(…) May 14th, 1916, Zurich (…)

  Dusk settled over Zürich, the pale purple sky and the cold air carrying the scent of rain from the lake. Kornilov and Starsky walked separately along the narrow streets of Niederdorf, their footfalls muted on the old stones.

  They had dressed like clerks, with dark coats, flat caps, and leather gloves. Nothing to attract attention. Nothing for any onlookers to remember, like bright red or anything flashy. They had arrived an hour early to position themselves. Kornilov stood near the fountain at the bend of Spiegelgasse. Starsky waited farther down the street, leaning casually against a wall as if waiting for someone. Between them lay the path Lenin always walked: a tight, sloping alley where shadows gathered early, and the gas lamps flickered even when the sun still lingered. Starsky tapped twice on his cane, giving the signal that he was in place. Kornilov did not turn to acknowledge. He simply adjusted his gloves.

  The minute hand of his pocket watch crept toward the hour. Then they saw him. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov emerged from No. 14, locking the door behind him, a folded newspaper under his arm. He wore his usual dark coat and soft cap, scarf pulled close around his neck. He was alone, without any comrades. Perfect. Lenin turned left, heading downhill toward the Limmat as expected. He walked briskly, muttering to himself, reviewing some argument only he could hear. Kornilov waited until Lenin passed him by several steps before moving, keeping his distance. Starsky straightened and began walking as well, picking up the tail.

  Lenin never noticed them. He was too consumed by the war, by Russia’s future, by the enemies he believed surrounded him. He never imagined the enemy might be standing three paces behind. They closed in as the street grew narrower, with the walls on both sides almost touching. This was the chosen spot. Kornilov moved first. Three long, silent strides. His hand slipped inside his coat. Starsky mirrored him from behind. Lenin sensed something only at the last moment, like the faint scrape of a shoe behind him, maybe a breath. He half turned. Kornilov struck. The stiletto flashed as he drove it forward, aiming beneath the rib toward the lung. But Lenin twisted instinctively, the blade slicing his coat instead of flesh. He stumbled back, eyes wide with shock. Starsky surged forward to finish the strike.

  At that exact instant, a door flew open beside them. A woman stepped out with a laundry basket, gasping as she saw the struggle. Starsky froze for a fraction of a second, but too long. Lenin bolted. He shoved past Kornilov, sprinting downhill with a burst of speed born from raw survival instinct. “After him!” Kornilov roared. They ran. Lenin barreled through the narrow street, knocking over a garbage pail, scattering newspapers. The gas lamps cast jittering shadows as he darted toward the wider road below. Kornilov gained on him, Starsky close behind. Lenin veered right, and that was his last mistake. It led to a dead end near a small courtyard. He realized too late, skidding to a halt against a low iron gate. He spun, panting, terror in his eyes. Kornilov raised the stiletto again. Starsky reached for his revolver, something they had planned as a last resort, but the sound of boots suddenly echoed from the main street. Two men appeared at the mouth of the alley.

  Not Swiss police. Worse. German agents. One shouted in German, “Halt! Stop!” Lenin cried out, “They’re trying to kill me!” The German agents drew pistols, aiming at Kornilov and Starsky. “Run!” Kornilov shouted, grabbing Starsky’s arm. They sprinted down a side passage as bullets cracked off the stone walls. Lenin collapsed against the gate, gasping but alive. The Germans reached him within seconds. Kornilov and Starsky vanished into the maze of alleys, breath ragged, hearts hammering. They had failed. And now Germany would surely move Lenin out of Switzerland and immediately at that. The future of Russia had just shifted. The revolution had survived by seconds.

  Unless they could again try to kill the bastard before he left.

  EPILOGUE

  “We are locked in a struggle of exhaustion. No man can see its end.”

