“Deal,” said Fedorov, realizing he was making one hell of a devil’s bargain here, and he was the devil! But what else could he do? The mission before him was all important. Everything depended on him now—everything. The moods and whims of Symenko could not be allowed to interfere. That didn’t make what he was doing here any easier. He still felt the weight of this man’s life, the lives of his entire crew, all piled on his weary back. But they were nothing compared to the weight of the whole world. That’s what he was carrying now, the weight of the whole goddamned world.
It was a world that was still strangely alight when they arrived, even in the dead of night. At this latitude, the sun would not be gone long, and even at its darkest, they could see easily, as if it were a grey, overcast day. Yet the horizon to the northeast still glowed eerily red, and the sky above it was strangely alight. The forest was still burning there, as now Fedorov reckoned these must be the pre-dawn hours of July 2nd.
Symenko was very surprised, but just as Fedorov had told him, there had been no sign at all of the Riga or Narva. So the Irkutsk was able to sneak in low, to an open field about four kilometers east of the town. They put down a light ground anchor, but Symenko remained edgy, and requested that Fedorov and his party use the basket. In his mind, that was the safest and quickest way to get these intruders off his ship, once and for all.
“Symenko,” Fedorov told him before they lowered. “The radios are clear, and I will send you a signal if I have success. I’ll ask you to do something more, you and your crew, and it will be a matter of life or death for you all. Do as I say, will you? Your life, and the lives of your entire crew, will depend on it.”
“Fine,” said Symenko, wanting nothing more than to get this man and his Marines off his ship. I’d promise to kiss your ass if you asked nicely, he thought, but that doesn’t mean I’d really pucker up. Once you and those thugs of yours are on the ground, then I’ve got only one thing in mind. I’m taking this ship up into that red sky, and we’re running for Soviet territory. We don’t have to make it all the way to the Dolphin’s Head to rendezvous with that damn submarine. No, all I have to do is get my own ass to Soviet territory, then we can go to ground, hand over Irkutsk, or simply abandon her, and disappear.
That was what he was planning to do now, and so Fedorov would never make that plaintive call on the radio, asking Symenko to disembark his entire crew and foot it to Ilanskiy. Instead, it would be a call that came the other way as Fedorov, Orlov and Troyak approached the town, very near the inn. Zykov and the other four Marines were in the trees opposite the clearing where Irkutsk had been hovering. He called Fedorov over their service jacket comm-link, warning that the Irkutsk was pulling up its land anchors and making ready to depart, already drifting up and away. Fedorov knew what Symenko was doing, what he had obviously decided, and that he had no time to argue with him now. He took a deep breath and looked at Troyak heavily.
“Sergeant,” he said grimly. “Send Zykov the code: Downfall.”
Chapter 36
On the 30th of June, 1908, Train 92 was heading east on the Trans-Siberian Rail when it was jolted by the intense shock of the fiery blast above the Stony Tunguska. Even though the event was nearly 400 miles away, the train shook so violently that the Engineers brought it to a halt. Many on that train saw the terrible tail of fire in the sky as the object surged in from the southeast with a terrible roar. The air quavered with its massive sonic boom. The shock wave would circle the entire earth, vibrating instruments at meteorological stations as far away as London.
When the worst of the blast had subsided, they moved on, the train cars buzzing with frightened conversations about what had happened. It was decided to halt the train at Kansk to inspect it for damage, or even something as nefarious as a bomb, but nothing was found. The Engineers inquired as to what may have happened, and the locals reported that they had felt the earth shake and a heavy blast of wind. Many windows were broken, which prompted local magistrate Pytor Sukhodaeff to cable the Seismic Commission in Saint Petersburg to report the event. Rumors had begun circulating that a meteor had fallen nearby, and some residents were already out in the countryside looking for it. One reported he had found something near the hamlet of Filimonovo, but it turned out to be nothing more than a large rock.
Train 92 was delayed there all that day, as the Engineers were told the tracks were blocked by debris ahead. They decided to go out on horseback to inspect the line as far as Ilanskiy, but found no blockage. The next morning, they would move on to Ilanskiy for a brief stop to pick up any passengers wanting to head east. That was the train that Mironov had been waiting for. It would continue on to Irkutsk, where he had relatives he could visit while he was laying low after his recent discharge from prison.
Yet the events of that day had been most unusual, the violent sound of explosion and rattling shock wave, the terrible red sky to the northeast, then came the strange man dressed in military garb that had suddenly appeared on the scene. Mironov had been very curious about him, and very suspicious. He would see the shadow of the Okhrana everywhere, and so, when he saw the man slip away up the back stairway, he decided to follow him, leaving the English reporter, Thomas Byrne, alone for a time in the dining room with his interpreter.
That man had been Fedorov himself, appearing there for the first time after he followed that curious rumbling sound during his hunt for Orlov. Following him up the stairs, Mironov had been apprehended by other soldiers, who took him to this Fedorov, as the man had called himself. While he was gone, to a place he only later came to know as the distant future of 1942, other things were happening at the railway inn.
Byrne, the reporter, had been sent there to cover the Great Race by the industrious owner of the Times of London, Alfred Harmsworth. A few days earlier he had interviewed the leading American team as it came through, and that day, the German team had been staying at that inn, making ready to move on west. Needless to say, the events of that day caused them to linger, but Byrne, hearing them near the front desk, believed they would soon depart. So he thanked his local interpreter with a hearty handshake, wanting to get up to his room on the second floor as soon as possible to gather his belongings.
He had seen Mironov go up the back stairs after that other strange man left them, the one who called himself Fedorov. Then Mironov appeared again, a troubled look of astonishment on his face. He said nothing, striding quickly across the dining hall and out the main entrance by the front desk.
Seeing the doorway still ajar in that nook near the hearth of the dining room, Byrne thought he would go that way to save time, but it was to be a most fateful decision. He started up the dark stairway, feeling very odd half way up, a prickly feeling sweeping over him, and with a sensation of slight nausea. He reckoned it was only the dark confined space, and sudden disorientation as he groped about in the shadows. When he finally reached the top, shuddering to feel the sticky brush of a cobweb on his brow, he heard voices. Trying the door, he found it locked, which was probably why Mironov had made such a hasty retreat, he thought. But rather than simply retreating back down those stairs as Mironov had, he decided to knock, and the sound of his knuckles on the door would reverberate through time like a great boom.
Mironov did not find the door locked on his journey up those stairs. Unbeknownst to him, it had taken him to 1942, where Fedorov and Troyak had collared him, questioning him briefly, before releasing him again. That whispered warning that had haunted Fedorov ever since had been made right there on that upper landing near the door where Byrne heard those voices, but 79 years earlier! For some unaccountable reason, Thomas Byrne’s journey up that stairway took him much farther forward in time, all the way to the year 2021. The voices he had heard were those of the modern day innkeeper and a very diligent Captain in the Russian Naval Intelligence Service, Ivan Volkov. He had been looking for Fedorov along the Trans-Siberian Rail in 2021, ordered to do so by Director Kamenski.