by G. Zotov
Chapter Five
Lili Marlene
Viking TV, the main broadcasting center
WITHOUT TAKING EYES FROM his visitor, the TV Direktor pressed a button on his desk.
The man wore a Wehrmacht Major’s uniform. He looked typically German with blond hair, thin nose and jug ears.
The automatic lock clicked, securing the door. Oh well. If the TV security Phoenix Sonderkommando leader had arrived at his office unannounced, it meant nothing good.
Unsmiling and impassive, the German studied the office: the brown paint of its walls, the fawn-colored chairs for visitors, the remote control on the desk and even the fruit bowl on a separate stand.
They still consider themselves a master race. What a stupidly arrogant, colonialist behavior. Unfortunately, we can’t manage without their help.
The TV Direktor beamed. “What can I do for you? Would you like a-” he promptly shut up, staring at a Browning gun pointed at his forehead.
“To prevent any unnecessary questions, my name won’t tell you anything,” Pavel said calmly. “I’m a Gestapo agent and yes, I can promptly change my appearance. It’s a long story. I saw your security chief from a distance as he exited the building. That was enough for me. He’s just left for Wewelsburg which is why I took the liberty of coming to see you here. Your TV workers seem to really trust Germans. They didn’t even think of asking for my electronic pass.”
The Herr Direktor ground his teeth. His service gun was hidden under the desk. If he leaned forward ever so slightly… but no. This flabby, ageing man in a brown suit that matched his office walls was clearly not willing to play the hero.
“You must be a Schwarzkopf,” he ran a nervous hand over his balding temples.
Pavel raised his eyebrows, then laughed wholeheartedly. The barrel of the gun shifted slightly lower. “Please. I’m not even affiliated to them. I hate them just as much as you do. The reason I’ve come to see you is completely different. An old friend of mine who’s now partaking of Valhalla’s festive viands committed the indiscretion of having conducted some highly interesting research. His involved computer experiments led him to an epiphany of sorts. Apparently, the Triumvirate members don’t use their own voices when speaking in public. They do so using the voices of long dead movie stars. Understandably stricken by what he’d found, he submitted a classified inquiry in order to locate the person responsible for the voiceover process. No need to turn so pale. But you’re right: apparently, the actors’ archived sound files are the property of Viking TV. Even more interestingly, the files have been reclassified for no apparent reason. You, Herr Direktor, seem to be the only person who has clearance to access them. But there’s more. A professional voice engineering studio seems to be renting premises in the Viking building. Its owner is unknown. Its legal address turned out to be a private apartment of some half-deaf old lady.”
He paused. “I suggest you save my time and yours. I’m not interested in your expressions of surprise, shock or other appropriate emotions. And what’s more: if you try to lie to me, I’ll kill you. Agreed?”
It took the TV boss five seconds to assess the situation. “Agreed,” he said through clenched teeth. “What do you want me to do?”
“Everything,” Pavel said simply, playing with his gun. “But first I’d like to know… The Triumvirate has never existed, has it? It’s just a smoke screen for the masses who love the idea of a strong-hand at the top, right? Gorgeous concept. Mind telling me who it was who came up with it?”
If he’d expected the other man to lose his composure, he was sadly mistaken.
“I did,” the Direktor said. “And I still don’t see anything wrong with it. The Twenty-Year War had bled the country dry. The Reich was in ruins. Our cities lay smoldering. All the known war leaders were dead. And those who’d survived were too scared to admit they were sick and tired of the constant fighting and just wanted a bit of a quiet life for themselves. By creating the TV as we know it, Hans Ulrich Rudel basically changed the world. This was an empire capable of controlling people’s minds. The Führer’s golden dream. With the press of a button, hundreds of millions obediently took their places in front of TV sets to watch, zombie-like, the constant flow of entertainment, action movies and soap operas. He didn’t invent anything new. Already in Rome, the mob had been kept in check using the Bread and Circuses! system. Are gladiatorial games so different from TV shows of today? There’s less blood, right, but we’re working on it. The audience loves a touch of gore. People have grown to believe everything they’re being told and sold on TV. They consider it part of themselves; they’ve merged together like conjoined twins.”
