Industrious: Engineering Marvels - Chapter 31 (Patreon)

“You really don't want me to kill Stalin.”

Joseph Kennedy Sr. leaned back in his chair and stared at me. “You'll have to explain that one, son.”

I thought about telling him – in no uncertain terms – that I was not his son, but let it slide. No need to be too antagonistic, and I'd already threatened to break his jaw anyway. “Look, I hate Stalin just as much as the rest of... well, anyone with half a brain. He's an evil asshole. An authoritarian dictator. His regime ultimately kills more people than the Nazis, but he had the patience to spread the systematized murder out over the course of decades and be on the winning team for this war, so history quietly forgets he was integral to starting it in the first place.”

I let that little diatribe sink in while I drank.

“At the end of the day, though, Joseph Stalin is reasonable. He understands that there is a limit to his ability to push and he has the reputation for the hardliners and hawks in his party to back down when he tells them to. He's ruthless and will take as much as possible, but he'll only do it up to the point you have to retaliate and no further. He's not going to want another war after this. He knows he'll need the time to rebuild, solidify control over the lands he...”

I waved my free hand in the air vaguely.

“...conquers, stewards, whatever you want to call it,” I sighed. “Drain them of resources, set up financial institutions to draw money back into Moscow, start building the next generation of weapons. Stalin's a violent thug, but he's shrewd and cunning with a track record that makes sure the people underneath him don't get... dangerous ideas.”

I looked the older man in the eye. “If you know what I mean.”

Kennedy hummed and nodded, drumming his fingers on the table to fill the silence as I waited for the next question. “What happens if we do kill him? Your best guess, at least.”

I took a breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Best guess, huh?”

Pondering the question as I took another slice of pizza, I let my thoughts settle before replying. “I'm just spit-balling, but my gut says that you're looking to destabilize the upper echelons of the Soviet Communist Party. In turn, that will slow the war effort in the confused jumble for leadership and let the American front lines advance through France and into Germany.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny-” Kennedy began, but I waved him off.

“It won't work, anyway,” I stated firmly. “In the absence of Stalin himself, his top-level generals have enough authority to continue the war on schedule. If anything, losing Stalin at this precise moment will galvanize the Soviet public into pushing harder and faster in an effort to end the war and punish the Germans – the most obvious culprits – for the death of what will have become a martyr.”

The older man hummed thoughtfully, rubbing at his chin. “That's your assessment then?”

“Well, that and the fact that his replacement will be a certifiably insane serial killer and extraordinarily prodigious rapist,” I replied bluntly, taking another bite.

Kennedy and the observers in the room stiffened like I'd shoved a red-hot iron up their asses. “Excuse me?!”

“The head of Stalin's secret police... I think they're calling it the NKVD right now?”

“That's correct, they change the name?” Kennedy asked, frowning.

“A couple of times. Let's see... I never really looked up the translations for them, but they were... the MGB. That one was started immediately post-war, I remember. Then the MVD, but that was spun off into its own thing and put in charge of regular policing duties later. At the same time as that happened, the Soviets restructured the external-facing spy agency and secret police into the KGB,” I explained haltingly, squinting as I tried to recall all the relevant details.

“You seem to know quite a bit about all this,” Joseph stated, frowning.

“Well, from my point of view, this is all history,” I replied with a shrug. “And I was always a history nerd, even if I liked WWI more than WWII. But, more relevantly, when the Soviets collapsed in 1991, there was a period of about... five years or so? Where western powers had access to their internal records and could look up a lot of details. Then the Russian Federation got its act together and closed the archives again, but a lot of documentation from that time had gotten out and was easy to access over the years.”

Kennedy blinked, surprised by the explanation, but nodded. “I see. But... if you'd be willing to explain your earlier comment? I fear we've digressed.”

“Right, right... okay, so the Head of the NKVD. A real piece of shit named Lavrentiy Beria. He's the guy Stalin put in charge of... ugh, I forget the term, but it was like 'barrier' or 'blocking' units. Basically rear-guard military groups that existed to stop main-army units from retreating or fleeing en-masse,” I explained.

Kennedy blinked rapidly. “Th-that... was a concern?”

