Paradox Hour

Chapter 28

Admiral Tovey was on the bridge, watching the recent missile fires off Kirov with the same sense of awe and amazement that he had felt when he saw it before. He had seen the ship defend the Suez Canal from incoming bombers on its arrival in the Med, and seen how it fought later against Iachino’s fleet. He still remembered those first moments when he stepped aboard that vessel, like a man setting foot on a phantom ship, a ghost ship, something that should not exist, yet something that was clearly there, as hard and substantial as the cold steel under his feet now.

The missiles had fired, streaking off in the pre-dawn, and soon after the last, he could see a disquieting orange glow on the far horizon. He knew those rockets had found their targets, found ships out there somewhere with their cold precision violence. That’s what the waging of war will become, he thought. It will be no less violent than this war, only more precise, and by extension, more deadly. Here was a single ship, capable of just sitting here in the shadows and destroying each and every German ship that might oppose them.

In some ways, he felt as though his own fleet flagship was an afterthought in this small task force. Kirov was the king of the sea here, unmatched by anything this era could ever build and commission. Admiral Volsky had told him they had weapons of even greater power, of unimaginable power, and when he said that, one of those haunting memories had emerged in his mind again, a feeling he had seen what the Admiral was describing, something vast, towering over the cold sea like a massive thunderstorm, with lightning on its flanks, red-orange fire above, and a massive veil of steam that seemed a shroud of doom.

Somewhere out there, his enemy had been found and gored by those rockets. Ships were burning, men were dying, adrift on the sea in the oily blood that was shed by stricken warships in battle. Other Admirals and Captains were staring in shock at the damage inflicted, yet helpless to do anything whatsoever about it. It was a new evolution in naval combat—over the horizon warfare, where a battleship like Kirov fought instead like an aircraft carrier. It had the same striking range of ships like Ark Royal and Illustrious, yet when launched, the missiles never came back. That was the trade off for the precise certainty that every rocket would find its enemy after being fired.

Kirov killed with deadly sureness. There was no wondering how many salvos it might take to straddle or hit the enemy in the distance. Yet with every round the Russian ship fired, its amazing powers diminished, burning like a candle against the surrounding darkness of this war. It was an amazing windfall to have this ship in the vanguard now—to have Brigadier Kinlan fighting side by side with Wavell and O’Connor in the desert. Yet for how long? This war goes on for years, or so I have learned. How long will we have these doughty knights at our disposal, fighting for King and country, just as I am.

His inner question was immediately answered, when it seemed a shadow fell over the ship steaming ahead of him, and a strange mist enfolded the ship.

Tovey perked up, squinting ahead, and reached for the field glasses hanging from the thin leather strap around his neck. He looked, adjusting the lenses, and looked again.

“Mister Boffin.”

“Sir.” Boffin was standing the watch on the far side of the weather bridge.

“Can you spot the Russian ship off our starboard side?”

“No sir, I thought she had come round to port.”

“Kindly call up to the mainmast and see if the lookouts have a fix.” Tovey was heading for the hatch to the bridge, even as Fedorov was stepping out a similar hatch on the bridge of Kirov, like two men lost in a painting by M.C. Escher. They were in the same place as before, but something in the ground of the reality around them had shifted in perspective.

Tovey asked his own radar station if they had any signal on the Russian ship, and was dismayed to learn the screen was clear. What had happened? The watch reported all clear ahead, and there had been no sign of anything amiss—no explosions, nor any sign of distress. The Admiral went immediately to the W/T room to see if they had received anything on the new radio equipment the Russians had given them.

“Any word from Admiral Volsky?” he said, stepping through the door. The men saluted stiffly, and then Lieutenant Medford shook his head. “No signals of late, sir. The last we had was this notification that they were about to begin hostilities. Still felt bloody strange, sir. I mean, seeing as though there isn’t another ship on any horizon.”

On any horizon…. Tovey found himself looking about him for a moment, as if some sign or evidence of Kirov would be neatly stacked there in the message trays, a simple explanation for why the ship might be missing. He had learned that something about their propulsion system allowed them to initiate a displacement in time at will. That was, in fact, how they arrived here last June, though the young Captain Fedorov had explained that they were leery of attempting the procedure again.

Tovey did not understand it, but his common sense was telling him that the Russians must have initiated this procedure—that this was deliberate. Yet if that were so, why wouldn’t they signal their intentions?

“You are certain there was no message traffic on the Russian radio set?”

“Quiet as a mouse, sir. No signals since 04:00.”

“Very well.”

He started back for the main bridge, clearly disturbed. If there had been no signal, might they have had some emergency involving their mysterious propulsion system? His watchmen reported nothing unusual, and there was no residual sign of smoke from any explosion. Clearly nothing catastrophic had happened ahead of them. They had been no more than half a mile behind the Russian ship, and would have seen or heard any explosion capable of seriously harming the battlecruiser.

Yet they were gone—gone as though they had never even been there in the first place. That realization fell heavily on him, like a shroud it seemed, and he had a feeling of profound isolation. Invincible was alone on the wide Atlantic now. Both Argos Fire and the unseen Russian submarine had gone off to see to Rodney.

That thought stopped him short, three crewmen in the passage ahead stiff at attention with arms raised in salute. But Tovey simply turned about and headed for that radio set again—the one the Russians had given them to link all the ships of their task force together. He realized he needed to report this event to Miss Fairchild, and the Russian Captain Gromyko.

Perhaps they can shed some light on this magic trick, he thought. Yet even as he did so, he was beset with a deep sense of dread.

