Stalin's hammer:Rome aot-4

by John Birmingham

  Another man awaited them there.

  Or rather, a boy, to judge by his prominent cheekbones and the fiery eruption of acne that covered most of his face. His eyes shone brightly in the NVGs, like poisonous green stars, making him a monstrous visage that was not helped by his vulpine smile. Precisely the sort of creature who might live in the underworld, with greasy, matted hair and a mouthful of crooked teeth.

  The boy gestured at Franco, who turned and pointed at Ivanov’s combat goggles, indicating that he should remove them. The OSS operative did so, surprised to discover that after a few seconds of squeezing his eyes closed to adjust, he could see quite well. He could also hear the voices of a number of NKVD troops somewhere below their position.

  Franco had led him into a cavern just large enough to accommodate the three of them. To Ivanov’s dismay, the boy was armed with a Great War-vintage bolt-action rifle. There was no time to change that now.

  A careful peek around the entrance of their cave confirmed that the troopers had gathered in a much larger cavern beneath their vantage point, and were all toting reengineered AKM-74s with folding stocks and rails loaded with LED tactical lights, laser sights, and, in some cases, grenade launchers. They were also illuminated by battery-powered camp lights and appeared to be setting up a base from which to conduct a systematic search. Ivanov closed his eyes and did his best to recall every detail of the site picture he had snapped in his mind.

  He saw three camp lights, a stack of bedding, two foldout tables covered in rolls of paper-drawings and maps of the sewers, from the city engineers perhaps? — a couple of modular-frame tents, and even a portable cooking stove. There were at least twelve to fifteen men down there, similar to the report Marius had received.

  What Ivanov did not see was any sign of Skarov, of course. The spy catcher had run where the trail was hot. Back to the hotel, as Furedi had said, to secure the only link to Ivanov that he had. The boyar.

  The former Spetsnaz officer shook his head, unhappy with the way this was playing out, with him being pushed across the chessboard as somebody else’s pawn. He was used to moving other people around-not being played by them. Resolving to speak to the priest before this whole thing went completely off the rails, he had just moved toward Franco, intending to whisper to him that he urgently needed to see his brother, when a Russian voice shouted out in alarm. Within a second, two explosions roared and shook the ground underfoot, knocking Ivanov slightly off balance.

  The boy snarled as his rifle began cracking out single shots, then Franco’s shotgun boomed, and the whole world went up in a roar of gunfire and a string of grenade explosions. Ivanov cursed, once, in Russian, and swung the muzzle of his submachine gun around the mouth of the small cave. He fired controlled, short bursts at first from his MP5 in the general direction of where he remembered small knots of NKVD troopers had been standing, less than a minute before. The suppressor did its job, deadening the muzzle flash and the report of his weapon, but making him feel slightly ridiculous in the devastating uproar of pitched battle that had erupted all around them.

  Bullets hummed and whizzed past, stitching the rocks, bricks, and concrete around his position. Someone had zeroed in on his position and began to lay down suppressive fire. An explosion far to his right blew out a chunk of the ceiling, probably from a grenade launcher.

  Ivanov gave up on short bursts and emptied the hundred-round drum in a general arc from left to right. Expended in a few seconds, he dropped the drum and replaced it with a conventional magazine. Repeating the process four times, Ivanov sprayed the bulk of his ammunition into the cavern below before throwing a grenade or two of his own into the fray.

  The boy grunted and gurgled as his throat exploded, painting Ivanov’s face with a splash of hot gore. His body dropped and rolled over the lip of the cave mouth, tumbling away into the firestorm below. Franco racked shell after shell into his shotgun, raining hundreds of pellets down on the Russians, never once speaking, even to curse, while he did so.

  An enormous explosion, seemingly volcanic in the confined space, stabbed Ivanov’s eardrums like hot knitting needles. The blast was far too large for a hand grenade; and after a moment’s disorientation, he surmised that one of the gas cylinders attached to the camp stove had ruptured and exploded. The volume of fire trailed off immediately.

