Chosen of the Valkyries (Twilight Of The Gods Book 2) (24 page)

But the Fuhrer will approve
, Alfred thought. 
He won’t give a damn about the dead civilians, will he?

He groaned, inwardly.  It would be easy to send a pair of MPs to arrest Schwerk and transport him back to the CP for a quick court martial, followed by execution, but the
Führer
would not like it.  He’d see Schwerk as a hero, as the man who taught a bunch of cowardly fence-sitters the cost of defying the SS.  And he wouldn't give a damn about just how badly it would cost them, in the long run.  Hell, killing more westerners - even ones of good blood - would make it easier for him to reshape the west in his own image.

And I can't even put a ban on future atrocities
, he told himself. 
The Fuhrer wouldn't like that either
.

Weineck leaned forward.  “
Herr Oberstgruppenfuehrer
, how do you wish to proceed?”

Alfred scowled.  Punishing Schwerk was out of the question.  The
Fuhrer
was already breathing down his neck, insisting that he relieve a number of officers for being inadequately aggressive.  Karl Holliston simply didn't realise that charging forward, firing madly, was not a good tactic, not when it meant getting panzers impaled on antitank guns and blown into flaming debris.  The logistics were already a nightmare; he dreaded to think what would happen if they started to run short on panzers too.  And then there was the puzzle over just what the enemy was doing with their air force ...

“Promote him to
Hauptsturmfuehrer
,” he ordered, curtly.  “And make sure he has a chance to practice his skills - put him at the tip of the spear.”

“
Jawohl
,
Herr Oberstgruppenfuehrer
,” Weineck said.

And hope the bastard gets killed on the front lines
, Alfred added, silently.  It wasn't much, but it was all he had. 
There’s nothing else I can do to him
.

He turned back to the map.  “Are the enemy trying to stiffen their resistance at any point?”

“It looks as through their main units are still retreating towards Berlin,” Weineck said.  He seemed relieved that the subject had changed.  “They just won’t stand and fight.”

“Of course not,” Alfred said, tiredly.  They’d been over it before, time and time again, as the frustration started to bite.  “They know they will lose in a straight fight.”

He shrugged.  The
Fuhrer
would want an update soon, he was sure.  And if he didn’t, it was only because the
Fuhrer
was getting his updates from someone else ...

And if that happens
, he thought grimly,
I’m going to be the next officer to be relieved
.

***

Generalmajor
Gunter Gath cursed under his breath as he read the report.  A pair of snipers near an insignificant town, waiting for a chance to put a bullet through an SS officer’s head, had watched helplessly as the population was herded into the church and burned to death.  It would have been unbelievable, Gunter was sure, if there hadn't been so many other reports of SS atrocities as their advancing spearheads began to cross paths with innocent civilians.

And I believe it
, he thought.  He would have liked to deny it, but he’d seen too much to do anything of the sort. 
Now what
?

He cursed under his breath.  The laws of war, insofar as the Third
Reich
admitted they existed, allowed retaliation, an eye for an eye.  But against what?  Bombing a random town in Germany East wouldn't upset the SS, let alone deter them from carrying out more atrocities of their own.  Shooting prisoners was likely to be more effective, but they just hadn't taken enough prisoners to make the effort worthwhile.  And besides, if they
did
start shooting prisoners, the SS would probably do the same. 

And they have far too many of my men prisoner
, he thought.

He glared at the map, noting the arrows denoting the advancing spearheads.  Hundreds of his men had died - or been captured - after being overrun by the panzers.  They’d been marched off into captivity, transported eastwards across the river and out of his ken.  Even the orbital photographs someone in Berlin had managed to coax out of the satellites hadn't shown him where the prisoners had been taken. Gunter hoped - desperately - that they hadn't simply been killed, but he had to admit it was possible.  The SS had machine-gunned prisoners in South Africa, after all ...

But they were Untermenschen
, he thought. 
They deserved to die
.

His own thoughts mocked him. 
And what were the men, women and children who were burned to death in the church
?

He shook his head, slowly.  Dealing with SS atrocities would have to be a political decision, but he couldn't see many
good
options.  Deploying anything from poison gas to tactical nuclear weapons would only encourage further retaliation, while slaughtering prisoners would only lead to the SS doing the same.  Hell, they might even be
relieved
.  The bastards had far more prisoners, all of whom needed to be fed, than
he
did.  And they’d even have an
excuse
for mass slaughter.

We did it to them
, he thought,
so they can now do it to us
.

Cursing, he reached for the phone.  He’d never liked being micromanaged, but this was one hot potato he was happy to drop into someone else’s life.  Let the provisional government decide what to do. 
They
could have the responsibility ...

... And the blame, if it only made the bloodshed far worse.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Berlin, Germany Prime

22 September 1985

“I cannot believe they’d
do
this,” Gudrun protested, honestly shocked.

