Now the man peered outside. “Through that door,” he said gruffly, nudging Byrne out. They emerged to find the northeastern sky still aglow with a strange light, for there had been some tremendous explosion there and the whole taiga forest was set aflame. There was still a distant rumble of thunder in the air, as though from a cannonade, or more explosions.
“My God,” the man said as he stared at the sky. “They’ve finally done it,” he breathed. “It’s begun.”
Byrne had no idea what the man was talking about. He seemed to be reading some meaning in that terrible glow on the horizon, but the Things he said next made no sense.
“Alright,” said Volkov. “Your story pans out. Get on with your business. But see that?” The man pointed. “The war has started, and if you have any sense in your head you will get away from here as fast as you can. There’s a big naval weapons arsenal south of here, and an airfield at Kansk to the west. They’ll certainly be targeted, so you had better head east. I must find my men. What could have happened to them?” The man seemed to say that more to himself than to Byrne, who nodded, grateful that he was set free, and thinking only of getting away from this man.
He turned heading towards the railway yard to see if the train had arrived. At that moment it was still at Kansk to the west, and would not continue on to Ilanskiy until the next day. So Byrne wasn’t going to get anywhere that day, war or no war. What did this strange man mean by that remark about the war—Naval Weapons Arsenal? Airfield? Orville and Wilbur Wright had only just made the first flight in a rickety flying machine a little over five years ago. Such craft existed, but they were mostly experimental, and the airships developed by Count Zeppelin never came here, so there was nothing that might pass for an airfield at Kansk that he knew of. He had stopped there briefly when the train last brought him here before getting off at Ilanskiy. He sighed, thinking he might as well try to find Mironov again, and warn him of what had happened to him. That strange man had to be Okhrana, which means the other fellow named Fedorov might be the same. First, he decided to go back to his room to look for his belongings, only this time he took the main stairway up, as he noticed that a very nervous looking innkeeper had closed the lower door to the back stairway off the dining room and latched it with a padlock.
“Sir,” he asked, “will the train be in this morning?”
“After that?” said the innkeeper, motioning to the red glow outside while sweeping up the broken glass by the windows. “Not likely,” he said gruffly.
“There was trouble here,” Byrne ventured. “A bit of murder and mayhem; strange characters everywhere. You found the bodies?” He could see no blood on the floor or carpet.
“Bodies? What are you talking about?”
“Never mind,” said Byrne, still very confused. The man acted as though his only concern was the broken window. “I’ll be in my room,” he said. “It looks as though the German team will be staying here another night as well. Good day sir, if it could possibly be redeemed after a morning like this.”
Byrne went up to room 214, as much to gather his wits as his belongings. There would be quite a bit of commotion about the inn that day, with several visitors getting off Train 92 and taking carriages on the muddy roads all the way to Ilanskiy seeking lodging. They had come to see the race, though they were late, and when they heard the German team was still at Ilanskiy, they came to make good their effort.
The following day there would be more than stray guests off that train. Something would loom low on the horizon from the northeast, where the dull glow of burning fire still lit on that distant edge of the wilderness. Byrne would see it, just after dawn, rising up in the deep crimson light, a great silver-grey whale in the sky, soon backlit by the sun. A Zeppelin, he thought, amazed that such a craft would be here. Then came the wrenching sound of another explosion, and there was fire in the sky again where the airship had been, and the sound of something crashing down to the earth. Frightened guests came running from their rooms, thinking this was yet another terrible red dawn, as the day before, and hearing the sound of booming explosions yet again.
Byrne was one of them, rushing down the main stairway and reaching the doorway there just in time to bump right into a man he immediately recognized. There were two other hard looking men with him in soldier’s uniforms, one brandishing a dangerous looking weapon.
It was Fedorov, with the implacable Sergeant Troyak, and Orlov in his wake. There was a look of despair on Fedorov’s face, his eyes wet and glassy, and with a desperate, almost vacant look in them. Symenko, with all his crew on the Irkutsk, had just met the wired fate set off by Fedorov’s order transmitted to Zykov—Downfall. The sound of those thermobaric rounds exploding, and the demolitions Zykov’s men would carry out in the wreckage, would be reported again by the locals as that same strange artillery fire they had heard the previous days.
For Fedorov, each sharp report was scoring a mark on his soul, and the worst of it was still before him. Then, with a sudden awareness of recollection, he knew who he had just bumped into—the reporter! Now he had to find Mironov.
Kirov Series: Thor’s Anvil
As Fedorov arrives at the moment of dread and destiny, he must now struggle to find Mironov, and steel himself for the mission he has taken upon himself. His decision, and the events that follow, will shape the course of all future days from that moment on.
Meanwhile, as the world awaits that decision, events proceed on the East Front in the altered history of WWII. Steiner’s decision to withdraw east of the Don has created a thorny problem for Manstein, and now he must gather the resources to try and defeat Zhukov’s sudden counteroffensive, and restore the line of communications to Kalach. At the same time, Steiner presses his SS legions forward towards the embattled city of Volgograd, determined to deliver the prize to Hitler and redeem his apparent failure during the bloody month of Red October. The history has again conspired to give us the grueling trial and terror that became the greatest battle ever fought in human history, only this time it will be known as the Battle of Volgograd.
Kirov Series Battle Book III: Argos Fire
The odyssey of the long running series subplot involving the Argos Fire is now concentrated into one interrupted story line, but with major new additions. Elena Fairchild, the keeper of the mysterious keys that seem to secure entrances to hidden fissures in time, is joined by Captain MacRae, Mack Morgan, and the crew of the Argos Fire as they skirt the edge of war in 2021, and find themselves delivered to the heart and fire of WWII by the workings of a strange device they recover from an ancient shrine.
This volume will also include a great deal of all new material never published in the main Kirov Series, including the continuation of the mystery involving the Keyholder’s Saga featuring the story of the Duke of Elvington’s surprising quest to the eve of the Battle of Waterloo that began on Lindisfarne Island. That narrative is extended to reveal true goal of the Duke’s journey to 1815. It soon dovetails into Fairchild’s desperate search to find the key that was lost on the Battleship Rodney, including the return of Professor Paul Dorland, and the secret that lies beneath St. Michael’s Cave on Gibraltar will soon be revealed. Mystery and intrigue are interspersed with more all new scenes, making this volume a must have for all series fans.