Crescendo of Doom

Chapter 1

Karpov stood in the dining hall, the light of the newly lit fire warm and ruddy on his drawn features, a look if profound realization in his eye. The words of Tyrenkov still resonated in his mind, like the clarion call of an alarm that summoned him to action… “You see, we no longer have to waste days, weeks and months trying to find Volkov here in 1909, because now we know exactly where he is, and before he even traveled to the past! So I wanted every second possible available to me. I’ll need all the time there I can get…”

All the time he can get… Yes, every second that passed for him there was one second he could not use to carry out the plan that now exploded in Karpov’s mind like a well aimed Moskit-II. From here he could change everything again, rearrange all the chess pieces on the board with one brilliant fianchetto of doom. He could see it all in his mind, smell it, hear the rising crescendo of calamity and change, like the sound of his own pulse quickening at his temples.

He decided.

“Yes!” he said jubilantly. “If that was Volkov, then what you say is correct, Tyrenkov! We have him—right by the scruff of his neck. We have the moment of his demise in the palm of our hand, and not a second to waste there at the top of those stairs. Your decision to get back here with this news as quickly as possible was the very reason I sent you there. I needed a man who could think on his feet, not some dullard of a corporal who would not have had the slightest idea of what he was looking at.”

“Then we must hurry, sir. I’ll call Sergeant Konev and have him fetch a sniper rifle. We have no time to lose. It appeared he was lingering near the train with his security men, but that could change quickly.”

“Don’t worry, Tyrenkov, we have all the time in the world. Don’t you see? We could sit here and have a long brandy by the fire, sleep the night away, rise tomorrow to a hearty breakfast, and then even go hunting in the forest to the north for our pleasure. We could do this for a month if we so desired. Don’t make the mistake of thinking time passing here is also running out there in the future. You could go back up those stairs a month from now and find yourself exactly where you left things, in that moment of supreme opportunity. At least that is what I’m counting on now. So we need not be hasty. We must think this through carefully.”

Tyrenkov gave him a knowing look. Karpov was not stupid. He understood that time might move with a different gait at both ends of the stairs. He realized that he must never underestimate the Admiral, and he could see that this news had precipitated a decision in his mind. He would wait to learn what Karpov intended.

“What is that you have there?” Karpov had noticed the book in Tyrenkov’s hand for the first time.

“It was on the table by the window on the upper landing.” He handed the slim book to Karpov. “There were a few oddments with it… a candle, and one other thing that looked quite familiar.”

“Oh? What was it?” Karpov was curious.

“Well sir, I only just glanced at it, but now I recall that it looked to be a compass, very much like the one Bogrov squints at all the time on the bridge.”

“A ship’s compass? Very strange.”

“It was quite old, sir, and obviously damaged and worn by time. The glass was all soiled, and cracked. I picked up this book, then I heard the train coming into the station and my attention was drawn there. It was then that I saw the man I believe we are looking for—Volkov. We can settle everything now, sir. The next time I take a good sniper rifle with me.”

“All in good time, Tyrenkov.” Karpov’s attention was on the book now, a plain hard bound volume that was obviously meant to be a showpiece. He opened the cover, his eyes narrowing when he read the title: When Giants Fell. The End of the Siberian Air Fleet, by Yuri Rudkin. What was this? He began to read, eyes darkening with each passing second, until a light of anger kindled there.

“Sukin Sim!” he breathed.

“What is it, Admiral?”

“Volkov! That bastard didn’t get enough of a lesson the first time. So he tries again!”

“What do you mean?”

Now there was an odd look on the Admiral’s face, and he held up a hand, quieting his security chief as he continued to read. “Very strange,” he said at last. “This is a fiction—the author says as much right here in the introduction. Yet how could this be?” He read aloud now, his eyes flashing quickly over the pages of the old book.

“It was April when the rain fell, a hard spring rain in Siberia, but that did not stop him. Nothing would stop him. He was driven, compulsive, and determined to win the day at last. And he was more than that, Admiral of the greatest fleet that had ever darkened the skies, Ivan Volkov, Air Commandant, Supreme Leader, the Eagle of the East. And today he would put an end to the last of the Siberian Fleet, now that its Admiral had gone missing in that terrible storm. Yes, his old nemesis, Vladimir Karpov, was dead and gone from this world, and the fleet he had built was doomed without him—no more than a headless snake. Now there was nothing to stop him—nothing but these last three airships that gathered in the grey skies above the endless taiga, hanging in the heavy clouds like the great beasts they were…” He stopped, clearly shocked by what he was reading, then looked at Tyrenkov, as if waiting for his intelligence chief to explain everything. “What in God’s name?”

“It says that sir? It names Volkov like that? It names you personally?”

“You heard what I read.”

“But how is that possible, sir? Is it a history? Are you certain the work is fictional?”

