Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “Ahh... well, that’s another story altogether, and one in which contacts like Khalid may well become very useful indeed... he’ll cause no trouble so long as we keep an eye on him and bend him to our purposes.”

  “And so we trust him with our secrets?”

  “Unless I am very mistaken, Anwar, the Germans already know exactly what we’re up to... to be honest, I’d be surprised if they didn’t.” He shrugged matter-of-factly. “The truth is, my friend, their intelligence units are probably good enough to find that out without the help of spies within our ranks, and what harm does it do to them in the end anyway? Anything that causes the British difficulty ultimately works in their favour.”

  “And if you’re wrong… about the boy?”

  “What do you think...?” Nasser shot back quickly, both his tone and expression hard and cold as ice.

  Almaza Airfield (formerly RAF Almaza)

  13km east of Cairo, Egypt

  Visible only as a blaze of brilliant landing lights in the pre-dawn darkness, the T-22A transport commenced its final approach from the north into a gusty cross-wind that added greatly to the roughness of the ride. Its wheels squealed in protest as they struck the tarmac of the main runway of Cairo’s largest airfield, leaving the howl of its four huge engines and the stink of kerosene in its wake. The roar changed almost instantly as the experienced pilot immediately reversed the pitch of all four broad, paddle-bladed propellers and used the power of its engines to bring the aircraft quickly to a halt in just four or five hundred metres.

  Known officially by the RLM designation T-22A ‘Goliath’, the Messerschmitt Model 323 would soon replace the smaller and less-capable T-1A Gigant in front line service... as soon as sufficient numbers allowed. Hundreds of air frames were already rolling off the production lines at Augsburg, the only delay being the scarcity of engines to go with them. Rather than a radial or inline piston engine, the T-22 was instead powered by a new type of powerplant known as a turboprop – basically jet engines coupled to large and quite efficient contra-rotating propellers.

  The propellers provided far better endurance than jet power alone, yet the aircraft was still able to fly at far greater speeds than had previously been possible. Even the Luftwaffe’s own J-4 fighter found it almost impossible to catch a T-22 at altitude, making the aircraft difficult indeed to intercept or shoot down. To that end, defensive armament had been kept to an absolute, weight-saving minimum with just a single tail turret mounting a twin-barrelled 23mm cannon.

  The Goliath’s rear loading ramp began to lower the moment it came to a halt on the tarmac, its airframe a patchwork of light and dark shadows in the blaze of the bright but widely-spaced floodlighting running the length of each side of the runway. As the ramp finally touched ground, a single vehicle immediately lurched out of the rear cargo bay in a cloud of bluish exhaust, its diesel engine roaring. The Puma armoured car turned right the moment it exited the aircraft and made straight for a cluster of three similar vehicles that were already waiting by the airfield’s main administration buildings to the west of the asphalt strip.

  General Walther Nehring was waiting, his upper body projecting from the top hatch of the closest vehicle, and as the fourth Puma drew near, its main hatch also flew back to reveal a tired and haggard-looking Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters.

  “We didn’t think you were going to make it, mein herr,” Nehring shouted over the combined noise of the engines of the transport and all four armoured cars as Albert Schiller opened one of the Puma’s hull hatches and rose behind his CO, nodding a silent greeting of his own toward Nehring, who responded in kind.

  “We very nearly didn’t, general,” Reuters replied with more than a little sarcasm and also the hint of dark frustration, “we’re very lucky to be here at all considering what we’ve been through these last few days, but more on that later, perhaps. Any word regarding the matter that was discussed over the radio prior to our departure…?”

  “The latest reports we have are that the men you were seeking have been located and detained,” Nehring replied quickly, relieved that the good news had arrived in time to keep the Reichsmarschall happy. “They’re currently being held at Buchenwald, awaiting your return as instructed.”

  “Buchenwald…?” Reuters exclaimed, the name both chilling and unexpected.

