“Is the radio working?” he asked the electrician briskly.
“Yes, Comrade Kalnins. We have checked a signal to Urumqi, this works but we cannot get one from Almaty.”
“Never mind, I need to send a radio message now. Comrade Voronov, please leave us alone for five minutes.”
Voronov went out but through the thin walls he could hear the text dictated by Kalnins
Captain Kalnins
NKVD liaison officer
To Major Sohin
NKVD operative centre Urumqi
Urgent. Confidential
We suspect an act of sabotage. Fuel has been adulterated in order to incapacitate the transport vehicles. The sample of the fuel is on the way to you and should arrive the day after tomorrow. Please check and inform me about the results. Further investigations are already initiated.
Voronov was shocked. In view of the fact that he was a wanted person it was clear that he would be the first on the list of the suspects. Time was working against him. The NKVD centre in Urumqi would get in touch with Almaty and then it is a question of two-three days. They would arrest him right here and send him with an escort to Almaty.
His thoughts were interrupted by the driver Romashkin.
“Comrade Voronov. I will leave for Urumqi tomorrow early. Have you ordered something there ? Should I pick it up?”
At that very moment Voronov had a brilliant idea.
“Yes, indeed. We’ve had the wrong delivery two times for the bolts, pipes and ledges. I think I’d better look into the matter personally and go with you. Otherwise it will continue like that for ages.”
“But I can take only you if you have the transportation order?”
“I’ll get it. What time will we leave?”
“Five in the morning.”
“Please pick me up at the airfield’s store building.”
Then Voronov went to Kozelsky.
“Sorry to disturb you Comrade Kozelsky but this is pretty urgent.”
“What's up? Not again!?”
“What do you mean...?”
“Ah, forget it. What's the matter?”
“We have received the wrong delivery of construction material for the second time. I want to go to Urumqi myself and get it fixed.”
“But our Chinese colleagues in Altay are in charge of procurement and supply. And, in a week you are supposed to return to Almaty, aren’t you?”
“That’s correct. That's exactly why I don't want to take any chances. It would be very embarrassing if a commission discovered deficits later on. Then it will be you who have to explain it to them and...”
“Sounds good! I fully support your idea. Here’s your transportation order. Please give it to the driver.”
Next morning Voronov loaded the truck with two bags and left for Urumqi. This was the last time anybody saw him.
On the same day at eight Kozelsky went to the store house to supervise loading the plane. He had to unlock the door since only he had the keys. He was surprised that the lock opened without any resistance but he didn’t pay much attention to that.
He looked around. All the bags were there. The first four were loaded onto a truck and brought to the airfield. At ten Novikov warmed up the engines for ten minutes and then disappeared into the skies together with the precious load and the visitor from Moscow.
4
Chun's group arrived safely in Urumqi. A telegram from a wholesaler in Shanghai instructed them to split up. The “Owl” and “Peony” had to hide the ore between the layers of cotton and transport them to Lanzhou. There another agent would take the shipment and forward it to Shanghai from where it will be sent to Japan. Chun had to go to Baotou and bring the script roll to the Japanese military intelligence representative there.
The first part of the operation went well but the second part failed. Due to the escalating war activities between China and Japan and the beginning of hostilities between Kuomintang and Communist insurgents, travelling through China became increasingly difficult. Disguised as a Buddhist monk Chun managed to reach Lanzhou but unfortunately contracted typhoid and went off communication for two months. In the meantime the priorities of Japanese Intelligence changed. Therefore he was ordered to remain in Lanzhou and monitor the Soviet arms supplies to the communists. He remained there till 1946. With nobody left to give him orders Chun moved to Dalian and then to Seoul where he remained until his death in 1989.
The fate of some of the other persons involved in the story is also known. Japanese chemists analysed the ore samples and concluded that they contained a high percentage of uranium and vanadium. The main intelligence office in Tokyo got in touch with the Japanese embassy in Moscow asking them to try to figure out what all that might be about. This communication was intercepted by the Soviet intelligence. Needless to say such gross negligence in keeping the state's secrets could not be left unpunished.
The chief engineer Kozelsky was arrested for criminal negligence and spent 9 years in the labour camps. Kalnins was also arrested in the summer of 1939 and sentenced to death. However following the occupation of Baltic states, it was decided that it would be wasteful to shoot a NKVD officer who was a native speaker in Latvian and fluent in German. He was pardoned but demoted and sent to the newly established NKVD office in Riga. During the war he was again promoted and appointed to the office of military counter-espionage (SMERSH) of the Baltic Front. At the end of the war he returned to Riga as Major decorated with several medals and an Order of the Red Star. After retirement he lived quietly in the suburbs of Alderi in a small house near the lake until his death in 1973.
