Men of War

Chapter 4

The Golf, Cheese and Chess Society had been working overtime again that summer. The men of that elite group of analysts and code breakers were again having their feet held to the fire over the Geronimo incident, though there wasn’t time for golf or chess any longer, and very little cheese to go around. The ‘Society” had been given that humorous handle instead of calling it the official name, which was the Government Code amp; Cipher Station at Bletchley Park, some 40 miles from London up a country lane outside Milton Keynes.

Also called “Station X” or simply “BP” for Bletchley Park, the unit had been embarrassed in recent months by its inability to run down the true origin of the strange naval raider that had been putting holes in Royal Navy ships again, much to Whitehall’s dissatisfaction. The ship had first appeared in the Norwegian Sea, ran the Denmark Strait with a quiver of deadly new weapons, which they nearly put right on top of Churchill and Roosevelt when the two leaders met at Argentia Bay for the Atlantic Charter conference a year earlier. That part of the “incident” was now a closely watched secret, never revealed to the public or even most arms of the military itself. Only a very few men knew the whole story of what had happened that cold, stormy week of August, 1941, and Alan Turing was one of them.

Holding forth in ‘Hut 4’ off the main estate buildings, Turing had been instrumental in breaking the Enigma code to give the British a head start against the Germans, but it had not helped the intelligence nest in the Geronimo incident. ‘The ship,’ as it was now sometimes called in hushed conversations, had been dubbed Geronimo since its sudden disappearance off the coast of Newfoundland. The official line was that it sunk that week, a victim of a pack of American Destroyers who went down to a man to put the demon ship in its grave. Yet those very few in the know were well aware that Desron 7 was only a cover story, more for public consumption than anything else. The odd thing about it was that the destroyer flotilla had indeed vanished, initially presumed sunk, until they sailed merrily into Halifax harbor twelve days after they had been reported missing in action.

The story they told was difficult to believe, though each and every man interviewed on the five surviving ships corroborated it. They claimed that they had suddenly lost sight of the enemy raider in the thick of their torpedo run, finding themselves alone on an empty sea, with the weather all wrong and no sign of the massive explosion they had spotted moments earlier off their starboard aft quarter. The once turbulent seas were now strangely calm, and they could not reach anyone on the radio, resorting to signal flags and lamps until their commander could gather his five remaining destroyers together and conduct a search of the area. But the enemy was gone.

Captain Kauffman, the group leader aboard DD Plunkett, eventually decided to turn about and head back to Argentia Bay to join the throng of ships anchored there for the Atlantic Charter meeting. When they got there they claimed the entire settlement, airfield and harbor facilities were a burned and blackened ruin. Astounded by what they saw, Kauffman claimed he even put men ashore to look for survivors or signs of what may have happened, but saw only charred ground, burned to glass in some places, and utter devastation.

Shaken by the discovery, and believing that Roosevelt and Churchill had perished in the gruesome attack, they searched about for some days before finally giving up hope and heading for Halifax. To their great relief, the city was still there. The five destroyers came sailing in, their crews waving at stunned stevedores and wharf workers in the harbor, for these were the five ships that had been missing! Time had caught another big fish in her net when Desron 7 disappeared, but now she threw these little fish back, in to the seas of 1942 where they belonged.

Their ‘report’ was not received well by the Americans, and it stretched the bounds of credulity to think that these men could have claimed to have searched the ruins of Argentia Bay when they knew damn well that the Atlantic Charter was well underway at that very same time. The men of Desron 7 were either deluded, insane, or lying. They had to have made a navigation error, or so it was said, but the US Navy found no sign of anything remotely close to the description the men of the destroyer group gave. Every island in the region, and every bay, was sitting there quite unbothered. To make matters worse, they had reported that these were the brave ships that had sunk the enemy raider, and now their cover story was about to go down the tubes as well.

The Navy would have none of it. They secreted the five destroyers off to a lonesome berth, painted over their hull numbers, renumbered and renamed each ship, and then scattered them, and every man who had served on them, to harbors all over the Pacific coast. Any man who ever mentioned Desron 7 again was stewed, which put a quick lid on the incident. A week later a special detail was quietly sent to a lonesome and deserted bay in the area, where they proceeded to burn and blacken anything in sight. Now if anyone got too curious the navy could say, in closed quarters, that this was the bay that had been found by Captain Kaufmann and his ships.

Alan Turing was one of a handful of men who officially knew the whole story. There were probably many more who knew about it unofficially, though they were wise never to breathe a word of it. The whole thing eventually calmed down and went into the file boxes, and a long year passed. Then it happened again, the same nightmare as before, only this time in the Mediterranean Sea.

The British finally though they had the matter in hand after that remarkable parley between Tovey and the Admiral from this strange phantom raider…until it vanished, just as it had vanished from the North Atlantic the previous year.

That set the bells off rather quickly in the Golf, Cheese and Chess Society, until reports came in from FRUMEL Headquarters in Melbourne just a few days later that a strange ship was now engaged with the Japanese Navy off Darwin—and using naval rocketry as its primary weaponry!

