My brothers Keeper, an SI as the twin brother of Stalin (Reworked)

Wikipedia page on Operation Storm 333

Operation Storm-333

Operation Storm-333 (Russian: Шторм-333, Shtorm-333) was a Soviet military operation executed in Equatorial Guinea on May 1, 1975. Drawing on special forces and airborne troops, Soviet units stormed the heavily fortified presidential villa of Francisco Macías Nguema in his home village of Mongomo, subsequently killing Nguema, his family, and the members of his cabinet. The operation marked the beginning of a broader Soviet intervention that would fundamentally reshape the political character of Equatorial Guinea within weeks.

Background

The Republic of Equatorial Guinea had, since independence, been governed by Francisco Macías Nguema, a leader who, after breaking with his Spanish patrons, had oriented the country toward the Communist Bloc and cultivated alliances with the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Korea. In practical terms, Equatorial Guinea served as a transit point through which the Soviet Union channeled weapons and internationalist volunteers to the MPLA in Angola. Nguema exploited this arrangement systematically, repeatedly threatening to terminate the alliance as a means of extracting additional financial support from his Eastern Bloc partners.

Over time, Nguema's governance deteriorated into what Soviet observers would come to characterize as anarcho-tyranny. Declassified reports from Soviet psychologists sent to evaluate him indicated a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, and his behavior in office reflected it, mass executions of government ministers, members of the National Assembly, senior officials, and members of his own family became routine features of his administration. Each successive purge further hollowed out the state apparatus, and by the early 1970s the country's governmental infrastructure had entered a condition of accelerating collapse.

The immediate catalyst for Soviet intervention was the Carnation Revolution of 1974 and the subsequent fall of Portugal's Estado Novo regime, which opened the prospect of civil war in Angola and made a stable, reliable logistics base in the region an urgent strategic priority. With Nguema's erratic behavior rendering Equatorial Guinea increasingly dysfunctional, and increasingly embarrassing to its Soviet patrons, Moscow concluded that the costs of maintaining the relationship had come to outweigh its benefits. The decision to remove Nguema was made at the highest levels of Soviet leadership.

The Operation

Storm-333 was the centerpiece of a larger coordinated effort designated Operation Baikal-79, which targeted approximately twenty key installations across Equatorial Guinea, including military headquarters, communications infrastructure, prison facilities, and port installations.

In the days preceding the operation, roughly one thousand Spetsnaz troops, traveling under cover as internationalist volunteers bound for Angola, were flown into the country and dispersed to positions near their designated objectives. The concealment was effective; Guinean security forces reported no unusual activity in the period immediately before the assault.

At midnight on May 1st, the operation commenced simultaneously across multiple sites. Soviet Mil Mi-24 helicopter gunships struck the presidential compound at Mongomo as well as military and naval installations throughout the country. Spetsnaz troops then descended into the compound, overwhelming Nguema's presidential guard, itself modeled on the Soviet Kremlin Guard Regiment, after a brief but intense engagement. The majority of Nguema's guards either surrendered or fled once the identity of their attackers became apparent. Nguema, his family, and the assembled cabinet were located within the villa and shot.

Concurrently, Soviet units seized the national radio and television stations, the international airport, all major ports, and the Black Beach Prison, releasing its population of political prisoners in the process.

Aftermath

In the hours following the assault, the bodies of Nguema and his inner circle were paraded through the capital. Radio broadcasts announced the fall of the regime and the establishment of a provisional Soviet administration. Evidence of the systematic atrocities committed under Nguema's rule, mass graves, prison records, survivor testimony, was compiled and released to the international media in the weeks that followed, providing the public justification for the intervention that Soviet planners had anticipated would be necessary.

Within weeks of the operation, a Communist Party of Equatorial Guinea was formally constituted, drawing its initial membership primarily from political prisoners freed from Black Beach Prison. Elections for a new president and parliament were called the following month. The trials of surviving members of the Nguema government were conducted under a military tribunal framework, with the death penalty applied uniformly to those found guilty of crimes against the population.

Equatorial Guinea subsequently acceded to the Collective Security Treaty Organization and joined Comecoorg, formally integrating itself into the Soviet-aligned international order. The country would go on to serve as one of the primary logistics hubs for Soviet and allied operations across sub-Saharan Africa throughout the late 1970s and into the following decade.

The Soviet team is a machine, there's no doubt about that. All of their players on average have higher physical fitness, ball coordination and cohesion, I do not take that from them and genuinely admire them. But what they make up for in athleticism and coordination they cannot make up in pure talent. Has there ever been a Soviet Pele? Ronaldinho? Maradona? Zidane? Kempes? Messi? Cruyff?

Talent like that cannot be made in the Soviet system, that sort of talent is snuffed out and replaced with the standard Soviet playbook. That talent is taken by the Soviets and you're told to fit into the mold, to become a part of the machine, your body is pushed and turned into a cog.

It's why they haven't won a world cup since 1962, it's why they can consistently enter the semi-finals and sometimes even the final but why they stop there. And it's why we beat them this time and why we will win the next world cup too.

Excerpt from an interview with Kylian Mbappe after France's victory against the Soviet union in the 2018 world cup final in the USSR


March 25, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, USSR

It was late — somewhere around eleven or midnight. Ordinarily I'd have gone straight home after the meeting at the monastery. But given the Patriarch's request, I'd swung by Lubyanka first to do some digging.

I'd pulled the file on the man Tikhon wanted saved and taken it straight to Dzershinsky.

House arrest. Not a pardon, not amnesty — just house arrest, and even that had taken some doing. Dzershinsky wasn't budging. "He is a counterrevolutionary element," he kept repeating, as though the phrase itself constituted an argument. "We must make an example."

"We haven't even passed sentence yet," I'd countered. "Surely there's room for an exception." He wasn't having it. I'd read the trial transcripts myself — the prosecution had gone after the priest with real venom, and it was clear the outcome had been decided well before the verdict.

So I played my last card. Which was why I was now sitting across from Stalin at nearly midnight.

He was working through the file I'd handed him. We'd started with drinks and a light meal — I don't usually eat past eight, intermittent fasting and all that, but this was an occasion that warranted an exception. Once we'd finished, I passed the file across and laid out the situation.

"He wants you to save him?" Stalin asked, not looking up.

"Spare him," I corrected. "He wants proof I'm not full of shit. The priest's life is the price of that proof."

"And Dzershinsky is opposed."

"Completely. Which is why I need you to lean on him. He knows exactly why he's getting his Politburo seat at the next Congress — it isn't a mystery to him. A small favor like this shouldn't be a heavy lift in comparison." I shrugged. "What's one life, honestly? The man's signed off on thousands already. Hell, I've shot people for considerably less than what this priest is accused of."

"You have shot people for less," he said. It wasn't a disagreement. "And now you want this one spared."

"I'll take responsibility, same as always." I leaned back and yawned. "I swear to God, it's like pulling teeth with the lot of you. I hand you a working strategy, I test it myself, I show you it produces results — and I still get 'I don't know, Mika, sounds a little bourgeois-adjacent.' It's a miracle we won the Civil War at all, honestly."

Stalin frowned, his default setting when I said things like that. "This sort of talk from you is dangerous."

"Which is precisely why I only say it to you." I waved a hand. "Anyway, can you talk to Dzershinsky or not? What do you need from me in exchange? Anyone you want dead? Zinoviev, maybe?" I smiled.

