Nemesis

by John Schettler

  “KA-40 reports launch ready sir,” said Nikolin.

  “Good. Send that launch order down, and direct them to Brown Bear 1. Let’s see how they like a sonobuoy right on top of them.”

  Chapter 14

  Doctor Zolkin passed some time alone after the Admiral left, half way thinking about really finding that bottle of Vodka. The stress in their present situation was obvious, and the line at his door had been longer day by day. If it was getting to men like Fedorov, a man who had always been quiet and reliable, then the lower ranks must be feeling it as well.

  Thinking of Fedorov, he started sorting through his medicine cabinet to look for a proper sedative. There, sitting on a lower shelf, was a typical splint and restraining bandage that he might use on a wounded arm, and he was surprised to see it bore a small blood stain.

  I must be slipping, he thought. How could I leave an old bandage lying about in a cabinet like this? It should have been sent down for laundering.

  He reached for it, intending to take it out and toss it into the laundry bin, but the moment he touched it he felt a twinge in his shoulder. A sudden stab of pain that prompted him to reach for the spot with his other hand. The thought that he was getting older crossed his mind, and he knew the aches and odd pains were all a part of that. But, as he stared at that bandage, he passed a moment of confused uncertainty. What was it doing there, in the locked medicine cabinet? That was a place he kept things of importance. For him to so haphazardly discard an old bloodied bandage there was most unusual.

  “Getting sloppy, Dmitri,” he said aloud to himself. Yet, with the bandage in hand now, he could not bring himself to cast it into the laundry bin for cleaning and sterilization, though he could not say why. Instead he found himself trying to remember how he might have used it. He could not recall any instance of an injury to a crewman in recent months requiring that kind of sling and bandage. There had been no broken arms for a long while, and his memory for things like that was very good. Something about that bandage, and the place where it was found, was very disturbing. But why? He shook his head, setting the bandage down on his desk instead of the laundry bin.

  I’m fretting over nothing, he thought. This business with Fedorov has preoccupied my mind, particularly after that incredible story he came out with here. Volsky took it very well, but I don’t think he realized just how disturbed his Navigator might be. He was exhibiting classic signs of both paranoia, and what looked to be the onset of a mild psychosis. Yet the young man’s intellect is so strong that he stood there sounding completely reasonable the entire time, in spite of the absurd things he was saying. I was very remiss in not taking more care and concern with him. Yes, I’m getting sloppy, and I suppose I’m not immune to the stress here either.

  He stared at the bandage, and wanted to dismiss the incident as nothing more than that, an odd lapse where he must have simply set that soiled bandage aside quickly while attending to something else. But that shelf… That was where he kept special things, his photo box, the medals he had earned over his years in the service, old letters from his wife. There was that bandage, sitting there like a badge of honor with all those other mementos. As much as he wanted to simply dismiss the find as a careless nothing, something deep within him lodged a quiet protest, and whispered to him.

  It wanted to remember…

  *

  Kapitan Dietrich Borchert was a very confused man that day. They had been creeping along the ragged coast of the North Cape off Bervelag, approaching his intended waiting point at the entrance to Tanafjord, when suddenly they heard the sound of active sonar search pings. It was unlike anything he had heard before, but clearly something was looking for him.

  He was through the hatch just forward of the periscope, passing through the radio room to the next compartment, where he saw his sound detection operator sitting there with an astonished look on his face. He had adjusted the fit of his small headphones so they would not blare directly into his ears, and his hands were still on the small metal wheel, which he turned this way and that to rotate the sound detection gear mounted on the brow of the U-Boat. The Such-Gerät system was a simple device based on the hydrophone concept, and shaped like the letter T, with a sensitive microphone at each end of the top cross stroke, wired to each earphone of his headset.

  “What’s that, Gerd? Something sneak up on us?”

  The other man’s astonished look told the Kapitan that he had been completely surprised by the sound. “I don’t know, sir. I heard nothing before this!”

