red moscow

Chapter 2625

Upon seeing this, the ambassador quickly summoned up the courage to shout, "What are you doing? Stop it!"

The colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who led the team squinted at the ambassador and said sarcastically, "Mr. Ambassador, we didn't do anything. Why do you stop?"

The ambassador came to the colonel and said to him with a stern face: "Mr. Colonel, you have entered our embassy without permission. Do you know what this means?"

"I don't know." The colonel said, "Please tell us, Mr. Ambassador."

"Mr. Colonel," the ambassador said righteously, "Your behavior of breaking into the embassy without permission is a blatant violation of international law and British sovereignty. I order you to leave the embassy immediately, otherwise I will report this to the country. If this leads to a breakdown in relations between our two countries, can you bear the responsibility?"

"Mr. Ambassador, you are mistaken. We entered the embassy because we received reliable intelligence that a group of suspicious elements have sneaked into your embassy and will pose a threat to the personal safety of embassy staff." The colonel said to the ambassador with a smile: "We are here to arrest those suspicious elements. For your safety, I suggest you do not act rashly. Otherwise, if something unpleasant happens, don't blame me for not notifying you in advance."

After saying this, the colonel waved his hand to his men without waiting for the ambassador to respond, and ordered loudly: "Leave a few people to guard these British, and the rest of you follow me to search inside."

Seeing the Soviet colonel and his men searching everywhere, the British military attaché walked up to the ambassador and asked worriedly, "Mr. Ambassador, are we just going to let these Russians search our embassy?"

"Major, do you think you have the ability to stop them?" The ambassador asked this question and said impatiently without waiting for the military attaché to answer: "They broke into the embassy today. It was obviously premeditated. All you and your subordinates can do is cooperate. Don't provoke them, otherwise there might be bloodshed today."

Although there were only five or six officers and soldiers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the hall at the moment, the British soldiers, who outnumbered them, remained silent, not daring to speak casually, lest they upset the other side and cause any conflict. After all, the battle with Sokov's men made them feel terrified.

At the same time, Yakov, who stayed outside, looked at the building in front of him and asked Sokov worriedly: "Misha, will nothing happen?"

"What could possibly happen?" Sokov asked.

Yakov raised the secret letter in his hand and said, "Misha, don't forget what is in the letter?"

"In addition to asking us to cooperate with the internal security forces, they also warned us that our search troops might be provoked, and asked us to be ready for battle and rush in to rescue them at the critical moment." After reciting the top-secret contents of the secret letter in one breath, Sokov said, "Do you think the British have the courage to provoke us?"

"You just let our soldiers beat them up with their fists." Yakov said, "Before they started fighting, the British might have shown their teeth at us, but after being beaten by our soldiers, they no longer have the courage to provoke us."

"Yasha, although we have used restraint to teach the ignorant British a lesson and made them not dare to act arrogantly in front of us," Sokov said with a frown, "I have a bad feeling that bloodshed may happen."

Hearing Sokov say that there might be bloodshed, Yakov couldn't help but look a little nervous: "Misha, does the Ministry of Internal Affairs breaking into the embassy count as invading another country's territory?"

Sokov remembers that at the initiative of the United Nations, countries around the world held the United Nations Conference on Diplomatic Intercourse and Immunities in Vienna, the capital of Austria, in 1961 and signed the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, with the Optional Protocol on Acquisition of Nationality and the Optional Protocol on the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes attached. This treaty has become the explicit basis for all modern diplomatic rights and the fundamental principle for resolving all diplomatic disputes, including the protection of embassies.

Although the convention states that military police, judicial personnel, taxation personnel and other personnel performing official duties in the host country may not enter the embassy or the private residence of a diplomatic envoy to perform any task without the consent of the diplomatic envoy or the diplomatic personnel, the premises of the diplomatic mission and the private residence of a diplomatic personnel shall not be violated, whether they belong to the government or private property of their own country, or are rented by them. In addition, the treaty also stipulates that the private residence, documents and letters, and property of diplomatic personnel also enjoy the right of inviolability.

