Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series) (18 page)

The news had also come in on
signals traffic that confirmed Volkov’s treachery. Six divisions had crossed
the western border. The 17th, 21st and 11th Orenburg divisions were all pushing
for Omsk. South of that city, the 9th, 22nd Air Mobile and 15th divisions had
crossed the border in a drive towards the Ob river line positions near Barnaul.
At least four more airships had crossed there on overwatch, and all he had to
oppose them near Barnaul was old
Krasny
. The men in the Aero Corps
called it Big Red, due to the dull red tarp used on its outer shell. It’s real
name was the
Krasnoyarsk
, and he knew that he would now either have to
pull that airship out of there or Big Red would likely be a flaming wreck
within 48 hours.

The third airship he had been
watching for seemed very close on radar, then it withdrew north, possibly
discouraged when they saw
Abakan
was on to them and heading their way,
or so he thought. Then he got the news that there were Grey Legionnaires on the
ground and attacking Ilanskiy, and he turned
Abakan
about, heading back
to the town.

He followed the action closely on
radio, learning of
Angara’s
fate, alive but unable to maneuver and out
of the fight. When the
Oskemen
doubled back to lend fire support to the
Legionnaires on the ground, he pressed
Abakan
into a rapid descent,
intent on getting down there to engage. When he arrived, however, the matter
had already been settled. The sight of the flaming duralumin skeleton and the
wreckage of the
Oskemen
on the ground gave him heart. We took down two
of Volkov’s airships!

Three hours later he was on the
ground, his mood considerably darkened as he stared at another pile of
wreckage, this time at the site of the railway inn.

How did Volkov know, he asked
himself? That was obviously why he risked those airships and all his men here
today—to get a demolition team in here and take out that back stairway.

“What happened to my guards
here?” He could see no bodies.

“Sir,” said a nearby Lieutenant.
“The heavy platoon you sent relieved them and took over this position.”

“Heavy platoon?” Karpov gave him
a strange look.

“Yes sir. They were the ones who
took down that second zeppelin. Damn thing was giving us hell, and they just
blasted it from the sky. When can my men get their hands on those weapons,
sir?”

What was this man talking about?
Karpov questioned the  Lieutenant further and soon got a description of the men
from this platoon, which struck a hard chord in him.

“These men,” he said quickly,
“they all wore this black camouflage uniform? And did you see any unit
designation?”

The Lieutenant thought, then he
remembered the odd shoulder patch he had seen. “Yes sir. It read ‘Maritime
Infantry,’ a symbol of a ship’s anchor, gold on black.”

“And above that a white skull
wearing a black beret?”

“Yes sir. That was it! They said
they were a special unit, sent to assume this post under your direct orders. I
didn’t know we had such men. They were fearsome. Stopped that zeppelin with two
shots!”

Karpov’s eyes narrowed. Maritime
Infantry, he thought, the Black Death! My God, that was Troyak and his naval
Marines! Who else could knock down an airship like the
Oskemen
with two
shots? They must have used shoulder fired SAMs, or even heavy anti-tank
weapons. Damn! Volsky and Fedorov were behind this. Who else? The men reported
spotting a parachute operation before this ground assault. Did they come here
aboard the
Oskemen?
Were they working with Volkov now?

Then he remembered that third
airship, the one he had detected and approached in the heat of the battle.
There had suddenly been odd interference on his radio sets and the Topaz radar
system went completely bonkers. That was it! Jammers! They must have come
aboard that third ship. Symenko said he had no knowledge of it, and I’ll soon
revisit that question with him. If this is so, then it was either a third ship
sent by Volkov… No! Now he remembered the letter Volkov had sent him.
Kirov
was spotted at Murmansk. So perhaps they came on one of the Soviet airships.
They still had two or three airships up north. It’s the only thing that made
any sense. How would Troyak and his men be working with Volkov with
Kirov
all nice and cozy in Murmansk?... Unless that letter was a lie, and meant to
misdirect me.

Now the scene of the demolished
back stairway took on a whole new meaning. Fedorov, he thought. But how would
he know about those stairs? His damn history books, that’s how. He must have
dug something up.

He gritted his teeth, a disgusted
look on his face, and no one around him wanted to meet his eye. The scar on his
cheek seemed just a little more twisted and evil looking, and his eyes
smoldered with inner anger.

“Lieutenant!” he said sharply.

“Sir!”

“Take as many men as you need and
go house to house. Turn out everyone in this village and find me the man who
owns that railway inn.” He pointed a thin finger at the wreckage.

It wasn’t all gone, he thought.
Most of the lobby area, the main stairway and a portion of the upper floor are
still intact. Someone built the damn thing. There would have been plans.

Yes… plans. That was what he was
sifting through in his mind now. First he would find out who built this inn,
the architect, the carpenters, the plans.

After that he had plans of his
own.

Part VI

The
Operation

“The planner is a potential dictator who
wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to
their own plans. He aims at one thing only: the exclusive absolute preeminence
of his own plan.”

—Ludwig von Mises:
Planned Chaos

Chapter 16

It
was the final hours of
the long conference with the British on the Faeroes, and there was a restless
energy about the ship. It was a kind of tension, like a bow string held taut,
waiting for the moment of release that was sure to come. These hours of quiet
had been good for the ship and crew, but Volsky knew they all would have an
enormous amount of work ahead of them in the days and weeks ahead, and the
sense that they were slowly running out of time seemed to prey upon him. The
war was so enormous, so all consuming. How could they make a difference—just
one single ship?

