And no one knew this time that he was about to have yet another meeting with Fedorov, only now the strange figure from the future was not there to deliver a warning that might one day save his life. This time Fedorov had come to end his story, then and there, as a desperate act to try and reset the world he had come from in 1942, and perhaps expunge the sins that now darkened his own soul, atoning for all he had done to give birth to that world.
While traveling east, Mironov stopped at Kansk, resolving to continue on the next train. He, too, wanted to see a bit of the Great Auto Race that was nearing that location. Then, on the day of the strange explosion and fire in the sky to the northeast, he had what he now believed was a very close brush with the authorities again. That strange man in the dining room, claiming to be a soldier, had aroused his suspicions. At first he had thought to share his table with the man, to make it seem that he was nothing more than an innocent traveler. But when the soldier made such a hasty retreat to the second floor of the inn, Mironov’s curiosity had been aroused. He wondered if the man was an agent of the Tsar’s dreaded secret police, sent to follow him now that he had finally been released from prison.
That’s what they would do, he thought. They release the little fox, but keep the dogs close at hand. My colleague, Popov, fled this way as well. I must get in touch with him one day, but not now. They will want to follow me, see where I might go, and to whom I might speak. Did they honestly think I would be so stupid as to try and contact fellow revolutionaries or other members in the party so soon after my release from that prison? No. The smart thing for me was to do exactly what I was planning—find relatives, find family. That would be the perfect cover for any travel I undertake, and then, when things settle down; when I’ve had time in Irkutsk to have a good look around and make sure no one is watching me, then I can contemplate another move.
The train is due in at Kansk today, probably bringing more tourists hoping to see a bit of the Great Race. The American team has already moved on, but the German team is still here. That will attract a lot of attention, along with all this other commotion. There are already security men here, and so the thing to do is head east, not west to the train at Kansk. If I slip off to the east, I can always board the train at another village down the line. But what if those men are on the train? So be it. I’ve done nothing wrong here—except that reporter. Yes, that could be it. I was talking with that English reporter, a foreigner, and a member of their press. That could land me in a bit of a stew. Is that why that man came over—Fedorov? And what did he mean with that whispered warning about St. Petersburg?
“…never come up this stairway again. Understand? Get as far away from here as you can.” He remembered the urgency in Fedorov’s voice, the look in the man’s eyes, as if all the world was at stake. Then that strange look of anguish, that moment’s hesitation, and the torment in his eyes as he leaned close, taking hold of his arm.
“Do not go to St. Petersburg in 1934! Beware Stalin! Beware the month of December! Go with God. Go and live, Mironov. Live!”
And the night…. The moon. How could I have left this red sky morning one moment, and found it so dark and quiet the next, and with that ghostly moon? Perhaps that was only the rising sun I saw, obscured by smoke from that fire in the east. What was that man saying about 1934, a year so far away in the future? Who was this Stalin he spoke of? Why should I be wary in December? What did he mean that I should not go to St. Petersburg? He was speaking as though… as though he saw some distant future in the world that had not yet come to pass, some far off doom, for his tone of voice clearly carried the edge of warning.
That only increased the rising sense of fear in his own gut. Yes, slip away east, he thought. That was what he must do now. The train will come east tomorrow after all this ruckus settles down. The German race team will leave, the tourists will have had their eyeful, and even that reporter will probably try to follow them as they head west to Khabarovsk and beyond. But I will continue east, wait for the train, and get on at the next town.
The nearest village was Staynyy, only ten kilometers east along the line. He could get there in as little as two hours, and he did. The little depot there wasn’t much, but that was where he stayed, sleeping on a bench. Tired and hungry the next morning, he was now looking forward to the arrival of the train, where there would be warmth, food and more comfort, but something else unusual happened that morning—something very strange.
The sky was still aglow to the northeast when he saw a gleaming shape emerge from a cloud. It hovered in the sky, drawing ever nearer, fixating his attention. Mironov had never seen such a thing, and to him it would have been like the arrival of a UFO in the skies, so he was quite curious. It was the second time that curiosity would get the better of him. He saw that the craft was lowering very near the ground, and only a few kilometers north of Staynyy, so he could not help himself. As he approached the craft, he saw something lower from the great shape, which he now surmised was a massive airship. Such craft would not begin to fly commercially for another two years, but Mironov had heard of them, and reasoned that this was what he was now staring at.
The small metal basket lowered, and a group of men got out, all carrying weapons, which prompted Mironov to crouch low behind a tree. Three men started off west, back towards Ilanskiy. The remainder began to fan out, eventually disappearing into the trees around the small clearing. Soldiers… What would they be doing here? Might they be secret agents of the Okhrana? Is this how they were able to suddenly appear in these isolated places, seemingly everywhere. Did they travel in those massive airships? How is it he had never seen anything of the kind before?
He would soon be even more confused, for some time after the three men departed east, he had decided to head back to the little depot at Staynyy. Just as he rose to head back, there came a whooshing sound, then two, then three explosions. He turned, amazed to see the airship burst into flames, terrified to see the massive ship come crashing down into the clearing, burning fiercely. He watched, spellbound, frozen in place by the spectacle of that disaster. It was a point of divergence, for this had never happened to him before, and the history of these moments was now being rewritten. Would seeing this event change him in some unfathomable way? What happened next surely would.
