Chosen of the Valkyries

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Berlin, Germany Prime

3 October 1985

Gudrun could hear the fighting in the distance as she made her way slowly down to the bunker, the dull thunder echoing over the city. It grew quieter as she passed through the first security checkpoints, then vanished altogether once the doors were closed, but she could still feel it in her bones. Two hours of increasingly savage fighting had made it clear that, whatever else happened, there wasn’t going to be much of a city left when the war finally came to an end.

She looked up at Horst as they reached the final checkpoint. Somewhat to her disappointment, he hadn’t managed to work up the nerve to ask her to marry him – and she hadn’t had the nerve to ask him either! Part of her mind insisted that that was his job, the rest of her thought that she should be able to ask the question first. And yet, her father’s warning hung in her mind. To push a man to commit himself, before he was ready to commit himself, would only end badly.

“I’ll see you afterwards,” she said, quietly. If the guard hadn’t been standing outside the door, she would have kissed him. “Take care of yourself.”

Horst smiled, rather tiredly. “We have far too much to do to worry about taking care of ourselves,” he said. “Good luck.”

Gudrun nodded – she knew that both Horst and her father had been working hard to catch the spy, then turned and stepped through the door into the war room. Volker Schulze was sitting at the head of the table, looking grim, while the other councillors were slowly taking their seats. Gudrun looked from face to face, wondering which one of them was the spy – if there was a spy. Horst had pointed out that the SS could simply be fishing for incriminating information, if only because the Reich wouldn’t have hesitated to meddle if the Americans had had a civil war. Anything that kept the planet’s other superpower busy – and weakened it badly – would have suited the old council just fine.

Which raises the question, Gudrun thought, as she took her seat. What would happen if the Reich became too weak?

She contemplated the prospects grimly as the doors were closed and servants served coffee, then looked up as Schulze called the room to order. He looked tired, she noted; he knew, all too well, that several of the men before him were plotting to betray him. They might not be working for the SS, Gudrun knew, but they’d all risen to power through careful manipulation of the system. Reducing Schulze to a figurehead, just like Adolf Bormann – the Fuhrer who had been so unimportant that no one had bothered to kill him – would have been ideal. They could continue to master their separate power bases, while discussing matters that affected them all in committee.

Which is stupid, Gudrun thought, tartly. If he wins the war, Karl Holliston will have every last man in the room shot, if they’re lucky.

“The battle has finally begun,” Schulze said, quietly. “Field Marshal?”

Voss leaned forward. He was old enough to be Gudrun’s father, but she’d always found him a little impressive, even if she didn’t like him very much. Quite apart from a genuine military record, he’d stayed in Berlin when he could have easily taken command of the relief force and escaped the city. Schulze had stayed, of course, but he hadn’t really had a choice. Voss, on the other hand, could have left easily. Instead, he’d chosen to put his life on the line.

Not that he could have escaped anyway, Gudrun reminded herself. The reports from the east were horrifically clear. Anyone who does not support Holliston enthusiastically will be counted as an enemy.

“The Waffen-SS launched a major incursion into the city two hours ago, following a major bombing raid,” Voss said. “So far, as predicted, we have lost the outer edge of the defence lines, yet the remainder are still firmly in place. Fighting has been savage, hand-to-hand in some places, but we have more than held our own. There has been no mass collapse, nor have we had to send in the reserves.”

Kruger snorted. “So the Waffen-SS isn’t as good as they claimed?”

“They’re attacking a city,” Voss reminded him, calmly. “All of their usual advantages are weakened, perhaps lost. Their airpower isn’t as effective when they have to worry about antiaircraft missiles and their shelling isn’t as accurate as they might have hoped. And we have nowhere to run. There’s no hope of a breakthrough they can use to wrench our legs open and thrust inside.”

He nodded at Gudrun. “Begging your pardon, of course.”

Gudrun kept her face impassive. She knew when she was being needled.

Schulze didn’t look impressed. “Can we hold out long enough for the relief force to arrive?”

“It depends on a number of factors,” Voss said, flatly. “We stockpiled vast amounts of ammunition in the city prior to the invasion, but expenditure has been an order of magnitude over any pre-war predictions. Fortunately” – he smiled, rather dryly – “they probably have the same problem. I would expect them to be having problems shipping supplies to the front.”

His smile grew wider. “And they certainly will have problems once our stay-behind cells come out of hiding.”

Gudrun took a moment to put it all together. “Won’t that encourage atrocities against the civilian population?”

“Yes,” Voss said, flatly. “Would you rather lose Berlin? And, with it, any hope of preserving your revolution?”

