Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1) (10 page)

“Yes
, Herr Reichsführer
,” Maria said.  There was a long pause as she put the request through the secure computer network.  “Voss’s aide says he can make it to the castle within four hours, once he’s finished his inspection tour.”

“That will be suitable,” Karl assured her.  “Please let me know when he arrives.”

He wondered, as he ordered dinner, if Voss was genuinely occupied or probing to see how important the matter was, but decided it wasn't worth trying to find out.  Ordering Voss to the castle would make the Field Marshal dig in his heels - Field Marshals didn't like being ordered around as though they were new recruits - and probably alert the civilians that Karl was trying to make a private arrangement with the military.  Kruger, to give the bastard his due, had his own network of spies and agents within both the military and the SS.  But he didn't understand, he
couldn't
understand, the triumph of the will.

Our economy was poor when the Yankees blew up the global economy
, Karl thought.  He hadn't lived through those times, but his parents had.  No wonder they’d wanted a farm, even if it exposed them to constant insurgent attacks.  They’d wanted something solid under their feet. 
And we still managed to create an empire greater than Alexander’s
.

It was nearly five hours before Field Marshal Gunter Voss was shown into the office.  Karl rose to his feet, carefully pasting a civil expression on his face.  The military, for all its skill and dedication, wasn’t as devoted to the will as the SS, but it had to be respected for the moment.  Afterwards, when Karl held supreme power, it would be different.  The military would be folded into the SS and its senior leadership removed from power.  It might have been forty years since Rommel had allowed the Jews to escape Palestine, but the SS had never forgotten, let alone forgiven.

Pity Rommel died before the Fuhrer
, he thought, as he shook hands with Voss. 
Himmler would have given him a thoroughly unpleasant death.

“
Herr Reichsführer
,” Voss said, once they had exchanged pleasantries.  “I confess I was quite curious to see the castle.  I’ve heard so much about it.”

“I’m afraid we don’t sacrifice virgins here,” Karl said.  He smiled, as if to say that all such rumours were thoroughly absurd.  “Nor do we bleed our men white so they are bound to us in death as well as life.”

“How disappointing,” Voss said.  He sat on a chair and leaned forward.  “I’m due to inspect the fortifications at Dunkirk tomorrow,
Herr Reichsführer,
so I really don’t have much time.  Can we get to the point?”

“Of course,” Karl said.  He disliked small talk too.  Thankfully, it wasn't one of the qualifications for his post.  “I want your support for deploying additional forces to South Africa.”

“Chancy,” Voss observed.  “The logistics are going to be a pain in the ass.  Any day now, the Yankees are going to start sending more advanced MANPAD weapons to South Africa, weapons capable of hitting our transport aircraft in flight.  And once we start losing those aircraft in significant numbers... well, we might as well admit that the war is on the verge of being lost along with them.”

“The
Luftwaffe
will certainly be horrified at the thought of having the paint on their aircraft scratched,” Karl agreed, tightly.

“Scratched isn't the problem,” Voss said, simply.  “The problem is losing aircraft we cannot easily replace.  And the road network from French North Africa to South Africa is pathetic.”

Karl nodded, slowly.  Millions of coolies had been pressed into working on a road and rail network to link the disparate sections of Africa together, but it was slow going.  The blacks were rebellious and the French, he suspected, were deliberately delaying, fearing - perhaps - that they would lose the last vestiges of their independence once the road network was up and running.  Besides, the South Africans had already lost hundreds of vehicles to IED attacks on their roads.  The problem would merely spread through the rest of Africa.

Voss smiled, rather coldly.  “What are you prepared to offer in exchange?”

“You’re engaged in a long duel with the
Luftwaffe
over who controls the close-air support aircraft,” Karl said.  It wasn't a problem the SS faced, not when the
Waffen-SS
had its own fleet of CAS aircraft.  “I would be prepared to throw my support behind you.”

He watched Voss carefully, wondering just what the Field Marshal was thinking.  The
Heer
wanted its own CAS fleet desperately, knowing that the
Luftwaffe
preferred to spend money on heavy bombers and fancy jet fighters rather than aircraft that might actually be
useful
in South Africa.  And yet, Goring’s will still cast a long shadow over the service he’d built up from scratch.  It had taken years of political infighting for the
Kriegsmarine
to get control over the aircraft it flew from its aircraft carriers...

Not, in the end, that the carriers ended up going very far from the Reich
, he thought.  There was nowhere for them to go, unless they wanted to run the gauntlet of British and American missiles.  After what had happened to Norway, few countries would cheerfully accept a German ship paying a port call. 
Sending the fleet to South Africa would be asking for trouble
.

He frowned at the thought.  Might the navy actually do something
useful
and ship troops south?  The rebels couldn't harm the fleet and the Americans were unlikely to start a war by attacking German ships... unless they thought they could win.  Karl knew he would have started the war in an instant if
he
thought he could win outright and he assumed the Americans had the same attitude.  What else could explain the steady pressure they kept on the
Reich
?

“That’s a very tempting offer,
Herr Reichsführer
,” Voss said, finally.  “Of course, this may put the
Luftwaffe
in the opposite camp.”

