She started to cry into his arms. Horton glared at where he was certain one of the cameras was; Himmler had shown no interest in Jasmine’s other fits. Her undressing under the covers was a source of some amusement to the guards, who’d been told by the scary Standartenfuehrer Roth that Jasmine was off-limits – as long as Horton kept producing. He’d become nothing, but an oracle for Himmler and his cohorts.
Worst of all was the knowledge of what he’d kept from Himmler’s cronies. If they’d suspected that his knowledge was more detailed than he himself knew, they would have done whatever they thought necessary to force him to talk.
“He wants a complete report on why Japan lost the war,” Horton said, as Jasmine started to pull at his clothes desperately. In bed, she could pretend that the world was normal, but Horton had no such luxury. Even as he started to undress her, abandoning the laptop and its document, his mind worked over what it meant. As Jasmine fell to her knees and took him in her mouth, he figured it out; Germany must have informed Japan of the coming war.
And then Jasmine began her desperate motion and he forgot everything, but his wife.
“The accelerated training program for the workforce, including the two new additions to the workforce, proceeds apace,” Speer said. Sitting near Hitler, Himmler concealed his reaction; knowing that Speer would survive the war hadn’t strengthened his confidence in the man. “The prisoners, who are being fed on a standard diet that feeds them enough to be useable, are being trained in basic manufacturing techniques. Quality control is improving and prisoner sabotage is down seventy percent.
“Matters are considerably better with the female cadre,” he said, flinching. Only the knowledge of the future had prevented Hitler from cancelling female conscription altogether. “Unlike the prisoners, they show no inclination to sabotage the designs and once the handful of shirkers were weeded out, production increased rapidly. We have continued the program of incentives for individual workers, with a three-fold increase in production. In addition, we have been looking for likely candidates to receive more training in specialised tasks; we believe that development of skilled engineers, as opposed to build-by-numbers, will also increase. Unfortunately, training women for such a task is a long-term effort.
“Production of the modified tanks, aircraft, u-boats and anti-tank weapons proceeds,” he continued. Himmler concealed his boredom; the SS were keeping him aware of all Speer had said and what he hadn’t said, including the little detail of some of the male workers abusing their female counterparts. The SS guards handled such matters with a ruthlessness that shocked many; they cut the offender’s balls off! It had proven quite popular with the female workers.
“The Panther, a tank designed to match the Soviet design created by renegade Germans from the SA”- a lie to hide Soviet supremacy in tank design, Himmler knew – “is in the final stages of design,” Speer said. “Although it cannot match the tanks provisionally identified as Challenger-class, we are hopeful that sheer weight of numbers will prove decisive. Development of powerful anti-tank weapons proceeds apace; we hope that by the time they come to land in France, assuming that they do again, we will have a weapon capable of penetrating their hull.”
“In the event that we don’t, we have drawn up a contingency plan that will leave the tanks alone, and concentrate on their supply lines and support vehicles,” Kesselring injected.
“Yes,” Speer said, a little irritated. “Production of aircraft and pilot training continues, along with the development of jet aircraft. Unfortunately, a prototype jet of our own will be at least a year away; an aircraft that can match the British aircraft still further away. For the moment, General Galland assures me that with the improved training measures, we can swarm British targets and overwhelm them. In the Mediterranean, we have almost forced them out of the middle sea, and once Spain joins us…”
“Franco has finally gotten around to accepting that he has to declare war on the British,” Hitler proclaimed. “If the ungrateful Spanish pudding had had the courage to declare war in June, we would have evicted them from the Mediterranean well before the future arrived!”
“That is true,” Kesselring said. His new role as strategist was taking a toll upon his health. “For the moment, reducing Gibraltar will ensure that they cannot use the Mediterranean as a supply line to Egypt using their ships, although analysis suggests that they have fewer ships than they had anyway. Our use of French agents within French North Africa – now that Vichy has finally declared war on the British – suggests that they are concentrating on building a chain of airports across Africa, linking them with India. If they use aircraft like the one that crashed in France, we estimate that they could move troops back and forth within a couple of days.”
“I trust that you have warned our allies?” The Fuhrer asked. “We need to learn to coordinate with them, while watching them carefully.”
Everyone present knew that Hitler hadn’t given up on his objective of securing Russian territory for further expansion. Even the need to maintain an alliance with Stalin – as recommended by Professor Horton – didn’t distract from the overwhelming demand for living space.
“We have warned Stalin and the Japanese,” Kesselring confirmed. He coughed. “For the moment, driving them out of the Mediterranean Sea itself seems to be our only offensive option; we cannot hope to invade Britain directly or to even transport troops to North Africa. Once Turkey falls into line, we can perhaps mount a joint attack on the Middle East and destroy their oil wells there, or even use them for ourselves.”
Himmler nodded. Oil was the Reich’s great weakness. Now that Romania had been forcibly assimilated by Germany and Russia, he expected missiles to be striking the oil wells at any time. Still, research into synthetic oils was proceeding; much had been done before the future arrived and added its knowledge to the growing stockpile.
“Then we can proceed to ultimate victory,” Hitler said, and he smiled. The expression scared almost all of the grown men in the room. “Have no fear; destiny had allowed us a chance to change our path and walk towards total victory!”
Russian Army Headquarters
Poland
1st September 1940
Molotov disliked the army base in Poland, even though it had been constructed in a manor house that – he was certain – had once belonged to the Polish aristocracy. The NKVD had secured the building, checked it carefully for unpleasant surprises, and had kept the staff on to keep it tidy. Polish servants, one and all, they had been corralled without warning a week before Molotov arrived, just to ensure that there was no trace of Polish resistance anywhere near the meeting point.
Molotov studied the map. The base sat at the centre of an expanding empty zone; the residents forced into working on defence lines, marched off to Siberia, or simply shot. Stalin had ordered the Poles wiped out, along with numerous other minorities, and the NKVD had leapt to obey. The streets of Polish towns had run red with blood as the killing went on and on; food sources were steadily destroyed. In a year or so, maybe longer, Stalin would start to colonise the region, leaving only Russians in the Polish regions. The Poles would never have the chance to revolt against the Soviet Union.
His guest’s car, a massive German vehicle, drove up outside. Ribbentrop, like Molotov himself, hadn’t been keen on sleeping inside an NKVD stronghold. Unlike Molotov, he’d had a choice; he’d stayed at a German base on the other side of the border in Warsaw. Molotov waited throughout the lengthy security process, before a guard ushered him into the meeting room.