Winston Chase- The Complete Trilogy

by Bodhi St John

  The doctor’s expression of surprise shifted into curiosity as he examined Bledsoe. “The science of blood transfusion has only been studied in the Soviet Union for about twenty-five years. I am by no means an expert, but I do know that there are four blood types, and if you receive an incompatible type, it can kill you.”

  This elicited a rise from Stalin’s eyebrows. He tilted his head back slightly as he surveyed Bledsoe.

  “Father of Nations,” said Bledsoe, who seemed to be ready for the objection, “I can offer you ample proof that not only is my blood universally compatible, but it grants many additional benefits besides curing of disease.”

  “What proof?” asked Stalin.

  The dictator doubled over slightly as he suffered some sort of cramping. Winston feared that he would puke again, right there on his bed. Stalin raised a hand to his mouth and turned away, but the spasm passed. He was able to sit up straight and return his icy stare to Bledsoe.

  “If I am cut, the incision will stop bleeding almost immediately, and the skin will glow blue and exhibit exceptionally fast healing properties. I have observed this in myself and spent years studying the effects on animals in my laboratory. In fact—”

  Bledsoe turned to Winston and urged him to come closer. Winston feared that Bledsoe was going to stab him or something, but he advanced slowly.

  “Premier Stalin,” Bledsoe continued, “you can see the blood still caked in this boy’s hair. We were in a…” He considered his next words carefully. “We were near an explosion just before coming here. Radicals trying to stop us from our mission to save you. The boy received bad cuts to his cheek and forehead. But now look.”

  Not knowing what else he could do, Winston drew back the hair on his forehead, exposing his face for clear viewing. In the office’s dim light, the faint blue glow would be obvious.

  Stalin took in a deep breath, and the doctor seemed to suddenly forget his brush with possible death.

  To seal the deal, Bledsoe raised his left hand, careful to angle his open palm away from Stalin. With audible crackling, sparks and energy arcs formed and danced across his fingers.

  “It’s like electricity,” Bledsoe said. “I’ve used it to…to disable people trying to attack me.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward slightly. “I’ve also used it to restart hearts.”

  Stalin appeared doubtful. “Doctor?”

  The man nodded thoughtfully. “I have heard of research into such things, although I have never seen it done. In theory, it should be possible.”

  Stalin sighed, deep in contemplation. His gaze flicked to the people about him, considering Winston’s face most of all. Perhaps he was trying to figure out how these things could be faked.

  “Boy,” he said at last. “I can tell you do not like this man. Is everything he is saying true?”

  Bledsoe opened his mouth, wanting to interject, afraid of what Winston might say, but a warning look from Stalin silenced him.

  This was Winston’s moment, his one opening to derail Bledsoe’s plan. But what could he say? If he lied and said this was all a fake, Bledsoe still had enough evidence to show the truth of his assertions. It might just take a little longer. And if it took too long, giving Stalin time to die, then Bledsoe would simply maneuver himself into a similar position with Stalin’s successor. He might even decide to help someone besides Kruschev take control, which would alter the future even further. A lie was too easy to disprove, and it would leave Winston in a very bad position. How would Stalin treat people who lied to him? Probably like all the Jewish doctors — or worse.

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “It’s true.”

  Stalin only considered the situation for another couple of seconds, then he reached his decision. “I will try it. Doctor, draw the blood.”

  Bledsoe grinned and couldn’t resist a small victory shake of his fist at his side, knowing he had won.

  ***

  Winston’s mind was a complete blank. The doctor rested his leather bag on Stalin’s desk, undid the buckled clasp, and opened it to reveal a crowd of vials and tools. He withdrew a syringe and a small metal container, almost like an old-fashioned cigarette case, and opened it to reveal a row of needles.

