Christopher Nuttall - Storm Front

Maybe we should just decapitate the local government and take over , he thought. There was a contingency plan to do just that, one he’d been putting together as a last resort. That, at least, would make it easier for us to fight the war .

“The Nasties do put on a good show, don’t they?”

Andrew Barton, Office of Strategic Services, nodded in agreement. It was an impressive parade, all the more so for being something he would never have seen in America. The Nazis wanted to show their might off to the world, displaying their power for all to see. It just didn’t happen in Washington.

“Take careful note of the number of aircraft you see at any one time,” he said, dryly. A decade ago, a team of American observers had been fooled into believing that the Reich had over a hundred intercontinental bombers when the Germans had flown the aircraft over Berlin and then circled around, out of sight, to fly over the city for a second time. “We don’t want to be fooled again.”

He looked down at the crowds from the balcony, wondering absently just how many of them truly wanted to be there. The kids in the front rows might have thought it was going to be fun, but he doubted they were enjoying themselves after waiting in line for hours; behind them, the lines of watching civilians seemed slightly disorderly, as if the crowd was already bored and resentful. That too wasn’t something he’d have seen in Washington. If there had been a parade, attendance sure as hell wouldn’t be compulsory. The crowd would have been composed of men and women who wanted to be there, waving flags and cheering loudly.

“Ah,” Robert Hamilton said. The CIA operative leaned forward. “The meat of the matter.”

Andrew leaned forward too as the first of the heavy mobile missile launchers made its way onto the square. It was a truly impressive sight, he had to admit; the giant vehicle, the missile mounted on its back, inching forward as the crowd went wild. The Nazis had claimed, in their boastful speeches, that the mobile missile could be fired from anywhere within the Reich and hit the United States, although Andrew was fairly sure that was nothing more than empty bragging. Unless the Germans had made a radical breakthrough, the rocket simply didn’t have the fuel to fly further than 1500km. Not that that kept it from being a major headache, he had to admit. England was easily within range and the Germans had enough nukes to turn the United Kingdom into a radioactive slagheap. The ABM shield simply couldn’t guarantee it would stop even half of the salvo from reaching its target.

“I was thinking,” Hamilton said. “Do you think they’ve left the nuke in the rocket?”

Andrew shrugged. The Germans would have to be insane to take the risk, no matter how many safeguards they’d worked into the warhead, but the Germans were the only people to ever use a nuke in combat. On the other hand, nukes didn’t go off if you hit them with a hammer. It was quite possible that the warhead was completely safe, no matter what happened. But they’d still have to be insane to mess around with a nuke.

He turned his attention towards the podium at the other side of the square. The Fuhrer was there, exchanging salutes with the missile crew; the Reichsführer-SS , one of the most evil men Andrew had ever met, was sitting just two seats down from him. If something happened in the parade, the Reich would be deprived of both its titular head and one of its most powerful men. It was hard to be sure just how powerful the other casualties were – in the Reich , power and title didn’t always go together – but a disaster would throw the entire state into confusion.

If nothing else, the SS will be holding competitions to see who is evil enough to become the next Reichsführer-SS , Andrew thought, darkly. The winner must be a treacherous unprincipled bastard, with a goatee he can stroke at particularly evil moments…

He shook his head, annoyed at himself. He could make fun of the Reichsführer-SS – God knew there were hundreds of old WW2 cartoons still running around the internet that made fun of Hitler, Himmler and Fatso Goring – but none of the people below dared say a word against the Fuhrer and his cronies. The military might marching through the square was one thing, yet the true horror lay in the hundreds of thousands of listening ears, ready to report a single word against the state. Wives could turn on husbands, children on parents… Nazi Germany was a nightmare few ever escaped.

And I will go back to America, when my stint is up, and wash the stench of Nazi Germany from my clothes , he added, silently. The people below me are trapped .

“They’ll be running more soldiers and machines through the square tomorrow,” Hamilton observed, as the final set of tanks rumbled past. “Hopefully, they’ll get themselves some more watchers too.”

“We have to be back,” Andrew said, feeling another stab of pity for the children. He checked his notebook, where he’d scribbled down a brief report of what he’d seen. He’d write out a full report once they returned to the embassy. “You want to go get a beer?”

“I’d sooner go find out what’s under those uniforms,” Hamilton said. Andrew followed his gaze and saw a handful of blonde-haired women wearing strikingly ugly and shapeless clothes. They were army nurses, he thought. “German girls are hotter than hell.”

“And you’ll be in hell if the ambassador catches you in one of them,” Andrew pointed out. It wouldn’t be the first honey trap the Nazis had tried, either. “Let’s go get a beer instead.”

Josef Mengele Hospital, Berlin

17 July 1985 (Victory Day)

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Gudrun Wieland took a long breath. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure her older brother could hear the sound. She wanted to do it, needed to do it, but she knew they could easily get in deep trouble. Their father’s belt would be the least of their concerns.

“I’m sure,” she said.

She braced herself. It would be easy to back out, to walk away; they could be back home within twenty minutes if they walked fast. But she’d gone to a great deal of trouble to borrow a nurse’s uniform from a friend, just so she could wear it while walking into the hospital. No one would question her if she wore a uniform, she’d been told; no one, not even the senior doctors, would know every nurse in the building. There were over a thousand young women and, with the current fashion for blonde hair, it was a reasonable bet that three-quarters of them would be blonde too. She’d scrubbed her face clean of make-up, tied up her hair and removed anything that might identify her. As long as they weren’t caught in the building, it was unlikely that anyone would be able to track them down afterwards. But Kurt…

“Are you sure?” She asked. “I can go alone, if necessary…”

“I can’t let you go alone,” Kurt Wieland said. Her brother ran a hand through his short blonde hair, cut very close to the scalp. “I’m not expected back at the barracks until tomorrow morning.”

Gudrun gave him a grateful smile. She’d known, when she’d asked him, that he could have simply refused, or reported her to their father. Herman Wieland wasn’t a bad man – she knew friends who had worse fathers, mainly drunkards like Grandpa Frank – but he would have exploded with rage if Kurt had told him what his eldest daughter had in mind. Instead, Kurt had insisted on coming with her and providing support. He’d even helped her sort out what to do when she walked into the building.