Storm Front

(Twilight Of The Gods I)

Christopher G. Nuttall

http://www.chrishanger.net
http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/
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Cover by Brad Fraunfelter

www.BFillustration.com

All Comments Welcome!

Cover Blurb

In 1941, Adolf Hitler didn't declare war on the United States.  Now, in 1985, the Third Reich stretching from the coast of France to the icy wastes of Eastern Russia, appears supremely powerful.  With a powerful force of nuclear warheads and the finest military machine on Earth, there is no hope for freedom for the billions who groan under its rule.  Adolf Hitler’s mad dreams have come to pass.

And yet, all is not well in the Reich.  The cold war with the United States and the North Atlantic Alliance is destroying the Reich’s economy, while a savage insurgency in South Africa - a war the Reich cannot win and dares not lose - is sapping its military strength.  And, while the Reich Council struggles to find a way to save the Reich from its own weaknesses, a young German girl makes a discovery that will shake the Reich to its core.

But the Reich Council will not go quietly into the night ...

Author’s Note

I’m not particularly fond of books, even alternate history books, that attempt to reproduce foreign accents or make excessive use of foreign terms.  Unfortunately, writing a book set in Nazi Germany makes it impossible to avoid the use of some German words, including a number specific to Nazi Germany and the SS.  I’ve done my best to keep this to a bare minimum and, just in case the meaning of the word cannot be deduced from context, I’ve placed a glossary at the rear of the book.

Please don’t hesitate to let me know if there’s a word I’ve missed during the editing.

CGN

Prologue

India, 1949

“It’s time, Your Excellency.”

Winston Churchill, 44th and last Viceroy and Governor-General of India, sighed as the functionary entered the office.  It was a magnificent office and Winston knew he would be sorry to leave it, but it wasn't important.  The important matter had been decided long ago, in London and Delhi, and Winston’s opinions had been dismissed as unimportant.  India would be granted her independence, the government in London having decided that a peaceful separation was better than a brutal civil war that would destroy everything Britain had worked so hard to build.  The Raj was dead.  It had died when Hong Kong and Singapore fell to the Japanese, when Japanese troops had reached the borders of India itself.  And Winston Churchill, who had fought so hard to save it, was charged with its funeral.

He rose slowly, feeling his old bones creaking under the weight.  It had been years since he’d been a reporter, years since he’d served as a soldier, years since he’d been able to keep up with the younger men.  The boundless determination that had driven him onwards, through years in the political wilderness and three years as Prime Minister, as Hitler’s armies scored victory after victory, was fading.  He had hoped - prayed - to go to his rest after the Nazi beast was slain in its lair, but he knew he wouldn't live to see it.  Hitler’s enemies had fallen before him, one by one; Stalin assassinated during the retreat from Moscow, De Gaulle killed by a sniper’s bullet in Indochina, Roosevelt felled by his own heart.  Winston was the last to survive and he knew it wouldn't be long before he too was lowered into the grave.  And the hopes and fears of the free peoples of the world would die with him.

Perhaps not, he thought, as he looked up at the map.  Hitler may yet overreach himself.

He had never admitted, not even to his wife, just how much he’d hoped Hitler would declare war on the United States.  Roosevelt had done all he could, but America couldn’t - wouldn’t - enter the war against Germany without good cause.  Winston had no illusions about what would have happened to the British Empire, overshadowed by its mightier cousin across the ocean, yet Nazi Germany would have been crushed.  Instead, Hitler had declared war on Japan, a stunt that had fooled no one but had been treacherously difficult to overcome.  He’d even withdrawn the u-boats from the Atlantic, gambling that it would avoid an incident that would bring America into the war.  And he’d been right.

Winston shook his head, silently tracing the lines on the map.  Hitler’s armies had fallen back from Moscow, true, only to resume the offensive in the following spring.  The Russians, their armies faltering as their industry staggered under the weight of the war, couldn't keep Hitler from seizing Stalingrad, then resuming the drive on Moscow.  And, if that hadn't been bad enough, Hitler’s forces had thrust into Egypt and then Palestine.  If the Americans hadn't moved troops into Iran, as part of an agreement to withdraw the Anglo-French occupation force, Winston knew that they might have stabbed into India itself.  The weakness of the British Empire had been exposed for all to see.

And now he sits, consolidating his gains, while we have to struggle to survive, he thought, as he followed the functionary down the stairs.  He doubted Hitler could hold Russia indefinitely - although the horror stories from refugees had made it clear that the Nazis were far more brutal than the communists - but there was no one left on the continent who could challenge him.  He may even start preparing to launch an invasion of Britain.

Outside, the hot air slapped him in the face as he made his way towards the podium.  Hundreds of thousands of people were gathered, watching and waiting for the moment when Britain finally granted India her independence, when they could set foot on the world stage as an independent country.  Winston couldn't really blame the Indians for wanting independence - thankfully, the looming threat of the Germans had forced the INC to come up with a reasonable plan for governing the country - but, at the same time, he couldn't help feeling a pang for everything that would be lost.  The Raj had been a proud achievement, bringing government and civilisation to India.  

Winston stopped in front of the podium and looked down.  The Indians were waiting, dark men in sober white suits; beside them, diplomats from the rest of the world watched with great interest, flanked by reporters ready to jot down whatever he said and misquote it to the world.  Winston had been a reporter himself, once upon a time, but his time in the political wilderness had left him with little love for the breed.  The age of the daring reporter, along with the brave explorer who brought civilisation to the natives, was over.  Instead, there were hacks, liars and bureaucratic beancounters.  The glories of the past were long gone.

He cleared his throat and stumbled through the speech Prime Minister Atlee had had written for him.  It was a cumbersome thing, clearly written and approved by committee; it was hard, so hard, to put any of his passion into his words.  But it was what the Indians wanted to hear and they cheered loudly as he told them that India was, from this moment forward, an independent dominion of the British Commonwealth.  Thankfully, they’d agreed to stay in the Commonwealth for at least five years.  The British Government had that long to convince them to stay permanently.

“But there is another matter I must discuss,” he said, putting the paper notes aside.  He hadn't told Atlee that he intended to add his own words to the speech before the world’s reporters - and the assembled world leaders and diplomats.  It would only have upset him.  “The world is not what it used to be.”

He took a breath.  “When I was a young man, a quarter of the world was red and the sun never set on the British Empire.  I remember campaigning along the North-West Frontier and fighting a war in South Africa, never dreaming that the glories before me would come to an end.  It never crossed my mind that Europe would destroy itself in war.  Nor did it occur to me that a great beast would rise from the ashes to enslave the entire continent.  I would have thought it impossible, if someone had told me, and laughed in his face.

“But I would have been wrong.

“An iron curtain has descended across Europe, yet we may still see glimmers of the horrors unleashed by Adolf Hitler.  A dozen nations have simply ceased to exist.  Countless populations have been enslaved or exterminated by the black-clad SS.  Those who dare resist are subjected to torture before they are killed.  A horror has descended that holds all of Europe, even Germany itself, in the grip of fear.

“I remember when the cabinet debated what to do, the day that Hitler’s troops marched into the Rhineland and dared us to evict them.  If we had known then what we know now, we would have gone to war and forced the Germans to retreat.  But we did nothing.  I remember when Hitler demanded the most valuable regions of Czechoslovakia and Chamberlain, a weak man, chose to appease the fascist beast rather than make a stand.  We allowed Czechoslovakia to be dismembered and, in doing so, sacrificed our best chance to stop Hitler without major bloodshed.  But we lacked the nerve to make a stand.

“We had our excuses, of course.  Britain lost nearly a million lives in the first Great War against Germany.  The French lost nearly twice that and had their country devastated by the war.  Our economies were weak, our forces ill-prepared and Hitler seemed to hold the moral high ground.  Anything seemed better than war.

“But all that matters, in the end, was that when we determined to take a stand, we had already surrendered far too much to the Germans.  When the Phony War ended, Hitler’s forces smashed France and pushed Britain to the wall.  Had Hitler focused more on naval matters, Britain too might have been invaded and occupied.  Instead, we were forced to watch as Hitler overwhelmed Russia and the Middle East.

“There is a temptation, on this day of all days, for us to forget the threat posed by the Germans.  There is a temptation to believe that Hitler is satisfied, that he will be happy with what he has taken by force.  There is even a temptation to be pleased that the communist regime that dominated Russia has been destroyed...”

He paused, silently cursing the American industrialists under his breath.  They’d hated communism - and, after Finland, they hadn't been alone.  Sending supplies to Britain was one thing, yet sending supplies to Russia was quite another.  They had hoped the communists would be destroyed, but what they’d got in exchange might destroy them.

“We can never relax,” Winston said.  “Right now, Herr Hitler is experimenting with jet aircraft, with atomic weapons, with rockets that will allow him to target New York or land a man on the moon.  It would be dangerously reckless of us to assume that the threat will go away, even if we do nothing to provoke it.  We must stake out our perimeter, establish our defences and never, ever, drop our guard until the day the fascist beast is slain in its lair.

“There can be no compromise with evil,” he concluded.  “The Nazis will never be satisfied until they have overrun the entire world.  And so we must remember, at all costs, that freedom is something that must be defended.  Europe forgot that and now Europe is lost.  I charge you all to remember that, when they start trying to soothe us.  We must hold the line or we will all be lost.”

He stepped back from the podium as the crowd burst into cheers, wondering just how many of them would understand what he’d said.  Far too many Indians considered democracy a joke - and who was to say they weren't wrong?  India had seen very little democracy under the Raj.  But they’d see less of it under Hitler.  The Nazis wouldn't hesitate to do whatever it took to crush resistance.  

Atlee wouldn't be happy, Winston knew.  It was unlikely he’d be offered another government post in the future, but he’d assumed the Labour Government wouldn't have a use for him in any case.  He was, after all, an embarrassing old lion, a relic of the past...

... But as long as he lived, he would do what he could to alert the world to the dangers of Nazism.  He could do naught else.

Chapter One

Berlin
17 July 1985 (Victory Day)

It was, Finance Minister Hans Krueger concluded darkly, a very impressive parade.  

He stood with the other ministers, one arm raised in salute, as endless rows of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and mobile missile launchers drove down the parade route and past the stand, before being carefully directed to staging areas on the outskirts of Berlin.  The crowd roared its approval as the vehicles passed, followed by thousands upon thousands of soldiers wearing their fanciest uniforms.  They’d have no trouble finding companionship tonight, Hans thought wryly, as the soldiers vanished into the distance.  All the nice German girls loved a man in uniform, particularly if he were unmarried...

Not now, he told himself firmly, as the crowd roared again.  Not on Victory Day.

He twisted his head, slightly, as a dull roar echoed over the city.  A trio of heavy bombers, capable of flying from Berlin to Washington without refuelling, flew overhead, so low he almost felt as if he could reach up and touch them.  They were followed by a force of fighter jets, antiaircraft missiles slung under their wings; they in turn were followed by a small flock of assault helicopters, freshly painted after their return from the front.  The crowd went wild with delight; he smiled to himself as he saw a line of uniformed schoolboys breaking ranks to wave at the aircraft as they passed overhead.  Their teachers wouldn't be happy - discipline was everything in a parade - but hopefully they’d let it pass.

“Little brats,” Foreign Minister Engelhard Rubarth muttered.  “Can’t they stand in line like everyone else?”

“They’re eight,” Hans told him, dryly.  The boys would have been gotten out of bed at six in the morning, forced to don their dress uniforms and marched to their spot in the square, where they’d then had to wait while standing in line for hours.  He still had nightmares about his time at school, even though he’d been lucky enough to avoid a Victory Day parade.  “Let them be children, just for a while.”

“They’re disrupting the parade,” Rubarth said.  “The teachers will be furious.”

“I don’t envy them tomorrow,” Hans agreed.  “They’ll be spending half the day running laps around the school.”

He made a mental note to have a word with the parade organiser about the children, although he knew it might be nothing more than tilting at windmills.  Everything must be in order, they’d say; it had been a principle of the state since Adolf Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany and set out to reshape the world in his image.  Clearly, they’d never seen the confused mishmash of ministries that made up the government.  When he’d been younger and more idealistic, Hans had planned a cull of government officers; older and wiser, he knew there was no way to streamline the system.  Too many people had a vested interest in keeping the system as it was.

Another pair of aircraft flew overhead, disgorging a line of black-suited figures that fell towards the ground.  Hans knew the whole routine had been carefully rehearsed, but he couldn't help feeling a flicker of doubt as the figures kept falling, without even trying to open the chutes.  And then, in perfect unison, the chutes popped; the parachutists slowed their fall and landed neatly in front of the Fuhrer’s box.

“Heil Bormann,” they snapped.   The crowd picked up the salute and repeated it.  “Heil Bormann!”

“The Fuhrer seems pleased,” Rubarth said.

“Good,” Hans muttered.  Adolf Bormann might be the son of Martin Bormann, but he lacked his father’s political skills.  Fuhrer wasn’t precisely a meaningless title these days, not when an entire continent saluted him every day, yet Adolf Bormann had little real power of his own.  And he didn't even have the sense to know it.  “That will keep him pleased.”

He turned his attention back to the parachutists, just in time to see them turn, fold up their chutes and march off, still in perfect unison.  Moments later, a long line of soldiers marched into the square, turning to salute the Fuhrer as they passed.  The schoolboys seemed to have lost all sense of discipline; they were waving and shouting at the soldiers, some even dropping into line beside them.  Hans winced inwardly as a stern-faced teacher came forward, his face darkening with fury.  He’d be blamed for their poor conduct by his own superiors and probably wind up being dispatched to Germany East.  It was rare for a teacher to volunteer to serve in Germany East.

Hans sighed, then waved to one of his aides.  “Yes, Mein Herr?”

“Go tell that teacher he is not to punish the children too severely,” Hans said.  He was one of the three most powerful men in the Reich.  What was the point of having power if it couldn't be used?  “And then see to it that he doesn't suffer too badly himself.”

“Yes, Mein Herr,” the aide said.

“You always were sentimental,” Rubarth commented, as the aide scurried away.  “That’s how it begins, you know.  The problems the Americans had in the sixties started with a lack of discipline.”

“And yet the Americans are richer than us,” Hans pointed out.  It was an old argument, one he’d found himself repeating to both the military and the SS.  If the Americans were so weak and feeble why were they the ones who had established the first true settlement on the moon or developed the first anti-ballistic missile shield?  “How does that square with a lack of discipline?”

“The Americans are protected by their ocean,” Rubarth countered.  That too was part of the argument.  “They wouldn't stand a chance if we could cross the waters.”

Hans shrugged.  Very few in the Reich would admit it, but the Americans were more advanced than the Reich.  Maybe they did pour fewer resources into their militaries than the Reich, yet their advanced weapons more than evened the balance.  What was the point of investing in thousands of ICBMs if the Americans could stop more than half of the missiles before they reached their targets?  The cost of trying to keep up with the United States was draining the Reich dry.

And their educational system is better than ours too, he thought, as he watched his aide quietly explaining the facts of life to the teacher.  They actually teach their children to think.

He pushed the thought aside as another flight of aircraft roared over the city.  There would be time enough for the endless argument tomorrow.  Today... was a special day.

***
Weakling, Reichsführer-SS Karl Holliston thought, as he watched the interplay between Hans Krueger’s aide and the teacher.  In Germany East, such behaviour would never be tolerated for a moment.

He sighed, briefly considering sending an aide of his own to the school.  A formal complaint from the SS would be enough to get the teacher sacked and the children severely punished, but it would be nothing more than spite.  The Berliners hadn't faced war for forty years, since the last time the British had bombed the city before coming to an uneasy peace with the Reich.  Even a handful of bombs planted by particularly foolish Gastarbeiters hadn't disturbed the peace of the city.  The Berliners simply didn't know the true danger of living on a frontier.

The little brats should all be sent to spend a year in Germany East, he thought, darkly.  It would seem an adventure, at first, until they realised that a terrorist sniper could strike at any moment.  They don’t have the mindset to survive.

He gritted his teeth in outrage.  He’d grown up in Germany East; his father an SS trooper who’d been granted a farm in the settlements at the conclusion of his service, his mother a stout German woman who’d already buried a husband who’d been killed by the insurgents and brought two children to her second marriage.  Not that Karl’s father had cared; he’d been happy to bring up an additional son and daughter.  Repopulating the steppes with good Germans was more important than his personal feelings, after all.  Karl had grown up knowing he might have to fight for his life at any moment, learning to shoot almost as soon as he could walk.  And, by the time he’d left school and volunteered for the SS, he’d been shot at several times by the insurgents.  How many of the bratty schoolchildren below could say the same?

None of them, Karl told himself.  They grew up in safety.

He pushed the thought aside as the first row of SS troopers marched into the square.  They were a magnificent sight; hundreds of black-clad men, their insignia glittering under the light, marching in perfect unison.  It was men like them, Karl told himself, who were the true defenders of the Reich.  The army, as powerful as it was, didn't have the same determination to do whatever it took to protect the country.  Hadn't Rommel proved that when he’d captured Jerusalem?  The treacherous Field Marshal had even allowed the Jewish defenders to withdraw, with their weapons, and escape to Iraq!  Rommel simply hadn’t the stomach to do what needed to be done.

“Heil Bormann,” the troopers bellowed, saluting.  “Heil Bormann!”

