Chapter 402
As night fell, the weather started to become a little weird, and a drizzle began to fall from the starless and moonless sky.
In Bersenevsky Alley, a black Volga sedan came speeding from the alley entrance, making a squeaking sound as its tires rubbed against the bluestone slabs, and suddenly stopped in front of a five-story residential apartment building.
The car body was still shaking violently from the sudden stop, and the driver's door had been pushed open. A middle-aged man with a big beard and wearing a blue uniform rushed out of the car, covering his left chest with one hand and tightly clutching a piece of letter in the other hand. He stumbled into the apartment building.
At the moment when the middle-aged man rushed into the main entrance of the apartment building, a woman with short hair happened to walk out of the building. The moment they passed each other, the woman suddenly saw the blood flowing from the middle-aged man's chest. She jumped to the side like a cat whose tail was stepped on, and at the same time, a scream came out of her mouth that was enough to pierce her eardrums.
The middle-aged man ignored the screams. He was breathing heavily, holding the wall of the corridor with the hand holding the letter, and staggering towards the depths of the corridor. Finally, he stopped at the door of a room at the end of the corridor.
The paint-stained door was locked. The middle-aged man took out a key with some difficulty and opened the door. The moment the door opened, he staggered in and fell on the carpet in the room. Blood oozes out from under him and soon soaks the carpet.
The middle-aged man at this time was obviously exhausted. He lay on the carpet, trying to raise his head, and stared straight ahead through the darkness.
There was no light in the room and the heavy curtains were closed. It could be said that there was no light at all. But if there was light, anyone could see that there was a table directly opposite the door. There were six telephones on the table, and each phone was a different color. The bright red one was the most eye-catching.
The middle-aged man stretched out his hand and tried to grab the table, but unfortunately, his fingertips were still four or five meters away from the corner of the table, and it was impossible to grab it. He used up the last bit of his strength to turn his body over on the carpet, looking up at the ceiling.
A wheezing sound came from his throat. Although it became heavier and heavier, his strength seemed to be getting weaker and weaker, until it finally became inaudible.
More than ten minutes later, several police officers led by a woman entered the apartment. They found the body lying on the ground in the room and found a document on him.
The ID showed that the deceased was a lieutenant in the Special Division of the National Political Security Bureau. He had no name, only a code name of "11". The ID of a lieutenant of the Political Security Bureau found on the deceased, plus the six telephones placed in the room, made the police officers who received the alarm aware of something unusual, and they quickly reported it to their superiors.
In the opinion of several policemen, the deceased was probably a spy and his ID was probably fake, so the case had to be handed over to higher authorities. Perhaps the secret police of the National Security Council would be interested in this.
In this seemingly insignificant case, no one realized that the country was about to change.
On the same rainy night, at the same time when the body of the middle-aged man was taken away by the police, the Volga car that Yuri was riding in just drove across the Kuznetsky Bridge and headed from Trubunyi Square towards the Hunter Trading Company.
He had just visited Malinin, who had just returned to Moscow yesterday, and had a couple of drinks with him. Malinin had not had a smooth life in the past two years. His position as deputy commander of the German group and chief of the general staff was taken away last year. After returning to China, he served as deputy chief of the general staff.
How should I put it? The position of Deputy Chief of General Staff seems very high-end, but since he does not hold other positions concurrently, it is basically a sinecure. What he does now is to look around here and there, and then draft reports and make some suggestions. This work is quite exhausting. Not only is it boring, but it also seems quite busy. If the report is accepted by the superiors, it's fine. If not, it's just a piece of waste paper.
In fact, it was not just Malinin. After the brutal war ended, except for the first two years, most of the generals who had fought on the front line and were full of vigor and heroic spirit had basically disappeared. They were either silent in some ordinary position or taught in some military academy. There were very few who could frequently appear in the public eye.
This reality may make people feel sad, but there is nothing strange about it. After all, this is the fate of soldiers. In a place without war, they will have no chance to achieve success.
The black car with the marshal's flag was moving slowly through the rain. Yuri looked through the water-curtained car window at the night scene of the street slowly receding outside the window. His emotions had not yet completely recovered from the memories that Malinin brought him not long ago.
