begin, even in official discourse, the line of subtle truth-bending that was vranyo. The Admiral had countermanded his orders just now, and Karpov still burned with a quiet inner resentment over that. He did what he believed was proper, and in his mind the Admiral was remiss.
On one level, he saw a glimmering of opportunity in this situation. Orel and Slava were both missing, and the Admiral was being far too lax in his assessment of the potential dangers here. This incident would be viewed harshly back home, and blame and scapegoating were sure to follow. The Admiral was responsible, he knew, but he would make sure that any fault found rested squarely on Volsky’s shoulders. He would let Severomorsk know exactly what he thought, and somewhere in his mind he was already launching missiles at the Admiral. The struggle for the first salvo was the essence of modern naval combat. The Captain wanted to be sure he had himself in the best possible position if it came to an inquiry on these events. A report would have to be written on the matter, and he was already hard at work, drafting copy in his mind, and thinking just who best to put on the distribution list.
Yet for now, it was the silence that bothered him most. Who could he tell his stories to, his half-truths and darker lies, if no one was listening back home? What was going on? Why didn’t Severomorsk answer? He badgered Nikolin about his equipment-was it working correctly? When was the last time it was given a full maintenance check? Who had the duty here on the last watch? Was he trying the secure Satellite com-link line?
“I have no satellite link, sir,” Nikolin explained. “I cannot establish links to any of our com-sat bands. It must be the interference, sir.”
Karpov was wagging an accusatory finger at Nikolin, and frowning. “Keep trying, Mister Nikolin. I expect you to get this equipment sorted out!” Then he saw Nikolin had an iPod sitting off to one side, and he snatched it up, shaking it in the young Lieutenant’ face. “Perhaps you should spend more time focused on your duties, Nikolin, and less with this.” He took the device and strode away, like a strict school master chastening a wayward student.
Nikolin, shrugged, deflated, harried, and trying harder than ever to get through to Severomorsk. He sighed with relief when the Captain finally wandered off, looking for Chief Orlov, though he hoped Karpov would not pass the matter on to the him.
Orlov was a strong man, iron willed, and often too much of a disciplinarian when it came to running the ship’s schedules and training exercises, meting out swift punishment to any crewman who was lax in his duties. He was Karpov’s hard whip when it came to discipline and firm handling of procedures on the ship. The Chief was actually a Captain of the 3rd Rank, two rungs below Karpov, but stood as “Chief of Operations” and was therefore simply called the “Chief” by the men.
He had fifteen years in the navy, most served by default because he never had the babki to do anything else, or so he claimed. The truth was, he was sent here after a stint in prison when running with the criminal element known as the blatonoy, the purveyors of blat in its most extreme forms. A man needed a little dough in life, the money to grease a few palms or open a few doors, like the small dough cakes called babki the Russians delighted on and gifted one another with at times. Orlov never made his big deal with the blatnoy, so he found himself in the navy, and then found that he enjoyed the rigors of the service, and his position of authority there was better than any life he could find ashore.
Where Karpov was duplicitous, scheming and often indirect, Orlov was brutally straightforward. He would have made a proper drill sergeant in the army, and would often dress men down with a boisterous harangue when he found them easing off in their duty. He enjoyed throwing his weight around, and his muscle stood him in good stead when it came to matters of discipline. A good hard shove or a slap on the back of the head were par for the course when Orlov got hot, and if a man got him particularly angry things might go far worse.
The men said Orlov’s father had done the same to him, with a hard “spare the rod, spoil the child,” attitude. Orlov made no bones about it, even bragged about it at times. “If my old man had found me doing something like that he would knock some sense into my thick head right off,” he would say. And then he would proceed to knock some sense into a junior midshipman just to illustrate the point. The men feared him more than they respected him. They jumped to order when Orlov growled, but there was no question that the Chief was disliked.
