Inconsequential Nazi

by Ward Wagher

  Several minutes later she awakened to find herself tied spread-eagled to the bed. She twisted her head, and saw her clothes heaped on a chair. Raising slightly, she saw Beria coming out of the bathroom while tying a robe. The flash of skin indicated he had removed his clothes as well.

  “You are very beautiful,” he said as he walked up to the bed and leered at her. “I expect this to be an enjoyable evening.”

  She raised her head and spat at him.

  “Oh no, no, no,” he said as he casually slapped her. “We can’t have that, now, can we?”

  She began to curse him using words that she had heard her father even rarely use.

  He smiled. “I do love it when you talk dirty.”

  He removed his robe and climbed up onto the bed, preparing to mount her. Misty heard the roaring of blood in her ears as she struggled to free herself from her bonds. She vaguely heard a sound like a door opening and Beria whipped around.

  “What?” he started to say, and suddenly he tumbled backward and crashed to the floor. She raised up again as far as the bonds would allow and stared at him as he lay on the floor with blood pooling around him. She felt the cord on her wrist being untied. She twisted her head and saw the unexpected. Nikita Khrushchev was untying the cords.

  “We will get you untied, Miss Simpson. Please get your clothes on as quickly as possible.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “A long story and there is no time,” the bald man replied.

  “But how did you get here?”

  “There is no time now,” he said gruffly. “Now, get off the bed and get dressed!”

  He turned and walked across the room to where Beria lay and looked down at the body.

  “There is no one who can help you now, Gospodin Beria. And how many little girls have you violated in this room?”

  “This was your last time,” Khrushchev said. “We warned you about your behavior. You should have listened.”

  He turned back to the bed. “You were told to get dressed, Miss Simpson. We have not a lot of time.”

  Misty quickly pulled on her clothes and stepped into her shoes. “Where are you taking me?”

  “This city is not safe for you,” the Ukrainian party secretary said. “The war is about to begin, and the American entourage will be given a different route out of the country.”

  “I need my coat and purse.”

  “Come.”

  Khrushchev stepped through the bedroom door. Two bodies lay in the hallway outside. Misty stared at them as the bald man marched resolutely towards the stairs with Misty following in his wake. At the bottom of the stairs, he jerked open a closet door, sliding the body of the majordomo aside, and pulled out Misty’s coat. Misty’s purse sat at the bottom of the closet and she handed that to Misty as well.

  She followed him out into the chilly night and got into another Chaika limousine. The driver immediately made a U-turn in the street and moved off.

  She turned to the Russian. “How did you know to rescue me, Sir?”

  Khrushchev sighed in a deeply Russian manner. “I would like to tell you of my ability to keep track of events, but I do not feel like lying. When I got into my car and shut the door, a babushka sat on the other side of the seat. She told me that Beria had kidnapped you and I was to rescue you.”

  “An old lady?” Misty’s eyebrows raised. “What was an old lady doing in your car?”

  “That was exactly my question.” The bald man’s eyes twinkled in the reflected lights from the street. “I somehow could not summon the nerve to ask.”

  He looked at the expression on Misty’s face. “Do you, perhaps, know the old woman?”

  Misty shook her head. “It sounds like someone I know in Berlin.”

  Khrushchev laughed. “What would she be doing in Moscow?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Mr. Harriman and his team will be given a train to Leningrad. We are holding a Swedish freighter which will convey them to Stockholm. From there they will need to find their own way to their final destination.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked. “This is not the way back to the embassy.”

  “Please relax, Miss Simpson. I am not abducting you. I have an aircraft waiting at the airport to fly you to Stockholm. I am not confident about your safety if you remain in the country much longer.”

  The car turned down a long dusty approach road to the airport. Misty leaned over and grasped Khrushchev’s hand.

  “Thank you for rescuing me. I know you took on a lot of risk.”

  He shrugged. “I had little choice. Besides, Beria was a monster. It was time for him to be brought down.”

  “What shall I tell people about my evening.”

  For the first time, the Russian grinned. “Why, tell them you had dinner with me. Anyone who knows differently is either dead or working for me. We made sure no one saw us at Beria’s residence.”

  “But what will you do?” she asked.

  “For better or worse, I leave tonight to fly to the western border. We have a war to fight. Here is your airplane.”

  A Focke-Wulf Condor in the livery of Aeroflot sat on the tarmac with its engines idling. Misty got out of the car and trotted up the steps to the airliner. A cabin steward guided her to a seat. Once buckled in, she wrapped her arms around herself and stared out the window as the plane began to move.

  “Golly, golly, golly, golly,” she muttered.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  April 16, 1943, 10 PM

  Western Soviet-Polish District

  Feodor Milkulin settled into the open hatch of his T34 battle tank and prepared to get his vehicle moving. This was the witching hour, as far as he was concerned. They had been given their orders to move to their jumping off position for the invasion which was to begin at 4 AM the next morning. Around him, he could hear the starters laboring to roll over the big diesel engines in the tanks. He slipped on his headset and twisted the dial next to him to intercom.

