The Dark Chronicles (73 page)

But there were nuclear-armed B-52s heading towards the Soviet border.

‘My department takes the view that the West wants us to follow precisely your logic, Yuri Vladimirovich,’ Ivashutin was saying. ‘We think that this is a surprise attack that is designed to destroy us through our own uncertainty over whether or not we should retaliate. If we live to survive this, perhaps we should consider such a strategy ourselves.’

‘Be quiet,’ said Brezhnev. ‘All of you.’

The room hushed immediately. The GRU and KGB hated each other’s guts. They were wholly separate agencies, with competing structures in Moscow and embassies around the world. Both operated within and outside the Soviet Union, but the KGB spent most of its time wading in the weeds of individual espionage operations while the GRU was generally concerned with the big picture,
including the biggest of all, the threat of an attack on the Soviet Union. This was the GRU’s case, but from the way Andropov was speaking he appeared to have Brezhnev’s ear more than Ivashutin.

This was peculiar, because Ivashutin was an old pal of Brezhnev’s, and had been handpicked by him to head the GRU after Serov had been dismissed in ’61 following the discovery that Penkovsky was working for the Service and CIA. Perhaps there was still some residual stain on the GRU’s reputation as a result. Until that point, it had been almost invisible to the outside world, but Penkovsky had given the West a mass of information, some of which, I had discovered on becoming Head of Soviet Section, had helped avert nuclear war during the Cuban crisis.

There was no love lost between Andropov and Ivashutin. As I knew from personal experience, the KGB had recently sabotaged a major GRU operation in Nigeria – and presumably Andropov had been behind that.

‘Is this possible?’ Brezhnev said, addressing Yuri. ‘Could it be that the events at these bases are the result of a chemical leak?’

‘It is possible, General Secretary,’ he conceded, glaring at me. ‘But as you yourself pointed out, considering the Americans’ actions it would seem too great a coincidence—’

‘It is
not
a coincidence,’ I said. ‘It’s an accident, and one that was bound to happen sooner or later. The Baltic is strewn with volatile chemical weapons, as you well know, because many of them were dumped there by you.’

‘Is this true?’ said Brezhnev.

‘That was Zhukov’s doing, General Secretary,’ piped up Grechko. ‘He ordered the practice when he was in command of the administration in Germany after the Great Patriotic War. But that was not until ’47 or ’48, and if I recall correctly it was not done anywhere in this area, but near the islands of Gotland and Bornholm.’

‘It sounds like the sort of thing Zhukov would think up,’ Brezhnev said. ‘It’s as well he retired when he did.’

‘Indeed,’ said Grechko, seizing the opportunity to take another
kick at one of his predecessors. ‘But he was not alone in the mistake: the British, French and Americans also dumped chemical weapons in the Baltic. Occasionally, some come to the surface, but I think I’m right in saying that this has never happened anywhere near these particular bases.’

Yuri nodded. ‘That is correct, esteemed comrade. This is confirmed in the latest report by the investigating scientists, who have never even encountered this type of mustard gas before. I have also never heard of any attempt by either the British or ourselves to obtain such a weapon.’

‘Someone notified your people in Helsinki about the U-boat captain in 1945,’ I said, ‘and they sent an agent out there to get to him. There will be a report on it in your files.’

‘We don’t have time to dig around in archives,’ said Brezhnev. ‘We must make a decision now.’ He pushed his chair back and walked to the wall behind him, staring at the false window as though it were a real one looking out on the skyline of Moscow. Habit, I supposed. ‘Comrade Grechko,’ he said finally, addressing himself to the wall. ‘What course of action do you advise?’

Grechko didn’t hesitate. ‘As you know, General Secretary, we have just completed the “Zapad” war game. One of our conclusions was that the West would be foolish to engage in any sort of preliminary war and would in reality be much more likely to defeat us with a surprise nuclear attack. It seems that they have come to the same conclusion. If they are indeed preparing to launch against us, I believe our best strategy is to launch our own attack before they do.’

He used the word
kontrapodgotovka
, a counter-preparation strike that would disrupt the enemy’s first strike. But, of course, that assumed that the Americans were indeed planning a first strike.

Brezhnev nodded.

‘If the Americans launch their weapons, how much notice will we have?’

Grechko grimaced. ‘We estimate that our radars would detect
the missiles between fifteen and seventeen minutes of them hitting their target, General Secretary.’

‘And how long will it take us to launch our missiles if I give the order to do so?’

‘The 8K84s do not have their warheads attached, General Secretary, and once they have been armed they need to be warmed up for a few hours before they can be launched. But once they are primed and warmed up, the Strategic Rocket Forces can launch within seconds of receiving your signal.’

‘Exactly how many hours does it take for the 8K84s to warm up once the warheads are attached?’

‘Three hours, General Secretary.’

Brezhnev turned, and I saw that a pool of sweat had formed on his forehead. He drew a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and mopped at it unthinkingly.

‘Attach the warheads,’ he said.

Grechko’s face flushed.

‘Right away, General Secretary.’

He picked up the telephone nearest him, spoke into it for a few seconds and then replaced it.

I stared at the men around me, dumbfounded by the mounting madness. From memory, 8K84 was the Soviet name for the SS-11 intercontinental ballistic missile. Grechko had used the phrase
predvaritel’naya komanda
on the telephone: that was the preliminary alert command, given to combat crews as a trigger to prepare nuclear weapons for the next order, the
neposredstvennaya komanda
, or direct command to launch.

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.

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.