Get Lenin (21 page)

He nodded in agreement. If he came out of this in one piece, he’d slip into some other Russian unit heading home when the war ended. He vowed to see Oleg and his wife Sonja again, alive.

Kramer, Kant, Olga, Koheller, Bader and Hauptmann sat quietly, letting the idea of deserting and living in a neutral country sink in. This was the first time they had heard their leader, their friend, ever speak like this. They, like him, were sickened at the betrayal. In war life was cheap but this was straightforward treachery. Had Fretter-Pico known? Rathenow? He hadn’t turned the airship around once the shooting started. How high up the chain of command did this set-up go?

‘
I climbed the Eiger before the war; a very difficult climb. We could sit out the war in Berne sipping Kirsch,’ mused Kramer aloud, his voice echoing around the carriage. He started to grin at the thought. His creased face resembled a relief map of the moon.

Kant pulled Olga closer. ‘I go where this little lady goes.’

Rank and enemy status were forgottten for an instant. They could’ve been strangers on a train in peacetime striking up a conversation. Then, with a collective grunt, they started preparations for departure.

Hauptmann, Bader and Voight gathered provisions, prepared a fire and began an inventory of weapons, equipment and, most importantly; ammunition.

The half-track was destroyed with no possibility of its being used ever again. The remaining German bodies were lined up on the river bank and any useful item - knives, pistols, ammunition and warm clothing – removed. There was one odd discovery – none of the SS had dog-tags. Kramer checked under the arm of each corpse for tattoos identifying regiment and blood group. They had none. The fighter pilots' billets yielded more cold food, coffee and chocolate, a full bottle of vodka, some half-eaten bread, cheese and sausage abandoned when the carriage arrived. They were quickly consumed.

Kravchenko declined to eat, allowing his new-found comrades to enjoy his ration. If they were to push out on foot avoiding the Russian Army, they were going to need nutrition. Olga had sourced her lichen for brewing and once the small fire was blazing, some of Kincaid’s silver coffee pots were placed on it for the water to boil.

A hurried meal was consumed and the vodka bottle was passed around. Lichen tea followed and those that didn’t retch felt the beginnings of being alive again.

Russian and German army maps were examined on the table where the sarcophagus had lain. One of Regan’s lamps, jerry-rigged to the on-board generator, cast harsh light and shadows across the page. Sunken cheekbones and eyes worked in deep shadows as the lights began to flicker. The generator was beginning to fail.

Brandt thought the best solution lay with the Luftwaffe. ‘We need to get a transport aircraft here and hi-jack it. We need some kind of a ruse.’

‘
How about a medical consignment retrieved from a skirmish with the Russian army?’ Kant suggested,

‘
They would scramble a whole squadron for a prize like that,’ agreed Brandt.

Looking into the distance, Kravchenko calculated that the flying boat would be out of Russian airspace within four hours. Kramer translated this for him. Brandt and Kant knew about the small islands off the coast of Helsinki and the planned transfer to the U-Boat. The flying boat couldn’t be shot down because of the precious cargo on board.

Brandt’s thoughts suddenly turned to the girl in sable with Kincaid, Eva. She was a witness to what had happened and therefore expendable. He thought of those grey intelligent eyes and felt a stirring across his chest which consumed him for a moment. He’d caught her looking at him a couple of times at least before suddenly finding something else to look at when their eyes met. He smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours and decided he was going to see her again, no matter what. His attention was broken by the sound of wolves howling in the night which sent a primordial chill through everyone.

Schultz’s radio was working and Bader was hunched over it, incrementally tuning for a signal. He paused. Inclining his head and practically resting his headset against the radio, he summoned Brandt over to him. ‘You’re not going to believe this, sir. It’s the British Embassy in Helsinki inquiring if we require assistance.’

‘
How did they find us?’ Brandt was suspicious. If The British had their co-ordinates they could alert the Russians.

‘
It’s the only German Army bandwidth signal in the area.’

