Castro's Bomb (56 page)

Shoup was agitated.
 
"Mr. President, it's all the more reason to send the marines in now.
 
We've got twenty thousand of them in ships off the southern coast of Cuba and right between Santiago and Guantanamo Bay.
 
If the Cubans get wind of what the CIA suspects has happened, or they figure it out themselves, our boys in that camp will be toast."

"And what about the missing nuke?" Kennedy inquired.

Wheeler answered.
 
"That was the gist of the argument when you arrived.
 
Some of us no longer believe that the nuke exists, if it ever did.
 
They believe that the time for using it has long since passed since the army is bearing down from the north.
 
Naval air has pounded a couple of suspected sites based on information provided by Romanski and Ross. We wonder if the whole thing wasn't a red herring designed to keep us chasing our tails.
 
Either that or it has been destroyed by our planes."

"Interesting," Kennedy said thoughtfully.
 
"And what if it wasn't?
 
Didn't you say, General Wheeler, that our landing on the north coast was a surprise to the Cubans?
 
What if that nuke is still in the south and pointed out to sea where the marines are expected to come ashore?
 
And how much longer will it take the army to reach Santiago and free the POWs?"

"Perhaps three days."

"Why so long?" Kennedy snapped.

"Mr. President," Taylor said, "Resistance is crumbling, but it hasn't disappeared.
 
There are still many pockets of resistance where the fighting is intense.
 
We could suffer many, many casualties if we attempt to move any faster.
 
Also, the farther we push inland, the rougher the terrain gets, which obviously favors the defense."

Kennedy turned to Shoup.
 
"And when can the marines land and free them?"

"Tomorrow."

There was silence while the president thought it over.
 
He nodded as if to himself, and then sighed.
 
"General Shoup, the marines go in and God help us if that nuke exists."

Chapter Twenty

The morning after the re-capture of the three nuclear warheads and the Luna rockets, Captain Pyotr Dragan had been called into General Pliyev's office.
 
The general was clearly unhappy and the reason was obvious – one nuke was still missing.

Dragan had stood impassively as the general had smashed a cigarette into an ashtray with enough force to spill ashes onto the floor.
 
"I have been on the phone with our embassy and there have been numerous radio communications with Moscow.
 
While Khrushchev is mildly pleased that the three nukes have been retrieved, he is thoroughly angry that they were stolen in the first place and is horrified that one remains in the hands of that bearded lunatic in Havana.
 
You are to be commended formally for your efforts.
 
However, you have one more task."

Dragan had smiled.
 
"Let me guess, comrade general.
 
You want me to move heaven and earth to find the lost missile."
      
Pliyev had laughed harshly.
 
"You may move earth all you wish, but we do not believe in heaven.
 
However, if it helps, do whatever you have to."

That had been several weeks earlier and, as he sat tired and filthy in a Cuban swamp, Dragan recalled telling the general that he had spent the night thinking about the feasibility of just such an assignment.
 
Both men concluded the obvious, that the missile would be on the way to Guantanamo to protect and hold the base against the inevitable American counterattacks.

Dragan had asked for and received a squad of Spetsnaz along with a full platoon of regular soldiers.
 
He also got technicians from the 74th Motor Vehicle Regiment.
 
It had been from that regiment that the Lunas had been stolen and it was their men who'd had their throats sliced.
 
Dragan had not lacked for volunteers to help disable and transport the weapon when it was found.

For equipment, he'd taken a number of vehicles.
 
These included one truck mounted battery of Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns, and a pair of heavy trucks with cranes and winches strong enough to lift the damn thing if it became necessary to dispose of the tracked vehicle on which it was mounted.
 
He also had a towed 37mm anti-aircraft gun, although he thought it would be fairly useless against American jets.
 
Still, it did make his men feel good that they had one more weapon to shoot back with.
 
His platoon of regulars traveled in regular trucks.

Driving slowly and at night, it had taken them what seemed an eternity to drive the more than four hundred miles to the boundary of Oriente Province, the home of Guantanamo Bay.
 
It struck him as ironic that the province had also been Castro's sanctuary before the revolution when his miserable little force had hidden out in the Sierra Maestra Mountains to the west of Santiago.
 
As he drove through the area, he could see how a handful of men could hide from an army, which was precisely his problem.
 
Where the devil was the rocket?

Dragan's force had been halted several times by officious Cuban militia who'd questioned his need to go towards the liberated base.
 
On most occasions Dragan had bluffed his way through, but one time he'd been forced to wipe out a militia squad and hide their bodies, hoping that, if somehow found, their deaths would be blamed on American planes.
 
After all, he'd earlier lost one truck full of regular Red Army soldiers because they'd done a poor job of hiding themselves.
 
Dragan accepted full blame for that action.
 
He was in charge.

Now, however, they had a real dilemma.
 
Yes, both he and Pliyev had agreed that the area around Guantanamo would be the logical place for the Cuban bandits to set up and launch the Luna But the area around the base was large, and it was assumed that the Cubans had only a handful of vehicles which meant they could be hidden almost anywhere.

He'd gotten a radio message that Soviet intelligence in Havana thought that Che Guevara himself was in charge of the rocket, and Dragan thought it ludicrous.
 
From what he'd seen and heard about the Cuban firebrand, he knew nothing about missiles, much less atomic ones, and didn't have a lick of common sense.

Of course, that made Che all the more dangerous.
 
He was liable to launch the rocket at the first decent target and scream 'Cuba Libre' while initiating World War III.
 
