Axis of Evil

Chapter Three: Holy War

Salaam

Nr Mecca, Republic of Arabia (Saudi Arabia)

24^th March 1941

The small town was a shambles. Buildings, some complete, some incomplete, were scattered over the small port, which was modern. Tents and mobile homes were lined up neatly as thousands of Muslims sought to build a new city near the oldest city in Islam. It was a harder time than Shahan McLachlan had expected; the remains of the Saudi tribesmen were still raiding outlying outposts.

“The Russians are supporting them,” General Flynn commented. The British Army had a large presence nearby; a monstrous military outpost that had been designed to support entire armies and air forces. With the war in the Middle East heating up, and the thousands of refugees flooding into the Republic, the outpost was more important than ever.

Flynn waved a gun in the air and passed it over to Shahan. It looked… rough, unfinished, but it was clearly deadly. “What is it?” Shahan asked finally. “It reminds me of something, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“It’s a proto-AK-47,” Flynn said grimly. “The Russians or the Germans must have captured one, probably from America or the East Indies.” He hesitated. “More likely the Americans; the East Indies only had a handful. It’s a good thing they still follow the Inshallah method of shooting.”

He was trying to bait Shahan, who didn’t rise to the bait. “Then we need to strengthen our own patrols around the new farmland,” Shahan said. Being mayor of the new community was harder than he had imagined. “Damn it; we have limited manpower and thousands of things to do.”

“Assimilating people into a community is harder than it looks,” Flynn said dryly. Shahan glared at him; Flynn gazed back evenly. “Still, the intellectual tradition hasn’t been completely destroyed, as it would have been later.”

“True,” Shahan agreed, forgetting his annoyance. “Can you spare extra men?”

“Not and fight the war at the same time,” Flynn said. “We’re training some of your people and the younger Arabs as warriors, but the former warriors can’t fight for shit. If we give them advanced tanks, their first response is to charge at the enemy – and if the Fireflies were a little less armoured it would have quickly wiped them out. As it is, I may have to pull out the infantry brigades.”

Shahan scowled. “Is it that bad, up north?”

“Oh, yes,” Flynn said. “The Soviets, I think, are preparing for an attack on Baghdad, and the Germans might be joining them. Failing that, they might be going west instead… and you know what happened the last time they did that.”

Shahan scowled. The German raid on Palestine had been beaten off, ironically by a combination of Jewish and Muslim fighters, but not before it had slaughtered indiscriminately. Many Arabs had wanted to welcome the Germans; their reward had been merely to be slaughtered first.

“Either way, our lines are too long,” Flynn said. “Even though we now have the new regiments, particularly the ones that were formed from Contemporary personnel and some of your people, the lines are too weak. I imagine that Stalin is licking his lips and considering a two-prong attack to seal us in Baghdad. That’s what they did in Stalingrad, after all, and I’m sure that he’ll think that they can do it.”

Shahan blinked. The Germans and the Turks had levelled Tikrit, the hometown of their later enemy, around one hundred kilometres from Baghdad. Did they know that they were wiping Saddam from history? He thought absently. Did they mean to do it? Saddam’s future hometown was just inside the area of German control – nominally under Turkish control – and the Soviet lines started just eastward of Tikrit. As the crow flew, the Russians were within fifty kilometres of Baghdad.

“Failing that,” Flynn continued, “they might try to make their occupation of Iran permanent by forcing us out of Basra. If they do that, they will fall upon Kuwait and chase us into Arabia.”

Shahan thought about the nightmare of Soviet tank columns getting within his new country and winced. “Can they be stopped?” He demanded. “Can we do nothing?”

“It depends,” Flynn admitted. “We keep smashing their logistics with air attacks, and of course we’ll keep doing that. Of course, they’re persistent… and they’re getting better with their own radar-guided guns. The longer they delay, the better-prepared we will be – and it’s not as simple a task as the map suggests. My own inclination is to attempt to hold Baghdad if possible, and then to counter-attack.”

