Read Online Final Impact by John Birmingham - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Birmingham
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people in the world he cared about were beyond their reach.
Indeed, as far as anyone in the Third Reich was concerned, Willie Brasch and little Manfred had been killed in a British bombing raid in November 1942. A tragic loss for a hero who had already given so much to the cause, and an explanation—as if any were needed—for his fanatical devotion to duty.
“Ah! So good to see a smiling face at last. We can always depend on you, Herr General.”
Brasch’s smile only grew wider as he turned on his bar stool and stood to salute
Oberstgruppenführer
Karl Oberg, the man who would probably set Paris aflame in a couple of weeks to deny its liberation by the Americans. The room was crowded, and so thick with cigarette and cigar smoke that the patrons in the farthest corners were almost obscured. Oberg stood out, though. Even the
Wehrmacht
officers gave him a wide berth.
“Inventing some new V-weapon while you wait for dinner, I imagine,” Oberg said. He resembled nothing so much as a squashed, fattened caricature of Heinrich Himmler. He had been a fruit seller before joining the party and the SS, and he was the embodiment of all the poisonous irony inherent to the term
master race.
Nevertheless, the smile never left Brasch’s face as he opened his mouth to reply.
“No! No, don’t tell me,” Oberg interrupted, waving a hand. “I understand well that you cannot discuss such things.”
In fact, Brasch was imagining what it would feel like to take Oberg’s close-cropped porcine head in his hands and twist it so violently that the spinal cord shattered instantly. How many of the people in this bar would applaud?
Some, but not all. Neumann there would probably put a bullet into his head before Oberg hit the floor. And of the handful of Frenchmen and women who were taking an aperitif in the baroque splendor of the Imperial, how many would be pleased, and how many horrified?
It was impossible to say. Only the most significant collaborators were given entrée to these rarefied circles, and with the invasion under way, only they would care to be seen with the Germans.
Even so, you couldn’t trust the waiters, or the prostitutes, or even the fascist leaders of the French Popular Party. Any of them might be secretly working for the Resistance. Dozens of collaborators and their German overlords had been killed in the last few weeks. Brasch himself was a target of great value, because of his role in the Ministry of Advanced Armaments Research, so the SS had assigned Neumann to protect him out of a genuine fear that he might be lost to such an attack.
Yet none of this meant anything to Brasch—he had numbered himself among the dead back when he served on the Eastern Front. In truth, his secret life, and the knowledge of his family’s escape, made each day a gift from above.
“Actually, Herr General,” he said, pumping Oberg’s arm in a firm two-handed grip, “you are entirely correct. You should consider a career in counterintelligence. Clearly you can see right through me.”
“Of course, of course!” the SS commander replied. “So we must talk our way around such things, over dinner.
“I understand you are leaving for Berlin tomorrow,” he continued. “I just wanted to thank you for all of the help you have given my staff while you were here and, if I might impose upon you, to pass along a personal note to the
Reichsführer.
”
Brasch clicked his heels. “Of course, Herr General. I shall be seeing
Reichsführer
Himmler almost as soon as I return. I shall make certain he gets your letter.”
He pocketed the slim envelope in his jacket, next to the flexipad that still waited for the signal from Müller.
He had less than an hour to live. The blood leaking into his shoes made a squelching noise as he dragged himself up the street.
There was no pain, thanks to an analgesic flush from his spinal syrettes, but Müller knew that the knives had struck deeply. As much blood as had flowed out
Indeed, as far as anyone in the Third Reich was concerned, Willie Brasch and little Manfred had been killed in a British bombing raid in November 1942. A tragic loss for a hero who had already given so much to the cause, and an explanation—as if any were needed—for his fanatical devotion to duty.
“Ah! So good to see a smiling face at last. We can always depend on you, Herr General.”
Brasch’s smile only grew wider as he turned on his bar stool and stood to salute
Oberstgruppenführer
Karl Oberg, the man who would probably set Paris aflame in a couple of weeks to deny its liberation by the Americans. The room was crowded, and so thick with cigarette and cigar smoke that the patrons in the farthest corners were almost obscured. Oberg stood out, though. Even the
Wehrmacht
officers gave him a wide berth.
“Inventing some new V-weapon while you wait for dinner, I imagine,” Oberg said. He resembled nothing so much as a squashed, fattened caricature of Heinrich Himmler. He had been a fruit seller before joining the party and the SS, and he was the embodiment of all the poisonous irony inherent to the term
master race.
Nevertheless, the smile never left Brasch’s face as he opened his mouth to reply.
“No! No, don’t tell me,” Oberg interrupted, waving a hand. “I understand well that you cannot discuss such things.”
In fact, Brasch was imagining what it would feel like to take Oberg’s close-cropped porcine head in his hands and twist it so violently that the spinal cord shattered instantly. How many of the people in this bar would applaud?
Some, but not all. Neumann there would probably put a bullet into his head before Oberg hit the floor. And of the handful of Frenchmen and women who were taking an aperitif in the baroque splendor of the Imperial, how many would be pleased, and how many horrified?
It was impossible to say. Only the most significant collaborators were given entrée to these rarefied circles, and with the invasion under way, only they would care to be seen with the Germans.
Even so, you couldn’t trust the waiters, or the prostitutes, or even the fascist leaders of the French Popular Party. Any of them might be secretly working for the Resistance. Dozens of collaborators and their German overlords had been killed in the last few weeks. Brasch himself was a target of great value, because of his role in the Ministry of Advanced Armaments Research, so the SS had assigned Neumann to protect him out of a genuine fear that he might be lost to such an attack.
Yet none of this meant anything to Brasch—he had numbered himself among the dead back when he served on the Eastern Front. In truth, his secret life, and the knowledge of his family’s escape, made each day a gift from above.
“Actually, Herr General,” he said, pumping Oberg’s arm in a firm two-handed grip, “you are entirely correct. You should consider a career in counterintelligence. Clearly you can see right through me.”
“Of course, of course!” the SS commander replied. “So we must talk our way around such things, over dinner.
“I understand you are leaving for Berlin tomorrow,” he continued. “I just wanted to thank you for all of the help you have given my staff while you were here and, if I might impose upon you, to pass along a personal note to the
Reichsführer.
”
Brasch clicked his heels. “Of course, Herr General. I shall be seeing
Reichsführer
Himmler almost as soon as I return. I shall make certain he gets your letter.”
He pocketed the slim envelope in his jacket, next to the flexipad that still waited for the signal from Müller.
He had less than an hour to live. The blood leaking into his shoes made a squelching noise as he dragged himself up the street.
There was no pain, thanks to an analgesic flush from his spinal syrettes, but Müller knew that the knives had struck deeply. As much blood as had flowed out
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