Men of War (2013) (17 page)

“So
what is the problem?” Volsky did not understand.

“The
problem is that the Personnel Division has no other information on these men.
They say they have no record of them ever being assigned to
Kirov
. In
fact, they say they have no record of them at all.”

“That’s
ridiculous. That was
Denikin
,
Krasnov
and
Rykov
. I selected all three for their assignment
here and got them set up in the battle bridge to complete their training for
regular rotation onto the main bridge. Now I’ll be writing the letters to their
family. What do they mean, no records?”

“It’s
not just those three sir. They have nothing on any of the men we lost.
Inspector Kapustin and his little wolf hound Volkov have been looking over the
list of the entire ship’s compliment and verifying background checks on every
man with Naval Intelligence.”

“Background
checks?” Volsky seemed upset now.

“Yes,
sir. I think they may suspect sabotage as a possible reason for some of the
damage we sustained. Put that next to the fact that there is still a low simmer
of talk in the ranks about what happened in the Atlantic, and this situation
could get ugly very soon. You know they’re going to check the lock box on the
special warheads, and verify all three are still in the magazine with Martinov.”

“I’ve
considered that,” said Volsky heavily. “I suppose I can take it upon myself and
say that I ordered the number ten MOS-III missile fired as part of our
exercises, but that would be most irregular. A nuclear weapon is never used in
such scenarios. Never. To say I ordered it would be to pit my present rank and
authority against the entire Naval Board in Moscow, and they won’t like it.
Suchkov is already hollering for my head on a platter. It would be just the
thing he needs to turn a few more heads in his direction.”

“Forgive
me again, Admiral. This is of course all my fault.”

“We
both know it, Karpov. No need to go over that again.”

“Then
also forgive what I will say next. I didn’t rise through the ranks to a
Captaincy aboard the fleet’s flagship by being a choir boy. I fought hard to
get this position, and I know just how men like this Kapustin and Volkov think.
I was a conniving, back stabbing, son-of-a bitch back then. I’ve seen things
differently now after what we’ve been through, but if it comes down to Volkov
or me, I’ll know what to do about it, rest assured.”

“This
sort of infighting in the ranks has always been distasteful, Karpov, but I
understand what you are saying. Yes, I suppose we can back Volkov down, but
Kapustin is going to write the final report. Admiral Abramov has been somewhat
sympathetic, and he seems to think Volkov is my main worry at the moment. I did
not correct him, but I will tell you both now that it’s Kapustin. Volkov is the
front man. He will do the pushing and prodding and digging, but Kapustin writes
the report. He makes the recommendations. They will discover that we’re missing
one of our nuclear eggs, and we’ll have to answer for it.”

“I
have a possible solution, sir. I can tell you what I would do, or rather what
the man I once was would do. In truth, I will also have to admit I still am
that man. That same old black shark still circles in my soul, and if I let it
take charge it would have come up with the simplest possible solution—blame it
on a
matoc
. Say a man selected the wrong
warhead. Isn’t that what happened on
Orel?”

“We
don’t really know,” said Volsky. “I understand what you are saying, Karpov, but
it’s rather low.”

“Of
course it is. I was a man of few scruples.”

“But
you and I know this won’t be so easy. No Able Seaman is going to have access to
one of the special warheads. It would have to come from Martinov, and be
mounted under his direct supervision. The number ten silo is also sealed and
has multiple fail safe guards on it. How do you explain that away? Then we get
to the matter of a command level key being required to arm and fire the
missile, and we both know what happened there. No. This will not be easily
foisted off as incompetence. No
matoc
could
make that series of errors. It won’t do, nor would I blame any innocent man on
this ship in the matter, living or dead.”

“Then
I will tell you next what this new Karpov would do—he would simply stand up to
Kapustin and Volkov and take full responsibility for the whole incident.”

“Very
noble of you,” said Volsky. “Yes, you could tell them you ordered Martinov to
mount the warheads, and then you could tell them that it was your mistake as
Bridge Tactical Officer, eh? But what about the key around your neck, and this
one here around mine? Are you just going to tell them you decided you wanted to
test a nuclear warhead while I was sleeping? Why? It is never done. It is
completely unheard of, and you will lose your command, your rank, and may even
be dismissed from the service.”

“I’ve
already lost my command and rank once over the matter,” said Karpov. “The
second time should be easier.”

“But
don’t you understand?” Volsky held out an open palm as he explained. “Your
action in defense of the ship, in a real combat scenario, is one thing. But
remember, they must never know this ship ever fired a single round in anger.
What would we have been firing at, eh? Try to stack that cup on the top of the
plates and the whole thing comes tumbling down. The notion that we simply
wanted to test a warhead won’t fly either. What do I tell Kapustin then—that we
were firing at the American navy in 1941?”

“Of
course not, Admiral, but I think this is our only solution. I’ll take the
blame. It’s mine and it is only right that I should pay for it. I gave the order
to Martinov, told him to reset the Coded Switch Set Controller, and I fired the
MOS-III. Tell them I was convinced a real test fire was necessary, that I had
asked for permission to do so and it was denied, in fact expressly forbidden,
and then I’ll tell them I took it upon myself to countermand those orders while
you were indisposed. That’s what happened. It’s our only way out of this mess.”

Now
Karpov’s mind was truly working from within his old rotten center, where
scheming and subterfuge were the order of the day. He knew men like Kapustin
and Volkov, and he knew they were going to dig, and dig until they found
something, and he explained it that way to the Admiral now, in the cold logic
of the world he had fought his way through successfully all these many years.

