Armageddon (52 page)

“So that is the ‘Lorelei,’ ” Igor said.

“Don’t listen too closely to the voices of the sirens, Colonel, or you may crash on the rocks.”

Igor smiled. “You would make an excellent dialectician.”

They rounded the bend passing those long low river barges and the outlines of the Mäuseturm showed itself against a gray sky over the terracing.

“I was told only last night that you returned from America from an unhappy event. Your father, I believe.”

“Yes.”

“I am so sorry.”

“Thank you, Colonel. He was quite old and quite tired.”

“And you have family left?”

“There is only my mother and myself. I lost two brothers in the war.”

This shattered Igor into a long silence.

“And you, Colonel?”

“I lost ... a childhood sweetheart ... and my son.”

“Then we really should be friends, shouldn’t we,” Sean said.

“I guess so. What part of America do you come from?”

“San Francisco.”

“Oh yes. California was once settled by Russians.”

“We stole California from the Spanish in a war of aggression ... however, we did purchase Alaska from the Russians, legally.”

Igor laughed. “From the Czars. We would not have made such a bad bargain.” Igor lit a cigarette. “Tell me, what did your family do?”

“We had all more or less just graduated from the university. I was teaching. My younger brother aspired to be a writer. He was a student of literature. The middle brother ... a follower of causes.”

“Three sons in the university. Your family must have had great wealth.”

“My father was an immigrant from Ireland. He was never more than a laborer.”

“Very interesting.”

Ivan Orlov, as always, hovered nearby. The NKVD had made a small error in assigning him to watch Colonel Karlovy ... he spoke no English. He made his presence so annoying that Sean asked to excuse himself. When he left, Ivan Orlov said, “Beware of Major O’Sullivan. He is a spy for American political security.”

At Cologne the American escort was joined by the British escorts. It was the same story. Cologne, Hanover, and the ports of Hamburg and the American enclave of Bremerhaven utterly mangled.

But the very worst they saw in all of Germany was the devastation of the Ruhr industrial complex. Düsseldorf, Essen, and Dortmund were all but wiped out.

The Soviet inspection group proceeded to the Copenhagen conference sobered. Neither the British nor Americans had hidden a thing.

Igor Karlovy had to admit to himself that Germany was more thoroughly destroyed than the Soviet Union.

What was horribly clear now was that the Soviet Government had deliberately lied to keep the Russian people from knowing the strength and participation of the West. Indeed, Western Germany had not been spared for a war of revenge.

Chapter Seventeen

T
HE CLOCK IN THE
tower of the Copenhagen City Hall tolled the hour of seven. Igor Karlovy paced his room. Most of the staff would be asleep for another two or three hours. He opened the curtain, stepped out onto the balcony of his room at the Palace Hotel.

In the center of the street arose a column, and on it a pair of vikings blowing long trumpets. The Danes joked that the trumpets would sound when a virgin passed.

Raadhus Plaza stretched below. Copenhagen was starting a new day with wonderful briskness. Tens of thousands of Danes pedaled their bicycles, weaving around automobiles, and the square was alive with the sounds of cooing pigeons, sharp heels on stone, voices of the rapid, indistinguishable language.

How different from the movement of the troubled grim masses in Moscow, Igor thought.

Colonel Igor Karlovy was a man deeply disturbed. The five-week inspection tour of the Western Zones and the conference in Copenhagen were drawing to a close. He had felt uneasy about the safety of Lotte Böhm. No communication between them had been possible. The separation had made him realize that he loved her ... and he had committed a cardinal sin in losing his hatred for Americans.... Questions gnawed at him. They could never be asked.

One could watch Copenhageners for hours, Igor thought. The Soviet delegation was housed in a wing of the Palace Hotel in the heart of the city. The Americans were a mile and a half away at the D’Angleterre. Between them ran Frederiksborg Way, a narrow street lined with exclusive shops and department stores.

The Russians always tried to hold meetings and luncheons at the American hotel so they could walk Frederiksborg Way. The shops were filled with goods they had never seen ... watches, silver, porcelain, furs. The people were handsome, they smiled, and they were well dressed; and all this was in an austere period at the end of a war. Was this capitalistic decadence?

