Three Kings (Kirov Series) (40 page)

It would be good if I could
somehow spare both Kinlan and O’Connor the shock and confusion of everything we
went through to get this far on this amazing journey. Then he thought of
something he could do that would make a very strong argument with Kinlan.
Something very simple.

All he had to do was convince him
to look over his shoulder!

Brigadier Kinlan gave Popski a
frown as he turned from his Staff Officer. “This is already wearing out my
patience,” he said. “Now, I’ll give you one more chance to tell me what you are
really doing out here, and if I get any more of your nonsense, Major, I’ll lock
you and this whole troop up for good! You’re standing there wearing a British
soldier’s uniform you must have dug up at a surplus store, and you think you
can make me believe your regular army? Alright, have it your way. You know what
happens to enemy combatants found behind lines, particularly someone trying to
pose as one of our boys?”

Popski had a look of shock on his
face, but before he could say anything Fedorov tugged urgently on his arm.
“Major, he said quickly. “I need to speak with this officer, and I need you to
translate everything I say, faithfully, and without question. Can you do that?”

“I’d just as soon give him a
piece of my own mind,” said Popski in Russian, “rank or no rank. The man is
going bonkers on us if he thinks we’re his enemy. What’s gotten into him? He’s
no British General I’ve ever heard of, nor have I ever seen anything like this
lot here!” He gestured to the vehicles still passing them in a long, steady
column.

“I
need
you now, Popski.
This is urgent. I must speak with this man. Can you translate? You may not
understand any of what I will now say, but just translate. I’ll explain it all
to you later, but consider this discussion top secret, something known only to
the very highest placed officers in your military. Believe this. I was with
Wavell and Admiral Tovey, and privy to things you will not have heard, but I
must trust you now. Can you do this?”

“Well get on with it then,” said
Popski, a dejected look on his face, arms folded, eyes dark with his rising
temper.

“Very well… Please tell the
General that…”

How should he begin? He was about
to try and give this man the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the
heartache of a thousand natural shocks, the whips and scorns of time. But he
had to do something, so he led with the one suit he knew was long in his hand.

“Tell the General that I regret
the attack on his position, and hope that it was not my countrymen who were
responsible.”

Popski frowned. “It’ll take a bit
more than a nice apology,” he said to Fedorov in Russian.

“Popski! Don’t think now. Don’t
even listen. Just translate as faithfully as you can. This is critical!”

“Very well, don’t get your
britches in a wad. We’ve enough trouble here as it stands.” Then he translated
as Fedorov continued.

“Tell him that my men had no
mission here associated with that missile strike, and I ask him to believe
that. We were here to find and rescue the man his scout troop has just found,
but I must now ask him to do one thing that will help explain this entire
situation.”

Half a minute later Brigadier
Kinlan spoke again. “Sounding a bit better. Yet I fail to comprehend why
Russian Marines would be interested in finding a British General, except to
capture him.”

“I understand that would be your
view,” said Fedorov, “but again, I ask you to do one thing that will help
explain everything here. The situation is very critical.”

“It doesn’t get much more
critical when the nukes start flying,” said Kinlan darkly. “Alright, what is
your request, Captain?”

“Do you still have vehicles near
the Sultan Apache facilities?”

“What? We’re nearly ten
kilometers outside the perimeter here. You don’t think I was going to sit there
and wait for another missile, do you?”

“What does he mean—missile?” said
Popski. “Is he talking about those rockets of yours?”

“Just translate!” This time
Fedorov put some iron in his tone, and Popski shrugged.

“Tell him there is no further
missile threat. Tell him I guarantee this absolutely.”

“You guarantee it?” Kinlan
smiled. “Just who are you now, the Commander of the Russian Strategic Missile
Troops? The Devil’s Apprentice, are you?”

Popski translated that, though he
had absolutely no idea what it meant. The primary Russian ICBM was still the
deadly RS-20B ballistic missile, called “Satan” by Western analysts. Their
commander was known as the Devil’s Apprentice in intelligence circles, but
Fedorov smiled.

