Having established that Malenkoy was a simple Georgian, no more interested in overthrowing the State than Shlemov was in getting a transfer from Moscow to the front, the NKVD major decided to unfurl part of the truth. If it became necessary to cover his tracks later, Malenkoy could simply be removed.
“I’ll be candid with you, Comrade,” he began. “General Nerchenko is under suspicion of anti-Soviet behaviour.” He let the words hang for a moment, long enough for their significance to permeate Malenkoy’s consciousness. “Well, Comrade Major, what do you have to tell me?”
Malenkoy looked up from the ground and into the hard features of the NKVD investigator. The import of Shlemov’s statement was still masked by fears for his own safety. “Then this is nothing to do with me?” he asked.
“No, it is purely a security matter regarding your superiors,” Shlemov smiled. “Comrade Stalin wants nothing to darken the efforts of the Red Army in this, the moment of our triumph.”
“Comrade General Nerchenko, you say? There has been nothing, Comrade… I’m sorry, your name, it escapes me.
“Major Shlemov,” he added softly.
Malenkoy seemed to relax. “There has been nothing unusual here, Comrade Major.”
“But you have had dealings with Nerchenko, have you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then I fail to see why you hesitate,” Shlemov cut in quickly. “I am telling you that the General is under strong suspicion in Moscow; you tell me that you have had day to day dealings with him — but you have neither seen, nor heard anything unusual. I find that hard to believe.” His voice had suddenly become that of an interrogator. “What duties have you performed for the General since your transfer here?”
“This maskirovka,” Malenkoy stuttered, suddenly thrown off-balance by the major’s soft and hard approach. “I built it on the Comrade General’s orders.”
Shlemov held his hands up before the lamp once more. “Then at last we are getting somewhere,” he said. “So you have simply been engaged in fabricating these… ghosts all that time, nothing else?”
“No, nothing else, Comrade, that is the truth.” He racked his brains and thought of something and it chilled him.
“Not quite the whole truth, perhaps?” Shlemov prompted.
“Something very small, hardly worth mentioning. The sector was infiltrated by fascist commandos, a small band, but they threatened the maskirovka. Comrade General Nerchenko asked me to lead a clean-up operation, which took just a few hours. That is all.”
“I see,” Shlemov said. He had hoped for more, somehow.
Malenkoy remembered the counter-insurgency operation, the carnage of the SS camp, the headless corpse and the bloodied papers of his friend, Yuri Petrovich Paliev, that he had found there. He nearly sat on the information, knowing that there was no way Shlemov need ever find out the details of the conversation he had had afterwards with Sergeant Sheverev at the motor-pool. Yet he felt as if he was under suspicion, too, and the unsolicited offer might be a way of ingratiating himself with this NKVD major.
“The Comrade General sent a squad of Siberians to hunt down an officer by the name of Paliev — it happened almost a fortnight ago,” he said in a small voice.
Shlemov sat up, realizing that Malenkoy was trying to tell him something that he thought was significant. “Go on.
“The General claimed that Paliev was a deserter — that was why he put the Siberians onto his trail, but they never caught him; the fascists did instead, the ones who threatened the maskirovka. I showed the General Paliev’s papers, which we found on the body of one of the SS commandos, not knowing that he had already put a price on Yuri Petrovich’s head.” He stopped, searching for the right words.
“And?”
“He was shocked, I mean, really shocked when I told him that the fascists must have killed him. I found out later about the Siberians and what the Comrade General had asked them to do, but it did not tally with his reaction that day… it was as if he was really scared of something, something that I had uncovered. Something to do with Paliev’s defection.” He screwed up his eyes and pinched the top of his nose. “He was particularly anxious to know whether we had found anything else of Paliev’s on the fascists.”
“What? Anything particular?”
“Yes, papers and plans, he said.”
“Who was this Paliev, exactly?”
“A major of signals — also the General’s aide. He was no deserter, Comrade Major. He was the most loyal officer the Red Army could have — a real patriot. And the General wanted him dead. It just doesn’t add up.”
“And I thought I had been sent here on a wild goose chase,” Shlemov whispered to himself. The scent had suddenly become strong enough to choke him.
“I’m sorry, Comrade Major?”
“Nothing,” Shlemov said suddenly. “You’ve been most helpful. Incidentally, what were you talking about to our illustrious Chief of the General Staff, Comrade Shaposhnikov, last night?”
“He was congratulating me on the maskirovka. It is complete now, ready for the final phase.”
“And Nerchenko spoke to you at the same time, did he not?”
“Yes, but…”
“Relax, comrade, I am not trying to implicate you in anything here. It is purely General Nerchenko that I am interested in.”
“He asked me to get some men and help off-load equipment that had just arrived at the Front, that was all. Humping crateloads of sanitation fluid is not my usual line of work, Comrade Major,” Malenkoy said.
Shlemov’s eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”
“I’m a major of tanks,” he said, “I don’t perform those sort of duties.”
“No, before that. Something about Nerchenko asking you to off-load sanitation fluid. How much of this stuff was there?”
“Twenty trucks’ worth,” Malenkoy said, indignantly. “Me, a major, having to supervise the removal of almost a hundred tonnes of delousing liquid for the General, with that smug Colonel Krilov just standing there, looking on.” He laughed, shaking his head.
Shlemov’s ice cool facade cracked. He grabbed Malenkoy by his uniform and pulled him out into the crisp, dawn air.
“Have you got transport?”
Malenkoy nodded.
“Then you’re going to take me to see this sanitation fluid, right now.”
“But what about my maskirovka? I’m needed here.”
“Your damned maskirovka can wait,” Shlemov shouted.
As the Focke-Wulf lifted off from Altenburg and headed south-east, Hauptmann Rudi Menzel had a strong feeling that it was the last mission he would ever fly. It was not a sentiment that came to him as any great surprise. He had been resigned to death, or capture — in Russian hands, they were synonymous — for weeks.
There were only two FW 189 Uhus still left in the Staffel, their last mount having been shot from under their arses a few days before. Lutz, the gunner, had died in the forced landing and their pilot, Klepper, had been so badly wounded that he was now languishing in the field hospital at Altenburg.
As for the airfield itself, he didn’t have to be a master tactician to appreciate that it was thirty-six hours away, at best, from being overrun by the Russians. His own promotion from Oberleutnant the previous day had only served to heighten his utter misery, for the sole responsibility of running the Staffel, or what was left of it, had been given to him.
And he wasn’t even a pilot, just the most experienced airman alive on the Staffel; but in the Luftwaffe of spring 1945 that was enough. He glanced back from his position in the nose of the Uhu at the pilot, a blond, spotty Leutnant called Ritter, who sported a wispy moustache to make him seem a little older to the ground crew. He had arrived on the Staffel three days before straight from C-Schule, where they rushed multi-engined pilots through training in a few weeks in a pathetic attempt to keep up with losses on both fronts.