Three Kings

Director Kamenski told him that large explosions disturb time, particularly those of nuclear origin. Could that thing Orlov found serve as a kind of lightning rod, where all that strange effect was targeted at this very place and time. If so, the radius of this event must have been very great if it allowed a force the size of a full Armored brigade to move through the rift. Then again… From what he could determine, and see all around him, this brigade had been tightly concentrated, ready to make a road march, with all its vehicles and equipment gathered into a zone that probably did not exceed five or ten kilometers. Even Rod 25 could produce a radius effect that wide, and this thing Orlov had could be a highly concentrated fragment from the Tunguska event, with considerably more power than the control rod.

All these thoughts tumbled through his mind in a matter of seconds, but now the agonizing question was before him-what should he do about it? What could he do? Saving his own skin, and extricating his contingent from this dilemma was one thing, but to do so he was going to have to convince this Brigadier Kinlan that his brigade was no longer where he thought it was-that he and all his troops were now sitting in the Egyptian desert in January of 1941! Look how long it took us to accept what had happened to us. And Admiral Tovey… He and Turing had years to figure this all out, the slow accumulation of hard evidence, tangible clues, right down to those photographs they handed us. What can I do to convince this General without sounding like I’m a madman?

He groped about, trying to figure a way he could persuade this man, and explain what had happened. O’Connor, he thought. General Richard O’Connor. They were bringing him in withPopski’s men this very moment. O’Connor is a prominent historical figure. There will be photographic references, in fact, I could call them up on my jacket computer if need be. Would that be enough? Perhaps, but then he realized what was on the other side of that coin.

If I do convince them they have moved in time, he thought, then they’ll have to know who we are as well, and wonder how we came to be here. This man was British military, with a very important post in commanding one of the only heavy armored units they had left in 2021. It is very possible that he would have heard about the disappearance of our ship during those live fire exercises.

He thought about this. Could I tell him who we are, and how we came to be here? That lets the bear out of the cave, doesn’t it? Admiral Volsky was bold to reveal this to Tovey, but to convince Kinlan of his impossible fate, I may have to reveal it to the entire world. This is information known only to Admiral Tovey and Alan Turing in this era. My god, even Popski is still in the dark. He doesn’t even know who we really are!

Yet the more he thought about this incredible situation, the more he realized the inevitable outcome of these events. This unit was posted to the BP Sultan Apache oil concern in the year 2020, after the massacre of British oilfield personnel there. He remembered the incident clearly, and now he knew what must have happened. The damn war, he thought. It’s started. The missiles are in the air in 2021, and this was on the target list, two fat birds that could be killed with one nuclear stone. Our forces could take out a vital oil and gas recovery facility here, and wipe out the best unit in the British Army at the same time.

But it didn’t happen that way, and we had everything to do with that. Kirov, this entire odyssey, Orlov, that mission to Ilanskiy, all of it. Then he realized that he, himself, had been at the heart of everything that had happened to forge that chain of events. Yes, Orlov jumped ship, or so he now secretly believed, but I was the one who insisted we go after him. I found the stairway at Ilanskiy, and whispered that warning in Sergei Kirov’s ear. I was the one who insisted we go after Karpov too, and now Kazan is involved in all of this. I was the one who sent Troyak and Orlov on that raid in Siberia, and that’s how Orlov found that Devil’s Teardrop. This is all my doing! And now look what’s in front of me, the British 7th Armored Brigade from the year 2021! My God, the power this unit has at its disposal could influence the entire outcome of this war, and all the history that follows it.