The Man with the Iron Heart (18 page)

Bokov brought his mind back to the business at hand. “Give me the address, sir. I’ll take care of everything.” He wouldn’t have even wiggled without orders. Now that he had them, he couldn’t get in trouble for carrying them out.

He turned out not to need to show the jailer Shteinberg’s authorization. “Do whatever you please with those people,” the man told him. “If you need to take them all, go ahead. I don’t want them around. The anti-Soviet bandits on the outside are liable to try and liberate them.”

“They won’t liberate these four fuckers, but you’ve got to hang on to the rest,” Bokov said. “We may sweat more out of them.”

“Yes, Comrade Captain.” The jailer was the one doing the sweating.

Bokov shot the prisoners, one after the other. He was no butcher, though. At his orders, a sergeant took care of the necessary mutilation. “These cunts have it coming, eh?” the underofficer said.

“Of course,” Bokov answered. The sergeant didn’t seem to care much one way or the other. He was just making conversation while he worked.

Carrying the relevant remains in a canvas duffel—a damned heavy duffel now—Bokov went out onto the chilly streets of Berlin. A large number of the men out and about were Red Army soldiers. With padded jackets and felt boots, they were equipped for worse weather than this. Most of them also carried either a rifle or a submachine gun. If anyone gave overt trouble, they were ready. But what could you do against a fanatic with a bomb under his clothes or in a pushcart—or, worst of all, against a fanatic driving a truck full of explosives?

Most German men mooched around in shabby, threadbare
Wehrmacht
greatcoats. German winter gear had been a joke the first year of the war, though Bokov doubted the Hitlerites thought it was funny. They’d got better at it later on, but their stuff was never as good as what the Red Army used.

Quite a few German women wore
Wehrmacht
greatcoats, too. The ones in civilian clothes looked as mousy as they could. They scuttled here and there like cockroaches, trying not to get far from a doorway or alley into which they could escape. Nothing like the orgy of rape that accompanied Berlin’s fall went on any more, but the local women stayed scared.
Good,
Bokov thought.

Four men in sharp Western suits and topcoats strolled up Stalin Allee, chattering in what had to be English. They stood out like peacocks in a flock of crows. One of them pulled out a notebook and wrote something in it.

Who does he think he is?
the scandalized Bokov wondered.
Can he spy so openly?
But the American or Englishman or whatever he was certainly could. Russians could go freely into the U.S., British, and French zones in Berlin, and it worked the other way, too. That was just wrong. One of these days, somebody would have to do something about it.

Catching Bokov’s eye, one of the foreigners tipped his snap-brim fedora. The NKVD man wouldn’t have minded wearing a hat like that. It had style. He touched the brim of his own officer’s cap and walked on.

Idly, he wondered how well the Americans and British were dealing with bandit troubles in western Germany. He knew they had some; their papers, and those they permitted their Germans, gabbled about them in ways no Soviet censor would have tolerated for an instant. It surprised him. At the end of the war, the Nazis seemed eager to give up to the Western allies but went on fighting like maniacs against the USSR. Heydrich and his followers took on everyone. They really
were
fanatics, then. Bokov hoped they’d pay for it.

Finding the building he wanted wasn’t easy. Half the houses and shops and offices along Stalin Allee had been flattened or burned. A lot of the others had taken damage of one kind or another. Street numbers were few and far between.

He could have asked a Berliner. He snorted, fog bursting from his nose and mouth. He was damned if he would. Then he snorted again, on a higher note. A Berliner wasn’t just somebody from Berlin. It was also the local word for a jelly doughnut. He could have done with one of those right now.

He finally found what had to be the place. By the way people went in and out, it looked to be a cheap eatery, or maybe a tavern. That made some sense. The fanatics could use the flow of customers to hide whatever they were up to.

Bokov went in. It was a tavern, one of the shoddiest excuses for one he’d ever seen. Three men scurried out a hole in the side wall as soon as they glimpsed his uniform. The bruiser behind the bar kept his hands out of sight. What did he have under there? A Schmeisser? Bokov wouldn’t have been surprised.

In his best German, he said, “There’s a cordon around this place. They’ve already nabbed the rats who ran. If I don’t come out in ten minutes, nobody here will like what happens next.” He was bluffing, but the Germans didn’t know that. He hoped.

