Agent of Death (13 page)

CHAPTER 14

Bletchley
Park
,

Milton
Keynes
,
Buckinghamshire
,
England.

Wednesday
24 May
,
10
.
00
hours
.

The meeting was top level, chaired by Sir Donald Trent, in his large office with the mock-Tudor stone-mullioned windows looking out over the park. But the windows were blacked out by roller blinds because a slide show was in progress. The projector’s cooling fan buzzed loudly, the white beam of light was clouded with cigarette-smoke, and everyone gave close attention while Brigadier Sanders spoke, standing by the screen with a bamboo cane for a pointer.

In the audience were Frederick Laskerman, representing the prime minister, plus an admiral, an air marshal, and a general, together with a Royal Navy captain representing the Royal Navy’s submarine tracking station, Brigadier Lord Leonard representing the Royal Marine Commandos, Lady Margaret Comings operating the projector, and, finally, at a small table by herself, Trent’s secretary was taking instant transcript on a Stenograph that issued a long roll of white paper, trailing and folding itself neatly into a box on the floor.

Sanders was pointing at a high-quality aerial photograph. It showed what looked like a short-bodied, pointed-nosed, streamlined aircraft with small, straight wings that stuck out at right angles to the fuselage. On top of the fuselage there was no cockpit for a pilot, but towards the rear there was a structure like a fat pipe that pointed back towards the aircraft’s tail. The machine sat on a lattice-steel ramp, and there were uniformed German soldiers around it, looking upward in alarm, and raising hands as if in self-defence.

‘It’s a flying bomb,’ said Sanders, ‘and the picture was taken at Peenemünde, on the Baltic coast. The pilot went over at treetop height and he should get the DFC, because the place is crawling with flack.’

‘Peenemünde?’ said the air marshal. ‘Their whizz-bang rocket base? I thought we flattened it two years ago?’

‘We did,’ said Sanders, ‘in August 1943. We knocked the stuffing out of it. It’s never been the same jolly-holiday seaside resort as it was before. But the Germans haven’t quite abandoned it. They keep some projects running, under camouflaged concrete, and we send aircraft over, now and then, to have a look.’ He turned back to the screen. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we thought we’d spotted something in an earlier shot, but that was taken at high altitude. We had to enlarge it to the degree that it was blurred. So this time a very brave young man from Sixteen Squadron took a recce Spitfire right down and did the job properly, and this is what I want you to see.’ He tapped the pointer on to four letters, stencilled on the top of the stubby missile.

‘SSA!’ said Trent. Everyone nodded. The letters were stylized but clear.

Laskerman spoke. ‘So that’s the insignia of this splinter group run by Abimilech Svart?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Trent.

‘And this group,’ said Laskerman, ‘the SSA – is exclusively concerned with the manufacture and deployment of Mem Tav?’

‘Yes,’ said Trent, ‘and the point is that if they’ve got that insignia on a flying bomb, we have to assume that they can deploy Mem Tav from it.’

‘So what does that mean?’ said the general.

‘It means this, sir,’ said Trent. ‘The flying bomb has a warhead of about fifteen hundred pounds. And if that was all Mem Tav it would be enough to wipe out the entire population of the Earth many times over.’

‘Good God!’ said the general, ‘Is that possible? What is this stuff: germs? The Black Death? The plague?’

‘Worse than that, sir,’ said Sanders. ‘It’s all in your notes, sir, and that’s why this meeting is taking place. And I’m afraid it gets even worse. I’ll ask Lady Margaret Comings from my group to explain. She is particularly concerned with cracking the SSA codes, and has some information for us.’ He looked at her. ‘Lady Margaret?’ he said.

She stood up and walked to the front. Sanders went and sat down by the projector.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ she said.

‘Good morning,’ they replied. At Sanders’s insistence she was wearing something modest: a very plain, two-piece grey costume, with a white blouse, a string of pearls, a utility-length skirt, and only modestly high heels. But everything was tailored skin tight, the long blonde hair swished over her shoulders, and she still looked like Marlene Dietrich, with the same slightly sinister, cut-glass glamour.

‘Could I have the next slide, please, sir?’ she said, and Sanders pushed the button, the projector’s magazine clunked and delivered, and another aerial picture appeared. This one showed the massive concrete of a German U-boat base, with one end of it blown into ruins, and vast craters all round, from near misses by enormous bombs.