  Winston felt panic flush his face and clench his guts. Why couldn’t he think of a solution? Of all the times when he needed Shade and Alyssa around him, this would be it. Shade had been right. When the ball was snapped and the last play of the game was on, Winston needed his team most. All he had was himself, though. Now, if Shade had been here and seen those needles, he would have thought of something incredibly weird and terribly effective. Like…

  What if he grabbed a syringe and injected air into Stalin or Bledsoe? Would that cause the Omega Mesh to trigger a timeline reset? Probably. And could Winston even commit murder like that? He doubted it. That was not how his mom had raised him. It wasn’t the man his father had died wanting him to be. Winston could too easily imagine the look of disappointment in Alyssa’s eyes.

  The doctor screwed the needle into the syringe and motioned for Bledsoe to come closer. Bledsoe set the Alpha Machine on Stalin’s desk next to his Chinese writing set and rolled up his left sleeve. The grin faded on his lips but never fully left. As the doctor slid the needle into the vein inside Bledsoe’s elbow, Bledsoe glanced back at Winston and gave him a quick wink.

  Just a twitch. A little nudge of the last blade into Winston’s heart.

  That same callous arrogance he had shown when pinching off a piece of his father’s brain.

  A storm built inside Winston, threatening to rip him apart, and he was powerless to channel it. The world was ending right before him, and he couldn’t move. Everyone, everything, every moment he had ever known would end as soon as Bledsoe’s QVs entered Stalin’s bloodstream.

  The doctor gradually eased back the syringe plunger, filling the tube with dark blood.

  Winston couldn’t talk reason to the dictator. He would never listen to a child, and Bledsoe would override anything he said. He couldn’t attack physically. He had nothing to leverage, nothing Stalin wanted, and Bledsoe had no weaknesses Winston could exploit.

  Winston found himself staring at the mostly empty water glass. The poor doctor had feared for his life, but he’d had no choice. Did Stalin have his family locked up somewhere? Was he facing torture and death if he hesitated? And for what? Because he was Jewish?

  That was so irrational and unfair. What kind of delusional whackjob locks up doctors because of their—?

  The doctor withdrew the needle from Bledsoe arm, satisfied that he had a large enough sample.

  “You’re really good at that,” Winston said to the doctor.

  Everyone looked at Winston, confused at such an odd comment.

  “Ah, thank you,” said the doctor.

  He held the syringe vertically and tapped at its side, forcing any air in the tube up to the top. He depressed the plunger just far enough to push out the air and force a couple of drops of blood down the needle, which he wiped away with a clean cloth from his bag.

  “Are you that good because you’re Jewish?” Winston asked.

  The doctor’s expression turned wary. A cold warning crept into Bledsoe’s face.

  Winston heard his tinnitus bloom for only a second, and then Bledsoe’s voice was in his head.

 

  Winston ignored him.

  “No,” said the doctor, who was clearly trying not to look at Stalin. “My religion has nothing to do with my experience as a medical professional.”

  “Oh,” said Winston.

  Bledsoe stepped to the foot of Stalin’s bed, motioning for the doctor to proceed with the injection.

  The doctor moved to Stalin’s side.

  “I like Jews,” said Winston absently, as if musing to himself.

  thought Bledsoe.

  The doctor and Stalin both regarded Winston as if he’d lost his mind. Who would dream of praising Jews in front of an anti-Semi
tic dictator?

  Craving a distraction from the awkward silence, the doctor held out a hand for Stalin’s arm and said, “Great Leader, may I?”

  Stalin assessed the doctor from under his bushy eyebrows and held up his index finger in his lap, indicating that the doctor should wait. He squinted at Winston.

  “You associate with Jews?” Stalin asked.

  Winston shrugged. “Sure. We do all the time. Even my girlfriend is a Jew.”

  A small part of Winston registered the absurdity of the moment. It was the first time he had verbally acknowledged Alyssa as his girlfriend, and he had said it to one of the worst tyrants in world history. He remembered that impossibly distant morning when his father, then known as Mr. A, had encouraged him to pursue Alyssa and felt the recollection warm his heart.

  Bledsoe hissed in his mind.

  Stalin used the same index finger to point at Bledsoe. “What about him?”

  Winston intentionally misunderstood. “My dad? He likes my girlfriend, too. He even encouraged me to go after her.”

