Crescendo of Doom

Chapter 16

Far to the east, Popski came in with a message that was a matter of some concern. Fedorov had been huddling with Troyak, trying to determine if they could hold on at Raqqah until the British got there, or if he was simply risking the lives of his men, and the Argonauts as well. It was clear to him that, in spite of the edge they had with their modern weaponry, they would soon be badly outnumbered.

The German 7th Machinegun Battalion had already appeared from the west, coming down the long road back to Aleppo. Another formation had landed by air, in spite of the mauling given them by the X-3 helicopters. Then the first elements of the retreating German 65th Luftland Air Landing Regiment began to appear on the road leading south to Dier ez Zour.

The fighting was hot near the bridge over the Euphrates. There elements of the German 7th Machinegun Battalion had been trying to suppress the defense on the northern bank by putting down a withering fire from their MG-32s. But the Argonauts had good positions, and whenever the enemy mounted a rush at the far end of the bridge, they were met by equal fire from their assault rifles. At one point, the Germans moved up a truck, trying to advance behind it for cover, but the hand held AT weapons made an end of that enterprise.

Earlier that day, Troyak had ten marines in the town itself, where they encountered German paratroopers from Ramcke’s battalion trying to infiltrate. They joined with fire teams from the Argonauts, and a brisk firefight ensued. The German troopers were good. They knew how to lay down covering fire, slowly advancing to secure a building, and then using it as a base of fire to support further movement. They were testing the defense, trying to gauge just what they were up against, and concluded this had to be an elite force, all armed with SMGs, and with some amazing hand held weapons that were very powerful.

Troyak’s Marines held, then counterattacked, and methodically drove the Germans from the strongpoint they had seized. Zykov would again have reason to boast how good his weapon was when he had to clear a room.

Fedorov was nonetheless worried about the situation. There were only ten men in the town now, and Troyak had told him they could not cover that zone with the forces they had.

“What do you think, Sergeant? Can we hold here?”

“We’ve beaten them off for now,” said Troyak. “Our firepower is just too good when well concentrated, but we’re no more than 50 men. Just putting five men on each of those two hills there overlooking the airfield takes half my Marines, and that is not an adequate defense, even with the firepower we have. As for the town itself, it’s too porous. We stopped them today, but they’ll be able to infiltrate there tonight. Our night vision goggles will surprise them, but they have at least a battalion on that flank now. It will be hard to stop. We just don’t have enough men to cover that town, hold those bridges, and this airfield as well. Pick one place to hold, and I’d give us better odds, but I don’t see what good it will do the British for us to be holding this airfield when they get here.”

“What about the bridges? Can we hold those if we concentrate our entire force?”

“Possibly, but the ground on the northern end is quite exposed. The enemy will have mortars, and once they get into that town they can fire from concealed positions that won’t be easy to hit with the helicopters. If they know what they are doing, they could hurt us here.”

“Oh, they know what they’re doing alright,” said Popski. He had just come in from the KA-40, overhearing the end of Fedorov’s conference as he arrived. “But I’m afraid all this talk is academic now.”

“What do you mean?” Fedorov could see he had something more to say.

“We’ve just got word from your ship. It comes right from that fleet Admiral of yours. We’re to pull out and return at once.”

“Pull out? Did Volsky say anything more?”

“All I got was the order to return. You can get on the radio and confirm if you wish. Argonauts say they got the same treatment. They’re to get back to their own ship as soon as possible.”

“Something must be up at sea,” said Fedorov, thinking.

“You’ve heard Rommel’s on the move again?” There was a glint in Popski’s eye. “That might have something to do with it.”

“Well. That settles it then,” said Fedorov. In one sense he felt relieved. The burden of being responsible for the lives of the men here was no longer on his shoulders. All he had to do was get them safely back to Kirov.

“Sergeant, get the men to the airfield, and be certain nothing is left behind this time. I want an accounting of every shoelace. We’re going home. If we have the fuel, I just may make one more landing along the way. The rail line south from Aleppo could use another demolition. That might keep it closed a couple more weeks.”

The men moved out, and he found himself wondering what this summary recall was all about. Rommel was moving again, and Kinlan’s force had mostly been in Syria. That could mean there’s trouble in Libya, and that the fleet has to take action to intervene. I’m Captain of the battlecruiser Kirov. Volsky was gracious in letting me run amok out here for so long.

He looked about him, noting the hills he would not see his men fight for, the forsaken airstrip, the gleam of the Euphrates to the south. This desert terrain beguiles a man in time, he thought. It’s a sea of sand, and I’ve been maneuvering out here like a sea Captain, but now it’s time I got back to my real duties on the ship. Something tells me there’s more to worry about than holding these bridges.

He was correct.

On the first of May, even as Rommel kicked off his drive east from Mersa Brega, Fedorov had arrived back aboard Kirov, and was welcomed onto the bridge.

