Paradox Hour (33 page)

“Maybe they put on speed and had to maneuver to make that missile attack,” said MacRae. “The moon was good all morning, but it set at 03:16, and we had no sun until just a few minutes ago.”

“Why would they need an interval of darkness for this attack?” Morgan didn’t buy that. “The bloody Germans don’t even know they’re here.”

“Oh, they do now,” said MacRae. “Something took a hard hit out there. Look at that smoke.”

“Maybe the Russians had a misfire and blew their damn ship to pieces,” Morgan suggested glibly. “In any case, that smoke has to be well over the horizon, fifty or sixty nautical miles away. My boys tell me the Russkies are giving that northern German group a hard whack of the Shillelagh. You’re suggesting they slipped off on their own for this missile strike?”

MacRae nodded. “Maybe they want to keep their missiles under their hat. Lots of eyes on the
Invincible
. We’re supposed to use discretion in the employment of advanced technology—or so we were told.”

“True, but they would have informed Tovey if they were breaking off. This message makes it sound like the bloody ship simply vanished!”

MacRae looked at him. “Like we did?” he said with a grin. “I’m sure you noticed that. In fact, I’ve often wondered if anyone on the tankers saw us go. Poof! One minute we were there—the next minute we were here.”

“You’re suggesting they moved like we did—in time?” said Morgan.

“From what we’ve learned that ship has been in and out of this pub more than once—shifting all through this history!”

“Well good riddance.” Morgan rubbed his hands. “No offense meant to our new Russian allies, of course, but we ought to finish off this pint, pick up our coat, and be on our way ourselves. I’ve already had my fill of World War Two.”

“You fancy number three?” said MacRae. “I would have given even odds that we’d be at the bottom of the Aegean Sea by now if we were back on our old beat.”

“That may be so, Gordie, but this situation is bonkers. It’s creepy. Did you know about all this—her ladyship and all? This business with the Watch?”

“Can’t say as I did. No, her ladyship had the sheep’s wool pulled down over both our eyes on that count. She was running us about on one mission or another. Remember all those quiet nights in the Indian Ocean? I thought we were out there to run deep field surveys for future oil operations. Turns out that was all a ruse, and you, my good man, bought it hook, line and sinker.”

“Well it’s not like I had any say in the matter,” Morgan protested, his hand scratching his thick black beard. “Look here, Gordie. What’s this rendezvous all about?”

“
Rodney
ran afoul of a U-Boat and took a torpedo. We’re here to provide fleet air defense. That Russian boat is down there with us, somewhere, and they’ll handle surface threats. That’s all I was told.”

“There’s more to it than that,” said Morgan. “I can smell it. My nose is too damn good, even if I don’t have all my intelligence network assets to keep me in the know as before. Something’s up. Now this message says the bloomin’ Russians have gone missing?”

“We’d better fill in Miss Fairchild,” said MacRae.

“I’ll handle it,” said Morgan, taking the signals message. “But something tells me she may know more about it than either of us.”

“Well, when you find out what’s up. Let me know.” MacRae gave him a wink.”

Morgan went down to the Fairchild executive suite, pressing the bell softly, as if it might ring softly on the other side, though he knew that was a foolish thought. Yet the early hour, and Fairchild herself, gave him pause. He waited for some time, wondering whether he should ring again, and realizing he must. Yet before he could thumb the button the door opened, and Miss Fairchild was standing there in a long cotton robe.

“Yes? What is it, Mack?”

“Signals traffic from Admiral Tovey, Mum. It seems the Russian ship has gone missing.”

He handed off the note, and as she took it, Elena motioned for him to enter. The smell of freshly brewed coffee was in the air, and Mack eyed the pot enviously. Another cup would do him some good. For days now, he had been bothered by something. That nose he had bragged about to MacRae had been itching again, itching in a way that told him something was up. He could feel it, something impending, looming, and it was a most uncomfortable sensation.

Now that message he had received earlier, asking if they had picked up any odd signals, took on more significance. He shared that with Miss Fairchild, thinking she might know something more, and inwardly still upset that
he
did not know more himself. I’m supposed to be here explaining why all this is happened, he thought, not looking for answers here.

