by Nick Cook
He took his knife and carefully levered out the tacks that had been hammered into the lid of a box lying on the ground beside him. A dozen metres away, he heard Malenkoy telling the guard that he was going to have to report his insubordination to General Nerchenko, a threat that appeared to cut little ice. Shlemov knew that he only had about two minutes left to find what he was looking for. Malenkoy could not hold out much longer.
The last tack pinged out of the top of the box, making a noise that sounded like a ricocheting bullet. He paused for a second, listening for a change in the tempo of Malenkoy’s monologue, but there was none. He lifted the lid carefully off the box and plunged his hand down into the layer of straw that packed the case.
He felt something metallic and cylindrical. His fingers darted left and right with the dexterity of a blind man’s, until he felt another and then one more. He brought his right hand up slowly from the base of the box, parting the straw with his left.
The leaden nose of the shell seemed to thrust from the crate like a spire rising from the rooftops of the Kremlin Palace. He pulled more packing away until he could see at least ten of the specialized munitions, each one longer than his arm from its flat base to the fuse in the tip. He didn’t really need to see more, but he peered in, searching for the lettering he knew to be stencilled on the side of each round.
The initials ‘VKhV swam before his eyes. He remained transfixed for a moment, then broke himself out of the trance and replaced the lid of the box, pushing as many tacks as he could find back into the holes with his thumb.
Then he stole off back towards the gate.
Malenkoy was still berating the private for obstructing his access into the crate compound, when he felt a tap at his shoulder and turned to find himself staring straight into the face of Shlemov.
“Come with me, Comrade,” the NKVD man said, before Malenkoy could show any surprise at his escape from the corral.
Shlemov tugged Malenkoy back towards the checkpoint where they had entered the square.
“What is it?” Malenkoy asked, frightened at the expression on the investigator’s face. “What the hell did you find in there?”
They passed by the checkpoint. Already the mist was beginning to lift.
“Have you got access to a transmitter?” Shlemov asked him, ignoring the questions.
“There’s a field radio in the tent.”
“I need range, you fool, something with power.”
Malenkoy racked his brains. The obvious place for transmitting and receiving all long range signals was only metres away from them, there in Branodz, within the HQ of the 1st Ukrainian Front, but that was clearly something Shlemov wanted to avoid. Any signal sent from the HQ would be witnessed by at least half a dozen, people.
There was one other place, manned by soldiers he could trust to keep their mouths shut.
“My maskirovka has all the morse and encryption facilities you would need. We use them for sending false signals into Germany.”
“There’s no time for coding, I’m just going to have to risk using the radio-telephone. Can you connect me with Moscow on a frequency that would not be monitored at Front HQ?”
“I can put you through to Vladivostock with the equipment we’ve got back there,” Malenkoy said proudly. “Frontal headquarters is too busy talking with commanders at 1st and 2nd Belorussian to listen to what we’re doing at Chrudim. As far as they’re concerned we are just a deception and disinformation unit whose job is to keep the fascists from pinpointing the main thrust of the final attack.”
They arrived at the parked GAZ and Shlemov motioned for Malenkoy to get in and drive. The major of tanks gunned the engine into life.
“Chrudim and fast,” Shlemov said. “I believe there is no time to lose.”
“For what, Comrade?”
“For whatever it is that Shaposhnikov and Nerchenko have planned in their nightmare scheme.” He held on tightly as Malenkoy threw the jeep into a bend in the track.
“The Marshal is involved?” Malenkoy’s eyes widened.
“Yes.”
“What would a man such as he want with sanitation fluid?”
Shlemov gritted his teeth as Malenkoy tried to edge past a slow-moving troop lorry, then swerved suddenly to avoid an oncoming vehicle.
“Do you really think I would have come all this way on the express orders of Comrade Beria to investigate these men for improper conduct over a few damned delousing baths? Those crates contain enough shells to wipe out every man, woman and child within a radius of a hundred and fifty kilometres. I saw what was in there with my own eyes, Malenkoy. I touched those damned things with my bare hands.” He was shouting over the slipstream.
