Endgame (The Red Gambit Series Book 7)

by Colin Gee

  Fox Company had lost least and advanced most, the advance elements reaching the public swimming pool and obelisk fountain before the precariousness of their advance halted them.

  Reluctantly, Fox had pulled back as both flanks lay exposed.

  Easy Company had walked right into the Soviet mortar barrage and suffered high casualties.

  Williams decided that enough was enough and refused to commit Dog Company to the fool’s errand that the attack had turned into.

  Seventeen of the new weapons were sent back for intelligence analysts to examine, along with the initial debrief of a captured Soviet NCO.

  Before the intelligence haul went back, William’s G-2 officer examined everything and ok’d it for removal.

  He picked up one of the new weapons and felt its balance, both liking and hating it at the same time. Liking for its solid and reliable feel, hating it because it was in the hands of his enemy.

  He initialled the report and the weapons et al were taken away.

  He accepted a cigarette from his friend.

  “One things for sure, Al… we ain’t heard the last of them things.”

  Gesualdo nodded as he drew in the smoke.

  He’d seen the capability of these new… whatever they were… in action, and they were decidedly bad news.

  “Yep. Reckon those bastards will be around for a while. What they called?”

  The G-2 checked his notes.

  “No name, the guy just called it an AK-47.”

  “Well, name or not, the fucking thing’s bad news.”

  “Amen to that.”

  By the sword you did your work, and by the sword you die.

  From ‘Agamemnon’ by Aeschylus

  Chapter 194 - THE BLADES

  0904 hrs, Monday, 17th March 1947, Colonel General Kaganovich’s office, the Kremlin, Moscow, USSR.

  “Sit… sit… mind the cables… you look terrible, Comrade.”

  “I feel terrible, Comrade General.”

  She picked her way over the power leads to the film projector.

  “Was it a difficult journey back?”

  “No. The Allies made it quite clear that all members of delegations would travel unhindered, provided that details of flights were rostered… although I admit, I half expected a squadron of Spitfires to descend upon us en route.”

  Kaganovich could understand that, given the Allies’ treachery in launching an unprovoked attack… admittedly, he conceded to himself, before their own unprovoked attack on the Allies.

  A fine point, but an important one, although the act of the enemy had justified Stalin’s efforts to secure highly destructive weaponry and launch his own attack.

  He poured tea from a superbly ornate samovar he had recently acquired and placed one before the woman.

  “So, Tatiana, I’m intrigued as to why you’ve come to see me before presenting yourself and your report to the General Secretary…”

  That Kaganovich was intrigued was obvious, although Nazarbayeva had no idea what exactly the very dangerous man was intrigued about.

  “Officially, one of my men is flying in with a file to allow me to brief the GKO thoroughly… unofficially… I discovered something of great concern to me… and I decided that I’d come and speak to you first.”

  Inside, Kaganovich felt smug, but kept his face relatively blank, maintaining a modest enquiring look just to keep up appearances.

  “Then speak… and speak freely, Tatiana… I’ll do you no harm for speaking your mind to me… and rest assured there are no recording devices in the room.”

  Technically he was correct.

  The recorders were in a separate room.

  She launched into the presentation she had prepared in her room and on the flight back, revealing Pekunin’s treachery, the use of code words, although she decided not to reveal what they were.

  Kaganovich said nothing and simply listened, occasionally pursing his lips or shaking his head at her words.

  The existence of a secret group plotting to overthrow the leadership brought a gasp, as much for the fact that he had secretly hoped she didn’t know it, as much as for show.

  The accusations of Stalin starting the war on lies, the approach to resume her former mentor’s role as a go between… the knowledge of the submarine carrying anthrax…

  ‘Who the fuck is Polkovnik Ramsey?’

  The suspected existence of large Japanese submarines and equipment pertaining to their nuclear project…

  The words spilled from Nazarbayeva’s mouth.

  In another room, next to two recorders manned by NKVD personnel loyal to Kaganovich, two important men sat listening, hooked on every word.

  “So, what is that you ask of me, Comrade Nazarbayeva?”

  “These traitors… how best to smoke them out?”

  “You didn’t give me the code phrases… deliberate on your part, of course.”

  “Yes, Comrade General.”

  The silence was awkward.

  “Comrade General, let me be blunt. I suspect everyone, and if I told you the phrases…”

  “I understand, Comrade Nazarbayeva. More tea?”

  “Unless you have something stronger?”

  “Ah, yes… of course.”

  Rumours of her drinking and other proclivities had long since reached his ears, rumours he had carefully ushered away from other receptive ears, namely those of his direct boss.

  He opened his drawer and took out a small bottle of a home brewed walnut vodka, careful not to knock it against the Tokarev pistol he had set there earlier… just in case.

  The Deputy Head of the NKVD poured two measures and slid one glass across the polished desktop.

  “Na Zdorovie!”

  “So, what do you intend to do, Comrade?”

  “Clearly I need to flush these bastards out, but I’ve already tried, without luck… although I actually didn’t know who I was trying to contact. I simply used the phrases that Pekunin gave me.”

