also found a way into the past at Ilanskiy was a great shock, another fallen angel that was soon rising to challenge him.
When he realized Volkov could not ever be trusted, he decided he had to be destroyed. Yes, there were many demons in hell, but only one Lucifer—only one could rule, and Karpov was determined to be that man. After learning he could find and destroy Volkov in the future, before he ever set foot down those stairs, he had the heady feeling that he was again the master of all fate and time, and the deciding factor in all these events.
I spared Volkov’s life when I could have easily sent Tyrenkov up those stairs with a sub-machinegun squad to finish him, because that was too uncertain an outcome. I could not be sure what his death in the future would do to this time, this world so blighted by his shadow. And another thing—I wanted to do the killing myself. I wanted to show Volkov that I could beat him, man to man, in spite of the fact that his fleet was three times the size of my own.
Now he knows that, and soon he will know even more. I’m going to raise divisions from the Urals to Lake Baikal. Soon all of Siberia will be sending me its sons, men so hardened to the winter that is now befalling the world that they will surely prevail when we join this fight. Yes, soon all of Siberia goes to war, and our first order of business will be Ivan Volkov and his little Orenburg Federation.
We’ll muster at Perm, then come down to the upper Volga to join Kirov’s troops there. I can move on Ufa, and once I get a good bridgehead there, it will cut off all the troops Volkov has on the upper Volga bend. He’ll have to fall back, and he’ll be lucky to keep his industrial city at Almetyevsk when he does so. Interesting that he placed a refinery there, just as in our day. That city was not even built until the 1950s. No matter, he won’t be able to hold it, and the line will settle between Ufa, that city, and Volkov’s big Volga stronghold of Samara. That will be the real prize. Once Kirov takes that, then he can move east towards Uralsk to make a strong attack aimed right at Orenburg, Volkov’s precious capital. For my part, I’ll command the northern pincer, and drive on that city after I take Ufa on the river.
He could see it all now, the movement of troops and the tanks Sergei Kirov would give him in the bargain he set out to negotiate. I’ll offer Kirov fifty divisions, and all the resources of Siberia if he needs them. In return, he’ll give me tanks, artillery, aircraft from his factories, and I’ll use them all to destroy Ivan Volkov.
He could see it all now, feel that it was coming, that it was all inevitable. He would re-write the entire history of WWII with his campaigns in the east, striking down the Kazakh traitors and re-conquering all that territory for Mother Russia. He would do this as Kirov’s ally, and yet, behind this, he knew he had the power to remove that man as well, and eventually seize control of the entire Soviet State.
Yes, he thought, Kirov already knows I have that power. He obviously went up and down those stairs as well. That is always my Ace in the hole, for he can’t get anywhere near Ilanskiy unless I allow it, and of course I never will. No. He’ll simply have to take my bargain, arms and equipment for my manpower and the strategic ground I now control. Then, once he has armed my forces, there will be little he can do by force to change my control over Ilanskiy. As long as I have that, and this airship, of which he knows nothing at all, I’ll still be the master of time.
All these thoughts should have bolstered him, but why did he still have the uncomfortable feeling that he was dangling by the barest thread here?
Then it happened.
Lightning rippled through the sky, and he heard a strange sound, deep, hungry, searching, like a pack of wolves on the taiga hunting for prey—hunting for him, hungry for his very being. Something wanted him, reached for him, sought his life.
“Not yet…” the words slipped from his mouth, quavering on the still air. “No, not yet, it