Malenkoy stared at him as if he were an inmate in a mental institution. “But there couldn’t have been more than a few thousand shells in the corral, hardly enough for one artillery barrage along a ten kilometre stretch of front,” he said cautiously.
“Shut up and concentrate on the road,” Shlemov yelled. The jeep veered wildly about the track, trees whistling past on the left, a steep ravine falling away to the right. Shlemov paused, running over the facts once more, trying to find a hidden flaw in his argument. It would help to talk it through.
“A few weeks ago, we received information that a consignment of shells had gone missing from a weapons production facility at a place called Berezniki, in the lee of the Urals. Although an immediate inquiry was launched, neither the munitions, nor a plausible explanation for their disappearance from Factory 497, were ever produced. It was presumed that there had been some incompetence in the filing of the manifest, so the individual responsible was punished. Incident closed, or so we thought.”
“And it is those shells which have turned up here?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“How can you be sure? One shell is identical to another, is it not?”
Shlemov looked at Malenkoy in a pitying way. “Berezniki is our country’s principal centre for the manufacture of chemical weapons. In the twenty-five years we have been producing them there has never once been an instance where a kilo of the stuff has gone missing, let alone a hundred tonnes of it. I’m telling you that what I just saw was part of the missing Berezniki consignment and that it was brought here on the orders of Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov. I believe that he, Nerchenko and Krilov have formed some plan to unleash hydrogen cyanide on this front as part of a hideous, madcap scheme they have dubbed Archangel.”
Malenkoy almost put the GAZ into the ravine. “Every man, woman and child within a radius of a hundred and fifty kilometres,” he whispered. “It’s not possible.”
* * * * * * * *
Ritter held the FW 189 in a figure-eight pattern over Chrudim a few hundred feet above the intermittent cloud cover. Menzel divided his time between monitoring the signals that poured from the massed tank regiments below and working the Hasselblads when a gap in the clouds allowed his cameras to take pictures of the olive-brown mass of armour in and around the town.
In the brief moments that he was not doing either he glanced up nervously, looking past Ritter and their fanatical gunner, Julend, who was still muttering do-or-die oaths over the intercom, for the Yaks which must surely be coming for them at any moment. Much to their relief and amazement, the only Russian fighter patrol they had seen either failed to spot them, or for reasons which baffled Menzel - seeing as they were a tactical reconnaissance aircraft much prized by Yak pilots - left them alone in pursuit of bigger fish further to the west. As for ground fire, Ivan had to be blind, or out of ammunition. So far, everything had been much too easy for his liking.
He forced himself to concentrate on their primary SIGINT mission. Although Menzel spoke Russian, there was little use for the skill in the Aufklärungsgruppe since most of the radio traffic was in code. He merely recorded the signals and left it to others back at HQ to decipher them, a task of almost child-like simplicity, he had been told, since the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe had long since possessed the means of unra
velling Ivan’s principal code networks.
“How much fuel have we left?” he asked Ritter.
The pilot stared at the gauges, then tapped them with his forefinger, a gesture that summed up the Luftwaffe’s confidence in its equipment over the last few months, Menzel thought bitterly.
“Enough for another thirty-minute stooge before returning to base,” Ritter said matter-of-factly. “Where are all the fighters you told us about, Herr Hauptmann?”
Menzel was on the point of voicing his misgivings about the unnerving lull that existed on the Eastern Front above Chrudim when a transmission of such energy screeched in his headphones that he cried out with pain. He instinctively grabbed the scratch-pad and held his pencil poised above the paper for the dots and dashes that would begin flitting at lightning speed through his receiver. He was still joggling the handle that adjusted the DF loop beneath the aircraft for the optimum fix on the signal when the clear tones of the radio operator burst through his headset. For a moment his pencil hovered above the paper as he recovered from the shock of hearing an open voice channel over his equipment, then he began writing.