Just as Mironov turned to retreat to the rail depot, he was confronted by a dour looking man in a black beret and soldier’s uniform, and he was holding a dangerous looking rifle, aiming it right at Mironov’s chest.
“Stand where you are,” the man said coldly. Then he touched something at his collar and spoke again, seemingly to someone else. “Komilov to Zykov. We have a witness.”
* * *
After questioning the reporter, Thomas Byrne, Fedorov and Troyak had searched the entire inn, and all through the railway yard area. People were arriving from Kansk, where the train took advantage of the delay to re-coal. The visitors had come to see the German race team, hearing they had stayed at the inn at Ilanskiy, and hoping to see the grand sendoff that morning, before they started heading east. That complicated their search, but it also gave Fedorov a chance to question several people, asking them if they had seen a man by Mironov’s description heading west on the road towards Kansk.
Preoccupied with the persistent red glow in the sky, no one could help him, and he was beginning to think his mission would now become an impossible search for Mironov, who could be anywhere by now. No, not anywhere. He had to be close at hand.
Think, he told himself. He can’t fly. The train is still at Kansk, and that is his only way out of here. I doubt he would have secured a horse or carriage, so he must be somewhere close by, and we must keep an eye on that train.
Then he got word from Zykov and his heart leapt. The Marines had been cleaning up the wreckage site, and Zykov called on his service jacket radio to report they had a man in custody that looked very much like the one in the photograph Fedorov had shown them.
They had Mironov!
Chapter 11
There he was, the same man, Fedorov. He was just sitting there at the same table where he had thought to share his breakfast with the man the day before. Yet somehow he seemed different, older, quiet, a sullen mood on him, as if some darkness had fallen on him, a shadow of gloom. The soldier that had herded Mironov in saluted.
“Thank you, Corporal,” said Fedorov. “See that every entrance is secured.”
Mironov looked around the room, seeing the broken windows boarded up, and noting the lower door to the back stairway was closed. His heart beat faster as he eyed that door, remembering how he had crept up after this very same man the previous day. That was a mistake, he realized now, for this man was obviously Okhrana. Perhaps he had been following him all along.
“You again,” he said, a note of accusation in his tone.
“Me again,” said Fedorov, realizing the utter strangeness of this moment. For him it had been long years, decades in the future, living in the world he had created the last time he saw this young man. There had been plans and battles, and so many losses. He had lived through that impossible time in the desert when Kinlan arrived. He had consorted with Wavell, Alexander, Churchill. He had campaigned in Lebanon and Syria, fought battles on the sea, faced the wrenching strangeness of Paradox, and the second coming of Kirov, when he found himself there, inexplicably there, the one man who could remember it all. Yet for Mironov, it was only a matter of a day or so since he followed me up those stairs.
“Won’t you sit down?”
“Why should I?” said Mironov. “So that you can interrogate me? That’s what this is now, correct? You had plenty of time when you got hold of me yesterday. Why are you so curious today? Ah, yes, you wanted to see if I would go to anyone else here. You wanted to try and ferret out any possible contact I might have. I know your kind well enough.”
There was that same defiance, the hardness of rebellion already alive in the man, thought Fedorov. “I know this is what you might believe,” he said, “but no, I am not a member of the Okhrana, or of any other authority connected to the Tsar.”
“Then why the uniform?”
“Please… Sit down with me, and we can talk. I will answer all your questions. I promise.”
Mironov folded his arms, frowning. Then he walked briskly over to the table, drew back the chair, and sat down. “Very well,” he said. “If you are not the secret police, then who are you? Why that uniform? Why all these men with guns?”
“We are soldiers… Sailors actually. Those men are Marines off my ship, and we have come here on an important mission.”
“What has it to do with me?”
“Everything.”
“What? I have done nothing wrong. I was falsely tried and convicted on a technicality, a trumped up charge because they had no evidence of any other wrongdoing. They tried to say I was operating an illegal printing press, but they could find no such thing. So they just made something up—said I was causing tension between the classes. I served over a year for that, and now I’m a free man. They even let me go early, but now I’m beginning to see why. They just wanted to see who I ran to.”
“I know… It all seems that way, but it’s not. I assure you. It’s something else entirely.” Fedorov had his eyes averted, unable to look Mironov in the face. He had one hand on the table, the other resting in his lap, where he held a drawn pistol, concealed by the shadows. His heart beat faster as he realized what he now had to do—the timely cruelty he had spoken of with Karpov.
“If you only knew everything that has happened,” he said sullenly. “If you only knew how long it has been since you last laid eyes on me, and what has become of the world…. But it was my fault, not yours.”
The man seemed to be speaking as much to himself, and Mironov did not understand. “Yesterday you told me to get as far from this place as possible,” he said. Then you ran on with something about St. Petersburg in the future—in 1934. Yesterday you told me to go, to live. Well, that was exactly what I was doing, heading east to wait for the train and get clear of all these tourists coming to see the German race team off. Now why are you and your men so keen on sitting me down again for this nice little interview? What is it you really want to know? Go on—out with it!”
