The Romanov succession

by Brian Garfield

  “That’s not the point and you know it. The repercussions if a whisper of this ever gets breathed…”

  “If Stalin loses the war we’re not going to have to worry about his good opinion of us.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Stalin. I was talking about the American voter.”

  “The next election’s not until nineteen forty-four.”

  “Nuts. It’s not that easy and you know it. It’s pur money and our supplies that are keeping England alive right now. Put a hint of this operation in the press and what happens to the President’s Congressional support for his war measures? You know how thin the margin is at best. Give the isolationists ammunition like this and that’s the last we’d see of Lend-Lease or any other war-support program. England could go right down the tubes. That’s the real risk of it-that’s what concerns me.”

  No, Buckner thought. What really concerned the Undersecretary was that he’d be charged with having had a role in the discredited scheme and his own head would tumble into the basket.

  Buckner said, “There’s only one answer to that. We’ve got to make damned sure we keep the lid on it.”

  “Easy to say.”

  “We’re doing it. After all there’s damned few of us in on it. Six or seven of us including the President.”

  “It’s not good enough, Glenn. We’ve got to have a back door.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “You’re the expert in nihilistic machinations.”

  “I’m just a country boy. Let’s keep it to words of two syllables.”

  “There’s got to be a cancellation button.”

  “Come again?”

  “A button to push. To give us instant cancellation of the program. These people aren’t Americans-we can’t just order them to call it off on our say-so. We’ve got to have leverage.”

  “You can relax then,” Buckner said. “That’s been taken care of.”

  10

  Pappy Johnson stood under the wing of the airplane exposing his teeth. He pulled his cigarettes out of the bicep pocket of his leather flight jacket and offered one to Calhoun.

  “Thanks.” Calhoun took it and poked his face forward to accept a light from Johnson’s cupped match. Calhoun had a small triangular face and the black-nailed hands of a mechanic. He had arrived during the night by train from Glasgow where the flight from the States had dropped him off with his two companions.

  “They’re your airplanes as of now,” Johnson told him. “You’ve got twenty-four hours to get them ready for training.”

  “Well first off we’ll have to mount those turrets.” On the ferrying flight the dorsal and belly turrets of the B-17S had been removed and stowed inside to reduce air drag.

  “Uh-huh. And you’re going to have to modify the C-Forty-sevens. Those cargo doors open outward. That’s no good for parachute drops.”

  Calhoun didn’t even blink. “You want ‘em to slide or you want ‘em to open inward?”

  “What’s faster?”

  “Open inward. It’s still a welding job but we can handle it.”

  “All right. Rig lines for the ripcord clips and run some benches down the insides for the men to sit on.”

  “Full complement in each plane?”

  “Just about. They’ll carry twenty-seven each, isn’t that the drill?”

  “You can squeeze in more than that if you need to. Depends how far you’ve got to stretch your fuel,” Calhoun said. “Which reminds me, I can’t work on these engines unless I can run them up. What are we supposed to run them on, spit?”

  “Use what you can find. We’ll have it pouring in by Monday.” He hoped it was true. All he knew was what General Danilov told him.

  “Okay. Anything kick up on the way over here I should look into?”

  “Mine was all right. The ferry pilot on the second Fort said his number three was running a little ragged-high head temps and he couldn’t keep it in synch.”

  “I’ll tell Blazer to take a look. Most ground crews have to take an engine apart to find out what Blazer can tell just by listening to it run.”

  Pappy Johnson dropped his cigarette and squeezed it under his boot. “They’re your babies. Nice meeting you. I got to get to work.”

  He strode to the main hangar and waved vaguely to the two generals in the office-the Russian one and the American one-and went straight on back to the rear of the huge building.

  Prince Felix Romanov was on his feet near one of the small windows. He was watching the Boeing arrivals across the field spread canvas over the engine nacelles of the big airplanes. The wiry prince was dressed in tailored coveralls that fitted like a tux; Johnson suppressed a smile.