“So the author claims…” Karpov’s eyes narrowed. “That damn stairway,” he hissed. “Who knows how many men may have gone up those stairs, Tyrenkov? Who knows how many came down? Clearly that stairway existed in the future—in the world Volkov and I came from. People may have used it, and we have already established that there is a definite connection between that time and at least two other eras in history. One is that damn war, your time, the 1940s. And another is this time before the revolution. You proved that connection exists by taking that journey there to the future and returning here safely just now. What if this man was another traveler, this Yuri Rudkin?” he stared at the name on the spine of the book. “Yes, that is the only possible explanation. Look here!” He showed Tyrenkov a sketched plate in the volume, where airships dueled in the stormy skies.

“Look at the caption! It reads: “Volkov’s fleet in the great air duel above Ilanskiy, and the wreck of the last Siberian Airship Krasnoyarsk—‘Old Krasny.’ The fall of ‘Big Red’ marked the end of the rebellion in the east, uniting all of Siberia under Volkov’s rule.”

Karpov gave Tyrenkov a dumbfounded look. “Now how in God’s name is that possible? I can see that this man might have dreamt up such a tale, but with these names? My God! He even calls the Krasnoyarsk Big Red, just as we do! That is too much of a coincidence. This man had to have seen the past he was writing about.”

“Yet you say it is a fiction, sir—just a story.”

“A very clever story,” said Karpov, flipping one page after another, thinking. “A very clever man… What if he came from the future, just as Volkov did, and saw things—learned things about that past. Only this time he gets back home again. Yes… He returns safely home to his own day. Who knows what he thinks about his experience? But it is clear that he saw things from the time of the Great Patriotic War. Yes, he learned enough to gather the fodder for his tale. He used the things he discovered to create this story.”

“But how is that possible, sir? Suppose he did as you suggested, and saw the 1940s. He would be writing about the very same man I saw getting off that train. Volkov was there, if I am not mistaken—but the book was there as well! So none of the history this other man saw was even written yet, because, at that moment, Volkov had not yet discovered that stairway.”

Karpov nodded, eyes shifting about the room, and back to the book in his hand. “Unless…” He paused, as if uncertain, feeling his way forward in his thinking, trying to grasp at something that might explain this strange anomaly. “Unless Volkov’s journey was inevitable.”

That word seemed leaden as he spoke it, weighing on his very soul. Yes, he thought, inevitability—fate—doom. That notion was deeply seated in the Russian psyche. A man’s fate was his fate, and nothing could change it. Was Volkov fated to go down those steps? Was it inevitable? Dominoes of thought tumbled one after another in his mind, the click and clatter of their fall harrowing him inside.

If it was inevitable, then anything he had planned now for Ivan Volkov was doomed to fail. Tyrenkov may go back up those stairs to try and kill the man, but it would fail. Otherwise how does this author ever learn of the events he describes so chillingly in this story? Every page he turned was riveted with things from the world that Karpov knew—the world he had come from until that storm over the English Channel sent them here to 1909—here to this place where he thought he could rewrite all history. Was it still possible? Was this book a clear and evident sign that he would also fail? Was his own fate as inevitable as the words this man used to describe it here… Vladimir Karpov… dead and gone from this world…”

“What do you mean, sir? Inevitable? Then you are saying that Volkov must go down those stairs, and reach the time before the revolution?”

“How else could this writer have come up with this tale? It is too pointed. He named the ships perfectly—Abakan, Angara, Tomsk—all engaged in the battle by Volkov’s 1st Air Division. My God, look here! He even says that this Division had been mauled earlier in an unsuccessful raid on the Trans-Siberian Rail, when Oskemen and Alexandra were destroyed by the rebellious Siberian fleet led by Admiral Karpov.” His finger ran along the lines as if chasing impossibility itself. It was the battle he had fought earlier, Volkov’s raid on Ilanskiy after the Omsk Accords, the treachery that re-ignited the conflict on the eastern front. And it was all described here in this little book of history, posing as a fiction, for it was now obvious to him that Tyrenkov’s objection had to stand.

“Yes,” he began. “this book could not exist, at least not as history, in that future world before Volkov ever came to Ilanskiy. And I think the world you saw had to be the one I came from. Otherwise why would Volkov be there, just as he was ordered by Director Kamenski, looking for Fedorov along the Trans-Siberian Rail? In that world none of the days you and I have lived out together ever happened! Don’t you see? In the world I came from there was No Free Siberian State, no Orenburg Federation. And yes, there was no Admiral Karpov leading his fleet of airships over the taiga—and no Ivan Volkov in Orenburg either!” He smiled, finally getting the tiger by the tail. Yet what would happen if he pulled on that tail? There was still a light of uncertainty and fear in his eyes, even as he spoke.

“Yet this book could not exist,” he mused, “even as a fiction, unless those events occur. It is too detailed in its depiction for this man to have imagined it. The events described in this prologue, as far as I have seen, are exactly those we lived through.”

