A problem for my successor, he thought, dismissing the issue. Right now, we need to contain the problem.
“Assemble a collection of medicines and protective gear,” he said. “We’ll have to talk directly to Berlin.”
“They may wish to retaliate,” CIA warned. “Berlin does have atomic bombs too.”
“They will retaliate,” NSA said. “But against what?”
“They can decide that for themselves,” John said. He doubted there was anything the US could offer to dissuade Berlin from retaliating. “But we do need to find a way to cripple the Germanica Government.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” CIA said. “However, our options are very limited.”
“Short of nuking them and hoping they can’t retaliate,” the Chairman said. He gave CIA a challenging look. “I take it there’s no reasonable hope of a covert operation?”
CIA reddened. “We never had very good sources in the east,” he said. “Even before the civil war, Germany East always had much higher levels of security than Germany Prime. I don’t think we can reasonably hope to do much of anything, Mr. President.”
“Of course,” the Chairman said.
John held up a hand. The constant rivalry between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA served a purpose, but right now it was a distraction. And a distraction was the last thing he needed.
“So we try to talk to Berlin,” he said. “And otherwise… there’s nothing we can do without an unacceptable level of risk? Does that sound accurate?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” the Chairman said.
John scowled. “From a military point of view, what is likely to happen now?”
“I can’t see the offensive being resumed until spring at the very earliest,” the Chairman said, after a moment. “They’ll need time to recover, time to decontaminate, time to rejuvenate and rebuild their forces. Winter is coming, after all. And that will give the SS time to rejuvenate its own forces.”
“If it can,” CIA said. “There are plenty of question marks over their industrial capability.”
John sighed. He’d seen the projections — really, he’d seen too many projections. One set of analysts claimed that Germany East was well on its way to overtaking Germany Prime as the Reich’s industrial heartland; a second, rather more pessimistically, had concluded that Germany East was likely to lose most of its industrial base if the civil war ground on for several more months. But none of them could be taken for granted. Too much about Germany East remained a mystery.
Even to the Germans themselves, John thought. The US Government was bloated and had a tendency towards stupidity, but the Third Reich far outdid it on both counts. Their right hand didn’t always know what the left was doing.
“It has nukes,” he said, tiredly. “And they might be enough to tip the balance in its favour once and for all.”
Without false modesty, Prime Minister Margaret Hilda Thatcher knew she was an unusual woman. She’d actually been told, more than once, that she wasn’t a woman, a charge hurled at her by Labour backbenchers who suspected she was letting down her gender during her term in office. But she was a woman and she took a certain pride in being the first female Head of Government in the modern world. And if the Nazis didn’t take her seriously — and some of the backbenchers doubted her — she didn’t care. Britain wasn’t Nazi Germany — it had made her laugh when she found out that it had been a young girl who had founded the protest movement — but any woman in high office needed to be tougher than the men.
And she was tough, Margaret knew. She’d fought and won the Falklands War over the advice of some of her cabinet members, members who had been moved on shortly after that conflict had come to its bloody end; she’d taken on the might of the unions and crushed them so thoroughly that it would be decades before organised labour could undermine the country again. She regretted some of what she’d done, but she’d known there was no choice. The Third Reich lay on the far side of the English Channel, watching and waiting for an opportunity to launch a full-scale invasion. Britain could not afford to be weak when such a powerful foe was far too close to her borders.
The Nazis were monsters. Margaret had known that ever since she was a child, ever since she’d devoured the books written by men, women and children who’d managed to smuggle themselves out of Occupied Europe before it was too late. And nothing she’d seen since had managed to change her mind. Individual Germans could be good people, but collectively the Nazis were monsters. They had committed huge crimes, wiping out millions of people, in their rise to power; even now, with their power secure, they were still brutal, cruel and utterly untrustworthy. There was no one in Berlin, she’d thought a year ago, with whom she could do business. And there was certainly no hope of a genuine peace, only cold war.
She sat in her office, studying the wall-mounted display. It was a genuine marvel of technology, allowing her to see live reports from military bases around the country, but right now it underlined the dilemma facing Britain. The Luftwaffe wouldn’t need more than a few minutes to launch from their bases in Occupied France and attack British airspace, if war broke out all of a sudden. And if the Germans decided to unleash their arsenal of cruise missiles, it would be even worse. Margaret couldn’t escape the simple fact that nuclear war would be utterly unwinnable, with or without the Americans. A full-scale exchange would devastate Britain, even if Germany was thoroughly devastated in return.
And yet we have no choice, but to gamble, she thought, sourly. To try to ensure that the next government in Germany is friendly to us.
It was an unpleasant thought, but she faced it squarely. Britain had always had problems when one power dominated the European mainland, from Philip of Spain to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. A single bloc dominating Europe would always be a threat, even if relations were superficially friendly. But there was no way to break up the Reich, not without risking nuclear war. She doubted the French or any of the other subject nations could break free on their own…
…And even if they did, it would be decades before they could serve as counterbalances to German power.
She turned her head, gazing up towards the portrait of Sir Winston Churchill. The artist had depicted him in Ten Downing Street, although he’d clearly not bothered to look at any photographs of the office that might have been taken when Churchill had actually been Prime Minister. But that was of no account. Churchill had been forced out of office for wanting to continue the fight, after Russia fell; he’d warned, desperately, that it wouldn’t be long before Hitler would seek to jump across the English Channel and take London. But no invasion had ever materialised.
What would you do, she asked the image silently, if you faced the same choice as I?
It was a conundrum, she admitted privately. Britain — and America — could support the Berlin Government, yet the Berlin Government might prove to be a menace in its own right. She had no illusions about the sheer power of the German military, although reports from the front lines suggested that some long-held beliefs had been grossly overstated. But a victory for the government in Germanica would unleash a nightmare. She’d never actually met Karl Holliston, but she’d heard enough about him to be sure that he was planning to purge everyone on the other side.