Tigers East (Kirov Series Book 25) Read online

  Fedorov turned, his mind still in the anguish of all his inner doubt and guilt. “You mean the command link to Kirov?”

  “No sir, it’s the long range channel for HF encrypted communications. Someone’s trying to contact us, but I’d have to know the code to open that channel.” He showed Fedorov the winking amber light, and as he stared at it, the realization of what it was struck Fedorov like a hammer.

  My god, he thought. Could it be so? His pulse quickened, for here was a joker on the table, something dealt out by the hand of Fate that he never expected. Could it be so? His mind was a whirl—the code, the goddamned code! What was it? He had devised it himself, so long ago it seemed now. What was it? Something he knew he would never forget…

  “Zykov,” he said quickly. “Key in 07-Alpha-03-Zeta-2018.”

  Zykov just blinked at him. “The code sir?”

  “Quick now,” said Fedorov. “Yes, that is the code, but use the letter o for every instance of zero—the first one upper case, the next two lower case. Quick now!”

  Zykov flipped open the key panel and entered the code: O7Ao3Z2o18. It was a cypher that Fedorov was sure to remember, the day he first set foot on battlecruiser Kirov as its newly assigned Navigator, March 7th, in the year 2018. If it were confirmed on the other side, he knew exactly who was calling, and his heart rose with the thought of the voice he might soon hear on that radio.

  Chapter 3

  The code was in, the yellow light now a steady amber, waiting for confirmation from the other end of that transmission. Fedorov was literally holding his breath, and then he saw the light go solid green, the handshake made, the voice on the other end beginning to come through.

  Miles and miles away, in the Sea of Okhotsk, Lieutenant Isaac Nikolin also got the yellow link light, and on a channel that was never used except for the most serious message transmissions, high level HF signals that would carry orders from Severomorsk, emergency action messages. He was very surprised to see it, the yellow light pulsing on and off, waiting. Normal protocols would see him immediately report the signal to command authority on the bridge, and then they would respond by fetching the link code from a secure safe. Then, as he stared at the light, and at the ID number for that channel, he saw that it was two cyphers off the normal EAM command link channel, a special frequency variation, which struck him, as that was most unusual.

  Yet the longer he stared at that number, the more a feeling arose in him like some deep memory rising from the depth of the dark sea of his mind. It was a behemoth, a monster rising with sharp teeth, then in a shaking moment of realization, it broke the surface, careening up into the clear light of his understanding, and came thundering down like a great whale splashing back into the ocean. The code! He suddenly knew what he was supposed to enter. It wasn’t to come from the secure Comm-box, but it was beaten into his head by Fedorov, somewhere, somewhere... long ago….

  He could not find the where and when of that memory, only the alphanumeric truth that now glistened in the light of his awareness. He knew the code! His hand shook, and almost seemed to move as if commanded by another mind, another self within him, another Nikolin. He reached for the keyboard, clicked the line for code entry, and entered the cypher, unerringly: O7Ao3Z2o18. His heart was pounding, though he did not know why. He saw the light go to solid amber, waiting, and then the steady green of affirmation. His numbers were good. Seconds later he heard the voice speaking on his headset, and with it came the rush of a thousand memories.

  He saw Karpov on the bridge, and Troyak standing before him like a stony Golem, snatching away the missile launch key in a sudden violent motion. Then again came the image of Karpov, this time with a pistol in his hand, Rodenko down on the deck near Doctor Zolkin, who clutched his bleeding arm. The cascade rolled over him, memories, realization, awareness of a life he had lived, experiences careening into his brain in a torrent of recollection. He closed his eyes, putting his hands on each side of his headset as he often did when listening to a difficult signal. It was too much, too fast, too intense.

  Sweat dotted his brow as he listened to that voice speaking, and the memories piled in. He saw himself standing next to Admiral Volsky, translating for Admiral Tovey. He remembered all the secret things they were talking about, all the plans and strategies he was supposed to forget the moment he heard them. He saw ships burning, heard the dull drone of old aircraft overhead, saw missiles roaring off the forward deck, and then he remembered hearing that voice, the last time it called, and on this very channel, the channel reserved for this secret com-link.

