Winter Warriors

CHAPTER TWELVE: RESTORING ORDER

It was a strange thing. In the soft gray light of dawn, the damage to the city didn’t seem to be all that bad. The shells of the buildings were still standing. Their glass was gone and the area of wall around the windows was stained black certainly, but the outer stone shells were still there. It was only from the air that the devastation was truly apparent. From above it could be seen that the buildings were indeed shells, their insides gutted by fire. The incendiaries had landed on roofs already damaged by one hundred pound bombs mixed in with the incendiaries and set the wooden inside structure ablaze. That might have been controllable but for the two thousand pound bombs that the B-29s had dropped right at the start of the attack. They had blown the windows in. The fires on the top floors had drawn air in through the base of the buildings and up. That turned controllable fires into infernos. The same suction effect drew burning embers from adjacent fires in and they had completed the process. South Helsinki had been burned out. It just didn’t look like it. Not quite.

Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim looked at the ruined buildings. Outwardly dispassionate, inwardly despair tore at him. Under his leadership the Finnish Army had fought the Soviet Army to a standstill in the Winter War. He believed that achievement had saved Finland from Soviet occupation. Then the damned fool politicians had started the Continuation War in the hope of recovering the territory lost in 1940 and bringing about the dream of a Greater Finland covering the whole of the Kola Peninsula. Being charitable, they couldn’t have known then that doing so would bring them into conflict with the Americans. At that time Russia had been alone and it had seemed certain Germany would win that war as well. But the Americans had come in with their endless cornucopia of weapons and their ruthless determination to win, at all costs. Mannerheim looked around. Obviously one of the costs had been South Helsinki. At 78 years old, he didn’t need this. Nor would he need what was obviously to come. The same destruction would be methodically meted out to every city and town in Finland. Starting with the bits of Helsinki still standing.

In the back of the car with him, President Risto Heikki Ryti was looking at the people, not at the burned-out buildings. Rather, he was looking at their remains; shrunken, blackened husks that the fires had left behind. The car was in a small square, just off the Mannerheiminte. It had been one where people had gathered in vain hope of shelter. There had been one exit out of the square when the fires had closed in, a narrow street. The entrance to it was blocked by a pile of charred bodies, ten or twenty high and five times that number deep. For a second, he wondered what the last minutes of those people had been like, fighting desperately to escape while the flames closed in.

“Why did they do it to us? What did we ever do to them?” Ryti’s voice was cracking with emotion and bewilderment.

“What did we do to them?” Mannerheim could hardly believe the question. “We sank their ships. We shot down their aircraft. We killed their soldiers. We attacked them when we had led them to believe that a truce existed along our front. I think that was enough.”

“But we didn’t attack them. We have never fought Americans.”

“We fought their allies. That’s enough. And their aircraft fight over Kola and that too is enough. We had fair warning. The Americans told us that how we would be treated would depend on how much or little activity we undertook. You have seen the word from Sweden?”

“Of course. We cannot accept such terms.”

“We cannot not accept them. They are the best we will get. If we do not accept them, and make the allies believe that we have accepted them, we will look back and see these terms as generosity incarnate. If anybody is left in our burned-out cities to look back of course.”

“The Germans say they will prevent more such attacks. They are moving additional fighters and low-level anti-aircraft guns around our cities. They say any more such raids will be too costly for the Americans to contemplate.”

“Perhaps. Although I do not think the Germans understand what the Americans are prepared to pay yet. Or what prices they will charge.”

There was a silence as the open-topped touring car left the square that stank of roasted flesh and returned to the Mannerheiminte. The bodies here were more spaced out, spread evenly rather than piled up. Mannerheim looked at the carnage wanting to weep but unable to do so. One thing caught his eye. A couple, charred husks now like all the rest, but holding each other. Between them was the burned remains of a potted plant. Incredibly one of its leaves was green. Somehow, that leaf had escaped the fires and the heat. “Mister President, do me a personal favor and have this street renamed. I do not care to have such a scene bearing my name.”

Ryti nodded wordlessly, looking at the scene unrolling as the car eased down the street. From the roadside the rescue workers stopped their efforts when they recognized the tall figure in the back of the car and their voices carried across the empty space.

“It’s the Marshal.”

“He’ll save us.”

“The Marshal will help us.”

Once again, Mannerheim wanted to weep; the necessity of maintaining the staunch appearance prevented him. While the man who occupied the car was still President, there was nothing he could do. He could stop armies but not the bombers that flew overhead. While Ryti remained President, the bombers would return. Suddenly a deep chill racked Mannerheim’s body and soul. For one horrible moment he believed he was looking at the future, not just of Finland but of all Europe.

“So I must accept these terms?” Ryti asked the question. In his heart he knew the answer that was coming.

“No, you must not. You cannot, because nobody will believe you. We have accepted a truce once, unofficial certainly but real for all of that. You gave orders to break it. You took German bribes to break it. Now, you will send your acceptance of these terms to the Americans and they will wipe their asses with it.”

The sudden, uncharacteristic coarseness shocked Ryti but he knew what the words meant. His term as President was finished. It had just ended, here on the street he would rename as his last official act. In that moment, he knew that he would rename the street after himself. The burned-out, corpse-covered street was a scene that should bear his name. It was his fault this had happened.

“Marshal, it is obvious that I can no longer lead Finland under these circumstances. Will you become Prime Minister and accept the allied terms on Finland’s behalf?” His voice was hopeless, despairing.

Mannerheim stared at Ryti and measured the situation. “No. I am too old and I lack knowledge of the detailed techniques of government to take on such a role. Nor would the allies accept it. There must be a clean break with the past.”

Ryti sighed. Again, he had expected the answer. “Then I must resign from the office of president, and ask parliament to elect you as Regent. At a time such as this, it is necessary that civil and military authority be combined in one person so that there is no doubt over who carries the right authority.”

In the back of the car, Mannerheim weighed the situation then decided on the course that had to be followed. He would have to send word via Sweden that the new terms would be accepted, that the Finnish Army would never again attack allied positions. “The Americans do not like the position of Regent. They think it sounds like a cinema. I will have to be elected as President to avoid any misconceptions about the nature of my office. The Americans understand Presidents.” Ryti nodded. It was not as if he had much choice in the matter, not surrounded by the stench of burned-out city and the heat from the incinerated buildings. “We must hope that the Swedes can make the allies believe that.”

Mannerheim nodded. It all depended on the Swedes and their strange friends in Switzerland. Once again, he looked at the burned-out city and shuddered. The feeling he was looking at Europe’s grave still lingered within him.

The scouts had spotted the train as soon as dawn had broken. Then, they had worked their way back to where the rest of the column had set up its positions. They had skied back with the word that the officers needed to know, past the long lines of ripped-up track that would stop the single surviving great gun. The gun couldn’t pass the blockage. The railwaymen couldn’t repair the tracks under fire. They were all trapped. Ahead of them, the glow in the sky showed where the sun would soon rise. Overhead, the clouds were turning dark, angry red. An old saying rolled through the corporal’s mind.

An old verse, almost a child’s saying but with truth behind it. There was another storm coming. Probably not as severe as the great storm that had started this whole offensive. It would be a bad one none the less. The corporal guessed that the Army would be using that storm to break off and retreat. The offensive had failed. Everybody knew it. Only this long contest between the mechanized column and the American Navy gun was still going on. It had become almost a private war in itself.

The treeline was ahead and the scouts planed into it. They sought out their commander in the prepared positions. Asbach had seen them come in and was hurrying out to meet them. His snow-shoes eased his passage across the packed ground.

“Report corporal?”

“The train has stopped. Some eight kilometers behind that ridge. We saw men dismounting from it. We think they are the railway engineers and the sailors. Perhaps they are moving up to attack.”

“If we are lucky, perhaps. Corporal, take your men back. There is fresh coffee made and some stew. You have done well.” Asbach turned around and thought. Why had the train stopped so far back? “One moment Corporal, did you see the Siberians?”

“No, no sign of them.”

That was bad. They were up to something but what? They were only a depleted platoon in strength. Even Siberians couldn’t attack a reinforced unit like this, not one that was dug in and waiting. Not unless they got some help.

“Lang, we have flank guards out.”

“Yes Asbach, a light platoon each side. And I sent a squad to watch our rear as well.”

“Good, take as many men as we have left and form a reserve. Form it around a couple of half-tracks for support. If we get attacked, move to reinforce wherever the attack is coming from.”

“Very good Asbach. I’ll have two good squads each in a ‘track.”

Asbach nodded and returned to his thoughts. There was one source of manpower that the train could access. Partisans. They were all around him. He always knew that. Now they were closing in to help the train. That damned train.

He shook himself. It was as if that hell-spawned train was alive, that it was fighting him all by itself. It had sucked him and all the other forces around him into a private little war. One that had little to do with the greater war that was going on around them. Had the devil himself possessed that great gun and was using it for his own plans? Asbach hadn’t been a religious man since his youth. He’d lost his faith in God during the stone-by-stone fighting for Moscow. But he believed in the devil and now he was getting a growing feeling that the devil was becoming inordinately interested in him.

