That sounded a good deal better than the truth, thought Fedorov. I was alone with Mironov, and no other living soul knows what happened there. So that reality is how I frame it now. Tyrenkov doesn’t need to know that I was too weak to go through with my mission; that I was ready to end my own life rather than face up to the consequences of my actions here. He doesn’t have to know what really happened, and that I will now probably bear a scar on my chin, just like the one on Karpov’s cheek. No one ever needs to know how that happened, or why.
“You relented….” said Tyrenkov, studying him closely.
“Call it a change of heart, or you can also think that I was just being a loyal servant of the man you serve as well. In any case, Sergei Kirov lived. I hope I’m correct in that. Frankly, I have no way of knowing what we may have inadvertently changed this time. Every step we took there was perilous to every hour and day that followed. Did he live?”
“Kirov? He certainly did. Everything is as it was before you boarded your helicopter. At least it seems that way, but how would I know that for sure?”
Fedorov’s face showed obvious relief, but knew that it might be impossible for Tyrenkov to detect anything that may have changed.
“And Stalin?”
“Who is that?” Tyrenkov smiled. “No, I’m afraid he died as a very young man, and well before he got down to business with Sergo, Mikoyan, Beria and all the rest. Yes, Karpov has told me all about him. But I am curious. From what I have learned, Volkov also used that stairway to get to 1908. Are you saying that I could do that, this moment, and end up there myself, just by walking down those stairs?”
“That would be a very dangerous thing to do,” said Fedorov.
“Yes, I suppose it would. But would it happen, Fedorov?”
“Possibly. Every man gets somewhere, to some time other than the one he leaves behind him. Where you might end up is anyone’s guess, but it could be no earlier than the 30th of June, 1908.”
“Because you believe the event you witnessed from the Irkutsk—at Tunguska—was the root cause of that fissure in time?”
“Exactly. So you see, that stairway represents power of a kind that no man on this earth has ever had at his disposal. The first time I went down those stairs it was an accident, and I caused a good deal of harm, which I don’t think I can ever really atone for. I thought my mission might change that—we both did, Karpov and I. He changed his mind, called off the mission, but did so in a rather disrespectful and boorish way. I carried on, with a little help from chance and fate, but I changed my mind as well. So, Tyrenkov, you will have to answer your own question now. Am I your enemy? And what might you have done differently in my place?”
Tyrenkov merely smiled, thinking.
“I might suggest you make your report to Big Brother on all of this. Little Brother is a good deal more irascible these days.”
“I understand.”
“Abakan is tethered to the number two docking tower outside. It’s a fairly fast ship. I’m prepared to put you and your men on it tonight, and you can leave under cover of darkness. Little Brother has been informed that we have you in custody. He’s well to the north on Tunguska, pulling in his long range patrols now. I can tell you exactly where every ship in the fleet is at this moment. So listen here, Anton Fedorov, once Captain and now Starpom of the battlecruiser Kirov. I can put you and your men on Abakan, and you can go wherever you wish.”
“Wherever I wish?”
“Oh, I’ll have to say that I ordered Abakan to fly you directly to the Sea of Okhotsk. That’s where your ship still is. Yet you have already hijacked one airship, so I suppose you could do the same with this one given the things your Marines might be packing in those duffel bags. So then, if daring do is still on your mind, be my guest. Continue your journey to Soviet territory if you wish. Go find Sergei Kirov and make your mind known to him. Of course, he might just send you right back to Karpov. You see, he’s somewhat indebted to us. If Karpov were to ask, he would likely get you extradited in a heartbeat, just like he got his ship back. And of course, I’ll have to deny I ever said any of this. If you do take that course, I’ll have a good bit of trouble on my hands. I might even lose my job.”
