Ian Slater - Rage of Battle

In Berlin’s Alexanderplatz it was 11:45 p.m. and also raining, but here no rights were being read to the prisoner, and the crowd of one of the suburban “committees against terrorism” were a sullen lot, dragged out in the rain as witnesses to what happened to anyone found spying against the newly declared people’s German Democratic Republic. Behind them, there was the smell of chicory from the ersatz coffee being brewed in the police station.

What made the charge even more serious than usual was that the prisoner had been found wearing a uniform of the people’s antiaircraft battery. The Alexanderplatz was chosen because, while it was some distance from the point of arrest, it afforded the authorities maximum propaganda value, for television cameras were already installed overlooking the Platz, and the population at large could see the penalty for actions against the state.

“Could I please,” asked the prisoner with great dignity, “leave a message for my wife and family in Frankfurt?”

“No,” answered the stabfeldwebel who had arrested him at the roadblock, “you may not.”

As they blindfolded him, Leonhard Meir thought of his son, who had fought at Fulda Gap, and wondered whether he was alive or dead. As the stabfeldwebel pinned the white paper disk on Meir’s boiler suit, Meir started to say something, but his throat was so dry, no sound came.

As the shots rang out across the vast Platz, the citizens of Lübars had already turned to head home.

“I’d rather you volunteered your help,” snapped La Roche, his lean, tanned frame reclining in the ultramodern chair that overlooked Pearl Harbor from his top-floor office of the La Roche Building.

Two Forrestal-class carriers, though in the safety of the harbor, were surrounded by a swarm of destroyers and fast-guided missile frigates, loading up with supplies. Though it wasn’t general knowledge, La Roche knew this battle group would be the second to head for the Aleutians, his sources in Washington informing him that while the war in Korea was going well for a change, Japan’s move north to protect her western flank meant that the United States” ‘back door,” the Aleutians, might be endangered as the Soviets sought to isolate Japan from the vital supply routes to and from the United States. He’d heard that already elements of the Third Fleet out of Yokosuka were steaming toward the far-flung islands. Whichever way it went, Jay La Roche was satisfied he was in the right place at the right time, Hawaii being the supply hub for America’s Pacific war.

“It’s not that I’m unwilling to help,” replied the congressman, adjusting his tie of dark maroon and blue stripes against the starched white shirt that contrasted with the blue striped suit. “But this trouble with your wife—” He was very careful not to say “ex-wife.” “Well, what she did up there off Halifax — I mean, it’s a very touchy subject with the navy. They’re sticklers for discipline, as you know, and if she suddenly transferred out of there — to here — well, Waikiki’s hardly a hardship posting. It’ll look awfully suspicious.”

“Suspicious to who?” asked La Roche angrily, using his letter opener as a drumstick on his desk of Carrara marble, the same kind, he told all visitors, that was used by Michelangelo.

The congressman shifted uneasily. “It would be suspicious to everyone stationed up there.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” said La Roche, his drumming on the marble increasing. “All I’m interested in is getting her the hell out of there. And back here.”

“I understand your feelings, Mr. La Roche…”

“No you don’t,” said La Roche. He was tired of one-night stands. There was nothing after. He wanted her back, damn it. Way the world was going, you never knew. You had to take what you wanted when you wanted it, otherwise it might be too late. He’d promise to behave — cut down on the booze and dust. “I can get you unelected, Congressman. Easy as I put you there. Anyway, why the fuck should you care what a bunch of stumblebums in the navy thinks anyway—”

“Mr. La Roche, my boy’s fighting in Korea. If I can’t get him out—”

“You can get him out.”

The congressman tried to look La Roche straight in the eye. It was difficult; La Roche’s eyes bored into you with more experience behind them than most men accumulated in a whole lifetime. “I don’t…” continued the congressman, “want to pull special favors for my son.”

“Then you’re a goddamned fool. Anyway, if you have a quiet word with the navy — sweeten it with the promise of increased appropriations or whatever — who’s going to know?”

“I will,” said the congressman quietly, his voice seemingly swallowed by the vastness of the plush gray-pile-carpeted office.

“I don’t mean your kid, for Chrissake,” said La Roche, temper rising. “I mean, who’s going to know about my wife?”

“Word gets out.”

La Roche opened a drawer, pulled out an Irish bond envelope, and walking closer to the panoramic view, slid the envelope across the marble desk. “No, Congressman. Word doesn’t get out — not if you pay enough. Now, how much do you want?”

The congressman was surprised. La Roche was smarter than that; he’d banked from New York to Shanghai. He should have known that on some things, even congressmen can’t be bought. “I don’t want money,” he told La Roche.

“Course you fucking do. Ten grand? Twenty? You’re already a whore. All we’re talking now is price. I’ve bought your way to Capitol Hill and you know it.”

“I like to think that some people voted for me,” said the congressmen evenly.

“Think what you fucking like — but I bought the commercial that bought you the vote. Mr. Fucking Nice and Clean-Robert Redford from the Sunbelt. Don’t give me a dance.” La Roche walked back to the desk and slid the envelope closer to the congressman. “Go on, have a look.” La Roche spun the envelope opener, which, in the fluorescent light, threw a series of long white slashes on the high ceiling. “I know your boy’s in Korea,” he said. “American Division. Near Racin. Port for Pyongyang — or it was until our bombers pounded the shit out of it.” The congressman tried to hide his surprise at the extent of La Roche’s knowledge about his son.

La Roche shrugged nonchalantly, sat down, and swung his high-backed leather chair around toward the harbor, watching a fog bank that was moving inshore. “You shouldn’t feel out of it,” he told the congressman. “You’re not the only—” He almost said “gofer” but used “connection” instead.

“Then why don’t you have your other connection fix the transfer?” asked the congressman, looking down at the unopened envelope.

La Roche was watching the fog starting to roll as the warm land eddies rose from beneath the cooler air of the sea. La Roche spoke without turning back to face the congressman. “He’s in Japan at the moment. I can hardly fax him, can I? Besides, he’s busy over there. If we don’t watch it, we’re going to lose our supply of China crude.”

The congressman lifted the envelope. It was heavy. As he began opening it, he had to admit to himself that La Roche certainly was well informed. The fact that the United States, because the fighting in the Mideast had effectively dried up Arab shipments of oil, depended for up to 30 percent of its oil supply on China crude, was a little-known and carefully unpublicized statistic in the United States.

La Roche turned away from the window and stood behind the congressman, looking down at the contents of the envelope. “I like the redhead,” Jay said. “How old’s he? Sixteen — seventeen? Hard to tell with you on top of him. His face is in the shadow, but that’s you, all right, isn’t it?”