
 
"Grab the boxes and douse that damn fire."

Cullen and Groth put out the fire while the others hauled and lifted the half dozen containers the plane had deposited.
 
Ross was both disappointed and relieved.
 
If he could have contacted the pilot, he would have shoved Cathy into the plane, and she would now be on her way to safety.
 
But it hadn't happened and she was going to remain with them, which didn't totally displease him.
 

How long had the plane been on the ground?
 
Maybe a minute.
 
Probably a whole lot less.
 
But at least they knew they weren't alone and that somebody was watching out for them.
 
Just so long as Cubans weren’t drawn to the site by the fire and the sound of the plane.

When they were a couple of miles away and back at their current base camp, they fought the urge to open the containers immediately.
 
"Hold off until it’s light," Cullen had urged and they reluctantly recognized the sense of it.
 
They didn't want to damage what might be inside.

Dawn came after what seemed an eternity, and they carefully opened the containers.
 
They felt like kids at Christmas.
 
The contents of the first one made them grin.
 
It was a two-way radio, along with a hand generator.
 
Code books, spare parts, and instructions came with it.
 
Another package contained medications and soap.
 
Water purification tablets were a welcome addition.
 
They'd all suffered from diarrhea from drinking bad water.
 
Others were filled with rations that would last a couple of weeks if they were careful.

"I guess we can skip the iguana," Andrew teased.
 
Cathy stuck her tongue out at him.
 
She had a cute tongue.

They all grinned again when they found one box filled with toilet paper.
 
They were virtually out of the good stuff and were planning on using soft leaves and rags cleaned off in local water and re-used.
 
Cathy was confronting the same situation with her period.
 
She had enough for this time, but what if they were still in Cuba a month from now?
 
Her grandmother had used rags which she’d washed and used again.
 
She shuddered.
 
She had seen them drying on the line at grandma's house and thought it uncivilized.
 
Would it come to that?
 
Would they be forced to reuse rags as both toilet tissue and sanitary napkins?
 

Last was a package addressed to "Sister Catherine" from "Father Malone."
 
Puzzled, she opened it.
 
There was a note.
 
"I discussed your situation with a nice lady named Elena and she suggested I include these."

Cathy didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
 
Kotex.

Kraeger once again waited by the Lincoln Memorial.
 
He wondered why spies thought this was such a great place to make a contact. Certainly it was easy to hide in the large numbers of people milling around, but it also made surveillance by the other side so easy.
 
Maybe they should meet in a desert.

He recognized Georgi Golikov from a photo provided by the CIA.
 
The Russian was of average height and build, excellently forgettable, which was good for an intelligence operative.
 
Golikov nodded and held out his hand.
 
They shook as if they were two business people who knew each other or old friends.
 
None of the tourists milling about saw anything out of the ordinary.
 
Charley wondered whether Golikov was KGB or the intelligence chief operating out of the Washington embassy, or both.
 
He sure as hell wasn't the cultural attaché any more than he was the tooth fairy.

Golikov looked over Kraeger's shoulder and quickly identified the two agents who had accompanied the American.
 
For his part, Kraeger did the same, easily spotting the poorly dressed Russians who'd accompanied Golikov and were pretending to admire Honest Abe.

"Mr. Kraeger, my congratulations on escaping from the delights of the people's paradise of Cuba.
 
And please accept my further congratulations on getting to Comrade Sokolov before we could.
 
When you're done with him, we have some interesting questions we'd like to ask him."

I bet you do, Kraeger thought.
 
"I don't think that's very likely.
 
He's said he's interested in running a gas station in Tulsa."

Golikov blinked in surprise then realized it was a joke.
 
Sort of.
 
The steppes of Oklahoma sounded like a great place for Sokolov to spend the rest of his wretched life.
 
"You are right, of course, and, unless you or he does something incredibly stupid, we will never see him again.
 
Since he has nothing more to tell you that you don't already know or will soon find out, our interest in him is waning rapidly.
 
Contrary to your movies and your spy books, we are not interested in useless vengeance.
 
I hope he enjoys running that gas station, or perhaps cleaning dog shit in a pet shop.
 
Perhaps he'll manage to set fire to himself at that gas station, eh?"

Sure, Kraeger thought.
 
They'd just love to get him back if for no other reason than to put the traditional two bullets in the back of his skull as a way of telling others not to even think of defecting.
 
"Comrade Golikov, I would enjoy knowing that General Pliyev has recovered all those nuclear warheads."

"What nuclear warheads?" Golikov said in clearly feigned astonishment.
 
"The Soviet Union would never admit to having tactical nuclear warheads in Cuba, especially after our agreement to withdraw our strategic nuclear weapons.
 
It would make no sense whatsoever to have such little horrors in Cuba where they might be lost and recovered either by a madman, Castro, or his lunatic assistant, Guevara."

Charley nodded and Golikov shrugged.
 
Each man knew that the conversation was being recorded by the other side and neither wanted to say anything that would be incriminatory.
 
In Golikov's case, incriminatory comments might get him shot.

"I am glad to hear it, but why then would Sokolov tell such a terrible lie?"

Golikov looked around.
 
"Perhaps he's delusional."

Enough, Kraeger thought.
 
"Then let's be hypothetical.
 
Let's pretend you did have tactical nukes in Cuba and let's pretend that Castro or one of his henchmen stole a handful of them.
 
What might your country's response be?"

Golikov nodded solemnly and glared.
 
"Our anger and our fury at being betrayed, much less having several of our soldiers killed in the taking of them, which would certainly have happened in such a hypothetical event, would know no bounds.
 
We would move heaven and earth to recover those weapons."

"If such a raid were to have occurred, how many do you think such hypothetical bandits would get?"

"No more than four.
 
At two kilotons each, more than enough to cause of great deal of mischief, isn't it?"

Mischief?
 
That isn't quite the word, Kraeger thought.
 
"Of course, Comrade Golikov, it never happened and you don't believe in heaven in the first place, is that fair?"

"Very."

"Do you think Comrade Fidel understands that using nuclear weapons against us would provoke a nuclear response from us that might incinerate Cuba, turning him and Che into large cigar ashes?"

Golikov now looked nervous.
 
"Again hypothetically, he is likely not to believe that or, if he is indeed becoming mad, might not care.
 
My people would care very much, of course."