Get Lenin

by Robert Craven

  An unnaturally distorted signal in the Urals area suddenly wavered in quick succession like jabs. It was Eva. The Germans had Lenin.

  ‘What are you going to do, Kincaid?’ murmured Chainbridge aloud.

  Finland was allied to Germany so it would probably be safer to ship there than overland through Russia. With so many small islands off the Finnish coast, it’d be ideal for a U-Boat or flying boat to slip in unnoticed. Chainbridge knew Kincaid had a private airliner; maybe it was big enough to freight a sarcophagus.

  De Witte leaned back in his chair. A sense of dread had come over him, as if being denied sight gave him another sense. He was desperately worried about Eva.

  The head of O.S.I. began preparing a coded message to the War Office requesting advice.

  ‘If they get Lenin out of Russia, that’s it,’ said De Witte.

  Chainbridge seemed to stare through the walls. ‘We could generate disinformation, call it a hoax, a stunt, a gimmick…’

  ‘Kincaid’s world-famous; a potential Senator or President. If he pulls this off, he’ll be regarded as a bold adventurer who made a fool of the Soviet Union,’ retorted De Witte, spinning his cane around his fingers, the only outward sign of the stress he was suffering.

  Chainbridge pondered his options. Maps and charts lay strewn across the table. He studied the vast topographical swathe of the Urkraine, Siberia and the Ural mountains. And somewhere within this thousand mile radius was a Polish girl whose chances of getting out alive were diminishing by the minute.

  Tyumen was a secret facility and Moscow was denying its existence despite Churchill’s offer of military and logistical assistance. The British Embassy here had a small detachment of commandos but if Lenin was now airborne he would be halfway through Russian airspace in three or four hours, not enough time to get men on the ground, not enough time for any kind of preventative action.

  De Witte’s suggestion was the simplest — tell Stalin directly that Lenin was in German hands, let him and the Politburo figure out what to do, make the communique for his-eyes-only.

  Chainbridge phoned the embassy desk to notify the ambassador of the plan and request that the commander of the embassies detachment join them below. Turning to the radio operator, he inquired, ‘Can you get a position on that interrupted broadcast?’

  The carriage was rolled down to the edge of the flying boat’s wings. Lenin’s sarcophagus was hoisted out and placed carefully onto a trestle on wheels and loaded smoothly into the cargo hold.

  Bader’s peripheral vision detected movement from the half-track. Eight or nine SS storm-troopers alighted from the back of it. Schultz didn’t have time to draw his weapon before he was gunned down and killed.

  Brandt and Kant froze for a split second before diving onto the ice. Olga was already returning fire and a storm-trooper crumpled into the snow. Bullets landed around her. In quick succession she eliminated four anti-aircraft personnel before they could target the people on the ice. With tracer fire streaking around her, she stayed put until the gunners stopped moving. She turned her attention back to the SS troopers; dropping onto her chest and making herself as small a target as possible. She coldly dispatched two more in quick succession.

  Kincaid was already aboard with Regan, and Schenker and four armed SS soldiers bundled the embalmers into the hold.

  The flying boat’s engines revved, blowing equipment and Brandt’s unit across the ice. Brandt watched Schenker give a cheery wave before closing the aircraft door.

  Covering Olga, Kant’s MG-34 started blasting, causing the half-track’s radio antennae to collapse into it. Kramer stood alongside him, targeting the cab, killing the driver and his passenger. They then concentrated on its front tyres. The half-track’s bonnet slumped into the slush with a sigh.

  A bullet had penetrated the fuel tank, forcing the remaining storm-troopers out from its protection. Sliding across the ice to Brandt, Bader and Hauptmann pointed toward the carriage as cover. Kramer and Kant half-ran, half-slid, across the ice backwards, shooting. Bader, using Schultz’s radio as a make-shift sledge, was already trying to source a bandwidth now that the jamming had stopped.

  The flying boat was accelerating down the ice with the fighter aircraft in tow. Two fighters were already airborne ahead of the behemoth. Amid the whistling bullets, Brandt was desperately looking for an escape route as he scrambled back from being blown down the ice toward the carriage. Ordinance whizzed past him, sending up clouds of snow around him. The carriage offered some protection but they could hear one of the ME-109s coming back around for a sortie.