  Fedorov had told him such a call might arrive one day, and what he was to do when it came. Fedorov had given him the code, and yet, even though he could see the other man’s face, the impossibility of that memory, and all the others, left him dizzy headed and very confused. When could any of these things have happened? Yet there they were, the memories clarifying with each passing second. He kept his eyes closed, listening, taking it all in, as if a whole other life was being poured into his head.

  And it was.

  * * *

  Fedorov heard the voice as well when it came over the receiver, his pulse quickening. “We read you, Kirov, on secure Alpha-Zeta Channel, and your numbers are good. This is Captain Ivan Gromyko aboard the submarine Kazan. Come back. Over.”

  Zykov stared dumbly at Fedorov now. What was an Alpha-Zeta channel, and how could they be talking to the submarine Kazan? Who was this Ivan Gromyko? Yet he saw the light of welcome realization in Fedorov’s eyes clearly enough. The Starpom strode over, his hand extended, reaching for the handset.

  “Captain Gromyko?” There was just the hint of doubt lingering in the tone of his voice. “This is Captain Anton Fedorov. Come Back.”

  “Kazan to Kirov. Glad to hear your voice, Fedorov. I assume all is well aboard the ship. Frankly, we haven’t determined the date here yet. Phoning home was our first order of business. Over.”

  This conversation had been pre-arranged by Fedorov long ago. They knew there was always risk, that Time was fickle, that things could slip. Fedorov could see what was already happening to the ship, and so well before Kazan vanished at the edge of the hole opened by its own nuclear tipped torpedo, Fedorov had huddled with Gromyko. “Should you vanish for any reason, slip in time, then it is also possible that you might be returned to this timeframe. This happened to us several times. Kirov moved in and out of different times. We shifted to the future once, and found it very bleak, and then we slipped back again. Well, should this ever happen, I have arranged a secure encrypted channel, just above the EAM comm link that sends us orders from Severomorsk. If you ever re-appear, call us on that link. Here is the code you must receive for the link to be valid…”

  “Fedorov here. It is late September, the 28th to be exact, in the year 1942. Over.”

  “Understood. No doubt you are wondering what happened to us,” said Gromyko. “Where are you? Is the ship still in the Atlantic? Over.”

  “The Pacific,” said Fedorov. “But Captain, circumstances have changed. There is a very great deal I will have to explain to you. At the moment, I am not even aboard the ship. We have a secured radio set that can dial in to the HF command channels. Over.”

  “You are not on the ship? Explain. Over.”

  “Too complicated for transmission over this channel. I doubt anyone else could be listening, but just to be safe, we should meet face to face.”

  Fedorov’s doubt and fear had now been driven out with this sudden arrival on the scene. Now he had a choice to make. He was Starpom aboard Kirov, but already out here in direct defiance of Karpov’s orders to the contrary. There was still enough of the fear Symenko had stoked for him to realize this little act of mutiny would have consequences. He doubted that he could repair the damage. Karpov’s truce with him had always been uneasy. Look how quick he was to fire that S-400. It wasn’t as he said, trying to explain it away as theater to try and underscore the urgency of his order to return. No. That was direct violence, and
it had been aimed to kill. If they hadn’t been so far out when the missile came, he shuddered to think what might have happened.

  Karpov had no conscience, he thought. He had no scruples, and did not hesitate a single moment before he fired that missile. I did the same when we thought Orlov was jumping ship, and explained away that violence with excuses about contaminating the time line. Look at all I have done since then. So I have to face the fact that Karpov was, and still remains, a deadly nemesis. And I also have to realize that everything Symenko laid out was true as well. I won’t get through to Ilanskiy. I’ll never reach that back stairway like this, not with Karpov raising the alarm from here to Novosibirsk. And even if I did get down those stairs, I doubt I would have the backbone, and that timely cruelty I spoke of with Karpov. I cannot kill Sergei Kirov. I just can’t do it.

