Kirov II: Cauldron Of Fire (Kirov Series) (20 page)

When they
had all left, Karpov finished his stew, tired, angry, humiliated and wanting
sleep. He stood up and saw where Orlov had set his stained coffee cup down on
his table, right on its side, deliberately spilling the last remnant onto the
table linen near his plate, and he swiped it angrily off the table, sending the
cup clattering across the deck. His shoulders hunched, head low, he went
through the door, immediately sensing a looming presence in the empty hall. It
was Orlov.

“Oh,
Captain,” he said. “I just came back to say
excuse
me,” he grinned
balefully. “Did I soil your Captain’s jacket?”

“Yob tvou
mat’ Orlov!” the Captain exclaimed, telling the big man what he thought he
should do with his mother. “You want to act tough in front of the men, but when
things came to a head how tough were you on the bridge?”

It was the
first time the two men had ever spoken of their failed attempt to take command
of the ship from Volsky, and the words tumbled out, with pent up anger on both
sides.

“Fuck you,”
Karpov. “You duped me! You played me for an idiot with all your reasons and
arguments, and I was stupid enough to go along, that was all.”

“Come on,
Orlov, just say you lost your nerve, and your backbone along with it. You like
to push the men around, but not the Marines—not someone who can set you back on
your heels if you get out of line.”

Orlov lunged
at him, seizing Karpov by the jacket in spite of the obvious pain with his
hands, pulling the smaller man close to his face. He was easily fifty pounds
heavier and a good head taller than Karpov, and he used his strength to
dominate him. “Right, Karpov. What was all that bullshit when it came down to
firing the missile, eh? You give your orders then stand there looking at me to
give the last word! You dumped the whole pile of shit in
my
lap, because
you wanted to set me up to take the fall if it all came apart. Yes?”

“Get your
filthy hands off me!” The Captain’s face was red with anger.

“Oh? What
are you going to do now, Captain? No one is here. Where’s Troyak, eh? Are you
going to go whine to Volsky, or slink back to the bridge and tell Fedorov?
Piz-da!”

The Captain
tried to break loose, pushing hard, and then Orlov loosed one hand and buried a
fist into Karpov’s gut, doubling him over with the blow, though he grimaced
with the pain to his own bandaged hand. Orlov pushed hard, shoving the Captain
off his feet, and standing over him with a satisfied grin on his face.

“Na kaleni,
suka
,”
he hissed at him. “Go tell Fedorov, and just be glad I didn’t put a knife in
your belly instead.” He turned and tromped off, his heavy soled boots clomping
hard on the deck as he went.

The night
deepened and the men aboard
Kirov
rotated in shifts, some snatching a few hours of fitful sleep while others
manned battle stations. Still others started their shift in the mess hall,
lining up for bowls of warm milk, cheese sandwiches, kasha and hot tea. Fedorov
had decided to stand down from full alert, thinking his situational awareness
was still solid enough in spite of the aberration he had discovered with the
early sailing of the Italian 7th Cruiser Division. He had expected Da Zara’s
3rd Division would be handled easily enough, but the other contacts still
bearing on their heading were still some cause for concern. The Italian cruisers
were fast, with each group capable of thirty knots, and so
Kirov
continued to sail north just shy of her best speed.

The ruse he
had planned involved a fake distress call, sent out by Nikolin in Morse code
with the intention of fooling the Italian Navy. Once decoded the message would
read:
“Force K – Critical gun damage in engagement 23:45 hours - Aborting
mission under Case B.”
And to be certain it would be decoded he had dug up
an old reference book he had on Royal Navy codes and deliberately used a
version that he knew the Italians would be able to decipher. His intention was
to convince Regia Marina that his ship now presented no immediate threat to
their home bases or airfields, hoping they might call off the pursuit and
simply return their ships to friendly ports, as they had decided historically
during Operation Pedestal. In that campaign the Italian Navy had aborted its
operations when the Germans refused to provide air cover over the Sicilian
Narrows. Fedorov hoped that he could count on them to stand down here as
well—but he was wrong.

