Angel, Archangel (44 page)

He grabbed Kruze under the arms and pulled him to safety, away from the heat and the choking smoke.
Kruze cried out with the pain as his side bumped over the rough, frozen earth and Malenkoy saw the blood that soaked not just his shirt, but his trousers too.
Deep red drops spilled from the wound, staining the ground.

Away to his right he saw the British aircraft executing a tight turn at the far end of the valley.

Malenkoy did not allow himself to be distracted by the fighter.
He pulled off his coat and tunic, ripped the sleeves off his shirt and packed them tightly against the largest of the pilot’s wounds.
The German was staring at him wide-eyed, his lips mouthing something that he could not hear because of the noise of the approaching British jet.

Kruze summoned the last of his strength and pulled Malenkoy down to him so that the Russian’s ear was almost touching his mouth.

“Archangel.
.
.”

Malenkoy felt the ghosts of the forest return to haunt him.

The Rhodesian slipped in and out of consciousness.
He felt drugged, weary, desperate only to know one thing.
The offensive.
Archangel.
He thought that the man who held him was Fleming, but he could not work out why the hell he was wearing Russian uniform.

He laughed and looked into the eyes of the Russian, no longer aware of where he was or what he was doing in that strange place.

Malenkoy held the man a little closer.
“Archangel.
.
.
kaput,” he said, drawing his forefinger across his throat.

The pilot stopped his laughing and nodded, once.

Comprehension.

Malenkoy’s eyes turned to the sky at the precise moment that Fleming’s thumb punched the gun-button.

The earth seemed to open up as cannon shells exploded all around Kruze and Malenkoy, and when the dust settled, they were both dead.

Fleming bowed his head and pointed the Meteor in the direction of Stabitz.
He felt he should be crying, but he couldn’t; there were no more tears left in him.

Five minutes later, the Russian patrol arrived on the scene of the crash.
They found the body of the Soviet major lying on top of the German pilot.

The sun rose a little higher over the mountains at the far end of the valley, its rays catching the metallic object that lay on the ground close to the Russian’s outstretched hand.
The patrol leader picked up the Order of Lenin and let it glitter in the bright mountain light.
He looked back down at Malenkoy and issued the command for the burial party to begin its work.

The Order of Lenin.
Whoever he was, the major must have been quite a hero.

CHAPTER TEN

* * * * * * * *

“You’ll have my resignation, of course,” Staverton said, putting down the decoded transcription Deering had brought with him from the Prime Minister’s war cabinet.

“I think it would be best, Algy,” Deering said.
“I’m afraid the Admiral’s on the war-path this time.
He’s in with Churchill at the moment.”

“And?”

“We were damned lucky with Guardian Angel, damned lucky.
I don’t need to tell you that.”
He paused.
“But that doesn’t alter the fact that a good man died for nothing, and that he died because you hid the 163C crash and activated a totally unauthorized operation.
You lied, Algy.
You lied.”

Staverton said nothing.
He thought back to Fleming’s call twelve hours ago, telling him of Kruze’s death.
And now this.

He stared at the message from the Military Attaché in Moscow again.

7659843ZHN374/TOP SECRET/PM CABINET ADVISERS

EYES ONLY/BERIA REPORTED STAVKA YESTERDAY

RED ARMY COUP AVERTED EASTERN FRONT/CGS

SHAPOSHNIKOV RINGLEADERS EXECUTED/OTHER

RESISTANCE SQUASHED/JOE SAFE/DETAILS

UNKNOWN/WILL FILE LATER/VEREKER

“Comrade Marshal Shaposhnikov’s body will be brought back to Moscow immediately.
He will be buried with full military honours.”

Beria fought to remain impassive.
Until Stalin had spoken, he had been sure that he had been summoned to receive his congratulations.
The NKVD, his NKVD, had thwarted a major coup and laid the corpse of Archangel at Stalin’s feet.

“Why did you not tell me from the start about your investigations into Archangel?”
Stalin continued.

General Semyon Sabak stood at Stalin’s shoulder, trying not to show the pleasure he took at Beria’s discomfort.

“Comrade Stalin, we were operating on little more than guesswork at first.
As soon as we discovered Shaposhnikov’s intentions it was necessary to act quickly.
I believe we were only just in time.”

“Perhaps I could have helped,” Stalin said.

Beria hesitated.
“With respect, Comrade Stalin, what could you have done?
I had to be absolutely sure before you were informed.
These men were plotting against you.
If they had had any idea of my suspicions ...”

“I thought the objective of Archangel was the military defeat of the British and the Americans.”

“That is true,” Beria said.
“But without your endorsement of their plan they would have had to .
.
.
move against you.
The NKVD ensured that you were never in any danger ...”

Stalin held Beria’s gaze.

“The NKVD had nothing to do with it.
Shaposhnikov was working for me.”

Beria blinked.
He tried to control his voice.
“For you?”
The question came too quickly, the tone too high.

Sabak allowed himself the ghost of a smile.

Beria felt his gut twist.
“But he was going to launch Archangel against our allies.
He was consumed with hate .
.
.
right to the end.
He was acting beyond the control of the state.
He had to die -”

Stalin cut him off.
“Enough,” he said, pushing his chair back and moving to the window.
Then he turned.
“You are looking at the true architect of Archangel.
Here, now,” he said.
“As soon as we began our counterattack I knew we would beat Hitler.
But Russia could not win on her own.
We needed Churchill and Roosevelt; we had to have the second front.”
He paused.
“But that created a new problem for us.

