As she seated herself, she gave both Tovey and Volsky a lingering look. There he was, the legend in the flesh, Admiral John Tovey, founding father of the Watch. And there he was, the terror of all their nightmares, the Captain Nemo that had been the object of all their early operations. This man and his ship had been tearing through the history like a sharp knife, and yet, as she looked at Volsky, he did not seem a man who could carry any of the sinister thoughts she had associated with him in her mind. This was obviously a part of the story she knew nothing about. The calm presence of these two men here together, the obvious demeanor of friendship and warmth between them… well it seemed most irregular to her, most unexpected, and she was now wondering how all this had come about.
“Well then,” Tovey began, thinking this to be a most challenging meeting. He had sat through sessions in the Admiralty and War Cabinet, and knew how turbulent the waters could be, but this was something else. Here was a woman, who seemed to know him, or at least know of him, and he had the feeling that she was looking on him with a certain awe and reverence, which he did not quite fathom. And here was Admiral Volsky, who had never met this woman before, though he seemed to know of her ship. They were two birds of a feather in one respect, both impossibly here from that far distant future, but yet, his observant eye perceived some tension between them, and uncertainty. And finally there was Admiral Cunningham, completely in the dark about all of this, and blind to everything before him. He looked as bemused as a boy freshly assigned to his first mission at sea. How would all these loose ends be tied into the same knot here?
“No doubt this meeting was a surprise to all of us, yet here we are, and we’ll make the best of it as we go.” He looked first to Admiral Cunningham, a sympathetic expression on his face. “Admiral, I’m afraid you are about to hear some things that will be most unsettling. In fact, you may conclude that we are all quite daft, but bear with us. Everything will be made clear to you in time. That said, I must tell you that what you will now learn is the most highly classified secret of this war—a secret so dark and inaccessible, that only one other man within the British Government has any knowledge of it, and you will be surprised to learn that our Mister Churchill is not that other man. Bear with me, Andy,” Tovey used the familiar handle that only two friends might share, hoping to ease the shock for Cunningham if he could.
Then he looked at Admiral Volsky, addressing Elena Fairchild as he gestured to the man. “I can see that the presence of Admiral Volsky here and his ship is somewhat unexpected. Let me say that I was once as unknowing about all of this as you both seem to be. Yet it begins with the Admiral here, and with his ship. So perhaps it might be best if I yield the floor to you, Admiral Volsky. If there is any man among us who might sort this whole matter out, I would start with your chair.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” said Volsky, “and may I introduce our Director Kamenski, Russian Intelligence. He has been with us aboard Kirov for some time, and I thought he might be able to help us sort through all of this. In fact, he will likely do a much better job than I could. Director?”
“Admiral,” said Kamenski, “this is one odd kettle of fish we have. Here are two adversaries, and unfortunately so, from a time neither you or Admiral Cunningham here could ever see or imagine. And here you both sit with us, two new friends from a past long removed from us, yet one we have been shaping with our very hands, unknowing at first, and now with more deliberate endeavor. It is a strange enterprise, and a mighty challenge we all face now. Yet I fear that if we are to measure it, and prevail with any sense of sanity, we must all now reach across this table and join our hands in a common understanding. Here we sit, like a group of blind men around the elephant, each holding onto a piece of the truth as they grope that mighty beast. We all know something of this truth, some more than others, but we must all hear each other now as we describe it to one another, so that we can see the whole as one together, and determine what we must do.” He looked at each one around the table now, the knowing and the unknowing, and smiled. Nikolin completed his translation, and now he continued.
“Opening your eyes and actually seeing the elephant is quite another experience, ladies and gentlemen. To do so we will have to drink of the same cup of poison, I fear, for only then can we die together, and be reborn with some new understanding that can unite all present in one accord. Forgive me if I sound more like a bad poet than a diplomat at times, mixing my metaphors like this, but we have a fine and arcane business before us now, a mystery as deep and unfathomable as time itself, and we are its minions. Admiral Volsky here has asked me to begin this discussion, and yet where to start the tale? I think the only way is to just come right out with it, crazy as it will sound at first blush. My name is Pavel Kamenski, all seventy five years worth, and I was born on the twelfth night of June, in the year 1946…” He let that hang there, waiting to see the reaction of Admiral Cunningham as Nikolin translated.