“Good to see you again,” said Admiral Volsky. “Now that our Captain Navigator is back, the ship can actually do something more than steam in circles off Alexandria.”

“I didn’t expect to find you so far east,” said Fedorov.

“That is because we have business that we must now discuss.” Volsky briefed Fedorov on what they were going to attempt, which was a matter of some concern.

“Run the Straits of Gibraltar? That is going to be very dangerous, sir. We could be facing a great deal of enemy air power.”

“We understand that, but the German battlefleet has left Toulon and is already heading for Gibraltar. Admiral Tovey believes he has no choice but to attempt this. I have been trying to dig out information from your library, Fedorov, but perhaps you can make my task a little easier. What will we be facing?”

“Well sir, the enemy will certainly have planes here in their bases along the Libyan coast, and at Malta. That will be the first test. After that, we must run the Sicilian narrows, with a lot of Italian air power on Sicily, and the German bases around Tripoli. Getting around that will be difficult enough, and if we do attempt it, the enemy will certainly have an opportunity to sortie against us from their bases in Italy and Toulon. Once we get past the southern cape of Sardinia, I don’t think the Vichy French will bother us, but as we approach Gibraltar, the Germans could have both air strikes and U-Boat screens there”

“Just as I assumed. It’s the air power that worries me, which is why Argos Fire is coming along with us. Together we have a combined total of 232 surface to air missiles, counting the 50 missiles we still have on the short range Kashtan systems. I am hoping that will be enough.”

Fedorov nodded, feeling a little better about their prospects. “We may also have an advantage of surprise, if we move quickly. They won’t expect us to move west like this. But the submarines are a matter of some concern to me.”

“Don’t worry about them, Gromyko will be right out in front of us in Kazan.”

“I see… Well then, I think we have a good chance, sir. It will all depend on how many planes the enemy has to throw at us, and how determined they are to stop us.”

“With any luck they will find our SAM defense a formidable deterrent,” said Volsky. “They gave up trying to mount air strikes against Alexandria and Suez weeks ago. But tell me—what did you accomplish in your maneuvers?”

“Not much, sir. We served as an advance scouting and holding unit for the British, but they could not take Palmyra. Our move to Raqqa interfered with the German withdrawal there, but little else. Frankly, our raids on the rail lines around Aleppo were probably the most significant thing we did. It slowed down the movement of German troops and supplies into Syria.”

“Yes,” said Volsky. “I am told that situation has reached a stalemate around Rayak. The British used Brigadier Kinlan’s troops there, but now they are moving them back to face Rommel. That force has been truly decisive, has it not?”

“At least here in this theatre. It can trump anything the Germans are likely to commit here, and tip the scales just enough that the British will likely gain the upper hand in time.”

“It looks like Rommel is going for Tobruk this time.”

“Of course, sir. He needs that port to secure his lines of supply, and to deny the same to the British. It is the key to all these operations.”

“It is still amazing to me that unit is even here. How did it get here, Fedorov? You tried to work this out with Director Kamenski before.”

“It’s still quite a mystery. Kinlan tells me they were on station at the Sultan Apache oil facilities, and they were targeted by an ICBM.”

“Most likely one of ours,” said Volsky sullenly. “Luckily their SAM defense was enough to save them.”

“Yes, but a warhead did detonate, and we know that can create conditions where time displacement is possible.”

“But we determined it was Rod-25 that was responsible for our own movement,” said Volsky, “not just that accident aboard Orel, god rest the souls of every man on that boat.”

“It may have been that the exotic effects of the nuclear detonation was catalyzing Rod-25,” said Fedorov.

“Awakening the dragon?”

“Possibly, sir. Then, once activated, the control rod was sufficient to move the ship on its own.”

“But this General Kinlan had no such control rod at his disposal, so this is what leads you to suspect that object Orlov found. Yes?”

“True sir.”

Fedorov remembered those first, harried moments when he had tried to comprehend what had happened, and the one odd thing in the mix he had eventually focused his thinking on—that strange object Orlov had found in the Tunguska River Valley—the Devil’s Teardrop. A nuclear detonation… a Tunguska fragment… a hole in time. It was the only possible explanation. That’s how Rod 25 must be working, he concluded. It contained exotic residual material from the Tunguska event… Was this Teardrop another such fragment?

He recalled Orlov’s haunting words, describing the moment and the place where he had found the object. “The Sergeant calls it the Devil’s Teardrop. Good name for it. There was something very strange about that place—very bad.” I’ve read stories like that about Siberia all my life, thought Fedorov, as every young boy in Russia eventually did. It was our “Devil’s Triangle,” one of those unexplained mysteries, wrapped up in all the myth and lore from the taiga and tundra. Tunguska… I was right there, on the very morning that object struck in Siberia.

He still shuddered to think of that, realizing that he had seen that second sunrise, the evil glow in the sky, with his own eyes. And he had heard the dull rumble that had haunted all those stories of his youth, echoing in the confined space of that stairwell at Ilanskiy.

