Winter Storm

by John Schettler

  The sound of the man’s name seemed like the hissing warning of a rattlesnake when Karpov spoke it. “Volkov has other ideas, Fedorov, and god help this world if he prevails. He’s a traitor and a coward, and he simply must be defeated. Germany must be defeated, and now the Japanese along with them. That’s job one. Then, once we’ve won, only then can we turn to the men of this world we forged alliances with and find our peace. The Cold War doesn’t have to happen this time around. There need be no Berlin Wall between us. Yet we have a very long way to go before Germany and Japan, and now Orenburg go down to the flames of perdition they deserve. I’ve done what I could for Sergei Kirov. I’ve thrown the entire fate of the Free Siberian State on his fire. It could be no other way. He’ll have to deal with the Germans, and I’ll support him every step of the way. As for the Japanese….” He smiled, waiting, watching Fedorov very closely now.

  Fedorov looked down, rubbed his forehead. Then he met Karpov’s eye, finally knowing what he simply had to do. He had thought to oppose Karpov and try to regain control of the ship, yet now he realized that battle was one he simply could not fight. So as Shakespeare had so eloquently put it long ago, the better part of valor was discretion.

  “Starpom?” Karpov asked again.

  “Starpom,” said Fedorov. “What else can I do? But Captain, Admiral, or whatever I should call you now. You had better damn well listen to me. I’m not meddlesome little Fedorov any more than you are not the man who jousted with me on the bridge when we first shifted here.”

  “Understood,” said Karpov.

  “Speaking of that other man,” said Fedorov. “Where is he?”

  “My other self? Very strange, isn’t it Fedorov. All this is still so much of a mystery. Can you imagine how I felt when I first looked in that man’s eyes? I called him my brother, and that is the way I like to think of him now. He’s aboard my airship, Tunguska. I wanted my intelligence chief to brief him, bring him slowly into the reality of this world.”

  “I’ll bet he wasn’t happy when you took his place here.”

  “Yes, he squirmed a bit, but he listened to my reasons and agreed. Too much is at stake now. We cannot afford to make any mistakes. This whole thing is on the razor’s edge. One false move and we could lose this war. We have to be every bit as sharp as that razor, and that is why I need you, desperately. You’re a major force in all of this. I need your knowledge, your experience, your sound judgment, because it will take everything we have, together, to prevail. I know you were thinking to hide your real identity, gather allies aboard ship, and then what? Were you going to do the same thing I tried, and stage a mutiny? We have to put all that behind us now, there can be only one Captain here.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “An interesting question,” said Karpov. “From his perspective, the ship just vanished. For us it was just a few minutes time, and here we’ve bounced a full month ahead.”

  “We’re pulsing,” said Fedorov. “The same thing happened to us many times on those early shifts. Chief Dobrynin ran his maintenance procedure, only this time no one threw a nuke at the sea, and so we didn’t move as far as we once did earlier. I think that energy really supercharged Rod-25.”

  “I’ve told Dobrynin not to run the procedure again,” said Karpov. “Do you think our position in time will stabilize? We’re still in 1941.”

  “Yes,” said Fedorov. “In the beginning we made small jumps, always a little ahead of the time we were in before, though we moved an entire year. This time it was a month, but we still might be in flux. Remember my metaphor about the rock skipping on the pond? We may not be fully settled in this time. We could move again. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  There came a knock on the hatch, and Karpov looked over his shoulder, reaching to open it and seeing Nikolin there.

  “Excuse me, Captain. But there’s more news. I got a clear signal from the BBC. The situation on the eastern front has taken a turn for the worse.”

  “Well, out with it! What happened?”

  “Moscow is being evacuated. The situation is very confused, but from what I could gather the city was burning, and the Germans have broken through.”

  “The government is leaving the city? What about Sergei Kirov?”

  “The news is not clear, sir. BBC says they were expecting a speech from the Kremlin tonight, but apparently that has been cancelled. The situation must be very grave.”

