Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) Read Free Page A

transfer to the Pacific Fleet just as the incident at the
Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands ignited hostilities there. That little squabble was
going to become something that would eventually devour the entire world. The missile
attack you experienced was undoubtedly a part of all that, and your presence
here may be the only safe ground you could have found for your men and
vehicles. You know damn well that there would have been a second strike, and a
third if your air defense prevented that.”
    “Is
that what you were here for, Battle Damage Assessment?”
    “No
General, you must understand that I was never there—never in that time. I was
here all along, with my Marines and helicopter, and we were out here doing
exactly as we have told you, looking for General O’Connor. You see, when we
found ourselves here, in this time, we realized there was no way we could stand
apart from this conflict. We had to take sides, one way or another, and knowing
that Russia and Britain were allies once eventually guided our thinking to the
right path. So it is as I have told you. My ship is out there right now, waiting
for my return. Kirov is cruising with Cunningham’s Royal Navy fleet, and
ready to do battle in support of the British here—and it is a grave hour
indeed. Believe me, General, it’s all in shreds and patches now, but you will
piece it together soon enough, just as we did, and the quilt of your
understanding could save your country now—here—in 1941.”
     
    Chapter 2
     
    Shreds and patches… That was as good a way to put things as he
could fathom. Here he was, a king of shreds and patches, just as Hamlet put it.
Yet he wanted to shout at this man as Hamlet’s mother had… ‘No more! Your words
are like daggers, please no more, sweet Hamlet. Angels in heaven protect me
with your wings!...’ A ragtag king he was, lost, completely out of his world,
but a king indeed. That was what this man was saying to him now, that he was
here and that meant something. He had a responsibility here, and it would begin
with the same choice this Russian Captain had made, to be or not to be, here
and now, in this war, taking up arms against a sea of trouble and by opposing…
    “You’re
asking me to fight here… now?”
    “Where
else?” Fedorov gave him a thin smile. “We fought. We were misguided by a
headstrong Captain at first—the very man I replaced. His was a hard line, and
he had no love of the West, or the British. But my view was that if we could
somehow prevent the enmity between our nations from ever taking root after this
war, then we might prevent the one that comes after, the searing fire that you
have only just escaped. Understand, General? You are here. This war is here as
well. Your countrymen fight even as we speak. We have joined them. That
decision should be much easier for you.”
    Popski
was following the essence of this, but could not see why this Fedorov would
have to try and convince a British serving officer as to which side he was on
in this damn war, and he said as much.
    “I’ll
admit I had my doubts about you when you gave us the rough treatment up front,”
he said to Kinlan, “but forgive and forget, General.” This man here seems to
think he needs to persuade you to take up sides here, as silly as that may
seem.”
    Kinlan
gave Popski a look, then realized that if any of this were true, then this man
was not of his day and time. He was a man of this era, the very same man he had
stared at in the data files on his library pad. He was ‘Popski,’ head of
the PPA, a fringe element of the Long Range Desert Group, the Number One
Demolition Group, to be more accurate. He wanted to dismiss all this with one
boisterous ‘bloody hell,’ but that would not do. What he needed now was more
than the evidence he had before him. He needed information on what was
happening here in the desert.
    “So
tell him to look at the uniform I’m wearing,” he said to Popski. “That should
answer his