Men of War (2013)

by John Schettler

  “What in God’s name…?”

  Something had changed. His mind was a sudden whirl of possibilities as he struggled to understand what he had just discovered. Something had just changed the history again! The alteration had been so final that it even affected the new volume he had purchased, and the thought occurred to him that he might now go to every such book published and find the same text missing there from page 164. But yet his own volume, the one that had traveled with Kirov, remained completely unaltered.

  Physical changes! The impact of his conclusion struck him like a hammer. Physical changes! Something had altered the history and the consequences extended to these real and tangible objects, winking out of existence for the barest fraction of a quantum second, and then winking back to the here and now again, but different, subtly changed, altered by something that had happened in the past. It was astounding! The form and appearance of the whole seemed unchanged, but the devil was in the details…Was his book spared because it had come from another world, another complete version of the universe itself? It was mind-boggling!

  Then he thought about the hours he had spent talking with Karpov and Volsky about their strange dilemma. They had worried about Orlov, fretted that he would wreak havoc on the history if he indeed survived. But Fedorov had come to the conclusion that whatever Orlov had done, it was now a finished and permanent new fact. Surely the man was dead long ago, and his legacy would have hardened like concrete in the matrix of time and life. The history would have calcified again and it could be read, if he could simply do the research on information he might find here in this new world.

  But the discovery that Operation Agreement had suddenly been stricken from the rolls of time, and that the volume where he read it had physically changed to reflect that, had shaken him severely. Now he realized what had happened to the records of those thirty-six dead men in Moscow’s archives. Dead men tell no tales…and now he knew his guess had been correct—these men had never been born. Time found a way to neatly expunge them from her ledgers, and then every last trace of their existence had quietly vanished as well!

  Another thought struck him, even more unsettling as he realized it. The book had changed, and yet he still remembered the old passage. He recalled himself reading and highlighting the text as easily as he might summon up a memory of that last confrontation between Karpov and Kapustin in the sick bay. If something as solid and tangible as this book could change on a whim of fate, then why could he still remember the old text? It was most disturbing. And if a book could be edited by the hand of fate overnight, then might people also simply disappear—vanish from one moment to the next, as if they had never been there?

  Then he remembered the two missing names on the duty rosters that morning. All hands were present and accounted for except two—Yolkin and Markov. They were gone and listed as AWOL. Yolkin had been in the city picking up supplies for the quartermaster, and Martinov had complained that he had not returned. Markov was over at the Primorskiy Engineering Center, but reported missing, though Fedorov had not learned the details of that incident. Then his train of thought was suddenly derailed by footsteps in the hallway outside the dining room, and the door swung open.

  “There you are, Captain. I’ve been needing to speak with you. The Admiral has gone up to Naval Headquarters at Fokino and something very odd has just happened.”

  It was Chief Engineer Dobrynin.

  Part VIII

  The Mission

  “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”

  —Mahatma Ghandi

  Chapter 22

  “What do you mean he got clean away? They had him deep inside the Rock!” Admiral Tovey was not happy.

  “He was to have been on the Hudson out of Gibraltar last night, sir. The normal dispatches came in alright, but there were no other passengers.” Sergeant Williams seemed a bit flustered, as any bringer of bad news would before the Admiral at a moment like this.

  “Well what does MI6 have to say about it?”

  “They’ve looked into the matter, sir, and come round to think he must have been helped from the inside. A corporal on the watch saw a small boat on the northeast shore about that time. He took it to be a fishing boat, as the men on the aft deck were trying to sort out their nets. But it looks rather suspicious given his absence now.”

  Tovey took that in, saying nothing. Yes, hindsight was always perfect. It should have looked suspicious while the man was getting away, but the Admiral decided he would certainly not be discussing this with a Marine Sergeant. One thought quickly led to another in his mind. The east shore… If he got out that way, then that boat probably met up with a steamer. There was a lot of traffic in the Med near Gibraltar. Which one?

