New York City. Wall Street.
The ticker tape machine spat out paper like a dying tongue.
Standard Oil (NJ): $12.50... $10.00... $4.00.
Traders were screaming. It wasn't the roar of commerce. It was the shriek of a slaughterhouse.
Men in expensive suits clawed at their collars, staring at the chalkboard. The numbers were being erased faster than they could be written.
In a corner office, a banker opened a window. The cold February wind rushed in.
He stepped onto the ledge.
He didn't look down. He looked East, toward the Atlantic. Toward the invisible enemy that had flooded the market with oil cheaper than water.
He stepped off.
The Kremlin. The Map Room.
Jake listened to the report on the shortwave radio. The BBC announcer's voice was trembling.
"...markets in London, Paris, and New York have suspended trading. The pound sterling has collapsed. Bread lines are forming in Berlin."
Jake turned off the radio.
The silence in the room was heavy.
"It worked," The Finn whispered. He looked pale. "We broke the bank."
"We broke the world," Jake corrected.
He walked to the map. He picked up a black marker.
He drew a circle around London. Then New York.
"They wanted to starve us with a blockade," Jake said quietly. "Now they know what hunger tastes like."
Menzhinsky sat in the corner, sharpening his pencil.
"Hunger makes men dangerous, Koba," the spy chief said. "A fat enemy is lazy. A starving enemy is desperate."
"I count on it," Jake said. "Desperate men make mistakes."
He looked at his hands. They weren't shaking anymore.
He had caused more destruction with a single pricing order than the Red Army had caused in five years of war.
It was efficient. It was monstrous.
"What is the domestic cost?" Jake asked.
"Our revenue is down 80%," The Finn said, reading from a ledger. "We are selling the oil at a loss. We cannot pay the miners in the Donbas."
"Pay them in vodka," Jake ordered. "Pay them in promises. Just keep the coal moving to the power plants."
"They will riot," The Finn warned.
"Then let Taranov handle it," Jake said. His voice was ice.
He didn't enjoy the cruelty. But the math was simple.
If he didn't crash the West now, they would rebuild. They would rearm. And in ten years, they would burn Moscow.
He was trading a riot today to prevent an apocalypse tomorrow.
The apartment smelled of boiled cabbage.
Nadya was sitting at the table. She wasn't eating.
Jake walked in. He tried to kiss her cheek. She pulled away.
"The heater is cold," she said.
"We are diverting coal to the factories," Jake said.
"The factories making the tanks?" Nadya asked. "Or the factories making the rockets?"
"Both," Jake said.
He sat down. He poured himself a glass of water. It was cloudy.
"I heard the news," Nadya said softly. "About America. About the suicides."
Jake gripped the glass.
"It is a war, Nadya. Just because there are no bullets doesn't mean people don't die."
"You are enjoying it," she whispered.
Jake looked at her.
"No," he said. "I hate it. I hate every second of it."
He reached across the table. He took her hand. Her fingers were cold.
"But I remember what happens if I don't do this," Jake said. "I remember the camps. I remember the gas."
"You remember a future that hasn't happened!" Nadya cried. "You are punishing the world for crimes it hasn't committed yet!"
She pulled her hand away. She stood up, cradling her stomach.
"Our son," she said, her voice shaking. "Will he be a soldier too? Will you use him to fight a ghost?"
"He will be safe," Jake said. "That is all that matters."
"Safe is not enough," Nadya said. "He needs to be good."
She walked into the bedroom and closed the door.
Jake sat alone in the cold kitchen.
He looked at the cloudy water.
He was saving the world. But he was losing the only person who lived in it.
The phone rang at 3:00 AM.
Jake snatched it up before the second ring. He didn't sleep much these days.
"Speak."
"It's Brusilov," the General's voice rasped. "We have a situation in the south."
"A riot?" Jake asked, rubbing his eyes.
"No," Brusilov said. "An attack."
Jake sat up straight. The bedsprings creaked.
"Where?"
"Baku," Brusilov said. "The oil fields."
Jake's heart hammered. Baku was the artery. It was the source of the cheap oil flooding the world.
"Who attacked?" Jake asked. "The British?"
"Saboteurs," Brusilov said. "Highly trained. They bypassed the guards. They planted charges on the main pipelines."
"Damage?"
"Massive," Brusilov said gravely. "Fields 4, 5, and 6 are burning. The sky is black. We have lost 40% of our production capacity."
Jake closed his eyes.
Menzhinsky was right. The starving enemy had lashed out.
The British Intelligence Service—MI6. They hadn't declared war. They had just cut the jugular.
"Put the fires out," Jake ordered.
"We are trying," Brusilov said. "But oil fires are hard to kill."
"I don't care!" Jake shouted. "Use dynamite to snuff the oxygen! Use the bodies of the saboteurs! Just put it out!"
He slammed the phone down.
He stood up and paced the small room.
He had punched the West in the jaw. The West had pulled a knife.
This was it. The escalation point.
In real history, the West ignored the USSR in the 20s. Now, they were actively engaging.
Jake went to his safe. He pulled out the map of the Caucasus.
If Baku burned, the economy collapsed. The T-34s would run out of fuel. The rockets would be useless lawn ornaments.
"They want to play with fire," Jake whispered.
He grabbed his coat.
He needed Menzhinsky. He needed a response that wasn't economic.
The courtyard of the Lubyanka.
Snow mixed with soot falling from the sky.
Menzhinsky was waiting by the car. He already knew. He always knew.
"MI6," Menzhinsky said simply. "Agent Riley's network."
"Kill them all," Jake said. "Every British agent in Russia. I want their heads on pikes."
"That is a given," Menzhinsky said. "But it won't put out the fires in Baku."
He opened the car door for Jake.
"And it won't stop them from trying again. They are desperate, Koba. You threatened their wallet. Now they threaten your lifeblood."
Jake got in the car.
"Then we escalate," Jake said.
"How?"
"If they burn our oil," Jake said, his eyes hard as diamonds, "we burn their empire."
Menzhinsky paused. "India?"
"India," Jake confirmed. "Send the gold we have left to the Indian National Congress. Buy guns for the rebels. Incite a mutiny."
Menzhinsky smiled. He opened his notebook.
"The British Empire is fragile," the spy noted. "A little push..."
"Not a push," Jake said. "A shove."
The car pulled away.
Jake looked out at the sleeping city.
He had started an economic war. Now he was starting a colonial proxy war.
He was tearing up the 20th century by the roots.
Far away, in the Ural Mountains.
Igor Kurchatov stood before the graphite pile.
The geiger counter was screaming. Click-click-click-click.
The pile was hot. Dangerously hot.
But in the center, in a lead-lined chamber, a small pellet of metal had formed.
It was warm to the touch. It glowed with a faint, blue light.
Plutonium.
Kurchatov picked it up with long tongs. He placed it in a heavy steel box.
He picked up the phone on the wall.
"Kremlin," he said. "Priority One."
A moment later, Jake's voice came on the line.
"Yes?"
"Comrade Stalin," Kurchatov said. His voice shook with exhaustion and awe. "We have the seed."
"Is it pure?" Jake asked.
"It is weapons grade," Kurchatov confirmed.
Silence on the line.
"How long until we have enough for a core?" Jake asked.
"At this rate? Three months."
Jake let out a long breath.
Three months.
Baku was burning. The West was attacking. The economy was crashing.
But in three months, he would have the ultimate trump card.
"Keep the pile running, Igor," Jake said. "Even if the sky falls."
Kurchatov hung up.
He looked at the steel box.
He felt like Pandora. He had just opened the lid.
And he knew, with a terrible certainty, that hope wasn't the only thing inside.