Armageddon (41 page)

At seven o’clock, thirteen hours after their departure, Sean’s convoy had traversed the German landscape endlessly for a mere forward gain of a hundred miles.

At last they pulled into the former SS
Kaserne
in Babelsberg, a suburb of Potsdam, across the Havel River from Berlin. Before coming to a proper halt, Sean was pounced on by A. J. Hansen’s gangly orderly who saluted, then grabbed his arm. “General says get up to his quarters before the Russkies get ahold of you.” The two trotted over the parade grounds as a half-dozen Russians descended on the convoy to liberate their man and to find a Major Clark Gable.

No smile greeted Sean from Andrew Jackson Hansen, First Deputy Military Governor of Germany. “Come in, Major Gable,” he scowled. “Goddammit, O’Sullivan, I friggin’ well told you to keep your ass out of trouble.”

“Sir, I have been the epitome of restraint ... only ...”

“Only what!”

Big Nellie came in. “Only we saw something at Werder.”

“The Russian refugee transfer point?”

“Yes, sir,” said Sean.

“That still didn’t give you license to run those bridge guards into the river. The next convoy will face concrete road blocks. Sean, you’ve got to learn to hold your water. This isn’t Rombaden and this isn’t your show.”

“Yes, sir.”

Big Nellie watched Sean try to digest the end of one war, the beginning of another. Again he would be the soldier without the gun ... patience, restraint, wisdom.

The journalist looked out of the window, down into the courtyard of the Kaserne. “Looks like a prison.”

“The Russians insist our presence is hypothetical until the Potsdam Conference signs a treaty,” Hansen said.

“Will I be able to get into Berlin and look around?” Big Nellie asked.

“Maybe. It would make our position more difficult if you were to write a column on what you saw today.”

Hansen could have invoked censorship, but preferred to put the matter to a reliable old friend in another way. Big Nellie nodded that he understood.

“Check in with the intelligence office and tell them what you saw today.”

Big Nellie said he would and left. Hansen took Sean to the next room, where Major General Hiram Stonebraker and Colonel Neal Hazzard waited.

Stonebraker was known in Air Corps circles as a salty, hard-shelled genius with the speciality of air transportation. He was considered the true creator of the Hump Airlift, which flew supplies from India to China. Transferred into Europe as the war ended, he was detached for advisory duty to the President for the forthcoming conference at Potsdam. This was to be his last mission for he was slated for retirement.

Colonel Neal Hazzard, commandant-elect for the American Sector of Berlin, had been an outspoken fighting soldier most of his career. A wound gave him the choice of discharge or military government. He was brash, direct, honest.

“Tune out Moscow,” Hansen said. Hazzard went to a half-dozen places in the room where the Russians had planted microphones. To counter it, a member of the staff had rigged up a two-cell battery connected to a buzzer, which set off a steady hum when connected. This noise, directed into the microphones, screened out the other voices from the Russian listening post in the basement.

“Okay, Sean,” Hansen said, “what happened today?”

He related the bizarre incidents. It tallied with reports of a half-dozen other American convoys which had come to Berlin on other routes. It added up to a plan of deliberate harassment. The “welcoming” officer was always below the rank of the American convoy leader. This was a deliberate belittlement. The negotiating officers were always above the rank of the American—Russian logic set to establish their people as superiors.

Sean looked squarely at the three men as he finished his story. “Had I been given freedom of action in my orders, I could have gotten the convoy through to Berlin on the autobahn.”

“That’s a rash statement,” Hansen said. “We are in no position to afford the luxury of an incident.”

“There would have been no incident,” Sean said firmly. “They were bluffing.”

“What makes you think so?” Stonebraker asked.

“Ask a pair of wet Russian soldiers.”

“That will be all,” Hansen cut in. “My orderly will show you to your quarters. There will be a guard on your door. Other than intelligence interrogation, talk to no one.”

“Yes, sir.”

When he left all that could be heard for a time was the steady buzz into the wire taps.

“We’re getting our pockets picked,” Neal Hazzard growled. “We should have captured Berlin. Now, we compound the original stupidity by giving the Russians two lush German provinces for a foothold in this rock pile.”

