The Shield: a novel (10 page)

Thomas Harvey nodded his agreement: “As a matter of fact such ‘assistance’ could be extremely harmful. We can discuss this later, but I completely agree with General Yaari.”

The Defense Minister smiled: “We are willing and able to help you though. We can enhance your fighting ability and multiply your forces’ effectiveness. These issues will have to be discussed with your government.”

“We hope to be friends,” the Foreign Minister added. “It did not work out in the time we came from, mostly because of miserable mistakes by British policy makers. I sincerely hope that this time around things will be better.” He looked at Thomas Harvey, who picked up his cue:

“
General, the Empire, which ceased to exist soon after this war was over, made severe mistakes in its relations with the Jews and the fledgling State of Israel. The Foreign Office had an unreasonable love for and trust in the Arabs, who are doing all they can to curry favor with the Nazis as we speak. I hope, for the sake of Great Britain, that this will not happen now.”

Wilson said nothing for a while, concentrating on the excellent steak and good wine. It was not normal British fare, but he had no complaints. The food was very good. “I will report to the Prime Minister,” he said finally, “and he will decide how to proceed.”

“May I suggest,” the Foreign Minister proposed, “that in order to expedite things we send a representative of our government to London as soon as possible. This will make negotiations more efficient.”

“
I am not a diplomat,” Wilson responded, “but it makes sense. I will ask the Prime Minister for instructions.”

The conversation that followed touched on Israel’s military and industrial abilities but Wilson gained no additional information of any significance.

After the dinner meeting General Wilson was tired and dazed. It seemed to him that the Israelis would be a formidable ally and an even more formidable foe. Although he did not have enough information of the general war situation to be certain, his professional opinion was that their help might be enough for the Empire to defeat the Germans, even without American help, which he knew Churchill sought despite the price. This, he knew, would be welcome news to the Prime Minister. He was quiet on the short flight back to Rosh Hanikra, taking in, again, the sights of the Tel-Aviv metropolis and the coastal plain, brightly lit as if in defiance of the World War going on around it. He thanked Lieutenant Mosinson and returned to the HQ in Naqoura. It was late, but he had to write his report immediately, while the events were still fresh in his memory.

SS-Standartenfuhrer (Colonel) Dr. Walter Stachlecker had prepared his speech carefully. He was always a methodical man, a scholar of law. His command, Einsatzgruppe A, included many educated men and he was proud of both his personnel and their assignment. The unit was not large, about a thousand officers and men, but he believed that it was sufficient for the task of exterminating the Jews and other enemies of the Reich in the areas assigned to it.

The Standartenfuhrer climbed onto the hood of his command Volkswagen and looked at his notes. The weather was pleasant, with a light wind. This morning of Monday, June 23, 1941, promised a beautiful day. His whole command was assembled in front of him, with the East Prussian town of Guimbinen as a backdrop. They stood at parade rest, awaiting his words.

“
Dear comrades,” Stachlecker began after testing the microphone, “we are about to begin our mission for the fatherland. Each of you is expected to do all that is required to rid us of the Jew.” Stachlecker paused. A faint, pervasive whine was getting louder, threatening to drown out his speech. It reminded him of something and instinctively he looked up into the sky. Nothing. By the time his gaze was back down to his troops it was too late.

The field was enveloped in fire. It seemed that the ground itself was burning. For all practical purposes Einsatzgruppe A ceased to exist. SS-Standartenfuhrer Dr. Walter Stachlecker was lying on the ground. His right foot was burned, and he could see bones sticking out of the blackened flesh. Otherwise, he thought he was fine, until he blacked out. This could not be said about most of his devoted troops, who died a terrible death, burned alive, shrieking in pain. Some survived badly burned; only a handful escaped unharmed. A couple thousand liters of NAPALM will do that to a tight formation, especially if dropped from a great height and ignited a hundred feet in the air above the target. Not the most humane weapon but one guaranteed to produce the desired result, destroying a large group of fanatics.

***

Hitler was in his office at the Wolfsschanze. He wanted to be as close as possible - while staying at an established command center - to his armies attacking the Soviets. This headquarters, prepared in advance in eastern Prussia, was ideal for his purpose. Its deep bunkers and communications facilities enabled the Fuehrer to observe the attack and intervene, if he so desired. As of now, Monday, June 23, there was no reason to interfere – the Barbarossa plan was working as anticipated.

His secretary knocked on the door; the great man allowed her to enter.

“
Mein Fuehrer, the Reichsführer SS wishes to speak with you.”

“
Let him in,” Hitler responded.

The secretary quickly returned with Himmler, who gave the Nazi salute as the door closed behind him.

“Sit,” said Hitler, pointing to a chair in front of his huge desk.

“
Thank you, mein Fuehrer.” Himmler looked serious.

“
Heinrich, you look like your dog died today. What’s eating you?”

“
Mein Fuehrer, I have issued orders to move two battalions of the Shutztaffel from SS division Death-Head to take up the duties of Einsatzgruppen A and B. I just received reports from Guimbinen, which is close to us here, and from Warsaw. It seems that a terrible catastrophe has befallen our Einsatzgruppen A and B. The reports claim that there are less than thirty survivors from both units. Everybody else was burned to death.”

“
Heinrich, this is a very bad joke,” Hitler said, with a grim smile.

“
This is no joke, mein Fuehrer. It seems that the attack was directed specifically against the Einsatzgruppen. I also have reports that elements of Einsatzgruppe C and some of D were attacked and annihilated in a similar way.”

“
How did the Communists discover these units?  Why would they attack them? Apparently their love for their Jews is beyond reason. We are pounding them to death, and they hit us just to protect their Jews?”