No. This was not intentional. It was not something they planned. They would not have deliberately initiated another time displacement without notifying me. This was an accident, perhaps just like that first accident that sent the ship through time. Fedorov had been worried about that, and now something has slipped. Everything had been going off smoothly, right according to plan. They had slipped through the Pillars of Hercules, and into the Atlantic easily enough, and though the Germans still had a big lead on them, they had suddenly turned about to head east again.

We couldn’t have planned it better, he thought, realizing that was very unusual when it came to battle at sea. Always expect the unexpected. Things were never certain—except one fact was plainly obvious. At least for this moment, in this here and now, the Russian ship was gone.

The message came in at a little after 05:00, and Captain MacRae took it in hand, opening it slowly as he continued to study the large ship they were now approaching.

“Signal from Rodney?” he asked Mister Dean.

“No sir. It’s from Admiral Tovey on Invincible.”

“Very well.” He opened the message and looked at it for some time, his expression deepening to a troubled frown as he did so.

“Any word from that Russian ship earlier?” he said to his intelligence master, Mack Morgan.

“Which one, the submarine or the battlecruiser?”

MacRae folded his arms. “A submarine is a boat, Mister Morgan. A battlecruiser is a ship. So I ask again—any word from the Russians earlier this morning?”

“Now that you mention it, there was one message—half an hour ago. They wanted to know if we were picking up any odd signals on radar or sonar.”

“Odd signals? I’ve had no reports, and this ship’s eyes and ears are the best in the world. Oh, Templeton is on sonar this morning, and a bit grumpy as always. But other than that, it’s been quiet all night—until that fireworks started. He thumbed at the missile trails in the sky, the early light of dawn slowly illuminating the contrails as the wind dispersed them like ocher mist.

“Then they signaled no planned course change?” MacRae was still looking at the message.

Morgan was drifting to his side, seeing something was amiss. Things gone awry were never welcome, as they stood as evidence that he had missed something he should have been aware of. What good was an intelligence chief if he didn’t already know what was on that signals message in the Captain’s hand?

“A problem with Kirov?” He gave MacRae a serious look.

“Have a look at this. Tovey reports he’s lost contact with the Russian ship.”

“In this weather? It’s clear and calm, with visibility for miles with that sun coming up. Beautiful morning—until those damn German battleships get here. You sure that Russian sub is going to handle things?”

“That’s what I was told in the briefing.”

“So what’s up with the battlecruiser?”

“Read it yourself, Mack. 04:40 – Kirov missing off our port bow. Initiating search.”

“Missing? Ship’s boys and brandy go missing, but not bloody battlecruisers! Then who’s out there firing off those missiles? What does Tovey mean by this?”

“Maybe they put on speed and had to maneuver to make that missile attack,” said MacRae. “The moon was good all morning, but it set at 03:16, and we had no sun until just a few minutes ago.”

“Why would they need an interval of darkness for this attack?” Morgan didn’t buy that. “The bloody Germans don’t even know they’re here.”

“Oh, they do now,” said MacRae. “Something took a hard hit out there. Look at that smoke.”

“Maybe the Russians had a misfire and blew their damn ship to pieces,” Morgan suggested glibly. “In any case, that smoke has to be well over the horizon, fifty or sixty nautical miles away. My boys tell me the Russkies are giving that northern German group a hard whack of the Shillelagh. You’re suggesting they slipped off on their own for this missile strike?”

MacRae nodded. “Maybe they want to keep their missiles under their hat. Lots of eyes on the Invincible. We’re supposed to use discretion in the employment of advanced technology—or so we were told.”

“True, but they would have informed Tovey if they were breaking off. This message makes it sound like the bloody ship simply vanished!”

MacRae looked at him. “Like we did?” he said with a grin. “I’m sure you noticed that. In fact, I’ve often wondered if anyone on the tankers saw us go. Poof! One minute we were there—the next minute we were here.”

“You’re suggesting they moved like we did—in time?” said Morgan.

“From what we’ve learned that ship has been in and out of this pub more than once—shifting all through this history!”

“Well good riddance.” Morgan rubbed his hands. “No offense meant to our new Russian allies, of course, but we ought to finish off this pint, pick up our coat, and be on our way ourselves. I’ve already had my fill of World War Two.”

“You fancy number three?” said MacRae. “I would have given even odds that we’d be at the bottom of the Aegean Sea by now if we were back on our old beat.”

“That may be so, Gordie, but this situation is bonkers. It’s creepy. Did you know about all this—her ladyship and all? This business with the Watch?”

“Can’t say as I did. No, her ladyship had the sheep’s wool pulled down over both our eyes on that count. She was running us about on one mission or another. Remember all those quiet nights in the Indian Ocean? I thought we were out there to run deep field surveys for future oil operations. Turns out that was all a ruse, and you, my good man, bought it hook, line and sinker.”

“Well it’s not like I had any say in the matter,” Morgan protested, his hand scratching his thick black beard. “Look here, Gordie. What’s this rendezvous all about?”

“Rodney ran afoul of a U-Boat and took a torpedo. We’re here to provide fleet air defense. That Russian boat is down there with us, somewhere, and they’ll handle surface threats. That’s all I was told.”

“There’s more to it than that,” said Morgan. “I can smell it. My nose is too damn good, even if I don’t have all my intelligence network assets to keep me in the know as before. Something’s up. Now this message says the bloomin’ Russians have gone missing?”

“We’d better fill in Miss Fairchild,” said MacRae.

“I’ll handle it,” said Morgan, taking the signals message. “But something tells me she may know more about it than either of us.”

