John Schettler - Fallen Angels - 9 Days Falling, Volume II

Commissars questioned the British, inquiring into their politics, religion or other beliefs, and many were told they would soon suffer the same fate as those they had seen die. As it turned out, it was all a gruesome bluff intended to heighten the stress and suffering of the men, and so it was no surprise to Fraser when the first man to die, Seaman Marsh, was found to have slit his own wrists with a piece of glass. The Bolsheviks fought over the clothing, then left the body to rot in the two small sixteen by sixteen foot cells where all the men were quartered together. It stayed there for four days, raising a horrid stench before the guards finally removed it. Four others died this way.

Commander Fraser and all his men were presumed dead, but when they learned one of their men was to be released as an interpreter to aid prisoner exchange with the Georgian army to the south they hatched a daring plot to get word home to England. If the man’s word was not good enough, he swallowed a locket with a picture of Fraser’s mother within as proof he was alive.

Great Britain was not called that without reason, particularly as she rose into her imperial prime after her victory in the First World War. The Crown’s displeasure with the plight of their sailors soon led to their release. They had been marooned two long years in what came to be known as the “Black Hole of Baku.” Twelve of the thirty men survived, Fraser among them.

In a strange twist of fate the ship that greeted them when they were returned to Batumi by train was HMS Iron Duke , the same name as that of a certain Royal Navy frigate that had fought Russians of another generation in the Black Sea of 2021. In that year, economics had temporarily trumped politics. Britain’s interest in the Caspian was purely for the oil that remained there. In fact, the offices of the British Petroleum Corporation in Baku were just a few short blocks away from the old prison site where Fraser and his men had suffered so much. And at that very moment, the black berets of the Fairchild’s Argonauts waited there for the return of Lieutenant Ryan’s last X-3 helicopter and a ride back to the Argos Fire.

But that was another world, and one that Admiral Fraser would never see or know. This world seemed more than enough for any man to manage.

Fraser had revisited the nightmare on many a dark and lonesome night in later years. Then came the war and he saw himself rise to positions of increasing responsibility. Few men would know it to see him in his Admiral’s cap and dress whites, but behind that pleasant and smiling face was a steely resolve born of those long nights in the Black Hole of Baku, listening to the moaning sobs of his men as they suffered there. As for the sword, the focal point that had triggered this avalanche of bitter memories in the Admiral’s mind, it was the last gift of the men who survived, given to Fraser when they all were returned safely home. He kept it close ever thereafter.

The Russians, he thought. Churchill was correct about them, wasn’t he? Our alliance made us strange bedfellows with Hitler and Tojo in the mix. Now that we’ve beaten them, we wake up and stare at one another wondering how in the world we’ll ever get on together. What are they up to now with this bloody damn ship and its weapons from hell? If Tovey and Turing have it right… If this ship is from another time, then we may reap the whirlwind if we let it loose on the seas of our world again. What was going to happen if they threw the combined might of the allied fleets against it? This time there would be no parley. This time it was war.

He gazed out the port hole and saw King George V steaming proudly off his starboard side. We’ve tangled with this monster once before, you and I, he thought. Perhaps Tovey should have made an end of it long ago when he had the chance. I’d think my odds were good for a victory with this battlegroup alone against that ship—man to man, steel against steel, and the rockets be damned.

Even as he thought that he remembered the bomb and imagined one going off right in the heart of his task group, rending his ships apart with unimaginable power. He had advised Admiral Nimitz to give the Russians fair warning: if they wanted to play that card, we could deal them the same death and destruction as well. Perhaps that would sober them up a bit and prevent the worst here.

Even as he thought that he knew what he would do in this Karpov’s shoes. He’s going to look out and see a wave of fire and steel coming at him, and he’ll do everything in his power to save his ship and crew… Everything…

Itwas into the darkness of a similar prison that Orlov found himself walking now, though he knew nothing of the horrific legacy of the detention camps in this region, nor did he care. He had learned that the commissar in charge was the man he had been hunting, which was the only reason he permitted these little men to take him on the long truck ride south to Baku in the first place. They would bring him right to the man he wanted, and then he would kill him. It was all very simple in his mind, though he did not expect what happened that night as the truck column slowed and the engines turned off one by one.

He had been listening to something, a familiar noise in the background behind the grumble of the trucks on the road. Now, in the relative silence when the trucks stopped, he heard a sound that shocked him alert, a steady, deep thumping. He immediately looked up, knowing the sound was coming from the skies above. The NKVD Sergeant in his truck was watching him closely, and when he saw Orlov looking up at the unseen sky beyond the tarp of the truck, he leaned out the back and scanned the grey shelf of low clouds overhead.

Then Orlov felt his inner service jacket vibrate quietly, a sensation only he could perceive, like a cell phone that had been set to quiet mode. In an instant he knew what had happened. Someone had paged his service jacket! Now the meaning of the sound overhead was starkly apparent to him. It was a helicopter! His heart beat faster with the realization. Kirov … somehow they had found him! They were searching for him, but how was it possible? He was deep in the interior of Central Asia at the edge of an inland sea. Could they have tracked him here by tuning in to his service jacket? That much seemed obvious, yet none of the KA-40s could possibly reach this distance unless the ship was in the Black Sea! He was astounded, but he knew what he was hearing.

When he last left the ship it was approaching Spain, bound for Gibraltar. Could they have reversed course to head east again and enter the Black Sea? Then he remembered the night he had drunk half a bottle of vodka and tapped out that message in Morse code to Nikolin. My God, he thought! They must have picked it up! They’re trying to find me!

Now he had to decide what to do about it.

He could activate his jacket from the collar pip and broadcast his exact location if he wished. Then again, he could also take it and throw it in the nearest fire. The more he considered his situation the more the idea of rejoining the ship and crew appealed to him. The track he was on now led to a sure and perilous cliff. This place was obviously a prison of sorts. He would certainly be searched, issued new prison clothing, and then he would be stuck here until he got close enough to Molla to choke the breath out of the man. After that he was a probably a dead man if he couldn’t find his way out of the place. He would at least have the satisfaction of killing Molla, but for that he would forfeit the life of privilege and power he imagined he might have in years to come.

Now, however, with Kirov in the mix again he might just have his cake and eat it too! Life aboard Kirov did not seem all that bad in such cold harsh light. All he would have to put up with is petty disciplinary measures for jumping ship and going AWOL. No one would know he killed the pilot of the KA-226.