Grand Alliance (Kirov Series)

by John Schettler

  Kirov’s eyes narrowed as he considered this. “I could get this same information from your Admiral Volsky.”

  “Possibly, but I am here, and Volsky is out to sea. The war will be won or lost here, Kirov. Hitler will not invade England, and at the moment he has no more than a few divisions deployed in North Africa against the British. You think he is serious about that little side show? No. He is planning to move on the Crimea, just as you say. That will stop your drive into the Caucasus. You want the oil at Maykop. Yes? Well you had better hurry, because once the Germans invade you will have a very short lease there.”

  Now Kirov began to hear things that struck close to the bone. This man knows why I have opened my offensive in the south. He knows I need the oil too! Maykop is nearly within our grasp, but what he says is true. How long can I hold it? And if the Germans take it, then where do I get my oil?

  “Go on,” he said quietly. “What do you propose, Karpov?”

  “It’s very simple. You can build these new tanks, but you’ll need the fuel to keep them operating, Just like Hitler covets the oil Volkov is sitting on. Well you may be interested to know that I’m sitting on billions of barrels of oil at the moment. Reserves are found in Siberia that make Russia one of the top producing oil countries in the world in my era. I know exactly where these fields are, but we do not have the means to drill for them, nor the equipment. You can provide that, and if you do so we can get you all the oil you would ever need. And we have men who will fight, tough, hardy soldiers. The Siberian divisions were among the very best in the war. But we lack the heavy industry to give them the tanks and artillery they will need. Don’t you see? By cooperating we are much stronger together than we could ever be alone, and if we do not join hands now, we will fall under Hitler’s shadow, and that is a certainty. Oil and industry, Kirov. That is what will win this war. How many of these new tanks do you have in production?”

  “That is classified.”

  “Oh? Let me guess. You produced about 400 last year in 1940. Correct? Before this war ended in the history I know, it took over 35,000 to beat the Germans. And that is just for the initial design with the 76mm main gun. A newer model with a better 85mm gun comes later, and it took nearly another 30,000 of those too! And that is just for the T-34 model tank. Now do you begin to see the urgency of this moment? 400 tanks? That is bird feed! You must scale up production dramatically, and make this a matter of the highest priority. Don’t you see what’s about to happen? Hitler will sweep into the Ukraine, take the Crimea and make a quick end of your little adventure in the Caucasus. Then the combined might of Orenburg and Germany will turn north. You won’t last a year, and once the Soviet Union falls then they’ll come east and finish me. They could do all this before the United States even enters the war, and that will be that. Hitler will dominate all of Europe, and he will join with Japan in the far east. The Axis empire will be invincible. Even with the United States and Britain allied, it took them until mid-1944 before they could muster the strength to invade the continent. And that was with a united Russia still locked in combat with 80% of the Wehrmacht.”

  “I must say that I have considered all this, and you describe the nightmares I have been having very well, Karpov. I know full well how vulnerable Soviet Russia is. This man from the upper floor, Volkov, has made German victory almost inevitable.”

  “Yes? Well you have been up those stairs, Kirov, and I am a man from the upper floor as well.”

  Karpov thought for a moment. He still had a few cards in his hand to play, cards that might trump all others. Should he speak of this? Kirov was no fool. He was a shrewd and determined leader, and he could be ruthless when pressed, even as Stalin was. So he will certainly not fail to understand the power I hold. Power is one thing he knows well enough. He pressed on.

  “As to the matter of my disagreement with Admiral Volsky,” he began. “It centered on the power inherent in the ship we commanded. Volsky was taken ill, and I assumed command. I immediately realized the power I had at my disposal, and I was determined to use it. Volsky was not so inclined.”

  “So you tried to seize the ship?”

