Khrushchev had become known as a troublemaker, a henchman, a watchdog all in one. And he always seemed to appear at the point of crisis. He had been at Kiev when that city was surrounded and so many were lost, and again at Kirov, where he had stayed in the pocket for several months before being flown out when Moscow burned. Wherever there was disaster, chaos, or calamity, Khrushchev would be sure to put in an appearance. Some whispered that he was one of Beria’s old men, though any who had sought to denounce him came to a swift and deadly end. And now, here he was again.
“You may draw whatever conclusions you wish,” said Zhukov, not intimidated in the least. You were at Kiev, were you not? You were in the Kirov Pocket? Well, I do not have to tell you what happened to all those troops, when one timely backward step might have saved many armies to continue this struggle on other ground. The Rodina is a very big place, at least on my maps.”
Khrushchev smiled. “May I see your map? I wish to review the dispositions of your forces given this sudden change in the front lines.”
“They are there on the table, and as you will soon see, I am trying to save six armies from becoming the Kursk Pocket. I think we have had quite enough of that sort of heroic stand. Would you agree?”
“Your offensive on the lower Don,” said Khrushchev, ignoring the question. “Has it been terminated?”
“It has served its purpose, and I have consolidated on the ground we won with that attack.”
“Then you have no further intention of pressuring the enemy line there?”
“The mere presence of those troops is pressure enough—assuming I can keep them there and reform them. This new situation is the real crisis.”
“Not Volgograd? Sergei Kirov is very determined to hold that city. We have held it for decades against Volkov’s troops, and he will not see it given away as you so lightly hand the Germans Kursk.”
That remark irritated Zhukov, and he made no effort to conceal his displeasure. “Commissar, I can have you flown to Kursk if you like, and you may organize the defense there—you and your NKVD.”
Khrushchev looked at him, again with a smile. “General, nobody likes me. Yes, I am well aware of this. Yet someone must look over a shoulder or two in this mess, and sort things out. Where do you mean to make your next stand?”
“On the line of the Don.”
“Then you will cede the enemy half of Voronezh?”
“Commissar, one always holds both sides of a major water obstacle at a critical point like that. Rest assured, we will hold that city. I am sending the entire 2nd Guards Army there, and Kusnetsov’s 1st Tank Army is poised to deliver a strong spoiling attack if they persist towards Lipetsk. As for the armies I have ordered east, I would prefer to still be in command of them this winter. If I left them in the Kursk bulge, they would either be dead, in a German concentration camp, or perhaps huddling with you around a few last camp fires, making another heroic stand as at Kirov. Only they will have no plane ticket out.”
“My,” said Khrushchev, “insult on top of injury. Very well, General Zhukov. I believe I have seen quite enough here, and yes, I do have another plane to catch—to Leningrad.”
Zhukov cast a derisive glance over his shoulder as the man left him, shaking his head. Commissars, he thought. The world would be a much better place if we rounded them all up and shot them. Because if we don’t, that is what they will do to the rest of us one day—the high and the low.
Khrushchev made one brief stop before he went to the airfield, taking a personal car to an isolated village east of Voronezh. He got out, the driver waiting, and made his way to a small insignificant farm house, ostensibly to visit a distant cousin, and deliver a bottle of good vodka, which he had in hand.
No one was there, and once inside and alone, he sat himself down at the plain wood table and took out a small booklet. Leaning over, he grunted as he moved one of the floor boards, finding there a small box that hid a radio telegraph set. It would operate using the traditional key to tap out code, but send the signal wirelessly, like a radio might. His message was brief.
‘ZHUKOV ADAMANT. WITHDRAWING TO UPPER DON TO HOLD VORONEZH. 2ND GUARDS ARMY EN ROUTE. 1ST TANK ARMY TO MOUNT SPOILING ATTACK AT LIPETSK. NO FURTHER OFFENSIVE PLANNED FOR LOWER DON.’
That was that, a very brief message in a special cyphered Morse, and it would be picked up by the nearest friendly listening station. There was just one catch—the nearest friendly listening post was not under Soviet command, because the rumors were all true. Nikita Khrushchev was a Volkov man, through and through. His operatives would repeat the message, until the signal hopped east, over the Volga, and right into the eager ears of the security forces of Ivan Volkov. Khrushchev had been promised the entire province of the Ukraine after this was all over, and he intended to speed things along, any way he could.
Unbeknownst to him, Berzin had men on the front lines as well, and with all the key headquarters. One had taken a particular interest in Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, and he, too, would send a coded signal that night, right to Berzin himself. The Intelligence Chief would read it with some interest in his evening conference with Sergei Kirov.
“What is it?” asked Kirov. “You look like you’ve eaten some bad borscht.”
“Khrushchev,” said Berzin. “He visited Zhukov tonight as we ordered, but afterwards he did not go directly to the airfield, but to a farmhouse ten kilometers east of Voronezh.”
“What would he be doing there?”
“Who knows, but we picked up an enciphered signal about that same time. It might have originated with him….”
Kirov took that in. “I know what you think of him, Grishin,” said Kirov, calling Berzin by the nickname he always used. “And I also know you expect me to protect him, but we can take no further chances after that little theater Beria pulled in Moscow. I know you did everything possible to root out his network. Red Rain was quite extreme. Yet we must accept the fact that Volkov still has men embedded within our own security system, and what better place than the ranks of the Commissars. Watch him,” he finished. “Watch him very closely….”
Part IV
The Long Goodbye
“My center is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I will attack.”
Chapter 10
Rommel was exhausted. It had been another sleepless night, and the news from the front was frustrating. The Italians were finally finished at Benghazi. The deployment of a third enemy infantry division to that sector had finally put an end to the garrison there.
“Our Italian friends, and would be masters, are not happy about their situation,” said Rommel. “Yet Hitler demanded that Benghazi be held, and most of those units had little in the way of transport. Losing the port hardly matters. Most everything we need comes through Tripoli—and then takes weeks to get here. We use a third of the gasoline just transporting the rest to this position. If I had my way, I would move back to Tripoli at once.”
He was speaking to one of his new Corps Commanders, Generalleutnant Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma. Rommel had finally requested a replacement for General Crüwell, finding him too abrasive and disobedient to work with any longer. Crüwell was then shipped off to Russia, which is where von Thoma had just come from after commanding first the 17th Panzer Division, and then the 20th. He was a tall, aristocratic looking man who had a dubious reputation in Fedorov’s history. Some believed he had deliberately surrendered to the British to get out of the war after El Alamein, and then, while in captivity with General Crüwell, he let slip vital details of the German rocket program, giving the R.A.F. a choice new target.