Winter Storm (21 page)

“What
about my men?”

“Kirov
wants them on the city’s inner defense ring.”

“What?
Like common militias? This is outrageous! The Germans just broke through the
16th Army! Rokossovsky couldn’t stop them, and those militias won’t stop them
either. I’ll kill far more of our own good citizens than the Germans do when
they start to run. That’s the only way to keep them in the trenches.”

“There
will be none of that,” said Berzin. “Deserters and shirkers, yes, they must be
disciplined, but Kirov does not want summary executions.”

“Then
what am I to do when they turn tail and run, use harsh language? Don’t be a
fool, Berzin. You know as well as I do that the Germans are going to take this
city. What do we have left? Nothing! They will come here and round up the whole
government, all our top industrialists and business leaders if they stay here.”

“You
and I know they won’t stay if things get any worse.”

“Yes,”
said Beria. “The Fat Cats know when to pack up and move. They’ll be long gone
for Leningrad, and without my men here in the city, you have no chance to stop
the panic that will ensue when the rank and file see their shiny limousines
lined up in the streets and heading north. This city is finished. The shops are
empty, food stocks are running out, even for simple things like coffee or tea.
They are grinding up acorns and just throwing in a few coffee beans for flavor!
There is no soap, and even running water goes off and on. People stink like the
animals they are! The power is barely on, and most of the city is going without
heat. The bombing has shattered all the windows, and at night the cold gets
ever worse. People have started burning old books and furniture, and winter
hasn’t even started yet! They are cooking on old
burzhuika
stoves, and
the fumes kill someone every night.”

“Like
you do?” said Berzin, letting his dislike for the man slip.

“I am
no angel,” said Beria, “Not when the devil’s work is what the world most needs.
Take a good look around you! We used to make furniture in the small city
factories; typewriters, bicycles, fine lamps! Now we make land mines, pistols,
ammunition, and flamethrowers instead of samovars. The apartments on the Moscow
river were all emptied out three days ago so they could turn them in to
fortified bunkers. Yet it won’t matter. No one will stay here to defend them.”

“If
Kirov stays, then the ministers stay with him, and the people. That’s the
order.” Berzin was adamant. “All you have to do is hold things together until
the Siberians get here.”

Beria
shook his head, for his moment of ascendency, the time he loved most when his
hand was on the nightstick, and his brutally effective NKVD men were holding
sway, was suddenly put on hold. He laughed, and to Berzin it seemed a mocking
laugh, disdainful and dismissive.

“Karpov’s
troops are going to save us from the Germans? Ha! They have yet to take back
Omsk from Ivan Volkov. There’s a man worth fighting for. One day you will know
it!”

Berzin
gave him an odd look, but said nothing more, opening the limousine door and
disappearing into the rush of the streets of Moscow.

On
the 23rd of September the German 61st Recon company of
11th Panzer Division reached the outskirts of Solntsevo, just 12 miles from the
Kremlin. They had found a small hole in the Russian line, and motored right
through. Rokossovsky cursed that his men could be there now, fighting house to
house if they were not tied down holding the line ten kilometers to the west.
For the moment, however, the citizen soldiers of the Moscow Militia, three
regiments, two railroad battalions and two other irregular militias were
holding the inner defense ring there that they had labored to build for the
last 30 days.

Yet the
sight of German helmets on the road sent the rumors flying all the way to the
center of Moscow, and it would be another three agonizing days before the
Siberians would arrive. Zhukov protested that he already started an attack
against Guderian’s fragile right flank north of Tula, and that he needed that
army to carry out his planned counteroffensive.

That
attack was mounted by the 10th Army from Ryazan, and it was falling on
Langermann’s 4th Panzer Division just as they made ready to move north. Once
again, it was the tanks of Mikhail Katukov’s 4th Tank Brigade that made the
breakthrough. Dmitri Lavrinenko was in the thick of that attack again, in a new
tank, and now his nemesis and the whole 101 Heavy Tank Brigade was far to the
north fighting at Serpukhov.

Meanwhile,
three Soviet armies that had been holding in the Kaluga Bulge dissolved and
began flowing out of their bunkers and fortifications and heading for the Oka
River line. To their great surprise they would find German troops from Model’s
3rd Panzer Division holding the very same positions they had been ordered to
move to! Model was equally surprised.

“I have
identified troops from 33rd and 43rd Armies!” he said in a radio call to
Guderian.

“Where
are they now?”

“Eight
to ten kilometers west of Kremenki.”

“You
have units that far west?”

“Another
push and we’ll have both those armies in a nice big pocket,” said Model.

