Tin Sky by Ben Pastor Read Free Book Online Page A

thought you’d have gone to see her already.”
    “I haven’t.”
    “What are you waiting for? For the front to turn again?”
    “It was a long relationship, Bruno. I’m in two minds about it.”
    “Well, this is probably the last chance you have. A year ago things were different, but now… If it matters to you, you’d better make time to see her.”
    Recalling the conversation, Bora sped as much as the road allowed. Yes, he’d have to go and see Larisa. He promised himself he’d do it. At Stalingrad, towards the end, he’d told himself, full of regret, I’ll die without seeing her again . Now he resisted again. If there’s time, I’ll go.
    Not that Lattmann would be sending couriers or urgent messages about private matters. When Bora reached Borovoye, just before noon, he found a small radio shack newly set up there, and his Abwehr colleague pacing back and forth in front of it.
    The first words Lattmann said were, “Fucking hell, Bora, I’ve been chasing you all morning!”
    “I’ve been busy all morning.”
    “Drop everything . We’ve got a top-ranking Russian commander who waded over this morning from across the Donets. News came in via radio, coded and in Morse. Seems he contacted us beforehand on our radio frequency to keep us from shooting at him. Says he’s defecting.”
    “Really.” After Platonov, Bora wasn’t looking for another disappointment. “Are we sure?”
    Lattmann took him by the arm and led him out of the shack, away from the radio man. “Listen to this. He asks specifically for the head of our Office of Foreign Intelligence III.”
    “Specifically?”
    “By name. And rank. It’s possible he might know about Colonel Bentivegni, you’ll say. Well, he also speaks serviceable German, and seems to know lots about us.”
    Us meant Counterintelligence to those in it. German-speaking Russian officers were not infrequent; the generation before Bora’s had learnt Russian while training secretly in the Soviet Union during the Weimar days, and vice versa. Bora remained cautious.
    “Does he. Hm. And who does he say he is?”
    “ He says he’s Tibyetsky.”
    Bora felt a nervous sting down to his fingertips, like an electric shock. “The ‘Tibetan’? The one they call Khan?”
    “Right.”
    “Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, we had him facing us in Stalingrad. He’s into all of STAVKA’s planning. Can it be…? It’d be the lucky break of the year!”
    Lattmann grinned. “You’re the interrogator; you be the judge. He came rumbling up in a brand-new model of tank the Panzer Corps will drool over. Big stuff. Scherer, whom you know, was called in for armoured support in case it were a trick, and cordoned off the place.”
    Other than Konev and Rokossovsky, Khan was the prize catch of a lifetime, never mind the year. To hell with Platonov and his convenient swoons. Bora could hardly contain himself. Tibyetsky was as elusive as his assumed name. (Like other old revolutionaries, he had two or three aliases.) Bora had studied him as far back as Cavalry School and the War Academy, and what Khan had later achieved at Stalingrad, at Smolensk, was legendary. Hero of the Soviet Union, awarded the Red and Gold Stars, and God knows what other medals… All hope of taking him prisoner had been out of the question. How likely was it that he should defect – and now? If I think how he thundered over the loudspeakers while we were spitting blood in Stalingrad so we’d surrender, if I think he bowled us over just four months ago …
    “Bruno, when can I see him?”
    Without being asked, Lattmann placed a jerrycan of gasoline in the back of Bora’s vehicle. He habitually chewed his nails, and his fingertips always gave the impression of having been nibbled by fish.
    “Go at once. Scherer is anxious for you to get there. The Russian is still inside his tank and won’t get down until we assure him an official contact will be made with Bentivegni in Berlin-Zossen. So I checked with our Kiev