Chapter 1073: Who Dares to Challenge Me?

“Comrade Zaitsev!” An officer walked up to Stalin’s chief of guards and, with a smile, offered him a cigarette. He was an officer from a frontline unit, attending this parade as part of General Vatutin’s entourage. “This is a French cigarette. Very good.”

“Where from?” Zaitsev, his security work having been pushed to the absolute limit, was now also relaxing. He was confident that no one would dare to plot anything in a place like this, so he was fully immersing himself in the ceremony of welcoming the Marshal. After all, there were too few things to celebrate at this time. Everyone’s taut nerves needed to be relaxed and adjusted.

There were at least 100 of Stalin’s personal guards on the platform, with another thousand soldiers on the perimeter. The parading troops also numbered over 3,000. This place was, it could be said, the safest place to be. The original plan had been for a 1,000-man honor guard, but in the end, this plan had been revised again and again, increasing the number of men to be reviewed from just over 1,000 to more than 3,000. There were also 5 freshly painted Stalin tanks, as well as 10 T-34s and 10 trucks.

After all, Stalin’s vainglorious nature was buried deep in his bones. So, to make up for the regret of that one parade being disrupted by the Germans, he had decided to turn this welcoming ceremony into a small-scale military parade. Vatutin was also a supporter of this plan. He needed something to boost the morale of the frontline soldiers, which had already fallen to an extreme low.

“The last time we counter-attacked, my men picked these up from a German corpse,” the officer said with a “heh heh.” He then pointed to his own wounded arm and said to Zaitsev, “A whole division, and only 2,000 men left at the end. When we retreated, half of them were wounded…”

Everyone knew how hard the front was, but to have seen it with one’s own eyes and to have heard about it were two completely different things. Zaitsev had never personally been to the front, but he had great respect for these soldiers who had been to the front, who had been through life and death for the Soviet Union. And so he smiled, put the cigarette to his lips, and then, with his own exquisite lighter, lit the cigarette for the other and for himself.

“Thank you,” this officer said, graciously accepting the light from this captain of Stalin’s personal guard, who was normally so far above his station. He then, with great enjoyment, took a drag and, exhaling, nodded his thanks.

“You’re welcome,” Zaitsev replied, nodding as he turned. But as he did, from a different angle, he saw two men in suits, lurking in a corner. They were not cheering in Stalin’s direction, but were talking to each other and wiping the sweat from their foreheads.

Not right. In an instant, Zaitsev felt that the expression and behavior of these two men were not right. He had been by Stalin’s side for many years. The nature of his work meant that he could, with great ease, distinguish the meaning behind a person’s expression and behavior. Now, the every move of these two men, in his eyes, was a representation of extreme danger.

“Damn it! There’s a problem with those two,” Zaitsev frowned. He walked around the officer he had been talking to, muttering to himself. He then waved to two of his men who were standing not far away, signaling them to be wary of the crowd in that direction. He pushed past a young official who was in his way and walked quickly towards the two suspicious men. As time went on, the distance between him and them grew shorter and shorter.

The train, at this moment, was already pulling into the station. The military band had struck up its music, and some of the reporters from the Soviet newspapers were holding their cameras, hoping to record this meeting between the Soviet leader, Stalin, and Marshal Zhukov. The long wail of the train’s whistle made Zaitsev instinctively duck his head, and this strange movement of his also attracted the attention of the two suspicious people opposite him.

“You two! Your papers! I need to see them!” Zaitsev said to the two men in a righteous tone. As he spoke, he held out his hand, signaling for them to hand over their documents. And at his side, two soldiers from the guard battalion had their hands on the pistols at their waists. Although they had not drawn their weapons, the meaning of their alert state was very obvious.

“Comrade! We are not… not, suspicious… suspicious people!” one of the men, who was still wiping his sweat, said. He carefully stuffed the white handkerchief in his hand back into his coat pocket and then, with a slow movement, reached for his inner pocket, as if he were about to take out his papers.

And over there, the train had slowly come to a stop at the platform. Everyone was looking in the direction of the carriages, and no one had noticed a briefcase, whose owner was unknown, that had been placed on the ground. Inside it was a bomb, and the acid timer had already been set. Although the stability of this thing was indeed a concern, its small size and its silence made it the best choice for a time bomb at present.

BOOM! The first bomb suddenly exploded in the crowd. The fragments of the briefcase were thrown high into the air. The people nearby were knocked down by the sudden explosion. Even more people, in fear, ducked down, hoping to escape this catastrophe.

