Things Never Known: The Parallel Nazi - 8, page 10
“Many prime people are in the military,” Rainer commented.
“Exactly. And they are in no position to cut back on that. So, not only are they removing the most productive people from the workforce, but they have to pay them. That’s expensive for a nation that started with nothing a few years ago.”
“May I assume that the Arabian exodus from Judaea has also hurt that.”
“Oh, yes. But, they are getting large numbers of immigrants from Russia and America. I expect that to cure their labor shortage eventually.”
They continued the conversation until one of the guards knocked on the office door, letting Rainer know that their ride to the dinner was here.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
February 12, 1945; 4 PM
Sandringham House
Sandringham, Norfolk, UK
“Thank you for accompanying me this afternoon, Colin,” Queen Margaret said.
“I’m glad you reminded me to bring my boots on this trip, Ma’am,” Colin Marty said. “My street shoes would not have survived the excursion.”
“I don’t think I could survive without having a tromp through the woods occasionally. And I must say you were gracious about it.”
“I’m a city boy, Ma’am. This is a new experience for me. But I honestly enjoyed it. There is something peaceful about the woods.”
“There is. After several hours of threading my way through the thickets, my stomach has stopped boiling. And I am not tempted to strangle the wildlife.”
“I’m sure the coneys appreciate that, Ma’am.”
“Ha! I’m sure they live in mortal fear of me storming through the timber in high dudgeon.”
“I know the people at Downing Street do.”
“And for good reason.”
Colin was happy to see the queen laughing. She had been in a foul mood when they arrived the previous Saturday at Sandringham. While Churchill had behaved himself for the first few months of his premiership, Margaret would have preferred almost anyone installed in Downing Street except Churchill. And everyone knew it.
“Which means it’s good for you to get away from the city for a while.”
“And I agree, Colin. I know I have not been pleasant over the past few months. I hope you will forgive me.”
“Nothing to forgive,” Colin shook his head, “I don’t know anyone who could handle the pressure such as you face. My mum told me one time that when the pressure gets too great, I should take a step back and catch my breath. And that is what you have done.”
“Thank you for that encouragement. You will join me for dinner, of course?”
“Of course, Ma’am.”
Another dispatch box had arrived that afternoon, and he was anxious to begin sorting through it. Margaret would expect to have the stack of paperwork sorted and prioritized when she got to her office in the morning. They would take the evening train back to the city after dinner, and Colin expected to be in his office at Buckingham for the greater part of the night. She would become impatient if he did not have everything prepared for her morning activities. He knew he could survive on little sleep when necessary.
The schedule necessitated their departure immediately after dinner, so they would have to forgo their evening pastime. They fought over the Scrabble board or played Hearts when they weren't abusing the piano. Tonight, she invited him to join her in the rail car rather than sitting in the coach immediately ahead of hers.
“Thank you for riding with me, Colin,” she said. “I am sorely tempted to have a cigarette tonight, and you always glare at me when I give in.”
“I’m glad I can have some positive influence on you, Ma’am. Now, if we can do something about your drinking.”
“Ha!” she barked. “I had only one glass of wine at dinner. I would call that moderation.”
“And a beer before dinner and a brandy afterward.”
“We were discussing dinner,” she sniffed.
“So, we were.”
“And tomorrow, I must face Winston. I feel my stomach tightening up again when I think about it.”
“He has been scrupulous to observe the policy decisions you made with Attlee.”
“Yes, yes, he has. But I have detected a marked lack of enthusiasm about some of those policies, particularly regarding Germany.”
“He has admitted to the people in Whitehall that any changes he might make to the current policies vis a vis Germany will be less optimal.”
“Your friend over in the FO told you that?”
“Yes, he did.”
“I should like to meet him sometime,” she said.
“That would be easy enough to arrange. But you would also lose some deniability.”
“Oh, no, Colin. Ask him to come by your office before one of your lunch jaunts, and I’ll happen to step for one thing or another.”
“That would work,” he thought.
“Of course, it would. We need to develop more of these back door connections through the government. I need to know when Winston is not telling me everything. That is something which will surely happen sooner or later.”
“I am not tempted to argue that point, Ma’am.”
“A wise man,” she laughed.
“Just cautious. If the PM learned anything from his previous experience, and I hope he did, then he should have a successful run.”
“Do you honestly believe that to be the case, Colin?”
“I think we must allow for it. But developing unofficial lines of communication at key spots in the government will hopefully give you some warning if Churchill decides to go outside of the law again.”
“The end result would be worse than the first,” she stated. “We must be on guard for that possibility.”
“And that frightens me. It is dangerous to have Churchill back in a position of power.”
Margaret suddenly leaned back and rummaged through her purse. She pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. She looked apologetically at Colin.
“I’m sorry, Colin. I need something, and this is better than getting drunk.”
