Stalin walked back to his desk and picked up the microphone. He put the microphone to his ear, but did not speak. Holding this position for a while, he simply put down the microphone and walked around the other end of the large room with his hands behind his back.

He walked around the room, but I didn't dare to talk casually, just stood there, my eyes moving around with him. There was some strange guess in his mind about what he was going to do? Obviously, the phone had been picked up just now, but he didn't give an order to Lu for something. If my dreams were true and there were no reinforcements, then Rokossovsky would be faced with a fate of many bad luck.

Soon I was relieved, his hesitation was understandable, even if he was the supreme commander, he could not casually go to the next level to transfer the troops below for the sake of an illusory dream. I regret that I shouldn't have told him my dream just now, and that it had caused him to fall into a choice block.

But my fears seemed unfounded, and just as I was considering whether to apologize to Stalin for my recklessness, he went decisively to the table, picked up the microphone of a telephone on the table, dialed a number, and said: "I am Stalin." After a pause, he added: "Comrade Shaposhnikov, please immediately transfer a regiment from the reserves, equip them with ten tanks, and quickly rush to the village of Peshki to create a defensive position here." Remember, they had to get into defensive positions by four o'clock this afternoon. ”

The other party seemed to say something, but I couldn't hear it from too far away, and Stalin said with some displeasure: "You can arrange this matter yourself, and you don't need to inform Zhukov." The unit is under your direct command, and it is up to me to decide when to withdraw from the position. After speaking, he hung up the phone without saying anything.

He re-lit his pipe, took a puff, walked over to me, stopped two or three steps away from me, and said, "You don't have to worry about Rokossovsky, I want to talk to you about another thing." ”

When I heard his order to transfer troops to Peshki village just now, I breathed a sigh of relief. But when I heard his last words, my heart suddenly rose to my throat, what else could happen? Ah! It won't be to hold me accountable for withdrawing troops from Volokolamsk without authorization. If it is really investigated, it may be possible to send me directly to a military court. In my impression, the military tribunal of the Soviet Union is equal to the death verdict, and the former commander of the Western Front, General Pavlov, was executed by Stalin's order because of a series of command errors after the outbreak of the war, which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. People with such high status are all shot when they say they are shot, not to mention me, a little lieutenant colonel. Thinking of this, although I tried my best to keep my composure on the surface, my feet had begun to tremble slightly.

"Listen to Colonel Bezikov, you arrived in Moscow at noon the day before yesterday, right?"

Hearing that Stalin was asking this question, I was strange, but I honestly replied: "Yes." ”

"I heard that you were hiding from an air raid at Red Blesno Station when you encountered a very strange thing. Is it? ”

"Yes."

"Tell me about the situation at that time, I want to know what happened in Lu Dao?" As he spoke, Stalin walked past me, sat back down at the long table, and beckoned me to sit down.

After I sat down, I honestly replied to him: "I was hiding from the air raid at the Red Blesno station when a German bomb penetrated deep into the soil and landed on the tracks in the subway station. I and several commanders of the fighter battalion were working on the bomb when suddenly a subway train came from the direction of Belorusskaya station. Since the bomb was in the middle of the tracks, I was afraid of danger and sent someone to stop the train in time. After the car stopped, many passengers got out of the car, and some fighters noticed that they were different from us, and almost all of them were wearing summer clothes......"

"Is there only one person who wears summer clothes, or is it all summer clothes?" Stalin interrupted me and asked for one of the details.

"It's everyone. Comrade Stalin. I replied to him almost without thinking, adding, "When everyone got off the train, I went to the carriage to check it out, and I found something unthinkable." ……”

"What's the matter?" He interrupted me again curiously.

"It's a newspaper. A newspaper of July 23, 1975, to be exact. ”

"Do you remember what it said?"

"I glanced at it, and there was a piece of news that seemed to tell me about our garrison in Berlin. ……”

"What? Berlin??? He looked at me incredulously and asked, "Are you sure you're right?" The newspaper says about the Soviet garrison in Berlin? ”

"Yes, I wasn't mistaken." I replied in the affirmative: "I wanted to take a closer look, but when the commander of the battalion came to me, I put down the newspaper and left. ”

"Where's that newspaper now?" Stalin asked impatiently.

I shook my head and replied, "I don't know what happened either, but the situation was chaotic, and when the fighters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs opened fire, a dazzling white light flashed, and the train disappeared." The newspaper, perhaps, fell in the train, and disappeared with the vanishing train; It could have been on one of the passengers who were escorting them to the camp, but they were killed in an air raid on the road, and the newspaper may have turned to dust. ”

"Alas!" He sighed, his face full of regret.

"But, Comrade Stalin! There is also a survivor among the passengers on the train, who is not of our time, and who may know a lot of things that we want to know. ”

"Who is he?"

"A senior engineer in a military factory. He should have helped us in the Great Patriotic War now. ”

"Where is he?"

Hearing Stalin's question, I couldn't help frowning slightly, thinking to myself, could it be that Colonel Bezikov didn't report to him on such an important matter? Just as I was thinking nonsense, I heard Stalin ask: "Leda! You haven't answered my question yet, do you know where he is? ”