Stalin's Hammer: Paris: A Novel of the Axis of Time

by John Birmingham

  Two knocks sounded at the door of his suite.

  “Come in,” he said.

  An agent from Kolhammer’s detail poked his head inside the room.

  “Mrs Judge to see you, Mister Vice President.”

  “Show her in,” Kolhammer said, keeping the bemusement out of his voice.

  The Secret Service man, a red-headed, potato-faced Mick of the old school, nodded and swung the door open to admit Kolhammer’s visitor. Karen Halabi… No, he corrected himself… Karen Judge strode into the room, her face lighting up when she saw him.

  “Admiral,” she beamed.

  “Oh, I’m just plain old Mister Vice President now,” he joked. “And you? I thought you were in Paris as the fearsome Ms Halabi, not the charming Mrs Judge.”

  It was her turn to smile as Kolhammer dismissed his protectors with a wave. They gave Karen a final suspicious once-over. They habitually gave everyone a final suspicious once-over before leaving them alone with him.

  Karen looked well. She had maintained her fitness and her “new” role‌—‌he still reflexively thought of her as a naval captain, even though she had not served in uniform for a decade‌—‌afforded her the means to dress in the finest clothes this city had to offer. Her husband, his friend Mike Judge, made do on a comparatively modest salary running the Allied Joint Force Command for Southern Europe, which was just as well. When out of uniform, Mike was a jeans and T-shirt kinda guy.

  “I am in Paris for work,” Karen said, carelessly dropping her expensive handbag on a polished wooden coffee table, and leaning forward to kiss Kolhammer on the cheek. “In fact, I was at work, sort of, when you ordered me over here.”

  She appraised him with a level stare.

  “But, even so, I’m calling on an old friend, which is personal. So tonight I’m Mrs Judge.”

  She shucked off her coat and looked around for somewhere to hang it so it would not drip all over the furniture.

  “I’m sorry if I interrupted something. But it is important. Here, let me take that,” Kolhammer said. “I can hang it in the bathroom to dry.”

  “Thanks. And anyway,” she added, her voice following him into the washroom, “Mike’s name tends to open doors, whereas mine sometimes closes them.”

  She said it matter-of-factly.

  “Seriously?” Kolhammer said, as he returned. He could not keep the disapproval off his face. “You still having trouble with the old boys club in London, then?”

  “Sometimes,” she said, but breezily, as though it were only a minor irritant.

  It was public knowledge that she had left the Royal Navy, and her birthplace, at the end of the war and moved to California, mostly to be with Mike, but also to escape the quiet viciousness of the British establishment. A woman of color, she had no future there. But Mike Judge, Kolhammer’s executive officer on the Big Hill, had confided in him more than once just how badly the sustained insult had hurt his wife. Profiled in the business press, Karen had always kept it light and positive, emphasizing the limitless opportunities of America, and her love for the rangy Texan she had followed there. In private, for a long time, she had felt scorned and forsaken by the very country she had sworn to defend.

  “But living well is the best revenge, isn’t it,” she declared.

  “And I would hope you and Mike are living very well,” Kolhammer said. “How is it going? Commuting between two continents?”

  The wrinkles that were just beginning to gather at the corner of her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I work for the company that makes the best jet airliners in the world,” she said. “We probably see as much of each other as we would if Mike was Stateside. In fact, I see him more often now than I did when we were in San Diego.”

  Kolhammer fixed himself a bourbon and ice from the drinks cabinet and inquired whether she would like something too.

  “A cognac would be fine. I’m sure they have a nice one here.”

  He poured her drink and led her through to the main lounge area, bidding Karen to sit opposite him across the coffee table where she had deposited her bag.

  “And your daughter? She must have started school by now?”

  The merest shadow passed over Karen’s face, and she took a sip before answering, perhaps needing the moment to compose her response.

  “Jessica is in third grade now, just down the road from home. We’re in Chicago, Boeing’s head office. I’d prefer California, which is much closer to, you know, our home…” she made a gesture which took in the both of them. “It’s more like the 21st there. But there’s my work, and Mike’s, and the school has boarders as well as day students so she’s able to stay over when I have to travel.”

  Kolhammer smiled.

  “Do you feel bad because you have to leave her behind, or because you’re afraid she has more fun when you’re not there?”

  She looked up from her drink, staring at him blankly for a second, before snorting with guilty laughter. The laugh turned into a cough as some of her cognac went down the wrong way. She took a tissue from her handbag and dabbed at a few spots of moisture on her chin.

  “Bugger you, Philip. I sometimes forget you had children…”

  She seemed to catch herself with a thought that hurried in on the heels of that remark.

  “Oh, I’m sorry… That was insensitive… I know how much you miss your family… I’m sorry.”

  Kolhammer shook his head.

  “It was a long time ago in a universe far, far away,” he said. “I’ve never stopped loving them and it never really stops hurting. But I lost my boy a long time before we ended up here.”

  “Taiwan. I remember.”

