Really? A voice asked, at the back of his mind. Even Gudrun’s life?
He pushed the voice out of his head. “I believe the Provisional Government would accept your terms,” he said, carefully. “If you can send them a message, I can give you the codes you need to have it accepted.”
“Of course,” his uncle said. “Do you have a plan?”
“Not yet,” Horst said. He considered the possibilities for a long moment. “I assume you don’t have any control over the forces in Germanica?”
His uncle nodded. “They’re controlled directly from the Reichstag,” he said. “I don’t have any influence over them at all. A few of the officers are my clients, but I’m not sure which way they’d jump.”
Horst nodded. He’d jumped too.
But it would definitely make life tricky. Getting into Germanica had never been easy, even before the war. The city was encircled by a protective wall, the gates heavily-guarded; everything moving in and out of the city was carefully inspected before it was allowed to proceed. Getting an entire army into the city would be impossible. He might be able to get a small strike team into the city, particularly if they had the right paperwork, but they’d be surrounded by thousands of stormtroopers.
And Holliston will run into his bunker and hide if the shit hits the fan, he thought. He doesn’t have the stomach to come out and fight.
It was the bunker that would pose the real problem, he knew. If it was anything like the bunker in Berlin, there would be an escape tunnel — perhaps more than one — and a direct link to a high-power radio transmitter. Taking out that transmitter might be the only way to keep the missiles from flying, but where was it? And where was Gudrun?
He looked up at his uncle. “Where is my wife?”
“Under the Reichstag,” his uncle said. “I believe Holliston intends to ship her east.”
Horst shuddered. Beside him, Kurt swore.
“No,” he said, simply. “That will not happen.”
“It will, unless you can stop him,” Forster said. “How do you plan to proceed?”
Horst sighed. “What sort of forces do you have under your direct command?”
“Very few,” Forster admitted. “Just two battalions of Volkssturm. The remainder were folded into the Waffen-SS and sent to the front.”
“I see,” Horst said. Holliston hadn’t made a bad call. The Volkssturm were often more attached to their communities — and to their Gauleiters — than they were to the Reich. And in Germany East, the Volkssturm were often quite well armed. “We’ll need reinforcements, then.”
“It looks that way,” his uncle said. “It might be possible to subvert a few of his officers.”
Horst frowned. The more people involved, the greater the chance of a leak — and certain failure. He’d been forced to study two operations during his training that had both failed because the target had been warned, in advance, that the operation was underway. And if it happened here, in Germanica, the consequences were likely to be a great deal worse.
“I’d prefer to avoid it, if possible,” he said, biting his lip. “Uncle, this is going to take far too long.”
“You don’t have very long,” Forster said. “Holliston is already insane. What’s he going to do next?”
He sighed. “I’ll sweeten the pill,” he added. “I know the name of the spy on the Provisional Government.”
Horst straightened. “You are sure?”
“I believe so,” Forster said. “It was not easy to track him down, but I have a contact in the Reichstag records department. I don’t believe it was a coincidence, given how much power the SS was accumulating before your wife came along. And someone definitely warned Holliston that your people were planning an invasion.”
“Shit,” Kurt said. “Who is he?”
“Admiral Wilhelm Riess, head of the Abwehr,” Forster said, simply.
“Impossible,” Kurt said.
Horst frowned. He barely knew Riess — he certainly hadn’t met the man socially — but the Abwehr had been losing ground to the SS for years. It was possible, quite possible, that he’d been working for Holliston a long time before the civil war. And, by openly declaring for the Provisional Government, he’d put himself in place to gather all sorts of intelligence for his true master. No wonder the offensive had failed so badly.
He took a breath. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll get in touch with Berlin. And they can decide how to proceed.”
“Good,” Forster said. “But, like I said, time is running out.”
“I know,” Horst said. “Give us everything you know. We’ll try to put together a provisional plan.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Berlin, Germany Prime
9 November 1985
“If this is true,” Voss said, quietly. “If this is true…”
He sounded stunned. Volker didn’t blame him. Everyone knew that the Abwehr and the SS were deadly enemies. They’d been competitors ever since the Third Reich had risen from the ashes to dominate the world. The thought of Admiral Riess choosing to side with the SS was bizarre. If Holliston won the war, Riess would be lucky if he was allowed to take his pension and retire quietly. The Abwehr itself would be folded into the SS.
“It makes no sense,” Volker said. “And yet… someone betrayed us.”
“Maybe,” Voss said. “We don’t know we were betrayed.”
Volker shrugged. It was impossible to be sure, but the two nuclear blasts that had stopped the offensive dead in its tracks had almost certainly been ground-bursts. The weapons had been prepositioned and detonated on cue, not dropped from aircraft or fired from long-range guns. And that suggested that the Waffen-SS had known the direction of attack from the start, allowing them to position the tactical nuclear weapons for maximum effect.
And if it was Riess who had betrayed them…
He contemplated it for a long moment. The Abwehr had every reason to distrust the SS, but their leader might have more reason to distrust the Provisional Government. Who knew what would happen to the Abwehr after the war was won? It certainly wouldn’t enjoy the unrestricted powers it had gained under the Reich Council. And besides, Riess might be loyal to the Third Reich. He might have joined the Provisional Government with the intention of betraying them to Holliston.
Or it might be a trick of some kind, Volker thought.
He rubbed his forehead, wishing for the simplicity of a battlefield. If Riess was a traitor, why was he a traitor and how could it be exploited? And if he wasn’t a traitor, why had he been fingered as a traitor? What did the enemy hope to achieve? It wasn’t as if he’d trusted Riess even before the man had become the prime suspect. No spymaster could be trusted completely, certainly not in the Reich. The position simply offered too many opportunities for advancement at the expense of other, more deserving candidates.