Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (17 page)

Alone in his suite, it took three cigarettes and two coffees to restore any vestige of faith in himself and his ability to see the matter through to a successful end.

His mind tackled a niggling issue once more.

His men were tired, very tired, although replacements were arriving and some units were being rested in quieter areas.

The thought, as always, was balanced by the fact that the enemy had to be similarly tired and, by all intelligence reports, were not only greatly worn down numerically, but also hobbled by supply issues.

It
was something that Von Vietinghoff had said that constantly troubled him.

Whilst the Generals present had all acknowledged the weariness of the Allied troops and balanced it against the state of their enemy, Vietinghoff
’s response had started with the assertion that the Soviet soldier was the most resilient fighting man on the planet.

‘
A sip of water and a bite of bread will keep him fighting all day, Herr General.’

Eisenhower shuddered involuntarily.

Not for the first time that week, he closed his eyes and prayed.

The Soviets, with their love of
maskirovka, had been extremely impressed with the FUSAG operation during D-Day and subsequent weeks.

FUSAG, or First US Army Group, had been a phantom, a figment in the collective
imaginations of the Overlord planners, and it had sold Hitler and his generals, hook, line, and sinker.

The German Army had continued to hold strong units in the Pas de Calais in response to the huge FUSAG strength waiting in England
, an illusion perpetrated by double agents, inflatable tanks, false buildings and works, mock warships made of wood, and a complicated signals network serviced by a handful of men. The cream on the cake had been Patton, who led the false formation, although it must have grated on him to be deprived of his opportunity during the early days of Overlord.

It had worked once and, never being ones to set aside a good idea, SHAEF planners had d
ecided to try it again, and so Allied Second Army Group was formed, although solely in the minds of men.

The wounded Montgomery was cited to command it, although the fact that the Field Marshall would never command men in the field again was known only to a handful in the highest echelons.
His 'double' was already moving around the British countryside, trying hard to be noticed by someone with a link to Moscow.

The Soviets were no fools and the Allied planners intended to be careful to reduce the similarities to FUSAG as much as possible, even to the point of allocating real units
, such as veteran units withdrawn for recuperation to volunteer units from across the world arriving in theatre to train and acclimatise; hence the designation ‘Allied’ rather than US or British.

In many ways, FUSAG started as an extra
for which there were no great expectations. Events would later push it into a prime position in the new European War.

Those that I fight
, I do not hate; those that I guard, I do not love.
 

William Butler Yeats

It had been an unauthorised flight, in as much as those in power at Mikoyan-Gurevich had not informed the People’s Ministry of the Aircraft Industry, the Council of People’s Commissars, Marshal Novikov of the Red Air Force, Malenkov of the GKO, who was the member with responsibility for aircraft production, or even Mikhail Gromov, Chief of the Flight Research Institute at Stakhanovo, whose facility was the location for the flight

The Mikoyan-9 was the Soviet Union
’s first attempt at a home produced turbojet aircraft and its maiden flight was a disaster.

Konstantin Djorov, temporarily detached from his assignment as OC 2nd Guards Special Fighter Regiment, had gently eased the aircraft into the sky and the problems had started almost immediately.

He tried to gain height and, even though the vibrations were decidedly worrying, he could not help but be impressed with the rate of climb and obvious presence of unbridled power in the MIG. Passing four thousand metres and still rising strongly, the vibrations grew worse and the experienced pilot decided to ease back on the throttles.

Whatever it was that happened next was unclear but its results were impressive to the observers on the ground; less so for the occupant of the test aircraft.

Djorov later explained that it seemed that his wings started to disintegrate, immediately followed by the loss of his rear stabilisers.

He could not explain what happened after that.

All he knew was that, one moment he had been wrestling with a dying aircraft, the next he was aware of a silence that was, to say the least, weird, and he realised that he was floating gently in the freezing cold snowy sky.

When he was brought back to the test base, one of Mikoyan
’s designers had asked him what he might suggest to help.

Djorov verbally exploded and got right in the face of the shrinking man
, and at a range of about three centimetres let rip as only a man who has recently had a close acquaintance with impending death can do.

“
You send me up in a fucking death trap and then ask me what I suggest? Fucking Idiot!”

Djorov stepped back, aware that it wasn
’t necessarily just the young engineer’s fault.

He turned to escape the awkward moment, intent on cleaning up in the comfort of his billet.

Something caught his eye and he decided to make the most of the moment.

He pointed at the pair of aircraft sat outside
the Mikoyan pilot’s rest facility.

Moving b
ack in closer to the engineer, but this time with a quieter approach, Djorov hissed his considered response.

“
Design like that, Comrade Engineer, or build the Red Air Force some of them!”

The angry m
an left, leaving the design engineer both perplexed and thoughtful.

One of his older colleagues joined him and both watched the retreating pilot.

“Comrade Arushanian. Don’t trouble yourself. The PodPolkovnik has just had a narrow escape and he’s bound to be angry.”

“
Well, he is certainly that, Comrade Piadyshev.”

