Author’s Note
This book was written several years ago and has been heavily edited (no less than three people looked at it.) However, it may not be up to the standards of my current projects. As always, comments and editing notes are welcome.
In addition, I have tried to keep the use of German phrases down to the bare minimum, as they tend to annoy me when I see them in other books.
CGN.

Prologue
England, 1943

“No,” Winston Churchill said.
“Winston, be reasonable,” Anthony Eden said. The Leader of the House of Commons stared down at the Prime Minister. “We have been fighting for four years. The country is tired of fighting with no prospect of victory.”
Churchill felt a hot flash of anger. “Anthony, Hitler and his madmen must be stopped,” he said, remembering bitter disappointments when the Japanese had headed north into the Soviet Union and the United States had drifted back into isolation. “We’re the only people holding the line!”
“The Germans captured Stalingrad a month ago,” Lord Halifax said. Churchill nodded slowly, unsurprised that his old competitor had joined the delegation. “It won’t be long before they start to press into Iran, and as you know, we have had a most imprudent communication from the Shah. He said that unless we evacuate his country — the Russian forces having gone to die in the defence of Stalingrad already — his forces will turn on ours with German support.”
Churchill’s eyes drifted to the map he’d placed the wall. German forces, having taken Moscow back in 1941, had concentrated on securing their flanks before advancing down towards Stalingrad and the oil wells to the south of the city — and Iran. The Soviet Union — the remains of the Soviet Union, under Beria — wasn’t able to stop them. The Foreign Ministry was privately predicting that the remains of the USSR would fall apart all too soon. Churchill had met Beria, he’d dealt with the man and he had no illusions about his ally’s capabilities. Stalin’s death had taken the heart out of the Russian resistance.
He’d hoped that Wavell would produce victories in the Western Desert, but even that had turned sour in his mouth as Hitler sent more and more resources into the desert and then Rommel had taken them to create a new puppet state in Egypt, for the Italians. The British held the line at the Suez Canal, but both sides knew that it would only be a matter of time before Rommel tried to cross the waterway, or the Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine rendered the British position untenable. They all knew, now, what fate Hitler had in mind for the Jews… and when the British position collapsed, the Jews would flee or try to fight.
“Beria has already declared his intention to attempt to reach a diplomatic solution with the Germans,” Halifax pressed. “If he settles for the status quo, he will surrender literally millions of souls, and unthinkable wealth in terms of land and resources. Hitler will be able to switch his forces back to the west, or he will be able to head into Iran and through Iran into Iraq or India.”
Churchill frowned at him. “The preservation of the Empire and the defeat of Adolph Hitler are my first priorities,” he said, coldly. “If Hitler wins in this war, the world will be plunged into barbarism.”
Clement Attlee, Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Prime Minister, coughed. “Winston, you have concentrated on winning, or at least fighting, the war, and we respect you for it,” he said. “However, our country is on the verge of internal collapse. The treasury is effectively bankrupt. The Empire is simply not supplying us with the resources we need to keep afloat. If it were not for the credit line the Americans have extended us, we would have been forced to seek terms before now.”
His voice darkened. “We sit here and talk about war on a global scale,” he continued. “Throughout England, the real victims of the war struggle to provide us with war materials and food, fearing only that their agonies will never end. As Germany brings the farmland in the Ukraine under their control, the German capability for continuing the war indefinitely will only expand, while our own ability to maintain even the current level of mobilisation will fall. I have heard of rumours of planned strikes, even riots, in protest at the recent cuts in rations. Frankly, Winston, Britain is on the verge of collapse.
“And even if we win, what have we gained? It will be a world without Hitler, but a world where we will have lost the Empire, a world where we cannot feed our children or even protect their interests,” he asked. “Can we, now, hope to defeat Germany on our own? The Soviet Union is a dead beast now and our armies are incapable of carrying the war to Germany. The war cannot be won. The best we can do is not lose.”
Churchill met his eyes. “When I became Prime Minister, there was no suggestion that we should seek a peace with that most untrustworthy little man,” he said, altering the facts slightly. There had been some secret discussions, which had come to nothing, between the Nazis and some of their British supporters. “If Hitler was a reasonable man, a man we could do business with, we could come to some arrangement. We cannot trust him to keep an agreement with us any longer than is convenient to him.”
“The war cannot be won,” Eden said flatly.
Churchill looked at him. “Is that the opinion of the House of Commons?”
“Yes,” Lord Halifax said.
“I will not seek a peace with Germany,” Churchill said. He allowed his voice to sharpen. This small delegation could only mean one thing. “Am I to assume that you intend to remove me if I refuse to seek a dishonourable peace?”
“The country is at stake,” Eden said, guilt written on his features. Churchill wasn’t surprised. Eden was a competent Foreign Secretary, but he had no spine. “There is no choice left but to seek a peace agreement with Hitler, at least to find out what he will let us keep.”
Churchill rose ponderously to his feet. “In that case, gentlemen, I will see the King immediately and offer my resignation,” he said. “In fact, as the great and the good of England have refused to allow me to continue my policy, I see no choice, but to insist on my immediate resignation from the post of Prime Minister.”
Oddly enough, for the first time in far too long, he felt free.
He smiled at their faces. “But mark my words, my friends,” he said. “We have not finished with Hitler, nor has he finished with us. This is not peace, but an armistice, to be broken when Herr Hitler decides that it is time to reopen the war.”

