Kirov Saga Men of War - By John Schettler Page 0,96

handy, Mister Sutherland. Now, we’ve got much better maps to give you, but on this one you’ll cross about here…at this point, getting round the Chechen Island and this spit of land here and coming ashore somewhere in this area. From there you can pick up the old dirt road, if it’s still there, and it should lead you right into Kizlyar. It’s a distance of about sixty-five kilometers, as the crow flies, and I’m afraid that unless you can round up a stray camel or find yourselves a working truck, it will have to be taken on foot. That I’ll leave to you gentlemen to sort out, but a week from today I want you on the target. September 30th. No later.”

“With packs, weapons and supplies we’ll make no more than four kilometers per hour on foot,” said Haselden. “That’s either one long day, or two days with more rest.”

“Plenty of time, gentlemen. We’ll have you in Tehran tomorrow, the 25th. We now think there’s a strong possibility that he’s given these men the slip. We picked up a report from a man in Poti. Three NKVD men were found dead there. That’s where this bit about Kizlyar comes in. The man may be trying to reach his family there, or so we now are led to believe, his grandmother. His best bet would be to travel by train to Baku and then up the Caspian coast. Trying to find him on that route would be a long shot, so we decided to settle on Kizlyar as the target. I’m afraid that’s all we can tell you. Any questions?”

“Supposing we find this man, sir—”

“There will be no supposition in the matter, Lieutenant Haselden. I picked you because I want the man found. Period.”

“Very well, sir.” Haselden stood a bit taller. “What’s our route home with the prisoner?”

“The same way you came in. Get him east to the coast any way you can. If you have to commandeer a vehicle, all the better. We’ll have some help waiting there for you, and then you cross the Caspian again to Fort Shevchenko. Easy as pie. Here is your target, gentlemen: a man named Gennadi Orlov. Have a good look at those photos taken of the man when we had him under the Rock, and note the description. He’s a big fellow, not hard to pick out in a crowd I’d imagine. He may be traveling with an older woman, so keep that in mind. This man is most likely NKVD, but those three dead men in Poti lead us to suspect he may be a rogue agent. That said, the NKVD will certainly be looking for him as well, and there may be a cadre there you’ll have to deal with. The Russians are our allies, but your Lend-Lease cover will take you only so far in this matter. Don’t rely on it. Remember you are British serving officers and the Queen’s strong right arm if things get difficult, and act accordingly. But we want this man Orlov, and very badly.”

“Very good, sir,” said Sutherland. “We’ll handle the NKVD.”

“We’ll call the whole operation Escapade. Appropriate enough, eh? Ah… One other small detail,” said Fleming, lighting another cigarette. “The Germans have been going at it like bats out of hell. You may just get there and find you have some unexpected company. Not much, just the whole bloody 16th Motorized Division.”

He exhaled, looking the men over and smiling.

Chapter 24

Kizlyar was a small hamlet on the borders of the newly declared Chechen state in 1942. The old town there was once called Samandar, an ancient site first established by the Huns, and known for its good wines and spirits that were still produced there, and for the making of knives, daggers and the curved sabers the Cossacks made famous in their rampage across the steppe lands. The vineyards outside the town would at least give them some means of cover and concealment.

That was all Haselden and his men could learn about the place from the Escapade briefing file as they made the long flight north. At Tehran they boarded an old British Mk IV Avro Anson, a stubby twin engine plane that was now mostly used as a trainer for bomber squadrons. A few of the old planes had found their way into Iran when the Allies invaded there a year earlier, and now they served for short run operations like this, their two Wright Whirlwind engines giving the plane just enough range