Nr Damascus

Syria

24^th March 1941

The day was hot, far too hot for Captain Dwynn as the small SAS team headed towards the city. It had fallen to German occupation after a short battle; exhausted by civil war, the inhabitants had hardly been able to put up a defence. A chunk of what had been Israel in 2015 was in German hands; Dwynn had heard about what happened to the inhabitants, those that hadn’t fled or died fighting.

“I think that’s our target,” Corporal Chang muttered. Dressed in Bedouin robes, the SAS team were blending in as much as they could. Chang’s face, very Chinese indeed, would have revealed far too much; he wore his face-cover almost as completely as a woman would.

“I never would have guessed,” Dwynn muttered back, as the German base came into view. It had been built around a small town; the inhabitants had been forced to assist in the construction of defences before being shot or enslaved. A woman’s scream drifted though the warm air; the Germans had clearly found ways of keeping themselves occupied.

“Bloody bad terrain,” Sergeant Vash said grimly. The Germans had camped out in the middle of a vast flat plain; sneaking up on the base would be difficult, if not impossible. Dwynn had no doubt that the Germans had mined the approaches; it was what he would have done.

“Remember, this is a simple raid,” Dwynn said. He picked up his scanner and held it up. “Only fifty or so Germans… probably SS scum.”

“What do we do if they still have some of the villagers captive?” Chang asked. “We can hardly kill them, and they have nowhere to go.”

“We’ll decide that when it happens,” Dwynn said. He glanced around, looking for a place to make camp. “We’d be better off attacking in the night, I think; we’ll set up camp a few miles off, and then come back at night.”

“You’re the boss,” Vash said. “I’m sure that there’s somewhere to hide on this godforsaken desert.”

Night fell quickly over the desert; the stars came out and glittered brightly in the sky. Unterscharfuehrer Jagar, a young SS recruit, shuddered as he saw the results of their handiwork. Nearly a hundred people had lived in the village; now they were all gone – apart from the pretty girls – and they had new defences.

I never signed up for this, Jagar thought. He’d listened to Radio Free Germany, even though it was banned and there were heavy penalties for doing so, but he’d never believed. The Fuhrer, one of the greatest Germans that had ever lived, who’d revoked the accused treaty and made German strong again – surely he would never have allowed mass genocide. It wasn’t until after basic training that Jagar had realised that the SS had special rights – and one of them was the right of access to the camp whores.

Jagar had been sick, the first time, and no harsh words from the Strumscharfuehrer had been able to make him go back in. His assignment to the construction unit ordered to build a forward base in Syria – intended as a punishment – had been almost a relief, until it had started again. He’d been forced to take a turn with the women – the Hauptsturmfuehrer in command had been… quite insistent – and it had revolved him. The fear and revulsion in the woman’s eyes haunted him; she’d seen her husband killed in front of her when she refused to suck the Hauptsturmfuehrer’s cock.

There was a spark of light in the darkness. Jagar jumped forward, lifting his new assault rifle, and smiled in relief. It was only the Hauptsturmfuehrer; lighting a cigarette. There was blood on his hands and Jagar realised with a sickening certainty what he must have done.

“There will be better whores,” the Hauptsturmfuehrer said cheerfully, as if he was discussing the weather. “Wait till we return home Henie; I’ll take you to a really high-class brothel, one where the heroes of the Reich get quality service.”

“Thank you, Herr Hauptsturmfuehrer,” Jagar said, wishing that he could just return home. This was no life for an engineering student, even one with impeccable Aryan blood.

“Or, if you’re lucky, you might qualify for the breeding program,” the Hauptsturmfuehrer continued. He wiped the blood off his hands on his jacket; the old training Strumscharfuehrer would have been horrified. “Think about that; a blonde Nordic beauty, willing to do her duty with the hero of the Reich.”