If Major O’Sullivan and the other Americans and British he had dealt intimately with were proof of Western imperialism, then the proof was wrong. Most of them came from humble backgrounds with at least one parent from another land. They were hard-working, intelligent, and friendly.

Why did Azov send me on this mission?

Igor remembered his complaint to a British major about the fact that the coal miners in the Ruhr were striking and holding up Russian reparations shipments.

“But these chaps have every right to strike, you know,” the Englishman answered.

They have no rights. They are Germans and you are an occupying power,” Igor had insisted.

“Poor devils have been fainting from hunger. A miner can’t do a decent day’s work on two thousand calories. Damned healthy sign when they got enough dander up and had the cheek to strike.”

In the Saar, German students were protesting French occupation regulations. A French captain shrugged. “Students always demonstrate. It is a student’s prerogative to demonstrate. Works off energy.”

Damned if students demonstrated in Moscow! How could it be a healthy sign to disobey authority! In all his life Igor had accepted orders without question.

How could the Americans, British, and French permit freedoms to the Germans which he, as a Russian, did not have?

The Americans and British were at ease. They were so sure of themselves. Perhaps they were so sure of their way of life! Or perhaps the Russians were unsure of theirs. Was that it? The Russians feared themselves, feared each other?

Igor hungered to know truth and he walked on dangerous ground. Major O’Sullivan had become his friend. If there was only a way to speak to him....

That evening Captain Ivan Orlov, NKVD, sat at his desk at the Palace Hotel finishing a report to his superiors giving his findings on those members of the Soviet delegation he was assigned to watch.

Colonel Karlovy would come in for bad days, at last. All through the end of the war, Karlovy had belittled him, ignored him; till now there was nothing to accuse him of.

Now there were solid suspicions that Colonel Karlovy was getting a soft attitude toward the West and had even engaged in a friendship with Major O’Sullivan, an American spy!

Ivan Orlov was fulfilled! After all, one is assigned to watch someone and there can be no accomplishment unless you catch him at something. Ivan dreamed of a promotion when the report was rendered.

A knock on the door. A short square man in black chauffeur’s uniform introduced himself as the driver for the Soviet Ambassador to Denmark.

“The ambassador demands your presence,” the chauffeur said.

Ivan was elated! The ambassador himself! Perhaps General Lipski discussed his work and the ambassador wanted him to remain in Copenhagen. What an idea!

A somber Mercedes with a pair of Red flags attached to each fender waited. In a few moments the car was moving north out of Copenhagen speeding toward the Danish Riviera in the direction of Elsinore.

“The Comrade Ambassador wanted to hold the meeting with you in private,” the chauffeur said. “There are too many Western spies in Copenhagen. We are driving to his summer residence.”

Ivan nodded that he understood. The chauffeur was undoubtedly NKVD also. He was too well disciplined in the secret ways of political security to question an ambassador.

An hour later the last of the farewell parties unfolded at the great velvet and mirrored Wivex restaurant, the largest in Europe, which was on the edge of the Tivoli. Although it was too early for the Tivoli’s season, the million lights were turned on in honor of the occasion to set up a fairyland of color and magic.

Participants of the conference arrived: ambassadors bedecked in sashed elegance; generals and admirals bogged under decorations; elegant ladies. The room was filled with tables, each holding small flags of the various nations, and a formally dressed Danish orchestra played Russian laments, French love songs, American jazz, and British airs.

Long tables of smörgasbord, aquavit, Carlsberg beer, open-faced sandwiches of tiny shrimps, ham, and cheese, buckets of iced champagne—all attributed to the fact that this was a banquet of the victors.

Colonel Igor Karlovy, one of the most popular of the Soviet delegation worked his way around the room, shaking hands, saying good-bys to Belgians and Poles, Dutch and Danes. Igor felt something was wrong. He had been in the place for nearly a half hour without seeing Ivan Orlov ... he began to feel naked.

Igor’s face lit up as he spotted Major O’Sullivan on the balcony facing the Tivoli and speaking to a Danish girl he had seen several times during the conference. Igor cleared his throat.

O’Sullivan introduced him to Miss Rasmussen, a Danish translator. She excused herself, knowing there was to be some men’s talk.

