Fear was giving his argument some impetus now. He had managed to stop gulping and stammering, and a sense of genuine indignation animated his speech.

“But we can still use our brains. Look at the Berlin raid. Three warheads used on one target, completely annihilating it. They would not have been so wasteful if they had no other weapons. And this demand of Roosevelt’s, that the Japanese surrender and submit to immediate occupation or face the systematic destruction of their cities. It is meant for us as much as them. But it cannot be a bluff because if a day passes and they cannot deliver on the ultimatum, we will know them to be lying. No. I suspect they have enough bombs to destroy at least three or four major Japanese cities, with still enough in reserve to employ on the battlefield against us if they have to.”

Timoshenko nodded his shaven head, lending Beria some unexpected support. “That is logical, Comrade General Secretary. The three bombs that hit Berlin convince me. It would be madness to have wasted them so if they did not have more. Yes, it sends a message to us. But I cannot see it as a bluff.”

Stalin appeared to hang on the edge of a precipice. He could have gone one way or another; exploding again, or taking the answer in calmly and reasonably. To Beria’s great relief, reason won out.

“So why, if they had some many bombs, did they wait until now to use them? They could have annihilated the fascists with one big raid.”

“And that would have left an empty Europe at our feet,” said Beria. “They needed forces on the ground to contest that ground with us. Plus, they have no stomach for anything that gets too hard. Would we send six million men to fight in a radioactive battlefield? Of course, if it meant victory. Would they? No. They could not. They are beholden to their bourgeois classes. They simply cannot act with our freedom. Plus, we must remember first principles. They are capitalists. To destroy a host of French and German cities is to destroy a vast storehouse of capital that they would otherwise seize for their own use. Like Timoshenko, I do not think they are bluffing. I believe they have many more atomic warheads.”

Stalin drummed his fingers on the table. “It is a poor correlation of forces we face-”

Beria was bold enough now to interrupt him. “But it is not, Comrade Secretary. We control so much more of Europe than we did at the end of the war in the Other Time. Our forces are largely unopposed in China and much of continental Asia. We have the men in place to demand a division of Japan. If we can consolidate our hold over these gains, we will control much of the world in five years. An excellent correlation of forces.”

The spymaster risked a glance around the long table. He quickly surmised that well over half the assembled ministers and military officers were in agreement with him. Others, like Malenkov, maintained a studied neutrality.

“Timoshenko,” said Stalin, “I want the truth. Can Zhukov and Konev break through the German defenses where they have deployed their chemical weapons?”

The defense minister shook his head. “Not without using our atomics. And once they have gone, we will stand naked before the Americans. We need those weapons to stop them from attacking us. We know that Churchill and some American generals are in favor of doing just that. And Kolhammer has spoken openly of the need to do away with us.”

At the mention of the infamous naval commander a ripple of anger and disgust traveled around the table. Beria had a whole section of his intelligence services devoted to the top commanders of the former Multinational Force, but by far the greatest number of analysts was assigned to Kolhammer. His every public utterance, and some of his private ones, was studied with great intensity. More than once Foreign Minister Molotov had called on the U.S. ambassador to protest yet another insulting and dangerous statement by the commandant of the Special Administrative Zone. It was infuriating, the way he was allowed to run wild. He was worse even than MacArthur or Patton.

Before Stalin could speak again, there was a knock on the huge double doors that sealed them into the committee room. An NKVD colonel appeared, seeking permission to enter. Stalin nodded, and he hurried over to Beria. Bending forward and whispering into his ear. As he listened, the spymaster’s balls contracted right into his body. His throat tightened with fear. He had to pour a glass of ice water with a shaking hand to compose himself before relaying the message.

“Well?” growled Stalin. “Good news, I hope.”

“I…I’m sorry, Comrade General Secretary,” said Beria. “No. It is not good news. A Japanese carrier has launched over a hundred suicide planes at the Kamchatka facility. Our MiGs shot down most of them. But nine made it through. Three of them dived into the reactor building. It has been destroyed. Most of the facility has been destroyed.”

For once, Stalin surprised him. Rather than exploding he simply shook his head, like a man who has just seen a dancing two-headed dog. “But how? How did they get near enough? Was the navy not patrolling those waters? Timoshenko?”

The defense minister looked aghast. “Most of our modern ships were deployed to the Kuril campaign. But we did leave some advanced destroyers in place.”

“Not enough,” said Beria. “They’re gone, too.”

“It must be the Americans,” said Molotov, the foreign minister. “They must have had a hand in this. Just as they let the fascists escape from Western Europe, they have let this Japanese carrier escape. They must have. How else would Yamamoto have known where to strike?”

Beria turned back to Stalin with the greatest reluctance, expecting to find those cold, dark eyes on him, blaming him. But the Soviet leader was lost, deep in thought. Silence descended on the room for a long time. Laventry Beria peeked out of a window, where the heavy drapes had come apart a few inches, allowing him a view of what appeared to be a glorious late-afternoon sky.

“I have decided,” said Stalin.

D-DAY + 43. 15 JUNE 1944. 0749 HOURS.

The Red Army Air Force did not run to the luxury of in-flight refueling, but with a range of seventy-two hundred kilometers, the short hop from Vladivostok to Japan would not stretch the capabilities of the Tu-16. It was a stretch for Kapitдn Gadalov and his crew, however. They had flown the length of the USSR, through eleven time zones, stopping to refuel three times. That had been a cautionary measure, but one the men had appreciated, as it allowed them to disembark for an hour to stretch their legs and breath some fresh air.

The coast of the Rodina slipped away behind them. The squadron leader of the fighter escorts waved to them as the morning sun glinted off the bubble canopy of his MiG-15. He, too, had flown across the vast expanse of the republic but, with a much more limited range, had set off two days earlier and been forced to land for refueling more than a dozen times. It would have been easier to use one of the squadrons based out here in the east, but Moscow insisted on using the same personnel and equipment as in the original raid on Lodz.

Gadalov did not mind. It was an honor to serve the people and workers of the Soviet state, and to be chosen twice for such a mission was a rare distinction. He had been lavishly fкted since Lodz. His pension had been increased to the level of a general’s, and his family had been moved out of their cramped apartment in Kiev into a dacha that had once belonged to a Romanov prince. A true believer in the revolution, however, he was happier simply to have served his comrades and, as everyone said privately, to have sent a warning to the capitalist West: they should not imagine the Soviet Union was going to disappear anytime soon.