The Ten Thousand (27 page)
Not that even that point made a difference. Even now, as he listened to Chancellor Ruff go over the same ground covered by the members of his cabinet, Lewis was reminded how much he disliked listening to German. It was to him a very harsh language. The sharp, crisp manner in which the northern Germans spat out their words almost seemed to assault his ears. Though he imagined that he was just being a little hypersensitive because of the content, Lewis found his mind wandering as he tuned out Chancellor Ruff, just as President Wilson had when it had become obvious to her that direct talks between her and Ruff were fruitless. So, instead of paying attention to what was being said, he found himself wishing that it had been the French and not the Germans who had precipitated this crisis. The French language at least was more pleasing to the ear.
The American congressman’s lack of interest in what he was saying was not lost on Ruff, and it angered him. It angered him more than the fact that a mere congressman, and not a member of the President’s own council, was picked to come to Germany to hear them out. Well, Ruff thought, if the Amis are going to hold us in such low regard, then perhaps I can do something to make them see this whole affair in a new light.
Standing up, Ruff caught both Lewis and the German translator by surprise. “I see, Herr Congressman, that you are tiring of hearing the same thing over and over again. Perhaps you do not believe our resolve.”
Caught off guard and regretting that his disinterest had been so obvious, Lewis sat up and began to apologize. He was, however, cut short as Ruff began to speak without pause, making it difficult for the translator to keep up. “The realities of world politics and diplomacy in the modern world are both harsh and obvious. For years the great struggle was, as many have pointed out, between the haves and the have nots. But what few people have understood, or cared to understand, was that when the terms ‘have’
and ‘have not’ were used by the United States and the former Soviet Union, the speaker was not talking about monetary or mineral resources. No, Herr Congressman, have and have not, when it came to determining who would be listened to and who could be ignored, meant having the bomb or not having the bomb.” Ruff paused, allowing this statement to take root as he limped from behind his desk over to a wall where a map of Germany, with its 1938 borders lightly highlighted and extending from its current borders, was displayed. Stopping next to a German flag, Ruff turned back and looked at Lewis, ready to continue where he had left off.
“During the eighties, a great famine swept through much of Africa. Though the United States was concerned, officially it did little. The result, Herr Congressman, was millions of deaths, deaths of innocent women and children that were recorded on film and shown almost nightly in every home in America. In the early nineties, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the new republics of the Commonwealth faced the same fate, the nations of the world, led by the United States, tripped over themselves in an effort to rush aid to the poor Russians. And why, Herr Congressman, such a difference? The reason is obvious. Ethiopia had no nuclear-tipped missiles that could reach the United States.”
Lewis, shifting in his chair, finally found a chance to speak as Ruff paused. “That, Herr Chancellor, is a rather cynical view. Surely you must realize that? ”
With a clearly discernible edge in his voice, Ruff cut Lewis off. “This, Herr Congressman, is a very cynical world. Only those who are willing to accept that and deal with the reality of things as they are and not as they would like them to be will survive. Fifty years ago, Germany was a broken country. Mentally and physically we had reached the zero point. There was nothing. _Nothing. _ Even worse, Herr Congressman, if such a thing can be imagined, was the contempt with which your countrymen, cloaked in self-righteousness, came into our country and judged our people according to a morality that even your own government could not live up to.’ We sat helpless, broken, and exhausted, while you systematically created the theory of collective guilt and then proceeded to drag the German people, their culture, and their history, through the filth as if we were nothing but animals. And then, to add hypocrisy to hypocrisy, when it suited your needs, when the communists suddenly turned from friend to enemy and your businessmen needed new markets to exploit, we became acceptable again. But in your eyes, and in the eyes of the American politicians bought and paid for by the Jews, we never were, and never could be, your equal, worthy to sit down with you and share as equals. Well, Herr Congressman, we have paid for the sins of our fathers. For fifty years we have sat quietly while your countrymen pointed to us and told us that we should be ashamed of ourselves on one hand while using our people and our nation to achieve your political ends. It is time now that we turn our backs on the past and look to the future, to the new order in Central Europe, an order that has no room for the hypocrisy of American politics and meddling.”
