Kirov (14 page)

“What
are you saying, Fedorov. We just saw the plane, did we not?” The Admiral looked
at his navigator, his expression grave and serious.

“It
was a Mark II Fulmar, sir, most certainly. That was a Rolls-Royce Merlin 30
engine, and the air duct beneath it on the nose of the plane is a
characteristic feature of this aircraft—the long canopy as well. It was used in
both strike and reconnaissance roles during the Second World War aboard British
carriers, first introduced in March of 1941. Sir, the only known surviving
aircraft of this type is the very first prototype model off the production
line, which never saw active combat during the war, and it's in the Fleet Air
Arm Museum in Somerset! I saw it just last summer while on leave. There is no
way this aircraft could be flying today!”

“You
tell me you are certain this plane is a Fulmar in one breath and then say it
cannot possibly fly in the next. Which is it, Fedorov?” said the Admiral. “How
am I supposed to sort this out? Everything we have seen in the last three hours
seems completely irregular. Both
Orel
and
Slava
are missing
without the slightest trace—no sign of wreckage, no thermal signature on the
ocean floor, no signals traffic of any kind. Severomorsk does not respond to
our communications, and we hear nothing on the radio but historical
documentaries and old music. Now I have twelve ships south of my position that
no longer exist, and I am being over flown by aircraft that do not exist
either—or was that a seagull we just saw.”

“Aircraft
that do not exist in the year
2021
, sir,” said Fedorov, realizing again
how insane his remarks must sound.

The
Admiral looked at him, astounded. “You are suggesting we are…”

“This
is all nonsense, I tell you,” said Karpov. “This has to be a NATO PSYOP or
perhaps a re-enactment, as Orlov suggests. Otherwise we may all be suffering
the effects of that explosion. Hallucinating. To think anything otherwise is
pure lunacy. What, Fedorov? Are you telling me we have sailed back into the
middle of the Second World War? Go and see the doctor! You are clearly unfit
for duty here.”

“I
will be the judge of that,” said Admiral Volsky. Yet the throbbing in his head
seemed worse than ever, in spite of the two aspirin the doctor had given him,
and it was clear that all the other bridge crew seemed overly stressed and very
anxious. Karpov’s frenetic emotion was keeping everyone on the edge of a razor.
Samsonov still waited tensely at his combat station, Nikolin was looking at him
with those big round eyes while he continued to listen to the BBC broadcast on
his headset. Orlov was sulking in the CIC, his attention pulled between
Karpov’s boisterous statements and the video from the KA-40 that he had been
re-playing.

The
Admiral knew he needed to act—to give the men something they could focus their
energies on. These were his officers and chiefs. What else was happening below
decks as the crew sat fitfully at their action stations?

“Rodenko,
what is that plane doing?”

“It
has turned back toward Red Wolf Two, sir.”

“Very
well. Our helicopter?”

“Well
to the west, sir. There’s no possibility of a conflict.”

“Mister
Nikolin, signal the KA-40 to stand down and return to the ship. Mister Fedorov,”
said Volsky. “Show me our position on the navigation board.”

“Of
course, Admiral.”

“Mr.
Karpov, if you will compose yourself, please join us.”

The
three men moved to the clear Plexiglas navigation plot where Fedorov had been
working out their position manually after losing GPS navigation. “We still have
no satellite links,” said Fedorov, “but I have calculated our position here,
midway between Bear Island and Jan Mayen. That squiggle there is where
Orel
should be, but I have drawn in the approximate radius of that detonation,
assuming it was a warhead from one of
Orel’s
missiles, sir.”

The
Admiral nodded, and Captain Karpov listened, his eyes narrowed suspiciously, as
if he was waiting for Fedorov to skew off into his ridiculous theory again. The
navigator went on, pointing out symbols on the board as he spoke.

“This
would be
Slava’s
last known position,” he said. “Now we had one KA-40
here earlier, but we have moved it off to the west, north of Jan Mayen. The
other helicopter is sitting on top of the undersea contact here.”

