Man From Barbarossa

SCAMPS AND SCAPEGOATS

The great port and city of Baku had been troubled by riots and demonstrations for over a year, like every other town and city in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan. All over the country, in the diverse regions which make up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, there had been an uneasiness which sparked unrest, disaffection, and the kind of ugly scenes which even five years ago would have been put down unmercifully.

In Azerbaijan the national feeling had run high. Mobs took to the streets in Baku and a dozen other centres. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to rule their own republic, frame their own laws, distribute their own food and raise their own armies. It was quite unworkable and this was the nightmare foreseen by the senior officers of the Soviet Army, Navy, and Air Force when the theories of restructuring had been set in motion. The nightmare came closer as each day passed.

In Baku the unrest whispered and bubbled through the old town, the port and the modern city. Perhaps because of it, nobody paid much attention to the three large fishing boats anchored offshore, alongside a naval T-43 Class ocean minesweeper, which bore on its side the white numbering 252. Certainly the citizens of Baku had no reason to fear a minesweeper, even though it sported a 45-mm gun both fore and aft.

Many naval craft were to be seen out on the Caspian Sea, but that was normal off Baku. There was a base, said to be used by the Soviet Naval Infantry, further up the coast, near Derbent, and those who plotted revolt and reform had taken it into account. At the moment, however, it looked as though the minesweeper was simply watching over its flock of three fishing boats. This was natural enough. Everyone liked the caviar from the sturgeon which provided almost six per cent of the annual fish harvest, which also included salmon, mullet, carp and a dozen other types of fish culled from the world’s largest inland body of water. Fish, oil and the forests had made the Caspian Sea one of the richest natural plundering areas within the borders of the USSR. Though it was slowly being eroded, shrinking, over-fished and polluted, the Caspian remained a major resource in the Soviet’s beleaguered economy.

Marshal Yevgeny Andreavich Yuskovich thought with pleasure about the fishing boats and the minesweeper lying off Baku. He had dozed on the helicopter which took them to the nearest air support base. There they transferred to the aircraft which originally had been the personal transport of Boris Stepakov, the Antonov An-72 turbo jet with STOL capability.

Once they were airborne, Yuskovich immersed his mind in the dazzling accomplishments which had led him to his present situation. It was only a matter of time before he would reach the goal he had cherished for long years, to be master of the potentially greatest country in the world. He had always coveted power; now the power would be absolute.

He sat well forward on the aircraft. On the other side of the aisle, General Berzin closed his eyes and did not look his way. The marshal had made it clear he wanted to be left alone. Behind him were his personal guards – six Spetsnaz men with three officers, the redoubtable Major Verber, who would be promoted to general once the coup was complete, Verber’s cousin, a major of the rocketry forces and the lieutenant he had plucked from the night, the Spetsnaz man, Batovrin, who sported the old-style waxed moustache and had about him the look of a thoroughly efficient soldier. Yuskovich prided himself on his eye for the right people. In Batovrin, he was sure the choice was wise.

He thought the young Nina Bibikova had looked mournful as she boarded the aircraft, but that was only to be expected. It had taken guts to accomplish what she had done. Heady days lay before them and Yuskovich was sure he would find a large number of tasks to keep Bibikova busy. She would soon forget.

He smiled to himself. Nina had looked downcast, though not as disconsolate as the prisoners. They certainly had reason. Poor old Bory Stepakov must know by now that his life was not worth a kopek, while the two French agents, Rampart and Adoré, had to be confused and alarmed at the events which were now quite out of their control. A pity about the woman, Adoré, he considered. She looked very beautiful and it was always sad to do away with something that could provide such pleasure. Maybe, he thought, then quickly changed his mind. What had Tolstoy said? ‘What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.’

Then there was the Britisher who had turned out to be from the Mossad. Well, he would do. In fact, it would be a double irony. They would place him near the Scamps with their huge Scapegoat missiles and when the photograph was released after the devastation, he would be identified as a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service. The Mossad would remain silent, but Yuskovich would wager his entire future on denials from London. What a pity about the man Bond. If he had lived, his photograph would be there as well. They might have accomplished a double hit.