Karl kept his face expressionless with an effort.  Adolf Bormann was an idiot, plain and simple, and the Deputy Fuhrer was even worse; they should both have been put out to pasture long ago.  Giving the title of Fuhrer, the title that had been practically defined by Adolf Hitler himself, to an idiot was an insult.  But it couldn't be helped.  No one really wanted a true Fuhrer, one with the power of life and death over the entire Reich, save perhaps for Karl.  And he only wanted to be the Fuhrer himself.

If they let me claim that power, he thought, his eyes seeking Krueger.  The fat man was watching the SS troopers with wary eyes.  I will be opposed by the rest of the trio.

Karl ground his teeth in silent frustration.  The Finance Minister fought tooth and nail over every funding request, doling out money as carefully as a farmwife who distrusted the local tradesmen.  Krueger wouldn't let Karl become a real Fuhrer without a fight - and he’d be supported by the military, who wouldn't be pleased at the thought of an SS Fuhrer.  The Heer, Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe only agreed on a handful of things, but disapproval of the SS was one of them.  Karl knew, without false modesty, that he could split the different military commanders on smaller issues - the Heer, Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe heads fought each other with more determination than they fought the rebels in South Africa - yet they’d unite against the SS.  Krueger, damn him, wouldn't need to call in any favours or strike bargains to block Karl from claiming the topmost position in the Reich.

He leaned forward as row upon row of SS stormtroopers passed through the square, silently gauging the crowd’s reactions.  The younger children were still cheering loudly, but there was something forced about the cheers from the older civilians.  Karl had no illusions about the popularity of the SS, yet it still bothered him.  The vast majority of recruits came from Germany East, where the SS was genuinely popular, but it wasn't enough.  He simply didn't have enough recruits to meet the state’s manpower needs in peacetime, let alone with a war on in South Africa.

And the war has to be won, he told himself, grimly.  The Dark Continent was an untapped treasure trove of raw materials and he had no intention of leaving it to black communists and American capitalists.  No matter the cost, the war has to be won.

But it was a problem.  There had always been questions raised about the racial purity of Germany South.  The settlers there didn't give a damn about someone’s ancestry, as long as he looked white, and they resisted any attempt by the SS to hunt down rogue Jews, let alone someone who might be French or Italian pretending to be of good German stock.  And South Africa wasn't much better.  They’d been happy to accept the Reich’s offer of military assistance, but they’d flatly refused to hand over their Jews to the SS.  Indeed, Karl was sure that senior figures in the South African government had been encouraging the Jews to flee before it was too late.  

Maybe we should just decapitate the local government and take over, he thought.  There was a contingency plan to do just that, one he’d been putting together as a last resort.  That, at least, would make it easier for us to fight the war.

***
“The Nasties do put on a good show, don’t they?”

Andrew Barton, Office of Strategic Services, nodded in agreement.  It was an impressive parade, all the more so for being something he would never have seen in America.  The Nazis wanted to show their might off to the world, displaying their power for all to see.  It just didn't happen in Washington.

“Take careful note of the number of aircraft you see at any one time,” he said, dryly.  A decade ago, a team of American observers had been fooled into believing that the Reich had over a hundred intercontinental bombers when the Germans had flown the aircraft over Berlin and then circled around, out of sight, to fly over the city for a second time.  “We don’t want to be fooled again.”

He looked down at the crowds from the balcony, wondering absently just how many of them truly wanted to be there.  The kids in the front rows might have thought it was going to be fun, but he doubted they were enjoying themselves after waiting in line for hours; behind them, the lines of watching civilians seemed slightly disorderly, as if the crowd was already bored and resentful.  That too wasn't something he’d have seen in Washington.  If there had been a parade, attendance sure as hell wouldn't be compulsory.  The crowd would have been composed of men and women who wanted to be there, waving flags and cheering loudly.

“Ah,” Robert Hamilton said.  The CIA operative leaned forward.  “The meat of the matter.”

Andrew leaned forward too as the first of the heavy mobile missile launchers made its way onto the square.  It was a truly impressive sight, he had to admit; the giant vehicle, the missile mounted on its back, inching forward as the crowd went wild.  The Nazis had claimed, in their boastful speeches, that the mobile missile could be fired from anywhere within the Reich and hit the United States, although Andrew was fairly sure that was nothing more than empty bragging.  Unless the Germans had made a radical breakthrough, the rocket simply didn't have the fuel to fly further than 1500km.  Not that that kept it from being a major headache, he had to admit.  England was easily within range and the Germans had enough nukes to turn the United Kingdom into a radioactive slagheap.  The ABM shield simply couldn't guarantee it would stop even half of the salvo from reaching its target.

“I was thinking,” Hamilton said.  “Do you think they’ve left the nuke in the rocket?”

Andrew shrugged.  The Germans would have to be insane to take the risk, no matter how many safeguards they’d worked into the warhead, but the Germans were the only people to ever use a nuke in combat.  On the other hand, nukes didn't go off if you hit them with a hammer.  It was quite possible that the warhead was completely safe, no matter what happened.  But they’d still have to be insane to mess around with a nuke.

He turned his attention towards the podium at the other side of the square.  The Fuhrer was there, exchanging salutes with the missile crew; the Reichsführer-SS, one of the most evil men Andrew had ever met, was sitting just two seats down from him.  If something happened in the parade, the Reich would be deprived of both its titular head and one of its most powerful men.  It was hard to be sure just how powerful the other casualties were - in the Reich, power and title didn't always go together - but a disaster would throw the entire state into confusion.  

If nothing else, the SS will be holding competitions to see who is evil enough to become the next Reichsführer-SS, Andrew thought, darkly.  The winner must be a treacherous unprincipled bastard, with a goatee he can stroke at particularly evil moments...

He shook his head, annoyed at himself.  He could make fun of the Reichsführer-SS - God knew there were hundreds of old WW2 cartoons still running around the internet that made fun of Hitler, Himmler and Fatso Goring - but none of the people below dared say a word against the Fuhrer and his cronies.  The military might marching through the square was one thing, yet the true horror lay in the hundreds of thousands of listening ears, ready to report a single word against the state.   Wives could turn on husbands, children on parents... Nazi Germany was a nightmare few ever escaped.  

And I will go back to America, when my stint is up, and wash the stench of Nazi Germany from my clothes, he added, silently.  The people below me are trapped.

“They’ll be running more soldiers and machines through the square tomorrow,” Hamilton observed, as the final set of tanks rumbled past.  “Hopefully, they’ll get themselves some more watchers too.”

“We have to be back,” Andrew said, feeling another stab of pity for the children.  He checked his notebook, where he’d scribbled down a brief report of what he’d seen.  He’d write out a full report once they returned to the embassy.  “You want to go get a beer?”

“I’d sooner go find out what’s under those uniforms,” Hamilton said.  Andrew followed his gaze and saw a handful of blonde-haired women wearing strikingly ugly and shapeless clothes.   They were army nurses, he thought.  “German girls are hotter than hell.”

“And you’ll be in hell if the ambassador catches you in one of them,” Andrew pointed out.  It wouldn't be the first honey trap the Nazis had tried, either.  “Let’s go get a beer instead.”

Chapter Two

Josef Mengele Hospital, Berlin
17 July 1985 (Victory Day)

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Gudrun Wieland took a long breath.  Her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure her older brother could hear the sound.  She wanted to do it, needed to do it, but she knew they could easily get in deep trouble.  Their father’s belt would be the least of their concerns.

“I’m sure,” she said.

She braced herself.  It would be easy to back out, to walk away; they could be back home within twenty minutes if they walked fast.  But she’d gone to a great deal of trouble to borrow a nurse’s uniform from a friend, just so she could wear it while walking into the hospital.  No one would question her if she wore a uniform, she’d been told; no one, not even the senior doctors, would know every nurse in the building.  There were over a thousand young women and, with the current fashion for blonde hair, it was a reasonable bet that three-quarters of them would be blonde too.  She’d scrubbed her face clean of make-up, tied up her hair and removed anything that might identify her.  As long as they weren't caught in the building, it was unlikely that anyone would be able to track them down afterwards.  But Kurt...

“Are you sure?”  She asked.  “I can go alone, if necessary...”

“I can’t let you go alone,” Kurt Wieland said.  Her brother ran a hand through his short blonde hair, cut very close to the scalp.  “I’m not expected back at the barracks until tomorrow morning.”

Gudrun gave him a grateful smile.  She'd known, when she’d asked him, that he could have simply refused, or reported her to their father.  Herman Wieland wasn't a bad man - she knew friends who had worse fathers, mainly drunkards like Grandpa Frank - but he would have exploded with rage if Kurt had told him what his eldest daughter had in mind.  Instead, Kurt had insisted on coming with her and providing support.  He’d even helped her sort out what to do when she walked into the building.

“Thank you,” she said, quietly.

“Then let’s go,” Kurt said.  He caught her arm as they started to walk towards the hospital.  “Remember, you’re meant to be escorting me, not the other way around.”

Gudrun allowed herself a nervous smile.  Kurt was wearing his uniform, marking him out as a soldier in the Berlin Guard.  It was unlikely that anyone would question his presence, not when the uniform practically screamed his legitimacy to the skies.  The cover story they’d devised had her escorting him to see a friend in the hospital, which wasn't too far from the truth.  And if someone thought they were lovers... well, as embarrassing as it was, it would be better than the alternative.  Being caught would get them both in very hot water.

She gritted her teeth as they walked down towards the hospital and through the gates.  It was a colossal building, constructed during the 1950s and staffed with the finest doctors and nurses in Germany.  Her friend had told her that there were hundreds of departments; the original building was practically buried in outbuildings that were half-hidden behind other outbuildings themselves.  The country had a fetish for efficiency - or so she’d been taught at school - but there was nothing efficient about Josef Mengele Hospital.  It was far too obvious that the designers hadn't anticipated just how many doctors and patients would need to use the facilities.

The guards paid no attention to them as they walked through the door and into the lobby, heading straight towards the locked doors.  Gudrun allowed herself a sigh of relief as they joined a dozen nurses heading though the doors, the leaders holding the doors open for the others.  If they had had to wait for someone to open the doors it would have been far too revealing, she knew.  Her friend had flatly refused to hand over an ID card that would open the doors.

Inside, it was surprisingly cool.  Gudrun sniffed the air, the scent of antiseptic bringing back memories of the last time she’d visited a hospital, then looked around for the wall-mounted map of the giant complex.  There were hundreds of wards; some identified in medical terminology she couldn't even begin to interpret, others merely identified by a number.  She scanned the display quickly, hunting for the number she’d been given.  Somehow, she wasn't entirely surprised to discover it was on the far side of the building, well away from the entrance.  Cold ice ran down her spine as she looked up at her brother.  He was frowning.

“They’ve got something to hide,” he murmured.  “That ward is pretty well concealed.”

Gudrun nodded in agreement, then checked the map, memorising the route.  Map-reading wasn't one of the skills she’d learned in the Hitler Youth - young women were expected to learn how to cook, clean and have babies - but she didn't dare risk asking for directions as they walked deeper into the facility.  Anyone with a legitimate reason to be there would know their way around the building - or, if they were just visiting for a day, would be assigned an escort.  She glanced back at her brother, then led the way down the corridor.  The hundreds of doctors and nurses, some of the latter somehow managing to make their ugly blue uniforms look fashionable, ignored them.

Kurt was right, she thought, ruefully.  Just how long had she spent scrabbling with her older brother as a young girl?  It had taken her far too long to realise that Kurt had grown into an adult.  As long as we look as though we fit in, no one will pay any attention to us.

She concentrated on finding her way through the corridors as Kurt followed her, no doubt keeping track of their route himself.  He’d have learned to read a map in the Hitler Youth; he wouldn't have been promoted so quickly, she was sure, if he hadn't mastered the basics at a very early age.  But then, young men were taught military skills in the Hitler Youth.  She’d always envied the boys when they’d gone camping, leaving school for a week of mountain-climbing, mock exercises and other exciting sports.  They’d even been allowed to play with real weapons.  Gudrun and the other girls had never even been allowed to see a gun in school.

They turned the corner and walked towards the ward.  A pair of SS troopers were on guard, but neither of them looked particularly alert.  Gudrun walked forward, keeping her face utterly expressionless as she led Kurt past the guards and into the wards.  The troopers gave her an appreciative look, but made no move to stop her.  This far inside the building, they probably assumed that anyone they saw had the right to be there.  She fought down a smile, knowing that they’d just crossed the Rubicon, and started to look for a specific bed.  They didn’t dare loiter where the troopers could see them.

Kurt poked her arm.  “There,” he said, pointing to the wall.  A chart was mounted on it, showing a list of names and beds.  “See if you can find him there.”

Gudrun nodded and peered up at the chart.  There were over two dozen names on the list, all completely unfamiliar, bar one.  Unterscharfuehrer Konrad Schulze, her boyfriend; Unterscharfuehrer Konrad Schulze, who had asked her to marry him when he returned from South Africa; Unterscharfuehrer Konrad Schulze, who had returned from South Africa and vanished into Josef Mengele Hospital.  She felt an odd twist in her heart as she stared at the name, realising that Konrad hadn't left her; his family, she’d discovered, were as much in the dark as herself.  Their son had gone to war and then...

She gritted her teeth as she looked for the right bed.  It had been sheer dumb luck she’d heard anything.  A friend of hers, the same girl who’d loaned her the nurse’s uniform, had seen Konrad’s name and SS number on a list of patients in the hospital.  Gudrun hadn't believed her at first - his family hadn't been told he’d been wounded and sent home, let alone allowed to see him - but as weeks went by without a single letter from a normally attentive boyfriend, she’d started to have suspicions.  And then it had taken two weeks of scheming to plan an unauthorised visit to the hospital.  If Kurt hadn't agreed to accompany her, it would have been impossible.

And no one had heard anything from the bureaucracy. 

Gudrun scowled in bitter memory.  She'd thought Konrad’s family liked her, for all that she was a university-educated student rather than a proper little housewife; they’d certainly never sought to discourage their son from courting her.  Hell, it had been her friends who’d raised eyebrows at the thought of dating an SS trooper.  The university students had never got along with the SS, who would happily close the university down in an instant if they thought they could get away with it.  But Konrad had been different.  He’d been sweet and funny and never tried to press himself on her.  The thought of his kisses made her lips tingle...

... And, if they knew something had happened to him, they would have told her.

She paused, just outside the curtains enshrouding his bed.  All of a sudden, she wasn’t sure she wanted to take the final step, to brush aside the curtains and see her lover.  What if she was wrong?  What if it wasn't him?  Or... what if something had happened...?

“Go,” Kurt urged, quietly.  “We may not have long.”

Gudrun reminded herself, firmly, that she came from a brave family and pushed the curtain aside, then froze in horror at the sight that greeted her eyes.  Her boyfriend was lying on his side, hooked up to a machine that bleeped worryingly every five seconds.  The lower half of his body was completely gone; she had only taken basic medicine at school - it was another skill girls were required to learn - but she honestly wasn't sure how he’d survived.  His face was bruised and broken; indeed, for a long moment, she was honestly convinced that they’d made a dreadful mistake and opened the wrong set of curtains.  But he had the scar on his chest she recalled from one of their love-making sessions and his SS tattoo, on the underside of his right arm, matched the one she’d memorised.

“They tattoo our ID number and blood group so we can be treated in a hurry,” Konrad had told her, once.  She felt sick as she recalled the handsome young man she’d courted, the man who’d gone to war.  “And it’s a badge of honour...”

“Jesus,” Kurt said, peering past her.  “How the hell is he going to give mama grandchildren?”

“Shut up,” Gudrun hissed.  She couldn’t help peeking at where Konrad’s genitals should have been, but they were gone.  Whatever had happened to him, it had taken everything below his hips.  She honestly had no idea how he was still alive.  “Do you think we can wake him?”

Kurt grabbed her arm.  “Don’t even think about it!”

Gudrun winced in pain, but she had to admit he was right.  She didn’t have the slightest idea how to wake Konrad, if it were possible.  Removing him from the machine might kill him outright.  It would almost certainly set off alarms, bringing real doctors and nurses running to the bed.  They’d be smoked out, caught and arrested.  And after that... Gudrun wasn't sure, but sending them back to their father would be far too lenient for the SS.  They’d probably be exiled to Germany East.  If half of the rumours were true, no one ever came back alive.

I should have married him, she thought, looking down at Konrad.  It was far from illegal to get pregnant out of wedlock - the state would happily pay expectant mothers a small stipend for carrying another young German to term - but her mother would have been furious if Gudrun had allowed herself to get pregnant.  If I had...

She swallowed, hard.  Konrad wouldn't be making love to her anytime soon, let alone returning to the war.  Doctors could perform miracles these days, but she doubted they could rebuild his legs, let alone his genitals.  She’d heard stories about how sperm could be mined from a male body and then inserted into a female body, impregnating the woman, yet... she shuddered at the thought.  It sounded terrifyingly unnatural.  Konrad would probably die in a hospital bed, if he couldn't live without life support, or spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair like Grandpa Frank, drinking heavily and nursing his sorrows.  She winced at the thought - she didn't like Grandpa Frank, even if he was her maternal grandfather - and then stepped away from the bed.  Part of her wanted to stay with him, but she knew what would happen if she tried.  The SS would take her away and...

They wanted to cover this up, she thought.  Konrad was from an SS family - his father had been a trooper before retiring - and yet they’d been lied to by the state.  They wanted to conceal his wounds...

