Hammer of God

Chapter 34

The address was Number 25 Shkolnaya Street, one of the most common place names for streets in Russia. Other famous examples were the old district by that name in Moscow, where a free settlement of coachmen serving the mail route from Moscow to Vladimir was established in the 16th Century. Rows of old inns once lined the street, and at one time it was the haunt of an odd sect known as the “Old Believers,” an offshoot group separating from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1666. Another famous site was the Shkolnaya railway station in St. Petersburg, and so all over the country, the name “Shkolnaya Street” was often associated with inns and railway stations.

Karpov did not fail to notice the connection, for the address was also associated with another famous site, at least in his mind. It was the address of the old railway inn at Ilanskiy. How interesting, he thought, that the old Shkolnaya Street in Moscow should be associated with a road traveling to a city christened with my name-the road from Vladimir to the heart of Moscow, the heart of the nation itself in modern times.

As he stood in the muddy street outside the hotel, he realized that this conjunction of inns, railroads and the names Vladimir and Shkolnaya would again point directly at the heart of the nation. This out of the way nothing of a place is perhaps the most significant seat of power in Russia, if not on all the earth. And it is mine, he smiled. I control it in 1941, and now I will soon control it here, in pre-revolutionary times, where all manner of mischief can be accomplished. From here I can paint upon the vast canvass of Russia and create any image I like, and my brush can make, or end, the lives and fate of any man in Russia.

They had come to the site just an hour ago, the massive hulk of Tunguska looking in the mist above the town like a monstrous UFO. The townspeople below had come out from their shops and houses to gape in awe at the site, and Karpov smiled when he saw women rounding up their children, casting fearful glances at the airship, as it was a thing they had never seen before. One of the first airships in Russia, the PL-7, had not even been built yet in 1909, and it would have been tiny compared to Tunguska, so he understood the surprise and fear the site of his ship would instill in the little people below. That was as it should be.

The airship hovered low over a field on the eastern fringe of the settlement, above the very same scattering of woodland that Sergeant Troyak and his Marines would use as cover when they approached the site on their daring raid in 1940. There Karpov would fight a duel in the skies aboard Abakan, blasting the Alexandra from the sky after apprehending its captain Symenko, and then chasing the second ship Volkov had foolishly sent, the Oskemen, under the truculent Captain Petrov. That name did not fail to register in Karpov’s mind, which was now taking keen notice of all these odd associations since he first mused on the incident with his Great Grandfather.

Soon the cargo basket began to lower, watched by small gatherings of the brave, mostly men who had come over from the nearby rail station. Their fears were redoubled when they saw dour looking men in dark coats emerge with sub-machineguns. They were obviously military, or police of some kind, all in dark wool coats emblazoned with shoulder patches and insignia, and wearing black fleece Ushankas. They fanned out, waving the curious away, and then the last basket lowered with Karpov, Tyrenkov, and a select group of five hand-picked guards.

Karpov wasted little time, making his way directly to No. 25 Shkolnaya Street, the site of the old railway inn. His fifty man security contingent surrounded the building, guards on every side, occupying and clearing out the school building adjacent to the inn, which was largely empty that day in any case. Karpov strode up the main entrance, pleased to see the familiar lines of the building again, and the wooded park with the round stone fountain behind the inn. Then, at Tyrenkov’s direction, two of his personal guard entered, making a quick security sweep.

“Be certain no one uses that back stairway for any reason,” he said. “Just send a man up to the second floor by the main stairs to make sure there are no unsavory guests.”

Moments later he entered to the main front desk, seeing a frightened man there with one of his guards.

“You are the proprietor?” he said tersely, and the man nodded. “Good. Then I wish to see your guest register. How many boarders are presently quartered here?”

“Only three, said the man sheepishly, thinking this had to be the Okhrana when he saw the dark uniforms and military insignia. Either that or some powerful new general come at last. Someone must have been talking, he thought. He knew they could not keep the rumors from spreading for very long. Ever since that fateful morning a year ago, when the horizon was afire with the awful red glow of a second sunrise, and the terrible roaring sound came from the sky, his quiet life at the railway inn had never been the same.