“We gave that thing to Chief Dobrynin,” he said. “Has he discovered anything more?”

“Go and see him about it. Frankly, the whole matter slipped my mind. I’ve been in one conference after another with Admiral Tovey and Wavell. Then we came to this decision to head west.”

“I understand, sir….”

“But you are not quite comfortable with that, yes Fedorov? Something tells me it is not only the threat of enemy planes and submarines that is bothering you now.”

“Well I was just thinking that the war is about to take a very serious evolution soon sir—Operation Barbarossa.”

“Yes, the invasion of Kirov’s Soviet Russia. Yet how can we prevent that?”

“Impossible sir. Oh, we do have means at our disposal, but I don’t think you would wish to use our special warheads.”

“Believe me,” said Volsky, “I have given that a good deal of thought. In fact I was just discussing it with Admiral Tovey.”

“You told him about our nuclear weapons?”

“Not quite, but I hinted that I had more in my arsenal than he has seen. Then a very odd thing happened. It was as if he knew what I was talking about. He had a strange look on his face, almost as if he was seeing things that were not there, ghosts.”

“Admiral Tovey has been another little mystery in these encounters,” said Fedorov. “That file box he produced was quite a shock, and he seems to be haunted by memories from those earlier encounters we had with him, though I cannot see how that is possible.”

“Those photographs and reports he handed us were the real shock,” said Volsky. “They were hard evidence of our appearance in that other timeframe. But how could they be here, Fedorov, in this time?”

“We never did reason that out. Perhaps Director Kamenski could help us, but the only conclusion I came to is that they were brought here.”

“Brought here? By who?”

“That is the mystery, sir.”

“Well it is one that needs solving, Fedorov. And there is another wrinkle in all of this that I still do not quite understand—the Argos Fire! How did that ship get here. It has no Rod 25, and I do not think that Devil’s Teardrop was aboard the ship either. Yet it is there, right off our starboard quarter. For that I am grateful now, but the presence of that ship remains a stubborn mystery.”

“Miss Fairchild never really explained that during the meeting at Alexandria. I assumed it was a result of a nuclear detonation—mere happenstance.”

“Yes, but why only that one ship, Fedorov? If this is true, and Argos Fire was sent here by the shock of a detonation, why no other ships? There must have been missiles flying everywhere.”

“We need to discover that, sir. Perhaps we should convene a meeting here, and discuss this, as we plan the route ahead.”

“I will arrange it,” said Volsky. “In the meantime, kindly go and see if Dobrynin knows anything more about that Devil’s Teardrop.”

Fedorov saluted, eager to get to the bottom of things.

“And Fedorov,” said Volsky.

“Sir?”

“Welcome back!”

Chapter 17

Chief Dobrynin had been a very busy man of late, but he had given the mystery of the Devil’s Teardrop as much time as he could.

“I’ve determined one thing right off,” he said. “That object must be kept well away from the ship’s reactors. Every time I got near the main engineering plant with it, we started to go into a flux event. I had the thing in my pocket when one started, and when I rushed to the engineering supply to fetch my system reports, things settled down, until I got back there, when they started all over again. On a hunch I just backed away—slipped right out through the hatch, and the moment I got well outside the armored shell, things settled down again. So I put two and two together, remembering the other times that had happened. Orlov was here on the first incident, and he tells me he had that thing in his pocket.”

“And I had it the next time it happened!” Fedorov said excitedly.

“Correct. So I took the thing down to an engineering lab and gave it a good inspection. I was looking to determine its makeup, but found a little something more.”

“You told Volsky about this?”

“Not yet. The ship has been in combat, running at high speed, and now we have this mission west to Gibraltar and the engines need to be in top condition. So I’ve been too busy with things, but now that you are here—listen to this! I used a phase-measuring acoustic microscope, and also an electron microscope. This thing is not a natural element, not simply a chunk of rock that has been melted by heat. It was engineered.”

“Engineered? You are certain of this?”

“I could go in to technical details, but you’d have a hard time following me. But yes, I’m certain. It was once an almost perfect sphere, at least this is what I believe now. I thought it might be some kind of bearing, which is why I used that equipment to have a closer look. We often inspect bearings to check for surface wear, hardness measurements, cracks and depressions, but the metal is almost flawless.”

“Well, what is it, Chief? Have you determined that?”

“I’m not quite sure, but I suspect it is loaded with exotic materials beneath that smooth exterior. I don’t have the equipment aboard ship to really do the job right, but everything about that object tells me that it was engineered. It’s an alloy. I’m convinced of that. We use similar superalloys in our own high performance engines, and even here in the ship’s reactors. They have an austenitic face-centered cubic crystal structure, and so does this thing, but its unlike any I have scanned before—very advanced metallurgy. I’d say it was engineered using equipment designed for nano-metrology.”