When he stopped two minutes later, his whole body numbed by what he had just heard, he turned to Ritter and, in a voice that he tried to control, ordered him to swing the Uhu round to the west and hold the vector for forty kilometres.
Had the FW 189 stooged over Chrudim a few minutes longer, Menzel would have had much more to write down on his scratch-pad than the signal that had flashed from Shlemov to Beria’s headquarters in Moscow. Within moments of the Uhu banking off towards Branodz, the DF loop which was the ‘ears’ of Menzel’s SIGINT equipment lost all further transmissions because of the temporary masking effects of the mountains over which they now sped as low and fast as the aircraft’s two Argus engines would propel them.
In the darkness of the radio hut in Chrudim Shlemov remained by the radio as Beria had instructed, waiting for the call-back signal. He had rattled off his findings as quickly as possible, fully aware that the longer he spoke, the greater the risk of his transmission being picked up by an eager sparks operator at Konev’s HQ in Branodz. Apart from the danger of Nerchenko or Shaposhnikov learning that the plan they called Archangel had been compromised, Shlemov had received explicit orders before leaving Moscow that the NKVD was to take the lead and wrap up the investigation into Shaposhnikov’s conspiracy, if that’s what it was. It would be a bitter end to all their work if Konev moved to arrest the plotters and received all the kudos - glory that rightfully belonged to the NKVD - from Stalin.
There was a faint crackle over the headset as the connection between Beria’s radio-telephone was re-established between Moscow and Chrudim. Beria’s voice was instantly recognizable to Shlemov, despite the atmospheric distortions through which the signal had battled for hundreds of kilometres before reaching its final destination.
“Shlemov?”
“Yes, Comrade.”
“Make your arrest, extract a full confession and dispose of them with extreme prejudice.”
“It will be done, Comrade.” He was about to shut down the equipment, but something told him that Beria was not yet finished.
“I know why he has done it,” Beria said, his voice an eerie mixture of hiss and static. “Write this down. It may help you when you deliver the coup de grâce.”
A moment later, Shlemov had all the evidence he needed to put the Archangel conspirators in a shallow grave somewhere in the woods on the edges of Branodz.
* * * * * * * *
The Uhu roared down the valley, jinking and weaving to avoid sporadic bursts of light arms fire from the forest below. Menzel was too busy navigating to use his machine-gun in the nose, leaving the job of suppressive fire to Julend, whose MG 81s chattered with an intensity that was matched only by his howls of delight each time an Ivan patrol scattered from a clearing under a hail of his bullets.
“My God!” Menzel came up from his calculations as the full impact of the radio transmission sank into his soul. “Those barbarians are going to kill us all with the stuff they’ve got stored down there.”
Ritter glanced at the crazed face of the Hauptmann for a second longer than he should have. The mountain ridge leapt towards the Focke-Wulf at a sickening speed, leaving Menzel with a sudden vision of trees and grey, jagged rock that filled the Plexiglass dome in front of him from frame to frame. He felt the force of three times gravity come on as Ritter pulled back on the stick in a desperate bid to haul them over the valley wall. Then, while his eyes were still bulging in their sockets from the gs, he heard the wump on the belly as the Uhu brushed the tops of the trees and was clear, now plunging down towards the floor of the next valley in whose midst lay the town he was looking for.
“There it is,” Menzel said, “straight ahead and hold her steady.”
Ritter, still shaking from their narrow escape, saw the outline of the buildings and the little alpine cowsheds.
“It looks innocent enough to me,” the pilot said.
Menzel tried to think of words to convince the pilot to stay on their present heading, but rational speech eluded him.
A thin beam of tracer arced its way towards them from the centre of the town. Menzel ducked as the bullets found their mark, punching holes in the Uhu’s wings. A ranging shot? The town and the forest around it answered a second later as a hundred guns opened up on them.
