Men of War

Chapter 31

Admiral Volsky’s eyes shone with new light now. He was no longer that old Admiral, sitting at the desk of another old admiral, and looking longingly at the retired hulk of Admiral Lazarev down in Abrek Bay. There the ship sat, the image of Kirov from without, but nothing more than a gutted, empty hulk within, powerless and forgotten. But not so for Kirov, he thought. There was power to take to the seas again, real authority to strive and contend and decide. And they also had Rod-25, a mysterious magic wand with power unlike anything the world had ever seen. They had discovered it unknowingly, blundering into a distant age and time to wage war on war itself. And though they fought there to preserve their own lives and fate, they had also unwittingly decided the lives and fate of many others. What they did before, they could do again.

The red telephone sounded an insistent tone on his desk. It was Talanov: “Excuse me sir, but I think you had better bring up your news feed.” It was the UN General Assembly this time. The Chinese ambassador was completing a lengthy speech and making a formal demand, and ultimatum, for the passage of a resolution in the Republic of China renouncing independence.

“They are asking Taiwan to surrender before the shooting has even started there,” said Karpov.

“Always a good move, but not one likely to produce any results,” said Volsky. “This is mere formality. Moscow informs me that they will move on Taiwan no later than midnight tomorrow. Their submarines are already deploying from the major bases at Sanya and Yulin on Hainan Island to form a picket line in the South China Sea, and their new aircraft carrier is preparing to move into those waters. There is activity all along the coast from Shanghai to Dailan, Guangzhou, Shantou, Beihai and even Hong Kong. Air units are being moved and the entire navy is ramping up for deployment. We must do the same. I am going to call Admiral Shi Lang and see if I can buy us a little more time. He may not have any choice in the matter, but at the very least I will know more of what to expect in the days ahead. We have less than forty-eight hours to decide what we must do with Kirov.”

“The ship is ready, sir. We can sail within that timeframe.”

Volsky considered, looking at Fedorov and seeing the concern on his face. They had three weapons now, time, blood and steel. The problem was that there was all too little of the first, even though eternity was within their grasp in Rod-25.

“Mister Fedorov,” he said at last. “If you have any last thoughts on this matter, then let me hear them. What do you propose?”

Fedorov looked at Karpov, then set his jaw. He explained that there were two possible ways to get Orlov—one by using the ship, and the other by simply following Markov’s ill fated route. “I understand that using the ship may be impossible at the moment, sir. So I’ll go, with your permission. I’ll go to the test-bed facility and follow Markov’s route. It moved him to September of 1942, right where we need to go to find Orlov. He thinks they were taking him to Bayil Prison in Baku. If so, he’ll be in one place for a good long time. We could try and find him there.”

“How will you get there?”

“The Trans-Siberian rail.”

“That’s a long way, and very dangerous.” Karpov pointed out the obvious. “Getting back out east to the coast here with Orlov would be even more dangerous. I assume that is your plan, yes? We’d still have to run the procedure aboard Kirov again to bring you home, Fedorov. Taking time out to excuse ourselves from World War Three will not be easy. Even if we could do such a thing, how will we know when you are ready for extraction? And suppose we do this and the ship ends up in 1944! You could be left at the coast for a very long time waiting for our helicopters to show up. In fact, you could be left there for a lifetime.”

“I’m afraid I must agree,” said Volsky. “It would seem complete madness to send Kirov off into the ether under these circumstances. That ship is the heart of the fleet now. We have Admiral Kuznetsov at sea just south of Beringa Island, our only existing aircraft carrier, and it is escorted by three old Krivak Class frigates. We’ll have to do better than that. On the other hand, we have the greatest weapon imaginable at our disposal if we dare to use it again, and if it has the slightest chance of preventing this war, then we must try. Have you thought about this, Fedorov? If it works as with Markov, and you vanish as he did, how will we know what has happened to you? How could we possibly come back for you?”

“I’ll let you know if I get back to the target date safely, sir.”

“What? How will you do that, Fedorov? I don’t think there’s a secure telephone line anywhere in old Vladivostok to the year 2021.”

“No, but there are secure locations here in Vladivostok that go back centuries. I happen to own one that will come in very handy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The old Naval Storage Depot, sir. Cellar number five. It still has old storage bins dating back to WWII, some even earlier. My father was a navy man, and so was my grandfather. He had one of the bins there, and it passed to my father and then to me. I just went to check it yesterday. It’s still there, completely untouched for decades. My grandfather’s old uniform is tucked away in a steamer trunk, and I’ll slip a note into the breast pocket.” He held up an old, weathered key, smiling.

“Nobody has bothered them at all these years,” he said. “Just have a man waiting there with this key, and as soon as we vanish he can open the bin. My letter should be right there waiting for him. I got the idea that we could do this when I found Orlov’s letter.”

“Astounding,” said Volsky.

“So you’ll know if I’ve made it back safely. Then I’ll head for Kizlyar via the Trans-Siberian rail.”

“That’s a huge distance,” said Karpov. “What if you don’t make it back safely? Look what happened to Markov! You said he was shot dead by military police on the quay within minutes of his arrival there.”

“That won’t happen to me, Captain.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Sergeant Troyak will be with me.” He folded his arms.

“Troyak?” Karpov raised his eyebrows. “You’ve spoken to him about this?”

“He volunteered this afternoon, and two of his best Marines will round out the team. In fact he showed me comm-link devices you can use to track us on extraction. They use them for special operations.”

“You told him everything? He and his men know the risks?”

“And they also know what’s at stake.”