“Excuse me, Mister Kamenski, I’m afraid your Lieutenant here has his number wrong. 1946? Surely you meant 1865, as I cypher it.”
Nikolin translated that back, and Kamenski smiled.
“No Admiral Cunningham, the Lieutenant had it right, but to hear it right you will have to extend your hand now and take hold of the elephant’s tail.” And then he began to speak of the war, the long struggle ahead, and how the nations of the earth were now engaged in the making of weapons to prosecute it. He told them one weapon that would be forged in the crucible of this conflict would be so terrible that it would cast a deep shadow of doom on the world for generations, and one day make an end of the human endeavor on this planet. He told them how this weapon was made, and that he knew, for a fact, that many nations were now engaged in the effort to bring this terror to life. And then he slowly began to describe the arms race they would engage in, and the nuclear testing that would be a part of that, until Soviet Russia would build a bomb unlike any other, and set it off in the frozen north on October 30, 1961.
“Yes, and you have heard that date correctly as well,” he said looking directly at Admiral Cunningham. “Yes, I am speaking of all of this as though it had already happened, and from my perspective, that is true. You see, I am a man from tomorrow—your tomorrow at least—and all of this has happened, and more than once I’m afraid. The only question before us now is whether or not it will happen again—whether or not we can do something about this war without planting the seed in this Devil’s Garden that will make the next war a certainty. So I will tell you now, Miss Fairchild, how it is that our ship came to be here, and you can then tell us the same thing about your ship. Hold tightly to the tail of that elephant, Admiral Cunningham. We’re all about to climb on the damn thing and give it a good stiff spur in the gut, and hopefully you will be dragged along with us.”
Then he went through everything, the odd effects they discovered in their weapons testing program, temporal effects that were affecting the flow of time itself, and he laid out the whole impossible story, chapter and verse.
Chapter 8
Brigadier Kinlan sat with Lieutenant Colonel Sims and Major Isaac at Brigade HQ, a thousand dilemmas on his mind. The evidence he had seen, or not seen, at the old Sultan Apache site was damning enough. Now he had Italian infantry at Giarabub, and showing every intention of marching on Siwa, the small British held oasis manned by ghosts from the past. He shook his head. When I was with this Russian Captain and his confederates they were so damn convincing. Yet now, the more I think on this the more insane it all seems, particularly when I try to talk about it with the other officers.
“I’ll have to reinforce Siwa,” he said. “Not much there beyond this Australian motorized cavalry and a couple squads of the Long Range Desert Group.”
Major Isaac shifted uncomfortably. “Excuse me, sir. You’re going to reinforce Siwa? What for?” The Major was just about to be eased over the line with information on what had happened to them, and he did not take it well. His initial reaction was to take the whole matter for a bad jo
ke, or an idle wish that they might find themselves anywhere but the sands of the empty Libyan Desert, at any time other than the days they would now be facing. The brigade was to have made a night march to Mersa Matruh to meet roll on/roll off ships there for transfer to Toulon, and start a new deployment in Europe, until this! Was the General mad? Had he finally broken under the long strain of this endless deployment?
He soon learned that General Kinlan was stone cold sober, and in deadly earnest. He was actually telling him that he had come to the conclusion that they were no longer in their own time. They had moved, vanished, and reappeared, and it was now 1941 by every account they could surmise. They had moved in time—all of them—the entire brigade! Kinlan shared the evidence, the testimony of the Russian Naval Captain, the photographs from the library pad on both Popski and O’Connor, but Isaac remained unconvinced.
