9 Days Falling, Volume I

Chapter 25

Orlov sat in back the truck, thinking what he would do next. The flight east away from the Germans north of Kizlyar had been a quick rumble as the trucks sped along the hard packed earthen road. Half way to the coast, however, the good road ended, and they were forced to turn southeast along narrow tracks that fringed brown muddied fields. They crossed small streams over stone bridges that barely had the width to accommodate the vehicles, and the going was slow. The terrain forced them east towards the Caspian their way south blocked by a sprawling series of marshes, fen pools and salt barrens. Below this, the Terek River wandered lazily over the flat landscape, losing itself in many fingered runs into the marshland.

Orlov was watched by two guards, both with sub-machineguns, but he soon engaged them with his devil may care attitude, and even had one man laughing at one point, before the soldier steadied himself with a sergeant staring at him from the back of the truck bed. He had been all set to blow the Colonel who confronted him to hell; then the Germans attacked and everything became chaos. With six NKVD soldiers around him they were all hustled into a truck and on the road north, leaving a cloud of dust behind them—until they saw the armored cars advancing, with squads of German infantry on their flanks.

The column had to make a hard right turn and head east. The road to Astrakhan was now cut, at least for the time being. Now Orlov wondered what had become of his grandmother. That part of the column was also cut off, so it must have turned south, he reasoned. Good. We’re all going south. The Germans did me a favor after all. Now all I have to do is figure how to bust a few heads, get hold of one of those machine guns and settle affairs here. That Sergeant is the only real threat. He’s a sallow faced bastard, like all sergeants, eh? I’d better figure a way to get him closer. The others will be no problem.

“Hey… Tovarich, I’ve been to Baku already. Why in hell are we going back? I thought you were here to fight the Germans. They’re behind us! Or are you sucking on that Colonel’s teat, eh?”

“Watch your mouth,” the Sergeant growled.

“You watch it, asshole!” Orlov was in no mood to be pushed any further in spite of the circumstances. Amazingly, no one had searched him in the heat of the moment, and he still had the pistol in his pocket!

“Look,” said the Sergeant. “We’ll deal with you when we get down south.” He pointed a threatening finger Orlov’s way. “Nobody seems to know you, but you’re wearing an NKVD uniform. What unit are you? What are these orders you say you have for the Commissar? Do you think we are stupid here?”

“No, I just think you look stupid,” Orlov jibed. “I’ll tell you why the Germans are kicking our ass in this war. Because we can’t seem to sort out who we’re fighting against! If it were me, I’d be back there in Kizlyar in a trench on the river line with the fighting NKVD, not out rounding up innocent girls and old ladies for Molla and his comrades. Which do you like, Sergeant—the little girls or the old babushkas? That’s why we’re losing this damn war, eh?”

The Sergeant waved him off, and craned his neck to look outside, but the look on his face told Orlov that last remark had hit a nerve. Orlov grinned, and he saw two of the other men suppress a smile as well.

They finally found the river, narrowing to no more than a hundred meters or so, a silty brown flow heading toward the sea. They followed the north bank for some time, but there were no bridges, so the trucks kept on. The dry land was slowly squeezed between the thinning stream of the river and the thickening marshes to the north. In time they came struggling along a narrowing track until the lead truck simply ground to a halt, its tires sunk deep in a bog. The column stopped, and Orlov heard the harsh voice of the Colonel up ahead, shouting orders. There was a rustle of men and equipment, the sound of women’s voices mixed in, and then the Colonel stuck his head into the back of their truck.

“Out! We walk from here. The trucks can go no further. It’s just a kilometer to the bridge at Kazgan. Then we’ll find new vehicles on the other side. Keep a close eye on him,” he pointed at Orlov, frowning. “He wants to see Comrade Molla? Very well, he will see him soon enough.”

The Colonel meant that as a threat, but it gave Orlov heart. Good, he thought. They’re taking me to Molla! What could be better? I’ve a revolver with six bullets in my pocket and all the time in the world.

He had the heady feeling that he was invulnerable, like a demigod that had fallen from the heavens into this world of stupid little men. He was omniscient as long as he kept hold of his service jacket and could listen to Svetlana whispering in his earbuds. He could tell them what would happen tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. No man among them would believe him, though the sailors on the Soviet trawler, T-492 had learned to believe him. Too bad for Kamkov. He should have listened and gone below to get some sleep, but every man makes little decisions, little choices like that, and they sometimes make the difference between life and death.

He settled into the bench, a silent smirk on his face. What did these maggots know? They knew nothing! He would have to go about slapping them upside the head and straightening things out, or so he believed. And he would start with Commissar Molla.

The roads were much better south of the river than they were on the north bank. Captain John Haselden and his small commando team had humped it on foot for some time before they came to the river south of the town and decided to swim across. By the time they got to the other side they were tired, wet, and cold, but after edging down towards the outskirts of a hamlet denoted as Kurtanaul on their map, they found an old American Studebaker Lend-Lease truck that had been abandoned as lost. Sergeant Terry was familiar with them and managed to get it cranked up and running again after spending a half hour under the hood. It had just enough fuel left to get them the distance they would need to cover, if they could remain undetected.

The evening deepened to night and they decided to continue on while they could, using cover of darkness to get them as far east as possible. The map showed several small farms south of the river, and one decent road that ran east, eventually hugging the southern bank of the river. The bridge they were looking for was a little over forty kilometers from Kizlyar, and driving was slow on the muddied roads in the dark with headlights off. Thankfully, they encountered no one else on the journey, as most people in the thinly populated area were likely indoors for warmth and security by now. The night was theirs, and they reached the bridge site in good time, pulling the small truck off the road for concealment.

“We’ve been under a Hunter’s Moon all this way from Fort Shevchenko,” said Haselden. “Now it’s half worn away.” The half moon was now entering its last quarter, and would be sliced away to darkness night after night for the next week.

“The darker the better,” said Sutherland, smearing grease on his cheekbones under the eyes.

“They’ll be coming soon enough,” Haselden was certain. “We’re here a good two hours ahead of them by my reckoning.”

“Yes, Captain, but we’re just three men! There were nine trucks in that column. That’s could hold whole bloody company of NKVD.”

“They weren’t all soldiers. Lots of women and children were herded onto those trucks, just as we saw when we made that rush. The rest turned and ran south when Jerry showed up.”

“Well enough,” said Sutherland. “Then suppose they have two or three full squads. What then? We can bushwhack ‘em at this bridge here, but what good will that do? They’ll deploy to flank us and that will be the end of it.”

“These are good positions,” said Haselden. “Sergeant Terry on overwatch, the two of us on maneuver as before.”

“Terry is good on the Bren, but he won’t be able to keep three squads at bay for long.”

“If they have that many,” Haselden enjoined.

“I say we blow the bridge while we can,” Sutherland insisted. “Take that out and they’ll have to ford the river on foot, and the water is chest high. Then we might get them at a disadvantage in mid-stream and thin out the odds. They won’t be expecting an ambush like this.”

“Right, well don’t get trigger happy and put a bloody bullet through our man.” Haselden took a deep breath, looking tired and beset.

“What’s up, Jock? Under the weather?”

“Can’t say as I know,” said Haselden. “Feeling a bit stretched and thin is all. Nothing a good meal and a proper night’s sleep wouldn’t cure.”

“Same for us all,” said Sutherland.

But John Haselden was feeling something more that night, and thin and stretched was a good part of it. He had the odd feeling that something was strangely off its kilter, the world gone awry, and that it had something to do with him, though he could not put his finger on the problem.

Spread thin, that was it, like too little butter over bread, and no jam. The strange notion that he was not supposed to be here kept gnawing at the back of his mind, though he could not say why. Perhaps it was just this place, he thought. He should be way off south, back in Egypt where he felt at home in the heat and sand of the desert. This mess of a marshland seemed to chill his bones, even though the night was not all that cold. Yet, try as he might, he could not shake the feeling that he was trespassing on ground he was never meant to tread. It was not the simple danger of an operation behind lines. That was his stock in trade. No. It was something else, but he could not get his fist around it, and it irked him in a quiet inner place where he held his thoughts close.

Haselden was a zombie, as Alan Turing might explain it, ill at ease in the land of the living souls in their primary lease on life. He should be dead and buried in that desert sand, killed in the raid on Tobruk that was cancelled to bring him here to this place. Operation Agreement had been stayed, and now he had some unknown pact with the cold hand of fate instead, and he could feel its clammy touch on the back of his neck. This mission, and this time, was another kind of Lend-Lease—a gift of time that kept him breathing the still night air, finger on the trigger of his 9mm Sten gun, boots in the mud as they sat there behind their cover, a man who should be dead, yet alive. He knew something of that on one level, a strange intuition that harried him and, as he watch the night eat at that Hunter’s Moon these last several days he had the distinct feeling that it was eating away his own life and soul as well. He was feeling just like that old Studebaker truck, out of fuel, yet still on the road and pressed into service in dire need.

Haselden shook himself, rubbing a cramp from his shoulder. “Alright, Davey boy, let’s have it your way. Get your charges set. I’ll sit overwatch while you work.”

“That’s a good play, Jock.” Sutherland wanted the bridge down and the river a good defensive barrier that he knew the Russians would have to try and cross if they wanted to get south. There was nothing north of them for miles and miles, so it was south or nothing for this column of NKVD and the rabble they had herded into those trucks. He nodded, clapping the Captain on that same stiff shoulder and tossing him some hardtack.

“Chew on that sea biscuit a while, Jock. It’ll do you some good.” Then he was off, haversack in one hand with demo charges as he began making a stealthy approach to the bridge. He was going to have to get wet again, but that was just par for this course. In a minute he was down under the bridge, fixing his charges and rolling back the wire, to a place of concealment. He knew that the moment he blew the charges the column would hear the explosion if they were close. He only hoped Haselden was correct and that they had a good two hour lead on the Russians.

His jaw set, he leaned forward on the plunger and heard the hard snap as the signal triggered a firing pin. Then there was a sharp boom and the bridge went up. He used just enough explosive to knock down the center bridge support and leave a nice big hole there that no vehicle could get around on the narrow wood bridge. Then, when he was certain that there was no one near at hand, he went down to survey his work, nodding to himself with some small satisfaction. He didn’t get wet again for nothing.

Back with Haselden the two men settled in to the cover to wait out the approach of the NKVD column. “You figure they heard that?”

“If they were within three miles, perhaps,” said Haselden. “Otherwise I think we pulled it off without a hitch. Good show, Lieutenant.”

“Just one for 30 Commando,” said Sutherland with a smile. He pulled his service jacket a little tighter against the chill night air, glad he had removed it before he went into the river. It was the only thing he had that was dry now. “Say Jock,” he said. “What’s so special about this man Orlov?”

“You heard Seventeen in the briefing. They think he’s off some bloody ship that’s been giving the Navy fits in the Med. That’s all I could make of it.”

“Right…Well he says we’re to bag this chap and bring him back whole, and at any cost, mind you. I’ll not be indelicate to say that means you and me. We’re expendable, and I don’t know about you but I’ve grown rather fond of looking at myself in the mirror for a shave.”

“And cracked more than a few with that mug of yours, Sutherland. It’s the mission that matters; nothing else. When has it ever been any different, Davey? We’re given a job and we do what we’re told.”

“Or die trying.” Sutherland repeated Seventeen’s admonishment when he handed them the mission. “Well if this Orlov is so important, you would think they might put a few more men on the job.”

“That thought did cross my mind, but Seventeen says the up and ups want it done nice and quiet like. After all, we can’t run about with a full company of the lads out here, can we. These are supposed to be our allies. So they picked you and me, Davey, and the good Sergeant Terry over there with his Bren.” He nodded to Terry’s position on the other side of the road where he had the best arcs of fire to cover the bridge.

“They want it done nice and quiet like.” Sutherland shook his head, looking at his watch. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they they’ll camp out and call it a night when they see my handiwork on that bridge, eh? Then we can put on the black face and creep on over to see what’s up with this Orlov.”

“Hush up!” Haselden was suddenly tense and alert. “You hear that?” They could hear the sound of voices in the distance.

They were coming.

Chapter 26

“Open that door!” The tall grey eyed man was adamant, pointing at the door, a suspicious look in his eye.

“But sir, that is just the upper landing for an old, unused stairway. It isn’t used any longer.”

“Someone is there, I tell you. I heard knocking on that door just a moment ago.”As if on cue there came another knock, soft and plaintive, and a muffled voice. The innkeeper’s eyes widened when he heard it, as though it was the ghostly hand of a specter knocking, and he was clearly distressed.

“Open it, I tell you! This is a matter of wartime security! I am giving you a direct order, and if you do not comply I will have military police commandeer this entire facility!”

Captain Ivan Volkov was not happy. He had traveled a very long way in the last few days, a long and frustrating journey in search of the man Kamenski had told him to find and shadow. He left the meeting with Inspector General Kapustin and the old Deputy Director of the KGB invigorated with a new mission. He was to find this former Lieutenant Navigator, Anton Fedorov, who had risen so dramatically in the ranks to the position of Starpom of the fleet’s finest ship—and this in just a few weeks time. It was unheard of! After their confrontation with the ship’s Captain over the clear discrepancies in their cover story, Volkov had been angered and amazed at Kapustin’s complete capitulation.

This business with the secret letter found in the Naval Logistics Building in Vladivostok was all a ruse, he thought. He allowed that bastard Karpov to walk all over him. Perhaps Kapustin had heard the rumors about Karpov and had come to fear him, as many others have during the Captain’s meteoric rise. But I’m not afraid of him. The outrageous story he foisted off to excuse these grievous transgressions did not impress me one bit. Karpov was hiding something all along, and I’m going to find out exactly what it is.

When he discovered the list of casualties and MIAs was completely bogus, he finally had the wedge he needed to confront the devious Captain. Then, the missing tactical nuclear warhead would become the icing on his cake. He would get Karpov one way or another now, of that he was certain.

Yet at the moment his mission was to find this upstart ex-navigator, Fedorov. He had men shadowing him to the Primorskiy Engineering Center three nights ago. A group of men were seen leaving that building with a radiation safe container, and Volkov believed he knew what it contained—the missing nuclear warhead! He gave orders that the truck was to be followed, and was not surprised when he learned it was heading for the airport. His men had searched the Engineering Center that night to locate Fedorov, but he was not found. There were only so many ways to get anywhere from Vladivostok. If Fedorov was not with the group that went to the airport, then where was he? He was and clearly not aboard Kirov, which had left port hours before he was last seen.

He must have arranged some secret way out of the building that night, thought Volkov, or perhaps his men were too sloppy. He could be holed up in a safe house in Vladivostok right now, or he might have found a way to rendezvous with Kirov at sea. There were any number of possibilities, and Volkov had men working on every angle. In the meantime, he had orders to scour the Trans-Siberian rail, every depot, every station, and that is exactly what he was doing.

The route had taken him up through Khabarovsk and then west through Irkutsk. Thus far there had been no sign or trace of Fedorov—no ticketing information, no booking data at any hotel or inn along the route, and Volkov had his team of five security men check them all. He even had one man assigned to review the security camera footage at every station, but thus far no shadow of Fedorov had been seen.

Now he was getting angry, and his position as a Captain in the Naval Intelligence Division gave him enough clout to throw his weight around and cause a good deal of trouble. He could easily intimidate the menial servants in the civilian infrastructure, particularly as war seemed imminent now and military authority would soon trump all else. He had left Irkutsk early in the morning and was now just east of Krasnoyarsk, checking an old railway inn before rejoining the train at Ilanskiy. It had been a long and frustrating journey—until now.

Volkov had interviewed the proprietor, surveyed the lower level, and was up on the second floor checking each room. The innkeeper was not happy about this, but Volkov told him that he was seeking a dangerous man and had the full authority of the military behind him, determined. Then he heard what seemed like a rumbling sound, which seemed to produce a very worrisome reaction from the innkeeper.

“What was that?” he asked sharply.

“What? You mean that old plumbing? This is a very old inn, Captain. It was built before the first revolution. It does that all the time.”

Volkov pursed his lips, still suspicious. He knew men well. He had ferreted out every sort of weasel and gopher imaginable, like a well trained guard dog unerringly following the scent. He knew liars too, having heard every excuse, obfuscation, and deception possible. And Volkov could tell, instinctively, when a man was afraid, when he was hiding something, when he was worried. The innkeeper was lying, and he pressed him on the matter at once.

“Old plumbing, eh? Where does that door lead?”

“Oh, that goes nowhere. It is not used. We keep it permanently locked now.”

Then they heard it—that plaintive knock on the door at the top of the stairs. The Captain flashed his teeth in a wry smile. “Not used, you say? Then who is knocking?” He turned to the innkeeper, clearly annoyed.

“Open that door!” The tall grey eyed Captain was adamant, pointing at the door, a suspicious look redoubled in his eye.

“But sir, that is just the upper landing for an old, unused stairway. It isn’t used any longer!”

“Someone is there, I tell you. I heard knocking on that door just a moment ago.”As if on cue there came another knock, soft and plaintive, and a muffled voice. The innkeeper’s eyes widened when he heard it, as though it was the ghostly hand of a specter knocking, and he was clearly distressed.

“Open it, I tell you! This is a matter of wartime security! I am giving you a direct order, and if you do not comply I will have military police commandeer this entire facility. Understand?”

“As you wish, as you wish…” the innkeeper, a gray haired old man, began fumbling with his keys, his hand trembling as he then unlocked the door.

Volkov reached to his side holster, removing his service pistol as the old man unlatched a safety bolt and slowly twisted the door knob, an anguished look on his face. The door opened with a dry squeak on its rusty hinges, and there came a dank, stuffy odor, as from an old closet that had not been opened for ages. The innkeeper gave a start, hand clutching his breast when he saw someone standing on the upper landing. “Dear God, not again,” he whispered, but Volkov quickly shoved him aside.

“You there, come out,” he commanded, brandishing his pistol.

A Young man, strangely dressed, emerged from the shadows of the landing with a bemused expression on his face. He looked at Volkov’s pistol; saw the steely eyes of the man, then the innkeeper’s obvious fear and discontent. He spoke in a halting fashion, his speech tentative, as though he were searching for the words. “I’m very sorry…I was just looking for my room.”

“Come out of there,” Volkov ordered, eying the darkened stairs suspiciously to make certain no one else was there. The old stairway was completely dark descending into velvety black shadows in just a few steps. “You are a guest here? What room number?”

“Excuse me?” The young man seemed flustered. “Oh yes…Room 214. Just down the hall.”

Volkov turned to the innkeeper. “You know this man?”

The old man’s eyes clearly revealed his uncertainty, and fear. Volkov’s suspicions ticked up a notch as he watched the man closely. “Well? Is he a guest here or not?”

“I am not certain. He could have been checked in by my daughter when I was in town getting food for the kitchen.”

The young man could see there was a problem, and the tall grey coated man with the pistol appeared to be a police officer or security man, so he began explaining, again with halting speech, uncertain of the words, and Volkov immediately knew he was not Russian.

“I was in the dining room with my guide for breakfast when that light flashed in the sky—some kind of explosion. Did you see it?”

“Explosion? What are you talking about? Step away from that stairway—yes, over here by the wall where I can get a good look at you. You say you were with a guide? Was anyone else with you just now? Answer truly. This is a matter of state security.”

“I met others in the dining room, but no, sir. I am traveling alone.”

Volkov gave him a knowing look. Another liar, he thought. The man was obviously flustered, very nervous. He was trying to hide something.

“You are a tourist? A foreigner?”

“Yes, from England.”

Volkov smiled. “Not a very good place to be from these days,” he said darkly. “At least not here. I will need to see your passport at once. What is your name?” Volkov lowered his pistol, seeing there was no real threat from this impish young man.

“My name? I am Thomas Byrne, sir, a reporter for the Times of London. I’m just here to cover the Great Race.” He made as if to drive a car, turning the wheel back and forth in a pantomime. “I was interviewing the German team just last night when they came in.” The young man forced a smile, but Volkov was not impressed.

“Race?” The Captain turned to the innkeeper. “What is this man talking about? Is there some event underway here?”

“Not that I know of, sir.” The innkeeper gave the young man a strange look, noting the watch fob on his tweed sports coat, the old style wool trousers and the mud caked on his boots. “You came up this stairway, young man?”

“Yes…but I was just trying to find my room…” He blinked, looking about him now as though he were lost.

It had been a very strange morning. He was up early that day, chancing upon that energetic fellow in the dining room for breakfast, Mironov. The man had warned him about this. He told him all foreigners were suspect and that he was surely being watched. One look at this tall, grey-eyed man in a military coat and hat convinced him Mironov was not joking. Then came the incredible light, the sudden wild wind, and the thrumming shock wave in the air that had broken all the windows. He and his guide had hurried outside with Mironov and found the townspeople, those that were awake at that hour, dumbly staring to the northeast. When he looked he saw a terrible fire in the sky, as though a massive forest fire were burning up all of Siberia. What could have happened?

