Crescendo of Doom

Chapter 34

“1908,” Fedorov began. “That year, something very significant happened in Russia, in late June, at a place called Tunguska. No doubt you have heard of this?”

“Of course,” said Elena.

“I can’t say as it rings much of a bell for me,” said Tovey.

Good, thought Nikolin as he translated. Now I finally get to hear what this has all been about! He waited, eager to be Fedorov’s mouthpiece, and thanking his lucky stars that he was so accomplished as a speaker of English. I’ve been taking tea and lunch with Admirals and Generals, and privy to decisions and discussions that no other man aboard knows anything about, he thought. And all my life I’ve read those stories about Tunguska, and imagined what may have happened there. Now perhaps I will find out!

“Admiral,” he translated for Fedorov, “In June of 1908, something came out of deep space and impacted the earth, exploding in the atmosphere over the taiga of Siberia with such power that it leveled trees over an area exceeding 2000 square kilometers. No one but the locals knew of it, though this impact was seen by many, and detected as far away as your London on seismographs and other equipment. Its effects were also observed for days after, a strange lightening and discoloration of the evening sky. The region was so remote, that it was not investigated until nineteen years later, and it has been explored by curious minds ever since, with many explanations as to what may have happened there. I do not presume to know the answer to that, even though I am one of perhaps a very few people now alive who actually saw that event transpire.”

“Excuse me?” Elena Fairchild had been following closely, but that brought her to a stumble. “You saw the event? On this mission you described earlier to stop your renegade Captain?”

“No, not on that mission, but on another. If you recall, I told you we had removed that control rod from our ship’s reactors, but I did not explain why.”

Now Fedorov gave a brief account of the trouble caused by the other conspirator in that first fateful mutiny aboard Kirov, Gennadi Orlov. Elena listened intently, taking all this in and mating it with information she had been privy to in her position as a member of the Watch, information gained over long years of meticulous intelligence work, slowly tugging at the cords of that Gordian knot.

“Amazing,” she said. “You used it in your test reactor to go back yourself after this Orlov. That explains a few things.”

Fedorov did not quite know what to make of that statement. What did this woman know about all of this? She seemed to be very interested here, almost as if she were inwardly testing what he was telling her now, assessing it all in light of something she knew herself. He resolved to find out what that might be.

“Yes,” he said. “It was a very risky thing to do, but back then I was very worried Orlov would eventually do something, and cause irreparable harm to the history. Seeing what has happened to the world here, I suppose my fears were well justified, though I cannot lay all this on Orlov’s shoulders. Much of it was my fault.”

“Your fault? I don’t understand.”

“Yes, My fault. Why I appeared on that day, in 1908, I have never truly understood.”

“Your engineering reactor sent you there?” asked Elena. “This Rod-25 was responsible for that displacement?”

“No. Rod-25 was not the cause. It delivered me to the 1940s, just as I hoped it would and, after a very difficult mission, I found our missing officer. But that was not the only thing I found during that mission, and this discovery has perhaps had more influence on events here than anything else. I left Vladivostok, traveling east along the Trans-Siberian Rail line to a location where I hoped I might find Orlov. Along the way I stopped at a small railway station.”

Now he briefly related that story, and the strange event that occurred on the stairs of Ilanskiy. This time both Admiral Tovey and Elena sat in utter stillness, hanging on every word that Nikolin was translating. As the story unfolded, Elena could feel her pulse rising.

Another rift, she thought! A location we knew nothing about! At least one that I never learned of. I’ll be the first to admit that I may not have been told everything. Yes, I’m Watchstander G1 now, so appointed by this man sitting right across from me here—Admiral John Tovey in the flesh—our founding father, though I never dreamed I would ever meet him like this. I’m Watchstander G1, by God and his degree, and I more than that. I’m a goddamned Keyholder, a Riftkeeper as well. But we haven’t found every location then, have we? This Russian Captain is telling me about one that we never discovered. And it took him right back to the source of this entire affair—Tunguska! My god, he saw it with his own eyes!

And what she learned next was equally dumbfounding. There he met a young man in the dining hall having breakfast, Mironov, Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov, and that was the very same man who later took the name of Sergei Kirov. Fedorov went on and on, telling her of that awful moment of weakness when he had whispered that dire warning in Mironov’s ear, the words that shook the world’s foundation, and reset the meridians of the history from that day forward.

“So now you know why I have told you that I am responsible,” said Fedorov with a deep shrug. “I killed Josef Stalin, just as surely as Sergei Kirov might make that claim. It was all my doing, in an effort to spare the life of a single man that I had always admired in the history. And here I am now, Captain of that ship out there, and consorting with other men who have glowed only in the light of my imagination as I studied these events. Yes, I have studied them all my life, a strange love affair with it all, and now, as we can all so plainly see, I have destroyed the thing I so loved. Now I foolishly sail about in this monstrosity of a battlecruiser, thinking I can put all the pieces back together again—thinking I can somehow redeem myself for the great sin I committed, and the misfortune I caused here in this world.”

