Sky Ghost (9 page)

But here, in this place, there was none of that, in Jung or anywhere else. For Hunter, the omission was as glaring as if he’d read E=MC3 or that Scrooge was a sweetheart. What is a world without coincidence? What are the ramifications of that? In all his reading and rereadings, he could not come up with a suitable answer.

He went on to read basic math, basic English, and basic religion books. Everything matched up. One and one still made two; subjects came before verbs, and some people thought the world was created in seven days. Nothing was different.

Then he started reading the history books.

And that’s where it got strange.

For the most part, the early history of this place was the same as his, but there were some unusual exceptions. The first thing he discovered was the Athenians had beaten the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, not the other way around. And then the Battle of Chaeronea was fought in 332 BC, not 338. And that Julius Caesar had conquered England the first time the Romans invaded, not the fifth. And the First Crusade had failed to capture Jerusalem.

The American Revolution played out as he remembered it but there was no War of 1812. The U.S. Civil War lasted only two years, with the North soundly defeating the South. A second war erupted with Mexico in 1886. There was a Spanish-American War, but most of the fighting had been done in South America. And then, in 1901, the U.S. fought a bizarre war against Italy.

World War I went off just as he recalled it, as did the Great Depression. Then on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. World War II was on.

But then the real twists began. First of all, Germany attacked France two months after defeating Poland, not six. There was no Phony War then. The British Army was surrounded at Dunkirk—and there it was destroyed. Next, the Spanish allowed the Germans to change the railroad gauge throughout their country and soon the Germans rolled through and captured Gibraltar. This essentially sealed off the Mediterranean, making it a German lake. Germany invaded England next and was successful. They won in North Africa and took over the Middle East oil reserves too. Then Germany attacked and defeated Russia in eight short weeks. Throughout all this, Japan stayed neutral, having no expansionist plans of its own. Instead they fed both Germany and America technology and became very wealthy in the bargain.

It became clear that in this world, the Germans didn’t make any of the classic blunders that had sealed their fate in the version of World War II that Hunter knew. They were a formidable enemy, not a stumbling, bumbling giant and had made great strides on the battlefield long before America could do anything about it. By the end of 1943, Germany held all of Europe. By the end of 1944, they held all of the Middle East, all of Africa, and huge chunks of Asia and the Subcontinent.

Then, in April of 1945, Hitler died, not by a bullet in the mouth, but of a simple heart attack. Admiral Canaris took over the Third Reich and after that, Germany became “respectable.” Any Jews not incinerated were freed. Wartime restrictions were eased. The SS was eliminated, as was the Gestapo. Neutral countries began trading with the vast German Empire.

And the war calmed down.

For 10 years.

Then came something called the Uprising of Kent. This was essentially a revolt in German-controlled England, which after three years of guerrilla fighting and substantial help from the U.S. and other countries, succeeded in ejecting the Germans from the British Isles in 1957.

But the Germans came back in 1961, were thrown out again in 1963, were back in 1967, and were tossed out in 1971.

In between all this, and through various U.S. presidential administrations, the American support for its British allies never wavered. But it did become a drain—both financially and technology-wise. American troops fought with the British for so long, the two forces were eventually integrated, becoming simply the Allied Forces. But despite much valor and sacrifice, the war never really stopped, it just laid dormant for periods of time, flaring up whenever the Germans felt their nerve growing back again. Not total warfare. No clear-cut victories. No unconditional surrenders. Just a long series of appeasements. This is why the conflict had dragged on for 58 years.

And this is why everything looked so odd, yet familiar to Hunter. The U.S. Navy looked the same in its infinite dabs of gray paint because it
was
the same. But it was its ships’ designs, and the whole concept of bigger-is-better, that made for a strange world. (Especially for a person like Hunter, who knew somehow that sizing-down was usually the way to go when technology starts to spurt.) Twists and turns, both political and technological, had dictated certain weapons systems be built over others. So this was a world of Pogo verti-fighters and gigantic sea bombers and monstrous aircraft carriers that were supposedly impossible to sink. America built big and long-range, because in this world, that was the best way to protect its own watery borders.

