“Being what, exactly?” Dulles asked peevishly.
“That we know what Beria is. That we’re not afraid of him. That if he tries something with Variants, we’ll return the favor,” Vandenberg said.
“Deterrence,” Eisenhower said. “Just like with the H-bomb.”
“Exactly.”
Eisenhower clasped his hands in front of him on the desk and looked down a moment. Vandenberg didn’t envy him one bit. The President had only been told about the MAJESTIC-12 program the day after the inauguration, and it had taken him weeks to wrap his head around the entire concept of superpowered humans, everyday people given abilities by some kind of intelligence via an interdimensional portal that defied all known physics. There were a lot of meetings and a lot of talks, and Eisenhower remained skeptical of the whole thing — especially since they were being particularly cautious with the transition from Truman’s administration. With Hillenkoetter out as DCI — and seemingly grateful to be back at sea after navigating political waters — Vandenberg was one of the very few men left in the MAJESTIC-12 program who had been there since the beginning. He’d come to appreciate the talents of the American Variants — and their patriotism. But Eisenhower had his doubts — and had not yet had the time, nor the inclination it seemed, to actually meet some of the Variants or head out to Mountain Home himself. Thus, Beria’s ascension would only confirm the President’s worst fears about Variant ambitions.
Finally, the President looked up. “Okay, do it. Send them in.”
3
Russians in dark suits and coats shuffled by the bier at the front of the Hall of Columns, where the body of Josef Stalin lay in state, the ornate hall within the House of the Unions belying the drabness of the mourners’ clothes. Attitudes, too, were drab and colorless; emotions were muted. Frank Lodge had been expecting more from the death of the Soviet Union’s supreme leader, given the emotions he knew Russians could display when properly motivated. Maybe there just wasn’t enough vodka in ’em yet — it was half past nine in the morning, after all.
There is too much uncertainty. And Stalin was feared more than loved, even by the Georgians, came the voice of the late Grigory Yushchenko, a colonel in the MGB who attempted to capture Frank and his fellow American Variants in ’48. Like all who died around Frank, Yushchenko’s memories and personality were embedded in Frank’s mind — the ability granted by his Variance. Since 1945, Frank had absorbed the memories, abilities, and talents of dozens of individuals; he now spoke north of twenty languages, and in any given moment could be a doctor, mechanic, soldier, acrobat, thief, military strategist, or academic in half a dozen fields.
It made Frank the perfect covert agent. It also made his mind buzz with conversations and opinions at any given time. Only tight mental discipline — along with more and more time alone with minimal outside stimuli — kept Frank sane.
But Yushchenko and the handful of other Soviets he’d absorbed were handy at times like these. There was general agreement in his head that Stalin’s death would be a relief to many Russians, even with the uncertainty sure to unfold at the top of the Soviet power structure.
The man beside him, a thin, nebbish, bespectacled diplomat, shook his head sadly. “I went to Pershing’s funeral in 1948, and there was more pomp than this,” he said. “This is sedate by comparison.”
Frank turned to face Jacob Beam, the current chargé d’affaires at the American Embassy. The position of ambassador was open — the previous one had been kicked out of the U.S.S.R. last year for daring to speak out against the regime. Frank figured the guy was lucky he wasn’t arrested, even with diplomatic immunity. So Beam, a career State Department man, was the one who ended up representing the United States at the funeral. “You think they’re already distancing themselves from Stalin?” Frank asked.
Beam smirked. “Absolutely. The cult of personality around Stalin was strong — though not as strong as they believed. But they still need the distance. It’ll be interesting to see how the speeches go, see who gets propped up as next in line. The chess game on this is gonna last months.”
Frank turned to the woman beside him and leaned in close. “What are you getting?” he whispered so that Beam wouldn’t hear.
Maggie Dubinsky narrowed her eyes and scanned the room. She was a fellow Variant; she could both sense and affect the emotions of those around her. The latter could be particularly brutal if she put her mind to it — Frank had seen her reduce grown men to abject fear, lust, or catatonia. And in the five years he’d know her, he’d seen her grow colder, more distant, her eyes taking in other people like a scientist examining a newt.
“Going through the motions,” she whispered. “Resignation, mostly. A few of them seem happy to be here. That guy there,” she added, nodding toward a civil servant in a gray suit leaning over Stalin’s coffin, “he’s thrilled. Good riddance. A few others are afraid. But mostly, just another day at the office.”
It’s in the Russian soul, said Kirill Suleimenov, a Kazakh soldier in the Soviet Army whom Frank had absorbed in 1949, on a mission that went so sideways he and some others ended up prisoners of the Soviets — and of Lavrentiy Beria. Suleimenov was just a farm boy, but Frank had found that of all the voices in his head, the Kazakh was one of the more even-keeled. The Russians, unlike my people, are used to seeing regimes change. First there is one boss, then another. Lenin and Stalin were tsars like any other. And so they wait to see who is the next tsar.
Yushchenko couldn’t resist then adding his own opinion. So long as the next tsar isn’t Beria. The Soviet Union would fall and take the rest of the world down with it.
Frank would never tell anyone this, but sometimes he would just sit and listen to the voices converse with one another. It was eerie and yet somehow soothing at the same time. He had no idea how it worked, and realized that his… relationship… to the voices was evolving over time. It was less about calling on skills or memories, more about juggling personalities.
With a supreme act of concentration, eyes screwed shut and brow furrowed, Frank silenced the voices. As much as the conversations provided comfort — he was never truly alone, after all — it would sometimes feel like he lived in a giant dormitory where nobody slept.
“Here and now,” Maggie whispered, breaking Frank’s concentration. “Look sharp. We got new faces.”
Frank turned to see several groups of somber-looking men enter the room. First in line was a delegation from China, led by none other than Zhou Enlai, the premier of the relatively new People’s Republic of China. Then the rest of the satellite states came in, most of whom had sent their top leaders along. It wouldn’t do for Communist countries, after all, to place such an important event in the hands of a mere ambassador, even though the vast majority of Western nations had done just that.
“This is a big deal for them, too,” Beam said, following Frank’s gaze. “With Stalin gone, they’ll be lobbying for more support, more freedoms, whatever. They’ll be working the system just as much as the internal folks.”
Frank smirked a bit. “So who do you like, Mr. Beam? If you had to slap a sawbuck down, who’s your pick to win the derby?”
The diplomat smiled broadly. “I know who I want, Mr. Lodge. Someone safe and sane, like Kaganovich, who has a real sense of what’s possible and necessary, rather than someone like Beria, who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about getting things done, so long as he has all the marbles.”