  All factually true, thought Winston.

  “I—” stammered Bledsoe. “I am not this boy’s father!”

  Winston blinked and recoiled, feigning shock and offense.

  Stalin scowled. “Yet he shares your blood. Why else would you bring a boy who was not your child?”

  Bledsoe’s mouth opened, eyes bulging, as rage threatened to derail his plans.

  Winston pulled a frown and gazed sullenly at the floor. “I don’t know what to say. What other father do I have?”

  Winston looked up at Bledsoe with the saddest puppy dog eyes he dared.

  Then Bledsoe made his final mistake. He turned back to Stalin before he had his features under control, when the anger was still fresh on his face. Stalin didn’t need to know exactly why Bledsoe’s mood had changed so much at that moment. It only had to make him suspicious.

  Leaning back, as if in thought, Stalin slid his hand under his pillow. It emerged a second later holding a long-barreled pistol, which he pointed squarely at Bledsoe. The engraved, silvered barrel and pearl grip gleamed. It was a beautiful piece, worthy of a cowboy.

  “General secretary,” said Bledsoe, raising his arms wide in a show of innocence. “Great and brilliant leader of the Soviet Union. The boy is…” He groped for the word. “…insolent. Traitorous. I will deal with him. But please know that I am no friend to Jews.”

  suggested Winston.

  Bledsoe stiffened at the insult but made one last attempt. “I implore you, Premier Stalin. Your health. Without my help, you will die.”

  “And maybe I will die with it.” He gave another pensive grunt. “I will bring in more doctors tomorrow. Not Jews. We will discuss this. Guard!”

  Somehow, Stalin summoned the strength to make his call with loud, ringing clarity.

  Bledsoe knew the tide had turned against him. He bared his teeth at Winston like a cornered animal. Winston gave him a wink.

  The chamber door opened, and a uniformed man charged into the room, already drawing his sidearm.

  Winston slowly raised his hands, showing he didn’t pose a threat.

  Bledsoe extended a hand toward the artifacts, which still rested a few feet away on Stalin’s desk. The rings and the three pieces suspended within them trembled, scraped across the glass desktop a few inches, and then sprang across the gap and into Bledsoe’s hand.

  Blue energy crackled around the artifacts.

  Just as the thought formed in Winston’s mind to do something, maybe dive for the man and go for a Shade Tagaloa quarterback sack — because that always worked so well — Stalin’s gun erupted.

  The blast was sharp and deafening in the wood-paneled chamber. The bullet slammed into Bledsoe’s left shoulder, nearly knocking him from his feet and sending the Alpha Machine flying. The device rolled along the floor, artifacts spinning inside it like some strange children’s gyroscope toy, and Winston saw his chance. Bledsoe clutched at the wound and stumbled.

  Careful to keep his hands at his sides, Winston bent his will toward the Alpha Machine, pulling it to himself. Not a lot. Not enough to make it lift into the air. Just enough to influence the direction of its roll.

  Catching his balance, Bledsoe spotted the Alpha Machine’s departure. His eyes flicked to Winston, and his outrage cut through whatever pain he felt from the gunshot. He extended his bloody right hand toward the Alpha Machine, which came to an immediate halt as Bledsoe sought to call it back to himself.

  Winston felt the man’s pull against his own. Winston tried harder. His jaws clenched and his eyes narrowed as he exerted more effort, but Bledsoe matched him. The man’s breathing came in deep gasps. His lips exposed bared teeth. He refused to give up, and the Alpha Machine trembled on the floor between them.

  Bledsoe said,

  Winston recalled finding the first piece in the bank vault and reading the note, that first revelation that he had a father and then seeing who that father was. Mr. A had been his friend for a year. He’d had a father in his life all those months and never known it.

  He remembered cutting free the second piece in the Shanghai tunnels and sacrificing it to go after Shade.

  With Theo’s help, he had freed the third piece from its Japanese bomb, and Theo had ultimately paid for their friendship with his life.

