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  However, Oberleutnant Becker (1) in his Dornier equipped with an on-board radar shot down the Wellington flying to bomb Hamburg on the night of August 9-10. In his next night flights he scored five more impressive victories.”

  “And you suggest that I convince the Luftwaffe command to move these planes near Kiev?”

  “Not only them, Herr General. The marksman points the bombers at the target using radio communication. We'll need the best jamming systems we can find in the Reich, if we really want to upset the Russians' plans.”

  “It's not going to be easy, Colonel, especially in terms of night fighters. I'm afraid I'll have to get approval from the very top.”

  “The Russian will almost certainly be aboard one of the bombers. He can't know we have fighters able to reach the target without using ground searchlights, and that gives us a chance to close the marksman issue once and for all.”

  The General strode thoughtfully through the office and stopped again at the map.

  “Perhaps I'll find the right words for Admiral Canaris,” he nodded to his own thoughts. “The liquidation of the Russian troops encircled near Kiev is now considered the most important task on the entire Eastern Front, and no one wants to jeopardize it. Get ready, Colonel. You're flying into Guderian's Second Panzer Group today. I expect a detailed plan of the operation with a list of everything you need within an hour.”

  ***

  “Note, this gun has its own specificity - high muzzle velocity. Accordingly, when shooting at an airborne target, you have to make a much smaller deflection than usual.”

  Lena nodded seriously, but it was obvious that for her it was just words, and she did not yet understand how to put it into practice.

  “Well, if it's clear to you, then let's shoot at the wooden model.”

  At my request, Ignatov made a rather crude wooden model of a Messerschmitt. I did not need a detailed reproduction of the enemy plane, but it was necessary to accurately match the size ratio of the mockup to the real fighter. We naturally did not have the opportunity to conduct practical firing on the planes, but we could have plenty of fun simulating this fascinating process.

  “Once again, the model is 40 times smaller than the real target, but it is also much closer to you, so when you shoot at the real enemy, it will look exactly the same as you see it now.”

  I showed Lena two thin strips about a meter long, semi-rigidly fastened to the mockup, “With this simple device I will simulate the flight of a Messerschmitt. You point the gun at the target using deflection and pull the trigger. No shot, of course, but every time I'll tell you if you hit or miss.”

  I finally figured out how to use my abilities to train our sniper to shoot at aerial targets. After all, promises have to be kept, and I didn't consider it possible to put it off any longer. The computer told me if the weapon was correctly aimed at the moment of firing, and Lena could practice as much as she wanted, or rather, as long as the superiors let us do it.

  The "plane" made a standard U-turn, approaching the target, and I heard the dry click of the trigger.

  “Missed! The deflection needs to be further reduced. In addition, the bullet went slightly above the target. We start again. I need you not just to hit the hull of the plane, but to hit the cockpit, the engine, or the fuel tank on my command. Let's go!”

  Snap!

  “Missed! The deflection was normal, but the bullet went lower. You incorrectly accounted for the angle of lift of the plane when exiting the attack. One more time!”

  Snap!

  “Bingo! Already better, you punctured its vertical stabilizer. The target, unfortunately, is still combat-ready. Are you ready? Let's keep going!”

  “Missed!”

  “Comrade Senior Lieutenant, allow me to address you!”

  I turned around. Sergeant Nikiforov was standing at the exit to the courtyard.

  “You are ordered to report immediately to the office of Comrade Senior Major.”

  This could only mean one thing: the decision on my proposal has finally been made. I wonder what it is. I nodded to Lena and walked quickly toward the building.

  ***

  The weirdness started towards the end of the day. First, the pilot received an order from air division headquarters to prepare for takeoff and await the arrival of a special NKVD representative, who was to be received on board and given access to surveillance equipment.

  Lieutenant Kalina had landed his twin-engine Pe-2R at the airfield only a few hours before, and he knew very well, that the rare breaks in low cloud cover gave very little chance of seeing anything below. Besides, the Germans were just rampant. It was a good thing that the bomber, converted into a reconnaissance plane, was almost as fast as the Messerschmitts, but they still had to run away twice at full speed and even to shoot. They, of course, brought back some pictures, but Kalina himself clearly understood that, by and large, this flight was in vain.

  And now he has to fly again, diving into that cloudy mess again, taking fire from the ground and constantly fearing attacks from enemy fighters. And then there's that special representative...

  The hum of the engines distracted the Lieutenant from his thoughts. A PS-84 transport plane, escorted by three fighters, was coming in for a landing. To the Lieutenant's surprise, the Yaks did not leave for their airfield, but began to approach after the transport plane.

  “This is your cover, Lieutenant,” said the squadron commander, who approached discreetly from behind, and nodded toward the Yaks.

  “And why should I be honored like that, Comrade Captain?” Kalina pulled off his flight helmet and ruffled his hair.

  “It's not for you,” said the commander, with a chuckle, “you're under the command of the senior lieutenant of state security for the duration of the flight. You and I are better off not knowing the name of this comrade, but any order he gives you is a law.”

