“We only have one ally here,” Robinson pointed out. “The British. The French have been sucking German cock.”
“I’d like to have her sucking my cock,” O’Neil said, waving a hand at the TV. Robinson snorted; the first year of the American Internet had provoked outcry, just from all of the blue movies on it. A year later, following Hoover’s rebellion, they had subsided, slightly.
“No argument,” Robinson said. She really was wearing a very open jacket. “Hey, do you think she goes on dates with servicemen?”
“I don’t think you earn enough,” O’Neil said. “They don’t pay us enough for anything here.”
Robinson shrugged. Learning how little American wages were worth in Britain had been a shock to the troops. “True,” he said. “I’m going to the restaurant in Yarmouth; the Indian one. You coming?”
“Nah, the General found me something to do,” O’Neil said, with genuine regret. “Catch you in two days?”
“You’ve found a whorehouse,” Robinson accused mildly. O’Neil blushed. “Naughty man.”
“Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may catch some disgusting skin disease,” O’Neil said. They’d watched the comedy movies in the mess. “See you later, man.”
Fuhrerbunker
Berlin, Germany
28th May 1942
Himmler studied the results of the nuclear strike, now they had had time to analysis it fully, with a sense of profound dissatisfaction. The casual destruction of nearly two square miles of German countryside was distressing – even if it had provided some unexpected sources of radioactive material for the dirty bomb project – but the loss of the smallpox project was terrifying. It suggested entrapment; it suggested treachery. Who could have betrayed him, he wondered, who might have had a reason to sabotage the bioweapon program?
He peered down at the report from the SS officer commanding the region. The panic of the population had been calmed, and even Radio Berlin had shifted its focus from attacking Britain for inhumanity to trying to calm people down. With determination, skill and a few regrettable incidents, the SS had managed to evacuate the region, but they hadn’t managed to prevent rumours of far greater devastation from slipping across the country.
Himmler sighed. He had been reluctant to test any of the remaining prisoners to destruction; those who hadn’t been needed had been quietly liquidated. The British probably didn’t know it, but they’d managed to kill two of their own people, just by bombing a section of a Luftwaffe factory. The attempt to infect the brown-skinned woman with smallpox hadn’t worked; when she’d been interrogated, she’d explained that she’d been inoculated for countless diseases during the Hajji. The interrogator had predicted that such customs would disappear after the Reich won – and she’d thrown a terrible fit.
“Mien Fuhrer, Field Marshal Kesselring is here to see you,” his secretary said. Himmler nodded grimly; Kesselring was one of those who were worth listening to. “Shall I send him in?”
“Yes, please,” Himmler said, who had found that politeness worked wonders when dealing with subordinates. Hitler would have agreed; he was only rude to high-ranking personnel. His female secretary had cried the day that he had died.
Kesselring entered. His face had grown older and older as the Reich suffered more defeats. Himmler had occasionally considered retiring him, or having him liquidated, but the Reich needed him. Of those who had been great, only a handful remained. Rommel, the arch-traitor, served the British; Guderian had been remanded in a POW camp somewhere in the Middle East. Kesselring was the only real strategist left to him that he trusted.
“Heil Himmler,” Kesselring said. Like all of the Wehrmacht, the salute sounded a little odd from him; he hadn’t sworn loyalty to Himmler personally, like the Army had sworn to Hitler. “Mien Fuhrer, I have a vitally important report to make to you.”
Himmler lifted an eyebrow and waved a hand at a chair, noticing the massive folder that Kesselring was carrying under his arm. “Have the British launched another nuclear strike?” He asked. Kesselring shook his head. “Then it can’t be that important,” Himmler said.
Kesselring scowled. “Mien Fuhrer, I have here the latest reports and images from the satellite program,” he said. “The images of the future Britain have been grim; they are clearly building up for the invasion.”
“And so my sources in America have informed me,” Himmler said calmly. He frowned inwardly; Ritter had vanished and Hoover had been killed by someone, Ritter perhaps? “They place the invasion site as France.”
He studied Kesselring, who he knew had never believed that the British would try to land in France, again. “That is surprising news,” Kesselring said finally. “The amount that they’re building up is remarkable. Our rockets have not been able to make any noticeable dent in it.”
Himmler shrugged. “Let them come here,” he said. “You have the better part of twenty Panzer and forty infantry divisions in France, and there are more in reserve, as we planned. You can advance upon them as they land, accompanied by nearly two thousand of the Luftwaffe’s newest aircraft.”
Kesselring sucked in his breath. “I had not been aware that the mobilising and manufacturing program had had such success,” he said. “However, I question our ability to use the forces in Germany itself as a reserve. The British and Americans will cut our lines of communication.”
Himmler smiled. “It is for that that I have given you and Manstein complete authority in France,” he said. Unlike Hitler, he knew better than to meddle in tactical affairs. “Your mission is to destroy the enemy on the ground; Galland will accomplish that task in the air.”
“Mien Fuhrer, can we stop them?” Kesselring asked grimly. “They used a nuclear warhead in our own country last week, not some out of the way place that no one cares about. What happens when they start using them to clear our forces out of the way?”
“I do not believe that they will do that,” Himmler said. “At worst, their units would have to drive through a radioactive wasteland.”
Kesselring bowed. “Then, with your permission, I’ll get back to preparing the counter-attacks.”
Himmler nodded. “Of course, of course,” he said. “Good luck.”
Kesselring scowled to himself as he reached the Wehrmacht offices in the massive bunker, but he knew better than to say anything out loud; he was certain that more than a few of the clerical workers worked for Himmler as well as himself. Inwardly, he felt like crying; Himmler seemed to be unaware that the war was lost. With the unrest in Russia and the nuclear strikes, not to mention Japan’s surrender, the Reich was about to enter the rubbish bin of history, three years ahead of schedule.
Rommel’s radio transmissions had offered amnesty to Wehrmacht officers who acted to overthrow Himmler, but he knew that that was impossible. All the units near Berlin were SS; the closest Wehrmacht unit was in Denmark. If the SS could be persuaded to act against Himmler, the war might end with Germany intact, except the SS was fanatically on Himmler’s side, except…
He scowled down at the report he’d ‘borrowed’ from Doctor Josef Mengele. Perhaps, just perhaps, it could be used to drive a wedge between Himmler and one of his closest and most trusted subordinates. Perhaps… or perhaps it would lead inevitably to Kesselring’s own doom. He made his decision, the only one he could make, and then he started to lay his plans, both for the defence of Europe and the end of the Nazi Regime in Germany.