Doppelganger Read online

  “Yet he can be very persistent, sir. He is already complaining that the buildup here serves no purpose. Soon he’ll be demanding more than those two airships. He’ll want divisions to pad his defenses along Lake Baikal.”

  “Then get rid of the fool.”

  That statement fell like hot coals in water, and Tyrenkov inclined his head, wanting to be certain Karpov was serious. “Are you instructing me to plan his removal?”

  “He’s a nuisance, Tyrenkov, just as you say. He will question every operation I plan, haggle for troops and material, pull on my resources. If I’m to get anything done here, I’ll need a free hand. I have accepted this role as his Lieutenant for appearances only. It is clear who is really running things in Siberia, and so I see no reason why we should not make that a permanent truth. Get rid of him. Do it carefully, and make it look like Kymchek planned the whole thing. In fact, we’ll arrange to have him confess whatever we decide to do. For now, I’m off to Moscow to negotiate with Sergei Kirov. By the time I get back, the restoration of the inn at Ilanskiy will be complete. Then you and I have some very interesting options to consider. Volkov may soon have more to worry about than the buildup on the upper Volga or his pathetic defensive line on the Ob. Remember what we can do with Tunguska! Yet for the moment, I must cement our position with the Soviets and get a good deal for Siberia.”

  Tyrenkov nodded, seeing that distant look in Karpov’s eye again, as if he were seeing things yet to come, and realizing that he may be doing exactly that. It was an eerie feeling to know this man was from the future, to realize that he had even seen a tiny glimpse of that future when he went up those stairs. What was he planning, he wondered?

  “One more thing,” said Karpov. “Have we found all of Kymchek’s sleeper cells here in Ilanskiy?”

  “We’ve identified several suspicious men, but the investigation continues.”

  “Get them all, Tyrenkov, every last one. I’ve had the most uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching me of late. Round up these agents and deal with them.”

  “Won’t that make Kymchek suspicious?”

  “Of course it will. We wouldn’t want him to get too comfortable in that new uniform of his, would we?”

  “I understand, sir.” Tyrenkov saluted, and withdrew, thinking things over.

  So, you want Kolchak out of the picture, he mused. Very well, Admiral, I can arrange that. And yes, I will keep my place as your trusted Lieutenant for a time as well. But there may come another time when I have to deal with matters myself, and let us hope that you do not present any obstacles to me. After all, I control the entire intelligence network, don’t I. You will know only what I tell you, and in time you will do only what I tell you as well. But first things first—Kolchak.

  Chapter 18

  Tunguska rose into the darkening sky, with lightning licking the flanks of rising clouds, and the wind up at 30 knots. Air Commandant Bogrov eyed the barometer and wind speed indicators warily, knowing full well how unpredictable the weather could be in Siberia. Even in July, these sudden storms could rise over the marshy taiga, and produce occasional drenching rain.

  His imperial majesty wants another storm, he thought. Why else would we be taking to the skies in these conditions? He noted Irkutsk and Novosibirsk riding at storm anchor on the new mooring towers that had been built, one at Kansk, the other at Ilanskiy. Abakan had pulled duty that morning for overwatch deployment, and was up high at 3000 meters to ride out the coming front.

  We’d best steer northwest, right into the wind, thought Bogrov. That will slow us down considerably, but we’ll soon pick up the lower Yeseni River north of Krasnoyarsk, and I can follow that due north for a time so we can stay clear of nosy airship patrols that Volkov might have up out of Omsk. Then I’ll turn west, and fly well north of Omsk and head for Perm. Karpov wants to see how things are with his second army supporting the Soviets on the upper Volga. Rig for long haul operations, he says. That’s nearly 2500 kilometers to Perm, then another 1000 kilometers to Moscow. It appears his lord high minister of Western Siberia has a hankering to chat with Sergei Kirov again. Well enough. Our fate is tied to the Soviets now, so we had better get on the same page in this opera.

