Armageddon (36 page)

Igor was now terribly uncomfortable. They had emerged from the forest and were moving toward the wreckage of central Berlin. Igor knew nothing could stop the rape and looting except orders from Azov. Acts of “individualism” was just the type of thing that killed half the officer corps off during the purges. “Comrade Hirsch, many things you have said to me could bring you grave consequences. For this time alone, I will forget you ever opened your mouth.”

Heinrich Hirsch stared at Igor. There was no more to be said. They reached the Brandenburg Gate, where the red flag hung limply atop the monument to former German victories, and crossed beneath to the Unter Den Linden. The avenue of former grandeur was perhaps the most horrible in all of Berlin with its massive gutted shells. Hirsch asked to be let out.

“I’m sorry I spoke to you, Colonel Karlovy,” he said. “I was gravely mistaken. I thought you were different.”

Igor, smarting from the last remark, watched Hirsch go off. He gripped the wheel of the car tightly ... damned bastard!

He was wearing thin with the whole mess in Berlin. And now, this business of stripping toilets. What the hell, political decisions were not handed down for discussion. As one who was trained in the days of the purges, Igor knew how to go into mental vacuums. The officers’ training created situations to compel the men to inform on each other. Spying was an accepted way of life. One had to be careful not to form lasting friendships for he could never tell when the most innocent complaint would be twisted against him. Spying kept minds alert and prevented cliques of military deviationists from forming.

Despite this conditioning Igor Karlovy was reachable. There were memories to haunt him. Always at a time like this the ghost and the voice of Peter Egorov was heard. He drove back to his house, forgetting his work, locking his door behind him, drinking quickly to drown out the memory of Peter.

He lay on his bed and the sweat began to form in cold beads. Damn you Peter Egorov! Damn you! Why did you do it? Will you leave me in peace! You know you were a fool ... you know that.

More vodka ... yes, more vodka to burn away the memory.

Lieutenant Peter Egorov and Feodor Guchkov were the favorites of Colonel Karlovy. All of the young engineers looked to Igor as their idol during the siege of Leningrad.

His ingenuity, bravery, and bravado had become legend. What was more, Colonel Karlovy was not a party member. Things in his command were relaxed. Members of his immediate staff were like family. What a hell of a time they had, the three of them. Loving, fighting, and drinking. Igor, Feodor, and Peter Egorov.

What a brilliant young officer Peter was! A superb engineer with endless talents for improvising, particularly in keeping up factory production. So bright was Peter that those factories in his immediate command even increased production in the middle of the siege.

Peter had a Cossack’s lust for life. Perhaps that is why Igor, a Cossack himself, was drawn to the younger man. He had all the attributes ... he sang like a nightingale or fought like a tiger as the occasion demanded. He loved women and women loved him.

When the siege was broken and the lines rolled westward, Igor was borrowed from the Red Air Force and promoted as chief engineer of the entire front. Peter and Feodor came along on his staff. Throughout the offenses of 1944 and 1945 the engineers moved with the armies through the Baltics, White Russia, and into Poland, erecting bridges, blowing up other bridges, repairing ports, laying airstrips, demolishing unsafe buildings, cutting roads, repairing rails.

The White Russian Front rolled up to the gates of Warsaw and halted on the east bank of the Vistula River in the industrial suburb of Praga. After Praga was cleared a queer edict came down from the top not to pursue the Germans across the river into Warsaw.

At first the field commanders were told that the entire front had to regroup and resupply. Later the word was passed down that there was an uprising inside Warsaw by “military adventurers” representing the imperialist London Polish Group. Although these explanations were hazy, officers of the Red Army were conditioned too well to inquire further. They could, nevertheless, see the destruction of Warsaw just across the river with their naked eyes.

Days wore on that brought counterrumors that Nazi panzer divisions were being allowed to reduce Warsaw to the ground and that civilians were being massacred.

