The Berkut (10 page)

Petrov selected another soldier, but before he could ask his question, an older man shuffled forward. He wore a surgeon's smock covered with blood, most of it dried.

"I am Haase," the stooped man said wearily. "Doktor Werner Haase. All of these men know that Hitler is dead. The radio said he died in combat. He did n
ot. He killed himself in the Fü
hrerbunker. I have been here the whole time and I know this to be the truth. Now, if you're going to shoot me, do it quickly or let me return to my work."

"Show me," Petrov said, ignoring the doctor's bravado. "Show you what?"

"Hitler."

"You mean Hitler's body?" "Show me."

"They burned it," Haase answered. "There's nothing left to see.
Just ashes, and I don't know
where they are. You've come too late to get Hitler."

"Show me," Petrov insisted, his voice still perfectly even. Haase shrugged and limped across the room. Petrov and the other Russians followed.

The doctor walked with great difficulty. He stopped often to cough; he had a deep wet hack. "Tuberculosis," he explained after an extended coughing spell. It took them several minutes to reach their destination. Haase stopped before a thick steel door and stepped aside. "The bunker is in there," he said, pointing.

"How many exits?"

"Counting this?" Petrov nodded. "Four."

The Russians left a scout to guard the door and moved down into the first level of the bunker. Even Haase was surprised to find that the bunker generator was still operating, providing light and stale air. Petrov showed no interest in anything but the exits. At each one he posted a sentry.

In a corner of the lower bunker, Haase showed him a flight of stairs. "This leads to an unfinished tower above; it's not really an exit." Petrov posted a sentry anyway. What you failed to do in a crisis was invariably what you should have done. The Berkut did not make such mistakes.

With the area secured, Petrov ordered a search of the many cubicles on the upper and lower levels of the bunker. While his men deployed,
the leader of
the Special Operations Group examined a partitioned section of the main corridor in the lower level. The body of a general lay on a worn red carpet runner. The man had a bullet wound in the head; powder bums near the wound told Petrov that it was self
-
inflicted. Several empty whiskey bottles were on the floor; their necks had been broken off, as if someone had been in a hurry to get at their contents. Glass fragments were scattered around the area. Petrov carefully gathered the debris into small orderly piles with the toe of his boot. The men took thirty minutes to make their search and report back. They had found the bodies of six children: five girls and a boy. Petrov examined them. When he was finished, he had the men put the dead general with the children. Later the doctor called Haase identified the dead man as General Krebs.

After the body had been removed, Petrov sat down with his men.

The four extracted small, tattered red notebooks and scribbled and ate field rations as he talked.

"One.
I want to know the name of every person who was in this area during the past two weeks, with special emphasis on the seventy
two-hour period before the alleged suicide. This includes women. I can smell perfume here, and those children would not have been here without some kind of female escort. Construct the working list from the known. Example: we know the doctor was here. Have him name every person he can remember. As we locate others, repeat the process. Use one witness to corroborate the next witness, and so forth."

Petrov paused while the men made notes. "Focus first on those for whom we have multiple entries," he continued. "Divide your lists into categories. The general can be the first on our list of known dead. Another category will be for those in our custody. Put the doctor's name on that list. Then there will be a group that is missing, but in whom we are interested because they were here at the end and may have information of use to us. We will provide updates of the list of the missing to our military field commanders and security personnel every twelve hours. Instruct them in the proper way to secure, screen and transfer these prisoners. Emphasize that as soon as they find the people we want to interrogate, they are to not
ify us directly and immediately,
anytime, night or day." His dark eyes flashed emphasis. "They are to be isolated from other German prisoners until they are under our control. All records of these transfers and these prisoners' existence are to be given over to us," Petrov said. "No exceptions.
”

"Two.
We need facilities. Confiscate a building with two or more
floors to house the special prisoners. They are to be isolated. Use our authority to establish internal and external security. There are to be no German-speaking Soviet troops inside this area, only us.

"Three.
On the ground floor of the facility I want a clerical section established. Use German civilians, females only. No Russian-speaking Germans.

"Four.
Each prisoner is to be interrogated immediately upon arrival at our security section. A stenographer should be used, and each interrogating officer is to keep his own notes as well." He paused and added, "Write neatly." His men smiled at the admonition. "The transcript and notes are to be put in an individual folder. Each folder is to be placed on my desk, in the order in which the prisoners are interrogated. Each folder should al
so contain-as the top document-
statement detailing precisely where, how, when and by whom the prisoner was taken. I want the circumstances and the names of those who were with him, along with all the names of those who captured him. Later those soldiers who made the capture will be interrogated, and their statements will be checked against those of the prisoner. Remember,
all
particulars are to be included in these capture reports; nothing is too small to omit, nothing too mundane to ignore. During the initial interviews you are to pay special attention to the names of other Nazis who were in the area at the time of capture.

"Five.
The prisoners' medical needs should be attended to immediately and they are to be well fed. They are not to be abused physically, although you may use your own creativity and initiative in order to obtain any psychological advantage.

"Six.
The prisoners are to have no contact with anyone outside our group. If anyone from outside tries to make contact, capture them, keep them and inform me of such developments immediately.

"Seven.
To repeat what was said earlier: when prisoners are passed to us by other units, there is to be no record of the transfer. These prisoners no longer exist once they are under our control." Petrov paused for effect here.