  “Alright,” said Karpov. “Keep listening, Mister Nikolin. See what else you can pick up. And one more thing… Now that the airwaves are clearing up, switch to the secure channel I gave you. Try to raise Tunguska, and let me know the moment you get through.” Nikolin saluted and returned to his post. Karpov turned to Fedorov again.

  “It seems we have our work cut out for us,” he said heavily.

  “It does indeed,” said Fedorov.

  Karpov thought for a moment. “We proceed as I have planned. There’s nothing we can do for Moscow, though I’ll have to find out what’s happening in Siberia if Nikolin can get through with that signal. Otherwise, we need to get this ship into the Pacific as quickly as possible. I need you at navigation now. Can you get us through?”

  “The data I have on the ice conditions will all be wrong, but we can use the helicopters to scout ahead. We’ll get through.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Karpov started for the hatch, then stopped, holding out a hand. “Fedorov,” he said… “I’m sorry for the things I did… with Volsky, on the bridge of Oki Island, and what I did to Zolkin. I was possessed with the thought you all wanted me dead, and that submarine didn’t help matters. Can you forgive me?”

  Fedorov took a deep breath, then extended his hand and took the Captain’s. “As the Americans say, this is a whole new ballgame.”

  Karpov smiled. “Then after you, Mister Starpom. Let’s get started!”

  Nikolin got through to Tunguska an hour later, and Karpov was elated to hear Tyrenkov’s voice. He took the radio call in the briefing room off the main bridge.

  “Sorry to slip off like that,” he said. “Our position in time may not be stable yet, but if we do shift again, we think we will make small moves forward. In such an event you need to keep your wits about you. How are things back home? Any news I should be aware of?”

  “The situation after Kolchak’s passing has stabilized,” said Tyrenkov. “All the Generals from the Eastern Provinces have pledged their support, but they’re worried about the Japanese.”

  “Justifiably so,” said Karpov. “I’m going to start working that problem very soon. Where are you now?”

  “Were over the East Siberian Sea. Your brother wanted to scout ahead to look for you, but we’ve seen nothing for nearly 30 days. In the meantime, there’s trouble in Moscow.”

  “So we’ve heard on the BBC. What can you tell me?”

  “The situation is still not clear, but our man in the Kremlin got through this morning. There’s been an assassination attempt on Sergei Kirov.”

  “My god! Did he survive??”

  “We don’t know. The NKVD are all over the Kremlin grounds, and there was apparently fighting between those troops and Kirov’s Kremlin Guard. The General Secretary was to have given a speech to the nation via radio last night, and that was cancelled. The government is now evacuating the city and moving to Leningrad, and most of the western suburbs are on fire. My people there tell me they think it was deliberate. This may be a coup attempt, underway even as we speak.”

  “A coup? Who could mount such a threat to Sergei Kirov? One of the Generals? Surely not Zhukov.”

  “We don’t know yet, but I have my suspicions. I’ll get you more information soon, but this is all in flux now.”

  “And Volkov?”

  “He paid a visit to the Wolf’s Lair a few weeks ago, and then flew to Mongolia to sit with the Japanese. We have no hard intelligence on that yet, but we were able to track his movements afterwards. He’s returned to Orenburg, and there have been some unusual fle
et deployments in the last few days.”

  “Explain.”

  “He’s pulled all his airships out of the Caucasus. We thought he was thinking to use them to support his cross Volga operation, but they were ordered to Astrakhan, and now they moved up to Uralsk.”

  “Could he be planning an offensive on the upper Volga now?”

  “No significant ground movement there,” said Tyrenkov. “No sir, but the whole of his 22nd Air Mobile is on the move. He calls them the 1st Guards now. Units he had in the cross Volga operation pulled out yesterday. Something is going on, and I have my best people on it.”

  “Very well… If he moves any of those airships east, implement Plan Seven. Is there any buildup on the Ob River Line?”

