Kirov (19 page)

His
expression was one of clear amazement. “Believe me, I have given consideration
to every other possible explanation, but the evidence of our own eyes speaks
volumes. We cannot contact Severomorsk on our normal coded radio channels
because they did not exist in 1941. We hear nothing but old signals
broadcasting WWII documentaries on the shortwave, no matter what station we
tune in. We have images of obsolete ships on video, and were overflown by a
plane that exists only in a museum just hours ago. And now all this…” he
gestured broadly at the accumulation of evidence on the table.

“Yet
if this is a psychological operation perpetrated by NATO this is exactly what
they would want us to believe,” argued Karpov.

“Doctor?”
The Admiral had invited the ship’s physician to the meeting as well. “Are we
all losing our minds here or do we have good reason to reach these conclusions,
as preposterous as they may seem.”

“Well…
I am finding it difficult to assume NATO has removed all these vital
installations and facilities simply for the sake of playing a psychological
game on us here. Who would have dreamt up such a thing—to try and convince the
flagship of the Northern Fleet that she has moved in time? The whole idea is
absurd. Do you think they staged all of this, the ships, the plane, the island,
just for theater? Consider the cost and requirements of such an endeavor, and
could they do such a thing right here in our own back yard, as it were, without
us knowing about it? Hundreds of people rely on the daily weather data
transmitted from the Met station on Jan Mayen. Yet we hear nothing now. Where
are the facilities that should be on the island? Fifteen or twenty buildings do
not simply vanish overnight. And you cannot obliterate an airfield. If it were
there, and attacked as Orlov suggests, then you would have seen obvious signs.”

“That
is no more preposterous than the notion that this ship has suddenly become a
time machine and the year is actually 1941,” said Karpov.

“Perhaps,”
said the doctor, “but do you have another explanation that fits with all the
other things we have noted?”

Karpov
steamed. “You ask me to choose between two nonsensical alternatives,” he said brusquely.

“Yet
that is exactly what we must do here,” said Zolkin. “We must decide and choose,
and then act accordingly. If we are in our own time, then our actions will soon
bear that out. We can simply turn about and steam for Severomorsk, and that
will settle the matter once and for all. Before that we should consider the
situation carefully. Because if, by any stretch of the imagination, all these
facts do add up to the improbable conclusion that we have somehow shifted in
time, then realize what this means.” He looked at them all now, casting a
knowing glance at the Admiral as well. “It means that we would be sitting in
the most formidable ship in the world, with full knowledge of the history that
is about to unfold, and the power to change it…”

The
doctor had the undivided attention of every man present. Even Karpov seemed to
settle into some deep inner thought, ruminating and planning. His eyes betrayed
the operation of his mind as he considered the incredible advantage of the position
he might now find himself in, no matter how much his every instinct screamed
that this whole premise was patently ridiculous.

“The
reactors,” said the Admiral in a low voice. “Chief Dobrynin said the reactors
sounded odd when we experienced those strange effects in the sea. He had
unusual readings and requested we reduce speed. I wonder…” He had not yet
formulated a complete thought here, and so he put the matter aside, the other
evidence appearing to be conclusive in his mind, however preposterous it
seemed.

With
the weight of both the Admiral’s considered opinion and that of the ship’s
physician, both well liked and respected men, the others present voiced no
objections, waiting in silence. Even Orlov, practical and gritty in every
respect, a man who would normally be delivering a stream of invectives at such
nonsensical ideas, sat dumb.

“Mister
Fedorov,” said the Admiral. “For those of us not so well schooled in the
history of the Great Patriotic War, can you tell us anything about what would
be happening at this time if it were indeed late July of 1941?”

“Well
sir, at this time Great Britain’s lone stand against Nazi Germany has been
broken by the German invasion of the Soviet Union some months ago. And as we
heard in some of the radio broadcasts we have intercepted, German panzers have
reached Smolensk and will be fighting an encirclement operation there for the
next month. They will then turn south to take Kiev before pressing on to
threaten Moscow in what will be called Operation Typhoon in October. The Germans
are also tightening the noose around Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was called
then, and the siege there will begin in early September of this year.

“Remember
that the United States has not yet entered the war, and will not do so for five
months until the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in December. There is,
however, increasing cooperation between Great Britain and the United States,
particularly over the conduct of operations in the Atlantic. The United States
landed the 1st Marine Brigade at Reykjavík and officially began relieving the
British garrison there the first week of July, 1941. They have already
transferred fifty destroyers to Great Britain to assist their defense of the
convoy routes, and the Lend Lease law will have narrowly passed the American
Congress allowing the Allied powers to ship supplies and material directly to
the Soviet Union in the Murmansk convoys. The first of these, Convoy Dervish,
would be very close to setting out for Murmansk. It was a small, and rather
insignificant convoy, just six ships carrying raw materials and fifteen crated
hurricane fighter planes. It was meant to demonstrate the feasibility of
organizing Arctic convoys to the Kola Peninsula area in the future.”

“I
can't believe I am hearing this!” Karpov exclaimed. “We have enough to worry
about given the situation in Europe and Asia now, let alone this nonsense about
having to refight the Second World War.”

“True,”
said the Admiral. “But assuming these facts present us with an impossible
truth, we would be well advised to study the tactical situation we may now find
ourselves in. Consider it an exercise, if you will. If events soon prove
otherwise, you can have a good laugh about it. If however…”

Karpov
shook his head, pinching his nose, his eyes tightly closed. “We should return
to Severomorsk at once and put an end to this fantasy,” he said.

“You
advise we withdraw to the bosom of Mother Russia?” Volsky leaned heavily back
in his chair. “That would be an easy course to take. In a few days we would
either be sitting on base with cold beer and a horse laugh or two while Mister
Samsonov there entertains us with his balalaika.”

