An early 21st Century physicist and theorist would one day describe such a man as a Prime Mover, an entity so powerful in terms of the exercise of human willpower, that he was destined to exert dramatic influence over the course of events. Berzin’s GRU had tried to eliminate others, sometime with success, and other times found their operations only aided the rise of even more threatening men. A prime example had been the successful plot to undermine the head of the White movement after the Revolution, Anton Denikin. In his place, a shadow rose within that movement that was so deep and impenetrable that not even the full weight of the GRU could pierce it. That shadow was a man named Ivan Volkov, wholly unexpected, an interloper that Sergei Kirov had dubbed “the profound anomaly” at one point in his briefings with Berzin.
Volkov was mentioned nowhere in the secret documents and books hidden away in the Red Archives. He was a rogue, completely incongruous, an intruder on the history like a thief that had broken into a great mansion. At first his presence was silent and stealthy, stalking the hallways of time, and probing into rooms and chambers in the history. One by one, other rivals within the White movement were quietly eliminated, and when Denikin fell, it was as if a door had been opened. Within months, the name Ivan Volkov was being spoken in fearful tones, and Kirov came to believe that this man must have some secret archive of his own.
Dubbed “the Prophet,” Volkov had an uncanny ability to find the key moments along a given meridian of causality, and there he would seed the garden with his own nefarious plots. Berzin had been directed to eliminate him, but he became another of those “slippery fish,” as Director Kamenski might describe it, and Kirov soon came to believe that Volkov, like Adolf Hitler, was another Prime Mover, with a destiny too powerful to be easily unhinged. He was deeply bothered about this, and very suspicious of Volkov.
“Perhaps I drove that man in to Hitler’s camp,” he once confided to Berzin in a briefing. “But I must tell you, Grishin, there is something very strange about this man. Yes, he has a history, like all other men. We were able to find out a good deal about him once we determined he was a potential threat within the White movement, but why does he not then appear in the material?”
Kirov soon began to believe that Volkov was not the man his simple life history depicted. They had found no record of his birth, and his parents had never been identified. This was not unusual, as the revolution had seen many men adopt new identities. Kirov’s own name had evolved from Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov, to the code name Mironov, and then to his present name of Sergei Kirov. Who was Ivan Volkov before he had assumed that identity? This was something that not even the full resources of the GRU had ever been able to uncover.
What they did know, is that Volkov was now a mortal enemy of the Soviet State, and a highly dangerous threat. His own intelligence service was so good that it often frustrated the plans of the GRU, and Kirov soon came to understand that Volkov was also secretly in league with Hitler’s Germany. When war broke out, that suspicion was proved true when the Orenburg Federation formally joined the Axis. Many thought this was simply a way for Volkov to curry favor with Hitler, and gain much needed support and assistance from the German arms manufacturing industry, but Kirov told Berzin he believed it was something much more.
“This man sees and understands things about the unfolding of events that is as accurate as the information in our Archives. The very fact that the material contains nothing whatsoever about this Orenburg Federation, or Volkov’s rise to power there, means that he is a profound anomaly, a free radical, some wholly unaccountable force that is exerting influence on the history. And the lever in all this is Volkov himself. He asserts knowledge that no man of our own time could be privy to, unless he were right here with us, Grishin, and had access to the material. Are you certain that there have been no leaks?”
“Of course, sir. The fact that Volkov is so free with his boastful predictions should make that clear. Could someone be leaking all that information to him? Impossible. No sir, I agree with you. He is an anomaly. His emergence is a mystery, and his presence has obviously re-written things. Our material was once very reliable, but since Volkov has come on the scene, things can no longer be predicted with any complete confidence.
“Yes, he is another Prime Mover,” said Kirov, “just as I became one when I eliminated Stalin.” As to all he really knew about Ivan Volkov, information he had been given by Fedorov and Volsky, Kirov said nothing. He only spoke of the one thing that weighed on his mind.
“We have been unable to eliminate Volkov personally, or to crush him militarily, and that will become even more difficult now that we have the Germans snarling at our throats. What are the latest reports from the front?”
“At the outset, things were very difficult, as we knew they would be, sir. This attack was not unexpected. We could see the buildup of troops for many months, but the material indicated we still had some weeks before the guns actually fired.”
“Yes,” said Kirov, “the German offensive was supposed to begin on June 22nd. That date was well documented.”
“They hit us five weeks early, sir. We had good men on the front lines, but we needed those last five weeks to complete our final mobilization. Many units were not fully ready, the new arms and munitions not distributed, particularly to the armored units. Oil shortages have hindered production. We have plenty of tanks, but they are still largely our older models. So we have been implementing our plan, Bronirovanny Kulak, Armored Fist.” Berzin emphasized his words by clenching his own fist, the glint of battle in his eye.
“All the armor and motorized infantry is pulling back as ordered. In fact, though our losses have been heavy on the forward lines, the withdrawal is proceeding as planned. There have been no major encirclements yet, and our troops are now consolidating on the Minsk and Kiev defensive lines as planned.”