"Eight.
During the initial inspection, be especially vigilant for concealed implements of self-destruction. Poison capsules are most likely.

"Nine.
The prisoners are to be kept in darkness between interrogations. There is to be no light except when they are taking their meals.

"Ten.
When Tempelhof is normalized for air traffic, I want three transports fueled and ready at all times. Further, whenever we launch an aircraft from this end, I want a replacement launched simultaneously from Moscow."

Petrov looked at his men. He seldom invited questions; if they had them, he expected them to ask. They were supposed to be professionals.

There were no questions. The tiny Russian did not exhort them to do their duty; they knew it well. They also knew the price for failure: death. To be selected for duty in the Special Operations Group was a distinct honor. Such duty brought elevated pay, better living conditions when they weren't in the field and, more important, extraordinary power. Petrov selected his own men. Since its formation nine men had served in the unit. Of the current four, only Rivitsky remained from the original group.

Despite the group's harsh schedules and months in the field, Rivitsky remained fat, with a baby's face, pink flesh and no facial hair. He looked innocent, the kind of man whose appearance disarmed the unknowing, and was fluent in a dozen languages. A forty-year-old widower, he was as ruthless and clever as Petrov. He was a former detective who could philosophize with academics and learned clerics, deal with scientists on the most arcane technical subjects and out
drink the coarsest of Soviet foot soldiers. Rivitsky was Petrov's administrator, a meticulous man who could quickly and efficiently organize any task, no matter how complex.

At twenty-seven, Gnedin, a Muscovite, was the youngest member of the group. Tall and thin, he was the medical expert of the team. He had been trained at the McGill University Medical School in Montreal, and Petrov had recruited him from the staff of a small sanitarium near Moscow that provided medical care to the party's elite. He had a keen mind and exceptional powers of observation.

Ezdovo was the most peculiar member of the Special Operations Group. He was a native Siberian, an outdoorsman with the eyesight of a bird of prey and excellent deductive skills. There was no machine he couldn't fix, and he was an experienced pilot. He had the least formal education of any of them, but in survival instincts he surpassed them all. In the field Ezdovo's skills carried them. He was the quietest of the group, by nature a loner.

The final member was Bailov, the Uke. Like all of them, he spoke several languages. He was muscular, a former athlete who had enjoyed national fame and who, from time to time, was recognized because of his physical accomplishments. What Bailov contributed to the group was unlimited energy. Whatever the task, he would go at it until it was done.

All of them were members of the Communist party and all were devoted to Petrov and his master, Joseph Stalin, to whom they referred irreverently as the Big Boss.

Instructions laid out, Petrov dismissed them, asking only Rivitsky to remain behind. Gnedin, Ezdovo and Bailov left to pursue their assigned tasks. As always when they were alone, Petrov showed no outward signs of intimacy with his cherubic colleague, though Rivitsky felt no discomfort with his superior's formality.

"I can feel him," Petrov said.

"We'll try for the corpse in the morning," Rivitsky said.

"Yes, in the morning at first light," Petrov said distantly. "But he's not here."

15 – Vasily Petrov

Petrov was born in a small village in the Carpathian Mountains in the extreme southwestern Ukraine. Physically he was an unimposing but distinctive figure. Of slight stature, almost frail, his hair was thick, coal-black and cropped closely, and he had a dark complexion.

Like most men, Petrov was in part a product of his environment. His corner of the Ukraine contains some of the wildest terrain and most savage inhabitants of the USSR. Historically the area has been a melting pot for refugees and extremists from Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Muslim countries to the southeast. In the days of Petrov's youth, the inhabitants of the area were predominantly Roman Catholic, and there were many churches, but despite this Roman influence and considerable efforts of priests to make the inhabitants change their ways, strong beliefs in magic persisted. Pagan rituals were practiced and honored by even the most devout parishioners. It is also a region where feuds between families are measured in generations, where peasant farmers scratch without reward at an unyielding, sterile earth, where hunters and woodsmen live alone in the forests with hermits and bandits. In this land sons are treasured, while daughters are sold for profit. The infant mortality rate remains even today among the highest on earth, a full 33 percent higher than the Soviet Union average.

Petrov was a product of all this, but he was unique in other respects. The term "photographic memory" is one used too generously, but his memory was prodigious; if the phenomenon exists, Petrov was one of its rare possessors.

Physically, only Petrov's eyes were remarkable: like his hair, they were black, intense and menacing, set close together over a thin bridge of nose. His gaze, combined with his soft, almost feminine voice, immediately made people uneasy. Socially he was unvarnished; he talked little and went immediately to the point.

Petrov was a man sensitive to time, driven to accomplish each task as fast as possible, employing every tool at his disposal to that end. During interrogations he gathered information dispassionately, reacting neither positively nor negatively to the testimony of his subjects. He was renowned for his thoroughness, going over and over the same ground, day in and day out, always driving deeper and relentlessly for more information. When necessary, he used drugs on prisoners; he also employed hypnotism with astonishing results. While he never tortured his subjects himself, he consented to the use of outside experts if all else failed.

Petrov was "born" in the party sometime during the 1930
s
, when he was in his early forties. It was rumored that he had played a role in the assassination of Trotsky in Mexico City in August 1940. Indeed, some sources identified him as the planner of the event; certainly he had both the contacts and the reputation to warrant such speculation. Since he had first surfaced in Moscow, he was always identified with the periphery of the intelligence and security branches of the central Soviet government.