  The fourth piece, handed to him by his young, vibrant father. And then, only hours later for Winston, he’d watched his father die at Bledsoe’s hands, ancient and broken, in the Tillamook blimp hangar.

  And now the fifth piece, which Winston had fetched with the full intent to make it his last living action.

  No one had ever paid a higher price for this Alpha Machine. He had earned what was his, and not even the Omega Mesh would convince him otherwise.

  he said.

  And as if flipping a lever, Winston diverted all of his mental energy from the Alpha Machine to the QVs in Bledsoe’s body.

  The Alpha Machine jerked toward Bledsoe as he finally had uncontested control, but then it lapsed into idle wobbling again, like a rolling coin on the verge of falling over.

  Winston pictured the scene on the Hanford catwalk, clearly seeing Alyssa on the verge of attacking Bledsoe. Bernie had frozen her, just as, for an instant, he had stopped Winston from rushing into the Area X metal shop to save his parents.

  How had Bernie done that? It had to be QVs. They were networked, whether directly or through the Omega Mesh. Bernie hadn’t shown the ability to control others, like a puppeteer, but he could pause them through some sort of temporary paralysis. That made sense. It was a smart feature to implement if you had a connected race of beings learning to control their emotions. Would Bledsoe have that capability, or was it only for true aliens like Bernie? Winston was willing to bet that being half-alien would do.

  He reached into Bledsoe, wrapped his mind around the man’s QVs, and visualized encasing him in glass, just like the photo still in his pocket, locking him in place.

  Bledsoe froze.

  The man’s fury was a tangible force that pressed into Winston through their connection.

  Bledsoe roared in his mind.

  said Winston,

  Winston stepped slowly forward, bending down, and picked up the Alpha Machine apologetically, as if embarrassed on Bledsoe’s behalf. “Here, let me clean this up.” He backed away to his former position, posing no threat to the dictator.

  With one hand on his desk for stability, Stalin shakily rose to his feet, careful to keep his gun leveled at Bledsoe. As the guard stood at the foot of the bed, trying to assess the threats, Stalin gave a mirthless chuckle.

  “What now, American? You cannot even face me? Where are your flattering words?”

&
nbsp; Stalin waited for a reply, but Bledsoe showed his complete disdain by not so much as turning his head to meet the premier’s gaze. He only stared at Winston, who met Bledsoe’s enraged eyes with confusion and a slight lift of one eyebrow that expressed, What? You’re not going to answer him?

  The gesture was not lost on Stalin, who grunted his irritation and said, “Guard, remove him.”

  As soon as the guard had both hands on Bledsoe, Winston released him.

  37

  Recording Revisited

  “No!” bellowed Bledsoe through gritted teeth as he regained control of his body. “You’re making a mistake!”

  “Comrade,” said a voice from the doorway, “the Great Leader does not make mistakes.”

  The newcomer flicked on the light switch by the door. The room flooded with illumination from the overhead chandelier, making Winston squint. He tried to make out details about the new man, who was dark skinned and bald. He wore loose navy pants and a green officer’s jacket with a broad leather belt. Red trim adorned the collar and epaulets.

  Something struck Winston as familiar about the man, but it wasn’t until he strode into the room and passed Winston that realization struck him in a flash.

  Holy Potter, thought Winston. It’s Command One.

  Recognition spread across Bledsoe’s face a moment later.

  “You,” he breathed. “What is Management doing here?”

  Command One paused before Bledsoe, giving him a once-over before turning his attention to Stalin.

  “Great General,” he said with calm control. “Are you harmed?”

  Seeing that the guard had Bledsoe, wincing and gasping from his wound, covered, Stalin finally lowered his pistol. “No. Only a stomach sickness. I will be fine. Do you know this man?”

  “He’s—” Bledsoe likely realized how absurd the name Command One would sound. “Jerod. Jevon. Janek! He’s with the organization that hired me.”

  Stalin suppressed a chuckle. Major General Mikhailov has served me since the Great Famine twenty years ago, after he defected from the West. I cannot count the number of times he has saved my life.”