“The people? Didn't deserve this? My friend, do you know who founded the Gestapo? Me. I did. It was my creation. I made it out of the Prussian criminal police. We had an informer on every block, in every shop, in every office in every factory. Every time somebody farted we heard about it. Do you know how many protested? None. When the police came for the communists then the Jews then the trades unionists and then the Slavs, do you know how many raised their voices? None. Do you know who knew what was happening to those who were arrested? Everybody. Do you know how many tried to warn them or to help them? Almost none. Do you know how many planned coups there have been? “None. Do you know how many plots there have been to assassinate the Fuhrer? None.”
Munich, Nurnburg, Hannover, Augsburg, Wurtzburg, Ingolstadt, Furth, Erlangen.
Reports of eight explosions over Munich. One of the women gasped and vomited on the floor. First time that had happened. She left her desk, spoke to a guard and stepped out of the center with his pistol. A second later a single pistol shot cracked. The guard went out and came back, reholstering his P38. “The Fuhrer, where is he?” This time Herrick managed the question consciously.
“He is in Berlin. Refusing to believe any of this is happening. Believes the attack has been defeated. Refuses to go to the bunker for cover. I do not propose to tell him the defense system on which we spent billions failed to stop this attack, do you? I thought not. But do not concern yourself, the Fuhrer is not seeing the same reality as the rest of us. He has not done that for a long time now. He was hearing voices years before the invention of the radio. You look shocked? What can he do to us now? Kill us? I think the Americans are about to do that for him. If you wish to shoot yourself now, you may borrow my pistol. It is a very fine one''
Leipzig, Chemnitz, Halle, Lubeck, Rostock, Regensburg, Schwerin, Dessau, Dresden.
The tide was reaching Berlin now. The radars had gone now, communications were falling apart. What word they could get was that most of the American bombers had turned and were retreating to the west. The plot still showed a formation of nine aircraft heading straight for the capital. Herrick had one card left to play, his Ju-635s. If they could stop that formation, they would at least save the capital. Not to mention his own life. It was down to his surviving four-engined freaks and the nine American bombers.
Flight Deck B-36H “Texan Lady”, 52,500 feet over Brandenburg Province Germany.
Getting there was an anti-climax. After almost 23 hours in the air, Texan Lady and her consorts had almost made it to Berlin. After the brief excitement with the Me-263s, the rest of the flight had been routine to the point of being boring. The RB-36s that had once been in front of them had already turned back and were exploring routes across Germany that avoided the dangers from the nuclear bursts that disfigured the countryside below them. Earlier, they had intercepted frantic scrambling on the radio nets but now, there was an eerie quiet. The next stage was for the formation to split up.
Colonel Dedmon's Texan Lady would lead Sixth Crew Member and Barbie Doll across the center of the city, dropping on Spandau, Charlottenburg, the Reich Chancellery and Lichtenburg. Colonel DC Montana's Raidin' Maiden would swing south leading Mardi Gras and Silver Angel to drop on Potsdam, Steiglitz, Tempelhof and Karlshorst. Finally, Colonel Norman Friedman would bring his Peace on Earth in on the northern route with Happy Hooker and Shady Lady to hit Hennigsdorf, Wittenau, Rosentahl and Blankenburg. The drops had been carefully planned, the Targeteer had shown Dedmon how the destruction patterns would interlock and reinforce each other to devastate the whole city. More importantly from Dedmon's point of view, their positioning and timing would mean the B-36s could get clear of the city before all hell -quite literally - broke loose.
If it worked right, the three formations would be on converging courses so they could form up the other side of Berlin for their return home. Another 22 hour flight. Dedmon hadn't decided whether to go straight home on the Great Circle route or divert via the Azores and tank up again there. Depended on his fuel status he supposed. Texan Lady had been running on all ten engines for nearly two hours now but her immense tankage still gave her a worthwhile fuel reserve.
“Sir, 16 contacts coming up from underneath us. Slow rate of climb consistent with manned jet or piston engined fighters. Not Wasserfall or the Me-263s. I'll have a look.” Texan Lady didn't have the superb optical equipment of an RB-36 but what she did have was good enough for her bombardier to be nick-named “The Argus”. A few second later there was a puzzled whistle from the nose compartment “Sir, I think the enemy have finally cracked. We appear to be under attack by flying abortions.”
“Clarify Argus, what's going on down there?”
“Sir, the fighters climbing towards us appear to have two fuselages joined together by a central wing. Each fuselage has two engines, one at the front, one at the back.”
Dedmon's eyebrows raised. “Major Pico, please go down to the nose compartment and search it thoroughly. I have reason to believe Argus has some bottles of alcoholic beverages hidden away. When you find them, confiscate them and bring them back up here.”
“Sir, it’s for real. They're climbing towards us. They can't make it all the way up, they seem to be breaking off at around 45,000 feet”
“The Germans do have a twin-engined fighter, the Pfeil, that has engines front and rear, and they have been experimenting with twin-fuselage aircraft. Perhaps this is something along those lines?”
“Sir, Bombardier here. One of the fighters is firing rockets. Dedmon looked down, black smoke was streaking away from the weird looking tighter underneath them, straight towards Texan Lady. OK, he knew the answer to this and banked the big bomber around. To his surprise, the rockets altered course to follow him,, climbing fast to eat up the gap between the fighter and the bomber. “Find that thing's control frequency and jam it Dirk, NOW.”
“No frequency to jam sir, we're not picking up anything. There's no control signal at all.”
“Damn it, something must be controlling them.” Dedmon was weaving Texan Lady, but the rockets still kept countering his turns. Around him, he could see the other bombers were also trying to evade the missiles. Then, they weren't closing any more. As he watched, they ran out of energy and stalled out, falling away. The weird German fighters were out of range, even using their steerable rockets. Dedmon sighed with relief.
“You know Andy, if the bad guys ever get those things working and on an aircraft that can get up here, we could be in real trouble, OK. Crews - all aircraft. Formations to split for bomb runs. Get ready for the runs over Berlin. Don't miss your target points, if you do, you'll have to do a rerun and that won't be healthy. Get ready for an intervalometer check.”
On Texan Lady the master command system gave out a bleep, setting the clocks in the aircraft - and more importantly to the 12 nuclear devices they were carrying to the same instant. Now, everything in the formations was running exactly synchronized. The speeds of the aircraft were calculated so the drops would be simultaneous for each of the four three-device salvoes. That would prevent them blowing each other up. It would take 200 seconds for the first device to fall from the B-36s altitude to initiation. By the time that happened, the last salvo would be on its way down and the bomber would be well clear of the blast.. Now, Raidin' Maiden and Peace on Earth were leading their sections away.