Chapter Two.

The great, vaulted reading room of the Central Science Library of The Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic; formerly known as The Belarusian Academy of Sciences in Surganava Street, Minsk was silent, save for the repetitious, hollow ticking of the escapement of the large, ancient wall clock mounted high above the mahogany bookshelves that lined the walls. The library was dark and gloomy; it smelled of old, neglected, leather-bound volumes and cheap furniture polish. An occasional gust of wind rattled the window sashes, but otherwise, it might have been a scene straight out of some ancient, long-forgotten age when Alchemists sought enlightenment in their quest to search for the "Philosopher's Stone" or some Universal Elixir.

In one corner of the great library, within a pool of soft light cast across the surface of the mahogany reading table by the solitary green-glass-shaded desk lamp, a pretty, young, blonde-haired girl sat intently studying an ancient, and frustratingly enigmatic volume lying open before her. The volume was leather-bound and embossed with traces of faded, and weathered gold leaf. It was hand-written in some totally obscure language... unlike anything she had ever seen. The script bore a vague resemblance to sixteenth century Old English script, mixed with Gothic German and Hebrew. The letters were composed of long, sweeping flourishes and tightly-rounded characters.

Slowly... painfully slowly, she was beginning to unravel these enigmatic symbols. She had, in the past, successfully deciphered Egyptian, Assyrian; Etruscan, Sumerian... all manner of ancient scripts. She had imagined that this language would probably be an archaic variant of Cyrillic... or its sister language, Glagolitic; both ancient Slavic languages used side-by-side in the early history of writing in Eastern Europe.

She now saw that it was not going to be anything like that straightforward. This was some completely unknown language. She would need to start from scratch... using frequency of letters... common linkings, and such-like. Her fingertips, encased in thin, white cotton gloves, traced the lines of script. She reached to turn the page. As her fingertips touched the ancient vellum, she suddenly gave a cold shiver, almost as if, a grey goose had, at that same moment, flown over her grave. Perhaps, it was just the icy wind from the east creeping in through the warped window frames… but, it wasn't that kind of shiver. She glanced apprehensively around the sombre, shadowy library. There was nothing. It was just her imagination.

Occasionally, she picked up a pen and scribbled on the note-pad lying beside the great volume. She had spent several weeks attempting to decipher this fragile, vellum-paged enigma. She had started with the old, tried-and-trusted 'frequency analysis' method. This system supposed that in every language, some letters are used on the average, more than others; and the percentages of letters in different languages tend to be constant. The problem with this translation was that the average frequencies of letters were just that: averages. The actual frequencies of letters in any one example of text could vary from that average. The most that could be said was that the most common letters would rise to the top of the frequency list, while the least common would sink to the bottom.

On paper, this sounded straightforward. This was not the case with whatever language this ancient volume was written in. Solving even a simple code is difficult. Decrypting something like this volume was a little like trying to translate a document written in a totally alien language… with the task basically amounting to building up a dictionary of the symbol groups and the plain-text words they might represent. She wished Sacha were here with her. A fresh pair of eyes might find something that she was missing.

The volume was one of the three that had been discovered in the Podkamennaya Tunguska river basin. On behalf of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences of the USSR, based in what is now called Leningrad; Leonid Alekseyevich Kulik, the chief curator for the meteorite collection of the museum of the Academy of Sciences, had led several expeditions to that area of Siberia to seek out the validity of eyewitness reports concerning the fall of what was thought to be a great meteorite, somewhere near the Podkamennaya Tunguska river in the June of 1908.

The cataclysmic detonations had been heard at least nine hundred-and-fifty kilometres away. Throughout Western Europe, some people had seen massive silvery clouds, and brilliant, coloured sunsets on the horizon, whereas others witnessed strange luminescent skies at night. Shortly after midnight on 1st July, 1908, Londoners had been intrigued to see a pink phosphorescent night sky over the capital. The same ruddy luminescence was also reported over Belgium. Curiously, the skies over Germany were said to be bright green, while the heavens over Scotland were of an incredible intense whiteness which tricked the wildlife into believing it was dawn.

The skies over Moscow were so bright that photographs were taken in the streets without using a magnesium powder flash. The captain of a ship on the River Volga reported that he could easily see vessels on the river three kilometres away by the uncanny astral light.

