Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1) (9 page)

Technically, he should report Gudrun at once.  She had doubts - and, instead of burying them, she was trying to do something, something that might easily turn out to be treacherous.  Horst couldn't imagine what she had in mind - eight students or eighty, armed rebellion was unlikely to succeed and she had to know it - but it was his duty to report her to his superiors and let them decide how to handle the matter.  It might come to nothing, he knew, or it might become something truly serious.  His superiors might decide to quietly vanish Gudrun and her fellows, shipping them off to Germany East or merely dumping them into a slave camp; the girls, at least, would make good breeding stock. 

And yet, he
too
had his doubts.

He’d liked Konrad Schulze, the first time they’d met.  It wasn't something he could show, not when it would risk his cover, but he’d
liked
the older man.  In some ways, Konrad had reminded Horst of
his
brother, who hadn’t
actually
vanished into America and never returned.  He’d been blonde, blue-eyed and muscular, so muscular that Horst had wondered if he’d been used as the template for countless recruiting posters.  Horst had even used his security codes to look up the young man’s file and discovered, to his amusement, that Konrad was on the short list for promotion. 
Someone
thought very highly of him.

But they don’t now
, Horst thought, savagely. 
They see him as an embarrassment
.

It was a bitter thought.  Konrad had been no covert agent, no undercover operative all too aware that even the merest
hint
of suspicion would mean instant death or permanent incarceration in a black prison.  He’d certainly had no reason to believe he would simply be abandoned by his superiors, if he were caught by the enemy.  No, he’d worn his black uniform proudly.  Konrad should have been given full honours, if he'd been killed, or brought home on a pension if he'd been badly wounded.  Instead...

He didn't think Gudrun had lied, but it would be easy enough to check her story.  The computers in the apartment - another reason not to let anyone who wasn't an SS operative enter the building - were linked directly to the Berlin Network.  He logged on, accessed the hospital records and searched for Konrad’s name.  The computers were slow - they hadn't had university students fiddling with the coding to make them a little more efficient - but it didn't take him long to uncover records belonging to one Konrad Schulze.  He’d been badly wounded - the file didn't go into details, suggesting that no one had told the hospital administrators very much - and wasn't expected to survive. 

They should have triaged him
, he thought, genuinely shocked.  It was an accepted fact of military life that badly-wounded soldiers were often allowed to die so less-wounded soldiers could be saved, yet... it was clear, just from reading between the lines, that the medical staff had worked desperately to save him.  And yet, the brain damage alone almost guaranteed that Konrad would never recover.  The bastards could have given him a mercy killing and come up with a cover story: instead they seemed content to leave him on life support indefinitely. 
A hero... and they chose to leave him a vegetable!

Horst kept his feelings under tight control as he logged out of the hospital network, then checked the SS personnel database.  Konrad’s file had been marked inactive - and it wasn't the only one.  Cross-referencing the database showed Horst several hundred
other
troopers who seemed to be permanently in bureaucratic limbo, marked as neither dead nor alive.  And if that was true of the SS, it was very likely true of the army too.

She didn't lie
, he thought, numbly. 
And that means... what
?

He turned the computer off, finished his coffee and lay back on his bed.  He’d been raised to worship the SS, just like everyone else in Germany East.  The SS was all that stood between the settlements and insurgents who would happily kill German men, rape German women and eat German children.  He’d grown up reading horror stories, all of which had happy endings when the SS rescued the women or avenged their deaths.  Joining the SS hadn't been a hard decision at all.  They’d been his heroes!

And now they were being betrayed, betrayed by their own leaders.

Gudrun would run into trouble, sooner or later.  Horst had no doubt of it.  She was intelligent, and she knew to guard her tongue around strangers, but she had no way of knowing how things worked in the world.  Hell, she’d managed to invite an SS spy to her very first meeting!  She couldn't get very far without help...

... And Horst, who knew his duty called for him to report her, was seriously considering offering her that help.

It was a hard choice to make.  If he were caught, his family would disown him - and it probably wouldn't be enough to save their lives.  It would be easy to alert the SS, to have Gudrun and the rest of the students put under surveillance, and put an end to the whole affair... but he didn't
want
to put an end to the whole affair.  He wanted her to do... what?  What would she do if she proved her point?

Perhaps I’ll just wait and see if she has a plan
, he told himself. 
And if she does, I can decide what to do about it
.

Chapter Eight

Wewelsburg Castle, Germany

20 July 1985

It was blasphemy to even consider it, but there were times when
Reichsführer-SS
Karl Holliston thought that Heinrich Himmler had been a very strange man.  Karl understood the value of strength - and the will to use it - as much as any other SS officer, yet Himmler’s obsession with the occult had undermined the last five years of his career, allowing him to be gently nudged aside by his former subordinates.  Wewelsburg Castle itself was a grand monument to that obsession; parts of the castle had been redesigned to look like something from the Grand Order of Teutonic Knights, while other parts were designed to serve as the SS’s western centre of operations.  There was even a monument to the Holy Grail in the lower levels, perched in the centre of a round table.

