by Colin Gee
“Want me to speak with Celestin?”
“No, I think I’ll do that myself, thank you anyway, Albrecht. Is this the only copy?”
“No. I’m assured that Antal has one, plus this one. Two in total, mon Général.”
“They must be preserved, but hidden from prying eyes, Albrecht. I’ll take responsibility for this one. If you speak straight to Antal, tell him our thinking and ask for his silence… I’ll deal with Celestin directly and let him know that you’ve spoken to the man. Understood?”
Haefali understood perfectly.
“Understand this, my friend. There’ll be a reckoning for this… someone has provoked a renewal of the conflict and many men have died as a result. If this had been an accident, we’d have heard by now. No, this was a design… a deliberate organised act to bring horror to the world once more. There will be a reckoning!”
Haefali stood and accepted Knocke’s hand, but the urgent knock on the door interrupted his words.
“Oberführer. Urgent orders from headquarters, Sir.”
Knocke took the documents from the duty officer, signed for them and waited for the door to close.
“You might want to take a seat, Albrecht.”
“Or pour a drink, mon Général?”
Knocke caught the signs on the map work, and words jumped off of the paper.
“Make it a large one.”
“Attack orders, Sir?”
“Yes…”
He examined the map a little more closely.
“We’ll be going to Tarnobrzeg and Sandomierz… on the Vistula.”
“On the Vistula?”
“We’re to cross it… but there’s no intact bridges.”
“Feh!”
Knocke rummaged for a sheet he knew would be there.
“We’ll have extra resources allocated… regular German Army units on our left flank… assault engineers… boats… even a paratroop drop to help out.”
“Feh!”
“Your boys’ll have one hell of a time, Albrecht.”
“Any more good news?”
“Scheisse!”
Knocke almost spat the words.
“This is wrong… just wrong… fucking intelligence!”
Haefali waited.
“They list our opposition as no more than a rifle division plus support. And yet their own update sheet from yesterday quotes that rifle division plus unidentified armoured units, possibly a Guards Motorised unit. Bescheissen staff planners! Forget the drink. Albrecht. Back to your unit now, but via Celestin please… I don’t have time now, but I want him to understand. Just ask him to do nothing, and look after Antal. I’ll speak to him later in greater depth. On your way out, ask my staff to arrange a senior officer’s meeting for 1800 here, please… briefing and orders. We’ve to attend General Lavalle tomorrow morning and I want something in place when we see him.”
“À vos ordres, mon Général!”
“Mudaks! High command cannot be serious!”
Polanów was thirty-five kilometres distant from where Knocke was sat, but the problems were the same.
Artem’yev, recently returned to full health and adorned with Major General’s stars, commanded the recently formed 116th Guards Motorised Rifle Division, an independent formation full of experienced men, from some of Makarenko’s old 100th Guards troopers, the ones who had been left behind, through to wounded men whose units had either been disbanded or destroyed whilst they were recuperating.
His Chief of Staff remained stony faced.
Artem’yev had changed by all accounts, although Barashnikev had only heard of him by reputation before being sent to the new division.
That the Major General had seen more action than most was a given, and a fact attested to by the plethora of medals on his tunic, the two Hero awards standing particularly proud.
But he had become a gruff and unhappy man since his old unit had been destroyed in the field as he recovered from his many wounds.
His bad humour was not helped by the outline orders that his eyes were consuming.
Barashnikev poured the man some tea and waited patiently, hoping that the tuts and gasps would stop and transform into tangible military terms.
“Thank you.”
Artem’yev put the paperwork down and lifted the mug to his lips, taking a decent swig of the warm sweet tea to which he had become accustomed since his stomach injury.
“Well, Misha, someone has come up with a fucking nightmare, I can tell you!”
Mikhail Barashnikev nearly choked on his drink as his commander used the diminutive of his name for the first time ever.
‘Signs of a recovery?’
“By St Basil’s balls but this is a shitty thing.”
Artem’yev shoved the paperwork across the table top where Barashnikev had to act quickly to stop it hitting the damp earth floor.
As he looked through it, his commander summarised.
“We’ve to mount an impressive attack… and fail… fall back… draw the enemy on and into a trap to be sprung by our comrades of the 3rd Guards Tank Army. Simple really… Yob tvoyu mat!”
The plan looked simple on paper but any one with half a brain could see that the risks were immense, and that the 116th would be making itself incredibly vulnerable.
‘Which is the fucking point, I suppose… bastards…’
“Comrade General, this won’t work.”
Artem’yev pointed at the paperwork and laughed.
“No... that shit won’t… but what we devise will… or our men’ll pay for it.”
He stood and stretched his aching back… his painful stomach… his tight thigh… his almost seized shoulder… all products of battle.
“Right, Misha. A working lunch I think. Irlov!”
The sacking was drawn aside and a child’s face appeared.
“Comrade General?”
“We’ll take lunch here, now. What have you found for us, Comrade Yefreytor?”
“Sausage, pickled egg, and fine fresh bread, Comrade General.”