Admiral John Tovey was quick to pay a visit to Hut 4 a few days later, and he briefed Alan Turing on the matter, astounded to think that this might be the very same ship that had vanished at St. Helena! Turing remembered clearly the conversation he had with Tovey that day, and the startling conclusion they had been forced to accept.

“It’s Geronimo,” he said quietly. “There’s no question about it. The silhouette is unmistakable. And those other ships are Japanese cruisers.”

“Indeed,” said Tovey. “Those photos were taken August 24th. Now Professor, might you tell me how this ship, which was a thousand yards off the Island of St Helena on the morning of August 23rd, could suddenly vanish, and then reappear off Melville Island, a distance of 7,800 nautical miles away in a period of 24 hours?”

“Well sir, the ship would have to move in time. It’s the only thing that might account for this sudden disappearance and reappearance half a world away.”

Even now the notion still seemed fantastic to Turing, a matter for the fanciful writings of H.G. Wells and not the cold light of reality played with in Hut 4. Yet Turing was a man of great intellect, and equal imagination, well ahead of his day in the many fields he chose to interest himself in. He gave the matter more than passing thought, realizing that the entire logic of his assumption rested on the sole premise that the ship now found to be in the Pacific was indeed the same one that vanished at St. Helena. Yet as one photo after another came in, and reports from coastwatchers out of Milne Bay also fleshed out the information they had on this latest incident, it appeared that the Japanese now had the pleasure, or the horror, of tangling with Geronimo.

Turing had a contact at FRUMEL HQ down in Melbourne, a man named Osborne who fed him everything they had on the incident. It all painted the same picture—the photography, the naval rockets, and now the blackened and wrecked hulls of Japanese destroyers, cruisers and battleships for a change. Appearing right in the middle of a major Japanese offensive, ‘the ship’ had unhinged the whole operation just as the Americans launched a devastating counterpunch at Guadalcanal that also sent three Japanese fleet carriers and most of their planes and pilots to the bottom of the sea. The one-two punch had set the Japanese back on their heels, and changed the whole balance of power in the Pacific. It would be the beginning of an American and Allied offensive there that would not stop until it reached the home waters of Japan, though Turing did not know that just yet.

For now the news was good for a change. It seemed that Geronimo was no respecter of persons when it put to sea. It was ready, willing and quite able to take on all comers, and punish any naval force that tried to impede it. And then, just as it had done twice before, the ship simply vanished again!

Admiral Tovey had been making regular visits to Hut 4 ever since. Like Turing, he also found the notion that the ship had moved in time a bit of a stretch, but if a man of Turing’s credentials could seriously entertain the prospect, then Tovey thought it best to at least consider it as well. Now the Admiral was visiting yet again, with an arm full of new material for the secret files, and an equal number of other questions in mind. He alone had gotten a firsthand look at the men from this ship. He spoke directly with the ship’s Admiral, astounded to learn that they were not monsters or supermen after all, only a ship of men—but they were Russians!

Turing had suspected that himself once, given the place the ship was first spotted by Wake-Walker’s carriers over a year ago. It was well north in the Norwegian Sea; north of Jan Mayan. To learn now that the Admiral of this ship and crew spoke Russian was quite telling. Yet Turing was convinced that the ship, its weapons, and perhaps even its crew could not possibly have come from the Soviet Union he knew in 1942. In fact, Tovey told him that the ship’s Admiral made a point of denying any association or affiliation with Stalin’s Russia. All that did was further reinforce the impossible conclusion Turing had come to in his own mind.

This ship had come from some future time. It’s weapons were decades beyond anything that any nation on this earth could produce. Its Admiral had stated that they had the ability to convert sea water to steam and therefore had no fuel problem, yet they would need something to kindle the heat required to make steam for turbines powerful enough to drive a ship of that size at the speeds reported. They clearly were not burning coal or oil to do so. Only some new propulsion system from a future time seemed to solve that riddle. This Russian Admiral even hinted that he looked upon the events of this war as history. In fact, the only way that the presence of this ship in the Atlantic, the Med and finally the Pacific made any sense at all was to consider it as having come from another era, another future time, perhaps when the theoretical discussions about the possibility of time travel had become a practical reality.

Why was the ship here? Why had it come? Admiral Tovey had made a strong point when he noted that it was indeed a warship that was sent back, not a polite diplomatic mission. Was it on a mission where force of arms would be an integral part of the outcome?

The ship’s Admiral seemed to deny this, if he could be believed. He stated that he wanted no part of this bloody world war, just a quiet island where he could escape and consider how he could get his ship and crew home, wherever that was. Turing believed that it was, indeed, Soviet Russia, and given his best estimate, he thought it might be at least fifty years in the future, possibly more.

With these thoughts and questions in mind the Admiral had come to Bletchley Park again that day to continue his discussion with the brilliant mathematician. There was an odd edge to his voice on the line when he had called to arrange the meeting. Turing could sense that he seemed harried, cautious, worried about something. The whole scenario was indeed the most troubling event to come along in the war, though relatively few really knew about it. He had the feeling that Tovey was very concerned about something.