“Well, when you find out what’s up. Let me know.” MacRae gave him a wink.”

Morgan went down to the Fairchild executive suite, pressing the bell softly, as if it might ring softly on the other side, though he knew that was a foolish thought. Yet the early hour, and Fairchild herself, gave him pause. He waited for some time, wondering whether he should ring again, and realizing he must. Yet before he could thumb the button the door opened, and Miss Fairchild was standing there in a long cotton robe.

“Yes? What is it, Mack?”

“Signals traffic from Admiral Tovey, Mum. It seems the Russian ship has gone missing.”

He handed off the note, and as she took it, Elena motioned for him to enter. The smell of freshly brewed coffee was in the air, and Mack eyed the pot enviously. Another cup would do him some good. For days now, he had been bothered by something. That nose he had bragged about to MacRae had been itching again, itching in a way that told him something was up. He could feel it, something impending, looming, and it was a most uncomfortable sensation.

Now that message he had received earlier, asking if they had picked up any odd signals, took on more significance. He shared that with Miss Fairchild, thinking she might know something more, and inwardly still upset that he did not know more himself. I’m supposed to be here explaining why all this is happened, he thought, not looking for answers here.

“Can’t SAMPSON see them?” She was referring to the state-of-the-art radar system mounted on the tall mainmast of the ship.

“We were outside our surface coverage radius over an our ago.”

“I see… Then get one of the X-3s up and have a look. How soon until we can board Rodney?”

“Another hour at this speed… Assuming that Russian sub out there does its job and we don’t have unexpected visitors for breakfast. Last word was that the German northern group has split in two. We think the Russians hit their carrier and lighter escorts. But those battleships are making a beeline for our friend out there.”

“That’s why we’re here, Mack. You’d better tell Gordon to stand the men up.”

Morgan waited after that, a brief interval. He wanted to ask if there was really some other reason they were here. After all, why did they need to board the battleship? Was there something wrong with the radio? He knew there was some hidden reason, perhaps this special mission the battleship was assigned—King’s business. He had asked Miss Fairchild if she had an interest in that, but never got much of an answer. One fact remained—his nose. It was itching again, and it told him there was more to all of this than it seemed on the surface.

He would have his answer before his next cup of coffee.

Chapter 29

Some thirty nautical miles up ahead, Gromyko was on the bridge of Kazan, considering a strange situation that had just been reported to him by his sonar man. For some time now, Chernov had been ill at ease. Gromyko had seen him fidgeting at his station, hunched over his equipment, switching on different signal processing filters, as though he were looking for some particular pair of shoes in a dark closet. When he asked him what he was doing, the Sonarman told him he had been asked to listen in on certain frequencies to see if he could detect a signal. Apparently the Sonarman aboard Kirov had gotten hold of something, and wanted a little help from the undersea ears of Kazan.

Chernov worked the problem, until it was decided that the task force would split, and Kazan would accompany the Argos Fire to rendezvous with Rodney. After that Gromyko thought he would forget the matter, but Chernov still seemed to be fussing about with his equipment, almost as if he could simply not let this loose thread go.

“Any problem, Chernov?” he had asked his young Lieutenant.

“No sir. No undersea threats of any note. I was just running some diagnostics.”

“Something wrong?”

“Not that I can determine, sir.”

“Then you are still chewing on that bone Kirov’s Sonarman threw over?”

Chernov smiled. “I think I might have hold of the dog’s leg it came from,” he said. “I picked up an odd signal on the ultralow sonic bands. We get message traffic down there, but this could not be anything coming from our world.”

“No,” said Gromyko. “I don’t suppose it could. Then what is it?”

Gromyko came right to the point. He liked answers, not questions, and the fewer uncertainties he had to deal with, the better.

“I’m not exactly certain yet, Captain. But it has structure. It’s an organized signal—a kind of pulsing wave. It isn’t random, and it isn’t geothermal or of seismic origin. I was just running recordings through some filters to double check that.”

“Let me hear it.”

“Sir? Oh, that won’t work. The signal is below the threshold of our hearing. You might sense it, on one level, but not with your ears—unless they are very good.”

“Like the Sonarman on Kirov?” said Gromyko. “They say he has the best ears in the fleet, Mister Chernov.”

“Tasarov? He’s a good man, sir, and I’ll vouch for that. I studied with him, and he could hear things no one else in the class was even aware of. He’s the best, sir, but our sonar is much better than the equipment he’s working with on Kirov, particularly after they took that damage up front.”

“Very well, Chernov. Carry on, but don’t forget that the Germans might have U-boats out here too.”

“Don’t worry about that, sir. I’ll hear anything that comes within 50 nautical miles of us—even a diesel boat.”

Gromyko knew that Chernov was not boasting. He was also one of the best in the business, and one day he might put a bet or two on his Sonarman in a runoff with this Tasarov fellow. But now he had other fish to fry.

Three German battleships were on a fast heading to intercept the Rodney, and Kazan was on point defense. He was considering how to handle the matter, thinking through the cards in his hand. He still had ten Onyx missiles, but reports from Kirov indicated they were not as effective as hoped against the heavy side armor of these ships, and only three were now programmed for popup attack mode, leaving the rest as sea skimmers. They had good long range, out to 600 kilometers on this variant, but only a 200Kg warhead. The German warships had belt armor exceeding 300mm, and there would be no time to program the missiles for top down approach as Fedorov had advised.

