Endgame (The Red Gambit Series Book 7)

by Colin Gee

  The room fell into strained silence, broken by an unexpected rumble of laughter from the General Secretary.

  “She’s put one over on you again, Lavrentiy.”

  Beria had already worked that one out, but was surprised that Stalin had time for humour as Raduga stood on the precipice of discovery.

  “We both serve Mother Russia and the Party, Comrade General Secretary.”

  Stalin laughed again.

  “And you also serve another master of course, Lavrentiy. Yourself.”

  Beria knew he was being ‘teased’ but bit on the dangled bait in any case.

  “I do all I can to serve the Rodina, the Party, and you, Comrade General Secretary. Yes, I am ambitious. Ambition is a good thing when properly channelled… you’ve said so yourself.”

  “Whereas Nazarbayeva serves only the Motherland and the Party… without ambition…”

  “Perhaps that’s her weakness, Comrade General Secretary.”

  Stalin stood and took a final large drag on his cigarette.

  “Weakness or not, she doesn’t play the political games

  He made great play of crushing the ember out of the last vestiges of the cigarette and deposited the pieces in the full ashtray.

  “Whereas you do. You see yourself as sat in my chair one day, Lavrentiy. Ambition can also be a bad thing if pursued too vigorously.”

  The report from Olivia von Sandow was waiting on Beria’s desk when he returned.

  Nazarbayeva was airborne less than two hours after her conversation with Stalin.

  Given the information she had uncovered, she spent her time pondering the central issue.

  Not the issue that they had possibly been discovered, or that the Allies were gearing up for conflict again…

  …but the inescapable fact that not part but all of Raduga was still running, and that she was excluded from all parts of the operation. She had hoped that Kaganovich had been wrong, but clearly he was anything but.

  Her aircraft landed at Vnukovo Airfield without her having arrived at an acceptable conclusion.

  Finally, the powers that be had agreed to Bottomley’s pleas and sent an aircraft.

  The Lysander was down in the corner of the grassy field, having skilfully landed on the modestly sized cleared area.

  A small handling party were manoeuvring the dangerous barrel into a safe position inside the fuselage.

  Bottomley had decided that Cookson should accompany the material, partially because the man was still suffering from his ordeal, and partially because he wanted someone to ride with the barrel and ensure its safety.

  That Cookson would also be able to provide first-hand information was also a bonus.

  The plane had brought in a replacement NCO, and he now stood next to the SAS officer, observing the slower than normal turnaround.

  “Six minutes. Hope you boys are normally better at their jobs than that, Sir.”

  Bottomley kept his mouth shut, his opinion of the new man already nose-diving.

  At the end of the strip, the figures moved away from the little plane and the engine note rose, driving it down the greeny-white line and into the freezing night sky.

  Bottomley nodded and saluted the hand waving from the observer’s seat.

  ‘Good luck, Cookie.’

  On arrival at the Danish airfield, Cookson was met by a number of medical personnel equal to a number of imposing men of high rank, and a group of agitated civilians.

  The medical personnel had his health in as their priority, whereas the latter two groups sought precise answers to pressing questions.

  2357 hrs, Friday, 28th February 1947, Europe.

  Group Captain Stagg had waited up to see what he had predicted come to pass, and it did, almost to the minute that February moved into March.

  The cold night felt warmer, not greatly, but enough to detect for a man who was waiting for such a change.

  “We were right. We were bloody well right.”

  With only a statue of some well-endowed but unknown ancient female deity for company, it was a one-sided conversation.

  “It’s going to thaw… and thaw quickly. We were right.”

  He got no argument from his companion.

  Stagg, often maligned when his predictions in the inexact field he had chosen went wrong, celebrated his success with closed eyes and a smile.

  He patted the statue on the shoulder.

  “Nice chatting with you, old girl.”

  He returned to the weather centre as the reports of the weather change came rolling in.

  Winter had come, and now it was going.

  Which, Stagg conceded, was not necessarily a good thing.

  It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labours of peace.

  Andre Gide

  CHAPTER 188 - THE RUMBLES

  March 1947, Europe

  As March moved slowly forward, the snows across Europe melted, and melted fast, and the Czech infighting increased in tempo.

  The thaw brought its own problems as roads became impassable and rivers became so swollen as to carry away some of the temporary bridges that proliferated throughout the continent.

  Army engineers from all contingents on both sides of No Man’s Land laboured to keep open roads, lay new airfields, and replace washed away rail tracks, all to keep the vittles of war flowing.

  Refugees started moving again, less than before, many thousands having perished in the extreme cold, mainly from combinations of disease, exposure, and starvation.

  The decomposing bodies presented yet another problem, and Army grave registration units found much work in towns, hamlets, and villages across the continent.

  Military courts were kept busy, as men who had expected to go home on leave, or even be released from service, found themselves denied such privileges and rebelled against the decision.

  Discipline became an issue that started to erode efficiency in some, but not all, units.

  The Air Forces came close to violent confrontation on a number of occasions, particularly over the Baltic Sea and the Viennese enclave.

  On land, there was one brief exchange between the Polish and Soviet forces near Lubawa, Poland.

