“No doubt this meeting was a surprise to all of us, yet here we are, and we’ll make the best of it as we go.” He looked first to Admiral Cunningham, a sympathetic expression on his face. “Admiral, I’m afraid you are about to hear some things that will be most unsettling. In fact, you may conclude that we are all quite daft, but bear with us. Everything will be made clear to you in time. That said, I must tell you that what you will now learn is the most highly classified secret of this war-a secret so dark and inaccessible, that only one other man within the British Government has any knowledge of it, and you will be surprised to learn that our Mister Churchill is not that other man. Bear with me, Andy,” Tovey used the familiar handle that only two friends might share, hoping to ease the shock for Cunningham if he could.
Then he looked at Admiral Volsky, addressing Elena Fairchild as he gestured to the man. “I can see that the presence of Admiral Volsky here and his ship is somewhat unexpected. Let me say that I was once as unknowing about all of this as you both seem to be. Yet it begins with the Admiral here, and with his ship. So perhaps it might be best if I yield the floor to you, Admiral Volsky. If there is any man among us who might sort this whole matter out, I would start with your chair.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” said Volsky, “and may I introduce our Director Kamenski, Russian Intelligence. He has been with us aboard Kirov for some time, and I thought he might be able to help us sort through all of this. In fact, he will likely do a much better job than I could. Director?”
“Admiral,” said Kamenski, “this is one odd kettle of fish we have. Here are two adversaries, and unfortunately so, from a time neither you or Admiral Cunningham here could ever see or imagine. And here you both sit with us, two new friends from a past long removed from us, yet one we have been shaping with our very hands, unknowing at first, and now with more deliberate endeavor. It is a strange enterprise, and a mighty challenge we all face now. Yet I fear that if we are to measure it, and prevail with any sense of sanity, we must all now reach across this table and join our hands in a common understanding. Here we sit, like a group ofblind men around the elephant, each holding onto a piece of the truth as they grope that mighty beast. We all know something of this truth, some more than others, but we must all hear each other now as we describe it to one another, so that we can see the whole as one together, and determine what we must do.” He looked at each one around the table now, the knowing and the unknowing, and smiled. Nikolin completed his translation, and now he continued.
“Opening your eyes and actually seeing the elephant is quite another experience, ladies and gentlemen. To do so we will have to drink of the same cup of poison, I fear, for only then can we die together, and be reborn with some new understanding that can unite all present in one accord. Forgive me if I sound more like a bad poet than a diplomat at times, mixing my metaphors like this, but we have a fine and arcane business before us now, a mystery as deep and unfathomable as time itself, and we are its minions. Admiral Volsky here has asked me to begin this discussion, and yet where to start the tale? I think the only way is to just come right out with it, crazy as it will sound at first blush. My name is Pavel Kamenski, all seventy five years worth, and I was born on the twelfth night of June, in the year 1946…” He let that hang there, waiting to see the reaction of Admiral Cunningham as Nikolin translated.
“Excuse me, Mister Kamenski, I’m afraid your Lieutenant here has his number wrong. 1946? Surely you meant 1865, as I cypher it.”
Nikolin translated that back, and Kamenski smiled.
“No Admiral Cunningham, the Lieutenant had it right, but to hear it right you will have to extend your hand now and take hold of the elephant’s tail.” And then he began to speak of the war, the long struggle ahead, and how the nations of the earth were now engaged in the making of weapons to prosecute it. He told them one weapon that would be forged in the crucible of this conflict would be so terrible that it would cast a deep shadow of doom on the world for generations, and one day make an end of the human endeavor on this planet. He told them how this weapon was made, and that he knew, for a fact, that many nations were now engaged in the effort to bring this terror to life. And then he slowly began to describe the arms race they would engage in, and the nuclear testing that would be a part of that, until Soviet Russia would build a bomb unlike any other, and set it off in the frozen north on October 30, 1961.