  From its open doors Olga, Koheller, Kramer and Voight were giving Kant and Kramer covering fire. The half-track was now ablaze and its ammunition popped and sputtered like fireworks.

  Kravchenko couldn’t believe his eyes. The SS were shooting at their own troops. He didn’t feel any compassion toward the men on the ice. He was impressed though with the speed the small one put the anti-aircraft crews down; one shot, one kill.

  He spotted some SS heading out onto the ice out of her line of vision. They were setting up a heavy machine gun with belt-feed bullets. Then he made a decision: the Germans on the ice might be of help to him having been double-crossed.

  He lined up his PPSh-1941G, bracing his back against the tree, and opened up with it. The two soldiers writhed under the withering fire, blood pooling across the ice. He surprised two others, shooting them in the back. He stepped toward, the burning half-track slowly, Almost coming face-to-face with another SS trooper, he opened fire from a few feet away.

  The scream of a fighter plane beginning its attack run filled the air and an ME-109 swooped past, its on-board cannons blazing. Brandt’s unit crouched, shooting upwards. The fighter's bullets clattered off the carriage, scattering the unit. One of them had been hit and wasn’t moving.

  The fighter banked hard, swinging around for another run, the pilot visible, adjusting his sights.

  Kravchenko dodging the ammunition crackling all around him, pulled the dead bodies out and sat into the anti-aircraft gun. Knowing absolutely nothing about it, he managed to crank the barrels upward and point roughly in the direction above the carriage.

  Fumbling and squinting through the sights, he found and squeezed the trigger. The ME-109 swept into the hail of bullets, shuddering under their impact. Gracefully it began to pitch upwards, smoke billowing from the engine housing. Moments later gravity took over and the plane descended without the pilot baling out. The dull thud of metal hitting earth and a plume of black smoke marked the plane’s end.

  The flying boat was now airborne, its immense skis jettisoned onto the ice below. They landed like giant’s footsteps. It banked gracefully to the right like an albatross, followed by the swift fighter aircraft protecting it. Lenin was leaving his motherland on the first stage of his journey to Berlin.

  Kravchenko stood watching the flying boat gradually shrinking in size. He cut a piece of white cloth from the winter tunic of a dead SS trooper and, wrapping it around the muzzle of his machine gun, he slipped down the bank onto the ice, waving it as a flag.

  Brandt and Kant walked out to meet him, Brandt motioning Olga not to shoot.

  Kravchenko could feel sniper's eyes on his face, chest and legs. Death would be instant, painless and, at this moment, almost welcome.

  They stood facing each other Putting his machine gun down slowly, Kravchenko reached into his tunic and produced an ornate gold cigarette case. He offered it out to the two haggard-looking Germans who accepted two cigarettes and lit up. They then offered him a light.

  The erstwhile enemies stood without saying a word. In the space of three hours Kravchenko had lost his unit and his mission at the hands of these men. For their part, the Germans had been cruelly betrayed, now isolated, and they were all thousands of miles away from home. The snowfall was getting heavier, muffling the sound of the burning half-track.

  Kant broke the silence. ‘What do we do now?’

  Kravchenko didn’t speak Germa
n, but got the gist.

  Brandt inhaled the strong tobacco and reached out to shake the Russian’s hand. ‘Danke,’

  Kravechenko just nodded.

  Chapter 11

  During his time in the Spanish Civil War, Kramer had learned Russian as a Brigade Commander. He translated for Kravchenko as he spoke to Brandt. In three hours every Russian soldier within a hundred mile radius would be descending on this location. Then he’d be hunted down along with Brandt’s unit. The Russian High Command would not look kindly on their prize possession being snatched so easily.

  Brandt studied the man opposite him. The Russian was unusually tall with tightly cropped red hair, deep-set brown eyes and a few days' stubble. He was in his late-thirties, possibly early forties. The slashes and chevrons on his tattered uniform told him that he was Special Forces — NKVD. He would be formidable if he decided to up and leave and take them on as a guerrilla. He was professional enough to accept that a few hours earlier his unit had been killed and lucky to be alive.

