Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) (27 page)

“They’ll spend most of their time under water, sir, and won’t need
to surface much like we do.”

“Is that so…Well what’s this other thing here?”

“A rocket, sir. I figure they’ll use those to fire at aircraft
from under the sea, or even ships too far away for torpedoes, sir.”

Commander Edge smiled at that. “You’ve got quite an imagination,
kid,” he said. The drawings of the sub and rocket were right next to sketches
of Batman and Dick Tracy. “I suppose you figure people will have those Dick
Tracy watches in the future too, eh?” Edge shook his head. “We’ll get you a
medal for that one,” he said in jest, “but tend to your station, Seaman and put
that notebook aside.”

Seaman First Class Tommy Vincent would get his medal another way,
a posthumous Purple Heart awarded to all the crew members of the
Bonefish
after the rest of “Pierce’s Polecats” gave up and turned for home three days
later.

*
* *

“What
is happening?” Fedorov’s face was drawn with concern.

“Explosion,” said Chernov. “The American torpedo has struck that
surface contact. And I’m picking up another undersea contact now, farther out,
and bearing one-two-seven degrees.”

“Undersea contact?” Gromyko seemed confused. “What is going on
here? Where have all these contacts come from?”

Fedorov knew what was happening. The sonar was slowly gaining
strength and resolution to paint a picture of their tactical situation in the
immediate area. “Are you certain,” he asked. An undersea contact was very bad
news. There would be nothing in 1908 that would be skulking about beneath the
waves here.

“Getting more surface noise now, Captain. At least five discrete
contacts. Screw noise is high and tight. These sound like patrol craft, sir.
And that undersea boat is heading our way and leading them right to us here.”

“If this shift has happened do I have full reactor power now?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Fedorov.

“Very well,” said Gromyko. “Right standard rudder and ahead two
thirds. Make your depth 150.”

They waited, with Chernov listening until they heard the sound of
active sonar pinging audibly in the sea. It was unlike anything the sonar man
had ever heard, and seemed fairly weak to his ear, but minutes later the sound
of explosions rippled through the water.
Okinawa
and her group of fast
patrol boats had found something, and they were furiously heaving depth charges
into the sea in reprisal. One would scud against the side of the American
submarine and the Boneheads would all retire to that eternal patrol, joining
their brothers aboard USS
Snook
, also sunk by the
Okinawa
, the most
successful ship in her class.

Fedorov shrugged, his eyes looking at the ceiling, imagining the scene
out there as the American boat died. He knew what they had just heard, and was
now certain that
Kazan
had not shifted to 1908.

“We’ll have to try again, Admiral,” he said hopefully. “Here there
will be no further sonic interference from that volcano. Perhaps Chief Dobrynin
will have better luck.”

“Rod-25 remains very stubborn, does it not? It insists on dropping
us into the waters of WWII.”

“What is happening, Admiral?” Gromyko wanted to know the score,
and Fedorov briefed him quietly, telling them they were going to have to
initiate the procedure once again.

“The good news is that there will be no more trouble of the sort
we just had. All you need do is cruise very deep and we should be well below
any further action here.”

“Very well. Where should I point my nose, Mister Fedorov?”

“Here…” Fedorov pointed to a tactical display on the navigation
monitor. Put us due west of the Oki Island Group.”

“Why there?” asked Volsky.

“If I know Karpov, he will be trying to find and engage the
Japanese in a decisive battle. And if I know Admiral Togo, the man will deploy
his fleet here.” He pointed to a spot south of Tsushima Island, very near the
tip. “If you assume a position west of the Oki Islands, that will put us on a
general bearing back to Vladivostok. We’ll use Orlov’s idea and say we came
through the Primorskiy Engineering Center.”

“Assuming we get there at the correct time,” said Gromyko. “Do we
have any idea where we are now—I mean the date?” He lowered his voice, glancing
askance at a couple crewmen to chase the curiosity from them and set them back
to their monitors.