Brandt still wasn’t happy. He got Bader to ask ‘How do you know we need assistance?’

There was a pause. Bader’s jaw clenched as he repeated the message. ‘They’ve intercepted a coded message from an American flying boat in Russian airspace. Part of the fragment decoded is – Alpine Unit eliminated.’

‘
How quickly can they get a plane here and turn it around to the Finnish coast?’

* * *

Zbarsky worked silently in the flying boat’s hold. The laboratory was state-of-the-art but the available chemicals useless. He was trying to re-think his formulae in his head and instruct his team simultaneously. He made some rough jottings on a page and cross-checked them against the chemicals. Once his decision was made, he tore the jottings up and chewed them when no-one was watching. They were close to the end of the treatments supplied for the train journey and now they had to preserve the body indefinitely. Pinching the bridge of his nose in exhaustion, he pondered his options: not co-operate and be shot in the head as the SS officer had threatened, or do his best.

No point in being a hero both for him or his team.

He blended the preservatives and began to work quickly and thoroughly. They had to hope against hope that keeping Lenin preserved and intact gave their countrymen a reason to get him back. The American’s pretty companion was with them translating for them. She looked uneasy and was clearly acting under duress. Oblivious to her discomfort, the SS officer and the American had almost begun a tug-of-war over her.

Zbarsky asked her to instruct that the hold’s temperature be set to the sarcophagus’ settings immediately. Her accent was Eastern European, which meant either traitor or ally. He’d watch her closely before asking for her help. The fact that she was scared was a good start. The SS officer regarded him with distaste as Kincaid hollered the instruction through the plane’s communications systerm. Lights were instructed to be dimmed and only the team remained whilst the body was out of its coffin.

Eva sensed that time was running out, that the net around her was snapping shut. She couldn’t disguise her horror at the attack on Brandt’s men. As the flying boat pulled away, the small Chechen girl was under heavy fire and Eva had screamed out a warning. She pounded on the glass with tears running down her face. She then looked around to see how she could get the plane back on the ground. Toying with the brooch laden with chemicals, she tried calculate the distance she could cover to immobilise the pilot. The flying boat’s engines had catapulted them off the ice and, with the fighter’s staying in tight formation, she was out of options.

Her heart ached for the German officer and the pointless ending to his and his comrades' lives. Schenker and Kincaid had roared with laughter at their success and Regan was positioned somewhere aft filming the whole event. The flying boat had radioed Berlin, informing them that they were airborne and that a ‘partisan attack’ had been repelled during take-off.

Kincaid’s personal secretary was being wired to start drafting an account of the events from Kincaid’s offices in Burbank, California.

Regan had come back into the cabin area and was hovering. Eva was drying her eyes and trying to light a cigarette at the same time. Regan cranked his wind-proof lighter and the smell of petroleum filled her nostrils.

‘
Allow me, miss.' He was now almost on top of her, leaning in. Despite working for most of the day in freezing temperatures, a cloying smell of stale sweat came from him. Her cigarette helped kill it off but she found his closeness intimidating. ‘Too bad about the mountaineers.’ He was now across her, looking out at the fighter plane alongside. He managed a quick glance down at her cleavage. ‘According to the member of the master race over there -’ Schenker was positioning himself in front of the camera, looking to see if he was equidistant between the flags, and had started on the champagne once he had come up from the hold, his face its usual red rage ‘- they were racially suspect.’

‘
Because of Olga?’

‘
Yup. Better get your face straight, doll. The boss is coming over.’

Kincaid studied Eva for a few moments before he spoke. ‘Honey, I find your presence soothing,’ he assured her. He took her hand in his and Eva fought the urge to retch. His fatherly demeanour didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You’re very, very special to me and I’m sorry, very sorry, you had to see that ... and, yes, the ambush was shocking but necessary. The SS don’t have any experienced mountaineering units, so common soldiers had to be used and alas dispensed with. The newsreels couldn’t contain any inferior races, only prime Aryan soldiers.’

