The map of Europe was bleeding.
Jake stared at the wall in his private study. He had used a red grease pencil to mark the industrial zones of the Ruhr Valley. The red marks were spreading like a rash.
German Steel Production: +18% over historical baseline.
German Coal Output: +22%.
He threw the pencil onto the desk. It rolled off and hit the floor with a hollow tap.
He had tried to cheat history. He had forced the Soviet Union to sprint before it could walk. And now, the rest of the world was sprinting to catch up.
"Action and reaction," Jake muttered. "Newton's Third Law."
Because he was buying machines, the West was selling them. Because he was building tanks, the West was lending money to Berlin to build a buffer.
He wasn't preventing World War II. He was turbocharging it.
The phone rang. The heavy black bakelite phone. The secure line.
Jake picked it up. "Speak."
"The package has been delivered," the Finn's voice crackled over the line. "But the price has gone up."
"I don't care about the gold," Jake snapped. "Did you get the blueprints?"
"I did," the Finn said. "But Koba, you need to know what else they are selling."
"Tell me."
"The Germans aren't just buying steel," the Finn said. "They are buying patents. From Goddard. From the Americans."
Jake felt the blood drain from his face.
Goddard. Liquid-fueled rockets.
"They are building the V-2," Jake whispered. "In 1925."
"They call it the 'Aggregat' program," the Finn corrected. "They are ten years early, Koba. Just like us."
Jake gripped the receiver until the plastic creaked.
If Hitler got ballistic missiles before Stalin got the Bomb, Moscow wouldn't just be captured. It would be erased.
"Buy it all," Jake ordered. "Bribe them. Kill them. I don't care. Sabotage the factories. Do not let those rockets fly."
"I am a smuggler, not an army," the Finn said. "I need more men. I need Taranov."
"You'll get him," Jake said. "I'm sending him to Berlin tonight."
He slammed the phone down.
He walked to the window. Snow was falling on Red Square. The onions of St. Basil's Cathedral looked like giant, frozen tears.
He was hyperventilating.
He needed a cigarette. He patted his pockets, but his hands were shaking so badly he couldn't find the pack.
"Breathe," he told himself. "You are Stalin. Stalin doesn't panic."
But Stalin didn't know that the sky could fall.
The archives of the Lubyanka were cold. They smelled of dust and fear.
Menzhinsky sat at a long wooden table. He was surrounded by stacks of requisition forms.
He wasn't looking for traitors today. He was looking for a pattern.
He picked up a geology report from 1921.
Subject: Geological Survey of the Fergana Valley.
Order signed by: J. Stalin.
Objective: Locate Uranium deposits.
Menzhinsky frowned.
In 1921, Uranium was a curiosity. It was used for coloring glass. It had no strategic value.
Yet Stalin had diverted three divisions of labor to find it. He had treated it like gold.
Menzhinsky picked up another file.
Subject: Procurement of High-Grade Centrifuges from Sweden.
Date: 1923.
Centrifuges. For separating isotopes.
"He knew," Menzhinsky whispered.
He pulled out his notebook. He drew a timeline.
- Stalin orders Uranium search (1921).
- Stalin recruits quantum physicists (1923).
- Stalin predicts the exact harvest failure (1924).
- The American claims the Union falls in 1991.
Menzhinsky tapped his pen against his teeth.
It wasn't magic. Menzhinsky was a dialectical materialist. He didn't believe in gods.
But this... this was competence so absolute it looked like clairvoyance.
Stalin wasn't guessing. He was reading from a script that no one else could see.
"He is cheating," Menzhinsky realized.
A strange sensation filled his chest. It wasn't anger. It was awe.
If the General Secretary knew the future, then following him was the only logical choice.
But Menzhinsky needed to know the ending of the script.
He pulled the carbon copy of Mike's interrogation from his pocket.
The Union collapses.
"If he knows the ending is bad," Menzhinsky murmured, "then why is he fighting so hard to change the middle?"
He stood up. He gathered the files.
He wouldn't expose Stalin. Not yet.
He would help him. But he would keep a tally. Every time Stalin predicted the impossible, Menzhinsky would make a mark.
And when the tally was full, he would ask for his share of the prophecy.
The Kharkov Locomotive Factory. Design Bureau No. 2.
The air was thick with the smell of welding ozone and cheap tobacco.
Jake walked through the hangar. He was flanked by two nervous guards. Taranov was gone, sent to Berlin to kill rocket scientists. Jake felt exposed without the giant.
