The Long Hard Road

Chapter Forty-Three: A Tiger By The Tail

Waffen-SS Camp

Brest, Belarus

21^st June 1942

It was June, the height of summer for Belarus – which was a loyal and obedient component of the Soviet Union, according to Radio Moscow – and yet Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov had never felt so cold. The camp was heavily camouflaged, and yet the entire… concept of the camouflage was different from the Red Army’s. Black-garbed troopers, homeless, but not without weapons, stood on guard around a tiny shack.

“You may pass,” the guard said, after examining Molotov closely. Molotov took one final look around the camp, noticing the concealed King Tiger tanks hidden under netting, and stepped into the shack. Inside, it was reasonably comfortable; it had belonged to one of the Party’s most loyal servants within Belarus, who had not been happy when the NKVD had tossed him out to install the Germans.

“Herr Molotov,” a voice said. Molotov scowled; the voice was very like that of the recently departed Beria. Heinrich Himmler sat neatly on a stool, his eyes glinting with malice. He possessed nearly forty thousand fanatical SS men – survivors of the forces that Molotov was certain had been intended to turn on the Soviet Union – and he was homeless.

“Comrade Himmler,” Molotov said, his voice faintly mocking. “I trust that you find your accommodations to your liking?”

The question wasn’t entirely idle. Nearly two million soldiers of the Red Army – in theory – were stationed along the borders, but with the simmering unrest in the Ukraine and Belarus itself, many of them were tied down preventing further unrest. The SS were well-armed and very well-trained; they could cause a lot of trouble before they were hunted down and crushed.

“Should Belarus revolt against the dictatorship of the workers and peasants,” Stalin had said, “the Germans will soon convince them of the errors of their ways.”

Molotov shuddered, thinking of the device that the Germans had brought along with them. Stalin was playing a dangerous game; milking the nazi scientists for their technologies, while keeping the Waffen-SS alive as a German government in exile. If they decided to fight against Stalin, they could tear a gaping hole in the defensive line.

“They are adequate, for now,” Himmler said. “I trust that Comrade Stalin was impressed with the sciences that we have brought?”

“A single working nuclear warhead,” Molotov said. Stalin had been impressed; Molotov himself had been less impressed. One warhead didn’t mean that it could be duplicated, even in the German science cities.

“Something that will put us on equal terms to the cursed British,” Himmler said. “I imagine that Comrade Stalin enjoys that thought.”

Molotov showed no expression. Hitler and Stalin were the same, both people with a talent for creating a social structure that supported their control. Himmler, on the other hand, wasn’t anything like as capable as Hitler; his people followed him through fanaticism. Hitler could command loyalty; Himmler… couldn’t. The mere fact of his betrayal proved that.

We’re clutching a viper to our blossom, Molotov, never a very poetic man, thought coldly. Stalin didn’t understand that; he saw Himmler as an equal, rather than a far more dangerous version of Beria. And now that Beria was dead, Himmler had no equal. Would Stalin be stupid enough to give the fascist a role within the USSR?

“He wants to know how quickly it will be before you can produce more nuclear weapons,” Molotov said, not altogether truthfully. “We will need more than one to prevent Allied retaliation.”

“As one nuclear warhead might be a fluke,” Himmler agreed. “A reasonable precaution, indeed. We should be able to produce a second one in Science City Zero within a month, now that we know what we’re doing. The breeder reactor is up and running there, and we’re producing explosive metal as fast as we can.”

Molotov scowled. ‘Explosive metal’ was what some of the Soviet scientists called uranium; they hadn’t grasped the full details of the procedure. The Soviet Union was woefully short of qualified scientists, and the small German population was being careful about what they shared. Given time, he knew, one of the Soviet programs would duplicate the German success, and then the Germans could be liquidated.

He allowed himself a quick smile. He was looking forward to that day.

“A month,” he said, smiling. The expression seemed to reassure Himmler. “That might be enough. Now, how do you propose that we employ the bomb?”

Himmler seemed to consider. His eyes glittered. “We cannot hope to launch it in an aircraft,” he said. “From what we learned of their science, we may not be able to smuggle it through a checkpoint or into one of their cities.”