  I’m sorry, he said inwardly. Sorry for everything. The torture of this world is on my shoulders, and I deserve all the chaos I have courted since the day we first shifted back to the 1940s. I was such a child then, enamored of the fact that I could see an old museum piece sweep over the ship as it did. Karpov wanted to kill that plane. Volsky stayed his hand. Then I opened my mouth, delighted as much as I was shocked to realize what I was seeing, for there I was, right in the middle of the history I have studied all my life. It was my own private heaven, and look what I have made of it—my own private hell.

  “Kazan, Kazan,” he said through the handset. “Transmit your coordinates. I am on an airship and we can come to you. Then we can talk, Captain Gromyko. I can explain everything, and believe me, it’s a very long story. Over.”

  There was a long pause, and Fedorov knew Gromyko was considering something. Then he came back. “Kazan to Fedorov. You say Kirov is in the Pacific? Please confirm. Over.”

  Fedorov did not know why Gromyko wanted that, but he confirmed it. Then the submarine Captain came on again. “Kazan to Fedorov, we’re in the Barents Sea,” he said. “We’ll transmit exact coordinates. Can you get up here, and if so, how soon? Over.”

  “Standby, Kazan.”

  Now Fedorov looked at Symenko. “Captain,” he said. “I’m afraid we have yet another change of plans. Do you have sufficient fuel to get to the Barents Sea?”

  Symenko raised an eyebrow. “It was 2000 kilometers to Ilanskiy from the rendezvous point where I found you. Let me think….” He reached for a chart he had on the desk, and walked a nav compass across it. “We’re skirting the northern tip of lake Baikal from the last report. The Barents Sea is a big place, but if he were up off the Nose of the Dolphin, it would be another 3300 klicks. Yes, I’ve got the fuel to get there, but not much more.”

  The Dolphin Head was a long peninsula that jutted up where the White Sea flowed into the Barents. It looked just like the head of a dolphin, with a long nose at the end. Fedorov nodded, thumbing the handset to send.

  “Fedorov to Kazan. We can make that rendezvous. Can you meet us off the Dolphin’s Head? Over.”

  “Affirmative, Fedorov. Can do. Will transmit exact coordinates on approach. Anything more? Over.”

  There was nothing else to be said, at least not now, even on a secure channel. Fedorov walked over to have a look at Symenko’s chart, his studied eye immediately knowing the heading change they had to make.

  “Captain Symenko,” he said. “It seems that you and I are now quite literally in the same boat—in a manner of speaking. If you want to know the truth, Karpov will likely see my actions here as out and out mutiny. I’ve disobeyed his direct order to return to my ship to get this far, but given all you have just said, I don’t think it wise if we stay on this heading for Ilanskiy.”

  “And this important business of yours?” said Symenko. “Not so important now with his lordship turning out the hounds on you. I was one of them, and I suppose I could still spit in your eye and let my men here have a go at your little contingent of Marines. Sure, those tough louts of yours would kill a good many, but we could also vent helium and simply bring this airship down. You could try to stop us, but I have a crew of 30 men on this ship. You want to try and kill them all?” He smiled.

  “Then again,” Symenko continued, “I hear what you are saying about us being two peas in the same soup. Like the color on the other side of that jacket you’re wearing? You’re a turncoat, just like I was when Karpov flipped me from allegiance to Volkov and signed me on to his fleet. Like it or not, that’s what you are, and you’ll never set foot safely on your ship again, or anywhere else in all of Siberia. Since I’m not sure that even my heroic resistance here would spare me Karpov’s wrath, as one turncoat to another, welcome aboard. Yes, I can get you up to the Barents Sea, unless Karpov’s hounds get to us first.”

  “Very well,” said Fedorov. “Then may I suggest we come twenty points to starboard?”

  “Aye, that looks right. You’ve a good eye.”

  “Came to the service as a Navigator,” said Fedorov. “Captain Symenko, I know my presence here has complicated things a good deal for you. Yet if you can get us up there, I can promise you safe haven in Sergei Kirov’s Soviet Union. Karpov can rant and rave, but he won’t get to you there.”

