The road to Tula was a graveyard of ambition.
Jake's car crawled through the slush. The wheels spun in mud mixed with blood. On either side of the road, the wreckage of the Red Army lay scattered.
Abandoned cannons. Overturned trucks. Dead horses stiffening in the frost.
And the men. Thousands of them. They weren't marching; they were trudging. Heads down, rifles dragging, eyes empty. They were a defeated mob moving away from the gunfire.
"Stop the car," Jake ordered.
Taranov slammed the brakes. The heavy Packard skidded to a halt.
Jake stepped out into the biting wind. He wore his greatcoat, but no rank insignia. Just the simple grey tunic underneath.
He stood in the middle of the road.
A group of soldiers stumbled toward him. Their uniforms were torn. One man was missing a boot, his foot wrapped in bloody rags. An officer, a Lieutenant, led them.
"Get out of the way, old man," the Lieutenant shouted, waving a pistol. "The Whites are five miles back! Their cavalry is cutting everyone down!"
Jake didn't move. He lit a cigarette.
"Where are you going, Lieutenant?" Jake asked calmly.
"Moscow!" the man screamed. "The line is broken! Every man for himself!"
Jake nodded. He took a drag of the cigarette.
"Taranov," Jake said.
The giant stepped out of the car. He held a submachine gun.
The Lieutenant froze. He saw the cold eyes of the bodyguard. Then he looked at Jake. He saw the mustache. The pockmarks. The face from the posters.
"Comrade... Stalin?" the Lieutenant whispered.
"You are going the wrong way," Jake said.
He pulled his Mauser.
Bang.
The Lieutenant's face disintegrated. He fell backward into the mud.
The soldiers behind him screamed. They scrambled back, raising their hands.
"Turn around," Jake said. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the wind. "Pick up your officer. Carry him back to the line. Tell the others he died facing the enemy."
The soldiers stared at the dead body. Then they stared at the smoking gun in Jake's hand.
They realized a terrifying truth. The enemy might kill them. But Stalin would kill them.
They picked up the corpse. They turned around. They started walking back toward the sound of the artillery.
Jake got back in the car.
"Drive," he said. "We have a lot of morale to restore."
Tula Command Post.
The bunker smelled of unwashed bodies and fear.
General Volsky stood over the map table. He was shaking. A bottle of vodka stood open next to the telegraph machine.
"We must evacuate the city," Volsky was shouting into a telephone. "We cannot hold the bridge! They have tanks! British tanks!"
The door was kicked open.
Jake walked in. He brought the chill of the grave with him.
The staff officers froze. Volsky dropped the phone. It dangled by its cord, swinging back and forth.
"Comrade Stalin," Volsky stammered. "We... we didn't know you were coming."
Jake walked to the table. He looked at the map. The red lines were retreating everywhere.
"You want to evacuate?" Jake asked softly.
"It is a tactical withdrawal!" Volsky pleaded. "We need to regroup behind the Oka River. We can save the artillery—"
"You can save your skin," Jake corrected.
He picked up the vodka bottle. He poured the contents onto the map. The alcohol soaked into the paper, blurring the lines of retreat.
He struck a match and dropped it.
Whoosh.
The map burst into flames. The officers jumped back.
"There is no retreat," Jake said, watching the fire. "There is no behind the river. There is only Tula. Or death."
He looked at Taranov.
"Arrest General Volsky," Jake ordered. "Shoot him in the courtyard. In front of the staff."
"No!" Volsky screamed, falling to his knees. "I am a hero of the Civil War! I fought in 1917!"
Taranov grabbed him by the collar. He dragged him out like a sack of potatoes. Volsky's screams echoed down the concrete corridor until a single gunshot silenced them.
Jake looked at the remaining officers. They were pale, terrified ghosts.
"Who is the next senior officer?" Jake asked.
A young Colonel stepped forward. He was trembling, but he stood straight.
"Colonel Zhukov, Comrade."
Jake looked at him. The name sparked a memory from his history books. Georgy Zhukov. The man who would one day capture Berlin. But right now, he was just a terrified kid in a muddy bunker.
"Congratulations, General Zhukov," Jake said. "You are in command."
He pointed to the burning map.
"Here are your orders," Jake said. "Order 227. Not One Step Back."
"How do we enforce it?" Zhukov asked. " The men are broken."
"I brought three regiments of NKVD troops," Jake said. "Place them five hundred yards behind the main trench line."
He looked Zhukov in the eye.
"Give them Maxim guns. If a single Red soldier retreats past the second line... they are to open fire."
Zhukov swallowed hard. "We shoot our own men?"
"We give them clarity," Jake said. "Death is certain in the rear. Survival is possible at the front. It is simple math."
The Front Line. One Hour Later.
The snow was grey with ash.
Private Ivan huddled in the frozen mud of the trench. His hands were numb. His rifle was jammed with dirt.
"They're coming!" the lookout screamed.
Ivan peeked over the parapet.
It was a nightmare. Across the white field, the White Army advanced. British Mark V tanks lumbered forward, crushing the barbed wire. Behind them, Cossack cavalry trotted with sabers drawn.