Chapter One
Near Felixstowe, England, 1950

“Here they come,” Captain Harry Jackson said, as the first noises could be heard down the road. He glanced once at his radio — noting the lack of a signal from the two men he’d deployed further down the road — and muttered a curse under his breath. The Germans had taken the two men out before they could get off a warning. “Prepare to engage the enemy.”
Jackson had deployed his company around the road, knowing that the enemy couldn’t get their tanks through the forest, but a smart enemy commander might try to slip infantry through the trees to catch Jackson’s unit before it could engage the target on their terms. The road leading down towards Felixstowe was wide enough to allow three tanks uninterrupted passage. Like many other roads in this part of the country, it had been renovated to allow for the swift passage of military vehicles. The Germans would prefer to take it, according to the briefing, in order to allow themselves time to get through the defenders. It was Jackson’s job to hold the road and slow the enemy as much as possible.
The tension rose as the sound of vehicles grew louder. The briefing had been clear. The enemy intended to push the better part of an armoured division through the area, and while Jackson didn’t have the firepower to stop it, he was expected to delay them for as long as possible. He’d deployed his antitank weapons — including, ironically, a direct copy of a German-made weapon — as best as he could, but he wasn’t expecting the position to hold for long. He’d already prepared a series of fall-back positions.
We’re only going to get one free shot, he thought coldly, as he glanced around the company’s hiding places. The weekend warriors of the Home Guard force had certain problems with discipline, but there was no doubting either their local knowledge or even their training. The original Home Guardsmen had been barely capable of resisting an unarmed bandit, but as training and equipment improved, the Home Guard had grown into a respectable fighting force.
He’d transferred from the regular army in order to share his experience with them, but stopping a German armoured division — a Panzer Division — was very different from counterinsurgency operations in India. The Indian insurgents had no tanks and rarely bothered to stand and fight.
He heard a whistle as the dark tank appeared at the end of the road, followed by two more, flanked by a group of motorcycles and patrolling infantry. Jackson bit down a curse as he took in their appearance and deployment; they were likely to trigger his mines before the main body of their force entered the range of his guns. He’d hoped to be able to hit their tanks while they were stalled, but… More tanks appeared, heading along the road at a respectable speed, and he forced himself to revise the plans quickly. If the Germans saw them, they would sweep his people from the road. They hadn’t been able to do much to block the road and prevent the Germans from using it. That hadn’t been in the briefing.
“Open fire as soon as the mines detonate,” he hissed. They’d been able to hide a small set of antitank mines down the road, at just the right location; the Germans would slow down at once and call for infantry to sweep the mines out the way. He’d prepared it — he hoped — so that the Germans would be caught in a trap, but German soldiers were trained to take the initiative as fast as they could; if they decided to gamble, they could still break through his position.
The explosion wasn’t very loud, but the puff of smoke under the tank was unmistakable. His men didn’t hesitate, or wait for orders; they fired as one, throwing a hail of antitank shells towards the enemy tank. Jackson winced as blinding white flashes of light covered the tanks, signalling that they were disabled or destroyed, and then cursed under his breath as a German truck appeared, infantry already spilling from the rear and advancing at the double. A German tank, attempting to get around the disabled tanks, ran into another mine and skidded to a halt, the crew cursing their misfortune as their part came to an end.
More shots rang out through the woods as the German infantry crashed into his men, with shouts and screams echoing out as the Germans attempted to dislodge the British from their position. Jackson lifted his own weapon as a German storm-trooper appeared, holding a grenade in one hand, and had the satisfaction of watching as the German fell to the ground, dead. He lifted his whistle to his lips and blew a single long blast, the signal for retreat. The remains of the company fled the battle, in seeming panic, right towards the next holding position. Jackson half-hoped that the Germans would pursue them directly — there was an infantry company dug in a short distance down the road — but they contented themselves with capturing the remains of the position and hunting for the mines.
“We caught them with their pants down,” Sergeant Henry Wilt said, as they reached the second position and stopped, puffing for breath. It was just in front of a bridge and that presented its own problems; the Germans might try to take the bridge, but at the same time, they would be expecting to meet an ambush there. It was the logical place to set a trap. “How many do you think we got?”
Jackson thought about it, replaying the engagement in his head. “At least four tanks,” he said, thoughtfully. They wouldn’t know how many German infantrymen they’d killed for hours yet. “What about our air support?”
“It’s been denied,” Wilt said. He was a short stocky man, every part of him devoted to muscle and determination, and he was old enough to remember serving in France and Egypt as a young soldier. Jackson privately admired him; Wilt’s impressive skills had kept him from making too many embarrassing mistakes during his first tour of duty with the Home Guard. “It’s something to do with a major air offensive…”
His voice cut off as three aircraft flew low overhead, the noise of their passage echoing over the trees and the small village just beyond the bridge. The population had already been evacuated, removing them from the path of the German advance, and the village had been converted into a strong-point The German aircraft attacked without mercy, targeting buildings with their bombs and scattering flammable oil over the village; the Germans had been known to use it in their own counterinsurgency campaigns in Russia to great success.
“So much for the village,” Wilt said, as the enemy aircraft retreated and the clamour of enemy tanks rose again. Jackson took up his binoculars as the German infantry advanced, heading towards the bridge, covered by their tanks. The antitank guns on the far side of the river opened fire, their shells falling wide of the targets, while the Germans returned fire with their own weapons. “Sir?”