  She considered speaking further and committed herself.

  “VKG is important. He was listed by Pekunin. There were other names who rejected the idea… such as Molotov.”

  “Molotov was asked?”

  Kaganovich’s acting skills were excellent.

  “Yes… so… who is VKG?”

  “No idea, Comrade Nazarbayeva.”

  The listeners exchanged knowing looks.

  Kaganovich poured another drink before asking the big question.

  “What do you intend to do, Tatiana?”

  “Nothing yet, Comrade. I must discover who they are. I hoped you could help me with that?”

  “Possibly.”

  Nazarbayeva sat upright in an instant, the guarded comment sending a charge of electricity through her brain.

  “You know about this… you know about all of this, don’t you, Comrade General?”

  “I know some of it, Tatiana.”

  “Who are these bastards… these traitors… these…”

  He held up his hand and gestured her to sit down.

  “Traitors? No. Patriots… men who love the Rodina… yes.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she digested the words and assigned them meaning.

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  “I love the Motherland as I love my own children, Comrade Nazarbayeva. As a patriot, I’m prepared to act against enemies of the Rodina, be they inside or out.”

  She downed the latest drink in one and stood again.

  “I arrest you in the name of…”

  “Sit down, you stupid woman… SIT!”

  The door flew open and two guards, armed with state-of-the-art AK-47s, tumbled through the opening, alerted by the shouted word.

  Kaganovich held out a calming hand.

  “Thank you, Comrades, You may wait outside. A small disagreement, nothing more.”

  The two NKVD guards noted that the woman’s hand was on her empty holster, as if to grab for its missing contents, but ceded the room under orde
rs.

  “Please… sit down, Tatiana.”

  She did so and accepted a refilled glass, her mind whirling with the enormity of the situation.

  “Your old general… Pekunin… provided us with a way to get messages to the Allies regarding the potential for a change of leadership, one that he considered was the only way to save the Motherland from oblivion… and this was before the demonstration of atomic weapons by our enemies.”

  “But…”

  “But just listen. What you have heard is quite true. We went to war on false accusations… false information deliberately enhanced by our leadership to whip up a frenzy across the country. The Allies never intended to attack us…”

  “But…”

  “Listen! They never intended to attack us… never.”

  He calmed down enough to continue in an even voice.

  “We were sent to war by a leadership that simply wants more power and influence. All the dead, ours and theirs, are on the hands of men who care nothing for death… save their own!”

  Nazarbayeva went to interrupt but hesitated, her mind in a turmoil.

  “Your sons have been needlessly sacrificed on the paths of their ambition! You know I speak the truth, Tatiana.”

  He listed each in turn.

  “Vladimir… sacrificed on a suicidal mission contrived for purposes of revenge and little more.”

  “Oleg… Oleg deliberately betrayed by your leaders to advance some sort of tryst with Franco… which never even got off the ground. They sat in front of you and confessed it… they confessed it!”

  “Ilya assassinated by an agent of the NKVD… I’ve seen the reports on that one too… three sons, Tatiana, three sons…”

  “You don’t have to tell me what I’ve sacrificed for the Rodina, Comrade Polkovnik General!”

  Kaganovich nodded and held out his hands by way of apology, the palms upwards, almost as if to advance and embrace the woman.

  “Forgive me, Tatiana, but you’ve sacrificed too much… and not for the Rodina… no, for them. We all have. My son Gennady wounded and a prisoner in Italy… a cousin badly injured in pilot training, and two nephews lost in Germany… and my niece Mara… darling Mara…destroyed by napalm in the Moselle… and it’s been for nothing.”

  “Not for nothing!”

  “Yes, for nothing!”

  Tatiana teetered on the edge of an abyss, almost for the first time seeing her personal losses as a totality, and alongside that, the dawn of appreciation that they really might have been sacrificed just for other’s personal ambitions.

  The prop that had been her understanding that her sons had died for the Motherland started to crumble before Kaganovich’s eyes.

  He understood the mental struggle that was going on in front of him.

  “Tatiana, your sons died in the uniform of the Red Army, serving the Rodina, but under false pretences… circumstances that were contrived by the leadership… a leadership that has betrayed the trust placed in it… a leadership that must be replaced so that the Motherland can survive.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek as she looked up into his eyes.

  “But Comrade Stalin is our leader… we owe him so much… so much…”

  He offered his handkerchief.

  “Comrade Stalin brought us through the Patriotic War but has since steered the Rodina down the paths of his own, and others, agendas. How many more mothers must mourn because of his… because of their personal agendas?”

  “But the Allies have just attacked us!”

  “Did they? Come on then. What signs did you see? What intelligence did you miss? You gave no warning to the GKO… did you fail?”

  “Quite clearly I failed, Comrade General.”

  “As did I… but there were no signs… were there?”

  “No… except…”

  “Except?”

  “The Germans… there was something going on with them… nothing solid… just rumours.”

