Storm Front

Chapter Forty

Berlin, Germany

25 August 1985

“There’s no hope for recovery,” Volker Schulze said. There was a bitter tone in his voice as he looked down at Konrad’s body. “The life support can be turned off.”

Gudrun felt sick as she took one last look at her former boyfriend. The medical report had been clear, all too clear. Konrad had been dead, to all intents and purposes, from the moment he’d been wounded. His comrades had done a fantastic job keeping his body alive, but the brain was dead and the soul was gone. She’d started the whole affair for Konrad, yet he would never live to see the new world.

“Goodbye,” she said, very quietly.

“He loved you, I believe,” Volker Schulze said. “But he would also have wanted you to live your life, not waste it in mourning.”

“Too many people are dead,” Gudrun said. Hundreds dead in the march, dozens killed when the SS had attacked the Reichstag. It galled her that she knew only a handful of their names, although she’d promised herself that they would be immortalised afterwards. “But I will try to live for his sake.”

She sighed as she turned and walked towards the door, not wanting to watch as the doctors finally cut off life support. Konrad was dead – and so was Grandpa Frank. The old man she’d spent half of her life loathing had given his life to save hers, despite his own fear of death. She had no idea what was awaiting him in the afterlife – and she knew far too much about his crimes – but she hoped he would not be judged too harshly. He had tried to make up for his crimes, after all.

Horst met her outside, looking uncertain. “Are you all right?”

Gudrun gave him a tight hug, fighting down the urge to cry. “They’re taking him off life support now,” she said, bitterly. “He’ll be buried tomorrow with the others.”

“It’s not over,” Horst said. “You and I might still end up dead too.”

“I know,” Gudrun said. “The SS isn’t going to let us win without a fight.”

She contemplated it as they walked through the doors and out into the car park, where her official car was waiting. The provisional government had control over most of Germany Prime – although Wewelsburg Castle was still holding out – but the SS, the rump government, was in firm control of Germany East. And they controlled tanks, aircraft, missile launchers and thousands of trained soldiers. There would be war. Germany East couldn’t survive without the rest of the Reich.

At least we have control of most of the nukes, she thought. And it will take them some time to rewire the warheads they do have under their control. We did keep them from getting the launch codes.

It wasn’t a reassuring thought. Gudrun knew little about nuclear weapons, but one of the government officials who’d briefed her had admitted that a skilled engineer would probably be able to bypass the security codes and prepare the nuke for detonation. The SS hadn’t been trusted with sole control of nuclear warheads since they’d been used to crush a rebellion in 1950, yet they had hundreds of engineers in Germany East. Triggering the tactical nukes probably wouldn’t be that hard.

But they’d have to be mad to use them, she thought. We have hundreds of nukes too.

Horst opened the door for her, waited until she was seated and then climbed into the driver’s seat. “Where do you want to go, Frau Gudrun?”

Gudrun almost suggested they find a quiet place to spend some time together, but she knew it wasn’t a possibility. There was just too much for her to do at the Reichstag. Besides, they would be noticed. There were far fewer cars on the streets now, as the provisional government fought to conserve fuel as much as possible. If the SS managed to convince the Turks to cut the oil pipelines that ran from Germany Arabia to Germany Prime, they might have fuel shortages to add to their other woes. Hell, even food would be in short supply if the SS started cutting shipments from Germany East.

“Back to the Reichstag,” she said, finally. They’d have time to relax together once the day came to an end. “I have work to do.”

Berlin seemed stunned, she saw, as they drove through the streets. The schools were closed – a number of BDM matrons had vanished, according to the reports – and most workplaces had followed suit. It had only been two days since the Fuhrer had formally announced the formation of a provisional government, complete with a whole string of freedoms, and no one seemed quite sure how to handle them. The population had spent their whole lives guarding their mouths, after all; she suspected that some of them feared the SS was still watching them from the shadows. And they might well be right. There were hundreds of SS personnel still unaccounted for in Berlin alone.

And so we have to make the new government work before it’s too late, she thought, as the car rolled into Victory Square. And if we fail, the SS will tear the Reich apart.

“The real question,” Ambassador Turtledove said, “is just what we do.”

“Nothing,” Andrew advised. He’d spent the last four days struggling to keep abreast of the changes running through the Reich. “Both sides in this brewing civil war have nukes. The loser might just decide to pop their missiles at the United States and call it a draw.”

“Assuming the ABM network doesn’t protect us,” General William Knox pointed out. “This is an opportunity to actually put an end to the Reich, once and for all.”

“It’s also a chance to commit suicide,” Andrew said, tartly. “Are you willing to bet thousands of American lives that the ABM system will do a perfect job?”

He tapped the table firmly. “There’s also the minor problem that the Reich’s population is reflexively anti-American,” he said. “If we send in the Marines to help stabilise and secure Germany Prime, the bad guys will gain one hell of a propaganda advantage.”

