Final impact

“The Combined Task Force is proceeding as directed to engage Yamamoto’s forces in the Marianas chain. We expect to be within strike range tomorrow, and have deployed surveillance assets well in advance of our main force. The information we have received back from them indicates that at least half the ground forces the Japanese had intended to employ in the defense of the Marianas have been or are being withdrawn to the Home Islands, accompanied by most of the major surface combatants that Yamamoto had planned to meet us with. Admiral Kolhammer tells me that the submarine Havoc will be in position off the Home Islands in two hours, and we should have a data feed from her in about four hours. Until then we cannot say anything definitive about the size or type of forces the Soviets appear to have committed to their attack on Japan.”

Spruance shot Kolhammer a questioning glance, but the admiral had nothing to add.

Roosevelt appeared on screen again. “Well, then, let us move on. Prime Minister Churchill and I have already conferred over the Nazis’ peace offer, and our answer is simple. We reject any offer other than unconditional surrender. I think we all agree that, no matter how circumstances may change, it would be completely unacceptable to leave the Nazis in power, or to remove them but allow their leaders to go unpunished. As long as they remain, there can be no peace with Germany.

“A military question arises, however, because of the withdrawal of so many German army units to the east. We have to consider the worst possible circumstances, gentleman, a war with the Soviet Union following the fall of the Third Reich. On this Mr. Churchill and I cannot find common ground. He believes that we should allow the Germans to withdraw to meet the Communists on the Eastern Front. Certainly I can understand his point. Anything we do to blunt the advance of the Red Army can only serve to make easier the job of keeping them away from Western Europe months or even weeks from now. But I fear that doing so merely invites Stalin to reinforce his armies and push all the harder. It also gives him a ready-made excuse to declare hostilities against us when he has finished with the Germans. Prime Minister?”

Churchill reappeared in the center of the screen. “And I am afraid that I don’t believe the Bolsheviks will need an excuse. They are quite obviously coming upon us with full force. The destruction of Lodz had less to do with damaging the Germans than it did with bullying us. I believe we need to prepare for armed conflict with the USSR in the very near future, and, as part of that, any damage we can do to marshals Konev and Zhukov-via the agency of the Wehrmacht-is all to the good.

“I do not propose an alliance with them. I merely suggest that we arrange our strategy to allow those German units to move east. They are not escaping. The Red Army will destroy them, but they will keep Stalin’s hordes away from our throats and, of course, avoid those losses we would have sustained in fighting them. This will make us stronger for the conflagration that I believe is now inevitable. Mr. President?”

Kolhammer, like the other military officers, said nothing, although he couldn’t help but agree with the British leader. He had warned Roosevelt often enough that this showdown was coming. The Soviets under Stalin were every bit as vile as the Nazis, with their sole redeeming grace being that their ideology didn’t adhere to any crazed notions of racial destiny. Nevertheless, their goals were almost identical. Now that Stalin knew the destiny of his beloved revolution and his own reviled place in history, he simply could not-would not-accept his fate. It wasn’t in his nature, nor that of his regime. He might talk of a grand alliance today, but Kolhammer would lay money on the barrelhead that he fully intended to supplant the Nazis as the masters of Europe.

It wasn’t surprising that Churchill saw things in slightly starker terms than the Americans. His little island was probably about to become the front line again. And of course, if the Soviets took Japan, with China falling to Mao, the only powers that mattered in postwar Asia would line up with the Politburo.

He exhaled slowly as Roosevelt spoke again.

“Gentlemen, as I said, this is a political decision, but Mr. Churchill and I now need your advice on prosecuting a war against the Red Army, if that should become necessary. I believe General Marshall has something to say.”

Kolhammer drummed his fingers lightly on the desktop, his frustration barely in check.

What about the nukes, he thought.

“Do hop in, General. I’ll give you a lift.”