CHAPTER 289: APPEASEMENT ONCE IGNITED DOES NOT BURN ONE FOREST ALONE.

Tallinn had not slept in weeks.

Shadows stretched longer than the daylight hours.

Shops opened, but no one loitered.

Priests shortened sermons.

Schoolteachers paused before every lesson, unsure if their words would be reported.

Across Estonia, a quiet, invisible force had pressed its weight over the land, and it was growing heavier by the hour.

In Moscow, the deadline was coming.

October 25

Rain lashed the windows of Toompea Castle as the emergency cabinet meeting began. Prime Minister Päts stood with arms folded, eyes puffy from sleeplessness.

"We are two days away from being told we were conquered weeks ago," Defense Minister Laidoner said.

"Our forces are not equipped," added Foreign Minister Piip. "We don’t even have adequate gas masks. And they’re jamming our radios."

Finance Minister Jaan Lattik glanced at a note just handed to him. "The Tartu press building burned down last night. Completely gone. Police suspect sabotage."

Päts didn’t blink. "Of course it’s sabotage. And tomorrow, it’ll be Narva."

One younger minister slammed his fist down. "Then why are we not calling for help? Britain, France hell, even Sweden!"

Laidoner shook his head. "The British sent silence. The French sent paperwork. The League of Nations sent a letter."

Päts looked around. "If there is one vote in this room for surrender, say it now."

No one spoke.

But not everyone looked him in the eye.

On the Estonian coast, Agent Fedorov sat in the back of a black car with frost on the windows.

He passed envelopes to three operatives, the school registrar, the dockmaster, and the local postman.

Inside each envelope, a list.

Teachers to watch.

Priests to question.

Youth group leaders to approach.

"You are not to act," Fedorov warned them. "Only to record. The actions will come later."

One of them the postman, shaking asked, "Will there be violence?"

Fedorov looked him in the eye. "Only if they resist ideas."

In Tartu, the Soviet cell leader oversaw the final delivery of print runs.

Pamphlets now featured photographs of Estonian ministers shaking hands with supposed Soviet delegates.

The events were fabricated, the photographs forged.

It didn’t matter.

Doubt was the point.

By week’s end, rumors spread that President Päts had already agreed to a ’mutual defense pact.’

Others whispered he had fled.

Neither was true.

But that didn’t stop the whispers.

Deep in the countryside, in the village of Võru, a group of former army officers met inside a barn by candlelight.

They passed around outdated rifles and cartridges from the War of Independence.

"We can’t hold them," one man said. "Not for a day."

"That’s not the point," replied another. "We make it hurt. Enough to be remembered."

At the British legation in Tallinn, Nigel Hayworth paced his office, notebook in hand.

"October 28. Rumors multiply. Parliament divided. Street patrols doubled. Radio silence thickens."

He paused, sighed, then continued.

"The ambassador refuses to make a public statement. He says we mustn’t escalate what might not escalate on its own. That logic will bury Estonia, I suspect."

In Paris, diplomats read their cables with narrowed eyes.

France was still stabilizing its hold over Catalonia and Zaragoza.

The last thing Moreau wanted was to appear hypocritical by protesting another quiet annexation.

A British diplomat in Geneva scribbled a memo to London.

"We do nothing. Again. The precedent we set in Madrid and Vienna now paves Stalin’s road through Tallinn. Appeasement, once ignited, does not burn one forest alone."

But the memo was shelved.

Chamberlain had a speech to rehearse.

Marshal Voroshilov oversaw a large table of maps.

One of them bore red threads linking Soviet staging posts to the Estonian frontier.

"How long to occupy Tallinn?" he asked.

Colonel Orlov spoke with practiced precision. "If we strike simultaneously from Narva, Petseri, and the sea... Forty-two hours. Minimal resistance expected in Tartu and Pärnu."

"And if the resistance is greater?"

Orlov hesitated. "Then seventy-two. Still within acceptable range."

Voroshilov nodded and lit a cigarette.

"Stalin said, ’Speed is mercy. Shock is peace.’ I’ll take neither lightly."

From the far end of the room, a staff captain asked quietly, "And what of foreign intervention?"

"Then we smile. Then we say, ’We were invited.’"

Laughter followed.

Thin, cold laughter.

October 30.

On national radio, Prime Minister Päts addressed the people.

"My fellow Estonians,

We stand in a moment of great uncertainty. You have heard the rumors, seen the columns on our border.

I tell you this now, no treaty has been signed. No alliance sworn. We are still Estonians.

But to remain so, we must not turn against one another.

Our language, our land, our soul these are ours only if we remain united.

There may come a day where flags change. But what matters is that we remember who we are, under them or beside them."

The signal cut off just minutes after he finished.

Some believed it was the KGB.

Others feared it was simply the beginning.

Beria stood by a portable table beneath a camouflage net near the Narva River.

It was late.

"These final hours," he said, voice flat, "are more dangerous than the first bullets."

He looked at his men. "No heroism. No improvisation. We are not invaders. We are the answer to a question they have not yet asked."

He pointed to the trucks behind him loaded with banners, flags, framed portraits, and blank government forms.

"Tomorrow we do not enter as wolves. We enter as shadows."

In Kremlin Stalin sat alone, the lamp on his desk flickering.

A map of the Baltics lay open.

A red pencil had already drawn new lines. Estonia’s name was still visible, but not for long.

He pressed his thumb against Tallinn.

Then, without any hesitation he reached for the telephone.

"Proceed."

He hung up.

No speech.

No toast.

Just that single word.

The sky was clear.

Engines rumbled.

Orders were whispered.

From Narva to Võru, to the northern ports and southern forests, the trucks began to roll.

No music played.

No flags waved.

Estonia held its breath.

And the fuse reached its flame.