  “Indeed… but that aside… our leadership intends to take us back to war again… a war that would have seen new terrors on both sides. I talk of atomic weapons and the biological and nerve agents we captured from the Germans or secured from the Japanese.”

  He stood and looked out of the large window.

  “You know yourself, the submarine was carrying Anthrax. It was the plan to insert that into the drinking water in Northern Germany. That plan was already in motion, Tatiana… a plan from which you were excluded.”

  A thought struck her like a thunderbolt.

  “Raduga… the whole thing… running to take the war back to the Allies… before they attacked… if they attacked… it didn’t matter if they attacked?”

  “No, Tatiana… it didn’t.”

  “Atomic… biological… nerve gas… everything?”

  “Yes, and we both know it has been for some time… in fact… it never really stopped and was always offensive in nature, despite what you were told.”

  “They intended to take us back to war in any case? All that time… despite their words of appeasement… the ceding of territory… the casualties, millions of dead… regardless… come what may… German provocation… they wanted war again? Holy Mother.”

  “Yes, Holy Mother indeed. Now, we have the bomb… and they have the bomb… and we’ll all annihilate each other unless this is ended.”

  “How?”

  Kaganovich laughed softly.

  “That’s the question, Tatiana. There seems little way to do so without… well…”

  “Removing them?”

  “Removing… yes… in some way…”

  “Killing them?”

  “Yes. There would seem to be no other way.”

  In the other the room, the listeners held their breath.

  “To save the Rodina, kill the General Secretary and sue for peace?”

  “We just sued for peace, a peace that saw us retain Polish territory and other advantages. That peace has just been shattered by some means as yet unclear to us. Who can say if that it wasn’t our doing? I certainly know that, no matter what, our leader intended to take us back to war once his pet project was fully functioning. So I cannot deny… you cannot deny that this latest attack actually wasn’t actually orchestrated by our leadership?”

  “There were no indications!”

  “There were no indications of any attack… by them… or by us.”

  Nazarbayeva’s mind was in a whirl as it was assaulted by new words and thoughts.

  ‘You have a son and a husband in uniform still… will they too be killed in such a cause?’

  Kaganovich sensed his moment.

  “What else can we do, Tatiana? What would you have us do? …What would you do?”

  The verbal barrage overwhelmed her momentarily.

  “To save the Rodina… the Motherland… you do what needs to be done.”

  She pushed her empty glass forward in expectation of a refill, and the NKVD general obliged.

  “So, the question is, would you join any group that put the Motherland first, and looked to rid the Rodina of the present leadership?”

  The question was huge and elicited no answer.

  Kaganovich became very aware of the growing presence of the Tokarev automatic in his drawer.

  “There must be another way, Comrade General.”

  “Perhaps there is. Let me know if you discover it, Comrade Nazarbayeva.”

  He returned the bottle to the drawer, and left it open enough to ensure that the pistol could be out in a moment.

  “So, what will you do? Will you betray us? Me?”

  “No, Comrade Kaganovich. I will not. What purpose would that serve? If things are as you say… as they seem… then we must protect the Rodina… but I find it hard to believe that the lust for personal glory and such has brought is to this. I’ll think more on this, but I will not betray you, but neither will I be a party to violence against the General Secretary.”

  “Not betray us, you mean… it’s not just me.”


  “No… VKG to name but one. Who is VKG?”

  “He’ll reveal himself in good time, I’m sure.”

  1000 hrs, Monday, 17th March 1947, Colonel General Kaganovich’s office, the Kremlin, Moscow, USSR.

  “So, do we kill her or do we hope she comes on board?”

  Khrushchev shrugged in peasant fashion.

  “If she doesn’t see it our way, we have no choice.”

  VKG nodded but stayed silent.

  He did not want Nazarbayeva’s blood on his hands but, in real terms, they were already tainted with the blood of thousands so one more innocent made little difference.

  “You know her better than we do. We take a risk every second we sit here, but she is central to our plans. With her we can achieve everything and seize power. Without her… well… we would need to rethink so much.”

  “And that’s important, Comrades. It’s not just a question of removing the bastards… they must be replaced by the right leadership… namely us.”

  VKG nodded and added his own comment.

  “And we know that with Nazarbayeva’s help we can achieve this.”

  Kaganovich conceded both statements.

  “So, more pressure. Is it time?”

  The two others pondered the question.

  “Are we ready to go?”

  Khrushchev’s enquiry was aimed at the military man.

  “No, but we can adapt and seize any moment. I can order the Moscow Military District to act whenever I need.”

  Kaganovich reminded them of his own objections.

  “If we use her now, we may lose control over the situation. She is as likely to go off like a rocket as join us in carefully laid plans.”

  They understood his often-stated position.

  “We must retain control over the situation… but we need her… she must be committed and controlled. The seeds have been sown today. She’ll be watched, and any hint of betrayal will result in her instant removal… my men have specific orders on that. The stakes are high but we still have time… I think. “

  “And you assure us she won’t decide to betray us?”

  He answered Khrushchev’s question with a shake of his head.

  “No… but I assure you that if she decides to do so, she’ll die before she manages it.”