In the meanwhile a Moscow-trained People’s Committee for Free and Democratic Poland had been installed in Lublin, to the south. The Red Army could feel the anger and resentment of the Polish population. Igor smelled the rage of the Poles; he knew such things from his own childhood. The Lublin committee was apparently having a difficult time convincing the Poles that the Soviet Union had truly liberated them.

One night during the second week of the fighting in Warsaw Peter Egorov came to Igor’s quarters.

“Many of us are fed up with the butchering of the people in Warsaw,” he said. “We know we have the strength to cross the river and help them.”

“Calm down, Peter. It is unfortunate that a few civilians are caught in the middle. You know that this Polish Home Army is nothing more than a fascist tool.”

“For God’s sake, Colonel! They are Poles fighting for Poland against Nazis!”

“Be careful how you talk, Peter.”

“I’ve been careful how I’ve talked all my life. For once I want to shout out what is in my heart Colonel ... listen to me ... there are other officers who feel as I do. Among us we can organize several hundred troops. We plan to lay down a bridge upstream and bring over weapons to the defenders and stay on and fight. With you, Igor Karlovy, leading us, five thousand troops will cross behind you. Believe me, Colonel... this is the way to go out.”

For an instant Igor’s heart was seized with the fire!

“Imagine. If the Red Army came to the rescue of Warsaw then the Poles would know we are their liberators instead of their captors,” Peter cried.

Peter was a Ukrainian and a Pole. Igor had long ago sensed the dangerous trait of “nationalism” in him; it had lain dormant, but began seething beneath the surface. Now, as they stood opposite Warsaw, it exploded.

“I will forget you spoke to me, Peter, and I suggest you forget your madness.”

Peter did not forget. He and six other junior officers and fifty soldiers of the rank were betrayed on the night before they were to attempt their crossing.

Commissar V. V. Azov ordered a special three-man military court to try them. One of the judges was Igor Karlovy. He was deliberately selected because Peter Egorov was a member of his engineering staff. Who had betrayed them?

It did not much matter. Perhaps it was Ivan Orlov. Everyone knew he was the party man. Perhaps it was someone else. It would never be known.

Before the court convened, confessions were obtained by the secret and political police. The young rebels were questioned around the clock in the Praga prison. Old hands at obtaining confessions, the secret police broke the rebels down one by one, mainly by a promise of sleep. Fifty-six sworn statements all confessed to “an anti-Soviet plot for the purpose of committing sabotage, treason, and collaboration with the enemy.” The “enemy,” in this case, was the Polish Underground.

A secret trial followed. The court convened in the warden’s office beneath a portrait of Stalin and a slogan speaking well of Soviet justice.

Justice was delivered quickly. There was a reading of the charges, a reading of the confessions, brief deliberations by the judges, and the pronouncement of the death sentence, to be carried out immediately.

V. V. Azov did not take part in the proceedings but stayed on merely as a “spectator” in the interest of the state. The three judges signed the execution order. Azov gave Igor Karlovy a demonstration of the finality of his power.

“Comrade Colonel,” Azov said, “you will personally supervise the executions.”

How strange ... how terribly strange. As Peter Egorov was led into the courtyard and placed against the firing wall he wore a smile on his face. It was a look of fulfillment, of satisfaction, of knowing a great secret. Until the last instant of his life, Peter Egorov smiled mockingly into the eyes of Igor Karlovy ... until he slumped over dead.

Chapter Six

T
HE COLONEL REMAINED IN
a black mood the next day. He was testy while the stream of appointments worked through his office and several times during conferences on redisposal of labor forces he snapped at subordinates in a manner unlike him.

Ivan Orlov attributed the colonel’s behavior to the fact that he had been dressed down by Azov. The other dozen officers and men stationed m the mansion kept silent. Only Feodor really knew that the ghost of Peter Egorov had returned. He had seen the colonel like this before. If enough vodka was in him he’d sometimes babble to Feodor that he had done the right thing at the trial and that Peter had brought on his own death.

Heinrich Hirsch had touched it off. Why must one always come back to that situation of being forced into a decision against the regime? Igor told himself that he was an engineer. All he wished was a chance to build again—that and a little peace of mind. Why did this damned situation recur and recur?