“Ludicrous!” he objected. “I’ll admit that the resemblance of these two men to those historical figures is uncanny, but you can’t really believe this. It’s rather convenient that these Russians show up Johnny on the spot when that damn ICBM comes wheezing in on us. They were obviously here for reconnaissance and battle damage assessment. Can’t you see that? And look here… You could have told me Reeves had stumbled on Shangri-La out here and I’d believe that before this preposterous story. You mean to say that Russian Captain actually told you this? And you just send him off on his helicopter with the prisoners as if it were all true?”
“Major,” said Kinlan. “Now you know as much about all this as I do. Suppose you go on over to Sultan Apache yourself and explain what happened there. Sims and I went over the place with a Geiger counter and magnifying glass. It was completely undisturbed. There was no sign of any blast damage, no wreckage of any kind, no radiation. Now you tell me how twenty square miles of British Petroleum disappear in a heartbeat like that? Tell me! I’ll gladly listen to any explanation you might have, because I haven’t got any answer aside from the one this Russian Captain gave me.”
Major Isaac folded his arms, frowning. He knew Kinlan to be a competent, no-nonsense man. For this to be coming from him was the hardest blow. There was no way in hell that the man he had known and served under for the last three years would concoct such a story. Not now, not here, with the whole damn brigade strung out in column of march and the missiles lighting up the sky. No. Kinlan wasn’t mad, nor drunk, nor groggy with sleep. He was standing there, plain as day, and telling him this was 1941! Bloody World War Two!
“Add it up for me, Major. Sims and I have gone round and round with it for the last two hours. I spent four hours with this O’Connor and by god if he isn’t the real thing I’m a goat. Then Lieutenant Horton says the stars are all wrong. The moon was wrong last night, or did you happen to notice that? You explain it! Then, when you have it all figured out, you tell me how I’m going to explain it to the men…”
There was a long silence, and in that stillness Isaac realized this was Kinlan’s real burden now. Could he have this conversation with every man in the brigade? They had been out here for months, away from home, knowing now that the lives of all their loved ones were in dire jeopardy. If the missiles were flying here, they were damn well lighting up the skies over London as well.
Major Isaac sat down, a distant, vacant look in his eyes, his expression blank, and almost lifeless. The pallor of his cheeks betrayed the awful strain they had all been under, battle ready, the whole brigade wound tight like a watch spring, under ballistic missile attack, and buttoned up in their vehicles these last 48 hours, knowing the war to end all wars had finally begun in earnest. Every man among them had the image of someone back home in his head, wondering now whether any of them were still alive, wondering what lay ahead for them, or whether they would even make it to Mersa Matruh alive before another missile came at them and the Aster 3 system was not good enough to save them this time.
“No answers?” Kinlan left the question out there, but he could see the defeated look on the Major’s face, and relented. “I didn’t have any either, Bob, so don’t feel bad. You think I bought this story hook, line and sinker without smelling the fish first? There was only one explanation that accounts for all these anomalies and makes any sense—Sultan Apache, the stars all wrong, this fellow calling himself General O’Connor, not to mention Wavell on the bloody radio chewing my ear. We’ve no satellite links, nothing on any command level channel, but plenty on the AM and FM bands. And guess what, it’s all news of the war, the last big war, news of Rommel in the desert, and Wavell’s last stand at Sidi Barani. And then there’s that Italian infantry unit down south at Giarabub. I scouted the damn thing myself. There’s a stack of photos right there on the desk, and Sims and I spent the last hour with them. So call me crazy, and yes, this whole thing sounds completely insane, but there it is. You think I’d make a fool of myself like this? Here? Now? Not bloody likely.”
Sims scratched his head. “Look, General, there’s only one thing to do here. Reality has a way of rearing up like a stone fence, no matter what we think of it. I say we head north as planned. There will either be RoRo ships waiting for us at Mersa Matruh… Or we’ll run into Rommel and his Afrika Korps.”
“And the men? Am I going to have to go through this with the whole rank and file one by one? I thought the very same thing the Major did here—that the Russians were up to no good. But that didn’t explain away any of the hard evidence we uncovered.”
