Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [154]
Bless knew there was a souring point that came to a lot of cops. When a man gets too callous he can turn into a cynic or a brute.
The two German girls reached the corner, turned, and retraced their steps.
Damn, I’d like to see Lil! He smiled at the thought of his wife. She is a good ole’ gal. And she still cuts a fine picture of a woman.
Lil had come out of the hill country, knew nothing but hard times all her life. When she was sixteen she married a bastard just to escape. Used to beat hell out of her. Lil ran away.
Bless knew a woman like her, with all she’d been through, wasn’t going to go playing around, because she had a good man who treated her square. He and Lil had something wonderful going for them and two of their own ... cutest kids in Hook County.
Such a long time. He wondered how many times Lil needed to have a man in the past two and a half years. She was human and a lot of woman. Bless knew she would go about it in the right way. She’d go off to Memphis for a week, where nobody knew her, and she’d be damned careful. He would never ask her about it because it wouldn’t mean a damned thing.
A radio jeep with constabulary markings was driven up by one of Blessing’s squad, Corporal Danny Sterling. The kid was going to make a good cop, Bless thought, switching his mind back to duty and piling into the jeep.
“Where to, Lieutenant?”
Blessing pondered. Contacting Hans Kronbach was not a simple matter. He was in the Russian Sector so Bless would have to dig up a German informer and send him out as a liaison to set up a secret rendezvous.
“Let’s go over to the provost marshal at Tempelhof and find us a kraut fink.”
Danny gunned the jeep away. The two German girls watched cautiously as the police jeep passed them. Blessing whistled softly “Just Before the Battle, Mother.”
The pressure of Berlin was reaching him. He wanted out of the rat hole before he went sour. There was suspicion in the Germans ... there was hatred, fear, and tension. He knew by long experience the face and the actions of desperation, for he had read it in the sallow, pinched faces of the farmers when their crops were wiped out and their kids went hungry. He had seen it at the mines in the mass hysteria of the strikers as they cursed the scabs, and he had seen it at the mines in the eyes of the women waiting for the news of a cave-in.
He had seen it in the eyes of lynch mobs; he knew it in the faces of the Negroes of Hook County. All of this was the face of Berlin.
Bless picked up the microphone, switched on the transmitter. “Rebel two-eight reporting, over.”
“This is Baltimore calling Rebel two-eight. Who’s that man making big gains for Green Bay?”
“Don Hutson,” Blessing answered, assuring the authenticity of his call. “We are leaving Baltimore en route to Atlanta Provo, over.”
“Roger, and out.”
As they passed out of slightly damaged Dahlem, heavy with American Headquarters and barracks, the horror of Berlin was worsened by block after block, mile after mile of gutted shells. They were slowed to a halt by demolition work near the canal.
As they cleared they saw a German policeman running down the middle of the street waving and calling frantically. They halted. He stopped beside them, gasping, jabbering too quickly for them to understand.
“Was gibt’s?”
The German pointed, tried to make himself understood, then remembered the cards he carried in his pockets. He brought out a stack, each holding a single word: RAPE, ASSAULT, AACCIDENT. He stopped at the card reading ARMED ROBBERY, and kept pointing to it
“Russkies?”
“Ya, ya, Russkies.”
“Now what the hell they doing all the way over here,” Bless grunted, shoving the German into the jeep and picking up the mike. “This is Rebel two-eight calling, over.”
“This is Baltimore. Go ahead Rebel two-eight.”
“We are proceeding to investigate a sixty-four now taking place vicinity Südende. We think there are Ivans involved. Will report exact location