“We really don’t know for certain, and we would have to run up an
antenna to sample signals intelligence. From past experience we can assume this
may be the 1940s, and if I heard what I thought I just heard out there, the
Japanese have just sunk an American sub, so I believe it would be very late in
the war, 1945.”

“How can you know this?” Gromyko folded his arms, unconvinced.

“Because US subs could not penetrate the Sea of Japan until that
time in the war. In fact. If I spent some time with my research I think I could
probably tell you exactly what happened out there just now, right down to the
vessels involved on both sides. All I would have to do is find an instance of a
US sub sinking near our present location.”

“You assume that history is all undisturbed, Mister Fedorov,” said
Volsky. “Remember, our nemesis was here earlier—in this very year if this is
1945—and he raised hell up north in the Kuriles.”

“Yes….” Fedorov’s eyes seemed to sparkle now. “Sir, can we take
this discussion to a secure area?”

“Very well,” said Gromyko. “Mister Belanov. Make your depth 400
meters and ahead two thirds. Steer 220 degrees and take us west of Oki Island.
Then hover. You have the con.”

“Aye sir.”

Chapter 23

“Follow
me, gentlemen.” Gromyko led the way to the officer’s briefing
room. Once inside Fedorov removed his hat, eager to speak.

“Admiral, I believe we now find ourselves in the year 1945. That
could be verified if we surface for signals intelligence, but I am almost
certain if that noise we heard was Japanese coastal defense units attacking a
US sub. What else could it be?”

“What is all this noise? Can’t an old man get any sleep these
days?”

They looked to see that Pavel Kamenski had come shuffling into the
briefing room, and the Admiral greeted him with a smile.

“Please sit down and join us, Mister Kamenski. Fedorov here
believes we are now in 1945. It appears that our Chief Dobrynin was not able to
work his magic after all.”

“Oh? Or perhaps your Rod-25 simply has an affinity for the 1940s,”
said Kamenski. “Remember those gopher holes I talked about. Maybe we must first
arrive here before we can discover the hole that leads us deeper into the
garden to 1908 where your Mister Karpov is still digging.”

“That is one possibility,” said Fedorov. “Yet if I am correct,
here we find ourselves in 1945, the same year
Kirov
appeared after the
eruption of that Demon Volcano. If we could determine the exact day and time
here, we could possibly get to the last reported position of the Red Banner
Pacific Fleet before that eruption happened. Then, when
Kirov
and the
other ships appear here, we will be right there—and with three control rods—enough
to get everyone safely home again!”

Kamenski gave him a smile. “Very clever, this young man.”

“Amazing,” said Volsky, considering this. The Admiral recalled his
own internal muse as he struggled with the problem at Fokino headquarters, fretting
over Dobrynin and his mission to rescue Fedorov.
If I had it to do over I
would have put that control rod we found in Vladivostok on a submarine. Then it
would have been right here to find Karpov and surface to deliver the rod.
Perhaps it could have hovered beneath the ship and come home when Kirov shifted…
That seemed a better idea to him, but now he did not see how this could work.

“I don’t understand one thing,” said Volsky. “At this moment
Karpov is in 1908. How could we possibly do this? Would not his very presence
in that year mean that we
fail
to do what Fedorov suggests?”

“That could very well be the case,” said Kamenski.

“But we are here,” said Fedorov, and well before
Kirov
arrives. Doesn’t that trump anything Karpov chooses to do?”

Kamenski’s eyes narrowed. “I believe the Captain was sent here by
chance,” said Kamenski. “He certainly did not choose anything. It was that
volcano, or perhaps fate, that sent
Kirov
and the other ships to this
time.”

“Then we should be able to intervene here.”

Kamenski sighed. “Captain, Gromyko, do you recall any of the
history of this period—the end of the Second World War?”