Jagar’s disgust must have shown on his face, for the Hauptsturmfuehrer slapped him on the back and continued on his way, back to the mosque. It was now thoroughly desecrated; it provided a communal sleeping room for the soldiers and the worker team. He turned to stare out into the darkness… when a streak of light shot past him and slammed into a building. A massive explosion shattered the building, blasting through the mosque and killing most of the SS troopers. A second explosion detonated near him and a chunk of wood struck him on the head. Darkness.

Dwynn was not bold, in the sense that he would risk everything on one throw of the dice. If he’d had the time, he would have arranged for reinforcements to be brought in by helicopter, or even asked the RAF to take out the village without the SAS being involved. Time was limited and resources even more so; it was the SAS that had to do the work.

“Attack,” he muttered into his subvocal communications equipment, and watched grimly as the two rockets picked off the main concentrations of German life. Considerable work had been done on increasing the yield of the new anti-tank weapons; they were now almost capable of damaging a Centurion’s frontal armour. Dwynn had, like many of the soldiers, favoured a weapon that could take out the most powerful British main battle tank, but ultimately had to agree that there were dangers in using a weapon that could fall into German hands. There was no point in giving them instructions on how to take out the so-far invincible tanks.

“Forward,” he yelled aloud, and ran forward. The Germans were shocked; the handful that were grabbing for their weapons had no time to react before the SAS were on them, depending upon speed and skill to defeat the SS. A German’s head exploded as Dwynn double-tapped him; another was coming out of a hovel buttoning up his fly when Dwynn shot him.

“Shit,” he muttered, as he looked into the hovel. A woman lay there, crying; her torn legs akimbo. “Don’t worry,” he said, and cursed his mistake before repeating it in broken Arabic. “We’re friends.”

He stepped back out of the hovel and looked around. The shooting seemed to have died down, so he lifted his radio. “Roll call,” he said. “Any live Germans?”

“One dude who’s been knocked out,” Chang reported. “We haven’t seen any others left alive.”

“This should force them to concentrate on defending their territory,” Dwynn said grimly. “Bind the one you do have; we’ll have him carted back to base. Plummer, there’s a woman in the hut near me and…”

“You want some pepper-up to put iron in your rod?” Plummer asked quickly. “I thought that danger did it for you…”

“Shut up,” Dwynn snapped. “She’s been raped and injured; you’re the medic, so medic her.”

“Yes, sir,” Plummer said, subdued. Dwynn walked back through the burning town, hardly more than a hamlet, and checked around. There was no sign of a German vehicle, not even a jeep, and he smiled. The RAF’s policy of shooting up as many German vehicles on the ground as possible must be having some affect somewhere.

“Control, this is Team Dwynn,” he said, into his radio. “We need pick-up, and a doctor. We have one prisoner and one rescued person.”

Vash joined him as soon as the team had checked the remaining buildings. “This is a mess and a half,” he said. “Were they this bad in the first time line?”

“Worse,” Dwynn assured him. He’d been researching the Germans in the Second World War; he hoped to meet Otto Skorzeny someday. The German was one of the few German heroes from the war. “They did this in Russia; doubtless they would have done it here as well.”

“We should just burn them off the planet,” Vash snarled. Dwynn winced; ever since one nuke had been used, the debate had begun; should more be used? He knew that some senior figures within the army wanted to use tactical nukes in the Middle East, and only resistance from Hanover himself – the Army respected Hanover – had prevented that debate from becoming public.

“We’ve had that argument before,” Dwynn said, suddenly very tired. He hadn’t caught enough sleep before the attack. “How are our guests?”

“Plummer thinks that the woman will be fine,” Vash said. “The German hasn’t woken up yet.”

“I see,” Dwynn said, as the CV-22 tilt-rotor came in over the horizon. He could hardly see it, but he could hear it and the low roars of the three Harriers escorting it. The Germans had based a handful of their own aircraft in Turkey, using them to conduct low-level raids of their own.

