Stalin's Hammer: Rome

by John Birmingham

  Harry almost blundered into a Star Wars fan-boy moment, but Guinness was famously touchy on the subject of his uptime portrayal of Obi-Wan. Better to stick with the classics, Harry thought, as a waiter bearing a tray of champagne, wine, and spirits somehow managed to slip through the crush around them. Hundreds of guests, all in formal wear, most of them smoking and all of them drinking, pressed in from all sides.

  “Well, my grandmother was always a big fan of your George Smiley,” he said, almost shouting above the din. “But I would have to say that your Prince Harry puts them all in the shade.”

  It was a lie, of course, but one that brought forth a spirited laugh from Sir Alec.

  “Well, my Prince Harry is not a patch on yours,” replied Guinness. “But it was a jolly romp of a film to make after that disastrous bloody Hamlet at the New Theatre. How I managed to fall into that trap for a second time I will never know.”

  Resplendent in regimental formal wear, Harry felt hot under the bright lights, and sweat trickled down the small of his back. He threw down most of his drink—a soda water tricked up to look like a gin and tonic—in a couple of urgent gulps. Long before he had arrived in June 1942, he had learned to be careful about drinking alcohol in public; although he had also learned that people and, more importantly the press, seemed to care much less about such things here than they had back up-whence he had come.

  “I imagine you thought forewarned was forearmed,” he said after finishing his sparkling water. “You wouldn’t be alone in making that mistake.”

  “Touché, Your Highness.”

  Harry had some trouble reconciling the fit, young actor standing in front of him with the old, limping man he recalled from the first of the Star Wars films. But he had no trouble imagining how Sir Alec Guinness had found himself caught up in a disastrous theatrical misadventure even though he had been warned off by his own future history, delivered by Harry and ten thousand other uptimers from the year 2021. Sometimes being told of the mistakes you were about to make was less of a warning and more of a provocation—as the Nazis had found out.

  On the other hand, thought Harry, catching sight of Sophia Loren gossiping with Errol Flynn on the other side of the room, there were plenty who had managed to avoid their fates. Or at least their fates as Harry knew of them. Flynn over there, for instance, had already undergone the surgery that would save him from a heart attack a couple of years from now. He looked dangerously healthy, having given up the booze and smokes as well. And a couple of months of SAS-style fitness training to play opposite Guinness in Capture von Braun! hadn’t hurt either. Harry liked Flynn, but he had to wonder why the film’s producers had chosen the Australian to play Capitain Marcel Ronsard of the Free French First Army.

  Well, actually he didn’t have to wonder about that at all. This was Hollywood, after all, or Britain’s version of it. So the raid on the German rocket facility at Donzenac in France, a mission nearly fourteen months in the planning and execution, was compressed into just over an hour and a half on-screen, with an Australian playing the token French officer, and Mademoiselle Anjela Claudel of the Bureau des Opérations Aériennes portrayed by the Italian actress Sophia Loren. At least Flynn’s mustache looked French, he supposed.

  A bell began to ring: time for the audience to move into the theater and take their seats. Immediately the background buzz and rumble of conversation seemed to get louder. Harry noted the sudden flare of dozens of cigarette lighters firing up as their owners rushed to hammer in one last coffin nail.

  “Are you going in?” he asked, as Sir Alec looked around for a waiter to unburden him of the drink he had hardly touched.

  “Oh, yes. I’m sure if you could fight your way into a secret Nazi rocket base to blow up their whizbangs and kidnap their boffins, I can at least sit through the whole lark in the comfort of the Barberini. Besides, I haven’t actually seen the finished version yet.”

  “Allow me,” said Harry, taking Guinness’s unwanted drink from him and palming it off on a waitress passing behind the actor. “I’m one up on you in that case. We had a sneak preview at the palace last week. Young Nana loved it. Thought it was very exciting. Although I notice they didn’t have Sophia Loren slitting anyone’s throat for making a nuisance of themselves. Not in this version, anyway.”

