Himmler's War-ARC (47 page)

“Can anyone survive?”

“Very likely quite a few. No matter how hard we bomb, a lot of them will make it. They are dug in deep and well.”

Jessica shuddered and grasped his hand. “Enough. I’m glad you showed me, but enough. We’re going to back to the hotel and make love all night and make up for the time we missed and the time we may never have again.”

* * *

“The word Kremlin is nothing more than Russian for fortress,” Skorzeny said to a totally disinterested Heisenberg. “There are several kremlins all over Russia.”

Heisenberg ignored him. He was too busy supervising his mens’ efforts to assemble the atomic bomb. They were in a warehouse across the Moscow River from the red walls of the Kremlin, the real Kremlin. It was less than half a mile away. His scientists were dressed in lead-lined suits they hoped would keep radiation at bay. Skorzeny was nearly a hundred feet from the bomb’s components and the radioactive material.

Davidov had found the place, and brutally using his NKVD identity, imprisoned the handful of inhabitants in a back room. Inside the warehouse’s double doors there was plenty of room for the entire caravan.

A pair of trucks had been backed up to each other and the bomb was now on them. Heisenberg had been assembling it for two days and he was getting even more nervous than usual. They were hiding in plain sight in the center of the Soviet Union, trusting that their NKVD badges would keep out the curious long enough for them to do their job, and that the three men locked in the store room wouldn’t be missed.

Some other NKVD officers had stopped by, curious, and had been told that this was a special project for Laventri Beria himself and that if they had any question they should ask him. No one would, of course. Beria, a murdering child-molester, was the second most feared person in the Soviet Union.

“Done,” Heisenberg said and stepped away from the trucks.

It was almost noon. Skorzeny nodded. “Set the timer and we leave immediately.”

Davidov had seen cars that could only belong to Stalin and others entering the Kremlin an hour earlier. They had to detonate it before Stalin left.

“Half an hour?” Heisenberg asked and Skorzeny agreed. It would give them time to get clear. They hoped. Heisenberg had no idea how powerful the bomb would be.

A moment later the physicist said the timing was set and the clock was ticking. Skorzeny, Heisenberg and Davidov got into a car and drove out. The remaining Russians and physicists clambered into the bus and departed behind them, leaving the three warehouse workers to their fate. “Martyrs to the cause,” Davidov said sarcastically. It was time to return to Germany.

They had only been gone about fifteen minutes, driving through maddeningly slow traffic, when the world was lit by a glare so bright that they screamed and tried to cover their eyes. Seconds later, a shock wave washed over them, toppling the bus and ramming the car into a wall.

Inside the Kremlin, Laventri Beria stood by a window and wondered at the report he’d been given about some damn project across the river being done in his name. He was just about to give an order to investigate when an unholy fire washed over him and reduced him to ashes.

The blast and shock wave evaporated part of the river and completely destroyed Lenin’s Tomb along with the stone wall of the fortress that faced the river.

In his office but not facing the blast, Josef Stalin sat at his desk while Vacheslav Molotov and several high-ranking generals waited nervously. The glare startled them but their minds had only a second to register the fact when the shock wave hurled them against and through the building’s outer shell.

Two miles away, Skorzeny crawled out of the car. Heisenberg was badly injured and Davidov’s arm hung limply. “What just happened?” Skorzeny said as he looked in amazement at the rising plume of boiling and flaming smoke towering above them like a living and angry god from hell.

“It worked,” Heisenberg said weakly. “An atomic bomb. I’ve done it.”

Skorzeny lurched to his feet. In every direction, thousands of people were milling in panic, wondering which way to run. Bodies littered the street and hundreds showed injuries of all kinds, many with horribly blackened skin. People with burns and peeling skin were running away from the explosion and the malevolent cloud expanding in all directions. Many staggered and fell, screaming through lipless mouths.

“It went off early,” Heisenberg said, providing utterly useless information. He wondered if he would get another Nobel for physics.

Skorzeny swore and ran into an apartment building, fighting his way against a human tide that wanted to leave it. His uniform was of no use against mindless panic and it took him several minutes to where he could see the Kremlin.