"No." He shook his head, the particular weary shake he reserved for me alone, the one that meant *what am I going to do with you.* "No killing anyone. Just keep the negotiations with the Patriarch moving forward. And don't embarrass me."

"So that's a yes?" I stood up.

"Keep the negotiations going," he repeated, and looked at me, that flat, unreadable look he used instead of actually agreeing to anything out loud. He'd been doing that since we were kids. Half the time it took me years to realize he'd already said yes.

"Whatever you say, Joe." I headed for the door. "Just get me that amnesty."

I exited the room and subsequently made my way back to my room, easing the door open quietly. Elsa was already asleep in her bed. I glanced at my own, empty, untouched, then back at hers. I sat with the thought for a moment. Part of me wanted to just cross the room and lie down beside her, sleep in the same bed, stop pretending there was a meaningful difference between two beds pushed a few feet apart. But no. It wasn't right. Not yet.

Even thinking about it dredged something up, unbidden. You just had to walk out that day, didn't you, Maria. The old argument from that day surfaced, the one that had, in its own roundabout way, ended with her dead. I waited for the familiar wave of guilt to hit. It didn't come, not really. Just a kind of flatness where the guilt used to live. I wasn't sure if that was progress or something worse.

I went to the desk instead. Opened the top drawer, took out a pen, then opened the drawer beneath it and pushed the pen upward against the underside of the one above, the old trick, the false bottom springing loose exactly the way it was supposed to. I lifted it out and there it was. The book.

Not quite a diary. More of a survival manual, if I was being honest with myself. I'd started it a little over ten years ago, the moment I realized who Joe actually was, Stalin, I'd spent that first frantic week writing down everything I could remember about him. Habits, preferences, favorite foods, anything that might keep me alive long enough to matter.

And then, of course, everything after. The broad strokes of what was coming, the Depression, the exact dates the market would crash, the day the war started, the German offensives, the fall of France. A handful of companies worth buying once the stock market existed in a form I recognized. I flipped to page eight and checked the corner. Still folded exactly as I'd left it. Nobody had touched it.

That wasn't all of it either. The Cold War in outline. Gorbachev. The fall of the USSR, perestroika, glasnost. Mao. Korea. Vietnam. And mixed in with all of it, the parts that weren't strategy at all, my own personal inventory. Favorite vacation spots from my old life. Favorite foods. Fond, useless memories of a family that didn't exist anymore in any sense that mattered. Small things that reminded me I used to be a person and not just an anomaly quietly rewriting the twentieth century from the inside. And of course useful things I was thinking of getting off the ground once the war was over, like the Internet, and video games, god, imagine, even a basic pac-man in the 50s, the sky was the limit.

I added today's entry. "Met the Patriarch. He seemed receptive. Wants me to save a priest as proof of good faith. Spoke to Stalin, looks like he'll arrange it." I set the pen down and looked at the page, then back through everything else. All of it in English. Insurance, of a sort, even if someone got their hands on it, I'd have a head start before anyone worked out what they were actually holding.

I looked at the fireplace for a while. Then back at the notebook.

I should burn it. I thought that every single time. I really should. But I was getting older, and I couldn't just carry the entire twentieth century around in my head indefinitely without something slipping. It had to be written down somewhere. That was the whole justification, and it was a good one right up until the moment it wasn't.

I looked at the false bottom and almost laughed. Same trick Light Yagami used, minus the part where the notebook spontaneously combusted if anyone but me touched it. I didn't have the engineering know-how to rig that, and knowing Joe, if he ever found out I'd built a self-immolating diary, the resulting paranoia would probably kill both of us faster than the information itself.

I slid the book back into the false bottom and closed the drawer. Closed my eyes. Ran through the same scenario I always ran through at this hour, the one that never really went away, Stalin finding the notebook. One of his agents finding it first and handing it to him. Joe, I'm actually from the future. I sat with that sentence for a second, then shook my head and let out a short laugh. No version of that conversation ended well. There was no phrasing that made it land as anything other than insane.

I looked at the fire again, then at the closed drawer. Maybe I should burn it.

But I couldn't. Not with what was riding on it. I just couldn't.

I looked back at the room, my bed, empty. Elsa's, not empty. The drawer, closed and ordinary-looking again. Should I tell her? I dismissed the thought almost as fast as it arrived. If Stalin wouldn't believe it, Elsa would just be frightened by it, and frightening her was the last thing I wanted tonight, or any night.

I yawned, properly yawned, the kind that comes from a day that had contained a monastery, a Patriarch, Dzershinsky, and Stalin, in roughly that order of exhausting. I went to the closet, changed into something to sleep in, and came back out. Looked at my bed. Looked at hers.

I didn't decide so much as stop deciding. My legs just took me there. I crossed the room, lay down beside her, closed my eyes, and let my breathing slow.

A moment later I felt her shift beside me. I opened my eyes and found her stirring, blinking herself awake. "Mika?"

"It's me." My voice came out quieter than I meant it to. "I don't want to sleep alone tonight. I've had more than enough bullshit for one day." I put an arm around her, then immediately second-guessed it. "If you'd rather I didn't, it's fine, I can go back to my own bed." I started to pull away.

"It's all right." Her voice was soft, but certain. "I don't want to sleep alone either. Not tonight."

I stopped moving and settled back down, arm returning to where it had been. "I just want to sleep," I said. "Nothing more than that."

"So do I," she said.

"I..." I stopped, started again. "I love you."

"I know." She reached up and rested her hand against my face, and neither of us said anything else after that.

March 26, 1923
Lubyanka
Moscow, USSR

I sat across from Dzershinsky's desk again, late afternoon, and I'd spent the day the way I always did lately: signing death warrants, arrest orders, operational approvals. The usual grind. Except five minutes ago I'd been summoned to his office, and I already knew exactly what it was about.

"I'm guessing Comrade Stalin spoke to you," I said.

"He did." Flat. Dispassionate. His default register these days, well, technically all the time. But I wasn't really keeping track.

"And he explained what I've been trying to arrange with the Patriarch?"

"He explained enough."

"So the death sentence gets revoked?" I leaned forward. "Not just his, Cieplak's as well. As I understand it, Chicherin over in Foreign Affairs is currently negotiating with the Vatican, and I explicitly told this office before I left for Central Asia that we needed to ease up on religious persecution. Nobody listened, and we very nearly torched a diplomatic opening because of it."

"I should remind you," Dzershinsky said, "that you are only the Deputy Director of the GPU."

"I'm aware." I sat back slightly. "I'd simply assumed that after producing real, measurable results with the Central Asia model, I might have earned a bit more say in how policy actually gets shaped. Especially considering I helped you build an enforcement apparatus that would make Robespierre blush with pride. And considering the amount of blood I've personally put into this revolution, not signed off on from behind a desk, personally, " I tapped the trigger finger of my remaining hand against the table, once, deliberately. "Honestly, I stopped keeping an exact count somewhere past a thousand. Give or take a few hundred." I leaned forward again. "But we're not even talking about that ledger right now. We're talking about something that actually benefits the Soviet Union going forward — diplomatic goodwill, foreign recognition, the world looking at us and seeing something other than a firing squad with a flag."

"You will take personal responsibility for both of them," Dzershinsky said, cutting through it before I could keep going. "House arrest. Seclusion. And if anything goes wrong with either man, it lands on you and nowhere else." His irritation was showing now, thin but unmistakable, the particular tightness of a man being maneuvered and fully aware of it.