He told her he also had information that one of the soldiers was a Communist and former International Brigadist in Spain, then added that a Chechen woman couldn’t be seen to be serving with the German Army. Kincaid was searching for a reaction but satisfied in himself that she was teary-eyed more out of fright. Eva summoned her smile from her heels. Trained in emotional mapping by the late Herr Gruber, she struggled to find convincing happy memories to bring to her eyes. Kincaid thankfully never looked past the smile, wishing only to see a pretty adoring face. She gave him that in spades, thinking of De Witte’s arms, and oddly and perhaps cruelly, of Brandt’s eyes.

Regan, who had filmed for most of his life, knew she was faking and wondered what leverage he’d get with that information.

The table was set in the best crystal and silver. Eva had never seen such opulence. It had to be said these villains loved their neatly-laid tables. Kincaid's fussing over table settings and throwing a tantrum over the cut-crystal gave him a prissy quality. She had been awake for nearly twenty hours and, as she re-did her make-up and changed into the low-cut evening wear Kincaid had bought, she wondered how long it would be before she slept again. She positioned her brooch along the halter-neck.

She brought up her thick auburn hair, pinning it up to reveal a diamond necklace Kincaid had purchased in Amsterdam. Her neck was slender and long, the colour and texture of alabaster, the diamonds sparkling on it. Regaining her composure, she swept out into the dining cabin and into the open boozy leers of Schenker, Regan and Kincaid. All jumped at the chance to seat her, Kincaid winning by a hair's breadth.

Through Regan’s lens, Kincaid and Eva sat at one side, Schenker and three of Kincaid’s personal staff sitting opposite. Regan lined the film camera up, adjusted the overhead lights and roared, ‘Action!’

Through his eyepiece, framed by the flags and just below the banner, the group faced the camera, raising a toast, Kincaid beaming and acknowledging Schenker who bowed modestly. The camera seemed to love them both. Eva’s composure had returned and Regan had to hand it to the broad – she could act. She gave furtive doe-eyed glances at Kincaid while Schenker leant across flirting openly. She was going straight to the ‘A’ list as soon as this documentary was screened worldwide.

Regan panned the camera around the cabin, slowly capturing the flying boat’s splendour. The crew from the flight-deck appeared in shot, giving the thumbs-up. Later Regan would film the radio operator informing Berlin of their success, jump-cutting to Lenin’s coffin. As they were filming, another unit was preparing to film Goebbels and Himmler receiving the news. Kincaid’s team would then splice the film together at Goebbels’ private studios. The event was virtually being put together in real-time.

Once the toast was completed, Kincaid and Schenker rose to stand in front of the flags, to applause from around the table. An announcement came over the intercom from the cockpit; they
would be out of Russian airspace in two hours. Regan then turned his attention to the laboratory below. He thought about interviewing Zbarsky, maybe taking some of the sensationalism out of it by asking for a scientific slant on preserving Lenin. He hastily scribbled down some notes into a leather-bound notebook purchased from the same shop as his hero Ernest Hemingway. Pausing over the page, the idea slowly sunk into Jack Regan that he was standing on the cusp of history. He was about to become a legend and girls like Eva would flock to him.

* * *

Chainbridge asked Brandt to repeat his statement. The signal out of the Urals was weakening, voices flowing in and out in waves. A few years earlier, Klaus Brandt’s dossier had been passed to Chainbridge when he had been collating information on German Army officers. He was assessed to be a very capable soldier, cool headed and inclined to act in the army’s, rather than the Nazi party’s, interests. He was also a legend in sporting circles, particularly mountaineering and cross country skiing and shooting. An Olympic place should have been guaranteed in 1936, but he never made the German team. He was now apparently out of political favour and had been left for dead in the middle of Russia. Whatever happened next would be British collaboration with the enemy while German bombs were landing on English cities. The trick was to keep British Intelligence’s fingerprints off the whole operation.