Kirov II: Cauldron Of Fire (Kirov Series) Read Online Free

you catch a glimpse of the fact that you are a man,
Karpov, and then perhaps you can begin to regain some sense of self-respect
again, and remorse over what you have done.”
    “For what?”
said Karpov dully. “So that I can look forward to swabbing the deck, and then
join the ranks as a common seaman with the hope of someday making rank again?
Don’t you see how stupidly pointless that all is to me now? I had my hand on
the throat of time itself and I let it slip from my grasp.” He made a fist as
he spoke now, his eyes hard and cold. “Don’t you understand what we could have
done with this ship?”
    “I am still
trying to understand what we did do,” Volsky said quickly. “You were
locked up in the brig when we made port at Halifax, and I had little mind to
deal with you then. The men needed me on the bridge—and thank God for Fedorov.
I had at least one other head I could count on in the midst of all this
insanity. Fedorov and Zolkin—yes, thank God for them both.”
    “You forget
Troyak,” said Karpov, an edge of sarcasm in his voice. “Without him I might
still be sitting in your chair up there, Admiral.” He tersely thumbed to the
unseen citadel of the bridge, somewhere above them on the upper decks.
    “That is
what it came to,” said Volsky. “You with your key and a finger on the trigger,
me with mine, and Troyak in the middle of it all. At least he knows what the
word duty means, yes? At least he had the good sense to discern a madman when
he saw one—for that’s what you were, Karpov—a madman. Do you have any idea how
many men you killed in these engagements you were so keen to fight? That is the
least of it…” The Admiral breathed heavily, and turned when he heard a quiet
knock on the door.
    “Come.” He
waited while the guard stepped into the room again, a bottle of Vodka and two
small shot glasses in hand. Volsky gestured to the table and the man placed
them there and then stood quietly by.
    “That will
be all. You may wait outside.”
    “Sir!” The
man saluted, and stepped crisply out through the hatch, closing it with a thud.
    Volsky eyed
the bottle and glasses, his gaze shifting to Karpov. Then he slowly reached for
the vodka, twisting off the cap and pouring them both a shot glass of the clear
liquor. He pushed the small glass across the table to Karpov, who gave it a
sidelong look as he did so.
    “Go ahead,”
he said. “It will do us both some good.”
    He raised
the shot glass to his lips and drank, exhaling with the sting of the liquor on
his throat, and with a certain satisfaction that only a Russian could really understand.
Karpov watched him drink, then sighed deeply and reached for the shot glass
himself. He downed it quickly, saying nothing. Volsky was silent as well, and
poured them both a second shot.
    Something in
that simple act of sharing a drink together changed the whole atmosphere of the
room. The two men sat in that small interval of silence, each lost in their own
inner muse for the moment, lost in their own toska , as the Russians
might say it, that sad inward-looking reflection tinged with melancholia and
the quiet ache of yearning.
    At length
Volsky spoke again, his voice softer, flatter, with no edge of recrimination.
“I understand what you did, Karpov. Though I cannot condone it, or even explain
it away, I at least understand. But that changes little here today. We have
sailed across the whole of the Atlantic because I thought to get the ship away
from those unfriendly waters as soon as possible, and perhaps away from the
shadow of guilt we all must shoulder equally after what we saw at Halifax. What
was it we did, I wonder? Fedorov thinks they thought we were Germans, and that the
war started too early for the Americans. He believes our use of atomic weapons
put such hot fear into the Allies that they moved heaven and earth to get the
bomb for themselves. Perhaps they succeeded and the war ended differently. We
do not know. Yet one thing we do know: