Kirov II: Cauldron Of Fire (Kirov Series)

Kirov II

Cauldron of Fire

By

John Schettler

A publication of:

The Writing Shop Press

Kirov II – Cauldron of Fire, Copyright©2012,
John A. Schettler

Discover other titles by John
Schettler:

 
Kirov
– Military Fiction
Kirov II
– Cauldron Of Fire

Award Winning Science Fiction:

Meridian
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Meridian Series - Volume I
Nexus Point
- Meridian Series - Volume II
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- Meridian Series - Volume V
Wild Zone
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– Mythic Horror Mystery

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Prologue

Argentia Bay ~ August 9, 1941

“Are you
certain
you wish to
be so forthcoming about Japanese intentions sir?” Field Marshal Sir John Greer
Dill, Chief of the Imperial General Staff gave Churchill a look that spoke
volumes. “It will reveal more than you might expect at first blush.”

“What is it
you mean, General? This is the blow we’ve been waiting for. This attack on the
American task force was a godsend. There’s simply no way the American public
will let it stand unchallenged. Roosevelt will have no difficulty now insofar
as the anti-war lobby goes. This has changed everything.”

“Indeed,
sir, but as to Japan, and particularly the plans involving Pearl Harbor, too
frank a discussion will clue the Americans in on just how much of the Japanese
JN25 Naval code we’ve been reading. It could prove to be an uncomfortable
subject.”

"Here,
here now Sir John,” Churchill waved a dismissive hand. “We can now speak more
robustly. We only had to use that kind of language when we were wooing the
Americans. Now she is in the harem with us, and more than willing, I might add.”
He gave his Chief of Staff a sidelong glance. “Leave the employment of any
discretion in this matter to me. I believe I can navigate the waters well
enough.”

“Oh, I have
little doubt there, Sir Winston,” Dill smiled. He checked the time and then
gestured to the door. “I believe Mr. Roosevelt is waiting then.” Churchill could
not be more eager to oblige. An hour later, after the grand first handshake and
all the posing for the cameras, he was delighted to have the American President
with him at long last, for a private chat about the course of events that were
now certain to unfold. A few pleasantries and they would get to the heart of
the matter—how to survive, and then prevail in the long conflict that lay
before them.

“We had
several thousand gift boxes with a few tasty tidbits from the ladies back
home,” said Churchill. “All for your crew here, but I’m afraid they were aboard
Prince of Wales
, and she took a couple of nasty hits from these new
German rocket weapons. We managed to keep her afloat and seaworthy, but they
tell me I might not have had the pleasure of this meeting if I had stayed in my
cabin there.”

“Shocking,”
said Roosevelt. “How the Germans could have developed these weapons without us
knowing about it is astonishing.”

“Yet to this
day Berlin is mute regarding any involvement in this affair. They claim that
they have no surface raiders at sea at this time, though I can hardly give
credence to anything Herr Hitler would say on the matter.”

“I would not
expect them to be forthcoming,” said Roosevelt. “Well, sir, I’ll get right to
the heart of it. If there was any doubt in your mind as to where the United
States stands in this conflict, let me dispel it forthwith. I intend to seek an
immediate declaration of war against Germany, and follow it with the same
against any nation who stands with her. And I intend to get what I ask for, so
let there be no doubt that we are both in this together, from this moment
forward. Congress is just a formality now. After this attack on our naval
forces comes to light in the news media, the nation will be enraged. So we are
with you, sir…the only question now is how we best prosecute this war against
an enemy who has developed a weapon as fearsome as the one unleashed upon our
ships at sea.”

“They tell
me, all my able generals and admirals, that this was unlike any normal
explosion,” said Churchill. “It was supposedly an atomic weapon, and one of
considerable magnitude and power. I’ll not bandy about, sir. We are aware of
the fact that the United States has a program underway to develop such a
weapon. We knew the Germans as well as the Russians were also thinking along
these lines, but the shock was to learn just how advanced the enemy plans have
become. The only question we have now is in regards to the extent of their
weaponization programs. How many of these new bombs might they have? This we
wonder.”

“My generals
have asked the very same questions. I’ll be frank and confirm that we do have
such a program in the early stages of development. I’m told it is still largely
theoretical, and not nearly ready for any serious deployment as a weapon.”

“Our Mister
Oliphant will want to discuss the matter with your technicians. We would
willingly share any and all our information on the subject. We knew the Germans
were on this same track when they first tried to purchase the whole stock of
Norwegian Heavy Water from the hydroelectric station at Norsk, but we managed
to spirit that all off through the French Secret Service and had it delivered
to merry old England.”

“As part of
your Tube Alloy program?” Roosevelt smiled. He was referring to the top secret
code name for the program already underway in Britain, also aiming to develop
an atomic bomb.

“It seems
that there are no secrets between us, Franklin. My only fear is that the
Germans appear to have stolen a march on us in spite of our every effort to
frustrate them. We got this Heavy Water out of Norway just before the Germans
invaded there, and had it safely hidden away with the Crown Jewels in the Tower
of London. We first thought these experiments with Heavy Water would come to
naught, then my scientists told me that they had identified a new element, and
subsequently we came to believe that the development of an atomic bomb was not
merely feasible, but inevitable.”

“It appears
that the Germans have proven that point,” said Roosevelt. “The only question
now is this—how do we survive until we can do the same?”

“Quite so,”
said Churchill. “We know what to do, and how to go about it, but this program
will take time. How long can we hold out? Can you imagine such a weapon
unleashed on a massed army or fleet intending to land on the shores of France?
And what if the Germans deploy this weapon next against the Soviets? They could
knock Russia out of the war before we get our trousers on. Then where would we
be when Germany turns the full force of her ire towards the West? Make no
mistake about this, sir. Germany has only flexed a finger of her armed might
against us thus far. She’s hit us with Goering’s Luftwaffe, but we endured and
beat them off with our Spitfires. Most of the Wehrmacht is in Russia, where I hope
to keep it for some time. They have only two or three divisions deployed
against us in North Africa. The rest are just garrisons in France, Denmark and
Norway. She’s flung the heart of the Kriegsmarine at us, and our Royal Navy was
master of the situation, until this most recent sortie and the advent of these
terrible new rocket weapons. Up until now it’s been all feint and jab at sea,
what with this
Bismarck
business recently concluded. They said they
would even the score, but heavens above, who would have thought they could do
this? A lone raider has damaged two of our newest battleships, sunk the
battlecruiser
Repulse
, and gutted a carrier. A few of our lighter ships
were damaged as well. I’m afraid you suffered even more grievous harm.”

“That’s an
understatement, to be sure,” said Roosevelt. “We’ve lost the
Wasp
, three
cruisers, twelve destroyers, and the battleship
Mississippi
. Thousands
died. A group of our destroyers got close enough to spot this demon ship, and
they engaged her in a firefight, then came this new terror bomb. Our Task Force
16 was completely destroyed, and only a few of the ships that managed to get in
close to the enemy have been accounted for. The others simply vanished. We
presume they may have been swamped by the blast wave the weapon generated.
Perhaps it got the enemy ship as well, though we haven’t found any wreckage.”

 “The ocean
is very deep there,” said Churchill. “If this ship has gone to the bottom, all
the better. Odd that the Germans would use a weapon of this magnitude and power
as they did, deploying it on a sea raider. We thought an aircraft would be the
only way to deliver it on a target.”

“Clearly
this was meant as a demonstration, Winston. They may have intended it to
frighten us into capitulation, or perhaps even to prevent our union. Apparently
they got wind of our planned meeting and thought to arrange a little welcoming
committee. They could see what was happening in the growing alliance between
our nations. I suppose they believed our union as one implacable foe was
inevitable as well.”

“This ship
may have had a darker mission,” Churchill suggested. “It may have been bound
for your east coast, intending to put one of these rockets onto New York, or
even Washington. They had no qualms about firebombing London last December.
Having no bombers that can reach your shores, the only way they could deliver
such a weapon would be by sea, on a U-boat, or one of the surface raiders. And
these new rockets allow them to fire at ranges well beyond the guns of our
ships. Our battle fleets never even set eyes on this new German ship, whatever
it was. We thought it was
Tirpitz
, then
Admiral Scheer
, then
Graf
Zeppelin
, but all those ships have been accounted for. So we’re naming this
one
Geronimo
, a renegade from your own wild west for an easy handle, and
we think the Germans were planning to strike you while you slept, perhaps even
intending to coordinate this attack with the Japanese.”

“God forbid
that,” said Roosevelt. “Yet what is the status of this ship? Has it sunk? My
admirals seem somewhat flummoxed. They still have our cruisers and a few
destroyers out hunting for this German raider, in widely dispersed groups now,
so as not to present too inviting a target.”

“Quite
right,” said Churchill. “Everything we know about this ship is a mystery. While
it looks threatening in the photo images your PBY was kind enough to fetch for
us, it hasn’t guns worth mentioning—doesn’t need them given what we have seen
with these rockets.”

“Our
destroyers were taking quite a pounding before that terror weapon struck.”

“Yes, but
those guns wouldn’t bother our battleships. We’ve even shrugged off the damage
from their rockets. Both
King George V
and
Prince of Wales
are
still out there in the hunt as well, the latter a bit woozy, but still on her
feet. Yet the enemy has vanished. We lost contact with her shortly after that
last outrageous attack upon your Task Force 16, and we’ve seen nothing of her
since. Planes from our carrier
Ark Royal
have scoured the sea as well,
and seen nothing. Maybe she did fall upon her own sword and go down with your
destroyer group.”

Roosevelt
leaned in, tapping the table as he spoke. “I’d like to think one of our
destroyers put a few torpedoes into the monster. My admirals would like to
think it too, but they tell me the Germans might have run out of rockets and
turned north again at high speed. Yet we’ve had planes out of Iceland searching
as well, and seen nothing—no sign of the beast.”

“That is our
only consolation then,” said Churchill. “Even if they have these weapons, they
may as yet be few in number. If we’ve sunk this ship it will give them
something to think about. We’ve also seen no sign of these rockets deployed on
any other front. The Russian intelligence reports the same. So we are led to
believe this was a prototype, a first deployment, and possibly a test. It has
even been suggested, as you say, that the Germans learned of this very meeting,
and intended to deliver that last awful rocket which struck your ships right
here, on our thinning hair, to kill two birds with one proverbial stone.”

“Quite a
stone,” said Roosevelt. “My people concur. They think this ship, its rockets
and this bomb, to be a rarity. But that will change, Sir Winston. Now that its
effectiveness has been proven, the Germans will ramp up production and we could
be facing these weapons again in a matter of months, perhaps weeks if they have
enough material in hand for extended production.”

“I doubt
that, but what you say is all the more reason for us to forge ahead in the
strongest possible way,” said Churchill.

“Yet how,
Winston?” Roosevelt held out an empty open hand to make his point. “You said it
yourself. We could assemble our armies, and then what? Would the Germans simply
extinguish them in one blow with another of these rocket bombs? And what if
they revisit London to finish what they started with the Blitz? As you say, these
weapons could easily be delivered by aircraft as well.”

“We are
already taking precautions. The government is dispersing to hardened bunkers
all over the kingdom. What you say is correct. Our normal method of war will
not do. We cannot concentrate mass in men or steel lest we simply present the
enemy with a most inviting target. Our cities are vulnerable. But our military
must operate by other means now, just as our ships determined they had to sail
in a net of smaller dispersed groups instead of one centralized fleet.
Something tells me that ships, planes and these rockets will be the means of
waging this war now, and not massed armies arrayed in fronts on the continent.
Yet one day, if we should prevail, we must eventually go to Berlin.”

“One day,”
said Roosevelt, “and let us hope we both live to see it.”

The two men
were silent for a moment, as if sitting with that thought, realizing their own
mortality, as well as the vulnerability of their nations now in the face of
this awesome German wonder weapon. Then Roosevelt spoke, his voice level and
serious, and edged with steel.