That was it, thought Turing. He’s in the know now, just as I was a few weeks back when I first set my mind on this conclusion about Geronimo. Now he knows…

And he’s afraid.

The two men were meeting again in Hut 4, and Admiral Tovey began by reiterating a very chilling point he had suggested earlier. “Let us humor ourselves and take your assumption as true for the time being, Professor. If this ship did come from some other time, then when might it return again? Yes, it vanished as before, but we waited a long year before we saw it in the Med. Might it reappear in another year, or a month, or even any day now as it did before?”

“It very well could, sir,” said Turing.

“And for that matter, when might another come?” What is it doing, Turing? Have you given that further thought? Is it deliberately involving itself in these naval engagements, perhaps with the aim of changing future events? When it vanishes, where does it go?”

“It’s all very perplexing, sir, and we can only speculate. Perhaps it returns to its home base to replenish. That would seem a natural conclusion. Might it return to our time again? It’s already done that once, so it could certainly be expected. Might other ships come? That, too is a chilling possibility. But as to what its mission might be, that is difficult to know. It may indeed be attempting to alter the course of events. This last incident with the Japanese was fairly well decisive, wasn’t it? Lucky for us this ship can’t seem to decide who’s side it on in our little war. In any wise, it doesn’t appear as if it has an agenda favoring one outcome or another, at least at this point.”

“Quite so,” said Tovey. “At first I had to believe this ship had it in for the British Empire. It was driving for the Atlantic Charter conference, and that was a very pointed thrust. Then this Admiral explained that he was not in control of his ship at the time, and that there was a difference of opinions on how to proceed.”

“Your wolf in the fold, scenario,” said Turing.

“Precisely. Well, that being the case, I’m of the mind that it simply wants to be left alone. This Admiral was more than likely still looking for his damnable island, if you want my opinion on it. The Japanese were just unlucky enough to get in the way this time.”

“What was wrong with St. Helena?”

“Good point, Turing. Taking this line it would seem to me that the ship is not here deliberately as I first feared. Could this whole thing be an accident, and not intended at all?”

“Yes, sir, it could indeed be here by accident. After all, if it does come from some future time, and its appearance was planned, then why haven’t we seen any other interventions of a similar nature… other visitors? There’s only been this one ship, which is odd if I dare say. Why come in a warship?”

“In some ways it makes a good deal of sense, my good man. You’ve never been on the bridge of a battleship, but to feel it riding the swells of the deep ocean, and at your command, is a rather heady experience. It’s a fortress on the sea, fast, mobile, well protected, and as this ship has clearly demonstrated, it can defend itself rather handily, and go wherever it pleases. My God, this ship has sailed more than half way round this earth!”

“Yet now it may be in some distress, sir, considering all the combat it’s been involved in. If the Russians of the future knew this, wouldn’t they do everything possible to rescue these men? We’ve seen no evidence of that. And if this was an accident, it would seem to me they might realize the severe consequences of their actions and be doing everything possible to remedy this business—assuming they knew about this time displacement.”

“Do you think they know about it?”

“Perhaps they don’t. They might not know anything about it at all, just as this Admiral claimed, which makes this incident seem a little less sinister in my mind. After all, if they did know how to move through time, sending a ship like this back would seem a bit much. All they would really have to do is send someone like me back to draw up plans on all these advanced weapons we’ve seen and give them to the Russians! Yet we’ haven’t seen a shred of evidence the Soviets have anything like this in development. Yes, they have their Katyushas, but that’s hardy on par with what we witnessed, particularly in the North Atlantic when the American Task force 16 went down. So I lean toward the conclusion that that future Soviet government may not know this even happened. That that, too, could change if this ship ever does get home again, as this Admiral desires. If something like this had happened to one our ships. If it ever did get home again there would be inquiries, questions, a lot of digging.”

“Yes,” Tovey rubbed his chin, thinking. “Look what the Americans did when those destroyers showed up at Halifax. Look how we’ve covered up the presence and activity of this Geronimo ourselves.”

“And we seem to be doing a good bit of digging as well.”

“Yes we are, so I take your point, Turing. I can imagine the Soviet government in the future is going to do the very same thing if this ship ever does reach a friendly port again. Forgive me for seeming a pessimist, but I can’t say I find that notion in any way comforting. The Russians are somewhat a reluctant ally at the moment. They’re with us now because they have Hitler and the German Army at their throats, but we’re strange bedfellows, Professor, no matter how well the Prime Minister may get on with Stalin in his dacha. This Russian Admiral also made a point of suggesting our cozy alliance may not last in days to come. Even if this were an accident, that future government might discover how it was displaced in time, and they may not always be our allies. Things change…That’s how he put it to me. Things change.”

“No argument there, sir.”