They went back to the dining room with that other strange man, who also had a pistol. Byrne could only assume that this man before him now was an associate. In fact, the cut of his clothing was oddly familiar, much like that of the man he had seen in the dining room. They were obviously security men—what was it that Mironov called them? He could not remember the name, but there was no mistaking the pistols they were carrying. What if I get into trouble, he thought? What if I get deported? Old Mister Harmsworth would be most unhappy in that event. I could even lose my job!

“I think you and I will take a little walk,” said Volkov. “I wish to speak with this guide you mentioned. Then he turned to the innkeeper. “And you, sir, will be kind enough to go to the front desk and look up this man’s reservation. I wish to examine those records.”

“As you wish…” The innkeeper was still staring at the young man as though he were seeing a ghost.

“Very well, let’s go down and find this guide of yours.” Volkov gestured to the stairwell, waving the young man on.

“Oh, you won’t want to use this stairway, sir.” The innkeeper seemed very flustered. “As I have said, it is not used any longer. There is no light and the dust and cobwebs—”

“Don’t be stupid, this man obviously just came up those stairs.” Volkov gave the innkeeper a discerning look. He dropped all pretense of civility now. The man was very edgy, nervous, ill at ease, and now he seemed to be trying to impose himself between Volkov and the stairwell.

“Please, let us all use the main stairs, and I’ll get this old drafty stairway locked up again, eh? The boards on the steps are loose with rusty old nails. It isn’t safe.”

“Stand aside!” Volkov raised his pistol. “What are you hiding old man? I think I had better go and find out.”

Volkov pinched his collar to activate his jacket microphone. “Jenkov. Meet me in the dining room—and get a man on the main stairway at once. Keep an eye on the innkeeper.” He looked at the innkeeper with a snide smile. “And you can meet me at the front desk, old man. I’ll have a guard there to interview you further. Something is going on here, and I intend to get to the bottom of it.”

Volkov flashed a toothy grin at the young man now. “We can begin by getting to the bottom of these stairs.”

The innkeeper could see there was nothing to be done, so he raised his hands in frustration and walked off toward the main stairway, very agitated. Volkov waved his pistol at the young Englishman. “Get moving, down the stairs, just the way you came.”

“Of course. My guide will explain everything. I meant no harm, sir. In fact I was just going to my room to fetch my belongings and check out.”

Volkov waited while the man turned and started down the stairs. He followed, close behind, watching the man’s hands carefully in case he tried anything. The shadows enfolded them as they descended, and he heard a distant rumble, like the sound of artillery firing, which alarmed him. Half way down the stairs there came a strange sensation, a light-headedness that made him feel faint, and he reached for the wall to steady himself, his hand brushing against old cobwebs there. The sensation passed, and they reached the bottom of the stairs, stepping into a small alcove.

“Just a moment…” Volkov edged past the man, peering cautiously around the edge of the wall as if he might find someone waiting in ambush. It was the dining room, or so he thought, but perhaps a lower level. This room seemed very different, cold and cheerless, lit only be the fire from the hearth. There were no lights, no chandelier, and the table settings and linen were all gone, leaving him more suspicious than ever. A secret room, he thought. This old stairway leads down to another room—perhaps a hidden cellar.

He turned to the Englishman, a gleam in his eye. “Well? Where is this guide you speak of? Be quick man, I don’t have all day here.”

“I…Well, I don’t know…” the young man seemed very confused. Then they heard the sound of heavy footfalls on the hard wood floor and Volkov turned, expecting to see Jenkov coming as ordered.

Three men came stomping in, all dressed in military garb, olive green uniforms, blue caps with red hatbands and insignia, and they all held weapons. A fourth man followed them, moving with a slow deliberate gait, a cigarette in one hand, a pistol in the other. “Stand where you are!” he said sharply. “Get his weapon!”

The men all trained their guns on Volkov, two with submachine guns and the third, a shorter man in a leather military jacket with black boots and faired trousers also held a pistol. He walked slowly up to Volkov, extending his hand slowly to reach for his weapon.

“What is the meaning of this?” Volkov was immediately angered, but he could see he was out gunned here, and surrendered his pistol. This was most likely a military security sweep, he thought. He would straighten matters out directly.

“Do you know who I am?” he said indignantly.

“That remains to be seen,” said the fourth man, obviously an officer, with flat shoulder board insignia inlaid with blue stars. He turned to the short man with the odd glasses. “Is this the man?”

The shorter officer leaned in close, squinting behind small round wire frame spectacles as he looked at Volkov. It was Lieutenant Mikael Surinov, the NKVD man Fedorov had cowed and chastised at Irkutsk for mistreating the detainees on his train. He looked Volkov up and down, rubbing his chin.

“His uniform is suspicious,” he said. “Somewhat familiar….I don’t recognize him, but there were others. Perhaps this man is one of them!” He smiled, stepping back from Volkov and the Englishman, a smirk on his face. “We had better question them both.”

The officer dropped his cigarette, crushing it slowly under his boot. “Well, well, well,” he began. Then he came out with the line that had opened interrogations the world over for generations.

“Your papers! Both of you. I’ll get to the bottom of this soon enough.”

Chapter 27

Fedorov slept for a long time after they reached the train, weary in a way he could not explain. He was plagued by strange dreams, visions of Mironov’s face, a city at the edge of a vast inland sea, and high on a hill the prominent statue of a uniformed man, arm raised in a proud salutation. Then he slowly awoke to the gentle rocking of the train, the monotonous sound of the wheels on the rails growing louder as he regained consciousness.

He opened his eyes, realizing where he was again, in the enclosed kupe compartment at the back of the coach car. The provodnits, saw him stir and he went forward to heat water on the samovar. Troyak was sitting across from him, looking fresh and alert. Zykov was sleeping on the upper bunk.

“How long?” said Fedorov.

“A good long while,” said Troyak. “We’re puling into Omsk in ten minutes.”

“Omsk? Then I must have slept all day!”

“We all did,” said Troyak. “Listen…Zykov is still snoring.”

“We leave the main line here,” said Fedorov. “We must take a spur heading west through Chelyabinsk to Orsk on the Kazakh border. From there we cross into Kazakhstan and take a local rail line from Aktobe to Atyrau on the north Caspian Sea. After that we’ll have to see how we get down south, but we must steer clear of Astrakhan.”

“We’ll need to eat,” said Troyak. “Sleep is one thing, but the food on this train leaves something to be desired.” He gave Fedorov a long look, a question in his eyes. “Colonel… what happened back there, at Ilanskiy? You seemed very shaken when we boarded the train. You wouldn’t speak a word.”

Fedorov thought for a moment. “I… well I’m not exactly sure. We were all up stairs in the room when we heard that sound, like an avalanche, distant thunder. The two of you started your sweep, and I was at the top of that old back stairway. It was very odd, probably just an echo, but I had the firm impression the sound was coming from that stairwell.”

Troyak gave him a knowing look, but said nothing, listening with a serious expression on his face. Fedorov sat up, the memory of that harried awakening returning.

“I went down the stairs—into the dining hall, but it was…different, strangely different. All the tables had linen and ornate oil lamps, but the windows were shattered and I heard sounds of people shouting outside.”

Then he told him how he had gone outside to see the massive glow on the horizon, the brightness of the sky, and the ominous sound of explosions, far away. “That’s what woke us, Troyak, that terrible sound. When I ran outside I encountered a group of men, Mironov, an Englishman, and his guide, a man named Yevchenko, or so I was told.”

“Mironov? You mean the man Zykov brought in?” Troyak was surprised to hear this.

“Exactly! But Troyak! That place—the inn—it was the same in many ways, yet different. I mean, it was clear to me that this was the inn at Ilanskiy, but the village outside was much smaller. There were no buildings at all between the inn and the rail lines. And the train…yes! The train was gone too!”

Troyak gave him a strange look now, a flicker of disbelief in his eyes. “We couldn’t find you, Colonel, not even using the comm-link locators in your jacket. Zykov and I searched the whole building—outside too. Zykov went all the way to the rail yard, but the train was there. We’re sitting on it, Fedorov.”

“I know…I know…but what I’m saying is true.”

Fedorov shook his head. “This is going to sound very odd now, Troyak, but you must believe me. It happened just as I’m about to tell you. This whole place, the town, the rail yard, the inn, was completely different. And another thing—it was morning! At first I thought it was that massive explosion we heard, but then I could clearly see the morning sun, though it was rising through a terrible orange fire in the sky to the northeast.

“But Fedorov…We saw none of this! It was an hour before midnight when we were awakened.”

“Yes I believe you, Sergeant, but you must believe me as well. I spoke with that man—Mironov—and he even invited me to join his party for breakfast. He handed me…” Fedorov reached into this coat pocket, a look of excitement in his eyes. “Yes!” He pulled out a piece of dark rye bread, his hand shaking a bit. “He handed me this piece of bread when he made the invitation! Then three men came in—Germans, Troyak, so you can understand I was very surprised and confused by all this.”

“Germans? Here?”

“I swear it.” Fedorov shook his head. “All I could think to do was get the hell back up those stairs and then I saw you in the upper hall.”

“Did the Germans get this far during the war? I thought we stopped them on the Volga.”

“No, no. You misunderstand me. What you say is correct. We did stop them on the Volga, but these men we not soldiers…and it wasn’t 1942.”

Now Troyak cocked his head to one side, eyes narrowing. What was the Colonel talking about?

“Bear with me,” Fedorov continued.

“Alright, but it’s almost midnight, Fedorov. You were gone for an hour. We searched the whole area. Now you’re telling me you were just downstairs? And this explosion you speak of. Yes, I heard it too when I was searching the top floor of the inn. And yes, it seemed to me that it was coming from that stairwell, so I went down to have a look.”

“You went down the back stairs too?”

“Yes, and all I found was that woman by the fire. Nothing else, Colonel.”

This gave Fedorov pause, his eyes dark and searching, as if he was trying to determine something and solve the riddle. “So it doesn’t always work,” he said, more to himself than to Troyak. “Listen…The Man Zykov brought in… He called himself Mironov, but do you remember what I asked him? I asked him what year it was. And did you hear what he said? He said it was 1908! Well, when I was near the front desk and those Germans came in I saw a calendar there, and sure enough, it was set to June 1908. That doesn’t necessarily prove anything, and that’s why I asked that man the day and year. Yet he said it was the thirtieth of June, 1908, and without the slightest hesitation. This sounds crazy, but it happened, Troyak. You heard him yourself.”

“Yes, I heard him say that, but a man might say anything when he is frightened. It seemed like he thought we were police.”

“Yet why give such an outlandish date?”

The Sergeant folded his arms over his broad chest, breathing deeply. “It’s been a long trip, Colonel. You slept a very long time. Perhaps this was all just a dream?”

“Not this, Troyak. No, I’m certain of it. It sounds impossible, but when I went down those stairs I was…somewhere else. It was too real to be a dream. I mean, I was here, but in another year. That’s the only way I can understand it now. That would sound completely insane were it not for the experiences we’ve both lived through these last months. The impossible has become commonplace for us. But I just can’t figure out what happened exactly—or how it happened. It must be a localized event, possibly even an aftereffect of the big event. It must be confined to that one small space—the stairway.” Again he seemed to be speaking more to himself now, sorting through something in his mind.

“What do you mean?”

When I went down, I regressed in time, Troyak! Yes, to the year 1908! That explains why everything was different, even the time of day. I could dismiss it all as a delusion or dream until Zykov brought that fellow in—Mironov! That was the man I spoke with in the dining hall; the man who gave me this bread. And look, it’s still fresh!”

“But how, Fedorov? I don’t understand any of this. You tried to explain how the ship moved before, but even that was beyond me—all this business about the reactors and Rod-25.”

“I can’t say I understand it all yet either, but it happened. I swear it. Zykov brought Mironov in and I was truly shaken, because the moment I saw him I knew everything that I experienced at the other end of those stairs was real and not a dream. Understand? So I asked him the date, and you heard what he said.”

Troyak sighed, nodding.

“Well that is a very special date, Sergeant. June 30th, 1908. Do you know what happened on that day?” Fedorov smiled now, his eyes alight with the vigor of his inner thoughts. “The explosion, the rumbling sounds, the glow we saw—I confirmed that it was some massive detonation to the northeast. Well, on the morning of June 30, 1908, about 600 kilometers northeast of Ilanskiy, something exploded above the taiga near Vanavara, along the river they call the Stony Tunguska.”

“Tunguska?”

“Yes, you’ve heard of it. We all have. It’s been a great unexplained mystery for decades. Some say it was an asteroid, others a comet, still others say it was caused by some kind of miniature black hole but, whatever it was, it happened on that date—the same date Mironov reported. It was the morning of the Tunguska event, Troyak, and I saw it, plain as a second sunrise in the northeast. I saw it with my own eyes!”

Troyak remained silent. He did not know what to make of all this, but then again one thing Fedorov said struck home. The impossible was made commonplace for the men of Kirov. He had watched, dumbfounded, as the ship fought its way through the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, amazed at what he was seeing, but stalwart nonetheless. Seeing was believing. He saw the Japanese planes from the Second World War dive bombing the ship, and he himself had vanished from the world he once knew to appear here, on a train to Omsk in the middle of 1942! Things that he once deemed fantasy had become grippingly real. He was now a believer. He had heard the siren song of time like the others and it was trying to drive him mad.

He steadied himself, deciding to give Fedorov the benefit of any doubt. He had gone down those stairs himself, and saw nothing—except the same strange illusion they were still riding in at this very moment, the Trans-Siberian rail line in Stalin’s Russia. What Fedorov was saying is that time slipped again. He went down those stairs and saw something. At least he could believe that much. What reason would the Colonel have to make up a story like this? He had no haversack to put this into, no drill or military routine to set in motion. This was just another here and now, and the old instincts that had served him for so many years in the Marines would just have to do.

“Perhaps the Tunguska event caused all this,” said Fedorov. “Perhaps it ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time—right there, in that one small place—the back stairs of the inn at Ilanskiy. How that could have affected the ship I have yet to see, but it was a very strange coincidence. Very strange. Yes, it’s crazy, but there it is. I know what I saw, and I’ll tell you another thing…” He looked searchingly at Troyak, not sure that he had followed him this far and unwilling to lose his strength and support.

“That man Zykov brought in…Well he called himself Mironov. That name rankled in the back of my head for a while, and then I remembered it. Mironov! That wasn’t his real name, of course. That’s why I pressed him on it. His real name was Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov. He just shortened that middle name and called himself Mironov as an alias. I read a lot of history, Sergeant. In 1907 that man was arrested on charges of distributing leaflets against the state, and imprisoned.”

“Who was imprisoned?”

“Mironov, or I should say Kostrikov. Do you know that name, Troyak?”

“Can’t say I do. Who is he?”

“Well he went by that name when the Tsar’s secret police began to shadow him. He was a member of the Social Democrats before the revolution. Then he assumed an alias and called himself Mironov. There was an illegal printing press in a hidden room in Tomsk. This was back in 1907, you see, and he was part of all that, though the Okhrana never found it until 1909.”

“Okhrana?”

“The Tsar’s secret police. They had enough suspicion to arrest and indict him. He was imprisoned at Tomsk for 16 months, though he later claimed he was sentenced to three years to make it seem he suffered more heroically than was the case back then. He was a revolutionary, you see, arrested for advocating the overthrow of the existing civil structure of the state—the Old Russia, Troyak, under Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov—Nicholas II, the last Tsar! Well, they released Mironov in June of 1908, and very little is known about his life for the following eighteen months. It was believed that he went south to Novosibirsk, and then wrote his sister in Irkutsk and went to visit her there. If that is the case then he would have seen it—Tunguska! He would have been right there where we were on the Trans-Siberian rail line heading east to Irkutsk on the morning of June 30th, 1908.”

“Who would have seen it? This man Mironov?”

“Yes, of course. Mironov was Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov, but you and I know him by yet another alias that he took upon himself some years later. In fact, we serve on the very ship that was given his name—Kirov.”

Fedorov had a satisfied smile on his face now, for at least one part of this incredible incident made sense to him—the part he could fetch from his history books. “Don’t you see, Troyak?” he said, his voice low, barely a whisper. “That was Kirov! The Okhrana found the hidden printing press in April of 1909 and began looking for him again, so he fled south to the Caucasus and changed his name. Some say the prefix Kir comes from the Persian word for King, and he just Russianized the word and called himself Kirov. Sergei Kirov, one of the great men of the Russian Revolution! There was a statue of the man overlooking the harbor in Baku for many years until it was removed a few years ago in our day. You’ve seen the statue in St. Petersburg as well. We’ve named towns, cities and ships for the man ever since.”

“Amazing,” said Troyak. “You are a very well educated man, Fedorov, but are you certain of this?”

“I knew the moment I named him, Sergeant. I could see the recognition in his eyes. It was Kirov. He died a kind of martyr when he was assassinated in Leningrad on the first day of December, 1934—shot in the back of the head as he was leaving his office that evening. He was very close to Stalin, you know, and Stalin reacted to his death with what we now call the Great Purge. A million died, but many historians suspect that Stalin himself was connected to Kirov’s assassination in some way. Nikita Khrushchev stated that Stalin personally gave the order to have his old friend, and chief rival, killed. He tried to control Kirov, who was taking a very lenient attitude against opponents of the party at that time, but he failed. Kirov was very popular, much more so than Stalin. After his death Stalin eliminated all his potential opponents and fully consolidated power…And that was him, Troyak! That was Sergei Kirov as a young man in 1908! He must have come up that back stairway and walked right into our little nightmare here in 1942. That’s why I was so adamant that he go back down those stairs. Understand?”

Troyak looked bewildered, but Fedorov’s energy and enthusiasm had carried him along this rail line from Vladivostok of 2021 to Omsk of 1942. He could believe anything now.

“Well I’ll be a horse’s ass,” he said. “Kirov!”

Chapter 28

Admiral Volsky was sitting at the command desk receiving scattered reports from assets throughout the North Pacific region, and the picture they were painting was very mixed. Two A-50U AEW planes had been deployed in the initial standoff with the Americans. Of these, one plane designated ‘Black Bear’ had been destroyed in the early minutes of the US attack. Yet Karpov’s plan was executed perfectly, and the moment the Russians confirmed the Americans were going weapons hot they stole a march on them with their long range air and sub launched cruise missiles. The initial damage reports were very encouraging, but tensions rose in the staff briefing room at Fokino when the US strike squadrons engaged.

“We took a few hits, Admiral,” said Talanov, Volsky’s new Chief Of Staff. “Minor damage on the Varyag, but it looks like we’ll lose one of the Udaloy class destroyers. All things considered we were not hurt that badly.”

“Yes, but that is one less destroyer on the watch, and we’re still waiting on the second American strike group,” said Volsky. “It was coming in from the east and was engaged by Kuznetsov’s fighters.”

“That was quite a duel, sir. We lost eight Mig-29s but have nine confirmed kills. Kuznetsov appears to have shielded our flank as planned.”

“We’re trading them plane for plane,” said Volsky, “and we both know we cannot do that for very long. The Americans still have two more carrier battlegroups in theater at the moment, not to mention their Third Fleet mustering in the Eastern Pacific.”

Talanov was handed a signals decrypt, and read it quickly. “Karpov apparently executed phase two of his long range attack as well. We just received the code Longarm, sir, but we are not sure if it was executed.”

“If so, that will mean he has no further long range assets, unless we can get another squadron of bombers to him quickly. What is the status of our—”

There came a noticeable shudder, and Talanov looked up at the overhead lighting. It was followed soon after by a strong blast wave and three windows in the outer room shattered. The Admiral was very surprised. “Are we under attack?”

“We had nothing on radar, sir. No alert warnings of any kind!”

“Don’t forget their damn B-2s, Talanov,” Volsky admonished, and then they heard it, a deep roar that sounded as if the earth itself had growled in anger. The Demon on the Iturup / Urup island gap had finally blown its top. A much stronger shock wave was felt, and Admiral Volsky was nearly thrown from his chair. He turned, awestruck, as he saw the angry red glow on the horizon and what looked like a massive mushroom cloud out east where the fleet had deployed. His first thought was that the Americans had struck with nuclear weapons.

“My God,” he breathed. “It’s begun.”

Talanov shouted at the NBC watch station. “What’s our reading on Gamma?”

“Nothing to report, sir. No noticeable increase in background radiation.”

Then the meteorological desk quickly intervened. “It’s not nuclear, Captain. But we have high seismic readings. SVERT is reporting from Sakhalin Island. It’s an eruption from the volcano we’ve been monitoring, and a big one, sir.”

Volsky was up and across the room, leaning over the meteorological desk to look at the readings and then looking over his shoulder at the massive cloud darkening their eastern horizon. “It’s enormous,” he said. “The hand of God this time, and not the petty quarrels of man and machine. Our fleet must be very close to ground zero, yes?”

“They were about thirty kilometers south of the Kuriles, sir. They would have had a much stronger shock wave, and perhaps heavy seas. This looks like a very significant event. There could be major pyroclastic flows in an eruption of this scale.”

“Signal fleet flag and request immediate status update.”

“Aye, sir.”