“Rest easy,” said Fedorov. “What you offer is very tempting, but I’ve only just spoken with Sergei Kirov—not two hours ago, or thirty-four years ago from your perspective. We’ve had our little chat for the time being, so no, I think I’ll go right back to my ship and see the Admiral himself. He deserves an explanation, and to know what I’ve told you here direct from me. Then again, I won’t be too happy if he elects to put a missile into Abakan the minute we get within range.”
“I suppose that is a risk you’ll have to take. I’ve taken one here by not locking you up and turning you over to Little Brother and his louts. Yes, he has his own security men now. It was inevitable, I suppose, but my people keep a close eye on things.”
“Considering that,” said Fedorov, “I have a little problem, and it could become a very big one soon. There was one other man with us, Chief Orlov off the ship. I insisted he come with me on that mission, because let’s just say he’s someone I need to keep an eye on. Well, something happened as we came up the stairs. He was right in front of me. In fact, I had my hand on his shoulder—until he disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Vanished, from right under my palm.” Fedorov held up his right hand. “He didn’t make it to this time, and I think it is because he lost physical contact with the man in front of him, and…. Ended up somewhere else.”
“You say he was right in front of you?”
“Yes. I was the last man in the line as we came up.”
“Then how is it you made it here—to this precise time? If he lost contact, wouldn’t that affect you as well?”
“I thought as much, but it seems Time wanted me here. That’s the only way I can explain it. Yet Orlov is gone—missing—and I have absolutely no idea what may have happened to him.”
“Might he have stayed right there in 1908?”
“I certainly hope not. I was trying to ascertain that when your Lieutenant came along. From what I could see, he was not on the stairs, and he didn’t get by me. At least I don’t think he did.”
“Then where did he go?”
“Using the tortured logic I’ve come to embrace concerning all of this movement in time,” said Fedorov, “he could not appear in any time where he already existed.”
“Karpov did.”
“Yes, but those were very strange circumstances.”
“Events on that stairway could hardly be described otherwise,” said Tyrenkov.
“True, but this particular fissure through time has been very consistent. The connection it makes to 1908 has persisted over decades. Orlov was going up the stairs, and any movement in that direction has always produced a movement forward in time. Who knows where he may end up, but I think it will have to be a time after the arrival of our ship, and after the time we vanished over the hypocenter of Tunguska. I could be wrong. I suppose he could have appeared prior to the 30th of June, 1940 as well, and I intend to look into that. Orlov has a way of blundering about—a bit of a bull in a china closet. If he did appear before that hour and day, then I might find out about it in the history. Your intelligence network would be very useful.”
“My network is at your service,” said Tyrenkov. “In fact, once Big Brother hears about this, I know what my orders will be already.”
“Find Orlov,” said Fedorov. “That’s been my own little bailiwick in all of this business. The last time he went missing—well let’s just say that a good many dominoes fell after that. He’s dangerous, what I might call a free radical in time. He changes things, not willfully, but unknowingly, and the effect he might have on events occurring after he appears is impossible to calculate, though I fear it would be profound.”
“I understand,” said Tyrenkov. “Yes, quite a nice little problem. I’ll put my men on this at once.”
/> Fedorov smiled. “Mister Tyrenkov,” he said quietly. “It seems that you are not just anyone either. I think we have come to an understanding here, but let me say one thing more. I’ll take your offer for a ride on the Abakan, and I’ve decided we’ll be going back to Kirov—the ship, not the man—because there’s a war on here, and I’ve decided it has to be won.”
Tyrenkov nodded. “I understand,” he said. “Big Brother will be happy to have you on board, Fedorov. He may bellow and berate you for a while, but he’ll soon see what was apparent to me from the moment I first saw you on that upper landing this evening. Yes, you are not just anybody when it comes to all of this. You have business to attend to here, and I hope you can manage it. Karpov needs you. This world needs you as well, so don’t forget that.”
“I’ll try to remember, and believe it,” said Fedorov, reaching for another piece of cheese. “Is there any more vodka?”