“We have arranged a private party as soon as we can gracefully get out of here. Would you come, Colonel Karlovy?”

“Who will be present?”

“Some of the boys from the Marine Embassy Guard have a house just a little out of town.”

“I am afraid that would be impossible.”

“I seemed to have overheard that Captain Orlov took ill or something,” Sean said. He looked directly into Igor’s eyes. “Orlov won’t be around tonight.”

On an impulse Igor said, “Hell, why not?”

Master Gunnery Sergeant Michael J. Flynn, USMC, of the American Embassy Guard was assigned as an assistant to Major O’Sullivan for the conference. They discovered they had much in common besides Irish parents. Both were Mission District San Franciscans out of the same high school. Flynn took to the major right off the bat, remembering having seen him fight at the old Bucket of Blood arena. The sergeant and four other staff NCOs pooled resources and were able to rent a lovely place on the sea in Taarnby, a suburb of Copenhagen.

Igor’s apprehension about accepting the invitation faded. The Americans were almost like children in their desire to be friendly. They showered little gifts on him and were consumed with curiosity about his war record.

The Marines all had lovely Danish girls as dates. Sean was with Miss Rasmussen; Igor insisted he did not want a girl.

It was a nice gathering. They could look over the water to Sweden from the porch; the sky held a billion stars, and there was a gentle pounding of the surf.

They all had their tunics off and drank as comrades without rank. The Marines made a number of jokes about the inferiority of the American Army at Major O’Sullivan’s expense, but he had the right answers. Igor had once been warned by Russian intelligence that the American Marines were an elite corps like the Nazi SS. It did not seem possible meeting them like this. They were plain boys from many places and three of the four had wounds from the war in the Pacific.

The living room was dark except for the light from the fireplace. The Marines and their girls sat about on the floor and sang. One, from Wyoming, had a guitar and they sang British songs about the jolly sixpence and “Bless Them All” and they sang about the Heart of Texas.

The pace of the evening slowed and the Wyoming Marine sang a spiritual of the American Negro—that he was a wayfaring stranger alone in a far land. Igor thought it was beautiful.

He took the guitar from the Wyoming Marine and sang to them about Russia and they thought ... what a hell of a nice guy.

The hour became late and they drifted away, two by two.

Only Sean and Miss Rasmussen were left as the fire dimmed to its coals. Igor saw that Miss Rasmussen was looking at Sean with loving eyes and that his farewell should be made.

“I must go back to Copenhagen but first you must tell me what happened to Captain Orlov?”

“One of the boys in the Marine detachment has Russian-born parents. They spoke it at his home all the time. We got him a chauffeur’s uniform, borrowed a car from the embassy motor pool, and stuck a pair of Red flags on the fenders. Captain Orlov was driven to Elsinore to see the Soviet ambassador.”

“But ... but ... the ambassador was at the Wivex tonight.”

“You don’t say.”

“But ... but ...”

“He was driven to Hamlet’s castle and told to knock on the gate. The car drove off. Well, Orlov speaks only Russian and we figured he’d have a hell of a time finding a Russian-speaking Dane. He should get back to Copenhagen tomorrow sometime ... if he’s lucky.”

Igor Karlovy laughed until his stomach ached and tears rolled down his cheeks. “That stupid bastard!” Orlov was probably making out a report on him. Now, he could never turn it in because he would have to admit being tricked by the Americans. When he gained control of himself he thought the time for a farewell had come.

“It was a nice journey, Major O’Sullivan.”

“See you around, Colonel.”

Sean thundered out of a deep sleep, fished around for the night-stand lamp, and switched it on.

Igor Karlovy hovered over him, roaring drunk. Miss Rasmussen screamed and threw the blankets over her head.

“You son of a bitch! It’s four o’clock in the morning!”

“I intend to go,” Igor said, “but first I demand to know why you want to destroy us!”

“Because, you simple bastard, we crave the latest Moscow fashions!”

Chapter Eighteen

T
HE
A
MERICAN
A
RMY BAND
marched beneath the reviewing stand striking up “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” The honor guard, a crack drill team of Negroes, followed the band in double cadence, executing an intricate close-order drill.