Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14) Page 3

  The message had been deemed so secret that it could not be transmitted over normal channels. It had been flown all the way to England on a much needed Wellington bomber, and Tovey suggested that, on the return leg, two or three more might make the journey to Egypt in compensation. And as if to head off Churchill’s first inclination to send a man like Foreign Secretary Eden in his place, the message stressed that the nature of discovery was so volatile, and of such weighty importance, that no one other than himself could be privy to the matter—not the war cabinet, nor any other minister of the government, not the Admiralty, nor Michael and his archangels. While that seemed completely preposterous, it nonetheless appealed to his ego on one level.

  He took a long look around the stuffy confines of his war room office, and the matter was settled. He was determined to go and see what was brewing in Egypt for himself. After all, it was the central front in the war insofar as England was concerned. If nothing else, he would learn much about the real situation there, and be able to get a grip on the necks of all his senior commanders and get them marching in the direction he wanted.

  The journey was every bit as exciting as it was arduous, though no mention was made of it at home. Churchill’s schedule was made up as always, and a list of fictional meetings was posted to make everything seem as though he was there and about his business as usual. He determined to fly first to Britain’s newly won Atlantic outposts in the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, and have a brief chat with Somerville regarding the situation in French West Africa and Casablanca. From there he would fly to Takoradi where a squadron of newly arrived Hurricane fighters were to accompany three Wellington bombers for the journey east across Africa. He eventually landed in Khartoum again, smelling the air of the Sudan for the first time in decades. It was a balm to his soul, and filled him with the energy that was often characteristic of his endeavors when he was fired up like this.

  After a brief rest they flew on to Wadi Halfa, right on the Egyptian southern border with Sudan, where Churchill transferred to a smaller Blenheim for the final leg of his journey. It was only then that he was informed the destination would not be Alexandria, but the distant desert oasis of Siwa.

  The scene of the crime, he thought. What could be there that would be of any import? He knew there was a ruined old town there, and little more than bleached mud huts baked in the desert sun to an ochre hue. They were actually built from a material called Karshif, which was a mixture of salt and clay worked by the ancient Berbers. Palm trees graced the otherwise barren terrain, in stark contrast to the jagged remnants of stone ruins and dilapidated towers. When he finally got there, however, his eye would have no time to wander among the crumbling, roofless mud walls of the abandoned ruins about a solitary weathered hill. There, stretched out for what seemed to be miles on end, was the footprint of a large military formation.

  Siwa had been the site of an ancient oracle at the temple of Amoun that dated from the 26th Dynasty. It was there that Alexander the Great came to be anointed “Son of Amoun,” and Protector of Egypt, but there was another man waiting to meet the Prime Minister who would rightfully usurp that title now, Brigadier General Kinlan. With him were the host of conspirators who had arranged this meeting, Wavell, O’Connor, and Admirals Tovey and Cunningham.

  “Well met,” said Churchill, hefting his meager traveling bag. “Never has a man gone so far, with so little, for so many!” They all had a laugh at that, warmly shaking the Prime Minister’s hand. It was there, within that very hour, that Churchill’s life was forever changed, when he learned that the units assembled here had come an even greater distance to make this fateful rendezvous, from decades hence, brave soldiers from a distant future returned to Britain in her hour of greatest need. It was the most shocking and exhilarating moment of his life, but before that day ended, he had been helped up onto the massive metal back of a Challenger II, and taken for a thrilling ride through the assembled ranks of the 7th Brigade.

  And after that, nothing was ever the same.

  * * *

  Amazingly, Churchill took to the notion of time travel with great interest and enthusiasm. He had been a long time reader, and was now a personal friend of the famous English science Fiction writer H. G. Wells. In fact, he would later borrow the phrase “The Gathering Storm” for the title of his opening volume on the war, a phrase that was originally penned by Wells in his novel War of the Worlds. The Prime Minister was also much influenced by Wells, shaping several ideas about the relationship of the governed state to its citizens around the writer’s work.

  “This is classic science fiction,” he said, “something that old H.G. Wells himself might have dreamt up with his Time Machine. I am not ashamed to say I have read every word that man has ever written, and could pass an exam on his fiction, but seeing his ideas take such a formidable shape, and at such a desperate juncture in this war, is most astonishing. What a mighty sword we have here in this brigade!”

  Churchill had read Wells’ story, The Land Ironclads, in 1903 about 100 foot long machines equipped with remote controlled guns and able to carry troops of riflemen. “The captain . . . had look-out points at small ports all round the upper edge of the adjustable skirt of twelve-inch iron plating which protected the whole affair,” wrote Wells, and Churchill had embraced the concept as a hearty early proponent of tank development. Now he saw his Land Ironclad realized in a way that would have dazzled the mind of Wells himself.

  “Who knows,” he said jubilantly. “Perhaps old HG. is one of your own, slipped through some other crack in time to lay out all these stories of days to come.”

  After the exhilaration and amazement, the meeting then finally settled down to what must be done now with the gift of iron and steel sent to them from afar. Tovey was pleasantly surprised to learn that Churchill would not take much convincing.

