Get Lenin

by Robert Craven

  Eva handed Ellen a purse full of dollars, told her to leave with the operative and join the German underground. Ellen slowly regained control of her hysteria and took the cash with a trembling hand. Eva explained to the operative that Ellen was a genius at mathematics and would make a brilliant code-breaker. The operative looked Ellen up and down a few times, deciding what to do. She took off her coat and wrapped it around her tenderly. Eva unpinned her hat and slipped it onto Ellen’s head, fixing the pins.

  Ellen looked out from under the brim with haunted eyes and whispered, ‘Thank you, thank you.' She touched Eva’s sleeve. Her once beautiful hands were calloused and raw, and several nails were chipped and broken. Her sunken eyes glittered as if in a fever and she shivered in the operative’s coat. Looking around several times he started to guide Ellen away.

  Eva watched her one-time friend slip into the shadows of the grey afternoon. As she stepped onto the street, Eva saw more work gangs made up only of old men, women and children, all with crosses on their sleeves. People walked past ignoring them. They were lined up together with armed SS soldiers watching them. Any pause from their labours resulted in a beating with rifle butts.

  The car raced through the streets, the bikes stopping at junctions and halting the traffic, sirens wailing. Kincaid was enjoying this level of attention, his manner relaxed as he made small-talk with their fellow travellers. Eva would translate where the conversation got muddled, three heads turning politely towards her with condescending smiles. Neither of the Gestapo officials present had picked up on her accent. The limousine swept into the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda where they were met on the steps by Dr. Goebbels.

  ‘Enchante, Fraulein Molenaar,’ he purred, kissing Eva’s hand. Then, turning to Kincaid, he greeted him warmly — ‘Come, come.' He led them through the stark reception to his office. Coffee was brewing, and sitting asleep in a huge leather chair was Reichsmarschall Goering. His immense bulk filled the chair, his thin sensitive mouth hung loose and he occasionally snorted like a distressed seal. On the other chair was a thin balding man about thirty, who caught his breath when Eva swept in.

  ‘Meet Jack Regan,’ said Goebbels as the man rose. Eva noted his appearance — leather jacket, baggy trousers, and badly scuffed climbing boots. He rose to shake Kincaid’s hand. ‘Great to see ya again, boss,’ he grinned.

  Kincaid slapped him on the back with a hearty laugh. ‘Eva, meet the best cameraman in the world. He’s filmed just about everywhere you can think of — The Arctic Circle, Amazon Rainforests and just back from a Reich assignment in North Africa.’

  Goering stirred in the chair, the leather squealing under his bulk. He settled again and began to snore.

  Kincaid continued. ‘Herr Goebbels here has used him for numerous projects and has a trip that might pique his interest.’

  ‘I’m a freelancer, an adventurer, if you will,’ chimed in Regan, his eyes never once leaving Eva.

  ‘.. or mercenary,’ she replied coldly.

  He laughed out loud, but the smile never reached his eyes. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

  As an actor prepares for his cue, Goebbels cleared his throat. ‘Herr Regan, we have a plan which Herr Kincaid here is going to finance. We plan to create an international sensation.’

  He swept his arm majestically to a map of Russia on the far wall. On it were markings showing the German advance, more of a zigzag than smooth line. Eva swallowed hard at the sight of Poland shaded in red behind the line, along with Poland, France, Czechoslovakia and Austria, a red stain across central Europe.

  Kincaid explained: ‘Lenin’s tomb is being transported out to the Ural mountains as soon as our victorious forces near Moscow. I and Reichsfuhrer Himmler have devised a plan with Herr Goering here …. ’ Goering was smiling through what seemed to be a pleasant dream, ‘… to steal Lenin beneath the noses of the Russians. Using a crack commando unit, and a-state-of-the-art airship, we will bring him to German soil. Herr Regan, you will capture the whole thing on film. Naturally with an American financial backer and a famous cameraman, there could be no possibility of a credibility issue. I’ll have every cinema from the west to east coast showing it, with syndicated rights for the Far East and the United Kingdom.’

