Designated Targets — Axis Of Time Book II

by John Birmingham

  Roosevelt was in his wheelchair behind the desk, and he did not stand to greet them, although Kolhammer understood that the treatments he’d received from Task Force medical officers had greatly improved his mobility. The secretary of war, Henry Stimson, was waiting with Marshall and Eisenhower. Ike offered both of the newly arrived officers his cheeky, infectious grin.

  Marshall, as ever, remained formidably reserved.

  “Admiral Kolhammer,” he said in his cold, clipped way. “Commander Black.”

  Black was mechanically formal in his reply. Kolhammer could afford to unwind a little, although he never called the chief of staff anything other than General or General Marshall. Roosevelt had told him that when he’d first met Marshall, he’d slapped the guy on the back and tried to call him George.

  He quickly put me in my place, I can tell you, Roosevelt had said, not altogether fondly.

  Admiral King, the navy’s senior officer, stood next to one of the two dark studded leather couches, which made the room seem so much darker than Kolhammer remembered. The British ambassador, Lord Halifax, had been talking to the Army Air Force’s Commanding General Hap Arnold near the windows overlooking the Rose Garden. Kolhammer could only guess at the unhappy tone of that exchange. There were already calls in Congress for the withdrawal of USAAF’s strategic bombing units from the U.K., to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy when Britain inevitably fell.

  Roosevelt cut though the formalities and asked everyone to “take a pew.” He turned first to Kolhammer. “Admiral, I believe you have the most recent report from Hawaii.”

  Kolhammer thanked him, and inserted a data stick into the flatscreen that had been suspended on the Oval Office wall where Jann Willhelm Rohen’s famous oil painting, The Death of Bin Laden, would have hung in another world.

  “Gentlemen. These first images come from a Big Eye UCAD currently on station above the island of Oahu. It was launched from the Siranui last night to provide greater surveillance cover than the smaller multifunction birds we put in place to provide broadband links and basic oversight after the Clinton left for San Diego.”

  When the vision of Pearl Harbor and Ford Island came up, Admiral King let slip a single, sharp curse.

  “As you can see,” Kolhammer continued, “no significant surface units have survived the missile strike.”

  It was Hap Arnold’s turn to react when similar images of Hickham, Wheeler, and Bellows detailed the utter devastation that had been visited upon those airfields. Kolhammer then switched to a top-down view of Honolulu, showing that approximately three quarters of the city had been razed to the ground.

  “Casualties are estimated at twelve thousand dead, and about as many injured. My F-Twenty-twos are gone, save for two that were about a hundred miles south of the islands on Combat Air Patrol at the time of the attack. They had just enough fuel to make it to Midway. General MacArthur has released an in-flight tanker and a Hawkeye from the Southwest Pacific Command to join them. As you know, while in transit the AWACS plane located Yamamoto’s Combined Fleet. The Japanese have already begun conventional air attacks and are expected to be in position to force a landing on Oahu in about six hours.”

  “How long before your jets can hit them?” asked King.

  “Two and a half hours. But that strike will have a limited capacity. Each plane is carrying one heavy air-to-surface ship-killer, which, all things being equal, will take out whatever it’s aimed at.”

  “But all things are not equal, are they, Admiral?” said King.

  “No,” he admitted. “The Dessaix appears to have survived and been compromised. She would be capable of negating an attack by the Raptors, and of shooting them down, too. However,” he hastened to add, “I can say with certainty that the Dessaix is not being crewed by her original complement, and it’s doubtful that whoever is in control will be able to use the ship to the best of her abilities.”

  King pointed at the scenes out of Pearl. “Really, Admiral? Their abilities don’t look all that goddamn doubtful to me. Sorry, Mr. President.”

  Roosevelt waved his apology away, but indicated to Kolhammer that he should carry on.

  “If the Dessaix had been commanded by Captain Goscinny and crewed by his men, there would be nothing left of Oahu,” the admiral said. “The Clinton would probably be at the bottom of the ocean, and half of Los Angeles or San Diego would be gone.”