Volsky smiled. “Well, well, well… Yes, if you take Troyak back we will definitely get your letter, and I think you will get to Kizlyar as well. I have little doubt of that. But make no mistake, Fedorov. This is still going to be dangerous. Troyak and his men are among the best in the fleet, but they are men nonetheless, not robots. A bullet will kill them, and you, easily enough.”

“I understand, sir. It’s the risk we’ll have to take.”

“I admire your courage in this, but I must tell you that Kirov may not be able to come back for you.”

Fedorov knew this was the one weak link in his plan. Kirov might soon find itself in battle, and there was no guarantee that the ship would survive or ever find a way to extricate itself and use Rod-25 to return for them. But he had a plan.

“There’s another way, sir. Kirov is not the only ship with nuclear reactors. The Anatoly Alexandrov is in the Caspian Sea at this very moment and it operates two KLT-40B naval propulsion reactors—the exact same power rating as Kirov.”

“Anatoly Alexandrov?” Karpov raised an eyebrow in surprise. “That’s just a floating nuclear power facility. It was delivered via the rail quay at Kaspiysk to Gazprom for use in its Kashagan superfield offshore drilling operation. But I don’t even think it is crewed at the moment.” Karpov knew much about the operation as he had been a former executive in Gazprom before coming to the navy.

“Precisely, sir. It’s fully functional, but not yet scheduled for operations-and with no crew on site it is just perfect for what I have planned. All we would have to do is send Dobrynin and a few engineers with a security team from the ship. It’s anchored about ten kilometers off Kaspiysk harbor, and that is only about 120 kilometers south of Kizlyar! We can fly Rod-25 to Uytash airfield at Kaspiysk tonight. We have a coast guard base there, hovercraft, helos, the entire 77th Guard Naval Marine force at our disposal. If the Admiral orders it, we could easily commandeer the Anatoly Alexandrov, secretly install Rod-25, and it would shift the entire facility back. It displaces only 21,500 tons, which is less than Kirov. Perhaps we could move one of the new assault landing ships at Kaspiysk. I believe the Lt. Rimskiy is stationed there. It can range out to 1000 kilometers, requires only a small six man crew, and can transport 140 tons—a fast hovercraft, a helicopter, or even tanks! If you moved it tight on the Alexandrov, I think those reactors will shift it back as well. That would give our Marines a fast mobile platform for the extraction mission, and a few surprises inside in case we run into trouble. You can signal your arrival by radio and home in on us. We can meet you anywhere on the Caspian coast!”

“Amazing,” said Volsky. “You have the whole mission planned!” He sat with that for a moment, thinking, and realizing that as wild as the operation seemed, they had to try.

“Very well… It’s decided. You have your mission, Fedorov, but why not launch it from the Alexandrov? Why risk the long journey east from here?”

“It will take time to set things up in the Caspian, Admiral”

“Yes, perhaps several days, even a week.”

“But I can leave tonight from here. Yes, it makes for a long, hard journey in 1942, but if I don’t act immediately the situation could change here with these recent developments. A week from now who knows what we will be facing? We should act immediately, sir. This way I can verify the day of our arrival with a letter as planned. We know the approximate time we might displace to from the Engineering Center, but not so with the Alexandrov.”

“Suppose you appear in September of 1942 as with Markov, but the Alexandrov shifts to a different date, perhaps in 1943 or 1944? Or not at all?”

“These are the risks we will have to accept, Admiral. If the relief force shifts late, then we wait for you. If you never come… Well, I will write you a long letter about us.” Fedorov smiled, but it was clear that he knew all too well that this might be the last night he would ever see the world he had been born to, or at least the semblance of that world, changed as it was, a chameleon of time and fate.

“Very well,” said Volsky heavily. “Go to the test bed facility and call me on a secure line when you are ready. On my command have Dobrynin run the procedure. I will issue orders immediately and Dobrynin can then lead a team with one or two engineers and a Marine detachment from the ship. They’ll be on a plane for the Caspian region tonight. Admiral Kamilov is an old friend—he commands the Caspian Flotilla and I can arrange for everything Dobrynin will need when they get there. The remainder of the Ship’s marine detachment will go with him as well. The whole thing will be a top secret operation, and make that stick.”

“Thank you sir!”

“Don’t thank me yet, Fedorov. We may never see you again.”

“We’ll win through, sir. I can feel it.”

“I believe you… and may God go with you, but what if this mission fails, and you are trapped there in the past?”

“I’ve considered that, sir, and I have a solution.”

“What solution? What will you do?”

“We will have to end our lives… It sounds terrible, but it would be the only way.”

Neither man said anything. Volsky rubbed his brow, then spoke softly, a sadness in his voice. “Orlov heard the siren’s song, and now we follow. We jump right overboard even though we see the bleached skulls on the shore. But the end of that song is too often death. Let us hope you and the others do not have to pay that price.”

He looked down to the harbor, saw the Admiral Lazarev again, breathing deeply. “This leaves the ship free to do what we must in the here and now.” He turned to face Karpov.

“As for you, Captain, you are going to lead the Red Banner Pacific Fleet out tonight. Weather conditions have been worsening and it looks like we will have a storm on our hands. It will keep prying eyes in space from following our deployment. I’ve recalled Admiral Golovko and Orlan, a couple of new ships to keep Kirov company. You’ll also have the cruiser Varyag, four Udaloy class destroyers and our best attack submarine in escort, the Kazan. The rest of our submarines have already deployed in a wide arc east of Japan.”