‘This is
Besuboft
Einz
, which is an acronym for
Besonder
-
U
-
Bootflotillestützpunktunt
Einz
, which means Special U-boat Fleet Headquarters Number One. We had evidence that pen six of this base – could I have the next slide please?’ The projector clunked and a new image came up: a close-up of the bombed end of the concrete pens. ‘We had evidence, via a radio signal from slave workers at this site, that pen six was vital to the German war effort, and involved with Mem Tav. So a raid was put on to bomb the site.’

‘Looks like they did a jolly good job!’ said Laskerman, and smiled at Lady Margaret.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that’s what we thought. It was a special operation using Grand Slam bombs. Could I have the next one please, brigadier?’ The next picture was an even closer image of the ruined pen six. ‘These are photos from immediately after the raid and, unfortunately, they don’t show what was – or was not – in pen six before the raid.’ Everyone looked closely, everyone nodded. ‘But,’ said Lady Margaret, ‘we’ve decoded some recent intercepts of messages between SSA in Munsterlager and an SSA base on Punno Island in the Kattegat channel, which is Swedish territory and therefore neutral, so there shouldn’t be anything German there at all … but there is! These intercepts have told us three things. First, that Abimilech Svart – the head of SSA – may be on Punno Island.’ She frowned, expressing doubt. ‘We don’t
know
he’s there, but the traffic coming out of Punno is all from the top of SSA, which means Svart. Second, we’ve learned SSA is operating, and this is their phrase,
on
its
own
resources
, which we think means independently of the German High Command. And finally that there was a special submarine in pen six that escaped the raid, and it’s got a Mem Tav weapon on board, and, judging from the Peenemünde evidence, we’re guessing that it might be a flying bomb with a Mem Tav warhead.’ There was silence as everyone considered the implications of this.

‘Margaret?’ said Laskerman. ‘Was that what you showed us in the picture? A Mem Tav flying bomb?’

‘No, Freddy,’ she said, ‘it can’t be. Not a live one. The men round it weren’t in any sort of protective gear, and they dare not test such a weapon inside Germany when it might go off course and hit their own people. V1s aren’t specially well made, and they do go off course quite a bit. So the one in the picture must be a developmental model without a live Mem Tav warhead. At least we think so.’

‘What’s the range of a V1?’ asked the admiral.

‘About one hundred and sixty miles,’ said Lady Margaret, ‘though there may be long-range versions. We should assume it’s up to two hundred miles. So any target within a range of two hundred miles from the sea is at risk.’

‘But how can a submarine launch a V1?’ said the general.

‘From the surface I should think,’ said the admiral. ‘They could have a sealed hangar on the casing: a big watertight tube. The Japanese have done that with their I-400 submarines. Those can carry a sea plane and come up and launch it! And if the Japanese can do it, the Germans certainly can.’

A long and detailed discussion followed. Eventually Sir Donald summed up.

‘We are agreed, then, to recommend to the prime minister that utmost efforts should be taken, in collaboration with all our allies, to locate and destroy this submarine?’ Everyone nodded, and Trent continued. ‘The Royal Navy should devote all possible resources, at all risk, to this task.’ The admiral nodded. ‘We are further agreed to recommend that a secret commando operation should be directed to the SSA base in Sweden, with the objective of capturing as many of the staff and as much of the equipment as possible, while avoiding conflict with the Swedes.’

Everyone looked at Brigadier Simon Peter Chattan, the twelfth Lord Leonard and renowned commando leader. He was reputed to be more than half barmy, adept at killing men quietly, and had spent most of his life outdoors, exploring obscure parts of the world. He was not entirely civilized and was thoroughly enjoying the war. So he looked back at them all, nodded, and lit another cigarette.

‘Also,’ said Sir Donald, ‘we must get Wing Commander Landau back from the Russians with any fresh information he has gathered. Finally, we at Bletchley will allocate as many Colossus machines as may be needed to cracking any further SSA intercepts.’ Everyone nodded.

‘Is there anything else?’ said Trent.

‘Just one thing, sir,’ said Lady Margaret. ‘It’s only a matter of detail but I haven’t had time to tell Brigadier Sanders. This is information straight off the Colossus. I got it just before the meeting.