  A rather young officer in a NKVD uniform was heading toward them at a brisk pace from the transport plane. Kalina put his helmet back on and prepared to report in full form.

  ***

  The commander of the German African Corps, General Erwin Rommel, watched grimly as his divisions were loaded onto transport ships. The port of Tripoli was full of tanks, guns, tractors and other military equipment. The infantry divisions from France and Italy were to temporarily replace his troops, which had already gained experience fighting in the desert. They had to make a long journey to Russia, to the Eastern Front.

  The Führer's order was a thunderbolt from a clear sky for Rommel. In Africa, a real success was emerging. The morale of British and Australian soldiers was shattered by the crushing defeats of the spring-summer campaign, they were forced to leave Benghazi, Sidi Omar and Al Saloum, German-Italian troops took the deep-water port of Tobruk under tight siege.

  And now he could just forget all these victories. There will be no new offensive in Egypt, no decisive storming of Tobruk. Despite the unambiguous order received from Berlin, Rommel did not know how to look the Italian generals in the eyes. He felt like a traitor, even though it was not he who made the decision to replace his tanks with infantry. And besides, the General couldn't shake the feeling that he had had a victory stolen from him, a real big victory, which might have been the pinnacle of his military career.

  Well, he guessed that one could see better from Berlin, and Moscow really was much more important than Tobruk, Al-Alamein or even Cairo, but at the moment Rommel was in no way relieved by this understanding.

  Chapter 2

  The Pe-2 took off when it was no more than a couple of hours before sunset. A bomber converted for air reconnaissance purposes, was gaining altitude easily.

  I pointed out the course to the crew commander and took the gunner-radio operator's seat.

  Pe-2. Soviet World War II dive bomber. In the Soviet Air Force it had the nickname "Pawn". It was originally designed as a high-speed high-altitude fighter. The Pe-2 was used not only as a bomber, but also as a reconnaissance aircraft. Maximum speed 540 km/h. Practical ceiling: 8,700 m. Practical range 1,200 km. Bomb load up to one ton. Firearms (1941) - four ShKAS machine guns (7.62 mm).

  The three fighters that made up our cover stayed slightly above our Pe-2, keeping a close eye on the aerial situation. We flew directly over the clouds, which had become a little less dense by evening, and sometimes we could see the earth between the clouds. At times the cloud cover became multi-layered, and then we lost sight of our escort for a while.

  We passed the front line more or less calmly, but then the problems began immediately. Neither Lieutenant Kalina nor fighter pilots saw any danger yet, but the enemy air surveillance service was well organized, and our flight over the forward positions of the Germans did not go unnoticed.

  Four Messerschmitts were approaching us from the southwest. They were still quite far away, but they were flying confidently, and it was never in my plans to meet them.

  “Course north-northwest,” I ordered the pilot and duplicated the command over the radio to the Yaks.

  Of course, I wasn't going to actually scout the area - satellites were much better for that, but I had to at least visit the areas that would later be bombed, otherwise I would have to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions again. Naturally, no one knew about it except me, and everyone else involved, including the Germans, took what was going on with complete seriousness.

  The enemy was extremely negative to the idea of our reconnaissance flight over their territory. We changed course, and this resulted in the Messerschmitts sent to intercept us just not finding us. Nevertheless, more and more ground observers saw us, and soon the computer alerted me to the appearance of three more pairs of enemy fighters in dangerous proximity.

  Of course I was jamming, but frankly, I didn't want to jam the Germans'
communications at all. I had already abused this opportunity several times when there was simply no other way out, but the Germans are not idiots, and are quite capable of putting two and two together and realizing that their problems with communication occur exactly in those places, where this strange Russian appears. However, I was going to remedy this situation by arranging a dozen other similar anomalies a little later in various places, including not only the Eastern Front, but also Europe and even Africa. This, of course, should have been taken care of earlier, but...

  After about half an hour, it was clear that we couldn't dodge another unpleasant encounter. We were almost caught in a pincer movement between the enemy planes, and now all that was left was to choose the most inconvenient course for the Germans, which I did. As a result, the main part of the pursuers stretched after us in a long chain of planes flying from different directions and at different altitudes, but we had no way to dodge a pair of Messerschmitts, which flew almost toward us.

  “"Blackbirds", attention! Enemy at two o'clock. Height two and a half,” I warned our escort. “Don't change the course.”

  “Comrade Senior Lieutenant of State Security, maybe it would be better to change course?” the crew commander had not yet seen the enemy, but he did not dare to question the information about him, “If we are discovered, there will be a whole crowd of Messerschmitts here in ten minutes.”

  “The course is the same,” I repeated calmly. “The Germans already know about us. We don't have much time, and I haven't seen everything I need to see.”

  “Yes,” Kalina thought it best not to contradict the NKVD special representative, but it was obvious that in his mind he had only strengthened the thought, that this flight was a meaningless adventure. I understood the crew chief perfectly. Cloud breaks were rare, and he, as an experienced aerial reconnaissance man, knew very well, that it was completely impossible to get a picture of the situation on the ground from these fragments.