But now the convention has not even been signed, that is to say, whether the British embassy is protected by international law depends entirely on the attitude of the Soviet side. After understanding this, he said to Yakov: "Yasha, if we recognize that the British embassy is British territory, then it is British territory. If we do not recognize it, then it is not British territory. As for what consequences will come from the bloodshed today, it is not a question we should consider."

"Misha, do you really think there will be bloodshed today?" Yakov asked in surprise.

"This possibility is very high." Seeing that Yakov seemed to have not yet understood the intention of the superiors, Sokov reminded him: "Yasha, I think you may know that a few hours before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, the General Staff issued an order to the front line, which mentioned that the Germans might take the initiative to take "provocative actions." The word "provocative" was also mentioned in the secret letter sent to the two of us today, which means that bloodshed is inevitable."

"What if, what if?" Yakov asked tentatively, "If the British choose to forbear, can the bloodshed you mentioned be avoided?"

Sokov thought about it seriously, then shook his head and said, "Churchill's speech yesterday will have serious consequences. If we simply besiege the British embassy, ​​it will not have any deterrent effect at all, so we need to use ruthless tactics."

"Use a ruthless move?" Yakov asked puzzledly, "What do you mean?"

"You also heard Marshal Zhukov's intention yesterday. First, we need to conduct large-scale military exercises in Europe to deter the Allies militarily. At the same time, we need to use diplomatic means to condemn Churchill's remarks." Sokov explained to Yakov, "Marshal Zhukov's proposal is very good, but it will take too long and will not be effective. Therefore, the superiors intend to take a quicker approach to force the British to bow to us."

"If bloodshed does occur, do you think we can still evacuate before dark?"

"Then I'm afraid we can't leave." After Sokov's eyes swept across the soldiers on duty, he realized a problem. If these soldiers had to stay in the embassy for a long time and didn't have a place to live, wouldn't they be prone to frostbite at night?

Thinking of this, he called Bezikov over and said, "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, I think we may have to stay here for a while, so we need to consider the accommodation of the soldiers."

"General Sokov," Bezikov replied, "I just thought of that, too."

"Is there a solution?"

"I'll send someone back to bring some tents and daily necessities." Bezikov pointed to the empty courtyard of the embassy and said, "We can set up tents on the open ground and prepare heating equipment so that the soldiers can go in batches to keep warm and eat. This way, they can stay here for one or two months, not to mention two or three days."

"Lieutenant Colonel Bezikov, you are very thoughtful. Send people back to get tents and daily necessities." Sokov glanced at the soldiers on duty and frowned. "They have been standing in the snow for several hours. They should find a place to warm up."

Bezikov felt that there were many things to prepare and he was uneasy about sending others, so he left with a dozen soldiers. Before Bezikov came back, several crisp gunshots were heard from the direction of the embassy building.

As soon as they heard the gunshots, Sokov and Yakov rushed out of the duty room, holding pistols and running towards the embassy building, trying to find out what was going on.

Just as they were about to reach the embassy building, the glass of a window on the third floor was suddenly smashed to pieces, and then an armchair flew out of the window and landed in the snow outside the window.

When Sokov saw the fallen chair, he immediately guessed that someone in the house had lifted the chair to break the window glass in order to escape. Just as he thought of this, he saw a man in a white shirt jumping out of the window and landing directly in the snow.

Seeing someone jumping out of the building, the soldiers on duty nearby immediately stepped forward to capture him. Unexpectedly, the man stood up from the snow and shot at the soldiers rushing over with his pistol. I don't know if his shooting skills were too bad or the gun was not easy to use. He fired four or five shots in a row but didn't hit any of the soldiers.

When Sokov and Yakov rushed forward, they found that the man had been pinned to the ground with his hands handcuffed behind his back by the soldiers.

