Men of War (2013)

by John Schettler

  “My God, Fedorov! You’ll be old and gray before you ever run down all that research.” There were yellow marks dotting the text here and there as Fedorov turned the pages.

  “Perhaps I will, but then something very odd happened.” He told Karpov how he had gone to look over the passage again and found it entirely missing in the new volume.

  Karpov folded his arms, giving him a bemused look. “What do you mean it was missing?”

  “That says it all. The passage was gone, yet it was clear as a bell in my head the day before. I knew I had read it there, and marked it with my yellow highlighter…See here, no marks in the original book, but I was certain I marked it in the new volume.”

  Karpov suggested the obvious, that he had simply mixed the two books up, but Fedorov kept shaking his head. “No sir. I’m certain. You must believe me on this.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “That’s what I am trying to find out. I have an idea about it, but I can’t be sure. Chief Dobrynin came to me and said we lost a man—Markov. He went missing over at the reactor test bed facility.”

  “Yes, I heard the report. What about it?”

  “Well they had just completed their procedure on the control rod—Rod-25, the very same control rod we suspected here on the ship. Then, Markov vanishes, and not just the man. His jacket was gone, the tea he was drinking, books and magazines, his data clipboard and pen, and get this—both chairs were gone. Everything in the room that was not an integral part of the building itself just vanished!”

  Karpov did not know what to make of that, but the connection to Rod-25 took him the next step without too much urging from Fedorov. “They moved into the past,” he said in a low voice. “Our suspicions about that control rod were correct. Did Dobrynin learn anything about it?”

  “He went over it with a microscope, but frankly, he’s not a physicist. He was just looking for aberrations or other obvious abnormalities, but the rod looks normal.”

  “There must be something about it that is different from the others. This is astounding!”

  Fedorov looked at the Captain and simply said: “It looks like the amount of mass that can physically move is probably dependent on the power of the reactor where it finds itself. The ship had a twenty-four rod reactor, two of them in fact. That's ten times the power of the test bed facility reactor. Rod-25 is the wildcard. Whenever it’s inserted into the reactor core it causes the time breach, and displaces loose mass within a given radius. In our case that loose mass was the entire ship!”

  “Did the reactor itself disappear?”

  “No. It was an integral part of the building itself and the facility around it. The displacement effect did not have the power to move all of that mass. It doesn't simply scoop physical mass of a given area and leave a gaping hole. It’s much more fastidious and simply moves free objects within a given radius of the reactor itself. In this case anything that wasn't nailed down, including Markov. This is the best guess I can make about what happened, and I have no way of knowing if I'm even correct.”

  “Then you suspect Markov had something to do with the history changing in your book? How can you know he went back to the same time period?”

  “I started with that assumption. I thought that Rod-25 had some vibration or affinity for a particular point in the past, or perhaps it's simply a question of power. It moves things approximately 80 years into the past, Markov vanishes, and then this operation clearly evident in the history I know suddenly never takes place. It was there just yesterday, right in the new book I bought. Whatever happened changed the course of history again, but the amazing thing is this: it caused a physical change in the book itself!”

  “Well it's all beyond my understanding,” said Karpov. “I still can hardly believe any of this happened in the first place. How could it change books—change facts that you knew to be true. If you remember this, then others who read that same book would also remember. The facts of history are quite clear, Fedorov. This is nonsense. How can they just change overnight like that?”

  “The facts are clear? Who killed President John F. Kennedy? The facts on that will differ from head to head, Captain. Only a few might know the real truth, and it may be quite different from the written history of that event. We only record a small percentage of everything that happens out there. The real truth is that things happen the historians never really know about, or write about. Written history is just the tip of the iceberg, the part that shows in the waters of time. The rest is largely unknown, but that’s the part that really matters.”

  Karpov had a frustrated look on his face. “What are we supposed to do about this, Fedorov?”

  “I asked myself that same question, and realized that I had to find out what happened to Markov to nail down this cause and effect. Well thank God for the Internet. The amount of information available to us now is absolutely amazing. I was able to find a report on Markov's death! He did shift into the past. He was killed, right here on the harbor quay in Vladivostok, in September of 1942. He was caught breaking and entering a home above the harbor, or so the report read. He then fled to the quay, and was shot by pursuing officers. The military police report was right there in the archives. I looked up the address listed as the location for the suspected burglary. House no longer exists, but the nuclear test bed facility was built in that exact location twenty years ago.”

  The silence conveyed Karpov's amazement, and he was equally impressed by Fedorov’s tenacious investigation of the matter. The dogged ex-navigator had been the one mind and voice that had enabled them to make some fleeting sense of their impossible situation, steering their course through the turbulent waters of time.

  “Heaven’s above…can you imagine poor Markov?” said Karpov. “One minute he is sitting there staring at his reactor gauges, then he suddenly appears in this house. It must have been maddening. But how did that change the history? How could it affect this operation you say was canceled half way around the world?”