"Understood." I stood and gave him a proper salute. "Will that be all, Comrade Dzershinsky?"

"It will be, Butyrskaya prison, that's where they're being held. Go get them yourself, I'll have no part in this."

I nodded, and then, the gears began turning in my head. "Comrade Dzershinsky." I continued. "If I'm taking responsibility for this, and getting them myself, shouldn't it be announced?"

He blinked for a moment. "What do you mean exactly."

"What I just said," I smiled, Dzershinsky immediately looked wary. I never understood really, Russian culture just hated it when people smiled for no reason, more reason to hate living in this hellhole. Now he knew I was up to something. I might as well roll with it. "You said I should take responsibility, so, if say, pravda released an article saying I called for their release, and secured it. Surely it would mean I followed your orders and took maximum responsibility, wouldn't you say?"

"So long as it doesn't embarrass the GPU, and it falls on you." He was scowling now, he knew I was up to something, but unfortunately for him he couldn't tell what.

"I see," my smile widened. "Thank you comrade Dzershinsky, I'll take responsibility." I saluted and left the room. I pictured it, in the monastery, me handing Tikhon a copy of pravda, with the frontpage, Jugashvili securing the release of priests. Then he'd begin taking me seriously.

March 26, 1923
Butyrskaya prison
Moscow, USSR

Konstanty Budkiewicz had made his peace with his fate long ago, back when the killings and the persecutions first began. When his sentence was read to him yesterday, that peace had simply deepened, settled into something closer to certainty. Had not Christ died for the sins of all men? What, then, was so terrible about dying as a martyr in His name?

He lay on his cot, staring up at the harsh gray ceiling of his cell. He had already prayed as much as there was to pray,.for the forgiveness of the men who had sentenced him, for the forgiveness of whoever would ultimately pull the trigger, and above all for the lives of Cieplak and the others condemned alongside him. If his own death purchased their survival, he found he could accept it without complaint.

He clasped his hands once more and murmured a Hail Mary, then asked the Lord to spare the others and grant them long lives, and once more asked forgiveness on behalf of those who would kill him. It was, by now, a familiar rhythm.

Then came footsteps. Several sets, moving with the particular cadence of men who did not need to hurry because no one was going to stop them. He sighed quietly. Has my hour come, then. He wondered as he sat up on the cot and watched the door swing open. Several armed men entered, and at the center of them, a short figure he recognized immediately.

"Jugashvili," he said. There was no fear in his voice, only a kind of tired recognition. "Have they sent you to shoot me yourself?"

He remembered meeting him once before, years ago, in Petrograd during the war. Jugashvili had gathered the clergy together and told them, plainly, without theatrics: "You don't need to declare loyalty to us. Just don't cause trouble, and I won't shoot you. I'm a reasonable man, on my word as a former seminarian." And to Budkiewicz's mild surprise at the time, he had kept that word, at least in Petrograd. But things had changed since Jugashvili left for Moscow. Was he still a reasonable man? Budkiewicz found himself wondering as Jugashvili settled onto the edge of his cot, uninvited, and reached into his coat.

He braced himself. A pistol, surely. He felt a tinge of anxiety and he began to silently pray, the Act of Contrition, then stopped halfway through when what emerged from the coat was, unmistakably, a bottle.

"Soda?" Jugashvili asked, holding it up.

He glanced toward one of the guards. "Open it."

The guard obeyed. Another produced a cup, and the bottle was poured, and the cup was handed first to Jugashvili, who drank from it, swallowed, and then offered what remained to Budkiewicz.

"Coca-Cola. American. Drink, it isn't poisoned, as you've just watched me demonstrate. Besides, I prefer a bullet to poison as a rule, and I'm not crazy enough to poison myself. Yet." He laughed, and Budkiewicz found himself, against his better judgment, laughing a little, then taking the cup and drinking. The taste was strange, something almost nutlike beneath the sugar, sharp and fizzing against the back of his throat in a way that made him blink.

"Are you here to kill me?" he asked. "Is this meant to be some manner of last drink?"

"Far from it." Jugashvili shrugged. "Call it a courtesy call. An acknowledgment." He drew a folded paper from his coat and read from it aloud, formally, the way one reads an official decree. "Per the recommendation of the Deputy Director of the GPU, Mikheil Vissarionovich Jugashvili, and with the approval of GPU Director Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, the death sentence of Vicar General Konstanty Budkiewicz, and of his associate, Bishop Jan Cieplak, is hereby suspended and commuted to house arrest."

He folded the paper away and looked up. "Come with me. We'll have you settled at a dacha outside the city, under armed guard, but comfortable enough." He stood. "You can thank Patriarch Tikhon for this. He brought your situation to my attention. I raised it with the General Secretary and with Dzerzhinsky personally, and your sentence was commuted as a result." His tone sharpened slightly. "I'd recommend behaving yourself while you're out there. I took no small risk arranging this, and I have no intention of letting my negotiations with the Patriarch collapse because you decided to be difficult."

Budkiewicz didn't know what to say. He wasn't certain whether what he felt was relief, or something closer to disorientation, or simply the strange flatness of a man who had already made his peace with death and now had to unmake it. He had prepared himself for martyrdom. Welcomed it, even, in the quiet way a man welcomes an ending he has already accepted. And now, house arrest. It felt almost absurdly small by comparison. Anticlimactic, in a way he was faintly ashamed to notice.

"Negotiations?" he finally managed. It was the only part of any of it he could think to ask about.

"State secret," Jugashvili said simply, already turning toward the door. "Come along now, Father. The dacha's waiting."

Note: Fucking Argentina man, it's not coming home , fuck it, at least France got fucked by Spain, it's over for England-cels

September 18, 1978
Moscow, USSR

Tatiana Smirnovna Pugacheva lifted the lid from the pot and breathed in. The borscht was almost ready, she could tell by the way the smell had deepened, the beets and beef melting into something rich and dark. Her son had asked for it specifically, and since his birthday was Thursday, she saw no reason to refuse him.

She lowered the flame and stepped back. Five minutes, maybe ten. She opened the drawer for a bowl and spoon, and that was when the knock came.

Irina from next door had mentioned wanting to borrow the vacuum cleaner, though she'd said afternoon and it was only just past one. Tatiana glanced at the clock, 1:23, and decided it was close enough. She retrieved the vacuum from its corner of the living room and opened the door.

It was not Irina.

Two people stood in the hallway. A man and a woman, both in dark suits, both wearing sunglasses despite the dim light of the corridor. Their sidearms were holstered but visible, the leather worn smooth from use. The woman produced a badge and held it open just long enough.

KGB.

"Comrade Tatiana Smirnovna Pugacheva." The woman's voice was pleasant, almost conversational. "We apologize for the interruption, but we need to speak with you privately." Beside her, the man rested his hand on the grip of his holstered pistol without drawing it. "You're welcome to speak with us here, of course. Or we can continue this at the district branch, whichever you prefer."

"Here," Tatiana said. "Please. Come in."

She stepped aside and let them through, pulling the door shut behind them. From the kitchen, the radio was still playing, Radio Free Europe, as it always did at this hour, something American and rhythmic drifting through the flat. Not illegal, she reminded herself. Not illegal. And yet her feet moved toward it before she could stop herself, hand already reaching.

The man's hand came down lightly on her shoulder.

