There were several messages awaiting the ‘collective leadership’ of the USSR when the two men shuffled into the sparsely appointed lounge of the civilian section of the control tower. The furnishings of the room — a place where VIPs could relax and be fed and watered by uniformed Interior Ministry stewards and hostesses — were faded, peeling and a little dusty. Very few civilian flights came into Koltsovo Airport these days and the military lived in their bunkers beyond the airfield boundary fence, rarely emerging during daylight hours.
Leonid Brezhnev scanned the messages.
“The Americans have done nothing!” He scoffed contemptuously. “The last intact capital city in Eastern Europe goes up in smoke and what do they do? Nothing!”
“It is early yet,” Alexei Kosygin counselled sagely. “What does our,” he hesitated, his head fogged with sudden and over-powering weariness, “our contact in Malta say?”
The First Secretary offered him the message sheets.
“There is nothing from Malta yet.”
Kosygin slumped down in one of the low leather chairs.
He nodded. “Leonid Ilyich,” he began, and against his better judgement continued, “I had a lot of time to think in that cell in Bucharest.”
“We came for you as soon as we could…”
Kosygin raised a tired hand.
“I know, I know, we knew it could go wrong but there is only so much one can plan for. Please do not concern yourself on that account.” He met Brezhnev’s eye and each man looked to the other. “We wished it to be known that we were weak and for that information to be communicated to the West; it was an essential element of the plan we have worked so hard to execute this last year. Krasnaya Zarya might have destroyed us all by infiltrating our missile forces; instead, its recklessness has allowed us to identify many previously anonymous enemies in our midst and to purge them once and for all. Assuming that the West takes no retaliatory action against us here in the Mother Country in the next few days we should be able to resume preparations for the,” his lips twisted into a parody of a sardonic smile, “the great leap forward as planned.”
Leonid Brezhnev guffawed.
“But that wasn’t what I was going to say,” Kosygin declared doggedly. “I would be lying if I said there wasn’t some small part of my brain that is trying to talk me into asking for reparations, rather than risking another global war to take what we want and what we are entitled to.”
“The British are exhausted,” the other man objected. “The Americans obviously don’t have the stomach to risk another nuclear exchange. As for the little countries that stand in our way,” a dismissive shrug of his broad shoulders, “what can they do to stop us, Comrade?”
Kosygin rubbed his eyes. They had had this conversation many times in the Politburo. Despite the antics of Krasnaya Zarya thus far everything had gone more or less to plan. The limited use of tactical nuclear weapons had achieved ‘limited’ strategic ends on the battlefield and so unsettled their enemies that nowhere, other than on the island of Cyprus had the initial assault forces failed to achieve all their objectives. Inevitably, there would be a discussion about whether the ‘Cyprus mess’ needed to be tidied up before the next phase of operations commenced but they could have that argument later. Otherwise, the military planners were more than satisfied with the outcome of the recent battles; the south western flank was secure, the combined fleet had demonstrated its existence to good effect and unexpectedly inflicted significant losses on the Royal Navy, and the next time Soviet forces took the offensive they would be unencumbered by the dead weight of the undisciplined Krasnaya Zarya horde.
Contemplating the next step south towards the warm waters of the Indian Ocean Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin took immense comfort from the knowledge that Krasnaya Zarya was being systematically liquidated, and that its surviving lunatic adherents were being rounded up and marched off to swell the ranks of the penal battalions responsible restoring the roads, railways and airfields vital to the defence and the reconstruction of the Mother Country.
Yet, some small part of him was still tempted to demand reparations.
Yes, he wanted to face down the murderers across a peace table.
But war was an inherently risky affair…
Chapter 18
It was a cool, windy evening in the aftermath of the short, sharp gale which had blown across the Maltese Archipelago the previous day and night. By intuitive mutual unspoken accord the lovers had nodded one to the other and risen to their feet.
‘Peter and I will go for a walk now,’ Marija had informed her family — or rather, the crowded house full of her extended Maltese-Sicilian clan — each and every member of which positively doted on their ‘little princess’.
Peter Christopher had turned up for the ‘family dinner’ at the Calleja home in the apartment at the top of Tower Street, Sliema, in a version of his dress uniform. He had mislaid his Mess waistcoat somewhere between the Battle of Cape Finisterre and HMS Talavera’s wallowing, half-sinking arrival at Oporto in December; his trousers were a couple of inches too short in the leg and rode half-way up his calves when he sat down, but fortunately his jacket was brand new, immaculately pressed and bore his new lieutenant-commander’s additional half-stripe. His shirt and trousers, both freshly laundered on the RMS Sylvania, where he and most of his crew were billeted while Talavera was in dockyard hands, were brilliantly white. Marija had beamed beatifically at him on the doorstep and nobody had seemed to notice he was kitted out in a partially borrowed rig. He had been a bag of nerves on the drive round the creeks from the Grand Harbour via Floriana, Msida, and Gzira to Sliema; in the event the whole Calleja clan had welcomed him like royalty. Marija’s mother had hugged him and clung to him with such ferocity that he thought his feet were about to lift off the floor even though that lady’s head only came up to the middle of his torso. Marija’s father had been wryly severe because he thought somebody ought to be, and had enjoyed reminding him of their only previous meeting; the occasion when Peter had gone to the Dockyard Offices fully intending to insert a large, noisy flea in the duty manager’s ear and not realised he was talking to his prospective father-in-law until it was too late. Joseph Calleja was friendly in an uncomfortable sort of way, keeping his distance. That was fair enough; their first encounter had not worked out very well for Joe and he was probably still feeling a little tender about things.
Nobody at the Calleja family gathering had mentioned the name of Marija’s older brother, Samuel. Samuel had not just disappeared, his corporeal remains and memory had been surgically excised, as if, irrespective of the story which had been so expertly sold to the public at large, his own family knew in its collective heart that Samuel Calleja had never been quite what he seemed to be and that now, every tiny doubt harboured down the years suddenly assumed an outrageous new significance.
Outside the apartment Marija had taken Peter’s hand, they had crossed the road and slowly walked up a very slightly rising street, an avenue between wall to wall two and three storey buildings until presently, they arrived in front of the bomb-damaged Cambridge Barracks Headquarters building. Marija guided him along another narrow street, and then down the steep hill towards the waterfront.