Devil's Garden

Chapter 11

They sailed alongside the Empress of China for ten minutes, both sides gawking at one another through binoculars and telescopes. Yet Karpov saw no reason for any further contact. The steamer had told him what he needed to know, the date and time, and now he realized that the opportunities inherent in this moment were west, in the Sea of Japan, and not the wide Pacific.

“Ahead full,” he said calmly. “We head west now. In fact, I think we may even pay a visit to Vladivostok. Stalin would be a young man in 1908, and of no consequence. The Tsar rules now, but he is very far away. It was a three week journey to St. Petersburg from the Pacific coast. The Siberian railway had only just been completed. So we are in charge of Russia’s fate in the Pacific now, gentlemen.”

“We are in charge sir?” Rodenko raised an eyebrow at that.

“Who better? I intend to reverse the misfortunes suffered at the hands of the Japanese and set us back on our rightful course.”

Again Rodenko hesitated before he spoke. “Is that wise, sir? We could affect the history in ways we cannot yet see if we intervene here.”

“That is precisely the idea, Rodenko. No man can ever foresee the real consequences of his actions. If he tried to do so he would be forever frozen in inaction. If you want to change the world, you have to act. Admittedly, I have sometimes acted badly, but that was only because the challenge was simply too strong for a single ship to overcome. The American navy in 1945 was much bigger than I expected, and much more determined. That will not be the case here. The men of this era are no match for us now. This ship can impose its will on the Pacific and make it stick.”

“What do you intend to do, sir?”

“I believe one error I made in 1945 was not first securing the cooperation and support of our homeland. So I am setting my course for the Golden Horn Harbor at Vladivostok. Kirov is going home again. It may not be the city any of us know and recognize, but it will be home nonetheless. I intend to offer my services to the Tsar as the flagship of Russia’s new Pacific Fleet. With the support of the Russian Army, we will see what we might accomplish.”

“But sir… This is 1908. What if we affect the history that led to the development of the Soviet Union-the history that led to the design of this very ship!”

“If we do so, it will be for the good Rodenko. You have to believe that. There will be no need to resort to extreme measures here as I did before. I am ordering that all nuclear warheads currently mounted on missiles or torpedoes are to be removed and replaced with conventional warheads. They will be placed in secure storage in the magazine.”

“A wise precaution, sir. Then you intend to make Vladivostok our primary base of operations?”

“Initially, but it will have the same problem that prompted Russia to look for warm water ports in Manchuria-ice. That was why Russia was expanding here in the first place. We have always sought access to blue water ports throughout our history, and we have never been successful. That is why we shiver in the ice and snow of Severomorsk and Vladivostok. Admiral Makarov of this era set his sights on Port Arthur, but the Japanese foiled our expansion here in the interest of furthering their own domination of China, and they set us back on our heels. Russia never recovered from the beating she took in the Russo-Japanese War, at least not as a Pacific Power. We never were able to achieve our true and rightful destiny here. All that changes now.”

“But how, sir? What can we do?”

“First we secure the cooperation of our homeland. Then we teach the Japanese a lesson they will not soon forget.”

“The Japanese?”

“Don’t you know the history, Rodenko? Japan’s victory against us opened the door to Manchuria. They will push us out and move right in, and we won’t get back there again until 1945. The Japanese campaign in Manchuria led to the rapid development of their army, and they will built one of the finest navies in the world over the next few decades. This is what leads to their war of expansion in the Pacific, and it took the considerable power of the United States to crush them. I intend to stop them here, now, before they ever get the chance to expand their dreams of a far eastern empire.”

“But sir! We have only twenty-one missiles in the SSM inventory.”

“Correct, but we also have thirty-two S-400s left and a hundred missiles in the Klinok system. The Americans have adapted their RIM-67 Standard Missile 2 as a dual purpose weapon. It can now be used against ships as well as aircraft. They also did this for their RIM-174 ERAM missile, the SM-6. Time to get creative, Rodenko. We can do the same. The Klinok Gauntlet missile is effective for target heights as low as ten meters. Yes, it has only a 15 kilogram fragmentation warhead, but it could prove very useful against small craft or even coastal targets, and it will outrange most naval guns of this era as well. Don’t forget our deck guns either. We have 3000 rounds for the 152mm guns, correct Samsonov?”

“Yes sir. Plenty of ammunition for that system.”

“That and a thousand rounds for the 100mm bow gun.”

“But don’t they have battleships, sir? Look what it took to hurt the American ship just now. The Japanese were able to smash our entire fleet in 1905.”

