Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14) (36 page)

But
where?

He
would soon find out.

Fifteen…
Sixteen… Seventeen…

The
darkness of a solid door barred the way as he reached the upper landing. Was
the journey ended, or did it require that he move through this door first? He
ran his hand along the door frame, finding the old knob and seeing it was locked.
He felt for the keyhole, wondering if both doors used the same key.

They
did.

He
did not know it at that moment, but he was now a member of a most exclusive
club. He was a “keyholder.” The proprietor of the inn had been holding his seat
warm in that select group, albeit unknowingly. For the innkeeper, the key was
nothing more than a means of locking those doors, and hiding the trouble and
mystery those stairs had brought to his life ever since that fateful morning in
June of 19080—the day the sun rose twice—the day there was fire in the sky, and
the rumble of war on the distant northern frontiers of Siberia.

With
a hard click the key turned in the lock, and he slowly turned the knob. The
light streamed in, chasing the shadows and he pushed forward, finding himself on
a quiet, well lit upper hall—alive. His cold logic had been correct. Time could
not take him to a place where he already existed. For him, the journey up those
stairs would always lead to some safe upper landing, or to nowhere at all, and
this had to be true of anyone who ventured to use that stairway.

 He
knew immediately, that it was not the upper floor of the place he had left in
1909. There was a strange music in the air, yet he could not fathom where it
might be coming from. The hallway was carpeted, and off to one side a nook led
to a window that he knew would face west towards the railway station. He closed
the door behind him, ever so quietly, and then moved to the window. Find out
where he was—
when
he was—that was the first order of business.

Chapter 36

Tyrenkov
reached the
window, peering out across the rooftops of single story buildings that extended
for three short blocks to the rail yard. The town was much bigger now, so he
reasoned that he had moved forward in time as Karpov expected he would. But
this was not to any place in the 1940s. He looked and saw the sky streaked with
the contrail of a fast moving aircraft. Out across the town itself, he saw
strange vehicles moving on the main street, with shapes that were smooth and
sleek compared to the bulky, squarish chassis of the cars and trucks he knew
from his day.

So
this was the future—some brave new world that was completely unknown to him.
What year was it? He could go down to the front desk and find that out soon
enough. For now he stood mesmerized to think that he must be in a time well
beyond the span of his normal life. No man knows the hour or day of his own
death, yet he is cursed to know he will die, unlike the other witless creatures
he shared the earth with. Suppose he was fated to live out a normal life,
seventy years or so. Then if he was alive here now, he must have traveled at
least that far beyond the year when he was to die. Some quick math told him he
could have moved into the early 21st century!

He
knew that is where Ivan Volkov had started his journey back in time. He went
down the stairs, not once, but twice as Karpov had deduced. So it was likely
that this stairway would be rebuilt one day in the 1940s, because it existed to
allow that passage by Volkov into the past. In fact, it had to be rebuilt before
September of 1942!  It suddenly struck him that he may have made that same
journey in reverse. The odd music, shiny vehicles, strange craft in the sky,
all conspired to tell him he was in the future—the world Karpov and Volkov came
from.

There
by the window he was a small table and two chairs. A book lay on the table near
a candle, and he picked it up, curious. Then he heard a dull rumble, and the
blare of a horn as a train began to pull into the rail yard. His attention was
immediately drawn outside as the train arrived. These were not the old,
weathered rail cars from his day, but sleek, rounded silver sided cars with
many windows. He watched carefully, hoping to catch a glimpse of the people
from this future world when they emerged from the train. There… he saw the
conductor in a dark, navy blue uniform opening the door of a train car and
lowering a small stairway down. Then, one by one, people emerged, strangely
dressed, most carrying some small bag that they set on the ground, and then dragged
along behind them with a thin handle that they pulled out of the bag itself!

Then
he saw them, the men in uniform, and his keen eye soon picked out the details
that seemed oddly familiar to him. He had been Karpov’s right hand man for some
time now, always admiring the trim cut of the Admiral’s uniform, and the jacket
he always wore. These men wore the same! They were obviously military, and they
were security men. He could see their careful movements, fanning out, eyes
searching, scanning the other passengers as they detrained. They were looking
for someone, that much was obvious, and then another man emerged, taller, stiff
backed, clearly the officer in charge.