She stopped.

"Please, Comrade Pugacheva." The woman's tone hadn't changed. "There's no need. I'm quite fond of Radio Free Europe myself." She tilted her head slightly, listening. "Marvin Gaye, if I'm not mistaken. A cousin of mine saw him perform last year, she was visiting relatives in New York." She smiled. "A remarkable voice."

Tatiana lowered her hand and led them into the kitchen. She moved to the stove and switched off the flame, acutely aware of how small the room suddenly felt with three people in it.

"I apologize for the smell," she said, because she had to say something.

"Don't be." The woman pulled out a chair and sat without being invited, as though the flat were an office she used often. "You typically cook between half eleven and half two. You bought beets, shredded cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onions, and beef bones three days ago. Borscht, yes?"

Tatiana said nothing.

The woman reached into her jacket and set a pack of cigarettes on the table, Stalin brand, the good ones, alongside a lighter and a tin of instant coffee. She slid them toward Tatiana with the unhurried generosity of someone who had done this many times before.

"Please. Sergei makes excellent coffee. The best in Moscow, I've always thought." She glanced at her colleague. "He'd be happy to brew some."

"I'm fine, thank you," Tatiana said, and sat down.

The woman nodded to Sergei. He opened his jacket, withdrew a manila folder, and began laying photographs across the kitchen table one by one, with the quiet efficiency of a man dealing cards.

Tatiana. Her husband. Her sons. Her friends. Her friends' families. Photographs taken through windows, across streets, from angles she couldn't account for.

"Your book club," the woman said. "You've been meeting every second Thursday for the past fourteen months. A study circle, you call it among yourselves." She set down another photograph, a copy of a book cover, the Cyrillic edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four. "Some of your reading choices have drawn attention. Not that reading is a crime, of course. The state guarantees freedom of thought."

She folded her hands.

"What concerns us," she continued, "is something rather more specific. You've been in correspondence with a reading circle in Petrograd. A friend of yours, Pyotr, he organizes their meetings." A photograph of Tatiana speaking with him outside a metro station, clearly taken without either of them noticing. "Together, you were planning to compile a recommended reading list and distribute it to students at Moscow State University."

More photographs. Students Tatiana had spoken with in passing, conversations she had barely registered at the time.

"Comrade Pugacheva." The woman's voice remained gentle. "Your mother is currently receiving treatment for renal cancer at the Botkin Hospital. She is on the waiting list for surgery." A pause. "Your husband Igor is in line for a promotion to shift foreman at the factory. Your son Alyosha, who turns seventeen this Thursday, as you know, has been recommended for a scholarship in mechanical engineering at Moscow State, pending the completion of his military service." She mentioned two or three of Tatiana's friends next, their situations, details Tatiana had not known herself. "These are good things. Things worth protecting."

Tatiana heard what was not being said.

"It would be a shame," the woman continued, just as pleasantly, "if your mother's surgical review were to be delayed. If your husband's promotion were reconsidered. If Alyosha's scholarship recommendation were withdrawn."

The kitchen was very quiet. Outside, Marvin Gaye was still playing.

"What do you need from me?" Tatiana asked.

"Very little." The woman reached into her jacket pocket and placed a small card on the table, sliding it across with one finger. "Keep your book club. Read whatever you like among yourselves, we have no interest in that. But the correspondence with Petrograd, the reading lists, any activities beyond your own four walls, those will stop. Before you do anything of that nature, you speak with your local Party secretary first, and if he says no, you thank him and go home." She let the silence sit for a moment. "And if any of your fellow members begin moving in the same direction, if they start making plans, making connections, you call the number on that card and you tell me."

Tatiana picked up the card. Zoya Felixova Kazachenskaya. A Moscow number.

"I understand this was unexpected," Zoya said, standing. Her partner was already moving toward the door. "I understand it may have felt uncomfortable. But we have a job to do, and you have a life worth keeping intact." Her voice dropped slightly, not unkindly. "You have three thousand five hundred and seventy-six rubles in your savings account. Enough, if it ever came to it, for you and your husband to purchase flights to America. Though I imagine your mother's treatment would become somewhat more complicated from that distance." She picked up her gloves from the table. "Think of it this way, so long as you're sensible, none of this needs to happen. We never need to speak again."

She paused at the kitchen doorway and glanced back.

"Keep the coffee and the cigarettes. The coffee especially, it comes from our comrades over in South Yemen, it tastes amazing." She smiled. "Happy birthday to your son."

The front door opened and closed.

Tatiana sat alone at her kitchen table, the card between her fingers, while Marvin Gaye played softly from the other room.

She did not move for a long time.

January 2, 1979
Lubyanka Building
Moscow, USSR

Sergei Ivanovich Steinberg stepped into the briefing room, it was compact, functional, a little over two dozen desks arranged in front of a larger one at the head. Behind that desk hung the portraits everyone had long since stopped noticing: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and now Stalin's son, General Secretary Yakov Stalin. He yawned, still faintly groggy from the night before. He'd managed to get New Year's Day itself off and had spent it properly, with his wife, with the kids, with friends no work, no forms, no files.

He was among the last to arrive. Most of the room had already settled in. He scanned for an open seat and found Zoya already watching for him, motioning to the empty chair beside hers. He shrugged and crossed the room to sit.

"Saved me a seat again huh?"

"If I have to sit through this waste of time," she said while smiling, "I'd rather do it next to someone I actually get along with." That was Zoya's way, direct, unbothered by the usual performance. Most people smiled at him because his father had been a general in the KGB, and smiling at the general's son was simply what one did. His father had told him as much a few years ago when he started with the KGB, "don't trust the smiles, they're not for you, they're for me."

Zoya was the exception. She wasn't KGB family, wasn't army or party pedigree at all — just genuinely good at the work, which was rarer than any of the rest of it combined. "She'll be working with you," his father had said when she was assigned two years ago. "She's my friends daughter, good girl, she's proven herself. She's reliable. Keep an eye on her, use her well." So he had. She did the talking on visits, gathered the files, kept the paperwork clean and current. She made the job considerably easier than it had any right to be, and he'd put her name forward for promotion, lieutenant to captain within the next year or two looked likely at this point, she scratched his back, he scratched her.

He leaned back in his chair and let his eyes half-close. None of it interested him much, if he was honest. He painted in his spare time, sold the pieces for decent money on the side, and treated his main job here as something to get through rather than build a life around. Show up, do the minimum, let Zoya carry the actual weight, collect the paycheck, treat her to lunch so she remained loyal and indebted. It was basically free money when one looked at it from a certain point of view.

Of course, given he was in the KGB, nothing came for free.

The door slammed. Colonel Petrenko, another of his father's proteges strode in, hands clasped behind his back, papers tucked under one arm, and made his way to the front of the room. The forms. Everyone in the room recognized them instantly and sat up straighter without needing to be told.

Petrenko set the stack down. "Attention!"

The room rose as one and saluted.

"At ease." They sat.

"Comrades." He let the word settle before continuing. "First, happy New Year. I hope those of you given the day off enjoyed it. And for those of you assigned to work through it, I hope the hours passed quickly and the workload was light." A brief, thin smile. Then his tone shifted, cooling by several degrees as he began tapping the stack of papers in front of him. "Now. Let us begin our annual briefing on the consequences of espionage."

He stopped tapping.

