So this was what those earlier reports were all about, thought Volkov. He had received intelligence that a fast armored train had arrived at Toulon, under heavy escort. Something had been delivered there by a pair of German warships, and it was then escorted north under round the clock German air cover. This had to be those very same missiles, he thought. From that point, he set his intelligence men to work on back tracking the deployment of the German ships in question. One, he learned, was the fast battlecruiser Kaiser Wilhelm, and the second was that hybrid scout carrier, the Goeben. Neither ship had ever existed in the history he guarded within his computer data files, and now it seemed they had just delivered something that also could not exist in this day and time.
How could the Germans have gotten their hands on an American missile that wasn’t even designed until 1955? He grilled his intelligence operatives to make certain that the American rocket research programs could not have produced such a missile. In the end, he looked at the deployment of those two German ships. They had broken out into the Atlantic after the big battle off Fuerteventura, and, after sparring with the British and engaging one of their convoys, they disappeared. It was weeks later before they were encountered again off the African coast, and pursued by British fast cruisers.
Volkov put the full weight of his network to the task of determining where those ships went. Then, after another two weeks of intensive spy craft, he had his answer—the deep South Atlantic. It was there that they encountered and took an American ship as a prize, which was subsequently handed off to one of their merchant commerce raiders and quietly escorted home. The real windfall was his agent in Toulon, where that prize ship had secretly been berthed. He managed to get to it just before the name and recognition number was painted over, VM1. He had also used a high-powered lens to capture the name stenciled on a life preserver: U.S.S. Norton Sound.
With that key information, Volkov went to work to determine what this ship was, and it was then that the anxiety within him started to become real fear. After the lesson of his own life, after the presence of Kirov here, and his suspicions about things the British were doing in this war that revealed an advanced level of technical capability, he should not have been surprised, but he was. Norton Sound was an American ship alright, but it wasn’t supposed to have even been laid down until September of that year! It would then be launched in November of 1943, and finally fitted out and commissioned in January of 1945.
He stared at the photograph his Toulon agent had managed to deliver, and it was, indeed a perfect match for the images he had of this ship in his own data. How in the world could the Germans have found this ship in the deep South Atlantic? Now he was finally asking the same question that Alan Turing had asked Peter Twinn a month earlier…. How in this world could these things happen?
Volkov suddenly had a new query to make of his data—he wanted to know all known deployments of the American ship Norton Sound, and soon he had what he was looking for, a correlation of that ship’s presence in the South Atlantic, and very near the presumed location of the German raiders. He had determined where they had gone when his intelligence network produced a plaintive lost signal of alarm that had been sent to Royal Navy headquarters when an outpost claimed they were suddenly being bombed by German Stukas. That outpost was on Ascension Island.
Those planes had to come off that German scout carrier, he thought. That’s where those raiders went, and somewhere in that area they encountered this American ship…. Yet the only time I can verify that the Norton Sound was in that region was in 1958. How is this possible, that they would find a ship that simply does not exist today, in a place it only visited one time, sixteen years from now? And just because curiosity is a way that leads on to way, Volkov soon found out what the Norton Sound was actually doing there in 1958. It was out on a secret test mission, Project Argus, and that was when all the pieces of the puzzle suddenly clicked in his mind—Argus, Norton Sound, X-17A missiles.
That was when the thump of anxiety in his chest became real fear, the clammy cold sweat of uncertainty on the back of his neck, and a worried expression on his face. That project was designed to launch a small atomic warhead into outer space. Then something struck him like a thunderclap—those reports of strange auroras over the Azores. He had dismissed it as nothing more than an odd weather event at the time, but now, when he looked at the date of that event, he saw it occurred very near the time of the German attack on Ascencion Island. Could the two events be related?
Reading further on the American Argus project, he soon learned that the Azores was a special location where those exact effects in the upper atmosphere were expected to occur. The Americans even positions ships there to observe it! Yet could that ship be the same one that took part in those tests? Volkov suddenly had a very grim feeling. He knew, from his own time, that his government had been tinkering with the odd aftereffects of nuclear detonations, and that they learned some most interesting things about them. My god, he thought to himself. Could it have happened here? Was this a displacement event? The yield on that American warhead was very small, and it would have been detonated very high, far from the ship that launched it. And yet... The Norton Sound was here. If this impossible series of dots actually do connect to paint the picture I’m seeing now… then Hitler has the bomb!
The Führer’s words were now riveted in his mind: “…we will take it apart, piece by piece, to see how it works. I am already told it has a most unusual warhead, and when we are done, I will build rockets of our own by the thousands….”
A Captain never forgets a ship he once commanded, and Vice Admiral Kurita was no different. When he returned to Mogami, flagship of his old 7th Cruiser Division, he knew it would be his last cruise on that ship, and there was a brief moment of nostalgia that passed over him. Then, the realization of what he was now embarking on swept that emotion away. He was receiving a most important assignment, command of the Northern fleet that would include two fast battleships and a pair of fleet carriers. This was a promotion of great significance, and he was deeply honored that Admiral Yamamoto would entrust this mission to him.
So I must not fail, he thought. Strange that I have no knowledge of this secret ship, particularly since it is a cruiser. Takami… I have half a mind to make speed and go see what this is all about, but my place is here with the division. We sail north now to rendezvous with all the other elements of the northern fleet. Kaga and Tosa will be off Sapporo on the 18th, awaiting our arrival. Battleships Hiraga and Satsuma are already waiting there. It is a very long way from Rabaul to Sapporo, at least 3500 nautical miles. We should still arrive right on schedule if we make a consistent 20 knots. While I am tempted to remain here with Mogami, I think it more appropriate that I set my flag on one of the battleships. Hiraga was the first ship in its class, and so the honor must rightfully go there.
He thought of that ship now, Japan’s most modern fast battleship. It was not as big and powerful as Yamato, but at 42,000 tons it was a true heavyweight. Ise and Hyuga weighed as much, but they were old and slow, and had only 14-inch guns. Hiraga and Satsuma had the new 16-inch guns, in three triple turrets, which was a departure from designs where the main battery was often spread over four turrets. Yamato and Musashi had that same design, for it saved the considerable weight of that fourth turret and barbette. And Hiraga was fast at 30 knots, the fastest battleship in the fleet, and with more endurance than the long legged Kongo class battlecruisers. It was designed to run with our carriers, he knew, and that is exactly what I will do with it.