Yevgeny Andreavich Yuskovich positively basked in the glow of his own performance. Yes, there had been some luck, the right people at the right time, then the world-shattering events which had only contributed to the overall plan first conceived towards the end of 1989.

From the earliest days of the President’s new order, there had been concern and anxiety among the senior members of the Soviet military establishment. Certainly the twin policies of openness and restructuring had an appeal. Indeed, some kind of reorganisation was necessary if only to court the West, both to defuse their anxieties and force them into humanitarian cooperation – in other words, to persuade them to contribute to the Soviet economy. But few, even the President himself, had expected the appalling backlash late in 1989 which, at a stroke, removed the buffer states of the Eastern Bloc, the backlash which tore down the Wall and removed the cushions of land which had been so carefully built up since the end of the Great Patriotic War.

All this had led to the chaos which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics now faced. In October 1989 a caucus of senior Soviet officers had already chosen their new leader. They had put their personal reputations at risk and sealed with their signatures the secret document naming Yevgeny Yuskovich as the man in whom they trusted. They also swore allegiance to the general whom they privately referred to as marshal. He would have their complete support. Once they had begun the new long march back to the old order, they were committed. Having chosen Yuskovich, they considered it was his duty to set the fuses, bait the traps, overcome political chicanery and return them to the true way, the way of Lenin and the Communist Party. How, then, would he lead the Soviet military on to what they considered the paths of righteousness?

Yuskovich remembered the very moment when he had located the starting point of the journey. How strange it was that a group of idiot idealists had made a choice so close to his own past. The two pieces of information had come to him on the same day and through one person, though he did not comprehend it at the time.

He glanced back to see Nina Bibikova was sleeping. She had been the cornerstone. In September 1989, the telephone had rung in his office, and there was the commander of the GRU’s Fifth Directorate telling him that he had a woman member of KGB who wanted to talk with him.

They had met – the GRU Commandant, Yuskovich and Nina Bibikova – in a specially prepared safe house almost within shouting distance of the Kremlin, and it was there that Bibikova unleashed her torrent of information. She was daughter to Misha Bibikov and his English wife, the strangely named Emerald, and she could not disguise her disgust. Her parents were known to have been one of the greatest assets of KGB’s First Chief Directorate, two of the most highly placed moles, as Francis Bacon dubbed them back in the seventeenth century, ever run out of Moscow Centre. They had died tragically in a car wreck only nine months before his first meeting with their daughter.

He recalled that almost his first words to the girl had been a speech of condolence, and he would never forget her outburst, nor his own sense of shock, when she revealed to him what she had already told the GRU. Her parents were doubles. They always had been and they were not dead. Indeed she had only recently discovered their true cause and their extraordinary resurrection.

All her life, Nina had believed her parents to have been heroes of the Supreme Soviet. She had even tried to emulate them by following in their footsteps. She had mourned them, like any other good daughter. Then, with unexpected suddenness, they had reappeared in her life. First, a note asking for a clandestine meeting at a charming villa on the Black Sea. She had been taking her vacation at Sochi with her friend, one of the few other women members of KGB.

She went to the villa and the trauma almost destroyed her. There they were, Misha and Emerald, as large as life. They felt, she was told, that she should now know the truth, and they foolishly told her the whole story – the tale of how they had duped the Soviet Union for decades and that, at the end, they simply wanted to drop out of sight. Their deaths were staged and being the experienced people they were the Bibikovas had provided themselves with new identities. Now, in the early years of their old age, they were indulging themselves in their other great passion, the theatre. These two old spies were with a small theatre company based in Leningrad. With this troupe they travelled Russia performing the great classics. Never had they intended Nina to know the truth, but the company was playing in the Black Sea resort – The Cherry Orchard, as it happened – and they had seen her in a café.

The girl, Yuskovich considered, was amazing. She had kept her true emotions in check, had shown only joy in being reunited with her father and mother, had even told them that she despised the old regime and was hoping for better days under the emerging restructuring of Mother Russia. She had then kept the knowledge to herself, not sharing it with anyone until she went to the GRU.

