Nemesis (4 page)

“Yet
you tell me everything could change—that I might not even remember this time,
this very meeting. What then?”

“We can
only know by doing,” said Karpov with an air of finality. Yet I can promise you
I will not launch this mission heedlessly. You and I must have a good long talk
about it later. For now, we have a few other details to iron out.”

“Well…”
said Kirov with a smile. “We have come a very long way since you asked me for
those two airships.”

“A long
way indeed, but it is a journey that is only just beginning for us. So now you
know the last of what I offer you—Ilanskiy. Yet having seen the world I came
from, I have no desire to ever return there. I want to stay here, finish this
business, and then see if I can help shape those crucial years after this damn
war…. So I want my ship. It can give us a lot of clout in the Pacific, or
anywhere else we choose. Without it we may never get Vladivostok back until
late 1945. If we open that port sooner, it could be very valuable. But I need
that ship. Will you give it to me? In exchange you get your five shock armies,
all the oil you need, all the resources, a haven for your factories. Then you
and I plan how and when we deal with Volkov. After that, when we see what the
world actually looks like without that demon alive, then we shape that world
together.”

It was
a dazzling offer, more than Kirov had ever hoped to gain in this meeting. There
was only one last reservation in his mind, and he spoke it now, looking closely
at Karpov, as if trying to discern whether he had considered the real
consequences of what he was now proposing.

“What
if we do this—eliminate Volkov—and things change so radically that we don’t
survive? What if something happens that ends up eliminating us both from this
reality?”

Karpov
smiled. “And what if the Germans bomb Moscow tonight and we are both killed?” he
said glibly. “Yes, anything could happen, even today. No man’s future is ever
certain, or really promised by God, the Devil, or time itself. You take each
day given to you, and act. You knew what you were doing when you killed Stalin.
You knew the magnitude of that change, and yet you had the courage to proceed.
Find that courage again now.”

“You
are
the Devil, Karpov,” said Kirov. “You are the only man I have ever met who would
be willing to do battle with the almighty—with God above!”

“Only
if I thought I could win,” said Karpov with a smile. “So what will it be. Do we
have a bargain?”

Kirov
thought, then nodded his head solemnly. “I believe we have an understanding,”
he said. “What was that radio call band you said you could give to me? Would it
be the same as the one Volsky told me to use?”

“Then
you will agree? You will give me back my ship?”

“Will
your Admiral Volsky cooperate? I want no bloodshed. You have said they betrayed
you, but they are brothers in arms. How do you propose to assume command if
they should oppose you?”

“Leave
that to me.”

Kirov
took a long sip of cold tea, thinking.

“And
what about those wonder weapons aboard? I’m told you used them rather
wantonly.”

“I have
learned a few things since I arrived here,” said Karpov. “Having power is one
thing. Knowing how and when to use it is another.”

“Precisely,”
said Kirov. “Very well, Karpov. You can have your ship back, but remember one
thing—it was built by our nation, and it fights for our cause—understood?”

“You
have my word on that. And as to how I can secure the vessel, I suggest you
order it back to Murmansk. I can tell you exactly how to send the message. It
will need to use an exact protocol, and it must end with a specific code word
that I will give you. I can format the message for you myself. They will decode
it and know what it means. I will handle everything else. And now, since I
think we have finished here, shall we get rid of this tea and find a good
bottle of vodka?”

Kirov
smiled.

Part
II

The Mole

“Does the Eagle know what is
in the pit
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod,
/ Or Love in a golden bowl?”

―
William Blake

The
situation has finally come to a place where I might get a
handle on it, thought Fedorov as he settled into the chair in the briefing room
aboard
Kirov
. There, across the table from him, sat the Captain, his
eyes serious, still somewhat irritated, and impatience obvious on his face.

“Well
Fedorov?” said Karpov. “What is this about? How is it you knew the man at the
other end of that radio call? A British Admiral? And why on earth would the man
wish to speak with you in this situation? There is something very suspicious
about this, so out with it. What dirty business are you wrapped up in here?”

“I know
it may appear very odd. How would a junior office in the Russian Navy be
associated with a fleet commander in the Royal Navy?”

“More
than odd, Fedorov. But you forget that I reviewed the personnel records of all
officers when I came aboard to assume this post. Yours is very interesting. It
seems you spent a good deal of time in London last year during your annual
leave. Care to explain?”

“It’s
not what you think,” said Fedorov quickly. “No, I am not working for the
British, an agent of sorts. There is no cloak and dagger here. If you will
listen to me, I can explain everything, but some of the things I will tell you
may sound… impossible.”

“Like
scrapped ships rising from the dead, Fedorov?”

“Yes
sir.”

How to
begin, thought Fedorov? How to reveal the full magnitude of all I have gone
through without sounding like a raving lunatic here? Karpov is on a hair
trigger now. Things could tip one way or another very quickly. There isn’t
really enough evidence to support anything I would assert about what has really
happened to the ship. Should I wait? But yet, the Captain’s suspicions are up
now, as he has just made very clear. I had to take that risk to prevent him
from firing on those cruisers. Thank God for Nikolin. That call coming in from
the
Invincible
saved the hour, but now I sit at the edge of a precipice
here, and things could slide away very easily. I must be careful, but eventually
the truth will out. Yet there is so little time.