“And the south? That is where they will make their main effort.”
“We were hit very hard, and they are already over the Dniester. Their best troops are leading this attack, as we predicted. One armored force has turned south for Odessa, but their main effort is still aimed at the Dnieper bend. They have already reached Kirovgrad.”
“Kirovgrad! That is well beyond the Dniester.”
“We have managed to assemble a good armored force, sir, and we are planning to counterattack soon. The trouble is that we get little air cover, so movement is difficult, particularly by rail. In spite of our alert The early days of the attack still managed to catch our air force flat footed. We lost many planes on the ground, even though we posted those alert warnings ten days ago!”
“Don’t worry, Grishin,” said Kirov, placating his spy master. “No matter how good we are, we cannot predict everything. We have already seen the discrepancies and deviations getting bigger and bigger. Soon we may not be able to rely on the archive material at all. Look what has happened! Ever since the ship arrived here, and I got that message from Fedorov, things have begun to take dramatic turns. The history is being radically altered, and I may have had a great deal to do with that myself, as you well know.”
‘The ship’ was the battlecruiser named after Kirov himself, and it was another thing that was mentioned nowhere in the material, a fact that had eventually led Sergei Kirov to determine the world he had been reading about in his secret archive was no longer the same one in which he lived.
“The air force will recover. I have faith in Khudyakov and Novikov. What about the new T-34s?” Kirov knew they would need those tanks to eventually turn the tide, that is if the victory described in the material could be relied upon. It had taken the entire united Soviet Union to achieve that, and the world was quite different now. The existing Soviet tank force was already much greater than the inventory of German Panzers, but the lighter BT-6 and BT-7s would not hold the line forever, and the T-28s were too slow and antiquated to fight the mobile warfare Kirov knew the Soviets must soon adopt if they were to match the German art of war fighting.
“We ha
ve no more than 500 T-34s ready,” said Berzin. “Production is switching to that model in all our weapons plants, but it will take time to build up numbers, and they have stolen a march on us.”
“We should have seen this coming,” Kirov shook his head. “We were well warned, Grishin. The material told us we needed new tanks, and this Fedorov also warned me when I met with him.”
“The British also have a new heavy tank, sir.”
“So I am told by your men in that theatre. When will you have more information?”
“Very soon. I have a very good man on the job there, but it is a long way to Libya where these tanks made their latest appearance. What we do know is that the Germans cannot stop them, which is why we must do everything possible to build heavy tanks like these ourselves.”
“When will you have the plans?”
“That will not be easy. In fact, we have learned very little about them thus far. We have scoured England, but this is also an anomaly of sorts, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can find no production facilities in England associated with this new tank. At first I assumed they were well hidden, perhaps even underground, but my people there are very good. This may sound surprising, sir, but we’ve turned up nothing—no factories, no materials requisitions, no evidence of a design or planning committee—nothing! I must conclude these tanks may have been built in a secret overseas facility, perhaps in the British colonies. Our man in North Africa says they first appeared out of the deep desert of southern Libya.”
“Nonsense. If they had factories there, we would know about them. You simply cannot hide facilities big enough to produce heavy tanks.”
“I thought as much, sir. So we are now looking into India. They could have been shipped in from there, and we’ll find out soon enough. That said, this is all another deviation from the material. No mention was ever made of these heavy tanks, and the fighting in both North Africa and Syria has been radically altered. The Germans have been stopped on both those fronts!”
Kirov thought about this, nodding his head. “No evidence… Just as the British found no evidence that we ever built the ship. That must have been a great surprise to them when it appeared in the middle of their battle with the German Navy last year—yes, another anomaly.”
“There is one more we must discuss, sir.”
“Karpov?” Kirov knew what was on the other man’s mind. “Any further information?”
“Only that those reports of his demise were proven wrong. His airship did not crash in the English Channel. We believe this may have been deliberate misinformation. Tunguska was spotted by our agent at Ilanskiy. And sir, there is a big battle underway there now.”
“At Ilanskiy? Why wasn’t I informed in the morning papers?”
Kirov was not referring to the Moscow news. The ‘morning papers’ were his daily briefing reports from the GRU, which he read over hot tea, blini, and good bread at his breakfast.
“We only got the information an hour ago,” said Berzin. There is an airship battle underway, and Volkov has landed a large troop contingent.”
“I see…” Kirov’s eyes darkened. “Then this offensive opening on the Ob River line three days ago was a ruse. It was meant to pull in Siberian reserves to that front, all so this attack at Ilanskiy might succeed.”
“Why would Volkov want that place, sir?”
“That is usually something I might be asking you, Grishin. Are you not head of the GRU?” Kirov smiled, indicating he was not serious. He knew full well why Berzin was in the dark about Ilanskiy. There were some things Kirov told to no other man, and his experience on the back stairway of Ilanskiy was one of them.
