Armageddon (46 page)

The phone system and the telegraph system collapsed. The Russians had carted off what was left of the switchboards, telephone instruments, generators. They had to be built from the ground up.

Before the war the power plant near the West Harbor was used only to augment during peak hours. The plant had been stripped of generators by the Russians and only part of the shell of the building remained. Neal Hazzard was faced with another accomplished fact ... the power for the city was entirely supplied by the Soviet Union. Ironically, much of the power came through lines from Saxony and Thuringia, the provinces surrendered by the Americans.

A subcommittee of the Kommandatura began the arduous task of de-Nazifying 30,000 postal employees to restore some kind of mail service.

Most of the other utilities were gone. Some gas was being restored.

The city was patrolled by squad cars usually holding one soldier from each of the occupation countries. It was an outward show of unity for the Berliners.

Dozens upon dozens of orders were signed by the Kommandatura and passed along to the Berlin Magistrat for action.

While cooperation existed on many matters, Neal Hazzard slowly, with great determination, chipped away at the Russian entrenchment in other directions. Colonel Trepovitch, alone among the Russians, realized how enormously persistent the American was.

Hazzard put top priority on the selection of a deputy police president who would be more cooperative to the West; Adolph Schatz was owned by the Russians. Nothing could change this since all appointments before Western arrival had to be accepted.

Hazzard was not without recourse. New appointments had to be approved by all four powers. He was in a position to hold up Trepovitch’s appointments until they gave him his deputy police president.

The finding of the German to fill the job went to Sean O’Sullivan’s trouble-shooting unit, a little group of a dozen men without portfolio or official designation. They filtered intelligence reports, watched straws in the wind, prepared data for Hansen on the Supreme German Council and for Hazzard in the Kommandatura, made predictions, acted as liaison between Berlin and the rest of Germany, and performed innumerable special details. Sean and his unit were in and out of Berlin daily, apt to show up anywhere on unique missions.

Neal Hazzard read the report pulled by the unit recommending Hans Kronbach for the position as deputy police president. His record seemed immaculate. Kronbach had been chief of detectives for the city of Berlin. He resigned in protest after Hitler came into power and went into private business, buying out a small-parts factory. He had no known involvement with the Nazis. At the end of the war three former slave laborers in his plant came forward to volunteer testimony to the treatment they received. Further, Kronbach had saved a number of lives and hidden a number of Jews. The war bombed his factory out in the last days.

Currently he worked as a plainclothesman on a black-market squad in Prenzlauer Berg Borough.

Hazzard set the report down, looked at Sean and Blessing. “What kind of a cop did you make him out to be in your interview, Bless?”

“Nothing he doesn’t know about police work. Knows how to supervise men, do administrative work, the whole business. I’d take him on my force in Hook County in two minutes.”

“How did he impress you, Sean?”

“He’s pro-West, no doubt about that. A Democrat by affiliation. I don’t think we can own him. He’s got a mind of his own. German first.”

“A good one,” Blessing said.

“We’re not looking for a stooge like Schatz,” Hazzard said. “One thing bothers me about Kronbach. Until the last two months, he hasn’t done any police work for a decade. The Russkies will lean on him, hard.”

Blessing smiled. “Took a hell of a lot more guts to stay out of the Nazi police than it did to collaborate.”

“Good enough,” Hazzard said. “I’ll get ahold of Blatty to put his nomination on the agenda tomorrow. Bless, find him, tell him what we’re up to.”

“Yes, sir. You going to be able to push his nomination through?”

“May take ten hours. I’ll just have to wear Trepovitch down.”

“Damned if I see how you can stand them meetings, Colonel.”

“I can’t,” Hazzard answered.

Chapter Nine

B
LESSING LEFT THE MEETING
with full instructions to find Hans Kronbach and get him moved into the American Sector that night.

He called for his patrol jeep, stood on the steps of the Headquarters building, and paused for a moment as the sun set. The flag hung limply; greenery had been renewed about the building; it was a nice time of day.

Across the boulevard two young German girls walked in slow, dull unison, their heels sounding on the pavement. He took off his hat, wiped the inside of the band, and squinted at them.

