Final impact

Indeed, it was he who had suggested the temporary cease-fire with the Bolsheviks, allowing them to secure themselves in the West. And it was he who had first admitted that the Allied air strikes on the rail lines leading to the Jewish processing facilities in Poland were appreciably slowing the Final Solution. He had led the counteroffensive against their enemies within, revealed by the electrical archives on the Dessaix. And he had been the first to recognize that, to preserve the forces they had moved into northern France, they would need to withdraw beyond the range of the Trident’s sensors and Churchill’s Bomber Command.

Hitler had not enjoyed hearing any of it, but he had to be told. Was it the same now?

The Reichsfuhrer-SS examined the map table, comparing it with the televiewing screen. He wasn’t a military genius-he knew that only too well. But he would not shy from doing whatever was necessary. Around him the business of the war continued. The fuhrer curtailed his diatribe against Zeitzler and started in on Gцring, demanding to know why the Luftwaffe was making so little headway in cracking open the Allied air defense network.

“They are in our Kriegsgebiet now, Herr Reichsmarschall. But where are your jet fighters? Where are the dive-bombers?”

Himmler didn’t even bother attending to the fat fool’s reply. It would be a waste of time. Gцring had no operational control of the air force anymore. He was only here because he had survived the purges. Himmler shut him out now, along with the dozens of war room staffers who scurried about. Instead, he concentrated on the situation unfolding in front of them.

The Abwehr reported that Allied preparations for a massive assault on Normandy continued unabated. A real army was gathering in the hinterland of Falmouth and Dartmouth, ready for the channel crossing. There would be no repeat of the Fortitude deception-not in this war. The Reich would not be caught unawares or misled into thinking the invasion would fall in one place, when all along it had been meant for another. The crushing weight of the greatest military machine the world had ever known was poised to fall on Eisenhower as soon as he commenced his main thrust.

Still, Zeitzler had a point. To destroy the landing at Calais might prove a crippling blow to Allied morale.

But then, the fuhrer was right, as well. Thousands of Allied warplanes infested the sky above Calais and Dover, just waiting to pounce. To commit the best of their armored and heavy divisions into Calais meant feeding them to the sharks of the RAF and the USAAF.

If only they could match the Allies’ surveillance cover. Unfortunately, while providence had delivered the Dessaix into their hands, only a handful of the crew had proved cooperative, and some of those had turned out to be saboteurs. As a result, they had not been able to fully exploit the ship’s capabilities, and now she was lost to them forever. Sunk by that criminal whore on the submarine Havoc.

One could go mad thinking about the squandered opportunities. With just a few “surveillance drones,” and the men trained to use them, they could have logged every ship and aircraft movement out of southern England.

Himmler sighed.

The fuhrer had calmed down and was standing at the table again, arms folded, chin on his chest as he bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet and pondered the diabolical strategic problems of the hour. The Allies must be kept from the Fatherland a little while longer. Soon the Reich would have its first atomic weapon, and there would be no more talk of unconditional surrender. Churchill and Roosevelt would be the ones groveling, begging for an accommodation.

Then, with the democracies checkmated in the West, they could turn their attention back to Stalin.

The map table did not extend beyond Poland, yet the vast steppes and the brooding Communist giant were never far from anyone’s mind. The cease-fire with Moscow was still holding, but it was beyond argument that the Red Army was using this time to prepare its defenses against another Wehrmacht attack, at the same time that the two states “cooperated” on a number of technical projects-all in the name of facing the “common enemy.” It was all horseshit, but the pause in hostilities suited them both.

Or rather, Stalin thought it suited him.

When the atomic warheads were finally delivered, the Slavic buffoon would be made to realize just how wrong he had been.

4

D-DAY + 5. 8 MAY 1944. 1833 HOURS.

PARIS.

Brasch had read somewhere that those who can eat well, and those who cannot, exist at all times on opposite sides of a gulf that can never be crossed.