Ragnarok

Chapter Twenty-One

Front Lines, Germany Prime

4 November 1985

The suit — American-designed, of course — was hot, heavy and thoroughly uncomfortable, but Volker knew better than to take it off. His Geiger counter was ticking menacingly, warning him that there was a dangerous level of radiation in the air. The American technicians who had helped him and his staff to assemble the suit had warned him not to stay in the danger zone for too long, but Volker had largely ignored them. He owed it to his conscience to take some risks.

He’d seen horror. He’d thought he’d seen horror. But this was worse than anything he’d ever seen, even in his worst imaginations. The landscape had been utterly devastated; countless trees burned to ash, the remnants of humanity’s presence utterly swept away by the blast. He turned slowly, feeling his skin crawl as the counter ticked louder. The winds were blowing to the south, thankfully, but he could still feel the radiation touching his skin, no matter how hard he tried to tell himself that he was imagining it. He knew he was imagining it…

…But he didn’t believe it.

A lone panzer was positioned nearby, two more lying on their sides; the blast had picked them up and tossed them over as casually as a man might pick up and toss a pebble. He’d been warned not to go near them, even though they were probably salvageable. The vehicles themselves had survived, but their armour would have trapped the radiation and ensured that the crews died quickly. Or something. He wasn’t sure he understood the explanation, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he didn’t go near the vehicles.

He turned, peering east. Flames and smoke were rising up from the direction of Warsaw, reminding him that an entire city had been far too close to the blasts. The flash of superheated air had set fire to everything flammable, according to the recon flights; everyone caught in the open had been burned, blinded or simply killed by the blast wave. And then there was the fallout… Warsaw might survive, once the flames burned themselves out, but countless innocent civilians were doomed to long lingering deaths. It was no surprise that utter anarchy had gripped the city.

Holliston was willing to sacrifice Warsaw just to stop our offensive, Volker thought. He was too tired to feel anything beyond numb horror. Why didn’t we see it coming?

But he already knew the answer. Using the atomic bomb on German soil — so close to so many cities — was horrific beyond words. No one had imagined, even in their darkest nightmares, that Karl Holliston would unleash nuclear fire on pureblood Germans. But he had… and now thousands of soldiers were dead, with thousands more dying slowly from blast wounds and radiation poisoning. The Americans and British had already started shipping in medical supplies, but it was pathetically inadequate to cope with the sheer scale of the problem. He didn’t even want to imagine how many people would die in the next few weeks.

We knew he was a monster, he thought, as he turned and walked back towards the armoured vehicle waiting for him. But we didn’t realise just how much of a monster he was.

The doors opened as he approached, readying the decontamination procedure. Volker stepped inside, closing his eyes instinctively as water washed down and over the protective suit. He’d been assured that the whole process was safe, that it offered the greatest chance of avoiding contamination, but part of him found it hard to accept. A handful of irradiated dust could cause all sorts of problems if he took it back to Berlin.

He stepped into the next compartment as the vehicle lurched to life. He’d practiced several times before heading out to the blast zone; he removed the suit and his undergarments, then stepped into the third compartment and straight into the shower. Warm water splashed down, washing his naked body clear of any contamination. An orderly met him outside the shower and passed him a bathrobe, then led him into the driving compartment. The vehicle itself would have to be decontaminated before the crew — and Volker — could disembark.

And then I have to go straight back to Berlin, he told himself, firmly. There’s no time to waste here.

The roads were jammed, he discovered, as he climbed into the official car and started the journey back home. Countless ambulances and buses had been pressed into service, rushing wounded men back from the front lines. Volker had seen some of the wounded and, despite himself, knew he never wanted to see such sights again. Far too many of the injured men were beyond all help, no matter what medicine arrived from America. He’d nearly punched the doctor who had suggested it would be better if the wounded were simply given mercy kills, even though cold logic insisted the swinehund had a point. There was nothing his government could do to save their lives.

And I’m the one who gave the orders that sent them back to the war, Volker thought. But what choice did I have?

He closed his eyes in bitter pain. Everything he’d done had seemed so logical, so right. And yet, countless men were now dead — or worse than dead — because they’d followed his orders and gone to war. He’d never imagined that Holliston would use nuclear weapons on his fellow Germans, let alone contaminate German land for years.

He’s mad, Volker thought. And we have to stop him.

Berlin was practically a ghost town, he noted, as the vehicle drove through the barricades and into the city. The streets were empty, save for a handful of men wearing protective gear and carrying Geiger counters. Even the prostitutes were following orders and staying indoors, even though it would cost them money. But they had no choice. The level of radiation in Berlin had risen sharply in the last day, while the wind might shift at any moment, blowing radioactive fallout towards the city. Keeping the population indoors while the worst of the contamination faded away was the only way to keep them alive.

And it might not be enough, Volker thought. We’ll be dealing with the consequences for generations to come.

