Kinlan hesitated, wondering whether he should let this fish off the hook just yet. Something still rankled at him about this whole situation, and the presence of this Russian team at the very moment his force was attacked by that ICBM. In spite of the man’s apparent sincerity, there had been long years of growing enmity with the Russians, ever since Putin started trying to patch the old Soviet Union back together again when he annexed the Crimea and meddled in Ukraine back in 2014… Back in 2014? If any of this were true, that time was now decades away, in the future. He still struggled with it, in spite of the obvious evidence.
“What do you propose to do?” he asked Fedorov.
There it was… The question Fedorov had been struggling to answer himself. He was in a real quandary over how to handle the issue of O’Connor. The evidence he had presented to Kinlan had been enough to establish that all important factor of great doubt in the man. He knew from his experience aboard Kirov that he had to find some key evidence that was wholly inexplicable by any other means, and this would leave time displacement as the only possible solution that could resolve that issue, and also account for all the other evidence.
The presence of Popski, the men from the LRDG, and O’Connor with his downed Blenheim were strong local evidence as to their position in time, but they could be easily dismissed, just as Karpov had tried to dismiss the Fulmar fighter that first overflew the ship, and even the radio intercepts of local era news broadcasts, thinking it was all an elaborate hoax staged by NATO as a deception. He knew Brigadier Kinlan was likely to come to the same conclusion, unless he could present the man with incontrovertible evidence that could not be easily dismissed or explained away. When they had first displaced in time, so long ago it seemed now, that evidence had been obtained by reconnoitering Jan Mayen Island for the weather station that was located there. When that facility was not found, along with the modern airstrip that should have been there, it strongly argued that they were not where they belonged.
Sultan Apache had been that same inexplicable dilemma for Kinlan. The only possible solution had been the impossible notion of time displacement. It was the only thing that explained what could have happened, and also account for Popski, O’Connor and all the local era evidence.
Yet now he had another challenge-how to bring General O’Connor to the same place in his understanding? Kinlan had been correct in pointing out that the man would have no foundation to admit the possibility of time displacement as an odd aftereffect of nuclear detonation. He would have no knowledge of nuclear weapons at all, as the physics involved was still theoretical and would not be tested for another five years. Convincing O’Connor of what had happened would present a whole new set of problems.
With each disclosure of the secret of their identity, Fedorov knew the risk of damage to the chain of causality that extended forward from this point would grow more and more severe. Only a very few men had eventually managed to discern the true nature and origins of the ship, Turing, Admiral Tovey, and the select few he admitted to that grey priesthood he had come to call the Watch. A ship like Kirov could be easily hidden in the world, out to sea on the vast oceans, and out of sight. That was not the case now for General Kinlan and his brigade of modern British troops! They were here, and their presence could not be hidden indefinitely.
At the moment, the isolation of this place, and the desolation of the endless desert around them, served as a thin buffer between Kinlan’s world and this one in 1941. But the General could not sit here for very long. He had neither the supplies or fuel to operate independently for any extended period. His men would need food, fuel, water, and when they ran through their own organic supplies, perhaps enough for a week or two, they would be forced to move to a place where they could survive.
And then it would begin…
What could they do, Fedorov wondered? The oasis site of Siwa presented one option. Could the brigade move there? Perhaps, but that would only become a brief outpost against the inevitable. They might be able to sequester Colonel Fergusson and his Australian cavalry units, and keep the lid on things for a while, but one day someone would get through to Alexandria on a radio, or the simple silence and lack of contact from the outpost would prompt the British to determine what was going on there. Another a relief column would come and they would be facing this same moment again, standing at the precipice just as they were now.