  “We all move on, each day. We have to.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, taking a solid belt of her drink. “We have to. And we should move on too, shouldn’t we? It is lovely to catch up, but that’s not why I’m here. You rang me directly, and you gave me to understand you needed to talk immediately. So here I am.”

  He finished his bourbon and put the glass down just a little too hard, almost flinching at the sound of the tumbler hitting the coffee table.

  “I’m afraid you’re here as a representative of Boeing, invited by the Vice President of the United States, not Mike’s old navy buddy.”

  “And what can I do for you, Mr Vice President?”

  She didn’t come to attention or even change the tone of her voice much, but he knew he was speaking to someone else now, not to the woman, but to the company she worked for. The company where she was also a vice president.

  He cut straight to the point.

  “I need to borrow a couple of your satellites.”

  Halabi worked one eyebrow upwards.

  “I presume you will tell me which ones, but are you inclined to let me know why?”

  “Boeing has two Combat Optics warbirds, tracking over Eurasia. You’ve been collecting baseline data from western Europe, and matching it against your take from Central Siberia and the Fulda Gap. I believe the National Reconnaissance Office is part funding the project. That’s how I know about them.”

  She stiffened at mention of the gap. In their history it had been the principal line of advance for Warsaw Pact forces into western Europe. In this world, with the Communists occupying so much of southern Europe, it was not as uniquely vital. But it was still a geographic flaw in the defenses of the West. There were massive Red Army and Warsaw Pact formations drawn up to assault the gap should Stalin ever decide the end of the world was something he wanted to see.

  “They’re experimental platforms,” Halabi said, carefully avoiding the subject of why the gap was not being covered and what that might mean. “They’re not fully operational. We’re proving out a couple of concepts that…”

  “I know all of that,” Kolhammer said, gently raising one hand to forestall her objections. “And I understand there’s some very sensitive augmented tech in the instrument packages. But your satellites could give us coverage over
a couple of areas we need to get eyes on ASAP.”

  She shook her head, but not to deny him, just to clear her thoughts.

  “I would have thought you had plenty of satellite cover over those areas, given the accelerated launch schedules of the last three years. Your busy little rocketeers are part of the reason I had to endure dinner with Slim Jim Davidson tonight. I’m having trouble getting my own birds into the air.”

  He leaned back in his chair, brushed an invisible piece of lint off the leg of his trousers, and chose his words carefully.

  “I can’t tell you much more than this‌—‌we need your help. We may have a situation developing and we do not have the intelligence assets we need to address that situation.”

  Halabi tipped her head ever so slightly to one side. He had seen her do that more than once during briefings, back in the war. He had seen it in the years since, across the dinner table at Mike’s place. He was being measured. She said nothing, just staring at him long enough for it to become a little uncomfortable. And then she spoke.

  “You would not tell me if you’d lost a satellite to hostile action. I wouldn’t even bother asking. But I can ask you this, and I expect an answer‌—‌if Boeing were to provide these assets to the US government on a strictly temporary basis and the assets were damaged or destroyed in the course of any operation they performed for the government, would my company be fully and swiftly compensated for the loss?”

  Kolhammer did not hesitate to respond.

  “Boeing would be fully and immediately compensated not simply for any material loss, but for any inconvenience and disruption to its research and development program.”

  “And how would that loss be quantified?”

  “You would send us an invoice.”

  She was almost able to keep her mask in place. Only a slight tightening of her facial muscles gave her away.

  “I see. One last question, Mr Vice President. You will understand I have to fulfil my risk management responsibilities.”

  “Of course. Go on.”

  “What is the likelihood of having to send you an invoice for a damaged, missing or destroyed satellite?”

  He did hesitate this time, but only for a moment.

  “I would say the likelihood is very high.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Harry’s shoulders cramped painfully. The nylon flexicuffs bit deeper into the torn flesh at his wrists every time he dragged the restraints up and down the leg of the cot. He sweated freely, his own salt stinging exquisitely in the open wounds. But still he worked at the binding‌—‌up and down, up and down‌—‌concentrating on exposing the same, short length of nylon to the dull edge of the fixed, L-shaped cot leg. At the other end of the bunk, Julia sawed away at her own cuffs, with no more luck.

  But they both struggled on.

  The pain and the discomfort, even the frustration, served to keep his mind away from thoughts of the ambush, and memories of watching his friends and colleagues cut down. He didn’t really believe anything he had told Julia. He didn’t imagine for a second they would be quietly swapped in a prisoner exchange. If he had been able to put the arm on Skarov, the Russian would have disappeared forever. That was their most likely fate. Jules was a big girl. She knew the rules they played by‌—‌she had played by them often enough herself as an embed up in the 21st. So she played along now; not calling him out, or even questioning his bullshit story about the special privileges they enjoyed compared to Viv and the others who’d been killed back on the dock.

  Like him, she worked away at her restraints, and took care to shift position every couple of minutes to keep the blood flowing to her legs and feet. Skarov’s men had not thought to bind their ankles together. It was a small lapse, but Harry was determined to exploit it if the chance arose.

