“The witness was a teenage boy, I assume,” Voss said.
Hans fought to hide his smile. “It could easily have been a middle-aged man,” he pointed out. “Was it?”
“It was a soldier, home from the wars,” Holliston said, curtly. “As far as we can tell, all of the BDM girls who were trapped within the square were linked to matrons, so we believe that the fakes left the square before the alert was sounded and made their escape into the city. So far, we do not have any leads on just who spread the rest of the leaflets, but we are working on it. There aren’t, however, many places the leaflets could have been printed.”
Voss took the leaflet from the table and inspected it. “The paper is softer,” he said. “Not absorbent enough to be useful, unfortunately, but it isn't a perfect copy.”
Holliston gave him a sharp look. “A small printing shop could have done it,” he said, “and we will follow them. However, the most likely place where the leaflets were produced is the university.”
Hans swore under his breath. Holliston had always hated the university, hated how it brought American ideals into even a relatively small population of students. And yet it was necessary. No one knew better than Hans just how badly the Reich was falling apart, just how desperately they needed to reinvigorate their technological base. The students might be the only thing capable of saving the Reich from itself.
“We shut the university down,” Holliston continued, “and investigate all the students for seditious leanings.”
“That would do a great deal of damage to our already weakened economy,” Hans pointed out, tartly. “The computer network alone would be badly hampered if we refused to allow university-taught experts to work on it. And without that...”
“Our forefathers didn't have a computer network,” Holliston snapped.
“They weren't facing anyone who did, either,” Hans countered. “The Americans have been leveraging their computer network and using it as the base for a whole new series of technological developments. If we shut our network down, as sparse as it is compared to the American design, we might as well shoot ourselves in the head and save time!”
“And yet we have to buy computers off the Americans,” Holliston said. “How do we know we can even trust them?”
“The university will give us better computers in time,” Hans said. It was an old argument, but the truth was that the United States had moved far ahead. Reverse-engineering some of the more advanced machines the Reich had... obtained from the US had proved impossible, while what computers the Reich could produce were unsellable outside the Reich’s captive market. “We just need to give it time to flourish.”
“You’ve been saying that for five years,” Holliston reminded him.
“And what use,” Hans asked, “could one get out of a five-year-old child?”
“I think we’re moving away from the point,” Voss said. “We don’t have time to bicker when we need to come up with a response to these leaflets.”
“That is correct,” Field Marshal Stoffregen said. “Allow me to suggest a compromise.”
Hans exchanged a look with Holliston, then nodded.
“Finding these rebels and rooting them out is a priority,” Stoffregen continued, smoothly. Military officer or not, he wouldn't have reached high office without being a skilled politician. “At the same time, we have no proof that the university is involved in the affair - and we do need the university. Therefore, I propose that we do not act overtly against the university, but we also place control of the affair in the hands of the SS. This would, of course, be a short-term measure.”
“That would be acceptable,” Holliston said, after a moment. “But we do need to tighten up security, both on the university campus itself and the streets.”
And you’ll do your level best to make it a long-term measure, Hans thought, coldly. The hell of it was that he doubted he could argue against the suggestion. They would leave the university in peace, at least for the moment, in exchange for a short-term surrender of power to the SS. And you can use that to take over the university or shut it down, given time.
“Putting additional policemen on the streets might be a good idea,” he said, carefully. “I would insist, however, that your people within the university be carefully trained in recognising the difference between student chatter and actual sedition.”
“There's no time to train up additional agents,” Holliston said. He leaned forward. “A strong and visible presence may deter students from joining the movement, even if it doesn't lead to any of the ringleaders.”
“Who may not even be students at all,” Hans snapped. He didn't fault Holliston for jumping to such a conclusion, but there was no proof. A cell within the Nazi Party itself could have produced the leaflets, then arranged to have them handed out. It wasn't beyond belief that some of his subordinates had actually decided to take matters into their own hands. “It was hard enough to build the university, Karl. We don’t want it wrecked overnight.”
“There is no need to import Americanisms,” Holliston sneered. “We have always been at our strongest when we go back to basics.”
“There’s nothing basic about a Panzer tank,” Hans snapped. “There’s nothing basic about a radio, or vaccinations, or man-portable antiaircraft missiles. And the Americans are already ahead of us! How long will it be before they come up with something that gives them an unbeatable advantage?”
“You don't know that will happen,” Holliston said.
“I doubt Fredrick the Great could have predicted the arrival of panzers,” Hans pointed out, sharply. “And even if he had, could he have stopped a dozen panzers from ripping his army into little pieces?”
“We need to vote,” Field Marshal Stoffregen said, before Holliston could come up with a biting retort. “All those in favour?”
***
It was, Karl Holliston conceded afterwards, a bitter victory.