He reached for a map to show Karpov his plan. “We will use the storm front for cover. Your mission will be to rendezvous with the Admiral Kuznetsov, add those four ships to your flotilla, and then we thump our chest. There won’t be another surface action group within a thousand miles with the firepower you have at your disposal, and you’ll have carrier based air power and anything else we can give you from our airfields. You will be the most formidable force at sea, so while Fedorov is on his way to the history books, you will take Kirov and lead the fleet north of Hokkaido to the Kuriles. You are acting Task Group Commander. Understood?”

“Very well, sir.” Karpov sat taller, the pride in his eyes evident.

“You are to conduct operations intended to make a show of force, but not to provoke or engage our adversaries. If you find the flotilla under direct and immediate threat, then you will take appropriate offensive and defensive measures utilizing conventional weapons only. I repeat. No use of tactical nuclear weapons is authorized. You will have them, but you must not use them unless you receive a direct order to do so. Is that clear?”

“I understand, sir.”

“Other than that, you have complete discretion as to how to employ your force to achieve our ends. Deter the enemy, and if he will not be deterred, then oppose him, but realize every missile you fire may be the one that sets off this war in earnest. Then the ICBMs fly. Remember, Karpov, if a nuclear warhead is your only tactical option, then your battle has already been lost, and the fleet with it. I believe you, of all men now walking this earth, know the hard truth of that. In fact, you are the only man in this world now who has ever ordered the use of a nuclear weapon in anger. Let us hope that first time was the last.”

Karpov nodded, his eyes serious, realizing what the Admiral meant all too well. “Rely on me, sir. I will not let you down.”

“I will rely on you both, as I did before when I could not stand on these old legs and was stuck there with Zolkin in the sick bay. The world is on your shoulders now, gentlemen, not just the fate of the ship. God go with you both.”

That night Fedorov met with Sergeant Kandemir Troyak and two Marine volunteers, Corporals Bukin, and Zykov. The four men moved slowly down the long corridor in the Primorskiy Engineering Center, with Engineer Dobrynin following behind. When they reached the sealed test bed facility, Dobrynin indicated a spot across the room where four chairs waited in a zone he thought would be closer to the effect produced by the reactor.

“I still have no idea why this happens, Fedorov. Are you sure you want to try this again?”

“We’re determined, Dobrynin. Let’s get started. When we finish you will need all the time left to you to get Rod-25 back aboard Kirov.”

“Very well, I’ll initiate the procedure, and then move to the data center. I can use those panels to monitor the reaction, and I think they are far removed from any possible effects.” He turned and pointed above the door. “I had a technician place a camera there, and I’ll be watching you throughout the procedure. Those chairs are securely bolted to the floor, so you are the only free objects in the room—you and your equipment.”

Dobrynin shook their hands, and then the telecom panel on the wall sounded with a quiet tone. It was Admiral Volsky wishing them well, and thanking each man for their service.

“Don’t forget to retrieve my letter, sir,” said Fedorov. “It’s very important. I will note the time we arrive and the time you can hope to expect us at Vanino on the coast.”

“Are you sure it will remain undisturbed all those years?”

“I have every confidence in that, sir”

“Very well… Ride the Dragon’s back, Fedorov. We will do everything possible to come to your aid. You may begin, Chief Dobrynin.”

Dobrynin left to initiate the procedure, and then the wait began. The first hour seemed to pass with agonizing slowness. The implacable Kandemir Troyak seemed completely unbothered, quietly checking his equipment. He had spent many long hours waiting like this, in cold helicopters chopping through the black night for hours to a secret mission point. This was no different. The other two men were equally cool, checking arms, ammunition reserve, supply packs, comm-link system, and other things Fedorov had never seen.

For his part Fedorov had a small map tube and compass for navigation, along with other documents he had prepared. His pack carried high energy food sap pouches and other food stores. He went into town the day before and bought up any old rubles he could find released before 1942. They also had small ingots of gold and silver to give them a little more buying power. Their clothing was warm, packs remarkably light, as they had determined to live as much off the land itself as possible.

Another long hour passed, and Rod-25 was in retraction mode. Dobrynin’s voice reassured them that all was well, and then they heard it. A distant sound, undulating, shifting in tempo and pitch as Dobrynin’s voice faded into a garbled wash. The sound increased, seeming more urgent as the volume amplified. The siren song of time was calling to them, beckoning, tugging at their minds with an insistent quality that seemed almost seductive. The light in the room fluttered. The men stood and Fedorov looked down at the chairs, which seemed to suddenly fade in and out-there, not there, and then they were gone.

Dobrynin looked up at his monitor with a shocked expression. Where there had once been four chairs and four men quietly waiting on them in the room, there were now three empty chairs and one man standing by the fourth with an astonished look on his face!

Chapter 32

The nuclear attack submarine Kazan slipped quietly from its underground pen at Pavlovsk Bay, restored to full operation for the specific purpose of housing and supplying the deadly new submarines of its class. There were only three, with Severodvinsk in the Northern Fleet and Yasen in the Mediterranean, but they were the best and quietest attack submarines Russia had ever designed. Four more had been ordered, but the money never came and neither did the subs.

Kazan left the base submerged, the thick overhead fog and low clouds also masking her departure on infrared. The boat would be the tip of Karpov’s spear, a fast, deadly forward scout heading east for the passage above Hokkaido Island. Within the hour the ships of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet would follow in the cruising order Karpov established: frigate Admiral Golovko, destroyer leader Orlan, and cruiser Varyag would lead the way, Kirov would then follow with the four Udaloy class destroyers in her wake. These eight ships would rendezvous with the carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and her three Krivak class frigates—the twelve apostles of Russia’s Red Banner Pacific Fleet were going to sea.

