Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series) (28 page)

“What
are we now, a pack of scavengers? Saying is one thing,” said Canaris, “doing
quite another. How do you propose to get these ships? Yes, the carcass is there
for the pickings, but soon the British will be circling like vultures. Toulon
is Vichy controlled. The rest of the French ships are in African ports. I’m sure
you don’t plan on sailing
Bismarck
and
Tirpitz
down there after
you patch them up.”

There
was just a bit of a smirk in that, and Raeder bristled, but calmed himself.
Canaris won’t give up easily, thought Raeder. I must be very careful in the way
I handle him.

“No
Admiral, we’ll concern ourselves with operations in the north for the moment.
As for Toulon, I’m afraid I have no solution for you. Might something be done
politically? After all, we remain in a position to exert considerable influence
on the Vichy French. They exist only by our leave, do they not?”

“Correct
again, Raeder,” Hitler’s eyes were that dark well again, vast, deep, endless
darkness there. “The bar fight is well under way, and now Franco and Pétain
want to sit quietly and watch. These little men should be of no concern to us,
nor will they impede me in any way that matters. If they will not join us they
will be dealt with. We could demand the surrender of all French ships at
Toulon, or threaten to rescind the occupation and our agreement not to divide
France permanently.”

“But my
Führer,” Canaris began.

“Not
now, Canaris. I know you are quite comfortable with your arrangements in Spain,
and nice and cozy with Franco. Set your mind to discovering his intentions!
Will he join the Axis, or not? Find out, because once I am through speaking
with the French, he will be next. Then this fellow in Russia. First things
first. The British are the real problem now. But let us see how things look if
we can get these ships you speak of, Raeder. Yes, and things will be quite
different once our ships are anchored in Gibraltar instead of the Royal Navy.”

The
Führer smiled, a cold, evil smile that made every man there uncomfortable. This
was the twilight of the British Empire. It was fading and failing, descending
into the dark night that would be ruled by the iron hand of the Third Reich.
Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Suez…. It would be just like shooting birds on a
wire, thought Hitler. But first things first, the French fleet.

Part IX

Doppelganger

“In a world where the dead have returned
to life,

the word ‘trouble' loses much of its
meaning.”

―
Dennis Hopper

Chapter 25

July 24, 1940

They
spent some days in the harbor at
Severomorsk, and Fedorov was making good use of every minute of free time he
had. He was in the officer’s mess hall, the table covered with the cache of
books he had been given by the Russians, and was happily perusing one after
another.

Much
had changed, but he was still amazed to find that other parts of the history
remained remarkably consistent with events he already knew so well. The history
of his own homeland was badly fractured. Stalin’s death was a backwater footnote
now, the assassination of a minor figure on the fringes of the incipient
revolution, well before it had taken real form in 1917. Stalin had been relatively
obscure in the early years, gaining prominence in revolutionary circles only
after Lenin’s return to Petrograd in April of 1917. In his place it was Sergei
Kirov who shined by the borrowed light of Lenin.

The
twin defeats at the hands of the Japanese in 1905, and again in 1908, had
humiliated Russia. Karpov’s great dream of Russian Pacific power had completely
backfired. The Japanese Empire was catalyzed by the events in 1908, and
incursions into mainland Asia, on both Chinese and Russian territory, soon
followed.

This
crisis did much to cause many defections in the military, eroding the power
base of the Tsar, but the nation was still swept into the gathering maelstrom
of the First World War, and continued to bleed. The revolution happened right
on schedule, between February and October of 1917. A few faces were different,
but it all played out much the same.

The
civil war that followed, however, was suddenly overshadowed by the rising
figure of Volkov in the White movement. After an abortive bid for power in
Moscow, Volkov withdrew through the Ukraine and into the Caucasus and border
states that now made up his Orenburg Federation. There were periods of
tentative peace as Red and White struggled to find balance, but the fighting
invariably re-ignited, spurred on by much foreign interference.

By 1924
the borders had cemented again. There were seven years of truce, seven more of
war until 1938, when the Siberian Free State began to organize into a third
major entity. Remnants of Kolchak’s White movement there were joined by
Kozolnikov, yet information on what was happening in the far east was very sketchy.
None of the books had covered any recent events there. Siberia had been a wild
frontier, a loose confederation of warlord states with a few centers of
Kolchak’s White movement in the major cities. No one seemed to want the place,
not even the Japanese who exerted nominal control all along the frontier of the
Amur River, but with little real strength.

Fedorov
spent some time reading on Volkov, watching his slow rise to power, first as a
master of intelligence under Denikin, then slowly co-opting that man’s
authority. The Bolshevik Red Army had gained the Ukraine, but could not seem to
make inroads into Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, and the Caspian region. Instead of
trying to defeat one another, both sides entrenched and consolidated their
power, and the long civil war dragged on and on, a simmering conflict that
spilled across one border or another, then cooled until the next incident
stoked the fires.

Volkov
eventually secured power and established his seat of government in the growing
city of Orenburg. He then changed the White movement to the Grey Legion,
breaking ties with remnants of Denikin’s supporters. There had been fighting
back and forth along the Volga with Kirov’s Soviet State ever since.

Fedorov
was finishing up his research, thinking of the implications on the war that was
now unfolding. Surely Volkov knew this history as well, or at least knew the
general outcomes of the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Even against a united Russia
ruled by one strong hand, Germany devoured half the nation. Was he doing this
to finally destroy the Bolsheviks under Kirov? Did he think he would somehow
find a way to manipulate Adolf Hitler in the end? These questions and so many
others percolated in his mind, but weariness overcame him, and the tea he was
drinking was not helping. He was just about to finish up and get some sleep when
Orlov happened along.

