5
On the twenty-fourth the political echelon of the Russian Liberation Coalition arrived on the tarmac and Alex was on the field to meet them with his officers-a welcoming party from which Irina detached herself to make her private greetings to her father.
The contingent numbered twenty-eight White Russian dignitaries; most of them were of noble birth. There were two Princes-old Michael from Zurich and the Coalition’s leader, Prince Leon; Felix in his dress-whites made a third prince. There were five counts, Anatol among them, and seven Barons including Oleg Zimovoi and the diminutive Yuri Ivanov who would be the new government’s Minister of Finance. General Savinov was in the party, red-faced and redolent of gin. There was one sixty-seven-year-old Admiral who had once commanded the Black Sea Fleet; and an assortment of well-dressed men most of whose faces he knew-the administrators and specialists who would take over key functions in the Russian bureaucracy.
Alex was alarmed by Prince Leon’s appearance. The old man had lost a great deal of weight. The hands dangled from his sleeves and his skin had gone the hue of veal. His movements were uncertain: he prodded the tarmac with his cane and hesitated before he put his weight on it. His weary eyes were shattered by bloodshot lines but when he came before Alex he straightened up and stabbed a finger forcefully into the air by way of greeting; and he beamed.
He’d sent the unsuspecting Buckner out to observe field training for the day. The hangar was cleared and the visitors arranged themselves on the benches; Felix joined Alex at the podium and after a suitable interval of chatter Alex brought the assemblage to order.
“We’ll be going over your individual duties in detail in the next few days with each of you. In the meantime I’ll outline the general scope of things.
“We leave here in four days’ time in eight aircraft. Our destination is a landing field on the Finnish mainland. Several of you have been in consultation with the Finnish government and I’ve made a few specific arrangements of my own. As you know the diplomatic situation’s confused because Finland is at war with the Soviets again. The Finns are no longer neutral-they’re a belligerent power. The Allies have severed formal relations with Helsinki but they won’t declare war on Finland unless the Finns enter a pact with Hitler, which seems unlikely at the moment-the Finns don’t want any part of Hitler, they only want to get back the ground they lost to Russia two years ago. Part of our arrangement is that when we’ve taken power we’re to cede that territory back to Finland. In return for that pledge the Finns are supporting this operation.
“The Soviet leaders will be on a certain train at a certain time. We know the train’s schedule-we know where to find it at a given time. We intend to stop the train by bombing it from the air. Then our ground troops will administer the coup de grace. We’ll have Stalin’s corpse to prove we’ve done the job.”
He had to wait for the taut murmur to die away; then he went on:
“The Nazis control the approaches to the Baltic Sea. So we’ve got to carry everything with us by air. Our bombers will fly with full bomb-loads and auxiliary fuel tanks and we’ll have to stuff the transports to their maximum weight limits. For that reason I ask that you leave behind anything that isn’t absolutely vital.
“The operation-code name Steel Bear-is scheduled to take off from the Finland airstrip on a date you’ll know well in advance. The flight plan requires a nonstop flight to a target of approximately one thousand kilometers-six hundred miles-not a tough run for these planes. We’re timing our approach to coincide with the arrival of Stalin’s train at the target point. Of course it may be a bit late-they’ve had to clear the rails of snow every day for the past two weeks-but we’re prepared to circle the target area until the train appears. There’s ample fuel for that. If our bombers are challenged by Red fighters they’ll respond with the proper Red Air Force recognition code for that day.
“Our first-echelon of parachute commandos will have taken off twelve hours previously. The parachute drop will have been made by night into fields as close as possible to the target areas assigned to each team. There are a half dozen teams. One key target is the wireless transmitter towers on the Moscow-Noginsk road-they’ve become the center for outgoing transmissions since the towers on the west of Moscow were bombed by the Luftwaffe and the Nazis cut the western telephone networks. The telephone lines to the east are wired through a subsidiary central switchboard on the Noginsk line; that switchboard is the target of Major Solov’s team of paratroops. Both the switchboard and the wireless transmitter station are piped into the Kremlin. By taking these two points we cut the Kremlin off from contact with units outside Moscow, and we inform those in the Kremlin of the coup d’etat.
