There it was again, thought Popski. What in bloody hell was EMP? What was this talk of nuclear weapons? The two seemed right chummy on the subject, but I’ve no idea what they’re talking about.
“Tell him in the short run we’ll have to take things easy,” said Fedorov. It was a real dilemma, and he had to think what to do here. They could just spirit O’Connor away to Alexandria and get him out of the picture. That would be the safest bet, but it would only postpone the inevitable. One day he would have to see what was down there, massed on the desert floor in the fighting steel and Dorchester Chobham armor of the 7th Brigade, and one day he would have to know the truth. But yet he still felt that secrecy was best for the moment. The bear would wake up and get out of his den in due course.
His mind went round and round about it. Could they say this unit had been sent from England, a highly classified war secret, with new weapons and vehicles being deployed for the very first time? This was a lie that would soon become the thin veil it was, for one look at a Challenger II up close, or a good look inside the command compartment of any of these vehicles, would reveal more than he could explain away with that line. There were touch screen digital panels, technology and equipment that would amaze and dazzle any man of this era. He remembered the look on Tovey’s face when they brought him aboard Kirov and showed him the missiles and radar stations up close. And Tovey had a whole other life to prepare him for what he saw there. In fact, he had come to the truth about the ship they had once called Geronimo all on his own, albeit with the able assistance of Alan Turing.
Telling O’Connor the truth would be like throwing the man in ice water just now, but he would have to know, just as Kinlan had to know. The future would have to meet the past here, shake hands to reach a mutual understanding somehow, and it was up to him to make that so. But how? How could he wade in gently, and slowly lead this man to the truth?
“And so it is, that both the devil and the angelic spirit present us with objects of desire to awaken our power of choice.”
“Russians? This is a Russian aircraft?” O’Connor gave the KA-40 a good long look, amazed. “I had no idea they were working on helicopters.”
The idea had been around for centuries, and several British thinkers had experimented with designs for such aircraft. Even Jules Verne had brought one to life in his book The Clipper of the Clouds, and Thomas Edison had modeled helicopters in the United States long ago. So it was something O’Connor could grasp without undue difficulty, yet there had never been an engine powerful enough to make the dream a reality-until now.
“We’ve been working on these for quite some time,” Fedorov had Popski explain. “Ever since Igor Ivanovitch Sikorsky and Boris Yur'ev experimented with designs in the early 1900s. Your own Westland Corporation is also interested in this kind of aircraft.”
“When they see the likes of this one their eyes will bug out,” said O’Connor.
“It’s a very good platform for search and rescue,” said Fedorov. “And it is excellent in reconnaissance. Let’s get up there and have a look around.”
Small steps, thought Fedorov. Get the man airborne and see what develops. Every bird learns to fly in due course. He would have to take things one step at a time, and see if O’Connor would eventually come to the same conclusion Tovey did-that there were things in front of him that no man could build in this world. That would be the moment to ease him over the final line to the real truth. For the time being they would tell O’Connor that Kinlan commanded a detachment sent here to reinforce Siwa, and leave off the details, which would become apparent over time.
“Fergusson has been begging for reinforcements,” said O’Connor. “It’s a wonder Wavell had anything left in the cupboard to send out here. How many are you? It was night and the bloody sandstorm made it impossible to see much, but it certainly sounded like there were a good number of vehicles in your detachment.”
“Yes sir,” said Kinlan. “They got the 7th pulled back together, though you are correct, we’re just off the boat, in a manner of speaking.”
“Well it’s about time we got support from England. I realize its all of 40 days to get here round the cape. Where were you serving back home? Were you with 1st Armored Division?”
“What else?” said Kinlan, as he knew that most of the armored reserves in early 1941 had been cannibalized from that division back home in the UK, and his own 7th Brigade was, in fact, still a part of the British 1st Armored Division in modern times.
