Endgame (The Red Gambit Series Book 7)

by Colin Gee

  VKG made his decision.

  “Then we’re agreed. We wait?”

  In unison, they voiced their agreement.

  “We wait.”

  Nazarbayeva completed her briefing for the GKO without mention of the going-on in Kaganovich’s office, or of her contact with Ramsey.

  Her need to tackle Stalin direct on matters relating to Raduga had long since taken second place to her professional needs to equip her leadership with the best information possible.

  In concert with Beria, she repeated the intelligence view that there was no hint of any action on the part of the Allies, a rare agreement between them.

  But, none the less, the Allies had attacked.

  ‘Appeared to attack…’

  Her hints at some issue with the Germans again received support from Beria, but were scoffed at by the General Secretary, who lambasted his Intelligence officers for their lack of ability.

  Others had been removed, or worse, for lesser offences, Stalin reminded them both.

  None the less, neither was relieved nor sanctioned, which in itself gave Nazarbayeva food for thought.

  ‘Was it you, General Secretary, eh? Is that why you laugh at the German issues, eh? Is that why you only chastise us, eh? Because you know it was you?’

  The presence of armed NKVD guards in the briefing room was a new occurrence, based upon a recommendation from Beria, who suspected there might be treachery afoot.

  In honesty, Beria always suspected treachery, but Kaganovich had been quite insistent, so handpicked men were now permitted to attend such meetings, men with selectively deaf ears and alert eyes, ready for any sign of trouble.

  One of them had been ready to gun Nazarbayeva down the moment she opened her mouth, but she had stayed true to her word.

  However, she still had her own needs, again agitated into life by Stalin’s behaviour, and the words tumbled from her lips.

  “Comrade General Secretary. I have a question.”

  “By all means, Comrade.”

  “Raduga. Is it still running in any way?”

  “No.”

  Stalin looked her straight in the eye with his best paternal and reassuring look.

  “You know it was closed down. Research continues of course, but the operation is defunct. Now, I’ve an important meeting. Is that all?”

  “Yes, thank you, Comrade General Secretary.”

  ‘Bastard!’

  And in the moment, she changed.

  1133 hrs, Tuesday, 18th March 1947, Medzany, Czechoslovakia.

  ‘At last!’

  Across the battlefield, the hammering rain reduced in intensity, allowing men to see a little further than the fifty yards or so that had been the case during the first two attacks.

  Officer’s and NCO’s voices rose in unison, shouting the motto of the elite unit.

  “Go for broke!”

  The Nisei threw themselves forward for a third time, encouraged by the lessening fire from the Soviet positions.

  The Soviet cavalrymen, without horses for as long as they could remember, stood their ground and died in their scores, fighting with shashkas in hand when ammunition ran out.

  Fig # 231 - US Forces engaged at Veľký Saris.

  Occasionally one Cossack would get lucky and cut a Japanese-American down, but invariably they died where they stood, shot down safely from distance.

  A knot of Cossacks formed around an officer and those with ammunition shot down attackers, causing the assault to peter out once more.

  The major in charge pulled his men back and called in the air support that had now, finally, become available.

  A number of Takeo’s men would still be alive had the weather cleared in time, but it didn’t, and he had lost comrades who had journeyed with him from Hawaii through Italy to the heart of the eastern border of Czechoslovakia.

  Four USAAF Thunderbolts swept in from the west and deposited their HVAR rockets on the remaining enemy positions, as steered in by the Nisei’s attached Forward Air Controller.

  The man knew his trade, as did the American fliers, and a hole was blasted in the last line of defence.

  For their part, the cavalrymen of 3rd Battalion, 22nd Guards Cavalry Regiment, showed great valour and tried to patch up their line as best they could, but the FAC played his trump card, and three A-25 Shrikes, recently configured for ground attack, flew in a staggered line formation and deposited gallons of napalm across the Soviet lines.

  Chikara Takeo checked that the FAC had no more aircraft inbound and sprang to his feet.

  “Let’s go! Go for broke!”

  His men followed suit and they swept forward into the oily smoke, dispatching a screaming burning soldier here and there.

  Instinct saved Takeo as he flung himself sideways, a hideously burned Cossack lunging out of the smoke with a smoking and broken rifle, its bayonet still efficient enough to catch in the trigger guard of his carbine and wrench it from his grasp.

  The crazed man failed to disentangle his weapon before one of Takeo’s men put three bullets into him, releasing him from his tortured world.

  His saviour screamed and went down clutching his shoulder as a bullet came out of the smoke and smashed into the joint, wrecking it completely.

  Without ceremony, Takeo grabbed the Garand and slipped a spare clip out of the crying soldier’s pouch.

  The attack was again losing momentum, more so because of the choking smoke and fumes than any stiff resistance on the part of the Cossacks.

  The ground, churned by artillery and mortars, and already affected by heavy rain and the continuing thaw, was horrendous underfoot, clogging and sucking at the feet of the men struggling through it, which also the Nisei’s advance.

  Again, the surviving Cossacks rallied behind an officer and even launched a small counter-attack, which brought the FAC away from his radio and to the more earthly arts of self-defence.

