Three Kings

Chapter 1

Sergeant Hobson stood there in the darkness as the light from his Ronson wavered. He had been following the Barbary ape, feeling his way in the dark and expecting to catch it just round the next bend in the labyrinth of Saint Michael’s Cave beneath the Rock. This tunnel led south, down the last of the rocky spine of Gibraltar until it ended somewhere beneath Windmill Hill. It went on for just another few hundred yards, and he could hear the chatter of the Macaque up ahead, but it was very dark. Then he came up short, surprised to reach an impasse in a great boulder that blocked his way.

He knew this rock, as it marked the end of the passage but his Macaque was nowhere to be seen. He held up his lighter, scanning the strange twisted shapes of the rocks. He remembered the old legend that said there was a hidden tunnel that went all the way under the straits to Spanish Morocco, though he knew that was folly. Then he keened up his senses, looking about when he heard the echo of his quarry resounding, hollow and very distant.

“Now where have you gotten to?” he said, hearing only the echo of his own voice. There was no sign of the beast.

The Barbary ape was gone, but Hobson wasn’t about to let the creature off that easily. “If you’ve gone off that way, why it means there may be another passage down here the engineers have yet to find. It that is so…” He thought about it, wondering what he should do. Then his mind settled on the only course he could take. I’d best find someone who can do something about it, he thought. I’d best get to a Lieutenant, or better yet, a Colonel. We need to get Artisan Engineers down here to see where that bloody ape has gone.

What good would that do, he thought? Suppose there is another passage down there, or a whole bloody network of caves and caverns. Might they go all the way to Spanish Morocco as the legend has it? And what if they did? There’s bloody Germans there by now as well. No way out for us any way you look at it… but then an idea came to him, and he raised an eyebrow. He had been one of the very few men on the Rock let in an a little secret, a special cave that had been dug high up on the Rock in a hidden chamber. It was called the “Stay Behind Cave,” and he knew about it because he was in the detail that moved the rock out when the engineers finished the work. Six men had volunteered to enter the chamber, where a year’s worth of supplies, along with a 10,000 gallon cistern of water, had been stored to sustain their lives after they were sealed inside in the event the Rock was ever taken by hostile forces. Two were physicians. Others worked for British intelligence.

Cleverly positioned high up with two small observation slits, the team could observe both the Bay of Algeciras and the Straits of Gibraltar. They had rigged up a stationary bicycle that could be pedaled to generate electricity for a radio set, and the mission was to observe and report on enemy activity. It was to be called “Operation Tracer,” the last trace of British occupation of the Rock, and Sergeant Hobson had little doubt that the men were already there, sealed away for their long voluntary entombment.

What if we could hide some of the lads down here, he thought? How many? There was no way to know until he got hold of the engineers and convinced someone to have a look. But there was one thing he did know. That Barbary ape was gone, without the slightest trace, and he knew enough about those wily creatures to realize they would not go anywhere unless there was a good chance of surviving. No. The little bugger knows something more about this place than we do, he realized.

And I’m bloody well going to find out where he’s gone.

The loss of Gibraltar had been a severe blow to British morale. Even though Liddell was still holding out in St Michael’s cave, there was already fighting for the upper galleries as the Germans sought to gain entry. It would be a long terrible siege. The German mountain troops would have to blast their way in, moving from one narrow passage to the next, around stony corners that led to chambers where the British could set off mines, booby traps, or simply lay in wait with a couple good Vickers machine gun teams. It would be a long and costly assault to pry the last of the British troops from their haunts, and the Germans were in a quandary as to how to proceed. Word from Berlin was adamant — get the job done — so the Oberleutnants and other senior officers gathered to discuss their options.

It was soon determined that, to fight their way in, they could expect to sustain hundreds of casualties, if not thousands. That was a loss that was unacceptable, especially considering that these were elite forces. It would be foolish to expend them in a bitter battle for the caves and tunnels. Could they simply wait the British out, starve them into submission?

“That would be fruitless,” said Kübler in the final staff meeting to decide the issue. “They most likely have enough water and supplies for hold out for months, if not longer. We discussed this with Halder before the attack. A long siege is out of the question. Each week we allow to pass without a swift victory here will bolster the British morale at home. Their Mister Churchill will seize upon it as a rallying point. They have already stopped Goering and his Luftwaffe, or at least that is what I now hear. The squadrons are being re-deployed to the Mediterranean, and the Führer now considers this to be a primary war zone. If we stumble here, or delay, we will not be easily forgiven.”

“You heard what I have proposed,” said Colonel Lahousen. He was Chief of the Sabotage Branch of the Abwehr, a man tasked with handling special missions that required unusual tactics. It was he who had put forward the need for the Brandenburgers in this attack, an element that ended up proving very useful in the initial stages of the operation. Now he had another idea that might do the job, not more troops — gasoline. It could be hauled up in Jerry cans and simply poured into the upper galleries where the German mountain troops had already gained entry. Like any liquid, it would find its way through any crevice or crack, and migrate down into the lower galleries. Then all it would take is a match to finish the job.