“No sir, I am not that man. I am
Anton Fedorov, Captain of the First Rank, battlecruiser
Kirov
, and I ask
you to do one thing now. Send the closest vehicle you have to Sultan Apache.
You will find the entire sector completely undamaged.”

“That’s because we got your damn
missile,” said Kinlan quickly. “Battlecruiser
Kirov?
You mean that
Russian ship that went missing out of Severomorsk last July and then turned up
in the Pacific? We thought you tangled with the wrong people and went down off
the coast of Japan some weeks ago.”

“No sir, the ship is sound,
seaworthy, and at sea in the Mediterranean, as the presence of that KA-40 there
testifies. We lifted off with my Marine contingent from the fantail of that
battlecruiser.”

“Just as I thought,” Kinlan
smiled. “Yet I find it hard to believe your ship made it into the Med. How
would you get there? Our side would have seen any move like that easily
enough.”

Popski could see that these two
men seemed to share a common understanding of what they were talking about, but
it was as if they were speaking an entire different language, so he just
translated as well as he could.

“I will ask you to humor me,
then,” said Fedorov, “because here I stand, and I am, indeed, the Captain of
that ship. Now… will you send a reconnaissance to Sultan Apache?”

“What for?” Kinlan folded his
arms, head cocked sideways, his battle helmet shading his eyes.

“Because I can tell you exactly
what you will find there,” said Fedorov. “Nothing. There will be no perimeter
wire. No guard towers, no roads, no buildings, facilities, oil drilling
equipment—nothing. There will be nothing there but unblemished desert, and it
will not be because anything was destroyed by another missile. You would have
seen that, even through this storm. Do this, and you will have your hand on the
beginning of an answer that will sort this whole mess out. Trust me, General,
officer to officer, man to man, in spite of what has happened these last nine
days. You’ll find nothing back there but blowing sand and desert scrub. Sultan Apache
is gone, and once your people confirm this, I will tell you why.”

Part XII

Impossible

“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible
things before breakfast.”

―
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Chapter 34

The
fleet was a full day
out of Alexandria, now steaming about 200 kilometers west of Crete. They could
make only 20 knots at best, which was just under the full speed of the older
Queen
Elizabeth
class battleships, and that stately warrior was in the lead position
of the main column, followed by
Warspite
and
Malaya
.
Invincible
was 2000 yards off the port side, with the heavy cruisers in attendance, and
Kirov
bringing up the rear as an escort to the two British carriers.

A flight of
Fulmar
fighters was up providing top cover, though Admiral Volsky had told Tovey he
could adequately defend the airspace over the fleet. “Use your fighters to
defend any strike aircraft you may have,” he said. “If they get mixed up in a
dogfight over the fleet, our missiles could find them in that confusion.”

So it was decided that, on
spotting the enemy fleet, the two carriers would launch the 18
Swordfish
as a fleet strike asset, protected by the bulk of their fighters.
Kirov
would provide early warning with her long range radars effective out to 300
kilometers, and Lieutenant Yazov was on radar that day watching his screen for
any sign of enemy activity. He was suddenly surprised by a warning light on a
subsystem that identified known incoming radar signatures, yet he thought it certainly
had to be a false signal. His reflex was to tap the screen, as if this simple
gesture would cure the problem, but it persisted, so he reported.

“Radar signature?” said Rodenko,
who had the con. “On the IFF module?”

“Yes sir,” said Yazov sheepishly.
“It is reading for a Marine Navigation radar on the I-Band, and NATO encoded E
and F band as well. But look sir, I’m getting IFF identification now.”

Rodenko was an old hand at radar,
and he immediately knew what he was looking at, but it made no sense, and his
first thought was that it must be a glitch or after effect from the many time
displacements that left their system dazed for hours after they moved. This was
reading for the British SAMPSON long range AESA Air Defense radar, a kind of
phased array system used by modern Royal navy vessels, particularly the newer
Type 45 Destroyers.

