Sukhov Sergei is an agent of German intelligence in full. German intelligence agent

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Chapter 1
Good luck!

- Sergeant, are you going to the village of Kiyanitsa, by any chance?

The mustachioed driver of the lorry with worn-out sergeant's shoulder straps and wearing a tunic faded almost to whiteness looked at the questioner. A rustic-looking guy of about twenty-one or twenty-two, strong, blue-eyed and cocky-snub-nosed, looked questioningly straight into the sergeant’s eyes. Brand new shoulder straps of a junior lieutenant, an ironed, clean uniform and a skinny duffel bag dangling over his shoulders revealed him as a recent cadet. And if it weren’t for the medal “For Courage” with a half-worn moire ribbon, the junior lieutenant could well be mistaken for a simple-minded recruit who had not smelled gunpowder, who found himself in the front line for the first time.

“Well, I’m on my way,” answered the sergeant.

-Will you pick me up?

- It’s like the major will say...

-Where is he?

“Here he comes,” the sergeant pointed his chin towards a two-story building without a roof, on the ground floor of which there was an evacuation hospital.

The junior lieutenant turned his head and saw a stocky, strong major approaching the lorry.

- Junior Lieutenant Ivashov! – as expected, he began with a snub-nosed shape. - May I address you?

“Please contact me,” the major allowed, looking with interest at the person who approached.

– You’re going to Kiyanitsa... Won’t you take me?

- Sit down! – the major nodded. “But the road there is terrible, it’s all torn up by tanks.” So hold on tight!

“Thank you,” the junior lieutenant smiled and with one jerk threw his trained, light body over the fixed sides of the semi.

Growling, the car started moving. Having settled down on the wooden floor of the body, closer to the cabin, and still bouncing on the bumps and potholes of the once asphalt road, the junior lieutenant began to look around...

The city of Sudzha gradually cooled down from the fighting (four months had already passed since it was recaptured during the Kharkov offensive operation by the forces of the Voronezh Front), and civilian life was gradually improving. We drove past a restored water pumping station, a little away from which there was a brick factory, and from behind the ruins a beer stall could be seen. Further the road lay through the center, which was thoroughly destroyed. Retreating, in nothing less than impotent rage, at the beginning of March forty-three, that is, almost four months ago, the Fritz blew up the buildings of a high school, the district executive committee, the Trinity Church, a creamery and several stone residential buildings. Many houses simply burned down, set on fire by policemen retreating along with the Germans. A pedagogical school, a hospital with a Pasteur station and a sanitary laboratory, a large library, which previously housed a charity home, two pharmacies, a post office, a mill built two hundred years ago, and several dozen residential buildings turned into firebrands and charred skeletons, bearing little resemblance to the former buildings.

We drove past a burnt-out granary warehouse. Near it, people with pots and crumpled pans were busy swarming around, raking away firebrands and ashes in the hope of finding a handful or two of surviving grain under the charred top layer. On a piece of the surviving wall, sticking out like a fang in a toothless senile mouth, hung a lopsided and blackened sign: "st. K. Liebknecht."

And here comes the city park. It rather looked like a neglected, set fire to a landfill with trees growing among piles of garbage. Apparently, there will be no dancing to a brass band for a long time, and in the summer cinema, which has turned into a pile of firebrands, it will not be long before they start showing the film “Volga-Volga”, beloved by the public, again.

The sight that appeared to the eyes of Junior Lieutenant Ivashov was very unsightly and depressing.

Finally we left the city. We passed the settlement adjacent to it, which was also pretty devastated, with several buildings surviving among the ashes. The road began to wind, twice we had to drive around large craters from howitzer shells across the field, where the lorry often skidded, and a couple of times almost got stuck. And only ten kilometers later the road leveled out and ran in a straight line all the way to Yunakovka. There was little traffic coming our way: during the whole journey there was only one Willys and several semi-trucks and three-ton trucks. But in the direction of Kiyanitsa, covered trucks followed one after another. Among them were our three-ton trucks, and powerful American three-axle Studebakers, which, instead of the required two and a half tons, were loaded with all three, or even more, and Dodges, which, instead of three quarters of a ton, were loaded with a full ton, plus they hitched a cannon or a trailer with ammunition weighing one and a half to two tons.

After Yunakovka, the road began to wind again, as if drunk, all the way to the village of Maryino. And then a couple of kilometers - and Kiyanitsa. A village that looked more like a soldier's bivouac than a former volost settlement.

At the entrance to the village there was a checkpoint blocking the road with a striped pillar. A line of several dozen cars lined up towards him. Junior Lieutenant Ivashov did not wait for their lorry to take its place at the entry barrier. He jumped to the ground, stretched his legs and back after almost an hour and a half of bouncing on his butt with a pendulum swing from side to side, thanked the major and sergeant for giving him a lift to the place, and stomped on foot, avoiding canvas-covered trucks.

At the checkpoint he was asked to present documents. Some lanky senior lieutenant from the commandant's company spent a long time reading the military order, and even longer - the military ID, feeling it with his finger, stroking it and looking for something. It’s true that there were secret signs that the document undoubtedly had.

Finally, the starley, with obvious regret, returned the documents to junior lieutenant Ivashov:

- Come on in...

– Can you tell me how to get to the division headquarters? - Yegor Ivashov asked impudently, instead of quickly saying goodbye to the senior lieutenant, before he became attached to anything else, for example, to offering to show the contents of the duffel bag. The military commandant’s office had no right to search officers without sufficient grounds, but to ask them to voluntarily untie their duffel bag - why not? Who dares to refuse?

“Go straight ahead, you will see a two-story building with a turret, this will be the former Leshchinsky palace, and now the division headquarters,” the senior lieutenant answered reluctantly and turned away, indicating that the conversation was over.

The palace tower was probably visible from any point in the village and served as a good landmark. Perhaps this is precisely the reason why it survived.

Ivashov, giving way to Studebakers and three-ton ZISes with plywood cabs, moved on, heading towards the turret. Soon the whole palace appeared, answering this word with great stretch. There are palaces in Moscow, yes! The Palace of Prince Gagarin, for example, or the Slobodskaya Palace, not to mention the Petrovsky Travel Palace. However, for a village, a two-story stone building with seven windows along the facade could not be called anything other than a palace...

1943 Junior Lieutenant Yegor Ivashov was appointed as the operative representative of the counterintelligence SMERSH in one of the units of the Voronezh Front. On the eve of a large-scale offensive by Soviet troops, it is necessary to identify and neutralize the German spy network operating in our rear. But first, Ivashov undertakes to find out the circumstances of the strange death of his predecessor. It is believed that he died due to negligence, but Yegor is sure: this is the work of Abwehr agents. But who are they?.. The young operative begins searching for the enemy, not noticing how with every step the investigation is approaching an unexpected and terrible ending.

The work belongs to the Action genre. It was published in 2017 by Eksmo Publishing House. The book is part of the series "SMERSH - Stalin's special forces." On our website you can download the book "German Intelligence Agent" in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format or read online. The book's rating is 3.33 out of 5. Here, before reading, you can also turn to reviews from readers who are already familiar with the book and find out their opinion. In our partner's online store you can buy and read the book in paper form.

German intelligence agent

Evgeny Evgenievich Sukhov

SMERSH - Stalin's special forces

Evgeniy Sukhov

German intelligence agent

Good luck!

- Sergeant, are you going to the village of Kiyanitsa, by any chance?

“Well, I’m on my way,” answered the sergeant.

-Will you pick me up?

- It’s like the major will say...

-Where is he?

“Here he comes,” the sergeant pointed his chin towards a two-story building without a roof, on the ground floor of which there was an evacuation hospital.

The junior lieutenant turned his head and saw a stocky, strong major approaching the lorry.

- Junior Lieutenant Ivashov! – as expected, he began with a snub-nosed shape. - May I address you?

“Please contact me,” the major allowed, looking with interest at the person who approached.

– You’re going to Kiyanitsa... Won’t you take me?

- Sit down! – the major nodded. “But the road there is terrible, it’s all torn up by tanks.” So hold on tight!

“Thank you,” the junior lieutenant smiled and with one jerk threw his trained, light body over the fixed sides of the semi.

We drove past a burnt grain warehouse. Near it, people with pots and crumpled pans were busy swarming around, raking away firebrands and ashes in the hope of finding a handful or two of surviving grain under the charred top layer. On a piece of the surviving wall, sticking out like a fang in a toothless senile mouth, hung a lopsided and blackened sign: “st. K. Liebknecht."

The sight that appeared to the eyes of Junior Lieutenant Ivashov was very unsightly and depressing.

Finally, the starley, with obvious regret, returned the documents to junior lieutenant Ivashov:

- Come on in...

The palace tower was probably visible from any point in the village and served as a good landmark. Perhaps this is precisely the reason why it survived.

Ivashov,

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giving way to Studebakers and three-ton ZISs with plywood cabs, he moved on, heading towards the turret. Soon the whole palace appeared, answering this word with great stretch. There are palaces in Moscow, yes! The Palace of Prince Gagarin, for example, or the Slobodskaya Palace, not to mention the Petrovsky Travel Palace. However, for a village, a two-story stone building with seven windows along the facade could not be called anything other than a palace...

Junior Lieutenant Ivashov walked to the building along a neglected park alley, respectfully walked around several Willys and a black Emka, climbed the steps to the central porch with peeling columns and, saluting at the motionless sentry, went inside. I asked the duty officer how to find the divisional counterintelligence department.

