The Long Hard Road

Chapter Fourteen: New Choices

Fuhrerbunker

Berlin, Germany

18^th April 1942

Field Marshal Kesselring was never certain why he had agreed to work with Himmler, rather than accept the offer of honourable retirement. Certainly, Himmler was easier to work for than the late lamented Adolf Hitler, who had been practically canonised by the SS, but at the same time he was chilling to be near. The man who had overseen the activities in Poland and the Balkans, who had set the Reich and Stalin’s so-called worker’s paradise to work together, was chilling. A single word from him could end a career – or a life.

No, he knew what he told himself; that Himmler had no military experience and would surely have led Germany to disaster – greater disaster – without someone to advise him. If that was the truth, Kesselring himself didn’t know; he didn’t understand himself.

“The Americans are doing better than we feared,” he said, indicating the lines of the American advance through Sweden. Their new tactics, literally shelling the German strongpoints to death, weren’t as… neat as the blitzkrieg techniques, but they were undeniably effective. Without significant air cover, the Germans were doomed to lose Sweden… and the forces holding down Stockholm would be trapped.

Himmler nodded slowly, studying the map with a thoughtful impression. Unlike Hitler, there was no doubt that he understood it – and the sheer power of the driving will of General Patton. Patton might not have been a strategic genius, but there was nothing wrong with his tactics.

“Our allies can do nothing?” Himmler asked finally. He studied the marked Soviet forces, positioned in the north of Sweden and Norway, where they’d evicted the Americans from in the winter.

“General” – Kesselring’s mouth stumbled over the name – “Koniev has launched a series of attacks against American positions,” he said. He hated to give the Russians any credit; he was certain that Stalin would turn on them when it suited him. “Unfortunately, moving forces across American positions… has not proven easy.”

He indicated the red lines of advance. Koniev hadn’t learned much, although, to be fair, the terrain of Norway didn’t give him much chance to learn about manoeuvre warfare. He’d slammed into American positions with considerable force… and then the American and British bombers had gotten to work. They might make it to Trondheim – he didn’t think that they would get to where they had to be; Oslo and Bergen.

“I see,” Himmler said. His voice was deathly cold; Kesselring wondered who would be thrown to the wolves as punishment for the failure. “How would you recommend that we salvage the situation?”

Kesselring blinked. Hitler had rarely asked for suggestions, choosing to depend on his own considerable abilities at looking inside his opponent’s head and luck. In the future that would never be, the ability had finally deserted him – if he’d had it in the first place.

He paused a moment to consider. “We cannot hold on to Sweden,” he said. “I propose withdrawing the forces in Stockholm and allowing the Russians to take over there. Even with aerial interdiction – the new rockets have worked very well – we can have them at Malmo within a week and evacuate them from Sweden.”

Himmler considered. “You would suggest abandoning territory?” He asked. His tone was mild. “Is it not a principle that territory held by the Reich should never be abandoned?”

“A strategic retreat,” Kesselring said, taking his life in his hands. “If the new weapons work, we can retake Sweden later – after a few months of Soviet occupation, they might be glad to see us. If they stay there, Mien Fuhrer, they will be destroyed?”

Himmler’s gaze swept up to the former commander of SS Das Reich, Ernst Barkmann. His war wounds, suffered during the attempt to retake Turkey, were bad, but there was nothing wrong with his mind. Kesselring felt mild relief; the man might be – was – an SS fanatic, but he had genuine combat experience. Future history said so.

“The Field Marshal is right,” Barkmann said. His voice had been damaged by the FAE bomb that had torn the heart out of Das Reich. “We cannot hold the country. Let the Untermensch have it; that will teach them to be good Aryans.”

Himmler inclined his head. “Albert, please make the arrangements,” he said. Kesselring, delighted at his good fortune, gaped at him. “There is no point wasting men trying to change what cannot be changed,” Himmler said. “Please see to it at once.”

Kesselring saluted and left, trying to forget that it had been his idea to withdraw from Sweden. Himmler had been right, of course; trying to hold Sweden was a waste of time. He smiled; once the Americans and the Communists got to grips, as they might… well, perhaps there would be opportunity there.

Himmler steepled his fingers and looked at Horton as the man entered. “You heard?” He asked. “This would seem to be a fine time for Operation Peace Makes Plenty, would it not?”

Horton allowed himself a moment to consider. Operation Peace Makes Plenty had been named and conceived by Himmler himself, who was acting as his own Foreign Minister. Joachim von Ribbentrop, who was disliked by the entire SS and much of the Wehrmacht, had been shot out of hand after Himmler had sealed his grip on power.

“By abandoning Sweden, you would show that you were willing to give up some of your gains,” Horton said finally. His mind raced rapidly. “If you did so and return control to the Swedish Government in exile, they might…”

“The Soviets would not allow it to stand,” Himmler said. “Although… there would be no reason why we could not make such an offer, along with the other offers.”

Horton nodded. Operation Peace Makes Plenty intended to show the British and Americans the cost of continuing the war… and then offer a fair peace agreement. Spain, France and Italy would regain their independence; Germany would even allow the creation of a rump Poland.

