Bombshell Max Collins (best ereader for textbooks .txt) 📖

people doing this!” He pointed a thick finger right at Nikita.

But Nikita—his mind filling with images of his wife, his children—merely waited.

Stalin continued: “I want them found, and I want them punished!”

“All right then,” Nikita said calmly.

Folding his arms, apparently reassured by his trusted associate’s composed reaction, Stalin said, “I have already had a professor at the Kharkov Veterinary Institute look into this matter. Nothing! Then I enlisted the minister of the Institute of Animal Husbandry—he too failed miserably.”

“Just the same,” Nikita responded, with a small shrug, “I would like to speak with them … before I conduct my own investigation. They may have insights.”

Stalin shook his head dismissively. “Impossible,” he said. He threw his nose in the air and snorted—one of his favorite mannerisms. “They’ve been shot.”

Nikita somehow managed to conceal his horror, asking casually, “But why?”

“Because it turned out they were involved in the poisoning conspiracy—you can read their confessions to the NKVD, if you like.”

“Ah,” Nikita said, nodding, understanding. If someone couldn’t solve a problem for Stalin, they conveniently became part of said problem. And the secret police could convert God to the Devil, and vice versa.

“You will put a stop to these poisonings?” Stalin had posed this as a question, but clearly it was an order.

“I will do my best,” Nikita responded with a curt nod, and as much confidence as he could muster; but all the while wondering how he could do any better than the minister of Animal Husbandry.

“My good friend,” Stalin said with a smile that would have curdled milk, “I knew I could count on you,” and the dictator placed a fatherly hand on Nikita’s shoulder—the same hand that would sign his death warrant, should Khrushchev fail this mission.

Before leaving for the Ukraine, Nikita called upon the president of the Academy of Sciences, and with his help put together not one, but two teams of top Soviet scientists to study the problem of the dying horses, theorizing that, should this brain trust also fail, Stalin surely wouldn’t have them all shot.

Would he?

After months of careful study, both teams—operating separately—came to an identical conclusion: the horses were dying from ingesting a fungus that grew in wet hay.

When Nikita presented his findings to Stalin, the dictator’s eyebrows first grew together in a frown, then shot up with surprise.

“Really?” the dictator commented. “Wet hay?”

“Yes, Comrade Stalin,” Nikita replied, with cool confidence that masked terror. He knew that his contradiction of the dictator’s theory of an enemy “poisoning conspiracy” was perilous.

Stalin thought about this for endless moments; finally he shrugged. “Well, then—there must be no more wet hay… You will see to it?”

Again a curt nod for his dictator. “I will see to it, Comrade.”

Nikita was dismissed.

There was no mention by Stalin (and certainly not by Khrushchev!) of the poor professor from Kharkov Veterinary Institute or the minister of Animal Husbandry … or a number of others involved in the nonexistent conspiracy, about whom Nikita learned later … all of whom, prior to Nikita solving the mystery of the horse sickness, had been eliminated as “enemies of the people.”

This strategy—obtaining a consensus before making a decision—Nikita had also brought to the unpleasantness in Hungary, flying to neighboring Czechoslovakia and Rumania, then on to Yugoslavia. To do this in the necessary timely manner, he had braved a fierce thunderstorm, his life spared only by the wit of the pilot—their reconnaissance plane had not been so lucky.

Surprisingly, the leaders of the satellite countries unanimously felt Soviet troops should be sent in to restore order in Hungary—as did the entire Presidium of the Central Committee in Moscow, to whom Nikita had returned with his report.

But before sealing Hungary’s fate—and to cover his back-side—Nikita sought one final opinion … from Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung, chairman of the world’s second most powerful communist party, and Russia’s chief ally.

Over a staticky phone line, through an interpreter, Nikita told Mao of the revolt, and asked the chairman for his opinion, his counsel. After a moment, Mao said that whatever decision Nikita made would be a wise one—a typically sly reply.

Shrimp would learn to whistle before Mao Tse-tung said what was really on his mind. Nikita was glad he’d sought this “counsel” over the phone, and saved the airplane petrol. In truth, Nikita despised the Chinaman, who was shrewd, not smart, that big balding head home to a small brain, reflected in close-set eyes that told nothing, and a smile as meaningful as a porcelain doll’s. But it had taken Nikita a number of years to realize this grinning panda was a treacherous “ally,” never to be trusted.

Once, at a meeting between the two leaders, Nikita had proposed, “With all the trade going on between us, it would be helpful to have a road to China through Kazakhstan.”

Mao’s tiny eyes had brightened; he seemed immediately taken with the notion. And the chairman announced, “Then I will allow you to build it!”

“Now, just one moment,” Nikita responded. He pointed out to the chairman that China’s border was rugged; creating such a road would mean cutting through mountains and building bridges. “We couldn’t possibly afford that, alone,” he said. “No, my friend—we should each take care of our own side of the road.”

“All right then,” Mao agreed cheerfully.

So the Russians had begun their share of the work. But well into the extensive construction, Mao again requested that the Russians build the Chinese span of the road, and Nikita reminded him of their original agreement.

“All right then,” Mao agreed. Cheerfully.

And when the Russians finally reached the border of China, they found no road under construction, no builders, nothing even in the planning stages; now Kazakhstan had a lovely new road—leading to nowhere.

Nikita especially hated Mao’s stupid slogans. The panda kept trying to foist these idiotic aphorisms on the entire communist party, using the press to publicize the likes of “Imperialism Is a Paper Tiger.” Hardly! Only a fool would think such a thing.

Capitalism was, if nothing else, a deadly predator—the only thing “paper” about it was their