Regia
Marina
had a bone to
pick now. The fiery admiral Da Zara had escaped southeast to Cagliari with his
battered task force, livid with anger that he did not get more air support
during his sortie, and convinced that this was no mere British cruiser at large
in the Tyrrhenian Sea, but a fast battlecruiser. He concluded that this ship
must have slipped through north of the Skerki Bank before the submarine picket
lines had been established a day earlier, and while most air recon missions had
been focused much farther west. It obviously intended to disrupt Italian surface
fleet operations aimed at attacking the convoy—and that it had accomplished
well enough.

The
arrogance of the British, he thought. They think to sail unchallenged into our
home waters? On a secure phone line to Admiral Bergamini at La Spezia he was furious,
demanding that the navy could not allow such an incursion into the Tyrrhenian
Sea to go unpunished. What he heard in return gave him heart.

Bergamini
claimed to have known about this ship for some time, since the submarine
Bronzo
had sighted it, on fire aft, a little before sunset on the previous day.
“Why
do you think your Division was sent out in the first place?”
he said in a thin,
distant voice over the phone.
“The Germans must have caught it during their
ferry operations from Sicily to reinforce the air Squadrons at Cagliari.
Furthermore, we have
a new wire intercept concerning gun damage on this
ship, and we believe it is now attempting to run for the Bonifacio Strait.”

 He praised
Da Zara, assuming it was his timely action that had inflicted this further damage
on the enemy, and he told him that the ships of 7th Cruiser division were still
in the hunt, chasing the impudent raider north at high speed even as they
spoke.

“And
there is more,”
he
said quietly.
“We have a surprise or two prepared for this uninvited dinner
guest. I cannot say more, Da Zara, but you will soon see that Regia Marina has
more fight left in it than you may believe. I will encode details through
normal channels. In the meantime. If any of your ships remain seaworthy, get
them ready for action!”

“Seaworthy?”
Da Zara said sharply. “Yes, they will float I suppose. But ready for action? I
think not. It will take weeks, probably months to repair the damage we
sustained.”

“Then do
not worry. We will handle the matter from La Spezia.”

It was
that very night, that Admiral Tovey
had been awakened with that jarring coded message and sent on his way to a
meeting with the Admiralty on the morning of August 12, just as
Kirov
was approaching the Strait of Bonifacio. Now he sat in the meeting with Admiral
Pound and the other Sea Lords, and this curious Professor from Bletchley Park.
In spite of Admiral Pound’s reaction, Tovey could see more in those photographs
than he wished, and it turned his stomach as well.

“The same
ship?” Pound flailed at Turing. “May I remind you, Professor, that the final
engagement with this raider occurred on the 8th of August, a full
year
ago. I’ll admit that we’ve had our suspicions about the American story that
this ship was sunk by their destroyer squadron, but for it to have survived for
an entire year on its own in the Atlantic, and to have entered the
Mediterranean undetected by our forces is absolute rubbish.”

Tovey spoke
up, wishing to clarify the situation. “Professor Turing,” he began in a more
civil tone. “The Admiral’s point is well taken. Surely you don’t suspect this
is, in fact, the very same vessel we engaged a year ago. How can we possibly
explain its presence in the middle of such a hotly contested war zone?”

Turing had
his right hand at his temple, elbow on the table, thinking he had been foolish
to express his suspicions in this room, at this time, before the weight of
evidence might mount on his side of any argument. Now he thought how he might
smooth this ruffle over without dampening the urgency he needed to communicate
to these men. He was about to speak when there came a soft knock at the door,
granting him a welcome respite.

Tovey looked
over his shoulder and gestured to the Marine guard there, who held two neatly
folded papers, decoded cable intercepts fresh from the cypher station. He took them,
opening the first quickly to see it marked ‘Most Urgent – ULTRA’ and read it
quietly before looking up with raised brows and a look on his face that
conveyed his obvious concern.