  “Do you ever think about what happened back up when?” he asked, wordlessly bidding her to follow his gaze, which had settled on the grill of an air vent over their heads. Unless the Russians were using advanced electronic surveillance gear, they were most likely listening in at the other end of that vent. It could be just as effective as a high gain microphone. Julia understood.

  “You mean back up in the caliphate?” she asked. “Indonesia?”

  Harry kept his voice level as he increased the intensity with which he worked at the cuffs. He could not be sure, but he thought maybe, just maybe, there was a chance they were starting to fray. He kept speaking to cover the sound of the nylon rubbing against dull steel.

  “No, not there,” he said. “Or, not just there, anyway. I meant everywhere.”

  It was not easy to maintain a conversational tone as the sharp edge of the plastic band sawed into his wrists. The pain was becoming nauseating.

  “Not all of the Multinational Force came through the wormhole, remember. There was an American submarine, and maybe half-a-dozen aircraft outside the field effect, or whatever it was. The event horizon. They must’ve seen the whole thing. Recorded it on sensors.”

  He had to pause and squeeze his eyes shut. It felt as though he had just dragged a hacksaw directly over an exposed nerve bundle in his open wounds. He clamped his mouth shut tight against the gag reflex and vomit that wanted to spew up out of his throat. Julia could see his distress, but she kept her own voice level in reply, redoubling her efforts to break free.

  “I interviewed Einstein about it, you know. A couple of times actually. He kept changing his mind as he read more and more of the archive that came through with the fleet. Last I heard, he’d settled on a sort of quantum bubble multiverse theory. He thought it was possible that the Transition was so disruptive it spun off an infinite number of alternate universes.”

  “Huh. Well, one is enough for me,” Harry said, back on task now that his head had stopped spinning. “I just wonder sometimes what it’s like back up there, because we’ll never find out. We won’t live another seventy years to see the differences, and back home it’s been more than a decade since we disappeared. In my darker moments I imagine we set off a nuclear war or something, and everything is gone.”

  Julia carefully heaved her butt around, her face screwing up. She stretched her legs and wiggled her toes, but kept working at the cuffs.

  “I think they would have coped,” she said. “After 9-11 it was just a two-decade-long shower of shit. I don’t think anybody had the capacity to be shocked anymore. Maybe if space lizards landed, or something. But probably not even then. They’d have been met with seven billion selfies.”

  Harry took a break, steadying his breathing which had become quite ragged. He was also worried he might be bleeding so much that it would give them away the next time a guard came around. They were both quiet for a little while. He closed his eyes and tried to find his center with a breathing exercise. His head felt strangely light and heavy at the same time, as though it might float off the top of his spine and drop to the deck like a bowling ball. Julia brought him back to himself, tapping her foot against his.

  He blinked away a rivulet of sweat, blurring his view of the cabin.

  “Can I ask you a professional question, Duff?”

  “Sure,” she said, almost smiling.

  “Why journalism?” Harry asked, forcing himself to resume the relentless, and possibly futile attack on the plastic cuffs. Anybody eavesdropping would have thought they were listening in on the sort of banal conversation bored prisoners routinely used to fill up the hours and hold back their fears.

  “I mean, your profession must have been in its death throes by the time you signed on as a baby reporter. Things must have seemed hopeless. Why keep going?”

  Julia had also returned to sawing away at the cot leg behind her. She looked to be in as much discomfort as him, but her voice was steady. Calm.

  “There’s always hope, isn’t there, Harry. Always. Journalism wasn’t dying. It was just changing. When you’re that deep in the shit, it’s difficult to see any way out. But everyone is always in the shit. That’s t
he human condition. And there’s almost always a way out. That’s why we go on.”

  She smiled, a little warmer this time, and paused for a ragged breath.

  “I thought journalism was going back to its roots in the earliest days of the free press. Thousands and thousands of little independent operators all publishing their own crazy little mastheads, just in the form of blogs, newsletters, podcasts and stuff.”

  “But you weren’t doing that, were you? You were old media. Deep in the belly of the dying beast.”

  She shrugged and it was hard to tell whether the gesture was in response to his query or another effort to break through the plastic.

  “The Times had a plan,” she said. “And I thought they had a pretty good chance of pulling it off…”

  She favored him with a long look.

  “But it’s all ancient future history now, isn’t it? I’m more interested in what happens here, where all the big media companies were warned about what was coming…”

  They both fell silent and still as they heard boots ringing on the deck-plating outside. It sounded like two or three people approaching. Harry butt-shuffled around, trying as best he could to hide the evidence of his efforts to escape. He hoped he hadn’t made too much of a mess of himself. It felt like he’d torn his wrists up quite badly.

  A heavy steel latch clanged upwards and the door swung in, just missing his kneecap. Three men, all European, stepped into the room, all of them dipping their heads and hunching their shoulders to get through the hatchway. He didn’t recognize the first two. They were just anonymous thugs, but Skarov was unmistakable. The man turned sideways to get his shoulders through the door and was tall enough that he was forced to stoop inside the cramped confines of the cabin. His cold, reptilian eyes went straight to Harry’s restraints and he smiled.