“Then what about the rest of the story, sir? What if the rest is inevitable?”

Karpov nodded. “Yes… If this book was on that table than it certainly means one thing—Volkov goes back in time. He goes there and this man, Rudkin, saw the things he did to change the history. So we fail to kill him here and now. We fail! Otherwise how can this book ever be written? This man filched the entire story he passes off as a fiction here—he stole it right from the history we were writing.”

Tyrenkov had a crestfallen expression on his face now. “Then we are defeated sir? Volkov wins?”

“This book seems to recount that outcome, but I am not prepared to let that stand. Look here, Tyrenkov, look what I hold in my hand, the book of fate itself! Yes, it lays out the tale of my own undoing. It describes this last desperate battle between the airships of Orenburg and Siberia. Facts that riveting send a chill up my spine, for right alongside them is that little line about my own death. You see? It’s right here… ‘today he would put an end to the last of the Siberian Fleet, now that its Admiral had gone missing in that terrible storm.”

“That can only mean the storm we encountered over the English Channel,” said Tyrenkov.

“Exactly! It removed me from that time, and then all the things you warned me about must have come true. Without my leadership Volkov is able to win the day, right here in this battle Rudkin describes.” He looked at the title again, “When Giants Fall…”

“But can’t we prevent all that,” asked Tyrenkov? “Can’t we stop him now, sir. Perhaps I lingered there too long. It could be that Volkov is no longer in sight when I go back to that window on the upper landing. That could be the reason we failed. Perhaps there simply wasn’t time for me to get there and take aim before he slipped away. Well, we can plan this very carefully now. Forget that sniper rifle. I can pick a squad of our very best men. We will leave nothing to chance or fate.”

Karpov gave him a riveting look, torn between the sense of impending doom laid down in this writer’s tale, and the heady feeling that he was bigger than that, impervious, invulnerable, and the master of fate itself. Which was true? He had already acted to prune his own family tree, and prevent the untimely death of his Great Grandfather. That was likely to change things, though he could not know how. Was this book a real harbinger of his own doom, or merely a relic from a world that might never come to be?

Then he realized what he had here in his hand, not the certainty of his own demise, but a grand glimpse of what might be, a timely warning. This journey here had unsettled everything, like that bad pudding festering in the gut of Ebenezer Scrooge. Without even knowing it, Tyrenkov had played the role of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come! He had inadvertently picked up this book, which purported to be a tale of mystery and imagination, but was really one that relied on the history of events its author had seen in the past, events that might be underway at this very moment.

Yet it was clear to Karpov now that there were two worlds in play here, not only one. The world that saw Volkov arrive on that train at Ilanskiy with his security detail knew nothing of the one he had been living in before that storm sent them here, otherwise why would the book be described as a fiction instead of actual history? Two worlds, yet strangely connected by that rift on the back stairs. Did actions taken in one world affect the fate of the other? When Kirov moved forward to that blackened future, the evidence seemed plain enough. Karpov looked at his security chief, seeing the urgency in his eyes.

“Your ardor is not merely loyalty, Tyrenkov. It is driven by something more—the line of my own fate! The world tried me before—tried to get rid of me just like those traitors on my ship. But it failed. I survived, and returned to write my own story, and no stupid fool of a writer is going to get rid of me that easily. Yes, we can prevent this man’s little fiction from ever being written. We can do exactly what you suggest, and leave nothing to chance.”

Chapter 2

“Gather your men, Tyrenkov. We’re going to see to this matter right this instant!”

“Sir!” Tyrenkov rushed off to find Sergeant Konev, leaving Karpov alone for a moment. He stood there by the fire, eyeing that door to the stairwell with a mix of anger, determination, and indignation. Nobody tries to write me out of the story—not Vladimir Karpov!

He thought that as if his own name would ring through the halls of history like the peal of a church bell. Yet even as he asserted his own importance, inflated as it was by the hunger of his own ego, he could still perceive that lingering thrum of uncertainty within his chest, that flutter of adrenaline that was more than his own body preparing itself for action. Fight or flight—every creature had to make that choice when confronted with imminent danger. In his earlier life, the life of the mouse living beneath the floorboards of the mansion the Russian Navy had built, he had always chosen the safe course, always slipped into hidden little holes. He preferred the darkness of subterfuge as his primary means of advancing himself, the slow gnawing at wires and cables, the subtle undermining of those he saw as obstacles to his own advancement.

As Captain of Kirov he had become something else, something dark and powerful. Ever since he took that first step, locking Volsky away in the sick bay with Doctor Zolkin, that darkness had been growing, feeding on every opportunity it could find for violence against his enemies. When you fling a nuclear warhead at your foe, something changes inside. You become more shadow, and less light, slipping into that darkness, but finding there a realization of absolute power. You don’t hesitate to do the small things after that, and what he had before him now was a small thing as it seemed. Just send Tyrenkov back up those stairs with a submachine gun squad and take care of the matter.