  “I did take it, but the crew eventually sided with Volsky, damn them all. They could not see what I saw—the necessity of using power to the fullest when necessary to achieve your aims. They wanted to dawdle about, thinking they could prevent changes in the history. Me? I wanted to write it all anew. Well, we have seen what their dawdling has produced. If they had done things my way, Russia would be supreme today, and not the broken, fragmented state it is now. Power, Kirov. You are no stranger to that bedfellow if you fought your way to the top here. Well… Before this war ends there will be weapons designed and deployed that will trump all others—weapons of unimaginable power. Volsky has them aboard that ship at this very moment, but he is too timid to use them. I know how they will be designed and built, Kirov. Understand? The Germans and British are tinkering with these weapons programs even as we speak. The Americans too! Yes, they will all be in a race to see who can deploy these weapons first. Thankfully, that time is many years off, but beware. Ivan Volkov knows this as well. He may have a similar weapons program underway too, and if he is successful…”

  Karpov did not have to say anything more. Kirov was listening, his mind focused, his thoughts darkened with the burden of impending war.

  “And I have one more thing…” Karpov hesitated, then pressed on. “Ilanskiy,” he said, “that lonesome railway inn. You wanted to know why Volkov would throw away a couple old Zeppelins and a few battalions of troops to raid Ilanskiy? Well, I learned something during our conference at Omsk. That was where Volkov went missing in our time—he was foolish enough to tell me so. After the conference ended, I got curious and went there to have a look around. It was only by chance that I ventured up that back stairway, and discovered what could happen.”

  “I see,” said Kirov. “Yes, Ilanskiy. I begin to see why Volkov is so interested in driving east now. It is not merely to settle his flank so he can turn his full force on me. He wants Ilanskiy.”

  “Correct, and he was stupid enough to think he could take it with this raid and drive all the way from Omsk in one fell swoop. Well he failed, on both counts. We are stronger on the ground than he realized. He won’t get over the Ob easily, if at all. I can stop him, Kirov, and I have Ilanskiy. Do you understand what I am saying now?”

  “Only too well,” said Kirov.

  Yes, Ilanskiy, he thought. That was what this whole affair between Volkov and Karpov was about. Two men from the upper floor were having a nice little tussle for control of that stairway. They know the power it represents, even as I do. I used it to see tomorrow—to see this time from where I was on the bottom floor, and I used that knowledge to eliminate my enemies and take control of the revolution. But I did not count on Ivan Volkov, and I certainly did not count on this man Karpov.

  Yes, he’s every bit as dangerous as Volsky said, a bit of a viper, this one. Can I keep him in a basket if I join with him now? He has Ilanskiy…

  “What’s to stop me from sending ten divisions east to do what Volkov failed to do?”

  “Don’t be foolish,” said Karpov. “You would have to start from as far away as Perm, and its 2500 kilometers from there to Ilanskiy. No force on earth is going to take that place from me. Understand?”

  “So what do you propose to do, Karpov? Are you going to sneak up those stairs and bring back these terror weapons you spoke of?”

  Karpov smiled. “I suppose I could do that, but that stairway goes two directions, does it not?”

  Now the full implications of what Karpov was saying struck Kirov like a hammer. My god, he thought. That is true! What if this man were to start on the upper floor and go down those steps? Why, he could do what I did with Stalin! He could do that to any man alive in that time… .even me…

  “Unfortunately, the place was destroyed, Karpov. You said as much yourself.”

  “Yes, it is destroyed,” said Karpov, decid
ing to play his Ace, “a nice pile of rubble—for the moment.”

  Chapter 27

  “For the moment? What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that if an inn was built in that place once, an inn with a nice back stairway leading to heaven and hell, then one can be built there again. Yes, their little mission was successful and they destroyed the stairway. But I could rebuild it.”

  Karpov knew it was dangerous to reveal this, for it would show Kirov the full breadth of the power he had at his disposal. What would he do now? Here I sit, right in the heart of the Kremlin, and with no more than a company of security men and the Tunguska hovering overhead to protect me. Kirov could lock me away in a heartbeat, or worse. Yet if he would do that now, then he would also do it later, under other circumstances. Yes? So I must measure the man, and find out where he stands. He will either be my enemy, or my friend here. The die is cast.

