Kirov II: Cauldron Of Fire (Kirov Series) Read online

  He looked at Nikolin, a sly gleam in his eye. “Here is a job for you Nikolin.”

  “Sir?”

  “I think it’s time for a little ruse…”

  Chapter 12

  Hut Four at Bletchley Park was a nondescript extension off the main mansion complex, with plain pale green siding and a tar black roof. Its special purpose was decryption of naval signals intelligence and photo analysis, and one of its frequent denizens was Britain’s top cryptographer Alan Turing, who was lounging at his desk a few minutes past midnight when the envelope first came in. Unlike all the other parcels received at Bletchley Park, it was delivered by a uniformed Navy courier, somewhat breathless as he clomped in with soiled boots, which immediately caught Turing’s attention. Most everything else would come in at six in the morning, in a quiet, routine manner, the adjutant making the rounds, desk to desk, with a squeaky wheeled cart. For a courier to burst in at this ungodly hour meant something rather important had been caught in the intelligence nets.

  “Lucky enough to find someone up at this hour,” the man huffed.

  Turing sat up, nodded perfunctorily as he signed the man’s clipboard, and then eyed the package he was handed with interest and a good measure of curiosity. Of late the load of intercepts, reconnaissance film and photos wanting the attention of the boys in Hut Four had lightened somewhat. It was marked URGENT – TOP SECRET, as they all were, and he flicked a lock of dark hair from his brow as he looked more closely at the source.

  Something out of the Med, he thought. It had come in by special overnight courier flight from Gibraltar, which led him to believe that someone there wanted to give it some rather pointed attention. My God, they put the rush on this one! Curious, he opened the clasps, and unsealed the envelope, not surprised to find a reel of video footage, typical gun camera film, and a few enlargements. He took one in hand, immediately turning it over to see the notation and date. It was very fresh, not a day old, which was again quite surprising. The date read 14:thirty Hours, 11 AUG 42. Takali Airfield – MALTA – REQUEST ID. That raised an eyebrow, as he hadn’t seen much out of Malta for some time, particularly with an ID request. Most every enemy ship and sub operating in those waters was well photographed and documented. What are they fussing over now, he thought? Probably some recent aerial photography over Taranto or La Spezia. Or perhaps some low level runs over the German U-Boat base at Salamis. Could Jerry have slipped a new U-Boat type into the Med? They had been operating with a handful of Type VIIs in their 29th Flotilla. What now?

  He flipped the photo over, surprised again to see what looked like a capital ship at sea, awash in a hail of gunfire from an attacking plane, and very oddly exposed. Something about the light on the sea drew his eye, and the peculiar darkness of the ship itself, an ominous looking shadow. It was hard to see much detail in the grainy photo, so he decided to rack up the film reel and give it a spin in the video room. Moments later he was deeply absorbed in what he saw. He ran it through once, finding he had slowly leaned forward for a close look by the time the film ended, then he rewound the whole thing and ran it again. It was very curious, and something seemed to turn in his stomach as he watched it the second time, a thrum of anxiety mixed with a thimble full of adrenaline. When the reel ended he looked at the two photos he held in his hand.

  “Request ID….Indeed,” he said aloud. His eyes seemed searching, darkly bothered, and his brow was low and set with the focus of his mind. He got up and walked with a fast, deliberate pace to the file room at the back of the hut. When was it now? Some time ago. He went through several files before the date came to him again. Yes…That was it. The file…

  He had called it simply that in discussion with a select handful of mates there at the hut. “The File.” It had commanded their attention this very month, a year ago, and set the whole Royal Navy on its ears with the surprising emergence of a new German raider in the North Atlantic. The weapons the ship had deployed were awesome. Particularly the final blow that had been struck against the American Navy. It was a weapon of enormous power, frightening in its effect. And it prompted the whole intelligence community to work overtime for the next six months. They had been frightened half out of their wits when the photos on that monster came in. Yet just as the Royal Navy and her American allies were closing in on this phantom ship, it disappeared, and was presumed sunk in that final action. The Americans put it out that their gallant destroyer flotilla had charged into close quarters with this sea faring goliath, and died to a man sending the dreadful ship to the bottom of the sea. Yet the matter was never fully set at ease insofar as British intelligence was concerned.