“So what’ll it be, then?” the barman asked.

“Beer,” Bokov answered. If they had anything, they had that.

He laid a ten-mark occupation note on the bar. The man took it and started to make change. Bokov waved for him not to bother. With a grunt, the fellow gave him a seidel. “Drink fast,” he suggested.

“Don’t worry—I will.” Bokov did. The beer was surprisingly good. He set the duffel down beside him and turned a little to one side to keep an eye on the men sitting at the battered table. They watched him, too.

“You got your nerve, Ivan, poking your nose in here,” the barman said.

With a shrug, Bokov set down the mug. “All part of a day’s work.” He started out.

“You forgot something,” a man called after him.

“Keep it. You’ll know who needs to hear about it, anyhow.” Bokov didn’t sigh with relief till he’d got a hundred meters away.

Diana McGraw was packed. She was ready. Tomorrow morning, Ed would put her on the train for Washington. Tonight, they were going to see
The Bells of St. Mary’s
along with Betsy and Buster. Diana knew Ed would stare at Ingrid Bergman every instant she was on the screen, and never mind that she was playing a nun. Diana didn’t mind…much. If you were male and didn’t stare at Ingrid Bergman, you were probably dead. And…something interesting might happen after her daughter and son-in-law went home to their baby. Inspiration—or something—was where you found it.

“Shall we go, babe?” Ed said.

“Sure.” Diana put on her coat. It was down in the twenties: nothing out of the ordinary, not in Anderson in December. The weatherman said it wouldn’t snow for another couple of days, but what did the weatherman know?

They went out. Ed started up the Pontiac. When you worked for Delco, they looked at you funny if you drove anything but a General Motors car. They didn’t usually say anything, but they remembered.

“Glad I’ve got a heater,” Ed remarked, pulling the lever that got it going.

“It’ll start putting out hot air right about when we get there,” Diana said. Ed grunted, but didn’t try to tell her she was wrong. The Bijou was only a few blocks away. In summer, they would have walked over. They still could have, but the car was nicer, especially with gas rationing gone at last.

Downtown Anderson was bright lights and tinsel and stores open late to snag more Christmas shoppers. With the war over, with money in their pockets and purses, most people were in a festive mood. Diana would have been, but…. “I wish Pat were here, too,” she saidas Ed slid into a parking space.

“Oh, boy, me, too.” He shook his head and stuck the key in his pocket. He didn’t bother locking the car—nobody was likely to steal it. He didn’t put a nickel in the parking meter, either. It was after six o’clock.

He paid for their tickets at the box office. Then he and Diana walked into the lobby. Betsy and Buster were already there, buying Cokes and popcorn. Ed got some, too. “We’re free!” Betsy exclaimed, adding, “For a few hours, anyway.”

“Free, nothing,” Buster said. “I’m gonna have to pay Karen Galpin a buck and a half when we get home.”

“Worth it,” Betsy declared. Diana remembered how glad she’d been to get out of the house once in a while when Betsy and Pat were little. Babysitters were worth the money, and then some.

The Bijou had seen better days. Too many feet had trodden the carpet. Too many bottoms had worn through the velvet on the seats. Even the curtain looked shabby and faded. During the war, people’d had more important things to worry about. Now, most of them didn’t.

But the war’s not over, not for everybody,
Diana thought.
It should be, but it’s not.

She sat down. The seat creaked under her—yes, the Bijou needed work. Well, the management would likely be able to afford it. The place was filling up fast. Everybody wanted either to stare at Ingrid Bergman or to listen to Bing Crosby.

People sighed with anticipation when the house lights went down. Then they laughed or whistled or let out catcalls, because the curtain got stuck while it was still half closed. A guy in overalls lugged out a tall ladder as the lights came up again. A teenage kid scaled the ladder, nimble as a squirrel. He fiddled with something out of sight, then flashed a thumbs-up. The curtain moved freely. The audience gave him a hand as he descended. He waved, his face red. The lights dimmed once more.

Naturally, the newsreel came first. There were scenes of tiny, exquisite Japanese women in kimonos bowing to GI’s who seemed half again as tall.
They know they’re licked. Why don’t the Germans?
Diana thought resentfully. But, beside her, Buster muttered, “Miserable little monkeys.” Japanese fire had made sure he wouldn’t play football again.