Eveningtime brought the girls out on the streets. They prowled the American Headquarters, the woods behind and the barrack area was a good place for a quick trick. Blessing thought most of them had little choice but to hustle. They had real hunger in their stomachs and many had kids and old people to keep alive. Bad business to whore to stay alive.

Nonfraternization was still on paper, but it had never really worked. It was dragged out once in a while to pacify a visiting congressman or clergyman. Sometimes, women’s clubs in the States put up a stink. Colonel Hazzard was ordered to make an “example” awhile back. The first two he got his hands on were a pair of respected judges working in his legal section. Hazzard made them go off hard liquor for a month as punishment. They got so stoned on bad wine he relented at the end of the week.

Bless remembered how he handled it in Hook County. He warned the roadhouses to keep their noses clean and police themselves. Whoring was all right as long as the girls didn’t cadge drinks, clip, and kept being examined for VD. Hell, a miner on payday has to have a woman ... so does a soldier. So does a cop, for that matter, be thought. Bless had been without a woman for a long time. No one thought a fat jolly cop needed a woman like everyone else.

Police work had taught him to mask fear, act impassive to tragedy. The dark side of the world, its hardness, and its misery was just part of a day’s work.

Bless knew there was a souring point that came to a lot of cops. When a man gets too callous he can turn into a cynic or a brute.

The two German girls reached the corner, turned, and retraced their steps.

Damn, I’d like to see Lil! He smiled at the thought of his wife. She is a good ole’ gal. And she still cuts a fine picture of a woman.

Lil had come out of the hill country, knew nothing but hard times all her life. When she was sixteen she married a bastard just to escape. Used to beat hell out of her. Lil ran away.

Bless knew a woman like her, with all she’d been through, wasn’t going to go playing around, because she had a good man who treated her square. He and Lil had something wonderful going for them and two of their own ... cutest kids in Hook County.

Such a long time. He wondered how many times Lil needed to have a man in the past two and a half years. She was human and a lot of woman. Bless knew she would go about it in the right way. She’d go off to Memphis for a week, where nobody knew her, and she’d be damned careful. He would never ask her about it because it wouldn’t mean a damned thing.

A radio jeep with constabulary markings was driven up by one of Blessing’s squad, Corporal Danny Sterling. The kid was going to make a good cop, Bless thought, switching his mind back to duty and piling into the jeep.

“Where to, Lieutenant?”

Blessing pondered. Contacting Hans Kronbach was not a simple matter. He was in the Russian Sector so Bless would have to dig up a German informer and send him out as a liaison to set up a secret rendezvous.

“Let’s go over to the provost marshal at Tempelhof and find us a kraut fink.”

Danny gunned the jeep away. The two German girls watched cautiously as the police jeep passed them. Blessing whistled softly “Just Before the Battle, Mother.”

The pressure of Berlin was reaching him. He wanted out of the rat hole before he went sour. There was suspicion in the Germans ... there was hatred, fear, and tension. He knew by long experience the face and the actions of desperation, for he had read it in the sallow, pinched faces of the farmers when their crops were wiped out and their kids went hungry. He had seen it at the mines in the mass hysteria of the strikers as they cursed the scabs, and he had seen it at the mines in the eyes of the women waiting for the news of a cave-in.

He had seen it in the eyes of lynch mobs; he knew it in the faces of the Negroes of Hook County. All of this was the face of Berlin.

Bless picked up the microphone, switched on the transmitter. “Rebel two-eight reporting, over.”

“This is Baltimore calling Rebel two-eight. Who’s that man making big gains for Green Bay?”

“Don Hutson,” Blessing answered, assuring the authenticity of his call. “We are leaving Baltimore en route to Atlanta Provo, over.”

“Roger, and out.”

As they passed out of slightly damaged Dahlem, heavy with American Headquarters and barracks, the horror of Berlin was worsened by block after block, mile after mile of gutted shells. They were slowed to a halt by demolition work near the canal.