The wait was agonizing, twenty minutes in oblivion where the fate of the Red Banner Fleet remained unknown, with no signal returns and interference all across the electromagnetic spectrum. The towering ash cloud was so massive it was creating its own weather, ripped by lightning and thunderous brimstone. Volsky was pacing, and ten minutes later he gave orders to move the A-100 AEW plane out of the danger zone. Talanov was quick to agree.

“The smoke and ash cloud from that volcano will complicate air operations in the region for days, Admiral. If these initial readings are accurate, the event could be a seven on the eruptive scale index, and ash fall could extend nearly a thousand kilometers. We’ve already lost communications links with most every facility in the southern Kuriles. Korsakov is preparing to terminate all operations on Sakhalin Island, as well as all other facilities at Aniva Bay there. We’ll have to consider a possible sealift evacuation if the ash fall prevents air operations. The whole of Hokkaido Island could be hit with a very large tsunami and be well under that ash cloud within the hour. This will also affect the American base at Misawa. The eruption is going to stop this engagement cold. There’s no way that American air strike can get through that ash now, but that said it will be all we can do to get the fleet to safe water.”

“Why don’t they answer? Have we sent out low frequency communications to the fleet undersea escort?”

“We have, sir, but they do not respond. The surface fleet would have been right in the path of that pyroclastic flow, assuming they survived the shock wave after that second eruption.”

They waited out the next ten minutes until the news finally came in. The Akula class escort sub Gepard was on close fleet escort and moved to periscope depth to attempt to confirm the location of the fleet.

“Sir! Gepard reports visual contact on Udaloy class destroyers Marshal Shaposhnikov, Admiral Tributs and Admiral Panteleyev.”

“They would have been in the outer ASW screen, farther away from the main fleet, but they are still afloat. We know Admiral Vinogradov was hit there, and most likely sunk. Give it some time, sir. The remaining units were in tight with the fleet flagship. Gepard is moving to make contact as we speak.”

Volsky waited, but no further news was received. Admiral Kuznetsov eventually called home over a very garbled communications band to request permission to withdraw west away from the ever widening ash fall zone. Gepard searched for the next three hours, including very risky active sonar pings aimed at locating the remainder of the fleet. They even deployed infrared detectors on the seafloor beneath the flagship’s last reported position and this led to some very disheartening news.

“We found wreckage, sir. Gepard is getting emergency transponder beacon signal traffic from the sea bottom at these coordinates.”

“What ship?”

“We can’t determine that yet. It was just a generic signal, with no IFF carrier wave data.” Talanov had a grim expression on his face.

“And Kirov? Any news from Karpov?”

Talanov could see the Admiral had a strong emotional connection to that ship. He never knew what had happened to Kirov in these last months, only that Volsky had conducted some top secret deployment to eventually relocate the ship from the North Atlantic to Vladivostok. Men and ships become one thing in a navy man’s mind, he knew, and he could see the obvious look of concern on the Admiral’s face, glassy eyed, as if he was waiting for news in a hospital waiting room.

“Sir…Request permission to move fleet undersea recovery units to the scene to investigate further.” Talanov waited respectfully, and Volsky slowly turned.

“Please do so, Mister Talanov. If they can get there safely. From the looks of that ash cloud that may prove impossible. What could be alive under that?” His face had an ashen look now, as though he himself were under that cloud. “I will be in my office. Keep me informed the moment you hear anything.”

There was nothing more to report. By mid afternoon it was beginning to look like the Red Banner Pacific Fleet had taken a fatal blow. There was no report from Kirov and they had lost contact with every other ship in the core fleet formation. Cruiser Varyag, destroyer Orlan and the new frigate Admiral Golovko were all still missing in action. Volsky waited, an inner intuition thrumming in his mind with dark presentiment and warning. It was physical, that old tooth that always acted up in the cold of the north Atlantic. He touched it with the tip of his tongue, felt a twinge of pain, and knew something was very, very wrong.

Aboard CVN Washington Captain Tanner was desperately coordinating damage control operations on his stricken carrier while receiving scattered reports from the strike groups he had out after the enemy. Just after 10:40 hours the screen had detected another barrage of missiles inbound from the north. McCampbell had engaged, joined soon after by McCain and Fitzgerald. The cruiser Shiloh had recovered power and was able to get some of her medium range missiles into the action as well, but tanner’s harried flotilla was about to be hit by the wrath of the Vulkans.

They got more than half of the big missiles, and all but one of the P-700 shipwrecks, but it was another unexpected attack in the heat of a difficult situation, and ships were hit. The P-700 had picked on Lassen again, slamming her amidships and putting an end to her useful service. Five of the Vulkans penetrated the badly disorganized screen and bored in on the inner formation. Shiloh got three of them; the other two got Tanner’s big CV in their cross hairs and drove home. The carrier fired a frantic barrage from her RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile system and knocked one of these down, but the last slammed a 1000 kilogram warhead into her side, gravely injuring the carrier and making further flight operations impossible.

That last hit was an effective “mission kill” on CVN Washington, though her flotation was not compromised and she still had power. The fires on the hanger deck were very involved, and Tanner gave orders that all aircraft aloft would have to divert to Japan. He was busy on the line with his Air Boss giving orders to coordinate air refueling for his thirsty strike assets with anything they could get in the air from other land bases.

“See what they can get up from Misawa before that ash fall closes the place down, and anything available at Yokota—and do it now, Boss Man. That last missile just put you and me out of a job. It will be all we can do now to get this big baby to safe waters.”

At that moment they heard a tremendous explosion, and Tanner literally ran to the view ports to look down his long flight deck, thinking they had been hit yet again. It wasn’t long before his Cloud Man reported on the eruption, the wrath of the Vulkans had only just begun.

They pulled in any information they could in the midst of the chaos of the next several minutes. It wasn’t long before the massive column of ash, steam and pumice was seen rising on their northern horizon.

“Holy God,” breathed Tanner to his XO, Skip Patterson. “Will you look at that mess?”

“Nothing we have in the air now is going to get anywhere close to engaging the Russians on that right flank, sir.”

“Hell, we won’t have to lift another damn finger. SITREP had the core of the Russian fleet right in the shadow of that monster. They were no more than thirty klicks south of that island.”

“Looks like this Karpov is going to get a mouth full of smoke and ash,” said Patterson.

“Serves him right. Cagey bastard was thinking to use that initial eruption this morning to screen his task force from my planes.”

“That he did, sir. It split our strike package in two.”

“Well, look at him now. The Russkies are in a world of shit up there. He must have got off that last salvo just before that thing blew its top.”

The distraction actually imposed a strange calm on the bridge, and they stood there for some time watching the skies darkening to the north. Then Ensign Pyle produced a message from Anderson AFB on Guam with more details on the eruption.

“Big seismic signature,” said Tanner. “Anderson says they got a look at it from space. They heard the damn thing go up all the way out on Guam, and the eruption is already over forty kilometers high! It’s pierced the stratosphere all the way to the edge of space. We’ve been ordered to withdraw all fleet assets and make for Guam for repairs. They’ll probably scoot our ass back to Pearl when they see the holes those missiles poked in our side. The ash fall will saturate most of Hokkaido and even reach as far south as the main island, so they don’t want us back at Yokosuka. This thing is big, Skip. Just when we thought to raise a little hell out here old Mother Nature knocks our heads together with something like this.”

“I think we got the worst of this little brawl, sir.”

“That we did. This Karpov beat us to the punch, but we’ve learned a valuable lesson here. I acted on that flash traffic but I was a stupid son-of-a-bitch to do so. We should have coordinated this strike with Nimitz. What we’ve learned today is just how good those damn long range missiles the Russians have actually are.”

“We put up a pretty good score on defense, sir.”

“Not good enough, Skip. We can’t trade a fleet carrier for four or five missiles, can we? Thank God they build these things like a rock. The Russians will take note of this little engagement as well. They threw everything they had at us and still couldn’t put us on the bottom of the sea. But before they have too much time to think about that, let’s move everyone in tight with us and get this old girl pointed south.”

“McCampbell says they have everyone they could pull off Lassen, sir. She’s still afloat but pretty well gutted above the waterline.”

“USPACFLT wants us to send Davey Jones a present. We’ve got orders to sink Lassen, and that means we gave up two Arleigh Burkes for a couple old Udaloys. We got the short end of that deal too.”

“Aye, sir. But maybe our boys put the hurts on the Russians up north after all.”

“We may never know with that mess out there. Satellites can’t see a thing. We’ll have to see if we can get a sub in there to have a look.”

Before noon that day Tanner was going to find his beleaguered task force in an early midnight. The ash fall was much thicker and more pronounced than anyone expected, and prevailing winds were driving it right in his direction. The skies began to deepen to amber and then sallow gray as the hours progressed. Soon the skies were blackening and virtually no sunlight was getting through the intense clouds of silt and ash. The aerosols would rise into the upper atmosphere and interact with other gases there to form sulfuric acid, which reflected almost 90% of the sunlight away from the earth. It was going to be a very cold winter throughout the entire northern hemisphere, and the year following the last eruption on this same scale was called “the year without summer.” Crops would fail, acid rains and fogs would become commonplace, and the evening skies would be blood red for months on end.

It was as if the world itself had groaned with a roiling song of doom. To a world beset with war and strife, the Demon was a harbinger of the terrible days ahead. It had exploded with a power a thousand times greater than a nuclear weapon, but in spite of that it was the missiles in their silos that were threatening to make an end to the human experiment on the planet, and the clock was still ticking.

When Tanner finally got one last report from a stealthy US sub that had been creeping up on the Russian Red Banner Pacific Fleet, he took heart.

“No news from Key West yet, but we just got traffic from Mississippi,” said Patterson. “We may just have some bragging rights after all! They say there’s no sign of those Russian ships up north. Looks like this little scrap is over for the time being. They spotted a couple Udaloy class destroyers afloat and running west for Vladivostok. Whether our planes took the rest down or that mountain did it, the good news is that the entire core of their fleet was blown to hell.”

Chapter 29

Kamenski sat at the desk, quietly stirring his tea. “So that’s what’s been going on in the Caspian region. How very interesting,” he said quietly. “And you call this thing Rod-25?”

“My Chief Engineer, Dobrynin, calls it that,” said Volsky. “It was a spare control rod for a standard 24-rod naval propulsion reactor. I don’t understand the engineering.”

The two men were sitting in Volsky office at Fokino, speaking quietly, with Inspector General Kapustin sitting with Kamenski opposite the Admiral. The hour was late, almost midnight, and Volsky was weary, disheartened by the lack of news on the fleet and needing sleep. But when Kapustin called again offering to make good on his promise to arrange a meeting with Kamenski, the Admiral decided sooner was better.

“That’s quite an amazing story, Admiral. And you say each time this control rod is used it causes a displacement event?”

“Apparently.” Volsky held up his hands, as empty as his understanding was on the whole matter. “I’m afraid my secrets end there, however. It sounds unbelievable, but I’ve experienced it—lived through things that I could not have imagined just three months ago. We have no idea how or why this happens, but seeing is believing.”

“How very interesting,” said Kamenski. “Controlled displacement…” His eyes seemed distant, thinking, seeing things far away, as if he were considering the vast ramifications of what Volsky was telling him now. Then his eyes brightened, and he turned to Kapustin.

“My good inspector General—you have records on all these things, do you not?”

“Control rods? Why, now that you mention it, yes I do!”

“How long would it take you to fetch information on this Rod-25? Could you tell me, for example, where it was manufactured?”

“Of course. I can log in with my computer and access those records right now, if you wish.”

“Please be so kind as to do so. Find out anything you can on this rod—where it comes from, who built it, materials used.”

“Certainly.” Kapustin stooped to reach for his briefcase, producing a laptop to log on to the naval logistics network. “I’ll just be a few moments.”

“Very good,” said Kamenski. “Well, Admiral, it’s a pity we never met before this,” he said calmly. “I think we would have been good friends, you and I. What you have told me concerning this Rod-25, as you call it, is most enlightening. It changes everything, you know. Everything.”

“Yes,” said Volsky. “It literally changes everything, which is why it is so dangerous. I must tell you I had grave reservations when Fedorov proposed we use it again. I was thinking to take it out into the deep and cast the damn thing into the ocean so it would never plague us again.”

“But you could not do this,” Kamenski said quietly. “The temptation was too great, yes?”

“Perhaps…. In the end I reasoned that if Fedorov was correct, then we might use it to prevent this damn war.”

“A noble cause, Admiral. But you and I know that it would not stop there, even if your officer is correct on this. I’ve had my eye on this situation for some time; pondering these very same questions. I’ve made it my business to learn a good deal about you, Admiral, particularly when you assumed command of Kirov for those live fire exercises. I suspected something was going to happen to the ship, but the where and when of it escaped me.”

Volsky was somewhat surprised. “You mean to say you suspected something even then? Before Kirov disappeared? I don’t understand. How could you know this? The accident had not yet occurred. It would seem to me that you could know nothing whatsoever of Kirov’s little journey to the past until she actually departed! Only then could history harbor the clues you uncovered—those photographs, for instance.”

He pointed to the photograph Kapustin had given him, of Kirov sailing proudly out from the Straits of Gibraltar, ready to turn south for her visit to the Island of St. Helena in 1942.

“Sound reasoning,” said Kamenski with a smile. “I worked through all this myself once. Believe me, it took a great deal of thought, and more than a little time. I was never a rich man, Admiral, nor did I ever desire fame. But realize that a man in my position has one commodity in abundance—information. I was privy to things in my years that were at the highest security classification, and I learned things that would shock you, even after what you have experienced and seen with your own eyes.”

“Does this relate to Rod-25?”

“Some of it. That was actually a new twist on the whole matter—even for me. Quite astounding!”

“Quite impossible,” said Volsky. “And yet it happens. That’s how we sent Fedorov back again—from the Primorskiy Engineering Center in Vladivostok, and that’s what my Chief Engineer is doing in the Caspian now. He’s setting up a mission to act as a recovery team for Fedorov.”

“Very enterprising,” said Kamenski. “And quite ingenious.”

“Our Mister Fedorov is exactly that,” said Volsky. “He’s been the guiding light throughout this whole affair. He was the first to realize what had happened to the ship, and he managed to convince us all in those early days after the event—even Karpov. Ever since then I have come to accept the impossible as commonplace. But I have done things that amaze me every time I think of them. Do you know I shook the hand of a British Admiral in 1942!”

“Admiral John Tovey,” said Kamenski.

“You know of the man?”

“That I do. He’s was rather diligent in the years after you met with him, Admiral. It seems he set up a secret branch within British intelligence system, known only to a very few. Even the highest ranking members of the British government had no idea of its existence—not even Churchill.”

“How did you learn of this?”

“I’m afraid secrets are very hard things to keep over the years. You would be amazed at all the things the KGB has learned. In fact, we had a man in Gibraltar when they first brought this Orlov in—though it wasn’t called the KGB back then. That was all before my time, but I took an interest in the file some years ago.”

“You knew of Orlov that long ago?”

“I didn’t, but Russian intelligence did. Their man was instrumental in getting Orlov safely out of British hands in Gibraltar and on a steamer heading east. Their intention was to get him to the NKVD, though I don’t think they had any real idea who the man was at the time—only that he was possibly associated with a ship that was bedeviling the British in the Med.”

“Then you know how this all turns out! You must already know what happened to Orlov, yes?”

“I’m afraid not. A million, million things happen each and every minute, Admiral, and the combined knowledge of every intelligence service in the world knows only a tiny fraction of it all. Consider a man quietly reading in the evening, alone in his study, or in those soft moments before he sleeps in bed. He is the only sentient human beings who knows what is happening in that room! That little corner of the universe is entirely his domain, and he is the master of all fate there. No one else perceives or knows anything about it, and the fortunate writer of the book he is reading has no idea that his thoughts and words are living again, streaming through that quiet man’s mind. What a sublime mystery that is, eh? Well, most of human experience is that way, like a book read quietly in the night, and no one ever knows about it. So to answer your question, we never did know what happened to Orlov after that, but we may just find that out now that your Mister Fedorov has gone off on this mission.”

“What do you mean?”

“As you said, Admiral, things change. They change quite literally, sometimes in very subtle ways, other times quite dramatically.”

“Then you’ve known of Kirov all along as well?”

“Not exactly,” Kamenski explained. “Back then the GRU was mainly interested in finding out what was stiffening the hair on the back of the British necks in the game. Don’t think the Royal Navy can sortie its entire home fleet and not have it noticed! The Russian government got wind of something, heard of a code word the British used for it all—Geronimo.”

“Geronimo?”

“The name of a renegade Indian chief from the American West. I believe it was the name they gave to Kirov when the ship first appeared in 1941. The Japanese had another name for it in time. They called it Mizuchi, a sea devil of some kind.”

“I’m afraid we lived up to that handle,” said Volsky. “It was never our intention to intervene, though Karpov saw things differently in the beginning. But when you find yourself at sea in a fighting ship, perhaps one day you will understand why we fought as we did—not really for anything more than each other in the end.”

“I understand,” said Kamenski. “Yet now here we sit, with the power to use this mysterious Rod-25 to do some rather spectacular things.”

“You are talking about displacement in time?”

“Of course—what else? That’s our little dilemma now, is it not? For the first time we actually have control. We never dreamed it could be possible, but there it is—Rod-25.”

“What do you mean…for the first time? You make it sound as though this has happened before.”

“Deliberate displacement in time? No, you and your crew were the first to manage that, or so I now believe. But as you have been so gracious in inviting me here to discuss this matter, I will stir a little honey into your tea now, Admiral.” He smiled, leaning forward, his voice lowering. “I assume this room is secure? We’ve already said a great deal.”

“There are the two Marines in the hall, but nothing said here could be overheard. You may also take my word that nothing is being recorded or monitored. The room is completely private.”

“I will take your word on that.” Kamenski removed his glasses and cleaned them on the hem of his sweater. “And then I will tell you both something now that will bring this situation into a hard focus—it didn’t start with Kirov.”

He let that sit there for a moment, watching the reaction on Volsky’s face, his eyes shifting quietly from the Admiral to the Inspector General, who sat on the chair to his right, listing eagerly to all that was being said as he reviewed his records.

“What do you mean? Time displacement?”

“Exactly.”

“There were other incidents?”

“You, yourself are aware of at least two others, Admiral—Fedorov and Markov—so don’t be so surprised.”

“These things happened before Kirov disappeared?”

“They did,” Kamenski said flatly. “The first incident here in Russia was during the testing that became the Tsar Bomba detonation. We called it Kuz'kina Mat', Kuzka's mother; just a little lesson Khrushchev wanted to teach the west. The Americans called it Big Ivan. It was the AN602 hydrogen bomb, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated.”

“It caused time displacement?” Volsky’s eyes reflected his amazement.

“That it did. Two technicians observing the event vanished, though they were 150 kilometers away from the detonation site. We thought they were killed by the blast, until they turned up twelve days later with vranyo that no one could believe with a straight face. Yet they had something with them that proved their story was true—though we need not get into that now.”

“Amazing… We also thought the accident on Orel was responsible for moving Kirov in time in the beginning. It was only later that we discovered the effects of Rod-25.”

“The two may be related,” said Kamenski. “It seems that highly explosive events can cause these displacements. They are most unsettling. The scientists tell me it has something to do with the fabric of space and time being distorted or torn by the detonations. The blow holes in time, if you will.”

“That was just what our own Doctor Zolkin suggested,” Volsky said excitedly.

“A very wise man…Well, we began to perceive the Americans and British were secretly testing something more than their bombs back in those years. We observed several similar events in our own testing program, and confirmed that very large detonations produced other instances of time displacement. In fact…what do you think the nuclear testing program was really for, Admiral? We already knew how to make the damn things, and we knew that they worked, but once these time displacement effects were discovered people got very, very interested. We think the Americans got in on the act early with their really big tests—Castle Bravo, Ivy Mike. We knew what they were doing, of course, but our early testing produced no results. We assumed the detonation were not energetic enough, so we pumped up the mega-tonnage with the Tsar Bomba, and it worked! We believed the story those two technicians told us, because we deliberately put them there to see if anything would happen to them.”

“Astounding…” Volsky did not know what to say. “The explosion aboard Orel was from a very small warhead, however, nowhere near the scale of the detonations you mention.”

“Very curious,” said Kamenski. “And I suppose that now your Rod-25 has something to do with this. The question is—what happened, and why?”

Kapustin had been listening avidly, even as he continued to search his data base. Soon his attention was being pulled from the things Kamenski was saying to the information on his screen, and now he raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised.

“Here it is, gentlemen!” he said jubilantly. “You see, there is something to be said for the plodding, meticulous work of a records keeper. I believe I have some information to offer at this point.”

Kamenski turned his way, smiling. “Good for you, my friend. “What have you learned?”

“Rod-25 was manufactured by Rosatomica, a subsidiary of the big state enterprise overseeing the nuclear power industry. The rod was certified and shipped for live testing last year, but for some reason the test was cancelled. As one thing led to another the rod passed physical inspection and was shipped to the naval storage facility at Severomorsk. That is how it came to your ship, Admiral, though it never should have entered active service without a live test.”