It was a macabre and horrific plan, and would make for a terrible death to any man trapped inside those passageways. The British had food and water to hold out for months, but a gasoline fire would consume the oxygen itself. Those that weren’t asphyxiated would suffocate if they tried to resist further. Yet in spite of the sinister promise of success, many of the senior German officers were appalled by the plan.

The war would end in merciless nuclear fire. Millions would die before it was over and, on some nights, as many as 100,000 would be consumed in a single horrific holocaust of chaos and flame, entire cities burned away by deliberate fire bombing at places like Tokyo, Dresden and others. Yet now, in late 1940, there was still some semblance of civility and humanity alive in the way the war was being fought. The unconditional, unrestricted mindset of war had not yet set in, and so the German officers decided to give the British one last chance to make an honorable surrender.

They called for a brief cease fire and came forward under a white flag, offering generous terms again, only this time they would tell Liddell what they were going to be forced to do if their offer was not accepted. Kübler refused to attend the conference, so Colonel Lahousen was sent to make the final threat.

“We will not lose any more of men to persuade you to accept what you already know is inevitable,” he told Liddell.

“Oh? Well I must tell you, Colonel, that if so ordered I am prepared to lose this entire garrison to forestall your occupation of this place.”

“Have you ever seen man burn to death?” Lahousen asked. “It is not a pretty sight. Then again, the fumes from thousands of gallons of gasoline will be another agony, a choking death for some, until I decide to end the matter and use this.” He reached into his pocket and took out a book of matches, setting it squarely on the table between the two men and smiling.

“Good day, General Liddell. We will give you the three days you request, and await your decision. Do not force me to become the monster I may now seem to be. After all, this is war.”

Liddell waited those three days, and put the matter to Whitehall, where it went round for a good long day before Churchill finally decided, delivering a speech that he had made at an earlier time in the history Fedorov knew. This time it was the loss of Gibraltar that inspired the eloquence of his rhetoric.

“Our enemy has threatened a most barbarous reprisal should the brave defenders of the Rock remain adamant at their watch. They have threatened to burn the whole mountain black as death itself, consuming every last man alive in that awful fire. I cannot permit such an atrocity, and in this threat we now know the mettle of the foe we face in the Nazi war machine, which will stop at nothing to grind us under its heels. I have ordered General Liddell to stand down rather than face such a terrible end, but the task of resistance passes now to all of us. The fire that might have made an end of the brave defenders of the Rock must now burn in each of us, and forge the steel of our continued resistance. We are the Rock now, every man woman and child left in these British isles, and in our colonies throughout the empire. We may have suffered another hard knock, but they have not put us to the fire — no — not yet.

“We shall continue to fight them, resolute, on every frontier. We shall fight them in the deserts of Egypt. We shall fight them on the high seas, where the Royal Navy maintains its watch with ceaseless vigilance. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. And should they dare set foot on this sacred soil, our homeland of England, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. We shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.”

The phrase “We are the Rock” went out like a clarion call, across the airwaves to inspire every man on the far flung fields of battle. Yet stirring rhetoric was one thing — the grim procession of British troops filing out from their caves and tunnels quite another, and the Germans countered Churchill’s eloquence with newsreels of the event, rubbing salt in the wound they had inflicted.

When the operation was finally concluded, Admiral Raeder sent Hitler a congratulatory note, praising his decisive will to prosecute the battle and secure this vital objective, He summarized again in that note many of the arguments he had made in favor of the plan:

“The significance of German occupation of Gibraltar is increased by the recent developments in the Mediterranean situation. Such occupation safeguards the western Mediterranean; secures the supply lines from the North African area, important for Spain, France, and Germany; eliminates an important link in the British Atlantic convoy system; closes the British sea route through the Mediterranean to Malta and Alexandria; restricts the freedom of the British Mediterranean Fleet; complicates British offensive action in Cyrenaica and Greece; relieves the Italians; and make possible German penetration into the African area via Spanish Morocco. Spanish ports, like Ferrol and Cadiz, are necessary for submarines and battleships, to facilitate attack on convoys. Occupation of Gibraltar is of great importance for the continuation of German war plans, if not decisive.”

For his part, the Kriegsmarine had played a secondary role in the Gibraltar campaign, one that was largely designed to tie down the assets of the British Home Fleet and prevent them from reinforcing Force H. But Raeder had strong ships at sea, a task force under Admiral Lütjens with Hindenburg, Bismarck and supporting ships. They had successfully raided the Faeroes and savaged Convoy-HX-69, and now they were in a race south to reach the French Ports before the British could catch them. Everything was going according to his wishes.

