“Proof that Beria could count higher than I expected.” Ambrose shrugged and kept trudging as another terrified squeal was drowned out by angry, vengeful voices.
23
The Ruckus
Tiflis, a city of architectural heterodoxy, the capital of Georgia since the fifth century, curled and contoured around the green ribbon of the Kurgan River. Like many cities of the northern Near East, its buildings were as varied as the lords and tyrants who had held sway over it in its long existence. Marketplaces and cafes that would have been well-suited to Baghdad abutted against civic buildings fit for cities like Berlin or Paris, neo-classical and solemn. Bubbling up among the sloped streets, the voluptuous style of Orthodox churches and the picturesque Mediterranean structures seemed determined to root the city to its oldest origins, when the world still shook with Rome’s crumbling.
Despite this variety and implied vibrance, everything seemed bleak and barren as the trio overlooked the city from the northern slopes. The sinking sun painted the city crimson, but the garish color could do little to lift it from the oppressive drabness that had settled over every building. From this distance, they could see it was a city occupied, its streets empty and its people huddled inside, awaiting what came next.
Only one place showed signs of life and activity, near the very center of the city. Here fires and red flags shone on a broad plaza as a line of trucks and other vehicles wound through. As they watched, flocks of people were disgorged from the automobiles, reduced to dark accumulations of squirming dots by the dying light and the distance. They milled about until other more determined specks converged on them and shuffled them toward one side of the city square or another.
“Looks like Beria was right,” Ambrose spat as he squinted. “They were very aggressive with recruiting.”
Rihyani shook her head, her eyebrows raised in dread wonder.
“They can’t possibly think to bully all those people into service,” she murmured. “Not with so much of their strength gone northward. It would be like equipping an army that could readily turn on you.”
Ambrose heaved a weary sigh.
“You’d be surprised how much audacious men with guns can get away with.”
“And let’s not forget Stalin isn’t just using intimidation,” Milo said, pressing down on the welling anxiety inside of him. “Zlydzen is providing him with some way to influence their minds, make them fanatics.”
That was exactly what gnawed at Milo as he thought of what they were going to try to accomplish. There were so many down there, almost enough for a brand-new army, and it could very well be that in moments, they’d transform from unwilling conscripts to fearless zealots. The thought made his stomach perform an acrobatic routine he could have done without.
“That makes me wonder,” Ambrose said, his mustache fidgeting. “The soldiers were all more than willing to fight to the death. I mean, I didn’t hear one man call for retreat, but why wasn’t that filth Beria fanaticized?”
They all took a moment to consider the point before Milo finally shrugged.
“Maybe because he was a commissar, not a soldier, and a fairly high-ranking one. Levintry Beria was only out in the field to sate his needs. A fanatical soldier is one thing, but bureaucrats? They’d be getting in each other's way even more than usual.”
Ambrose chuckled, but Rihyani, who also seemed to have taken the question in hand, stared intently at the scene in the square.
“It could also be a measure of insurance for the dwarrow,” she said, her voice so soft she might have been talking to herself. “Long-term mental and emotional manipulation through magic can have side effects. Higher ranking members not being affected means that if Stalin dies or becomes unmanageable, his replacements won’t be a bunch of damaged drones.”
I concur, Imrah whispered in Milo’s mind. Zlydzen understood that many of his tools for mental manipulation, potent as they were, couldn’t control entire nations. Not yet, at least.
The final caveat did nothing to help Milo’s stomach settle, but the knowledge that the upper echelons of the Red invaders could be as fractious and disorganized as any other band of power-hungry humans was a small comfort. Who knew, maybe they would get lucky and things would devolve into a massive powerplay as they nabbed the Marxist warlord?
“We’re not getting any closer to accomplishing this suicide mission standing here.” Milo sighed. “We best get moving. We’ve only got a few more hours before Beria said the big show was going to start.”
