Castro's Bomb (6 page)

The rutted dirt road in front of the bunker led to nowhere.
 
Once, before Castro took over, it had led to a small Cuban town and day laborers were allowed to come in and work on the base, returning each night to their squalid homes.
 
Now it was sealed off with barbed wire, and according to Andrew's map, there were minefields flanking the road.
 
These too had been added recently and he wondered if the Cubans knew about them.
 
Probably.
 
All the high ground was in Cuban territory.
 
He had the nagging feeling that many pairs of communist eyes were watching their every move.

Behind the barbed wire towards Cuba, the ground was barren and windswept.
 
Those who thought of Cuba as a lush tropical paradise were sometimes shocked to see what amounted to a near desert in nearby parts of Guantanamo, particularly those windswept areas to the east, where winds from the Atlantic scoured the land.

Behind the bunker were a couple of tents that would hold the men not on duty and keep them in absolute discomfort.
 
The tents would protect against any rain, but did a marvelous job of trapping the Cuban heat.
 
It might be winter, but they were near the Equator and the weather was hot and humid.
 
But at least the air outside circulated and was fresh, not like the bunker, which felt like being in a hot, moist oven.
 
Everyone who could spent as much time as possible outside it.

Andrew's senior noncom was Gunnery Sergeant Joe Cullen, a tall, lanky twenty-nine year old veteran of the Korean War.
 
He seemed efficient, but a gunnery sergeant was expected to be good at what he did.
 
"Not very impressive, is it, lieutenant."

"I've seen worse," Andrew said with a grin, "just can't quite place the memory."

Andrew was beginning to have doubts about his decision to help out his friend Hannigan with guard duty when he could have been ensconced in the relative comforts of the Bachelor Officer's Quarters, or even wasting time at the officer’s club bar.
 
But what the hell, he decided, he was here and it would be over before he knew it.
 
He could do a couple of days commanding this troop on his head.

"So what if it ain't a Holiday Inn or a Howard Johnson's," Ross said, "it's home sweet home for the short duration."

Cullen spat on the ground and glared at the emptiness down the road to Cuba.
 
"I just hope nothing happens while we're out here.
 
Have you looked at how miserably small this place is?
 
The commies come down that road and we won't be able to do much more than wave at them.
 
Twenty guys with rifles and one ancient machine gun are not exactly a modern army, sir."

Ross really didn't think the commies were coming down the road anytime soon, but he did agree that the bunker was poorly sited and the men were inadequately armed, and had doubtless lost any training edge.
 

"Just a thought, sergeant, do we have a fallback position?"

Cullen shook his head.
 
"No, but it wouldn't be that much trouble to plan for one.
 
You want me to do it?"

"Why not?
 
The men won't like it very much but it will give us all something to do.
 
You have any thoughts?"

Cullen mentioned a depression in the ground about two hundred yards to their rear and even Andrew saw the advantage.
 
Men in the depression would be hidden from anyone coming down the road and could enfilade any traffic after it passed the bunker.
 
They would not stick out like a sore thumb the way the bunker did.
 
There was no roof on the gully, but the roof on the bunker wasn't all that strong, either.
 
Andrew had already concluded that it wouldn't stand up to any sort of serious attack.
 
In particular, a series of heavy mortar rounds landing on the roof would cause the whole thing to collapse and raise serious hell with anyone inside.

"What do you want to do?" he asked Cullen.

Cullen grinned wickedly.
 
"I'll get a couple of the boys who aren't doing much and have them down here preparing firing platforms in the gully.
 
They'll be pissed but it'll be better than them sitting around jacking off, sir."

"Let's just make sure nobody misses the hot turkey dinner that's supposed to be here tomorrow afternoon," Ross said.
 
He had his doubts as to whether the meal would arrive or just how good it would taste, or whether anyone would want a hot meal in the stifling Cuban heat.
 
Still, turkey dinner was something to look forward to even if all they did was complain about it.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, reviewed the material a very nervous CIA Director McCone had brought to him in the Oval Office.
 
McCone had a right to be nervous.
 
The president was clearly skeptical.
 

Kennedy placed the report on the large, ornate wooden desk that had become a Kennedy trademark.
 
It was the so-called Resolute Desk because it was made from wood from the Royal Navy ship of that name and presented to the U.S. by Queen Victoria.

 
"This is more than interesting; it's scary if true.
 
But how the hell do we know whether or not it's true or somebody's wet dream.
 
We need corroboration before we go off half cocked and accuse Castro of doing something he clearly promised he wouldn't do and which, if he did, would cause a war."

Robert Kennedy, the president's younger brother and the Attorney General came in, took glanced at the report and winced. "Dear God."

"Tell me about your agent," the president said.

"Charles Kraeger has been either in the military or been one of our agents for a little more than twenty years.
 
He's consistently done a fine job and is up for promotion.
 
He doesn't drink to excess, and has never screwed up in the field.
 
We should have more men like him."

"What was he doing in Cuba," Bobby asked, "besides spying, of course?
 
What was his cover?"

"Kraeger was born in Milwaukee and spoke both German and Dutch from childhood.
 
His cover had him in Cuba as Dutch merchant selling clothing and uniforms to the Cuban military."

JFK nodded.
 
"He speaks Spanish?"

"Excellently, but with a heavy German accent."

The president grinned at the thought.
 
"Who is his source, or sources?"

"At least one is an officer in the Russian Rocket Regiment that hasn't quite pulled out of Cuba yet.
 
We understand he's horrified that a madman like Castro could wind up potentially involving Soviet troops in such a risky endeavor.
 
