Contrell nodded sadly. “They do give medals for killing. And I guess sometimes they don’t ask for too many details.”
Someone called an order and Grove stubbed out the cigarette. “Come on, boy. Don’t brood over it. We’re moving on.”
Contrell nodded and followed him. Once, just once, he looked back the way they’d come...
24 August 1961
Major Contrell had been in Berlin only three hours when he heard Willy Grove’s name mentioned in a barside conversation at the Officers’ Club. The speaker was a slightly drunk captain who liked to sound as if he’d been defending Berlin from the Russians single-handed since the war.
“Grove,” he said with a little bit of awe in his voice. “Colonel Willoughby McSwing Grove. That’s his name! They say he’ll make general before the year is out. If you coulda seen the way he stood up to those Russians last week, if you coulda seen it!”
“I’d heard he was in Berlin,” Contrell said noncommittally. “I know him from the old days.”
“Korea?”
Contrell nodded. “And North Africa nearly twenty years ago. When we were all a lot younger.”
“I didn’t know he fought in World War II.”
“That was before we were officers.”
The captain snorted. “It’s hard to imagine old Grove before he was an officer. You shoulda seen him last week — he stood there, watching them put up that damned wall, and pretty soon he walked right up to the line. This Russian officer was there too, and they stood like that, only inches apart, just like they were daring each other to make a move. Pretty soon the Russian turned his back and walked away, and damned if old Grove didn’t take out his .45! We all thought for a minute he was going to blast that Commie down in his track, and I think we’d all have been with him if he did. You know, you go through this business long enough — this building up and relaxing of tensions — and after a while you just wish somebody like Colonel Grove would pull a trigger or push a button and get us down to the business once and for all.”
“The business of killing?”
“What else is there, for a soldier?”
Contrell downed his drink without answering. Instead, he asked, “Where is Grove staying? Is he married now?”
“If he is, there’s no sign of a wife. He lives in the BOQ over at the air base.”
“Thanks.” Contrell laid a wrinkled bill on the bar. “The drinks were on me. I enjoyed our conversation.”
He found Colonel Grove after another hour’s searching, not at his quarters but at the office overlooking the main thoroughfare of West Berlin. His hair was a bit whiter, his manner a bit more brisk, but it was still the same Willy Grove. A man in his forties. A soldier.
“Contrell! Welcome to Berlin! I heard you were being assigned here.”
They shook hands like old friends, and Contrell said, “I understand you’ve got the situation pretty well in hand over here.”
“I did have until they started building that damned wall last week. I almost shot a Russian officer.”
“I heard. Why didn’t you?”
Colonel Grove smiled. “You know me better than to expect lies, Major. We’ve been through some things together. You’re the one who always said I had a weakness for killing.”
“Weakness isn’t exactly the word for it.”
“Well, whatever. Anyway, you probably know better than anyone else my feelings at that moment. But I kept them under control. There’s talk of making me a general, boy, and I’m keeping my nose clean these days. No controversy.”
“And I’m still a major. Guess I don’t live right.”
“You don’t have the killer instinct, Contrell. Never did have it.”
Major Contrell lit a cigarette, very carefully. “I don’t think a soldier needs to have a killer instinct these days, Willy. But then, we’ve been debating this same question for nearly twenty years now, off and on.”
“Haven’t we, though.” Willy Grove smiled. “I’m sorry I don’t have somebody I can kill for you this time.”
“What would you have ever done in civilian life, Willy?”
“I don’t know. Never thought about it much.”
“A hundred years ago you’d have been a Western gunman probably. Or forty years ago, a Chicago bootlegger with a tommy gun. Now there’s just the army left to you.”
Grove’s smile hardened, but he didn’t lose it. Instead, he rose from behind the desk and walked over to the window. Looking down at the busy street, he said, “Maybe you’re right, I really don’t know. I do know that I’ve killed fifty-two men so far in my lifetime, which is a pretty good average. Most of them I looked right in the eye before I shot them. A few others got it in the back, like that Russian nearly did last week.”
“You could have started a war.”
“Yes. And some day perhaps I will. If I had the power to...” He let the sentence go unfinished.
“They’re not all like you,” Contrell said. “Thank God.”
“But I have enough of them on my side. Enough of them who know that army means war and war means death. You can’t escape it, no matter how hard you try.”
He looked at the white-haired colonel and remembered the captain he’d spoken with in the bar earlier that afternoon. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps he was the one who was wrong. Had he wasted away his whole life pursuing an impossible dream of an army without war or killing?
“I’ll still do it my way,” he said.
“Good luck, Major.”
A week later Contrell heard that a Russian guard had been killed at the wall in an exchange of gunfire with West Berlin police. One story had it that an American officer had fired the fatal shot personally, but Contrell was unable to verify this rumor.
5 April 1969
It was the day before Easter in Washington, a city expectant under a warm spring sun. The corridors of the Pentagon were more deserted than usual for a Saturday, and only in one office on the west side was there any activity. General Willoughby McSwing Grove, newly appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was moving into his suite of offices.
Colonel Contrell found him bent over a desk drawer, distributing the contents of a bulging brief case to their proper places. He looked up, a bit surprised, at his Saturday visitor. “Well... Contrell, isn’t it? Haven’t seen you in years. Colonel? You’re coming along.”
“Not as fast as you, General.”
Grove smiled a bit, accepting the comment as a sort of congratulation. “I’m at the top now. Good place to be for a man of my age. The hair’s all white, but I feel good. Do I look the same, Colonel?”
“I’d know you anywhere, General.”
“There’s a lot to be done, a damned lot. I’ve waited and worked all my life for this spot, and now I’ve got it. Our new President has promised me free reins in dealing with the international situation.”
“I thought he would,” Contrell said quietly. “Do you have any plans yet?”
“I’ve had plans all my life.” He wheeled around in his swivel chair and stared hard out the window at the distant city. “I’m going to show them what an army is for.”
Colonel Contrell cleared his throat. “You know, Willy, it took the better part of a lifetime, but you finally convinced me that killing can be necessary at times.”
“Well, I’m pleased to know that you’ve come around to...” General Grove started to turn back in his chair and Contrell shot him once in the left temple.
For a time after he’d done it, Contrell stood staring at the body, hardly aware that the weight of the gun had slipped from his fingers. There was only one thought that crowded all the others from his mind. How would he ever explain it all at the court-martial?