  Sir Douglas Haig, early summer 1916

  SM UB-14

  South of Mykonos Islands, May 14th, 1916

  South of Mykonos, the Aegean opened into one of its widest and deepest corridors, a natural sea-lane carved between the Cycladic islands and the open water east of the Attic peninsula. Here, the sea changed temperament: the notorious winds of Mykonos still whipped sharp gusts over the waves, but the broad channel south of the island provided steadier waters, allowing a dreadnought battlefleet to advance in disciplined columns. To the north, the white cubed houses of Mykonos clung to the hillsides like chalk marks against the stone, their windmills standing as silent sentinels over the passing steel giants. To the south stretched a mosaic of deep indigo water, calm but immense, reflecting the sky in long trembling lines.

  The powerful, 15-strong battleship fleet moved through this passage like a moving wall, its gray hulls rising and falling in slow rhythm, funnels trailing smoke that dissolved into the bright wind. Destroyers cut ahead in crescent formations, throwing spray into sharp arcs, while cruisers guarded the flanks, their gun turrets glinting like watchful eyes. The islands of Naxos and Delos lay distant and faint, low shadows on the horizon, guiding the fleet toward the narrowing waters of the Saronic Gulf. Ahead, hidden beyond the curve of the sea, lay Attica and Athens.

  By design as much as luck, Captain Heino von Heimburg was again having a front-seat view of the incoming armada, fully knowing where it was headed. He tries to stay calm as he peered through the periscope, his face resolutely grim. SM UB-14 had been ordered to this position following the Entente landings in the Dardanelles, since the OHL and the Kaiserliche Marine command feared an attack could also fall on the Greeks. And their hunch appeared to have been right. “XO, draft a message for us to send the minute we can surface. We gotta warn Athens.”

  The Entente was coming for the Greeks, and not in a small way.

  THE STORY WILL CONTINUE IN BOOK 11 OF THE WW1 ALTERNATE SERIES

  No end in sight

  Thank you very much for reading my work.

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  THE BLITZKRIEG ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: Blitzkrieg Europa – 2nd Edition

  Book 2: Battle Europa 2nd Edition

  Book 3: Battle Russia, 2nd Edition

  Book 4: Struggle Europa 2nd Edition

  Book 5: Deadlock Europa 2nd Edition

  Book 6: Fortress Europa 2nd Edition

  Book 7: Citadel Europa 2nd Edition

  Book 8: Stalemate Europa 2nd Edition

  Book 9: Staggering Europa 2nd Edition

  Book 10: Faltering Europa 2nd Edition

  Book 11: Crumbling Europa 2nd Edition – January 2026

  Book 12: Falling Europa 2nd Edition – TBD

  THE PACIFIC ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: Blitzkrieg Pacific

  Book 2: Battle Pacific

  Book 3: Struggle Pacific

  Book 4: Staggering Pacific

  Book 5: Burning Pacific

  Book 6: Sallying Pacific

  Book 7: Siege Pacific

  Book 8: Faltering Pacific

  Book 9: Crumbling Pacific

  Book 10: Collapsing Pacific

  Book 11: Shattering Pacific

  Book 12: Overwhelmed Pacific

  Book 13: Endgame Pacific

  Book 14: Victorious Pacific

  Book 15: Downfall Pacific, early 2026

  THE NAPOLEONIC ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: Austerlitz Alternate

  Book 2: Friedland Alternate

  Book 3: 1809 Alternate

  Book 4: Shadow of the Eagles – Date TBD

  THE AXIS ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: The Bear and the Swastika

  Book 2: World War

  Book 3: Axis Triumphant

  Book 4: Axis Victorious

  Book 5: Axis Overwhelming

  Book 6: Stalemate

  Book 7: Axis Resurging

  Book 8: Axis Siege

  Book 9: 1943: Total War

  Book 10: Crucible

  Book 11v.1: Amerika in Flames

  Book 11v.2: Eurasia in flames

  THE GREAT WAR ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: Schlieffen Alternate