  Eva's mind was for a moment shut down … they were actually going to do it. Kincaid spoke of the footage as if it were a Saturday morning adventure reel.

  ‘And we will display the tomb in a museum when Speer commences the new citadel,’ grinned Goebbels.

  A pretty blonde secretary came in with coffee, pastries and fresh bread rolls. Amid the groans from the sleeping Goering, they sat, smoked and chatted. Regan, animated, told them how he would film it, jumping up and making a frame using his hands. By the way they talked, Eva thought, you’d think they were going to make Lenin an overnight star.

  Chapter 8

  Moscow 17th October 1941

  The room went silent as the phone beside Joseph Stalin rang. He listened intently to the message from the Workers' Defence Zone, Moscow district. Looking around the table he made deliberate eye contact with Andreyev, Voroshilov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich, Kalinin, Mikoyan, Molotov, Khrushchev, Beria and Shvernik. The Politburo had been summoned in haste and they knew by the look on his face the news was the worst.

  Stalin replaced the receiver slowly, his face sunken in disbelief. The Russian revolution had lasted twenty-four years and it was almost over. We’ll be the laughing stock of Europe, he thought reaching for his pipe. He looked up at the sitting Politburo’s faces. ‘German panzer tanks have been spotted at the city limits. Let’s get Comrade Lenin out of Moscow while we can.’

  Below the city, an armoured train sat low on the rails, steam billowing into the frigid night. The locomotive was camouflaged and the carriages were filled with elite NKVD Internal Troops. Ninety soldiers, fully armed and provisioned, led by their political officers and commissars, boarded quickly.

  The largest carriage was reserved for ‘The Boss’, Lenin in his tomb. The interior resembled something between a funeral parlour and a chemist’s laboratory. Constructed to survive tank shells, it sat between two heavily armed troop carriages. A custom gantry had been assembled to allow the sarcophagus to glide into it along a runway. Once the embalmers and chemists had boarded, it was then sealed with double-blast doors. The locomotive slipped out of the underground cavern, gradually increasing speed, out beneath suburbs, bursting out into the open five miles past the city limits.

  It was seven minutes past midnight.

  The remaining troops, who had escorted the coffin returned to the city barricades in readiness for the German troops.

  On board, Dr. Zbarsky and his team set to work on the body with a sense of urgency. The journey was going to take at least 24 hours depending on whether or not they encountered enemy forces. Any exposure to air would lead to further deterioration, though the sub-zero Moscow air was of help.

  They worked quickly, injecting preservatives and chemicals into the body. Under the artificial light, Lenin looked fragile and hollow, like a dead moth’s exoskeleton. Using a mixture of glycerine, potassium acetate and hydrogen peroxide for the skin's dark spots, they brought Lenin back to his former glory.

  The new sarcophagus was fixed to an on-board generator keeping it at a temperature of 61 degrees and at a constant humidity. On arrival at the new facility at Tyumen, the body would be immersed into a chemical bath consisting of alcohol, glycerol, distilled water, and quinine. With a special suspension system to allow for the rolling of the train, Lenin almost seemed to smile beneath the glass. He appeared for all the world as if he were a day-tripper going to his favourite health spa, enjoying a nap.

  Chapter 9

  German Army Group South/ Forward Command — October 1941

  The horizon seemed endless, white on white — snow and sky — merging into a blur. Heading this far north, it was impossible to tell if it was night or day, or the position of the sun.

  The summer dus
t and heat had given way to drastic temperature drops and mud, miles of mud. Entire columns had come to a halt in the mire, stretched beyond the reach of the supply lines. The advance was a mirage; points on the horizon never seemed to get closer.

  Captain Klaus Brandt looked skyward, watching along with the other units the Luftwaffe supply drop, a week overdue. The weather had been severe, turning the diesel in the vehicles into a gel that lodged in fuel pipes, resulting in engine blocks being lifted out, stripped down and cleaned. Hot food was freezing in billet cans before it could be consumed.

  The Chechen sniper who had joined up a month earlier remarked this was a pretty mild late-Autumn for this region.