“Excellent. You’ll make Serzhant yet, young Irlov!”
The boy disappeared as Artem’yev finished the last of his tea.
“Right, clear the table, Misha. Let’s see what we can come up with that doesn’t lose me my division.”
1203 hrs, Sunday, 30th March 1947, Lieutenant General Kaganovich’s Dacha, Moscow, USSR.
“Only the very finest, Tatiana.”
She could not help but agree, the caviar and toasted bread easily sliding down, aided by an exquisite Georgian Mtsvani wine.
There were other items, such as she hadn’t seen in wartime, and in quantities undreamt of since the morning the Nazi tanks crossed the border in 1941.
Kaganovich had already briefed her that there were others, important others, who would arrive later.
Which begged a question.
“So, Comrade General… I assume you have me here early for a good reason, not just my company?”
Kaganovich inclined the glass in acknowledgement.
“Indeed, Tatiana, indeed. I believe the time has come to fully enlighten you, which will be a painful journey for you, I’m afraid.”
“Enlighten? What is there that I don’t know already? You have my support. What more do you need?”
“Your commitment.”
She drained her glass and refilled it before speaking.
“You have my support, Comrade General.”
“And yet, despite what has been wrought upon your family… upon you personally… the lies and deceptions practised by those in authority… you’re not yet fully with us, are you, Tatiana?”
“My sons? You mean my sons?”
The wine glass was emptied in the blink of an eye.
“My sons died for the Motherland… “
They both knew the lie spilled too easily from her lips.
“No, Tatiana… they didn’t… you know they didn’t so why do you persist in lying to yourself?”
She took
a deep draught from the refilled glass and became a vulnerable mother for just a moment.
“Perhaps it is easier for me to cope that way?”
“Perhaps it is.”
“Yes, perhaps it is… You’ve told me that my son Vladimir was lost due to anger against Makarenko… or the needs of the state, with the sacrifice of Ilya and Oleg in the dirty machine of espionage… but they died in uniform… for the Motherland… that is my solace, Comrade General.”
“And you, Tatiana? What of yourself? What you have become as a result of their actions?”
“What I have become?”
“Yes… I have eyes and ears, Tatiana. You know what I talk of.”
“Ah… the drink… yes, I know… it helps me…”
“Not just the drink.”
“What?”
“Yuri… the other men… you have been transformed by the actions of others.”
“No… no… by my own actions. Mine… mine alone…”
“No.”
“What’s happened is my fault. I blame myself.”
“No, Tatiana.”
“No?”
Kaganovich leant over and placed a tender hand on her arm.
“Oh no, Tatiana. I’ve some things to show you. It’ll be hard for you… but I think you must understand what’s brought you to this dark place in your life.”
She finished her glass and set it down without thought for more.
Kaganovich produced the full files he had either copied or stolen from Beria’s own records and had beefed up a little here and there, just to add a little more weight to his effort to bring the woman fully into the plan.
She had heard it before… at least in the main… but a file was something she understood. It had a weight all of its own.
She read.
Read of the Chateau… of her son Oleg and his proclivities, encouraged by Beria, who then traded his life on a whim that might bring Franco onside, but was never really expected to.
In Beria’s own handwriting, the evidence of his hatred for her making his decision easier.
The death of her beloved Ilya at the hands of the English traitor lauded by both Stalin and the bespectacled devil, again Beria’s note outlining the celebration the news brought.
“Bastards.”
Kaganovich had bided his time.
“There is more…”
He handed over an army document that included an order from a senior NKVD general, effectively ordering Yuri’s unit to be placed in the most dangerous positions on the battlefield. Pretending to be an order designed to afford him the maximum number of opportunities to win the coveted Hero Award, it screamed at her from the pages as just another attempt by Beria, or even Stalin, to inflict more hurt upon Nazarbayeva’s family.
A report from NKVD General Gustenov reported success in passing on the order, and confirmed that no suspicion was apparent as to the reasons behind it.
“Bastards… the fucking bastards… “
Much of what Nazarbayeva had clung to over the last months started to peel away as she understood that her boys had not died for anything but the hate that a man in power bore her, and Stalin’s indifference to her suffering and pain.
“Bastards!”
“There is more.”
As she looked at Kaganovich, a tear spilled from her left eye.
He knew he had her.
“Please come with me, Tatiana.”
She accompanied him to one of the bedrooms, which had been cleared of everything except two chairs and a projector.
She sat down and Kaganovich started the machine rolling.
As soon as the oil lamps came into view she knew what she was about to watch.
The tears rolled down her face as she struggled to maintain control, not against anguish, but against the overwhelming feeling of anger.
She watched as she was defiled by Beria and his colonels, absorbing each bestial act with a harder clench of her teeth and driving her nails into the palms of her hand to distract herself with pain.
The soundtrack provided more horrors, more awfulness…
“I’m sorry, Tatiana…”
She looked at him and his heart chilled in an instant.
Her look was one that he had never seen before but that, somehow, he wholly understood.