Behind him, the sun started to edge over the horizon, the dark of the night turning into royal blue. And that’s when Asbach heard the sound of aircraft engines.

It had been a hard night. First of all, two hours over Helsinki being buffeted by the rising air currents from the growing fires down below. They had hunted the anti-aircraft guns that threatened the B-29s. They’d got most of them, or at least the ones that opened fire. Sometimes they’d been too late. They still remembered the sight of one B-29 with its port engines on fire. It had folded up in mid-air and crashed on to the city beneath. And another just exploded, sending fire and fragments in great arcs downwards. Then, they had landed at their home base, to be hurriedly reloaded with bombs and rockets. All so they could go and support the train that was trying to get through to safety in the north.

Lieutenant Quayle thought that it was only fair. He had been the one who had shot up the trains in the first place. But he didn’t like being out this close to dawn. No, that wasn’t quite right, it was at dawn and the sun was already showing its tip over the horizon. Wasn’t there a legend that witches melted in the sunlight if they were caught out after daybreak? Or was that vampires?

Evil Dreams headed south, looking down at the rails in the dawn twilight. Their shine was a faint but ghostly trail that reminded him of a snail moving. His first job was to find the train. Apparently only a single gun survived, and he had to ensure it was clear of the battle area. Then he had to track the rails back and try and work out where the German force was hiding. Word was they were hidden in the woods. That was bad news. His favorite anti-personnel weapon, napalm, wasn’t that effective against targets hidden in dense trees. The fire tended to run through the tree tops and miss the troops underneath. So he had one thousand pound bombs and five inch rockets. Plus his cannon and machine guns of course.

“I’ve got the train Boss.” Sergeant James Morton’s eyes were hurting and he had a bad headache. Too much work, too many searchlights, not enough sleep. Helsinki had been the added bit of strain on the Black Widow crews that had pushed them over the edge. They needed rest, needed it very badly.

Evil Dreams orbited over the train, recognizing the gun in the dim light. Then, the crew set off north again and tried to work out where the German ambush unit was situated. The railway skirted the ridgeline, curved around a mound and then set off across the shallow valley. Then it curved away around another gentle rise. Quayle looked down at the track in the valley. Somehow it looked wrong.

“Donnie, look at that track. It seem wrong to you?”

Phelan looked hard, cupping his eyes and trying to focus on the track. Even with binoculars specially designed for low-light conditions, it was hard to make out but…. Then as the light strengthened he realized what he was looking at.

“Got it, Boss. The tracks been torn up. Rails are off to the sides. The sleepers have been pulled away. Shadows make it look like the bed has a couple of holes in it as well.” That could be a mistake, the shallow-incidence light made every slight bump or dip look like a mountain or a yawning chasm.

Quayle circled around again. Now, if the track was torn up here, then the best place to cover it would be over there wouldn’t it? He looked down hoping for a flash of light as an incautious officer watched him with binoculars but no such luck. Too much to hope for. “Donnie, get on the radio and call our friends over. We’ll need some help for this.” And better to have four Black Widows than one if enemy fighters turned up. As soon as the light grew better, they would be replaced by Thunderbolts or Thunderstorms and that would make life a lot more comfortable.

Right, it was time to start. He had to make a choice and Quayle picked a point that looked as if it would give a good field of fire for the hidden German force. Evil Dreams angled over and started her run towards the selected piece of pine forest. Quayle leveled the aircraft out and let fly with all twelve of his five inch rockets. Below him, the wood line erupted into explosions as the salvo struck home.

The American Night Witch pilot was good, very good. Even in the deceptive light of early dawn he had searched out his target and selected the likely position of his prey. He’d got damned close as well, the rocket salvo had punched into the treeline barely 100 meters from his position, close enough for some of the rockets to land amongst his men. Asbach had held his breath, hoping that none of them would open fire and reveal his true position. Doing that would bring down accurate fire from the Night Witch overhead. Discipline held, and the Night Witch climbed away, resuming its circling and waiting for something to break cover. Asbach guessed that the big twin-engined jabo wouldn’t be on its own much longer, it had probably called in its friends and reinforcements would be on the way.

Then Asbach heard the sound he had been expecting, hoping that he wouldn’t hear it but expecting it nevertheless. The crash of light mortar rounds, the rattle of machine guns and the baying ‘urrah, urrah’ of Russian infantry. Asbach listened carefully, for sounds could tell him what eyes could not. Was the rhythmic thumping of StG-44s, the German rear-guard? Or partisans with captured weapons? The ripping sound of the German MG-42s and MG-45s were already dominating the symphony. That meant the attack had to be developing fast. Mixed up with the sound of the German weapons was another tearing noise, one so fast that individual shots were indistinguishable. That had to be the PPS-45. And finally, a slow, dull, thumping, richer and heavier than the rest. The American .45 machine pistols they handed out with such largess. A crude, clumsy weapon but one that was accurate and fired a crippling bullet.

Asbach held his breath. It was a partisan attack for sure. But if Lang moved his two halftracks to support the tiny force at the rear of the formation, he would reveal the position of the unit to the Night Witches overhead. Even as he thought the situation through, a runner slid in the snow beside him.

“Captain’s compliments and he’s leading his reaction force in on foot, doesn’t want to move his vehicles. Says the enemy is attacking in at least battalion strength and there are ski-troops mixed in with Partisans. They have mortars, machine guns and our rifles.”

Asbach nodded. “Tell Lang to drive the enemy back. Keep them away from our main position. If those Partisans have a radio and they report where we are, our friends up there will be having a field day.” The runner nodded and slid off to rejoin his units.

Asbach sighed gently. This was likely to be the final confrontation between him and the men on that accursed train. Once, in Monte Carlo, before the war, he had seen the combination of hope and despair on the face of a man who had placed his last few chips on a single number on the roulette wheel. He had watched that wheel spin with hope despite the odds against him. Against all common sense, he had been shocked when the turn went against him and he lost the last of his small wealth. Now, Asbach knew just how that man had felt.

“Any word from the Finns, Tage?”

“Much news, it will be public soon but we have had warning first. Helsinki, what’s left of it, told Stockholm less than an hour ago and they told me. Risto Heikki Ryti has resigned as President and Marshal Mannerheim is being elected to take his place. Ryti had to go, nobody would believe him, even if he did declare peace. The message from the Marshal is that Finland will accept the Russian peace terms as laid down in our last meeting, harsh though they are. He believes German troops in the north of the country will retreat to Norway but it will be necessary for the Canadians and Russians to deal with those in the South.”

“I am surprised, I’d thought the Finns were certain to reject those terms.” Loki relaxed in his chair, spinning it slightly from side to side as he absorbed the news. “And Finland is out completely?”

“Completely.” Tage Erlander had also found it hard to believe that Finland would collapse. “It was the bombing that did it, that and the way their Motti tactics failed against the Canadians. Their success against the Russians and the lack of any real strikes against the homeland had persuaded Ryti that carrying on the war was risk-free. As he saw it, Finland had everything to gain by carrying on and nothing to lose. Then, the Canadians cut up the Finnish Army and the Americans burned Helsinki down. Win or lose, Finland was going to get hurt and hurt badly.”

“How many died in Helsinki? Anybody know yet?”

“Final total? No, nobody will know for days or weeks. The estimates are rising every hour. It was 10,000 at dawn, now it is 20,000 and still it rises. The Finns had no real air raid precautions in place, not against the sort of raid the Americans launched. Oh, they had antiaircraft guns, searchlights, all those things and sirens to warn people. But all they’d experienced before was some Russian planes scattering a few light bombs. Their buildings had strong cellars and, as usual, people went there to hide from the bombs. They died there, roasted by the fires. The only ones who lived were the ones who started to run early and kept running. It is rumored the American had night fighters over the city and they strafed the refugees as they ran.”

Loki snorted. “Not likely. I’d guess they were attacking the anti-aircraft guns to protect the bombers.” And I know the mind behind this thought Loki, not knowing how completely wrong his belief was. “Doesn’t matter though. Finland’s out, that’s what matters. Tage, we need to get this through to Washington and Moscow as quickly as possible. Does your embassy still have its circuits open?”

“Of course.”

“Good, and I will tell the Swiss government.”

Haven’t I just done that? thought Erlander then dismissed the idea as unfair. The banks weren’t the same thing as the Swiss Government, not even this one. Not quite anyway. “Well, we wanted the Americans to intervene and they did. Just not the way we thought.”

“True Tage. But we wanted them to secure a less severe peace for the Finns, not force the original down their throats. You know, when this is all over, all of the Nordic countries are going to have to think about this very carefully. If the Russian Bear is on the move up your way and the Americans will back those moves, it doesn’t look very good. If you don’t hang together.”