He was not fool enough to believe, despite the prospects for winning the endless struggle for power in the Reich, that Hans Krueger was responsible for the leaflets, or for aiding and abetting their producers. Krueger, whatever his faults, wouldn't risk the fundamental balance of power that controlled the Reich. And that, Karl was sure, was true of everyone else who had a seat on the Reich Council. They simply had far too much to lose if social upheaval swept through the Reich.
But they were soft. And that softness was going to get them killed.
It had to be the university, he was sure. The SS, the military, even the party bureaucracy... none of them would tolerate the kind of free-thinkers it would take to gather the evidence, produce the leaflets and then distribute them to the masses. They’d have problems even recognising that the masses could be politically important. Hell, they weren't politically important. What did it matter if some workers wanted to form an independent union, or some housewives started demanding more rights, or schoolchildren wanted an end to the harsh discipline and relentless tutoring? There was nothing they could do about it, was there?
Karl had studied universities in America, back when he’d been mustering his objections to the whole concept. Yes, they did encourage the development of new technological ideas - he’d never tried to deny that - but they also encouraged the spread of political ideas. And some of those ideas could be very dangerous. The current racial melange that made up the United States was partly the work of American students, who’d fought to embrace Untermenschen to their bosom. Good German girls wouldn't even think of allowing themselves to be sullied by an Untermensch; American girls didn’t think twice about dating and even marrying Untermenschen men. The Americans didn't even seem to realise just how badly they were damaging their own society...
And Japan is the worst of America, Karl thought. It still made him shudder, every time he thought about just how deeply the races had blended together, just how the once-proud white stock that had tamed America had been diluted by the intrusion of Japanese blood. They will not be allowed to spread their perversions ove
r here.
But it had to be the university students, he told himself. No other group in Germany could combine an awareness of their surroundings with a political naivety that would urge them to try to spread the word. There was simply no one else so foolish, so free of the ever-present listening ears - and besides, if students could cause long-term political damage in America, perhaps they would think they could do the same in the Third Reich.
He kept his face expressionless as the meeting finally came to an end, giving him the chance to hurry back to his office. The Gestapo and the Order Police, for once, would have to take orders from the SS, orders that would lead them right to the rebels. And if the rebels proved harder to find than he expected...
It might be time to start coming up with some contingency plans, he thought. Silently, he started drawing up some possible concepts. Plans that will stamp on the rebels once and for all.
Chapter Seventeen
Berlin
29 July 1985
“Do you all understand your objectives?”
Leutnant der Polizei Herman Wieland nodded hastily. He’d gone into the station after the acrimonious family dinner, only to be told to bed down in the barracks and wait for orders, along with the rest of his squad. By the time they’d been awoken and told to shower, shave and get into fresh uniforms, it was the following morning; oddly, he was almost relieved that he wouldn't be going home until he’d had a chance to find out what was actually going on and, perhaps, find out if he should hand over the cursed leaflet to his superiors. But the briefing hadn't been very detailed and, according to rumour, the one policeman who’d made the mistake of admitting receipt of one of the leaflets had been hauled out of the station and interrogated by the SS. Herman had quietly promised himself that he’d dump the leaflet he’d left at home as soon as he returned from work.
“Get into your vans,” the captain ordered, curtly. “Go.”
Herman hurried out of the station and clambered into the van, followed by a dozen other Order Policemen who were checking their pistols, truncheons, handcuffs and radios as they readied themselves for the operation. There was no talking in the rear of the vehicle as the engine roared to life; they knew, all too well, that they might be running straight into an ambush. Herman was old enough to remember the Gastarbeiter riots and the last gasps of the French Resistance, when thousands of people - the innocent along with the guilty - had been rounded up and marched to the camps. The leaflet-writers knew they couldn't expect mercy from the Reich. They’d be more likely to try to kill as many policemen as possible before being gunned down themselves.
He shuddered, inwardly, as he checked his own weapons. The briefing had asserted that the leaflets had been spread by Gastarbeiters, men and women who had come to Germany to work. It was unlikely a Gastarbeiter had actually written the leaflet - for once, Herman was inclined to agree with the SS officer who’d briefed them - but that didn't absolve the Gastarbeiters of their role in the scheme. They should know better than to cross the authorities, he reminded himself; they had no rights, no legal protections, if a pureblood German swore out a complaint against them. A Gastarbeiter who ran into trouble with the law would be lucky if he was only dispatched to the east and put to work building the giant autobahns that were slowly opening up eastern Russia to German settlements.
The vehicle lurched violently as the driver turned on the siren, clearing civilian traffic out of their way as they drove into the suburbs. Herman gritted his teeth - he preferred driving to sitting in the back of the van - and tried not to think about what might be lying in wait for them. But his thoughts kept straying to Gudrun, to the beautiful and clever daughter he didn't really understand. Marlene and Hanne - his sisters - had been content to marry well and become housewives, tending the house and bringing up a small flock of children, but Gudrun? She wanted to be something more, something masculine. Herman would have forbidden her from attending the university, he knew now, if he’d realised just what it would do to her. She was trying to slip away from becoming a wife and mother and...