It didn't make sense, she told herself.  Konrad wasn't anyone important.  His family didn't have ties to the Reichstag.  But, instead of reporting his wounds to his family, the SS had tried to hide them.  She tossed it over and over in her head, remembering what her father had said about his work as a policeman.  If someone was trying to hide something, he'd said, it meant they had something to hide that justified the effort of hiding it.  And yet, Konrad wasn't anyone important.  There was no reason to hide his wounds.

Take Konrad out of the equation, she told herself.  There was nothing important about Konrad, therefore no one would waste the effort solely for him.  And you get...

She looked up.  There had been more than two dozen names on the list - and, in the ward, there were two dozen beds, each one hidden behind a set of curtains.  If each of them held a wounded soldier, and it looked as though they did, what did it mean?  The news kept claiming that German troops, bringing fraternal aid to their brothers in South Africa, were winning the war.  But if someone was concealing the sheer number of wounded troops... what did that say about the progress of the war?  And how many troops had wound up dead in South Africa?

They’re lying, she thought.  She had always been dimly aware that the news services were run by the government, that nothing was ever broadcast without government approval, but she’d never fully understood what that meant.  They’re lying about the war.

She jumped as she heard someone clearing her throat.  “What are you two doing in here?”

Gudrun turned.  A young nurse - a senior nurse, judging from the gaudy rank badges on her uniform - was standing behind them, hands on hips.  She looked as stern as their mother when she’d caught them in the biscuit box, back when they’d been children.  Gudrun couldn't help thinking that she would have been pretty if she’d let her hair down and, perhaps, worn something a little more fitting.  The uniform was just plain ugly.

“I convinced Nurse Gudrun to let me see my friend Konrad, after my own examination,” Kurt lied, smoothly.  It wasn’t as if Gudrun was an uncommon name.  There had been three other girls with the same name in junior school.  “We served together in South Africa, don’t you know?  He saved my life twice.”

He leaned forward.  “If you’re charged with his care, perhaps you can tell me how he is?  I’d be most grateful...”

The nurse frowned.  “You shouldn't have brought him in here without permission,” she said, addressing Gudrun.  “Visitors have to be cleared through security...”

“It’s my fault, beautiful,” Kurt said.  He cocked his head.  “Can I take you for a drink later?”

“Perhaps,” the nurse said.  She looked downcast for a long moment.  “Your friend is unlikely to survive without the life support machine, sir.  The brain damage was quite severe and the medical care he received in the theatre was quite poor.  We dug quite a few pieces of shrapnel out of his flesh, but by then it was really too late.  His body is still alive, if barely; his brain is dead.”

Gudrun swallowed the question she wanted to ask.  She didn't dare draw the nurse’s attention back to her, even as Kurt flirted and the nurse - insanely - seemed inclined to respond.  Perhaps, being a nurse, she didn't have many chances for romance... or, more likely, she thought a soldier would understand long hours and short tempers.  Her father had once told her that policemen preferred to marry nurses...

“You escort him to the doors, then report to the security office,” the nurse said, finally.  “I have work to do here.”

“Of course,” Gudrun said.  She had no intention of doing anything but walking out the doors with Kurt, removing the uniform as soon as possible and never returning.  “I’m sorry...”

“Go,” the nurse ordered.

“That was a close one,” Kurt muttered, once they were past the guards.  “But at least I got her number.”

Gudrun gave him a disbelieving look.  “You do realise you can’t possibly call her?”

“That’s not the point,” Kurt said.  “The point is that I got her number.”

He didn't say anything else until they walked through the doors and escaped into the streets, heading towards a flat belonging to a friend.  Their father would have asked far too many questions if Gudrun had returned home wearing a nurse’s uniform - and, being a cop, was far too practiced at sniffing out lies.  He would demand the whole story, then explode with fury at the risk they’d taken.

“You need to keep this to yourself,” he warned.  “If someone is trying to keep this a secret...”

“I know the dangers,” Gudrun said.  She had a vague plan forming in her mind, but nothing solid, not yet.  And she couldn't share her thoughts with her brother.  “And I know the risks.”

Chapter Three

Reichstag, Berlin
17 July 1985 (Victory Day)

There were times, Hans Krueger thought as he walked into the meeting room, that it would probably be easier to handle decisions if the Big Three met in private, hammered out a set of compromises and then presented it to the rest of the Reich Council as a fait accompli.   It would certainly take less time, with less outraged shouting.  But it was impossible.  The different branches of the military would certainly want their say, the different government ministries would have their own opinions about matters and even the SS, for all it tried to present a monolithic face to the world, had its dissidents.  There was no way to accommodate them all, save for inviting all the principles to the meetings.

And that tends to mean that nothing gets done, he reminded himself sourly.  The only consolation was that formal protocol was practically non-existent.  By the time we’re finished arguing, it’s time for dinner and then we resume arguing after dinner.

He sighed, inwardly, as he sat down and accepted a cup of coffee from the attendants.  The remainder of the seats were filling up fast; the uniformed heads of the military, the ministers wearing fancy suits and the SS, clumped together at one end of the table.  Hitler might have been a great man - Hans knew better than to think otherwise, even in the privacy of his own mind - but he’d never established a formal governmental structure to handle the vastly expanding Reich.  Instead of an organised system, where power and responsibility were roughly equal, he’d presided over a hundred different fiefdoms, keeping them at loggerheads so his rule remained unchallenged.  And when Hitler died, the wheels had threatened to come off the whole ramshackle structure.  

And it was sheer luck that Himmler was convinced not to try to seize power for himself, Hans thought, glancing down towards Karl Holliston.  The Reichsführer-SS would happily seize supreme power, if he thought he could get away with it.  Then, the military would have opposed the SS, purely out of instinct.  Now... who knows which way everyone will jump.

The attendants finished pouring coffee and withdrew, closing the doors behind them with a loud thump.  Hans allowed himself a grim smile.  They were in the most secure room in the Reich - the security team protecting the complex was the most capable in Germany - and yet, the true threat lay within.  Just how many of the men at the table would make a bid for power if they thought they could succeed?  Hans wouldn't - he knew how hard it would be to rule the Reich alone - but he had a feeling he was the only one.  Everyone else?  The lure of supreme power was very alluring.

He kept his face impassive as the Fuhrer rose to his feet.  “This meeting is now called to order,” Adolf Bormann said, turning to face the giant portrait hanging from the wall.  Hans had to admit Bormann could give pretty speeches, but little else.  “Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler,” Hans echoed.  

And everywhere else, it would be Heil Bormann, he thought, as Bormann sat back down.  But not here, not where we can't risk allowing his head to swell.

“I move we address the war in South Africa,” Holliston said, quickly.  “Victory Day has, as always, given us a boost.  We must take advantage of it before it is gone.”

Hans exchanged glances with Field Marshal Justus Stoffregen, Head of OKW, who nodded once.  The military, therefore, wanted to discuss the war too.  Hans had a whole folder of economic issues that had to be addressed, but there was no point fighting an unwinnable battle against both the military and the SS.  Besides, it would give him an opportunity to let Holliston make his points and then undermine the bastard.  The SS man simply didn't understand the cold economic realities that were steadily undermining the Reich.

Holliston leaned forward.  “The South African War is approaching a climax,” he said, as if he hadn't said the same thing at the last four meetings of the Reich Council.  “We have taken losses, but we are pressing the rebel insurgents hard and persistently weakening their grip on their fellow blacks.  They are steadily being worn down.”

He paused, waiting to see if anyone would object.  Hans, who had quite a few private agents reporting to him from South Africa, could have disputed that rosy picture, but he kept his thoughts to himself.  Better to let the SS man store up trouble for himself.  Besides, he knew all too well what lurked behind the cold figures.  Men and women killed, children rounded up and herded into concentration camps, towns and villages burned to the ground for daring to hide insurgents... no wonder the blacks were fighting desperately.  They were caught between freedom and total extermination.  

And thousands of our own men are dead, he thought, coldly.  The general public doesn't have the slightest idea just how many soldiers have been killed - or wounded - in South Africa.

It wasn't a pleasant thought, he reflected.  The Reich had no elections, no way for the civilians to express their feelings about the war.  No one had quite realised just how badly public opinion, such as it was, would be shocked about the Balkan War.  The public hadn’t given a damn about slaughtered Jews or Muslims, of course, but telling them just how many Germans had been killed in the fighting had been a mistake.  It wasn't one the SS intended to repeat.

“However, we have a major problem,” Holliston continued.  “Pretoria is not as enthusiastic about the war as we would prefer.”

“Unsurprising,” Hans commented, dryly.  “We are, after all, fighting a savage war of peace on their territory.”

Holliston gave him a sharp look.  “We have gathered evidence that suggests the South Africans are on the verge of betraying us,” he snapped.  “Pretoria has been in private communications with Oliver Tambo and, apparently, attempting to come to some sort of agreement.  Furthermore, Tambo and his bunch of terrorists would not have escaped if Pretoria had acted swiftly to reinforce the parachutists who attacked the bastard’s territory.  I believe they hesitated in the hopes that Tambo would escape.”

“And succeeded, if that were the case,” Field Marshal Gunter Voss commented.

“They would presumably not have wished to restart negotiations with a new leader,” Hans mused.  “Tambo is hardly the worst they could have had to deal with.”

He scowled, inwardly.  Pretoria’s apartheid system had a great deal in common with the Third Reich, but the white population of South Africa made up only a tenth of the population, even though Pretoria had been working hard to lure immigrants from Spain, Italy, France and even Greece.  The whites were, quite simply, badly outnumbered and every year they failed to crush the rebels, every little rebel success that helped to bleed Pretoria white, worsened their position.  It was hard to blame Pretoria for looking for a way out of the war that allowed them to salvage something.

But Holliston, of course, didn't see it that way.

“I have two proposals,” he said.  “First, we double the number of German troops fighting in South Africa.  We can easily spare 200,000 troops for as long as it takes to crush the blacks and bring peace to the country.  Second, that we strike first and eliminate the government in Pretoria.”

Hans blinked in surprise.  He’d expected the proposal to double the number of troops in South Africa; it had, after all, been made before.  But eliminating the South African Government?  It was insane!  Which planner in Wewelsburg Castle had come up with the whole idea?

Holliston pressed the idea as hard as he could.  “There are factions in Pretoria who will be happy to support us, if we eliminate the current leadership,” he said.  “These are the factions who have been pressing for a more pro-active solution to the problem...”

Hans gritted his teeth.  Holliston alone couldn't commit the Reich to a desperate gamble, but if he dragged the military along with him... it would be hard, perhaps impossible, to head the madcap scheme off at the pass.  And it was madness, of that Hans was sure.  The meaning of the facts and figures might be disputed, but the facts themselves could never be.

“The last time I checked,” he said, allowing his voice to drip with sarcasm, “we sent our soldiers into South Africa to support the local government.  Did something change while I was sleeping?”

“Of course not,” Holliston said.

“Then perhaps you can explain to me,” Hans pressed, “why supporting the local government requires executing its members and installing a set of puppets?”

“The current government is unable to fight the war effectively,” Holliston snapped.  “I...”

Hans took a long breath.  “Whatever we may think of the government of South Africa, the fact remains that it holds legitimacy in the eyes of the South Africans themselves,” he said, coldly.  “They will not take calmly to us stepping in and removing their government.  I dare say, given that they are of good racial stock, that they will not accept whatever government we install in its place.  We will be forced to occupy South Africa ourselves, to disarm the local military and fight a multi-sided war against two sets of insurgents.

“Furthermore, our logistics are already problematic,” he added.  “Our supply lines from the Reich to Germany South are poor and road and rail links between Germany South and South Africa are worse, even without the insurgents taking pot-shots at our convoys...”

“We could drive the attackers away from the roads if we didn't have to humour the local government,” Holliston hissed.  

“And we would find it hard to make use of the local logistics network,” Hans added, relentlessly.  The South Africans, damn them, had chosen to licence American or British weapons rather than German, a decision that had come back to haunt them when the war began in earnest.  “Indeed, the white flight from South Africa will only get worse as the war spreads into formerly safe areas.  Or have you not realised just how dependent South Africa is on black labour?”

He allowed his voice to rise.  “They use black labour everywhere, even in the military,” he reminded the table.  “What happens if - when - those blacks become convinced that they’re ultimately doomed to go into the gas chambers anyway?”

“They’re of inferior stock,” Holliston snapped.

“And if they’re so inferior,” Hans said, “why do you need an extra 200,000 troops to fight the war?”

He kept the smirk that threatened to appear off his face with an effort.  He’d argued against becoming involved in South Africa, only to be overruled by the military and the SS.  Now, the SS looked grossly incompetent, grasping at straws rather than swallowing their pride and admitting they’d made a mistake, while the military were concerned about ever-increasing casualty figures.  Doubling the troops in South Africa, if they could be supported, might end the war, but it was equally possible that it would only increase the number of dead or wounded soldiers.  And who knew what would happen when that little fact got out?

Holliston glared at him.  “And you would propose ending the war?”

“I would propose that we find a way to avoid wasting blood and treasure on a petty pointless war,” Hans said.  “It will not be long before the chaos starts making its way up into Germany South or French North Africa.”

“The frogs can take care of themselves,” Holliston growled.

“They might have some problems,” Hans observed.  “We place some pretty strict limits on their military, don’t we?”

“Yes,” Voss said, flatly.  “The last thing we want is a modern tank force within striking distance of Germany.”

Hans nodded in agreement.  The terrain between Vichy France and Berlin was not conductive to deep strikes, but giving Vichy the power to stand up for itself would have dangerous implications.  France had been in the economic doldrums for decades, despite a slow and steady advance into North Africa.  The French Government might be more than willing to bend over and take whatever Berlin chose to dish out, but the French population loathed the Germans with a fiery passion.  If the Reich ran into problems elsewhere, who knew which way the French would jump?  And, to be fair, Spain and Italy didn't like the Germans much either.

He cleared his throat.  “The facts and figures make it clear, gentlemen, that we need to make some adjustments in our budget,” he warned.  “We are spending more than we earn.”

“Then print more money,” Holliston said.  “That’s your job, isn’t it?”

“That’s what Weimer tried,” Hans reminded him.  “And what happened to Weimer?”

Silence fell.  Very few of the men in the room had been old enough to understand what was going on, back when they’d been children, but they remembered how the Weimer Republic had collapsed into chaos.  And yet, Hans knew that most of them didn't understand just how desperately Hitler had needed to keep adding new conquests to the Reich.  It had taken years, after the end of the war, to put the Reich on a sound economic footing.  Now, all that hard work was being wasted.  

“The war in South Africa, alone, is costing us billions of Reichmarks,” Hans said.  “Both directly, in weapons and equipment lost during the fighting, and indirectly, in taking care of the wounded.  The economic lifeline we’ve tossed to Pretoria is worse, in a way; we’re simply not getting enough back from the mines in South Africa to pay for the war.  But that isn't the worst of it.  Our total military budget is sucking up far too much money...”

“We have to prepare to fight the Americans,” Voss said.  He tossed a sharp look at Grossadmiral Cajus Bekker.  “Don’t we need to build more ships?”

“We can't afford many more ships,” Hans said.  “A single nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, Field Marshal, costs over ten billion Reichmarks.  Building enough to fight the Americans on even terms, which leaves the British out of the equation, will cost two hundred billion Reichmarks!”

“The Americans seem to be able to afford it,” Holliston said.  “Are you sure you’re not mismanaging our money?”

“The Americans have several advantages,” Hans growled.  “First, they have a larger GNP than ourselves.  They can afford to build more carriers, missiles and spaceships without straining their economy.  Second, they have a smaller budget for their other governmental functions.  Third, their weapons production is standardised, not just between the different services, but also between their allies.  A British soldier can fire American bullets from his gun and vice versa.  Fourth, and perhaps the most important at the moment, the Americans offer much less social benefits than ourselves.”

“A mother’s benefit packet is less than a hundred Reichmarks per week,” Holliston said, tightly.  The SS had been a big supporter of the scheme, although Holliston had been a lowly trooper at the time.  “It is hardly a problem.”

“It mounts up,” Hans said.  “There are roughly 1.5 million mothers in Berlin today.  If each of them has two children, they can claim 160 Reichmarks each week from the government - and, I assure you, almost every mother in Berlin does.  That means, each week, we spend somewhere around 240 million Reichmarks in Berlin alone.”

He looked around the table, willing them to understand.  “That’s a very rough figure,” he said.  “Right now, the average family size is four children; six in Germany East, despite the endless insurgency.  Every single one of those mothers can claim eighty Reichmarks per child, per week.  The cost is staggeringly high and we can't afford it!”

“We need it,” Holliston said, into the silence.  “The Volk must not be allowed to vanish from the earth!”

“The Volk are in no danger of fading away,” Hans said.  “Indeed, our population is expanding rapidly.  But every year we delay in dealing with this crisis, the worse it will be when it finally explodes.  I can paper over the cracks for a while, but not for very long.  Creative accounting will catch up with us sooner or later.”

He cursed under his breath.  Holliston wouldn't understand, of course.  The SS was obsessed with children, to the point where it encouraged fine young German men to marry more than one wife.  Hell, it had been Himmler himself who had started the original scheme.  He’d noted, correctly, that cost was a major factor in bringing up children and come up with a simple idea to reduce the costs.  But, like all such schemes, it had snowballed out of control and turned into a nightmare.

“We cannot make cuts,” Holliston said.

“We must,” Hans said.  “Ending the war in South Africa alone would save a few billion Reichmarks per year.”

“We could sell more weapons,” Voss suggested.

“The world’s buyers prefer British or American weapons,” Luther Stresemann said.  The Head of the Economic Intelligence Service looked concerned.  “Our reputation for producing weapons took a pounding when the Royal Navy sank the Argentinean ships during the war.”