  “You were completely right to insist on this meeting here,” said Churchill, “and to keep this force segregated from the rank and file of Wavell’s army. I know in time that may change, but for the moment this must all be considered a matter of the most urgent and darkest secrecy. No one else must know of this, not even the war cabinet, or God forbid, anyone in Parliament. The knowledge is simply too shocking for the common man to hold in the palm of his hand. It would unhinge the world and haunt the dreams of men and women who would not understand it, even as it will likely fire my own imagination as to how we can put this mighty champion to the best good use.”

  Wavell and O’Connor shared the plan they had devised, the reason the Brigade had assembled here at Siwa, and the operation soon to be launched against the Italians at Giarabub. Churchill agreed that it was a sound plan to place this mighty axe right at the edge of Rommel’s neck.

  “Let him try running half way across Cyrenaica again with his tanks,” said Churchill. “With Brigadier Kinlan’s force poised on his flank, we can chop off his head in one fell swoop! Now then… what this buys us in the short run, gentlemen, is a most needed currency, and ironically, that coin is time. I now see that my plan to try and get Wavell his tanks by pushing the Tiger convoy through the Mediterranean is not necessary. He’ll still need them, but they can go round the cape with any other naval reinforcements Admiral Tovey might choose to assign here. This foil we can hold at the enemy’s throat will keep him at bay while we get back on our feet here.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Wavell, and he detailed the operation planned against Benghazi, and related other concerns concerning Crete, Iraq and Syria. “I had planned to send the 7th Australian Division out west with the rest of the ANZAC Corps, but given these ominous warning about Crete, and the rumblings of Rashid Ali and his golden Square rebellion in Iraq, I have second thoughts. We also have the Vichy French stronghold in Syria to worry about.”

  “We could not help Greece, and I have paid a political price for that,” said Churchill, “but what about Crete? The Joint Intelligence believes that a combined sea and air attack is imminent there, and it must be stubbornly defend
ed.”

  “That intelligence may be accurate,” said Wavell, “but may I now introduce a new arrival to this conference, the Captain of the Russian ship that has been operating in league with our naval forces here, Anton Fedorov. He made some very telling points on this matter that I think you should hear.”

  Fedorov had travelled to the conference on the KA-40 with the others, but was meeting Churchill for the first time now, and was greatly awed by the moment. He had been relieved that Churchill saw the need to maintain the secrecy of this small group of confederates, now how could he convince Churchill not to take the wrong turns in the long war ahead that could waste time and cost lives. After some discussion of his ship, its operations in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean, they finally returned to the issue of Crete, and Fedorov shared the same warning he had given Wavell earlier.

  “All the forces presently at Crete were reinforced by two full brigades of tough Australian infantry, veterans of the Greek campaign, yet they could not stop the German attack, and the whole affair lasted no more than ten days time. The Germans will also be emboldened by their success at Malta in making this attack.”

  “But might they not be over emboldened by that same success,” said Churchill? “Isn’t this an opportunity for us to face down and come to grips with this elite German airborne force, and put our best troops on the line against it? Breaking it would surely give the Germans pause, for if we were to yield the island without a fight, the Germans would turn their glaring eyes on Cyprus next, and from there it is only one short airborne hop to Palestine.”

  “In that you are correct, sir, and in the history I know, the forces committed to Crete made the Germans pay a very high price for the island, so high in fact that Hitler forbade the use of the airborne divisions in any other similar assault for the duration of the war.”

  “Then that alone is sufficient reason for us to do everything possible to defend the place.”

  “You could do so, but without the guarantee that the Germans would again sustain heavy losses. I must tell you now that we are not the only men that may be tampering with the course of these events. There are others, and one other man is of the gravest concern. While we stand here with you, he has instead chosen to ally himself with Hitler and his Nazi regime, and may be advising the Germans even as I offer this foresight in your planning. I am speaking of Ivan Volkov, and what I will tell you now will be every bit as shocking as the presence of General Kinlan’s brigade in this distant desert outpost.”

  “Ivan Volkov? My God,” said Churchill. “Is anyone else coming to dinner? Out with it man, I want to hear everything you have to say.”

  Part II

  Uncertainty

  “Certainty about prediction is an illusion. One thing that history keeps teaching us is that the future is full of surprises and outwits all our certitudes.”

  Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

  Chapter 4

  The door opened slowly and he entered, the dark shiny band of his hat catching the light as he strode boldly forward. The click of his boots on the hard wood floor echoed a confidence that also stiffened his posture, and hardened the lines of his shoulders. At his side he carried a ceremonial baton, with a jeweled handle of the finest leather and a metal tip. His uniform was immaculate, charcoal grey trimmed in black, and his breast was gilded with the gold and silver of medals.

  He was born in the heart of the capital, Berlin, Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski, the son of a Prussian general, but raised more by his aunt than his own parents. Unable to have children, she had all but adopted the young Fritz Erich as her own son, even to the point of giving him the name she had borrowed from another Prussian general when she married Georg von Manstein. And so the man who might have grown up to be General Lewinski, instead was christened General Erich von Manstein, and he soon distinguished himself as one of the most able and capable generals in the German Army.

