Endgame (The Red Gambit Series Book 7)
Page 32
Chairs scraped as, to a man, the room came to its feet and returned the salute.
In short order, the room was clear, all save Ike and his CoS.
“Anything else came in I should know about?”
“No, Sir. The additional information from the Pacific arrived in the early hours. I considered it prudent to integrate it with the intended briefing and give it all in one go, rather than roust you from your bed, Sir.”
“Thank you for that, Walter. I wish I was still there now… head under the blankets… not knowing what I now know.”
“Amen to that, Sir.”
An orderly brought in coffee and both officers sat in silence, drinking in the hot liquid and the atmosphere now percolating throughout the headquarters building.
An atmosphere that spoke of danger; of fear, and of urgency.
The world had moved closer to renewed war with a few well-chosen words, but Eisenhower had no other choice.
“Right, Walter. I guess I’d better let the President know that we may be back in a shooting war in the near future.”
“Level shot, play it up, or play it down, Sir?”
“He’ll have the same intel we have. He’ll see it all from a political angle. Me… I see it as a soldier. I’ll just tell it how it is.”
Ike affected an official voice.
“Mr President, the world just got a whole lot more complicated.”
Bedell-Smith angled his mug in acknowledgement at the black humour.
“I understand, General.”
Others in the Oval Office were listening in on the conversation, and by their body language they clearly did not understand why the armies of Europe were suddenly standing to along the No Man’s Land between the West and East.
“I’ll take that under advisement, General. Politically, we’ll probably raise the matter directly in Sweden in the first instance. I’ll think on it some more, take some input from trusted sources, but I think your suggestion has merit.”
Stimson’s reaction was plain, but as to whether it was fuelled by exasperation at the Soviet’s probable duplicity, or at Eisenhower’s suggested responses was unclear.
“General, let me interrupt you there. I will not make a decision in haste. I understand why you have increased your readiness levels and taken the other precautions, That’s laudable and, I repeat, I’ve no problem with it whatsoever. But let me be abundantly clear here. I will not, repeat not, undertake or sanction any act that could place us in the role of aggressor, and I will not act precipitously.”
Truman nodded at Eisenhower’s response.
“Good. I’m glad you can understand that. Now, General, your job is to make sure we are ready for another shooting war at the same time as you do everything you can to make sure we don’t get into one. My job here is exactly the same. How best to do that, I’ll decide directly and keep you informed, but I do suspect that political pressure may reap benefits, combined with your suggestions.”
Truman wound up the conversation.
“Yes, thank you, General.”
The other members of the ‘audience’ relaxed their postures and gently placed their listening pieces on the desk.
“Indeed, General. Let us pray that is the case, for now and for generations to come. Good day to you.”
Replacing the receiver, Truman knotted his fingers together and flexed his hands.
“Well, to be blunt, I can see that we’re not all carried by the strength of General Eisenhower’s words.”
Stimson looked up from the sofa.
“Again? We’re going to go through it all again?”
“I do hope not, Henry. By God, I do hope not, and that’s why we mus… excuse me, gentlemen”
The telephone rang, causing the President to stop.
“Hello… yes, well, put him through.”
He placed a hand over the mouthpiece and successfully mimed the word ‘Winston’, causing a renewed rush for the listening pieces.
“Good afternoon to you, Prime Minister. What can I do for…”
Truman grimaced as he was cut short by his friend’s interruption.
“Yes… yes… I’ve just finished speaking with him just now, I expect he’ll be calling you directly, Winsto…”
Stimson arrived in time to hear the piece of information that had not been available at the time of the early morning NATO briefing.
“Say that again please, Winston.”
Collectively, the US Administration’s highest officials drew breath in a gasp.
“On February 26th you say. How did you come by this information, Winston?”
Churchill explained in the briefest way, knowing that the full information was already being disseminated to Allied intelligence agencies across the globe, albeit in a controlled and very top-secret way.
