The Red Collusion Page 17

  The Russian survivor struggled valiantly to maintain his composure, but then the interrogator hit him with the final blow.

  “Now you listen very carefully. I will eventually get from you everything that I want to hear. We are on supreme alert, and that definitely justifies special treatment. Strike that, violent treatment! Very violent! Later on, just because I’m humane, I will return you to the Soviet Union. This time, they won’t waste a torpedo on you – they’ll simply finish you off with their bare hands.”

  The interrogator stopped for several seconds, as if to ensure that his words had indeed penetrated the stoic Russian’s head.

  “You know what? I’ll go further, much further. You cooperate with me and I’ll arrange political asylum for you in the United States. I’m giving you five minutes to think over my proposal, which will expire five minutes from now.”

  The American rose, turned his back on the Russian and left the room. Outside, he lit a cigarette and kept looking at his watch. Five minutes later, the interrogator returned to the room and sat just a few centimeters from the Russian survivor’s face. He looked at his watch.

  “Your five minutes are up. Did you want to tell me something?”

  The Russian maintained his calm expression. Now, he looked his interrogator straight in the eye, and in a diametrical change of roles, it was the American who waited in suspense for the Russian’s answer. Will he take me up on my offer, he thought, or will he keep silent?

  Chapter 14

  Party general secretary Vladimir Petrovich Yermolov looked at his watch.

  “We have exactly ten minutes before we start the emergency meeting of the inner circle leadership. Speak up.”

  The Chief of the KGB placed a file of papers on the table and scanned a few of them quickly.

  “Mister General Secretary. This is the report on everything that Minister Marshal Budarenko has been doing in the past ten days.”

  The Party Secretary seemed surprised. His eyebrows rose when he took the papers in his hands.

  “I don’t understand. I asked you this morning to follow him and you give me material from ten days back? Wait - actually, I do understand.

  You’ve been following him all year. Does this mean that you’re also following me?”

  The KGB chief was surprised by the General Secretary’s direct question, but he composed himself quickly.

  “You, Sir, Mister General Secretary, we protect.”

  The General Secretary lifted his gaze from the papers he was holding and looked directly into the eyes of his subordinate.

  “Protect? Well, so be it. It’s just semantics. By the way, as I know myself, I assume that whoever follows me is bored most of the time. Now, I don’t have time to read all these papers. Give me the bottom line. Have you found something irregular?”

  “In general, Marshal Budarenko spends most of his time in meetings and discussions with the commanders of our Armed Forces, especially those dealing with logistics, and of course, this is related to the mobilization of our forces to the west of the country.”

  “Well, that’s obvious”, the General Secretary said impatiently.

  “True, Mister General Secretary, but we have nevertheless detected some irregular activity, and we don’t exactly understand its significance at the moment. There’s a top secret Military Intelligence base outside of Moscow, and the Minister has made a few visits there in the past few days. Compartmentalization there is so severe, that it is difficult for us to decipher the activity. Nevertheless, we were able to detect a strange team of six senior officers who were collected there from various seemingly unrelated places, and I say ‘seemingly’, as there seems to be no prior relationship whatsoever between them. What we have found so far is that they left a few days ago for the naval base in Murmansk and then returned from there three days later. One of them, by the way, remained in Murmansk.”

  The Party General Secretary was trying to understand the meaning of all this. He tapped the table with his fingers.

  “Murmansk, you say? That is the city that was saved today from that American nuclear missile. But I don’t see any relation between these events. You know who that officer is who stayed in Murmansk?”

  “Yes, Sir. He is a Colonel of Kazakh origin.” “And what does he know? What can he do?” “His expertise is explosives and ordnance.”

  The Party General Secretary dismissed this information with a wave.

  “Well, if we check every military man, in the end we’ll find out that he’s connected to things that explode and kill, right?”

  “Yes Mister General Secretary. This Colonel, whose name, by the way, is Nazarbayev, is not ‘in the end’, but rather from the beginning. He is perhaps the Red Army’s top explosives and ordnance expert.”

  “Well, this is good. Continue following and keep me updated. I must go to the meeting now.”

  In one of the Kremlin’s conference rooms, all the officers and officials of the highest political and military echelons in the Soviet Union were gathered for an emergency meeting. The Minister of Defense, Marshal Budarenko, was surrounded by many of these, and he seemed to enjoy answering their questions and being the center of attention.

  The General Secretary of the Communist Party entered the room quickly. All those present hurried to their seats and remained standing until their leader took his seat. He watched them from his chair for a moment before motioning to them to sit down. He began speaking immediately.

  “This meeting will be brief. We shall make operational decisions and each of you will leave at once for his post to execute his mission. This morning, an American cruise missile with a nuclear warhead was launched towards our city of Murmansk. Had it not been for our 247 sons who sacrificed their lives on one of our naval ships, Murmansk would have been destroyed. A few minutes ago, I received a report that two warships, one British and one American, aggressively stopped an innocent fishing boat of ours and then sank it together with its crew. I don’t understand where these Americans are heading with this. On one hand, one such missile is not just a declaration of war – it is actual war, for all intents and purposes. On the other hand, there’s been no further activity on their part.”

