Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) (42 page)

“Right away, sir.”

*
* *

Admiral
Volsky had been listening to
everything Kamenski was telling him, trying to sort it all out in his own head,
and wishing Fedorov were there to help him. The shadowy ex-KGB man had come to
him with startling evidence of Karpov’s shift to 1945, and the fate of the Red
Banner Pacific Fleet that fell from heaven into that hell of a war again. Now
he wondered about the mission they had planned for the
Anatoly Alexandrov.

“What
about that, Kamenski? Do you know what happened to Fedorov and Dobrynin?”

“To
some extent. I can tell you that the
Anatoly Alexandrov
got back to 1942
safely, just as you planned it. Then things began to happen. Some very unusual
things…because I just came from the special code room. We have received another
message.”

“Another
letter? From who? Was it Fedorov this time?”

“Not
another letter, Admiral. This time it was a radio call, and yes, it is from
your young navigator. I told them I needed to speak with you first about these
matters. The call is holding on line one if you would care to pick up your
telephone. I think we may both learn just a little more of this story now, and
have some of our questions answered.”

Volsky
gave him a wide eyed look and picked up his desk phone, quickly punching line
one. “Admiral Volsky,” he said.

“Admiral!
This is Fedorov. Good to hear your voice, sir.”

“Fedorov…Just
a moment…” He pushed the speakerphone so that Kamenski could listen in. “There
now. Where are you, Fedorov?”

“I
am aboard Anatoly Alexandrov in the Caspian, sir.”

“Thank
God! Dobrynin got through to you. That is good news. And what of your mission,
Fedorov? Did you find Orlov?”

“We
did sir, and we have him aboard. It was a very long journey, and now we are
home.”

“And
the Mi-26? Did it get safely away to the coast with those control rods?”

“No
sir. I was forced to cancel that mission. We needed to use the helicopter to
find Orlov. It’s a long story, Admiral, but I will explain it to you as soon as
I get there.”

“Then
Kirov
is still trapped in 1945? I have some evidence it may have been
destroyed there.”

“No
sir… The ship is
not
in 1945. There was another incident. It’s Karpov,
sir. He’s back to the same mindset as before. He was thinking to do something
dramatic, something spectacular.”

“Yes,
I have been discussing that with someone here, yet the outcome is not yet clear
to us.”

“I
can tell you that Kirov shifted again in time, sir. There must have been
another detonation to cause it, just like the first one. And you know what that
means…”

“Yes,
yes, Karpov resorted to nuclear weapons. We have evidence of that as well. You
were correct, Mister Fedorov. The history is not set in stone. It is still
changing.”

“Yes,
sir. I thought it was Orlov all along, but it was Karpov. He shifted further
back in time. The ship is now trapped in 1908!”

“What?
1908? This is a most shocking development, Fedorov. How did you learn this?”

 “Because
I have been there too, sir. I will tell you about it when I arrive, but first I
must tell you that we were able to reach Karpov on shortwave and we proposed
your mission to him. He put it to the crew and they voted to stay where they
were!”

“What?
That’s impossible? How could they do this?”

“I
believe the Captain has persuaded them that they are better off there than they
would be in attempting to return here. I can half understand that. After all,
there was no way we could predict what would happen if he ever did try to use
those other control rods you found. What an amazing development!”

“But
what now, Fedorov? The ship is marooned in 1908?”

“At
the moment I have a very pressing need for two things, Admiral. First I need
priority orders for a fast cargo lift from Kaspiysk to Vladivostok. We will
bring the control rods with us.”

“I
can cut that order immediately, Captain.”

“Good,
sir. Then I need a ship—somewhere in the Pacific. I will tell you why when I
get there. Can you arrange it?”

“Yes,
I suppose I can, Fedorov…” Volsky thought on that a moment, wondering what
Fedorov was thinking.

“We
will talk soon, Admiral. But trust me, I have a plan. Fedorov Over and out.”

Kamenski
smiled as the Admiral hung up the telephone. “An enterprising young man. 1908?
That is very interesting, but now the more I think of it, the more it begins to
make sense to me. 1908… You know that was the year of the Tunguska event.”

“How
could that effect the ship?” Volsky saw the puzzle pieces, but he could not yet
put them together in his mind.

“Have
you ever had a persistent gopher or a mole in your nice front yard or garden,
Admiral?”

“What
has that to do with anything?”

“They
are very clever animals, thankfully short lived, but very clever. If one gets
well established in your garden it become a little devil there, and it will eat
the roots of everything growing, killing off the lawn, the flowers, and
anything else. Believe me, I have had more than one battle with these creatures
in my garden. They dig tunnels to make their entry, then a main tunnel where
they create a nest, food cache, and many side tunnels for escape hatches. You
can try everything to root them out, and fail—water, gas, traps. They are very
clever and persistent little devils.”

“Mister
Kamenski. Please make sense!”

“Forgive
me, Admiral, but bear with me here. You see, a gopher will dig all these little
tunnels in the ground, and at varying depths. I tried to dig down into one to
set good traps, only to find, by chance, that the rascal had an even deeper
network. That is what may be happening here.
Kirov
fell through a gopher
hole in time when that first detonation occurred aboard
Orel
. That sent
you down the hole to 1941, and the ship had a very hard time trying to climb
back out. You dug around a good bit of history in the process, and every time
you popped your gopher heads up out of the hole all you saw was a dead and
barren garden, never realizing it was your own handiwork that killed everything
off. Well there are deeper holes, in that garden, Admiral, and I think
Kirov
just found one that sent it sliding back to 1908! Who knows how these holes got
there? Perhaps whatever came out of the darkness of space that day in late June
of 1908 was the real devil in the garden. It may have created all these holes
in time with that impact; holes that remain to this day.”