Why the GRU? he had asked her, and she had replied in a sensible manner. She was with the most secret internal department of the KGB, so secret that her director only answered to the General Secretary and the KGB Chairman. She spoke, of course, of Stepakov’s Banda – the counterterrorist department. Her ties to the KGB were tight. She did not desire to damage her own career by turning in her parents. ‘You know how KGB can work,’ she said. ‘Sometimes the paranoia reaches back generations. I could lose my job. My life even.’

The next piece of information had come almost accidentally. He asked if she was satisfied with the kind of work she was doing? It was interesting, but, she told him, at the moment it was also stupid. Idiot’s work. Then Nina Bibikova laid out their present target. She had called them a bunch of madmen. ‘Personally, I’m convinced there are only a half-dozen of them. They have some wild plan to embarrass the Kremlin establishment.’ These people called themselves the Scales of Justice – Chushi Pravosudia or Moshch Pravosudia – and the wild plan had been to focus public attention on the Kremlin’s reluctance to show any real sympathy for Russian Jews. She said their argument was that the Kremlin was allowing many Jewish people out, but that was not enough. Never had the Soviet Union held a war crimes trial which accused a single Russian of anti-Semitic behaviour. She had laughed. ‘They even seem to have a candidate. A Ukrainian called Josif Vorontsov who, they say, became a member of the Nazi SS and was partly responsible for Babi Yar and other horrors. It’s absurd to try and embarrass the Kremlin with something like that.’

But Yuskovich was alerted. His stomach had turned over, he nearest he ever came to fear, when Vorontsov’s name was mentioned. In any case, he did not really feel it was such a crazy idea. The Kremlin had been embarrassed by smaller things than a Russian war criminal.

He liked to think it was not just his desire to save his own skin that prompted him to recruit Nina Bibikova there and then. Later, he revealed much more to her, but her reaction was immediate. Yes, she would act as Yuskovich’s agent within Stepakov’s Banda. Yes, she would do whatever he asked. Later, when she was told the scope of the military coup to put Yuskovich in total power, she had leaped up and down with joy. On that night he remembered vividly how she had come to him without pretence. Her love-making had proved ferocious, and she had done all the things his wife had strictly barred from their bedroom. Some day, Nina could well become the Russian equivalent of what the Americans called the First Lady. Already he had plans to put his wife aside. It was easy for a man with power.

One thing finally led to another. They had removed the original handful of Chushi Pravosudia, and in their place set up a whole network of notional agents, shadows, an entire cult of Chushi Pravosudia which did not even exist.

They had run the foolish Professor Vladimir Lyko within Stepakov’s Banda. Eventually, when Lyko had served his purpose, his handler, a skilled Spetsnaz officer, was ordered to kill him, and before this they had snatched their old GRU sleeper, Penderek, from New Jersey.

Parallel to the Scales of Justice operation, they were also now committed to events outside the Soviet Union which appeared to be reshaping the world. America, with a strong backing from other countries and a United Nations’ sanction, was preparing to lock horns with Iraq over the Kuwait question. It was time for the future leader of the Soviet Union to play his trump card.

Throughout the years he had been in command of Rocket Forces, Yuskovich had been a hoarder. While the SALT talks made slow progress, he had often disobeyed orders. In secret bunkers he retained weapons, even mass-destruction weapons. While certain missiles were phased out, Yuskovich made certain some of those he considered to be still viable were hidden and maintained by trusted people who knew how to keep their mouths closed.

The final plan was simple, yet so ingenious that the future leader of all the Soviet Republics was dizzy at his own brilliance. The whole thing fitted together like a giant jigsaw puzzle which some divine being had placed in front of him to show that he was the chosen one.

The pinpricks of Chushi Pravosudia’s absurd daring, and their demands, simply goaded everybody into the killing field. By setting up the taped trial, he had been able to bring essential elements to work. Nina’s suggestions to Stepakov had brought about the snatching of his dark-horse cousin, Vorontsov. It had also put two French agents into his hands. The whole conception of his terrorists, his Chushi Pravosudia, had called for people from London to do the taping. Suggestion, via Nina, had prompted Stepakov to call upon the British Secret Intelligence Service to provide the camera crew and, even here, fate had taken a hand and brought him the godsent opportunity to add Nina to the British team.