  I’ll give Karpov one thing, he mused. The man knows a traitor when he sees one, and he won’t hesitate to do what is necessary here. Ivan Volkov is a demon from hell, and may he burn there for all eternity when this is all over. Word is the Germans are raising hell itself out west. They’ve taken Minsk, and now they’re hammering at the Fortifications outside Kiev. And up north they’ve already pushed within 150 kilometers of Smolensk. The whole center of the Soviet line has taken one blow after another from the news I’ve heard, and I hear quite a lot in my position.

  So what’s on Karpov’s mind this time? Why the urgency to leave now, with the weather loading up and winds like this? Last time we steered for thunderheads things got very strange. That was after that first meeting in Moscow, and the audacious little run over Berlin.

  Bogrov smiled, for that was the one moment in his tenure with Karpov where he actually thought he liked the man. The bastard had the audacity to bomb Berlin! It was nothing more than a pin prick, mere symbolism, but that took nerve. Herr Hitler isn’t likely to forget it, and so whatever Karpov is cooking up in the stew with Sergei Kirov, it had better be nice and hot. If things keep on out west as they are now, the Nazis will be closing in on Moscow by mid to late autumn. Then what? Can they take the place, or will General Winter show up and save the day for us as he did when another little tyrant thought he could beat us—Napoleon.

  Yes, I almost thought I could like this man when he stuck it to Berlin. But that last maneuver he pulled in the fight with Volkov galled me, and a good many other men in the fleet. When he burned Big Red like that…. Well I wanted to choke the man. And that slap on the face he gave me, right here in front of the entire bridge crew... I’ll have my revenge for that one day, by god. For now it’s off to Moscow we go, and another little secret meeting with Kirov.

  Assuming we get there… He eyed the storm front again, gauging the height of the clouds ahead. That thunderhead there looks to be 25 kilometers wide, and we can get cells that rise up over 18,000 meters here, with strong convention even above that. So it’s no good thinking to ride over top of that little monster. I’ll give it a wide berth.

  * * *

  Karpov sat in his stateroom aboard the ship, looking out the port side windows. He could see the storm building, and it only seemed to feed the inner sense that something was terribly wrong. He had been feeling very harried of late, and very wary. It was as if someone was watching him, which made him take to the airship and forsake his ground quarters at Ilanskiy.

  The back stairway is nearly ready, he thought. The engineers are putting the last of the structure in place today, just as I ordered. I told Tyrenkov to put the inn under a double guard, 24 hours per day, and to keep a good eye on Kymchek. In fact, I sent our new General to Kansk, just to be certain he poses no problems.

  Time is running thin now, he thought. It’s just a matter of days before I have to decide what to do. Should I postpone this meeting in Moscow? Should I head for this storm and see where it might take me? This could be my last chance. Then again, the stairway at Ilanskiy is largely complete. Should I just get down there and try my luck? What if it no longer works as before? What if it comes down to a matter of a centimeter or two and the carpenters made an error? Or should I just do what I decided earlier—nothing—stare time down and dare it to try and lay a hand on me. We’ll see who prevails. I don’t go down that easily, though perhaps it might be a good idea to design one of those nice little escape pods into Tunguska, just like Volkov had on the Orenburg.

  His eyes strayed furtively to the mirror on the wall, and there he thought he suddenly saw a shadow behind him, some dark formless shape that sent a chill up his spine. He turned quickly, his eyes wide with alarm and fright, but there was nothing there. Looking back at the mirror it seemed as tho
ugh he had a dizzy spell. His vision blurred momentarily, and he thought he saw himself twice there, another Karpov resolving from the darkness that had been behind his image, a blurry double that told him he must be experiencing the effects of the sudden altitude change.

  He shook his head, trying to clear his vision, and reached for the emergency oxygen flask, covering his mouth and nose with the cup and turning the knob with a shaky hand. A moment later he was breathing clean oxygen, and his mind cleared after a few breaths. Yes, he thought. It’s just the altitude, the pressure gradient of the storm we’re approaching.

  Yet it was more than he knew or could even realize at that moment. For far away, in that strange oppressive fog on the seas of oblivion, Kirov had plunged that control rod into the glowing heart of its reactor core and rolled the dice on time’s roulette wheel for the last time, in a desperate attempt to escape the choking uncertainty that had fallen upon them.

