Weapons of choice aot-1

by John Birmingham

  Squads of tall, blond Nordic warriors jogged to and fro with machinelike precision. The crunch of their hobnailed boots spoke of perfect regimentation. A magnificent black stallion from the barracks stables, the finest in Europe, clopped past, led by an old farrier, a veteran of the fuhrer's own unit from the Great War. A comrade who had proven himself at the fuhrer's side in single combat, he smiled and nodded as Himmler emerged from the car. Himmler indulged the man's familiarity. He suffered from mild shell shock and was a favorite of Hitler's. The fuhrer had asked Himmler to find him a suitable sinecure, and there could be no more prestigious and comfortable surroundings in all of Germany for the old soldier to see out his remaining days.

  Hitler had been pleased, which meant that Himmler was even more so.

  "Guten Morgen, Herr Meyer. A beautiful day for a ride, ja?" said Himmler.

  "It would be," said Meyer. His voice was a harsh whisper, the result of a French shell fragment that tore into his throat in 1917. "But my friend here needs new shoes first."

  Horse and man turned and ambled away to the stables.

  Himmler took a moment to enjoy the bucolic scene under a warm summer sky before heading to the barracks' reception area. He did not smile once.

  Inside the great hall, huge oil paintings of the fuhrer hung from the stone walls. Candles and burning torches threw back the gloom, which was considerable after the brightness of the day outside. Nordic runes, inlaid in silver, ran around the room, which was magnificently furnished with carved oaken benches and tables. A receptionist glanced up from her desk and blanched at the sight of Himmler in his black uniform.

  "Reichsfuhrer," she stammered. "We were not expecting you until after lunch."

  "I am early," he announced. "Has General Hiroshi arrived yet?"

  "Yes, sir. He is in the guest house. I shall take you right to him."

  "Don't bother," he said. "I know the way."

  Lieutenant General Oshima Hiroshi knew the SS commandant to be a man who was more than a little infatuated with the supernatural. The Japanese ambassador privately thought that the Reichsfuhrer's mental state was somewhat tenuous. He certainly suffered from runaway paranoia, and a mild form of madness that caused him to believe in the spirits and Teutonic gods as if they were a real force in the world, and not just a useful myth. He supposed it explained Himmler's remarkably phlegmatic response to the incident at Midway.

  In a way, the ambassador conceded, he was very well adapted to deal with the shock of the Sutanto. Himmler saw plots everywhere, perceived the most bizarre meanings in the most mundane circumstance, and had long ago lost his connection to the world of real things. A demonic individual, who himself saw demons in every shadow, he needed little encouragement to believe in deliverance via their agency.

  Looking at the slight, stunted figure of the man who sat before him, Hiroshi wondered what would happen if and when the Axis was triumphant. Given the racial philosophies of Nazi Germany and the empire, conflict between them must be inevitable. He shrugged the thought off as he poured a cup of tea. At least when he dealt with the Reichsfuhrer he could drink tea instead of the Germans' abominable national beverage, coffee.

  "I would very much appreciate the opportunity of examining the material you have been sent from Hashirajima, Ambassador Hiroshi," said Himmler. "And of course you must feel free to study the information and equipment I have received."

  The guest house at Lichterfelde was sumptuously appointed, although Hiroshi personally found it cluttered and busy, the furniture overstuffed, and the decorations gauche in the extreme. It had the advantage, however, of being one of the most secure sites in the world for a sensitive discussion.

  "Do you feel as if you have been misinformed by your researchers?" he asked Himmler.

  The German's ridiculous little mustache twitched, reminding Hiroshi of a small rodent, sniffing for danger.

  "No, not as such," said Himmler. "But I feel there is much I have yet to learn. Perhaps things young Steckel would rather I didn't have to hear."

  "Like how you will die?" asked Hiroshi, barely suppressing a mischievous smirk.

  "You know this?" Himmler asked, suddenly all ears.

  "I know that in the world the Sutanto arrived from, our victorious enemies hunted you down like a dog. You took poison when captured. Cyanide, I believe. A most painful and prolonged death."

  What little color there was in Himmler's face drained away completely.

  "I see," he whispered. "And the Reich?"

  "Reduced to rubble and slavery under the Bolsheviks."

