Anarquía: An Alternate History of the Spanish Civil War by Brad Linaweaver & J. Kent Hastings

Author:Brad Linaweaver & J. Kent Hastings [Linaweaver, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Spanish Civil War, Alternate History
ISBN: 9781596630420
Publisher: Sense of Wonder Press
Published: 2013-08-20T22:00:00+00:00

Stalin was not yet ready for a showdown with Hitler. Well, the Soviet leader didn’t have to worry about that any longer. There would be no receipt. But there would be no delivery either.

Lifting the gun, Orlov put the business end of the barrel to his head. For some reason the small circle of metal against his perspiring skin reminded him of the wedding ring he gave his wife. He hoped that maybe, just maybe, his family would be spared Stalin’s wrath. But he knew that was impossible.

The trouble was that there was nothing he could do about it. Maybe his wife and children would even agree that they should be tortured to death. They might even apologize to Stalin with their last, bloody, gurgling breaths.

460,516,851 grams of gold worth 518 million dollars was, in the current circumstances, all the money in the world. Orlov felt sorry that he could only commit suicide once. At the very least, he’d willingly do it a hundred times.

He pulled the trigger and listened to the heavy click on the empty chamber. He wasn’t playing Russian roulette. He didn’t think he deserved that much pleasure. He simply hadn’t loaded the gun yet.

He wasn’t through agonizing.

The plan had been beautiful. He’d never seen a better plan. They had thought of every contingency that made any kind of sense. They worried about reasonable things like the Fascists taking over Madrid. Events that might actually happen.

The smartest part of the plan was the secrecy. Russians were always good at secrecy but this one was especially well done. The citizens of the Republic could understand removing the gold for safe-keeping because there was a war on and they didn’t want it falling into Franco’s hands. They might imagine the gold was going to America. That would be a nice, safe place.

But no one would believe the gold was going to the Soviet Union for safe-keeping. That was like sending it to the Moon on a one-way trip. That was like sinking it in the deepest trench at the bottom of the ocean. The average Spaniard wouldn’t be very happy about that idea, whether he was a Nationalist or a Loyalist.

So the operation had to be carried out in complete secrecy. Only a handful of nervous bank officials in Madrid were informed and even they did not know everything. The majority of the bankers thought the gold was safe inside naval caves. Soldiers would be kept guarding the empty caves so as to maintain the illusion.

Of course, the finance minister knew. Orlov wondered what sort of suicide that splendid fellow might be selecting for himself at this very moment. People who said they didn’t believe in suicide were dreadfully ill-informed about just how untenable life could become, given the right circumstances.

Anyway, Orlov reflected, it had been a lovely plan. For a brief moment, the richest man in the world would have been the Russian economic attaché. Very amusing.

During the course of three moonless nights, the gold was loaded onto trains.

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