“Captain
sir…” he began. “I can explain everything that has happened to the ship, and in
fact, I can tell you things that may yet happen here.” That was the only way
forward, he knew. Tell the Captain what his investigation will eventually turn
up. It would sound incredulous in the beginning, but he would eventually be
vindicated.

“The
survey being conducted by the submersible will discover no sign of wreckage.
Slava
will not be found.”

“Another
prediction? You sound very confident of that, Fedorov. This was where the ship
was last on station, and I fully expect this is where we will find it. And when
I do find it, then your British friends out there will have to answer for it.
Now stop playing around here. How is it you know this British Admiral?”

“I have
met the man personally, sir.”

“Indeed?
Well I took the liberty of looking him up, Lieutenant. The only place you could
have met him would be in one of your damn history books! There is no Admiral
John Tovey in the active Royal Navy officer data files. The only reference I
could find was to an officer of that name who served during the Second World
War.”

“Correct,”
said Fedorov flatly. “Tovey was in command of the British Home Fleet until June
of 1943.”

“Yes…
the man who sunk the
Bismarck.”
Karpov had a pad device in hand and he
eyed a file he had called up, a wry smile on his face. I see he was even
awarded the order of Suvorov, First Class, for arranging all those convoys to
Murmansk.”

“Yes
sir, that is also correct.”

“Well….”
Karpov switched off his device, setting it aside on the desk. “Since we both
know I was not speaking to the dead some hours ago, suppose you tell me what
you were really up to, Fedorov. There is no HMS
Invincible
in the Royal
Navy active ship registry either. I checked that as well.”

“Correct
again,” said Fedorov. Then he took a deep breath. “Captain… What I am about to
tell you now will sound like a mad fairy tale. You will assume I am deluded, or
even still suffering the effects of that injury I sustained, but you will be
wrong in both instances. I can prove, categorically, that everything I will say
now is true. Will you listen to me with an open mind? The safety of this ship
depends on it, and far more than that, sir.”

Karpov
inclined his head, eyes narrowing as he regarded his young Lieutenant. “I will
indulge you for the next fifteen minutes. Then I have to get back to the ship’s
business. Very well—tell me this impossible truth.”

“Sir…
The incident with the
Orel
was an accident, just as Admiral Volsky
suspected in the beginning. I know you believe that we were attacked by the
British, but you must consider all the other evidence before you can come to
that conclusion.”

“All
the other evidence?”

“Yes sir.
The lack of any wreckage of either
Orel
or
Slava
is most telling.
If they were attacked, there would be clear evidence of that—flotsam, all over
the sea.”

“Unless
they were completely vaporized.”

“Then
where is the mushroom cloud? We would have seen a vast spray dome erupting from
the ocean, and we should still detect the radiation. Yes, the sea was very odd
there for a while, but clearly there was no evidence of a massive detonation.
It seemed that way in the beginning. There was that thunderous sound, but then
things settled down much too quickly.”

“Which
leads me to suspect this was a torpedo attack by a stealthy British submarine,”
said Karpov quickly. “Perhaps it used a low yield warhead. You know we have
them.”

“I can
understand why you would think this, sir. But that did not happen. Even so, and
assuming it did, we should easily detect the wreckage of both ships. Yet you
will not find a thing, not the slightest trace of either vessel.”

“We
shall see, Fedorov. This investigation is only just beginning. I don’t know who
that man was on the radio, though he was a fool to pose as Admiral John Tovey.
Someone is playing games here, and I intend to find out who and why.”

“Yet
there is other evidence you should not overlook, Captain. The documentaries
Nikolin has been listening to non-stop on the radio are a strong clue, and the
presence of two
County
Class cruisers, which we both clearly saw on that
video feed, is even stronger evidence. They would seem to point the story in an
impossible direction if they were taken at face value, and assumed to be true.
Clearly those ships could not be at sea, and we should be able to pick up any
number of radio broadcasts with current news on the short wave—yet each and
every station Nikolin tunes in has the same material. Why sir? Have you
considered that?”

“Part
of this same little deception NATO seems to be running here. That is what I
believe.”

“Every
station sir? Nikolin has even picked up broadcasts of Radio Moscow. He’s heard
their interval signal: ‘Wide is my Motherland,’ clear as a bell. Yet we cannot
even raise Moscow or Severomorsk on our secured military comm-link channels. We
have no satellite links, I have no Loran-C link from the Met station on Jan
Mayen. In fact, we seem to have no connection at all to the time and place we
were in before that accident.”

“All
true, Fedorov, yet all explained easily enough if this was an attack. The
satellites may be gone, and Moscow and Severomorsk with them. A surprise attack—this
is what I think has happened.”