  “How nice and generous of you.” Symenko reached for his telephone to the bridge. “Helm,” he said. “Come 20 points to starboard at once. I’ll send a man down to the chart room with the new course plotted. This is Symenko. Do it now.”

  Symenko put the receiver in its cradle, smiling. “Well Captain, a Navigator you say? Have a seat and ply your old craft. Given our fuel situation, we’ll have to take a very direct route, and when you get busy with that compass and pencil, have a close look at some of the ground we’re going to have to overfly.” He pushed the chart across the desk, and Fedorov took a long look.

  “Interesting,” he said. “We’ll fly north of the big bend in the Angara, deep into the Siberian wilderness.”

  “Aye, and let’s hope we get good weather and smooth sailing, because there won’t be a friendly docking tower, nor food or fuel, anywhere along that route. Then again, if Karpov gets ships out looking for us, they won’t get up there either. No sir, we’ll be safe enough up there. Nobody overflies that ground. That’s the Devil’s Country.”

  He was tapping a place on the map about 200 kilometers due north of the big bend in the Angara River, up past the outlying Siberian town of Vanavara, at the edge of a devastated wasteland that was only whispered about if it was ever mentioned. It was the great blight in the land that had come on the 30th of June, in 1908—the Tunguska Event.

  Part II

  Fall Blau

  “Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.”

  ― Carl von Clausewitz

  Chapter 4

  OKW Headquarters, Wolfsschanze, Rastenburg, Poland

  Hitler had been in a jubilant mood for some time as he watched the progress of the German summer offensive in Russia. Fall Blau, Operation Blue, was well underway before the Allies launched their bold attack at Lisbon and Casablanca. Manstein’s powerful SS Panzer Korps was the tip of the spear, massing at Kantimirovka and then driving southwest between the Donets and Don Rivers, just as he had explained it to Hitler long ago. The rivers shielded both his northern and southern flanks as he pushed forward, finding little resistance after the initial breakthrough.

  “It was only the sodden ground in the spring and the lack of good roads along our axis of attack that forced us to delay this long,” Manstein explained to the Führer. “But we should have good ground for at least eight weeks now, and in that time I can get over the Don to begin the attack on Volgograd—of this I am certain.”

  “How long will it take to secure the city?”

  “That will depend on the forces the enemy puts against us, but in that phase of the operation, we will need good infantry divisions. It would not be wise to commit our mobile units to an urban battle of attrition. No. I intend to break through, force a crossing of the Don, and then move in a fresh
infantry Korps. Halder has his eye on just the troops I will need.”

  “Here, my Führer,” said Halder, leaning forward over the map and pointing out the formation with his pencil. “General Hansen’s 54th Infantry Korps is following the SS Korps, and it will soon move north to take up positions here, along the Don. There is some indication that the enemy is establishing bridgeheads there, and we will have to watch them closely. Schwedler’s 4th Korps will be on the left, east of Boguchar. Hansen will be in the center, covering the area near Veshenskaya, and on his right, approaching the big river bend south of Frolovo, we will bring in the 42nd Infantry Korps under General Kuntze. It is already boarding the trains at Belgorod.”

  “Excellent. But what infantry for the city fighting?”

  “We have von Seydlitz and his 51st Korps in reserve, and Kempf has two more infantry divisions presently attached to the 48th Panzer Korps. That will give us seven divisions.”

  “Then what will you do with the SS once they cross the river?”

  “They will secure the crossing point,” said Manstein, “then push for the city. When the infantry arrives they will reposition here.” He pointed to a rail junction at the town of Morozovsk. “From there they can force a crossing of the Donets at one point or another, and then we link up with Volkov’s troops. After that, it is only a matter of opening a secure rail corridor to the oil fields. He has already retaken the fields at Maykop. And the Soviets never got close to Grozny, let alone Baku. Yet to move those resources by rail, we will first have to take Rostov, and then most likely take a month or more to rebuild the rail lines to the proper gauge.”

  “How soon can we take Rostov?”

  “If all goes as planned, I will be closing on that city in a month—mid-August at the latest.”