Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [136]
“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