“I hate this part,” Ambrose grumbled as he took the harness from his shoulder and began shuffling into it.
“It’s just to get us in the city,” Rihyani soothed as she stepped forward to offer a helping hand with a buckle.
“After which we’ll need to secure transport quickly,” Milo said, taking up a portion to belt around his waist. “The last thing I want is to have to start hauling our prisoner around like a sack of wheat.”
“He says it as though there was any doubt who would do the actual hauling,” Ambrose muttered to Rihyani, making certain Milo could hear him.
“He’s looking out for you then,” Rihyani said, throwing a wink over the big man’s shoulder at Milo.
“Oh, mon chéri, you make a man’s heart wander!” Ambrose whispered as he ran his eyes across the hardened contours of what could have been the Rollsy’s prettier younger sister. It was not a Rolls-Royce fully armored and outfitted for battle, but a lighter command/reconnaissance model. With a longer hood to accommodate a large engine and an open extended cab, it seemed designed for greater speed and accessibility.
Just the sort of thing you’d need for a kidnapping.
The wind-riding trip over the city outskirts amidst the dying light had gone without incident, but they hit a snag when they touched down very near a checkpoint in the city’s heart. Quick obfuscation by Rihyani had spared them from being spotted as their images melded with the building they’d landed on. They’d stood frozen for a moment, and the near-disaster had turned into good fortune as the fine specimen of a vehicle rolled up to the checkpoint.
Ambrose slowly drew his rifle to his shoulder, but before he could take aim, Milo settled a staying hand on his shoulder.
“Pretty sure we don’t need a shootout just yet,” Milo murmured, then smiled at Ambrose’s stricken face.
“Won’t be a shootout,” he hissed, looking anxiously past Milo to where the driver seemed to be arguing with the guards at the checkpoint. “Four men and I’ve got five on a clip. I could practically do it with my eyes closed.”
“It would still be too loud,” Rihyani said. “I’m not sure I could cover the sound of that many shots coming so quickly.”
The officer in the back of the cab was leaning forward and gesticulating irritably.
“We better do something,” Ambrose muttered, nodding down at the unfolding scene at the checkpoint. “They’re either about to shoot each other or at least make a call into a higher authority, and either way, we’ll lose our best chance with that beauty.”
The men below did seem to be on the verge of some sort of violent altercation since they were all shouting at the same time. One of the guards was now holding his rifle across his chest rather than slung over his shoulder.
Do you think you can take them all out with one volley of the frost shards? Milo asked Imrah as he raised his cane so the eye sockets could study the targets below.
Child’s play, the disembodied ghul replied.
Milo drew his focus to a lethal point, and with a twist in the essential formula, bifurcated it twice. He felt Imrah’s power seething inside the fetish, waiting to be released.
FREEZE
Four black shards of ice trailing a tail of rippling fog tore through the air with the barest of whines. The two checkpoint guards were struck in the chest, while the driver was pierced from the back. The officer had surged forward to swat at the nearest guard with an open hand, so the final shard missed. It slashed the shoulder of his jacket, l
eaving an ice-rimed epaulet.
“Child’s play?” Milo remarked drily as he turned the cane to glare at the skull.
He moved, Imrah sulked.
Down below, the officer was shrinking down into his seat as he watched the profusion of bloodied ice spines erupting from his driver and the two guards. Mute with horror, he stared unmoving until they all collapsed in a chorus of crackling icicles.
“That’ll take some getting used to.” Ambrose grunted with a shudder as he moved to the lip of the building and leaped to the ground four stories below. There was a dull thump as his boots impacted, but otherwise, his impossibly absorbed jump was without effect.
“Show-off,” Milo muttered before leaping after him and calling on his coat’s wings to bear him down safely. He felt Rihyani’s will reach out to the wind, which whispered back as it carried her in his wake.
They came down level with Ambrose, who was already moving toward the vehicle, Gewehr at his shoulder.