A small thing, a single life, yet it would reset the entire scheme of the world, rearrange all the pieces on the chessboard. The only catch was an irritating one. He was here, in 1909, and even if Tyrenkov returned with the grin of satisfaction, reporting the job was done and Volkov was dead, the new world that might give rise to was beyond his grasp. He could not see it, not from here, or reap the benefit of all this operation might bring about.

And another thing bothered him. He could not do this thing himself. He could not go up and pull that trigger, for he was already in that world. Another version of himself was out to sea, leading the Red Banner Pacific Fleet in a bold sortie against the powerful American Navy. Many thought that enterprise was doomed from the start. He could almost see that in Volsky’s eyes when he gave him the order to deploy. Yet I beat them, he thought stubbornly. I took the brash swagger out of that Captain Tanner. Yes? I wonder how he felt when he saw those missiles coming in on his precious aircraft carrier?

He allowed himself a moment to gloat, forgetting the fitful eruption of that Demon Volcano that had so clotted the skies with its sulfur and ash that Tanner’s air squadrons had to fly widely divergent, and clearly predictable, flight paths. That allowed him to concentrate his long range SAM defense to blunt one pincer of the American counterattack, while the fighters off the Admiral Kuznetsov had been just enough to fend off the other horn of the bull.

You were lucky, an inner voice of warning reminded him. If that air group had been able to concentrate in one coordinated attack, something would have gotten through. Something always gets through… Yes, you showed the Americans what wrath and fire was, but look at what happened! That damn volcano blew half your fleet into the past, into this damnable war, and you got your chance again, only this time it was 1945. You thought you could handle things easily there, but found out differently. Yes?

Volsky had handed him that barb when he intimated that any man who had to resort to the use of a nuclear warhead was one who had already lost his battle, and clearly, Karpov had already lost his battle with Admiral Halsey and Ziggy Sprague. The Admiral Golovko was sunk, and the skies were darkening with flights of American planes in the hundreds. The American Pacific Fleet in 1945 was enormous, and it was coming for him. As the missiles fired, and his remaining SAMs diminished, the outcome was inevitable, so he reached for the Hammer of God, and he sought to crush his foe in another mighty blow.

That was a heady thing, to push that button and send that warhead on its way, knowing what it would do. It was the second American battleship he would destroy, yet he knew that if Kirov had not slipped again, into the pre-revolutionary days of 1908, that battle might have ended quite differently. God only knows what happened to Captain Yeltsin on Orlan….

This time it was different, not the searing fire of a nuclear warhead, but instead a single bullet that would change everything. That must now become the rattle of small arms in ambush, if he carried out the plan Tyrenkov suggested. Just send a squad up those stairs… It seemed so simple, and yet something about it gnawed at his pride.

It won’t be my hand on the trigger, he thought. Tyrenkov would do the deed, or perhaps Sergeant Konev, or even one of the men he selected in the assault team. Yes, I will be the one to give the order and set this plan in motion, but I will not really be the man who changed the world. That honor and fortune would fall to another, and what if he realizes it one day, and becomes a little bigger in his mind than he should?

That thought bothered him, along with the thought that Volkov would never know he had his revenge. The Ivan Volkov of 2021 was an unknowing fool at the moment. He was nothing more than a suspicious, meddling henchman, out doing the bidding of another. He only became his own man after he went down those stairs. Yes, with his service jacket at his disposal, and the sure knowledge of all that would come, it was inevitable that he would outmaneuver Denikin and seize control of the White movement. The Orenburg Federation was the result, but the Ivan Volkov that built that little empire in the hinterlands of Kirov’s Soviet Union would never know that he would meet his end on my order. That bothered him even more.

Revenge was a dish that was best served cold. Yes, he had repeated that well worn phrase to Volkov’s face when they first met for lunch aboard Kirov, during the inspection at Vladivostok. Even then he could see that Volkov would be a problem, a nuisance, a stone in his shoe. That bastard thought he could sneak in here with a couple airships and take this place. What an arrogant fool he was.

As he flipped through the pages of the book in his hand, he could see there the unfolding of Volkov’s final revenge. Look at the way he handled things, thought Karpov. He rounded up every airship he could pull off the line and came for Ilanskiy with one thought in mind—to destroy my fleet, and by extension to destroy me personally. The title of the book goaded him, When Giants Fell…

That bastard could see an opportunity when it presented itself. The instant he realized Tunguska was lost, and I was out of the picture, he came here to wreck everything I was building. Something in him wanted to get back there and say ‘not so fast!’ Something wanted to meet Volkov eye to eye, defeat him right there in a glorious battle, and then see his face when he realized he was beaten at last. Handling things on this back stairs was the work of a submarine Captain, quiet, secret, sinister, yet in some ways the work of a coward.

Karpov hated submarines….

