“Sweet vengeance,” said Karpov, reaching for that bowl of mints in his mind. “Alright, Fedorov. This I can understand—one last hurrah, and a nice cold shiv in Volkov’s ribs at the same time. How close are we?”
“We’re vectoring inside 50 kilometers now. Don’t worry, their rudimentary radars here will not have the range to pick us up for some time. Yet with the Oko Panel, I’ve been able to track them and adjust our position to make a perfect surprise intercept. We ought to be getting the crew ready soon.”
“Yes,” said Karpov, rubbing his hands with a smile. “Action stations!”
The gleam of battle was back in his eye.
“What about London?” said Karpov. “They may have the same thing planned there.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve seen to that.”
“How so?
“Argos Fire. I used the ship’s secure comm link to contact Elena Fairchild & Company, and I warned them that the next airship attack might be carrying something more than makeshift thermobaric bombs.”
“My god,” said Karpov. “I had almost forgotten about them. What in the world have they been up to?”
“They went on a mission, to get after that key that was to be lost aboard Rodney , and I’m told they succeeded.”
“They found it? Imagine that. There’s another little dangling thread in all of this. What are these keys all about?”
“It’s certainly a mystery,” said Fedorov, “but Fairchild has just collected another big piece of the puzzle. Now she has three keys, the one she was given by the Watch, the one Kamenski left in his room aboard Kirov before he disappeared, and now this one, supposedly associated with St. Michael’s Cave beneath Gibraltar. That was where they went. They found another Ilanskiy.”
“What? You mean there’s a time portal there as well?”
“It seems so. Fairchild revealed that it took them much farther back—before the Tunguska Event. They were in the early 1800’s!”
“My, that is interesting. Something tells me there’s quite a few more chapters to be written in that story. Fedorov, did you say anything about our plan?”
“Not yet. We’ll have to think that through. For the moment, I just thought I would warn them about London. After all, they have the Aster-30 long range air defense missile on that ship.”
“Ah,” said Karpov. “It has a flight ceiling of 20,000 meters, that’s 5,000 meters above the highest altitude Tunguska could achieve, and this is the best airship in the world, at least at this moment. They can get after those airships no matter how high they fly. Good job, Fedorov. Argos Fire will have a nice little surprise for Volkov and the Germans.”
That mint in his mouth tasted very good to him now, and Fedorov could see that he seemed like his old self again. The thought of sticking it to Ivan Volkov was just what the doctor ordered. So there would be not one, but two flies in Volkov’s brew. Now they just had to win.
Chapter 35
Elena Fairchild suddenly had a lot on her mind. The elation of recovering the key that was supposedly lost on the Rodney had not solved the mystery underlying that entire affair. They had discovered the hidden passage deep in St. Michael’s cave, beneath the Rock of Gibraltar. Strangely, it required no key for them to find the hidden passage that was also aligned with a time fissure, and that little journey took them to the year 1805. There, in the age of Nelson and Napoleon, they made their way to the Greek island where the ship bearing the artifacts recovered by Lord Elgin had been shipwrecked. There, in the case holding the prized Selene Horse, she had finally found the object of her quest.
She remembered the brief discussion she had with Captain Gordon MacRae and her intelligence Chief, Mack Morgan….
“I’ll find a very safe place for this,” she said, looking closely at the key. “Tomorrow we start the long journey back to Gibraltar, via Malta.”
“I still can’t figure it,” said Mack. “If we’ve got the damn thing, then how did it ever get lost on the Rodney ?”
“Think, Mack…. Think. Who knows what happens between here and the place we left in 1943? I hope we get back safely, but we’re in 1805, and a long way from where we want to be. I think there may be another reason. Wherever that passage took us, it wasn’t to our immediate past—not the time line we could trace back to this day from our position in 1943.”
“What? How can there be more than one? The past is the past. It’s done and over—fixed.”
“Quite wrong,” said Elena. “When did you ever read about a converted Daring Class British ship of war sailing about in the midst of WWII, and hobnobbing with a modern day Russian battlecruiser?”
“I take your point.”
“Good. That’s over with.”
“Not to spoil our excitement,” said Gordon, “but if this is true, how can we be certain we’ll find our way back to the correct time?”
“There’s always a possibility that we won’t,” said Elena. “We’ll just return the same way we came, and hope that fissure beneath Saint Michael’s Cave is stable.”
“Alright,” said Morgan. “I’ve one other bone to pick. Remember how we discovered that crevasse? It was that pesky Barbary ape, and more to my point, it was that candy wrapper it had. You said you were convinced it came from a much more modern time, and that it could not have been printed during the war. Well… If that ape followed the same route we took, I’m damn well certain it didn’t find a Mars Bar here.”
“Clever, Mack. Then again, that’s what I pay you for. That occurred to me as well, but I can only deal with one problem at a time these days. Alright, let’s look at the possibilities. Remember all those side passages? We took that chimney up, because that’s what our recon team discovered, and we followed the trail they laid out for us. But there were other dark openings down there we never tried. The thing is this, I’m now holding the long-lost key, and that American professor who posed as Wellings told us it was associated with Saint Michael’s Cave. Keys open something, just like my key did at Delphi. Yet we saw no such gateway or door when we took that passage. It wasn’t secured by anything, just very well hidden, and difficult to navigate even if you did find it.”