  The resultant seven dead and wounded forced angry exchanges over the table at Camp Vár, but the issue was swiftly resolved when the Polish commander on the ground admitted fault in a meeting with his Soviet counterpart, defusing tensions locally which eventually spread up the chain of command to the negotiators in the Swedish facility.

  It was at sea that the major confrontations came.

  0300 hrs, Saturday, 1st March 1947, Vinogradar Young Communists Sailing Club, Black Sea, USSR.

  The base’s lights had been gradually extinguished until only a handful of red bulbs contributed their modest illumination to the grand cavern that contained the submarines.

  At 0300 hrs precisely, the great doors unlocked and silently moved into the open position.

  At 0302, I-14 started to extract herself from the secret facility and make her way into the open waters of the Black Sea.

  By 0340 the entire group of six submarines were out and the doors were already closing.

  Raduga had commenced.

  0201 hrs, Sunday, 2nd March 1947, the Baltic Sea, thirty kilometres due south of Rønne, Bornholm.

  The sonar rating leant forward and screwed his eyes up, trying to isolate as much information as possible and allow him to concentrate on his earpieces and the ‘something’ he thought he had heard.

  The frigate had stopped engines nearly forty minutes beforehand, a standard listening tactic for their passive detection apparatus.

  HMS Loch Tralaig, pennant K655, was a frigate with a difference.

  Launched on 12th February 1945 and commissioned the following July, she entered into a world where conflict existed solely in distant climes.

  Intended for anti-submarine work, she was fitted with the latest technology the Royal
Navy could supply, from the devilishly effective Squid ASW mortars, of which she boasted two, to the very latest versions of the best radars and sonars available.

  She was destined for the Pacific, and journeyed across the Atlantic to the eastern seaboard of the USA as soon as her sea trials were complete and her crew judged ready.

  The Portsmouth-based vessel docked in Portsmouth, Maine, where she was to be fitted with a new version of the WW1 US towed sonar array ‘Electric Eel’ as a reciprocal arrangement for British release of an improved ‘High Tea’ sonar system to the USN.

  At the time her hull again tasted the cold waters of the Western Atlantic, she was the most deadly anti-submarine platform in the world.

  Her reign was cut short by a crippling accident, which saw a fire on board cause two welding cylinders, acetylene and oxygen, to blow up.

  The violent explosions and subsequent fierce fire wiped out much of the bridge, charthouse, and forward accommodation, as well as severely damaging the squid launchers and damaging their wiring system.

  Seventeen crewmembers died and another twenty-seven were badly injured.

  The errors that had permitted a small fire to ignite the two cylinders resulted in an unspoken sanction of the petty officer who had commanded the welding detail, and his posthumous recommendation for the George Medal was quietly brushed under the table.

  However, three others of the ship’s crew received the award and the report on the firefighting operations undertaken became a standard on how to fight a ship fire, as well as a permanent testament to the bravery and skill of her damage control teams.

  HMS Loch Tralaig never made it to the Pacific, as she was repaired in the States and did not put to sea again until two weeks after the Japanese surrender.

  Assigned to work with HMS Dolphin, the shore establishment based at Fort Blockhouse in Gosport, Hampshire, Loch Tralaig conducted mock attacks on submarines as part of their ongoing training programme.

  HMS Dolphin was the main RN submarine training establishment, and Loch Tralaig put many a new submariner through the wringer, as she won her encounters with monotonous regularity.

  Despite her obvious effectiveness, work in the USA and at home on similar vessels was slow, and there were only five such ASW frigates in existence when the world went hot again.

  The Admiralty removed her from training duties and, along with one of her peers, HMS Loch Veyatie, she was assigned to the Baltic, operating along the north German and Polish coasts, all the way to the border with Swedish waters.

  At 0202 hrs, the equipment, the training, and the expertise gained in hundreds of simulated detections, came together in deadly fashion.

  0202 hrs, Sunday, 2nd March 1947, the Baltic Sea, thirty kilometres due south of Rønne, Bornholm.

  “Eel contact… quite distant… bearing unknown… working on that, Chief… has the feel of a sub.”

  “Ok lad. Anyone else got a sniff?”

  No one acknowledged his enquiry, which meant that they had nothing, but it served to focus the other operators on the possibility that there was something to find.

  Chief Petty Officer Roland patted the young operator on the shoulder and waited patiently.

  The advanced Electric Eel system was revolutionary and required experienced and skilled operators to understand its information.

  Detecting a submarine was made considerably easier with it, but understanding where the submarine was in relation to the parent vessel needed men with the skills that Thresh possessed to make it a truly effective piece of anti-submarine equipment.

  Despite his youth, Thresh was the best Eel operator on the ship, and probably in His Majesty’s Navy.

  Roland leant back and activated the phone to the bridge.

  “Bridge, Sonar. Active Eel contact. No bearing at present. We’re working on that... Thresh is on the set… he feels it’s a sub. No other contacts, Skipper.”

  “Thank you, Chief.”