  “And that’s supposed to fill us with confidence?”

  “No, but it should forestall any undue panic, if you were so inclined.”

  “Why, you impertinent son of a—!”

  “Gentlemen!” The president intervened to defuse the escalating confrontation between the two navy men. Then he continued. “Admiral Kolhammer. Can Hawaii be defended?”

  “No, sir.”

  King threw his hands up in the air. “You just said—“

  Roosevelt had to hush his naval chief again, before Kolhammer could continue.

  “It cannot be defended, but it can be retaken, if we move before the Japanese have time to secure their lodgment. The Eighty-second could do it, with some help from the Siranui, your marines, and maybe the Second Cavalry.”

  “Neither Prime Minister Curtin nor General MacArthur are going to trample you with offers of assistance, when they have their own problems to address,” said Roosevelt. “I’ve already had both of them in my ear about a second Japanese attack on Australia.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. President, there won’t be a second Japanese attack on Australia. I have seen the sigint take, and my people have been analyzing it, too. It’s a diversion. The same sort of thing you would have done before the original D-Day. For the moment, the Australian theater is insignificant. I think the main purpose of the original invasion was to draw my forces down there and to exhaust them. You’ve seen the briefing note on young Kennedy’s mission and Homma’s interrogation. They were drawing our fire. To some extent that has worked, and so Hawaii is now the main game. If they get a lock on the islands, they can take Australia and New Zealand at their leisure and hold us back from their home islands long enough to develop an atomic deterrent. You can order MacArthur to release the Eighty-second, Mr. President. Jones has a degree of autonomy at the operational level, but we’ve integrated our units into your command structure.”

  “That’s arguable,” said King. “The way you run your little duchy over in California—”

  Roosevelt interrupted him once more. “Gentlemen, please, let’s not fight this one all over again. Unless you want to speed up the integration of your own services, Admiral King. I could sign Truman’s Ninety-nine-eighty-one Order today, if you want, rather than continuing with this ridiculous fiction that Admiral Kolhammer is field-testing the concept out in the Zone.”

  Silence greeted that ultimatum.

  “Right. Admiral, please continue with your presentation.”

  Kolhammer reformatted the big screen to display a world map, with smaller windows open over current flashpoints. “Taken with developments in the European theater and in General MacArthur’s area of operations, I believe the Axis powers are attempting to compensate for their long-term strategic vulnerability by swarming us sooner, rather than later. In addition to the movements at Hawaii, off northern Australia, and in France, Lord Halifax confirms that Gibraltar is coming under greatly increased air attack. Wahabi insurgents are fomenting trouble in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. And Baath Party fascists are in revolt in Iraq. I don’t believe any of this is unrelated.”

  Kolhammer looked to the British ambassador for confirmation.

  “I’m afraid that’s not all,” said Halifax. “We don’t have confirmation yet, but Lord Mountbatten has sent word from India that Soviet armor is reportedly pushing down through the Afghan passes. We have no idea whether or not this is true, and if so, whether it presages open cooperation between Berlin and Moscow again, but at any rate it appears the Axis powers are going to attempt to link the Asian and European theaters through th
e Middle East, while we have our hands full elsewhere.”

  Roosevelt looked positively ill. “I can’t believe Stalin would get back into bed with Hitler,” he said. “I suppose I can accept him withdrawing from the alliance. It makes some sense to let us bleed along with the Germans, while he gathers his strength. But I can’t imagine anything that would make him trust Hitler again.”

  Kolhammer spoke up again. “I haven’t seen the British material yet, but if Stalin is pushing down through the Afghan passes, we shouldn’t assume it’s to help Hitler and Tojo. He may just be moving to stop them encircling him.”

  Marshall spoke up from the couch, addressing that point. “Mr. President, Stalin doesn’t need to trust Hitler. One way or another, we fully expect the Soviets to reenter the war in late ’forty-four, early ’forty-five, but what form that takes will depend on circumstances. Either Hitler will turn around and attack them, having secured his western flank against us. Or if we have beaten Germany, we can expect to have to deal with a Soviet assault into Europe. Atomic weapons or not, Stalin has shown that he won’t accept the verdict of history. He knows that if he sits pat, waiting for the correlation of forces or the contradictions of capitalism to deliver him a victory, it all ends with his statues being pulled down and Coke machines being installed in the Kremlin.”

