Chapter 1

Karl Johannes Fritz von Dalwyg zu Lichtenfels strutted smartly down the hall towards the richly carved double doors. His jackboots clattered on the marble floor to echo indefinitely to and fro. By the time he reached the end the clacking had become a cacophony, rattling around the frescoed walls.

Halting, he peered anxiously at the wall clock, before staring at the doors, firmly shut. Karl sighed - the General would be arriving for his weekly briefing in a few minutes and there was no way of telling when the Kaiser would be finished.

Dead on time - the essence of Prussian efficiency - General von Stulpnagel marched purposefully around the corner at the other end of the hall.

"Ah, General!" Karl greeted von Stulpnagel, up beat.

"General Lichtenfels?" the other replied, stiffly.

The Chief of the Army General Staff always used Karl's military rank when addressing him in a public place. The man was a stickler for protocol.

"The Kaiser is delayed," Karl told the man, apologetically.

"I see," he replied, resigned and briefly checking his watch. "Who is in there?" he asked, nodding at the double doors.

"English ambassador."

"Ach! The Prince?" Karl nodded. "Then he will be hours. I must tell my secretary."

"There's a phone in the drawing room, General," Karl told him, indicating the way.

"A cigar, perhaps, General Lichtenfels?"

"I'm sure a fine havana could be found." He smiled.

Some time later the two Generals were seated comfortably in the private drawing room peacefully puffing on two fat cigars.

"What do you think of this Helmut Schmitt as Chancellor?" Stulpnagel asked. "It seems inevitable."

"From a mining family, I believe, in Saarland. I understand he wants to work for the interests of the poor."

"Exactly!" Stulpnagel scoffed, "and he will bankrupt the country doing so."

"General," Karl smiled. "I'm the Private Secretary of the Kaiser. We cannot be seen to have a political opinion."

"The Constitution was not meant to limit debate between men in private."

"Of course, but we're not private men, General. We ceased to be the moment we joined the army and, in my case, the moment I was appointed Private Secretary."

"You will not be drawn?"

"I'm sorry, General. I will say, however, that Adolf Hitler was born of the lower classes."

"Yes, and look where he led the country."

"Are you saying Schmitt is an ultra nationalist?"

"I'm suggesting he is a socialist - and that is one step away, General, from State control and dictatorship."

"General, this is no longer the thirties. We have constitutional safeguards - a free democracy - and, I'm proud to say, a constitutional monarch. Perhaps with such a system the Hitler war would never have happened?"

"Then there is the army," Stulpnagel said proudly. "The army will always stand with the Kaiser as Commander in Chief."

"Naturally," Karl agreed.

Just then there was a knock on the door and an aide entered, smartly. "I'm sorry, Generals," he said, "the Admiral of the Fleet desires a quick word with the Private Secretary on a matter of urgency."

"He does?" Karl looked at Stulpnagel in surprise.

"Doenitz lost another of his ships, has he?" Stulpnagel chuckled. "Tell him he must be more careful!"

"I'm sorry, General, this shouldn't take long."

Karl hurried from the room to find the Grand Admiral hovering just outside. He clutched a velisse tightly under his arm. He was disheveled and red eyed from lack of sleep. Karl knew there was an emergency.

"General," the Admiral talked rapidly, "I must speak with you in private."

"My office?" Karl replied. "This way."

Once the door closed the two men looked at each other in silent communication. 'Yes' Karl acknowledged with his eyes. 'The room was secure.'

"This is a Bund matter." Doenitz began.

"Ah! We have visitors?"

"General, I have some photos to show you taken from one of our surveillance planes. It was taken yesterday evening at the mouth of the Jade. What do you think?"

Doenitz placed a photo on the desk and spread it flat.

"It is a submarine," Karl said, "who does it belong to?"

"First, take a look at the size of it? See that ship nearby, look? That is one of our destroyers. Compare the difference?"

"My God, Admiral, it's enormous!" Karl looked aghast.

"The size of an aircraft carrier."

"What would be the use of such a vessel?"

"See those doors along the top of the hull. We believe they're for launching large missiles underwater."

"Very large rockets!"

"Ballistic missiles! Like we had before the treaties - before the Soviet Union collapsed."

"But they're banned!" Karl said, outraged, "who would build such a thing today?"

"Karl?" Doenitz voice dropped, "I'm afraid it's Russian."

"What?"

"But not from this time."

"Not from ... Karl, you saying the portal is activated again? This Russian monster has arrived from an alternative continuum?"

"Exactly!"

"How many more..."

"Just the one - for now."

"Have you been in contact with them? Do you know what they want?"

"There is a mixed crew of Russians and Americans, General," Doenitz began. "The vessel is called the Retvizan and is commanded by a Captain Gorshin. They say they are explorers."

"In a vessel designed to blow countries apart? They arrive unannounced outside the home base of the German fleet with enough weaponry to render the German Royal Federation a smoking ruin? This is 'exploration?'"

"They say they're unarmed - except for strictly defensive purposes."

"I see!" Karl sucked in his breath.

"They say it's an old vessel - one built in the middle of their 1980s."

"And that would make it how old, in their terms?"

"20 plus years."

"So their year approximately corresponds to ours?" The Admiral nodded. "What, then, is their political situation? Are the Russians at peace? Is their Soviet Union still going? What would they need of such a ship?"

"I have asked all those questions, General. Their Soviet Union didn't disappear until 1990. That vessel was built when there were tensions between their so called 'Warsaw Pact' and something called NATO. The collapse of the Soviets changed all that as well as the need to have such vast arsenals of nuclear weapons."

"Nuclear? So these missiles..."

"Seven warheads per missile. The Retvizan can carry twenty."

"My God! So they have a treaty like ours?"

"They have limited them, however, Gorshin says they have not yet got rid of them completely."

"Well, let us hope they keep them to their side."

"General, in their world things happened quite differently."

"Clearly!"

"Germany was destroyed after the Hitler war and the Soviets left in control over half of Europe. In fact, Germany was partitioned by the victors and the Soviets set up a puppet state in the East. Their Germany is now unified, a Federal Republic, headed by a President. They have a 'European Union' which is still growing..."

"A Defense Alliance? Aimed at who?"