  “Very well, Pavel,” he said to the driver, “wind her up.”

  He heard the starter engage with a clunk, and then the whine as the engine turned over. He had warmed up the engine earlier in the evening and expected no problems. As the loping sound of the starter continued, he began to grow concerned. The starter disengaged and a few moments later the driver tried again. The engine refused to start.

  “What’s going on, Pavel?”

  “It won’t start, Comrade Sergeant,” the driver replied.

  “I know that,” Feodor replied caustically. “What I want to know is why?”

  “I don’t know, Comrade Sergeant. It was running perfectly earlier this evening.”

  Mikulin swore loudly. He didn’t need this. He had been selected to lead his phalanx of tanks in the opening phases of the battle. The other tanks in the group were waiting on him to move first, and then they would follow.

  He yelled down into the tank. “Hand me the can of starter fluid.”

  The gunner handed him the small pressurized can of ether and he laboriously climbed out of his hatch and stepped over the top of the turret to the covers over the engine compartment. He quickly released the handles on the cover and raised one of them up. He reached down and sprayed a healthy dollop of ether into the intake. When he looked up the gunner had poked his head out of the turret and was watching him. Mikulin raised his index finger and spun it around in a start it up signal. The gunner yelled down into the tank and a moment later the starter whirred again.

  With a cough and a belch, the diesel roared to life. He stepped back and allowed the engine cover to crash down in its frame and he spun the latches. Coughing from the diesel exhaust, he scrambled up on the turret and dropped back into the hatch. He was glad that it was dark, and he could not see the other tank commanders grinning at him, as they surely were.

  He donned his headset again and keyed the intercom. “Okay, Pavel, back us up straight 20 meters.”

  The tank had been idling in neutral, and he heard the gr
inding of gears as the driver shoved the lever into reverse. With a roar, the tank began backing up. A few seconds later there was a loud bang and Mikulin looked around to see where the noise came from. The tank began to slew around, and the driver brought it to a halt.

  “Comrade Sergeant, I believe we have thrown a track.”

  Mikulin then looked down in front of the tank and saw where they had indeed driven backward off one of the tracks. He was furious. He had personally inspected the entire machine that afternoon and knew that the tracks were in perfect condition. This was a brand-new tank, and the only distance it had traveled was from the factory to the railroad carrier and then from the railroad to their present position. This should not be happening.

  Seeing his movement, the other tanks began backing up. On both sides, he heard nearly simultaneous explosions. He heard the sound of shrapnel whizzing past his head. The tank to his left immediately began to spin in a circle and when it stopped it looked as though its right track was frozen. The tank to his right was backing off of its track just as his tank did. Cursing furiously with words that involved someone’s mother, he grabbed a flashlight and jumped out of his cupola and climbed down off the tank. Studying the situation, he saw that his tank had not simply thrown a track. It had been blown off.

  A traffic control corporal stood 100 meters from where the tank sat. Mikulin stormed over to where he stood.

  “Get the commissar over here,” he shouted. “We have a clear case of sabotage on my track. And I think that is what happened to the other two here.”

  “Comrade Sergeant, I have been ordered to man this traffic control point. I cannot leave my post.”

  “This tank squadron is not going anywhere right now. Can you see the mess that we are in?”

  The traffic control corporal peered into the darkness. “Er, Right.”

  “And get the captain here as well. We have a major problem.”

  The traffic control corporal trotted off to find someone in authority while Milkulin stormed back to his tank. It was clear he was not going to be a Hero of the Soviet Union tonight. His group would be very lucky to get anywhere near the front before the invasion started.

  § § §

  In the central compound corporal Boris Danislav hurried to finish loading the truck. They would be moving out shortly and the food service company would be required to set up a kilometer or so behind the front lines. He had heard the old saying that an army marches on its stomach and was not prepared to debate that, particularly after seeing how much the individual soldiers could eat. The Mess Sergeant was intolerant of slackness and Danislav hustled to get the job done.

  Finally, the loading was complete, and the drivers climbed into their truck cabs. Danislav climbed behind the wheel of his truck and was disgusted when the mess Sergeant climbed in next to him. He suspected the Sergeant had amatory designs upon him, and besides that, the hairy gorilla smelled bad. There was nothing he could do about it at the moment, so he switched on the ignition and tromped on the starter pedal. The engine immediately fired up and purred smoothly. Danislav took pride in his work. He not only made sure that he managed the inventory for the mess Sergeant as well as he could, but he also made sure that the trucks assigned to the company ran well.

  The truck ahead began to move off, so he put the truck in gear and eased off the clutch. They began to move out in a column with three other trucks following.

  “Where did you learn to drive so smoothly, Corp.?” the mess Sergeant asked.

  Danislav glanced over at him and then looked back through the windshield. “Lots of practice, Comrade Sergeant. If you take good care of your vehicles, they won’t let you down.”

