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“Particularly as they would be of limited value in South Africa,” Knox said.

“Perhaps not,” Andrew said. “They can fly well above the Stinger-A’s range, can’t they?”

He smiled as Knox – and Robert Hamilton – grimaced in unison. The OSS had been pressing the President to send Stinger-B and Stinger-C missiles to the South Africans, even though there was a very real risk that one or more units would fall into German hands and be reverse-engineered. He understood their concerns, but there was a very real opportunity to bleed the Germans white using the missiles. Shooting down a handful of heavy bombers would hurt the Reich more than killing a few hundred soldiers on deployment.

And if war does break out, he thought, there will be fewer bombers to make their way to New York.

“They’re not exactly equipped for tactical support,” Knox said, after a moment. “Their smart weapons are considerably inferior to our own.”

“We think,” Andrew reminded him. “The gauchos probably didn’t know how to use their weapons to best advantage.”

“They would have set up a display and shown off their merchandise if they could,” Penelope said, quietly. “Their economy took a hit when the Falklands War went so badly for the side using German weapons.”

“Serve them right,” the Ambassador said. He cleared his throat. “Was there anything new in the parade, any potential game changers?”

“Probably not,” Andrew said. “The latest tank design was a modified Panther VII, their main battle tank. I don’t think we have to worry about a revolutionary new tank appearing on the battlefields in a few years.”

“They also modified a handful of older Panzer XIs,” Hamilton added. “It’s hard to be sure, but it looks like they took off the main guns and added several machine guns to the vehicles.”

“Probably for counter-insurgency work,” Knox grunted. He picked up one of the photographs and held it out. “We know they’ve been taking losses in South Africa, Mr. Ambassador. My best guess is that they’re adapting their weapons and armour to cope with the threat.”

Which isn’t likely to go away anytime soon, Andrew thought. The blacks know they have to fight and perhaps die, rather than doing nothing and certainly dying.

He shuddered at the thought. The Reich’s population might be blissfully unaware of what had been done in their name, but everyone else knew all too well what Adolf Hitler had unleashed upon the world. He wouldn’t have bet a rusty dollar that the blacks would survive for long, if the Nazis claimed the country. They’d be herded into concentration camps and brutally murdered. Indeed, there were factions in South Africa that would happily support such a final solution, heedless of the possibility that the Nazis would shove them into the gas chambers next.

The Ambassador cleared his throat. “Do you feel it’s likely they will double down in South Africa?”

Andrew hesitated. “They made a mistake getting involved,” he said. “We know that – and I suspect they know it too, now. But I think their leadership will be reluctant to retreat from their positions in South Africa. They’d see it as an admission of weakness.”

He looked up at the map. The Reich bestrode the continent like a colossus, bright red ink soaking the land from Dunkirk to Kamchatka. And yet, their control over their vast domains was tenuous, in places. The settlements in Germany East were plagued by partisans, the Vichy French were restless and even their allies were looking for alternatives. Andrew was sure that Turkey, at least, would jump ship if there was a reasonable chance of getting away with it, while Italy and Spain wouldn’t be far behind. Binding their economies to Germany had been a deadly mistake.

“Economically, they must be reaching their limits,” Penelope said. “All my models suggest Germany will have to make major cutbacks within the next five years.”

“Your models may not take reality into account,” Knox pointed out. He’d never liked Penelope, although Andrew had never figured out why. “Surely they know how to fine-tune their own economy.”

“An economy is not a military unit, sir,” Penelope said. “Nor is it a piece of balky machinery that can be fixed. Fine-tuning an economy is simply impossible and trying to control it leads to disaster. The communists discovered that in 1942.”

She took a breath. “My models are, if anything, optimistic,” she added. “I gave the Germans every advantage I could think of, sir; I assumed a level of central understanding and control that, quite frankly, is beyond the realm of possibility. And yet, all of my models indicate a major collapse in less than five years unless something changes.”

Andrew frowned. “They could be spoofing your results.”

“They could,” Penelope agreed. “We have always had problems gauging the true power of the German economy. However, if it was as good as they claimed, they’d have a much larger moon base and a few hundred additional spacecraft to stake their claims to the asteroids.”

“True,” Andrew agreed.

“It’s also beside the point,” Knox said. “Is the likelihood of war any stronger than it was two years ago?”

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t like her, Andrew thought. He understands the machines and tactics of war, but not economics.

“The last set of discussions I had with the Foreign Minister were unenlightening,” the Ambassador said, calmly. “He lodged an official complaint about our meddling in South Africa, I lodged a complaint of my own about German weapons shipments to radical factions in Latin and South America. We had a long argument that boiled down to mutual denials that anything was actually happening.”

“And so anyone on the ground will vanish, if they get caught,” Andrew said.

“We do it too,” Hamilton reminded him. “Any German advisor caught in Panama goes straight into a black prison for interrogation, not held for trade.”

Andrew nodded, ruefully. The threat of mutual destruction – Germany and the United States each had over 10,000 nuclear warheads – had made it impossible for either side to risk seeking a final war to decide the fate of the planet. Instead, Germany had started running weapons and supplies to radical groups in Latin America, while America had supplied Russian, French and South African insurgents with weapons of their own. But German brutality made it impossible for them to end the war on anything other than total victory, while the United States could use a combination of hard and soft power to convince the undecided to support the Americans. Mexico was more peaceful than it had been in years; Panama, the scene of a brutal insurgency, was calming down…

But the Germans can’t afford to treat anyone as equals, he thought, darkly. They have to exterminate their enemies to win, which makes it impossible for their enemies to surrender.

Knox looked at Penelope, sharply. “What happens if the German economy does collapse?”

“It’s hard to be sure,” Penelope said. “I think we’d be looking at something akin to the Great Depression, but probably a great deal worse. The German economy is more integrated than ours was in the thirties.”

“And then they will go to war,” Knox said, grimly. “Hitler saw war as the solution to Germany’s woes. War will distract their people from their empty bellies.”