Britain was in a quandary as to how to proceed with the war after Gibraltar. Only a few doughty souls remained hidden in the Rock. Six were concealed in their “Stay Behind Cave.” And one other was hidden in a place he had not yet come to realize or understand.

Sergeant Hobson had tried his best to get the engineers to have a look behind that imposing rock blocking the lower passage of Saint Michael’s cave. There was too little time, he was told, and where might it lead? These were the same arguments the Sergeant had run through his own mind, but a curious and stubborn man, he decided to have one last look when the word came down that the garrison would capitulate.

Somehow, he worked his way behind the rock, straining and squirming to get through a crevice so narrow that his head and shoulders could barely fit through. But he could smell fresh air there, a cool draft that had to be coming from some place, so he continued to squirm until he had managed to squeeze on through.

In that last week before the final surrender, he resolved that he would not be marched off to some German prison camp in Spain. Life might be better there than what he now contemplated, but comfort was one thing, a man’s pride and character quite another. The recollection of that young Lieutenant in the Artillery Corps that had taken up a rifle as the final retreat began was still with him. He remembered how the lad had thrown himself on that grenade, making the final sacrifice to save his comrades in arms.

“And here we are about to hand the Rock over to Jerry,” he muttered bitterly. “Some murderous German General holds up a match book and that’s the end of it. Well, not for me.”

In those last days he went about rounding up much needed supplies. If six other men would stay behind, so would he. One by one, he forced the small supply packs through the crevice, and then he finally squeezed through himself.

He took out a matchbook, shaking his head as he did so. “The Germans think they’ve taken the Rock with a single match,” he said aloud. “Well this one says we haven’t given up yet, not while there’s still one Barbary ape here on the rock, just as legend has it. By God there’s one down here somewhere, and I’m going to find it!”

He used the match to light his oil lamp, watching as it illuminated the strange shapes of the carved walls of the cave. “Now then,” he said, standing up in the dark, grateful that there was at least enough head room in his cave to allow for that. “Where have you gone, my young little weasel of an ape?”

Chapter 2

The cold light of the waning gibbous moon fell on other ships that night, as they surged through the rising seas like steel shadows. They were running full out, engines straining, the water high on the sharp bows as they pushed ahead. Bismarck was in the van, its dark shape illuminated in the cold pale moonlight, a grim silent presence on the sea. Behind it came an even greater mass, the looming hulk of the Hindenburg as it followed the wide frothing wake of the other ship. Kapitan Adler was on the bridge, fretting and restless that night, and ever mindful of the third shadow on the sea, well behind them yet still there, doggedly following their every move. He could not see it now in the darkness, but he could feel it, the threatening presence of another enemy battleship on the seas behind them.

Adler was still steaming with the thought that they should have turned and fought this ship the moment it first appeared on the distant horizon. But Lütjens had turned away, and he had received a stiff rebuke when he made an unwise comment intimating that the Admiral seemed to have no stomach for battle. It still bothered him as he felt that presence behind them, and he stepped out onto the weather bridge to have a look through his field glasses.

The night was cold and wet, a light mist on the air that was more than the spray from Hindenburg’s bow. Rain was coming. He had checked with the weather man and knew the pressure was falling. So they would have a storm to shroud their massive steel shoulders soon, and thickening clouds overhead. That would keep the Goeben’s planes on the deck for the foreseeable future, so he could not count on the Stukas driving off this meddlesome British battleship. But here he had the most advanced ship in the German Navy under his feet, its power and mass so evident as it plowed the seas — and they were running!

He shook his head, wishing he could make a sudden turn and rip open the night with those terrible 16-inch guns. That was how he would have handled the matter, but Lütjens had been adamant. They had their feast. Convoy HX-69 paid the terrible price for the meal in ships lost and blood and fire on the sea. Then, at the height of their feeding frenzy, the Royal Navy had appeared, a battleship challenging them off the starboard bow, and the Admiral had turned away, leaving the wrecked convoy behind, along with the prospect of a good battle that Adler knew they would have won if the Admiral had found his backbone. Bismarck took the lead and he had followed, reluctantly, still stinging from the threat leveled at him by Lütjens.

Throw me in the brig, will he? Adler steamed, glad for the cool wet air of the night on his face now. Then he had second thoughts, realizing that his remark had been too much of an insult for Lütjens to permit, particularly on the bridge, in front of the other officers. That realization still burned at the back of his neck, and he knew he had invited the Admiral’s angry reprisal, but that did little to comfort him. He would have to be more careful, he thought, yet he must make his voice heard as well. He was Kapitan of the Hindenburg, a posting any man in the fleet would envy, and not without reason. He was an experienced sea Kapitan, young, with a good fighting heart, a loyal party man. Why else was he here if not to find and fight the enemy? His judgment was sound, and he would have it heard, but he had to be more careful.

