Chapter 90: Roman Military Academy
"No more than five officers at a time. For security reasons, we keep a duplicate of the roster and retain a certain degree of investigative authority. Deal?"
As he stepped out of the car, Jörg lifted his eyes to the building before him.
It was not tall, only four stories, and outwardly it was utterly unremarkable. Brick, cement, crude finishing. In several rooms, the windows had not even been fitted with glass. The Siberian wind poured in unchecked, making the wooden doors creak and shudder in the cold.
It was hard to imagine that this plain, draft-ridden structure would one day become the military academy jointly used by Germany and Soviet Russia.
"Deal."
Frunze took two deep drags from his cigarette. The wind cut across the open yard like a knife, tearing the ashes from the tip and scattering them across the snow.
In truth, he had prepared himself to yield more.
Jörg's willingness to compromise had come faster than expected. It only confirmed Frunze's judgment. No matter how gifted a negotiator might be, once his weak point was properly grasped, he still had to give ground.
"Has this place been named yet?" Jörg asked, leaning slightly forward as he looked at the rough entrance.
Frunze shook his head.
"This is your territory, Jörg. We are not in a position to name it. Why not do it yourself?"
Jörg gave a small shrug.
At first, he had intended to brush it aside with some dull official designation like Base One. Yet a mischievous impulse rose in him, and in the end he chose to place his own house name upon the academy.
"Then let us call it the Roman Military Academy. My Russian is not especially refined, but if I remember correctly, 'Roman' is a rather romantic word in your language, is it not?"
Frunze nodded at once. He had not expected the young German to speak Russian so fluently, nor to understand the layers within the word.
"It is. As a name, it remains your name. But in Russian, 'Roman' also means a novel, and by extension carries a distinctly romantic flavor."
Jörg smiled faintly and replied in Russian, "A novel is as beautiful as love."
Frunze caught the pun at once and answered with one of his own.
"The friendship between Germany and Soviet Russia cannot do without a little Roman either, though not the kind connected to love."
Jörg understood the deeper meaning immediately and answered only with a subtle smile.
He knew full well that Germany and Soviet Russia were fated, sooner or later, to part ways. That did not prevent the two nations from sharing a brief and dazzling interval of cooperation, beautiful precisely because it could not last. Like the night-blooming cereus, its charm lay in how fleeting it was.
"Herr Frunze, would you care to accompany me on a tour of the rest of the facilities?"
Frunze shook his head without hesitation.
"No. What was agreed as autonomy remains autonomy. I will not be the first to break the rules. There is still much waiting for me in the Ukrainian Military District, and the other comrades in the army will be eager to hear today's news."
He flicked away the last of his ash.
"I must return and inform them."
Jörg did not press him. The invitation had been courtesy, nothing more.
"Then goodbye, Herr Frunze. Do remember to visit Germany if the opportunity presents itself."
Frunze gave a short laugh.
"Once I finish this year's business, certainly."
With that, he lifted a hand toward the Imperial Eagle waiting at the entrance and departed from the military base that was soon to begin operating in earnest.
Seeing him go, Ethan stepped forward at once.
"Sir, shall I show you around?"
Jörg withdrew his gaze from the academy building, nodded once, and slipped into the back seat. The Imperial Eagle surged forward, its engine roaring as Ethan drove it onto the newly completed runway of the training field.
Outside the car window passed the training airfield for pilots, the tank research center, and rows upon rows of wooden residences built for incoming personnel.
Yet Jörg had little attention to spare for scenery.
His mind was on another matter entirely.
"Ethan, what were Hyde's test results?"
These past weeks, too many affairs had crowded his schedule, forcing him to leave the matter in Vito's hands.
Ethan answered at once, "Minister Vito sent a telegram yesterday. He said Hyde has a distinct gift for intelligence work. The two spies Vito had disguised inside the police were both uncovered by him."
He paused, then added with faint emphasis, "And he caught a real one as well."
Jörg's eyes sharpened.
"Good. Send word to Vito. Give Hyde the appointment letter and tell him I want two operatives within two months, men who understand Russian and are capable of infiltration, inserted into contact with Soviet officers."
His tone hardened.
"He may select them from either the police or the army. I will grant him the authority. I do not care how he does it. I want results."
The black car swept past the aircraft hangars. Ethan turned the wheel left, and the tires carved a clean semicircle through the snow.
"Yes, sir."
Outside the base, Frunze's expression, warm only moments earlier, had already returned to its habitual severity.
He turned to the adjutant seated beside him and said, "Draw up a list of the best officers from every major formation. This chance is rare. We can learn not only German methods of war, but also the habits and thinking of the Germans themselves."
The adjutant dutifully began noting it down, then asked, "Comrade Frunze, shall we divide the list by ethnicity?"
Frunze's face darkened.
"By ethnicity? The present military reforms have already stirred resentment among many Ukrainian officers, and among many who are not Russian besides. If we inflame that further, stabilizing the army will become even harder."
He turned his head and fixed the adjutant with a cold gaze.
"You, Uriel, would do well to abandon such thinking early. The Soviet Union is one whole, not the scattered nations of the Tsar's empire."
Uriel nodded at once and fell silent.
For a time the only sound in the car was the groan of wheels against the frozen road. Then Frunze broke the silence again.
"And send a telegram to Comrade Dzerzhinsky. We must not only learn German military theory. We must understand their weapons research as well."
He stared out at the white plain beyond the glass.
"This opportunity will not last forever. I have a feeling the young man named Jörg will eventually solve Germany's external political constraints. Not tomorrow, not in one or two years perhaps, but the day is not so far off."
His voice lowered.
"We must use this period to prepare. Soviet industrialization has not yet truly begun. Compared with Germany, our weapons industry is still barely able to walk."
Frunze was not one of those officers who mistook success against White armies and scattered bandits for proof of invincibility. He understood better than most that such victories had been possible only because Germany had chosen peace, and because Britain and America had not committed themselves fully.
He knew exactly how far Soviet Russia still had to go before it could call itself a great military power.
If the Soviet Union could use Germany as a ladder while Germany still needed it, countless setbacks might be avoided.
Lighting yet another cigarette, Frunze continued, "There is still a long road ahead before the army becomes truly mechanized and professional."
He drew in smoke, then exhaled slowly.
"But if we can obtain their research data, or even their blueprints, that will be a tremendous gain. It could shorten our development time by years. It would also spare us from wasting precious foreign exchange on buying weapons abroad, allowing more of that money to be redirected into the industrialization Comrade Stalin keeps speaking of."
Pale gray smoke coiled through the compartment.
Uriel, unable to help himself, reminded him, "Comrade Frunze, the doctor said you are to smoke no more than one cigarette a day. And Moscow Hospital sent another telegram. They are urging you to come in for treatment for the aftereffects of your shell shock."
The moment he heard the word doctor, Frunze's mood soured visibly.
"Treatment? Treatment for what? I know my own body."
He flicked ash into the tray with open irritation.
"And I do not have the time. Drive to the Cheka. I want to speak with Comrade Dzerzhinsky in person."
.....
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