“They may have heard the rumors,” said Yamamoto, “or even read reports, but that is one thing—seeing that ship first hand is quite another. They will not understand, and they would certainly not believe the story we were told by Harada and Fukada. What they will believe is this—that the ship is a top-secret prototype that has been kept from their knowledge, just as Nagano husbanded the resources of the Shadow Fleet. They will then assume that all these weapons, these radar sets and rockets, are actually in development, and then they will stop at nothing to find out where they are being produced.”
“But this will lead them nowhere,” said Ugaki.
“Precisely, and that creates another enormous problem. They will look for the factories, the warehouses, the designers, but find nothing. Their suspicion will increase with every day that passes, and fingers will be pointed in all directions. Then the Army will learn about all of this, and they will think the Navy has deliberately held back this technology and weaponry.”
“That was inevitable,” said Ugaki. “In fact, I believe it may be well under way. I have learned from this Executive Officer, Fukada, that Nishimura invited them to dine with him when Takami arrived at Singapore.”
“That was not wise.”
“Yes, but how could they refuse? Needless to say, our signals intelligence unit intercepted a friendly communication sent to Imperial General Headquarters shortly after that dinner.”
“Then Nishimura is spying for the Army?”
“At the very least. He is Tojo’s rat, and I have little doubt that our Prime Minister has been well informed.”
“Yet he has said nothing, at least not to me.” Yamamoto was deeply concerned about all of this. He shrugged, clearly unhappy. “I will reiterate my order that nothing should be revealed about this ship, or what we have also learned about Mizuchi—even if you are asked directly by a man as highly placed as Nagano. Play the ignorant subordinate if you must, but say nothing. Simply refer the inquiry to me. Sooner or later, this will come to the attention of the Emperor, and then all the senior officers will be called to account—including Tojo. Now… Do you wish to explain this to His Majesty? If not, learn when and when not to speak!”
Ugaki was silent.
“It doesn’t make sense,” said Fedorov. He had been huddling with Nikolin and pouring over recent signals intercepts. The Japanese Naval code had been changed, but the considerable computing resources aboard Kirov had made short work of it, a feat that would have amazed a man like Joe Rochefort at Station HYPO, or Alan Turing at Bletchley Park. “You are certain of the translations?”
“As far as I can be, sir,” said Nikolin. “I even ran them by Ensign Omi last night to be sure.
“Golden Dragon…” said Fedorov. “Dragon God…” Those must refer to aircraft carriers. Japanese ship naming conventions are very predictable. The last two dragons were Hiryu and Soryu, which translate as Flying Dragon and Blue Dragon. Now we have two names on the airwaves that never existed, Kinryu and Ryujin. Yet my guess is that these must be new aircraft carriers, something this history has spawned that we couldn’t anticipate. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Nothing in the history of the Pacific War has repeated after Pearl Harbor, and even that battle was quite different from the historical attack.”
Karpov overheard their conversation and drifted over. The two men had come to a new understanding after Fedorov’s mission to Ilanskiy in 1908. They had managed to put aside their inherent opposition to one another, and see that together they were much stronger than they could hope to be as adversaries. In fact, Karpov made a direct apology to Fedorov for the missile incident, and the two men shook hands on the matter and put it all behind them. They realized that what was before them was of supreme importance—the war, the strange new unfolding of this history, the prospect of an Axis victory that was still a very real possibility. The winds of war had been shifting, in Russia, North Africa and now in the Pacific as the Americans received new reinforcements and began to hit back. Yet all was still at risk in the swirling gyre of these events.
Winter had fallen on Karpov’s Sakhalin Operation, and the Japanese now had two full divisions in South Karafuto, enforcing a stalemate. The ice now prevented any ship traffic in the Sea of Okhotsk off Okha Harbor, and he could not hope to reinforce his ground troops by simply using his airship fleet. It took five ships on daily runs just to keep the existing forces supplied. So a stalemate had settled over the Sakhalin Front, now buried under the snows of January, 1943. The offensive there could not be renewed until spring, when fresh troops and more artillery could be delivered by sea.
So Karpov had decided to leave the bitter cold of the north and seek the warmer waters of the South Pacific. That was where the war was here, and he went looking to find it. He and Fedorov had considered their options in long discussions—what should they do? How should they apply the considerable but limited power of Kirov to the situation now unfolding? There had been no crushing defeat at Midway, and this had allowed Japan to invade Fiji in Operation FS. Yet Fedorov was quick to answer the same question that Imamura passed on in his discussion with Yamamoto.
“The Japanese are overextended,” he had said. “The operation they concluded in the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal was brilliant, and a severe blow to the British Empire, but now they have to sustain those troops. There wasn’t even enough food on Ceylon to feed the local population. Now they will have to run regular convoys from Singapore. And at Fiji, they’ve committed the bulk of all the troops they had in the South Pacific. That needs even more supply runs, that is a problem, now that Halsey is back with those three new Essex Class carriers.”
They had considered many alternatives. Should they hover off Japan and interdict convoy traffic south to Truk and Rabaul. “That would get tedious,” Karpov had said. “Besides, I would not waste a Moskit II on a tramp steamer, not unless it was a troop transport and carrying an important reinforcement.”
“Agreed,” said Fedorov. “We would have been an excellent commerce raider if we could have replenished our missile inventory. That being impossible, we should look to engage important enemy surface action groups, and carrier task forces.”
“What about Kazan?” Karpov had asked. “It vanished in the Atlantic many months ago, and now you say it suddenly reappeared off Murmansk? What is going on here? And why doesn’t this Captain Gromyko answer our hails?”
“That’s a mystery I’d like to get to the bottom of as well,” said Fedorov. “Remember, that boat had an active control rod—otherwise how could it have reappeared here?”
“But it could not be Rod-25,” said Karpov. “Chief Dobrynin has that one all bundled up in the Rad-Safe silo. There could not be two Rod-25s here, could there?”
“That is a very interesting question,” said Fedorov. “Kazan vanished during the engagement we fought with the Germans, or so I learned after the fact. I was not there when that occurred. The entire ship had already shifted… elsewhere. Yet I learned from Tovey that it happened when the Rodney was sunk. There was an incident, and I think it involved a nuke. For some reason, Kazan must have fired it, but I cannot see why. Gromyko has a very cool head in battle…. No offense, sir.”
“None taken, Fedorov. But this is very interesting. Tyrenkov got wind of that incident, though we never could ascertain exactly what happened.”