“We will all hang separately.” Erlander half-chuckled at the quotation. “But Danes, Norwegians, Swedes hanging together? That would be a first time. And to have the Finland in there as well. Or what is left of Finland. It will not be a happy or comfortable alliance.”

“So much worse than being Russian provinces?” Loki was irritated. The petty quarrels of his original homeland in the face of impending disaster rankled him. “Look, Tage, we all share much more than our differences suggest, you know that. Scandinavia has to put up a united face when this damned war ends or it’ll get eaten alive. You know that as well.”

Tage Erlander sighed, this strange Swiss banker was right, the times when Scandinavia could remain absorbed in its own petty affairs while the rest of the world ignored it were fading fast. This war would end and Sweden had better be prepared for it. Otherwise, the fate of Helsinki could be repeated many, many times. Then, he asked himself the one question that he had always been afraid to ask. Just how far would the Americans go to bring Nazi Germany down?

Watching him, Loki saw the message sink home. He had tried before to bring Scandinavia to the center of the world stage. His efforts had been a disaster. Because Stuyvesant had played his own game as usual and wrecked everything. The thought seethed through Loki’s mind and made him want to slam his fist down on his desk. It had so nearly worked before …. Then he forced himself to calm down. This time it would be different, this time Stuyvesant owed him for all the intelligence material he was relaying back. This time Stuyvesant was in a war that he couldn’t win without Loki’s help. Now, when Loki tried to get Scandinavia united again, it would work. Because that was the price of his aid to the Americans.

There had been a time when artillerists had fought their guns to the barrel. Gunners would fight cavalry and infantry hand-to-hand around their guns to prevent the disgrace of the artillery pieces being lost. When indirect fire had become the normal way of doing things and the guns had been positioned miles behind friendly lines, it had seemed those days were gone. Russia had quickly dispelled that idea. First tank thrusts that penetrated the defenses and suddenly emerged kilometers behind friendly lines had brought the guns back into the front line. Then had come the partisans whose sudden strikes could turn a safe haven into a battlefield without warning. Gunners had had to fight their guns to the barrel again and know how to use the weapons that kind of fighting required.

Sergeant Heim had been in Russia since the heady days of 1941. Then, the Heer had driven through western Russia, scattering the Soviet Army before them. For a while the huge encirclements brought in prisoners by the tens or hundreds of thousands and cities had fallen with the regularity of a ticking clock. It had seemed like the war really would be over by Christmas. But the Heer hadn’t made it to Moscow by the time the winter arrived. In the snows of that first winter, the Soviet counter-offensive had driven the Germans from the gates of Moscow. That’s when Heim had learned that artillerymen still had to fight like infantry sometimes. The lesson had stayed with him in the years that came next, the fall of Moscow in 1942, the last German drive forward, the arrival of the Americans, the descent of the war into a bloody, futile deadlock. As every year rolled by, the gunners had had to protect their guns. Now they had to do it again.

The perimeter of the defensive position had been weak. Just a squad of panzergrenadiers. A total of eight men with two machine guns and four rifles. One of the machine gun teams had gone in the first second of the attack, a grenade thrown out of the trees had landed in the pit beside them, killing both men instantly. Then there had been the roar of rifle, machine gun and machine-pistol fire. It had been followed by the sight of the white-clad partisans and ski-troops slipping through the trees to assault the paper-thin defense line.

Both sides had been blasting off ammunition at each other. That was something else that had changed since 1941. Now virtually every soldier had an automatic, or at least semi-automatic, weapon. Attacks tended to be concentrations of automatic fire poured at the other side. The hope was to pin them down until the artillery got them. Only, there was no artillery in this battle. The partisans had light mortars only, weapons that were of little use in the dense trees. Their rounds exploded in the treetops, scattering down light fragments but without the power to do crippling damage. The German unit had Heim’s four surviving 150mm self-propelled guns but they had been lined up on where the train would have to appear and men would have to work on the torn-up tracks. The gun was in a limited-traverse housing. Turning the whole vehicle around just wasn’t going to be possible.

So, this battle was infantryman against infantryman and would be decided by the weapons they carried. And the numbers on each side of course. There, the partisans had an advantage. They had struck the weakest part of the German position. Already they were wearing the defenses down. The partisans themselves weren’t normally the best of soldiers. Today, the Siberians were mixed in with them and they could stand toe-to-toe with the best Germany had to offer. The squad guarding the rear wasn’t going to last much longer. Then, Heim knew he would be fighting as an infantryman again.

“Pass word out, all the gun crews, get ready. Man the machine gun with two men per gun. The rest of you, get rifles and get between the vehicles.” Each one of the self-propelled guns had an MG-45 machine gun mounted on the gun casement for exactly this emergency. They would act as pillboxes while the rest of the crews prevented the enemy getting too close.

A single figure dressed in white suddenly backed out of the woods. He was firing his rifle from the hip, short bursts ripping out at an unseen enemy following him. “Kameraden!” The word rang through the waiting guns. The man turned and ran for the guns. He dived into cover as he reached the illusion of protection offered by their steel shapes.

“Come here.” Heim’s voice was sharp and insistent. The man quickly mounted the self-propelled gun and dropped into the fighting compartment. “What is happening.”

“Partisans. And ski troops. They have chewed us up, I am the only one left. There are hundreds of them.”

Heim shook his head. There weren’t, it just seemed like that. His mind flipped back to that winter offensive of 1941/42 and the Siberians sliding through the snow. They had harried their enemies the way wolves brought down their prey. “We’ll hold them here. Join the men by the guns.”

The MG-45 was already loaded and waiting. Heim pulled back the charging lever and nestled down behind the gun. It wouldn’t be long now. His eyes ran along the nearest group of trees, was there movement already from behind them? The butt of the machine gun fitted neatly into his shoulder and he squeezed the trigger gently. The movement sent a short burst into the suspect trees. That broke the brief silence that had descended on the battlefield. A hail of return fire ricocheted off the armor of his self-propelled gun. Heim briefly thanked the gods of war that the fire was from rifles only. The self-propelled guns only had armor to protect them against rifle-caliber weapons. Anything more would go through and bounce around inside.

His men were returning fire. Their StG-44s cracked out quick bursts as the gunners tried to spot the muzzle flashes of the approaching Russians and pin them down. Firing was spreading quickly along the line of self-propelled guns. The machine guns laced the treeline with tracers, the riflemen filled in the gaps. On the other side, the automatic weapons carried by the partisans returned a growing volume of fire. Heim noted that for all the sound and fury of the fire exchange, nobody actually seemed to get hit. Idly the mathematician’s part of his mind, the part no artilleryman could do without, wondered just how many rounds got fired from these assault rifles and machine pistols to get a kill, and how that compared with the old bolt-action weapons. It sometimes seemed as if we have replaced one round that hits with a lot that don’t.

That idle speculation didn’t last long. Nor did it stop Heim from raking the woodline with his machine gun. The problem now wasn’t ammunition, it was heat build-up on the barrel. Carry on like this and the barrel will burn out. Over on the left, the gun at the extreme end of the line stopped firing. Either the gunner inside had been hit or his weapon had jammed. Almost at once, the weight of Russian fire shifted to that section. Heim saw more white-clad figures moving through the snow towards the silent vehicle. Their fire was pinning down the men next to the vehicle. Soon, they would be close enough to blast them out with hand grenades. Heim switched his fire to the new threat. He saw his burst of fire tumble down three or four of the ghostly figures. Then he had to duck as almost every gun the Russians had concentrated on him. He hadn’t heard such a concentration of ringing since the church bells at his wedding. His wife’s family had been overjoyed at the ceremony. That hadn’t surprised Heim, their first baby had been born seven months later.

He shook his head, clearing the memory out and peeked over the edge of the armor. He was just in time to see a gray-black cloud of smoke flash from the ground. A rolling explosion enveloped the side of the gun. Either an RPG-1 or a captured Panzerfaust he thought. He’d heard the Americans had copied the Panzerfaust and were building them in a new factory in Siberia. Rumor had it they were building so many that every Russian soldier would carry one. That was only fair, the Germans had copied the American Bazooka as their Panzerschreck. The stricken self-propelled gun was already starting to burn. The petrol engine used by the British tank that served as its chassis would see the fire quickly become terminal.

That didn’t take long at all. The fire took hold and reached the ammunition store. The gun exploded in a brilliant white flash that scattered great burning trails across the snow. Three guns left and the Russians were closing in fast. It hadn’t taken long for them to exploit the destruction of the gun. They used the cloud of black smoke from the burning vehicle to cover their approach. Heim thought quickly. The Panzerfaust has a range of around 30–60 meters depending on the version the Russians had captured. If they seized the position around the burning gun, they could open fire on the next vehicle and roll the whole artillery position up. It was time to do something about that.

“Take over the machine gun!” He snapped the words at the nearest soldier on the ground beside his vehicle and jumped down. Then he pointed at two men from the crew. “You and you. Follow me.”

