Christopher Nuttall - The Long Hard Road

It can’t end like this , he thought madly, searching for the guns he’d placed in the room as a final defence. It can’t… I won’t let it end this way. I won’t!

Corporal Tom Williams recoiled slightly as the helicopter landed sharply, but there was no time for panic or shock. The SBS went through pretty much the same training as the SAS, but the SAS always looked down on their naval counterparts. Except, of course, when they need us , Williams thought wryly.

“Move, move,” the Captain shouted. Williams dumped his pack – it wouldn’t be needed – and ran towards the entrance of the burning camp. Germans tried to fight and the mixed force cut them down, moving in precise formation through their fumbling attempts to defend themselves.

“Shock and awe,” he shouted, and the shout was taken up by the other soldiers, lashing into the German position and fighting the Waffen-SS directly. The helicopters buzzed overhead, firing into German positions indiscriminately, explosions blasted out across the camp. A hail of fire shot past him and Williams dived for cover, before tossing a hand grenade over the German position.

“That building,” an SAS captain shouted, and led the charge towards the hardened building. He tossed a stun grenade in and followed it, Williams followed him. A bullet struck him in the centre of his body armour, knocking him back, and he fired once at the figure hiding behind the big desk.

“You go left, I’ll go right,” he muttered, realising who the figure had to be. Hiding behind the desk, Himmler would have been sheltered from the blast of the grenade. “Now…”

Himmler fired at the SAS officer, heedless of Williams’ presence. Williams jumped on the former Fuhrer , slamming him to the ground and banging his head against the floor. Himmler’s glasses fell off and shattered; he tried to struggle, but it was futile. Williams searched him roughly before cuffing his hands and dragging him to his feet.

“I’ll give you money and wealth,” Himmler stammered. Williams was unimpressed; the leader of Death to America had put up a better fight than that. That Jihadi had killed five Americans and four British before being brought down.

“Fuck you,” Williams said harshly, as the SAS officer staggered to his feet. “You are going to face a trial for what you have done, and then you will be hung and…”

Himmler reeled against him. “No,” he said. “No…”

Williams dragged him out into the battleground. The Germans were surrendering, the handful that had survived. The battle was nearly over and the helicopters were landing, coming to recover them before Stalin could act to save Himmler’s life.

“Say goodbye, Fuhrer ,” Williams sneered. “It’s the last time you’ll ever see German territory again.”

Moscow

Russia

5 thJuly 1942

Molotov sighed grimly as he considered the situation. Rumours of the destruction of Stalingrad had been denied by Radio Moscow; an unusual step that had convinced the population that the rumours were in fact true. Stalin had acted quickly, but not quickly enough; the NKVD units that had attempted to seal the ruins of the city had been torn apart by desertions and internal dissent. Everyone of them knew about radiation; they didn’t want to be near any possible source of the deadly poison.

Molotov scowled. The war was lost; everyone knew that. The Red Army was collapsing; the Ukraine and Belarus were in open revolt… even the Finns were scoring successes against the occupation force. To add insult to injury, Vladivostok had surrendered when General Iosif Apanasenko had realised that Americans possessed atomic bombs. Rumour had it that certain members of the city’s population had petitioned for recognition as an independent state, rather than joining Trotsky’s promise of a democratic Russian federation.

He shook his head. With the collapse of the western front, it wouldn’t be long before Moscow itself was besieged by American or British forces, which were already skirting the radioactive regions of Poland and punching into Belarus. Their aircraft ranged further and further east, and as for whatever they’d done to the factories…

His radio, the little device that Trotsky had given him, buzzed. “It’s time,” Trotsky said. Molotov nodded to himself; he’d embraced the risk when Trotsky had contacted him, and re-embraced it when he hadn’t reported the entire incident to Stalin. “Are you ready?”

Molotov nodded. The little device that Trotsky had given him was still on his person, a neat little assassination tool that would pass unnoticed by the NKVD. “Yes, Comrade,” he said, and savoured the irony. Perhaps Trotsky would have his chance to build a democratic – capitalist – Russia, perhaps not. If Molotov had a high position, perhaps some elements would survive.

“Then move now,” Trotsky said. “Your time for getting through the streets is running out.”

“Understood,” Molotov said. He gulped; even now, defying Stalin seemed dangerous. Day by day, the regions that Stalin controlled were shrinking, or held down by thousands of NKVD soldiers under constant attack. Productivity was down to almost nothing; sooner or later they would run out of bullets. “I’ll call my driver at once.”

Hiding the radio – it was disguised as a simple pen, one that was – naturally – inferior to a capitalist product – Molotov called for his driver. He was supposed to be on station at all times, but with all the unrest… it would not have surprised Molotov if his driver had deserted. A lot of the lower-ranking Communist Party officials were lying low, hoping that they would be ignored in the chaos.

“Yes, sir,” the driver said, appearing from the room. “What is your command, sir?”

Molotov smiled to himself. The driver was either loyal, or an NKVD plant. Either way, it didn’t matter at the moment. “Drive me to the Kremlin, at once,” he said. “I must see the Great Stalin at once.”

Trotsky had been a genuine military commander. Unlike Molotov, he had been very involved in plotting the coup that had placed what would become the Communist Party in power, and he had commanded the force that had fought the Soviet-Polish War of 1919-21. Planning a coup was simple; you just had to decapitate the opposing regime and any possible successors.

Natasha Yar blinked at him as he finished talking to Molotov. He nodded to himself; recruiting Molotov had been a stroke of genius, he was certain. The last thing Russia needed was a situation when the coup was carried out with British and American tanks closing in on Moscow. That… would give the Allies too much control over Russia, too much influence over the population.

“Are you certain that this will work?” She snapped. Trotsky, who’d seen her break the neck of an NKVD officer, knew better than to believe that she was the simple babushka she appeared. Her thick robes concealed body armour and enough weapons to hold off an entire NKVD force.

“Fairly certain,” Trotsky said. There were only four main combat squadrons under their command, Russian émigrés from the first revolution and their children, trained very quickly by the British and led by a handful of SAS officers. That… limited the amount that they could do very quickly, even though there were only three main targets in Moscow; the Kremlin and Red Square, Radio Moscow’s big transmitters and the new NKVD barracks, built outside the city. “Have you given the orders?”

“Yes, I have,” Natasha said. “Irina and Sergi are on their way.”