The
Admiral suddenly remembered the submarine, and he turned to his ASW man. “Mister
Tasarov, any developments on that undersea contact? What is Red Wolf One up to?”

“The
KA-40 is over the contact’s last known position, sir. But it has gone silent.”

“I
see…” The Admiral rubbed his chin. “Very well, gentlemen. The enemy wants to
play war games with us and I will accommodate them. Captain, where would you
place the ship to best deal with this surface action group?”

Karpov
stood taller, the pained expression in his eyes ameliorating somewhat, lips
pursed while he looked at Fedorov’s plotting board. “Here, sir. I would move us
due west in the wake of the KA-40, to a position north of Jan Mayen, and well
away from the position reported for this submarine. The island will serve to
provide some concealment from radar if we put it between our position and the
enemy surface action group at Red Wolf Two. And should we engage, they will
have that much less time to pick up our outbound missile salvo.”

“Well
thought out,” said Volsky, complimenting his Captain. The man may be high
strung, he thought, but he was a sound tactician.

“How
extensive is the sea ice in that region?”

“It
should not be a problem,” said Fedorov, “but sir—”

“Very
well, Captain Karpov. Bring your ship around to a heading of 245 degrees west
southwest.” The Admiral deliberately handed the task to Karpov, and he could
immediately see the effect seemed to calm the man. Karpov nodded and gave the
order in a clear and steady voice.

“Helm,
come about to course 245. Speed twenty knots.”

“Helm
responding on course 245, sir. Ahead two thirds.”

The
Admiral smiled. “Well, gentlemen. The identity of those ships may as yet be
open to debate, but we will not argue the matter further here. We will operate
under the assumption that this is a potentially hostile contact and maneuver in
such a way so as to give our ship every advantage possible.”

“But
sir—”

“Not
now, Mister Fedorov.” The Admiral cut his navigator off, a determined look on
his face. Someone had to act sensibly if they were ever to unravel this
mystery. He had put Karpov to work and given the man something to focus his
mind on now.

“Captain,
please monitor Tasarov’s hold on that undersea contact closely while we move to
this new position. You may also oversee the recovery our helicopter.”

“Aye,
sir.” Karpov left them, energized, and obviously happy to be done with
Fedorov’s stupid assertions and on to a proper tactical deployment. When he had
gone the Admiral leaned slightly in Fedorov’s direction, and spoke in a very
low voice. “Return to your station, Mister Fedorov. But I want you to find me
any information you can possibly dig up concerning the naval situation in the
Norwegian Sea on July 28th, 1941.” He gave Fedorov a slight glance, and the man
nodded eagerly, a restrained smile alight in his eyes.

“You
can rely on me, sir.” Fedorov was quickly off to his post.

Chapter
8

Aboard
HMS
Victorious
,
the signal from Grenfell’s Fulmar was cause for some alarm. The pilot,
Lieutenant Easton, had reported a large surface ship, yet he was confused as to
its type and nationality. The ship had a menacing appearance, yet he could
discern no big guns mounted on the long forward deck, just a patchwork of what
looked like hatches, as if the vessel was a large, fast cargo ship of some
kind. He noted several smaller turrets, however, oddly shaped, yet clearly guns
in the range of four to five inches, something a destroyer or light cruiser
might carry. Yet this ship was big! Its superstructure climbed up in a series
of stark gray plateaus mounting stalwart metal towers, battlements and masts arrayed
with strange antennae and pale white domes that gleamed in the wan light. He
had flown many missions with the Fleet Air Arm, and knew a warship when he saw
one. This ship was easily the size and scale of a battleship.

Admiral
Wake-Walker was huddled with Captain Bovell in the plotting room as the two men
studied the charts. “Could this be an armed oiler or other fast replenishment
ship?”

“If
it is, sir,” said Bovell, “then it is certainly nothing I’ve ever heard of. A
tanker mounting five inch gun turrets? It has to be a cruiser, sir. The pilot
must have been mistaken as to its size. You know how doggy these over-flights
can be.”

