Opening Moves

Beria and sat reading reports, drinking tea and humming quietly to himself. It always paid to be prepared in his business. Even though Marshall Zhukov was travelling to Moscow that very day to bring the General Secretary and GKO the latest information and planning, Beria was in possession of a document which outlined the discussions and decisions made a few hours beforehand in the Nordhausen headquarters.

He noted the mocking comment Zhukov made about him and stowed the information in the deep recesses of his mind, for use on another day.

‘That day will come,’ Beria assured himself.

He leant back in his chair, savouring the expectation of that moment and found his mind moving once more to Nazarbayeva.

Puzzled by that, he concentrated more on why the offence she gave should be felt more deeply than others who committed worse and more regularly.

‘Was it intuition?’

‘Sexual discrimination?’

‘Revenge I can take any time in any way.’

He looked at the top drawer that held the recent report from Geneva and frowned.

‘Why am I now taking a detailed interest in the woman?’

He was no closer to fully understanding the problem when his reverie was interrupted by a powerful, almost excited knock on his door. A swift eye cast at the clock confirmed that it was still not quite time for his ten o’clock meeting with Pekunin’s deputy.

Inviting entry, an NKVD Captain handed Beria two reports marked urgent. One was from a no-nonsense Colonel in the Headquarters intelligence assessment unit, listing its contents as a forwarded report from an NKVD unit in Königsberg, coded for an intelligence gathering operation now being resurrected, as well as a general report on the overall progress of same.

The other, from Deputy Kobulov, reporting on plans for the planting of agents within the forming German forces.

Beria simply cast an eye over the former’s file jacket before pulling out a lower drawer and adding it to a modest file he extracted.

‘Later,’ he thought, mentally downgrading the priority on German soldiers families for the moment but making a firm commitment to ensure the two projects were aware of each other and exchanged information.

He quickly wrote out an order to that effect and set it aside for proper typing up later.

Relaxing back into his chair, he read the contents of the latter report with great care, finding much to celebrate there, and reminding himself to ensure that Kobulov didn’t take all the credit.

The GRU officer arrived to the second and, to Beria’s surprise, it was Pekunin himself. A small plaster was the sole external sign of any wound and further enquiries revealed no long lasting effects on the GRU Chief, making Beria wonder if the previous briefing really had been deliberately ducked by the GRU general.

‘Hmmm an interesting thought, I shall test it later.’

Giving no sign of his inner conversation, Beria gestured Pekunin towards a large chair.

Taking seats either side of the desk, the two exchanged the normal Russian pleasantries of enquiries about wife and children before getting down to the business of Intelligence.

The meeting was scheduled to run for an hour, but surprisingly for both men the business of the day had run its course shortly after 1040am.

Tea seemed the only reasonable course to take and Beria ordered some immediately.

Settling himself back in his chair, he eyed Pekunin directly, preparing his words.

“Your Colonel gave a full briefing yesterday Comrade General, very full indeed.”

Pekunin was too old a horse not to know that Beria wasn’t praising Tatiana. He could imagine how she might have ruffled a feather or two with the NKVD boss, so he fenced a little.

“She is extremely talented Comrade and I don’t doubt that both you and the General Secretary will have had honest and forthright answers from her. She doesn’t do frills and she is not a political animal such as we are Comrade Marshall. I promoted her to Colonel because she was the best man for the job.”

The tea arrived and, leaning around the orderly placing out the accoutrements, Pekunin smiled disarmingly, “You know what I mean.”

Beria ceded the point to Pekunin, as well as the post of pourer.

The conversation halted whilst tea was prepared.

Sipping his tea gently, Pekunin continued.

“She is a holder of the highest bravery awards as you will know, and has a husband and four sons in service to the Motherland.”

Beria replaced his cup in his saucer.

“Three.”

“Three?” Pekunin knew what Beria meant.

“Three.” Beria knew he had been understood but it made him feel good to say it.

‘Bitch.’

He pulled open the top drawer and extracted a copy of a Red Cross document obtained by and relayed back through his vast ring of agents.