“I see,” said Gordon. “Then you’re suggesting there may be another passage in the cave, secured by some doorway?”
“Why else would this key be engraved with the geographical coordinates for that place? And every other key I know of was supposed to open a secure gateway.”
“Every other key you know of?” Morgan gave her an admonishing look. “Have you been holding out on us, m’lady.”
“Well, I told you there were other keys. One look at the compartment in that box aboard the Argos Fire makes that quite plain. There are seven apertures, so I’m assuming seven keys.”
“Yet those apertures could simply be meant to hold the same key,” said Mack. “It could operate differently with your key in a different position.”
“Mack… How many keys typically open any given door? I tried that. Each key is unique. The key I have fits in one of the seven apertures, but not the others. I’m guessing that with this key, the two combined might alter the way that box functions, but that’s another grand experiment. First things first. I want to get back to Gibraltar, and then see if we can find any hidden door or gateway beneath Saint Michael’s Cave. Don’t forget that story I told you about the man who claimed he was a British Sergeant defending the Rock from the Germans in the Second World War. He turned up in a bar in Ceuta, around 1980, but was far too young at that time to have ever served during WWII. So let’s humor the man, and believe that story.”
“Ah,” said Gordon. “You’re thinking there’s another door or passage there, beneath the Rock. Well, if that story is true, then that Sergeant certainly didn’t have that key, correct?”
“Good point, which means we might have yet another unsecured passage in those caves, just like the one that brought us here.”
“My,” said Gordon. “The place is busier than Oxford Street in London. If we’ve
got all these passages down there, then why haven’t they been discovered in all this time?”
“Perhaps they have,” said Elena. “This key obviously argues that rather convincingly.”
It was clear to here that the time fissure beneath Gibraltar must have several threads or fissures, like a web of cracks in a mirror. They had found one, but the Barbary ape and that British Sergeant who turned up in the 1980s may have found others. But they would all be unsecured, requiring no key at all to use the passage. If that was so, then what did the key in the palm of her hand actually open? It was said to be associated with Gibraltar. Was there a hidden door here, like the one that had opened at the Oracle of Delphi?
These things were mysterious enough, but now this Russian Captain, Anton Fedorov, had his thumb in the pie again. He had been a very enterprising and insightful man, finding and bringing here one of the three keys which she now held. This time, however, he was up to something that could have dramatic repercussions. His call came in that morning, where Argos Fire now hovered off North Berwick in the bay near Edinburgh.
“This Fedorov just made an emergency call,” she said. “He had two warnings for us. The first is that the Germans may be making a raid here on London, and with an atomic warhead.”
“Where would they get such a thing?” said Morgan. “We know they never developed the bomb.”
“Ivan Volkov,” Elena said flatly. “That man is at the heart of a good deal of mischief here. That news about Leningrad was utterly shocking.”
“Aye,” said Gordon. “The gloves are coming off now, and its to be a bare knuckled fight from here on out.”
“Well, they’re taking another swing at London. We’ve got to get the ship underway immediately, and get into position to cover the North Sea.”
“I can get us into a good position in three hours,” said Gordon.
“Then let’s get to the bridge. We can discuss the rest on the way.”
They started moving, out from Elena’s private stateroom and into the corridor. Captain MacRae found the nearest intercom and sent orders to the bridge to get the ship underway, on a heading that would take them southeast into the North Sea.
At that very moment, Admiral Voloshyn was aboard the new fleet flagship Orenburg , being escorted by the two German gunships, Baldr and Heimdall . They were over Bergen at that moment, over five hours flying time from the position the Argos Fire could reach in just three hours sailing time at 30 knots, so they had plenty of time to get ready.
“There’s more,” said Elena, a worried edge to her voice. “This Fedorov says he and Karpov are going to attempt a move forward—in time.”
“You mean they’re trying to get back home?”
“Correct. Fedorov thinks the only way this situation can be resolved is at the original point of divergence—the moment their ship was first diverted here to the past by that accident in the Norwegian Sea. He says they tried to effect and outcome in 1908, but they were unsuccessful.”
“Well, he may be on to something with that. But how can they go forward—using the damn Russian battlecruiser?”
“He didn’t explain, but he wanted to warn us that we may not want to linger here. I’ll give that some thought, but for now, let’s stop this damn airship raid. Gordie? Can you knock down those Zeppelins at high altitude? They’ve been flying up over 45,000 feet in the last two raids, or so I’m told. The British fighters can’t get up there after them.”
“No problem, Mum. I’ll stand up the Aster-30 missile system, and we’ll pop those balloons with no difficulty.”
“Then do it,” said Elena. “And after we finish, we have to think hard and long about Fedorov’s warning. If they do go forward, and they do what Fedorov is planning, then our presence here becomes an anomaly. We would have had no reason to be sent here, and yet here we are.”
