Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [304]
But the momentum of the Airlift was so powerful it was able to recover instantly. Beat ... beat ... beat ... the giant metronome ticked on through driving winds and sleet-covered runways ... beat ... beat ... beat ... Tempelhof ... Tegel... Gatow.
The electronic miracle wrought by GCA became so finely honed that the planes could be brought down in their interval virtually blind. GCA was the final link in solving the riddle. Beat ... beat ... beat ... Tempelhof ... Tegel ... Gatow ... ten tons ... ten tons ... ten tons.
Soon it would be spring and the Airlift would soar to greater heights. The scent of colossal victory for the West was in the air.
“Look up to the sky, Berliners,” Ulrich Falkenstein’s voice came over the loudspeaker trucks, “look up to the sky for that is where freedom comes ...”
Under his leadership they had made a city of their own with its own police, university, currency. Berliners knew their own strength and the strength of their allies. They took the offensive.
The Western counterblockade shut off raw materials from flowing into the Russian-raped Zone and it staggered the economy. Blockade runners risked bullets to crash into the Western Sectors. People stood up against the bully police of Adolph Schatz.
And then, in the scheme of things, Adolph Schatz was found to be no longer useful to the regime and he disappeared without mourners.
Beat... beat... beat... Tempelhof... Tegel... Gatow. “This is Jigsaw calling Big Easy Twenty-two. You are one mile from touchdown. You are on center line. You are on the glide path ...”
“This is Jigsaw ... ”
“Big Easy Fourteen calling Jigsaw ...”
“Tempelhof Airways calling Big Easy Thirty ...”
“This is Jigsaw ...”
“Gatow Airways calling Big Easy Six ...”
“This is Jigsaw ...”
The Soviet Union launched a last-ditch propaganda campaign attacking the legality of the air corridors claiming they were no longer valid. The precisely drawn and clearly stated documents made up three and a half years earlier by Hiram Stonebraker proved unassailable.
To back Soviet claims, Popov flooded the corridors with more fighter planes without advising the Air Safety Center. Ground firing erupted all through the Soviet Zone along the corridors. Searchlights were shined into the eyes of American and British flyers.
Beat ... beat ... beat... Tempelhof... Tegel ... Gatow.
“This is Jigsaw calling Big Easy ...”
“I hope my arrival at this time of night is not awkward,” Igor said.
“Of course not,” Sean said.
“No, no, fraulein, please stay,” he said to Ernestine. “This time I brought the vodka,” he continued trying to be friendly. “I saw you were running low. May I?”
He took off his cap, sat at the table in the center of the room, and filled three glasses. Sean offered him a cigarette.
“Lucky Strikes. I confess I am going to miss these.”
“Expecting to travel?”
Igor shrugged. “I have been guilty of gross underestimations.” He spread his arms out like an airplane, pointed toward the window, where the engines’ drone renewed itself each 120 seconds. “If I hadn’t seen it myself, I would not have believed it possible.”
Igor hoped that he would be allowed to work and teach the things he had learned about air safety and GCA at the Air University. He believed great efforts should be launched to imitate the American transport system although he realized no study of the Airlift would be allowed to be taught for that would be an admission of American superiority.
He touched glasses with Sean, drew hard on the cigarette. “My errand this time is to ask you if General Hansen is amenable to discussions with Marshal Popov?”
“The marshal knows our phone number,” Sean answered.
So blunt and logical, Igor thought. Igor walked to the window, watched the procession of planes for several moments. “For some reason I do not like to leave like this. Nothing seems to be answered. I think I am most sorry about the fact you and I haven’t become better friends.”
“The doors were always open until our flyers started getting killed.”
“When does all this stop?”
“A long time ago we made a pact