Final Impact (26 page)

It wasn’t surprising that Churchill saw things in slightly starker terms than the Americans. His little island was probably about to become the front line again. And of course, if the Soviets took Japan, with China falling to Mao, the only powers that mattered in postwar Asia would line up with the Politburo.

He exhaled slowly as Roosevelt spoke again.

“Gentlemen, as I said, this is a political decision, but Mr. Churchill and I now need your advice on prosecuting a war against the Red Army, if that should become necessary. I believe General Marshall has something to say.”

Kolhammer drummed his fingers lightly on the desktop, his frustration barely in check.

What about the nukes,
he thought.

“Do hop in, General. I’ll give you a lift.”

Eisenhower felt the prime minister’s hand on the small of his back, propelling him gently toward the armored Bentley. He nodded back at his driver to follow them. It was well after midnight in London, with the “dimout” in effect for only the second week. It had proven to be a grave disappointment for the people of London, who had long dreamed of turning their lights on again after five years of blackout conditions. The weak guttering light from a few lonely street lamps merely reinforced how badly the city had fared during the long war. Eisenhower had spent very little time back in the United States since taking over as the supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe, but each time he came back to England with the impression that he was traveling into a dark age. The comparison with Los Angeles, and the Zone in particular, was especially stark. No blackout was enforced in the San Fernando, where it seemed a whole city had been brought into the world, a fantastic landscape of light and glass that apparently never slept. Privately, he thought it was telling that England seemed little changed by the Transition, whereas America was awash in new fashions and technologies.

“So, General,” Churchill said as they settled into the seats. “What did you make of all that?”

It had begun to drizzle outside, and Eisenhower brushed a few droplets of moisture from his overcoat before answering.

“Well, Mr. Prime Minister, like you I guess I’m a bit pessimistic about it all. I don’t see this Russian business ending well.”

“Of course not,” grunted Churchill as the car lurched into motion. The headlights were unhooded now, and twin beams shone forth brilliantly, illuminating the gray scenery through a curtain of light, drifting rain. “I worry that we are in more danger now than we faced after Dunkirk. This is a small island, and just a few atomic bombs would be more than enough to see her utterly destroyed.”

“I don’t think it will come to that,” said Eisenhower, trying for a steady, reassuring tone, even though he felt far from happy. “I think the Russians would understand an atomic attack on London would be met with an overwhelming response.”

Churchill, who seemed a lot older these last few weeks, shrugged. “And so we destroy Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev or what’s left of it…and then what. London is gone. And maybe Liverpool or Manchester. Perhaps Paris, too. And I can’t imagine Berlin lasting more than another week, or however long it takes Uncle Joe to build another of these infernal devices.”

The car ran past a huge bomb site, a couple of acres of old rubble and tumbledown buildings. Trash blew around in the ruins, and it took very little for Eisenhower to imagine the whole city reduced to the same state.

“I think we may have to look at plans for evacuating the population,” said Churchill. “There’ll be no fighting the enemy on the beaches if the beaches have burned to glass.”

D-DAY + 36. 8 JUNE 1944. 1322 HOURS.
BERLIN.

“I am sorry,
Mein Führer.
So sorry,” the SS leader whispered as he placed the heavy pillow on the gray, lifeless face of Adolf Hitler. He wasn’t dead yet, even though he looked it. But the doctors said that was simply a function of the stroke, which had obliterated the part of his brain controlling the multitude of tiny muscles that gave form to a man’s features, even when he was asleep. Now there was just slackness, and a terrible vacancy where once one of the great minds of human history had animated this expression. The
Reichsführer
trembled to his very core at the magnitude of the crime he was about to commit. But as a true national socialist, he also understood that sometimes it was necessary to kill for the greater good. And the white light that had bloomed over Lodz only threw that into starker relief.

“I am sorry,” Himmler whispered again as he pressed down on the cushion. He thought he felt some resistance, a weak pushing back, and perhaps he heard a muffled whimper, too. One of the führer’s legs twitched on the rough camp bed, and he worried that the cot might collapse beneath them. That would somehow have made it all the worse.

