Himmler chuckled. “It doesn’t seem quite real, does it?” He said wryly. Roth blinked; Himmler letting his metaphorical hair down didn’t happen very often. “I assume that the Russians are moving ahead with their own rocket production?”
“Yes,” Roth said. He scowled; he understood Himmler’s logic, but given the Russians additional weapons didn’t go well with him. “They plan to have thousands of the Mark-1 V2s within a couple of months, and then move onto the Mark-2 design.”
“We all know about Russian five-year plans,” Himmler said. Roth, who had been uncomfortably aware of the scale of the Russian construction programme, said nothing. “By the time they pose a threat to us, they will no longer be a threat.”
Roth blinked at the statement, but held his tongue. After all, Himmler might be more stable than his predecessor, but he wasn’t so willing to take appearances – Russian appearances – at face value.
Kristy Stewart was bored. It wasn’t something she was used to; she was normally able to go out and about as she chose. For the past year and a half, she had been in Germany as a reporter… and she was getting bored of it. The news from home, that little that she got, wasn’t good; there was another bright young thing trying to steal her place.
“I want to go home,” she said, and smiled grimly at her lover. He blinked up at her and she wondered if she meant anything to him, more perhaps than he meant to her.
“You want to go back to England?” Roth asked. His face was a picture of astonishment. She knew that it was a fake. “Don’t you like it here?”
Stewart allowed her frustration to show. “I’m here, instead of wandering around Berlin,” she said. “This isn’t a good place to spend my days; I want to see everyone back home.”
“You could always go on a holiday,” Roth suggested. “There are still alpine retreats, if you want to go there with me.”
“I don’t think that the new Fuhrer” – she’d broken the news about Himmler’s ascension to power – “would let you take a week off.”
Roth frowned. Stewart smiled behind her hand; she understood that Himmler was making Roth work on some ultra-secret project that even her most adventurous sexual techniques couldn’t get him to talk about. It was unlikely that Himmler, who seemed to feel that sex was only good for making little Germans, would give him time off for a tryst.
“Perhaps he could be talked into it,” Roth said doubtfully.
“I need a break, love,” Stewart said. “I want to go back home.”
She winced inwardly. She knew she sounded as if she was going to cry, and she didn’t like using tears to manipulate anyone. On the other hand, most Contemporary personnel seemed to have problems resisting a crying woman.
“I’ll speak to the Fuhrer about it,” Roth promised, placing a hand on her bare shoulder. “I can’t promise anything, but I’m sure that he will let you return for a holiday.”
Stewart, who had caught the patronising undertone, frowned inwardly. “Thank you,” she sniffled, and kissed him. Roth responded to her passion as she used her body unmercifully… for it was the only weapon she had in her gilded cage. Miles from Britain, miles from a civilised country, Stewart finally understood the true danger of Nazism.
Himmler lifted an eyebrow as Roth entered the room. The young SS officer, who had been promoted to handle matters that Himmler didn’t want to trust to the regulars in any way, seemed unusually concerned. Himmler listened as Roth outlined the situation, and frowned to himself.
He hadn’t been that concerned when Roth had started his affair. It wasn’t good practice for an SS officer to be sleeping with a British woman, even if she was a good Aryan – Jasmine Horton was a good Aryan as well, part of his mind reminded him – when the camps existed for SS officers. Roth could have had an arranged marriage with one of the good German girls who had agreed to marry SS officers – and good Wehrmacht officers – who were all good breeding stock. Instead…
Hitler hadn’t cared, he’d thought that it was funny, Himmler remembered. Everything that passed between the two lovers was watched and studied by the SS oversight team, there had been no discussion of state secrets, no pillow talk, and yet… who could say what would reveal the location of the Fuhrerbunker to British intelligence. A lucky hit – and the RAF had already damaged the bunker once by accident – and the Reich would be decapitated.
If that happened…
“She can’t return home,” he said, and kept his face impassive at the expression on Roth’s face. The young fool did have feelings for the British bitch. “At least, not until Operation Peace Makes Plenty.”
Roth relaxed slightly. “She could carry the message home to England,” he said.
Himmler thought rapidly. Roth’s use wasn’t at an end – the SS had too few officers who had his capabilities – but he couldn’t be allowed to continue his relationship. It would have to be handled carefully; there was no point in breaking the man. It wasn’t as if he were a traitor, after all.
“She’ll have to broadcast the signal home,” he said. “She can go with the negotiating team to England, or through Portugal afterwards. They said they wouldn’t come to pick her up, didn’t they.”
“They sent one of their helicopters to pick up the cameraman,” Roth pointed out. “Perhaps they would agree if she was going for a holiday.”
“Perhaps,” Himmler said. He thought cold thoughts about British women. “Yes, I think that will work, don’t you?”
Roth nodded. “Thank you, Mein Fuhrer,” he said. “May I have permission to inform her of your decision?”
“Yes, you may,” Himmler said, as graciously as he could. He waited until Roth had left the room, and then picked up his telephone, dialling a number from memory. “Dieter, it’s me,” he said, and smiled at the stammering response. “I have a task for you,” he said, and outlined his orders.
He put down the phone and nodded once to himself. Whatever happened, Kristy Stewart would never return to England. She knew too much.
Chapter Fifteen: Pushing Boulders
Forward Headquarters
Kuwait, Middle East
18th April 1942
General Robert Flynn examined the map with a sensation of déjà vu. Twelve years in the past, from his point of view, the British army had spearheaded the capture of Basra, a battle that had been brutal, but possessed of only one possible outcome. Saddam’s habit of picking incompetents to command his defensive positions had made that certain.
Now… two divisions of armoured units were sneaking close to Baghdad and preparing to engage the Russian tanks near the city. Most of the development that had made the Kabala Gap so dangerous in 2003 simply didn’t exist in 1942; even with the far more competent Soviet combat engineers working away at laying mines and weapons to prevent a counterattack. With the war still raging in Scandinavia, Stalin had evidently given up on forcing a decision – a decisive battle – in the Middle East… and sacrificed the one chance for a strategic victory that would have made the Battle of Gallipoli meaningless. If he’d pushed on in the chaos… he might just have managed to save the German army from its humiliating surrender.
“God bless infighting allies,” Flynn commented, as he examined the map. It was beautiful in its way, the result of nearly four months of careful intelligence gathering; a perfect picture of Soviet deployments across the Middle East. For all his undisputed skill at armoured warfare, Zhukov remained the pioneer of the bludgeon, rather than the rapier, and that demanded concentration of force. Zhukov – or perhaps Stalin – had concentrated a formidable force along the border, unaware of the sheer power of orbital reconnaissance systems.