They slipped out of the Golden Horn Harbor like a whisper in the night, passing Russky Island and then turning east to skirt the coast and approach Fokino where Admiral Volsky waited in his office, his eyes heavy with sadness as he stared out into the foggy night. Then there came the distant call of a ship’s horn, three long notes in the quiet night. Volsky recognized it at once, and knew the fleet was now passing Askold Island just off the bay at Fokino. Kirov was signaling farewell.

The telephone rang and he picked up the receiver with a slow, deliberate movement, as if he was afraid to hear the news it might bring. It was the man he had sent over to Naval Supply, Cellar 5, beneath the old Fleet Logistics Building on Svetlanskaya Street. He had told him to call his office at midnight, and the man was very punctual. “Lieutenant Kaslan reporting, sir.”

“Thank you for your timely call, Lieutenant. Please go to storage bin number 317. Use the key you were given to gain access. There you should find a steamer trunk with a naval officer’s coat. Please search the pockets, and should you find any envelopes or papers of any kind, secure the trunk and bin and then bring the documents to this office at once. In fact, bring anything you may find in those pockets. You may leave the jacket undisturbed. Understood?”

“Yes sir. Would you like me to call and verify the discovery of any items before I leave the facility, sir?”

“I will hold on this line, Lieutenant. Please make your inspection while I wait.”

“Right away, sir”

Volsky heard the man’s footsteps echo in the hallway as he went, a hollow sound that grew fainter with each footfall, as if the man were now stepping back over years and decades with each footfall. There came the sound of a dry metal squeak, an old door opening with great reluctance, complaining like a sleeper roused in the long dark of night. There was a shuffling sound, something heavy being moved on the metal floor of the storage bin. He waited breathlessly, imagining the scene with the light of his mind’s eye standing in for the small flashlight that must surely be in the Lieutenant’s hand. What was there?

He heard a quiet bump, then the plaintive creak of the metal door on the bin as it closed, and a brief rattle as the padlock was secured. Then came the footsteps again, faint and growing louder, returning from the past. Volsky took a deep breath, waiting, his heart beating faster. Suddenly there was a sharp sound, muted but discernable, a single hard plunk followed by a heavy dull thump, and something falling heavily to the floor. Then silence… no! Not silence… A second set of footfalls, the sound of dry leather on cold concrete, and a hard heel—clop, clop, clop… Someone else was there! Volsky heard the dull sound of something being moved, his eyes widening as he tried to imagine the scene. He knew immediately what was happening. It was a body being dragged on the concrete floor! There was another rattle of metal, a crisp zipping sound and someone grunting with physical effort. Then he heard a door of a metal bin close, and the clopping footfalls receded, echoing as they faded away.

Silence… Dark, awful silence.

Volsky waited, but he knew what had happened. He slowly put the receiver back in its cradle, and reached for another phone, thumbing a secure line, his pulse quickening.

“Security,” came the voice.

“Admiral Leonid Volsky here. Please send a detachment of five Marines to my office at once.”

“Yes, sir… Is there a problem, Admiral?”

“Five Marines, please, on the double.”

“At once, sir.”

They stood there in the silence of a very dark room, chilled by a sudden cold. The sound they had been listening to had reached its shrill crescendo, and then the shadows around them slowly resolved to form and shape. The Sirens had called them to another shore and, to Fedorov’s amazement, one appeared to have died in the singing of that fatal lure.

He stared at a heavy set elderly woman, slumped on the threadbare couch, her tousled gray hair disheveled and a look of utter shock frozen on her face. Clearly she had been sitting there, a cup of tea still steaming on the tea stand to the right of the couch, when four men suddenly appeared in the midst of her living room, he thought. She must have been literally shocked to death by these apparitions manifesting in the midst of her living room. Their intervention had produced its first casualty, he realized with some misgiving. The woman was too old to bear children, but who knows whether or not she had something yet to give to the world before she died. No one would ever know.

Four men? He looked this way and that. Where was Bukin? Troyak and Zykov were there, but there was no sign of the other team member. The Sergeant touched his collar button, listening to the earbud and called for the missing man in a low voice.

While he did this Zykov, a tall, broad shouldered, white haired man, with muscular arms and a chiseled face, was already sweeping the room with a small hand held infrared detector, and searching the premises for any sign of another inhabitant. Troyak looked at Fedorov. “No response from Bukin,” he said flatly, his steely eyes searching the shadowed corners of the room.

“It seems that our 12 rod test bed reactor has limited power,” said Fedorov. “The three of us obviously displaced intact, but Bukin could not be moved. Too much mass.”

Troyak nodded, inwardly recalculating mission parameters and assignments in his mind. No plan survives first contact in a mission, he knew well enough.“Very well, Colonel.” The Sergeant smiled. We’ll make do.”

Fedorov spent the previous day ferreting out old WWII era uniforms from army surplus dealers in Vladivostok. He was able to find insignia and rank pins for an NKVD Colonel, and his research even indicated that there was such a man named Fedorov in the NKVD during the war. His historical counterpart was Deputy Head of the Main Transportation Directorate, People’s Commissariat of Defense, a rather high ranking official, and he rose to the rank of Major General. Fedorov even bore medals for the Order of the Red Star on his right chest, correctly placed after the Order of the Patriotic War 1st class. The red enamel five-pointed silver star, with straight rays in the background, and crossed saber and rifle gleamed in the light of a solitary lamp by the tea stand. Troyak and Zykov were both decked out in NKVD uniforms as well, with black Ushankas bearing insignia. They would pose as Fedorov’s personal security detail.