“I see…” Fedorov was quite surprised to hear this, but it only deepened the mystery surrounding this object. There it was, just gleaming in that open clearing of the taiga, very near that other oddity, the thing Troyak described as a cauldron. They had been shrouded in mystery on the taiga, spoken of in ancient lore, where they were thought to be the haunts of demons. Anyone who found one was befallen by strange ailments, vision problems, dizziness, fainting, loss of balance, unaccountable chills… and fear. Orlov had tried to describe it to him, how unnerved he had become…

“In fact, it scared the crap out of me, and I’m not ashamed to admit that. It was as if… well I could feel something was terrible there, a real feeling of doom. Your senses were keened up like a grizzly bear was on your trail, but it was deathly quiet. I never felt anything quite like it. All I could think of was getting the hell away from that place.”

“Would this be anything we might have made, in our time?”

“I suppose the technology is within our grasp,” said Dobrynin, “but it would take some very sophisticated work to create an alloy like this. The surface of that thing was remarkably smooth. Yet I can’t imagine what it would be doing here, in this time.”

“Thank you, Chief. Where is the object?”

“Locked away in a rad-safe container, and as far from the reactors as I could get it.”

Fedorov thought about this, though he could not come to any sure conclusions. Yet he kept that object locked away in the back of his own mind, wondering what it might do if allowed to really interact with the function of the ship’s reactors for any length of time.

A manufactured object, he thought. So my initial theory that this was a part of the comet or meteor that struck at Tunguska is somewhat shaky now…. Unless it wasn’t a comet… He did not know where that line of thinking could lead him, but the presence of this object here in 1941 was most disturbing. If it was machined, an alloy as Dobrynin believes, then how did it get here? Who brought it here? What was its real purpose?

He had heard all the other stories about Tunguska as well, that it wasn’t a comet, but something much more. The UFO crowd had speculated about it, filling the empty space at the heart of that mystery with their own colorful ideas. In 1946, Soviet Engineer Alexander Kazantsev wrote a story called “A Visitor From Outer Space,” where he theorized that the Tunguska event was actually the explosion of a spaceship from Mars. Many more serious expeditions had been also mounted in the wake of Kulik’s early explorations. In 2009, a Russian scientist named Yuri Lavbin claimed he had found unusual quartz crystals at the site of the event, crystals with strange markings on them. He also claimed to have found “ferrum silicate,” something he said could only be produced in space, though no evidence was forthcoming.

It was all speculation, fantasy, storytelling, just like those old legends reputed the strange metal cauldrons to be the homes of demons on the taiga. We’ve only just substituted UFOs for the demons, thought Fedorov, but this object came from somewhere, did it not?

I may not know what the damn thing is, but I know what it might be able to do—what it may have already done in bringing Kinlan’s Brigade here. That thing affects the stable flow of time, particularly if catalyzed by a nuclear environment. It may be dangerous to have it anywhere near the ship, but they had experienced no ill effects as long as it was safely away from the reactors.

A thought occurred to him now, emerging from a worry he had nursed for some time. It was May 1941. In less than 90 days they would have to face a most uncomfortable moment, the instant Kirov first breached time and appeared on July 28, 1941—Paradox Hour. That was what he called it in his inner thoughts now. It was that impossible moment when the ship, and everyone on it, might face utter annihilation if they still remained here.

What was going to happen? Was this the world Kirov first shifted to, or was it some other universe? There were no altered states when they first shifted back. The Soviet union was intact, as was the history itself, before we started changing everything. I was able to call events, chapter and verse, but I could not presume to do that now.

But what if this is the world we first appeared in, only one we have warped and changed with all our meddling? We would have to be somewhere else when that moment arrives, and it must arrive, yes? Kirov must shift back for us to even be where we are at this moment. But can there be two Fedorov’s in the same moment—one on this ship and another arriving here on the 28th of July? We have always thought that would be impossible.

We must face this soon. That meeting with Elena Fairchild and Director Kamenski is a step in the right direction. If nothing else it may at lease answer a few questions. Let’s see what we can determine.

To cover their movement west with a plausible operation, Tovey had a signal leaked in an old code that had been compromised some time ago. It conveyed his intention to conduct bombardment raids on both Benghazi and Tripoli in an effort to interdict enemy supplies. The risk was that the Germans would know they were coming, and might further reinforce their airfields on Malta and at Tripoli. That was the first line of enemy air defense they would have to penetrate, but as it happened, they found enemy air operations scattered.

At noon on the 2nd of May, they set their course west at 25 knots, thankful for some air cover off Crete for a time, until they had reached a point due north of Benghazi. At this time Rommel’s offensive was only in its second day, and the Germans had not seized airfields in the Jebel country from Al Bayda to Derna. Planes on both sides were skirmishing, and many of the Stuka Squadrons Goering had promised Rommel were still in Italy and Sicily, feverishly making preparations to transfer to airfields Rommel expected he would control in two or three days time. The Germans only real reaction to the move was to issue a warning to a convoy bound for Tripoli, place a single Stuka Squadron there on alert, and move two U-boats .