Lütjens was not a party man. He was a good, loyal officer, but not one to click heels and stiffen to the salute before the Nazi flag. It was said that when the Führer came to tour the ship before it sailed on this first maiden voyage, the Admiral offered a traditional naval salute, and not the one armed salute that had been adopted by the party. Lütjens seemed to have misgivings about National Socialism, reservations that seemed to manifest as a quiet disdain at times. Perhaps I can use that, he thought, but he put the matter aside.

In the future I will state my opinion in a more direct manner, he thought. No innuendo with a man like Lütjens, but I can have anything I say entered into the ship’s log. If I disagree, then it can be made a matter of record, and perhaps then the Admiral will think twice before he so lightly dismisses the advice of this ship’s Kapitan.

Even as he thought that, he realized how hollow it sounded. This ship’s Kapitan… He was on the flagship of the fleet! Yes, an enviable post, but one that was ever fated to stand as vice Chancellor in the hierarchy of command. There would always be an Admiral on this ship, another man’s shadow ever darkening his chair. He would play second fiddle here — unless he became the Admiral on this ship one day, and that thought set his mind to a more promising compass heading.

They had been running full out for ten hours after their feast on the convoy. Now they had come to a position about a thousand kilometers east of Glasgow, well away from British air cover, though he gave that little mind now with the Goeben along. Marco Ritter had a clutch of good fighter pilots out there somewhere. The escort carrier was steaming with the new battlecruiser Kaiser in escort, another good reason they should have turned and sunk this British battleship.

He sighed, turning to greet an adjutant coming out to see him with a message.

“Fleet communiqué, sir. Wilhelmshaven reports they have radio intercepts on more capital ships that have joined the chase.”

Adler took the message, squinting at it in the darkness. “What does it say?”

“Sir, they believe the British have at least two other battleships behind us.”

“Anything to the south? What of this Force H we have been brooding about?”

“Nothing sir.”

Adler nodded, putting the message into his pocket. “See that the Admiral is informed.”

The man saluted and went off, and Adler looked over his shoulder again, seeing nothing but the low clouds and gathering rain. Well, he thought, two more battleships — a fair fight now. What could the British possibly have that could keep up with us? The ship behind them now must certainly be the HMS Invincible. That much was evident when it delivered a booming challenge at long range when it first appeared. The shells were well off the mark, but Adler knew the splash of a big gun round when he saw one, and that was a battleship that had fired at them, and not a cruiser. Only their battlecruisers could make thirty knots to keep up with Hindenburg like this, but they were thought to still be in the ship yards after the bruising Graf Zeppelin and Bismarck gave to them in Operation Valkyrie.

That was another aborted battle at sea that they should have fought and won. He knew Lindemann on the Bismarck. The man was not one to turn and run from any good fight. Yet he, too, had exercised caution at the outset when the Royal Navy charged in with more reinforcements — HMS Invincible, the pride of the British Home Fleet. But that was not all… There had been another ship, firing those amazing naval rockets, or so he had heard. He spoke with Lindemann about it, and the man seemed strangely bothered, an uncertain look in his eye that Adler had never seen before. He had also heard what Kurt Hoffmann had said about what happened to Gneisenau, and the loss of one of their newest destroyers, Heimdall, was further evidence that some dark new demon was at large on the seas. But it wasn’t a British ship — it was Russian!

He still had trouble getting his mind around that. How could the Russians have developed such weapons? This was obviously a very secret project, something that had been missed by the intelligence services, which did not surprise him. The Abwehr was a leaky sieve of late. Canaris could not really be relied on for anything of importance. Adler had the lingering suspicion that the man was a double agent, a dissembling obstructionist at best, a traitor at worst, though he knew he could never prove that. Canaris had whined on and on about Franco’s unreliability.

Adler knew how he would deal with Franco — with a good Panzer Korps! It was just the way he thought he should deal with this British battleship behind them, but now there were three… That thought gave him pause. Was the Russian ship with them, the ship they were all calling Fafnir, the dragon of the Nordic seas where it had first made its appearance? It was said it could fire these new naval rockets at very long range, but they had seen nothing of this. Perhaps this was just an exaggeration, he thought, though the reports were very disturbing.

A rocket had come out of the night, high in the sky, then falling like a shooting star to skim over the sea and lance right in at Graf Zeppelin. The destroyer Heimdall had just been in the way, and took the blow that might have gutted the carrier. And the strangest thing about that attack is that there was no sign of any enemy ship on the horizon — no sign at all. Graf Zeppelin was well back from the action, so the rumors about the extreme long range of these naval rockets must be true.