  “Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all.”

  “Sir!” The Sergeant saluted smartly, spun about and beat a hasty retreat. Tovey sat at his desk, his mind a whirlwind of possibilities. The thought that this man had help from the inside was most unsettling. He made a note to check on anyone who might have had even passing contact with the prisoner during the time he was interrogated. His immediate problem was much more pressing. Where was this man going? Reports indicated he had originally been picked up heading west into the Atlantic. The steamer Duero was bound for Cadiz, yet the story was that this man had originally boarded the ship in Cartagena.

  That thought triggered a memory, and he opened his bottom desk drawer with the key, slowly removing a thin file marked ‘Most Secret.’ There he read again the account of coast watchers near Cartagena who had reported a strange incident in the skies there on the evening of 13 August. They claimed to see contrails in the sky, five thin columns of smoke scoring their way through the clouds and exploding. Wreckage of an aircraft was spotted falling into the sea, and a parachute. The account gave him the shivers, for it was all too reminiscent of those infernal rockets that had been used by the enemy ship. But what were they shooting at? It could have been a plane that had strayed too near Geronimo’s course as it headed south that evening toward that fateful rendezvous with Syfret’s Force Z, but there was no report of any losses that day. Perhaps it was a Spanish plane. The incident was right astride this mysterious ship’s route of approach to Gibraltar. It was very strange.

  Here was a Russian, a man named Orlov wearing what looked to be a naval officer’s jacket, carrying a strange custom made pistol with an odd light attached to it, and harboring these ear plugs that seemed to be some sort of advanced wireless device. Supposing he came from Geronimo, the man boards a ship heading west…But why? What would he be about? Could there be some mission he was undertaking in Spain? Then a dark thought occurred to him. Perhaps this man had been trying to communicate with other Russian agents and operatives in Spain waiting for him at Cadiz. He made a mental note to have Fleming’s boys have a look at that city to see what they might turn up.

  Then again, if this fishing boat did indeed rendezvous with a merchant ship, it might have been heading east. Fishing boats were not permitted in the main shipping channels of the strait. He decided to have a list of all commercial traffic anywhere near Gibraltar yesterday—names, registry, destinations. That would allow him to possibly get men into each and every port of call along those routes, and he hoped there hadn’t been a convoy through the straits that day so his job would be a little easier. If this man was heading east, where would he go? Any Russian heading east, would have to be heading for Istanbul if he had any hope of getting back to Russia. Yes, that made sense. From Istanbul he could easily cross the Black Sea and link up with Soviet authorities anywhere along the Georgian coast.

  Then his mind turned to the strange accounts that had surrounded this interrogation. Fortunately the transcript of the entire interview had arrived with the regular dispatches. He read it through, curious as to what the strange scope might have been on the pistol, the odd flashlight as the prisoner called it. This business about the wireless earplugs was a
lso quite interesting. And who was this Svetlana?

  The more he thought about the matter, more he came to conclude that this man might indeed have been off the ship the Royal Navy had been chasing for the last year. He might have been a pearl dropped here by Geronimo, trying to make contact with the Soviets of this day and age…buy why? Couldn’t they simply use the radio? Not without us hearing about it, I suppose. Was Svetlana his contact? That thought set his mind racing even further ahead, because if this assumption were proved true, the man could be a deliberate agent, and the information he might provide the Soviets could profoundly affect the outcome of the war, and so very much more.

  Intruders, he thought. The Watch had found what looked to be the first possible case of a man at large who clearly did not seem to be what he claimed, and with marks and effects on him that led Tovey’s mind back to that fateful hour on Las Palomas Island where he had faced the commander of the ship they had come to call Geronimo, eye to eye, astounded to find he was Russian! It was now a standing order that any Russian operative found in England and the kingdom’s domains was to be closely watched by British Intelligence services. Tovey did not know it yet, except perhaps on some deep inner level of his mind, but the Cold War was already beginning in these suspicions and the orders that followed them. The reluctant allies, strange bedfellows as he thought of England and Russia, were now set at odds by this incident.