“Destroy the bridge,” Jackson ordered sharply. The Germans had killed half of his company; he couldn’t hope to prevent them from taking the village, but if he could destroy the bridge, it would slow them down enough that the regulars, struggling to establish a defence line, could stop them dead in their tracks. The odds weren’t good; regular armies all around Europe had been trying to stop the Germans, and hadn’t even come close to succeeding. Jackson had been young when the German juggernaut had crashed into Poland, Norway, France, Russia… but even he remembered the dread days when everyone had known that a German invasion was imminent. Adolph hadn’t come to Britain, not then…
Wilt barked an order and a signalman pushed down hard on a plunger, just in time. The German infantry had reached the bridge. They would have tried to remove the explosive, but now, as the bridge blazed with white light, they knew that they had failed. Jackson had hoped that they would have tried to find another bridge, but instead, the lead German tank advanced slowly down to the river… and then into the water. Water splashed up all around it as it slowly ground across the river, before it came out of the river, firing it’s machine guns. Jackson shouted a command, calling forward the portable antitank gunners, before the tank’s weapons came right to point at him. He gave himself up to the inevitable and dropped down to the ground.
* * *
“Well, that was an interesting exercise,” Colonel Felton-Smith said an hour later. Jackson couldn’t really disagree; the ‘destroyed’ tanks and ‘killed’ men had been impressive, but the Germans — or, rather, the regular army units playing at being the Germans — had defeated the Home Guard and broken through the defence line. “Jackson, so you have any thoughts?”
Jackson, who would have preferred a hot bath and a good meal, closed his eyes to compose his thoughts. “We should have requested more portable antitank weapons,” he said, referring to the PIAT rocket launchers the Home Guard used against enemy tanks. “We moved up the field guns and used them as part of the ambush, but when we retreated, they forced us to abandon the weapons; they may even have used them against us.”
Colonel Felton-Smith shrugged. He was a career military officer, with a neatly trimmed moustache and a perfect uniform; Jackson privately wondered if he had ever actually seen any real combat in his life. The field guns had been equipped with flash-bang shells, rather than any real explosives; after all, the tanks and men advancing against them had been British. There had been some live-fire exercises, but no one sane would permit the soldiers to use real ammunition when they might kill their fellow soldiers. The fistfights were bad enough.
“A good thought,” Colonel Felton-Smith said, finally. “What about the mines?”
Jackson shook his head. “We need to block the roads properly,” he said, cursing the mixture of parsimony and efficiency that prevented the Home Guard from really sabotaging the enemy’s line of advance. They could have cut down a few trees and slowed the ‘Germans’ down for as long as it took them to clear the roads again; just think what they could have done with the confusion! He’d seen enough exercises to know that even a tiny delay could, under the right circumstances, mount up into a complete disaster as supply lines got snarled up and enemy commanders became confused. “It’s just not an accurate portrayal of real war.”
He tapped the location of the village on the map. “The aircraft bombed the village and destroyed it,” he continued, speaking with more firmness now. “Sir, that wouldn’t happen in real life; we could have continued to fight through the wreckage and held the Germans for a few hours, if they had been forced to clear the village step by step. We also would have shot back at the aircraft and maybe even forced them to keep their distance.”
Colonel Felton-Smith nodded. “That’s not something that we can reproduce in an exercise,” he said, shortly. “Captain, overall, how did your company perform?”
“They did much better than I think some expected,” Jackson said, pointedly. The regular army tended to look down on the Home Guard; Dad’s Army was one of the nicer nicknames for the service. “They don’t have the discipline of people who have served in the regulars for a few years, but they held the line here until well after I bit the dust.”
“True enough,” Colonel Felton-Smith said. He held out a sheet of paper. “You and your company are being ordered to return to Felixstowe, where I believe most of your men come from, and continue basic drills until this exercise is concluded. Once it ends, I anticipate that there will be more drills, but most of your unit will return to inactive service.”
Jackson nodded once; he had expected no less. The Home Guard, by its very nature, couldn’t be permanently deployed anywhere — particularly not outside the United Kingdom. The conscription program kept most of the young men trained, but the regulars could be deployed anywhere, and often were. If the Germans landed tomorrow — and that was the nightmare, with the Reich on the other side of the Channel — the main burden of the early fighting would fall on the Home Guard. They would fight and die to buy the regular army time to mobilise and be deployed.
He threw a neat salute. “Yes, sir,” he said, as he stood to attention. “I’ll see to it at once.”
* * *
Night was falling as Gregory Davall slipped closer and closer to the barbed wire. Clad in dark clothes, his face blacked out like the Golliwog, he was almost invisible in the gloom. The sentry, whose cigarette light could be seen in the darkness, certainly never saw him. Davall smiled to himself as he crawled closer, keeping his belly firmly on the ground, just before he reached the wire and pulled out a pair of cutters. The sentry didn’t react at all, pacing slightly as he tried to keep himself awake; Davall silently cut a hole through the wire and slipped into the airbase.
Idiot, he thought coldly, as he continued to crawl towards the aircraft hangers. The RAF had built the airbase to handle some of their long-range bombers. His task was to penetrate it, slip inside the base, and slip out again, all without being seen. The Grey Wolves would be depending on him to recover some information from the airbase, and if he were caught, he would be in very real trouble. On this exercise, he would probably get a clout from the sentry or whoever caught him. On an actual mission he would have been shot out of hand. The Grey Wolves, like every other stay-behind unit, would be considered illegal combatants and, as such, were not protected by the Geneva Convention.