“He's also in charge of the gulag system and the Soviet work camps,” I continued as if the other man hadn't spoken. “And led the organized deportations of problematic ethnic minorities in the Caucasus region. But after Stalin's death in... '53, he joined a triumvirate that ruled the Soviet Union for about... five months? Three? Something like that. It didn't last long. Malenkov and Malatov – the other two members of the council – organized a coup with the help of Zhukov.”

I took another pause, eating and drinking a bit more.

“At the trial,” I swallowed and went on, “it came out that Beria had a habit of driving around Moscow in his armored limo and picking out women he wanted brought to his private estate. There he'd offer them a generous meal, then take them into a soundproofed room and rape them. When they left, they were given a bouquet of flowers. If they took the flowers, it implied consent. If they refused, he'd have them arrested and shipped off to a prison camp.”

Kennedy's face was pale with horror. “A-and he's doing this now? At this very moment?”

I nodded. “In all likelihood, yes. If I recall, you can probably check with the US Embassy. What he gets up to isn't exactly a secret or anything. The guy Beria had make a list of all of his victims actually kept a secret copy that he passed to Stalin after the war. Around that time, even Stalin had had enough of him and was going to get rid of the guy... but died before he could go through with it.”

Another pause to take a drink.

“The list was hundreds of names long,” I informed the older man gravely. “They knock down the manor-house he lives in eventually. Sometime in the seventies or eighties, I think. But in the early two-thousands they had to do some excavations for utility repairs on the land where it once stood. It seemed like every time they had to go back to the site, they found more bones.”

“I-I see,” Kennedy muttered.

“In addition to being a prolific sexual assailant and a vicious bastard, though, Beria doesn't have the standing or credit that Stalin has. He can't make concessions or give ground to keep the peace. You do not want him in charge of the USSR,” I informed the older man calmly, levelly. “Hell, if you want anyone dead in the Soviet Union, it's him.”

“He does rather seem like he's Stalin's go-to man with all of these assignments,” Kennedy stated, going back to drumming his fingers.

“He's also,” I flicked a glance at the recording device and the other men in the room, “Ah... can I talk about the special delivery we're planning for Japan?”

Kennedy blinked rapidly, his expression clouding in confusion before it cleared. “Oh, right... yes, I was read into that. The Manhattan Project.”

“Beria probably lives as long as he does because he gets put in charge of the Soviet's counterpart,” I informed him, eliciting a sharp intake of breath. “And he delivers, like I told FDR, in 1949. So, yeah... you want him dead, not Stalin.”

…

My uniform was starched and pressed to within an inch of its life once again. This time, though, I wasn't meeting the president.

At least, not yet.

“I don't like my own men playing games like this.”

General Phillips, Steve, Bucky, and I were all ramrod straight. Our hands were folded behind our backs, our feet shoulder-width apart, and our eyes locked forward. The room around us was pretty standard English Victorian. All dark hardwood, decorative rugs sourced from some far-flung corner of the empire, a small library's worth of books carefully arranged on in-built shelves, and a mixture of hard-back chairs with plush sofa sets.

Oh, and the mounted heads of a dozen dead animals on the walls.

Can't forget that.

“That blast you boys set off has really stirred up the hornet's nest,” the man in front of us commented as he paced in front of us, very obviously not happy. “What the hell happened out there?!”

Protip: Keep your mouth shut when two generals are arguing.

“Sir!” Phillips saluted, because it would be more than just simple career suicide not to. “The report I filed-”

“I don't want to hear about the report,” the other man barked back instantly, grabbing a very thick folder off a desk and waving it for emphasis. “If I wanted your report, I'd read it – again – and marvel at the fucking lunacy that the president lets you commit to good paper.”

Phillips didn't say anything.

“I open a report and I expect to see some information-gathering exercise gone wrong, some spooks who had to blow their way out of a high-security German base and happened to catch the armory on fire,” the general in front of us sighed, slamming the thick document back onto the table. “I do not expect to have to requisition a file cabinet from the President of the United States with its own troop of marines guarding it.

I didn't give a low, impressed whistle.

But I really wanted to.