‘What’s that?’ said Sanders.

‘Do you remember those earlier intercepts? The ones that confirmed that one molecule of Mem Tav is lethal?’

‘Yes.’

‘After that there was a bit about steam decontamination but we couldn’t crack it all, because SSA shift codes in mid-message, and the new code was extremely difficult.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well we’ve cracked the rest, and it says: “steam decontamination of innermost suit proved effective at thirty minutes.”’

‘What does that mean?’ said Laskerman.

‘It’s part of their decontamination drill,’ said Sanders. ‘If some blighter’s going to use the stuff, he has to be in an airtight, sealed suit. In fact, it sounds as if he needs more than one layer of suits. Then afterwards, in case there’s any Mem Tav left on the innermost suit, you have to steam it before he can take it off. You have to play live steam over him for thirty minutes.’

CHAPTER 15

Field
234
of
The
People’s
Soviet
Socialist
Collective
Farm
914,

12
Kilometres
South
-
West
of
Ulvid,

The
Soviet
Socialist
Republic
of
Ukraine
.

Monday
22 May,
10
.
15
hours.

The convoy turned into a circle like a Wild West wagon train, which was appropriate because the trucks – fifteen of them – were American Deuce-and-a-Half, General Motors six wheelers, supplied by Lease Lend and the Arctic Convoys. The Deuce was the classic American military truck with its long bonnet and high cab, open at the back and with a roll-away canvas cover for foul weather. Some of them even had big, white, US stars-in-circles painted on the doors, but all of them had been adopted and named by their Russian drivers. So now the trucks were Anna, Nonna, Katrina, or whatever, and covered in hand-painted, patriotic slogans such as ‘Victory to Stalinist Socialism!’ or ‘Fuck the Fritzes!’ depending on the personalities of the drivers.

So we turned off the bumpy road, into a bumpy field, and gears groaned, engines roared and tyres spun in the mud, as the 6
th
Guards Motorized Rifles delivered a masterclass in how things military ought to be done. So if I’ve said elsewhere that the Russians were afraid of authority and terrified of making decisions, then I say now that once they
did
decide to do something, they did it heart, soul, mind, and strength. They did it that way because it was the only way when facing the Wehrmacht, and, by 1945, that was a lesson the Russians had learned very thoroughly indeed.

So they assumed that the Germans would know where the Mem Tav bomber had gone down, and would do their utmost to prevent the Russians getting hold of it, even poisoned and deadly as it was, because it contained the secrets of a war-winning weapon. So, even with the Red Army pushing the Germans ever further away from Ulvid, the Russians took careful precautions.

To start with, no less than five trucks in the convoy mounted four-barrelled, 14.5 millimetre anti-aircraft guns to defend against air strikes. Better still, to stop air strikes happening in the first place, there was air cover all the way to the crashed bomber. Mig fighters circled high above us, and Sturmoviks roared over in low passes, waggling their wings, and the Red Army guardsmen cheered and waved. I sat in the back of the lead truck next to Ulitzky and Zharkov, and Ulitzky nudged me every time a Sturmovik went over, and grinned and pointed. The Red Army loved Sturmoviks – their little friend in the air – because the factories in the Urals turned out Sturmoviks by the tens of thousands, and they were always there, giving close support when the soldiers needed them.

‘See!’ said Ulitzky, as one went over particularly low, and the pilot and gunner waved at us. ‘What’ve you got to match
that
in your English air force?’ In fact, we had the ground-attack version of the Hawker Typhoon, which was faster, more heavily armed, and carried more bombs. But it wasn’t the time to say so, and I didn’t. I just grinned and waved back at the Sturmovik.

Following our truck, there was one full of troops, followed by one with a Red Army camera team, then another full of radio communications gear, then another one with troops, then a truck with the German pilot’s suits, then a gas decontamination truck, then a truck with the steam gear, then another with tools, then a fuel tanker version of the Deuce carrying water, then a truck with food, one with fuel, and so on and so on, and to complete the precautions we were accompanied by four massive armoured cars that each looked capable of outshooting a panzer tank. It was a very thorough, well planned expedition. A jolly good show, as we said in the RAF.

