Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1) Read online

He scowled, inwardly. Pretoria’s apartheid system had a great deal in common with the Third Reich, but the white population of South Africa made up only a tenth of the population, even though Pretoria had been working hard to lure immigrants from Spain, Italy, France and even Greece. The whites were, quite simply, badly outnumbered and every year they failed to crush the rebels, every little rebel success that helped to bleed Pretoria white, worsened their position. It was hard to blame Pretoria for looking for a way out of the war that allowed them to salvage something.

  But Holliston, of course, didn't see it that way.

  “I have two proposals,” he said. “First, we double the number of German troops fighting in South Africa. We can easily spare 200,000 troops for as long as it takes to crush the blacks and bring peace to the country. Second, that we strike first and eliminate the government in Pretoria.”

  Hans blinked in surprise. He’d expected the proposal to double the number of troops in South Africa; it had, after all, been made before. But eliminating the South African Government? It was insane! Which planner in Wewelsburg Castle had come up with the whole idea?

  Holliston pressed the idea as hard as he could. “There are factions in Pretoria who will be happy to support us, if we eliminate the current leadership,” he said. “These are the factions who have been pressing for a more pro-active solution to the problem...”

  Hans gritted his teeth. Holliston alone couldn't commit the Reich to a desperate gamble, but if he dragged the military along with him... it would be hard, perhaps impossible, to head the madcap scheme off at the pass. And it was madness, of that Hans was sure. The meaning of the facts and figures might be disputed, but the facts themselves could never be.

  “The last time I checked,” he said, allowing his voice to drip with sarcasm, “we sent our soldiers into South Africa to support the local government. Did something change while I was sleeping?”

  “Of course not,” Holliston said.

  “Then perhaps you can explain to me,” Hans pressed, “why supporting the local government requires executing its members and installing a set of puppets?”

  “The current government is unable to fight the war effectively,” Holliston snapped. “I...”

  Hans took a long breath. “Whatever we may think of the government of South Africa, the fact remains that it holds legitimacy in the eyes of the South Africans themselves,” he said, coldly. “They will not take calmly to us stepping in and removing their government. I dare say, given that they are of good racial stock, that they will not accept whatever government we install in its place. We will be forced to occupy South Africa ourselves, to disarm the local military and fight a multi-sided war against two sets of insurgents.

  “Furthermore, our logistics are already problematic,” he added. “Our supply lines from the Reich to Germany South are poor and road and rail links between Germany South and South Africa are worse, even without the insurgents taking pot-shots at our convoys...”

  “We could drive the attackers away from the roads if we didn't have to humour the local government,” Holliston hissed.

  “And we would find it hard to make use of the local logistics network,” Hans added, relentlessly. The South Africans, damn them, had chosen to licence American or British weapons rather than German, a decision that had come back to haunt them when the war began in earnest. “Indeed, the white flight from South Africa will only get worse as the war spreads into formerly safe areas. Or have you not realised just how dependent South Africa is on black labour?”

  He allowed his voice to rise. “They use black labour everywhere, even in the military,” he reminded the table. “What happens if - when - those blacks become convinced that they’re ultimately doomed to go into the gas chambers anyway?”

  “They’re of inferior stock,” Holliston snapped.

  “And if they’re so inferior,” Hans said, “why do you need an extra 200,000 troops to fight the war?”

  He kept the smirk that threatened to appear off his face with an effort. He’d argued against becoming involved in South Africa, only to be overruled by the military and the SS. Now, the SS looked grossly incompetent, grasping at straws rather than swallowing their pride and admitting they’d made a mistake, while the military were concerned about ever-increasing casualty figures. Doubling the troops in South Africa, if they could be supported, might end the war, but it was equally possible that it would only increase the number of dead or wounded soldiers. And who knew what would happen when that little fact got out?

  Holliston glared at him. “And you would propose ending the war?”

  “I would propose that we find a way to avoid wasting blood and treasure on a petty pointless war,” Hans said. “It will not be long before the chaos starts making its way up into Germany South or French North Africa.”

  “The frogs can take care of themselves,” Holliston growled.

  “They might have some problems,” Hans observed. “We place some pretty strict limits on their military, don’t we?”

  “Yes,” Voss said, flatly. “The last thing we want is a modern tank force within striking distance of Germany.”

  Hans nodded in agreement. The terrain between Vichy France and Berlin was not conductive to deep strikes, but giving Vichy the power to stand up for itself would have dangerous implications. France had been in the economic doldrums for decades, despite a slow and steady advance into North Africa. The French Government might be more than willing to bend over and take whatever Berlin chose to dish out, but the French population loathed the Germans with a fiery passion. If the Reich ran into problems elsewhere, who knew which way the French would jump? And, to be fair, Spain and Italy didn't like the Germans much either.

  He cleared his throat. “The facts and figures make it clear, gentlemen, that we need to make some adjustments in our budget,” he warned. “We are spending more than we earn.”

  “Then print more money,” Holliston said. “That’s your job, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what Weimer tried,” Hans reminded him. “And what happened to Weimer?”

