Three Kings (Kirov Series) (15 page)

“We were afraid that might be
the case,”
said Fedorov.
“I have Admiral Volsky with me here, and I will
turn you over to him. Standby.”

Gromyko waited, glad to hear the
Admiral’s calm reassuring voice again. Everyone on the bridge took heart now,
for Volsky’s tone and manner carried a note of home, an anchor to the authority
that had send them all to
sea
in the first place, and
a tether on some sense of purpose they might now have here in this new world.
Volsky and Fedorov were mariners in time, and had navigated these waters
before.

“Greetings Captain Gromyko,
and all the crew of Kazan,”
came Volsky’s deep voice.
“We have been
waiting for you. It appears our new control rod is only a distant cousin to the
one we lent you, and we were never able to leave here. So we did not have to
see the desolation you describe again. We have all seen it before, and now we
set our minds on how we can prevent it. You come to us at a most critical time,
and it is good that you are here.”

“Where are you, sir?” asked
Gromyko.

“Believe it or not we are now
in the Atlantic off Reykjavik, and I think we must now find a way to meet at sea.”

“That’s a long way off,” said
Gromyko.

“We will come south to meet
you half way off the Cape of Good Hope. Fedorov says it will take you nearly 12
days at 30 knots. Is that a problem?”

“I think we can manage it, sir.
The boat is in fine shape.

“Excellent. We cannot discuss
matters here, even on this encrypted channel, but there is much to learn. Try
to be as discrete as possible. We will sail south to meet you, and then we
drink together here in my ready room!”

“Very good sir. We’ll get
underway at once.” Gromyko turned to his navigator now. “Get me an ETA on Cape
Town by way of the Singapore Strait.”

Two old friends were about to
meet.

* * *

The
night was black and
the sea was uncommonly calm when the sail of
Kazan
broke the surface.
The submarine emerged from the dark waters like a behemoth, a fighting Orca the
like of which this world had never seen. Above, sailing just a few hundred
yards to the east, the battlecruiser
Kirov
waited to greet its comrade
in arms. It had been six long months for Volsky and Fedorov, yet only a matter
of a few weeks for Gromyko. The Matador was finally back, and he made
arrangements to visit
Kirov
in a launch sent over from the
battlecruiser.

Admiral Volsky was there at the
gunwale when the Captain came aboard with his executive officer Belanov, giving
him a hearty handshake.

“We are well met,” said Volsky.
“The last time we gathered like this was to determined how we would plot the
demise of this very ship, and our wayward Captain Karpov. Now we have other
matters to decide.”

 “Well Gromyko,” said
Fedorov. “I must say that your submarine is a most welcome sight. We have been
listening for you all these many months.”

That was hard for Gromyko to
grasp, as it had only been a few days time from his perspective. The two
vessels had decided to meet at sea off the southern coast of the Cape of Good
Hope. Gromyko had surfaced and come aboard
Kirov
for this initial
meeting, glad to see the Admiral again and feel the burden he had been carrying
on his shoulders lighten a bit.

“This is home now, Gromyko,” said
Volsky. “We have sailed here before; fought here to try and prevent what you
saw when you returned to our old world. It seems we have more to do.”

“It does, sir.”

“First I must commend you for
coming back for us.”

“That was an easy choice,
Admiral. The radiation count was very bad. We had to get below 200 meters to
feel comfortable.”

Volsky nodded gravely.

“Well this world has not yet
suffered the blight of nuclear weapons. They are all busy enough using the
conventional ones. This is World War Two, Gromyko, the Great Patriotic War, but
things are considerably different now. Our homeland is fractured, and the only
part of it that resembles anything I would fight for now belongs to Sergei
Kirov, the man this ship is named after.”

“Sergei Kirov?”

“The living man,” Volsky smiled.
“We have even met with him. He has agreed to give us a permanent base at
Severomorsk, or at least the place where the base was built in our day. It
isn’t much yet, but we are working on it. At least we have warm quarters there
for shore leave, good food, a taste of home.”

“All of my men will be looking
forward to that,” said Gromyko.