“For that matter,” said Berzin, “why does this Karpov fret over the place? I can only conclude it must be a new weapons facility, sir. There is construction going on there. The Siberians have also been bringing in materials from mining concerns deep in the taiga. We are getting more hard information on this, and I will have a report for you very soon, sir.”
“Where are these mining concerns you speak of?”
“Up near Vanavara, sir, which is very surprising. Those old mines there are a thousand kilometers away from this new operational base Karpov seems to be setting up at Ilanskiy, and we all know the Siberians have very few trucks to waste in hauling mineral ore half way across Siberia.”
“Indeed,” said Kirov, a light of understanding in his eyes now, though he said nothing more.
Part XI
The Gordian Knot
“Prometheus is action. Hamlet is hesitation… In Hamlet the will is more tied down yet; it is bound by previous meditation--the endless chain of the undecided. Try to get out of yourself if you can! What a Gordian knot is our reverie.”
― Victor Hugo
Chapter 31
Elena Fairchild was not satisfied. The conversation she had with Admiral Tovey had done nothing but deepen the mystery, and the dilemma she now found herself in. It was not simply the shock and amazement over what had happened to the ship, or even the deep, residual guilt she felt when she left those oil tankers adrift in that uncertain future.
The moment she received that fleet order on the Red Phone, the thrum of anxiety had redoubled. Her nerves had been jangled by the imminent outbreak of war, and their hurried mission to close a deal with Salase and complete that oil shipment would have been enough for anyone to cope with. When that order came, however, directing her to Delphi, she had been very perplexed. It was blunt and simple: Keyholder Alpha to designated mission point. Godspeed.
It was one of those things that had always been lurking in the background, and something she never quite grasped in its entirety. The duty had been handed to her, officially, just six months before she met Salase, when she was in home port, anchored off her corporate headquarters facility at Port Erin on the Isle of Man. She had gone ashore that day, thinking to have a bite of fish and chips at a favorite little restaurant near the old railway station and museum. The Port Erin Diner was a simple place, in an eggshell yellow building with the familiar green sign. Right next door was “The Station,” serving pure brewed traditional ales, and she would have a pint herself after lunch.
But the dark, official looking car that pulled up outside, and the man in a naval uniform with that briefcase, spelled trouble from the moment she saw them. Instead she was sought out by the young officer, a special courier, and told that she was to take delivery of the briefcase and its contents, and that he was not to leave her presence until he was satisfied that a security team was present to escort her safely back to the ship.
Once aboard Argos Fire she sat in her secure office, staring at that briefcase for some time before she mustered the determination to get on with it and open the damn thing. Inside she found a small manila envelope, and equally terse instructions.
Now designated Keyholder Alpha. Contents to be worn on person at all times. Mission point briefing to follow. The briefing had designated Delphi, and specifically the shrine itself, as her mission point, and gave instructions on how she was to excavate the site should she ever be called to carry out this mission. No further explanation was given, and for some time nothing more came of the matter.
It was just another of the many riddles and mysteries surrounding her induction into the Watch. The things she had learned had been deeply shocking, and her life was never quite the same afterwards. Once she had tried to unburden herself to Captain MacRae, Gordon, the man who had become much more than her able ship’s commander in recent weeks. She had always admired him, and knew that behind that admiration, another feeling lurked in the background, an attraction that she found impossible to dismiss. She had kept it hidden behind the protocols of running the ship, and conducting company business, but she could feel, with that intuition women are famous for, that there was something in his gaze at times, something in the tone of his voice, that was more than simple ship’s business.
At first she hesitated to say anything at all about her role—
the secret office, the Red Phone, the Watch, the mission that she had been sent on as they were harried from the Black Sea on the eve of war. Then she knew that Gordon would inevitably be at the center of anything that happened, and to be effective, he would need to know more. But how to reveal the truth, the life changing truth that the world they were living in was something quite different than any of them ever imagined? How to explain it, that this moment was never lost on its endless movement forward in time? It was connected, always, to every other moment of the past, and every moment yet to unfold from an unknown future.
But why here, she thought. Clearly that device I retrieved from Delphi had but one purpose, and that was to somehow move this ship to this point in time. She had long known that such displacement in time was possible. She was one of the very few that knew this, a burden that seemed almost impossible to carry at times. Information had come to them long ago—information from the future. It had first served to persuade them as to its authenticity, quoting events that were yet to happen, chapter and verse. And then it had become a warning, of a ship, the very ship the Watch itself had been determined to wait for, and find—Geronimo.
Now it was here, steaming a thousand meters off their port quarter. But why was she here? What was she supposed to accomplish in this time? Was Argos Fire merely called to arms in this hour of need. Was she sent here to try and somehow save this strangely altered world she now found herself in? To find that they had moved, slipping from one of those cross-stitched moments in time to another, was amazing enough. But why this moment? And what about that note she had found, signed by Admiral Tovey himself?
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