  Silence fell. Very few of the men in the room had been old enough to understand what was going on, back when they’d been children, but they remembered how the Weimer Republic had collapsed into chaos. And yet, Hans knew that most of them didn't understand just how desperately Hitler had needed to keep adding new conquests to the Reich. It had taken years, after the end of the war, to put the Reich on a sound economic footing. Now, all that hard work was being wasted.

  “The war in South Africa, alone, is costing us billions of Reichmarks,” Hans said. “Both directly, in weapons and equipment lost during the fighting, and indirectly, in taking care of the wounded. The economic lifeline we’ve tossed to Pretoria is worse, in a way; we’re simply not getting enough back from the mines in South Africa to pay for the war. But that isn't the worst of it. Our total military budget is sucking up far too much money...”

  “We have to prepare to fight the Americans,” Voss said. He tossed a sharp look at Grossadmiral Cajus Bekker. “Don’t we need to build more ships?”

  “We can't afford many more ships,” Hans said. “A single nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, Field Marshal, costs over ten billion Reichmarks. Building enough to fight the Americans on even terms, which leaves the British out of the equation, will cost two hundred billion Reichmarks!”

  “The Americans seem to be able to afford it,” Holliston said. “Are you sure you’re not mismanaging our money?”

  “The Americans have several advantages,” Hans growled. “First, they have a larger GNP than ourselves. They can afford to build more carriers, missiles and spaceships without straining their economy. Second, they have a smaller budget for their other governmental functions. Third, their weapons production is standardised, not just between the different services, but also between their allies. A British soldier can fire American bullets from his gun and vice versa. Fourth, and perhaps the most important at the moment, the Americans offer much l
ess social benefits than ourselves.”

  “A mother’s benefit packet is less than a hundred Reichmarks per week,” Holliston said, tightly. The SS had been a big supporter of the scheme, although Holliston had been a lowly trooper at the time. “It is hardly a problem.”

  “It mounts up,” Hans said. “There are roughly 1.5 million mothers in Berlin today. If each of them has two children, they can claim 160 Reichmarks each week from the government - and, I assure you, almost every mother in Berlin does. That means, each week, we spend somewhere around 240 million Reichmarks in Berlin alone.”

  He looked around the table, willing them to understand. “That’s a very rough figure,” he said. “Right now, the average family size is four children; six in Germany East, despite the endless insurgency. Every single one of those mothers can claim eighty Reichmarks per child, per week. The cost is staggeringly high and we can't afford it!”

  “We need it,” Holliston said, into the silence. “The Volk must not be allowed to vanish from the earth!”

  “The Volk are in no danger of fading away,” Hans said. “Indeed, our population is expanding rapidly. But every year we delay in dealing with this crisis, the worse it will be when it finally explodes. I can paper over the cracks for a while, but not for very long. Creative accounting will catch up with us sooner or later.”

  He cursed under his breath. Holliston wouldn't understand, of course. The SS was obsessed with children, to the point where it encouraged fine young German men to marry more than one wife. Hell, it had been Himmler himself who had started the original scheme. He’d noted, correctly, that cost was a major factor in bringing up children and come up with a simple idea to reduce the costs. But, like all such schemes, it had snowballed out of control and turned into a nightmare.

  “We cannot make cuts,” Holliston said.

  “We must,” Hans said. “Ending the war in South Africa alone would save a few billion Reichmarks per year.”

  “We could sell more weapons,” Voss suggested.

  “The world’s buyers prefer British or American weapons,” Luther Stresemann said. The Head of the Economic Intelligence Service looked concerned. “Our reputation for producing weapons took a pounding when the Royal Navy sank the Argentinean ships during the war.”

  “The brown-skinned grafters didn't know how to use them,” Holliston snapped.

  “It doesn't matter,” Hans said. Oddly, it was one of the few points where he found himself in agreement with Holliston. “All that matters is that sales of weapons are falling and unlikely to stabilise any time soon. The only people who buy exclusively from us are our captive markets and we don’t want to sell them the most advanced weapons.”

  “Of course not,” Holliston said.

  Hans sighed and glanced at the wall-mounted clock, silently resigning himself to another long and acrimonious meeting where nothing would be decided. If he could convince the military that eliminating Pretoria’s government was a potential disaster, he told himself, at least that would be something...

  ... But, as the meeting finally drew to an end, no decisions were taken at all.

  Chapter Four

  Wieland House, Berlin

  17 July 1985 (Victory Day)

  “And where have you been all day, young lady?”

  Gudrun grimaced as her mother’s voice echoed out of the kitchen. She might be eighteen years old and a university student, having passed the hardest set of exams in Germany, but her mother still talked to her as though she was a little girl. It just wasn't fair, particularly when her thoughts kept returning to Konrad’s broken body. But she had no choice, but to swallow it and stick her head into the kitchen.

  “I’ve been with Hilde, watching the parade,” she said. Her mother was bent over the oven, cooking something that smelt heavenly. “Watching the soldiers trooping by...”

