“I will only tell you that the troops have their orders and will carry on until they are stopped by the enemy or until they have achieved their objectives. They have been trained to keep going, whatever the cost.”
“Are you insane?” Gregori could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You just push men in to battle with no control over them? You must be mad. And did you not think the Kremlin would object to your creating a private army, setting it a mission without having in place an accountable command structure.” It was wildly infuriating but Zucharnin maintained his satisfied expression He had, unusually, been allowed to keep cigarettes and he lit one now, blowing smoke up at the naked bulb overhead. Further evidence that at least one of the MPs was subservient to him.
“A private Army? Is that what you have told them, were those the words you used?” Zucharnin’s smile broadened a fraction. He was enjoying its effect on his second in command. But perhaps best not to employ its full effect immediately. “I should not be surprised. As you knew little, I suppose your signal was in the broadest of terms. It was a signal, wasn’t it? Some how I cannot imagine you having the courage to use the telephone. That is an indication of the difference between us, I would have done. But I have to admit, not yet. It does not do to be precipitate in such weighty matters.”
“If you think to make trouble for me by with-holding information about the attack you secretly arranged then you could not be more wrong.” Gregori would have liked to adopt the threatening tone he felt appropriate to the situation, but something about his superior was jarring with him. “I shall soon discover the true situation and you will not be smiling then.”
“If I was you Gregori, I would be a worried man. Not because you have not kept track of activity within your own head quarters, not because you have spent more time trying to lick boots than doing your job properly but because…
There was a long pause. Zucharnin lit another cigarette, stubbing out the first before it was finished.
“Because of what?” Gregori ignored the knock at the door.
Finally Zucharnin got up from his chair and smoothed his jacket straight, brushing away ash. “Because you are not as well connected, because your wife’s father is not a Marshal of the Soviet Union. Mine is and without detailing any charges against me you have presented the Kremlin with nothing more than a snippet of gossip. You were so eager to usurp me that you grabbed at the first straw my stepson seemed to offer you.”
“But you have formed a strike force of your own and initiated an assault without advising higher command.” Gregori knew his voice was too high, that he was almost screaming.
“So it may appear, but things are not always what they seem.” Zucharnin shouted for the clerk to come in and snatched the sheet of signal pad paper when the men looked undecided to whom he should give it. He read it, then put it on the table, not even offering it to the Lieutenant Colonel. “While those men have been grouped together for an operation all are still technically on the strength of their original penal battalions. Far from being a private army they could be regarded as a piece of neat administrative tidying.”
“This is just playing with words.” Gregori did not reach for the paper. He put off picking it up. “You sent them in to action without official sanction.”
“I told you, you spent too much time plotting and not enough doing your job. There is a sentence, buried deep within the original battle plan for the assault on Nurnberg that a flank attack would be required to distract the NATO forces from their defence of the river crossing. Just small print I know. But it is there, some where in among the need for troop hygiene and sanitation arrangements.”
Gregori lifted the message and read it. Almost as cryptic as the first, it ordered the correction of an administrative error, Zucharnin’s release. It told Gregori nothing more, but it didn’t have to. The general was about to commence making his life a misery. There might be one tiny glimmer to be extracted. “What about Captain Pritkov. Surely the fault lies with him, the information he gave me…”
“Was quite good in what it was, not his fault you jumped to conclusions.”
“But it was his fault. You know he is a fool, no use to anyone. And it was he who tried to ruin you.” Shit, if he could bring down the boy with him he would almost suffer willingly.
“Possibly quite true but do you seriously think I would make trouble for a grandson of a Marshal of the Soviet Union. Do you?” Zucharnin looked about the little office. “There will be matters that will require rearranging. Before I give consideration to how best to employ you in the future, and at what rank, perhaps you might move in to here. It will be more than adequate for the level of responsibility you can expect, the amount and type of furniture you will be allowed to have.”
When the door closed behind the general, Gregori looked about. There was not even a telephone. The single bulb was weak, its faint illumination barely reaching to the corners of the room. The desk and chair, the only furnishings, were of the cheapest utilitarian quality. There was no floor covering, only the bare board and those heavily pitted and splashed with paint. Everything was gone, all the trappings, all the comforts. Doubtless there would be a cut in pay. That would make it impossible for him to hide events from his wife. She’s find out anyway, the officers wives had a grapevine as effective as any KGB network.
He sat at the desk and put his head in his hands. There was nothing left to hope for, beyond at best marking time until retirement. Even that possibility must be precarious now. Would his wife stay with him as their home standards dropped? It wasn’t likely. Dam her; her hen-pecking ambition was as much to blame for this situation as anything he had ever done.
There was only one thing left to hope for. That Zucharnins assault would fail, that somehow the weight of blame would do him harm. After all, the man who threw away a division would not be looked on favourably by the powers in the Kremlin. It was a straw but in his heart he dared to hope.
“Easy, we don’t want an accident now.” Carson supervised the removal of the nuclear device from the interior of the hovercraft.
“Like you really need to tell us that?” Dooley set the pack down and kept one hand on it for a moment to make sure it was not going to topple over.
“Chuck out that thermite as well.” Revell looked around the vehicle park. Apart from a couple of abandoned low-loader trailers it was empty.” So where do you want to set it up.”
The autobahn service centre covered a vast area. All of the fuel pumps were on one side of the carriageways. Crossover ramps and bridges brought the vehicles from the far carriageway.
“Just there will do fine. We can certainly be sure it will not be a place the Reds will poke about. They’ll be more interested in grabbing goods from the gift shops and restaurants.” Indicating a compound close by, Carson took one side of the pack and waited for some one else to take the other. “Come on you guys, it won’t bite you.”
“No, it’ll bloody vaporise you.”
“Stop complaining Simmons. You’ll never know about it.”
“Thank you Sarg’, from that I am supposed to draw comfort.”
“Grab it and move.” Sergeant Hyde walked behind them as the two men struggled with the load and stopped before a locked gate.
“Can’t we just dump it here? No one is going to see it.”
Pushing Simmons aside Sergeant Hyde broke the gates small padlock with a couple of blows from his rifle butt. “I don’t want any Commie discovering it when he strolls off for a pee. They’d never disarm it but they could drive on and hope for fuel elsewhere. We’d only knock out that part of the column passing by. Not good enough.”