As they cleared they saw a German policeman running down the middle of the street waving and calling frantically. They halted. He stopped beside them, gasping, jabbering too quickly for them to understand.

“Was gibt’s?”

The German pointed, tried to make himself understood, then remembered the cards he carried in his pockets. He brought out a stack, each holding a single word:
RAPE, ASSAULT, AACCIDENT.
He stopped at the card reading
ARMED ROBBERY,
and kept pointing to it

“Russkies?”

“Ya, ya, Russkies.”

“Now what the hell they doing all the way over here,” Bless grunted, shoving the German into the jeep and picking up the mike. “This is Rebel two-eight calling, over.”

“This is Baltimore. Go ahead Rebel two-eight.”

“We are proceeding to investigate a sixty-four now taking place vicinity Südende. We think there are Ivans involved. Will report exact location when I have it, over.”

“Roger, we’ll move in your direction.”

Baltimore sent out a call for a half-dozen other cars to converge on the general area.

The German policeman stopped them before the Südende S-Bahn elevated station. He pointed up to the platform. Blessing told the German to stay put. It was a situation with occupation troops and he was not permitted to interfere. Moreover, he was unarmed. “Danny, call in our exact location, then back me up.”

Blessing took the steps two at a time, stopped at the far end of the platform. Twenty-five yards away, three Russian soldiers had herded a dozen Germans against the cashier’s window and were stripping wallets, taking wrist watches, rummaging through handbags.

He understood the situation instantly—two did the looting, the third held the Germans at bay with a submachine gun. He heard Danny run up the steps behind him, turned, and motioned him to freeze.

Bless walked toward the Russian with the submachine gun. “Tovarich!” The Russians saw him for the first time, like startled deer. “Nyet, nyet, American Sector.”

The Russian with the submachine gun recovered his senses, waved Blessing back. The big cop kept moving forward, pointed his thumb east. “Russian Sector ... go.”

A spray of bullets erupted at his feet!

Blessing smiled, held his arms apart in friendly greeting, and as though he were a defenseless cub, walked toward the amazed Russian. The soldier shoved the barrel into Blessing’s stomach. In a lightning move he disarmed the Russian, knocking him flat on his back.

The other two reached for their pistols.

“Nyet!” Bless cried.

They continued to draw. Two shots barked from Blessing’s .45. Two Russians toppled over. The third had jumped up and fled down the railroad track as Danny tore up the stairs firing.

The Germans screamed and scuttled away from the pools of blood forming on the deck.

Bless heaved a great sigh, wiped the sweat from his face, and replaced his pistol. “Let him go,” he said to Danny. “All right, calm down, calm down, it’s all over. Any of you people speak English?”

“Ya, I do.”

“There is a German officer at the foot of the steps. Get him up here. I want him to record everyone’s name and address and the story of what happened. Tell these people they will be informed where they can claim their possessions.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Calm down now. It’s all over.”

Bless knelt and turned one of the Russians over. The shot had been true, through the heart. The other one was a grotesque sight, a bullet through his face.

They could hear the sirens of support cars.

“Ambulance?” Danny said, fighting off sickness.

“They’re both dead,” Blessing answered. “And the damned fool thing about it is I know they were bluffing. They got to learn if they go for their guns to use them.”

Bless leaned against the building, and bit his lip hard. “You okay, Lieutenant?”

“Yeah ... I’m okay.”

Chapter Ten

N
EAL
H
AZZARD ARRIVED AT
the two-story Kommandatura building in Dahlem fifteen minutes before the general session was due to begin for a special meeting with T. E. Blatty, the chairman for the month.

T. E. Blatty, always the perfect gentleman, tall, sandy, well-groomed, arrived a moment later, and as he passed into the confines the Union Jack was raised on the second of four masts, and a British sentry took a post next to the American already posted there.

The two commandants met in Blatty’s office.

“I want to take the nomination of Hans Kronbach off today’s agenda,” Hazzard said.

“You seemed quite keen on the chap when you telephoned me and I think he would be good for us.”

“It has nothing to do with Kronbach. Two Russian soldiers were killed by us last evening. They were caught in the middle of an armed robbery.”