Nikolin finished his translation, but Elena’s eyes were always on Fedorov as he spoke. So he has been standing a watch of his own in all of this, she suddenly thought, feeling in him a kindred spirit at long last. She had tried to explain it all to Gordon and Mack Morgan, but only ended up confusing them, and raising one question after another in their minds. Her heart opened as she looked at Fedorov, seeing the torment in his eyes, and hearing it in the tone of his voice. She said the one thing that she could, in all honesty, seeing this young man with new eyes now.

“I understand,” she said softly. “Well I must tell you that I have spent a good part of my life studying these events as well, Captain Fedorov. Some of the things you have just revealed are most startling, things I never knew, and I knew a great deal. I knew about Tunguska, for one thing. Yes. The events related to us by your Director Kamenski were well known to me—the nuclear testing, the exotic effects of those detonations, and the odd connection all of this had to that event above the Stony Tunguska River.”

“You knew of this?” said Fedorov. “How?”

“Because the good Admiral Tovey here got hold of this business long ago, in 1942, and he and his associate, a Mister Alan Turing, came to some very interesting conclusions about your ship in time. Yes, in time, that is one of those little puns of destiny I suppose.”

Now it was Elena’s turn to confess her crimes, telling them of the foundation of the Watch, the discoveries they made, and how they eventually came to trace the threads of the mystery back to Tunguska.

“Well,” said Tovey. “Here I sit feeling as though another man has made off with my entire life! You all speak of things I have done, things I will do, as though they have already happened. And yet, even as you do so, I find myself strangely possessed by the clawing inner realization that it is all true. I remember it now, Mister Fedorov. Yes, and it was in 1908 that I first set eyes on that ship of yours. In fact, I believe I fought my first battle against it all those many years ago, a battle I thought we had won, though we never did come to any satisfactory conclusion about what had happened to that ship.”

He told them of Tushima, and the battle he had fought. “I was a very young man then, and young men go from one moment to the next, with scarcely any worry over what they leave behind. I left that battle behind me, I suppose. At least I tried. I moved on in the ranks, busy with one thing after another, and let it drift away, but I have been strangely haunted by it ever since, and particularly so when your ship returned here last June. I knew I had seen it before, but my mind was telling me it could not possibly have been the ship I fought back then, in 1908, the year this thing came from the sky. What does it all mean?”

“As you can see, Admiral,” said Elena, “We are as perplexed about it as you might be.”

“Yes? Well it seems we all have a piece of this puzzle in our pockets. I sit here knowing that I never laid eyes on you, Captain Fedorov, or Admiral Volsky. And yet, deep down, I feel I met you both before, in a year I have not yet even lived! It’s maddening, and I would certify it all as such if not for that unaccountable evidence presented to me by our Mister Turing. You sit there and lay out chapter and verse about my collusion with Turing, Miss Fairchild, and the foundation of this group you call the Watch. Yet I only just met the man some months ago, and damn if that wasn’t the subject of that very meeting—this Russian ship, Geronimo, and those file boxes Turing had discovered in the archive room at Bletchley Park. It is utterly confounding!”

“As is this whole story about that stairway at Ilanskiy,” said Elena. “Well, as you say, Admiral, I have something in my pocket as well. It’s time I pulled my piece of the puzzle out and put it on the table here. Perhaps we can all find how it connects to everything else we’ve been discussing.”

“I would be very eager to hear your story, Miss Fairchild,” said Fedorov. “May I ask you to begin by first telling me how your ship came to be here?”

“Yes. You were not at that meeting in Alexandria when I met your Director Kamenski—a most interesting man. Well, it seems we have a little magic box ourselves, one full of unexpected tricks, just like that control rod of yours.” She told Fedorov of the box, or the device she had aboard Argos Fire, which he found quite surprising.

“And you believe it was responsible for displacing your ship in time? How?”

“I know it was responsible. I was given specific orders to go and fetch the damn thing, from a very special site, right here in the Mediterranean, albeit in our time, the year 2021.”

“Orders? From who?”

Now Elena had to smile. “Forgive me if this does nothing but confuse the issue, but in point of fact, from this gentleman right here, Admiral John Tovey.”

“Yes,” said Tovey. “I’ve been presented evidence of my complicity in that crime, but I must confess I recall nothing whatsoever about it, and plead innocence.”

Now Elena told Fedorov of the note that had been found in the box from Delphi, and related it to the long history of her position as a Watchstander in the organization Tovey founded. Fedorov thought he had been the only one to make these revelations, and see the shocked expressions on the faces of those taken into his confidence, yet now he was learning something here that put him in that very same position.

“But how did it move your ship in time?”

“I can tell you what I think, though I have not taken a sledge hammer to the thing to find out. Alright, we both know that something very odd happened there at Tunguska in 1908. Whatever it was, left behind remnants, fragments, residue in the terrain of that area. Your Director Kamenski told us of this at Alexandria, and confirmed what we took long years of intelligence work to find out. This residue, whatever it is, was most likely in that control rod of yours. So it is my suspicion that it may also be within that device.”

