“Wonderful,” King said. “Some rich men, an army, a lot of supporters in high places… and they’ll tear the country apart if we let them. Suggestions?”
“Assassination?” Palter suggested. “We’re Marines; we’re far more capable than any of Hoover’s guards.”
“He has massive protection,” King said. “The real problem is if Hoover falls, someone else might take his place in the plot. Tolson perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” Palter said. “I hate to suggest it, but could we not ask Ambassador Quinn for help?”
“The British?” King asked, who had considered that. “No, Scott; this has to be an internal American affair.”
Palter sniggered. “You did ask Oliver for help,” he pointed out.
“We’re going to need his help,” King said. “I have a plan.” He outlined it. “What do you think?”
“It could go badly wrong,” Palter said. “It’s not like we could put our own forces in the White House. Coming to think of it, where else are they going to seize?”
“Radio stations, the various departments… and here,” King said. “The priority, however, remains the White House… and the President. We have to move some of our forces to Washington.”
Palter snorted. “And where are we going to hide them?”
“Here and in Oliver’s warehouses,” King said. “We must plan for an attack here, and we have to hold out until our own forces can go into action.”
“Assuming we can get them here in time without being noticed,” Palter said. He thought rapidly. “We can do it, I think; we’ll certainly have an advantage in coordination if nothing else.”
King nodded. “And we have to convince Truman,” he said. “If we knew the exact date, we could arrange for him to come here, but we don’t…”
“Oliver can try to find out,” Palter said. He studied the map of Washington. “If we warn Truman ahead of time, we can get him here, or to the British Embassy.”
“They might attack the British Embassy,” King said, thinking of the western embassies in the third world that had been attacked without retaliation. “Here would be safer, don’t you think?”
Palter nodded. “I’ll contact him,” he said. “He’s on one of the committees I have to brief on a fairly regular basis, yet another attempt to invent the space shuttle before the jet engine. Once we let him know that it might happen, he might agree to go into hiding in Washington, if not come here for a week or so.” He grinned. “If he does come here, they’ll be sure to come for us.”
King scowled. “There are some other preparations we’ll have to make,” he said. “Oliver can help with some of them, so I’ll give him a call. Until then, you get Truman alerted, and then perhaps we can head this madness off at the passes.”
“Yes, sir,” Palter said. “Are you going to call Jones as well?”
“I suppose I better had,” King said. “If this is to work, he’s going to be needed.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight: No Surrender, No Retreat
Oslo, Norway
22nd June 1941
The end could not be long delayed.
General der Infanterie Hermann Hoth, commander of Army Korps Norway, studied the defensive positions and scowled to himself. His face, always pale, paled further; the Americans were pushing closer and closer to Oslo – and to the final German forces in the mainland. The Fuhrer had promised that some reinforcements would be sent via Sweden, but Hoth had no faith in them. The Swedes might be Aryans, but they disliked the Germans and hated the infringements on their neutrality.
Bastards, Hoth thought, as he studied the map. Oslo had been carefully prepared for a last stand, in accordance with the Fuhrer’s orders, but he knew that it wouldn’t be able to hold for long. Thirty thousand Germans had dug themselves into the city, along with countless Norwegians who dared not be taken by the resistance, and he knew that they were all doomed. The most optimistic estimate said that fifty thousand American troops were pressing in to surround them… and the cursed British bombing was continuing all the time.
He stared as a building, which had mounted some anti-aircraft guns, was blown apart. He’d considered using human shields, but the single message from the British had been clear; any German who tried that would not be treated under the Geneva Convention, but shot out of hand. They’d dropped leaflets to explain this to any Germans who wanted to try the tactic. Hoth scowled; he hadn’t wanted to even consider it, but there seemed to be fewer and fewer options all the time.
“Herr General, the American battleship is retreating,” his aide said. Hoth nodded, wishing that it were as good news as his aide made it sound. The Americans had been attempting to sail a battleship up the fjord, but after a long duel with the coast guns it had retreated. A series of explosions marked the death of some of the coast guns, killed by the British bomber, which was orbiting high above, far out of range of his anti-aircraft weapons.
“Have the Americans begun their advance yet?” Hoth asked. The noise of distant shelling grew louder. “Well?”
“Ja, Herr General,” his aide said. “They’ve started to press against the east defences.”
Hoth nodded. He’d expected that. “It won’t be long now,” he said. The aide, a devotee of Hitler, gaped at him. Hoth almost laughed. “Do you really think that we can win here?”
“We fight for the Fuhrer and for Germany,” his aide said stiffly.
“We fight to buy time,” Hoth corrected. Another explosion echoed, closer to the two men. “We fight to ensure that the wonder weapons can be used before the Americans get to Norway, to France… and to Berlin.”
His aide sagged. “Then all is lost?”
“We will be lost,” Hoth said. He allowed no trace of bitterness to cloud his thoughts. “The Reich goes on.”
The scream of jet engines echoed through the mountains and valleys as Captain Dwynn peered down at Oslo though his helmet sensors. The hills were alive with Americans moving their ponderous forces into position for the final offensive, with row after row of guns being prepared for shelling the city.
Dwynn scowled as the laser designator began reporting new targets. The SAS was operating more and more in the open now, as American control was consolidated, and he wasn’t certain that he liked it. Unlike the battles across Central Asia, the Germans were cunning, clever and far more disciplined. If they’d had the same technology as the Allies, Dwynn wasn’t certain what the outcome would have been.
A mammoth explosion blasted up from the outskirts of the city, on one of the German defence lines. The designator was providing targets to the massive bomber, systematically hammering away at the Germans, while Dwynn himself could only wait and watch.
“Captain?” Chang asked. For the first time, he wasn’t wearing what Plummer had snidely referred to as the Norwegian burka, a balaclava that covered his oriental features. “Are you ok?”
“No, I’m not ok,” Dwynn snapped. “Look; they don’t stand a chance, and yet we’re wasting precious weapons on them.”
“I imagine that PJHQ knows what it’s doing,” Chang said. Dwynn snorted. “It beats watching the Americans level the town, along with every citizen inside.”
“At least the Germans finally got the message about human shields,” Dwynn said grimly. The entire affair with the SS man had left a bad taste in his mouth. “There are reasons for the Protocols, you know.”