... And what? It would only bring her heartbreak.
Herman winced, inwardly. There were few jobs for women in the Reich, particularly young and fertile women who could have married and had children instead of trying to compete with the men. Gudrun’s only real hope lay in computers - the strange devices imported from the United States - and, even then, the big companies would be reluctant to hire a young girl who wasn't married. The only fields completely open to women were nursing and the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned BDM. He tried to imagine Gudrun as a BDM matron and shuddered at the thought. His daughter was too sweet, too caring, too compassionate to develop the sadism required of a matron. Gudrun would never bully young girls, he was sure; she’d never force overweight girls to stand in the centre of the room and hold back tears as they were mocked by their fellows. The very thought was absurd.
And if she graduated, he asked himself, who would want to marry her?
It was an odd thought, but true. What sort of man would want to marry a woman who had more qualifications than himself? Gudrun might be doomed to permanent spinsterhood merely by having a useless scrap of paper, a qualification she couldn't use because she was a woman. Herman had approved of Konrad - he didn't have the arrogance that typified SS stormtroopers - but would he still want Gudrun after she graduated? And what would she have done if Konrad had refused to allow her to work? It was his right, as her husband, to decide if his wife could work. What would Gudrun have done if he’d told her to stay at home and have his babies?
I shouldn't have let her go to the university, he thought, as the vehicle lurched again. She will only think she can be more than a housewife...
Caius tapped his shoulder. “We’re going to be there in two minutes,” he said. “Wake up!”
“I wasn't sleeping,” Herman muttered, as he sat upright. The other policemen looked as tired and wary as he felt. “Are you ready?”
“They should have sent in the stormtroopers,” Caius said. “God knows what we might encounter.”
“Politics,” Fritz said. He had relatives in high places, Herman had heard, although they clearly couldn't be bothered to boost Fritz’s career. “They don’t want to put the SS in complete control of the investigation.”
Herman fought down the urge to roll his eyes like a child. It was flatly illegal for a Gastarbeiter to own a gun - and gun control within the Reich was strict - but there had been a thriving trade in weapons shipped in from France and Russia for decades. They might just run into a terrorist cell with rifles and machine guns... and, as the terrorists would have nothing to lose, they’d sell their lives dearly. Putting the thought aside, he checked his pistol as the vehicle came to a halt, then followed Fritz and Caius though the metal doors and into the cold morning air. The Gastarbeiter barracks were right in front of them, a pair of armed guards at the gatehouse staring at the policemen in surprise.
“Arrest them too,” the Captain ordered. “And then get the Gastarbeiters under control.”
“Here we go,” Caius commented.
Herman gave him a sharp look as the armed policemen hurried through the gates and down towards the barracks. It was a solid building, reminding him of his military service; indeed, the only real difference between the army barracks and the Gastarbeiter barracks was that there was only one set of doors, right at the front of the concrete building. The Gastarbeiters would have problems getting out, if there was a fire, but no one really gave a damn about their safety. They were hired for grunt labour, nothing more; there was an infinite supply of Frenchmen and women who would come to work in the Reich, even though the pay was poor and the conditions were dreadful. Herman wouldn't have given two rusty Reichmarks for their future. Vichy France wasn't about to complain if a few hundred Gastarbeiters were unceremoniously shipped east so they could be worked to death.
They passed through a small office - the corporation that controlled the Gastarbeiters had a habit of hiring them out for
private commissions - and opened the metal door that led into the barracks itself. Herman wrinkled his nose at the smell of too many men in close proximity - the Gastarbeiters didn’t have regular showers, unlike the men in his former unit - and then cocked his pistol as the Gastarbeiters jumped up, some of them cracking their heads on the upper bunks. Their eyes were wide with fear.
Untermenschen, Herman thought. He couldn't help noticing that some of the men were so poor they had to sleep in their work clothes - or in the nude, despite the cold. Many of them were scarred, suggesting they’d been whipped at some point in the non-too-distant past. He relaxed, slightly, as he realised there wouldn't be a fight. Men without the spirit to try to resist.
“GET UP,” the Captain bellowed, as the policemen spread out. “HANDS IN THE AIR; HANDS IN THE AIR!”
Herman watched, feeling his hands grow sweaty around his pistol. If there was going to be any resistance, it was going to be now... but the Frenchmen showed no signs of being willing to fight. He smirked, remembering his father’s stories of how the Wehrmacht had marched through France, sowing their oats in the wombs of French maidens as they passed. His father had told him that Frenchmen were always cowards and Herman hadn't seen much, in his military and police career, to suggest differently.
Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1) Page 17
