Nemesis (36 page)

“The
keys,” said Dorland. “We simply must solve that part of this puzzle. We must
get hold of all those other keys, because if they do secure these time rifts,
they also do the inverse and allow access to them. We could move heaven and
earth to try and prevent
Kirov
from ever displacing here, only to find
those open rifts in time still allow a contamination to undo all our work.”

“Agreed,”
said Elena. “So how do we proceed?”

“You
hold one key, correct? And you say you know of another Keyholder.”

“I know
one exists, but not his identity. Nor do I know what that key might open.”

“Most
likely the location of another time rift. We simply must discover that, but
first things first. We need to get our hands on the one other key we know of,
now at the bottom of the Atlantic.”

“Along
with all the King’s business,” said Tovey. “Churchill was quite upset about
that.”

“Undoubtedly,
but the loss of the key is our only concern. I think I know how to find it
again, and I’ll make that my little project. As for this rift at Ilanskiy, that
seems to be the odd man out in all this. That site will have to be secured as
well.”

“No
small task,” said Tovey. “It seems Ivan Volkov and this Vladimir Karpov have
been tussling for control of the place. Captain Fedorov mounted a raid to try
and destroy the entrance, and then those two have been back and forth over it
ever since.”

“But
there it is,” said Dorland, “and we’ll have to deal with it somehow. We need
these keys, all of them, and this won’t be easy getting our hands on them.
These rifts in time must be secured. One is completely unknown, another
apparently exists in a location controlled by the Germans, and the third is
controlled by a very dangerous man, a man who should not even exist now, just
like this ship—a Doppelganger.”

Doctor
Zolkin could not take his mind off that bandage, or even
his eyes. From time to time he found himself staring at his medicine cabinet,
and he was bothered by the nagging feeling that something about that bandage
was important, though he could not think what it was. He spent three hours,
going through all his personnel patient records, and looking through his
diagnostic computer files for some trace or clue as to when he might have used
that bandage. He was very meticulous in keeping his records, because the quartermaster
was also very meticulous in allocating the ship’s budgets for medical supplies.
One day I’ll have to buy that man a good bottle of vodka, he thought, and
loosen up his purse.

Yet his
search had been fruitless, until just before noon, even as the ship slipped
away from all visible land that day, now lost in the Barents Sea, heading for
the Kara Strait at the southern tip of the long barrier island of Novaya
Zemlya. He had been troubled by things he heard among members of the crew these
last few days, and the line at his door seemed a bit longer. Strangely, he
found the men often presented some minor complaint, which was really nothing
that should have sent them to the infirmary, until he realized that what they
really wanted to do was simply talk with him.

The
Doctor heard a great deal in those little chats, things about the strangeness
of coming home, and the veil of secrecy that seemed to surround the operations
of the ship now. He heard about the newcomers, some kind of security force that
had come aboard, quartered well aft in the reserve cargo area, and kept
segregated from the rest of the crew. Some of the men complained that they had
to give up an extra blanket from their laundry allotment to accommodate these
men, who were sometimes seen, moving in groups of three or five in their long
dark overcoats, like shadows.

He
heard of one man in particular, a burly Sergeant named Grilikov who was now
making the rounds with Orlov, and the crew seemed more than unhappy about that
development. Soon he learned why, when a man came in with a ripe shiner on one
eye, and when Zolkin started to lecture him about fighting, the other sailor
interrupted him.

“It
wasn’t me, sir. It was that big Sergeant. He said I was too slow with the fire
hose drill.”

“Big
Sergeant? You mean Troyak did this?”

“No
sir… It was Grilikov.”

Zolkin
heard more in that than he liked, shaking his head, and he also heard things
about the Captain as well. Like everyone else on the ship, the absence of
Admiral Volsky was keenly felt, particularly by Zolkin, for he was a long time
friend of the Admiral. He had heard the announcement on the P.A. by the
Captain, yet he felt it odd that Leonid would leave so abruptly like this,
without the slightest whisper of his intentions. Yes, the Admiral of the
Northern Fleet often knew many more things that he would share with other
officers, but he always shared most of them with Zolkin—but not this. Moscow
had summoned the Admiral for a very important meeting, or so the Captain’s
announcement explained. In the meantime, the ship was heading for Vladivostok
as previously planned.