“Yes, but there is much we have
to discuss. A great deal has happened since we last parted company. Mister
Fedorov here can brief you in detail, but the short end of it is that we are
stuck here, and so we have decided to stay put for a while and see what we can
do to prevent the destruction you have just come from.”

“That was our thought as well,
sir, and the reason we tried that control rod again.”

“I am glad you chose this course,
Gromyko. I had hoped you would see this as your only option. That said, this is
no paradise. As to this war, we have decided we cannot just sail about and try
to avoid contact here. This war consumed the entire world, well named, so we
have taken sides. I have kept the missiles in the silos of late, but that may
soon change.”

He told Gromyko of the meeting
with Sergei Kirov, and what was decided there, and the newly formed alliance
between Russia and England. The news that their homeland was fragmented and
locked in civil war was jarring enough, but then Volsky lowered his voice, his
tone dark and serious.

“I must also tell you that we are
not the only men from our time at large in this world.” The name Ivan Volkov
was soon on his lips, and the Admiral had Fedorov explain the situation
concerning Volkov, and how he must have made his way down the stairwell of
Ilanskiy to 1908, even as Fedorov had, to find himself a witness to the
dreadful Tunguska event. The Orenburg Federation was the result, and now
Fedorov also revealed that the man they had stalked together, the former
Captain of
Kirov
, was also at large.

“Karpov? Here? He’s alive?”

“Very much alive,” said Volsky.
“And true to that man’s nature, he has wormed his way into a position of power
in the Free Siberian State. Both of these men are dangerous, and even more so
in the positions they now hold. Our only consolation at the moment is that they
appear to be squabbling with one another.”

“Amazing,” said Gromyko.

“Indeed. But we are dangerous men
as well,” Volsky held up a finger. “Together we can make a real difference
here. Fedorov will brief you as to what has happened. The war, Gromyko. That is
the issue now. This damn war will lead to the next as sure as winter follows
autumn. We thought we could do something about it, and we have undertaken a few
operations to prevent the German navy from mischief up north. I must also tell
you that we have established a firm alliance with the Royal Navy of England. We
fought against them the first time we found ourselves here, largely because
they became our enemy after this war ended. Yet if the friendship and alliance
between Russia and the west can be preserved, perhaps that is the key to saving
that future we have come from. We have made contact with a good man here in the
British Admiral Tovey, and we are coordinating with him to see what we can do.
But the war, Gromyko. Things have taken a sudden turn for the worse. Fedorov?”

“The British have lost
Gibraltar,” said Fedorov. “The Germans launched an operation that had been
planned in our history, but never executed. It succeeded. The place is now in
German hands. They’ve moved in artillery, placed heavy guns to cover the
straits, and they have just moved troops to Morocco. They will undoubtedly
build airfields there. That threat, plus the presence of German U-Boats
operating from Gibraltar has effectively closed the Western Mediterranean to
British shipping.”

“And what about Russia?”

“Hitler did not invade us until
later this year, and so far that history seems to be holding. There is an
ongoing buildup on the Polish frontier, but after Gibraltar, the Germans
launched operations into the Balkans. They have invaded Yugoslavia, and the
Italians have attacked Greece. Under threat of German invasion, Bulgaria has
joined the Axis, and there is fighting in Greece. This will open that entire
southern front and the enemy will surely deploy there, ready to go into the
Ukraine if so ordered later this year.”

“What can we do about it?”
Gromyko folded his arms, asking the obvious question.

“That is the dilemma. Our power
is redoubled now that you are here. On the sea, we are a force unmatched, but
your question points out the other side of that coin. We cannot stop German
armies when they move on land, not unless we opt for the final solution with
our heavy warheads, and that we have not yet decided. The thought of trying to
prevent an all out nuclear war by starting one here is somewhat unpalatable to
me.”

“I understand, sir.”

“That said, Hitler must be
confronted, somewhere, and we must do what we can to stem the Nazi tide if
possible. I have kept a watch on the Atlantic, discretely, as the Soviet Union
and Germany are not yet at war and we are not eager to change that just yet.
But we have been following the news of the German advance into the Balkans, and
we know where it will inevitably lead.”

