“As you mention this, yes, I am authorized to offer Volgograd as well. We will also abandon the siege of Chelyabinsk, return Omsk to the control of the Free Siberian State, and open the Trans-Siberian rail connection through that entire region. And then, of course, there is the oil.”
“The oil,” said Kirov. “Yes, the oil. If I am not mistaken, you promised all that to the Third Reich.”
“Those shipping orders have all been cancelled.”
“Because Hitler no longer needs to wait on your paperwork,” said Kirov. “He’s already sitting on Baba Gurgur, and Guderian may soon be starting his push for Basra and Abadan. I wonder which they will take first, Basra or Groznyy? Will they go all the way to Baku? He looked at Berzin now, but his intelligence Director merely shrugged.”
“Will they go all the way to Leningrad this year?” said Ivanov, with just the slightest edge of desperation creeping into his tone. “You both know they have already made their plans for that operation. It will be called Downfall, and perhaps that is what it will be—the downfall and destruction of the Soviet Republic. But don’t you see? With Orenburg and the Soviet Union fighting as one, there will be no Operation Downfall against Leningrad this year, if ever. So, you can add that city to the others. Yes, with us, you can save Leningrad from the destruction that the world witnessed at Moscow.”
“No thanks to you and Volkov. Were you cozied up to Beria? Did you know about his little plan to eliminate me and burn the capital to the ground?”
“I knew many things,” said Ivanov, “and one of them was that Beria was a decrepit bastard. While I was not privy to his plans at Moscow, what he did there was not a surprise. That was on your watch, Berzin. It’s a shame you didn’t stop him.”
“Oh I stopped him alright,” said Berzin. “I shot the man dead myself, and to do the same to you would be one small measure of justice for all you have done against the Soviet State in this war.”
“But we are not savages,” said Kirov. “We are, however, patriots, and if the Germans do come for Leningrad, we will fight them to the last breath in the last man. But they will not come, because we will stop them. We’ll attack Bryansk, we’ll attack them at Kursk, we’ll attack them at Moscow—in every place they have so rudely trodden upon the sacred soil of the Rodina. And we will prevail—with or without the Orenburg Federation. So you can keep the shattered ruins of Volgograd, and keep Samara as well. We’ll take it back when I get around to that sector, and when we come for it, there will be nothing you can do to stop us. So enjoy your little squabble with the Führer. You can go back and tell Volkov that there will be no peace—not until Soviet troops march triumphantly through the heart of Orenburg itself, and that time may not be as far off as you may think.”
“This is foolish!” said Ivanov. “You need us—you need the full might of the nation Russia was before the revolution to have even the slightest chance of defeating the Germans, and you know this. Your pride in this will be the ruin of your Soviet State! Don’t you realize that Volkov could turn about tomorrow and accede to all of Hitler’s demands? We could mend fences there again quite easily, and then where will you be? You will be back in the same cold borscht! Germany will win this war, and then what will become of the Rodina you speak of with such fervent adulation? It will become nothing more than a slave state, your people, your cities, all of it gone to the service of the Third Reich.”
“Mister Ambassador….” Kirov fixed Ivanov with a dark and level stare. “There is a pistol in my desk drawer. It is Berzin’s pistol, the very same one he used to kill Beria. Your claim to innocence concerning that matter was really quite preposterous, for our intelligence is very good. We know damn well that you were involved in that plot, and you are one of the very few, beyond Volkov himself, that survived when I ordered Red Rain in retribution.”
Kirov opened his drawer and took out that pistol, slowly handing it to Berzin, who was still right at his side. “Grishin,” he said quietly. “I believe we have some unfinished business.”
“What?” said Ivanov. “You threaten to kill me? I am here under a cloak of diplomatic—”
Berzin leveled the pistol and fired.
Kirov looked at Berzin, a wry smile on his face. “What did we just do here, Grishin?”
“We have killed Ivonov, the last of Beria’s rats to escape the trap.”
“Yes, we have,” said Kirov. “It seems I was mistaken about us not being savages.”
“Indeed, sir. A pity. Will there be peace with Orenburg? That would make Zhukov’s work a good deal easier.”
“In time,” said Kirov. “All things in good time.”
Outside in the wide stone courtyard. And as if in answer to the single pistol shot fired by Berzin, a rifle company fired three crisp volleys in salute. Hundreds of miles away, new soviet armies, fresh and fat after the long winter, were slowly advancing to take up positions in the Serafimovich Bridgehead….
When Volkov received the package from Leningrad containing Ivanov’s head, he was outraged. In an explosion of temper that would have made even Hitler blush, he ravaged the interior of an office within his Staff Command Headquarters on the Ural River. Finally he relented, sitting down, his breath controlled, pulse returning to normal. No one ever dared to approach him in these fearsome moments of rage, but like a volatile chemical, they burned out quickly. His mined cooled to an icy calm, eyes hard as he stared out the broken window at the dramatic stone arch that marked the gateway from Europe to Asia. Then he summoned his Adjutant.
The man stepped gingerly into the room, thinking he would soon become one of the many victims of Volkov’s rage. The shattered glass on the tiled floor, and broken chairs were testimony enough to his overlord’s mood. Yet when he heard Volkov speak, he knew the low, dangerous tone in his voice well enough. The General Secretary had become a man again, albeit a very dangerous one, and he was thinking.
“You have the latest report from the Kuban?”
“Yes sir.”
“Let me hear it.”
Now the Adjutant passed another moment of alarm, for he would be the bringer of bad news, but he forged on. “Sir, the line in the south remains stable, though the enemy has brought up three fresh divisions that were fighting on the coast at Tuapse, and has now relieved their Mountain Corps.”
“Where was it redeployed?”
“In to the high country, near Chernigovskiy.”
Volkov nodded, knowing the Germans now wanted to use those troops to try and flank the lower portion of his line through those mountains. “Belorchensk?” he asked next.
“The city is secure. The German 52nd Corps has paused along the River Pshish. However, their 4th Corps has reached Dondukov on the rail line to Armavir, and fresh troops have come down from Kropotkin to increase pressure on that city.”
“Dondukov?”
“No sir—Armavir. The defense in that sector has been flanked to the southwest near Stanitsya, though that is only a small reconnaissance. But the headquarters of 3rd Kazakh Army at Urupskiy has reported some alarming news.”
“Well, give it to me man, don’t worry about your head. The furniture died here today, but you may continue to live.”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir. But General Gorsov of the 3rd Kazakh reports there are German tanks approaching Urupskiy from the northeast. 18th Panzer Division from their markings. As he has no reserve at hand, he requests permission to withdraw towards Nevinomyssk.”
“Damn!” Volkov swore, giving his Adjutant a start. “They must have crossed the Kuban. What about those two divisions of the 7th Army I sent to hold that north bank?”