Lewis, for the first time since arriving in Germany, found himself becoming uneasy. The words “new order” and the mention of the Jews in a negative connotation caused Lewis to visibly twitch. Satisfied that he was having the desired effect, Ruff continued, speaking now in a rather matter-of-fact tone. “I have been informed that your President demands that we turn the nuclear weapons we seized from Sembach back over to your control. That, in our view, would be akin to a policeman returning stolen goods to a thief and helping the thief load them into his car. Your nation has no legal right to those nuclear weapons.
None. That you think you do is simply another example of the contemptuous self-righteousness that you use to cloak your misguided and haphazard foreign policy. Rather than return those weapons, it is the decision of this government to keep them and incorporate them into a Central European arsenal that will allow all the nuclear ‘have nots’ in this part of the world to deal with the United States on an equal footing.
Even you, Herr Congressman, can understand that.”
After considering his response for several seconds, Lewis began to speak slowly, carefully choosing his words. “This is, I am sure, a matter that concerns more than the United States. You realize that the other nuclear powers in Western Europe, the French and British, not to mention the Russians to the east, are very concerned about a new nuclear power in Europe.” Lewis was about to add “especially a nuclear arsenal controlled by Germany,” but decided not to.
Ruff chuckled, having anticipated Lewis’s comments and understanding that the concern was for a nuclear Germany. “The French, with over one fifth of their population clustered around Paris, not to mention all their vital government and business centers, would not risk any rash and precipitous action against us. Even the detonation of two or three devices in the Paris metropolitan area would make the devastation and deaths of both world wars seem trivial in comparison. And the British, with their traditions of de facto recognition of reality and their own problems in controlling the Irish and Scottish minorities within their own island empire, will accept our new position with hardly more than an official protest.”
Determined to show that he was not intimidated and that he, as well as the United States, could not be easily bluffed, Lewis leaned over and tried to take up the attack. “Look, Herr Chancellor, you know as well as I do that those weapons as they sit right now are of no value to you. You didn’t even secure the codes necessary to activate the devices. According to our experts, it would take a great deal of effort, not to mention a small amount of luck, to make use of the weapons you have. I do not see what advantage your government hopes to achieve with such a hollow threat.”
If it had been Lewis’s intent to upset Ruff’s well-orchestrated lecture, then the smile that lit Ruff’s face showed that it had not had the desired effect. Shaking his head, Ruff continued to smile. “You think, Herr Congressman, that we are fools. You have been treating us like naughty children for so long that you assume that we cannot think or act on our own behalf. Well, let me assure you that we are not children.
And the game that we are now playing out here and out there is no child’s game. So that you understand, in terms that even your President can comprehend, we are not only capable of retaining those weapons and using them, but we are more than willing to do so.”
The look on Lewis’s face betrayed his shocked disbelief. Ruff, seeing that his words had struck at Lewis’s heart like a dagger, gave that dagger a twist. “You see, Herr Congressman, the Ukrainian government has provided us with the necessary codes and information for activating the weapons. As we speak, technical advisors from the Ukrainian Army, an army which you attacked and embarrassed, are working with the Bundeswehr and Luftwaffe to retrofit those devices to suitable delivery platforms. We are, you see, quite prepared and ready to deal with the United States or any nation from a position of strength. The German Revolution of 1989 has reached its logical conclusion. We are, and by every right, a world power. And neither you, your President, nor your tiny Army freezing in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, can change that, without paying a price that is, by any measure, too much.”
