Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series) (76 page)
Read Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series) Online
Authors: Colin Gee
Zhukov’s pencil descended, ready to condemn the man but was halted as Malinin continued.
“However, Romanowsky outflanked the position, forcing and capturing the crossings at Vilshofen, destroying an American infantry unit in the process, caught on the march and attacked by aircraft and tanks in turn. He is moving this unit round to take Passau in the rear and thinks it will fall today.”
The pencil was stayed, as was the execution.
“At Linz we are engaged in heavy fighting, 49th Army pressing from the north and 70th from the east. The enemy are well-handled and good quality troops. However, it appears that 5th Shock Army can seal their fate as it is already past Linz to the south, pressing here at Gmunden and here at Wels.”
A casual observer would be able to see that Wels was the back door to Linz and the units still defending there were all but cut off.
“Berzarin has turned some of his forces north to strike at the escape route of the capitalist troops. We have identified their 11th Tanks and 65th Infantry. They should be destroyed in situ.”
“Tolbukhin, Chuikov and Yeremenko are holding as previously ordered, but seek confirmation.”
Zhukov cut over the end of his deputy’s words, showing his irritation at this unexpected and wholly unnecessary problem.
“Confirm their orders, hold in position for now but be ready. Saturday’s meeting will decide much.”
Changing gear slickly and moving to a new subject, an excellent ability Malinin demonstrated well when his chief was aggravated, the facts and figures of the Pacific war were brought out and reviewed, also seemingly showing superiority and victory throughout the region.
1131 hrs Wednesday 8th August 1945, Office of the NKVD Chairman, the Lubyanka, Moscow, USSR.
The messages dispatched from London on the 4th August were the last to leave before the flow dried up for good.
Contained within the bag was one message destined for NKVD headquarters and marked ‘eyes only chairman’ which arrived into Lemsky’s care.
It was a short note and easily decoded with the right knowledge.
In its readable form, it now sat on Beria’s desk, informing him that, as directed, the Rezident had met in a public place with asset ‘Baron’.
What the message clearly did not say or ask was why the NKVD Chairman had certainly deliberately blown the cover of ‘Baron’ and revealed the existence of this valuable agent within Britain’s most secret establishment.
Beria was extremely satisfied with his work, and penned a swift note to Zhukov assuring him that he had crippled Allied higher level communications for at least four days, possibly as long as two weeks.
He smugly thought that at the cost of one female agent, not an ideological person or one who spied through conviction but one who worshipped solely at the altar of money, no-one in Bletchley would trust anyone and the allies would use slower, less effective means to relay orders for some time to come.
It all worked out very nicely.
Beria rose from his desk and decided to surprise Danilov in his own lair with a request for his car.
1210 hrs, Wednesday 8th August 1945, Geesthacht, Germany.
In Geesthacht, two worlds were about to collide.
General Lenskii was ecstatic, and with good reason. His 43rd Army had the allies on the run and he was ahead of schedule.
Spreading the latest map across the bonnet of his jeep, he made a few swift appreciations and then started to issue his orders, sending out the tentacles of his rifle corps to exploit the fluidity of the situation as much as possible, fingers making movements over the paper giving life to his words. The officers gathered round him made records of their own on maps or in notebooks, ready to translate his needs into operational orders. He paused as a rattle of sub-machine gunfire overcame his thoughts and sent a Lieutenant to investigate. Life was sweet and the rewards of a professional soldier when things went well were great.
At the other end of the scale was Helga Dein, who was still in a state of shock at seeing her family destroyed before her eyes a few hours beforehand.
Her father, her rock and her idol, had survived six years of European War only to fall this day, victim of a Soviet grenade tossed into the basement of their home in Krumme Stra²e. The family had taken refuge here during the brief fighting and had not moved since the town grew silent some time beforehand. His attempt to cover the blast with his body failed, and the grenade claimed not only him but also her mother and sister.
Her grief and upbringing determined that life was now pointless and Helga resolved that hers would end this day, but not before her family were avenged.
With tearful eyes, she had taken up the weapon her father had dropped and, as he had shown her, braced herself, pressing the trigger and destroyed the two Soviet infantrymen who ventured into the cellar after the grenade.
The MP40 jerked in her hands again and over half the bullets were on target as a third man charged in, only to be thrown back bloodily into the entrance.
Scrabbling at the packing around the small window, she snatched up a magazine lying on a box and wriggled her way out, in the end propelled by the force of three more grenades behind her.
Running for all she was worth, Helga found the small air-raid shelter at the junction of her street and Hafenstra²e, and dived in quickly, narrowly avoiding a running Soviet officer heading back the way she had come.
Changing the magazine on her weapon as her father had demonstrated, she was calm, belying her nineteen years.
Now was the time.
She moved silently out of the bunker and turned right.