Yes, thought Fedorov. It was just what he had suspected. A Tunguska fragment. Something about that exotic material had the ability to open time. This was what he suspected about the Devil’s Teardrop, and now it may also be in this device. But Orlov’s find was mere coincidence, something he just stumbled upon that ended up having an effect on time, and this history, in an alarming and significant way. It brought Brigadier Kinlan’s brigade through to this year, and that was changing everything, at least insofar as the history of the campaign in North Africa was concerned. But the box—the device—this was something more. It was not a random fragment, but something deliberately engineered…

That thought brought back the words of Chief Dobrynin. He had asserted the very same thing concerning the Devil’s Teardrop! He said he believed it was too perfect to be a random element. It was engineered.” His eyes widened, and he spoke quickly to Nikolin, eager to get the words out.

“We have a man aboard our ship who might be able to answer your questions concerning that box,” said Fedorov. “He is our Chief Engineer, and very familiar with the material we are now discussing. But one more question please. You believe this box was deliberately placed there, at Delphi, by this group you speak of—the Watch—the group that has been awaiting the return of our ship?”

“The note I found inside argues to that,” said Elena.

“Then they made this box?” Fedorov blurted that out in English, as best he could, eager to get on with things.

“That is one possible interpretation,” said Elena. “But there’s more.” Yes, there was always more, and now she told him her real suspicion. “Someone may have given the Watch that device, or simply placed it there themselves.”

“Someone else? Who could do this?”

Elena shrugged, deciding that she could safely set her reservations aside with this man. His sincerity was palpable here. He wants nothing more than to mend the damage he believes he has done, she thought. So then I suppose he needs to know. There I was getting miffed about that submarine. I owe him the truth, as least as far as I can see it. So she told him the other incredible tale, of what the Watch had learned in monitoring that strange signal traffic their ships were receiving at sea.

Fedorov listened, the lines of his brow seeming to deepen as he did so. Signals? Warnings? What was all this about? “These signals,” he said, “did you ever determine their source?”

“Not exactly, though we speculated long and hard about that. You see, the information we were receiving was, in itself, plain evidence that told us where they were coming from, yet that said nothing of who may have sent them.”

“Then you know the location? You were able to triangulate the coordinates?” Fedorov was eager to get at the nub of this mystery.

“Not exactly… I am not speaking of a spatial location, not a place we might find by longitude and latitude. To find these coordinates we would have to navigate another way—through time. These signals came from the future—our future. They were originating from years beyond our own day; perhaps even beyond the 21st Century! They related information on events that had not even happened yet, but then, four days after each message, these events played out exactly as they were described to us.”

There came a soft knock on the door, though to Fedorov it was as though someone had pounded on the gates of his soul. His mind reeled with the realization of what this woman was telling him.

Tovey frowned when he heard the knock. He had given instructions that they were not to be disturbed unless… Now the interruption was more than a mere annoyance, it was another warning. He turned, eyeing the door, and then got up to open it. An officer was there with something in hand, and whispering softly to Tovey. When the man had finished, Tovey shut the door and turned to them again, holding out what looked to be a signals transcript.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said quietly. “It may be nothing more than a little coincidence, but we’ve just got a signal ourselves, though it originates from the here and now. The Admiralty informs me that Force H has a battle on its hands, with the Germans—no further details.”

Chapter 35

Details… The devil lived there, or so it has been said. They were going to be most inconvenient for the men standing a watch with Force H that day.

The German task force had moved rapidly west, and it was only another strange coincidence that caused them a brief delay at Gibraltar. That port had proved to be a godsend for German U-boat Captains, and there were now six boats stationed there. Being much farther from England, it was relatively safe from RAF bombing raids, which would either have a long overseas journey, or a more dangerous flight path over hostile territory in France and Spain. So many U-boats that had formerly been berthed at Saint Nazaire or Brest moved to Gibraltar, where they prowled the straits, and also sortied out into both the Med and Atlantic.

Another ship was berthed there the night Lütjens arrived, the UJ-2210. It was an old French trawler, the Marcella, captured and converted into an undersea boat hunting ship, or U-Jaeger, and it was now in the proud possession of the man who would become Germany’s top hunter killer in that role, Captain Otto Pollmann. He had been out hunting that day, and had just completed refueling when the big flotilla came in. The sight of Germany’s largest and most powerful warship was a thrill, and he also took great interest in the sleek lines of the light carrier Goeben. Unfortunately his crew took equal interest, and when they had to move their trawler during the refueling operation for Bismarck, the hose became strained when the helmsman was gawking at the Hindenburg and failed to mind his station properly.

The trawler ran afoul of the hose, causing a fuel spillage and other damage to the fittings. It was going to cause a two hour delay in getting fuel into Bismarck, and those hours were used well by the British ships in Somerville’s Force H, as they now raced due north, intending to get into a good position to find Hindenburg if it sortied from Gibraltar. Those two hours were crucial, for if Lütjens had completed the refueling operation and left before dawn, as Adler promised, then the chances of intercepting the German fleet would have been very thin. As it stood now, things were quite different, but Force H was going to pay a price for its alacrity, as the German fleet was now a very dangerous enemy.