Tyrenkov was back, the boots of his assault squad clumping hard on the floor as they came after him, the first swelling sounds that would rise in a crescendo of doom. The light of battle was in his eyes, and his cheeks were flushed with his urgency. Karpov’s eyes narrowed as the men came in, as he looked at Tyrenkov, and an odd thought occurred to him.

He knows entirely too much now, Tyrenkov. He knows who I am, where I’ve come from. He’s even been to that world, a place I can no longer go. And now he knows about Ilanskiy, this humdrum railway inn, that back stairway. He can go up those steps any time he chooses. Lord knows, I can’t keep my eye on him 24 hours a day. Yes, he can go up those stairs and do things, and doing this thing is going to darken his shadow, and feed the fire of his own hungry soul. Perhaps he’ll be the one who pulls the trigger, just as he was the one who pulled the trigger when it came time to kill Petrov.

Karpov remembered the look on Tyrenkov’s face when he strode in and handed him that pistol, still warm from its firing. That was all I had from the Petrov incident, the warmth of that pistol in my hand. It was Tyrenkov’s finger on the trigger, and he knows that now. He knows entirely too much… He seemed just a little bigger, a deeper shade of sinister grey, when he returned. After this, his soul will deepen to charcoal black, and he’ll be as big as I am, as dark and cinder hot as I am, the man who changed everything.

And Tyrenkov was smart enough to realize that…

“Ready sir! I have five good men here, our very best. We’ll get the job done, I assure you.”

“Just a moment, Tyrenkov,” Karpov said quickly, his eyes still scanning the pages of the book, eyeing the line drawn plates where he saw the air duel that became the destruction of the Siberian Fleet, Ivan Volkov’s great victory, and the sweetness of revenge heavy on his tongue. “Just a moment… We must think carefully here… Something has occurred to me that I had not considered before. Send the men away.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me! Get them out of here. I need to think this through.”

Tyrenkov hesitated, ever so briefly, then gave Sergeant Konev a nod to send the squad off. That was something that Karpov did not fail to notice. He was no longer the coiled spring that would enact his commands without a moment’s thought. Yes, when I first told him he was the one to go up those stairs, he had the temerity to quibble the matter with me. I had to suggest I would get a Corporal to go in his place. He put his own fear and desire for self-preservation ahead of my interests, and my orders. Yes, he acquiesced in the end, and did as I ordered, but he hesitated, just as he hesitated again just now, when I told him to dismiss the men.

A moment later they were alone, and Karpov stood there, realizing Tyrenkov was holding a submachine gun, standing there by the fire with a look on his face that clearly revealed his displeasure.

“What is it sir? What have we not considered?”

“We? Don’t get too big for your britches, Tyrenkov. I’m doing the thinking here. Now put that damn machinegun away. I have things to consider, things you cannot possibly understand.”

“But sir, I thought—”

“You? Don’t think, Tyrenkov. This involves a good deal more than you may realize. I can’t expect you to grasp it all, but there are factors in play here that I must consider very carefully.”

Tyrenkov perceived a sea change in Karpov’s mood, and he knew enough of the man to realize that was dangerous. So he did what he knew he should, and assumed the role he had so carefully played out in the past, that of a dutiful servant, the Devil’s Adjutant. He was like a submarine on the surface, lined up on his target, just a witless tramp steamer named Ivan Volkov, but now he could hear the drone of aircraft over head, and he knew it was time to dive, submerge, get beneath the swelling waves of the sea and move in that muffled quiet and darkness, time to lurk. Time to renew the slow, stealthy approach, the stalking of the hunter, who works from the shadows and shuns the light.

Karpov had told him a great deal in these last few days, confided in him to a degree he never did before. Yet now, for the first time, Tyrenkov could sense that the Admiral looked on him with a wary eye. He could sense the edge of resentment in Karpov’s voice, and the tinge of suspicion. He’s just realized I’m a threat to him, thought Tyrenkov. Now he’s thinking everything through again. I must be very careful here…

“Volkov.” Karpov spat the name out, the disdain clearly evident in his tone. “So this is what he has planned, is it? He thinks he’s going to swarm in and destroy my entire fleet! In fact, that is exactly what he does, if this fiction is truly based on facts the author became aware of. Is that so, or is this simply what it appears, a story? I wonder just who this fellow is, this Yuri Rudkin. Well, he’s not collecting royalties on my account! I won’t become the fodder that fuels his pen, nor will I allow him to enshrine Ivan Volkov as he does here, making that man the proud victor who tramples the Free Siberian State beneath his boot. No! We’ll do this another way.”

“Another way sir?”

“We do it man to man. I was wrong to send you off to settle the matter of my Great Grandfather. I should have gone and handled it myself. It was a small thing, yet it was personal, but this is something quite more. It’s a very big thing, Tyrenkov, and it is also personal. This little war is a duel in heaven, between men from a world you have but barely glimpsed. I can’t expect you to understand, but I have decided that I also can’t order you to be my agent of doom in this matter. I must handle the matter myself.”