“Well
gentlemen,” he said as he handed the intercept to Admiral Pound. “It appears
that Regia Marina has found its backbone after all.” He waited politely while
Pound read the intercept, and Turing watched with some interest, the irony of
the moment galling him. Here was a cable decoded as a direct result of his
work, and the Navy was quick to embrace it as truth, yet he knew he would have
to argue his point at some length to overcome their stalwart opposition to his
suspicions about this ship.

Pound handed
the cable off to Whitworth and spoke up. “The Italians got up steam on their
heavy surface units six hours ago and sortied from La Spezia a little after
midnight. It seems that Admiral Syfret may have somewhat more to deal with than
we first anticipated. Battleships
Littorio
and
Veneto
were both
confirmed as part of the task force.”

“Battleships?”
said Wake-Walker. “We thought they were laid up without adequate fuel for a
major operation.”

“Apparently
not,” said Pound. “Either they managed to obtain more fuel oil, or they’ve
decided to make do with what they have. Either way it amounts to the same
thing, and I must tell you gentlemen, that a move of this magnitude may mean
they’ve decided to risk everything to stop this convoy to Malta.”

“It’s not
surprising,” said Tovey. “We’ve thrown fifty warships at this operation.”

“Yes,” said
Pound. “Well it looks like
Rodney
and
Nelson
may have some work
to do beyond blasting away at the Luftwaffe. What’s this last bit in the
cable?”

“Oh, excuse
me, sir,” said Tovey. “It refers to further movements of the Italian 7th
Cruiser Division with ships based at Messina and Naples. Apparently they’ve put
to sea as well, though they seem to be concentrating on the Italian Naval base
at La Maddalena, which is somewhat surprising. Odd thing is this—the heavy
units out of La Spezia haven’t entered the Tyrrhenian Sea. They sailed
west
,
on a course that might put them off the northwest coast of Corsica right about
now.” He looked at his watch, noting the time.

“The
Bonifacio Strait?” asked Whitworth.

“Indeed,”
said Tovey.

“But why not
just make a run down through the Tyrrhenian Sea and hit us north of the Skerki
Bank? Their ships would be well covered by the airfields around Cagliari.”

Tovey slowly
opened the second intercept as Whitworth reasoned the situation out. “They may
be thinking to swing down the western coast of Sardinia and get to the convoy
that way.”

“It doesn’t
make any sense,” said Wake-Walker. “They would be much better positioned just
west of Cagliari as Whitworth has it. They must know we’ve timed it to try and
get round Cape Bon late tonight. If they’re low on fuel they won’t be making
top speed, that’s for sure. So even at twenty knots that’s another twelve hours
before they’d be anywhere near the convoy route by sailing west of Sardinia,
and by that time our ships will be north of Bizerte. They’ll find themselves
well
behind
the action.”

“Unless they
mean to have a go at our covering force,” Whitworth suggested.

“Engage
Rodney
and
Nelson
?” said Pound. “They’ll regret that, I assure you.”

“Well I can
think of no other good reason for this La Spezia Squadron to be where it is,”
said Tovey. “In fact I can put forward no sound reasoning for it to be at sea
at all!” Now he read the second cable intercept. “Hello,” he said in a low
voice. “Beaufighter Reconnaissance report out of Malta…It seems there was
another engagement last night northeast of Cagliari. Malta reports no sorties,
so none of our aircraft were involved, but the Italian 3rd Cruiser Division
under Da Zara got shoved about rather rudely… All five ships are back at Cagliari
this morning, and every single one appears to have sustained damage.”

That news
fell hard on the table and quieted the entire discussion. Then Turing spoke,
his high voice clear and steady. He had been listening with some interest, and
finally decided to throw another spanner in the works

“If I may,
sir,” he began, “and correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think we have any
ships in the Tyrrhenian Sea at the moment—not northeast of Cagliari, which
would be right about where 248 Squadron engaged and photographed this vessel
yesterday afternoon, and got a fistful of
rocketry
for their trouble. I
say the Italians have tangled with this very same ship! Now it’s not ours, so it’s
quite evident, gentlemen,” he said flatly, and then spoke the single word that
had gathered them all round the table that morning.
“Geronimo…”