Kruze released his safety straps and sprang out of his seat. He rolled over the side of the cockpit, across the wing and onto the ground as the rocket fighter came to a halt. Then he was on his feet, desperately trying to tear the smouldering suit from his body. He pulled the hood off his head and took in great gulps of air. Then the fire trucks were around him, hosing him down with cool, clear water. It splashed over his face, bringing him out of the nightmare.
The 163 stood a few yards away. One crash truck filled the cockpit with water, while another sprayed down the wings and the fuselage.
Jeeps and lorries tore across the runway towards the aircraft. Kruze stepped out of his soaking asbestos suit and strode off in the opposite direction, towards the debrief room.
If Staverton wanted his report, he could give it to him right now. The Messerschmitt 163C was a killer.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lavrenty Beria, head of the NKVD, watched the sun start to slip behind the dilapidated roof of the Art Theatre across the way from his small apartment on Kuznecki Most. It was going to be another crystal clear evening, the ebbing, wintry sun casting golden spears of light onto the tops of the spires and domes that were scattered amongst the drab living blocks that remained on Moscow’s decimated skyline.
Beria liked to escape to this, his ‘other’ apartment, when his duties allowed. Surrounded by luxurious furnishings and an abundant supply of vodka, he would while away the small hours here, in a city where two thirds of the population was on the brink of starvation.
Tonight, as always, he was not alone. The girl whom he had spotted at the gymnastics competition during a morale-boosting Young Communist League festival the previous summer was still his favourite, but the general’s daughter who now lay in his bed in the next door room came close, very close. His body ached at the thought of her, but first he had to work. It would increase his appetite for what would come later.
He flipped through the pages of the dossier. It was an exercise he pursued regularly. It not only helped him watch Stalin’s back, but also his own.
As he did so he was once more impressed by the breadth of his intelligence-gathering network. Information was power. It was also insurance. His NKVD men had furnished him with every detail he wanted to know about each senior officer in Frontal Command. If any one of them so much as played with himself at night, Beria knew about it.
He sensed a movement to his left. The girl was beside him, shielding her eyes from the glare of the lamp on his desk. She looked slightly ridiculous in the shirt that he had given her as a nightdress, but he patted her on the buttocks as if to tell her to run along back to bed. In a few more minutes he planned to be with her.
“Why, that’s Uncle Nikolai,” she said in a sleepy voice, pointing at the photograph in the file.
“I did not know Nikolai Ivanovich was your uncle, beloved.”
“He’s not really,” she replied. “It’s just that he used to come round and see Papa a lot. He was nice to me. He used to bring me cakes from his wife. I liked him, so I called him Uncle. He was nicer to me than the others.”
“What others?” He eased her round and on to his lap, slipping a hand up under her shirt.
“The friends of Papa. They used to come to our apartment. I did not like them very much because they took Papa away from me.”
“What do you mean, beloved?”
“They talked for hours and hours. They would not let me or Mama go near them. Then Papa went back to the war. Now my mother cries every day and I hear her at night, too. She thinks she will never see Papa again.”
A tear bulged in the corner of her eye.
“Who were these men?”
“I do not know their names. They never used to talk to me. Except for Uncle Nikolai. The old man scared me especially. There was something horrible in his eyes. I used to hate to look in his eyes. They gave me nightmares.”
“What old man?” Beria asked. There was more than idle curiosity in his voice now.
“He was tall and thin, with grey hair and wrinkly skin. And cold blue eyes. My father was scared of him, I think.”
“But your father is a general, beloved. He should be scared of no man.” Except for Stalin. And me, Beria thought.
“I think it is because the old man is senior that Papa was scared,” she said defensively.
“Senior to your father? That would make him a marshal.” He was thinking aloud. The girl began to inch away from him, startled by his change in mood.
Something within Beria told him to go on. Clandestine meetings of army officers, one of whom was a marshal; what was this? His mind raced. Since the purges, even brothers over the rank of lieutenant would restrict their visits to each other. If Stalin ever got to hear about such gatherings he would want to know what was so interesting that groups of officers could not talk openly in the staff room or in the halls of the Kremlin. Comrade Stalin distrusted such men. They usually did not last very long.
He grabbed the girl by the shoulders and shook her until she cried with the pain.
“Nadia, look through these photographs until you see the man with the eyes. When you see him, you must tell me, do you understand? I have to know.”
The girl was scared. She nodded at Beria, following his gaze down to the file on his desk. The pool of light from the lamp fell upon the photograph of a general she did not recognize. She shook her head. Beria flicked the pages over. He kept on turning them until the girl froze.
“That’s him,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Her voice faltered. Seeing those eyes again made Nadia Nerchenko every bit as scared as the time when she had first come across Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov in the flesh.
Beria pushed her aside, taking no notice of her crying as she ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. He picked up the phone and dialled the number of his senior investigation department at the Centre. He was connected straight away with Shlemov. “I want to know the whereabouts of Shaposhnikov… shall we say over the last six months? That means who he’s seen, where he’s been, who he’s sleeping with, women, men… got the picture?
The clipped, unquestioning tones of NKVD Major Vladimir Filippovich Shlemov filtered through the static on the line.
“And while you’re about it,” Beria shouted, “do the same for that lap-dog of his, Colonel Nikolai Ivanovich Krilov.” The NKVD chief turned to the door of the bedroom, satisfying himself that it was closed and he could not be overheard. “Finally, get me the file on Army General Nerchenko, deputy commander-in-chief of the First Ukrainian Front. But make it discreet. Comrade Major, discreet. I want that report on my desk by morning.”
He hung up and walked towards the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. The Nerchenko girl’s disclosure had caused the hairs on the back of his policeman’s neck to bristle. It was a feeling he had learned to enjoy.
If anything, the Bunker had acquired a certain benevolence since the shock briefing on the Russian invasion plan for Europe, the plan called Archangel. Fifty feet beneath the pavements of Whitehall, with no natural light or sounds of everyday life to distract him, it was hard to believe that anything as nightmarish could exist on the outside.
Fleming knew that to have endorsed Operation Guardian Angel, the Cabinet advisers had to be desperate. For all Staverton’s drive and determination, it stood little chance of success. Even the Germans, desperate as they were, had not cleared the Me 163C for operational use. And they still had to persuade Kruze to undertake the mission.
Staverton was bent over a large-scale map of southern Europe, drawing a hemispherical arc with his compasses, when the phone rang. He picked up the receiver and listened intently for about a minute before replacing it. His lip quivered involuntarily beneath his clipped, grey moustache.