  “Admiral Kolhammer?” said Roosevelt. “Do you concur, based on the value of hindsight?”

  “I do, Mr. President. The Soviets always go long. Stalin was this close to going under when Hitler offered him the cease-fire. While he knew he would have come out on top in version one of this war, he knows he can’t guarantee that same result in version two. Not with the technology and the forewarnings that the Axis powers now have in their hands.

  “So the opportunity to build up his forces while we grapple with Hitler was heaven-sent, even though he knows the Nazis will be back at his throat, given half a chance. Still, I don’t think we’ll find them in an open alliance with Germany again. Every bullet they have will be needed soon enough. But if this push into Afghanistan plays out, it may be the first move in whatever new game Stalin is playing. At a guess, I’d say he’s going to give the Cold War a miss, and get straight down to business when it suits him best. As General Marshall says, sometime in ’fourty-four, or the year after.”

  “My God,” said Roosevelt. “This war could go on for ten years.”

  Kolhammer nodded. “Or it could all be over—quite literally—much sooner, if the Nazis and the Soviets develop atomic weapons.”

  The president looked to the British ambassador again. “This new information you have, the files sent to the Trident, do we know if they’re genuine?”

  “There’s an enormous volume of information, Mr. President. Our boffins have given it all a tick so far, but I believe Admiral Kolhammer has assigned some of his analysts to the package.”

  “We have, sir. So far it checks out. The Norwegian heavy water plant, this Demidenko project—they both seem to be blinds for a joint fast-fission project the Nazis are working on with the Japanese, and they very much exclude the Soviets. The other material, the conventional weapons projects, all look kosher to us. Whoever this guy is, he’s done us a huge favor.”

  “Okay, we’ll move on to that this afternoon. We’re getting off our agenda. Let’s talk about these bombs that have been going off here. It’s scaring the hell out of people, and beginning to have a real effect on home front morale.”

  Even though he’d stayed up all night preparing for this meeting, Dan Black wasn’t required to speak, for which he’d be saying a special prayer of thanks later that evening. When asked, he provided hard copy and electronic files showing the status of all of the accelerated R & D projects in the Valley. Then he sat back down and watched the show, wondering just how the hell an unemployed coal miner turned copper miner turned crop duster had ended up in the Oval Office at a time like this.

  His old man wouldn’t have believed it in a million years.

  He didn’t think he’d ever be comfortable in this sort of company. Not like Admiral Kolhammer, who never seemed to take a backwards step, no matter what. Or Admiral King, who looked to be as tough as nails as he stalked around the room like he had an iron poker jammed up his ass. His intolerance of the Multinationals was matched only by his intolerance of the British, in the person of Lord Halifax, and even of the U.S. Army, leading Black to wonder if Marshall and Eisenhower were at the meeting in part to draw fire away from Kolhammer.

  As for his own role, Commander Black sat in his chair by the mantelpiece, stiff-backed, unmoving, and trying not to sweat too loudly.

  He almost fell over backwards when the president’s secretary showed J. Edgar Hoover into the room.

  Black couldn’t help sneaking a look at the admiral’s reaction, but Kolhammer was perfectly amiable. If anything, he greeted the FBI director with more warmth than anyone else in the room. Roosevelt was quite proper, without being warm. Halifax was smooth, as you’d expect of a knighted diplomat. Eishenhower was his usual friendly self, but the other military men were quite chilly. Although, when he thought about it, neither Marshall nor King were particularly friendly with anyone.

  Hoover looked terrible. Gray blotchy skin hung in loose bags all over his face, and his watery eyes were sunken inside bruised-looking sockets. He was holding a single sheet of paper that he clung to as though to let go of it was to release his hold on life itself.

