Kirov

Chapter 7

Rear Admiral Sir Frederick Wake-Walker stood on the bridge of HMS Victorious, watching the slowly rising seas. Just off his port bow, a second light carrier, HMS Furious cruised by his side. The two carriers were the heart of Force P, escorted by two heavy cruisers, Suffolk and Devonshire, along with light cruiser Adventure, and seven destroyers. His force was slowly creeping up to the Norwegian Sea, intent upon striking two bases supporting German mountain troops in the far north. The flight crews of his two light carriers would strike Petsamo and Kirkenes in 48 hours, and the pilots were already receiving their briefings below decks.

Wake-Walker was a stolid, competent, and cautious man, well experienced at sea and thought highly of by the commander-in-chief of the home fleet, Admiral John Tovey. At 53, his thinning hair was well receded, and combed tightly back lending him the impression of a proper British schoolmaster. Like most men who had reached his rank, he had a long and distinguished naval career dating back to the First World War. Just sixty days ago, he had taken part in the harrowing chase of the battleship Bismarck. Wake-Walker had been steaming aboard the cruiser Norfolk, finding and shadowing the great battleship, and then assuming command of Holland’s shattered task force after the tragic sinking of the Hood.

Well after the encounter, the intrusive First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound, had thought to bring Wake-Walker up on charges for failing to reengage Bismarck with his two cruisers and the wounded battleship Prince of Wales. Yet John Tovey would hear none of it. He vigorously supported Wake-Walker, threatening resignation should any such charges be brought. The Admiral was vindicated, and his decision to shadow and maintain contact with Bismarck, rather than re-engaging at that time, was upheld.

Now that the enormous threat the German raider represented had been dealt with, the Royal Navy was in the early stages of organizing lend-lease relief convoys to Murmansk. The first such convoy, codenamed Dervish, was scheduled to depart from Reykjavík in a little over three weeks time. Force P was now conducting a mission to pave the way. They hoped to strike and neutralize German airfields and ports at Petsamo and Kirkenes in northern Norway, and thus remove them as potential threats to the newly planned convoy route to the far north.

Yet that evening something had emerged from the distant weather front to the northeast, a great disturbance reported by a weather ship several hundred miles from their position. The message had been garbled when received, and then cut off altogether, and they heard nothing further from the trawler. Now, from the look of the far horizon, he sensed a rising storm bearing down on his planned route to the North Cape area.

The Admiral was about to detach HMS Furious to accompany the cruiser Adventure on ‘Operation EF’ to deliver a shipment of mines to the Russian port of Archangel. Furious would then rejoin his main task force for the planned airstrike. Force P was skulking up slowly, hoping to surprise the Germans, yet the long hours of daylight at this latitude would make their mission quite hazardous. He stared out the starboard screen on the bridge, watching HMS Furious riding in the distance.

A curious ship, Furious was laid down in 1915 as a battlecruiser, but was later converted to a light carrier with the addition of a flight deck and removal of her main bridge superstructures. She carried three squadrons, nine old Swordfish torpedo bombers, nine newer Albacore torpedo bombers, and nine Fulmar II fighters. The torpedo bombers were older biplanes, slow and cumbersome, yet effective enough once they closed with the target. The Fulmars had proven themselves as capable air defense fighters, and the carrier also had a flight of four more modern Sea Hurricane fighters as well. The Admiral’s flagship, HMS Victorious, had another 33 planes aboard, giving him a total of 64 planes to make the strike.

Yet what to do about this odd report from the weather ship? What little they could decipher of the message indicated turbulent seas, and chaotic atmospheric conditions. While the slate gray horizon seemed to threaten, there were no signs of such violent weather as yet. But the Arctic waters were fickle and could change on a moment’s notice, he knew. Best to get Furious and Adventure on their way as soon as possible. He was checking the squadron manifest, noting pilots assigned to the operation, when the signalman reported an odd contact to the north.

“Visual sighting, sir. Aircraft of some type.”

The Admiral raised his field glasses, scanning the distant horizon where he soon noted what looked like a small, yet odd looking aircraft. It hovered over a bank of low clouds, well within sighting distance of his task force, and he swore under his breath, wishing he had had a couple of Sea Hurricanes up for air cover. This contact was most likely a Do-18 flying boat, a German reconnaissance plane out of Tromso. It was the only thing with the range to patrol this far out, and now that he had been spotted, the news would put the enemy on alert.

He had hoped to get much closer to the coast before being discovered, and this news would now force him to reconsider his options here. Should he detach Furious and Adventure as planned, or keep the ships in hand for a quick run in to the coast in the hopes of getting off the strike as soon as possible? He squinted into his field glasses a second time, but the contact had slipped into the low clouds and was gone.

“Better notify Home Fleet,” he said to his Chief of Staff. “And have Mr. Grenfell come to the bridge.” Grenfell commanded his 809 Squadron of twelve Fulmar II fighters, and ten minutes later he was discussing the situation in the plotting room off the rear of the bridge.

“The contact was visual,” said Wake-Walker. “Strange that we didn’t get a look at it on radar first with this odd interference the last few hours. We might have had time to get your boys airborne.”

“Right, sir,” said Grenfell. “I’ve heard the antennae have been a bit rattled today.”

“Well, the thing is this. If Jerry is on to us, and we make a run at the coast now, we’ll need more vigorous air cover over the task force.”

“I can split my squadron in thirds, sir,” suggested Grenfell. “We could put four planes in the air and rotate the duty en-route, then muster the lot of them for the raid.”

“Good suggestion,” said the Admiral. “See too it, will you? And I should like to have the first flight up immediately, if you please.”

“Right, sir. Will we be keeping to our planned course?”

The Admiral considered for a moment. “Unless we hear anything to the contrary from Home Fleet, I’m inclined to maintain our present course. However…I’m cancelling the mine delivery to Archangel for the time being and keeping Furious with the task force pending further developments. In this light, you may wish to coordinate with Furious and extend your air cover with the addition of her fighter planes as well.”

“Very good, sir. Lt. Commander Judd’s four Sea Hurricanes would come in handy. I can have my first flight up in fifteen minutes.”

The Admiral was satisfied that he would not be spotted without air cover again. Yet now he turned his thoughts to the mission ahead. There was little real surface threat, as all the Germans really had in the vicinity at the moment were a few destroyers. They may have been able to slip in a Hipper class cruiser, but with Bismarck gone, the only real formidable threat the Kriegsmarine could mount would come from the battleship Tirpitz, and she was laid up at Kiel for the moment if the Admiralty’s intelligence was correct.

If Hipper showed its face, he had two cruisers here to deal with her. Even if he was spotted, the Germans wouldn’t have much to throw at him out here. Oh, the Do-18 might return again and attempt a bombing or torpedo run, but with two Royal Navy aircraft carriers present, it was more than likely the Germans would use these planes to keep a distant, wary eye on the British fleet’s movements. U-boats were another consideration, however. The Germans would likely vector in anything they had in the area, but his task force was well protected with all of seven destroyers.

All things considered, he had little reason to think of canceling this mission, though he was comfortable with his decision to keep both carriers together for the time being. Perhaps an opportunity might arise in the days ahead to let Adventure complete her delivery, but for now she would stay with the main fleet. He watched the takeoff of Grenfell’s Fulmars with satisfaction, noting that Furious had also spotted and launched two of their Sea Harriers. The planes circled the task force once and then sped off into the distance.

Moments later the Admiral was interrupted by his radioman.

“An odd message, sir.”

“Home Fleet?” He turned, expecting to be handed a decoded signal, yet his radioman was still at his post, listening on his headset as if monitoring a live transmission.

“It’s in the clear, sir,” he said incredulously. “I think you had better hear this, Admiral.”

“Well, put it on the loudspeaker then.”

The radioman flipped a switch and they heard a clear hailing message, in English, yet the speaker had just the hint of an accent that was immediately apparent to the Admiral.