That was when it had all started. That was when strange, uninvited guests would suddenly appear in the dining room, or on the upper hall on the second floor, and none of their names were ever in his register. He did not know that they had signed in at another register, in the book of time and fate, but tales had begun to circulate quickly in the town, saying the place was haunted. And being just a few blocks from the railway station, these stories eventually boarded trains with the passengers that told them. He had hoped nothing would ever come of it all, and he had even taken steps to restrict the use of that back stairway-yes-that was the center of it all, he knew.

But someone listened, he thought, and someone finally took notice. Now who are these strange, evil looking men come from that thing in the sky? Were they the dread secret police of the Czar, here to interrogate him? Karpov’s next questions confirmed his deepest fears.

“Tell me,” said the Admiral. “There are two stairways in this building. Yes? Have you noticed anything odd about the one in the back-the stairway from the dining room to the upper floor?”

“Anything strange?”

“Yes… People there who don’t seem to belong. Interlopers-people in your inn who have not made any reservation, or paid for boarding.”

“I assure you,” the man said quickly, his eyes wide with alarm, “We do not harbor criminals here, or fugitives. We are loyal citizens!”

Karpov could see that the man believed he was here to look for renegade revolutionaries, which was what most official personnel or police might be doing this year, in 1909. “Let me see your register,” he ordered, and them man nodded and quickly produced an old book.

Karpov opened it and flipped through the pages, scanning the names of boarders who had signed in over the years, his eyes narrow with thought. As might be expected in the isolated place, the inn, and the rail itself, was not well traveled. Occasionally there were entries involving troop trains that booked the entire inn, mostly for the officers. Otherwise, the entries were sparse enough to be listed on weekly pages, instead of daily entries. There was one segment, in mid-1908, that seemed to be more heavily booked, and he took note of the names there closely. There were German names, Koeppen, Fuchs and Neuberger, and another labeled “American Team: Schuster, Miller, Hansen, MacAdam. One was labeled: “Thomas Byrne, Reporter,” and it was clear that some special event had brought all these people to this nothing of a place.

He knew that he would probably not find the name of Ivan Volkov here. No. If he appeared here, then he would probably have wandered outside and eventually hopped on a westbound train. Then his eye fell on a curious entry, a name that jogged some inner memory that seemed familiar, but one he could not place-Mironov.

“This name,” he said. “It was a man?”

The old proprietor looked at the book, squinting, and shaking his head. “Always men with the names,” he said. “No self-respecting woman would dare travel alone here.”

“Then this man Mironov… Do you remember what he looked like?”

Now there was little doubt in the proprietor’s mind. These men were Okhrana, and they were obviously looking for someone. God help the young rascals now, the men who came through from time to time, traveling under some pseudonym, Mironov was probably one of them, but he could not remember the man-until he remembered the light in the sky that day when he saw the date: June 30, 1908.

“Who can remember such things?” the man said, and Karpov knew he would be of no further use to him.

“You have other quarters nearby?” he said.

“For your men?”

“No, for you and any others who might be working here. I mean to commandeer this entire inn for my officers and staff. Don’t worry, you will be paid handsomely in gold, but you will make arrangements and leave within the hour. But before you do, I would like a meal served in the dining room for myself and one other. I will see to the security of the inn while we are here. Have no fears on that count.”

He dismissed the man, then realized he had a unique opportunity here. “Tyrenkov, summon the Chief of Engineers. Tell him to bring a team down here with measuring devices of every kind. I want them to survey this site top to bottom, and take exact measurements of that stairway-everything, angles, heights, exact position in relation to the hearth in the dining hall-to the millimeter. Understood? That was the only thing that survived the demolition in 1940. It will serve as a foolproof reference point for the builders in 1941.”

“Then you mean to return there?” asked Tyrenkov. “By what means?” They walked from the front desk into the dining hall, and Karpov eyed the darkened alcove near the hearth with a suspicious look.