She had changed and was no longer the woman she had been when she arrived at the dacha; vulnerable, weak, worn down by her excesses…
Now she was simply a woman who understood what she had been subjected to…
…and what she would do to revenge herself upon those responsible.
Stranov came into the film and subjected her to sexual violation in every way possible.
“I’ve seen enough, Comrade General.”
Nazarbayeva stood and briskly walked out.
Kaganovich switched off the projector and turned to follow, walking straight into the muzzle of Nazarbayeva’s automatic.
“What part do you have in this?”
His hands above his shoulders instinctively, Kaganovich felt real fear, for the woman’s eyes were cold in her fury.
“None.”
“And you have this film how?”
“One of my men found it and brought it to me.”
“When?”
“Recently.”
“Don’t lie. When?”
“A couple of months back, Tati…”
“And you choose to show me now? To give me those documents now! You show me the fucking film now? You’re playing me, Comrade General… playing me for your own ends!”
He knew he had no option but to be truthful, for her eyes made it plain that the gun was not just an ornament in the present situation.
“At first, I simply didn’t know what to do. And then, when you came into our secret world, it seemed… well… it seemed that if you were told at the right time, you’d be more committed to our cause.”
“So, you admit that you intend to use me for your own purposes then?”
“Not like that, Tatiana, it’s simply not like that… Mudaks!... yes… it is … but for the right reasons, woman… you must see that?”
“Why the fuck would I see that, Comrade General?”
The pistol drew closer to his face as her rage increased, which did nothing for the watery feeling in Kaganovich’s bowels.
“Because we need you so badly. You’re the key, the one who can unlock everything so we can take control of the Motherland and save her from these fucking monsters… these men who play with our lives like chessmen on a board.”
“I’m the key? How can I be the key, Kaganovich? Do you take me for a fool?”
“He takes you for what you are, Tatiana Nazarbayeva. Now drop the gun.”
The new voice carried authority and weight, whoever it was behind her, and she had no doubt that another weapon, possibly more, were trained upon her.
None the less, the Tokarev remained steady, aimed at Kaganovich’s nose, unwavering, unshaking, as if frozen in the ice that gripped her heart.
“I tell you now, Comrade General. I trusted you, yes, even a Chekist such as you can earn my trust. If you have deliberately deceived me… if you have any part in this whole affair… my sons… the dacha… I’ll kill you. Count on it.”
Through the fear that clogged his arteries and veins, and caused his heart to race and lungs to claw at the air, Kaganovich understood something.
As did the man holding the Walther PPK towards Nazarbayeva’s back.
‘We have her!’
The Tokarev dropped slowly away and Kaganovich drew a deep breath and commenced, as he was convinced, the bonus extra years of his life, for her eyes had shouted at him, preparing him for death at her hands.
The use of his legs was almost lost with the strain of the moment and he staggered away to the nearest seat, using furniture to gain the wooden chair before he dropped into it, drained by the experience.
Khrushchev kept his pistol on the woman, even as she relaxed her posture and slipped
the pistol back into its holster.
Behind him, Gorbachev, Gurundov, and Laberova holstered their own weapons and moved into the room, carefully keeping out of Khrushchev’s line of fire and away from the woman.
Nazarbayeva’s eyes bored into those of Khrushchev and he had a small taste of that which had reduced Kaganovich’s legs to jelly.
He reminded himself that this woman was a combat soldier and decided to act more calmly than he was used to.
Khrushchev holstered his weapon.
“Come, Tatiana Sergievna, let us eat. We’ve much to discuss… and, on a personal note, I’m sorry for the loss of your sons and for… well… you know.”
Tatiana did not bother to ask if those present had all seen the film. She cared not any more, for her mind was focussed on other matters.
A car drew up outside, the gravel track announcing its presence.
Gorbachev read her thoughts.
“We were in the dacha next door and walked over, Comrade Nazarbayeva. You couldn’t have heard us.”
She nodded and reached for a carafe of water, pouring herself a large glass to silently toast her new resolve.
Doors slammed as whoever it was alighted their vehicle. The doorway filled with a man in uniform, a man she instantly recognised.
‘VKG! Of course… so simple now…’
“Greetings Comrades! And to you Leytenant General Nazarbayeva.”
The man smiled and walked forward and extended his hand.
“I hear there is nothing like Christmas in Krakow, Tatiana.”
She took his hand in hers and shook it firmly.
“Except perhaps May Day in Moscow, Comrade Marshal Zhukov.”
‘VKG… the Victor of Khalkin-Gol…’
He broke the contact and hugged her tight, kissing her on both cheeks, and then moved around his fellow conspirators.
Kaganovich, now nearly recovered, encouraged everyone to take food, which they did, and the conversation, punctuated with the sounds of men consuming a hearty lunch, turned to family and general matters, a precursor to their later more serious discussion.
Laberova stood motionless at the door, and was joined by her twin sister, bearing one of the new AK-47s and looking decidedly menacing.