As for Malta, it was presently being garrisoned by the Italian Folgore Parachute Brigade, and its air squadrons were mostly Italian fighters, there to serve as a defense against British bombers. After a thirty hour run west, the flotilla was between Tripoli and Malta, and when Kirov and Argos Fire detected an incoming contact, an enemy recon plane.

“We could easily shoot that down,” Rodenko suggested, and poke out their eyes before they see us.” In Fedorov’s absence he had been serving as acting Captain, and was now back in his role as Starpom.

“Perhaps a little ruse might serve us better,” said Fedorov. Let us allow them to approach within sighting distance, adjusting our heading to a course aimed right at Tripoli just before they get into visual range. That should be very near dusk.”

“Ah,” said Volsky. “You want to reinforce Admiral Tovey’s cover story.”

“Of course, sir. It will be a new moon tonight, very dark, with a bare sliver of a crescent just rising about 50 minutes after midnight. If they see us making for Tripoli just after sunset, they will assume we have plans to make a run at them under cover of darkness. That plane will not have much time to shadow us, particularly after dark. Then we turn for the Sicilian narrows and make our run there. If we increase to 30 knots, we could be between Tunis and Trapani on Sicily just before sunrise on May 3rd.”

“A very good plan, Fedorov,” said Volsky. “I will have Mister Nikolin signal our intentions to Admiral Tovey.”

The ruse worked. The Germans had a Dornier-17 take a look at them, discouraged from getting too close by some sharp anti-aircraft fire by HMS Invincible. As the light faded, it turned southwest for Tripoli, and when Rodenko reported it safely out of visual range, the flotilla changed heading and slipped away at high speed.

The following morning the Germans would have two squadrons of JU-87s at Tripoli, both preparing for transfer to bases around Benghazi. The planes had just arrived from Italy the previous week, and the ground crews had been busy repainting them. They shed the normal European of dark green Schwartzgrün, and a lighter underbelly of Hellblau blue, for a new paint scheme that was more suited to the desert climes. Now they were dressed out in Sandgelb, a sand-yellow paint that was developed just for this theater. One pilot, Leutnant Hubert Pölz, was seeing his own plane adorned with an elaborate snake from tail to engine.

“Aren’t we going to get up after those British ships?” a service mechanic asked Pölz.

“What ships? They sent out patrols this morning looking for them, and nothing was found.”

“But I heard an Italian plane off Pantelleria spotted them again.”

“Pantelleria? That is 400 kilometers north of us. If they spotted them there than they must have turned last night after that sighting we made.”

“We can still get them. I can mount extra fuel pods for you.”

“What? And ruin my beautiful snake? The paint hasn’t even dried. No, that is too far for us to try and mount a hasty search and strike mission. We’ll stick to our orders and fly to Benghazi this afternoon.”

It was a fateful decision, for if Pölz and his squadron had gone north after the British ships, it was very likely that he would not come back. As it was, he had a rendezvous with destiny at some other place, and he and his plane, with its elaborate decoration, were going to have a most interesting encounter in the deserts south of Tobruk.

So it was that Kirov sailed northwest, passing Pantelleria in the early hours of May 3rd as Fedorov had planned, and getting into a good position to run the Sicilian Narrows. In 1942, and in the history they had once lived through, the place had been a choke point for British convoys attempting to reach Malta. Operation Pedestal, the ill fated effort to resupply Malta, was one of many that would be pushed through those dangerous waters. At that time the Germans and Italians had expected the British coming east from Gibraltar, but this time the surprise achieved by Fedorov’s maneuver after dusk left them flat footed.

They were spotted by a fighter patrol off Pantelleria, and word was sent to Tunis and Bizerte, as well as Toulon. There the French took the information in hand, and seemed in no great hurry to act on it. They had been none too happy with the German decision to withdraw Hindenburg from the Mediterranean. When the news finally reached the desk of Admiral Gensoul, he gave the message a well deserved sneer.

“British ships were spotted northwest of Pantelleria… What could they be doing there? Chasing the Germans?”

“Shall I order the fleet to get up steam for action, sir?”

Gensoul looked over the starchy Captain, a new adjutant to his staff that week. “How many ships were spotted?”

“Three, sir—a battleship, battlecruiser and a heavy cruiser. We can have Normandie and Dunkerque ready for operations in a few hours.”

“Very odd,” said Gensoul. “The British have only just moved two battleships around the cape to Alexandria. Now they send these ships west?”

“They must be chasing the Germans, sir.”

“Well have we received any request from the Germans to initiate operations?”

“None sir.”