He slipped closer to his destination, avoiding a pair of patrolling guards with ease, and entered the hanger through an unsecured door. The sheer absence of real security made him grind his teeth together with rage. He was meant to be training for penetrating German bases, not exposing holes in British security. It had been seven years since the war had ended, but with the Reich across the Channel, anyone with a brain in their head knew that the resumption of hostilities was inevitable, sooner or later. Davall, a skilled toolmaker in a reserve occupation, had been exempted from conscription, but he had been recruited into the Grey Wolves. Unfortunately, ten years later, the secret soldiers were still maintaining their preparations. When Hitler came for them, they would be ready.
The interior of the hanger was dimly lit. He closed his eyes to force them to adjust to the change before glancing over at the aircraft, an experimental jet-propelled aircraft that was supposed to be able to fly as far as America. Davall’s son had fallen in love with the RAF and had announced his intention to join as soon as he was old enough, but before then, he had collected dozens of aircraft models, including the ones designed to show off what the RAF could do. Davall had helped James to assemble the aircraft and knew their statistics off by heart; it made him wonder what James would have made of how easy it had been to slip into the base. If Davall had come on a sabotage mission, which he would have to do if the Germans ever came, he could have destroyed the aircraft before anyone could have stopped him.
He scooped up a small set of papers from a desk, slipped them into his pocket, and withdrew the way he’d come. The sentry should have kept an eye on the wire, perhaps even patrolled it to find the gap, but Davall was able to retreat without any problems. It was only when he’d made it out and was walking back towards his operations base that he heard the outraged shouts behind him and pounding feet as guards were aroused to search for the intruder. It was too late, he knew, as he walked away through the forest; if they had wanted to catch him, they would have to improve the security. He’d take the papers to the coordinating officer tomorrow and hand them in, as well as making a report on the exact state of security on the base. If Davall had anything to say about it, heads would roll…
The forest was warm and welcoming, although someone who was unfamiliar with the forest would have found it creepy; Davall found his way to the operations base with ease. Major General Colin Gubbins had hammered security into their heads; the Grey Wolves were the only people who knew where the base actually was in the forest. Even their coordinating officer, who knew all of them by name, didn’t know. He also didn’t know that the Grey Wolves had orders to assassinate him if the Germans landed.
It was the work of a moment to clean himself, to change his dark clothes for something more fitting, and then to start the long walk back to his house. There was no longer any curfew over Suffolk, but he kept off the roads and streets anyway; tonight, the security forces would be out in force, hunting for the spy who’d broken into the airbase. He hoped, as he walked, that when the Germans came, it would be that easy to break into one of their compounds, but he knew, somehow, that it wouldn’t be anything like as easy. The Germans were very good soldiers and they had lots of experience in defeating stay-behind units. He knew his duty…
But, deep inside, he was scared for the future.

Chapter Two
Berlin, Germany

“Heil Hitler!” The cry burst out from a thousand throats. “Heil Hitler!”
Standing on the balcony, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler watched as thousands of black-clad soldiers marched past, their faces all perfectly blank and disciplined. The massive parade had been going on for nearly an hour, with overflights by the latest and greatest aircraft of the Reich, and Himmler was more than a little tired of it. It was also something that even he, the second-most powerful man in Germany, couldn’t escape; it was Victory Day. The holiday that Adolph Hitler himself had decreed sacred, the day that Moscow had fallen to a combined assault from German forces, the day that marked the triumph of the Greater German Reich… Victory Day would be celebrated by Hitler’s people, body and soul. They had placed their faith in the Fuhrer and the Fuhrer had delivered; Germany was master of Europe, ruler of an empire that stretched as far as the Urals and the Iranian border.
Himmler glanced over at the Fuhrer, careful not to move too much; Hitler didn’t seem to notice. His health had been growing poorer for years, ever since the British agent — or at least Himmler had accused him of being a British agent - Theodor Morell had began poisoning him with experimental medical treatments. Himmler, loyal to Hitler personally, had finally worked with Goring to have the quack removed and quietly assassinated, but the damage had been done. The Fuehrer’s condition had been degenerating for years.
A roar split the streets as the first Panzers appeared, advancing along the road and passing below the Führer’s balcony. The Panthers were the latest and greatest tanks created by Germany, each one built incorporating lessons from the war. Hitler truly believed that a division of Panthers could have defeated the entire Soviet Union without any further support. He might have been right, in a sense; the Panther was technically superior to anything the Soviets had deployed, but they had sheer numbers. If Moscow hadn’t fallen back in 1941… Himmler didn’t want to think about the possible outcome of the war.
He composed himself as best as he could, watching as the latest Luftwaffe aircraft flew overhead; Goring cheering in delight and pointing out the latest types to Hitler, as if he hadn’t been removed from his position as head of the Luftwaffe years ago. As director of the resettlement project in the east, Goring was harmless, but not smart enough to realise that he was harmless. Himmler knew that Goring didn’t rate as a threat these days and ignored him. Apart from Hitler himself, there were only three men of any importance in Germany.
