John Schettler - Kirov

“You got Troyak to actually speak?” Orlov forced a half hearted smile. “He will support you? You are sure of this?”

“Troyak is not a child. He knows an order when he hears one. He will do his duty. And I also spoke with Martinov in the weapons bay. He is with us as well. The Captain stretched the truth on both accounts, just a little vranyo, and he did so with great skill and no qualms whatsoever. In his mind Martinov was with him because he ordered it-Troyak as well. They would do what he told them to do, if he could just keep Volsky out of the picture for the next few crucial hours or days. After that, they might relent, and reach an arrangement, but by then his business would be concluded.

“Martinov? That bumbling idiot? All he does is root about counting his missiles and warheads. What good will he do us?”

“Don’t be stupid. He knows where the special warheads are stored, and I had a talk with him this afternoon. Our forward missile bays will have a little more sting in the number ten launch tubes.”

“You ordered him to mount-”

Karpov held up a finger, silencing the Chief, and the two men gave the door a sidelong glance. The Chief suddenly realized that this was no longer a simple discussion, Karpov had already acted! The Captain had stepped over a clear red line, violating a direct order from the Admiral.

“But Volsky gave us a direct order,” he rasped.

“If you want to eat fish, you have to get in the water, Chief. Volsky is indisposed. I am in command now, and I rescinded that order on my own authority as Captain of this ship. I just need to know if you are ready to stand with me when things come to a head-because they will come to a head, Orlov, and very soon. Otherwise you and I will have to stand here twiddling our thumbs, and saying ‘yes sir,’ and ‘excuse me sir’ while Volsky runs the ship. How long will that go on? What is he going to do if he takes the ship east? The crucial moment is here and now. The next three days will be the heart of it. We either act now, or the moment slips from our grasp. We have Martinov. We have Troyak and his marines, and there are others, Orlov. Don’t think I am the only one fed up with Volsky’s vacillation. There are men on this ship, are you one of them?”

He was lying now. This was not the gentle boast of vranyo. It was not mere stretching and bending of the truth. No, this was lozh, pure and simple; a straight-faced lie, and Karpov told it with all the skill and duplicity he had cultivated so well over the years. “We can smash the enemy, here and now, once and for all, and then no one will be able to bother us again. Come on, Orlov. You can’t sit on two chairs. What’s it going to be here? We can smash them! Are you ready?”

The Chief thought for a moment, looking Karpov directly in the eye, and neither man blinked. Then he opened his jacket and angled his body to show the Captain a sleek, grey automatic pistol tucked into his belt line. “Yes, I am ready, boss, and so is Comrade Glock,” he said darkly. Then Orlov gave the Captain a hard look. “But tell me, Karpov. What are you going to do? What is your plan? Are you going to pay a visit to this secret little meeting with Churchill and Roosevelt?”

Karpov took a long breath. Something shifted inside him now, easing the burden he had dragged through the ship from one station to another. He was no longer alone. It was not just his fate on the line. Orlov was Orlov after all. He had seen trouble looming and already prepared for it. Why did he ever doubt it?

A deadly calm settled over him now, stilling the last plaintive inner voice of warning. Yes, he was going to smash things, but at least now he had a hammer in the strong right arm of his Operations Chief.

“We are going to do a little more than that, I’m afraid,” said Karpov. “Yes, Volsky was talking about this secret meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill. Perhaps he thinks he can go there and negotiate, but that is like trying to divide the pelt of a bear before you have killed him. We are going to kill the bear first, Orlov-you, me, and Comrade Glock.”

August 7, 1941

Secrecy was soon found to be in short supply. Too many men had seen the attack on Wasp, or heard about it, or suffered from it, and one of them was a civilian reporter aboard Mississippi sent out to cover the occupation of Iceland. Somehow, word on the attack leaked out, passing from pilot, to able seaman, and over cables and airwaves to eventually reach the U.S. The headline in the New York Times that day, August 7th, was bold and pointed.

GERMANS ATTACK! CV WASP SUNK! HEAVY LOSS OF LIFE Fearsome New German Raider Still At Large

Roosevelt To Convene Emergency Session Of Congress.

The article referenced some of the events that had transpired, though it was noticeably fuzzy as to where the attack had happened, what German raider had attacked, and even more vague on just when the president would convene this emergency session of congress and in fact where the president even was.

Reporters quickly stormed the White House briefing room, but were held at bay and given no further information. The president was consulting with his Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was said, but nothing more was revealed, particularly the fact the Roosevelt was not even in the country, and was quietly slipping into Ship Harbor in Argentia Bay aboard Augusta by the evening of that same day.

Aboard King George V, Admiral Tovey was listening to a shortwave radio broadcast out of New York when Brind came in from the radio room, a decoded signal in hand and a puzzled expression on his face.

“I’m afraid I’ve given you some bad advice, Admiral,” he began. “Admiralty says they’ve spotted the Graf Zeppelin near Stettin.” The implications were obvious, and he said nothing more.

Tovey rubbed his brow, troubled. “The cat is out of the bag,” he said. “The story had leaked out to the press and the Americans are outraged. It’s to be expected, I suppose, but we still have no idea what this ship is, and that I find difficult to swallow.”

“Well, an American PBY out of Reykjavik spotted the German ship a few days ago, sir, and they got some photos.”

“Photos? It’s bloody well about time. What do they show?”

“I’m afraid the song is the same, sir. Bletchley Park says it’s a large cruiser, very large, probably a battlecruiser in size. They were able to spot a crewman on a foredeck and worked out the scale. The damn thing is all of 900 feet long, and nearly a hundred feet abeam.”

“My god, what a monster. That’s a bigger ship than King George V. In fact, it’s bigger than anything in the fleet. It’s even longer than the Bismarck! ”

“Yet no sign of anything but a few small secondary guns, and a curiously empty foredeck covered with a series of what looks to be cargo hatches. Given what we’ve learned about this ship’s capabilities, they’ve come round to the conclusion that these rockets must be stored there; possibly brought up on deck for launching, or even fired from below decks through these ports.”

“Amazing,” said Tovey. “I knew the Germans were developing a weapon of this nature, but all our intelligence indicated it was to be an air dropped bomb.”

“Yes,” Brind nodded. “The Fritz-X, or so the boys at BP call it. That was also mentioned in the Admiralty report.” He glanced at his signal and read: “Consider Naval deployment of guided Fritz type ordinance or possibly more advanced Henschel Hs 293 guided rocket.”

The Henschel 293 was a development led by the brilliant mathematician and aircraft designer Herbert Wagner, Germany’s answer to the Bletchley Park genius of Alan Turing. Wagner, along with notable physicists Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and designer Wernher von Braun had been involved in the development and testing of new German wonder weapons for some time. The Fritz-X radio controlled glide bomb had been in development since 1938, and the Henschel 293 was a new approach that was intended for use against British convoys. The Germans were already building training and refit bases for the rocket at Cognac and Bordeaux on the south Atlantic coast of France, in addition to numerous facilities around Hamburg and Kiel, and bases at Bergamo and Foggia in Italy. It began as a glide bomb, like the Fritz, then migrated into a liquid fueled rocket. As far as Bletchley Park knew, however, it was still in the testing phase, unless this was to be its coming out party, a deadly ship mounted version that could strike with alarming accuracy and power.