Stewart shrugged. “Danger exists everywhere,” she said. “I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.”
“Reichminister Goebbels was also very happy,” Roth said. “He would like to discuss the power of the press with you at some later date. I would advise you not to be in the same room with him alone.”
Stewart gave him a blinding smile, totally unselfconscious in her nakedness. “But I’ve got you to protect me,” she said. Roth felt a sudden surge of protectiveness. “Not to worry; Goebbels has quite a reputation back home.”
Roth smiled. The files had been very clear on how Goebbels had ended his own life after Hitler killed himself. It had led to even more promotion for the man the SS called the ‘mouse-doctor’ behind his back; whatever his skill, he wasn’t the sort of Aryan the SS wanted. Himmler had a private, but widely-known reward for anyone who found evidence proving Goebbels’ involvement in any number of seedy practices; even Roth had tried to uncover something incriminating.
“I suppose he is well-known back there,” he said finally. “Are you ready to go out?”
Stewart grinned, squeezing one of her breasts. “I don’t think that going out in the cold like this is a good idea,” she said. “Let me get dressed first, ok?”
Roth nodded. Her devotion to her work was almost as amazing as her appetite for sex. “I’ll wait for you outside,” he said. “I have to clear our trip with the Reichsführer-SS.”
“You don’t want to watch?” Stewart asked. Roth grinned, shook his head, and slipped outside. Picking up the telephone, he made arrangements while pulling on his own clothes, finally donning his black uniform jacket. Suitably attired, he waited for her as patiently as possible; even Russian women took less time to get ready to go out!
One of the most annoying details about the Fuhrerbunker, at least in Stewart’s view, was that it’s construction blocked the UHF transmissions she’d been planning on using to send her reports directly back home. The edited version of the Hitler Interview, as she’d termed it in her mind, had been transmitted – from a transmitter she’d placed on the outskirts of the city.
“Of course the RAF wouldn’t write you off by slamming a missile into the Fuhrerbunker, if they knew where it was,” Roth had said dryly, when she’d enquired about the refusal to bring the declared transmitter into Berlin. Her poor cameraman, bored and alone, was been treated well, at least according to a text message from him. Still, he wasn’t with her – and there were only a limited amount of things to do.
She felt Roth take her hand as they walked down the long tunnel to the entrance, which was somewhere in Berlin. She knew she was totally lost, and didn’t care. Roth, she was confident, would look after her; she’d worked hard to make him have feelings for her. Her own fear and shock, astonishing to a person not given to self-introspection, had driven her forward; she’d acted wanton in the knowledge that it wasn’t entirely an act.
I guess I wanted a big strong man to hold me and tell me it was going to be great, she thought wryly. What would the Association of Female Reporters think of that?
“Here we are,” Roth announced, in his improving English. Stewart let him lead her up into Berlin, somewhere around the centre of town. Her pocket PC buzzed; it was receiving signals from the new network emanating from Britain. The signal was still weak, still nothing like what it would have been in 2015, but it began the task of transmitting her complete report to the BBC anyway.
“Impressive,” she said, and meant it. Even under the threat of war – a pile of rubble showed where one of the government’s buildings had once stood – Berlin still seemed to be a gay town… except for the limited number of men. There were guards around the rubble, and a handful of gaily-decorated officers, but where were the civilian men?
“They’ve gone to be soldiers,” Roth said, when she asked. “Your people, with the empire you seem intent on rebuilding, scared us. The women here are on their leave; most of them work in factories and other industries.”
Stewart blinked. “What will it do to your society when the men come back?”
“I imagine that the women will go back to their kitchens,” Roth said absently. Stewart smiled to herself; nice abs usually meant limited brainpower. Roth seemed more than willing to look at her breasts and no further; playing the wide-eyed innocent came easier.
“You don’t think that they’ll want to keep control of their earnings?” She asked. “Female spending power might become very important to the Reich, you know.”
Roth shook his head. “The Fuhrer has decreed that women are to work to produce the next generation of Germans,” he said. “Nothing is more important than that; women in the workplace is a temporary emergency measure.”
Stewart very much doubted that the Fuhrer was right about that, but didn’t say anything. Roth led her on a long walk, wandering around the centre of town, before coming to a building. A man sat there, riding a wheelchair, and Roth saluted him.
“This is Gunter,” Roth said. “He used to teach here.”
Stewart looked at the pile of wreckage and gasped. “I taught junior boys,” Gunter said. His voice was a dull rasp; he hawked and spat. “There were thirty boys in the classroom when your missiles came calling; only five survived.” He waved a hand at his legs. “Look what happened to me.”
Stewart shuddered. Gunter’s legs ended in bloody stumps. Even 2015 technology couldn’t entirely fix such a serious problem. “What did the children do to deserve that?” Gunter demanded. “They were killed!”
“I’m sorry,” Stewart said automatically.
“Gunter comes here every day, despite the SS guards,” Roth said, as he steered her away. “His school no longer exists and we can’t give him back his legs.”
Stewart checked her camera. It had faithfully recorded the entire scene; a touch of a button sent it to Britain. She shook her head sadly; had that really happened?
The five Eurofighters swooped in across Denmark, their presence reported by German radar stations as they closed in on Germany. Behind them, a single large transport followed, concealing powerful broadcasting systems. Flying Officer Victor Abernathy checked his radar as the small force crossed over Denmark and headed towards Germany.
“Eagle-one, I have seventeen German aircraft rising from near Bremen,” Flying Officer Sheila Dunbar reported. “Victor, one of them is a jet!”
“We confirm, Eagle-one,” the AWACS said. The AWACS, despite prodding by Abernathy and his wingmen, was hanging back over the North Sea, protected by a further ten Eurofighters. “Confirmed; flight profile matches simulation of early ME-262 design.”
Abernathy shook his head inside his helmet, wondering at the German action. Unless he was wrong, the ME-262 wouldn’t be able to match the Eurofighter; the Germans would have difficultly supplying it with the materials it needed to be a threat. On the other hand, the ME-262 might be able to match the Eurofighters height; they had been a nuisance to the allies in the first war by doing just that.
“Only seventeen,” he said, into the radio. “They must be running scared. Eagles, salvo ASRAAMS, Sierra-one, designate targets for Eagles.”
There was a moment’s pause as the AWACS distributed target locks to the Eurofighters. The ASRAAMS were fire and forget missiles, designed to operate independently, but computers on the AWACS could control them if necessary.