By what the smooth-voiced announcer said, everything was peachy in Japan, at least if you were an American—and who cared what happened to the Japs? Then, echoing what had just been in Diana’s mind, the man went on, “But on the other side of the world, things are harder. One of our correspondents in the American zone in Germany obtained this disturbing footage for us. Anonymous U.S. Army sources assure us it’s genuine.”

There on the big screen, a battered, frightened young man said, “My name is Michael Cunningham, private, U.S. Army….”

Diana crossed herself. She murmured a prayer for the soldier’s family. There were even worse things than what had happened to Pat. She’d read the stories in the paper, of course. Seeing the poor kidnapped soldier was a thousand times worse.

“Naturally, the United States could not yield to the fanatics’ demands,” the announcer said. “I am sad to have to tell you that Private Cunningham’s body was discovered not far from Regensburg, which is northeast of Munich.” Diana watched a couple of GIs tenderly lift a canvas-wrapped bundle into the back of a jeep. The announcer went on, “The Army is pursuing the heartless fanatics who murdered Private Cunningham, and expects to make arrests soon.”

Diana wondered why the Army expected to do that. To look good in the newsreels? She was getting more and more suspicious of everything the government claimed. The Army sure hadn’t had much luck getting rid of the fanatics up till now.

The newsreel went on with floods and spectacular car crashes and highlights from football games. Diana couldn’t care about any of them. The Flash Gordon serial that followed also left her cold. Spaceships! What a bunch of nonsense that was! (But then, she would have said the same thing about atom bombs a few months earlier.)

Even
The Bells of St. Mary’s
had trouble cheering her up. That told her how far down she was more clearly than anything else could have. But Ed and Betsy and Buster enjoyed it. She could enjoy their enjoyment, even with none of her own.

Afterwards, as they went out into the cold, Betsy sighed and said, “Back to the pressure cooker.”

“It gets better. It gets easier,” Diana said. She wondered if she would ever feel the same way about the burden she carried.

After she and Ed got back to the house, they talked for a few minutes about nothing Diana remembered the next day and then went to bed. She wasn’t amazed when he reached for her under the covers. She didn’t quite feel like it, but she let him pull her close. If he didn’t fully please her, he never knew it. He went into the bathroom for a minute, then came back and started to snore right away.

She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. She had to get up early tomorrow to catch the train for Washington, but sleep stayed away. The ticking clock sat on his nightstand. She looked over at it, but couldn’t read the dimly glowing hands. Her sigh sounded just like her daughter’s. After what seemed a very long time, her eyes slid shut at last.

C
APTAIN
H
OWARD
F
RANK WAS NOT A HAPPY MAN
. H
E STARED AT
L
OU
as if over the sights of a machine gun. “You know this
mamzer
Schmidt?”

“I’ve run into him a few times.” Lou told the truth. If he didn’t, his superior could find out easily enough. And when he did…Lou didn’t care to think about that. He wanted out of the Army, yeah, but not with a court-martial giving him a boot in the seat of the pants.

Frank drummed his fingers on the card table that did duty for his desk. “What d’you think of him?”

Lou shrugged. “He’s a reporter. He’ll never make anybody forget Shirer or Howard K. Smith.”

“He’s doing his goddamnedest.” The CIC captain drummed harder. “What d’you know about how he got his hands on that film?”

Ice walked up Lou’s back. Did the brass think he had something to do with that? “Only what he’s said, which isn’t much.”

“Which isn’t
bupkis,
” Frank snapped. “A German gave it to him! That only cuts it down to eighty million people. Maybe to forty million, if it’s a fucking kraut from the American zone. Hot damn!”

“We ought to get more than that out of him,” Lou said.

“No kidding! But he’s a civilian. He goes on about not revealing his sources. All we can do is ship his sorry ass back to the States.” Captain Frank made as if to tear his thinning hair. “Yeah, throw
me
in the briar patch, too, why don’t you? And you know what else?”

“No, but you’re gonna tell me, aren’t you?” Lou said.

