Moscow, a city full of magical charm. When the Mongol cavalry swept through Europe and Asia, it was one of the few cities in Eastern Europe that had not been set foot by the Mongols; When the French bayonet challenged all the European powers, it became the turning point of the Napoleonic legend slipping from its peak; When the rolling torrent of Germany made the whole of Europe tremble again, it was it that brought the German dream of the world to a halt here...... In Moscow in February, the cold wind is bleak, thousands of miles of ice, and spring is still far away, not to mention summer.

In a remote study room in the Kremlin, the fire is blazing, the tea is hot, and three middle-aged people sit on soft sofas, listening to classical music playing on the gramophone.

Outside the window, snowflakes fall quietly, isolating from all kinds of distractions from the outside world.

When there was a knock on the door, the person closest to the gramophone reflexively picked up the magnetic head, the record was only idling, and the room was dead silent.

Allowed to enter the room was a middle-aged army general, in this warm room, the remaining snowflakes on his shoulders quickly melted, but there was still a heavy chill all over his body.

"How's it going?" The middle-aged man sitting by the window asked.

The general, who was carrying three small gold stars on his shoulder, stood upright and said, "At 1:10 p.m. today, he officially stopped breathing. ”

There was silence in the room again.

Finally, the middle-aged man in the window position, who was bald on the top of his head, had a pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose, and had white gauze wrapped around his neck and left palm, got up from the sofa.

"An excellent proletarian fighter, a staunch successor to Marxism, a leader who ruled the country with iron and blood, a legendary figure who belonged to the Soviets and to the world, has just left us......," he said, as he walked unhurriedly to the gramophone, lowered the magnetic head, and the elegant and relaxed music sounded again.

"Do you want to announce this to the outside world immediately?" The middle-aged man sitting at the desk had dark brown hair, and if you looked closely, you would find that there were a lot of white threads in it, and he looked not very tall, with a chubby face, and he spoke with a strong sense of rhythm in a subdued tone.

The bald middle-aged man stood next to the gramophone, and put his right palm on the shoulder of the middle-aged man who was a little restless on the sofa next to him, in terms of age, he was the oldest of the three, but fifty years old is not old for a politician, as long as he is healthy, such an age can be called "the prime of politics".

"Comrade Kaganovich, what do you think?"

The seated middle-aged man was also the only one of the three with a beard, with a thick upper lip beard that resembled Stalin's, but he clearly lacked the decisiveness of a great leader: "If I were to say that there are good or bad things to publish or not, my fear is not so much that there may be small disturbances in some places, or that the confidence of the army and the people has been re-established through victory in the war, but that the internal and external enemies will take advantage of this opportunity to make a big fuss -- usurpation, subversion, whichever comes in between, It could be a fatal blow to our national strength that has finally recovered, and it may even lead our cause astray again. ”

The bald middle-aged man quietly looked at the brown-haired fat man near the desk, nominally, he was his close comrade-in-arms, the two had co-starred in the sensational purge of the world, and when the officialdom had been in the same place for a long time, especially like this kind of city government is quite deep, left and right, it is difficult to treat people or others as real loyal partners.

The general, who brought the news from outside, was obviously not a simple listener, and he said loudly: "Comrades, don't you think that the reason why this situation has occurred must be that there must be a huge conspiracy behind it? We should be fully vigilant and resolutely prevent the passive situation in the summer of 1941 and the bad losses that resulted from passive defense. ”

The balding middle-aged man immediately responded: "Don't get excited, our General Grollaf, you see, we were all seriously discussing this issue just now!" It's just that the materialist theory teaches us that we should see things through the appearance to grasp the essence, and the reason why the enemy attacks us in this way at this time is because he is afraid of our strength, and at the same time sees our weakness - for a long time, we have obeyed an absolute core leader, and once we suddenly lose this leader, we become a swarm of brainless flies, and then they only need to use small means to make us take care of ourselves and fall into chaos, Then there will be no need for a large-scale armed invasion at all, and they will be able to bring down the great Soviet Union. Think about it, right? ”

The general did not seem to know the kind of unlearned reckless man, and he listened to these remarks very carefully, savored and pondered them, and gave up the opportunity to speak for the time being.

Although Marshal Beria, who was only a month short of turning 47 years old, was no longer directly responsible for the leadership of the State Security Council since 1941, he single-handedly rebuilt Soviet intelligence, counterintelligence, and national security work, and many of the big and small leaders and key figures in these departments were promoted by him, and even if he was not in his position, he was still able to use his flexible connections and skills to influence these mysterious and powerful departments, and moreover, he treated each of his "old colleagues" Many of the things that have been done in the past are well understood, which is an extremely huge advantage in politics.

