The Ural Mountains. Nizhny Tagil Tank Factory No. 183.
The noise was a physical weight. Ten thousand hammers striking steel at once.
Jake walked the catwalk overlooking the assembly line. The air tasted of ozone and burning grease.
Below him, the skeletons of tanks moved on a conveyor belt. Not the sleek, futuristic T-34s of his early designs. These were rougher. Welding scars visible. Unpainted armor.
"Production is up forty percent," the Factory Director shouted over the din. He wiped sweat from his soot-stained forehead.
"And quality?" Jake asked.
"Acceptable," the Director said. "The new workers... they are learning fast."
Jake looked down at the workers. They weren't wearing blue overalls. They were wearing grey rags.
Prisoners. Political dissidents. The "enemies of the people" Jake had emptied from the jails.
A man near the front collapsed. He dropped his welding torch. He didn't scream; he just folded like a wet towel.
Two guards stepped forward. They didn't help him up. They dragged him to the side, like a broken part.
Another prisoner stepped into his place immediately. He picked up the torch. He kept welding.
"They are expendable fuel," Jake whispered.
He felt sick. But he remembered the map. The Japanese on the border. The Germans waiting.
"Keep the line moving," Jake said. "If they die, replace them."
"We are running low on manganese for the alloy," the Director warned. " The armor will be brittle."
"Make it thicker," Jake ordered. "If we can't make it smart, we make it heavy. Brute force."
He walked away. He couldn't watch the welding sparks anymore. They looked too much like gunfire.
The Trans-Siberian Railway. Sector 4. Near Lake Baikal.
The night was pitch black. The wind howled through the taiga.
A figure dressed in white furs lay prone in the snow. He held a plunger connected to a wire.
John "Jack" Miller, American OSS. Hoover's man.
He checked his watch. The ground began to vibrate.
"Here she comes," he whispered.
The train roared around the bend. It wasn't a troop transport. It was a grain train. Fifty cars of wheat, destined for the starving cities of the West.
Miller didn't hesitate. He was a soldier of the "New Deal." His orders were to break the Soviet spine.
He pushed the plunger.
The explosion wasn't huge. Just enough to shatter the track on the outer curve.
The locomotive hit the gap. It screamed. Metal tearing metal.
The engine jumped the rails. It plowed into the snow, rolling over like a dying beast.
The cars followed. They buckled, piled up, and burst open.
Tons of golden wheat spilled into the frozen mud.
Then, the secondary charges ignited. Incendiary devices hidden in the ballast.
The wheat caught fire.
Miller watched the bonfire. It was beautiful in a terrible way. He was burning the bread of millions.
"Starve," he whispered.
He rolled away into the forest, vanishing like a ghost.
The Kremlin. Dawn.
Menzhinsky placed the telegram on the desk.
Total loss. Train 404. Ten thousand tons of grain destroyed. Sabotage confirmed.
Jake stared at the paper.
"Hoover," Jake said.
"He is hitting the arteries," Menzhinsky said. "Rail lines. Bridges. Power stations. He knows we are fragile."
"We need that grain," Jake said. "Leningrad is down to two weeks of rations."
"We can't protect every mile of track," Menzhinsky said. "Russia is too big."
Jake stood up. He walked to the map.
He grabbed a red marker. He drew a circle around the crash site.
"If we can't protect the tracks," Jake said, "we make the cost of touching them too high."
"How?"
"Terror," Jake said. "Public executions of saboteurs. And... we retaliate."
"Strike America?" Menzhinsky raised an eyebrow. "That is war."
"Not America," Jake said. "Their money."
He turned to the head spy.
"Hoover cares about one thing. Stability. The stock market. Activate the sleeper cells in New York."
"We have very few left."
"Use them all," Jake ordered. "Target the infrastructure. Wall Street. The subways. If we burn, they burn."
"It will enrage them."
"They are already trying to kill us, Vyacheslav! There is no going back!"
Jake swept the papers off his desk.
"And get me Molotov. I need good news from Turkey."
Ankara, Turkey. The Presidential Palace.
The heat was stifling. Fans spun lazily overhead.
Molotov sat across from Kemal Ataturk. The founder of modern Turkey looked sharp, dangerous, and unimpressed.
"You ask for a lot, Mr. Molotov," Ataturk said. He smoked a cigarette in a long holder.
"We offer a lot," Molotov said. He pushed a blueprint across the table. "The rocket artillery system. The 'Katyusha'. Mobile. Devastating. It turns a grid square into dust in ten seconds."
Ataturk glanced at the paper.
"And in exchange?"
"Food," Molotov said. "Citrus. Wheat. Lamb. And access to the Persian rail corridor to bypass the blockade."
"The Americans have threatened sanctions if we trade with you."
"The Americans are far away," Molotov said calmly. "The Soviet Union is your neighbor. And we have a very large army."
It was a clumsy threat. But Molotov wasn't a diplomat today. He was a grocery shopper with a gun.