  “Mr. Hoover,” said Roosevelt. “I asked you here to give us the latest on the bombings. What do you have for us?”

  Hoover didn’t sit, preferring to stand by the president’s desk, reading from his notes like a pupil called up to the front of the class. When the famous crime fighter spoke, Black had trouble following the rapid-fire delivery, although it sounded as if he didn’t have much to say, anyway.

  “Fifteen bombs have now gone off on both the eastern and western seaboards,” Hoover said. “No war industries or elements of the infrastructure have been damaged, due I believe to the work of my agents in securing these facilities of vital national importance against the depredations of saboteurs and enemy sympathizers.”

  He shot Kolhammer a scowl at that point, but the commander of the Special Administrative Zone lobbed back a totally anodyne smile.

  An uncomfortable silence enveloped the men in the room. As the seconds ticked by, it became quite excruciating.

  “Is that it?” asked Henry Stimson.

  Hoover’s bulldoglike face flushed a deep crimson. “Mr. Secretary, my agents are shaking the trees and crawling down the darkest rat holes at this very moment in order to catch the vile malcontents responsible for these outrages. I think it ill behooves us to cast aspersions on their performance at this time. If there have been any slipups, you can rest assured I will find out about them.”

  Dan Black felt a sudden urge to leap from his seat and shout down the hypocritical little prick. He felt Kolhammer’s cool gaze settle on him, however, so he reined in his indignation.

  “I see,” said Roosevelt, his voice as empty as an abandoned house. “Do you have any casualty figures, Mr. Hoover?”

  The director stumbled for a moment. “Uhm, I believe one of my assistant directors is preparing those as we speak, Mr. President. I didn’t think it would be advisable to come here with incomplete or misleading facts for you.”

  “All right, then, you get yourself back to your office and get me those figures, and when you come back, I’d like to know who’s been setting these bombs, how they did it, and what you’re going to do about catching them. People are beginning to panic, Mr. Hoover. They think this is some sort of prelude to an invasion. We have to convince them otherwise.”

  “If I may, Mr. President?” said Hoover.

  Roosevelt’s head tilted, and his bifocals caught the light at just the right angle to completely obscure his eyes. It was an eerie effect, since it made him look quite inhuman. Dan sensed that a trap was opening up in front of Hoover, but the FBI boss couldn’t see it.r />
  “I think they’re right, Mr. President,” he offered. “I think this may well be the work of a fifth column smuggled into the country through California, from South America. I intend no insult to Admiral Kölhammer . . .”

  Black wasn’t sure if Hoover had intentionally used the Germanic pronunciation, but again it seemed to roll off the admiral without effect. On the other hand, General Eisenhower did not seem at all impressed.

  Hoover pressed on, seemingly oblivious. “But I am afraid things are very lax in California, from a security standpoint, Mr. President. Very lax, indeed. The laws of the country are flouted openly and at every turn. Simply uncountable numbers of undesirables and subversive types have set up shop in the shadow of this ‘Special Administration’ Zone. Enemy aliens are free to wander about unmolested. Some of them, I am duty-bound to point out, are men and even women who arrived with Admiral Kölhammer with the most advanced military training, and some of them having special training above and beyond that in exactly the sort of covert operations which have taken place in New York, and now in Los Angeles—which of course, is so close to the Special Zone that it would be remiss of me not to follow up that line of inquiry.”

  Hoover’s excitement had got away from him. He was like a race caller at the derby now, so quickly did each sentence tumble out over the last.

  “And of course, there are still 531,882 registered enemy aliens in that state who have not been interned, another 1,234,995 free in New York, and plenty more in between. If you would be willing to indulge me, Mr. President, I feel we can get right to the bottom of this situation. I have taken the liberty, which I’m sure you’ll understand given the current exigencies, of having the Bureau’s legal section draft a proposed executive order which would give the FBI the powers it needs to effectively deal with this immediate threat to our cherished freedoms and—”

  “Enough, enough, Edgar. Just leave it behind on your way out,” said Roosevelt. “I’ll have Francis Biddle review it, later.”