The fog in Leningrad was thick enough to chew.
A small fishing trawler drifted out of the mist, bumping gently against the rotting wood of a private pier. No lights. No flags.
Jake stood on the dock, flanked by Taranov. The damp air chilled him to the bone, seeping through his greatcoat.
A plank was thrown across.
A figure emerged from the fog. He was round, hunched, and wore a heavy bowler hat. The glow of a cigar was the only beacon in the grey.
Winston Churchill stepped onto Soviet soil.
"Damn damp," Churchill grumbled, shaking his umbrella. "Worse than Scotland."
"Welcome to Russia," Jake said. He didn't offer a hand. Security protocol.
"Russia," Churchill snorted. "I preferred it when it had a Tsar. But needs must."
He looked at Jake. His eyes were watery, bloodshot, but sharp as broken glass.
"You look younger than the photographs, Stalin. And less... Georgian."
"I have been busy," Jake said. "Come. The car is warm."
The safehouse was a dacha previously owned by a Grand Duke. Faded velvet curtains. Dust sheets on the furniture.
Churchill poured himself a brandy from a flask. He didn't trust the local supply.
"Let us be blunt," Churchill said, sinking into an armchair. "Baldwin is an idiot. Chamberlain is a coward. They think they can tame Hitler with treaties."
"And you?" Jake asked.
"I think you can't tame a tiger by feeding it cat food," Churchill growled. "Hitler wants war. He breathes it."
"I signed a pact with him," Jake noted.
"A pact of convenience," Churchill waved his cigar. "I know about the rockets, Stalin. I know about the grain shipments. You are feeding him to keep him off your back."
He leaned forward.
"But he is getting fat. And when he is full, he will turn West. To France."
"And you want me to stop him?"
"I want us to stop him," Churchill said. "Together."
Jake laughed.
"The British Empire and the Bolsheviks? You tried to strangle us in the cradle, Winston. You sent armies to Archangel."
"That was yesterday," Churchill said. "Today, there is a madman in Berlin with your rockets and American money. The equation has changed."
He pulled a map from his coat. It was wrinkled, stained with ash.
"This is Intelligence from my private network. Hitler plans to remilitarize the Rhineland in three months. Then Austria. Then Czechoslovakia."
"I know," Jake said.
"Do you?" Churchill eyed him. "Do you know about the biological weapons?"
Jake froze.
"What biological weapons?"
"Anthrax," Churchill said. "Weaponized. They are building a facility in Bavaria. Using the money you sent them for the grain."
Jake felt a cold knot in his stomach.
He hadn't sent money for anthrax. He had sent money for machine tools.
The butterfly effect again. Hitler was innovating.
"If he has anthrax," Jake said, "he doesn't need a nuke. He can depopulate London with a crop duster."
"Exactly," Churchill said. "That is why I am here."
"What do you propose?"
"A preemptive strike," Churchill said. "A joint operation. My spies. Your... special talents."
"Talents?"
"I heard about Norway," Churchill said slyly. "The aluminum raid. Very Viking. I need men like that."
Jake looked at the Bulldog.
Churchill was offering a black ops alliance. Illegal. Deniable. The two outcasts of Europe joining forces to kill a monster before he grew teeth.
"If we get caught," Jake said, "it means war. Real war."
"War is coming anyway," Churchill said. "We might as well choose the battlefield."
He extended a hand. It was meaty, shaking slightly from alcohol, but firm.
"To the unholy alliance," Churchill said.
Jake shook it.
"To the end of the world," Jake replied.
The Institute for Experimental Medicine.
The screams were muffled by soundproof tiles, but they were still audible.
Jake stood behind the observation glass. Kapitsa was beside him, looking pale.
Inside the white room, a man was strapped to a chair. He was naked, shaved. His muscles were spasming.
"Subject 45," Kapitsa read from a clipboard. "Ivanov. Former thief. Injected with the Red Pill serum 48 hours ago."
"Status?"
"Heart rate 180," Kapitsa said. "Body temperature 40 degrees. He is burning up."
"Is he awake?"
"He hasn't blinked in two days," Kapitsa whispered. "He is solving calculus problems in his head. Look."
The prisoner was muttering. A microphone picked it up. Numbers. Equations.
"He was illiterate when he came in," Kapitsa said. "The drug... it unlocks something. The brain is firing on all cylinders."
"Can he fight?" Jake asked.
"Watch."
Kapitsa pressed a button. A door opened. A guard dog—a huge Rottweiler—was released into the room.
The dog snarled and lunged.
Subject 45 didn't flinch. He moved faster than humanly possible. He caught the dog mid-air. He snapped its neck with a single twist.
He threw the carcass aside like a ragdoll.
Then he looked at the glass. At Jake.
His eyes were entirely black. Pupils dilated to the rim.
"More," the prisoner hissed. "Give me more."