  The rest of them-the fourteen pilots-had cigarettes cupped in their hands and they looked ready to be bored. These were old-line combat pilots and he was going to have to shake them up.

  “Good morning gentlemen.”

  Some of them nodded; some of them murmured something or other. Prince Felix flashed a grin at him and took a seat at the end of the bench.

  There was a blackboard and a little lecture podium. Johnson posted himself behind it. “It’s not an office party, gentlemen. Siddown.”

  He waited for them to sort themselves out on the three long benches and then he said, “I’m sure there are at least a thousand men who know more about precision bombardment than I do.” He looked slowly from face to face. “However I don’t see any of them here.”

  He had their attention. “Anybody have trouble understanding my English?”

  A few of them shook their heads; the others didn’t answer. “I don’t know who’s got rank here other than His Highness but as long as we’re in training here I’m the boss. When I tell you the sow’s fat then she’s broad across the back. Just you remember I’m in charge here and we’ll all get along fine.”

  He saw a slow grin spread across Prince Felix’s face. The others took their cue from that and he knew it was going to be all right.

  “Now you’re going to make mistakes. You don’t think you will. But you will. I don’t mind mistakes but I don’t want excuses. Fair enough?”

  Abruptly he turned to the blackboard and dashed a quick rough sketch that approximated the outlines of a four-engine bomber.

  “The B-Seventeen Flying Fortress has something like seventy-five thousand working parts. In the next few weeks we’re going to have a lunatic schedule around here because you misters are going to have to learn about a lot of those parts. In an emergency in the air you’re going to have to be able to act as your own flight engineers. This afternoon we’re all going to climb around inside those aircraft and find out what holds them together. You’ll work your way up from the tail turrets to the cockpits. By the time you get that far you’ll be able to repair a busted elevator cable or free up a jam in the bomb-bay racks. And then we’re going to tackle the instruments. You misters are mostly used to flying peashooters, I understand. You’re going to have to learn a whole new rule book about instruments. You’re going to have to learn how to sort out a hundred different facts you’ve got at your fingertips in that cockpit-information about your course, your altitude, your airspeed, rpm’s, manifold pressures, fuel levels, horizon attitude, engine temperatures, synchronizations, mixtures, radio equipment, a lot of other stuff. You misters are going to have to memorize an encyclopedia full of facts and you’re going to have to be able to recite them back to me on call.”

  An hour later he was still having at them.

  “Now one thing you ought to remember if you don’t want to get dead. Keep the nose down when you’re taking off with a heavy load on board. Pushing the nose up, trying to climb-that’s no good if you’re at too steep an angle to get speed. You won’t get height that way, you’ll only stall out. These are heavy machines. You must always sacrifice altitude, no matter how little you have, to get speed. Is that clear?

  “Now I remind you these airplanes are not peashooters. They are not designed to do aerobatics. You try doing a loop-the-loop and yo
ur wings will come right off. Just bear in mind Newton’s Law. In a Fort you come down easy and smooth or you come down like a falling safe. There ain’t no in-between. But you’re going to learn how not to fly on a roller coaster. You’ll learn a constant glide. The first time you try your hands on those controls you won’t believe it can be done but you’ll learn it.

  “Bear in mind one other thing. These aircraft are rated to fly at twice the altitude you’ve been used to. At high altitudes lack of oxygen can cause a blackout and quick death. Use your masks.”

  By now they were reeling a little; they’d filled notebooks. He said, “One more thing. About your parachutes. If you have to ditch and you’ve pulled the ripcord and the parachute does not open, here’s what you do.”

  He stepped aside from the podium and stood unsteadily, the muscles of his left foot making constant corrections in his balance while he twisted his right leg around his left, shoved both arms straight up in the air and wrapped his right arm around his left arm.

  Then he said, “It won’t do you a bit of good but it’ll make it a little easier for the rescue party to unscrew you out of the ground. Okay let’s take a five minute break.”