  Brandt admired this, the Russian quality of accepting the worst at face value and moving on, his priority now being to stay alive which was Brandt's priority too. His hand had a make-shift bandage over a deep cut and he was suffering from lacerations and small burns to his face. In the half-light he looked like a heavy-weight boxer who’d gone ten rounds with Joe Louis and lost. Brandt, Kant and Bader sat in the carriage with him and Olga. She regarded him with barely disguised contempt. ‘Why did you save us?’ she asked.

  Kravchenko paused. Her accent was Chechen and he noted her eyes blazed with hatred. He had to turn this back to his advantage. He was gambling on the Germans wanting to square the ambush with the SS Captain and the civilian with the flying boat.

  ‘I was tempted, very tempted to let you finish each other off, but I thought the only chance of getting out of here alive is with us working together. To be honest, it all happened so fast I wasn’t really thinking, luckily for you,’

  Olga’s steely glare didn’t waver. She didn’t trust him. She would watch and wait, then strike. Until Chechnya was free she made it her mission to hunt every Russian down she met and kill them. She recognised Kravchenko’s rank and unit. Her mother had been raped in the 30s by the NKVD hunting down local insurgents. During her ordeal the woman had hidden Olga and her sisters under the living room floor. Her father, returning from the market, had beaten the woman in rage and humiliation. The elders of the village convened and the option of stoning her to death for adultery was suggested before Olga’s grandfather intervened. He took Olga, her sisters and mother up into the hills to his village and gave them sanctuary. As soon as she was able, Olga had mastered her sharpshooting, learning from her grandfather, spending days in the surrounding forests hunting. She discovered she had a natural talent for taking life. As soon as the opportunity arose she was going to cut the Russian’s throat. Looking into her coal-black eyes, Kravchenko knew this also. He gave her the slightest of nods — try it, you’ll regret it. Her gaze remained steady and accusing.

  Brandt felt cut adrift with no role in the army any more as, for all intents and purposes, his unit had ceased to exist. That chicken farmer Himmler’s SS could make up any story they wanted. He felt spent. The past few weeks he had witnessed professional soldiers cracking under extreme pressure. He himself had noticed a shake developing in his hand after a mission to take a village a week earlier. It had not gone well and his unit had taken heavy casualties. The Russians had fought bravely even through heavy artillery shelling and JU 87 bombardments. One of his junior officers, Peter Schelling, a former sales clerk from Bremen, had blown his brains out in his quarters to be found by Brandt a few hours later, an empty bottle of vodka lying by his side. It was becoming a common occurrence. Russia was sucking in the German army and grinding it into the snow beneath its heel.

  He knew also this situation they were in was payback for what had happened in Norway four months earlier where an SS officer had lost his footing during an ascent, dragging Brandt’s unit almost off a cliff-face into the fjord below. Brandt cut the man’s rope, saving his comrades and spilling the officer over the side. Himmler hadn’t liked that. Within a week they were on the Eastern Front fighting on the frontline.

  Brandt stared out through the carriage door. Absent-mindedly he wound his father’s wrist watch, his thoughts drifting to home. Every day through his childhood he would cycle out to the veterans' hospital where his father, Michael, lay twisted and broken. A Captain at Verdun, he was a strong physical man, an accomplished rower who had been in a trench heavily shelled by the French Army in April 1917. The sole survivor, he had been buried for days under the mud before being recovered. His two arms had had to be amputated from the elbow and his spine was mangled, yet his desire to survive drove him. As he lay motionless in the sheets, he kept his mind active. He learned to play chess and would call out moves to the other veterans in the ward. Within a year all the men were holding tournaments in their heads playing against each other. Brandt admired his father and came to love his flattened features, a portion of the man who went to war. He admired the way he accepted and adapted to his circumstances while others in the ward had lost their minds or attempted suicide. Despite Brandt missing out on a place in the 1936 Olympic squad, Michael in turn admired his son's stoicism and encouraged him to keep going.

