humanity, the machines, the materials, every bit of it as far as he could see was dedicated, cocked for battle.
The reconnaissance plane droned above a stretch of bare grasses, untrampled land, and gleaming streams. This open band was perhaps three kilometers wide. This was no-man’s-land between the two facing armies.
The photographer’s fingers accelerated on the camera. He took furious pictures. Breit pressed his nose to the plastic sheet beneath him, to see better what loomed below. Breath snagged in his chest.
‘Oh my God.’
The density of the Soviet defense works had been a startling thing to contemplate in Berlin when all Breit saw was facts and figures, intel photos, red blocks on broad map tables. He’d indicated the Red forces many times with long pointers, he’d moved them around like little game pieces. But this colossal network carved into the earth below him beggared his imagination.
This was no game board.
Confronting the German armies all across the southern shoulder, the Reds had built a great scab of six hundred thousand men. Nine thousand artillery pieces. Almost two thousand tanks. Breit was aware of the numbers, of course. But he’d never had an inkling that these hordes of Russian men and weapons were so incredibly well dug in. Sprawling to the horizon, trenches and earthworks rived the steppe like the veins behind an eye, uncountable channels splintered the dark dirt. Fat bunkers guarded every approach, antitank ditches resembled dry riverbeds in their hugeness, fortress-like berms surrounded clustered artillery. There were men, horses, trucks, everywhere digging, moving earth, stacking mounds, and gouging trenches against the coming of Citadel. Every open piece of land, Breit knew, was girded with mines and wire, pre-sighted by thousands of long barrels, rows of gunnery in every caliber. Deep echelons of tanks were embanked up to their turrets. Under the constant scratching of the Russians, the earth’s skin had hived up for them what appeared to be an impenetrable depth of walls and furrows. There was no path unprotected, no meter that would go unchallenged or unbloodied.
The Soviets had put to good use Hitler’s wait. While the
Breit spoke into his microphone.
‘Pilot.’
The answer crackled. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Aren’t we getting rather far behind enemy lines?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The tingle in Breit’s chest returned. ‘Why don’t they stop us? Where are their fighters?’
‘No need to worry, Colonel. The Reds don’t care. We’re not bombing anything. Just taking a look around.’
The pilot laughed again. In Breit’s earphones, the sound was tinny and wicked.
Breit’s transfer to Citadel had been unexpected, his orders arrived in Berlin yesterday morning by motorcycle courier. This was a promotion, he was appointed intelligence officer for
There’d been no time to arrange anything with his Lucy contacts to continue his espionage before he was transferred to Russia. Could he find a way to get in touch with his spy masters even here in the battle zone? Could they find him somehow? From the looks of things below, he’d already done plenty as it was. Perhaps too much? Breit was frightened. He wanted the defeat of Germany, yes. He was committed to this belief - he risked his life every day for it - that Hitler and the Nazis would lead Germany and much of the world to a bad end. But what else had he done by helping the Russians? Had he set the table for Germany’s annihilation? The battle that was shaping up below was going to be extraordinary likely the greatest land battle in all history. How much of Germany would survive it? Would he?
Breit wanted a cigarette very much.
The pilot continued, ‘Oh, they want us to see this. As much as we can.
Half those tanks and field pieces down there are made out of poles and straw.’
He did not believe the pilot, that so many of those guns were fake.
Breit had reason to suspect differently.
The plane traced the road headed north to Oboyan. Breit floated above three concentric layers of Soviet strongholds, each more formidable than the last. The photographer whirled through endless rolls of film.
Across the window, exposed rolls danced around him on the plane’s vibrations. Breit lay on his belly staring in realization and awe at what he had done.
The strongest of all the Soviet forces had burrowed in directly along the Oboyan road, opposite the three SS divisions. This was surely a result of the secrets Breit had stolen and delivered to Lucy. He had coded and dropped them in Berlin trash bins, left them on benches, in newspapers and brown bags, in the Tiergarten, in museums and alleys. And now, grown to inconceivable proportions,
This was a massive Russian army that knew every move the German generals had made.
This was Breit’s handiwork, his painting.
The pilot banked sharply for the German lines. Breit skidded on the smooth pane; under his belly now was nothing but blue air. His vertigo returned. On his hands and knees again, he scooted off the clear floor and stumbled to his seat in the fuselage.
Breit buckled in and closed his eyes. He was relieved that, for a little while, until this plane set down in Russia, there would be nothing more for him to see.
* * * *
CHAPTER 6
June 31
1030 hours
two kilometers east of Syrtsev
along the Oboyan road
Dimitri craned his neck back and gazed high. A big German plane droned, flying alone above lacy cloud cover. The cross of the plane was far in front of where its sound seemed to come from. Dimitri always resented this
