Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) (10 page)

Major
Isaac folded his arms, frowning. He knew Kinlan to be a competent, no-nonsense
man. For this to be coming from him was the hardest blow. There was no way in
hell that the man he had known and served under for the last three years would
concoct such a story. Not now, not here, with the whole damn brigade strung out
in column of march and the missiles lighting up the sky. No. Kinlan wasn’t mad,
nor drunk, nor groggy with sleep. He was standing there, plain as day, and
telling him this was 1941! Bloody World War Two!

“Add it
up for me, Major. Sims and I have gone round and round with it for the last two
hours. I spent four hours with this O’Connor and by god if he isn’t the real
thing I’m a goat. Then Lieutenant Horton says the stars are all wrong. The moon
was wrong last night, or did you happen to notice that? You explain it! Then,
when you have it all figured out, you tell me how I’m going to explain it to the
men…”

There
was a long silence, and in that stillness Isaac realized this was Kinlan’s real
burden now. Could he have this conversation with every man in the brigade? They
had been out here for months, away from home, knowing now that the lives of all
their loved ones were in dire jeopardy. If the missiles were flying here, they
were damn well lighting up the skies over London as well.

Major
Isaac sat down, a distant, vacant look in his eyes, his expression blank, and
almost lifeless. The pallor of his cheeks betrayed the awful strain they had
all been under, battle ready, the whole brigade wound tight like a watch
spring, under ballistic missile attack, and buttoned up in their vehicles these
last 48 hours, knowing the war to end all wars had finally begun in earnest.
Every man among them had the image of someone back home in his head, wondering
now whether any of them were still alive, wondering what lay ahead for them, or
whether they would even make it to Mersa Matruh alive before another missile
came at them and the Aster 3 system was not good enough to save them this time.

“No
answers?” Kinlan left the question out there, but he could see the defeated
look on the Major’s face, and relented. “I didn’t have any either, Bob, so
don’t feel bad. You think I bought this story hook, line and sinker without
smelling the fish first? There was only one explanation that accounts for all
these anomalies and makes any sense—Sultan Apache, the stars all wrong, this
fellow calling himself General O’Connor, not to mention Wavell on the bloody
radio chewing my ear. We’ve no satellite links, nothing on any command level
channel, but plenty on the AM and FM bands. And guess what, it’s all news of
the war, the last big war, news of Rommel in the desert, and Wavell’s last
stand at Sidi Barani. And then there’s that Italian infantry unit down south at
Giarabub. I scouted the damn thing myself. There’s a stack of photos right
there on the desk, and Sims and I spent the last hour with them. So call me
crazy, and yes, this whole thing sounds completely insane, but there it is. You
think I’d make a fool of myself like this? Here? Now? Not bloody likely.”

Sims
scratched his head. “Look, General, there’s only one thing to do here. Reality
has a way of rearing up like a stone fence, no matter what we think of it. I
say we head north as planned. There will either be RoRo ships waiting for us at
Mersa Matruh… Or we’ll run into Rommel and his Afrika Korps.”

“And
the men? Am I going to have to go through this with the whole rank and file one
by one? I thought the very same thing the Major did here—that the Russians were
up to no good. But that didn’t explain away any of the hard evidence we
uncovered.”

“You
could say nothing of this,” said Sims. “If it’s all a fairy tale then the road
north will hopefully be uneventful. But I’d suggest we keep the air defense
units on full alert.”

“And if
it’s not a fairy tale? What if the Russians were telling us the truth and it
is
1941?”

“Then
woe betide General Rommel,” Sims smiled. “That’s the wall I was talking about,
sir. He’s either out there as we speak, or not. Time will tell. It’s as plain
as that. As to the men… We do an all points signal and notify all units. You
get on and lay it all out. Tell them there’s been an anomaly, some odd effect of
that ICBM attack, and we’re looking at some unanswerable questions. Tell them
what the Russians said about it, preposterous as that sounds. Yes, they’ll have
a good laugh, and you can laugh right along with them. But then tell them we’re
going north, and if, by any chance, we do run into the German Army… Well tell
them they’ll know what to do about it. Yes sir. Let them find out as we do, by
heading north and walking right up to that wall if it’s there. Things will sort
themselves out after that, I can assure you.”