“I crack this cabinet open and it's stuff I wouldn't have believed if it'd been told around a campfire!” He shouted, his voice reverberating off the walls of the room. “Super-soldiers, vampires, werewolves, mad scientists like they stepped out of Frankenstein or some bad pulp novel! And most of all... you.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower's finger was an inch from my face.

I didn't move.

“This insane crock of shit says you're some sort of-” He visibly searched for the words “-transmigrated soul who's been world-jumping and was originally from the future. What the flying hell do you have to say for yourself, soldier?”

I didn't smile, but I was tempted to.

I could feel Phillips' eyes burning a hole through my soul, commanding me to be nothing but respectful or we'd kiss our operational largess and long leash goodbye.

“In a 1961 conversation with the then-president, you credited the success of Operation Overlord – the D-Day Landings – to the fact that you had better meteorologists than the Germans,” I paused to let that sink in, staring up at his eyes as he did his best to loom over me. “Krick and Stagg will disagree, at least initially, trust Stagg.”

There was silence at the declaration.

The future President of the United States blinked.

His finger curled.

His arm dropped.

“What day did we go?” He asked intently.

“Early morning June 6th,” I replied promptly, then paused. “Very early, essentially overnight. A common joke in the post-war era was that a German spotter woke up to check the channel that morning and calls his commanding officer telling them there are Allied ships steaming their way. The commanding officer demands to know how many.”

Eisenhower took a breath, and I could smell the cigarette ash on his exhalation.

“The spotter replied, 'All of them, sir.'”

Bucky and Steve both muffled grunts into raised fists.

Phillips was staring at me in a mixture of disbelief and abject horror.

One of the corners of Eisenhower's lips twitched, but his eyes glinted and his chest convulsed as he fought against opening his mouth, his lips turning pale as he pressed them together. I ruthlessly took advantage of the opening that allowed me.

“I can draw you maps of the German fortifications on the beaches, if you like, Sir,” I informed him with a respectful nod. “I can't guarantee they won't have changed from what I know, German high-command being a fickle thing, but I can at least give you a good idea of what our fellow soldiers are walking into.”

General Eisenhower took a deep breath, settling the humor I'd summoned up and stared at me. “How would you know that, boy?”

“My options for entertainment when I was a child were Loony Toons or history channel documentaries,” I replied with the slightest shrug. “I'm told I was a very boring child.”

A snort, then Eisenhower walked around his large desk to a drafting table and selected a set of maps from the nearby case. Even if the invitation to follow was obvious, I waited until he looked back and waved me over. “Documentaries, eh soldier?”

I gave the maps a cursory inspection and nodded, selecting a pencil and beginning to make notations on the various beaches, beginning with Omaha. For whatever reason, I knew that one the best. There was already a significant amount of information on the various deployments scribbled in, but I added to it here and there as I went down the line.

“Channel 52, The History Channel,” I informed him absently. “Lot of little fun facts, too. Like the fact that Rommel wasn't in command of the initial response because his wife's birthday is June 6th.”

Eisenhower shifted, jerking upright slightly as I felt his attention focus. He reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapping one out and then reaching for a lighter. “That's useful intel. Anything else like that?”

I flicked him a glance as he lit up. “You have a heart attack in 1955. You were on vacation in Denver, Colorado. Mr. President, sir.”

The smoke caught, and he choked on it as I fought down a smile of my own while I worked.

I had more than a few moments to write and make notes as the general composed himself from that bomb. Eventually, though, he cleared his throat one last time and took a deep breath. “A heart attack? And I was the president?”

“There was this big to-do about it in the press,” I hummed back. “You insisted on transparency while undergoing treatment and recuperation. Had your attending physician give daily updates to the nation. A congressional inquiry was held afterwards to determine the best course of action to increase the health of the American public. Especially heart health, so that something like that wouldn't happen.”

“A congressional inquiry about my heart attack?” Eisenhower asked in mild disbelief. “If I hadn't seen what those damn fools get themselves up to, I'd call bullshit soldier. How'd it turn out?”

The question was pure morbid curiosity, but I could feel interest radiating from Steve, Bucky, and General Phillips behind me.

“They flubbed it, of course,” I replied dryly, making the man snort cigarette smoke off to the side as he covered up a harsh laugh. “The choice was between condemning an excess of dietary fat or refined sugar in American consumption. They chose to say it was fat because they were presented with a bunch of cooked-up studies created by the sugar industry.”