He lifted his radio. “Have you got everything?” he asked. “Don’t leave anything behind, children.”

“Yes, dad,” Chang said. “We have everything.”

“Good,” Dwynn said. “In that case, place the demolition charges and move out. This place has to be totally wrecked before the Germans realise what’s happened.”

“You mean more wrecked,” Vash said. Dwynn didn’t bother to argue.

Unterscharfuehrer Jagar’s first thought was that he’d been rescued by the SS, and then he realised how unlikely that was. He was clearly in a tent, but one equipped with wonders, from a television to a number of computers. Jagar knew what a computer was – he’d seen one in the SS training sessions – but he’d never been so close to one before. Only the most loyal officers were allowed near any of the handful that the Germans possessed.

“You’re in very big trouble, young man,” a voice said, in fluent if accented German. Jagar turned his spinning head carefully around, to see a British uniform. Dimly, he realised that there was a voice attached, and then a person inside the uniform. He winced, his head was so sore; the man seemed to have a voice of thunder.

“I am Sergeant Kettle,” the man said. “You get one laugh at my name; just one.” Jagar tried to laugh, and failed; his head was pounding. He felt dizzy, out of control, as if he were floating. “You have been taken alive from a German force; what were you doing there?”

It never entered Jagar’s mind to lie. “I was ordered to assist the preparations for creating a forward base,” he said.

“And what did you do to the people there?” Kettle asked. “What happened?”

“We rounded them up,” Jagar said. “They resisted; we shot those who resisted, and we set the others to work. The Hauptsturmfuehrer insisted on keeping some of the women; he said that he was a long way from his wife. We built what we needed and then…”

He was suddenly, violently sick. “They shot the men and used the women,” he said. “We waited and waited, but we were never allowed to leave and…”

“Why did your commanders want a forward base?” Kettle asked.

“They want to launch an offensive somewhere,” Jagar said. “The Hauptsturmfuehrer boasted that we would wipe out Palestine, and then move on into Suez.”

Kettle’s voice softened. “Tell me, how did you feel about what happened to the women?”

“I hated it,” Jagar said, though the strange haze that seemed to be covering his thoughts. “I wanted to die, I wanted to end it all, but I couldn’t… they made me take her and use her and…”

The strange haze rose up and swept him away upon a balmy sea. Before he lost any awareness at all, he thought he heard Kettle’s voice, at a distance.

“Perhaps we can offer you a chance for redemption, young man…”

General Flynn studied the report the morning after the attack. The SAS team had been flown to Cairo, where they would have a few days leave. They deserved it, Flynn was certain; they had perhaps answered a very important question for Flynn – and for Britain.

“So,” Flynn said, to his war council. “We think that we know where the Germans plan to hit. Palestine, all the way to Suez.”

“We think,” General Higgins pointed out. The burly man had served under him in the defence of Singapore, before being promoted and given command of some of the new regiments. “The young man could have been lied to.”

“That’s possible,” Sergeant Kettle said. “Psychically, he might well have been telling the truth – he seems to have felt revulsion at some of his acts – but we cannot guard against the SS simply lying to their own people.”

“And I assume that the drug was perfect?” Flynn asked. “Can we trust it?”

Kettle, who was an experienced interrogator for MI5, nodded once. “He was kept out of it on the flight back here, and then we ran the drug into his bloodstream while he was unconscious. All of the vital signs matched; he was born Gunter Jagar in 1920, which makes him twenty-one now. I’ve sent a request back to London, but I think he’s not in the history books.”

“Which is either good or bad,” Flynn mused. “I’m going to have to discuss this with London; tell me, do you want the young man for the Bundeswehr?”

“I think that General Rommel will want a look at him, yes,” Kettle said. “He certainly shows a great deal of remorse for his crimes.”

“I still think that we should shoot him,” Higgins muttered. “This is going to come back and bite us on the behind.”