red moscow

Chapter 2631

"I forgot where I heard it," Sokov said somewhat awkwardly, "but I heard from others that Zhdanov and your father were relatives. I was thinking at the time that neither you nor your brother's wife were Zhdanov's daughters, so the only possibility was that your sister married Zhdanov's son."

After hearing this tongue twister, Yakov was also a little confused: "I think it must be a rumor. My sister and her husband have a very good relationship and it is impossible for them to get divorced. As long as she is not divorced, she will not marry Zhdanov's son. The rumor that my father and Zhdanov are relatives is undoubtedly a rumor made up by people with ulterior motives."

……

The blockade of the embassy lasted until the fifth day, when Sokov finally received Zhukov's messenger.

The messenger was a lieutenant. He saluted Sokov and Yakov and handed them an order: "Comrade Generals, this is an order from Marshal Zhukov to you, saying that the purpose of the blockade of the British embassy has been achieved and the blockade can be lifted."

Sokov took the order and read it carefully. He found that, as the messenger said, Sokov and Yakov were to withdraw their troops to the Kremlin barracks and wait for the next order. He took a special look at the signature at the back. There was only Zhukov's signature, and there was no Beria's signature.

After sending the messenger away, Sokov said to Yakov: "Yasha, our mission has been completed. We can withdraw from the British Embassy."

“Has the British side apologized to us?”

"Not sure." Sokov shook his head and said, "Our current mission is to take the troops back to the Kremlin barracks. Marshal Zhukov will send someone to inform us what to do next. As for whether the British side has apologized to us, you can ask Comrade Molotov. He is the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs and should be very clear about this matter."

"Forget it. I don't think it's necessary to bother Comrade Molotov for such a small matter." Yakov waved his hand, rejected Sokov's proposal, walked to the door, opened it and shouted to the outside: "Lieutenant Colonel Bezikov!"

Hearing Yakov's shout, Bezikov immediately trotted over: "General Yakov, what are your instructions?"

"We just received an order from our superiors saying that our mission has been completed." Yakov said to Bezikov, "You should gather the troops immediately and prepare to evacuate the embassy area."

"Evacuate now?"

"Why, you still don't want to evacuate?" Yakov asked.

"No, no." Bezikov shook his head and said, "I just think it's a bit too sudden."

"Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, we have been here for five days and have taught the British a lesson enough." Yakov said, "Now, it is our turn to go back and rest. Okay, hurry up and assemble the troops."

Bezikov agreed, turned around and ran away.

A few minutes later, Sokov, who was in the duty room, heard a series of whistles outside. It should be Bezikov gathering troops and making preparations for evacuation.

The movements of the Soviet commanders and fighters outside were naturally seen clearly by the embassy staff inside the building.

The first secretary rushed into the ambassador's office and reported excitedly: "Mr. Ambassador, good news, good news, the Russians outside are going to withdraw."

"Really?" After hearing the report from the first secretary, the ambassador stood up and walked towards the window, wanting to see it with his own eyes.

"Yes, Mr. Ambassador." The first secretary followed behind the ambassador and continued, "I saw them gathering outside with my own eyes, and some were dismantling the tents set up in the yard. This is clearly a sign of evacuation."

The ambassador came to the window and looked outside. As expected, he saw the Soviet soldiers who had blocked the exits of the embassy were lining up in the open space. Moreover, several tents built in the middle of the open space had been knocked down, and someone was sorting things out nearby.

"Great, this is really great." The ambassador was so happy when he saw this: "These damn Russians are finally going to withdraw." Then he told the first secretary, "Go call the counselor. I have something to tell him."

Before the secretary left, the counselor rushed into the room like a gust of wind, and said with great joy: "Mr. Ambassador, did you see that? Those damn Russians are gathering their troops and will soon withdraw from us. This is really a happy thing."

"That's right, Mr. Counselor." The ambassador nodded and said to the counselor, "Two days ago, we sent a secret letter to the intelligence station outside and asked them to help us pass the message to London. Did they send us a reply?"

