Final impact

Eisenhower felt the prime minister’s hand on the small of his back, propelling him gently toward the armored Bentley. He nodded back at his driver to follow them. It was well after midnight in London, with the “dimout” in effect for only the second week. It had proven to be a grave disappointment for the people of London, who had long dreamed of turning their lights on again after five years of blackout conditions. The weak guttering light from a few lonely street lamps merely reinforced how badly the city had fared during the long war. Eisenhower had spent very little time back in the United States since taking over as the supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe, but each time he came back to England with the impression that he was traveling into a dark age. The comparison with Los Angeles, and the Zone in particular, was especially stark. No blackout was enforced in the San Fernando, where it seemed a whole city had been brought into the world, a fantastic landscape of light and glass that apparently never slept. Privately, he thought it was telling that England seemed little changed by the Transition, whereas America was awash in new fashions and technologies.

“So, General,” Churchill said as they settled into the seats. “What did you make of all that?”

It had begun to drizzle outside, and Eisenhower brushed a few droplets of moisture from his overcoat before answering.

“Well, Mr. Prime Minister, like you I guess I’m a bit pessimistic about it all. I don’t see this Russian business ending well.”

“Of course not,” grunted Churchill as the car lurched into motion. The headlights were unhooded now, and twin beams shone forth brilliantly, illuminating the gray scenery through a curtain of light, drifting rain. “I worry that we are in more danger now than we faced after Dunkirk. This is a small island, and just a few atomic bombs would be more than enough to see her utterly destroyed.”

“I don’t think it will come to that,” said Eisenhower, trying for a steady, reassuring tone, even though he felt far from happy. “I think the Russians would understand an atomic attack on London would be met with an overwhelming response.”

Churchill, who seemed a lot older these last few weeks, shrugged. “And so we destroy Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev or what’s left of it…and then what. London is gone. And maybe Liverpool or Manchester. Perhaps Paris, too. And I can’t imagine Berlin lasting more than another week, or however long it takes Uncle Joe to build another of these infernal devices.”

The car ran past a huge bomb site, a couple of acres of old rubble and tumbledown buildings. Trash blew around in the ruins, and it took very little for Eisenhower to imagine the whole city reduced to the same state.

“I think we may have to look at plans for evacuating the population,” said Churchill. “There’ll be no fighting the enemy on the beaches if the beaches have burned to glass.”

D-DAY + 36. 8 JUNE 1944. 1322 HOURS.

BERLIN.

“I am sorry, Mein Fuhrer. So sorry,” the SS leader whispered as he placed the heavy pillow on the gray, lifeless face of Adolf Hitler. He wasn’t dead yet, even though he looked it. But the doctors said that was simply a function of the stroke, which had obliterated the part of his brain controlling the multitude of tiny muscles that gave form to a man’s features, even when he was asleep. Now there was just slackness, and a terrible vacancy where once one of the great minds of human history had animated this expression. The Reichsfuhrer trembled to his very core at the magnitude of the crime he was about to commit. But as a true national socialist, he also understood that sometimes it was necessary to kill for the greater good. And the white light that had bloomed over Lodz only threw that into starker relief.

“I am sorry,” Himmler whispered again as he pressed down on the cushion. He thought he felt some resistance, a weak pushing back, and perhaps he heard a muffled whimper, too. One of the fuhrer’s legs twitched on the rough camp bed, and he worried that the cot might collapse beneath them. That would somehow have made it all the worse.

One unshod foot thumped against the sweating brick wall with a sick, soft thudding, and he felt a limp hand batting obscenely at his groin, but still he pressed on. It was for the good of the Fatherland, and for the good of the fuhrer himself. The doctors had assured the Reichsfuhrer that there was no chance their beloved leader would recover. His mind was most definitely gone, and Himmler knew that under such circumstances Adolf Hitler would not want to be maintained as a living vegetable.

Reich policies on these matters were quite clear. The T4 program applied in this case, as in all others.