“If the Red Army failed to take Berlin, if we let the Allies get there first, Russia would be no better off than she was before the war.
The race for Hitler’s bunker was one we could not afford to lose.”

“But what about the Yalta agreement?
The Allies as good as gave you Eastern Europe.”

Stalin shook his head.
“A piece of paper.
Roosevelt gave us Poland; he also promised his troops would be out of Europe within two years.
Do you honestly believe that would happen?
We needed something to show them we still had teeth.”

“So Archangel was a sham, its sole aim to keep the Allied High Command on the defensive, to slow their progress to Berlin .
.
.”
Beria’s voice was a whisper.

“With the help of my Chief of General Staff, Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov, and Major Paliev to furnish the Allies with what we wanted them to know,” Stalin said.
“It was the ultimate maskirovka.”

Stalin turned to Sabak.
“Tell him what Archangel achieved, Comrade General.”

Sabak gestured to a small-scale map on Stalin’s desk.
He traced a line from the Baltic to Czechoslovakia.
“All along the Western Front the Allies have dug in.
Even though the British and Americans know that the Archangel emergency is over, they have elected to stay in their trenches.
All the momentum of Eisenhower’s advance has gone and Berlin is ours.
It is only a matter of days before our heavy artillery begins shelling its suburbs.”

“Why did you not tell me about Archangel, Comrade Stalin?
You could have trusted me.”

“I thought it was the NKVD’s business to know everything.’

“I have never, interfered in your affairs,” Beria said.

Stalin was tempted to correct the lie.
“It had to appear to be Shaposhnikov’s own plan,” he said.
“If Churchill and Roosevelt were ever to suspect my own involvement, what credibility would we have had at the negotiating table?
Apart from Sabak, here, there is only one other person in the world still alive who knows the secret of Archangel.”
He paused.
“See that it stays that way.”

Beria felt the power draining from his body.
“But what about the chemicals - the hydrogen cyanide?
He was going to launch, Comrade Stalin, I am sure of it.”

Stalin moved back to the desk and sat.
After busying himself for a moment with a sheaf of papers he looked up once more.
“As I said, the Marshal will be buried with full military honours, Comrade.
That will be all.”

Sabak let the sound of Beria’s footsteps fade in the corridor outside.
“Among other things, Comrade Stalin, it appears you have brought the wolf to heel.”

“A necessary bonus,” Stalin said.
“Beria’s appetite for power has to be curbed.”

“There is still something that intrigues me,” Sabak said.
“Was Shaposhnikov planning to take your orders a step farther?
Was he really going to launch?”

Stalin eased himself back in his chair.
“Shaposhnikov was a dangerous man.
That was why he was ideal for the job, why Paliev had to watch him, and why we were always going to have to hand him over to Beria at some point.
The Nerchenko girl played her part admirably.”

“The murder of his family .
.
.
?”

“It appears you dropped the details into Beria’s lap just in time.”

Sabak’s look hardened.
“Then you .
.
.
?”

“Yes, I think Shaposhnikov was going to do it.
Why else did he not tell the NKVD that Archangel was just a maskirovka before he was shot?”

“Because to him Archangel was real.”
Sabak nodded slowly.
“That’s why Paliev headed east.
He was trying to warn us.”

“Poor Yuri Petrovich,” Stalin said.
“He ended up doing the most effective job of all.”

EPILOGUE

It was a strange place for a reunion.

Fleming found them standing at the edge of the cemetery.
The ranks of marble tombstones stretched in one direction towards a small chapel, and in the other to the road out of London.
He had barely noticed it before, even though he had driven past many times on the way to the cottage.

He picked his way through the stones, the vicar’s last words drifting over to him as the box was lowered into the ground.
Penny had her back to him, but he had no trouble picking her out.

On the other side of the grave, a young woman cried softly, the blue uniform visible beneath her overcoat telling him that she must have been one of the little boy’s nurses.
A young man, standing close by, moved his arm gently around her shoulders.

Apart from two old gravediggers, their faces chapped from years of wind and rain, there was no one else there.

He reached Penny’s side just as the first spadeful of earth was cast on top of the rough wooden box.

She raised her head, the hair falling away from her face.
It was as if he was looking at her for the first time.
Although there were tears in her eyes, she smiled and took his hand.

He stood, gazing at her.
In the two days he had been back, during the endless hours of debriefing from Deering and Welland, he had thought of little else apart from this moment.
When finally he had been able to talk to her on the telephone, he promised he would come as quickly as possible.

Penny put her arms round him.
They stood there, holding each other, he did not know for how long.
Fleming felt her body give, heard the sound of her crying into his shoulder.

“Are you really home, Robert?”

He held her at arm’s length and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“I’m home,” he said.

She squeezed his hand again, then released it, turning back towards the grave.
A small corner of the coffin was still visible.

Penny pulled something from her pocket and threw it tenderly into the hole.
The handkerchief landed on the last exposed patch of wood, the loosely tied knot parting the moment it did so.

“God bless you,” she said.

Fleming caught a fleeting glimpse of the medal ribbons before they were covered by another spadeful of earth and buried for ever.

Penny lifted her eyes to his, searching his face.

Fleming nodded, then turned her gently towards the far off gates, beyond which the car was waiting.