He passed through the security barriers outside the Reichstag, then walked down to the bunker. If Holliston was mad enough to use those horrific weapons, he might decide to destroy Berlin as a show of power. And what would happen then?

We’ll have to fire back, he thought, as he stepped into the briefing room. And then he’ll launch another bomb… and another…

He’d glanced at a handful of nuclear war simulations, back when he’d found himself Chancellor. They hadn’t seemed important at the time, not with a brewing civil war and a hundred smaller problems that had to be addressed. But the briefing papers hadn’t made pleasant reading. Some of them had asserted that there would be a single savage nuclear exchange between the Reich and the North Atlantic Alliance, others that two or three missiles would fly at a time and that the agony would be prolonged indefinitely.

“Be seated,” he said, grimly. “Do we have an updated report?”

“Over five thousand men confirmed dead or missing, believed dead,” Luther Stresemann said. The Head of the Economic Intelligence Service sounded stunned, as if he didn’t quite believe his own words. “Approximately ten thousand soldiers and civilians badly wounded — so far. The count is nowhere near complete.”

“And vast amounts of direct and indirect economic damage,” Hans Krueger added. “I…”

“To hell with the economy,” Voss snapped. “We have worse problems at hand!”

Volker tapped the table. He doubted that any of them had slept in the last day or two, not after the offensive had begun. Now… they were all short-tempered, wanting to fight each other rather than calming down and deciding what to do coldly and rationally. But what could they do?

“The situation is dire,” he said. “It may take us weeks to come to grips with it…”

“The situation is disastrous,” Voss corrected. “Herr Chancellor, there is no hope of resuming the offensive before spring.”

“And if that’s the case,” Volker said, “we may have no hope of resuming the offensive at all.”

“Yes, Herr Chancellor,” Krueger said. “The impact of those nuclear detonations might have been enough to tip our economy right over the edge. Workers have stayed home over the last twenty-four hours, even outside the red zone. I’d say we’ll be looking at complete collapse within the next few weeks.”

Volker met his eyes. “And then… what?”

Krueger stared back at him. “There will be a cascade of failures as factories and other industrial plants shut down, each closure starting the next closure,” he said. “Workers will be dismissed, placing more pressure on our social security networks at the worst possible time; money will run short, making it impossible to convince farmers to ship food into the cities as we won’t be able to pay them. We can paper over the cracks for a while, Herr Chancellor, but I doubt we can make it last until spring.”

He swallowed hard. “It will be just like 1919 and 1932,” he added. “Only a great deal worse.”

Volker rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t old enough to remember the Great Depression, but he’d heard the stories of deprivation… and how the Volk, desperate for a saviour, had turned to Adolf Hitler. How long would the Provisional Government last if another Hitler arose on the streets and demanded power? And what could he do to stop it?

“That’s a long-term problem,” Voss said. “Right now, we have to retaliate.”

Krueger coughed. “You would sentence countless Germans to death?”

“Right now, Holliston thinks he’s scared us,” Voss snapped. “He thinks we’re too scared of his nuclear arsenal to resume the offensive.”

“We are too scared of his arsenal,” Admiral Wilhelm Riess said, dryly.

“It will not be long before he gets the impression he can simply use those weapons to force us into submission,” Voss insisted. “We have to strike back, hard. Pick a target and annihilate it!”

“And what happens,” Krueger asked, “when he blasts another target in response? Do we blast a second target in Germany East?”

“If necessary,” Voss said. “He doesn’t have the power to devastate Germany Prime.”

“He does have the power to fire on America,” Volker said.

“If he’s managed to get the ballistic missiles unlocked,” Voss said.

“I think we’ve just seen proof that he has managed to unlock and detonate some of the tactical devices,” Riess said. “We cannot take the risk of assuming he can’t fire the ballistic missiles.”

“This is madness,” Krueger said. “If we strike a military target, we make matters harder for us; if we strike a civilian target, we butcher thousands of our own people.”

“And if we don’t,” Voss said, his voice rising sharply, “Holliston will butcher more of our people.”

“They are all our people,” Krueger said. “Field Marshal…”

“Enough,” Volker snapped. He slapped the table, loudly. “Is there any other way to deter Karl Holliston from unleashing more of his tactical nuclear weapons?”

“We could try to come to terms with him,” Riess suggested. “He can have Germany East, as long as the Easterners are prepared to put up with him…”

“And then we see him launching another invasion in the spring,” Voss said.

“I would be surprised if he could,” Krueger mused. “Replacing all of the lost or damaged pieces of war materiel will take years.”

“You don’t know that,” Voss said.

Volker held up a hand before the argument could get out of hand again. “Let me pose a question,” he said. “Can we resume the offensive before spring?”