Gromyko thought for a moment. “The Kuriles incident…The Americans
claimed that Russian naval units engaged their forces in August of 1945,
sinking surface ships, a submarine, and shooting down American planes. That led
to Halsey’s Kuriles operation, where the Americans made the further
preposterous claim that Soviet Russia deployed nuclear weapons against their
fleet, sinking the battleship
Iowa
. Yes. Everyone knows that history,
Mister Kamenski, and the terrible days that followed.”

“Indeed, what followed, if you will indulge us briefly here.”

“Why, the American bombing of Vladivostok, sir. It almost started
a third world war right after the second one. Zukhov and Patton were eye to eye
in Germany and nearly came to blows, but fortunately diplomacy prevailed.”

“And to this day Russia still denies it had anything to do with
the sinking of the
Iowa
.” Kamenski smiled. “Now then, Mister Fedorov,
you seem to be very well acquainted with the history of WWII. Do you recall
anything about the Americans bombing Vladivostok in late August of 1945?”

“No I do not,” said Fedorov. “The war ended after Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Then we altered that and it ended when Admiral Yamamoto managed to
persuade the Emperor to capitulate and avoid further destruction and bloodshed.
I know nothing of what Captain Gromyko had just said.”

“There you have it,” said Kamenski. “I suppose if we took a poll
most of the men on this boat will agree with Captain Gromyko here. Yet as for
myself, the Admiral, Mister Fedorov, and all the other visitors on your
submarine today, we all know a very different story of that period in
history…In fact I know
several
versions. You get this way with the
years, but the point I am making here is that time seems to have closed her
books on that chapter of the history. Karpov did what he did, even if Stalin
knew nothing about it and denied the whole affair. He was telling the truth,
from his perspective, but it was still a lie. You see, gentlemen, time is not a
straight line. One thing does not necessarily lead to another, like falling
dominoes. Time branches out like a tree, and we are the gardeners.”

“Then you do not think we can still prevent what Karpov did in
1945? Why not?” Fedorov still believed they could trump Karpov’s hand here. “If
we get to him before he arrives here, then we should be able saw off the limb
he brought into being.”

“I cannot say why, but I have a strong feeling that we may be
prevented somehow. Let us think of this from the point of view of Mother Time.
We are here because Karpov is in 1908. Now we come up with an idea to prevent
him from ever getting there! This is a paradox, yes? So we might go lie in wait
as you suggest, and Mother Time might rebuke us by simply sending Karpov back
to a different date and time here. In fact, that would be the only way she
could avoid the paradox you create with this idea.”

“I see…” Fedorov thought deeply about this. “Then we have multiple
alternatives. It isn’t one single thread of time.” The realization shook him
somewhat.

Kamenski was correct. Call it a hunch, an inner sense of
foreboding, or just a lucky guess. The intercom interrupted them at that very
moment, and Chief Dobrynin had something to say.

“Admiral? Captain? Dobrynin here. Something is amiss.”

“A problem with the reactors, Chief?”

“Not exactly sir, but I do not think the event has concluded. I am
starting to hear those strange harmonics again.”

“What do you mean?” said Volsky. “The time displacement has not
concluded?”

“Well, sir… It doesn’t sound like it has. The song is starting up
again. I think our position here is unstable. I will do what I can to control
it, but I think we are going to shift again.”

“So, gentlemen,” said Kamenski. “I think we are about to fall
through to another gopher hole.”

*
* *

It
was not long before Dobrynin’s song was playing at the heart of
the reactor again, and like an aftershock to the main event,
Kazan
slipped again in time. Whether it was his skill in controlling the reactors at
that moment, or a strange unexplained magnetism that was calling Rod-25 home to
the year its matter first plummeted from the heavens at Tunguska, the submarine
fell through to the year 1908. They rose to the surface to listen to signals
traffic, and all they could hear was the dot-dash world of Morse code over
wireless telegraph systems, a faint scratching of the airwaves that were
otherwise clean and silent. So they sat there again in the briefing room,
intent on deciding what they must now do.