Then he had heard what happened to the Admiral Scheer, and he could no longer dismiss the talk as the idle fancy of officers too new to battle in this war. Lindemann, Hoffmann, Krancke… these were all good men, well experienced, fighting Kapitans just as he was. They would not shirk from battle like Lütjens, and yet…

Three British battleships now. Perhaps Admiral Lütjens had been correct after all. If we had stayed there and fought with the first, the other two may have come up on the action just as it was getting interesting, and they would fight fire with fire. It was a battle he still thought they may have won, but Hindenburg was out on its maiden voyage. The Führer was undoubtedly jubilant with the news of the wreckage they had already left behind them. If they had fought, there was always the chance that the ship would be hit, and that did not seem to be something Hitler would enjoy hearing about. Tell the Führer that his new fleet flagship has just sunk a hundred thousand tons of British merchant shipping and that was one thing — tell him that Hindenburg was blackened by the fire of the enemy’s guns — that was quite another thing.

In this light he now came to see Lütjens’ decision to turn away and make for the coast of France in better light. It’s our maiden voyage, he thought. He wants to deliver the ship to a safe harbor, take his laurels, and then scheme on fighting his battle some other day. Perhaps that was the wiser course after all, he thought, but it still did not feel all that comfortable as he turned and started for the hatch and the warmth of the inner citadel of the conning tower. They still had a long way to go. The French coast was another 2000 kilometers away, and they certainly would not run at 30 knots the whole way. This odyssey was not yet over. They would have to fall off to two thirds to give the engines and turbines a rest. Then they would see if this shadow behind them fell off as well, or came boldly forward to engage.

I might get my battle in any case, he thought, and in spite of his confidence, in spite of the power he could feel beneath him as the ship hurried on, another voice whispered in the back of his mind, and gave the old warning — be careful what you wish for…

Another man who once stood in the shadow of an Admiral was also thinking that night. Vladimir Karpov was a man who might understand Adler all too well and, if he could have heard his thoughts, he might have reinforced that note of caution in the Captain’s mind. But he was far away from the sea, hovering in the mist above the endless green forests of Siberia, scheming in his own way over what he would now do about Ivan Volkov.

There had always been someone like that in his way, he thought, and Volkov would be no different than any of the others — the school teachers, classmates, coaches, commandants and rival officers had all tasted the poison of his envy and ire. Not even Admirals were spared, and now, after demonstrating his own brand of conniving duplicity and treachery, Volkov would not be spared either. But what to do?

Sitting there aboard Abakan, thinking, Karpov knew what he would do in this situation, if only he had the power. In two years he had scratched his way into the good graces of Kolchak, but that man still had half the army facing the Japanese at Irkutsk. What remained here in the west was barely enough to hold the line. One of his best divisions, the 18th Siberian Rifles, was now invested at Omsk in the second battle his men had fought with Volkov for that city. The rail line east was cut behind the city, and now there was no way he could get supplies or reinforcements in except by airship. Behind that forward outpost, he still had four good divisions on the main line of defense along the Ob River, including his elite 32nd Siberian at Novosibirsk, and then there was the cavalry he had boasted about to Volkov. They were mostly north of Tomsk watching that flank. He had gathered his only reserve division, the 91st Siberian, here at Ilanskiy after Volkov’s ill fated raid. What was that man thinking? He threw two airships and a couple good battalions to the wolves here, all in a foolhardy attempt to take this place when he knew he could never hold it. Did he really think he could punch through and come all the way from Omsk to relieve this force?

No. He didn’t think that at all. In fact, he intended to throw me this bone all along— Symenko, the surly Squadron Commandant in the Eastern Airship Division of the Orenburg fleet. Yes, he was one of Denikin’s old guard, the bald headed old fart who tried to lead the White movement in the Revolution. Volkov made short work of him, and easily took control, and all he was doing with this raid was cleaning out his cupboard and settling some old, unfinished business. Karpov understood that instinctively as well.

But the raid could not go unpunished, nor could the treachery Volkov had used as a prelude to this attack at Omsk. What he needed now was a nice big hammer to smash this nail, but how? He thought, musing on the awesome sight of the nuclear blast that incinerated the Naval Arsenal at Kansk. He had seen that when he went up those steps, and now he knew there was no going back that way. The war in 2021 was in its final death throes. That world was not going to survive the missiles and bombs in their thousands.

I could certainly make good use of one right now, he thought. That would stop Volkov’s offensive right in its tracks, but he knew where the only viable warheads on earth were at this moment — on the battlecruiser Kirov, the ship he had once commanded in that hour of destiny… so long ago it seemed now. The heated memory of that final moment on the bridge would still come to him from time to time, and the lashing rebuke of Doctor Zolkin’s words, the confused, yet stolid presence of Victor Samsonov as he stood up, refusing to obey, the last straw…

Yes, Samsonov was so mindlessly efficient at his post that it had seemed to Karpov the man was just another part of the ship itself. When he stood to oppose him it was as if Kirov itself has turned in rebellion, the weapon no longer willing to serve the warrior… He shook the bitter memory of those last moments with his comrades from his mind. Comrades? He sneered at that now. They were all traitors as well, no better than Volkov. One day he would settle that score, but he had other fish to fry now — Ivan Volkov.

