Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series) (9 page)

“Are
you sure you are well?” Koslov was watching him closely now, but Karpov just
looked at him, saying nothing. “Well or not, it’s time you were on your feet
and off this ship. Considering you were put on by the Jappos, I’ll grant you
free passage this time. Get ashore and hole up in a good hotel for a while. The
whole harbor district is overrun with Asians, but inland the city is still much
as it always was. But mind what I said—wear an overcoat and don’t flash those
stripes on your cuff on the street or you’ll likely be picked up by the Jappos
for questioning, and you won’t like that one bit. No sir, not one bit.”

Karpov
rubbed a cramp from his neck. “I will take your advice, Koslov, if I can find
an overcoat as you suggest.”

“Look
in that locker, Captain. Help yourself… Tell me, are you regular navy?”

“I
was.”

“No
longer?”

“It
seems not. At least I have no ship now.”

“Where
were you headed?”

“Look,
Koslov. I would rather not talk about it.”

The
other man gave him a knowing look. “Very well,” he said. “A man has a right to
bury his troubles, and it looks as though you have been digging for quite a
while.” He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of coins. “Here, take
these. The medic says you haven’t two rubles to rub together. A man needs to
eat, and there’s enough here to get a modest room in the Moscow Hotel if you
choose. But unless you want to bow and scrape to the Jappos rank and file every
time you see them—and you better learn a proper bow, mate—then I would head
straight to the train station and get on train number four. It will take you up
to Khabarovsk. Japanese took that as well, so stay on the train. Once you get
up over the Amur bend you don’t see them much at all. Get to Irkutsk, my
friend. Then you hear good Russian. Old Man Kolchak is still there trying to
re-organize the White Army. Otherwise the Japanese will take that too. Yes, get
to Irkutsk. Once you get there, you can breathe again.”

Karpov
gave him a wan smile. “Thank you, Koslov. I will remember you.”

 “God
go with you.”

Karpov
took the advice
given him, along with a plain trench coat to conceal his uniform. He removed
his service jacket, stuffing it inside a pillow case and using it for just
that, something to lay his weary head on for the long train ride he
contemplated. As he stepped ashore on the quay, the recollection of the last
moment he had stood on this place was a sharp barb in his mind. The waterfront
and piers were crowded with onlookers, the Mayor and his entourage were lined
up with their tall hats, and out in the bay sat the mighty
Kirov
, its
crew assembled on deck in dress whites, and the sound of the Russian national
anthem resounding from the surrounding hills. There he stood, his Marine honor
guard around him, a demigod to these men. That was only days ago… days… thirty
years… a lifetime now it seemed. Then he was Vladimir Karpov, Captain of the
most powerful force on earth and the new self-appointed Viceroy of the Far
East—invincible.

He
wondered what had been recorded of that moment, and what was written about the engagement
he forced against Admiral Togo’s fleet and the Japanese Navy. It was all
history, the first domino to fall that set off a long chain reaction to produce
the world he found himself in now, a world made by his own hand. This is all my
legacy, he thought. I was going to restore Russia to its rightful place as a
Pacific power…

Now
look at me, he thought. Now I skulk ashore, head down, scarred and broken,
humiliated, powerless, a lost and forsaken soul adrift in a world I can never
escape from now. It was said that hell was a prison where every iron bar on the
windows and doors was forged in the fire of your own mistakes and misdeeds.
This was the hell I made for myself, and not just for me, but for everyone I
see here now. The Japanese are certainly happy, but look at the suffering I
have brought upon my own people.

He
remembered all the many conversations he had with Admiral Volsky. The man had
put his trust in him, and he swore he would not let him down. He remembered
their conversation in the briefing room off the main bridge while they cruised
for the Torres Strait. Volsky had discovered the special warhead still mounted
to the number ten P-900, and wanted to make certain I had no more ideas about
using it. The Captain remembered clearly what he had said.

