Ragnarok

Chapter Twenty-Five

Berlin, Germany Prime

5 November 1985

It had been nearly thirty years, Volker recalled, since he’d set foot on the SS Training Centre at Kursk. He’d been part of an opposition force, teaching young SS recruits what they could expect when they put on the black uniforms and went to war. The base had been immense, graduating tens of thousands of stormtroopers every year. Wewelsburg Castle might still be the single most prestigious place for a stormtrooper to train, but Kursk might have overtaken it in a few years.

But now Kursk was gone.

Volker had debated endlessly, with himself and others, over the wisdom of using a atomic bomb of his own. And it had been his decision. Destroying Kursk was safer than blasting a whole city — or somewhere that was likely to cause problems for the Heer — but there was no way to know how Holliston would react. Would he accept the retaliation without demur or would he lash out himself, in response? The would-be Führer was becoming dangerously unpredictable.

He didn’t want to look at the photographs, but he forced himself to study them anyway. The first set showed the training base he remembered; barracks, training grounds and airfields designed to ensure that the prospective stormtroopers received the widest-possible education before they actually went to war. The second showed what was left, after the nuke had detonated: flattened buildings, ruined training grounds and burning aircraft. Volker had ordered an airburst, in the hopes of limiting fallout, but he knew it would still be a problem for the clean-up crews. But Holliston was not short of slave labourers who could be sent in to do the dirty work…

And we can’t get to the blast zone near Warsaw, he thought, grimly. They’re on their own.

He braced himself, then looked up at Ambassador Turtledove. The American looked older too, somehow, even though his country wasn’t officially involved in the war. But Volker knew that Karl Holliston had crossed a line when he’d deployed tactical nuclear weapons near Warsaw. If he’d been willing to unleash radioactive hell on his own people, why would he hesitate to fire on the United States? And there was no way to know if he could fire on the United States.

“My country would prefer that no more nuclear weapons were used,” Turtledove said.

Volker snorted. “My country would prefer the same,” he said, sarcastically. “How do you intend to convince Holliston not to use more nuclear weapons?”

He didn’t blame the Americans for being cautious. If the long-predicted American Civil War — their second civil war — had actually taken place, the Reich would have been careful too. But the Americans could afford to be dispassionate, to limit what help they offered to minimise their exposure. Volker — and every citizen in the Reich — had no such luxury, not with a man like Karl Holliston on the other side. It was fight or surrender. There was no middle ground.

“My analysts believe that Holliston will not risk a general exchange,” Turtledove said. He had the indefinable tone of a man who didn’t quite believe what he was saying. “They think he’ll understand the warning and back off.”

“I have never known him to back off,” Volker said.

He’d never spoken to Karl Holliston, but he’d studied the man’s career. Holliston had been almost disturbingly ambitious, even at a young age; he’d served as Himmler’s aide for nearly seven years, giving him plenty of time to learn where the skeletons were buried and considerable understanding of the use and abuse of power. He’d been making a long-term power play even before the Reich Council had collapsed; now, as self-appointed Führer, he had no choice but to keep pressing the offensive. He couldn’t afford to have his image called into question.

He nodded at the message that had been passed through Finland. The Finns had been trying hard to remain neutral as the Reich tore itself apart, not out of love for the Germans — Volker was sure — but the grim awareness that, if they backed the wrong side, the winner would take a terrible revenge. Holliston hadn’t pushed the issue, somewhat to Volker’s surprise. The Finns didn’t have nuclear weapons or modern aircraft, but they did have a formidable army and plenty of shipping they could use to attack Germany Prime.

“He wants us to surrender,” he said, tapping the note. “And we will not surrender.”

“No,” Ambassador Turtledove said. “But can you win the war?”

Volker snorted. Victory in the Battle of Warsaw — as it was already being called — would have bought him some time, but defeat — and such a catastrophic defeat — had been disastrous. It would take weeks, perhaps months, for the economy to recover… if it ever did. Too many people had fled their homes out of fear of radiation poisoning, not trusting the official government broadcasts that reassured them that they were perfectly safe. And Volker had to admit, privately, that he wouldn’t have trusted the official broadcasts either. The Reich Council had lied so often that its successor was rarely believed.

“Perhaps,” he said, finally.

He sighed as he turned to look at the map. There was no silver bullet, no way to win quickly; they had to march all the way to Germanica and remove Holliston from power. But he doubted Germany had the capability, any longer, to put together the force necessary to do that, even without nuclear weapons. With atomic bombs… Holliston might be quite safe in his fortress. He might even start thinking about pushing westwards again.

If we could be sure of dealing openly with him, he thought, we might try to come to terms.