– Second floor, second and third doors to the right. Yes it is written there...

Yegor thanked him and began to climb to the second floor along the grand staircase, very impressive, with exquisitely elegant pink marble railings, which the officers going down and up it had not noticed for a long time.

Unlike the first floor, where huge halls were preserved, the rooms on the second floor were converted into small rooms. That’s right, after the palace was taken from its owners, a school was set up here, and now the former classrooms housed various services of the 167th Infantry Division.

In the southwestern part of the Kursk Bulge, in particular in the Sumy direction of the Voronezh Front sector, where the 167th Infantry Division was stationed, a protracted operational pause had formed since March. Both sides were concentratedly gaining strength: the Germans and their allies were replenishing their regiments, receiving reinforcements, secretly regrouping, strengthening the line of defense, the Soviet side was receiving regiments that had arrived from the Urals and Siberia, engineering units hastily built and extended communications, and pulled up the rear. Based on the activity on the demarcation line, it was clear that in the coming summer a battle would begin that could radically affect the entire further course of the war. And Yegor Ivashov was very pleased with his appointment to this division right now, when there was a lull at the front: there would be time to figure out what was what and get into the rut...

“Head of R&D SMERSH”

Major Streltsov G.F.”

This sign hung on the third door on the right. Ivashov knocked and, after waiting for permission, opened the door:

- May I come in?

“Come in,” came permission.

- Comrade Major, Junior Lieutenant Ivashov arrived for further service.

- Sit down, Comrade Junior Lieutenant. What is your first name?

- Egor Fomich. Here are my documents.

The head of the SMERSH divisional counterintelligence department, Major Streltsov, accepted from the junior lieutenant’s hands an identity card, a military ID, a temporary certificate of awarding the medal “For Courage” (not awarded in the Kremlin, but on the front line) and several pieces of paper folded in four with translucent seals. He carefully examined all the documents, selected a dark green one with Ivashov’s name and surname pasted on it from a small stack of folders on the table, untied the ribbons and opened it. Yegor, who was mechanically following the major’s actions, was struck by his own photograph, taken when he was a private at the border post near Przemysl, where he was wearing a cotton tunic with field buttonholes and hair that had barely grown back after a clipper haircut.

“I’m Fomich too,” Major Streltsov said slowly, smiling slightly and rearranging the leaves in the folder one by one. “Only their name is Georgiy,” he added. – So, you have completed training courses for operational personnel?

“That’s right,” Ivashov tried to rise from his chair, but was stopped by a gesture from the division’s counterintelligence chief. – Only at first they were called courses, and then they began to be called the SMERSH NGO GUKR school.

– How long did you study there?

- Three months.

– And then they were immediately sent to the active army?

- That's right!

– Was your school near Zhukovsk?

- That's right, Comrade Major.

- It seems that the head of the school was General Golitsyn?

- He's the one.

– What have you heard about him?

– They said that he allegedly served in the counterintelligence of the tsarist army. In any case, he always wore royal orders.

– That’s right... I also had the honor of knowing him. And General Golitsyn not only served in the tsarist army, but was one of the leaders of counterintelligence. Comrade Stalin personally invited him to organize and establish our military counterintelligence on the principle of the tsarist army. He is one of the princes, one of those very same ones, but it doesn’t matter... Because we have one homeland, and it doesn’t matter at all who has what shoulder straps: royal or Soviet.

Georgy Fomich again delved into the contents of the folder. He was about forty years old, it was immediately obvious that he was a serious guy: in his thoughtful gaze, clearly pronounced words and leisurely movements, a certain thoroughness and great professional experience were felt. “It looks like I was lucky with my boss,” Ivashov suddenly thought.

-Did you look around while you were driving?

“Everything is broken, Comrade Major.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Streltsov agreed sadly. “And the Germans left their agents in our rear, and we have to identify them.” I assure you, there will be a lot of work, and, as always, there is not enough staff. Just three days ago, an Abwehr radio operator was identified. Regularly transmitted weather reports to the center... Here’s what, comrade junior lieutenant Ivashov,” returning the documents to Yegor and closing the folder, the major continued in an official tone, “you are sent as a counterintelligence officer of the SMERSH counterintelligence of the State Defense Committee to the 520th Infantry Regiment, stationed in the village of Pushkarevka. This is seven kilometers from us... At your disposal is Sergeant Fedor Denisovich Maslennikov from the control platoon of the first battalion and the former orderly of your predecessor, Private Andrei Zozulya. This is, so to speak, your counterintelligence department of the regiment. Legally, you are in the service of the counterintelligence department of the division and report directly to me, but this does not mean that you are an absolutely independent unit in the regiment. “He looked at the junior lieutenant very seriously. “You should not in the slightest degree oppose yourself to other officers of the regiment, as your predecessor did not so rarely.” The internal regulations of the regiment also apply to you. While in the regiment, you live its life. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for you to fulfill your duties. You know that catching saboteurs and exposing enemy intelligence officers is episodic work, it may happen, or it may not, therefore for ninety percent of your service time your duties will consist - and should consist - in intelligence and operational service of the regiment to which you are assigned . Otherwise, how will you look for traitors and unreliable individuals without an intelligence apparatus? How will you expose self-harmers? How will you find out who in your unit breathes what, what connections do the military personnel of your regiment have with the civilian population and what is this population like? After all, the enemy very willingly uses civilians to penetrate the military environment... Everything or almost everything you should know,

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found out through agents and informants. And you will have almost none of them if you withdraw from the general life of the regiment... Here is my advice, be friendly, approachable, and people will appreciate it.

Major Streltsov again looked carefully at the junior lieutenant and, seeing understanding in his eyes, fell silent. In the end, everything that he says and can still say, counterintelligence operative Yegor Fomich Ivashov, as a graduate of the SMERSH course, knows himself...

“Please resolve the question, Comrade Major,” the junior lieutenant asked unexpectedly.

- Ask.

– And my predecessor... Was he killed?

“Senior Lieutenant Vasily Ivanovich Khromchenko died under unclear circumstances,” Streltsov answered, frowning slightly.

- Excuse me, Comrade Major, but which ones exactly?

The head of the division's counterintelligence department looked with interest at the junior lieutenant:

– I see an operative in front of me... He died from careless handling of weapons. This is what the official version says.

– Was there an unofficial one?

“It was,” the major said reluctantly, “that he shot himself.” But this version was not supported by the investigation.

– When did Khromchenko die?

– Three... Yes, three weeks ago, that is, on the eighth of June. From us, investigator Kozhevnikov went to the scene, a military prosecutor came, and an investigation was carried out into the death of Khromchenko. Everything is as it should be in such cases. The investigation concluded that the death of Senior Lieutenant Khromchenko occurred due to careless handling of weapons.

“This happens,” Ivashov noted.

“It happens, especially in war,” agreed Streltsov. – Are there any other questions? – he asked.

- That's right. How can I get into the regiment, into this village... Pushkarevka?

“Tomorrow, around noon, a messenger with a package will go to the regiment from the division headquarters. On a motorcycle. He will capture you,” Georgy Fomich switched to “you,” “I will give orders.”

- What if it’s today? – asked Yegor.

“And if you want to get into the regiment today, you’ll have to walk on foot,” the major looked approvingly at Ivashov. – You’ll go around the pond, then across the stone bridge – and along the dirt road. Then four and a half kilometers through the forest. When the forest ends, the village of Vakalovshchina will appear. The Germans burned it to the ground, so there’s no mistaking it... From Vakalovshchina to Bitsitsa it’s still a kilometer and a half away... And from there it’s just a stone’s throw from Pushkarevka. There is only one road there, well traveled by tractors, you won’t get lost...

“I understand, Comrade Major,” Ivashov rose from his chair. - May I go?

“Go,” the division’s counterintelligence chief again switched to an official tone. – Now go with your order to the office and the financial unit, get your money and food allowance, and once you’ve received your order, good luck!

On the brink of death

Having rounded the swampy pond along the banks, Ivashov looked back. From this place, in comparison with the neighboring buildings, the division headquarters looked like a real palace, and the park laid out around it, albeit unkempt, unkempt, with overgrown paths, gave the two-story building a certain significance and even majesty.

He crossed an ancient stone bridge and stepped onto a clay dirt road, which justified the name of the road by its name alone. In fact, it was a continuous puddle that never dried out, which we had to walk around through tall, dusty grass. Not far away, a pine forest rose like ship masts, and a more or less tolerable road began only when Yegor entered the beginning of the copse.

The junior lieutenant had very different thoughts.

How will it be in the new place? How will his relationships with people develop? After all, SMERSH detectives are the direct successors of military counterintelligence officers of the Special Departments of the NKVD. But the army did not like the “special officers”, they treated them with caution and preferred to bypass them...

And one more thing: where to start working in the regiment?

No, Yegor Ivashov knew perfectly well what to do and how. He was taught this in courses. And there was sufficient practical experience - service in the NKVD border troops involved performing similar tasks: fighting spies, saboteurs, police and bandit formations and their destruction. True, other people identified them, and he, at first a private, and at the end of the forty-second year already sergeant Ivashov, only carried out the orders of the commanders.

Now you will have to organize everything yourself: identify, order, and carry out operational activities...

The copse soon darkened, and then completely degenerated into a real dense forest. The day was approaching sunset, and the sun's rays no longer made their way through the trees, illuminating the road.

