The Red Collusion Read online

  “You understand that this deranged Marshal Budarenko wanted the Americans to fire nuclear missiles at us from their submarine just so he could have a reason to conquer half the world with his tanks? Do you understand in what hands our national security rests? Now listen to my orders. I command you to arrest the Minister of Defense immediately, and all his team of aides and advisers – the whole gang. Arrest the Commander of the Navy, the Commander of the Naval Base in Murmansk and the Commander of the Air Force. I want all of them in jail tonight. Each and every single one of them! Also, arrest the traitors from his secret team.”

  The General Secretary’s voice grew louder and louder, and his face reddened as he spoke.

  “First of all, I want them all in jail, and then they can try to prove their innocence. If you know of any other rogue criminals, arrest them too. You don’t need my preapproval. Do what needs to be done and do it quickly.”

  The General Secretary leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette, something he didn’t do very often.

  “I really don’t know who I can consult with from among the Politburo members. Who can I trust and who should I mistrust? This is absurd. What the hell am I going to do with the military? At exactly 10 o’clock Greenwich Mean Time I’m stopping all the forces in their tracks. But what should I do with them? If I bring them back home, they might rise against me because I threw their greatly beloved and admired Marshal into jail. On the other hand, if they stay so close to the German border, the Americans will think that I’m toying with them, and every little skirmish there on the border might develop into total war.”

  The head of the KGB, who had so far listened intently to the General Secretary, sat up in his chair.

  “Mister Secretary, perhaps you should fly to the front and meet with the commanders there, and brief them about the Minister of Defense’s conspiracy. I will come with you.”

  “I think you’re right. I’ll fly there tomorrow morning, but you – I need you here. You will have your hands full. You’ll have to guard the Motherland until I return.”

  The head of the KGB solemnly placed his hand on his chest and looked directly into the eyes of the General Secretary.

  “Go in peace and return in peace, Mister Secretary. I am responsible for everything here running as it should.”

  The Party General Secretary remained in his large office by himself. He lit another cigarette and savored every puff. Tomorrow I will stand before all the commanders of the Soviet Armed Forces; the commanders of the armies, divisions and maybe even brigades, he thought to himself. I’ll either be buried over there, or I will return as the supreme, undisputed leader of this great nation of the Soviet States.

  The great hangar in a German Democratic Republic Air Force base was packed with the top echelons of the Red Army. The hundreds of officers sat on their chairs in suspense. Just a few hours ago, they had received the order to stop where they were, and now they had been summoned for an unscheduled meeting with their supreme leader, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, the most powerful man in the Soviet Union.

  The feeling among many of the participants was that the Secretary had come to give them his personal blessing directly before they climbed into their tanks and crossed the border into West Germany.

  They all rose to attention as the General Secretary entered the hall and stepped up the stage and then, without preamble, he began recounting the story of their former Minister of Defense, Marshal Budarenko, to his stunned audience; of his conspiracy and betrayal against himself, against the Armed Forces and against the Soviet nation. The General Secretary gave the officers details of the former minister’s actions, and also informed them of the arrests that had been made the previous night and those that were still being made as he spoke.

  A hum of whispers was heard from the crowd of officers. The Secretary silenced them with a motion of his hand.

  “I have come here to you to hear your decision. Do you wish to fight a World War, or do you wish to go back home to the Motherland and to your families? It is from you that a new leadership will rise for our great Red Army. It is from you that a reliable and loyal leadership will rise for the Motherland and for Socialism.”

  The Secretary ended his speech and watched the officers in the hall, who had fallen into complete silence. The officers sneaked looks around them, and closely examined the reactions of their more senior officers, who were seated in the first rows.

  Then all of a sudden, an Army commander, a Major General, rose to his feet in the first row. The officers looked at him in anticipation.

  “Long live Comrade General Secretary Vladimir Petrovich Yermolov, Leader of the Soviet Union!” the Army commander called out in a thundering voice.

  Within seconds, the whole hangar was shaking with cries of: “Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!”

  The General Secretary remained standing on the stage, finally allowing himself a broad smile, for the first time in many days.

  Three days earlier

  It was late at night when Svetlana, the General Secretary’s private secretary, retired to her home after a day’s work. She wanted to relax and catch up on her sleep, which had been so lacking in the past few days.

  Someone knocked on her door. Svetlana looked through the peephole and there stood a young man in uniform. He held a bouquet of flowers.

  Svetlana felt as if she were about to faint. Her hand shook as she opened the door, gave the messenger a 10-ruble note, took the bouquet quickly, and locked the door behind her. She stood there for a long moment, leaning against the door, while her hands, still holding the bouquet of flowers, shook violently. She was obviously shocked.

  The bouquet was quite an unusual one, containing a mix of flowers of different types and colors. She walked to the dining room table and placed the flowers there, then sat down in a chair.

  Her hands still shaking, she began taking the bouquet apart and separating the flowers, one by one, by colors and types. The table was now completely covered with flowers of different groups. She counted the flowers one by one according to their types and quickly jotted down letters and numbers on a sheet of paper.

  I should have known this moment would arrive, she murmured to herself. There was no way the Americans would leave me be when the world’s two superpowers are on the brink of war.

  Epilogue

  Moscow, May 1989

  The father and son had now been sitting for more than two hours in a corner of the famous Pushkin Café. This was a well-known establishment, famous throughout the world, and not just for its excellent coffee, dark wood interior and book-laden shelves. The place was also an outstanding restaurant, adjacent to Pushkinskaya Square, bearing the name of Russia’s greatest poet. At the center of that square, a tall dark grey marble column bore the bronze statue of the poet Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, towering over its surroundings.

  The former head of the KGB sipped the rest of his hot chocolate and then looked at his son’s face. “Did you understand, my son? I had the great honor of serving General Secretary Yermolov, and I helped him to prevent a third world war at the last minute. This would have been the most unnecessary war, just thirty-six years after the Soviet nation sacrificed twenty-two million soldiers and civilians in the Great Patriotic War.”

  The son could hardly tear his gaze from his father.

  “Father, this is the first time I have heard you speak of that sad affair.”

  The former Head of the KGB combed his thinning hair with his fingers and smiled lightly.

  “Yes, son, and at my advanced age, it is also the last time.”

  THE END

  About the Author

  David Yaron (born 1951), is an intelligence Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret), in the Israeli Air Force.

  Yaron has written three military-based novels two of which raised great interest upon their publication. The significant events in his first two books, pre
dicted by Yaron in the plot, have materialized – years later, in the Middle East.

  Today, Yaron works as a commentator and publicist on military and security issues on various newspapers and websites.

  Message from the Author

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