Outside the local region in Siberia, the Tunguska explosion remained virtually unknown for more than a decade. In the interim period, Russia, with a revolution and the Civil War, was in no mood for chasing the truth behind unexplained mysteries.

The first expedition of Kulik, in 1921 failed; due to the harsh conditions of the Siberian wastes thwarting his team's attempt to reach the area of the supposed blast. In 1927, a new expedition, again led by Kulik, almost reached its goal. At first, the local Evenki… one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North were reluctant to tell Kulik about the event. They believed the blast was the wrath of "Agdy," the Old Man of the Thunder... the Evenki Storm God; who had cursed the area by smashing trees and killing animals. What Kulik had eventually found, was staggering in its magnitude. Karyn had the reports spread out on the desk before her.

He wrote that he had found the charred corpses of millions of trees laid out in a radial pattern for about forty kilometres in all directions, pointing away from the blast site in a great butterfly shape... yet the trees near the centre were still standing… although totally stripped of branches; so that they almost resembled a stand of telegraph poles. But, what had caused this dreadful destruction? It could only be one thing... a Meteorite strike, or perhaps, a Meteorite airburst. On the second major expedition to Tunguska, in April, 1927; two months after leaving Leningrad, Kulik reached the southern boundary of the region of devastated forest. He had written in his journal:

"I still cannot sort out my chaotic impressions of this excursion. In the north, the distant hills along the River Kushmo are covered with a white shroud of snow half-a-metre thick. From our observation point, no sign of forest can be seen, for everything has been devastated and burned; and around the edge of this dead area, the young twenty-year-old forest growth has moved forward furiously, seeking sunshine and life. One has an uncanny feeling when one sees fifty to seventy-five-centimetre-thick, giant trees snapped across like twigs, and their tops hurled many metres away to the south."

By June, 1927, Kulik had found the epicentre of the destruction. The journey through the forest wasteland had not been without peril. He wrote in his journal:

"In the early part of the day when the wind rose, it was very dangerous to walk through the old, dead forest. Twenty-year-old dead giants rotted at the roots were falling down on all sides. Sometimes they fell quite close to us. As we went along we kept our eyes on the tree-tops so that if they fell, we should have time to jump aside."

During 1928 and 1929, Kulik led new expeditions; even over-wintering at the site. No crater or meteorite fragments were ever located; only some microtektites - small, glassy, spherical particles of molten rock; and thousands of trees all crashed and burned. He estimated about ten thousand square kilometres of Siberian evergreen coniferous forest were devastated in the areas of the Chamba, Zhilushmo, and Kushmo rivers. Something approaching eighty million trees were flattened; and hundreds of reindeer... the livelihood of local herders; had been killed.

Exactly where these ancient volumes had been discovered in this area was not told; but how on earth could such fragile artefacts have possibly survived such devastation?

Aleksandr Anatoly Sergeyev hurried across Zakharievskaya Street. As he approached the massive, curved colonnade that spanned between the two wings of the building bordering the wide courtyard in front of the Academy; he glanced across the broad, main thoroughfare of the city that stretched dead straight for eleven kilometres, linking the Borisov highway with the Warsaw road. Across the broad avenue, he saw the black GAZ four-door saloon parked in the shadowy darkness between the boundaries of the pools of light cast by two adjacent street lamps.

He shivered; it was one of the dreaded "Chyornye Voronki," the NKVD "Black Ravens"… the Government's notorious black GAZ cars that were used to arrest suspects, often on false charges of being "Enemies of the People." These "Political criminals" were usually imprisoned, sent into exile, or executed. Surprise arrests were often made in the small hours of the morning.

He caught a glimpse of a glowing cigarette tip, and could almost feel the cold eyes watching him from the impenetrable darkness of the car's interior. They were there every night. He should be used to them by now. They had watched him for three months as he came to escort Karyn back to the Hotel Europe. They watched all foreigners, especially her. They shadowed her everywhere; not that she chose to wander too far. Most foreigners were forbidden to roam about. She, however, was not. She was authorised by Yezhov himself.

Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen; Graduate Doctor of Archaeology with a chair at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main, was untouchable. Much as it might rankle them, those evil NKVD bastards dare not lay so much as a finger upon her. If they were to do anything, then it was certain that their next car ride would be a one-way trip in the back seat of one of their own "Black Ravens" out to Brod Woods in the forests to the north of Minsk.