Yegor quickened his pace in order to arrive at the regiment's location before dark. He had already walked more than half the way to Vakalovshchyna when he saw in a roadside bush a German half-track armored personnel carrier "Hanomag" with a broken caterpillar and an armored hull smoked from smoke. Apparently, the armored personnel carrier was knocked out by the partisans, and when the Red Army came here, the Hanomag was simply pushed off the road by tractors to the side of the forest, so as not to interfere with traffic. The machine gun was removed from it along with the protective shield, and everything else was left until better times: it doesn’t block the road, and that’s okay. And then it will be melted down.

Yegor walked about a hundred and fifty meters away from the armored personnel carrier when he suddenly felt a vague alarm. With every step, the inexplicable feeling of danger increased, and he was used to listening to it.

Ivashov slowed down and unfastened his holster.

A careful step, still just as careful...

There was an incredible silence, as if cotton wool had been stuffed into my ears: no rustling of leaves in the wind, no squawking of forest birds. And you could hear your own heart beating loudly.

What is this? It seems that a dry twig crunched not far from the roadside bushes. At another time, Yegor would not have heard this sound, but now his heightened hearing would perceive even the distant breath of someone else.

This happened to him when he served on the border...

Muscovite Yegor Ivashov was drafted into the army in October 1940, when he had just turned eighteen. In fact, the conscription age began at nineteen, but those who completed ten years of school were recruited even after reaching the age of eighteen. The conscripts were brought from the commissariat to the station. They lined up on the platform, the political instructor gave a short parting speech, after which they were loaded into freight cars with wooden decks on two floors, and off they went. Someone, probably, in order to somehow cheer themselves up, sang:

The morning is beautiful with gentle light

walls of the ancient Kremlin,

wakes up at dawn

the whole Soviet land.

A chill runs through the door,

The noise on the street is louder.

Good morning, my dear go-oro-od,

Ro-dina's heart is mine!

Egor himself didn’t notice how he began to sing along. Louder and louder:

Boisterous, mighty,

unprotected by anyone, -

my country, Moscow is mine -

you are the most loved!

We drove for a long time. Six days. We made long stops at large stations. Kursk, Kyiv, Vinnitsa... Przemysl. Next came the western border. Such that there is no place further west - Przemysl a year ago was a Polish city...

And then a short soldier’s bath, putting on army uniform, and the barracks of a training battalion awaited them. And a four-month training course that prepared soldiers to guard the Soviet border. Tactics, basics of forensics, combat and physical training,

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shooting, hand-to-hand combat: “Long - stab!” Short - if!”

It was interesting to recognize the tracks. Human, as well as traces of various animals. Yegor did not immediately learn to recognize fake horse and cow tracks from real ones, but one person walked or more, stepping one after another, and it was possible to distinguish: the width of the track, although not much, was still larger than usual, and the track itself was deeper and more compacted. From this depth it was possible to determine whether a person was walking with his face or his back, walking alone or in a group, simply walking with a load or carrying another person on his shoulders. The techniques of scouts and smugglers were very similar, the difference was that the latter did not have operational skills, and therefore were caught almost every day.

It was interesting to learn to walk like a borderline: silently and at the same time quickly. Such movement is fundamentally different from ordinary walking: you need, depending on the situation, to instantly decide where to step from toe to heel, and where from heel to toe, moreover, so that a dry twig does not crunch or a pebble is accidentally touched. Both at night will be heard as if not far away they hit the roofing iron with a stick with all their might. Especially when your hearing is acute. And when you are interested in what you are learning, it always turns out well.

These skills were so useful, first at the border, and then at the front...

Four months later there were exams, taking the oath and distribution to the outposts of the ninety-second border detachment of the NKVD of the USSR in the amount of two and a half thousand people. Five commandant's offices, twenty-one linear outposts along a border length of two hundred and fifteen kilometers.

“I order you to go to guard the State Border of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The task of the outfit: in the dark, observing all means of camouflage, take a place in the “secret” to the right of a separate alder tree...”

“Yes, go to guard the border of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...”

This happened just in the “secret” “to the right of a separate alder tree.”

On one of the spring nights of the forty-first, Private Yegor Ivashov, together with his partner Seryoga Belousov, received an order to go out to guard the state border and lay down in “secret”. This place was in a small bushy ravine, which in winter apparently served as a den for some “toptygin”, and was already familiar far and wide. As well as the site itself, it is worth viewing.

What's good about this "secret"?

And a lot: lie down, look into both eyes and listen to the silence. And she can be mysterious and often beautiful.

What's bad?

There is also a lot: if you move, it’s so slow and in half motion, if you breathe, it’s only at full speed. Don't cough or, God forbid, sneeze. Well, if you suddenly fall asleep while on duty, you may never wake up again. Because in such a situation, as it most often happens: a well-trained enemy from the other side will come from nowhere, skillfully slash the throat with a dagger, and drag the lifeless bodies to his side, which has happened more than once. And then the hostile side will loudly declare to the whole world: “Another border incident has occurred: Soviet border guards have violated the border!” And as confirmation of his words, he will present two frozen corpses of Soviet border guards, killed, they say, while crossing the border of a foreign state. The gain for the enemy side is very obvious: a scandal against the USSR has been provoked, a specific line outpost post has been temporarily depopulated, and genuine Soviet documents are in hand, plus uniforms and weapons. There is something to equip your two spies...

Since the border “secret” is a night outfit, you won’t be able to distinguish much, except perhaps vague human silhouettes against the sky... But you can hear a lot. At such hours, hearing becomes incredibly acute: in the silence of the night it is quite possible to hear the rumble of the carriage wheels of a train along the joints of the rails, passing many kilometers to the place of the border “secret”. During the day, no matter how hard you try, you will not hear the sound of a passing train. Or the barking of dogs, heard for several miles. The sense of smell is also sharpened. In the forest, the air is mixed with herbs and flowers, and any alien smell can be recognized for many tens of meters. Or... Yes, a lot more!..

At the beginning of the second hour, Ivashov saw some dark spot slowly moving towards the “secret”. It seems that Seryoga Belousov also noticed this spot. Both began to peer closely, trying to determine what it was: a person or some kind of animal.

And suddenly a vague alarm made my heart beat faster. Subsequently, already studying at the school for junior command personnel, Yegor more than once asked himself the question: what would have happened if he had not looked back then? And I found only one answer: there would be inevitable death...

This feeling of anxiety made him turn around. And he saw a hand raised right above him with a dully flashing dagger blade. Without realizing his actions, purely mechanically, Yegor turned over on his back, grabbed his hand by the wrist, sharply pulled it to the side and pulled it towards himself. A man in a camouflage robe, silently coming from behind, fell on him, a struggle ensued, as a result of which Yegor managed to pull the intruder’s hands back and press him into the ground.

The second intruder, who continued to walk straight towards the “secret” and did not obey the shout “Stop!”, was shot without thinking twice by his partner Seryoga Belousov. He, while Yegor was sitting astride the intruder, harshly suppressing all his attempts to free himself, flew to a secret tree stump, in the interior of which the phone was hidden, and reported to the outpost about the arrest.

“We’ll send you a replacement now,” they answered into the phone. - In the meantime, escort the detainee to the outpost...

The next morning, Private Ivashov was summoned by the head of the outpost.

“I congratulate you on your arrest,” he said and announced: “A seasoned offender was caught, and now he is confessing.” Border guard Ivashov, you are heading to the city of Kolomy to study at the junior command school. Departure in an hour...

Almost the head of the outpost saved him. Since on June 22 the outpost was completely destroyed. To a single fighter...

The anxiety grew, it was already beating somewhere right under my throat, pulsating along with my heart.

Ivashov took a few more steps, froze in a kind of numb expectation and suddenly threw himself on the ground. Almost immediately, after a few fractions of a second, machine gun fire was heard. Out of the corner of his eye, Yegor noticed a trembling branch of a roadside bush and fired three times in that direction. A muffled scream was heard. Or maybe it seemed like it.

He quickly got up, dodged, and rushed to the bushes, but, of course, there was no one there anymore. The one who shot saw that he missed, and just as silently disappeared. It seems that he also knew how to walk silently... This means that he has a serious school behind him, and such a person, as a rule, leaves no traces. It gets dark quickly in the forest. Another hour and a half - and it will be completely dark. Of course, you can always find some clue. It was not through the air that he flew back to his den. And the fact that his hiding place is somewhere in the forest is that

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there is no doubt about it. But it will take a long time to search. And certainly not today. Soon you'll only see a bald devil in this forest.

But today he, junior lieutenant Ivashov, was again on the verge of death. Like then, in “secret”, near Przemysl... A guardian angel saved me and did not let me perish.

Yegor stomped on, continuing to listen to any sound or rustle. The forest soon began to thin out, large bright clearings announced by their appearance that the forest was about to end. Then the pine trees gave way to open oak forests, and after another fifty meters Yegor suddenly saw a village. More precisely, what was left of it: bare, smoky stone stoves with long-legged pipes in piles of firebrands. One oven, two, four... On a hill stood a stone church without a cross crowning the dome. It stood like some kind of reproach and sadness for what lay around. It seems the church was untouched by the fire. Above the entrance to the former temple there hung a large lopsided sign: “Club”.

This was the same Vakalovshchina that Major Streltsov spoke about to Yegor Ivashov.