Ataturk smiled. He respected strength.
"The British want the designs too," Ataturk said. "They offer gold."
"Gold doesn't explode," Molotov said. "If the Italians invade you again, gold won't stop their tanks. These rockets will."
Ataturk tapped the ash from his cigarette.
"Make it double the shipment of launchers," Ataturk said. "And send the technicians to train us."
"Done."
"And one more thing," Ataturk said. his eyes narrowing. "The rumors of the... biological units. I want the data."
Molotov froze. The Red Pill.
"That program is defunct," Molotov lied.
"I don't care if it works," Ataturk said. "I want the research. Or no deal."
Molotov thought of the starving children in Moscow. He thought of Jake's order: Survival at any cost.
"I will include the files," Molotov whispered.
He had just sold the devil's recipe to the highest bidder.
The Secret City. The Laboratory.
The burnt laptop was gone. The table was empty.
Turing was pacing. He was manic again, fueled by coffee and desperation.
"The math works," Turing muttered. "It has to work."
He was drawing on the wall with charcoal.
Von Braun stood watching him, arms crossed.
"You are wasting time, Alan," the German said. "Stalin wants rockets. Simple ones. Exploding tubes."
"Rockets are boring!" Turing shouted. "Ballistics is just throwing rocks harder! I am talking about intelligence!"
"The machine is dead," Von Braun said. "We cannot build a computer."
"Not a digital one," Turing said. He stopped pacing. He turned to Von Braun, his face smeared with charcoal dust.
"Analog," Turing whispered. "Gears. Vacuum tubes. We build a mechanical brain. A guidance system that doesn't need a microchip."
"It would be the size of a building."
"No," Turing said. "We use the biological component."
Von Braun took a step back.
"What are you talking about?"
Turing pointed to a jar on the shelf. Inside, floating in formaldehyde, was a dog's brain.
"The Red Pill failed to make super-soldiers," Turing said fast, his words tumbling out. "Because the body couldn't handle the stress. But the brain? The brain is a processor."
"You want to put a dog's brain in a missile?" Von Braun looked sick.
"We map the neural pathways," Turing said. "We condition it. Target recognition. Food reward for tracking the heat signature. It's organic computing, Wernher! It's the only way to get precision without the laptop!"
Von Braun looked at the British genius. He realized then that Turing had snapped. The pressure had cracked him wide open.
But Von Braun also remembered the look in Stalin's eyes. Results. Or the Gulag.
"Can you make it interface with the servos?" Von Braun asked quietly.
Turing smiled. It was a terrifying, joyful smile.
"I already have."
He pulled a sheet off a workbench.
On the table was a metal sphere. Wires protruded from it, connecting to a glass tank where living tissue pulsed.
"Meet the Pilot," Turing said.
Von Braun felt a chill that had nothing to do with the Russian winter.
They weren't just building weapons anymore. They were building abominations.
"Does it... think?" Von Braun asked.
"It hungers," Turing said. "And hunger is the best guidance system in the world."
The Kremlin. Night.
Jake stared at the telegram from Molotov.
Deal signed. Food en route. Cost: Tech transfer including biological data.
Jake burned the telegram. He watched the paper curl into black ash.
He had spread the plague. Now Turkey had the Red Pill data. Soon, the world would have it.
The door opened.
Taranov entered. He looked grim.
"The saboteur?" Jake asked.
"We caught him," Taranov said. "Near Irkutsk. He froze to death running away. American. OSS papers."
"Good."
"But he wasn't alone, Boss."
Taranov stepped aside.
Two guards dragged a man into the office. He was Russian. A rail worker. His face was beaten to a pulp.
"He took a bribe to look the other way," Taranov said. "Five hundred dollars. Gold."
Jake looked at the traitor.
"Why?" Jake asked.
The man spat blood on the carpet.
"My children are hungry," the man rasped. "You promised us paradise. You gave us soup made of sawdust."
Jake stood up. He walked around the desk.
He looked into the man's eyes. He saw no fear. Only hate.
This was the danger. Not Hoover. Not Hitler. This man. The man who had stopped believing.
"Give him a loaf of bread," Jake said.
Taranov blinked. "Boss?"
"Give him bread," Jake repeated. "And a coat."
The traitor looked confused.
"Then take him to the wall," Jake said softly. "And shoot him."
The man's eyes went wide.
"Let him die with a full belly," Jake said, turning his back. "So he knows what he threw away."
The guards dragged the screaming man out.
Jake walked to the window. The glass was cold.
He was losing them. The people. The soul of the nation.
He needed a victory. A real one. Not a trade deal. Not a spreadsheet.
He needed to remind the world why they feared the Red Bear.
He picked up the phone.
"Get me the Air Force Commander," Jake said. "And prepare the 'Vengeance' flight."
"Target?" the operator asked.
Jake looked at the map. At the Japanese positions in Mongolia.
"Everything," Jake said. "Burn it all."
He hung up.
If he was going to hell, he wasn't going alone.