  “Mister General Secretary, for the time being, no further activity”, thundered the voice of the Minister of Defense.

  “True, Marshal. For the time being, there’s been no activity. But when one starts a war, at least as far as I know, one doesn’t execute a single local, limited act, as severe as it may be, and then go to sleep. Therefore, for me, what has happened up till now is unequivocal, and it’s clear to me that we must respond. We cannot, and shall not, hold back. However, our response must be measured, so that our enemy will accept it without responding and putting us on a path of no return. This means that we won’t seek an all-out nuclear confrontation. I don’t know exactly how this can be done; how you can walk in the rain without getting wet. That is why you are here, and I seek your opinion. It’s crucial to me that at such a critical moment in our nation’s history, there isn’t even one person among you here in this room that has something to say or propose and is afraid to say it, preferring to keep his ideas to himself. If I am not clear enough, then I order each one of you to speak his mind.”

  To everyone’s surprise, it was the Commander of the Air Force, General Alexander Mikhailov, who raised his hand and requested to speak. This was irregular, as the ethics of military conduct in the Soviet Armed Forces dictated that the Commander of the Air Force should ask for permission to speak only after his superior, the Minister of Defense, had had his say.

  Marshal Budarenko now looked as though, if he had a sword in his hand, he would decapitate the Air Force chief on the spot. His face became red and swollen and his eyes burned with wrath at his uncouth top airman. The Party General Secretary, while noting his Minister’s response, nevertheless decided to let the general speak.

 
“Mister General Secretary Yermolov and Minister Marshal Budarenko, there is one point, the significance of which is vague. The magnitude of the blast in the North Sea was estimated by us to be 0.1 megaton. This is a much smaller magnitude than the standard nuclear missile warheads the Americans usually carry. It’s strange that precisely when attacking a real target, they used a much smaller warhead.”

  “What are you hinting at, General?” the Party General Secretary asked. “That this is an action that happened inadvertently because of an error or failure in the system, and perhaps that could explain why there’s no continuation of their hostilities?”

  “I’d hesitate to say this, Mister General Secretary, even though accidents do happen. And we should remember that in this very area, the Americans drill year-round for assaulting us with nuclear weapons. By the way, in the winter of 1968, in Greenland, which is not very far from this morning’s blast site, an American B-52 bomber crashed with four nuclear bombs on board. The bombs went off, but no nuclear explosion occurred because they were not armed.”

  The Party Secretary looked now at the Minister of Defense who was continuing his histrionics from his chair and shooting threatening looks at the Air Force commander.

  “Minister of Defense, I want to hear your opinion of the issue raised by the Commander of the Air Force.”

  The Minister, who had not yet regained his composure, shifted his smoldering gaze from the officer to the General Secretary.

  “Mister General Secretary, sometimes I can’t explain the bardak in the Air Force under General Mikhailov”, the Minister said, using the Russian word for bordello. “Is he trying to explain what happens in the American Air Force? General Mikhailov’s remark contains an obvious inherent contradiction. The bombs of the plane that crashed thirteen years ago in Greenland were not armed, and they had never been armed in their other training missions. This morning, the missile exploded only because it was armed. The person who decides whether to arm such a missile is not the ordnance NCO of the bomber which launches that missile. This is an order that comes down only from above, from the highest authority. Is that correct, General Mikhailov?”

  The Minister didn’t wait for the Air Force Commander’s reply, and continued with great pathos.

  “If you walk in the rain, you get wet, Mister Secretary. It’s as simple as that. In my opinion, there is no continuation of American hostilities at the moment, but only because they’re waiting in fear to see our response. They know that we’ll respond, but they don’t know how and where. Our forces in the West are prepared and they expect you, Mister General Secretary, to give them the order. We must now enter the German Democratic Republic and continue on from there, into the German Federal Republic.”

  The Party General Secretary remembered, in great detail, the difficult conversation he had had with his Minister of Defense just a few hours ago. He decided to lead him into a trap.

  “I understand you, Marshal. If I give you a green light now to enter the Democratic Republic, how long would it take you to cross the border into the Federal Republic? The forces you have mobilized there are only sufficient for handling civil obedience, not a war with NATO. Am I correct, Marshal Budarenko?”

  But an old war fox like Marshal Budarenko would not step on a mine as crude as this, and indeed he skipped over it casually.

  “Mister General Secretary, regarding your first question, our forces can roll through the Democratic Republic within 36 to 48 hours, and then start crossing the border into the Federal Republic. Regarding your first question, it is obvious that I still don’t have the order of battle I wish to have, but we’ll breach their defenses with what we have, and within another forty-eight hours, we’ll push everything we can into there.”

  The Party General Secretary nodded as if approving his Minister’s explanation. This son of a gun has already mobilized enough forces to conquer almost all of Western Europe, the Party General Secretary thought. Is he going to request an approval for general mobilization now?

