Final impact

One of Stalin’s maids, a dumpy Georgian in a plain gray smock and white bib, cleared the plate of aragvi from in front him. A personal creation of Stalin’s, it was a thick stew of mutton, eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, and black pepper, all of it drowned in a glutinous spicy sauce. Famine stalked the land, with so much of the state’s productive capacity given over to crash programs developing new technologies-indeed, whole new industries-but in here there was no such discomfort to be found, judging from the bacchanalian feasts served at Stalin’s dacha. When one stupidly valiant servant from the Ministry of Agriculture had written to Stalin about the number of peasant children who were dying of hunger, the man was arrested and shot, though not until he had been shown propaganda films resplendent with imagery of well-fed kulaks seated in front of tables groaning with fresh food.

The disturbing thing was, Stalin actually believed that the images were real. Beria knew that, as his body grew more bloated and ravaged by gluttony and alcoholism, the Vozhd was losing his mental capacities along with his physical. It was a conclusion he probably would have formed of his own volition, but also confirmed by the uncensored future histories and biographies contained within the British ship’s electronic library.

Controlling such information gave him great power, but with it came the risk that Stalin would one day turn on him, deciding he had become a threat. The bowdlerized versions of history he served up were dangerous enough. He had almost wet his pants when he’d had to tell the full Politburo about the collapse of the USSR and its replacement by a gangster-capitalist state. There was no way in hell he was ever going to admit the existence of something like that biography they’d found on the ship-what was it called? — Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Even having laid eyes on the cover was tantamount to a death sentence. He had personally burned every page in the book, but not until he’d read it three times, made coded notes of its contents, and then hidden them in a hundred different files, just in case he ever needed to call upon the information.

And now, through his intoxication-which was considerable-he watched the American diplomat Harriman sip at a glass of white wine while Molotov tried to brute him into downing the whole thing in one gulp. Beria knew he should really push himself up, stagger over, and play the bluff Georgian host, insisting that Harriman drink up and taking umbrage when he refused. But he was engorged with food and drink, and he worried that if he moved he would foul himself. Nobody was allowed to leave the table to go to the lavatory unless Stalin said so, and he hadn’t called a break in more than two hours.

So instead Beria took another shot of pepper vodka, poured by Nestor Lakoba, the Abkhazian boss, and tried to throw it down manfully. His throat locked and he vomited prodigiously into his own lap, causing great mirth around him. Stalin, sitting at the head of the table as always, roared with laughter.

“You cannot be a true Georgian then, Beria,” he snorted. “Look. Our foreign friends are in much better shape than you. Perhaps you are a spy, yes? A plant?”

It could have been a bad moment. Stalin’s moods were so changeable, his rages so arbitrary, that such a joke could easily turn into something much more significant. But the NKVD chief was saved by another bout of racking cramps, and he tried to hurl yet more bile into his lap, causing Stalin to dissolve into fits of giggles.

“Here, wash your mouth out with this,” he insisted, forcing a half-empty bottle of white wine on Beria. There was no question of demurring. He took the bottle and used it to rinse out the chunks of acid-tasting aragvi while Harriman and the British ambassador Clark-Kerr stared at him with unconcealed disgust.

Well, very soon now, he’d show them.

D-DAY + 33. 5 JUNE 1944. 1708 HOURS.

POLISH AIRSPACE.

Six fighters remained close to the Tupolev, guarding it like sheepdogs. Their comrades had moved ahead to clear the skies above Lodz of any German aircraft, but none had been found. The city’s garrison was cut off, bypassed by the Red Army and hunkered down for a long siege. Gadalov knew that a number of divisions from the Far East had been detailed to bottle up the Germans inside, but he tried not to think about them. He’d been assured that the Soviet forces were far enough back from the city to survive the blast and its aftereffects. But he wasn’t so sure. The precautions they were taking just in delivering the bomb spoke of something quite extraordinary.