  He used his carbine to defend himself but, even so, desperate enemy made it to his position and hacked him to death, although neither of them lived for more than the briefest of heartbeats more.

  As the smoke cleared, Takeo look out over a landscape the like of which he had never seen before.

  The bodies were everywhere, and in the many and unusual positions of death that high explosive can create.

  The cratered landscape was no more or less than he had expected, given the barrage that had been laid down before his attack.

  It was the tree stumps that created the incredible feeling of some distant planet’s surface, combined with the small fires that burned brightly, sometimes vegetation, often something that had once lived and breathed.

  He produced his binoculars and scanned the ground, seeking out further opposition before he moved on to his final objective atop the daunting Height 570, topped with the ruins of the ancient Saris Castle.

  There seemed to be nothing, at least, nothing alive to stand between him and his final yards of advance.

  Not until just below the summit did his eyes detect anything that looked like a threat.

  The rain started again and the cloudy sky again turned milky yellow and full of threat.

  “Major! Major!”

  Takeo turned to see his headquarters group close up.

  “From Colonel Petersen… he expected you to be on the objective by now.”

  Takeo smiled widely.

  “What did he actually say, Akio?”

  “Err… you’re to get your ass on that goddamned fucking hill pronto or you’ll have a new job overseeing latrine details.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  He checked the hill again, carefully studying the route he had chosen.

  “OK, we go with Able Company leading on the left there. Tell Captain Ishuri to wait for me. I’ll be there to lead the attack.”

  Takeo suddenly remembered the Garand in his hands and helped himself to some of his radio operator’s ammo as he talked.

  “Contact Baker and Dog to provide covering fire o
n the top and right side. I want one platoon from each assigned to my headquarters as an additional reserve… straight away. Get the sniper section set up…”

  He scanned the battlefield for a suitable area and immediately remembered one, a modest range of what were probably once farm buildings at the bottom of the slope, now virtually levelled by the battles that had rolled over them during the last few years.

  “Get them set up there a-sap.”

  Akio Tanuga made swift notes.

  “I’m off to prep Able… let them know I’m coming, Lieutenant. I’ll deal with Charlie on my way. Get the others set up and let me know when we’re all ready to roll. If Petersen calls, tell him I’m leading from the front.”

  Takeo ducked beneath a protruding branch and caught his sword’s handle, halting his progress.

  “Whoa Major.”

  Tanuga grabbed the handle and extracted it from the embrace of the fallen tree.

  “Good to go, Major.”

  “Thanks.”

  Takeo sprinted across the muddy battlefield to where Charlie Company sat in close reserve, waiting for instructions.

  1150 hrs Tuesday, 18th March 1947, Saris Castle, Height 570, Veľký Šariš, Czechoslovakia.

  “Steady, comrades, steady now. Remember who you are!”

  Those who had known the man during the Patriotic War would have been staggered at the change in him, from miscreant and troublemaker to a leader of men, men who would follow him to and through the gates of hell, which was about where they presently found themselves.

  Captain Vasily Egonevich Kazakov had come a long way since he had killed his own officer in front of the Gurkha positions all those months previously.

  22nd Guards Cavalry Regiment had seen a great deal of fighting and had paid for its experience in rivers of blood, so few of those left having been there at the start.

  Such was the 22nd’s reputation that it had been kept reinforced whilst other regiments in the Corps had been allowed to wither, often supplying the reinforcements that kept the 22nd alive.

  Whether the 22nd was currently alive was a matter of opinion, so ravaged was it by the fury of the US assaults.

  As normal, many casualties were caused by air and artillery strikes, but the horrendous weather had brought a respite from the former, one that had provided the experienced soldiers with opportunities to strengthen their positions and get ammunition forward.

  Not enough on either count, as it proved, the expenditure of bullets far in excess of norms for far less return in the murky wet conditions.

  Fig # 232 Soviet forces engaged at Veľký Saris.

  The removal of the only undamaged bridge over the Torysa River to their rear also contributed to the slowing trickle of ammunition that reached them.

  3rd Battalion had been given the prize position, that of the hill, castle and adjoining slopes, a position that was presently stacked with their dead and wounded, and one that had shrunk considerably over the last eleven plus hours.

  What was left of 3rd Battalion clung to the summit and ruins, Takeo’s last attack having wiped out the remaining groups that had not been able to pull back up the slope.

  “Comrade Kapitan! The Amerikanski are moving!”

  Kazakov sprinted to the right side of his position to where one of his senior NCOs pointed down the slope.

  At the same time, bullets and mortar rounds started to arrive, marking the start of Baker and Dog companies covering efforts.

  “They’re focussing on this side, away from the town.”

  “I think so too, Comrade Kapitan, Your orders?”

  “Hold them back, Vassily. I’ll bring more men over, and see what help our mortar comrades can provide for us.”

  Fig # 233 - Vel’ky Saris, Czechoslovakia.

  Kazakov could no longer contact the artillery support, his radios and operators long since departed, victims of accurate artillery.

  In any case, it was of little import, given that French Typhoons had found the allocated support regiment on the move and scattered guns and prime movers to the winds with their rockets and cannon fire.

