Chapter 10
Oberleutnant Haake and Hauptgefreiter Drescher were pouring over their Tank again, so they did not notice when the Colonel walked past them. The British were saying[1] that to command a Regiment in Battle was any Officer's first, best destiny, and Oberst Heinrich Fischer was not too sure if he agreed with that. Like most mid and upper level of the Bundeswehr he had served during the tail end of Germany's involvement in World War Two and luckily being shoved into a Nebelwerfer-Battalion when the Officer Schools were closed was no hindrance for being accepted into the fast-track Officer School of the new Army. He had shown leadership ability and since he had ended World War Two as a Captain who had barely started to shave regularly he had left the course with the pips of a Major on his shoulders and a train ticked for Grafenwöhr in his pocket.
The Regiment was to be the core of a whole Division. That there had been a long, drawn out and very heated discussion over the actual naming of said Division during a session of the Bundestag was a sign on how Germany was caught between the two fires. Fischer had grown up with the hero-worship the Nazis had inflicted on the impressionable youths of his age, but even if he hadn't, reading the writing above the building that housed Division Headquarters until the intended home base near Stuttgart was operational.
Stabsquartier
7. Panzer-Division
Officially the Divison was not to be the spiritual sucessor to the old 7th, but everyone inside and outside the Service knew that his was merely a political fiction to placate the peacenicks that still bemoaned that Germany was 'receeding to it's warlike roots'. Fischer suspected that even this fiction would go away over time. In any case, the Division was still a cadre formation except for the 12th Regiment and that he, as a mere Colonel was the de-facto second in Command of it was proof. He shrugged. The new Army was organized along British lines, and that meant that the Brigade Commanders were in effect administrative clerks at the mercy of the Major General in Command of any given Division merely meant that in the future he would have to go through one more level of military bureaucracy when approaching the General over something.
General-Major[3] Jürgen Bennecke was well aware of this but luckily he knew that Fischer was not yet ready to push paper for two years and had no intention of letting go of his best (and so far only) Regimental Commander. So far none of the other five Regiments of his Division where anywhere near complete, in fact 3rd Brigade had not even been assigned any untis and was nothing more than a letterhead and a grumpy Brigadier with nothing to do but waiting for the phone to ring.
“Ah, Fischer!” he said when the Colonel stepped into the otherwise deserted Officer's mess. “Herr General,” Fischer replied and saluted.
“This came through from the Defence Staff[4] for us.” Bennecke handed Fischer the piece of paper.
Fischer read through the writing and then looked up at the General.
“Well, at least they aren't renaming us.” Fischer said, referring to no less than six attempts to force the Government to re-name the Division.
The news conveyed by the message was better than expected, all things considered, Fischer thought. True, having to serve side by side with a bunch of Bavarians was bad, but at least these would be reasonably competent, if somewhat dim-witted and slow.[5]
What Fischer didn't like was that he would, for the fourth time since he had taken over the Regiment from it's previous commander, be forced to act as the Opposing Force for another of the new units that were springing up like mushrooms all over the place.
“Any information on who it is this time, Sir?” he asked, hoping that it wouldn't be the same Grenadier-Regiment that had complained so loudly after Fischer had rolled up their ridiculously weak left flank during an exercise last month.
Bennecke felt with Fischer. “Us together with the 4. Jägerbattalion against the 5th Grenadier Battalion and the 15th.”
The 15th was the counterpart of the 12th in the 2nd Brigade of the Division and since the 12th had been declared operational a scant week before the 15th so there was a healthy rivalry between the two units.
Clearly, the Ministry of Defence wanted to see how good the men were at combined warfare, but if Fischer was to be brutally honest it would be a horrible, horrible mess, so there was only one thing he could say:
“Bedingt abwehrbereit.”[6]
~**---**~
He ran as fast as his tired legs would take him, and he was tiring out fast. He had escaped from the warehouse outside of Jizan, the southernmost major port in the Kingdom. He was scared to death and he feared that he would not see on the night, but the Priest had decreed that he needed to die and that had been when he had run. It was bad enough that it had been found out what he had done, but what was worse was that he had let himself goad into making that proud declaration that had given the Priest the leverage to have the traitor police and Army men to put him to death. He had shoved the nearest man aside and jumped out of a first floor window before anyone had even been able to draw his weapon, and was now running for his life.
Behind him he heard the shouts and barks of policemen and their dogs, and to him that meant that his last chance to make himself heard was gone. Somehow he had been turned from a mere dock worker into someone hunted by the authorities, and anyway, who would believe a poor man like him when the word of someone like the Priest stood against it?
There was little he could do now, and even if someone believed him, like as not he was in the pay of the Priest. The police in the town was deeply corrupt and in the pocket of the Priest and his men, and he suspected he was one of the few men in the group that still felt genuine loyalty to the King and was not seduced by the money. And now he would die for that.
He would run as long as he could and hope against the odds that he would be able to get away, but that hope was shattered when first shot from his pursuers guns whistled past his head. He ran, he tried to run faster, but his legs where not made to run that far or that long and he was tiring fast.