“The brown-skinned grafters didn't know how to use them,” Holliston snapped.

“It doesn't matter,” Hans said.  Oddly, it was one of the few points where he found himself in agreement with Holliston.  “All that matters is that sales of weapons are falling and unlikely to stabilise any time soon.  The only people who buy exclusively from us are our captive markets and we don’t want to sell them the most advanced weapons.”

“Of course not,” Holliston said.

Hans sighed and glanced at the wall-mounted clock, silently resigning himself to another long and acrimonious meeting where nothing would be decided.  If he could convince the military that eliminating Pretoria’s government was a potential disaster, he told himself, at least that would be something...

... But, as the meeting finally drew to an end, no decisions were taken at all.

Chapter Four

Wieland House, Berlin
17 July 1985 (Victory Day)

“And where have you been all day, young lady?”

Gudrun grimaced as her mother’s voice echoed out of the kitchen.  She might be eighteen years old and a university student, having passed the hardest set of exams in Germany, but her mother still talked to her as though she was a little girl.  It just wasn't fair, particularly when her thoughts kept returning to Konrad’s broken body.  But she had no choice, but to swallow it and stick her head into the kitchen.

“I’ve been with Hilde, watching the parade,” she said.  Her mother was bent over the oven, cooking something that smelt heavenly.  “Watching the soldiers trooping by...”

“You should have been here to help,” her mother said, straightening up.  “I don’t recall saying you could leave the house.”

“I’m eighteen, mother,” Gudrun said.  When she was a mother, she was not going to keep her daughters locked in a gilded cage.  “And...”

“And as long as you live under my roof, you follow my rules,” her mother said, sternly.  “I have told you, many times, that you are to ask before you go out, particularly this week.”

Gudrun sighed as her mother turned to face her.  Adelinde Wieland was tall and blonde, but her hair was slowly shading to grey after bringing up four children on a policeman’s salary and what little she could claim from the government.  It had often baffled Gudrun how people could compare her to her mother, although Grandpa Frank had been heard to claim that Gudrun was the spitting image of his wife.  Her mother’s face was very different from Gudrun’s and her hair a shade or two lighter before it started to go grey.

“I have a boyfriend, mother,” she said.  She felt an odd pang at the memory.  Adelinde had never really approved of Konrad, but her husband had approved the match.  “I’m not going to get into trouble.”

“That’s what they all say,” her mother said.  “A soldier in a pretty uniform, perhaps a glass or two of beer... who knows what will happen?”

Gudrun felt her face heat.  Her mother could be uncomfortably blunt at times; she still cringed at the memory, years ago, of having her mother explain where babies came from and why she should be very careful until she was actually married.  There was a black market in contraception, she’d been told, but condoms and American-made pills couldn't be purchased unless the user already had three children.  University student or not, Gudrun had no idea where she might obtain any condoms, let alone how she might convince her boyfriend to use one.  Men could be such idiots at times.

She shuddered.  Konrad wasn't going to recover.  It was unlikely, the nurse had said, that he could survive without the machine.  And even if he did, he’d be unable to do anything with her.  Part of her even wished she’d pulled the plug on him before leaving, even though it would probably have set off alarms.  Her boyfriend deserved better than to remain a vegetable for the rest of his life.

“I’m glad you’re thinking about it,” her mother sneered.  It took Gudrun a moment to realise that her mother had seen the shudder and misinterpreted it.  “Go take Grandpa Frank his dinner before your father comes home.  He’ll want to eat as soon as he arrives.”

Gudrun groaned.  “Mother, can’t Johan do it...”

“Go,” her mother ordered, pointing at the tray.  “Now.”

There was no point in arguing with her mother when she was cross, Gudrun knew from bitter experience.  There were two younger boys in the house, yet they never had to do any cooking or washing up.  It didn't seem fair, somehow; she picked up the tray, swallowing the curse that came to mind when she saw the bottle perched next to the covered dish, and headed for the door.  She’d once dumped the beer down the sink, hoping it would make Grandpa Frank more pleasant, but her mother had been furious.  Gudrun had never dared do it again.

She walked slowly up the stairs, stalling as long as she could.  Grandpa Frank’s room was at the far end of the corridor, forcing her to walk past the room shared by Johan and Siegfried and her own door before she reached her grandfather’s door.  Johan had complained, loudly, that he hadn't been allowed to move into Kurt’s room, now that his elder brother spent most of his time in the barracks, but their father had flatly refused to allow him to take the empty room.  Gudrun smiled at the memory.  There weren't many advantages to living in a patriarchal household, but watching her brothers forced to share a room was definitely one of them.

“Come,” an imperious voice bellowed.

Gudrun flinched - she’d never worked out how Grandpa Frank could tell when there was someone waiting outside his room - and pushed the door open, wrinkling her nose at the stench.  As always, the room was an odd combination of orderly and disorderly; the bed looked neat and tidy, but there were beer bottles lying on the floor and the remains of a snack sitting on the bedside table.  Grandpa Frank himself was sitting in an armchair, reading a newspaper and drinking from a half-full bottle of beer.  Gudrun’s stomach turned at the thought of helping the disgusting old man to the toilet, although - to be fair - he’d never seemed to have any problems staggering out of bed and doing his business as far as she knew.

“Victory Day,” Grandpa Frank said.  “You must be very proud.”

“Yes, Grandpa,” Gudrun said.  She’d never been sure just who Grandpa Frank thought she was, half the time.  Half of what he said made no sense at all.  “But my boyfriend...”

Her voice caught.  Grandpa Frank was... a cripple.  No, not quite a cripple, but he needed a wheelchair if he wanted to leave the house.  And Konrad wouldn't even have that, if by some dark miracle he survived.  He...

“The paratrooper,” Grandpa Frank said, darkly.  “I heard he was planning to become a policeman.  It’s no place for a young man.”

Wonderful, Gudrun thought.  The paratrooper-turned-policeman was her father.  He thinks I’m my mother.

She eyed her grandfather carefully as she placed the tray on the table beside him.  Grandpa Frank’s mood changed rapidly; she’d seen him go from maudlin, mourning his long-dead wife, to angry and raging at the world within seconds.  Only his daughter could talk sense into him when he was angry; Gudrun honestly didn't understand why her mother allowed the old man to stay in the house.  Grandpa Frank had come alarmingly close to clobbering Johan’s brains out when the younger boy had snuck up on him for a dare.

“My boyfriend didn't take part in the parade,” she said, flatly.  It was honest enough, to be sure.  “I miss him.”

“Just stay faithful to him,” Grandpa Frank advised.  “It’s no service to a decent lad to trade him in when another one comes along.”  

Gudrun felt her cheeks heat.  The idea of Grandpa Frank, of all people, giving her relationship advice was horrifically embarrassing.  She honestly had no idea what he’d done in the war, but he’d had enough nightmares to make it clear that it had been something thoroughly unpleasant.  Maybe he’d been in Stalingrad, during the brutal house-to-house fighting, or invaded Moscow towards the end of the war.  He was certainly old enough...

But mother won’t let us ask him any questions, she thought.  And she slapped Johan when he tried.

“I’ll do my best,” she said.  She stepped back from the older man, never taking her eyes off him.  “I hope it’s good food.”

Grandpa Frank ignored her as he took a long swig from the bottle and started to mutter to himself in a dialect Gudrun didn't recognise.  Careful to breathe through her mouth, she looked around the room, picked up the used plates and cutlery and headed back downstairs to the kitchen.  Her mother was waiting, hands resting impatiently on her hips.  Gudrun rolled her eyes as her mother pointed to the sink, then emptied the plates into the bin, put the dishes in the water and washed them hastily.  Grandpa Frank never seemed to finish a meal.

Too busy drinking, Gudrun thought, as her mother started to hand out more tasks before she could make her escape.  And trying to drown his sorrows.

She looked at her mother, who was just taking a tray of sausages out of the oven.  “Why do we keep Grandpa Frank here when we could send him to one of the veteran homes?”

Her mother turned and gave her the look that generally preceded a hard slap.  “When your father and I are old and grey,” she said coldly, “will you look after us or will you send us to a home?”

Gudrun flinched.  “Of course I’ll look after you...”

“My father practically raised me since my mother died young,” Adelinde said.  “Whatever his flaws, and he has many, he managed to raise a daughter despite never remarrying.  I cannot put him into a home to die, young lady, and you’re being thoroughly unpleasant to suggest it.”

“Yes, mother,” Gudrun said, feeling tiny under her mother’s gaze.  “I’m sorry.”

“And we get an extra stipend from the government for taking care of a veteran,” a new voice said.  Gudrun turned to see her father standing there, wearing his policeman’s uniform.  “It isn't to be sniffed at, you know.”

“Herman,” Adelinde said, tightly.

Gudrun gave her father a hug.  “How was work?”

“Your daughter was out with a friend half the day and your eldest son has yet to return,” Adelinde said, before her father could say a word.  “I expect you to speak to them both after dinner.”

“Yes, dear,” Herman said, as he let go of Gudrun.  “Gudrun, speak to me after dinner.”

Gudrun nodded, hoping he couldn't see the amusement on her face.  She'd been taught, in school, that a wife was to be obedient to her husband, cook his dinners, have his children and treat him like a king.  Whoever had written the stupid textbooks she’d been forced to read, she was sure, was either a man with a female penname or a woman who’d never actually married anyone.  Adelinde didn't even pretend to be obedient to her husband.  The household was her realm and God help anyone who questioned her right to rule.

“There was the usual run of pickpockets and other trouble-causers,” her father added, picking up a biscuit from the jar while his wife’s back was turned.  “A group of children ran riot in the square, but someone very high up ordered that they were merely to be sent back to school rather than face punishment.  It was quite strange.”

“Poor kids,” Gudrun said.  She’d been lucky to escape a full Victory Day parade while she’d been at school, but she’d had to stand for hours for smaller parades and, by the time they were finally dismissed, she'd been aching and sore.  “Are they going to be all right?”

“Probably,” her father said.  “They...”

“Gudrun, take the potatoes and put them on the table,” her mother interrupted.  “Herman, if you’re going to stand around here, take the bottles of beer and put them by the plates.”

“Yes, dear,” her father said.  “Shall I give Johan the big mug?”

“Probably not,” Adelinde said.  She normally banned alcohol from the table, save for Grandpa Frank.  But this was Victory Day.  “I don’t want him drinking too much and winding up being sick over my nice clean carpet.”

Gudrun winced inwardly as she carried the potatoes out.  Johan and Siegfried were already sitting at the table, looking as though butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.  They might as well be twins, she’d often thought, although Johan was blonde while Siegfried was brown, taking more after their father.  He was growing up quickly too, she noted; he was the baby of the family, at twelve, but he'd already lost his childlike appearance.  Like everyone else at school, he’d been forced to exercise on the playing fields until he’d shed every last trace of fat from his body.

“That looks good,” Johan said, eying the potatoes with interest.  “You think mother cooked them in gravy?”

“Go ask her,” Gudrun snapped.  Johan needed to learn, the sooner the better, that she wasn't there to answer his every whim.  It was a service to his future wife.  “And seeing you’re just sitting there, why don’t you put out the knives and forks?”

“Do it,” their father agreed, stepping into the room carrying a pair of bottles in one hand.  “If you want to be lazy, you can go join the Luftwaffe and sit on your bottom all day.”

“I like flying,” Johan protested.  “I’m going to sign up for the Luftwaffe next year.”

Gudrun smiled.  “You might not learn how to fly,” she needled.  She’d looked up the figures when one of her fellow students had started to date a pilot.  “For everyone who gets accepted for pilot training, there’s three or four who get accepted for work on the ground.  That’s not quite as impressive.”

Johan’s face fell.  “But I’m a natural pilot.”

“The Luftwaffe needs more than just pilots,” their father said.  He gave Gudrun a look that sent her scurrying back into the kitchen, just as Kurt arrived, still wearing his uniform.  “And if you learn how to maintain a fighter jet, Johan, you will have something to build on when you return to civilian life.”

“I’m going to become an astronaut,” Johan said.  Gudrun could still hear him, even over the sound of sizzling sausages.  “If I manage to do well as a pilot, I can put in for space training and go to the moon.”

Gudrun smirked as she took the sausages and carried them back into the dining room, her mother following her with the vegetables.  Johan was hardly alone in wanting to fly aircraft - a third of the boys she’d known in school had had the same ambition - but the odds were against him.  And if he did manage to join the Luftwaffe without actually becoming a pilot, he’d be forever branded a REMF, rather than a fighter.  His chances of winning the hearts and bodies of countless girls, as he had seen on television programs, would be sharply reduced.

“This is Victory Day,” her father said, once the food had been served and the beer had been poured.  “Let us remember, just for a moment, how we became the most powerful nation in the world.”

Now tell me, Gudrun thought.  Is that actually true?

It wasn't a pleasant thought, but it had to be faced.  The state had lied, at least once, and no matter how much she tried, she couldn't think of anything that disproved her theory that Konrad wasn't the only wounded soldier to be kept away from his family.  And if the state had lied once, who knew what else it had lied about?  How much of what she’d been taught had been a lie?  She was pretty sure they couldn't have lied about basic maths - she could prove that two plus two equalled four - but it was a great deal easier to lie about the social subjects.  Had there really been a great war?

Grandpa Frank fought in the war, she thought.  He was hardly the only old man with a military background.  She had several friends who had elderly relatives living with them or staying in veteran homes.  So there must have been a war.  But what really happened?

She ate her food slowly, barely tasting the sausages and potatoes as she thought.  What could she do?  Konrad’s family might make a fuss, if she told them the truth, but it was equally possible they’d report her for sneaking into a hospital.  She could keep it to herself, yet the part of her that loved Konrad wanted to do something about his case.  But what?  If she tried to protest herself, she’d wind up in an asylum, if she was lucky.

“I need to speak to you,” her father said, once the dinner was over.  Gudrun had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed that the meal was coming to an end.  “You too, Kurt.”

Kurt gave Gudrun a sharp look as their father rose to his feet.  Gudrun shrugged; their father might know they’d slipped out of the house, but he didn't know where they’d been.  As long as they stuck to the cover story, they’d be safe.  Or so she hoped.  If the nurse Kurt had been trying to flirt with reported their presence, after he stood her up, the SS might start looking for a pair of intruders.  And if they got lucky, they might catch her before she could tell anyone what they’d seen.

Two more days of parades, she thought, and then I can go back to university.  And then...

She sucked in her breath.  Officially, the university was politically neutral.  Unofficially, students talked all the time.  They were, after all, among the smartest people in the Reich; many of them had worked hard to escape conscription by passing the exams and winning a place in the university.  And almost all of the students would know at least one person in the military.  How many students had seen a relative go to South Africa and not return?

But it wasn't something she dared discuss with Kurt.  Who knew which side he’d take?

Talk to the students, she told herself, as she led the way into her father’s office.  She had a feeling her father would just tell them both off, but there was no point in dawdling.  And then decide what to do next.

Chapter Five

American Embassy, Berlin
19 July 1985

“Well,” Ambassador Samuel Turtledove said.  “Thoughts?”

Andrew allowed himself a smile.  Ambassador Turtledove had no time for the persistent rivalry between the Office of Strategic Services, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defence Intelligence Agency, to say nothing of the military itself.  They were, after all, right in the heart of Berlin, in the first building that would fall if war ever broke out between the North Atlantic Alliance and the Third Reich.  There was literally no time for inter-service rivalry or disagreements.  Everyone in the room was cleared to hear everything up to TOP SECRET and beyond.

“It was an impressive show,” he said, as he accepted a cup of coffee from the Ambassador’s aide.  “I counted over thirty long-range heavy bombers in a single fly-past.  They certainly look as though they can reach New York.”

“Assuming they don’t get bounced halfway there,” General William Knox pointed out.  The military attaché frowned down at the photographs the observers had taken during the parade and placed on the table.  “We still have fighter bases up and down the east coast, despite the best efforts of Congress.  The Brits have their fighters too.”

“One would assume the Brits would have other things to worry about, if war broke out,” Andrew said, mildly.  “But I tend to agree.  The long-range bomber isn't a major threat unless they build them in far greater numbers.”

“Which leads to the obvious question,” the Ambassador said.  “Can they build them in far greater numbers?”

Andrew looked at Penelope Jameson, who shrugged.  “The German economy is a mess, Mr. Ambassador,” she said.  The CIA had attached her to the Berlin Office as an expert in economics and charged her with gauging the strength of the German economy.  It wasn't a task Andrew envied her.  “I honestly think that most Germans are unaware of just how badly their economy is performing, certainly when compared to ours.  Funding a few hundred long-range bombers would be very difficult right now.”

“Particularly as they would be of limited value in South Africa,” Knox said.

“Perhaps not,” Andrew said.  “They can fly well above the Stinger-A’s range, can't they?”

He smiled as Knox - and Robert Hamilton - grimaced in unison.  The OSS had been pressing the President to send Stinger-B and Stinger-C missiles to the South Africans, even though there was a very real risk that one or more units would fall into German hands and be reverse-engineered.  He understood their concerns, but there was a very real opportunity to bleed the Germans white using the missiles.  Shooting down a handful of heavy bombers would hurt the Reich more than killing a few hundred soldiers on deployment.  

And if war does break out, he thought, there will be fewer bombers to make their way to New York.

“They’re not exactly equipped for tactical support,” Knox said, after a moment.  “Their smart weapons are considerably inferior to our own.”

