Three Kings (Kirov Series) (41 page)

“An eruption sir? We see no sign
of that.”

“Not here, Mister Rodenko. But if
that island erupted in the future it could have sent that ship through a time rift.”

“Ah, I understand sir.” Rodenko
looked back at his screen. The reason Volsky had ordered battle stations was
now quite evident. If this ship came from the same world they had left behind,
it was their mortal enemy.

“Well,” said Volsky. “They must
be having a conversation very similar to this one on their bridge right now.
Let us see if we can diffuse what could quickly become a most unfortunate
engagement, because if they fire on this ship, I will be forced to do the same.
Mister Nikolin?”

“Chief says no unusual reading or
maintenance procedures, sir.”

“Very well. Send a message using
standard NATO frequencies and format. Identify us as the Russian battlecruiser
Kirov
,
and request weapons tight for parley. And get a message to HMS
Invincible
on a secure channel. I want to speak with Admiral Tovey as well.”

“Parley?”

“Yes, gentlemen. The first
defensive system we initiate will be our words and human reason. That failing,
we get what we have been sailing in all these many months at sea, the madness
of war.”

* * *

“Incoming
message, sir!”

“What is it Mister Thomas?”
Captain Gordon MacRae was not expecting this.

“It’s using standard NATO format,
sir—a request for open communications link from… the battlecruiser
Kirov!”

The surprise redoubled.
“Kirov?
That was the bloody ship Elena had told him about, the Russian behemoth that
had been raising hell, moving in time, wreaking havoc on the history.

“Mother of god,” he breathed.
“What is that thing doing here in the Mediterranean? Mister Dean, kindly ask
Miss Fairchild to come to the bridge, and state we have a most unusual
situation at hand—an emergency.”

“Aye sir.”

“Mister Thomas. Open
communications, and put it on the bridge intercom. The ship’s personnel will
stand to, all systems.”

The alarm sounded, and that would
put some fire in Fairchild’s feet, thought MacRae. In the meantime, he looked
to his radar man. “Well that explains it, doesn’t it?”

They had also picked up the
electronic signature of the Russian ship, and had been debating what it meant,
just as Volsky had predicted. Now the truth was unequivocally clear when
Nikolin’s voice came over the ship’s intercom.

“Kirov to any ship bearing
SAMPSON radar. Do you copy? This is a comm-link from Admiral of the Fleet,
Leonid Volsky, requesting weapons tight for parley.”

“The big brass is aboard,” said
MacRae. “And they want to chat before we start lobbing missiles at each other.
Fair enough. Get Mack Morgan up here as well, and signal go ahead
Kirov
,
standing by.”

“Aye sir.”

Fairchild was through the back hatch,
up from the executive suite, her eyes wondering what was amiss. She could see
the earnest attention of the bridge crew to their systems. MacRae was sitting
in the blue Captain’s chair, and Executive Officer Dean was standing right
behind him. A medic crowded in behind her, offering a brief salute before
taking up his post.

“The ship, mum,” said MacRae.
“That Russian monster you’ve been talking about.”

“Kirov?
Here?”

“About 370 kilometers due west at
the moment by our latest reading, just inside our maximum radar coverage zone.
They want to parley, but shall I get the X-3’s armed and airborne in case
manners fail us here?”

Elena thought quickly.
Kirov,
Geronimo,
It was right here! Could this be the reason Admiral Tovey had
encoded this date and time for their displacement to the past? Were they meant
to find and deal with this ship, once and for all. She knew that
Kirov
was a well armed, deadly opponent if it came to a battle. The side that fired
first would have great advantage. Now she realized that the men aboard that
ship must be as surprised to find
Argos Fire
here as she was. They were
standing like a pair of gunslingers at fifty paces, and if she launched those
X-3s it might give them more weapons to put in play, but it would also be like
a man slowly moving aside his overcoat to expose the sidearm on his hip.

“Have they launched helicopters?”

“No mum. They’ve requested
weapons tight.”

“Then no movement on the X-3s.”

“Admiral Volsky aboard the Russian
battlecruiser Kirov requesting weapons tight and parley. Please identify
yourself and respond, over.”

