The headache started at exactly 9:00 AM Berlin time.
Greta Weiss, a maid in the Reich Chancellery, dropped her feather duster. She clutched her temples. It felt like a nail being driven into her skull.
She wasn't just a maid. She was Sleeper Unit 101.
Five years ago, she had been a communist sympathizer in Munich. The NKVD had found her, drugged her, and implanted the suggestion.
Then they had given her the "vitamin shot." A dormant strain of the Red Pill virus.
Now, the radio signal from the Soviet Embassy hidden transmitter had woken it up.
Her blood began to boil. Her pupils dilated until her eyes were black pools. The pain vanished, replaced by a cold, mechanical hum.
Target: The Wolf.
Greta stood up. Her muscles bulged under her grey uniform, tearing the seams. She picked up the heavy silver candlestick from the hallway table.
It weighed five pounds. In her hand, it felt like paper.
She walked toward the dining hall. She didn't walk like a maid anymore. She stalked like a tiger.
Washington D.C. The Department of Justice.
Arthur Miller was sorting mail. He was a quiet man. Fifty years old. Invisible.
He heard the hum in his hearing aid. A specific frequency broadcast from a fishing trawler off the coast.
He stopped moving. His heart rate spiked to 180 beats per minute.
The dormant chemicals in his bloodstream ignited. His liver flooded his system with adrenaline and painkillers.
Arthur didn't scream. He simply crushed the wooden sorting crate in his hands. Splinters flew.
Target: The Director.
He reached into his mailbag. He pulled out a letter opener. It was dull steel, six inches long.
He walked out of the mailroom. A guard stepped in his way.
"Hey, Artie, you okay? You look pale."
Arthur grabbed the guard by the throat. With a wet crunch, he crushed the man's windpipe.
He dropped the body and stepped over it.
He headed for the elevator. The Director was on the top floor.
The Kremlin. Jake's Office.
Jake sat on the floor. He was building a house of cards.
His hands were surprisingly steady. The Pervitin had locked his nervous system into a state of hyper-focus.
"It's happening," Jake whispered.
Taranov stood by the window, watching the snow fall. He looked sick.
"Assassination is a coward's weapon, Boss."
"It's a surgical tool," Jake corrected. He placed a King of Spades on the top of the tower. "If the head dies, the body stops fighting."
"Or the body goes crazy."
"They are already crazy, Taranov. Hitler is gassing trenches. Hoover is starving children. I am just putting Rabid dogs down."
Jake looked at the clock.
"Any minute now."
He felt a vibration in the floor. Not a bomb. Just the hum of the Kremlin.
Or maybe it was the scratching again.
Scratch. Scratch.
He ignored it. He focused on the cards.
Berlin. The Dining Hall.
Adolf Hitler was eating vegetable soup. He was complaining about the gas flatulence caused by his vegetarian diet.
Himmler and Goering sat silently, enduring the monologue.
The doors burst open.
The SS guards outside didn't shout. They were already dead, their necks snapped.
Greta Weiss stormed in. Her face was purple with veinous pressure. Foam dripped from her mouth.
"The Wolf!" she shrieked. It wasn't a human voice. It was a distorted, guttural roar.
She threw the candlestick.
It flew across the room like a cannonball.
Hitler ducked instinctively. The silver bludgeon smashed into the wall behind him, shattering the plaster.
"Kill her!" Himmler screamed, fumbling for his pistol.
Greta vaulted over the long table. She didn't care about the china or the crystal. She crushed it under her boots.
An SS officer tackled her. She grabbed his arm and ripped it out of the socket.
The sound of tearing gristle silenced the room.
She flung the officer into Goering, knocking the heavy Reichsmarschall backward in his chair.
She was three meters from Hitler.
Hitler scrambled back, falling over his chair. He was terrified. This wasn't a woman. It was a biological demon.
Greta lunged.
Bang.
A single shot rang out.
Fegelein, Hitler's brother-in-law, had fired his Walther PPK.
The bullet hit Greta in the forehead.
She didn't stop. Her brain wasn't processing trauma. The Red Pill overrode the shock.
She reached Hitler. Her hands clawed at his throat.
Hitler screamed like a child.
Then, the second shot. And the third. And the fourth.
Every officer in the room was firing.
Greta's body jerked. Her chest was turned to hamburger meat.
Finally, the hydraulic pressure in her blood failed. She collapsed on top of the Führer.
Blood, black and oily, soaked Hitler's grey tunic.
