by Nick Cook
“Nadia, look through these photographs until you see the man with the eyes. When you see him, you must tell me, do you understand? I have to know.”
The girl was scared. She nodded at Beria, following his gaze down to the file on his desk. The pool of light from the lamp fell upon the photograph of a general she did not recognize. She shook her head. Beria flicked the pages over. He kept on turning them until the girl froze.
“That’s him,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Her voice faltered. Seeing those eyes again made Nadia Nerchenko every bit as scared as the time when she had first come across Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov in the flesh.
Beria pushed her aside, taking no notice of her crying as she ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. He picked up the phone and dialled the number of his senior investigation department at the Centre. He was connected straight away with Shlemov. “I want to know the whereabouts of Shaposhnikov . . . shall we say over the last six months? That means who he’s seen, where he’s been, who he’s sleeping with, women, men . . . got the picture?
The clipped, unquestioning tones of NKVD Major Vladimir Filippovich Shlemov filtered through the static on the line.
“And while you’re about it,” Beria shouted, “do the same for that lap-dog of his, Colonel Nikolai Ivanovich Krilov.” The NKVD chief turned to the door of the bedroom, satisfying himself that it was closed and he could not be overheard. “Finally, get me the file on Army General Nerchenko, deputy commander-in-chief of the First Ukrainian Front. But make it discreet. Comrade Major, discreet. I want that report on my desk by morning.”
He hung up and walked towards the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. The Nerchenko girl’s disclosure had caused the hairs on the back of his policeman’s neck to bristle. It was a feeling he had learned to enjoy.
* * * * * * * *
If anything, the Bunker had acquired a certain benevolence since the shock briefing on the Russian invasion plan for Europe, the plan called Archangel. Fifty feet beneath the pavements of Whitehall, with no natural light or sounds of everyday life to distract him, it was hard to believe that anything as nightmarish could exist on the outside.
Fleming knew that to have endorsed Operation Guardian Angel, the Cabinet advisers had to be desperate. For all Staverton’s drive and determination, it stood little chance of success. Even the Germans, desperate as they were, had not cleared the Me 163C for operational use. And they still had to persuade Kruze to undertake the mission.
Staverton was bent over a large-scale map of southern Europe, drawing a hemispherical arc with his compasses, when the phone rang. He picked up the receiver and listened intently for about a minute before replacing it. His lip quivered involuntarily beneath his clipped, grey moustache.
Fleming stopped his calculations. “What is it?”
“The 163’s crashed.” Staverton’s head lolled into his hands. “It’s all over.”
Fleming was on his feet. “What about Kruze?”
“He’s alive.”
“What the hell happened?”
Staverton’s voice was weak, almost inaudible. “The fuel tanks ruptured in midair and T-Stoff leaked into the cockpit, but Kruze stayed with the aircraft and brought it back in, the bloody fool. He was lucky.” He paused. “What the hell am I going to tell Welland?”
“First things first. Is Kruze all right?”
“He’s with the MO at Farnborough having the onceover. He’ll live. You know Kruze.” Staverton banged his fist on the table. “Why did this have to go and happen now?”
Fleming composed himself. “It was a rush operation, sir.” And a damned stupid one, he thought. “What state’s the 163 in?”
“Badly damaged. Mulvaney said something about a design fault.”
“Then at least that’s solved one of our problems,” Fleming said. “The Nazis can’t exactly defend the Alpine Redoubt with a fighter that doesn’t work.”
“The Alpine Redoubt could have bloody well waited,” Staverton snapped. “I don’t have to tell you that.”
Fleming paced the room for at least a minute before he spoke.
“The rocket fighter has served its purpose; it’s persuaded the other Cabinet advisers that an air-strike in a fast German fighter-bomber is the only way of getting through to Branodz.”
“Don’t waste your breath, laddie. The Komet had the speed, it had the range and it had the punch. Now it’s just a pile of useless junk, beyond repair. We’ve nothing else capable of doing the job.”