Voronov’s brother and cousin were lucky. After Voronov was sentenced to death in absentia, both were arrested. But fortunately for them, at exactly the same time a new policy was being implemented. After the downfall and later execution of Yezhov the heads of many other NKVD superiors had to roll. As mentioned before the Kazakhstan' NKVD chief Zalin was one of them. The newly appointed chief of Soviet NKVD Lavrenti Beriya understood that at this point there was no room and no need to identify more spies and saboteurs. The Red Army, the industry and many scientific institutions had already suffered enormously from the continuing wave of arrests and convictions. His own campaign of terror would come later but at the beginning he started another one... denouncing the excesses and violations of “principles of socialist justice” under Yezhov. Now, instead of quotas for convictions the tribunals had to present at least a certain percentage of acquittals. This is what happened to Voronov's relatives. Since no direct evidence could be found against them they were released.
But there was no trace of Voronov after his flight from the mine.
Beijing, April 2013
“Wow, Nick! I must tell you that exceeds all expectations. Now we need to summarize all that into four or five pages. I am sure the boss will want to see it tomorrow.”
“That looks like we’ll be working till the early morning hours. Somebody else gets lucky enough to find treasures and we have to write lengthy reports…”
“Guys, do you know what is wrong with the printer?” a female voice interrupted them.
Emily Hutchison from the protocol section looked tired and exhausted, as usual. The protocol department of every embassy considers itself being the most essential. Like book-keeper or auditor, this is not a role for everybody. A person entrusted with organizing VIP visits just cannot leave anything to chance. No detail is too trivial, like a good book-keeper who just cannot sleep until the last penny has been accounted for. Let’s take a visit of the Prime Minister as an example. Preparation starts weeks in advance and is meticulously planned including several B- and C-plans. When a visitor throws a banquet, the list of invitees can be a real headache. It is not only about whom to invite, which is challenging enough, it is also about the order of seats. Placing an important local politician too far away from the host might cause a serious insult. And what can you do in case of no shows? The chairs cannot just remain empty. Inviting somebody on short notice i
s out of the question since nobody likes feeling like a back-up guest. Therefore the empty seats are usually filled with the embassy staff, however not those close to the host. In such cases the seating order or “placement” as it is called in the protocol jargon, is shifted according to the seniority.
Even something as simple as picking up from the airport is no easy task. The protocol secretary must not only decide who has to meet the visitor but also who will sit in the first vehicle, who in the second one etc. It is hard to imagine but many private details of VIP visitors are known and communicated in advance. All possible allergies, food preferences etc. have to be planned for. And despite all these meticulous preparations potential pitfalls are always possible.
Emily remembered only too well the visit of the foreign secretary to Beijing and Chengdu about a year ago. They planned to visit a Sino-British joint venture plant in Chengdu, and the following morning the general manager of the plant invited the delegation to attend a hunting trip. The protocol section was taken by surprise and horrified. On the agenda the event had been described as a visit to the mountains without any mention of hunting. A photo of the foreign secretary standing in front of a dead beast would be a PR disaster at home in Britain, even if the animal wasn’t endangered. On the other hand a blunt rejection of the offer would cause offence to the hosts. Fortunately it was the day of the closing of the Olympic Games in London and it was decided to send a counter-invitation to watch the translation of the ceremony from the ball room of the hotel. Even more fortunately, that worked.
With visitors coming to Beijing virtually every two weeks Emily always looked on the verge of complete collapse, rushing between her office and the printer dozens of times a day. “Today is hell!” was her usual greeting when meeting somebody on the floor. That’s why she had been nicknamed “The Hell Lady”.
“Oh, Emily! At this late hour? What’s up this time?” asked Nick
“It’s just hell! Haven’t you heard about the visit of the Space Agency delegation in June?”
“Yes, sure.”
“The under-secretary is also coming. They will stay for six days including visits to Changsha and Shenyang. Can you imagine what a hell of a lot of work that means?! By the way what are you guys doing in the office at this hour?”
“You see Nick,” said Tom, “our reputation as loiterers who go home sharp at the end of the business day seems to be well established.”
“No, I didn’t mean that, not really. Anything special?”
“Well, we are digging for treasures.”
“Ah, I have heard about that. Sounds a very exciting story.”
“It is! And our task is that this exciting story will not become a discussion point during the visit of the under-secretary.”
“Please do your best! There are enough hot topics to be addressed during the visit.”
The next day Tom and Nick showed the report to the ambassador.
“Very well done gentlemen!” said Thurley, “Most impressive! If I knew that the trace leads to Kazakhstan I could help through my contacts there. Summarizing the findings it looks like the objects were brought out of China before 1949, thus before the applicable laws on protection of national heritage were passed. And it wasn’t done by a British national.”
“Sir, do we know if this Voronov later became a British national? And, since the objects are still in the UK, can we assume that the issue is solved?”
“It is not solved but the job at our end is done. The Home Office will continue to deal with this.”
In the evening Nick called Thomas van de Waal and informed him about the information which they had collected so far.
“Does it mean the Embassy won’t follow-up any further?” asked Thomas.
“Looks like that.”
“If you ask me that's a real pity. But I assume that our prior agreement is still valid?”
