The thought wasn’t amusing. It had a certain resonance that refused to disappear. Molotov kept his face blank as two more sets of guards searched him, divesting him of anything that might possibly be dangerous, and then finally allowed him to enter Stalin’s room.
“Ah, Comrade Foreign Minister,” Stalin said, as he stepped inside. The room was massive, easily big enough to hold a major party. Stalin’s desk, where he was sitting, was placed at one end of the room, red flags draped the walls.
“Comrade General Secretary,” Molotov replied. Stalin’s voice was calm; Molotov felt his nerves jangle. The Georgian accent had almost vanished.
“Have a seat,” Stalin invited, waving to one of the chairs near his desk. His orderly produced a samovar full of steaming tea; a small box of tobacco sat beside it. Molotov, who didn’t smoke, watched as Stalin carefully filled his own pipe, before lighting it with a simple lighter.
Stalin noticed Molotov focusing his attention on the lighter. “Yes, that is indeed from the future,” he said. “Comrade Gregory is confident, however, that we can make them for ourselves without too much difficulty.”
He passed it over and Molotov examined it. It was made of some strange plastic, clearly holding some liquid inside it. Experimentally, he flicked the wheel on the end of the lighter and was rewarded by sparks. Gasping in pain as his thumb was burnt, he dropped the lighter on the ground.
Stalin laughed. It was a chilling sound. “So, Comrade, how proceeds our alliance with the fascist scientists?”
Molotov rubbed his thumb. The pain was sore beyond any burn he’d felt before. “It proceeds well,” he said. Refusing to give Stalin his title was a piece of petty revenge. “The fascists are producing their vengeance rockets” – the German word was beyond him – “and splitting them with us. We will soon have a major stockpile of them ourselves.”
“Good,” Stalin said. His voice remained oddly calm. “Are we certain that the fascists are not deceiving us?”
“We have been selecting the rockets for our use at random,” Molotov said. “While trickery remains a possibility, we have done what we can to minimise it. Unfortunately, the fascists have been unwilling to test the rockets in open space; we have only the results of the tests within caverns. The guidance system, for example, was modelled on one from the future” – he forbore to mention that the rocket in question had been a Russian design – “and should work.”
He smiled. “The fascists, apparently, are planning to use them in a terror strike against Britain,” he said. “We will have ample opportunity to evaluate them before revealing that we possess them ourselves.”
Stalin smiled. He enjoyed learning from others mistakes. “And we still cannot take over the German science cities ourselves?”
Molotov thought rapidly. Genius, he’d learnt from the future, had to be nurtured, not forced along. Even though the Germans in the science cities had only sidearms – forbidden anything heavier by treaty – they would have ample time to destroy all of their prototypes and the scientists inside the city.
“The fascists have anticipated trickery on our part as well,” he said finally. “Not that we had any such plans, of course.”
Stalin laughed throatily. “Of course not, Comrade,” he said. “Would we do a thing like that? We’re not Germans, you know, or even Frenchmen.”
Molotov smiled at the joke. Not just because not laughing at Stalin’s little jokes was suicidal, but also because it was genuinely funny. Molotov had handled the negotiations with the French – and their then British allies – and the French proposal had boiled down to the Soviet Union doing almost all of the heavy lifting, even through Poland had been… obstinate about allowing Russian troops on their soil.
Molotov smiled. The joke had been on them, and from what the future had said; the French hadn’t learnt a thing from the war. They were the slaves of Germany; the proud French reduced to working for the Germans, while the British stole their empire.
“The Germans have arranged the plants very carefully,” he said. Allowing the Germans bases within the Rodina had been a calculated risk. “We have teams of our own working on duplicating their work and building more industry cities that the Germans will know nothing about.”
“Excellent,” Stalin said. “Now… the memo from Georgy Konstantinovich.”
Molotov, who hadn’t seen any such memo because of the information being concealed by Stalin, lifted a single eyebrow. Stalin passed across a sheet of paper.
“He is advocating that we withdraw our forces from Iran,” Stalin said. “That cursed Indian hasn’t proven as useful as we had hoped.”
Molotov finished reading the paper and frowned. “He may have a point,” he said.
“Territory that has been gained by the Rodina may never be surrendered,” Stalin said firmly. Zhukov wanted to withdraw to north Iran and hammer Turkey as punishment for their betrayal. “The British will be at a disadvantage in city fighting.”
Molotov hesitated, uncertain what to say. There were times that Stalin wanted the truth and nothing but the truth; there were times when it was dangerous to disagree. It was true; the super-warriors of the future – including the never to be sufficiently damned SAS – were reluctant to fight in a built-up area. On the other hand, Molotov knew that that was because of a reluctance to cause civilian casualties, and neither of Iran or Iraq’s main cities had much of a civilian population left. Zhukov had hoped that Baghdad and Basra would serve as fortresses to bleed the Allies… but the British preparations were not for a city fight.
“If they choose to engage in a city fight,” he said, hoping that this was one of Stalin’s good days. “They might just seek to cut the forces in the cities off and let them starve.”
Stalin snorted. “They will seek to destroy the forces,” he said. “In their place, I would use their nuclear warheads on the city. Have the Germans made any extra progress with the nukes?”
The sudden change of subject didn’t stun Molotov. Who knew where Stalin’s thoughts went? “They have set up a prototype reactor in one of the science cities,” he said. The NKVD, the GRU and several new security organisations were watching those Germans like hawks. They’re moving forward as fast as possible, but they’ve hit problems.”
Stalin glowered. Not only did he want the nuclear weapons for himself – and not for Himmler if he could avoid it – but he was certain that the Germans had a larger nuclear program than they were admitting to. Both sides were learning a lot from the joint project, but was it enough to build a nuclear weapon ahead of the fascists?
“And the trade with the Japanese?” Stalin demanded finally. “What have the little yellow men given us?”
Molotov hesitated. The Soviet Union was providing quiet assistance to the Japanese attempts to move their operations to China; something that Molotov knew well was futile. There was no way that they could move enough of their people over before the British and their Australian brothers finally moved in for the kill.
“The Japanese program was proceeding slowly,” he said. “They’re still working desperately to build a weapon, but they had two separate programs and limited supplies.”
“But they gave us what they had,” Stalin said. Molotov nodded. “If we were to give them a bomb, who would they use it against?”
“We don’t have a bomb ourselves yet,” Molotov protested.
“But we will have one soon, won’t we?” Stalin asked. “Your projection said early 1943, did they not?”
“Yes, perhaps sooner, once we assimilate the German and Japanese research,” Molotov said. He smiled; was that not a demonstration of the truth of Communism? “Still, it will take time to build up a stockpile.”
“True, true,” Stalin mused. Molotov hoped that he’d gotten the thought of giving a nuclear weapon to the Japanese out of his mind. “So, back to our little internal problem. Lavrenty Pavlovich has not succeeded in tracking down our old friend.”
Stalin’s old friend, Molotov remembered. They had been genial opponents, because Trotsky had never realised what lay behind Stalin’s smile… until he was forced to flee the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. If Beria, one of the most capable – and sadistic – people couldn’t track down Trotsky, then the old communist must have leaned a few new tricks.
“He’ll turn up sooner or later,” Molotov said. “Our security is getting better and better all of the time.”
“He better had, or Lavrenty Pavlovich will lose his head,” Stalin growled. “This has appeared.”
He picked up a leaflet and passed it to Molotov. Molotov examined it with some concern; the leaflet was printed on finer paper than the best Soviet propaganda… and the image on it was literally out of time and space.