“Pe-2? A dive fighter? The Russians originally designed it as a high-altitude fighter, then converted it to a bomber, but it still had pretty good speed. Point out the course, and we'll take him down.”
“It's coming to us itself, commander!" answered Gönsler in a puzzled voice, "The distance is a kilometer.”
“I see it!” The Russian plane was already quite distinguishable in the night sight, “right, Pe-2. It's going too boldly.”
Oberleutnant Becker was an experienced pilot, and he did not suffer from overconfidence. He remembered how strangely the crew of the downed bomber had behaved, having somehow learned of the danger before his Dornier had even opened fire. The German pilot drew conclusions. Becker decided that the Russians also had some kind of radar, but a very imperfect one that did not allow to accurately determine the direction of the target. So he simply changed course to attack the Pe-2 from the side.
“The Russian turned too!” immediately shouted out the flight mechanic. “The distance is 400 meters!”
“Take it easy, Willie,” Becker replied in a steady voice, though he himself was no longer confident.
“300 meters!”
Flashes flickered ahead. The tracer flashes passed close to the pilot's cockpit. Becker heard a sharp popping sound that no experienced pilot would ever confuse – the sound of bullets piercing the hull of the airplane.
The flight mechanic shrieked. The neon lights of the radar equipment blinked and went out. The right engine stalled and immediately burst into flames, and the Russian gunner's merciless bursts continued to pound the hull and cockpit of the plane. Not a single bullet has, by some miracle, hit Becker yet. Oberleutnant glanced at the flight mechanic. Willie was dead, there was no doubt about it, and the battered Dornier was losing control with every second.
“Crew, get off the plane!” Becker ordered himself.
The cockpit canopy flew off into the darkness; it was knocked out by the triggered squib. With an unbelievable effort the Oberleutnant managed to flip the burning Dornier, and he simply fell out of the cockpit, into the air, scalding cold at this altitude.
“I wonder who's down there,” thought Becker, swinging under the parachute canopy. He absolutely did not want to fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks.
An airborne radar, and even with a night sight and an infrared searchlight in addition! Why didn't I know about this? Probably because it is simply impossible to keep track of everything. The Germans just got their radar up to working order. This "Lichtenstein" has not even gone into production yet, and here it is, near Kiev, instead of protecting the capital of the Reich from raids by the British.
The Germans knew! They were waiting for us and getting ready, and I failed to calculate their plans, and it cost the Red Army's already depleted long-range aviation new losses. Five heavy long-range bombers in exchange for three German Dorniers. Two more got away – I just didn't have time to get to them…
“Comrade Senior Major of State Security, mission accomplished. Bomb strikes on enemy headquarters, communication centers and key infrastructure were carried out. The air group's losses were three TB-7s and two Yer-2s. Three enemy night fighters, provided with the latest equipment, enabling them to attack our planes without being illuminated by searchlights and without commands from the ground, are destroyed.”
“Five long-range bombers?” It was dark, but I noticed the change in Sudoplatov's expression. “You lost half the unique aircraft entrusted to you and you report a successful mission?”
“Mission accomplished, comrade…”
“Silence! Senior Lieutenant of State Security Nagulin, you're under arrest! Surrender your weapons.”
Chapter 4
“Comrade People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, your order has been carried out. Senior Lieutenant Nagulin was arrested by me personally right at the airfield and taken to Moscow.”
“Very well,” nodded Beria, looking intently at Sudoplatov. “Come in, Pavel Anatolievich, have a seat. I see you have questions about this case, and I'm ready to answer them.”
“Actually, I only have one question,” Sudoplatov shrugged and sat down in a chair at the conference table. “Why?”
“He is dangerous,” Beria answered briefly, and the Senior Major did not like the expression on his face.
“I absolutely agree with you, Lavrentiy Pavlovich,” replied Sudoplatov, who was not so easily embarrassed, “He is extremely dangerous. To our enemies.”
“Now, yes, but this is now. I look at the situation from a broader perspective and from a different angle. At the moment, the Soviet Union and Citizen Nagulin have a common enemy, and as long as that is the case, he acts as our ally, but he is a stranger here, Pavel Anatolievich. Think about it. You, me, and all of our comrades are Soviet people who grew up, were educated, and had careers in the USSR. Yes, the older generation remembers Czarist Russia, but that was a long time ago. Since then, the very idea of life has changed, new values have been formed, and we are waging a merciless war against the enemy for those values. Nagulin is a stranger here. Our system, all the achievements of the Revolution, are just words to him, behind which there is nothing.”
“That does not mean that he is an enemy,” Sudoplatov disagreed.
“It doesn't,” nodded Beria, “But all my experience tells me that he is fighting not for the Soviet Union, not for comrade Stalin, not even for Russia. Nagulin is pursuing some goals that only he knows, and for him we are all just a means to achieve them.”
“Aren't you being too hard on him, Lavrentiy Pavlovich?” cautiously objected Sudoplatov, but it was obvious that the words of the Commissar of Internal Affairs made him think, “His contribution to the struggle with the enemy…”
“I know,” Beria stopped his subordinate, “if it weren't for that, he would have been felling wood somewhere beyond the Urals a long time ago, or given a capital punishment – he had behaved very un-Soviet all this time. Given his merits, Nagulin is sitting in quite decent solitary confinement in Lubyanka, and investigators are strictly ordered not to use any coercion on him.”
“So what's next?”
“And that will depend on what happens in the next few days. No matter how you look at it, your Nagulin has killed five heavy long-range bombers, and the result of their actions is not yet quite clear. It's such a mess right now…”
“But the corridor to the surrounded troups was cut through!”
“And what grounds do I have to believe that it was due to Nagulin's actions? This corridor was being cut through by ground troops, and they did cut it. But where did the German night fighters, which were also equipped with the latest radar and night sights, come from? Are you silent, Pavel Anatolievich? And I'll answer. The Germans knew about Nagulin's operation and were preparing an ambush, which cost us great losses in the end. There are only two options here – criminal error or betrayal. And I still have to report to Comrade Stalin about it – long-range aircraft, by the way, were allocated to us under my personal responsibility.”
“Nagulin shot down three fighters himself,” Sudoplatov did not give up; he had the arrest of his subordinate stuck in his throat, but he carried out the order without hesitation.
“I know. Our agents were part of the TB-7 crews, and I received detailed information about the operation while the bombers were still in the air. That's why I gave you the order to arrest Nagulin on a formal, but quite weighty reason. Understand, Pavel Anatolyevich, we do not know the limit of his capabilities.
In this night battle, he again demonstrated abilities that an ordinary man cannot possess. He, unlike the Germans, had no radar, and he tracked enemy fighters as if he had been directed to them by radio, and even in the daytime when the weather was clear! Do you understand what this means? No amount of calculating, analyzing, and forecasting skills would help here. He