Fleming smiled. “We haven’t anything here at Farnborough, but the Germans have.”
“What are you getting at?” Staverton asked.
Fleming lit a cigarette and looked Staverton in the eye. “With all due respect, sir, using the Komet for a deep interdiction mission would never have worked.”
“Oh yes? And how would you have done it, Robert?” Staverton’s tone was challenging.
“I would have resurrected Operation Talon, sent a team into Germany to steal a fighter-bomber from a Luftwaffe base. If it worked at Rostock, it can work again. This time, though, the team would be small, hand-picked. We would need a pilot, a link-man and an able German speaker.”
Staverton remained silent.
“I could fly that aircraft,” Fleming added.
“No, Robert.”
“I’m all right now,” Fleming said simply.
Staverton shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how fit you are, laddie, we don’t have the resources to reactivate Operation Talon at such short notice. Apart from finding a pilot, we’ve got to lay our hands on a shepherd, someone who could guide our man to the airfield, get him safely through the Reich. They don’t come two a penny, you know, not even in SOE.”
“There must be something you can do. What about your friends in Intelligence? Surely they must have trained operatives ready to drop into Germany at a moment’s notice. We can’t give up now.”
When Fleming looked up at Staverton he noticed that he was sitting ramrod straight, his eyes gleaming.
“What is it?” Fleming asked.
“Something you said just now. Perhaps . . .”
Staverton got up and walked over to the solid grey filing cabinet in the corner of the room. He twiddled the combination lock on the side and pulled open the second drawer from the top. Thirty seconds later he held the Operation Talon file in his hand. Fleming watched him expectantly.
“Perhaps we could find ourselves a shepherd after all,” Staverton said. “What aircraft did you have in mind for this mission?”
“An Arado 234 from Oberammergau.” Fleming went over to the map, picked up Staverton’s compass and drew an arc whose point lay deep in the brown and purple topography of the Bavarian Alps. “That’s a 234’s approximate range - enough to get into western Czechoslovakia and out again, even at low level. The rest would be up to the pilot.”
“There definitely are 234s at Oberammergau?”
“Been deployed there for a few weeks now,” Fleming said. “My men have had them under high altitude surveillance since they got there. With our troops moving into Bavaria I wanted to see if Oberammergau was worth a diversion. I know that airfield like the back of my hand.”
“We’ve never laid our hands on an airworthy Arado, though. We’d need time to familiarize a pilot on the type, and time we don’t have.”
“I don’t think that’s a problem,” Fleming said. “From our calculations the 234 would not be that different from the Me 262 as far as its controls and flight characteristics go. Almost all the pilots at the EAEU flew the Messerschmitt at Farnborough before it was destroyed.”
Staverton wasn’t convinced. “I was too bloody clever for my own good believing that we could use the Komet for this mission. The PM will never buy a change in the plan now.”
Fleming could see the fatigue behind the old man’s eyes. “Not necessarily. Kruze is all right and the demo worked. If you hadn’t staged something that exotic
Welland would still be racing off at half cock with notions about parachuting assassination squads into Czechoslovakia. As it is, they’ve recommended to the Prime Minister that the EAEU mounts a mission against the Russians. You’ve won their confidence. Now all you have to do is prove that a new scheme based on an extraction operation from Oberammergau is watertight. We have to persuade them that it’s just a matter of reactivating Talon.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” Staverton opened a drawer in his desk and produced a half-empty bottle of whisky. He poured himself a measure and offered some to Fleming. The younger man shook his head.
Staverton raised his glass. “It’s good to have you back. I missed you.” It was the first time he had seen a crack in the Old Man’s facade. Staverton took a sip of the whisky and rolled it on his tongue. “It’s got to be Kruze, Robert. He has the skill, a little of the language and the experience. It has to be Kruze.” He shook his head. “Otherwise it will be over to Welland and his SBS team, God help us.”
