The Sergeant returned his salute. “Major,” he said. “May I ask what you’re doing out here?”
“I’ve the same question, mate,” said Popski. “I suppose you lads are here for the Aussies and Giarabub. Well, you’ve come too far north. Siwa is off that way, well south of here. It’s to be expected in these damn sandstorms. Can’t see a bloody thing.”
He heard a tinny voice that sounded like it was coming over a radio, and the Sergeant pinched a spot on his field jacket collar and spoke quietly.
“A Major Peniakoff, sir. But he says he’s with the Long Range Desert Group.”
“That’s rather handy,” said Popski. There was something odd about this man and his equipment, though he could see he was of good British stock, and clearly a soldier in the 7th Division by his insignia. The uniform looked new, and unlike any he had seen, and the radio was a first. He could not see how this man could possibly have a wireless stowed in his field jacket.
“Chaps call me Popski,” he said. “Maybe you’ve heard the name? In any case, we’re out here on a search and rescue. The General’s plane has gone down, and we came in on...” He looked over his shoulder, hesitating.
“A helicopter,” said Fedorov, who had been studying the Sergeant very closely, noting every line and detail of his equipment and uniform. The collar microphone comm system had not escaped his notice, and now his heart was racing, his mind a whirlwind of possibilities in the blowing sand. No one from the British Army in 1940 could possibly have such equipment. No one… Who was this man?
“Popski,” he said. “Ask him what his unit is, please.”
“That’s clear enough,” Popski said in Russian, then he turned and smiled at the Sergeant.
“No worries,” he said. “I’m in as a guide and interpreter for this man and his rescue team. We’ve a squad back there, and these men are Russian military.”
“Russians?”
“Right,” said Popski. “Out here on the General’s orders—Wavell, I mean. Your general is the one we’re after, O’Connor. His plane went down somewhere north of here and we’re out to fetch him, before the desert does the man in. Can’t do anything until this storm lets up, but you’re a sight for sore eyes out here. Thought we had a Dego patrol that got lost, and we’re glad to see you.”
Sergeant Williams took that in, then conveyed the essence of it to Reeves over his comm link. “Sir,” he finished, “I think you’d better come up here. Looks like we’ve got some bloody Russian military here, or so this man says. He’s speaks the King’s English, though.”
“Russians? I’m coming up.”
Reeves could not make sense of that. Why, weren’t they just taking pot shots at us with 15 kiloton nukes? Bloody hell, what’s going on here? He might want to inform the Sergeant that they were presently at war with the damn Russians, but he needed to see what was happening up front with his own eyes. So he tapped Cobb on the shoulder again, nodding for him to move out.
“Easy does it,” he said. Then on his command line he gave another order. “Number two, follow me up. Twenty yard interval, if you can see that far.”
The Dragon’s engine purred and the IFV moved forward, the turret gunner at the ready. As they moved up they could now begin to see the dark shadowy mass of the helicopter in the distance, still largely obscured by the blowing sand.
A Major Peniakoff… Russians… What in god’s name was going on here? Could this be a Spetsnaz commando unit out here as a fifth column? Maybe these sons-of-bitches have been sighting for that ICBM, and vectoring the damn thing in! He steeled himself for that possibility, but as his vehicle approached the scene he could see only the five man ground team led by Sergeant Williams and two other men.
“Stop right here,” he said to Cobb. “Cover me, boys. I’m going to try and sort this kettle of fish out.”
He exited the vehicle, goggles fixed tightly over his eyes now in the blowing sand. There they were, the Sergeant and two men, one in what looked to be old style British kit, right down to the boots and cap. The other was clearly Russian, with a black leather jacket, and he looked to be an officer, though he was certainly not army, or rigged out for desert operations. If these were Spetsnaz commandos, then he was a ninny goat, so he decided to try and solve the mystery.
“Lieutenant Reeves, 1/12 Royal Lancers, 7th Brigade. I don’t suppose you gentlemen are looking for us? What’s the Russian military doing out here, eh? There’s a bloody war on mates, and we don’t take it well when you lob 15 kilotons at us like that bit a while back. Now what in hell are you doing here?”
Popski looked very surprised. What was this man talking about? “Yeah? There’s a bloody war on alright, but we’re on your side, mate, or haven’t you heard?”
Reeves tightened his lips, eyes obscure behind those goggles. “Well, sir,” he said. “Begging the Major’s pardon, but you and your whole lot are now prisoners of the British Army! What’s that you have parked out there?” Reeves gestured to the dark mass of the helo.
“Helicopter,” said Popski. “From the Russian navy. We’re on search and rescue out here, looking for the goddamned general.” He was beginning to lose his temper now, but his eye kept straying to the vehicle this man had climbed out of, and the longer he looked the stranger he felt about it. Had to be something new, as he had never seen anything like it. Fedorov was looking at it too, and now he knew he was suddenly facing another one of those impossible moments that had been strung out like pearls for all these many long months. Those were modern Infantry Fighting Vehicles, he knew, and he also knew who the 12th Royal Lancers were in the modern British Army. What was going on here? How could this man be standing here… How?