“Indeed,” said Volsky. “And no one knew of its effects until we used it for the first time aboard Kirov?”

“That appears to be the case, but there is something else you may wish to know, and I’m afraid it may amount to a very great deal.” He smiled.

“Well Gerasim, don’t be stingy,” said Kamenski. “Out with it!”

“These rods…well they don’t make them individually. They come in batches, lots as we call them. Those that don’t pass physical inspection are destroyed, but in this particular lot three survived. One of those is your Rod-25.”

“You mean to say—”

“Yes, I do, Pavel.” Kapustin smiled broadly now. “There are two more!” He tapped lightly on the screen of his laptop. “And I can tell you exactly where they are.”

Chapter 30

That news interested Kamenski a great deal. “Two more,” he said, “from the same lot you say?”

“Precisely,” said Kapustin. “One is right here, at Shkotovo-16!” He was referring to a special facility south of the naval headquarters building on the bay at Fokino that was used exclusively for the unshipping of nuclear fuels and other radioactive fleet waste. It would be stored there temporarily before being transferred to another site for permanent burial, called Shkotovo-32.

“I know this site well,” said Kapustin. “I have to inspect it every year, you see. We have five burial trenches there for low-level solid radioactive waste and more highly radioactive materials, such as ion-resin exchanger slurries from our nuclear-powered submarines. And when we remove the spent fuel rods, they are also stored here and on the technical support ships assigned to the facility. Then they get shipped to the Mayak Chemical Combine reprocessing plant in Chelyabinsk. We have 8,622 spent fuel assemblies at Shkotovo-32 by my last inventory count.”

“You see, Admiral? Information can be very useful in this world—even mundane statistics like those the Inspector here must tabulate. Yet now you say a control rod from the same lot as this Rod-25 is sitting there in storage?”

“They have to replace the rods they remove from the ships, yes? There are presently thirty-seven new control rods in inventory there, and one is from lot number18726, the same as this Rod-25.”

“Very useful!” Kamenski turned to Volsky now. “Admiral, I think it would be prudent if you were to have this control rod moved to a more secure location. Something tells me we may find it very useful in the near future.”

“The other rod is in the Naval Arsenal site at Severomorsk.”

“Get that one too, Admiral. Make the request seem routine, however. No need arousing undue suspicion. I must say, Gerasim, this, as the Americans might say, is a whole new ballgame now!”

Volsky seemed to hesitate, his eyes reflecting the concern in his mind. “Just what exactly are you proposing, Mister Kamenski?”

“Nothing, at the moment—only that we should quickly secure these two control rods to prevent any unexpected…complications.”

“I understand,” Volsky seemed satisfied. “I will see that they are very safe. In the meantime, something you have said here tonight has given me a little hope. As you may know, we have not heard from Kirov since the eruption of that volcano out east.”

“Oh? No I was not informed. They no longer tell me everything now that I’m retired, nor do I have room for very much more in this weary old head of mine. What are you are thinking about this eruption?”

“It was enormous,” said Volsky. “Probably a thousand times bigger than our Tsar Bomba. You have just told me such events can cause time displacement. My fleet is missing, and for an Admiral that is a very disheartening thing. I was thinking, perhaps…”

“I see,” said Kamenski. “I suppose we will just have to wait and see what we find out. Yes, Mother Nature can throw fits of her own that make our own efforts seem puny. We have thought of this, of course, and that is why most active volcanic sites are monitored very carefully. Thus far the eruptions we have investigated have not produced these effects. These eruptions do not involve nuclear fission. Something about that seems to be a very sharp knife when it comes to the fabric of space-time. Volcanic eruptions release much more energy, but it is geothermic, not nuclear. Though I will qualify that by saying that we’ve seen nothing on this scale since Mt. Tambora erupted in 1815. Perhaps the size of the eruption in the Kuriles will make some difference here.”

Volsky nodded, his eyes dark with both sadness and fatigue. It was an hour past midnight, and then there came a soft knock on the outer door.

“Excuse me gentlemen,” said the Admiral as he rose. He walked slowly over and spoke through the closed door. “Yes, what is it?”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” came a muffled voice on the other side of the door. “A courier has arrived from Vladivostok.”

At this Volsky raised an eyebrow, opening the door to see a young lieutenant of Marines coming smartly to attention. He knew the man had come directly from the Naval Logistics Building as ordered. They were posted there on a special security detail and ordered to check the contents of Fedorov’s storage bin every night at midnight. If anything was found it was to be immediately taken to the Admiral at Naval Headquarters Fokino. The Lieutenant saluted, then handed the Admiral an envelope, saluting again.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. You may return to your duties.” The Admiral closed the door, eying the envelope with great curiosity. Then he turned it over to the front side and his heart leapt. There, emblazoned on the envelope, was the crest of the Russian Naval insignia! He recognized the envelope immediately! Kamenski watched, noting how the Admiral’s hand seemed unsteady as he thumbed the envelope open.

“Some unexpected news?” he ventured, suddenly curious.

“Very unexpected!” Volsky read the note, his dark eyes suddenly alight with inner fire and barely contained excitement. “I had better sit down,” he said, lowering himself heavily into his chair. “The news I’ve been waiting for concerning the fleet,” he said with a smile. “Only now I do not know whether I should laugh or cry about it.” He handed the note slowly to Kamenski, who took it eagerly and read it silently.

“I don’t understand. This came by mail?”

“It was retrieved from the same storage locker your Mister Volkov meddled with. I’ve had guards there ever since.”

“Well, this is most interesting!” Kamenski wasted no time reading the note. “And I suppose it also answers your question Admiral, more than one question, it seems. Geothermal energy can do more than we thought, but it appears to take an enormous event like that eruption to produce the effect.”

“It does, indeed,” said Volsky. “And it raises quite another conundrum in the process.”

Kapustin had been listening, craning his neck and squinting to see the note, though he could not make it out. “What are you talking about?” he said with some frustration.

“Forgive me, Gerasim,” said Kamenski. “May I, Admiral?”

Volsky nodded and Kamenski handed the note to the Inspector, who read it quickly, his face registering great surprise. He handed the note slowly back to the Admiral.

“What does this mean? Has it happened again?”

“It appears so,” said Volsky. “That letter was written by our Mister Karpov. I recognize the handwriting. I’ve seen him sign off on a hundred duty boards in the months I was on that ship. My God…It has happened again. The only question now is what to do about it. He’s sailed in towards Vladivostok to see if he could determine where he was—in time, I suppose.”

“A wise decision,” said Kamenski.

“Yes, but also dangerous. We discussed this at length aboard Kirov. Our consensus was that the technology we possessed should never be allowed to fall into the hands of any nation state in the past.”

“Wise again,” Kamenski nodded.

“Yet I wonder…” Volsky thought for a moment. “I told you that Karpov was of a different mind on how we should act in the beginning, but I never shared all the details on that. Suffice it to say that the Captain was somewhat determined to make what he called a decisive intervention in the history of those years—the last war. He has since come round to our way of thinking on the matter, or so I came to believe. Yet now he is there with the world’s most powerful fighting ship beneath his feet again—not just one ship this time. He has three!” Volsky read from the note again, “I am here with Kirov, Orlan, and Admiral Golovko. No sign of Varyag or the other ships from the outer screen. Our presence as yet remains unknown, but that may change. I have crept into the Sea of Okhotsk and we put men ashore with a good lock pick to deliver this note. I hope you receive it…But Admiral…How will we ever get back?”

“That note was dated August, 1945,” said Kamenski.

“Yes,” said Volsky. “Why the 1940s? We could never understand that. Why not ancient times, or the 1920s, or any other time for that matter?”

“Affinity,” said Kamenski. “That’s what our scientists on the job tell me. Things have an affinity for a certain time—particularly if they have displaced there once before. We did many experiments during those years of active nuclear testing. We learned a very great deal.”

“Yes, well now this complicates everything,” said Volsky. “We were worried about leaving one single man behind—Orlov. And then I was worried about the risk of sending three men back after him. Now it’s three ships I have to worry about!” He shook his head, clearly flustered. “How do I answer that last question? How in the world do they get back?”

“Perhaps they will return on their own,” suggested Kamenski. “It’s happened before, just like those technicians who witnessed Tsar Bomba. They had no Rod-25 in their back pocket, yet they showed up again in our time twelve days after they disappeared.”

“How is that possible?” asked Volsky. “Have the technicians discovered that yet?”

“Not entirely,” said Kamenski. “Perhaps time just throws back the little fish, though she has thrown back some very the big fish as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“That incident in the North Atlantic, Admiral. You told me that Kirov was heavily engaged by the combined British and American fleets. That was what prompted your Captain Karpov to take stronger measures, yes?”

“Regrettably,” said Volsky. “And he has come to see it that way as well, or so I believe.”

“Nonetheless…you thought the ship displaced forward again as a result of that detonation, not knowing that this Rod-25 was the real villain. But I can share another little secret with you, Admiral. When your ship vanished it was not alone.”

“Not alone?”

“You said there was a group of American destroyers involved in a gunfight with you—at fairly close range—am I correct?”

“Yes, that is so. Karpov was engaging them, and sunk several ships with our deck guns.”

“Well I’ve done a little digging on that engagement over the years. It seems that particular group was called Desron 7, an American destroyer flotilla. It vanished that same day Kirov disappeared. The crew claims they returned to their base at Argentia Bay and found the place obliterated.”

“My God!” Volsky was truly surprised now. “They saw the same future we did, then—the years after this damn war we’re so eager to fight.”

“I see,” said Kamenski. “Yes, that makes sense now, considering all you have told me. Apparently this new war of our ends quite badly, for all concerned. But the interesting thing about this incident was that the ships suddenly reappeared, twelve days after they were reported missing.”

“But how?” Volsky had a blank expression on his face now. “We used Rod-25, albeit unknowingly, but by that time we were thousands of miles away in the Med when we reappeared. That could not have affected those American destroyers. Could it?”

“I would think not. They initially shifted simply because of their close proximity to Kirov when it was displaced. Proximity seems to matter when these effects are considered. Our people gave this considerable thought. We don’t really know why it happens yet, but they have simply come round to the belief that certain things have an affinity for a given time. Those destroyers moved forward as your ship did, then fell back into their own time again. They tell me it has something to do with string theory and strange vibrations.” Kamenski waved his hand. “I don’t understand any of that either, Admiral.”

“How did you learn of this Desron 7?”

“The usual methods. The Americans tried to cover it all up, of course. They didn’t believe the story their own sailors told them, any more than the crew of the cruiser Tone were believed when they returned to Truk with other wild stories of a phantom ship at sea. It’s enough to drive a sane man mad—and that was the case for a good number on that ship. I followed it very closely over the years. Well, to make a long story short, the British clued the Americans in on things, and after they got the bomb they decided to see if they could duplicate the time displacement effect with a nuclear detonation. That’s why they dragged all those ships out to Bikini Atoll and blasted them to hell—not to test the effects of the blast or assess damage on the ships, but to see if anything displaced in time, and to judge the radius of any possible effects. Do you understand now why everyone is so determined to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons? Their destructive power is one thing, but these odd effects are quite another.”

Volsky appeared dumbfounded. “To think that this has been going on these years… Well, Mister Kamenski, do you think it will happen again like that? Will Karpov and his ships simply return to this time like the American destroyers?”

“They may…then again they may not. Who can say for sure? I will say one thing, however. We can fetch them home again by other means if necessary, and I think we should make plans to consider that possibility at once.”

“By other means?” Kapustin had been following all this closely.

“With one of those control rods you have tucked away at Shkotovo-16.”

“Yes!” Volsky had new life now. “I know just what we can do! My engineer Dobrynin is in the Caspian right now preparing the rescue mission for Fedorov. If this other control rod has the same effect as Rod-25, then we could send it back with him—for Kirov and the other ships. We could get the control rod from Severomorsk as well, if need be. If Orlan is with Kirov that ship has the new naval propulsion reactor too.”

“If I understand your plan, Admiral, this Dobrynin is aboard the Anatoly Alexandrov in the Caspian Sea with Rod-25? But how can you be certain it will reach the same timeframe in the past as Fedorov?”

“Rod-25 has been very faithful. It seems to have an affinity, to use your term. It sends things seventy-nine years into the past—very exact.”

“Well that won’t do us very much good. If my math is correct that will send your engineer and the Anatoly Alexandrov back to the Caspian region of 1942, but your fleet is in 1945 according to this letter, and 6500 kilometers to the east in the Sea of Okhotsk! Dobrynin’s people will have both a very long journey east with this new control rod, through Soviet Russia, and a very long wait when they get there—if they get there.”

“We would have to risk that,” Volsky insisted.

“But how would you do this—from Baku to Vladivostok?”

“There is no way it could be done overland. It would have to be flown, but we can’t very well take a large plane back with us when Anatoly Alexandrov tries this little experiment. Yet we could land a big helicopter on the roof of the Alexandrov, and it would most likely shift back as well. Yes…” Volsky was feeling his way through the scenario, thinking and planning.

“It would have to be a helicopter,” he said definitively. “There is no other way. Our best choice would be the Mi-26, but even that has a maximum range of about 2000 kilometers on internal fuel. As you said, we’re talking about a journey of 6500 kilometers from Vladivostok to Baku. The helo would have to use most of its cargo space for additional fuel, but it could be done. In fact, we could use the Mi-26TZ. That model was modified to create an airborne fuel tanker with an additional 14,000 liters of fuel in four internal tanks. We could rig four more and carry up to 28,000 liters on our newest model. Add that to the internal fuel and we should have enough to get to the east coast.”

“But barely enough,” said Kamenski doing some quick math.

“Once they reach the coast we can contact Kirov via radio and arrange a rendezvous.”

“After waiting three long years,” said Kamenski. “What if something happens to the ship before you can make contact?”

“We’ll be there waiting when the ship arrives if all goes well.”

Kamenski raised an eyebrow. “Yes… I suppose that’s true.”

“But one moment please,” Kapustin spoke up, a confused look on his face. “You say Karpov sent this note by sending men to the naval Logistics Building in Vladivostok. Yes? Then it is clear your helicopter was not waiting there when the ship appeared in 1945, or at least that they failed to make contact. Am I correct in this? Does this mean this mission is doomed to fail?”

Kamenski listened, deep in thought. “Very astute, Gerasim! But Karpov must send his note to make the prospect of this mission possible. Otherwise how would we know where he was and dream this up? It’s very confusing, but perhaps the instant Karpov sent that letter everything changed. It doesn’t sound like much, but it may have been enough to alter the entire line of causality and permit us this opportunity. Who knows for sure? Well have to let Mother Time sort it all out.”

“I wish Fedorov were here,” said Volsky. “He would figure all this out.”

“Well, I will agree with you, Admiral. This appears to be the only way we can solve the problem if Karpov and his ships don’t get home sick and return on their own. The shepherd will have to find his lost sheep! That said, waiting almost three years on the east coast will not be without risks. The Japanese had troops on the Kuriles until very late in the war. You would have to find a very isolated place, safe from discovery. Probably on Sakhalin Island, high up in the mountains. That’s a long time to hold out. There’s the question of food, water, and if I am not mistaken you are using the entire lift capacity of that helicopter just for fuel. Men need to eat.”

“They would have to secure those supplies en-route somehow,” said Volsky. “As an alternative we could take less fuel, put some fighting men on that helo, and secure a small airfield to obtain fuel en-route. It won’t be top grade aviation fuel, but it would work.”

“Very risky,” said Kamenski. “No, I think you had best try to make it in one quick run, and with the bare minimum crew required. The fewer people we leave wandering about in the 1940s, the better. Your Mister Fedorov would certainly agree, yes? Also realize that if this mission fails we will lose those two control rods forever. That may mean nothing, however. We don’t know if these other control rods will even work! They may produce no effects at all.”

“Oh, I believe they will,” said Kapustin.

Kamenski regarded his old friend with surprise. “What makes you so confident in that, Gerasim?”

“Because I told you, I know everything there is to know about these control rods, where they were manufactured, where they were shipped and stored, and one thing more—where the materials used in their manufacture came from…” He let that dangle, a teasing look in his eyes. Now it was his turn to reach in his pocket and pull out the missing piece of the puzzle again, and he took great satisfaction as both Kamenski and Admiral Volsky gave him their full attention.

“This is going to be very interesting,” he said, folding his arms with a smile.

Chapter 31

“Signal all fleet units to report present status,” Karpov stared at the big Plexiglas screen denoting fleet asset positions, greatly disheartened. The fleet had been rigged for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare conditions, with all hatches battened down, air filters engaged and key personnel on exposed decks outfitted in environmental suits and rebreathers. The first eruption was significant, and commanded their immediate attention, the heat of the air duel further east suddenly seeming insignificant in the face of such awesome natural power.

They had weathered the first shock wave, and some time later a thirty foot tsunami wave rolled the ship heavily, but caused no further damage. Then came the real explosion from the distant Demon on the islands to their north, one that would place it in the record books a notch above the 1815 eruption of Tambora, and the ship took another violent shockwave so intense that Kirov listed fifteen degrees to starboard.

The entire region was soon embroiled in a thick black cloud of pale yellow ash and silt. The falling ash soon become so dense that the morning sun was blotted out and the skies became murky gray deepening to charcoal black in places. The noise of the explosion had abated, but the skies were now scored by lightning and the rumble of thunder. A strong smell of sulfur came with the falling ash, and they encountered squalls of slurry rain. An intense hush seemed to settle over the sea, broken only by the ripple of distant thunder, as if all other sounds had been smothered by the ash fall. Visibility was near zero, their instruments were hopelessly obscured as well.

If not for the sealed citadel bridge environment with conditioned air recirculation and full NBC protocols the crew might have been suffocated in the intensely thickening ash. As it was, the line outside Dr. Zolkin’s sick bay was a long one, and crewmembers that came in reporting respiratory distress were receiving emergency oxygen. Air filters on vital equipment were soon being overwhelmed, and emergency teams were trying to clear them.

Rodenko’s systems initially went dark, then winked on fitfully again and he gave an initial report. They were returning an unreadable signal from the massive ash clouds that had covered the entire area, but in time he began to localize on nearby contacts.

“I think have signal returns on Orlan and Admiral Golovko, sir. No sign of Varyag. This ash cloud is beginning to seriously degrade sensor performance.”

“Communications are spotty,” said Nikolin, “but I’m close enough to raise Orlan,”

“You mean to say you cannot raise Golovko?” Karpov looked over at Nikolin, unhappy.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m getting intense interference all over the band.”

“It’s the ash fall,” said Rodenko. “Byko has a team on the outer deck and reports it is all over the ship. We look like a gray lady wearing a funeral shroud. It’s three inches thick on the main decks, and every system on the superstructure is coated with the stuff. The Chief has men trying to hose down the vital sensors, but it’s difficult work in those NBC suits.”

Karpov walked to the forward view screens where the windshield wipers were smearing the ash back and forth in a blurry mess. Every window was completely coated, just as Rodenko had warned. Then Tasarov perked up, listening to his sonar headset.

“I’m not hearing it any more, sir.”

Karpov turned his head. “Hearing what, Lieutenant?”

“The eruption. I was monitoring it on the passive system with low volume, then it quieted down, so I tuned in to listen. It’s stopped, sir, unless my equipment has also failed. I hear nothing now. In fact my sonic field is completely clear.”

The bridge phone rang and Rodenko reached to answer it. He listened, his eyes registering surprise. “Chief Byko says conditions are clearing, sir. We can secure from NBC conditions and resume normal operations.”

“Clearing?” Karpov found that hard to believe given the size of the eruption they had seen. He was still peering through the muddied view screen, frustrated. “Activate Tin Man One and pan north,” he said, and Nikolin immediately toggled a switch to feed power to the system.

“Getting a picture now, sir.”

The digital feed was spotty, breaking up into checkered squares and reassembling again, but after a moment the image settled down.

“There’s Admiral Golovko,” said Karpov. “But my God, look at the sea conditions! And the sky—Byko was correct. There’s no sign of any disturbance at all.”

A few moments ago they were sailing in the massive ash fall shadow of a VEI Level 7 Ultra-Plinian Super-Colossal volcanic eruption, with tsunami driven seas and ashen skies that blotted out the sun itself, sending them into a limbo of brimstone and pumice—but now they were cruising on quiet seas, with a strange tinge of green fire in the ocean, and pristine white cumulus clouds in an azure blue sky. The distant silhouette of the Kuriles was calm and undisturbed. There was no sign of the eruption at all!

Karpov’s momentary shock soon gave way to instant recognition. “My God,” he said. “Not again…Look at the sea Rodenko. Look at the sky!”

The ship’s Radar Chief and new Starpom was staring up at the screen, dumbfounded. “That eruption was nearly forty kilometers high by my last signal returns. No way you can put that genie back in the bottle, sir. We’ve…”

“We’ve move in time again,” said Karpov. “How is that possible? That reactor control rod isn’t even on the damn ship!” Even as he asked the question he knew the why of it all would likely be a confounding mystery, just as it was the first time this happened. The question he needed to be asking now was not why, but when. That thought went from mind to lips as Karpov removed his hat, wiping the sheen of perspiration from his brow.