“Force contact at latitude seventy degrees, forty-two minutes, forty-five seconds; longitude zero degrees, forty-six minutes, forty-eight seconds; speed fifteen knots, please identify—over.” The message repeated.

“Someone is out of his bloody mind,” said Wake-Walker. “Breaking radio silence like this? What, has he given out our position and speed as well? Captain Bovell, if you please, sir!”

“Admiral?” The ship’s Captain was at his side immediately, returning to the bridge from the plot room. The Admiral inclined his head to the overhead loudspeaker, and waited as the incoming hail repeated.

“Damn sloppy,” said the Captain. “What do we have out there, sir, some imbecile in a fishing trawler?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Wake-Walker. “How could a trawler be quoting our position chapter and verse like that? Blast! First we get this sighting by a Jerry reconnaissance plane, now this! If that transmission is intercepted our entire cover will be blown. Anything from the watch?”

“No one has reported any surface contacts, sir. Grenfell’s Fulmars are up now, and we can have a look around. I’ll check the watch and advise them to be on the lookout for any commercial shipping.”

The hail repeated.

“Very well, Mister Sims. Turn that damn thing off.”

The radioman pursed his lips, again looking at his Admiral, wondering if he should bother the man as the open band hail began to repeat again. Before he could speak, however, a message came over the speaker tube from the radar room.

“Air reconnaissance reports a strong surface contact north by northeast, approximately 40 miles out from our position. No contacts on the ship’s surface radar.”

Admiral Wake-Walker raised his thin brows, surprised. A surface contact? He turned to Captain Bovell to assess the situation. “What do you make of that, Captain? Have we found our fishing trawler?”

“Probably a stray steamer, sir. Could even be a German supply ship, though I can’t see that they would be broadcasting a message like that in English. More likely Norwegian traffic, though we have no notifications of commercial shipping from the Admiralty. Yet this could be our loose cannon. Can’t imagine how they may have spotted us, though. Shall I have Grenfell vector in one of his planes to overfly the contact?”

“That would be prudent,” said the Admiral, and Bovell gave the order to the radioman at once, who seized upon this opportunity to relate the recurrence of the hail he had been receiving. “They just keep repeating it sir, and the operator sounds somewhat edgy, if I may say.”

“Edgy?”

“Might it be a distress call, sir?”

“Perhaps, yeoman. We’ll see to the matter. Carry on then.”

“Aye, sir.”

Minutes later Kirov would activate her forward missile array and paint Admiral Walker’s ships with their targeting radars, yet the British would be entirely unaware of that. Kirov was well outside the range of their own rudimentary surface contact radar, and had no equipment aboard capable of detecting and analyzing the radar signals being beamed at them in any case. In effect, Kirov was squaring off and shouting at a deaf man. When one of their fighters finally spotted something on its radar set, they naturally vectored that plane in to have a closer look.

As the plane approached Karpov, seemed more and more ill at ease. Walking to the forward view screen, he turned and wagged his finger at the Admiral. “You could be making a serious error,” he said. “One we may not live to reconsider!”

Admiral Volsky felt the gesture strayed very close to insubordination, yet he was too preoccupied in the intensity of the situation to deal with that for the moment. Rodenko’s timing had been very accurate, and soon they looked to see a distant mark on the gray horizon that was apparently the silhouette of an inbound aircraft. Somewhat relieved, Volsky was gratified that he would finally have the evidence of his own eyes to throw into the odd mix of conflicting information they had been dealing with. The Admiral clearly expected to see the profile of a typical British seaborne helicopter, but it was soon clear to him that this was a plane, flying low already, and still descending as it bore in on their heading.

Karpov reached for a pair of field glasses where they hung on a peg near the forward view port and snapped them up to peer at the contact, his movements tense and driven by obvious adrenaline. Volsky saw his jaw slacken, mouth opening with astonishment. “What in god’s name…”

The aircraft sped in, perhaps no more than 300 feet over the water now, and Volsky could clearly hear the drone of a standard propeller type engine.

Fedorov leapt to his feet and was out through the side hatch at once, eager to get a closer look at the aircraft as it overflew the ship. He smiled with amazement, seeing the telltale concentric circles on each wing, the Royal Navy insignia, and he immediately knew from the profile of this aircraft what it was. The plane passed overhead, its engine loud as it banked quickly, climbing swiftly up toward a drift of low clouds.

Back on the bridge Karpov’s shoulders slumped, and he gave the Admiral a sallow look, field glasses in his hand betraying a slight tremor there. He took a deep breath, exhaling the tension, for he had expected the ship might even now be a flaming wreck. The over-flight had been a simple reconnaissance, not a strike mission as he had feared, yet what in the world were the British up to? What did he see just now?

Fedorov was back inside, sealing off the hatch to the exterior watch deck, his face alight with excitement and amazement, nose red from the cold.

“Mister Fedorov,” said the Admiral, “you will kindly maintain your post in the future. Compromising the integrity of the citadel is a serious breach of conduct.”

“I’m sorry, Admiral,” said Fedorov, “but did you see it, sir? That was an old British fighter plane, a Fulmar II from the look of it, the same planes that would be assigned to these carriers in the Second World War, sir!”

Karpov looked as though he was about to say something, but he held his tongue, for he himself had clearly seen what Fedorov was describing. Admiral Volsky noted Fedorov’s astonishment, relieved that he had made the right choice in holding fire, at least for the moment. But now even the evidence of his eyes simply added to the wild confusion of the moment, for what he had seen, what Fedorov was describing, was clearly impossible.

“This must be some sort of reenactment,” said Orlov. “The radio show, the old ships, and now this plane.”

“Sir,” Fedorov went on, shaking his head. “There is only one known example of that aircraft type in existence, and it is sitting in an aeronautical museum in England. There is simply no way that plane could be out there unless…” He himself stopped at the precipice of his own thinking, unwilling to make that last impossible leap over the edge into an abyss he could not hope to fathom. What was happening?

“What are you saying, Fedorov. We just saw the plane, did we not?” The Admiral looked at his navigator, his expression grave and serious.

“It was a Mark II Fulmar, sir, most certainly. That was a Rolls-Royce Merlin 30 engine, and the air duct beneath it on the nose of the plane is a characteristic feature of this aircraft—the long canopy as well. It was used in both strike and reconnaissance roles during the Second World War aboard British carriers, first introduced in March of 1941. Sir, the only known surviving aircraft of this type is the very first prototype model off the production line, which never saw active combat during the war, and it’s in the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Somerset! I saw it just last summer while on leave. There is no way this aircraft could be flying today!”

“You tell me you are certain this plane is a Fulmar in one breath and then say it cannot possibly fly in the next. Which is it, Fedorov?” said the Admiral. “How am I supposed to sort this out? Everything we have seen in the last three hours seems completely irregular. Both Orel and Slava are missing without the slightest trace—no sign of wreckage, no thermal signature on the ocean floor, no signals traffic of any kind. Severomorsk does not respond to our communications, and we hear nothing on the radio but historical documentaries and old music. Now I have twelve ships south of my position that no longer exist, and I am being over flown by aircraft that do not exist either—or was that a seagull we just saw.”

“Aircraft that do not exist in the year 2021, sir,” said Fedorov, realizing again how insane his remarks must sound.

The Admiral looked at him, astounded. “You are suggesting we are…”

“This is all nonsense, I tell you,” said Karpov. “This has to be a NATO PSYOP or perhaps a re-enactment, as Orlov suggests. Otherwise we may all be suffering the effects of that explosion. Hallucinating. To think anything otherwise is pure lunacy. What, Fedorov? Are you telling me we have sailed back into the middle of the Second World War? Go and see the doctor! You are clearly unfit for duty here.”

