Prince Leon spoke to Alex: “Do you think we’re completely mad then?”
“No. If there’s ever going to be a time it’s now.”
“We must be sure it hasn’t been merely the warped judgment of old men living in the past. We need your young view. For God’s sake do not patronize us-do not humor us.”
“No.”
“You honestly believe it can be done?”
“It could be done.”
Count Anatol said through his teeth, “Remember how the Bolsheviks did it twenty-three years ago-remember how few they were?”
Leon said, “Vassily has formulated a military plan. I think it is time we heard it.”
Vassily inhaled. “In outline we need three things. One, a distraction to occupy the Kremlin guard and the Red Army units in the area. Two, a major force to occupy the Kremlin and defend it while key commando squads neutralize the leadership-Stalin, Beria, Malenkov, Zhukov, Vlasov, perhaps a dozen others. Three, a cell of practical leaders prepared to take over the mechanisms of high government and the centers of communication and propaganda.”
General Savinov blinked owlishly in his chair. “Excellent,” he muttered. “Superb.”
Alex said slowly, “How large a force have you got in mind?”
“Regiment size,” Vassily answered promptly. “You can’t do it with less.”
“How do you plan to get them into Moscow?”
“It can be done-that’s all that needs to be said.”
“You’re talking about a fairly large-scale combat operation then.”
“I am,” Vassily said flatly. “I can do it. But it will take a great deal of support and money. Preparation, intelligence, recruitment, training, planning, transport, ordnance, supply. And time. That is why it must be authorized right now without any further stupid debating. We have got to have it rolling before the Germans take any more ground. Even now we may be too late.”
Anatol said, “Putting us in the curious position of hoping that Stalin can hold out.”
Vassily ignored that; he was staring at Alex, “You don’t agree with it, do you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
The weaknesses he saw were as much in Vassily’s character as they were in the plan itself. But what he said was, “The time scale doesn’t permit it-you’ve said it yourself. It could take six months to prepare it and launch it. I don’t think we’ve got that kind of time. The war in Russia will be decided by the end of the year-either Hitler will take Moscow and Stalingrad ahead of the winter or he won’t make it at all. He knows his Napoleonic history-that’s why the panzers are rolling so fast. They’ve got a deadline and they know it. And that means we’ve got a deadline too.”
Vassily’s mouth hardened into a thin line. “Have you an alternative proposal?”
“No. Right now? No.”
“Give me the authorization and support I ask for,” Vassily told the council, “and I will have the Kremlin within one hundred days. I give you that pledge on my honor.”
Anatol’s eyebrows went up in black arcs. “Alex, could you promise a faster result than that?”
He had to be honest. “No.”
“Then it appears we must choose between Vassily’s plan and none at all.”