He raised a hand to concede the point. The queen smoked steadily on the cigarette as she looked out the window. The train rolled through a small village without stopping. Enough visibility came from the streetlights and the windows of the businesses that were still open to give a brief, dim view of the houses and buildings huddled together in the English winter night.
“What do you suppose the people in that town think of me, Colin?” she asked.
“You are extraordinarily popular, Ma’am. Most are convinced you saved the nation. And then, when you freely turned power back to the elected government, your reputation only grew. And you enhanced the respect our Britons have for the Crown. And that goes for the rest of the world as well.”
“But people are fickle,” she responded. “Popularity is a drug, and anyone would have the temptation to take yet another drag on it.”
He looked down at the cigarette between her fingers and smiled.
“You can just shut up, Colin,” she laughed. “You will not even allow me my fantasies.”
“You do not need tobacco, Your Majesty. You have more internal control than anyone I know.”
“Yes, but it gets so tiresome to maintain it.”
§ § §
February 13, 1945; 10 AM
Office of the President
Knesset Building
Jerusalem, Judaea
“And so, in return for delivering two shipments of small arms to Chiang, Germany will supply Judaea with four patrol boats,” Ben Gurion stated.
“That is correct,” Rainer agreed. “We will also include a stock of spare parts, manuals, and training. The boats will arrive as deck cargo within the next six months.”
“Excellent. Do you have any preference on how we ship the arms to China?”
“No, we leave that in your capable hands, rather Otto’s capable hands, I assume. We will notify Chiang that the shipment is on the way. He will appoint someone as a liaison to your people.”
The President of Judaea nodded as he thought about the transaction. He looked up at Rainer.
“I am curious, however. Why is Herr Schloss doing this?”
Rainer raised his eyebrows and smiled slightly. “I don’t know. All I can say is that the Reich Chancellor regularly comes up with ideas. And they always pay off. Nobody knows how he does it. We were in the middle of a discussion about the Japanese and the Americans and what that settlement would do for the situation in China. And he suddenly said we needed to provide more support to Chiang. It surprised the rest of us.”
“So, you are not supporting Mao, then?”
“No. I suppose it is because our war with Russia has made every German a virulent anti-communist. My personal opinion is that the civil war in China is between murderous communist thugs and murderous, rapacious oligarchs. But I learned long ago never to bet against Herr Schloss because I would lose every time.”
“He certainly helped us.”
“And to continue the conversation, what are your greatest challenges?” Rainer asked.
“As I mentioned the other day, manpower. When we drew the maps, Otto advised me to draw large. He said we would never have another opportunity to add to Judaea’s borders. So we stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. We stretch from the Levant to the Suez Canal. We hold the entire Sinai. But so much of the land is empty. We see more migration from the Soviet Union and the United States. But, mainly, we will have to make do until another generation grows up. We have a lot of children in the kibbutzim. And also, we would like a couple of U-boats.”
“A couple of U-boats?” Rainer repeated the question in surprise. “This is unexpected. What is driving that request?”
“The Persians are said to be building U-Boats. They want to control the Persian Gulf. Germany makes the best undersea craft in the world. Why should we try to build our own.”
Rainer looked at the little Judaean president and tried to gather his thoughts. The sheer surprise of the request muddled his thoughts.
“This is coming at me cold, David. Of course, I will need to talk to Herr Schloss about this.”
“Of course. We have some time before things get critical.”
“I’m sure you do.”
The following day Karl gazed out the window of the JU-290 as it climbed out of Tel Aviv. Misty finished settling herself in for the flight and turned to him.
“It seems like you are in another world this morning, Darling.”
“Oh, Ben Gurion managed to surprise me yesterday.”
“And how did he do that?”
“He requested that Germany supply Judaea with a couple of U-boats. I didn’t see that coming.”
“Why do they need U-boats?”
“He said that the Persians are building some. It’s interesting, but they view the Persians as the most likely long-term threat.”
“The Arabs, or Palestinians, as they are starting to call themselves now, don’t pose much of a threat.”
“The Arabs are a nuisance. But Otto doesn’t seem to be worried about them either.”
“The dynamics of this place are interesting.”
“That’s one way to put it,” he chuckled. “I didn’t get a chance to ask, but how was your tour with Paula Ben Gurion.”
Misty grabbed his hand. “Oh, it was fascinating. It is the most amazing place. They are going to turn the desert into a civilized nation. They are transforming the land. I think the Arabs are going to regret leaving. They will miss out on the benefits.”
“I guess they didn’t want to deal with infidels.”
“The vast majority of the Judaeans held out their hands in friendship. They needed those people.”
“I hope that doesn’t burn the Judaeans in the long run.”
“It could,” she agreed. It’ll be interesting to see how they deal with it.”
“Indeed. And now we go back to our problems.”
