Paradox Hour (14 page)

“The Germans obviously learned of this King’s business you told me about,” said Volsky. “So the
Rodney
is carrying a belly full of gold bullion, and these artifacts from the British Museum. What were they called?”

“The Elgin Marbles, sir. Parts of a carved relief taken from the Parthenon. Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, excavated and transported them to England over a period of years, between 1801 and 1812. They are very valuable in and of themselves, but the fact that this key is possibly still embedded in the Selene Horse makes them priceless.”

“Could the Germans know about this key?”

“I do not see how, yet we know very little about all of this. Miss Fairchild said the Watch knew of these keys. They were very secret, but imagine my surprise to learn that Director Kamenski had such a key in his possession, and for many decades!”

“That is very strange,” said Volsky. “There is more to that man than meets the eye, Fedorov. He’s like an onion, layer after layer. At first I thought he was merely working with the Inspector General, then he produced that letter you deposited in the Naval Logistics building, and those photographs. Yes! He had photos taken by the British when we last sailed through these straits. Remember?”

“Only too well, sir. That seems like a lifetime ago now. Back then we had just made our peace with Admiral Tovey, and we were en-route to Saint Helena. Now here he is, steaming in our wake as an ally, and on a ship that was never supposed to have been built!”

“This has been a most remarkable journey,” Volsky agreed. “Yet what you say about these keys is very alarming. What are they for, Fedorov?”

“I’ve spent some time piecing it all together, sir. Both Kamenski and I now agree that it all dates back to 1908, the Tunguska Event. That impact did more than level trees in Siberia and provide fodder for the fire of many stories and legends thereafter. It also fractured the fourth dimension, time. It seems that several fissures resulted, like cracks in that mirror, as I tried to explain it before. Some were discovered, and because of the obvious danger should anyone move through them to another time, they were well secured and guarded.”

“By who?” Volsky scratched his head.

“This we do not really know, but we now believe it was done by the same people who made these keys—the same who sent those signals back through time to the ships of the Watch.”

“Then men from the future did all this?”

“I know it sounds fantastic, sir, but considering the fact that we are men from the future meddling about here makes it easier to believe.”

“How did these keys appear here, in the past? You say Director Kamenski has had one for decades?”

“They must have been brought here,” said Fedorov, “possibly by using the very same time rifts they secured. I’m not sure how long the Watch knew about them, or how they came into their possession. Kamenski didn’t say how he came by his key, though he alluded that it was probably obtained by the KGB. Who knows when?”

“The British have keys too?”

“Miss Fairchild certainly has one. She used it to activate one of the rift sites, at Delphi.”

“How many keys are there, Fedorov? Did you learn that?”

“Fairchild says they knew of at least two others. One was in the possession of another member of the Watch, though she did not name that person, and she said nothing about any time rift associated with that key. The second was in the Selene Horse, aboard
Rodney
.”

“What about Ilanskiy?” Volsky asked the obvious question. “Is there a key for that rift?”

“The British knew nothing of that,” said Fedorov. “In fact, I may have been the one to first discover it. Even these men in the future did not know about it, which leads me to think that our mission, the ship, my actions, are deeply implicated in all of this. We’re a wild card in the deck, sir.”

“But you say those stairs took you back to 1908, Fedorov. That means anyone could have used them. It’s a long way between 1908 and the 1940s where you stumbled upon it. We know Sergei Kirov used them, and Volkov. Look what resulted!”

“True, sir. That’s very worrisome. All the other rift zones were well guarded, but not Ilanskiy. I think this is what unhinged the key makers plan—Ilanskiy.”

“What plan do you speak of?”

“I’m not sure, sir, but I’ve been thinking about all this for some time. If men in the future discovered these time rifts and secured them, then they were obviously trying to prevent this Grand Finality Miss Fairchild told us about. But they failed—at least that is what Fairchild believes. She tells me the voices went silent. The watch stopped receiving instructions, and their last message urged them to gather and secure all the keys to the rift zones, and one thing more. It was a warning.”

