Kirov passed him by, continuing on towards his office, and Nikolaev followed. Just as Sergei turned onto the side hallway, the assassin pulled out his pistol, and without a second thought, aimed and fired. The bullet struck Kirov right on the back of his head, and he was dead before his body hit the polished tiled floor. There, in that moment, the world that Fedorov had been living in, struggling with the lines of history so wrenched and bent by the simple fact that Kirov had lived, all came oozing out like the dark red blood from his ravaged brain.
Yet Fedorov had spoken, just one impulsive moment born of the admiration he always had for Kirov, born of the compassion that lived in his heart at that moment, born of hope. Fedorov had given his warning, only thinking to spare Kirov’s life. It had never occurred to him, in that brief moment, that Kirov would discover the reason behind that warning; that he would find it at the top of that single flight of stairs, right here at Ilanskiy. Kirov would learn the name of the man who would pull that trigger, the day and hour of his own demise, and the name of the man who may have given the order—Josef Stalin. That alone may have been reason enough for what Mironov did in that cold prison cell in Baku. Instead of Nikolaev, it had been Mironov with the fate of the world in his hand in the shape and form of a pistol.
Now it was Fedorov.
If I do this thing, he thought, then I gift the world again with the darkness and depravity of Josef Stalin. I sit here in the hope that someone with a heart so blackened will be the one man strong enough to stop Volkov, to stop Hitler, and to build the Soviet Union that would one day build the ship that brought me here.
That was the cold chain of logic and reason he had forged with Karpov, link by treacherous link. Yet now, as he sat there, with that gun in his trembling hand, a great and yawning doubt seemed to encompass his soul. How could he know any of that would ever happen? Wasn’t it all speculation, all well-reasoned conjecture that was really nothing more than a wild guess, driven by that one coiled link of hope he had put in that chain?
How could he know that Stalin would live, rise to power as he did, find and defeat Volkov, ruthlessly enforce his will on the world? And how would it all become that world again at the top of those stairs—Stalin’s world, the purges, the gulags, the death ships in the icy Tatar Strait? Was it true that Russia would fall beneath the iron tread of Nazi Germany? Was it inevitable that this man before him, young Sergei Kirov, would falter and fail? Couldn’t they win the war? Couldn’t they prevail?
He could hear the man he once was, weeping within, as he cried out all these reasons, pleading for mercy. For at this moment, everything Kirov said was completely true; he was innocent. Yet now came that voice of cold Karpov logic—the death of one innocent man could save the lives of millions. Yet even Karpov had faltered with that.
What did he mean with that last urgent call, cancelling the mission and ordering me back to the ship? What twisted thread of dark possibility had he pulled from the loom of their sinister conspiracy? Fedorov thought he knew what it was. Karpov could not bear the uncertainty of rolling those dice one more time. He could not bear the thought the he might lose the cards he held so stubbornly in his hand, laying down his strait, and seeing Josef Stalin’s evil grin as he laid down his full house.
No, Karpov had decided that he would stand on the ground they had built together, and fight his war to whatever end that might come. Karpov had decided he could win that war, or die trying. His cruel and self-centered logic had simply decided it was better to rule in the hell they had created than to serve anywhere else. That was why he wanted to recall me, thought Fedorov. He simply could not bear the thought of losing everything he had striven so hard to grasp in his greedy hands—Kirov, the ship, the power he could wield with it, the Free Siberian State, and all his dreams of the world that would come after this war.
Kirov….
He stared now at the man his ship had been named for, the young eyes flaming with indignation, feeling his spirit, seeing in him the temperament that would take him to the crest of the wave of revolution that was only now gathering strength—Sergei Kirov. Yes, one day the world would build a ship in this man’s name, a ship born of fire, and steel, and the strangeness of some otherworldly thing that had fallen from the darkness of outer space, only yesterday….
Do it now, an inner voice urged him on. Do it before you think another thought. Become nothing more than reflex, mindless synapse, the twitch of a finger on the trigger of fate and time. Become Samsonov. Become the hiss and snap of a missile leaping up from beneath that long sea washed deck. Become judge and jury. Become the assassin. Become death itself.
His hand trembling, his face wrenched with pain, he raised up his unsteady arm, and Mironov saw the gun.
Chapter 12
Mironov saw the gun.
His eyes widened with sudden shock, and he instinctively leaned back, his body tense as coiled steel. So that was it, he thought. No interrogation, no trumped up charges, no trial and term in prison. He was to be executed, here and now. That was why all these men with guns had come here. But why? What had he done? And why would this man want to kill him now, when only yesterday he pleaded with him to live?
Something was wrong. Mironov could see it in the shaking of Fedorov’s arm, in the torment of his eyes. Then he saw the other man slowly raise up that pistol, but he was pointing it at his own head! His hand quavered, and there were tears welling at the corners of his eyes.
Then Mironov moved. It was impulse, synapse, Samsonov.
“No! Don’t!” Mironov lurched forward, taking hold of Fedorov’s arm just as that pistol went off with a loud report that stunned them both with its closeness. The chair gave way and the two men tumbled to the ground. The door burst open and in came Troyak, his assault rifle leveled, and seeing what was happening he simply fired a burst at the boarded windows, the bullets ripping through the wood, sending a rain of splinters onto the floor.
The pistol had slipped from Fedorov’s hand, the hand that Mironov had been struggling to stay. Troyak strode across the room, three quick steps, and collared Mironov, pulling him up off the floor and away from Fedorov with one arm, the hard steel of his rifle pressed into the young man’s back.
“Are you alright sir?” he said, seeing things were clearly otherwise with Fedorov. The bullet had just grazed his chin when that gun had fired, and he reached his hand to feel the place, seeing the thin trickle of his blood.
“Zykov! On me!” Troyak shouted over his shoulder, and the lanky Corporal came running in. “See to the Captain.”
As Zykov rushed to Fedorov’s side, he could see the stain of blood on his service jacket, but quickly surmised that he was not seriously injured. He reached into a pocket of his jacket, pulling out a ready wound patch and pulling off the outer packaging to apply it to the nick on Fedorov’s chin.
Slowly, as the ringing in his ears subsided, and his senses gathered, Fedorov sat up, then started to stand. Zykov helped him to his feet, with an ‘easy does it.’
“What in God’s name happened here?” he said to Fedorov, stooping to fetch the fallen pistol.
He tried to save my life!
That was all Fedorov could reason in that moment. His eyes were fixed fast on Mironov, the young man’s eyes still smoldering as he squirmed in the steely grip of Sergeant Troyak.