Alan Turing didn't sleep.
He sat cross-legged on the floor of the Lubyanka basement, surrounded by coils of wire and humming vacuum tubes. The laptop glowed like a shrine in the center.
"The architecture is redundant," Turing mumbled, chewing on a fingernail. "Why so many cores? It's inefficient."
Kurchatov stood over him, holding a clipboard.
"It works, Englishman. That is enough."
"It's not enough!" Turing snapped. "It's alien. This processor... it uses lithography we can't replicate. If it burns out, we are back to the Stone Age."
He pointed to the screen. A simulation was running. Red and blue shockwaves colliding in a sphere.
The implosion lens for the atomic bomb.
"The math says we need thirty-two detonators," Turing said. "Simultaneous within a microsecond."
"A microsecond?" Kurchatov paled. "We are using chemical fuses. The variance is milliseconds."
"Then it fizzles," Turing said. "No boom. Just a dirty pop."
He tapped the keyboard.
"We need electronic triggers. Thyratrons. High-voltage switches."
"We don't have them," Kurchatov said.
"Then steal them," Turing said, not looking up. "Or build them. The machine showed me how."
He opened a PDF. High_Voltage_Switching_1945.pdf.
Kurchatov stared at the diagram.
"This Stalin..." Kurchatov whispered. "He brought back fire from the gods."
"He brought back a cheat sheet," Turing corrected. "But the gods are dead. It's just us now."
The Kremlin. Jake's Office.
The map of Europe was changing.
Jake stood on a ladder, pinning red flags onto the board.
Germany: Rearming. 500,000 men under arms.
Poland: Fortifying the border.
USA: Manhattan Project initiated.
"The timeline is compressing," Menzhinsky said from the couch. He was cleaning his glasses.
"It's collapsing," Jake said. "Everything is happening at once."
He climbed down.
"We need the electronic triggers," Jake said. "Turing says the bomb is a dud without them."
"We can't steal them," Menzhinsky said. "They don't exist yet. Except in your computer."
Jake rubbed his temples.
"Then we have to make them. Convert the radio factory in Leningrad. Stop making radios. Make switches."
"The people want radios," Menzhinsky noted. "They want to hear the music."
"Let them sing to themselves," Jake snapped.
The phone rang.
Jake picked it up.
"Speak."
"It's Taranov," the voice was distorted by static. "From Berlin."
"Report."
"He's moving," Taranov said. "Hitler. He's mobilizing the SA. Tonight."
"A putsch?"
"No," Taranov said. "A purge. The Night of the Long Knives."
Jake checked the calendar. June 1929.
In real history, the purge happened in 1934. Hitler killed Röhm and the SA leadership to consolidate power.
He was five years early. Again.
"If he purges the SA," Jake muttered, "he takes control of the Army. He becomes absolute dictator."
"Should I intervene?" Taranov asked. "Röhm is at a hotel in Bad Wiessee. I can warn him."
Jake hesitated.
If Röhm survived, the Nazi party might split. A civil war in Germany. It would distract Hitler for years.
But Röhm was a chaotic thug. He wanted a "Second Revolution." He might be worse than Hitler.
"No," Jake said. "Let them eat each other."
"Understood."
"Wait," Jake said. "Is there anyone else on the list? Anyone useful?"
"Strasser," Taranov said. "Gregor Strasser. The socialist wing of the party."
Jake thought about it. Strasser was a rival to Hitler. He believed in the 'Socialist' part of National Socialism. He was anti-capitalist.
He was a potential ally.
"Save Strasser," Jake ordered. "Get him out. Bring him to Moscow."
"A Nazi in the Kremlin?" Taranov asked.
"A rival," Jake corrected. "A pawn."
He hung up.
He looked at Menzhinsky.
"We are building a zoo," Menzhinsky murmured. "Scientists. Spies. Now Nazis."
"Noah's Ark," Jake said. "And the flood is coming."
Bad Wiessee. Bavaria. Midnight.
The Hotel Hanselbauer was quiet. The lake was a black mirror.
Ernst Röhm was asleep in room 7. He didn't hear the trucks pulling up.
But Gregor Strasser, in room 12, heard a pebble hit his window.
He opened it.
A giant hand reached in and grabbed him by the collar.
Taranov hauled the man out of the window like a ragdoll. He dropped him into the bushes.
"Quiet," Taranov hissed in German.
"Who are you?" Strasser gasped, clutching his pajamas.
"Your travel agent," Taranov said.
Inside the hotel, shots rang out. Screams. The SS were going room to room.
"Röhm!" Strasser cried, trying to stand.
Taranov punched him in the gut. Strasser folded.
Taranov threw the Nazi over his shoulder. He ran toward the woods.
Behind them, the hotel lights turned on. Shadows moved across the windows.
The purge had begun.
The Nursery.
Yuri was crying. He had a fever.
Nadya was rocking him. She looked exhausted.
"The doctor says it is just teething," she whispered. "But he is so hot."
Jake touched his son's forehead. It was burning.
"Do we have aspirin?" Jake asked.
