“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.