  Himmler's hand shook so badly he spilled his tea on the coffee table. Small beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. He dabbed at them with a handkerchief.

  "You seem remarkably composed, Herr General. Surely Japan does not escape unscathed."

  "Burned to ashes and bones," said Hiroshi. "Literally."

  Himmler looked as if he might actually be sick. Hiroshi had to clamp down on his distaste for the man's weakness.

  "But of course, that was in their world," he said. "This is ours, and things have changed now. We can avoid the fate that awaited us. If we are bold."

  Himmler nodded uncertainly. He licked his thin, bloodless lips.

  "Yes. If we are bold… Perhaps, if you would come with me, when I tell the fuhrer of all this?"

  Hiroshi indulged himself by sipping at his tea for a moment, letting the German wait on his answer.

  "Of course," he said at last. "We are in this together."

  RASTENBURG, 1247 HOURS, 10 JUNE 1942

  The fuhrer was taking lunch with Martin Bormann and Dr. Gobbels at his East Prussian headquarters, the Wolfschanze in Rastenburg, when Himmler and Hiroshi arrived. The three men had finished their vegetarian strudel and potato salad and were tucking into Black Forest cake and coffee as Hitler explained his role in the development of the Volkswagen, a technological triumph of Aryan engineering of which he was inordinately proud.

  "The Volkswagen," he said, "is the car of the future. One has only to see the way in which they roar up the Obersalzberg, skipping like mountain goats around my great Mercedes, to be tremendously impressed. After the war, it will become the car par excellence for the whole of Europe…"

  Bormann and Gobbels nodded enthusiastically, neither man game to draw attention to the bright blob of cream that clung to the fuhrer's mustache. Hitler plowed on, as he so often did after dining, expounding on topics as varied as the fictitious value of gold, the lure of paperwork, and the ugliness of Berlin.

  A black-uniformed SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer knocked at the door. Only a member of Hitler's personal bodyguard could gain admission to his private dining room, where talk of military campaigns was banned and officers of the Wehrmacht were not generally welcome. If the SS colonel was so bold as to interrupt lunch, there must indeed be something wrong.

  "Yes?" he asked peremptorily.

  "I am sorry, Mein Fuhrer, but Reichsfuhrer Himmler is here with Lieutenant General Hiroshi."

  "What a curious couple," mused Hitler. "Perhaps they have something to confess. Admit them and we shall see."

  The bodyguard clicked the heels of his jackboots, saluted, and left. He did not mention the cream in Hitler's mustache, either.

  As soon as Himmler entered he saluted, rubbed a finger under his nose, and whispered, "Mein Fuhrer."

  Hitler licked his mustache, finding the dollop there.

  "Oh, thank you, Heinrich. Martin, Josef, you should have said something earlier."

  Both men looked suitably abashed.

  "Sit down, sit down, gentlemen. Ambassador Hiroshi, such a pleasant surprise to find you out here. I do hope nothing is wrong. Or is something right? Has Churchill died of brain syphilis, perhaps?"

  Bormann roared with laughter and Gobbels smiled, but no light touched his dark, sunken eyes.

  Hiroshi bowed formally and pulled out a chair. The table was large and there was plenty of room for the newcomers, although the ornate silver service had only been set
for three. Glancing at the sickly sweet German cakes and the big pot of coffee, Hiroshi was secretly relieved.

  "We bring news of an unusual nature, Reichschancellor," he said. "Most unusual. In fact, you must promise not have us chased from the building like madmen when we tell you. For that is exactly what we shall sound like."

  Gobbels was instantly alert. He wore the look of a wolf, sniffing at some new predator on its hunting ground. Bormann simply looked overstuffed from his lunch. Hitler tilted his head, supporting it on his fingertips as he considered the fearful expression on Himmler's sallow face, which compared unfavorably with Hiroshi's bemused smile.

  "What is the matter, Reichsfuhrer?" he asked, speaking directly to Himmler.

  Himmler eased himself into a chair like a man nursing a painful wound.

  "Do you remember that fellow Brasch? The one we sent to Japan?" he said. "The medal winner."

  "I do," Gobbels replied, rolling his eyes. "Shell shock, a head case. He broke after the fighting on the Eastern Front. I understood his mission to Japan was simply a cover to get him out of the news."