“Where have we ended up this time? Is this the future we saw before, or the past?”

One thing was certain, the present was gone, the war itself went up in cinders the moment the Demon vented its wrath. The eruption made the petty quarrels of humans seem totally insignificant. Yet now they had all been dragged into an old and all too familiar nightmare again… somewhere… somewhere in time…

He went to Zolkin, the man who was ever his foil and a prickling barb of conscience on the ship. He was the man who mended the crew’s woes, both physical and mental, bandaging up their souls as much as anything else. The Doctor had every intention of leaving the ship for private practice in Vladivostok, but when duty called and the fleet sailed he knew his place was aboard Kirov. Now Karpov sat with him in the sick bay, so many questions on his mind, though Zolkin had a few of his own.

“How did it happen this time? I thought they took that wizard’s brew off the ship.”

“They did, but the detonation of that volcano north of our position seems to have blown us half way through the last century again.”

“What year is it? Have you found that out yet?”

“I went down to Fedorov’s quarters and fetched a copy of that book he often referred to—the Chronology of the Naval War at Sea. We’ve learned the US fleet has been attacking the Japanese home islands the last several days, so I looked that up and compared the narrative to information we’ve picked up on radio. I believe it may be the 15th of August, 1945. We must be somewhere in that timeframe, or so I reckon it.”

“Good then, the war is nearly over. The surrender of Japan was accepted in Tokyo Bay about that time, was it not?”

“August 27th, in Sagami Bay, if Fedorov’s book is accurate.”

“I thought everything was different because of our meddling.”

“Not exactly. Fedorov tried to explain it to me once. He said it was like a cracked mirror—the changes we make in the history. The rest of the mirror is perfect, and reflects events down to the finest detail, but wherever there is a crack the image is distorted. I have no idea how badly cracked that mirror is now, Doctor. Each time we do something the cracks spread further, but the portion I am peering into at the moment seems to be accurate. We’ve heard the names of many vessels listed in US fleet units.”

“Well, with the war over I hope they’ll be going home soon and perhaps we’ll be left in peace.”

“Perhaps…” Karpov had a distant look in his eye, one part loneliness, one part despair, and yet behind it was a flicker of dark energy that always seemed to animate his mind. Zolkin noticed it at once.

“What’s on your mind, Captain?”

“I’ll put it as simply as I can, Doctor. I don’t think we can count on that volcano on Iturup Island blowing its top any time soon. For all I know Volsky must think that Demon wiped us off the map. That it did, but it sent us to this private little purgatory again, perhaps to atone for our sins.”

“It certainly seems that way.”

“The point is—we can’t get back this time. We have no magic wand. Dobrynin took Rod-25 to the Caspian to look for Fedorov in 1942. We’re stranded here.”

“Not necessarily,” Zolkin finished cleaning some oxygen dispensers with alcohol and was drying his hands with a towel as he spoke. “Suppose they found Fedorov, went home with Orlov and all the rest, then they would have that control rod to come back for us.”

“And suppose Fedorov and all the rest have been blown to hell already in 2021,” Karpov put in quickly. “That was no picnic I was invited to when I took the fleet to sea.”

“I understand you had quite an engagement with the Americans—yes, I heard the missiles going off, and saw the Varyag when they fired. Who knows how many were killed in that little argument.”

“Who knows,” said Karpov dryly, detecting just the hint of criticism in the Doctor’s voice. “The fact is we don’t know much at all. We can speculate, but there is no way of knowing what happened to Fedorov or Orlov now, and no way of knowing what happened to Volsky in 2021. Yes, I think I gave the Americans a bit of a black eye in that engagement. It was either that or they put us at the bottom of the sea, and in that equation morality has little room, Doctor. I’m willing to bet the Americans will want their pound of flesh in reprisal. Volsky’s position at Fokino is somewhat precarious. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Americans don’t have their B-2s in the air with bellies full of missiles to take those facilities out. That’s what I would have done.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

Karpov sat quietly for a moment, thinking to himself. “I suppose we should at least try to signal Volsky as to what happened.”

“And just how do you propose to do that?

“The same way Fedorov planned it. He was to write us a letter and slip it into an old locker in the Naval Logistics Building. I can ease over toward Vladivostok and get men ashore there to do the same thing.”

Zolkin had not heard any of this before. “And this locker remains undisturbed for almost eighty years?”

“That’s what Fedorov claims. If I can get a message into that locker, then Volsky has men there waiting to check it every night.”

“Amazing!” Zolkin shook his head. “That young Fedorov is ingenious.”

“A fine officer,” said Karpov. “But beyond letting Volsky know we’re alive, I don’t know what good my plan will do. There’s a war on, and we were the heart of the fleet. Now we’re gone. I managed to hurt one of the American carrier task forces but they have two more unfought, and another two in their Third Fleet on the West coast. All Volsky has left without us is the Varyag, a couple Udaloys, Admiral Kuznetsov and a few subs. They won’t last another week.”

“I hate to break it to you but adding this ship and the other two here to that mix would not amount to much either. Kirov is a good ship, but the US Navy is something more, I fear.”

“You are probably correct. It was a futile show of force, but Moscow ordered it and so…”

“I know that drill only too well,” Zolkin wagged a finger at him. “You must have learned enough by now to use you head, Karpov. What Moscow wants is seldom for the general good—at least that’s been my experience in recent decades, not to mention in this war ending right here.”

“We had hoped to find a way to prevent it,” said Karpov, the frustration evident in his voice. “I’m not sure why Fedorov was so damn set on this Orlov business. Well, either he succeeded, or he failed. The point is—we may never know either way.”

“What then?” Zolkin held out a hand. “What are you going to do, Captain, look for an island as Volsky planned? You say it’s August? I hear the weather isn’t too bad up on Sakhalin this time of year.”

Karpov gave him a wan smile. “There’s another consideration, Doctor.” His tone indicated that he was finally getting round to business—to the reason why he had come here in the first place.

“You have another idea?”

“Consider this,” Karpov began. “In just a few days virtually the entire American Fleet is going to be anchored in Sagami Bay; the British Pacific Fleet as well. Now the way I see things is that this volcano upset the porridge bowl. The fact that my ships were sent here was completely random, and it occurred only because of the decisions Admiral Volsky and I made to sortie with the fleet. So we’ve done it again.”

“Done what?”

“We’ve changed things, shuffled the deck. Kirov’s presence here is going to cause another major alteration to the history from this day forward. So since we have already changed the course of events, then we may as well finish the job.”

“Finish the job?”

“Look, Doctor, think clearly now. You know what happens from here on out, yes? The US and Britain ride roughshod over the rest of the world. The cold war has already started. MacArthur is shitting his pants to think the Soviets here might occupy northern Japan. They’ll wear us down for fifty years until it all collapses, and then by 2021 we’re going to be fighting the Americans for our lives again. It’s going to happen, one way or another…Unless I stop it.”

“Unless you stop it? Forgive me, Captain, but you are beginning to sound like your old self again. What are you suggesting?”

“Their entire fleet is there. All the dignitaries are going to meet on the battleship Missouri and watch Japan surrender.”

“So what’s on your mind? Are you going to sail into Sagami Bay with these three ships? And then what?”

“I haven’t decided that yet.”

Zolkin gave him a long look. “You’re serious? You are actually considering intervention here? I thought we went over and over this on the ship when Volsky was here.”

“That was different. We didn’t know about the next war then. Now we know—the world is going to be blown to hell unless we do something about it. To be frank I didn’t think there was much Kirov could do in the year 2021 to forestall that. Volsky said it would eventually come down to blood and steel, the old fashioned way, but those things have obvious limitations. When they took that thing off the ship—Rod-25—I’ll admit I felt strangely deflated, mortal again, if that makes any sense. Yet it’s happened again, and who knows why. Here we are again, an order of magnitude more powerful than any ship afloat. In fact, considering that we received a new allotment of heavy weapons, we are more powerful than that entire fleet out there.”

“Heavy weapons? You mean nuclear weapons, don’t you.” Zolkin folded his arms, clearly unhappy. “So it’s come round to this old song and dance again. What are you thinking to do, threaten the United States Pacific Fleet with annihilation? Well if I’m not mistaken the Americans have a few atomic weapons of their own by this time, don’t they. So what are you going to do, Karpov, start a nuclear war here so we can avoid a bigger one later?”

“That would make sense, Doctor, at least from a military perspective.”

“Make sense? It’s insane, Captain. Yes, you are a man of war, and I’m a physician. But this isn’t a garden we’re talking about here. This isn’t a matter of nipping something in the bud before the weeds spread too far. You’re talking about killing people now. Realize that—murdering thousands if they won’t accede to your demands. I can assure you that they won’t take kindly to you if you try to crash their party, nor will they allow you to push them around. They’ve just won the goddamned Second World War, Karpov! Now you come sailing up and want to start the third.”

“I can see it’s futile discussing this with you,” said Karpov. “But if it will calm you down I will say that nothing has been decided yet. I want to meet with the Captains of Orlan and Admiral Golovko first and discuss the matter. Remember, they have no idea what has happened—no idea at all.”

“If the sudden change of weather hasn’t clued them in, then they’ll find out soon enough on the radio, just as you did.”

“I’ve already signaled them and ordered complete radio silence. Right now they are busy washing the ash and silt from that monster volcano off the decks and equipment. This evening I will receive Captains Ryakhin and Yeltsin here in the officer’s dining hall for a briefing. Then we will decide what to do.”

“May I attend?”

“If you wish. I came to you to seek your opinion. We’ve had our differences before, Zolkin; there’s no question about that. You may speak your mind, but if we make a decision that you disagree with, be man enough to keep your place and don’t make a fuss about it.”

Zolkin looked Karpov in the eye. “If you think I’ll sit here like a good little Doctor and watch you drop another atomic weapon on Sagami Bay, then you’re not only a madman, but a fool. I’ll scream bloody hell!”

“Look Doctor, no one said anything about bombing Sagami Bay. Please don’t get hysterical and force me to confine you to quarters. The men need you.”

“You have already tried that trick once with Volsky, Captain. What did it get you?”

“Volsky isn’t even born yet!” The venom in Karpov’s voice told Zolkin more than the words. “Get that through you head, eh? I admit I was a fool to do what I did last time, but circumstances have changed. If we are to prevent the future we saw, then we have to act. Can’t you see that? You think I can avoid detection indefinitely out here? They’re going to find out about us, and my guess is that when they do they’ll come in shooting first. They’ll assume we’re a renegade Japanese ship this time.”

“Only if you start taking shots at their ships.”

“You said it yourself, Doctor. They just won the damn war. They’ll come sailing up with demands and orders, and I’m not one to be pushed right now. If they get in my face, they’ll regret it.”

“And then you get your war…”

Zolkin sighed heavily, imposing a measure of calm on himself. “I guess it is true what they say, that a leopard never changes its spots. I was proud of you, Karpov. We all were. You were in the most difficult situation imaginable, and you redeemed yourself admirably. Now… show me the real man in there. Who are you? The real man had better take hold of himself, and damn soon, because he’s wearing Captain’s bars and standing on a ship that can blow the world to hell and back with the push of a button!”

Karpov looked down, obviously conflicted, yet torn. The siren’s song of time was singing loudly to him now, calling him to glory, and to unimaginable power. Yet Zolkin’s voice scored him, touching the old wounds that he had struggled to heal in the months past. What would he do?

“Dinner is tonight at zero-six-hundred hours,” he said quietly. “You are invited.”

Then he set his cap on his forehead, nodded to Zolkin and stepped out the hatch.

Chapter 32

Mack Morgan sat with his head in his hands, thinking. “Now what are those Russian bastards up to in the Caspian?”

He had been receiving decrypts on the Russian military channels. Their super secret Oracle decrypt system had been laboring all through the night to decode the traffic, and something was up. The Russians had begun moving assets off shore near Makhachkala and their naval base at Kaspiysk. It looked like they were busy activating a large floating nuclear power facility there, the Anatoly Alexandrov. But the other assets involved aroused his curiosity. They had small patrol craft, fast hovercraft, a company of naval marines, and now a most unusual addition with the Mi-26 helicopter, which landed on the flat reinforced upper helipad on the Alexandrov.

He twisted a few arms to get some very valuable time on a satellite and was able to obtain a few decent high resolution images. “Will you look at that,” he breathed. The Russkies are loading fuel into that helo, or I’m deaf, dumb and blind, he thought. This looks like the makings of a Spetsnaz operation, and the list of potential targets available in this region is short and sweet. Where could they be going?

He did some thinking. That Mi-26 was a good long range work horse. It could get out almost 2000 kilometers, so why the big load of extra fuel? They would only need that if they planned to exceed that range. Suppose they double it…He was looking at a very big circle on his map, realizing the mission could be going anywhere from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf. Hell, they could fly all the way to Rome after landing to refuel. What were they up to?

He decided he had better notify Miss Fairchild, and also get word to the Argonauts they had deployed to the Kashagan oil fields. Perhaps they could use one of the X-3s to keep an eye on the situation. Then he turned his attention to the other troubling matter that morning—the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

That little Georgian Coast Guard patrol had been brushed off easily enough, but now the Russian fleet was moving out from its bases to the north, and that was going to mean trouble. They had already overflown the tanker loading operation once the previous day with a drone, and undoubtedly knew what was going on there. Two and a half million barrels of oil was a very valuable commodity just now. The Russians were obviously trying to shut down all export routes for oil to the West. They were leaning on Georgian government, and this latest move looked ominous. The spot market price per barrel had just surged through the $200 mark and would likely go higher.

It’ll be $300 a barrel in short order, he thought. Fairchild is going to make a killing on this haul, if we can only manage to get the damn oil safely out of the Black Sea. Something tells me that fleet up north is going to have something to say about it soon enough. I’d best let Gordie MacRae know we’re about to have company. He reached for his intercom, a troubled look clouding his dark eyes.

On the Bridge of Argos Fire Captain MacRae was well aware of the Russians. His long range radar was very good with the Sampson system scouring the region, and even better when augmented by the SM1850M2 addition, which enhanced the ship’s coverage even against ballistic missile threats from the edge of space. The Russian fleet was moving, and Mack Morgan was worried about it.

MacRae had Iron Duke further out in a single ship picket now that Princess Irene was topped off and heading south. An older Type 23 Frigate, the Iron Duke had seen several upgrades to extend her active service, particularly with the addition of new radar sets and a better medium range air defense missile, the Sea Ceptor. That missile replaced the older Seawolf system, giving the frigate a modest AAW umbrella out to 25 kilometers.

“Mack says they’re sailing with the best they have,” said Commander Dean. “Those three new frigates, Grigorovich, Essen and Makarov put out to sea an hour ago. It looks like they may throw an old Krivak or two into the mix as well. Vorovskiy was operating in their border guard unit, and that’s probably the best of that lot.”

“Where are they headed, Mister Dean?”

“We have our last X-3 up watching them and returns are being fed to our systems here. The heading is due south, speed twenty.”

“They don’t seem to be in any hurry.”

“No sir, but even at that speed they can assume a position to intercept us when we head west in just two hours. We’ll be well within range of their SA-N-27 Sizzlers, and the Onyx system as well.”

MacRae thought for a moment. “This situation is very delicate at the moment,” he said. “Technically the Russians and Americans are in the thick of things in the Pacific. Britain is a NATO ally and therefore would be considered hostile.”

“And what about the Turks, sir? Iron Duke says she’s tracking a Turkish sub out there, S-354, the Sakarya.”

“Don’t worry about the Turks, Mister Dean, they’re in it with NATO too.”

“But can we count on Turkish support, sir? They can match or beat the Russian Black Sea Fleet out here.”

“That they can, and I believe certain arrangements have been made, if you follow me. That sub out there will throw in on our side if need be, and the Turks have promised us two frigates when we start heading west.”

“That’s welcome news, sir.”

“Aye, but Morgan says the Russians threw everything they had at the Americans this morning. Then that bloody volcano blew its top and we’ve heard nothing since. Thing is this, laddie. If the Russians decide to engage here, then you can bet they’ll hit us with everything they have as well. They don’t have enough of a fleet here to last out the week, if it comes down to it, but they can make our life miserable, particularly if they shoot first and ask questions later.”

“I understand, sir.”

MacRae looked at his watch. “They’ve rigged up two more lines and the pumps have been working overtime. We’ll have a couple million barrels under our belts in another hour. Then there’s this business in the Caspian. I don’t much like the fact that we’ve three of our X-3s and good men out there. There’s no way we can protect either Chevron or BP operations in those oil fields. Now Mack Morgan seems a wee bit flustered over something the Russians have going at Kaspiysk. He thinks he sees a Special Ops mission staging there, and what else would they be looking to bother out there but those oil fields?”

“Sounds logical, sir.”

“And a bloody cold logic at that. Well, the thing is this, Mister Dean. If they move on those fields any time soon the Argonauts will be in a bar fight there. I’d just as soon have those men with us. We’ve got our oil. Let’s bring the lads home.”

“Very well, sir. Chevron won’t be happy about it.”

“Chevron doesn’t write my paycheck, Mister Dean, nor yours either.”

“Aye, sir.”

MacRae was pacing now, walking slowly back and forth on the bridge as he considered the situation. But he didn’t have much time to think about it. His Sampson air alert operator called out ‘Top One,’ a single aircraft inbound on their position.

“What is it, Mister Conners?”

“Single contact, Mach one at 20,000 feet. Probably an Su-24, sir.”

“One plane?”

“Aye, sir. Range is 186 miles and closing. If it’s packing heat it can fire in five minutes.”

“Then we go to full Air Alert. Is Iron Duke tracking it, Mister Boyle?”

“Sir, Comm signals indicate affirmative. They have a live track but have not locked on missile targeting radars.”

“Very well.”

MacRae decided to wait. If the Russians were attacking, it would not be with a single plane. Iron Duke was out there with her Sea Ceptors, and fully capable of handling the situation, but she wasn’t locking on. This was most likely a recon flight, though it was rather ballsy, he thought. Then again….All it would take is for us to give this single plane a pass and have it pump a missile into one of those tankers out there. All’s fair in love and war. My charge is to defend these ships at any cost.

“Mister Boyle,” he said calmly. “Contact that plane and tell them if they come within fifty kilometers of this operation we must assume hostile intent and will act accordingly.”

“Aye, Sir!” Boyle was quick to it, and always by the book.

“That’ll give them something to think about,” said MacRae. “They’ll have to be wondering if that means Iron Duke out there, or us. Either way we’re one and the same. Let’s see what they do.”

The Russians didn’t think long.

At a range of 100 kilometers the situation took a dramatic turn when the Russian plane fired a pair of missiles. Seconds later the Sampson system had identified them as Kh-58U Anti Radiation missiles for targeting radars.

MacRae was truly surprised. “What in bloody hell are they doing?” he said aloud.

“Iron Duke is locking on, sir. They’re firing a barrage of Sea Ceptors.” Britain’s newest air defense missile was firing from VLS quad packs installed on the frigate’s forward deck. The Duke fired four, and the speedy missiles were out after the incoming targets in a heartbeat, two for each of the missiles fired by the SU-24.”

“I’ll want our Vipers up, and ready immediately,” MacRae said to Dean, who relayed the order loud and clear. “CIC, activate forward deck Sea Viper system and standby”

“Aye, sir, Vipers up and ready. Sampson reports hard lock and steady track on all contacts.”

“Con, Top Seven! I have additional contacts inbound at low altitude.” There were suddenly seven more Su-24’s inbound, and behind them another seven, and now MacRae knew the gloves were finally coming off.

“Mister Dean,” he said. “What are we looking at in terms of Russian naval air power out here.”

“Sir, I checked that this morning. Their 43rd Independent Naval Shturmovik Air Assault Squadron in the Crimea was listed as having twenty-two SU-24s. Four of those are tactical recon variants, but these have to be the strike squadrons.”

“And they thought they were going to bother my Sampson system with a forty year old radar seeker?”

The Sampson air defense radar system was perhaps the best in the world. In trials and war games it even exceeded the capabilities of the US AEGIS system. US naval officers had commented that the British air defense destroyers were no less than awesome, capable of tracking up to 1000 targets at any one time.

The situation had taken a sudden and dramatic turn. The Russians were trying to launch a surprise attack, and his tankers were just sitting there like big fat ducks, still tethered to their loading buoys and hoses.

“What will those strike planes be carrying?”

“Sir, this isn’t a dedicated naval strike plane. It’s a ground attack aircraft, but that said they might be using a variant of the Kh-58 in an anti-shipping role. Or else this is just a SEAD mission to get after our radar before their fleet gets into it.”

It was indeed. Air Alert One called out a barrage of fourteen incoming missiles, followed within seconds by a second barrage. The Russians had taken advantage of the nebulous thin border zone at the edge of any impending conflict to get in the opening salvo. It was ingrained in Russian military thinking—fire first.

“Sir!” said Ensign Boyle. “I have Captain Williams of Iron Duke on a secure channel.”

MacRae reached for the overhead handset and thumbed it on. “We’re going hot,” said Williams. “Just thought I’d let you know.”

