“Thanks,” Stewart said. “When I come back, let’s do lunch.”
“If you come back,” Stirling said, and his gaze was troubled. “If you come back, then we can talk further.”
Before Stewart could ask him what he was talking about, he left, leaving her alone in her quarters. Smiling to herself, she picked up the phone and asked for an outside line. She knew enough about Baron Edmund to make him agree to her terms.
I didn’t used to be so ruthless, she realised, as the phone rang. She smiled and decided that it suited her.
The Kremlin
Moscow, Russia
7th June 1942
Stalin smiled up at Molotov, his broken teeth glinting by the light of his heavy cigar. “The fascists are suffering heavily, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich,” he said. His smile broadened. “In fact, they are so desperate that they have agreed to some of my additional terms.”
He outlined the deal he’d struck with the Germans. In exchange for permitting the 2nd Shock Army, one of the newest formations, to enter Germany and fight beside the Germans, the Germans would transport some of the future technology to Russia… and open their stockpiles of nerve gas to Russian inspection. Nerve gas had been under development in Russia as well, but the Germans had moved far ahead of them.
“Indeed, Comrade Borov believes that we will be able to duplicate their chemical warheads,” Stalin said. He chuckled. “The fascists will fight hard to buy us the time to prepare the final line of defence. If it should happen to devastate Germany in the process, well…”
He leered openly and Molotov allowed himself a chuckle. It was genuinely clever; the Soviets would supply the Germans and milk their produce, while preparing their own super-weapons. It would only be a matter of time before the joint atomic program produced results, and most of the bombs would be going off in Germany.
“Comrade – Iosif Vissarionovich – I must admit that I’m concerned about using gas on their troops,” Molotov said. “The British have threatened to use their nuclear warheads to punish the use of such weapons against their troops and the Americans have stockpiles of gas of their own.”
“And, doubtless, an atomic bomb in the pipeline,” Stalin said. He grinned. “It will not matter, comrade, for we will not deploy the weapons from our own territory, but from forward bases in Poland. The fascists will get the blame.”
He chortled and Molotov joined in. “The British will then have to face the problem of crossing an atomic firewall that they have created themselves,” Stalin said. “In the meantime, we are studying all of the lessons from the British attack into the Netherlands. That won’t be a success against us, Comrade.”
Molotov kept his face still. The American stranglehold on Vladivostok was growing tighter by the day, even with the new American commitments in Europe. Japan’s surrender had changed the balance of power in China, enough to made Vladivostok untenable in the long run… unless the Soviet Union deployed its own nuclear warhead.
“And we have other cards to play,” Stalin continued. “Our fraternal brothers in France, for one thing.”
Molotov considered. The French Communist Party, it was true, hadn’t taken a significant role in the Vichy Government, which Petain had repaid by ignoring its growth in a France increasingly worried about the future. Stalin had sent weapons and advisors, which Himmler had turned a blind eye to at first, and then used the Soviets to help keep the French in line. He smiled; the French might not have the guts to use political assassination and purges as a political tool, and in consequence their politics made the Soviet Union’s seem genteel.
“We will assist them to overthrow the Government of France, which is fascist-dominated,” Stalin said calmly. “Himmler has already agreed to this, although he has warned that it is unlikely that the government will be accepted by the Allies.”
Molotov opened his mouth to agree, but Stalin spoke over him. “It hardly matters in any case,” the dictator said. “The French have always been for the French, so if some of the more hot-headed on the subject of French independence meet their ends fighting Petain, well, its better for the future of world communism.”
Molotov nodded. One of the reasons for the failure of communism, with its intrinsic appeal, to spread further was that most communist parties looked to the Soviet Union for guidance – and very rapidly became pawns of Stalin’s power games, rather than genuinely believing in the cause of world communism. It had been the factor that had lost the Spanish Civil War, the factor that had caused inestimable harm during the first Winter War.
He studied the map thoughtfully. “If this trouble were to erupt in France once Berlin fell, then the capitalists would be delayed,” he said. “They would have to decide what to do about the problem, and then they would have to take action.”
“Precisely,” Stalin said. He leered cheerfully. “They would face the choice of overthrowing a communist government that was seeking peace terms on behalf of France, and incidentally knocking both Spain and perhaps Italy out of the war, or allowing a communist nation to take power in their ranks.”
Molotov frowned. “They are unlikely to view the French with much regard for their fighting skills,” he said. “Vichy’s forces have been given only equipment from 1939 and 1940 – certainly nothing that can take our forces on.”
“All to the good,” Stalin said. He studied the map. “The communists will seek to ally with the capitalists, and then they will use their influence to convince them to make peace with us. Should they be rejected by the Allies, as you predict… the allies will have to crush them before coming east to here, and time will not be on their side. Winter will slow them, stop them, and by 1943 we will have our own atomic bombs.”
He smiled, and then waved a stubby finger at the map. “If a single bomb were to go off in the Netherlands, the entire Allied position would be destroyed.”
“We don’t have a bomb to use for that,” Molotov said. “I wish we did, but the project is proceeding slower than we would like.”
Stalin smiled. “The future will be communist,” he said. “We will control the future.”
The black car drove through the streets of Moscow, escorted by three NKVD armoured cars and several of the new motorcycles. As it passed through the streets, the people lowered their eyes, trying to avoid making eye contract with the man who sat inside the car, smoking a tiny cigarette. In all aspects save one it was a royal procession; the man in the car had no trace of nobility, natural or assumed.
From his perch on top of the tower block, Sergi Puskin looked down, concealing his weapon behind his coat. He’d come to the tower block several times in the last week, each time sketching the Kremlin for an art class at his technical school. He’d been hoping to become an artist, but he’d been conscripted into learning engineering, just to boost Russian science forward. Until he’d discovered the underground, resistance had seemed futile, even to him.
Bastard, he thought, as he pulled out his weapon. The long thin tube had been manufactured in a nation called Ghana, which he’d never heard of, and fired explosive armour-piercing missiles. He’d wondered why the weapons were not used against tanks; his contact had explained that standard armour was very capable of handing them, but the car would have almost no defence. The ultra-compressed explosive, he’d been informed, would detonate inside the car; thicker armour would have the pellets detonating on the surface instead of punching through.