John Schettler - Kirov

“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor. “Assuming this is 1941, your point is well taken, Mister Fedorov. But if it is still a late summer day in 2021, then we may find the enemy surface action group is no more than one or two NATO picket ships with these electronic spoofing devices broadcasting a false radar contact along with their dummy radio and video feeds. As I said before, bold action in either case, will settle the matter one way or the other. You have no choice, Admiral. You will eventually have to close with this task force and discover the truth.”

“That may not be necessary,” said Fedorov quietly.

The Admiral looked at him, waiting. “You have another idea Lieutenant Fedorov?”

“Well, sir, now that you mention Jan Mayen, there’s a weather station there, and we’re heading that way even as we speak. I thought about this after we lost satellite GPS, so I switched to Loran-C, as there is a big antenna on the island, or at least there was one after 1960. That was down too when I tried to get a signal. Yet there still should be a meteorological station there. It was burned down when the war started, but the Germans never occupied the island, and men were back with a small Norwegian military detachment in 1941 to restore the weather station and set up a coastal radio relay outfit there. In our day there’s a four man team there year round at Metten, or the Met as we call it. So all we have to do is send a helo with a few men to see who’s home. Surely they can’t hide all those modern prefab buildings and other facilities on the island. If we find them we will know this is 2021, as it should be. If we do not…”

The Admiral smiled broadly, looking at the doctor, who laughed, nodding his head. “There you are, Admiral,” he said. “I certify your navigator as sane and fit for duty!”

The Admiral stood up, clasping his Lieutenant on the shoulder. “Fedorov,” he said. “You’re a genius! Return to your post now, but say nothing of this to the Captain. I’ll be along shortly…Oh yes, may I borrow your book for a while?” He held up the volume Fedorov had shared with him.

“Certainly, sir!”

When the Lieutenant had left them, Admiral Volsky sat quietly with his old friend again, briefly flipping through a few pages of the book Fedorov had given him. “An enterprising young officer,” he said of his navigator.

“That he is, Leonid.”

The Admiral looked up at the doctor, saying nothing for a moment. “Tell me, Dmitri. What do you really think?”

Zolkin thought for a moment, then spoke in a quiet, serious tone. “Karpov is probably correct,” he said. “I argued Fedorov’s point as well as I could, but I’m not so sure I can get my mind around his ideas just yet. You have to admit, it would be an amazing development, yes? Think of it my friend…You would be commanding the most powerful ship in the world if Fedorov’s story was true. The only catch is this…” The Admiral noted the gleam in Doctor Zolkin’s eye as his friend gave him a hard look. “Who’s side would you be on in this war? That book there,” he pointed, “would tell you everything you need to know about the war at sea. Russia and Britain were allies in 1941, but by 2021, things have taken a different course.”

The Admiral raised his eyebrows, smiling, yet his eyes held that distant look again, as if his thoughts were wandering with all the lost souls that had ever sailed these seas. The doctor could see that the question had a profound effect on his friend, kindling a state of mind that the Russians called toska. There was no English equivalent for the word. It’s meaning was something akin to “forlorn sadness,” a melancholia born of the interminable winters and harsh conditions of life in Russia, and a deep longing to be somewhere else, in a place of comfort and warmth where the challenges of life were replaced with quiet and safety. Yet more than this, toska touched upon some inner hidden spiritual anguish of the soul, like that old ache in the Admiral’s tooth that warned him of bad weather. It was a restless anxiety in one sense, and a deep inner yearning in another.

“Well,” said Volsky at last. “Thanks to Mister Fedorov, we’ll know where we stand soon enough, Dmitri. I’m off to the bridge to get that helicopter over to Jan Mayen. I’ll keep you advised. We should know what is happening in a few hours.”

Karpov was pacing restlessly on the bridge seemingly impatient over something, and occasionally peering through his field glasses at the rising seas ahead. He put the ship into passive mode, stilling the active radar sweeps the ship was blasting the enemy surface action group with and slipping quietly away to the west. He recovered one KA-40, leaving the second in his wake to keep a lookout for the undersea contact that had disappeared. The last thing he wanted was a stealthy American attack submarine creeping up on him. It would be all of 15 hours before he had the ship where he wanted it, assuming he kept on at just 20 knots.

For the moment they saw no further sign of enemy aircraft, though the sight of that old prop-driven plane had been somewhat of a shock to him. Perhaps NATO had deployed a new type of small spotting plane with a turbo prop engine, he thought. Yet they had seen no sign of an orbiting enemy AWAC surveillance plane on their scopes. Unless NATO had managed to completely mask their signals, these two enemy carriers were being quite devious. There should have been a vivid radio-electronic signature around a carrier action group like this-if there really were carriers there. He still suspected that the video footage had been fed to them by NATO PSYOP elements-disinformation, nothing more. He had a mind to turn at any moment and send in a barrage of twenty Sunburns that would wreak havoc on this surface action group, no matter what was there. That would teach them to play with fire, he thought.

The Admiral was below decks resting, and Karpov was glad to have freedom of action on his bridge now. Orlov was still sitting with Samsonov, joking with the burly weapon’s chief, and he had the ship’s crew at condition three, standing down from full action stations to try and relieve the tension on the ship. The crew was still largely in the dark as to what had happened. They all were. Eventually something would have to be said about it to quash the mess hall rumors that were sure to be spreading from deck to deck even now. Were they are war? The crew had a right to know.

The Captain was considering taking a few hours leave and turning the bridge over to Orlov when Rodenko noted a change in the surface contact he was tracking.

“Two ships are breaking off from the main body, and bearing on an intercept course for our plotted position, Captain,” he said. Karpov was at his side immediately.

“Show me.”

“Here, sir,” Rodenko pointed to his screen. “I make that two ships heading north at…twenty-two knots. If they keep on that heading, sir, they will be moving to a position just south of Jan Mayen.”

“Their ability to track us is better than we thought,” said Karpov.

“Unless they deduced what our most likely maneuver would be, sir. This could simply be a radar picket to screen the main body. It continues to move east at 15 knots, toward Norway.”

Karpov’s eyes narrowed.

“Where will they be when we reach our intended position?”

Rodenko pressed several switches, and the screen displayed with a new predictive plot. “About here, sir,” he said. “Looks like they want to get some range from us. They obviously know where we are heading.”

“That would be typical of a carrier force,” said Karpov. The carrier group would want to stand off and use the range of its aircraft to strike from a distance. In close, the reaction time to defend against Kirov’s fast missiles would dwindle to minutes.