And some of Himmler’s other ideas might have caught on, if he’d had longer
, Karl thought. 
Shrines to the old gods, grand ceremonies of might and magic...

He shook his head in rueful amusement.  Rumours of virgin sacrifices and blood oaths had hovered around the castle for as long as the SS had occupied it - and, indeed, there were some very strange cults and secret societies rumoured to exist within the SS itself.  Karl had never seen anything to indicate that they even existed, but that proved nothing.  The SS was a multitude of competing factions and some of them were very secretive indeed.  And yet, what need did they have of the old gods?  All that was needed was the will to power.

A strong will can overcome anything
, Karl thought, remembering his training as a young officer.  They’d been pushed to the limit, the weak falling by the wayside or dying in training; the survivors strong enough to keep going, whatever the world threw at them.  It had been twenty years since Karl had seen active service, since he’d been promoted into a desk job, but he’d done his best to stay in shape. 
And the will to power is everything
.

His buzzer rang.  “
Herr Reichsführer
,
Obergruppenfuehrer
Felix Kortig is here,” his secretary said.  “Shall I send him in?”

“Yes, please,” Karl said.  Maria had been with him ever since he’d been promoted into high office, her status rising with his.  If she had any interests outside the office, he’d never seen them.  He could be rude to anyone else, but not her.  “And hold all calls until I’ve finished with him.”

He looked up as the door opened, revealing a blonde-haired man wearing a black uniform and carrying a pistol at his belt.  Karl couldn't avoid a flicker of envy as
Obergruppenfuehrer
Felix Kortig strode forward and snapped out a precise salute.  Kortig might be an
Obergruppenfuehrer
, but he was still jumping out of planes with the young bucks, while Karl himself was stuck in an office, playing political games with the civilians and the military.

“
Herr Reichsführer
,” Kortig said.  “
Heil Bormann
!”

“
Heil Bormann
,” Karl echoed.  “You may speak freely - and relax.”

Kortig relaxed, minimally.  “
Jawohl
,
Herr Reichsführer
,” he said.  “You wished to speak with me?”

“Yes,” Karl said.  He tapped the papers on his desk.  “I trust you have had an opportunity to study the proposals for Operation Headshot?”

“I have,” Kortig said.  “They’re unworkable.”

Karl blinked in surprise, despite himself.  Very few people would tell the
Reichsführer-SS
that one of his pet concepts was unworkable, which might explain why Himmler had been able to waste so many resources on his occult research.  Sending teams of dedicated researchers to Tibet, even in the aftermath of the war, hadn't been too costly, but transporting ancient artefacts all the way back to Germany had proved a major strain.  The rest of the
Reich
hadn't been too pleased at the prospect of a diplomatic incident with China, even
if
the Chinese had been fighting a civil war at the time.

He pushed the thought aside, angrily.  “Unworkable?”

“Yes,
Herr Reichsführer
,” Kortig said.

Karl bit down on his anger with an effort.  “Otto Skorzeny plotted to jump into London in 1950 and slaughter the British Government,” he said.  “Wouldn't that have been a more challenging operation?”

“The operation was planned in the context of an outright invasion,” Kortig pointed out, smoothly.  “I have
seen
those plans,
Herr Reichsführer
; Skorzeny intended to jump into Westminster, kill as many government ministers as he could find and then escape into the streets of London.  Given the lack of extraction plans, I suspect Skorzeny believed the whole operation to be a suicide mission.  The best the commandos could reasonably hope for was to go to ground in London and wait for the invasion force to seize the city.”

He tapped the map, sharply.  “It was never envisaged, at the time the plan was drawn up, that the British would be our allies, nor that we would be trying to put a friendly government into Westminster.  The understanding was that they were our enemies and their country would be ruled with an iron hand.”

Karl nodded, once.  Britain had been - and still was - the
Reich’s
most determined enemy, one protected by a body of water that might as well have been a castle moat.  Hitler had shied away from trying to launch an offensive across the English Channel, when the British had been at their weakest; in 1950, with American forces based in Britain, an invasion would have been a very chancy affair indeed.  And then the British had developed their own nuclear weapons and plans for a later invasion had been abandoned.  Taking London would have been pointless if Berlin had been thrown into the fire.

“Pretoria is a different case,
Herr Reichsführer
,” Kortig said, his finger tracing positions on the map.  “Their government is scattered, to reduce the risk of being decapitated by a suicide bomber, and we have been unable to obtain solid information on who is where at any one time.  In addition, the South African troops protecting Pretoria are experienced battle-hardened veterans, men who are well used to coping with surprise attacks and driving back the attackers before they can do major damage...”