In a trance, he seemed to have returned to that brutal period of war. At this moment, the quiet streets on the rainy night seemed to have been replaced by the broken ruins of Stalingrad. The raging fire and billowing smoke were swaying before his eyes, and his eardrums were filled with deafening explosions.
The sharp alarm pulled Yuri's thoughts back from the war. He was stunned for a while before he realized that the sharp alarm was not an air raid alarm, but the sirens of the police when they were dispatched.
Almost at the moment he understood what was happening, two police cars whizzed past his car. Because the distance between the cars was too close, Yuri's driver hurriedly turned the steering wheel, causing the car body to shake.
Yuri's driver was from the Political Security Bureau. He slowed down and looked down at the rearview mirror with an embarrassed look on his face. He wanted to see the license plate numbers of the two police cars so that he could go back and cause trouble for them. You know, there was a marshal's flag on the front of Yuri's car. According to the rules, even police cars had to give way to his car, and tonight's collision was completely rude.
"Well, they must be on a mission," Yuri said, seeing what the driver was thinking, "and it's so dark, they can't see anything."
The driver muttered something, then started the car again and drove straight towards Yuri's residence.
About ten minutes later, the car arrived at the gate of the villa area. Just when passing the guard booth at the entrance, the driver slowed down. Just outside the car, a brown-green military jeep was parked on the side of the road. A wet lieutenant was standing beside the jeep, waving vigorously at Yuri's car.
The driver was very alert. He parked his car close to the jeep, but did not open the bulletproof window. Instead, he directly asked the other party to show relevant documents through the car's loudspeaker.
The lieutenant quickly produced a certificate and stuck it on the driver's car, shouting: "I am Sergey Sergeyevich Volkov of the Kremlin Security Bureau. I have something very important to do and must see Comrade Marshal Yuri Arkhipovich Kulyokov immediately."
The driver took out a flashlight and shone it under his ID carefully. After confirming that there was no problem, he turned to Yuri for instructions.
Yuri said nothing, just nodded slightly.
Soon, the car window next to him was opened a little. The gap was very narrow, and it was estimated that only a small finger could be inserted at most.
The lieutenant quickly came around from the other side of the car, jumped to the gap in the car window, and shouted: "Comrade Marshal Yuri Arkhipovich, we just received a call from the Brizhnya Villa half an hour ago. Someone over there informed us that Comrade Stalin's health was in trouble and asked us to arrange for a doctor to come immediately."
Yuri's heart skipped a beat, and his blood rushed to his head. He even felt it was difficult to breathe.
The Brizhnya Villa is a place Comrade Stalin often visits in recent times. Since his poor health, Comrade Stalin seems to have delayed going to Kuntsevo and has been to Brizhnya more often.
"Who called?" Yuri asked in the calmest tone possible, trying his best to suppress his emotions.
"I don't know," the lieutenant said, panting slightly, "but according to the shift schedule, the one on duty there tonight should be No. 11, that is, Lieutenant Kudriashov."
"How could this not be clear?" Yuri turned his head, looked outside through the gap in the car window with sharp eyes, and asked in a deep voice.
"The other party cut off the communication before we could ask," said the lieutenant outside the window. "The communication between us and the Brizhnia Villa was interrupted for nearly 5 minutes. The strange thing is that after we restored the communication, the reply from the other side was that there was no abnormality. We requested to talk directly with No. 11, but were rejected."
The lieutenant's tone was extremely anxious, and it was clear that these circumstances were too unusual for him not to be worried.
"Have you contacted Starostin?" Yuri asked in a deep voice.
Starostin is Comrade Stalin's current bodyguard. He should be with Comrade Stalin all the time.
"No contact," the lieutenant said loudly, "Comrades Tukov, Lozgachev, and Khrustalev are all out of reach."
Tukov was the adjutant of Stalin 's guard, Lozgachev was the assistant captain, and Khrustalev was Comrade Stalin's personal guard.
"Have you contacted Comrade Ignatiev?" Yuri asked again.
The lieutenant outside the car was silent. After about half a minute, he stuffed a brown paper envelope through the gap in the car window and said in a trembling voice: "Comrade Poskrebyshev asked me to give you this document before contacting Comrade Ignatiev."