“Which would put the
Kriegsmarine
in ours,” Karl observed.  The navy would hardly be likely to concede anything to the
Luftwaffe
.  Give the flyboys an inch and they would take a mile.  “We can hold them at bay.”

“Let us hope so,
Herr Reichsführer
,” Voss said.  “But the logistics are still a major headache.”

“We can ship troops south,” Karl said, and explained his reasoning.  “The rebels will find it harder to interrupt
those
supply lines.”

Chapter Nine

Albert Speer University, Berlin

23 July 1985

“I checked with a number of people I know,” Gudrun said, once the room was locked and the bug was listening to bad American music.  “Konrad’s father is still unaware that his son is anywhere other than South Africa, while four other families have not heard anything from their children, even censored letters, for the last couple of months.  Three of their children had a habit of writing at least once a week before suddenly going silent.”

She took a breath.  The fourth... she’d had to screw up all her courage to visit, for she’d known the father by reputation and nothing she’d heard had been good.  His wife had left him shortly after the children had reached adulthood, which proved he’d treated her badly; the
Reich
wouldn't look too kindly on a wife who abandoned her husband, denying her both a divorce and the right to remarry.  Two minutes of standing on his doorstep, feeling his eyes leaving trails of slime across her breasts, had convinced her that the bastard’s son had every reason not to write to his father.  There was no way to know if he was dead or alive.

I should have taken Kurt
, she thought, although that would have been far too revealing. 
He would have asked too many questions
.

“That’s what I found anyway,” she said.  “What about the rest of you?”

“I checked with my maternal auntie,” Sven said.  “She told me that her eldest son has gone silent too, although his letters are always irregular.  My paternal grandfather, however, said he’d received a heavily-censored letter from his middle son only last week.  It wasn't very detailed, but it was
something
.”

Gudrun listened, quietly, as the remaining students offered their own observations.  If they’d had doubts, she realised, they’d lost them.  Too many of their military relatives had gone silent at once.  Even the ones who rarely wrote home had gone completely silent.  It chilled her to the bone when she considered the implications.  Statistically, for a group of eight students to know over thirty soldiers who’d stopped writing to their families, the casualty rates had to be terrifyingly high.

“I came across something else,” Horst said, once everyone else had finished.  “My second cousin is married to a soldier on deployment. 
She
got a letter from him asking after a friend who’d been wounded and sent home.  So she checked with the guy’s wife - she knew the lady personally - and the wife didn't know anything about it.  The poor woman went to ask questions and then... nothing.”

Gudrun blinked.  “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing,” Horst confirmed.  “Someone told her to keep her mouth shut or else.”

Hilde leaned forward, her face pale.  “How can you be sure?”

“I can't think of any other explanation,” Horst said.  “They could have easily told her that her husband was fine, if he
was
fine.  But they were clearly unwilling to admit he was wounded.”

He looked at Gudrun.  “You might want to ask the person who helped you sneak into the hospital just how many other soldiers are held there,” he added.  “I’d bet good money that there are more wounded distributed around the
Reich
.”

“I wouldn't take that bet,” Sven said.

“Me neither,” Gudrun said.  She looked from face to face, bracing herself.  They had already crossed the line, but it wasn't too late.  “We know the government is lying to us - that it has lied to us many times before.  What do we
do
about it?”

“What
can
we do?”  Hilde asked.  “If we start asking questions, we will get kicked out of the university.”

Gudrun nodded.  The one topic that was off-limits at the university was the
Reich
itself.  A few students had questioned that, back in the early days, and been unceremoniously expelled.  Hell, they weren't encouraged to study more than the STEM subjects.  Any student who showed more than minimal interest in the social sciences was likely to run into trouble.

“Then we can't ask questions here,” she said.  She'd been thinking about it ever since she’d discovered what had happened to Konrad.  “We need to spread the word.”

“We could send messages through the computer network,” Sven offered.  “People like me have been sending covert messages without the SS reading them ever since the network was established.”

“Or they just don’t care,” Horst pointed out, darkly.  “What are you actually
doing
online anyway?”

Sven coloured.  “Could
you
send a message without it being trapped in the filters and read?”

Horst looked back at him.  “Could
you
send a message without it being traced back to you?”

“Easily,” Sven said.  “You just wipe the record of it being sent from the network.  It looks as though the message spontaneously appeared in the recipient’s inbox.”

Gudrun held up a hand.  “Yes, but we need to reach as many people as possible,” she said, carefully.  “How many people do you know who have access to a computer?”

There was an awkward pause.  “Very few, outside the university network,” Sven conceded, finally.

“That’s true,” Gudrun said.  “I don’t have a computer at home.  Is there anyone in this room who
does
have a private computer?”

“No,” Michael Sachs said.  “My father would explode if I suggested spending ten thousand
Reichmarks
on an American computer.”

Gudrun nodded. 
Her
father would have pretty much the same reaction.  It would cost much of his yearly salary, assuming he could purchase one in the first place... and, once he had it, it wouldn't be much use.  Gudrun had a typewriter she shared with her younger brothers and
that
had been quite expensive enough.  Buying a printer would cost another five thousand
Reichmarks
and linking it up to the national computer network would be impossible.  The
Reich
wouldn't want to put such a powerful communications tool in
everyone’s
hands.