It was well after dawn before Lütjens was able to depart from Gibraltar, and at 14:00 he found himself off Cape Saint Vincent, Portugal, as planned, though they were well over the horizon to make certain curious eyes would not spot them. But not all curious eyes were landward that day. The Germans were soon to be visited by a pair of Fulmars off HMS Glorious, and Marco Ritter on the Goeben was to have a very busy morning.

It would be the second time that pilots off two opposing aircraft carriers had met in battle. Ritter was up in his ME-109T, and saw the two fulmars in a tight formation, some distance below. It was a perfect scenario for an ambush, and he quickly tipped over his wings and dove to attack. The resulting fight saw him down one Fulmar, which put up just enough of a fight to allow the second to escape. Ritter saw the other plane speeding away, and thought he might open his throttle to see if he could catch it. But he had been up too long that day, and low fuel compelled him to return to the Goeben. Yet he took careful note of the direction the enemy plane was flying, and reported it to the ship’s Captain as soon as he was aboard.

“Hans!” he said when he was again below decks to check on his plane. There was one small hole in the tail where the enemy had nicked him.

“Getting sloppy?” asked Hans Rudel.

“Oh that? It was nothing. Just a lucky shot. I was up and around on him in no time, and put him in the sea. The other fellow was smart enough to make a run for it. But now it’s your turn, Hans. Let’s get back up there and look for this enemy carrier!”

And they did.

Hafner, Brendel, and Rudel were in the only three Stukas aboard the Flugdeckkreuzer. Heilich, Ehrler and Ritter were flying escort in ME-109-T fighters. The remaining six planes were all ME-109s, and they would be retained for combat air patrol over Lütjens task force. Marco Ritter followed his nose, and it was not long before the six planes found what they were looking for. There was only one thing that gnawed at him when he finally spotted the enemy task force below—those damnable rockets. So far they had not seen their evil white tails in the sky, and now it was time to get those Stukas in for an attack run before they came.

“There they are, Hans! I’ll keep those fighters off your backside. Good hunting!”

Aboard HMS Glorious the alarm sounded at 15:20 hours, not long after Lieutenant Charles Stewart came in with a badly nicked Fulmar. His mate, Eddie Shackley, was not coming home that day, and the word was soon passed to the bridge where Captain Christopher Wells now commanded the only capital ship remaining in Force H. Admiral Somerville was ashore, still on the Canary Islands coordinating an operation being teed up by the Royal Marine Commandos. So instead of planting his flag on HMS Glorious, Somerville was content to command from his desk in the Grand Canary Harbor HQ facility.

“Mister Lovell,” said Wells to his XO after he got the report. “See that Admiral Somerville is informed of this incident, and make certain he knows that Stewart thinks these were 109-T Messerschmitts. He says he could clearly see the arrestor hooks.”

“That would mean that new German carrier is about.”

“Indeed, and we both know what that means. That ship was operating as a forward screen for Hindenburg and Bismarck.”

“That’s why we’re out here, sir,” said Lovell with his chin up. “Shall I get a word down to the flight deck as well and get 823 Squadron up?”

“That would be wise but, as it stands, we’ve no fix on the enemy location yet.”

“If that German plane that ambushed Stewart was up on top cover, it would be a good bet they’re very close, sir. We could send 823 to the northeast to have a look. They’ve good range and loiter time in those Swordfish.”

“Very well. See to it, Mister Lovell.”

“Aye sir.”

Lovell was off, but he would not get far before the alarm was sounded. The W/T room had a message from their own top cover—enemy planes inbound!

Wells was out on the weather deck in an instant, neck craned and eyes puckered to see what was coming in. He heard it before he saw it, swinging around to see three birds of prey dropping from the sky, pursued by one of their own Fulmars, which was in turn being tailed by another German fighter. His close escort, the AA cruiser HMS Coventry, was quick into action with her five 6-inch guns able to double as AA guns, augmented by two 3-inchers, and two 2 pounders. The new octuple 2-pounder pom-poms Glorious had received in her last refit were also chopping away, one on each side of the flying-off deck. The sky was soon pocked with exploding flak, but the swift descent and high vertical attack of the Stukas made them very difficult targets to hit. My god, thought Wells. Where are our bloody fighters?

That was a most appropriate description at that moment. For Marco Ritter was a highly skilled ace, along with his two wing mates. Even though they found themselves outnumbered six to three, the German pilots had the better plane, and more experience flying in the heat of combat than their British counterparts that day. Two of the six men up above Wells task force were already bloody, Purdy and Moore, and Ritter was on the tail of the one plane that had managed to get near the diving Stukas.

It was soon clear to Wells that his luck, born on that hot moment when Hoffmann’s Scharnhorst had caught the ship in the Norwegian sea nearly a year ago, was now about to run thin. He heard the whine of the Stukas as they came, the Jericho trumpets screeching, and the whistle of falling bombs. When they fell he was horrified to see the first two straddle his bow, and then, seconds later, a third bomb came thundering down on the forward deck.