  ‘In the end that’s all there is,’ he’d say. ‘Be like a shark, Nicky. Never stop, ever. If you stop, you sink and drown,’

  He had to keep going. His team needed it. They, including the Russian, were now his responsibility. He had to lead them out of this mess. This new situation presented an opportunity for operating with greater latitude. They were, in the words of the Russian, ‘walking in dead men’s shoes’. He liked him not as an efficient enemy soldier but as a man. There was as simple solution: they had to move quickly to keep Lenin in Russia.

  The carriage had sustained heavy damage from the fighter attack. Outside, Uwe Koheller lay dead. Brandt had removed Koheller’s dog-tags then had his body carefully placed alongside Schultz away from the SS troopers. Brandt recited the snatches of a prayer he’d remembered over his two fallen comrades. ‘When these days are forever past, please bring to all a peace to last. When the sun shines through the rain, thy weary heart shall bear no pain. And when you bring this peace to men, please send us homeward — once again.’

  He recalled their first mission in Poland’s Tatra Mountains, their actions in the French Alps and their love of climbing above politics, beliefs or war. They were climbers who were conscripted soldiers. A toast of vodka was raised and Kravchenko was invited to toast also. He saluted in Russian. Brandt realised at that point they were a very, very long way from home.

  He looked around the carriage. They were all looking at him. He’d have loved to hand the command over to the Russian, but he was injured and exhausted. Brandt sighed; it took a moment to follow through with his thoughts;

  ‘We retrieve the cameras and kill Kincaid and Regan. We have to make this look like it never happened. We’ll use Lenin as a guarantee of safe passage to Switzerland. The high command don’t want us to exist. We’ll oblige them on our terms. I’ve had enough of this war,’

  As Kramer translated Brandt's words, Kravchenko pondered the idea. His thoughts were of home and his family, his young wife Sonja and his four year old son. The damage done to the train meant he could now be listed as dead. Should he be caught, he’d be branded a political traitor and he and his family would be residing in Kolyma before the end of the year. He could be either dead as a hero or dead as a traitor. He smiled wryly to himself that death seemed to be joined to his hip since this afternoon. The German’s plan added another option to lying in an unmarked grave somewhere. Tears welled up in his eyes, possibly delayed shock, but more that he would never see little Oleg again.

  He nodded in agreement. If he came out of this in one piece, he’d slip into some other Russian unit heading home when the war ended. He vowed to see Oleg and his wife So
nja again, alive.

  Kramer, Kant, Olga, Koheller, Bader and Hauptmann sat quietly, letting the idea of deserting and living in a neutral country sink in. This was the first time they had heard their leader, their friend, ever speak like this. They, like him, were sickened at the betrayal. In war life was cheap but this was straightforward treachery. Had Fretter-Pico known? Rathenow? He hadn’t turned the airship around once the shooting started. How high up the chain of command did this set-up go?

  ‘I climbed the Eiger before the war; a very difficult climb. We could sit out the war in Berne sipping Kirsch,’ mused Kramer aloud, his voice echoing around the carriage. He started to grin at the thought. His creased face resembled a relief map of the moon.

  Kant pulled Olga closer. ‘I go where this little lady goes.’

  Rank and enemy status were forgottten for an instant. They could’ve been strangers on a train in peacetime striking up a conversation. Then, with a collective grunt, they started preparations for departure.

  Hauptmann, Bader and Voight gathered provisions, prepared a fire and began an inventory of weapons, equipment and, most importantly; ammunition.

  The half-track was destroyed with no possibility of its being used ever again. The remaining German bodies were lined up on the river bank and any useful item — knives, pistols, ammunition and warm clothing — removed. There was one odd discovery — none of the SS had dog-tags. Kramer checked under the arm of each corpse for tattoos identifying regiment and blood group. They had none. The fighter pilots' billets yielded more cold food, coffee and chocolate, a full bottle of vodka, some half-eaten bread, cheese and sausage abandoned when the carriage arrived. They were quickly consumed.

  Kravchenko declined to eat, allowing his new-found comrades to enjoy his ration. If they were to push out on foot avoiding the Russian Army, they were going to need nutrition. Olga had sourced her lichen for brewing and once the small fire was blazing, some of Kincaid’s silver coffee pots were placed on it for the water to boil.