  “I see the enemy!” a report came in from one of the "Blackbirds". “A pair of Messerschmitts. We've been spotted. They are in no hurry to attack - we outnumber them.”

  “If they go on the attack, bind them up by battle.”

  “Copy that!”

  I understood the motives behind the Germans' behavior. The enemy pilots did not want to rush into an attack of two against three without the surprise factor. They thought we weren't going anywhere, because other pairs of fighters, lifted from nearby airfields, were already rushing to the scene.

  For a minute we continued to fly in the same direction, and meanwhile the situation was becoming more and more threatening. The fighters following us were slowly closing the distance, and the augmented reality mode drew me the marks of more and more enemy planes joining the hunt. In my opinion, the Germans overreacted, showing a very painful reaction to our raid.

  “Take a course north,” I ordered, realizing that we were already over the territory occupied by the encircled troops of the Southwestern Front, and there was no point in going any farther west.

  A couple of seconds before I changed course, I still jammed the airwaves completely. Only to the Germans, of course. Our escort continued to take my commands.

  In this way I hoped for a time to deceive the pursuers, who were following us, and make them move for a while on the former course, which now was diverging from our course. In about ten minutes I was going to turn east, as it was becoming too dangerous to stay in enemy airspace.

  “The Messerschmitts are attacking!” I heard a shout from one of the pilots in our escort.

  The pilots of the pair of Messerschmitts who had reached us quickly realized that no one could hear their reports about the change of course by the Russians, and decided to bind us up by battle themselves to prevent us from getting far away.

  Having risen to a considerable height, the Germans attacked our escort in a dive. In aerial combat, especially at the local level of technology, the element of chance plays a very significant role.

  The leading Messerschmitt opened fire from a distance of 200 meters. It is not easy to hit from such a distance, but the German was lucky. A machine-gun burst crossed the cockpit of the leading plane of the three Yaks, and the "Blackbird-1" flipped over the wing and went into an uncontrollable fall.

  The return bursts of our fighters did not reach the target, and neither did the shots of the German pair's wingman. But now the balance of power was evened out, unless, of course, our Pe-2 was counted as a fighting unit, and the Germans did not take it seriously.

  Despite the lack of communication, several enemy fighters from the pursuit group continued to catch up with us. Perhaps they received a visual indication from the ground, or simply decided to widen the search sector, but the fact remained - I only partially succeeded in the course change and jamming.

  The air battle, meanwhile, continued, and combat luck was clearly not on the side of the Soviet pilots today. The air division commander assured me that he was assigning his best pilots to accompany me, but having lost their leader, they seemed to have lost their composure after all. The second attack by the Messerschmitts was effective again. This time, however, they did not win an uncontested victory, but a dark plume of smoke followed one of the Yaks, although the pilot did not seem to have lost control of the plane.

  “Comrade Senior Lieutenant of State Security, we have to get out of here!” I heard the desperation in the voice of the Pe-2 commander. “Permission to change course!”

  “Stop panicking!” I growled at the Lieutenant, “"Blackbird-3", what's wrong with the plane?”

  “The engine is damaged, but it's still working,” I heard the pilot's strained voice, “Oil splashes on the cockpit canopy. There is almost no visibility.”

  “"Blackbird-3", get out of the fight! "Blackbird-2", pull the Messerschmitts on me!”

  “"Blackbird-2" did not understand the command! Please confirm the order!” immediately responded the pilot of the last intact Yak.

  The navigator of the Pe-2 also looked at me like I was crazy. Lieutenant Kalina couldn't take his eyes off the plane, but he, too, twitched in his seat when he heard my command.

  “"Blackbird-2", I need you to get the Germans into my rear hemisphere machine gun range. Is that clear now?”

  “Doin' it,” the fighter pilot said after a second, but it was clear from his voice that he thought my order was nonsense. However, he quickly lost interest in the NKVD special representative, who had lost his mind, because two Messerschmitts immediately attacked his Yak.

  Nevertheless, the pilot complied with the order. The combat between the fighters took place about a kilometer above us, and the "Blackbird-2", once again attacked from above, tried to pull away from the Germans in a steep dive. He chose his direction so that the Messerschmitts, which followed him, at some point were above our Pe-2, lagging slightly behind it. This arrangement suited the Germans well, too, as it gave them, with some luck, the opportunity to take out the last Russian fighter and the sluggish but fast bomber in one go.

  “Do not change course! No evasive maneuvers!” I ordered Lieutenant Kalina and took my place behind the machine gun, “If you interfere with my aiming, you'll be court-martialed!”

  “Copy that!” the pilot answered in a strained voice.

  The ShKAS machine gun was undoubtedly one of the brightest examples of engineering at the time of its creation. Its designers, Shpitalny and Komaritsky, managed to combine the best solutions of that time, used separately in other automatic weapons. The result was a machine gun with a very high rate of fire for its time - 1,800 rounds per minute. After a number of "child illnesses" were eliminated, the reliability of the ShKAS was brought up to quite an acceptable level, but it was still very sensitive to any dirtiness, which in real combat conditions led to frequent malfunctions and to the failure of attempts to use it anywhere but aircraft.