A few kilometres north of Minsk; to the left of the Łahojskaje highway, there was a village called Zielony Ług. Two kilometres north of the village, in the forests to the south of the Zaslauje Road, they shot people... both men and women; who were brought there every day and every night on trucks, or in the sinister black "Chyornye Voronki." For these victims, it was a one-way trip and the inescapable Nagant or Tokarev bullet in the back of the head.

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On the hills there was an area known locally as Kurapaty… so-called in reference to the local name of the white anemones which covered the area in spring - a favourite spot of the locals for picnicking, taking walks and playing games of chess; there stood an old stand of conifers surrounded by broadleaf trees and thickets. Some ten to fifteen Hectares of this coniferous stand had been surrounded by a fence more than three metres high, made of closely fitting, overlapping, wooden planks surmounted by barbed wire. Outside the fence were patrolling guards and dogs. The people were brought there along the gravelly, cobbled road that ran from the Łahojskaje Highway towards Zasłaŭje. The local villagers called it the "Road of Death." The families of those who were shot were usually told that their loved ones had been sentenced to ten years in prison without the right to send letters.

A Directive had come down from Moscow Central, signed by Yezhov himself, specifically stipulating that no one in the Minsk office was to meddle in the affairs of this young German archaeologist with a gift for deciphering ancient languages and glyphs. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov; the Commissar of the NKVD… The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, otherwise known as The Main Directorate for State Security; sat in his office on the third floor of the Lubyanka…the huge, five-storey, NKVD Headquarters and prison on Dzerzhinsky Square, Moscow, issuing such directives, in-between signing Death Warrants that had sent millions to their execution during the Great Terror. No one… but no one, with the slightest modicum of common sense, crossed Yezhov. Consequently, the Minsk NKVD dared do nothing, but keep this pretty, young German Professor under surveillance.

Aleksandr hurried up the wide steps, passing between the towering pillars that supported the colonnade, still aware of the cold eyes of the Black Raven's occupants boring into his back. Quickly, he stepped through the central doorway of the Academy and hurried towards the reading room of the Library. He pushed the door open, and gazed at the lone figure studying the pages of the great volume. Her bell of blonde hair glowed pale in the lamplight. He called softly,

"Kak dela, Milaya moya?"... 'How's it going, My Sweet?'

She looked up, smiling. She loved it when he spoke to her in Russian; it was so romantic… so poignant; compared with her hard, efficient, Mother tongue. She responded with his pet name which he had said he preferred that she used.

'Hello, Sacha, I've worked out all the vowels and about three-quarters of the consonants. From what I've managed to translate so far, it seems to be some sort of Chronicle... almost a folk tale. It's really weird… like reading from some fantastical novel... but it's written in the most elegant, archaic style.'

Aleksandr smiled; she looked tired.

'Well, that's enough for tonight. Time to take you back to the hotel. Our shadows are outside again... as usual. You'd think they'd get fed up with it.'

She laughed,

'Not if they're anything like the Ironheads back home. They just love it.'

She carefully closed the volume, slipping the acid-free, paper bookmark in between the parchment leaves, marking the place to where she had progressed in her deciphering. She reached across the reading desk and pressed a bell push. As she removed the cotton gloves and tidied her notepad and pencils, the door opened, and the old library archivist, Sergei Kivikoski shuffled in. He smiled; a crooked old Bolshevik smile.

'Another night in the catacombs done with, then? I guess you'll be off out dancing now... if you can shake off those three NKVD "Svolochi"…bastards, in that Black Raven across the street.'

Karyn smiled at the old man as she gently lifted the volume from the reading desk to place it in the massive, cast-iron safe in the corner of the reading room.

'Don't worry Sergei; I'm here at the invitation of Papa Stalin, himself. They just sniff around to make sure I'm behaving myself.'

Old Sergei gave her a worried look.

'Please don't underestimate them, my dear; they're bloody devious. Still; we'll see you tomorrow. Take care, and goodnight.'

As they stepped out into the cold night air and turned down Zakharievskaya Street, Karyn and Sacha heard the squeak and dull clunk of the car doors opening and closing. She glanced back over her shoulder. Yes, there they were… two men in the blue-topped, red-banded visor caps, and olive-coloured greatcoats, coming across the street, fifty metres behind them. They heard the grating rattle of the GAZ car engine starting. It would be the same old procession all the way down Zakharievskaya Street to where the Hotel Europe was situated on Lenin Square. The two goons would keep pace; with the Black Raven creeping along twenty metres behind them.