  “Their aircraft landed at Kottenhain, mein herr: I would assume it seemed logical to take them there as it’s the closest ‘facility’ the SS has to that airfield.” The inverted commas around the word he’d used were there for all to hear; like many of the Wehrmacht’s officer corps, Nehring had never been given any outright details as to what went on at Buchenwald – or at any of the concentration camps, for that matter – yet there were rumours all the same… rumours that it didn’t pay to spread about if you knew what was good for you… or good for your own conscience.

  “Well, that should do to hold the bastards for the moment,” Reuters growled, mostly to himself, without any hint of sympathy in his tone: something that didn’t bode well for the long-term survival of the subjects in question. “…And the vessel…?”

  “No word at all as yet, mein herr, but the Kriegsmarine and Abwehr are both following up on its whereabouts as we speak. I expect another report within the hour.”

  “Scheisse…!” Reuters snapped in frustration. Having the perpetrators in custody was something at least, but it didn’t amount to much unless they could locate the Kormoran also. “It’s a long way to Tokyo in any case,” he relented slightly, “and we’ve got plenty of time to for interrogation after Suez falls. What news from the front?”

  “The generalfeldmarschall sends his respects, mein herr, and his apologies…” Nehring advised quickly, shielding his eyes as a particularly foetid gust of exhaust-laden wind whipped past them. “He elected to remain at the forward command centre at Port Said: he did not wish to be away from the front as the attack went ahead.” Dust and debris was whirling all about, thrown up and tossed high into the air by the backwash of the Goliath’s still-spinning props.

  “Exactly as I’d expect,” Reuters grunted in approval, clamping a hand on his own cap to keep it from blowing away. “We’ll catch up with him in due course, but he’ll no doubt be quite busy most of this morning… perhaps you could be so kind as to take us out to the western lines so I might look over the advance on Suez itself?”

  “We suspected you might prefer to do exactly that,” Nehring smiled, giving a faint nod of understanding. “We can have you there in ninety minutes if you’d care to follow me?”

  “By all means, herr general…lead on!”

  Nehring gave a single salute before disappearing inside his vehicle, the hatch slamming shut behind him. Immediately, the vehicle gunned its engine and turned tightly away to the west, heading for the main exit. Reuters’ car followed on directly while the other two Puma’s fell into line behind, all four forming a convoy as it headed toward the checkpoint onto El-Nasr Road.

  Reuters turned to take one last look at the huge transport as they drove away. There were very few of them in service as yet, the main reason being that construction of each Jumo 009Z turboprop engine consumed two complete Jumo 004 jet engines that might otherwise be used to power a J-15 attack aircraft or J-16 fighter. Foregoing one heavy logistics transport in exchange for four jet fighters in service was a fair trade in the eyes of the RLM at present, and until the Junkers production lines were able to produce enough engines to go around, the T-22 would be forced to take a back seat to the supply of front-line combat aircraft.

  Reuters shrugged over nothing in particular, and reached around to take hold of the hatch behind him, in preparation of closing it and seeking some relative warmth within the armoured car. The capable old T-1 Gigant would just have to soldier on for a while yet, although he gave a faint smirk as he considered the fact that he would nevertheless be taking possession of a refitted T-22A as his personal transport within the next few weeks – one of the first to come off the lines. There were so
metimes benefits to being the guy in charge – that could still be true enough on occasion.

  The Goliath could carry twice the payload of the older Gigant, and carry it further and at far greater speed. There would eventually be hundreds in service, if not thousands, and Reuters knew exactly how much they would assist the Wehrmacht in maintaining and improving its logistic supply chains right across Europe.

  Antonov… He knew that surname well enough, of course, although there was no Soviet design bureau by that name yet. Oleg Antonov was still the Chief Designer at Yakovlev right now, and doing a fine job at that too, if the reports Reuters had been receiving from the Abwehr’s contacts in the USSR were anything to go by. Yet the aircraft standing on the tarmac that they’d just arrived in would in Realtime have become the Soviet Union’s answer to the famous Lockheed Hercules and become its direct counterpart in service behind the Iron Curtain.

