The Stalin Code V.2

By David Kesting

A college student goes missing after a night of bar hopping.

Was the girl the victim of a kidnapping?

Perhaps it was a clandestine meeting gone horribly wrong.

Or did she simply walk away, of her own free will, disappearing into thin air?

Private investigator Sid Ericson is hired by the girl's father as his daughter's disappearance begins to slip through the cracks of the official investigation towards a cold case file.

Along the way, Ericson is run through a maze of conflicting clues and reluctant witnesses.

The private eye encounters:

Tattoos.

Urban legends.

A sunken Soviet submarine.

A white room with dark secrets.

And finally the code used by a mass murderer.

Legitimate clues paving the way towards eventually finding the young student?

Or are they instead, roadblocks put in place to prevent Sid Ericson from unraveling a multilayered mystery that originated decades ago.

One thing is obvious to the private eye.

Multilayered cases can be deadly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Kesting
• Release date: Aug 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386873907

Book preview

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

THE POTSDAM CONFERENCE

GERMANY, JULY 24, 1945

––––––––

Joseph Stalin returned to the Russian compound in Babelsberg, Germany. Babelsberg was a Berlin suburb situated along Lake Griebnitz.

It had been spared much of the destruction rained down by the Allied bombers on the nearby capital of the now defunct Third Reich.

Many private homes in the area, once the playgrounds for German film stars, remained standing and provided accommodations for Stalin and his staff, along with the other attendees during the conference.

Potsdam just a few miles away, another suburb to the southeast of the ravaged capital, was the site of the actual conference and lent its name to the third face to face meeting of the Soviet, British and American wartime leaders.

The formal talks took place at Cecilienhof Palace, which ironically had been completed at the eve of Germany’s defeat in World War I.

The Potsdam Conference was to be the final and a somewhat fluid meeting of the trio of leaders who represented the most powerful countries in the world.

Franklin Roosevelt, the wartime president had died just three months ago in April. He’d been succeeded by Harry S. Truman.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill was in limbo with British elections in the mix. Clement Atlee, the Labour Party leader, was hovering at his elbow.

Churchill would eventually be forced give up his place at the negotiating table to Atlee before the conference ended.

Only Stalin remained in place. He did not have to worry about elections. Health was another matter. The ‘Man of Steel’ had suffered a mild heart attack just before he was to leave for the conference.

It delayed the trip by only a day or two. Stalin, afraid of flying, had come by special train. Four carriages from the days of the Czars were added behind the locomotive for his personal use.

The conference was now into its second week. Stalin, noticeably agitated on his return from Cecilienhof Palace, entered the library of his private residence.

He quickly switched from his pipe to chain smoking the first of many cigarettes.

After puffing on the cigarette for sometime, Joseph Stalin signaled for one man to enter out of a group hovering at the entrance to the library.

Lavrentiy Beria, head of the NKVD, was instantly at his side. The doors were closed. Alone in the study, their physical appearances contrasted sharply.

Joseph Stalin was short in height with long legs and arms attached. He looked overweight in his military style light-gray tunic.

The famous Stalin hair was starting to thin on top, in sharp contrast with the propaganda posters.

His teeth were rotting in his mouth. His face was scarred from a childhood bout with smallpox. Stalin’s eyes seemed yellow in color to those who came face to face with the leader.

Lavrentiy Beria was taller with a bulky frame. He wore pince-nez glasses and was bald. His three piece suit made him look like a bank manager.

Beria ruled the NKVD with an iron fist. He had a mind for facts, figures and names.

The NKVD’s function was broadly defined as the protection of state security. This entailed political repression, purges, and the running of the gulags.  

Beria oversaw the kidnapping and the murder of the enemies of the state, carried out both within the USSR and on an international scale.

The ex-haberdasher finally told me about the atomic bomb, announced Stalin as lit his second cigarette from the dying ember of the first.

Truman has confirmed that the American Air Force has dropped one of the devices on the Japanese? asked Beria.

No, replied Stalin. The new President merely told me that the United States possessed a weapon of great force.

He didn’t even call it an atomic bomb?

Stalin shook his head.

They should have waited until dropping one of the bombs on a city, commented Beria. Then its existence to the world would have had some leverage.

Perhaps he does not intent to use it at all, offered Stalin.

That would be insane considering all the money and manpower diverted into the project by President Roosevelt.

I agree, said Stalin. "The completed atomic bombs are useless as a tool of power unless the world has the proper perspective on the nature of the weapon’s true potential.

Japan is the perfect testing ground. An island nation of yellow people. The same race that FDR put into those camps in America. No one would grieve over their misfortune.