"Is anyone injured?" Sokov asked loudly.

"No." A squad leader answered loudly, "No one was injured."

Sokov looked up and happened to meet the eyes of a man who had stuck his head out to check. After seeing that the man was the colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who led the team, Sokov nodded at him, indicating that the man had been caught. The colonel nodded slightly and then retracted his head.

"Misha, who is this person we caught?"

"I don't know." Sokov shook his head and answered simply, "Our mission is just to assist the personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in guarding the embassy building and prevent anyone from escaping. The rest is none of our business."

Soon, the colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs ran out of the building, panting, and came to the two men, saying breathlessly: "Comrades Generals, thank you. If you hadn't been guarding outside, this man might have escaped."

"Comrade Colonel," although Sokov had reminded Yakov not to be too curious and not to ask questions that he shouldn't ask, he still couldn't help asking the colonel: "What does this man do?"

"A spy." The colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs evaded the question. "After stealing important intelligence from our army, he fled to the British Embassy. We were ordered to come here today to arrest him. Who knew that during the arrest, he actually shot at our soldiers. Fortunately, his marksmanship was so poor that no casualties were caused to us."

As a person from the future, Sokov naturally understood that many individual staff members in the embassy were nominally staff members, but in fact they were spies, and their mission was to collect useful intelligence. This was a tacit unspoken rule. If they did not investigate, everyone would be safe and there would be no problems. If the host country wanted to investigate, they would be caught. It was precisely because of this that after arresting the person who jumped out of the window, he did not question his identity at all, so as not to cause unnecessary trouble.

"Comrade Colonel, have you completed the search of the embassy?"

"The embassy is very large," the colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said with difficulty, "It will take at least a whole day to complete the search."

Sokov almost laughed out loud as he watched the other party's serious nonsense. In front of him was a three-story building. With more than a hundred people entering to search, it would only take half an hour at most to turn all the rooms upside down. The colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said this just to extend their stay in the embassy building, so as to put pressure on the embassy.

But he also knew that his mission today was to fully cooperate with this internal security force, so he chose not to say anything, but pretended to be very cooperative and said: "Comrade Colonel, since the embassy is so large, you must be careful when searching, lest there are hostile elements hiding in the corners and shooting at your soldiers."

The colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs heard the hidden meaning of Sokov's words and nodded quickly, saying, "Thank you for the reminder, Comrade General. We will be more vigilant in the next search to prevent the hostile elements hiding in the embassy building from shooting at our soldiers."

The ambassador in the building was anxiously asking the first secretary who had just returned from the telecommunications room: "How is it? Has London called back?"

"No, Mr. Ambassador." The first secretary said with a bitter face, "So far, we have not received any response from London." He paused for a moment and continued, "Now the Russians are still searching the building, what should we do?"

"What else can we do? We must cooperate with their search and arrest operation." The ambassador instructed the first secretary, "Go and tell all the staff to stay in their rooms. Let the Russians do whatever they want. Don't go against them. Otherwise, I will not be responsible if any accidents happen."

"Yes, Mr. Ambassador." The first secretary agreed, "I will pass on your order immediately."

"Wait a moment." Just as the secretary turned around and prepared to leave, the ambassador stopped him and said, "Call the military attaché over here. I have something to say to him."

"Mr. Ambassador, he may not be able to come."

"Why?" The ambassador was shocked and asked, "What happened to him?"

"He and his men were locked up in the house by the Russians and were not allowed to leave. Naturally, they could not come to see you."

"Damn it, these damn Russians." The ambassador gnashed his teeth and cursed, "What on earth do they want to do?"

"Mr. Ambassador," the first secretary asked tentatively, "Can I leave now?"

"Yes, sure." The ambassador nodded and said weakly, "Once you get a call back from London, come and let me know immediately."

"Yes, Mr. Ambassador."