Kinlan
nodded gravely, his eyes tormented, yet knowing that was the only course they
could take. “Major?”

Isaac
shrugged, shaking his head. “By all means,” he said half heartedly. “We go
north as Sims says. At least that way we all become fools at the same time, and
no one can point a finger at anyone else and call him a madman. We all just go
stark raving mad together. Shall we?”

“Very
well,” said Kinlan. “I’ll want to brief all battalion commanders here
personally. Have they arrived yet?”

“They’re
all here sir,” said his Chief of Staff, Sims, “waiting just up the line with
the artillery.”

“We’ll
bring them in on this shortly, and we’ll have to throw the same bucket of ice
water in their faces that I just dumped on Major Isaac here. I’ll want them ready
for anything when we move north. But first I’ll want senior staff briefed on
this, and on our planned movement north in the next 24 hours.”

“We’re
taking the whole brigade?” Sims had one last question.

“No,
I’m sending the Gurkha Light Infantry Battalion to Siwa, just in case those
really were Italian infantry in those photos. They certainly weren’t Egyptian
Army, and they certainly weren’t Berbers. This Fergusson fellow at Siwa might
be glad to have a little company. The rest of the mechanized elements move
north. But I’ll want to know what we’re up against, one way or another. We have
no idea what’s really going on—no reliable sit-rep.”

“What
about that Russian Helicopter?”

“My
thoughts exactly,” said Kinlan. “Gentlemen, I think it’s time you met this
Russian Captain that Reeves rounded up out here… and someone else.”

* * *

Fedorov
had struggled for some time with
everything that was happening, and Popski did not have to work too hard at
finding out what was going on. Fedorov realized that if he were to communicate
here in any way that could be convincing, he would have to rely on Popski for
the moment. The man would simply have to know what was happening, who they
were, yet he felt a deep reluctance to reveal the information. Something told
him that they wanted to keep this secret for as long as possible, but here he
was, in the midst of an entire armored brigade from the year 2021. They were
going to be pulled into the maelstrom of this war, and there was nothing he
could do about that. They were going to know—a few key officers at the outset,
yet all the rest in due course. They were
all
going to know, but what
chaos was he now about to unleash upon this world?

He had
worried about contaminating the time line, cracking that pristine mirror of
history. Look at the damage they had already done! Their homeland was shattered
in civil war, a circumstance that now made the prospect of a German victory in
WWII very likely. He had long since abandoned any hope that they might ever get
the history back on track again. It was broken beyond repair. There were now
simply too many men who must know why, and that knowledge would spread like a
fatal illness and contaminate this whole world.

What
should he do? He wished he had Admiral Volsky here, or Director Kamenski, and
he remained haunted by the dreadful, aching feeling that he had been
responsible for the hell they had unleashed upon this world. Every instinct in
his body was screaming at him to be silent, to hold the secret within, but how
could he do this with these men here? They were going north and in another 24
hours they were going to learn a very hard truth, one with or without his
intervention. That fact alone decided his course. He could not stop what was
about to happen. He could no longer hold back the flood—the dam of secrecy was
breaking, but what he could do was try to open the sluice gates slowly. He
could try to channel and guide what happened next, as best he could.

It was
his doing, he thought. Admiral Volsky wasn’t here, and Director Kamenski wasn’t
here, so this was all on his shoulders now. It was up to him.

“Alright,
Popski,” he said just as Sims was waving them to approach. “You are going to
hear some things now that will sound unbelievable, but bear with me. I tried my
best to speak with General O’Connor earlier, but I will need you to translate
here now, and this is of critical importance. Stay with me, believe in me, and
do your best.”

“Alright,
Captain. I’ve had my notions that something was amiss here, but you have your
say.”