The junior lieutenant walked along the country road and counted: eighteen, thirty-four, seventy, one hundred and seventeen... A real cemetery of houses. The entire village was burned to the ground: not a single house survived. And not a single living soul. But once there were more than one hundred and thirty courtyards here, judging by the stoves. On the chimneys, like on ancient cemetery crosses, a crow sat in its mourning attire, lazily glancing sideways at a person passing by.

Junior Lieutenant Ivashov walked a little over a kilometer to Bititsa in less than a quarter of an hour. A battalion of the 465th Infantry Regiment was stationed in the village, and a patrol from the commandant’s platoon double-checked Yegor’s documents.

“It’s restless here, they’re shooting, so be careful,” the commandant’s platoon sergeant major warned as he left the village, returning the documents, looking respectfully at the medal “For Courage” on the junior lieutenant’s chest.

“I know,” Yegor answered without a smile, stuffing the documents into the breast pocket of his tunic.

Not far from Bitsitsa, the village of Pushkarevka appeared, where the 520th Infantry Regiment was billeted - the place of service of the operational commissioner of the SMERSH counterintelligence department, junior lieutenant Yegor Ivashov.

Somehow it will all work out?..

Birthday with "little red"

It was his birthday today. Exactly twenty-nine years ago in the city of Kharkov, a son was born into the family of Privat-Associate Professor of the Kharkov Imperial University Ippolit Vladimirovich Lipsky, who, with the mutual consent of father and mother, was named Victor. Not a great date, of course, but in exactly a year, God willing, he will be in his fourth decade. And this already sounds...

Why not have a holiday for yourself? Not to give himself a gift by sending another enemy to the next world, thereby replenishing the piggy bank of revenge for his father and mother, the only people he loved and whom the Muscovite commissars took away from him?

Owl took the lamp and went into the weapons compartment - that’s what he called the part of the room where the weapons were stored. For some time he was choosing between the MP-40 submachine gun and the Mauser carbine. I chose the MP-40 assault rifle, which the Katsaps nicknamed “Schmeisser.” Of course, if you had to conduct aimed fire over a couple of hundred meters, then you couldn’t find a better Mauser or a Russian Mosin rifle. She, too, stood neatly in a niche compartment next to the Russian PPSh assault rifle and the MG-42 German light machine gun. But Sych decided that it would be better to fire at a convoy, a group of soldiers returning from the hospital (preferably officers), or a mounted NKVD feldjager from the roadside bushes with a Schmeisser. And its rate of fire is high, and for close combat (if anything) there is no better weapon, and it is compact, which means it will be easier to escape pursuit with it.

Owl went light, with one magazine. Thirty-two rounds of ammunition is enough for eight short bursts, and to kill a small group of soldiers, four or five bursts are enough. Just in case, Owl grabbed a bottle of bleach to “clog” the trail for the dog.

He climbed the steps to the hatch and listened: it was quiet. He stretched out his arms, slowly lifted the hatch with a thick layer of turf and moved it to the side. He crawled out into the elderberry thickets, closed the hatch and walked, silently stepping, towards the forest dirt road. He walked for about half a kilometer, then chose thicker thickets and began to wait.

The day was drawing to a close when a young officer appeared on the road in a brand new uniform and with a skinny little bag over his shoulders.

Sych habitually spread out the butt of his machine gun in order to hit more accurately, involuntarily grimaced as he made a slight mistake - a click sounded (hardly audible already a few meters away), chose a sector on the road and took aim. As soon as the officer enters this sector, a short burst of machine gun fire will be heard and it will all be over. After which, completely satisfied with what he had done, he will go back, without coveting either the uniform or the documents of the killed officer - he now has plenty of this stuff, from a variety of civilian clothes to the uniform of an ordinary signalman and an artillery lieutenant colonel. And he has all the military documents - a mosquito won’t ruin his nose, and the certificate of exemption from military service due to injury is completely genuine. If suddenly the commandant or (God forbid) the NKVD military patrol suddenly wants to check whether he really has a wound, or whether the man is criminally evading military service, or, moreover, a deserter, in this case evidence can be presented: a through bullet wound in breast exactly an inch from the right nipple, with damage to the lung and right shoulder blade. That’s why there is a medical report, and marks on the chest and back, which are what happens with such a wound: German surgeons at reconnaissance and sabotage schools are such aces that the incisions they made on the chest and back are absolutely indistinguishable from a real through wound...

A few more steps, and the young officer will find himself in the desired sector of the road. And then Sych will pull the trigger...

But the officer - now it was clear that he had the rank of junior lieutenant - for some reason slowed down the pace of movement. He walks almost stealthily and as if listening to something. Did he really hear that click when Sych was unfolding the butt of his machine gun? No, it can't be like that.

Here the junior lieutenant takes a step, then a second, and falls into the firing sector. Suddenly, for some reason, he freezes, and then unexpectedly, a split second before the machine-gun bullets pierce him, he falls onto the road. Sych heard three shots in response from a revolver. And he also heard his own scream, which he managed to muffle: it was one of the junior lieutenant’s shots that reached the target. The bullet ripped open his cheek and pierced one of the pine trees behind him.

The owl turned sharply and, clutching the wound with his palm, ran on his toes towards the dugout, trying not to make noise and not leave marks. With his back he felt that the young officer did not see him and was not pursuing him, but still he did not slow down until he reached the elderberry thicket. Here he knelt down, crawled into the bushes, pushed back the manhole hatch and went down into the dugout. Carefully closing the hatch behind him, he walked to the small window, closed it with special shutters, lit a kerosene lamp and, looking in the mirror, treated the wound on his cheek with alcohol and covered it up

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paraffin, and then applied a gauze bandage.

All actions were performed mechanically, “automatically.” When Sych finished with the wound, the ability to think soberly returned. And the first thought was this: “But the head of the army twenty-sixth Abwehrgruppe, Captain Michelevsky, leaving me in the front line of the Bolsheviks, warned me not to stick my head out again. But no, I'm screwed! I wanted to give myself a birthday present..."

“Well, then get a present,” Owl said out loud, looking at the bloody stain on the gauze bandage in the mirror with a wry smile. - With the red one! But it could have been much worse if the junior lieutenant had been a little more accurate. No other way than he was born for the second time!

Owl got up, went to the “food compartment”, where food was stored, which should have lasted him for at least six months if used correctly, brought a bottle of Kirschwasser, poured a full glass and, wishing himself “all the best,” drank. Then he went into another, smaller room, which he called the “bedroom,” and collapsed on a wooden trestle bed.

Ippolit Vladimirovich Lipsky was arrested in thirty-three. He was accused of having connections with the UVO - a nationalist counter-revolutionary rebel organization - with the aim of creating a Ukrainian bourgeois-democratic republic. Ippolit Vladimirovich was also charged with preparing attempts on the life of the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Bolsheviks of Ukraine, Comrade Postyshev, and the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, Comrade Balitsky. The NKVD authorities of Ukraine recalled to him, who graduated from the Nikolaev Engineering Institute, that he served as a military engineer with the rank of captain in the tsarist army, and that he was married to a Polish countess. After a short trial by the judicial “troika” at the board of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR with the right to extrajudicial consideration of cases, Professor Lipsky was sentenced to capital punishment. The next day, after the verdict was pronounced, Ippolit Vladimirovich was shot.

His wife, Justyna Kazimirovna Lipskaya, born Countess Bobrovskaya from the Galician gentry, was in turn accused of aiding the spy-terrorist group of the Polish Military Organization and, by decision of the judicial “troika,” was sent to a political prison in Verkhneuralsk for three years. After this period, she was ordered to go to a settlement in Alma-Ata. But she didn’t get there: she was taken off the train and, by decision of the GPU troika, received a new sentence - five years in forced labor camps in Magadan.

A year later she died...

So young Viktor Lipsky was left alone. Immediately after the arrest, Victor’s father, as the son of an enemy of the people, was expelled from the Komsomol and expelled from the second year of Kharkov State University. And on the third day after the execution of his father, a woman came to the Lipskys’ apartment with a house register and, introducing herself as an “authorizer,” read out an order to evict Viktor Ippolitovich Lipsky from the apartment.

-Where will I live? – Victor asked.

“Wherever you want,” answered the “authorized” and defiantly slammed the house book shut. - I'm not interested in this. You can go to your relatives.

Victor’s grandmother, his father’s mother, lived in Poltava, and Victor went to see her. She accepted it with tears and sank deeply. There, Victor got a job as a loader in a factory that made thermometers and hourglasses. He was unsociable, didn’t like people, had no friends, and after his grandmother’s death in 1940 (the old woman missed her son too much, so her health gave out) he lived alone, which didn’t bother him at all.

One day a girl he knew from the factory told him:

– You are alone and alone all the time. But loneliness ultimately leads to personality degradation.

“I’m not sure,” Victor muttered in response. And he didn’t say anything else, although this girl seemed to like him...

And he liked being alone. And first of all, because he belongs entirely to himself and has the right to manage his time at his own discretion. Thus, in the form of a stream of sand, it flows at first slowly, and then faster and faster, from the upper flask into the lower one in the sand clock.

Victor had the opportunity to read books and think about what he read, and about everything else that surrounded him. He was by no means degenerating, as a girl he knew tried to assure him; on the contrary, he was developing, albeit in the direction in which he himself wanted. Thanks to solitude and reflection, he stopped committing rash acts and began to grow wiser, much faster than his peers, who were never alone with themselves. And Victor was tired of people. Mentally and physically. I didn’t like the crowd, in which I felt like a complete stranger.

