Breakthrough (The Red Gambit Series) (39 page)

Deniken
threw his cigarette butt into a puddle and set his peaked cap properly on his head.
It was the sole piece of his personal gear that was not thickly caked in dark brown mud.
Saluting his equally muddy superior officer
,
he said his piece.

“Comrade
Polkovnik
, it has been a privilege to serve with you. Good luck
,
Sir.”

Yarishlov’s salute quickly turned into an extended hand and Deniken reciprocated. Two hands that had held a dying man were shaken in mutual admiration of the qualities of the other.

Betrayal is common for men with no conscience

Toba Beta.

Beria had received the message on his arrival at his office
,
and
was
immediately driven to the Kremlin to inform the General Secretary.

He sipped his tea, watching Stalin li
ke a hungry hawk watches a wolf;
respectfully
,
and without challenge to the latter’s predatory skills.

Holding both th
e message and the proposed replies
,
the
Soviet
Generallisimo seemed strangely reluctant to make a decision.

‘Assassination or maskirova?’

Stalin focussed on the NKVD chief, sensing there was something else to the matter, not knowing what it was.

‘What advantages lie here, truly? Why do we not kill him and have done with it?’

That was simple, but something ingrained in the psyche of the Soviet people always relished the opportunity for sleight of hand or, as in this case,
the
misdirection of a nation.

“And your recommendation is?”

Beria chose to promote his own agenda once more
,
whilst
skilfully withholding his commitment for the benefit of the microphones
.

“We can do nothing
,
Comrade General Secretary
a
nd all will be as we first wished it to be or
,” he indicated the report and reply, “W
e can send that and possibly achieve better results.”

Stalin nodded gently, removing the pipe from his mouth with his free hand.

“Is ‘possibly’ enough Lavrentiy? We could have done with
him
once and for all if we let it run. Does the alternative offer us real advantages if it goes as we hope?”

‘
Careful
,
’ screamed his inner voice.

“By removing the dictator, we risk a similar man in place, set against us because of our own actions, as we do not yet have suitable friendly candidates in place. By using this variation, we can possibly turn him and those who would follow him.”

Stalin puffed gently on the cigarette that had magically appeared in his hand.

“Would the new man not be grateful to us for his, err,” he searched for the right word, “His promotion?”

“These are matters you have previously reconciled
,
Comrade General Secretary. Your reasoning seemed sound then
,
and I see nothing substantial has changed to call your decision into question.”

‘
Nicely done
,
’ the voice purred with some smugness.

“As I recall
,
you championed this
change
,
Lavrentiy, did you not?”

“I represented the facts and options as I saw them
,
Comrade General Secretary.”

The cigarette was violently stubbed out, sending a deluge of ash across
both
table and reports.

Another was lit immediately.

“And you have other assets already suitably placed, if things do not go as we expect?

The ‘we’ was not wasted on Beria.

“Another team would be activated immediately you authorised it, Comrade General Secretary.”

Beria knew he had his man.

Stalin promised to discover what other issue was in the man’
s mind
but, none the less, committed himself.

“We do not have the luxury of time. Send your message
,
Comrade Marshall. If it doesn’t work we can always do what was first intended later.”

Stalin slid the papers across his desk, both being neatly caught as they slipped off the highly
polished
top.

The ash cloud he generated settled gently across the lap and arms of the NKVD chief.

Beria indicated the phone and received a nod from the puffing Stalin.

Requesting a connection to his communications officer in the Lyubyanka
,
he started to feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

A distant voice came on the line.

“
PodPolkovnik
Lemsky.”

“Ah, Lemsky.
As discussed
earlier regarding
file
‘Brutus’,
you will present message
s
‘B’
and ‘C’
to the Chief Signals Officer
for immediate transmission to the stated recipients
. Repeat the order.”

“
File ‘Brutus’,
message
s
‘B’
and ‘C’ for immediate transmission to stated recipients
,
Comrade Marshall.”

“Proceed
as ordered
.”

Replacing the receiver with studied care
,
Beria felt nothing for those he had just condemned to die.

Stalin, studying his man, noticed the faint smile and knew he had been right.