  The son of two generals served in the first war, taking part in the capture of the citadel of Namur, being wounded at the battle of the Masurian Lakes, and later was at Verdun and the Somme. He was so talented that he was one of the select group of only 4000 officers the German Army was permitted to retain after the First World War. When Heintz Guderian proposed dramatic new changes to German war doctrine, Manstein became a bridge between the old infantry tactics and the new emphasis on the slashing maneuver of armor. When then Chief of the Army General Staff, Ludwig Beck, opposed Guderian’s ideas about tanks, Manstein proposed the creation of the Sturmgeschutz self-propelled assault gun to work in direct support with the infantry.

  Many thought Manstein would soon take Beck’s place, but the politics of OKW saw another man rise to that post, Franz Halder, and the incident embittered the relationship between Halder and Manstein for years to come. Yet as a skilled planner with a sharp strategic mind, Manstein was at the heart of all the early German successes at war. It was he who had guided the plan for operations against Poland, and it was his decisive change to the German Fall Gelb plan to attack France that resulted in the swift defeat of that nation.

  Halder was none too happy about that. He had drafted a plan for a sweeping attack in the north, but Manstein instead insisted that the armor could emerge from the unexpected axis of the Ardennes forest in a “sickle cut” behind the enemy that would unhinge the entire defense. Halder had Manstein transferred to get rid of the man and his ideas, but they prevailed when Hitler ordered a version of the plan that was much in accord with Manstein’s thinking. The result was now history.

  It was no surprise then, as Hitler now contemplated an array of many options in the months ahead, that he summoned Manstein again, much to Halder’s chagrin.

  “Greetings, General.” The dark eyes flashed with energy, but the handshake was cold, as if the man had no soul. Manstein never forgot that observation he soon made about Hitler, though he would nonetheless serve his country to the best of his considerable abilities. Now he wondered what this meeting was all about, and why he would be privileged to be granted an audience with the Führer himself. Hitler wasted no time getting to the reason.

  “My generals in OKW are still debating the future course of the war,” he said flatly. “They are full of numbers and statistics, analyzing all the deployments of the enemy, but never seem to add those numbers up to the same sum. So I have called you here to listen to your thoughts on the matter. I was very impressed with the alterations you proposed for Fall Gelb. You have seen the plans for Barbarossa?”

  “I have, my Führer.”

  “Your thoughts?”

  Manstein wanted to be careful here, as he knew his arch rival Halder most likely had his hand on the tiller where Barbarossa was concerned. “It is top heavy again,” he said with confidence. “The emphasis on taking Leningrad, and then Moscow, commits the bulk of our forces in Army Group North and the central attack.”

  “Yet Leningrad is the seed bed of Bolshevism,” said Hitler.

  “It was, but as we have seen the seeds have spread considerably. Taking Leningrad is merely theater. The same can be said for Moscow. We should instead focus on the south, moving north only after we have effectively joined with the forces of the Orenburg Federation.”

  “Interesting,” said Hitler enthusiastically. “I am surprised to hear you say this, as you are presently assigned to 56th Panzer Korps in Army Group North. Your forces would be leading the way there.”

  “Correct,” said Manstein, removing his cap and tucking it under his arm to reveal his closely cropped white hair. “While taking Leningrad removes a strong economic and production center from Kirov’s control, it would not be decisive in and of itself, and it would eventually pull the axis of our attack towards Moscow. Where else? While a prominent political center and symbol of Soviet power, its capture really affords us no military strategic value. That fruit is all in the south, in the Crimea and the Caucasus.”

  “Precisely,” said Hitler with a smile. “Finally I hear a general I can agree with. My thought is
to overwhelm the Soviets west of Moscow, and not commit the same mistake Napoleon made by trying to drive on the city itself.”

  “Yet the Soviet Army may be more resilient than you believe, my Führer. It is my understanding that they have lately concluded an accord with the Free Siberian State. In this event, they now have all of Siberia in their back yard, a place to retreat if we press them hard.”

  “Siberia? There is nothing there but endless forest and the backward Tartar cavalry the this Karpov has been mustering. They flit about in those obsolete Zeppelins, with no air force of any consequence. They are no threat.”

  “Yet one of those obsolete Zeppelins bombed Berlin the other day, if the reports I received are true.”

  Hitler gave him a dark look. “That was a fluke,” he said. “It will not be repeated. Yes, I have been told it was the Siberians—the same man who recently met with Sergei Kirov to seek his friendship. Rest assured, he will be held to account for that little stunt.” Hitler folded his arms, looking at the map table now as he often poured over it alone, his mind quietly moving his armies and ships about in the long hours of the night.

  “And what of the British?” he suddenly changed his tack. “They are clearly beaten but remain as stubborn as that old Bulldog Churchill.”

  “It was always my thinking that we should have proceeded with Operation Seelöwe,” said Manstein. “If we had done so, we would not be discussing the British any longer. They would already be under our heel.”

  “That was Goering’s fault,” Hitler said with an obvious edge of bitterness. “He promised me he would crush the RAF to allow for our invasion, and then never delivered.”

  “That plan was flawed from the outset,” said Manstein.