“Yourself? But I thought you said you could not go up to that world any longer, sir. I don’t understand. That was the only reason you are sending me in your place.”

“Yes, you don’t understand, do you. Well understand this: Volkov isn’t going to get away with his little plan!” He held up the slim book that Tyrenkov had fetched from that other world. “Nor is this man Rudkin going to feast on my bones for his little fiction here. No! This is personal now. Get down to the bridge. Tell Bogrov to collect the ground crews and make the ship ready for operations. It looks grey out there, and I want the latest weather report on my ready room desk in ten minutes.”

Tyrenkov had a head full of questions, but an inner instinct, and his own devious intelligence, told him this was not the time to ask any of them. This was the time to simply salute, stride away, and carry out Karpov’s order, which is exactly what he did. It was time to recede, get back in the shadows, observe, wait, think. He saluted and was off to the bridge leaving the Admiral alone.

Karpov watched him go, satisfied. That was the quickstep I want to see in Tyrenkov, the unhesitating gait of compliance. I pull the trigger, he fires. I’ve used him to be the bullet of my intentions many times before, but this time things will be different. This time it was personal.

And so, my old nemesis here is going to soon get a nice little surprise. My plan may not work. I may be doomed to fail, and remain lost in time here, as this Rudkin has it. But by god, I’ll raise hell before that happens.

He sat down by the fire with his book, opening it again to begin reading it more carefully. Half way through the prologue he realized that the author wasn’t going to give him any more than a passing mention… Vladimir Karpov, was dead and gone from this world, and the fleet he had built was doomed without him… That was all he would get, a single line in the entire book! All the rest was Volkov’s. That ass would bask in the limelight of his treacherous little victory here, the “Battle of Ilanskiy,” as Rudkin came to call it.

Well I have news for Rudkin, and news for Volkov, and news for the entire world. Damn them all, I’m going back! I’m going to take Tunguska up into the darkening skies and head for the biggest goddamned thunder storm I can find. I’m going to sail head first into bedlam and chaos, but one way or another I’m going back, if Time will have me, and I’m going to settle the matter myself. Vengeance, after all, was a very personal thing.

That was something Karpov knew very well.

Chapter 3

Karpov thought, and as he did so he had the satisfaction of knowing his instincts had been correct. The heat of his emotions had led him to this sudden change, but now his mind began to find reasons and justifications, walling off his choice to protect it from any threats. It all seemed so easy. Just send Tyrenkov and his men up those stairs and put an end to Volkov once and for all. But the more he thought, the more he came to see that his own personal time line, his own fate, might be irrevocably entwined with that of Volkov now.

After all, he thought, why am I even here? I was on my way to London, my second stop in a little diplomatic tour that began when I paid that visit to Sergei Kirov. And why was I there? To forge an alliance that would strengthen my position against Volkov. So the very fact that I find myself here depends on Volkov and his treachery. Otherwise, I might be doing something else entirely.

So if I eliminate Volkov in 2021, how would Time account for my presence here? Am I safe, invulnerable to the sweeping changes Volkov’s death would cause? Perhaps here, in these years, I would be immune, but what would happen to me if I did manage to return to the 1940s? I came to Siberia and slowly rose to the top of the power structure there in that distant breakaway republic. There would never even be a Free Siberian State this time! So who would I be there? Would anyone recognize me, or acknowledge my authority? The position I built for myself there all depends on Volkov. Would it mean I could not enter that era again? Would I be forced to live out my life here, live through the Revolution, the First World War, the long civil war of Red on White?

While a part of him thought he had found himself in the perfect place to eliminate his last potential rivals, and seize the history of his nation, that outcome was not certain.

It would be long years of murder and struggle here before I reached the time I have just come from. By then I would be much older, and I might not even live to see the conclusion of the Second World War, or know what happens to Russia when it all ends. After all, isn’t that what I must set my mind on? I must assure Russia is not marginalized, ostracized, entrenched behind an iron curtain and guarded by the prison warden that came to be called NATO. To settle those years favorably, I must live to see the end of WWII. If I stay here, that will be a long 34 years to wait, and I would not have much time to live in the post-war era. If I get back to the 1940s, I’ll still be young, vital, with long decades ahead of me to settle the affairs of the world.

Yes, I must return.

“Weather report, Admiral. Cloud Master is calling for increasing overcast, and a storm front building to the northeast.”

“Very well, send to Bogrov that we are to make ready for operations. Prepare to cast off lines and make our ascent within fifteen minutes.”

A storm brewing.

Karpov did not get the details in that report, but the storm was emanating from a massive low to the northeast, over the Stony Tunguska River. A hard wind was blowing, the skies mushrooming up in tall thunderheads, their flanks rippled by lightning. It was as if some power was at work, stirring the airs to fitful wrath, even as Karpov’s own thoughts rose on the winds of his anger and determination. Soon the ship would rise to meet that storm, driven as much by that anger as it would be by the wind. Karpov and Tunguska would surge forward, sailing into the outermost squalls of doom itself.