“We can hear you singing, Captain,” said MacRae, “and we’ll squeeze the pipes for you.”

“Very well, Argos. Good shooting.”

The Argos Fire and Fairchild & Company were now at war. Everything that came before was mere posturing and bluster. Missiles inbound on over two million barrels of oil were another thing entirely.

“Well lads,” said MacRae. “We’re in it for certain now. Air One, prosecute your contacts, and be quick about it.”

“Sir, aye sir!”

Where there had once been a flat and empty deck forward of the stealth turret Argos had raised earlier, there was now a series of open hatches harboring deadly Sea Vipers, the Fairchild modified version of the Aster 30 SAM. It was fast at Mach 4.5, and extremely agile, being capable of 60-G maneuvers. Argos Fire had a battery of 60 of these missiles, more even than the standard British Daring class destroyer would carry. They were going to need them.

The action was short and violent. The Iron Duke’s advanced Sea Ceptors were quick to their targets, and she had four times her old air defense firepower with a single quad-pack occupying the space that one of her older Seawolf missiles might have taken. They were able to find and swat down the two anti-radiation missiles that led the attack, and the plane that fired them died soon after.

The Sea Ceptors had a limited range of only 25 kilometers, but within that envelope they were fast and deadly. The Russian planes had fired and were not sticking around to do any battle damage assessment. The SU-24 Fencers made an abrupt about face and were racing north again for their base in the Crimea, too far away to be bothered by Iron Duke’s missiles. But the doughty frigate was firing furiously at the incoming barrage of Ka-58s. The British built systems were a generation or more ahead of the attacking ordnance. Of the twenty-eight missiles fired, Iron Duke got eighteen and the Argos Fire downed the rest. Not a single missile got through.

“What was that all about?” said Commander Dean. “It was too damn easy.”

“Don’t be surprised that our missiles perform as advertised, Mister Dean,” said MacRae. “But all things considered, I know what you’re saying.”

“I would have coordinated that attack with their surface action group,” said Dean. “That was nothing more than a shoot and scoot.”

MacRae, folded his arms, one hand raised to his chin as he considered what Dean was saying. “Well the thing is this, lad. They lost one plane and a few old missiles, but everything we sent up after them was a nice, shiny new missile. All the Russians did is rush in and flash their kilts at us. We’re just two ships out here, and there’s only so many missiles under that forward deck. We just fired ten Sea Vipers, by my count, and we’re a long way from home. My guess is that those planes will be back again soon. They pulled a few teeth, then, didn’t they?”

The bridge phone rang, and MacRae turned to see it was line one, the executive offices. “That will be her majesty,” he said to Dean, smiling. “She’ll want to know what we were shooting at. Let’s get the Argonauts home at once and wind this operation up.”

Before he had a chance to take the call his Sampson air alert system was calling out a new threat. “Sir, I have incoming missiles, high and slow.”

Dean looked at the readout, raising an eyebrow. “SA-N-27 Sizzlers,” he said. “They’re the only missiles with the range to hit us down here. Well they won’t be high and slow for very long. Get them now, during their sub-sonic cruise approach phase. They’ll come down on the deck for their terminal run and accelerate with Mach 2 or better, dancing like faeries the whole way in.”

MacRae nodded as he picked up the handset, quickly explaining the situation to an anxious Miss Fairchild.

“I understand, Captain. Defend the company, and may God be with us. But I have another request—I’m afraid I’ll have to make it an order, Gordon.”

That was unusual for her to call him by his first name on the ship’s internal comm system. She usually reserved such familiarity for the sanctity of her offices.

“Madame?”

“Those helicopters we have in the Caspian…Can they fight?”

“That they can, Madame, but I was considering bringing the lads home, seeing as though the situation here is changing rapidly, and not for the good. We’ll need to move west as soon as possible.”

He listened, surprised by what he heard next, his features set and serious. There had been a call to the executive offices—a very special call. It had come in on the secure red phone that was answered only by Elena Fairchild herself, though MacRae knew of its existence. He also knew that when “special calls” came in from time to time, they were always followed by “special orders.” Yet what he heard now was going to complicate his life in ways he could not possibly imagine.

“That operation in the Caspian Mack Morgan was fussing over,” she said. “Well we’re going to pay them a little visit. Come to my office when you can and I’ll discuss the matter further.”

“Very well,” said MacRae, hanging up the phone with the shake of his head, completely nonplussed.

Now what in seven hells is this about? I’ve got missiles inbound, Vipers ready to get out after them, and more trouble than a banshee in a basket right now!

It was going to be a very long day.

Chapter 33

They had their meeting in the officer’s mess that night, and Karpov watched the blood slowly drain from the face of the other two Captains. First there were smiles, as if he were telling them a good joke to relieve the tension of their situation. Then came the uncomfortable shifting in the seats, the looks of irritation and obvious frustration. Vranyo was vranyo, the little lies the Russians would stretch into stories with one another, and there were forms and protocols that had to be adhered to, but this was a little much considering what they had just been through.

Ryakhin and Yeltsin found themselves looking from Karpov to Zolkin and back again, clearly confused as to what was going on. It had taken the officers and crew of Kirov a good long while to come to grips with the fact that they had actually moved in time, and this even after being overflown by WWII class aircraft and encountering ships at sea that had long since been given to the scrap yards.

Ryakhin was a strait laced man, young, proud, having made Captain of the second rank just before the outbreak of hostilities. He was now commanding the new fleet frigate Admiral Golovko, a promising young officer who was given one of Russia’s newest ships. Yeltsin was older, more wizened, a Captain of the first rank as Karpov was. He knew Karpov from the academy and was somewhat leery of him. The stories he had heard of the man were none too flattering, but he was not one to dwell on gossip.

Both men slowly closed up, arms folded, eyes averted, and clearly unwilling to be led much further down the pathway Karpov was dragging them. Zolkin said nothing, thinking things through and watching the other men react to what Karpov was telling them.

“Yes,” said Karpov. “It sounds impossible, even crazy to even consider. Believe me, I felt the same way when Kirov first disappeared. But you will have the testimony of every man aboard this ship as to the truth of this. Doctor Zolkin here can attest to everything I am saying.”

Yeltsin looked up, thinking before he spoke, his lids heavy, a sheen of light perspiration on his brow and balding head. “Doctor? Please tell me this is all a nice little after dinner joke.” He smiled, but barely, casting a sideward glance at Karpov.

“I wish it were so,” said Zolkin. “But I’m afraid that what the Captain here has told you is the truth—at least insofar as we knew and lived it. It took us days to comprehend what had happened to us. For some aboard this ship it is still a dilemma.”

Karpov waved the orderly over and whispered something. “I have taken the liberty of arranging a little demonstration,” he said.

The orderly soon returned pushing a small cart with a video monitor and player. He also brought a bottle of good vodka and was pouring the officers a glass as Karpov explained what they would soon see.

“I am about to replay a visual log recording from the bridge of Kirov,” he said calmly. “Yes, I know such things might be created in Hollywood studios, but I assure you, we did not set sail with the Red Banner Fleet just now with the intention of filming a movie. You will both recognize the formatting of this footage, as you have undoubtedly reviewed many similar digital logs in your years of service. What you are about to see now was recorded on a warm late summer day…in the year 1942.” It was from the log records they had hidden before Kapustin’s inspection.

He pressed the remote and the screen came alive. The camera was recording off the port side of the ship, and from the bow wave, it was clearly evident that Kirov was running at high rate of speed. Then they heard the whistle of falling ordnance and saw a sudden geyser of seawater exploding up from the sea. The voice of Admiral Volsky, unmistakable, was recognized by both men at once.

“Engage all airborne targets! Weapons free!”

“Sir—I have no radar locks!”

“Nothing?”

“No data, sir.”

“What are we fighting, Fedorov?” Karpov’s voice was heard now.

“Aichi D3A1—Dive bombers! High angle attack. They will come in from a cruising altitude between ten and fifteen thousand meters. Right on top of us!”

They could hear the drone of the diving planes growing louder in the background, and a second bomb splash fell closer, the explosion clearly imaged on camera in an angry geyser of seawater not fifty meters off the port side of the ship.

Karpov’s voice was heard again, loud and strong.

“Helm, ahead full battle speed! Samsonov, Kashtan system! High azimuth arc. Target zone zenith plus and minus ten degrees and fire all systems. Full missile barrage! Use infrared!”

“Aye, sir!”

The resulting action was filmed by the Tin Man cameras, and as the Kashtan close in defense system rotated its arms upwards Karpov noted how the two other officers leaned forward, spellbound as they watched the action unfold. The missiles ignited in a wash of white steamy smoke and danced into the sky above. Then another bomb fell just ahead of the ship and sent a wild spray of seawater over the bow. They saw Kirov roll heavily as she ran over the detonation, her sharp prow cutting through the seething water.

“Samsonov! Gatling system on full automatic! Now!”

They heard the snarl of the Gatling guns join the cacophony of noise as the Kashtans fired thousands of rounds of 30mm shells from their heavy arms, their muzzles spitting out enormous fiery jets of flame.

Yeltsin’s mouth opened in amazement as he watched. This was no live fire exercise, and nothing remotely like it could have been staged. It was riveting, tense and heartless combat, the like of which few other officers in the fleet had ever known…and it was clearly real. They could almost smell the smoke and feel the heat of the battle scene they were watching. Then the camera jiggled wildly and they heard a deafening explosion. Karpov squeezed the remote and paused the video.

“That was live combat footage of an engagement fought with this ship off the coast of Australia shortly after we displaced in time to the year 1942. We were clearly not prepared for action, as the ship’s systems were affected by the time displacement, as your systems were in recent hours. Yes, it was not only the volcanic ash. The shift in time caused a momentary loss of long range sensor systems. That’s how those planes could get right on top of us without our knowing about it. Otherwise we would have cut them to pieces before they ever got near us. Oh yes…Those were Japanese naval dive bombers referred to in that footage. As you saw, I had to take command and repel the attack with the Kashtan system.”

He thumbed the remote, and the segment skipped ahead. The voice of admiral Volsky was heard again.

“Mister Karpov.”

“Sir?”

“Come here, please…Mister Karpov, I gave Samsonov an order to engage those aircraft, weapons free.”

“Yes, sir, but I thought—”

“Just a moment, Captain Lieutenant, if you please…Look here, this man intervened in a critical moment, overriding my spoken orders, and he saved the ship just now. My orders were unclear. I specified no weapon system, yet Captain Karpov immediately assessed the situation and selected the only weapon system that could have possibly engaged the enemy given the angle of this attack, and he saved the ship. I have long believed that Captain Karpov was one of the finest tactical combat officers in the fleet.”

The segment ended, and Karpov folded his arms, watching the other Captains closely. “That explosion you heard at the last segment was a bomb from one of those planes that struck the ship on the aft citadel. The damage there was extensive, and we will take a little tour to show you after dessert.”

Zolkin noted how the Captain had edited the segment to end with the Admiral’s praise for his performance in the engagement, and he could clearly see that Karpov was fighting another battle now, one for the proverbial ‘hearts and minds’ of these two Captains. He would have to win here if he was to do anything more in this insane situation they found themselves in again. The Doctor could see the glimmer of uncertainty in the younger man’s eyes—Ryakhin. The more seasoned Yeltsin seemed deep in thought, but the footage had wiped the uncomfortable smiles of restrained disbelief from both men’s faces. They were clearly impressed by what they had seen and heard.

“Those ship’s logs are top secret,” said Karpov. “I showed them to you to give you something more than my own testimony to convince you of the truth here. It will be somewhat disturbing, I realize, even shocking. You will doubt either your own sanity or mine and that of the Doctor here. But the fact remains that we are where we are. Lieutenant Nikolin, our communications officer, has intercepted radio traffic to confirm the present day and year. It is the 15th of August, 1945.”

“Astounding,” said Yeltsin.

“Indeed, Captain. That footage clearly illustrates one other thing—this is a very dangerous place. The war here has ended, but the combined allied fleet is arriving in Sagami Bay near Tokyo in just a few days for the surrender of Japan. This is the same fleet we just engaged, albeit in another time—our own time. Yet the both of you know as well as I do that we will bump gunwales with the Americans at sea from this time forward, until it comes to what we just saw some hours ago and the missiles fly. They will be at our throats, one way or another.”

Zolkin could see he was angling to make his pitch now, the Captain on maneuvers, ready to fire.

“Now…” Karpov paused, looking the other men over. “Ours is to decide what we do about all this.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Yeltsin spoke, his voice still tentative. “You say we have…we have moved in time?”

“Captain…did you happen to notice the sudden change of weather? One minute we were sailing on the seas of hell. The Americans were attacking and their Harpoons were coming in at us from two sides. Then that mountain blew up. You saw the ash cloud. It was three inches think on the main deck! Now where is it? Where is that massive eruption to the north? Did you think a gentle breeze could just blow that all away in a few minutes?”

He had obviously hit on something that was very convincing. Ryakhin leaned forward. “Yes, that was very unusual. We could not understand what had happened.”

“The explosive force from that eruption was apparently so severe that it knocked us into the past,” said Karpov quickly. “This is how we figure it. When this happened to Kirov earlier—when Orel blew up—we were also displaced in time.”

“How did you get back?”asked Yeltsin.

Karpov pursed his lips, jaw set. This was the key question. He had to tell these men their bridges were burned now. How would they react?

“Chief Engineer Dobrynin noticed an anomaly taking place in our nuclear reactors. It came and went. Whenever it occurred our position in time was unstable. It so happened that on one occasion we were returned to our own time, and we came home.”

“Will that happen again?”

“We don’t know…”

Zolkin could see Karpov was straying a bit here. He told the men nothing of Rod-25, or the fact that the ship found a way to trigger the time displacement on their own. Karpov glanced at him, as if checking to see if the Doctor would protest, then continued.

“The fact is that this is all still a mystery to us. Yet it happened, and now it has happened again. Captain Ryakhin, your frigate uses a diesel and gas turbine powerplant, so there is no chance your ship could return to our time as Kirov did through some anomaly in the reactor. Captain Yeltsin, your ship is fortunate to have the nuclear power upgrade planned as an option for our new destroyers. We will send you technical data to alert your engineers on what they should look for. Perhaps the anomaly will occur again, but the more likely case is that it will not.”

“Then what becomes of my ship and crew?” asked Ryakhin.

“Don’t worry Captain. We have discovered that it may be possible for your vessel to move with Kirov, if you are in close proximity to our ship when it happens. That said, we cannot count on any of this. All we know for certain is that we are here, impossible as it seems. I will tell you, Captain Ryakhin, that we will not abandon you by choice. I give you my word on that. We will stand by you, come what may…which brings me to my next point.”

Here it comes, thought Zolkin. The deck hatches were opening in Karpov’s mind and the Moskit-IIs were ready to fire.

“It may be that we are all stranded here in this time indefinitely; that we may never find a way to return to the year 2021. In fact, it would be wise for us to assume as much, and act accordingly for our own survival. So I ask the question again—now that we are here, what do we do?”

The two Captains were quite disturbed, but neither man said anything for some time. Then Yeltsin spoke up. “Do about what, Captain?”

There was a glint in Karpov’s eye as he spoke. “The Americans and British have just won this war—or so they believe. They will conveniently overlook the fact that it was Soviet Russia that truly defeated Germany. If our Mister Fedorov were here he would tell you all about it, but we all know the truth from the history books. We carried the real burden of the war in Europe and we beat the Germans. Our only thanks was fifty years of Cold War. Now… We are only three ships, all that is left of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet for all we know. The world we left just a few hours ago may be obliterated—in fact, we have evidence that this will indeed happen. So in some way we can see our present situation as a reprieve—a second chance.”

“And what do you suggest, Karpov,” Zolkin had been quiet up until now, but spoke with a challenge in his voice.

“It’s quite simple, Doctor. We can’t just sail merrily off into the Pacific. Admiral Golovko has diesel fuel for only thirty days. So that means at some point we will have to make port—preferably in Vladivostok. We will not be able to hide these ships or slip into the Golden Horn Harbor for a quick oil change in the night. Our presence here will become known. In due course they will discover just who and what we are—the British may know this already. Therefore, why be coy about it? We are here—most likely for the rest of our lives. But we are not just a wayward fleet lost at sea. This fleet has power.”

He placed his index finger squarely on the table as he said that. “When Kirov returned some weeks ago it was our decision to do whatever we could to prevent the Third World War. I had little hope we could accomplish much in the year 2021. But here, now, in this time and place we have tremendous power.”

He looked at them, a gleam in his eye. “And here is how I suggest we use it…”

Chapter 34

The Soviet North Pacific Fleet had been very busy in recent days. Molotov had delivered the bad news to the Japanese Ambassador the previous week—the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and would immediately launch offensive operations against Japanese held territory. One such operation was taking place in the Northern Kurile Islands where a small Soviet flotilla under Captain of the 1st Rank Dmitri Ponomarev had helped gather offensive forces from the Kamchatka Peninsula for transport to the northernmost island in the Kurile chain, Shumshu.

The landings would be risky, even if Japan was at the end of her tether in this war. They had owned and occupied the Kuriles since 1875, and their 91st Division was garrisoning the island and its small naval base commanding the northernmost Kurile Strait. The Japanese knew the ground well, and were prepared to fight, even if they did not expect the invasion that was coming. By contrast, the Soviet force dispatched to secure the island was woefully short in sea assets and particularly in sea based firepower.

The commander of the overall landings, General Gnechko, was gnashing his teeth trying to figure a way to get adequate artillery support to suppress the Japanese coastal guns and machine gun bunkers. He hit on the idea of trying to use the four 130-mm (5.1 inch) guns on the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula, but they would have to fire twelve kilometers across the strait and coordinating them accurately would be difficult. At sea he had a rag-tag collection of trawlers and patrol boats, the largest being the minesweeper Okhotsk, with a single 130mm gun, and a couple patrol ships, Dzerzhinski and Kirov, with three smaller 4 inch guns each.

“How am I supposed to force a landing deep enough and secure enough to get our own artillery and mortars ashore,” Gnetchko complained. “We’ll be lucky if our ships can even keep station against the fast moving currents in this strait. It’s so foggy that they’ll likely collide with one another, or run aground, if they try to move in close enough to offer any fire support. And without them we have nothing. Do you think planes can fly in this? We have no air cover, and virtually no naval assets here to speak of. If the Japanese attack the landing in force they could roll us into the sea in a few hours.”

“We’ll have good naval infantry in the first wave,” said Colonel Yeremenko. “A thousand men will land within the hour. I’ll lead them in myself. The fog may also work to our advantage, General. I think the Japanese will be completely surprised. You’ll see.”

“Yes, I suppose we will,” said Gnetchko, still somewhat disheartened. “We must get the naval base and establish a bridgehead in three hours. Either that or this will be the last Japanese victory in this damn war, and the first amphibious operation to fail against them. How will that look in the history books, eh? The Americans kick the Japanese ass across two thousand miles of the Pacific. Now we get in it at the eleventh hour and we can’t even take this stinking little island!”

The Russian troops would be going ashore in new Lend-Lease Landing Craft, transferred to the Russians by the US for just this purpose in Operation Hula a few weeks ago. Now the LCIs were loaded with infantry, their stubby bows pointed landward, the low growl of their engines muted in the cold morning fog. Yeremenko tipped his hat to the General and departed to join them.

An hour later he was ashore and leading detachments of Marines to attack the naval base site. The Japanese were taken completely by surprise, as he had hoped, and the facilities were quickly secured. Now the Marines were moving out beyond the base, up a gentle slope to move on the coastal batteries sited on higher ground.

The operation was a few days ahead of schedule, and appeared to be going well until the Japanese decided to fight. News of imminent surrender aside, they had 8500 men on the island and several companies of light tanks. The Japanese commander, Lieutenant General Tsusumi Fusaki, decided to use them. Here were a thousand Russian Marines, with more infantry lugubriously wading ashore behind them, but slow to come. The Russian advantage of surprise was slipping away as the startled Japanese realized what was happening and began to organize their defenses. True to form, Fusaki ordered an immediate counterattack.

Yeremenko heard the first sharp bark of Japanese machine guns up ahead coming from a string of bunkers linked together by a trench line. He knew he had to take it quickly by storm, or he would get bogged down here and his men would be cut to pieces. This was where the missing artillery and naval gun support would be most keenly felt. If he could just get those MG bunkers.

“Come on!” he shouted, waving his arm to lead the attack. “With a hearty “urah!” the Marines were running up the hill, like ghosts in the fog. Another group was mustered to rush the bigger Japanese naval shore batteries on Cape Kokutan. Once the fog lifted the guns would be able to pound the Russian flotilla if they were not quickly silenced. The Marines charged bravely ahead, but the machine guns were taking a heavy toll.

The detachment on the cape pressed doggedly forward, but with the shore battery finally in sight they soon saw it was also defended by a full battalion of Japanese infantry. Yeremenko got the bad news, cursing under his breath. “You there!” he yelled at a passing radio man. “Give me that!”