He braced himself as the ship shuddered with the hit. Glorious had once had seven inches of armor in that spot, where the barbettes of her big 15-inch guns had been mounted in a previous life as a battlecruiser. But those guns had been removed long ago, and now the deck armor was no more than an inch thick at best. The bomb fell just forward of the flying-off deck, where it dipped in a rounded downward curve. There it struck one of the QF 4.7 inch dual purpose guns, putting it out of action and starting a fire below decks. Hans Rudel had stayed in his dive those few extra seconds, and made certain his bomb would not miss.

Aboard the Hindenburg, Kapitan Adler was watching the horizon with his field glasses when he noted the curling black finger of smoke in the distance.

“We must be very close, sir,” he said to Admiral Lütjens.

“That could be thirty or forty miles off, Adler.”

“True, sir, but we can be there in an hour with our speed.”

“May I remind you that we steered this course to try and avoid the British fleet.”

“True sir, but what about Kaiser? They are well out in front of us. Why not send them in to have a taste. They can outrun anything the British have, even their cruisers and destroyers.”

Lütjens thought about that. He soon got word back from Marco Ritter as well—three enemy cruisers, five destroyers and one aircraft carrier—position, course and speed. One look at the plotting board told him that Adler was correct. He could send the Kaiser Wilhelm up to engage the enemy, and come right on their heels if he wished. If nothing else, that might drive off this enemy task force, and that smoke on the far horizon meant that their Stuka pilots off the Goeben had already drawn blood. He could see that Adler was like a shark smelling that blood now, his eyes alight, yearning for battle.

“No sign of those new enemy rockets, sir,” said Adler, waiting.

Finally the Admiral nodded his head. “Very well. Signal Kaiser Wilhelm. Tell them to approach and engage at long range. If the enemy attempts to close the range, he is to steer three-zero-zero at his best speed and break off.”

“Break off?” Adler quickly thought that the Admiral wanted to go in for the kill himself. “Shall we turn to intercept the enemy now?”

“No, Captain. We will hold steady on our present course, and come a further five points to starboard the minute Kaiser indicates they are breaking off as ordered.”

“But sir!” Adler thought for a second before he spoke, realizing they were on the bridge, in front of the other crewmen, and recalling the Admiral’s earlier warnings. That turn would take them away from the fight, and it galled to think the Hindenburg was running now, running from a fight it might easily win. He turned stiffly, arms folded behind his back.

“May I understand the Admiral’s intentions?” Adler waited, a restrained anger still noticeable when Lütjens regarded him.

“My intentions have been plainly stated, Kapitan. We are steering for the Atlantic convoy routes. I have no intention of dueling with British cruisers, which should be two hours to the south of us now. We were late leaving Gibraltar, and now we have other business to attend to. Kaiser will lead the British off on a course that will make it impossible for them to catch up with us if they follow that ship. As you so correctly point out, they will then have the speed to shake those cruisers off and rejoin us. As for our battleships, we steer northwest for the open sea.”

It was clear that Adler was not happy, but he said nothing more, silently steaming behind his raised field glasses again. Lütjens is too old for this, he thought. He is too cautious, especially after we took those hits in the Mediterranean. Alright then, at least we have Kaiser out looking for a fight. If the British do have these rockets, we will soon find out. But one day the Admiral will have to realize that Hindenburg was built to fight the enemy, not run from them.

“Those Stuka pilots on the Goeben have certainly done their job,” said Lütjens with a smile. “Hopefully that hit will prevent the British from mounting further air operations.”

“Thankfully someone is doing their job,” said Adler, with just enough ice in his voice to make his feelings known. “Because the British certainly have no reason to fear anything from the Hindenburg.”

“I can see you disagree with this course, Adler.”

“I do sir, and I think it is not inappropriate for me to say as much.”

“Not inappropriate,” Lütjens rejoined, “but also not wise. Yes, I know you want to get those guns out there into action, and the thought of feasting on a wounded British aircraft carrier is very enticing. If the situation changes I will consider your objection, but for the moment, my orders stand.”

The situation, as they so often did, was soon about to change. Kaiser Wilhelm was a very fast ship, capable of 36 knots, and it was soon a shadow looming on the horizon of Captain Christopher Wells.

When the sighting was first made by HMS Sheffield, steaming some 3000 meters off the starboard quarter of the carrier, Wells knew he had to act quickly.

“Mister Lovell,” he said imposing calm on himself. “The ship will come to our best possible speed. I know that won’t help the fire crews up front, but it can’t be helped.”

“Very good sir. Flight crews say they can get the first squadron of Swordfish spotted in five minutes, but we’ll have to come round into the wind.”