Both men shared a modest laugh, as they both understood that they had contributed, in their own way, to Djorov
’s close shave.

“
I asked him what he would suggest.”

This time it was only the older man who laughed.

“Well, that would have done it for me too, you idiot! What were you thinking of?”

The sole answer was a shrug of defeat.

“I suppose his suggestion involved sticking something in a position within your back passage?”

“
No, Comrade Piadyshev. He said we should give him some of those.”

Filipp Piadyshev
followed the direction of Arushanian’s finger.

Almost mocking the designers and engineers of the Mikoyan Institute, two proven warriors of the sky, ex-German
ME 262’s jet fighters, sat in efficient silence,

He was the third agent that Bryan had dispatched to the area. He also knew that he was the only one still alive, the other two having fallen victim to Judas Reynolds’ stark policy on anyone 'out of place' found in the locale.

Thomas O
’Farrell, and that was his real name, was clearly a career criminal with an arrest record as long as the longest arm, and he had spent a great deal of time in Éire’s criminal institutions, mainly in solitary confinement..

In reality, Thomas Ryan O
’Farrell, Sergeant in the Irish Army, was often detained, by prior arrangement, to permit him to take time to relax, his double life free from discovery, safe inside the protective custody of secure government facilities, as well as relaying whatever he had recently discovered about the Irish Republican Army.

His
hurried deployment was not ideal, but Bryan had little choice in the matter, and so O’Farrell was dispatched with simple orders.

‘
Confirm the existence of an IRA facility at Glenlara, establish numbers of personnel present and ascertain its purpose.’

Bryan, always honest with his agents, informed O
’Farrell of the previous attempts at approaching the site and their terminal outcomes.

Immediately that he had received the call from Rafferty, Bryan had contacted his local man and sent him off to observe the site.

His body had been found the following evening, ostensibly run over by a very apologetic farmer, a man with suspected republican tendencies. He had no idea the man had been sleeping in the long grass, but was very apologetic and offered to write a letter of condolence to the destroyed corpse’s family, which offer was tactfully declined.

The second agent had been found drowned in one of the many ponds that littered the area.

That had been three days ago and the post-mortem, or at least the part that didn’t lie as a matter of public record, indicated that the man had suffered a significant beating that did not tally with the suggested contact with the rescuing boat that the local police had put forward as a reason for the additional injuries.

But, a
s far as the local police and their republican friends were concerned, accidental death by drowning was the official cause of death.

At this moment, that was of no significance
, as Thomas Ryan O’Farrell had just made a startling discovery.

A large Allied seaplane had just flown close by to seaward and the few civilians that had been in sight had disappeared.

As the drone of aero engines receded, he adjusted the thick waterproof on which he lay, noting that the snow had recommenced its efforts to freeze him to death.

He pulled the white blanket up over him and settled back into his
over watch.

And almost missed the biggest prize of all.

“Fucking hell!”

He scolded himself for the outburst and focussed the binoculars on the face of Judas Reynolds, stretching in the open doorway, a roaring fire behind him
.

‘
You fucking Fenian bastard you, Judas, Bryan will be...’

Another man came into view, not one O
’Farrell recognised but one that made his heart miss a beat.

His mouth remained open but not a sound came.
He didn’t trust himself even to think.

The door shut as quickly as it opened, but the picture of a Soviet naval officer was deeply ingrained on his mind.

As he tried to order his thoughts, the approaching IRA security party drew his attention.

He started into his concealment routine, safe in the knowledge that the
men never deviated from their patrol path, probably because of the deep snow but, O’Farrell thought with a professional contempt,
‘they’re just playing at the fucking soldier game.’

It proved so again
, and thirty minutes later he was back at the main road. A handset had been attached to the phone line that ran overhead and O’Farrell composed himself and his cryptic message as he pulled it from its hiding place.

Two hours
later, acting on aa anonymous tip off, a police patrol caught a burglar in the act of stealing petrol from a shed in Aughalasheen and, in view of his attempts to resist arrest, as well as identifying him as a well-known criminal, transported the bleeding and insensible man to a holding cell at the Garda station in Walshe Street, Ballina.

The Inspector in charge of the patrol had been briefed on the need to get O
’Farrell to the station and had initiated the beating to provide reason for the journey.

He would apologise
that it got out of hand when the circumstances permitted but, none the less, he grudgingly respected the man, whoever he was, as did those others of his patrol that presently had their own appointments with the Police Doctor at Ballina, because of injuries sustained in the apprehension of Thomas O'Farrell.

The arrest, some might call it brawl, had been witnessed by one Noel Connolly, a young man for whom the pleasures of the straipach
, the local whore, held no charm. He took his pleasures in the arms of an even younger farmhand in Aughalasheen.

On his return to Glenlara, Connolly mentioned the arrest, if only to boast how the unfortunate burglar had bested five beefy Garda before being felled by a blow from behind.

Brown, secretly back in the main camp for the evening, promised himself to find out what the Garda were doing in the area in the first place, and then went back to his quiet but animated discussion with Reynolds.