His
mind had flashed to a strange possibility. Could it be? If he was seeing what
he thought he was, then time was of the essence now—every second. Instinct took
over, and he turned and ran back to the upper landing of that stairway. He was
through the door quickly, closing it firmly behind him, and then, with one hand
against the wall to steady himself, he hurtled down, counting each heavy
footfall as he went, his heart beating fast with the urgency of the moment.

He
knew what he had just seen—
who
he had just seen—and the knowledge he now
had in his head could change the entire world.

* * *

Karpov
was waiting
breathlessly at the bottom of the stairs, sitting at a dining table facing the
door by the hearth, a service revolver ready in his jacket pocket. His mind ran
along all the corridors of possibility. Would Tyrenkov return? Would he find a
way safely into the future? If so, what year could he reach. He knew that if he
could get back to 1941, it would have to be just after
Tunguska
disappeared in that storm over the English Channel. That was the only safe
ground for him, days he had not yet lived in his own life.

There
is just a narrow window there left for me, he thought. Tyrenkov was correct. I
have only until July 28th of 1941, and then Time will be faced with an
insoluble problem.
Kirov
could not arrive in the Norwegian Sea on that
day without compromising his position there in time—yet the ship
had
to
arrive for him to even be where he was now. Look what had happened to the older
crewmen aboard
Tunguska
when we shifted in that storm! That was what he
was facing now—clear evidence that Time would not hesitate to snuff out his
life to see her chess board remained tidy. It was just that way. No two chess
pieces could occupy the same square on the board. One had to die, no matter how
powerful it was, if any other piece could reach its square.

It
was all too much for him to contemplate, and thinking about it left him feeling
a deep sense of impending doom, a sense of dread that was now dogging his mind,
ever since Tyrenkov had come out with that question.

Could
I find a way to somehow avoid that awful moment when the line of my own fate
might become hopelessly tangled? We were only there for a very brief time,
twelve days before the ship vanished again into that bleak future. If I could
find a way to be somewhere else for that brief, twelve day period, then it was
another long year before
Kirov
appeared in the Tyrrhenian Sea—safe
ground. It was August into September of 1942 when they fought in the Med, and
eventually made their way out towards Saint Helena, and that harrowing sojourn
to the Pacific. Again, the ship was active in that year for only a brief period
of time. That was when Fedorov began to piece together the clues that began with
that twelve day interval on the time shifts, which eventually led us to
Dobrynin’s maintenance procedure, and Rod-25. What was it about that control
rod that caused it to open time?

By
the time inspector Kapustin had determined the origin of the materials used in
that control rod, Karpov was already well out to sea in
Kirov
, leading
the red banner fleet in that impossible journey that saw him face down the
powerful American Pacific Fleets, and in two different eras. So Karpov had no
inkling yet that Tunguska had anything to do with Rod-25’s unusual effects. Nor
did he understand, really, why this time rift had formed on the plane of this
stairway at Ilanskiy. He only knew that men who walked those stairs moved in
time. He also knew that violent explosions could cause similar rifts. The Demon
volcano had sent him to 1945, and nuclear explosions had also been involved in
moving the ship to different eras.

That
thunderstorm moved
Tunguska
, he knew. What else could account for my
presence here in 1909 now? Could I move that way again, or was that a random
event that might never repeat? Suppose I did get safely back to 1941 before the
date of
Kirov’s
first arrival. Would I spend the next weeks and months
reviewing weather reports and chasing thunder storms? Suppose I get lucky and
find one. What is to say it would not just simply return me to this year, 1909?
Why should I assume I could get where I really need to go, to those days just
after
Kirov
disappeared off Argentia Bay? That would give me another
year free from this nagging paradox, but how can I get there?

He
was thinking all this when there was a sound on the stairway that made him
suddenly tense up. Footsteps! Someone was there, coming down from the second
floor—or from some other lodging in infinity. He reached into his pocket, hand
firm on his service pistol, waiting. Anyone might be coming down those steps,
by design or by mere happenstance.

To
his great relief, it was Tyrenkov, somewhat breathless himself, and flushed
with urgency. The lower door opened, and he stumbled through, blinking in the
light, and clearly disoriented. Then he saw Karpov sitting there just as he
left him, and smiled, composing himself. The need for speed was over. He had
plenty of time now—long decades, and he took a deep breath, relaxing.