This sinister, ongoing game of Cat and Mouse had started six months earlier in Frankfurt-am-Main. One morning in the early spring of 1937, at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität; the young, East Prussian archaeologist, Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen was summoned to the office of the Präsident. There, in the presence of the Gauleiter of Franconia, Julius Streicher, she was apprised that, in her position of “Privatdozentin”… a private teacher or lecturer recognized by the university but receiving no compensation from it… she had been selected from the Archaeological faculty of the Universität for a specific "Assignment" ordained by the Party Hierarchy in Berlin.

Streicher; whom they called the Uncrowned Czar of Franconia; "Jew-baiter Number One" of The Third Reich; and publisher of the vulgar, and pornographic, vehemently anti-Semitic, weekly Nazi newspaper: "Der Stürmer;" a short, stocky, bull-necked, muscular man with a Hitler-style moustache, coarse features; almost invisible eyebrows, and a shaven head; lounged in a chair in the corner of the Direktor's office, resplendent in his excrement-yellow, single-breasted NSDAP Political Leader uniform; having been brought in from the neighbouring Reichsgau in place of the local Gauleiter of Kurhessen, Karl Weinrich, who was attending the Reichstag Parliament in Berlin.

His eyes never left her as he weighed her up to within a hairsbreadth of her Aryanness… and probably, her bed-worthiness. The thought of his eyes, let alone his hands upon her, made her shudder. Thankfully, the interview was soon over. She was instructed to clear her desk and go to her apartment to pack. She was issued with a railway warrant; destination… Berlin. A car was waiting for her.

She came out of the University building onto Mertonstrasse A sleek black Mercedes saloon was parked at the kerb. The driver opened the rear door. It really wasn't necessary to use a car. Her apartment was less than a kilometre away on Franz-Rücker Allee to the north-west. Nevertheless, the driver was insistent. Settling her in the plush rear seat, he started the big, six-cylinder engine and moved out onto Grafstrasse, heading north; turning left onto Sophienstrasse, then bearing right, onto Franz-Rücker Allee. Within five minutes, the Mercedes pulled into the kerb at the point where she had indicated. The driver climbed out, and opened the door for her. He spoke:

'Fräulein Doktor, you must catch the evening express to Berlin from the Hauptbahnhof in forty minutes.'

The two SS-Sturmscharführers lounged idly on the western arrival platform; Bahnsteig "B" of the Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof, smoking their pungent Korfu Rot cigarettes. It was a dirty night, the 24th May, 1937. The few passengers awaiting their late trains glanced nervously at the pair, in their sinister black uniforms with the SS brassard… the blood-red-and-white Swastika Hakenkreuzarmbinden armbands on their left arms above their elbows.. Frightened eyes glanced at the feared, plain-black SD-collar tab, and the SD Ärmelraute… the black diamond lozenge badge sewn onto the left sleeve and edged with silver bullion wire indicating that they had Gestapo affiliation; and worse… the even more feared black, and silver bullion-wire SD-Hauptamt Cuff Title below it. They could only be from Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 9, Sitz des SS-Hauptamtes… the Main Security Office. So, they were ReichsFührer-SS Himmlers' personal thugs! Some poor bastard was in real trouble, having these two goons waiting to pick them up. The bright glare from the overhead platform lamps reflecting back from the great arched, glass roof of the station glittered ominously on their Totenkopf Death's-head cap badges.

As the portentous, black-uniformed Iron-heads surveyed the sparsely occupied platform; those upon whom their gaze descended, shivered, and quickly looked away. As sure as hell, these two evil-looking bastards were from "Amt VII für Sicherungsaufgaben"… The SS Security branch of the SD-Hauptamt Command Administration. They prowled up and down the platform, the hob-nails and heel-irons of their shiny black "Schaftstiefelen"… knee boots, which would become derisively, and universally known as jackboots; clacking ominously on the platform flagstones. Up and down... up and down. They were waiting for the night express from Frankfurt-am-Main. The big station clock minute hand was creeping round to eleven o'clock. The night express was due in at 11.05pm, and the Deutsches Reichsbahn Gesellschaft always ran on time, these days.