The day after the start of the war, general mobilization was announced. It did not affect the son of an enemy of the people, and Viktor Lipsky continued to work at the factory.

At dawn on September 18, 1941, German planes appeared over Poltava. The southern part of the city, where the Red Army troops were grouped, was almost completely destroyed, along with the thermometer factory and the oil depot, which shot up into the sky in a black column of smoke.

After the bombing of the city, the Germans began to attack from Kyiv. All day long the approaching sounds of gunfire could be heard in the city.

At five o'clock in the afternoon there was another bombing of the city. After which a new offensive of German units began, rushing to the left bank of the Vorskla River. In the evening, the southern part of the city was taken by German troops. And by nightfall - all of Poltava. The city was in flames in many places, and it was as bright as day.

The Germans put out the fires for two days, and on the third day of occupation they began to establish a new order. Poltava was included in the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine", which was officially announced on the quickly restored radio and printed in leaflets posted throughout the city.

A curfew was established, preventing citizens from moving around the city without permits.

At the end of September, the commandant's office and the city government, headed by the burgomaster and the mayor, appeared and started working. The commandant's office has departments: organizational, economic, food, technical, financial, medical and sanitary. A cultural department also appeared, which was in charge of registry offices, open schools and two new gymnasiums for girls and boys, cinemas, theaters, churches, two of which, Preobrazhenskaya and Sampsonievskaya, had already opened. The administration was also in charge of the auxiliary police, among whose employees suddenly there were many Ingush and Chechens. Naturally, the city government had nothing to do with the local field gendarmerie.

There were also bazaars and flea markets in almost every square of the city and a “push” on Basseynaya Street. Suddenly there were a lot of girls in embroidered shirts, which had not been particularly observed before. A German swastika was painted over the pedestal of the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” at the central entrance to Korpusny Park. And an order was issued on behalf of the commandant’s office and the city government that all citizens of the city of Poltava must report to their previous places of work and engage in their usual professions. District labor exchanges were created for those who had lost their jobs, and I came to one of them late.

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in the fall of forty-one Viktor Lipsky.

At the newspaper stand near the stock exchange, where just a couple of months ago the newspapers Pravda, Izvestia and the local newspaper Bolshevik Poltavashchiny were displayed, half of the stand now featured a large poster, on which in the center a peasant family was depicted: a man in a cap, with with a scythe on his shoulder, and his young wife in a headscarf, with a rake and a little girl in her arms. The whole trio smiled happily. Behind them stood three German soldiers with machine guns, as if guarding the happiness of this Ukrainian family. Above the soldiers it was written:

They have freed you and are protecting you.

And at the very bottom of the poster, exactly under the happy family, in large letters it was written:

Your gratitude is your work.

The second half of the stand was called “Satire Board”. There was also a poster on it, only with the image of Stalin. He was two-faced. On one side of him stood a thick-lipped, black-bellied man with a hooked nose, to whom Stalin poured handfuls of wads of money, on the other, a collective farmer in trousers and a tattered shirt, to whom Stalin showed the fig.

Below the picture was a poem:

The secret of communism is simple:

some are “on” and some are “no”.

The Jew is making profit,

and the people are just shush.

Yankel counts the money

and the collective farmer is starving.

That's how we do it

Stalin for a long time.

Several people stood at the stand and shook their heads with concern:

- Adje is true.

Victor pushed the door of the exchange and went inside. There were not exactly a lot of people, but there were quite enough people. Above the heads of Poltava residents who came to the stock exchange, almost right up to the ceiling, hung a red banner with the maxim written in white paint:

By fighting and working together with Germany, you will create a happy future for yourself.

We had to wait a long time, over two hours. Finally, it was Viktor Lipsky’s turn.

- Next! - came from behind the door.

He opened the door of a small office and entered:

- Good afternoon.

“Good,” answered the woman who previously worked in the executive committee of the Poltava City Council. She was sitting at the table like a proprietor, and in the corner there was an inconspicuous man modestly sitting on a chair, who, at first glance, was not at all interested in what was happening, but in fact, as it turned out later, he noticed everything and heard everything.

- Your name? – the woman asked, getting ready to fill out the stock card.

- Viktor Ippolitovich Lipsky.

– Nationality?

- Ukrainian.

- Married, single?

- Single.

– Who are your parents?

“Father: Ippolit Vladimirovich Lipsky,” Victor began. - Professor. Shot in nineteen thirty-three for connections with the Ukrainian military organization...

The woman glanced briefly at the inconspicuous man who was pretending to look out the window.

– Why was your mother convicted? – the woman looked again towards the inconspicuous person.

– She was accused of aiding the spy-terrorist group of the Polish Military Organization.

– How was it really?

- Don't know. I didn't notice anything like that...

- Any brothers or sisters? – the former employee of the Poltava City Council asked in a businesslike manner.

– Do you have any relatives? And where do they live?

- There was only grandma. Lived here in Poltava. She died a year ago, in the forties...

– What is your education?

– I graduated from high school and was in my second year at Kharkov State University. And then I was expelled from the university as the son of an enemy of the people,” Victor answered.

- Komsomol member?

- He was a Komsomol member. Expelled in 1933 for the same reason.

– What can you do well? – followed by a new question.

“I once played the piano quite well,” Victor chuckled faintly. – Even at one time I wanted to become a musician. But hardly anyone is interested in this now.

– What was your last place of work and specialty?

– Where else will they take the son of an enemy of the people? He worked as a loader at a thermometer factory... It was bombed. And now I need a job...

“Please, put the fifth category on Mr. Lipsky’s exchange card and a stamp about his reservation in road construction column number twenty-seven, military unit “two zero two hundred and twenty,” the inconspicuous man rose from his seat.

“Okay, Alexander Feofilaktovich,” the woman nodded.

“And I’ll ask you to follow me,” the man suggested to Victor. – If you don’t mind, of course...

Victor shrugged his shoulders and followed the inconspicuous Alexander Feofilaktovich out of the office.

They didn’t walk long, to house number forty-three on Pushkinskaya, where between the first and second floors there was a lopsided sign: “ZAGOTZERNO.” Alexander Feofilaktovich called three times. The door was opened by a round-faced woman of about thirty.

- Zoya, is the major at home?

- At home. “It works,” she answered, making way for him.

“Come in,” Alexander Feofilaktovich let Victor pass ahead of him.

Lipsky entered the institution and saw a large hallway in which about a dozen men of different ages were crowded. One by one they entered the door on which was written “Planning Department”. And they didn't go out again. Victor knew one guy with a boxing hairstyle: it was electrician Nikolai Makarov, who had come more than once to fix the old pre-revolutionary wiring in his grandmother’s house. Victor’s grandmother called him Kolya and for his work she always treated him to a glass of homemade cherry liqueur, which he was incredibly happy about.

“Let’s not let you and I “shine” here,” said Alexander Feofilaktovich, and they went into some kind of utility room overlooking the courtyard.

Looking out the window, Lipsky saw Nikolai Makarov walking through it. That’s right, having been in the room with the sign “Planning Department”, he left the house through the back door.

Alexander Feofilaktovich took out of his pocket a green pack of German cigarettes with the number “5” in the middle and offered to Victor:

“I don’t smoke,” he refused.

“Well, that’s right,” said Alexander Feofilaktovich. “Why don’t you ask who we are, why they brought you here?” – he looked at Victor with curiosity, striking his lighter.

“Then you’ll tell everything yourself soon,” Victor said reasonably.

To which Lipsky did not answer.

They sat in the back room for an hour and a half, until the hallway was completely empty.

“Well, now it’s our turn,” Alexander Feofilaktovich stood up. - Follow me.

They walked through the hallway and entered a spacious room where the planning department of the Zagotzerno office had once been located. There were three people sitting in the room who looked at Victor carefully: a young dark-skinned, strongly built Georgian with a black mustache, a man of about thirty-five in good civilian clothes and with the bearing of a military man, and also a gray-haired man of about fifty in the uniform of a German officer with the buttonholes of a second lieutenant of the Separate Russian Corps on a turn-down collar

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the uniform and shoulder straps of a White Army major on his shoulders.

“Well, hello, red feather,” the Georgian abruptly rose from his chair. “Finally...” He walked around Victor and smiled wryly: “What, gotcha?” Well, tell me, how many good people did you shoot when you served in the Enkaveda? – And, approaching Lipsky closely, he took a pistol out of his holster.

“I never served in the Enkaveda,” Victor said, trying to be calm.

- Didn’t serve? – the Georgian grinned again. - We have evidence against you. - He went up to the table and took a sheet of paper from it, which, however, he did not show to Victor, but only shook it: - Here they are! Now you can't get away! Who instructed you to infiltrate our organization? Name, safe house address, password! Speak!

Victor stared blankly at the Georgian:

- It's not even funny. You are confusing something...

Victor's face and reaction were closely watched by a man with the bearing of a military man and a major with the buttonholes of a second lieutenant. The latter did not take his eyes off Victor’s face at all as soon as he entered the room. He calmed the Georgian down, apparently drawing some conclusions for himself in favor of Lipsky:

- Goto, stop it! Don't you see: the young man has nothing to do with the Enkaveda. By the way, what's your name?

“Victor,” answered Lipsky.