Tovey thought about that, nodding. “Well, Professor, you and I both know that they do not always change for the good. I’m a military man, and one sworn to protect the empire and the kingdom I serve. Perhaps I was foolish not to try and sink this ship when I had the whole of Home Fleet at my back. Now we must live with the situation as it stands. The point is this: whether deliberate or not, this ship may return one day, or others like it, and we really don’t know what its purpose is. Until we do know, and to a certainty, we must take every possible precaution. Whether friend or foe, if the Soviet government of that future time ever does learn what happened to their ship, then we’ve another problem as well, because they will realize that this impossible notion of returning to the past is within their grasp, and that’s enough to tempt any man alive, Turing. That is real power.”

“I agree, sir, but what exactly are you suggesting we do about it?”

“A watch,” Tovey folded his arms. “We need a group of men in the know on this, men who can be trusted absolutely, competent men, and we need them to set a watch on every hour of every second of every day that passes from this moment on.”

Chapter 5

“I see…” Turing raised an eyebrow, thinking through the implications of what Tovey was now suggesting. “And what are they to watch for, sir?”

“Intruders, Turing. Visitors from this future time. I know, it’s maddening to think they’re even out there. Even speaking of it in these terms makes it seem as though the future is a tangible place where this ship can drop anchor as it pleases. Yet one thing is clear: if they can return to our time, we’ve certainly seen that they can also muck about and cause a good deal of trouble here, and they have to be stopped.”

“Is the government to be directing this effort, Admiral?”

Tovey looked at the desk, rubbing an itch on his long thin nose, his eyes alight with inner concern. “The government? Can you imagine the likes of Admiral Pound in on this notion we’ve been discussing? Can you even consider that the Prime Minister would give it a fair hearing? Something tells me that the less the government knows or hears about this, the happier it will be. But there are institutions within government that are a bit more flexible in their views.”

“MI6?” Turing jumped to the obvious conclusion.

“Well think on it, Turing. You had that Enigma code in your head for some time before you came out with the solution and turned it over to the government. Do you see what I mean here?”

“I do, sir. We often receive, analyze and discuss information here that never really comes to light anywhere else. Some of it plays out to hard intelligence and becomes actionable. That’s the lot we send over to Whitehall—over to the government, if you will. But I assure you, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. For every cypher we decode and send through there are ten more we’re tussling with, and another ten in the trash bin. Yes, we’ve broken the enemy’s code, but it’s not like reading a book. We get bits and pieces of things, and then we try to put together the best possible picture of what may be in the enemy’s mind. We go to the government with it only when we think we have some certainty in hand.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Tovey. “Yet consider their view of things—these men from Geronimo. It is like reading a book for them, They know everything that has happened from our time to theirs. Well, what we need now, Professor, is a group of sound minded and imaginative men like yourself to go over the bits and pieces on this matter and put the puzzle together. What we need is to know what is in the enemy’s mind, the mind of these men from tomorrow who so brazenly call upon us in ships of war. Yet more than that, we need watchful eyes. You see, if this ship or any other like it, should return, we’ll want to know about it.”

“I think we might bring Peter Twinn in on this. He’s been in the thick of it with the German Naval Enigma code, and now that Dilly Knox has been taken ill he’s assuming more responsibility at the Abwehr Enigma section.”

“You choose the men, Turing, but be very discrete about it. Secrecy is crucial in this matter. Obviously people are going to have to know something about it, but I don’t think we need to paint them the whole picture. It strains the bounds of credulity every time I think about it myself. There are a few hat bands over at Whitehall who have some interest in this Geronimo, but the way this war pushes one thing on to another, I don’t think they’ll press on the matter. In fact, you and I are the only two men alive at this moment who really have this thing by the scruff of the neck. Let’s keep it that way for the moment.”

“I understand what you say about Whitehall, Admiral. We’ve been rather busy here as well with all the signals and code traffic for this Operation Torch. The whole group has been on overtime, but I think I can bring a few men in on this, discretely, as you say. We can put good people to work on a given task without them knowing the aim, if that’s what you mean, sir. We do it all the time here.”

“Good. Now on another matter, that bit you put in my head about the men who might have died, and yet lived as a result of the actions taken by this ship… well it was quite disturbing. I don’t want to sound morbid, Professor, but we may want to consider what can be done about that as well.”

“I see… What can we do about it, sir?”

“We’ll have to put our minds to that. First off I should think we would want to know who these men are. It would be easy enough to put our finger of the lives lost as a result of this ship. I don’t think Repulse was fated to meet her end the way she did. The same can be said for any other man who died in engagements we’ve fought with Geronimo, particularly on the American side. I suppose we can only hope there were no Einsteins in the lot.”

“Right, sir. It would be easy enough to work up a list of the casualties, but we can’t do much more with it. I mean it’s not like we can bring any of them back from the dead.”

“Indeed, but what about the other side of that equation, Professor. What about men alive today that might have otherwise been killed?”

“How do we find them, Admiral? We can’t know the fate of every man alive. How could we possibly know who was fated to die?”

“We can’t, I suppose, but we can make some intelligent guesses. Isn’t that how you go about solving your code riddles? You get bits and pieces, as you say, and then come to assumptions and conclusions.”