Chapter 15
The hand that had saved the life of Anton Fedorov would be the hand that would change all history from that moment forward. Mironov stood there, confused and still afraid when he saw those rough soldiers come back into the room. They lined up, one after another, each man with a hand on the shoulder of the one in front of him.
Up they went, and Mironov watched them go, listening to their hard boots on the creaky steps. He could not grasp why these men wanted to get up to the second floor, and why they would have to be so careful about it like this. Fedorov seemed intent on making sure that they left nothing behind, no sign of their presence. Perhaps he needed to go up to that room they were in before and fetch something, but why take the whole lot of them for that? He did not understand, but he would, and very soon.
He waited there, until the sound of those heavy boots stilled and was gone. That alone seemed odd to him, for he should be hearing them clomping about on the second floor, but all was silent. He walked slowly towards the alcove, that same curiosity tugging at him. There he listened in the hushed silence for some time, but resisted the urge to go any further. This time he would take that strange man’s advice, and also take no further chances that another of those hard Marines would bother him.
He walked briskly towards the front entrance, seeing that the proprietor had just returned. Almost everyone in the town had been off in a clearing beyond the rail yard to the west. There they had gathered to send off the German race team, all the tourists, the reporter Thomas Byrne and his translator, and all the locals as well. Mironov wanted no part of that. All he wanted to do now was get on that train when it arrived later that day, and get as far from this place as possible. As he slipped out the door, he cast a glance at the proprietor, who was watching him with a strange look in his eye. The poor man was probably wondering if they would arrest him too, thought Mironov, and he was out on Shkolnaya Street, thinking what to do next.
He briefly considered hiking back to Staynyy, but discarded that. There could be other soldiers about near the wreckage of that great airship. Boarding there, he would be easily noticed by any other operatives of the secret police who might be on that train. So instead he just went off to a restaurant, needing some good food, and just a little time to think about all that had happened to him just now. He took a window seat, and one with a view of the inn, and sat there for some time, fully expecting to see all those soldiers, and Fedorov, emerge and tramp off to some unknown destination, but they never came. They never left that inn.
That alone was a powerful mystery that begged to be solved. Men do not simply disappear into thin air. Where could they have gone? They were probably waiting for the train, he thought. I will most likely see them all again there, and I can only hope this Fedorov doesn’t have a change of heart. Who knows what he might do? He might get worried of reprisals from his superiors, and think twice about sending me on my way. He had that gun in his hand when we spoke for a reason, but somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to do what he was ordered. Beneath that uniform, there is a good man, and with a good soul. I must take some solace in that.
Well then, the goddamned train is my only way out of here now. I certainly can’t hitch a ride with the German race team. I’ve got to go east, and Train 94 is the last ride that way for another week. So I’ll have to get on here, along with all the other passengers, and take my chances.
The German race team started on its way to a chorus of loud cheers, the drivers waving to the crowd as they fired up the engine and started off. The people waved and hooted for a time, then milled about, and the locals started to disperse back to their homes and businesses. Mironov watched them from a distance, thinking to spy out anyone else who looked suspicious. There was one other man with a uniform and jacket very much like Fedorov’s that he might have seen a few hours earlier, but Ivan Volkov had taken one of the carriages heading west to Kansk. It had all been that close.
Volkov had never been to Ilanskiy, but he was already shaken by what he had seen of the place. It was clearly not the same train station he had come to earlier, and the madness that fell on him would redouble when he reached Kansk, a town he knew quite well. Nothing there was as it should have been. Most of the city was gone, as was the big arsenal north of the river that would make this place a target if the war was underway. The biochemical plant was missing, all the buildings and houses seemed antiquated.
He would head south, wandering like a zombie, thinking to reach the Kansk Airbase where he might catch a plane out of this place. There was no airbase, but also no sign of any attack that might have destroyed it. What was happening? How could any of this be possible? With each passing hour, those questions would multiply, the madness blooming with them, and it would be months before Ivan Volkov fully accepted what had happened to him, and realized just where he was, or rather when.