The latest phase of the war started in 1987, with another successful invasion of England by Germany. Control of the North Sea oilfields was the spark this time. Germany craved oil, and the North Sea held more than their Middle Eastern and Russian deposits combined. But this particular invasion of the UK had been very brutal. Many people around the world were outraged. Allies on both sides mustered up and the fighting began anew.

Two new weapons made the Germans especially formidable this time. First, their aircraft engineers figured out a way to build a bomber that would reach America, drop a substantial bomb load, and return, all in one trip; it was the Focke-Wulf 910, the world’s first 10,000-mile bomber. This was something the Americans had been working on with vague enthusiasm for years—the great length of the war put the emphasis on some military advancements, at the expense of others. The American long-range bomber was one of them. By 1987, the Germans had finally beat them to it.

The Huns, as many had taken to calling the Germans this time, also developed a new line of missile firing U-boats, like the pair Hunter had destroyed off the coast of Massachusetts. While their long-range bombers made only scattered appearances in the early part of this phase, pulling off some spectacular bombings of Boston, Miami, and New York, the “Great Air Raids” were actually infrequent ones. On the other hand, the German subs were very effective. They were able to surface close to the American seaboard and launch DG-2 missiles up to 300 miles inland. This set off extensive anti-U-boat spending in the U.S. War Department.

These two weapons forced America to devote a lot of resources to continental and naval defense. Thus when the war was back on in 1987, the support for the United Kingdom was less than in previous outbreaks.

That’s why it took 10 long years to finally squeeze Germany. Blockades, constant fighting, diplomatic activity, and Germany’s own voracious appetite for fuel and raw materials slowly took its toll. Eventually, the Reich went bankrupt. It couldn’t pay its bills. Support dried up. Friendly nations went away. And that’s why the Americans and their allies had been on the verge of defeating Germany once again when Hunter was thrown into prison.

But that was two months ago. What had happened since? Hunter didn’t know. He had no access to newspapers, or radio, or TV. If and when the war was really over, he assumed that word eventually would have filtered down to him here in prison.

Or would it?

The Bahamas

One week later

T
HE OSS AGENT KNOWN AS X
pulled his Panama hat further down on his head and let out a yawn.

The tide was coming in. Already he could feel the warm sea lapping at the legs of his beach chair. He would have to get up and move eventually, he supposed. But then again, the tides moved very slowly down here. He might not have to do anything for another 30 minutes, or maybe even an hour. That was fine with him.

He felt a soft finger on his lips and opened his mouth as it commanded. A grape of some sort, peeled and deseeded, was put on his tongue, the soft finger retreating very slowly.

X took a bite. The grape exploded in his mouth.

“Mmmm, very nice,” he said.

“It’s from my own special patch,” the gorgeous brunet on his right whispered in his ear. “I grew it myself.”

Another finger touched his lips, this one from the left. He opened his mouth and felt a straw go in.

“Suck,” the voice of the gorgeous blond whispered in his left ear.

He did so, and his mouth was soon filled with the sweetest champagne he’d ever tasted.

“Excellent vintage,” he said.

“A case of it will be chilling in our room tonight,” she cooed.

X pulled his sun hat down a bit further and readjusted himself on the lounge chair.

The water was lapping his toes now but he didn’t care. He had peeled grapes, he had champagne, he had the sun. He had a prime piece of beachfront property on Exu, the most exotic of the Bahamian Islands. He had two unbelievably sexy females that would do anything he asked waiting at his beck and call.

This is how he chose to celebrate Armistice Day.

If it was 10
A.M.
here in the Bahamas, then it was 5
P.M.
in Paris, and that’s where, in less than 30 minutes, the so-called Fifth Agreement was due to be signed.

