Steel Reign (Kirov Series Book 23)

by John Schettler

  Orlov stared at the thing Fedorov held out in the palm of his hand. “My compass… yes… I remember giving it to you. Damn thing was useless….”

  “Then what, Chief? Do you remember anything else happening?”

  Orlov furrowed his brow, trying to recall, but that veil of unknowing was there, like a heavy fog and the more he strained to see through it, the thicker it became.

  “Then I was here… On this ship. But I didn’t know anything—none of this shit. It was as if everything was starting over again, only you were acting all strange. And then, after we put into Severomorsk, I saw how different everything was. You told us we had gone to the past—right into the middle of WWII! Who could believe that? But that’s when the dreams started. Only they weren’t dreams, were they Fedorov. They were memories. I was remembering all this crap, only it started in my sleep. Now I’ve got on that goddamned French Cologne!”

  Fedorov smiled. “You mean Déjà vu? Yes, I suppose you do. Don’t worry Chief, you still smell like a pig.”

  The big Chief gave him a wide grin. “You’re all right, Fedorov. I don’t know why I was so pissed at you. Karpov was the one who put me up to that again. He said I was supposed to spy on you—see what you were up to. You mean to say that he’s the same Karpov we sailed with in the beginning?”

  “Right.” Fedorov didn’t want to get into the doppelganger thing with Orlov now. It was enough that he was slowly getting a grip on himself, and settling down.

  “Then Karpov took the ship after all. Is that what happened when you went ashore at Severomorsk? He left the ship, but came back all strange. That bastard got rid of Volsky, didn’t he.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. But the Admiral got away on a British sub. He was with Admiral Tovey on Invincible… before he died.”

  “Right,” said Orlov, suddenly missing the Admiral. “Fedorov… It’s been you and Volsky against Karpov all along, hasn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” said Fedorov sullenly.

  “But how is it you remembered things—hell—how can I be remembering all this shit, but no one else does?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that those memories are real. They happened. Frankly, I thought I was going crazy myself, but now that you remember it all, I know I’m still sane. Were together in all this, you and I. Thank god someone else remembers everything.”

  “Karpov too,” Orlov said darkly. “What do we do with him?”

  “Nothing—at least for now.”

  “What? You going to let him ride roughshod over the whole ship and crew like this? What’s he doing here now? He’s fighting his little war, just like he wanted to in the Atlantic. The next thing you know he’ll be firing off a nuke.”

  “Not if I can help it. Look Orlov, you mustn’t let Karpov know you remember any of this. Understand? He’d put all his security men on you, or worse. He’d have Grilikov on your ass every minute of the day. No. You have to lay low on this now. I had the same choice to make in the beginning. I laid low, and tried to figure out what to do. I was looking for allies, trying to figure who I could get to support my position. But Karpov found me out, so I decided to play along. He offered me Starpom to cooperate with him. I figured it was better than the brig. What could I do there? At least this way I have some say on what happens. He listens to me, seeks my advice.”

  “Right, the two of you have been thick as thieves on the bridge. Look Fedorov. I can keep my mouth shut, but if Karpov figured out you knew things, he’ll be on to me in no time. Hell, you’re one clever little bastard yourself. He saw through your act, so what chance does that give me?”

  “I know, I know,” Fedorov held up a hand. “But at least you need to play it that way for now. If he finds out you know everything, I’ll stand with you, Orlov. I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”

  Orlov gave him a good long look. “You’re a good man, Fedorov. I always thought that, even when I was busting your balls. Alright, so what happens when Karpov figures this all out?”

  “We’ll deal with that later.”

  “Yes? Well maybe we should get to the bastard before he learns anything more.”

  “I don’t think that would be wise. It was the same problem I faced when I thought I was alone on the ship—the only man who remembered anything. I realized that I might work quietly, behind the scenes, find allies like Zolkin, or Nikolin—men I knew who stood with me before.”

  “Troyak,” said Orlov gruffly. “That’s who we need. Troyak and that clown Zykov and all the Marines.”

