Armageddon (58 page)

Sean turned to look at her. He had noticed her graceful movement from the moment she answered the door. The fingers that played the piano were long and artful, but had also known hard work. Her face was particularly elegant, with flawless skin set off by deep, sorrowful, expressive eyes.

Her hair, immaculately groomed and businesslike, was however, entirely feminine. Her voice was unusually soft and without Germanic abruptness. Ernestine began to fidget.

Sean ended the tour.

“Are you sure?” she asked, pointing to an array of richly colored liqueurs in cut-crystal bottles on the coffee table. He sat on the opposite end of the couch and said she could buy him an apricot brandy.

Ernestine opened a tin. “This is Leubeck flat cake. The wife of an old comrade of my uncle sends us one each month. You will find it quite different.”

He took a bite and agreed.

Ernestine looked at him from the corners of her eyes, and was unable to constrain a small giggle. “So you are Major ... I’m sorry, Colonel O’Sullivan.”

“That’s me.”

“Of course, my uncle Ulrich has spoken of you innumerable times. I was expecting someone quite different.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, I saw you as much older ... and ...”

“And?”

“You won’t be offended?”

“Promise.”

“Rather stern ... you know, like a Prussian.”

She did not know what compelled her to be so familiar except that Uncle Ulrich’s description drew a picture of a man of iron discipline and surly nature. He seemed terribly young to have been governor of Rombaden.

“I’m glad you don’t find me ... like a Prussian.”

Ernestine jumped to her feet at the sound of the door opening. Ulrich Falkenstein puffed into the room with apologies. She took his coat, wiped the perspiration from his brow, chastised him for walking so hard, and inquired if he had taken his pills. He had forgotten, as usual. She settled him into a chair, and when certain he was comfortable and calm, she took her leave.

Sean watched all this with curiosity, wondering if she was pampering him because of the comforts he could offer or if their relationship was true.

Ulrich sipped his tea. “She babies me, that girl. It is such a comfort having her. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Thank you.”

“What extraordinary calamity brings you into a German home?”

Sean smiled. Falkenstein was the one German whose needle did not annoy him.

“Right to the point?”

“I never expect less of you.”

“All right,” Sean said. “It’s not pleasant news. We have conclusive evidence that your distinguished Oberburgermeister, Berthold Hollweg, is in complete collaboration with the Russians.”

Falkenstein set his tea down, digested Sean’s words. “All of us in the Democratic Party know he is not the same man he once was. We also know of the pressure he has been under. Hollweg has been my comrade for decades, since we were boys. Weak, yes. Movable, yes. But collaboration ... never ... never ...”

“It’s in his own handwriting, Herr Falkenstein.”

Falkenstein’s faced showed astonishment. He did not believe it.

“Not only does he obey Rudi Wöhlman’s orders,” Sean continued, “but there are also some interesting numbered bank accounts in Switzerland.”

“No!”

“I’m sorry, sir. It is absolutely conclusive.”

Falkenstein shook his head, pulled himself out of the deep chair, paced disquietly before the books. “What do you want of me?”

“When the exact moment is ripe, your own people have got to confront him with the charges.”

“You do it! You do it in the Kommandatura.”

“No. You have to do it as an internal affair.”

“And while you Americans keep your sanctimonious, official, and holier-than-thou status, duly elected members of the Berlin Assembly and duly selected officials of the Magistrat have been kept out of their offices by so-called investigations of the Russians. The Soviet Union doesn’t know we won a free election, but they do know the Americans will continue to sit on their hands. God knows what Hollweg has undergone. Members of my party are harassed day and night ...”

“Herr Falkenstein ... I came out of personal respect for you,” Sean interrupted. “Permanent reforms can come only from the will of the German people ... if they desire it. You know damned well that you and not I must read Hollweg out of the party.”