“About this calamity you mention?”

“In one sense, but it was much more specific. It was about us.”

“About us? You mean the ship?”

“Yes sir. That is why Tovey founded the Watch, to keep vigil for our next possible appearance.”

“Yes, and understandably so,” said Volsky. “But this sounds a little more sinister, Fedorov. You say they were told to secure all these keys, but then they are warned about us? What do these men from the future think we are going to do?”

“I don’t know, sir…” Fedorov had a frustrated look on his face now. “When I first heard about these keys, these other rifts, I thought I could finally set down the burden I have been carrying, thinking all this was on my shoulders.”

“On
our
shoulders, Fedorov, the ship and every man aboard. Do not be so greedy and try to take all the blame yourself.”

“I have tried, sir, but learning about this warning leads me to suspect our part in this tale has not yet run its course. We’re going to
do
something. This is how I see things now. We’re going to do something that could make it impossible to prevent this calamity Fairchild talks about—this Grand Finality.”

“And it has something to do with these keys?”

“Apparently so, sir. The thing is this…. We don’t know what we may do, or fail to do. Here we are trying to help Fairchild secure this key. Our whole mission to get after the Germans has suddenly become a race to find and protect the battleship
Rodney
. And this latest message Nikolin decrypted indicates that the German operation has also been re-focused on that as well. It’s as if the lines of fate are setting course for some distant rendezvous point, a nexus point, and I’m not sure what is supposed to happen there. We are living all this through moment by moment, and groping like blind men.”

“You want certainty, Fedorov, but you know that is impossible. There is no way we could know this.”

“But there is, sir. We’ve seen the results of our actions. We can look ahead in time and know what we have done. These men from the future might also know. To them this would all be history, but they have gone silent. The only thing we have is that last warning. Beware a ship… beware
Kirov
…”

Admiral Volsky frowned. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

Chapter 12

Aboard
Kazan
, Gromyko was the first element of the allied task force to open the action. The keen ears and sensitive sonar equipment on the sub had detected a pair of German U-boats creeping silently in the narrow straits. There were six stationed at the new German base, but four of them were out in the sea lanes off Casablanca lying in wait for British convoy traffic to Freetown. Aside from the two remaining, there were only a few captured trawlers, oilers and merchant ships in the harbor. The only surface assets the Germans had in the region were with Lütjens. Though the French had superb destroyer assets, they were still operating from Casablanca.

This basic lack of a sound cooperative effort had hindered the Axis fleets earlier, and it was also going to severely weaken their defense of Gibraltar. The Germans relied on these two U-boats, thinking they would be more than enough to fill the narrow channel with torpedoes against any surface group attempting to pass. Beyond that, there were six
Stukas
and six fighters staged at the small airport, along with a number of seaplanes and a few JU-88s.

It was clear that the Germans had yet to fully appreciate the strategic value of the prize they had taken. They had not placed anti-submarine defenses, thinking their U-Boat defense was sufficient. The mines they had sewn were largely in fields designed to protect the entrance to the harbor, and the only anti-submarine nets were there as well. As for shore batteries, the British had destroyed all their guns before the Rock fell into enemy hands, and the Germans had simply thought to rely on regular artillery. They had not yet installed radar sets, and relied on aerial reconnaissance to detect any approaching threat. Fedorov had chosen the darkness of early May 5 to make this run, conditions that would make German air attacks very chancy. The moon set at 02:53 that morning, so it was completely black, and all the ships were running dark.

Though the British task force had been spotted at sunset well to the east, approaching Algiers the previous day, the British continued in an attempt to deceive the enemy as to their real intentions. They sent signals in a code known to be compromised, and indicating that their planned mission to attack Algiers was well in hand. The messages indicated they would bombard the port and return to Alexandria this very day, striking Tunis on the return trip. When no attack occurred after sunset on the 4th of May, the Germans sent alerts to Gibraltar to be wary.