Zolkin
also found that strange. They had not docked at Severomorsk, by the Admiral’s
order, and he knew Leonid well enough to realize that he had some good reason
for that. Volsky went ashore, and did not return. Instead came these shadows,
led by some big brute of a man named Grilikov, and the unrest in the crew was a
palpable thing now.

Yet the
Doctor had been in the service a good long while. He knew that things happened
that required secrecy, and the incident with
Orel
and
Slava
was
more than enough to have the ship’s commanding officer summarily called to
account in Moscow the moment they made port, even if he was a Fleet Admiral.
That was probably it, he thought. The Naval inspectorate most likely sent these
men aboard, and Leonid was being called on the thick red carpet. He silently
wished his friend well, and attended to his business as always… but that
nagging thought about the bandage kept bothering him. When he encountered that
odd glitch in his computer files, the feeling he had when he first touched that
bandage redoubled.

He was
plowing through his records on the medical log computer, and suddenly came
across a very strange entry. It was a file that would not open—password protected—yet
he could not remember ever securing that data, or think of any reason why he
should. Curious, he began typing in the most typical password he would used to
lock a file, his cat’s name, Gretchk0, with the last character being a cypher
zero instead of the normal letter, but it failed. Then he tried something
stronger, passwords he would only ever use for very sensitive matters, and one
of them finally opened the file.

In
places he could see that some of the data remained badly garbled, as if the
encryption algorithm had failed to decode properly. Yet in other locations he
could clearly read snippets of the file data, and he was very surprised by what
he saw there—in fact quite shocked! He soon realized that this was a list of
names, all members of the crew, along with all their digital personnel records.
Why would he find it necessary to secure that information? It gave him a very
troubling feeling as he scanned the document, for at the end of each man’s file
he found diagnostic notes he had apparently typed in the closing comments box.
As he read them, he realized that they were autopsy notes! Several men were
designated KIA, and three files really got his attention—Markov: MIA; Voloshin:
Apparent Suicide; and the last one completely befuddled him. It was a bizarre
report he had apparently written about a man he knew quite well from the ship’s
galley, a man named Lenkov. What in god’s name was this all about?

He
leaned back in his chair, somewhat shaken by the discovery, and now the odd
feelings he had about that soiled bandage prickled up again, more insistent,
and with a sense of urgency that actually sent his pulse racing. Of all the
members of the crew who might be troubled by recent events, there was one man
who should be at the top of his list—Fedorov. For some reason, Zolkin wanted to
speak with him again. In fact, he almost felt compelled to do so, though he
thought that was more his own guilt in having neglected the man, overlooking
the seriousness of the injury he might have sustained.

Yes, he
thought, I must go and check on Mister Fedorov to see if he is still wrestling
with this strange interpretation of these recent events. His condition had
begun to show signs of mild psychosis, so he made a mental note to check on the
officer’s rotation schedule and see when he might be in his quarters. Better
yet, he thought. I will look for him in the officer’s dining room tonight, and
make a point of sitting with him to make a quiet assessment before I do
anything more formal.

Even as
he thought that, he realized there was more in his intention than he openly
admitted to himself. The contents of that encrypted file had shaken him, and
somehow for some reason that he could not divine, he felt compelled to talk to
Fedorov about it…

But the
Senior Lieutenant was not in the dining hall that evening, and he soon found
out why.

*

Zykov
was lounging in the helo bay as always. He had finished
his weapons cleaning ritual, and completed the readiness check on the KA-40
that had been up earlier that day, as all the Marines pulled double duty on the
ship, and performed service maintenance on the helicopters they would so often
have to use. Now he was lounging, his work for the day complete, and a copy of
a girly magazine more than enough to keep his attention while he waited for the
chow bell to ring. He was a Corporal, which put him one leg up on all the other
men, who were all privates, and so he thought it just a privilege of rank that
he might steal these little moments of distraction from the day’s work rotation.

The
other men were all up on deck with Troyak finishing the damage control drill,
but his squad had already scored high marks, and so it was exempted. The four
men under his immediate supervision had already gone to the mess hall to wait
in line, leaving Zykov alone with his magazine, and a smile.

Then he
heard hard footfalls at the far end of the bay, looking over his shoulder and
thinking the Sergeant was back early with the other two squads. Instead, he was
surprised to see Orlov leading in a group of the newcomers, and one was the big
mountain of a man they called Grilikov.