“Does that mean you’re going to put this to the Cabinet advisers?”
Staverton leant forward, his face so close to Fleming that he could smell the whisky on the AVM’s breath. “No, Robert.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am not going to tell the Cabinet advisers. They’re reactionaries. A change of plan now would throw them into disarray.”
“You’re just going to go ahead without their approval? You’ll never get away with it.”
“They’ll never know, until it’s all over and either Shaposhnikov is dead or we are.”
“You can’t keep that crash a secret. Not from the other Cabinet advisers at least,” Fleming said.
Staverton was already reaching for the phone. “Can’t I?”
A few seconds later and the AVM was connected with Mulvaney.
“Paddy? I want you to throw a cordon around the crash so tight that no news of it leaks out. Have all incoming calls screened, all outgoing calls stopped and all leave suspended. Nobody gets off the airfield. Have you got that? If anyone from Whitehall rings you for a progress report on the 163C tell them the flight was a success and the aircraft’s undergoing deep maintenance . . . anything except the truth. Is that understood?”
He put the phone down. Mulvaney would not question an order from Staverton.
“But we need to reactivate the network established for Talon. That’s going to take high level approval.”
“There are people at Intelligence who owe me,” Staverton said, getting to his feet. “Meanwhile, find out if our man is still fit to fly and, if he is, get him to report here tonight.” He picked up his coat. “I’m going to get us our shepherd.”
Left alone, Fleming went back to his calculations, losing his fears in the 234’s performance data, fuel consumption, time of flight between Oberammergau and Branodz, weapon loads. From Oberammergau, which was close to Munich, to Shaposhnikov at Branodz, it was only a matter of two hundred miles on the inbound leg, but since the whole trip had to be done at low level fuel consumption would be high . . .
Fleming was so absorbed in double-checking the details of Operation Guardian Angel that he wasn’t aware of the phone until the third ring. When he picked it up, he recognized General Deering’s voice immediately.
“Whatever arrangements you still need to make to get the 163C over to Germany, Fleming, you’d better get a damned move on.” The General’s voice no longer maintained its steady, Sandhurst drawl. “We’ve just had word from our embassy in Moscow. Shaposhnikov left yesterday to, and I quote, ‘boost the morale of the Red Army at the front’. He’s due in Branodz tomorrow. Archangel’s moving and sooner than we thought. The PM wants you on your way by midday tomorrow.”
* * * * * * * *
The four-star general from Moscow’s embassy liaison office stood to attention before the Commander in Chief of the Soviet Armed Forces. The Commander was bending over maps of the front, seemingly absorbed by the minutiae of each projected troop movement that was recorded there in coloured crayon.
Until a few weeks ago, Army General Semyon Sabak’s place had been here, in Stalin’s operations centre in the Kremlin. He missed his strategic role, even though he knew that his new position allowed him to play out the most crucial role he was ever likely to face in his military career.
Stalin glanced up. The look of mild irritation on his face disappeared the moment he saw who it was.
“Ah, Sabak. You said you had news,” Stalin said.
“I received a telephone call from the British Military Attaché, Brigadier Vereker.” Sabak pronounced the ‘v’ as a ‘w’.
“Ah yes, the ‘Attaché’ . . .”
“He was enquiring as to the whereabouts of Comrade Marshal Shaposhnikov,” Sabak said.
“Why did he want to know?” Stalin turned away from the map.
“The British mission wants a progress report on our front operations for onward transmission to London. I reminded him that such briefings are given through the liaison bureau and not the Chief of the General Staff, but he was most insistent. He wanted to meet with Shaposhnikov personally.”
“I briefed the ambassador and his defence staff a few days ago,” Stalin said. “The British know that nothing significant has changed. What did you tell him?”
“Exactly what we agreed, Comrade Stalin. Marshal Shaposhnikov left Moscow yesterday on his morale boosting tour of the front. That he would be in Branodz, Czechoslovakia, tomorrow.”