“I’d love to say I could put a man’s fate on my perforated tape and code it all, Admiral, but that is a bit of a reach. Yet what you say does offer some promise. We do know a few things…Let’s start with the first point of divergence.”

“What’s that you say?”

“Point of divergence, sir. What is the first thing this ship could have done to upset the course of events in our time?”

“Well I suppose that would be Wake-Walker’s mission. He was going to hit the Germans with planes off Furious and Victorious on the North Cape of Norway, at Petsamo and Kirkenes. I’d like to think that the raid would have gone off without heavy losses, but I know better than that. We expected casualties, and a lot of them. Instead, the appearance of this ship sent Wake-Walker’s boys off on our wild goose chase. A great many men died from those air squadrons. The question is which ones might have also died if the raid on the North Cape had gone off as planned?”

“We can’t know that, sir, but what we could do is compile a list of all the men still alive from those squadrons and, well… We could keep an eye on them.”

“I see. Sounds rather tedious, and unsavory as well.”

“After that, we would have to put the crews of every man in any ship that participated in these events on the list. Then we would expand to included names of men slated for operations that we ourselves have cancelled as a result of this ship. Operation Jubilee immediately comes to mind, sir.”

“That will make one hell of a list, Turing. There were tens of thousands at sea in the hunt for this ship—most of Home Fleet, the whole of Force H in the Med as well. As for the cancelled Dieppe raid, we would have the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division, five commando units, over 230 ships and landing barges, and over seventy RAF squadrons on the list. We were going to lose men in that raid, unquestionably, but which ones?”

“That’ doesn’t matter, sir. The point is that there are obviously a good number alive in those units now that might not be breathing. I’ll say another thing about it. We had men in Number 30 commando assigned to a pinch mission there. They were out after one of the new four wheel Enigma boxes believed to be in Dieppe, and that never happened either.”

“Ah, yes, Fleming’s group. I had almost forgotten about that. I dare say that Fleming won’t have the bit between his teeth as much now that Rushbrooke replaced Godfrey as head of the Naval Intelligence Division. We’ll still use him. He’s setting up a network for us in Spain under Operation Golden Eye, and his boys are slated to go after intelligence during the upcoming Torch Operation. Sorry about that failed pinch operation at Dieppe. I hope that didn’t set your efforts back here, Turing.”

“No major setbacks, sir. Fleming has been promising me things for some time, and seldom delivers. I managed without it.”

“Good enough, but as you can see, our list is going to be a long one. How do we manage to keep an eye on all these men? The manpower required would be enormous.”

“Perhaps I could help, sir. I can’t put a man’s fate onto my perforated machine tapes, but I could certainly encode his name. Then we could use a machine to do some pattern matching. Should something unusual come up, and should it match one or more of the names on the list, why we might then have a closer look at those individuals with human assets. We could just hand that off to MI5. It’s what they do for a living, yes?”

“Something tells me I would hate to have my name on such a list. It’s damn uncomfortable.”

“I agree, sir. Most things having to do with war are somewhat unsavory, but we muddle through.”

“War? You make it sound as though we are at odds with our own people here, Turing.”

“We will be, sir. Why do you think we even have an organization like MI5 in the first place? Yes, they run down foreign agents on British soil, but they keep an eye on the rest of us as well. If it were to be learned that one of these men on our list does something… compromising, then he becomes an enemy of fate and time as it were. If you mean to set this watch on the history, then you’ll have to be prepared to do some unpleasant things, Admiral. Suppose we suspect a man on this list for some reason—say he’s been reported captured by the enemy. He was supposed to be dead, and we all know dead men tell no tales. Yet now he’s alive, a bit of a zombie, eh? Now he can tell tales. Loose lips sink ships, to put it plainly.”

“Zombie?”

“A Haitian word for an animated corpse, sir, brought back to life by witchcraft. I use this metaphorically, but it’s a perfect image for what these men actually are, and it gets worse. Any one of these walking dead men could do something significant, and they could also have sons and daughters who might do very much more. The cancellation of Operation Jubilee is just a small part of the picture, sir. Geronimo has upset operations all through the Med and also in the Pacific. Our point of divergence is getting quite wide now, and our list will be very long indeed. The more time that passes the worse things might be.”

“Damn confounding business, Professor. The more I think about it, the more impossible it seems. There were German soldiers who might have died if these cancelled operations had gone forward. How in the world do we sort them out? There were Italian ships tangling with Geronimo in the Med, and now the Japanese. Our list now grows to a point where it becomes truly daunting, perhaps impossible to even attempt.”

“Right, sir. It’s also a rather dark feeling to think the history may now be playing out in a way it was never meant to—at least from the perspective of the men aboard Geronimo. As you suggested earlier, they have a unique position of knowing what happens in the decades ahead. Why, they’ve most likely got boxes and boxes of files on it all—enough to fill a thousand libraries. Should we be vigilant? Of course we must, but here’s the rub, sir…How do we know if anything has been changed, and what effect it might have had on the course of events? We don’t sit on the top of the hill like they do. We just see this particularly unpleasant gully we’ve blundered into with this bloody war. ”

“Good point, Turing. We might ask the Japanese if they feel their plans have been changed by this ship. I think we both know how they would answer.”

