Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) by Colin Gee Read Free Book Online Page B

communist sabotage groups, particularly the volatile Italian groups who had been stirred up by rhetoric and promises delivered by recently arrived NKVD agents.
    “ Very well, Comrade Marshal. You may commence Italian operations and the limited attacks as outlined in your Plan Red Two.”
    And with that simple statement, the pre-war planning was consigned to the bin and Konev ’s new assault plan was set in motion.
     
     
    As Konev left, a dishevelled civilian stood and accepted the invitation of the still open door; a man the Marshal recognised but could not presently name.
    Two further men followed, one clad in the uniform of the NKVD, the other clearly a Red Navy Admiral, bearing all the hallmarks of an experienced submariner.
    The door closed on the trio and another audience commenced.
    It was not until he seated himself in his staff car, already well warmed for the journey to the airbase, that he recalled the name and, more importantly, the man ’s purpose in life.
    “ Ah, Comrade Kurchatov!”
    “ Sorry, Comrade Marshal?”
    Konev had unwittingly spoken aloud.
    “Nothing, Comrade Driver, nothing at all. Shall we see what this fine Mercedes is capable of?”
    The woman needed no further inducements and the powerful beast surged ahead.
    ‘Comrade Kurchatov... Comrade Director Kurchatov of the Atomic weapons programme.’
    His eyes narrowed.
    ‘Atomic scientists, the NKVD and the Navy... all together... with no Army or Air Force presence.’
    His eyes closed.
    ‘What’s being hatched behind our backs, I wonde...’
    No sooner had the tho ught taken shape than it was expelled as sleep overtook him. The darkness did not relinquish its grip until he was shaken awake at Vnukovo.
     
     
     

    In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it.
    FeldMarschall Erwin Rommel.
     

Chapter 105 - THE SUNDERLAND
 
1005 hrs, Monday, 5th November 1945, airborne over the Western Approaches, approximately 45 miles north-west of St Kilda Island, the Atlantic.
 
    The Sunderland Mk V was a big aircraft, the four American Wasp engines giving her the power previously lacking in the Mk III.
    She was called the Flying Porcupine for very good reason, her hull bristled with defensive machine-guns, fourteen in total, manned by her eleven man crew. Such armament was required for a lumbering leviathan like the Short Sunderland, whose maximum speed, even with the Wasps, was a little over two hundred miles an hour.
    In the German War, e ncounters with enemy fighters had been mercifully rare and, in the main, enemy contacts were solely with the Sunderland’s standard fare; submarines.
    This Mk V also carried depth charges and radar pods, making her a deadly adversary in the never-ending game of hide and seek between aircraft and submersibles.
    NS-X was out on a mission, having flown off from the Castle Archdale base of the RAF ’s 201 Squadron. The men had once been in 246 Squadron but, when that squadron was disbanded, the men of NS-X, all SAAF volunteers, had been one of two complete crews to be transferred to 201 Squadron.
    During World War Two, there had been a secret protocol between the British and Éire governments, which permitted flights over Irish territory though a narrow corridor. It ran westwards from Castle Archdale, Northern Ireland, across Irish sovereign territory and into the Atlantic, extending the operating range of Coastal Command considerably, and bringing more area under the protection of their Liberators, Catalinas, and Sunderlands.
    The agreement was still in force.
    NS-X had followed this route out into the ocean, turning and rounding the Irish mainland, before heading north, past Aran Island and onto its search area around St Kilda.
     
    Fig#73 – Éire, Great Britain, and the Atlantic 1945.
     

     
    A Soviet submarine had been attacked and damaged the previous day, somewhere roughly fifty miles west of Lewis , and the Admiralty were rightly jittery, given the importance of the convoy heading into the area