“Up off
your ass, Zykov,” said the Chief. “Where’s the Sergeant?”

Zykov
stood, as he would for any officer, though he had no great respect for Orlov.
“He’s up on the helo deck running a drill.”

“Oh?
Then what are you doing here?” Orlov spied the magazine, grinning. “Thinking to
flog the stick, Corporal? You can start with mine!” The other men with him
chuckled at that, all those strangers that had come aboard in their long overcoats,
the shadows, as the crew called them.

“Give
me that, you idiot!” Orlov went to snatch the magazine away, but Zykov pulled
it back.

“Hands
off, Chief. This is personal property, but you can have it when I’ve finished.”

Orlov
frowned. “I think I’ll have it now, Corporal…”

The
bigger man stepped very close now, the man they called Grilikov, looming over
Zykov like a stony shadow. But the Marines were not just any men aboard the
ship, not regular members of the crew. They were a special detachment, combat
trained, and under the supervision of Sergeant Troyak. They were not even on
Orlov’s work rotation lists, and so Zykov was not accustomed to taking orders
from Orlov, and he was not the sort to be easily intimidated either, a Marine
of the elite unit the service called the Black Death.

He
smiled, looking up at Grilikov, then at Orlov. “Find something else to play
with Chief, this is the Marine section.” He reminded Orlov he was off the ranch
here, and stood his ground, slipping the magazine behind his back with one
hand, the other on his hip, with a smug look on his face.

Grilikov
move so fast Zykov never saw the blow coming. The big man simply swatted him
across the face, and hard enough to nearly knock the Corporal down, though he staggered
and regained his balance, a hot anger suddenly in his eyes. Orlov grinned at
him spitefully.

“Smart
mouth, Zykov. See what you get for that? You want more of it? Now give me that
damn magazine!”

At that
moment there was a commotion on the aft stairway to the helo deck, and Zykov
looked to see the Marines were all coming back down from their drill. They were
talking amiably, teasing one another, and then they suddenly saw the scene at
the other end of the bay, near the lockers where Zykov had been sitting.

Orlov
quietly cursed their untimely arrival, gritting his teeth, but with three
security men with him, and Grilikov, he was more emboldened than he might
otherwise be. After all, he was Chief of the damn boat. Yes? This was a
disciplinary matter now.

The
Other Marines saw the scene, and instinctively sized up that something was
wrong. They had heard about these new security men aboard, and some of the
other crew members had complained to them about them, but this was the first
they saw of them.

The
Chief looked over his shoulder at them, for he had come here for some other
reason, to see about getting into the weapons lockers as Karpov had instructed
him earlier. The magazine in Zykov’s hand was not the one he needed to be
attending to now, and he realized that, so he thought twice.

“Alright,
Zykov,” he said, raising one hand as if to call Grilikov off. “I’m here for the
real magazine anyway, not that girly rag you need to keep yourself happy. Keep
the damn thing. But I’ll need keys to the lockers. You’re a big tough Corporal.
You should know where they are.”

At that
moment one last man came down the stairway, and as he landed on the lower deck,
the other Marines parted to make way for him—Troyak, a billed cap pulled low on
his forehead, his sleeves rolled up, and a five o’clock shadow on his chin that
gave him an even rougher hewn aspect than normal.

Silence…

The
Marines just stood there, eyes moving from the group at the far end of the bay
and then to the Sergeant. Troyak took one look at the scene, and he could
immediately sense something was wrong here. He knew Zykov very well, saw the
look on his face, saw Grilikov, and he knew a man ready for a fight when he saw
one. Then he slowly walked across the bay, his footfalls deliberate and
purposeful, hard thumps on the deck, and the beginnings of a frown starting to
appear on his face. Orlov… He never liked the man.

Troyak
stepped up to the group, eyeing the three men in their dark overcoats with a
scowl, and then giving Grilikov a long look. “What is going on here, Chief?”

“Nothing
much,” said Orlov. “Zykov was just telling me about his girly magazine. Really,
Sergeant, you should keep your hens in line down here. He was lounging about
like this was a pleasure cruise.”

“Fuck
you, Orlov!” said Zykov, and the eyes of the Marines at the other end of the
bay glimmered with that.

“Fuck
me? No thanks, Corporal. You can stick it to your magazine.”