“That will put us at three-three-zero, but I’m afraid we haven’t the time just now.” Wells was squinting through his field glasses, trying to pick out details in the distant silhouette. The details, the details. That’s where the devil lived. He could see the tall central superstructure, but he did not think this was one of the German battleships. He walked briskly to the plotting table, where he fetched a printed card with silhouettes of all the known enemy ships. Somerville had informed him of the composition of the enemy task force, and he knew this was neither Bismarck nor Hindenburg.

So it has to be the Kaiser Wilhelm, he thought, quickly running his finger down the estimated specifications on that ship. A single note was printed where the speed would be indicated: Observed running in excess of 34 knots during trials.

“Mister Lovell,” he said again in a measured voice. “The ship will come hard about and steer two-one-two. Ahead full. Signal Coventry, Sheffield and Gloucester to follow. The destroyer screen will make smoke at once.”

Chapter 36

“I’ve sent instructions to the bridge,” said Tovey. “We’re all ready running at 28 knots, but we might kick that up a notch. I can have word sent to your ships to match speed, but there’s little else we can do for the moment. Let us conclude our meeting, and then we’ll slow to 10 knots for your departure. I think we’ve a good deal more to discuss.”

“Agreed,” said Fedorov, still struck by the realization of what he had learned. Signals from a future time! Someone else was trying to intervene in the course of these events! But who?

“These signals,” he said. “They were a warning of some kind?”

“Most certainly,” said Elena. “And now this gets to a part of the story that has been kept secret for decades. I suppose the easiest way would be to show you.”

She reached to her neck line, drawing out a simple gold chain with something dangling from one end. Fedorov could see that it was a key of some kind, looking very old.

“This key was necessary to activate the box we have been discussing. In fact, it was used to open the site where the device was found at Delphi. It was given to me, to be held secret until the day and hour I received instructions to use it. That was the day that sent my ship here.”

Fedorov looked from Fairchild to Tovey, but the Admiral merely shook his head. “Notwithstanding the fact that my name was in that box,” he said, “I can add nothing further. I know nothing whatsoever about that key.”

“But I do,” said Elena. “To begin with, this is one of several similar keys, and they all have a connection to a specific place, very special places, like that railway inn you described to me.”

“Ilanskiy?” said Fedorov. “Explain please.”

“That site appears to be a rift zone. That’s what we call these places—rifts in time. The signals we received were more than a warning. They contained… instructions, and something more, information concerning certain artifacts—each one embedded with one of these keys.”

“Artifacts?”

“Objects, some very old, and all prized in our day as works of art. Each one held a key, though I cannot name them all. Frankly, I was only told a part of this tale, the information I’m relating to you now. I knew there were other keys, but not their number, or where they might lead; what they might open.”

“Who told you this?”

“Our organization, the Watch. How they came to know about all this I can only speculate. My assumption is that those signals from the future revealed this information.”

“Then these keys came from there—from the future?”

“We believe as much.”

Of course, thought Fedorov. Rifts in time! Perhaps they were the result of that first event at Tunguska. The first cracks in the mirror, were not caused by the ship, not by Kirov or anyone aboard, but by that thing that slammed into the earth and exploded above Tunguska.

“Then there is a key that is somehow connected to the railway in I described?” asked Fedorov. “Is this so?”

“That was unknown to us,” said Elena. “At least it was unknown to me. I was aware of only two other keys. One was assigned—to a Keyholder—that’s what we are called. Anyone given a key to hold in trust is a Keyholder, and it is a very exclusive club. As for that railway inn, we knew nothing about it.”

“I have considered this,” said Fedorov. “When I realized what was happening at Ilanskiy, I attributed those effects to damage caused by that event at Tunguska, and thought there may be other similar places, other rifts in time. Then you know of two others?”

“I know they exist, but not much more. In fact, I had no idea what to really expect at Delphi. I was merely sent there, and told that I would need to use this key at that time. Oh, I had my inklings and speculations as well. We knew that one key opened to another passage similar to the one you describe at that railway inn. So I thought there might be a similar passage beneath Delphi, but found nothing but that box. Believe me, after I tested the key a second time aboard my ship, I was quite surprised at the outcome. But once I realized what had happened, I assumed it was all planned. Yet I could not see what I was to do here, aside from throwing in with you and the Royal Navy, Admiral Tovey. Now I think otherwise.”

“What do you mean?” said Tovey.

“Well,” said Elena with a sigh. “I told you I was aware of at least two other keys, but there is more to that. One was assigned to a another Keyholder. The other, however, was lost.”

“Lost?”

“Yes, in spite of its importance, it went missing. I suddenly realized that when I was trying to sort all this through in my own mind. Why was I sent here, I wondered? Was it only because your ship was here, in this time? This was my first guess, as I had long been standing a watch waiting for your ship to return. I must confess, Captain Fedorov, that your vessel was always regarded as a dire threat in my mind. My first thought when I realized you were here, was that I was sent to try and destroy Geronimo, sink your ship, and it took some adjustment to think of you as an ally. Now I finally think I know why I was sent here.”

Fedorov simply waited, his eyes on Fairchild, and the silence was thick in the room. Even Nikolin hung on her next words, waiting to translate, amazed to be hearing all this.

