situation as it stands. The point is this: whether deliberate or not, this ship may return one day, or others like it, and we really don’t know what its purpose is. Until we do know, and to a certainty, we must take every possible precaution. Whether friend or foe, if the Soviet government of that future time ever does learn what happened to their ship, then we’ve another problem as well, because they will realize that this impossible notion of returning to the past is within their grasp, and that’s enough to tempt any man alive, Turing. That is real power.”
“I agree, sir, but what exactly are you suggesting we do about it?”
“A watch,” Tovey folded his arms. “We need a group of men in the know on this, men who can be trusted absolutely, competent men, and we need them to set a watch on every hour of every second of every day that passes from this moment on.”
Chapter 5
“I see…” Turing raised an eyebrow, thinking through the implications of what Tovey was now suggesting. “And what are they to watch for, sir?”
“Intruders, Turing. Visitors from this future time. I know, it’s maddening to think they’re even out there. Even speaking of it in these terms makes it seem as though the future is a tangible place where this ship can drop anchor as it pleases. Yet one thing is clear: if they can return to our time, we’ve certainly seen that they can also muck about and cause a good deal of trouble here, and they have to be stopped.”
“Is the government to be directing this effort, Admiral?”
Tovey looked at the desk, rubbing an itch on his long thin nose, his eyes alight with inner concern. “The government? Can you imagine the likes of Admiral Pound in on this notion we’ve been discussing? Can you even consider that the Prime Minister would give it a fair hearing? Something tells me that the less the government knows or hears about this, the happier it will be. But there are institutions within government that are a bit more flexible in their views.”
“MI6?” Turing jumped to the obvious conclusion.
“Well think on it, Turing. You had that Enigma code in your head for some time before you came out with the solution and turned it over to the government. Do you see what I mean here?”
“I do, sir. We often receive, analyze and discuss information here that never really comes to light anywhere else. Some of it plays out to hard intelligence and becomes actionable. That’s the lot we send over to Whitehall- over to the government, if you will. But I assure you, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. For every cypher we decode and send through there are ten more we’re tussling with, and another ten in the trash bin. Yes, we’ve broken the enemy’s code, but it’s not like reading a book. We get bits and pieces of things, and then we try to put together the best possible picture of what may be in the enemy’s mind. We go to the government with it only when we think we have some certainty in hand.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Tovey. “Yet consider their view of things-these men from Geronimo. It is like reading a book for them, They know everything that has happened from our time to theirs. Well, what we need now, Professor, is a group of sound minded and imaginative men like yourself to go over the bits and pieces on this matter and put the puzzle together. What we need is to know what is in the enemy’s mind, the mind of these men from tomorrow who so brazenly call upon us in ships of war. Yet more than that, we need watchful eyes. You see, if this ship or any other like it, should return, we’ll want to know about it.”
“I think we might bring Peter Twinn in on this. He’s been in the thick of it with the German Naval Enigma code, and now that Dilly Knox has been taken ill he’s assuming more responsibility at the Abwehr Enigma section.”
“You choose the men, Turing, but be very discrete about it. Secrecy is crucial in this matter. Obviously people are going to have to know something about it, but I don’t think we need to paint them the whole picture. It strains the bounds of credulity every time I think about it myself. There are a few hat bands over at Whitehall who have some interest in this Geronimo, but the way this war pushes one thing on to another, I don’t think they’ll press on the matter. In fact, you and I are the only two men alive at this moment who really have this thing by the scruff of the neck. Let’s keep it that way for the moment.”
“I understand what you say about Whitehall, Admiral. We’ve been rather busy here as well with all the signals and code traffic for this Operation Torch. The whole group has been on overtime, but I think I can bring a few men in on this, discretely, as you say. We can put good people to work on a given task without them knowing the aim, if that’s what you mean, sir. We do it all the time here.”
“Good. Now on another matter, that bit you put in my head about the men who might have died, and yet lived as a result of the actions taken by this ship… well it was quite disturbing. I don’t want to sound morbid, Professor, but we may want to consider what can be done about that as well.”
“I see… What can we do about it, sir?”
“We’ll have to put our minds to that. First off I should think we would want to know who these men are. It would be easy enough to put our finger of the lives lost as a result of this ship. I don’t think Repulse was fated to meet her end the way she did. The same can be said for any other man who died in engagements we’ve fought with Geronimo, particularly on the American side. I suppose we can only hope there were no Einsteins in the lot.”
“Right, sir. It would be easy enough to work up a list of the casualties, but we can’t do much more with it. I mean it’s not like we can bring any of them back from the dead.”
“Indeed, but what about the other side of that equation, Professor. What about men alive today that might have otherwise been killed?”
“How do we find them, Admiral? We can’t know the fate of every man alive. How could we possibly know who was fated to die?”
“We can’t, I suppose, but we can make some intelligent guesses. Isn’t that how you go about solving your code riddles? You get bits and pieces, as you say, and then come to assumptions and conclusions.”
“I’d love to say I could put a man’s fate on my perforated tape and code it all, Admiral, but that is a bit of a reach. Yet what you say does offer some promise. We do know a few things…Let’s start with the first point of divergence.”
“What’s that you say?”
“Point of divergence, sir. What is the first thing this ship could have done to upset the course of events in our time?”
“Well I suppose that would be Wake-Walker’s mission. He was going to hit the Germans with planes off Furious and Victorious on the North Cape of Norway, at Petsamo and Kirkenes. I’d like to think that the raid would have gone off without heavy losses, but I know better than that. We expected casualties, and a lot of them. Instead, the appearance of this ship sent Wake-Walker’s boys off on our wild goose chase. A great many men died from those air squadrons. The question is which ones might have also died if the raid on the North Cape had gone off as planned?”
“We can’t know that, sir, but what we could do is compile a list of all the men still alive from those squadrons and, well… We could keep an eye on them.”
“I see. Sounds rather tedious, and unsavory as well.”
“After that, we would have to put the crews of every man in any ship that participated in these events on the list. Then we would expand to included names of men slated for operations that we ourselves have cancelled as a result of this ship. Operation Jubilee immediately comes to mind, sir.”
“That will make one hell of a list, Turing. There were tens of thousands at sea in the hunt for this ship-most of Home Fleet, the whole of Force H in the Med as well. As for the cancelled Dieppe raid, we would have the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division, five commando units, over 230 ships and landing barges, and over seventy RAF squadrons on the list. We were going to lose men in that raid, unquestionably, but which ones?”
“That’ doesn’t matter, sir. The point is that there are obviously a good number alive in those units now that might not be breathing. I’ll say another thing about it. We had men in Number 30 commando assigned to a pinch mission there. They were out after one of the new four wheel Enigma boxes believed to be in Dieppe, and that never happened either.”
“Ah, yes, Fleming’s group. I had almost forgotten about that. I dare say that Fleming won’t have the bit