“Don’t be naive,” Horst said.  He sounded irritated - and exhausted.  She would have been annoyed at his tone if she hadn't known he’d been up for most of the night, working with her father and his handpicked team to try to track down the SS spy.  “They wouldn't hesitate to kill whoever got in their way, if it suited them.”

Gudrun shook her head, slowly.  She’d known - intellectually - that the SS had carried out thousands, perhaps millions, of atrocities.  Grandpa Frank had even admitted to having served in the
Einsatzgruppen
.  But to casually burn over a hundred men, women and children, all of good German blood, to death, just because a sniper had used a house in the town ... it was appalling.

She looked at the photographs, cursing under her breath.  She’d never been particularly religious - religion was officially discouraged at school, although the
Reich
had never tried to stamp it out completely - but even
she
knew a church was supposed to be holy.  And yet, the SS had herded up the townsfolk, crammed them into the building and set it on fire.  Over a hundred people were dead ... and it was all her fault.

The guilt struck her like a physical blow. 
She’d
started the ball rolling, but she hadn't realised - not really - just how high a price the
Reich
would pay for what she’d done.  Overthrowing the
Reich
Council couldn't have brought matters to a conclusion, could it?  This wasn't a neat little story where every single plot thread was tied up in the final chapter.  The villain had escaped to the east and started a counterattack.  God alone knew how many people had died in the fighting, the fighting she’d started ...

“My fault,” she muttered, bitterly.

She closed her eyes in pain.  She’d thought she’d known the risks when she started, she thought she’d known - and accepted - what would happen to her if she was caught.  And she’d done her best to make sure that her friends knew too, even though they’d been compromised just by listening to her.  They’d all known the risks ...

... But the townsfolk hadn't.  They hadn't been involved in the protest movement, as it grew and diversified; she would have been surprised if they’d even
heard
of the protest movement before the
Reich
Council crumbled into dust.  And yet, they’d paid a steep price for her decisions.  The town was dead, save perhaps for a handful of young men who’d joined the military and left before the advancing SS stormtroopers captured the town.  She knew, deep inside, that they would never forgive her for what she’d brought upon their families.

Horst wrapped an arm around her, gently.  “It wasn't your fault.”

Gudrun pushed him away.  She didn't feel like being cuddled, not now.

“It wasn't your fault,” Horst repeated.  “You heard Kruger, didn't you?  The
Reich
was heading for a fall long before you were born.  You may have started the protest movement, Gudrun, but it would have happened with or without you.”

Gudrun snorted.  Even in the university, political debate had been almost non-existent.  She knew - now - that thousands of people had seen the cracks in the state, the hundreds of tiny problems that spelt looming disaster, but very few had dared to speak out and prove to the others that they were not alone.  It had been
her
who had worked up the nerve,
her
who had made those people see that there were hundreds of thousands of others who felt the same way too.  And if it hadn't been her, who
would
it have been?  She still found it hard to believe that
she
had had the nerve to do it.

She sighed, bitterly.  If Konrad had been unharmed - or even if she and his family had
known
what had happened to him - she would never have dared to start the protest movement.  She would have married Konrad, after graduating from the university, and done her best to balance her career with life as a married woman.  If, of course, he
allowed
her to have a career.  Her husband could have forbidden her from working, if he’d wished.  It had been one thing she’d sought to change at once, as soon as she’d taken her seat on the council, but the demands of war had pushed social reform aside. 

And if I hadn't started the movement
, she thought,
what would have become of me?

Horst tapped her shoulder, firmly.  “Gudrun, you can't blame yourself for this,” he said.  “The war is bringing out all the old nightmares.”

“I can blame myself,” Gudrun said, tartly.  “I
do
blame myself.”

“Blame Holliston,” Horst said.  He scowled.  “If the so-called
Fuhrer
was angry about what happened to the poor bastards, he would have made his feelings clear by now.  Or blame Voss and Gath for failing to evacuate the town, even though it would have clogged up the roads with even more refugees.  Or blame the
swinehund
who ordered the people killed.  You cannot be blamed for what they chose to do, of their own free will.”

He paused.  “And Holliston was willing to kill hundreds of his fellow Germans before the
Reich
Council fell,” he added.  “You didn't make him do that, did you?”

Gudrun shook her head, then looked up at him.  “Did
you
do anything like that?  In the east, I mean?”

Horst met her eyes, evenly.  “No,” he said.  “But the war out there is merciless.  We all knew it happened and we all applauded it.”

“Monsters,” Gudrun said.

“What would you have them do?”  Horst asked.  “You can't live and let live with
Untermenschen
who want to kill you.  And you can't move millions of people out of their homes in the hopes of keeping them safe.  What would you have them do?”

“Maybe I wouldn't have turned Russia into Germany East,” Gudrun snapped.

Horst cocked his head.  “Maybe not.  So what?”

Gudrun blinked.  “So what?”

