The Devil's Alternative (19 page)

The meeting in the Oval Office five days later was far less relaxed. All eight members of the ad hoc committee of the National Security Council were present, with President Matthews in the chair. All had spent half the night reading the transcript of the Politburo meeting in which Marshal Kerensky had laid out his plan for war and Vishnayev had made his bid for power. All eight men were shaken. The focus was on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Craig.

“The question is, General,” President Matthews asked, “is it feasible?”

“In terms of a conventional war across the face of Western Europe from the Iron Curtain to the Channel ports, even involving the use of tactical nuclear shells and rockets, yes, Mr. President, it’s feasible.”

“Could the West, before next spring, increase her defenses to the point of making it completely unworkable?”

“That’s a harder one, Mr. President. Certainly we in the United States could ship more men, more hardware, over to Europe. That would give the Soviets ample excuse to beef up their own levels, if they ever needed such an excuse. But as to our European allies, they don’t have the reserves we have; for over a decade they have run down their manpower levels, arms levels, and preparation levels to a point where the imbalance in conventional manpower and hardware between the NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact forces is at a stage that cannot be recouped in a mere nine months. The training that the personnel would need, even if recruited now, the produc- tion of new weapons of the necessary sophistication—these cannot be achieved in nine months.”

“So they’re back to 1939 again,” said the Secretary of the Treasury gloomily.

“What about the nuclear option?” asked Bill Matthews quietly. General Craig shrugged.

“If the Soviets attack in full force, it’s inescapable. Forewarned may be forearmed, but nowadays armament programs and training programs take too long. Forewarned as we are, we could slow up a Soviet advance westward, spoil Kerensky’s time scale of a hundred hours. But whether we could stop him dead—the whole damn Soviet Army, Navy, and Air Force—that’s another matter. By the time we knew the answer, it would probably be too late, anyway. Which makes our use of the nuclear option inescapable. Unless, of course, sir, we abandon Europe and our three hundred

thousand men there.”

“David?” asked the President.

Secretary of State David Lawrence tapped the file in front of him.

“For about the first time in my life, I agree with Dmitri Rykov. It’s not just a question of Western Europe. If Europe goes, the Balkans, the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey, Iran, and the Arabian states cannot hold. Ten years ago, five percent of our oil was imported; five years ago, the total had risen to fifty percent. Now it’s running at sixty-two percent, and rising. Even the whole of the Western Hemisphere cannot fulfill more than fifty-five percent of our needs at maximum production. We need the Arabian oil. Without it we are as finished as Europe, without a shot fired.”

Suggestions, gentlemen?” asked the President.

“The Nightingale is valuable, but not indispensable, not now,” said Stanislaw Poklewski. “Why not meet with Rudin and lay it on the table? We now know about Plan Aleksandr; we know the intent. And we will take steps to head off that intent to make it unworkable. When he informs his Politburo of that, they’ll realize the element of surprise is lost, that the war option won’t work anymore. It’ll be the end of the Nightingale, but it will also be the end of Plan Aleksandr.”

Bob Benson of the CIA shook his head vigorously.

“I don’t think it’s that simple, Mr. President. As I read it, it’s not a question of convincing Rudin or Rykov. There’s a vicious faction fight now going on inside the Politburo, as we know. At stake is the succession to Rudin. And the famine is hanging over them.

“Vishnayev and Kerensky have proposed- a limited war as a means both of obtaining the food surpluses of Western Europe and of imposing war discipline on the Soviet peoples. Revealing what we know to Rudin would change nothing. It might even cause him to fall. Vishnayev and his group would take over; they are completely ignorant of the West and the way we Americans react to being attacked. Even with the element of surprise gone, with the grain famine pending they could still try the war option.”

“I agree with Bob,” said David Lawrence. “There is a parallel here with the Japanese position forty years ago. The oil embargo caused the fall of the moderate Konoye faction. Instead, we got General Tojo, and that led to Pearl Harbor. If Maxim Rudin is toppled now, we could get Yefrem Vishnayev in his place. And on the basis of these papers, that could lead to war.”

“Then Maxim Rudin must not fall,” said President Matthews.