“Tell me a little about yourself, Victor,” the major suggested. And he began to ask questions, approximately the same ones that the woman asked at the labor exchange.

– Do you know why you are here with us? – Having listened to Victor’s answers and seemed to be quite pleased with them, the major asked.

“No,” Lipsky answered.

“We are agent recruiters for German intelligence.” Here, in Poltava, an intelligence and sabotage school is being organized. The agent pre-training department will begin to function in the next few days. The training will take three weeks, after which those who successfully complete the training will become cadets of such a school. I would like to note that from the moment a person agrees to become an agent and this consent is written, he and his family receive food cards. Roman Antonovich is in charge of distributing food to the families of agents,” the major pointed to a man in civilian clothes with a military bearing. – After successfully graduating from school, reconnaissance and sabotage groups are formed, usually two or three people, having received a special task, they are placed at the disposal of the Abwehrkommando, which transfers them to the near or far rear of the Soviet Republic. Agents are paid from three to four thousand rubles a month, their families are fully supported, in addition, for a successfully completed task they receive a bonus of ten thousand rubles or more, depending on how important the task was completed. Remuneration in German marks is possible, it's up to you. During the task, families are told that their relatives are employed in defense work. Let's say, in road construction column number twenty-seven...

“I don’t have a family,” Lipsky noted.

“Perhaps it won’t always be like this,” the major countered Victor’s remark. – I’m telling you this so that you know that the German authorities tirelessly take care of those who sincerely and devotedly serve them... So, we invite you to become such an agent. What do you say to this, Viktor Ippolitovich?

– This is unexpected for me. Can you think? – Lipsky looked at Major.

– What is there to think? – he raised his eyebrows in amazement. – The Bolshevik government took away your father and mother. And you say - think... You are given a chance to get even with the Bolsheviks. Don't you really want to avenge your parents?

“I want to,” Victor answered and suddenly realized that from the very moment he learned about his father’s execution, the thought of revenge was lodged deep in his head. And if she didn’t sharpen his brain every day, it was only because she was waiting for the right moment. And now this moment has come...

– So here it is, this opportunity! – as if having overheard his thoughts, the major exclaimed. – Don’t let her go... I would even say so, grab hold of her, hold her tightly with your teeth, because such a chance may never happen again.

- Fine. “I agree,” Lipsky nodded.

“No, it’s not like that,” the major grimaced at the word “good.” – Your decision must be completely voluntary. Conscious. But it turns out that we persuaded you...

“I ask you to enroll me in the preliminary training department for German intelligence agents, with further transfer to cadets of the reconnaissance and sabotage school,” Victor said firmly and clearly.

- That's a different conversation. “The major removed his elbow from the blue folder, opened it and took out a form printed in Russian. It was a subscription-obligation of voluntary agreement to cooperate with German intelligence. All you had to do was fill in the empty space with your first name, patronymic and last name, put a number and sign. Which is what Viktor Lipsky did.

– Sign another paper... You must not leave Poltava without our permission.

After reading the printed text, Victor wrote a sweeping signature at the bottom.

“Now, Viktor Ippolitovich, you can go home,” said the major. “Through that door,” he pointed to the door leading to the back entrance. - When the time comes, we will call you...

In the morning, Owl woke up earlier than usual. And immediately I felt anxious.

They didn't teach how to smell danger in reconnaissance and sabotage school. They were taught to notice various little things that indicate danger or its possibility. You usually don’t pay any attention to these little things in everyday civilian life. You simply don't notice them. Only a few people, most often elderly and with a lot of life baggage behind them, know how to notice extraneous little things. They call them signs, or even omens, and interpret them in different ways. It happens that they interpret it very correctly... And therefore they often avoid the trouble that was literally waiting for them around the corner.

Owl learned to sense danger on his own. More precisely, such a feeling came to him as if by itself. And it was revealed on that very May night of 1942, when he and the radio operator were parachuted into the front line of the Southwestern Front of the Red Army near Barvenkovo. Since then, Sych began to trust the sudden feeling of anxiety, which never turns out to be unfounded. This is what subsequent practice showed. And today, in literally a minute, he collected everything he needed so that, if his dugout was discovered, he would leave through a secret underground passage, the hole of which was under the trestle bed, and go out into the dense thicket of bushes sixty meters from the dugout. True, the dugout was reliably camouflaged - even at three meters it was impossible to notice it to an experienced eye, but caution never hurts. Practice has also shown this...

Victor went to the camouflaged window and listened.

A dry branch crunched not far away. It seems that footsteps and muffled talking were heard.

Here are the steps closer, even closer, now very close...

The stone doesn't keep track

After introducing himself to the regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Akulov, who very coldly shook the junior lieutenant’s hand, Pyotr Grigorievich asked out of politeness:

- How did you get there?

It’s true that the regimental commander intended to receive a short answer, such as “arrived safely,” after which he would give the order to feed the junior lieutenant and place him in billet.

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However, the new operative officer of the regimental counterintelligence "SMERSH" began to answer in detail, saying that he first got by rail to the city of Sudzha, then hitched a ride to the division headquarters in Kiyanitsa, after which he walked to the regiment's location.

“And somewhere in the middle of the road from Kiyannitsa to Vakalovshchina there was fire,” added the junior lieutenant.

- That is, how was it fired upon? – Lieutenant Colonel Akulov looked at the junior lieutenant in surprise.

“A machine gun burst from roadside bushes,” Ivashov answered without any expression. “If I hadn’t managed to react in time, then...” He fell silent, because it was clear: the presentation to the regiment commander might not have taken place. “I fired several shots back.” The shooter may have been slightly wounded. In any case, I heard him scream. It was already getting dark, and there was no point in pursuing.

– And what would be your thoughts on this matter? – the regiment commander asked.

– This is an enemy agent, saboteur or intelligence officer, left by the Germans during the retreat “to settle” in our front line... I think, in order to monitor the movement of our units. Maybe he’s left alone, maybe he’s working in a group,” Yegor added. - One way or another, we need to find him.

“Then why did he shoot?” Why should he give himself away? – the lieutenant colonel shook his head thoughtfully.

- Yes, it's really strange. But I don’t have another version yet.

“Well, junior lieutenant, you immediately have something to do,” Akulov extended his hand. Judging by the cold handshake and the word “occupation,” pronounced with a somewhat strange intonation, the regiment commander had already dealt with counterintelligence, and, apparently, the experience was very unpleasant. Or maybe Yegor Ivashov’s predecessor, Senior Lieutenant Khromchenko, simply did not like Pyotr Grigorievich on a purely human level. This also happens. It should be borne in mind that the “special officers” are not liked in the units, and often not without reason. – What do you need to complete it successfully?

“People,” Lieutenant Colonel Ivashov calmly held his gaze. – I would like to be as experienced as possible.

“Okay,” the regiment commander said after thinking a little. “I can’t give you the entire reconnaissance platoon, you understand, they have a lot of work right now, but I can give you a section from the reconnaissance platoon and a section from the commandant’s platoon for tomorrow.” Will this suit you?

- That's right.

“Tomorrow from eight o’clock, both squads will be at your disposal, Comrade Junior Lieutenant,” said Lieutenant Colonel Akulov. - Anything else?

- No way.

- Then rest. I will arrange for you to be fed and provided with housing...

Yegor Ivashov was assigned to stay in a hut on the very outskirts of the village, behind which began the defensive positions of the regiment with full-profile trenches connected to each other by communication passages. The deceased detective of the regiment's counterintelligence department, Senior Lieutenant Khromchenko, lived in this house before him. In the tidied house, Ivashov was met by the former orderly of the deceased senior lieutenant, Private Andrei Zozulya, a dark, nimble guy in his early twenties, and the elderly plump mistress of the house, Avdotya Stepanovna, whom Zozulya affectionately called Aunt Dusya.

After a quarter of an hour it became completely dark. Through the open window there was a cool breeze from the street, somewhere not far away a dog was bawling blithely, and it seemed that a war was going on somewhere far away, but here in the village there was ordinary life, disturbed only by the grumbling of a dog and the clanking of kitchen utensils...

- Maybe I should cook some food for you after all?

“No, thank you,” Yegor refused the hostess’s invitation to dinner for the second time.

“Otherwise I would fry you some potatoes and some salsa,” Avdotya Stepanovna continued to persuade the new guest. - The previous guest really loved potatoes and salsa...

- Just calm down, Aunt Dusya! - Zozulya waved his hand in her direction and turned the conversation in a different direction: - Why, comrade junior lieutenant, now should I join you as an orderly?

“If you don’t mind,” Ivashov answered in a completely unmilitary manner.

- But I don’t mind if you object to me... Wherever my homeland orders, I’ll go there!

- I see you are not without humor, then here is your first task: immediately bring Sergeant Maslennikov from the control platoon of the first battalion to me. Do you know this one?

“Otherwise,” Andrei Zozulya said a little offended. “We probably worked together under Senior Lieutenant Khromchenko.”

Sergeant Fedor Denisovich Maslennikov was thirty-six years old. He looks like a sedate, serious man. Fyodor Denisovich served under Senior Lieutenant Khromchenko from the beginning of the forty-second year, while still a junior sergeant, and Vasily Ivanovich Khromchenko was an investigator of the special department of the NKVD. Seeing the young officer in a brand new uniform and shoulder straps that “couldn’t sit on a fly,” the sergeant wilted a little, but reported according to the regulations:

- Comrade junior lieutenant, Sergeant Maslennikov has arrived on your orders!