  Karpov never heard the last P.A. announcement that Admiral Volsky had made to the crew, nor did he share in that final, quiet moment on the bridge, listening to the men cheer below, and the sound of their joyful song echoing through the ship. He had slipped away from his former comrades like a fallen angel, descending into the hell of his own making, and deciding it was better to rule there than to serve anywhere else.

  His every effort after that fall had been to rebuild himself by outwardly restoring his power and authority, his sense of control, and the notion that he was somehow consigned to this fate for a grand purpose. He did not really know whether it was his actions in the past, in 1908, that had caused Russia to fragment as it did, but discovering that Ivan Volkov had also found a way into the past at Ilanskiy was a great shock, another fallen angel that was soon rising to challenge him.

  When he realized Volkov could not ever be trusted, he decided he had to be destroyed. Yes, there were many demons in hell, but only one Lucifer—only one could rule, and Karpov was determined to be that man. After learning he could find and destroy Volkov in the future, before he ever set foot down those stairs, he had the heady feeling that he was again the master of all fate and time, and the deciding factor in all these events.

  I spared Volkov’s life when I could have easily sent Tyrenkov up those stairs with a sub-machinegun squad to finish him, because that was too uncertain an outcome. I could not be sure what his death in the future would do to this time, this world so blighted by his shadow. And another thing—I wanted to do the killing myself. I wanted to show Volkov that I could beat him, man to man, in spite of the fact that his fleet was three times the size of my own.

  Now he knows that, and soon he will know even more. I’m going to raise divisions from the Urals to Lake Baikal. Soon all of Siberia will be sending me its sons, men so hardened to the winter that is now befalling the world that they will surely prevail when we join this fight. Yes, soon all of Siberia goes to war, and our first order of business will be Ivan Volkov and his little Orenburg Federation.

  We’ll muster at Perm, then come down to the upper Volga to join Kirov’s troops there. I can move on Ufa, and once I get a good bridgehead there, it will cut off all the troops Volkov has on the upper Volga bend. He’ll have to fall back, and he’ll be lucky to keep his industrial city at Almetyevsk when he does so. Interesting that he placed a refinery there, just as in our day. That city was not even built until the 1950s. No matter, he won’t be able to hold it, and the line will settle between Ufa, that city, and Volkov’s big Volga stronghold of Samara. That will be the real prize. Once Kirov takes that, then he can move east towards Uralsk to make a strong attack aimed right at Orenburg, Volkov’s precious capital. For my part, I’ll command the northern pincer, and drive on that city after I take Ufa on the river.

  He could see it all now, the movement of troops and the tanks Sergei Kirov would give him in the bargain he set out to negotiate. I’ll offer Kirov fifty divisions, and all the resources of Siberia if he needs them. In return, he’ll give me tanks, artillery, aircraft from his factories, and I’ll use them all to destroy Ivan Volkov.

  He could see it all now, feel that it was coming, that it was all inevitable. He would re-write the entire history of WWII with his campaigns in the east, striking down the Kazakh traitors and re-conquering all that territory for Mother Russia. He would do this as Kirov’s ally, and yet, behind this, he knew he had the power to remove that man as well, and eventually seize control of the entire Soviet State.

  Yes, he thought, Kirov already knows I have that power. He obviously went up and down those stairs as well. That is always my Ace in the hole, for he can’t get anywhere near Ilanskiy unless I allow it, and of course I never will. No. He’ll simply have to take my bargain, arms and equipment for my manpower and the strategic ground I now control. Then, once he has armed my forces, there will be little he can do by force to change my control over Ilanskiy. As long as I have that, and this airship, of which he knows nothing at all, I’ll still be the master of time.

  All these thoughts should have bolstered him, but why did he still have the uncomfortable feeling that he was dangling by the barest thread here?

  Then it happened.

  Lightning rippled through the sky, and he heard a strange sound, deep, hungry, searching, like a pack of wolves on the taiga hunting for prey—hunting for him, hungry for his very being. Something wanted him, reached for him, sought his life.

