Robert Craven - Get Lenin

Brandt thought the best solution lay with the Luftwaffe. ‘We need to get a transport aircraft here and hi-jack it. We need some kind of a ruse.’

‘How about a medical consignment retrieved from a skirmish with the Russian army?’ Kant suggested,

‘They would scramble a whole squadron for a prize like that,’ agreed Brandt.

Looking into the distance, Kravchenko calculated that the flying boat would be out of Russian airspace within four hours. Kramer translated this for him. Brandt and Kant knew about the small islands off the coast of Helsinki and the planned transfer to the U-Boat. The flying boat couldn’t be shot down because of the precious cargo on board.

Brandt’s thoughts suddenly turned to the girl in sable with Kincaid, Eva. She was a witness to what had happened and therefore expendable. He thought of those grey intelligent eyes and felt a stirring across his chest which consumed him for a moment. He’d caught her looking at him a couple of times at least before suddenly finding something else to look at when their eyes met. He smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours and decided he was going to see her again, no matter what. His attention was broken by the sound of wolves howling in the night which sent a primordial chill through everyone.

Schultz’s radio was working and Bader was hunched over it, incrementally tuning for a signal. He paused. Inclining his head and practically resting his headset against the radio, he summoned Brandt over to him. ‘You’re not going to believe this, sir. It’s the British Embassy in Helsinki inquiring if we require assistance.’

‘How did they find us?’ Brandt was suspicious. If The British had their co-ordinates they could alert the Russians.

‘It’s the only German Army bandwidth signal in the area.’

Brandt still wasn’t happy. He got Bader to ask ‘How do you know we need assistance?’

There was a pause. Bader’s jaw clenched as he repeated the message. ‘They’ve intercepted a coded message from an American flying boat in Russian airspace. Part of the fragment decoded is — Alpine Unit eliminated.’

‘How quickly can they get a plane here and turn it around to the Finnish coast?’

Zbarsky worked silently in the flying boat’s hold. The laboratory was state-of-the-art but the available chemicals useless. He was trying to re-think his formulae in his head and instruct his team simultaneously. He made some rough jottings on a page and cross-checked them against the chemicals. Once his decision was made, he tore the jottings up and chewed them when no-one was watching. They were close to the end of the treatments supplied for the train journey and now they had to preserve the body indefinitely. Pinching the bridge of his nose in exhaustion, he pondered his options: not co-operate and be shot in the head as the SS officer had threatened, or do his best.

No point in being a hero both for him or his team.

He blended the preservatives and began to work quickly and thoroughly. They had to hope against hope that keeping Lenin preserved and intact gave their countrymen a reason to get him back. The American’s pretty companion was with them translating for them. She looked uneasy and was clearly acting under duress. Oblivious to her discomfort, the SS officer and the American had almost begun a tug-of-war over her.

Zbarsky asked her to instruct that the hold’s temperature be set to the sarcophagus’ settings immediately. Her accent was Eastern European, which meant either traitor or ally. He’d watch her closely before asking for her help. The fact that she was scared was a good start. The SS officer regarded him with distaste as Kincaid hollered the instruction through the plane’s communications systerm. Lights were instructed to be dimmed and only the team remained whilst the body was out of its coffin.

Eva sensed that time was running out, that the net around her was snapping shut. She couldn’t disguise her horror at the attack on Brandt’s men. As the flying boat pulled away, the small Chechen girl was under heavy fire and Eva had screamed out a warning. She pounded on the glass with tears running down her face. She then looked around to see how she could get the plane back on the ground. Toying with the brooch laden with chemicals, she tried calculate the distance she could cover to immobilise the pilot. The flying boat’s engines had catapulted them off the ice and, with the fighter’s staying in tight formation, she was out of options.

Her heart ached for the German officer and the pointless ending to his and his comrades' lives. Schenker and Kincaid had roared with laughter at their success and Regan was positioned somewhere aft filming the whole event. The flying boat had radioed Berlin, informing them that they were airborne and that a ‘partisan attack’ had been repelled during take-off.

Kincaid’s personal secretary was being wired to start drafting an account of the events from Kincaid’s offices in Burbank, California.

Regan had come back into the cabin area and was hovering. Eva was drying her eyes and trying to light a cigarette at the same time. Regan cranked his wind-proof lighter and the smell of petroleum filled her nostrils.

‘Allow me, miss.' He was now almost on top of her, leaning in. Despite working for most of the day in freezing temperatures, a cloying smell of stale sweat came from him. Her cigarette helped kill it off but she found his closeness intimidating. ‘Too bad about the mountaineers.’ He was now across her, looking out at the fighter plane alongside. He managed a quick glance down at her cleavage. ‘According to the member of the master race over there — ’ Schenker was positioning himself in front of the camera, looking to see if he was equidistant between the flags, and had started on the champagne once he had come up from the hold, his face its usual red rage ‘- they were racially suspect.’

‘Because of Olga?’

‘Yup. Better get your face straight, doll. The boss is coming over.’

Kincaid studied Eva for a few moments before he spoke. ‘Honey, I find your presence soothing,’ he assured her. He took her hand in his and Eva fought the urge to retch. His fatherly demeanour didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You’re very, very special to me and I’m sorry, very sorry, you had to see that … and, yes, the ambush was shocking but necessary. The SS don’t have any experienced mountaineering units, so common soldiers had to be used and alas dispensed with. The newsreels couldn’t contain any inferior races, only prime Aryan soldiers.’

He told her he also had information that one of the soldiers was a Communist and former International Brigadist in Spain, then added that a Chechen woman couldn’t be seen to be serving with the German Army. Kincaid was searching for a reaction but satisfied in himself that she was teary-eyed more out of fright. Eva summoned her smile from her heels. Trained in emotional mapping by the late Herr Gruber, she struggled to find convincing happy memories to bring to her eyes. Kincaid thankfully never looked past the smile, wishing only to see a pretty adoring face. She gave him that in spades, thinking of De Witte’s arms, and oddly and perhaps cruelly, of Brandt’s eyes.

Regan, who had filmed for most of his life, knew she was faking and wondered what leverage he’d get with that information.

The table was set in the best crystal and silver. Eva had never seen such opulence. It had to be said these villains loved their neatly-laid tables. Kincaid's fussing over table settings and throwing a tantrum over the cut-crystal gave him a prissy quality. She had been awake for nearly twenty hours and, as she re-did her make-up and changed into the low-cut evening wear Kincaid had bought, she wondered how long it would be before she slept again. She positioned her brooch along the halter-neck.