“We must get across the bay to the Naval Logistics and Storage Administration.” He reached into his pocket, relieved to find he still had his key. He had given a copy to Admiral Volsky for him to check the storage bin there and look for the letter that he already had waiting in an envelope in his breast pocket. They had two choices, to go by car or boat, whichever they could secure with the least effort.

Zykov had already surveyed the house and outside surroundings. Fedorov searched the home quickly, finding a newspaper on the tea stand. The date was September 22, 1942, a perfect landing! He tore off a segment of the paper with the date as evidence, and slipped it into the envelope. That done, he sealed the envelope as they made ready to leave.

They had entered the test bed facility seventy-nine years in the future on September 21st. He thanked their good luck. They were well ahead of the date on Orlov’s letter, the day he arrived at the Kizlyar on the 30th of that same month. Yet they would have little time to lose. It was a long ride ahead on the Trans-Siberian rail, and anything might delay them.

No one else was home and the night was cold and silent. They moved quietly, stepping out into the misty darkness of the sleeping city, and made their way down the hill towards the harbor below. They had left under a rising full moon in 2021, and arrived with no moon to be found at all. Only the fog remained a common denominator. Zykov was point man, with Fedorov following and Troyak watching from the rear. Reaching the quay they found a small dinghy and commandeered it. It would be three or four kilometers to go around the tip of the Golden Horn Bay and reach the other side, and there were few vehicles to be found. The boat would get them across easily enough, and cut their journey in half.

They crossed in a few minutes to the Dalzavod Shipyard on the northern bank of the bay, paddling up to a short pier there and slipping quietly ashore. The silent hulks of several cargo vessels and an old destroyer sulked in the foggy night, riding gently at their moorings. The moan of a fog horn sounded in the distance as they melted into the stacks of crates and old rusting oil cans stacked on the quay. Soon they had worked their way into the city, and up to Svetlanskaya Street, a much narrower road than it was in 2021. From there they turned left, heading west toward the naval Logistics Administration building, which still held that function in WWII. It was only a short walk, a little over one kilometer before they reached the building and then they just walked boldly in through the front domed entrance.

As they approached the inner door, Fedorov had an odd feeling and reached to touch the letter in his breast pocket. He felt as if a cold shadow had slipped out of the building the moment he opened the door, and he shivered. A night watchman roused from slumber when they entered, then stood groggily to attention when he saw three NKVD men walk in, two looking very threatening, and very well armed.

“As you were,” said Fedorov. “Go back to sleep. We’re just checking on a delivery, and we’ll leave by the rear entrance.”

“Very good, sir.” The man was more than happy to see them stride away, and then he settled back into the warmth of his chair, wrapping himself in a thin wool blanket.

It was not long before they found themselves in the cellar, and located Fedorov’s storage bin. He took out the letter, fishing out a pencil in his pocket so he could let the Admiral know the their fourth team member was not present. Fedorov hoped Bukin was still safe in the test bed center in the future. That would be one less life on my shoulders, he thought, and one less soul on the ledgers of time.

He opened the steamer trunk and slipped his freshly sealed white envelope into the breast pocket of his grandfather’s naval blazer. Again he had the strange thought that nearly eighty years on, a Marine was standing patiently in the cold empty cellar hallway, waiting for a telephone call from Admiral Volsky. Dobrynin must have just informed him, and he was about to make his call.

What he could not have imagined would be that another man was also waiting there, crouching low in the shadows beneath the stairway to the upper floors, his eyes peering wolf-like in the dark as he waited with a small pistol that would fire a drug-laden dart. A real revolver would be much too messy. How to explain the blood? No. He was waiting there with his dart gun, and the man he had shadowed to this strange place would soon be quite incapacitated. He watched him carefully, seeing him take something from the locker and then start back down the hall toward his position. Then he stood and fired, the crisp snap of the gun echoing in the empty corridor. He was unaware that another man had heard it on the open phone line, miles away in Fokino, his rising pulse chasing a hundred questions down that darkened hall.

But Fedorov knew nothing of this.

The shadow Fedorov thought he felt may have been nothing more than a strange intuition, but the man who had cast it was passing through that same door at that very moment, some eighty years on, as he left the Fleet Logistics Building on Svetlanskaya Street. A black limousine was parked just outside the main entrance to the building. The moon had risen hours earlier and was well up riding above a thin veil of misty fog and casting a wan diffused light over the scene. The man in a dark gray overcoat walked briskly from the yawning arched entry where a domed roof dating back to 1903 brooded over the walkway. He stepped quickly to the waiting limousine. The rear door opened as he arrived and he slipped into the shadowy interior.

Another man was seated in the back, and he tapped the soundproof glass partition screening off the driver’s compartment. The car pulled away from the curb and rolled quietly up the street, passing the Circus amusement building and then turning left off the main boulevard, along a winding road leading into a small residential district.

“Well?” the voice in the shadows spoke, the man’s face dark and unseen beneath the rim of his hat. The other man handed him a sealed plain white envelope.

“That was all?”

“I searched very carefully, sir.”

The other man studied the envelope in the dim light. “Very unusual,” he muttered, turning it over and seeing nothing of any note, just a blank envelope. Then he looked at his messenger, as if suddenly remembering something. “What did you do with the body?”

“As we planned. I put it in Bin 400. I will have men remove it within the hour. Don’t worry, he’ll wake up in the park tomorrow morning with a bad headache, and he won’t remember a thing. The drug is very effective.”

“Very well. Draw the shades, please.” They pulled down the black privacy shades on the side windows and driver compartment screen, then the man with the envelope reached slowly to the back of the seat in front of him, groping for a light switch.