When Chancellor Ruff was finished, Congressman Ed Lewis walked out of the Chancellor’s office as if in a daze. He didn’t even acknowledge Jan Fields-Dixon’s presence as she hurried to join him. Only after he had thrown himself into the back seat of their Mercedes limousine and had allowed himself to sink, physically and figuratively, into the seat did his blank, pale expression change. Even then, his new expression was one that betrayed Lewis’s sense of despair and hopelessness to Jan. Knowing that in due time Lewis would tell her everything that he was authorized to tell her, and probably more, she left him alone. Whatever had been said in the private meeting between Lewis and Chancellor Ruff had crushed Lewis’s hope of a quick and amiable settlement. Reining in her correspondent’s curiosity, Jan simply sat, like Lewis, watching the sights of Berlin rush by them as the limousine took them to the American embassy before their return home. She had, after all, been invited along on this trip by Lewis to serve as another set of eyes and ears to help him observe the mood of the German people as well as their elected officials. Though it was not normal for a politician of Lewis’s status to entrust such a task to a member of the media, the special bond of friendship and trust that existed between Lewis and Jan, as well as her ability to see things that others missed, made Jan Fields-Dixon an invaluable asset.
Finally, after traveling awhile in silence, Lewis turned to Jan and exclaimed in a low, almost plaintive voice, “We’re going to have to fight these people. I can’t see any other way out.” Looking out the window at the streets filled with scores of Berliners going about their daily tasks, Lewis repeated his statement, almost to himself. “We’re going to have to fight these people.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Again.”
Both Lewis’s demeanor and his pained comments shocked Jan like nothing had in a long time.
Mistakenly referred to as a pacifist, Lewis had spent his entire political career, ever since resigning his commission in the Tennessee National Guard, fighting anyone who dared advocate the use of military force as a substitute to bankrupt foreign policy or as a solution to an international crisis. The American military was created and maintained, he was fond of saying, to safeguard American security, not to export and impose American principles or to make the world safe for corporate America. The United States, he told his opponents, had no right to impose its views or order on anyone, for whatever reason.
Lewis’s comment, therefore, was one that Jan was ill prepared for.
The quiet business-as-usual attitude of the Berliners along their route was absent as the limousine carrying Lewis and Jan pulled up to the entrance of the embassy. Double lines of police, stern-faced and in riot gear, stood posted at both ends of the street and in a semicircle around the embassy’s main entrance. Though the throngs of people that faced the police were quiet, content at that moment to merely hold their signs and shuffle about in the slush in an effort to stay warm, Jan could see that both sides stood braced, ready for action. Even inside the embassy compound, the Marine detachment, in battle gear and armed alternately with rifles and shotguns, stood ready to deal with all comers.
If Lewis noticed any of this, he showed no concern. When the limousine stopped in front of the foyer, Lewis headed into the building, hands buried deep in the pockets of his overcoat and head bowed. Even when he was inside, he ignored the embassy staff as he headed down the corridors and up the stairs, followed by Jan, to the office he had been using over the past two days. Once there, he went to a chair overlooking the main embassy courtyard, where he sat staring vacantly out the window, without bothering to remove his coat. Seeing that he was, to say the least, uncommunicative, Jan left him to go in search of coffee and something to eat. Food and drink, she thought, might help him overcome his gloom.
And if it did nothing for him, at least Jan’s search for it gave her something to do with her nervous energy.
When she returned with a serving tray filled with breakfast pastries, coffeepot, and cups and saucers, Lewis finally began to stir. Whether it was the clanking noise of the cups and plates on the tray that Jan intentionally made or the smell of the fresh-perked coffee that brought Lewis about didn’t matter. As she poured a cup for both of them, Lewis stood up, slipped his overcoat off, jammed his hands into his pants pockets, and walked over to Jan. Accepting a cup fixed just the way he liked it from Jan, Lewis watched her as he waited until she had prepared her own cup and stood facing him. Finally ready to speak, he looked Jan in the eye, took a sip of coffee, and smiled. It was, to Jan, a tired, unhappy little smile.
“You know, Jan, I’m constantly amazed by the way you and Amanda go about through this world each in your own way, but very much the same.”
Struck by this strange comment, Jan wondered if she had missed something. But she knew she hadn’t, so she said nothing, allowing Lewis to ramble on between sips of coffee.