Truman could scarcely believe what he was hearing. The Germans were willing to protect Denmark? What had his world come to?
Speer continued. “However, if you wish us to form a buffer, we will require food. Simply put, both the German army and the Danes are starving. Will you get us food?”
“That sounds reasonable,” Truman heard himself say. “And if you are overrun and have to leave this Flensburg place, we can establish a government in exile somewhere, perhaps”-he grinned evilly at Churchill-“in London.” Churchill’s jaw dropped at the thought.
“Excellent,” said Speer with the touch of a smile.
“And now we lie down with the devil,” Truman murmured, and Churchill nodded. “Tell me, do you have any thoughts on defeating the Soviets?”
Speer smiled. “Why yes, I do.”
Tony the Toad saw the Russian a scant second before the Russian saw him. It was enough. It was almost dark, and the Russian soldier had turned the corner of the building and was almost upon Tony. Sensing the recognition of danger on the other man’s face, Tony pulled his wide-bladed knife from its sheath on his belt and rammed it deep into the Russian’s throat, causing the man’s head to snap back at a ridiculous angle. The dying man gurgled, clutched the air a couple of times, and fell backward, leaving the sticky knife in Tony’s hand.
There was a sharp intake of breath behind him. It was Vaslov. “Mother of God, what have you done?”
Tony wiped the knife on some leaves. “Killed a fucking Commie, what the hell’s it look like? And what the hell was I supposed to have done? He was close enough to kiss me, for Christ’s sake.”
Despite his brave words, Tony was shaking so badly he could hardly sheathe the knife. This Russian was the first man he had ever killed close up. Any others had occurred while firing a tank’s machine gun, and the effect was often unknown. This was too personal and he wanted to vomit from the stink of the blood that was beginning to coagulate at his feet.
Vaslov looked closely at the dead Russian’s throat. “What a nasty wound. You are good, Tony. And thank God you didn’t use your rifle, the sound might have attracted too much attention.”
Tony took a deep breath and got some control of himself. Had he gone for his Garand, he would be dead. “Thanks. Now don’t you think we should get the hell out of here? This asshole surely had friends who are gonna miss him.”
Vaslov smiled. “Very likely.” He gestured to a couple of the others, who came and saw the sight and nodded appreciatively at Tony’s handiwork. Counting Tony, there were now ten in the growing little group. One of them picked up the Russian’s submachine gun and his pistol, along with spare ammunition.
“Help me remove his clothes,” Vaslov asked.
“What the hell for?” Tony snarled. “I ain’t undressing no corpse.”
“Tony,” Vaslov chuckled, “perhaps this uniform, which might just fit one of us, could prove useful. See this symbol on his collar?” Tony looked and nodded. It was a vertical sword within an oval wreath. In the fading light he thought the background might have been blue with a red trim.
“Yeah. Kinda pretty.”
Vaslov chuckled. “Better than pretty, Tony, this man was an officer in the NKVD, the Russian secret police. Someone wearing this uniform is likely to be treated as a god by an ordinary Russian officer. He could go anyplace and do almost anything. He would be an object of fear. This could be most useful to us.”
Tony understood. “Okay, but we got a lotta blood to clean off, though, before he could go to any party.”
Vaslov gestured, and several pairs of hands rapidly stripped the body, which soon lay shockingly pale and naked. There were a number of ponds nearby, and they selected one and, after tying and weighing down the body, slid it quietly under the water.
“There,” smiled Vaslov, “in a few days no one will recognize him, not even his mother. If he had one.”
Tony agreed. Even if the man was noted as missing, they had seen and avoided a lot of people who might also be missing from some army or other. And if the man’s body was later found, it would soon be bloated and unidentifiable.
“So,” Tony said, “we can now be a Russian secret police officer anytime we wish. But do we have anyone who speaks enough Russian?”
Vaslov almost purred. “Remember, I speak it fluently. It will be a joy to use it to help in their destruction.”
CHAPTER 14
It began with a thundering and ground-shaking artillery barrage. First the Russian guns commenced pounding those targets they could see, and then those whose existence they suspected from the maps of the area and the few overflights that American aircraft and antiaircraft guns had permitted. Russian gunners had decided there were only so many places to hide supply dumps, truck parks, and the like within the confines of the Potsdam perimeter.
Elisabeth and Pauli joined the others in the basement of an old stone church, and settled in beneath the vaulted ceilings of the crypt to wait out the storm of fire and steel. Elisabeth tried to compare the shelling with what she had endured in and around Berlin and found she could not. Each was equally horrifying, and her mind made it difficult to draw from its hiding places the memories of prior terrors. In a way, she found that fact comforting for it meant that, whatever befell her, she would endure it.
Presuming, that is, she and Pauli actually lived through whatever was going to transpire. She looked about the crowd of people, steadily growing more and more silent and nervous as the shelling continued. She felt she could actually smell the fear. Where was von Schumann? She had not seen him in a while.
Half a mile away, von Schumann ducked instinctively as a shell landed near General Miller’s headquarters. Miller chuckled wryly. “I thought you were a veteran of this sort of thing.”
“A veteran never forgets to duck,” von Schumann answered. He, Miller, Leland, and a number of others were well protected in a reinforced bunker. To his knowledge, the Soviets did not have anything that could penetrate the steel beams that formed its roof. It was possible, he supposed, that a shell could ricochet around the right-angled entrance and find its way in, but he doubted that as well.
Leland put down a telephone. “General, our artillery wants to respond.”
“Are they being hit?”
“No, sir. A lot of near misses, but they’re pretty well protected.”
“Then let them wait. Everybody keep remembering that we still don’t have all that much ammunition to throw around.” Miller paused and tapped his pipe on a table. “Any response from the air force?”
Leland shook his head.
Miller understood but didn’t have to like it. The big air battles and the army’s major needs were west of the Elbe, where the American army was being slowly driven toward the Rhine. Potsdam was a backwater. The army and the correspondents officially referred to it as the Potsdam perimeter or the Potsdam pocket, but the soldiers referred to it as Goddamn Potsdam. Miller rather liked the latter term.
“Well,” Miller said, “at least the Russian planes are tied up as well.” Leland nodded. Except for the occasional scout plane, the sky over Potsdam had been empty for the last several days. The only bad part of that was the fact that the supply drops had also ceased. Temporarily, they all hoped.
“Oberst von Schumann, what is the Russian general, this Bazarian, going to do now?” Miller asked.
The news of the outside world was radioed in and the latest stories had been of the cessation of hostilities between Germany and the remaining Allies. This had changed von Schumann’s status. He was now an official member of Miller’s staff and his presence was accepted at all times. If some resented it, they did not voice their objections in Miller’s presence. Even Leland seemed reconciled to it.