“You
are speaking of the Tunguska event again?”

“Yes.
Now I begin to see the connection. As fate would have it, we found materials
for our control rods in the ejecta of the Tunguska event. Stick them into a
nuclear reactor and they become nice little spades that cut through the soil of
time rather well, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I
see…” Volsky finally had a handle on the problem now.

“Yes,
and we have been digging in the devil’s garden, Admiral, like a mole or vole
will sometimes come along and re-colonize abandoned gopher holes. Believe me, I
have been gardening for a very long time. From what your Mister Fedorov tells
me, we still have a mole down there in your Mister Karpov. There is still a
devil loose in the garden.”

“Yes,
and I can just hear Fedorov now. He will tell me that in 1908 Karpov could
cause so much damage to the course of events that the history would be
completely unrecognizable.”

“Very
true, Admiral. With a ship like
Kirov
he could do a good deal of harm,
and very quickly. Nothing could oppose him, at least at sea. How his mischief
might affect events on land remains to be seen, and you and I just may be able
to read about it soon.”

“Yes,
Kamenski! Why don’t you consult those references you mentioned to me earlier.
Can’t we find out the end of this tale now? Won’t it all be history we can read
in any library?”

“Perhaps…and
then again perhaps not. Remember when I told you why you and I recalled the old
history, but no one else?”

“Yes.
You said it was because we have traveled in time.”

“A
pair of funny looking little gophers, you and I.” Kamenski smiled. “Well, I
talked about that dead space in the course of events, like the eye of a
hurricane where all is still and calm. Can you feel it, Admiral? Here we sit,
deep underground in our own little gopher hole in this reinforced bunker, and
at the edge of an event that could prove to be the destruction of all humanity.
Here we sit, waiting for the ICBMs. This war has run out for nine long days,
and now it is about to really begin. Unfortunately the beginning and the end
are one and the same when it comes to ICBMs. It is my guess that others like us
have also gone into their little holes, just as we have, and some of them may
be holes in time as well as space.”

“Others?”

“We
are not the only ones who have learned about some of the things we have been
discussing here, Admiral. Yes, there are others, and they may have ways of
digging in the garden of fate as well. But here we sit, you and I, and the
world seems breathless. We can hear the clock ticking out the last moments of
the time that may be left to us, and that sound grows ever louder in our minds
and souls. At any minute the alarm clock may go off, and then what? This we do
not know. But at this moment I think all fate and time is waiting for something
that will prove to be the decisive element in all of this.”

“Waiting
for something?”

“I
should say some
one
, the person the outcome of these complex events truly
depends upon.”

“Who
do you mean, Karpov? That man has always had a devil on his shoulder,
Kamenski.”

“Yes,
he is certainly in a time and place now where he might change everything, and
the moment he
does
do something irreversible, then our time here may
finally run out. But I do not think it is Karpov the world now waits upon.”

“Not
Karpov? Who then? Orlov? Does he have something more to do with this?”

“Perhaps
he has already done his work in the garden, Admiral. No. I think we are waiting
now for that Antonov to get those control rods to us here. We are waiting for
your Mister Fedorov, and so is fate and time.”

 Volsky
thought about that. Fedorov was rushing here with all the control rods they had
collected. “I see…But can’t we just find out how all this ends by consulting
your library?”

“No,
I think we must simply wait. Your Mister Fedorov has some kind of plan, just as
he told us, but until he actually works it we cannot know the outcome in our
time here. There may come a moment when my old books change, and then we may read
about it. But that moment will not occur until Fedorov gets here and actually
leaves
us again…in time. Only then can we know what might happen. On the other hand,
you may wish to accompany him and actually take part in the story that is yet
to unfold. That may be a little more satisfying than simply reading about it. So
for now, we will have to wait for him and see how the story plays out.”

“My
God…Fedorov…with another plan. I wonder what it is this time?”

Kamenski
sat down quietly, a wry smile on his face now. “Don’t look so dejected,
Admiral. It won’t be very long before we know how all this turns out. In the
meantime, suppose you and I have a nice cup of tea.”

* * *

“So
you got your way with the Admiral, Fedorov?” Chief Dobrynin gave
the young officer a clap on the back. “But I still have no idea what you plan
to do. How can you possibly stop Karpov from doing all these things you fear?
What good will a ship do you, if the Admiral even has anything left afloat at
Vladivostok? You forget the Americans are still at war with us. Getting it out
to sea may be difficult.”

“Not a ship, Chief. You are correct. The Red Banner Pacific Fleet
doesn’t have anything left that could pose any threat to
Kirov
. I should
have been more specific. What I really need now is a
submarine
. You told
me you suggested this to Admiral Volsky when he first proposed the operation to
you with the Mi-26. I came round to that as a better solution myself. We’re
home, Chief, and now we get ourselves a goddamned nuclear powered attack
submarine, that’s what we do! We install the control rods there, and then you
have a good long listen. If you could get the reactors on the submarine to sing
that same song that you recorded on the
Anatoly Alexandrov
, then we
might just return to 1908. It may be a long shot, Chief, but we have to try. If
we do make it back, this time I won’t be sitting on a floating power plant in
the Caspian Sea. No! This time I’ll be right there in the Sea of Japan aboard
the one nemesis Karpov has always feared and respected—a nuclear attack submarine!
Then maybe he’ll listen.”