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you. Well understand this: Volkov isn’t going to get away with his little plan!” He held up the slim book that Tyrenkov had fetched from that other world. “Nor is this man Rudkin going to feast on my bones for his little fiction here. No! This is personal now. Get down to the bridge. Tell Bogrov to collect the ground crews and make the ship ready for operations. It looks grey out there, and I want the latest weather report on my ready room desk in ten minutes.”
    Tyrenkov had a head full of questions, but an inner instinct, and his own devious intelligence, told him this was not the time to ask any of them. This was the time to simply salute, stride away, and carry out Karpov’s order, which is exactly what he did. It was time to recede, get back in the shadows, observe, wait, think. He saluted and was off to the bridge leaving the Admiral alone.
    Karpov watched him go, satisfied. That was the quickstep I want to see in Tyrenkov, the unhesitating gait of compliance. I pull the trigger, he fires. I’ve used him to be the bullet of my intentions many times before, but this time things will be different. This time it was personal.
    And so, my old nemesis here is going to soon get a nice little surprise. My plan may not work. I may be doomed to fail, and remain lost in time here, as this Rudkin has it. But by god, I’ll raise hell before that happens.
    He sat down by the fire with his book, opening it again to begin reading it more carefully. Half way through the prologue he realized that the author wasn’t going to give him any more than a passing mention… Vladimir Karpov, was dead and gone from this world, and the fleet he had built was doomed without him … That was all he would get, a single line in the entire book! All the rest was Volkov’s. That ass would bask in the limelight of his treacherous little victory here, the “Battle of Ilanskiy,” as Rudkin came to call it.
    Well I have news for Rudkin, and news for Volkov, and news for the entire world. Damn them all, I’m going back! I’m going to take Tunguska up into the darkening skies and head for the biggest goddamned thunder storm I can find. I’m going to sail head first into bedlam and chaos, but one way or another I’m going back, if Time will have me, and I’m going to settle the matter myself. Vengeance, after all, was a very personal thing.
    That was something Karpov knew very well.
     

 
    Chapter 3
     
    Karpov thought, and as he did so he had the satisfaction of knowing his instincts had been correct. The heat of his emotions had led him to this sudden change, but now his mind began to find reasons and justifications, walling off his choice to protect it from any threats. It all seemed so easy. Just send Tyrenkov and his men up those stairs and put an end to Volkov once and for all. But the more he thought, the more he came to see that his own personal time line, his own fate, might be irrevocably entwined with that of Volkov now.
    After all, he thought, why am I even here? I was on my way to London, my second stop in a little diplomatic tour that began when I paid that visit to Sergei Kirov. And why was I there? To forge an alliance that would strengthen my position against Volkov. So the very fact that I find myself here depends on Volkov and his treachery. Otherwise, I might be doing something else entirely.
    So if I eliminate Volkov in 2021, how would Time account for my presence here? Am I safe, invulnerable to the sweeping changes Volkov’s death would cause? Perhaps here, in these years, I would be immune, but what would happen to me if I did manage to return to the 1940s? I came to Siberia and slowly rose to the top of the power structure there in that distant breakaway republic. There would never even be a Free Siberian State this time! So who would I be there? Would anyone recognize me, or acknowledge my authority? The position I built for myself there all depends on Volkov. Would it mean I could not enter that era again? Would