Three Kings

The Chief got to the helicopter and he could see that it was already set up with a long range reserve fuel tank, and two air-to air weapons pods on the short outer pylons. The KA-40 was much bigger than its younger brother, the old KA-27 naval helicopter that had been used for so many years. It could be rigged out for ASW combat with torpedoes and sonar buoys, and also had the ability to mount short range air-to-air missile pods. There it was, the fat blue pig, as Orlov often referred to the KA-40 with its pale blue paint scheme. It wasn’t the sleek fighting airframe that was used on the faster KA-50/52 series helos, but it had twice the range, 1200 kilometers with those extra fuel stores, and it was a very capable platform for many roles: transport, search and rescue, AEW, ASW and more. The Chief wasted little time getting to the cables and configuring the infrared sensor suite for the unit hookups.

Troyak came over to check on things a minute later, frowning at the medusa cable clutter and shaking his head. “Six cables for one damn radar panel?”

“And two more for infrared,” said Orlov with a grin, glad that he could lord it over Troyak now, as he could install an Oko panel in his sleep, while the gritty Sergeant did not have the slightest idea what he was doing. The Chief fussed and cursed with the last cable, remembering he had to attach a special data feed link under the main cabin panels as a last step.

“What’s going on, Troyak. Why the radar?”

“Mission.” The Sergeant was characteristically curt. He had wasted too many words that morning trying to get that panel mounted, and was just glad the job was finally done.

“Desert safari!” said Zykov as he came up with a grin, his short cropped blonde hair soon disappearing under his beret. “We have a search and rescue operation, or so I hear.”

“To the desert? What the fuck are we doing on this ship? First we go floating off in that damn zeppelin, now it’s Lawrence of Arabia.”

“Yes? Well we need a sensor suite operator. You want the job, Orlov?” Zykov winked at Troyak. He was joking, but Orlov obviously took him seriously. He thought for two seconds, realizing all he would be doing here is wandering about with nothing to do, looking at reports on stupid clip boards, nodding his head when a mishman requested shift leave, rousting the matoc out of their bunks for the next shift. He could leave that crap to the section Chiefs and have some real adventure here. In fact, even though he deprecated the zeppelin mission, he had been thrilled to get off the ship, and the ride he had taken in the sub-cloud car was more fun than anything he had done since he decided to jump ship, long ago, or so it seemed now. Here was another opportunity to get out into the world and do something different, and he didn’t think long.

“Sensor man? Sure! I can read these systems easily enough. It’s simple. One small screen, two digital readouts-not like that stuff on the bridge Rodenko fusses over.”

“I was only kidding, Chief,” said Zykov.

“Who’s kidding? You want a good man on the radar? I can take that watch. It will give me a chance to keep an eye on you two bilge rats and make sure the job gets done, eh? Where we going?”

Troyak gave Zykov a hard nudge in the ribs. “Nobody knows yet,” he said. “And look, we can only take ten men, so-”

Orlov was quick enough to see that Troyak was trying to give him the brush off, but at that moment a most unusual man came into the helo bay with Fedorov, and the distraction was just what he needed to worm his way aboard the KA-40.

Chapter 23

At that moment Fedorov came up, talking with a heavy set, middle aged man in an odd looking uniform, with a black fleece beret on his otherwise balding head. He wore baggy battle dress trousers with wide thigh pockets, a thick canvass belt, and black dragoon ammo boots. Orlov caught a flash of silver on his cap, where an odd looking badge was affixed. It looked like a complex silver globe mounted on a stand, but it was actually an astrolabe, the ancient instrument used for navigation that Chaucer wrote about as early as 1391 in his treatise on the subject. Ancient mariners would use it ‘to know justly the four quarters of the world, as East, West, North, and South.’

“There you are, Sergeant,” said Fedorov. “Allow me to introduce a most remarkable man here. This is Major Vladimir Peniakoff.”

In spite of his Russian name, the man was actually a Belgian, born of Russian parents in 1897, which made him nearly 44 years old at that time. His unit was set up in Cairo in 1942 as Fedorov had learned in his research. Yet here he was, already thick as thieves with Wavell, who had a penchant for special operations types, and seemed to find this man very useful.