“Tyrenkov!”
Karpov was up on his feet. “Thank god you are unharmed. What happened? Did you
get back to 1941?”

Tyrenkov
shook his head. “No sir, not 1941, at least not any place in it that I
recognized. But I did get somewhere else, somewhere much farther ahead in time,
or so I believe. Everything looked … clean. The inn itself was quite different,
the walls, décor, the carpeting. There was music playing, but I could not see
where it was coming from. I went to the window to have a look at the town, and
it is much bigger than it was in 1941. I could see people, oddly dressed, and
strange vehicles. Then the train pulled into the station and the real business
started.”

“Not
1941? You are certain?”

“The
train I saw looked nothing like the cars we used on the trans-Siberian rail.
They looked all shiny and new. I saw a plane in the sky—moving so fast that it
left a streak in the clouds.”

“A
jet aircraft,” said Karpov matter of factly. “Then you did move much farther
forward.” Karpov realized that Tyrenkov must have gone all the way to 2021, the
place Volkov came from. There was already a clear connection to that year into
the past, as Volkov had proven that. Yet Tyrenkov never lived in those years.
He could get there safely, while when I went up those stairs, I had to appear
in a time well after the onset of the war, before that battle in the Pacific
against Tanner and his Carrier group. I saw only the ruin of the world, and
that terrible detonation over the naval armory at Kansk. But Tyrenkov…. He
could theoretically get to any date in the future after the time we vanished in
that storm.

“I
see,” said Karpov. “So our little experiment was successful, at least in one
regard. Time
does
make allowances. You were worried you might appear in
January of 1941, a time when you were already alive there, but I was not concerned.
I knew you could not appear at such a time. The chair was already occupied, and
by your very own self. So you see, Tyrenkov, do not think harshly of me. I was
not throwing you to the wolves. I knew you would get somewhere safely, but I
see that it was not where I expected.”

“Where
did you expect I would go?”

“1942—to
a time after the stairway was rebuilt. That is where I must ultimately get
myself. The years ahead are… problematic for me. I must find a way to avoid
certain dates in the chronology—dates when I was already alive aboard my ship.
But I see my experiment failed.”

“But
you can get home, sir. The stairway leads all the way to your time!”

“I
have always known that,” said Karpov quickly. “Otherwise how did Volkov get
here? But I cannot get to any safe place there, Tyrenkov. I was in that world,
fighting the Americans in the Pacific before I took the journey that eventually
brought me here. So if I go up those steps, I must appear after I vanished from
those years, and the war began in earnest at that time. I saw a glimpse of it,
the utter destruction of Kansk, as I told you. Beyond that time I have also
seen what happens to the world, and it is not pretty. It is no place to live.
So you see, Tyrenkov, I am condemned to live out my days here in the past, if I
want any semblance of a comfortable life, or if I ever hope to reap the harvest
of what I know of days ahead. My only problem here are the days I already lived
in the 1940s, like landmines on the road ahead for me if I ever do get back to
that decade. That and the fact that I have enemies there—men like Volkov who
know entirely too much.”

Now
Tyrenkov smiled. “Sir,” he said. “I have some news you will be very interested
to hear.”

“Oh?
Out with it. What have you learned?”

“While
I was at that window, I told you a train pulled into the station. I watched the
passengers exit, and I saw a group of uniformed men, clearly military, and
security personnel. I could tell it immediately from the way they moved and
acted, the way they surveyed the surroundings, watchful, looking at all the
passengers. It was immediately clear to me that they were searching for
someone, and the odd thing is this—their uniforms looked very much like yours!”

“Like
mine? You mean my service jacket?”

“Yes
sir, the one you often talk to near the collar. A man appeared, tall, grey
haired, clearly the officer in charge of this group, and he was doing the same
thing—talking to his collar. So I immediately lunged for that stairway to get
back here as quickly as I could. Don’t you see, sir? You told me that there were
men searching for that associate of yours—the man named Fedorov. Isn’t that
what Volkov told you?”

The
light of shock and awareness was in Karpov’s eyes now.

“Volkov!”
he said jubilantly. “You believe you saw Ivan Volkov and his security team
arriving at Ilanskiy!”

“Yes
sir,” Tyrenkov beamed.

“Why
didn’t you stay to try and verify this?”