Yes. Yes, repeated Beria. The films and photos of a devastated Japanese city would galvanize the world. Truman is weak and hesitant.

In that vein, offered Stalin. We must prepare to confront Truman’s opponent in the 1948 presidential election in the United States. I want the weak and hesitant Harry S. Truman re-elected.

Our people say that the Republican Party will run Thomas Dewey, the governor of New York State.

No, I don’t think so, answered Stalin. Not if they have a better choice. Dewey is a cold and humorless man. Truman would have a good chance against him. Besides Dewey already ran against Roosevelt in the 1944 election and lost.

You have someone else in mind? asked Beria.

The Americans have a history of electing victorious generals to the White House.

Who do you have in mind? asked Beria. Those camera friendly, prima donna generals, MacArthur or Patton?

Do you remember those pictures of Dwight Eisenhower visiting the paratroopers at their bases in England on the eve of the invasion? asked Stalin.

Ah, yes, said Beria. The ones he worried over so much on the eve of the Allies’ so called D-Day operation at Normandy.

Yes, responded Stalin bitterly. "The turning point of the war from their point of view. Never mind that by June 1944, we had defeated the Germans at Stalingrad.

And destroyed the cream of the Wehrmacht armies at the Battle of Kursk, ending their ability to initiate offensive operations.

It is a travesty, I agree, said Beria. But what do those images of Eisenhower with the paratroopers have to do with the 1948 presidential election?

I believe that those photographs, reprinted many times in newspapers and magazines, were the result of a staged event.

You believe that it was planned for a specific purpose?

Yes. Fodder for Eisenhower’s ambitions after the war.

Surely not for a run at the presidency of the United States?

Why else would the Supreme Commander waste such precious time at the threshold of such a huge operation? asked Stalin rhetorically.

Eisenhower will run as president in 1948, said Beria, shaking his head in disbelief. Such ambition exists behind that genial smile?

"There will soon be those ticker tape parades through the streets of the large American metropolises. The keys to the city routine. Speaking in front of large, adoring audiences of the rotary clubs and women’s groups.

Against the failed suit salesman who succeeded FDR. One who is too weak to know how to use the bomb? Ike will run against Truman and win easily.

You make it sound like a reasonable scenario, admitted Beria.

Eisenhower must be eliminated as a threat. As president he will understand the leverage of the bomb in the postwar world as their Commander-in-Chief.

CHAPTER 2

You have a konspiratsia planned? asked Beria.

Indeed I do. We will use some of the confiscated Nazi loot as the centerpiece. It has already been buried in certain locations across the United States. Those who carried out that part of the operation have been eliminated.

Josef Stalin handed Beria a thick black notebook. Beria received the notebook as if it would electrocute him on touch.

Only this book contains the coordinates where the loot has been buried. There are no other copies. Just you and I alone will know the existence of the Nazi treasure located in America.

Where are these places? asked Beria.

In rough terrain areas, inaccessible except for men in good shape. Like members of General Eisenhower’s beloved airborne units.

I don’t understand how the planting of the Nazi loot in the soil of America will affect the election in 1948? said Beria, now totally confused.

These treasures, pillaged by the Germans across Europe, will be used to defeat Eisenhower’s ambitions, replied Stalin.

"We will start a rumor in the American trade and labor unions, sometime in 1946 or 1947, that Eisenhower diverted some of the recovered loot, using his position as Supreme Commander of the Allies forces in Western Europe.

"He had the treasure transported across the Atlantic and then buried at locations in America soon after the war ended. The core of the story will be that Ike plans to use this loot to finance his presidential election in 1948.

The rumors will go on to say that a clique of his ex-staff officers were in on it. We will leak the story to select reporters. Maybe 25% of the locations will be revealed. The journalists under our thumbs will dig up some of the treasures.

A good plan, said Beria. I can add to it.

Yes?

"We have American soldiers in our custody as a result of the Red Army overrunning the German POW camps. There must be some members of the 101st and the other airborne units under our control.

We will make propaganda films with brainwashed paratroopers and place them at the center of news conferences in front of reporters.

Good. Very good, said Stalin, nodding enthusiastically. "Make sure that all the POWs are cleaned up and well fed. None must look like a prisoner.

Instead, they will represent the perfect picture of veteran soldiers returning to civilian life in America after their honorable discharges.

It will be carefully filtered, said Beria. I will supervise it personally.

The candidates must be all tall and blond. What is the American phrase? Corn something?