He is not my father, Gudrun reminded herself, sharply. The tone – the voice he used to address a silly little girl – was far too close to her father when he was in a bad mood, but her father was… well, her father. It was his job to keep her from making stupid mistakes, even ones as minor as adding two and two together and getting five. And he should not be talking to me like that.

She leaned forward, speaking in an icy tone she would never have dared use to her real father. “And would you prefer to see countless civilians killed?”

“I would prefer to see the SS vanish,” Voss said. He sounded oddly amused – and, for a second, she saw a flash of respect in his eyes. “But we have to deal with the reality we have, not the reality we want. And the reality we have is that failing to make life difficult for the SS’s logistic officers is going to cost us badly. Allowing them to mass their firepower against Berlin will be disastrous.”

“I understand the costs,” Schulze said, quietly. “And we have no choice.”

The hell of it, Gudrun knew, was that they were right. Horst had taught her enough about logistics for her to understand their argument. But, at the same time, she knew what would happen to any innocent civilians caught nearby. The reports from the east were an endless liturgy of horror. They’d be tortured, raped and finally killed. If the SS had ever hoped to win hearts and minds – and she found it rather unlikely – that hope had long since faded.

She closed her eyes in pain. Horst had explained, more than once, that the easterners regarded the westerners as soft, but she’d never really understood it. The Reich had never been noticeably more liberal in Germany Prime. Indeed, the only place where there had been any real hint of liberalism had been Germany South… and, even there, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time was more than enough to get someone sent to a concentration camp and brutally murdered. But it didn’t really matter. Whatever the cause, the easterners held the westerners in contempt. And that contempt was pushing them to commit atrocities.

Voss cleared his throat. “I don’t promise victory,” he said. “But as long as they don’t make a major breakthrough, we should be able to hold the line.”

“Except that we already have rats within the walls,” Admiral Wilhelm Riess said. The head of the Abwehr scowled at Voss. “They have at least one team of commandos in Berlin, perhaps more.”

“We have doubled security at all vulnerable points and mounted a number of raids on suspect households,” Voss said, sharply. “There is little else we can do.”

“They are already spreading SS propaganda,” Riess announced, loudly. He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his briefcase and unfolded it, holding it in the air so they could see the words. “This was found near a recruiting station.”

He gave Gudrun a sharp look. “They clearly learned a few things from you.”

Gudrun scowled as she read the poster. It wasn’t much, merely a reminder that the SS was coming and all those who stood against their advance would be branded traitors, but the mere fact that someone had managed to put it in place was worrying. And yet, it would be easier for the SS than it had been for her, back when the underground movement had been starting out. There were fewer policemen on the street and a growing tradition of questioning uniformed authority.

“And this isn’t the worst of it,” Riess continued. He reached back into his briefcase. “My men caught a handful of brats distributing these!”

Gudrun frowned as Riess produced a handful of leaflets and placed them on the table. She took one and read it, quickly. The basic message was identical to the poster, but there was an offer of conditional amnesty for anyone who deserted the provisional government or simply turned on their comrades, when the main offensive began. She had no idea how many people would be tempted, yet – as the noose tightened around Berlin – she had a feeling that far too many people would be very tempted indeed.

“I see,” Schulze said. “And what did the distributors have to say?”

“Very little,” Riess admitted. “They were refugee children, already on the verge of starvation. Their families were to be given additional foodstuffs if their children distributed the leaflets around Berlin. We have rounded up and interrogated the families, but they don’t seem to know anything useful. We need tighter security.”

“Which we do not have the manpower to provide,” Voss snapped. “If we put more soldiers on the streets, we take them away from the front lines.”

“Then we need to expand our counter-intelligence network,” Riess snapped back. “The SS handled all such matters and the SS is gone!”

Gudrun groaned, inwardly, as the pieces fell into place. It was a power grab. The Abwehr – military intelligence – had long resented its subordination to the SS, although – unlike the Gestapo – it had managed to retain a separate identity. Expanding the Abwehr’s counter-intelligence responsibilities would give Riess far more power, which he could use to push himself into prominence. Why not? Himmler had done the same and, before the uprising, the SS had been one of the most powerful factions in Germany.

And if we let the Abwehr grow in power, she thought numbly, how long will it be before we have a new master?

She shuddered at the thought. She’d always had mixed feelings about the SS, but after reading some of the files she’d discovered just how far the SS had worked its way into the warp and weft of German politics. Politicians, military officers and bureaucrats had been steadily brought under the SS’s sway, bribed or blackmailed into supporting its decisions and enforcing its rules. She’d been taught to fear the informer from a very early age – like all German children – but she’d never imagined that high-ranking politicians could feel the same way. It had simply never crossed her mind.

“This is not the time to expand the Abwehr’s responsibilities,” Voss said. “We need to locate and remove other SS informers within the ranks.”