As the two SDs strolled back down the platform with creaking jackboots and cold, reptilian eyes; the distant, mournful sound of a locomotive steam-whistle echoed somewhere out in the darkness of the rainy Berlin night.

As they turned to stare out into the blackness; the lamp on the signal gantry, some thirty metres beyond the three huge, end wall arches spanning the incoming tracks on the permanent way side of the station, flicked to green. The two SDs tossed down their half-smoked cigarettes and ground them into the platform. Out of the darkness came the bright glare of the three head-code lights reflecting back off the silver ribbons of the glittering rain-soaked tracks as the big, black and red, 4-6-2 Borsig locomotive coasted into the platform, with the locomotive and coach brakes squealing, and clouds of hissing steam billowing from the double cylinders as the engineer vented the cylinder steam chests.

The Two SDs stepped back into the shadows as the express creaked to a standstill. The huge train-shed arched roof echoed as coach doors were banged open, and the passengers of the Frankfurt-am-Main night express stepped down from the rain-glistening, dark-green-liveried coaches onto the Anhalter Bahnhof platform. The SDs coldly scrutinised the passengers hurrying past them; all of whom, were trying to avoid direct eye contact... such was the uncomfortable feeling these ominous black uniforms gave to even the most innocent travellers. But then; these days... who is truly innocent? The slightest word out of place and you are just as likely to find yourself doing the Gestapo two-step in the sinister "Dienstzentrale der Gestapo" offices at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8... the notorious Gestapo "Hausgefängnis"… "House prison." Such is the paralysing fear that grips the hearts of even the most patriotic Germans at something as trivial as an unconscious glance from some passing uniformed Nazi on the streets.

Out of the clouds of wreathing steam came a slender figure on tapping high heels. She would be about twenty-five; a tall, blonde, blue-eyed, classic "Arisch"... Aryan. She wore an expensive Dove-grey, two-piece suit and a jaunty little hat complimenting her pale blonde hair, swept back into a severe chignon which emphasised her high Prussian cheekbones. She carried an old, and battered, but expensive leather "Würzl" suitcase. As she walked down the platform, the two SDs stepped out into the light. The other hurrying travellers glanced sideways at her. Poor bitch!... she's had it. But then... the great arched, glass roof of the Anhalter Bahnhof echoed as the two SDs snapped to attention, and crashed their heel-irons together in the regulation manner.

Heads swivelled around as the scurrying travellers gaped over their shoulders. She stood before the two SDs as their right arms shot out in the theatrical Hitlergruss. As she turned, the platform lights glittered on "Das kleine Goldene Ehrenzeichen der NSDAP"… the small, Party "Golden Honour" Badge that was pinned to her left lapel. She returned the salute by merely raising her right forearm and hand from the elbow... just as the Führer did at the Party Rallies. So, she must be important... otherwise, such a slovenly salute would be seen by the SS as deeply insulting if dared to be done by anyone else; and would have brought a swift, and harsh retribution. The two SD's expressions didn't even flicker.

The taller of the two SDs snapped out,

'Heil Hitler! Fräulein Doktor von Seringen? Welcome to Berlin. We have a car waiting.'

One of the SDs took her suitcase, as the other escorted her down the platform towards the ticket barrier. The crush of passengers miraculously parted; and the bustle and clamour instantly diminished almost as though some unseen hand had thrown a light-switch. The old ticket collector held out his hand for her ticket but was brushed aside. He looked at the ominous black uniforms, uncertain as to what he should do. His task was to check tickets and no exceptions; but, this... if he dared to challenge them, they'd have him banged up in Konzentrationslager Dachau for insulting the SS quicker than the time it would take to get the drawers off a James-Klein Revue showgirl. He swiftly chose that prudence was definitely the better part of valour, and waved them through.

In the bustling, great cathedral-like outer atrium of the station, there was suddenly, complete, and utter silence, save for the soft hiss of steam from the locomotives; and a faint hum of traffic out on Stresemannstrasse, as the party crossed the echoing marble floor to the sweeping staircases that led up to the main entrance of the Anhalter Bahnhof. The only sounds to break this portentous stillness were the clacking tread of two pairs of glittering, hob-nailed jackboots playing counterpoint to the elegant tip-tapping of her high heels.