“So we have a useless weapon,” Molotov snapped. “We cannot use it for offensive purposes and…”

Himmler talked over him. Molotov was shocked; only Stalin did that. “We can use it for just that,” Himmler said. “Your defence forces will have to fight from their fixed positions, as manoeuvre war is impossible under the shadow of their air cover.”

Molotov nodded. Marshal Kliment Voroshilov spoke of using the thousands of planes that the Red Air Force had assembled, many of them older models flown by press-ganged subject races, to swarm the British and American aircraft. Practically, the Battle of the Netherlands had suggested that such tactics would be very costly indeed for the Red Air Force.

“That gives us an opportunity,” Himmler said. “They will have to swing around, trap and encircle their forces in a kessel, and then seal you off or crush you. In this, they will probably have the help of what Poles remain in their country.”

Molotov scowled. They’d slaughtered Poles or forced them to the gulags, they’d poisoned the land and destroyed the food supplies, but a handful of Poles still hung on to life, hiding in the marshes, forests and hills. The Germans had done the same, trying to enslave an entire nation, but even they had been unable to slaughter all of the Polish people.

“They will almost certainly try to pick a weak point in your lines, break through, and then circle round,” Himmler said. He waved a hand at the map, which displayed Red Army positions. Molotov felt his blood run cold; Stalin had given specific orders that such information was not to be made available to the Germans. Himmler tapped Lodz.

“Here is the most likely place,” Himmler said. Lodz had once held a large Jewish community; it didn’t anymore. Soviet troops had occupied it as Berlin fell to the Free German Army. Himmler’s fingers traced a powerful thrust moving at the most powerful Russian force short of the Stalin Line. “We place the nuke somewhere here,” he said. “They come up… boom.”

“You would suggest blasting our own land for a thousand years?” Molotov demanded. “The Great Stalin would not approve.”

“Hardly a thousand years,” Himmler said calmly. “Fifty years, at most, and think of all the Poles dying of radiation poisoning.”

A trip to America had introduced Molotov to the concept of an own goal. He shuddered; Stalin would love the idea, but there would be Red Army units caught within the blast, or the fallout zone. He scowled; Stalin would be more than happy to trade a city for convincing the Allies that he possessed more nuclear warheads and the ability to deploy them.

“I will have to discuss that with Comrade Stalin,” he said. “Until then, I hope that you enjoy your latest rations of food from the workers and peasants.”

“Thank you,” Himmler said. He didn’t offer to shake hands. “I hope that you will convoy my message to Stalin as soon as possible.”

“Mein Fuhrer, is that wise?” Hauptsturmfuehrer Thierbach asked. Himmler studied him; Thierbach had been the treacherous Roth’s aide before being assigned to assisting the Waffen-SS to move to its new quarters. Losing Roth had hurt; knowing that it had happened because of his own miscalculations only made it worse.

He shook his head absently. “Wise is a relative term,” he said dryly. He dismissed the urge to preen. “We have to remain useful to them; do you think that Stalin would hesitate for a moment from destroying us all if he didn’t think that we would be useful.”

“That’s why you insisted on us sticking together and keeping our canned foods,” Thierbach said absently. “Just so that we have a reserve.”

Himmler nodded. “The cost of smashing us, and the losses in scientific knowledge, seeing that we can destroy the science cities simply by overloading the reactors, has to be high enough to deter Stalin. At the same time, we have to be useful enough so that he doesn’t decide to remove us.”

He scowled. Roth would have understood at once. “We’re very vulnerable here,” he said. “We have to offer them the bomb.”

Thierbach narrowed his eyes. “What’s to stop them from using the bomb on us?” He asked. Himmler blinked; the idiot had come up with a good point. “The bomb could destroy us without a fight.”

“The bomb remains under our control,” Himmler said. And one of us will detonate it, he thought silently. He smiled. “Now, call Kruger on the secured lines, the ones we taught them how to make, and use our own coding machine.”

