December 15, 1911. 02:00 AM.
Moldavanka Neighborhood, Odessa.
Odessa wasn't Russia. Odessa was an independent republic of stevedores, smugglers, Jewish merchants, Greek sailors, and customs officials who had the most standardized bribery rates in Europe. The city normally smelled of saltpeter, rotting spices, and illegal opportunities. And in the labyrinthine alleys of the Moldavanka neighborhood, where the imperial police and ISD only entered in battalions of fifty men, the only law was that of "respect."
Captain Vladimir Sokolov, a Special Section veteran with a Cossack saber scar crossing his cheek, felt naked without his uniform. He was dressed in stevedore clothes, a coarse wool jacket and a pulled-down cap, but he knew he wasn't fooling anyone. In Moldavanka, eyes watched you from every dark window and every basement.
He walked flanked by two ISD agents who tried to disguise the bulge of their Mauser pistols under their clothes.
"It's a trap, Captain," one of his men whispered. "We should have brought the army."
"If we bring the army, the merchandise disappears into the catacombs," Sokolov responded without moving his lips. "And the future Tsar doesn't want corpses, he wants the boxes."
They arrived at a nameless tavern, whose door was guarded by two giants with broken noses and exaggeratedly elegant striped suits. Sokolov showed a casino chip. A golden chip, sent from Saint Petersburg.
The giants stepped aside.
The tavern's interior was an assault on the senses. Turkish tobacco smoke was so dense it could be cut with a knife, not ironically. A band played klezmer music in a corner, while men and women of dubious reputation drank vodka and Bessarabian wine.
At the back table, seated like a king in exile, was Mishka Vinnitsky.
He was barely twenty years old, but they already called him Mishka Yaponchik (The Jap) for his slightly slanted eyes. He dressed like a dandy, cream-colored suit, red silk tie, and rings on almost every finger. He was the prince of Odessa's thieves, the man who stole from the rich to... well, to keep it himself and distribute a little among the poor to maintain his legend.
Sokolov approached the table. The music lowered in volume, but didn't stop.
"You're late, 'tovarisch,'" Mishka said with a smile full of gold teeth, using the word 'comrade' with delicious irony.
"There was fog at the port before settling into the walk," Sokolov said, sitting before the gangster. He didn't accept the glass offered to him.
"Fog is good. Fog is free trade's friend. Don't you think?" Mishka leaned forward, playing with a mother-of-pearl switchblade. "My little birds tell me that the Winter Palace itself has descended to my domains. That the 'Miracle Child' needs a favor from uncle Mishka."
"It's not a favor as such, it's a transaction," Sokolov corrected, putting a leather briefcase on the table. He opened it slightly. New banknotes, imperial rubles. "Ten thousand rubles. And a document sealed by the Ministry of Justice."
Mishka ignored the money and took the document. He read it slowly, moving his lips.
"Total pardon for Moisey Vinnitsky and associates for charges of robbery at the Kherson Bank..." the gangster read. He let out a laugh. "Well, well. It seems the Tsarevich is in a hurry. Is the Empire that desperate?"
"Do you have the merchandise or not?" Sokolov asked, tense.
Mishka snapped his fingers. The music stopped.
"I have what you asked for. It arrived this morning on the Star of the Bosphorus, from Constantinople. My Turkish partners are very efficient. But there's a problem."
"What problem?"
"They're not the only ones looking for those little boxes," Mishka said, his tone becoming serious. "There are Englishmen at the port. Men in expensive suits who aren't sailors, they've paid the customs chief triple what you pay in salary. They're searching every barrel, every grain sack. They're looking for contraband."
Sokolov cursed silently. His espionage network was formidable, they knew Russia would try to break the blockade.
"If the English find the cargo, they'll destroy it," Sokolov said. "And you won't get paid."
"And the Empire will be left without its toys," Mishka added. "So I propose a temporary alliance. My boys know the port better than anyone. We get the merchandise off the ship. You'll cover our backs if the English get violent."
"Criminals and police working together?"
"In Odessa, Captain, the difference is just a matter of uniforms." Mishka stood up and adjusted his hat. "Let's go. The tide doesn't wait."
. . . . . . .
04:00 AM.
Port of Odessa, Dock 2.
Sokolov's group and Mishka's men moved among warehouse shadows. Mishka had brought his 'Lions,' a group of thugs armed with sawed-off shotguns and long knives. Sokolov had his agents with Mausers. It was the strangest army that had ever served the Tsar.
"There it is," Mishka pointed.
The Star of the Bosphorus, a steam freighter with an Ottoman flag, was moored at the dock. On the gangway, under an electric spotlight, three men in long coats supervised stevedores unloading barrels.
Sokolov used his binoculars.
"They're not customs officers," he murmured. "They're carrying Webley revolvers; they must be British agents."
