“Of course.” The intercom buzzed, but it was not to be answered. “He’s here. About time. I asked the desk to give me some warning. Ready for the show?” Merriweather smiled as if he expected the DDI to understand.
Bud DiContino walked in, his hands empty. He closed the door behind with a forceful shove. Easy, Bud. “Anthony. Greg. Your Cuban operation just walked through my door.”
“What?” the DCI asked, not really caring what the NSA was about to say, but curious as to what would motivate a desperate display such as this. You weren’t supposed to be a hothead, DiContino.
Bud took a seat in one of the wing backs next to the DDI. “The Russians may have left Cuba in ‘62 one missile short.”
“What!” Drummond practically yelled, looking to his boss. The man had an almost bewildered stare on his face.
“And where did you come upon this information, James?” Merriweather inquired, instinctively jotting notes on his legal pad, his manner still outwardly cool.
“The FBI in Los Angeles was investigating the murder of one of their agents and of another man — actually more of an elimination — who turned out to be an assistant to Castro’s Russian-language interpreter during the missile crisis. His killers were apparently after a tape he was in possession of, but they didn’t get it. The agents did.”
“And you believe this man’s assertion of who he was.”
“I checked it out, Anthony. The library pulled the Officials, Officers, and Contacts for ‘62. Listed as the number-two man for Russian translations was Francisco Portero, now a very dead corpse in the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office. He also had diplomatic status with the UN until a year ago. That was when he defected.”
The DDI stood and picked up the phone on Merriweather’s desk without prompting, calling the Records Section of the Latin America Desk to confirm the information himself. Leak or no leak, this he had to ask.
Merriweather was genuinely unconcerned, for his own reasons, and it showed. He was going to play this out just for the NSA’s benefit, and at the end there would be a very clear lesson in it for him: Don’t screw with my ops!
“So just how did this happen? The Russians miscount or something?”
All right, asshole. “The Cubans took one. Snatched it just before the pullout was supposed to happen.” Bud went on to explain the contents of the tape, portions of which he had heard over the phone with an FBI agent in Los Angeles translating.
“Wait right there.” Merriweather laughed openly. “Are you trying to tell me you believe the Russians would have allowed Castro to steal one of their nukes? Well, James, take me through the looking glass. I’m waiting.”
It was time for some reciprocation. “History, right, Anthony?” He knew it was. “How long did Khrushchev last after the crisis? Eh? Less than two years. Tell me, do you think he would have lasted that long if he’d had to go to war with an ally? Christ, he just had his face slapped by Kennedy, practically, and you think he had the wherewithal to face something even more embarrassing?”
“Confirmed,” Drummond said, hanging the phone up. “Francisco Portero was the backup interpreter. Trained by Sergei Leonov,” the DDI added, referring to the headmaster at Moscow’s Higher Institute of Languages in the fifties.
Bud looked to the DCI. His expression had changed a bit.
Parry and thrust. “Your point is well taken, but how would Khrushchev have kept this quiet? His inner circle, particularly the military, would not have accepted him just saying ‘Oh, by the way, the Cubans have decided they wish to retain one of our nuclear weapons.’” He smirked, seemingly unconvinced.
“The tape indicates that Castro forced Khrushchev into a cover story, something about an explosion just before the pullout was announced. That was how he could explain the loss of the missile crew and the warhead. Just burned up in a fireball.” Bud wondered if the Soviet government of the day had questioned the potential of fallout from a good amount of plutonium going up in smoke. Right — the same folks who tested aboveground weapons just fifty miles from populated areas. The care factor was never much to mention on their part.
Fireball? Missile crew? Something clicked in the DDI’s head, but he wasn’t sure what exactly it was.
“It is a very engaging story, James, but more fable than thesis, I would say.” So far there was nothing, Merriweather knew. Nothing to worry about. It was all right to push a little. “But, given the seriousness of the possibility, I suppose you are planning to confirm this.”
“And just how do you propose we do that?” Bud asked angrily, tired of the DCI’s minimalization of the risk.
“We?” Merriweather laughed, an event uncharacteristic enough to be noteworthy. “You, James. The Agency is quite busy at the moment. I mean, an entire missile! Not everything went up in smoke in that fireball, I presume. There must be something to corroborate the story.”
That’s it! Drummond shouted inwardly. “There may be.”
Merriweather’s head swung sharply toward his deputy. “What are you talking about?”
The DDI looked to both men, choosing the NSA to explain to. “Our man down in Cuba reported coming upon a graveyard with a couple dozen Russian names on the headstones. No birth years, but the date of passing was ‘62 on those he could read.”
The NSA saw Merriweather bite his lip. “You were part of the review conference back in ‘92, Greg, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. Thirtieth anniversary and all. I also did a paper for the study group on the basing scheme chosen by the Soviets back then. Jeez, that was ‘78, I think.” The DDI had come right out of the Air Force and into the Agency, working his way up to chief analyst, Soviet Desk, in a very short time. His position now was the culmination of a hell of a lot of hard work and some risky calls that had panned out.
“Where was the burial site?” Bud asked.
“South of Santa Clara.” The DDI paused, verifying the information in his mental register. “Yeah. An old Jesuit monastery was there. The section chief is still running all the stuff down for the reports.” Drummond lit up. The NSA’s train of thought was now apparent. “Did he know where the missile was taken from?”
“There was mention of ‘associated units’ departing from La Isabela. North central coast, I think.”
“Right.” Drummond’s mind checked the information just presented with the data he still retained from his research for the basing report. “Sagua la Grande. Just south of La Isabela. Dammit, yes. The Russians had several MRBMs in the area. The one known as MRBM Site One carried out a full mating exercise the day before the pull out. It went on into the evening. The low-level recon couldn’t see it anymore after that.”
“Mating what?” the DCI demanded more than asked. His cool hold on events was starting to slip.
“Part of a readiness check,” Drummond began. “They bring the warhead out of storage and mate it up with the booster. Then they fuel the thing and put it on the pad.”
“KGB had the warheads, though,” Merriweather countered. “How would you get them out of the way?”
The DDI thought for a moment. “This was the night before the pullout. If I remember correctly, the KGB units started a move to secure the ports late that evening. We always suspected they had some advance warning before the Radio Moscow broadcast the next morning. Anyway, they had to split their force, leaving only a token force with each warhead. Remember, most were in storage, all grouped together. They had fifteen-man details augmented by Cuban forces when they did one of these mating exercises. Cut that in half, and you have seven men, plus twenty or so generally unarmed missile crewmen.”