What was worse, he knew that he was because the barking dogs and the voices came closer with each step and he was heading out into the desert, having been cut off from the city by a roadblock that was supposed to have been keeping unwanted visitors away.
Suddenly a searing pain flashed through his body and his left leg stopped working. He found himself face first on the ground and as he turned around he saw that he had stumbled over a rock in the ground and when he tried to stand up he found that he could not stand on his foot. Either his anckle was broken or something else was damaged, either way he would not get away. He handed his soul to Allah and awaited his fate.
The man who finally ended the chase was not a religious fanatic, in fact he was probably the least religious man in the Priest's group. He liked to consume Alcohol and women alike but he was also very ambitious. He felt that he had been passed over for promotion several times and the Priest had promised him that he would be the new Chief of Police in this province and that was enough to make him loyal to the Priest.
When he reported the death of the traitor the Priest made a concious effort not to show his distaste for the corrupt policeman and thanked him for his sterling service.
He earmarked the man for elimination as soon as he was no longer useful but right now there were more pressing issues at hand.
The former Army Colonel who was acting as the Priests Chief advisor while he was out of the capital walked up and after making the appropriate gestures of respect he reported.
“We have all the weapons stowed away and prepared for shipment, Brother.”
The Priest nodded. He knew that the Colonel had not been retired for being incompetent or crooked. He was loyal and useful, clearly someone to remember.
“As you ordered,” the Colonel went on, “we have prepared the same shipment for all of our cells except where we know that they will need arms of a different type.”
“What about the explosives?” the Priest asked.
“Our...partners,” the Colonel said with distaste evident in his face, “have been most generous, Brother. If the shipment arrives as agreed we will be able to distribute that to our cells within the timespan we planned.”
The Colonel paused.
"But Brother, and forgive me for saying this, but does the distribution of the explosives not risk that we are discovered before it is time? Who is to say that there is only one spy?"
The Priest nodded. Once again the careful nature of the Colonel made a valid point.
"That is true, Colonel, but we must run the risk. If there is more than one spy we must distribute everything before the King's men can discover what is happening and ask for help from the accursed British."
The Colonel merely nodded and walked away towards the Office where two of his men, dismissed from the Army at the same time as he himself were organizing the lorry drivers, all trusted men who were payed exceptionally well on top of that and assigned each a Lorry. Every driver team knew where they but not the others were going and knew their route by heart. They did not know what they were transporting but their curiousity was kept in check by the Priest's assurances that they were doing God's work, given special dispensations for missing prayer as they were instructed not to stop. So one by one the old, ex-British Army War-time Bedfords were loaded with inconspicious packages and drove towards their destinations.
The Priest meanwhile listened as the Muezzin from the cities biggest mosque called for the evening prayer.
Soon, very soon godlyness would be restored to the Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia.
"One thing does bother me, Brother." the Colonel said half an hour later as they watched the last lorry leave.
"What is that?" the Priest asked. "Is it the King's Government?"
"No, it is the British." the Colonel replied. "They may have weak and divided leadership, but one cannot say they will not act when pressed."
Clearly the Colonel was referring to British behaviour in the West Indies and towards South Africa. The Priest had to admit that if the British acted then their response would be difficult to deflect.
"Fear not, brother. The people are behind us and if that is the case the British have no way to make their own populace demand a response, and why should they want to? Sooner or later they will need the riches our country has to offer."
The Colonel didn't know how true that was, but right now it was true enough.
"That is true, Brother. Still, I cannot help but worry."
The Priest nodded. There was no point in pushing the Colonel. It was his job to worry about these things and people doing their job to the best of their abilities were to be praised for it, even if one found their conclusions sometimes a bit dramatic. To a certain degree the Colonel had a point too, as the British always had considerable forces in the area, and not only the puppet Armies of the traitor states in Palestine and the levant.
Right now they had units that could intervene within days and even though these were weak, great care would have to be taken not to annoy the British too much before the events the Priest had been engineering for years had taken place.
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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?
Also, I want more speculation, people! And those of you who know, please don't tell anyone else. You know who you are.
[1] ITTL at least.
[2] Yes, the situation will be that bad.
[3] Major General. As an interesting side note: IOTL the Bundeswehr still has a “General der Panzertruppe”, even though this is a duty appointment rather than an actual rank. IOTL Bennecke was the second commander of the 7th during the early 60s and later AFCENT with NATO during the 70s. The main difference with the Division here is that it's raised from the start as an Armoured unit and not, as in RL renamed from a Mechanized Infantry formation, also in reality the Division was dissolved in 2006.
[4] With all due apologies to my British readers.
[5] It's true! Or at least that's the popular conception us Swabians have of the Bavarians. It is more than likely that animosity comes from the Bavarian tendency to ally with the French or the Habsburgs. :P
[6] A reference to the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_scandal"]Spiegel Affair[/URL].
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