On the junction of Hafenstra²e and Schillerstra²e stood a small group of soldiers gathered round a vehicle, oblivious to her presence.
Russians.
She gathered herself and struggled for control as fear suddenly washed over her. Her bladder let go as she moved forward, tears in her eyes but still focused on the hated enemy to her front, her fear subjugated by her desire to kill.
One man looked up and realised the danger, snatching for his weapon but knowing he was too late.
The German sub-machine gun burst into life, sending twenty-one 9mm bullets in the direction of the Soviet officer group.
Only the first six were on target and the petrified Russian officer made contact with his weapon, bringing it on target and pulling the trigger.
The PPS43 sent its stream of bullets in return but all missed.
Again, both weapons lashed out and this time both were on target.
Helga Dein was dead before she hit the ground, metal ripping through her stomach, heart, liver and head.
The Captain, her target, sank slowly to the ground as his own throat wound spilled his lifeblood over the roadway in front of him.
Two of the men had remained untouched, and cautiously rose from their position of cover on the other side of the jeep. One even put another burst into the immobile girl, causing parts of the ruined corpse to disintegrate and spread themselves on the roadway.
The Colonel, 43rd Army’s Senior Artillery Officer, had taken four of the six bullets to strike flesh and lay dead, sightless eyes still carrying indignation at the mechanics of his end.
Major-General Boris Lenskii lay where he had been dropped by the two impacts, knowing that he was badly injured. The wound to his rectum was painful indeed, the metal having ripped through his anus and then moved on, removing most of his manhood. The second projectile took him under the right shoulder and, hitting bone, disintegrated into a number of small but devastating pieces, each one reducing sections of his liver to paste as they moved inexorably through his body.
As he slipped into merciful darkness, he knew his end was approaching.
Troops of his headquarters defence unit gathered up his shattered form and carried it into St Salvatoris Kirche where a small aid post had been established. He died four hours later to the minute, never having regained consciousness.
His vengeful troopers visited themselves upon the civilian populace and the small ruined town was bathed in the blood of innocents until darkness fell.
At three o’clock precisely radios across Europe first went silent and then burst into life with an announcement, made first in English, then French, then German, calling for all citizens of Europe to be attentive and standby for an important message.
Listening to that broadcast, from prison of war camps to small farming communities across the continent, nations held their breath, expecting the very worst.
A detached voice announced General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of SHAEF.
A long pause.
The tape rolled.
Eisenhower’s voice cut the silence.
“People of Europe, the last six years have been dark indeed, and in May of this year we came to the end of a gigantic conflict, a conflict which cost many lives on all sides. Those lives were needlessly lost in a false cause; the pursuit of power and sovereignty by a small group of men.”
The extended pause was in place to permit translators to do their work, French and German over the radio, other languages done in the huddled groups listening all over the continent.
“I have no doubt that each of you has, as I have, made an oath to do all in our collective powers to ensure this never happens again in our lifetime, or that of our children and their offspring.”
“We are now called upon to discharge that oath as Europe finds itself again threatened by a small clique bent on extending their power and imposing their will upon the free.”
As the German speaker moved through his words, a keen ear could detect light coughing in the background.
“America stands with you in this struggle, and as we speak her sons are dying to preserve you, your nations and your ethnic groups, be you French or German, English or Austrian, Romany or Jew.”
“Forces of the Russian Empire, at the direct bidding of Dictator Joseph Stalin, have attacked along a broad front from the Baltic to the Adriatic.”
Not wholly accurate but it made better listening.
“We are striving to stop their progress but you should all know that, for now, we are striving in vain. More farms and villages are coming under their control, towns and cities falling within their domain.”
“Now, more than ever Europe….. No,… the World needs her citizens to come together as one, joining to defeat this aggression and ensure that our nations, yours and mine, stay free. I say the world and mean the world, for this will not stop here in Germany, nor on some distant Atlantic or Mediterranean shore, but it will spread across oceans and engulf continents until the World as we know it has gone.”
“Separately, entrenched in our recent divides, we will fall. Together, we will stand proud and destroy this menace forever. Thank you.”
Once the translation had finished the listeners were regaled with the distinctive voice of Churchill, taped in England the previous evening and played at the newly reactivated communications centre at Versailles, delivering a speech as only he could, enshrining every virtue of man in his stirring words and focussing his audience on uniting in the coming struggle.
By the time that De Gaulle commenced, the only allied leader to speak live from Versailles, sixteen minutes had passed. The French leaders address was short and seemed more leaning to stirring his own compatriots to stand tall, perhaps recognising that his country, of all the Allies, needed most inspiration and resolve.
De Gaulle concluded and there was a silence, seemingly designed to build tension but actually no more than a hitch at the radio base as the next speaker sat down at the microphone and waited his turn.