"They're checking the olive barrels," Mishka said. "They're very clever. They know it's the classic hiding place."
"Where are our bearings?"
"In the anchovy barrels." Mishka smiled. "Nobody wants to put their hand in there. They stink. But if those Englishmen are thorough, they'll find them. We need a distraction."
Mishka made a signal that imitated a seagull's squawk.
At the dock's other end, a pile of empty wooden crates suddenly burst into flames. It was a spectacular fire, fueled by gasoline.
"Fire! Fire in warehouse 7!" Mishka's men shouted, creating panic.
The British agents on the gangway turned, alarmed. Stevedores dropped the cargo and ran.
"Now!" Mishka ordered.
Four of his men emerged from the shadows, running toward the unloaded cargo pile. They ignored boxes of silk and tobacco. They went directly to three small barrels marked with a barely visible chalk cross.
"Now then, you lot!" one of the Englishmen shouted, pulling out his weapon. "Halt!"
The British agent fired into the air.
Sokolov didn't hesitate. He rested his Mauser C96 on a crate and fired. The bullet impacted the gangway's wood, centimeters from the Englishman's feet.
"Special Section!" Sokolov shouted. "Get on the ground!"
Chaos broke out. The British agents, seeing they were under fire, took cover behind mooring bollards and returned fire. Bullets whistled through the fog, splintering the warehouses' rotten wood.
"Take the barrels!" Mishka shouted, firing with a silver pistol with savage joy. "Come on, sons of bitches, move!"
Odessa's gangsters rolled the heavy barrels while bullets chipped the ground around them. Sokolov and his agents provided covering fire, forcing the English to keep their heads down.
"Captain, we have to go!" one of the ISD men shouted. "The imperial port police will arrive in two minutes!"
"Retreat!" Sokolov ordered.
The group retreated toward Moldavanka's labyrinth of alleys, dragging barrels that smelled of rotten fish. The English tried to pursue them, but got lost in the fog and in the traps Mishka's men knew by heart.
. . . . . . .
05:30 AM.
Odessa Catacombs.
Thirty meters underground, in a chamber excavated in limestone that served as a secure warehouse, Captain Sokolov watched as Mishka opened one of the barrels with a crowbar.
The smell of anchovies in brine was nauseating. Mishka put his arm into the oily liquid up to his elbow, pushing aside layers of dead fish.
"I hope the Tsarevich likes them salty," the gangster joked.
His hand emerged holding a metal box sealed with wax and lead. He cleaned it with a rag.
Sokolov took the box. He pulled out a screwdriver and broke the seal. He lifted the lid.
Inside, resting on dry blue velvet, were rows of small, shiny objects.
Ball bearings.
But they weren't the large industrial bearings for trucks. They were mechanical jewels, three-millimeter diameter steel spheres, manufactured by Roulement S.A. in Biel, Switzerland. Aerospace-grade precision (or what passed for it in 1911).
They were the heart of gyroscopes. Without them, the artificial horizon and automatic stabilizers of Sikorsky's Ilya Muromets would be impossible. Although now they would only be used for cover models to prevent technology from being openly released from foreign factories.
"Five hundred units," Mishka said. "Enough to equip a fleet. Or to make the world's most expensive skates."
Sokolov closed the box with reverence. These small spheres were worth more than their weight in diamonds for Russian aviation's future.
"The Empire thanks you for your service, Citizen Vinnitsky," Sokolov said, handing him the briefcase with the money and pardon.
Mishka took the pardon and kissed it.
"Tell your Tsarevich that if he needs more... uncle Mishka is always open to negotiate. But next time, send a submarine. I hate the smell of fish."
Sokolov nodded. He took the boxes under his arm.
As he left the catacombs toward dawn's light, Sokolov reflected on the irony.
It was a perfect metaphor for survival.
. . . . . . .
December 18, 1911.
Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg.
Alexei received the package at his desk. It still smelled vaguely of sea.
He opened the box. He took one of the tiny bearings and made it spin on the table. The perfect sphere rolled smoothly, without stopping, defying friction with its Swiss perfection.
"Beautiful," Alexei murmured.
"It's a shame to have to steal them," Olga said, who was reading on the nearby sofa. "Didn't you say we were going to be self-sufficient?"
"We will be, Olya," Alexei said, putting away the sphere. "But until Einstein and Bohr teach us to manipulate matter atom by atom... sometimes we have to be pirates, the engine that was tested works to be mass-produced, but we first have to improve some qualities, but we'll use these spheres to create a facade in others' eyes."
Alexei put the box in his safe drawer.
"These will go to Sikorsky's gyroscopes. For everything else..." Alexei looked out the window toward Putilov's smoking chimneys. "... for everything else, we'll use lead."
. . . . .
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