Hansen answered, “The Russians have been isolated from the West for three decades. Since the end of the war they’ve broken out of their cocoon. They are awed by their sudden new position of being a world power. But, they are suspicous. It’s going to take time for the strangeness to wear off, but we are going to have to learn to live with them.”

“That crap may go in a classroom, Chip,” Stonebraker said to Hansen, addressing him by a nickname used between generals. “Your young major is right. We’re playing their game and they’re going to con us out of our jock straps.”

“For Christ’s sake, sir,” Hazzard added, “do you really believe they’re not going to try to elbow us out of Berlin?”

“That’s academic,” Hansen answered. “The facts are that we have to do business with them.”

“How do we do business, Chip? I’m for the young major’s way.”

“This is 1945. The American people wouldn’t give a lusty crap if we handed over all of Germany or even all of Europe to the Russians. They want to finish the war against Japan and forget the whole goddamned thing. We will receive no public support for a strong stand against the Russians.”

These were, indeed, the ugly facts of life.

“Fine,” Stonebraker said, “we’re in Berlin. Maybe someday we’ll know why. We’ve seen what happens to our convoys. You’d better prepare for an alternate route.”

“Where?”

“In the air. Define air corridors from our zone to Berlin, put it on paper, make it part of the Potsdam Agreement.”

“How can we justify it without getting them heated up?”

Crusty Stonebraker gave a craggy smile. “Tell the Russians it’s for their own good. We all need an air-safety setup because of the volume of traffic. They’ll buy it now. They won’t in a year.”

Hansen didn’t like it Air lanes were foolish. It was a part of Crusty Stonebraker’s vanity.

A knock on the door brought Hansen’s orderly. A sealed envelope was delivered from Russian Marshal Alexei Popov. As Hansen read, the others detected the urgency. He looked from Hazzard to Stonebraker, read aloud. “This is to advise you that the Americans will not be permitted to take possession of the six boroughs of Berlin tomorrow, as previously discussed. It is felt by the Soviet High Command that there must be a formal written agreement and the establishment of a four-power council first. Signed, Marshal Alexei Popov.”

“All right Crusty. Draw up a plan for air lanes. Neal, bring O’Sullivan up here. He’s going to get an opportunity to find out if the comrades are bluffing or not.”

Chapter Two

A
NDREW
J
ACKSON
H
ANSEN,
H
IRAM
Stonebraker, and Neal Hazzard all looked down to the Kaserne courtyard. They saw Sean O’Sullivan and Blessing get into the touring car with two enlisted men.

Hansen looked at his watch. It was seven in the morning. This hour was picked because he knew the Russian command didn’t come to life and function until around noon.

The motor chugged, fought the brisk cold, roared into life. The car was stopped at the gate by a drowsy Russian guard. Sean showed him an order signed by Hansen directing Sean to Tempelhof Airdrome to pick up an incoming VIP. The Russian was impressed by the big car and passed it through.

In a few moments three jeeploads of men passed through the gate, ostensibly on routine missions to Berlin.

During the two weeks of his semiconfinement in the Babelsberg Kaserne, Colonel Hazzard kept as many vehicles as possible moving in and out of Berlin for as many reasons as he could invent without rousing Russian suspicion. The vehicles were dispatched along a variety of routes and, whenever possible, photographed the streets until Hazzard’s master map became studded with information. Ordinary Russian troops seldom challenged them for they seemed to hold an equal fear of cameras and maps.

Sean sped along the southern rim of the Wannsee Lake into the Grunewald, whose enormous acreage comprised a great part of the land in the western districts of Berlin.

The forest had not suffered too much war damage and in the morning mist the greenery shielded the sight of the horror of Berlin. He ran parallel to the smaller chain of lakes that bordered the forest and at the crossing waited. In a few moments the other three jeeps arrived from different directions at the rendezvous.

They bisected the forest on Onkel Tom Strasse, turned into Argentine Allee, coming out directly before a magnificent complex of administrative buildings. It had been part of the Hitler Barracks and served as Luftwaffe Headquarters for the Central Germany Command. The Luft Gau buildings and barracks fringed the woods, showed little damage for it had been selected as the future American Headquarters.

Blessing pointed to a central building in the complex with a convenient flag pole on the lawn before it. The area was void of life. Sean waved the convoy in, raised the American flag to the top of the mast, and posted a large hand-painted sign on the front door in English, German, and Russian.