As if the thought reminded him, he peered down and saw Field Marshal Albert Kesselring and Albert Speer standing and saluting as more Panzer units and infantry marched across the square. Speer — one of Hitler’s favourites — had become director of Germany’s industries… and even Himmler had to admit that he had worked wonders in preparing the Reich for war. His control over the economy was absolute, strong enough to bend all of Germany’s industrialists to his will, and his creation had given Germany the ability to finally reshape the continent to its will. Kesselring, growing older and perhaps stouter, was a more unusual candidate for high office, but as another of the Führer’s favourites, Kesselring had become the highest-ranking military officer in Germany… and, under Hitler, warlord. The old inter-service rivalries had been cut back, sharply under Kesselring. The only completely independent service was the Waffen-SS. The thought of what might happen if Kesselring decided to turn disloyal kept Himmler up at night…
He had wondered if Hitler would give a speech, but as the final lines of the parade died away, it became obvious that the Fuhrer was in no condition to speak; his orderly slowly helped him off the balcony and down towards the conference room. Speer had designed the rebuilt Reichstag himself, but instead of giving it back to elected delegates, it had become Hitler’s headquarters and the centre of control over Germany. Himmler watched as the Führer’s back receded into the distance, and then he stepped down himself, just slowly enough to remind everyone that no business in the Third Reich could be conducted without his presence. He knew what Hitler was going to announce; he also knew that Speer and Kesselring knew as well. Who else knew what was coming?
The conference room had been designed by Hitler personally, and it suited him. There was a single large chair, almost a throne, for Hitler himself and smaller chairs for his subordinates; their subordinates, in turn, would have to stand. One wall was completely covered by a map and Himmler paused long enough to take a look at it, reminding himself of just how far the Third Reich had come and just how far it had to go. Maps covering the pre-Hitler period were officially banned, but Himmler remembered a time when there had been many more states in Europe, before Hitler’s legions had wiped them all out of existence. In German classrooms, these days, students knew nothing about Poland, or Belgium, or Estonia; they had been wiped from history and wiped out on the ground. Himmler had overseen the population transfers personally.
“There is one final piece of business to take care of before the end of this meeting,” Hitler said, his voice weaker than Himmler remembered, back in the glory days. He wasn’t like Goring, who remembered the days of beer and fighting with the Communists as a paradise, but now… it was sometimes hard to remember what they’d been. “It has been years since I rose to the this position of destiny and created the living space in the east for the Reich and the Volk.”
He paused for breath. “We stand supreme everywhere, but only one country in Europe has defied us and held on to a refusal to recognise the mastery of the Volk,” he said, his voice growing louder. “When I offered the British peace on equal terms, they spurned me; they defied me and they defied the Volk! They betrayed their Aryan origins by siding with the Jewish-Bolshevik movement and sending them the weapons and equipment to continue the struggle! Even now, they refuse to bow their heads to Berlin and recognise that their destiny is to become part of the Reich and…”
The ranting grew louder as Hitler continued. At one point, Himmler was worried; Hitler had always been an opportunist, taking advantage of his opponent’s weaknesses rather than having a master plan of his own, but he had always possessed the ability to judge clearly. His only real error had been in failing to anticipate that the British and the French would actually declare war after his forces invaded Poland; even after that, all of his gambles had come off and he was now the undisputed master of the continent. In all of Europe, there were only a handful of countries with any real independence, and all of them knew that their internal autonomy depended on Hitler’s goodwill, rather than any ability to defend themselves from attack. A man who was perfectly capable of launching two hundred divisions at any target wasn’t a man to irritate.
“It is time to settle the account with Britain, once and for all,” Hitler thundered, and immediately sagged. “I have given orders to prepare for the launch of Operation Sunset at once, to be executed as soon as possible, with the goal of conquering Britain within a month. Once Britain has been defeated, we will be finally secure, ready to make preparations for the inevitable final struggle to determine the fate of the world.”
There was a long pause. Finally, Kesselring nodded to Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, who stood up and picked up a pointer, indicating positions on the map. Manstein was another of the Führer’s favourites, a man whose planning had brought down France, Greece and Russia, as well as one of the most skilled strategists in the Reich. Manstein’s position was unchallengeable, as long as he continued to deliver victories.
Manstein’s voice was both firmer and drier than the Führer’s voice. “The original plan for invading Britain was badly flawed,” he said, without particular irritation. Himmler remembered the days when Hitler had dithered over invading Britain and nodded; the plan had been improvised and almost certain to fail spectacularly. “The Wehrmacht and the other services have been working on a plan to invade Britain since 1943, but it wasn’t until recently that we had the fire-power and transport ability to carry it out with a reasonable chance of success. The plan, codenamed Operation Sunset, was first devised in 1947 and has been updated since then until today.”
His pointer indicated Britain. “The British have three elements to their defence; the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, and their own Army,” he said. “They have smaller specialised units, like we do, but their military value is questionable. In order to land a major assault force on the British island, we have to get it through the first two enemy forces and then defeat the third on their soil. That is not going to be easy, but it can be done; in particular, we can secure control of the seas for long enough to ship a major army group over to Britain.
“The British Navy, while larger than our own, has many more commitments than we have, including a major deployment into the Mediterranean and a second major deployment into the Far East watching our Japanese friends,” he continued. “That leaves them with their Home Fleet, deployed at Scapa Flow, and various smaller units scattered around the coast. The British battle fleet is composed of mainly older vessels, but if it came down to a direct battleship duel, they would have a serious advantage. We know that their plans call for immediately engaging the invasion convoys, so ours is to hit the Home Fleet first, from the air.”