“Yes, they call them battleships, but have a look here. Mister Fedorov left quite a few of his old naval books at the navigation station and I have taken the liberty of looking up some data. These are nothing like the ships we faced in WWII. The Japanese Admiral Togo’s flagship at the Battle of Tsushima was the Mikasa. Look for yourself, Mister Rodenko. The ship is half our size in both displacement and length. It has four 12 inch guns that can range out to 18,000 meters, and fourteen 6 inch secondary batteries. Those are irrelevant, because we will never let them get within gun range. Mikasa’s guns normally fired at no more than 15,000 meters or less. The ship can make only 18 knots. We can sail rings around anything the Japanese Navy has, and pound them with our deck guns from as far as 28,000 meters. They can’t catch us, or hit us with anything they have. True, our 152mm guns will not be as heavy as those of the enemy, but they will hurt these old ships, that I’ll guarantee. In special circumstances we can use a Moskit-II or MOS-III for a decisive moment to decide the issue. And don’t forget the Vodopad torpedo mounts. They range out 56,000 meters. How many torpedoes do we have, Mister Samsonov?”

“Sir, we have a standard load of ten Vodopad torpedoes and six more UGST torpedoes available for the KA-40 helo.”

“There,” Karpov smiled. “Put a single torpedo into the gut of one of these old ships and that will be all it takes. Why, we could sink all their battleships with our torpedoes alone!”

Karpov ran his finger down the pages of one of Fedorov’s books, and then turned, addressing the entire bridge crew. “Listen to this, gentlemen. Here is a passage from one of Fedorov’s books. It presents the Japanese view of the Russian Navy in the Russo-Japanese war.” He began to read, looking up from time to time to note the reaction of the men.

“The Russians are very brave-very brave. But not many are good, and they are savages. They can be very polite when it suits them, but Russian sailors are miserable people who lie on the snow, and have very little money, which they spend in buying cheap fish. They are dirty. That is all we know of Russian sailors, who are quite strange people to us. But we have no fear as to the result of a war with the Polar Bear.”

He gave the men a long, searching look. “Hear that, men?”

“He’s right about the money and fish, sir,” said Nikolin, and the whole bridge crew laughed.

“Yes, but we’ll see about raising your salary, Mister Nikolin, so you can afford a little caviar. In spite of what this man wrote of us, we are now the most powerful men on this earth. Mister Rodenko, we have sufficient conventional ordnance to smash the entire Japanese fleet, and that is what I intend to do should they challenge us at sea. But first-Vladivostok. We’ll announce ourselves and see what kind of reception we get. Then we will see about Port Arthur and the Japanese, and we will soon teach them that this Polar Bear has sharp new teeth!”

* * *

It’s name meant “Ruler of the East.” The city was a bustling frontier town at the very end of the world, as most Europeans might regard it. Its coat of arms, the famous Siberian Tiger, reflected its wild and sometimes fierce nature. Founded in 1860 as a military outpost by about 7,500 people, it had grown to a City of just over 90,000 by 1908. In many ways Russia’s defeat in the war of 1904-05 had led to its rapid development, along with the continuation of the Siberian Rail project. The loss of Port Arthur returned the city to preeminence by default, as Russia had no other suitable Pacific port.

Vladivostok was a wild mix of many cultures and ethnicities-European civility rooting itself in the central quarter, fringed by muddy streets, brothels, bars and gaming establishments, and bordered by the Oriental quarter, Millionka, which was home to numerous Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigrants. Crime was rampant there among the opium dens, and drug lords held sway in whole neighborhoods where at times they would amuse themselves in a game that sought to discover how long a man could remain alive while hanging from a rope by his neck. The First River Penal center north of the city center was never lacking for new arrivals.

Even in the main European district along Svetlanskaya Street by the harbor quays the atmosphere was that of a devil may care frontier town, where entertainment offered by a troupe of dancing gypsies often began at midnight in the favorite Pacific Ocean Theater, and carried on into the early morning hours. Here was found the Imperial Bank, Lutheran Church, Museum, Oriental Institute, Post Office and the Upenski Cathedral, yet these staid institutions could not impose but the barest patina of civility on the place. It was still a den of thieves, gamblers, adventurers, frontiersmen, and indigent sailors, with enough cafes, restaurants, cinemas and gaming houses to keep them all well occupied. It was an outpost of debauchery at the end of two thousand miles of iron rails that scratched their way through the wilderness of Siberia. It was at once the terminal end of that long overland passage, as well as the place of new beginnings that was at the heart of every frontier.