But one man among us seemed deeply unhappy: Colonel Zharkov of the NKVD. He looked unwell because, two days ago, we’d all gone for another look at the German triple suit to decide who was going to wear it to examine the Arado bomber. Not surprisingly, the senior brass wouldn’t go anywhere near the suits, so only I, Ulitzky, Zharkov, Captain Goraya the gas expert, and a couple of NKVD guards went back into the classroom with the German gear.

Ulitzky picked up the innermost suit, smiled, and held it up against himself. Then I smiled as he held it against me, and then we both laughed – which was pure machismo – as we offered the suit to Zharkov and the guards, who stepped back. Then Ulitzky looked at me.

‘It can’t be you, Moscow boy,’ he said, ‘you’re too tall.’ It was true. I’m six foot two, and the suit was made for a much shorter man. Goraya was even taller than me, but Ulitzky was shorter and broader, and so was Zharkov.

‘Comrade Colonel!’ said Ulitzky. ‘It has to be you or me. Our various superiors have dumped this job on us,’ he paused and grinned, ‘though I suppose we might look for volunteers among the little piglets?’ He looked at the NKVD guards, whose eyes went round with fright. Then he laughed and waved them away. ‘But no,’ he said. ‘This is no job for peasants. This is a job for an educated man, a senior officer, who can observe and make judgment.’ Zharkov swallowed and said nothing. Ulitzky continued. ‘Here’s Moscow boy, who must report to Churchill and the Boss.’ Zharkov swallowed again. ‘We don’t want him to say we were cowards, do we?’ Zharkov still said nothing. Ulitzky looked at me. ‘Have you got an English coin in your English pocket?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Then you spin, in your English way, and the Comrade Colonel will call.’

I fumbled in my pocket – the wingco’s pocket – and found a George V half-crown. It was minted in 1918 when they still made them in pure silver. I spun it, caught it, slapped it on the back of my left hand, and looked at Zharkov.

‘We say “heads or tails” in English,’ I said. ‘It means the King’s head or a royal shield with a coat of arms.’

Zharkov thought. He sweated. ‘The shield,’ he said, and I showed him the coin and he sighed heavily. I didn’t fiddle it, incidentally. I could have, but I didn’t.

So the convoy formed a circle and the armoured cars drove round outside, churning more mud as they sniffed around for Fritzes. But there were none. There was just our expedition, and the upturned Arado. That and one dead dog, one dead civilian, and seven dead Red Army soldiers with their rifles beside them. The convoy had stopped several hundred yards away from the aircraft, and Ulitzky, Zharkov, and I looked at the plane from the back of our truck, through binoculars. I was right next to Zharkov and noticed that his binoculars – like his fancy pen, and his wristwatch too – were German: a fine pair of Karl Zeiss Dienstglas 6x30s.

A young guardsman stood with us. The Red Army’s equivalent of a private.

‘How close did you get when you found the plane?’ said Ulitzky.

‘Fifty metres, Comrade Colonel, maybe thirty,’ said the guardsman.

‘And you say that all those who died had actually touched the plane?’

‘I think so, Comrade Colonel. Or at least they were very close to it. Except the dog. That ran to its master when he fell, and it licked his hand and it died, too.’

The rest of the convoy got busy while we were looking at the plane. The camera team photographed everything with long-distance lenses and took cine-film of the site. The gas decontamination team set up their steam unit and other gear, a field canteen got brewing, and the three German suits were carried to a trestle table by Goraya’s men; another table was being set up with equipment to seal Zharkov into the suits. At the same time the troops jumped out of their trucks and deployed in defensive fire positions all around the circle with sergeants yelling and pointing. It was all very well done. I doubt the Brigade of Guards could have done better.

Then an engineer officer came up to our truck and held a salute as he called out.

‘Comrade Colonel Ulitzky?’ he cried. ‘Where do you want the charges?’

Ulitzky looked at me. I frowned and he shrugged. ‘Orders,’ he said, ‘From Moscow.’ And he turned to the engineer. ‘Lay them out near the Fritz bomber, but don’t get any closer than sixty metres. Then run the wires back to your firing position, and leave plenty of slack, so we can put the charges on the plane if we have to.’

‘Yes, Comrade Colonel!’

‘This isn’t a good idea,’ I said.