“There is one option,” he pointed. “That back stairway leads somewhere, doesn’t it?”

“But where, sir? How do we know it would take us back to our time? Why should it do so?”

“Good questions, Tyrenkov. It may not take us anywhere, but that is what I have come here to determine before we begin operations.”

“I see… Then you want to do a reconnaissance on the stairway to verify its… effects?”

“More or less.”

“Won’t that be dangerous, sir?”

“Most likely, which is why you will be the man on the stairs.”

“I understand, sir. Are we to begin immediately?”

“First let us eat our meal, and I will brief you.”

They waited until the proprietor returned with a hearty stew, seating themselves at a table by the warm hearth.

“From what I have learned, I believe a former associate of mine came down those steps to approximately this time. He didn’t bother to sign in to the register, because he did not stay long. But while he was here he met a most important man.”

Now Karpov opened the hotel register, pointing at a name entered on June 30, 1908, in the midst of all the other entries for that week. Tyrenkov looked at the name, but did not recognize it. “Mironov?”

“An alias,” said Karpov. “The man who used it was really named Kostrikov-Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov-the very same man who later adopted another alias-Sergei Kirov.”

“Amazing,” said Tyrenkov. “Then he was here, at this very inn just a year ago. I wish I could say that would help us find him, but it probably won’t.”

“Don’t worry about that. We’ll deal with Kirov later. For the moment we have the matter of that back stairway in front of us. I have a strong suspicion it may lead from here to the year 1942.”

“1942? Why do you believe this, Admiral?”

“Because this associate I mention-a subordinate really-came down those steps from the second floor, in September of the year 1942. This is a long story, Tyrenkov, but you must know some of what has happened to understand things here. That ship I mentioned-the ship named for Sergei Kirov-do you remember I told you our movement in time had something to do with the propulsion system?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good, well there was one particular component of that system that we determined to be the culprit.” Karpov knew he could not get into the design and concept of nuclear fission now, or what a control rod was and how it was used, so he kept things simple. “This component could be removed, and used in other similar engines, and while we were doing this in a test environment, there was another little accident. A man named Makarov vanished, and we later learned by scouring the history that he had re-appeared in September of 1942.”

“Reappeared?”

“Yes, in the very same location, but in a different time.”

“How thrilling, sir. What did you do?”

“We did something very clever, Tyrenkov. We used that test facility to send other men back, for at that time we were looking for a crew member that had been separated from our ship earlier in that same year. Yes. I told you that first accident sent us back to 1941, but we bounced around quite a few times, into 1942 in fact, before we finally realized that it was our own propulsion system, and this particular component, that was responsible for the strange effects.”

“And how does that relate to this place, Admiral? How does it relate to that back stairway? Was that component brought here?”

“No, but this associate I speak of was a member of my crew, a junior officer in fact. When we unraveled the mystery of that missing man, Makarov, we got the idea that we might send men back the same way, to retrieve the other missing crewman, a man named Orlov. We knew where he was, but I won’t get into that now. Suffice it to say that this junior officer, Fedorov, led a team back to 1942, and they traveled along this rail line heading west to find Orlov. In fact, he stopped at this very inn, in September of 1942.”

“And he came down that stairway?”

“This is what I now believe. Otherwise how could he have met this man-Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov-the man who called himself Mironov at that time.”

“But how, Admiral? If he did not have that component from your ship’s engines, how did he move in time to 1908?”

“This we do not exactly know, but I believe it nonetheless, and it has something to do with that stairway, that hole in the history I told you about. It is obviously here, right on the other side of that door. Fedorov used it to get all the way back to 1908. Sergei Kirov told me so when I met with him, so that confirms it.”

Karpov smiled, pleased with his deductive reasoning on the matter, and continued. “Now then, you recall I went up those stairs myself when we first got to Ilanskiy after the Omsk accord was signed? At that time I was already beginning to suspect something about this place. So I took a little stroll myself-up that back stairway. Yes! I vanished for a time, didn’t I? And when I returned I did not seem quite myself, and now I will tell you why.”