A new beginning meant opportunity, and that prospect was not lost on wealthy entrepreneurs, which came to the city by sea in search of profit and fortune. A great department store stood near the main railway station, Kunst amp; Albers, burgeoning with wares from every quarter. Here also were the famous Versailles Hotel and the Golden Horn, offering a taste of real European luxury to passengers debarking from steamers. Military barracks surrounded the docks, a steady source human firewood for the fires of gambling, prostitution and crime in the city. Yet all this existed side by side with elegant performances at the Pushkin Theater, museum lectures, Sunday tea parties, opera at the German Singing Club, and Victorian ladies meeting in sewing circles.

With all these contrasts apparent, the city was also both a gateway to the heartland of Asia, accessible by rail and sea, and a bulwark of defense. Its famous fortress would reach final completion in 1912, standing in the shadow of concentric circles of brooding hills. It invited even as it held the world at bay and, like any gateway city, the door might be open one day or closed the next.

It was to this bawdy and feral port that Kirov now sailed, and one thing was at least immediately familiar to the crew as the ship approached-the mid-year gloom of fog and low clouds. Like many coastal cities, the heat of the summer simply added humidity to the atmosphere, and rain and fog was almost a daily occurrence in June and July. By the same token, the Arctic chill of winter would often be broken by many clear days of welcome sunshine in January and February, and the autumn was particularly pleasant, the so called “velvet season” of mild temperatures, falling leaves and soft fluffy clouds painted by glorious sunsets.

If Karpov hoped to conquer the world, as it now seemed his inner ambition once again, he would first have to face the challenge of conquering Vladivostok. Yet his first great trump card was the massive and looming might of the ship itself. With accurate navigational charts, he decided to arrive well after sunset, and with the ship’s lights darkened. They could creep slowly up through the Eastern Bosphorus Strait, noting that there was no longer a great bridge there spanning the gulf.

Rodenko suggested they at least send a telegraph signal ahead to notify the authorities that a ship of the Russian fleet was returning to base. “There will be guns at the fortress, Captain, and numerous shore batteries. We don’t want some startled gunnery officer to put a shell through the citadel window.”

“Good point, Rodenko. Very well, I will have Nikolin cable the arrival of the new Viceroy of the Far East-Vladimir Karpov, to be expected before dawn on the main quay of the Golden Horn Harbor. We will have to turn out in full dress uniforms-flags, honor guard with swords and baton. Spectacle will be a big part of our initial impression. The ship alone should put them in awe, but I want to make an equally intimidating appearance.”

“But sir…Won’t they send to St. Petersburg for confirmation on this? As soon as they find out that we have not been sent by the Tsar their suspicion will become poison. They will never trust another word we say.”

“I’ve considered that, so I will make no claim to that effect. I will say we have come on our own accord, and that will be the truth. What they don’t know works in our favor. Our words will mean nothing in the end, unless there are actions to back them up. They will see the ship, and our actions will speak volumes when we put it to good use.”

“But why make contact at all then, sir? Won’t that merely complicate matters?”

“To tell them what will soon happen,” said Karpov. “I will let them know what I intend to do, and then deliver it. Only then will my demands receive any real ear from the Imperial government here. Now, we must see to the landing ceremony.”

“Very well, sir…Or should I now begin calling you Viceroy, your grace?” Rodenko smiled, yet he was inwardly worried that Karpov’s newfound energy and ambition would end up being the same heady drink that had seen him let loose two nuclear weapons on forces he perceived as mortal enemies, and the heartlessness of a man who could do that frightened him.

The Captain moved from the edge of despair to the ebullient energy of the conqueror in a heartbeat, thought Rodenko. There is something inherently unstable about him, and without Fedorov or Volsky here, as Starpom I am the only countervailing force that might serve to moderate him. Yet thus far all I have done stand by and watch stupidly while the Captain raged on. Fighting to defend the ship in time of war was one thing. I knew my duty was clear there. But this plan to start a war that was never supposed to be fought is quite another thing. Yet what should I do?

He decided that there would be at least one other mind on the ship that might be a confederate soul in this regard. “Well, Captain,” he said. “I am glad you have recovered. It’s been a very long shift. May I stand relieved, sir?”

“Yes, of course, Rodenko. Get your rest. I will summon you in six hours, just before we are due to make port. You will not want to miss the event, I assure you.”

“Of course, sir.”