“Right sir, but we don’t know what was meant to be, or what may have changed. Was America meant to declare war in September of 1941? This ship had an awful lot to say about it. It’s very frustrating, sir. Think of it like a good book we’re set to revise. We want it all to turn out well, with our Ts crossed and Is dotted. Yet here we are stuck in the early chapters. What we need now is some way of knowing how the story was supposed to end, yes? Only then can we decide what to do about this particular chapter and the men that live in it. Some changes may be for the good as we see it. Suppose this Dieppe raid was a bloody disaster? In that light its cancellation may weigh in as a benefit. Does that make any sense, sir?”

“It makes a good deal of sense. As I say, you are a man of some imagination. But I don’t think we could ever take that look ahead in the story to see how things turn out—not unless we manage to get our hands on this ship and take a ride with them when they pull their next disappearing act. I mean… well they must go somewhere, don’t they?”

“Yes,” Turing sighed. “They must go somewhere, only where? Getting a man on board that ship would be no easy task. It’s vanished again. You seem to get on fairly well with this Russian Admiral. If this ship ever does return why not call him up and have another chat?”

The phone rang, jarring and insistent as every phone can be when it isn’t expected or wanted, but coming on the heels of Turing’s last suggestion both men had the odd feeling that it was to be a call of some importance. Tovey nodded and Turing lifted the receiver.

“Hut four, Turing here… Yes… Yes… I see… he said what? You’re certain of this? At Gibraltar? Yes, of course! Send him at once, on the very next plane if you can do so safely. Otherwise we’ll handle the matter from Hut 4. Very good. Thank you, gentlemen.” He hung up the phone, his eyes alight with some surprise.

Admiral Tovey could see the hint of a smile on his face now. “Some news, Professor?”

“My God… that was MI6 out of Gibraltar. They picked up a man who may have something to do with Geronimo. We may not be able to get a man aboard that ship any time soon, Admiral, but we may just have a man from that ship—sitting in an interrogation room under the Rock at this very moment!”

Chapter 6

The car drove quickly along the narrow winding roadways carved in to the Rock, down from Sentinel Hill to Queens Road and then along Ward Way to turn north up the eastern coast towards the North Front Airfield. The field itself was a narrow rectangular strip that cut across the isthmus north of the Rock and extended out onto the bay, supported by limestone quarried out of the Rock itself over the last three years. The small airfield around it could support up to 100 fighters and several squadrons of twin engine Hudson Bombers, enough air power to provide a strong defense, yet also a highly vulnerable target from any hostile force to the north.

If Spain had ever thrown in with Hitler, their artillery could have made short work of the field, rendering it all but useless in a matter of hours. The 15,000 man garrison might hold out a while in the tunnels, but the lessons of Singapore and Corregidor proved that no fortress was invulnerable. Thirty-two miles of tunnels under the Rock were some comfort, but of limited real defensive value against a determined enemy. The Rock had no source of natural water beyond a series of catchment pools at the top of the 430 meter outcrop, designed solely to capture rainwater.

For these reasons, the British always feared their small bastion here was as vulnerable as it was important, and rumors of enemy plans to attack Gibraltar had given them fits since the outbreak of the war. There had been a plan, Operation Felix, that had been set aside when the Germans invaded Russia. Yet if the Germans could capture Gibraltar they would gain a commanding position from which to influence both naval theaters, the Atlantic and the Med, along with a deep water port that could hold and service Germany’s biggest ships. The capture of Gibraltar would drive a wedge of steel into the heart of the Royal Navy, or so Admiral Raeder believed and argued.

The detailed plans for this operation had been drawn up by the Wehrmacht in the Autumn of 1940 and personally signed by Hitler, reemphasized in Fuehrer Directive #18. It was only the failure of diplomacy that prevented the operation going forward earlier that year. Franco’s list of demands had run on and on. He worried over British reprisals should he join the Axis, a blockade or possibly even an invasion on his Atlantic coast. He insisted any German troops involved would have to wear Spanish Army uniforms as a point of honor. He asked for thousands of tons of wheat and other resources to feed his shattered state. He fretted over the possibility that the United States would shut down their extensive Telecom system in Spain. In the end Hitler became so frustrated with the man that he exclaimed he would rather have a tooth pulled than speak with him again.

Yet others in all three branches of service, had managed to persuade the Fuehrer to resurrect the old plan, codenamed and give it new life with a new name as well. Now called Operation Valkyrie, General Ludwig Kubler’s 49th Corps would lead the assault, and Franco’s consent and the cooperation of the Spanish government would no longer matter. Spain would capitulate or be conquered, the Germans had no doubts on this.