"As you were all informed upon joining the KGB, and for some of you, well before that given your family connections," he felt exposed when he said that. "The regulations remain as follows." His eyes moved slowly across the room. "Any citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics found leaking or selling state secrets will face twenty years in a designated labor camp for political dissidents. Not only the individual, their immediate relatives as well. Parents, children, siblings, siblings' spouses, nieces and nephews. Any relative in those category under the age of sixteen will be reclassified as an orphan, removed from the family registry, have their names changed and placed in state care." He paused to let that land. "For us in the security services, our comrades in the party, in the armed forces, in areas related to research and development, these rules extend to defection, and to demonstrated intent to defect as well. Every one of us in this room, myself included, my superiors included, everyone beneath me included, is bound by these same regulations without exception."

He let the silence sit for a moment before continuing.

"Now. What does and does not constitute an offense." He raised his right hand, index finger extended. "Meeting a foreign national and speaking with them is not, in itself, an offense. You are permitted, even encouraged to engage with foreigners. The line is crossed only when classified material is discussed or transferred, and yes, this includes any instance where money changes hands as part of that exchange." He lowered his hand slightly. "Example. You meet a foreign tourist. You share a drink, make conversation, travel, food, sport, nothing related to your work. Does this constitute an offense?"

Heads shook around the room. Sergei's included.

"Now suppose that same conversation drifts, and at some point you mention something connected to a classified document. Does that constitute an offense?"

This time, nods.

"In that circumstance," Petrenko continued, "your obligation is immediate. You report to me directly, you provide the name of the individual, and we track them. If that individual has no connection to a foreign intelligence service, you will be disciplined, a formal write-up, a halt to your career advancement, no further promotion, but you will retain your position. If we determine they are affiliated with a foreign intelligence service, your employment within state security ends. However, and this is the operative point, if you reported it immediately and in good faith, your family faces no consequence. No relative loses party standing on your account. You however will pay the price and go to a camp, though should you prove to be a model prisoner you can potentially leave early."

He moved through several more scenarios in the same measured cadence, dinner with a suspected foreign agent, an unexpected approach at a diplomatic function, correspondence that skirted the edges of protocol. Report promptly, and the consequences stayed contained. Fail to report, and the write-up followed regardless of what had or hadn't actually been said.

He finished, then lifted the stack of forms and handed them to the front row. They passed backward, hand to hand, the stack thinning with each row until it reached Sergei. He took one, passed the rest to Zoya, who did the same. Up front, Petrenko was already handing a pen to the first agent in line, sign, pass forward, next. The pen moved steadily down the rows.

It reached him eventually. He signed without pausing, hesitation drew attention, and attention was danger. The form itself was simple enough, an acknowledgment that he understood what had been said and what it meant. He passed it along. Zoya signed hers and handed it to him; he passed that one along too.

The last form was signed and collected. Petrenko squared the stack against the desk. "One further reminder. As you're aware, January serves as a grace period. If you have, at any point, leaked or sold state secrets, you may come to my office and disclose it directly. Your family will be spared any punishment. You alone will bear the consequences."

He reached beneath the desk and produced a second stack, and the same ritual began, hand to hand, row to row, until everyone held a copy. Sergei looked down at his. "FAMILY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT FORM", printed across the top in block letters. He already knew what it was; everyone did, by this point in their career.

"Per protocol," Petrenko said, "you are to deliver this form to your immediate relatives personally, read its contents aloud to them, and have them sign it in acknowledgment. If your family resides too far for a personal visit, if the form is not delivered by the end of the month, our agents will visit them directly to complete the process. If you would prefer not to deliver it yourself for any reason, come to my office and inform me, there is no penalty for this beyond a small administrative fee." He straightened. "That will be all. Dismissed. Salute!"

The room rose together. Petrenko's voice rang out and the room answered in unison: "Hail to the world proletarian revolution! Hail Marx! Hail Engels! Hail Lenin! Hail Stalin!" Every hand snapped to a salute.

They filed out slowly, in twos and threes, conversation thin and subdued the way it always was after these briefings. Sergei didn't have much to say, he never did, not after this particular meeting. His own father had been delivering some version of this lecture to him since he turned sixteen, though back then he hadn't known it was KGB doctrine, only that it came from "the party." It wasn't until university, when he was formally approached, that the pieces came together. And now here he was, inside the machine himself, with a wife who needed to hear all of this eventually and a son, Isaac, who would need the same conversation the moment he turned sixteen.

Something tugged at his sleeve. He turned and found Zoya looking at him, head tilted.

"Why the grim face?"

He caught himself. "Is it that obvious?"

"Relax." She laughed. "You just look tired. Rough night?"

"My wife had friends over. We ended up drinking later than planned."

"Fair enough. Sounds like a decent way to ring in the new year." She shrugged, already moving toward the door. "Honestly, what a waste of a morning. What kind of idiot sells out the Motherland knowing exactly what happens next? I don't feel sorry for them. Their families of course. But not them. I could never." She said, her tone getting a little sad, "I couldn't bear it if they took Anya from me."

Anya, her daughter, Zoya had entered the KGB when she was married. But her husband had been unfaithful and she divorced him, all she had was her elderly parents who she sent money to and Anya. They all had someone, in the KGB at least you needed to be married with kids to even be allowed to join. It was why his father encouraged him to marry early, why his wife was his childhood friend, the daughter of another KGB agent.

What does that say about the Motherland, that it needs this many forms signed every January to keep people in line? The thought surfaced and he let it pass without a word, he wasn't stupid, and some sentences weren't worth the risk of saying out loud, even to Zoya. "It is what it is," he said instead.

"It is." She fell into step beside him. "Come on, we've got five apartments on the list today."

"Lunch is on me," he offered.

"Obviously. I want to eat at Levon's place, down by Arbat."

"You're going to bankrupt me Zoya, I swear."

"Would you rather do the paperwork yourself?"

He laughed. "Fine. Levon's it is."

July 13, 1988
Port of Vladivostok
Vladivostok, USSR

"Start the truck," the general beside him said.

Vadim Sergeyovich Popov turned the key without a word and pulled out. He was at the head of the convoy, two dozen trucks behind him by his count, half of them loaded with sailors from the Far Eastern Fleet, all bound, the other half filled with Militsiya, OMON, and KGB personnel, submachine guns slung and ready.

"Far Eastern Fleet HQ," General Abdulyev said. Vadim nodded and steered them through the city, weaving through traffic for roughly ten minutes before the building came into view, planted squarely in the center of town. "Park at the steps."

He brought the truck to a stop directly in front of them. Behind him, the rest of the convoy halted in sequence. The general reached for a suitcase resting between them and handed it over. "Take this. Follow me inside."

Vadim pulled the key from the ignition, pocketed it, took the case, and got out. Around them, Militsiya, OMON, and KGB men were fanning out to surround the building, weapons raised. Sailors were already spilling out of the entrance, rifles trained back on them in return. Abdulyev kept walking regardless. Vadim followed, doing his best not to think too hard about what happened if this went the wrong way. Surely the Navy wouldn't fire on a KGB general in broad daylight. Surely. He tried to believe it.

Three soldiers blocked the entrance. "This is Far Eastern Fleet Headquarters. You have no authorization to enter."

"Tell the Admiral we need to talk," Abdulyev said. His voice was level, but the strain underneath it was obvious — the tone of a man who very much did not want to be standing on these steps.