“We think,” Andrew reminded him.  “The gauchos probably didn't know how to use their weapons to best advantage.”

“They would have set up a display and shown off their merchandise if they could,” Penelope said, quietly.  “Their economy took a hit when the Falklands War went so badly for the side using German weapons.”

“Serve them right,” the Ambassador said.  He cleared his throat.  “Was there anything new in the parade, any potential game changers?”

“Probably not,” Andrew said.  “The latest tank design was a modified Panther VII, their main battle tank.  I don't think we have to worry about a revolutionary new tank appearing on the battlefields in a few years.”

“They also modified a handful of older Panzer XIs,” Hamilton added.  “It’s hard to be sure, but it looks like they took off the main guns and added several machine guns to the vehicles.”

“Probably for counter-insurgency work,” Knox grunted.  He picked up one of the photographs and held it out.  “We know they’ve been taking losses in South Africa, Mr. Ambassador.  My best guess is that they’re adapting their weapons and armour to cope with the threat.”

Which isn't likely to go away anytime soon, Andrew thought.  The blacks know they have to fight and perhaps die, rather than doing nothing and certainly dying.

He shuddered at the thought.  The Reich’s population might be blissfully unaware of what had been done in their name, but everyone else knew all too well what Adolf Hitler had unleashed upon the world.  He wouldn't have bet a rusty dollar that the blacks would survive for long, if the Nazis claimed the country.  They’d be herded into concentration camps and brutally murdered.  Indeed, there were factions in South Africa that would happily support such a final solution, heedless of the possibility that the Nazis would shove them into the gas chambers next.

The Ambassador cleared his throat.  “Do you feel it’s likely they will double down in South Africa?”

Andrew hesitated.  “They made a mistake getting involved,” he said.  “We know that - and I suspect they know it too, now.  But I think their leadership will be reluctant to retreat from their positions in South Africa.  They’d see it as an admission of weakness.”

He looked up at the map.  The Reich bestrode the continent like a colossus, bright red ink soaking the land from Dunkirk to Kamchatka.  And yet, their control over their vast domains was tenuous, in places.  The settlements in Germany East were plagued by partisans, the Vichy French were restless and even their allies were looking for alternatives.  Andrew was sure that Turkey, at least, would jump ship if there was a reasonable chance of getting away with it, while Italy and Spain wouldn't be far behind.  Binding their economies to Germany had been a deadly mistake.

“Economically, they must be reaching their limits,” Penelope said.  “All my models suggest Germany will have to make major cutbacks within the next five years.”

“Your models may not take reality into account,” Knox pointed out.  He’d never liked Penelope, although Andrew had never figured out why.  “Surely they know how to fine-tune their own economy.”

“An economy is not a military unit, sir,” Penelope said.  “Nor is it a piece of balky machinery that can be fixed.  Fine-tuning an economy is simply impossible and trying to control it leads to disaster.  The communists discovered that in 1942.”

She took a breath.  “My models are, if anything, optimistic,” she added.  “I gave the Germans every advantage I could think of, sir; I assumed a level of central understanding and control that, quite frankly, is beyond the realm of possibility.  And yet, all of my models indicate a major collapse in less than five years unless something changes.”

Andrew frowned.  “They could be spoofing your results.”

“They could,” Penelope agreed.  “We have always had problems gauging the true power of the German economy.  However, if it was as good as they claimed, they’d have a much larger moon base and a few hundred additional spacecraft to stake their claims to the asteroids.”

“True,” Andrew agreed.

“It's also beside the point,” Knox said.  “Is the likelihood of war any stronger than it was two years ago?”

Maybe that’s why he doesn't like her, Andrew thought.  He understands the machines and tactics of war, but not economics.

“The last set of discussions I had with the Foreign Minister were unenlightening,” the Ambassador said, calmly.  “He lodged an official complaint about our meddling in South Africa, I lodged a complaint of my own about German weapons shipments to radical factions in Latin and South America.  We had a long argument that boiled down to mutual denials that anything was actually happening.”

“And so anyone on the ground will vanish, if they get caught,” Andrew said.

“We do it too,” Hamilton reminded him.  “Any German advisor caught in Panama goes straight into a black prison for interrogation, not held for trade.”

Andrew nodded, ruefully.  The threat of mutual destruction - Germany and the United States each had over 10,000 nuclear warheads - had made it impossible for either side to risk seeking a final war to decide the fate of the planet.  Instead, Germany had started running weapons and supplies to radical groups in Latin America, while America had supplied Russian, French and South African insurgents with weapons of their own.  But German brutality made it impossible for them to end the war on anything other than total victory, while the United States could use a combination of hard and soft power to convince the undecided to support the Americans.  Mexico was more peaceful than it had been in years; Panama, the scene of a brutal insurgency, was calming down...

But the Germans can’t afford to treat anyone as equals, he thought, darkly.  They have to exterminate their enemies to win, which makes it impossible for their enemies to surrender.

Knox looked at Penelope, sharply.  “What happens if the German economy does collapse?”

“It’s hard to be sure,” Penelope said.  “I think we’d be looking at something akin to the Great Depression, but probably a great deal worse.  The German economy is more integrated than ours was in the thirties.”

“And then they will go to war,” Knox said, grimly.  “Hitler saw war as the solution to Germany’s woes.  War will distract their people from their empty bellies.”

“They’d have to be out of their minds,” Hamilton said.  “We have the AMERICA SHIELD, do we not?”

“The system isn't perfect,” Knox reminded him.  “If the Germans throw every last one of their missiles at us in a single volley, will the shield stop them all?”

“We’d certainly have a better chance of survival than they would,” Hamilton snapped.  “What the bombs didn't destroy would be wiped out by their slaves afterwards.”

“And a full-scale nuclear war might well destroy the entire world,” Penelope said.  “Nuclear winter will finish off the survivors.”

Andrew shook his head in grim horror.  “Perhaps they won’t see it that way,” he said.  “They may view mutual destruction as a victory, of sorts.”

The Ambassador held up a hand.  “What are their alternatives?”

“Cut their cloak to suit their cloth,” Penelope said.  “They’ll have to make massive - and painful - budget cuts.”

“Which they can’t, for political reasons,” Knox commented.  “They’re committed to trying to keep up with us.”

Andrew sighed, inwardly.  The Germans had been fearsome - and they still were - but they’d also been very good at projecting an illusion that they were stronger than they were.  The CIA had yet to recover from taking some of the German claims at face value, back in the sixties, and terrifying Congress into authorising a colossal military build-up.  Now, it was the Germans who were struggling to stay in the race...

Assuming we’re correct, he reminded himself.  The buggers have got themselves caught in an elephant trap.

“Maybe it would be a good time to propose limits to military spending,” the Ambassador said, calmly.  “Let them off as lightly as we can.”

“It was tried, back in the seventies,” Knox said.  “We caught them cheating.”

“Back when it looked as though we would lose Mexico,” Hamilton said.  “We faced the same dilemma the Germans are facing now.  Do they cut their losses and admit defeat or up the ante?”

He shrugged.  “Our ability to influence their decision-making process is rather limited.”

“I have to speak to the President,” the Ambassador said.  “Do we try to take advantage of their problems or do we commit ourselves to doing nothing?”

“Unless the Germans become more reasonable, we can’t really do much more than we already are,” Andrew said.  “We cannot trust them to honour any agreement they make; they cannot take the risk of being backed into a corner... sir, the Reich is hellishly unstable.  If it goes down, it could easily go down into war.”

Penelope leaned forward.  “We could offer to mediate peace in South Africa.”

“We’d have problems finding a solution everyone involved could live with,” Hamilton said, darkly.  “The South Africans themselves will want to remain Top Dog in the manger for the rest of eternity, while the blacks will want - at the very least - self-rule and an end to the apartheid system.  And the Nasties will want to exterminate the blacks and probably add South Africa to the Third Reich.

“Remove the German forces and the South Africans will either have to flee the country or be brutally murdered by the blacks.  Stop supplying the blacks with weapons and the Germans will probably shove them all into gas chambers - if there are any left alive by the end of the war.”

Andrew shuddered.  The South African Government had imposed a complete lockdown on newsmen travelling to South Africa, but a handful of intrepid reporters had made the long journey to the front.  They’d sent back horrific stories and pictures, including one of hundreds of villages being firebombed from high overhead and refugees gunned down mercilessly.  It had shocked America, particularly the black population.  The President might find it politically impossible to stop sending weapons and supplies to the insurgents.  He’d be deserted by every black congressmen and senator in the country.

“And if the Germans do abandon South Africa, the chaos will spread to Germany South,” he added.  It might not be a bad thing - Germany South was the world’s largest source of uranium - but it would definitely worry the German leadership.  “And then it will spread upwards into French and Italian territory.”

“The Germans would be wise to consolidate what they’ve got,” Penelope said, flatly.  “If they try to hold on to their entire empire, they’ll likely lose everything.”

“They seem to disagree with you,” Knox said.

“I’d be surprised if they truly understood the problem,” Penelope said, mildly.  “I’ve met a great many political and military leaders who refused to even try to understand economics.”

Ouch, Andrew thought, as Knox’s face flushed with anger.  A palatable hit.

The Ambassador tapped the table sharply.  “I’m due to speak with the President tomorrow,” he said.  “Do I advise him, then, to do nothing and just wait for the Reich to fall apart on its own?”

“I suggest you advise him to take some extra precautions, just in case,” Knox advised.  “If they’re planning to strike against us, they’re not going to tell their own people until the rockets are in the air.  Putting the air and missiles bases on alert might make the difference between survival and destruction.”

“They’d just be committing suicide,” Penelope argued.  “It makes no sense.”

She had a point, Andrew knew.  The Reich and the NAA didn't share a border.  They might be able to launch an invasion force across the English Channel, but getting the Wehrmacht to Washington DC was a fool’s dream.  They’d have to contend with the United States Navy, the United States Air Force, the Royal Navy and the Canadian Navy.  Andrew privately doubted the Germans would get halfway across the ocean before every last one of their ships were sunk.  The Germans could make America miserable - tracking down Nazi sleeper cells was a persistent headache for the FBI - but they couldn't invade and occupy territory.

“They may not realise the truth,” Hamilton said.  “Or they might not care.  Just because they look like us doesn't mean they think like us.”

Andrew nodded.  He’d seen what passed for education in German schools.  It was long on physical exercise and quasi-military training, short on teaching boys and girls how to be anything other than interchangeable cogs in a machine.  He still shuddered at visiting a school, one day, and watching the children mouth their hatred of non-Aryans.  The only good thing about the whole affair was that the pictures they were shown of Jews were so horrifically caricatured that the children wouldn't recognise a Jew if they saw one.

“See what else you can gather from your sources,” the Ambassador added.  “Maybe we can find a way to let them down gently.”

“They’d hate us for making the offer,” Knox said.

“They’re already placing orders for more computers and other advanced electronics,” Hamilton added.  He looked at Penelope.  “How long can they pay for them?”

“Unknown,” Penelope said.  “But the Reich’s stockpile of foreign currency is quite low.  I’d advise the sellers to make sure they get cash in advance.”

Knox scowled.  “Does that not present a threat to us?”

“Possibly,” Andrew said, before Penelope could say a word.  “But you try convincing the corporations that they shouldn't sell their outdated crap to the Germans.”

The Ambassador finished his coffee and rose.  “I’ll see you all after I speak with the President,” he said, checking his watch.  It was nearly midnight.  “Until then, goodnight.”

Andrew smiled as he departed, followed by Knox.  The military attaché would have his own report to write; Andrew, thankfully, could put his off until the following morning, when he’d had a chance to think about what he’d seen.  Hamilton finished his own coffee, then headed for the door himself.  Andrew watched him go, then looked at Penelope.  She looked tired and cross-eyed.

“I plan to go for a walk in a couple of days,” he said.  He wasn't asking for a date, although he knew that some people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  “Do you want to accompany me?”

Penelope hesitated.  Andrew understood.  No real harm would come to them, they’d been warned when they accepted the posting, but the SS sometimes harassed American visitors to Berlin.  It was no great secret that spies were based in the embassy, even though Andrew, Hamilton and Penelope herself had cover stories that should explain their activities.  The SS might hope that harassing the Americans would lead them to German traitors.

“It might be fun,” she said, finally.  She understood what they’d be really doing, all right.  A young couple out on a stroll would attract less attention than a man on his own.  “Why not?”

Chapter Six

Albert Speer University, Berlin
20 July 1985

Walking into the Albert Speer University for the first time, Gudrun recalled as she walked towards the doors, had been like taking a breath of fresh air for the first time in her life.  Like every other child in the Reich, she had endured fifteen years of schooling where she’d been expected to regurgitate answers and otherwise do exactly as she was told.  She’d quite lost count of the number of times she’d been forced to run laps around the school, stand in the corridor or undergo other humiliating punishments for daring to actually question the teacher’s words, let alone the letters they’d sent home to her parents.  And yet, despite that, university had seemed a more attractive option at seventeen than trying to become a nurse, a housewife or entering one of the few careers open to women.  It had been a surprise when she’d been told that the traits that had got her in trouble at school were precisely the traits the university wanted from its students.

“You have not been taught to think,” her first tutor had said, when he’d addressed the class on the very first day.  It had been the first mixed-sex class Gudrun had ever had, but she’d been too fascinated to notice the presence of young men mixed in with the young women.  “Here, we will attempt to teach you to think.”

Her first year at the university had been fascinating, to say the least.  She’d learned how to use a computer, one of the blocky American-made machines that were imported into the Reich at great expense, and dozens of other skills that made up the background for STEM courses.  She knew she had to choose a major by the time she turned twenty, when she would be expected to specialise in one particular field of study, but she was honestly tempted to try to delay that as long as she could.  No one had shown her anything of the sort while she’d been at school, let alone allowed her to come to her own conclusions.  Hell, she’d never heard of anyone being expelled from the university for asking questions.  They were all too eager to learn to make trouble.

“We don’t take everyone,” the tutor had said, a year ago.  “The exams we set look for the underlying potential for intelligence, not developed intelligence.  You are here because we believe we can help your minds to flourish and, in return, you will advance the Reich.”

She took a moment to admire the statue of Albert Speer, architect, minister and one of the three guiding minds of the Reich after Hitler’s death, then hurried into the building.  As always, it was packed; students who had been given the week off for Victory Day had hurried back as soon as they could, preparing for the exams they knew to be coming in three months, exams that would determine their future.  Far too many of them actually lived on campus, sharing rooms in university accommodation that were strictly segregated and chaperoned; Gudrun remembered, with a flicker of envy, how she’d begged her mother and father to allow her to apply for one of the university rooms.  But her mother had flatly refused to allow Gudrun to live away from home.

Probably thought I’d spend all my time in bed with Konrad, she thought, bitterly.  There were housemothers, she’d been told, but they couldn't hope to chaperone everyone.  And abandon my studies completely if I fell pregnant.

She gritted her teeth at the thought as she hurried into the lecture hall.  Some of her friends were already there, pens and paper at the ready; they knew better than to be late when a lecture was about to begin.  The doors would be closed a minute after the deadline and anyone who failed to make it would be marked as absent, which would lead to a thoroughly unpleasant discussion with the dean.  Gudrun had never faced the man himself, thankfully, but she’d heard rumours that anyone who missed more than two classes in a row was given a punishment so awful that no one ever spoke of it...

Which raises the question of just how people know that something happens, she thought, dryly.  The dean probably started the rumours himself, just to keep us in line.

She took her seat and nudged Hilde Morgenstern, a dark-haired girl who’d been her friend ever since the first week at university.  “Meeting in the private study room this afternoon after lunch,” she hissed.  “Pass it on.”

Hilde gave her a sharp look - their private study group wasn't exactly a formal organisation - and then nodded, turning to whisper in Sven’s ear.  Gudrun hadn't been entirely sure that a group composed of both males and females could work - the handful of dances she’d endured at school had been marred by male behaviour as they grew older - but she had to admit that Sven and the others were very focused on their work.  Sven in particular was going to be a computer designer, or so he’d said.  He already had an uncanny insight into how the computers they used at university actually worked.

“I think that’s everyone told,” Hilde muttered, once the whispered message had gone down the row.  “Isn’t it a little early to be panicking over exams?”

“It’s not about the exams,” Gudrun muttered back.  The tutor closed the doors with a loud thud and strode to the podium, his dark eyes searching for troublemakers.  “I’ll tell you this afternoon.”

The lecture would have been interesting, she had to admit, if she hadn't been thinking about Konrad and everything she’d deduced.  Thankfully, the tutor didn't call on her to answer questions - she’d barely heard half of what he’d said - and by the time the class finally came to an end, she’d reluctantly struck a deal with Hilde for a copy of her notes.  She’d have to work extra hard, if she could muster the energy, to catch up.  The tutors rarely showed any sympathy to anyone who attended the lectures and still needed to beg for advice and assistance.

“That’s not like you,” Hilde observed, as they headed for lunch.  “Are you all right?”

“I’ll tell you in the study room,” Gudrun said.  She caught Leopold’s arm as he passed.  “Can you bring your stereo?”

Leopold blinked in surprise.  “Of course I can,” he said.  “I’ll see you after lunch.”