One unshod foot thumped against the sweating brick wall with a sick, soft thudding, and he felt a limp hand batting obscenely at his groin, but still he pressed on. It was for the good of the Fatherland, and for the good of the führer himself. The doctors had assured the
Reichsführer
that there was no chance their beloved leader would recover. His mind was most definitely gone, and Himmler knew that under such circumstances Adolf Hitler would not want to be maintained as a living vegetable.

Reich policies on these matters were quite clear. The T4 program applied in this case, as in all others.

Himmler’s vision swirled as he bore down with all his weight. The air in the tiny underground room was hot and stale. It had probably been breathed over and over again. He told himself that the feeble, thrashing form beneath him was not the man he had followed for so long. That man was gone, and had been for days, a victim of this war as surely as any front-line combatant. All that was left of him was this husk, lying on an army cot.

The struggle, such as it was, began to taper off. Gradually, terribly, life ceased. Himmler endured one last weak surge of resistance before he felt the body sag beneath him. It was done.

Hoping for numbness, he instead felt a powerful boiling of conflicted sensation: horror at what he had done, torment at the unknown consequences, relief that he would no longer have to fear exposure concerning his last days in the Other Time. He slumped to the cold concrete floor beside Hitler’s body. Breathing heavily, his heart pounding, he turned his head and stared at his surroundings, wondering how so momentous an event could transpire in such a dingy setting. The malarial yellow brickwork. The sagging cot. The chipped ceramic jug into which Himmler had dipped a handkerchief an hour earlier, moistening one corner to dab against the führer’s dry, cracked lips.

It was an ignominious end.

There was a furtive tapping at the door.
“Herr Reichsführer?”

Himmler removed the pillow. His dead leader’s eyeballs had bulged obscenely in their sockets, and he shuddered at the confronting image. Brushing them closed with one hand, he called out. “Enter.”

Colonel Skorzeny pushed open the heavy metal door with a screeching of poorly oiled hinges. Himmler came up off the floor slowly and awkwardly. His knees hurt, and he had suffered from a stiff and painful back for a couple of weeks. It was all this cramped underground living.

“He is gone,” the SS leader said to the newcomer. “He passed away peacefully, without regaining consciousness. We are all alone now.”

Skorzeny nodded, staring at the body. Whatever he thought of the situation, it remained hidden behind a heavily scarred face on which nothing seemed to move until he spoke.

“The men are in place.”

“Have someone see to the burial detail. It will not be possible to provide full honors because of the bombing, but we must mark this tragedy with all appropriate ceremony. And tell Göbbels to finish his statement for the radio. I will speak to the general staff now.”

Skorzeny clicked his heels and nodded, snapping his fingers and calling a couple of storm troopers into the room. Their shocked expressions registered the awful truth when they saw Hitler’s corpse on the bed. Himmler admonished them to treat the führer’s remains with due respect.

Then, fitting his hat firmly down over his head, he gathered himself and marched out of the room. His bodyguards fell in beside him as he turned into the passage where naked electric bulbs hung at ten-meter intervals and exposed wiring and pipes ran along the ceiling. A detachment of twelve more
SS Sonderaktiontruppen
waited for him at the end of the corridor. They all wore field uniforms and carried submachine guns. Their commander ripped out a salute as Himmler approached, barking at his men to fall in behind their new führer. The crashing of their hobnailed boots sounded incredibly loud in the confined space as they set off after him.

The main operations room was on the next level down. As they approached, officers from all three armed services scrambled to get out of the way. Himmler could see that the two Wehrmacht guards at the entrance to the room had been replaced by his own men. He swept past them, flicking an acknowledgment of their salute back over his shoulder. The atmosphere was already subdued when he entered. SS men had discreetly taken up positions around the room. The assembled generals and admirals hovered over the battle-realm display, where hundreds of little wooden blocks and flags brought imagined order to the chaos of the Western Front.

Himmler pulled up at the edge of the giant map table.

“I am afraid the führer has passed away,” he announced solemnly. A few of the women who were present cried out.

