Hamazasp Khachaturi Babadzhanian glanced at his watch again.
04:07 Hours.
Not long now.
In many ways he was privately a little surprised that his plan for the ‘push to the sea’ had survived so remarkably intact. Much of that would have been Chuikov’s doing. He and the Marshal had had their differences over the years and there were still times when the rascally old street fighter treated him like a novice; but they had become a good team in the last year. So much so that they almost, but not quite, trusted each other.
In a few seconds the question of whether he trusted his immediate superior would be academic. He and Vasily Ivanovich had swept up all the chips on the table and staked them on a single outrageous gamble. If they won their bet on fate the Mother Country might yet survive the coming years, international socialism might yet live on in the World and the ‘great game’ would continue. If they lost their wager with fate; most likely they lost everything; and future generations would learn about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a footnote to history and the ‘great game’ would be over.
It very nearly beggared belief that Operation Nakazyvat was about to be unleashed before the Yankees and the British had reacted; incredibly, it was now likely that the West still had no real idea what was about to happen, no inkling that once again ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of human civilization, was once more to be the nexus of history.
The floor trembled beneath Colonel General Hamazasp Khachaturi Babadzhanian’s feet, the near derelict building shook and a moment later the concussion of the first salvoes of the intense fifteen minute artillery barrage heralding the opening phase of Operation Nakazyvat filled the night.
Around the map tables men straightened, smiled, and relaxed.
Less than a kilometre away the first salvo of Katyusha multi-barrelled rocket launchers exploded into violent life. Immediately, other launchers began to send their rockets screaming into the night sky. Many of the launchers gathered for Operation Nakazyvat were later model ‘Stalin’s Organs’ from the era of the Great Patriotic War or immediately after the fall of Berlin; but right now the roar of salvo after salvo hurtling from the tubes of the Katyushas sounded like music to Hamazasp Khachaturi Babadzhanian’s ears.
The waiting was over.
Chapter 24
Air Vice-Marshal Daniel French, the Acting Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces on the Maltese Archipelago stood up, and watched the Redcaps escorting Rachel Angelika Piotrowska from his presence.
What a remarkable woman!
‘You’ve told me who you are and what happened yesterday in Mdina,’ he had said, after she had dropped the bombshell that Samuel Calleja was still alive in a cell beneath the Citadel at Mdina. ‘But you haven’t really told me very much about who you work for or what you were doing working with Arkady Rykov?’
‘I never worked with or for Arkady Pavlovich Rykov,’ the woman had retorted. ‘Dick White sent me to Istanbul to liquidate him in July 1962. Rykov was responsible, or so we thought at the time, for the torture and murder of several SIS agents in Turkey. I didn’t catch up with him until a few days after the October War. He was in a hospital cot at Incirlik Air Force Base at the time. Semi-conscious, babbling names and places. I made connections and decided not to cut his throat that night. A few days later I was ordered to ‘play him’. Which is more or less what I’ve been doing for most of the last eighteen months.’
‘Dick White?’ He had asked. Like an idiot!
The woman had nodded.
‘He will confirm all of this?’ Dan French had followed up.
‘Maybe,’ she had offered, not really caring either way.
‘The radar and communications of the archipelago were sabotaged in the early hours of yesterday morning? Was that…’
‘No,’ she had shaken her head emphatically. ‘Not Arkady’s work. Like I said I think he knew he was blown when we were sent back to Malta after Dick went through the motions of conducting a de-briefing session in Lisbon in December.’ Rachel Angelika Piotrowska had smiled, she had actually smiled. ‘The sabotage was probably the work of Soviet sleeper agents and specialist demolition operatives landed by submarines in the last few days.’
‘Rykov had no knowledge of the invasion?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. He’d probably have killed me if he had. I was a loose end, you see.’
‘But Rykov and Samuel Calleja took part in the assault on the Headquarters complex at Mdina?’
‘They probably got into the Citadel wearing British uniforms and carrying British papers. I have no idea how they came to be with Admiral Christopher in his office when I arrived on the scene.’
‘Why exactly did you arrive on the scene, Miss Piotrowska?’
‘To kill Arkady Pavlovich Rykov.’
The woman had not elaborated.
‘Am I still under arrest?’ She had inquired.
‘No,’ he had sighed. ‘No, that was all an unfortunate misunderstanding. Things were a little confused in Mdina.’ He had hesitated, contemplated his options. ‘The security people are opening up Fort Ricasoli as a holding centre for captured Russian officers and NCOs. Suspected Maltese and other agents or collaborators are being processed at the Joint Interrogation Centre at Fort Rinella. I won’t have MI6 or the Redcaps behaving like the Gestapo on my watch. Can I rely on you to be my eyes and ears?”
The woman had nodded.
That was a couple of minutes ago and the exhausted Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces on Malta — command of the forces committed to Operation Grantham rested in the hands of Rear-Admiral Nigel Grenville, Sir Julian Christopher’s veteran right hand man throughout Operation Manna, and the victor of the second Battle of Trafalgar off the Spanish coast in December — had made the mistake of allowing his thoughts to wander.
There was a persistent rapping at his half-open door.
Dan French snapped back into the here and now.
“Come!”
Dan French slumped into his chair and looked up into the flushed face of his Senior Communications Officer, a seasoned Squadron leader of about his own age who was never known to invest much apparent energy, enthusiasm or excitement in anything other than cricket. Normally the dourest of men his eyes positively glittered with anticipation, and oddly, joy…
A smudged signal pad was thrust towards the C-in-C.
“That Turkish destroyer that surrendered to HMS Alliance, sir!” The newcomer exclaimed. He was barely able to contain himself. Dan French was briefly afraid the poor fellow was going to break into a celebratory jig.
With a frown he accepted the pad. These days he needed his reading glasses to cope with small print — his ‘readers’ as he jokingly referred to them, were somewhere under the rubble of his office at RAF Luqa — and in his frustration he shoved it back at his subordinate.
“Just read damned thing please!”
“Oh, right you are, sir.” The other man took a deep breath. “Message reads…”
Dan French waved for him to bypass the standard preamble to all transmissions.
“IMMEDIATE MOST SECRET STOP P417 TO CINC FLEET MALTA COPIED TO FLAG OFFICER SUBMARINES STOP TURKISH D351 CAPTURED WITH FULL SET OF CURRENT CODE BOOKS AND ENCIPHERING EQUIPMENT STOP TURKISH SIGNALS OFFICER AND STAFF COOPERATING FULLY WITH PRIZE CREW STOP ETA MALTA ZERO FOUR ZERO HOURS LOCAL STOP MESSAGE ENDS”