  “Not yet…” the words slipped from his mouth, quavering on the still air. “No, not yet, it isn’t time!”

  Then a stabbing pain took him in the chest, and he stooped forward, eyes clenched, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. Was he having a heart attack? Had his time finally come? I’m not even forty, his mind argued, and yet the stress I’ve been under….

  The pain subsided as quickly as it came, and he noticed no other symptoms, no shortness of breath, and his heart and pulse did not seem elevated or distressed. But a strange feeling came over him, a sensation of terrible dread, accompanied by a chilling cold. The ship was rising, rising, yet the ambient air temperature should not produce such a chill. There was a darkness in that cold, deep and penetrating, and he reached for the oxygen again, thinking all of his distress was the giddy height of the ship.

  A thousand thoughts came to him in that moment, like the faces of a thousand demons. Memories flooded his mind, the sound of his voice, high and shrill as he railed at Sergeant Troyak in that first failed attempt to take the ship… Volsky’s fist pounding the table when he finally came to him afterwards… then came the sound of missiles firing, explosions, hot white contrails scoring the sky. He could see ships at sea burning, the orange fire glowing in the night, and then the massive upwelling of a nuclear explosion on the horizon, the anger he had set loose upon the world so wantonly, time and time again. Then he felt as though some skeletal hand was reaching for him, clawing at him, and wanting to drag him away.

  “No!” he shouted again, his voice strident as the ship itself shuddered and lightning rippled again in the sky. Tunguska was struck by the bolt, its airframe coursing with the energy, and glowing strangely again, just as before.

  A sharp sound pulled his attention to the mirror again, where he feared he would see that darkness behind him, something terrible coming for him from places unknown. The mirror was suddenly broken with a web of cracks, his image strangely distorted, doubled and redoubled as he stared at himself.

  He forced himself to stand, his hand on the pistol in his holster, eyes wide and fearful, as though the door to his cabin might burst open at any moment and the demons would rush in to devour him.

  But they never came.

  Lightning crackled in the sky and the storm roared, but if there were demons out that night, they were well harbored in his own dark soul. Then he felt a strange sensation of lightness, a giddy feeling that sent him reeling, and he collapsed to the floor.

  Part VII

  War Plans

  “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall li
ke a thunderbolt.”

  - Sun Tsu, The Art of War

  Chapter 19

  They formed up in the wide brick square before the tall gold dome of the Imperial Palace of Orenburg. Each company of 150 men was deployed in a dense square, their black uniforms making a checkerboard pattern on the lighter stone. Each man wore a black Ushanka gilded with a silver badge, two crossed swords over the letter V, and light gleamed from the long bayonets on their rifles. The deep throated shouts of their officers saw them snap to in well drilled movements, presenting arms, their rifles held stiffly at the leather belts crossing their chest. They stood, in long dark field overcoats and polished boots, tall and trim. Then a trumpet sounded, and every head inclined upwards to the high balcony where a single man appeared, his grey hair catching the pale diffused light in the slate sky above. The man raised two arms in a wide V, and a the men called his name, fifty thousand strong—Volkov!

  The Guard Commander turned, like a carved statue, his arm stiff and mechanical as he slowly raised his sword to his forehead. Then, in one swift motion, he pointed the sword west, down the long broad road leading from the square. Every man turned in unison, the voices of Lieutenants and Sergeants calling out the drill. One by one the companies moved, dark serried ranks marching down the road. The sound of their boots slapped sharply on the cold stone square. The Orenburg Guard was going to war.

  There were nine divisions in all, but only seven had been mobilized for movement west. They would march in long ranks through the city, out from the main square and through the central business district, where tall brick buildings hunched in dense city blocks. Out past the outer collectives and workers settlements they would go, the steady rhythmic beat of the march timed out on the division drums. Soon they would reach the tall outer battlements and fortified walls of the city perimeter, where dark grey towers rose at intervals along the wall, overshadowed by the tall zeppelin towers where three great airships rode at anchor. There the trains would be waiting for them, already loaded with the heavy equipment of the divisions—mortars, machineguns, AT rifles and cannon, crate after crate of ammunition, trucks, armored cars and light tanks.