“Announce ourselves, Mister
Thomas,” said Elena. Then she leaned in to MacRae. “If it comes to a fight
here, what are our chances?”

He just looked at her. “It won’t
be pleasant, for either side.”

“Sir,” said Healy at radar.
“Getting many more seaborne returns now. Surface contacts just west of the
primary, but no IFF signatures.”

“No signatures? How many
contacts?”

“A good number. I read two ships,
close by the primary. Five airborne contacts, then multiple ships in column.
I’m reading at least twenty ships, more resolving as we approach.”

Argos Fire
was moving at
30 knots due west now, as MacRae had turned to investigate the IFF contact some
ten minutes earlier. “But No IFF data? That’s odd.” He looked at Elena,
explaining.

“We’ve got clear electronics
signatures on the one ship, Fregat 3D radar system as we read it. Now we’re
just coming into better range and it appears there’s quite an armada out there.
I’m not sure what to make if it. None of the other ships are emitting
electronic signatures that can reach us, but they could be running dark and
leaving that work to the flagship.”

“You think this is an entire
Russian battlegroup? That can’t be possible.”

“Then our wolf is out there
cavorting with the sheep, mum. It might have been attacking a convoy, and then
up we come, the unexpected sheep dog.”

“Any sign of that? Could we tell
if there was combat underway out there?”

“Aye, we’d see it on radar, but
there’s no indication of any missile fires underway. It looks to be one big
happy family out there.”

Elena rubbed her hands together,
always cold, even in temperate climes.
Kirov, Geronimo,
steaming with a
group of many ships that had to be from this era. What was this about?

“Identify us as
Argos Fire,
Royal Navy. Then confirm parley request,” she said. “Ask identification on
those other ships. Let’s see what we can find out.”

“Aye mum,” said Thomas, and he
returned the message.

“Senior Lieutenant Nikolin
here, speaking for Admiral Volsky. We have patched in a third party. Standby.”

The wait seemed interminable,
then a voice came, quiet but firm, and the sound of it seemed to strike a tone
of reason and authority. Her heart leapt when she heard the name.

“HMS Argos Fire, this is
Admiral John Tovey aboard HMS Invincible, fleet flagship. I am now commanding
His Majesty’s Mediterranean Fleet. Sorry to say we haven’t made your
acquaintance, Argos Fire. But we request an immediate rendezvous. Over.”

My god, thought Elena. John
Tovey! He was here, now, at this very moment. Then this was why this date and
time had been chosen. But what was Tovey doing cruising with
Geronimo?

“That’s the man who signed off on
the message in that box?”

“It appears so,” said Elena taking
a deep breath, and feeling like the weight of the entire world had just been
taken off her shoulders. Tovey was the legendary founder of the Watch, but that
was in 1942. It was 1941 now, and none of that may have happened. But it was
Tovey’s order that sent her here, so she would wait to find out what had
happened, elated, a feeling of great relief sweeping over her.

“Give my name and indicate my
present post as Watchstander G1, code
Geronimo.
Then ask them if we are
to consider the Russian ship as friend or foe.” She waited while the message
was sent.

Far to the west, Tovey heard the
voice and smiled, though he did not know why. Watchstander G1? The words struck
some deep inner chord in him, but he could not quite hear it, a distant memory,
stubbornly just beyond his reach. But that other word,
Geronimo…
This he
knew quite well. It was boldly labeled on that strange hidden file box Turing
had found, and typewritten all through the contents. Admiral Volsky had just
told him that this was another ship from his time, from the future. My God, he
thought. King Arthur has come back from Avalon, and in the nick of time.

Argos Fire
soon received
his message.
“All is well, Argos Fire. All friends here. We request a
rendezvous in the Gulf of
Chania
. Over.”

Mack Morgan had come up, and he
was listening in, amazed. “All well and good, mum,” he said. “But I must tell
you that the Royal Navy had no ship by that name active in 1941. The last ship
to bear that name was sunk at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.”

“Oh? Well, then we’re in for a
surprise, and I suppose they are as well. Signal confirmation on that
rendezvous request. Tell them we’ll be waiting for them…. with bells on!”