Beria was
also
working to another agenda.

In the major Headquarters on both sides of the line
,
all was activity. At Nordhausen, the
Soviet
reinforcements were being realigned with the penetrations, such basic
manoeuvres
made all the more difficult by the increase in the tempo of
allied
air raids.
Formations
that
should have been relieved were left to bear the casualties of the attack
. T
hose who should have moved up
were
contained by destroyed roads and bridges or a lack of
the vitals of military movement;
a sign of significant ground attack success by Allied aircraft. In short, i
ncreasing damage to transport infrastructure was causing huge logistical problems to harassed
Soviet
staff officers.

Air Force intelligence indicated that some Allied squadrons were presently undertaking
up to six
sorties a day per pilot, a rate
that
was consuming both the physical and material reserves of the Allies, as well as grinding the pilots slowly into the ground with exhaustion.

Soviet
units were still advancing
,
but slowly, much slower than the plans allowed for.

The differences between this war and the German War were becoming more defined each hour. The Luftwaffe had been a mighty organ
,
but
it
had been eroded
by casualties
over the years, as well as
being
constantly divided by the needs of other theatres.

Here
, on this battlefield,
the USAAF and RAF squadrons were more numerous and focussed solely upon one front.

Also, the allied inventory included
numerous
highly efficient aircraft
designs
, many of which had capabilities way beyond
those of the
Luftwaffe encountered in the skies of
Ru
ssia
.

That was painfully true with
the heavy bombers, a force
that
had been almost disregarded in some ways
,
and
that
was now throwing so many plans and timetables into disarray.

More and more of the
Soviet
A
ir
F
orce assets were being employed to defend military columns or important communication centres, less and less
in support of
offensive operations.

Night operations were done at great risk, the Allied night fighter force having chopped most of their counterparts from the sky.

The larger numbers of ground formations overcame some of the problems
, carrying territory by sheer weight of numbers, often at a cost made more expensive because of the lack of air cover or associated issues caused by interruptions to supply. P
rofligate expenditure of anti-aircraft ammunition brought reg
u
lar rewards in downed airplanes, but air to air victories were growing fewer every day.

It didn’t take a genius to understand that the
Soviet
s were losing the air war.

Ce
rtainly the
ir
Allied
counterparts in
Versailles
thought that was the case
,
but the problems of constant withdrawal
,
and defeat after defeat
,
were more paramount in their minds.

The important decisions
for
the Allied ground forces
now
lay
with
in the remit of officers in faraway places, be they Corps Commanders keeping control on their dwindling resources or battalion CO’s skilfully giving up ground at great cost to the advancing enemy.

In many ways, the battle was out of Eisenhower’s hands, the orders having gone out to Bradley, McCreery and the like, their leadership and generalship skills
being tested as they strove
to create order from the chaos.

Eisenhower busied himself with providing the means for his Generals to fight.

‘Trying to provide the means’
,
Ike thought, as
he often felt he was failing in that regard.

Newly arriving units were organised and sent forward
, savaged units were swiftly reinforced and rested on or nearby to the
Rhine
.

He harried the Germans and the Spanish, anyone who could provide him with more of the most essential tool of war; manpower.

Politically
,
he encouraged his
civilian
leaders to produce and deliver everything from tanks to bread, and more importantly, to get it to
Europe
in as short a time as possible.

The success of Japanese forces in
China
and the Pacific undermined his efforts with his own government
,
and he constantly saw assets he desperately needed dispatched to Slim, Stilwell, Nimitz and MacArthur’s commands. The British were more Europe-focussed but had
fewer resources
, having been burned out by six years of war.

An innovative approach to the German POW’s in the
Americas
might prove useful,
based on the Council’s suggestion,
although again
,
time played a
n important
part.

Regardless of the momentary joy brought by news of a new formation now available, Eisenhower fully understood a simple truth.

The Allies were losing the war.

182 Squadron’s
Blue Flight
was
on
its
second sortie of the day, all four aircraft in the air with a full load of rockets
,
and tasked to take out
the bridges and railway in and around Luhdorf.