  Canisters fell from the sky gracefully attached to parachutes from the aircraft banking up into safer skies. Under distant Soviet strafing fire, they were retrieved and brought to the mobile hospital tents by half-starved soldiers. Hoping for food and medical supplies, they were bitterly disappointed when the canisters were prised open.

  ‘Christ,’ breathed Brandt — pepper, cigarettes and coffee were all they contained — all of them. He allowed a smile to crack along across his drawn features. ‘Only Kant could get his dream supply drop,’ he mused out loud.

  The rest of the unit laughed. Sergeant Erik Kant was the only man Brandt had seen who hardly ate at all. Kant drank coffee of a tar consistency and chain smoked even under heavy fire. If it wasn’t for his inclination to act of his own accord, he’d be a model German soldier. Kant gave a lupine grin amid his beard as he stashed his cigarettes into his top pocket.

  The canisters were broken open and the parachutes were cut up to be used as extra layers of insulation under uniforms.

  A thin army private approached Brandt and saluted. ‘The General wishes to talk with you and the Sergeant, Captain, Sir.’

  They made their way across a rutted field where the Engineer Corps were trying to get vehicles moving. The air was filled with men cursing and engines over-revving. Exhaust fumes rose up into the frigid air, forming gun-grey clouds. Horses and mules were strapped up to heavy trucks and supply half-tracks, and were being whipped to pull them from the mud. In the white night it made a depressing spectacle.

  General Maximilian Fretter-Pico stood with his general staff in his command tent reading dispatches when the news of the supply drop reached him. ‘At least we’ll get a decent cup of coffee this week, Gentlemen,’ he said dryly.

  Four months into Operation Barbarossa, the army was bogged down and his rear units were fighting a cat-and-mouse-war with partisans and the Red Army. Fretter-Pico smiled at one adjutant’s comment that ‘the front was the safest place to be at the moment.’

  He instructed the one unit he could rely on, dispatching horsemen back with wagons to collect urgent supplies. They were travelling back with the light-infantry to Army Group Central. These days any re-supply trip was turning into a suicide mission but, if he was to press on, the army needed fuel, food and medicine and luck with the weather. If not, they would start slaughtering the horses for food as Napoleon had done one hundred and thirty years earlier.

  Brandt and Kant entered after being cleared by the sentries. Looking up, Fretter-Pico handed Brandt a de-coded communique from Berlin. ‘Special operation, Captain,’ he intoned before Brandt could speak. ‘This order comes from the very highest level. Your unit is now the property of the Propaganda Ministry.’

  Fretter-Pico wasn’t comfortable with Goebbels and Himmler cherry-picking one of his best units. Three months earlier an operation in Norway hadn’t gone to plan and Brandt and his remaining men been outcast to the Russian frontline. They must have really screwed up to be this far away from home. They were very effective soldiers.

  Now Goering had put his oar in with some new airship the air force was trying out. What really bothered him was that he was being excluded by the High Command from decisions relating to combat operations in his theatre of war. The SS officer in command was Thor Schenker, Himmler’s golden boy, who swept into the tent as if on cue.

  To Brandt he was the Aryan race incarnate: immaculate uniform, clean-shaven, hair cropped to a faint white sheen. Even his armband was the deepest red.

  He regarded everyone with haughty contempt, even the General. ‘Is my unit cleared to leave, General?’ His tone was aristocratic, dismissive and superior.

  ‘Captain Brandt’s unit is making all necessary preparations even as we speak…….’

  ‘Captain,’ smirked Schenker, straight-armed saluting and clicking his heels.

  Kant marvelled at the sheen on Schenker’s boots. It was almost as if he’d glided above the slush and rut-tracks to get here.

  ‘Captain,’ Fretter-Pico returned a soldier’s salute without looking up from the reports. Schenker’s face turned deep red in fury, his jaw muscles twitching up to his temples. Brandt noted the impetuosity of Schenker’s reaction; it could create a problem in the heat of combat. He wondered how cool his head would remain under fire.

  Brandt handed the communique to Schenker after he’d finished reading it. Schenker snatched it like a child. ‘Grid co-ordinates to a landing zone two miles east of the main army group,’ he read aloud.

  Judging by the expression Brandt observed, Schenker had been expecting this message.