‘Nothing we can do,’ said Ulitzky. ‘It’s orders.’

Which it was, because, having checked with Moscow, Ulitzky’s superiors had given permission to investigate the Arado, but some bright spark fifteen hundred miles from the scene had ordered that if our man in the suit couldn’t get inside the plane, then, since nobody could go near it without being killed, the plane should be broken open with demolition charges.

‘At least the camera people would be able to take photos of what’s inside,’ said Ulitzky.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘but I think that German pilot, Grauber, was hinting at self-destruction charges inside the plane in case it looked like being captured.’

‘Then why didn’t he set them off?’ said Ulitzky.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe the circuits were destroyed when the engine blew.’

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s all inference and deduction. I couldn’t ask him direct questions. I had to encourage him to talk, and keep smiling. It was only when I sat down afterwards and wrote it all up as notes that I realized what he was saying at all.’

‘Comrade Colonel Ulitzky?’ said another voice. ‘We’re ready with the suits.’ It was Goraya, looking up and saluting. In the middle of the circle of trucks his men were standing by the tables with the suits, and Zharkov looked at them as a condemned man looks at the scaffold. But he jumped down and walked off with Goraya, and Ulitzky and I followed him.

It was a lovely day. It was bright and clear, and whatever Soviet Socialist birds they have in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine were singing in the background. But Zharkov looked like death. His face was white and his lips were black. His hands were shaking as he faced the three German suits, side by side on the trestle table, and the lash-up, hope-it-works, rubber strips and bicycle glue on another table, and a cine camera mounted and ready on its tripod, with a crew standing by, and a considerable audience of drivers, engineers, and gas-experts waiting for the entertainment to start.

Zharkov was the man of the moment and no mistake, and if he was afraid he had every right to be. Nobody knew if the suits would work having been ripped open and stuck back together. Nobody knew how long the oxygen system would keep him breathing. Nobody knew properly how to decontaminate him, because we didn’t how long to spray the steam on him and we didn’t properly understand the water-cooling system, so we might scald him to death. And if he tore open the suit, which would be so easy to do, working among jagged wreckage, then he’d be a gonner.

But it had to be done. With Ulvid wiped out, and the knowledge that Svart’s SSA were preparing to use Mem Tav again, then somebody had to get into
Obersturmführer
Grauber’s party outfit and examine his aircraft. There was no other way.

‘With respect, Comrade Colonel,’ said Goraya, bowing to Zharkov like a
maître
d’
at a restaurant table, ‘you must take off everything, down to your underclothes. You may put your things here.’ Goraya indicated yet another trestle table, an empty one.

So Zharkov took off his cap and placed it on the table, even though his hands were now shaking so much that he could hardly control them. Then he put down his binoculars in their case, unbuckled his belt and pistol holder, and took hold of his tunic with the intention of pulling it over his head. I suppose he deserved credit for doing so. But that was as far as he got.

‘Stand aside,’ said Ulitzky. ‘This is men’s work. And the Englishman probably palmed the coin anyway. You should see the tricks he does when he’s had a few drinks!’

Ulitzky pushed Zharkov out of the way and pulled off his own clothes and gear, and stood in his socks and underwear, laughing at us. He was a broad, stocky man with black hair on his chest, arms, and legs, and a crucifix on a chain round his neck. He reverently raised the crucifix to his lips and kissed it, then crossed himself; he pointed at the dead men by the Arado, and cried out in a loud voice.

‘Every man here will now salute those who fell,’ he said, ‘and ask their pardon that we walk past their bodies and do not bury them as they deserve. And may God take their souls to heaven!’

Everyone saluted, very much including me, but some were frowning at all this religion. You could see it in their faces. Ulitzky saw that, and laughed, and nodded to himself and started humming a tune. He was joking at first; doing it to mock those who’d frowned. He was showing them that a Christian could be a patriot. He even winked at me as he hummed. But then he felt the power of the music and threw out his arms and sang. He sang in a deep bass voice, with great strength.

He sang
Long Live our Soviet Motherland
. That was the National Anthem they played at the Olympics when the Soviets won. So I thought that was odd at first, because the previous night, after the usual vodkas in the officers’ mess, and with a friends around him, Ulitzky had told a series of anti-Soviet jokes.