“Correct. That is because they were thinking to slip out the back door and leave this business in the Med to us now. Well good riddance! They weren’t much help here in the first place, and their troops in Syria haven’t been able to stop the British there either. So let them go. Our ships are still making repairs, and I have no intention of going into action with the fleet flagship on a moment’s notice like this. Besides, the weather is bad. There’s a storm building. Get word to Algiers and Casablanca as a precaution, but we will not go running off after these ships today. Let the Germans at Gibraltar worry about them.”

Chapter 18

It was called Baba Gurgur, the ”Father of Fires,” the place where a low smoldering fire had been burning in a small crater for centuries. Local lore had it that the shepherds and farmers near Kirkuk would often come there to warm themselves on the cold desert nights, and pregnant women would make offerings there in the hopes of giving birth to a boy. Yet in 1927, when a gaggle of geologists were summoned from all over the world, it became one of the first major gushers in the region when drilled, emitting a tall geyser of black oil over 140 feet high that drenched the derrick and surrounding area in an evil black rain. And it was also the scene of one of many environmental scares that the oil industry would cause, when the ceaseless flow threatened to inundate a nearby wadi that was a major watercourse in the wet season, and blacken the fields of farmers for miles.

While one of the first disastrous side effects of the emerging petroleum industry, it would surely not be the last. From the Exxon-Valdez tanker spill in 1985, to the massive deliberate disaster in Kuwait when the retreating Iraqi Army spilled 240 million gallons of crude into the Persian Gulf, oil had been a primary requirement for world powers, the essential resource of modern civilization, and both an object and a weapon of war. In 2010, British Petroleum would struggle for weeks to cap the raging Deepwater Horizon well beneath the Gulf of Mexico, and later the massive offshore platform Thunderhorse would be smitten by the rage of a hurricane and then deliberately destroyed, sent to its demise by a Russian torpedo. In WWII, the oil wars were only just beginning…

In 1927, Baba Gurgur was the scene of a desperate ten day effort to cap that first gushing well. The local Jubur tribesmen came to the site from miles away, joining the work crews in the effort to get close enough to the gusher to try and cap it. Their near naked bodies were blackened with the oil, and many succumbed to low lying pockets of blue mist that was actually lethal gas. In the end a large aircraft engine was deployed to try and clear the black rain from one segment of the wellhead to allow the crews to shut it down. Dikes were constructed in the wadi to trap the flowing oil and prevent it from moving farther down to contaminate the nearby rivers. The well was capped after gushing over 95,000 barrels per day, disaster was averted, and the geologists had tamed the demon that would both feed and haunt an energy hungry world for the next hundred years, the “Age of Oil.”

By 1941, Baba Gurgur was considered the single largest reserve of oil on the planet, as the mighty Ghawar fields of Saudi Arabia would not be discovered until 1948. Ivan Volkov would claim he sat on vast resources in the Kashagan fields of the north Caspian Sea, but none of that had been developed as yet. The British, however, were quick to the tap, and soon pipelines extended from oil fields northwest of Kirkuk, through Iraq to Haditha, where the lines split, one transiting northern Syria to Tripoli, and a second flowing through the Trans Jordan to Haifa in Palestine. They were already considered trophies of war for whoever could secure and control them in the campaign underway, but Hitler would soon come to turn his greedy eye on the source itself, the Father of Fires, Baba Gurgur.

The German need for oil was most apparent to the planners at OKW, where Keitel, Halder and Jodl all met to discuss what might soon become a very grave situation.

“We had 15 million barrels of oil stockpiled before the outbreak of the war,” said Halder, looking at the carefully drawn numbers on his charts. “Now, with the consumption needed to launch Operation Barbarossa, we are likely to run out by late August, and that would be a most inopportune time. This operation is unprecedented in all of human history. Look at these numbers! We must move 91,000 tons of ammunition, 600,000 trucks, 750,000 horses, and half a million tons of fuel. That is 40% of all the oil stocks we presently have, and all for the opening two months of Barbarossa! Hitler had it right. When this attack commences, the world will hold its breath. On top of all this, we have this nonsense going on in Syria.”

“What about all those pipelines through that region,” said Jodl, who had been the able Chief of Staff at OKW throughout the campaigns in Denmark and Norway. “You want more oil, well there it is.”

“They run to Tripoli in Lebanon,” Halder said quickly, “which does us no good if we hope to get the oil anywhere by sea. Don’t forget the Royal Navy remains unbroken, and Raeder’s incompetence is to blame.”

“You are too hard on the man,” said Keitel. “These new naval rockets the British have developed are quite formidable. They have unhinged all his operations, and the damage to the ships is plain to see.”

“Thank god for the Führer’s order to stop his senseless Plan Z program and concentrate on U-boats,” said Halder acidly. “Doenitz is the man to rely on, not Raeder.”

“Something tells me we will need them both,” said Jodl. “The only reason the British don’t have even more power in the Mediterranean is because of the threat posed by our own naval forces.”

“Our battleships did little good there,” said Halder. “Not even the Hindenburg, the biggest oil hog in the fleet.”

