He looked up as Gudrun stepped out of the shower, already wearing her bra and panties, then poured the coffee as she finished dressing. Gudrun had had a set of trousers altered to fit her, making her look surprisingly masculine despite her hourglass figure. Horst wasn’t sure if it encouraged the other councillors to take her seriously or not – she hadn’t sliced off her long hair – but he had to admit the outfit suited her. She definitely looked like someone who should be taken seriously.
“This is good coffee,” Gudrun said, as she took a sip. “Where does it come from?”
Horst shrugged. “It tastes a bit thin to me,” he said. The coffee he’d drunk in Germany East had been a great deal stronger, blacker than Karl Holliston’s soul. “It probably comes from France.”
Gudrun blinked. “The French grow coffee?”
“I have no idea,” Horst admitted.
He contemplated the problem for a long moment. The Reich grew coffee in Germany Arabia, if he recalled correctly, but the real coffee connoisseurs spent hundreds of Reichmarks on imported coffee from South America. Argentina had even tried to flood the market after the country had been defeated in the Falklands War. Maybe they’d sold it to the French who then skirted import/export restrictions by selling it onwards to Germany. And somehow he wasn’t too surprised that the bunker had good coffee, at least by Germany Prime’s standards.
There’s probably a wine cellar somewhere below us too, he thought, darkly. And I’d bet good money that the staff don’t get to drink either the wine or the good coffee.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, instead. “All that matters is surviving the next few weeks.”
He rose, leaving her to eat the pastries as he showered. They hadn’t had the time to bring spare clothes down into the bunker, but one of the wardrobes held a selection of basic clothing in various sizes. It didn’t take him long to find something suitable, even if it clearly had been designed for someone with a paunch. He made a mental note to bring more clothes down into the bunker, if they stayed where they were, then headed back to Gudrun. She’d wiped her hands and was now eying the clock nervously.
She glanced at him as they opened the door. “Is it wrong of me to be nervous?”
“Only a complete fool isn’t scared,” Horst said. His instructors had taught him that everyone – almost everyone – felt fear. It was how they coped with it, they’d warned, that determined what sort of man they were. But then, after weeks of running through hazardous death traps pretending to be tactical exercises, it was hard to feel fear in actual combat. “But you’re not on the front lines.”
Gudrun looked down, her face briefly stricken. Horst felt a stab of guilt – Gudrun’s brother was on the front lines – and pushed it aside, savagely. She was at a loose end; she needed to find a purpose, now that the war had begun. And he had no intention of letting her fall back into bad old habits, after all she’d already done.
“There’s nothing you can do about the danger,” he added, after a moment. He had no idea just how many cruise missiles had been stationed in Germany East, but Holliston had quite a few bombers at his disposal. It wouldn’t be long before they started hitting Berlin, unless the Luftwaffe kept them back. “All you can do is carry on as best as possible.”
“Thanks,” Gudrun said, dryly.
Horst smiled. “You’re welcome.”
Chapter Sixteen
Near Warsaw, Germany Prime
13 September 1985
“The enemy have managed a handful of successful air attacks,” Sturmbannfuehrer Friedemann Weineck reported. “They didn’t manage to take out any of the main bridges, but a number of pontoons have been smashed.”
“Then get them repaired,” Oberstgruppenfuehrer Alfred Ruengeler snarled. “They’re designed to be repaired quickly.”
He scowled. The commandos had done good work, but they hadn’t taken out every aircraft and some of those pilots were good, damned good. He was reluctant to admit it, yet it could not be denied that a couple of the HE-477 pilots were very definitely just as good as some of their SS CAS counterparts. They’d taken losses, of course – four aircraft had been shot out of the sky, one managing to slam into a pontoon bridge as it crashed – but they’d definitely slowed up the advance.
Not that I expected any differently, he reminded himself. I planned on the assumption that there would be many more delays.
The traitors were playing it smart, he had to admit. They weren’t trying to stand and fight, even when they seemed to hold a local advantage; they were slipping into range, landing a couple of blows and then darting backwards to escape retaliation. It was costing him more time than anything else, but the more time he lost the longer it would be before he could reach Berlin. By now, the traitor government had to know the war had begun.
We dropped cruise missiles into Berlin, he thought, sardonically. They’d have to be very stupid not to know the war has begun.
“The gunners are reporting that enemy fire is continuing, but only on a sporadic level,” Weineck stated. “They’re trying hard to suppress enemy fire.”
“Good,” Alfred growled. He eyed the red telephone darkly, expecting it to ring at any moment. The Fuhrer would want an update soon, he was sure. “And the forward units?”
“Moving forward carefully,” Weineck informed him. “The coordinators are moving the second-line units forward now.”
“Remind them to move additional AA units to the bridges,” Alfred said. He’d earmarked those units for supporting the advance – he knew, all too well, that the Luftwaffe had several tactical advantages – but he’d underestimated their ability to threaten the bridges. “I don’t want a single aircraft to get through our fire.”
“Jawohl,” Weineck said.
Alfred sat back, trying to relax. His junior officers knew what they were doing, he told himself firmly. They were all experienced men, blooded in South Africa and the constant low-level war against the Slavs. They’d see whatever opportunities existed and take advantage of them, he knew. And yet, he wanted to watch through their eyes as they continued the advance. He needed to know what they were seeing.
And they don’t need you looking over their shoulder, he reminded himself. Micromanaging would only make their task harder. They’ll do the job. You can count on it.
The red phone rang. Alfred bit down a comment that would probably be reported, if he said it out loud, and reached for the phone. It was time to give his report. He just hoped the Führer was prepared to listen.
Obersturmfuehrer Hennecke Schwerk was tense, very tense, as he led his platoon down the road. The Hauptsturmfuehrer who had been in command had already been killed by a prowling aircraft, his vehicle targeted and blown into flaming ruins before he’d even known he was under attack. Hennecke had assumed command at once, as his training had dictated, but he couldn’t help feeling as though he was badly unprepared for the task. This was not Germany East or South Africa. This was Germany Prime…