  “I thought about that for some time and could not make the connection. Then I realized that it must have been something in the book or magazine he had in the control room with him that day. They went back too. Mister Garin said he was reading a copy of Russia Today, and a science fiction novel. I went out and bought a copy of that magazine and look what I found.” He handed the magazine article to Karpov, who stared wide eyed at the headline on Operation Agreement. ‘British Remember Losses In Agreement Gone Bad.’

  “This is the operation you spoke of?”

  “Exactly. It was a background piece published in tandem with another article about planned British Petroleum operations in Siberia. Those have been cancelled too with all this war talk.”

  “Astounding….Simply unbelievable.”

  “Yet it happened. This one article from our world today was enough to contaminate the history to an extent that I saw actual physical changes here—in our time! That is what is so astonishing. Think about it, Karpov. The change was very small, very subtle. I’m willing to bet that no more than a handful of people on this earth might have noticed it. Who sits around reading this history for recreation?”

  “Yes, how many are as crazy as you, Fedorov?”

  Then something occurred to the Captain that did not make sense. “Just a moment…We didn’t even make port until September 15th. Dobrynin took that control rod over two days later. If Markov vanished, wouldn’t he appear after this operation was already concluded? You said it was scheduled for the 13th to 14th.”

  “Correct. Well we know these time displacements don’t seem to respect our calendar. When we moved we often lost hours, days and even weeks. Markov obviously appeared well before the operation. Who knows how, but the British must have gotten hold of this article, and it probably froze their blood. But do you realize what this means?”

  “It means the whole world is crazy,” said Karpov. “Am I going to wake up tomorrow and find Brezhnev never lived?”

  “I would think it takes s
omething more than a minor change like this to affect the life of such a man, but who knows? The important thing is this—the history isn’t fixed! This situation we find ourselves in is the result of millions and millions of individual events all tumbling down like grains of sand in the hourglass of time. It’s an alternate history, markedly different from the one we left behind in Severomorsk—but Markov has just changed it. It isn’t fixed! If he can change it, then we can change it too.”

  “Apparently so,” Karpov shrugged. “We’ve already changed it several times, with each missile we fired. I’ve changed it with my own actions.”

  “Unquestionably. There was no Pearl Harbor attack, no Battle of Midway. None of that is written up in that new volume there, and believe me, a lot more has changed. I’ve only had a few days to look into it all. Yet the amazing thing is that whole segments of the history remain intact, flawlessly intact. It’s as if it were all a big mirror, perfect until you come upon a section that has a crack that suddenly distorts the image. Everything is different there, but the rest of the mirror is fine.”

  “If the book changed, why not you, Fedorov? How could you remember that passage was there. How can you be so sure?”

  “I really don’t know. I tried to figure that out and the only thing I could think of is that it’s because we are the ones changing things. All of us, the men on the ship here as well. We’re not from this altered timeline. We belong to the world we left back in Severomorsk. No one I talked to in the city seemed to know a thing about Pearl Harbor, for example. I asked a few people in the library. They were clueless. We know that the Japanese were supposed to attack there on December 7, 1942, but here, on this alternate time line, they never did, and no one knows about it.”

  Karpov sat down at the briefing desk, taking a deep breath. “Here we are at the edge of another world war and now we have to deal with this! What can we do about it, Fedorov? I realize you cannot help yourself digging in to all of this, but to what end?”

  “I’ll tell you what we can do. We can find Orlov.”

  The name fell like ice in a pail of hot water between them, and they both immediately grasped the implications. Orlov, alive in the year 1942 and with a Computer Jacket harboring the Portable Wiki.

  “We have unfinished business, Captain, and until we find him, everything, and I mean everything is at risk. It could very well be that the outcome of these events we’re preparing to face here in the Pacific are not inevitable as we now believe. The dominoes don’t have to fall the same way each time—at least we hope this is the case. Look what happened with the Key West. It could be that we had nothing whatsoever to do with the devastation we saw in the world, not you, not me, or even the ship itself. It could have been something Orlov did, or failed to do in the life he led after he jumped ship. Understand what I am saying?”

  “Orlov? He caused it?”

  “All I know is that this world, this situation we face now, is a world that Orlov lived in all those years ago. Suppose we find him—figure a way to bring him home. All this would change!”

  “But how?”

  “I’ve been trying to find out what happened to him for a good long while, and I think I may have found a trace of the man in my research last night.”

  “You mean in the history books?”

  “Of course. Nobody goes through this world without leaving some mark on it. Again, thank God we’re living in the information age and I can call up archival records on the computer. Well I found something. You’ll be amazed. I found that man’s footprints in the history, and by God I think I can figure out where he went after he jumped from that helo.”

  “Where? What did you find about him?”

  “It seems the British got hold of him and had him at Gibraltar. Then he slipped away. The next fragment I picked up was an entry in this very book.” He held up the new volume of the Chronology Of The Naval War At Sea.