“We
have to give them something, sir. Give a dog his bone. Otherwise they will dig
until they find one. Right now they are very suspicious. They are looking for
possible sabotage. They can smell that something is wrong here, and these are a
pair of bloodhounds. They want blood, Admiral. If we make it seem that our
cover-up has been designed to hide what I did, then it just may divert them. I
can tell you right now that if Volkov gets wind of it, he’ll rub his palms
together and hump my ass for all he’s worth. Don’t you see? If we
give
them something, improbable as it may seem, it could be the only thing that
stops them from discovering the real impossible truth.”

Volsky
stared down at his Chinese food and then rubbed his weary brow, thinking. He
looked at Karpov. “I see the logic of what you are suggesting, but you know
what it means for your career. It’s going to raise a stink, one way or another,
but I suppose it may be our only way out of this.”

Fedorov
had been listening, with some anguish, to the whole conversation, and now he
spoke up. “I hate to say it, Admiral, but Captain Karpov’s head may not even be
enough to satisfy these men if they discover what I think they may in the next
eight hours.”

“Discover
what, Fedorov?”

“The
records of the thirty-six men on the list of casualties they got from Doctor
Zolkin were not destroyed by the accident as we claim, nor were they misplaced
by the Naval Personnel Division. I think they’re going to discover that those
men never existed.”

Volsky
gave him an incredulous look. “Never existed?”

“Don’t
you understand? Those men boarded the ship in Severomorsk and came from the
homeland we left all those weeks ago, but this is a different world now. We
changed things. In
this
world those men might not have ever been born,
so I don’t think you’ll be writing those letters after all, Admiral.”

“We
did this?”

“I
believe so, sir. We changed the history of WWII. Remember, I had a good many
books on that war. I’ve studied it all my life. I purged any volume in the ship’s
library that related the history as we knew it, but forgive me, I kept certain
books so I could see if anything had changed. As it turns out, three books I
have were never even
published
in this world. That set me on a real
track to find out what had changed. Remember that book I first came to you
with, Admiral,
The Chronology Of The Naval War At Sea?”

“Ah
yes, that is what first led us down this crazy path.”

“Well
I kept that book, and I went into town and bought the latest version as soon as
we made port. I’ve been comparing its narrative to the volume I owned, checking
things out. Yes, we definitely changed things. Japan engaged the Americans in
the Solomons and lost three carriers. Our action also badly depleted their 5th
Carrier Division. The Imperial Japanese Navy found itself with virtually no
effective naval air arm after our intervention. It restored the balance of
power to what it might have been in the history we knew, and then the war
seemed to proceed on track—but there was no Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Japan
surrendered in April of 1945.”

“But
how does that affect the men who died on this ship?”

“I
can’t say as I really know. We definitely changed things, so it may be that
when the song replayed, a few notes were out of place. In many ways I discovered
that the history had healed and repaired itself. There was no raid at
Dieppe—that’s another thing we changed. But the D-Day invasion still took place
as scheduled in Normandy. That said, there were subtle differences,
particularly in little things.”

“They
say the devil is in the details,” Karpov put in.

“Exactly,
Captain. So it could be that something may have happened to the ancestors of
the men on that list, and in some macabre way, Time found a way to get rid of
them.”

“This
is truly bizarre,” said Volsky.

“No
argument there,” said Fedorov. “This whole incident is still completely
confounding. But think of it sir. If something did happened differently, and
say the grandfathers of men like
Denikin
,
Krasnov
and
Rykov
were killed in
the war, or perhaps their fathers married someone else…Why, then they would
never have existed. For us to bring them home to this world alive would create
an enormous paradox. How could they be here? In effect, Time had no place for
them. The history was a vast game of musical chairs, and when Karpov stayed his
hand and stopped us from killing the
Key West
, everything changed. The
music stopped, and there were no chairs here for those men. This world looks
the same, it smells the same—why, here we are in
Zoloty
Drakon
, right? But it isn’t the same world we
left behind when we cleared the breakwater beacons at Severomorsk last July. As
I said, I have books in my possession now that were never published.”

“How
is it they remain intact?” asked Karpov.

“I’m
not sure, but perhaps the fact that they were with us on the  ship
protected them. But not people—they change things—they are the living,
breathing history as it happens. Time had to find a way to settle her accounts,
and now I think we will find those men never existed. The only place any record
of their lives now exists is right here on this ship.” Fedorov pointed to his
head. “Right in our heads. We knew them, sailed and fought with them, but like
those books I found missing, in this world they were never published…”

“My
God,” said Karpov
.
“Forget the nuclear warheads, that’s just a matter of
chest thumping and protocol. How in the world are we going to explain
this
to Kapustin?”

Part V

Rising
Sun

“He
who chooses the beginning of the road

chooses
also the place that it leads to.”

—
Henry
Emerson Fosdick

Chapter13

The
PLAN
(People’s Liberation Army & Navy) was no longer a local self
defense force, and its navy was not confined to littoral coastal waters as in the
past. When the 21st century got underway in earnest the Chinese Navy began to
deploy more blue water capable forces in virtually every major ship category.
The surface fleet, known as the
shuimian
jianting
budui
,
had grown
enormously, with new classes in guided missile destroyers and submarines, new
carrier and helicopter carrier designs, and equally important, a capability for
underway replenishment that allowed the navy to project power beyond the
coastal waters of China for the first time since the 15th Century.

The
missions assigned to the navy grew with it. It was now tasked with
responsibilities to find and engage enemy surface action groups, participate in
anti-submarine warfare, transport and guarantee the landing of troops on enemy
shores, spoil the enemy's objective of attacking China’s coastal cities and
ports, and carry out reconnaissance on the seas with regular patrols. Active
ASW warfare and anti-mine sweeping were a part of this task.