“If you are referring to the deal that you can make your own story then yes. Just one request, or let’s say one piece of advice. At this time the Embassy strongly discourages visiting Xinjiang for journalistic investigations. Even if they have nothing to do with current situation there.”
“Point taken. Actually I am thinking about visiting London to meet Voronov's son. If he’s willing to share information about his father, a visit to Xinjiang will become redundant.”
Thomas spent the next two days researching Voronov’s address and then booked a round-trip to London with a stopover in Brussels. If he was nearby then he could visit his parents in Mechelen.
The British Airways flight to London left Beijing in the morning. After the rather dull landscape of the Inner and Outer Mongolia the plane reached Baikal Lake. The view was magnificent with mountainous terrain covered by dense forests stretching along the eastern shore. This was the area populated by Buryats, a Mongol ethnic group professing Tibetan Buddhism. Another area populated by Tibetan Buddhists was the already mentioned Kalmyck Autonomous Republic between the Volga delta and northern Caucasus. In the Tsarist Russia Buddhists were treated well. Many of them were involved in the famous Great Game. In view of the Russian interest in Tibet, though not as deep as many British politicians of that time believed, Buryat pilgrims going in and out of Lhasa were extremely useful. The lama Agvan Dorjiev who completed his studies in Lhasa and became one of the close advisers of the 13th Dalai Lama was particularly well known. He was even entitled to sign the Tibeto-Mongolian Treaty on the Dalai Lama’s behalf and was instrumental in arranging his brief exile in Mongolia during the British military expedition in 1903. In St. Petersburg Dorjiev was received several times by the Tsar Nicolas II and Russian Foreign Ministers Count Lambsdorff and Count Izvolski. He was granted permission to build a Buddhist temple in the capital (which did not amuse the Orthodox Church.) This Kalachakra Temple still exists today in St. Petersburg. Among the fellow Buryats, Dorjiev had a powerful ally, Pyotr Badmayev, who was running a successful Traditional Tibetan Clinic in the capital and was also advising the Asian Desk of the Foreign Ministry. Both Dorjiev and Badmayev tried intensively to push the Tsarist government for more active action, claiming that Mongols and Tibetans would be happy to accept the Russian suzerainty, however without much success. The shock of the Crimean War was too fresh for the decision makers in St. Petersburg to risk a direct confrontation with Britain. During the Dalai Lama’s exile in Urga, after being visited by the famous Russian explorer Pyotr Kozlov he hoped to get concrete assurances from St. Petersburg but the Winter Palace remained non-committal. Apparently this had disillusioned him. Thus, following the mutiny of Sichuan troops in Lhasa in 1910 he decided to flee not to the North, but to Sikkim, seeking British protection.
The staggering success of Dorjiev came to an abrupt end after the October Revolution. Though militant atheism was one of the main pillars of Bolshevik ideology, for Buddhism they made a slight exception and this for two main reasons. First of all some Buryat lamas had actively supported the Soviet takeover, emphasizing the similarities between the Buddhism and Bolshevik ideals of brotherhood, equality and condemnation of abundant wealth. Secondly, the October Revolution was considered being a sort of the starting point for the worldwide revolution and Asia, especially China was seen as a very likely location for the next step. Thus, in the first decade of the Soviet Republic the Comintern did their best to ensure that the Buddhist nations would not be alienated. Some local party cadres were surprised to see the stark contrast between how the Russian orthodox clergy were treated on the one hand and Buryat lamas on the other.
Despite his close connections to the Tsarist government, Dorjiev managed to get away with that surprisingly easily. Though briefly arrested he was released and thereafter closely co-operated with the new government. However 1937, at the peak of NKVD terror, he was arrested again and died in custody. Whether his death was natural or not is not known.
London, April 2013
It had been a long time since Thomas had visited UK, at least eight years. Everything appeared to be the same as before exce
pt the new British Airways terminal in Heathrow which was definitely a huge improvement. The prices were a less pleasant experience. A single ticket on the Heathrow Express to Paddington was much more expensive than taking a cab from Beijing Airport to Haidian district where Thomas lived. The three stars hotel near Mornington Crescent offered a special rate of 80 pounds per night which, in view of the condition of the room, was still pretty expensive. Thomas was hoping to meet Voronov’s son as soon as possible since his travel budget didn’t allow a stay of any longer than a week. Voronov’s house was located in Upper Holloway but it was impossible to book a hotel room in the vicinity. This was actually a pity since he could get a four star hotel room there for 50 pounds per night.
Still jet-lagged from the long journey Thomas dialled the number.
“Paul Vornov speaking “ said a frail voice at the other end of the line.
“Good evening sir, My name is Thomas van de Wall. I am a Belgian journalist working on a report about the lost Asian treasures and …”
“I know what you would like to talk about. I regret but I am not interested in interviews.”
“Sorry sir, perhaps I haven’t described my intent precisely enough. I am a freelancer working in Beijing and have come all the way to London hoping that you would agree to meet with me.”
The treasure of Galdan Page 10