“A nice little Paradox,” said Morgan.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Elena. “You see, I am a member of that very select group I told you about.”
“You mean the group started by this Admiral Tovey here? The Watch?”
“Exactly. Well gentlemen… If Fedorov does what I think he’s planning, then Tovey would have never had a reason to set up his little group. So there would be no Watch, no key around my neck, and no mission to Delphi to send us here. Kapish?”
* * *
That was the same thorny problem that Karpov had once raised with Fedorov in their many discussions.
“A moment ago you told me that this Elena Fairchild was a member of the Watch,” he had said. “That was the group Admiral Tovey founded to look for us, correct? Well now, the Fairchild ship was right there in 2021, the same year and time line where we were when Kirov first sortied. In fact, Argos Fire was headed for the Black Sea while I was in the Pacific fighting with Captain Tanner and the American 7th Fleet. So how could she be a member of the Watch, and getting predictions about 9/11 from the future, not to mention the warning about us—about Kirov ? That group wasn’t even founded until we shifted back.”
Fedorov raised both eyebrows at that. “Well, by that time we had already shifted back, and then returned to Vladivostok. So our history in 2021 was already influenced by the things we did in the past on that first loop. Yes, Tovey did establish the Watch, and that had to be one of the effects that migrated forward.”
Karpov didn’t buy that.
“You’re saying that this Miss Fairchild was just minding her own business, herding her little oil tankers around for love and profit before the Orel blew us into the past? Then one day she wakes up and realizes she is now a member of this nefarious group? She realizes that she is privy to everything we did in the past? That may be so, but I think otherwise. I’ll bet that if you asked her whether she was in this group on the day we sortied, she would affirm that. If so, that can mean only one thing: that meridian was already altered.”
There it was, Karpov’s logic had gotten right to the heart of the matter. If Fairchild was a member of the Watch on that day, before the accident that sent Kirov back into the 1940s, then changes to the time line were already in play.
“But how?” said Fedorov. “Who could have caused it to change?”
“Who else? We caused it. Why else would she be a member of a group established to track Kirov down? Do you realize what this means? I don’t think our disappearance in the North Sea may have been the first instance of travel through time, it may be that we did all this before; perhaps many times before. Who can say?”
“Then why don’t we remember those instances? You and I remember the first loop, and here we are in the second. If there was anything prior, why wouldn’t we remember it?”
“Who knows, Fedorov? I could come up with many reasons. Perhaps the ship went back earlier, but did not survive. Suppose we were all killed. Dead men don’t have memories. All I’m saying is this: if the Watch existed before we first left Severomorsk, then it did so because that sortie was not the first. You can say that Fairchild just suddenly realizes she’s a Watchstander, but I think otherwise. So you see? If I’m correct, then the world we were living in wasn’t even the original history. It wasn’t the Prime Meridian. All your books were already altered, even though you believed them to be the gospel truth. The deck had already been shuffled. That’s a little humbling, isn’t it?. What if that world was just one of many? What if this loop business has been going on for some time, and our recollection can only go back so far, perhaps one or two loops? After all, there’s only so much room in your head.”
Fedorov did not quite know what to make of that. His theory may have been correct, because Tovey was led to create the Watch because of things they did before returning to Vladivostok after their last jaunt in the Pacific. But Karpov made a good point. Taking his view, it really didn’t matter what they did here. Things would resolve one way or another. Yet something in him still resisted the very presence of the ship and crew here, displaced in time, aliens, interlopers, weeds blown in to infest the Devil
’s Garden.
They had tried to return, and on more than on occasion. He remembered the empty world they had found, blighted and burned; devoid of life. His assumption had been that the war starting in 2021 had been the cause of all they saw, but now he recalled the great doom Fairchild had first warned them about, a real possibility that had been seconded by the American Physicist, Dr. Paul Dorland. They had never determined just how far forward in time they shifted.
Here he was, and with a feeling in his gut that seemed to arise from that same sense of doom. What could they do? Seeing things the way Karpov did seemed to resolve one of any responsibility. That was what had been eating at Karpov after they both decided on their plan to go storm chasing in an attempt to return to the point of divergence, and fix things from there. But if Karpov was correct, and Fairchild was a member of the Watch in 2021 before they sortied for those live fire exercises, then where was the real point of divergence? Where was the real Prime Meridian? Could they get there if they tried to shift forward?
Altered States… That’s the way the world was, like a stack of photographs of the same incident, each taken from a different angle. They all showed the same thing, but they were all different. How could they ever reach the original photo? How could they know if they ever did? Now Fedorov had that same feeling of dark disquiet in his gut. The history beneath their feet was no longer reliable. Therefore, what was one to do, leave it for a completely uncertain future?
It was all so maddening, but the immediacy of the moment had a way of focusing his mind on the here and now. The alarm sounded. They were about to make close contact with the enemy airships they had been vectoring in on, and battle was at hand.
Breakout (Kirov Series Book 38) Page 29