A puff of smoke timed for punctuation; and the PM went on:
“I’m given to understand you intend to draw the ruling junta out into the open and to attack them from the air with high explosives dropped in pinpoint concentration.’
“Yes.”
“You must then, I presume, be prepared to infiltrate their centers of communication. Clearly it will be vital to have immediate contact with those units of the Red Army which are engaged in the defense of Moscow and the struggle against Chancellor Hitler’s Army Group Center. In order to complete your mission with any sort of success at all, you must instantly be able to command the allegiance of those forces. Please contradict me if I’m incorrect.”
“No contradiction is called for, Prime Minister.”
“Very well then, Danilov, who’s your man in the Kremlin? Zhukov or Vlasov?”
He managed—successfully he hoped—to mask his chagrin. “Neither of them, sir. It’s intended that they both be blown up with Stalin.”
“I see. Then it is one of their immediate subordinates. Zhukov’s chief-of-staff, perhaps—or one of the army commanders.”
“I’d prefer not to divulge that.”
“You’ve got such a man, however?”
“Yes.”
“Prepared to take over the Red Army instantly?”
“Yes-exactly.”
Churchill grunted; once again the hint of a smile. “Then you’ve bloody well got a chance, haven’t you?”
The Prime Minister chewed on the cigar and then removed it from his mouth. “I like the cut of you. You’re decently cool under the sort of pressure I’ve been applying. Now I should like to hear your plan.”
Alex gathered his thoughts. “They’ve got a new battle tank,” he said. “They’re rushing it through production—they hope to have several front-line armored units equipped with it by spring.”
“The modified T-Thirty-six. I’ve seen the drawings and specifications.”
“I thought you might have,” Alex said; and both men smiled.
He went on: “The first field trials of the prototype will be held in eight weeks’ time on a proving-ground about thirty miles east of Moscow. It’s to be a thorough workout to demonstrate firepower and maneuverability. The new machine mounts a seventy-seven millimeter gun. It’s a twenty-ton tank with more than five inches of armor. They plan to have six ready for the field trials—I’m told they plan to run them against unmanned captured panzers. If the trials prove what they hope to prove they’ll make rubble of the Mark Fours.”
“One rather hopes their expectations aren’t in excess of the realities.”
Alex said, “Stalin and his commanders will attend the field trials, together with Beria and Malenkov and a group of Soviet cabinet ministers.”
“That would seem to sew them all neatly into one bag.”
“Transport to the proving ground will be by rail—the Kremlin’s special train. It’s an armored train mocked up to look like a hospital train, particularly from the air—there’s a red cross on the roof of the car Stalin and the Soviet leaders occupy. The cars fore and aft of it are concealed artillery platforms and machine-gun cars with half a battalion of crack troops from the Kremlin guard. They’ve been using the train regularly for transport of high officials to and from Moscow.”
“Go on, General.”
“Our target point is five miles short of the proving ground. The train will be reaching the top of a three-mile grade and its speed should be down to something under thirty miles an hour—probably nearer twenty. It’s carrying a great deal of armor. There are two locomotives, one front and one rear. That’s standard for Russian trains.
“Our first bomb-run will be against the roadbed ahead of the train—just at the crest of the hill. We’ll bomb the track. The train will have to stop or go off the rails. Once it’s stopped we’ll put eight thousand pounds of armor-piercing high explosive into the gun cars fore and aft of the hospital car. We’ve got as many passes at them as we need and enough bombs aboard to do the job ten times over. The attack zone is twenty-eight miles from the nearest Red Air Force interceptor field—it will take them at least six minutes to scramble a mission and another sixteen minutes to reach the target area. By that time our bombers will have done the job and gone.”
“You’re bombing the gun cars but not Stalin’s car.”
“Our assault troops will be waiting in ambush on the ground. We’ll take the hospital car on foot.”
“Surely you don’t propose to take the Soviet leaders alive?”
Alex shook his head. “But we’ve got to have a recognizable corpse—we’ve got to be able to prove Stalin’s dead. If we destroyed his carriage from the air there might not be enough of him left to satisfy suspicious minds.”
“It’s a risk, isn’t it? You say the car is heavily armored.”
“We’ll get into it.”
“Submachine guns?”
“Tear gas first. Then submachine guns. It’s not sporting.”
“No. But this isn’t a fox hunt.” The Prime Minister was squinting at him—a little uneasy, Alex thought. “Can you be sure they’ll be aboard that carriage?”
“If they’re not we’ll be warned of it in advance. We’ll abort the mission and wait for our man to set it up for us again.”
“You could rather easily have bad bombing weather.”
“If it’s too thick for bombing it’ll be too thick for tank trials. They’ll delay the trials for clear visibility. The ceiling isn’t our concern—we’ll be bombing from a few hundred feet at most.”
“But the train has antiaircraft platforms.”
Alex said, “They can’t traverse fast enough to follow an aircraft at that low altitude.”
Churchill levered himself to his feet and turned as if to examine the framed map of New Zealand on the wall. He said deep in his throat, “There’s an unwritten principle of warfare—you don’t destroy your enemy’s leaders because without them there’s no one with whom you can negotiate a peace. Of course this case is different—there would seem to be no unwritten canon against destroying your allies.”
Heavy in the front of Alex’s mind was the Grand Duke Mikhail’s assassination scheme. But it was no good giving that to the Prime Minister.
Churchill went on:
“I’d have preferred to take the pack of them alive. Put them before the public bar of justice on charges of capital crimes against humanity.” His shrewd eyes lifted to Alex’s face. “Still I suppose a good part of our world has tried them in absentia and found them guilty beyond redemption.” He touched the bow tie beneath his heavy chin and turned to the door. “Have it done then, Danilov. Bring us the beggar’s head.” It was a bitter voice, drained of illusions; the door clicked shut behind Churchill—softly, almost reproachfully.
Alex’s hands were trembling. He realized he was sweating.
16.
He watched them twirl down from the rapelling tower like spiders spinning filament webs. In growing darkness he walked out of the compound and unbuttoned the flap of one holster before he reached the gate; he walked across the road and up the twilit driveway with all his instincts alert. Cooper’s van was parked at the step and he examined both sides of it and had a look inside before he let himself into the house: he curled inside without being fired on and Sergei came away from the corner setting the safety on the Mannlicher.
Cooper came to attention and Alex answered his salute. “Is that thing warmed up?”
“Yes sir. I been monitoring the band since noon like you told me.”