  “I thought that at first too, but listen. Karpov brought on all those security men—his personal guard from Siberia. I knew the last thing I wanted was a nice little civil war here on the ship. Can you imagine it? It would eventually come to gun play, and a lot of blood spilled. I couldn’t allow that, Chief. These men are all my brothers. I couldn’t set one side against another like that.”

  “Well shit, we could at least figure a way to get Grilikov and those black coated bastards off the ship.”

  “Yes, but that may take some doing, and I don’t think violence is our answer. We’ve got to play this very carefully, Chief. If Karpov finds out what you know, you need to let me handle that with him. Understand? I know you carry a pretty heavy grudge with that man, but you’ve got to step up now, and get beyond that. I need you to find another man in you now. You are still Chief of the Boat. You need to become that man, and not the surly disciplinarian who delighted in knocking heads together below decks. All those men are our brothers. They fought with us, endured everything we went through, lost everything we lost when all this happened. We’ve got to take care of them. Who knows, one day they may remember things that happened before, just like you did here. But for now, don’t say anything to anyone about this. Keep it entirely between you and I. If Karpov finds out, let me handle it. Then we’ll take things from there.”

  Orlov nodded. “Alright Fedorov. I’m with you on this one. Now I’m your spy!” He grinned.

  “Good for you. But don’t get careless. Go about your regular routine, make your reports as always, fart out loud like you do in the mess hall. Just be your old self. Remember, we’re still here in the middle of WWII. In some ways, Karpov is not the monster you think he is. Yes, he’s ruthless, determined, but he’s working a plan to undo the damage he caused when he took the ship back to 1908. We just took Kamchatka, and now he’s trying to get back Sakhalin Island, Primorskiy Province, and even Vladivostok.”

  “Right, this is some real strange doings here now, eh Fedorov? How’d the Japanese get their hands on Vladivostok?”

  “That’s a real long story, but Karpov had a lot to do with it, and now he’s trying to set things right. That was one other reason I decided to handle things the way I did.”

  “Still trying to fix everything?”

  “You might say so. It may be futile in the end, but I can still try. The way I see it now is that I at least have some input on what happens—some pull. But god knows I wish we still had Admiral Volsky here with us.”

  “Right,” said Orlov. “I suppose he’s the only one who does know what’s going on in this crazy world.”

  “Volsky?”

  “God…”

  Fedorov nodded silently.

  Chapter 12

  Chief Dobrynin was listening to the reactors, as he often did. The hum and vibration all held meaning, carried a message, told him much of the inner workings of the system. It had been months now since he ran his regular rod maintenance rotation. He didn’t quite know why, but orders had come down that the procedure should be discontinued, and that the spare control rod, Number 25, should be removed from the reactor assembly and stored in a radiation safe container.

  That procedure was largely automated by 2021. All he had to do was retract the rod upwards into a long metal tube that opened on one side to admit the container. The rod would slide up, a servo mechanism would close the lower container hatch, and then it would be safe for maintenance crews to remove the con
tainer, store the rod, or mount another in its place.

  He thought about that order, wondering why it had been given, and feeling just a little odd about it. All the equipment under his watch was like a family for him. He counted his monitors, gauges and tools like an old man might count his grand children. It was as if he had some long affiliation with Number 25, which had fit quietly into the matrix of his complex life in the engineering plant until that fateful day—yes, the day he ran the routine just before those live fire exercises. That was when they had the trouble with K-266, the Orel. The submarine had been scheduled to test fire a small missile barrage, but something went terribly wrong.

  After that, the chaos of everything that had happened to them was still difficult to believe. Yet he dealt with it, like all the other men on the ship, and being a senior officer, he saw it as his duty to set an example for those under him. So he simply returned to the work he had been trained for, the job he did so very well there as Chief Engineer. He kept to his routine, kept the men working as always, and still quietly listened to his equipment.