The Colonel cranked up the radio and dialed to his designated band to try and contact the offshore flotilla. “Land Force to Dzerzhinski …Land Force to Kirov—Where are you? Come in Kirov. We need your gunnery support! Land force to Okhotsk. Ponomarev Where are your ships? We need you!”

A corporal ran up, his eyes wide as he reported. “Comrade Colonel! They are mounting a counterattack—and they have tanks!”

“Shit!” It was all Yeremenko could say. He handed the radio off and told the radioman to keep trying to raise the naval flotilla and get some fire support. Then he grabbed a Gunnery Sergeant and two reserve squads and ran to confront the Japanese. They were coming down from the higher ground, with clusters of riflemen behind twenty light tanks.

“RPGs!” Yeremenko shouted. “Get the AT Rifles deployed!” His Marines did not yet have heavy weapons support, and there was virtually no artillery landed yet, and only a few mortars. Yet the Russians fought bravely. Teams of two and three men would deploy the old Simonov PTRS Anti-Tank Rifles and light machine guns to begin putting ranged fire on the advancing tanks. Then Marines would rush to attack with RPG-43 AT grenades. Many were shot down by the chattering machine guns but, one by one, they were getting the tanks. Fifteen of the twenty had been put out of action, some stopped only by an AT rifle hit that broke their forward tracks and rendered them unable to move. The Japanese attack was repulsed, but at a great cost.

They had been ashore four hours, but now the Japanese were beginning to open up with shore batteries, and tall geysers of seawater were seen rising through the slowly lifting fog off the harbor. Yeremenko began calling for support from the four 130mm guns across the strait, and they began to put down desultory fire in reply. Damn, he thought, what’s holding up our artillery? We’re taking heavy casualties and the enemy is already massing for a second counterattack. Gnechko may have been correct.

They were coming. He heard the hoarse cries of Japanese infantry as they emerged from their trench line farther up the hill and began to charge. The situation was beginning to look desperate.

Then he heard the welcome sound of 130mm rounds come soaring in from behind him and took heart. He looked to see explosive rounds landing right on the enemy position, with pinpoint precision as if they had been fired from point blank range. Two, four, six, eight, the rounds came in a withering barrage that raked across the enemy trench line and struck the bunkers there. Then rounds fell right atop the Japanese shore battery, easily penetrating the concrete casemates and putting the guns out of action.

Kirov had answered the call.

It was a split decision. Karpov and the young Captain Ryakhin agreed that something should be done to further the interests of Russia after the war, and that the ships they commanded had the power to make the Americans and British take notice, and hear their demands. Doctor Zolkin had been completely opposed to the idea, urging the fleet officers to walk gently on the eggshells of history, as he put it, and the older Captain Yeltsin had enough reservations to agree with him. There were no other officers of sufficient rank in the flotilla to poll, and in the end Karpov had to exercise his authority as acting Fleet Commander to rule the day.

They lingered in the Sea of Okhotsk until Karpov had dispatched a stealthy KH-226 on a secret night mission to Vladivostok. The team of three Marines was able to get ashore unnoticed and make their way to the Naval Logistics building, even as Fedorov and Troyak had done so nearly three years earlier. The small raid would have dramatic repercussions, for after picking the lock, the letter the Marines left there would sit undisturbed for the next seventy-six years.

In a curious twist, the Marine Team leader radioed Karpov and told him that when they went to place his letter in the jacket pocket of the naval officer’s coat they found there, it was already occupied by another note!

Karpov had a sudden realization, and a stab of emotion when he heard that. Fedorov, he thought. It had to be Fedorov’s note! The image of the industrious young officer he had once disdained and then came to like and respect so much brought a smile to his face. Then his features clouded over, and he dismissed the Marine with a well done and carry on.

In a strange twist on these events, when Volkov had leapt from the shadows just days earlier in 2021, he had seen only the note from Fedorov. Volkov could not have seen Karpov’s letter there before the Captain would ever have reason to dispatch it. Yet the instant Kirov and the other two ships were again swept through the centuries by the explosive Demon Volcano, all history had changed again, ever so subtly, but decisively. Both letters should have been there when Volkov opened that locker, but Time decided to deliver the mail on different days. It was, in fact, an alternate time line now, and Karpov had his hand on the tiller at a most decisive moment.

The Captain was steering east again, staring at the broken, cratered cone of the Demon Volcano on the northern tip of the Iturup/Urup Island group to his south and experiencing a strange moment that seemed like Déjà vu.

Nikolin had been monitoring radio traffic and reported something odd that morning. “It keeps fading in and out, sir. Very strange.”

“And you say it’s calling us?”

“Yes, sir—Kirov. I can read that very plainly. Kirov, where are you?”

“Well have you checked with Orlan and Golovko?”

“Yes sir. Neither ship has radioed. They’re maintaining radio silence as ordered.”

Karpov thought about that for a moment, and then went over to the plotting table where he had Fedorov’s book to check on something. Minutes later he was smiling. “Good ears, Mister Nikolin, but don’t worry about it. The Soviets are running an operation just north of us. There’s a border patrol ship named Kirov with a few old minesweepers and trawlers to occupy Sakhalin Island and the northern Kuriles. Have you heard the name Ponomarev?”

“Yes sir,” said Nikolin. “I did hear that name.”

“He was in charge of the Petropavlovsk Naval Defense Sector here in 1945, at least according to Fedorov’s book. He commanded the naval flotilla.”

“How ironic,” said Rodenko. “Kirov meets Kirov in the Kuriles.”

“Karpov grinned at him. Then consulted his book. “It looks like the Russians ran into more than they expected in this operation. They’re going to lose over 1500 men in this little invasion. That’s expensive for a useless hunk of rock.” He turned his head to one side and looked at Rodenko.

“Mister Rodenko. Tell the KA-226 to get over and scan that northernmost island. Have them feed radar returns to Samsonov. Use Infrared as well. I want them to pinpoint the main Japanese defense line.”

“You’re thinking of rendering assistance?”

“If we can’t help our boys out there then what’s it all for?” said Karpov. “Why do you think we have on these uniforms?”

Within the hour the KA-226 had reported back with a stream of digital data for Samsonov’s CIC station. The Captain ordered him to activate Kirov’s 130mm deck guns, three twin batteries that could fire at enormous range with pinpoint accuracy. He looked at his watch—a little after 9:00 hrs.

“Let’s lend our Marines a hand, Samsonov. Open fire!”

It didn’t take long. Kirov’s guns were right on target, taking out numerous bunkers and disabling the enemy shore batteries at a critical moment. The barrage also broke the back of the second Japanese counterattack, buying the Russians much needed time to land more supplies and infantry. Soon Colonel Yeremenko would have his artillery and mortars ashore, and the situation would reach parity, then slowly tip his way. The war would be over in the next 24 hours.

Karpov turned to Rodenko. “Well we need not worry about our northern flank any longer. We’ll steer for the lower channels and get out into the Pacific. What do we have down south, Rodenko?” Karpov knew what he was going to say even before he spoke. “You’re going to tell me you have contacts on a large naval task force there. Yes?” the Captain said matter of factly.

“Why…Yes sir. It just came up on the Fregat system as surface returns. The KA- 226 picked it up earlier.”

The Captain went to Rodenko’s station, looking over his shoulder, smiling when he saw the clear blips indicating unknown surface contacts to the south.

“They’re about 150 miles off the Island of Honshu, due east of Amori / Misawa. Note those secondary returns there, sir. Those are aircraft. This must be a carrier task force.”

“How very interesting,” said Karpov. “Seventy six years from now our ship was facing Captain Tanner and his carrier battlegroup in almost this exact same location. Now here we face the same situation, only things are different this time. We appeared to be overmatched by the American Navy in 2021, yet I dealt with them easily enough. Now we are but three ships, and look at the number of radar returns there! It seems we are outnumbered again. Yet appearances can be deceiving,” he smiled.

“What are we going to do, sir? Those ships are definitely heading our way.”

“They’ll most likely have air reconnaissance up shortly. Probably wondering what happened to that damn submarine, and those impudent little destroyers that wanted to order us off.” He turned to his communications officer. “Mister Nikolin, get Yeltsin on the Orlan on the radio for me, and notify Captain Ryakhin on Admiral Golovko that he is to assume Air Alert Two and stand by.”

“Aye, sir,” signaling as ordered.

Yeltsin was on the line a few moments later and Karpov picked up the handset. “Good morning, Captain. I trust your radar officer has already reported on the contacts to the south.”

“A sizable fleet,” said Yeltsin. “We read twenty-four discrete surface contacts. And what were you shooting at to the north a while back?”

“Just clearing our throat, Captain. We’ll be doing a little talking soon. I’m sending up our KA-226 with long range cameras to get some footage of that task force to the south. I’ll have it fed directly to your ship as well. Take a good long look when you see it, and don’t think those ships are a welcoming committee. They’ll be coming for us, Yeltsin. Understand? They think they’ve won this war single handedly and now they own it all. The arrogance, the insults, the duplicity—all the crap that Captain Tanner handed me has its root and stem right here. It will grow like a bad weed, and nothing will change for the next seventy-five years unless we make it so.”

Karpov was aiming to convince Yeltsin that his decision to intervene was a correct one. If he went into battle here, he wanted to make certain that his officers were all behind him, and Yeltzin had wavered with Zolkin’s soft line. He had to tighten things down before the situation began to escalate, as he knew it surely would.

“Very well.” Yeltsin’s voice came back. “But think this through carefully, Karpov.”

“Count on that, Captain. Just as I’ll be counting on your support as well. You will soon see with your own eyes what I’ve been talking about. Those ships will most likely attack us before day’s end. In that event, I hope I can count on both you and your ship to do your duty. You may not want this little war, but you are a man of war. If our actions here can prevent a holocaust in the future, I say so be it. Whether I take action or not, it looks like things are going to start to change in short order. But this time we’ll be calling the shots—not the Americans.”

There was a long pause, and Karpov listened through the static, his eyes moving this way and that as if he sought to see the other man’s face in the wash of noise.

“Don’t worry Captain. We’ll do what we must.”

The question of what they should do was behind them now. Zolkin’s voice was not strong enough in the argument to really matter. Now it was a question of what they must do.

And it was about to begin.

Chapter 35

BB Missouri — CnC Flag, U.S. 3rd Fleet

120 Miles East of Honshu Island, Japan

“Say LTC…This might not mean anything, but we haven’t heard from Razorback for three days now, and TF.92 is also late reporting in. What’s up with the Browns?”

Lt. Commander Bob Harper leaned over his desk, inclining his head to the Ensign on his right, Tim Gates. “The Browns?”

“Yes, sir,” said Gates with a smile. “That’s LTC Brown on Razorback up in the Kuriles, and then there’s Rear Admiral Brown up there with TF.92. They related?”

Harper frowned. “Who knows if they’re related, Gates. What’s your problem?”

“Well they haven’t reported in, sir, and the Russians just declared war on Japan a few days ago. You figure they mixed it up with the Russkies up north?”

“The Russians are our allies, Gates. Get that through your thick skull. Besides, this war declaration of theirs was just theater. It’s a land grab before we finish this thing up, that’ s all.”

“Well they haven’t reported in, sir—the Browns.”

“Then get on the goddamned radio and find out about it. They probably just ran into some bad weather up there. Don’t worry about security protocols anymore, Gates, Japan is finished. We’re just picking over the carcass for table scraps now. Word is they’ll surrender any time now, if they haven’t already done so. Get down to the radio room and see about it.”

Japan was indeed finished. The relentless advance of the United States Navy had pushed them from one island to the next, an unstoppable juggernaut displaying more sheer naval power than the world had ever seen before or since. Now that Okinawa had been taken, American carrier task forces ranged freely throughout the waters surrounding the Japanese home islands mounting raids on harbors, rail yards, and offshore shipping as they prodded the fallen beast to accede to their terms and surrender. Word was that the distinguished and long serving Admiral Yamamoto himself was now attempting to persuade the Emperor that it was futile to continue resistance.

As part of the ongoing effort to isolate the islands and sweep the seas around them clean, American submarines were patrolling at many locations, including off the Kuriles in cooperation with US TF.92 under rear Admiral John “Babe” Brown, comprising the cruisers Richmond and Concord, with twelve destroyers. They had been shelling Japanese installations in the Kuriles for the last several days, bombarding Matsuwa Island, Kurabu Cape and Suribachi Bay. The destroyers had swept the Sea of Okhotsk and rounded up ten small Japanese trawlers that had been ferrying supplies out to the small garrisons on the islands.

When Gates set off to find out about the operations he drew a blank. He went down to the radio room and had messages sent using normal channels, but nothing came back. Just when he was ready to forget about the whole thing, an SOS came in. Brown’s TF.92 ran into something alright, but was it wasn’t bad weather. With the message in hand he ran back to his post, eager for his ‘I told ya so’ with the Lieutenant Commander.”

“See here,” he handed the message over to Harper, eyebrows raised. “Japs must still be putting up a fight!”

Harper took the report, reading it aloud quietly. “TF.92 reports surface action twelve miles North-Northeast of Kunashir Island — STOP — Cruiser Richmond heavily damaged. — STOP — Two destroyers sunk and men in the water- STOP — This is an S.O.S…”

Harper looked at Gates, clearly bemused. “Son-of-a-bitch, Gates. Looks like you were on to something. Anything on that sub?”

“Razorback? No, sir. She still hasn’t reported in.”

“Well this is news. Richmond and Concord are a pair of old rust-buckets. They’re both Omaha class light cruisers, commissioned in the 1920s. That said, what could the Japs have up there that would bother them?”

“Could be those damn Kamikaze attacks again, sir.”

“Possibly… Word is they’re still going after our ships when they can find them. That’s why Halsey gave the order today. He told the Squadron Flight leaders to shoot down any snoopers approaching fleet units—not vindictively, but in a friendly sort of way. Gotta love that man.”

In her last desperate death throes the Japanese had tried everything to stop the American advance, even resorting to strange new piloted rocket planes that were deliberately aimed at US shipping. In spite of the imminent surrender order, at that very moment, the last of the Japanese Kamikaze pilots were taking off from airfields near Tokyo, and among them was the Commander of the decimated Japanese 5th Air Fleet, Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki. He could not abide the talk of surrender, even coming from Admiral Yamamoto, for whom he once served as Chief Of Staff.

In another writing of that history, Ukagi would have been flying, in a separate plane, escorting Admiral Yamamoto when they were both ambushed and shot down on 18 April 1943 over Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. Yamato perished, Ugaki survived, yet not this time around. Kirov had so altered the history that their personal fates remained entwined, and Yamamoto lived out the war. Ukagi had been mustering the last of Japan’s dwindling air power to mount a massive attack with hundreds of aircraft on suicide missions in the defense of Kyushu. It was to be called “Operation Ketsu-Go,” the “decisive moment,” but when Yamamoto heard of it he issued orders to forbid what he called the senseless waste of yet more lives. After the venerable Admiral advocated surrender instead, Ugaki was so disheartened that he joined the last Kamikaze strike sortied from Japanese soil in the war. It was said he died holding a ceremonial short sword given to him by Admiral Yamamoto.

The incident clearly illustrated the desperately conflicted nation as they faced the prospect of final humiliation and defeat. Some men obeyed the Emperor’s order to cease hostilities when it came, and others did not, preferring death to dishonor in accordance with the Japanese code of Bushido.

To persuade the Japanese, the Americans had secretly moved two atomic bombs to Tinian, and were fully prepared to use them in spite of what they had endured in the North Atlantic at the hands of a similar weapon—an incident the American public, and few in the military, ever knew of. The announcement of surrender prevented that horror.

“Well if the goddamned holy highness just announced the surrender of Japan,” said Gates, “then why are they still fighting? What gives, LTC?”

“Somebody didn’t get the message, that’s what gives. There’s a big air duel going on right now over Tokyo, because some of our boys didn’t get the order to stand down until they were already engaged.”

“Well aren’t we going to do something about this, sir? I mean, we can’t let the Japs keep taking pot shots at our ships and subs, can we?”

“They’ll do something about it, Gates, but that’s well above your pay grade. You just get over to that desk there and sort through the rest of those intercepts. I want everything filed in two hours. Got that?”

Several stars above Gates on the pay grade chart, other men were considering the same situation that morning, and they didn’t like what they found out. They got word from Babe Brown’s TF.92 and started listening in on his radio traffic. It didn’t sound good, and while doing so they also heard radio traffic signaling to a vessel named Kirov. It came in and out, repeated, faded, returned.

The incident with Brown’s task force had suddenly turned the watchful eye of US Naval Intelligence north to the lonesome and mostly deserted islands of the Kurile archipelago. A relief force was immediately dispatched to render assistance to TF.92, and inquiries were discreetly made to the Russian Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok, where it was learned that they had a pair of patrol ships off the northern Kurile islands for a security operation, one of which was named Kirov.

It was a sublime coincidence, and it would have ramifications no one could foresee at that moment. The US informed the Russian Pacific Fleet Commander of the incident involving TF.92 and told them American fleet units would be investigating. Vladivostok said they knew nothing about the incident. Halsey wasn’t going to fool around any longer. If the Russians wanted to get pushy, he’d show them what they were up against. He was on the radio discussing it with Nimitz who was at fleet headquarters on Guam.

“This couldn’t be a Japanese ship,” he said. “We’ve accounted for most every major combatant they have.”

“Well it was enough to give Babe Brown one hell of a bloody nose,” Nimitz came back. “What did we miss, Bull? What’s the report say?”

“Three ships, Admiral. One reported as a heavy cruiser or bigger. Brown says they might have been a Russians.”

“Russians?” The surprise was evident in Nimitz voice. “MacArthur has been all up in a tizzy fit over Russian intentions up there. He thinks they’re planning to occupy Hokkaido.”

“They don’t have the naval forces for that,” Halsey said quickly. “Word is they were barely able to support a landing in the Northern Kuriles. They try anything on Hokkaido and the Japanese will fight.”

“Yes, and if they fight there then this cease fire and surrender agreement could go right down the tubes. That’s why we need to put the fear of the Lord into the Russians, Bull. Who do we have up there who could send them a message?”

“I have just the man we need,” said Halsey. “My old flight instructor.”

Task Group 38.3 had been operating in the Tokyo area, and was steaming about 150 miles off the eastern coast of Honshu on August 15, 1945. It was a fast carrier task force under distinguished fighting officer, Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague. Nicknamed “Ziggy” at the naval academy because of his wildly animated gait, Sprague had come up through the ranks from posts on lowly oilers and cargo vessels and also helped pioneer naval aviation, where he trained Admiral, Bull Halsey himself. He served on Lexington and Yorktown before the war, and eventually achieved command of the newly constructed carrier Wasp, CV-18. He fought with her at Saipan and the Philippine Sea, reaching the rank of Rear Admiral at the young age of 48 years. In October of the previous year his task force of escort carriers dubbed “Taffy 3” had fought off the main Japanese Center Force at the Battle off Samar Island.

One of the largest engagements in naval history, Sprague’s gallant destroyers and “jeep carriers” confronted a powerful Japanese naval force under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita including six heavy cruisers and four battleships, one of which was the venerable Yamato. That ship had not participated in a naval engagement in anger since she tangled with a mysterious raider off the southern tip of Papua New Guinea three years earlier, but she lived to fight this one last time before joining her sister ship Musashi at the bottom of the sea.

So as big as the Pacific Ocean was, the lines of fate crossed and tangled with one another, and the battlecruiser Kirov was somehow at the heart of it all. Two men would soon meet on the high seas, and both had faced and fought Yamato in the only two engagements that battleship fought during the war.

It was Sprague’s gallantry in the battle off Samar that earned him the Navy Cross, and installed him as one of the US Navy’s true fighting Admirals. He would go on to see action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and then take command of the fast Carrier Division 2 with his flag set on VC-14, the Ticonderoga. That ship, along with the carriers Wasp, Monterey, and Bataan, formed the heart of TG.38.3, which had just finished pounding Hokkaido as the war ended. With news of unfinished business up north and the Russians on maneuver, Halsey ordered Sprague to “get up there and have a look around.”

The fighting Admiral was eager to oblige. He steered his carrier group north with the battleships South Dakota, North Carolina, four cruisers and sixteen destroyers in escort, and a couple of radar pickets out in front, the Benner and Southerland. It seemed overkill in many ways. Third Fleet Commander Halsey knew that Japan was beaten and had already surrendered. Yet being a little edgy over Soviet intentions for Northern Japan, the relief force he would sent north would be substantial this time.

“I’ll send Ziggy Sprague,” said Halsey. “He’ll get the job done, and then some.”

Nimitz agreed with Halsey that a brief show of force up north would discourage Russian ambitions in the region easily enough. After all, what could a small Russian force in the Kuriles led by a patrol boat named Kirov do in the face of such overwhelming American naval power? He would show the Soviets what a real navy looked like, and Sprague was just the man for the job.

Yet Halsey had not reckoned on the presence of another ship named Kirov that day, nor on the ambitions of one Russian officer commanding a small flotilla of three ships cruising in the Sea of Okhotsk.

They had called it the “Month of Fire,” when the carriers swarmed around the Japanese home islands and relentlessly dismantled the last of Japan’s war fighting capacity for air/sea operations. At long last it was over, though a few cinders were still burning hot, or so it seemed.