“You could say nothing of this,” said Sims. “If it’s all a fairy tale then the road north will hopefully be uneventful. But I’d suggest we keep the air defense units on full alert.”
“And if it’s not a fairy tale? What if the Russians were telling us the truth and it is 1941?”
“Then woe betide General Rommel,” Sims smiled. “That’s the wall I was talking about, sir. He’s either out there as we speak, or not. Time will tell. It’s as plain as that. As to the men… We do an all points signal and notify all units. You get on and lay it all out. Tell them there’s been an anomaly, some odd effect of that ICBM attack, and we’re looking at some unanswerable questions. Tell them what the Russians said about it, preposterous as that sounds. Yes, they’ll have a good laugh, and you can laugh right along with them. But then tell them we’re going north, and if, by any chance, we do run into the German Army… Well tell them they’ll know what to do about it. Yes sir. Let them find out as we do, by heading north and walking right up to that wall if it’s there. Things will sort themselves out after that, I can assure you.”
Kinlan nodded gravely, his eyes tormented, yet knowing that was the only course they could take. “Major?”
Isaac shrugged, shaking his head. “By all means,” he said half heartedly. “We go north as Sims says. At least that way we all become fools at the same time, and no one can point a finger at anyone else and call him a madman. We all just go stark raving mad together. Shall we?”
“Very well,” said Kinlan. “I’ll want to brief all battalion commanders here personally. Have they arrived yet?”
“They’re all here sir,” said his Chief of Staff, Sims, “waiting just up the line with the artillery.”
“We’ll bring them in on this shortly, and we’ll have to throw the same bucket of ice water in their faces that I just dumped on Major Isaac here. I’ll want them ready for anything when we move north. But first I’ll want senior staff briefed on this, and on our planned movement north in the next 24 hours.”
“We’re taking the whole brigade?” Sims had one last question.
“No, I’m sending the Gurkha Light Infantry Battalion to Siwa, just in case those really were Italian infantry in those photos. They certainly weren’t Egyptian Army, and they certainly weren’t Berbers. This Fergusson fellow at Siwa might be glad to have a little company. The rest of the mechanized elements move north. But I’ll want to know what we’re up against, one way or another. We have no idea what’s really going on—no reliable sit-rep.”
“What about that Russian Helicopter?�
��
“My thoughts exactly,” said Kinlan. “Gentlemen, I think it’s time you met this Russian Captain that Reeves rounded up out here… and someone else.”
* * *
Fedorov had struggled for some time with everything that was happening, and Popski did not have to work too hard at finding out what was going on. Fedorov realized that if he were to communicate here in any way that could be convincing, he would have to rely on Popski for the moment. The man would simply have to know what was happening, who they were, yet he felt a deep reluctance to reveal the information. Something told him that they wanted to keep this secret for as long as possible, but here he was, in the midst of an entire armored brigade from the year 2021. They were going to be pulled into the maelstrom of this war, and there was nothing he could do about that. They were going to know—a few key officers at the outset, yet all the rest in due course. They were all going to know, but what chaos was he now about to unleash upon this world?
He had worried about contaminating the time line, cracking that pristine mirror of history. Look at the damage they had already done! Their homeland was shattered in civil war, a circumstance that now made the prospect of a German victory in WWII very likely. He had long since abandoned any hope that they might ever get the history back on track again. It was broken beyond repair. There were now simply too many men who must know why, and that knowledge would spread like a fatal illness and contaminate this whole world.
What should he do? He wished he had Admiral Volsky here, or Director Kamenski, and he remained haunted by the dreadful, aching feeling that he had been responsible for the hell they had unleashed upon this world. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him to be silent, to hold the secret within, but how could he do this with these men here? They were going north and in another 24 hours they were going to learn a very hard truth, one with or without his intervention. That fact alone decided his course. He could not stop what was about to happen. He could no longer hold back the flood—the dam of secrecy was breaking, but what he could do was try to open the sluice gates slowly. He could try to channel and guide what happened next, as best he could.
Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) Page 7