November 1942. As World War Two hangs in the balance a man waits at a remote airfield in the Caucasus. He holds the knowledge that could bring ultimate victory.
He is Dr Dimitri Vlasenin, Hero of the Soviet Union and Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Disillusioned by the horrors of Stalinism he attempting to escape to the West. But Stalin's secret police have other ideas.
Captured en route and taken to the Soviet consulate in Istanbul he is tortured to reveal the whereabouts of a briefcase containing his most recent findings. He holds out, but his interrogator is an expert in breaking his subject's resistance...
Meanwhile the intelligence services of both sides have learnt of Vlasenin's location. The British send in a rescue team led by the veteran Major Alexander Rawlings. But Nazi Germany and fascist Italy also want the ultimate prize of war - and alliances have ceased to matter...
From the Kremlin corridors of power to the teeming streets of Istanbul and the mountains of occupied Greece, Rawlings' mission becomes an epic journey in which loyalties and ideals face the ultimate test, and his deadliest enemies may be within his own team...
J V Robson's debut novel is a war thriller in the classic tradition as well as an 'origin story' of the nuclear age. As a new world is born, the fate of Dr Vlasenin will decide not just the war, but the peace as well...
J V Robson was born and brought up in the north-east of England. He studied English and American Literature at the University of Kent and, after a brief spell as a tour guide, pursued a career in journalism in both Britain and Australia. He lives in north London. ‘Racing to Armageddon’ is his first novel.
The room was cold and damp and bleak and bare. Vlasenin had been in there for what seemed like hours – ever since he had woken to find himself dragged from the boot of a car through a doorway and down a flight of steps to his new quarters.
Without his coat or cap the plain Army uniform had long since given up the fight to keep any of the chill out. He hugged himself, blew freezing breath on frozen knuckles, jumped up and paced around for the fiftieth time, walking around the metal and canvas chair by the metal table, circuiting all four walls before collapsing on the filthy mattress that covered the metal and wire-spring bed.
He felt as though he would freeze to death, but he knew they wouldn't let that happen. They had plenty of other things to do to him yet and once all that began he would look back on this period as fondly as a childhood holiday. He gave a shiver that was more than the cold.
So close, damn it. He had known his superiors were getting suspicious of his continuing lack of results, knew that this was the moment when action had to be taken. So he had contacted the Tsarists. The first directly treasonable action of his life, but one which he knew would put him beyond the pale at a stroke.
Everyone knew the Whites were still active, some inside Russia, others scattered to the four corners of Europe. The names of the contacts, the locations of the dead letter drops, the code words which could gain you an audience... they were not hard to reach. But in reaching for them you put your head on the block – and quite a few other parts of your anatomy.
He smiled grimly despite himself. No other organisation was hunted quite so fiercely by the NKVD. That was why he had chosen a small group, near to where he worked, with few contacts in the wider reaches of the underground. They had fallen over themselves to help, and so had the British. The plan was arranged quickly – too quickly. He knew that now. But they had insisted that even a minute longer than necessary spent in Russia could be fatal. So he had let himself be swayed. To what avail. He had been taken. That meant the network was blown. But was there anyone left to retrieve the briefcase?