“Rumor
was that the German commerce raider
Atlantis
was trying to work her way
back to German home ports,” said the Admiral. “She had 5.9 inch guns, but
latest intelligence has her back tracking for the South Atlantic. Probably
heading to the Pacific.”

“I
doubt that ship would be up here, in any case, sir.”

“Pity
the damn plane wasn’t mounting cameras,” said Wake-Walker. “Yet whatever the
identity of this ship, it seems to have vanished again. Grenfell’s pilots can’t
seem to range on it any longer, and I’m not inclined to loiter here looking for
the damn thing. We’ve orders to get out east.”

“At
least those hails have stopped, sir. Having our position, course and speed
called out in the clear like that was becoming a tad uncomfortable.”

“Look
here…” The Admiral tapped at a spot on his charts. “We’ve had the fighters up
for three hours now. They’ll be low on fuel and on their return leg now.
Grenfell is spotting another flight to relieve them, but we won’t have much
daylight left today.” The Admiral was considering his options. “Suppose we
detach
Adventure
and a destroyer to get up there and have a closer look
around for this ship. She can report and then proceed with her planned mine delivery
to Murmansk.”

“It
sounds like a good idea, sir, unless this
is
a German fast cruiser on
the loose that the Admiralty is unaware of.”

“With
5 inch guns it would have to be a destroyer.”

“True,
but if
Adventure
takes a hit with all those mines aboard, mounted on the
decks as they are, it could be rather grim, sir.”

“We’ll
send a destroyer with her as a picket ship. If they do run into anything they
can slip away. But it would ease my mind to have someone out on our right flank
tomorrow morning. I want to turn east at once—bring the whole task force about
on a heading of zero-nine-five degrees. The Germans will probably have more
seaplanes out and about looking for us in the morning. I want to be somewhere
else.”

“Right,
sir.” Bovell still seemed uneasy.

“What
is it, Captain?”

“Well,
the thing is this, sir. That hail… It was sent in plain English—a bit thick on
the accent, but from where, sir? If Easton was at all correct on his location
for this contact, there’s no way that ship could have spotted us, let alone
call out our heading, course and speed as if they had us fixed with a radar
signal. And we both know that’s impossible, sir. Even our very best radar sets
aboard
Suffolk
can only range out twelve to fifteen miles for surface
contacts. The only reason we could see that other ship is because we had an
aircraft up with longer range air to sea radar set. Easton is reporting this
ship some fifty miles north of us.”

“It
might have been one of our subs,” the Admiral suggested. “If so, I’ll have the
captain’s head, or worse. We might ask the Admiralty about that. Then again, perhaps
it was that German Do-18 hailing us. They may have been loitering about. Just
like Jerry to goad us like that. I’ll note that the hails ceased soon after we
put Grenfell’s fighters up. Probably gave them the willies and they high-tailed
it back to Tromso or Trondheim.”

Bovell
nodded, the Admiral’s logic answering his concerns. “With your permission, sir,
I’ll see that the fleet comes about on that new heading.”

“Very
well,” said the Admiral. “You can signal
Adventure
to depart at once.
Have her search the area near Jan Mayen and have a look at the weather station
there. Once she’s reported we’ll send her on her way… And oh, yes. Detach the
destroyer
Anthony
as her escort. She’s just replenished with
Black
Ranger
and should have the legs for the job.” He was referring to the oiler
that had arrived to refuel his task force earlier that day.

“Good
enough, sir.” Captain Bovell saluted and slipped out through the hatch to the
bridge.

~
~ ~

Fedorov
found
what he was
looking for and was elated. He had dragged out his volume of
The Chronology
Of The War At Sea, 1939-1945
, Russian Language Edition, and flipped quickly
through the well dated pages to late July, 1941. Amazed at what he saw, he
discretely notified the Admiral that he had further information, and Volsky had
ordered him below to see the doctor.