Then the gaze of the experienced sergeant Maslennikov fell on the medal “For Courage”, which, indeed, reconciled him with the age of his new immediate commander.

“Junior Lieutenant Ivashov, Yegor Fomich,” Yegor extended his hand.

“Fyodor Denisovich,” the sergeant answered with a handshake.

“Have a seat, Fyodor Denisovich,” the junior lieutenant pointed to a stool near the dining table. “From this moment on, you return to the duties of a regimental counterintelligence officer and are my subordinate with the official powers of an assistant detective in the regimental counterintelligence department SMERSH.”

- Eat! – Maslennikov answered briefly.

– Tomorrow you will help me take over the affairs of your former commander.

- I obey!

– Where was Senior Lieutenant Khromchenko’s workplace? – Yegor asked.

“Well, he had his own office at the regimental headquarters,” said the sergeant. - Only after... well, after the death of the senior lieutenant, the staff sealed the office.

– Everything is correct, Fyodor Denisovich, this is how it should be... And how did Senior Lieutenant Khromchenko die?

“Who knows...” Maslennikov hesitated a little. “It looks like he was cleaning the weapon, and the gun somehow... fired.”

-Where have you been?

- So, I carried out the assignment of a comrade senior lieutenant.

“I talked to... this... informants,” the sergeant squeezed out. It seems that he did not really like communicating with soldiers who communicate unfavorable information about their fellow soldiers, which is popularly called “snitching.”

– How many such informants did Khromchenko have?

“Yes, I mean, in each platoon he had his own person, or even two, who told him who was breathing what in their unit,” answered Fyodor Denisovich. “And he wanted informants in every department.” He said that’s how it’s supposed to be in the state. And this is four people per platoon, and for a battalion, almost thirty people! The regiment has three battalions. Also scouts, signalmen and a kitchen with a service platoon. There are definitely more than a hundred informants! And from each - written reports... So much work... True, many were killed near Kursk and Lvov in February, less than half of the regiment remained. So the senior lieutenant, not only to his office, but also here, to the house, began to call soldiers from the reinforcement one by one. Check for reliability, well,

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recruit, therefore, as informants. I talked to each one personally. Long and detailed. The soldiers in the regiment called him “Chapai”. They said: “There, Chapai is coming. Right now he’ll start recruiting “informers”...

– Why “Chapaem”? – Ivashov did not understand.

- So Vasily Ivanovich... Well, and the mustache...

– Are there many old informants left in the regiment?

“About five or six people,” the sergeant scratched his head.

- Do you know them?

“So I’m supposed to know this in my job.”

—Has Khromchenko already managed to recruit many new informants from his new recruits?

“Three people,” answered Maslennikov.

- Why isn’t that enough?

– I didn’t have time... And reinforcements to the regiment only began to arrive in the summer.

– Do you know these three too?

- That's right.

– You, Fyodor Denisovich, prepare a list of both old informants and new ones. Last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, rank, what battalion, company, platoon they serve in,” Ivashov asked.

“I’ll do it, Comrade Junior Lieutenant,” the sergeant nodded.

- Okay... What kind of weapon did Khromchenko have?

- "TT". How many times have I told him: change it to a “revolver” or a “Walter”, it’s better! Although the TT hits hard, it still misfires, and then it jams. Apparently, he wanted to figure out what was going on, and the gun fired.

“You’re right,” Ivashov agreed with Sergeant. “Perhaps it was so.”

- Well... But he’s no good. I’m used to my pistol, he says...

- Okay, more on that later... In the meantime, rest. Tomorrow I order you to be here at eight o'clock in full combat readiness.

- Yes, be in full combat readiness! – I took Maslennikov under the hood. - May I go?

- Go...

Well done, this sergeant Maslennikov, did not ask why and where, but simply answered: “Yes.” Always being ready for combat is a very good trait. It disciplines and shows the reliability of the person next to you, and ultimately helps you survive.

Ivashov had already made his bed. In a small room, or rather, in a corner, separated from the large room by a colorful curtain. The sheet is white, starched.

Yegor undressed, pulled the pistol out of the holster and, putting it under the pillow, lay down. Not often lately have I had to sleep in a real bed, on a feather bed and down pillows. Despite his fatigue, he did not manage to fall asleep right away: the incident that happened to him today in the forest made itself felt. But he really was on the verge of death... And everything that followed might not have happened: no conversation with people, no appointment, there would not have been a soft feather bed with a starched sheet.

Yegor was very lucky that after the arrest of the offender, he was sent to the city of Kolomy to study at the junior command school. After all, his outpost on the twenty-second of June was completely destroyed. To a single fighter. They, the ShMNS cadets, were awakened from their beds on June 22 at five o’clock in the morning by explosions and broken windows.

Nobody understood what was happening. They were ordered to sleep until eight, since on Sunday they got up an hour later, and what kind of sleep would there be if all the windows in the barracks were blown out by bomb explosions!

A few days later, when the town of Koloma was almost surrounded, they remembered the school: an order was received to evacuate it.

The column went northeast, towards Kyiv. They walked day after day, but there was still no front line ahead.

Gorodenka, Gusyatin, Dunaevtsy, Yaltushkov...

Where are yours? Where are the strangers? Don't understand!

A shootout broke out here and there. The dead lay everywhere: civilians, military. Nobody cared about them.

Nobody knew what to do. They simply walked east in the hope of still reaching their own people, doing forty to forty-five kilometers a day, driving endless columns of people with handcarts and wheelbarrows loaded to the brim with household belongings. Old women, children, women, wounded soldiers in bloody bandages... Everyone walked in the hope of going out to their own, and this hope was melting every day.

There was a rumor that the Germans had taken the city of Rovno a week ago. In the ditches and on the roadsides there are bomb craters, swollen corpses of killed horses, broken trucks, helmets, bloody bandages, gas masks and other rubbish. And no one to meet. Not a squadron... Not a tank platoon... Where is the invincible and legendary Red Army?

Zhmerinka, Skvira...

Short stops to sleep were like fainting. The former cadets simply fell and fell asleep. And then again:

- Pull up! Take a wider step! Keep up!

Bila Tserkva, Vasilkov, Kyiv, Brovary...

Almost six hundred kilometers on foot!

And the Germans were already attacking Kyiv. Some of the former cadets of the school were merged with the NKVD security battalion. Junior sergeant Yegor Ivashov also ended up in one of the companies of the battalion. At the end of July 1941, holding the Belaya Tserkov-Kyiv highway, two battalions of the 165th Infantry Division and an NKVD battalion entered into battle with three German infantry divisions. After several hours of bloody meat grinder, eight people remained from Ivashov’s company. Command of the unit was taken over by Lieutenant Timofey Romantsev, the special department officer of the battalion. For two days, the unit of counterintelligence lieutenant Romantsev held the Germans in their sector until the 5th Airborne Brigade of Colonel Rodimtsev arrived to their aid. For courage and heroism, Lieutenant Romantsev was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and the three survivors from his company were awarded medals “For Courage.” Among these recipients was Junior Sergeant Ivashov.

This was followed by an appointment as a squad commander in the 18th Border Regiment of the NKVD under the Third Army. Anything happened: they guarded the rear of the army, fought on the front lines, caught deserters, and sometimes saboteurs and spies. Border training helped a lot.

In the spring of forty-three, Sergeant Yegor Ivashov was called to front headquarters. The major who talked to him knew everything about him: from the time and place of birth to character traits, school hobbies and best friends, as well as about his service almost from the first day of conscription. Ivashov was still surprised then, to which the staff major condescendingly replied:

- Don't be surprised. This is our job. Well, you will soon see this for yourself.

In parting, the major said:

– Sergeant Ivashov, you are being sent to special training courses for operational personnel. The issue has already been agreed upon with your command. After completing the course, you will receive an officer rank and will be sent to the active army. I wish you success...

At first it was supposed to study for one month. But in the second half of April forty-three, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, special departments in the field army were abolished, and instead of them, the Main Directorate of Military Counterintelligence was formed in the system of the People's Commissariat of Defense, subordinate personally to Comrade Stalin. This department received a very catchy name - “Death to Spies.” Accordingly, the military counterintelligence departments of the fronts and the counterintelligence departments of armies, divisions and regiments became the organs of the Main Directorate. And their tasks were to expose and capture enemy agents, to prevent sabotage and subversive activities of agents in the combat area, the front line and in liberated territories, as well as checking the reliability of military personnel arriving with reinforcements, emerging from encirclement, escaping from captivity and finding themselves in enemy-occupied territory.

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territories.

The operational courses became known as the SMERSH counterintelligence school, and the training period was extended to three months.

In June, after graduating from school, Yegor Ivashov received the rank of junior lieutenant and was sent as a counterintelligence operative to the 167th Infantry Division on the Voronezh Front. The major staff officer turned out to be right about everything...

At half past eight in the morning Yegor was already on his feet. He washed, got dressed, took a sip of hot tea from the pot-bellied samovar (presumably the pride of a hospitable hostess), checked his revolver and went out onto the porch. Next, the orderly Zozulya ran out like a shadow, adjusting his tunic and belt.

Near the house near the fence, six soldiers were peacefully smoking, the eldest of whom was a mustachioed sergeant of about forty-something. Seeing the junior lieutenant come out, he quietly said something to his men, they threw down their cigarettes, straightened their rifles over their shoulders and lined up.

