Topaz - Leon Uris [52]
One by one they came back to the conference table from the adjoining washroom, braced for another round of questioning.
Dr. Billings scanned his notes, then said, “In the purges of 1937 and 1938 you told us the Soviet intelligence system was badly disrupted.”
“It was worse than that,” Boris answered. “By 1939 NKVD, the forerunner of the present KGB, was a total shambles.”
“What was your own status at the time?”
“I was the top student of my class in gymnasium. I went on to study for another four years at Smolensk University. And then I was invited for postgraduate work at Moscow University. I had strong recommendations.”
“When did you go to Moscow?”
“In the first semester, fall of 1939. Here I also met Olga. Her name then was Cherniavsky. She was of the family of the Soviet General Cherniavsky, all ranking Communists.”
“Her curriculum?”
“Art student.”
“Your studies?”
“Required courses, mainly. No specialty or, as you say, no major.”
“You were quite active with the Young Communists in Smolensk. Now did you continue this in Moscow?”
“Yes.”
“Diligently or because it was required of all students?”
“Diligently. At the end of the first semester I was voted Komsomol unit leader. It is an extreme honor for a first-year student.”
“Olga was in your unit?”
“Yes. A Soviet student has to fight for time to see his sweetheart. After Komsomol meetings was an excellent time ... to discuss dialectics, of course.”
They laughed.
“Isn’t it hell on young people?” Kramer asked. “No apartment rooms, freezing weather outside, or during the summer the parks are filled with blaring speeches, no cars to park in.”
“It’s difficult but, as with boys and girls everywhere, we managed. You must remember revolutionaries are apt to be prim. We are quite Victorian in our morals.”
“At the end of the first semester?”
“I was an honor student. My group leader ...”
“Do you remember his name?”
“Tomsk.”
“Go on.”
“Tomsk instructed me to go for an interview at NKVD headquarters. I was asked to transfer from the university to the College of Intelligence. At first I did not like the idea, but the choice was limited and the rebuilding of NKVD was urgent ... and my duty is my duty.”
“When did you enter?”
“Immediately. Spring of 1940.”
“Courses?”
“Politics ... our politics and economics. Mainly we were indoctrinated in military intelligence and sabotage. Everyone in the school at that time held a reserve commission.”
“What rank?”
“Few were over captain. You must bear in mind we were mostly Young Communists, all coming up together to take over the future intelligence system after the purges.”
“How many years was the full course of study?”
“It was set up for four years, but the war interrupted and the need for military intelligence was desperate. After the first winter’s siege of Moscow I was inducted into the Red Army as a captain. In the spring of 1941, April 15, to be precise, I was parachuted into Poland in the Lublin district, where the Germans had set up their government general.”
“Mission?”
“Establish a small espionage network, set up radio communications, dead-letter drops, contacts. We had two people working inside German headquarters.”
“How large was this group?”
“It varied. Never more than eight people. Our special job was to find out the time of the rail movements of German troops and equipment heading to the eastern front on the Brest-Gomel lines and its spurs.”
“You remained in Lublin?”
“Until July. Then I moved back toward Russia on foot, stopping in cities along the rail line, Brest, Pinsk, and so forth, to establish even smaller radio units. Eventually, advice on train movements would get into the hands of partisan units working in the Pripet Marshes. It was a good operation. We destroyed over ten trainloads.”
“And you made it back to Moscow?”
“Not until midwinter. I lived in the Pripet Marshes.” Boris Kuznetov related the brutal days of the Russian winter in which he lived with a partisan unit. They moved about in the bitter cold like hunted animals for whom there would be no mercy.
“As