The SAS had learnt, from Kesselring, that there was an entrance to the Fuhrerbunker near the Landwehr Canal. Even as the Bundeswehr infantry marched towards the centre of Berlin, blasting their way through the SS’s traps, Captain Dwynn carefully opened the entrance. It was unguarded.
“Where are they?” Vash subvocalised. “There should be an entire reception committee here.”
“I don’t know,” Dwynn snapped back. “How the hell should I know?”
A dull explosion rang through the corridor. “I think we’d better move quickly,” he said. “The Fuhrer’s quarters are supposed to be under the Reichstag.”
The corridors were dusty; it was easy to believe that there had never been anyone living there forever. If there hadn’t been lights, Dwynn would have quite enjoyed the trip, but the lights proved that something was still working, even if the defences would hardly be as automated as the defences around the bunker at Hack Green, or a similar location.
“Do you think that there’s been an accident?” Plummer asked. He waved a hand at a door. On close inspection, it was clearly designed to be an airtight door between two sections. “Someone must have used a bazooka on that one.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Dwynn admitted. The team spread out; they could here some Germans talking in a larger room. He peeked around the corner… to see a group of SS generals stuffing themselves with food.
“Bastards,” Vash commented. “A grenade?”
Dwynn picked one of his grenades off his belt and tossed it into the room. Seconds later, it exploded, killing the generals. He checked quickly; none of the generals were still alive.
“What the hell were they doing there?” Dwynn asked grimly. “Stuffing themselves before being hung?”
“It looks that way,” Chang said. “By now, Himmler must have run out of capable officers.”
“I suppose,” Dwynn said. He led the way towards what looked like a control centre. “They must have heard the explosion and…”
Two men came running along the corridor. The SAS men cut them down quickly, moving faster as the news of their presence spread. Dwynn jumped into the control centre and fired once into the ceiling.
“Surrender now and you won’t be harmed,” Dwynn bellowed, his voice amplified to hurt eardrums. “Fight and you won’t live to see tomorrow!”
A portly colonel whimpered. “We surrender,” he said. “We surrender.”
Dwynn nodded at the radio console. “Order the troops on the surface to surrender,” he snapped. The operator started to mutter into his microphone. “Where’s Himmler?”
“He left, he fled,” the colonel said. “I’m Standartenfuehrer Scholz.”
Dwynn glared at him. “Listen fatty, this is not a game,” he snapped. “Where are all the good units?”
“They went with Himmler,” Standartenfuehrer Scholz said. He shook. “We were just left here, and ordered to fight to the last.”
“Well, you’re prisoners now,” Dwynn snapped. “You will surrender your command to General Rommel, and if you behave, it will be used in evidence when it comes to determining your fate.”
It took nearly two hours for the surrender to be effected; some units simply didn’t get the orders, even with the network of tunnels linking Berlin together. Rommel, escorted by an entire platoon of infantry, entered the Fuhrerbunker as soon as the surrender had been concluded, followed by Jagar and Sergeant Kettle.
“I’m not surprised that Himmler has fled,” Rommel said grimly. “He was always a coward.”
Jagar nodded. Satellite photographs placed Himmler’s crack divisions entering Russian-held Poland, heading to join up with Stalin. If Himmler was with them, God only knew what he would do next.
“Have the SS men been secured?” Rommel asked. Sergeant Kettle nodded. “What about the other places?”
“We think that we’ve secured everywhere,” Sergeant Kettle assured him. “With nearly thirty divisions nearby, none of the handful of remaining free German units have showed any stomach for concluding the fight.”
It was undiplomatically phased, but Rommel let it pass. “It was lucky, I suppose,” he said, with a heavy sigh. “Losses?”
“Nearly ten thousand of us,” Jagar said. “A couple of hundred American aircrew were shot down, but we hope that we can recover some of them.”
“You must be Rommel,” a new voice said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Rommel turned and blinked; the man who was stumbling towards him was black as the night, with a very bloody face and a clearly broken leg. One of the SAS team was supporting him, although if the man was a prisoner or merely being escorted, Rommel couldn’t tell.
“You must be Professor Horton,” he said, making the connection. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Horton nodded. “Bastards kept me locked up after Roth died,” he said. “If Himmler hadn’t issued orders back when I got here, they might have shot me out of hand. He said he was going to join up with Stalin and end the war… sir, he has a nuke.”
Rommel felt his blood run cold. Sergeant Kettle grabbed his radio and started to talk rapidly into it. If Himmler had a nuclear warhead – and Stalin would soon have the ability to make his own – the war wasn’t over yet.
Chapter Forty-Two: The Hunt For Himmler
10 Downing Street
London, United Kingdom
20th June 1942
Hanover spoke very calmly. “Himmler has escaped, and he has a nuclear warhead?”
Stirling nodded grimly. “Yes, Prime Minister,” he said. The war cabinet let out a collective gasp. “It could be a joke, or some misinformation, but…”
“We have to take it seriously,” Hanover said. “Has the press heard about it yet?”
Noreen shook her head. “Nothing yet,” she said. “The information could be restricted under an Advisory notice, if necessary, just to prevent a panic.”
Stirling coughed. “Sir, we cannot let them broadcast this information,” he said. “We have to prevent anyone from hearing about it.”
“Anyone reasonable would know that the bomb could not appear here,” McLachlan said.
“People aren’t reasonable,” Stirling said.
McLachlan chuckled. “You’re too young to be so cynical,” he said. “Now…”
Hanover shook his head grimly, tapping the table for silence. “We have to do more,” he said. “Now… where might the weapon be?”
“Satellites have tracked SS units moving into Russian Poland,” Cunningham said. “I don’t think that they could use it to bomb us, or to hit the Americans, as the bomb would almost certainly be too heavy to place on a rocket.”
Hanover scowled. “They can’t have simply copied one of our units?” He asked. “There’s no chance at all of them building a working ICBM with a nuclear warhead?”
Stirling shook his head. “That question was analysed back to front,” he assured him. “The Oversight Committee concluded that building a warhead small enough to fit on an ICBM would be beyond German capabilities for at least five years.”
“This would be a dreadful time for an oversight,” Hanover said ruefully. “So… where is the little bastard?”
“Somewhere in Poland, we suspect,” Cunningham said. “The Fuhrerbunker was searched from top to bottom by our troops and turned up nothing. We hold pretty much all of Germany now.”
Hanover nodded, knowing that that was relative. Rommel’s force might have been taking over the administration, but a single fugitive could slip through the net pretty easily, even with the food distribution being handled by Allied troops. The front lines lay in what had been Poland’s western border in 2015, but the confusion was so great that there could be no attempt to seal the borders.