HMS Vivid, a British ‘V’ class submarine on silent patrol within the Black Sea, had trailed a number of large enemy submarines over a period of two days.
‘A large enemy submarine was known to have surfaced in the Black Sea, and erected and fired a missile of a type similar to the German V-2 weapon. Periscope camera shots had been failures due to some water-seal malfunction, but the experienced submarine captain had not recognised the type of submarine involved, and had discontinued his periscope monitoring due to the numerous enemy aircraft that were overflying the area.’
Because of the extremely dangerous and secret nature of its mission, the vessel had not been able to report what they had heard and observed until back at their base station in Greece.
That report had been communicated to Churchill at the same time as Eisenhower was rousing his officers at Frankfurt.
Forrestal mouthed two words as Churchill was winding up his summary.
‘Delivery system?’
Truman paled at the whispered question.
“Thank you for letting me know, Winston. You’ll know what Eisenhower has done. He has some other proposals which we need to discuss, but I think I need to expand on this new information before that.”
He nodded vigorously at the man in an office thousands of miles away.
“Yes… that would be fine. Should give us both enough time to understand more about this new development.”
The same two words that Forrestal had introduced floated across from England and into the Oval Office.
“That is a possibility, Winston. Let us pray we are wrong. I’ll call you this evening. Yes… yes… and please pass on my best regards to the King. Thank you. Goodbye.”
This time Truman placed the telephone back in the receiver with all the gentleness of a chimpanzee with a new hammering set.
Without humour, he addressed Stimson directly.
“So, what do you think of Eisenhower’s other ideas now, Henry?”
Stimson snorted.
“I still don’t like them Mister President, but the need for them has become clearer than it was. In time, we’ll praise General Eisenhower for his foresight. For now, perhaps we should simply pray that the world has not become what we now think it has, and work as hard as we can to prevent any renewed hostilities.”
“Amen to that, Hen…”
“Not that it’ll do any good, Mister President.”
“What?
“It seems inevitable that war will return, clad in all its old horrors and resplendently garbed in the new weapons of death and destruction.”
They all remained silent to allow Stimson to continue.
“We know… we’ve used atomic weapons, so we understand that they will destroy all of us if we come to further use, for there will be no control, no limit on their use once both sides throw that at each other. That German fellow, Brecht… he wrote something that aptly describes the situation we find ourselves in, and no matter what we do will we avoid what is to come.”
Stimson flopped into a chair like a man exhausted by life.
“I saw a Brecht play whilst I was visiting Chicago last fall… Louis Schaffer ran a small production to test its stage v
iability. The Resistible Rise of Arturo U it is called. It’s an allegorical work, set in Chicago itself and substituting a Capone character for Hitler. I remember one line from it… it struck me clear as a bell, Mister President.”
He wet his lips as he summoned the quote from the recesses of his memory and burned the words on their minds with his gentle but powerful delivery.
“Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men, for though the world stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is on heat again.”
Truman smiled at his weary warhorse.
“Let us pray that you’re mistaken, Henry, and plan for you being right. So, Gentlemen… what responses do we make?”
1353 hrs, Monday, 17th February 1947, Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse, temporary government building #1, Magdeburg, Germany.
Speer nodded, barely able to contain his excitement and pleasure.
“We must, of course, cooperate fully with any requests from NATO command. Our forces will respond immediately, Feldmarschal.”
Speer stood and walked quickly around the desk, quickly pouring and handling two coffees, one for himself, and one for his military supremo.
“So, are we capable, militarily speaking?”
“If matters go as we foresee, then yes, we are capable, Herr Kanzler. However, matters rarely go as foreseen. We will deal with eventualities, provided our Allies remain steadfast.”
“And from what we learn today, they have every reason to remain steadfast. Do we have any ideas about these weapons?”
Guderian took a sip and answered with a snort that came too close to dismissive for Speer’s liking.
“Ha! Not that I know, Herr Kanzler. A question better put to your new master of the dark arts, I think.”