“What
are you doing, Fedorov? Nose in the books again? You should have been promoted
to the ship’s librarian.” Orlov said that with a grin, realizing, after all,
that he was speaking to the ship’s Captain now, and remembering the humiliating
lesson Troyak had taught him about showing due respect when he had been busted
to the Marine detachment. He had come to the officer’s dining hall for a cup of
coffee before going on duty, and found Fedorov sitting at a table reading.

“The
world has changed, Orlov,” said Fedorov. “I did not realize just how much has
gone awry.”

“I know
you are wanting to blame me for that, yes?”

“What?
No Chief. I think I got to you in time, or at least those British commandos
did. Besides, most anything you may have changed would have had to occur after
1942. The altered state of affairs I am reading about now all happened well
before that. I think it was Karpov who had a great deal to do with some of the
changes, and I must also confess that I am equally to blame.”

“You,
Fedorov? What did you do?”

Fedorov
confessed his crime, that errant whisper, and he told Orlov that it ended up
resulting in the death of Joseph Stalin himself.

“My
god!” Orlov exclaimed. “Here I was worried a bit about choking Commissar Molla,
and you took a contract out on Stalin!” As always, Orlov interpreted the events
in light of his own life experience, running with the Russian mob for so many
years before he had joined the navy had left him very jaded.

“So you
see, Orlov, you can sleep easy now. I’m the real culprit.”

“And
that bastard Karpov. He sleeps easy too—with the fishes!” Orlov grinned again.

“Yes, I
suppose so. In fact, as to that Commissar you speak of, remember, in this world
now it is only 1940, so he may still be alive out there somewhere, though if he
is he will be working for Volkov, and not the Bolsheviks.”

At that
Orlov’s face and mood darkened. “Still alive? But I killed him.”

“In
1942, but that world, those events that saw you make your way to the Caucasus…
well, they might never occur. This is a new world, Chief. Another life
altogether, for you, and I suppose for Commissar Molla as well.”

“Sookin
syn!” Orlov swore, clearly unhappy with what he was learning now. “I wondered
about that. Was another Orlov going to appear and do everything we just lived
through?”

“We’ve
all wondered about it.”

“It is
not possible, right Fedorov?”

“Director
Kamenski does not think so. He believes we are in a completely altered world
now, separate from the one we left. So come July 28, 1941 when we first
appeared here, nothing will happen. In his mind we have trumped all our
previous exploits.”

“You
mean none of it counts? Molla is alive, none of those ships we hurt are sunk?”

“That
could be so, Chief. Our appearance in 1908, and now here in 1940 predates all
that experience. Perhaps it counted in the world we left, but not this one. It
hasn’t even happened yet, at least according to Kamenski.”

“Is
that what you think?”

“It
does sound reasonable. Otherwise we will have a real paradox on our hands in
another year.”

“Yes,”
said Orlov with a smile. “One ugly mug like this one is enough for the world.”
He tapped his own cheek. “So that means we are living in a world where Karpov
doesn’t exist any longer. There is one good thing about our fate, eh?”

“I see
you still have hard feelings about him.”

“I hold
a grudge, Fedorov. That’s why I killed Molla. Frankly, to learn he is still
alive makes me want to go and kill him again! But don’t worry. I’ll stay put
this time.”

“Please
do, Chief. We need you here.”

“Now
that you mention it, I have duty on the bridge in ten minutes. Keep reading,
Captain!” Orlov clapped Fedorov on the back and went on his way, shaking his
head and muttering under his breath.

Fedorov
smiled, putting the book he had been perusing aside, entitled
Rise of the
Orenburg Federation
. The photographs there had convinced him that the
leader of that state was indeed the same man they knew and met on the ship with
Inspector General Kapustin.

He went
down those stairs, he thought. So it wasn’t just what Karpov did, or even what
I did. It was Volkov too. Yet it all comes back to me again. If I hadn’t
insisted on retrieving Orlov, leaving as I did with Troyak and Zykov, then
Volkov would have never tried to find me along that route, and never had a
chance to take that trip down those stairs. Then again, Orlov’s recent visit
put him in the spotlight again. If Orlov did not go missing… No, I was Captain,
he thought. I was the one who gave that order to fire on the KA-226, so it all
comes back to me again.

He
passed a moment wondering what might have happened if he had not fired. If
there had been a fire on the helicopter as Orlov claimed, they might have made
an emergency landing. They could have even parachuted to safety, and we could
have rescued them by zeroing in on their service jacket transponders in both
cases. It was only because we thought those missiles made an end of both the helicopter
and Orlov that we failed to mount a search—that and the urgency of the hour
with that race to Gibraltar underway.

I was
sloppy, he berated himself. I was too inexperienced to take on the role of
ship’s Captain at that time. I wasn’t thinking clearly as to proper procedure.
All I could do was think about avoiding any contamination to the history, but
there we were, ready to slug it out with the
Nelson
and
Rodney
.
How foolish I was! That duel seems to have caused very little change, but the
little things—my failure to search for Orlov then and there—that’s what really
put a missile into it all, and ripped the history open from bow to stern.

Orlov
slipped away, I hatched my plan to go after him, and then that stairway at
Ilanskiy changed everything. There was the death of Stalin in one errant
whisper. There was the rise of Volkov and the deadlock in the civil war that
shattered my homeland. Now that will have a dramatic impact on the outcome of
this war. How can Britain survive without a united Russia fighting against
Germany on the Eastern Front? We have chosen to place
Kirov
on the
scales of Time to try and help, but we are just one ship. How can we possibly
counterbalance the grievous harm I have done?