  For just a moment, it looked as though a shadow passed across Sir Alec’s face. He looked Harry in the eye as he spoke. “People who have not played at war, sir, have no idea what an ugly, wretched game it is. I wonder sometimes whether we let them down by not telling them truthfully.”

  “But war’s a game,” said Harry, “which, were their subjects wiser, Kings would not play at.” The smile did not reach his eyes.

  “Cowper, I believe.”

  “Could be, but I read it in Freddy Forsyth.”

  “And you, Your Highness, not tempted by a second viewing?” Guinness asked with the return of a slightly mischievous grin.

  “Duty calls,” Harry replied. “Well—dinner first, then duty.”

  The bell rang again and the jostling crush of the crowd had become a slow-moving tide, flowing toward the doors of the theater. As the invitees, in their black-tie outfits and heavy-looking cocktail dresses, gradually shuffled past the two men, the large press contingent, those without their own invitations at any rate, were left behind. Harry nodded at a small clutch of women—uptimers, by the look of them.

  “I have a date,” he said, conspiratorially leaning in toward Guinness.

  “I see. An affair of state then,” teased Sir Alec. “Well, as critical and defining a cultural moment as the premiere of Capture von Braun! is, I do recognize that there are more important things in the world. You must be about your business, Your Highness. If I might be so bold, however,” he added, “which one is she?”

  Harry couldn’t help but smile. “The tall, dark-haired woman, the American in the white dress.”

  “Miss … I’m sorry Ms. Duffy,” said the actor, correcting himself. “I thought as much. I had observed her watching you these last few minutes.”

  The crowd had thinned out to the point where the two men were able to speak in a more normal, conversational tone. Harry was impressed, if a little horrified, at the thick fog of cigarette smoke that remained in their wake. Sir Alec must’ve been possessed of especially sharp vision to pick out Julia Duffy through the crowd and the smoke screen.

  “Do you know her?”

  “Not personally,” replied Guinness, “but she did interview me a few weeks ago in connection with the film. She struck me as one of the more intelligent and perceptive reporters it’s ever been my displeasure to talk to.” He smiled as he said it.

  “Tough interview, eh?”

  “Indeed. She was very well informed about the failure of my theater venture, and not at all reluctant to keep asking me the most discomfiting questions about it.”

  The bell began to ring again, a little more urgently, summoning the final stragglers. Harry could see a couple of publicists making their way over to wrangle Sir Alec and himself away.

  “Sorry about that,” said Harry with bluff good humor as he patted Guinness on the shoulder. “In my experience, when dealing with Julia, it’s best to just lie back and think of England.”

  Sir Alec snorted just as the first of the publicists arrived. He was a short, rotund man with heavily oiled hair, wringing his hands nervously.

  “Your Highness, Sir Alec …”

  “If you could just spare us a moment,” said the actor, politely enough, but with enough steel in his voice that Harry could easily imagine him commanding a small boat running weapons to partisans in the Balkans during the war.

  The publicist coughed and nodded, and backed away. “Of course, of course …”

  “I would not want you to think me uncharitable about your lady friend,” continued Sir Alec. “She really was very good at her job. Unfortunately, that made for a rather uncomfortable time for me. But, of course, I brought that on myself. Lessons of history, and eve
rything. And I will say, of all the interviews I sat through to publicize this film, hers was the only one that didn’t bring up that bloody Star Wars movie. Please pass on my regards.”

  Harry bowed his head briefly. “I will. And for what it’s worth, I really did enjoy this movie. We all did.”

  “Very kind of you to say so,” said Guinness. “But now I can see from the panic sweat staining the armpits of my press-relations professional over there that I must away. Enjoy your date, and please, my compliments to Ms. Duffy.”

  “Of course.”

  They shook hands again and parted as Sir Alec was ushered away, not toward the theater but into the clutches of yet more journalists for another round of interviews.

  Harry stifled a sigh as he spotted his own personal protection detail—two special constables from Scotland Yard—dressed in dark double-breasted suits, both of them wearing Homburgs. At least they would keep a discreet distance this evening, but Harry could not help feeling slightly put out. He was much more able to take care of himself than these two constables were. For that matter, Julia Duffy was probably a more daunting prospect to any would-be attacker than the plainclothes bobbies.

