B00DSDUWIQ EBOK (26 page)

It
was a certificate assuring membership the “Sacred Order Of The Golden Dragon,” and
if Kenji Akiro could have read the English he would have seen it belonged to
Donald M. Sweeney. The duffel bag it had been hastily stuffed into when the
last battle stations alert was sounded for the
Atule
would be floating
in on the surf in another five minutes.

Atule’s
war was over, but the next war was just
getting started. Word of the sub’s sinking passed from Enright’s watch on the
Archer-Fish
and right up the chain of command through HQ Submarine Squadron Ten, Commander
Submarine Force, Pacific, and from there on to Commander In Chief, Pacific
Fleet, Chester Nimitz.

The
Admiral shook his head, clearly distressed, and simmering with obvious anger. The
Russians had just crossed a line in his mind and there was no going back now.
If the attack on
Wasp
was not reason enough for reprisal, this deliberate
sinking of a US sub on a recon mission was the last straw. His message to his
fighting front line Admiral Halsey was brief and to the point.

“Get
up there and sink the bastards—and do it now.”

Chapter 26

Haselden
listened intently, hearing the odd thumping
from the dark edge of the night and passing that uncomfortable moment between
sound and sense when you hear something, try to locate and identify it, and
cannot do so. The others could hear it as well, a deep thumping that seemed to
grow louder with each passing second. Their eyes seemed to search this way and
that as they listened. What was it?

They had been discouraged to find that the truck column passed
through Makhachkala, thinking it would not stop, but then their hopes were
bolstered. The column began to slow, and come to a halt. “Bloody hell,” said
Haselden. “We’ve come much farther south than I had hoped, we’re near the
harbor!”

“Who
would have thought they would just keep on like this,” said Sutherland. “Now what?
It’s nearly dawn and the place will be crawling with Russian military. There
was supposed to be a big operation underway here to jimmy the oil rigs and move
all the equipment to Kazakhstan, at least according to our briefing.”

The land here formed a great isthmus that served as a breakwater for
the harbor. They were very near the base of that isthmus close to the coast where
the road passed the railway station and oil loading depot.

“Things
may get dicey,” said Haselden. “We may have to get off quick and try to melt away
and get to some cover before the others discover they’ve lost three soldiers.
We’ll work out what to do next once we know what we’re looking at.”

Haselden
peered out the back tarp and saw obvious signs of war here. Some of the
buildings had been bombed and burned, and one industrial district had been
razed by the Russians themselves to destroy equipment and remove drilling rigs.

All
he could think of was the mission, and what they had to do to get this man Orlov
and try to save their own hides in the process. At long last the column came
down to the edge of the city, very near the water. They could smell the tang of
the Caspian Sea, the brine on the quay and hear the occasional sound of a bell
on small fishing boats out early for the morning catch.

“Shouldn’t
be any trouble finding a boat here,” said Haselden.

“Maybe
so,” said Sutherland, but getting it north and over the Caspian to Fort Shevchenko
again will be a tall order, Jock, particularly if the Russians have anything to
say about it.”

“Hush
up, I think they’re slowing down to stop here. Get the lead out of your legs, boys.
This is where we get off. There’s a warehouse off the right side of the road. Make
for that and be quick about it!”

The
three men eased the tarp open, Haselden leading the way as they slipped out. One
quick jump and he was down off the truck on the road, and he stood there until
the other two men joined him before they made for the warehouse. In the dull
pre-dawn hours the city seemed softly asleep, the wide bay quiet and still,
with only two boats out that Haselden could see.

They
reached the warehouse and slipped in through a half open door, finding plenty of
old crates and barrels to conceal them from curious eyes. Haselden picked a location
where they could still keep an eye on the trucks, hoping he was correct in his
hunch that the column was finally stopping here. Where else could they be
going?

He
was not disappointed. The squeal of brakes offended the morning calm, and the trucks
stopped, shutting off their engines one by one. Haselden was sizing up the
situation, studying the buildings all around them now. Then, to his chagrin, he
saw that the gate of the fortress opened and out came a troop of NKVD, each man
wearing a grey overcoat and black Ushanka. They approached the trucks, the
leader soon speaking with the colonel commanding the column, and then the women
and children, and the man they had been sent to bring safely home to Great
Britain, were all herded away.