  “You should have been here to help,” her mother said, straightening up. “I don’t recall saying you could leave the house.”

  “I’m eighteen, mother,” Gudrun said. When she was a mother, she was not going to keep her daughters locked in a gilded cage. “And...”

  “And as long as you live under my roof, you follow my rules,” her mother said, sternly. “I have told you, many times, that you are to ask before you go out, particularly this week.”

  Gudrun sighed as her mother turned to face her. Adelinde Wieland was tall and blonde, but her hair was slowly shading to grey after bringing up four children on a policeman’s salary and what little she could claim from the government. It had often baffled Gudrun how people could compare her to her mother, although Grandpa Frank had been heard to claim that Gudrun was the spitting image of his wife. Her mother’s face was very different from Gudrun’s and her hair a shade or two lighter before it started to go grey.

  “I have a boyfriend, mother,” she said. She felt an odd pang at the memory. Adelinde had never really approved of Konrad, but her husband had approved the match. “I’m not going to get into trouble.”

  “That’s what they all say,” her mother said. “A soldier in a pretty uniform, perhaps a glass or two of beer... who knows what will happen?”

  Gudrun felt her face heat. Her mother could be uncomfortably blunt at times; she still cringed at the memory, years ago, of having her mother explain where babies came from and why she should be very careful until she was actually married. There was a black market in contraception, she’d been told, but condoms and American-made pills couldn't be purchased unless the user already had three children. University student or not, Gudrun had no idea where she might obtain any condoms, let alone how she might convince her boyfriend to use one. Men could be such idiots at times.

  She shuddered. Konrad wasn't going to recover. It was unlikely, the nurse had said, that he could survive without the machine. And even if he did, he’d be unable to do anything with her. Part of her even wished she’d pulled the plug on him before leaving, even though it would probably have set off alarms. Her boyfriend deserved better than to remain a vegetable for the rest of his life.

  “I’m glad you’re thinking about it,” her mother sneered. It took Gudrun a moment to realise that her mother had seen the shudder and misinterpreted it. “Go take Grandpa Frank his dinner before your father comes home. He’ll want to eat as soon as he arrives.”

  Gudrun groaned. “Mother, can’t Johan do it...”

  “Go,” her mother ordered, pointing at the tray. “Now.”

  There was no point in arguing with her mother when she was cross, Gudrun knew from bitter experience. There were two younger boys in the house, yet they never had to do any cooking or washing up. It didn't seem fair, somehow; she picked up the tray, swallowing the curse that came to mind when she saw the bottle perched next to the covered dish, and headed for the door. She’d once dumped the beer down the sink, hoping it would make Grandpa Frank more pleasant, but her mother had been furious. Gudrun had never dared do it again.

  She walked slowly up the stairs, stalling as long as she could. Grandpa Frank’s room was at the far end of the corridor, forcing her to walk past the room shared by Johan and Siegfried and her own door before she reached her grandfather’s door. Johan had complained, loudly, that he hadn't been allowed to move into Kurt’s room, now that his elder brother spent most of his time in the barracks, but their father had flatly refused to allow him to take the empty room. Gudrun smiled at the memory. There weren't many advantages to living in a patriarchal household, but watching her brothers forced to share a room was definitely one of them.

  “Come,” an imperious voice bellowed.

  Gudrun flinched - she’d never worked out how Grandpa Frank could tell when there was someone waiting outside his room - and pushed the door open, wrinkling her nose at the stench. As always, the room was an odd combination of orderly and disorderly; the bed looked neat and tidy, but there were beer bottles lying on the floor and the remains of a snack sitting on the bedside table. Grandpa Frank himself was sitting in an armchair, reading a news
paper and drinking from a half-full bottle of beer. Gudrun’s stomach turned at the thought of helping the disgusting old man to the toilet, although - to be fair - he’d never seemed to have any problems staggering out of bed and doing his business as far as she knew.

  “Victory Day,” Grandpa Frank said. “You must be very proud.”

  “Yes, Grandpa,” Gudrun said. She’d never been sure just who Grandpa Frank thought she was, half the time. Half of what he said made no sense at all. “But my boyfriend...”

  Her voice caught. Grandpa Frank was... a cripple. No, not quite a cripple, but he needed a wheelchair if he wanted to leave the house. And Konrad wouldn't even have that, if by some dark miracle he survived. He...

  “The paratrooper,” Grandpa Frank said, darkly. “I heard he was planning to become a policeman. It’s no place for a young man.”

  Wonderful, Gudrun thought. The paratrooper-turned-policeman was her father. He thinks I’m my mother.

  She eyed her grandfather carefully as she placed the tray on the table beside him. Grandpa Frank’s mood changed rapidly; she’d seen him go from maudlin, mourning his long-dead wife, to angry and raging at the world within seconds. Only his daughter could talk sense into him when he was angry; Gudrun honestly didn't understand why her mother allowed the old man to stay in the house. Grandpa Frank had come alarmingly close to clobbering Johan’s brains out when the younger boy had snuck up on him for a dare.