“So it was too much sugar that will cause me to have a heart attack?” Eisenhower asked irritably.

“They were both wrong, actually,” I replied with a shake of my head and started notating Sword Beach as we continued talking. “Don't get me wrong, excess refined sugar causes obesity and a host of medical problems that can lead to heart disease, but we don't quite get to that level of sugar consumption in the US until the nineteen-nineties. No, in your case it was cigarettes.”

Eisenhower blinked and looked down at the innocent-seeming white roll of paper and drifting smoke held between his fingers. “Cigarettes?”

“Smoking causes cancer, cardiovascular disease, and a host of other health problems,” I told him plainly, pausing in my scribbles to look him in the eye. “Such as strokes, which you have one of in 1957. Pretty bad, but you recover. Eventually, you die of heart failure in '69. Your wife, whom I'm given to understand is also a heavy smoker, dies of a stroke a decade later. By the 90's, we were banning smoking in most public places and government buildings and calling cigarettes 'cancer sticks.' People still do it, don't get me wrong, but one of the things I find most personally irritating in this time period is the complete lack of a social stigma against smoking.”

Eisenhower swallowed, tapping out the ash in the absent manner only a chain-smoker who goes through four packs a day can do. “You have a lot of personal opinions, soldier.”

It was meant as a warning, I could see that.

I'd just come dangerously close to mouthing off to the highest-ranking general on Earth and implicitly told him to put his damn cig out.

“Nineteen-forty-four to twenty-twenty-six is eighty two years, sir,” I replied instead. “If you woke up eighty two years ago, it'd be eighteen sixty two and you'd be fighting for the Union against the Confederacy. I keep reminding myself that a lot changes in eight decades.”

I paused as I took one last look over what I'd summoned up from the depths of my childhood watching WWII History Channel documentary reruns and nodded.

“Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.”

I put the pencil down and gestured to the map before snapping off a salute, if only to take the sting out of my little diatribe.

Eisenhower grunted and extinguished his cigarette in an ashtray before moving to look over what I'd written. He was silent for a long moment, reading my notations as he nodded. Eventually, he spoke. “At ease.”

I slipped into parade rest.

Eisenhower looked back over to Phillips contemplatively. “Part of me wants to pull rank and poach Winston from you.”

Steve and Bucky didn't quite control their facial expressions as well as Phillips did.

“But I'm half afraid the pulp fiction weirdness you seem to be dealing with might follow your boy to cause me grief,” the more senior officer stated, crossing his arms. “So I'll hand over that prisoner you want, this... Taskmaster woman. And I'll let you raid the supply chain for what you've asked for. In exchange, I want to pick Ray Winston's brain for a few days. That sound fair, Chester?”

General Phillips flicked a look to me, and I shrugged.

If anything, that made him look more irritated, even if he was better at hiding it.

“More than, sir,” General Phillips nodded. “When should I expect him back?”

“Thursday, I think,” Eisenhower nodded, then picked up a piece of paper off his desk and I watched as a muscle in his jaw twitched as he handed it over. “I've also got a formal request from the Soviets to attach someone to your unit. I don't know what they heard or how they heard about it, but they want in on your specific brand of madness.”

General Phillips took a breath as he read the letter over. “Lavrentiy Beria... that's the head of the NKVD, isn't it? Says he wants to send some kind of spider to join us.”

I twitched and closed my eyes.

Why, oh why, didn't Roosevelt let me kill that bastard already?

~~~

Okay, managed to get this hammered out... and it's only a little bit late. Not ideal, but if anyone asks I'm posting this from yesterday. Clear? Clear.

So, yes. Ray, Steve, and Bucky managed to get the attention of higher-ups in their latest little adventure, so they're called into a meeting to get what they want.

I thought this would be a fun little chapter to touch base with the greater war and remind everyone that - as important as the Hydra-fight is - bigger shit is still ongoing in the foreground.

Next update... will be something. I'm going to try and get the poll out in a bit before I go to sleep and I'll have some kind of content ready this week before the results are finalized. Look forward to a mystery chapter.