Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) (40 page)

“Helm answering, Captain, Coming round to one, eight, zero, Aye.”

*
* *

The
transmission ended and Fedorov stood there, a shocked expression
on his face. Dobrynin was sitting on a chair by the main operations console.

“So Satan has fallen from heaven and now he rules in hell,” he
said quietly. “I cannot say that this surprises me as much as you, Mister Fedorov.”

“The man is insane,” Fedorov said with a defeated tone in his
voice. “What you say is not too far from the truth, Chief. The ninth circle of
hell was reserved for traitors, particularly those who betray the trust of
their nation. Karpov has been trying to do this all along. I could feel it even
before we learned he was here. He wanted to strike the decisive blow and kill
Churchill and Roosevelt at the Atlantic Charter meeting. Then he argued we
could destroy Malta or Gibraltar and change the course of the war that way.
After that it was the Japanese, then the Americans. He keeps looking to find
his Waterloo, well, now he has found it here.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s right about the ship being invincible. There is nothing in
this era that can pose a threat if he maneuvers smartly here. So I can only
guess what is in the man’s mind now. He will probably think to first challenge
the Japanese again, and reverse the outcome of the Russo-Japanese war. That
sounds like the obvious thing to do, but anything could happen from here on
out. Anything… If he starts another war here it could affect all Russian
history, all world history from this point forward. Russia might not even enter
the First World War. And considering that man has nuclear weapons at his
disposal still—in 1908! It is truly chilling.”

“What can we do?” Dobrynin held up an empty hand. “Do you want to
launch the Mi-26 mission now anyway? We might be able to get to the Pacific. We
could strip the helicopter down to the bare essentials—just food, fuel and
those two control rods. Perhaps even one will do.”

Fedorov’s mind was a chaos of plans and counter plans, and all
beset now with the real terror of what Karpov was going to try to do. How could
he decide anything now? He felt completely powerless here. But he could not simply
sit there and do nothing. The idea of trying to find
Kirov
in the
Pacific now was fruitless, and Dobrynin made that evident as he continued.

“Then again, even if you do find the ship, Karpov could refuse to
use the control rods. Why, he could even shoot the Mi-26 down if he wanted to.”

“Zolkin was correct,” said Fedorov dejectedly. “And I was a fool
to think I could trust and rely on Karpov without the countervailing authority
of the Admiral to keep him in check.”

“Technically Karpov is the acting Fleet Commander now. Volsky is
in strategic command, but Karpov was given the Red Banner Fleet on the
operational level. In fact, that makes him your superior officer.”

“Yes, and what happened to that fleet?”

“I suppose we will never know…unless we do get home, and then you
can read about it as the Captain suggested.”

Fedorov’s eyes suddenly brightened, and he spun around.
“Yes…That’s the only thing we
can
do here. We’ve completed our mission,
and for some reason we ended up here. Who knows why? Maybe it was only to learn
what Karpov was going to do, but we can’t do anything about that at all here.
You are correct, Chief, he would simply refuse to use the control rods until he
had his way.”

Dobrynin nodded quietly.

“Then we go home,” said Fedorov flatly. “At least we
try
to
go home. If we do get there, and anything is still left of the world Karpov
leaves us, then we can discover exactly what he does. There will be history,
times, places, events.”

“What good will that do us?”

“We would still have the control rods, Chief. This may sound
strange now, and I have not yet thought it through, but I think Karpov is
correct about at least one thing here. There is something decisive about this
year—1908. We have all fallen through some hole in time into this nice little
circle of hell here, all the Fallen Angels gathered here together, and this is
where it must all end. The question is how? What can we do? The helicopter idea
is futile. This whole plan with the
Anatoly Alexandrov
of mine was
useless. It wasn’t Orlov we needed to worry about. I was wrong. He wasn’t the demon
we set loose in the world. It was Karpov all along!”

“Then what do we do?”

“We have to stop him before his actions here become irreversible,
that’s what we do.”

 “But how, Fedorov? The hovercraft and all these Marines will do
us no good here either.”

“Not here—not now. First we must get back home. Look Chief…You say
you can hear the change in the reactor when it happens, yes?”

“It has a very distinctive vibration. Yes, I can hear it like I
might hear music, if that makes any sense.”

“Alright then, we’ll try again. Do you suppose you could do something
with the reactors, just as Doctor Zolkin suggested once in jest. He said to go
have the Chief fiddle with the reactor and send us home. Is there any way to
make adjustments in the procedure to change things?”

“Possibly,” said Dobrynin, thinking about it now. “I could vary
the rods scheduled for replacement. I usually go odd-even-and so forth. That’s
what I was doing on
Kirov
. Perhaps I could break that sequence and try
something different.”

“Odd even? Do you remember which it was when we always shifted
forward?”

“Why yes…even, yes, it was an even numbered rod each and every
time, though I never considered that before.”

“And this last shift here?”

Dobrynin smiled. “Odd, Mister Fedorov, very odd. Of course! This
is why that shift sounded so different to me. I was expecting a rising melody,
and the orchestra descended into chaos.”

“Well, that’s a start. We use an
even
numbered rod now,
though why would that matter?”

“They are all placed in different locations in the reactor core,
so the neutron flux is different, almost like a different note played on a wind
instrument changes the tone, if that makes any sense to you.”

“Then you could listen and remember the sound of a forward shift?
Is that possible?”

“Of course. I hear the reaction every time it happens. It descends
when we slip backward in time, and it ascends when we move forward. I know the
sound well enough if I hear it.”