  Reuters hated the Russians… hated the USSR with a passion rarely seen… but it was no crusade, no righteous flame of almost religious proportions as that which burned within the insane mind of the German Chancellor. At the end of the Realtime war, the Red Army had torn the heart out of his nation and kept it weak and divided for forty years. He had no great love for the other Allied nations either, come to that, but the rest had at least treated the defeated Germany with something resembling civility and compassion in the desperate years after 1945.

  The same couldn’t be said for the USSR. There’d definitely been no love lost there between the two nations in the aftermath of the Second World War. Twenty million had died at German hands (never mind that Stalin had probably had as many of his own people executed or ‘disappeared’ during his reign, if not more) and Russians had long memories about that kind of thing… long memories and a well-developed understanding of the concept of vengeance.

  Well, not in this world, Reuters added in dark silence, raising an eyebrow momentarily and paused for a moment before closing the hatch, as if conceding some silent point within his own mind. Russians aren’t the only ones with long memories! A few more years to finish off here and solidify our grasp on Europe and we’ll be able to take on Comrade Stalin and make a proper job of the bloody Bolsheviks sure enough...! An even sweeter irony that we’ll do it with the aid of Russian designs like the T-55 tank and the Antonov An-12…

  As the hatch finally slammed shut, the Reichsmarschall forced daydreams of destroying the Soviet Union from his mind and turned his thoughts back to the matters at hand: the far more immediate defeat of the British in North Africa. The vehicles drove on toward the base exit as the glow of impending sunrise spread across the breadth of the eastern horizon.

  Genaiva/Cairo-Suez Road intersection

  30km west of Suez, Egypt

  Seven days before, the Littorio division had been all but wiped out by an ill-fated and quite unexpectedly unsupported frontal assault on the Allied lines at Agruda. Feelings of bitterness and betrayal at the hands of their own so-called ‘Allies’ still burned deep within the heart and soul of Maggior Generale Gervasio Bitossi, but as he stared into the darkness before dawn that morning, his upper torso projecting from the commander’s hatch of a brand new Autoblinda armoured car, he was vaguely mollified by the certainty that this time at least, it seemed likely the day would see a dramatically different outcome.

  To his right, the entire LSSAH 1st Panzer Regiment waited silently for the word to advance, dozens of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled guns lined up in regimented rows as the soldiers themselves talked and smoked or took the opportunity to catch up on a few minutes’ valuable sleep. To his left the 21st Panzer were similarly prepared for advance, although their lead elements were still headed by the older P-4A model Allgemeine Panzer (main battle tank) rather than the newer, more powerfully-armed D-model with which the LSSAH had hastily reequipped over the last week. And then, sandwiched between both of these military behemoths, was his own new unit: the 132nd Armoured Division Ariete. Combined, the units formed the backbone of a powerful mechanised force: the 2nd Corps of the Panzer Armee Afrika.

  The Ariete’s previous commander, General Francesco Arena, had been killed two days before in a plane crash during a freak thunderstorm over the Mediterranean, leaving the injured but recovering Bitossi as the most experienced replacement available at such short notice. Bandages covered the side of his head beneath his officer’s cap with more hidden beneath his uniform tunic, but the general had almost full movement in his upper body and was willing to persevere with the intermittent shooting pains that occasionally coursed across his back and shoulders, and with the constant, nagging ache left by small areas of third degree burns on his lower legs.

  All in all, Bitossi considered himself fortunate to be breathing at all and he wasn’t about to allow some minor inconveniences to get in the way of command. Below him inside the hull, Gaetano Cafarelli also felt his CO was lucky to be alive and particularly lucky to be back in command of a unit so quickly. They’d both been lucky that day and would need more of the same in the hours to come. The forces assembling there around them in that cold, early-morning darkness were formidable indeed, but no one for a moment expected the British to simply turn tail and run.

  “Not frozen solid down there yet, tenente?” The general called down through the hatch, breath swirling about his head in silvery clouds beneath the moonlight.

