And here it is!
Enjoy!
Chapter 01
SIS Headquarters. Section D, Century House, 54 Broadway, Westminster, London, Friday, January 12th, 1940
“Sit down Grand, we have matters to discuss.” The portly and gregarious First Lord of the Admiralty said to the Head of the British SIS Section D.
Major Laurence Grand nodded and waved his hand at Mrs Taylor, his veteran secretary who had popped her head around his door, and who now understood the signal of her boss to mean that yes, she should bring in tea and biscuits.
“To begin with Major,” intoned Churchill leaning forward earnestly from where he was seated, “ it’s what you do here, can you please tell me why the bloody Communists are still in bed with the Fascists. It makes no sense, and now Roosevelt appears to be signaling that he understands Hitler to be plotting a Soviet invasion. What is going on?”
There was a fleeting silence while Mrs Taylor served the tea and biscuits, then, as the door to Grand’s Oak Panelled Office closed shut, he began his response.
“The President is correct, or so we believe. We too have reason to believe that Hitler is planning on mobilizing, as soon as he feel secure in doing so, an Eastern Front to reclaim the half of Poland that currently belongs to the Russians and then move on through the Ukraine into mainland Soviet Union.”
“And how do you know this Grand?”
“Because Joachim Mohr is still a key part of the Nazi Rocket development programme, and has proven to be a reliable and useful source of intelligence to us, not only in regard to German weapons development but occasionally in regard to strategic intentions.”
“Ahhh yes! He’s that girl’s father isn’t he?”
“Barbara Mohr, yes Sir, he is.”
“Bloody important that she and your chap Underwood were able to make contact with us from Finland earlier in the year. Those photographs on the camera they told us about, the V-rocket blue prints, are proving to be invaluable Major Grand. Pity we don’t have the actual photos, but your chap Underwood’s description has certainly given our experts something worthwhile to go on.
“Yes, Herr Mohr is sympathetic to the Allied cause and can be expected to continue to drip feed further information to us. That information has most recently included sketchy plans for a programme called Operation Otto … also reported to us by Underwood … which is the codename for the potential Nazi invasion of the USSR, for which the V Rockets could be a key part of the deployed weaponry.”
Churchill nodded sagely, then said. “What ever happened to those two, Underwood and that girl. I’m aware that your organisation had considered … ah … what is the euphemism? …. ‘liquidating’ them. But apparently that changed and they turned up, as I understand it, albeit only briefly in Finland … long enough to make contact and report in, but then disappeared. What did the Finns do with them?”
“Sent them back into Russia as part of a prisoner exchange, as best we can tell.”
“Figures! Those bloody Finns are a strange lot! Never know what they’ll do next.”
“Yes, they are a rather independent-minded people for sure.”
“Nonetheless, they do have some strategic ground in their country. If we could occupy it, we should … and stop all that bloody Swedish iron ore from going to Germany?”
Two Weeks Earlier …
Henry Underwood’s Cell, Kondopoga Corrective Labour Camp, Kondopoga, Karelia, Soviet Union, Friday 29th December, 1939
Four feet of chain. There had to be a way to wrap it around his neck, it was so wide and heavy, it was hard to manoeuvre his position any which way. One end manacled to his throbbing right ankle, one end affixed to the floor securing his naked body, and four damn feet laying coiled on the ground effectively holding Henry in situ.
Henry Underwood held a length of the hefty chain in his hand, panting and staring at it. By night these damned iron links held him in place, but for twelve damned hours by day he laboured in the surrounding forest tracks chopping wood for the nearby giant paper plant.
At first the NKVD had been interested in ‘interviewing’ both him and Barbara. His claims about the Nazi’s V-Rocket developments seemed to be of some interest. Then, slowly but surely, their time in Moscow … incarceration actually … became more about torture than it did about information gathering, and before long no one even bothered to talk to him.
And so they were packed off to a bloody penal labor camp, and now, after breaking his back all day working at forced labour hauling wood or cracking rocks, when he returned to his cell they chained him, humiliated him and abused him, keeping him naked and cold most of the time, feeding him when necessary and beating him often.