“I will be the judge of that,” said Admiral Volsky. Yet the throbbing in his head seemed worse than ever, in spite of the two aspirin the doctor had given him, and it was clear that all the other bridge crew seemed overly stressed and very anxious. Karpov’s frenetic emotion was keeping everyone on the edge of a razor. Samsonov still waited tensely at his combat station, Nikolin was looking at him with those big round eyes while he continued to listen to the BBC broadcast on his headset. Orlov was sulking in the CIC, his attention pulled between Karpov’s boisterous statements and the video from the KA-40 that he had been re-playing.

The Admiral knew he needed to act—to give the men something they could focus their energies on. These were his officers and chiefs. What else was happening below decks as the crew sat fitfully at their action stations?

“Rodenko, what is that plane doing?”

“It has turned back toward Red Wolf Two, sir.”

“Very well. Our helicopter?”

“Well to the west, sir. There’s no possibility of a conflict.”

“Mister Nikolin, signal the KA-40 to stand down and return to the ship. Mister Fedorov,” said Volsky. “Show me our position on the navigation board.”

“Of course, Admiral.”

“Mr. Karpov, if you will compose yourself, please join us.”

The three men moved to the clear Plexiglas navigation plot where Fedorov had been working out their position manually after losing GPS navigation. “We still have no satellite links,” said Fedorov, “but I have calculated our position here, midway between Bear Island and Jan Mayen. That squiggle there is where Orel should be, but I have drawn in the approximate radius of that detonation, assuming it was a warhead from one of Orel’s missiles, sir.”

The Admiral nodded, and Captain Karpov listened, his eyes narrowed suspiciously, as if he was waiting for Fedorov to skew off into his ridiculous theory again. The navigator went on, pointing out symbols on the board as he spoke.

“This would be Slava’s last known position,” he said. “Now we had one KA-40 here earlier, but we have moved it off to the west, north of Jan Mayen. The other helicopter is sitting on top of the undersea contact here.”

The Admiral suddenly remembered the submarine, and he turned to his ASW man. “Mister Tasarov, any developments on that undersea contact? What is Red Wolf One up to?”

“The KA-40 is over the contact’s last known position, sir. But it has gone silent.”

“I see…” The Admiral rubbed his chin. “Very well, gentlemen. The enemy wants to play war games with us and I will accommodate them. Captain, where would you place the ship to best deal with this surface action group?”

Karpov stood taller, the pained expression in his eyes ameliorating somewhat, lips pursed while he looked at Fedorov’s plotting board. “Here, sir. I would move us due west in the wake of the KA-40, to a position north of Jan Mayen, and well away from the position reported for this submarine. The island will serve to provide some concealment from radar if we put it between our position and the enemy surface action group at Red Wolf Two. And should we engage, they will have that much less time to pick up our outbound missile salvo.”

“Well thought out,” said Volsky, complimenting his Captain. The man may be high strung, he thought, but he was a sound tactician.

“How extensive is the sea ice in that region?”

“It should not be a problem,” said Fedorov, “but sir—”

“Very well, Captain Karpov. Bring your ship around to a heading of 245 degrees west southwest.” The Admiral deliberately handed the task to Karpov, and he could immediately see the effect seemed to calm the man. Karpov nodded and gave the order in a clear and steady voice.

“Helm, come about to course 245. Speed twenty knots.”

“Helm responding on course 245, sir. Ahead two thirds.”

The Admiral smiled. “Well, gentlemen. The identity of those ships may as yet be open to debate, but we will not argue the matter further here. We will operate under the assumption that this is a potentially hostile contact and maneuver in such a way so as to give our ship every advantage possible.”

“But sir—”

“Not now, Mister Fedorov.” The Admiral cut his navigator off, a determined look on his face. Someone had to act sensibly if they were ever to unravel this mystery. He had put Karpov to work and given the man something to focus his mind on now.

“Captain, please monitor Tasarov’s hold on that undersea contact closely while we move to this new position. You may also oversee the recovery our helicopter.”

“Aye, sir.” Karpov left them, energized, and obviously happy to be done with Fedorov’s stupid assertions and on to a proper tactical deployment. When he had gone the Admiral leaned slightly in Fedorov’s direction, and spoke in a very low voice. “Return to your station, Mister Fedorov. But I want you to find me any information you can possibly dig up concerning the naval situation in the Norwegian Sea on July 28th, 1941.” He gave Fedorov a slight glance, and the man nodded eagerly, a restrained smile alight in his eyes.

“You can rely on me, sir.” Fedorov was quickly off to his post.

Chapter 8

Aboard HMS Victorious, the signal from Grenfell’s Fulmar was cause for some alarm. The pilot, Lieutenant Easton, had reported a large surface ship, yet he was confused as to its type and nationality. The ship had a menacing appearance, yet he could discern no big guns mounted on the long forward deck, just a patchwork of what looked like hatches, as if the vessel was a large, fast cargo ship of some kind. He noted several smaller turrets, however, oddly shaped, yet clearly guns in the range of four to five inches, something a destroyer or light cruiser might carry. Yet this ship was big! Its superstructure climbed up in a series of stark gray plateaus mounting stalwart metal towers, battlements and masts arrayed with strange antennae and pale white domes that gleamed in the wan light. He had flown many missions with the Fleet Air Arm, and knew a warship when he saw one. This ship was easily the size and scale of a battleship.

Admiral Wake-Walker was huddled with Captain Bovell in the plotting room as the two men studied the charts. “Could this be an armed oiler or other fast replenishment ship?”

“If it is, sir,” said Bovell, “then it is certainly nothing I’ve ever heard of. A tanker mounting five inch gun turrets? It has to be a cruiser, sir. The pilot must have been mistaken as to its size. You know how doggy these over-flights can be.”

“Rumor was that the German commerce raider Atlantis was trying to work her way back to German home ports,” said the Admiral. “She had 5.9 inch guns, but latest intelligence has her back tracking for the South Atlantic. Probably heading to the Pacific.”

“I doubt that ship would be up here, in any case, sir.”

“Pity the damn plane wasn’t mounting cameras,” said Wake-Walker. “Yet whatever the identity of this ship, it seems to have vanished again. Grenfell’s pilots can’t seem to range on it any longer, and I’m not inclined to loiter here looking for the damn thing. We’ve orders to get out east.”

“At least those hails have stopped, sir. Having our position, course and speed called out in the clear like that was becoming a tad uncomfortable.”

“Look here…” The Admiral tapped at a spot on his charts. “We’ve had the fighters up for three hours now. They’ll be low on fuel and on their return leg now. Grenfell is spotting another flight to relieve them, but we won’t have much daylight left today.” The Admiral was considering his options. “Suppose we detach Adventure and a destroyer to get up there and have a closer look around for this ship. She can report and then proceed with her planned mine delivery to Murmansk.”

“It sounds like a good idea, sir, unless this is a German fast cruiser on the loose that the Admiralty is unaware of.”

“With 5 inch guns it would have to be a destroyer.”

“True, but if Adventure takes a hit with all those mines aboard, mounted on the decks as they are, it could be rather grim, sir.”

“We’ll send a destroyer with her as a picket ship. If they do run into anything they can slip away. But it would ease my mind to have someone out on our right flank tomorrow morning. I want to turn east at once—bring the whole task force about on a heading of zero-nine-five degrees. The Germans will probably have more seaplanes out and about looking for us in the morning. I want to be somewhere else.”

“Right, sir.” Bovell still seemed uneasy.

“What is it, Captain?”

“Well, the thing is this, sir. That hail… It was sent in plain English—a bit thick on the accent, but from where, sir? If Easton was at all correct on his location for this contact, there’s no way that ship could have spotted us, let alone call out our heading, course and speed as if they had us fixed with a radar signal. And we both know that’s impossible, sir. Even our very best radar sets aboard Suffolk can only range out twelve to fifteen miles for surface contacts. The only reason we could see that other ship is because we had an aircraft up with longer range air to sea radar set. Easton is reporting this ship some fifty miles north of us.”

