July 11, 1910.
Tula Imperial Arms Factory.
The heat of the Russian summer turned the red brick workshops into industrial furnaces. The air vibrated with the thunder of pile hammers.
For Tula's three thousand workers, the noise was the sound of bread on the table, as well as for the supervisors.
But for the man who called himself Engineer Schultz, the noise was perfect cover to continue his mission.
Schultz, whose real name was Hauptmann (Captain) Fritz Klein of the Abteilung III b of the German General Staff, wiped soot from his forehead with a dirty handkerchief. He had been infiltrated for three weeks as a boiler specialist, sent from a subcontractor firm in Riga. His German was native, but his Russian was impeccable, polished during years of border operations.
His mission was simple: confirm the rumors that had made the Kaiser nervous.
Klein walked with determined step toward Pavilion 7. Officially, that area was closed for structural repairs. Unofficially, the Cossack guards at the door were double the usual number and didn't drink vodka on duty.
"Papers," a sergeant growled, blocking his path with a fixed bayonet.
"Steam valve pressure inspection," Klein responded, handing over a forged pass with the plant director's signature. The forgery was a masterpiece of German intelligence, it even smelled of cheap pipe tobacco, the brand the director smoked.
The sergeant reviewed the paper, spat on the ground, and stepped aside.
Klein entered.
What he saw inside almost made him stop dead. There were no broken boilers.
There were rows of work tables covered with tarps, and in the center, disassembled like a dissected mechanical insect, was the cannon.
The howitzer tube gleamed under the skylight with a grayish, almost bluish luster. It wasn't Krupp steel. It didn't have the granular texture of standard cast iron. It seemed to be... dense.
Klein pulled a caliper from his pocket and approached, pretending to inspect a nearby gas pipe. His eyes measured the cannon barrel's wall thickness
"Mein Gott," he said in German, drowned out by the noise of a crane.
The cannon walls were barely twenty millimeters thick at the muzzle. A German cannon of that caliber (122 mm) would need twice as much metal not to explode.
If the Russians fired that, they should die. But ballistics reports said they not only fired, but had greater range.
Klein pulled out a small diamond file hidden in his sleeve. He needed a sample.
Just some metal shavings for Essen's metallurgists to analyze.
He approached the cannon. The crane's screech covered his steps. He touched the metal with the file.
'Skreee.'
The sound was sharp, but the file slipped. It hadn't bitten the metal. It had barely left a superficial scratch.
Klein blinked. 'Steel that resists an industrial diamond file? That's impossible.
That's...'
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Herr Schultz," a voice said behind him.
Klein turned, his right hand instinctively moving toward the knife hidden in his boot.
Three meters away, sitting on an ammunition crate with his legs crossed, was a child. He wore a suit that contrasted ridiculously with the grease and dust of the factory. He had blue eyes that looked at him like blades.
Behind the child, emerging from the machine shadows, was an older girl, perhaps thirteen. She wore a simple dress and held a notebook, but her gray eyes were similar to those of an examining magistrate.
"The Tsarevich," Klein recognized, his spy mind evaluating the situation.
"The steel is tungsten-tempered and heat-treated in a two-phase process," Alexei explained, as if giving a chemistry lesson. "Your German file is excellent, Captain Klein, but it's outdated technology."
Klein tensed. They knew his name.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Your Highness. I'm a boiler technician from Riga," he lied, calculating the distance for a jump.
"And I'm a child who plays with little boats," Alexei responded, getting down from the crate. "But we both know that's a lie. My sister Olga read your letters to Berlin. The ones you hid in the false bottom of your toolbox. Very poetic, by the way. Especially the part about 'Russian barbarism".
The girl, Olga, nodded slightly.
"Your cipher is a simple polyalphabetic substitution system, Captain," she said in a soft voice. "I broke it during breakfast."
Klein stopped pretending. His face hardened.
"If you knew who I was, why let me in?"
"Because I needed you to see the cannon," Alexei said. "I needed Krupp to know their monopoly is over. But I don't need you to take samples."
Klein smiled cruelly.
"I'm an officer of the Kaiser. I won't leave here without..."
Before he could finish the sentence or pull out his knife, a shadow moved to his left. It wasn't a Cossack guard. It was a smaller girl, about nine years old, who had been hidden behind the cannon. Anastasia.
The girl didn't have a weapon. She had a bucket of grease and, with a surprisingly quick movement, dumped it on the floor, right under the spy's feet.
Klein slipped. His military boots lost traction on the viscous oil. He fell heavily on his back, hitting his head against the lathe's iron base.
The world went black for a second. When vision returned, Klein looked up.
A fourth girl, tall and athletic (Tatiana), stood over him, pointing a Nagant M1895 revolver directly at his forehead. The hammer was cocked back. Her hand didn't tremble.
"The General says don't move," Alexei said, approaching to look at the fallen spy.
"This is... madness," Klein gasped. "Armed girls?"
Alexei crouched down and took the diamond file from the German's inert hand.
"You're going back to Berlin, Fritz. The guards will escort you to the border. Without samples. Without papers. Only with your eyes and probably with some fear."
Alexei leaned closer, whispering so only the spy could hear him.
"Tell my uncle Willy that if he sends more spies, next time it won't be my sisters who find them. It'll be the beautiful bright red of the furnaces we use in the bear's industry. Oh right, tungsten melts at 3,400 degrees. Not even those spies' teeth will remain."
Alexei stood up and nodded to Tatiana. She slowly lowered the weapon, but didn't stop aiming until the Cossacks ran in, alerted by the signal.
As they dragged Captain Klein out of the pavilion, Alexei looked at the tiny scratch on the cannon.
"We have to improve the heat treatment," he murmured, ignoring the adrenaline of the moment. "If a hand file has scratched it, it's still not ready for continuous combat pressures."
Olga closed her notebook.
"Do you think Uncle Willy will understand the message?"
"He'll understand we're dangerous," Alexei said. "And that will buy us some time for whatever is approaching in the future."