  “Well don’t tell me a Russian destroyer just dropped out of thin air up there! What do you mean you heard nothing? You should have detected the threat long before they got this close. That sounds like they are right on top of us!”

  The Kapitan’s supposition was not too far removed from the truth, but on this occasion it was not a destroyer dropping out of the sky, but a sonobuoy deployed by the KA-40 hovering nearby. Tasarov had guided the helo to the general location of the contact, and now the search began.

  They could hear the sharp pings right through the hull, and their eyes instinctively looked upward to the potential threat, though Gerd Hansen was completely discombobulated. He still had no sign of any enemy ship, and now he realized what must have happened.

  “They must have been sitting there, just drifting with their engines off, waiting for us like a spider!” It was the only explanation he could offer, and the Kapitan nodded, looking quickly over his shoulder and shouting an order back through the hatch.

  “All stop! The boat will hover and run silent!” Two could play this game.

  He was back through the hatch to the control room, where only the light from phosphorescent dials and the compass, and a single lamp above the chart table, illuminated the scene. The order had been quickly passed back to the greasy confines of the engine room, and now U-566 drifted like a dark, sleek fish in the sea, its long sharply pointed prow cutting silently through the water.

  Borchert scratched is beard, customary for any veteran of the Unterseeboot fleet, as razors were never allowed aboard. One never knew what a man might do with one in the highly stressful, confined quarters of the U-boat.

  “Come right full rudder, fifteen degrees.” He decided to make a slow turn, using only the remaining forward momentum of the boat to maneuver. They were going to lose depth, but a quick look at the charts told him he had a little time to spare. Whatever was up there searching for him had not yet found enough information to begin an attack, or so he believed. Otherwise, they would turn over their engines and rush in for a depth charge run. But what could be up there? According to German intelligence, the Soviets had 15 submarines, 8 destroyers, 7 patrol ships, and a host of trawlers in their Northern Fleet. This was most likely a destroyer, lying in wait for them. Perhaps they had been spotted on the surface by a German aircraft before they submerged. This was all he could determine, though he was very wrong.

  *

  “What are they doing, Tasarov?” Admiral Volsky turned to his sonar man, waiting.

  “Engine noise on one boat has stopped… The other boat is still running slow at about 5 knots… very near the surface.”

  “You are certain this is not a Norwegian submarine?”

  “Clearly not Ufa class,” said Tasarov. “I have all six of those boats well profiled, and I get no match. Not even close, sir, and that is all they have. It isn’t a German boat either. I thought it might be a German Type 212, but the reading doesn’t match that profile. That boat is extremely quiet, but these contacts are noisy as hell. And it certainly isn’t one of ours, sir. I’d have IFF data if that were the case.”

  “What about the Americans or British?” said Karpov, somewhat anxious now.

  “There are no diesel boats active in either fleet,” said Tasarov.

  “But yet something is clearly there, not ours, not theirs, but obviously not friendly either,” said Karpov, the tension apparent on his face. “Admiral, they have to know we are out here, and now they clearly
know we are aware of their presence, and actively hunting them. If they have a fix on our position and put torpedoes in the water…”

  At that moment, Fedorov came through the hatch, saluting when he saw Admiral Volsky in the Captain’s chair. He had been in his quarters as ordered, feeling very dejected, and very foolish. It was clear to him that neither Volsky nor Zolkin had believed a word he had said, and he realized how stupid he had to sound coming out with the truth like that—the impossible truth. Yet he was determined to persist, at every opportunity, knowing that the truth was out there this very moment, as the ship sailed in the dangerous waters off the North Cape. So when the call came summoning him to the bridge, he took heart, realizing they must have run into something that would have them all baffled if they remained in their mindset of 2021.

  Yet the prospect of coming into conflict with Karpov again gave him pause. He had revealed the Captain’s plot to take over the ship, and how it all played out, and he now realized this might seem like a deliberate attempt on his part to strike back at Karpov for the accusation he had made. It looked bad.