“Blast!”
he hissed in the dark. “They’ve taken the whole bloody lot into that fortress there.
It looks like a detention facility.”

Sutherland
strained to have a look, shaking his head. “Fat chance getting inside that,” he
thumbed dejectedly. “We’ve come all this way to try and break into a prison?”

“Hush,
up Davey,” Haselden warned. “We’ll think of something. There’s a couple ways we
could play this now. These uniforms and hats we’ve got will see us off well enough
with that sort. Maybe we could slip in somehow.”

“Right,
and maybe we can’t. Suppose one of those buggers gets a close look at us, or starts
asking questions.”

“Then
we may end up getting inside another way.”

“Another
way? How do you figure it? Is there some kind of secret passage on your map?”

“No
secret passages, Davey. But if they do find us out, then where do you think they’d
put us, eh? Right there in that hell hole of a prison.”

Sutherland
looked at him, annoyed. “You can’t be serious.”

“Can
you think of any easier way in? You want to try and storm that gate with a couple
pistols and the Stens?”

Sutherland
looked to Sergeant Terry for support, amazed at Haselden’s proposal now. “You’re
really figuring to get us inside as…as prisoners? Then what? You plan to just
excuse yourself and ask if you could please be let out with this Orlov we’re
after? ”

“Don’t
talk nonsense. If we do get inside there might be a way to make contact with this
man.”

“You
speak Russian now, do ya? Open your mouth in there and they’ll hear you speaking
the King’s English and think they have a nice little spy on their hands.”

“Queen’s
English now,” said Haselden. “Shame about old King George going the way he did.
But yes, Lieutenant. Remember, we’re allies and such. Why, we might even ditch these
uniforms now and just go tromping up to that gate in our khakis.”

“And
introduce ourselves?”

Sergeant
Terry was smiling now as Sutherland played the good devil’s advocate. Here they
were trying to figure a way to get thrown into prison, and then once inside they’d
have to figure a way back out.

“Suppose
we did just up and say hello at the gate. What would they make of us? We could fuss
about like visiting officers for the lend lease program like we did at Fort
Shevchenko and see what happens. We ask to see their commandant and they’ll
eventually find someone who can communicate with us. One way or another, we
have to get inside that prison.”

“We
came all this way to get thrown in the hole?” Sutherland made one last attempt at
arguing the matter.

“If
it was good enough for the likes of a man like Admiral Fraser, then it’s good enough
for our lot.”

“Admiral
Fraser? What’s he got to do with anything?” Sutherland was now aware of the fact
that Fraser had served in this region with thirty Royal Navy sailors in 1920
when they were all taken by the Bolsheviks and thrown into prison in Baku. It
was long months and cruel days before they were eventually released.

The
sound came before Haselden had a chance to explain, that distant thumping that seemed
so odd to them all, and impossible to place. It was getting louder and louder,
coming from above them, and Haselden leaned around a crate to have a look
outside, eyes puckered against the slate grey of the pre-dawn sky. Low clouds
obscured everything above them but there was obviously an aircraft of some
sorts up there, coming in over the bay. He had deduced that much, but it was
unlike any plane he had ever heard before. He thought he saw a massive dark shadow
deepen the gray to black at one point, and something swirling in the sky. What
in God’s name was up there?

* * *

“There
it is!” Zykov gave Troyak the thumbs up.
“I’ve got his signal! They’re down there on that road, and it looks like they’re
heading right into the city.

At
last, thought Fedorov with great relief. They had spent a good long while, consuming
precious fuel while they searched all the way from Kizlyar and south along the
road. There was no sign of Orlov’s signal, but what they had seen there was
cause for some alarm. Troyak thought he spied a column of trucks and armored
vehicles, and Fedorov took a closer look with night vision binoculars. The
powerful opticals revealed more than he expected.