"Not yet, Mr. Ambassador." The counselor shook his head and said, "We sent people from the purchasing department to go out to buy, but the Russians didn't let our people go out at all. They just asked us to hand over the purchase list to them, and they bought the ingredients and then sent them to us. I carefully checked the ingredients that were sent in, and there was no information smuggled in by the outside intelligence station."

The ambassador was silent for a while, then he said, "Mr. Counselor, after all the Russians have withdrawn, immediately send two reliable staff members to our underground intelligence station to learn about the situation from them and find out what is going on."

"After the Russians withdraw, I will lead the group there myself."

After another half an hour, there was gradually no movement outside.

The ambassador walked to the window and saw that all the Soviet soldiers outside had evacuated and everything seemed to have returned to calm. He turned to the counselor and said, "Take it away now. We have lost contact with the intelligence station for too long. You need to find out what is going on outside as soon as possible."

"Okay, I'll go now."

After the counselor left, the ambassador picked up the phone, dialed a number, and said into the receiver: "Mr. Major, please come to my office. I have something important to tell you."

Soon after I hung up the phone, the military attaché came in from outside: "Mr. Ambassador, what do you want to talk to me about?"

"All the Russians outside have already left." The ambassador said to the military attaché, "Send someone to the gate immediately to guard it and don't let any strangers in."

The ambassador saw the soldiers sent by the military attaché standing at the door of the embassy again with their weapons in hand, and the counselor also took a car with two staff members to a place called a food purchasing point, but actually an intelligence station, to learn about the situation. He couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, feeling that his life seemed to have returned to normal.

What he didn't expect was that within less than an hour of being happy, he received a shocking piece of bad news. The counselor who was heading to the intelligence station came to his office in a panic and reported to him: "Mr. Ambassador, it's bad, our intelligence station has been taken down."

"What? Our intelligence station was taken down?" The ambassador asked in shock. "What's going on? Why did the Russians take down our intelligence station?"

"Maybe. I think it might be that the Russians wanted to completely cut off our connection with London." The counselor guessed, "That's why they sent people to take down our intelligence station here."

The ambassador walked back and forth in the room with his hands behind his back, wondering in his mind why the Soviets would suddenly take action to destroy his intelligence station in Moscow. Did something go wrong and the Soviets discovered it?

After walking around the room for an unknown amount of time, the ambassador finally stopped, turned to the counselor and said, "Tell me everything you know in detail."

"Mr. Ambassador, the situation is like this." The counselor reported to the ambassador: "I took people to our intelligence station and found that the salesmen inside were all new faces. When they saw me enter the door, a bald middle-aged man immediately came up to me and asked: 'Sir, how can I help you?'

I saw that it was a stranger, so I asked, "Where did the original boss and the staff go?"

The other party replied to me: 'They have been transferred to other places. From now on, I will be responsible for the sales work in this area.'

I realized that the situation was not right, so I said a few perfunctory words and led my people away."

After hearing this, the ambassador snorted coldly: "What do you mean by transferred? I think they were thrown into prison."

After that, he came to the table, picked up the phone, dialed a number, and asked: "Have you contacted London? ... What? No contact yet? What are you doing? You can't even handle such a small matter. ... If you have any news, report to me immediately."

"Mr. Ambassador," the counselor said after the ambassador hung up the phone, "I don't know what the Russians used, but the day after they blocked the embassy, ​​they cut off all our contact with the outside world. I wanted the people in the purchasing department to take the opportunity of buying food to report our situation to London through the intelligence station, but in the end they were also wiped out by the Russians."

"The intelligence sent a few days ago, do you think it was received by the people at the intelligence station, or did it fall into the hands of the Russians?"

The counselor thought for a moment, then replied: "Whether the people at the intelligence station received this information or not, as they were uprooted by the Russians, this information must have fallen into the hands of the Russians, so our situation is not optimistic."