He grinned. “The British themselves launched an attack on our friends the Italians from the air,” he said. “A handful of elderly aircraft hit the Italian fleet hard enough to make them reluctant to risk combat in the future — not that that’s hard, of course.” There were some chuckles; the Italians had proven themselves such bad fighters that Himmler had wanted to declare them all subhuman, and only Hitler’s fondness for Mussolini had prevented the invasion and subjection of Italy. “The Luftwaffe deploys many more aircraft and has been armed with the latest in anti-ship weapons, providing us with a unique chance to destroy or damage as many of their ships as possible. If necessary, our five carriers will add to the chaos by sending in their own torpedo-bombers, but I hope that we will have crushed most of the enemy fleet in the opening strike.”
“A point,” Generaladmiral Erich Raeder said, his voice darkening. He had birthed the Kriegsmarine and knew full well the odds it would face in a pitched battle. “How can you determine that the British will not detect the attacking bombers on their way?”
“The flight will be flying low for most of the journey,” Manstein said. “We anticipate that they will have some warning, but by our most pessimistic estimate, they will only have enough time to get the antiaircraft defences manned and ready, rather than getting the fleet out of the port and out onto the open sea. Building steam takes time, after all. We will also have deployed a large force of submarines to the area; when the command is given, those submarines will engage every British ship they can find. The bombers will also be heavily escorted, although we anticipate that the RAF will have more pressing concerns.
“At the same time, we will launch major air strikes against every British RAF base and radar station,” Manstein continued. “The British will have to get into the air as quickly as they can, just to drive our aircraft away, while in the meantime we will be hitting their bases as hard as we can. That particular wave of attacks will have a secondary objective; dummy parachutes will be unloaded over the Dover region, ensuring that the British will be wasting their time looking for the parachutists. In the confusion, we will launch the first part of the invasion plan itself.”
He nodded over to Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, the military intelligence department. Himmler detested Canaris, whose loyalty to Hitler was suspect, but there was no denying the fact that he knew his job very well. Canaris was charged with gathering intelligence from Britain, particularly on British military deployments, but Himmler knew how hard that could be… unless, of course, there was an ace in the hole. His particular ace, something he had even concealed from Hitler, gave him a private, but very advantageous, look into British politics. It was an advantage he had used ruthlessly.
“The British have been preparing for an invasion ever since the first rumours of war,” Canaris said. He’d been in his post for over ten years; Himmler had watched him almost as long. “They spent most of 1940 scrambling to prepare a basic defence, and then they just kept preparing, with the net result that the Dover region is the most heavily defended area in Britain. As the obvious place for us to land, they have fortified the area beyond reason, backed up by ten divisions of their army and heavy armoured units. We were able to get a look at their latest tank during the insurgency in Iraq” — Himmler smiled; the Shah of Iran had supplied that insurgency, with a little push from his German friends — “and while we believe that it’s a good design, they have massed most of them in the Dover region. If we were to attack Dover, the invasion would fail.”
He paused. “So, naturally, we’re not going to attack Dover.”
Manstein nodded. “The British defences there would make an attack far too costly for us to sustain,” he said. “Accordingly, we intend to target the assault on Felixstowe, a British port that has actually been taking some ships from the continent over the last few years. Felixstowe has been built up recently by the British, moving from a small base for motor torpedo boats to housing a small group of destroyers and also some civilian ships. It’s not the largest harbour in the world, or even in Britain, but it’s one that we believe we can take intact. Once we have secured it, the first of the main invasion transports will land and start unloading before we form the units up and advance towards London.”
He drew a line on the map. “The British will have to destroy our forces on the ground,” he said. “We anticipate that they will be able to move the equivalent of one armoured division and five infantry divisions into the area within a few days, although we will be hammering their rail and road communications as much as we can. Once that force is ready, they will advance to attack us — they will have no choice. If they allow us to continue to reinforce at will, eventually we will be able to defeat them on the ground. The destruction of that force, will allow us a chance to expand our grip and advance towards London, burning the heart out of Britain as we move.”
Himmler coughed. “What do you think the British will do with their other fleet units?”
Manstein tapped the map. “I expect that they will concentrate their forces and advance towards us, attempting to cut the sea lanes,” he said. “If they succeed too soon, they will defeat the invasion force, but once we have enough supplies in place, we will still have a chance at victory. The Italians and Japanese may take advantage of their absence to strike; the only problem remains the reaction of the Americans.”
Hitler erupted. “The Americans couldn’t prevent us from doing anything,” he barked sharply. “They have their own problems with their mongrel races and won’t be concerned with our actions!”
Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Reich’s Foreign Minister, looked nervous. The man was believed to be a fool by everyone, including Hitler. “The American President has been focused on internal problems and the Japanese threat,” he said. “I do not feel that the Americans would get involved unless we offered them some huge provocation.”
Himmler smiled. The power play was obvious now; if Kesselring and Speer won the invasion of Britain between them, they would have a chance to oust him from the centre of power in the Reich. It was what he would have done; indeed, he had done it to Goring, among others. When Hitler died, and that wouldn’t be long now, the next Fuhrer would be one of the three most prominent Nazis…
“There is a way of preventing the British from asking for help,” he said, and outlined it. The idea was simple and he even had a unit on hand that could handle it. “The British might not even be able to issue orders for a while if the plan succeeds.”
Hitler loved it. “A splendid idea,” he said, his face growing flushed. “See that it is carried out perfectly.”