As a precaution, the Germans had two sea planes up just after sunset, to look for enemy shipping. They loitered for some time, patrolling east, and saw the oncoming British task force off Oran. Fedorov considered whether or not to shoot the planes down, but he realized the missile fire would announce their presence there in the Alboran Sea in any case. So the Germans knew trouble was coming, and the six
Stukas
were ready on the small airfield just after midnight as the U-boats moved into their defensive positions.

Viktor Schultze in
U-103
and Heinrich Liebe in
U-38
had the duty that day, lurking in the waters off Gibraltar. A hovering diesel boat would be very difficult for the enemy sonars to hear, or so they reasoned, but they had not counted on the advanced capabilities of
Kazan,
the skill of sonar operator Chernov, or even the presence of an enemy submarine at all. Their own U-boat fleet could have never kept pace with the fast moving surface ships, but for
Kazan
, this was no problem. They heard the U-boats easily enough, and Gromyko put two 533mm torpedoes in the water at 03:00. Seconds later the thump of two underwater explosions had laid bare the sea lanes from underwater threat.

The
Stukas
scrambled, launched, and soon met a similar fate as the
Argos Fire
easily put six Aster-15 missiles into the air. Not a single plane or pilot survived. Now the only remaining threat was from shore batteries, and Fedorov had planned to use the helicopter assets they had to easily spot the guns with their high powered optics and sensors. It was then a simple matter to use the deck guns, which outranged the enemy batteries and was able to strike them with accurate 152mm fire.

It all came down to the superior sensory capability of the modern ships. They could find and target the enemy defenses long before they had any chance to fire their weapons. So the Rock of Gibraltar did not prove to be very much of a barrier that night. By 04:00, the three surface ships had swept through the channel and were already in the Western Approaches, heading into the Atlantic.

* * *

“Well
done, Captain,” said Volsky, congratulating Fedorov on his successful operation to run the straits.

“That was easier than we thought it would be,” said Fedorov. “I expected mines and much more air defense, and yet this make some sense after all. Gibraltar is really a backwaters base for the Axis. They don’t need it for their operations in the Med, and the Germans haven’t been able to move very many assets there beyond these U-Boats we encountered.”

“Having
Kazan
with us makes up for the loss of the bow sonar dome,” said Volsky.

“Yes sir, but even so, I think Tasarov would have been able to find those subs with our towed array and the KA-40.”

“So what is our situation now?”

“Admiral Tovey has indicated that Force H has moved south, away from the threat of surface interception. Their carrier
Glorious
took a single bomb hit, but is still operational, and it seems they managed to get a hit on one German ship.”

“The
Hindenburg?”

“No sir, on the fast escort battlecruiser
Kaiser Wilhelm.
This is a new ship, one designed but never built in our history. I think the British got very lucky. That hit saw Lütjens linger here at slow speed for some time. Otherwise the lead they have would be much greater. At present, the last British sighting had them here, sir.”

 He tapped the clear Plexiglas vertical panel, where a digital map was displayed in phosphorescent green. “That’s about 450 nautical miles to our northwest—twenty hours ahead two thirds, and fifteen hours ahead full at 30 knots. This blue dot here represents a pair of fast British battlecruisers. They are now about 250 nautical miles northwest of the Germans, and in a very good position to intercept, even if the Germans head due west now. They would not be wise to do so, however.”

“Oh? The odds are not in their favor?”

“No sir, they are fast at 32 knots, but carry only six 15-inch guns each. The Germans will have eighteen big guns between their two battleships, and they are much better armored. The British will most likely use those two ships to shadow the Germans, so we should have a much better fix on their position after they make first contact.”

“So now we rest a little easier in these waters, Fedorov. The Royal Navy is on our side this time, and for that, I am thankful.”