Chapter 164 Intelligence
Since the outbreak of the war, or more precisely, since Yuri started working in the Kremlin , he noticed that Stalin slept very late every day. Sometimes when he went to report to him at one or two o'clock, he would still stay in the office reading documents. Therefore, Yuri was not worried that rushing to the Kremlin now would disturb Stalin's rest.
But the real question was, what excuse should he find to meet Stalin at such a late hour? Should he just say, "I came to see if you slept?" To be honest, Yuri didn't have the guts to do that.
Yuri had to find a suitable and appropriate reason, or an excuse, so that he could rush over at this time. This was a test for him. Of course, it could also be seen as a test from Khrushchev.
In order to ensure that he was on the right track, Yuri returned to the apartment and fetched the latest intelligence and information on the various fronts that had been gathered recently. He asked Arseni to carry fourteen palm-thick file bags to the car. Then, Arseni drove the car, and Yuri sat in the car. While he was on the road, he looked through the archived intelligence catalog with the help of the small light in the car. He needed to find a more important reason to deal with tonight's errand.
What is annoying is that in the past one or two months, both the Soviet Union and Germany, which are on the confrontational front, have fallen silent. Even the fighting in Leningrad has subsided. To describe the current war situation between the Soviet Union and Germany in one word, it is "the dawns here are quiet."
If there was no war, how could Yuri, the Minister of Operations, report to Stalin at such a late time?
Yuri flipped through the two pages of handwritten catalog twice, but still couldn't find any information worth reporting as an important matter.
This is really a bit worrying!
The car traveled through the long dark night, and we arrived at Red Square without even noticing the passage of time.
Since the end of the Battle of Moscow, Red Square has returned to its former bustle. Although it was already 11 o'clock in the evening, there were still people swaying on the street corner east of Red Square. Yuri understood that they were citizens who had rushed to the ration station at night to line up and wait. They were waiting for the ration station to open the next day, so that they could grab the limited supply of meat as soon as possible.
An idea suddenly came to Yuri's mind, and he thought of an issue that, although it was a bit beyond his authority, he, as the Minister of Operations, could also discuss it, and that was the issue of adjusting the war's military economy.
When he thought of this question, Yuri's mind flashed with the information he had obtained from the Preparatory Department of the National Defense Committee last week. This information provided the production, transportation and reserve data of various industrial and agricultural sectors in the Soviet Union since 1944.
With this idea in mind, Yuri began to integrate the data in his mind. At the same time, he carefully conceived his speech - conversation is also an art. How to start, how to continue the topic, how to go into details, all these things need to be considered in advance. If there is no previous preparation, it is always easy to make mistakes.
Yuri had plenty of time for the journey, and in just over ten minutes the car stopped downstairs of Office Building No. 1. When getting off the car, Yuri looked towards the second floor, only to see that all the windows on the floor were lit. This was also one of Stalin's habits, mainly for safety reasons.
Seeing Yuri's car parked in front of the building, a second lieutenant of the Internal Security Army in charge of security came up to him, helped him open the car door, and saluted him.
Yuri nodded to the lieutenant and hurried up the stairs. Once here, there were spies everywhere, so it was wise for a smart person to pretend to be in a hurry.
Walking up the stairs, Yuri just reached the corner of the stairs and saw Poskrebyshev walking hurriedly from the corridor.
"Comrade Yuri Arkhipovich, you've come just in time," Poskrebyshev stopped his hurried steps when he saw Yuri. He said with a happy face, "I was just about to call you. Comrade Stalin wants to see you."
"Oh?" Yuri was stunned, then he realized that it seemed that the excuse was completely useless.
"Do you know what it is?" Following behind Poskrebyshev, Yuri hesitated for a moment and asked in a low voice.
"..." Poskrebyshev turned his head in surprise and looked at him.
As Stalin's most trusted secretary, Poskrebyshev was very disciplined. He would never reveal any information about Stalin to anyone, and of course, no one ever tried to ask him about these things. To be honest, Yuri was asking him for information like he did today, and this was the first time...
"If it's inconvenient to say it, forget it," Yuri smiled, took two quick steps, walked to a position side by side with Poskrebyshev, and said.
After hesitating for a while, Poskrebyshev felt that today's matter was not important, and finally decided to make an exception and reveal some information to this young man who did not know the rules.