  "It was," said Himmler. "But something has happened out there. Something terrible. Brasch has been giving technical assistance with some engineering issues. It sounded like madness when I first heard of it, but I'm afraid that I am now convinced. As are the ambassador and Grand Admiral Yamamoto."

  Hitler reached over and plucked a glace cherry from the chocolate icing atop a half-eaten piece of torte in front of him. He popped it in his mouth and licked his fingers.

  "Well, don't keep us in suspense," he said.

  "No," muttered Himmler. "No, of course not."

  His face flushed bright red and he fumbled about inside his briefcase.

  "An SD agent in Tokyo sent this," he said. "It is called a flexipad."

  TOKYO, 2121 HOURS, 9 JUNE 1942

  Franz Steckel was far more than a mere civil servant. He served as an SS-Obersturmfuhrer of the SD-Ausland, a lieutenant in the Nazi Party's foreign intelligence service. He had been assigned to Tokyo station three months earlier, on the direct orders of Reinhard Heydrich, who suspected that the Reich's embassy harbored a small clique of homosexuals.

  Lieutenant Steckel, an attractive young man, had resigned himself to the most bestial depravities in the service of National Socialism. The world was full of perverts, and it was his unpleasant duty to hunt them down and ensure the purity of the Aryan race.

  At first he had been annoyed that so important an investigation should be compromised by the lunacy of Commander Hidaka. But one visit to the Indonesian vessel changed all that. After nervously sending the initial details back to Berlin by safe hand courier, he now found himself reporting directly to Reichsfuhrer Himmler on the miracles in the East.

  The grand inquisitor surprised Steckel by accepting the extraordinary tale of time-traveling Untermensch, apparently without demur. So Steckel was ordered to finalize the embassy investigation, personally sanction the deviants, and concentrate all his efforts on the mystery ship. Like Yamamoto, Himmler was less immediately interested in the technology than in the information contained within the Sutanto's electric archives.

  Steckel had nearly fainted away when confronted with the first Web pages relating to the Jewish state known as Israel. Shock and nausea-imagine the very notion of a Jewish state in a world without the Reich! — quickly segued into mortal terror at the prospect of informing Berlin of his findings. He expected that his next message from home would be a recall to the Fatherland where he was certain to face a people's court, before his execution.

  He'd panicked and foolishly attempted to remove the offensive files. But of course, he soon realized there was no point. The Americans and British-the ones the Indonesians had come with-all knew of the Jewish eradication program. It was part of their own history. There would be no suppressing it. Dr. Gobbels would certainly try, and any number of sacrificial goats would die during his attempts. But it would come out, and probably soon. The Allies would doubtless make a great play on it for propaganda purposes. The fucking hypocrites. They all hated the Jews just as much, but they had not the will to rid the world of the problem forever.

  Still, it wouldn't do to be caught in the crossfire over the next few weeks. No doubt that liberal idiot Brasch would be sending his own communiques back to the army. Good. Let him take the heat.

  Steckel resolved to take some time away from Hashirajima to settle the matter of the two queers. Time enough to get well clear of the shitstorm he knew was coming.

  Admiral Yamamoto was very understanding. He'd even been kind enough to spare a seaplane to take him back to Tokyo. Steckel did not elaborate on the reasons for his unexpected leave of absence, and Yamamoto did not ask.

  So Steckel had returned to Tokyo and settled back into the routine work of the embassy, liaising with his opposite number in the Japanese Kempeitai about the exchange of medical data between the Reich and the empire. Both had invested significant resources in experiments carried out on captive human subjects, but they'd concentrated on different areas. The limits of physical endurance for the Nazi camp doctors; the study of chemical and biological warfare agents for the Japanese.

  His work gave him opportunity to reacquaint himself with the queers, Schenk and Oster, who worked in a related section, exchanging information with Japan on Allied weapons systems and codes. He intended to gain their trust, then lure them to a small bar a few miles from the embassy. They'd met there once before, retiring after too much rice wine to a nearby bathhouse, where the diplomats had openly incriminated themselves. But the Sutanto had arrived before Steckel was able to personally organize their arrest and, quite frankly, he'd let the matter slip after that. It seemed less important than accompanying Brasch to Hashirajima.