  “His name came up in a brief engagement between a Soviet Minesweeping trawler and a German U-boat in the Black Sea. So I followed the breadcrumbs. He was listed as a prisoner and suspected murderer of three NKVD guards in Poti. Then comes the kicker—the British went after him. They mounted a commando raid to try and recapture him. Take a look at this…” He opened to a new bookmark and showed Karpov the Passage: 25 Sept. 1942 – Operation Escapade sends a small commando unit into the Caspian region to look for a suspected Russian agent.

  “But it doesn’t say anything about Orlov,” Karpov protested.

  “No, the book is very vague, but I found two other sources that give more details. They were after Orlov. It was kept very secret, but I dug things up.”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  “And there’s more…” Fedorov now reached into his jacket pocket to play his last trump card. He handed Karpov a folded piece of paper and the Captain took it slowly, almost as if he was afraid of what he might see there. He opened it and read silently, his features clearly reflecting the surprise and emotion he felt.

  “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “Where did you find this?”

  Fedorov just smiled.

  Chapter 26

  The truck made its way along the thin dirty track that passed for a road. Now the passage of vehicles and people had widened it, trampling what little grass had managed to scratch a living on its fringes. It growled past the wide rolling vineyards, the vines still thick with ripening grapes that Orlov had picked and sampled any time they stopped. The harvest was near, but this year the wine would have to wait and molder on the vines. The peasants of Kizlyar had all been rounded up, the men set to digging trenches on the western fringe of the town, the women carrying wood and setting up encampments and cooking sites to feed the weary soldiers that came in on the trucks.

  Orlov was one of them, jostling along with a small rifle squad until he gave the men a warning frown and jumped off when the truck neared the outskirts of the town. None of the men moved to follow him, and the truck rolled on.

  Orlov wanted to have a look around, noting the winding course of the Terek river to the west of the hamlet. It stretched away to the north, lost amid the rolling farmland, the vineyards and scatterings of trees that clung to the banks in small groups. He could see the work parties digging there on the eastern bank, building up a wall of earth and loose stone to hide gun positions. Some cut trees which they laid out as obstacles for enemy tanks and vehicles, but there was no sign of any fighting here yet.

  He saw a small stream that had been diverted from the main river to bring water in to the town, and so he followed it lazily along the southern fringe of the settlement until it bent north and led him in past a few hovels and weathered barns. The sparse trees here still had leaves, though they were yellowing and starting to fall. He passed an old man leaning heavily on a cane near a tall stand of grape vines, then came to a deep trench dug across the road as a kind of defensive barrier in front of an old red brick building. A plaintive red flag was nailed to the door, and he took it to be an official building.

  Molla, he thought. Perhaps the bastard is hiding out here. He made for the building, his hand in his pocket fingering the revolver he had taken from the NKVD guards. The door opened with a dry squeak and his footfalls were heavy on the bare wood floor.

  Two men were drinking at a plain table, and they turned to give him an unfriendly look. “What is it?” A balding man with a thick neck spoke up, wiping his lip with the back of a fat hand.

  “Commissar Molla?”

  “Not here,” said the man. “What’s your business?”

  “I have orders for the commissar.”

  “Orders?” The man gave him a toothless smile. “Orders he says,” this time he was nodding to his companion, a scraggly officer with Lieutenant’s bars on his shoulder. “Well Molla don’t take orders lightly.” The man laughed, his voice gritty, then he coughed, clearing his throat before he spat on the floor.

  Orlov walked slowly across the room. “Where is he?” he said in a low voice. The edge of a threat wa
s plain for both men to hear, and the heavy set man gave him a frown.

  “I says Molla don’t take orders, eh? He’s Commissar, or haven’t you heard. He gives orders, and you better get used to it. That shiny badge on your cap counts for nothing up here.”

  “Is that so…” Orlov drew out his pistol, then slowly reached for the bottle the men had been sharing with his other hand, looking it over. It was a brandy, well noted in the region, and he raised the bottle to take a sip. The two men were clearly not happy about it.

  “Not bad,” said Orlov. “Maybe I’ll keep it. But then again, maybe I’ll break it over your thick skull.” He gave the fat man a murderous look. “I’ll ask you again. Where is Molla?”

  “Up the road with the truck convoy,” the heavy man said quickly enough. “He’s up herding the women, as always—one of Beria’s men. You heard of him, yes? Big boss man Beria. You want Molla, then look for the trucks with the women. He’s usually not far afield.” He gave Orlov a wide eyed look, watching him take another long swallow from the brandy. Then the big Chief set the bottle down with a thump on the table.

  “Thank you, Comrades,” and he walked out the way he came.

  An hour later he came to a long line of the trucks pulled off the side of the road leading north from the town. Men were carrying boxes of food and drink from old buildings and warehouses along the side of the road. Inside, he could see women, young and old, huddled in the shadows, and he realized he might find his grandmother here.

  Orlov stuck his head into the yawning opening of the first truck. “Anya Kanina?” He puckered his eyes, staring at the sallow faces of the women where they sat on the plan flat wood bed of the truck. The fear in their eyes was plain to see, but no one spoke a word. “I am looking for Anya Kanina? Has anyone seen her?” Silence was his only answer, so he moved up the line to the next truck, getting much the same response.