Corn fed, replied Beria. Midwestern, corn fed, blond, farm boys. We should be able to scrape up at least a dozen of such specimens.

We will start new rumors through the unions and the friendly press we control that the revealed locations are only the tip of the iceberg, added Joseph Stalin.

"Hints will be circulated about the location of new sites bearing other Nazi treasures that Eisenhower absconded with using his position as the Supreme Commander.

There will be an outcry for General Eisenhower to reveal the locations of his loot by a shocked public. Official investigations will be demanded. It will be fun to watch Ike squirm under the outcry. He’ll be to busy defending himself to run for high office.

There will be an outrage against Eisenhower to be sure. It will dampen the ambitions of any of the other five star generals who want to be president too, said Beria.

Yes, agreed Stalin. We will end the George Washington effect on the U.S. presidential election process once and for all time.

CHAPTER 3

Browse through my black book, Comrade Beria, said Stalin in a menacing manner. Tell me what you perceive.

The book is obviously very thick, replied Beria as he thumbed through the pages. I see many letters, printed by hand on both sides of the pages in a very precise manner. Strange.

What do you find strange, Beria?

The paper is very thin. It is called Bible paper in the west. Yet the letters written on both sides in ink have not seeped through or smudged in any way. It was done by hand, but is so precise, almost as if the letters were printed by a machine.

The letters were written by an expert calligrapher, said Stalin. "He spent weeks in a guarded room within the walls of the Kremlin. I had the only key. I brought him his meals.

When he was done copying the letter sequences into this book, the calligrapher was shot in the very room where he spent his last days transferring the letters from pages written in my own hand.

This is your work?

Yes, replied Stalin in a boastful manner. It is a code.

You write code?

Why are you acting so surprised, Beria? Do you think that I am incapable of creating a code? I learned code writing from a cellmate while in prison in my younger days before the revolution.

Joseph Stalin puffed on his third cigarette. Beria watched him like a mouse observing the cat.

This must be in my file, said Stalin in a low voice. I know that you’ve had my life investigated since birth.

Lavrentiy Beria froze in fear.

I am also aware that NKVD agents have even visited the town of Gori in Georgia where I was born.

Beria fidgeted, moving his feet, choosing his next words very carefully.

Of course, Comrade Stalin, I believe that you are most capable of writing code. It is just that I was wondering what makes this book of many letters so important that you personally would spend time on its completion.

I will tell you the reason, Comrade Beria. The black book that you hold in your hands is the key to putting the konspiratsia into motion. I am running it personally. You will be the only other one involved.

I am at your service, Comrade Stalin. What am I to do?

Your task is a simple one, replied Stalin. I am placing the only copy of the code in your safekeeping. You will carry it with you at all times.

I will make sure that the book does not fall into the wrong hands.

Oh, the book is worthless without the cypher code keys. Only I know what they are.

Are they in another book? asked Beria. In a secure location.

Stalin laughed.

The most secure, he replied. The cypher code keys are in my head.

Multiple code keys?

Yes, replied Stalin. There are four codes wrapped together as one. They were devised individually by men of my own stature for their personal use.

Men equal to your prominence? said Beria. World leaders?

Of a sort. Follow me over to the table.

Stalin motioned Beria over to a wide and heavy oak conference table at another part of the study. At one end of the long table were Matryoshka dolls or, as some describe them, nesting dolls.

Dust covered the conference table at this end. It told Beria that the staff had been ordered not to move the dolls out of position.

Do you like my set of Matryoshka dolls?

Beria nodded nervously trying to conceal his confusion.

Do you know what a Matryoshka doll is, Comrade Beria?

Of course, shrugged Beria. A group of wooden dolls of varying sizes, all fitted into the largest doll.

Very good, said Stalin. A very succinct explanation.

Beria shifted his feet again. He felt uneasy. Stalin watched Beria with a smug expression, enjoying his discomfort.

Tell me exactly what you see on this end of the conference table, Comrade Beria.

I see four sets of the Matryoshka dolls, responded Beria. The sets are identical. There are four dolls to each set. Each doll per set is progressively smaller in size.

How are the four sets of the Matryoshka spaced apart on the table top? asked Marshall Stalin.

Beria was beginning to feel like a slow student being embarrassed by his teacher in front of his classmates.

Each set is spaced out in a different direction. Up and down, and then left and right.

Or you could say north and south and then each and west, countered Stalin.

"True. Then you would need

Reviews for The Stalin Code V.2

[Richard kaczmarek · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Too long due to the fact that most of the book's action involves a search for a missing girl
and trying to decode Stalin's code and to what does it refer. Disappointing !