“It might have been one of our subs,” the Admiral suggested. “If so, I’ll have the captain’s head, or worse. We might ask the Admiralty about that. Then again, perhaps it was that German Do-18 hailing us. They may have been loitering about. Just like Jerry to goad us like that. I’ll note that the hails ceased soon after we put Grenfell’s fighters up. Probably gave them the willies and they high-tailed it back to Tromso or Trondheim.”

Bovell nodded, the Admiral’s logic answering his concerns. “With your permission, sir, I’ll see that the fleet comes about on that new heading.”

“Very well,” said the Admiral. “You can signal Adventure to depart at once. Have her search the area near Jan Mayen and have a look at the weather station there. Once she’s reported we’ll send her on her way… And oh, yes. Detach the destroyer Anthony as her escort. She’s just replenished with Black Ranger and should have the legs for the job.” He was referring to the oiler that had arrived to refuel his task force earlier that day.

“Good enough, sir.” Captain Bovell saluted and slipped out through the hatch to the bridge.

Fedorov found what he was looking for and was elated. He had dragged out his volume of The Chronology Of The War At Sea, 1939-1945, Russian Language Edition, and flipped quickly through the well dated pages to late July, 1941. Amazed at what he saw, he discretely notified the Admiral that he had further information, and Volsky had ordered him below to see the doctor.

“And take that with you,” he said, pointing at the volume Fedorov had been holding. “Show that to Zolkin.”

At first Fedorov believed he was being sent down to have his head examined. After all, he was the only one who had ventured to voice the possibility that the planes and ships they had seen were, indeed, real. If this was an hallucination or other strange after effect of that odd detonation, then the whole crew should be examined. Why was the Admiral picking on him? It was Karpov, he thought. Karpov and his damnable lap dog Orlov…yet he was fortunate the Captain hadn’t put Orlov on to him, and the Admiral’s presence on the bridge seemed a calming and moderating influence over the man. Sometime later, he slipped through the hatch to the sick bay, a sheepish look on his face.

“Mister Fedorov,” said the doctor. Zolkin was sitting at his desk, a cup of hot tea steaming at his right hand. He looked at Fedorov over the top of his reading glasses, smiling. “How may I help you?”

“I’m not entirely sure, sir. I was ordered to report by the Admiral.”

“Feeling blue, are you?”

“I feel fine, sir, but the situation on the bridge is… Well, rather strained at the moment.”

“Tell me.” Zolkin waited folding his hands before him on his desk, his dark eyes studying the man and noting the peculiar signs of both excitement and nervousness about him.

Fedorov told the doctor what had transpired, the strange surface contact, and the over-flight by the old British fighter.

“So that’s what all that noise was,” said Zolkin. “What kind of plane was it?”

Fedorov related the details, making a particular point to note that this plane had been retired long ago, and only one was known to even exist.

“You saw this plane?”

“With my own eyes, sir. You heard it yourself!”

“I certainly did.”

At that moment both men were surprised to see Admiral Volsky step through the door, removing his cap and tucking it under his arm as he exhaled deeply. Zolkin noted how he closed the door, securing the bolt lock after he did so.

“Admiral Volsky,” the doctor stood at once, taking a more formal tone with the Admiral in the presence of another crewman.

“As you were, gentlemen.” The Admiral looked at Fedorov, noting the book he still had sitting on his lap. “Very well,” he said. “You have something more to say about the situation, Mister Fedorov? Something in that book there?”

“Well sir, you asked me to find as much information about operations in the Norwegian Sea for the period we discussed. He glanced warily at the doctor, not knowing how much he should reveal, but the Admiral’s expression made it clear that he should speak freely. “It’s here, sir,” he began, “I marked the place here on page 75.”

“Read it to me, please.”

Fedorov opened the book, his ink stained finger tracing its way midway down the central column on the page as he began to read. “22 July through 4 August, Arctic sector. British carrier raid on Kirkenes and Petsamo. From 22 to 25 July the ships earmarked for the operation are assembled in Iceland…” He paused, skipping ahead slightly. “Here it is, sir… on 26 July the mine laying cruiser Adventure, used as a transport to Murmansk, leaves with the destroyer Anthony. There follows later Force P under Rear Admiral Wake-Walker, consisting of the aircraft carriers Furious and Victorious, the heavy cruisers Devonshire and Suffolk, and destroyers Echo, Eclipse, Escapade and Intrepid… It’s all here, sir.” He handed the Admiral the book, pointing out the passage with his finger. “The Russian translation. A very rare find I picked up in London last summer.”

The Admiral read the passage, squinting at the fine print, yet nodding as he did so. “Ten ships,” he said.

“Two more destroyers and a tanker join the task force as well, sir. They refuel and Wake-Walker proceeds with this attack, which was rather disastrous. The Germans were ready for them. They were spotted by a seaplane and the Luftwaffe had Me-109s lying in wait for them when they launched to attack the harbors. Several British squadrons were cut to pieces.”

“I see,” said the Admiral. “These ships mentioned here, they are the same vessels you identified in the video?”

“I believe as much, sir. The video clearly shows those carriers and 8 inch gun Kent class cruisers. I’ve looked up the these names in my old copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships, and compared the photos to the video images we had. Suffolk is a Kent Class cruiser, sir. There’s no question about that—two turrets forward, two aft, and three stacks amidships. Devonshire was London class, but they’re all considered County Class heavy cruisers.”

The Admiral closed his eyes, that headache still refusing to leave him in peace. “You’re going to have to do more for me than a couple of aspirin, Dmitri,” he said to the doctor. “If I thought I had a headache before, what Fedorov is telling me now is something even you may have no remedy for.”

The doctor was very curious, leaning forward, looking over his glasses at the volume the Admiral was paging through now. Volsky related the details concerning the video feed from the helicopter, telling him how Fedorov’s keen eye had apparently identified the flagship at first sight as HMS Victorious, not to mention the plane that overflew the ship a few hours ago.

“You mean to tell me you actually have live video images of the ships?”

“Yes, Dmitri. That’s what so, confounding about this whole thing! The evidence is right before our eyes. I saw that plane myself—everyone on the bridge did. Mister Fedorov here took it upon himself to rush out onto the outer watch deck and have a very close look.” The Admiral gave Fedorov an admonishing glance. “Yet this passage here names the very same ships our helicopter filmed just hours ago. Now… the Captain believes we are all hallucinating, that this is some elaborate psychological operation undertaken by NATO, and if that is true, then they have cooked up something really sinister this time. Everything that has happened since that detonation near Orel has been one impossibility after another. Could these effects result from a nuclear detonation, from radiation exposure? This I wonder. Yet we have not detected any radiation threat whatsoever. And Mister Fedorov here has voiced the only possible scenario where the presence of these ships and planes makes even the slightest bit of sense.”

The Admiral looked at his navigator, as if handing him the baton and urging him to speak his mind. Fedorov cleared his throat, again realizing how insane his words might sound. Was the Admiral merely sounding him out here in front of the doctor so that he could demonstrate his odd behavior? He put that thought aside, preferring instead to believe the Admiral was a confederate and not an adversary concerning his views on the situation.

“This will sound crazy,” he began. “But as I said on the bridge, sir, the presence of these ships and planes cannot be explained in the year 2021, which can only mean…”

Both men waited for him to finish the thought that they themselves were thinking. Fedorov took a deep breath, forging on. “The BBC news broadcast we received on the radio, sir… Did you hear the date? It was this exact date, sir, 28 July 1941. And right there, in that book…” He stopped, the conclusion obvious to them all.

No one spoke, but both the Admiral and Navigator looked at Zolkin, as if his take on the matter would certify their own sanity or delusion, one way or another. Each, in their turn, had come to suspect the incredulous notion that something profound had happened to the ship.

