“You want to accomplish it yourselves,” Flynn said. “I won’t lie to you, General; you might succeed, but the cost would be appalling.”
“We would bear it,” Rommel said. “General, we have to do this. Britain has never committed such organised atrocities, and if Germans don’t do something to end them, then we will carry the blame for the rest of history.”
“You may carry a lot of blame anyway,” Stillwell said, speaking for the first time. He waved a hand in the direction of the camp. “Thousands of old people, too old or ill to work, walked into the gas chambers and never came out. Germans did that to them, just as German enslaved millions of Frenchmen and Italians towards their deadly ends.”
“Which is why we must do our part to end the war,” Rommel said. “We have to pay for our crimes.”
Jagar watched as Flynn nodded slowly. “I have a condition,” Flynn said. “Two conditions, actually. The first one is that you agree to softening up the targets by bombing first, and then advancing, under cover of shellfire.” Rommel nodded once, sharply, showing no trace of pain on his face. “The second one is that you allow an SAS team time to slip in ahead of you, one that will broach the secret bunker.”
“And take Himmler alive,” Rommel said. “I agree on that condition.”
Flynn scowled at him. “For the record, I think that this is a dreadful mistake,” he said. “However… I’ll go make the arrangements now.”
“Thank you,” Rommel said. He left the other two generals and came over to where Jagar was standing. “Tell me, how many of our divisions are ready to move forward?”
“Four, two panzer, two infantry,” Jagar said, after consulting his PDA. “We might manage to have a third infantry division if we held off the attack.”
“We have to move as soon as possible,” Rommel said. “Inform the commanders that I want to see them at once in the forward tent.”
Jagar half-wanted to protest. “Jawohl,” he said finally.
Squadron Leader Shelia Dunbar gritted her teeth to hide the pain. Victor’s death had hurt her; she’d flown beside him, fought beside him and shared a bed with him one night. He’d been so determined to set foot on the moon; he hadn’t deserved to die that way, falling endlessly towards the Earth.
“Sierra-one, I have completed refuelling,” she said, her tone dull. Her commander had offered to give her a period of compassionate leave and she’d laughed at him; leave in the middle of a war? The idea was insane; what were her own pains compared to fighting and ending the terrible war?
“What, no sexist jokes?” The tanker crewman asked. She bit his head off. “Ok, ok, I’m sorry I asked.”
“Control, Eagle-flight is ready to move,” she said, ignoring the crewman. He wasn’t important, even though she would have normally have flirted with him. “Please assign us a flight corridor.”
The controller’s voice was professional. “Eagle-flight, assigning you vectors now,” he said. “You have a clear line, all the way to Berlin.”
“Thank Christ for that,” Dunbar muttered. “Eagle-flight, follow me…”
The Eurofighters and the Tornado bombers swooped around and drove directly for Berlin. The ground sped past under their flight; there were no attempts to interfere with their flight. The Germans had other problems, including a miniature civil war that was being mopped up by the Allied ground forces, even now.
“There she blows,” one of the Tornado pilots said, as they swooped high over Berlin. Anti-aircraft blasts began appearing below them, but they were too high up for the proximity detonations to harm them. “Berlin below.”
“The satellites have designated the targets,” she said. There would be no SAS spotters this time. “Stand by to fire… fire!”
“Bombs away,” the Tornado pilot said, as a hail of explosive death fell towards Berlin, concentrating on the defence lines. Flames flickered far below as the bombs found their targets. “We hit the bastards.”
“And here come the Americans to continue the job,” Dunbar snapped, as the B-29s appeared, heading in lower than the British planes. A B-29 was struck directly by an anti-aircraft shell and fell directly out of the air, smashing into an unfortunate German building. “We can leave it to them, I think.”
She knew she was lying. She wanted to hurt Germany, to hurt them and keep hurting them until the pain went away. “Time to go home,” she said, and the words were bile in her mouth. “Let’s go.”
Five weeks ago, he’d been another student in Germany, studying chemistry for his future career. Then the war had reached Germany itself, and Gunter Hofmann had been unwillingly recruited into the defence force, armed and sent out to the barricades.
“Air attack,” the SS Obersturmfuehrer snapped. Hofmann winced; he hated air attacks with a passion. Even as the massive anti-aircraft guns began to bark, the bombs began to fall; precision weapons that landed directly on the barricades, and dumb bombs that smashed buildings and people with equal enthusiasm. He cowered in his trench, praying for it to end soon.
“Get up, you cowardly shit,” the Obersturmfuehrer bellowed, yanking Hofmann to his feet. “The enemy is coming, now they’ve weakened us!”
Hofmann sighed, being careful enough not to let the Obersturmfuehrer hear, and ran to join the barricades. The three-dozen students were almost completely untrained; all they knew was basic rifle maintenance. His background wasn’t in the military, but he was certain that the barricade wouldn’t stand up to a single shell.
“Here they come,” the Obersturmfuehrer bellowed. “Hold fire till I gave the command!”
Hofmann stared along the long road as the sounds of battle grew louder. The SS divisions had been dug in around the Reichstag and the untrained forces had been spread around the city, hoping to degrade the enemy at the cost of their lives. Along the road, a group of soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms appeared, moving quickly, but skilfully along the road, pausing to check the buildings as they passed.
The Obersturmfuehrer closed a connection; one of the buildings exploded as a massive blast destroyed it. “Fire,” he snapped, and Hofmann opened fire, shooting madly down the road. One of the soldiers died, then another, and then they began to fire back. Hofmann felt a burst of heat flash through his head… and then nothing. Nothing at all.
The explosion had triggered an entire chain of explosions, shattering buildings that hadn’t existed in the Berlin he was familiar with. Colonel Muhlenkampf drove the tank carefully down the road, using the machine gun to fire on snipers and the main gun as sparingly as possible. Bundeswehr infantry followed him, carefully securing the buildings. When they found more explosives, they were careful to detonate them from a sate distance, or remove the controlling wires if they could do that.
“Sir, we’re meeting heavy resistance,” he said into his radio. A skilful SS commander had set up a blockade using bricks and mortar, and had a battery of guns hidden behind it. The SS had to be running short on ammunition, but they were firing as if they had an unlimited supply.
“Understood,” Rommel said. “The air force is on its way.”
“Better make it quick,” Muhlenkampf said, just before a chain of explosions ripped through the barricade. “Forward,” he snapped, and the tanks moved forward. They were moving closer and closer to the heart of Berlin, and the SS had to be running out of tricks.
“We’re almost there,” he said, as yet another ambush failed to slow them down. “We’ll be there in time for tea.”