The other, from Deputy Kobulov, reporting on plans for the planting of agents within the forming German forces.
Beria simply cast an eye over the former’s file jacket before pulling out a lower drawer and adding it to a modest file he extracted.
‘Later,’ he thought, mentally downgrading the priority on German soldiers families for the moment but making a firm commitment to ensure the two projects were aware of each other and exchanged information.
He quickly wrote out an order to that effect and set it aside for proper typing up later.
Relaxing back into his chair, he read the contents of the latter report with great care, finding much to celebrate there, and reminding himself to ensure that Kobulov didn’t take all the credit.
The GRU officer arrived to the second and, to Beria’s surprise, it was Pekunin himself. A small plaster was the sole external sign of any wound and further enquiries revealed no long lasting effects on the GRU Chief, making Beria wonder if the previous briefing really had been deliberately ducked by the GRU general.
‘Hmmm an interesting thought, I shall test it later.’
Giving no sign of his inner conversation, Beria gestured Pekunin towards a large chair.
Taking seats either side of the desk, the two exchanged the normal Russian pleasantries of enquiries about wife and children before getting down to the business of Intelligence.
The meeting was scheduled to run for an hour, but surprisingly for both men the business of the day had run its course shortly after 1040am.
Tea seemed the only reasonable course to take and Beria ordered some immediately.
Settling himself back in his chair, he eyed Pekunin directly, preparing his words.
“Your Colonel gave a full briefing yesterday Comrade General, very full indeed.”
Pekunin was too old a horse not to know that Beria wasn’t praising Tatiana. He could imagine how she might have ruffled a feather or two with the NKVD boss, so he fenced a little.
“She is extremely talented Comrade and I don’t doubt that both you and the General Secretary will have had honest and forthright answers from her. She doesn’t do frills and she is not a political animal such as we are Comrade Marshall. I promoted her to Colonel because she was the best man for the job.”
The tea arrived and, leaning around the orderly placing out the accoutrements, Pekunin smiled disarmingly, “You know what I mean.”
Beria ceded the point to Pekunin, as well as the post of pourer.
The conversation halted whilst tea was prepared.
Sipping his tea gently, Pekunin continued.
“She is a holder of the highest bravery awards as you will know, and has a husband and four sons in service to the Motherland.”
Beria replaced his cup in his saucer.
“Three.”
“Three?” Pekunin knew what Beria meant.
“Three.” Beria knew he had been understood but it made him feel good to say it.
‘Bitch.’
He pulled open the top drawer and extracted a copy of a Red Cross document obtained by and relayed back through his vast ring of agents.
“This is a document relating to casualties sustained by Soviet airborne forces on a special operation in Alsace last Monday. I speak of Zilant-4 Comrade General.”
The report made its way over the desk and Pekunin was able to see that the Red Cross officially reported interring the remains of ‘Vladimir Yurevich Nazarbayev – Senior Lieutenant – 100th Guards Airborne Division’ along with three hundred and seventeen other members of the Division.
Whilst horrified for Nazarbayeva, the clinically professional side of him continued through the document, listing healthy and wounded prisoners and noted the absence of one name from the list.
“He’s not here?”
“Quite so Comrade Marshall. It seems that Comrade General Makarenko has the devil’s own luck, unless he ranks amongst those unidentified bodies. There seem to be at least twenty of our men unaccounted for.”
Bringing himself back to Nazarbayeva’s loss, the GRU General spoke aloud, for himself as much as for Beria.
“She doesn’t know,” said Pekunin.
“It seemed the wrong thing to do last night Comrade General. Perhaps you should have the pleasure?”
In any other man, Pekunin might have put the words down as a slip of the tongue, an incorrect word, or an attempt at black humour. In Beria, he recognised it as decidedly meant, and in that sense, a very real and worrying indication of ill will.
He must find out what had happened during that meeting but he had not yet had a chance to see her report or speak with her.
Feeling concerned for his protégé, Pekunin changed the subject to something lighter to enable his mind to work in parallel.
“Talking of Zilant-4, one of our agents picked up a face in Baden-Baden on the 9th. Have your agents supplied you with the names of the Allied and German dead?”
Beria then thought for a moment before retrieving another page of the Red Cross report from his desk. It did not pay to show all one’s cards, especially those that don’t reflect success.
“I have some information on which of the green toads escaped, although I am informed they are out of the fight for some time to come.”
The GRU General examined the list and realised it was inaccurate.
He savoured his small moment.
“I fear you are misinformed then Comrade Marshall, for Knocke was seen in the French Baden-Baden Headquarters, intact and unharmed the following Wednesday.”
“News indeed Comrade, but of low importance to us I think. We got all the big fish at their Frankfurt base. This Knocke was just a Colonel.”
Pekunin started to object.
“Yes I know, a competent one for sure, but Colonels are twenty to the rouble and Colonels don’t win wars Comrade.”
Was that a general statement or yet another warning sign for Tatiana. Pekunin could not decide.
Time brought an end to the proceedings as the phone rang to let both men know that their cars were ready, one to spirit the GRU head away to a meeting with the General Secretary, the other to take a satisfied NKVD Marshall to his Dacha. Beria intended to have a ‘quiet’ day with whatever woman would later be procured for him by his trusted NKVD bodyguards Colonels Sarkisov and Nadaraia.
Beria was a serial rapist, coercing women with talk of freeing loved ones from Gulags or using just plain basic force to have his way.
The thrill of it excited him beyond measure as his Packard Limousine took him out of Moscow.
‘Perhaps,’ he wondered, and then finally realising why Nazarbayeva had got so deep under his skin.
‘Ah yes Tatiana,’ and he leant back in the deep seats and smiled the smile of a man imagining a future that would definitely come to pass.
‘Fuck you.’
Arriving back in his headquarters just before midnight, General Pekunin took his deputy aside and informed him of the heart-rending task he was about to perform. A bottle of vodka was located and with it in hand, Pekunin sought out Nazarbayeva’s office and found her hard at work as usual.
He entered and dismissed her staff.
The next few hours he spent with Nazarbayeva the woman and mother, in his guise as Pekunin, friend and comforter.
He shared her grief and held her close and they drank vodka together until morning came.
The small matter of Beria’s wrath he left for another time.
Chapter 51 – THE HORRORS
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it.