Then he realized that his own presence here at this moment was an equal impossibility, yet this moment was real, as iron clad as reality ever got in the cold steel of what he now recognized as the barrel of a 25mm autocannon pointed his way. He could hear the engines of many more vehicles obscured by the blowing sand. Something had happened. The mirror of history had cracked again, and they had moved one way or another. Either these men came here through the fire of time, slipped through a crack in fate’s battered hourglass, or he and the KA-40 had flown through a hole in time again, only to reach their own day and era in 2021…
Then he remembered Orlov, and that thing he had been playing with that had burned like a fallen star and nearly scalded his hand. My God, he thought. We’re riding the tiger’s back again, and heaven help us now.
Part X
Nick of Time
“In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”
― Henry David Thoreau
Chapter 28
The waters of the Strait of Artemisium were high that day, a sudden storm brewing up in the narrow channel that heralded another warrior arriving from a doomed world. It blew down from the craggy heights of Mount Paranassus, stirring the waters to a fitful state until the waves were capped with frothing white spray, and the tides crashed hard against the tiny Isle of Argyronison at the outlet of the strait.
There sat a fisherman, who had seen the rising clouds and pulled hard to reach the safety of the island, knowing he could never get back to his mainland village of Katadika in time. He would be the only human eyes to witness the coming, and when he saw it he first believed the Italians had come to add naval gunfire to the torment already underway in his homeland. Germans and Italian troops had invaded a month earlier, and were now relentlessly driving the stalwart Greek Army back towards Athens.
If Regia Marina is here, he thought, then they mean to cross the Strait of Artemisium, and my home town is right where they will land. He knew he had to get there as soon as possible to warn his friends and family, but now he stood, transfixed when he saw the ship in the grey rain, its tall white mainmast crowned by a spherical dome the like
of which he had never seen. It shimmered with a strange glow, Saint Elmo’s Fire crackling from the lines and masts, outlining the sharp fighting edges of the warship in stark relief with an eerie green light. He did not really know what he saw that day, and he would never know that it had come from the fire of one great battle to this one, arriving like the hard steel of the Spartans of old, as if hearing the drumbeat of war and marching in this grave hour.
The high pass of Thermopylae was very close, but it was not Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, marching to the doom foretold by the Oracle of Delphi so long ago:
O ye men who dwell in the streets of broad Lacedaemon!
Either your glorious town shall be sacked by the children of Perseus,
Or, in exchange, must all through the whole Laconian country
Mourn for the loss of a king, descendant of great Heracles.
Another warrior had lately visited that shrine, and found their a talisman that would describe the lines of fate that would set a new doom in motion. But the fisherman knew nothing of this, for it had not yet come to pass, nor would it happen for another eighty years when a young woman would find the weight of the world on her shoulders, and the doom of the Oracle in a strange metal box.
* * *
Elena Fairchild had been truly puzzled when she found no further doorway in the hidden passage beneath Delphi. There was nothing but that strange black box. She had inserted her key, but it would not turn or open. Could other members of the Watch help her solve the riddle? Protocol now required her to report the incident. That was mandatory, but there was so little time and only one place she could do that—back on Argos Fire, the corporate HQ and security ship cruising out beyond the Strait of Artemisia. Its sleek lines and soft white paint scheme belied its true purpose, for the ship was a Daring class British destroyer, purchased by the Fairchild company and refit for the role it now served, and it was every bit as deadly as any of the other warships in its class.
It was well past the eleventh hour, on a hard night in 2021. The missiles were about to fire in the war that had been building to a terrible climax for the last nine days. Her only thought now was how they could possibly survive it, and where they could go. This place was not likely to be on any immediate target list, but on one hour or another, a warhead might come that would end all their days on this earth. The answer she desperately needed had to be inside this box, but how to open it?
“Get the men to the helicopters,” she said firmly. She was obviously meant to find what she now had in hand. Why else would she have been sent here? The box may not open with her key, but it might be opened with another. She had to report this! She had to get back to the ship, re-enable her secure command line to the Watch and report. They had precious little time, but enough to get there and back again if need be on the fast X-3 helos.
The Sergeants whistled, calling back the Argonauts from their security perimeter and shouting to fire up the helicopter. They would leave the famous Oracle scarred by the spade work that had uncovered the hidden entry. It won’t matter anyway in a few hours time., she thought. It won’t matter…
But it did matter. It was going to make all the difference, at least to them and the lives they would lead in the world they returned to. The helos landed on the after deck of Argos Fire, and the Argonauts dismounted, laden with arms and equipment and feeling like passengers at an airport whose flight had been cancelled. Yet they were glad to be back aboard the ship and soon settled in below decks, thinking nothing more of the strange mission.
The Captain went forward with Elena Fairchild, carrying that small box they had retrieved from the dig site at Delphi. They reached the executive suite, tired, and somewhat confused. Morgan came in last after having stopped on the bridge to confer briefly with Commander Dean.
“What’s happening out there, Mack?” said Elena as she cast a worried glance at the clock on the wall.