Hilde stuck with Gudrun all through lunch, but had the common sense to keep her questions under wraps while they joined the line for food and drink, then ate as quickly as they could at a small table.  The refectory was crammed with students, some wearing uniforms from the nearby military college, others daringly wearing American jeans and t-shirts that had been either smuggled into the Reich or sold at an enormous mark-up in one of the few American stores in the city.  Gudrun winced inwardly as she saw one girl swaying past, her jeans so tight around her buttocks that she thought they were going to split open at any moment, then followed Hilde up the stairs and into the study room.  Leopold was already there, attaching his stereo to the socket.

“So,” he said, as he turned on the machine.  “What’s all this about, then?”

“Wait and see,” Gudrun said.  

She sat down and waited as the remainder of the study group - five girls, seven boys - entered the room, then waved to Hilde to close and lock the door.  Konrad, the one time he’d visited, had shown her where the bug was hidden, within the spare power socket.  She motioned for Leopold to put the stereo next to the bug, then tapped the table for attention.  Konrad might never recover from his wounds, but at least he would have a little revenge.  She hesitated, knowing that a single traitor within the group would spell her death, and then took the plunge.

“This isn't about our studies,” she said.  “It’s... it's political.  If any of you are uneasy, please leave now and we won’t mention it to you again.”

There was a long pause.  No one left.  

Gudrun shuddered, inwardly.  No one said anything overtly, but everyone knew that the SS had eyes and ears everywhere.  Anyone could be a spy, anyone.  Children were induced to betray their parents, if they said something against the Reich; wives could be convinced that their duties to the Reich were more important than their duties to their husbands.  The university might be a lair for free-thinkers, it might have been designed to allow young Germans to think, but that only meant the SS would have more invested in keeping an eye on it.  Hell, the only reason she believed Konrad had been a genuine visitor to the university, the first time they’d met, was that he’d worn his uniform.

And I will not let him down, she thought, savagely.  There were some risks that had to be taken, even if the consequences were severe.  She was damned if she was letting them get away with crippling her boyfriend and then lying to his family.  I will do whatever it takes to take revenge.

“As you know, my boyfriend was sent to South Africa,” she said.  It was a nice easy way to start the conversation.  “I received two letters from him after his deployment began, then nothing.  His family heard nothing too.  It was only through a friend in the medical office that I heard he’d actually been sent back to the Reich, that he is currently in hospital right here in Berlin.”

She swallowed hard, then outlined what she’d done, careful not to mention that Kurt had also been involved.  His CO would be furious, at the very least; Kurt would probably find himself attached to a punishment battalion and sent to clear a minefield or chase insurgents in Russia, the insurgents who’d been defeated, according to the news, several times over.  The more she looked at the news with a cynical eye, the more she saw the discrepancies.  If Russia was safe, why were so many soldiers dying there?

“They lied to us,” she said.

“Konrad was nothing special,” Leopold said.  He’d never liked Konrad.  The SS was rarely popular outside Germany East.  “Why would anyone bother to cover up his wounds?”

“They wouldn't,” Gudrun said, and outlined what she’d deduced.  “They must be lying about more than just one wounded soldier.  How many others have died, or been wounded, in South Africa?”

“The news says that only a few hundred soldiers have been killed or wounded on deployment,” Hilde said.  She sounded shaken.  “My... my boyfriend... could he have been killed or wounded too?”

Gudrun winced.  Hilde’s boyfriend was a tanker who’d been deployed to South Africa a month after Konrad.  Martin had never seemed a decent guy to her, but Hilde had clearly liked him, even loved him.  

“I don’t know,” she said.  “Has he been writing to you?”

“He sends letters, but they’re always delayed,” Hilde said.  “I only get them two or three weeks after they’re posted.”

“They’re censored,” Sven said.  Too late, Gudrun remembered that Sven’s older brother was a soldier too.  It was rare to find a German family who didn’t have at least one member in the military.  “The REMFs always insist on reading letters before they’re forwarded to their recipients.”

Hilde coloured.  “But he wrote...”

Gudrun could guess.  “I don’t think they really care about endearments,” she said.  She had a feeling that Martin had written something a little more passionate than Konrad ever had, but the censors probably wouldn't care.  It wasn't as if he was sending racy postcards of himself back to his girlfriend.  “However, they probably do black out anything to do with the war itself.”

Leopold frowned.  “Do you have any idea how dangerous this conversation is?”

“Yes,” Gudrun said, flatly.  “Yes, I do.”

“She did offer to allow us to leave,” Hilde pointed out.

Gudrun shot her a grateful look.  “We’re being lied to,” she said, bluntly.  “And many of us have relatives who may already be dead or wounded - and we don’t know.”

“This could be just an absurd coincidence,” Leopold said, after a moment.  “Konrad” - his face twisted for a moment - “might have been caught up in a covert operation of some kind.”

“This isn't a story from one of those damned Otto Skorzeny books,” Sven snapped.  “Konrad wasn't a superhuman commando, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

Gudrun hid a smile.  She'd been forced to read the Otto Skorzeny books herself, at school; Otto Skorzeny, who apparently had been a real person, had pulled off hundreds of death-defying stunts that had reshaped the face of the world.  Skorzeny had been pitted against a multitude of villains - Evil Jewish Bankers, Evil American Capitalists, Evil Russian Communists, Evil British Monarchists - and emerged triumphant every time.  The books had practically drooled over how Skorzeny proved that National Socialism was the way forward; none could stand against Skorzeny, they’d claimed, because he was a true follower of Adolf Hitler.  

And how many of those stories, Gudrun asked herself, were made up of whole cloth?

Hilde held up a hand.  “If there's one, as Gudrun said, there will be others,” she said.  “And Martin could be among the dead.”

“Let’s assume that’s true,” Leopold said.  “What do we do about it?”

“What can we do?” Isla Grasser asked.  “It isn't as if we have any real power.”

“The first thing we do is try and find out how widespread this is,” Gudrun said.  She'd need more than a single wounded SS trooper to convince people that something was very badly wrong.  “We all know people who are serving in South Africa.  I want you all to ask questions, to find out when those people last wrote to their families, to find out when they last had leave from the front.  We will all ask those questions.”

“Martin’s family won’t talk to me,” Hilde said.  “They don’t think I’d make a good housewife.”

Leopold snickered.  “Tell them you’re pregnant.”

Hilde glared at him.  “I’ve bled three times since he left,” she snarled.  “I don’t have any way to convince them I’m pregnant.”

Leopold turned red and started to splutter.  Gudrun winked at Hilde.  Sex education in the Reich was very limited, but they’d all been taught how their bodies worked and how to recognise a pregnancy.  She’d always found it amusing how men turned deaf whenever the subject of female issues cropped up, although she was privately sure that men talked about them in private.  Why not?  She and her girlfriends often poked fun at male foibles.

“You can just tell them that you’re worried about him,” she said.  “I think they’d appreciate that, you know.”

“I doubt it,” Hilde said.  She looked downcast for a long moment.  “They were trying to set him up with some brainless bitch who came top of the class in basic housewifery.”

“My mother is hardly brainless,” Gudrun said.  “And I don’t think anyone else has a brainless mother either.”

“That’s not very helpful,” Hilde said.

Gudrun shrugged.  “Are we all agreed on our first step?”

“Yeah,” Sven said.  “But tell me, Gudrun; what are we going to do if we discover there are more soldiers who’ve lost contact with their families?”

“Then we decide what to do,” Gudrun said.  She had half a plan already, but she needed them to understand what was going on before she could push them to commit to anything more than private discussions.  “You can all think about it while we’re gathering data and then we can decide what to do.”

“Escape to America,” Horst said, quietly.  “My brother says he isn't planning to come back after his period in America comes to an end.”

Gudrun sucked in her breath.  She'd applied for the chance to become an exchange student, but she wasn't particularly hopeful.  Even if she won one of the coveted slots, her parents would probably refuse to allow her to leave the country.  But if she was allowed to leave... would she return?  There was no shortage of whispered stories about students who tasted life in America, home of blue jeans, country music and freedom, and refused to come back to Germany.

“I don’t know,” she said.  Without one of the slots, it was unlikely she could get to Vichy France, let alone Britain.  She wouldn't have a travel permit, for one thing, and an unaccompanied teenage girl would raise eyebrows.  “We are supposed to be the smartest people in Germany.  I’m sure we can figure something out.”

“There were stories of student protests in America,” Isla said.

“Those students weren't at risk of being gunned down like rampaging Gastarbeiters,” Horst snapped.  “If we do anything with this information, we run a terrible risk.”

“Yes, we do,” Gudrun said.  She took a breath.  “Konrad was - is - an SS trooper - I know, some of you detested him for wearing the Sigrunen lightning bolts.  But he is a brave and decent man and he has been betrayed by the men he serves.  A dead war hero is meant to be given a hero’s funeral, a wounded war hero is meant to lack for nothing.  And yet, what does he have?  A hospital bed in a crowded ward and no hope of recovery, while his family thinks he’s still in South Africa!  What will they tell his family when he is due to return from the war?”

She took a breath, looking from face to face.  None of them had really known what they were getting into, not really.  They certainly hadn't realised what she intended to tell them.

“I’m not going to sit on my backside and do nothing,” she concluded.  “We are going to find out the truth and then we’re going to work out what to do with it.  It is our duty to our country.  That is what we are going to do.”

Chapter Seven

Schulze Residence/SS Safehouse, Berlin
20 July 1985

“Gudrun,” Liana Schulze called, as she opened the door.  “Have you heard anything from my brother?”

Gudrun felt a stab of guilt as she looked at the younger girl.  Liana was sixteen, on the verge of adulthood; hell, she could marry with her parents’ permission, if she didn't want to finish her final year of schooling.  And she’d always looked up to Gudrun, chatting happily to her about nothing in particular; Gudrun had always thought she’d make a good sister-in-law.  But she didn't dare tell the younger girl the truth.  She’d speak to her father and he’d report Gudrun to the authorities.

“I haven’t heard anything from your brother,” she said.  It was true enough.  “I actually came to speak to your father.”

Liana’s face fell.  Gudrun understood.  She was the only child left in the house, now that Konrad had gone to war; she’d have no one to talk to, merely chores to perform for her mother.  And she had to have known, at some deep level, that Gudrun hadn't come to talk to her.  Gudrun was eighteen and a university student to boot.  Socially, they had very little in common.  They’d hardly spend time together when Konrad wasn't around.

“I understand,” she said.  “Are you...”

Pregnant, Gudrun thought.  She hadn't gone all the way with Konrad.  And it would have obvious that I was pregnant four months ago, if I was pregnant.

“No, but I do need to speak to him,” she said.  “Is he in his study?”

“I think so,” Liana said.  

She held the door open long enough for Gudrun to step inside and then closed it before leading the way through the living room and up to the door of Volker Schulze’s study. It was firmly shut, perhaps locked; Liana tapped on the door and waited for her father to invite her in before opening the door.  Gudrun stepped past her and into the study.

“Gudrun,” Volker Schulze said.  He lifted an eyebrow as he turned to face her.  “What brings you to my house?”

Gudrun hesitated, bracing herself.  Volker Schulze had always made her a little nervous, even though she had the feeling that her father was meant to make Konrad nervous.  He looked like an older version of his son, his face marred by scars from a long career in the SS before he’d retired and found work as a factory foreman.  His study was covered with mementos of his career, from a spiked helmet he’d salvaged from somewhere to a pistol he claimed to have taken from a British commando team in North Africa.  A large chart hung on the far wall, showing the spread of the Reich.  

And just how much of that chart, Gudrun asked herself, is a lie?

She pushed the question to one side.  “Since we last spoke, I haven’t heard anything from Konrad,” she said, simply.  “I was wondering if you’d heard anything from him yourself.”

Volker Schulze looked pensive.  “I haven’t heard anything, no,” he said.  Gudrun trusted he wouldn't have kept anything from her, if he had heard something.  “Do you have reason to worry?”

“I miss him,” Gudrun said.

“Young men have always gone to war,” Volker Schulze said, as reassuringly as he could.  “I believe that young women like you have always waited for their heroes to come home.”

Gudrun winced before she could catch herself.  One thing that had been hammered into her head at school was the importance of remaining faithful.  A girl who dumped a boy while he was on deployment could expect to be a social pariah, even if the boy had been abusive and beaten her while they were together.  Even if there had been someone else, she knew, it would have been cruel to dump Konrad while he was away.  She would have waited for him to come home before telling him the bad news.

“But I’ve heard nothing,” she said, plaintively.  Perhaps it would cover her lapse.  “Where is he?”

“On deployment,” Volker Schulze said.  He stood and patted her shoulder, awkwardly.  “I was often out of touch for months at a time, Gudrun.  Konrad may well be in the same position.”

He paused.  “Are you...?”

“No,” Gudrun said, firmly.  She groaned inwardly, resisting the urge to rub his nose in how she knew she wasn't expecting a baby.  “I’m not pregnant.”

“That’s good,” Volker Schulze said.  “Gudrun, I understand how you feel, but Konrad isn't choosing not to write to you.  I believe he will contact you as soon as he can.  He does love you and we, his parents, approve of you.”

Gudrun felt another stab of bitter guilt.  Hilde wasn't atypical; parents, particularly those who had lived through the deprivation of the war, wanted their sons to marry good housewives, women who could cook, clean and bear their grandchildren.  They didn't want academics, career women or even the handful of girls who’d made a career in the military; they assumed, perhaps correctly, that such women would never let their husbands boss them around in public.  Konrad’s parents could easily have told him that they would never approve his relationship with Gudrun and the hell of it was that they might have had a point.  Instead, they’d welcomed her into their house.

“I thank you,” she said, lowering her gaze.  “Have you heard anything else from the front?”

Volker Schulze gave her a sharp look.  “What do you mean?”

“The news is always bland,” Gudrun said, carefully.  “I was wondering if you’d heard something a little more detailed.”

“There are endless skirmishes with the insurgents,” Volker Schulze said.  It wasn't much more than she could have deduced from the news broadcasts, reading between the lines.  “It may take longer than we had thought to defeat the niggers.”

Gudrun blinked.  “The news said it would only be a short commitment.”

Volker Schulze gave her a long considering look.  “There are people in my office,” he said, “who don’t really understand how the factory actually works.  Therefore, they make promises they cannot keep to people who are equally in the dark about what’s actually happening and rely on the managers on the ground to cover for their failings.”

It took Gudrun a moment to realise what he was trying to tell her.  If someone could be so out of touch in a small factory, and she had no trouble in believing it, how much more out of touch were the people in the Reichstag, the men who ran the country?  Had they started the war in South Africa because they believed, honestly believed, that victory would be no harder than baking a cake?

“I believe my daughter misses you,” Volker Schulze said, after a moment.  “You are, of course, quite welcome to visit any time you like.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gudrun said.  It wasn't entirely proper, but there would be a chaperone in the house if necessary.  “And I’m sorry...”

“For not being pregnant?”  Volker Schulze asked, dryly.  “I respect the Reichsführer’s feelings regarding the need to raise the next generation of German men, but I am enough of a traditionalist to believe that the happy couple should be married before they start producing children.  A child should know his father.”

Gudrun blushed, furiously.  No one would really care if she was a virgin or not on her wedding night, not when everyone would understand her giving herself to her boyfriend before he went off to the war.  The only real question would be if she’d had a child - and, if she had, what benefits the child could claim.  Konrad’s baby could draw an SS pension as well as state child support; hell, if she claimed he’d been planning to marry her - and his family would likely back her up - she could claim his SS pension as well.  But it was immaterial.  She’d never let him take off her panties, let alone go inside her...

“I agree,” she said, torn between an insane urge to giggle and a growing urge to just turn and run.  Talking to her mother about men had been quite bad enough.  “Please will you let me know the moment you hear anything?”

“I’ll call your house directly,” Volker Schulze promised.  

He escorted her to the door - there was no sign of his wife or daughter - and waved her through.  Gudrun gave him an impulsive hug, then hurried down the steps and back onto the road that led home.  She had several other people she wanted to talk to before night fell, before she was expected home to assist her mother with the cooking.  And then...

His family doesn't know, she thought, as she walked past a handful of soldiers making their way to the barracks on the outskirts of the city.  She’d been sure of it, but it never hurt to make sure.  They would have told me something if they’d heard anything.

She glanced at her watch, then turned the corner.  A couple of boys she'd known from her first house lived there; she’d played with them as a little girl, before they’d gone to school and emerged too stuck-up to play with girls.  They too had gone to the wars.  No one would mind if she asked after them, surely?  And one of them had been in the same unit as Hilde’s boyfriend.  It would be interesting to hear what they had to say.

***
Horst Albrecht knew, without false modesty, that he was a very smart young man.  Everyone had told him so, right from the day he’d entered upper schooling in Germanica and impressed his tutors with his intelligence.  Indeed, his family had been so proud of him that they’d entered him into the SS Academy two years before the normal application date; the SS, somewhat to Horst’s surprise, had accepted him without question.  It had taken him a while to see why his superiors might be interested in a spy who was barely old enough to shave.  But, by the time he’d graduated from one of the covert programs, he’d come to see the value of an agent who was literally eighteen years old.

“The university is a breeding ground for ideas,” his trainers had told him, when he’d finally passed the course.  Being a spy was far more than charging around like Otto Skorzeny, riding hot motorcycles and winning the hearts of beautiful women.  “Some of those ideas will be very bad.  Your task is to watch for those who spread bad ideas and report them.”

It hadn't been hard, at first.  Horst had entered the university with the 1984 class; he’d made friends, chatted happily to everyone and was generally well-liked by his peers.  The students didn't want to look beyond the surface, not when they were escaping a regimented existence for the first time in their lives.  Horst had no trouble making friends and generally being popular; hell, he’d even had a couple of girlfriends.  