“There’s
no point in that. We have no pincer on the other side! Pull back to Protvino.
We have trouble south on the main road. Langermann can’t come up until we
restore the situation, and if he fails to do so, then
we
are in a nice
little pocket. Understand?”

*

The
sudden dynamism of the whole sector was a contagious
energy that rippled all the way to Moscow. It was said that the entire front
was collapsing, and armies that had been ordered to redeploy by Kirov earlier
were thought to be forces routed by the unstoppable German Army. Morale
plummeted with the news that Kaluga and Serpukhov had both fallen, and then
came that single company of Motorcycle recon troops to the outskirts of the
city. Beria’s grim predictions to Berzin were soon made real.

The Big
Cats were in Serpukhov, and the Fat Cats in Moscow were not going to stay and
wait for them to get there. Well off families of factory directors, managers,
doctors, university professors, and businessmen were all on the move. Politburo
ministers were nervously emptying their files and throwing them into
fireplaces, then having the ashes thrown out the windows of the tall brick
buildings as a freezing rain set in on the beleaguered city.

The
following morning that rain had frozen to a hard frost on the streets, soiled
by the dark char and soot of everything that had burned the previous
night—black snow—not the code word, but the reality now. Then in the midst of
all this turmoil, with thousands on the streets streaming out of every hovel
and home in the southern districts, a fire started. It swept out of Kutuzova,
leapt over the tortuous bends of the Moscow River, burned through the famous
Monastery of the Sacred Virgin, the underground railway station, the Telegraph
Central Relay Station, Academy of Arts, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Trade on Smolenskaja Street.

Chaos
reigned, and though there was no more than that single German motorcycle
company anywhere near the sector, the people saw the fire as the burning edge
of the invading army, if not the work of the German soldiers themselves. But
they had nothing to do with it. All the while, the men of the 61st Company,
realizing that they were not going to push through that inner defense ring
alone, simply rounded up a stray pig and were holed up in a few outlying houses
having the best meal they had in several days.

It was
fear that now swept through the city like the flames and smoke of that fire,
and Beria knew that the only thing that would stop it was greater fear. He
resolved to go to the Kremlin himself, and make a direct appeal to Kirov under
the guise of delivering an important report on the status of the outlying
defenses. It was now or never, he thought.

The
long black armored limousine rolled through Red Square, the red flag pennants
marking it as Beria’s personal car flapping stiffly in the cold wind. Beria was
out in a huff, pulling the collar of his greatcoat high around his neck, with
four tough looking security men at his side. He tramped off through the gates,
gaining easy entry, as he was the head of the NKVD itself, the man responsible
for all internal security.

In
through the labyrinthine outer offices of the Kremlin he went, climbing one
staircase after another, up and up, to the guarded alcoves of Sergei Kirov’s
inner sanctum near the secret Red Archives. He made his boisterous presence
known as he passed through one security checkpoint after another, and though
his guards had to leave their submachine guns behind, no one dared to search
Beria himself. One look of those beady eyes behind cold round eyeglasses was
enough to freeze the blood of any man.

Kirov
was at his map table, reading over the radio address he intended to deliver
that night to try and bolster the morale of the defense. A visit from Beria at
that hour was the farthest thing from his mind, but when the aid appeared at
the door, saying the security man had come with an urgent report, he set down
his speech and told the man to show him in. Moments later the short man entered
alone, still bundled in that thick trench coat, his face grim and features
seemingly frozen in a sneer.

“The
city is burning,” he said to Kirov. “The fire is burning through the museum
district.”

“I’ve
seen it from the window,” said Kirov.

“A
pity,” said Beria. “At least the Russian State Library is on that side of the
Kremlin. Those books will take a good long while to burn through, all the seedy
history of our republic, the revolution, and all that came before it. Tolstoy
and Dostoevsky, Pushkin and all the rest—up in smoke.”

“Those
books cannot be destroyed by fire,” said Kirov. “Nor can this republic be
destroyed that way, or by the fire from that German artillery.”

“Something
from your speech?” said Beria, a mocking grin on his face. “Going to play like
Churchill now and rally the peasants? Believe me, they won’t be out there
huddled around their radio sets listening to you when you give your little
speech—even if the electricity does manage to stay on tonight. The people you
really need to convince are already on the roads leading north, off to their
winter villas. Yes, the rich have fled, and the poor will now follow them.
Panic has started and it will soon become a riot. Unless you allow me and my
men to restore order, the city will collapse into utter chaos!”

“I will
address the people within the hour,” said Kirov.

“And
say what?” Beria had a strange look on his face, his eyes glazed and distant.
“You think you can pull this city together with a radio speech? It will take my
men three days to restore order west of the river, and by that time the Germans
will be there.”

“And by
that time we will have the Siberians,” said Kirov.

