The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

sorts.
    Stalin’s new favourite, the energetic Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, asked if he might be permitted to give a piece of good advice on the matter, and Stalin lamely answered that yes, Nikita Sergeyevich certainly might.
    ‘My dear Comrade Stalin,’ said K, ‘I suggest that what has happened in this case has not happened. I suggest that Vladivostok is immediately sealed off from the rest of the world, and that we then patiently build up the town again and make it the base for our Pacific Fleet, just as Comrade Stalin planned earlier. But above all – what has happened has not happened, because the opposite would indicate a weakness that we cannot afford to show. Does Comrade Stalin understand what I mean? Does Comrade Stalin agree?’
    Stalin still felt out of sorts. And he was drunk too. But he nodded and said that it was Stalin’s wish that Nikita Sergeyevich himself should be responsible for making sure that what had happened, hadn’t happened. Having said that, he announced that it was time for him to withdraw for the evening. He wasn’t feeling well.
    Vladivostok, thought Marshal Beria. Wasn’t that where I had that Swedish fascist expert sent to keep him in reserve in case we couldn’t build the bomb by ourselves? I had forgotten all about him. I should have liquidated the devil when Yury Borisovich Popov so brilliantly solved the problem by himself. Anyway, perhaps now the man has been incinerated although he didn’t need to take the whole town with him.
    At the door to his bedroom Stalin informed his staff that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed. And then he closed the door, sat on the edge of the bed and undid the buttons of his shirt while he reflected.
    Vladivostok… the town that Stalin had decided would be the base of the Soviet Pacific Fleet! Vladivostok… the townthat was to play such an important role in the coming offensive in the Korean War! Vladivostok…
    Didn’t exist any longer!
    Stalin just had time to ask himself how the hell a container with blankets could start to burn when it was -20°C. Somebody must be responsible and that bastard would…
    Upon which Stalin fell head first to the floor. There he remained stroke-bound for twenty-four hours, because if Comrade Stalin said that he didn’t want to be disturbed, then you didn’t disturb him.
     
    Allan and Herbert’s barracks was one of the first to catch fire, and the friends immediately scrapped their plan of sneaking in and putting on the uniforms.
    The fence around the camp had already fallen down and if there were any watchtowers left standing there was nobody in them to keep guard. So getting out of the camp was not difficult. But what would happen next? They couldn’t steal a military truck because they were all on fire. And going into town to find a car was not an option either. For some reason, all of Vladivostok was burning.
    Most of the prisoners who had survived the fire and explosions stayed in a group on the road outside the camp, at a safe distance from the grenades and armour-piercing shells and everything else that was flying about in the air. A few adventurous types set off, all of them in a north-westerly direction, because that was the only reasonable direction for a Russian to flee. In the east was water, in the south the Korean War, and directly north was a town that was rapidly burning up. The only option remaining was to walk right into the really cold Siberia. But the soldiers had worked that out too, and before the day was over they had caught the escapees and sent them to eternity, every one of them.
    The only exceptions were Allan and Herbert. They managed to make their way to a hill south-west of Vladivostok. And there they sat down for a short rest and to look at the destruction below.
    ‘That signal rocket burned very bright,’ said Herbert.
    ‘An atom bomb could hardly have done a better job,’ said Allan.
    ‘So what are we going to do now?’ asked Herbert, and in the bitter cold almost longed to be back in the camp which wasn’t there any more.
    ‘Now, we’re going to North Korea, my friend,’ said Allan. ‘And since there aren’t any cars around, we’ll have to walk. It will keep us warm.’
     
    Kirill Afanasievich Meretskov was one of the most skilful and decorated commanders in the Red Army. He was a Hero of the Soviet Union and he had been awarded the Order of Lenin no fewer than seven times.
    As commander of the Fourth Army, he had fought the Germans