They looked invincible. They looked like death.
"Run!" the Sergeant yelled. "Fall back to the woods!"
Panic broke like a dam. The regiment didn't fight. They threw down their weapons. They climbed out of the trenches and ran.
They ran away from the tanks. They ran toward safety. toward the rear.
Ivan ran too. He panted, his lungs burning. He just wanted to go home. He just wanted to see his mother.
He ran past the second trench line.
He saw the NKVD troops waiting there. They wore blue caps. They stood behind sandbags.
Ivan waved his arms. "Don't shoot! We are retreating! The tanks—"
The officer in the blue cap lowered his sword.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat.
The Maxim guns opened up.
It wasn't the Whites shooting. It was the Reds.
The front row of retreating soldiers was cut down instantly. Ivan saw his Sergeant's head explode. He saw his friend Sasha spun around by three bullets to the chest.
The retreating wave stopped. They were trapped.
Behind them, the tanks were coming. Ahead of them, their own countrymen were slaughtering them.
"Go back!" the NKVD officer roared through a megaphone. "For the Motherland! For Stalin! Not one step back!"
Ivan fell to his knees in the snow. He looked at the wall of lead in front of him. He looked at the monsters behind him.
He realized he was dead either way.
But if he ran forward... maybe he could take one of them with him.
A scream started in his throat. It wasn't bravery. It was pure, animal madness.
He grabbed his rifle. He turned around.
"YAAAAAH!"
The other survivors turned too. They were cornered rats. And cornered rats fight with demoniac fury.
The wave of men surged back toward the White lines. They didn't take cover. They didn't use tactics. They just ran at the tanks, screaming, throwing grenades, climbing onto the steel tracks.
The Observation Post.
Jake watched through binoculars.
He saw the slaughter. He saw his own machine guns mowing down the cowards. He saw the survivors turn and throw themselves at the enemy like a human tsunami.
It was horrific. It was inhuman.
It was working.
The White advance stalled. The Cossacks, expecting a rout, were suddenly faced with men who fought like zombies. A soldier with no legs was dragging himself under a tank with a bundle of dynamite. Another was stabbing a horse with a sharpened shovel.
The sheer ferocity broke the White momentum. The tanks stopped. The cavalry wavered.
"They are turning," Zhukov whispered, standing next to Jake. "The Whites are pulling back."
Jake lowered the binoculars.
He watched the grey shapes of the tanks reversing.
He looked down at the field between the trenches. It was carpeted with bodies. Russian bodies. Killed by Russian guns.
"It cost us two thousand men," Zhukov said, his voice shaking.
"It bought us a day," Jake said.
He turned away from the slit. He poured a cup of tea from a thermos.
"Reinforce the blocking detachments," Jake ordered. "Double the ammunition. Tomorrow, Mamontov will try again."
"And if the men mutiny?"
Jake sipped the tea.
"They won't," Jake said. "They fear me more than they hate me."
White Army HQ. Five Miles South.
General Mamontov threw his gloves onto the table.
"They are insane!" he shouted. "We had them! They were running! And then... they turned around and ran into our machine guns!"
His British advisor, Colonel Knox, looked pale.
"I saw them climbing on the tanks," Knox said. "With bare hands. I've never seen morale like that. It's fanaticism."
"It's not morale," Mamontov hissed. "I saw the flashes in their rear. They were shooting their own men."
He walked to the window. He looked toward Tula. The city was burning, a beacon in the night.
He had thought he was fighting a disorganized rabble. He thought the Bolsheviks were weak, commanded by squabbling politicians.
But today, he had felt something different. A cold, hard will that didn't care about human life.
"Who is in command there?" Mamontov asked. "Trotsky is in Moscow. Frunze is an idiot."
An intelligence officer cleared his throat.
"We intercepted a radio signal, General. From the city."
"Well?"
"It wasn't a military code," the officer said. "It was signed... Stalin."
Mamontov froze.
"The Secretary?" Mamontov asked. "The clerk?"
"The rumors say he has taken power," the officer said. "They call him the Man of Steel."
Mamontov looked at the burning horizon. He felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.
"He is willing to kill half his army to destroy mine," Mamontov whispered.
He turned to his staff.
"Dig in," Mamontov ordered. "We cannot attack that madness head-on. We wait for supplies."
It was a mistake.
Jake Vance knew his history. He knew that in Russia, he who waits, freezes.
But Mamontov didn't know he was fighting a man from the future. A man who had already read his obituary.
Tula. Midnight.
Jake sat alone in the bunker.
The sounds of the dying wounded filtered through the concrete walls.
He looked at his hands. They were clean. Not a speck of blood.
But he could feel it. The sticky, warm sensation.
He had ordered the execution of his own soldiers. He had murdered hope to save the city.
He opened his notebook. He wrote a single line.
Victory is not a matter of who is right. It is a matter of who is left.
He closed the book.
He missed Kato. She would have understood. She would have told him it was necessary.
Now, he had to tell himself.
And the scary part was... he was starting to believe it.