Armageddon - Leon Uris

The Airlifting of the thousands of tons of machinery and supplies for the new runway was the minor part of the story.

There was no steel or rock for foundation of a runway that had to measure from two to ten feet in thickness. Western Berlin was searched for unused rail lines which were pulled up and carted to Tegel. Rubble and paving stones were hauled in.

A volunteer labor force was assembled from the people. The pay was poor, but there would be a hot meal served on each shift to keep them going. Twenty thousand Berliners answered the call!

Nearly half this force were women and they reported to work wearing dresses, business suits, dilapidated army uniforms, wooden shoes, tennis shoes, barefooted, wearing bathing suits in the heat, rags in the rain.

Every facet of the social and professional life was represented in this labor army that in the aspects of its massiveness resembled the construction of an Egyptian pyramid. But, unlike Egyptian slaves, these people worked themselves into exhaustion with a tenacity beyond measure, for there is no way to measure human determination.

A small force of fifteen American officers and less than a hundred enlisted men governed them as they cleaned, salvaged, crushed, carted, shoveled, and spread by hand a million feet of rock and brick.

The airport which they said could not be built in a year under the circumstances was nearing completion in a mere ninety days!

Ernestine returned to bed as the lights of Reinickendorf went out and the neighboring borough of Wedding was given their two-hour quota. Sean had fallen back to sleep. She hoped there would be no early call from his Headquarters today.

Chapter Twenty-four

NELSON GOODFELLOW BRADBURY INHERITED the deal at a table of colleagues at the Dahlem Press Club.

“Low ball,” he announced.

“They landed another five thousand tons by GCA today,” Clarke of AP said.

“I’ll open,” said Whittsett from Hearst

“The next Russian move has got to be a corker,” Clarke mumbled.

“My next move is to call you.”

“Call.”

“Beats me.”

“Call.”

“What do you think, Nellie? Where do they hit next?” Bishop of CBS pondered.

“They’ve got a number of possibilities. Clamp down on smuggling, try a physical take-over of the City Hall and Magistrat ... number of possibilities.”

A waiter behind him bent forward to speak. “Telephone, sir.”

He passed the deal to Clarke and lumbered to the phone booth.

“Hello, Nelson Bradbury speaking.”

“You know who is here speaking?”

Nellie recognized the gauzed mouthpiece “disguise” of a Russian press officer named Sobotnik.

“Yes.”

“It would be in your interest to leave the club now and walk west on Argentinische Allee for further contact.”

Click.

Nellie shook his mop. The great Russian mania for secrecy and mystery had to be served. He cashed out of the game and left the club. The streets looked like London during the blackout days.

He walked a great enough distance to establish that he was alone and unfollowed. Sure enough, a black staff car from the Russian Embassy trolled past slowly from the other side of the street. Nellie stopped at the corner, yawned, waited for the car to make a second pass.

Two men emerged, unmistakably NKVD. They could be distinguished even in the poor light ... they played their parts like bad actors: large brim hats, ill-fitting double-breasted suits, bony faces, sinister manner.

He got into the car on orders and held up his handkerchief to offer it as a blindfold. The NKVD men did not think it was funny. They drew the curtains and whisked down the Potsdamer Chaussee and over to the suburb of castles and mansions. He was driven to the fortress of Marshal Alexei Popov, led to a library, and closed in.

He speculated on the nature of his midnight summons. The Soviet strategy was clear. They wanted to keep the West talking and force concessions because of the pressure of the blockade. Yet, they were in no hurry, because all the top Soviet planners predicted a collapse of the Airlift in the winter.

In Moscow and at the United Nations their statesmen talked in circles. Just as the West indicated breaking off negotiations, the Soviets yielded just enough to keep the talks on. They agreed to a plan for new four-power currency for Berlin. On the surface it appeared to be a Russian softening. However, Marshal Popov received instructions to prevent actual execution of the agreement.

Despite the blackmail card of the blockade, Nellie felt a number of things were giving the Russians short hours of sleep. The Berliners were proving to be pressureproof. The Americans and British came back from the disaster of Blue Monday with the ground-controlled approach landings and now some sort of engineering miracle was taking place at Tegel. The Russians wanted no part of the coming December elections in Berlin.

Finally, a rising anger of world opinion was stronger than expected. Rallies for Berlin were erupting everywhere and the German people were showing a unity that was frightening to the Russian mind.

The silver fox of the Soviets, Marshal Alexei Popov, came to the library in an amiable mood.

“So good of you to come.”

“Are you going to behead me, Marshal?”

Popov slapped Bradbury on the shoulder. “I have liked always your candor. Sit, please.”

Nellie loaded his glass with vodka and whacked away at the tray of caviar, paper-thin slices of Polish ham, smoked sturgeon, and other delectables long missing on the other side of the Brandenburg Gate.

“I want to clarify misconceptions of the Soviet position. Your press should expose your people to the truth of the situation.”

In all of his travels Big Nellie always wondered if they believed their own words. “Let us say, sir, that we expose our people to your side of the question ... almost as you expose the Russian people to our side.”

Popov laughed heartily. He knew he could not bully the journalist and wished no further repartee with him.

Popov reviewed the situation, said the West was in Berlin illegally, and had turned the city into a base for spies. In the zones of occupation Nazis were being used to rebuild the German military for a war of revenge against the Soviet Union.

Nellie doodled some notes, hearing nothing new, and knowing this was not why he was called to Potsdam.

Popov continued to say that the friendly and peace-loving Soviet people had tried to make a settlement, but talks had failed because of Western treaty-breaking.

“Mainly, it is a lie that the Soviet Union is using the threat of starvation in Berlin. There is no blockade of Berlin!”

The body blow had been delivered!

“The Airlift aggression is unnecessary. The Soviet Union guarantees food for every Berliner and to return to work all of those workers unemployed by the American and British aggression.”

Nelson Goodfellow Bradbury went away from Potsdam a worried man. No one in the American and British headquarters, and not the most optimistic Berliner, believed the Airlift could keep the city going during the winter.

The Russian guarantee of food and jobs might prove irresistible to the Berlin housewife with a couple of children and the man thrown out of work and was meant to crush the West, for the price of Russian food and jobs was acceptance of the Russian currency.

He was deposited a few blocks from the Press Club, and immediately called Sean, who was in the room at Reinickendorf. “You better get me to see General Hansen,” he said excitedly.

In the middle of the morning the Western governors, the Berlin commandants, and the German political leaders floundered without course. Popov and the Russians had trapped them. There was no choice but to wait and see.