“Of course, Mein Fuhrer,” Himmler said.
“I want to have Britain as part of the Reich within two months from today,” Hitler said. His sight faded for a long moment. “Go now… and bring Britain into the Reich.”
The assembled senior commanders and cabinet members left quickly, but Himmler lingered just long enough to meet Hitler’s eyes. His body was shaking slightly, breaking apart, and failing him; it wouldn’t be long before he died. Hitler knew that he had, at best, only a few more years to live. The longer he lasted, the more his body would degrade and humiliate him still further. Himmler couldn’t bear it any longer and fled the room…
Trapped in a dying shell, Adolph Hitler was in hell.

Chapter Three
Wewelsburg Castle, Germany

“Heil Hitler!”
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler returned the salute as he clambered out of his car, looking up at the towering heights of Wewelsburg Castle, a building that he had purchased and developed for the exclusive use of the SS. His elaborate plans had been impeded by the demands of war, but he resumed construction once the Soviet Union had collapsed and no serious enemies remained to threaten the Reich. Himmler had personally organised the establishment of Niederhagen concentration camp, near the Castle, and the thousands of slaves from the east had been used ruthlessly to build Himmler’s dream. Seven years later, it had become one of the most impressive sites in Germany, a fitting tribute to the New Order.
He shook his head as he proceeded up towards his private office. The existence of the Castle, as well as the secrets and rituals at the heart of the SS, had been kept from the remainder of the German people, many of whom would never approve what was being done in their name. Himmler remembered with a flush of embarrassment the German women who had demanded the return of their Jewish husbands; ever since then, he had become determined to keep many secrets to himself, safe from the interfering gaze of many Germans who didn’t want to know what was being done in their name. The Church was a particular problem for Himmler; his program to establish massive SS families and legitimise bastard children faced massive opposition, even though the Pope had been pressured into providing reluctant support. The final battle between Church and State hadn’t been fought yet, Himmler knew; one day, the Waffen-SS would march into the Vatican and put the Pope and his Cardinals to the sword. One day… and, if Himmler became Fuhrer, that day would be very soon.
“Herr Reichsfuhrer,” one of his secretaries called. “I have the latest figures on the use of Untermensch workers for your perusal.”
“Please hold them for the moment,” Himmler said. He made a point to be polite to all of his subordinates, knowing that if they were scared of him, they would start lying to him, rather than face his displeasure. “I will study them later.”
He walked into his private office and smiled to himself. There were literally millions of Untermensch — sub-humans — within the vast territories that the Reich had occupied, and they were all at the disposal of their German masters. The SS had spent the last seven years registering the Untermensch and using them for whatever purpose suited them, from slave labour to working on massive concentrated farms to feed the German people. The East was dotted by plantations now, each one run by the SS to grow food; in time, the serfs would all die, to be replaced by men of good German stock and tractors of good German manufacture.
The East was also rife with insurgency, but as the SS systematically restricted the movements of the population, even the insurgency was dying down. It would be years before it was all gone — Himmler suspected that Beria was supplying them despite the terms of the treaty — but there was no way that the insurgents could defeat the Reich.
There was a single knock on the door and Himmler barked a command, without looking up, until Skorzeny had reported. “Heil Hitler,” he said, and saluted. It made him envious, in a way; no matter how many blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryans he surrounded himself with, it wouldn’t change his own appearance one iota. Himmler wasn’t a perfect SS man and never would be, but the man facing him lived up to the legends.
“Heil Hitler,” Gruppenfuhrer Otto Skorzeny said. “You wanted to see me, Herr Reichsfuhrer?”
Himmler took a moment to study Skorzeny. At forty-two years old, the famous commando, who had been involved in raids and attacks on the Soviet Union and the insurgents that had replaced them, still looked like a young man. He had planned and executed a daring raid on the Soviets just before the end of the war, and Hitler had been impressed enough to order Skorzeny promoted and given his own unique unit of soldiers. Skorzeny hadn’t wasted his time, either; the unit of commandos had proven themselves in covert operations against a dozen sensitive targets.
“I need a readiness report on your unit,” Himmler said, allowing Skorzeny to draw his own conclusions. The Reichsfuhrer wouldn’t have summoned him for a report unless there had been a failing so great as to justify him being thrown out of the SS — or if there was a prospect of action. “How ready are you for immediate deployment?”
Skorzeny’s eyes gleamed at the prospect of action. “The unit is in peak condition at the moment,” he said. Himmler had given him a thousand men back at the start; now, with reserves, new recruits, and even hundreds of SS men clamouring to join, Skorzeny could have tens of thousands of men under him. Instead, he had his core group and several thousand reserve soldiers, just in case they were needed. “The men are ready as they’ll ever be to launch an operation against any enemy.”
He stopped and waited. “Within a month, perhaps less, we will launch an attack against Britain,” Himmler said, calmly. Skorzeny looked delighted. “Your unit has a vital role to play in the assault.”
Skorzeny considered it. “The Tommy is a good soldier, but often unprepared for surprise,” he said, after a moment. “There is no one better at holding a piece of ground, but they don’t always react well when they are hit really hard. The best of their commanding officers match our own, but they don’t often have the same grasp of tactics that we do.” His grin grew wider. “And they have a unit to match ours; this should be fun.”
