He’s engrossed in one of the many thousands of lists that cross his desk every week. List of names… an endless list of names. Many others have the power to put those names on the list but only Sergo, he and Stalin have the power to remove names from those lists. It is an endless task which he enjoys immensely, deciding who lives and who dies, who is tortured and who will be sent to prison. The only other person who enjoys it as much as he does is Stalin himself. Sergo seems to not care one way of the other unless the name is of value to his projects. Then he is like a man possessed.
This was the case when Tupolev was once again sent to the gulag. Sergo went into Stalin’s office and demanded that Tupolev be assigned to his projects. Not only did Stalin change his mind but Sergo is still alive and so is Tupolev. Both the US and British jet engines and parts fell into Beria’s hands the first few weeks of the war. Combined with the information coming from inside the US and UK research teams a truly functional jet engine is 6 months away if not sooner. In the meantime 20 of the UK engines and 30 of the US are being stuffed into the Yak 15 and the MiG 9. That should come as a surprise for the RAF. They will be expecting the German Jumos and instead will be getting a far more capable opponent powered by their own engines.
He’s was just thinking about how to steal some credit from Sergo when there is a knock on the door. He grunts and in walks tall young man. The man is almost the exact opposite of Beria. He’s tall and the full head of hair make him look like he should be on a recruiting poster for the red Army. In truth he enjoys torturing people almost as much as Beria himself. His youthful stamina and strength have combined to kill too many of his victims before the desired effect but he will learn. Beria is a very good teacher.
There is great value in allowing torture victims to go back into the general population. It serves many functions but the best one is to terrorize anyone else who may or may not be guilty. It’s a wonderful deterrent to any reactionary thinking. I would not be surprised if dictators in the future did not use it to gain control of their populations.
“Your Excellency we have received disturbing news from the Mideast. There are rumors of large numbers of aircraft arriving from the West. We have lost contact with a few agents we had in Egypt.”
“I seem to remember reports from that clown, that drunk in Sevastopol. Complaining how his planes were being sent west. He had a theory that the US might use the Mideast as a staging area for strikes against our oilfields in the Caucasus. In contrast our agents in the United States say that the United States workers are on strike and the rearming of the American bombing force is taking much longer than expected. This agent is highly placed and has always given us exact information in the past.”
“Perhaps we should get Novikov on the phone and see what kind of information he has.”
“He will not be of much use is totally consumed with the upcoming battle over the skies of Britain. In fact he is stripped much of the aircraft from the Mideast and plans to use them in his onslaught of the British Isles. He will not be happy to hear this news on the eve of his attack. It is better that hears it from you than from Stalin himself. Novikov is one of the few who seems to know his job.”
“Very well your Excellency I will see it is done.”
As the aide leaves the room so is any thought of aiding Novikov. Baria’s thoughts turned to how he can turn this to his own advantage. On the one hand he could be blamed for this failure of intelligence. On the other it is Novikov who has stripped the defenses around the Caucasus.
No there is no way around it. He will be blamed in the end so it is time to rectify the situation. The earliest date his agents have estimated that the Americans can be ready for any kind of bombing campaign is the middle of November. Novikov will have until the end of October, at the latest the second week in November, to sweep the skies clean over the British Isles. Then he must get his equipment back to the real prize. The one that the Soviet Union cannot live without. The oil.
The new missile batteries must be in place sooner. Perhaps he should strip the ones from the Channel and send them East. We now have over 300 missiles and Sergo is producing 200 a month now. Still they are only a stop gap weapon and more of a psychological weapon than a practical one. They will be easily defeated if the Capitalists find out how they work. The X4 air to air missile was progressing well too. Combined with the Pe9 it was a wonderfully mobile weapons system against the level bomber.
In the meantime you must rebuild his intelligence assets throughout the Mideast. He has neglected that area for far too long in the time will come when the invasion of Turkey and Saudi Arabia will become a reality. The NATO allies must be deprived of the Suez Canal in the oilfields in the area. The Mediterranean Sea will no longer be the playground of the NATO fleets. It will become a Soviets lake just like the Black and the Baltic Sea. The quest for a warm water port will be over once and for all.
Georgie received the usual memo passed through the slot and ran to do the bidding of his unseen master
He marveled that this fellow Sergo had ability to place the exact right person in the exact right job. He had heard that he didn’t know people’s names but just looked at the tests he had designed and each of the 50,000 workers was just a number, just another cog to be placed into the machine of the Soviet aerospace effort. He looked at the test results and then categorized each worker/slave and put them in those file drawers of his, according to some system he had in his head.
They had tried to get him help with some kind of assistant to help him with his job or just something to ease his burdens as well as to spy on him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. They even tried getting him one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen to be his assistant and when he rejected her they got him a handsome young man who liked other men, but that didn’t work either.
Since late in 1943 Sergo’s operation has been right behind the German, US and British research and development efforts in four main areas, jet engines, rockets, heavy bombers and high octane gas. He saw early the need for each of these particular elements. Along the way he had to find people to delve into metallurgy, organic chemistry, physics etc. He personally knew nothing about any of these scientific disciplines but his tests had identified hundreds of prodigies in each of these disciplines and dozens more. When he needed an organic chemist to work on cracking oil and producing high octane gas, he pulled his files and found the right one for the job. He was even allowing some of the foremost minds still alive after the purges, to teach promising prisoners.
Sergo started parallel programs to the German, British and United States efforts. As Beria’s intelligence machine fed in new data and documents Sergo’s operation used it to full advantage. Great strides were accomplished in the development in what were basically copies of the German, British and even American jet engines. Georgie had heard that Beria had a spy, William Mutterperl, who was on the design team of the Yankees P80 jet fighter. As a consequence of these efforts in replicating his former allies and enemies work the Soviet war machine was from 3 to 4 months behind in these critical areas. In a few areas they were ahead because of Sergo’s emphasis and insistence. The ground to air missile system was such an example. Georgie was responsible for seeing that his unseen master’s wishes came to fruition and he was very good at it.
Right now high octane gas was being produced to keep the VVS fighters competitive with NATOs aircraft. The first month of the war they had to use hoarded stocks of Lend Lease fuel but now their own production had come on line. It’s interesting to note that Russians have been leaders in organic chemistry since the 1890s when Vladimir Shukhov[14] first “cracked” oil.
14
Shukhov Cracking Process edited by Lambert M. Surhone, Miriam T. Timpledon, Susan F. Marseken