"I have always believed that Comrade Kaganovich's extremely rich revolutionary experience and outstanding leadership skills are fully capable of stabilizing the situation in a critical moment." When he said this, Beria, who had survived the attack on Stalin's train, did not look at Kaganovich, who was close at hand, but looked with calm and keen eyes at the fat brown-haired man who had been for a long time and probably a political partner for a long time to come. Maksimilianovich. Malenkov, a heavyweight who has already been nominated as a member of the Politburo and deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, is second only to Beria in the country and within the party. As for Kaganovich, although he served as a member of the Central Committee, secretary of the Central Committee, member of the Politburo, and deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars in his early years, he was also nominated for deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers this time, but he is ranked last in the current Soviet leadership group.

Without bowing his head slightly, Malenkov seemed to perceive Beria's suggestive gaze, and he did not hesitate too much: "I strongly agree!" ”

On the contrary, the middle-aged man with the upper lip beard, who was "accidentally" pushed to a prominent position, said humbly and low-keyly: "My limited prestige is really not enough to convince the public, and I lack the courage and foresight of Comrade Marshal Beria. ”

"If Comrade Kaganovich's prestige is not enough to convince the public, then we are even more ashamed to see people!" After saying this, Beria took two steps forward and came to the general, who was still thinking. The victory in the Great Patriotic War led to a large number of meritorious generals, and compared to the marshals and generals who had distinguished themselves in battle, the army general in front of him was not an inconspicuous figure, but his position was very crucial - more than half of the internal guard units in the capital were under his command, and more importantly, if Beria had not selected him from among the detachments of the secret police unit and sent him to the internal affairs forces for forging, he might not have even been mixed up now.

"I propose that the news of his death not be made public for the time being, and that a high-level meeting of the party be held in secret under the pretext that he was seriously injured. In extraordinary times, we need to use extraordinary means, we must eliminate the threat of internal enemies, and then we can unite our guns with the outside world and respond to external threats and challenges with a united and stable Soviet Union. Beria said to the general, and when he looked up at himself, the unquestionable look in his eyes had a hypnotic effect.

"I obey the big picture unconditionally." The general expressed his position categorically.

It was getting dark, and after spending all day in the woods, Lynn kept rubbing her hands and stomping her feet, but she still felt like she was almost frozen into a lump of ice. The leading officer returned to the humble woods before nightfall, bringing with him warm food, which seemed to everyone to be no less than a small miracle. After devouring the food, the leader of the team informed them that the Soviet army had decisively strengthened the security on the border line, and 24-hour sentry posts had been set up in every area that could be passed. To cross the border into Finland from this area, you either have to venture through mined or cliff-like areas, or compete with Soviet border guards.

Although some people thought that the mines might freeze and fail, most people silently chose to obey - the choice that the team leader and Lynn shared.

"Listen, you're Soviet spies on their way to Finland to lurk, and our mission is to escort you to the other side of the border. If you can cross the border smoothly, it is best, if you can't escape the checkpoint check, when you get to the front of the checkpoint, everyone try not to talk and make small movements, and do not rule out the possibility of exchanging fire with the Soviet army! As he approached the border, the leader turned his head and whispered to Lynn in German, "It's better to think of yourselves as dumb people!" ”

Lynn then asked Franz to pass the message on to every intelligence officer in the team, where there were 11 members of the Saul task force, 4 intelligence officers evacuated from the Soviet Union, and Lynn, a total of 16 people.

With horses carrying heavy loads and the ability to take turns riding and resting, the team moved a lot faster. It was nearly midnight, and the night ahead was a strange orange from the glow of the searchlights. Lynn observed from a distance, the Soviet border post resembled a machine-gun fortress in the defense system, the main body was a cylindrical building of reinforced concrete structure, on top of which was an open guard tower, and a high-powered searchlight covered an area of two or three kilometers in a radius, and almost four kilometers away was the adjacent border post - this deployment immediately reminded him of the situation when he led his night battle team to carry out reconnaissance attacks on the Soviet army in depth at Oranienburg. That operation was thrilling and abnormal, and the accompanying Tanze and Tchmel were all recruits with unsightly combat effectiveness, only Wolfrum was quite sophisticated, and his fluent Russian deceived the Soviet army, and also allowed them to seize a glimmer of life, and then actually drove the captured Katyusha rocket artillery vehicle back to their own defense line. In retrospect, that experience was enough to turn my memoir into a thrilling novel.

(To be continued)