Kesselring scowled. One Eurofighter – at least they thought it was a Eurofighter – had come down in France. Before the local commandant had realised what he had on his hands, the British had sent three helicopters in to rescue the pilot. A second craft had crashed in Germany… and the citizens had lynched the pilot.
“I suppose that we’ll have some more success with the new radar-guided guns,” he said. Speer had worked wonders producing more and more radar sets… and linking them to guns had taken only a week once the idea had been suggested. It was crude and difficult, but it worked, roughly. Even shooting at an approximate location could be fatal for the pilot of the British craft, flying through a stream of shells armed with proximity fuses.
Galland nodded. “The handful of ME-269s we have are quite useful,” he said. “They’re not matches for the British jets, not by any measure, but they have some advantages of their own. Of course, once we proceed to the ME-300, we should have planes that will be only slightly inferior to the British jets at close quarters, and they should still be more manoeuvrable than the Eurofighters. The downside is that they will still lack guided rockets of their own.”
“The ground-attack rockets cannot be adapted for the task?” Kesselring asked.
“No… seeker heads,” Galland said. He spoke in English; there were technical terms that German hadn’t yet developed. “Their rockets are guided by radar, or by heat sources,” he said. “We’re giving a lot of thought to a plane that can’t be detected by radar, but that’s years away at best. One… ah, problem with the ME-300 is that its hotter than a ME-109 by far, so…”
“It will be a better target,” Roth said, just to show that he understood.
Galland smiled wryly. “I fear so,” he said. “Of course, we also have some idea of how they counter their own weapons, and some of the methods we can install ourselves. We had some successes with flares during the battles over England, and we can now track their radar stations.”
Roth smiled. One of his successes, one of the reasons that Himmler thought highly of him, was that he had managed to smuggle some advanced technology from America to Mexico to Portugal to Germany. Not enough to tip the balance in their favour, but one of the commercial-grade sensor arrays, designed for a fishing boat, could track enemy radars.
“We have stockpiled a lot of V1s,” he said. “I assume that they’ll be deployed as part of the operations in the Middle East?”
Kesselring nodded. It had taken nearly a month to get everything set up – and thank god for the warning about enigma. Using landlines through Russia was a security nightmare – and likely to become worse if Hitler actually launched an invasion of Russia – but if they’d transmitted the signals it would have been known to the British within minutes. As it was, conveying plans for a coordinated offensive had been difficult beyond belief.
“They’re going to be mass-fired at the radar and RAF bases,” Kesselring said. He shook his head. “Who would have thought that the British would have only a handful of genuine fast-jet bases?”
“Certainly not the Luffwaffe,” Roth teased dryly. The Luffwaffe had flung away resources on attacking airfields that no longer existed.
“Meanwhile, we hit them everywhere again,” Kesselring said. “Their weapons are superb, but we have to destroy their army before they manage to create a bigger army.”
Roth nodded grimly. One thing his source couldn’t tell him was how well the British were doing at rebuilding their army. American production was rising, despite all the labour unrest in the country, but exact British figures were hazy. Of course, if the British chose to raise regiments from India, they could do it by the bucket load.
“I don’t like this,” he admitted. “I’m not a strategist, but aren’t we spreading ourselves too thin, particularly with…”
His voice trailed off. “Not at all,” Kesselring said. “The majority of the effort in the Middle East will be conducted by our noble allies the workers and peasants of Russia,” he said. “In the Far East, of course, all of the burden will be on the Japanese. By contrast, our own efforts in that theatre will be modest, and concentrated on Suez. The only real gamble is the… special operation, and we can afford to write that off if necessary.”
Roth nodded. “I hope you’re right,” he said.
Deeper within the bunker complex, Heinrich Himmler met with one of his most trusted officers. SS Obergruppenfuehrer Hans Krueger, a short bespectacled officer, wasn’t the iron-skinned officer of Himmler’s dreams, but his skill at organising the SS departments was second to none. He possessed the rare gift of convincing everyone to work together for a greater good – without force or threats. It was necessary for dealing with nuclear scientists, who were temperamental and immune to threats. Genius, even Jewish genius, had to be nurtured, not crushed under a jackboot.
“Heil Hitler,” Krueger snapped, saluting. Himmler returned the salute with a genuine smile; Krueger was someone he respected as well as trusted. “I come as ordered!”
Himmler smiled. Krueger’s only flaw was a tendency to overact. “Heil,” he snapped back. “Have a seat,” he continued in a more normal voice. “I need a full report on the project for the Fuhrer.”
Krueger bowed, and then took his seat. “It proceeds,” he said. “The new source of information is a wonder, Herr Reichsführer, but we have to make almost all of the equipment for the Kern project from new. Fortunately, we have some sources of uranium, and we hope to have a prototype reactor in six months. That reactor will be built at Plosti.”
Himmler nodded. One incidental effect of the British nuclear strike, which had confirmed even to Hitler that the weapon worked, was that the former oil refinery was contaminated with radiation. The SS’s researchers had been delighted to have a chance to examine the effects of the radiation on the workers who were slowly, carefully, clearing away the radioactive topsoil and dumping it into the Black Sea.
“If we have a leak, hopefully the British will mistake it for a leak from their own bomb,” Krueger said. “We lack enough data to be certain, and of course we’re breaking the project into a series of steps to avoid exposing the scientists, the Aryan ones at least, to radiation.”
Himmler steepled his fingers. “Excellent,” he said. “Tell me; when is the earliest that we’d have a bomb for ourselves?”
Krueger hesitated. “It depends,” he said honestly. “Now that we have a very good idea of what we’re doing, the problem becomes one of engineering and refining the material. We might be able to have one as early as next year, and then we can ramp up production. However, there is a possible interim solution.”
He told Himmler. Himmler smiled. “This is possible?” He asked. “It can be done?”
“Yes,” Krueger assured him. “We can make one of those weapons without a serious problem.”
Himmler nodded. “Then I want you to have one of them ready as soon as possible,” he said. His mind raced ahead, considering the history of the future. “Yes,” he said. “It might just be helpful, I think.”
Chapter Thirteen: Skulduggery At High Noon
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