B00DSDUWIQ EBOK by John Schettler Read Free Book Online Page B

when ready.
Remember our briefing. Your first task is to discover the year and date!”
    Yes,
yes, Dobrynin remembered the briefing. The key dates were September 30 thru October
5, 1942. He was to secure the Anatoly Alexandrov , then get a scouting
detail ashore north of Makhachkala and begin his search. Troyak would be
broadcasting his position, and he had the exact frequency so he could monitor
it 24/7. Once a signal was received he was to put men ashore in force with any
of the equipment that made it back with him, and use any means necessary to
secure his objective and get safely home. Yet two more control rods had been
received, one from Vladivostok and this last one from Severomorsk. They were to
be loaded on the helicopter the Admiral mentioned. What was in the Admiral’s
vodka this time?
     The
Mi-26 had been used to move in the last of their equipment, and was now at rest,
its enormous bulk squatting on the roof of Anatoly Alexandrov like a
giant bug, the eight long props drooping toward the landing pad like enormous spider
legs. Bukin had been promoted from Corporal to Sergeant and he was now in
charge of a small detachment of Marines, five men. One was a pilot, and the others
stood in as flight engineers, but all were trained for combat, and armed to the
teeth. They had supplies consisting mostly of food and ammunition, and the
entire cargo section of the helo was packed with as much aviation fuel as the
Mi-26 could carry.
    Wherever
they are going it must be some good long way, thought Dobrynin. He had enough to
worry about getting the reactor certified and ready for use. Let Bukin handle the
helicopter mission.
     
    * * *
     
    Now Volsky sat in the deep underground bunker
beneath Naval Headquarters Fokino, a precaution given the steady buildup of
American bomber assets in the Pacific. That and the rain of ash fall from the
Demon volcano had cast a pall over the entire region, imposing a lull on operations
as nature revealed her awesome temper. It was humbling to look out and see the
titanic column of smoke and ash billowing up into the atmosphere, even to the
edge of space. The first night after the eruption had been black beyond
measure, as if the sky itself had been broiled to char. No moonlight could
penetrate the thickening air, and a muffled silence fell over the sea and land
as more and more material billowed up into the brimstone night. It created a
deeply ominous feeling in the gut, a sense of warning and desperate urgency settling
over the Admiral’s mind.
    This
war was a ragged and haphazard affair, he thought, and a tempest in a teacup compared
to that Demon. Hokkaido Island is being inundated with ash, and the Americans
have pulled everything they had out of Misawa in northernmost Honshu for bases
on the main island further south. China seems single mindedly focused on
Taiwan, and now the North Koreans are launching missiles for the Americans to
shoot down.
    The
great standoff with the American fleet was suddenly held in abeyance. CVBG Nimitz had altered course and was now steaming to join the stricken Washington strike
group in the Marianas. The third carrier, CVBG Eisenhower had also
diverted from its course and was heading east through the Sulu Sea and into the
Philippines, apparently also bound for Guam. They were moving their principle
assets to a secure forward base to reorganize prior to resuming operations.
    Karpov
had beaten the Washington group with his daring and aggressive tactic of
getting in that all important first salvo. Volsky wondered what he might have accomplished
if he had carried out the remainder of his plan. After code Longarm sent
the last of their longer range missiles out after the carrier, the fleet itself
was going to execute a hard right and make a high speed rush south. Karpov
planned to use the initial plume from the smaller eruption of the volcano as
top cover, surging south beneath the pall to get his ships inside the 300
kilometer range. At that point he had P-900s