Admiral Volsky leaned back,
eyeing the empty glass of brandy on the table as he took one final meeting with
Tovey, his eye drawn to the candle on the centerpiece, casting its warm glow as
it was slowly consumed by the flames. Time, he thought. Yes, time is the fire
in which we all burn. Yet how is it I have been spared my inevitable demise in
those flames? Or have I? Even though I find myself here before my own time, I
don’t think the second hand of my own clock has been wound back. I’m certainly
not getting any younger for all this travail. Wiser, perhaps, but I still spend
my days like that candle, no matter what table I find myself on, and my glass
of brandy empties with every sip I take, just like everyone else here. So how
many days are left to me?

He knew that these thoughts were
the quiet fears of every man, an inner voice he seldom hears in his youth, but
one whose whisper grows ever more insistent as old age creeps up on him.

Admiral Tovey seemed lost in his
own thoughts for a moment, and Fedorov was watching him closely. This
revelation would take some time in the here and now to be fully believed, but
Tovey had seen things here on the ship that were hard evidence he would not
easily dismiss.

“Well, Admiral,” Tovey said at
last. “One day at a time. Yet it would be a comfort to me to know at least how
things might have turned out once. A man needs hope…” He waited, the silence
drawn out between them. He had asked, but not pressed on the question, though
it burned for an answer within him.

At that moment there came a knock
on the door, and Volsky turned, an eyebrow raised as the adjutant came in.
“Excuse me, sir,” the man said quietly. “You asked to be informed as to the
radio broadcast intercepts.”

 “Ah, yes. Put it on, please.” He
pointed to the radio set on a bookcase at the far end of the dining hall. “We
have been monitoring your radio broadcasts in the event of any formal
announcement that might bear upon these discussions,” said Volsky. “I am told
your mister Churchill is now speaking before the House of Commons.”

The adjutant walked briskly to
the radio and switched it on, and the voice that was immediately recognizable
to every man present was speaking, his words so timely in answer to Tovey’s
question that it seemed as though he might have been there in that very room,
putting forward an opinion that spoke directly to discussion at hand.

“…I do not think it would be
wise at this moment, while the battle rages and the war is still perhaps only
in its earlier stage, to embark upon elaborate speculations about the future
shape which should be given to Europe, or the new securities which must be
arranged to spare mankind the miseries of a third World War. The ground is not
new, it has been frequently traversed and explored, and many ideas are held
about it in common by all good men, and all free men. But before we can
undertake the task of rebuilding we have not only to be convinced ourselves,
but we have to convince all other countries that the Nazi tyranny is going to
be finally broken.

“The right to guide the course
of world history is the noblest prize of victory. We are still toiling up the
hill; we have not yet reached the crest-line of it; we cannot survey the
landscape or even imagine what its condition will be when that longed-for
morning comes. The task which lies before us immediately is at once more
practical, more simple and more stern. I hope—indeed I pray—that we shall not
be found unworthy of our victory if after toil and tribulation it is granted to
us. For the rest, we have to gain the victory. That is our task.”

Churchill went on to speak of the
United States and the mutual cooperation he could see growing between England
and America, and then made mention of the new offer of alliance and friendship
with Kirov’s Soviet Russia. Nikolin translated the words as they were spoken in
English, and Volsky smiled as Churchill finished his speech.

“For my own part, looking out
upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings. I could not
stop it if I wished; no one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps
rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable,
irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and better days.”

 The broadcast concluded and
Admiral Volsky extended a hand to Tovey, gesturing to the radio set as the
adjutant switched it off and quietly withdrew.

“Well there you have it,” he
said. “There is the hope a man needs, Admiral Tovey. I know what you want to
ask of me, but as your own Prime Minister so eloquently suggests, I do not
think it would be wise to speculate on the outcome of this war while the battle
still rages. That outcome, that future is out there, as we can certainly
attest. And yes, it will come to us as surely as the inexorable flow of that
river. I will say only this to you now. The hope you can clearly hear in that
man’s voice, the determination with which he sets himself to the task of facing
the unfolding hours ahead, will not be wasted, or spent in vain. Is that enough
for you?”

Tovey smiled, feeling a sudden
lightness of being. “More than enough, Admiral Volsky.”

“Good! Then let us attend to what
we can do in the here and now as we toil up this hill. As I have come here with
this offer of alliance and friendship, and with certain means at my disposal,
what can we do in this dark hour to assist you?”

Yes, now to that which lies
before us in the here and now, thought Tovey, and to leave off the impossible
speculation over the twisting of the past and future into a shape we might
wish. That can only be done here, now, and it will be done by men and steel,
with the vision and will of a man like Churchill behind both. Now to the
practical survey of the landscape we can see, the moment at hand.

“Well Admiral, we have two great
concerns at this moment. One is the imminent invasion of our islands. Even now
we fall under the hammer of the Luftwaffe, and our Royal Air Force is hard
pressed. If they fail, and the Germans gain air superiority over our shores,
then we face a very grave moment when the war may come quickly to these islands
and we will finally feel the enemy’s hand at our throats.”

Volsky looked at Fedorov,
remembering what he had told Sergei Kirov in a similar dinner meeting they had
shared together. Then he had assured Kirov that Germany could not successfully
invade Great Britain. Why not at least do the same here?

“I do not wish to say anything
that might slacken your guard, Admiral Tovey. But my Mister Fedorov here is
somewhat of a student of military history, and he does not believe the Germans
can successfully invade. Fedorov?”

“Correct, sir. Not while the
Royal Navy stands resolute.”

“Yet if the R.A.F. should fail
us, my ships will soon be seen to be quite vulnerable. We have already faced
the hard fact that the German Kriegsmarine now has seaborne air power that
poses a grave threat.”

“Yet you saw that I have the
means to redress that if my ship is anywhere near the action,” Volsky reassured
him.

“Yes, those marvelous aerial
rockets you possess. Might they be put to the defense of our homeland as well?”