Zolkin considered all the information they had shared with him, recalling the deep thrumming drone of the aircraft that he heard some time ago, and piecing together stories various crewmen had left with him as they filed in and out of his sick bay these last several hours. Many had complained of headaches, nausea, some experiencing an unaccountable dizziness. Yet he had found no sign of fever, infection, or other pathogen in his examinations, and there was no evidence of harmful radiation emanating from the strange explosion that had set the sea aglow all around them hours ago. Others simply complained that they could no longer access the Internet on their pads and personal computers, and the sudden sense of isolation only added to a rising anxiety that was running through the crew.

“28 July, 1941,” he breathed, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Of course I have not seen this video, or this aircraft you speak of, but I will take your testimony on faith. So let us reason the matter through. We have video images, radio broadcasts, and the over flight of a single aircraft that Mister Fedorov has identified as an old British fighter plane. The first two could be deliberate deceptions, though I assume you have inspected this video file obtained by the helicopter and found it to be valid, yes?”

“I had Nikolin go over it with a fine toothed comb,” said the Admiral. Orlov was curious about it as well, and would not rest until he had run the footage through the wringer. We find no evidence of tampering. I do not believe, as Karpov suggests, that this file was a video feed by NATO designed to deceive or confuse us.”

“Though it has done exactly that,” said Zolkin. “So…At the risk of reinforcing a fantasy, let me play the devil’s advocate here. If these ships and planes do exist, as real and tangible things, and if we trust what we have heard on the radio is no mere documentary, then let us assume the most outrageous possibility that we are no longer in our own time…”

“Yes,” said Fedorov, “But how is that possible?”

“The explosion…The sea…” The Admiral began. “It was very odd, Dmitri. Like nothing I have ever experienced.”

The doctor nodded. “It seems to have had some unusual effects on the whole ship.” He told the Admiral of the many complaints registered by various crew members.

“Dobrynin in engineering said they picked up strange reading from the reactors,” said Volsky. “He said things did not sound correct, and I know enough about ships at sea to take such a statement seriously.”

“Alright, for the sake of argument, if nothing else,” said Zolkin, “let us construct a plausible scenario. Suppose the Orel did have an accident, either with one of her missiles or reactor cores. There is a massive explosion, right at her plotted position, and this has some strange effect on space-time. Who knows, perhaps our reactor cores were affected as well.”

“Space-time?” Volsky frowned.

“That’s what we live in,” said Zolkin. “Four dimensions that we know of, length, breadth, height and time. Lump them together and we get space-time, unless Einstein is mistaken.” He laughed. “Alright… now, I am no Einstein, but if a massive explosion can move things in the three dimensions comprising space as we know it, why not the fourth as well?”

“You are suggesting we were literally blown into the past by the shock wave of this explosion?”

“For the sake of argument,” said Zolkin. “Let us suppose as much. If we take this view then everything we have observed would make sense in that light. The only place in which it remains confounding, and clearly impossible, is if we assume we are still in our own time, the year 2021. It is only there that these ships and planes and voices on the radio become inexplicable, correct?”

The Admiral nodded, and Fedorov shook his head as well, his eyes wide with renewed excitement. If the ship’s physician could believe these things, then he was not losing his mind after all. The doctor went on.

“And considering a few other oddities…Slava and Orel have vanished, yes? Well perhaps Orel was destroyed by this explosion, and Slava remains unaffected, still in position, only in the year 2021 where she should be. That ship was well south of Orel’s position, the shock wave may not have been enough to move her. So that would account for her disappearance. In fact, from her perspective, we are the ship that has vanished!” He laughed at that, pleased with his own circuitous reasoning. “Slava’s captain could be there thinking that both Orel and Kirov were destroyed in that explosion. What else would he conclude?”

“As to the other oddities, if this is July of 1941, Mister Fedorov would indeed have no GPS satellites to communicate with, nor would the crew be able to log on to the Internet, as they have all been complaining. Severomorsk was not a major modern naval base until well after WWII, though I believe we had air fields there in 1941. But the place wasn’t even called Severomorsk until the 1950s. It was Vaenga before that time, right?”

“Yes,” said Fedorov, “and the fleet was called the White Sea Flotilla back in 1941, not the Northern Fleet.”

“So perhaps this explains the silence from North Fleet headquarters,” Zolkin continued. “All these clues make sense if this is indeed the year 1941.” He finished, taking a sip of tea and looking at them matter of factly.

“Now then…” Zolkin cleared his voice. “On the other hand, let us take Captain Karpov’s view that this is a psychological operation staged by NATO. Let us assume the explosion was a new weapon of some kind, designed to disorient and impair mental functioning. Who knows what they have come up with? A microwave bomb? Who knows? Under this theory, we would have to assume that the video feed was fed to us, in spite of your rigorous examination of that file. And we must assume that all these radio transmissions are false. That means NATO would have to be able to control the transmission of virtually every radio station on earth, correct?”

“Nikolin has monitored, London, Moscow, Oslo, New York, even Tokyo on shortwave bands. Every single station is broadcasting old documentaries from the Second World War.” Fedorov folded his arms, waiting.

“Correct, unless NATO has some kind of electronic spoofing ship out there that is quietly jamming normal radio bands and broadcasting this misinformation on all known channels from that era. This, too, is a possibility.”

“What about the Fulmar!” Fedorov said quickly. “Did they manufacture that as well?”

“Correct,” said Zolkin. “You tell me these planes no longer exist, but what if this model was rebuilt just for this exercise. Is it not odd that only this single plane was sent against us from this British carrier task force? We have seen nothing else.”

“But why, Dmitri?” said the Admiral. “Surely this is a great deal of effort to toy with us as you suggest.”

“If they are testing a new weapon, some top secret black–ops gizmo, then in this light we have an equally compelling scenario, yes? Perhaps they wish to observe the effects of this weapon first hand, monitor our reaction. Yes, it would be real psychological warfare on a much grander scale, and we are their guinea pigs for this nefarious experiment.”

“What about Slava?” asked Fedorov. “How could they make her disappear?”

“She may have been intercepted, boarded, and escorted from the scene to reinforce our confusion,” said Zolkin.

Admiral Volsky looked at Fedorov, and back at the doctor. “Which is it, Dmitri? The situation is insane under both scenarios. Boarded? That was a Russian cruiser—old, but still armed and fully capable of defending herself. We would have seen her missiles, detected some evidence of a battle, but there was nothing—only this strange undersea explosion, and she was gone. Which am I to believe?”

“Take your pick,” said Zolkin. “You must assume one scenario or the other, and then act accordingly. Fedorov tells me the ship’s radar was amiss just after that detonation. Perhaps there was a battle, but you could not detect it. In any case, if the ship was displaced in time as a result of this explosion, and it is indeed 1941, that will soon become apparent to anyone determined to test that hypothesis with actions. If, on the other hand, this is an elaborate NATO ruse, that can be tested by bold maneuvers as well, yes? You say there is a task force out there? Then find it. Confront it. That will solve the issue one way or another.” The doctor took a last sip of his tea and folded his hands, smiling.

“It certainly would,” said the Admiral. “Yet to do so would mean we would have to sail within visual range of that surface action group. If things came to a fight, it would not put us in a very good position. We noted 12 ships in the enemy group.”

“Well, if they are old British ships from the Second World War, what have you to worry about?” Zolkin raised his hands.

“Pardon me, sir,” said Fedorov. “I would not underestimate this British fleet, whether it was from 1941 or the present. Those two carriers will have roughly thirty planes each, so we might be facing simultaneous attack by sixty aircraft. And those two heavy cruisers have eight big guns each that can range out to twelve miles. We would have to be within that range to make a certain visual contact in these weather conditions. I don’t have to tell you what an eight inch diameter shell might do to some of the equipment we have on board. Only the two command citadels and reactor core areas are armored well enough to take such a hit and possibly survive intact. Suppose it were to penetrate the forward hull and ignite the missile fuel on our Moskit-IIs? Our armor there is only 80 to 100 millimeters thick, and an 8 inch shell can penetrate that easily enough. As powerful as we may be, this ship is very vulnerable at close range like that.”