Jake stepped back involuntarily.
"It works," Jake whispered.
"It works too well," Kapitsa said. "The aggression is uncontrollable. If we release them..."
"We don't release them," Jake said. "We point them."
He looked at the prisoner.
This was the weapon Churchill needed. A biological counter to the biological threat.
"How many do we have?"
"Two hundred," Kapitsa said. "But the mortality rate is... high. Their hearts explode after a week."
"Then we have a week," Jake said.
"Prepare them," Jake ordered. "They are going to Germany."
The Kremlin. Menzhinsky's Office.
"You agreed to work with Churchill?" Menzhinsky asked, incredulous. "The man who called Lenin a 'plague bacillus'?"
"He hates Hitler more," Jake said. "The enemy of my enemy is my tool."
"And the mission?"
"Bavaria," Jake said. "The anthrax facility. We go in, we burn it, we get out."
"With the Red Pill soldiers?"
"Yes."
Menzhinsky opened his notebook.
"They are unstable, Koba. If they go berserk in Germany... it will be a massacre. Civilians. Women."
"It's a black op," Jake said. "No witnesses. No survivors."
Menzhinsky stared at him.
"You are crossing a line," the spy said. "Assassination is one thing. Unleashing rabid super-soldiers on a German town..."
"It stops the anthrax," Jake said. "It saves London."
"Does it save your soul?"
"My soul is already mortgaged," Jake snapped. "Just plan the route."
Menzhinsky closed the book.
"As you command. But remember, monsters have a habit of coming home."
The Dacha. Kuntsevo.
The forest was quiet. Snow lay thick on the pines.
Nadya was chopping wood. The axe swung with a rhythmic thwack.
She wore peasant clothes. Her hands were rough.
Jake watched from the edge of the clearing. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to hold her.
But he smelled of the lab. Of the serum.
"Papa!"
Yuri ran out of the house. He was bundled in furs, looking like a small bear.
Jake knelt down. He caught the boy.
"Hello, cosmonaut," Jake whispered.
"Did you bring the rocket?" Yuri asked.
"Not today," Jake said. "Today I brought chocolate."
He handed the boy a bar of Swiss chocolate—a gift from Churchill.
Nadya stopped chopping. She leaned on the axe.
"You shouldn't be here," she said.
"I needed to see him," Jake said. "Before I go."
"Go where?"
"Away," Jake said. "A business trip."
Nadya looked at his eyes. She saw the darkness there.
"You are going to kill people," she said flatly.
"I am going to stop a plague," Jake said.
"With another plague?" she asked.
She knew. Somehow, she always knew.
"It is necessary, Nadya."
"That is your favorite word," she said. "Necessary. It excuses everything."
She walked over. She took the chocolate from Yuri's hand.
"Don't eat that," she told the boy. "It is poison."
"It's just chocolate!" Jake protested.
"It is bought with blood," Nadya said.
She threw the bar into the snow.
Yuri started to cry.
Jake stood up. Anger flared in his chest.
"I am trying to protect you!" he shouted. "Do you think the world is a fairy tale? Do you think Hitler cares about your morals?"
"I think you are becoming him," Nadya said.
The words hung in the cold air.
Jake looked at her.
"If I become him," Jake whispered, "it is so you don't have to meet him."
He turned and walked back to the car.
He didn't look back.
He couldn't. If he looked back, he might stay. And if he stayed, the anthrax would fly.
The Cargo Plane. Night.
The interior was red-lit.
Two hundred men sat in silence. They didn't move. They didn't blink. Their eyes reflected the red light like wolves.
They were the Red Pill battalion. The Damned.
Jake sat in the cockpit jump seat. Taranov was beside him.
"They are quiet," Taranov noted, looking back at the troops.
"They are focusing," Jake said. "Kapitsa gave them the booster shot an hour ago. They are vibrating."
"And the target?"
"A castle," Jake said. "Schloss Adler. In the Bavarian Alps."
"Sounds like a movie," Taranov grunted.
"It's a horror movie," Jake said.
The pilot signaled. "Crossing the border. Drop zone in ten minutes."
Jake stood up. He walked back to the men.
He looked at Subject 45—Ivanov. The man was smiling. A rictus grin.
"Are you ready to serve the Motherland?" Jake asked.
Ivanov looked at him.
"We are ready to eat," Ivanov hissed.
Jake nodded.
"Open the ramp."
The wind roared in. The Alps passed below, jagged teeth in the moonlight.
"Jump!" Jake ordered.
The men stood up in unison. No fear. No hesitation.
They leaped into the void.
Two hundred monsters falling from the sky.
Jake watched the parachutes open. Black silk against the white snow.
He had unleashed the horde.
Now he just had to hope they killed the right people.
And that they died before the drug wore off.
Because if they survived... if they came back... Menzhinsky was right. They would eat everything.