“No, Herr Chancellor,” Voss said. “We lost too many men and machines in the blasts. I think the best we can hope for is some raiding of enemy lines — and now that winter is approaching rapidly, even that will have to be curtailed. The offensive will have to be delayed until spring.”

“And it may not be possible even then,” Krueger put in.

Volker barely heard him. He’d hoped for a quick victory, despite the certain knowledge that his government would pay a hellish price for it. But Holliston had trumped him, using nuclear weapons to ensure that the war couldn’t be won quickly — if at all. He was fairly sure that Holliston couldn’t devastate Germany Prime — most of the SS’s cruise missiles had been fired during the invasion of Germany Prime — but the price would still be horrendous. Could Germany East be invaded without so much death and devastation that the victory wouldn’t be worth the candle?

And if I irradiate a military target in my path, he thought, I’ll simply make life harder for my own men.

He didn’t like the idea of using atom bombs. Voss was right, Holliston had to be deterred; Krueger was right, Holliston might just launch a third nuclear device in response. And who knew what would happen then? The tit-for-tat missile exchanges predicted by the briefing notes depended on the commanders on both sides being fundamentally rational. What happened when one or both of the commanders was not rational?

And how many Germans am I prepared to kill, he asked himself, in what might be a vain attempt to deter a madman?

There was always the Germanica Option, he admitted silently. It wouldn’t be that hard to get a nuclear warhead to Germanica, to destroy the city. And it might destroy Holliston’s Government too.

And who knows, he mused, what will happen then?

He had no answer. Holliston wasn’t the type of person to appoint a successor, not when his successor might be ambitious enough to stick a knife in Holliston’s back. It was possible that Germany East would come apart, but also possible that someone more rational would take control… or that the remaining weapons would be launched in one final spasm of violence before the Reich disintegrated. There were too many variables for him to take the risk.

And there’s no guarantee of killing Holliston, he thought. The bastard might survive long enough to order a full-scale nuclear strike.

He cleared his throat. “Find a target — a military target — somewhere within Germany East,” he said, slowly. “Make sure it’s somewhere that won’t cause us problems, when — if — we resume the offensive. That target will be destroyed with one of our atomic bombs.”

“I must protest,” Krueger said, stiffly.

“I understand,” Volker said. “But we cannot allow Holliston to believe that we will just bend over for him.”

“There’s a large SS training centre,” Voss mused. “It might make an ideal target.”

“Or the docks near Valhalla,” Grossadmiral Cajus Bekker offered. “They’d be close enough to Germanica for the civilians to see the flash.”

Volker shook his head. He understood Bekker’s concerns — the SS controlled the docks near Valhalla, at the eastern edge of the Gulf of Finland, and it had captured a number of warships during the chaotic early days of the uprising — but the target was too close to Valhalla. The city would be devastated by the blast, even if it wasn’t targeted directly. No, better to target a training centre. If nothing else, it might show everyone else in Germany East just how far matters had gone downhill.

“The training centre will do,” he said, shaking his head slowly. A year ago, he had never even imagined that he would be making such decisions. And now, part of him had quietly accepted the deed and moved on. “Prepare the weapon and the delivery system.”

“Jawohl,” Voss said.

Volker looked from face to face. They all looked tired, tired and worn. He didn’t really blame them, either. They all bore some responsibility for the nuclear holocaust, even if it had been Karl Holliston who’d pushed the trigger. And they all knew that they were helpless to put an end to the war.

Horst is still on his way east, Volker thought. Maybe he can find allies in the east.

He pushed the thought aside and leaned forward. “We’ll continue to repair our defences, raid their positions and generally make their lives miserable,” he said. “And we will do our best to ensure that the wounded are well treated.”

“We can’t,” Krueger said, flatly. “Our health system was on the brink for years. It was breaking down even before this catastrophe.”

“We will try,” Volker said. He was not going to order the mass execution of countless soldiers, even if it would be a mercy kill. “We owe it to men who fought for us.”

Krueger met his eyes. “At what cost?”

“Whatever we have to pay,” Volker snarled. The surge of anger surprised him. If Konrad had lived, would his son now be dying of radiation poisoning? No, the uprising would never have taken place. But what would have happened instead? “We owe them.”

He caught himself. “And I want everyone in this room to get some sleep,” he added, knowing it wouldn’t be easy. He was tempted to uncork the bottle of wine in his quarters and have a stiff drink before he went to bed. His wife would have a fit, but he found it hard to care. “We are not in any fit state to face the world.”

Sitting back, he watched as his cabinet slowly left the room. None of them looked happy; Voss was shooting nasty looks at Krueger’s back, while Krueger himself was mulling over the costs of coping with the nuclear blasts and rebuilding the economy. Even if the war came to an end tomorrow, it wouldn’t be easy. The Reich was very short of hard cash. Volker knew — all too well — that there would be many hard years to come.

And it doesn’t matter, he thought, numbly. I’ve just sentenced hundreds of men to death.