Second, what in God's name had he done? Relations between nations were built on honor and truth, not lies and deceptions, and that was what he had tried to prevent. Canada was a friend and neighbor and deserved to be taken into our trust. Therefore, telling his good friend at the Canadian Embassy that there were no Canadian religious groups lost in Cuba and, instead, that the so-called missionaries were marines wandering around and doubtless causing ill-will among the people of Cuba. He'd been to Cuba and thought the people were warm and gentle. That he'd never left Havana and that several of the warm and gentle people he'd found were very young prostitutes didn't concern him. Franklyn was deeply sympathetic to Fidel Castro and his plans for wealth distribution. He did not see the irony in his being wealthy and possibly a target for wealth distribution in a communist state.
Further, Geoffrey Franklyn did not like marines. Everyone he'd met had been smug and superior, especially those he'd met while on embassy duty in other countries. They were large and obnoxious cretins who deserved to be put in their place. The battle for Guantanamo was over. Therefore, why on earth didn't that lost group just surrender and get it over with? That would be the honorable thing to do, but the marines, he thought, were sadly lacking in honor. The whole Guantanamo Bay situation should be resolved by the United Nations, which he considered the hope of the future. He considered it wrong that the United States had a base in a foreign country when that country didn't want us there in the first place.
And now he was going to be punished for the dishonorable behavior of the marines, the CIA and, yes, President John F. Kennedy. Well, not if he could help it. He had friends all over the place and had picked up little snippets of information that indicated that the Russians in Cuba, another bunch of barbarians, had lost some very valuable weapons, weapons that might cause the ground to glow in the dark if used. Fears were rampant that they would be used on American soldiers should they try to invade Cuban soil.
He was not foolish. He would not call from a phone in the State Department. He walked a few blocks away and dropped coins in a pay phone, and asked for the long distance operator. He gave her the number of the New York Times. He had a good friend working there, and that reporter had a friend at the Washington Post. Geoffrey Franklyn smiled. This could be fun.
The Soviet Union's new elite and secret special forces were called "Spetsnaz," which was the Russian abbreviation for "voiska spetsialnogo naznachenya," all of which meant ‘special forces.’ The Red Army had always had elite units, especially during World War II, but these new Spetsnaz were being developed as a response to President Kennedy's decision to form Special Forces units in the American Army.
The new Spetsnaz were particularly trained to infiltrate and destroy American and nuclear sites in Europe in case war with NATO became imminent. They were all skilled, therefore, in handling nuclear weapons and material. Unlike American Special Forces, they did not have any distinctive uniforms or badges, preferring anonymity. General Issa Pliyev had a company of them under his command, a hundred men in ten man teams. In a different theater of operations, he would have had many more, but Moscow saw no need for additional men in such a backwater as Cuba. Each Spetsnaz soldier was highly dedicated, superbly trained, and a lethal killer. Their job was to operate behind enemy lines, and this was what Pliyev now called on them to do.
Many of them were fluent in Spanish, although none could ever pass as a native, either linguistically, physically, or culturally.
For his part, Pliyev asked for and received cooperation from Russian diplomats in Havana. Armed with quantities of money, along with threats of exposure to the Cuban government for being criminals, homosexuals, and closet capitalists, the Russians made numerous but discreet inquiries. Where would Castro have hidden four nuclear warheads?
At that point, he ordered the commander of the Spetsnaz detachment, thirty-five year old Captain Pyotr Dragan, to take charge of the investigation. Dragan was a favorite of the general’s. Slightly built, he was wiry and strong. His small size and his prematurely gray hair sometimes made people assume he was weak. Dragan was experienced, intelligent and ruthless. Pliyev was confident that he would locate the missing weapons.
There was an unfortunate delay since Dragan, like all of the Russians, was unaware of Castro’s intentions at the time of the attack on Guantanamo, and was on leave in Mexico City, where he was relieving himself of accumulated stresses by indulging in the Russian tradition of drinking heavily and frequenting some of the better whorehouses. When he was found, he returned quickly and took charge.
Several leads proved false, and at least one opportunistic Cuban functionary had his throat slit by Dragan for lying in an attempt to get a fat bribe. Finally, an informant told the Soviets that an abandoned sugar warehouse on the outskirts of Havana had suddenly sprouted antennae and was surrounded by barbed wire behind which heavily armed Cuban soldiers patrolled. After ascertaining that what the informant had said was accurate, the man was thanked and paid. On the way home, he was run over by a truck driven by a Russian who was part of the KGB.
Loose ends were deplored by the Russians.
Later that night Dragan’s Russians staged a car accident outside the barbed wire and, while the Cuban guards were distracted for the few minutes needed to decide, after much yelling and flailing of arms, which driver was at fault, slid a ten man team under the wire and inside the perimeter. They stealthily worked their way to what they presumed was the guard barracks and found four men inside. Short bursts from their silenced AK47s solved that problem. In another building they found two men on duty by the radio and telephone, and slit their throats before they realized they were in danger.
Dressed in Cuban uniforms and coming from within the wire, the Dragan’s Spetsnaz team simply walked up to the guards at the gate and killed them. Since outsiders expected to see guards on duty, they took the place of the dead Cubans and no one noticed.
Dragan fervently hoped that what they were looking for was in the warehouse. Otherwise, someone was going to have a hard time explaining the carnage. Then he realized that it was going to be difficult to explain under any circumstances and, besides, he didn't care. He had his orders and he served the Soviet Union.
Incredibly, the warehouse door was unlocked. Two mechanics were working on the PT76 tank carriage that was the missile launcher. Dragan permitted the sobbing mechanics to live. He had them bound and gagged. His instructions were to make sure the Cubans knew who had visited them. Pliyev's orders had been clear. "The fucking greasers cannot fuck with the Red Army and get away with it." When angry, Dragan thought General Pliyev had an eloquent way with words.
A column of six trucks pulled up to the gate and the "guards" let them in. Two more Spetsnaz were in the front of each and two of Pliyev's rocket engineers sat nervously in the back. When the trucks were in the warehouse, Dragan was amused when one of the Soviet engineers puked noisily at all the death. What did the fool expect? Didn't the man work on atomic bombs? What did he think would happen when one went off? Scientists were such fools.
The thirty-four foot two-stage solid fuel missiles were not on the converted tank chassis. Three were found lying carelessly on the floor alongside a wall. This confirmed Dragan’s opinion that the Cubans could not be trusted with anything as important as nuclear weapons. The engineers quickly confirmed that the 800lb warheads were not armed, and even the hard-bitten Dragan breathed a sigh of relief. He expected to die someday, but it was not his wish for today and most certainly not as dust billowing upward in part of a mushroom cloud.