“As some of you know we’ve been working with the assistance of a man inside the Kremlin. He’s a member of the General Staff, I can reveal that much. He will be ready to join us at the communications center the moment we have captured it and confirmed the death of the Soviet leaders. The general and I will announce that we’ve jointly taken command of the military forces of Russia.
“Major Postsev’s team will secure the Krivoy airfield, the nearest field to Moscow that’s in use at present. Prince Felix will land there after having bombed the train. He will proclaim the liberation. We’ll warn the Red Army commanders in the Kremlin that if they don’t join us we’ll cut off their communications-they’d lose control of their armies and the Germans would be able to take Moscow in a matter of hours; they’ll have little choice.
“Our advance line of combat personnel will move into the Kremlin wearing Red uniforms. According to plan this should take place approximately twelve hours after the bombing of Stalin’s train. Prince Felix will arrive in the Kremlin when it’s secured and the lines of communication then will be restored. By this time your echelon will be airborne en route to Moscow. You’ll be driven from the Krivoy airfield to the Kremlin. In this manner we expect to provide continuity in governmental administration with an interruption too short to allow the Nazis to take advantage of it.
“Most of the Soviet departments have been evacuated to the Kuybyshev but Red Army headquarters remains in Moscow and that’s our key. Once we have control of the armies the other departments must fall into line. Within a few days many of you will travel on to the Kuybyshev to assume control of your agencies. There will be revolutionary resistance and partisans to contend with-it can’t be helped-but the German threat will guarantee our success. We’re presenting them with an ultimatum and they’ll have no time to organize resistance; they’ll have the simple choice-go along or go under.
“That sums up the operational plan. We’re ready for questions now.”
6
He looked up from the desk and Buckner was there, leaning casually in the doorway with one stiff arm up against the jamb. “Well?”
“Pack your things, Glenn. We’re moving out.”
“Not without filling me in first.”
“Happy to. Take a seat while I finish this.” He went back to the assignment rosters.
When he looked up Buckner was sitting there with his hands folded across his flat belly. The picture of wry patience.
It was nearly noon. In Washington it would be about seven in the morning. Alex said, “You’ve been communicating with Washington nearly every day.”
“Sure.”
“Using the Navy shortwave from Scapa Flow, right?”
“You got it.” Buckner smiled a little. “I thought I had a tail the past few days.”
“You’re lucky I let you off the base at all.”
“Okay so you’ve found out my deep dark secret, Hell if you’d asked me I’d have told you. I’m the President’s boy, Alex-I got to keep in touch with the home office.”
“If I’d had objections to it you’d have heard them long before now.” Alex pushed his seat back. “We’re taking off this afternoon, Glenn. Shortwave only works at night. You won’t have a chance to talk to Washington before we go.”
He saw the impact of it and he
went right on before Buckner could work up the anger to respond. “I promised to spell out the plan for you and I’m going to keep the promise right now. It happens the transatlantic cable was cut last week by an American depth-charge attack on a U-boat; otherwise I’d have strung you along until takeoff. But there’s no telephone to Washington now. Next week they’ll have the cable repaired again, won’t they. Fortunes of war, Glenn.”
“You’re a clever bastard.”
“Sure I am. Now there’s a string attached to what I’m about to tell you.”
“What string?”
“You’re going with us as far as our forward base. It’s in Finland.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I’m glad you feel like that. You won’t be able to communicate with Washington at all until we’ve accomplished the mission. My radio people have strict orders to keep you away from all wireless gear.”
Buckner took it stoically. “Thanks heaps-pal.”
“Don’t try to make any phone calls, Glenn. I’ve had the outside line disconnected. Nobody communicates off the base without my authorization.”