He paused, staring at the gun in front of him. “So it wasn’t that hard. We went on air with an official release which we’d previously cleared with other TV channels in other Reichskommissariats: This morning the control of the Vaterland has been passed on to a Triumvirate comprised of honest sons and daughters of the Reich. We didn’t even need to convince anyone. The military were too tired of dying; civilians were just happy they didn’t have to run to bomb shelters every night like headless chickens anymore. They believed it wholeheartedly because they wanted to believe in it. Are you angry the Triumvirate was a lie? Please. All these years you knew very well the Führer was dead and still you didn’t bat an eyelid reading newspapers with all those decrees signed by him. That didn’t surprise you, did it? And what’s more, the individuals presiding in the Priest Council are just as virtual. Probably, not only there. This is the twenty-first century, my boy. This world is one media space wound with cables… servient to the every touch of remote controls.”
Pavel rocked his head like a Chinese doll. “So it’s all one big lie, is it?” he demanded, his eyes red. “Television passes new laws, creates new cookie-cutter ministers, sends the Wehrmacht behind the Urals to fight Schwarzkopfs while none of it really exists? We’re obeying an empty space? We’re controlled by thin air; it creates new jobs and wages and all such happiness for the people, is that right? Un-fucking-believable. I should have known. Russlanders really don’t give a shit about who rules them, to the point that they didn’t even notice when their rulers are gone! Now, if television disappeared… that would be totally different.”
“Absolutely,” the TV Direktor cast a cautious smile. “TV channels are true incubators of the soul. Can you imagine what’s gonna happen if tomorrow it disappears? The world will be plunged into a new Stone Age. We spoon-feed them everything: how to cook, how to brush their teeth, how to date a girl; we raise entire new generations; we are the illusion builders and the dream makers. So what if our dream is ephemeral? Do you see anyone unhappy with our rule? Apart from the Schwarzkopfs, that is. Shopping malls, restaurants, movie theaters — they’re constantly packed. People love this kind of lifestyle. They don’t need to worry about tomorrow. Much better than the cold, the rations and makeshift wick lamps of the long-winded Civil war. All you need to do is unplug human brains. And we’re perfectly up to that. Don’t you think?”
The TV boss was desperately trying to bide for time. Once the real Phoenix Major was back (and he might have been back already), they’ll make quick work of this nutcase. How had he managed to change his appearance? Not that it mattered. This was a terrible blunder on the part of security which testified to their lack of order and discipline. He might have to fire a good half of them. They just had to lick German backsides!
“What’s gonna happen if there’s no television?” Pavel repeated his question in a dull voice. “Now that would be interesting… mind if we try it just now? As far as I remember, the red button disabling all TV channels in case of a Schwarzkopf attack is here in this office. Am I right? Well, in this case, press it.”
The man froze and stared at Pavel, his pupils dilated. Still, he didn’t attempt to move.
Pavel shrugged. He pointed his Browning at the ceiling and squeezed the trigger. White dust noiselessly showered over the TV Direktor. He looked like a baker covered in flour.
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“Next time it’s your arm,” Pavel said. “Then a kneecap. I know how to kill a man slowly. Trust me.”
The man rose and staggered over to a built-in closet, clutching the remote control. He walked as slowly as he could, dragging a leg, suddenly a good twenty years older as if he could change anything by procrastinating.
A light flashed on the remote’s black surface. The closet’s doors parted like those of a wardrobe, revealing an electronic control panel within. The TV Direktor approached the scanner next to it, pressing first his eye and then his hand up to the screen. Finally, he reached for the button in the middle of the panel.
He paused.
Pavel sighed. “Please don’t let me do it. I have no qualms about killing people but I hate having to torture them. I only do it when absolutely necessary.”