It was a dangerous plan, but nothing more than that for the moment. Yet the existence of such plans still haunted the dreams of the SIS and other intelligence services. Their Allies’ own plans for Operation Torch were slowly running on to the deadline set for early November, and it was an operation that had only been set in motion after considerable haggling with the Americans. General Marshall and Admiral King had delivered a one two punch to the British by pushing for an immediate cross channel invasion in a plan they code named “Sledgehammer.” The British did everything possible to forestall it, thinking the Americans were in no way prepared to seriously confront the Germans on the continent. They prevailed by diverting the testosterone to a more graspable objective, the seizure of the French colonies in North Africa so the Allies could drive east behind Rommel’s back.

Now all these plans, arguments and counter plans were held in a breathless state of suspension because of a solitary nondescript staff car rolling up to a Hudson Mk I twin engine bomber on North Front Airfield, Gibraltar. The squat plane’s engines were already warmed up, and a flight of three Spitfires was waiting on the plain dirt and gravel tarmac to take off right behind it and escort the Hudson as far as their limited combat radius would allow, a little over 410 miles. With drop tanks they could take the bomber all the way up to the northern coast of Spain and see it safely off into the Bay of Biscay.

They Hudsons and Beaufighters had carried diplomatic pouches every week, key intelligence documents and photos, but this time they were slated to carry a very special cargo—Gennadi Orlov and his talking ear plugs. But a man named Loban had other plans that day, and Orlov was not in the car that pulled up to the tarmac to deliver that day’s document caches. The plane would fly with transcripts of this man’s interrogation, and a warning—Orlov had escaped.

Orlov knew the earbuds might be his undoing, just as he had feared. When he had first heard the tinny voice of the AI greeting and prompt for a question back in the interrogation room in the dark, stony warren of the Rock, it had all come crashing down. He knew there was no way he was going to explain it away now. At first he gambled that the British would not easily make any connection between the earbuds and his jacket. And why should they? In the span of their own limited comprehension, the only reference point they might make for the buds would be that they were ear pieces for a wireless communications device, albeit a highly advanced one.

Loban’s next question, ‘Who is she?’ was almost comical, however, and the Chief first thought he was not completely unmasked as yet. Yes, now the British were going to have fingers up his ass and he knew he was in for a much more grueling interrogation, but the stupidity of Loban’s question told him they had not the slightest inkling that the earbuds were designed to work in tandem with his jacket and the computer so cleverly hidden within its heavy lining.

Orlov was taking no chances, however. He had to think fast at that moment, and he sighed heavily, scratching his head and asking if he could have a cigarette from his jacket pocket. He was hoping he could get to his collar button and give it a squeeze to turn the computer off, which would also mute the ear buds, and he kicked himself mentally for ever leaving the damn thing on in the first place.

Loban had been sitting within arm’s reach of wall hanger, and nodded, but he simply stood up to fish out the cigarettes and then tossed the mostly empty pack Orlov’s way. The jacket had, of course, already been searched, but the insulation and padding around the computer was so effective, the flexible circuitry so thin, that nothing but the cigarettes and earbuds had been found. Orlov reached for the cigarettes, his heart rate still up, and Loban fetched a silver lighter from his pocket. He lit the cigarette and quietly waited through the first few puffs before his expression clearly indicated he wanted an explanation, and soon.

“Who is she?” he said again, much louder this time as he rolled the earbud between his thumb and forefinger, and the result made an end of anything Orlov could think of doing to somehow squirm out of the situation.

“Let me check that…” the voice in the earbuds continued. “This might answer your question. ‘She’ is a third person pronoun referring to a female person or animal, or anything considered as by personification to be feminine, for example, a ship.”

Loban looked down at the earbuds in his hand, a startled expression on his face. “What the hell?” he said in Russian, half annoyed, half amazed. Then he raised the earbud closer to his mouth and spoke sharply.

“You think this is some kind of a joke, eh? Well laugh now, because we’ve got a line on your signal and we’ll have men on you in a matter of minutes, you stupid bitch!”

Loban was lying, of course, simply trying the time honored trick of flushing the hidden accomplice out with a threat. This time he had not squeezed the earbuds to enable their listen mode, so there was only silence, much to Orlov’s relief.

“Very funny,” Loban said again to Orlov.

“Don’t bother looking for her,” said Orlov. “She’s long gone by now. Yes, Svetlana can be very annoying at times,” Orlov told him, desperate to find a way to get the train back on the tracks again. By naming a woman, he hoped he would divert Loban’s attention away from the earbud gaffe. “Very well… She is my controller, Svetlana, and yes, she can be a bitch at times. That was all too typical.” He gestured dismissively to the earbuds in Loban’s hand. “But I suppose there’s no point playing games any longer.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Loban. “So what is it? Are you NKVD? GRU? Naval Intelligence?”

“NKVD,” said Orlov matter of factly in a long breath of smoke. He was taking the air of a man talking to his peer now, and this was his last chance, hoping that the status of alliance between Britain and the USSR at this point would get him out of the hot water he was in. But Loban was still playing with the earbuds, still rolling them between his thumb and finger, and he had again activated the listen mode, his next question picked up by the microphone.