“Well done, Captain Volkov,” he said calmly. It was Inspector General Kapustin, slowly removing his black fedora and setting it on the seat beside him as he eyed the envelope with obvious interest. He opened it slowly with his thumb, noting how the glue seemed so old that it barely held, the paper yellowed with age, though in fact it had been sealed just a brief moment ago…a moment that had been stretched into long, long decades.

“Now then… let’s see what we have here.”

Chapter 33

The car pulled up to #21 Tunguskaya Street, a small wood sided home shaded by walnut trees. Two men exited the vehicle, one speaking quietly on a cell phone, dressed in a long gray overcoat and grey felt Ushanka, the other in a dark coat and black fedora. They walked quickly up to the front entrance, and considering the late hour Kapustin did not ring the bell, tapping lightly on the window pane in the door.

They heard footsteps, and the dead bolt being thrown back. The door opened to reveal a grey haired man with soft eyes in a heavy robe. It was Kamenski.

“Forgive the hour, my old friend,” said Kapustin. “But I think you will be interested to see what I have found.”

“Please come in,” said Kamenski. “My daughter and grandson are sleeping in their rooms on this floor, but we can go upstairs and use the library, just up there on the right.” He pointed to the stairs. “Let me get some tea for you.”

“It can wait. When you see this you will understand.”

“Perhaps, but if it’s that earth shaking, then I had better have tea. It always clears my mind. I’ll be right in.” He padded off, and the two men climbed the squeaky stairs and seated themselves in the library by Kamenski’s desk.

It was not long before he returned with a Samovar and hot tea on a tray, which he set on the desk. “There’s a little honey left if anyone takes it that way.” He poured carefully while Kapustin fretted, tapping the envelope on the palm of his hand as he watched.”

“And what do you have there, Mister Kapustin. I hope not a bill for the furnace.”

Kapustin smiled, then simply leaned forward and laid the envelope on Kamenski’s desk. The old man’s curiosity was now stirred like the honey into the tea of his mind, and he seated himself at the desk, eying the envelope as he slowly fitted his reading glasses.

Volkov rubbed his chin with some impatience, but Kapustin simply waited, watching his old friend first take a sip of his tea before he reached to pick up the envelope. “Now then,” he said softly. “Where did you get it?”

“Never mind that for the moment. Have a look, please.”

Kamenski opened the envelope and quietly read: “Admiral Volsky… If you are reading this then know that we have arrived safely at our destination, and will now proceed with our mission to rescue Orlov at Kizlyar. Should circumstances permit it, look for us along the Caspian coast on or after October 15, 1942. May God be with you all. — Captain Anton Fedorov.” Another brief notation was added at the end: “Bukin failed to arrive. We hope he is safe with you.”

Kamenski then looked at a small printed clipping that had obviously been torn from a newspaper, peering over the top of his reading glasses to closely spy out the date: 22 SEP 1942. He set the envelop and its contents down, then reached for his teacup.

“Where did you find it?” he asked again.

“In the old Naval Logistic Building cellar—one of the bins. Volsky sent a man there to retrieve it at midnight.”

“The envelope was sealed?”

“The glue was weak, but yes. So what is going on here, Pavel? Is this some kind of a joke Volsky is playing? We went to considerable trouble to get this tonight. It is most disturbing.”

“Indeed,” Kamenski said quietly. “So now you are the one handing me an old document from the 1940s.” The paper appears quite old, Gerasim, as well as the ink. This could be forged, of course, but a closer inspection would verify whether or not that note was written in our time, or in 1942 as it appears. The news print clipping is obviously authentic, but it could have been slipped into the envelope yesterday for all we know. Who would be writing to an Admiral Volsky in 1942? There was no such man that I know of.”

“Of course it wasn’t written in 1942,” said Kapustin. “So it must be code of some type—perhaps something in that newspaper clipping? But why, my friend? What is Volsky trying to pull with this stunt? He must have suspected we were watching him, and all the other senior officers. Is this his way of thumbing his nose at us? Saying he’s on to us?”

“Admiral Volsky is a very serious man, Gerasim. And given the situation in the Pacific I can hardly believe he would have time for such games.”

“Well there is more. We saw several armed men accompanying this Anton Fedorov to the Primorskiy Engineering Center across the bay early this evening. Fedorov is the Starpom aboard Kirov. We left a man there to keep an eye on the place, and he reported that the Chief Engineer from the ship and a party of five technicians moved a long container into a truck and took it to the airport.”

“A weapon of some kind? Was it a missile?”

“We thought as much at first, but who knows? Well I should know. Yes? I am the Inspector General of the Russian Navy! I should know, but they had Marines crawling all over the place.”

“And this Fedorov returned to the ship as well?”

“We could not confirm that. He must have slipped out somehow, because we had men search the entire Engineering Center, and it was empty. The ship left two hours later, a little before midnight. The whole damn fleet has deployed!”

“It was inevitable, Gerasim. So you won’t have any ships to inspect for a while and you can take that vacation you’ve been missing.” He smiled, and Kapustin folded his arms, frowning. Kamenski took a more serious tone.

“This Orlov referred to in the note. Who is he?”

Volkov spoke up now, sounding like the perfect tattletale. “He was the Chief Operations Officer aboard Kirov, and was listed as a casualty.”

“Yes,” said Kapustin. “The only man Moscow confirmed from the Naval Records Bureau. When you called to ask about that old photo of the Japanese with that missile part I wondered what you were up to, Kamenski. So now you can wonder what we are up to. This Orlov was reported missing in action. Now we have a Marine sent from the Naval Headquarters at Fokino to the Logistics Building and he retrieves this strange letter from a dusty old storage bin. Volsky obviously sent the man. What is this about?”