He thought about that hammer he needed; about the arsenal at Kansk, and then an idea came to him, a devious, sinister thought of something he could do here that might suddenly change the balance of power. He did not have the warheads at his disposal any longer, and there would be no more until the Americans bumbled their way into the atomic nightmare five years from now. Yet he could create something that might serve his purpose very well here, and these old airships he commanded just might be the perfect way to deliver it.

The more he thought about this, the more he realized how easy it would be to do what he was now imagining. That thought rising in his mind like dark smoke, he turned to his Aide de Camp, a dangerous glint in his eye. “Summon all the engineers. Then tell Captain Bogrov to take us to the nearest fuel depot at Krasnoyarsk. He is to plot a course south to Kyzyl, the Kaa-Khem coal mine to be precise. Signal Big Red at Novosibirsk to head that way and meet us there.”

An idea was mushrooming up like a dark explosive cloud in his mind, and with the information he had in his computer jacket, he knew exactly what he would need to do.

Chapter 3

Several weeks later Karpov had what he needed. The engineers had worked day and night, in double shifts, and all under his scrutinizing supervision. He used the information in his computer jacket to determine exactly what to do, and was pleased with the results, particularly after the first test deployment on a hapless flock of sheep.

It worked as planned.

The Germans had hit upon the primal fear of fire, and the agonizing death it would bring, to unhinge Britain’s stalwart defenders under the Rock of Gibraltar. So he would use that same element to achieve his purpose here.

He strode down the long metal grating of Big Red’s interior walkway, all the way from the tail of the ship, where the last of the loading operations were now being concluded. Along the way he removed his black leather gloves from his uniform side pocket, slowly pulling them on one at a time, and making a fist to set the fit just as he preferred. The sound of his hard soled boots resounded in the enclosed space, echoing up through the metal duralumin framework of the massive airship. Karpov was ready. He would leave the ship to board Abakan for the planned attack. It would be much too dangerous to remain aboard ‘Big Red.’

That was the nickname of one of the largest airships in his small fleet, the Krasnoyarsk, or “Old Krasny,” which meant ‘red’ in the Russian language. Most simply called the ship ‘Big Red,’ and the tarps that covered its duralumin skeleton had been tinted a dull red to fill the bill nicely.

The project Karpov had been busy with was the development of a hammer big enough to smash the nail he had in his shoe, Ivan Volkov. He knew he would never get his hands on another nuclear warhead, so he tried something else, a rudimentary air fuel bomb the like of which had been pioneered by a German engineer named Mario Zippermayr during the Second World War. In fact, the man was probably out there somewhere working on a similar project now, he thought, but I have beaten him to the punch.

He had come to the Kaa-Chem coal mine to get the dust — coal dust, which could be highly explosive if applied properly in the weapon his engineers had designed. He had rigged out a bomb container the size and appearance of a sub-cloud car. In fact, he began with the empty shell of one such car to create his prototype. Then he used the data available in his jacket computer to find how to suspend the coal dust in a liquid, and combine it with oxygen in his new bomb. It would be a two stage delivery process, one to first burst open the receptacle and cause wide area dispersion of the material inside, and a second charge to then ignite the holocaust. The explosive shock of the weapon was severe, far beyond that off any normal detonation.

The trick was how to deliver it on target, an enemy ground force threatening his lines, without having his airships shot to pieces by heavy caliber flack guns. The answer was to drop or parachute the weapon over the battlefield from high altitude, and he drilled his zeppelin bombardiers hard on delivery even while the engineers were feverishly putting the weapons together. They tested for wind, altitude, potential drift off target. In time he had a deliverable bomb, and one of considerable power that had been tested to create an intense shock wave over an area of 600 meters in diameter.

Karpov had his hammer.

Big Red was soon rigged out with three of the new bombs, and Karpov assembled a small flotilla of zeppelins to make his first strike against the advancing forces of the Orenburg Federation. Volkov’s 9th Infantry, 22nd Air Mobile, and 8th Armored Cavalry Brigade had formed the right pincer of his attack against Omsk. Two other divisions invested the town, encircling Karpov’s 18th Siberian Division there, but these other three pressed on towards Novosibirsk, hoping to quickly storm the defenses.

There Karpov had positioned his crack 32nd Siberian Guards, blocking the way east behind their Ob River defense line. Volkov’s men would have a tough fight ahead, with an opposed river crossing being the least of it. It was the perfect opportunity to test out his new weapon. If the enemy was able to cross here, then they could maneuver to stage a crossing north of the city, and cut the main road and rail connections.