  “Rebuild it?” Now it was Kirov who leaned forward. “Would it still work?”

  “Perhaps. That remains to be seen. I have found the original plans and construction diagrams, though the builder is long dead. That said, I have skilled men on the job this very moment.”

  “I see… Then you intend to use that stairway again? In which direction will you go, Karpov, back to your upper floor to fetch a devil’s brood of new weaponry for your army, or back to the time of the early revolution?”

  Karpov smiled. Now he had this man’s full attention, but he had to be very careful here. Kirov could be sounding me out to determine what to do about this situation, he thought.

  “I have not decided to use it at all, except perhaps to test and see if the gateway still remains open. Once I learn that, simply having it there presents me with a final option should things ever go wrong for me. Think of it, Kirov. That stairway represents ultimate power—the power to pluck out any weed that might one day bloom in your garden, and long before it ever gets rooted and goes to seed. I have ringed Ilanskiy with my best troops, and stationed three airships there now. That and the vast distance any army must march to reach the place make it a castle I can easily defend and hold.”

  “I suppose that is true. You would see any threat coming long before it could reach you. But what if Volkov were to throw his entire airship fleet against you, with every ship carrying a full battalion? He has twenty four Zeppelins! That could carry over two full divisions of his best troops to that place, and your air defense could not stop him.”

  “He has twenty-two Zeppelins, remember? And now I have nine. Yes, he might still win that air duel, but he could not win the battle on the ground—he learned that the first time he tried to raid that site, and he would be foolish to try again.”

  “What if he were to use other means? Assassination could solve his problem easily enough. One good man with a rifle could do what all his airships might not accomplish. You know how good his intelligence service is.”

  “I’ll match my security forces against his any day,” Karpov folded his arms, confident he could prevent such an attack.

  Now it was Kirov’s turn to smile. “Suppose I have you taken out and shot this very moment, Karpov. I could eliminate your little security contingent, and then turn every flak gun in Moscow on that overinflated balloon you have out there.”

  “Yes, you could do that if you wish. I was very bold to come here, and even more rash to tell you all of this. You could kill me here and now—but not my plan—and you could not get force to Ilanskiy before it was carried out. So you see, I am neither stupid nor foolhardy. I determined that you would either end up my enemy in this war, or my friend. I had to know which was to be. Coming here like this would answer that question, for if you are determined to be my enemy, then you should kill me—here and now—because you know that I can do to you what you once did to Stalin. Do that, however, and you now make a permanent enemy of the Free Siberian State. You decide the fate of your own nation if you kill me here, for in that instance, Soviet Russia, and your regime, could not survive. No. Your only hope is to find in me the strongest possible ally you could ever have—stronger even than Admiral Volsky and his fighting ship. Kirov is a great foil at sea in this war, but it only has so many missiles in its hold. Once they are gone, that ship is no more than a dangerous looking cruise liner. So what is it to be, Mister General Secretary? Do you want my death, and the eternal enmity of the Free Siberian State with it, or do you want my friendship in a grand alliance?”

  Kirov nodded his head, leaning back now and reaching for a flask of vodka and two glasses that were on a side table. “You have thought this through very well, Karpov. You are a very daring and determined man. I can appreciate that in a man. You understand power like few others, and you know how to use it. So no, I do not think I will have you taken out and shot today, because I understand power as well, and I know how to wield it when necessary.”

  He slowly poured two small glasses of Vodka, handing one to Karpov. “So there is no poison in this glass. Instead I will extend my hand to you in friendship, if that is what you truly pledge here. I have no doubt that you could be a strong ally, and one I desperately need at this moment. But can you remain loyal, Karpov? Yes, there I do have my doubts, as your infighting with Admiral Volsky has shown you will not think twice about opposing any man who disagrees with you. The threat you leveled at me just a moment ago will overshadow all our dealings, would it not?”