“Mr. President, I protest,” said Poklewski heatedly. “Am I to understand that the efforts of the United States are now to be bent toward saving the skin of Maxim Rudin? Have any of us forgotten what he did, the people liquidated under his regime, for him to get to the pinnacle of power in Soviet Russia?”

“Stan, I’m sorry,” said President Matthews with finality. “Last month I authorized a refusal by the United States to supply the Soviet Union with the grain it needs to head off a famine. At least until I knew what the perspectives of that famine would be. I can no longer pursue that policy of rejection, because I think we now know what those perspectives entail.

“Gentlemen, I am going this night to draft a personal letter to President Rudin, proposing that David Lawrence and Dmitri Rykov meet on neutral territory to confer together. And that they confer on the subject of the new SALT Four arms-limitation treaty and
any other matters of interest
.”

When Andrew Drake returned to the Cavo d’Oro after his second meeting with Captain Thanos, there was a message waiting for him. It was from Azamat Krim, to say he and Kaminsky had just checked into their agreed hotel.

An hour later Drake was with them. The van had come through unscathed. During the night,

Drake had the guns and ammunition transferred piece by piece to his own room at the Cavo d’Oro in separate visits from Kaminsky and Krim. When all was safely locked away, he took them both out to dinner. The following morning, Krim flew back to London, to live in Drake’s apartment and await his phone call. Kaminsky stayed on in a small pension in the back streets of Piraeus. It was not comfortable, but it was anonymous.

While they were dining, the U.S. Secretary of State was locked in private conference with the Irish Ambassador to Washington.

“If my meeting with Foreign Minister Rykov is to succeed,” said David Lawrence, “we must have privacy. The discretion must be absolute. Reykjavik in Iceland is too obvious; our base at Keflavik there is like U.S. territory. The meeting has to be on neutral territory. Geneva is full of watching eyes; ditto Stockholm and Vienna. Helsinki, like Iceland, would be too obvious. Ireland is halfway between Moscow and Washington, and you still foster the cult of privacy there.”

That night, coded messages passed between Washington and Dublin. Within twenty-four hours, the government in Dublin had agreed to host the meeting and proposed flight plans for both parties. Within hours, President Matthews’s personal and private letter to President Maxim Rudin was on its way to Ambassador Donaldson in Moscow.

Andrew Drake at his third attempt secured a person-to-person conversation with Captain Nikos Thanos. There was by then little doubt in the old Greek’s mind that the young Englishman wanted something from him, but he gave no hint of curiosity. As usual, Drake bought the coffee and ouzo.

“Captain,” said Drake, “I have a problem, and I think you may be able to help me.” Thanos raised an eyebrow but studied his coffee.

“Sometime near the end of the month the
Sanadria
will sail from Piraeus for Istanbul and the Black Sea. I believe you will be calling at Odessa.”

Thanos nodded. “We are due to sail on the thirtieth,” he said, “and yes, we will be discharging cargo at Odessa.”

“I want to go to Odessa,” said Drake. “I must reach Odessa.”

“You are an Englishman,” said Thanos. “There are package tours of Odessa. You could fly there.

There are cruises by Soviet liners out of Odessa. You could join one.” Drake shook his head.

“It’s not as easy as that,” he said. “Captain Thanos, I would not receive a visa for Odessa. My application would be dealt with in Moscow, and I would not be allowed in.”

“And why do you want to go?” asked Thanos with suspicion.

“I have a girl in Odessa,” said Drake. “My fiancée. I want to get her out.”

Captain Thanos shook his head with finality. He and his ancestors from Chios had been smuggling in the eastern Mediterranean since Homer was learning to talk, and he knew that a brisk contraband trade went into and out of Odessa, and that his own crew made a tidy living on the side from bringing such luxury items as nylons, perfume, and leather coats to the black market of the Ukrainian port. But smuggling people was quite different, and he had no intention of getting involved in that.

“I don’t think you understand,” said Drake. “There’s no question of bringing her out on the

Sanadria
. Let me explain.”

He produced a photograph of himself and a remarkably pretty girl sitting on the balustrade of the Potemkin Stairway, which links the city with the port. Thanos’s interest revived at once, for the girl was definitely worth looking at.

“I am a graduate in Russian studies of the University of Bradford,” said Drake. “Last year I was

an exchange student for six months, and spent those six months at Odessa University. That was where I met Larissa. We fell in love. We wanted to get married.”