But who needs missiles, thought Gromyko? I’m a sub Captain, and we still have plenty of torpedoes. The Type 65 would be the preferred choice, my 50/50 weapon against large surface ships. It will range out 50 kilometers and give me 50 knots in speed, and I have a few of the big 557Kg warheads, the wake homing model. In fact, I even have those special warheads. One of those would take out the entire German fleet, but I don’t think Admiral Volsky would want me to do that here. They’re aboard for the hunter killer subs out there that would be stalking me in 2021. This is not their time.

Once in a little closer, I can go to my Type-53 torpedoes, a little slower, and with a smaller 307Kg warhead, but they can also detect the water churn made by a ship, and follow it to find the target. So my attack envelope is from 20 to 50 kilometers, well before they could ever come in range of this British battleship I’m defending.

Yes, he thought. Here come three battleships, but no destroyers. Even if they had six or seven escorts up there, all they would do is make target selection a little more difficult. No ships in these waters, except for that British Type 45 and Kirov itself, would have a chance at detecting my boat. So in another couple hours we begin the bullfight. It will be like shooting fish in a barrel—big fish, to be sure, but they will die just the same when those warheads break their keels or wreck their propulsion and steering gear. He looked over at Chernov again, seeing the man was still alert and active at his station.

“Still have a leash on those German battleships?”

“Of course, sir. They’re noisy as hell.”

“Good. Let me know when they come inside our 50K range radius.”

The Matador had made his choice.

The Germans were coming, shocked and angered by the terrible fate of Graf Zeppelin, and bent on getting revenge. Gneisenau was out in front, making 30 knots, with Scharnhorst following about a kilometer behind, and Tirpitz steaming prominently in the rear. The Destroyer Thor and cruiser Prinz Eugen stood by the dying carrier, trying to pull any man alive out of the water, but now Graf Zeppelin had rolled over an slipped beneath the waves, a total loss, and they were slowly following in the wake of the bigger German ships.

Aboard Hindenburg, Lütjens got the news an hour after dawn, and he was none too happy to learn what had happened. Damn those British naval rockets, he thought. How in god’s name can they hit our ships with such lethal accuracy? This is shaping up to be another disaster at sea, just like the first sortie last year. Ever since we got those orders to turn about and find this old British battleship, the entire plan has come unraveled. We should be well out to sea now, and feasting on the convoys like a pack of sharks. Let the British come to us, and then see what they get. Yet haven’t they done exactly that, he thought grimly? And now we lose the best fleet carrier we have.

In one violent attack, those rockets have changed the entire situation here. Now we’ve lost that powerful air wing, and most of our top fighter cover as well. It means the British carriers will matter here again, and my bet is that there are more than one out there, with spotter planes up this very moment to verify our position. How long before we are under air attack? Only six Stukas and three fighters got aloft from Graf Zeppelin, and now I must order them to find us here and try to land on the Goeben. That will give us eighteen planes, but it will be twice the capacity of that carrier. We can juggle planes for a while, but for how long? We haven’t the aviation fuel aboard the Goeben to keep that up. So we will have to ditch planes, and that will be very bad for morale.

That is the least of my trouble. Raeder will have fits as well. He’s been sitting on those remaining carrier projects like a mother hen ever since Graf Zeppelin proved its worth at sea. He has Peter Strasser nearly complete, and then there is that French ship we captured at Saint Nazaire. We will likely throw time, steel, and Deutschmarks away to build those out, useful as they might be. What good are they if we cannot protect them? These naval rockets trump every weapon afloat on any ship in the fleet!

What happens when the Führer hears about this? He will make Raeder’s fits seem like a poetry recital. The man has already canceled the other two H Class battleships, which means Hindenburg is an only child, the first and last of its kind. I stand here upon this Goliath, and yet, out there somewhere, David waits with his sling. These rockets have upset the entire balance of naval warfare. The only thing we have that can escape them are the U-Boats, and something tells me that is where we should have put our entire naval construction effort. It will come down to the U-boats in the years ahead. By the time we get these naval rockets, we may have very little else afloat to use them.

“Adler,” he said gruffly. “What is Topp doing now?”

“He has put on speed and is moving to intercept Rodney, as ordered.”

“Yes, but ordered by who? Have you seen this message from Wilhelmshaven?” He handed off the signal, a restrained fury simmering within him now.

“Repeat order needing confirmation,” Adler read aloud. “Objective is as per original orders in Fall Rheinübung.” He looked at Lütjens, a bemused expression on his face.

“But sir, we had a very clear order to the contrary. You read it yourself.”

“Yes? Well who sent it, that is what I would like to know?” said Lütjens. “Alright, the British certainly know we are here, so I see no point in observing radio silence. I want immediate confirmation from Wilhelmshaven. Are we to engage Rodney or turn west again for the convoy lanes?”

“That question may be moot,” said Adler. “Topp is closing on the battleship now. His task group will be more than enough to finish it off.”

“Perhaps, but do not forget that ship has 16-inch guns, and the British know how to use them. And what about Graf Zeppelin?”

“Most regrettable,” said Adler. “Yet all the more reason to seek our revenge. An eye for an eye.”

Lütjens fumed. This could be the final sortie of the Kriegsmarine, he thought, our last hurrah.

“We cannot trade ships with the British and hope to survive this war,” he said with a harried look. “Here we have already lost the most important ship in the fleet with the death of Graf Zeppelin, and sent Kaiser Wilhelm to the docks at Brest for good measure.”

“And we have sunk an enemy cruiser and destroyer,” Adler reminded him.

“Oh?” Lütjens batted that aside. “Tell me, which side of that apple cart would you buy, Adler?”