  Dark shapes emerged from the far side of the large cavern. Marius’s men. They drew sharp blades and knelt before the ones who still cried for their mothers, gagging on their own foamy blood. Throats were slit, carotids stabbed, and hearts popped in much the same workmanlike fashion one might go about strangling a chicken for dinner.

  “We go now-hurry!” shouted Franco. Ivanov could barely hear him over the ringing in his ears. They dived back into the tunnel system, navigating by the light of fires burning behind them.

  This is bullshit, he thought, before realizing that he had spoken or perhaps even shouted aloud. Furedi ignored him, charging forward, navigating as he had before by running his fingers along the walls and the rock face above his head. When the flickering orange light of burning equipment and bodies was no longer sufficient, Ivanov slipped his NVGs back on before swapping out a magazine from his weapon.

  Unsurprisingly, Marius and Giorgio were waiting for them at the junction of the two tunnels. The priest-if that was indeed what he was-seemed entirely unperturbed by the action. He accepted the death of the boy with a quick nod and the sign of the cross.

  “This will bring many more of the Communists,” he said. “They are already in the tunnels and catacombs.”

  Ivanov could not help himself. “A brilliant plan then, Padre. Kill a few stupid troopers so that we can get ourselves killed by many more.”

  Giorgio skinned his lips back from his teeth like a dog, but neither Franco nor Marius reacted. Nor did the elder Furedi demur at being addressed as “Padre.”

  “It all serves a purpose,” he replied calmly. “God’s purpose and yours. The man you seek, this businessman, I am told he is no longer guarded by one hundred of Stalin’s attack dogs. Only a small squad remains.”

  Ivanov looked at him as though he were a particularly stupid child.

  “Because they are all down here hunting for us.”

  “Exactly,” said Marius. “You can thank me later.”

  6

  South Rome (Allied sector)

  “Oh dear,” said Harry. “I hope we’ve set a place at the table for Mr. Cockup, then.”

  The Secret Intelligence Service chief was unimpressed with his attempt at levity. These people, thought Harry, no appreciation for the classics.

  “This is serious, Colonel Windsor,” Carstairs said, conspicuously declining to address him as “Your Highness.” “Sobeskaia is running hot right now, and you are the only person he’ll agree to run to.”

  The three men-Harry, Talbot Carstairs, and Stan Walker, Carstairs’s OSS counterpart in Rome-all stood around a small conference table in the secure room at the British embassy. “The Quiet Room,” as Harry thought of it, although he would never have used that phrasing in present company. The local spymasters both played to type. Carstairs, with his shiny, bald head and round, almost babyish features, was every inch a civil-service man, even if his service was performed in secret. Walker was old-school OSS, a veteran of the mad, bad days of Wild Bill Donovan. The sort of brute who was most happy blowing things up and hurting people. Probably too smart for one of the military-intelligence workshops, and too dumb for the Ivy League of the CIA, which, in this world, did not dirty its hands or bloody its knuckles with anything as gauche as direct action.

  The SIS station chief ran a hand over the shining dome of his head, almost as if he were brushing hair out of his eyes. It was most probably an old habit, Harry figured.

  “Gentlemen, we simply do not have the time,” said Carstairs. He tapped two fingers on a buff-colored manila folder lying on the table in front of them, leaving a couple of faint, greasy fingerprints behind, just beneath the only words printe
d on the cover.

  VALENTIN SOBESKAIA.

  Harry’s stomach growled. Apart from a few mouthfuls of truffled mushroom, he had not eaten since the morning. The glass of prosecco with Julia hardly counted, and he now deeply regretted waving away the finger food at Sir Alec’s movie premiere. He shook his head as frustration got the better of him. Jules had been understanding at the restaurant, but then, she was more than familiar with the demands of last-minute, unexpected deadlines. Still, he felt awful for having dragged her all the way to Rome, only to abandon her almost immediately. Nothing about this meeting suggested he’d be able to catch up with her again anytime soon either.

  “All right.” He sighed. “Valentin Sobeskaia. I suppose you’d better tell me all about my new best friend.”

  The OSS man threw a quick glance at the locked door. More a nervous twitch than a conscious attempt to reassure himself that they could not be overheard.