ATTENTION: THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND HEREBY DESIGNATED AS HEADQUARTERS FOR THE AMERICAN SECTOR OF BERLIN COMPRISING THE BOROUGHS OF STEGLITZ, ZEHLENDORF, SCHÖNEBERG, NEUKÖLLN, TEMPELHOF, AND KREUZBERG.

SIGNED:

Colonel Neal Hazzard, Commandant American Sector by authority of Major General Andrew Jackson Hansen, First Deputy Military Governor.

Marshal Alexei Popov was awakened from a deep, vodka-induced slumber by a phone call at his Potsdam mansion at the unlikely hour of eight o’clock.

“What do you mean, American troops are at the Hitler Barracks?” he yawned.

“They have proclaimed it as American Headquarters, Comrade Marshal.”

How could they invade, he thought, they don’t have enough troops? “How many?”

“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen! Fifteen Americans declaring a headquarters! Fifteen!”

“Yes, Comrade Marshal. Fifteen. What shall we do?”

Popov stretched, scratched his head, and squinted at the clock. What an uncouth hour to start trouble. “Send up a battalion of tanks and stand opposite them. Have a battalion of infantry see that there is no further movement in or out of the area.”

Popov slammed the receiver down, wrestled out of his pajamas, wended his way to the bathroom. His soldierly figure belied sixty years of age. He shaved, doused his face, combed his great full head of soft silver hair, of which he was quite proud, dressed, and called for breakfast in his room, calculating the true meaning of the problem.

The simplest thing to do would be to lift the phone and ask Commissar V. V. Azov for instructions. That would, however, be a sign of weakness. Popov had worked his way through every rank in the Red Army, was among its founders, had survived the purges. He had not come this far just to prove to a political commissar that he was unable to deal with fifteen Americans. Obviously, the Americans had something up their sleeves. What was it?

An aide came in with word that Russian troops had the Americans completely cut off and a field phone was in operation. He put in a call to his commander at Hitler Barracks.

“Marshal Popov speaks here.”

“Good morning, Comrade Marshal, Colonel Vanyev here.”

“What is your situation?”

“I have ten tanks and a hundred men deployed opposite the Americans. The streets are blocked off. They merely stand before the door of the building.”

“Send someone across the street and rip down their proclamation.”

“And what if they open fire?” Vanyev asked.

“Call back for instructions.”

He finished his coffee, stood before the mirror, struck a small pose. The Americans called him the Silver Fox. Not bad at all, he admitted to himself. The phone rang, Vanyev reporting.

“Did you rip their proclamation down?”

“It was attempted. One American opened fire, wounding our soldier. Fortunately, we have a good photograph of him. Do you have further instructions, Comrade Marshal?”

“Stand by!” he said as he set down the phone, now frowning with worry, “Call my car! Reach the Americans and tell them I am on my way to speak to General Hansen,” he snapped at his aide.

He was driven under siren-shrieking escort into the Babelsberg Kaserne, marched with a trail of aides up to Hansen’s suite, ordered them to wait in the hall, and entered. Neal Hazzard was in the outer office.

“Good morning, Marshal Popov,” he said. “What brings you out so early?”

“My business is not your business. I demand to see General Hansen.”

“Sorry, sir. General Hansen is not available.”

Popov blanched. “It is advisable that he becomes available.”

“Yes, sir. If you will have a seat I will attempt to get the message to him.”

Hazzard left the room. For the next thirty minutes the Russian cooled his heels. The instant he saw General Stonebraker return in Hazzard’s place he realized he was being fleeced at his own game of musical chairs. Popov’s voice lowered ominously. “I demand to see General Hansen without further delay.”

“He is not available.”

“General Stonebraker. Please believe me that my patience is at an end. If I do not see General Hansen in exactly two minutes I will order my troops to open fire.”

Hiram Stonebraker sat behind a desk, opened a file of papers, began to read through them as though he were alone in the room.

“The minute I leave this office you will have condemned your soldiers to oblivion!”

Crusty Stonebraker looked up slowly. “Marshal,” he said, “we are going to have to live with each other for a long time. You’ve got to start learning to say please.”