The Kapitan had nothing more to say, his eyes shifting out to sea, a tense edge to his movements. He was like a bow pulled tight, an arrow waiting to strike, but held in breathless stillness, the quiver of the Admiral’s hand restraining him at every turn. His quest for vengeance was now even more important in his mind. The loss of Graf Zeppelin could not go unanswered, and here Lütjens was juggling two contradictory orders, one pulling them east, the other west. He feared the Admiral would take the easy road, and turn about yet again, cowed by the rocket attack that had put Graf Zeppelin under the sea. Then the next blow fell, like a cold fist striking his face when the runner came in from the signals room.

No one saw it coming. The big 650mm torpedo had been coursing through the waters at a shallow depth of just 20 meters, seeking the German battleships. A second torpedo followed in its wake, and their keen senses had detected the churning thrum of the enemy formation long ago. They surged in, about 400 meters off the port bow of Gneisenau, and then began a wide arcing turn, sweeping inexorably around and boring in on the ship. The first would strike aft, about ten meters forward of the main propulsion shaft and steering gear, the second would run right under the ship and explode amidships, the fierce upwelling and shock bubble literally lifting the ship’s gut above sea level when it exploded. It was to be a very bad day for Kapitan Otto Fein and his crew.

Aboard Scharnhorst, cruising behind, Kapitan Kurt Hoffman rushed out onto the weather bridge, his eyes wide with shock when he saw his brother ship stricken. He had seen the rockets come earlier, tearing the pre-dawn sky to shreds, and immolating Graf Zeppelin—now this! How could the British have a submarine capable of scoring two hits like that, when we were running at 30 knots? It would take a miracle to line up that shot. He had to be just waiting out there, and we must have run right across his sights. Yet a hit like this was almost unprecedented!

“Fifteen points to starboard!” he shouted back to his helmsman, determined to make sure his own ship did not suffer a similar fate. He would begin a zig-zag course at once, though it would not matter. Gromyko’s torpedoes could not be fooled. They were not dumb weapons, running true as aimed. They needed no human eye puckered in the eyecups of a periscope to find their target for them, and no evasive maneuver Scharnhorst was capable of could elude them. Hoffmann had just witnessed the fate of the entire German surface fleet. Given time, and as long as he still had torpedoes, Gromyko and Kazan could destroy the entire German Navy, just as Kirov might have destroyed it, single handedly, with the mailed fist of those plunging Moskit-IIs. Hoffmann did not know that, but it was something he secretly feared since the first moment he saw these new British weapons. For now, his eyes were still riveted on Gneisenau.

“Get a message to Fein and find out how bad it is. Then signal Tirpitz and Hindenburg and see that they are informed—Gneisenau hit by torpedoes, amidships and aft. Speed falling off and damage appears significant.”

“Two hits on lead ship sir,” said Chernov. “That had to hurt.”

“Two 65s would do the job on most any ship we hit,” said Gromyko. “Even a big supercarrier could not shrug off a pair of those lovelies. Very well—load tubes one and three. More of the same. Make your target the number two ship—birds on a wire.” He smiled.

But no one’s plans were to be left intact that day. The unexpected kernel of chaos at the heart of all battles was again to wreak havoc. Chernov was suddenly very still, his eyes on a module to his left where a red light began to flutter. He inclined his head, flipping a switch there, and listening, eyes closed.

“Con…. Undersea contact. Possible submarine…”

Gromyko turned, a question in his eyes. “An uninvited guest,” he said. “German U-boat?”

There was a moment’s hesitation as Chernov continued to toggle switches on the module he had been using to process the signal. “Sir… This sounds like a British sub.” His voice carried a note of alarm that surprised Gromyko, and he never liked surprises, particularly when he had his bulls lined up one after another, two lances in the first, and was ready to skewer the second.

“British? We were not informed they had anything out here.”

“Sir! This is crazy. It’s reading as Astute Class!” He gave Gromyko a shocked expression. “We got lucky and recorded one boat after learning its deployment date. It’s the only profile we’ve ever managed to get, but my readings are above a 90% match for this signal.”

“Impossible,” said Gromyko, but then a deeper instinct asserted itself, reptilian, a reflex born of many hours beneath the sea. “All stop!” he said. “Launch noisemaker sled number one. Then right rudder fifteen, down bubble fifteen! Rig for emergency silent running!”

Kazan maneuvered like a shadow, its engines suddenly stilled, a great dark whale rolling over and slowly diving into the depths of the sea. At the same time, a special port on the nose of the ship launched a screw-driven sled, which trundled forward on the sub’s original course, leaving a trail of sound behind it designed to imitate Kazan’s normal operating acoustic signature. The Matador twirled his cape, and now spun deftly away from a threat he presumed was imminent. If Chernov was correct, and he was hearing a British Astute Class sub, then they most certainly heard Kazan as well. The boat had been very shallow, and Gromyko’s instinct was to get down below the thermocline as quickly and quietly as possible. Any adversary stalking him would likely be above it if they had a fix on him, but he needed to move whisper soft… descend… descend… Hoping his noise sled would cover his escape as planned.

Even as he finished his steering order, Chernov’s eyes widened again, and he heard the one thing every submariner feared, yet the one thing he might expect if the contact report was solid.

“Torpedos in the water!”

God almighty, thought Gromyko. Which damn war are we fighting here?

Chapter 30

Only one man saw it when it came through—saw it with the dead eyes of a cadaver, bound in the weighted polyurethane of a body bag, and wrapped in the red, white, and blue stripes of the Russian flag. If any part of Lenkov could have seen, he would have borne witness when a hole seemed to open in the sea around him, shimmering green phosphors lighting up the murky depths above Peake’s Deep.