“He drew his last breath at thirteen twenty-nine hours. He regained consciousness for a few minutes before the end, and exhorted us all to do our utmost in the defense of the Reich. To that end, and in line with his final wishes, I have assumed the office of chancellor and supreme commander of the armed forces.”

He paused, just briefly, in case somebody should wish to chance their luck against him, but the entire room was cowed. Whether it was due to his armed escort or simply by the magnitude of the disaster they faced, he could not tell. It was of no consequence.

All that mattered was decisive action to save his people and their civilization from the peril of Bolshevism. Himmler knew that every soul in this room cried out for strong leadership. It was vital that he provide it, and quickly.

“General Zeitzler,” he said, turning his gaze on the army chief of staff. “How stand the armies in the west?”

Zeitzler was holding a single sheaf of paper, and he gave the impression of trying to hide behind it when he replied.

“The Northern Front is in collapse…
Mein Führer,
” he replied, somewhat weakly. “Patton’s Third Army threatens to break through our final line of resistance. Army Group South is attempting to disengage, but…it is difficult. The führer…the late führer…his instructions to hold France…”

Himmler put an end to the excruciating performance with a wave of his hand. He spoke in a reasonable tone, attempting to soothe everyone with the equanimity of his reaction. Having been on the receiving end of Hitler’s ungovernable fury more than once, he knew only too well what a double-edged sword it could be. Terror was a marvelous inducement to perform one’s duties well, but it also clouded judgment and made it less likely that a leader would hear what he needed to hear, rather than simply being told whatever might avert another episode of explosive rage.

“The führer did not know of the Bolshevik atomic threat,” he said, sounding more regretful than anything. “If he had, he would have recognized it for the mortal danger it is.”

There was still a great strain in the drawn faces and stiff postures of the men who stood facing him. But as Himmler spoke with—he hoped—great forbearance and composure, some of the more palpable tension began to ease.

“I am afraid the foreign minister had no good news to offer me when I spoke to him an hour ago. The British and Americans have very foolishly rejected our offer to establish a common front against Stalin. If we should fall, they will come to regret that decision. I believe that the very future of civilization will be decided in the next few days. The democracies are corrupt and hopelessly flawed, but beyond certain political matters they are not entirely alien. We share histories and enjoy many cultural meeting points with them. We are Aryan societies, after all.”

A few heads nodded here and there.

His SS troops never once relented in their machinelike surveillance of the room, but he felt as if everyone was beginning to relax, ever so slightly, despite the menacing presence of the guards and the press of events. The
Reichsführer-SS
—no, the führer—removed his hat and placed it on the map table in a consciously theatrical gesture. He sketched a thin smile.

“It has never been my way to downplay our setbacks, or to attempt to make more of good news than it deserves—to gild the lily, as the English say.”

Another smile. A noticeable relaxation in Zeitzler and the other army staffers.

“There is no point in looking to our own atomic program for salvation. I can tell you now that we are nowhere near close enough to testing a device in the hope that we might use it against the Bolsheviks.”

He registered the shock and disappointment on all of the faces, except those of his own men, who remained impressively stone-faced.

“However, we are not entirely defenseless. The Reich Ministry of Advanced Armaments Research isn’t the
only
body to have had responsibility for developing the Emergence technologies. Given the exposure of so many traitors within our midst, the late führer and I judged it prudent to quarantine some of the research efforts, keeping them solely within the control of the SS.”

Radio receivers crackled in the background, relaying desperate messages from front-line units. Himmler was distantly aware of an air raid somewhere above them, perhaps miles away. It was more an intimation of destruction than anything, a faint rumbling and the slightest of vibrations felt through the soles of his feet.

“We have worked very closely with the Japanese on a few small but now vitally important programs. We do not yet have an atomic warhead capable of battlefield delivery, but we have other weapons, powerful in their own way. General Zeitzler,” he said, taking an envelope from his jacket and passing it over to the stunned Wehrmacht officer, “you will coordinate the release of these stocks to our forces on the Eastern Front. Specialist Waffen-SS units will be responsible for deploying the weapons. Your men will need to be inoculated beforehand. Rest assured, they will be perfectly safe. The necessary supplies have been pre-positioned for the most expedient dispatch.”