By evening Igor retreated to his office in his bedroom. A tray was brought to him and he locked himself in. After a long while, immersed in figures, he calmed down. The mocking eyes of Peter, the blood-drenched paving stones of the prison yard, the challenge of Heinrich Hirsch all melted into the rows of numbers.

The night was warmish. He took off his tunic and placed it on the back of his chair, shoved his papers to one side, walked to his balcony, and leaned against the doorframe. A restless breeze rustled the leaves of the trees. Hirsch was right, of course. It was shameful, all of it ... raping of thousands of little girls and old women. The women of Berlin were creeping around with mud on their faces to make themselves appear repulsive. Others pretended to be feeble-minded so the soldiers would leave them alone. It would take years, if not forever, to make the German people believe in the Soviet way after this. But, what the hell! Hirsch was as foolish as Peter Egorov had been. Only orders from Azov could stop it.

He looked over his shoulder back into the room to the waiting work but was in no mood to concentrate. The balminess of the night soon consumed him with sentimentality. He hummed, and then sang softly to himself ...“Daleko”...“Daleko” ...

Far, far away,

Where the fog swells,

Where gentle breezes,

Sway o’er the wheat,

In your own land,

By a hill in the Steppe,

You live as you did,

Think often of me,

Day ... night ... all the time,

From me far away,

Await my love ...

A strange sound stopped his song; he cocked his head to listen. Something was rustling about in the bushes of the garden. Perhaps a stray cat. No, wait! He went to the rail ... a heavy thrashing ... angry grunts of a man’s voice, then! a short sharp cry of a woman!

Igor hand-sprang the rail and dropped gingerly to the ground. A fierce struggle was going on.

“Kumm frau!”

Igor sprinted to the place and pushed the bushes aside. In the semi-darkness he could make out a man in Russian uniform atop the writhing figure of a woman pinned to the earth. Igor swung his boot up, kicking the soldier on the side of the head, knocking him off the woman. The soldier crawled to his hands and knees, dragged himself up to receive a thunderous fist in his mouth. The soldier went down again flat on his back. Igor glowered over him.

“Animal!”

He reached down, gripped the dazed man, jerked him upright, and dragged him into the light. Feodor! “Oh Mother of God! Not you, too, Feodor! You who were too good to touch a German woman! Not you, too, Feodor!”

Feodor wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. Igor flung him to the ground, enraged, kicked his ribs, and jammed the heel of his boot into the pit of his back. “Get out of my sight!”

Feodor crawled off as Igor tried to hold back tears of rage and disgust. The woman thrashed and groaned. He went to her and knelt beside her.

“Are you all right?” he said abruptly in German.

She answered with a whimper. He helped her to her feet and braced her as they walked into the light. She stood swaying ... trying to hold together her ripped clothing. Igor took her face firmly in his hand, turned it to the best light, and examined the cuts and bruises. She was very young, and although quite dirty and bloody he could see that she was extremely pretty.

“You are just a child,” he said. “All right, stop your babbling. I am not going to hurt you.”

The girl began to regain her self-control, gulping great gobs of air and shuddering. “What the devil were you doing inside these gates?”

“I could smell the bread baking.”

“You are so hungry?”

“I haven’t eaten in three days.”

“That is quite unlikely. You could go to the soup lines.”

“I did. Two soldiers pulled me out of line and took me into the rubble. I did not go back.”

Igor reacted with a grunt of revulsion. “Very well, I’ll give you something to eat and have a car take you home.”

“I have no home. Your soldiers took it.”

“Parents?”

“They were both killed in an air raid by the Amis three months ago.”

“Friends? Relatives?”

“My relatives all live in Dresden. Friends are all scattered. It is not easy to get around these days. We stay off the streets. I don’t know where most of them are.”

Suddenly she toppled in a dead faint. Igor caught her, swooped her into his arms, and walked toward the house. The questioning eyes of Ivan Orlov met him at the front door. “Are you going to bring her in here?”