Samsonov
smiled, nodding his head. “And if all this is nonsense,” the Admiral continued,
“then we can return to our humdrum existence there in the cold, gray north,
hoping the country can perhaps deliver another frigate or two, or maybe even a
new destroyer and few more modern submarines before the end of what promises to
be the most threatening period in our history since the conflict Mister Fedorov
is so well schooled in.”

Orlov
had a sallow look on his face. “And we’ll all end up sleeping with some old babushka
and wishing we were young again to have a little fun,” he said.

“Very
true,” said the Admiral. “On the other hand…We could do some snooping around
while we are out here. We will also have to account for the loss of
Orel
and
Slava
. There will be questions, very many questions, I’m afraid, and
as yet we have no firm answers. What is this surface contact up to? Where is it
going? What about that submarine contact? If these are NATO forces then we are
the only countervailing military force in theater at the moment. So no matter
the date, we must carry out our mission, which is to secure and defend our
nation against all harm.”

“One
way or another you are going to bump into the reality of the situation,” said
Zolkin, even as he had advised earlier in the sick bay. “You must act, and the
truth will become obvious.”

“I
thought that was what I was doing by sending this detachment to Jan Mayen,”
said the Admiral. “Yet we are left in much the same uncertainty as before. We
see the evidence, it leads us to an obvious conclusion, yet we are unwilling to
believe it.”

“Alright,
alright,” said Orlov gruffly. “Let’s assume the worst. Assume something
happened to the ship. I’ve been to Jan Mayen myself,” he said to Karpov now, “and
believe me, Captain, that was
not
the same island. It was completely
empty! No roads, no buildings, no airfield.”

“Very
well,” said Karpov sharply. “Let us indulge ourselves in the fantasy. We have
two contacts approaching us from the south. Let us go and have a look at them,
up close and personal. No long range video feed that could give us any reason
to doubt what we see. Will that settle the matter?”

“You
will see the light cruiser,
Adventure
and a single destroyer, the
Anthony
,”
said Fedorov. “At least this is my best guess given the history. One of the
British carriers we saw earlier was supposed to join this group, but…something
has changed…”

“Indeed,”
said Admiral Volsky. “Did we change it? We have done nothing of any consequence
as yet.”

“We’re
here, sir,” said Fedorov. “We’re here and we shouldn’t be, and the British
forces operating in the Arctic waters have discovered our presence and already
made decisions that were clearly not made historically. So far the variation
seems insignificant. HMS
Furious
was supposed to accompany these other
two ships for a time, and instead it remains with the main body that Rodenko
has been tracking. A small change. Nothing momentous. But the Admiral
commanding those ships out there knows an unknown ship of considerable size is
at large, and he’ll be wondering about us. It could be he’s decided to keep his
two carriers together as a precaution until he can learn more. And these two ships
approaching us may have been sent out as a reconnaissance group. If we proceed
as you suggest, understand that we may begin to make a few more ripples in the
waters of history, and the changes might be very significant.“

“Yet
one question remains,” said the Admiral. “The good doctor here put it to me
when I first raised this problem with him in the sick bay. If these are found
to be British ships,
old
British ships that should have been broken up
for scrap metal decades ago, then it is a question we must surely answer, and
it is this: Who’s side are we on in this war?”

Chapter
11

It
was some time
before anyone spoke, and Doctor Zolkin took a keen interest in the reactions of
every man present. Karpov was still sulking, but behind that storm front in his
mind he was already thinking, planning, looking far ahead at some distant
outcome. Orlov seemed torn between anger, confusion and irritation over the
matter. The junior officers, Rodenko, Nikolin, Tasarov and Samsonov fidgeted
uncomfortably, waiting. Fedorov seemed energetically alive, his mind also
forward looking as to possible consequences. It was clear he had more to say,
though he politely waited for the response of the senior officers first. The
Admiral was leaning back in his chair, his hands folded on the table as he
regarded the others, his glance often on Karpov. It was he who broke the
silence first.

“Who
is our enemy here?” asked the Admiral. “In 1941 Great Britain and the Soviet
Union were allies, perhaps strange bedfellows, but allies nonetheless. It has
been said that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Perhaps so. The West
delivered more than half of the trucks Soviet armies would use in this war, and
considerable amounts of raw materials, aircraft, and other supplies. We are
here, right astride the convoy route to Murmansk that became so contested in
the months and years ahead. We could smash what remains of the German surface
fleet in a heartbeat, and completely neutralize the air threat to these convoys
as well.”

Karpov
cleared his throat. “I still find this whole discussion ridiculous,” he began, “but
for the sake of argument consider this…Germany
loses
the war, even
without any assistance to the allies we might render. Now…we all know the world
that emerged after that, the long cold war, the fall of the Berlin Wall and so
called ‘iron curtain,’ the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the ever more
encroaching influence of the Unites States and NATO in the world’s key energy
sectors. They pay us lip service at the UN, but we all know here that Russia
has been consistently disrespected, marginalized, and viewed with suspicion and
veiled hostility ever since the war ended. The only thing that enables us to
compete on the world stage in any way is our considerable nuclear arsenal and
the resources we have, particularly oil, metals and timber. Yet they deal with
us because they must. Let us not fool ourselves here. Look at what the
Americans have done in the Middle East!”

“You
are suggesting our real enemy is the West,” said Volsky, “and I suppose it is a
strong argument.”

“Of
course,” said Karpov. “Germany was our enemy for four years. NATO had been our
nemesis ever since. The Soviet Union was going to eventually defeat Germany,
with or without Western assistance. It was only a matter of time.”