“Comrade junior lieutenant,” the sergeant put his hefty peasant palm to his cap, “the security section of the commandant’s platoon has arrived at your disposal.” Squad commander Sergeant Shushaylo.

Ivashov shook hands with him. The junior lieutenant's palm literally sank into the sergeant's paw.

“What a big guy,” Yegor thought. “He’ll probably be able to handle a bear like that.”

Scouts approached, ten people armed with PPSh machine guns. Their eldest was twenty-five-year-old foreman Kolonov, deputy commander of the regiment's foot reconnaissance platoon. Sergeant Maslennikov came with them, holding his PPSh belt.

- Shall we go catch saboteurs, Comrade Junior Lieutenant? - Sergeant Major Kolonov asked cheerfully. - They say that enemy spies have appeared behind Dymov Yar?

- Who is speaking, Comrade Sergeant Major? – Ivashov quickly asked.

“Well, they say...” Kolonov hesitated, discouraged.

- Form up! - Without waiting for the sergeant major’s answer, the junior lieutenant ordered and, when the soldiers lined up, he began: “It’s like this.” Yesterday evening at around eight o'clock in the evening, two and a half kilometers from the village of Kiyanitsa in the direction of the village of Vakalovshchina, I was fired at from a German MP-40 machine gun. The shooter is believed to have been alone and may have been wounded. Our task is to find him and, if possible, take him alive.

- Or maybe he came from the other side? And has he been gone for a long time? – asked one of the scouts named Malyuk.

“Unlikely, Comrade Sergeant,” Ivashov answered. “It’s unlikely that he came from the other side with the task of killing me.” I’m not the kind of figure that would make it worth crossing the front line because of me, sitting for who knows how long in “secret”, waiting, and, after killing me, going back.

Yegor cast a sharp glance at him and continued:

“No questions,” Sergeant Maslennikov answered for everyone.

- Then let's move out...

We reached Bitsitsa in a marching column. And as soon as they left the location of the battalion of the 465th Infantry Regiment, Sergeant Major Kolonov sent two scouts ahead - despite his sharp tongue, he knew his business.

Dymov Yar and the burned Vakalovshchina passed with weapons at the ready. Finally we reached the roadside bushes, from which a line was made for Ivashova.

“Here they are, these bushes,” Yegor said quietly. - Now let's spread out. Let's go in a chain, direction - northwest. The intelligence department is to my right, within sight of each other. Sergeant Shushaylo's security department is to my left. Sergeant Maslennikov, Private Zozulya are with me.

First of all, Ivashov carefully examined the bushes where the shots came from, and found blood stains on the leaves from the forest side. He bent down and noticed the rumpled grass. And here are four shell casings from nine-millimeter bullets. Trampled grass again. Having fired, the shooter walked towards the forest, clutching his wound. Yeah, a few more drops of blood. And small traces. Apparently, he walked on his toes so as not to make noise and hide the size of his shoes.

After about thirty meters the terrain gradually went uphill. After another ten meters, a continuous pine forest began, with frail grass, frequent bald patches and soil hard as stone. And the stone, as you know, does not keep a mark. No, they won't find a damn thing here. The trail is lost, and in which direction the shooter went, one can only guess.

Three hundred meters into the forest, the landscape changed a little. Dense thickets of bushes with grass almost knee-deep began to be encountered. If a dugout type shelter is to be installed, it would be in such places, since there are more opportunities for camouflage. How can you camouflage a dugout in a bare pine forest? Is it better to sprinkle it with needles...

“We’re looking carefully now,” Yegor turned to Sergeant Maslennikov and one of the scouts who was nearby.

When he served as a squad commander of a platoon of an NKVD regiment and cleared the army rear of the Third and Thirteenth Armies from deserters, traitors and spies, he had to see caches and dugouts equipped by the Germans for their scouts and saboteurs. One dugout near Yelets especially struck him: two rooms with bunks in two tiers, where ten or twelve people could easily accommodate, a wooden ceiling and flooring, and on top of them a thick layer of soil level with the ground, on which grass and even some bushes grew . It was almost impossible to detect such a dugout. You could stand right on it and not notice anything... Then, near Yelets, a dog named Shaly smelled this dugout...

No traces. Not a single broken twig. Nothing at all.

We walked another two hundred meters - the forest was like a forest. And no hint of human presence.

“Maybe he’s gone to the other side a long time ago?” - Sergeant Maslennikov looked at the junior lieutenant. – He completed the task that the Germans gave him, went to cross the front line, saw you alone, decided to put you down for the last time if the prey was in your hands, and when it didn’t work out to kill you, he went further to the front line.

“Maybe,” Yegor answered vaguely. - Although, it seems that he was near those bushes on which his blood remained for some time. So, he was waiting. Not me specifically, of course, just prey. And when I wounded him, he went to his hole, which we never found... Okay, sergeant, let's go back.

The junior lieutenant's command was passed down the chain.

They also walked back in a chain, just as carefully examining the area. And it didn't give anything.

“We’ll have lunch and go to headquarters,” said Ivashov. – I will accept the cases of the late Khromchenko...

Anchorite

They walked seven or eight steps from the entrance to the dugout. The owl heard fragments of phrases, and then one of them said quite clearly:

– Now we look closely.

Obviously, this was said by the senior search team.

The owl held his breath, as if he could be heard up there. Now they will find the entrance to the dugout, open it,

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They will look in and begin to carefully descend. The owl will slash at them with a burst and, having gained some time, rushes to the hole in the underground passage. Sixty meters from the dugout he will crawl out of a passage into a dense thicket of bushes. And then he will go to the front line. Or rather, towards the village of Pisarevka, where Captain Michelevsky’s Abwehrgruppe was now based. It will cover fifteen kilometers in three hours. And if necessary, then in two...

Lucky. They seem to be leaving. It’s not for nothing that Lieutenant “Algorn”, the eternal deputy leader of the Abwehrgruppe, asserted in broken Russian that “a dugout won’t see a single step.”

It seemed like they had already left... The owl tiptoed away from the camouflaged window and sat for another hour, listening. It was quiet.

He exhaled and took the machine gun from his shoulder...

Four days later, as promised, they came for him. It was that same inconspicuous man named Alexander Feofilaktovich.

The preparatory department of the sabotage school was located in a large private house on Nadezhda Krupskaya Street.

When they entered the house, there were already about twenty men there, and among them electrician Nikolai Makarov, who nodded slightly to Victor as if he were an acquaintance, as well as former employee of the city prosecutor’s office Anisim Nemchin, who did not change his specialty much with the arrival of the Germans: he began to serve in the city police as an investigator of the administrative department. Victor saw him when, before the war, Nemchin once came to their house regarding his grandmother’s complaint against the head of the house office regarding violations of sanitary standards for the maintenance of the house. Victor’s grandmother was a meticulous, corrosive old woman, she did not tolerate disorder and injustice in any form, and almost anything - she wrote complaints to various authorities, including the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. She also wrote to Mikhail Sergeevich Grechukha himself. And once she even wrote to Comrade Stalin.

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Notes

Exemption from sending to work in Germany. (Hereinafter, author’s note.)

Grechukha M.S. – Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR.

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Evgeniy Sukhov

German intelligence agent

Chapter 1

Good luck!

- Sergeant, are you going to the village of Kiyanitsa, by any chance?

“Well, I’m on my way,” answered the sergeant.

-Will you pick me up?

- It’s like the major will say...

-Where is he?

“Here he comes,” the sergeant pointed his chin towards a two-story building without a roof, on the ground floor of which there was an evacuation hospital.

The junior lieutenant turned his head and saw a stocky, strong major approaching the lorry.

- Junior Lieutenant Ivashov! – as expected, he began with a snub-nosed shape. - May I address you?

“Please contact me,” the major allowed, looking with interest at the person who approached.

– You’re going to Kiyanitsa... Won’t you take me?

- Sit down! – the major nodded. “But the road there is terrible, it’s all torn up by tanks.” So hold on tight!

“Thank you,” the junior lieutenant smiled and with one jerk threw his trained, light body over the fixed sides of the semi.

The sight that appeared to the eyes of Junior Lieutenant Ivashov was very unsightly and depressing.

- Sergeant, are you going to the village of Kiyanitsa, by any chance?

“Well, I’m on my way,” answered the sergeant.

-Will you pick me up?

- It’s like the major will say...

-Where is he?

“Here he comes,” the sergeant pointed his chin towards a two-story building without a roof, on the ground floor of which there was an evacuation hospital.

The junior lieutenant turned his head and saw a stocky, strong major approaching the lorry.

- Junior Lieutenant Ivashov! – as expected, he began with a snub-nosed shape. - May I address you?

“Please contact me,” the major allowed, looking with interest at the person who approached.

– You’re going to Kiyanitsa... Won’t you take me?

- Sit down! – the major nodded. “But the road there is terrible, it’s all torn up by tanks.” So hold on tight!

“Thank you,” the junior lieutenant smiled and with one jerk threw his trained, light body over the fixed sides of the semi.

The sight that appeared to the eyes of Junior Lieutenant Ivashov was very unsightly and depressing.

Finally, the starley, with obvious regret, returned the documents to junior lieutenant Ivashov:

- Come on in...

The palace tower was probably visible from any point in the village and served as a good landmark. Perhaps this is precisely the reason why it survived.

– Second floor, second and third doors to the right. Yes it is written there...