“Jawohl, Mein Fuhrer,” Thierbach said. “I shall attend to it at once.”

The Kremlin

Moscow, Russia

23^rd June 1942

Molotov had almost been relived at the delays on the transport network. The underground in Russia itself was growing bolder – and the resistance movements elsewhere even more so. The entire Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was becoming less united and less socialist by the day; in places the NKVD only travelled with a very heavily armed guard.

Molotov sighed. Stalin had been convinced that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics could bear the brunt of the war – after all, it had managed during the last history, the last time the war had been fought – but this war was different. With the exception of Vladivostok, Russian territory hadn’t been invaded, German troops weren’t terrorising the population – and two years of indecisive war was taking its toll. Stalin knew, far better than most, what three years of brutal slaughter had done to the Tsars – and it would do the same to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics if he allowed it.

The train had finally reached Moscow and he’d been escorted into a Red Square that was far more of a fortress than ever. Heavily-armed patrols marched through the streets, trying to stop the underground members who grew bolder every day. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was on the verge of collapse – the remaining SSRs were considering a revolt – and Stalin did nothing.

“Report,” he snapped at the guard, as he led him into Stalin’s room. The guard shook his head, pushing open the door and waving him in, before leaving as fast as he could. The room was in semi-darkness; Stalin’s great form could be seen near the fire, along with another man.

“Comrade Molotov,” the man said. Molotov recognised him as Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, Stalin’s commander of his personal guard. By now, it was a powerful elite force in its own right – ever since Beria had died; it had been drawing on more and more resources, defending Moscow against an internal threat.

“Marshal,” Molotov said. There was little love between the two men, even though Molotov felt a certain wry awe for a man who’d once contradicted Stalin to his face and survived. The manner in which he’d done it had been amusing too.

“Come now,” Stalin said. “We are all Comrades here. Now, how are my pet fascists?”

Molotov shuddered, a reaction that did not go unnoticed by Stalin. “They’re dangerous,” he said, and meant it. He outlined Himmler’s proposal for the use of the nuclear warhead. “We should destroy them now,” he concluded. “They’re too dangerous.”

“They cannot cause trouble,” Voroshilov assured him. His only positive quality was that he was doggedly loyal to Stalin. His incompetence was legendary, but as a man who had remained loyal until the end of his days, Stalin trusted him. “At worst, they could tear up Belarus, but the Stalin Line would stop them, if nothing else.”

Voroshilov waved a hand at the map. A line of tactical icons lay along what had once been the Soviet-German border; a second line lay along the Stalin Line itself. Millions of men, thousands of tanks… in the exact same situation as the Tsar’s army had faced in 1917, when it had broken like a twig when the Germans came.

They even had a force made up of women, Molotov thought, and smiled.

“Iosif Vissarionovich, they are building nuclear weapons,” he said. “In cities on our soil, they are creating hell-weapons, weapons which will be under their control, not ours. They might just demand that we surrender to them…”

Stalin laughed. “These are not the Czechs,” he said, and Molotov knew he’d lost. “The Czechs just wanted to go home. These people… will be shot out of hand if they try to return to Germany; they are dependent upon us.”

“And besides, the NKVD will escort them everywhere,” Voroshilov said. He laughed a peasant’s earthy laugh. “They’ll be watched as they shit themselves in the bogs…”

“Thank you,” Molotov said tartly. “Comrade, this is a powerful and well-armed force.”

Stalin smiled. “Yes, they have tanks, tanks perhaps as good as the ones in the Red Army,” he said. “They have no aircraft; they have no sources of supply. They can fire shells all they like, sooner or later they will run out of shells.”

“And then we crush them,” Voroshilov said. “We will take their scientists for ourselves; they can produce or die.”

Molotov nodded, keeping his face firm. He couldn’t hide anything from Stalin, but he wanted to spare himself the burden of Voroshilov seeing his face changing. “I’m certain that you’re right,” he said. “Has there been any news on the attempt to throw the Americans back into the sea?”

“It failed, thanks to the incompetence of General Iosif Apanasenko,” Voroshilov said quickly. “The city is running out of supplies quickly now, and the Japanese have definitely started to help the Americans.”