Ambassador Turtledove cleared his throat. “My government is prepared to step up the aid program,” he said. “Will that make any difference?”

“I wish I knew,” Volker said. He’d been a stormtrooper — and a factory foreman — long enough to know that confessing weakness was a dangerous mistake, but he was too tired to care. “Even if you committed American troops to the war, you’d still have to get them to Germanica.”

“The President will not make that move,” Ambassador Turtledove told him.

“Of course not,” Volker agreed, dryly.

It was what he would have done, he suspected, if the positions were reversed. The risk of a madman like Holliston firing on America was not one to be taken lightly. No one really knew how good the American ABM system actually was or how it would fare in a genuine shooting war. And besides, it would take years for the Americans to build up the logistics they’d need to support troops in Eastern Europe. They couldn’t have positioned enough stockpiles in Britain to make it happen in a hurry.

He shrugged, as if it was meaningless. “What can you do?”

“We can send you more medicine and food supplies,” Ambassador Turtledove said. “But there are limits to what we can do. Certain… factions… within the voting populace insist on trying to get concessions out of you first.”

Volker sighed. Most of the intelligence networks within the United States had been run by the SS, but the Economic Intelligence Service had operated enough agents — overt and covert — for him to have a good idea of the ebb and flow of American politics. The Polish vote shouldn’t, logically, have been important, but there was an election coming and the President needed to appease them. And the Poles wanted their motherland back, a motherland that few of them had seen, a motherland that no longer existed…

“There’s something you should bear in mind,” he said, bluntly. “Would you rather deal with us — or Führer Holliston?”

“That’s not an argument that will appeal back home,” Ambassador Turtledove said.

“Then it should,” Volker said.

He understood the value of giving one’s populace as much freedom as possible. God knew he intended to ensure that the first elections to the Reichstag were as free and fair as he could make them. But there was something utterly absurd about allowing a tiny minority of people — most of whom were no longer truly part of that minority — to dictate foreign policy. What sort of idiot believed he could run a foreign policy based on wishful thinking? Poland was gone, as completely as the American civilisations that existed before Columbus… it was high time they accepted it and moved on.

And yet they cling to it, he thought. Do they really think they’ll be able to go home one day?

“We cannot launch a second offensive until late spring at the earliest,” he said, bluntly. “By then, our economy might have shattered completely. And if that happens, any further operations will be postponed indefinitely. I cannot run a war and deal with a starving desperate population, a population who may start to listen to Holliston’s claims.”

“I understand your problems,” Ambassador Turtledove said.

“Then I suggest you start considering the implications,” Volker said, flatly. “Because I am not going to destroy the Reich in order to save it.”

Ambassador Turtledove looked at him, sharply. “Are you planning to make peace?”

“I don’t know,” Volker said. “Right now, we cannot make peace with Karl Holliston. But if there was an alternative, we would have to take it.”

He looked back at the American. “Would Lincoln have fought the civil war to the bitter end if the survivors would wind up envying the dead?”

“I do not know,” Ambassador Turtledove said. “But I will do everything in my power to ensure that your government gets the aid and support it needs.”

Volker sighed, inwardly, as the American rose and left the office. The Americans were trying to help, he had to admit, but it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be enough. Even sending American troops to reinforce the front lines and spearhead the offensive wouldn’t be enough, not when Holliston had nuclear weapons and he was willing to use them. But Holliston couldn’t be trusted…

And if he thinks he’s lost, he thought, he might just try to take the entire world down with him.

“Make sure you keep taking your pills,” the nurse said. “If you get any symptoms at all, inform me at once.”

“Thank you, Fräulein,” Herman said.

His unit had been well away from the blasts, but they’d still been in danger. Thankfully, he’d had the wit to order them to take shelter as soon as it began to rain, yet getting back to the front lines had been a nightmare. Luckily, the soldiers at the rear had been ready for them; they’d been quarantined, given a list of symptoms to watch for and then ordered to remain in a tent and wait to see what happened. It hadn’t been pleasant — Herman had had to break up a couple of nasty fights — but they seemed to have missed the worst of the danger.

He opened the pill box he’d been given — neatly marked with the stars and stripes — and took one of the pills. They’d been assured that the pills did something to boost their immune systems against radiation, but Herman hadn’t understood the explanation. Medicine had never been his forte. He knew how to do some battlefield medicine and that was about it, even during his later career as a police officer. But the doctors and nurses seemed confident when they handed out the pills.

And it keeps us from feeling abandoned, he thought, as he swallowed the pill. The first one he’d taken had tasted foul; now, he just tried to get them down as quickly as possible. And wondering just what’s going to happen to us.

