Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [308]
“This is Tempelhof Airways. You are coming into Radar Control. Caution. There are twelve unidentified blips around your bloc.”
Scott frowned ... twelve ...
Omar Kum Dag was a rarity in the Red Air Force. He was one of the few flyers from Ashkabad in the distant Turkman Republic. His comrades considered him reckless. Kum Dag could be counted upon to take abnormal risks. His squadron leader was worried that he had a compulsion to either kill himself or prove himself because of his yellow skin and the constant teasing of the others.
They were not pleased when Kum Dag was assigned to the mission. After all, they were ordered only to have some harmless fun with the American birds.
“Look at that stupid son of a bitch doing a victory roll,” Scott snarled as Omar Kum Dag’s Yak zoomed and spiraled right in front of him.
The copilot was pale and unnerved. Scott gritted his teeth as the Russian dived perilously close again, now wishing for the first time he had the guns and speed to go after him. Fun was fun, but only a crazy man buzzed a defenseless craft like that.
The Russian captain leading the squadron admonished Kum Dag angrily as the Yak streaked up to the clouds and circled for another pass. He was ordered to quit, but Omar Kum Dag did not hear.
He was detached by the roar, the surge, the mania to come even closer so no one would ever again doubt his courage.
“This is Tempelhof calling Big Easy One. There’s a blip on your tail ...”
Hilde’s hair fell into her eyes as she flitted about the kitchen in that sort of furor she always generated while making a meal. She talked to herself, admonished herself for the lack of seasoning in the soup.
She stopped for a moment, wiped her hands, felt through her blouse, and touched the ring that lay between her breasts. It made her happy and she began to sing ... tonight she would love him and love him and love him.
Colonel Loveless closed the kitchen door behind him.
“What on earth are you doing home, Colonel? It is only three o’clock.”
The colonel looked deathly sick and he began to tremble as an unintelligible sound came out of his throat. Hilde dropped the plates from her hand.
“No!” she screamed.
“Oh God ...” Clint moaned. “Oh God ...”
“Scott! Scott!”
He gripped the writhing girl and held her until a blackness overcame her.
Chapter Forty
SPRINGTIME!
Ulrich Falkenstein had shepherded his people through the winter. He felt it proper now to respond to invitations and receive ovations for his people in Paris and London, New York and Washington.
In exactly four years after the last Russian cannon fired down the Unter Den Linden, the greatest paradox of the century had happened. Berlin had completely reversed its meaning in the eyes of the world. In the resurrection of 1949, a stunning series of events occurred that halted the Communist scourge on the European continent.
Western Europe, now infused with the blood of the Marshall Plan, staggered from its ruins and the despair was replaced by a dynamic new birth. The sound of building was heard again.
As the West took this new lease on life they declared that they would defend themselves from further Soviet outrage in unity. In this springtime of 1949, NATO, the common defense, was born as a son of the Truman Doctrine.
In the resurrection of 1949 a new German state of the three Western Zones was in the making. A constitution was drawn with mankind’s hope that a new kind of Germany would emerge.
The Soviet Union had failed. They had failed to stop the formation of a Western-oriented Germany; they had failed to drive the West from Berlin. The Airlift poured six and seven thousand tons of goods into Berlin every day. The pressure was off the West for negotiations for a settlement.
More generators were flown in and as the coal stocks grew the electrical capacity was raised. Raw materials were flown in and the acute job shortage began to ease.
The Airlift was now putting down