“Yes, I think we’ll do that,” Himmler said. “Even with the new weapons, it should take Patton some time to force his way all the way to the tip of Sweden.” He sighed. “We’ll give it a week, and then make the peace offer.”

Roth watched grimly as Werner Von Braun’s presentation was displayed on the wall. He nodded to the SS man who had attached it and picked up his notes. Von Braun, one of the most important people in the Reich, lived somewhere in Bavaria, hidden from Allied bombings and the British precision weapons. Roth had no doubt that the British knew who Von Braun was, and if they knew where he was, they would seek to kill him.

He smiled. Stewart, his lover, had claimed that the British had sworn off political assassinations, but he knew better. The death of Admiral Darlen remained unexplained, and then there was the loss of the American General MacArthur, who the Americans claimed had killed himself.

“Professor Von Braun has been working on our own rocket program, now we have a working V2 design,” he said. The original terminology for the tactical rockets had been kept at Hitler’s insistence. “Finally, we have a working model of a V3; a long-range strategic rocket.”

Himmler examined the display with interest. The rocket didn’t carry an atomic warhead, even though the basic design had been intended for a futuristic warhead. What it could do was hit American directly, or even Russian bases in the Urals.

“And there is no way that the British can stop it?” Himmler asked finally. “How accurate is it?”

“Professor Horton believes that the British might be able to shoot it down if it came at Britain, but he wasn’t certain if they had many of the rockets required,” Roth said. He scowled; few of the hostages knew much about that part of the British defences. “If it were to be launched from French territory, it would not pass within range, we hope.”

“You hope,” Himmler said. “How accurate is it?”

Roth frowned. “We can hit a city,” he said. “The rocket has a large warhead and it will cause major damage, but there’s no way to be certain that we would hit a given target, such as the White House.”

Himmler considered. “Would they be able to see the rocket?”

“Oh, yes,” Roth said. “They will certainly be watching for rocket tests of ours, which is why we have kept them undercover for the most part.”

Himmler nodded thoughtfully. “So, when can we fire the first rocket?”

“Once we pick the launch site, a week,” Roth said. “It’s merely a matter of assembling it under cover of darkness.”

“They would see it on the ground,” Himmler agreed. “See to it.”

Roth hesitated. “Professor Von Braun has an idea about handling the British presence in space,” he said. It still seemed like American science-fiction to him. “With the information we have collected from our agent in the American space program and the other agents we have in America, we know it’s orbital course around the Earth.”

He lifted the first display image, revealing a second concealed underneath it. “The space station proceeds around the Earth on a regular course that cannot be changed easily,” he said. “It is also the largest thing in orbit, although their new construction may be larger – not that we have any idea what its for.”

Himmler nodded. The German observatories had turned their telescopes on the British station with awe and a growing amount of horror. Even for the finest telescopes in Germany, predicting orbital paths wasn’t easy, even though it did help them to hide objects from British view.

“The point, Mein Fuhrer, is that the station cannot simply be moved along a different course,” he said, deciding not to go into the details of orbital mechanics. Professor Von Braun had explained them all to him at great length. “It must follow its course… which makes it vulnerable.”

He put up the third picture. “Professor Von Braun made the decision to proceed with a very basic design of rocket, one that could be mass-produced and fuelled very quickly. In fact, Professor Von Braun believes that we can move quickly to a solid-fuel rocket, which will be far safer and easier to deploy than a liquid-fuelled model. However, for our current problem the design is capable of launching a satellite into space – or a weapon.”

He smiled. The rocket had been copied from a future design, one that their main agent within the US had stolen from the Military Space Agency, and was – barely – within German capability to duplicate. Professor Von Braun anticipated a high failure rate, but even one success would awe the British.

“The weapon doesn’t have to be big,” he said. “In fact, carrying the speed of the rocket and inserted into an orbit that would bring it on a collision course with the space station… even an empty bomb would shatter the integrity of the space station and spill its inhabitants out into the void.”

Himmler smiled. “How long until we can launch our own satellites?”

Roth smiled; Hoover had proven very helpful in that regard. “There is no intrinsic reason why we could not proceed with it right now,” he said. “The American designs are very simple and within our own reach, and we have the aid of the laptops in calculating the orbital trajectories. Unfortunately, we would have to rely on the technique of returning the films to Earth, rather than transmitting the signals, because of…”

“Jamming,” Himmler said. “I understand the problem.”

Roth nodded. The German transmission capabilities were not up to British standards, particularly with live imagery, and they had no way of preventing the British from simply jamming the signals.

“We also have to add an anti-tamper system to the satellites,” Roth explained. Himmler nodded. “The British could quite easily, Professor Von Braun assures me, attempt to intercept the satellite while it was in orbit.”

Himmler chuckled. “It doesn’t seem quite real, does it?” He said wryly. Roth blinked; Himmler letting his metaphorical hair down didn’t happen very often. “I assume that the Russians are moving ahead with their own rocket production?”