  The next day he had his report on shipping traffic in hand, and checked off one after another, until he had narrowed down the possible rendezvous targets to three. He considered what to do, then picked up the phone.

  “Secure line,” he said waiting for confirmation. “Get me Room 39 please. Desk 17F.” He wanted to speak with Fleming over at 30 Commando. Yes, he thought. This was coming down to some real cloak and dagger work, and he now realized he needed reliable men who were trained in these unpleasantries. The voice on the line was curt and to the point.

  “Seventeen F. What is it?”

  “Admiral Jack Tovey here, Seventeen. I want to know if we might be able to get some men east to Istanbul and have a look at a certain ship—a merchant ship bound for that port as we speak.”

  There was a brief pause before the voice on the line continued. “Might I know the details, sir?”

  Tovey explained what he was after, and Fleming suggested the obvious—why not get a fast destroyer out after this ship?

  “The thought did cross my mind, Seventeen, but I think I’d like to handle this with a little more subtlety.” If he sent a destroyer to intercept a neutral Turkish ship there would be questions, reports, documents, and perhaps even a formal protest from the Turks, not to mention the added risk that the ship would then be suspect in the enemy’s eyes as well.

  “Well sir,” came the voice. “We’ve some good men in Alexandria with nothing on their duty roster now that they were unable to come to any agreement in that last meeting” Tovey noted how Fleming adroitly referenced the cancelation of Operation Agreement and the planned raid on Tobruk.

  “Splendid. You pick the men, Seventeen. And here’s what I’d like you to do.”

  * * *

  When the call came in to Captain John Haselden at General Staff Headquarters days later he didn’t really know what to make of it. He and his men had been sitting on their thumbs in the heat of the desert, wondering what had come over the planners back in England. First they tee up a big operation for Tobruk, and then, just as suddenly, it is summarily canceled.

  Haselden was a lean, competent man, just shy of forty, and with long years of experience in the desert. In fact, he had been born right there in Alexandria, the son of Henry Ernest Haselden and his Italian wife Maria Cazzani. Before the war he had worked in the cotton trade industry, supervising commerce and becoming fluent in Arabic, French, Italian and English. Like every man his age he entered the service when war came, signing on as a British liaison officer with the Libyan air force and then working directly for the General Staff of the Middle east where his language facility was put to good use.

  His specialty soon became commando operations, and he was posted to the 8th Army HQ to serve as liaison with the Long Range Desert Group. In this capacity he participated in a number of operations, including Operation Flipper, the raid on Rommel’s headquarters in an ill fated attempt to capture the man hundreds of miles behind the front. Rommel wasn’t there, and when he learned of the operation he was irritated to think the British would believe he commanded from the rear.

  When the new raid was announced for Tobruk, he was eager to get in the thick of things again, and just as disappointed to learn it had been called off. If he had known that he was one of the many men who were slated to die in that raid, perhaps he would not have complained so loudly. He had no idea that he was now living his second life, a new lease signed by the hand of Mother Time that would see him drawn into the ever thickening web of intrigue spinning from the spidery back of fate itself.

  What in bloody hell is this about, he thought? First the whole bloody raid is knocked off, now this! Someone has a real imagination back in Whitehall, does he? First we were to get up a crew and fly cross the whole of Turkey in the dark on a pinch operation—all the way to Istanbul. Don’t we already have people in Istanbul? Of course we have. They were supposed to find this man, keep their finger in his backside, and get him to a safe house before we flew in. Two days later word comes down that the ship this man is on was met by a Russian trawler and he slipped clean away, out into the Black Sea like a whisper of fog.

  “Not easy to get men out there, is it,” he said aloud now to Lieutenant David Sutherland. “What do they bloody well expect us to do about it now?”