  The mess Sergeant nodded but said nothing further. This was fine with Danislav. He needed to concentrate on driving in the dark while trying to see with the blackout lights. It was a nerve-racking journey. The ground was still soft from the spring weather, so he had to keep the truck in low gear and keep his boot on the throttle. The truck in front of him began to disappear into the darkness.

  The mess Sergeant pointed ahead and said, “You are losing him in the darkness, Corp. Get on the gas.”

  Danislav disliked driving any faster in the darkness but he could not ignore an order. He cobbed the throttle and let the engine wind up. He was reaching the point where he was trying to decide whether to shift to the next gear or wait to see if he could catch up at the current pace. Along the road, the stub of the candle that was jammed into the oil drain plug had grown soft from the heat and dropped out letting the oil pour out of the engine.

  Danislav was concentrating on seeing ahead of the truck and was therefore not watching the gauges. His first indication of a problem was when the valves started to hammer. He looked down quickly to check the oil gauge and within a split-second, he decided to push in the clutch and shut off the engine, the engine stopped with a bang and brought them to an abrupt halt.

  A moment later the truck that was following slammed into them with enough force to rattle Danislav’s teeth. The mess Sergeant swore and jumped out of the truck. Danislav followed and they walked to the back of the cargo bed. The following truck had smashed its radiator against the back of his truck and was no longer in commission. The third truck behind them had stopped in time and was idling as the driver waited to see what was going to happen.

  Over the noise of the cursing Sergeant, Danislav heard the engine of the following truck begin to rattle. He yelled to the driver and brought his hand across his throat as a way to tell the driver to cut the engine. At least that driver was paying attention and immediately shut it down. Danislav turned to the mess Sergeant who now had his face inches from his.

  “Would you kindly explain to me, Corporal, what you have done to my trucks?”

  “I don’t know, comrade Sergeant, but I intend to find out.”

  He strode back to the cab of his truck, opened the toolbox on the running board and pulled out a flashlight. He walked around to the front of the truck and bent down and peered under it with the flashlight. A thin trickle of oil was still seeping from the drain plug. He stood up and faced the Sergeant, who had followed him to the front of the truck.

  “Comrade Sergeant, the oil drain plug is missing.”

  “And tell me how we could have gotten this far with the drain plug missing,” the mess Sergeant yelled.

  Danislav pulled himself up onto the bumper and raise the hood. Shining the flashlight down into the engine he shook his head. “This truck is not going any further tonight comrade Sergeant. I can see the connecting rod through the side of the engine block.”

  “So, we have lost two trucks here tonight. But what about the third?”

  “Let’s go see, comrade Sergeant.”

  He walked quickly to the back of the truck and shone the flashlight under the second truck ignoring the hissing of the radiator coolant. He could see the puddle where the engine oil had finished draining. He then walked to the third truck and looked at it. He turned to the Mess Sergeant.

  “All three trucks are missing the oil drain plugs, comrade Sergeant. If we can find a plug, the third truck should be all right. The second one may be all right with a new radiator. It looked like the oil did not drain out until after his sudden stop.”

  “How could that be?” the mess Sergeant asked.

  Danislav thought for a moment then turned and walked back to the crashed second truck. He panned the flashlight around underneath the truck and then reached out and pulled a misshapen piece of wax from the puddle of hot oil. He studied it in the light and thought for a moment.

  “Let me see that,” the mess Sergeant said as he jerked the piece of wax out of Danislav’s hands. “This morning the supply sergeant told me he was missing a box of candles,” he continued. “Someone replaced the drain plugs with these candles. When the engine heated up, they melted out and then no oil.”

  Now Danislav swore. “That means the two trucks ahead of us are probably dead somewhere down the trail.”

&nb
sp; The mess Sergeant shook his head. “And now the commissar is probably going to shoot me.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, comrade Sergeant.”

  “Do you think that really matters?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  April 17, 1943, 2 AM

  Reich Chancellor’s Apartments

  Reich Chancellery

  Berlin, Germany

  “Can you not sleep, darling?”

  Heinrich Schloss stared out the window at the sleeping city as a spring thunderstorm rumbled across the skies. He turned to look at Gisela as she sat up in bed and gazed across the darkened room at him.

  “It is going to happen at any time,” he said.

  “And you will be in no shape to make decisions if you have been awake through the entire night.”

  “There is no point in trying to go to sleep now,” he said. “I think I’m going to get dressed and go down to the office. Besides, I don’t want to keep you awake.”

  “Hennie, are we going to have to seriously worry about the Russians?”

  He swung his head around as though trying to shake off a punch to his head. “Yes, Schatzi, you know we have talked about this. If we don’t stop them, the Russians may completely overrun Western Europe. They have more people and resources than we do.”

  She raised her arms. “Come and hold me, darling.”

  He smiled in affection and began to move towards her. The phone rang with its characteristic tinkling sound and he immediately stepped over to answer it.

  “Schloss,” he barked when he picked up the receiver.

  “Herr Reich Chancellor, the Reichsmarshall asks to speak with you,” the night operator said.