"Admiral Fyodorov is currently in a meeting wi-"

"The Admiral is going to explain to me exactly why he's shitting all over our arrangement." Abdulyev's voice sharpened. "I have another half-dozen trucks out there loaded with his men. Unless he'd like to spend tomorrow morning scraping their brains off the pavement and then explaining to Moscow why the Navy and the KGB nearly opened fire on each other in the middle of Vladivostok, he will come out here. Five minutes." He held up his hand, fingers spread.

The soldiers exchanged a look. One bolted inside. The rest stood rigid, saying nothing, tension radiating off them.

Two minutes later, a different set of soldiers emerged, naval Spetsnaz this time, balaclavas on, one carrying an AK-74, another a Skorpion. "Follow us."

They were led inside, into an elevator, up to the top floor, and into an office where Admiral Nikita Leonidovich Fyodorov sat behind his desk, flanked by several subordinates. Fyodorov, commander of the Far Eastern Fleet, looked up as they entered, and his expression made it clear exactly how welcome they were.

"What the fuck is going on?" His voice was tight with barely restrained fury.

Abdulyev held out his hand without answering. "Suitcase."

Vadim passed it over. The general set it on the desk and opened it. Vadim couldn't see the contents from where he stood, but whatever was inside made the Admiral's jaw tighten the moment he looked.

"What's going on," Abdulyev said, "is you, Admiral. What exactly are you trying to pull on us? I thought we had an understanding. Fifty percent cut on all goods moving through this port, your ships load and unload freely, and we take our share. Simple. So explain to me why there are over a thousand televisions, refrigerators, and assorted household goods missing from our ledgers and sitting in your supply warehouses instead." He tapped something inside the case for emphasis.

Fyodorov shrugged, unconvincingly. "I have no idea what you're referring to. The arrangement has continued exactly as agreed. If there's an issue somewhere in my ranks, I'll launch an investigation and have my men-"

"Bullshit." Abdulyev pulled a document from the case and held it up. Whatever was on it, the Admiral's face went still.

Fyodorov's eyes swept across his subordinates. "Everyone out. Now." They filed out without argument, leaving the three of them alone. Once the door clicked shut, Fyodorov spoke again, quieter now. "Comrade Abdulyev. Where did you get this? What exactly are you tryi-"

"Fyodorov, you piece of shit, you are going to return my goods. Every last item. Or I start having my men put bullets in yours."

"You think you can threaten me?" Fyodorov slammed a fist on the desk. "Open fire on members of the Soviet Armed Forces? That's treason, and you know it!"

"Smuggling foreign goods without permits is treason! Theft from military stores is treason! And that's before we get to the prostitution ring running out of this base, or the fact that half your officers know exactly what you get up to after hours!" Abdulyev's voice climbed, sharp and furious now. "I have enough documented here to have you breaking ice in Norilsk for the rest of your life you fucking Pidor!"

"Slander! Baseless accusations! Everyone knows the KGB manufactures whatever story is convenient!"

"Everyone knows you got this command because your mother knew how to spread her legs right party official you spoiled son of a whore!"

"What did you just say!?" Fyodorov's hand went to the pistol on his hip, drawing it and leveling it at Abdulyev's chest.

Abdulyev laughed, "Go ahead. Pull the trigger. I gave my men standing orders, if I don't walk out of this building in fifteen minutes, they open fire on every sailor in those trucks and storm the building floor by floor."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Have you forgotten what I did before this desk job? I served abroad while you were still finding out what end of a rifle to hold. I didn't have a mother spreading her legs for the right man and a father with a party card to smooth my way up the ladder. I earned every rank I have the hard way." Abdulyev didn't flinch. "So go ahead. Shoot me. And when you do, you lose everything, because you genuinely think I didn't make copies of every single thing I just showed you?"

Fyodorov's finger tightened on the trigger. Abdulyev muttered something low, in Uzbek, Vadim had picked up somewhere that the general was Uzbek by birth.

Fyodorov exhaled slowly, the fight visibly draining out of him. "Why don't we get the regional party secretary on the line," he said. "Perhaps we can reach some kind of compromise." He lowered the gun.

"That's exactly what I thought." Abdulyev closed the suitcase and handed it back, then pulled up a chair for himself and gestured for Vadim to do the same. Fyodorov, jaw tight, reached for the phone and began to dial.

Note, I had these stories planned in my head. Thanks to airplane wifi I cranked these out quickly

In order to restore the vision of the great Lenin. The party, using the authority granted to it must take it upon themselves to use this years annual party Congress to depose comrade Yakov Stalin, and cast out the Stalin family from power. The revolution must cast off the shadow and stain of this nascent monarchism, and ensure a return to true Communist values and the restoration of the true revolutionary vision of Lenin.

Excerpt from Valery Sablin's speech, broadcast on Leningrad radio during the mutiny on the Storozhevoy on the night of November 7, 1975

April 1, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, USSR

I woke the way I usually did, eyes drifting open to the ceiling before anything else registered. Unlike the last several mornings, when I'd surface to find the bed beside me already empty, Elsa was still there, sleeping soundly. For a moment I just lay still and listened to her breathe. Then I closed my eyes and let myself pretend, just for a second, that it was Maria beside me instead.

This year would mark five years since Maria died, well, taken from me we're being honest about it, all thanks to an an assassin's bullet rather than something more wholesome like dying peacefully in her sleep. Semantics, I suppose, but I'd shot enough people to earn the right to be rather pedantic about words and their meaning. Yet at that moment, the thought of her death didn't hit the way it used to. In the early days I'd break down daily, alone, unable to stop it. At that moment, I genuinely believed I'd moved past that. Not that I didn't love her anymore, I did, I would gladly trade my life if it meant seeing her and embracing herself one more time.

And yet, lying there with my eyes closed, listening to Elsa breathe and pretending she was someone else, something surfaced that I hadn't expected. Not grief exactly, but something. I felt tears start before I'd even consciously registered the feeling behind them. What is this? Why was I crying over something like this now? After everything else I'd already survived? After everything I'd done? I pushed it down as hard as I could, forced it back under, exhaled slowly, and shook my head.

I leaned over and pulled her into a hug, not tight enough to wake her, just enough to feel the warmth of another person beside me, enough to confirm I was actually waking up next to someone real. I told myself that was all it was. I hadn't shared a bed with anyone in years, and now that I had, it felt like something in me that had been quietly starving hadn't noticed it was starving until it was finally fed.

I almost laughed at myself. It was pathetic honestly, me, arguably one of the worst mass murderers of the century so far, at least until a certain mustachioed man in Germany caught up, reduced to something this fragile because I'd slept next to someone and it had cracked something open.

She stirred in my arms and looked up at me, her eyes doing that thing where they seemed to see straight through whatever I was trying to keep hidden. "Mika?"

"Elsa." I nodded gently. "Morning stranger." I managed a small smile. "If this is uncomfortable—" I started easing my arms away, both the good one and the ruined one.

"It's fine." She pulled me back in, tighter now, her face pressing into my chest. I felt her breathing against me and had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself together. She looked up.

"Are you all right?"

I pulled back immediately, sitting up and putting distance between us before she could see whatever was showing on my face.

"It's nothing," I said, getting off the bed. "Let's get dressed. We're seeing Lenin today."

I went to the wardrobe and changed quickly, then headed for the door. "Anything you want for breakfast?"