  First though, to Harry’s surprise and not inconsiderable annoyance, Carstairs insisted on the formalities. Opening the file, he began to read from a card pasted to the inside, carefully sticking to the exact wording.

  “Colonel Windsor, you are about to be briefed into a Top Secret Ultra file. By accepting this briefing, you agree to be bound by the provisions of the Official Secrets Act of-”

  “Oh, come on, I don’t think this-”

  But Carstairs cut him off, holding up one hand like a traffic policeman. Meanwhile he continued his read-through, explaining to the prince and twenty-five-year military veteran the full range of penalties that would apply to him (yes, even him) under the Official Secrets Act of 1939, were he to divulge the contents of this file to any unauthorized person or persons.

  Unable to keep his annoyance in check, Harry wordlessly implored Walker to intervene. The American just grinned back at him, like a hammerhead shark. He was obviously used to the bureaucratic obsessions of his colleague.

  “Sign please,” Carstairs said in conclusion. He passed Harry a fountain pen and indicated where he needed to add his signature to the short list of people who had been given access to the file.

  Harry scrawled out his name, adding an HRH for good measure and stabbing the pen into the paper to emphasize his disgruntlement. He couldn’t believe he was stuck in this small, airless room in the basement of the embassy. Not when he could be finishing his dinner date and making plans for a couple of days of wanton carousing on the Amalfi coast.

  “Sure you wouldn’t like that in triplicate, old boy?”

  Carstairs appeared to consider the offer seriously, while flipping open the file and leaning forward to spread its contents out across the table. He had a small splotch of pasta sauce on his collar. “Signing once is more than enough to get you in trouble,” he replied. It was the only time that Harry had ever heard him attempt a joke. Or what Harry assumed was a joke.

  “Now, Valentin Sobeskaia,” the spy chief began, in the practiced cadence of a man repeating a briefing he had given many times before, “one of Stalin’s pet commercial boyars …” He looked up at Harry to make sure he understood the meaning of the term. Harry waved him on.

  There was nothing particularly exciting or even classified about the information. For all that the Soviets had unleashed an army of theoreticians to explain the failure of their revolution in Harry’s time, and for all that the resulting explanation was utter bullshit, the Kremlin had paid at least some heed to future history. They would never admit it, of course, but they’d attempted to learn from the success of their Chinese comrades in freeing up some market controls while maintaining an iron grip in the political realm. Sobeskaia was a beneficiary of that complicated two-step. A Party boss who had been authorized to run a state enterprise along commercial lines. He was one of millions of Soviet citizens who had profited directly from Stalin’s own, very particular version of perestroika.

  “Sobeskaia acquitted himself well, first as the senior foreman, then as director of a tractor factory given over to tank production in the early days of the war,” explained Carstairs. “He then disappeared from view for at least eight years but reappeared in good health as one of the first authorized managers of a corporatized State Business Enterprise.”

  “A toaster factory, if you can believe it,” said Walker, with a short, barking laugh. “Automatic toasters. And they worked too, the son of a bitch! He was building them before we were. Exporting the suckers all over the damn world.”

  Harry was beginning to get a feel for where this might be going. He stretched his back, which was feeling cramped. Closing his eyes against the glare of the overhead fluorescents, he decided to hazard a guess.

  “We’re assuming, I suppose, that Comrade Sobeskaia spent those eight years covering himself in glory with the NKVD’s Functional Projects Bureau.”

  “Ha!” Walker chimed in. “As the philosophers say, if a bear shits in the woods but nobody smells it, it was probably working for Lavrenty Beria.”

  “Philosophers say that?”

  “The ones from the faculty of mixed fucking metaphors do, yeah.”

  Carstairs handed over a couple of photographs of the state-approved businessman. They were good quality, which didn’t surprise Harry at all. Although the Iron Curtain had trapped hundreds of millions of people inside Stalin’s gargantuan prison camp, for those with the trust of the state, travel was much easier than it had been in the original timeline. Over a thousand “enterprise boyars”-businessmen and — women who, like Valentin Sobeskaia, ran corporatized operations for Mother Russia-were now in Rome for the GATT conference. Many of them were even staying on this side of the Wall, doing business, signing contracts, making money with their ideological nemeses in the free world. Just as the once-and-future Chinese Communists would have done.