  Everything seemed normal, as it always did, for he ran a very tight watch—until he heard something one day, an odd sub-harmony in one of the reactors. He had been listening, eyes closed, his mind taking the errant vibrations and whirring thrums and weaving them into some kind of inner symphony. There he sat, just like a conductor, a man who knew exactly what he was supposed to be hearing in the score being played. He knew, with each sound, what should come next, be it the deep murmur of a water flow pump, or the lilting whine of a steam rotor. Each sound should be followed by another, just like the notes in the score, but here was a note, a line of music, that he had never heard before.

  Dobrynin inclined his head, suddenly more alert, listening… listening… Something in the sound seemed to pull at him, triggering some deep inner sense, a sixth sense that was a strange collaboration of touch, smell, and sound. Together they combined to produce a new sensory suite in him, and it was there, in that intersection of the three senses, that he sensed something different playing in the orchestra that he did not expect, yet something he was inwardly certain he had heard before. It was a sound, a feeling, a vague yet palpable presence in the system, and now he opened his eyes, seeing out the nearest monitor to add sight to the mix of senses he was using.

  “Mister Markov,” he said quietly. “Kindly bring up the flow channel report on monitor number two please.”

  “Aye, Chief. Number two.”

  Dobrynin shifted his weight in his chair, leaning to one side, closing his eyes again briefly and listening. As if aware that it had been discovered, the errant sound had fled. He waited, thinking it would return again in the very next phrase, the next bar in the score, but nothing was heard. Yet the recollection of that sound was clear in his mind, and it touched a very deep chord somewhere within him. He had heard this before, many times, and it never promised good things when it came.

  Yes, he had heard that sound before, and it stood now in his mind like a harbinger of something more profound that was yet to come, a quiet precursor, a little foreshock, a warning.

  “Mister Markov. I want to print a reading on the entire system for the last ten minutes.”

  “A reading? You mean a diagnostic report?”

  “That is correct.”

  “The entire system, sir?”

  “Full diagnostic. Get started please. Call in Mister Garin as well if you need some help. I want it done as soon as possible.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Dobrynin smiled, seeing Markov swivel in his seat, looking for a clipboard, lists of things he would need to get printed reports on for the diagnostic. He was a good man, a competent technician, yet as Dobrynin looked at him, a strange feeling came over him. Markov… missing… Gone….

  He shook his head, not knowing why he thought that. It was just another of those strange inner hunches that he was prone to, but the Chief had learned to pay attention to such things, quiet little upwellings of his unconscious mind. Pay attention, he told himself. Keep a good eye and ear on things. Something isn’t quite right here, and you know it. It may be nothing serious, like a loose shoestring in the system as a whole, but then again….

  He leaned back, closed his eyes, and listened….

  * * *

  Another man was listening, sitting in a cellar deep beneath the administration room at Pearl Harbor. The building above had been gutted by fire, but the cellar housing Station HYPO had survived. In the last three months the rubble had been cleared, new construction started, and it was nearly complete. Yet all the while, the station, a branch of OP-20-G Naval Intelligence section in Washington DC, had continued to operate. Their mission was signals intelligence and decryption, and they had some very talented minds there, including one Lieutenant Commander Joseph Rochefort, who had joined the Navy while still in high school in 1918. A man with a complex mind, much like Alan Turing, Rochefort delighted in solving crossword puzzles, or analyzing the possibilities of card games, particularly bridge. It was the kind of mind that was tailor made for code breaking, and that is what Rochefort did.

  Station HYPO, sometimes called Fleet Radio Unit Pacific (FRUPAC), had a sister station labeled FRUMEL in Melbourne, and together they had been listening… listening…. All the real decryption work was piling up at those two sites now, as Hong Kong was gone, along with Batavia, and Corregidor. They took the burden, and worked hard, and had some real success in breaking the Japanese JN-25B naval code. Now it was telling them some very dangerous things.

