I must have been still visible as the first young lady that appeared looked first at the body and then up at me and only then started to scream and promptly fainted on the Dr.’s body. I did what I do to become invisible again and moved down the stair shaft as more people poked their heads and looked at the dead body and the damsel in distress that was now on top of said body. A few shivered as I slid past them on my way down but no one saw me. Some of the men came and rescued the fair maiden who was felled by my appearance and all returned to normal quite quickly. I was quite disappointed as no one seemed to recognize the Dr. and I feared that my accomplishment was not to be recognized for what it was.
I never did learn if my involvement in the whole affair was appreciated or not. Shortly after I reached the bottom and was watching the men deal with the body and attempting to revive the young lady, I saw the light that many have described upon death. I rushed towards it with all my heart, and now apparently, my soul.
Chapter Eighteen:
The Current Situation
Intelligence in WWIII 1946
0230
Outside the Lubyanka Prison,
In Feliks Dzherzinsky Square,
Moscow, The U.S.S.R.
It was half past two in the morning, and there was an electric feeling in the air. Though he had been here many times before, he could not help feeling excitement and dread all at once. He had reached the most impenetrable part of the Soviet Union, having crafted as close to an impeccable and unassailable alias as humanly possible, and having had help in doing so, for himself and his team, from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, with whom he still had contacts. The Lubyanka was, perhaps, the most guarded government building in all of the Soviet Union, obviously after the Kremlin and Stalin’s personal dacha.
He took a moment and drew a deep breath, gathered up his courage and proceeded to play his part: he boldly went up to the guard post and announced himself, in Tatar-accented Russian, as NKVD Colonel Maksim Avramyevich Shtein, Special Prosecutor for Hitlerite War Crimes Against the Soviet People. This allowed him to have unfettered access to the target and the target’s associates. Yes, it was a ballsy move, but it was now or never, since the target’s execution date had been moved up, to the day after tomorrow. He was banking on the fact that he closely resembled the Cheka prosecutor and that not many people outside Stalin’s Inner Circle knew what he actually looked like. It would take only a matter of a few days, maybe only hours, for the actual Shtein to be found, murdered, in his Arbat office.
Through the months of planning, weapons and keys had been pre-positioned, escape routes and diversions were planned, plans were devised and revised, again and again, until they knew the final plan and could execute it in their sleep. Each man was smart enough to improvise, and deviate from the plan, if they absolutely needed to. Everything that could be done had already been done in support of this operation. All that was left was the execution of the plan.
He boldly and confidently strode through the halls of the infamous prison, barking orders and making his way to the basement dungeon, where the target and his cohorts were being held, only occasionally being challenged and being passed through. As he reached the final checkpoint, he fingered the hilt of the blade strapped to his wrist, and ordered the NKVD guard to open the cell block. The guard stated that he needed permission from the guard commander to do that. As the hapless guard turned to reach for the telephone, he never saw the blade that slashed his exposed throat, causing geysers of blood to gush from the carotid artery that had just been so brutally severed. The fake NKVD officer merely stepped a safe distance away to keep the blood from splashing against his pristine uniform. As the guard finished bleeding out, he wiped the blade of his knife against the poor bastard’s uniform and grabbed his keys. Before unlocking the cell door, he cut the electrical wire that connected the lock to an alarm that sounded when the key made contact with the wire. Having done that, he unlocked the cell door and announced to everyone there that they were getting out. At first, having been blinded by the dim lights from the hallway, they could now see clearly that an NKVD officer was standing before them, and they immediately thought that this would be the end of them.
As he unshackled each of them in turn, he told them that they had absolutely no time to waste, they must leave immediately or be executed on the spot. Only momentarily shocked, they readily complied and followed Shtein.
His team, having taken their supporting positions earlier, before his entry, were now in their NKVD uniforms and now joined him, armed like a guard detail, allowing for the appearance of “Shtein” transferring the high-value prisoners, presumably for final interrogation and “liquidation.” As the final member of the “guard detail” joined them, he and “Shtein” began quietly conversing, the new stranger speaking a heavily foreign-accented Russian, like a German. The prisoners certainly looked all of the pitiful part they were encouraged to play, if they were going to pull the caper off. As they neared the front gate of the Lubyanka, the first alarm began to sound and orders were given to lock down the prison. Fighting their way out had always been a part of the plan.
The fake guard detail, dragging their prisoners with them, assaulted the front gate, firing their submachine guns and automatic rifles, slowly making their way to the front gate. They braved the withering fire from the NKVD soldiers inside the prison… then there were very loud explosions that came from the front gate that concussed everyone who was within range. “Shtein” and the guard detail recovered as quickly as they could and continued to drive on to the obliterated front gate, still dragging the prisoners along, but beginning to take heavy casualties now. Quickly crossing the courtyard of the prison, they were in sight of their smoky, smoldering, ruined objective. The foreigner gave “Shtein” an order and detailed two of the “guards” to go with him. “Shtein” and his men pulled the prisoners with them, while the rest of the “guard detail” remained behind and delayed the real NKVD soldiers from catching them. It seemed that this was an integral part of the escape plan all along.
The fake NKVD officer and his men got the prisoners across the ruined gate, into the square, boarding waiting trucks which sped off into the night. During the next few days, while they were on the run, they had heard what the fate of their compatriots, that so bravely stayed behind to allow them to escape, was: Soviet propaganda claimed that in their desperate assault on Soviet order and murdering heroic Soviet soldiers in the process, they had ultimately been unsuccessful in their mission, and had all taken the coward’s way out. They knew that it was all a lie. However, what was true was the identity of the dead ringleader as reported by the Soviet Pravda News Agency: the leader of the dastardly attack was none other than the infamous Otto Skorzeny, architect and commander of the Gran Sasso raid, which freed Benito Mussolini from a mountain-fortress prison and delayed complete Italian capitulation to the Allies until the end of the war. The crude photos of NKVD soldiers posing with Skorzeny’s mutilated and desecrated corpse were splashed in full gory detail all across every copy of Pravda and Izvestia they came across. They all felt he deserved better.