Chapter 713: The Will to Act
The morning sun filtered through the tall windows of the east-facing parlor, casting golden light over polished silver and white porcelain.
The scent of black coffee, warm bread, and soft eggs mingled with the quiet rustle of newsprint.
Bruno sat at the head of the breakfast table, reading the broadsheet in silence.
His uniform jacket hung on the back of the chair, but even without it, he radiated presence, impossibly composed, as if forged from the same iron as the Reich itself.
Heidi sat across from him, her eyes drifting from her untouched cup of tea to the stern lines forming across his brow.
"What is it?" she asked gently.
Bruno turned the page, revealing a full spread of bold headlines straight from the American heartland:
"MARTIAL LAW DECLARED IN 17 STATES"
"HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENDED NATIONWIDE"
"PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY EXPANDED VIA ORDER 4017-B"
Below were grainy black and white photographs of Norfolk in ruins. Smoke rose like a ghost over the dead city streets.
Heidi’s heart sank. She reached across the table, brushing the edge of the paper.
"Does this mean... the war is finally coming to an end?"
Bruno lowered the page slowly. His eyes met hers, not cruel, but cold, with an understanding far deeper than fear.
"No," he said. "It means the war has only just begun."
Heidi blinked, confused. "But Britain’s surrendered. France is divided. Italy and Spain fight with us. The Balkans have been united under Hungary. Russia remains our closest friend. What threat remains?"
Bruno’s voice was low, deliberate.
"Britain and France were never the true threat. Not in the long term. They were relics, decadent, decaying, stretched thin across crumbling colonial empires."
He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he stared out the window.
"No. The real danger sleeps across the Atlantic. The United States is an industrial titan, unscarred by occupation, untouched by bombing raids. And now, that titan is stirring. Under Roosevelt’s dictatorship, they will scale production like never before. If left unchecked, they may match, perhaps even surpass, the combined output of the Reich and Russia."
Heidi’s breath caught. "You can’t mean that."
He continued, his tone grave.
"There are whispers... of a project in the desert. Something terrible. A weapon of unspeakable power. Fission-based. They call it ’Manhattan.’"
Her teacup trembled in her hand.
"A nuclear weapon?" she asked.
He nodded. "If my intelligence confirms it, I will have no choice but to strike first. Before they unleash hell."
Heidi stood, hands tightening around her teacup. "You don’t seriously intend to use that horrific stockpile buried beneath the mountains, do you? You swore they were only to be deployed if we were at risk of losing the war."
Bruno’s expression didn’t change. If anything, it hardened.
"I said they were a last resort. And they are."
"Then why speak of preemptive strikes?" She asked, voice rising. "Why even consider unleashing that kind of destruction?"
He met her eyes.
"Because the Americans won’t hesitate, Heidi. They’ll tell themselves it’s for democracy, for liberty. But once fear takes root, their factories will birth monsters. They’ll level cities with fire if it suits their ends."
A long pause stretched between them. Then, softer:
"I will only use them if the fates force my hand."
Heidi sat down slowly. "And who decides what fate demands?"
Bruno looked down at the paper again, columns of broken laws, broken cities, broken trust.
"I do. I would rather reduce a hundred cities of my enemy to radioactive ash than permit even one of our own to suffer such a catastrophe. This is war on a level that mankind has never before unleashed upon itself. And I will not sit idly by and wait for our people to suffer at the hands of those who would escalate it beyond reason."
Bruno sat silent for a moment, as if lamenting what he might have to do if the Americans did not turn back from their current course.
Or perhaps praying for the salvation of the souls that would be lost as a result.
Then he spoke again, quietly, with the kind of grim fortitude no mortal soul should have to bear:
"No... If the rumors are proven true, and I suspect they are, there will be no choice but to launch a nuclear strike on New York. And Washington itself."
Heidi stared at him in disbelief, contemplating the monstrous pragmatism with which her husband spoke.
As horrific as the thought was, she could not dismiss it as madness. Bruno had confided in her the atrocities of his old world, what the Americans had done to end the Second World War.
And so she felt no guilt at the thought of doing the same to them. Only sorrow.
Still, she couldn’t help but voice the question stirring in her soul.
"Why two bombs? Is it because that’s what they did to the Japanese? In that other life you lived?
Bruno stirred from his contemplation and looked at her.
His eyes betrayed no hesitation.
"While there is some cosmic irony in what you ask... no. It’s simply a matter of strategic selection. Washington, D.C. is the heart of their government. New York is the soul of its economy. By erasing both, I am dismantling the foundations of the American Empire, before it can be born from the madness of its architects."
No further words were spoken.
Only the sound of Bruno’s fingers tapping anxiously against the newsprint.
As if waiting for confirmation of his worst suspicions.
While he considered, perhaps in vain, that he might simply be paranoid, biased by the history of his past life.
After all, this world had seen no mass exodus of Jewish physicists.
He had drained much of America’s talent over the past three decades.
The timeline had shifted. The people had changed.
And yet... the instinct remained.
That Roosevelt would stop at nothing. That he was searching for a doomsday device in order to end the war on his terms.
And if that were true, then Bruno could not wait.
He had to act.
Because sometimes, the difference between the survival of a nation... and its annihilation...
was the will to act when no one else had the stomach to do so.