Fedorov raised the hand he had on the table, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I shouldn’t say another word,” he whispered, again, more to himself than Mironov. “What I have already said was damaging enough. But then again, if I finish what I came here to do, then what does it matter? What does it matter?”
“There you go, talking in riddles again. Look here, I’ve done nothing, and you have no right to detain me here. Either charge me with another false crime and be done with it, or let me go as you did yesterday.”
“Mironov….” It was the first time Fedorov had used the other man’s name, and he regretted it the moment he said it. It would only make him real, a person, a human being, and that would make it so much more difficult. But he could not help himself. It was as if he was compelled to say something, anything, to justify what he was now planning to do, to explain it to Mironov, and by so doing, be absolved.
“What if you met a man and then later found out that he did something that caused a great deal of trouble, something ruinous, something catastrophic, even if he, himself, had no inkling that he had done anything wrong at all… Even if he was completely innocent at that moment.”
Mironov’s eyes narrowed. “You are suggesting I have done something—the crime you are planning to charge me with? What is it this time? You might as well spit it out, for you’ve already decided I am guilty. You’ve tried and convicted me long ago.”
The truth in Mironov’s words stung Fedorov, for Mironov was absolutely correct. He was here to convict him, the summary judgment being the cold steel bullet in the gun beneath the edge of that table. He could feel his palm wet with sweat, a slight tremble in his hand there.
“Well, what is it this time?” Mironov insisted.
The anguish on Fedorov’s face was plain to see. “You would not understand,” he said. “Yes, it was not your doing, at least not at first. I’m the man who should be tried and convicted here.”
At that moment, something occurred to Fedorov. What if he were to repudiate everything he said in that impulsive moment years ago—a day ago to Mironov. He could just tell him to forget what he said, that it was nothing, something he was saying to himself, nothing to be bothered about.
The futility of that was immediately apparent to him, but the one side of his mind that was still the man he was before all this happened kept up its plea. That was the man who flinched at the first plane Admiral Volsky ordered shot down. That was the man who stood, glassy eyed and remorseful, as he watched Yamato burn on that dark night in the Pacific. That was the man who stood in stunned silence when the news of Volsky’s death came in the middle of his heated conversation with Karpov on the bridge, and the man who wept in his cabin later that day, knowing it was all his fault.
How had he become this man, driven to come here again, by any means, and with this pistol in his hand. How had he become the man who fired five missiles at Orlov, the one who gave that order to take down Irkutsk, killing everyone aboard, even though his inner self inveighed against him for that callous act. How had he come to the cold calculus of death, finding reasons, justifications, imperatives that would muzzle and imprison the man of conscience he had always been—the man he still was.
Yes, he knew that, deep inside, he was still a man of integrity and conscience—he was still as innocent as Mironov was at this moment, but the words Karpov had spoken to him as Yamato burned now scored his soul. “It gets easier,” he had told him—easier to kill, easier to do the heartless thing he was planning now, easier to find reasons, arguments, justifications; easier to rationalize everything and explain it all away.
But that wasn’t true, at least not for Fedorov. At his core and root, he was not that kind of man, and now, as he sat in this moment of destiny, gun in hand, the dark
agent of absolute change, time’s assassin, he knew he was not the man who could murder Mironov. He could not do what Leonid Nikolaev did that day, emerging from the rest room on the third floor of the Smolny Building, the heart and center of Bolshevik power in Leningrad. He had a pistol with him that day as well, hidden in his pocket, and there was Sergei Kirov, walking towards him down the long hall, his footsteps ringing out fate’s toll with every step. He could not look the man in the eye, turning away towards the wall and fishing in his pocket for a cigarette, fumbling for a match.
Kirov passed him by, continuing on towards his office, and Nikolaev followed. Just as Sergei turned onto the side hallway, the assassin pulled out his pistol, and without a second thought, aimed and fired. The bullet struck Kirov right on the back of his head, and he was dead before his body hit the polished tiled floor. There, in that moment, the world that Fedorov had been living in, struggling with the lines of history so wrenched and bent by the simple fact that Kirov had lived, all came oozing out like the dark red blood from his ravaged brain.
Yet Fedorov had spoken, just one impulsive moment born of the admiration he always had for Kirov, born of the compassion that lived in his heart at that moment, born of hope. Fedorov had given his warning, only thinking to spare Kirov’s life. It had never occurred to him, in that brief moment, that Kirov would discover the reason behind that warning; that he would find it at the top of that single flight of stairs, right here at Ilanskiy. Kirov would learn the name of the man who would pull that trigger, the day and hour of his own demise, and the name of the man who may have given the order—Josef Stalin. That alone may have been reason enough for what Mironov did in that cold prison cell in Baku. Instead of Nikolaev, it had been Mironov with the fate of the world in his hand in the shape and form of a pistol.
Thor's Anvil (Kirov Series Book 26) Page 10