  “Pardon me for that,” said Karpov. “But I had to make it clear to you that I have a power now that cannot be matched in any way. And yet, it is clear that without your help, your leadership here in the heartland of Russia, the Free Siberian State will remain nothing more than a cold backwater wasteland on the fringe of this war. Then one day, just as I have warned, the tanks would come for me. Could I find a way to prevent that by venturing up or down that back stairway at Ilanskiy? Possibly, but why take the risk? I don’t want you dead, Kirov, nor do I want to sit in this gilded palace in your place. What I do want is the survival of our nation. Everything I have done in the past was to further that aim, and not merely for my own personal aggrandizement. The Motherland must survive!”

  “Then let us drink to her good health,” said Kirov raising his glass, and he took a long sip of the vodka, breathing deeply with the heat of the liquor on his throat. Karpov drank as well, heedless of any risk of poison. It was all or nothing where Kirov was concerned. He had determined that the moment he decided to come to this place.

  “Together we can try to save her,” said Karpov. “Together we save Russia from the cruel fate that looms on our horizon. It was never supposed to be this way, Kirov. This endless civil war should never have happened. We caused it, unknowingly, and now it threatens to destroy our nation if we do not stand and act to save it. Volkov does not see this, thinking that Hitler is too powerful to oppose. He knows that the Germans will not be stopped while Russia remains divided. He has seen the history of this war, and its outcome.”

  “What does happen, Karpov? I have not ventured up that stairway to your floor. My sorties only took me to this time, and then back to 1908, never anywhere else.”

  “What happens? I cannot say that for certain now. In our history we prevailed in this war, driving all the way to Berlin and crushing Hitler and his Third Reich under the tracks of our T-34s. Build them, Kirov! Build them by the thousands. Only you can do that. Russia needs you now more than ever, as I need you.”

  “But after that? After the war?”

  “Fifty years of guarded enmity with the West. They never trusted Stalin, and soon we had the terror weapons they developed in the war, and so we sat, like two men on opposite sides of a great stone wall that had been built between us, and we never knew real friendship. Russia was strong, Russia was powerful, but they worked to undermine us, a death of a thousand small cuts. We were never really welcomed as a European state, always mistrusted. In my day we were a provider of the oil and gas—the energy they needed to build and run their glittering cities. And just as the oil will eventuall
y bring Hitler’s armies to the Caucasus, so the wars for control of that energy began in earnest in the 21st Century.”

  “Another great war?”

  “Unfortunately,” said Karpov. “I reached an accommodation with Admiral Volsky, and put to sea as the Captain of the battlecruiser Kirov in 2021. I fought the opening rounds of that third great war—for Russia! Then that slippery fish of a ship displaced in time again. It is too complicated for me to try and explain it all to you here. Suffice it to say that the ship took its own journey, all the way to the time of the bottom floor—the time of your youth, Kirov. There I found myself in a most interesting position! I could start anew, and re-write the pages of the history that has been so cruel to our Motherland. That was what I planned, but Volsky, Fedorov, they had other plans. They are always scheming, those two, and they found a way to stop me and regain control of the ship. I need not go into all the details now. Perhaps they have already told you all this.”

  “Somewhat,” said Kirov. “Well I will tell you that I have also extended my hand in friendship with Volsky, even as I do so with you here. Will that become a problem for you?”

  “I cannot say. They will not think fondly of me, nor I of them just now. Both sides feel they were betrayed, and that is a hard fence to mend.”

  “Consider trying, Karpov, for the Motherland you say you are so dearly hoping to protect. You know as well as I do that we would all be stronger together as one. If I could persuade Volkov to join us, I would do that as well.”

  “That would be a fruitless venture,” said Karpov. “Volkov has made his choice in the matter, He makes it each time he orders his guns to fire on your forces, and on mine. If there is any man I might wish to eliminate from the world stage, it would start with Volkov. Who knows. I just might go down that back stairway and collar the man before he can cause all this mischief.”