  The public never knew about it, as the whole incident was a closely guarded secret, spun out instead as a dastardly combined German U-boat and surface raider attack on a neutral American naval task force. Few knew all the details of the encounter, and those that did lived with a terrible fear those next six months. They waited, eyes white with fear, every time a flight of German bombers would appear over London, thinking the next one would surely deliver another fatal and catastrophic blow with this horror weapon, but it never came.

  Sailors who had been involved in the battle spread rumors in spite of warning to hush the matter, and the fleet soon came to believe that the Germans were developing fearsome new naval weapons to counter the Royal Navy’s advantage at sea. But they were never seen again. Even in skirmishes with the last big German battleship, the Tirpitz, lurking in the cold icy water of the Norwegian Sea where this strange raider had first been spotted, there was no further deployment of the “wonder weapons” this ship has used with such deadly effect.

  Weeks became months, and became a long year. All the information, Admiralty reports, interviews with senior officers in command and individual ship diaries, along with all their signals logs had been bundled, collected, classified, and coalesced under one file—“the file” as Turing had once called it—and a copy was still here, sitting right there in Hut Four with a plain white typewritten label on the box that read simply: “GERONIMO”.

  Something in the feeling that lodged in his gut sent Turing right to this very file, and he opened the box with some trepidation, reaching first for the sheaf of photo samples that had been obtained— all too few considering the resources that had been thrown at this raider. He took the best of them out, remembering how he had squinted and stared at it when he first saw the image a year ago, and how he had noted the shadow of a man standing there on the long foredeck to work out the scale and length of the ship. Now he held the photo in his left hand, and compared it to the new arrival in his right. He stared at them, for a very long time, his eyes darkening further as he studied them both under a magnifying glass. Then he sealed up the box and walked briskly back to his desk and picked up a telephone.

  “Special line,” he said tersely. “Admiralty.”

  “Right away, sir.” A switchboard operator returned, and he was soon patched through on an encrypted channel. There was a brief delay, that seemed like long minutes to Turing, and in time a voice answered on the other end.

  “Admiralty, special operations and intelligence.”

  He identified himself, saying simply “Turing, Hut Four. Geronimo. I repeat. Geronimo.”

  There was a pause, a very long pause it seemed. Then the voice said in quiet confirmation. “Very good sir. Geronimo. I’ll pass it on to the proper authority.”

  In the early morning hours of August 12, 1942 a telephone rang in the personal quarters of Admiral and Commander-in Chief, Home Fleet, John Tovey. Its strident alarm roused him from much needed sleep, and he groped fitfully for the receiver on his nightstand, finally grasping it and muttering an irritated “yes?” that was clearly tinged with “how dare you.” Yet he knew, on one level of his still sleep fogged mind, that he would not be receiving a call at this hour without real urgency behind it.

  What could it possibly be this time, he groped? Home Fleet had no operations in progress. The Dieppe Operation was not yet teed up. Operat
ion Pedestal was not in his purview. The only thing on his calendar was the laborious agony of hosting the Turkish Ambassador and Naval Attaché aboard King George V tomorrow. All Russian convoys were suspended after the disaster of convoy PQ 17 and also because of the transfer of Home Fleet units to the Mediterranean for Operation Pedestal. He had received the bad news concerning HMS Eagle before he turned in for the night. What more could have happened? Good God, he thought suddenly. Don’t tell me they’ve put another carrier at the bottom of the sea—or even one of the battleships.

  “Yes, John Tovey. What is it?” This time there was less irritation and more accommodation in his voice.

  “Admiralty intelligence on the line sir. Please hold while we secure the connection.” Tovey waited in the darkness of his quarters, dreading the inevitable bad news. It was far too early to hear any good news concerning the only major operation they had going now in the Med. So it had to be bad. What else?

  The line cleared. He heard a low tone indicating an encrypted connection had been established. Then a voice came on the line with a single word, and his heart seemed to skip a beat when he heard it. “Geronimo.”