  “Mister Fedorov,” said Volsky. “I trust you had a little break, but it seems we need you here after all. Kindly take a look at that video footage freeze frame on the overhead display. Can you identify those ships?”

  Karpov found it distasteful that Fedorov would be summoned to be the final arbiter on this question. Why should his word matter, or count for anything more than that of the other officers here, himself first and foremost? He watched, disdainfully, as Fedorov took a long look, then folded his arms when he saw the Navigator go to his station and produce a tablet device. Fedorov spent a moment poking at it with a finger, his eyes lifting to the screen overhead, and then settling on something.

  “Two single gun turrets forward…. Nikolin, can you zoom on the aft section of that lead ship. Good… Three turrets aft. Now scroll up please. Let’s see if we can pick up the ensign... Right there. Can you enhance that?”

  Nikolin fiddled with the resolution and applied some filters, switching the shade and hue of the image and adjusting contrast. There it was, strikingly clear at this resolution, though it could not be seen in the zoomed out frame. The image was unmistakable, a prominent central swastika over a black and white cross on a red field, and the cross of iron in the top inner corner.

  “The war ensign of the Kriegsmarine,” said Fedorov. “That lead ship is a Type 1936 destroyer. There are no visible hull markings, but it is most likely the Karl Galster, Zerstorer 20, the last of the Mohicans for that class. All of the other five were lost at Narvik in 1940. As to the other three ships, I believe the second in the line is slightly older, in the 1934 class, but this one has a readable hull number—the Richard Beitzen. My guess is that the others are a variant on this class, all from the 6th German Destroyer Flotilla, operating out of Tromso.

  The silence on the bridge was thick and heavy. Karpov wanted to eviscerate the man for this inevitable foray into the fantasy of his history, but he found himself staring at the image on the screen, unable to dismiss it so easily.

  “Impossible,” he said at last. “You realize that a ship can fly any ensign it chooses, Admiral. That flag proves nothing other than the fact that some Captain out there is a throwback to an earlier time, just like our Navigator.”

  Fedorov walked resolutely up to the Captain and held out his pad device. “I’ve called up the image of the Karl Galster from my database,” he said. “You may make the identification yourself, sir.”

  Karpov wanted to bat the device half way across the bridge, but he remembered Volsky’s admonition, and restrained himself. “Give it to the Admiral,” he said coldly. “Let him humor you further, Fedorov. I’ve lost patience with this obsession of yours with the last war.”

  “Yes, do give it here,” said Volsky, flashing a glance at Karpov by way of reminding him to maintain proper decorum. After studying the image for a moment, the Admiral nodded his head. “That conning section is virtually identical to the image the KA-226 obtained. Yes, two guns forward, three aft, with one rotated forward, just as it is in this schematic on your pad. You are saying this ship was the last surviving member of its class?”

  “Well, it survived the war, sir, at least in the history I know. But it was scrapped in 1956. You can read the note there at the bottom.”

  “Scrapped in 1956…” Volsky’s eyes darkened on the overhead display. “Are those submarines doing anything, Mister Tasarov?”

  “The second boat has gone silent, sir. I believe they are both just drifting now, but we have positive location fix from the active pings on the sonobuoy.”

  “Submarines?” said Fedorov.

  “Two contacts to the southeast,” said Volsky, “And they are somewhat of a mystery. We have no profile matches, but Mister Tasarov insists they are diesel boats, and very noisy.”

  “Just a moment.” Fedorov went to his station, producing a book, as Karpov rolled his eyes.

  “We should be aggressively prosecuting those contacts, not discussing them,” he said to Volsky. “Why do you continue to invite his nonsense?” He waved dismissively at Fedorov as he returned with his naval chronology.

  “This history may not be reliable any longer,” said Fedorov, “but then again, it just might still hold true. I have a reference here to two German U-Boats operating in these waters, U-451 and U-566, both Type VII-C diesel boats, very common.”