She chuckled. “This was really a vacation, Karl. Thank you for bringing me along. I had a wonderful time.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “Nothing makes me happier than to see you delighted about something I did.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
February 12, 1945; 2 PM
Nosivka, Ukraine
Major Karl Klenze adjusted the throttles as he scanned the skies around the Focke-Wulf Condor. Flying at two-thousand meters over the battlefield was nerve-wracking. They were out of the range of most small arms at that altitude, but the big transport was an easy target for any competent anti-aircraft gunner on the ground. Theoretically, they were flying over friendly territory, but he wasn’t convinced some Ukrainian gunner would not open up just for the sport.
The pilot continued to tweak the throttles, aiming for that perfect synchronization so that the sound of the engines was a perfect melodic drone. He hated enduring the wah-wah sound caused by engines not running at the same RPM.
The copilot looked over with a grin. “Are we being anal again today, Major?”
“Hush, Captain. I am merely setting the example for good flying skills.”
The copilot chuckled and went back to his routine, which was to first scan the flight instruments and then survey the sky outside the windscreen. He reached out and tapped one of the gauges. Klenze looked over curiously.
“Oil pressure on number four is fluctuating, Major.”
“Keep an eye on it. I’d rather shut it down than have it seize and tear itself off the wing.”
“Too right, Sir. I’ll put it on the list of things for the mechanics to look at when we get home.”
A half-dozen Messerschmidt Swallows escorted the Condor, but the Russians were sneaky about how they flew intercepts. Sometimes they flew very high and would dive through a German formation. It would give them one firing pass, and they could escape before anyone could react. At this altitude, they could also slip up behind them in the ground clutter and fire at the underside of the Condor. It was more challenging for the attackers to then escape, but it offered a juicier target.
Five kilometers behind in the 4 o’clock position, another Condor followed, this one a radar plane, flew with its own escort. Klenze decided it would be a costly day for the Reich if the Russians happened upon them. The radar Condor represented an expensive investment for the Luftwaffe, and his plane carried ten technicians and their associated electrical equipment.
A Junkers JU-290 tanker aircraft flew twenty kilometers further behind. The jet escorts rotated between the Condors and the tanker, which had its own guardians. Twenty-five Focke-Wulf FW-190 fighters patrolled over the area where the other aircraft flew. The Germans left nothing to chance for the Condors.
“Radar reports the test contact at 7 o’clock, fifteen kilometers,” Klenze heard over the intercom.
“Acknowledged,” he responded. He glanced over at the copilot. “The game begins.”
The technicians started their wire recorders and fine-tuned the radio receivers. A couple of the men watched through the window as the Fi 103, F-2 variant cruised past them to the left and below. A half dozen small radio transmitters aboard the unpiloted aircraft transmitted a continuous stream of information about the various components of the plane. The Fiesler engineers would analyze the radio waves captured on the wire recorders to evaluate the performance of the aircraft.
While the original V-1 flying bomb was a cost-effective weapon, it lacked the range for practical use in the war against Russia. In addition to a larger fuel tank, the Fiesler engineers had substantially revamped the airframe. More fuselage components were of wood, which reduced weight and cost. The Argus As 016 was a development of the As 014 that powered the original weapon. The new engine was more powerful and used less fuel to achieve the increased thrust.
Askania had developed a completely new autopilot using radio signals triangulated from three transmitters. It replaced the timers used in the original. They hoped to reduce the circular error from nine kilometers to less than one kilometer. If they could achieve that level of accuracy, the weapon would become that much more valuable to Germany.
“There it goes,” Klenze commented as he watched the flying bomb scudded ahead of them, drilling through the sparse clouds.
The co-pilot nodded. “Those things are fast.”
“Hopefully fast enough.”
The target was a Russian fuel depot recently discovered by German reconnaissance. The Red Army had become good at camouflaging their installations, but an Abwehr team had kept the depot under observation and radioed the coordinates back to the High Command. This provided an excellent opportunity to test the weapon and also not waste the airframe.
Upon reaching the point where the direction finder indicated, The autopilot put the plane into a drive. At the same time, small pyrotechnic squibs fired and destroyed the transmitters as well as the radio direction finder. If the warhead failed, the Germans wanted the Russians to find very little information about how the flying bomb worked.
A ball of orange fire rose in the distance. Klenze turned to the copilot. “I would say that was a hit.”
“I would think so, Herr Major.”
He watched for a few moments more. “Very well, let’s get turned around. Send the signal to the formation to return to base.”
“Acknowledged,” the copilot replied.
§ § §
February 13, 1945; 9 AM
The Oval Office
The White House
Washington, DC, USA
President Robert Taft shook the hand of General William Donovan when the OSS Director walked into the Oval Office.
“Thank you for coming, General,” Taft said. “I apologize for not meeting earlier. The magnitude of things requiring immediate attention distracted me. I don’t want to diminish your work in any way.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. I understand the challenges you face. I watched the responsibilities of the office wear down Harry Truman. I’m just as glad I never desired to run for high office.”