“The third man mentioned in the letter…Who is he?”

“Bukin? We found out that he is a Marine Corporal assigned to Kirov’s detachment. He was one of the men accompanying Fedorov to the Engineering Center tonight.”

“Well this is very curious. The note says the Starpom is headed to Kizlyar to look for this missing Operations Chief. That’s a very long trip.”

“The ship’s Captain Karpov and the others were very evasive when I began sniffing around that casualty list,” said Kapustin.

“Yes,” Volkov put in. “I had to haggle with that doctor to even get the list!”

“Let me ask you something, Inspector General. I don’t suppose you bothered to check on anything in the ship’s library while you were aboard Kirov.”

“Library? You mean the books? I was there to count men and missiles, not books, Pavel.”

“Of course. But I am willing to bet there were books in that library when that ship left Severomorsk that are not there now tonight as it leaves Vladivostok. Did you not find it even passing strange that all the ship’s logs and records were mysteriously damaged by this accident, but not the ship’s fire control systems and communications? They all just had a flutter and now they work fine again? Did you bother to confiscate any hard drives from the ship’s computer to see if they had been tampered with?”

“That thought occurred to me, but there was very little time with this business brewing up in the Pacific. The damage control teams were working all over the ship to get it ready for operations again. I couldn’t start ripping computers apart. The IT personnel said they had restored those drives and had vital ship information re-written to them.”

“How convenient. And then your time ran out.” Kamenski finished his friend’s next thought.

“I assure you that I pressed on this matter very firmly.”

“It was the ship’s Captain,” said Volkov. “He was an obstruction from the first moment we set foot aboard Kirov. In fact, he flatly refused to answer our questions about these missing men, not to mention the missing nuclear warhead! He said it was none of our business! Can you imagine that? The effrontery of the man.”

Kapustin held up a hand as if to calm his angry assistant. “Karpov made it seem as though the ship was on some very classified mission.”

“It very well may have been on such a mission.”

“He implied that, Pavel. You do not know everything—this is what Karpov said to me. I believe they were trying to cover up something related to those thirty-six missing men. Could Kirov have been on a black mission, perhaps to insert clandestine agents somewhere before this world goes to hell again? This is what I came to believe, and so I closed the book on my investigation for the moment. Yet I kept a watchful eye just the same.”

“You were wise to do so, Gerasim. Yet given the present situation with Kirov out to sea again there will not be much more you can do. So I have some advice for you now. Let the matter go.”

“Let the matter go? How am I supposed to explain these discrepancies—the missing men, the missing warhead, this silly old letter from a dingy storage bin?”

“You can’t explain them at the moment, so you must delay your final report. You’re a clever man, Gerasim. You can bury your report under a mile of paperwork if you so choose. Simply mark the investigation as being held in abeyance due to the fleet’s emergency deployment. The answers to your questions may still be aboard that ship, but it has sailed to off to war. So let the matter rest, just as you decided earlier.”

Kapustin shrugged, then his features softened and he nodded at his long time friend in agreement. Volkov was clearly not happy, however, still straining at the leash emotionally, his face a clear story to be read by the other two men.

Kamenski took another sip of tea and turned to Volkov, noting his energy, and the restrained urgency of the man. Then he decided something inwardly, and spoke again.

“Mister Volkov, I think it would be good if you arrange to have some men at the airport right away. Find out where that container is headed. Perhaps your missing warhead is there, yes? Put a couple of good men on it, very discretely. This Fedorov will have to get to Kizlyar by one means or another. He may be at the airport as well, but then again… I think you should take a long train ride. Stop at every terminal between here and Kizlyar. Ask questions. For all we know this Starpom may be on the Trans-Siberian rail at this very moment. He will be clever as well, but you must follow him like a good shadow. Yes?”

“Rely on me, sir.”

“Excellent… In fact I think you should leave at once. There may be no time to lose in this matter.”

“Very well, sir,” said Volkov. “I will take care of everything. If this Fedorov is on a plane or train heading west, we’ll find him, you can rest assured.”

“Find him and follow him, Captain, but be very clever—very discrete. Then report back to me. Understood? Report to no one else in this matter. If anyone questions you simply tell them Kamenski sent you. That will settle it.”

“Of course, sir.”

Volkov stood up with renewed energy, excused himself, and went quickly down the stairs, a little too loudly for Kamenski’s liking, but soon they heard the front door close and the two men were alone. Kamenski got up, walking to the library wall to take out a book, and then he closed the library door before returning to his desk.

“That was just to get rid of Volkov,” he said quietly. “That man is wired to tightly, Gerasim. You should be very careful with him. I think you should send him off on another assignment soon. Send him to Omsk or Novosibirsk to work on the Ballistic Missile inventories or something. For the moment I think he will be well occupied. A good long ride on the Tran-Siberian rail might keep him busy for a while. He’s dangerous, understand?”

“Very well, Pavel. He does get on my nerves at times. Perhaps you are correct. But what about this situation with Kirov? Do you really think I should drop the matter? Something is going on here. What could it be? These dates in 1942 on that letter. This must be code, yes?”

“Perhaps… perhaps not.”

“What do you mean, perhaps not? If Fedorov is on that train Volkov will get to him in short order, and we’ll soon find out.”