It wasn’t there. In its place was fire and ruin and that plume of black smoke still churning skyward. “We did it,” he chortled in German and then looked around. No one had heard him and it wouldn’t have mattered if they had.

Skorzeny then ran to the overturned bus. Several of the occupants were dead and the others badly hurt. He hated this part, but no one could be left behind to provide information to the Soviets. He pulled out his pistol and shot the survivors in the head.

Davidov came up. He seemed to have gotten his arm working. His face showed shock but then calmed. “I understand.”

“Good. Now let us get the damned car going and get us out of this town before somebody takes charge and closes the doors.”

It did occur to Skorzeny that it might be some time before somebody was found to take over the reins of Mother Russia.

CHAPTER 23

TRUMAN WAS LIVID. “How the hell did the god-damned Nazis pull oFf a stunt like this?” he said into the speaker that connected him with General Leslie Groves in Alamogordo, New Mexico. “Didn’t all your scientists assure me that we were well ahead of the Nazis?”

Groves’ normally powerful voice came through clear but tinny. “Our scientists were clearly wrong. Oppenheimer and his pals are working on that now.”

“Wonderful. I assume everybody heard Goebbels’ announcement?”

The Reich Propaganda Minister had broadcast on the radio, gloating that a German secret weapon, an atomic bomb, had worked and destroyed Moscow and wiped out the leadership of the Soviet Union. He went on to say that the Reich had a number of atomic bombs in its arsenal and would use them to destroy London, Paris, New York, Washington, and God knows where else. In a twist of humor, Goebbels even said Germany would have an atomic bomb destroy Independence, Missouri, Truman’s hometown.

Truman clenched and unclenched his fists. He was the President. He had to maintain at least a semblance of his poise. “First, was it an atomic bomb?”

Groves answered. “No doubt about it, and other reports from neutral embassies broadcasting short wave are confirming the bomb’s destructive power. It went off either in or by the Kremlin and totally destroyed it and very probably killed everyone in it.”

“Finally,” Truman said wryly, “some good news. Can you confirm that lying Uncle Joe Stalin is well and truly dead?”

“We can’t confirm anything,” interrupted Assistant Secretary of State Acheson. He had just entered the room. “Admittedly, no one’s heard from him since the bomb, but he could be in hiding. God knows I would.”

“All right. Now, what about the other part, the threats to Allied cities?

There was a pause while Groves conversed with others in the background. “Sir, the consensus is that they don’t have any other bombs.”

“Ha!” Truman said, pounding the desk, “You fellas also said they didn’t have any in the first place, and that we were way ahead of everyone in the development of the bomb.”

Groves continued. “Sir, again, we were wrong. But we are virtually dead certain that they don’t have enough fissionable material to make any other bombs.”

“But you’re not a hundred percent certain are you?”

“Is ninety-nine percent enough, Mister President?” Groves responded.

Truman glowered and admitted it would have to do. “Now, how did they get that thing to Moscow? What kind of plane did they use?”

General Marshall had entered and took a seat across from the President. “It would be almost impossible for a German bomber to penetrate that far into Soviet air space and it would have been too big a risk to take. Sir, I think it was shipped in parts by either truck or train and assembled in Moscow by a very daring group of saboteurs and scientists. If I were to guess, I’d bet that Skorzeny had something to do with it.”

“And why didn’t we hear of this?” Truman asked. “We have Ultra decodings, don’t we?”

“We didn’t hear about it because the Germans didn’t say much,” Marshall said, “We had picked up something about an Operation Kremlin possibly involving Skorzeny, but that’s all we knew.”

“Did we warn the commies?”

Marshall shook his head. “We had nothing concrete to tell them and we were concerned about them realizing we were reading German codes. They might then get concerned about their own.”

Truman took a deep breath. “Can’t undo what’s been done. Now for the million dollar question—who the hell’s in charge over there in Mother Russia?”

Acheson smiled tightly. “Thanks to Stalin’s iron control, pun intended, perhaps nobody is, at least until his body is found, and that could take a while. It’s possible his body was obliterated completely, which will keep his fate unknown until someone with enough balls is willing to step forward and take up the reins. After all, whoever seizes power and then finds a resurrected Stalin confronting him would be a dead man. And, absent a body, that will be a possibility, however remote.”