“So... what do we do?”  Hilde asked.  One hand toyed with her hair as she spoke.  “We cannot risk adding more people to our group, can we?”

Gudrun shook her head.  There would be spies within the university - SS,
Gestapo
,
Abwehr
- and the more people she recruited, the greater the chance of accidentally bringing a traitor into the group and being betrayed.  Guarding one’s mouth was hard enough when one
wasn't
doing something the state would consider treacherous.  Hell, the rowdier students might easily
be
the spies.  They hadn't been kicked out despite skimping on their lessons. 

“We can send a message through the computer network to every student in the university,” Sven said.  “I can make it look as though it came from outside the building.  Hell, there are other campuses in other cities...”

“Yes, but they’ll stamp down hard,” Horst warned.

“They’d have to stamp on all of us,” Sven said.

“That’s one idea,” Gudrun said.  “But I have another.”

She braced herself.  “Do you recall distributing leaflets when you were in the Hitler Youth?”

“I never had to distribute leaflets,” Sven said, after a moment.  “Is that something
you
had to do?”

“Yeah,” Hilde said.  “While you boys were going camping and playing with weapons, we used to hand out papers exhorting greater efforts for the fatherland and other such pieces of crap.”

“It wasn't all wine and roses,” Sven objected.  “They used to make us run for miles and chased us with whips.”

“Poor dear,” Hilde said.  “At least you got to be away from home for a couple of weeks every year.”

Gudrun winced in memory.  The
Bund Deutscher Mädel
- the female wing of the Hitler Youth - hadn't been fun.  Maybe it had had its moments - she’d always enjoyed playing sports and she’d been healthy enough to avoid the public humiliations meted out to overweight girls - but she hadn't enjoyed it.  Walking around in ugly uniforms and handing out leaflets to passers-by had been annoying.  Even at the time, she’d doubted that many of the recipients did anything other than use the leaflets to start fires.

“The point is that we can print out leaflets of our own,” she said.  “Wearing our old uniforms, we can then walk through the streets and hand them out.”

“The police will notice,” Sven objected.

“Not if we do it on a day when the
real
BDM is also handing out leaflets,” Horst mused.  “It won’t take them long to discover what we’re doing, but they’ll have to sort you out from the younger girls.”

“And they’ll be having a competition,” Gudrun said.  “They’ll have several groups of youngsters out on the streets, passing out leaflets, just to see who can hand out the most.”

Sven snorted.  “Why don’t they just dump the leaflets in the nearest bin and claim victory?”

“Because if they get caught,” Hilde said with icy patience, “they’ll be forced to stand in the cold air in their underclothes, without dinner.”

Gudrun shuddered.  The matrons - the thoroughly unpleasant women who ran the BDM - hadn't hesitated to pit one group of girls against the others.  Those who won got to watch as those who lost were humiliated in front of their fellows.  And then reports were sent back to the schools and homes, just to ensure the losers received further punishment.  By the time she’d grown old enough to leave, she’d been thoroughly sick of the whole organisation.

“Maybe we can get a few of the matrons into trouble,” she said. 
Could
they do it?  Could they walk into one of the tents and exchange leaflets?  God knew
she’d
never bothered to read the leaflets she’d handed out.  But that would get the girls into trouble as well.  “If the SS wants to ask them a few questions...”

“They’ll have contacts,” Horst said.  “Better keep it as simple as possible.”

Gudrun looked at Sven.  “Can you print out copies of the standard leaflet, but with our message inside?”

“Easily,” Sven said.  “We have the equipment.  It’ll just take us some time to print them out without being noticed.”

“And then we have to see when the BDM is handing out leaflets next,” Gudrun mused.

“It’ll be Sunday,” Hilde predicted.  “They always try to hand out the leaflets to people coming out of church.  If we can’t put together enough leaflets by Sunday, we can simply wait until the
next
Sunday.”

“There’ll be more of them on the streets too,” Horst added.  “They don’t like taking the younger girls out of classes if it can be avoided.”

“And to think you men had it so much easier,” Hilde teased.

Gudrun coughed, loudly, before an argument could break out and turn nasty.  “I have my old uniform at home,” she said.  Her mother had never allowed her to get rid of it, even though Gudrun had begged to be allowed to burn the ugly piece of trash.  “I can probably alter it to fit me with a little effort.”

“Better let me do it,” Isla said.  “You’re not a good seamstress.”

“We also need to make sure we’re not recognised,” Horst said.  “The girls can distribute leaflets in their old uniforms, but we will find it a little harder to pass unnoticed.”

Gudrun frowned.  “You could wear your own uniforms,” she said.  “Or we could borrow some others for you...”

“No one expects to see the Hitler Youth distributing leaflets,” Horst reminded her.  “So we wear our regular clothes, but instead of giving leaflets to people we put them through letterboxes, as if they were advertisements.  No one will think twice of it until it’s far too late.”