“Can’t SAMPSON see them?” She was referring to the state-of-the-art radar system mounted on the tall mainmast of the ship.

“We were outside our surface coverage radius over an our ago.”

“I see… Then get one of the X-3s up and have a look. How soon until we can board
Rodney
?”

“Another hour at this speed… Assuming that Russian sub out there does its job and we don’t have unexpected visitors for breakfast. Last word was that the German northern group has split in two. We think the Russians hit their carrier and lighter escorts. But those battleships are making a beeline for our friend out there.”

“That’s why we’re here, Mack. You’d better tell Gordon to stand the men up.”

Morgan waited after that, a brief interval. He wanted to ask if there was really some other reason they were here. After all, why did they need to board the battleship? Was there something wrong with the radio? He knew there was some hidden reason, perhaps this special mission the battleship was assigned—King’s business. He had asked Miss Fairchild if she had an interest in that, but never got much of an answer. One fact remained—his nose. It was itching again, and it told him there was more to all of this than it seemed on the surface.

He would have his answer before his next cup of coffee.

Chapter 29

Some
thirty nautical miles up ahead, Gromyko was on the bridge of
Kazan
, considering a strange situation that had just been reported to him by his sonar man. For some time now, Chernov had been ill at ease. Gromyko had seen him fidgeting at his station, hunched over his equipment, switching on different signal processing filters, as though he were looking for some particular pair of shoes in a dark closet. When he asked him what he was doing, the Sonarman told him he had been asked to listen in on certain frequencies to see if he could detect a signal. Apparently the Sonarman aboard
Kirov
had gotten hold of something, and wanted a little help from the undersea ears of
Kazan
.

Chernov worked the problem, until it was decided that the task force would split, and
Kazan
would accompany the
Argos Fire
to rendezvous with
Rodney
. After that Gromyko thought he would forget the matter, but Chernov still seemed to be fussing about with his equipment, almost as if he could simply not let this loose thread go.

“Any problem, Chernov?” he had asked his young Lieutenant.

“No sir. No undersea threats of any note. I was just running some diagnostics.”

“Something wrong?”

“Not that I can determine, sir.”

“Then you are still chewing on that bone
Kirov’s
Sonarman threw over?”

Chernov smiled. “I think I might have hold of the dog’s leg it came from,” he said. “I picked up an odd signal on the ultralow sonic bands. We get message traffic down there, but this could not be anything coming from our world.”

“No,” said Gromyko. “I don’t suppose it could. Then what is it?”

Gromyko came right to the point. He liked answers, not questions, and the fewer uncertainties he had to deal with, the better.

“I’m not exactly certain yet, Captain. But it has structure. It’s an organized signal—a kind of pulsing wave. It isn’t random, and it isn’t geothermal or of seismic origin. I was just running recordings through some filters to double check that.”

“Let me hear it.”

“Sir? Oh, that won’t work. The signal is below the threshold of our hearing. You might sense it, on one level, but not with your ears—unless they are very good.”

“Like the Sonarman on
Kirov?”
said Gromyko. “They say he has the best ears in the fleet, Mister Chernov.”

“Tasarov? He’s a good man, sir, and I’ll vouch for that. I studied with him, and he could hear things no one else in the class was even aware of. He’s the best, sir, but our sonar is much better than the equipment he’s working with on
Kirov
, particularly after they took that damage up front.”

“Very well, Chernov. Carry on, but don’t forget that the Germans might have U-boats out here too.”

“Don’t worry about that, sir. I’ll hear anything that comes within 50 nautical miles of us—even a diesel boat.”

Gromyko knew that Chernov was not boasting. He was also one of the best in the business, and one day he might put a bet or two on his Sonarman in a runoff with this Tasarov fellow. But now he had other fish to fry.