  “No sir, all is quiet there, we still have three full divisions manning the fortifications.”

  “The 78th is still at Ilanskiy?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Get word to General Kalinin. He is to keep a Ready Brigade on the Trans-Siberian line for immediate deployment west to Ilanskiy in the event of any trouble, and troops from the Ob line should be ready to move east. We are in the Laptev Strait, still heading east. Since you are in the East Siberian Sea, take the ship ahead and relay ice conditions to our navigator. Scout through the Chukchi Sea and Bering Strait. Then wait for us at Big Diomede Island. One last thing. How is my brother?”

  “Restless, but slowly adjusting to the new realities here.”

  “Any problems?”

  “No sir. Do you wish to speak with him? The channel is secure. We’re using the equipment you gave us.”

  “Very good. Put him on. It’s time I give him a little briefing.”

  Chapter 33

  Karpov explained their situation to his younger self, heard his complaints, the impatience in his voice, and remembered being that man. “You will soon be in the thick of things,” he promised again. Come December, we will have much to plan and do together. In the meantime, I’ve reached an accommodation with our Navigator.”

  “Be careful with him,” said the younger brother. “He’s a slave to his history.”

  “We’ll talk about that later. For now, I want you to know we may not be fully stabilized in this time. We could vanish again. If that happens I want you to post a detachment with a radio set on Big Diomede Island. Then move south into the Bering Sea and discover what the Japanese are up to in the Aleutians. Be patient. If we do vanish, we don’t know how much time could pass before we reappear, but we’ll return. Believe in that.”

  “I will wait for you, Brother.”

  “Good to hear you call me that. Oh… One other thing. Tyrenkov thinks Ivan Volkov may be up to something. Keep your ear to the ground on that matter. Your primary mission as Fleet Admiral is the safety and security of the men and ships you command, but even more, the security of our base and headquarters at Ilanskiy. I’ll tell you more when we meet again, but stay alert! I’ll hope to hear from you on what the Japanese are up to soon.”

  *

  The Siberian freighter Uritskii, operated with registration UOAX. It was built in 1929 by Ordzhonikidze Shipyard #189, the Baltic Shipbuilding & Engineering Works in Leningrad. It was an ISKRA-class cargo ship of 2513 GRT, sold to the Siberian Free State in 1934. As Fedorov took note of that, an odd sense of déjà vu came to him again, not for anything he personally experienced, but with the thought that here again was one of those tiny threads in the tapestry that seemed to bear the same color as in the history he knew. That evening he went to Karpov about it, wondering what he might know.

  “Do you realize the Siberian freighter Uritskii, is presently operating on the U.S. to far east trade lanes?”

  “Uritskii?” said Karpov. “Can’t say as I know anything much about it. What is the problem?”

  “It was on that northern trade route, near the Aleutians, and spotted the Kido Butai en route to Pearl Harbor.”

  “It spotted a Japanese ship?”

  “Japanese ships, sir, 22 of them, excluding the submarines and supply ships. The Kido Butai is the name the Japanese gave to their mobile carrier strike force. That freighter was under Soviet registry in the history I know, and it was the only ship to spot the Japanese fleet prior to the attack. It was allowed to steam quietly off when the Japanese identified it as a Russian ship, as neither side wanted trouble with the other.”

  “You mean to say that the Russians knew Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked and yet they did not warn the Americans?”

  “Correct. Historians presume Stalin may have known more about the attack than many realize, and frankly, he needed the U.S. entry into the war, just as Churchill did. The Americans beat Japan with a third of their war effort, and of course they were instrumental in beating the Germans on the Western front. Britain could never have done that alone.”

  “But just remember,” said Karpov. “Eight of every ten dead German soldiers died in Russia.”

  “Oh, I haven’t forgotten that, sir.”

  “Why do you bring up this freighter?”