“Jesus,” Ritter yelled, as the aircraft almost bucked the control column out of his hands.
“That’s no ordinary town,” Menzel said. “Get lower, or they’ll have us.”
Ritter didn’t need to be told twice. Despite his inexperience, he coaxed the Uhu down to tree level, but the defensive fire followed them. Just as it seemed the heavy calibre weapons would find their range, a small valley opened up before them. Ritter darted into it, bringing the aircraft below the tops of the pines.
It was then that Menzel saw the T-34s, camouflaged, but unmistakable. The single snatched glimpse unleashed the doubts he had harboured about Chrudim in the same instant.
“Chrudim’s a maskirovka, Ivan’s name for a huge military deception to make us look in the wrong place. This is where they intend to start their final assault on Berlin, here at Branodz, safe in the knowledge that we’re always looking at something else a few valleys away.”
Their cover started to give way as the hills on either side of them levelled out.
“Then let’s get out of here,” Ritter choked into his intercom. “We’ve done all we can do in this place.”
“No, I need pictures, proof,” Menzel said, fumbling for the switch on the end of the cable that led to the twin Hasselblads under the nose of the aircraft.
“Proof of what?”
“Of the stuff they’ve got stored in this place,” the Hauptmann muttered, too low for the pilot to hear over the exploding shells that had now started to find the range of the Uhu. “Take me right over the centre of the town,” Menzel added as forcefully as he could. “We’ll be lucky if we even get one stab at this.”
Ritter lined the nose up on a large alpine villa, a red flag fluttering from its balcony, situated beside an immense clearing in the middle of the town. The square was suddenly full of vehicles and men, who darted for cover like field mice as the Uhu swept down, emulating the night-bird of prey from which it took its name.
“There!” Menzel shouted, suddenly spotting his quarry. “Left a bit, just a fraction. That farmyard beside the villa. See it?” Ritter nodded. “Head for that - and get lower!”
The Focke-Wulf rocked from a near miss, but Ritter kept it steady. The corral grew in the Plexiglass until Menzel could make out what was stored in its midst. Despite the camouflaged netting, he saw the boxes - couldn’t miss them, they were stacked so high.
He pressed the switch and the cameras started clicking.
In the rear of the aircraft, Julend whooped with delight. “There’s a fat Ivan down there just staring at us from the balcony of that villa. Looks like a general o
r something. Stupid bastard’s going to catch it right up the arsehole when I get these guns on him.”
“For God’s sake don’t shoot,” Menzel yelled. “Wait until we’re clear of the town before you touch those things again.”
“Why the hell, Herr Hauptmann?”
“Because I’ve given you an order, that’s why.” Menzel wiped the sweat off his brow.
They swooped over the corral, the Hasselblads continuing to take pictures until the film ran out. Then they were out over the vastness of the forest, clear of the town and the flak, but not the fighters. And this time the Yaks would come for them, he knew that.
He also understood what he had to do next, for he had heard the radio signal about the weapons stored in the corral at the centre of Branodz and that had placed a burden on his shoulders far heavier than the responsibility of running his decaying Staffel. He had translated the words, had written them down even. As if to reassure himself, he found the scratch-pad and read once more.
Hydrogen cyanide sounded the same in any damned language.
In that instant, he realized that the main reason for his impending action was that he was running scared, hoping to put as much distance as possible between himself and Branodz.
Hauptmann Rudi Menzel had had enough.
“Hug the trees and steer two-two-zero,” he said.
Ritter stared at him in amazement. “That’s about ninety degrees off-course.”
“We aren’t going back to Altenburg,” Menzel said, calmly.
“Where are we going, Herr Hauptmann?” Julend piped up from the back.
“We’re making for the nearest Allied airfield,” Menzel replied. “Ivan has got a hundred tonnes of hydrogen cyanide stored down there and I, for one, don’t want to be on the receiving end when they start using it.”