He steeled himself, knowing he could be off on a wild bear hunt, with no hope of ever achieving his objective now, but he had to try. It was a storm that sent me here, and so now I’ll look for another, he thought. A voice within him chided that it might take many days, weeks or even months to find a storm with the power he needed to move Tunguska again. And what if he did? Where would he go? At least on the stairs of Ilanskiy there seemed to be a method to the madness of Time. The dots of distant eras were connected by the line of those stairs, but this was a casting of his fate to the wind in the most literal way imaginable.

Yet another voice, the place in his head that did the planning and scheming and reckoning, rose with his anger to still the inner warning. I have been a most unwelcome guest in the homes I’ve broken into all through this saga, he thought to himself grimly. I tortured Mother Time with my doings, and here I was about to cause her grief and torment yet again. She doesn’t want me here. I can feel it. Eliminating Volkov from here causes so many changes to the history that she’ll be long years, decades sorting out the trouble I cause. So my guess is that she will do everything possible to send me on my way.

He stepped out of his heated stateroom, his eyes looking down the long central corridor of the airship, looking up at the lattice of her duralumin skeleton, seeing the cold steel ladders rising into small voids between the massive gas bags. Men moved there, like shadowy spiders in a metal web, spinning out wires and rigging cables.

He turned for the bridge, the hard clump of his boots on the metal grating of the decking. Aboard Kirov he had always climbed up to reach the place of command, but here the inverse was true. He looked for the ladder down, descending through the mass of the ship to reach the lower gondola. Even as he went, he could hear the movement of other men echoing through the massive structure of the ship. That always gave him a quiet little thrill—the sound of other men rushing off to do his bidding. He was down the last ladder and onto the bridge, announced by the boatswain as he arrived.

“Admiral on the Bridge!”

“As you were,” he said tersely, looking for his Air Commandant.

“The ship will be ready for lift in ten minutes,” said Bogrov. “Linesmen are working the land anchors now. May I ask our destination sir?”

“Up,” said Karpov. “Climb for that weather front on this morning’s report.”

Bogrov gave him a puzzled look. “Climb for the weather front? I thought you were taking the ship up so we could avoid that storm.”

“Just the opposite. The crew will stand to battle stations. Rig the ship for bad weather and rough air. Secure all equipment. We’re going to chase lightning.” Karpov smiled. “I want all lightning rods deployed, but take the Topaz radar systems off line. I can’t risk any damage to that equipment. Make sure the antennae are retracted into their bad weather ports.”

If Bogrov was puzzled before, he was truly perplexed now. “You mean you want me to steer directly into this storm front?”

“Exactly.”

“Didn’t we get enough of a ride over the English Channel?”

“More of a ride than I have had time to explain to you, Bogrov. Just get the ship aloft and headed northeast. Understand?”

Bogrov did not understand, but he knew an order when he heard one, and he also knew that when Karpov had this mood on him he was a very dangerous man. One question after another piled up in his mind, all unanswered. Tyrenkov had teased him earlier, yet explained nothing. And he could clearly see that something was very different here at Ilanskiy. Where was the Siberian Rifles? That whole division should be here, God only knows why. Karpov left them digging in all around the town when we were last here, but there’s no sign of them now.

The Admiral has been ashore, down by the rail station, but that looks all wrong too. In fact, the town itself doesn’t seem even half the size it should be. What’s been going on here? Did Karpov have the place demolished? There’s that old railway inn, but it looks as though the work crews have been very busy. That entire west wing of the building is completely restored, good as new. Very strange… What is so damn important about that railway inn? He knew enough not to voice all this, but this other business had him worried. Deploy the lightning rods and head for the storm? What was Karpov thinking?

With a shrug, he pulled a line to the air horn that would sound the alarm for battle stations. “All hands, all hands, battle stations! Rig the ship for rough air. Deploy all lightning rods and secure all storm ports. Ballast control—prepare to lighten the ship. Up elevator five degrees on my command.”

“All lines away sir,” said a watch officer. “Tethers secure and land anchor cables are stowed.”

“Very well. Ahead one third on forward engines, and ease us on up.” He looked to Karpov now. “Admiral,” a question was in his tone, but it would concern ship’s business, and leave all his other speculations aside. “You’ve ordered battle stations, but we’re rigging for storm. Do you still want men on the upper canopy? Those gunners up topside are going to have a very rough ride.”

“Topside gun crews may take station on deck five,” said Karpov. That was one deck below the top of the ship, where the ladders that extended up between the massive gas bags opened on a small platform just beneath the outer shell. Tunguska had three twin 76mm recoilless rifles there, and numerous 20mm guns and lighter 50 caliber machine guns. There was space on deck five for crews to move laterally along the length of the airship, to repair torn canvas, secure lines or do other maintenance. And there were also hardened storage areas for ready ammo that could be passed up to the gunners on the upper platforms.

