“The New Eagles weren’t looking to so anything small, of course: they were working on creating a Temporal Distortion Wave the size of a friggin’ tsunami! We found out they’d set up a base somewhere in the former Soviet Union, but we couldn’t initially lock down exactly where it was, and with the amount of bribe money they were throwing about, none of the local authorities in the area they were hiding that did know about them were talking. We did however discover they’d been buying up on arms and equipment from various sources and something else started to dawn on us at that point.” Thorne paused for another breath and shrugged in a matter-of-fact fashion.
“We at first thought all they were going to do was go back and show Hitler what he did wrong. One of the most incredible things about the Second World War from a historical point of view is that the Krauts almost did it: one nation effectively took on the whole of Europe and nearly got away with it with just a handful of bad decisions, mainly on Hitler’s part, prevented them from pulling it off. With the right kind of tactical and strategic information and guidance, they could’ve easily walked right through the whole of Europe, North Africa and maybe even Russia…
“Once we discovered they were stocking up on hardware though, we realised something else…something that in hindsight should’ve been painfully obvious: they were collecting technology. There was no way they could take back enough stuff from the future to fight an advanced war effectively, but what they could do was take back enough technology to accelerate the Wehrmacht streets ahead of everyone else. Even if they only supplied an equivalent technology to that available by the end of the war, they’d still be unbeatable, and there was no reason to stop there!”
“I saw the capabilities of the aircraft that attacked us and of that F-35 out there, and I can’t imagine what that thing out there you call a ‘Raptor’ is capable of! Just one air wing of any of those aircraft could make an impact of tremendous proportions!” Trumbull was aghast at the idea Thorne had put forward.
“I wouldn’t count on that kind of technological leap, fortunately enough. It’d take a couple of decades to get an organised industrial base up to that standard even with inside information, and that’s not taking into account that we’re talking about a national economy crippled by fighting a world war into the bargain. Unfortunately, it won’t take that much: there were weapons, aircraft and armoured vehicles being developed at the end of the war — or within a few years after that — that are easily within reach of existing technological capabilities. Any of them could give the Wehrmacht a killer punch.
“The most glaring example of this is a single, devastating weapon developed in 1945, toward the very end of the war. The weapon was perfected by the United States and was intended to end the war against Japan in one fell swoop. Single examples of these bombs, called ‘atomic bombs’, were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th of that year respectively and basically obliterated both cities entirely.”
“One bomb destroyed an entire city…?” Trumbull was sceptical. “…An ‘atomic’ bomb?”
Thorne nodded. “Power equivalent to somewhere between ten and twenty thousand tons of high explosive depending on who you talk to or which book you read. They work through the collision and subsequent fission of radioactive uranium as it passes beyond critical mass.”
“I’ll take your word on that,” Trumbull said dubiously, having no clue as to the scientific procedures Thorne had just mentioned. “You think they’ll give Jerry this bomb to use on England?”
“Probably not…not straight away, anyway…” Thorne replied, shaking his head slowly. “Quite frankly, if they utilise their resources correctly they’ll have quite enough conventional hardware to take Britain rather comfortably. I also don’t think Reuters is quite that stupid. He grew up under the threat of a Cold War ‘peace’ sustained by two great superpowers armed with nuclear weapons — atomic bombs. Giving Hitler this weapon now without credible competition would totally destabilise the planet. One of the greatest ‘strengths’ of atomic weapons was one of deterrence — they held the peace between the world powers for close to fifty years following World War Two because neither side would use them for fear of massive retaliation. In the same way, conventional wars also couldn’t be risked between these ‘Superpowers’ because there was always the real danger of any war escalating to a nuclear exchange. With what I know of Hitler, I’d lay money on him not being stable enough not to use atomic weapons at a whim.”
“And you’re going to stop them — your group here is going to put things right again?”
“The short answer to that question…?” Thorne gave a thin, rueful smile. “Yes and no. As far as an invasion of Great Britain is concerned, we hope to stop it, but it all really depends on the strength of our enemy’s will. If Germany’s truly determined to take Britain regardless of any cost then — and they should be — there’s probably nothing we can do about that.” The answer, although unpleasant, was at least an honest one and as Trumbull made a move to protest he continued, cutting the pilot off before he could speak. “At least, not immediately…when Lowenstein disappeared and we found out what was going on, we set up a contingency plan of sorts. The time travelling devices they’ve developed — they’re called Temporal Displacement Units — take approximately twenty-four hours of actual passing time — what we’ve been calling ‘Realtime’ — to carry the traveller from one time period to another, although it seems instantaneous to the person travelling. What that means is that if any part of history is changed, it takes roughly a day before its effect is felt in the world.
“We eventually tracked the New Eagles to a decommissioned Russian military base east of the Urals, but they managed to launch most of their air group before we could field a force to stop them. We were able to prevent the last two transport aircraft from taking off however, capturing the crew.”
“They sent back aircraft, just as you have?” Trumbull this time required no urging or offer to take the hip flask from Thorne’s left hand and took a swig that finally drained it entirely.
“Yeah, for some reason the TDUs only work in aircraft that are ideally flying at high altitude and at high speed. Don’t ask me why — Markowicz couldn’t work it out and I doubt even the guys that developed them even know, really. Checking the TDUs inside the transports we captured got us nowhere — the settings had been scrambled by the time we got to the aircraft — so we had no real way of confirming exactly what date they’d arrived in the past. Some fairly speedy interrogation of the crew however did give us a date we’d hoped was accurate: noon on July the First, 1940. We didn’t have much time once the New Eagles had disappeared — only 24 hours — so we prepped the task force we’d gathered together as best we could and set the TDUs we recovered from their captured aircraft for a time and date a few days before that. The idea was that we could intercept and shoot down their aircraft as they arrived — destroy them utterly before they could make full contact with the Nazis of this era and alter history to any great extent.”