Henry was by now a shadow of his former self, but what concerned him the most was the fact that as far as he knew, the camera that he and Barb had stolen from Joachim Mohr’s house still lay buried in a shallow hole in the woodlands outside of Berlin. Allied command needed those pictures but it would be impossible to get any kind of message to them from here.
He had not seen Barbara for quite some time, and in truth he had no idea if she was still even alive. His only solace was that she didn’t appear at the forced labour sites, but that fact was also his concern because he knew that a woman looking like Barbara would be a prized possession in a place like this.
Fräulein Barbara Mohr’s Cell, Kondopoga, Corrective Labour Camp, Kondopoga, Karelia, Soviet Union, Friday 29th December, 1939
The guards of the labour camps belonging to the GULAG system were conscripts, mostly young men, drafted into Red Army from anywhere across the entire Soviet Union. The job was low grade and the men, mostly young, virile males, had little by way of entertainment … unless they were fortunate enough to be assigned to a kulak like Fräulein Barbara Mohr. And Ivan Kobel was one of four guards lucky enough to have been assigned to such a job when this little cunt arrived over two months ago.
Barbara Mohr stepped out of the shower located in the basement punishment area, and, with a resigned sigh, she towelled herself off.
She was being watched by her guards, all four of them, and two months in she knew them by name. Fedor, Grigor, Lev, all of them boys, all younger than herself, but quickly learning to become men at her expense. But it was the youngest of them, Ivan, whom she knew was the weak link, the one with a little feeling, maybe even some kindness, in him. But during these two long months these boy-men had abused her and tortured her until she frequently thought she’d go out of her mind.
When they first arrived here, Barb had been hopeful that the claims she and Henry had made about an impending Nazi invasion would secure their freedom and repatriation back to Britain. The information taken from her father’s study had revealed plenty about the V-Rocket programme, and a little about Operation Otto – the planning for a move against the Soviet Union.
But neither Barbara nor Henry had proof of anything, and so after those first weeks, Stalin’s-mouth-pieces, the infernal goons that interviewed her, seemed to treat her with an ever increasing amount of disdain. It was as if Stalin himself did not want to believe the ‘stories’ for fear of antagonising Hitler, and soon those interviews gave way to interrogations and then to torture, and deportation to this forced labor camp.
She was allowed to shower with some regularity, but she knew that was only because her little ‘gang’ wanted her to look nice and smell clean, partly for when they used and abused her, but more so because Major of State Security and Camp Commandant Oleg Baranov had taken this pretty Kulak for himself. This, in turn, meant that the gang of four could do whatever they wanted with the girl, providing they did not fuck her cunt and she was delivered to the Major clean and scented whenever he demanded her presence,.
Tonight Baranov wanted her sent to him, but that was several hours away and until then she could be their plaything.
With his little zeke-whore dry and presentable, Grigor walked to the bare cement rear wall, where countless punishment tools hung from hooks and were stored in baskets and drawers. He returned with what looked like a bag of rocks, and a roll of black tape. He pointed to the old stark wooden table …
“Lean …” Grigor’s English was meagre at best. “Show me ass.”
Barbara finished obeying the order almost as quickly as Grigor gave it; hesitation or delay in obeying commands, even momentary, was punished with the electric shocks, or severe beatings, so she had quickly learned.
As the other three looked on, Grigor came up behind her, and the sound of ripping tape filled the small room. “These are lava rocks, the size of gravel but a lot sharper,” he explained. “Light in weight, filled with cracks and sharp angles. Very painful to sit on …”
Barbara groaned as she soon realised that sitting on them was indeed what they had planned for her. He ripped off a piece of black tape about a foot and a half long. The tape was made of cloth, with a strong adhesive. Flexible and tough, it would stay put but leave little residue behind. It also didn’t stretch at all, making it very useful for punishment purposes.
In minutes a howling Barbara was seated on the hard ground, the rocks driving into the abused flesh of her ass, arms chained to the wall behind her and legs spread, manacled to eye bolts in the floor …
“Open.” Grigor grinned down at his captive.
As her jaw dropped and her mouth opened, the guard flipped out his erection. With a slight bend in his knees Barbara’s face was at a perfect height as he slowly pushed into her throat … he would be the first.
TBC