Then there was the question of actors to play the roles of witnesses. Naturally, it was almost too easy for Nina to ensure that her mother and father came without a second thought to the Red Army Senior Officers’ Centre where, with a little pushing here and there, they were allowed to find the secret tunnel all the General Staff had known about for years.

As it turned out, that had been a waste of time. The idea had been to make certain Nina’s parents, and the two British agents, were corralled in the tunnel when Yuskovich’s loyal Spetsnaz troops arrived to swell the garrison and make sure nobody was left to tell the tale of how the trial had been faked. There was no reason to doubt the impact of the tape when it was aired. The Kremlin would be placed in a position of extreme embarrassment and the Russian people would, possibly for the first time, become truly aware of the natural leadership of this ascetic looking, single-minded officer, Yevgeny Yuskovich.

Yet the final, and wonderful, card was yet to be played. In the past weeks, six of his hoarded missiles, the big Scapegoats with their mobile Scamp launching systems, had been brought out of the bunkers where they had been stored but always ready.

At the Soviet Naval Infantry base near Derbent, skilled mechanics and builders had erected huge containers made from light alloys and lined with thick rubber hulls which incorporated flotation tanks. When the tanks were filled with water, the loaded containers would lie just below sea level. In expertly camouflaged hangars, they had designed and constructed these underwater monsters – three of them – each large enough to hold two Scapegoat missiles complete with their Scamp launching systems which had been fitted with tracks to make them usable in desert conditions.

Only last night, Major Verber had confirmed that the Scamps and Scapegoats were in place. This meant that these weapons of mass nuclear destruction had been taken, with great stealth, to Derbent where they had been loaded into the huge oblong containers. By now, those containers would be in the water, submerged, with their flotation tanks filled, while, on the top of each, the hull and upper structure of a large fishing boat had been affixed with explosive bolts. From sea level, and from the air, it would seem as though three fishing boats rode at anchor, guarded by the minesweeper that would be Yuskovich’s command post. The Scamp and Scapegoat crews were housed in the useless hulls of the fishing boats, and in a couple of days, it would be accomplished.

Yuskovich would be there simply as an observer. His presence was, strictly speaking, not required. But he was a leader, and to his mind, it was essential for him to be there.

As they approached Baku, he thought of the last phase. Certainly the American satellites might well pick up the oddity of the fishing boats, but that did not worry him. It would take them a long time to work out their sinister meaning. He had carefully laid the ground. The Iranians, so recently released from terrible combat against their neighbours, the Iraqis, were naturally in a difficult position. The bulk of the huge coalition force now spread across the deserts of Saudi Arabia was the Iranians’ natural enemy. Until any fighting broke out, they were willing, for a consideration, to turn their eyes into the sun and go blind.

In the meantime, Yuskovich had sold the Iraqi leadership three of the old, but very serviceable, huge Mi-10 helicopter cranes – great stilted, ugly looking beasts which could lift vast weights and carry them for many miles and up to 10,000 feet above the ground.

The accommodation reached with Iran meant that the minesweeper could safely tow the three ‘fishing boats’ close inshore at the small coastal settlement of Bandar Anzali, where they would be blown from the top of the containers by the explosive bolts. The flotation chambers would be emptied and the containers nudged ashore. The Scamps, with their deadly Scapegoat cargoes, could then be hauled up by the Iraqi Mi-10s, taken high over the mountains and deposited in strategic readiness. Each of the flying cranes would make two trips, and it had been calculated that, should all go to plan, the off-loading might be completed in six hours or so.

Before these hideous weapons finally left on their journey, the final piece of the puzzle would be recorded for history. The French and British agents would be photographed assisting and supervising the hand-over of the missiles. They would smile and look pleased with themselves. Yuskovich had constructed the final trap, the last box within the nest of boxes. In the end, if it became necessary, they could prove that the treacherous French and British had been the real suppliers of nuclear weapons to the Iraqi leaders in Baghdad.

The whole thing should not take more than two days, three if there were handling problems. The containers would be towed out to sea again and sunk and the Iraqis would have the weapon for which they had spent so much time scheming and intriguing.