  Book 2: Great War Alternate

  Book 3: 1915 Alternate

  Book 4: Weltkrieg 1915

  Book 5: Clash of Empire

  Book 6: Schlacht Europa

  Book 7: All Out War

  Book 8: Kampf Europa

  Book 9: Bayonets and Thunder

  Book 10: Breaking Point

  Book 11: No end in sight

  THE SPACE WAR SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: SPACE WAR, An Empire Divided

  Book 2: Invasion (TBD)

  CIVIL WAR

  Book 1: Civil War (December 19th, 2025)

  Book 2: Rebel Empire (February 2026)

  Audio Books on Audible.com and Amazon.com:

  THE GREAT WAR ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: Schlieffen Alternate

  Book 2: Great War Alternate

  Book 3: 1915 Alternate

  Book 4: Weltkrieg 1915

  Book 5: Clash of Empires

  THE SPACE WAR SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: SPACE WAR, An Empire Divided (available on Amazon with virtual voice)

  THE NAPOLEONIC ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: Austerlitz Alternate (available on Amazon with virtual voice)

  Book 2: Friedland Alternate (available on Amazon with virtual voice)

  THE BLITZKRIEG ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: Blitzkrieg Europa – 2nd Edition

  Book 2: Battle Europa 2nd Edition (in progress)

  THE PACIFIC ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: Blitzkrieg Pacific

  Book 2: Battle Pacific

  Book 3: Struggle Pacific

  Book 4: Staggering Pacific

  THE AXIS ALTERNATE SERIES

  BY MAX LAMIRANDE

  Book 1: The Bear and the Swastika

  Book 2: World War

  CIVIL WAR

  Book 1: Civil War (January 2026)

  Also, from the same author:

  CIVIL WAR

  The American Civil War

  Following the election of anti-slavery President-elect Abraham Lincoln, the Southern States of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas have all officially left the United States of America.

  After months of tensions, with the newly elected President Lincoln's full intention to defend and uphold all federal property in the South, the Battle of Fort Sumter erupts in all its fury in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The Rebel militias attack the federal fortification, taking it after a 32-hour bombardment and forcing the surrender of its 85-man garrison.

  Lincoln follows up with the call for a 75,000-soldier army to be levied to invade the South and suppress the breakaway states. The move is quickly followed by Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee — which have not yet seceded — to join the Confederacy rather than supply troops to fight their Southern neighbors.

  The United States of America is no more, and the future of the country will be decided on the battlefield. The first major clash between the two armies happens a few months later, at the Battle of Bull Run. On the Union side, the troops are led by a man of considerable reputation, Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, while the Confederate Army is led by a hero of the American-Mexican War, newly named commander General Robert E. Lee.

  Thanks to Lee's methodical approach to the battle and his background as an engineer, the rebel forces fight from a well-prepared position and then counterattack with vigor when the Union troops falter. The battle ends with the Northern Army severely defeated and then routed, as its troops retreat in a panicked flight back toward Washington, D.C. The Confederates are shattered and disorganized, but then the improbable happens.

  General Lee, with the help of dynamic and competent General Joseph E. Johnston, the South's most accomplished general, succeeds in reorganizing and rallying a sizable portion of their exhausted force. They thus immediately follow up the stunning victory with a move on Washington. Two days later and with as much luck as grit, the rebels manage to storm the Capital, and the entire Union is thrown into unimaginable chaos.

  This is the story of the American Civil War as it might have been.

  BLITZKRIEG PACIFIC

  The year is 1942.

  The world is at war. Almost every major nation has declared for the Allies or the Axis. Europe is occupied by the Third Reich, and the British Islands have been invaded and conquered by the Germans. Metropolitan France has fallen, along with its North African colonies. Spain and Turkey have joined the Axis. The Middle East is Axis. The USA and Soviet Russia are also at war with the Third Reich.

  Only one major power is still on the sidelines. Imperial Japan, already engaged in its war of conquest in China, begins to consider conquering the Pacific and Southeast Asia following German successes in Europe and the subsequent weakening of the resource-rich Franco-British and Dutch colonies.