He repeated the same process with the three surviving gun crews. That gave him seven men including himself, all armed with assault rifles. A dozen men were left to man the remaining artillery positions. It was thin but he hoped it would be enough. Then, he took his squad behind the parked guns and worked his way towards the burning gun. A quick burst of fire from right next to it showed him that his fears were already well on the way to being realized. The Russians had taken the position and were holding it, positioning themselves dangerously close to the destroyed self propelled gun in order to take advantage from the smoke. That could work against them as well, they had to be ducking to avoid the wreckage being flung around by the secondary explosions.

He took aim and his seven men raked the position with fire from their rifles. Then, they ran forward, their snow shoes helping them glide over the piles of frozen snow and ice that lay between them and the Russians. Two of his men went down. One collapsed in a bloody heap as a PPS-45 burst ripped him up. The other, Heim couldn’t see. A grenade fragment? Or a rifle bullet. It didn’t matter. He and the four others jumped into the Russian troops. They flailed with their rifle butts and stabbed out with bayonets. A frantic, chaotic slaughter that Heim couldn’t understand or follow. He beat one Russian down, bayoneted him, then fired his rifle so that the recoil jerked the bayonet out of the body. When he ducked, he felt a slam on his side. A butt strike from a Russian who held an StG-44 identical to Heim’s own. The blow took his breath away but the Russian fell also, shot down by the one surviving man who was with Heim.

There were five dead Russians in the pit by the burning self-propelled gun and three more dead Germans. Heim looked across, another group of partisans were already approaching, attempting to regain the self-propelled gun position. Heim did a quick count. Eighteen, perhaps twenty?

“How many rounds have you got?”

“One magazine. And Shultzie has two. Here.”

The soldier handed the extra magazine over to Heim. With two magazines each, the two of them couldn’t hold this position. The best they could do was hope that they could delay the Russian assault long enough for somebody to think of something. He took aim at one group and squeezed off a quick burst. They scattered, leaving a figure laying still on the ground. That was good, but the burst of return fire wasn’t. It seemed as though every gun in the Russian army was firing on his little position.

Across from the cover, another group of partisans rushed forward. Suddenly, they were intercepted by a burst of fire that felled four of them and sent the remainder scuttling back to cover. Heim looked over to his left. A group of German troops, almost twenty of them were moving in to the gun positions and along the line. A part of them were heading this way. Heim watched them, with shock recognizing the figure that led the section.

“Sergeant, your men told me you were here. Situation?”

“Enemy in the woods over there and around our flank. They got this gun but we pushed them out again. There’s a lot of them, a hundred or more. All with a automatic weapons and there’s ski-troops mixed in with them.” Heim looked at Captain Lang with amazement. Despite everything, the man’s silk scarf was still snowy, unstained white.

“Well done. I’ve got 22 men with me. I’ll leave six with you and disperse the rest between the remaining guns. That should hold this position.”

There was a note of query in Lang’s voice, as if he was expecting approval. Heim appreciated it. “That’s good, but there’s our friend overhead to worry about.”

“Ah yes, the Night Witches. We’ve run out of our Fliegerschrecks. We will have to hope that they will not do us too much harm. Hope is about all we have left right now.”

Heim nodded. The reinforcements Captain Lang had brought would help hold the area here. But what was happening on the flanks? And how long would it be before the Ami Jabos turned up in strength.

Heim got one answer to that question almost immediately, the sight of a blue flare that turned red streaking up from the Russian positions.

The flares arched up, out of the pine forest and down, changing from blue to red as they burned. They formed a box, defining three of the edges with the front edge of the trees making the fourth. In between them was their target. Its location was marked by a plume of black smoke rising from the trees. That could only be a vehicle burning and the vehicles down there were all German. Lieutenant Quayle swung Evil Dreams around and headed for the defined area. He’d already fired his rockets but he still had six five hundred pound bombs and his guns.

“We’re coming in from the east.” That made sense, if any of the bombs hung up on the racks, they’d land clear of the Russians closing in on the German unit. Bombs often hung up and released late, Quayle had never known one release prematurely. “Donnie, the turret guns are yours, open up on anything that fires on us. Be generous guys, we’re going home soon and we don’t want to take anything back with us.”

“Situation Evil Dreams!” The voice crackled over the radio unexpectedly. “This is Night Mare.”

“Welcome to the party Night Mare. Watch our run, that’ll mark position for you. You have rockets?”

“Sure have Evil Dreams. And thousand pounders.”

That was a problem, thousand pounders were all very well when the Night Witches were behind enemy lines with nothing friendly around but they were too big for this situation. “Hold off on the bombs Night Mare, we’re hitting a confined area here.”

“Roger. Watching your run now.”

Evil Dreams had finished her long turn and started her run towards the area of pine forest marked by the flares. Quayle added power to the engines and started the Black Widow in a shallow dive, her nose pointing straight at the edge of the pine forest. The black stain of the burning vehicle was on the left as she swept down and released her bombs into the treeline framed by the box. Behind her, Night Mare followed the same path. She released her bombs a fraction of a second later. They exploded in the open, a few meters beyond the edge of the pine trees.

“Neat job Night Mare.” The explosions from the smaller bombs had raked the trees with fragments but the blast from the thousand pounders had leveled the tree edge. “And what do we see down there?”

The explosions from the big bombs hadn’t just knocked the trees down. It had exposed at least one German vehicle. It was an eight-wheeled armored car with a large gun fitted. One of the 75mm-armed tank killers. Quayle brought Evil Dreams around and swept down again. He’d selected his 23mm cannon this time. He walked the burst along the ruined treeline until the armor-piercing shots tore into the armored car. The 23mm V-Ya wasn’t much good against tanks, unless the crew were lucky. It was very good against thinly armored vehicles. What had once been an armored car tank destroyer was now a burning pile of wreckage.

Lieutenant Kolchek pulled himself out of the debris thrown around by the bombs. Through the blast-induced confusion he tried to get a grasp on what was happening around him. The rising sun was warming the ground and trees, causing threads of mist to form. He knew what would happen over the next few minutes, as the sun rose further, the mist would grow, the threads would coalesce into a ground fog that would last until the sun grew hot enough to burn it off. Before then, visibility limited by the trees would shrink to a few meters. That loaded the dice in favor of the attackers.

As if to confirm his opinion, a barrage of shots rang out. A few rifles but mostly the ripping noise of the PPS-45s and the slow, heavy thud of the American M-3s. The bullets ricocheted off the tree stumps and tore through the piles of broken branches that now covered his front. The partisans had taken the opportunity of the disruption caused by the airstrike to push forward until they were within almost touching distance of the German positions. The rattle of gunfire was joined by the heavier thud of grenades, Kolchak guessed what was happening now, the partisans had closed up to the point where the submachine gunners were keeping a foxhole pinned down while the grenadiers tossed their weapons into it. His positions had been mutually supporting but the combination of the strike and the mist was interrupting those plans.

“Sergeant, send a runner back to Colonel Asbach. Tell him we’re falling back, trying to establish a new perimeter. Everybody else, drop back, at least 50 meters. Try and get some separation from the Ivans.”

Kolchek started to scramble backwards. If he could get his men back, they could set up a new line. It would be better-placed that the compromised position he was being forced to abandon. He had in a position in mind. It was where a shallow depression ran through the pine trees. Probably the remnant of a path or game trail. Once his men were set up there, they could establish a front line that could hold. The problem was that this would leave the rearguard and artillery positions hanging. Well, that was for them to worry about, the Colonel would have to warn them.

Floundering through the snow, Kolchek saw the depression ahead of him. He also saw something else, sets of long parallel lines in the snow. He looked at them for a second before the significance of them sunk in. That was just a second too long. As he realized he was looking at ski-tracks, the Siberians in the ditch he was relying on opened fire on the men retreating towards them. Kolchek was one of the first to go down, hit over a dozen times by the spraying burst from a PPS-45. As he bled out on the ground he saw his men being cut down by the Siberians to their rear and the partisans closing in from the front.

Knyaz watched the Hitlerites being shot down with grim glee. As the two American sturmoviks had swept overhead, he had led a group of his ski-troops through a small gap that existed between the fascist flank and rear positions. They had been screened by the trees, the developing mist, the blast from the bombs and the raking bursts of gunfire from the air. His men had moved in behind the fascists and occupied a good position. Then the Hitlerites had disengaged and tried to set up a new defense line. Knyaz and his men had held their fire to the last second before opening up with a withering barrage of automatic fire. Instinctively, the fascists who had survived that first blast of gunfire had recoiled from it and fallen back. Straight into another burst of gunfire from the partisans following up the fascist retreat.

Knyaz had done the same thing before, many times since the grim days before Moscow in the winter of 1941. The fascists hadn’t understood what fighting Siberians had meant back then. Now they knew. They rued the day the Siberian divisions had arrived on the European front. Today was another, and the Hitlerite bodies covering the ground in front of his position were proof of that.