“How is it any worse than what you do with that old cannon?” Milo asked as he fell in step beside the big man.
“I dunno, just is.” Ambrose shrugged before raising his voice to a commanding growl in Russian. “All right, time to come out of there.”
No movement came from inside the cab except the driver, whose frozen body was slumped over the door. There was a series of sharp cracks, and the top half of the corpse fell out of the vehicle with a crash.
“That better not start to thaw on those seats,” Ambrose snarled, throwing a scowl toward Milo as he advanced, rifle still at his shoulder. “You better get out of that car right now!”
The officer peeked his head over the edge of the armored door, spotted the rifle, and nearly ducked down, but Ambrose’s venomous warning stopped him.
“Don’t you even!”
So slowly it was almost comical, the officer climbed out of the vehicle with his hands raised, palms open.
“Where were you going?” Milo asked, planting the cane in front of him. “Isn’t Comrade Stalin addressing the troops tonight?”
The officer, standing before them with both hands open, looked odd to Milo. His uniform did not fit him, apparently made for a man who was of a taller, more robust figure than the bookish, round-shouldered creature wearing it. With a broad forehead made even larger by a balding pate and small spectacles on his beady eyes, he seemed more suited to clerking than soldiering. His gray-speckled mustache made a bold play, but it left him as perhaps arch-secretary of the clerks at best.
For all this, when the man spoke, it was in a clear, unshaken voice.
“He sent you to retrieve me then,” the officer said, casting a measuring glance over the trio, his eyes lingering longest on Rihyani. “Koba’s variety of agents is growing more eclectic by the day.”
He paused long enough to eye the marred shoulder of his ill-fitting jacket.
“A little brazen, but your point is made.”
Milo fought to keep the easy manner he’d adopted in the face of having no clue what the man was talking about. Striking a confident swagger, he strolled toward the Rolls-Royce, wearing the half-smile, half-snarl he’d perfected as a criminal youth.
“I think it would be an awful shame if you missed the excitement,” he said, his voice softening to a menacing whisper as he drew up next to the cab. “Supposed to be quite the show.”
The clerk in officer’s clothing lowered his hands centimeter by centimeter even as he glowered at Milo, his mustachioed lips puckered in disapproval.
“First time you see that dwarf crank his damned organ, it’s all very impressive, but after so many times, I’ve lost the stomach for it. I understand why Koba uses the little freak, but I don’t see how it helps anything for me to stay here. In fact, judging from your methods, I imagine you probably understand how it works better than I do, and just so you know, this is him showing off.”
Here he paused and looked at his driver’s split corpse, failing to repress a shiver. Despite this, when he spoke again, his voice was steady as ever.
“But he can have his puppeteer parades because there is business in the north that needs addressing. Yezhov is a useful little animal, but he’s neither an effective commander nor a proficient diplomat, which is why he hasn’t reported since going north. I’m going up there to sort things out before he sets everything north of the Caucasus Mountains on fire.”
Milo’s mind was racing to process everything the man mentioned with the casual assurance of someone in the know. This clerk was someone to Stalin, and important enough that he expected that Stalin’s agents wouldn’t intentionally kill him. Also, the forces they sent to Shatili hadn’t reported, and this fact made Milo smile.
His surprise for the Reds must have worked after all.
“Oh, I don’t imagine you’ll be hearing from Yezhov anytime soon,” Milo said. He didn’t bother to hide his wicked grin.
The man frowned down at Milo and heaved a sigh.
“I suppose it was only a matter of time.” He nodded. “He only needs one poisonous dwarf, and his new one, while more disturbing, is certainly more useful.”
Milo surreptitiously glanced at Rihyani and Ambrose, and their expressions matched his own feelings. This man was painting quite the chilling picture of what it was like to serve in the regime of the Butcher of Petrograd but also assuring that he was going to join Stalin, tied up in the bed of the Rolls Royce.