Himmler stood up and paced over to the map. It didn’t show unit positions; instead, it showed SS locations and personnel throughout Europe. He also knew that there was plenty it didn’t show, such as the fatality rates from Skorzeny’s unit; the parachute-testing program had claimed over a hundred lives since Skorzeny had demanded that a new parachute design be put into production. It also didn’t show the exact details of their target…
He turned back to face Skorzeny. Skorzeny was Hitler’s man, through and through; he didn’t have much time for the mystique that Himmler was trying to create around the SS, his Knights of the Black Cross. Where Himmler was fussy and precise, Skorzeny was impetuous and random. Skorzeny might be an excellent soldier — he was an excellent soldier — but he wouldn’t fit into the Order of the SS, or at least as Himmler envisioned it.
“You launched an attack on General Zhukov’s headquarters,” Himmler said, remembering that incident with some private amusement. The USSR had never really recovered from the loss of Moscow; by the time Beria had succeeded in bringing the Red Army back into a fighting force, their long-term advantages had been reduced sharply and, whatever else he was, Beria was no Stalin. He had no choice but to trust Zhukov to hold together the Red Army and the defence line… and, one day, Skorzeny and a hundred of his men had landed in a Red Army aircraft, slaughtered the General’s defenders, and kidnapped the General himself. It had been the turning point in the 1942 campaign against the remaining body of the Red Army and Stalingrad itself.
Skorzeny smiled lazily. “I remember,” he said. “Do we know where the commanding officer of the British Army is currently based?”
“Your target is a little higher up the scale than that,” Himmler said. “Your orders are to land in London, seize or kill the Prime Minister of Britain and his Cabinet - and then escape.”
Skorzeny shook his head. “London isn’t an isolated airbase in the middle of nowhere,” he said, remembering his mission against Zhukov. “It’s a colossal city. Unless there is a gaping hole in the British defences, we won’t be able to land aircraft and hold the area long enough to snatch the targets and escape. The minute there’s a threat, they’ll bring up reinforcements and trap us.”
Himmler frowned. “What does that mean for your mission?”
“We can’t take them alive,” Skorzeny said, with as much dispassion as if he were ordering dinner. “They will have to be killed, and then we will have to extract ourselves from the scene as quickly as possible.” He paused. “What sort of information do you have on the British defences?”
“Not as much as I would like,” Himmler admitted, wondering if he should let Skorzeny in on the secret. “I have been working to collect information, but there are… limits to what my source can gather and transmit to us without giving away his existence, and the minute the British suspect that they have a leak, they will start tearing their departments apart to find it.”
He watched as Skorzeny went through the information that one of his secretaries had prepared. The big man’s face twitched and twisted as he studied line after line, peering down at the map of London and mentally comparing it to the maps that he had studied, back in 1940. Skorzeny had been one of the finest soldiers in the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler back then, and he would have seen plans of Britain, but the information that Himmler had gathered was updated to 1950.
He looked up finally. “What sort of assets do we have on the ground?”
“A handful of agents, several of whom may be under surveillance,” Himmler said. “They still have Sillitoe in command of their counter-espionage service and he’d a determined man, always pushing the limits of what he can do with his people. We have some links with the British fascists, but they’re definitely being watched and have almost no military capability…”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking about,” Skorzeny said. “They have three barracks in London, four counting the one for the Palace Guards; that gives them, at most, several thousand soldiers who could react to us landing. They’re going to react, which means…”
He broke off. “I have been training people for possible operations against Britain,” he said. “If we had some support from the air, we might be able to hit the barracks first, just enough to confuse them and let us land, launch the attack, and then beat it before the British catch us.”
Himmler nodded. “So it can be done?”
“The cost will be very heavy,” Skorzeny said, flatly. He didn’t flinch, but Himmler did; he rarely visited the camps where the slaves were held, just because he hated the sight of blood. “We can get around five hundred commandos into the area, but the British will still have time to react and counter-attack; I estimate that we will have twenty minutes before they start organising a response. Once we have completed the mission, we can fall back and escape, but it won’t be easy.”
Himmler looked at him. “Could your people go to ground until our soldiers get there?”
“Possibility,” Skorzeny said. “We would need some contacts on the far side and… we’ll need British uniforms. The British would shoot us at once if they caught us like that, but it might just allow us a chance to escape in the confusion. Once that’s completed, we will have a chance to escape, particularly in the wake of an invasion. They’re going to be moving units around like crazy and we’ll just blend in with the crowd.”
Himmler nodded. “I take it that I can trust you to handle the mission and brief a commander?”
“I’m going myself,” Skorzeny said, shortly. Himmler lifted an eyebrow. “I said I wouldn’t send anyone on a mission I refused to do myself, so I have to go, and I have the best training and grasp of the situation. The information will have to be shared around the team — if my aircraft gets shot down, Hans or Johan will have to take over — but I think they can be trusted to keep it to themselves.”
He paused. “What is the source of this information?”
Himmler’s lips wanted to twitch into a smile. “Classified,” he said, flatly. “The information is, however, totally reliable.”
Skorzeny held his gaze. “I need to know how to verify it,” he said. “Who is supplying us with information?”
Himmler answered, reluctantly. “A very strange Englishman,” he said, wishing that he could tell Skorzeny the full story. They’d only stumbled upon the connection by accident and — as far as the SS knew — their target knew nothing of who was reading his reports. He thought that he was still filing reports to Beria and his agents. “His name is Philby, Kim Philby.”