  “Marshal Budarenko”, the General Secretary said in a steady, authoritative voice. “Move your forces into the German Democratic Republic, and when you reach the border with the Federal Republic, breach the border only in the northern sector.”

  The General Secretary pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and studied it.

  “You will get to the Weser River in the section from the city of Bremen in the North, to the city of Göttingen in the South. But approval to cross this river will be given only here in this room and in this forum, after we see the enemy’s response. Is everything clear so far, Marshal Budarenko?”

  “Yes, Mister General Secretary. Everything is clear.”

  President James Butler entered the White House Situation Room. His concern was apparent, and he spoke at once.

  “I hope you’ve all updated and collected all the missing data so you can explain it to me, and give me a better understanding of the situation. Maybe now I can finally get the point of what these Russians are preparing for us.”

  President Butler had a unique and somewhat unorthodox approach toward his senior staff and advisers in emergencies that required deliberations and decision-making of the highest order. Unlike his manner on less eventful days, when the President addressed them by their first names, this time he addressed them by their official titles, as if stressing their responsibility to the American people, and to him personally.

  “Secretary of Defense Manning, please speak now, or perhaps you prefer that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Abramson continue from where he stopped the last time we met?”

  “Mister President, there have now been quite a few developments, especially in the North Sea, and General Abramson has the details. Therefore, I request that he brief you on the present situation.”

  The President turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  “Well, General, what’s new? Speak up.”

  General Abramson stood up and walked to the chart on the wall.

  “Mister President, a short while ago, the crew of a British frigate intercepted a suspicious Russian trawler sailing at full power from the area of the blast towards their major naval base in Murmansk.”

  “And what was suspect about this trawler?” the President asked.

  “Its direction indicated that it was coming from the area of the blast, so it seemed to be involved in that matter. In addition, this fishing vessel had no fishing nets and no other fishing equipment. Our intelligence photographed it from the air, and the pictures showed that it was equipped with many antennas, unlike a typical fishing vessel. Moreover, in the middle of the deck, there was a large object concealed with a tarp. Our intelligence analysts claim that it could be a tank or a self-propelled artillery gun.”

  The President abruptly interrupted General Abramson

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, General. You say ‘suspicious’, ‘our analysts’, ‘maybe a tank, may be a gun’. Is this a quiz? You said the British warship intercepted the trawler. Since when do the British hide information from us? Besides, even I know that the Soviets camouflage their surveillance ships as fishing vessels. This isn’t new to us, is it?”

  “I’m sorry, Mister President, my mistake”, the General replied apologetically. “What I didn’t say was that when a takeover team boarded the trawler, a Russian submarine launched a torpedo at the trawler, and the boat sank, together with the British Marines.”

  “Now I get it. How many British soldiers were there?” “Two teams. Sixteen Marines, Sir. All lost at sea.” “And the Russian crew? Are they all gone?”

  “We received a report just before we came here, from our own USS Iowa, which is also in the area, saying that there is one Russian survivor. He’s in good condition and the British, who fished him out of the water, agreed to transfer him to the Iowa for questioning. We have a Russian-speaking interrogator there, so
we should know more very soon.”

  The President turned to his aide seated behind his chair.

  “Since this is an emergency, tell the Iowa that they have my approval to skin this Russian alive if need be, if it gets him to start talking, and pretty damn quickly.”

  “Yes, Mister President”, the aide said, and hurried out of the room.

  “Now go on, General.”

  “It stands to reason that this vessel was in the vicinity of the event when it took place, and that it even participated in creating the event. The fact that a Russian submarine followed the trawler and blasted it to smithereens just as the British were boarding it, proves that they had a very good reason to make this vessel disappear, and especially to silence the crew permanently. What we have so far is that the Russian survivor is in good condition and he was wearing a Russian Navy coat. And several minutes ago, Radio Moscow reported that, following the so-called American aggression of this morning, British and American warships sank a Russian trawler in the North Sea.”

  President Butler nodded and turned to his Secretary of Defense, Mr. Manning.

  “After the nuclear missile that they attributed to us, this is really quite benign. I want us to move forward. What’s our intelligence assessment regarding the nuclear explosion and the vast forces that they’re deploying around East Germany?”

  “Mister President, I’ll get straight to the point. Our intelligence community all agree that they plan to attack us in the near future in Europe, and more precisely, in West Germany. There are several obvious reasons. The forces they’ve mobilized so far are several times larger than what they need to suppress the insurgency in East Germany. Our assessment is that since it is impossible to conceal the presence of all the divisions that have been concentrated there, but not the reason for which they are concentrated there, they decided to execute a small nuclear explosion that would achieve two goals, a small one and a big one. The small goal is to divert the world’s attention, and ours, from the area of potential conflict in the German Democratic Republic to another, more remote region. The other goal, which is the primary one in our opinion, is to frame us, to attribute to us an attempt to annihilate a large city, Murmansk, with a nuclear weapon, thereby justifying their invasion of West Germany as a legitimate punitive action. They estimate that even then, we would not be eager to use tactical nuclear weapons to stop the advance of the massed Soviet armor.”