  There was a long silence while the other party waited, and Tovey realized the caller was needing his confirmation that the codeword was received and understood. “Very well,” he said haltingly. “Geronimo…. Has First Sea Lord Admiral Pound been notified?”

  “Yes sir, and Admiralty would like to request your participation in a meeting this morning at zero 8:00 hours, sir. The usual location. A Fleet Air Arm plane will be waiting for you at Hatston in…one hour, sir. I’m very sorry for the short notice, but we only just received this. Home Fleet staff has been advised that you have been taken ill and will not be able to receive the Turkish Ambassador this morning at Scapa Flow.”

  “I will confirm my attendance now—anything else?”

  “No sir, that is all.”

  That was quite enough, thought Tovey as he hung up the receiver. It seems he would not have to suffer the boredom of formal protocols this afternoon after all. Instead it would be Sir Dudley Pound and all the other hatbands and cuff stripes at the Admiralty after a long, cold flight to London. Yet the nature of the call—that single word known to so very few—filled him with dread and foreboding. Intelligence has got their mitts on something new, he thought. What could it be?

  He eased out of his bed, reaching for the light. There was very little time to waste if he was going to catch his plane at the appointed hour. God help us if there’s been another ‘incident,’ he thought, thinking that word so completely inadequate for what he and his men had gone through in the North Atlantic…well…a year ago, wasn’t it? Yes, a full year, almost to the day.

  They put him on a fast Coastal Command Beaufighter, which was no surprise if they wanted to get him to the Admiralty in good time. The plane climbed through the typical shroud of low lying fog and up into a drab pre-dawn sky, the throttle opening up to near full power for most of the 500 mile run in. They landed at a little used RAF station, as close to Whitehall as possible, but one requiring a short drive to reach the Admiralty citadel. The grey dawn was breaking by the time Tovey’s car reached his destination, and he was all of thirty minutes early, working his way in through security to eventually reach the citadel command center of the Admiralty, Special conference room 1. The door was plainly marked: MOST SECRET – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  A solitary Marine guard stood to attention and saluted as he approached. When Tovey had returned the salute, the guard turned, knocked quietly on the door with a white gloved hand, then opened it for the admiral, standing stiffly to attention again as Tovey entered. The door was pulled quietly closed behind him, and he crossed the antechamber, opening the inner door to find four other men seated at the conference table. The guest list was not surprising. First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound sat at the head of the table, flanked by his Second Sea Lord Sir William Whitworth and then Tovey’s old friend Sir Frederick Wake-Walker, now Third Sea Lord. The fourth man was not in uniform. He wore dark pressed trousers, white shirt under a fine knit vest and a grey tweed jacket. His tie looked over worn and ill tied, as though he threw it on as an afterthought. A dash of straight brown hair fell on his forehead above coal dark eyes, bright with fire.

  The men stood to greet him, and Admiral Pound extended an arm as they exchanged handshakes. He made the introduction. “I can see you were surprised to see a man in civilian clothing in these chambers, Admiral,” he said warmly. “May I introduce Professor Alan Turing, called in this morning from Bletchley Park.”

  “My pleasure,” said Tovey as he shook the man’s hand. “If I understand correctly, you led the decryption effort for German Navy Enigma traffic?”

  “I did my part, sir,” said Turing, his voice high and thin. “The chaps in Hut Eight had a good deal to do with sorting it all out.”

  “Well it’s been a godsend, in more ways than you can imagine. First rate, but I’m inclined to think that we’ve just bit into a fairly salty cracker considering the number of stripes in this room.”

  Pound got right to the point, “Professor Turing received some gun camera footage taken by a Coastal Command Beaufighter at mid-day yesterday. Air Vice Marshall Park of the Malta Air Defense had a look at it and thought he better send in on to Gibraltar, where it was received at 17:00 hours and just happened to catch the last plane out an hour later. It’s a miracle it got in to Bletchley Park as soon as it did. I’m to understand that Park also phoned ahead and set a watch on the parcel, putting the spurs to it, if you will. Just our good fortune that Professor Turing was also working very late last night, and round midnight he had a look at the footage and made a rather alarming deduction.” The Admiral gestured to the chairs as all the men seated themselves.