Big Red was up and approaching the river crossing zone, where Volkov’s forces were massing near a smaller tributary about 5 miles west of the main river. One advantage Karpov had was that he would not be opposed by enemy zeppelins here. He had amassed all the air power he could get his hands on and sent the fighters to the airfields in and around Novosibirsk. Volkov’s single zeppelin accompanying the attack, the Pavlodar, was finally forced to withdraw to avoid the ceaseless duels with Karpov’s fighters.

Fighter squadrons were now in dutiful escort, and Abakan was there should any other airship return to challenge the action. Karpov had rehearsed the maneuver five times, each time doing no more than high level reconnaissance, and this had the effect of dulling the enemy’s concerns, thinking the real attack was nothing more than another high level observation run. Now, in the pre-dawn hour, Big Red drifted ominously above the battle zone, accompanied by Karpov aboard the Abakan.

He could see that bridging equipment had been brought up the previous day, and knew the enemy crossing was imminent. But they did not expect the surprise Karpov had waiting for them that day.

“Well, Bogrov,” he said to his airship Captain. “Today we teach Volkov a lesson he will not soon forget. You will see what the real application of power is here. Mark my words.”

Bogrov marked them, though he inwardly felt there was something cowardly in the action. He had seen the test dropping of the weapon near the coal mines, and he knew there was not a flock of sheep down there, but men, human beings. Yes, they were enemies, but something in him preferred the more equal duel of airships, gun to gun, man to man, and not this dastardly attack. Karpov could see that he had reservations, though the Captain had said nothing.

“You have issues with this, Bogrov?”

“Sir? Well, war is war, I suppose, but they won’t know what hit them, will they.”

“Volkov will know when he gets the news. This war is just getting started, Bogrov, and the gloves have not yet come off. This is strategic bombing. Before this war ends both sides will adopt this tactic, mostly the allied powers. Entire cities will burn in a single night. You will see.”

There it was again, thought Bogrov, that odd way the Admiral had of talking about the war as if it had already happened, as if it was something he had read about once in a history book.

“And what will Volkov do when he gets the news, sir? That was on my mind.”

“Hopefully he will take a hard lesson from what happens here today, and realize who he is dealing with when he raises his hand against Vladimir Karpov.”

Bogrov thought he had raised it against the 18th Siberian Division encircled at Omsk, but he said nothing of that. “I suppose I meant that Volkov might think to do the same thing to us, sir. He has a lot more airships than we do. Suppose he were to rig out his zeppelins with these new sub-cloud car bombs as well. Then what?”

Karpov thought about that. What would the Japanese have done if they could have gotten their hands on an atomic bomb after being hit at Hiroshima?

“Perhaps you are correct,” he said. “He may think to fight fire with fire, unless I can talk some sense into him after this. But first, the lesson, the hard lesson of war — retribution. We’ll see how keen he is to cross the Ob after I get finished with his 9th Infantry Division down there. It’s a pity he hasn’t moved up all of his 8th Armored Cavalry yet, but we must go today. The weather will not hold, and today it is perfect. Signal Big Red. They may begin their bombing run.”

The massive zeppelin maneuvered out in front, and ten minutes later Karpov saw them fall, one, two, three, sailing down through the grey dawn to awaken the troops below when they ignited in a blinding flash and broiling fireball that carried a tremendous shock wave. Eardrums burst, the very breath of a man was literally squeezed from his chest as the shock wave thundered over the scene with terrible force. Yet more terrible was the searing fire that came after, devouring anything exposed, and literally sucking the oxygen right out of the air. Indeed, when the first small charged burst the weapon open to disperse the deadly contents, the liquefied coal droplets relied on the oxygen in the air to increase the potency of the detonation.

Karpov heard the three loud booms from far below, saw the bright red-yellow fireball ignite with their fury, and a slow smile crept onto his face. It worked! One of the three fireballs was slightly off target, very near the tributary, but that was also good, for it smashed a pontoon bridge under construction there. The other two had fallen amid the encamped enemy division, and thousands would not awaken that morning for reveille — a wakeup call that was never to be heard.

“Excellent!” Karpov said aloud. “Now! Signal Kalmenikov to start his attack!”

That night, the thick woods to the north of the site had been slowly infiltrated by Karpov’s tough 2nd Cossack Cavalry Division. The men moved like shadows on their grey white steeds, emerging from the tree line like a sweeping fog. They moved out at the canter, the mass of horsemen slowly gaining speed until the bugler sounded the attack. Then the Cossacks drew their cruel curved swords and came charging south toward the main road that led back to Omsk.

There were elements of the 2nd Armored Cavalry, armored cars, motorized infantry, who had also been roused by the thunderous explosions to the east near the river. The Majors told the Captains, and the Captains told the Sergeants, with orders shouting the alarm as the charge came in. The Sergeants told the buglers, and the buglers thought to raise their horns to rouse the sleeping men, but the Cossacks told them all.