  She had his attention now, smiling and waving as she said good-bye to her colleagues. They were very obviously reporters as well. They carried notebooks and large satchels slung over their shoulders, from which one of the women took out a small cardboard camera to snap Harry’s photo as he approached. Julia backhanded the woman in the solar plexus, playfully, but firmly enough to drive a small “oof” from her, after which the little cardboard camera disappeared.

  Julia, he noted, was not carrying a satchelful of disposable Kodaks. She was packing a 21C digital shooter. Her old Canon Eos, he was certain. Nearly a quarter of a century old, and still one of the most advanced pieces of optic technology marooned here in the 1950s. A lot of people would think it foolish, a woman hauling around such a valuable piece of kit. Especially in a city like Rome, where the Allied sector still swarmed with displaced people ten years after the end of the war. Harry knew better, however. His on-and-off girlfriend was an embed, with nearly as much combat experience as he. A common street thief who tried knocking her down for the camera was more likely to leave the encounter with a couple of bullets in his face or a knife buried deep in his neck.

  “Hey,” she called out. “You done schmoozing with all your fancy actor friends? Got time for a drink with a working girl?”

  Julia’s companions fell silent as he drew near. Harry revised his previous opinion about them: They probably weren’t uptimers. Too young, for a start. They were dressed in the lighter, more casual fashion of the next century, and styled their hair and makeup to imitate Julia’s own; but they did not have her hard, angular body shape. Even in her forties, her figure remained gym-ripped and almost masculine compared to the soft, doughy shapes of women from this era. Her musculature was well-defined and very apparent when she moved. Theirs was not. Their cheeks retained the fleshy curves of cherubs. Diet and brutal exercise had stripped most of the body fat from Duffy, and it showed in her high cheekbones and the slightly hollow planes of her face. The temps’ aping of her uptime style did not extend to Paleo diets, MMA workouts, and high-intensity interval training. When they spoke, to say hello, they did so with American accents, and he was finally able to place them.

  California. The Zone.

  02

  May 6, 1955: North Rome (Soviet sector)

  The church, a humble box of gray brick and slate and narrow, unglazed windows, sat on the point of a sharp turn in a nest of back streets and alleyways a few blocks north of the Vatican. Ivanov peered out through one of the slits, scanning the cobblestone passage outside their hiding place. A sewer had backed up nearby and flooded the alley with a shallow stream of excrement. Unpleasant, but useful. It meant that foot traffic, already light in this part of the Soviet sector, was unlikely to build up as the Romans took to the streets in an hour or so for passeggiatto, the daily late-afternoon/early-evening stroll enjoyed by civilized Italians up and down the peninsula. Even here, under the boot of the Communists, people tried to wriggle free at least once every day, dressing in whatever old, shabby finery they might yet possess to walk their local streets, to greet neighbors and friends, and wherever possible, to dine and drink and talk. If they were lucky, they might even push back the unpleasant realities of life behind the Wall, just enough to sleep a little easier that night.

  He envied them.

  For Pavel Ivanov, when he closed his eyes at the end of the day, only dreams of death and screaming waited. He would sometimes wake, biting back on a strangled cry, rubbing at the scar that ran down his right temple. It was an old wound, but full of phantom pains that haunted him between sleep and wakefulness.

  His fingertips probed gently at the scar now. It was throbbing. Playing Russian roulette with a Makarov had seemed like a bright idea at the time. A beacon of reason, in fact, that had shone with unusual brightness in a very dark moment, many years ago. A shitty round had saved his life but left him scarred. Ever since, he had turned away from the solace of vodka and misery and focused on the mission.

  Only the mission.

