Cold ice ran through his veins. If he was isolated so completely that he couldn’t even get a single message out…
His bodyguard grabbed his arm, shocking him out of his daze. “We have to get out of here!”
“Down to the bunker,” Karl said. He gathered himself, as best as he could. He wasn’t sure quite what was going on, but the Reichstag was definitely under attack. One of the Gauleiters was mounting a coup, perhaps. The rebels would have had real trouble projecting force so far from the front lines. “We need to get in touch with the rest of the country.”
He scooped up the nuclear briefcase as the bodyguards opened the rear door and peered through carefully, before motioning him to follow them down the corridor. Karl did as he was told, silently promising himself that he’d make whoever was responsible for this atrocity very sorry indeed. He had the nuclear codes, he had a communications network built under the bunker that was practically indestructible… all he needed to know was who was attacking him. Or maybe he’d just fire on Germany Prime instead. Let the bastards burn.
Or fire on America instead, he thought. The sound of shooting echoed through the building, growing closer and closer. Let the entire world burn.
He gritted his teeth in rage as they slipped down a flight of stairs. He’d been so close to total victory, so close to stamping his will on the entire planet… he still would, once he made contact with his allies. No one, not even the Gauleiters, could subvert everyone. The loyalist units outside the Reichstag could quash the coup with brutal efficiency, then teach the Gauleiters a lesson by laying waste to their lands. And then he’d crush the rest of them, just to make sure that no one could get in his way ever again.
His bodyguard stopped, holding up a hand. The sound of shooting was definitely getting closer. Karl took a tighter grip on his pistol, silently cursing under his breath as he recalled they were completely out of touch with the rest of the Reich. If he died, here and now, the nukes would never fly. And Germany East would collapse into chaos if the coup-plotters failed to take control quickly enough to ward off challenges.
“Down this way,” the bodyguard said. “Hurry!”
Horst wasn’t surprised when the Führer’s door turned out to be defended with fanatical enthusiasm. No one was allowed to join a personal protective detachment unless they were ready and able to give up their lives to protect their charge. And yet, he didn’t have time to deal with them. He snapped orders, then hurled a whole string of grenades down the corridor. The explosions were deafening in the confined space, the walls solid enough to ensure that the guards took the brunt of the blasts. Horst ran over their shattered bodies and straight into the outer office. A middle-aged woman with a formidable face took one look at them and fainted. He gave her a kick, just to be sure she wasn’t faking it, then ran into the inner office. It was deserted.
He swore, feeling numb horror running down his chest. The radio set looked to be working, but the faint background noise from the speaker suggested that it couldn’t reach anyone in or outside the Reichstag. Horst hoped, desperately, that was true, even as the building shook once again. If Holliston had already sent orders for the nuclear silos to launch their missiles, all hell was already breaking out…
It isn’t over yet, he thought. If he can’t get a message out, he’ll go to the bunker.
Another explosion shook the building. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to recall the plans Uncle Emil had located for them. The Reichstag had plenty of back passages that could be used to get a lone man down to the bunker, probably including some that didn’t appear on the plans. But if he was trying to get someone downstairs without being spotted…
“This way,” he ordered. “Quickly.”
A protective detail wouldn’t want to pick a fight, not if it could be avoided. He’d never considered such work for himself, but he’d covered the basics in training. It was better to sneak through enemy territory, rather than run the risk of losing the person they were supposed to protect. And if there were hidden passages running through the Reichstag, he’d expect them to be used too.
And there are hidden passages in Berlin, he thought. He’d gone through the Berlin Reichstag with a fine-toothed comb, after the uprising. There had been at least seven passageways that hadn’t been on any of the diagrams and, if he was forced to be honest, he had never been quite sure that he’d found all of the passages. Why can’t they have them in Germanica too?
He pushed the thought aside as they hurried down the stairs. They had to hurry. Time was very definitely not on their side.
Karl almost wet himself when the shooting started, two of his bodyguards firing down towards the ambushers while the remainder covered him, their weapons searching constantly for targets. He’d never been in danger before, not really; even the escape from Berlin, a hair-raising moment, hadn’t been that bad. But now…
He cringed as the building shook time and time again. Whatever was happening outside, it sounded as though the building was being stormed. He nearly jumped out of his skin when one of his bodyguards caught hold and yanked him down the corridor, running past a trio of bodies in green Heer uniforms. Karl felt his head churning in absolute shock. The rebels? It couldn’t be the rebels! How could they even have managed to get so far east?
Someone betrayed me, he thought, numbly.
It was the only answer that made sense, he told himself, as another burst of shooting rattled out behind him. The rebels couldn’t have gotten into the Reichstag without help. He knew the radar network was a mess — in hindsight, it had been a mistake not extending the defence chain to cover aircraft heading east from Germany Prime — but it wasn’t that bad. Someone had to have made certain that no warning was passed up the chain. And that meant…
He looked down at the nuclear briefcase and smiled. It didn’t matter. He could send the orders as soon as he entered the bunker, orders that would burn the entire world. The Reich would pay for betraying him and his dream.
“Go forward,” his bodyguard snapped, as the sound of running footsteps above them grew louder. “And don’t stop for anything.”
Karl gritted his teeth and ran. The bunker doors loomed up in front of him, guarded by two grim-looking stormtroopers. He ran through, snapping a command at the two guards. The doors slammed shut a moment later, sealing the bunker off from the remainder of the building. And the inner doors would start closing in a few seconds…
He smiled. They wouldn’t get to him now.
Horst threw himself to one side as a stream of bullets nearly took off his head, then hurled his last two grenades down the stairs. The explosion shook the building, sending plaster dripping down from the ceiling as he hurried to the bottom of the stairs…
…and swore out loud as he realised they were too late.
The bunker doors were firmly closed. He stepped forward, his fingers pressing against the solid metal. He’d seen the diagrams. Even if they somehow broke through the first layer, there were enough inner layers to make it impossible to get down into the bunker, certainly not before the end of next year. Holliston could just walk through the escape tunnel to an SS base. And even if the escape tunnel was blocked, he could still launch the nuclear missiles and go out in a blaze of fire.