The guns were not naked. They had anti-aircraft protection and these smaller guns sent their shells into the sky. An American P47 was hit and blew apart, but others dropped their bombs around the Russian guns and made strafing runs after their bombs were gone. Koenig ran down to the basement and hid in a corner. He was not a coward. Had there been an enemy he could hit, he would have fought back, but this fighting was going on in the skies far above him.
When the American planes had gone, he jumped up and ran across a field to the captured Russian guns. They and their crews had been destroyed. The cannon were lying on their sides and their carriages had been broken into pieces. Dozens of smoldering patches of clothing and flesh were all that remained of the gun crews.
Well, not all, he realized as he saw the major staggering toward him. “Someone help me. I can’t see.”
Of course you can’t, Koenig thought, you have no eyes, no face. The man’s head was a mass of bloody flesh. The major slumped to his knees and then fell forward onto his ruined face. Koenig checked him quickly. The foolish man was dead.
An artillery shell exploded a couple of hundred yards away from him. He turned and saw a column of American tanks across the river. They were the preposterous looking M3 with its high silhouette and 75mm gun located to its side. The foolish thing didn’t even have a turret and the design belonged to the previous war. Still, it could kill.
Koenig ran to where a sergeant was directing the withdrawal of a pair of 88mm anti-aircraft guns. He knew from experience that the guns were superb tank killers. They could fire rapidly and accurately, and their shells could pierce most armor, and most certainly that of the American M3 medium tank. He idly wondered why the Yanks had a light tank also designated the M3. Strange, but not important.
“Sergeant, you have targets on the other side of the river. I suggest you kill them if you wish to leave here without them killing you.”
The sergeant saw the tanks, gasped, and set about unlimbering and aiming his guns. There were now a half dozen tanks and several trucks in plain view across the river. Koenig gave no instructions to the gun crews. They clearly knew what they were doing and did not need his help.
The first eighty-eight barked and the shell landed a score of yards in front of the lead tank. The second struck closer, while the third blew the American tank to flaming pieces. The German guns then turned on the second and third tanks in the column. One more was hit and turned into a torch before the remaining Americans turned and raced away.
The sergeant and his crews grinned in satisfaction. They had taken a measure of revenge on the Americans for the deaths of their comrades.
“Well done, sergeant.”
The sergeant wiped his brow with a dirty rag. “They arrived quicker than we thought, captain.”
“And they left quicker than they thought,” Koenig said with a laugh. “The American commanding general in this area is a man named Patton. He moves quickly, they say, and it looks like they may be right.”
“No matter,” said the sergeant. “We’ll be ready for him.”
Chapter Twelve
FDR was shocked when he saw the damage to the Capitol and other places where bombs had exploded. Even though it was slight, it was a grievous insult to the United States. The craters in the parks and fields around the Capitol and the White House had left scars that were more emotional than logical. The Pentagon had been hit as well, but he would not be crossing the Potomac to see that damage. The Secret Service was nervous enough about this foray. The president was riding in an armored limousine and was bracketed by soldiers in trucks and police on motorcycles.
Roosevelt pounded the seat in front of him in anger. The United States had again been hit by a sneak attack, this time by the arrogant and murderous Germans. Already a previously reluctant Congress was clamoring for war. Gone totally was the reluctance to fight a two front war. The attack by Germany was perceived as being in the same league as Pearl Harbor had been, perhaps even more so since the American mainland had been struck. Hawaii, after all, was just a territory and not one of the forty-eight states or even the District of Columbia. This attack, therefore, was different. The president hoped that his limited foreknowledge of the German plans would not become known until long after he was dead.
General Marshall and Admiral King were squeezed into the limo with the president. Marshall glared at the black scar on the Capitol building. “We estimate fifty bombers dropped a total of a hundred tons of bombs. As far as bombing raids go, it is trivial. The damage was minimal and only a half dozen people were killed and another score or so injured.”
“Much ado about nothing,” FDR said, “unless, of course you were one of the casualties, and that the attack started a war.”
He could not bring himself to say that it was a war he desperately wanted if the Nazi scourge was ever going to be halted before it took over the world. Just yesterday, representatives of a Jewish group informed him that almost all the Jews in Europe had been murdered. They said that the largest concentration of Jews in the world was in the United States. It reinforced the fact that the Nazis were bloody monsters that had to be destroyed.
Marshall continued. “We confirmed that fourteen of the bombers were shot down along with a dozen of their escorts who turned back well before Washington. Obviously they didn’t have enough fuel. We’ve even taken a handful of prisoners who appear to be cooperating and giving us a lot of useful information.”
Roosevelt was surprised that they would cooperate. Marshall actually smiled. “A couple of them were glad to be free of Hitler and the war, while some of the others wanted to brag about what they knew and how superior the Reich was. One of my officers helped matters by convincing them that if they didn’t talk, they would be taken to a camp run by Jewish guards. He added that the first thing that would happen to them would be their forced circumcision.”
Roosevelt laughed softly. It felt good. “And you’re certain no German forces remain on our side of the border?”
“There are no major German forces in the United States,” said Marshall, carefully choosing his words. “The FBI is rounding up every German national or domestic Nazi they can find. We will doubtless pick up the innocent with the guilty, but we can straighten that out later.”
“What about their embassy?” the president asked.
“Cordoned off by troops, along with Italy’s,” Marshall answered. Mussolini had followed Hitler’s lead and declared war on the U.S. “We assume they’ve already done the same with our people in Berlin and Rome. We will arrange to exchange them as soon as it is feasible. What we don’t know, however, is how many embassy personnel escaped and how many other potential German saboteurs are still out there. J. Edgar Hoover can say all he wants about the FBI rounding up hundreds of Germans, but the truth is that we won’t know who we might have missed until and if they strike.”
All three men remembered the declaration by the FBI’s Clyde Tolson that every German would be rounded up. It had seemed to be absurd bragging at the time, and nothing had happened to change their minds.
“The navy’s not been inactive either,” King added proudly. “We have four confirmed U-boat sinkings and the possibility of three more. We are planning a task force that will interdict shipping between Europe and Canada. We will blockade the port of Halifax and, after eliminating the U-boats off our coast, work our way towards the east and Europe.
Roosevelt smiled. “Excellent. And I know how much it means to both of you to be able to finally hit the bastards. Has Admiral Vian asked to take his warships out?”