“Look,” a Zek called, as their unease grew. A single train was heading towards the station, clearly unaware of the massive devastation that had hit the track and ruined it. The Zeks jeered as the train flew over a damaged railway link and crashed to a halt.
“Food,” a Zek shouted. “There must be food in there.”
Gregor didn’t need any more encouragement and he lunged forward with the rest of the Zeks, storming the engine and breaking into the single carriage. It was armoured and secured, but the Zeks had their crowbars and their hunger was driving them on and on. Moments later, the main door crashed open and they poured their way into the carriage. There was only one man in the carriage, staring at them. Gregor recognised him at once; the man whose face adorned every wall in the station, every building he’d been since he’d been arrested on suspicion of something. The NKVD hadn’t even bothered to tell him what they thought he’d done, just grabbed him and shoved him into a camp.
“You,” he breathed. The sheer terror of the man held them in place, staring at him, looking at the man looking at them. The Zeks behind Gregor, unable to see, pushed forward; the man winced in sheer terror… and the spell broke. The Zeks forced themselves forward, piling onto the man and dragging him down by sheer weight of numbers. Years of pent-up rage demanded vengeance.
It took Comrade Stalin a very long time to die…
Chapter Forty-Eight: The Terms of Peace
Geneva, Switzerland
3rd September 1942
It had taken a week of arguing between the various interested parties to agree on a location for the peace conference. Both Hanover and Truman had wanted to hold it in their respective capitals, but the desire to avoid a second Versailles disaster had prevented them from simply demanding that the defeated powers attend – or else. In the two months since the death of Stalin and the end of the formal war, the world had been almost on the brink of starting the war again, a civil war that would have torn Europe apart.
Hanover sighed. Trotsky’s forces, with some limited help from British and American units, had suppressed the remains of the NKVD and the handful of people who had remained loyal to Stalin. Once the Dictator had been confirmed dead – and British and American forces had secured positions in the Ukraine and Belarus – the bulk of the resistance vanished. Even so, it had taken a month to gain even partial control over the vast lands of Mother Russia – and discovering that the Ukraine and Belarus were sincere about leaving Russian control had nearly started the war up again.
He shook his head. The Russians had been furious about the new Siberian Republic’s decision to leave Russia as well, and horrified at American support for a single large country that would have nearly two dozen different ethnic groups, from Russian to Japanese, living within its borders. Hanover understood Truman’s motivations, but he did wonder if that had been a good idea, in the long run. British interests in the Far East, apart from India, were limited to Taiwan and Hong Kong; the China morass could go to America or the devil – he didn’t care which.
Worse, the French situation had nearly brought Britain and the German provisional government back to blows. The French Communists had seized power – and the Germans had demanded that the British intervene, or they would send in the Bundeswehr. Enough remained a mystery about the strange agreements between the former ambassadors for Hanover to agree, even though the Bundeswehr didn’t have much of an offensive capability anymore.
He sighed. The French had proven to be their usual selves – and the Algerians had offered to supply troops for an occupation. That, more than anything else, had convinced the third French government that resistance was futile; France would become democratic or else. The thought of thousands of Arabs extracting revenge for French actions in Algeria hadn’t pleased them at all, particularly Ambassador Duchamp.
He smiled. Duchamp’s reaction to discovering that France was being treated as an enemy state – which it had been for three years – had been highly amusing. The Frenchman had screamed about injustice and an ‘Anglo-American plot’ to hold the French back, knowing all the while that it was futile. The French had nearly torn themselves apart; separatist forces were at work within the new republic already.
At least they won’t have to worry about fighting an Algerian War, Hanover thought. None of the European powers would have to worry about that, with the possible exception of Belgium. For some reason known only to Adolf Hitler – and therefore utterly incomprehensible to a normal man – they had been permitted to keep their large state in Africa. The Congo might well see the chaos that South Africa would prevent from happening in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa; the Smuts government had practically taken over the British colonies, once the war had ended.
“At least the Spanish decided to be reasonable,” Hanover said to himself. The Spanish had overthrown Franco as soon as Germany fell, and Portugal had followed with its director the week afterwards. Neither of them required intervention; they just required economic support to survive. The war had devastated large parts of Europe; Poland was pretty much on the verge of being destroyed as an independent nation, or even as a nation at all. Many of the German settlers were refusing to leave, or were taking passage to South Africa, along with a lot of people Hanover would have preferred to have seen in jail, or in front of a firing squad. The Balkans… well, even a hard-core German occupation, followed by a Turkish grab for the Muslim lands, hadn’t stopped them from fighting each other.
There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Hanover snapped, and nodded politely to Professor Horton. He’d deliberately delayed the professor’s return to England, just so he could decide what to do about him, but now it didn’t matter. The excuse had rather run thin after a week, and he’d allowed him to return, but Horton had agreed to assist the Allied Commission on determining the peace terms.
“Prime Minister,” Horton said. The black man moved slowly, deliberately, his body still not recovered from its treatment by the Nazis in the final days in the Berlin bunker. “The formal reading of the treaty is in two hours.”
Hanover felt a flicker of impatience. The treaty had been privately agreed to by all of the defeated nations; it gave them a great deal in exchange for peace. He knew that there had been people in both of the major powers who had wanted to crush Europe and Russia, to say nothing of their attitude towards Japan, but they hadn’t won the day. A peace – even one that wasn’t perfect – was better than sowing the seeds for World War Three, particularly seeing that there would be no Cold War in this timeline.
Unless we get into one with America, Hanover thought, and dismissed the thought. The two powers were working together on almost every field now, and they had agreed spheres of influence; Asia and Africa for the British, except Siberia and China. Latin America for the Americans, except Guiana. Hanover knew that certain imperialists in the House of Commons – it hadn’t taken much to bring them out of the shadows – had been angry at giving the Americans so much, but Hanover wasn’t concerned.
“The Americans can bring democracy to those regions,” he said, and he had meant it. The British would do the same for Africa and India; the provisional Indian government had finally managed to agree on a power-sharing agreement that left the princes with enough to live on, while keeping the power in the hands of the Indian House of Commons. It wasn’t a perfect arrangement – and India’s sudden addition of Burma and Tibet to its system might be sowing trouble for the future – but it was infinitively better than what had gone before.