“Yes,” Roth said. He scowled; he understood Himmler’s logic, but given the Russians additional weapons didn’t go well with him. “They plan to have thousands of the Mark-1 V2s within a couple of months, and then move onto the Mark-2 design.”

“We all know about Russian five-year plans,” Himmler said. Roth, who had been uncomfortably aware of the scale of the Russian construction programme, said nothing. “By the time they pose a threat to us, they will no longer be a threat.”

Roth blinked at the statement, but held his tongue. After all, Himmler might be more stable than his predecessor, but he wasn’t so willing to take appearances – Russian appearances – at face value.

Kristy Stewart was bored. It wasn’t something she was used to; she was normally able to go out and about as she chose. For the past year and a half, she had been in Germany as a reporter… and she was getting bored of it. The news from home, that little that she got, wasn’t good; there was another bright young thing trying to steal her place.

“I want to go home,” she said, and smiled grimly at her lover. He blinked up at her and she wondered if she meant anything to him, more perhaps than he meant to her.

“You want to go back to England?” Roth asked. His face was a picture of astonishment. She knew that it was a fake. “Don’t you like it here?”

Stewart allowed her frustration to show. “I’m here, instead of wandering around Berlin,” she said. “This isn’t a good place to spend my days; I want to see everyone back home.”

“You could always go on a holiday,” Roth suggested. “There are still alpine retreats, if you want to go there with me.”

“I don’t think that the new Fuhrer” – she’d broken the news about Himmler’s ascension to power – “would let you take a week off.”

Roth frowned. Stewart smiled behind her hand; she understood that Himmler was making Roth work on some ultra-secret project that even her most adventurous sexual techniques couldn’t get him to talk about. It was unlikely that Himmler, who seemed to feel that sex was only good for making little Germans, would give him time off for a tryst.

“Perhaps he could be talked into it,” Roth said doubtfully.

“I need a break, love,” Stewart said. “I want to go back home.”

She winced inwardly. She knew she sounded as if she was going to cry, and she didn’t like using tears to manipulate anyone. On the other hand, most Contemporary personnel seemed to have problems resisting a crying woman.

“I’ll speak to the Fuhrer about it,” Roth promised, placing a hand on her bare shoulder. “I can’t promise anything, but I’m sure that he will let you return for a holiday.”

Stewart, who had caught the patronising undertone, frowned inwardly. “Thank you,” she sniffled, and kissed him. Roth responded to her passion as she used her body unmercifully… for it was the only weapon she had in her gilded cage. Miles from Britain, miles from a civilised country, Stewart finally understood the true danger of Nazism.

Himmler lifted an eyebrow as Roth entered the room. The young SS officer, who had been promoted to handle matters that Himmler didn’t want to trust to the regulars in any way, seemed unusually concerned. Himmler listened as Roth outlined the situation, and frowned to himself.

He hadn’t been that concerned when Roth had started his affair. It wasn’t good practice for an SS officer to be sleeping with a British woman, even if she was a good Aryan – Jasmine Horton was a good Aryan as well, part of his mind reminded him – when the camps existed for SS officers. Roth could have had an arranged marriage with one of the good German girls who had agreed to marry SS officers – and good Wehrmacht officers – who were all good breeding stock. Instead…

Hitler hadn’t cared, he’d thought that it was funny, Himmler remembered. Everything that passed between the two lovers was watched and studied by the SS oversight team, there had been no discussion of state secrets, no pillow talk, and yet… who could say what would reveal the location of the Fuhrerbunker to British intelligence. A lucky hit – and the RAF had already damaged the bunker once by accident – and the Reich would be decapitated.

If that happened…

“She can’t return home,” he said, and kept his face impassive at the expression on Roth’s face. The young fool did have feelings for the British bitch. “At least, not until Operation Peace Makes Plenty.”

Roth relaxed slightly. “She could carry the message home to England,” he said.

Himmler thought rapidly. Roth’s use wasn’t at an end – the SS had too few officers who had his capabilities – but he couldn’t be allowed to continue his relationship. It would have to be handled carefully; there was no point in breaking the man. It wasn’t as if he were a traitor, after all.

“She’ll have to broadcast the signal home,” he said. “She can go with the negotiating team to England, or through Portugal afterwards. They said they wouldn’t come to pick her up, didn’t they.”

“They sent one of their helicopters to pick up the cameraman,” Roth pointed out. “Perhaps they would agree if she was going for a holiday.”

“Perhaps,” Himmler said. He thought cold thoughts about British women. “Yes, I think that will work, don’t you?”

Roth nodded. “Thank you, Mein Fuhrer,” he said. “May I have permission to inform her of your decision?”

“Yes, you may,” Himmler said, as graciously as he could. He waited until Roth had left the room, and then picked up his telephone, dialling a number from memory. “Dieter, it’s me,” he said, and smiled at the stammering response. “I have a task for you,” he said, and outlined his orders.

He put down the phone and nodded once to himself. Whatever happened, Kristy Stewart would never return to England. She knew too much.