“Which is why Captain Karpov wants to take the ship up behind Jan Mayen, putting the island between us and this enemy task force. From there we can fire our fast missile barrages with much greater effect. It’s a much stronger defensive position.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor. “Assuming this is 1941, your point is well taken, Mister Fedorov. But if it is still a late summer day in 2021, then we may find the enemy surface action group is no more than one or two NATO picket ships with these electronic spoofing devices broadcasting a false radar contact along with their dummy radio and video feeds. As I said before, bold action in either case, will settle the matter one way or the other. You have no choice, Admiral. You will eventually have to close with this task force and discover the truth.”

“That may not be necessary,” said Fedorov quietly.

The Admiral looked at him, waiting. “You have another idea Lieutenant Fedorov?”

“Well, sir, now that you mention Jan Mayen, there’s a weather station there, and we’re heading that way even as we speak. I thought about this after we lost satellite GPS, so I switched to Loran–C, as there is a big antenna on the island, or at least there was one after 1960. That was down too when I tried to get a signal. Yet there still should be a meteorological station there. It was burned down when the war started, but the Germans never occupied the island, and men were back with a small Norwegian military detachment in 1941 to restore the weather station and set up a coastal radio relay outfit there. In our day there’s a four man team there year round at Metten, or the Met as we call it. So all we have to do is send a helo with a few men to see who’s home. Surely they can’t hide all those modern prefab buildings and other facilities on the island. If we find them we will know this is 2021, as it should be. If we do not…”

The Admiral smiled broadly, looking at the doctor, who laughed, nodding his head. “There you are, Admiral,” he said. “I certify your navigator as sane and fit for duty!”

The Admiral stood up, clasping his Lieutenant on the shoulder. “Fedorov,” he said. “You’re a genius! Return to your post now, but say nothing of this to the Captain. I’ll be along shortly… Oh yes, may I borrow your book for a while?” He held up the volume Fedorov had shared with him.

“Certainly, sir!”

When the Lieutenant had left them, Admiral Volsky sat quietly with his old friend again, briefly flipping through a few pages of the book Fedorov had given him. “An enterprising young officer,” he said of his navigator.

“That he is, Leonid.”

The Admiral looked up at the doctor, saying nothing for a moment. “Tell me, Dmitri. What do you really think?”

Zolkin thought for a moment, then spoke in a quiet, serious tone. “Karpov is probably correct,” he said. “I argued Fedorov’s point as well as I could, but I’m not so sure I can get my mind around his ideas just yet. You have to admit, it would be an amazing development, yes? Think of it my friend…You would be commanding the most powerful ship in the world if Fedorov’s story was true. The only catch is this…” The Admiral noted the gleam in Doctor Zolkin’s eye as his friend gave him a hard look. “Who’s side would you be on in this war? That book there,” he pointed, “would tell you everything you need to know about the war at sea. Russia and Britain were allies in 1941, but by 2021, things have taken a different course.”

The Admiral raised his eyebrows, smiling, yet his eyes held that distant look again, as if his thoughts were wandering with all the lost souls that had ever sailed these seas. The doctor could see that the question had a profound effect on his friend, kindling a state of mind that the Russians called toska. There was no English equivalent for the word. It’s meaning was something akin to “forlorn sadness,” a melancholia born of the interminable winters and harsh conditions of life in Russia, and a deep longing to be somewhere else, in a place of comfort and warmth where the challenges of life were replaced with quiet and safety. Yet more than this, toska touched upon some inner hidden spiritual anguish of the soul, like that old ache in the Admiral’s tooth that warned him of bad weather. It was a restless anxiety in one sense, and a deep inner yearning in another.

“Well,” said Volsky at last. “Thanks to Mister Fedorov, we’ll know where we stand soon enough, Dmitri. I’m off to the bridge to get that helicopter over to Jan Mayen. I’ll keep you advised. We should know what is happening in a few hours.”

Chapter 9

Karpov was pacing restlessly on the bridge seemingly impatient over something, and occasionally peering through his field glasses at the rising seas ahead. He put the ship into passive mode, stilling the active radar sweeps the ship was blasting the enemy surface action group with and slipping quietly away to the west. He recovered one KA-40, leaving the second in his wake to keep a lookout for the undersea contact that had disappeared. The last thing he wanted was a stealthy American attack submarine creeping up on him. It would be all of 15 hours before he had the ship where he wanted it, assuming he kept on at just 20 knots.

For the moment they saw no further sign of enemy aircraft, though the sight of that old prop-driven plane had been somewhat of a shock to him. Perhaps NATO had deployed a new type of small spotting plane with a turbo prop engine, he thought. Yet they had seen no sign of an orbiting enemy AWAC surveillance plane on their scopes. Unless NATO had managed to completely mask their signals, these two enemy carriers were being quite devious. There should have been a vivid radio-electronic signature around a carrier action group like this—if there really were carriers there. He still suspected that the video footage had been fed to them by NATO PSYOP elements—disinformation, nothing more. He had a mind to turn at any moment and send in a barrage of twenty Sunburns that would wreak havoc on this surface action group, no matter what was there. That would teach them to play with fire, he thought.

The Admiral was below decks resting, and Karpov was glad to have freedom of action on his bridge now. Orlov was still sitting with Samsonov, joking with the burly weapon’s chief, and he had the ship’s crew at condition three, standing down from full action stations to try and relieve the tension on the ship. The crew was still largely in the dark as to what had happened. They all were. Eventually something would have to be said about it to quash the mess hall rumors that were sure to be spreading from deck to deck even now. Were they are war? The crew had a right to know.

The Captain was considering taking a few hours leave and turning the bridge over to Orlov when Rodenko noted a change in the surface contact he was tracking.

“Two ships are breaking off from the main body, and bearing on an intercept course for our plotted position, Captain,” he said. Karpov was at his side immediately.

“Show me.”

“Here, sir,” Rodenko pointed to his screen. “I make that two ships heading north at…twenty-two knots. If they keep on that heading, sir, they will be moving to a position just south of Jan Mayen.”

“Their ability to track us is better than we thought,” said Karpov.

“Unless they deduced what our most likely maneuver would be, sir. This could simply be a radar picket to screen the main body. It continues to move east at 15 knots, toward Norway.”

Karpov’s eyes narrowed.

“Where will they be when we reach our intended position?”

Rodenko pressed several switches, and the screen displayed with a new predictive plot. “About here, sir,” he said. “Looks like they want to get some range from us. They obviously know where we are heading.”

“That would be typical of a carrier force,” said Karpov. The carrier group would want to stand off and use the range of its aircraft to strike from a distance. In close, the reaction time to defend against Kirov’s fast missiles would dwindle to minutes.

“What about the weather, Rodenko? What about that storm?”

“The front is there, sir. Out of the Northeast now. Odd that the winds shifted so dramatically. I was tracking it out of the northwest before that detonation. It seems to have weakened somewhat as well. I make it no more than force five winds. There’s been no signal from the Met on Jan Mayen so I don’t have their readings yet.”

The weather might be a factor in the enemy’s planning as well, thought Karpov. All weather aircraft could launch and use that front to screen their approach. Then again, the carriers might just wait until the front passed their position before they would launch. He had to be ready for either contingency.

Fedorov reported as he came through the rear hatch, saluting. “Permission to resume my station, sir.” He waited, respectfully as Karpov looked his way.

“Carry on, Lieutenant” the Captain said tersely. “And I hope the doctor gave you a good examination, Mister Fedorov.”

The navigator said nothing, slipping quietly over to his post, and appraising the ship’s present position to update his manual chart. He could still rely on radar reports, but thought it best to have a backup in any case. He quickly surmised their situation, and noted that two ships had been detached from the surface contact and were steaming north towards Jan Mayen. That has to be Adventure and Anthony, he thought, remembering the narrative from his history book. They were detached to deliver those mines to Murmansk before rejoining the British carriers. Then he remembered something else from the history. The carrier Furious was supposed to be with them, yet the feed he had from Rodenko’s board showed only two ships had been detached. Something had clearly changed, and that thought gave him a strange, queasy feeling.