“Very well,” said Bogrov, turning to a watchstander. “Send word topside, that all crews may take station on ready deck five. Watch your altimeter and variometer, Mister Kanev.”

“Passing through 200 meters, sir.”

“Then ahead slow. Rudderman will make a gradual turn north by northeast—five points at three minute increments.”

“Aye sir, coming five points to starboard now.”

The airship was always kept with enough buoyancy to make an easy ascent without having to resort to jettisoning much ballast. When land anchored, as opposed to taking station off a mooring tower where it was easy to secure lines, the anchors were actually steel harpoons that were fired to penetrate the ground itself, with a head designed to deploy after impact to create enough resistance to keep it securely anchored in the ground. Grappling hooks could also be tethered to any suitable feature on land, and like a bee sting, when the airship cast off to ascend, the cables would simply be released from the harpoon heads, leaving them embedded in the ground. This made land anchoring expensive, as it slowly used a finite number of harpoon anchor heads. The only way to avoid their use was to find an open field big enough to actually ground the ship on its landing gear, where crews could then drive stakes to secure lines and hold the ship in place. This had not been the case here, as Karpov wanted to hover at some elevation, very near the rail station, another little irritating request that Bogrov never understood.

Why did they have to take station here at Ilanskiy when there was a perfectly good mooring tower at Kansk, just a few kilometers to the west? Then he got his answer when Tunguska overflew Kansk on approach—the mooring tower was gone, which led Bogrov to believe it might have been bombed by the enemy, though he could see no sign of damage when he looked. It was all very strange. It was as if the tower had never even been built!

Tunguska rose into the grey sky, untethered and free again, which always had a way of calming the Commandant. He was born to fly, eschewed the ground and all land lubbers as he called them. Once the ship was climbing and through the first deck of lower clouds, he always breathed easier. There the world was a much simpler affair, pristine, clean, clear. Looking down on the cottony cloud tops was still a thrill, and he had come to think of the sky as his private domain, where he could waft with a gentle breeze, or cruise with the trade winds wherever he liked. There on the bridge, his gaze extended out for miles, unfettered by trees or hills or the ugly, squarish shapes of man made things. There was no mud to soil his boots, and no crawling along bumpy dirt roads to get from one place to another.

He took a deep breath, calming himself. The endless sky, and the steady drone of the forward engines were a comfort. “Ahead two thirds,” he said to the telegraph operator, the man who would tap out the signal that would go by wire to the engine pods, where the engineers would actually set the speed.

But it was a deceptive calm in the air now. As the big nose of the ship slowly inclined upwards, turning another five points as he had ordered, he could sense that the weather ahead would be rough indeed. That had been a very hard ride over the English Channel. The ship had been badly shaken, though she bore the stress well. That said, the engineers had to reset interior cables, and even weld three segments of the duralumin frame that had been unduly stressed. Why was Karpov chasing another storm, particularly one that looked like this?

He was in the observation room now, his eyes darkening as he scanned the grey flanks of the clouds ahead. This one looks big, he thought, another goddamn bag buster. Look at that lightning! We’d be wise to get well above those thunderheads, but how high will they climb? I’ve seen storms out here in Siberia that would shake a man’s dreams for days after they passed, and this one looks bad.

And what was this order for the men to stand to battle stations? Was Karpov at war with the sky itself? We’re deep inside our own airspace here, though there had been no sign of any other fleet airship, and not a whisper on the radio set. What was happening? Was the fleet off west at the front? Was the Grey Legion making another big push on our Ob River line defenses? Karpov always left at least one airship here at Ilanskiy, which was another thing the Air Commandant never understood. It was too far from the front, and there was nothing here of value that he could think of. But the Admiral seemed intent on building out a major operations hub here. He had gathered troops, engineers, airships to this place, but now it was quiet and forlorn. What was really going on here?

“Thunderheads ahead sir,” said his navigator. “Shall we steer to avoid them?

“Steer directly for them,” Karpov intervened. “Take us right into the heart of the storm. Find the worst air possible. If you see lightning, steer directly for it. Yes, I know this is dangerous, but we survived a storm like this easily enough over the English Channel, and we can ride this one out as well.

“Aye, sir, but why would we want to do this? Are you testing the integrity of our skeleton? Engineers tell me they have good solid welds on those damaged frame girders. There’s no need to air test. Why steer for the storm and put the ship at risk again?”

There, he had finally done it. Bogrov had directly asked the Admiral why he should carry out the orders he had received. He knew that was risky, always risky with a man of Karpov’s temperament. One could never predict how he would react, but Bogrov would go unsatisfied. Karpov merely looked at him, then stared quietly out the viewport at the rising wall of thunderheads. Bogrov watched as the Admiral slowly adjusted the fit of his black leather gloves, and he knew better than to say anything more.