It moved like a great whale, silent, sullen, a dark thing in the sea, deathly quiet as it climbed for the wan light above. Its sides were coated with a special series of tiles that muted sound. Two thin fins protruded from either side of its upper body, above the massive, bulbous nose. Behind them the thin metal sail was bristling with strange spikes, the sensory suite of one of the most advanced submarines ever designed.

Chernov had lived up to his reputation as one of the best Sonarmen in the fleet, and the single lucky profile the Russian Navy had obtained on an Astute Class British submarine had been just enough of the sound puzzle to let him make the call, and give his incredulous warning. After that Gromyko was all reflex, for there would be time for thought and reason only if he survived to ever think again.

His Sonarman had called it right, and Lenkov would have said as much, for only he had seen it come. And he had also seen one other thing, twinkling with light in spite of the murky gloom as the water deepened—The Devil’s Teardrop. It had gone over one gunwale even as Lenkov had gone over the other, and together they slipped silently into the depths, until another moment of pure happenstance came into play, eighty years on…

The sea was no less dangerous there, with the scourge of war imminent as HMS Ambush drifted in the vanguard of a small flotilla of ships. The hastily assembled convoy was a motley combination of Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships, and a few civilian transports that had been press-ganged into service. There had been only one surface warship available for escort duty, and Captain James “Sandy” Vann aboard the Ambush was tapped to lend a hand. He was commander of S120, boat number two in the class, her keel laid on the 22nd of October, 2003, built out in Britain’s premier sub den, the isolated coast near Barrow-in-Furness near Lancaster on Morcambe Bay. The place had been famous for building ships for many generations. Ships for Cunard and the Orient Lines had been built there since 1873, and at one time, Sir Barnes Neville Wallis used it to design and build airships for the British during the First World War. So the people there were long used to strange vessels taking shape in the shipyards, and the sound of engineering and secret works were often underway into the wee hours of the night.

The subs were spawned from within the massive enclosed structure of Devonshire Dock Hall, big enough to house the old airships that had once been built in that place in an earlier time. Now it saw the slow, precision building of the whale-like subs, with technicians creeping over the flukes and flanks of the beast, emerging from its innards on long metal ladders. Using a pressurized water reactor and pump jet propulsor system, the boat was said to be the quietest in the world.

In more modern times, destroyers and even the carrier Invincible were built there, and it was also a principle base for the design and secret construction of Britain’s most stealthy new submarine, the Astute class, which first launched in the year 2010.

Ambush was also strangely entangled with the fate lines of the Russian battlecruiser Kirov. The sub had been lurking in the waters of the Norwegian Sea, skulking so stealthily that not even Tasarov had noticed it at first. And it had been witness to a very strange event that day, an undersea explosion that seemed to take both the Russian battlecruiser, and the sub accompanying it, to their doom. It had returned to port, where a change of command took place, and many questions were asked about the mission it had been on, and whether or not it had succeeded or failed.

Now the new commander, Captain Sandy Vann, was out to sea in those dark hours in late 2021. Yet instead of prowling the depths as the hunter-killer the sub actually was, Ambush had been posted as a stealthy sheepdog for a most important convoy bound for Mersa Matruh. Seven ships were scheduled to rendezvous there to receive the troops, vehicles, and materiel of the British 7th Armored Brigade, which had been on station in the deep deserts of Egypt ever since the incident at Sultan Apache oil fields.

The little fleet was composed of RoRo units, the ‘Roll on—Roll off’ ships that could accommodate the heavy vehicles of the Brigade. There sailed Hurst, Hartland, Anvil Point and Eddystone, and a civilian ferry sailing under an Irish registry was also along, the Ulysses. Capable of lifting 2000 personnel and over 1300 vehicles, the multi-deck ferry was the odd-fellow in the group, with three of its twelve decks styled to cater to civilian tourists, and all on a theme dedicated to the author of the great book by T.S. Eliot the ship was named after, Ulysses.

But all the curio shops, boutiques and eateries were closed that day, and well shuttered. No children played at Silly Milly’s Fun House aboard Ulysses, and the seats in the Volta Picture Theatre were empty, the screen dark, as the sky erupted above the flotilla with the explosion of a 15 megaton warhead.

And so, just as the men and machines of Kinlan’s had met a similar fate at Sultan Apache, the sailors and ships that had been intended to retrieve them would also be caught between the wild energy of two poles, a nuclear blast above, the strangely shimmering madness of the Devil’s Teardrop below—eighty years and long fathoms below, yet right there, in that very same spot where Lenkov drifted in his last, lonesome watch. The object did exactly what it had done before, serving as a beacon that pulled the mass blown through the shattered borders of time that separate one moment from another, one age from another, one arrangement of everything that ever was from some other arrangement. Some strange quantum entanglement had joined these two incidents together in a bizarre twist of fate.

The missile that sought to destroy all these ships had exploded too high, another glitch in a computer that saw the warhead detonate earlier than planned. The resulting shock had been enough to breach the increasingly fragile fabric of space-time in the region, and the Devil’s Teardrop had pulled everything within a three mile radius through the hole that opened in time. The entire convoy had been swallowed whole, including Ambush, which was cruising beneath them, very shallow. As fate would have it, they had appeared many hours sailing time after Fedorov first threw that object over the side, even as Lenkov and the Devil’s Teardrop had both finally settled to their final resting place in Peake’s Deep.

