“Once she was convinced that it was not a joke, Mrs Oliver contacted the local police, who passed it on to use. In effect, the Germans have offered to return the children on the flight – and Mr Oliver, who was apparently chosen by lot – in exchange for any German citizens within the United Kingdom.”
Hanover steepled his fingers, effortlessly taking command of the room. “So, they know that we’ve come back in time,” he said. “Do we accept the offer or not?”
“It would be foolish of us to surrender the Germans,” Hathaway said. Her firm face scowled. “It’s obvious what they want; children can tell them nothing, but adults, particularly German adults… think what they could tell them.”
“Would they want to return?” McLachlan asked. “Some of our Irish citizens have been… reluctant to return to Ireland, despite De Valera’s invitation. Some of them have even asked us for asylum. They know what Nazi Germany will do to them.”
“Sir, they have offered to allow us to take the children and their guardian, and then ask any Germans if they want to go to Germany,” Stirling injected. Smith smiled; the young captain clearly knew what he was doing. “Basically, they’ve offered to let us pick them up from an airfield in Germany… provided we take a German representative along to meet with the German Ambassador.”
“Strange,” Hathaway mused. “Hang on, how are they doing this?”
“One of the items they captured was a mobile phone,” Stirling said. “We can locate the phone itself; its near Caen, where two German army divisions are based now. If that’s where the rest of them are being held, we could rescue them, but I very much doubt it.”
“Understood,” Smith said, making a determined effort to regain control of the meeting. “We will accept the German terms…”
“Prime Minister, I really must protest,” Hanover said immediately. “If we send a helicopter, or a small fleet of helicopters, to recover the children, we risk having the helicopter captured and turned against us.”
“We could always send a small force of Eurofighters along as escorts,” Chapman said. “Let’s face it; we’d see an ambush coming for miles off.”
“Perhaps, but its still dangerous,” Hanover said.
“None the less, my mind is made up,” Smith said, and wondered what the terrible pain in his chest was. The world seemed to go dim for a long terrifying moment. “Now,” he said, hiding the pain as best as he could, “General, what about the defence preparations?”
“My men have done splendidly,” Cunningham said. “There are some minor problems, but we have a powerful defence in place if the Germans try to invade.” He clicked on a laser pointer and pointed to the map. “The 1st and 2nd Armoured Regiments, along with infantry units and supporting Harriers from No. 1 squadron, have been moved to positions near Dover and Maidstone. The 3rd Armoured Regiment has been held back in reserve, along with support formations, as the Germans may try to land near Southampton.
“Unfortunately, a shitload of people – pardon my French – have fled,” he continued. “Many of them have gone to relatives up north, others are bumming around in London driving hotel prices up. The police have done excellent work, but a lot of people are going to panic when the war begins.”
“It has already,” Hanover muttered.
“We’ve deployed SHORAD units around major targets and London,” Cunningham said. “Unfortunately, SHORAD funding was cut back sharply – even during the war on terror – and we simply don’t have enough units to cover every major target. We can kill every target we see, but once we run out of missiles, we can’t stop them. I have teams looking at ways to slave heavy machine guns to radar, just to give us some extra firepower, but that’s a month off at least. Everything depends on the RAF.”
Chapman coughed diplomatically. “We have been working like demons to get some of the older fighters up and ready,” he said, “as well as calling back the reserves and… pilots who retired during the Blair Government. Unfortunately, as General Cunningham says, we have far fewer aircraft than I’d like; if we have to start committing to other theatres as well, we may well simply… run out.
“At the moment, we have two hundred and thirty front-line fighters, and fifty-seven second-line fighters,” he continued. “At a pinch, we can press Jaguars and Hawks into service, which will give us extra numbers. The navy has allocated two squadrons of land-based Harriers to the air defence forces as well; in effect, we have a maximum of three hundred fighters to face the German swarm.
“The Germans have roughly nine hundred of their own front-line fighters and an equal number of bombers, all of which they can deploy to face us,” he said. “They may force their way through with sheer weight of numbers, and we will run through our stocks of missiles very quickly. Worse, the Germans will be quick to develop tactics to use against our jet fighters – and we will be hard-pressed to rebuild the force. By the most optimistic estimate, it will be at least nine months before we can turn out new Eurofighters.”
McLachlan coughed. “I understand that we would not want to make copies of planes the Germans have, but could we not build some fighters from… say, 1960?”
“That would take longer,” Chapman said. “We’d have to rebuild large parts of the industry.”
“I see,” Smith asked. “So, is there a way to win?”
“Two ways,” Chapman said. “Short of using nuclear warheads, we must use a percentage of our cruise missiles against German factories, and their airfields. What we cannot do is close them down for good, but we can certainly force them to divert their operations. The SAS can also be inserted into enemy territory; they can attack German transportation and even important Germans, like Hitler himself.”
Darter coughed. Smith smiled weakly at her; she was one of his most important allies, but she could be very irritating at times. “Are we so sure that they’re planning to attack us?” She asked. “They could just be scared of us.”
“They’re moving troops and invasion barges into position,” Cunningham said. “Quite frankly, I’d like to slam a few cruise missiles into them while they’re there. They’re moving more and more planes into Northern France and stripping the coastline of people. That’s not a defensive position; they’re working to prepare jump-off points for troops. We’ve seen gliders and bombers; useless for anything, but an invasion. Attempts to penetrate our air defences have continued; isolated raids directed against our coasts.”
“And besides, these are the Nazis,” Hanover said coldly. “We can expect them to be enemies of all; they know what we are and they fear it.”
Smith nodded tiredly. He was tired, so tired. “General, please see to picking up the children,” he said. “Mr McLachlan, make the arrangements.”
Near Caen
France
12th July 1940
Oliver put down the mobile phone with an expression of relief. “That’s it, Herr Standartenfuhrer,” he said. “They will be here in one hour.”
“How can they be so certain of finding you?” Roth asked. Oliver allowed himself a smile; Roth was smart, dangerously smart. Who, but a very smart man, could have adapted so well to the suddenly-changed world around him. Roth would go far, if Himmler didn’t see him as a threat and terminate him. He knew he didn’t understand laptops and mobile phones and jet-propelled aircraft, but he was learning, and fast.