Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [17]
A. J. Hansen had kept an almost singular watch on the Russians for years. He watched the Russians snatch up eastern Europe without protest, and watched Russia spread its tentacles into American and British spheres in Greece and Italy and into the French Underground. Hansen knew his Russians from firsthand dealings. But his arguments hit a dead end.
And now, there stood before him a young man unable to reconcile himself to eating similar crow.
“It takes a rare kind of man to serve his country without the benefit of pyrotechnics or reward and a different kind of courage to keep your mouth shut and go on working and believing when you are positive those around you are wrong. We don’t have enough men of this kind of dedication, Sean ...”
“That’s only part of it, sir. I’ve tried to stick because I know what you’re up against.”
“Then what is it, man?”
“Maybe I long to have a piece of this war like my brother has. I have wished many times I could be as devout as you. But, this work here has never given me that sort of fulfillment.”
“And maybe you’re looking for an easy way to end it with that woman. Sure ... get yourself transferred. Let the Army settle the affair for you.”
“That might be part of it too.”
Hansen stood and turned his back to Sean, stared through the window from his third-floor office down into the vast courtyard of Queen Mother’s Gate. “The General requests,” he said, “that the Captain remain in this command.”
Hansen nearly choked on his humiliation. He could go no further now. He could not put into words the needing of Sean’s keen mind, the respect of foolhardy pride, or put into words admiration for the kind of loyalty Sean had given him. Nor could he get into that part of it about having three daughters and no sons. From the first bombastic clash almost two years ago there had been that strange sort of devotion that men find for each other in times of war.
“I’ll give you your piece of this war,” Hansen said. “It will mean staying here at Queen Mother’s Gate, losing more arguments to stupid bastards, eating crow. It will mean that seeing or not seeing that woman remains within your resolve.”
Sean did not answer.
“This mission will set up a Pilot G-5 Team to study a German city. This city will be learned so that every street, every citizen, every function is known. We will build a scale model in one of the conference rooms ... fly aerial recon flights over it, know more about it than we have ever known about any piece of territory in Germany. This pilot team will have to have an answer for any possible question ... sewage ... Nazis ... displaced persons ... whorehouses. This is the textbook town from which we will gain insight to learn how to govern Germany. When the invasion comes the pilot team will move into Germany and continue on from theory to actual practice. We will test new laws, ideas there first ...”
The pilot team for Germany! This was more than the piece of the war he had reckoned on. Sean knew that on an impulse General Hansen had taken another gamble with him. Such a command should go to someone with solid experience in government ... someone not so stubborn.
“I could let you down very badly, sir.”
“I don’t see it that way. Do you know anything about Rombaden?”
Sean’s face narrowed in thought. “In Schwaben Province. Landkreis of Romstein. Sits on a big bend on the Landau midway between the Black Forest and Munich. One of the most fanatical Nazi strongholds.”
“That’s a good start,” Hansen said. “There’s a report up at Document Center by a professor in Germanic studies. He was born and raised in Rombaden, was an inmate of Schwabenwald Concentration Camp in ’35 and ’36. Came to America after his release. Start reading it.”
Sean was too caught up in the sudden challenge to weigh the enormity of the task.
“You’ll want Dante Arosa for your counter-intelligence,