Now Captain Vann stood on the bridge of his hunter-killer sub, a perplexed look on his face, his blonde hair and mustache lending him the nickname “Sandy” among his fellow officers.

“You don’t look happy, Mister Harland,” he said to his Sonarman where he sat before the Thales 2076 system monitors, perhaps the best sonar equipment ever designed. It was said a boat like Sandy’s could hover in the English Channel, yet still hear the maritime traffic in and out of New York harbor, and identify specific ships by the acoustic signatures they sent across the wide Atlantic, ripples in the proverbial pond.

The Captain’s statement was spot on, for Mister Harland had just seen an odd ripple of another sort pass over his screens, and heard a strange crackle of static in his headphones. He sat there, like a poker player who had been placing bets on a sure hand, suddenly shocked to look down and see all his cards had changed, and he was now holding a whole new hand!

The low suits were still there, the seven convoy ships all in place in their proper steaming order. The clatter of the RFA repair ship Diligence was rattling in his ear and scratching the sonic signature lines on his screen with its 10,800 tons. The four Point-Class sealift ships were there, all in a row at 23,000 tons each. Ulysses and the replenishment oiler Fort Victoria brought up the rear, but the Type 45 destroyer Duncan assigned for air defense was suddenly missing. It had been well off the starboard side of the flotilla, standing it’s vigilant watch.

“I’ve lost Duncan, sir.”

“Lost her? Whatever do you mean?”

“Just that, Captain. I have all the convoy ships, clear as a bell, but Duncan is gone! I’ve no reading on the destroyer at all now, and my equipment just experienced an odd glitch.”

“System malfunction? Well get it sorted out.” Captain Vann turned to his communications officer now. “Send code to Duncan. Ask them to report their status and see if they have anything on their Sampson radar that we should know about.”

The Com officer had a legendary name, Lieutenant Samuel Morse, named after the man who had helped develop the dot-dash code that once clattered through the airwaves from ship to shore, and was still in use in 2021. Morse got the signal off, but sat at his station, lips pursed, waiting unsatisfied for a reply.

“No signal confirmation, sir,” he said.

Vann did not like the sound of that. The system should have immediately returned confirmation, even if no reply was sent by Duncan. The electronics on both sides of the transmission would have shaken hands, but nothing came back.

“Send to Diligence. They should have Duncan on radar. Perhaps something went bonkers up there and the destroyer’s communications are down.”

Diligence was accustomed to working with the older British Trafalgar Class subs as a support ship, mostly east of Suez, but this time she was out in the Atlantic Support Group, assigned to this special run down to the Med. She was the primary at-sea battle damage repair ship of the modern Royal Navy, her holds crowded with material for that job, and equipment like lathes, drills, grinders and welding tools crowding her workshops. She was also a supply and munitions replenishment ship, with a magazine of munitions intended for the 7th Brigade when they reached Mersa Matruh.

If they reached Mersa Matruh… That destination was now a very chancy affair, for the ship now unknowingly led its flotilla thru the uncertain waters of 1941, yet was still bound to make its appointed rounds for the 7th Brigade. It was some time before Lieutenant Morse had his reply.

“The com-channel is very cloudy, sir, but I finally got through. Diligence reports odd static on a lot of its equipment. They also report strange effects in the sky and discoloration in the sea.”

“Discoloration?”

“That’s what they say’s sir. In fact, they asked if all was well down here. They say it looks like the Aurora Borealis, but it’s on every horizon.”

That didn’t sound good to Captain Vann, and his mind began to piece the puzzle together, strange as it seemed. “Anything from Whale Island?” he asked, referring to the Maritime Warfare Center HQ there at Portsmouth. He was thinking there may have been a war order, or warning message somewhere in the system.

“Nothing sir.”

Now Vann looked at his Executive Officer, Commander Avrey Bell, a thin man with just the wisp of an allowable mustache beneath his nose, and round, brown eyes. “Shall we sneak up to have a look about?” asked the Captain, and Bell nodded, there being no other threats apparent.

“Were running shallow. Make it so.”

Vann wanted to send up his photonic mast, replete with sensors, cameras and communications antennae, to get a better picture of what was happening topside. All his ducks were still in a row, except Duncan, which remained mysteriously silent. The thought that the strange sky effects reported might have been an attack on the convoy was first to his mind, yet they had no messages from any other ship, and the signals from Diligence seemed more perplexing than alarming.

Yet his day was going to get progressively worse from that point forward. Sonarman Harland soon turned his head again, a warning look in his eyes. “Contacts—numerous surface contacts—processing now.”

Vann waited, and the news he soon got was most unsettling. His man had some difficulty with the reading, switching from one profile bank to another in an effort to find a signal match, but finding nothing—save one.

“Are you certain?” The Captain gave Mister Harland a hard look. “That ship was reported missing months ago. Why, this very boat was on station when it happened.”

“Well, I think we’ve found it sir. My reading is 90 percent confident, though there’s and odd ripple to the signature now.”

“Could this be another ship in that class?”

“Possibly sir, but my tonals and resonance factors are all coming up roses for the flagship. It’s Kirov. I’m almost certain of that now.”

“Bloody hell,” said Vann, again looking to Bell for his reaction. The XO drifted over, and the three men now huddled over the Sonar station.

“Where have you been, you little bandit,” said Bell. “Skulking about, were you?” Submarines like Ambush could move about the seas, unseen, unreported for months at a time, but not the big surface ships. He looked at the Captain, waiting to see what he would do.

“It’s not alone, sir,” said Harland. “There’s another big signal here, but I have no profile on it whatsoever.”