The man’s shaking finger poked the button. Pavel closed his eyes.
Contrary to his expectations, nothing happened. No thundering roar, no nuclear explosion, no earthquake. The world hadn’t split in two. The screens of two plasma TVs slung under the office ceiling had grown dark. That was the extent of it. A comic show choked on a joke mid-word.
Grazing his forehead against the closet door, the TV Direktor slumped to the floor. “What have you done… You’ve no idea what has just happened.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Pavel replied sweetly. “This isn’t the right moment to indulge in philosophy. The Reich has twenty-four hours left to live. Possibly, forty-eight. No amount of TV can save it now. The world is dying because-”
He was about to tell the man what he alone knew but reconsidered.
“Why did I have to do it,” the Direktor shivered, slouched on the carpet. “You’ll kill me anyway, won’t you?”
“What a commendable insight. You’re dead right there.”
Pavel walked around the man and shot him in the back of the head. Then, taking a good aim at the control panel, he opened fire with both guns, trying to avoid the cascade of plastic fragments until all the little lights on it had gone out.
Television was dead and it wasn’t going to recover any time soon.
Pavel heaved a sigh. For the first time in years he felt free and elated.
He unblocked the office door and walked out into the studio. The rattle of hobnail boots came from everywhere as Phoenix Sonderkommandos hurried to respond to the security breach.
He’d never killed Germans before.
Two guys hurried to the front, too young and too eager. One was tall and red-haired. The other had dark hair and fair skin. The first bullet hit the tall one in his head; he spun on the spot, then collapsed. The second bullet ripped the other one’s throat out; he slid down the wall, spattering it with blood.
“Outside the barracks, by the corner light,” Pavel hummed.
He remembered the song too well. Back in Lebensborn, Sturmbannführer Sollmann used to hum it every time he’d taken Pavel to the punishment cellar, digging his sharp fingers into his ear.
Pavel forced the studio table on its side and took cover behind it.
He’d been trained not to waste a single round. Ammo cost money, and the entire Third Reich had been built on penny-pinching. They even reused work camp prisoners’ hair to fill sleeping bags for the homeless.
He fired. Yet another German in a field-gray uniform cried out, collapsing to the floor.
“I’ll always stand and wait for you at night…”
Throwing the false economy to the wind, the enemy hosed him with automatic fire. His face was sliced by sharp computer fragments and chips from the broken table. Four or five rounds hit him in the chest and leg. He winced, shooting nonstop. Luckily, the Germans didn’t seem to have any grenades otherwise the fight wouldn’t have lasted that long. Pavel knew it, too. Only small arms were allowed into the building.
“We will create a world for two…”
Over the gunfire he could make out an officer’s voice snapping orders as well as the replies of his soldiers. Alien language. Incredible how foreign it sounded now. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?
Pavel snapped in his last clip, then downed two more attackers, calm as if it were a training exercise. This was something he was good at.
“I’ll wait for you the whole night through…”
The studio floor was littered with people swimming in pools of blood and broken glass. He didn’t count how many they were but there had to be twenty at least. None of them groaned: they were all dead.
Pavel had one round left. Not that he was worried about it. He fired at a field-gray shadow that had charged at him. The Schütze — marksman — tumbled down, his body hanging listessly off the edge of the table, convulsing.
“Surrender!” a hoarse voice shouted in Russian.
“Please wait,” he replied in German. “Just a minute.”
The thermal grenade fit snugly into his left sleeve, its elongated body resembling a fat pencil. Its charge was enough to disintegrate a tank. He set the timer for one minute, raised his hands and stood up in his blood-soaked major’s uniform.
A shot rang out, adding another blood spot to his chest: one of the soldiers had freaked out. Pavel staggered but remained standing. Survivors in khaki uniforms surrounded him, their hands tight around their StGs.
A Major walked out through their ranks, his glare filled with hatred and confusion. He had the typical German looks: blond hair, a thin nose and jug ears.
He walked over to the prisoner and gave him a powerful slap on the face.
