Kirov Saga Men of War - By John Schettler Page 0,106

from his gaze and huddling deeper. “Anya Kanina?” he said jubilantly.

“Leave her alone,” an old gray haired crone put her scrawny arms about the woman protectively. “Hasn’t she suffered enough? Tell the Commissar to find someone else this time, the bastard. Yes! Shoot me if you wish, but you’ll not hurt this poor girl again. You’ll have to drag my dead bones out of here first. Leave her alone!”

Orlov felt a surge of anger when he heard the woman speak. The Commissar…That bastard Molla! Sookinsyn! He turned abruptly, eyes set, jaw tight, his hand stiff in his NKVD jacket pocket. Then he strode away towards the old warehouse where the men were sorting through a supply cache, a dark light in his eyes.

“You! What are you doing?” The stranger’s voice was sharp and demanding. There were six men in dark trench coats and black Ushankas, their PPS submachine guns hanging from their broad shoulders on thin leather straps.

“Commissar Molla?” Orlov got right to the heart of the matter.

“Who wants to know?”

Orlov stepped up to the group, his heart still pounding, his excitement in finding his grandmother now a barely controlled anger in his chest. “Orders for the Commissar,” he said, eying the men with a frown.

“I’ll take them.”

Orlov saw the woven gold and white on red felt of an NKVD officer’s badge on the man’s sleeve, a colonel from the insignia on his hat, and the man was looking him over from head to foot.

“You are Commissar Molla?” Orlov’s finger moved to the trigger of the pistol in his jacket pocket, and two of the other men now seemed tensely alert. He knew if he fired and killed this man he was a dead man himself, but he did not care.

“Molla is down the road. If you have orders for him, give them to me. I’ll see that he gets them.”

Orlov shook his head. “Sorry comrade Colonel, I was told to speak directly to the Commissar. Where is he, please?”

The colonel did not like that. He was a man accustomed to seeing other men do exactly what he told them, and without any lip or hesitation. He was, as the fat man in the red brick building had hinted, one of Beria’s men. Lavrentiy Beria was the notorious head of the state security apparatus, and he had some very vile habits that often saw him send men out to sweep the villages for young pretty women, particularly when he was near his old homeland in the Caucasus as he was now. The colonel put his hands on his hips and squared off to Orlov, anger evident on his face.

“Did you hear me, Captain?”

Orlov noted the leather straps crossed on the man’s chest, the prominent collar boards, thick black belt with a gold star in a square buckle, flared pant legs above black leather boots. Another damn officer, he thought, his hand tightening on the revolver.

* * *

Haselden squinted through his field glasses and saw the group of NKVD men taking to another tall man, and something did not seem right to his well trained eye. The group was tense, one man in the back was pointing a sleek submachine gun at the newcomer. Something was wrong here. He peered through the glasses, adjusting the focus and thinking that this might be their man. He stood a head above the others, and his uniform was different. Clearly he was not like the other NKVD men they had been watching near the warehouse from their well concealed cover blind.

“Damn, Sutherland. Have a look at this. Could that be our man?”

Sutherland took the field glasses, careful to note the sun so the lenses would not catch the light. He took a long look and sighed. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. “He’s too far away to get a good look at him.”

“But the whole scene looks suspicious. Looks like trouble.”

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a church bell ringing out a warning in the town. Sutherland pivoted slightly, re-focusing on the distant river to the west. “Well, well, well… Looks like we’ve got company.”

Even as they finished they heard the distant, mournful mutter of machine gun fire, and then the high whistling fall of an incoming round. There was an explosion near the river, a little south of the main town site, then another and another.

Haselden knew the sound of those rounds. They were coming in from an 8-cm schwere Granatwerfer 34 German mortar. The weapon earned