He hadn’t expected Gudrun to be a troublemaker.  Even now, hours after he’d made his slow way to the SS safehouse - it doubled as a boarding house for students from Germany East, supervised by a grim-faced matron who provided all the explanation other students needed for why they weren't invited to the safehouse - he still couldn't quite believe it.  Gudrun was intelligent, true, and strikingly pretty; he might have dated her himself if she hadn't been involved with an SS trooper.  Her father was a policeman, her brother a soldier in the Berlin Guard... she hardly fitted the profile of a potential troublemaker.  There were few petty little resentments in her life, save for being born female...

And she could overcome most of those problems by being a good student, Horst thought, as he opened the door into his apartment.  A computer expert or rocket scientist would be worth her weight in gold, if she truly hated the thought of becoming a housewife.

And yet, she’d said, quite clearly, that her boyfriend had been quietly shipped home, his wounds covered up.  Her concern - and her anger - was quite justified.

The apartment wasn't big, although it was vastly superior to the military barracks or slave pens for the Untermenschen in Germanica.  He dropped his bag on the bed, clicked the kettle on and prepared a mug of coffee.  He’d long since grown used to the idea of never touching a drop of alcohol, even on Victory Day.  Who knew what would come out of his mouth when he was drunk?  Once his drink was ready, he placed it on the bedside table and lay down to have a bit of a think.  

Technically, he should report Gudrun at once.  She had doubts - and, instead of burying them, she was trying to do something, something that might easily turn out to be treacherous.  Horst couldn't imagine what she had in mind - eight students or eighty, armed rebellion was unlikely to succeed and she had to know it - but it was his duty to report her to his superiors and let them decide how to handle the matter.  It might come to nothing, he knew, or it might become something truly serious.  His superiors might decide to quietly vanish Gudrun and her fellows, shipping them off to Germany East or merely dumping them into a slave camp; the girls, at least, would make good breeding stock.  

And yet, he too had his doubts.

He’d liked Konrad Schulze, the first time they’d met.  It wasn't something he could show, not when it would risk his cover, but he’d liked the older man.  In some ways, Konrad had reminded Horst of his brother, who hadn’t actually vanished into America and never returned.  He’d been blonde, blue-eyed and muscular, so muscular that Horst had wondered if he’d been used as the template for countless recruiting posters.  Horst had even used his security codes to look up the young man’s file and discovered, to his amusement, that Konrad was on the short list for promotion.  Someone thought very highly of him.

But they don’t now, Horst thought, savagely.  They see him as an embarrassment.

It was a bitter thought.  Konrad had been no covert agent, no undercover operative all too aware that even the merest hint of suspicion would mean instant death or permanent incarceration in a black prison.  He’d certainly had no reason to believe he would simply be abandoned by his superiors, if he were caught by the enemy.  No, he’d worn his black uniform proudly.  Konrad should have been given full honours, if he'd been killed, or brought home on a pension if he'd been badly wounded.  Instead...

He didn't think Gudrun had lied, but it would be easy enough to check her story.  The computers in the apartment - another reason not to let anyone who wasn't an SS operative enter the building - were linked directly to the Berlin Network.  He logged on, accessed the hospital records and searched for Konrad’s name.  The computers were slow - they hadn't had university students fiddling with the coding to make them a little more efficient - but it didn't take him long to uncover records belonging to one Konrad Schulze.  He’d been badly wounded - the file didn't go into details, suggesting that no one had told the hospital administrators very much - and wasn't expected to survive.  

They should have triaged him, he thought, genuinely shocked.  It was an accepted fact of military life that badly-wounded soldiers were often allowed to die so less-wounded soldiers could be saved, yet... it was clear, just from reading between the lines, that the medical staff had worked desperately to save him.  And yet, the brain damage alone almost guaranteed that Konrad would never recover.  The bastards could have given him a mercy killing and come up with a cover story: instead they seemed content to leave him on life support indefinitely.  A hero... and they chose to leave him a vegetable!

Horst kept his feelings under tight control as he logged out of the hospital network, then checked the SS personnel database.  Konrad’s file had been marked inactive - and it wasn't the only one.  Cross-referencing the database showed Horst several hundred other troopers who seemed to be permanently in bureaucratic limbo, marked as neither dead nor alive.  And if that was true of the SS, it was very likely true of the army too.

She didn't lie, he thought, numbly.  And that means... what?

He turned the computer off, finished his coffee and lay back on his bed.  He’d been raised to worship the SS, just like everyone else in Germany East.  The SS was all that stood between the settlements and insurgents who would happily kill German men, rape German women and eat German children.  He’d grown up reading horror stories, all of which had happy endings when the SS rescued the women or avenged their deaths.  Joining the SS hadn't been a hard decision at all.  They’d been his heroes!

And now they were being betrayed, betrayed by their own leaders.

Gudrun would run into trouble, sooner or later.  Horst had no doubt of it.  She was intelligent, and she knew to guard her tongue around strangers, but she had no way of knowing how things worked in the world.  Hell, she’d managed to invite an SS spy to her very first meeting!  She couldn't get very far without help...

... And Horst, who knew his duty called for him to report her, was seriously considering offering her that help.

It was a hard choice to make.  If he were caught, his family would disown him - and it probably wouldn't be enough to save their lives.  It would be easy to alert the SS, to have Gudrun and the rest of the students put under surveillance, and put an end to the whole affair... but he didn't want to put an end to the whole affair.  He wanted her to do... what?  What would she do if she proved her point?

Perhaps I’ll just wait and see if she has a plan, he told himself.  And if she does, I can decide what to do about it.

Chapter Eight

Wewelsburg Castle, Germany
20 July 1985

It was blasphemy to even consider it, but there were times when Reichsführer-SS Karl Holliston thought that Heinrich Himmler had been a very strange man.  Karl understood the value of strength - and the will to use it - as much as any other SS officer, yet Himmler’s obsession with the occult had undermined the last five years of his career, allowing him to be gently nudged aside by his former subordinates.  Wewelsburg Castle itself was a grand monument to that obsession; parts of the castle had been redesigned to look like something from the Grand Order of Teutonic Knights, while other parts were designed to serve as the SS’s western centre of operations.  There was even a monument to the Holy Grail in the lower levels, perched in the centre of a round table.

And some of Himmler’s other ideas might have caught on, if he’d had longer, Karl thought.  Shrines to the old gods, grand ceremonies of might and magic...

He shook his head in rueful amusement.  Rumours of virgin sacrifices and blood oaths had hovered around the castle for as long as the SS had occupied it - and, indeed, there were some very strange cults and secret societies rumoured to exist within the SS itself.  Karl had never seen anything to indicate that they even existed, but that proved nothing.  The SS was a multitude of competing factions and some of them were very secretive indeed.  And yet, what need did they have of the old gods?  All that was needed was the will to power.

A strong will can overcome anything, Karl thought, remembering his training as a young officer.  They’d been pushed to the limit, the weak falling by the wayside or dying in training; the survivors strong enough to keep going, whatever the world threw at them.  It had been twenty years since Karl had seen active service, since he’d been promoted into a desk job, but he’d done his best to stay in shape.  And the will to power is everything.

His buzzer rang.  “Herr Reichsführer, Obergruppenfuehrer Felix Kortig is here,” his secretary said.  “Shall I send him in?”

“Yes, please,” Karl said.  Maria had been with him ever since he’d been promoted into high office, her status rising with his.  If she had any interests outside the office, he’d never seen them.  He could be rude to anyone else, but not her.  “And hold all calls until I’ve finished with him.”

He looked up as the door opened, revealing a blonde-haired man wearing a black uniform and carrying a pistol at his belt.  Karl couldn't avoid a flicker of envy as Obergruppenfuehrer Felix Kortig strode forward and snapped out a precise salute.  Kortig might be an Obergruppenfuehrer, but he was still jumping out of planes with the young bucks, while Karl himself was stuck in an office, playing political games with the civilians and the military.

“Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said.  “Heil Bormann!”

“Heil Bormann,” Karl echoed.  “You may speak freely - and relax.”

Kortig relaxed, minimally.  “Jawohl, Herr Reichsführer,” he said.  “You wished to speak with me?”

“Yes,” Karl said.  He tapped the papers on his desk.  “I trust you have had an opportunity to study the proposals for Operation Headshot?”

“I have,” Kortig said.  “They’re unworkable.”

Karl blinked in surprise, despite himself.  Very few people would tell the Reichsführer-SS that one of his pet concepts was unworkable, which might explain why Himmler had been able to waste so many resources on his occult research.  Sending teams of dedicated researchers to Tibet, even in the aftermath of the war, hadn't been too costly, but transporting ancient artefacts all the way back to Germany had proved a major strain.  The rest of the Reich hadn't been too pleased at the prospect of a diplomatic incident with China, even if the Chinese had been fighting a civil war at the time.

He pushed the thought aside, angrily.  “Unworkable?”

“Yes, Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said.

Karl bit down on his anger with an effort.  “Otto Skorzeny plotted to jump into London in 1950 and slaughter the British Government,” he said.  “Wouldn't that have been a more challenging operation?”

“The operation was planned in the context of an outright invasion,” Kortig pointed out, smoothly.  “I have seen those plans, Herr Reichsführer; Skorzeny intended to jump into Westminster, kill as many government ministers as he could find and then escape into the streets of London.  Given the lack of extraction plans, I suspect Skorzeny believed the whole operation to be a suicide mission.  The best the commandos could reasonably hope for was to go to ground in London and wait for the invasion force to seize the city.”

He tapped the map, sharply.  “It was never envisaged, at the time the plan was drawn up, that the British would be our allies, nor that we would be trying to put a friendly government into Westminster.  The understanding was that they were our enemies and their country would be ruled with an iron hand.”

Karl nodded, once.  Britain had been - and still was - the Reich’s most determined enemy, one protected by a body of water that might as well have been a castle moat.  Hitler had shied away from trying to launch an offensive across the English Channel, when the British had been at their weakest; in 1950, with American forces based in Britain, an invasion would have been a very chancy affair indeed.  And then the British had developed their own nuclear weapons and plans for a later invasion had been abandoned.  Taking London would have been pointless if Berlin had been thrown into the fire.

“Pretoria is a different case, Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said, his finger tracing positions on the map.  “Their government is scattered, to reduce the risk of being decapitated by a suicide bomber, and we have been unable to obtain solid information on who is where at any one time.  In addition, the South African troops protecting Pretoria are experienced battle-hardened veterans, men who are well used to coping with surprise attacks and driving back the attackers before they can do major damage...”

“Our stormtroopers are far better trained than black-assed terrorists,” Karl said, icily.

“It won’t matter,” Kortig said.  “At best, we may eliminate one or two senior government ministers, but I couldn't guarantee we would get them all.  The South Africans would know we’d effectively declared war on them.  These are not Italians, Herr Reichsführer; the South Africans will strike back at our own forces within their country.  Our alliance with them will be at an end.  The only people who will gain from the whole affair will be the blacks, who will no doubt sit back and watch as the whites destroy each other.”

He shook his head.  “South Africa is not a country that can be easily bullied, Herr Reichsführer,” he said.  “Operation Headshot is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Karl gritted his teeth.  He’d asked for the truth, hadn't he?  And Kortig was an experienced officer with a string of successes to his name.  If he believed the operation was impossible, he was probably right.  And yet... the Reich needed to win in South Africa.  They didn't dare lose.

“It’s unlikely the Reichstag will agree to commit additional troops to South Africa,” he said, grimly.  “Do we have any other way to achieve victory?”

“Probably not,” Kortig said, after a moment.  “Cutting off the supply lines from America would help, Herr Reichsführer, but the Yankees aren't the sole problem.  The blacks know they’re doomed if they surrender.  Fighting is the only logical choice.”

“They’re black,” Karl protested.

“So were the Ethiopians,” Kortig reminded him.  “Just how badly did they manhandle the Italians?”

Karl grimaced.  Ethiopia had nearly defeated the Italian invasion in 1935, a humiliation that had badly weakened Mussolini’s government.  The British had liberated Ethiopia in 1941, then - when Ethiopia had been returned to Italy by the terms of the peace treaty - left the Ethiopians with a considerable stockpile of weapons.  It had taken the Italians twenty years to hammer Ethiopia into some semblance of order and large parts of the country were still restless.

“They still lost,” he said, finally.

“And we may yet win in South Africa,” Kortig said.  “However, betraying our allies in the middle of a war will only lead to chaos.”

Karl glowered.  “Is there anything else we can do?”

“Find a way to stiffen their spine,” Kortig said.  “It isn't as if the apartheid government has anywhere to go.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Karl said.  “Are you readying yourself to return to the war?”

“Yes, Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said.  “However, I do have some concerns about the treatment of wounded - and the dead.”

Karl cursed under his breath.  South Africa had been meant to be a quick victory.  The German troops would reinforce South Africa’s, the blacks would be ruthlessly crushed and there would be a victory parade through Berlin to show that the Reich still had teeth.  Instead, thousands of soldiers were dead or wounded and there was very little to show for it.  For once, he was in total agreement with Hans Krueger.  They didn't dare tell the Reich that so many fine young men had been killed or brutally maimed for nothing.  

“That isn’t your concern,” he said.  “Concentrate on finding ways to destroy the enemy.”

“Rumours are spreading, Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said.  “I’ve heard soldiers openly wondering just what’s happening to the dead or wounded.”

“Such talk is to be reported at once,” Karl snapped.

“And then working with the Heer will become impossible,” Kortig said.  “We’re not the Gestapo, Herr Reichsführer.”

Karl scowled.  The Gestapo had managed to wind up with egg on its face after Von Braun had defected to the United States, shortly after the Arab Uprising had begun.  His predecessor had been quick to take advantage of his rival’s weakness by asserting control over counter-intelligence and policing, which had led to another major turf war when the Gestapo had started to recover from its failure.  And both services had often wound up working at cross-purposes.  God alone knew what the Americans had managed to do while the Gestapo and the SS had been at daggers drawn.

When I am Fuhrer, there will be a reassessment, Karl thought, coldly.  The Gestapo will be folded into the SS, once the senior leadership has been purged.

“I suppose not,” he said, neutrally.  “I’ll see you before you depart, Herr Obergruppenfuehrer.”

“Likewise, Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said.

Karl watched him go, thinking hard.  Hans Krueger - damn the man - had made it clear that the civilians would never support deploying additional troops to South Africa, but the military might have other ideas.  Field Marshal Justus Stoffregen was unlikely to take a stand, yet one of his immediate subordinates might be tempted into supporting the deployment, in exchange for a number of concessions.  It galled Karl to have to concede anything to the military - they should know to obey orders without question - but he had no choice.  The military spent more time fighting turf wars with the Waffen-SS than it did preparing for the final war with America.

He keyed his intercom.  “Maria, please invite Field Marshal Voss to the castle,” he said, slowly.  He made a habit of keeping track of Voss’s schedule - along with those of the other high-ranking officials - and Voss shouldn't be too far away.  “Let me know when he arrives.”

“Yes, Herr Reichsführer,” Maria said.  There was a long pause as she put the request through the secure computer network.  “Voss’s aide says he can make it to the castle within four hours, once he’s finished his inspection tour.”

“That will be suitable,” Karl assured her.  “Please let me know when he arrives.”

He wondered, as he ordered dinner, if Voss was genuinely occupied or probing to see how important the matter was, but decided it wasn't worth trying to find out.  Ordering Voss to the castle would make the Field Marshal dig in his heels - Field Marshals didn't like being ordered around as though they were new recruits - and probably alert the civilians that Karl was trying to make a private arrangement with the military.  Kruger, to give the bastard his due, had his own network of spies and agents within both the military and the SS.  But he didn't understand, he couldn't understand, the triumph of the will.

Our economy was poor when the Yankees blew up the global economy, Karl thought.  He hadn't lived through those times, but his parents had.  No wonder they’d wanted a farm, even if it exposed them to constant insurgent attacks.  They’d wanted something solid under their feet.  And we still managed to create an empire greater than Alexander’s.

It was nearly five hours before Field Marshal Gunter Voss was shown into the office.  Karl rose to his feet, carefully pasting a civil expression on his face.  The military, for all its skill and dedication, wasn’t as devoted to the will as the SS, but it had to be respected for the moment.  Afterwards, when Karl held supreme power, it would be different.  The military would be folded into the SS and its senior leadership removed from power.  It might have been forty years since Rommel had allowed the Jews to escape Palestine, but the SS had never forgotten, let alone forgiven.

Pity Rommel died before the Fuhrer, he thought, as he shook hands with Voss.  Himmler would have given him a thoroughly unpleasant death.

“Herr Reichsführer,” Voss said, once they had exchanged pleasantries.  “I confess I was quite curious to see the castle.  I’ve heard so much about it.”

“I’m afraid we don’t sacrifice virgins here,” Karl said.  He smiled, as if to say that all such rumours were thoroughly absurd.  “Nor do we bleed our men white so they are bound to us in death as well as life.”

“How disappointing,” Voss said.  He sat on a chair and leaned forward.  “I’m due to inspect the fortifications at Dunkirk tomorrow, Herr Reichsführer, so I really don’t have much time.  Can we get to the point?”

“Of course,” Karl said.  He disliked small talk too.  Thankfully, it wasn't one of the qualifications for his post.  “I want your support for deploying additional forces to South Africa.”