The grenade blinked its red light through the fabric of Pavel’s sleeve.
“For you, Lili Marlene,” Pavel said to the officer, grinning his bleeding mouth.
Smoke from the explosion filled the studio.
Chapter Six
The Blackout
Every city and street in the Reichskommissariat Moskau.
AT FIRST, NO ONE REALIZED what had just happened.
When a TV screen goes black, one thinks their box has broken down. Television works 24/7. It can’t just go off, can it?
All around Moskau, people walked over to their televisions. They punched them. They tried to remove the back cover and fiddle with the parts. They checked the power and the plugs. None of it helped.
Their televisions remained dead, their screens blank and devoid of all the jokes, colorful settings, sitcoms, action thrillers and weather forecasts. They were stubbornly silent.
Soon the mobile network collapsed too as panicking people started calling each other trying to find out what was going on, asking desperate questions to which no one had answers. Authorities couldn’t explain the situation simply because they hadn’t been instructed on what to say.
The Triumvirate used to reassure everyone that their job was to obey orders. Thinking was a privilege reserved for the top brass. Now that the said top brass was nowhere to be found, everyone sat on their backsides awaiting orders. No one was able to think independently.
Gradually people took to the streets.
Instinctively they gathered at the city center, expecting a press officer with an explanation. A ten-thousand-strong crowd had gathered by the Ministry of Propaganda in the naïve hope that its workers who could undo any tricky knot with their tongues were sure to shed some light on the situation.
But the building’s front doors were blocked; fire and smoke billowing from its top floor occupied by Viking TV only added to their anxiety. You’d think someone would come out to tell them that due to the unusually high radiation levels everyone was advised to go home; still, Ministry workers weren’t willing to accept the responsibility. They just shrank deeper into their desk chairs and kept going on about their work, hoping it would sort itself out somehow.
It didn’t.
By six in the evening, the first Schwarzkopf groups entered Moskau from the Khimki direction, only challenged by the German Wehrmacht checkpoints. The elite SS Russland division surrendered simply because the Triumvirate, never expecting the Schwarzkopfs to actually storm the
city, hadn’t left them any instructions in such a case. The attackers promptly solved the checkpoint problem by bringing in tanks and heavy artillery. They took no German prisoners but gunned them all down right there next to the concrete roadblocks.
Tiger tanks — some flying red flags, others the Russian tricolor — entered the city, their tracks ploughing through the tarmac. Street cops raised their hands in the air slowly as if sleepwalking. The Schwarzkopfs stormed the Gestapo office at the Novodevichy Monastery but found it deserted: all the workers had left the building and made themselves scarce.
Strips of red fabric began changing hands in the crowd as people — furtively at first and openly later — started tying them onto their chests. Some of the more forethoughtful ones popped into beauty stores, asking in whispers for some dark hair dye, then hurried home to dye their hair.
Fierce fighting unfolded on King Gaiseric Street next to the Greater Germany Cultural Center — a 1930s-style red brick that had housed the first Ober Kommandatur in freshly-occupied Moskau. Surrounded and choking on smoke from fires, the Bavarian SS defended it to the last as they desperately radioed for help.
There was no one to answer their plea. The telephones were dead in the Polizei, the Main Security Office and Wewelsburg guardhouse. As for the military, they were only too happy to raise their hands and fraternize with the Schwarzkopfs.
The television still didn’t work.
It was getting dark. The roof of the Cultural Center of Greater Germany caved in, enveloped in flames. Single shots continued banging in side lanes, the Germans’ disjointed resistance a pointless act of desperation. Young Schwarzkopfs, with cigarettes hanging defiantly from their mouths, showed remarkable knack in hanging SS prisoners on Wagner Street lampposts while passersby filmed the execution with their phones. Few realized they were witnessing a change of regime: all they were interested in was getting some entertainment instead of the shows they’d missed. When you watch people kill each other in soap operas and action movies day in, day out, real death seems just as harmless and virtual.