The cold swords flashed in the grey dawn, and the thunderous sound of ten thousand horseman shook the ground. At one point in the column, six armored cars put up a gallant defense, the machine guns in their armored turrets taking a fearful toll. But they could not stem the tide, and the Cossacks swept by, some hurling Molotov cocktails at the light armored vehicles, and adding more fire and torment to the morning. Others threw grappling hooks and the horsemen literally toppled two of the armored cars by dragging them onto their side, rendering them useless.

Soldiers shaken by the terrible explosion, yet still alive on the outer fringes of the detonations, were dazed and confused, some barely struggling to their feet only to be cut down by those flashing sabres. The carnage was terrible to behold, and soon the chaos of panic began to spread, from one platoon to another until the encampment became a rout. The Cossacks swept through like a tide of death until they reached the village of Kochernevo, just south of the main road. There the hard shorn horsemen galloped through the cobblestone streets, setting fire to every building they could reach with Molotov cocktails and torches — fighting fire with fire. This was the site of the enemy headquarters, and now all the Majors and Captains were put to the test of war, and they fled in all directions, many ridden down and slaughtered by the last waves of the cavalry.

There had been many battles like this throughout the long history of the bloody Russian civil war. Tartar and Cossack cavalry units prowled the Siberian woodlands, but were seldom deployed en mass like this against formed units of a modern army. Yet here they had caught their foe completely by surprise, shocked and stunned by Karpov’s deadly new weapons.

High above, Karpov was watching the battle with his field glasses, as he often did on the ship. He had become accustomed to thinking behind the protective cups of the eye pieces, and watching the action unfold, as if he was seeing it in a movie. It brought him closer to it all without having to go there himself and actually enter the fray, which is just as he preferred things. Combat was for stupid soldiers. He was a General, an Admiral, and soon to become a head of state. These soldiers were merely things he used to achieve his ends, as he had thought to use the awesome power of Kirov.

He saw the gallant and deadly charge, the carnage it inflicted, and was elated. But soon, he knew, the enemy would respond by bringing up armor from the heart of that mechanized cavalry unit. The shock of his attack had done its job, completely unhinging the enemy river crossing operation, and so now he turned and gave another order to Bogrov.

“Signal Kalmenikov. Tell him to pull his Cossacks out and proceed to the rally point. And be certain they leave behind those gifts!”

The late Christmas presents Karpov was delivering were thickets of hand deployed mines, that were being dropped all over the ground as the horsemen withdrew. Now, when a more organized column of armored cars came barreling up the main road into Kochernevo, they got another nasty surprise, running right over the mines, which exploded to send the lead vehicle hurling up and then crashing down onto its side in another fiery wreck.

“Begin regular bombing now. Let them taste our conventional munitions.”

Abakan was high up, but a hovering zeppelin was a near perfect bombing platform, with unequaled stability. The long rack of 100 pound bombs were deployed from each gondola, and the rain of evil metal fell unerringly to the scene below, the bomblets erupting with more fury, setting off many of the mines and leaving the whole target zone a hell of fire and shrapnel. The last touch were the barrels of another mixture Karpov had devised with his engineers, a makeshift napalm that he sent careening down into the entire mix, ending the attack with the hideous assault of fire, even as it had begun.

The hammer had fallen. The lesson had been taught, but it now remained to be seen whether Volkov would get the message Karpov was delivering that day. He would soon learn that the heart and soul had been burned out of his 9th Infantry Division, and his 8th Armored Cavalry Brigade had been gutted. There would be no river crossing operation that day, and by nightfall the remaining units were beginning to withdraw down the long road west to Omsk.

Karpov monitored their slow, steady progress, content. Now he contemplated what he might say to Volkov after his little victory on the Ob here. Should he offer the man a truce, demand the return of Omsk and withdrawal of all his divisions on Free Siberian territory to the south of Novosibirsk? He knew that Volkov had three big zeppelins operating there, the units Symenko had told him about, but thus far, only the 15th Division had been seen to cross the border zone. It was probing toward his defenses on the lower Ob.

“Signal Big Red. We return to Kaa-Chem. But we will take a roundabout course to throw off Volkov’s spies, and navigate there tonight under cover of darkness.” He was looking at his map as the operation concluded, well satisfied.

“Yes Bogrov, war is war. You can either be the one on the delivering end of an attack like the one you just witnessed or you will one day end up on the receiving end. War is war, and we do what we must. But doing it first is the best way, before your enemy gets his stinking hands on your throat. We could have fought a hard defensive battle here. An opposed river crossing would have been very costly for Volkov’s troops. But the best defense is a good offense, and I have just demonstrated that clearly enough.”

“Aye sir,” said Bogrov. “That you did.”