Life_ An Exploded Diagram - Mal Peet [81]
The third man, rolling a cigarette, said, “’Specially if he’re got your sister with him, Will.”
Clem fell onto his back among the damp leaf fall, stunned by loss.
Frankie.
He knelt again, and there she was, appearing and disappearing beyond the swirling smoke, she and Marron silhouetted motionless on the low swell of the land.
He went home. A few minutes after twelve thirty, the phone rang.
“Clem?”
“Frankie?”
“Clem. Oh, Clem.”
“Can you talk?”
“Only for a second. I had no idea, honestly. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
“The bastards.”
“Yes. Can you come to the woods later? Where we used to meet?”
“When?”
“Three.”
“Okay.”
Ruth came in the back door.
“Who’re you talking to, Clem?”
“Goz.”
“Clem?”
“I’ll see you there, then. Cheers, Goz.”
He put the phone down.
“What was that all about, then?”
“Oh, nothun. Said I’d go round his later. Bloody English prep.”
Ruth hung her coat on the pegs under the stairs.
“Takun up swearun now, hev you?”
Frankie came on a bicycle. He hadn’t known she could ride one, or had one.
IT’S VERY DIFFICULT for a world superpower to prepare for war discreetly. When huge military convoys lumber south into Florida, when sports fields suddenly become army camps, when fleets steam out of ports, when squadrons of fighter-bombers suddenly get dispersed to obscure civilian airfields, when thousands of servicemen are told to kiss their girlfriends and wives and children good-bye, when the lights burn all night in the Pentagon, well, these things tend to get noticed.
The story of a “defensive buildup” in Cuba had been simmering in the American press for several weeks. Kennedy’s political opponents had been making a fuss about it. He’d been stung when ex-president Eisenhower, in a piece in the New York Times, had accused him of being “weak on foreign policy.” Code for “fluffy with the Russians.”
By the end of the first week of the crisis, JFK knew that he was going to have to go public. His speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, had written two versions of a broadcast to the nation.
Version One said, in essence, “Good evening, my fellow citizens. It is my sad duty to inform you that, as I speak, U.S. forces are bombing Cuba in advance of an all-out invasion. You might like to get yourselves ready for World War III.”
Version Two said, in essence, “Good evening, my fellow citizens. I have to tell you that the wicked Russians have put nuclear missiles in Cuba, and we won’t stand for it. So we’ve put a sea blockade around Cuba, and I’ve sent a stiff note to Chairman Khrushchev.”
Right up to the wire, it was odds-on which of these two speeches would go out.
On Monday, October 22, the White House sent a request to all TV and radio networks that they make airtime available for a presidential address at seven p.m. Its subject would be “a matter of the highest national urgency.” Hearing of this, Cuban and Russian intelligence — who had already reported the unusual levels of activity at the White House and the Pentagon — immediately informed Havana and Moscow. Reactions in these cities were very different.
It was late evening in Moscow when Khrushchev got the word and summoned his ministers to the Kremlin. He was gloomy and fretful. And deeply disappointed. His plan had been splendidly cunning. Once all the nuclear weapons systems were installed in Cuba, he would fly to Havana, where and he and Castro would sign a formal agreement on mutual defense. (The Americans would make a fuss, but since they’d done much the same thing with countries like Britain and Turkey, they’d not have a leg to stand on.) Then, and only then, he and Fidel, brother revolutionaries, would take the salute as Russian troops marched past, side by side with their Cuban comrades. And with their smart new missiles. It would present the Yankees with a shocking fait accompli.
Now it seemed to Khrushchev that this delightful scenario would be denied him.
“They’ve rumbled us,” he said. “I’m almost sure of it. Kennedy will announce an invasion. The son of a bitch may already have ordered it. Shit! We should