“Bratishka, we have much more to do.” Knyaz thought quickly. The whole German rear was hanging in the air with nothing between his troops and the German command post in the center. “Now, we must help the partisans fighting the fascist artillery. Let us take their gun positions from the rear and show them what it means to fight with the bayonet!”

It sounded good but Knyaz knew it wouldn’t come to that. This battle was being fought with grenades and sub-machine guns and they would clear the fascist artillery out of their positions.

Captain Lang heard the gunfire erupting from the trees behind him. A novice he might be, he was grimly aware now of how little he really knew of warfare. The thought of his behavior when he had first arrived made his stomach cramp with humiliation. Yes, a novice I might be but I can tell that the gunfire and the grenade blasts were indeed behind me. Quite a long way behind me, tens of meters at a guess. He closed his eyes for a second and thought. What would he do if he was the Ivan? He knew the answer because it was straight out of the book. Swing around, pivot his advance and take the gun positions from the rear. With infantry in front and behind, the gunners would be cut down and the pieces would be taken. That could not be.

“Sergeant, get the men together. We’ll cover you while your crews start up the guns. They’ll have to break out, try to join the Colonel in the center. He’ll know what to do. Hurry up man, the Ivans are closing in on us.”

Sergeant Heim needed no encouragement to hurry. Unlike Lang, he was a veteran and he knew that the Ivan ski-troops would be on him very soon. To emphasize that message, a Panzerfaust flew out of the mist and trees. It exploded on the ground, a few meters short of one of the three remaining self-propelled guns. That enthused the crew far more than any verbal exhortations could have done and the gun started to move out. As it did so, a second Panzerfaust exploded in the mud where it had been just a few second earlier. Heim watched the other guns starting to back up while Lang’s handful of infantrymen tried to pin down the partisans advancing from the front.

The gunners were doing their best, Heim knew it, Lang knew it, but time was critically short and conditions were not good. One thing saved the guns, they had been positioned to fire on where the train would be arriving and that was the direction they had to go. So, the drivers were in a better position to move their vehicles, they could see where they were going. And their vehicles were faster going forward. And old joke ran through Heim’s mind but he dismissed it with irritation. Who knew how Italian tanks would perform? They’d never been seen on the Russian Front.

Russian was a remarkably good language for cursing and Knyaz used the available vocabulary to the full. The Hitlerites had guessed his move and were pulling their guns out. The whole rear of the German position was crumbling. The guns and their infantry cover were retreating away from his men and the partisans. The latter were doing their best; they fired their captured Panzerfausts with abandon. The explosions flowered all over the positions the fascists had been holding. But they were missed the guns. That wasn’t surprising, the Panzerfaust was an abominably inaccurate and short-ranged weapon. Knyaz waved his arm and his men started to shift diagonally backwards. They were trying to close in on the gun positions before they could be evacuated. His men fired on the fascists, sending them tumbling down but too few. The guns were getting clear.

Two of the three survivors did. The third, the last to get moving, couldn’t quite get out of range fast enough. One Panzerfaust hit it in the tracks. The rocket blew off the forward idler and a road wheel. The track broke and the self-propelled gun spun around and stopped. A second Panzerfaust hit the side of the boxy gun compartment and sent steel fragments howling around inside the structure. Knyaz saw the surviving crew abandon the vehicle. Almost without thinking he and his men opened fire, cutting them down in a hail of sub-machine gun fire.

The self-propelled gun was already starting to burn when a series of blasts turned it into an inferno. The partisans were close enough to throw anti-tank grenades at it. For a brief second, Knyaz actually felt sorry for the gun. It had been stolen from its original owners and brought so far to die in the pine forests of Russia. Then his mind snapped back to more important things. With the fascist flank and rear caving in, the battle was moving into end game. Crushing the fascist pocket completely. The fascists had also come a long way to die in the forests of Russia. Knyaz didn’t feel sorry for them at all.

It was an odd thing, Asbach mused, that the Night Witches overhead didn’t seem nearly so deadly in daylight. He’d never actually seen one before. All he’d seen were dark shadows flashing overhead or bursts of fire from the darkness. To see the grey jabos circle his position and occasionally dive down to deliver bursts of gunfire, somehow took the mystery away from the feared intruders.

“Colonel, our right flank has caved in, Kolchek tried to disengage but the Siberians had got behind him. There’s only one survivor, a runner he sent out. Captain Lang reports he’s had to disengage from the rear, he was outflanked and had the enemy behind him. Siberians again.”

Siberians, Asbach thought, always the Siberians. “Is Lang still alive?”

“Yes Colonel. He and the two surviving guns are heading here.”

That was it; Asbach saw that the game was over. His command was being squeezed back and would soon be overrun. That would be the end for nobody took prisoners on the Russian Front. Even the Canadians and Americans had given up that custom. Asbach shuddered slightly, in one way it was lucky they were fighting Siberians. Some of the American units had whole battalions recruited from the American Indian tribes, Sioux, Apache, Comanche. The SS had tried to demoralize some of the Apache troops. They had taken a few prisoners in night raids then left their mutilated bodies for the Apache soldiers to find. Only, it hadn’t worked. The Apache had buried their dead and then replied in kind. When the SS had found what had been done to the bodies of the victims, even the hardest of the SS men had vomited in horror. No, it was better to be fighting the Siberians.

Asbach stared at his map. He had one option left. He still had his three Pumas although the 75mm tank destroyers were both gone. He had nine surviving halftracks and the two self propelled guns. Any hope of catching or destroying the last railway gun was gone but he could save what was left of his command. He’d make a panzerkeil, an armored wedge that would drive through the Russian force on his left flank. The Pumas and self-propelled guns would lead. All the surviving men would be in the half-tracks behind. They’d just crash through and keep going. There was a road a little to the south, the one that they’d come in on. Once on that, they’d just keep heading south until they ran out of fuel or they reached safety.

He rapped out the necessary orders, watching the men pull back from the forward positions he’d set up so carefully to stop the train. The devil’s train, he was certain that gun was possessed by the very devil himself. It had won, it had won the battle that it shouldn’t even have fought. Asbach shook his head. There was no way that gun should have survived. It had to be the devil’s own work. Halfway through the hasty preparations, Lang and his guns arrived. Asbach repeated the plan, such as it was, for him.

The partisans and Siberians were already closing in when Asbach’s force launched its attack. There was no pretext of holding ground or seizing anything. This was a breakout and that was all it was. The three Pumas started off the assault. They fired their 50mm cannon at the suspected partisan positions in the woods. Lang’s two remaining 150mm guns joined in and lobbed shells over open sights into the trees. They killed the partisans hidden there and opened the way for the armored vehicles. Then, the armored cars and half-tracks surged forward and sprayed gunfire wildly into the trees.

Surprise, the sudden gunfire and the violence of the attack pulled it off. One of the Pumas blew up when it was hit by a Panzerfaust. A half-track got hung up on a treestump and was grenaded to death but the other vehicles got out. They headed south in a straggling column, determined only to get clear of the death trap that had destroyed their unit.

Behind them, ski-troops and partisans watched them burst out of the trees and run. Some felt tempted to cheer but it was neither the time nor the place. The partisans had lost a lot of their people in this battle. The rest of the bands would have to disperse and hide for the Germans would surely want revenge.

Circling overhead, Quayle saw the flurry of explosions. The German column erupted from the woods and headed for the road leading south. Night Mare had already set off back to base, her guns almost empty and her fuel tanks running dry. Quayle reckoned he had enough 23mm ammunition left for one quick pass then he too would have to head home. It was broad daylight and no time for Black Widows to be up. He swung the big fighter over, dropped the nose and made his run. The vehicles filled his gunsight and he pressed the firing button, seeing the red-orange tracers streak out to hit the center halftrack. Then, his guns ran dry and he pulled out of the dive, setting course for home. It was definitely past his bed-time.

Captain Lang saw the half-track lurch off the dirt track and topple into a ditch. It was already burning, its engine compartment gouted black smoke. In a few seconds, the fire would spread and the vehicle would explode.

“Stop! Now!” His command was definitive, unanswerable and the driver of the self-propelled gun responded instantly. The gun stopped dead, rocking on its suspension, so sharply that the gun behind was barely able to avoid colliding with it. By the time the column had stopped, Lang had grabbed a pry-bar and was running over to the ditched vehicle. He didn’t bother with the driver’s compartment. It was already shot up and on fire. There was no hope for the driver. But there was hope for the men in the back.

The door in the rear was jammed. Lang had expected that. He rammed the pry-bar into the crack between the frame and the door and started to heave. He felt his face reddening from the heat, could smell his eyebrows singing but the door would not shift. Then, another man added his weight to the bar and the door finally sprung open. Lang jumped inside, the smoke making his eyes water. A man was sprawled on the floor by the rear hatch. Lang seized him under the arms and dragged him out. It was Sergeant Heim, burned, unconscious and hit by fragments from the armor but still alive. The other men threw snow over him to put out the smoldering greatcoat wrapped around him.