Orlov bullied and cowed every crewman on the ship, save one, the steely sergeant of the marine contingent, Kandemir Troyak, a Siberian Eskimo from the Chukchi peninsula. He was a short, broad shouldered man, very stocky, yet all muscle. When the Chief had first met the man he had tried to impose his will on Troyak as well, bawling out an order with a derisive tone, and berating a member of the marine rifle squad. The Sergeant had taken two quick steps, squaring off to the big Chief and staring him right in the eye. “Sir,” Troyak had hissed out in his low, threatening voice. “Discipline of the marine contingent is the responsibility of the Sergeant Major.” He was so close to the chief that Orlov instinctively took a step back. Troyak was, in fact, the Sergeant Major, and he was letting the Chief know that he would not tolerate his usual brash and strong armed methods where his men were concerned.
“Well, see that it gets done then!” Orlov rejoined, his neck reddening, but the Sergeant simply stood his ground, unmoving, an implacable silence about him that left the Chief feeling most uncomfortable until he dismissed the matter, looking around him quickly to spot a Maintenance Warrant Officer and wave him down as he lugged a tool kit through a hatch.
“Hey, kuda namylilsja? Where are you going with those, you idiot?” Orlov used the incident as cover to extricate himself from the standoff with Troyak, and he never bothered the Sergeant again. When he saw seaman Martok had turned his head from a work bench, noticing the confrontation, he cuffed him hard on the right ear and told him to keep his nose in his work or he would get worse. This was Orlov, a big, brooding, intolerant presence on the ship, quick to lord it over any man junior in the ranks, yet oddly quiet and deferring around senior officers.
Karpov had seen an able confederate in the man, and often foisted off the unpleasant matters of the ship’s discipline on Orlov. So it was no surprise when he handed the Chief Nikolin’s iPod with a disapproving look on his face. “Mister Nikolin can’t hear anything on his radio. Perhaps he is deaf listening to his rock and roll.”
Orlov responded with a sneering smile, and slipped the iPod into his pocket, giving the Communications Officer a hard-faced look.
The Admiral noticed the incident, but overlooked it for the moment, his thoughts elsewhere where he sat in the command chair. The gray ice fog seemed to close in around the ship, isolating it, smothering it, choking off air and life. Leonid Volsky struggled to clear his mind and come to grips with the situation, and soon the claustrophobic feeling he had, drifting slowly forward through the frozen mist, his ship almost blind and deaf, prompted him to act.
“If you gentlemen can keep your heads about you,” he said to his two senior officers, “I’m going to see the doctor. My head is killing me!” He slid off his command chair, and shuffled past Orlov, tapping his pocket. “I’ll take that,” he said quietly, and the chief handed him Nikolin’s iPod. “Let the matter go, Chief,” said Volsky. “The men are a little bewildered at the moment.” He would make it a point to return the device to Nikolin later.
“Very well, sir,” said Orlov, and the Admiral was piped off the bridge as he went below.
Karpov gave Orlov a knowing glance. “Gone to see the wizard,” he said. He was referring to the ship’s chief medical officer, Dmitri Zolkin, a big, warm hearted and amiable man, well suited to his role as physician and psychiatrist aboard Kirov. He was a healer in every respect, and one who knew a man’s psychological health had everything to do with the condition of his body. His remedies were many and varied, and sometimes would include along quiet talk over a cold beer, which might do more to set a man straight than anything he could inject with a needle or force down his throat with a pill.
Zolkin could take a man’s soul right inside him through the portals of those open brown eyes, and give it back to him in the warmest smile anyone had ever seen beneath his ruddy red cheeks. The ship’s crew loved him, and the officers thought of him as a big brother in whom they could confide their deepest troubles. Like a great father confessor priest, he held them all in the palm of his hand, keeping every confidence and dispensing as much wisdom as he did medication from the ship’s infirmary where he held forth with the official ship’s mascot, the gentle green tabby, Gretchko the cat.
When the Admiral arrived at the sick bay two crew members were just leaving the doctor's office, their heads lightly bandaged where they had apparently sustained minor injuries from the blast wave that had recently shaken the ship. They stiffened to attention, saluting the Admiral as he went through the door, then rushed back to their posts, casting a wary glance over their shoulders and wondering what was happening. They had experienced the concussion of the explosion, seen the odd effects in the ocean and sky around them, and although they still stood at action stations, no order to continue the exercises had been forthcoming.
“Leonid,” said the doctor. He had been on a first name basis with the Admiral for years now, ever since they met and became good friends at the naval college, over twenty years ago. Zolkin smiled, his eyes alight, drying his