She looked at me, a flicker of something like disappointment crossing her face at the abrupt shift. "Filmjölk, if they have it. Tunnbröd and cheese."

"I'll get it sorted, don't worry." I didn't trust myself to say much more than that. I stepped out and pulled the door shut behind me, and once I was alone in the hallway the tears came properly, along with a wave of nausea I had to physically fight down.

Joe's words came back to me unbidden. She's making you soft. Corrupting you. She's a liability. I exhaled hard, working to pull myself back together, and thought that he wasn't entirely wrong. I was soft. Emotional even, in ways I hadn't allowed myself to be in years, and Elsa without meaning to, was giving that softness room to exist. I thought about everything I'd already done, and everything I still had left to do, and the two thoughts sat very badly next to each other.

I turned the corner and glanced back at the closed door one last time.

Is this how you did it? The thought arrived cold and unwelcome. Is this how Joe managed everything he managed, in my old timeline because he let himself have no weaknesses at all?

A chill ran down my spine.

I exhaled again, sharper this time, and shook my head.

"No," I said quietly, to no one. Not that way. I'd find another way through this. I had to.

April 1, 1923
The Bolshie Gorki
Moscow Oblast

The car pulled up to the estate. The same guards from last time stood at their posts, rifles slung and ready. I stepped out first, then opened the door for Stalin, for Elsa, and for Iosif, my eldest son.

Stalin was visibly displeased at having to share the ride with both Elsa and now my son as well. He'd sat rigid the entire drive, offering nothing beyond the bare minimum of courtesy to either of them. The guards snapped to attention and saluted as we crossed into the estate grounds.

"Are we really seeing Lenin, Papa?

"We are." I smiled and ruffled his hair.

Stalin shot me a look as we walked. Don't, I mouthed at him in Georgian, still smiling. "You should trust me a little more," I added, aloud, in Georgian.

We reached the door. The guards pulled it open. In the sitting room, Krupskaya and Maria Ulyanova were already waiting to receive us.

"Comrade Krupskaya. Comrade Ulyanova." I greeted them warmly, then turned to my son. "This is my boy, Iosif. Stalin's namesake. My eldest, and my pride." I nudged him forward.

He stepped up and greeted them with the etiquette I'd drilled into him, visibly nervous, understandable enough, given that he was thirteen and about to make small talk with the Soviet equivalent of a head of state and his household. "It's an honor to meet you both, comrades," he said, voice slightly unsteady. Both women softened at once, warming to him immediately.

I glanced at Stalin. "See what I meant?" I said quietly, in Georgian. He said nothing, only watched as Ulyanova and Krupskaya continued fussing over Iosif. Elsa caught my eye too, with an expression that read less like anger and more like I'm not upset, just disappointed, which somehow landed worse.

We went upstairs to Lenin's room. A few servants were tending to him as we entered. He looked marginally better than my last visit, the paralysis on his left side seemed slightly less total, and he managed to turn his head toward us, slowly, with visible effort.

"Coooomrade," he said, drawing the word out with obvious strain.

"I'm glad to see you're improving, Comrade Lenin." I crossed the room and knelt beside the bed. "I've brought you something."

"A giiift?"

"That's right." I reached into my coat and produced a small brass front-desk bell, the kind you'd find on a hotel counter, purchased for a few kopecks from the Loskutnaya. I set it on the nightstand. "This should make things easier for you. Someone asks a question, you ring it once for yes." I demonstrated. "Twice for no." I rang it again.

Lenin's head moved in a slow, deliberate nod. "I…seee." A pause. "I…appre…appreciate the gestuuure."

"Of course."

I stood, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. I was, functionally, turning Vladimir Ilyich Lenin into Hector Salamanca, and the resemblance was almost too perfect, bald and all. I pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed. "I didn't come only with a gift, though, Comrade. I wanted to give you an update on the negotiations with the Patriarch."

I glanced at Stalin. He nodded, once.

"The Patriarch responded well to my initial approach," I began. "He seemed genuinely surprised that a man with my reputation had written the pamphlet, let alone proposed the terms in it. He also described what I'm offering as, in his words, a golden cage." Krupskaya's expression darkened at that. Ulyanova's did too.

"Then the answer seems clear enough," Krupskaya said. "He isn't interested. Why continue?"

"I wasn't finished," I said. "He also told me I say the right things, but that he wanted proof I'd back them with action." I skipped over the specific method I'd used to get his attention, appealing to his antisemitism by dangling Trotsky in front of him, since Lenin would have plenty to say about that particular tactic, none of it good. "He asked me to intervene on behalf of a priest recently sentenced to death. Konstanty Budkiewicz. So I went to Dzerzhinsky, took personal responsibility for the outcome, and he's now under house arrest instead."

"You did this without authorization," Maria Ulyanova said.

"I spoke to Stalin first. He raised it with Dzerzhinsky directly, and the two of them agreed I would bear full responsibility."

"You went around Lenin entirely," Krupskaya said, sharper now, clearly more upset than her sister-in-law.

"Comrade Lenin is currently under strict orders for rest and recovery. Stalin holds the General Secretary position under Lenin's own appointment, and is effectively managing state affairs until Comrade Lenin is well enough to resume them himself. Right now, his recovery has to take priority over everything else." I paused. "And there's a practical dimension to this as well, Comrade Chicherin is actively negotiating with the Vatican, and sparing this priest buys us genuine goodwill in those talks. Executing a priest, on the other hand, would be a diplomatic disaster. We're already isolated enough, economically and diplomatically, without adding that to the pile."

No one spoke for a moment.

"I came here specifically because I do want to go through you on this, Comrade Lenin," I said, turning back to him. "I want to run something in Pravda, a short piece stating that Father Budkiewicz's sentence, on the recommendation of Comrade Jugashvili, has been commuted to house arrest, and that negotiations are ongoing with the Orthodox Church toward an acceptable settlement." I held up a hand. "That's the entirety of it. No details, no concessions disclosed, nothing beyond the fact that talks are happening. I just need your sign-off before it runs."

Lenin glanced toward the bell. He tried to reach for it, and I moved it closer, guiding it right beside his hand. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep my expression neutral, hard enough to taste blood, or something close enough to it. He rang it once.

"Youuuu…may…conti…continueeee." A long pause, effortful. "Buuut…buuut…weee…muuust…ensuuure…ouuur…domi…our domina…our dominance…oveeer…thee…chuuuurch."

"And the newspaper piece as well?"

One ring.

I nodded. "May I ask a small favor, Comrade Lenin?"

One ring.

"My son would like to shake your hand, if you're willing. He's wanted to meet you for some time now."

One ring, without hesitation this time. I glanced at Iosif, who stepped forward.

"It's an honor to meet you, Comrade Lenin." He extended his hand. Lenin reached out, slow and visibly weak, and managed the handshake. "Thank you, Comrade Lenin," Iosif said, breaking into a genuine smile.

I laughed quietly and ruffled his hair. "You'll make a fine communist, son."

"Could I bring some of my other kids next time, Comrade Lenin?"

Another ring.

"Well then." I stood, straightening my coat. "Let's get lunch."

April 4, 1923
Donskoy Monastery
Moscow, USSR

I sat across from the Patriarch, sipping Coca-Cola, and set the empty cup down. I reached for the bottle, poured another measure, and slid it gently across to him. I'd only arrived a few minutes earlier, I hadn't said much beyond a friendly hello, asked how he was holding up, brought the usual bottle and glasses, and settled in to drink alongside him.