  The Cossack captain moved quickly back, occasionally throwing a glance at the areas into which small arms fire was arriving, and was more often being rewarded with the sight of his men, well hidden and safe.

  Here and there the sight of a newly-killed corpse was apparent, but for the most part there were few casualties to the blizzard of fire.

  He ducked inside the castle ruins and found his team hard at work, new telephone cables installed but already made redundant by the last barrage.

  “Get it sorted, Comrade Starshina!”

  The man’s protestations were cut short and the NCO signaller, newly arrived with 3rd Battalion and unaware of his commander’s lack of good grace, returned to organising another wire-laying party.

  “Ammunition parties?”

  “Comrade Kapitan, I have sent more men back. Not one of the last two parties has returned. We have what we have.”

  The NKVD Lieutenant shrugged, which simple action riled the volatile Kazakov, but he stayed his hand. Now was not the time to get embroiled with the Chekist who, despite his youth and fanatical devotion to the ‘fucking party’, was actually quite an efficient officer.

  None the less, the Cossack officer’s words contained a certain barb.

  “This is your responsibility, Comrade Leytenant. We need more ammunition or we’ll be swatted off this fucking hill… and it’ll be your name that tops my fucking report. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, Comrade Kapitan.”

  Kazakov motioned to his second-in-command as he lit a cigarette.

  “Boris, the Amerikanski are preparing for an attack on our right, using the hill to mask our support elements in the town. I’m going to need a response group. That’s where you come in. Reform my reserve.”

  He leant out of one of the numerous holes, encouraging Boris Tarkovsky to look where he pointed.

  “That’s diversionary fire… I’m sure of it. I’m going to risk everything on that decision. I want two men in three withdrawn right now. No heavy weapons… leave the machine-guns behind… DPs only on that score. Form two platoons, ready to act as reserve, under your command. I want you position there,” he pointed to an area covered with rubble and the shreds of vegetation, “Organised for defence to the north and northwest, but ready to move on my orders… or your own, of course.”

  He moved across the area with surprising speed and pushed the camouflage netting upwards.

  “I want what’s left organised in three equal groups. Send one to me immediately at Vassily’s position, and have the other two organised similarly north and northeast.”

  Kazakov stopped for a moment, partially to draw down on his cigarette and partially to consider an important question.

  He resolved it with a nod of his head in the direction of Junior Lieutenant Ryabkov.

  “Young Klimenti has command of that. Any questions?”

  “General orders. Comrade Kapitan?”

  “Hold the hill… kill them all… any more questions?”

  Kazakov slapped his friend on the shoulder.

  “Good. Let’s move. The bastards’ll be upon us shortly.”

  He sprinted from the headquarters position content that he had done all he could do, but worried by the fact that his last magazine was already on his weapon.

  At his waist was his Tokarev.

  In his scabbard was his shashka.

  At his side was a kukri that once belonged to a Gurkha soldier whom he had slain with the man’s very own weapon…

  …which, by Kazakov’s reckoning, also made it his.

  1201 hrs, Tuesday, 18th March 1947, base of Height 570, Medzany, Czechoslovakia.

  Captain Ishuri cried.

  Cried for his wife… his sons… his mother… his life.

  Within seconds of rising from the ground to lead his men forward, a sniper’s bullet had smashed its way through his stomach and shattered against his ver
tebra beyond, destroying both bone and delicate spinal cord in the process.

  In truth, he cried more for the life he expected now to live, more than the possibility that it might now be ending.

  The medic did what he could with the stomach wound, rolling his captain gently onto his back, and in the doing ensuring that the spinal cord was forever sundered, as sharp bone moved and completed the process of creating a paraplegic.

  Takeo could spare Able Company’s commander no time as he shouted the men forward up the increasing slope.

  The shell holes and detritus of war proved both a godsend and an impediment, as the task of moving upwards was made more difficult, interspersed with moments when the attackers were safe within sheltered ground.

  Naturally, the men started to enjoy these moments, and Takeo found the steam going out of his attack.

  “Get moving! Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

  Here and there a man would go down and not rise. But the fire was surprising light, almost to the point where Takeo wondered if there was some trap in store.

  He dropped into a small depression and extended his hand for the walkie-talkie.

  As he started to speak, he realised he was kneeling in over a foot of water.

  ‘Shit.’

  “Kapuna-Seven-Six, Kapuna-Six-One, over.”

  “Kapuna-Six-One, Kapuna-Seven-Six receiving, over.”

  “Kapuna-Seven-Six. Shoot X-Ray now. I repeat, shoot X-Ray now, over.”

  “Kapuna-Six-one. On the way, over.”

  Takeo stuck his head up and decided to leapfrog to another hole before the mortars came down.

  They dropped pretty much on the money and he decided not to issue any corrections.

  “Kapuna-Seven-Six. Kapuna-Six-One, on the money. Two minute intervals, Acknowledge, over.”

  “Kapuna-Six-One, Kapuna-Seven-Six, two minute intervals, understood. Over.”

  Takeo tossed the walkie-talkie back to his corporal and decided on another hop forward.