“Amen to that!” Reuters agreed in German, turning back toward the waiting pilot and calling him closer with a gesture of his hand. “Herr Oberstleutnant…”
At mention of his name, Ritter whirled and faced the Reichsmarschall, decidedly less angry and again more concerned over how the OdW would react to his insubordination. He took four long strides and returned to his original position before the men.
“I’ve considered your request, Herr Ritter and have decided to grant it. You’ll keep the children with suitable nursing staff on base for the moment. I’ll have the details taken care of, and make the requisite paperwork available within a day or so. Included in this will be travel permits and papers for your wife to come to Paris and collect the boy. How long is it since you’ve seen your wife?”
“It — it’s been some time, sir,” Ritter answered hesitantly, a little shell-shocked by the Reichsmarschall’s complete turnaround, “…almost a year, now.”
“It’ll be good for you to see each other also, then. I’ll arrange a week’s leave for you to enjoy the sights of Paris — I don’t expect there’ll be any great need for your unit during the next month.” Even as Ritter struggled to assimilate this incredible information, Reuters added: “I must also apologise for my earlier reaction, Herr Oberstleutnant: the outburst was uncalled for and unbecoming an officer of the Wehrmacht. If you’ve nothing further to add, I must now take my leave of you — I now have a great deal more to do this morning than I’d originally planned.”
“No, sir — there’s nothing else I require…I cannot thank the Reichsmarschall enough for what you’ve done already.”
“In that you’re probably correct,” Schiller observed with quick certainty as Reuters began to walk back toward the transport, deciding to at that point make an important statement regarding the pilot’s currently precarious position. “You realise that you could quite easily be court-martialled for what’s occurred here today?”
“Yes, sir — I’m aware of that.”
“Very well, then: I suggest you keep that in mind. The Reichsmarschall is a generous man at heart and it’s my job, as his aide, to ensure that’s not taken advantage of. I’d like it understood that in my opinion, your ‘quota’ of favours with the Reichsmarschall is, for the moment, run quite dry. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir — quite clear…”
“Excellent! Let’s leave it at that for now. Oh yes,” he remembered suddenly, “the boys’ names?”
“Of course: Antoine and Curtis St. Clair…five years of age and approximately eight months respectively.”
“Very well, then. Good day, Oberstleutnant Ritter…” Schiller saluted formally, bringing the pilot to attention before him. He turned and left the flier where he stood as he returned the salute, the four grenadiers moving to follow immediately.
That left Ritter standing by himself in the middle of the concrete runway, arms hanging loosely by his sides as he attempted unsuccessfully to make head or tail of the Reichsmarschall’s strange behaviour. Of the man’s military genius there was no doubt — the current spate of victories across Western Europe and in Poland were witness to that — and Ritter could only assume that with that kind of genius there also came a certain ‘eccentricity’. For a moment he thought about the children that currently lay sleeping in his quarters, and as he began to walk slowly back toward the main dormitories and mess buildings off to the north he could have no idea of what enormous events that would occur as a result of the path in history he’d unsuspectingly begun to carve for himself.
As the Gigant thundered skyward once more a few moments later, Reuters sat in silence in his specially-fitted office at the front of its spacious cargo bay. His comfortable, well-padded chair carried a seat belt and was fixed to the floor of the plane, but it also doubled as an executive chair for the large, wooden desk bolted down in front of it. Schiller sat in one of the equally-comfortable flight chairs on the other side of the desk, regarding his commander and friend with a concerned eye.
“It appears that we’re not in Kansas any longer, little Toto…” he observed, using a little more depth of understanding than he usually felt necessary as his mind drew on the same metaphoric saying Thorne had alluded to a few nights before. It was a few seconds before Reuters, lost in another world within his own mind, realised someone was speaking. His eyes refocussed on the man before him.
“Hmm…?” He asked finally, shaking his head a little to clear his wandering thoughts. The office area was well soundproofed, and they were able to speak at a comfortable level. “Yes…” he added thoughtfully. “We are, it also seems, about to experience our first taste of real opposition.”
The reconnaissance pod Hawk-3 had brought back to Wuppertal had indeed taken some excellent pictures — pictures that had provided Reuters, Schiller, Müller and others with rude and unwelcome confirmation of exactly what they’d feared. From those photographs and what little information had been gleaned from the last data-transmission of the Sentry, they’d been forced to reassess the nature of the threat that Hindsight posed.
“Pre-programming the TDUs and providing the pilots with no prior knowledge of the destination time obviously gave us a little breathing room, otherwise we’d have come across them before now,” Schiller observed thoughtfully. “Fortunate indeed those things were designed to automatically clear their data after a jump.”
“We’ve been sloppy all the same,” Reuters snapped, more than a little angry as he considered the loss of four irreplaceable jet aircraft. “We’ve had seven years of getting things our own way, and that’s suddenly and quite unpleasantly changed in an instant. We — I — didn’t take that into consideration and I should have. Because of my failure, we’ve lost vital resources we can ill afford to lose, and I’ll guarantee you it’ll seriously weaken our position with The Führer.”
“With all we’ve already done for him?” Yet Schiller’s voice carried no conviction; he knew as well as Reuters of Adolf Hitler’s fickle accordance of trust in those who failed him, even slightly.
“And what about the Flanker crew that ejected over Dorset?”
“We’ve a good system of agents throughout the British Isles, and have done for some time. The pilots know that and they’ll head for the nearest pick up zone as their briefings instructed in the ‘unlikely’ event of them being shot down,” Schiller shrugged, deciding there was no point in worrying about events that couldn’t be altered. “Our operatives will either extract them, or dispose of them if extraction isn’t a viable alternative…” His voice trailed off momentarily as he caught his friend’s attention waning, Reuters’ eyes losing focus once more. “But that’s not the issue right now, is it, Kurt…?”
“No…” Reuters answered after a long pause, unwilling to admit the truth. “I suppose it isn’t…”
“We discussed this aspect of the mission before displacement, Kurt…many times. We always knew these kinds of anomalies were possible…even probable.”
“I always thought extraterrestrial life was possible, Albert, but that doesn’t mean I’m prepared to meet a bug-eyed monster this very afternoon!” The Reichsmarschall countered with a slight, ironic smile. “What the hell’s going to happen now? General Wever died in an air crash in ‘Thirty-Five in Realtime, and the Luftwaffe’s strategic bomber program was basically terminated as a result. We made sure he didn’t get on that bloody plane, and he dies in a car crash anyway, almost to the hour. We’ve replaced Fritz Todt, hoping Speer can perhaps get things moving more efficiently and a lot earlier, but will Todt also still die next year in the same way he did in Realtime?” There was a pause as he took a breath. “What the hell will happen in four years time when men like…” he halted, unable to speak the word that was his first choice “…men like Ritter… or Von Stauffenberg… originally found it necessary to take such drastic action? Will these men of the ‘Forty-Four bomb plot still be desperate enough to try and assassinate The Führer if Germany is winning…if we’re still winning by then?”