“You lost your calling, Colonel. You should have been a minister. How convenient for you to continue to say you do not trust Germans. Well, sir, we do not trust Americans. Of course, we are beholden for the fact that you have not mutilated or starved a defeated enemy. But here in Berlin, where there is someone to test your iron, all you do is hurl phrases at us. Ask my niece what goes on in the judicial system. The presiding judge is straight from Moscow and hasn’t enough legal background to be a blacksmith. Four judges were kidnaped last month because they made decisions on behalf of the West. Believe me, the Russians take care of their people.”

“That’s just the point,” Sean said. “You’re not our people. Will you familiarize yourself with the evidence against Hollweg or not?”

“Very well,” he said in defeat. “When is the lynching to take place?”

“When the moment is correct for a coup, not before, not after.”

Their heated words had gotten beyond the room. Ernestine stared angrily at Sean. He looked from one to the other and said a terse good night.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I
N THE
K
OMMANDATURA THE
chess game went on. Neal Hazzard became quite a player.... He made a move to break the Communist control of the Labor Front.

At first, Falkenstein and the Democrats supported the idea of a single organization, feeling that the lack of labor unity in Berlin weakened their position in fighting Hitlerism. They were soon to learn that the Labor Front was designed and staffed with Moscow-trained Germans who dominated the locals as well as the executive offices.

Hazzard dropped his bomb when RIAS announced that a new union had been authorized in the American Sector.

“Illegal!” Trepovitch bellowed. “The rules clearly state that the Labor Front is the only legal organization to be recognized! You have imported American labor thugs, hirelings, and goon squads to terrorize the workers into reactionary lines and rob them of their freedom.”

“Would you care to comment?” T. E. Blatty said when Trepovitch finished. “I do believe you have something to explain, Colonel Hazzard.”

“The Constitution governing the Labor Front as passed by this Kommandatura calls for elections of the executive every year,” Hazzard answered. “As of now elections are eight months, two weeks, four days, and six hours overdue because of General Trepovitch’s delaying tactics. Now, either we’re going to have an election or the new union which I have authorized will begin functioning. It’s up to you, General.”

Faced with the reality of losing their grip over labor, Trepovitch returned to the Kommandatura with an elaborate scheme. He would agree to an election of the executive if the West agreed to retain the present executive and merely expand it by the election. A quick check of mathematics told Neal Hazzard that if non-Communist candidates won every post in such a plot, the Communists would still have a numerical superiority.

The plan was bluntly rejected. It was so transparent that T. E. Blatty and Jacques Belfort announced that they, too, would recognize the new union in the American Sector. Trepovitch had to agree to an election.

It was the city elections of 1946 all over again, beginning with a Communist fanfare ... that all workers in the Russian Sector would henceforth receive a free, hot meal at midday.

On the day of the elections, Western officials were bluntly barred from the polling stations in the Russian Sector, which issued two colored ballots. The result, nevertheless, was another monumental defeat for the Communists.

Following the same pattern they used after the other elections, the Russians delayed the seating of the new executive. All non-Communists were bullied from taking office because of “investigations” of their suspected Nazi backgrounds.

There was more than one way to win an election. The West stood by as the abuses against the winning candidates became an open scandal.

At last Neal Hazzard announced that the new union was authorized to begin operation. As the workers in the Western Sector flocked to it, the Communist stranglehold was broken.

The American action was not long in being countered. The Russians did so with a display of raw terror never seen before in the occupation.

On a single night the SND along with the NKVD rounded up four hundred German technicians living in the Russian Sector, herded them aboard a train, locked them in, and shipped them to the Soviet Union.

When T. E. Blatty hurled the charge at Trepovitch, the Russian commandant smiled like a fat Cheshire cat.

He puckered his lips, opened his briefcase. “I have here,” he began, “signed contracts for the four hundred German volunteer technicians. It is conclusive proof there was no kidnaping. These lies spread by the Western press are sinister provocations for which we demand an apology.”

“Just keep your goddamned forgeries in your briefcase,” Hazzard snapped in the first open rage he had ever shown.

Trepovitch remained calm, too calm, Hazzard thought. The Russian whispered to one of his aides, and a moment later a German civilian was marched into the room and asked to be seated at the conference table.