“
Well, I don’t know who attacked our units. Why not ask Goering? His Luftwaffe was supposed to give us air cover,” Himmler complained. “I was at the Guimbinen site. It looks like somebody took flame throwers to our heroic troops.”

“
I will deal with Herman later. In the meantime, how much does this delay the execution of the master plan?”

“
Mein Fuehrer, the rest of my SS has not been trained for this task but their zeal and numbers will compensate. There will be only a slight delay, maybe a week or so. We can organize locals as planned to do some of the work - They only need a little encouragement. It will not be as efficiently accomplished as it would have been with the troops we lost, but we will spend hardly any additional resources.”

“
That’s not too bad.” Hitler smiled. “By then we will be well on the way to finishing off Stalin and I doubt the Communist will have the balls to interfere again.”

He was interrupted by another knock on the door. The secretary stuck her head in. “The guard commander has an emergency situation and would like to report to the Reichsführer SS,” she said.

“Let him in,” said Hitler testily. “Everybody is having emergencies today.”

***

Gad Yaari was tense. It was early afternoon of Monday, June 23, 1941.  The first reports from the initial phase of Operation Moses were coming in. No losses so far. One of the F15s had had to abort its mission and return to base before reaching its target: They couldn’t continue with the targeting computer on the blink. From 20,000 feet in the air you could seriously mess up and hit the wrong target without laser-guided equipment. These things happened, though not often.

Otherwise things were going well. Most of the objectives
were achieved either completely or partially.  As expected. Not all the Einsatzgruppen were bunched together for a last speech by their commanders. You could only do so much.

According to his computer display, the only units still in the air above Eastern Europe were an aerial tanker and several F15s. The payload to the Wolfsschanze had been delivered. Now the waiting began. Yaari gave orders to prepare for phase two of the operation.

***

T
he Guard commander explained that the artifact had arrived in what seemed like a regular bomb, except that it dropped from the bright June sky into the middle of the Wolfsschanze parade grounds with no planes in sight. And it did not explode, opening instead like a flower to display a tube inside. When it was clear that the thing was not about to detonate, a brave SS guard opened the tube. Inside was a large rolled-up sheet of film with a message in German.

The guard commander handed the film to Himmler who started reading it with first a surprised and then disgusted expression.

“Himmler, read it aloud.”

To: The leadership of Nazi Germany

From: The Great Caliph

We are holding you responsible for the well-being of all Jews under your jurisdiction, including those located in your allied and conquered countries.

You are hereby ordered to immediately stop all persecution of Jews under your control now or in the future. If you continue to act against the Jews, we will kill at least 100 Germans for every Jew you harm.

You will supply the Jews with adequate
amounts of food, medicine and clothing to keep them in good health until such time as you will transfer them to us.

We eliminated a large portion of your special troops assigned to exterminate the Jews but as a show of goodwill did not touch the Wehrmacht or German civilians.

You are to confirm the receipt of these orders using the procedure outlined below. If we receive no confirmation within 10 hours, we will destroy a major military target in Germany.

May Allah be with us

Signed: The Great Caliph

Hitler was seriously angry. He sputtered trying to express what he felt. ”Whoever had the gall to do this will pay a high price,” he yelled. “We will never succumb to demands from the Judeo-Bolsheviks.”

His rage exhausted him before he decided what to do with the strange artifact.

“
Mein Fuhrer,” Himmler said quietly, “I suggest that we wait for Goering. He should be here by evening.”

“
No.” Hitler was calmer now. “We go to Berlin. I want a full analysis of this” - he pointed at the film and the capsule - “by our experts. I will want to hear what options you, the Generals, and Goering propose tomorrow morning.”

“
This will be past the deadline given by the message.” Himmler was uncharacteristically subdued.

“
Who cares!” yelled the Fuehrer as he strutted out of the bunker on his way up to the car waiting to take him to the nearby airfield. Himmler had no choice but to follow the great leader.

They were airborne for about five minutes when the co-pilot entered the cabin and saluted. “Mein Fuhrer, we received a voice message. It is still repeating.” Hitler made a gesture of acceptance, and the pilot switched on the cabin speakers.

A calm male voice repeated a warning: “The Wolfsschanze will be annihilated in less than a minute. We recommend that everyone close their eyes to preserve vision.”

“
What is this - another bad joke?” Hitler was looking from the pilot to Himmler.

When the flash
came, everyone in the plane wished they had obeyed the instructions to close their eyes. The plane shook with an enormous shock. None of them saw the large, mushroom-shaped cloud rising above Wolfsschanze.

Hitler ordered the pilot to turn around. He must personally see the
damage done to his headquarters. “Land on our airstrip,” he barked into the intercom. There was no response. After a minute or so, when still nothing happened, he sent his secretary to the cockpit to repeat his order. She came back as the plane was banking into a turn. “The pilots did not hear the order. The intercom is out, as is the radio and some of the instruments in the cockpit,” she reported.

They could not land on the airstrip. A huge fire was consuming the surrounding forest. Visibility was limited by smoke, and updrafts made the plane barely controllable. After seeing what he could, Hitler decided to land at the closest place that had an aircraft to take him back to Berlin. They landed in Warsaw, escorted by a fighter plane from the base there since their aircraft hadn’t responded to radioed challenges. They had not been shot down only because the Luftwaffe fighter pilot sent to intercept them had correctly recognized the markings as the Fuehrer’s personal plane.

On the flight to Berlin Hitler was morose and quiet, except to swear at the Jews and at Goering from time to time. The loss of his devoted and trusted Wolfsschanze guard bothered him not at all. He was annoyed by the fact that the Luftwaffe seemed unable to protect this most important command center. He had ordered Goering to have a Luftwaffe patrol in the skies above Wolfsschanze. Why hadn’t they reported anything?