  “Sir,” said Karpov, ever more frustrated. “Those subs could be targeting us even now.”

  “Not at this range,” said Fedorov, “that is if I am correct in this assumption. The German G7a torpedo could only range out between 5000 and 12,000 meters, depending on the running speed setting.”

  “Yes?” said Karpov. “Well those are not German U-Boats, Lieutenant, nor do we have a flotilla of ships shadowing us that were all scrapped decades ago. Why do you persist in this? We’ve been more than lenient in tolerating your nonsense, and this is no time for—”

  “That will be quite enough, Captain,” said Volsky. “I asked Mister Fedorov to attempt an identification of these ships, and he has given his report. Yes, it seems most unlikely, particularly if that lead ship there on the screen was indeed scrapped. One replica flying a German War Ensign I might accept. But four? As to those submarine contacts, it is clear they do not wish to be located. Yet we should have profiles on them if they are local to this region, unless they are Chinese.”

  “No sir,” said Tasarov. “I checked all those profiles and there is no match.”

  “It will not be any vessel from our day, sir,” said Fedorov, “and I have already told you why. May I suggest we simply increase speed to evade and give them a wide berth? We will find the answer to all these questions at Severomorsk. At 30 knots we can be there in under five hours.”

  Chapter 15

  They were coming home…

  Kapitan Borchert on U-566 would listen to the searching pings in the sea above him for another fifteen minutes, and then the silence returned. When he mustered the courage to restart his engines and rise to periscope depth, he saw nothing but the empty seas all about him, as if the whole scenario had been a figment of his imagination. So he resolved to wait for the arrival of the 6th DD Flotilla, as they were supposedly shadowing the enemy cruiser, and coming his way.

  Kirov increased speed and diverted further to the northeast, passing the undersea contact position by a comfortable 35 kilometers, and continuing on towards the inlet to Kola Bay. The sight of the familiar land forms rising ahead was welcome to them all, though Karpov steamed on the bridge, a sullen anger kept bundled beneath his cap.

  The waters around them suddenly seemed very busy, and Tasarov had yet another undersea contact, again unidentified, also trailing in their wake near the shadowing German destroyers. There was still activity to their north, where that contact seemed to hold in place for a time, before continuing further south. Amazingly, Fedorov was able to come up with yet another interpretation of these events, intens
ely focused on his history books as he was finally given permission to resume his normal station at Navigation, much to Karpov’s chagrin.

  “At this time there would have been one more German U-boat operating to the east, U-652. It sank Russian dispatch vessel, PS-70, the Kapitan Voronin, at 19:00 on the 6th of August. The activity up north is in the same region as the probable position of Force K under Vice Admiral Vian. He was refueling with the tanker Oligarch before proceeding south again. There was also a pair of British submarines here this month, Tigris and Trident,” he told the Admiral. “Tigris was supposed to arrive at Polyarny to assist the Russians with patrols up here, and would later operate out of Murmansk.”

  “What? The British, offering to lend us a helping hand?” said Volsky. “You are reading these things from your history books?”

  “From a log of activity in the Arctic region for this month, sir.”

  “And that may as well be a log of activity in Never Never Land,” came Karpov’s inevitable response. “Your grasp of the history is laudable, Fedorov, but an annoyance. It has nothing to do with our present situation, in spite of these unknown contacts you insist on painting with this brush. Admiral, I have attempted to abide by your wishes, and remained calm in the face of this nonsense, but enough is enough.”

  “I thank you for your forbearance, Captain. In another few hours we will have our answers, and sort this entire mess out.” He gave Fedorov a look, and a nod of his head, angling it toward the Navigation station, a clear sign that the Admiral wished him to resume his post.

  But I’ve said my piece, thought Fedorov. I’ve told them what may actually be going on all around us, chapter and verse, even though these events may not play out as in the history I have quoted. But time is on my side now, and its steady march brings us ever closer to a reality that not even Karpov will be able to dismiss with his foul attitude and willful nature. Then the real game begins.