  Orders were afoot, signals traffic up all across the bands, and ships were on the move. This made for late hours and long shifts at HYPO, but slowly, a rather ominous picture was being painted by the signals traffic. Lieutenant Commander Jasper Holmes had been very methodical, working from the assumption that something was up for the Central Pacific. The Americans had learned that the movement and deployment of the Japanese carriers was the first thing to look for, and they had clearly identified a carrier with a name ending in “kaku” ordered to Truk. Only two ships had that suffix, and they were both in the same Carrier Division, Number 5, Japan’s newest and most modern carriers.

  Holmes came up to Rochefort’s desk, the green eye shades the men used to protect their eyes from the endless overhead fluorescent lighting now perched high on his forehead. He had caught a few hours sleep on a cot by the wall, then was up early to see if anything new had come in. He was very pleasantly surprised. Rochefort was sitting behind a wall of stacked file folders and reports, half way through a cup of coffee. A veil of pipe smoke always seemed to surround his desk, like fog hugging the ragged shore of some isolated Pacific island.

  “If Div Five has moved to Truk,” said Rochefort, “what makes you think they’re heading for the Central Pacific?”

  “Truk is the center of the wheel,” said Holmes. “From there they could head south into the Solomons, or southwest towards the Coral Sea. There are good objectives there. We know they want Port Moresby. That’s why Fletcher has Saratoga and Yorktown off Fiji right now, ready to move west into the Coral Sea. They could save him the trouble and also head right for Fiji from Truk, and that has a lot of folks worried. So I decided to play a little game.”

  “A game?”

  “Right. We know the call names of several objectives, so I put out some traffic on the radio last week, just an innocuous little laundry list of maintenance trouble, and I sent it in the clear. I had the report say they had trouble with the water condenser on Midway, and needed lubricating oil for a crane at Suva Bay—two nice fat objectives the Japs might be eyeing now. And guess what. We picked up a message just yesterday. The Japs took my bait, hook, line, and sinker!” His smile drove the weariness from the lines of his face.

  “What do you mean?”

  “A.F. sir, that was one of the call signs attached to an objective point. We picked up a message repeating that A.F. had trouble with its water condenser. I decoded it myself. So A.F. has to be Midway, and
by elimination, we figured out what Fiji must be. No action there, but everything else seems to be pointing to Midway. We even picked up movement order for fleet unit 8 O K.I. We know what that is sir, because the Japs always pair sister ships, and 9 O K.I. was clearly ordered to Kwajalein right after the attack on Pearl. That was Kaga, the ship Halsey busted up in that first engagement. So 8 O K.I. has to be the Akagi, and they want it ready for a move to support the operations for A.F—for Midway.” He folded his arms, a smug look of satisfaction on his face.

  “Midway,” said Rochefort. “Why the Central Pacific?”

  “Unfinished business,” said Holmes. “If they can knock off Midway, then we lose that important watch on all that turf out there.”

  “Or maybe something else,” said Rochefort. “Know thine enemy, Holmes. We know Yamamoto has been wanting to lock horns with our carriers for some time. That’s his guiding principle—seek out a decisive engagement. That’s why he hit us at Pearl.”

  “Right. Well I think they’re going to sortie into the central Pacific, and take a pot shot at Midway. They know Halsey has been nipping at the Marianas, and that stunt Doolittle pulled off must have reddened quite a few faces in the navy over there. If they had Midway, they could put seaplanes there and we would have never been able to pull that raid off. It’s a big blind spot for them out there, and possession of Midway solves that problem nicely.”

  “How sure are you about this?”

  “Well, we’ve also got Nagumo’s call sign—that was 8 E YU, before they changed it to 8 YU NA. We have sixteen readings where that call sign is paired with the 8 O K.I. for the Akagi. So that has to be the flagship for this operation, and they’re moving it to Truk to link up with Carrier Division 5. That’ll give them at least three big flattops ready to move in five days. And there’s more, we’ve got the handle for one of their fleet replenishment ships, Kyukuto Maru. It’s the flagship for the tanker fleet. It’s got orders to proceed to support this operation A.F. too.”