Three German battleships were on a fast heading to intercept the
Rodney
, and
Kazan
was on point defense. He was considering how to handle the matter, thinking through the cards in his hand. He still had ten
Onyx
missiles, but reports from
Kirov
indicated they were not as effective as hoped against the heavy side armor of these ships, and only three were now programmed for popup attack mode, leaving the rest as sea skimmers. They had good long range, out to 600 kilometers on this variant, but only a 200Kg warhead. The German warships had belt armor exceeding 300mm, and there would be no time to program the missiles for top down approach as Fedorov had advised.

But who needs missiles, thought Gromyko? I’m a sub Captain, and we still have plenty of torpedoes. The Type 65 would be the preferred choice, my 50/50 weapon against large surface ships. It will range out 50 kilometers and give me 50 knots in speed, and I have a few of the big 557Kg warheads, the wake homing model. In fact, I even have those special warheads. One of those would take out the  entire German fleet, but I don’t think Admiral Volsky would want me to do that here. They’re aboard for the hunter killer subs out there that would be stalking me in 2021. This is not their time.

 Once in a little closer, I can go to my Type-53 torpedoes, a little slower, and with a smaller 307Kg warhead, but they can also detect the water churn made by a ship, and follow it to find the target. So my attack envelope is from 20 to 50 kilometers, well before they could ever come in range of this British battleship I’m defending.

Yes, he thought. Here come three battleships, but no destroyers. Even if they had six or seven escorts up there, all they would do is make target selection a little more difficult. No ships in these waters, except for that British Type 45 and
Kirov
itself, would have a chance at detecting my boat. So in another couple hours we begin the bullfight. It will be like shooting fish in a barrel—big fish, to be sure, but they will die just the same when those warheads break their keels or wreck their propulsion and steering gear. He looked over at Chernov again, seeing the man was still alert and active at his station.

“Still have a leash on those German battleships?”

“Of course, sir. They’re noisy as hell.”

“Good. Let me know when they come inside our 50K range radius.”

The Matador had made his choice.

* * *

The
Germans were coming, shocked and angered by the terrible fate of
Graf Zeppelin
, and bent on getting revenge.
Gneisenau
was out in front, making 30 knots, with
Scharnhorst
following about a kilometer behind, and
Tirpitz
steaming prominently in the rear. The Destroyer
Thor
and cruiser
Prinz Eugen
stood by the dying carrier, trying to pull any man alive out of the water, but now
Graf Zeppelin
had rolled over an slipped beneath the waves, a total loss, and they were slowly following in the wake of the bigger German ships.

Aboard
Hindenburg
, Lütjens got the news an hour after dawn, and he was none too happy to learn what had happened. Damn those British naval rockets, he thought. How in god’s name can they hit our ships with such lethal accuracy? This is shaping up to be another disaster at sea, just like the first sortie last year. Ever since we got those orders to turn about and find this old British battleship, the entire plan has come unraveled. We should be well out to sea now, and feasting on the convoys like a pack of sharks. Let the British come to us, and then see what they get. Yet haven’t they done exactly that, he thought grimly? And now we lose the best fleet carrier we have.

In one violent attack, those rockets have changed the entire situation here. Now we’ve lost that powerful air wing, and most of our top fighter cover as well. It means the British carriers will matter here again, and my bet is that there are more than one out there, with spotter planes up this very moment to verify our position. How long before we are under air attack? Only six
Stukas
and three fighters got aloft from
Graf Zeppelin
, and now I must order them to find us here and try to land on the
Goeben
. That will give us eighteen planes, but it will be twice the capacity of that carrier. We can juggle planes for a while, but for how long? We haven’t the aviation fuel aboard the
Goeben
to keep that up. So we will have to ditch planes, and that will be very bad for morale.

That is the least of my trouble. Raeder will have fits as well. He’s been sitting on those remaining carrier projects like a mother hen ever since
Graf Zeppelin
proved its worth at sea. He has
Peter Strasser
nearly complete, and then there is that French ship we captured at Saint Nazaire. We will likely throw time, steel, and Deutschmarks away to build those out, useful as they might be. What good are they if we cannot protect them? These naval rockets trump every weapon afloat on any ship in the fleet!