Dragan shuddered.
 
He still had relatives in the Leningrad area.
 
He signaled the column to move out.
 
They would set up a base north of Guantanamo.
 
He wondered if any American Special Forces, the Green Berets he'd heard so much about, would be scouting the area as well and thought it highly likely.
 
He wondered what they would say to each other if they should meet.
 
Perhaps they could compare equipment.
 
Maybe he could trade his distinctive cap for a beret?
 
Or would they simply start shooting.
 

He grinned and a couple of his men wondered what was so funny.
 
They wouldn't ask, of course.
 
Dragan was considered a good officer, but a very formal one.

Ross, Cullen, and Morton walked carefully through the rubble left by the navy's planes.
 
Only a little while earlier they'd again endured the helpless feeling as shock waves from exploding bombs nearly overwhelmed them.
 
They'd been a couple of miles away from the impact area and felt momentary pity for those who'd been directly under the bombs.
 
For Ross, Cullen, Cathy, and those who'd earlier nearly been obliterated by American fire, it had brought back bitter memories.
 
For Romanski and Morton, the incident had come as a terrible shock.

Romanski and the others had remained back a little ways to provide cover if necessary as the three men walked carefully through the devastated ground.
 
Romanski had tripped and his leg was acting up again.
 
It wasn't broken, but he was pretty immobile and very upset.
 

"See anything," Ross asked.
 
The two NCOs said they didn't.
 
Nothing but craters and churned up ground and some shattered trees.

Cullen held up his hand and they halted.
 
"Bodies."

The moved forward.
 
Several
 
men lay dead and mangled.
 
From their uniforms, or what remained of them, they'd once been Cuban militia.
 
A good sign, but where was the launcher?

A more thorough search of the area showed nothing to indicate a tracked rocket launcher or its remains.
 
It could have been smashed to pieces, but it was as big as a tank and at least some of the pieces would still remain.
 
There was nothing, no tires, no frame, and, most important, no rocket.
 
The planes had missed again.

This was the third time they'd tried to get bombs on what they felt was the launcher.
 
The problem was that it took so long to coordinate an attack and Guevara, if that's who it was, was now thoroughly spooked and keeping his nuclear toy on the move.

 
They knew they'd been close.
 
They'd followed the tracks into the grove of trees and thought they'd seen it camouflaged.
 
It had to be nearby, maybe right under their noses.

"Here's some wreckage," Morton yelled and they came running.
 
The mangled remains of a tracked vehicle and some more bodies lay where the bombs had hurled them.
 
But it wasn't the Luna launcher.
 
It was a Russian built ZIL anti aircraft system.
 
Its bulbous turret lay fifty yards away from the chassis and at least a couple of cremated bodies lay alongside.
 

Cullen laughed harshly.
 
"Those guns are a nasty piece of work.
 
Too bad it didn't help them."

Ross looked around.
 
If the nuke wasn't there, then where was it?
 
They began to look for tracks, and it only took a few moments to find where a tank-like vehicle had headed away from the bomb site.
 

"What now, lieutenant?" Morton asked.
 
It no longer surprised him that the two senior NCOs accepted his leadership.

"Well, this ain't the yellow brick road, but I think we're supposed to follow it."

Kraeger and Golikov met at Arlington National Cemetery.
 
This time neither man had brought a female companion.
 
It had been Golikov's request that they be alone.
 
A shame, Kraeger thought, Elena should be part of this and Arlington was one of the most humbling places in the world.
 
Row upon row of headstones dedicated to those who had given their lives in the service of their country graced its gentle rolling hills.
 
Granted, a lot of them had died in bed and there were others who had gained access through political influence, but the overwhelming majority of them were heroes.

"Where's the lovely Oksana?" Kraeger asked.

"Been promoted to Moscow where's she's doubtless fucking the brains out of some more senior member of the KGB,” Golikov said bitterly.
 
“A wonderful woman and I miss her terribly.
 
I hope she gets the clap and spreads it around the Politburo."

Charley laughed.
 
The Russian was clearly annoyed at being dumped.
 
He decided to change the subject.
 
"So why did you select Arlington for this meeting?"

"Because I love this place," Golikov said quietly, surprising Kraeger.
 
"Such quiet majesty and beauty, dignity and pride.
 
We have next to nothing like this back in Russia."

"Why not?
      

"Because," he said somberly, "we suffered twenty million dead in the Great Patriotic War against the Hitlerites, maybe many millions more, and God knows how many additional in the First World War and the Revolution that followed.
 
That is, if there is a God who knows these things.
 
Most Russian men simply left their homes and villages to go fight or flee and were never heard from again. The same with Russian women as the war swept over them.
 
They were sucked into war and died of wounds or starvation or disease or all three.
 
If we wanted to build a cemetery to pay honor to them it would have to be as large as Poland."

Golikov smiled slightly.
 
"Of course, there are those who think that turning Poland and other satellite nations like Cuba into graveyards is a good idea.
 
No, we have to make do with monuments to heroic soldiers that are massive and monumentally ugly.
 
No elegance, no dignity, no peace and grace.
 
Nothing like this.
 
The poet in me says I should weep, but that would be unbecoming for a KGB officer."

Kraeger knew the Soviet Union's casualties in the wars had been enormous, but, like most Americans, had never given it much thought.
 
The numbers were beyond comprehension.
 
Twenty million?
 
More?
 
Where did one begin to count?