Final impact

Laventry Beria examined his penis. It was hard, and the fish-belly-white flab of his expanding gut threatened to engulf it. As often happened after days of nigh-unbearable stress, he found himself all but overcome by an irresistible surge of sexual energy as soon as he was released from the source of the tension.

He had just spoken to Professor Kurchatov again, and been reassured that the weapon would fire as intended. Initial reports from the Ukraine indicated that the nationalist counter-revolutionary forces had been crushed under the advance of Zhukov’s front. That wasn’t the primary intention, of course, just a happy side effect of pouring so many tanks and divisions across the western Ukrainian plains. The new weapons, developed under his supervision using information taken from the Vanguard, were sweeping through the German defenses like a scythe.

All in all, he had done well. Much better than so many others charged with the defense of the Motherland. As he sat alone in his office, the door locked and defended by his bodyguards, colonels Sarkisov and Nadaraia, he rummaged around in his drawer, pushing aside his bloodstained blackjack clubs, numerous pairs of silk stockings, two pairs of panties, and pile of pornographic photographs as he searched for…

Ah, here it was. The love letter from Irina, his current favorite among the stable of female swimmers and basketball players he kept to satisfy his appetites. She was a good writer, with a strong clear hand, and a truly amazing ability to recall their Herculean lovemaking in the most exacting gynecological detail. He had his cock in hand and was about to begin when the phone rang.

It was Stalin. Beria had had a separate phone line put in to ensure that he could identify calls from the supreme leader when they came in. A man could die badly in the USSR simply because he didn’t answer the phone in time. Beria had authorized a number of such executions himself.

He snatched up the receiver, suddenly fearful that Stalin could tell that the hand holding the phone had been wrapped around his engorged member just moments earlier. Keeping all trace of fear from his voice, he answered as briefly as he could. “Yes, this is Beria.”

Half expecting the general secretary to berate him, he was reassured by Stalin’s matter-of-fact tone, until he realized what the madman was asking. “I want the bomb tested under battlefield conditions. I’ve decided it would be a waste of resources to blow it up in Siberia where there are no Germans beyond the gates of our punishment camps. Arrange to drop it on Hitler’s Army Group East. Konev tells me they are trying to organize themselves around Lodz.”

Completely detumescent now, the lovely Irina all but forgotten, Beria felt an instant headache wrap itself around his temporal lobes. It was like being squeezed in the paws of a giant ape. His mouth opened and closed a few times before words finally came out. “But, I cannot. That is, Kurchatov says-”

“Do not tell me what is possible and what is not. You have boasted often enough about the impossible tasks you have achieved on Projects One and Two. Surely building the bomb was the major impossibility. I would have thought dropping it posed no problem at all. It is just a bomb after all, Beria. It is meant to be dropped upon someone, yes? And please do not tell me otherwise, or I shall have you nailed to the thing when it goes off.”

“No-no-no,” he said, vaguely aware that he was close to babbling. “It is not that…” Although in fact he had no idea if the bomb was ready to be used under field conditions. “It is…it is just that…the effects. Yes! The effects are not like a normal bomb. There is the radiation poisoning. If we drop it near our own armies, we will kill them, as well.”

Stalin’s voice came through the earpiece, cold and full of menace. “If you drop a bomb near anyone, Beria, you will kill them. So do not drop it near them. Use it when Zhukov and Konev are still a safe distance away.”

“But the poison remains,” he protested. “Possibly even weeks later, it will not be safe to walk through Lodz.”

“It is not safe to walk through Lodz now. And I did not say to destroy the city. The Germans have built many factories there. I do not want them destroyed. Just emptied for our use, when they have been cleaned of your atomic poisons. Do you understand now, Beria?”

And he did.

“It is a brilliant plan,” he gasped.

“Of course,” Stalin said. “It was mine. I am not a fool, Beria. I understand this new weapon. Talk to Kurchatov and Zhukov. Consult with the meteorology service. And drop the thing when the wind is blowing west. We shall destroy Army Group East and take Lodz without losing a single Red Army private.”

“Indeed we shall, a brilliant, brilliant plan,” he agreed.

“Then make sure it works,” said Stalin.

15

D-DAY + 30. 2 JUNE 1944. 0922 HOURS.

USS HILLARY CLINTON. IN TRANSIT, PACIFIC OCEAN AREA.