  Commander Robert Taggert RN, his full name of Robert William Forbes Mac An Tsagairt being used solely on the official paperwork of the desk-bound navy, was a legend amongst the sub hunters of the Atlantic.

  One of Walker’s prodigies, he had cut his teeth with the hunter-killer sub group aboard HMS Woodpecker, which was torpedoed and subsequently sank whilst being towed back to Liverpool.

  As the vessel was not sunk immediately, survivors leave was not granted, and Taggert found himself shipping out with the group’s next sally.

  He eventually rose to command of his own vessel and was responsible, in whole or part, for the sinking of nine U-Boats.

  Taggert had been the perfect choice as captain of the Loch Tralaig and he moulded his crew into a machine that oozed efficiency.

  HMS Loch Tralaig was a happy ship, and it showed in its performance.

  Roland waited, holding his tongue, as Thresh worked on isolating the various receivers on the towed sonar. The other systems still didn’t have a sniff of whatever it was, so the contact was probably some distance away.

  On the bridge, Taggert was sending messages to all parts of the ship, keeping his men informed, and at the same time reminding them of the need for silence.

  He also ordered the radio shack to inform the ace up his sleeve.

  In the sonar house, things started to happen.

  “Chief.”

  Roland bent forward to view the display that carried the information Thresh had developed.

  The sonar sensor cable was three miles long, and Thresh had concentrated on the sensors twenty-six to twenty-eight. There were only thirty-two, each one hundred and fifty yards apart, starting four hundred and eighty yards away from the ship’s stern.

  Using his equipment, Thresh used volume levels to gauge the proximity of the contact… he thought of it as a definite submarine… and his experience allowed him to work out the position with uncanny accuracy.

  The system worked when it was quiet and the sea was calm, otherwise surface and water noise destroyed much of its capabilities, but Thresh was notorious for getting the most from the least.

  In this case, his information was based on solid knowledge.

  “Chief, I’ve a definite submarine contact … bearing 160 to 165 at no more than four thousand two hundred, closest possible range three thousand nine hundred. Best guess is 160 at four thousand. I’m not sure but it seems almost on the surface.”

  “Keep working, lad.”

  Roland leant back for the telephone but hesitated, sensing Thresh had more to say.

  “Go on, lad, Spit it out now.”

  “Chief, I think it’s one of those twenty-ones. We’ve got some of those, don’t we?”

  “Aye we do, lad. The skipper’ll sort it all out. No worries.”

  There was more.

  “It’s snorkelling. I’ll put ten bob on it, Chief.”

  Roland had been impoverished a few times by Thresh’s uncanny abilities and refused to take the bet.

  “Bridge, Sonar… update on contact, now classed as definite submarine. Thresh thinks it’s snorkelling.”

  He reeled off the information, and updated the bearing and other details at Taggert’s request.

  “Right, Chief. I’m going to alert Snowy, but I’ll need an up-to-date set of figures to give them. Rework it, Chief.”

  “Aye aye, Skipper.”

  He replaced the phone.

  “You heard the skipper. Start from scratch, lad.”

  Topsides, the crew closed up on the searchlight and, on receipt of the order, illuminated, and sent their invisible infrared beam down a bearing of 160.

  “Sonar, bridge, report target details.”

  “Bridge, sonar, target steady at 160, probably making six knots, range decreasing, now approximately three thousand four hundred and closing. Over.”

  The First Lieutenant arrived on the bridge with the Radio Officer in close attendance.

  “The bastard’s coming right at us, Number One.”

  “Righty-ho, Skipper. I’ve confirmation fr
om the Admiralty. Definitely no friendly submarines in our patrol area. No Swedish vessels have been registered either. Rules of engagement apply.”

  Taggert had sought confirmation, even though his current information gave no Allied submarine anywhere west of the Danish islands.

  No self-respecting submarine captain would be snorkelling as he stalked an enemy contact, but that simply didn’t matter.

  It was in the wrong bit of sea.

  “Rules of engagement permit us to open fire. An unidentified, but not friendly, submarine is now closing on us. Concur, Number One?”

  “Absolutely, Skipper.”

  “Sparks, radio Snowy-two-two. Standby to initiate attack. Target data to follow shortly. ”

  “Roger, Skipper.”

  “Sonar, bridge. Report target details.”

  “Bridge, Sonar… target holding on 159 at six knots, range three thousand, closing. Over.”

  “Number One…”

  Taggert need say no more as his First Lieutenant was already on the phone to the searchlight position, relaying the slight change of angle.

  “Bridge, radio. Inform Snowy-two-two that he may attack. Target is illuminated… presently on bearing 159, closing, and probably snorkelling.”

  “Aye aye, Skipper.”

  “Number one, reel the eel.”

  The crew were already standing by to recover the electric eel array, the first five hundred yards of which was the easiest and required no special handling.

  After that the sensors started coming aboard and, despite the redesign, they were still easily damaged.

  Leaving them trailing in the ocean in the presence of explosions was guaranteed to wreck them, so the procedure was to recover prior to any attack, as spares were scarce.

  It also meant that Loch Tralaig lost contact on her passive systems.

  Taggert accepted that this time, especially as whatever it was seemed calm and unworried.