It wasn’t a reassuring thought. He’d seen men throwing up helplessly, others shaking with fever in the middle of a snowstorm. And they’d been closer to the blast… what would happen if the wind changed, blowing the radiation towards them? Or towards Berlin? He wished, suddenly, that he’d asserted himself enough to send his wife westwards. She’d always wanted to go to Paris and she would have been well out of the way of any nuclear cloud. But instead she was still in Berlin.

He shook his head, slowly. Adelinde was the mother of a member of the Provisional Government. She would have been in the bunker — and even if she hadn’t been in the bunker, she would have been taken to the bunker as soon as the warheads detonated. She’d be amongst the safest people in Berlin, with an escape tunnel she could use to get out of the city if it was turned into radioactive rubble. She would hate being carried out of the city, he knew, but at least she’d be alive.

But what, he asked himself, are we going to do?

He shook his head, again. He didn’t know. If the offensive had been pushed forward in line with tactical doctrine — and tactical doctrine hadn’t changed since he was a paratrooper — the blasts might have wiped out hundreds of panzers and thousands of soldiers. And thousands more would be injured, sick or dying from radiation poisoning. Calling the offensive off had really been nothing more than a formality. Everyone had known that it was doomed to failure after the nuclear blasts…

…And now the snows were falling to the east.

He shuddered, bitterly. He’d heard plenty of horror stories about fighting in the ice and snow, legends from the days Germany had invaded Russia and crushed the Communists in a series of savage battles. Could the offensive be resumed before spring? He doubted it. And could the Reich hold together long enough to resume the offensive?

Herman cursed under his breath. He might never know.

The tent was crammed with the dead or dying.

Field Marshal Gunter Voss gritted his teeth as he took in the horrific sight. The Heer had worked hard to care for battlefield wounded, but there were so many injured after the nukes that the system had broken down completely. Dead bodies occupied beds while men, their faces blackened and burnt, lay on the hard earthen floor, struggling desperately to keep breathing. The handful of doctors and nurses — and a number of volunteers from Berlin — were completely overwhelmed, running from bed to bed in hopes of finding someone they could help before it was too late.

He cursed as he heard a man calling for his mother; no, several men calling for their mothers, as if they knew — on some level — that they were about to die. It wasn’t uncommon, he knew from bitter experience, but he had never grown used to it. Dying men should be allowed to retain some of their dignity, not lose everything in a desperate cry for help that would never come. A young nurse, tears running down her face, tended to a man who couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than her, his eyes hidden behind a makeshift cloth wrap. He would have been blinded, perhaps, simply by being unlucky enough to be looking in the wrong direction when one of the weapons detonated. There was nothing anyone could do for him, Gunter knew. Even before the civil war, the blind had quietly been encouraged to go into isolated nursing homes, their ties with their families broken before they were moved to the camps and killed. Now…

I’m sorry, he thought.

It would take weeks, perhaps, to impose order on the chaos, weeks they didn’t have. He’d been told that the enemy were in just as bad a state; he hoped — prayed — that that was actually true. His forces were in no condition to resist an offensive, even though they’d hastily re-manned the defences around Berlin and summoned reinforcements from further west. If the enemy did manage to mount an attack there would be a bloody slaughter.

He didn’t want to spend any time in the tent, but he forced himself to move from bed to bed, saying a few words to each of the wounded men. It was a duty, he’d learned during his training, that senior officers had to assume… but no one, not even in the worst stages of the South African War, had had to visit so many wounded. There hadn’t been casualty figures so high since the Second World War, when battles had gone on for days or weeks on end. Now… he didn’t even know how many men were dead. The figure kept rising all the time, mocking his dreams of ending the war quickly and cleanly. God alone knew when — or ever — they would be able to resume the offensive.

A nurse gave him a nasty look as he promised a young man he’d get better, knowing it was a lie. Even the best medical treatment in the Reich wouldn’t be able to repair his body or replace his missing legs. Gunter felt a stab of guilt as he took the hint and walked out of the tent, catching sight of a crying nurse being comforted by an older woman. He didn’t really blame her for breaking down. No one had really expected so many casualties in one battle.

And what are we going to do, he asked himself, when the supplies run out?

He knew the answer, even though he didn’t want to admit it. Supplies had to be reserved for the lightly wounded, the ones most likely to recover. It was logical, but it was cold and harsh and thoroughly unpleasant. And who knew if some of the wounded would have a chance, if they received proper care? But there was no time to give them proper care.

His fingers touched the pistol at his belt. It was tempting, so very tempting…

…But he knew his duty. He couldn’t give up, not now. But, in all honesty, he didn’t know what else they could do.