  This time, however, Steckel had alerted the mission's security chief, who would be waiting for the right moment to seize the perverts in flagrante. They could be executed on the spot. Nonetheless he intended to keep them alive for a while. Their interrogation would give him an excuse to stay away from the Sutanto while this ugly business over the Jewish question and the Reich's ultimate failure worked itself out. It surely wouldn't take long.

  As the SD man picked his way through a narrow alley that stank of fish guts and human waste, he couldn't throw off his nagging concerns. A world without the Reich? Without the fuhrer! It didn't seem possible. And a Jewish state? That was an abomination. He huddled deeper inside his black trench coat as a light rain fell. The evidence he'd seen and touched with his own hands was undeniable. But what to do? Reichsfuhrer Himmler was surprisingly open to the mystical and otherworldly. The fact of the ships' emergence may have stunned and troubled him, but he hadn't rejected the idea out of hand, as Steckel had expected him to. Indeed, he had leapt on the first reports, demanding more information and asking for clarification on dozens of points.

  The Indonesians, for instance. Where did they fit on the human evolutionary scale? From Steckel's preliminary notes, Himmler thought they seemed almost subhuman. What did the Nipponese think? Were they an Asian subrace? And if that were so, how did they acquire their technological sophistication? Himmler had pressed him for evidence of the triumphs of the Aryan race, as well.

  Steckel had replied that it seemed as if some vast Jewish conspiracy may have thwarted the inevitable march of the German people to their destiny. He'd placed a flexipad, containing some very carefully chosen files, in a diplomatic pouch, and sent it back via a Spanish airplane.

  An ominous silence had been his only answer from Berlin, until another flurry of demands and questions had suddenly come back, along with news that Himmler was sending even more men out to help with the investigation.

  Perhaps, thought Steckel as he picked his way through the ancient wooden city, Himmler could be persuaded to protect him, if it appeared to be in his interests to do so. The SS-Obersturmfuhrer decided that, when he returned to the Sutanto, he would devote his energies to researching the future of the Reichsfuhrer himself. T
hings would not have gone well for him if the Allies had won, and the Soviets overran the country. Surely he would want to know how to avoid such a fate.

  The Soviets. His stomach turned at the thought. Steckel was well informed of SS policy on the Eastern Front. To have Bolshevik savagery visited upon the soil of the Fatherland itself-it did not bear pursuing.

  Steckel was so absorbed in thought that he tripped on a cobblestone and lost his footing on the wet ground. Twisting as he fell, he jarred his arm quite badly, sending a burst of pins and needles shooting up from his elbow. He cursed as he felt the filthy groundwater leaching into his pants. It was dark, with only wooden lanterns to light the way, and he realized, as he looked up from his ignominious perch next to a mound of rotting garbage, that he had wandered off his path.

  He was lost.

  Steckel had only a superficial familiarity with this part of the old city. He knew how to navigate to the bar and bathhouse, and that was it. He would have to ask directions. That realization led quickly to another. There was nobody about. The alleyway, framed by facades of ancient stone and wooden cottages, curved into blackness some twenty meters on. Steckel turned on his heel, but it was the same behind him, too. He stood in a small, isolated pool of flickering lantern light.

  For some reason gooseflesh crawled over his arms and legs, and he shuddered as the hair on his scalp stood up on end. It was ridiculous. What was there to be…

  Two shadows detached themselves from the inky void of a small side passage just behind the German spy and flowed like jet-black quicksilver just around the edge of his peripheral vision. A stifled cry caught in his throat and his heart lurched in response to a warning from the deepest, most reptilian part of his hindbrain. His hands fumbled at the buttons of his leather coat, frantically seeking access to the Luger he carried in a deep breast pocket.

  The faint swish of a descending Bokken was the last sound he heard before his arm shattered with a blast of blinding white-hot pain. The scream building in his throat had no time to emerge. He sensed, rather than saw, the briefest glimmer of a shadow, or a silhouette, or just a flicker of negative space, as the hiss of a wooden sword, swung with inhuman speed, presaged the end of his life. The leading edge of the hard wooden blade crushed his larynx, choking off the cry and the last breath he would ever draw.