“It
would be just like me to say I assumed that you discovered the warhead earlier,
and had it removed, but that would be a bowl of lozh, just another lie from the
man I was back then.”

 Volsky
had given him a long look.
“You asked me to give you a chance and I did so.
I will not say that I have been in any way disappointed with your performance,
but I wonder, Karpov… Is there any remnant of that old man still alive in you?”

Karpov
met his gaze, unflinching
. “A man may never purge himself entirely of his
bad habits and faults, Admiral, or fully atone for his sins. But if he is a
man, he can control himself and do what is right. This you have taught me well
enough.”

“No, Karpov, that you learned on your own.”
He smiled, obvious absolution in his eyes.
“I
tell you this because it may happen, by one circumstance or another, that you
find a missile key around your neck again one day. Then you will have to decide
what you have learned or failed to learn, particularly if I am no longer here
to weigh in on the matter with this substantial belly of mine.”

One
day… And look what I did when I had that key around my neck. What did I really
learn? Did I control myself, restrain those inner urges in me that wanted to do
just what Dostoyevsky said was so gratifying?
Whether it is good or bad, it
is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things…

He
could hear his own voice now, like a whining sycophant as he buttered the
Admiral’s bread.
“I would hope to find the courage to be half the man you
are, sir, if I ever do find that key around my neck again.”

“Yes,”
Volsky had finished.
“If God dies, then we see how the angels fare…”

Oh
look how they fared. I tried to intimidate and destroy the American Navy in
1945 and got
Admiral Golovko
and
Orlan
in the soup instead. God
only knows what happened to
Orlan
. But I sunk another big ship just to
show the Americans what real power was, and then
Kirov
slipped away like
a thief. What happened after that? I never took the time to try and find out.
There was no way I
could
find it out. Suddenly we found ourselves in
1908! There would be nothing in any of Fedorov’s books, but I can imagine that
the Americans were not happy to see that Russians had atomic weapons too, and
were more than willing to use them.

A
strange thought came to him now.
It’s 1938!
It’s seven years before any
of that happened. It’s three years before
Kirov
ever showed up in this
war in 1941. What will happen come late July that year when the ship is
supposed to appear in the Norwegian Sea? But how can that happen now? Look at
the world I have made. The Soviet Union doesn’t even exist any longer, nor is
it likely to exist in any form resembling the nation that built
Kirov
.
Fedorov must be having fits with all of this. Serves him right for sticking his
thumb in my pie.

What
happened to the ship? Was
Kirov
still out there somewhere, its sharp bow
cutting through the seas? Fedorov was aboard that submarine. Yes, the same one
from my nightmare—
Kazan
. He had to use Rod-25 to get back and find me.
He and the Admiral planned this whole thing! He would not leave Orlov when he
jumped ship, and he moved heaven and earth to go and fetch him. It was no
surprise that he came for me as well, only I underestimated him again. That
damn intrepid son-of-a-bitch, Fedorov.

His
thoughts unerringly led him back to that traumatic moment on the bridge. So
that was
Kazan
that I saw when I went into the sea. Those bastards were
so stealthy that they must have slipped right beneath the ship! That’s what
they planned!
Kazan
would shift and take
Kirov
right along with
it, only something slipped. Maybe the big fish got caught in the net and
Kirov
and
Kazan
vanished right in the thick of that last battle. I was cast
off, a little fish thrown back into the sea, unwanted.

What
was Tasarov doing, listening to his music again? I told him to find that
submarine. He was probably in league with the rest of them, from Rodenko, to
Samsonov, to Nikolin. I can understand why Rodenko and Zolkin did what they
did, but Samsonov? That was the final straw. When he stood up and refused my
order, I knew it was all over for me. I was a fool to think I could do whatever
I choose simply because of the stripes on my jacket cuff. Did I let Volsky’s
rank deter me when I tried to take the ship? No… Not one minute. Those
goddamned traitors stood against me in the heat of battle. But who betrayed
who? Did they betray me, or did I betray them? Either way you learn the hard
lesson, Vladimir. You can lead, but it is only those that choose to follow you
that place the power into your hands. Without them you are nothing. Never
forget that again.

