Again he found himself wishing for a quiet life, perhaps in a villa somewhere in the East Indies, where Ali Moertopo could help out. He marveled at how the little Indonesian sailor had managed not just to save his own hide, but also to arrange the governorship of a Javanese province for himself. The man was a survivor. There could be no doubt of that. Nor of the debt which Brasch now owed him.
He shook his head and returned to the file. It was his job to convince Goring to stop wasting time and money on a project that was never going to be ready in time for Operation Sea Dragon. Brasch had worked with engineers at Messerschmitt on CAD/CAM programs that employed early twenty-first-century propeller designs, to extend the range of an ME 109 and give it forty-five minutes over England, rather than twenty. He had dozens of minor suggestions for improving the "ergonomics" of current fighters and bombers-simple things like recessed switches that wouldn't puncture a man's skull in a crash, or quick-disconnect throat microphones so that a crewman desperate to get out of a doomed plane wouldn't die trapped in a cord he forgot to unplug.
These were all simple changes with potentially massive effects, but Goring's eyes glazed over whenever he raised them, and if Brasch persisted in arguing, those same porcine eyes would eventually cloud over with rage, and the Reichsmarshall would start to pound on the table screaming, "Nein, nein, nein!"
Brasch brought up the file in which he had compiled a list of all the 262's problems in what he referred to as "original time." The Junkers Jumo 004 engines were unreliable, being constructed of inferior alloys due to materials shortages. At any given time, the majority of those fighters could expect to be grounded. They were unstable, and generated less thrust at low speeds than prop-driven fighters. But worst of all, there would never be enough of them.
Brasch had read of a mission by thirty-seven of the jets on March 18, 1945, during which they had attacked an Allied force of 1,221 bombers and 632 escorting fighters. Using long, level approaches to compensate for their lack of dogfighting agility, they simply blurred in past the fighter screen and tore apart a dozen bombers and one escort with their 30 mm cannons, all for the loss of only three 262s-a four-to-one kill ratio.
But the important figure was the gargantuan size of the Allied raid. Nearly two thousand planes, against thirty-seven German jets. You would think that spoke volumes for the need to concentrate efforts on achievable goals. The productive capacities of the English-speaking world were simply beyond imagining.
But no. Goring had only last week authorized tens of millions of reichsmarks to be spent on changes to the 262's swept wings, low drag canopy, and engine placement. And all this on his own initiative. Brasch would have been furious if it weren't for one thing.
He himself was working to wreck the Nazi war machine.
Brasch hadn't told anybody, of course. Not even his wife. He knew that he could trust Willie with his life, but he also knew that the SS regarded him with reserve at best. Now that he was away from Demidenko, he didn't have Gelder shadowing his every move, but the specter of the SS was a constant. His son's disorder-easily fixed in the future-would be more than enough to see the boy fed into the camps under the Nazis' T-4 program, to ensure the purity of the race.
No, Colonel Paul Brasch understood the nature of the regime he served. Like most of his countrymen, he had always understood it. Unlike most of them, he had witnessed the evidence firsthand, and he had decided to resist.
The irony of his current position was that he hadn't been snatched up in the post-Emergence sweeps of "future and prospective traitors" that had gutted the Reich, and yet he was probably one of most dangerous men in Germany. Fate had thrust him into the center of events as they spun out of control. His character determined that he would not allow himself simply to coast along in the wake of that turbulence.
As his train lurched into motion again, and began to pick up speed for the long run home, he worked on the 262 file-multitasking, as the phrase had it, a series of files on automatic assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and prototype helicopters for the newly formed SS Special Forces. He was the very model of a loyal and tireless worker laboring in the service of his fuhrer. In a small, very private part of his mind, however, Brasch, turned over the problem of how best to strike a fatal blow against the Nazis.
14
The Special Air Service began life as a deception. It had very little to do with airborne raids. It was a small, somewhat irregular unit of the British Army in the North African campaign, established in late 1941 by a mere Lieutenant, David Stirling. He put together a group of irredeemably unusual soldiers-specialists, loners, virtual pirates of the desert. He threw them in with the New Zealanders of the Long Range Desert Group and set them loose behind Rommel's lines, attacking fuel and ammo dumps, destroying aircraft on the ground, and generally spreading mayhem and confusion.
Breaking things and hurting people, thought Harry as he marched across the gravel. A cracking fuckin' way for a bloke to earn a quid. Better than being chased around by those paparazzi cunts, at any rate.
He clamped down on the surge of rage that always threatened to get the better of him when he thought of the misery those vultures had made of his life. Killed his mother. Ruined his father. And wrecked any chance he had of getting a bit of innocent leg-over without having to explain himself to the whole fucking world. He'd only worn that stupid swastika armband because the silly twit he was dating got all lathered up when she saw it. And how was he to know that Paris bloody Hilton wasn't wearing any knickers when he took her to Royal Ascot? That's not the sort of thing a bloke would find out until after cocktail hour. In many ways, he was happier here. Fewer twits and no tabloids. Now all he had to do was stop the Nazis from taking over the place. He forced his thoughts back onto the task at hand.
The SAS in this period had become such a thorn in the side of the Afrika Korps that they were partly responsible for Hitler's infamous "Kommandobefehl" order, stating that all captured Allied commandos were to be summarily executed. That order would have been issued on October 18, 1942. After the Transition-or "Emergence," as it became known in the Axis states-Hitler issued the Kommandobefehl in the first week of October. British Signals Intelligence picked up the order as it was transmitted quite openly around the Reich, without the use of quantum encryption, and passed news of it on to the relevant parties: the Commando Regiment; the Special Operations Executive; the American Office of Strategic Services; and the SAS, both in Africa and at Kinlochmoidart House, the new Regimental HQ in Scotland, an hour outside of Fort William.
Prince Harry, with freshly minted major's pips still gleaming on his shoulders, called the regiment to parade on the lawn in front of the manor to tell them the good news. Kinlochmoidart was a baronial mansion set within two thousand acres of private gardens and woodland, which had been given over to the Special Air Service for the duration of the war. Having an heir to the throne make the request had smoothed the process considerably. The secluded location was perfect, with easy access to Loch Shiel and Loch Sunart for the boat troop, and to the highlands and the Grampians for the mountain troop. Parachute training could be done out of Fort William, where Harry's celebrated ancestor General Lord Lovett of the commandos was ready to provide every assistance. The forests of the estate were also well suited to honing the field craft of the trainees.