1822 hrs, Sunday, 1st September 1946, Mimaroğlu’s private residence, Dumlupinar Cd, Suluca, Turkey.
Adding some iced water to the fig raki, Mimaroğlu passed one glass to his friend before relaxing back into his rattan chair to enjoy the light sea breeze blowing up the Dardanelles from the Mediterranean.
Commander Mohammed Nadir cleared his mouth of cheese and olives.
“Very decent of the Koramiral.”
They clinked glasses and savoured the exceptional quality raki, enjoying the unusual distinctive taste.
“Now that’s special. Never had any before… very nice.”
Mimaroğlu nodded as he added some cheese to the mix.
“I wish I knew what that was all about, Maymun.”
The two had been friends for as long as they could remember, so the informality of Nadir’s school nickname flowed easily from his commander’s lips.
“Well, at least you saw the things. I’ve only got your words and that sketch to go on.”
Feeling hot, Nadir pulled out his handkerchief and mopped the sudden rivulets of sweat from his brow.
“I will send it to old Öz. He’ll have an idea about them.”
Feeling hot suddenly, Mimaroğlu grabbed for the small towel and plunged his face into it.
His stomach contents flooded his mouth and spilled into the towel.
“Aydan? Aydan?”
Nadir leant across to put his hand on his friend’s shoulder but never got there as he vomited across the small table.
He collapsed onto the tiled verandah, grabbing his stomach as he added more vomit to the growing puddle.
Mimaroğlu dropped onto his knees alongside him, groaning with pain.
By now, both were dry retching, there being no more stomach contents to bring up.
Struggling for breath, Nadir managed to speak.
“Bad cheese…”
He retched again and fell into a coughing fit that brought forth excruciating pain.
Mimaroğlu understood the situation with clarity, despite the pain and shortness of breath.
“Tezeren… that bastard… he’s poisoned us…”
Both men wheezed as their respiration became more difficult.
Mimaroğlu, coughing and retching, strained and defecated in his robe.
In a small fishing boat roughly a kilometre from the shore, a pair of eyes examined the scene with satisfaction.
The owner lowered the binoculars and nodded to the man by his side, who jumped up on deck and instructed that the sail be set.
Ashore, two heavily built men saw the signal and moved towards Mimaroğlu’s residence.
By the time they worked their way around to the rear, the two naval officers were both dead.
Following their instructions precisely, they removed the glasses and bottle, and replaced the latter with less tainted fare.
One disappeared inside the house and washed up the glasses, replacing them on the table and adding a good measure of the second bottle’s contents.
The fig raki given to Mimaroğlu by a grateful Tezeren contained a lethal reduction of Oleander and was not to be left to be found by any investigators.
Walking away from the death scene, the senior man went to empty the bottle but realised that the road was becoming busy so retained it until the pair were some distance away.
Checking around him, the NKVD agent tossed the bottle over the edge of the hill towards the rocks below.
Twenty minutes later, Tezeren’s staff car drove along.
On the outskirts of Lapseki, at the junction of Bursa Ҫannakale Yolu and Gulpempe Sk, he noted the yellow-clad woman peddling her street foods.
‘Yellow. Excellent.’
The simple colour code told him all he needed to know, so the rest of his journey to Naval Headquarters was free from the worries that had been plaguing him since the searchlights highlighted the submarines the previous evening.
The sole outstanding problem had been Mimaroğlu and his well-known independence of thought.
Tezeren mentally checked off his list and satisfied himself that the lid had been put on the problem. The woman’s yellow garb indicated success in the mission the Russians had insisted upon; in truth, it was a course of action that Tezeren had hardly resisted.
By the time he dozed off, the four submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy had sunk to the seabed off the coast of the island of Kinaliada, ready for the renewed night to cover their move through the tighter Bosphorus channel at Istanbul, and on into the Black Sea.
The sketch of the submarines had blown off the table and lay in the bushes next to Mimaroglu’s patio, unseen by the NKVD clean-up party, or the police who attended the scene of the two unfortunate deaths.
0952 hrs, Monday, 2nd September 1946, Headquarters, NATO Forces in Europe, Frankfurt, Germany.
“Thank you for seeing me at such short notice, General Strong.”
“Your message seemed to imply urgency, General Gehlen. Please sit. No secrecy issues, unlike your last visit? Tea?”
“Thank you, but no thank you. None at all either, as I’m here on official business anyway. Meeting with our French colleagues at midday. I’ll get straight down to business. I’ve further information about the pumpkin bombs from the May Day parade.”
“You have my full attention.”
“My sources tell me that the original bomb was photographed, but not recovered. A submarine found the wreck of the B-29 on an island near Sweden. I’ll try and get the location if I can.”
Strong scribbled a note to that effect.
“I’ve lost two agents getting this information, including the one who took the Moscow photographs.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that, General Gehlen. Very sorry indeed.”
“My prime source is lying low for now… safe… I sincerely hope anyway.”
“I hope your agent remains undiscovered.”
“Thank you. I hope this is worth the cost. I’ve established that the bombs were fakes… copies built from the photographs their submariners took, nothing more. Their insides are now high-explosive in nature… in the bombs recently manufactured for real I mean… these were simply wooden mock-ups of the photographed device.”
“That’s wonderful news.”
Gehlen slid a folder across the crowded desk.
“It is and it isn’t, General Strong.”
Strong read the document carefully.
“Stakhanovo?”
“We’ve known about it for some time. Testing of experimental aircraft… that type of thing. It’s a site we don’t reconnoitre in any way… lost too many aircraft trying… although I recently managed to get an asset in place.”
“And they have B-29s there… and loading pits of the same style as Karup?”
“Indeed, General Strong. They also are preparing to receive a new Soviet aircraft, a virtual copy of the Amerikan B-29… the Tupolev 4.”
“So they’re developing a strategic bombing capability.”
“You didn’t really expect them not to, did you?”
“No, of course not, General Gehlen.”
“But there is more… information that raises sinister possibilities, General Strong.”
Strong sipped his tea.
“Go on, General.”
“My agent communicated that there are two personnel from a special department on site, liaising with the base commander and the regimental technical branch.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“I’m not sure you will, Herr General, especially if you know what the Ministry for Middle Machinery is, that is?”
“One moment, General Gehlen.”
Strong picked up the phone and issued an instruction.
Within moments, the requested folder was in his hand.
He apprised himself of the contents, which took surprisingly little time.