Chapter 35

The
man was getting his Arabs
and Indians mixed up, thought Popski. What was all this rubbish about an Apache
Sultan? What was all that about guard towers and oil rigs? He gave Fedorov a
frustrated look.

“Well I’ve told him the whole
lot, but you’ve completely lost me with all of this. They’re no Indians or oil
rigs out here. Why would you tell him that? How would that rubbish solve
anything?”

“Bear with me, Popski. What does
he say?”

“Alright,” said Kinlan. “Mister
Simpson. Send to the back of the column and have three vehicles from the rear
guard troop return and report on the condition of the Sultan Apache facility.
I’ll meet this Russian Captain half way. At the moment I have business to
attend to, but I’ll continue this when I get my report.” The General left to
consult with his staff, and they were left alone, watched by a pair of helmeted
British soldiers.

“He’s given the order to check on
that Sultan Indian fellow, whoever that might be. What are you two talking
about here?”

Fedorov gave Popski a sympathetic
look. This was going to be the fate of any man alive now who ever came into
contact with men of this unit, and realized the truth. They would all stand and
stare amazed, some dumbstruck with awe, like Cortez, silent upon a peak in
Darien, as Keats would put it. Others would stare in disbelief, until the hard
steel reality of these men from a distant time was driven home with the shock
and fire of war. The Germans and Italians would get the worst of it, for here
was a mighty champion that would soon come to the field of battle and weigh
heavily in the equation of this war.

And yet, thought Fedorov, they
were mortal men, not demigods, and their power and influence on events here
would not be without limits. This was the realization that he had faced on the
ship as they watched their missile count diminish, one by one. Once
Kirov
fired the last of its Moskit-IIs, and the inventory of SAMs was gone, it was
nothing more than a veiled threat, toothless, though the appearance of the ship
on an enemy’s horizon might be seen as a shadow of imminent doom.

The same thing would happen here
with these men. They would begin with power that seemed overwhelming to any foe
they encountered. A German light Panzer II could do nothing whatsoever to
bother one of these modern new tanks.

And yet, the tanks would store
little more than 50 rounds of their deadly 120mm ammunition. This brigade would
likely have considerable replacement stores, but Fedorov knew they were finite.
Once the ammunition was gone the tank would just be an impregnable moving pill
box. It was 1941, and this was going to be a very long war. In the end, Fedorov
knew the power this brigade could wield could be decisive in any given
engagement, but it would be a rock in the stream of this war, stalwart,
invincible, yet unable to stem the full flood of the madness WWII eventually
became. Entire cities were destroyed in single bombing raids here, a
conflagration never seen in modern warfare, where casualty rates dropped
precipitously.

The US lost 4487 soldiers in the
ten year war they fought in Iraq. On the first day of the Normandy invasion,
they would lose 2500, and go on to lose 29,000 before that campaign concluded,
with another 11,000 British deaths and 30,000 Germans. And though very
significant, that battle was not decisive. The fight would continue in the
Market Garden campaign, the Battle of the Bulge, and the battles fought to
cross the Rhine before Germany finally was beaten.

The loss of a division or two
here would not stop the German war machine. The Germans lost well over half a
million men at Stalingrad and still fight on. The Russians lost over a million
there. This Brigade could win any engagement it fought while its ammunition
lasted, but that was the end of it. The effect its presence here would have on
the war itself would depend entirely on how, where, and when
its
awesome power was used.

Now he thought of Karpov, ever
seeking that decisive moment in history to bring the full might of
Kirov’s
weapons to the cauldron of war. Karpov may have been misguided, selfish and
headstrong, but in one thing he was correct.
Kirov
was a lever that
could move a mountain if placed at precisely the right place, its tremendous
power fully applied. Even now Admiral Volsky was thinking to decide the balance
of naval power in the Mediterranean Sea in one decisive battle. The same would
apply here with this brigade. But would even this be enough? How would the
Germans react? Might they send even more troops and material to challenge this
new foe, or initiate vast new programs to gain these new “wonder weapons” for
their own use?