Lang heard the whumph behind him as the fuel tank on the half-track exploded. The whole vehicle burned, an orange ball spread underneath it as the blazing fuel ran aft. He didn’t think, he didn’t even wonder what to do. He ignored a cry of ‘stop’ from somebody and plunged back into the burning rear compartment of the wrecked halftrack. He had his arm up to give his eyes some protection, but he could feel his skin tightening and cracking as the fire started to do its work. In his mind was the picture of a pig roasting on a spit at one of the staff college rides and in his mind, the pig had his face. He stumbled over the other figure in the back of the half-track, and reached out with one hand to grab Colonel Asbach by the collar.

He didn’t know how he did it, he just kept dragged Asbach backwards until the heat stopped and he could feel the blessed cold of the snow. Then he passed out.

Asbach was already being loaded on to an improvised stretcher, ready for the run home. The men had concluded that their colonel might have a chance, if they could drive him home. Around Lang, men peeled the charred greatcoat off his body, wincing at the sight of his burns. He also might stand a chance, if they could get him home again fast enough. Then one of them snorted and pointed out a miracle. Surrounded by the charred remains of his greatcoat and the burned rags of his uniform, Captain Lang’s white silk scarf was still untouched and pristine.

“The paperwork is here.” Lillith walked in with a pile of papers in her hands and put them on The Seer’s desk. He picked the top one up. His imagination told him that it still smelled slightly of cheese and salami. When he read the synopsis his eyebrows raised slightly.

“This is gold. Important things first. How’s Igrat?”

“In Bethesda. Her nose is very bad, broken in a lot of places. Sir Archibald is looking at it now. She’s very sick, she took a big chance in getting here and now she’s paying for it. Mike Collins is with her, holding her hand and crying. I don’t think anybody has ever seen the Big Fella crying before.”

“Might do him some good. Snap him out of it; he’s been moping around doing nothing in particular ever since he arrived here. Looking after Igrat might give him an aim in life.” He paused for a second, not noting that Lillith’s eyes had narrowed suspiciously. “As for Igrat, as long as she’s still breathing, she’ll be all right.”

“It’s not surviving that will be worrying her Seer. It’s her looks. She doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life with a crushed and twisted nose.”

“And she won’t. Sir Archibald will see to that. He’s the best there is. Now, the microdots, they got through as well?”

“Sure did. We fished the plastic packet they were in out of the cheese and salami, ran them through the machine and we’re printing them out now. They’ll be ready for your three o’clock.”

“Good. Schedule. I’ll be at the Intelligence Committee until 11. Then we all go over to Bethesda and see Igrat. Anybody who wants to go, gets time off to do it. I have to be back for the Dropshot Supervisory Committee at three. Please call Naamah and tell her I need to see her urgently.

“Gentlemen, the room is secured and no unauthorized personnel are in attendance. The meeting may now proceed. Firstly I’d….”

“We have an important matter to discuss.” Brigadier-General Donovan cut straight across the President, an act that got him a furious glance from President Dewey. Donovan had been one of Roosevelt’s favorites but that state of grace had not transferred to the Dewey Administration. There was no love lost between the two men. “I have been increasingly concerned with the security of intelligence information being brought back from Sweden. The precautions taken in carrying it have been negligent in the extreme. This vital data was entrusted to the carriage of two young woman, both of doubtful character, and an old man. We feared it could have been taken from them at any time. With this last shipment, our fears were justified. The couriers, if they can be called that, were intercepted and the product stolen by German agents. It was only through the efforts of two of my men that it was recovered and it is now on its way back here.”

“Is this true, Stuyvesant?” Dewey stared hard at The Seer.

“No, Sir. It is not.” A gasp ran around the conference room. It wasn’t often that somebody got openly called a liar in this kind of meeting.

Donovan got angrily to his feet waving his hand at the Seer. “I’ve said for years that we should have a centralized intelligence system. Now everybody can see why we need it. You….”

“Sit down Donovan.” Dewey’s voice cracked across the room. “Stuyvesant, what’s your side of this?”

“Sir. We have been aware for some time that the OSS was unhealthily interested in the pipeline from Geneva. I say unhealthily because it could have attracted attention we didn’t need. On the trip before this one, an OSS man actually tried to harass our people. General Donovan, I believe these are the two men you claim retrieved the allegedly lost information?” The Seer slid two pictures across the table. One was of Frank Barnes, the other of William Schwartz.

“That’s them. How dare you expose their identit….”

“Be quiet Donovan. Carry on please Stuyvesant.”

“Well, in that incident, our courier removed the wallet from the man harassing our operation. General Donovan’s description is quite correct Sir, our courier is indeed a young woman of poor character. Sneaky, devious, underhanded, conniving and rather sly.”

“In that work, those sounds like qualifications.” Dewey was beginning to be amused and he could already begin to see where this was going.

“That’s my opinion too, Sir. She’s also utterly reliable and absolutely loyal.” The Seer didn’t add ‘to me’ although he should have done. “She’s also a first-class, highly skilled thief. She stole this from the OSS man.”

He slid Frank Barnes’ wallet over the table. President Dewey took a glance at the picture in it, then looked very hard at Donovan. “I see. Carry on Stuyvesant.”

“Anyway, this latest trip, our team were aware of the fact they were being followed from early on. They lost the initial tail in a hotel of dubious repute. I’m afraid dubious reputations are rather prominent in this story Sir. That allowed them to make the pick-up. However, they guessed that they would be intercepted on the way out. There are only two ways out of Geneva, one is by train and the other by aircraft. So they broke the usual schedule. Our courier, her name is Igrat Shafrid by the way, acted as a decoy while the intelligence package left another way. When we were speaking of character, did I also mention Miss Shafrid is extremely courageous? She took her part in this knowing full well the risk she was running.

“Anyway, as expected, she was picked up at the train station. Not be the Gestapo or the Abwehr but by General Donovan’s agents from the OSS.”

“That’s a lie!” Donovan was outraged.

“Can you prove that Stuyvesant?” President Dewey was also outraged but for different reasons. He had a sense of when things were right or not and Stuyvesant’s story was ringing true.

“Sir, I can. Miss Shafrid was picked up by two of Donovan’s men as I said. Fortunately, we had preparations in place and she and her abductors were followed from the moment they left the station. The precautions taken by our team left Donovan’s men with a problem. The intelligence package wasn’t on her and they didn’t know where she had got it. So they tried to beat the truth out of her. This is what they did to her.” The Seer laid pictures taken in Geneva’s emergency ward, ones taken before the blood had been cleaned off her and where her nose was still crushed and flattened to one side. “In addition to the injuries you can see here, she was also sexually assaulted.”

“What?” Dewey’s voice was outraged.

“Mister President, I must protest at these allegation…”

“Shut up, Donovan. Stuyvesant, carry on please.”

“Sir, the other two members of the team had followed the abductors to their refuge and, with the assistance of the Swiss Police raided it. In the process of this, the two OSS men who were torturing Miss Shafrid, were both shot dead. You see, Sir, that ‘old man’ is probably the best pistol-fighter I have ever met. The third member of the team is a skilled street-fighter and an artiste with a knife. Anyway, these are official Swiss Police photographs of the bodies.” He reached into his file and laid the two pictures of Frank Barnes and William Schwartz on the conference table. The bullet hole in each forehead showed up clearly. The Seer had thought of bringing the severed heads up to the conference room. Loki had sent them over in a box of ice and there had been a time when The Seer would have produced them. But now, pictures told the story well enough.

“And that’s more or less it Sir. Except, two things. One is General Donovan said our intelligence packet was being brought over by his two men. Well, that isn’t true. I have it here. And he doesn’t know where it came from. Our source is still secure despite his blundering.”

“That is some comfort Stuyvesant. General Donovan, I must say I am outraged at the story that has unfolded here today. I have no doubt that you acted as you though best but your methods are completely unacceptable. Stuyvesant, this young woman, she is receiving the best possible treatment?”

“Indeed Sir, Sir Archibald Maclndoe is treating her himself.”

“Good. She deserves some recognition for her bravery in this affair. I’ll consult with the appropriate authorities and decide upon a suitable award. Stuyvesant, before we go any further, what is your opinion on the proposal for a unified intelligence service?”

“Sir, I can think of no greater domestic threat to democracy. We have seen one reason here today. Another is that if there is one centralized source for intelligence, there is only one opinion on that intelligence. Decisions are controlled in part by the information on which those decisions are based. If the information is controlled by a small group, so is the decision. We need to have conflicting opinions so those who make decisions can choose the interpretation for themselves.”

“Checks and balances. Sounds familiar. I agree Stuyvesant. General Donovan, your plans to form a single centralized intelligence service are rejected. I do not wish to see them raised again. Also, you will attend a meeting with the Strategic Bombing Commission to determine which of the operations run by your OSS will be better placed in their custody. With that decision, I call this meeting to a close. May I say I hope never to have to deal with a matter of this character again.”

“How is she Doctor?”

