“Yet all three are dangerous,” said Gromyko. “Is Kirov carrying special weapons?”
“Of course. They will have at least three.”
“Would Karpov resort to using them?”
“He already has! In the first time loop, there was no Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor as a result. After the second coming, the ship went north to Murmansk instead of south into the Atlantic, and we have Mister Fedorov to thank for that. So, one turn of that ship’s rudder, and we get Pearl Harbor back. I can see how the men from the future might fear Kirov, and why they sent Tovey’s group those warnings. Captain, that is a clever attack plan, though one that would need Kirov to be in a particular spot to succeed. What if it fails?”
“After moving off axis to one side or another, I would then continue to close until I got inside Zircon range. Then I would fire all sixteen of those, and the last with a special warhead. If they manage to stop them, then I go to the Kaliber 3M-54-E1s, and when in range, I throw all eight. After that, it’s down to torpedoes, but I think I would have killed that ship before things got that far.”
“Yes,” said Volsky. “They’ll have to expend a lot of SAMs to get those Zircon missiles. They move too damn fast. They won’t be able to rely on one S-400 getting a hit each time. So it may come down to how many arrows Karpov still has left in his quiver, and whether or not we can achieve surprise.”
“He knows we’re out here somewhere,” said Gromyko. “Fedorov certainly knows.”
Part XI
The Missing Egg
“A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says, hey doc, my brother’s crazy! He thinks he’s a chicken. Then the doc says, why don’t you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs.”
Chapter 31
Admiral Volsky thought for some time, listening to the quiet hum of the boat, feeling its sleek, stealthy power as it glided beneath the sea. What were they planning to do here? Gromyko was laying out the best possible strategy for his attack on Kirov, on the ship and crew that he felt so close to in his mind and heart. There were memories there, layer upon layer, that he could not push aside. He imagined the string of missiles this sub would fire, emerging from the sea and starting their deadly run in to the target. There was Fedorov, Rodenko, Nikolin, Tasarov, Samsonov, and yes, his dear old friend Doctor Zolkin.
“I don’t like it,” said Volsky. “I know it makes the best military sense to attack as you advise, but I cannot steal up on that ship and unload all these missiles. I cannot sit here, wondering whether they have killed that ship and crew. No, Captain, I think I must first knock on that door.”
Gromyko nodded. He had made his case for how he would attack if pressed, but deep down, he was not eager to do so. “I understand,” he said. “Yet what ammunition do you have that might prevail over Karpov?”
“That remains to be seen. Can they pick up a signal on the secure comm-link?”
“It was designed for extreme long range communications.”
“Very well, I want to use it… Now.”
Gromyko extended his hand, pointing the way as they stepped out of his cabin and went down the narrow passage towards the command sail. Stopping at the bridge, he told Belanov to run shallow and deploy the sail mast for long range communications. They found the signals station, where Lieutenant Alexi Karenin was at his post, head lost in his earphone set, listening. Jr Lieutenant Genzo Gavrilov was at his side, the man the crew called “GG.” Born in Vladivostok, his father had married a Japanese woman from Hokkaido, and Genzo was bilingual, with fluent Japanese as his second language. The two men had been listening to Japanese radio traffic.
“Anything new?” asked Gromyko.
“Sir, we picked up the code phrase 8-E-YU. That’s Admiral Nagumo, and he was ordered to make a course change west into the Solomons.”
“Genzo? What’s up?”
“We think it has something to do with that hit on the base at Truk, sir. The last course track we had on that task force put it heading for Truk.”
“So they don’t want their carriers in harm’s way,” said Gromyko. “Karpov must have shaken them up. Very well, that will be all Mister Gavrilov. Dismissed.”
“Aye sir.” GG Saluted, then gave a nod to Karenin as he left. The Captain cleared out the area surrounding the comm station, and sent several crewmen off to do something or another so they would have some privacy.
“Mister Karenin, fire up the secure command link set and raise Kirov.” That surprised the Lieutenant, but with the Captain and Fleet Admiral standing there he was all business. He sent the coded signal that Nikolin would receive moments later.
There it was again.
Nikolin’s heart jumped when the signal came in. It was two cyphers off the normal EAM command link channel, a special frequency variation that had been pre-arranged by Fedorov long ago. It was the code, and the first time he saw it an avalanche of memories had come tumbling into his head. It seemed to him afterwards, that he had been living in a strange fog, but now everything was clear again. Now he remembered it all, how they had arrived here so long ago on that first ship, and all that had happened to them. But he had not said a single word about it to anyone… except Doctor Zolkin.
His heart racing as before, he looked to find the Captain, glad that it was Fedorov’s shift. “Sir,” he said. “I have a secure authenticated message on the HF Comm-link system.”
Fedorov raised an eyebrow. “It was properly coded?”
“Aye sir. The ID designator has it as Kazan.” He gave Fedorov a wide-eyed look.
Now it was Fedorov who felt his pulse rise. He knew Kazan was out there somewhere, but Gromyko had been last reported in the Barents Sea. The rendezvous he had arranged on his mission to Ilanskiy months ago had never taken place, but there had been no communication with the submarine since that time.
“Thank you, Mister Nikolin. I will take your post for the time being. That will be all.”
“Aye sir.”
“And Nikolin… Say nothing of this communication. Just go have a nice late breakfast. You can return in one hour.”
“Understood sir.” Nikolin saluted and was on his way, a thousand questions in his mind. Then Fedorov settled into his warm chair, placing the headset over his ears, and speaking in a low voice.
“Kazan, Kazan, this is Captain Fedorov aboard Kirov. We receive and authenticate your code. Come back. Over.”
“We read you, Kirov. This is Captain Ivan Gromyko. Something tells me you are still a long way from the Dolphin’s Head. Shall we try this rendezvous somewhere else? Over.”
The two men would have a brief conversation where Fedorov would learn why Kazan had gone silent. “You phased,” he explained. “That happened to us more than once after a shift. It can sometimes take a while for things to settle into the new timeframe.”
“Yes,” said Gromyko. “We also skipped forward a few more months in time. It was September when we made that tryst to meet off the Dolphin’s Head. Then we skipped forward and the year was damn near gone.”
“It happens,” said Fedorov. “Perhaps like a plane taking a hop on landing.”