  They stood up laughing.

  He gathered them with the thunder of his voice. “Knock it off. Recess is over.”

  They returned to the benches and Pappy Johnson leaned on the podium.

  “The object of training is to get you misters into a condition where you can put a one-hundred-pound bomb on a postage stamp. Near-misses count in a game of horseshoes; they don’t count here. Now we’re going to make it a little bit easier for you because we’re going to limit the training to low-altitude bombardment. That’s because it’ll simplify things for all of us if all we do is train you to fly one specific mission. So I’m not going to fill your heads with the tricks of high-altitude bomb placement or how to evade flak at ten thousand feet. Those things won’t be your concern. Your problem is going to be strictly deck-level attacks.

  “You’re thinking the enemy will be able to hit you with rocks. Let me tell you misters that ain’t your problem. At combat speed a B-Seventeen travels nearly two hundred yards in two seconds. You aren’t likely to get shot down by rifles or machine guns from the ground. They won’t even get a chance to start shooting before you’ve gone out of range.

  “No. Your problem, gentlemen, when you’re flying treetop in a B-Seventeen, is going to be a lot worse than that.

  “You’ll be going in low all the way. Flying in the grass where Uncle Joe Stalin won’t find you. You’re going to fly so low you’ll have mud on your windshields. At that kind of altitude an aircraft can fly into thermal updrafts that act like concrete walls. It’s going to feel as if the air’s full of boulders. You’re going to have to manhandle those Fortresses every inch of the way to the target and if you take your hands off the control yoke for a split second you’re likely to find yourselves digging a tunnel with the nose of your airplane.”

  He stood up straight. “I think it’s time we went out and had a look at what a real airplane looks like. If you misters will follow me?”

  11

  Baron Yuri Lavrentovitch Ivanov’s house had been built for a titled cousin of Lord Nelson’s. The drawing room was very high, very dark and very English-a soft dark polish of woodwork and padded leather.

  Count Anatol took pride in his ability never to let feelings get the better of him but he had to fight the impulse to pace the room: he tried to force his mind into the discipline of reading but his eyes kept returning impatiently to the Seth Thomas clock on the oak mantel.

  Finally the Baron came in quickly on his short legs; he still wore his topcoat. “My deepest apologies, Anatol.”

  “I am not in the habit of being kept waiting.”

  “A cipher came in through the bag. I have just decoded it. There has been a complication.” The Baron shouldered out of his coat and threw it across a chair; he tossed an envelope on a low table and dropped into a leather reading chair beside it. “Did you know that Stalin employs a double?”

  Anatol felt his spine tighten. “No.”

  “He suffered a severe breakdown shortly after the German attack. He had to be spirited out of Moscow to a retreat in the Kuybyshev. For more than two weeks in June and July the Soviet government was run by Beria and Malenkov. They employed a double to put in public appearances to allay suspicions in Moscow. Obviously this was no last-minute deception-they must have had the understudy well-trained and waiting in the wings for just such an emergency. For those seventeen days the top Soviet echelon was powerful enough to manage things in Stalin’s absence. They kept the machinery functioning during the worst days of the panzer drive into Russia. They are stronger men than we have credited them.”

  “It only confirms what both Devenko and Danilov have insisted on-we cannot merely assassinate the top man, we must eliminate the entire palace guard.”

  “Quite. But that reasoning doesn’t apply in the calculations of our people in Germany. They have been moving forward on the assumption that they need only kill Stalin. They feel there would be no further resistance to a German victory. The Grand Duke Mikhail is eager to see Hitler win it.”

  “I know. That’s why we did not take him into our confidence.”

  “His people know something is in the wind. Rumors have ways of wafting across warring borders. They know we are up to something. That is why I had hoped one of them could meet us this week-I wanted to throw them off the scent. If you had told them to their faces that we were not trying to beguile Mikhail I think they might have believed it. Mikhail thinks of you as a friend-he trusts you.”

