Magomet Timov - Argentine Archive №1

He turned and raised his index finger to the ceiling.

“But you, as the head of one of the first intelligence schools, do not want to meet me halfway and lend me a few of your classes, where Comrade Kotov and I will prepare the main and backup groups for this assignment. You must understand, Yura, this is only for the summer until we formalize a new department. Then we will have both classes and bases. And people.”

He nodded at the personal files of the intelligence school cadets:

“Don’t be angry, Major General, but I cannot use any of the guys you proposed: it’s not quite what we’re aiming at.”

Svetlov shrugged his shoulders, and in this innocent gesture, Sudoplatov caught the grudge. Minor, but one of those that, left unspoken, can turn into persistent hostility. And then he clarified:

“Don't dance before me like a gypsy, comrade General. Just understand our situation. For example, how long does it take to prepare your eagles, huh?”

“The standard course is three years,” Svetlov replied reluctantly, suggesting further development of the conversation. And he was not mistaken.

“That's it!” Sudoplatov picked up the topic with ostentatious enthusiasm. “Three years, General! Three. And we have at most six months.”

The major general had already raised to his mouth a silver trophy cup holder with a glass of hot tea, which a quick adjutant, a junior captain from the 'promoted' graduates of party schools had just conveyed. He almost spilled this tea on his shirt.

“Dammit! How long?!” Putting down the glass, he spun to the 'king of saboteurs’. Sudoplatov grinned, and Kotov, with difficulty, restrained his smile.

“Six months is the maximum,” the lieutenant general repeated. “The Americans are unlikely to let us have more time. The big game begins anew, and then we’ll see who’s going to roll who.”

“Everything is, as always, on short notice,” the head of the intelligence school grunted, but Sudoplatov just threw up his hands.

“We do not set the deadlines. Life itself determines the pace of the operation. So all we need from you now are training classes and several instructors: shooters, cryptographers, extreme driving specialists. You see, friend Yura, we do not need to train illegals. It’s not your fault we have a completely different task. After all, you prepare illegals for the long haul. There is the fleshing out of their background, impersonation, embarkation, and debarkation. And we’re going to train operatives, specialists, for a single action. They have no time to overload their brains with all of your sciences. Their task is to infiltrate, find, steal, or destroy. And not at all to live for years and decades under someone else's guise.”

Yuri Borisovich shook his head.

“Somehow you can do it all. Some dashing cavalry attack, you know. Checkers and 'charge!'”

“And we rarely work in any other way.” Kotov inserted his two cents and winked at Sudoplatov. He just grunted, “Just so, Major. Just so.”

The major general sighed, carefully picked up the ill-fated glass, sipped the fragrant boiling water, and shook his head.

“Well, I don't know, Pasha.” Sudoplatov noted this 'Pasha' as a good sign. “You are probably right about something. In the end, you know better. I do not have all the information. Of course, I will give you an audience. I’ll only check with the higher authorities. Not a problem.”

Pavel Anatolyevich nodded in relief.

“Further, I will also pick some specialists. Just tell me which ones you need. It's summer now, people are mostly free. Use them, as they say. And I’ll also provide a temporary place to stay on my territory, until the fall, free dormitories aplenty. But the secrecy of this whole thing within the framework of our school, you, pigeon, kindly provide yourself.”

Sudoplatov chuckled. Svetlov had worked in Poland for quite a long time by the end of the war, and now Polish words slipped into his vocabulary from time to time.

“Let’s shake on it.” Pavel Anatolyevich held out his hand to the major general, who shook it.

“There is another snag, my dear friend,” Sudoplatov began. Yuri Borisovich was wary:

“How clever you are, brother rabbit. As our American ‘friends’ say there: The claw is stuck, the whole bird is lost? That’s how you make concessions. Okay, tell me what’s going on.”

Now everyone smiled. They found a common language. And Sudoplatov continued:

“Civilian specialist instructors will have to be given access to the site.”

“And how do you imagine that happening?” This alarmed the head of the intelligence school. Pavel Anatolyevich raised his hand reassuringly.

“Don’t get excited, Yuri Borisovich. These people have all the clearances and then some. At their levels of secrecy, you and your people will need a head start.”

Major General was taken aback:

“Really? How’s that?”

“Our operation is an echo of Los Alamos, Yura. The race begins again.”

The major general collapsed on a chair, pulled back the collar of his shirt, and wiped his sweating chest with a handkerchief he had taken from his breeches pocket.

“Now I understand this high level of secrecy and your haste. In short, I’ll provide you with everything you need. I’ll select the best specialists, and I’ll try to protect your people from excessive communication on the school grounds. When are you ready to start?”

“Immediately,” Sudoplatov said without hesitation. He turned to Kotov:

“How is our first candidate? Ready?”

“Yes, Comrade Lieutenant General, Skiff will take his last state exam tomorrow and shortly afterward arrive at his designated location.”

“And the other one from your team? Any ideas or candidates?”

“Already selected, comrade Sudoplatov. One Fomenko, Andrey Grigorievich, a graduate of the Moscow Mechanical Institute. He is suitable in every way.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Sudoplatov nodded. “I’d like to interview them both. I’ll wait for them the day after tomorrow in the office that I hope dear Yuri Borisovich will provide us. Isn't that right, comrade Major General?”

Svetlov only nodded with restraint. As a career intelligence officer, he sensed at the level of reflexes what exceptional events were now unfolding in this God-forsaken corner of the Moscow region.

And behind the open window, the commands of the front-line sergeant drowned out the chirping of forest birds.

June 15, 1950

Bolshaya Dmitrovka

Moscow

The pub on the corner of Bolshaya Dmitrovka and Stoleshnikov Lane was overcrowded. The vaulted basement, streaked with dripping plaster and mold, never suffered from a lack of visitors. A convenient location in a very historical place of the capital, practically in its cultural center. Its past, shrouded in urban legends and no less turbulent present, made it a place of pilgrimage for various categories of writers, sculptors, poets and the remaining creative population of the big city.

According to rumors, here, in the company of Mayakovsky, ‘Uncle Gilyai’, the singer of Zamoskvorechye Vladimir Gilyarovsky himself, who forever glorified pre-revolutionary Moscow in his wonderful essays, read his obscene poems here. Supposedly, even Bulgakov himself used to come here to taste local beer with Tver crayfish, but people of sober thought, of course, categorically disagreed with this.

Anyway, but Yama – which was not its official name, but the locals surely called it that – was a beerhouse that served as the hangout for dozens of artists and musicians who already considered themselves the capital’s bohemians. These were not the same bohemians who frequented places like the restaurant Sovietskiy (the former Yar), or the prestigious Metropol. Their wallets were simply too light.