  “Not yet, signore… not yet,” Cafarelli replied with a thin smile over something that was only barely a joke.

  It was bitterly cold inside the AB41 – although it couldn’t be said to be any better outside either – and the vehicle’s internal heating system was definitely not up to the task. Hands shaking, Cafarelli took out the small, creased photograph of Sara that he kept in the breast pocket of his tunic and gave it a gentle, loving kiss. He couldn’t see his beloved’s face in the darkness of the armoured car’s closed down hull but that made little difference; he’d memorised every beautiful curve of her features from her long, lustrous black hair to her bright, laughing brown eyes.

  Still holding the picture in one hand, he reached up to his neck with the other and momentarily twisted his fingers about the rosary beads hidden inside his collar, silently whispering a quick prayer to the Holy Mother for her guidance and strength. It was going to be a long day, and Gaetano Cafarelli intended to do his best to still be alive at the end of it.

  No more than a dozen metres away, Tenente Luigi Pascucci and his crew also fortified themselves against the biting cold within their Semovente, although to that end they’d had the foresight at least of bringing several vacuum flasks filled with hot coffee that were now standing them in good stead. Their vehicle had also been reassigned to the 132nd Ariete and he had been given command of another troop of M41L tank destroyers, although the other three Semovente in this unit were crewed mostly with untested ‘recruits’ straight out of armoured specialist training.

  Pascucci hadn’t been happy about having been given the job of ‘nursemaid’ – as he put it – but orders were orders after all, and he’d set about the task of drilling and improving his new charges with the same drive and enthusiasm he displayed in anything he took on. It was true he’d not been able to accomplish much in just a few days, but even a little extra combat knowledge might well mean the difference between life and death; for yourself and – more importantly – for the rest of your crew and the other crews serving around you.

  Some distance to the north, Michael Wittman also shared a flask of coffee with his crew as Panther-121 of the LSSAH Armoured Division waited for the signal to attack the same as everyone else. There’d been little time to train up in the new ‘D-Model’, but that wasn’t such a big deal for such a well-trained, veteran crew as his, and the new model was similar enough in general layout and operation to the older P-4A model that there really wasn’t much to relearn.

  It was true that the main gun was far more powerful and devastatingly accurate, and the new sights and optical rangefinders were also a great improve
ment over their predecessors, but mostly their new vehicles were much like those that they had replaced, and neither Wittman nor any of the other commanders expected there to be any loss of efficiency whatsoever once they entered combat.

  Unlike many within the thousands of waiting men around them, Wittman knew in great detail what to expect as they advanced across the desert toward the Allied lines in a few hours’ time. Their position in the forward echelons had been carefully chosen to place his tank company directly in line with the last know position of one of the unidentified new enemy tanks, and he’d personally been assigned the task of either capturing or destroying the beasts by Sepp Dietrich himself. It was something he considered a great honour indeed, both for himself and for the whole of the Leibstandarte, and Sturmbannführer Michael Wittman had no intention of letting his commanding officer down.

  No more than a few kilometres east, the men and women of 3RTR, the Australian 2/28th and the Hindsight testing team slept soundly in their tents, blankets tightly wrapped about them to stave of the cold desert night. For some – more than a few that night – it was the deep, leaden sleep that often followed drinking to excess. In Thorne’s tent, a small wind-up alarm clock sat on a used ammo crate by the head of his fold-up cot as its occupant snored like a proverbial buzz saw.

  Suez Canal, 10km north of Suez

  Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

  A hard-packed earthen track strewn with rocks and debris of all shapes and sizes was pretty much all that could be said of the road heading out from the western end of the Mitla Pass. Sloping hills, faintly visible in the moonlight, rose unevenly behind as the trail ran back into the heights of the central Sinai mountains as the vehicles of 1FSK burst out into the open in a ragged, uneven line, the flat, featureless darkness of the western Sinai plains before them as it lead down toward the Suez Canal and Egypt beyond.