  Today that mission was a man called Valentin Sobeskaia. A Russian businessman, and a boyar of the Party, free to travel to Rome for the GATT talks. And not just to the Soviet-controlled quadrant either; Sobeskaia was trusted enough to be able to cross over to Free Rome, the Allied sector. Free to cross over but not free to move around without an escort or constraints. In “free” South Rome, the NKVD would guard and watch him, holding him as closely as a newborn. Ironically, it was safer and much easier for Ivanov to contact him here, through his mistress, Anna, in the open-air prison of the city’s Communist-controlled north.

  The special forces veteran scanned the streets outside again. Nothing moved.

  Normal life, such as it was, was possible just a few short streets away, on the other side of the Roman Wall. Here in the Soviet-controlled sector, however, there were no privately owned trattoria or ristorante, no crowded bars hot and bright with life and celebration. There were “people’s canteens,” where you might get a drink if your tastes ran to toe-curling Bulgarian wine and thin, oily Moskovskaya vodka, but they were poorly patronized by the Romans. Only the lowest, most despised cadre of Party members were to be found there. Even the poorly paid junior officers of the occupying Red Army divisions avoided the canteens, preferring to eat and drink in their barracks. It was safer that way. A man was less likely to get a shiv in the neck or turn up floating in the Tiber with his belly sliced open and his innards trailing behind him.

  Passeggiatto in Joseph Stalin’s Rome was a grim business indeed.

  “Five minutes,” Franco warned him.

  Ivanov granted him a curt “Thank you.” Franco Furedi, a trigger man from a minor but rising family of La Cosa Nostra, had guided him into the Soviet sector and hopefully would guide him out again. The common courtesy of a thank-you here and there was not simply good manners but good policy, in Ivanov’s experience. Especially with the mafia. They took the proprieties seriously.

  He scoped out what little he could see of their target building, about a hundred yards away, before pulling back from the window. Full night was still an hour off, but it was dark enough inside the church that he fitted his night-vision goggles before stepping away from the window. The Trident Optics 4G headset was nowhere near as advanced as the satellite-linked combat goggles he’d worn back up in the twenty-first, but these were as good as accelerated 1950s technology got—and that was pretty fucking good, he had to admit. They were the most advanced piece of equipment he carried under the Wall. Unfortunately, he had no live comms link or electronic overwatch on this mission. He would have to make do with his own eyes and ears. And with Franco, of course. His ally of convenience.

  With the Trident’s low-light amplification mode powered up, the simple, unadorned interior of the little church emerged in lime-green luminescence around him. The Com
munists had boarded up the building years ago, as they had with so many in their sector of Rome. Not every church had been shut down, of course. Soviet dominion was ten years young in this part of the city and throughout the north of Italy. The ailing Stalin had not yet consolidated his rule to the point where he could glibly sweep aside two thousand years of culture and history, no matter how much his natural inclination would have been to do just that. And so for now, many churches remained open; but they tended to be the larger cathedrals, where the congregation could be observed en masse and the officiating clergy needed the approval of the Communist regime to practice. Attendance at these state-approved places of worship had been falling away for years. Exactly as planned, Ivanov noted. Most people, he knew, worshipped privately in their homes, tended to by priests who worked secretly, without state sanction, risking their freedom and occasionally their lives to do so.

  Franco’s brother, Marius, was one such man. His SIS file was surprisingly thick for that of a humble Catholic priest. (British intelligence, unlike their cousins across the pond, still kept most of their records on paper. They said it was to avoid the sort of breaches that had become commonplace uptime, but everyone in the business knew they simply did not have the budget that the CIA’s forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services, enjoyed for information technology.) Ivanov was familiar with the British and American files on the Furedi brothers, and the networks for which the two men toiled. The Trimbole family in Franco’s case; the Vatican’s ad hoc security apparatus, the Circostanze Particolari, for his brother.

  Presumably there was another file, at least on Marius, held somewhere within the local directorate of the NKVD. It was he who had provided the location of this abandoned and shuttered holy place that could be accessed via a buried part of the old city, a pitch-black warren of subterranean passages, catacombs, aqueducts, and even intact but entombed buildings from the late Roman Republican era, about two hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ. A small world lost to time during one of the periodic eruptions of civil conflict that wracked the city and the Empire at that point.