“What is your name?” Trepovitch asked.

“Joachim Mangold.”

“And why did you ask for permission to appear before this body?”

“I am the spokesman for the Committee of Four Hundred Free German Technicians.”

“You are authorized to speak for all of them?”

“Yes. I was selected in a free and democratic election.”

“You are aware of American and British charges that you and your colleagues were abducted.”

“That is a lie. We volunteered.”

“Not forced?”

“No force was used.”

“Why do you wish to work in the Soviet Union and why did you seek us out and ask us for contracts?”

Mangold cleared his throat and recited carefully, “Because in the Soviet Union my comrades and I will have the opportunity to work and research for the benefit of mankind. Here, we fear we will be used for warmongering imperialist purposes of the reactionary West.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Hazzard blurted aloud.

The outrage set off a chain of demonstrations. With mixed desperation, anger, and fear the free parties sent out a call for unity.

In a showdown the Soviet Union had displayed naked power and there would be further atrocities, for the West did not answer the kidnapings ... and the Berliners were trapped.

Chapter Twenty-eight

V. V. A
ZOV’S ULCERS
flared when Captain Brusilov arrived from Moscow. Despite his inconspicuous rank, he was a personal courier of Stalin. Azov was aware that Captain Brusilov was never dispatched for the purpose of passing out medals.

His entry into Berlin just before the Foreign Minister’s Conference was no accident.

In his career, Azov had known some of Stalin’s other couriers. When he was Sovietizing the Ukraine a word from one of them could set off a hundred thousand deportations. During the purges, a message often sealed the doom of a marshal of the Red Army or a ranking member of the Politburo. During the war a courier gave him orders to slaughter the Germans who had surrendered in an East Prussian pocket.

Captain Brusilov traveled in a private plane in the company of fifteen NKVD and spoke to no one outside his immediate circle.

Of the five couriers Azov had known prior to Brusilov, each had disappeared as Stalin’s abnormal suspicions doomed them for possessing too many secrets.

The night before he was to confer with Brusilov, V. V. Azov displayed open fear that only Madam Azov was aware of. He told his wife that he was growing old and had served faithfully for nearly four decades. Had he not made a Soviet State out of the Russian Zone of Germany? Certainly Stalin could not complain about that. Yet he knew Comrade

Stalin could find fault without apparent reason. Had he fallen from favor? What was his crime? He had never been able to explain the defection of Heinrich Hirsch to the West. This stayed on his record as a blunder. He cursed General Hansen and those British and American officers for making his troubles. Yet, he had pushed them as far as Moscow had permitted.

For a long time, Azov dreamed of retirement to a small
dacha,
a modest pension, and complete anonymity.

The memory of the past terrorized him. In his time he had obtained “confessions” from hundreds of political commissars. After they had achieved the rank he now held, few of them died in bed of old age.

NKVD spies were all around him, watched his every move, monitored his words, speculated on his thoughts. Had they detected his secret yearning for peace? Had they reported to Stalin? He moaned as the fires in him flamed.

The next morning Azov fell back on years of experience to cover his fears.

Captain Brusilov admonished him for allowing the Soviet Union to get tricked into the labor election. “It is obvious,” Brusilov said, “the German people don’t know what is good for them so their votes are meaningless. Otherwise, they would have never allowed Hitler.”

Azov was further berated for failure to drive the West out of Berlin, but as he spoke he revealed that there was further use for the commissar. Azov breathed easier, knowing he would live a while longer.

“Our sacred mission is to collapse morale of the West before the Foreign Ministers’ Conference next month. The Western ministers must arrive in Berlin realizing that it is a Soviet city.”

Any last pretenses for the benefit of the German people that four-power unity remained was destroyed by a massive assault on the West with the Americans coming in for the heaviest battering. The People’s Radio and the Russian newspapers spearheaded the drive with the planting of rumors and the hurling of falsehoods.

THE NEW ARCHITECTS OF FASCISM, THE ILLEGAL COLONEL HAZZARD AND THE CORRUPT GENERAL HANSEN!