So as Mironov headed east to Irkutsk, Volkov headed west, and the two men would never get close enough to meet again, except on the field of battle. Mironov spent time in Irkutsk, eventually contacting his comrade Popov, and then deciding to go to the Caucasus. It was on that journey west again that he stopped at Ilanskiy, throwing caution to the wind. Venturing up the back stairway, he saw the world that would come in the years ahead, and determined what he could do to prevent that terrible vision from ever arising in his homeland.
Now Fedorov’s warning finally made sense, and he determined what he must do—what Fedorov could not bring himself to do, and made that fateful visit to Baku, killing Josef Stalin before he ever had a chance to fatten himself as the dark spider in the center of the Bolshevik web that was now being spun throughout the land.
Mironov would stay in the Caucasus for some time, and end up a journalist and editor for the newspaper Terek, secretly taking on the code name he would be known by ever after—the very same name that strange man Fedorov had called him—Kirov. He was eventually arrested again on the same old charges surrounding the existence of that illegal printing press. He was in and out of prison, and then the revolution came, and the civil war soon after.
Active in the founding of the Terek Republic, Kirov was at first a subordinate to another strong man with an impossible name, Commissar Grigory Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze. Most simply called him Sergo. With him, and another man named Mikoyan, Kirov was part of the Bolshevik resistance, securing supplies, uniforms, and weapons from Moscow, and floating them down the Volga on barges to Astrakhan. There was no other way to get them there, for the leader of the White movement, Denikin, had seized control of all the rail lines that led that way.
It was there, in the Caucasus, that Sergei Kirov cut his teeth in the business of war. He teamed up with Sergo and Mikoyan, battled Denikin’s forces, and even those of Kolchak emerging from Siberia. The struggle in that region contributed much to his stubbornness later, refusing to abandon his holdings in the Kuban, and tenaciously ordering the defense of old Tsaritsyn on the Volga, the city that would now never come to be called ‘Stalingrad.’ There, and at the other stronghold of the region, Astrakhan, Kirov fought the White Army with the 11th
and 12th Red Armies.
Then came an event unlooked for in the history, when a man named Volkov secretly plotted the demise of Denikin, and seized control of the White movement. The chaos that caused allowed the Reds to consolidate their gains, and eventually drive the Whites from the Ukraine. They fled south, into the Caucasus, and east of the Volga into the provinces of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and the region around the Caspian Basin. There the White movement, nearly extinguished, was revitalized by Ivan Volkov, eventually posing a threat strong enough to again begin driving north and east. They took Orenburg, making it the center of their government, and pushed on through Ufa to reach the Volga.
Kirov, now rising to the top of the Bolshevik movement, stopped them there, controlling Volgograd, and most of the Kuban region, where the lines of battle shifted back and forth with each new offensive mounted by either side. Volkov tried to take Volgograd three times, and cities like Saratov and Samara as well, but could only get the last. Kirov stubbornly held the White armies at bay, defending the line of the Volga, and made it a point to keep strong pressure on Volkov’s armies in the Caucasus. It was not just for the oil there, but for the fact that the lower Caucasus, the Terek Region and Baku, were all places where young Sergei Kirov had begun his revolutionary career, and he wanted them back again.
Volkov took and held Astrakhan, but Kirov held Volgograd, and he would continue to hold it throughout the long, never-ending civil war with Volkov that kept Russia divided into the late 1930s. Then war came in 1939, and the Germans came shortly thereafter. Volkov was quick to see his opportunity, and allied himself with Nazi Germany, elated to see the Wehrmacht slowly consuming his long time enemy. Then, in late 1942, the White Armies finally linked up with the Germans on the lower Don, cutting off Kirov’s forces in the Kuban, and threatening the city he had defended so tenaciously over the decades against Volkov—Volgograd.
Thor's Anvil (Kirov Series Book 26) Page 13