He
did not forget. It was a very long train ride up through Khabarovsk, following
the same route that Fedorov, Troyak, and Zykov had taken when they set off to
find Orlov. On occasion a Japanese guard would eye him briefly, but he looked
so decrepit, his face still bandaged, lean and hungry, eyes darkened with
sorrow and regret, that no one seemed to want to bother him. So Karpov rode the
train all the way to Irkutsk, doling out the last of the rubles Kaslov had
given him for food along the way.

He
found an old newspaper, dated two weeks earlier and read. The shock of what he
learned there stayed with him for some time. Russia was divided, and still at
war with itself. Sergie Kirov was alive, though he should have been killed four
years ago in 1934. There was no mention of Stalin, none at all. Another
nebulous and shadowy figure named ‘The Prophet,’ Ivan Volkov, ruled the central
province now named the Orenburg Federation, a principle antagonist against
Kirov’s Western Russian state centered on Moscow and Leningrad.

Here
in the east, the wild steppes and thick taiga forests of Siberia remained
untamed, a free state. It seemed loosely controlled by groups of warlords, like
the Cossack clans that had once ranged in the heartland of Russia. The name
Kozolnikov seemed to appear prominently in Irkutsk, along with that of Old Man
Kolchak. He was still alive too. Apparently the Bolsheviks were never able to assert
control beyond the Urals.

Orenburg,
all of Kazakhstan and the Caspian region, along with all of Siberia had
remained provinces of the White Russian movement. Now Volkov’s forces in
Orenburg referred to themselves as the Grey Legion. He saw odd line drawings of
what looked to be airships in the sky. What had happened to the world?

This
was my doing, he thought. I did this the moment I took it upon myself to challenge
Japan. No! It was Fedorov’s meddling that caused it all. If I could have
finished what I started none of this might have happened! He could not leave
things be. He had to come back in that goddamned submarine. Was it still out
there somewhere too?

He
thought for a long time on his sad state, with plenty of time for regrets. Yet
something within him folded in on itself, a hard kernel of stone that refused
to yield, refused the mantle of shame and held but one thought in mind—
revenge.
That’s what I said to that Inspector General and his dog from Naval
Intelligence. Yes… Revenge is a dish that is best served cold.

At
Irkutsk he decided to go and find Old Man Kolchak and see what he was up to.
The first thing he did was pull his uniform jacket back out of that pillowcase
and put it back on, and proudly. Some would say he tarnished it with all he had
done, but let them talk, he thought. I know more than anyone alive in this sad
world. If there is any man who is rightfully a prophet, it is me.

This
was what Orlov had in mind when he jumped ship, yes? Well, I had something else
in mind, and I didn’t jump. The world threw me here, and here I will stay. With
all I know, power will come easily into my grasp if I reach for it. And what
better place to find it than in the hands of the men who already hold the
reins? Yes, he thought. Go find this Old Man Kolchak, and the other one, the
young Turk, Kozolnikov. I will soon be very useful to them. That’s how it will
begin. But before long… yes… before long they will be answering to me!

Chapter 9

Alan
Turing reached for
his handkerchief again, still bothered by the pollens of early summer, as he
always was in June. As deviously clever as he was, he had not yet discovered a
way to defeat Mother Nature, or to defend himself from the perennial attacks of
Hay Fever that beset him. Not even the full gas mask he wore as he rode his
bicycle to Bletchley Park each day for his work in the cypher busting unit
seemed to do him any good, and probably frightened scores of roadside passersby
and children when they saw his macabre, masked specter, head down, peddling
furiously and breathing hard behind the leering visage of his goggle mask.