Armageddon - Leon Uris

“The doors were always open until our flyers started getting killed.”

“When does all this stop?”

“A long time ago we made a pact not to talk politics. It’s too late in the day to get involved in Marxist dialogue.”

“A parting thought perhaps. That would not be treaty-breaking.”

“What good would it do, Colonel Karlovy? Where you are going you cannot pursue your curiosity.”

“That does not keep me from being curious.”

“It will end when the Russian people stop accepting their own degradation as a condition of life and when the Russian people refuse to allow themselves to be used to degrade other human beings.”

Igor was white-lipped. “I’m sure I don’t understand you.”

“I’m sure you do,” Sean said.

The Russian smiled, gulped down his vodka in the grand style, nodded to Ernestine, shook Sean’s hand, coldly, and started for the door, then turned. “I should like your assistance on a personal matter,” he sputtered.

Igor loathed himself for each step of his return. He sat, filled his glass again, stared glumly at the floor. “The girl, Lotte, is with child ... she has a damned fool notion that doctors in the American Zone are better. In this instance, the mother bears the entire burden and I honor her decision,” he lied. “Will you help her cross over?”

“Yes.”

“Good, she will be pleased. What do you want her to do?”

“Is she able to move around freely?” Sean asked bluntly.

Igor was now faced with the first of his confessions. “No ... the two of us do not go out together ... because of the lack of transportation,” he further lied.

“When you are at Headquarters, is she free to move?”

Igor did not want to answer, but knew he must.

“My chauffeur is from the ... political side of things ... she is always in his sight.”

“Does she ever cross through the Gate?”

“From time to time she is driven to the free market in the Tiergarten.”

“Good enough,” Sean said. The quicker the execution was made, the better the chance for success. “Tomorrow,” he said.

Igor’s pain registered visibly.

“Tomorrow,” Sean repeated, “between noon and two o’clock she is to come to Tiergarten. She is to carry absolutely nothing out. She will wear a red bandanna and look for a vendor named Braunschweiger. She will identify herself to him as Helen and ask to purchase a Swiss watch.”

“The driver?”

“He will be accosted and delayed by some British security people the moment she makes contact. They will demand to see his papers and otherwise stall him. We will create a confusion and during it she will be taken out and hidden. I can’t tell you how, but we’ll get her back to the zone.”

Igor nodded that he understood. The final degradation was on him now. He took a letter from his tunic and handed it to Sean. It was instructions to a West Sector bank where he had a blind, numbered account in B marks. “This will take care of her and the child for a number of years.”

Ernestine realized that this was no spur of the moment plan, but a long thought out and dangerous move. “How can you let her go knowing you will never see your own child!”

Igor smiled pathetically. “I can assure you, fraulein, it is not easy.”

Sean put his hand on Igor’s shoulder. “We can get you over too.”

Igor shook his head. “We don’t learn, either of us. The greatest single mistake made by the Soviet command was not to understand how much an American loves his country. You see, Colonel O’Sullivan ... a Russian loves his just as much.”

“But in Berlin you are wrong,” Sean said.

“That is the final love,” Igor said. “To know the faults and the wrongs of that which you love ... and go on loving just the same.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

SCOTT DAVIDSON WAS GIVEN a new toy to play with.

The first Boeing C-97, a mammoth multipurpose transport called the Stratofreighter, arrived at Rhein/Main. Twin-decked, its four powerful Pratt Whitney engines could cruise at half again the speed of the Douglas Skymaster and bring in a twenty-five-ton pay load.

The tail had a pair of clam-shell doors and a self-contained power hoist running the length of the plane that could load on and set in large pieces of machinery, trucks, cannons, then roll them forward on the ball-bearing strips on the floor.

It was a magnificent ship destined to serve MATS as an interim plane until even larger and faster transports could be developed; America knew now that she must never again be without Airlift capacity.

The roomy forward-control cabin seemed like a summer palace after the confines of the Gooney Birds and Skymasters. Scott tested the ship with the Boeing people, certain that his new love of this big old bird was a sign of advancing age.

It was a long way removed from the first milk run to Berlin with the Gooney Birds setting down eighty tons a day ... the Skymasters brought in six and seven thousand tons. Yet, it was less than a year that it all had started!

On flight number two hundred to Berlin, Hiram Stonebraker handed him a set of gold oak leaves. “Major,” he said, “we’re kicking your ass upstairs. We want you over at Headquarters as vice operations chief.”

Scott would be the number two pilot in the entire Airlift. His first job would be to write a manual on the characteristics and use of the Stratofreighter in Operation Vittles.

As winter ended, old hands took new duties. New crews came with new ships. The long-standing joke of the Airlift, the illusive definition of “temporary duty” was finally explained. With the new crews coming from Great Falls, rotation from Germany was commenced.

Stan Kitchek was lost after Scott’s transfer to Headquarters. He was promoted to captain, accepted “permanent change of station,” made a first pilot, and transferred to the base at Celle which had been turned into the model of the Airlift, the epitome of precision of air-cargo transportation.

Master Sergeant Nick Papas was advised that he had a month’s leave accumulated, which was now payable. He phoned Scott.

“Want to say good-by to an old Greek?”

They met in the bar of the NCO Rocker Club in Wiesbaden a little later. Nick was packed and ready to take off.

“So, what are you going to do now?”

“Check the bank balances in Chicago. Then, who knows? I got twenty years service come September. Maybe I’m getting a little old for this crap. I may just do it up in real Greek style, have the relatives send a girl over from the old country.”

“Hey, how about that.”

“I never said anything about you and Hilde. I’ve seen a lot of fighter pilots in my twenty years. Lot of them don’t grow up. I never figured you’d get your wings clipped.”

Scott cracked an egg, emptied it into the mug of dark beer, swirled it around. “Know what, Nick. I looked real close in the mirror today. I’ve got four gray hairs. When I think about it ... I guess I’m the luckiest bastard who ever lived. It’s easy to come out of the clouds when you’ve found something better on the ground.”

“Sorry I won’t be standing up for you. When do you figure to get married?”

“Lot of red tape. We’re looking for a final clearance any day.”

Nick looked at his watch, gulped his beer down. “It’s that time.”

Scott drove him to Y 80 where he had passage on MATS on a States-bound Skymaster.

In the end there were no words to cover six years of intimate comradery.

“See you around, Major.”

“So long, Nick.”

He waited until Nick’s plane was out of sight, and with him a part of his own life had flown away.

German girls by the thousands were trying to marry American servicemen. Many wanted it only as an avenue of escape from the nightmare of their war-ravaged world.