  The photographs Harry flipped through all looked as though they’d been shot while Sobeskaia was visiting the West. Taken from a variety of angles and distances, they mostly featured backdrops of expensive restaurants and hotel lobbies.

  “So why the flap over a toaster salesman?” he asked.

  “Well, his fucking toasters are kicking the ass out of GE,” said Walker, not altogether facetiously. “It’s not like he has to pay top dollar for his slave labor, you know. Asshole’s moving into electronics next, transistors and maybe even silicon, according to the word here in Rome.”

  “But that’s not why you want him, is it?” Harry asked, perusing the rest of the documents laid out before him, which amounted to a particularly meager report, he noted. Mostly just baselevel commercial intelligence about the operations of Prozpekt Elektric, the state corporation run by Sobeskaia. Harry shook his head. Carstairs had made him sign the Official Secrets form to read a bunch of newspaper ads for some of Prozpekt’s cheap consumer wares. A couple of washing machines, a microwave oven, and a steam iron. All of them looking as though their designs had been stolen from sources uptime-which, of course, they had. The Sovs hadn’t just gained access to 21C military technology after the Emergence. They’d also grabbed up a treasure trove of data on eight decades’ worth of development in consumer goods, and, Harry thought wryly, a history lesson from Deng Xiaoping in how to get the West to pay you to bury them.

  “No, we have little interest in Comrade Sobeskaia’s cheap microwave ovens and toasters,” Carstairs replied. “I don’t care for these so-called microwaves personally. Unlike Mr. Walker. I find they either burn one’s food or leave it frozen in the middle, or both.”

  An exchange, unspoken but unmistakable, passed between the station chiefs. An in-joke or an old disagreement, perhaps. Carstairs moved on, retrieving a small, plain envelope from the back of the file, which he opened before tipping the contents out onto the table.

  “Sobeskaia smuggled these to us via an intermediary.”

  “His dame,” added Walker.

  Harry frowned at the metal shavings, scattered over an advert for a Nijinsky coffee machine clipped from The Telegraph. The tightly curled metallic tendrils were a dirty silver color and q
uite lustrous under the harsh, white, fluorescent light.

  “Well, I’m guessing it’s not radioactive,” Harry said, only half joking. “You do know not to play with plutonium, don’t you, Mr. Carstairs?”

  “It’s tungsten,” replied the British spymaster. “Chinese tungsten, mined in the mainland Communist territories, of course.”

  “Of course. I don’t suppose Prozpekt is branching out into jewelry or exotic yacht keels, then?”

  “What?” That threw Carstairs, if only momentarily.

  “Niche uses,” the prince explained. “Not nearly as popular as using it for armaments.”

  The other men nodded. Walker spoke then. “You got it. Penetrator rounds, supersonic shrapnel-all the good stuff. You don’t need tungsten for it, but unless you have a whole heap of depleted uranium lying around, it’s not a bad option.”

  Harry picked up one of the small metal shavings. It felt dense and hard, and he was careful not to pinch it too firmly in case he cut himself.

  “So, what’s the story? You’re sure Sobeskaia isn’t launching a weaponized toaster onto the market?”

  “Could be,” Walker conceded, to Carstairs’s obvious chagrin. “Well, we don’t know, do we?” the American added in reply to a glare from his SIS counterpart.

  “No, we do not,” said Carstairs. “We don’t know much about Mr. Sobeskaia at all. Other than that he chose to reach out and make contact with us via an informal channel, requesting a meeting while he was here in Rome for the GATT conference. He sent us these shavings as a teaser.”

  “Spiffing. So I suppose your people talked to his people?”

  “Tried to,” said Walker.

  “And at this point Mr. Cockup joined the party, right?”

  Carstairs flushed bright red, the skin on his neck nearly matching the color of the pasta sauce on his collar. “The OSS put one of their best men on it,” he said ruefully.