“Much better than expected. She is a very strong young woman and her constitution is remarkable. Do you know the fractures in her ribs are already beginning to knit? Quite remarkable. That’s not so good in one respect, her nose was also beginning to knit so I had to rebreak some of the bones. The damage is quite severe, there’s no hope of returning her nose to its original shape but we spent the morning going through some pictures and Miss Shafrid has picked a new nose she rather likes. I think she’ll be very happy with it.”

“Thank you Doctor. Send the account to me personally, it will be paid by return.”

“Paid? My dear young man.” That was a joke thought Stuyvesant though he was still slightly pleased by the phrase. “If you wish to pay me, send a donation to my institute for burn patients up in Canada. So many young men are being so badly burned in this war. To help a young woman this way has been a blessed relief. She will fully recover, most of those poor young men will bear their scars until their deaths.”

“Can we see her?” Inanna broke across the Doctor Maclndoe’s obvious distress.

“Of course, her young man is away for the moment, but you can all go in. I must caution you, she looks very bad at the moment, the original injuries plus the bruising from the surgery. So, it’s important you don’t show shock. But otherwise, she is recovering very well.

Quite remarkable.” Sir Archibald, went off, down the corridor to where some other patients were awaiting their turn for his services.

“Well, I don’t need make-up to play a clown do I?” Igrat was laying on her bed, surrounded by flowers, chocolates and fresh fruit.

“Mike?” The Seer spoke drily.

“Mike. How he got all this stuff I do not know. The black market must have done well. I’ve given some of it away already and I bet he’ll have more when he gets back.” Igrat tried to smile then winced at the effort. “Everything OK?”

“Everything’s fine honey. Donovan’s crashed and burned. So badly he’ll never be a threat to us again. That centralized intelligence idea of his could have been bad for us.”

“What?” Lillith’s voice was sharp, questioning.

“Can you imagine a greater danger to us that a centralized intelligence service with all the national records available to it? At best, hiding would become really hard, at worst impossible. So it had to be stopped.”

“You. You had the whole thing planned didn’t you? You sent Iggie into a meat grinder knowing what would happen.” Lillith’s face had changed completely, her skin had drawn back, outlining her bones in sharp relief and her eyes stood out. At this point she looked more like a vulture that anything else. “You played your games and Iggie got beaten into a pulp and you never even warned her. In the name of all the gods, she’s your daughter!”

“Uh-oh.” Naamah’s voice came quietly from the back of the room.

“Lillith, NO!” Igrat’s voice, blurred as it was cut right across the outburst. “Phillip did tell me. I knew the whole plan right from the start and I volunteered for it. It was OK with me. He explained why we had to do it and I agreed with him. I knew the risks, but I believed in Henry and Achillea. We just didn’t believe Donovan would go this far. Right? Now don’t make me talk too much again, it hurts.”

Lillith relaxed, her face returning to normal. “Sorry, Phillip. I didn’t mean to….”

“Don’t worry about it. Everything worked out in the end, that’s all that mattered.”

The party left, but Naamah remained behind for a moment. She sat quietly beside Igrat’s bed. “That was a lie wasn’t it. You didn’t know what was going to happen. Or what the plan was.”

“I didn’t. Oh I guessed some of it, but Phillip didn’t tell me and I didn’t volunteer. I just trusted him. But remember what happened when Lillith last went into vengeful harpy mode? Our family almost broke up forever and I couldn’t stand that. So the truth remains buried. Right? Because if you tell anybody, I’ll throttle you.”

Naamah chuckled. “Right, and I stand warned. You just get well. I can’t stay, I’ve got a one o’clock with General Donovan.”

“Why isn’t Stuyvesant here himself?” Donovan sounded aggrieved and put out.

“He’s got other business. In Bethseda. But I have full authority to act on his behalf. Tell me General, how was your steak?”

“Delicious, I thought steaks like this were unobtainable except on the black market?”

“My family has a farm in Kansas. They keep us supplied with striploins.”

Donovan spooned up the rest of the mushroom sauce with the last piece of steak. “This was excellent, thank you for cooking it. You’re not eating any?”

“I’m a vegetarian. Don’t eat meat. Anyway, cheese salad does well for my lunch, I have to watch my figure.”

“So, where do we go from here?” Donovan was back to being testy. In addition to the humiliation this morning, he wasn’t feeling very well. Overeating probably.

“Well, we need to have unrestricted access to all intelligence data on German industry. Of course we already have most of it but if there is any we don’t have, we need it. And we need to know our courier system won’t be compromised again. Other than that….”

Donovan leaned back. If that was all he was going to lose, things weren’t too bad. “Nothing else?”

Naamah looked at the clock. Over 45 minutes since Donovan had started eating. “Just one thing, you really shouldn’t have had Igrat beaten like that. She’s a nice girl. She sleeps around a bit, well a lot really, but she never did any harm to anybody who wasn’t threatening her. There was no need to do all that to her.”

“So what are you going to do, kill me?” Donovan’s face was split with a grin, one that quickly changed to a grimace as his stomach cramped. He gasped and doubled up, slumping over the table.

“I already have, General.” Naamah picked up his fork and pushed a tiny fragment of mushroom left on his plate. “Have you ever heard of death cap mushrooms?”

“Warning Boss, Mike’s on his way up.”

“Right Lillith, action stations.”

The Seer sat back and relaxed, he’d been expecting this. He’d reckoned it would take the morning for Mike Collins to get over his grief and work up a head of steam. Then, he’d be coming this way. Well, it looked like he’d got here. The door suddenly hurtled open, bounced off its hinges and almost laid out the man storming through.

“You bastard Stuyvesant.”

“Actually no, Mike, my mother and father were married when I was born.”

Collins blinked, then set out again. “You sent a wee girl to do a job rather than risk your own cowardly hide. And she got smashed up because of you. So get out from behind that desk and fight like a man.”

Styvesant grinned. “Mike, look behind you.”

“You’ll not fool me with that old trick.”

“Just humor me, look on it as respect for tradition if you wish.”

Collins glanced behind him. Then turned his head a little more carefully. While he’d been shouting, Lillith and Naamah had quietly entered the office and were pointing M3 sub-machine guns at him. They were carefully positioned so they could kill him without endangering anybody else.

“Hiding behind women again?”

“If necessary Mike. Won’t be the first time. I do what’s necessary to win Mike. Whatever is necessary. Always remember that.”

“And you’ve not the courage to fight fair like a man.”

“Mike, I’ve always believed if I get into a fair fight, it’s because I made a mistake. I never fight fair. I never have and hopefully I never will. Just remember, if you’re within ten feet of me, you can be sure there’s a gun pointing at your back somehow. Now calm down. Igrat’s going to be all right, it’s just you’ll have to look after her for a while.”

“And then you’ll send her on a courier mission again.”

“Of course, it’s something she’s superbly good at. Don’t try and take that away from her, Mike, not unless you want to lose her. Iggie’s a free spirit, try and protect her with cotton wool and she’ll smother. Just settle down with her and go along with the ride.”

“So send me along with her.” Collins was calming down and Stuyvesant waved Lillith and Naamah away.

“Mike, I can’t do that. Her safety depends on her own abilities and those of her bodyguards. You’re a lightweight, a playboy. Ask yourself, if she was going out again with somebody like you protecting her, would you be happy about it?”

Michael Collins thought about that for a long moment. “No, I would not.”

“I thought not. Want a drink? I’ve got some Irish whiskey.”

“I’ll not say no, though drinking with you is not what I thought of doing when I came here.”

Stuyvesant poured out two shot glasses of whiskey and added a drop of water to each. Collins took one and sipped it gently. “Good stuff. I’ve not had this good in many a year. Will Ireland ever recover?”

Stuyvesant drank down his own glass and looked at the drop left in the bottom. “Recover? Perhaps. They’re a tough people but they’ve never had it this bad. They have a chance, I’ll say that.”

“They’ll have a chance and you’ll not say more than that. You’re a heartless, cold, man Stuyvesant. I would not want to be you.”

“You don’t have to be. But just ask yourself what you do want. Holiday’s over, Mike. You’ve had your party and you’ve had a vacation. Now decide what you want to do with your life. Winter’s passing, spring is on its way and this war will be over one day. Just try and work out what you and Igrat want to do in the spring.”

“Gentlemen, the room is secured and no unauthorized personnel are in attendance. The meeting may now proceed. Firstly, although General Donovan was invited to attend this meeting, I regret to tell you that he was taken seriously ill this afternoon. He collapsed in the building and was rushed to Walter Reed Hospital. There, it was determined that he has suffered from complete renal collapse and advanced cirrhosis of the liver. He is currently in a coma and is not expected to recover consciousness. The prognosis is that his condition is terminal and he has two days, perhaps three before toxemia kills him. We will therefore proceed without him.”

“No great loss.” LeMay grunted from his seat.

“Curt, he won the Medal.” General Groves was shocked at the attitude in the room to the news.