  The United States, following Japan’s occupation of the French colony of French Indochina in 1940, froze all of Tokyo’s assets, stopped scrap metal deliveries, and was just about to stop delivering oil to the hungry Japanese military machine, a move certain to trigger a reaction from the warmongers in Tokyo.

  President Roosevelt’s decision to do so is about to have dire consequences for the United States. The Imperial Navy has set its sights on the main US base in the Pacific, Pearl Harbor. And all across the Japanese-held islands of the Pacific, the forces of the Rising Sun prepare for a full-scale invasion that they hope will give them control over the resources the country needs to continue on its expansion.

  This is the story of the War in the Pacific.

  Also, from the same author:

  AUSTERLITZ ALTERNATE

  DECEMBER 2ND, 1805

  The War of the Third Coalition rages in Europe. Battles have been fought, and Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armée sweeps everything before it. Following a significant victory over the Austrian Army in Ulm, the French occupied Vienna, the capital of the Austrian Empire.

  The Russians entered Austria to come to the aid of their Allies under pressure from the British. The Austro-Russians and the French are about to clash in a small, unknown town called Austerlitz.

  And then everything changes. The French stop trying to retake the Pratzen Heights, and the day's battle ends in a stalemate for both armies. Kutusov, the leader of the allied army in the absence of the young Tsar Alexander (who fell ill and is still in Galicia), decides to retreat the army northward with the Austrian Emperor's approval. The news galvanizes the Revolution's enemies and the Empire, which is jealous of Napoleon's success and wants him gone. The Prussians decide to join the war and move their troops into Austria to link their forces with the two other powers. The German states and other countries, such as Naples, reconsider their stances in the conflict. And the French Emperor's internal enemies, ever wishing for the old regime's return, start plotting to overthrow the government in Paris.

  Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire, having been convinced by the French several months earlier to enter the war, has decided to intervene in favor of Bonaparte and invade southern Hungary with an Army. Austria is on the brink of annihilation, but Napoleon's Grande Armée faces a significant challenge ahead, as it must now defeat three major powers simultaneously.

  Everything will come down to either Napoleon's genius in overcoming the odds and winning, regardless of the troops arrayed against him, or his defeat and the end of the French Empire.

  This is the story of the Napoleonic Wars.

  Also, from the same author:

  SCHLIEFFEN ALTERNATE

  Europe, August 1914.

  The world explodes into war as Austro-Hungary declares war on Serbia following the assassination of the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Russia follows suit and mobilizes, while Germany supports its ally and declares war on Russia. France then joins the conflict, as it is Russia’s ally.

  The British intervene when the Germans execute their Schlieffen Plan and attack through Belgium to outflank the French defenses. And then pandemonium explodes everywhere. The Austro-Hungarians attack in Serbia and Galicia, the Russians invade Prussia, and the Germans smash into France. In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire declares war on the Central Powers, while Italy remains neutral.

  The German Army is unstoppable and closes in on Paris as the Allies retreat in disarray all along the front. The fate of the world hangs in the balance as a big battle looms for Paris. However, no gains come without giving something away. While the German Army is busy conquering France and beating the British Expeditionary Force, the Russians storm Prussia and roll over the German 8th Army. The Reich has all of its remaining troops fighting in the West and nothing fresh to put in front of the Russian steamroller. Königsberg falls, and the Austro-Hungarians fail before Belgrade and in Galicia. Something will have to be done, or else Berlin will fall to the Russian Imperial forces.

  This is the story of a war that might have been.

  Also, from the same author:

  THE BEAR AND THE SWASTIKA

  The year is 1939.

  The world is abuzz with the news of the signing of the German-Soviet pact. A dark veil soon falls on Europe as Poland is invaded and destroyed by the overwhelming forces of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army.

  France and the United Kingdom can only sit by and watch the two military juggernauts obliterate the Polish state. No one believes that the two totalitarian regimes can agree in the long term, as their ideologies are completely contradictory.