“Istanbul,” said Fedorov. “The
Bosporus. Ivan Volkov and the Orenburg Federation has all the oil and the
resources Hitler needs, and once he is finished in the Balkans only Turkey will
stand between him and what he most desires. Germany prevailed in their attack
on Gibraltar, and it has had the effect of bottling up the British in the
Middle East, with a supply line by sea that now must go all the way around the
Cape of Good Hope here, over 12,000 miles long. The war is shifting that way
now, at least for the foreseeable future.”

“And so we will shift with it,”
said Volsky. “The British are set on relieving our watch on the Atlantic. In
fact, they have already done so. The Germans managed to slip a few heavy ships
through—not on my watch—but what does that matter. They now have battleships
based in the French Atlantic ports. Fedorov?”

“
Bismarck
at Brest.
Hindenburg
at Saint Nazaire. They broke out some months ago and evaded the British
pursuit, but they have sat there for some time now, and have not sortied again.
The threat they pose is enough of a danger to the British convoy routes to the
Middle East, but they also have help from the French Navy, which is still
operating from Casablanca.” He told Gromyko how both France and Spain were now
active members of the Axis.

“I thought the Allies took
Casablanca during the war,” said Gromyko.

“In 1942, and only with the
support and assistance of the United States. As it stands, Great Britain has
neither adequate assault shipping, or manpower available to mount an operation
like the Torch offensive that knocked Vichy France out of the war.

“Yes, I suppose that’s a tall
order for Great Britain,” said Gromyko.

“That it is,” said Admiral
Volsky. “Particularly when the Germans hold Gibraltar. There could be no
landings at Oran or Algiers, so the old Operation Torch as we knew it will
probably never occur in this war.”

“Perhaps the British may launch a
limited offensive against French West Africa,” said Fedorov. “But that remains
to be seen.”

“We will learn their immediate
plans for future war operations soon,” said Volsky. “In the meantime, we must
make plans of our own. Germany must not be allowed to build up forces in North
Africa that could pose a grave threat to Egypt, and by all means, they must not
be allowed to secure the Bosporus. They may take Istanbul by land, but they
must never cross that channel into Turkey, nor will any ships be allowed to
carry Ivan Volkov’s oil to the German Reich.”

“Who controls the Crimea?”
Gromyko asked. The place had long been a bastion of Russian naval power, one of
three kings in the hierarchy of the Russian Navy: Murmansk in the north,
Sevastopol in the Crimea, and Vladivostok in the far east.”

“Sergei Kirov and the Soviets
still hold all of Ukraine and the Crimea. In fact, he has invaded the Caucasus,
and there is fighting at Novorossiysk. Volkov has his hands full there, but the
Germans have Bulgaria now, which brings them to the Turkish frontier. They must
not be allowed to establish an overland link with Volkov through Turkey, and I
am afraid that the Turkish Army may not be able to prevent that, which is where
we come into the picture.”

“How so, sir?”

“You can take your boat into the
Mediterranean Sea easily enough. Yes?”

“From here? Through the Suez
Canal?”

“That would mean you would have
to surface to make that transit, and we feel it essential to keep the knowledge
of your presence here a secret at the moment.”

“Agreed,” said Gromyko. “Well I
can go by way of Gibraltar, no matter what the Germans have there.”

“Good enough. We will have to
part company again, but we will stay in coded communication with you.”

“You will not take that route?”

“We could fight our way through,
but at great expense to our SAM inventory if the Germans decide to throw their
Stukas
at us. Thankfully that is not a problem you have with
Kazan
. I see no point
in taking that course when we can just as easily sail north from here and go up
through Suez. This, after all, is our objective, to protect the British
position in Egypt. We will defend the Suez Canal.”

“Alone?”

“With the assistance and support
of the British fleet,” said Fedorov. “At present, however, they have little in
the way of anti-aircraft defenses, limited air power there, few searchlights,
and only one radar. The Germans and Italians are about to finish up in Greece,
much sooner than they did in our history. Once Greece falls, then the Germans
will have good airfields from which they could strike at Crete, North Africa,
Suez, Palestine and the coast of Turkey. With
Kirov
positioned near
Suez, we could put our radar and SAM defenses to good use and make sure the
canal is kept safe.”