“Our stormtroopers are far better trained than black-assed terrorists,” Karl said, icily.

“It won’t matter,” Kortig said.  “At best, we may eliminate one or two senior government ministers, but I couldn't guarantee we would get them all.  The South Africans would
know
we’d effectively declared war on them.  These are not Italians,
Herr Reichsführer
; the South Africans will strike back at our own forces within their country.  Our alliance with them will be at an end.  The only people who will gain from the whole affair will be the blacks, who will no doubt sit back and watch as the whites destroy each other.”

He shook his head.  “South Africa is not a country that can be easily bullied,
Herr Reichsführer
,” he said.  “Operation Headshot is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Karl gritted his teeth.  He’d asked for the truth, hadn't he?  And Kortig
was
an experienced officer with a string of successes to his name.  If he believed the operation was impossible, he was probably right.  And yet... the
Reich
needed to win in South Africa.  They didn't dare lose.

“It’s unlikely the
Reichstag
will agree to commit additional troops to South Africa,” he said, grimly.  “Do we have any other way to achieve victory?”

“Probably not,” Kortig said, after a moment.  “Cutting off the supply lines from America would help,
Herr Reichsführer
, but the Yankees aren't the sole problem.  The blacks know they’re doomed if they surrender.  Fighting is the only logical choice.”

“They’re
black
,” Karl protested.

“So were the Ethiopians,” Kortig reminded him.  “Just how badly did they manhandle the Italians?”

Karl grimaced.  Ethiopia had nearly defeated the Italian invasion in 1935, a humiliation that had badly weakened Mussolini’s government.  The British had liberated Ethiopia in 1941, then - when Ethiopia had been returned to Italy by the terms of the peace treaty - left the Ethiopians with a considerable stockpile of weapons.  It had taken the Italians twenty years to hammer Ethiopia into some semblance of order and large parts of the country were still restless.

“They still lost,” he said, finally.

“And we may yet win in South Africa,” Kortig said.  “However, betraying our allies in the middle of a war will only lead to chaos.”

Karl glowered.  “Is there anything else we can do?”

“Find a way to stiffen their spine,” Kortig said.  “It isn't as if the apartheid government has anywhere to go.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Karl said.  “Are you readying yourself to return to the war?”

“Yes,
Herr Reichsführer
,” Kortig said.  “However, I do have some concerns about the treatment of wounded - and the dead.”

Karl cursed under his breath.  South Africa had been meant to be a quick victory.  The German troops would reinforce South Africa’s, the blacks would be ruthlessly crushed and there would be a victory parade through Berlin to show that the
Reich
still had teeth.  Instead, thousands of soldiers were dead or wounded and there was very little to show for it.  For once, he was in total agreement with Hans Krueger.  They didn't dare tell the
Reich
that so many fine young men had been killed or brutally maimed for nothing. 

“That isn’t your concern,” he said.  “Concentrate on finding ways to destroy the enemy.”

“Rumours are spreading,
Herr Reichsführer
,” Kortig said.  “I’ve heard soldiers openly wondering just what’s happening to the dead or wounded.”

“Such talk is to be reported at once,” Karl snapped.

“And then working with the
Heer
will become impossible,” Kortig said.  “We’re not the
Gestapo
,
Herr Reichsführer
.”

Karl scowled.  The
Gestapo
had managed to wind up with egg on its face after Von Braun had defected to the United States, shortly after the Arab Uprising had begun.  His predecessor had been quick to take advantage of his rival’s weakness by asserting control over counter-intelligence and policing, which had led to another major turf war when the
Gestapo
had started to recover from its failure.  And both services had often wound up working at cross-purposes.  God alone knew what the Americans had managed to do while the
Gestapo
and the SS had been at daggers drawn.

When I am Fuhrer, there will be a reassessment
, Karl thought, coldly. 
The Gestapo will be folded into the SS, once the senior leadership has been purged
.

“I suppose not,” he said, neutrally.  “I’ll see you before you depart,
Herr Obergruppenfuehrer
.”

“Likewise,
Herr Reichsführer
,” Kortig said.

Karl watched him go, thinking hard.  Hans Krueger - damn the man - had made it clear that the civilians would never support deploying additional troops to South Africa, but the military might have other ideas.  Field Marshal Justus Stoffregen was unlikely to take a stand, yet one of his immediate subordinates might be tempted into supporting the deployment, in exchange for a number of concessions.  It galled Karl to have to concede anything to the military - they should know to obey orders without question - but he had no choice.  The military spent more time fighting turf wars with the
Waffen-SS
than it did preparing for the final war with America.

He keyed his intercom.  “Maria, please invite Field Marshal Voss to the castle,” he said, slowly.  He made a habit of keeping track of Voss’s schedule - along with those of the other high-ranking officials - and Voss shouldn't be too far away.  “Let me know when he arrives.”