When the United Nations’ deadline came on January 15th, if the Americans and their coalition forces did as they were expected, and attacked Iraq, the response would come in seconds. Six Scapegoat nuclear missiles would airburst over Saudi and the massed forces of the coalition would cease to exist. In a moment, in the wink of an eye, the entire enemy army would be turned into so much glass.

‘What then can be done about immediate United States ICBM retaliation, the so-called second strike?’ General Berzin had asked outside the Red Army Senior Officers’ Centre when they had been searching for the agent Bond. Yuskovich had an answer for him, an answer which meant the crippling of the United States for decades to come. They would be decimated, unable to function for a very long time, and during that time Marshal Yevgeny Yuskovich would lead a new and recharged Union of Soviet Socialist Republics into the land promised years ago, early in the century, by Lenin himself.

The minesweeper with its painted white number 252 on the bows began to move. Beneath the Caspian Sea, the hawsers took up the strain and began to pull the three fishing boats in its wake. It looked like a mother leading her brood out to fresh waters, and in a sense that was exactly what it was.

Night was falling and it was dark on the sea by the time they got fully underway. The minesweeper had only a crew of seven on board, so plenty of room was available for Yuskovich and his entourage. Below in a secure hold aft, usually a storage compartment for depth charges, the four prisoners had been shackled and left with food and wine. The marshal did not want them to seem haggard or strained when it came to taking pictures, though he had been tempted to separate Stepakov from the others and place him in solitary confinement for the entire voyage.

Soon, Yuskovich thought, soon, his part of the operation would be over. He would return to Moscow and oversee the final days before taking absolute control.

Forty-eight hours later they were within sailing distance of Bandar-e Pahlavi. Yuskovich had been down to see the prisoners whom he described as ‘unco-operative, but what can you expect? The sooner we get the symbols of Western decadence out of Russia, the better. I, for one, do not wish to be part of a society which produces Coca-Cola cans that dance when you clap your hands. For a country that’s so advanced, America, and, by inference, all the Western countries, are backward.’

He ordered dinner early. ‘By midnight we shall be starting to surface the first missiles. The signals have already been sent and the Iraqi Mi-10s should be here by two in the morning,’ he told them. ‘I suggest food and then a little rest. It will be a busy night for everyone.’

They ate large plates of Shchi, a spicy cabbage soup, which had been almost their staple diet since setting sail from Baku. After the meal, everyone did as the marshal had suggested, except Lieutenant Batovrin. ‘I’ll take a turn around the deck, sir, if I have permission.’

Yuskovich nodded. ‘Go ahead, Sergei, but not for long. You also need rest.’

Lieutenant Batovrin went out on deck, the hood of his camouflage combat suit turned up against the cold air. He thought it smelled like snow. Someone had once told him that in this region during the winter you could get hailstones the size of tennis balls. People were killed by them every year.

He walked aft and went down the companionway to the compartment where the prisoners were being held.

The soldier on guard duty came to attention. ‘At ease,’ Batovrin told him. ‘I’m going to see if I can talk these people into being more co-operative. If you want a smoke, you have my permission to go up on deck.’

‘Thank you, comrade Lieutenant.’ The man smiled and Batovrin nodded. Sliding back the dead bolt, he opened the hatch and stepped inside.

Stepakov lay on his back drinking from a bottle of wine, one hand secured to a metal stanchion. The man they called Pete had his eyes closed and the Frenchman glowered. It looked as though he would like to tear his handcuffs from the rail to which they were attached and rip Batovrin’s throat out.

The Frenchwoman, one wrist chained to another stanchion, looked up. She seemed to be taking it very well, for there was hardly a hair out of place. The marshal had said she insisted on being taken to the heads at least six times a day, and once there, spent much time in front of the mirror. Even though she had no cosmetics, they allowed her a comb for these excursions.

Lieutentant Batovrin threw back the hood on his combat suit, touched his waxed moustache, then chuckled.

‘Well, what a sorry sight you are,’ said James Bond. ‘We’re all going to have a long night’s work, I fear. So rise and shine.’