"We have willow bark tea," Nadya said. "The pharmacy is empty. All the medicine goes to the army."
Jake felt a spike of guilt.
He controlled the economy of one-sixth of the earth's surface. He could build atomic bombs. But he couldn't get aspirin for his son.
"I will get it," Jake said.
"How?"
"I have a stash," Jake lied. "From the Americans."
He didn't have a stash. But he knew where the Politburo kept their private supplies.
He kissed Nadya's forehead.
"Sleep. I will be back."
He walked out.
He went to the Kremlin pharmacy. It was locked.
He shot the lock off.
The pharmacist, sleeping on a cot inside, jumped up screaming.
"Quiet!" Jake ordered, waving the pistol. "Give me aspirin. And penicillin if you have it."
"Penicillin?" the pharmacist stammered. "What is that?"
Right. Not invented yet.
"Aspirin," Jake said. "And alcohol."
The man handed him a bottle.
Jake grabbed it. He ran back.
He felt pathetic. The Man of Steel, looting his own pharmacy for a bottle of pills.
But as he crushed the tablet into a spoon of jam and fed it to Yuri, watching the boy's cries subside, he felt a victory greater than any battle.
"He is sleeping," Nadya whispered.
"Good."
Jake sat on the floor. He leaned his head against the crib.
"We need penicillin," Jake muttered. "We need antibiotics."
"Can you build those too?" Nadya asked.
"I know the mold," Jake said. "Penicillium notatum. It grows on bread."
He stood up.
"I need to call the biologists."
"Now?" Nadya asked. "At 4 AM?"
"Infection kills more soldiers than bullets," Jake said. "If I can make penicillin, I save millions."
And Yuri. Mostly Yuri.
The next morning. The Map Room.
Strasser sat in a chair, still wearing his torn pajamas. He looked terrified.
Jake walked in. He tossed a newspaper onto the lap of the Nazi.
Völkischer Beobachter: RÖHM EXECUTED FOR TREASON. STRASSER MISSING PRESUMED DEAD.
"You are a ghost, Gregor," Jake said.
Strasser looked at the paper. His hands shook.
"Why?" Strasser asked. "Why save me? I hate you. You are a Bolshevik."
"And you are a corpse," Jake said. "Unless you work for me."
"Work how?"
"Hitler has consolidated power," Jake said. "He is the Führer now. But he has enemies in the party. Men who believe in the 'Socialist' part of your platform."
Jake leaned in.
"I want you to talk to them. From here. On the radio."
"Propaganda?"
"Truth," Jake said. "Tell them Hitler betrayed the revolution. Tell them he is a puppet of the capitalists. Split the party."
Strasser stared at Jake.
"You want a civil war in Germany."
"I want chaos," Jake admitted. "Chaos buys me time."
Strasser looked at the photo of Röhm. His friend. Murdered by Hitler.
Hate flared in his eyes.
"I will do it," Strasser whispered. "I will burn him down."
"Good."
Jake turned to Menzhinsky.
"Set up the transmitter. 'Radio Freedom'. Broadcast it on the Nazi frequencies."
Menzhinsky nodded. "The wolf is in the henhouse."
The Secret City.
Turing was asleep on the keyboard. A line of 'zzzzzzzz' filled the screen.
Kurchatov shook him awake.
"The switches," Kurchatov said. "They are ready."
Turing blinked, wiping drool from his chin.
"Show me."
Kurchatov held up a tray. It contained twelve glass tubes. Inside, complex filaments glowed faintly.
"Thyratrons," Turing said, touching one. "Crude. But... functional."
"We tested them," Kurchatov said. "Switching time: 0.5 microseconds."
Turing smiled. It was a radiant, boyish smile.
"That's it," Turing said. "That's the bang."
He turned to the laptop.
"Now we need the sequence."
He typed a command. The simulation ran.
Green. Green. Green.
"The math works," Turing announced.
He looked at Kurchatov.
"You can build the bomb now."
Kurchatov looked at the glass tubes. He looked at the laptop.
"God have mercy on us," the Russian whispered.
"God is math," Turing said. "And the math says boom."
Washington D.C. The FBI Headquarters.
Hoover stared at the photo on his desk.
It was blurry. Taken by a spy camera in Moscow.
It showed a man entering the Kremlin. A man in pajamas.
"Gregor Strasser," Hoover said. "The Nazi Number Two."
"He's supposed to be dead," an agent said.
"He's defecting," Hoover realized. "Stalin is collecting them. Nazis. Scientists. Mathematicians."
He slammed his fist on the desk.
"He is building a brain trust. A super-state."
He picked up the phone.
"Get me Oppenheimer. Tell him I want the bomb tested by Christmas. I don't care if he has to blow up Nevada to do it."
"And the Russians?"
"Send in the saboteurs," Hoover ordered. "Target the rail lines. Target the food supply. If we can't outsmart them, we will starve them."
He looked at the map of the USSR.
"Winter is coming, Joseph," Hoover whispered. "Let's see if you can eat radiation."