“The other key I knew about was found in an artifact retrieved from ancient Greece, a particular piece of artwork that was a part of the Parthenon. It was embedded in the base of the Selene Horse, along with other artifacts that have since come to be known as the Elgin Marbles. We learned it was there, at least this is what I was told, but it was never assigned to a Keyholder. It went missing, strange as that may sound. It went missing this very year, on the 27th of May, 1941. And as remarkable as it may sound, it was actually in your charge at that time, Admiral Tovey—at least in the keeping of the Royal Navy.”

“My charge? But I know nothing of this matter. Perhaps some other John Tovey, in some other time might be the culprit—the man you claim to have met in 1942, Captain Fedorov, but this John Tovey remains in the dark.”

Elena smiled. “That may be so, but I know for a fact that this particular key was loaded aboard the battleship HMS Rodney, right there in the Selene Horse along with other segments of the Elgin Marbles, and a goodly amount of the King’s Gold.”

Tovey raised an eyebrow at that. “The King’s business,” he said aloud. “So now I know what this is all about, and why Rodney was pulled from duty with Force H by the Admiralty. Are you saying their Lordships were aware of this key? They knew of its existence and significance?”

“I don’t think so,” said Elena. “Perhaps the curator of the British Museum might have had knowledge of it, but as for the Admiralty, no I think they just thought they were shipping valuables to safekeeping in Boston. That’s where Rodney is bound, is it not?”

“My dear woman, have you been listening in on Admiralty fleet signals traffic?”

“No Admiral, you forget that this is all history from my perspective. Strangely, in that history, Rodney was involved in a chase very similar to the one we now find ourselves on. It seems a coincidence, but I suspect it is something more. They say history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. As we know the history, you and your Home Fleet were out after the Bismarck this month, and now here we are chasing that ship as well, and its bigger brother. That little twist could complicate things, particularly if this coincidence holds true. You see, Rodney was in the thick of the final action that sank the Bismarck. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that, Admiral, but while the ruckus was going on, several pieces of the Elgin Marbles were knocked about, and one was slightly damaged—the Selene Horse—right at the base to reveal a place where the key was concealed. But the key itself was missing. It was never seen again after that engagement. When Rodney arrived in Boston, the artifacts were removed and stored. They were returned to England at a later time, and everything was accounted for—except that missing key.”

“Was it lost while those artifacts were still aboard the ship?”

“No one knows. All we know is that the damage to the artifact was discovered in Boston.”

“Then someone there was privy to the existence of that key?”

“Perhaps, but we aren’t certain who that was. Remember, there was no Watch at that time. It was not established until 1942. We only learned the significance of these keys later, and that this one had been aboard Rodney when it left for Boston. The ship was searched, of course, and the crew interviewed, very discretely. The Curators at the British Museum were behind that, probably by way of investigating the damage to the Selene Horse. They knew about the key, though whether they knew just what it was is not known. A suspicion remained that the key was still aboard Rodney, and when the ship was finally scrapped at Inverkeithing in 1946, the wreckage was gone over with a fine sieve. It was all handled by the Grey Friars, or so I was told, but nothing was found.”

“The Franciscans?” Tovey knew that order had been long known as the ‘Grey Friars’ because of the color of their robes.

“Yes,” said Elena. “Why they were charged with the task remains a bit of the mystery, but they were carting over bits and pieces of the ship, metal filings, nuts and rivets, and examining the whole lot in a quiet little room at Saint Peters Kirk, Inverkeithing.”

“Most irregular,” said Tovey. “The Grey Friars sifting through the bones of old Rodney to look for this key… Well, they certainly had to know something of what they were looking for. You say the Watch learned of these keys in those strange signals you received. If that is so, then how would anyone in 1941 know about that key, or attribute any significance to it, particularly the Franciscans!”

“Very good questions,” said Elena. “Yet this only remains perplexing when you assume that everyone alive in the here and now is native to this time. As you can see, you are presently sitting here with three people who were born long after your own death, Admiral.”

“Of course!” It was Fedorov speaking now, exclaiming his surprise in English. Then he spoke quickly, and Nikolin translated. “Other time travelers! We thought it was only our sad fate, the ship and crew of Kirov, but we all know that is not the case. Consider that stairway at the railway inn. I moved in time on that rift, as did Sergei Kirov, and another man, a name you will be familiar with Admiral—Ivan Volkov. But who knows who else may have used those stairs? If there are other sites, other rift zones as you call them, then it is not a stretch to imagine that others may have used those holes in time.”

“Well this is quite a fine mess,” said Tovey. “People coming and going, just as they please, and fiddling with history! I knew this world was something quite different after I learned the truth about you and your ship, Mister Fedorov, but now it seems we have others involved in this whole affair, in these rift zones you speak of, coming and going like servants in and out of the back door.”