“And perhaps you could also fiddle with those other two control
rods in their containers. Lids on, lids off, who knows what we might do. I know
it would be hit and miss, but we have to try, Chief. We’ve got to get home, one
way or another, and that before Karpov does something catastrophic here.”

“What does it matter when we go? Won’t everything he does be
finished and done when we get home? The man and the whole crew will be in their
graves when we get there. It’s a hundred and thirteen years before we get home!”

“I think it does matter….” Fedorov was thinking hard now. “If we
leave this time before he does something decisive, perhaps we still have a
chance. Suppose we learn what he does and then return here—to this
moment—before he even does it!”

“Suppose we could return—to what end? To have this discussion all
over again here with Karpov?”

“No, Chief, to
stop
him.”

“But how, Fedorov? You haven’t answered that yet.”

“I think I may have a plan, but first, somehow, some way, we have
to get safely home and then find a way to return to this moment. I only hope
your inner ear is a good one. Can you remember what that last shift that
brought us here sounded like?”

“Remember it? I recorded it! I’ve been listening to the reactor
sing its song to the heavens ever since we got here, trying to figure out what
was happening. So lately I’ve been recording the sound from all these shifts so
I could sort through it and see if I hear anything that leads me to an
engineering process.”

“Excellent Chief! Then there’s a chance you might be able to get
us here again—to 1908. I’m counting on that—in fact I think the whole world
will be counting on that. Let’s get started! I’m going below for a moment.”

“But Fedorov…suppose I can work my magic and get us back here
again. What will you do? We’ll be facing the same problem we have now!”

“No, we won’t be here in the Caspian. Once we get home we can fly
to Vladivostok with all the control rods and be right there in the Pacific.
Then, if we shift again,
Kirov
will be very close.”

“What if Karpov refuses to let you board the ship?”

“Don’t worry, Chief. I have a plan. But first, there’s still one
other problem I need to resolve here.”

Chapter 35

Fedorov
sat with the two men, a signalman named Chenko at his side to
interpret, and the looming presence of Sergeant Troyak standing behind the men
to keep a good eye on them.

“I am Captain Anton Fedorov,” he began. “Who are you?”

“David Sutherland, Lieutenant in the service of His Majesty’s
special forces. This man is Sergeant Jack Terry.”

“What were you doing here?”

Sutherland knew the rule—name, rank and serial number. He had
given the first two, but these were Russians, supposed allies, and not enemies,
though they had been forced to treat them as foes because of the necessities of
this mission. And he was still shaken by what he had seen, doubting his own
sanity now and feeling like a fish out of water. So he decided to talk with
these men and see what he could find out about them.

“We were sent to find a man—the man we had with us when your
Marines made our acquaintance.”

That gave Fedorov a start. These men were sent to find Orlov? How
could that be? It would mean that the British knew about the Chief. What could
they have learned that would have prompted a mission like this?

“You were sent to find Orlov—that was the man you were with. Sent
by who?”

“What does that matter? We were given orders to find him, and that
we did, until you blokes came along.”

“Here? In the Caspian Sea? How did you think you might find him
here?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that, sir.” Sutherland folded his
arms, still feeling very distressed and with this unaccountable feeling that
something very odd was going on here. He would once refer to himself as ‘a
lucky Scorpio, and an unconventional, adventure-seeking Scot,’ but this was
more than he bargained for.

“Very well…” Fedorov considered the situation. “Was there another
man with you—a third man?”

At this Sutherland seemed very distressed. Protocol whispered that
he should say nothing of Haselden. After all, the voice said, what if he simply
slipped overboard while you weren’t looking? No! said another voice in his
head, you know damn well what you saw, and he blurted it out.

“He… he just vanished!” Now he looked at Sergeant Terry, as if
still trying to convince the man. “I tell you Haselden was right by my side on
the gunwale and then the man simply faded away.” The minute he said that he
realized the Russians would probably think he was sporting with them to avoid
revealing any further information. So he was surprised when the young officer
leaned forward, a very serious look in his eye, and questioned him further
about it.

“Vanished? You saw this with your own eyes?”

“That I did,” Sutherland said stubbornly, though Sergeant Terry
gave him a frown of disapproval.

“You are telling me the three of you were all in that boat
together and then you saw your comrade disappear?”

“That’s about the size of it.” Sutherland felt like a fool now,
but in for a penny, in for a pound.

“You’re certain he did not go overboard? We have had men searching
for him for hours, but there’s been no sign.”

“Well…I should like to believe that, sir. Yes, that would make all
the sense in the world to me, save for the evidence of my own eyes. I…I was
looking right at the man and he simply…well he simply faded away!”

Sergeant Terry raised his eyebrows now, thinking the Lieutenant
had finally broken under the stress of all they had been through. Yet
Sutherland had been with the Black Watch at Dunkirk. He had been through many
missions far more arduous than this one. Was the man daft?

“Did you see this happen as well?” Fedorov asked the Sergeant now,
giving him an earnest look.

The translator finished and Sergeant Terry, shook his head. “I was
in the cabin keeping an eye on this Orlov fellow, and saw nothing.”

“I see…” Fedorov had a very serious look on his face now. Was this
British Lieutenant pulling his leg now, or was he serious? The man seemed quite
upset, though he was trying bravely to recover his composure. It was clear to
him that he had experienced something that rattled him badly. Could he be
telling the truth about the third man? Then he suddenly remembered something
that broke the log jam of his thinking. Haselden! He named the man Haselden!