“Some difficulty?” said Admiral
Volsky as he came onto the bridge, the men all standing and saluting as he was
announced.”

“Welcome back, Admiral,” said
Rodenko. “It seems we have a little mystery on our hands.”

“We’ve certainly had nothing else
since we left Severomorsk,” said Volsky. “What is it this time?”

“Well sir, we just got painted by
a radar common to the British Type 45 Destroyer class.”

That got Volsky’s attention
immediately. “Type 45?”

“Yes sir, but I have no sub-line
signature. The entire electronic suite is lining up on that IFF resolution, and
I’m definitely reading two rotating planar arrays. That’s unique to the Type 45
SAMPSON.”

Most other modern phased array
systems used multiple arrays for constant 360 degree coverage, but the SAMPSON
used only two, and they rotated at 30 revolutions per minute in the spherical
dome high atop the characteristic tall main superstructure of the ship.

“An error, Mister Rodenko?”

“Possibly sir, but now I have
confirmation from both our long range systems, and simultaneous failure of both
systems is not likely. We’re definitely getting a phased array radar signal,
sir. Our IFF module could be defaulting to this interpretation, but it
seemes
fairly certain.”

“Phased array? Here? What other
ship could possibly have such technology. This makes no sense.”

Volsky came over to the radar
console to see for himself, though he was not entirely sure what he was looking
at. Radar applications had never been his strong suit, but Rodenko was one of
the very best in the fleet.

“I could try to challenge that
system and see what happens. It is fairly well impervious to jamming, but if
this is a false positive from a local radar set from this time period, we’ll
jam it easily.”

“Make it so,” said Volsky, arms
folded as he waited.

“Mister Yazov.” Rodenko passed
the order to his radar watchstander, and he keyed the jamming challenge. It
should have blotted out any radar of this era with little difficulty,
particularly as Rodenko had tuned the system to hit typical bandwidths used in
WWII. But seconds later the IFF was again protesting that the ship was
receiving a phased array signal. Rodenko gave Volsky a look that spoke volumes,
real concern in his eyes now.

Volsky hesitated, for the barest
moment, then he gave a series of orders that were deadly serious given his tone
of voice, though he maintained a calm demeanor.

“The ship will come to full
battle stations immediately,” he said. “Mister Nikolin, please call Chief
Dobrynin and ask him if there has been any unusual flux event in the reactor
core. Has he run any rod maintenance procedure in recent hours?”

“Aye sir.”

“What are you thinking, Admiral?”
Rodenko asked.

“The impossible again,” said
Volsky. “Either our electronics are having a nice laugh with this little joke
today, or there is a British Type 45 class destroyer out there somewhere
painting us with this radar signal. That can mean only two things. Either we
have moved again, subtly, without our even realizing it, or…”

The second alternative was
obvious, but inexplicable. “I don’t see how a Type 45 could be here, sir. That
is if we still remain in 1941, which seems most likely. I have solid returns on
all the other ships in the British fleet. They are right here with us.”

“Yes? Well it would be a stretch,
but we have pulled things along with us before during a time displacement.”

“A torpedo, sir, and a small
fishing trawler when the
Anatoly Alexandrov
moved, but we’re talking
about an entire fleet here, several hundred thousand tons of material. I doubt
that we could move that kind of mass.”

“As do I,” said Volsky, “and I
know Dobrynin will tell me he has stowed those control rods away, but I must
check every possibility to be certain. Yes, the presence of the other British
ships is quite telling, but could there be a modern British warship here? Where
is this signal originating from?”

“Due east, sir, and given the
maximum range of the SAMPSON system, it could be no father east than
Santorini.”

“Santorini?” That name was
familiar to Volsky. If Fedorov were here he would have picked up on it as well.
“Santorini is a volcanic caldera, is it not?”

“I believe so, Admiral.”

“Then we may just have an
explanation. Let us not forget where the Demon volcano sent this ship of late.”