He stopped at a drafting table.
Mikhail Koshkin stood there. The engineer looked tired. He had grease under his fingernails.
"Comrade General Secretary," Koshkin stammered. "We... we were not expecting you."
"Show me the suspension," Jake said.
Koshkin pointed to the blueprint. "The Christie suspension. As you ordered. It allows for high speeds across rough terrain."
"It's good," Jake said. "But the armor is wrong."
He grabbed a pencil. He slashed a line across the tank's front hull.
"It's flat," Jake said. "Flat armor is a coffin."
"It is standard thickness," Koshkin argued weakly. "45 millimeters."
"Physics doesn't care about standards," Jake snapped.
He drew a triangle on the paper.
"Slope it," Jake commanded. "60 degrees. If the shell hits at an angle, the effective thickness doubles. The shell bounces off."
Koshkin stared at the drawing. He squinted.
"That... that would reduce the internal volume," Koshkin muttered. "But... yes. It would deflect the kinetic energy."
He looked up at Jake with wide eyes.
"How did you know this?"
Jake felt a phantom pain in his chest.
He remembered the internet forum. He remembered arguing with user TankGeek88—Mike.
Mike: "The T-34's sloped armor changed warfare forever, you idiot."
Jake had killed Mike. Now he was stealing his argument to save the Red Army.
"I read a book," Jake said curtly.
He looked at the prototype chassis. It was a skeleton of steel.
This was the T-34. The tank that would win the war.
"Build it," Jake said. "I want a prototype in three months. Not six."
"Three months?" Koshkin gasped. "Comrade, we don't have the aluminum for the engine block!"
"Use steel," Jake said. "Make it heavy. Just make it run."
He turned and walked away.
He didn't feel the thrill of innovation. He just felt the clock ticking.
Every second he wasted was a second Hitler got closer to a rocket.
Dinner at the Kremlin.
The soup was cold. Beetroot red. It looked like the map of the Ruhr Valley.
Nadya sat across from him. She was eating quietly.
She wore a simple grey dress. She looked tired. There were dark circles under her eyes.
"You aren't eating, Koba," she said softly.
Jake looked up. He forced a smile. It felt like a grimace.
"I had a big lunch," he lied. "At the factory."
"Svetlana's mother called today," Nadya said.
Jake's hand froze halfway to his mouth.
"Oh?"
"She hasn't heard from Svetlana in three months," Nadya said. Her voice was steady, but her fingers were twisting her napkin. "She is worried."
"Svetlana is working on a special project," Jake said. "In the Urals. High security. No mail allowed."
"Is she safe?" Nadya asked.
She looked him in the eye.
Jake saw the doubt there. It was a small crack in the dam, but water was leaking through.
"She is a hero of the Soviet Union," Jake said. "She is safer than we are."
Nadya looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked down at her soup.
"I see," she whispered.
She didn't believe him.
Jake wanted to reach out. He wanted to tell her the truth. I locked her up because she knows about the atom bomb. I'm doing this to save us.
But he couldn't. If he told her, he would have to kill her too.
The silence stretched. It was suffocating.
Suddenly, the door burst open.
It wasn't Taranov. It was Poskrebyshev, his secretary. The man was breathless. He held a telegram.
"Comrade Stalin!" Poskrebyshev wheezed. "Urgent dispatch. From the Urals."
Jake stood up. He knocked his chair over.
"Give it to me."
He snatched the paper.
Nadya watched him, her eyes wide with alarm.
Jake read the telegram.
ACCIDENT AT SITE 1. CRITICALITY INCURSION. HEISENBERG INJURED. IPATIEFF DEAD. LAB CONTAMINATED.
Jake dropped the paper.
The world tilted.
Ipatieff was the only chemist who knew how to separate the isotopes. Without him, the project was dead in the water.
"What is it?" Nadya asked, standing up. "Koba, what happened?"
Jake stared at the wall.
Germany had rockets. He had a hole in the ground filled with radiation.
The timeline wasn't just fighting back. It was winning.
"Pack a bag," Jake said. His voice was hollow.
"What?"
"We are leaving," Jake said. "Tonight."
"Where are we going?" Nadya cried.
Jake turned to her. His eyes were wild.
"To the Urals," he said. "I have to fix it myself."
He strode out of the room.
He didn't know nuclear physics. He was a historian.
But he knew one thing.
If he didn't restart that reactor, they were all going to burn.