From what X had heard, it was a simple document. Germany agreed to pull back to its pre-1987 borders, release all POWs, pay war reparations in installments lasting 100 years, and reduce its armed forces by two-thirds. It had been six weeks since a cease-fire went into effect; now, finally, the Allied Forces would be getting something in writing.

A war crimes tribunal would convene in about a year, and while X knew that a secret agreement had been struck in which the very highest-ranking German officers would remain untouched, there were several thousand middle-level officers and many enlisted men who would be tried. He’d already secured a position on its investigation staff. The trials would cost billions; the tab would be paid by the world community. This meant a lot of money would be available for people like him.

Another grape was placed on his lips, then the champagne straw was inserted again. He chewed and sucked and then heard a giggle and opened his eyes for the first time in two hours to see the two girls leaning over him and gently kissing each other on the lips.

“Wow,” X thought softly. “What a way to end a war.”

When he opened his eyes again a few minutes later, the girls were still kissing, still caressing. The blond had removed her top and was now assisting the brunet in removing hers. X laughed a little bit. The girls were fondling each other’s breasts.

This is almost too good,
he thought.

And no sooner had the notion popped into his mind than he realized it was the worst thing he could have thought.

For when he opened his eyes again, he saw the jinx had already taken affect.

Coming down the beach, walking right toward him, dressed in the worst cabana-wear possible, was his colleague, Agent Z.

He was carrying his briefcase in one hand and a yellow envelope in the other. X knew the yellow envelope contained a CFG—a confidential flash-gram. A kind of top-secret bulletin.

Shit…

Z walked right up to him, and with the wave of his hand, shooed the kissing beauties away.

“What’s up?” X asked him.

“Just a curious little thing,” Z said, plopping down beside him and taking a swig of champagne.

“Yes?”

“The German delegation to Paris?” Z said. “They were supposed to land at Rue Airport more than an hour ago.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So,” Z went on. “They haven’t arrived. Not yet, anyway.”

X sat up a little and lifted his hat from his brow.

“They get a late start?” he asked.

Z shrugged. “No one knows. We haven’t had a good set of eyes in Berlin for a month. That was part of the ceasefire agreement.”

“What’s the last thing you have?”

Z opened the yellow envelope and took out six photographs. There were aerial shots of Berlin, taken, X could tell, from a high-flying spy plane. Z handed one photo to X. It showed the Berlin airport. A large plane was sitting on the main runway. There were huge Iron Cross symbols on its wings. This was the airplane of the German High Command, the people who were supposed to be flying to Paris to sign the peace agreement.

“This was taken early this morning,” Z told him. “That’s their airplane. It looks ready to go. But that picture is several hours old already.”

But X wasn’t really listening to him. Nor was he looking at the picture of the Berlin Airport. Instead, he was staring at another photo, one which showed downtown Berlin.

“What the hell is this?”

He directed Z’s vision to the photo. Z didn’t see it at first. X pushed the photo even closer to his nose. Only then did Z see what X saw.

He was very familiar with aerial photos of Berlin these days. Essentially, the city was a series of concrete bunkers and reinforced military buildings, architecture made to be bombproof—a successful strategy as it turned out. For except for a few scattered raids several years before, the German capital had been spared aerial bombardment throughout this phase of the war simply because there was a lack of vulnerable targets.

But now looking at the photo, Z realized that something strange was going on within the city.

Sprouting up among the bunkers, he could see the beginnings of new skyscrapers being put into place. Steel skeletons growing on dozens of previously vacant lots. Spires like those found on theaters or museums could also be seen in the early stages of construction.

Even more revealing, the streets around the new buildings and the blocks and blocks of bunkers were thick with traffic, both civilian and military.

“What the hell is this?” Z asked.

“Odd time to start some urban renewal,” X said.

He studied the four other photographs and found similar disturbing clues on them. The face of downtown Berlin was changing right before their eyes.

“I thought these guys were broke?” Z went on. “There are so many trucks on those streets, they must have found a million gallons of gas somewhere.”