  “It seemed an odd coincidence at first,” said Fedorov, “but then I realized you ordered your airship to scout down as far as the Aleutians. That could be dangerous. The Japanese fleet assembled in the Kuriles in late November before making the approach to Pearl Harbor by that little used Northern route. If they spot your airship….”

  That got Karpov’s attention. “What might they do, Fedorov?”

  “It would create both a diplomatic and military problem for them. They know you have allied with the Soviet Union, and there has been a long watch on your frontier with the Kwantung Army. If they choose to attack in the attempt to preserve the security of their operation, that would be an act of war against Siberia.”

  “And if they do nothing, as with that freighter you mentioned?”

  “Then they basically risk detection should your airship report the sighting.”

  “As it certainly would—but to me, no other ministry of my Government. The Siberian Air Corps answers directly to me.”

  “Yet your other self is already on Tunguska, and so to whom would they report? Wouldn’t they just inform the Captain and leave it at that?”

  “He has instructions to inform me, and my intelligence chief would certainly do so as well.”

  “So the hot potato would be in your lap? What would you do sir, if I may ask?”

  “That is what we have yet to discuss.”

  “Well, assuming your intention is to persuade Japan to cede back occupied territories in Siberia, that sighting would give you a little leverage, but probably not enough to get a deal with Japan.”

  “I’ve considered that,” said Karpov. “But let me ask you this—what if that force is sighted early. Would the Japanese persist with their attack?”

  “I believe they would,” said Fedorov. “They had provisions in their attack plan that would simply change the strike wave composition in the event they were discovered. They would front load fighters in the first wave to deal with the possibility the Americans would have fighters up waiting for them. The bombers would then only be launched after the Japanese achieved air superiority. They would be outnumbered. The Americans had around 200 fighters on the seven airfields in Hawaii, but a great many were down for maintenance. I believe the number was 37 percent. That said, the Japanese would still be outnumbered, as they planned to launch 45 fighters in that first wave. Yet they had the A6-Zero, a much better fighter than the Americans. I think they would have eventually won, and pushed through to neutralize the fighter fields as planned.”

  “Why wouldn’t they simply provide a heavy fighter escort for their strike planes and attack as planned?”

  “Because of their mindset, sir. The fighter pilot was a bit of a free spirit, the samurai of the skies, if you will. Their mindset and doctrine was to range freely, untethered from the bombers, and seek out enemy fighters. In fact, those were their orders. They were not there to escort and defend, but to attack. The Japanese plan itself saw offensive oper
ations as the way to defend. They will attack, which is why your airship may be in some jeopardy.”

  “You see, Fedorov, this is why I need you! Your knowledge of the history is essential here. To answer your question, I intend to contact the Japanese Government and inform them that I am personally aware of their plan to attack Pearl Harbor. I will tell them that if they persist with this plan, particularly if British colonies in the far east are also attacked, I would have no recourse but to declare war on Japan. They could avoid such a declaration by returning our occupied provinces.”

  “You think they will agree to that?”

  “Certainly not, but it is at least a suitable diplomatic nicety. You said yourself that this is both a military and diplomatic problem, and I’ve given it a good deal of thought. You see, Stalin maintained a cautious neutrality with Japan, and the Japanese even allowed American shipping into Vladivostok to support Russia. Stalin didn’t want to see divisions tied down against the Japanese when he needed them to fight the Germans. Much the same idea is in play here, but things are different now. The long war with Volkov sees Siberia with a standing army over three times what it was in the old history. I’ve sent Sergei Kirov close to fifteen divisions, but that is only half my existing force on the ground, and I can raise more. Not only that, I am promised new equipment from the Soviet factories now relocating to Siberian territory. This means I will have mechanized forces soon, and troops capable of posing a real threat to Japan’s interests in China. They will have to see me as a serious factor. I can back up any threat I make, both on the ground, and certainly at sea. They do not realize that yet, as they think I have no more than a few old destroyers at my command. When Kirov enters the Northern Pacific, all that changes. Then the real game begins.”