Her intelligence officer, Mack Morgan, scratched his dark beard, a puzzled expression on his face. “Well, Mum, there’s been nothing on the black line while we were gone, so I’ve no hard intelligence over that channel. Funny thing now is that Mister Dean says we’ve got some strange interference on all the normal communications channels.”
“Interference? Anything wrong with the equipment?”
“No, Mum, they’ve checked it top to bottom. It’s very odd. We can’t even pick up anything on either AM or FM bands, not a word, not a whisper. It’s as if there’s just no one out there.”
At this Elena’s eyes clouded over with a squall of fear. It has started. It’s already underway. Captain Gordon MacRae was watching her closely as she stood up, slowly walking to her desk to depress a hidden button that would open the rear bulkhead to secret room harboring the red phone.
“Come with me, gentlemen. There’s one more line we can try.”
Morgan looked at MacRae, and the two men passed a knowing glance with one another. This was the hidden inner sanctum of Argos Fire, and messages coming across that line had been the seed of many missions in the past. Neither man had ever been permitted to enter the room before this, and so it was with some surprise and an equal measure of curiosity that they both stood now, quietly following Elena into the small room.
There was a single chair sitting before a small pedestal crowned by a Plexiglas dome over the red phone. It had a keypad for code entry and Elena quickly used it to re-enable her phone. MacRae set the box heavily down on the pedestal desk, waiting while Elena seated herself on the chair.
“Well,” she said, “protocol has it that I should report any red mission irregularity at once. I never thought I would find myself sitting here in front of this damn phone again. This is all quite unexpected.”
“What was the failure?” MacRae folded his arms.
“You saw yourself. The key would not operate, and there was no other passage or door.”
“But there was that box,” he pointed.
“Yes, and now I’ve got to report that and see if I can find out why my key won’t open it.”
“Try it again,” MacRae suggested. “No sense making your call unless you’re sure it won’t work.”
That sounded reasonable, and so she nodded, drawing out the key again on its chain and slowly inserting it into the hole. It turned! There was an audible click and a quiet tone from some mechanism inside the box, and now the front side tilted open, revealing a small drawer that held a rolled scroll. She glanced at MacRae, perplexed, and then slowly reached for the scroll to open it.
There was a brief message, addressed to her, and she read it aloud. “Should you read this your mission will have concluded as planned. Keep this device within a secure room aboard Argos Fire at all times and it will serve to hold you in a safe nexus. As of this moment, you are now Watchstander G1. Godspeed.”
“Watchstander G1?” MacRae did not understand.
“There were nine of us left,” said Elena. “It seems I’ve been promoted.”
“What does it mean, Mum?” said Morgan. “A safe nexus?”
She turned, looking at him with a new light in her eyes, and then smiled. “It means I know why you can’t raise anything on the radio now, Mack. It’s begun. It’s happening right now, and we’re right in the eye of the maelstrom.”
“What’s begun?”
“The bloody war you’ve been feeding me information on these last nine days. The missiles are in the air.”
“Athens would surely be on the target list. It’s fairly thick out there with this sudden squall, but we’d see a nuclear warhead if one went off.”
“Perhaps,” said Elena. “Unless we’ve moved.”
“Moved? Where?” Morgan didn’t understand. They were still in the strait northeast of Delphi.
Elena just looked at him, then back to the message on the scroll. She hadn’t read it all to them, not the string of numbers there, nor the name of the man who had signed off on the note.
A tone sounded on the ship’s intercom, and Elena tapped the button to
take the message. It was the ship’s executive officer, Mister Dean.
“Bridge reporting. We’ve got radar returns now, but can’t seem to get signal returns on the tankers. Radio is clearing up, but nothing on the Black Line.”
“Forget the Black Line,” she said. “Listen to AM bands. See if you can pick up any local news. And you can forget the tankers as well.”
At this Dean seemed to stumble, a brief silence indicating his confusion before he spoke again. “Excuse me, Mum… Forget the tankers? I thought we were to escort them to Heraklion.”
Both Captain MacRae and Mack Morgan were giving her the same look that had to be on Dean’s face at that moment, a bemused look of worry and concern.
“Yes, proceed to Heraklion, but I’m afraid the tankers won’t be coming. I’ll explain everything later Mister Dean. Just get us underway.”
“Very good, Mum. We’ll get moving immediately.”
They had shepherded the company’s tanker fleet through every hazard, all in the service of securing the deal that could save Fairchild Inc. from certain bankruptcy after the loss of Princess Royal in the Persian Gulf, and secure vital oil supplies for Britain in the bargain. They had braved the transit of the Bosphorus and dueled with the Russian Black Sea Fleet, losing one of their three remaining tankers there, Princess Irene. Yet they had managed to get safely through the Bosphorus with the last two tankers and two million barrels of precious oil. Then, like a dog that had tussled for hours with a rope and then suddenly lost interest, the Company CEO had told them the oil no longer mattered.
MacRae pursed his lips, wondering what was up here, and how they could have lost radar signals on the tankers. “We’d best check that radar dome on the mainmast,” he said. “It may ‘ha been damaged in the storm.” His Scottish brogue rolled like honey at times, and his reserve of calm was most welcome in the tension of the moment.
Three Kings (Kirov Series) Page 24
