He was shown around by a gray-haired photointerpreter called Claud Henry who had learned his trade in the Second World War, analyzing aerial photographs of bomb damage from Germany.

Claud told George: “Yesterday the navy sent Crusader jets over Cuba, so we now have low-level photographs, much easier to read.”

George did not find it so easy. To him the photos pinned up around Claud’s room still looked like abstract art, meaningless shapes arranged in a random pattern. “This is a Soviet military base,” Claud said, pointing at a photo.

“How do you know?”

“Here’s a soccer pitch. Cuban soldiers don’t play soccer. If it was a Cuban camp it would have a baseball diamond.”

George nodded. Clever, he thought.

“Here’s a row of T-54 tanks.”

They just looked like dark squares to George.

“These tents are missile shelters,” Claud said. “According to our tentologists.”

“Tentologists?”

“Yes. I’m actually a cratologist. I wrote the CIA handbook on crates.”

George smiled. “You’re not kidding, are you.”

“When the Soviets are shipping very large items such as fighter aircraft, they have to be carried on deck. They disguise them by putting them in crates. But we can usually work out the dimensions of the crate. And a MiG-15 comes in a different-size crate than a MiG-21.”

“Tell me something,” said George. “Do the Soviets have this kind of expertise?”

“We don’t think so. Consider this. They shot down a U-2 plane, so they know we have high-altitude planes with cameras. Yet they thought they could send missiles to Cuba without us finding out. They were still denying the existence of the missiles until yesterday, when we showed them the photos. So, they know about the spy planes and they know about the cameras, but until now they didn’t know we could see their missiles from the stratosphere. That leads me to think they’re behind us in photointerpretation.”

“That sounds right.”

“But here’s last night’s big revelation.” Claud pointed to an object with fins in one of the photos. “My boss will be briefing the president about this within the hour. It’s thirty-five feet long. We call it a Frog, for Free Rocket over Ground. It’s a short-range missile, intended for battlefield situations.”

“So this will be used against American troops if we invade Cuba.”

“Yes. And it’s designed to carry a nuclear warhead.”

“Oh, shit,” said George.

“That’s probably what President Kennedy is going to say,” said Claud.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The radio was on in the kitchen of the house in Great Peter Street on Friday evening. All over the world, people were keeping their radios on, listening fearfully for news flashes.

It was a big kitchen, with a long scrubbed-pine table in the center. Jasper Murray was making toast and reading the newspapers. Lloyd and Daisy Williams got all the London papers and several Continental ones as well. Lloyd’s main interest as a member of Parliament was foreign affairs, and had been ever since he fought in the Spanish Civil War. Jasper was scanning the pages for some reason to hope.