  “He has gone over to the Nazis. He is hoping Hitler will put him in the Kremlin-Mikhail would rather have a puppet throne than none at all. I want to see Russia ruled by Russians, not by an Austrian house painter.”

  “It is academic now what we tell Mikhail’s group about our plans. It appears they have a plan of their own.”

  “What?”

  “Mikhail’s people have concocted a plan to assassinate Stalin.”

  “You are sure?”

  “Quite sure. My informant says they plan to kill Stalin and make use of the double who has been so considerately prepared by Beria. The double will issue a few crucially wrong orders to the Red Army. The Germans will march into Moscow and the double will sue Hitler for peace. Only two men know about the existence of the double-Beria and Malenkov-and they are to be removed early on.” The Baron added drily, “You must grant it is an ingenious plan.”

  Anatol was stunned; he wasted no effort trying to hide it. “How soon is it to take place?”

  “As soon as possible, I should imagine. Why should they wait? Hitler is within three days’ march of Moscow. If the Red Army withdraws from his front there will be nothing to stop him.”

  Anatol watched the Baron’s small expressionless face. “We must prevent it.”

  “How? There is no time to effect our own coup ahead of them. Clearly Danilov requires several weeks yet before he is in readiness. And there would be no time to substitute Vassily Devenko’s plan.”

  “There is one way.”

  “Forgive me but I do not see it.”

  “It is quite simple,” Anatol said. “We must warn Stalin.”

  12

  At five Alex presided over a ground-company meeting of field officers. The four of them stood on the tarmac beyond the shadow of the main hangar.

  Across the field Pappy Johnson’s pilots were swarming over the bombers like children. A nimbus layer filtered the highland sun’s direct rays and even now there was a thin smell of winter in the air.

  John Spaight and the two Russian majors wore gabardine jump suits with bellows pockets. Major Ivan Postsev and Major Leo Solov had worked in tandem since the inception of the Russian Free Brigade under Vassily Devenko in 1934; in combat they were remarkable. If one needed support the other would appear with his men-ready, knowing what his partner wanted of him; there would be no evident
signal but each of them had that trick of soundlessly imposing his will on the other.

  Physically they presented a ludicrous contrast. Postsev had the muscular strength of ten but to look at him you wouldn’t have thought he’d have made it through the day: he was a cadaver-pasty and wrinkled. Solov was squat and had a smashed face; his ears were like scraps of beef liver; he moved with a dangle-armed roll. He was cautious by training but not by nature; with Postsev it was the reverse.

  “We’re going to be officer-heavy,” Alex told them. “That’s the way I want it because when we go into operation we’ll be in squad-size teams. I want an officer in command of each team. But for training purposes we’re splitting the company down the middle. There’ll be two platoons-one of you will command each of them. You’re going to have to be ahead of the others because General Spaight can’t be everywhere at once-you’ll have to lead a good bit of the training yourselves. Any problems?”

  Postsev said, “All our pilots seem to be in bomber training. Who is to fly the parachute training flights?”

  “You won’t start jumping from aircraft for more than a month yet. By then we’ll have the air contingent sorted out and six of the pilots will be assigned to the paradrop transports. In the meantime you’ll be learning to jump from a rapelling tower.”

  “Which brings us to a thorny one,” Spaight said. “We haven’t got a rapelling tower.”

  “Tomorrow morning Colonel MacAndrews is sending us a dockyard construction team with a mobile crane. They’re going to tear one of those small hangars apart and use the girders to build a tower on top of this hangar. It’ll give us a hundred-and-twenty-foot slide drop. It’s a little shorter than usual but it’ll have to do. I’ve got MacAndrews’s word it will be ready to climb by Thursday morning.”

  The regiment already had its obstacle course in the woods beyond the far end of the runway-coiled concertina barbed wire, trenches, inclined logs, culverts, climbing trestles, even a stream that came down out of the dark highlands beyond and flowed across the slope and down toward the Inverness flats.