“So where did you come from?” Loban gave him an expectant look, thinking he might hear that Orlov was attached to the Madrid NKVD Cell that had been in place there since 1938 in the midst of Franco’s private little civil war. Then ‘Svetlana’ spilled the beans, and all over the table this time, and Orlov knew his fate was as good as sealed.

“This file was downloaded from the ship’s open library, BCG Kirov, at zero-ten-forty hours, 13 August, 2021. Logged user: Captain Gennadi Orlov, Chief of Operations.”

Loban didn’t quite get what the AI had said. The word “download” was techspeak and only first used in the year 1977 as a noun and then gaining broader use as a verb by 1980. But the word was descriptive enough as it stood, and two other words leapt out at him.

“The ship?” he said, again startled by what he had heard, now looking from the earbuds to Orlov and back again. “Captain Gennadi Orlov? Thirteen August 2021? What’s going on here?”

That same evening a car was heading for a plane on the graveled tarmac of North Field at Gibraltar, but Orlov was not there. Loban had managed to move his charge out by other means, through the long warren of tunnels beneath the Rock to a secret exit on the northeast side of the peninsula. There, he led Orlov, at gunpoint, down a long rocky slope to the ragged shore where a small fishing boat had been tied off. Three men were waiting by the boat, and Loban glanced at his watch before he reached in his pocket and handed the Chief a fresh pack of cigarettes.

“For the journey,” he said quickly. “I’m afraid you’ll be going east instead of west, Mister Orlov, back to your friends on the Black Sea Coast where you can tell them all about the Ukrania and her Captain Pavlovko and all the rest. I didn’t believe it, and a doubt that they will either. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether the NKVD will be welcoming you home with open arms or not. You might get better lodging there than you would holed up in Bletchley Park with the MI6. Do write and tell me how things work out. This is as far as I can take you this evening, but you’ll have the company of these three for a good long while, and one man speaks Russian, Sergei Kamkov, the tall one.”

“Spasiba,” said Orlov, thanking the man in spite of his misgivings about this development. He would rather be in a boat on the sea than in a plane any day, but he had no idea where he was really being taken now, or why, until Loban leaned in and spoke in a low voice.

“You didn’t think I was going to turn you over to the British, my friend, eh? No, we take care of our own, and you’ll be in good hands with these three. Now I must go.”

That statement surprised Orlov, as Loban stepped down the slope and handed the tall man in the trio a small diplomatic pouch, saying something in a very urgent tone of voice. Then he started back up the hill to the shadowed entrance above, and vanished into the maze of tunnels again. His charge was delivered as ordered, and he had other business to attend to. He had to find a way to get off the Rock discreetly, though by normal channels, and then work his way to a secure phone to call the wine dealer in La Concepcion, just north across the demarcation line separating Gibraltar from Spain. He would ask them to deliver a good bottle of Zinfandel to a certain address, which was his code to indicate he, in turn, had a good bottle of information to deliver to his local area handler.

“Svetlana my ass,” he breathed. “He had known Orlov was not what he seemed from the very first moment he spoke to him. He was navy, that much was certain, but there was something very odd about the man. He was an officer, that was also apparent. But where? When? On what ship? The ship had been called Kirov, and that was very amusing as well. That cruiser, he knew, had been trapped in the Gulf Of Riga up north at the outbreak of the war with Germany. It had managed to reach Tallinn and then moved to Leningrad where it had been bottled up ever since behind German minefields, harassed by the Luftwaffe as it tried to use its main guns as artillery supporting the defenders of that beleaguered city.

This Orlov was navy, he thought, but he certainly wasn’t the Captain of the cruiser Kirov. But intelligence had learned of a strange ship at large in the Med between August 11 and 14 last month, and Loban had been curious enough to slip off the Rock and head east, driving along the Spanish coast through Malaga and all the way to Adra and Matagorda on the cape when he heard this ship was heading that way. He had been there in time to see the fireworks of an amazing naval battle off the coast on the night of August 14th, and he had ordered several bottles of Zinfandel the very next day.

For Lieutenant Thomas Loban was a double agent, just another of many who had come out of the hallowed halls of the Cambridge Apostles, and he had been effectively working as a translator for MI6 while also collecting and passing information to the USSR for the last year. This month he had been keen on the trail of a word that had been picked up in the radio stream… Geronimo. Bit by bit, the real Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU, came to associate the word with a ship, and the ship was soon connected to some real naval chaos that had been underway in the Mediterranean Sea that month. They wanted to know why the British were suddenly so interested in Russian naval activities in the Black Sea, or the presence of any Russian naval personnel in the Med.

Loban told them all about Orlov, and now he thought he might be able to give them a real prize in this catch, and deny the same to the British in one fell swoop. He lit a cigarette as he made his way through the deep tunnel network, pleased with himself. This would likely shake things up a bit in Moscow, he thought, though he did not know just how much. His act of betrayal would lead to a wild hunt that would span thousands of miles, cross continents and long decades yet to come, and the fate of the world would rest on its outcome.