“My
God!” he said quickly. Those are Germans! It’s an armored column. I was even able
to make out insignias on some of the vehicles, mostly trucks and light APCs,
but a few tanks as well. What in the world are they doing here?”

Something
had changed, he thought quickly. The Germans got as far as Ishcherskaya east of
Mozdok on the Terek when elements of 3rd Panzer Division made a daring cross river
assault there. But they only held the bridgehead for a few days in the history
Fedorov had studied before the mission. Apparently that was not the case any
longer. The column was well south of the Terek and moving swiftly on through
the grey morning. The history had changed! Now the Germans had outflanked the
defense at Grozny, and it looked like this column was pressing on to the
Caspian coast and Makhachkala.

Suddenly
Zykov thought he had a brief IFF return well south, near that city, but it vanished.
They turned in that direction, somewhat leery of overflying the city itself.
Even at night the sound of the Mi-26 would certainly arouse curiosity and draw
unwanted attention if they flew low enough to pick up Orlov’s jacket signal if
it was in passive mode. Fedorov ordered the pilot to move off shore and hovered
about three kilometers off the coast before deciding to ease around south of
the city. Then Zykov suddenly had a signal, and Fedorov’s heart leapt. They
found him!

They
were soon pouring over maps, noting the position and trying to hone down the exact
location. “It looks to be right near the coast on the bay,” said Fedorov. “Right
on the wharfs…could they be moving him to a ship? Let’s get lower. I need to
see the surrounding area.”

“A
ship would be good,” said Troyak. “Easy to find once it leaves port and easy to
take him there. If we get much lower we’ll wake up the locals,” he warned.

“It
can’t be helped. Pilot, see if you can get down under this cloud deck so I can have
a look at the city.”

The
pilot nodded and the helo descended, the signal strengthening as it did so. As they
lost altitude they were soon beneath the low clouds. His mind returned to the
urgency of the moment, eyes scanning the ground below. There was a column of
trucks on the road near the harbor quays and he was surprised by how different
the area seemed now. Fedorov had been to Makhachkala before, but this wasn’t
2021, it was 1942. They were looking at a squat, yet well built structure that
looked like an old prison there and now he suddenly realized what had happened.

“Take
us up, and quickly. Get us back under cloud cover!” He realized they could not linger
there, an enormous hovering helicopter beating the skies with its massive
props.

Troyak
gave him a questioning look. “What do we do, Colonel?”

“See
that structure there? I’m willing to bet the signal is coming from that location.
That’s looks to be a detention camp or prison. I could see guards and barbed
wire on the walls. Orlov is there! But we can’t very well just land here with a
single squad. We’ve already drawn the attention of those guards. Let’s get
higher.”

“What
then?”

Fedorov’s
mind was working quickly. They brought only a single squad. There would be guards,
perhaps a full battalion of NKVD here. This was a prison, and access would be
very restricted. He would need more resources if they were to consider taking
the place to rescue Orlov, and the longer they lingered here with the helicopter…

No,
he could not risk the Mi-26. If anything happened to it then there would be no way
to attempt the delivery of those remaining two control rods to Karpov. He knew
what he had to do.

“Can
you activate his jacket from here?”

“I
believe so.”

“Then
get it to broadcast its IFF location beacon signal. You say that will range out
to 50 kilometers and we should be able to pick him up again easily. But at the
moment, we need to get this big fat helicopter out of here. Head for the
Anatoly
Alexandrov
. We’ll need more resources.”

“And
then what, sir?”

“Then
we take that prison, find Orlov, and go home.”

Troyak
took one last glance at the prison and the surrounding area now before they were
swallowed by the cloud deck again. “Very well,” he said confidently.

“You
think we can take the place and hold it for a while?”

“Certainly,
sir.”

“But
Troyak…From the looks of that column we saw back there the Germans could be here
soon. There doesn’t seem to be any organized defense here. Something has changed
in the history. They weren’t suppose to get this far south.”

“Well,
sir. We can do something about that if you wish. I can stop that column.”

“You
can stop it?”

“We
have a full company of Marines on the
Anatoly Alexandrov
, and then some.”