“Damn bitch,” someone growled. She gasped in pain as he kicked her in the side, hard, then turned her over. The pain was so agonising that she almost passed out. “Damn you…”
Marlene looked up into the face of one of the guards, a young man she recalled helping to write a letter to his girlfriend after their relationship had hit a nasty bump in the road. It had been easy to slip into the role of mother-substitute, to keep him from thinking of her as a potential threat. And it had worked. He wouldn’t be staring at her with so much hatred if he hadn’t been completely fooled.
She felt blood welling up in her mouth and choked. He made no move to help her, instead just staring down and drinking in the sight as she died. She wasn’t too surprised, she thought, as a dreadful numbness settled over her body. She’d betrayed them all, after all; she’d killed at least thirty men in her brief rampage and sowed the seeds of a distrust that would kill hundreds more.
Heil Holliston, she thought, as she fell into the darkness. And…
The observation post was hidden near the bridge, close enough to keep an eye on what crossed the river, far enough to pass unnoticed if – when – someone decided to search for watching eyes. Both of the soldiers assigned to the post were experienced woodsmen, capable of making sure that neither of them were detected, let alone caught. It wasn’t a job they enjoyed, but it was necessary. The defenders, after all, had known the bridges would be overwhelmed very quickly.
“There wasn’t even a fight,” Ott Wild muttered, as he watched the endless line of panzers crossing the bridge. “They overwhelmed the guards easily.”
“It’s been done before,” Einhart Pusch reminded him. He picked up the phone, knowing it would set off an alarm at the command post. “The guards weren’t expecting an attack from the west.”
Someone picked up the phone. “Report!”
“Bridge Seven has been overwhelmed,” Pusch said. They hadn’t been told who they were calling, let alone where he was. No matter how good they were, they had to admit that capture and interrogation was a realistic possibility. “The bridge remains intact. I say again, the bridge remains intact. The panzers are crossing now.”
“Understood,” the voice said. “How many?”
“At least fifty, so far,” Wild muttered.
“At least fifty, so far,” Pusch repeated. “I imagine it won’t be long before the regular troops start crossing too.”
“Remain in place,” the voice ordered, finally. “Continue to send reports as the situation develops.”
Pusch nodded, coldly, as the connection broke. He hadn’t expected anything else. If they were lucky, there would be some artillery pieces within range to shell the bridge, giving the SS a hot reception. But most of the heavy artillery was in Occupied France. Only a handful of weapons had been moved east before the war finally begun. They’d have to depend on the Luftwaffe.
“They’re sending troop transports across too now,” Wild commented. “And I can see engineers on the far bank. I think there’s some mobile SAM units too.”
“They’ll have pontoons thrown up very quickly,” Pusch agreed. The SS were bastards, but he had to admit they were good engineers. “And then they can double or triple the number of men advancing towards us.”
“And then we’re in trouble,” Wild finished. They’d served together long enough not to need formality. “Let’s hope the artillery or the air force gets up here before it’s too late.”
Chapter Thirteen
Berlin, Germany Prime
13 September 1985
“Sir, wake up,” a voice snapped. “It’s an air raid!”
Andrew snapped awake, one hand grabbing for the pistol he kept at his bedside before his mind quite caught up with what he’d been told. An air raid? It seemed absurd to think that anyone could strike at Berlin – he knew, all too well, just how tough ODIN’S EYE – the German Air Defence Network – was… but that had been before the uprising. Now, according to NORAD, ODIN’S EYE was in ruins. Half of the radar stations were in enemy hands and several more had been badly damaged by SS loyalists just after the provisional government took control.
“Crap,” he muttered, silently relieved he’d worn pyjamas. “What do we know?”
The marine – he didn’t look old enough to enter Camp Pendleton, let alone graduate – grabbed Andrew’s arm and hurried him down the corridor. “We received a FLASH warning from NORAD, sir,” he said. “Multiple missile launches were detected from Germany East. The preliminary analysis classed them as cruise missiles aimed at Berlin.”
Andrew sucked in his breath. The Germans claimed that their latest cruise missiles were hypersonic, designed to smash American carrier battlegroups, but he didn’t know anyone outside the Reich who actually believed them. Certainly, as far as he knew, neither American nor British intelligence had picked up any actual proof that the missiles were an order of magnitude faster than anything in America’s arsenal. But ‘merely’ supersonic cruise missiles would be entering Berlin airspace within a matter of minutes, even if they were fired from Germanica itself.
He cursed as they hurried down the stairs, joined rapidly by the handful of remaining embassy staffers and marines. It was unlikely the SS would deliberately target the American Embassy, but accidents happened. German cruise missiles were blunt weapons, designed more for terror than actual precision. A missile aimed at the Reichstag might well hit the American Embassy instead. Even American weapons, far better designed than anything Germany was supposed to have, weren’t completely reliable.
Ambassador Turtledove was sitting in the bunker, looking uncomfortable. He’d have been sent down the tube, Andrew reminded himself, instead of being forced to run down the stairs and into the bunker. He nodded to the ambassador, then calmed himself as the marines slammed the doors closed. In theory, the embassy bunker could stand off everything from a direct cruise missile strike to a nuclear blast, but in practice no one was entirely sure. It wasn’t comforting to realise, deep inside, that even if they did survive a nuclear strike, no one was likely to come help dig them out. The Germans above them would have too many other problems.
“Direct uplink established to NORAD,” a computer operator said. “They’ve updated the warning, sir; fifteen missiles will strike Berlin in seven minutes.”
Ambassador Turtledove met Andrew’s eyes. “They’re not nukes, are they?”
“I don’t think so,” Andrew said. Intercepting a cruise missile was difficult, even for the most advanced American systems. And they were expensive. The SS wouldn’t have wasted fifteen nuclear-tipped missiles on Berlin, not when one or two would be enough to inflict colossal damage on the city. “I think they’re probably conventional warheads.”
He kept the rest of the thought to himself. The Germans had a very well known chemical and biological weapons program. It was quite possible that one of those warheads had a chemical warhead, perhaps loaded with something nasty enough to kill half of Berlin. The SS would find such a solution appealing, he thought. They’d avoid the propaganda damage of destroying Berlin and, at the same time, exterminate thousands of rebels. They did have MOPP suits among the supplies in the bunker, he reminded himself, but some of the German weapons were supposed to be able to slip through protective garments. It struck him as unlikely, yet there was no way to know for sure…