“Besides which, Alex,” Pelt said less forcefully, “the men to whom you refer would not be alive were it not for us. We lost two good men rescuing your servicemen. You might at least express some appreciation for our efforts to save your crew, and perhaps make a gesture of sympathy for the Americans who lost their lives in the process.”
“My government notes the heroic effort of your two officers, and does wish to express its appreciation and that of the Soviet people for the rescue. Even so, gentlemen, deliberate efforts have been made to entice some of those men to betray their country.”
“Mr. Ambassador, when your trawler rescued the crew of our patrol plane last year, officers of the Soviet armed forces offered money, women, and other enticements to our crewmen if they would give out information or agree to stay behind in Vladivostok, correct? Don’t tell me that you have no knowledge of this. You know that’s how the game is played. At the time we did not object to this, did we? No, we were sufficiently grateful that those six men were still alive, and now, of course, all of them are back at work. We remain grateful for your country’s humanitarian concern for the lives of ordinary American citizens. In this case, each officer and enlisted man was told that he could stay if he wished to do so. No force of any kind was used. Each man wishing to remain here was required by us to meet with an official of your embassy so as to give you a fair chance to explain to him the error of his ways. Surely this is fair, Mr. Ambassador. We made no offers of money or women. We do not buy people, and we damned well do not — ever — kidnap people. Kidnappers are people I put in jail. I even managed to have one executed. Don’t you ever accuse me of that again,” the president concluded righteously.
“My government insists that all of our men be returned to their homeland,” Arbatov persisted.
“Mr. Ambassador, any person in the United States, regardless of his nationality or the manner of his arrival, is entitled to the full protection of our law. Our courts have ruled on this many times, and under our law no man or woman may be compelled to do something against his will without due process.
The subject is closed. Now, I have a question for you. What was a ballistic missile submarine doing three hundred miles from the American coast?”
“A missile submarine, Mr. President?”
Pelt lifted a photograph from the president’s desk and handed it to Arbatov. Taken from the tape recorder on the Sea Cliff, it showed the SS-N-20 sea-launched ballistic missile.
“The name of the submarine is — was Red October,” Pelt said. “It exploded and sank three hundred miles from the coast of South Carolina. Alex, we have an agreement between our two countries that no such vessel will approach either country to within five hundred miles — eight hundred kilometers. We want to know what that submarine was doing there. Don’t try to tell us that this missile is some kind of fabrication — even if we had wanted to do such a foolish thing, we wouldn’t have had the time. That’s one of your missiles, Mr. Ambassador, and the submarine carried nineteen more just like it.” Pelt deliberately misstated the number. “And the government of the United States asks the government of the Soviet Union how it came to be there, in violation of our agreement, while so many other of your ships are so close to our Atlantic coast.”
“That must be the lost submarine,” Arbatov offered.
“Mr. Ambassador,” the president said softly, “the submarine was not lost until Thursday, seven days after you told us about it. In short, Mr. Ambassador, your explanation of last Friday does not coincide with the facts we have physically established.”
“What accusation are you making?” Arbatov bristled.
“Why, none, Alex,” the president said. “If that agreement is no longer operative, then it is no longer operative. I believe we discussed that possibility last week also. The American people will know later today what the facts are. You are sufficiently familiar with our country to imagine their reaction. I will have an explanation. For the moment, I see no further reason for your fleet to be off our coast. The ‘rescue’ has been successfully concluded, and the further presence of the Soviet fleet can only be a provocation. I want you and your government to consider what my military commanders are telling me right now — or if you prefer, what your commanders would be telling General Secretary Narmonov if the situation were reversed. I will have an explanation. Without one I can reach one of only a few conclusions — and those are conclusions I would prefer not to choose from. Send that message to your government, and tell them that since some of your men have opted to stay here, we’ll probably find out what was really happening in short order. Good day.”
Arbatov left the office, turning left to leave by the west entrance. A marine guard held the door open, a polite gesture that stopped short of his eyes. The ambassador’s driver, waiting outside in a Cadillac limousine, held the door open for him. The driver was chief of the KGB ‘s political intelligence section at that organization’s Washington station.
“So,” he said, checking traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue before making a left turn.
“So, the meeting went exactly as I had predicted, and now we can be absolutely certain why they are kidnapping our men,” Arbatov replied.
“And that is, Comrade Ambassador?” the driver prompted. He did not let his irritation show. Only a few years before this Party hack would not have dared temporize with a senior KGB officer. It was a disgrace, what had happened to the Committee for State Security since the death of Comrade Andropov. But things would be set right again. He was certain of that.
“The president all but accused us of sending the submarine deliberately to their shore in violation of our secret 1979 protocol. They are holding our men to interrogate them, to take their heads apart so that they can learn what the submarine’s orders were. How long will that take the CIA? A day? Two?” Arbatov shook his head angrily. “They may know already — a few drugs, a woman, perhaps, to loosen their tongues. The president also invited Moscow to imagine what the Pentagon hotheads are telling him to think! And telling him to do. No mystery there, is there? They will say we were rehearsing a surprise nuclear attack — perhaps even executing one! As if we were not working harder than they to achieve peaceful coexistence! Suspicious fools, they are fearful about what has happened, and even more angry.”
“Can you blame them, Comrade?” the driver asked, taking all of this in, filing, analyzing, composing his independent report to Moscow Center.
“And he said that there was no further reason for our fleet to be off their coast.”
“How did he say this? Was it a demand?”
“His words were soft. Softer than I expected. This concerns me. They are planning something, I think. Rattling a saber makes noise, drawing it does not. He demands an explanation for this entire affair. What do I tell him? What was happening?”
“I suspect that we will never know.” The senior agent did know — the original story, that is, incredible as it was. That the navy and the GRU could allow such a fantastic error to take place had amazed him. The story from agent Cassius was scarcely less mad. The driver had passed it on to Moscow himself. Was it possible that the United States and the Soviet Union were both victims of a third party? An operation gone awry, and the Americans trying to find out who was responsible and how it was done so that they might try to do it themselves? That part of the story made sense, but did the rest? He frowned at the traffic. He had orders from Moscow Center: if this was a CIA operation, he was supposed to find out immediately. He didn’t believe it was. If so the CIA was being unusually effective in covering it. Was it possible to cover such a complex operation? He didn’t think so. Regardless, he and his colleagues would be working for several weeks to penetrate any cover there was, to find out what was being said in Langley and in the field, while other KGB sections did the same throughout the world. If the CIA had penetrated the Northern Fleet’s high command he’d find out. Of that he was confident. He could almost wish they had done so. The GRU would be responsible for the disaster, and would be disgraced after profiting from the KGB’s loss of prestige a few years back. If he was reading the situation correctly, the Politburo was turning the KGB loose on the GRU and the military, allowing Moscow Center to initiate its own independent investigation of the affair. Regardless of what was found, the KGB would come out ahead and deflate the armed services. One way or another, his organization would discover what had taken place, and if it was damaging to his rivals, so much the better…