“And someone within the ranks may be helping them,” Riess pointed out. “Tracking down the commandos within Berlin might lead us to the informers.”

“I highly doubt they will allow themselves to be taken alive,” Voss sneered. “These men are trained to avoid capture.”

Schulze tapped the table. “This is a decision for another time,” he said. “Right now, the police are attempting to track down the commandos.”

“The police,” Riess said. He sounded scornful. “The Berlin police couldn’t organise a drunken rampage in a brewery, let alone find an experienced SS commando cell!”

“Nonetheless, they are all we have,” Schulze said. “Training your people to serve an expanded counter-intelligence function would take too long.”

Riess sat back, looking cross. Gudrun eyed him, wondering just what was going through his head. Irritation at having his power grab shot down so quickly, frustration at failing to take advantage of the chaos to benefit himself… or genuine concern? There was no reason why Riess couldn’t be worried about the SS commandos, even if he was inclined to use their existence to benefit himself. The SS and the Abwehr had been enemies for so long that Riess didn’t have any hope of survival if Berlin fell.

Karl Holliston will purge everyone who isn’t willing to pledge themselves to the SS, she thought. And he won’t trust the military at all.

Schulze cleared his throat. “Are there any other matters of concern?”

“The food stockpiles are under pressure,” Kruger said, flatly. “Right now, there is no hope of bringing in food from outside the blockade. Assuming that our remaining warehouses do not come under attack, we have enough food to feed the city for roughly one month at current rations. I believe we can stretch that out to two months if we cut rations to everyone, but the men on the front lines.”

“That will certainly cause problems within the city,” Gudrun said, quickly.

“Yes, it will,” Kruger acknowledged. “Quite apart from riots, there will be long-term health problems. Cutting food supplies to pregnant women, for example, may damage the babies in the womb. Cutting food supplies to children will cause other problems.”

Gudrun shuddered. She had a feeling she knew exactly what the SS would do, faced with the same situation. Round up everyone who was nothing more than a useless mouth – the old, the infirm – and execute them. No, murder them. Grandpa Frank had been a horror, a blight on his family, but she recoiled in horror at the thought of murdering him. He’d died a hero, perhaps making up for the sins of his past… how many others would be denied the same chance, if they were killed out of hand. There was no way she could condone such a solution.

And yet, the nasty part of her mind whispered, is it not better that they should die, so that the rest of us may live?

She told that part of her mind to shut up and leaned forward. “What will happen if we cut rations later – say two weeks from now?”

“Impossible to tell,” Kruger said. “The only real case study we have comes from Leningrad, where the city practically starved itself to death before the defences finally collapsed. I have no idea just how long the public will remain calm, particularly since we don’t have enough manpower to squash any riot before it gets out of hand. Right now, with the population already aware that governments can be overthrown…”

Gudrun had no trouble filling in the blanks. A starving population, desperate for succour, rising up against the provisional government. Soldiers, forced to choose between shooting their families and turning on the government, attacking the Reichstag. And the SS watching the chaos from a safe distance, then stepping in to restore order and impose its own peace once the infighting came to an end. It had happened before, after all, when Kurt and his men turned their weapons on the SS stormtroopers before the Reichstag. And if they were unlucky, it would happen again.

It isn’t fair, she told herself, sharply. We wanted to change the world.

And you did, her own thoughts replied.

“We will lower rations for those who can handle it,” Schulze said. His voice was very flat, betraying no emotion. “And we will go on short rations too.”

Voss leaned forward. “Do you think the public will believe us if we say we’re on short rations?”

“We have to try,” Schulze said. “And we are not going to be holding banquets when people are starving in the streets.”

Gudrun wondered, darkly, just how many other politicians were going to follow his example and go hungry. The black market had been a feature of Berlin life for decades, run – she hadn’t been surprised to discover, after the uprising – by a number of high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats. It wouldn’t be long before someone started trying to sell off government supplies, even if there was a war on. Hell, she wouldn’t be surprised to discover that someone was already doing it.

There will be families trading everything they own, just for a can of preserved meat, she thought, bitterly. And girls forced to prostitute themselves for a bite to eat.

“Warn your people,” Schulze added, addressing the whole room. His voice was firm, warning them that there were limits. “I will not tolerate anyone breaking the united front in any way. The only thing keeping the people from turning on us is the awareness that we are suffering too.”

Except we are down in the bunker and the people upstairs are not, Gudrun thought. And the snipers are still looking for targets.

“The people of Berlin haven’t known privation in a very long time,” Voss pointed out. Horst had raised the same concerns, Gudrun recalled. “Do they have the drive to hold out?”

“Let us hope so,” Schulze said. He smiled, rather dryly. “Because if they don’t, we are all about to die.”