“Don’t let the Führer hear you say such things,” Keitel admonished, stepping in to the light overhanging the map table.

“He has already said that himself! Why else are we planning everything around the need to secure more resources, more oil?”

“In that you are correct, Halder. But we will have a quick victory against Russia, just as we defeated the British and French last year. You will see.”

“Go on hoping, Keitel, it’s the doing that matters. So what do we have here with this latest wrinkle in the Führer’s mind?” Halder was referring to the letter he had received that morning, directing him to see to the possibility of securing Mosul and Kirkuk in Northern Iraq as part of the Syrian campaign.

“The Führer has not been fully briefed,” he continued. “Doesn’t he know that things did not go as planned in Syria? These figures on losses to 9th Panzer Division were quite alarming. We were barely able to get the division there over that antiquated Turkish rail system, and committing a unit like the SS Motorized Division behind it was a waste. Kleist was not happy about it.”

“Manstein settled him down. Remember, the Führer has ordered the entire 56th Panzer Korps to Army Group South, and all the SS units.”

“Remember? Only too well,” Halder steamed. “So what did this little foray into Syria get us? 9th Panzer Division is practically wrecked! It got the same medicine the British spoon fed Rommel. Now he’s on the offensive again, and let us see how things go in Libya. This time he should have no excuses. Paulus has been pampering him like a first born son! He has all the fuel he could possibly need.”

Keitel shook his head. “It may not be a question of supplies this time. I read the reports Paulus submitted. Yes, Rommel is well provisioned. But what about that new enemy armor? That is what caused all the trouble in Syria. This new heavy armor has rendered our blitzkrieg tactics obsolete overnight. It trumps every tank we have.”

“Yes? Well if Rommel cannot best a few British divisions in North Africa, then what happens when the Russians get such tanks?”

“That is simple,” said Keitel quickly. “We must get them as well. I have seen the new designs—the big cats—that is what they are calling them now. We have several on the drawing boards, the Panther, Tiger and Lion.”

“They will not do us much good on the drawing boards,” said Halder. “And from all accounts this new British tank would beat them all.”

“Just like the deployment of those naval rockets that have been crippling Raeder’s ships,” said Jodl. “Something is fishy about it. The Abwehr knew nothing whatsoever about these British weapons programs, and to this day, Canaris claims he can produce no evidence that any such programs are in active development in England. His men have tried to sniff out the production site, but to no avail.”

Keitel laughed at this. “Canaris couldn’t tell you what day of the week Christmas will fall on this year! The man is a bumbling fool. I will say one thing about these weapons, they have channeled a lot of personnel and resources into our own technology projects. The Army Research Center at Penemunde already has a working prototype for a missile.” His lowered voice carried the note of warning, as this was highly classified material. “The code name is ‘Cherry Stone.’ Have you heard about it?”

“Good for them,” said Halder, deftly avoiding that last question. “Talk to me about it when I can actually use the damn thing. Until then, it is nothing more than another research project and, as we have seen, they come and go, Keitel. Hitler just cancelled the Oldenburg! Yes, that was a smart decision this time, but that man can change his mind on a moment’s notice, and undo thousands of man hours work with a single sentence. Look what happened to Operation Merkur!”

“Yet the attack on Cyprus was entirely successful,” said Keitel.

“Ah,” Halder was unrelenting, holding up a finger in protest. “Yes, now we have Student’s 7th Flieger Division on Cyprus, where the British had no significant air bases, and while they still sit on Crete. Mark my words, one day they will get bombers on Crete, and the Führer won’t like it. In the meantime, the entire 22nd Air Landing Division is scattered all over Syria, and we still have troops strung out on that antiquated railroad system in Turkey. This agreement allowing us right of transit has given us nothing, really—nothing more than a means of diverting much needed military resources to a fruitless campaign in Syria. And now we are to take Mosul and Kirkuk?” He shook his head, clearly unhappy. “I have come to the opinion that all these deployments to North Africa and Syria are reckless and unwise. We could make much better use of those troops when Barbarossa begins—if we have the oil to sustain operations there.”

Halder pushed the sheaf of documents across the table now, as the numbers would argue as eloquently as he could. “Look at these figures! The Army will need 7.25 million barrels of oil per month for the operations we have planned. Between all our domestic production, and including imports from all sources, we are adding only 5.35 million barrels per month to our stocks. That is a shortfall of nearly two million barrels per month. Well, we won’t get that trying to suck it from the pipelines in Syria.”

“I see,” said Jodl, who had been listening to the discussion intently, somewhat amused. “So this explains that letter from the Führer. A pity we can’t get our hands on the oil our allies already control.”

“Quite true,” said Halder. “Soviet troops are already pushing for Maykop. Production has shut down there, and the equipment is all being trucked south to Baku. All Volkov has been sending us is one request for military support after another.”