“A big signal? Another warship?”

“It has to be well over 30,000 tons to be making this much noise, sir. Very strange. Noisy bugger, this one. And now I’m getting data from much farther out. There looks to be something off our port side, perhaps a hundred miles out, also very strong for something at that range. Then here, sir. There are two more groups—one to our west, and one a little southwest. Yet I can’t profile a single ship… wait a second… hold on sir…”

“Come on, Harley,” said Vann using his Sonarman’s nickname. “Get hold of this.”

“I’ve a reading for a Type 45—maybe Duncan, sir. But it’s over 60 nautical miles out now.”

“The damn ship was ten miles off our starboard bow not ten minutes ago,” said the Captain. “There’s no way on earth that could be Duncan.”

“It’s a Type-45, sir. With the photonics mast up I can pick up a Sampson radar set carrier wave.”

Vann put his hands on his hips, like a man about to dress down a group of misbehaving school boys. “What in god’s name is going on?”

His mind was racing now. Something swept over their equipment, a subtle glitch, then Duncan comes up missing and the Captains up topside report strange effects in the sky and sea. Apparently it took some minutes for his submarine’s own electronics to settle down, because Mister Harland reported those additional contacts ten minutes later. Was this an attack? Did it have something to do with the sudden appearance of that Russian battlecruiser? If the damn thing was really out there—Kirov—the ship that had started this whole situation unraveling when it went missing in the Norwegian Sea last July, then why didn’t old Harley have a leash on the ship sooner? It was only sixty miles off, and all these other odd contacts he was processing now were all within 120 nautical miles. The sea around him was full of ships that simply weren’t there fifteen minutes ago, and he found that to be a situation that skirted the impossible. Could this system glitch they experienced have quietly happened some time ago, so subtle that they missed it?

The class had been plagued with problems since the launch of the first boat, HMS Astute in late August of the year 2010. The business end of the ship, up front with the missiles and six torpedo tubes for the 21-inch heavyweight Spearfish, were all in good working order, but the back of the boat, from the reactor core aft, had many problems. As big as it was, the boat still felt stifling and cramped. They had interior temperature problems, a humid heat that could not be easily dissipated, and even now, five boats into the planned seven, Ambush felt like a muggy summer afternoon in North Carolina, where the Captain had relatives living in the states.

They had trouble with the computers, consoles malfunctioned, the reactors were skittish at times, which led him to believe this glitch they experienced might have originated in the reactor room. He made a mental note to give the Chief of Engineers a call, and see what Gibby reported. Lieutenant Daniel Gibbs had managed to hold the boat together in good working order, in spite of the teething troubles she was experiencing, so fresh from the dockyards.

That said, every boat in the class was still using an older reactor plant, one designed for the bigger Vanguard Class SGBN subs. It was supposed to give the Ambush speeds up to 35 knots when needed, but seldom achieved anything near that. He was lucky to get 28 knots, even submerged, which made the boat slow on its feet when compared to speedier Russian undersea adversaries. The old Russian K-222 could make over 44 knots submerged, and the Alphas were almost as fast at 42 knots. The Sierras cruised at a more sedate 32 knot maximum, and the capabilities of the latest Russian models were believed to be in that range.

But teething troubles could not account for the misery that was plaguing him now. These were not things Gibby could fix with a spanner, or some other engineering magic. Where did all these ships come from?

No, he thought, if those other contacts were there, we would have heard them long ago. Mister Harland should have them chapter and verse, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Bloody ships just don’t fall from heaven into the sea, but there they are. Were they friendly? This contact Harland reported with Kirov was obviously suspicious. Unless the Russian ship had intercepted another big neutral merchantman, I must presume that contact pair are hostiles. We had no notice that any other merchant traffic would be where these ships are, so their sudden appearance here is also suspicious. And what about that reading we had for a Type-45? One destroyer vanishes, another suddenly appears sixty miles off. This doesn’t make any sense. As to the reading on Kirov, it soon vanished, just like Duncan. His Sonarman was now completely flummoxed.

Sometime later, with the advantage offered by his photonic mast, he took a 360 degree HD optical and thermal imaging of the whole area. There were his seven ducks in a row, safe and sound, but Duncan was nowhere to be seen. Any problem sufficiently grave to sink that ship would have been easily heard by his Sonarman. It was as if someone had just reached down and plucked the ship away, posting it sixty miles off in a heartbeat, like a chess player moving a doughty knight.

“Mister Morse,” he said. “Put that finger of yours to work and signal that Type-45. Helm, come about and steer 340 degrees north. Let’s find out who’s out there?”

It was then that his Sonarman reported another contact, this time an undersea boat, confidence high. Processing soon had a fix on the demon, and it was exactly that.

“Got it, sir,” said Harland. “I’m pretty sure it’s that new Russian boat—Kazan, and I think its engaging a target.”

“Kazan? That boat was last reported in the bloody Pacific!” That sub should be sailing half a world away, he thought, in another ocean. Perhaps Harly botched the reading, and this is another boat in that class.

Things were really starting to stink, thought Vann. Ships were appearing and disappearing, moving about like chess pieces in a game where he was just a kibitzer. Yet one thing was certain—the Russians were here, on and below the sea he now prowled, and this was his beat. Yet how in the world did they break through the G.I.U.K. gap so easily? That thought, and the silence from Whale Island, were ample cause for alarm, and his instincts told him it was time for action.

“Battle stations, gentlemen,” he said quietly. “Get the heavyweights up, if you please, and stand to.”