General Pliyev, the commander of Soviet forces in Cuba supports Castro and is angry that his leaders in Moscow caved into us.
 
It’s possible that this Pliyev would prefer that we go to war and settle all the world’s problems once and for all.
 
It’s also extremely likely that Castro feels that way as well, if this report is true."

The president stood and walked gingerly to the wooden rocking chair by his desk.
 
He sat down with a sigh as its motion soothed the ache in his back.
 
The pain seemed to get worse with the stress of the job.

"Just curious, but where was your man during the Bay of Pigs?"

"Smoking a cigar and sitting on a beach in a small town outside Havana.
 
He was not in on the plan.
 
After the fact, he did report that the coming invasion was common knowledge and, had he been asked, he would have said that there would be no groundswell of enthusiasm for it.
 
I did not find out about his reports until recently.
 
They were buried with a lot of information that was unwelcome."

"Of course” Kennedy said with a sigh.
 
“Never tell the boss what he doesn't want to hear unless you're just about ready to retire or marry into money."

The actions of the Russian military never ceased to amaze him.
 
People thought of the Soviet Union and its armed forces as a mindless monolith with everyone marching in lockstep to directions from Moscow.
 
In reality it was often different, with local officers frequently taking independent actions that the Kremlin had not approved.

"What are our options?"
 
Bobby asked his brother.

JFK turned to McCone.
 
"First, we need corroboration that a large Cuban army under this General Ortega is going to attack Gitmo and we need it quickly."

"And on Christmas," Bobby muttered, shaking his head.
 
It was Christmas Eve afternoon and Washington D.C. was already rapidly closing down.
 
Soon, the most important city in the free world would be a virtual ghost town.

JFK ignored him.
 
"Second, we need to notify Cuba through the Swiss that we are on to their game, or, that we are at least hearing rumors and will do whatever we have to in order to protect Guantanamo.
 
We will also remind Castro of the agreement between us and the Russians."

Secretary of State Rusk entered and heard the last.
 
"The Swiss embassy is closed for the holiday, Mr. President, as is the Soviet embassy."
 

With diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba severed as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the ever-neutral Swiss had been functioning as America's agent in Cuba.

President Kennedy looked mockingly incredulous.
 
"Please don't tell me that the godless communists have taken Christ's birthday off as a holiday?"

Rusk declined to smile.
 
He was aware that the Kennedy's did not have a lot of confidence in him either, although, like McCone, his efforts during the recent crisis had been fairly well done.

"So what do we do?" McCone asked.
 
"Can we or should we increase our alert status?
 
Seriously, sir, if the military is like my organization, then a whole lot of them are either at home or on the way home.
 
We'd have a devil of a time recalling people.
 
Can you imagine the mess the trains and airlines would be?
 
And can you imagine what fools we'd look like if this turned out to be a false alarm?"

The president rubbed his forehead and tried to twist into a more comfortable position in the rocking chair.
 
It wasn’t working.
 
The pain continued at its intense level.
 
He turned to McCone.
 
"Do you believe this man Kraeger?
 
I mean the poor guy was half-drowned, sunbaked, injured, and delirious.
 
Could he be hallucinating or could this be a heat induced figment of his imagination?"

McCone scowled at the implication that his man might be unbalanced.
 
"Sir, I believe that Kraeger believes that what he's reporting is the truth.
 
And as to his possibly hallucinating, he wasn't hallucinating when he made a run from Cuba to warn us.
 
And he wasn't hallucinating when the Cubans tried to kill him and sink that little boat he’d stolen - that and the fact that he's provided far too much detail for it to be a fantasy.
 
What I don't know, Mr. President, is whether or not the Russians are feeding us a line through Kraeger in order to make us overreact and look like fools if the report is false.
 
Or, are they giving us enough advance warning so that it will look like they tried to help when, in reality, there's no time to do anything about their warning.

"Sir, all I can say is that my man absolutely feels that the information he's gotten is genuine and that the threat is both immediate and real.
 
He's en route to here and will arrive in a couple of hours.
 
I can arrange for you to meet him if you wish and you can judge for yourself."

"Later," JFK said.
 
"If he’s right, we’ll give him a medal in the Rose Garden.
 
If he’s wrong, we’ll have him exiled to some shithole in Africa.
 
I agree with what you say and what he believes is the truth.
 
The threat cannot be ignored.
 
First, I want to reconstitute ExComm."
 

Excomm was the name for the group of senior military and government officials that worked as a brain trust during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
 
The official name was the Executive Committee.
 
"And I want the first meeting to take place in a couple of hours and I don't give a shit if it's Christmas Eve or not.

"Second, I want a report to go out to the man in charge of Gitmo, this Admiral O'Donnell.
 
We can't tell him the commies are going to attack, because we're not really certain of that, but we can tell him it's possible that the commie bastards will try to commit some sabotage over Christmas and he should be extra careful.
 
Still, I don't want all his men yet manning trenches and barricades if it isn't quite necessary."

Bobby shook his head.
 
"The second idea is good, Jack, but the first, calling a senior meeting on Christmas Eve, is a bad one.
 
People will see the staff cars and limos and wonder what's up and we're not in a position to tell them.
 
Contrary to popular belief, the press isn't totally stupid.
 
They won't buy the idea that we're having a Christmas Party with only a few selected generals and admirals and a few key cabinet officials invited over for drinks and stag movies.
 
Right now, the press is probably wondering just what the hell Rusk and McCone are doing here, and if we bring in others, it'll cause a panic.
 
No, call the meeting, but we’ll do it by phone."