Hitler pushed the corpse off him. He crawled away, hyperventilating.
He looked at the maid's face. Her eyes were still open. Still staring with hate.
"Burn it!" Hitler shrieked. "Burn it! Burn everything!"
Washington D.C. The Director's Office.
J. Edgar Hoover heard the screams from the outer office.
He didn't hesitate. He knew the Russians were coming.
He opened his desk drawer. He pulled out a Thompson submachine gun. He kept it loaded.
The heavy oak doors splintered.
Arthur Miller didn't open them. He ran through them.
He was bleeding from a dozen wounds. The agents in the hall had emptied their revolvers into him.
He didn't care.
"Director," Arthur rasped. He raised the letter opener.
Hoover leveled the Tommy gun.
"Die, you commie bastard."
He held the trigger down.
The .45 caliber rounds hit Arthur in the chest. They pushed him back. The impact was like a jackhammer.
Arthur stumbled. Chunks of his suit and flesh flew into the air.
But he didn't fall. He leaned into the hail of bullets, taking steps forward. One. Two.
The gun clicked empty.
Arthur was two feet away. His chest was a ruin. His heart was visible, shredded.
He raised the knife.
Hoover swung the empty gun like a club. He smashed Arthur in the face.
The Sleeper's jaw broke. But the hand came down.
The letter opener slashed Hoover's arm. Deep. Arterial spray painted the desk.
Hoover screamed and kicked Arthur in the knee. The joint snapped backward.
Arthur fell. Finally, the physics caught up with the biology.
He lay on the rug, twitching. His blood was boiling hot, steaming in the cool air.
Hoover clutched his bleeding arm. He kicked the dying man in the head. Again. And again.
"You can't kill me!" Hoover yelled. "I am America!"
Arthur's eyes met his.
"We... are... legion," the Sleeper whispered.
Then he died.
Hoover fell into his chair. He pressed a handkerchief to his wound.
He looked at the carnage.
Stalin hadn't sent a soldier. He had turned a mailman into a terminator.
Hoover reached for the phone with a bloody hand.
"Get me the President," Hoover gasped. "It's time for the Trinity."
The Kremlin. Sunset.
The red phone rang.
Jake knocked the house of cards over as he grabbed it.
"Report."
Menzhinsky's voice was heavy. Like a funeral bell.
"Berlin: Failed. The subject was terminated. Hitler survives. He is... unharmed physically. Mentally, he is catatonic with rage."
Jake closed his eyes.
"And Washington?"
"Failed. Hoover is wounded but alive. The Sleeper killed four agents before expiring."
Jake dropped the receiver. It dangled by the cord, swinging back and forth.
He had missed.
He had taken the shot, violated every law of nature and nations, and he had missed.
"They will be coming for us now," Taranov said quietly. "All of them."
"They were already coming," Jake said.
He stood up. The Pervitin was wearing off fast now. The exhaustion hit him like a physical blow.
"We need the Dome," Jake said. "We need the interceptors."
"Turing is ready," Menzhinsky said. "But the pilots... they are children, Comrade. From the Leningrad harvest."
"I don't care if they are infants!" Jake shouted. "Put them in the planes! Put them in the helmets!"
He walked to the map.
He grabbed the red marker. He drew a circle around Moscow.
"Fortress Moscow," Jake said. "Nothing comes in. Nothing goes out."
He looked at Taranov.
"Bring Yuri to the bunker. The deep one."
"Boss, he needs sunlight. The doctors say..."
"The sun is gone!" Jake roared. "The sun is radioactive! Get him underground!"
Taranov nodded and ran out.
Jake was alone.
The scratching started again.
Scratch. Scratch.
It was coming from behind the Lenin portrait.
Jake walked over. He ripped the painting off the wall.
There was nothing there. Just plaster.
He punched the wall. His knuckles split.
"Where are you?" he sobbed. "Why won't you let me go?"
A draft of cold air hit his face.
He looked closer. There was a hairline crack in the plaster. A tiny fissure.
And from the fissure, a smell.
Not soot. Not death.
Lavender.
Nadya's perfume.
Jake slid down the wall. He curled into a ball.
She was alive. She was in the walls of the Kremlin. She was watching him turn into a monster.
"I tried," Jake whispered to the crack. "I tried to kill the bad men."
But he knew the truth.
He hadn't killed the bad men. He had just become the worst one of them all.
Outside, the air raid sirens began to wail.
But this time, it wasn't a drill.
The retaliation had begun.