“Thought of everything, haven’t you.”
“I always had a fair head for security,” he murmured, “Nobody’s sabotaging this operation now. Nobody.”
Buckner did a strange thing. He nodded and smiled. “If I were in your shoes I’d do exactly the same thing. I had my orders, Alex-but in the gut I’m on your side. I want to see you people pull this thing off. I remember Moscow under Joe Stalin-you know how it is. Now let’s hear the plan. Just for the hell of it.”
7
It was a motley flotilla: three massive B-17S, three American Dakota transports, two Canadian De Havilland transports. The British Spitfires would pick them up at the coastline and escort them to the limit of their fuel ranges. The remainder of the flight-past the Denmark straits and up the Baltic into Finland-they’d be on their own. The guns of the B-17S were turreted and loaded; belts of ammunition lay gleaming dully of Cosmoline beneath the gunners’ swivel seats. The aircrews assembled on the tarmac and Pappy Johnson walked among them wearing his mustard-collared flying jacket; he was flying right-seat in one of the transports this time but he was still the man they listened to.
“These aircraft are overloaded. I’d like you misters to remember that. You’re flying at maximum gross weight and then some. Do me the kindness of remembering to keep your noses down on the turns, all right? Let’s go then.”
General Sir Edward Muir was there with MacAndrews to see them off; Glenn Buckner and Brigadier Cosgrove were squeezed into the tag-end transport.
Alex sat surrounded by Prince Leon and Count Anatol and Baron Oleg-forced to submit to a pounding barrage of hopes, expectations, fears, questions, arguments. Now and then Irina would go by him or lean out of her seat and he would catch her private signals.
In one way there was good in it. Oleg in his blunt way and Anatol with his sarcasms as dry as wind through autumn oak leaves were challenging his plan by disputing parts of it, questioning others-probing tor vulnerabilities, trying to make holes in it; and he knew if he didn’t have ready answers for every question then he was going to have to make very rapid revisions. There was one form of question he was able to turn aside every time-the What if they, Suppose they sort of question. Those you could rule out for the most part because any battle plan had to take foreseeable contingencies into account and ignore the unlikely ones. A plan had to be made on the basis of the predictability of the enemy’s behavior; if the enemy unaccountably broke the pattern then the plan would fail. Every commander knew that and there wasn’t any way to forestall it.
They crossed the North Sea, droning in formation above an almost continuous sea of cloud. Alex knew it when the RAF fighters turned back after dark but he didn’t remark on it to the others.
The flight plan took them across a corner of Sweden where the Luftwaffe would have to violate neutral airspace to inspect them; the Swedes would be within their rights to force them down but there wasn’t much likelihood of that. Once over the Baltic they were reasonably in the clear. German radar was not nearly on a par with British and what equipment Hitler had was concentrated along the Channel coast; the overcast had been a boon but even if it had been clear the odds would have been with them in the thick night.
The flight was just over eleven hundred miles and would stretch the fuel capacities of the transports, even with their extra tanks. It was a shade more than an eight-hour jump with the bombers restricted to the cruising speed of the Dakotas and De Havillands. They made landfall at seven-fifteen.
PART SIX:
November-December 1941
1
At seven thousand feet Felix watched a thick layer of stratus coming up beneath the wings; then he was inside it and flying blind, concentrating on instruments.
The chart was printed in mauve ink for easy reading under the cockpit lights. Ulyanov said, “We must be in range of their tower radio by now.”
“Whistle them up then.”
Felix was sweating. Suppose the weather was socked in right down to the ground?
“… Tower. We understand you clearly. Conditions for landing are as follows. Cloud ceiling is at two thousand five hundred meters. Ground visibility is five kilometers or better. We are illuminating both sides of the runway with fire tins. We have a heavy snow lie but the runway has been plowed. Nevertheless ground temperature is minus four degrees centigrade and you must be on guard against thin patches of ice on the runway. This is understood?”