  Brandt and seven of his Alpine Korps were to meet a Luftwaffe transport plane at the grid co-ordinates. Joining them was Schenker and, sitting on the far side of the General’s tent, a film cameraman from Hollywood named Regan was awaiting instructions.

  Fretter-Pico handed the two men the last radio message received and decoded:

  — Consignment shipped. Moscow — Tyumen — E.T.A. 00.12. / 90 pieces attached -

  ‘Gentlemen, the clock is ticking. Good luck.’

  Brandt didn’t like the SS being involved and the presence of an American film cameraman even less. Personally dispatched by Goebbels, Regan had parachuted in two days earlier with his equipment. Once he had been cleared by the General’s security, he acted secretively and was very precious about his cameras and film. Tripods, sealed strongboxes and additional equipment had been shipped directly from Goebbels’ studios in Berlin.

  They can’t get food and medical supplies to their fighting men, but can get a cameraman and equipment into deepest Russia. Brandt, shaking his head at the thought, turned to Kant. ‘Get Olga. She’s coming with us.’

  Kant saluted with a smile and left the tent to find her.

  Olga, the Chechen sniper, was going to be Brandt’s personal insurance policy. During a skirmish with the Russian Army a month earlier, they discovered her in a clearing about to be hanged from a tree. She had killed a local commissar and his men were dealing with her accordingly. A short fire-fight ensued and Brandt’s men had cut her down after driving off her attackers. Her kills so far were one-for-one into double figures.

  Brandt instructed all units not to wear any purloined Soviet winter clothing as Olga would simply target them. Her almond-shaped brown eyes were almost Asian, her dense black hair fixed in a prim coil. Her scouting skills and ability to remain cool in a fight had made her a talisman for the unit. Added to that, she was an Amazon. Any amorous advances would be met with a mean-looking blade sheathed beneath her sleeve, a useful and effective method of communication as she didn’t speak any German. When Sergeant Kant was around, though, she would preen like a feral cat, becoming feminine and friendly. He was the only one allowed near her rifle, camouflaged for winter with white-stained cloth. It looked like a toy in Kant’s hands, but appropriate for her petite frame. Kant, as a favour, had modified her weapon to suit German ammunition.

  Olga repaid him with a hot tea made of local lichen scraped from tree bark. The brew was indigestible but Kant, being Kant, loved it and requested more. Olga would ladle the concoction with an approving smile into his billet can.

  The journey by armoured half-track to the landing strip through the forest was subdued, each soldier caught up with final preparations. The unit, including Olga and Regan, was kitted o
ut with winter wear and provided with extra rations. The unit comprised two engineers — Rudy Hauptmann and Hans Bader — radio operator Herman Schultz, and Alpine Kommandos Uwe Koheller, Will Voight, and Jan Kramer. These were Brandt’s best men, battle-hardened like Kant, all experts with weapons, explosives and Arctic survival. Voight and Kramer were also equal to Olga as snipers. Brandt, Schenker and Kant sat with them at the back. Kant stared at Schenker who was trying to adjust his twin-lightning bolt insignia on his tunic. ‘Who’s the peacock?’ he muttered to Brandt.

  ‘Captain Schenker; SS, here to oversee and verify the racial facts of this mission. He answers to Himmler and Goering directly,’

  ‘Must have run out of civilians to torture,’ replied Kant. He was lighting up a cigarette from the stub in his mouth.

  Schenker looked at him as if he’d found him on the bottom of his boot. Kant held the gaze until Schenker looked away, jaw muscles dancing. Regan kept glancing over at the reinforced boxes containing his equipment bouncing up and down on the half-track's floor. His left leg twitched up and down. In fact Regan never seemed to keep still, even in conversation. Every rut in the ground the half-track found led to groaning and outbursts from him as the equipment became airborne for a few seconds.

  The runway had been cleared by engineers and a camouflaged Junkers JU/52 stood waiting with skids fitted to the undercarriage. The engines were running to prevent freezing. The team quickly loaded their equipment onto the aircraft, making a special effort not to hurl Regan’s cases to ease his agony.