“Yellow bastards,” Stalin sneered. “The NKVD has been busy liquidating all of the Japanese in our territories.”

“Just what they deserve,” Voroshilov said loudly. “They had their chance to embrace communism and they blew it.”

It was more than Molotov could stand. “If I may, I would like to rest,” he said. Voroshilov made a comment about spending time with his wife, which Molotov ignored.

“You may leave,” Stalin said. “When you have rested, come again tomorrow morning. I wish to discuss the peace offer we will make to the Allies.”

Molotov wished that his wife was present, the one little piece of satisfaction he allowed himself as his car reached his living quarters, but he knew that it was impossible. After Beria died, he’d sent her to his Dacha outside Moscow; she would be far safer there.

The guard saluted him as he entered. “You have a guest,” he whispered. “An NKVD guy. He had all of the papers and everything.”

Molotov shrugged. The NKVD went everywhere. “I’ll see him inside,” he said, and pushed open the door to his flat. A light was on in the second room, so he slipped inside and entered the living room… and stopped dead.

“You!”

Trotsky smiled up at him from his position on the comfortable sofa, which had been looted from the Winter Palace in Leningrad. “Do come in, dear chap,” he said, using a faint British accent. “It’s simply freezing here.”

Molotov allowed his shock to appear on his face. “What the hell are you doing here?” He asked sharply, and reached for the hidden alarm button. “Why are you here?”

“Oh, don’t bother about that,” Trotsky said. “I took the precaution of deactivating your alarm button, and the NKVD bugs in the room. I wanted our conversation to be undisturbed.”

Molotov, never a heavy drinker, stumbled over to the wine cabinet and poured himself a glass of vodka. He didn’t offer Trotsky any. “What are you doing here?” He repeated. “How did you get in here?”

“Oh, if you have the right papers, you can do anything here,” Trotsky said. “So, Comrade; how is the man of steel?”

Molotov scowled at him. “He still runs the country,” he said. “I remember when you fled the country in fear for your life.”

“And I was right,” Trotsky said, almost sadly. “Of course, I would never have learned about the failure of communism, or of the possibilities inherent at the moment for making Russia far more powerful – and secure – than the Rodina has ever been before.”

“Communism is not a failure,” Molotov began. “In fact, we have managed…”

“To get yourself into a war with a nuclear-armed opponent and the most powerful nation on the Earth,” Trotsky said sharply. “Comrade, I won’t lie to you. In a week, perhaps more, perhaps less, the most powerful army in the world will start advancing into your territory. The further that army travels, the less… room for manoeuvre we’ll have at the peace conference, after the war. We might end up with another treaty like the one that Lenin signed. I’m sure you remember that.”

“I was there,” Molotov snapped. Trotsky smiled. “There’s just one small problem,” he said. “Comrade Stalin refuses to recognise reality.”

Trotsky nodded slowly. “The problem with Stalin,” he said, “is that he was – is – from a very different background than most of those in the Party. He had an attitude towards problems and power bases that made compromise impossible, and he was clever and cunning to boot.” He sighed. “I will tell you something else,” he said. “I intend to remove Stalin’s regime.”

“And then… what?” Molotov asked. “What will you do then?”

“Russia has to become democratic,” Trotsky said. “In the long run, that is all that will save us from constant defeats and disasters.” He smiled at Molotov. “That process could be painless, or at least less painful, if you cooperate with me.”

Molotov hesitated. “Betray Stalin?”

“He has betrayed all of Russia,” Trotsky said. “You know that as well as I do. Help me, and I promise you a position in the new government.” He grinned. “Choose well, you see, because even if I die, the revolution will happen anyway.”

“I understand your point,” Molotov said, more than a little annoyed. “If Stalin finds out, I will die.”

“You’ll die anyway when you try to balance your duty to Russia with your duties to him one time too many,” Trotsky said coldly. “He will have you killed one day, merely for being too clever. Choose.”

Molotov looked up at him. “I agree,” he said slowly. “Now… what do you want me to do?”