“We’d be coming to help,” Knox objected.

“They wouldn’t see it that way,” Andrew warned. “They are an intensely patriotic people, General. How pleased would our population be if they saw German troops coming up Main Street and parking their tanks in Central Park?”

He looked at the ambassador. “There are ways, sir, to support the provisional government,” he added. “We can make offers of economic assistance, loans and suchlike… we can even offer covert military support, if they need it. But overt support is likely to blow up in our face. We might accidentally kill the people we want to help.”

“Not everyone in Washington will agree,” the Ambassador said. “The chance to get rid of the Reich, once and for all…”

He cleared his throat. “For the moment, we will continue to monitor the situation, attempt to develop ties with the provisional government and report to Washington. I’m sure the Pentagon has contingency plans for the Germans causing trouble in hopes of diverting their own people from their woes.”

Andrew shrugged. Germany Prime and Germany East had been drawing apart for decades, although the Nazi Party had been desperately papering over the cracks. It was quite possible that the Reich would split into two entities, although that would raise the issue of just what would happen to Germany Arabia and Germany South. The latter might not last long, not once South Africa went under, but the former was relatively secure after the native population had been largely exterminated and the handful of survivors enslaved.

“I don’t think they’d try now,” he said, finally. “The crisis facing the Reich has gone far beyond anything a manufactured confrontation with us can settle.”

“Let us hope you’re right,” Turtledove said. “And let us hope that the Germans are actually sane.”

“If the last report is to be believed, the SS has secured every military base in Germany East,” Voss said. “We don’t know what happened to the personnel, but I suspect most of them have either agreed to fight for the SS or gone straight into the camps.”

Volker nodded, curtly. The SS was popular in Germany East, after all; soldiers and airmen stationed there for a few years would certainly come to respect the SS, even if they didn’t like the men in black. And it wouldn’t make any difference if they refused, he suspected; they’d simply be arrested and put to one side while the SS prepared an offensive into Germany Prime.

“We have the beginnings of a defence forming down the Gdansk-Warsaw-Lubin line,” Voss added, “but it isn’t very solid and won’t be until we get more armoured units and aircraft into the region. Thankfully, they won’t be prepared for war either. They’ll be doing their best to change that as quickly as possible.”

“They’ll want to launch an offensive before the winter,” Volker agreed. Campaigning in winter was difficult, to say the least. But then, the SS had plenty of experience fighting in the harsh Russian winters. The horror stories of frozen weapons, useless clothing and frostbite he’d heard as a young trooper were in the past. “They certainly won’t want to give us time to reboot the economy.”

“Probably not,” Voss agreed. “I have a number of contingency plans for your attention.”

Volker sighed, inwardly. Voss was a hard-charging man, a loyal soldier… and Volker wasn’t entirely sure he trusted the man. He smiled too much, too brightly. But he was popular with the troops, genuinely respected even by men who didn’t like him. Removing him would certainly cause the troops to lose faith in the provisional government… if, of course, they’d had any in the first place. They’d known where they stood with the Reich Council. The provisional government was a whole different kettle of fish.

I can keep an eye on Voss, he told himself, as he turned his attention to the plans. And hope he wants nothing more than to command our forces in war.

“I saw Kurt at dinner,” Horst said, as he stepped into Gudrun’s office. “He was sitting with Hilde, chatting.”

Gudrun smiled at him. “Kurt and Hilde?”

“They’re an odd couple,” Horst agreed. Hilde was aristocracy, insofar as the term had any meaning in the Reich; her father, like so many others, had agreed to continue to work for the provisional government. “But maybe they’ll be good for one another.”

He smiled. It would be the young, he was sure, who would take the greatest steps in overthrowing the old rules. Kurt and Hilde would never have been allowed to marry in the old world, even if he managed to get her pregnant. Her formidable mother would have destroyed Kurt, while the child would have been given away to an orphanage… if, of course, Hilde wasn’t given a thoroughly illegal abortion. But now, Kurt’s sister was a high-ranking government minister, his mother was involved in organising the women and the SS had been driven out of Germany Prime. Who cared what Kurt and Hilde did together?

“Maybe,” Gudrun said. She rose, putting her paperwork aside. “I believe you made me a promise.”

Horst gave her a long look. “You want me to teach you how to fight?”

“Yes,” Gudrun said. “There’s a shooting range in the basement, I notice.”

“Yes. Yes, there is,” Horst said. It was clear she wasn’t going to give up on the thought, even if they were sleeping together now. And how could he blame her? She was in grave danger at every moment. “Come on, then. We’ll draw some weapons from the armoury and shoot a few rounds at the targets.”

Gudrun gave him a tight hug. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

“It isn’t over,” Horst said. It was hard to think with her breasts pressed against his chest. “I don’t expect this peace to last for long.”

“No,” Gudrun agreed. “They’ll come for us. But we’ll be ready.”