"Damn it, how could this happen?" the ambassador said angrily. "Churchill is no longer the prime minister. How could he speak so recklessly regardless of the occasion? As a result, we are implicated. Now, the intelligence network we have built in Moscow with great difficulty has been wiped out by the Russians with this incident. If we want to build a new intelligence network, I don't know how much manpower, material resources and time it will take."

"Mr. Ambassador, since the incident has already happened, I think we should report to London immediately after we restore communications with London." The counselor suggested to the ambassador: "Let them send capable personnel to reorganize our intelligence network in Moscow."

When the ambassador and the counselor were discussing work, neither of them knew that their conversation had been transmitted to the monitoring department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs by several wiretaps installed in the room. These wiretaps were installed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs personnel during the search process a few days ago. Not only the ambassador's office, but also all important departments had newly installed wiretaps. Everything that happened in the entire British Embassy could be clearly heard by the monitoring department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

But the people in the embassy knew nothing about this, and they were still immersed in the joy of the Soviet withdrawal. Without the Soviet officers and soldiers standing guard at the door, they could enter and leave the embassy freely again.

Besides, as soon as Sokov and Yakov returned to the barracks with their troops, they received a notice asking them to go to Zhukov's office.

After handing over the work matters to Bezikov, the two of them quickly arrived at Zhukov's office.

The adjutant in the office outside saw the two men coming and immediately took the initiative to greet them: "Comrade Generals, you are here. Comrade Marshal is waiting for you inside."

As he spoke, he pressed the intercom in front of him and reported to Zhukov: "Comrade Marshal, Generals Sokov and Yakov have arrived."

"Let them in."

"Okay." The adjutant agreed, stood up and walked to the closed door. After pushing one of the doors open, he said politely to the two men, "Comrades General, please come in!"

After thanking his adjutant, Sokov walked into Zhukov's office with Yakov.

As soon as the two of them walked into the inner office, the door behind them closed silently.

Zhukov, who was sitting behind his desk, saw the two men coming in, stood up and walked out from behind his desk, shook hands with them one by one, and said, "Misha, Yasha, you have performed very well these days. Even Comrade Stalin is praising you."

"Comrade Marshal," Yakov asked curiously, "I want to ask, since we are evacuating today, should the British side apologize to us?"

"That's not the case." Zhukov shook his head and said, "Comrade Beria and I sent you to blockade the British embassy just to teach them a lesson and let them know that we are not easy to mess with. Now that this goal has been achieved, there is no need for you to stay, so I will let you withdraw first."

Sokov secretly guessed that sealing off the embassy for five days and then choosing to evacuate was certainly a lesson for the British, but it seemed to be just scratching the surface for the British side and had little effect. Zhukov now asked himself and Yakov to withdraw the troops, maybe there were other arrangements.

"After consultation with the General Staff and with the consent of Comrade Stalin, we will conduct a large-scale military exercise in Europe on the eve of May 1st," Zhukov said. "The purpose of this exercise is to deter those Allied forces who are ready to make a move, and to let them know that if they dare to provoke us, they will be hit by our thunderous blow."

Yakov seemed very happy to hear what Zhukov said, and quickly asked: "Comrade Marshal, I wonder how big the scale of this European military exercise is? How many troops will participate, and how much technical equipment will be used in the exercise?"

"In addition to the German group, the southern group stationed in Hungary also participated in the exercise," Zhukov said. "More than one million troops were mobilized, including 5,000 tanks, 3,000 aircraft, and 50,000 artillery pieces of various calibers."

"Wow, so many troops and technical equipment." Yakov was overjoyed. "Comrade Marshal, after our military exercise is over, I think the allied forces in Europe will no longer have the courage to make any small moves against us."

"That's for sure." Zhukov nodded, then looked at the two and asked, "I called you two here to ask you if you want to participate in this military exercise. If you are willing, you can choose to go to any cluster."