“Stay still,” he said. The victim was shaking like a child who’d been hurt for the first time, tears dripping down his face as he kept rubbing his eyes. “Please, stay still.”
“I can’t see,” the man said. “I can’t see.”
“I know,” Herman said. He gritted his teeth, feeling suddenly out of his depth. He was a policeman, not a doctor. Normally, if someone was injured, he would call for help from the nearest hospital. But the nearest medics were too far away to do any good. “Keep your hands off your eyes unless you want to make it worse.”
He briefly considered securing the victim — for his own good — as the remainder of the squad assembled itself. Only one man had been blinded, thankfully, but several had been injured by flying debris. And there were other dangers. Herman had heard stories about men who’d been involved in cleaning up the Middle East, after four cities had been destroyed by nuclear blasts. They’d all had health problems in later life…
“There’s nothing on the radio, but static,” the radioman reported. “I can’t get in touch with anyone.”
Herman nodded. He knew very little about how an atomic bomb worked, but he had been given a fairly comprehensive briefing about their effects, back during his training. It would be days, perhaps weeks, before radio communication became reliable again. Until then, they would be out of touch with higher command. And there were other problems too…
“We hold position,” he ordered, finally. “And I need a volunteer to take a message to HQ.”
“Jesus Christ!”
Andrew stared in horror as the mushroom clouds took shape, unable to escape the feeling that he was looking at the end of the world. The nuclear genie had been allowed out of the bottle — once — and millions of people had died. Now, two more nuclear weapons had been detonated and… and he had no idea how many people might have been killed. Or sentenced to a long and lingering death. It was impossible to be sure, but it looked as though both weapons had detonated on the ground…
And that means fallout, he thought. Everyone in the vicinity is in deep shit.
Cold ice ran down his spine. He’d been briefed extensively on nuclear weapons when he’d taken up his post and he knew enough about them to worry. A groundburst would have sucked up plenty of debris, irradiated it as it passed through the blast, and then scattered the resulting dust in all directions. The soldiers on both sides would be in deep trouble. Even taking a breath could mean swallowing radioactive poison. And the population of Warsaw was — perhaps — in worse trouble. They might have to evacuate the entire city.
And I’m not safe here either, he told himself. His skin crawled, although he was fairly sure it was his imagination rather than floating radioactivity. I might be breathing in poison too.
He looked towards Generalmajor Gunter Gath. The German was barking orders into a radio, but the screech of static was enough to tell Andrew that the Heer had lost all control over the battle. Chances were the Waffen-SS would launch a counterattack in the chaos — they’d presumably expected the nuclear blasts, although neither MI6 nor the CIA had picked up on the preparations — and the Heer would have to fight, even in the midst of stunned disorientation.
Or they might have already broken the offensive, Andrew thought. It was hard to be sure, but it looked as though the devices had been positioned alarmingly close to the lead spearheads. God alone knew how many frontline combat soldiers — and panzers — had been caught in the blasts and vaporised. The Provisional Government’s grand offensive might have just failed.
He shuddered. It had been nearly thirty-five years since nuclear weapons had been used, since humanity had realised just how dangerously powerful their weapons had become. America had recoiled in horror from the thought of using nuclear weapons, even as it had built up the largest and most dangerous arsenal on the face of the planet. But the Reich had had a different view of nuclear weapons. They were just another tool to use when necessary…
…And they might just have been enough to save Germany East from a quick defeat.
He shuddered, again. Countless theorists had claimed that a nuclear deterrent rendered a country invulnerable. It was why Britain and India had worked so hard to build up their own nuclear arsenals. But nuclear weapons hadn’t been enough to stop the Falklands War, nor had they prevented the German people from rising up against their government. They clearly had their limits.
“Send runners to the advance elements,” Gath ordered, finally. He sounded bitterly frustrated. “Tell them to fall back to the western lines — the offensive is to be discontinued.”
Andrew wasn’t surprised. The Heer had been shattered by the blasts, even if the physical damage wasn’t as bad as Gath clearly feared. There was no point in pressing the offensive after the blasts, not until the soldiers had had a chance to regroup. And by then winter might have swept over the Reich.
And who knows what will happen, Andrew asked himself, if the offensive has to be delayed until spring.
He swallowed, hard. The entire world had just changed. If Holliston was mad enough to use nuclear weapons on his fellow Germans, there was no reason why he wouldn’t be able to use them on the United States. And he did have a number of ballistic missiles under his control, even if he didn’t have the launch codes. Given time, Andrew had been warned, a competent engineer would be able to bypass the security protocols… it was clear, now, that someone had already succeeded in unlocking and arming the tactical warheads. What would happen if Holliston decided to fire on America?
The President will have to ask that question, Andrew thought. And I’m glad I won’t have to come up with an answer.
Why the hell, Field Marshal Gunter Voss asked himself, didn’t I see that coming?
He stared down at the table, barely hearing the endless stream of reports flowing into his headquarters. Two entire divisions broken beyond repair; four more badly crippled… countless men killed, wounded or exposed to radioactive dust… it was disaster on an unthinkable scale. The Reich hadn’t suffered so badly since the Hundred Days, when British, American and French soldiers had crushed the might of Imperial Germany and brought the Second Reich to an inglorious end. Now…
I should have seen it coming, Gunter told himself. I knew how ruthless Holliston could be…
He didn’t need to look eastward to know that the mushroom clouds were still drifting in the sky. Holliston had been staggeringly ruthless. Countless stormtroopers would already have been exposed to radioactive dust, even if they kept retreating rather than rallying and trying to launch a counterattack. And the citizens of Warsaw, loyal to the SS even if they weren’t loyal to Holliston personally, would have been drenched in radioactivity. He dreaded to think just how many people might have been condemned to die in screaming agony over the months and years to come…