Like most Greeks, Nikos Thanos prided himself on his romantic nature. Drake was talking his language.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked.

“The Soviet authorities would not let us,” said Drake. “Of course, I wanted to bring Larissa back to England and marry her and settle down. She applied for permission to leave and was turned down. I kept reapplying on her behalf from the London end. No luck. Then, last July, I did as you just suggested; I went on a package tour to the Ukraine, through Kiev, Ternopol, and Lvov.”

He flicked open his passport and showed Thanos the date stamps at the Kiev airport.

“She came up to Kiev to see me. We made love. Now she has written to me to say she is having our baby. So now I have to marry her more than ever.”

Captain Thanos also knew the rules. They had applied to his society since time began. He looked again at the photograph. He was not to know that the girl was a London lady who had posed in a studio not far from King’s Cross station, nor that the background of the Potemkin Stairway was an enlarged detail from a tourist poster obtained at the London office of Intourist.

“So how are you going to get her out?” he asked.

“Next month,” said Drake, “there is a Soviet liner, the
Litva
, leaving Odessa with a large party from the Soviet youth movement, the Komsomol, for an off-season educational tour of the Mediterranean.”

Thanos nodded; he knew the
Litva
well.

“Because I made too many scenes over the matter of Larissa, the authorities will not let me back in. Larissa would not normally be allowed to go on this tour. But there is an official in the local branch of the Interior Ministry who likes to live well above his income. He will get her onto that cruise with all her papers in order, and when the ship docks at Venice, I will be waiting for her. But the official wants ten thousand American dollars. I have them, but I have to get the package to her.”

It made perfect sense to Captain Thanos. He knew the level of bureaucratic corruption that was endemic to the southern shore of the Ukraine, Crimea, and Georgia—Communism or no Communism. That an official should “arrange” a few documents for enough Western currency to improve his life-style substantially was quite normal.

An hour later the deal was concluded. For a further five thousand dollars Thanos would take Drake on as a temporary deckhand for the duration of the voyage.

“We sail on the thirtieth,” he said, “and we should be in Odessa on the tenth or eleventh. Be at the quay where the
Sanadria
is berthed by six P.M. on the thirtieth. Wait until the agent’s water clerk has left, then come aboard just before the immigration people.”

Four hours later in Drake’s flat in London, Azamat Krim took Drake’s call from Piraeus giving bun the date that Mishkin and Lazareff needed to know.

It was on the twentieth that President Matthews received Maxim Rudin’s reply. It was a personal letter, as his had been to the Soviet leader. In it Rudin agreed to the secret meeting between David Lawrence and Dmitri Rykov in Ireland, scheduled for the twenty-fourth.

President Matthews pushed the letter across his desk to Lawrence. “He’s not wasting time,” he remarked.

“He has no time to waste,” returned the Secretary of State. “Everything is being prepared. I have two men in Dublin now, checking out the arrangements. Our Ambassador to Dublin will be meeting the Soviet Ambassador tomorrow, as a result of this letter, to finalize details.”

“Well, David, you know what to do,” said the President.

Azamat Krim’s problem was to be able to post a letter or card to Mishkin from inside the Soviet Union, complete with Russian stamps and written in Russian, without going through the necessary delay in waiting for a visa to be granted to him by the Soviet Consulate in London, which could take up to four weeks. With the help of Drake, he had solved it relatively simply.

Prior to 1980, the main airport of Moscow, Sheremetyevo, had been a small, drab, and shabby affair. But for the Olympics the Soviet government had commissioned a grand new airport terminal there, and Drake had done some research on it.

The facilities in the new terminal, which handled all long-distance flights out of Moscow, were excellent. There were numerous plaques praising the achievements of Soviet technology all over the airport; conspicuous by its absence was any mention that Moscow had had to commission a West German firm to build the place because no Soviet construction company could have achieved the standard or the completion date. The West Germans had been handsomely paid in hard currency, but their contract had had rigorous penalty clauses in the case of noncompletion by the start of the 1980 Olympics. For this reason, the Germans had used only two local Russian ingredients—sand and water. Everything else had been trucked in from West Germany in order to be certain of delivery on time.