Handing over the folder, he picked up his tea once more, summarising in between sips.
“Seems we know of its existence through a couple of mentions in their signals traffic… before they changed their codes regularly… damn effective that has been too I might add… anyway, we’ve assumed it’s some agricultural department… no more than tha…”
Gehlen’s look made him stop in mid-flow.
“You know different though. Don’t you?”
“Yes, General, I’m think I do. Acquiring this information cost me another long-standing and excellent agent, and cost her considerably more than that from what I expect. None the less, whilst I know little of what the Ministry for Middle Machinery is concerned with, I’m now aware who’s in charge of it.”
Strong finished his tea and set the cup and saucer down with a gentleness that belied his anticipation.
“Malenkov.”
“Malenkov?”
That meant a number of things, the first of which was that the Ministry for Middle Machinery was now something they needed to know about very quickly, for Malenkov had fingers in a number of pies, one of which they knew was to do with aircraft production, and one of which they had suspected, ever since a report had placed him in a one to one meeting with Kurchatov… the atomic scientist.
1230 hrs, Monday, 2nd September 1946, Headquarters, NATO Forces in Europe, Frankfurt, Germany.
The monthly exchange between German Military Intelligence and the Bureau Central de Renseignements et D’Action had run its normal course.
De Walle had encouraged him to remain behind when the others left the room.
They slipped naturally into German as their preferred language for private discussion.
“How may I be of assistance, General De Walle?”
“A mutual acquaintance received a mysterious note a while back. I wondered if your agency could shed any light on its contents, or provide me with some background on the originator of it?”
“Most certainly I can try, Herr General.”
A copy of the copy of Anne-Marie’s note changed hands and De Walle watched closely for any reaction from the man whom he had only recently started to trust.
“Uspenka clearly. That’s in Russia… near Luhansk if memory serves. We had some suspicions about underground works there. I had one of my people check it all out. Came to nothing.”
He lowered the paper to the desk.
“The rest means nothing to me. I’ll show it to some people. We’ll see what comes up. This name?”
“David Steyn, cousin to Ernst Knocke.”
“Ah, the famous tank general… still in the French Legion from what I heard. Declined to return to serve his Fatherland.”
“Yes, he remained true to his word… something I, for one, am truly grateful for.”
“Steyn? A Jew?”
“I believe so. I’m sure you knew that not all the SS were rabid anti-Semites.”
“Just most.”
De Walle conceded the statement with a typically Gallic shrug.
“On that subject, Knocke seems to think that his cousin was supposed to have died in Belzec, along with his uncle Jakob, a medical doctor.”
“And you think this is important?”
“I’m unsure to be honest. But Knocke seems to suspect that Steyn was more than the simple shopkeeper he appeared to be… an ex-Kriegsmarine engineer who may have other skills… official contacts possibly… perhaps even a clandestine life… don’t know…. but I do know you’re better placed to discover the truth of the matter.”
“May I?”
“But of course.”
Gehlen responded by marking a couple of extra notes on the message and then pocketed the paperwork.
“Leave it with me, Herr General. Now, I must go and see Vietinghoff before I travel on.”
“Thank you, Herr General. My regards to your family.”
2100 hrs, Saturday, 7th September 1946, Vinogradar Young Communists Sailing Club, Black Sea, USSR.
The pilot boats had made contact and the mammoth voyage was nearly complete.
On the stroke of 2100 hrs, the hydraulic doors that separated the Black Sea from the secret facility started their slow journey, permitting a soft red light to play upon the gentle swell outside.
Inside the facility, six sets of red lights pulsated, hidden from any view save the eyes aboard the vessels carefully approaching the entrance.
The order of arrival was decided by the Japanese themselves, and the pilot boat flashed its lights towards the red cavern, silently communicating which vessel was first in line.
Inside the facility, the red lights extinguished until solely one set was illuminated, along with a matching green set, the two colours marking the hospitable darkness of the welcoming mooring bay into which the AM class I-1 would slide.
The sea doors themselves were marked by an array of low power red and green lights arranged in the same pattern as the mooring bays, with red to port and green to starboard.
The arrival took eight minutes precisely; longer than the five and a half minutes achieved by the practiced crews of J-51 Soviet Initsiativa and J-54 Soviet Vozmezdiye… or Initiative and Retribution as official circles knew them… or Jana and Velika as those who manned them affectionately called the two type-XXI submarines.
Next came one of the real leviathans, the I-402 displaying the shielded blue light on her conning tower, which meant that she was the one that carried the all-important hardware upon which the later stages of Raduga so heavily depended.
402 took eleven minutes to berth, the turn into her resting place proving tighter than imagined when the plans were altered to accommodate the immense Sen-Tokus.
The transport was already in place to accept the precious machinery, the berth normally occupied by ‘Jana’ filled by a sturdy new diesel engine powered barge that would take the delicate instruments from Vinogradar on the journey across the Black sea, into the Volga, to their final destination at Akhtubinsk and Camp 1001.
There was another similar dilapidated-looking barge in a vacant bay adjacent to 401.
The barges were carefully constructed to look like anything but a modern piece of seagoing transport, the maskirovka so good that the Japanese conning tower crews wondered why such tramp-like vessels were moored within the secret facility.
The Soviet scientist thronged the bays, waiting to have first sight of the machines that promised so much.
The plans had already been with them for months, and copies had been made. However, results had been poor by comparison with the Japanese claims, so the Soviets were anxious to see the technical differences between their own attempts and the ones that were about to be unloaded from the hangar on I-402.
The arrival of I-401 was almost a non-event for most of the people present, although it carried some equally important substances, paperwork, and personnel.
Last into the base was I-14.
Her stern almost clipped the doorframe but the Captain skilfully applied some extra revolutions to avoid contact and the AM class submarine moored perfectly.
Thirty-nine minutes after they had opened, the hydraulic doors shut tight, allowing the working lights to be turned on and the work of unloading all the vessels to begin.
Each submarine had its official party ready to greet the important naval officers and scientists who came ashore.
Admiral Oktyabrskiy waited patiently as the shore party worked with the deck crew of I-401, noting the ragged honour party form on the giant submarine’s deck. Normally a stickler for such matters, he was conscious of how long the submarine had been at sea and the incredible journey it had undertaken.