“Then
why not us, Captain? Why are we left unharmed? Are you suggesting the British
and Americans have run out of missiles, and have nothing left for
Kirov?
Instead they decide to try and confuse us with a pair of old ships and a man
posing as an Admiral from the Second World War? It makes no sense. Well, I have
another explanation, and it will seem to make no sense to you as well, but each
and every scrap of evidence you uncover from this moment forward will prove it
to be true.”

Karpov
looked at his watch. “Ten minutes Fedorov. Let me hear your impossible story,
and then I should get the real news from the submersible.”

“Very
well sir. Nothing we have seen or heard could be happing in our own time, in
the year 2021. Even the phase of the moon is different now. I checked it today.
We currently have a waxing gibbous moon, and it will rise just before 16:00.
Yet it should be a morning crescent, rising five hours later, at about 21:00.
That is a very strange anomaly. Yet everything we have seen, and everything you
will see from this moment on, would make perfect sense if it were happening in
another time.”

“Another
time?”

“Yes
sir. I entered that moon condition data in to my computer and back checked for
possible dates. I found a match in the year 1941, and on this very day, the
first of August. The news broadcasts, those two ships, and the man on the radio
all date from that same year. Nikolin tells me the radio broadcasts are even
time stamped to that date. This is why there are no satellites, and no Loran-C link
to the Met. The news we are hearing is, indeed, the current news broadcast from
that time.”

Karpov
listened, as any Russian would when he began to hear good Vranyo. He raised his
eyebrows, playing his part, nodded his head, and when Fedorov finished, he just
smiled.

“That’s
very good, Fedorov.” He laughed softly. “Throwing in that bit about the moon
was very clever. A nice touch, but I don’t think I’ll be wasting my time to
verify that, or to listen to any more of this rubbish. You love your history
books too much. Or maybe it was that knock on the head you took. Yet don’t sit
there and insult me with the notion that you now believe we are sailing about
in 1941. This meeting is a complete waste of time.”

“I told
you this would sound impossible, yet mark my words, it will be proven true. You
can send a helicopter to Jan Mayen with Troyak and the Marines, and see for
yourself. The Met station is gone. The entire facility is missing, even the
airstrip. Yet it was not attacked. There will be no evidence of blast damage
whatsoever, and all you will find there will be a couple Norwegians at an old,
makeshift weather outpost. One will be named Ernst Ullring. If Troyak searches
the Norwegians he will discover an identity card. They will also have a dog. I
can show you what that facility looks like from the ship’s data files, sir. I
have a bookmark to panoramic interior video files of the whole place. Yet if
you send a helo there, you will find nothing. The entire facility will be gone,
because it was not yet built in 1941.”

“Good
idea, Fedorov. I will take you up on this little bet, and have Orlov send a
helicopter. And when he reports the station is completely destroyed, as I fully
expect, then you will get your nose out of the history books and back in the
here and now. This is an emergency situation, and I need officers with clear
heads.”

“I
understand, sir. I would never suggest any of this if I did not believe it to
be true.”

“Then
you are certifying yourself as insane? You agree this is impossible, and yet
you tell me this is what you believe? I’m supposed to assume this ship is now in
the middle of WWII? Nonsense! Look, if you want to be relieved, I’ll get Petrov
back, and make him a senior Lieutenant at that station in the bargain.” Karpov
planted a finger firmly on the table to underscore his threat as real and
imminent.

There
came a quiet knock on the door, and he turned his head. “Come.”

The
door opened and Nikolin appeared, coming to the rescue again at a most opportune
time. “Excuse me sir, but you instructed me to report any communications received
on command link channels. We have a message sir, from Moscow!”

“Moscow?
At last!”

“Yes
sir. It came in on long wave, unscrambled, and it was addressed to Admiral
Volsky.” Nikolin handed him the message, and Karpov read it silently, thinking.
It was a stream of code, yet he knew what it meant, for it was clearly
delineated in a secret alpha-numeric protocol used for Russian military
commands: MDZHB 92 038 MIRKA 56 89 33 44 SIMVOLIKA 13 68 63 68 ODKORA 34 24 43
13 NIKOLAI. One word immediately caught his eye, MIRKA. He had been briefed
before they left Severomorsk, and this was the code word that had been assigned
to identify Volsky for this mission, and by extension,
Kirov
itself.

“Very
well,” he said with a nod of his head. “Unscrambled you say? That is very odd.”

“Yes
sir. It was down on 15.62 kHz, the normal Russian Navy Longwave frequency. I
monitor that on a routine basis. The protocol is correct.”

“So
much for your stupid little theory, Fedorov. Nikolin, have you consulted the
code reference book on this yet?”

“As far
as I could, sir. The first letter set is just a prefix to set my key. The next
word, MIRKA, is our identity code, indicating the intended recipient. The destination
is SIMVOLIKA, and that decodes as Severomorsk. It is followed by a timing word
indicating the order is to be carried out immediately. Yet I cannot decode the
last word, sir, NIKOLAI. That is the message authentication code, and only
command level officers will have access to that.”