"Would you care to try a thought experiment, Patriarch?" I asked once he'd set his own cup down.

"What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Precisely what it sounds like. A thought experiment." I took the cup back, refilled it, and drank a small sip. "Say you're standing at a lever between two train tracks. Left and right. The train is currently heading down the left track, where five people are tied to the rails. Given the train's speed, you won't have time to free even one of them before it hits all five. Your only option is to pull the lever and redirect it to the right track. But there's a single person tied to that track, and you won't have time to free them either."

I leaned back, drained the rest of the coke, and poured another round, passing it over. "You don't know anything about any of these people. The five on the left could be devoted fathers, or they could be convicted rapists. The one on the right might be a serial killer, or a priest fresh out of seminary." I settled back into my chair. "So. What do you do?"

Tikhon's expression hardened. "What is it you actually want, Jugashvili? Are you here to negotiate, or simply to waste my time with parlor games?"

I said nothing, only nodded slightly and let out a short laugh. Tikhon continued, undeterred. "I have read a great deal of philosophy in my life, Augustine, Aquinas, the Cappadocian Fathers, Justin Martyr. The same texts you were assigned in seminary, I'd imagine. So don't insult my intelligence with these twisted little games of yours."

I nodded, conceding the point. "Fair enough. I thought I'd set the stage myself before getting to it. My apologies for the insolence." I reached into my coat and produced a folded newspaper, sliding it across the table. "Read this. You asked for Budkiewicz's life. I delivered it. Front page, no less."

Tikhon picked it up and read for several minutes in silence. Then he set it down and pushed it back toward me. "You told me before that I said the right things," I said, "and you asked whether I was prepared to back them with action. This is the action. I spent political capital on this, Patriarch. I took a man off death row and put him under house arrest, publicly, with my name attached to it." I spread my hands slightly. "So. What do you think now?"

He was quiet for a moment, then leaned forward. "I did not expect you to follow through," he admitted. "Given your reputation, given everything you have done, all the blood on your record, I assumed this warmth of yours was simply a mask over something else entirely." He paused. "I was wrong. And I apologize for the assumption."

"I'm glad you can see I'm someone worth working with." I reached into my bag and pulled out the written terms, sliding them across the table to replace the newspaper. "Now then, let's begin the real negotiation. Take your time reading. Consider these my opening position."

July 16, 1988
Vladivostok Government Office
Vladivostok, USSR

Gennady Semyonovich Pugo wasn't much of a smoker — strictly a social one, the kind who only lit up when someone else offered. Yet he'd already burned through an entire pack of Stalin cigarettes this morning and was starting on a second. The one week he'd finally taken for vacation, and this was the news that dragged him off a beach in Cuba and onto a plane back to Vladivostok.

Across from him sat General Malik Sultanovich Abdulyev, head of the Vladivostok KGB, and beside him Admiral Nikita Leonidovich Fyodorov of the Far Eastern Fleet. The two men looked like they'd cheerfully shoot each other given half a chance, which, from what Pugo understood, had nearly happened already.

As Party Secretary and elected mayor of Vladivostok, the running of the city was ultimately his responsibility, and it wasn't a bad post as these things went. Lucrative, even. Japan sat right across the water — televisions, refrigerators, gaming consoles, every Western and Japanese gadget worth having, all ripe for "importing," provided the appropriate cut made its way up to Moscow. A few days ago, all of that had very nearly gone up in smoke.

"Explain yourselves," he said. Then, turning on Abdulyev with real venom: "Especially you you fucking Churka. What in God's name possessed you to kidnap sailors and threaten to shoot up the admiralty building? Do you have any idea how much shit Moscow is going to give me when this reaches them? You wont be the only one who gets fucked here, I'll be right there with you. Did either of you think, even for a second, before doing this?"

Fyodorov smiled faintly and nodded along, which only made Pugo want to reach across the desk. He hated that smug bastard, but the man's father was friends with Yazov over in the Politburo, and that meant handling him carefully, evidence or no evidence.

"If you'd bothered reading my report and the request I sent instead of sunning yourself on some beach," Abdulyev said, voice tight, "you'd already know what happened. And for the record, Fyodorov drew a firearm on a general of the KGB. I believe that qualifies as treason."

"Only because you surrounded the admiralty and threatened to shoot it up you thick-headed Churka!" Fyodorov screamed.

"Because you fucked me and stole those appliances you goddamned Pidor!" Abdulyev snapped, and the two of them were off again, shouting over each other in a rising tangle of accusation and insult. Pugo pressed his palms into his eyes, feeling the migraine building behind them, then pulled a pistol from his desk drawer and fired once into the ceiling.

"Will you two shut the fuck up!" He screamed. Both of them went stiff. "Now." Pugo continued, his voice dropping back to something almost calm. "Fyodorov. Explain to me why the fuck have one thousand appliances gone missing from inventory?"

Fyodorov glanced sideways at Abdulyev, then back at Pugo, and exhaled slowly. "The GRU," he said. "A team came in from Moscow about a week ago and started an audit out of nowhere. They're still at it, as far as I know. I didn't want to lose the goods or my cut, so I had everything moved and hidden across the warehouses. I paid the auditors off to look the other way on the operation itself, but it's eaten badly into my margins, and I have men under me who need to be taken care of. I tried reaching you to sort it out properly, but you were on vacation. So I decided to sit on it, wait until the GRU cleared out, recover the losses, and renegotiate everything once you were back."

"And you didn't fucking tell me about the GRU?" Abdulyev asked, barely hiding his rage.

"You're KGB. I assumed you already knew." Fyodorov's jaw tightened. "I didn't expect you to go this far over it."

"You didn't fucking tell me." Abdulyev repeated, louder this time.

"That's enough." Pugo said. Sighing. "Here's what's going to happen." He pointed at Fyodorov. "30 percent. You'll give him 30 percent of everything back. You will keep 30 percent of everything. I will get the rest."

"What?" Abdulyev said.

"I need the funds to keep the other co-mayors quiet. I am not having this reach Moscow — I'll have to bring in both of them, the RSFSR appointee and the one from Moscow itself, just to keep this contained. Its either that, or they'll both get back to Moscow and we'll all get fucked. So I don't want to hear any bullshit from either you."

"And the GRU?" Fyodorov asked. "What happens if they come back?"

"Your father is friendly with Yazov, is he not? Use it. Have him lean on Yazov to pull the audit team back. I'll have funds ready if we need to sweeten the arrangement." He turned to Abdulyev, voice hardening. "And you — you will behave yourself from here forward. I understand Fyodorov wronged you, but this isn't some fucking shithole in Uzbekistan where you churkas kill each other over smuggling routes. This is Russia, any bullshit that involves people shooting each other will get back to Moscow, not swept under a rug somewhere in Tashkent. Do you two understand?"

"Yes, comrade Pugo." The both of them said.

"Get the fuck out of my office, Fyodorov, make sure he gets his cut and I get mine, I want this entire mess sorted out by the end of the month. And the two of you are going to shake hands and act like professionals as if none of this happened. Understood?"

Both of them nodded. "Good." Pugo nodded, "Go."

They rose and left without another word, and the office fell quiet behind them. Pugo leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly, and reached for the remote sitting on his desk. The VCR was already loaded. He pressed play and settled back into The Terminator, which the meeting had rudely interrupted.