"The Southwestern Front sent urgent intelligence half an hour ago, and obtained a specific timetable for the German offensive in Kursk." Poskrebyshev slowed down and whispered.
"Southwestern Front?" Yuri raised his eyebrows and asked.
"It is said that a reconnaissance company of the 46th Army captured prisoners near Kupyansk," Poskrebyshev said. "This information was obtained from the prisoners."
"Conducting reconnaissance in Kupyansk? Whose order?" Yuri frowned and continued to ask.
This time Poskrebyshev did not answer, probably because he did not know the details of the situation.
The corridor was not very long, and Yuri and the other man didn't have much time to talk.
"Knock knock!" The footsteps stopped outside the door of Office No. 1. Poskrebyshev knocked on the door . After receiving a response from inside, he pushed the double door to one side and turned sideways to invite Yuri in.
At this moment, Stalin was not the only one in his office. Many senior military generals were there, including Zhukov and Vasilevsky. Even Voroshilov, who had not been seen for a long time, and Shaposhnikov, who was ill, showed up.
"Comrade Yuri Arkhipovich is here," Stalin seemed very excited. When he saw Yuri coming in, he took his pipe from his mouth and said with a smile, "How is it? Didn't I disturb your rest?"
"No, Comrade Stalin." Yuri took off his military cap, put it on his arm, and replied with a smile.
"That's good," Stalin continued with a smile, "Come and take a look at this report. I think this should be good news."
Yuri walked over after hearing this, and when he passed by Voroshilov and Shaposhnikov, he stopped and nodded to them.
The report Stalin handed over was not submitted by the Southwestern Front as Poskrebyshev said, but by the Swedish Intelligence Department of the State Security Committee. Yuri took the report and read it carefully. The general content of it said: The Swedish Intelligence Department obtained a reliable intelligence that confirmed that the German fascist high command had formulated the latest summer offensive plan, code-named "Fortress" operation.
According to this plan, the German army will launch a pincer attack on the Soviet salient in the Kursk area. The two wings of the attack will be the Orel and Kharkov-Belgorod lines respectively. The attack time is tentatively scheduled for June 22.
Yuri specifically looked at the last time marked on the intelligence, and it turned out to be 4 o'clock this afternoon.
Almost as a subconscious reaction, Yuri looked up at Beria who was standing not far away, and saw that the big spy chief was also looking at him, with an inexplicable light shining in his eyes hidden behind the round glasses.
Yuri believed that this information was false, at least it was not received at 4 o'clock this afternoon, because according to the time difference, when it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon in Moscow, it was just after 1 o'clock in the afternoon in Stockholm, Sweden.
Since the outbreak of the war, although Sweden is nominally a neutral country, its government has been forced by Germany to lean towards Germany in many policies. Some time ago, the National Security Council’s intelligence station in Stockholm had just suffered a raid by German counterintelligence personnel, suffered huge losses, and many activities were suspended. Yuri believed that even if the intelligence station there obtained this information, it would not be possible to send it out at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, because the patrol cars that the Germans searched for radio signals were most active during this period. To some extent, the content of this intelligence was not particularly urgent, and the intelligence personnel stationed in Stockholm could not take such a big risk to send the intelligence at this time.
Yuri could even conclude that this intelligence was hastily fabricated by the State Security Committee after it learned of the report from the Southwestern Front, with the purpose of naturally avoiding Stalin's questioning.
Well, these are all trivial matters. Yuri has no interest or motivation to expose Belia's deception.
"Comrade Stalin, it seems that what we need to do next is to wear down and destroy the fascist forces in the Kursk area as much as possible." Yuri smiled and returned the information to Stalin.
Stalin nodded happily and said, "Just now, the Supreme Command has made a decision to set up a general command headquarters for the Kursk region above the field command of the front. The headquarters will send a representative to serve as the commander of the general command headquarters to coordinate the defense and counterattack work in the Kursk region."
Although Yuri had a constant smile on his face, he was secretly complaining in his heart: There is a Supreme Command above, and below it is the General Staff, and below that is the Front Command. Now they are making trouble again and arranging a general combat headquarters for some direction. Isn't this purely to arrange some people to share the credit?
However, no matter how much he complained in his heart, Yuri would not raise any objections. After all, it had nothing to do with him.