  Tovey’s heart sank as he knew from the code word he had received what the general subject of this meeting was to be about. Admiral Pound settled in, and then extended a hand to Turing, inviting him to take the floor.

  The young man cleared his throat. “Well gentlemen,” he began, his eyes widening a bit as he spoke, “it was a simple enough request for identification of a vessel sighted in the Tyrrhenian Sea yesterday. There were two photos, he pushed a file over to Admiral Pound, “and I’ve taken the liberty of including photography taken of the Geronimo raider incident last August as well. I ran the footage and something about the look of this ship just set my stomach turning—considering the impact Geronimo had on our operations.”

  Pound had seen the photos and he passed them to Whitworth on his right, who studied them closely, a look of intense interest on his dignified features. He had been in the Royal Navy since the turn of the century and had commanded the Battlecruiser Squadron with its flagship HMS Hood in the first years of the war. No stranger to combat at sea, his flag was on the battlecruiser Renown when he mixed it up with the German raiders Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the Norwegian Sea, besting both ships in the action and driving them off to lick their wounds. Just a few weeks before Bismarck sortied, he had been recalled from Hood to the Admiralty to take up a new post as Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty and Second Sea Lord. The loss of Hood days later was a shock to him, and he realized the change of command may have very well saved his own life, though he still regretted not being with his ship when she made her last desperate voyage. He ran a hand through his grey-white hair, high on his forehead now, but still full.

  Whitworth passed the photos to Wake-Walker, a man who’s career had been dogged with some misfortune, though it did not impede his steady rise in the ranks to his present position as Third Sea Lord. He had been found liable for mishandling his ship, then HMS Dragon, in 1934. Last year during the hunt for the Bismarck Admiral Pound had faulted him severely after the sinking of Hood for not re-engaging with Norfolk, Suffolk and Prince of Wales. In that incident Tovey had to come to his defense and threatened resignation if charges were brought forward, saying he would sit as a defense witness in any proceeding brought against Wake-Walker
. The matter was eventually dropped. Then, scarcely a few months later, it had been Wake-Walker’s carrier Force P that had first sighted, shadowed and engaged the Geronimo raider, which is why he took particular interest in the photos, staring at them a long time before he gave them over to Admiral Tovey.

  “Please note the antennae situated on the secondary mast, on both photos,” said Turing. “See how the panels are tilted at the same angle. Some thirty degrees off the vertical? That was one similarity that immediately caught my eye.”

  Tovey looked up, somewhat surprised. “You believe the Italians have mounted radar sets on their capital ships—perhaps technology given them by the Germans?”

  “That was what I suggested,” said Admiral Pound. “It’s clear that this could not possibly be a German ship.”

  “My pardon, sir,” said Turing, “But isn’t that what we deduced a year ago—that the Geronimo raider could not have possibly been anything in the German inventory?” They had scoured every harbor, every shipyard, and came to the conclusion that the ship they had faced a year ago in the North Atlantic had been a pariah. Every other known ship in the German Navy that could have exhibited its speed, and characteristics had been accounted for. Yet this ship was a complete mystery. How it could have been built by the Germans without being seen and documented by Royal Navy Intelligence was a matter of lengthy discussion, and it had forced the Boys at Bletchley Park to review reams of signals traffic for months after. Yet they had found nothing whatsoever that in any way hinted at the existence of the ship, let alone the weaponry it deployed and used with such dramatic effect.

  In the end they simply came to call the raider “Geronimo,” after the renegade Indian chief that had been harried and pursued by the Americans, hunted down by a select group of Federal cavalry. The Royal Navy had its own select scout ships out in the hunt when this raider first appeared, followed by carriers under Wake-Walker and then Admiral Tovey’s battleships from Home Fleet, but it did them no good. In the end they had acquiesced to the American line that the enemy ship had been sunk by the their own Desron 7, though none of the eight destroyers that formed that group survived the encounter to provide any real confirmation of that claim. Not a single survivor had been found, nor was there any sign whatsoever of wreckage on the sea, not even a drop of oil to mark the place where they must surely have fought the enemy to the death.