“Is anybody helping the people of Moscow?” Truman asked. He had caught Acheson’s pun. Stalin meant steel in Russian.

Marshall replied. “Again, neutral sources say medical help from other districts is beginning to flow into the city. Much of Moscow is in flames. It’s a fire storm like what happened to Hamburg and it’s raging out of control. It could be days before it’s out. Estimates of dead and injured will run into the hundreds of thousands.”

Truman shook his head in disbelief at the scope of the bomb’s power. “Christ,” Truman said, “what about other countries developing a bomb? If the Nazis were first, who else is out there?”

Marshall answered. “First, the Brits merged their efforts with us, however reluctantly. Next the Japs understand the theory but don’t have the resources. The Germans obviously beat us, but, according to Groves, the scientists are convinced that they have no others for the foreseeable future. Although, obviously, if the genie is out of the bottle, other nations will accelerate their efforts and that does include Germany. Given enough time, they will make a second bomb.

“That only leaves the Soviets and we’re convinced they’ve been working on it. We have no idea how well they’re doing.”

“Is it possible that some of our secrets were stolen by the Germans?” the President asked.

Groves laughed harshly. “We’ve got a horde of FBI down here wondering the same thing and another horde on the way. Some of our foreign born and left of center scientists are going to go through the ringer. If there’s a traitor, Hoover’s boys will find him. Or her,” he added. Who said men had a monopoly on treason?

“All right,” Truman said thoughtfully. “Let’s assume Uncle Joe’s dead along with the hierarchy; once again, who’s in charge?”

Atcheson answered. “Until the dust settles, candidates behind Beria and Molotov would include senior politburo members such as Malenkov, Bulganin, Kosygin, Khruschev and a couple of others. Of course any or all of them might be under the rubble. If the Communist Party is fragmented I’ll put my money on the military to take charge, at least for the short term. Whether it’s going to be Zhukov or Konev or somebody else, I don’t know. Once again, any or all of them might have been in Moscow at the time of the bomb and be either dead or injured.”

“Makes sense,” said Truman. “Now for the big question, in light of the fact that the Nazis just destroyed Moscow and threatened to destroy a number of our cities, with additional bombs they may or may not have, do we cancel or postpone the Rhine crossings?”

All eyes turned to Marshall. He hesitated for a moment, sadness etched in his face. The inexperienced Truman was looking to him for leadership and his answer would send millions of American boys into hell. But then, a delay would give the Nazis more time to make bombs and to kill off the remnants of humanity dying in their concentration camps.

“No.”

* * *

Schurmer had moved his offices to a hidden base outside the devastation that used to be Frankfurt. He and his small staff were part of Field Marshal Model’s headquarters. As he saw it, the Rhine Wall was as complete as it was ever going to be. The Amis were bombing heavily and attempting to cut off the Rhine area from the rest of Germany. It was a tactic they had used in Italy and in Normandy and came as no surprise.

However, the sheer number of bombers was a shock. Was there no end to the parade of American B17, B24, and B25’s as they flew over the Rhine Valley? To the north, vast swarms of British Lancaster and Halifax bombers were doing their part to obliterate all that Schurmer had built. Worse, there were rumors that the Yanks were going to send over some of their monstrous B29 bombers.

Schurmer stood and gave an indifferent salute as Varner entered. “Heil Himmler, General.”

Varner grinned. “Go to hell, Colonel.”

“I think I’m already there, Ernst. The Americans and Brits are destroying all my handiwork and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. It doesn’t matter how well constructed my defenses are if they are pounded mercilessly. Sooner or later, something will have to give. Say, you wouldn’t happen to have one of those nuclear bombs on you, would you?”

Varner helped himself to some of Schurmer’s last bottle of scotch. “We had one and it’s gone. Worse, Heisenberg and a few of his key scientists have disappeared as well. We’ve heard nothing from them or from Skorzeny for that matter.

“Heisenberg was kind enough to leave his notes, but we don’t have the scientists who can decipher them and build a new bomb. A second bomb can be built over time, but we won’t have the luxury of time.”