“So what?”  Horst repeated.  “You cannot change the past.  There is no way you can go back in time and convince Adolf Hitler not to invade Russia, or force the
Reich
Council not to hand it over to the SS.  You have to deal with the situation you have, not the situation you want.  And, right now, what you have is an endless insurgency that demands the harshest possible measures to bring it to an end.”

“Which have now been exported westwards,” Gudrun said.

She shook her head.  “I don’t know what to do,” she added.  “Can you leave me alone for a while.”

Horst frowned.  “You do have an appointment at the transit barracks ...”

“Cancel it,” Gudrun snapped, sharply.  She knew she was hurting him, but she found it hard to care.  “Just leave me alone.”

She wondered, just for a long moment, what Horst would do.  Shout back at her?  Part of her would have welcomed a shouting match, even if they’d probably be overheard by everyone in the bunker.  Or hit her?  It wasn't uncommon, but she would have hit him back ... and who knew what would happen then?  And yet, the pain would have dulled her fears ...

“I’ll get some rest,” Horst said, rising.  “And I would suggest you get some rest too.”

Gudrun snorted.  It wasn't easy to sleep alone, now.  She’d grown far too used to having a warm body in her bed, even though her father would definitely notice something - if he hadn't noticed already.  There had been the odd tension between him and Horst, after all.  She watched Horst leave, his back stiff and felt a flicker of a very different guilt.  She’d practically chucked him out of the room they shared.  But she needed to be alone for a while, alone with her guilt.

She looked at the final photograph - the remains of the church, surrounded by armed guards - and then picked up the list of known townsfolk.  Records were a mess now, she knew; it was unlikely that
everyone
on the list was dead.  It was quite possible that some of the smarter townsfolk had seen what was coming in their direction and driven westwards, trying to stay with relatives in Hamburg or Kiel.  And yet, she knew that
most
of the people on the list were dead.  Older civilians with nowhere to go, children too young to get married or join the military ... and women, married to men who were currently serving in South Africa.  It would be months, perhaps, or years before their husbands learned they’d been widowed.

Something has to be done
, she thought, numbly. 
But what?

She sighed.  Perhaps it was time to learn how to pray.

***

The unmarked aeroplane looked, to the civilian eye, to be identical to the other aircraft on the tarmac.  It was large, easily forty metres from nose to tail; indeed, the only obvious difference was the complete lack of markings.  And yet, to Andrew, it was easy to tell that the aircraft was American.  There was a
smoothness
to the aircraft that was lacking in the
Reich’s
designs.  It touched down neatly, the pair of escorting fighters flashing over the airfield and heading into the distance.  Andrew couldn't help hoping that they found a pair of prowling easterner aircraft on their way home.  The bombing of Berlin was growing more intensive as the front lines moved closer.

“That’s the fifth shipment,” General William Knox said.  “You think they’re not going to try and take them apart?”

Andrew shrugged as the aircraft came to a halt, the ground crew already running forward to open the hatches and start unloading before the airfield came under attack again.  The
Reich
might consider the airfield to be a state secret - despite being close to Berlin, it wasn't shown on any official map - but the SS knew about it.  They’d even tried to bomb it twice before, although it had cost them a pair of long-range bombers.  He’d seen the wreckage as they’d driven towards the airfield.

“I think they’ve already captured a few,” he said.  It had been a concern - a very valid concern - back when the US had started shipping Stingers to South Africa.  If the Germans captured a missile launcher, the doubters had said, they might be able to reverse-engineer the technology and start supplying it to
their
clients.  “And in any case, the risk is acceptable.”

Knox smiled.  “Is that your choice to make?”

Andrew grinned.  “It was the President who made the final call,” he said.  “If the provisional government wins the war, we find ourselves talking to a government that owes us a favour - and, just incidentally, might be better for Germany than their old government.  But if the SS wins the war, we go straight back to the days when nuclear war seemed a very real possibility.”

“I am aware of the reasoning,” Knox said, a little tartly.  “But the
Reich’s
long-term health isn't our concern.”

“It is,” Andrew said.  “If they get desperate, they might do something stupid in hopes of getting out of the trap.”

He shook his head, then watched as the first set of pallets were unloaded and transported towards the warehouse.  The Stingers were designed to be idiot-proof, even though he knew that some idiots could be very clever indeed when it came to breaking things.  If they could be used by illiterate tribesmen from somewhere with an unpronounceable name, they could be used by German soldiers who were both literate
and
aware of the importance of following instructions.  The handful of printed instructions attached to each of the missiles - in German - would be more than enough for them.

And it might just convince most of the soldiers that the weapons were produced in the Reich
, Andrew thought.  The days when German weapons had dominated the world were long gone, but he had to admit that some of their designers were quite ingenious.  Their general technological base had been falling behind America’s for quite some time, yet they sometimes came up with ideas the US had missed. 
Hopefully, that will make it harder for them to believe that the provisional government is talking to us
.