“Correct,” said Elena. “The zones I knew about were all well hidden, and placed under lock and key.” She dangled the key on its chain again to make her point. “So they were open only to Keyholders. That took careful planning—planning that extended over long decades, because the sites I know of are both quite old, like Delphi. The sites had to be secured, protected, and then locked down to prevent anyone from using those passages through time. I wondered what I might find if I went there now to have a look at that site. Would I find the same passage and chamber I discovered in 2021? I was considering doing exactly that, flying in with my Argonauts to have another look, in case the Germans were about. Then this little foot race to Gibraltar started. As for that railway inn, that was a site we were entirely unaware of. That said, all this gets to my mission here, at least as I understand it now.”

“Your mission?” Tovey cocked his head to one side, waiting.

“Well Admiral, whether you remember it or not, it was you that determined I should go to Delphi, and now I think I may know why—HMS Rodney—that missing key. The signals we received in our time were very pointed. We were told the keys, and the sites they opened, were crucial. They must all be accounted for, and here, at this very moment, that missing key may be finally within our grasp. Believe me, we searched long and hard for it in the years after 1941, but it was never found. Yet here, at this moment, it is quite possibly within our grasp.”

“Suppose it is,” said Tovey, “sitting right there in the hold of Rodney, along with all the rest of the King’s business. What do you propose?”

“Why, to get my hands on the damn thing, what else! It will tell us where its corresponding rift zone is.”

“How so?”

“Because the keys were very carefully machined. If examined closely, with the right instruments, they reveal a set of numbers along the shaft, and these translate into geographic coordinates. That was how we determined where the other two rift zones were.”

“Oh? And may I ask where they are?”

“You may, but I do not think I should answer, for purposes of security. I’m sure you understand that these zones are very dangerous. The Keyholder for each zone was privy to its existence, and I learned a little more after being designated Keyholder Alpha. I suppose that means I’m to be the keeper of the keys, or that I hold the master key in all this. Well, one of my keys is still missing, and I think it would be wise to find it as soon as we possibly can.”

“Yes,” said Fedorov. “These zones are dangerous. We went so far as to attempt a demolition of the rift site in Ilanskiy. We sent our Marines in, and they got the job done. There was only one thing we did not count on—our ex-Captain Karpov. His appearance on the scene has complicated our effort to seal off access to that breach. Activity in that region leads me to suspect that Ivan Volkov may have also learned the significance of that place. Otherwise, why are the two still battling over control of Ilanskiy? We had word that another big engagement is underway there.”

“That is very troubling,” said Elena. “Why we never knew about that site is equally vexing.”

“Perhaps it was unknown, even to those who made these keys,” said Fedorov. “Or perhaps they suspected another rift was open, but never found it themselves. For that matter there may be others that no one has yet to discover.”

“A harrowing thought,” said Elena. “Just managing the two sites we knew about was more than enough. Yet now I see that it is imperative that we obtain the key, and locate this last site.”

“Well,” said Tovey, “I don’t see why you just weren’t told about it in these odd signals you received.”

“Perhaps for the same reason,” said Elena. “It is dangerous for anyone to know such a place exists, and even more dangerous to venture there. The condition we find the world in now results from one man’s inadvertent trip through a rift zone, and I do not mean to flay you with this, Captain Fedorov. I fully understand how you feel, but imagine if others knew of these rifts in time, and decided to use them…”

The darkness of that thought was a shroud over them all at that moment, deepening the silence, until Tovey spoke again. “Good enough. As to our HMS Rodney, I think I can be of some assistance. We find ourselves in a most interesting place, heading for Gibraltar and the Atlantic beyond. This little coincidence you speak of is presently underway. The players are on the stage and the first act is in the works even as we speak. If history does rhyme, then Rodney may have apart to play here as well. I can Imagine Admiral Holland is looking at this situation with Hindenburg very seriously now, and sizing up what assets he can commit. I’ll be in touch with him soon enough.”

“Admiral,” said Elena. “As to HMS Rodney, I do hope that ship comes to no harm. If it were to be sunk…”

“I understand,” said Tovey. “I shall see about keeping old Rodney safe and sound. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, but I must, Admiral. That was drilled into my head when I was briefed for that little trip to Delphi. Do not think that the history can protect you once you intervene. This is what I was told. Everything is on the table now, gentlemen, and not just this ship and key. It is all riding the whirlwind, as we seem to be. And if we are not cautious, if anything slips here, then god only knows what could happen next. The reason the makers of these keys didn’t just send us a nice little message telling us how to find the missing key is a dark one. They’re gone.”

“Gone?” Tovey looked at Fedorov, and then back at Elena.

“Yes Admiral. The key makers are gone. The changes rippling forward in time have been building and building, like a great tsunami. The messages they sent to us were their last attempt at saving the situation—saving the whole damn world I suppose. Because somewhere out there, in the years rolling on beyond the time where Captain Fedorov and I once lived, there is a darkness so all consuming that it devours everything. We were given a word for it from these people in the future, whoever they were. They called it a Grand Finality. A rose is a rose, gentlemen, and in that description I find yet another word that might express it just a little better—calamity.”

Silence. The only thing Fedorov could hear now was the sound of his own pulse, beating like a drum, and timing out the rising crescendo of doom.