Book excerpt: Alternate history master John Birmingham unleashes an astounding new installment in his Axis of Time series: an original eBook novella that begins when the future and the past collide. The year is 1955, ten years after a battle fleet from 2021 exploded through a wormhole in space—straight into the Battle of Midway. A staggered, war-torn world catches its balance. Uptimers, with their extraordinary technology and strange styles, mingle with the real timers. Universities study the effects on the future. And men like Prince Harry of England find themselves playing pivotal roles in a history that has already happened. Or has it? In the starkly partitioned city of Rome, spies, killers, and mafia foot soldiers cross the dividing line between Allied and Russian Zones. Somewhere in the ancient, underground catacombs two men hunt for one another. One is Stalin’s personal assassin, the other a murderous, disillusioned acolyte of the Communist ideal, allied by fate and history with the OSS, MI6, and England’s swashbuckling Prince Harry. Harry’s own mission takes him to a glittering dinner party and a prize over which the two Russian killers are fighting—a factory owner with a terrifying secret. As the forces of West and East are locked in a stalemate, what this man knows could change everything: Josef Stalin, hiding in a Siberian bunker, is ready to hit the world with a thunderous blow.