“Most?”
“Some have already left for air bases.”
“Mother of God. We have weapons already? We’re deploying them already? You feed me information in drips, Comrade Polkovnik General!”
“Yes… I’m sorry… I told you the Japanese assistance made us advance… we have weaponised the material.”
“So we have atomic weapons… and they plan to use them? Are they mad? Our enemy’s more advanced than us, surely? If we use such weapons, then they will most certainly use them on us. There will be no end… chemical, biological, atomic… we’ll transform this world and nothing will ever be the same!”
“Yes, Tatiana, that’s our fear… I mean… the fear of those of us who can see this future if we do not stop this now… although an asset within their own programme has the Allies with no more than six devices… which I believe our leadership thinks we can easily endure… and our capacity to strike back is, in many ways, superior.”
“Easily endure… easily endure?”
‘Are they fucking totally mad?’
Nazarbayeva saw untold horrors in her mind, her vivid imagination throwing up images of a ravaged world in which nothing was the same, and everything was destroyed.
“What do you suggest, Comrade Polkovnik General?”
“Nothing at the moment, but I’ll talk to the others immediately…”
“But I have to tell the leadership of this…”
Kaganovich had played his hand well.
“Yes… yes you must…I’ll speak to the others whilst you are apprising the GKO… I’ll contact you later.”
There was no opportunity to discuss the instructions she had received from Khrushchev.
1934 hrs, Saturday, 5th April 1947, the Kremlin, Moscow, USSR.
She had delivered her normal briefing to the GKO and then sought a further session for Stalin’s ears only.
Of course, that meant Stalin and Beria.
Beria shifted uncomfortably as she delivered her information hot from Kaganovich’s office, whereas the dictator listened impassively.
“Thank you, Comrade Leytenant General.”
She was surprised at the control shown by both men, given her knowledge of what Camp 1001 represented.
It was Beria that spoke up first, although his keenness to understand how the bitch had got hold of NKVD information was immediately dampened by the certainty that it was Kaganovich.
He would find out later from those who watched his deputy like a hawk.
“So, the Southern Command has caught wind of some sort of secret operation being run out of Persia… we’ve increased numbers of enemy aircraft in the area… and we’ve evidence of overflights to sensitive facilities of great importance to the Motherland.”
“Yes, Comrade Marshal.”
“Moving our research facility is no small thing, and yet you would still recommend moving it, Comrade General?”
“Yes, Comrade General Secretary, I would.”
“Thank you for your briefing, Comrade General Nazarbayeva. I will speak to the Ministry shortly. Thank you.”
The two men said no more, their silence a way of terminating the meeting, leaving Nazarbayev to salute and leave the meeting room.
They waited in silence until the door closed.
Stalin spoke first.
“How long?”
“I’ve no idea… but the break in production would impact greatly… and transporting everything would need time to arrange.”
“But if she’s right?”
Beria took a moment to think about it.
“If she’s right, then we risk losing everything… equipment… material… expertise… everything, Comrade General Secretary.”
“We’ve no choice then, Lavrentiy.”
“I agree, Comrade General Secretary.”
“Forty-eight hours?”
“According to the emergency planning, the facility can be stripped down in thirty-six hours, but there will be complications due to the haste…”
“Thirty-six it is then… no more… I have an idea…”
‘An idea? Mudaks! I’ll mark it in my fucking diary!’
Stalin continued, oblivious to his henchman’s thoughts.
“An accident.”
“Accident?”
“If the Allies know it’s there, then an accident would allay their concerns, will it not?”
“Ah, yes… I see, Comrade General Secretary… I see exactly what you mean… especially if we accompany it with some extra dressing…”
Stalin smiled.
It was not pleasant, but then it wasn’t meant to be.
“Yes… yes… “
Stalin started to sketch out the barebones of his idea on paper, whilst Beria was already well ahead of him in his mind.
“Comrade General Secretary… perhaps I might suggest broadening the plan a little.”
It took the head of the NKVD less than two minutes to explain what his distorted mind had just devised.
“The Ukraine, Lavrentiy?”
“What have we got to lose, Comrade General Secretary?”
“Why not throw in the fucking Balts too then?”
Beria shrugged.
“Why not? Why stop there, Comrade General Secretary?”
Beria reeled off a few more names.
It took Stalin less than twenty seconds to agree.
A total of less than three minutes to arrive at a monstrous decision… less than three minutes that condemned a million people to death.
The messenger had caught up with Nazarbayeva just before she entered her car, just in time to deflect her to the Grand Park, where Kaganovich was taking a constitutional.
“Comrade Polkovnik General. You wanted to speak with me?”
“Indeed I do, Comrade Nazarbayeva. Your meeting went well?”
She passed on her version of events, which pretty much tallied with his own, except for the part where the three of them had been alone.
Kaganovich listened intently, factoring in the decisions already made by the others.
Nazarbayeva finished up with a bombshell.
“I did not hear what they said when I left the room, but I felt… think… no, sensed that I may have started a process.”
“Female intuition, Comrade Nazarbayeva?”
“You may call it that… but I felt it as very real.”
Kaganovich hung back from derision and instead relied on respecting the woman’s instincts and basic intelligence.
“I’ll bear that in mind and you may well be right. We want you to do something for the Motherland… something that’ll be difficult to understand, I expect… but the Rodina will profit from it.”
Nazarbayeva stumbled on a stone as she gave Kaganovich her full attention.
“You know the line I won’t cross, Comrade Polkovnik General.”
“Yes… I do… we do. I understand that Comrade Khrushchev’s ears gave you a request?”
Nazarbayeva’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes, she did, Comrade General.”
“And did you bring it?”
Her gripped instinctively tightened on her briefcase.
“Yes.”
“Good… then here is what you must do.”
She listened.
She stopped in her tracks.
She said no… and no again…
Kaganovich explained the decision fully, understanding her knee-jerk reaction to such an action… as she put it ‘betrayal’, but he showed her how, in reality, it served the Motherland, however unsavoury it might appear.
When they parted, he returned to report that Nazarbayeva was committed to her part in their desperate plan.
At 2011 hrs on Saturday, 5th April 1947, the Knockes were delivered of a son.