Because of its position, this bomb was very far from Stalin, at least so far that it could not possibly have harmed him. The dense crowd had also further reduced the power of the bomb. Only a few officials near the core of the explosion had been killed instantly, and a dozen or so had been wounded.

At the moment of the explosion, the guards around Stalin had immediately used their own bodies to shield him. They had pushed Stalin’s body down and had then surrounded him in the center of a human wall. The soldiers on the periphery had drawn their pistols, warily aiming at any suspicious direction.

Zaitsev had been startled by the explosion. He looked back at where Stalin was, and seeing that that place had not been affected by the blast, he breathed a slight sigh of relief. But before he could even turn his head back to continue to question the suspicious personnel, he heard a gunshot ring out behind him.

The suspicious man had pulled out not his papers, but a pistol. He had fired at Zaitsev, but because a guard on the other side had fired first and had hit him in the chest, the muzzle of his gun had been deflected from Zaitsev’s back. By a strange twist of fate, he had hit another soldier, and had then clutched his own chest and had fallen down.

The other suspicious man, seeing his companion shot and killed, was so scared he quickly turned and tried to run. But the guards in the distance had seen the firefight that had broken out here. Before Zaitsev could even shout the words “Take him alive,” this fleeing man had been shot through the body and had fallen in the distance.

Seeing the fleeing man fall, Zaitsev immediately ran towards Stalin’s position. The surrounding area was already in chaos. Many were running and screaming. Some were trying to get close to Stalin’s position, but were shot down on the platform by the already over-tense guards.

The guards on Zhukov’s train did not know what had happened. They held their weapons, guarding their surroundings. Some had even, in the chaos, exchanged fire with Stalin’s guards. Both sides had suffered casualties, and the scene became even more chaotic.

“Don’t shoot! Cease fire! You idiots!” Zaitsev shouted, giving the order to his own men not to fire, and at the same time, he shouted to Zhukov’s guards in the direction of the train, “All of you, cease fire! This is a bomb attack! Don’t just fire randomly!”

“Zaitsev! Someone is trying to kill me! Bastard! He almost succeeded! I’m going back to the Kremlin! Go, quickly, prepare!” Stalin, in the crowd of his guards, loudly ordered Zaitsev to prepare a vehicle to leave. He then, as if he had remembered something, continued to shout, “Find me Vatutin! Have him and Zhukov come to the Kremlin to see me! Explain to me just what is going on!”

Before Zaitsev could even reply to his superior, in the crowd over there, another bomb exploded, sending a shower of flesh and blood. Stalin, who had already been scared out of his wits by the first explosion, became even more hysterical, and the chaotic scene on the platform made everyone present panic.

No one knew if there would be a third explosion, and even less did they know where it would appear. And so some people had rushed the guards, hoping to get off the station platform, but had been pushed back by Stalin’s guards, who were blocking the exit. They had no authority to let anyone here leave, because they could not be sure who among the remaining people was a suspect.

In the chaos, Zaitsev saw Zhukov, in his Soviet marshal’s uniform, jump down from the train. With a few guards, he began to walk in Stalin’s direction. Not far away, some officers were also helping to restore order. It was clear that General Vatutin must be in that direction.

“Great Soviet leader, Comrade Stalin!” Zhukov shouted in the direction of Stalin, while having his guards push through the running crowd. “I have rushed back from the front, to come and defend Moscow with you! Believe what I say, and take my hand! Comrade Stalin!”

Stalin did not respond to Zhukov’s shout. He just, in the crowd, with a look of terror and suspicion, scanned every person around him. This time he knew that someone had really wanted to kill him and to take his place. This time it was not a suspicion, but an assassination attempt with real evidence.

He no longer dared to trust the officials in the distance. He didn’t trust Vladivostok, he didn’t trust Chelyabinsk. Even Zhukov and Vatutin, who were right beside him, he no longer dared to trust. And so he could only sit where he was, waiting to distinguish who was loyal to him. And in the depths of his heart, a brutal, nameless fire had been ignited. And as a national leader, Stalin, in his bones, was clearly of a character to repay every grievance.

“Let him come over! Zaitsev! You and Zhukov, come over here!” Burned by this flame of hatred, Stalin was in a state of extreme rage. He suddenly spoke, shouting to the distance, “Today I want to see who dares to provoke me, Stalin! Who dares to challenge me in Moscow!”

Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com