“Popski…”
Fedorov gave him a long look. “You might think I’m making a fool of myself, and
you in the bargain here, but I assure you, everything you are about to hear is
the truth.”

The
truth… a terrible truth. A secret about to be revealed that could shake this
world to the core. That was how Fedorov began his briefing, feeling the awful
weight grow heavier on him with each word he spoke.

“I will
see the unbelief in your eyes,” he said with Popski translating. “And yes, I
know that you may look upon me as your enemy, though I offer my hand in
friendship now, and I speak to you with absolute fidelity and sincerity. Yet
the information I must now disclose is critical, the darkest secret the world
has ever known. I do not use these words lightly. Secret. Yes, My ship and crew
have lived with the burden that word implies since the accident I will soon reveal
to you—a mishap that changed the course of history itself. Only one man among
us is entirely convinced that he has his feet firmly planted in the here and
now—General O’Connor. He will tell you to a certainty that this is the year
1941, and you must believe him, as I have had to believe this same terrible
truth. Yet he now struggles to believe that we now stand here like dark angels
from another world, with weapons and power at our disposal unlike anything this
world has ever seen.”

He
looked from one officer to another now, seeing various reactions in the eyes of
the men, and when his gaze fell on O’Connor he felt an upwelling of compassion
for the man. The innocence of his life was now forever gone. He would never be
the same man again after hearing all this.

“Yes,”
Fedorov continued, “that is how many might perceive us. This world may not be able
to hear what you must now hear and know. The collective arms of every soul on
this earth may not be able to hold what you must now grasp. Can you imagine it?
This knowledge is, in itself, a force of chaos and terrible power. My crew
learned all of this the hard way, in the fire of combat. Your men, each and
every one, will soon learn the same way. Yet though it was easy to contain this
terrible knowledge on a single ship, hidden in the vast oceans of the world,
that will not be the case here if this brigade goes north, as it certainly must
in the hours ahead.”

He
looked at them, an almost pleading look on his face. “But anything we can do to
limit the general knowledge of what you learn here is of the greatest
importance. In war there are secrets—we all know this. Weapons will be built,
forces moved and gathered in secrecy, plans devised and sprung into motion.
Secrecy is no stranger to the war fighter. Lives depend on it. The hope of
victory over a determined and dangerous enemy requires it. But in this we face
the hard task of denying even those we fight for the full knowledge of who we
are, and where we have come from—a future that was again wracked in the throes
of an all consuming war. Well, I have seen the end of it, as I will soon
relate. I have seen the place we were all condemned to, the purgatory, the hell
of our own making, and I have been struggling here to prevent that enmity and
war from ever taking shape—the war that will follow this one as surely as night
follows day. And yet we must struggle on in the shadows, gentlemen, even though
we few will be the sole carriers of this light of truth, and we will bear a
very hard burden as we do so.”

He
could see that some of the officers were following him, others waiting for more
clarity, still others with expressions of disbelief and suspicion, but he
struggled on.

“Some
men of this world must know what I will now reveal, a chosen few who find
themselves entrusted with the fate of all those they now guide and command in
this war. Up until this moment only two men in this world have come to learn
this truth. General O’Connor here is the third, and soon we will have to
welcome General Wavell to this dark circle. Yet, as I will now tell you, the
force inherent in this knowledge can tear this world apart. It is fantastic,
unbelievable, terrible, but nonetheless true. And we are now watchers on a
crumbling wall of secrecy that hold the full fury of this knowledge from the
innocence of this world. If it breaks, if we break, and this truth were to
become generally known… I fear the fabric of history, perhaps even the fabric
of human society itself, might be rent asunder and lost forever. And what world
would it give rise to? This will be our responsibility, because Destiny now
lies prostrate at our feet. Fate waits at our beck and call, and gentlemen, Time
itself has lost her cold hard grip upon our souls. We are men unlike any others
who have ever walked this earth, and we must measure that, stand up now, and
act accordingly.”