“Karpov’s
men? That conniving bastard. You think those troops will remain loyal to anyone
else but him?”

Kirov
gave Beria a strange look. “Compose yourself,” he said calmly. “You are chief
of the NKVD, and the last man I would think to be spouting defeatist talk at a
time like this.”

“I know
who I am,” said Beria, “but do you? Berzin told me the government was all set
to move to Leningrad. I made all the arrangements, organized the security,
commandeered all the necessary trains. It was going to be a very long train
ride from here to Leningrad, with plenty of time for any dirty business that
needed doing. And it would look as if the Germans were to blame. Then, all of a
sudden, you get a hankering to make speeches and you want to turn the defense
of the capital over to foreign troops! You should have allowed me to carry out
Black Snow three days ago. This is what you get for that hesitation, and these
foolish thoughts of fighting it out here to the bitter end… Well, I’m sorry to
say it
will
be the bitter end, Mister General Secretary, at least for
you.”

“What
are you talking about?” Kirov was suddenly angry.

“Yes,”
said Beria. “You should have gone to Leningrad, but I heard you were warned to
stay away from that place. It twists your guts a bit to know that was where you
were supposed to die…”

Beria’s
words struck Kirov like a hammer. How could he know that? What was this man
saying now? What was going on here? “Explain yourself,” he said in a low voice,
“before I call in the guards and have your sorry ass hauled out of here to a
firing squad.”

“Not
likely,” said Beria with a thin smile. “No, not likely. I’ve brought all three
of my NKVD Battalions back from the front with me. No use leaving them there.
I’ll need every man I can get to manage the evacuation when this is finally
over.”

“There
isn’t going to be an evacuation!” Kirov raised his voice. “This is what you
came here to report to me tonight, your vacillation and fear, this insulting defeatist
nonsense? You are relieved of your post! I’ll hand the job over to Berzin if
you can’t learn to follow orders.”

“Oh,
there will be an evacuation,” said Beria, “but not a speech. No. You are
mistaken Mister General Secretary. I have not failed to follow my orders at
all—just not
your
orders. And now, I have a present to deliver to you,
from Ivan Volkov.”

His
hand had been in his greatcoat pocket all along, and now he pulled out a dull
black pistol, aiming it right at the General Secretary’s heart. For Lavrentiy
Beria was never quite the man he seemed to be, not since he had met that
Lieutenant in Armavir when Denikin’s Whites caught him there. He learned a
great deal from that young man, fantastic things that he was amazed to see
happening before his own eyes over the years. He soon knew why they called that
young Lieutenant the Prophet, and why he was able to outmaneuver Denikin so
easily. For the Lieutenant was, of course, none other than Ivan Volkov, and
Lavrentiy Beria was one of his men, deeply infiltrated into the Soviet security
apparatus over the decades, and now finally ready to deliver the master stroke
that Volkov hoped would win the war.

*

At that
moment Sergei Kirov realized all of this in a single heartbeat. Volkov! He must
have gotten to Beria somehow, who knows when? My God, to think that man has been
in his camp all these years as head of the NKVD!

His
eyes were riveted on that pistol, and for the briefest moment all he could
think of was that dark, awful moment in the prison cell at Baku when he called
on young Josef Stalin, and held a pistol very much like that one in his
trembling hand. Then it had been his finger on the trigger, his hand on the
throat of fate and time itself. And when he clenched his fist, all history
died, the decades collapsed, along with everything Stalin built in his sad Red Socialist
State. All the terror and misery and fear he brought into the world vanished in
that single moment—the Gulags, the Great Purge, and all the rest. In its place
there now yawned an enormous vacuum, seemingly endless, interminable, a well of
uncertainty so deep that Kirov despaired to think that it was now incumbent
upon him alone to fill that void.

And
this had been his life’s work, laboring through the revolution, finally seizing
control of the Bolshevik movement, toppling Denikin and his Whites, holding the
remnant of those forces back in Orenburg, and dueling endlessly with the very
man who sent this demon here tonight to pull that pistol from his coat pocket. Now
it would be Beria’s finger on the trigger, and by extension, the hand of Ivan
Volkov on the throat of fate. What terrible chasm might open here in the next
instant, should that bullet ever find his heart?

Beria’s
eyes were dark, lifeless, unfeeling and cold. His hand was firm and steady,
with not the slightest tremor of fear or hesitation. The smile faded from his
face, which was now dull and slack, no passion, no feeling, simply fate.

Outside
the room, the two guards by the high wooden doors were jolted by the sharp sound
of three pistol shots coming from within. The moved with urgent quickness,
quickly unsoldering their submachine guns and bursting in through the doors,
eyes wide and every muscle taught with the tension of that moment.