So Liam tried to convince himself that the assassination of the third Führer had been a great thing.
But it wasn’t, he thought to himself as he drained yet another bottle of Scotch. He was bleary-eyed and drunk, as was usual for midday. The assassination had been three months ago, and the Germans were still carrying out their punishment executions. They’d killed 10,000 Londoners on May 2nd. They’d followed that up with another thousand every day since. The new Führer had announced that a thousand English men and women would die every day for the next year as a mark of respect.
Over three hundred and sixty thousand innocent civilians destined to die, because Liam had ordered one man to fire a bullet into the Führer’s head. And now, the situation in England was worse than it had ever been.
And England wasn’t the only country suffering.
Along the Russian front, units from the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of the German Reich, were attacking Russian positions. The Reich was preparing to invade Russia.
And after that, the United States.
The Russo-American Pact had collapsed a week after the assassination, and Russia had desperately tried to persuade the Germans that it hadn’t been involved in the assassination. But the new Führer didn’t believe them. He demanded an immediate surrender by Russia, which wasn’t forthcoming.
So the invasion began.
And the US had to sit back and watch its old ally attacked by the German Reich. The US was powerless. The US knew that if Russia should fall, it would fall next.
Yet they wouldn’t help.
They couldn’t.
The German Reich was clearly more fearful of the Americans than it was the Russians. Nuclear weapons were aimed at the US, and a warning had been given by the Führer – “Attack the German Reich at your peril. Attack the German Reich, and we will respond with nuclear retaliation.”
The US obviously believed the Führer.
And why shouldn’t they? The fourth Führer was clearly more insane than even Adolf Hitler had been. He was certainly more unbalanced than the Führer Ben had assassinated under Liam’s instructions.
Liam had heard the rumours, seen the television reports, but hadn’t wanted to believe them. The third Führer of the German Reich had wanted change. He seemed more liberal than either Hitler or Rodenbücher. And the Vizeführer, who had automatically assumed the position of Führer on May 1st, proclaimed that the third Führer wanted world peace, but that was not going to happen because of the aggressive acts of the Russo-American Pact in supporting the assassination.
There would never be world peace.
Never.
And it was all Liam’s fault.
Only Liam didn’t want to believe that.
Liam tried to stand, but couldn’t. The room spun, he couldn’t control his legs. He slumped down at the kitchen table.
He was awoken some time later by the wife of the farmer whose home he was living in. She knew that he was a resistance fighter, she knew he had been the leader of the Combat UK before the disintegration of the group after the raid on the Pig and Whistle, which held all the group’s documents.
Now, Liam was nothing. Combat UK was no more, and the Americans didn’t want to know him. They couldn’t have done so, though, even if they did want to know him – all of their diplomats had been thrown out of the German Reich. All American citizens, in fact.
So Liam lived with the family of a Scottish resistance fighter. The Scottish Nationalist Front was a right-wing rebel force that was growing in size. It had wanted nothing to do with Combat UK, who had units in England, in Wales, and in Scotland. But now Combat UK was no more, the SNF, like other such groups, was growing in size and popularity.
But there were some who blamed Combat UK for the conditions in the old countries of the UK. If the Führer hadn’t been assassinated, things would’ve been better.
Liam knew that.
His mind had changed in an instant.
He looked up into the face of the wife and smiled. She smiled back at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she told him – she’d said that to him many times since he’d moved in. But he could read it in her eyes. It was his fault. People were just too polite.
He had contemplated suicide, and as he realized he was to blame for the new extermination projects that were underway throughout the Reich, he thought about it again.
He thought about picking up a gun and blowing his brains out. But the Scottish people knew that, and there were no guns around him.
They were waiting for him to get over his problems, they were waiting for the old Liam Lovett to return. The Liam Lovett with fire in his heart, the Liam Lovett who hated the Krauts. The Liam Lovett who would fight to the death, who would not die unless he absolutely had to. The Liam Lovett who had led Combat UK through its greatest triumphs and worst defeats.
After their defeat, however, any fight against the Germans would be an uphill struggle. But it would be worth it.
Was he ready?
Liam straightened himself up, looked the farmer’s wife in the eyes and said, “I’m ready.”
“Ready, are you? Ready for what?”
“To rejoin the fight.”
The wife smiled. Behind her, her husband walked into the kitchen. His hair was blood red, so was his beard. His eyes were bright blue, but there was nothing German about him.
He stared at Liam with his pale face.
And he said, “We’ve been waiting for this day, comrade.”
Liam got to his feet and embraced the man.
They were brothers in arms.
die Stunde X Page 35