  “Easy does it, Jock.” That was Haselden’s handle with the men. “They must know what they’re about. Word is that Fleming is behind this one.”

  “Fleming? I thought he was working in Madrid with the Golden Eyes now that Rushbrooke replaced Godfrey as head of the Naval Intelligence Division.”

  “He’s still in Room 39,” Sutherland took a long draw on his pipe now, still staring at a map he had been studying for some time. “Still answers as Seventeen F, though anyone caught saying that outside of a secure room like this would have his balls boiled.”

  “Yes, well what has Seventeen got on the stove for us, Sutherland? We were all set for this raid on Tobruk.”

  “You weren’t the only one put off,” Sutherland pointed a long thin finger at Haselden now. “My Operation Angelo has also been canceled. We were going to hop out to Rhodes and visit Jerry airfields there, but that’s gone down the tubes as well.”

  “Something tells me there’s an ill wind blowing, Sutherland. What’s up with all these big operations being canceled? They were going to cross the Channel Coast last month from what I’ve heard, and that was called off at the last minute too.”

  “Ours is not to reason why, Jock. Ours is but to do and die. They pulled me right out of final planning for this Rhodes operation and sent me over here.”

  “Looks to me like Seventeen is pulling together a fairly interesting team for this one, whatever it turns out to be. There’s me with my desert chops, and then you with all your experience with the Special Boat Service. They’re also sending me Sergeant Terry and Corporal Severn—both good men on a long reconnaissance operation like this. But where are we headed? Where’s Kizlyar?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” Sutherland squinted at his map again. “Seventeen must have really cooked up something very bizarre this time.”

  “I have indeed,” came a voice, and the two men spun around to see a stocky man in khaki shorts and desert-camo top standing in the doorframe. A floppy canvas hat hid his brown curly hair, and his eyes seemed to search the two men now, sounding them out as he walked slowly into the room. It was Seventeen F, Fleming himself. It would be years before he would use his wartime experience to write his James Bond novels, but for now he was writing the script for a new operation.

  “I’m th
e man you’ve been talking about,” he said quietly. “And yes, we’ve got something really interesting for you, gentlemen, and no one is going to cancel the party this time if I can help it.”

  “Well, Commander, you move like a cat,” said Haselden. “I can see why they look for your sort in the darker corners of Whitehall.”

  “Yes,” said Fleming getting a whiff of Sutherland’s pipe. It smelled good, and he reached into his own shirt pocket for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Sutherland was quick to offer his Ronson lighter.

  “The business at hand, gentlemen, does indeed come from one of those very dark corners. So dark, in fact that even my sort stub their toes and bump their noses trying to get around the place. Now then…Only a very few men will ever know what I am about to tell you next. You may have heard the rumors, caught the occasional reference whispered by the men with gold hatbands and thick cuff stripes, and felt the distinct tinge of heat that soon found any man who was too loose on the matter. I’m talking about Geronimo.”

  The silence invaded the space, with an uneasiness that was clearly evident, for both Haselden and Sutherland had heard the word whispered about, though they did not know what it referred to—only that it was very hush, hush, and the sort of thing that would land a man in hot water if he ever spoke openly about it. To hear the word spoken so brazenly by this man from the cubby holes of Naval Intelligence in Whitehall was somewhat of a shock.

  Fleming saw the look of bemused surprise on the faces of the other men, and pressed his advantage. You don’t walk in on men like this without an edge, he knew, and he had the one thing they lusted after more than anything else—information—knowledge of the missions they were set to perform. Yes, they were good soldiers, both of them, which is why Fleming had selected these men, but they often fought in the darkness of unknowing as well as the thickness of the night when they landed from submarines on a moonless sea and slipped ashore on black rubber rafts. More often than not the real aim of the mission they were tasked to perform was on a ‘need to know only basis.’ Today Fleming decided they needed to know.