They were changing the history!

Somehow the presence of Kirov and the brief, fleeting contact with the British forces had already done something to change the events that were clearly written up in his Chronology of the War at Sea. While the full implications of that were not immediately apparent to him, even this subtle variation seemed deeply foreboding. A hundred questions came to mind, but he pushed them away, unable to deal with them for the moment. Yet the feeling remained with him, an ill-omened awareness that the world was no longer what it once was, what it should be, and that Kirov was somehow responsible.

He said nothing of this to the Captain, holding his thoughts close and busying himself with his navigation plots. Where was the Admiral? Why was he taking so long to return? The answer to all their questions was just a few hundred kilometers to the southwest, on Jan Mayen. When Admiral Volsky finally appeared, Fedorov breathed an inward sigh of relief.

The Admiral had spent the last hour and a half in his cabin reading from Fedorov’s book. As eager as he was to resolve the confounding riddles he had been dealing with these last hours, the lure of the information presented in the volume seemed too compelling. It was as if he had already determined what the most likely outcome of his mission to the isolated island outpost would be, a feeling that he was now actually facing the impossible notion that the world was off its kilter, and that he and his ship had slipped through some gaping crack into another time. If that were so, he wanted to know what the days ahead might hold for him, and Fedorov’s volume was quite enlightening. Finally, his need for certainty outweighed the fanciful thoughts that danced in his mind and he roused himself, returning to the bridge.

“Admiral on the bridge,” said a mishman at the watch.

“As you were, gentlemen,” said Volsky.

Captain Karpov straightened himself and turned to acknowledge the Admiral, leaving his conference with Rodenko.

“We’re twelve hours northeast of Jan Mayen,” said Karpov. “I’ve come to a heading of 250, but Rodenko reports two ships have broken off from the main group and are heading north on an intercept course at 22 knots.”

“They are heading for the island?” asked Volsky.

“Apparently so,” said Karpov. The Admiral seemed surprised by something, though he could not think what it might be. This seemed a predictable tactic in the Captain’s mind and he said as much. “These are most likely radar pickets to screen the main body, sir. We’ll have to be ready to deal with them.”

Volsky glanced up at Karpov beneath his heavy brows. The man was still convinced this was a NATO maneuver, and his thoughts and actions ran entirely along that track. Yet the aggressive undertone in his remark did not go unnoticed. Karpov was plotting out the best way to kill these ships and defend Kirov from any possible attack. That was admirable in one respect, but he knew he would have to keep a firm rein on his Captain if events led them onto a difficult situation.

“I want to get there first,” said Volsky. “Is the KA-226 refueled and ready for operations?”

“Sir? Well, yes, I believe so, Admiral.”

“Very good. I had a chat with Mister Fedorov earlier. Both his GPS and Loran–C navigation links are down and he believes he might be able to re-sync with the facility on Jan Mayen. Captain, please order the KA-226 to be ready for liftoff in fifteen minutes. I’m sending Mister Fedorov over to coordinate…” He allowed a deliberate pause, then leaned in a little closer to the Captain, lowering his voice. “The fresh air may do him some good. But as Norway is a NATO member, I think it wise that we include an armed detachment of Marines with this visit. Do you concur?”

Karpov brightened at that suggestion. “Good idea, Admiral. I’ll have Orlov select the men.” It seemed the Admiral was finding his backbone, he thought. He had considered the possibility that a NATO force could have been operating on the island, complicit in the operation they were dealing with.

“Speaking of the devil…” Admiral Volsky looked for his dour Chief and found him with Samsonov. “Mister Orlov, would you kindly join us?”

“Right away, sir.” Orlov gave Samsonov a reassuring tap on the shoulder and walked briskly over to the Admiral. “How is the headache, sir?”

“Still there, Orlov, but I’m going to see if you can help clear things up for me.”

“Sir?”

“I want you to select a marine rifle squad and pay a visit to the weather station out on Jan Mayen. I’m sending Mister Fedorov along as well. We want to see why our Loran-C navigation feeds are down. Land at the station and secure the complex with your marines. Mister Fedorov will then report directly to me by radio, and if, for any reason, communications are not possible, then Mister Fedorov will document activities there and you will return to the ship as quickly as possible. Is that clear?”

“I’ll see to it, sir. But what are we looking for?”

“Fedorov will handle that. He will direct the initial over-flight and select the landing spot. Understood? And he is to have free reign to make any investigation deemed necessary there. You are to support and secure his effort and make a safe return.” The Admiral gave him the hint of a smile. “One more thing… as the island is officially Norwegian territory, please be polite, Mister Orlov. Firm, but polite, yes?”

Jan Mayen was a bleak Arctic island, shaped a bit like a turkey leg and stretching some 32 kilometers from end to end. The thicker, northern segment was dominated by the Beerenberg Volcano, an imposing 8,000 foot high cone that was entirely covered with ice and snow year round. At the narrow handle of the leg there were flat, featureless lowlands, and it was here that a few hardy souls would hold forth in a small number of scientific and communications facilities.

Once the Vikings had landed here during their wandering exploration of the region. In the 1600’s whalers thought to set up a commercial center there with over a thousand men, and Denmark and Norway haggled over possession of the island until it was eventually abandoned after 1650, left a deserted and desolate frozen rock in the Arctic sea until a weather station was set up there in 1921. When WWII broke out it was home to no more than four Norwegian meteorologists, and their buildings were burned in 1940 when they abandoned the post in fear of imminent German occupation. Deemed “Island X” by wartime planners, Jan Mayen was considered an important Arctic outpost, and by March of 1941 a few meteorologists and Norwegian troops returned to set up a radio relay station and weather outpost again. The Germans bombed the place and occasionally tried to slip a few men ashore by U-boat, but it largely remained in Allied hands throughout the war, the only free Norwegian soil until Germany capitulated in 1945.

The radio soundings and pressure, temperature, and humidity checks made by the station offered a vital early appraisal of the weather, and figured heavily in some of the most momentous decisions of the war, particularly Eisenhower’s choice as to the timing of the D-Day invasion. By 1959 NATO set up a large 200 foot Loran-C antenna for Long Range Radio Navigation which eventually saw a few more buildings set up at facility called Olonkin. In modern times the meteorological station was a sturdy pre-fabricated all weather building with aluminum siding painted olive drab green, and a rust colored burgundy roof that blended in with the loamy russet soil there. Compared to earlier facilities, it would seem like a luxurious lodge. In WWII the station was built on the old burned out ruins of the 1921 facility, with a few salvageable beams of wood forming a lean-to against the biting arctic wind, and a trench dug into the stony cold ground there. Yet by 2021 it was a comfortable, modern facility, with a sitting room mounting the hide of a great polar bear on its wall, a library, full kitchen, and offices equipped with computers and satellite phones.

Fedorov planned to head for this location first. If the building was not there it would tell him everything he needed to know. He was seated up front, sandwiched between the pilot and Orlov, and feeling a bit uncomfortable next to the sour faced Chief. Orlov was a temperamental man. One moment he could chat with you as if you were an old friend, and the next minute he would berate you for the slightest lapse of duty. It was clear that he was not happy to be put into a support role on this mission.

“What were you doing in the sick bay, Fedorov? The Admiral seems overly fond of you all of a sudden.”

Fedorov noted the implication, but dared say nothing in return. He sat silently, uncomfortably, and pretended to be scanning ahead for the island. A squad of six Marines were seated on the two back benches, led by the ruthlessly efficient Sergeant Kandemir Troyak, the stony, iron man of the ship’s twenty man marine detachment. Fedorov was not a fighting man. His skill as a navigator and pathfinder were well proven, but he felt ill at ease with the gruff and dour faced marines.