Admiral Fraser, Commander of the Royal Navy Pacific Fleet, got word of an incident late on the 15th of August, 1945, and something in the reports raised his hackles. He was a recent arrival, setting his flag on Duke of York on August 6th and taking her up to join the British TF.37 that was one of four allied fast carrier task forces operating off Honshu and Hokkaido late in the war. TF.37 had recently cooperated with the Americans in those raids, including Sprague’s group. It was now in the Sea of Japan and preparing to send a good number of its ships back to the British base at Manus Island due to fuel shortages in the British replenishment tankers, but something in these reports gave Fraser pause, and he countermanded those orders.

“Are you sure?” he asked his warrant officer looking over the message. “They used the word rockets?”

“Plain as day, sir. Shouted it out just before they went down. We just got word a few minutes ago in this wire.”

Fraser’s eyes had a distant look in them now. “Very well. Signal Captain Schofield on King George V and tell him I’d like his ship to remain on station. The same for all carrier commanders. That will be all.”

“Sir.” The messenger saluted and started back for the telegraph room, stopping quickly when the Admiral called after him. “One more thing. Send to the Yanks Admiral Halsey,” he said. “Tell him I’d like to have a chat with him again as soon as possible…And make sure it’s well coded.”

“At once, sir.”

Fraser watched the man go, getting up from his desk in the Flag Command Room aboard the battleship Duke of York. He walked slowly to the window, staring out to sea to watch the other ships in his task force riding smartly in formation.

Nimitz and Halsey will think I’m keen to make arrangements to attend the surrender ceremony planned for next week, he thought. But there was something about this incident report that struck a nerve. More information was filtering in on the wires. Apparently a small American task force under Admiral Brown had a scrap with a hostile force up in the Kuriles and lost ships and men there. That alone was surprising enough, given the fact that the allied navies had pounded virtually every Japanese ship known to oblivion. Now details of that engagement were starting to touch on a black memory.

Rockets… The American Admiral Brown had finally filed his report and claimed his ships were hit by fast moving rockets. Fraser knew the Japanese had been experimenting with a rocket assisted suicide glider, and every other navy was also toying with one prototype or another. The Germans certainly had a number of rocket weapons, and the Royal Navy was also using rocket powered munitions against U-boats. Similar weapons had blasted the invasion beaches from Sicily to Normandy. Late in the war Britain also deployed a new weapon they called the ‘Stooge,’ a radio-guided missile with a range of about nine miles. It reached a top speed of 500 mph and carried a 220lb warhead to attack incoming Japanese Kamikaze flights. He still had several of the weapons here with his carriers, and the Americans had something even more advanced called the “Bat.” The British had learned many hard lessons, the legacy of harrowing experience from earlier in the war that was still highly classified.

Rockets guided by radar…What was the world coming to, thought Fraser? If he hadn’t seen the damn things himself flashing in on Rodney and Nelson that night in the Mediterranean he would find it all too much to believe. Now he saw something darker in this report than appeared on the surface. The American Admiral Brown’s scouting force on patrol in the Kuriles had run into trouble and several of his ships were hit and sunk. The word ‘rockets’ was on their lips when they died.

Not again, he thought. Not now, when we’ve finally won this thing and are ready to put this insanity to rest. He had the quiet distinction of being the last carrier force in the Pacific to fly combat sorties when Seafires off the Implacable shot down 8 Japanese planes on August 15. But what if his darkest misgivings were true? Now they were saying the hostile ships in this latest incident had been reported as Russian! That little piece of the puzzle completed a picture for him that the Americans might not yet see. The British had shared some of what they learned with the Americans after that first disastrous engagement in the North Atlantic, but they didn’t know everything. They didn’t know about Tovey’s little chat with this rogue Admiral, or anything of what happened off St. Helena soon after. And they didn’t know about the Watch just yet, though they would have to be brought in on the matter soon.

The damn ship keeps coming back, he thought. It found us in the Med in ’42 and then gave us the slip and wound up in the Pacific! That was, in part, why he had been given the assignment here, for he was one of the very few in the Royal Navy who was now fully briefed on ‘the ship,’ as it was simply called. The code word to be used upon confirmation of an actual sighting of this mysterious vessel was something else, and he hoped he would never have to hear it again—Geronimo.

Now he looked out the side port and saw the fast carriers riding the waves: Indefatigable, Formidable, Implacable, and a ship all too familiar with the Geronimo raider, Victorious. Just off his port side another proud veteran of those engagements steamed close by, King George V. Tovey had her in the thick of it on more than one occasion. It’s a pity, he thought quietly. Old Rodney and Nelson were too damn slow that night and the monster slipped west to Gibraltar. But then Tovey had four new battleships at hand in the Western Approaches, surely enough raw steel and firepower to settle the matter once and for all, and instead he decided to parley with the Admiral of this strange nemesis.

And the man was Russian… The ship and crew were Russian! Russians and rockets at sea…rockets shooting down aircraft. He could feel it, sense it, a growing sense of presentiment and dire warning setting off a thrum of anxiety in his chest. Could it be happening again?

Here I thought it was all over but the pomp and circumstance. I was out here to invest Fleet Admiral Nimitz with the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and award Halsey the Order of the Knight of the British Empire. Always proper to express our appreciation to the Yanks after all they’ve done for the Crown. Then it was on to the surrender ceremony—now this.

Another look at his carriers gave him heart. Beyond the four fleet carriers and two battleships here, he also had six cruisers and sixteen destroyers with him in TF.37, and this was only one of several similarly sized formations in the region. The Americans had four such task forces at sea now, all eager to gather at Sagami Bay near Tokyo next week and put an end to this madness.

Put an end to it all….

Well, he thought. If the worst comes about, and this is another ‘incident,’ we bloody well have the ships and planes to do exactly that. If this damn ship appears again we’ll make scrap metal of it soon enough.

Then he remembered what Admiral Tovey had told him about that first engagement in late 1941, and what had really sent the American battleship Mississippi to the bottom of the sea—an atomic bomb. A flicker of doubt crossed his eyes, then resolve renewed there like hidden fire.

I’d better get over and see Halsey again as soon as possible, he thought. Forewarned is forearmed. The Yanks had a good fighting Admiral going up to have a look at this business and confirm these reports. Sprague was as good as they came, but he was not in the inner circle—he didn’t know about the rockets, let alone the atomics. Fraser realized that things would be quite different now if it came down to a real fight. We’ve got the damn things too, he thought, and I’ve seen enough of this war to know one thing if it comes down to real trouble here—we’ll use them.

Chapter 36

Ticonderoga was a very tough ship. An Essex class carrier, she was commissioned in May of 1944, and would see a brief but violent tour of duty in the Pacific before the war ended. The ship fought bravely in the Philippines Campaign, fending off kamikaze attacks on the fleet, launching fighter sweeps over Luzon and pounding enemy positions wherever they were found. She also rode out two punishing typhoons before fighting her way into the South China Sea where her task force sunk an amazing enemy 44 ships. On the 21st of January she was struck by two bomb laden kamikaze planes, just as Hayashi had struck Kirov, and was forced to limp home to Puget Sound for repairs. But by May she was back in the Pacific and running with the fast fleet carriers that had broken the back of the Japanese navy and inexorably rolled towards the Japanese homelands with unstoppable power.

Airmen off the Ticonderoga had found and sunk the last remnants of the once proud Japanese navy, sending battleships Ise, Hyuga and Haruna to watery graves along with the escort carrier Kaiyo as the United States systematically destroyed what was left of Japanese air and sea power. TF.38.3 had worked its way up Kyushu to pound Hokkaido by mid August, destroying a massed air division that was marshalling to plan a major suicide raid on the US B-29 bases in the Marianas. The ship had planes in the air over Tokyo when the word came in that Japan had finally capitulated. At the same time CV Wasp’s alert combat air patrol stopped a pair of Japanese planes from attacking the task force. The last sputtering embers of the war were still hot, but that evening the flyers celebrated in the air briefing room with several bottles of champagne that Ziggy Sprague had produced from his haversacks.

Then news came of the attack on Babe Brown’s cruisers and the loss of two destroyers in the Kuriles. Halsey was quick to tag his fighting Admiral to go and have a look, and Sprague was on the bridge that day, his eyes gazing at the sea.

While still a young man, his features were lined and weathered by the long war, and looking much older than his 49 years. And Ex-navy airman who trained in the days before the seat harness was installed, he had been thrown into more windshields and instrument panels than he could count over the years. Now he had the nose of a fighter that had seen one or two more rounds than he needed, and hound dog eyes that seemed to hold a cup of yearning in them. He wore a Navy garrison cap, eschewing the billed officer’s cap as he found it more comfortable and easier to use with field glasses, particularly in combat.

When it came to fighting at sea Sprague was tough as nails, cool under fire and determined. His actions off Samar with the escort carriers and destroyers of Taffy 3 won him long lasting fame, but also haunted him with the memory of the ships and men lost that day. 1130 men went into the sea and died off Samar, many taken by the sharks. Another 913 were wounded and bore the scars of that action. The rest lived with the memory of it all, as Sprague did. Now he was about to be put to the test yet again.

Sprague had a couple of DD pickets well out in front, just under a hundred kilometers ahead of his main force. They were a pair of Gearing class destroyers outfitted with radar to form an advanced screen. Each one had been specially modified for their new role by removing one of the torpedo tube mounts and altering the internal arrangement to make space for SP radar, IFF, and rudimentary ECM equipment.

Both ships were newcomers to the action in the Pacific, laid down in 1944, with Southerland commissioned in December of that year and Benner joining the fleet in February of 1945. Their SP system was a light weight fighter direction control radar on a parabolic antenna that rotated six times per minute. With a range of 30 to 65 kilometers for surface contacts, depending on their size, and 65 to 130 kilometers for air contacts, they were nearly in range of Kirov and the small Russian flotilla to the north. They had been sent to look for any sign of trouble that morning, cruising due east of Nemuro Peninsula on Hokkaido, though all seemed quiet and calm.

Commander John Mulholland was aboard Benner when his radar operators called out contacts to the north, emerging from the long chain of the Kurile Islands. He leaned over the operator’s scope, watching the slow sweep of the radar circling every ten seconds.

“Looks to be three ships, sir. They’re right between those two big Islands. I’ll send the position to the plotting board.”

“Very well,” said Mulholland, wondering what he was seeing here. He knew the US now had nothing in that area after Admiral Brown had withdrawn his task force. The reports circulating on Brown’s encounter were dim at best. Two destroyers went down, hit by something they figured to be a rocket powered glider the Japanese would called the Okha, or Cherry Blossom. It was a suicide rocket, piloted and dropped from bombers at altitude before its solid fuel rocket engine would send it on to the target. But the odd thing was that there had been no reports of any air contacts before that attack, and the approach came in from the north, well out in the Sea of Okhotsk. Mulholland could not imagine that the Japanese had anything left afloat up here, and so the sudden attack on Babe Brown’s light cruisers was a bit of a mystery.

Three ships… He got on the radio at once to inform the Task Force flag and was told to continue tracking the contacts until the fleet could send up a flight of Hellcats to have a closer look. He decided to radio Commander Williams on Sutherland as well, and pass on their marching orders.

A half hour later they could detect the Hellcats coming up from the main body, a tight fist of five fighters designated Redeye One passing overhead about 50 kilometers south of the contacts they were to investigate. Mulholland watched the planes disappear, taking over point duty on this long range recon operation, and he waited on the open channel for a report. He did not like what he heard next.

“Redeye one to Bullfrog, we have the contacts in visual range. Confirm three ships, and one is a big fellow. Over”

“Roger Redeye, get down and have a closer look. Bullfrog Over.”

Mulholland was on the radio himself, a personal habit. He wanted to hear what was reported directly, not through a watchstander, and if he said anything in return he wanted the other fellow to get it right from the horse’s mouth where there was no chance of misinterpretation. He listened to the flight leader chatting with his mates.

“Fan out and get down on the deck boys. Let’s go make some noise.” The planes were going in low and fast. If they could ID a rising sun on any flag those ships were flying they had authorization to open up in a strafing run. The war might be officially over, but any Japanese warship still found to be at sea was still fair game.

“Those planes are getting close,” said Rodenko, an edge of warning in his voice.

“I’m hearing them on radio, sir,” said Nikolin. “Something about frogs with red eyes.”

“Frogs with red eyes?” Karpov grinned at him. “Your translation skills are slipping, Mister Nikolin.”

“I have it now, sir. Redeye…that must be their designation for the incoming aircraft. The frogs are the two ships.”

“That’s makes a little more sense.”

“They’re dropping down below 5000 meters,” said Rodenko. “It’s most likely a reconnaissance run.”

“Most likely,” said Karpov, but the ship was on Air Alert One nonetheless, and Samsonov had both the medium range Klinok and also his Kashtan close in Missile defense systems ready as ordered. The Captain had instructed the other two ships in his flotilla to stand ready, but to hold their fire and allow the flagship to handle the matter.

The previous day his ships had been approached by three American contacts. Tasarov reported a submarine creeping into a position ahead of his flotilla and considered what to do. The sub decided the matter when it launched two torpedoes, both well wide of the mark after Karpov quickly ordered a sharp fleet maneuver to starboard. Kirov killed the sub quickly with a torpedo from a KH-40 helo sent up on ASW picket. With his phobia about submarines still a demon on his shoulder, Karpov wanted no potentially hostile undersea boats anywhere near the ship from that moment forward. Razorback never called home after that.

Then two destroyers must have picked up on the engagement and rushed to the scene, making it obvious they intended to attack, They too were sent to the bottom by a pair of Moskit-IIs. They were followed by two cruiser class ships approaching at high speed, and Karpov had considered what he might do next. He wanted to de-escalate the situation, but the cruisers decided to press the matter and started dropping salvos off his starboard quarter. He answered with four P-900s.

He would say that the Americans were the first to fire, but everyone on the bridge could sense that the Captain had no real qualms about what had happened. Karpov seemed different now, not the man he had become in those long weeks of close cooperation with Fedorov and Volsky. Both had been counterweights to his darker ambitions, and neither man was on the ship now. Only Zolkin remained, but he had been voted down. Somewhere in the Captain’s mind that cold logic was again asserting itself—they could never get home now, not without Rod-25. If that were the case, then this was their world, and Karpov intended to be one of the big fish in the sea he cruised on now—the biggest fish in the sea.

As he watched the American planes approach he was well aware of the danger they posed yet wondered if they were making an attack run here. The memory of those tense moments aboard Kirov after they had first appeared in late July of 1941 was still clear in his mind. He recalled how Admiral Volsky had calmly waited out the approach of that first aircraft, unwilling to fire, and now he thought to do the same. One of the cruisers he hit the previous day had sunk, and there was still a place in his mind, in his conscience, that gnawed at him. He had already put three ships and a submarine on the bottom of the sea, clearly a provocation deserving a strong response by the Americans. But how would they know his ships were responsible? The Americans would be looking for remnants of the Japanese fleet. They would be cautious at first, or so he reasoned.

Another side of his mind argued that if he wanted to take his little fleet down to Tokyo Bay and negotiate, a demonstration of his strength was necessary first. Babe Brown had stuck his nose in the matter at just the wrong time, and he paid for it. But Karpov did not expect that the Americans would be so quick to marshal a major naval force and send it north like this.

“Those planes are getting close,” said Rodenko again. “It will have to be the Kashtan system if we need to engage now, sir.”

“Steady, gentlemen,” said Karpov. “If they wanted to attack they would not send only five planes.”

They could hear the sound of the aircraft now, and Karpov had his field glasses up, preferring them to the Tin Man optical HD camera feeds. The planes came in very low, their engines roaring. All eyes were on the Captain, with obvious anxiety as the noise grew ever louder.

“Steady…” The Hellcats were over them in a flash, their big radial engines growling as they overflew the flotilla. But they did not fire.

Karpov smiled, picking up the handset and calling Yeltsin on the Orlan. “Well, Captain, he said. I hope you had a good look at those planes. Our history expert is not with us at the moment but those were American World War Two era fighter planes, and the contacts to our south will be a fast carrier task force. If you had any lingering doubts as to our situation, this should dispel them.”

Yeltsin was convinced, but there was also an edge of worry in his voice. “I’m not sure I’d let them overfly us again like that, Captain.”

“I’ll handle the matter. Karpov out.”

“They are circling for another pass,” said Rodenko. “They probably want camera footage.”

“Mister Nikolin?” Karpov wanted to know if he could determine what the pilots were saying.

“They seem surprised, sir. Something about a battlewagon… …where are the guns… something about the Russians. One says our ship is too big to be Russian.”

The planes came round again. Then it happened—one of those quirks of fate, a mischance born of emotion and happenstance. A young man aboard the Admiral Golovko was at his air defense action station, and he was manning the manual sighting interface behind a 30mm Gatling gun, a backup precaution in case the ship lost computer control of the weapon. The system was not engaged. He saw no sign that the guns were responding to targeting radars to track the incoming planes, so he naturally assumed the weapon was inactive. He decided to track the approach of the planes himself, just as he had practiced this emergency drill before. It was, in fact, only the third time he had ever drilled at a battle station, which made him as raw as they came. On all of those occasions the rounds were never engaged in the gun firing chambers. So he would practice squeezing off short imaginary bursts at the target drones while other gunners were firing their live exercises on nearby ships.

All he had ever aimed at before were a few floating buoys on the water. This time things were much more exciting. As the Hellcats came in a second time he had his eye on the leftmost plane in the formation, following its approach by centering it in the range finder and the squeezing a trigger he thought was inactive.

It was live.

The AK-630M dual Gatling system suddenly erupted with a snarl of red orange fire and it blew the wing right off the plane he was tracking, sending it cartwheeling into the sea.

“Holy God! They just took down Billy!”

“Son-of-a-bitch. Climb! Get up to angels ten and come three-sixty around the right side.” It was Lieutenant Tom Haley, flight leader, and he was hopping mad. “Anybody get a good look at that bastard?”

“Blue X on a white standard,” came an answer. “That’s not Japanese, is it LT?”

“Not since I last looked, and that was just a few days ago. It sure as hell’s not ours either. So that narrows down the list. Has to be Russian, just like we called it on the first pass. Either that or the Japs are trying to pull a fast one on us by reflagging their ships.”

“Russians? What the hell are they shooting at us for?”

“Hell-if-I-know. But we’re sure as hell going to return the favor.”

“Damn right, sir!”

Billy Watts had been Haley’s sidekick and wing mate for the last six months, and the thought of him in the drink, bushwhacked on a photo run, was more than he could pass on. He pulled hard and banked right, anger in his eyes.

“Let’s give ‘em a taste of our Brownings. One pass. Then break for home.”

“Roger that Comet,” came a reply. Haley’s nickname was an obvious one. “This one’s for Billy.”

“Who fired on those planes?” Karpov was red faced with anger when he saw the American plane go down.”

“It looked like Golovko, sir,” said Rodenko. “AK-630 system.”

“Nikolin! Raise Golovko and get me that young Captain. I’ll stew him for this.” But before Nikolin could raise the other ship, it was clear the planes were coming round again. Karpov turned, snapping his field glasses up to get a better look.

“Don’t do it,” he breathed.

“I don’t think they’ll be taking photos this time,” said Rodenko, and the Captain knew he was correct.

“Damn!” said Karpov, but he knew he had to act. “Kashtan System. Now Samsonov—before they get in range.” He would not allow four planes to rake his ships with machinegun fire.

“Sir, aye Sir!” And the missiles fired, fast little air sharks with white tails as they streaked into the sky. They adjusted to lock on, and then accelerated towards the Hellcats.

Samsonov fired four missiles.

He killed four planes.

Commander Mulholland had been listening to the whole affair, his eyes darkening as he heard the sharp burst of static, the frantic call of a Hellcat pilot calling “Rockets! Rockets!” and then nothing more. He toggled his send button.

“Bulldog to Redeye. Report status, Over… “Bulldog to Redeye. Report status, Over….”

Nothing came back.

Mulholland scratched the back of his neck, the place where it always itched when there was trouble at hand. He was out there to look for it, and damn if he didn’t find some. “Some son-of-a-bitch just didn’t get the message that this damn war is supposed to be over.” It was clear that those contacts had opened up on the recon flight, and he dialed a new comm channel and radioed back to the Flag.

“Bullfrog One to Flag. Our contact is hostile—repeat—contact hostile. Splash Redeye One.”

There was a long pause, as if the news he had radioed had been most unwelcome, or difficult to comprehend. “Say again Bullfrog—You say Splash Redeye One? Did we lose somebody? Over.”

Mulholland thumbed his send. “We lost them all—repeat—splash all units. We have no radio contact and nothing on radar. Redeye One is history. Over.”

Again the long pause… interminably long it seemed. Then another voice came over the speaker and Mulholland had heard it before, many times, low and slow, calm and steady. But this time there was just a touch of weariness in the voice, and an edge of irritation and anger.

“Alright Bullfrog. Steady as you go. We’re coming.”

It was Ziggy Sprague.