“I know, we honor him for what he did then, just as we condemn him for what he tried to do today. Philip, what he tried was beyond reason. I’m sorry Les, I can’t find it in me to forgive that. Trying it was bad enough, trying it and fouling up was worse. I’m glad he’s out of this meeting.”

“I didn’t even know he was cleared for ‘Dropshot’.” General Groves was curious.

“He was not. He would have been here for discussions related to conventional bombing only.” The Seer passed around the packages of data received from Geneva. “Gentlemen, this information relates to the plans made by the Germans for countering the effects of a strategic bombing offensive against their industrial heartland. Naturally, they were preparing for conventional bombing only.”

There was silence in the room for almost half an hour as the members of the Dropshot Supervisory Committee read through the translated German papers. Eventually, General LeMay put his pile down, shuffled them into a neat stack and spoke quietly past his pipe. “Well, that ends any thought of a precisely-targeted bombing offensive.”

“I must agree General.” The Seer also spoke quietly. “There’s no point in trying to take out a key industrial sector. If we succeed, they’ll just strip less essential sectors to repair the damage. There are no key sectors, not ones we can destroy anyway. If we try, it’ll be a battle of attrition, trying to run them out of industry before we run out of bombers.”

“You know what this means don’t you?” Groves was also speaking quietly, the secrets of the B-36 and the atomic bomb were so huge that they made any attempt at drama look absurd. “Conventional strategic bombing was always doomed to fail. We can’t do enough damage fast enough to take down a complete industrial infrastructure.”

“I hate to say it Les, but you’re right. Back in the 1930s, we were wrong. No other way to say it. We couldn’t do it with B-29s, we sure as hell couldn’t do it with B-17s and we won’t be able to do it with B-36s. It has to be nuclear.”

“And I hate to say it Curt, but you and Stuyvesant were right. We can’t just take down a portion of their industry and expect them to fold. These documents show they mean to keep fighting as long as they house a machine tool in a brick outhouse. For the record, I formally withdraw my reservations on waiting for The Big One. We have to take the whole lot out at once. The Little One and the interim variants cannot work.”

Stuyvesant looked around at the room and the nodding heads. “Does anybody wish to maintain their reservations on the record?” The heads all shook. It was decided. It would be The Big One. Quietly he wondered if Loki would ever realize what decision the information he had provided had been responsible for.

“Captain, thank you for allowing me on your bridge.”

“You’re welcome Captain Lokken. We’re just pulling into Churchill now.” The exchange was interrupted by a blast on the ship’s siren, one that was picked up by other ships in the formation. The dawn seascape seemed to reverberate with the sounds.

“What is happening Captain?”

“Nothing to worry about. Two of the light fleet carriers are leaving the Fast Carrier Force. They’re on their way out to the Pacific Fleet. They’re just getting their send-off. Look over to port, you can see their replacements, Shiloh and Chickamauga. Sister ships of Gettysburg.”

“Two more great carriers like this one. It wouldn’t have mattered if we’d won would it? You would have just built more ships and come right back.”

“That’s right, captain. And since we won, we’re going to build more ships anyway. The Atlantic is our lake now, we’re going to go boating.”

Lokken nodded slowly, watching the long line of ships enter the huge natural harbor that was Churchill’s reason for existence. “And so it will go on.”

“Not for you Captain, as soon as our Doc releases you, you’re off to a prisoner of war camp. An officer’s only one of course.”

“I would wish to stay with my men. What few there are left.”

“I bet you would Captain, but it’s less trouble all around if we separate the officers from the enlisted men. So, it’s an officer’s camp for you. Don’t sweat it, I’m told the conditions are quite good and the Red Cross has its representatives on site. So, don’t worry, for you the war is over.”

Lang woke up, carefully and uncertainly. The last thing he remembered was the flames scorching his skin. His men had been rolling him in the snow to put him out, He couldn’t feel the burns now but that could just be anesthetic. In fact, he felt remarkably comfortable. He just lay on the bed, luxuriating in the feel of the soft mattress and the sheets.

“Comfortable are we, Major?” An acidic voice cut through his daze. Major-General Marcks was looking down at him.

“Sir, Sir?” Lang was flummoxed by the words but wasn’t quite sure why.

“That’s right Lang, its Major Lang now. And you have a piece of over-decorated tin to go with it. Also your friends on the General Staff want you back.”

“General Sir, tell them to go to hell. I’ll stay here, if you want me of course. And if I’m able”

“Asbach spoke quite highly of you. Thinks you have the makings of a good soldier. And your wounds are not severe, your greatcoat took most of the fire and your gloves protected your hands. You’ll be happy to know your silk scarf survived intact, in fact your men have it under guard for you. They’ve already beaten up one man who tried to steal it. But I’m not supposed to know that.”

“The men Sir? How many escaped?”

“Most who survived that last battle. We lost another halftrack to a Grizzly but that was all, and the crew of that escaped. The battle’s over Lang. We’re back to where we were before it all started. Just there’s a lot fewer of us. And the Finns are out of the war, they capitulated after the Amis burned Helsinki to the ground. This Winter War has not gone well. Asbach said it wouldn’t and he was right. Fortunately, the Navy has taken the blame, we were all betrayed by them you know.” Marcks was absent-mindedly rubbing his ear.

The way that Marcks spoke of Asbach suddenly sank in. “The Colonel Sir, how is he? How is Asbach?”

“Asbach is alive, although he was not as fortunate as you. Or perhaps more fortunate, depending on how one looks at it. His burns were much more severe. His injuries make him unfit for any kind of military service. He’s going home. He left a message for you though, he says that when you get some leave, if you have nothing better to do, drop in and see him. The two of you can kill a bottle or three of his family brandy.”

“I’ll do that Sir and, Sir, may I….”

“Stay with my division? I think so, I need somebody to replace Asbach. Yes, Lang, you can stay. Now, anything else?”

Lang thought for a second. “A bottle or three of brandy, that sounds good. Where does Asbach’s family live Sir?”

“On the Rhine, the family business is making brandy. Their home is in one of the small towns there, place called Duren.”

Marcks stomped out, swinging the door shut behind him. A sacrilegious thought entered Lang’s mind. At least out here I don’t have to keep remembering whose ass to lick. With that comfort, Lang relaxed on his pillows.

“Well, we’re nearly there. Knyaz, you’ll be leaving us now?”

“No, Commander, my division is grouped around this railhead. If it is permissible, I’d like to stay with you until we’re in.”

“Knyaz, if I may make a suggestion, why don’t you get your ski troops and go in ahead of us. That way you’ll get your welcome before this gun grabs all the attention.”

Knyaz nodded, that was a good idea. The escape of the railway guns had made headline news around the world, even if only one of the three had actually made it. There was even talk of making a Hollywood film about the exploit. I would rather like to be played by Clark Gable. Knyaz thought.

“Very well Commander, thank you. John, fly well and burn many fascists.”

Marosy mouthed the word “Napalm” and got an appreciative laugh from the Russians. “Knyaz, thanks for everything. We’d never have got out if it hadn’t been for you and your Siberians. They’ve got a new bird for us back at base. If you ever need anything, just get the word through. Anything bratischka, I mean that.”

“And I will take you up on it. Now goodbye my friend.”

After three days on the train, it felt good to be back on skis again. It had been a hard job repairing the tracks where the fascists had ripped them up. The engineers had settled for clearing the wreckage away and rebuilding the line by removing track from behind the train. Meanwhile, Knyaz and his men had kept guard but the fascists had gone. Once the work was done, it had been a gentle ride home. But it still felt good to be on skis again.

The cantonment started just as the railway like entered a marshalling yard. Knyaz had his surviving troops spread out on either side of the line, in echelons. He had to admit the arrowhead of ski-troops made a dashing figure as they entered the area occupied by the 78th Siberian Infantry Division. He could hear the watching men give the traditional ‘Urrah! Urrah! He brought his men to a halt in what passed for the parade ground. Across to his left he could see Rifleman Kabanov receiving an enthusiastic ‘welcome’ from two of the canteen girls. It was good to be young sometimes, Knyaz thought, forgetting he was only 26.

“Knyaz. You have returned.” It was his general, standing before him in the trampled snow. Knyaz frowned slightly. Things weren’t quite normal. The General usually called him Tovarish Lieutenant.

“Sir. Regret to advise you that we have lost 22 men dead and fourteen wounded. But we have killed many fascists and captured much of their material. I will have a full report for you later Tovarish General.”

“There is no hurry, you have a party to attend first, Tovarish Senior Lieutenant.” The General was beaming at him and Knyaz closed his eyes to imagine himself with his new insignia. And his extra pay. That thought made him wonder. Have I been around Americans too much?

As if to confirm his belief, there was a deafening whistle from the approaching train. Curly edged into the marshalling yard, surrounded by cheering troops. They ran alongside the lines to welcome the gun back home. The General looked at the railway gun and shook his head. “You can’t keep it you know.”

Knyaz tried to look shocked. “Tovarish General, it is not our fault. He just followed us home.”