“You better believe it. The isolationist chowderheads who want us to bring all the boys home day before yesterday, they’ll make a hero out of him.” Frank lit a cigarette. He looked mad enough to breathe fire and smoke without one. “They’ll say he was telling the truth, and the Army’s trying to hide how horrible things are over here. They’ll wrap him in the First Amendment and beat us over the head with it.”

The Army
was
trying to hide how bad things were in Germany. It would have been crazy not to, as far as Lou was concerned. You did what needed doing. And if holding down the resurgent Nazis didn’t need doing, he’d never seen anything that did. But these—
chowderheads
struck him as much too nice a word—wanted to joggle Truman’s elbow.

“What can we do about it, sir?” Lou asked.

“Find out where his footage came from—that’d make a halfway decent start,” Captain Frank answered. He blew out more smoke. “And relax, for cryin’ out loud. I’m pretty sure you’re clean, ’cause we checked you out…. That surprise you?”

“Not for this, sir,” Lou said slowly. “I would’ve hoped you could’ve trusted me, but…. With this, you want to know. It’s the Army.”

“Hey, they’ve been on my ass, too,” Frank said reproachfully. He rolled his eyes. “
Gottenyu,
have they ever. They really want to know how this Schmidt item got his hands on that movie.”

“What’s your best guess?” Lou asked.

“Same one Bruce the morale officer made when I first showed it to you,” Frank answered. “Heydrich’s goons figured we’d try and sit on it, so they made more copies and spread ’em around. Schmidt got his hands on one some kind of way.”

“Makes sense to me.” Lou’s chuckle held no real mirth. “If we were the
Gestapo,
we’d ram splinters under his fingernails and set ’em on fire. He’d sing—he’d sing like a goddamn canary. Or even if we were the NKVD, over in the Russian zone.” His gaze sharpened. “How bad is it, over in the Russian zone? D’you know?”

Captain Frank hesitated. “Officially, you didn’t get this from me.”

“Get what, sir?” Lou was the picture of innocence.

“Okay.” His superior’s laugh sounded as dry as his had a moment before. “From what I hear, if the fanatics don’t want us occupying them, they
really
don’t want the Russians occupying them. So they’re kicking up their heels in the Russian zone and in what Poland’s holding and in the Czech mountains, too. But the Russians aren’t Mr. Nice Guy like we are. They aren’t taking the gloves off, on account of they never put the gloves on to begin with. So things are kinda rugged over there right now.”

Lou nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I bet. They ever ask how things are going over here?”

“Not through channels, or not that I’ve heard of, and I think I would have,” Frank answered.

“Too bad. It’d be nice if we were still making like allies on something, you know?” Lou said.

“It would, wouldn’t it?” Frank agreed. As soon as the Germans went down for the count, the USA and the USSR started glaring at each other over the fallen body—and in the Far East, too. Berlin wasn’t going to be the capital that ruled the world. Washington and Moscow both had ambitions along those lines. Neither liked the idea that the other had ambitions. Lou didn’t know what he could do about that. Well, actually, he did know what
he
could do—
bupkis,
as Captain Frank had said. But he didn’t know what anyone else could do, either.

“I wonder if we ought to talk to their people,” Lou said. “We might do better against Heydrich’s boys if we were all fighting the same war, not two separate ones—know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do,” Frank said. “But you are not to talk to the Russians without orders from somebody above you. That’s a direct order, Lou. You try sliding around it and I promise the brass will crucify you. When they aren’t looking for Nazis under the bed, they’re looking for Reds. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Lou said resignedly—he knew Frank was right.

“Besides,” the captain went on, “we aren’t fighting two separate wars against the fanatics. We’re fighting four. Well, we do work with the English some, but the French are almost as prickly as the Russians—and almost as rough on the Jerries, too.”

“I’ve heard that. Breaks my heart,” Lou said, which won him another wry laugh from Captain Frank. They weren’t the only American Jews who wouldn’t have been sorry to see their own government come down harder on the Germans it ruled, not by a long shot. Lou added, “French’re getting some of their own back for four years under the Nazis’ thumbs.”

“Sure they are,” Frank said. “But it still rubs me the wrong way when de Gaulle goes on about turning France into a great power again when it wouldn’t be diddly-squat if we weren’t propping it up.”