Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [229]
Bless returned to his command post at Kreuzberg and phoned over a direct line to Colonel Parrott at Tempelhof. In the first fifty minutes they had snagged some seventy Communist agitators.
At Potsdamer Platz, the key exchange point, the first school of mackerel, an Action Squad, was bagged.
A Joint Command in the British Sector assessed the information. By 0620 three hundred known agitators and Action Squad members with no explainable business in the Western Sectors had been spotted and swept up in quick, sure movement.
At 0702, two railcars containing the largest load yet, three hundred Action Squad people, moved for the destination of Beussels Strasse elevated, where they were to disperse for the joint targets of the power plant, the Plötzensee Prison, and the West Harbor. A tip-off came ahead of them and they walked off the train into a mixed company of French and British soldiers with fixed bayonets.
By this time the Russian monitors smelled a Western trap and this was confirmed by the fact that none of their leaders had reported back to Putsch headquarters. And then a frantic call came to Schatz by one Communist who had slipped the Western net after seeing his comrades rounded up.
“They were waiting for us!”
A nausea-wracked, trembling Adolph Schatz phoned Soviet Headquarters and cried, “We have been betrayed!”
Trepovitch tried to head off the disaster of sending more people in. At this rate the West could deplete their loyal core of Communist strength in an hour and it would take weeks, if not months, to build up for another try. He branded Schatz as an incompetent German lout, called off the attempt, and shouted that he was surrounded by spies.
Brigadier General Neal Hazzard entered the mess hall of the Staff NCO Club and the 250 officers and men came to attention. He asked them to be seated and told the guard to shut the door.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Hazzard said. “Fifty of you people have requested to evacuate your families. I have asked the rest of you here so as not to identify and embarrass the others. Here’s the score. When General Hansen left for Washington we told him we’d be here when he got back.
“By that I mean the United States would be in Berlin. In this garrison, the United States of America particularly means our wives and children. For the next two weeks no request for transportation out of Berlin will be acted upon ... as my old friend Trepovitch would say ... for technical reasons.”
A murmur of puzzlement greeted his terse announcement.
“To walk out of here with our tails between our legs would be giving aid and comfort to the enemy and would make a spectacle of our country. This garrison stays ... men ... women ... children.”
Chapter Five
THE MEETING OF THE NATIONAL Security Council was going badly against General Hansen. The President, for the most part, listened to the divergent arguments, interrupting only now and then for a sharp question.
The room housed a glitter of silver stars and braid of admirals and their banks of ribbons to attest to bravery. These were the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Secretary of Defense was there; the Secretary of State was there; the Secretary of the Treasury was there with the Vice President and the ambassador to the Kremlin. Behind them sat their experts and planners.
The forces seeking accommodation, settlement, compromise, appeasement had built an insurmountable case. The State Department had treated the Berlin blockade as an accomplished Soviet victory and sought ways to get off the hook with the least loss of face.
“The B marks have to be withdrawn from Berlin.”
“Throw the matter open to the United Nations while attempting to make a direct political settlement with the Russians.”
Practical men from the Pentagon with slide rules and charts had their turn.
“Berlin is dead weight. The city not only has to import food, but it has to import raw material to keep its industrial complex functioning. As a former national capital the city has tens of thousands of former government employees with no