Milo nodded at Ambrose, who shouldered his rifle and fetched one of the straps of the newly repurposed harness.
“Is that necessary?” the man asked, sounding more irritated than distressed. “You made your point, and I’ll go willingly.”
Milo hopped up onto the running board so he was face to face with the man.
“Trust me, you’ll be thankful for it before the night’s over,” Milo said as he reached inside and tugged the door open and then sprang back onto the street. “Now, if you please?”
In the central plaza of Tiflis, the conscripts had been forced into rough ranks by their captors and now stood shivering with a combination of fear and cold as the night time temperature began to plummet.
A stage had been erected in front of the Parliament building, with a series of amplifiers arranged to blast over the square. A tangle of cables ran to a single microphone at the center of the stage. Behind the stage, a glistening red curtain hung heavily, shielding whoever emerged from the Parliament building from the view of those in the square.
Thus, none but a handful of technicians scurrying about backstage saw the odd coterie that emerged and began the slow walk up the ramp that led from the Parliament building’s steps to the stage. The conscripted men and women in the square hardly noticed the faint hum of the amplifiers coming on as they looked around, calculating. More than one of them had noticed that though they at first seemed surrounded by rifle-toting soldiers, there was only a thin line stretched between their serried ranks. Having had a few minutes in the growing cold to liven their senses, many of them began to cast about, and before long, some were even whispering.
They had their kidnappers ten to one, if not twenty to one. The soldiers who had dragged them from their beds, dazed and disoriented, were the only ones present in the city, it seemed. They weren’t being conscripted to join a glorious army so much as to become the army, which now seemed absent. As this realization spread, a question formed in every brain worthy of the name amongst the conscripts:
Wouldn’t it be an easy thing to rush the guards?
The whispers made their rounds as elbows nudged and chins jerked in surreptitious agreement. Another ten minutes, perhaps another five, and they would descend upon their abductors in an avalanche of vengeful bodies.
But then the curtain parted, the lights on the stage came on, and the hidden coterie emerged.
At their head was a squat, waddling figure pushing what might have been a madman’s street organ in front of him. None of them were close enough to the stage to see the dwarf very well, but those who could acknowledged
he did not look or move like anything they’d ever seen. Those closest noted his oddly drooping features and voluminous mossy beard and subsequently assumed the truncated man was in a costume to look so repellent. Eyes narrowed as he ambled to the right of the microphone, and those same eyes widened at what came behind the shuffling oddity.
Comrade Joseph Stalin, in a spartan uniform complete with long olive drab coat, strode forth, his movements sure but unhurried.
A pace behind him walked a pair of living effigies, a man and a woman, both statuesque and muscular, their bodies smeared in greasepaint so their skin glistened like polished ironwork and their hair seemed to be cast from bronze. The man was dressed in a worker’s coveralls and held a hammer over his head. The woman wore a bare-shouldered blouse and a peasant skirt, and over her head, she held a sickle.
Comrade Stalin approached the microphone and stood for a moment, untroubled at the weight of so many eyes upon him. The pair marching behind him came to a stop a stride or two behind, where they promptly crossed the hammer and sickle in the air over their glorious leader’s head. Neither showed the slightest discomfort or strain at maintaining the position.
Every eye, soldier or conscript, was upon the short mustachioed man before the microphone.
“Welcome, my countrymen,” Stalin began, his voice soft, bordering on nasal, his Russian shot through with a strong Georgian accent. “Welcome, sons and daughters of my beloved homeland.”
There was a subtle but distinct ripple across the conscripts, and Stalin acknowledged it with an easy nod.
“I know many of you are confused, or frightened, or even angry,” he continued, nodding again with conciliatory grace. “Not so long ago, you’d almost forgotten me, I think—the wayward son gone north. Then suddenly I returned, at the head of an army none dared challenge.”
More than a few of those in the square looked at the soldiers watching Stalin raptly, and their question was plain: what army?
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