It was not long before they spotted the high icy cone of the volcano ahead, and Orlov needled Fedorov as they approached the bleak island. “What have you been digging up this time, Fedorov? Got on the Admiral’s good side, did you? Are you thinking to get your hands on some vodka or perhaps a box of those wonderful Cuban cigars?”

The Admiral’s generosity was well known with those that had gained his favor, but Fedorov merely smiled. Volsky had pulled him aside and told him to say nothing of their discussion with the doctor, and keep his wits about him at all times, particularly with Orlov and Troyak aboard.

“Make for the panhandle, that narrow low-lying neck there,” Fedorov pointed as they drew closer. “I want to over-fly the Meteorological station first.”

The helo banked and edged around the flank of the stark icy massif of the volcano, buffeted by the winds that would swirl about its frozen summit. White clouds streamed over the top of the ragged highlands, deeply cratered with the old cinder cones that had once been volcanic hot spots. Fedorov had good sea legs, but he hated flying, particularly in these grim arctic conditions where any mishap over the ocean would likely mean a freezing death within minutes. As the chopper swept in, descending, they saw a drab, empty lowland connecting the more rocky handle of the island in a narrow neck that seemed to be swamped by seawater, but the lagoon was actually ice water from the summer runoff.

“Cameras on, please,” said Fedorov as he held a pair of high power field glasses to his eyes. This time they would not broadcast a signal back to Kirov, to preclude the possibility that it might be intercepted and spoofed. They were recording direct to disk. Their first observation of the unknown surface action group to their south had been at extreme long range, a live video feed, and the men aboard never got close enough to verify the footage filmed with their own eyes. This time it would be different.

Fedorov could see the black volcanic soil resolve to rusty brown and dreary green as the lowland slowly gained elevation further south. He had visited this station several times in the past, once with Rodenko, who helped with the compilation of the ship’s weather report. The new Met station was painted out in exactly these colors, so it would be difficult to spot from a distance. The station at Olonkin should be much easier to pick out, he thought, as its buildings were all silver aluminum siding. Yet, as the helo descended, it was what he did not see that set his heart thumping with anticipation. There was no road running along the dark, muddied shore of the island, and no sign of any buildings at all. The long brown air strip at the edge of the low island neck was not there either.

“There,” said Fedorov over the whirl of the helo props. He pointed to an area just beyond the thick volcanic head of the island, right where it joined to the flat lowland handle. “That metal framework there. Can you get closer?”

The pilot descended, and they saw what looked like the old steel framework of a roof structure, its wood beams burned away and dark stains of smoke evident on the brighter metal. Then they saw a man emerge from behind a pile of black basalt and volcanic rocks with a husky dog restrained by a leather leash. He seemed to be staring up at them, his goggled eyes shielded by a thick gloved hand. Another man emerged with a rifle, and Orlov frowned.

“Can you set us down here?” said Fedorov.

“Why here?” asked Orlov. “Where is the weather station?”

“Admiral’s orders,” said Fedorov, playing the only trump card in his hand with the gruff Chief. His heart was racing, amazed at what he was sure he was discovering. There would be no further argument after this, he thought. Even Karpov would be convinced.

“The place looks like a war zone,” said Orlov. He pointed to obvious signs in near the area that looked like freshly cratered soil.

“Very well,” said Orlov. “Secure this area after landing, Sergeant Troyak. And disarm that man!”

The helo set down on a flat muddy area and the cold arctic air swept in when the marines slid back the rear doors and leapt out in their white parkas and thick caps with heavy ear muffs. They carried a carbine variant of the AK-74M airborne compact assault rifle, fully automatic, with 60 round casket magazines. The troops fanned out, with two men dropping low to take up overwatch firing positions, their weapons aimed at the Norwegians, who gaped in awe at the scene, their eyes still mostly on the amazing sight of the helicopter with its twin overhead counter-rotating props.

To them it looked like some huge insect, a dark wasp buzzing fitfully in the cold air. The strange overhead rotors swirled, kicking up flecks of snow and frosting them with the icy wash of their rotation. Yet there was no mistaking the gleaming metal of a long cannon protruding from the nose of the craft. They stared, utterly amazed at what they were seeing. Only the dog continued barking, prompting Orlov to lunge at the animal, which only made the situation worse.

The single armed Norwegian noted the odds and quickly lowered his rifle. The marines fanned out, surrounding the zone, and Sergeant Troyak shouldered his weapon, saluting the Norwegians briskly to offer the barest courtesy before stepping up and impudently searching the first man’s pockets. The husky snarled and growled, but Troyak ignored it completely, not intimidated in the slightest. Fedorov leapt out, intent on getting to the underground station to see if he could get some photos. He pulled out the digital camera the Admiral had handed him before he left the bridge, giving him a wink as he said “let’s see if NATO can spoof this!”

He spotted a small anemometer, spinning over the crumbled ruins to measure wind speed along with a wind sock, and quickly made his way to the rickety lean-to, seeing a third man there, which he placated with a friendly smile, as he snapped off photos. The man gave him an incredulous look, and Troyak, having searched the first two men, was soon at Fedorov’s side to fish into the pockets of this last man. He handed Fedorov a small dog-eared notebook, and the navigator also noticed a newspaper folded between two pieces of antiquated weather equipment, a barometer and a stolid wooden box which he took to be a hygrometer to measure the moisture in the air.

Again, it was what he did not see that set his mind racing. If this was a field post set up for special measurements, there was no modern equipment here, no satellite phones, digital gauges or monitors, no wireless equipment, though he did see what looked like an old tube-style radio set, which he photographed. There were no ultraviolet sensors or radiation detectors either. He reached for the newspaper, tucking it quickly into his parka, then pulled out two chocolate bars and a pack of cigarettes and handed them to the dumbfounded Norwegian in compensation. Two more photos of the equipment and he had all he needed to find here.

“Let’s go,” he said to the Sergeant, “I want to look for the main facility.” He nodded warmly to the Norwegians and ran back to the helo.

Troyak’s men slipped back, two by two, until the Sergeant boarded last, eying the Norwegians darkly as he did so. He had taken the man’s rifle as well. A moment later the KA-226 revved up its twin rotors and rose in a swirl of wind, ascending quickly and then angling speedily off to the south. Fedorov looked back, seeing the three Norwegians clustered together as they left, pointing and talking amongst themselves, and he waved with a wry smile.

They continued searching for some time, yet saw no sign of any other building or installation on the pan-handle. Fedorov had a map detailing the locations of the modern day airfield, roads and ‘Olonkin City,’ as it was called which was really just a scattering of ten to twelve linked buildings. Nothing was there.

“Where is the weather station?” said Orlov.

“It should be right there,” Fedorov pointed to an empty stretch of land near southernmost end of the lowland flats between the two more elevated segments of the island.

“Are you sure you have the right place?”

“I’m a navigator, Mister Orlov,” said Fedorov. “I can read a map.”

“You can’t tell me NATO has hidden this facility just for this exercise. What is going on here?”

They flew down as far as Kapp Wein, Cape Vienna as it was called, with its distinctive off-shore rock formations. “Let’s get home,” said Fedorov. “There’s nothing more to see here and the weather isn’t getting any better. May I use the radio, sir? The Admiral ordered me to report as soon as we concluded our investigation.” He was looking with great interest on the identity card the Siberian sergeant had taken from one man. It was an old style card, unlaminated, with no barcode or digital tape to be scanned, and no hologram for security. It was just a typewritten card, and from the looks of it an old style typewriter had been used. The name was Ernst Ullring.

“Very well,” said Orlov. “Pilot, take us back to Kirov.”

Fedorov was on the radio at once. He had little to say, as the Admiral had given him clear instructions.

“You see this book you lent me?” the Admiral had said to his navigator. “You need only tell me whether I should be wasting my time with it or not.”

Fedorov was to use an encrypted channel and he spoke a few brusque sentences. “Scout one reporting, repeat. Scout one reporting. You may wish to do some further reading, sir. We are inbound now, ETA 0400 hours.”