Stalin smiled. “Well? What are your conclusions?”
“The British have never requested a meeting with Marshal Shaposhnikov. Suddenly they are showing interest in him. I think they have it.”
“So Paliev’s message did get through after all,” the Generalissimo said, a gleam in his eyes. “When news came through of the ambush I thought we would have to make other arrangements.”
“It is too early to be certain, Comrade Stalin, but it would seem so. We will monitor British and American troop movements just to be sure. We should know within the next few days.”
Stalin nodded his satisfaction. “Keep me informed,” he said.
* * * * * * * *
Herries paced the room impatiently. He had spent the afternoon telling everything he knew about the area around Branodz and the dummy tank build-up at Chrudim. In return, he had been promised his freedom; a reward for his having opened the bidding, White-Smith had told him. The man from Military Intelligence, Section 6, seemed happy with the level of detail Herries had given him and, having finished his copious notes, withdrew. The Freikorps debriefing would take place over the next few weeks in less austere surroundings. In other words, he was about to be paroled.
White-Smith reluctantly promised that the transfer papers would be produced by the evening, but six o’clock had come and gone and there was no sign. Herries took a step towards the door and smashed his fist against it. He called out for White-Smith, but there was no response, not a sound from the entire building.
He slumped on the floor, his back against the wall, rubbing his knuckles where the flesh was torn.
The footsteps made him start. The metal toe caps of the police guard clattered up the stairs. His heartbeat quickened and he had difficulty breathing. He was going home.
Once more the key scraped in the lock. Herries did not bother to get to his feet as the door swung open.
He was surprised when he didn’t see White-Smith. Instead, a tall, ageing RAF officer loomed over him. His iron grey hair and precisely trimmed moustache made him look distinguished in a way White-Smith never could, but there was also a hardness about the face and eyes which made him clamber to his feet.
“Good, I don’t like a man who spends his time around my ankles.” The tone was unforgiving and betrayed a hint of the man’s origins, somewhere in the north.
“Who are you?” Herries asked. “Where’s White-Smith?”
“My name’s Staverton, but don’t bother memorizing it because we won’t be meeting again after today. And as for
White-Smith, shall we say, he has temporarily handed over the matter of your re-education to me.”
Staverton moved into the middle of the garret and waved the guard away. The door was closed once again.
“Where are my release papers?” Herries went on the offensive. “What’s a bloody air force officer doing on my case? My business is with the army and military intelligence.”
Staverton walked casually round the little attic room, occasionally pulling at a piece of loose plaster or peeling wallpaper. He seemed not to hear.
“I demand that you get me out of here before I utter another word, do you understand me?”
Staverton peered out of the window, minutely studying the rooftops and the budding trees. Beneath the composure, his mind worked fast. He prided himself on his ability to judge accurately on first impressions. In Herries’ ruthless, aquiline features and deep-set eyes he saw a cornered animal. Afraid, yes, but dangerous. The very person he needed. The very person Kruze would need if he were going to penetrate the crumbling defences of the Third Reich and steal the Arado jet bomber from Oberammergau.
He saw a sudden movement reflected in the window and whirled round to see Herries bearing down on him, his face contorted with rage. “I’ve delivered, now you owe me,” he screamed, his hands raised to strike.
The momentum in Staverton’s upper body gave him the advantage. He brought his fist up into Herries’ jaw. Herries reeled, arms flailing for balance. He fell in a heap on the bed in the corner.
Staverton wanted to rub his knuckles, but did not. He looked down, revulsion for the man boiling up inside him. Herries knew it and lay still, his eyes narrowed.
“You’ll get nothing from me unless you listen very carefully to what I have to say,” Staverton said as evenly as possible. He delved into the breast pocket of his jacket and produced an envelope. “This is for you.”
Herries, nursing his jaw with one hand, took the small brown envelope. He ripped it open and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He read it and then leant back on the bed and laughed.