Concentrating on his instruments Felix only nodded and Ulyanov said into the radio, “Visitor flight understands, Kuvola Tower.”
Felix dimmed the cockpit lights to a minimum glow and switched on his landing lights. Snowflakes flashed past thickly in horizontal lines like tracer bullets. The high-wattage beams sliced forward through the snow and a grey tunnel formed behind each whirling propellor. He rubbed misty condensation from the glass and asked Ulyanov if he would care to predict how far off course they would be when they came out under the clouds. Ulyanov said, “I would be guessing, Highness.”
“Guess, then.”
They were out of the snow then but still in cloud and still descending on steady rails through three thousand feet, twenty-five hundred, two thousand. “I think we’re right on the mark, Highness.”
“We’d better be. You’ve been doing the navigating.”
“Yes Highness.”
The altimeter was a dial with a long hand and a short hand like the face of a clock: one for thousands, one for hundreds. The long hand was winding steadily around the dial: nine, eight, seven. The cone beams stabbed ahead and down and were absorbed in the murk. Six, five, and still in clouds. “High air pressure,” Felix said. “The altimeter’s off-keep your eyes open. Gear down-flaps twenty.”
“Kuvola Tower to Visitor flight. We can hear you. You should have us in sight momentarily. Over.”
The altimeter read 1,350 when she broke through under the dark cloud bellies. Ahead and a tack to the right he saw the twin rows of fires stretching toward a single point in perspective. He threw the bomber into a bank and sideslid across the sky to lose altitude. “Flaps forty.”
“Forty?”
“You heard me.” He wanted to hit low and slow; he wanted to touch down right at the near edge of the strip because if there was patch-ice on the tarmac he’d need every foot of space. “Flaps fifty.”
Five hundred feet and the lights were less than a mile ahead. He pushed the nose down and cut power back. “Maximum flaps now, Ulyanov.”
“Yes sir.”
“Tower to Visitor One. You’re coming in low.”
“Visitor to Tower. Any ground obstacles in my way?”
“Tower to Visitor. You are flying over a forest. Tallest trees fifteen to eighteen meters to within forty meters of runway.”
He leveled off when the altimeter read 250; he had to assume it gave him at least a hundred feet of ground clearan
ce. The trees were quite clear under the landing lights now and he could distinguish the individual lights on the landing field-five-gallon drums full of sand soaked with gasoline and afire.
Ninety-five knots. She barely had airway. Pull the nose up even a fraction now and she’d stall dead. But he didn’t want to have to use his brakes any more than he had to. The last tree flashed underneath and he shoved the nose down and held it there for an agonizing eternity and cut the power and hauled the yoke back into his lap and she stalled out just where she was supposed to: came down very hard on her wheels and bounced ten feet in the air and settled down on three points. Felix put his concentration into steering her down the tarmac. She was still making eighty knots and he touched the brakes experimentally: felt them take purchase and stood lightly on them, slowing smoothly.
When she was down to taxi-maneuver speed he still had a quarter of the runway ahead of him and it pleased him. He turned toward the verge and followed the escort van toward the hardstands. Ulyanov said, “My congratulations, Highness.”
“Thank you.”
“You did that exactly as if she were a light craft.”
Ulyanov switched off and they untangled themselves from their equipment and climbed down through the belly hatch.
Bomber Two was making its run at the strip and they stood under the wing watching it come in. There was no wind but the air was sharp and fiercely cold. Felix waved the escort van away; it could pick them up later.
Young Ilya Rostov was flying Bomber Two. He brought her in a little too fast but there was room enough; he hit a little patch-ice and slewed around midway down the field and Felix thought he might ground-loop but Rostov brought the Fort under control and stopped her at the far corner of the strip. The van led Rostov into his parking space behind Felix’s craft and then turned and waited for Bomber Three.
The Romanov succession Page 26