“Oh, he’s probably on the train alright,” said Kamenski, “but I don’t think Volkov will find him.” He leaned back, sipping his tea. “I’m going to confide in you now, my friend. This is another reason why I wanted to get Volkov on his way. Very few men alive today will know what I am about to tell you.” He gestured to the many volumes in the book cases of the library. “As you can see, I do a lot of reading and research. Quite a lot for these old eyes. Well now… what I am about to tell you may surprise you, even shock you. You may be tempted to pass it off as the senility of an aging man, but you would be wrong to think this. Yes, I forget where I lay my reading glasses on occasion, but my mind is still very sharp.” He tapped his forehead with a finger.

“I have a particular interest in naval history, and I am quite fond of this book, for example.” He pointed to a thick hard bound volume of the Chronology of the Naval War at Sea. “How to put this…” Kamenski thought for a moment. “Well, my friend, suppose you had a favorite book, or perhaps even a favorite movie or song. You may have read it many times, seen it many times, or hummed that old tune in your head a thousand times. Then one day you decide to reach for your book to look over a favorite chapter, and you find it strangely different. The scene you had thought to read about was not there, and more than that, other things happen in the story that you cannot recall at all! There you sit waiting for your favorite part of the movie, and it never comes. There you sit humming that tune in your head and when you finally put the song on the stereo player, it is…different, changed. In fact in parts it is now completely unfamiliar.”

“I understand, Pavel, but what are you getting at?”

“Well you might be somewhat upset, to say the least, if you ever did find that your favorite books or movies and songs had changed. It would bother you to no end, yes? And then your friends would probably convince you that you just had that old tune wrong in your head all those years, or that you simply forgot that part of the story in your favorite book. What is the harm, eh?” He reached for his tea, taking a very long sip before he continued.

“Now then, I’m afraid my research leaves me very little time for stories and movies, but I do spend a good deal of time in books like that one.” He pointed at the Naval Chronology. “Imagine my chagrin one day when I pick up this volume and look up a reference I was very certain about to check on some detail—and find that the passage no longer exists! There it was in my head, clear as a bell. I had read it just that same afternoon. Then I go back to check on a minor detail and it is nowhere to be found. So I check other reference books, and to my great surprise, none of them mentions this incident. Well now you might begin to think yourself a crazy man indeed,” he sighed.

“Gerasim…It is one thing to find notes in a song out of order, or even to be surprised that a character in a book you were so sure of was simply not in that favorite story of yours. But when your history books start to misbehave in this manner, then you take real notice. Yes? Then you sit up late at night with that dusty old volume on your nightstand and you read, and read, and go to sleep hoping it will all still be as you remembered it when you wake up the next morning. One day you find something has changed again, and your curiosity increases, your determination redoubles. You become a man on a mission to discover just what may have happened to cause this impossible thing that you swear has happened. You become a very determined man, in fact.”

Kapustin had been listening, though he began to sense a nonsensical edge to what his friend was telling him. He nonetheless continued nodding, without objection, adopting the time honored forms of vranyo, the polite listening of one man as another spins out a little lie, or a boastful exaggeration. Only when the story was complete would it be proper to make any objection. Kamenski finished, looking at his friend to see how he was reacting to all this.

“You are telling me you think the history recounted in this book has changed? What is in your tea tonight, Pavel?”

“Ah, yes,” said Kamenski. “That is the first thing you consider. People change their minds all the time, but a book cannot re-write itself. It is a fixed and certain thing—unless it gets deliberately edited and re-issued. We do that sort of thing often enough, but then we get two books, yes? Side by side. One has the old text, and one has the new. Yet this is not what I am speaking of. I am talking about opening to a passage or incident in the history you know as well as your own last name and finding it different, subtly changed—or worse than that—finding it missing… and then sitting there wondering why you are the only one who can remember it.”

“History is a story that men write, Pavel. You know that as well as I do. I’m sorry if you forget your books and think they have changed, but I am talking about something more than this now—a nuclear warhead missing. Men missing. Thirty six men listed as killed in action that this world never seems to have heard of.”

“Nor would you have ever heard about them if this Doctor had not prepared that list. Have you considered that, Gerasim?”

“Well… I suppose not.”

“The Doctor made a mistake, but I cannot really blame him. How would he know that there would be no record of any of these men? How could he check on something like this in a few hours time with Volkov gnawing at his ankle. So he gave you the list. But you, my friend, you are a careful man. You checked with Moscow, and these dead men are truly dead—so dead that they were never even born.”

“You mean there was a black operation, yes? This was all part of a cover up?”

“No, Gerasim. I mean they were never born. And as for the nuclear warhead, I know exactly what happened to it, and it had nothing to do with the Orel, nor is it on its way to the airport tonight. That was just another suggestion to throw Volkov off the scent.”

Pavel Kamenski was not simply a curious old man living in a quiet suburb of Vladivostok with his daughter, grandson, cat and walnut trees. He was an old navy man, moving from active service into the Naval Intelligence arm as well. But his long career did not end there. He was, in fact, the recently retired Deputy Director of the KGB, and he knew quite a bit more about Kirov than the his friend the Inspector General would ever know.

He looked at Kapustin, thinking that what he was now about to say might change his friend’s life forever. Yet there was nothing else to do at this point. Volkov he could manage easily enough. But Kapustin was his friend of many years, and he knew him well. He was going to keep digging in this back yard until he dug up another bone, so he had been prepping him for this revelation for some time, slowly sharing small pieces of the puzzle to gauge his reaction. It was time to bring some focus to the picture. The man was Inspector General of the Russian Navy, a lofty enough post to make allowance. Yet what will he do when I finally pull the wax out of his ears and he, too, hears the Siren song? Will he go mad, as other men have? We shall see. He reached for the samovar.

“Here, Gerasim, let me warm your tea.”