The Romanov succession

Everything in him twanged with taut vibration. He heard the distant screech of the gulls and the movement of a vehicle somewhere. The gate sentry demanded his pass and got it and then he was crossing the tarmac toward the main hangar, still ready to dive flat.

It was a little far to hear the glass breaking out now but the haze hadn’t lifted and he didn’t think a long-range shot would do the job under these conditions; if they really meant to kill him this time they wouldn’t chance it until conditions were optimum. It still was possible they hadn’t meant to hit him at all; it might have been a warning but if so it was meaningless because there’d been no message. That was the crux: in Boston the shooting had had all the earmarks of a deliberate miss but on the face of things that didn’t make any sense since it served no purpose he could discern. There was an answer to it somewhere but he didn’t have enough facts to know where to look for it and therefore the only thing he could do was assume the worst but go on about his business. If the threat had been contrived to slow him down it wasn’t going to succeed.

He stepped into the hangar and took a very deep breath and tramped back toward tht office.

Irina had given him something new to chew on and part of him resented it because he couldn’t spare much of his mind to explore it. She was telling the truth about the scheme: there’d be no point in lying, it was too easy to confirm. But that didn’t mean she’d told the whole truth. She was holding something back.

John Spaight was waiting in the office and Alex said, “Let’s get to work.”

9

“We haven’t got any time at all,” the Undersecretary growled. “Kiev is in flames. They’ve got Guderian down there now-Third Panzer Division at the spearhead. Von Mannerheim has Leningrad encircled. Von Bock has three armies and three Panzer groups within two hundred miles of Moscow. Stalin’s losing people at the rate of twenty thousand a day-casualties and prisoners. It’s going to be over within a month.”

Colonel Glenn Buckner was so tired he had to keep blinking. It was nearly three in the morning. He stuck to his guns. “It’s far too early to cancel the operation. This time of year a hundred and forty-odd years ago Napoleon was right at the gates of Moscow and we know where that got him.”

“Napoleon didn’t have a Luftwaffe or three Panzer groups.”

Buckner said, “We’ve got people in Fairbanks doing tests on mechanized equipment. When it gets cold enough you can’t run a tank-the oil solidifies.”

“It’s not cold in Moscow, Glenn. It’s raining for God’s sake. That’s the best possible weather for tank warfare-a little mud lubricates the cleats. Right now Rommel would probably rather be on the Russian front where he wouldn’t have sandgrit ruining his panzers right and left.”

Buckner tried a new tack. “You and I both spent enough time in there to know what those people are like when they get stubborn.”

“They’re not stubborn now. Stalin’s had to take ruthless measures to keep them in the lines at all. They’re bugging out the first chance they get.”

“Don’t you see that’s exactly why we’ve got to proceed with Danilov’s operation? It’s the only chance we’ve got to get the Russians back on their feet and back into the war against Hitler.” He couldn’t suppress the yawn any longer but it gratified him that the Undersecretary responded in kind.

The Undersecretary took his hand down from in front of his mouth. “We’re just wasting time and money and materiel. The war in Russia will be decided long before these White Russians get off their butts. All we’re doing is lining their coffers.”

Buckner let his silence argue for him. When the rest of them had been fighting to gear up for war production the Undersecretary had concentrated his attentions on deciding what decorating scheme to use in the overhaul of the State building. But he had the Secretary’s ear-they were old cronies-and because he’d spent two years in the Moscow Embassy he’d been assigned as liaison between Foggy Bottom and the Chairman of JCS: it made him Buckner’s opposite number. He was a clever politician and Buckner had to depend on his sense of self-aggrandizement-his willingness to subordinate prejudice to ambition.

Buckner said, “We’re not gambling much. If it fails it hasn’t hurt us. If it succeeds we’ll both be looking good.”

“If I saw any chance of it succeeding…”

“What have we got to lose? A handful of airplanes. Some fuel, some ammunition, a little money. Hell if we lose the planes we can write them off on the books as training accidents.”

“That’s not the point and you know it. The repercussions if a whisper of this ever gets breathed…”

“If Stalin loses the war we’re not going to have to worry about his good opinion of us.”

“I wasn’t talking about Stalin. I was talking about the American voter.”

“The next election’s not until nineteen forty-four.”