Tango with Pandora

The main characters of the novel “Tango with Pandora” are military intelligence officers who for many years passed the most valuable information to Moscow obtained from secret sources. All of them ended up in military intelligence thanks to one of its founders—Jan Karlovich Berzin, who managed to achieve almost the impossible: in a short time he created the most powerful intelligence service with resident offices around the world, significantly boosting the country’s defense capabilities. Berzin knew how to analyze agent reports well. Back in 1929 he wrote that the coming war would last three and a half to four years; it would begin without any formal declaration and could not be ended using only military methods. Moscow expected the start of World War II, and yet the news of the fascists’ invasion of the USSR sounded like an explosion after which, for a moment, a coffin-like silence reigned—immediately broken by the roar of aircraft, the whistle of bombs streaking toward peaceful homes, the clanking of tank tracks… But woven into this roar forever will be faint, barely audible ticks of Morse code. Dot—dash… Behind the lines of coded messages will remain blood and pain, deprivation and despair, risk and heroism of military intelligence officers.