“All the more reason to get on with Barbarossa,” said Keitel. Once we get over the Don and into the Caucasus, then we’ll have all the oil we need.”

“That may take longer than you think.” Halder folded his arms. “I do not mean to sound like a defeatist, but these adventures in Syria and Libya have certainly proved to be very uncomfortable setbacks. This will be a most costly operation, and I am not just speaking of the oil now.

“Sergei Kirov is as hungry for oil as we are,” said Jodl. “If Army Group South breaks through as planned, then that will decide the issue. You must have faith in our troops. Don’t let these sideshows in the Middle East bother you, Halder. In the meantime, what about this business with Mosul and Kirkuk? Is the Führer serious?”

“The only way we can get anything there in the short run would be to use von Sponek’s troops,” said Halder.

“The 22nd again?”

“He had a regiment at Raqqah, another at Palmyra and one at Homs. They could be consolidated in one attack on Kirkuk.”

“While the British push five brigades up the Euphrates and go for Aleppo? The 22nd had no luck stopping them at Dier ez Zou, or even Raqqah. What makes you think they will do any better 600 miles to the east on the Tigris?”

“I’ll admit, that force was rushed in without adequate support.” Keitel was twiddling with a pencil now. “But we still have 1st Mountain Division in theater reserve at Italy. Suppose we move it to Istanbul, then by rail through Turkey?”

“That could take a month, given the state of those rail lines.” Halder was not enthusiastic.

“But this is just an infantry division,” said Keitel. It won’t need much rolling stock. It should take no more than two weeks.”

“Then we would have another two divisions stranded in the middle of nowhere, and give the British another nice fat target for their new heavy tanks. If you want my opinion, we should pull out of that whole region. Yes, Hitler wants us to look at the matter, but he offers no resources. Nothing presently scheduled for Barbarossa is to be touched. So here we are moving the few pawns left on the board around, all while the British maneuver for checkmate! Ramcke took over the retreat up the Euphrates, and now he believes he must fall back on Aleppo. The rail lines south from there are already in a shambles with these commando raids—and that is another thing. I am told they have a new aircraft that can hover in place.”

“Helicopters,” said Keitel with a knowing nod of his head. “Yes, another thing that Canaris knew nothing about.”

“Well,” Halder pressed on, “supplies are not getting through to Steiner’s 5th Wiking Division, which is the only unit worth mentioning that we still have in Syria. The Vichy French have already lost Damascus, and they are barely holding on to Beirut. Now we are to go gallivanting off to Mosul and Kirkuk? No! I intend to inform Hitler that the resources for such an operation are simply not available—that is unless he wishes to lend me an infantry Korps from Army Group South. We both know what the answer will be, Keitel, so forget the oil wells at Baba Gurgur. Instead we must set our minds on linking up with Ivan Volkov.”

Keitel shook his head. “Here we have the world’s biggest oil field sitting there, just five or six hundred kilometers from our airfields in Syria, and perhaps only guarded by a few British Indian battalions, with the rest of those forces all on the upper Euphrates. Instead we choose to plow through half the Soviet Army over two or three times that distance, through the Don Basin to Rostov, and then into the Caucasus—either that or we take the Crimea first. It’s madness! No wonder the Führer has sent you this message. We should take Mosul and Kirkuk first. What about Student’s 7th Flieger Division?”

“It is standing in reserve on Cyprus.”

“Oh? In reserve?” Keitel smiled. “Something tells me you want to pull those plans for Operation Merkur out of the file cabinet, Halder. Yes?”

“The thought did cross my mind…” Halder returned Keitel’s grin. “But let’s face it, the war is moving east. It’s been decided. So now it is only a question of time, and the clock is ticking. Ivan Volkov will soon get his relief, and with any luck, we will soon get our oil. There’s no sense planning another operation into Iraq.”

“We have word Volkov got himself into another adventure in Siberia. Some kind of major zeppelin raid is underway, and there’s a big push on the Ob River line.”

Halder had to laugh at that. “And all that while he comes begging for more air support in the Caucasus. Why does he bother with the Siberians?”

“That remains to be seen…” Keitel had the look of one who might know more than he was disclosing, but he said nothing else about it, and the two men leaned heavily over the map table. “Not long now,” he said at last. “We launch Barbarossa on May 15, just as the Führer ordered.”

“Yes,” said Halder. “The storm has been gathering for quite some time, and soon it rolls east. Now Hitler will get what he wants, that much is certain.”

“The oil?” Keitel tapped the great fields of Baku again, the obvious aim of all these plans. Hitler had said: “To fight, we must have oil for our machine.” Churchill had echoed that when he said: “Above all, petrol governed every movement.” And had Josef Stalin been alive in this war, he would have repeated the phrase that summed things up from his perspective: “The war was decided by engines and octane.”

But that was not what was in Halder’s mind at that moment. “No,” he corrected. “Now he gets his war… The real fighting starts in three days, and god only knows how and when it will end.”