“Chancy,” Voss observed.  “The logistics are going to be a pain in the ass.  Any day now, the Yankees are going to start sending more advanced MANPAD weapons to South Africa, weapons capable of hitting our transport aircraft in flight.  And once we start losing those aircraft in significant numbers... well, we might as well admit that the war is on the verge of being lost along with them.”

“The Luftwaffe will certainly be horrified at the thought of having the paint on their aircraft scratched,” Karl agreed, tightly.

“Scratched isn't the problem,” Voss said, simply.  “The problem is losing aircraft we cannot easily replace.  And the road network from French North Africa to South Africa is pathetic.”

Karl nodded, slowly.  Millions of coolies had been pressed into working on a road and rail network to link the disparate sections of Africa together, but it was slow going.  The blacks were rebellious and the French, he suspected, were deliberately delaying, fearing - perhaps - that they would lose the last vestiges of their independence once the road network was up and running.  Besides, the South Africans had already lost hundreds of vehicles to IED attacks on their roads.  The problem would merely spread through the rest of Africa.

Voss smiled, rather coldly.  “What are you prepared to offer in exchange?”

“You’re engaged in a long duel with the Luftwaffe over who controls the close-air support aircraft,” Karl said.  It wasn't a problem the SS faced, not when the Waffen-SS had its own fleet of CAS aircraft.  “I would be prepared to throw my support behind you.”

He watched Voss carefully, wondering just what the Field Marshal was thinking.  The Heer wanted its own CAS fleet desperately, knowing that the Luftwaffe preferred to spend money on heavy bombers and fancy jet fighters rather than aircraft that might actually be useful in South Africa.  And yet, Goring’s will still cast a long shadow over the service he’d built up from scratch.  It had taken years of political infighting for the Kriegsmarine to get control over the aircraft it flew from its aircraft carriers...

Not, in the end, that the carriers ended up going very far from the Reich, he thought.  There was nowhere for them to go, unless they wanted to run the gauntlet of British and American missiles.  After what had happened to Norway, few countries would cheerfully accept a German ship paying a port call.  Sending the fleet to South Africa would be asking for trouble.

He frowned at the thought.  Might the navy actually do something useful and ship troops south?  The rebels couldn't harm the fleet and the Americans were unlikely to start a war by attacking German ships... unless they thought they could win.  Karl knew he would have started the war in an instant if he thought he could win outright and he assumed the Americans had the same attitude.  What else could explain the steady pressure they kept on the Reich?

“That’s a very tempting offer, Herr Reichsführer,” Voss said, finally.  “Of course, this may put the Luftwaffe in the opposite camp.”

“Which would put the Kriegsmarine in ours,” Karl observed.  The navy would hardly be likely to concede anything to the Luftwaffe.  Give the flyboys an inch and they would take a mile.  “We can hold them at bay.”

“Let us hope so, Herr Reichsführer,” Voss said.  “But the logistics are still a major headache.”

“We can ship troops south,” Karl said, and explained his reasoning.  “The rebels will find it harder to interrupt those supply lines.”

Chapter Nine

Albert Speer University, Berlin
23 July 1985

“I checked with a number of people I know,” Gudrun said, once the room was locked and the bug was listening to bad American music.  “Konrad’s father is still unaware that his son is anywhere other than South Africa, while four other families have not heard anything from their children, even censored letters, for the last couple of months.  Three of their children had a habit of writing at least once a week before suddenly going silent.”

She took a breath.  The fourth... she’d had to screw up all her courage to visit, for she’d known the father by reputation and nothing she’d heard had been good.  His wife had left him shortly after the children had reached adulthood, which proved he’d treated her badly; the Reich wouldn't look too kindly on a wife who abandoned her husband, denying her both a divorce and the right to remarry.  Two minutes of standing on his doorstep, feeling his eyes leaving trails of slime across her breasts, had convinced her that the bastard’s son had every reason not to write to his father.  There was no way to know if he was dead or alive.

I should have taken Kurt, she thought, although that would have been far too revealing.  He would have asked too many questions.

“That’s what I found anyway,” she said.  “What about the rest of you?”

“I checked with my maternal auntie,” Sven said.  “She told me that her eldest son has gone silent too, although his letters are always irregular.  My paternal grandfather, however, said he’d received a heavily-censored letter from his middle son only last week.  It wasn't very detailed, but it was something.”

Gudrun listened, quietly, as the remaining students offered their own observations.  If they’d had doubts, she realised, they’d lost them.  Too many of their military relatives had gone silent at once.  Even the ones who rarely wrote home had gone completely silent.  It chilled her to the bone when she considered the implications.  Statistically, for a group of eight students to know over thirty soldiers who’d stopped writing to their families, the casualty rates had to be terrifyingly high.

“I came across something else,” Horst said, once everyone else had finished.  “My second cousin is married to a soldier on deployment.  She got a letter from him asking after a friend who’d been wounded and sent home.  So she checked with the guy’s wife - she knew the lady personally - and the wife didn't know anything about it.  The poor woman went to ask questions and then... nothing.”

Gudrun blinked.  “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing,” Horst confirmed.  “Someone told her to keep her mouth shut or else.”

Hilde leaned forward, her face pale.  “How can you be sure?”

“I can't think of any other explanation,” Horst said.  “They could have easily told her that her husband was fine, if he was fine.  But they were clearly unwilling to admit he was wounded.”

He looked at Gudrun.  “You might want to ask the person who helped you sneak into the hospital just how many other soldiers are held there,” he added.  “I’d bet good money that there are more wounded distributed around the Reich.”

“I wouldn't take that bet,” Sven said.

“Me neither,” Gudrun said.  She looked from face to face, bracing herself.  They had already crossed the line, but it wasn't too late.  “We know the government is lying to us - that it has lied to us many times before.  What do we do about it?”

“What can we do?”  Hilde asked.  “If we start asking questions, we will get kicked out of the university.”

Gudrun nodded.  The one topic that was off-limits at the university was the Reich itself.  A few students had questioned that, back in the early days, and been unceremoniously expelled.  Hell, they weren't encouraged to study more than the STEM subjects.  Any student who showed more than minimal interest in the social sciences was likely to run into trouble.

“Then we can't ask questions here,” she said.  She'd been thinking about it ever since she’d discovered what had happened to Konrad.  “We need to spread the word.”

“We could send messages through the computer network,” Sven offered.  “People like me have been sending covert messages without the SS reading them ever since the network was established.”

“Or they just don’t care,” Horst pointed out, darkly.  “What are you actually doing online anyway?”

Sven coloured.  “Could you send a message without it being trapped in the filters and read?”

Horst looked back at him.  “Could you send a message without it being traced back to you?”

“Easily,” Sven said.  “You just wipe the record of it being sent from the network.  It looks as though the message spontaneously appeared in the recipient’s inbox.”

Gudrun held up a hand.  “Yes, but we need to reach as many people as possible,” she said, carefully.  “How many people do you know who have access to a computer?”

There was an awkward pause.  “Very few, outside the university network,” Sven conceded, finally.

“That’s true,” Gudrun said.  “I don’t have a computer at home.  Is there anyone in this room who does have a private computer?”

“No,” Michael Sachs said.  “My father would explode if I suggested spending ten thousand Reichmarks on an American computer.”

Gudrun nodded.  Her father would have pretty much the same reaction.  It would cost much of his yearly salary, assuming he could purchase one in the first place... and, once he had it, it wouldn't be much use.  Gudrun had a typewriter she shared with her younger brothers and that had been quite expensive enough.  Buying a printer would cost another five thousand Reichmarks and linking it up to the national computer network would be impossible.  The Reich wouldn't want to put such a powerful communications tool in everyone’s hands.

“So... what do we do?”  Hilde asked.  One hand toyed with her hair as she spoke.  “We cannot risk adding more people to our group, can we?”

Gudrun shook her head.  There would be spies within the university - SS, Gestapo, Abwehr - and the more people she recruited, the greater the chance of accidentally bringing a traitor into the group and being betrayed.  Guarding one’s mouth was hard enough when one wasn't doing something the state would consider treacherous.  Hell, the rowdier students might easily be the spies.  They hadn't been kicked out despite skimping on their lessons.  

“We can send a message through the computer network to every student in the university,” Sven said.  “I can make it look as though it came from outside the building.  Hell, there are other campuses in other cities...”

“Yes, but they’ll stamp down hard,” Horst warned.

“They’d have to stamp on all of us,” Sven said.

“That’s one idea,” Gudrun said.  “But I have another.”

She braced herself.  “Do you recall distributing leaflets when you were in the Hitler Youth?”

“I never had to distribute leaflets,” Sven said, after a moment.  “Is that something you had to do?”

“Yeah,” Hilde said.  “While you boys were going camping and playing with weapons, we used to hand out papers exhorting greater efforts for the fatherland and other such pieces of crap.”

“It wasn't all wine and roses,” Sven objected.  “They used to make us run for miles and chased us with whips.”

“Poor dear,” Hilde said.  “At least you got to be away from home for a couple of weeks every year.”

Gudrun winced in memory.  The Bund Deutscher Mädel - the female wing of the Hitler Youth - hadn't been fun.  Maybe it had had its moments - she’d always enjoyed playing sports and she’d been healthy enough to avoid the public humiliations meted out to overweight girls - but she hadn't enjoyed it.  Walking around in ugly uniforms and handing out leaflets to passers-by had been annoying.  Even at the time, she’d doubted that many of the recipients did anything other than use the leaflets to start fires.

“The point is that we can print out leaflets of our own,” she said.  “Wearing our old uniforms, we can then walk through the streets and hand them out.”

“The police will notice,” Sven objected.

“Not if we do it on a day when the real BDM is also handing out leaflets,” Horst mused.  “It won’t take them long to discover what we’re doing, but they’ll have to sort you out from the younger girls.”

“And they’ll be having a competition,” Gudrun said.  “They’ll have several groups of youngsters out on the streets, passing out leaflets, just to see who can hand out the most.”

Sven snorted.  “Why don’t they just dump the leaflets in the nearest bin and claim victory?”

“Because if they get caught,” Hilde said with icy patience, “they’ll be forced to stand in the cold air in their underclothes, without dinner.”

Gudrun shuddered.  The matrons - the thoroughly unpleasant women who ran the BDM - hadn't hesitated to pit one group of girls against the others.  Those who won got to watch as those who lost were humiliated in front of their fellows.  And then reports were sent back to the schools and homes, just to ensure the losers received further punishment.  By the time she’d grown old enough to leave, she’d been thoroughly sick of the whole organisation.

“Maybe we can get a few of the matrons into trouble,” she said.  Could they do it?  Could they walk into one of the tents and exchange leaflets?  God knew she’d never bothered to read the leaflets she’d handed out.  But that would get the girls into trouble as well.  “If the SS wants to ask them a few questions...”

“They’ll have contacts,” Horst said.  “Better keep it as simple as possible.”

Gudrun looked at Sven.  “Can you print out copies of the standard leaflet, but with our message inside?”

“Easily,” Sven said.  “We have the equipment.  It’ll just take us some time to print them out without being noticed.”

“And then we have to see when the BDM is handing out leaflets next,” Gudrun mused.

“It’ll be Sunday,” Hilde predicted.  “They always try to hand out the leaflets to people coming out of church.  If we can’t put together enough leaflets by Sunday, we can simply wait until the next Sunday.”

“There’ll be more of them on the streets too,” Horst added.  “They don’t like taking the younger girls out of classes if it can be avoided.”

“And to think you men had it so much easier,” Hilde teased.

Gudrun coughed, loudly, before an argument could break out and turn nasty.  “I have my old uniform at home,” she said.  Her mother had never allowed her to get rid of it, even though Gudrun had begged to be allowed to burn the ugly piece of trash.  “I can probably alter it to fit me with a little effort.”

“Better let me do it,” Isla said.  “You’re not a good seamstress.”

“We also need to make sure we’re not recognised,” Horst said.  “The girls can distribute leaflets in their old uniforms, but we will find it a little harder to pass unnoticed.”

Gudrun frowned.  “You could wear your own uniforms,” she said.  “Or we could borrow some others for you...”

“No one expects to see the Hitler Youth distributing leaflets,” Horst reminded her.  “So we wear our regular clothes, but instead of giving leaflets to people we put them through letterboxes, as if they were advertisements.  No one will think twice of it until it’s far too late.”

“I see,” Gudrun said.  She looked down at the table for a long moment.  “Sven and the computer experts will send messages to everyone, the day we start distributing the leaflets.  Horst and the boys ready themselves to put messages through letterboxes; I and the girls prepare to start handing out leaflets in the streets.”

“Wear wigs,” Horst said.  “Tie your hair up and wear a striking wig, one you can remove in an instant if necessary.”

He looked embarrassed for a second.  “And stuff your bras too,” he added.  “You want to draw their eyes to your chests rather than to your faces.”

Gudrun blushed.  “We don’t want to look too old,” she said.  “Passing for a sixteen-year-old isn't going to be easy.”

“Most people won’t notice as long as you look striking,” Horst assured her.  “Just make sure you are striking in ways you can easily remove, if necessary.  If the SS start looking for a red-headed girl, you can walk past them because you’re blonde.”

“Clever,” Sven said.  “How do you know all this?”

“I was in the Hitler Youth,” Horst said.

“So was I,” Sven said.  “And we were never shown anything like this.”

“Of course not,” Horst said, crossly.  “You, you see, were in the Hitler Youth here.  I was in the Hitler Youth in Germany East.  You went on camping trips, we went on partisan hunts; you pretended to build fortresses, we dug trenches and sited mortars; the only danger you faced was a minor injury or a belting from the supervisors for falling asleep on watch, we ran the very real risk of being shot.  I have more practical experience than any of you in remaining concealed.”

“I’m glad you’re with us,” Gudrun said.  She'd known that Horst was from Germany East, but she hadn't understood the implications.  “Do you have any other pieces of advice?”

“Getaway vans,” Horst said.  “We hire a handful of vans, fiddle a little with their number plates and use them to get away from the scene.  The distributors can change in the rear while the drivers get them to safety.”

Leopold snorted.  “And when someone makes a note of the number?”

“That’s why we change it,” Horst said.  “Not much, not enough to make it obvious, but just enough to mislead someone watching from a distance.  We return the vans in perfect condition and no one asks any questions.”

Gudrun nodded.  “Good thinking,” she said.

“We won’t have long,” Horst added.  He ran his hand through his hair.  “I’d honestly suggest not sticking around for more than an hour, at the most.  Someone will report the leaflets to the police and then they’ll move in and try to catch us.”

“Your father is a policeman,” Leopold said, looking at Gudrun.  His voice was thoughtful.  “Is there no way you can keep track of his movements?”

“He doesn’t take me to work,” Gudrun pointed out, sarcastically.  The very thought was absurd.  Her father would have refused, she was sure, if she’d ever asked.  “And how am I supposed to hand out leaflets with him right next to me?”

“We could monitor the police radios,” Sven said, before Leopold could manage a sharp rejoinder.  “It isn't as if it’s difficult to adapt one of the radios to tune into their bands.”

“That’s illegal,” Isla protested.

Horst snorted.  “And handing out illicit leaflets isn’t?”

Gudrun smiled.  “Let’s be brutally honest, shall we?  We’ve already crossed the line.”

“That’s true,” Horst agreed.

“If any of you don’t want to help distributing leaflets,” Gudrun said, “say so now.”

She waited.  Her throat was dry. Everything they’d done so far might be excused - they were among the best and brightest of the Reich - but actually handing out leaflets would get them in deep trouble.  They’d be kicked out of the university, at the very least; it was far more likely they’d go to jail or be summarily exiled to Germany East.  Or...

“I think it has to be done,” Hilde said.  She looked down at her hands.  “I’m sick of this!  I’m sick of not knowing what’s happened to my boyfriend!”

“I’m sick of having to watch my words,” Leopold said.  “Of being worried that the next person I talk to will report me to the SS.  And of being told I’m not allowed to ask questions.”

“And if there are hundreds of others who feel the same way,” Gudrun said, “all we have to do is get them working together.”

“No,” Horst said.  “All we have to do is make them realise that there are others who feel the same way.”

He leaned forward.  “The state works hard to ensure that no one asks questions,” he said, flatly.  “We are taught not to ask questions from birth until death - and, because none of us ask the questions we want to ask, we never realise that there are others who feel the same way.  It may be too dangerous to add more recruits to our little band, but if we can prime the rest of the population to feel the same way... others will start their own groups.  The SS will be unable to keep track of us all.”

“I’ve heard about what happens to people the SS take away,” Isla said, nervously.

“It isn’t pleasant,” Horst agreed.  “For the moment, we say nothing if we are taken into custody, nothing at all.  And we don’t write anything down.”

“Save for the leaflets,” Sven said.

“We can also pay children to take the leaflets and hand them out,” Horst said.

“Too risky,” Gudrun said.

“The SS wouldn't brutalise children,” Leopold protested.  “Their parents would never stand for it.”

“They’ll do whatever it takes to root us out,” Horst said.  His voice was very firm.  “Whatever it takes.  Once we start the ball rolling, we have to be committed to the very end.”

“And, if that’s true,” Sven asked, “what do we want?”

“The truth,” Gudrun said.

“Freedom,” Hilde added.

“Free elections to the Reichstag,” Leopold said.  “Let the Nazi Party fight to win elections.”

“They won’t like the challenge,” Horst said.  He gave Leopold a long considering look.  “And that is why we have to brace ourselves for the moment they push back.  Because they will.”

Gudrun nodded.  “I think we’re committed now,” she said.  She smiled grimly at their expressions.  “I think it’s time to become traitors.”