It was well known that Guderian and Diels were not friends, and on the few occasions that professional requirements had placed them together, it was clear that the Feldmarschal had nothing but disdain for the Abwehr chief.
“A fair point, Feldmarschal. I’ll speak to him shortly. We can use this increase in alert to mask some of our own activities, can we not?”
“Most certainly, Herr Kanzler. I’ll move some units openly, rather than hide their redeployment as exercises. The Luftwaffe will step up their work of course.”
“Excellent, excellent. We have an opportunity here, Feldmarschal. Stand ready to act immediately if it develops into what we need.”
“Zu befehl, Herr Kanzler.”
1847 hrs, Tuesday, 18th February 1947, 733 15th St NW, Washington DC, USA.
The sound of their lovemaking penetrated through the walls, carrying to the ears of fellow residents above, below, and to the side of her bedroom.
Normally, their liaisons took place somewhere clandestine, secrecy being vital for maintaining his political position, and her rank in local society.
However, today it was different.
Her call had driven him from his office into her arms, the sheer desperate need for his attention made totally clear by the explicit note that had been delivered to his office that afternoon.
Now, here he was, driving himself into the vitals of the woman who was his lover, confidante, and friend.
They had been lovemaking for nearly an hour and he had enjoyed every part of her body with equal vigour, but now he was nearing the moment of climax.
As he drove into her from behind she rose up, pushing herself onto him, appearing to hasten her own orgasm.
He came.
She came.
It was noisy and intense.
The two fell back onto the sheets panting with exhaustion, sweaty, sticky, and worn out from their intense physical acts.
“Damn but that was something, darling. Unbelievable, really unbelievable.”
Olivia von Sandow rolled over and clutched the sweaty old body by her side, kissing her lover on the shoulder.
“Darling Humphrey… what a lion you are. I’ve never been so well fucked in my life, darling.”
While her lips said one thing, her mind was working out how to end the evening quickly and pass on the information she had teased out of him during their marathon sex session.
As she had fellated him, he unburdened himself about his day… and the latest stupid panic by the boys in Europe… and the Jap chemical stuff… and their subs.
When she rode him like a rodeo bull, she taunted him about the matter, and he revealed the Soviet missile test and what it probably meant.
As he had sodomized her, he had clearly felt empowered, dominating her, taking her like a Viking rapist, and had been easily enticed into more indiscretions.
The revelation that atomic weapons were being released to the European theatre almost caught her out, but she continued to moan in time with his violent thrusts.
Her orgasm had been as fake as her love.
‘Emergency… what could be more of an emergency than this?’
She kissed Senator Humphrey Forbes another time, before slipping out of bed and heading into the bathroom.
Outside, a watching German Intelligence agent noted the opening of the bathroom curtains to a certain position and understood the message immediately.
‘She wants me to recall her.’
It was not until both windows were cracked open as well that he realised the emergency code accompanied the first signal.
He moved quickly, leaving his car door unlocked, and was quickly in the phone booth, spilling coins into the slot and dialling her number.
In the apartment, Olivia deliberately stayed in the bathroom, shouting at her love to take a message, which meant that Humphrey Forbes answered the phone
“Deputy cultural attaché von Sandow please.”
“I’m afraid she’s otherwise engaged at the moment. May I take a message?”
“Certainly. She is to report to the Embassy immediately. Thank you. Who am I speaking to, please?”
“I’m a friend… Randall…”
Caught on the hop, he used his middle name.
“Thank you, Randall. Immediately though please. It’s a serious matter. I cannot say of course… state business.”
“Of course. I’ll see she gets the message immediately.”
He replaced the receiver as the stunningly attractive woman, now partially dressed, exited the bathroom.
“Who was it, darling?”
“The embassy. They need you back there right now. Some sort of emergency. He couldn’t say what it was… hush hush stuff, darling.”
“Damn. I was looking forward to dinner and another round of fucking, darling Humphrey.”
“Another time, Olivia. Duty calls eh?”
They both dressed and left the apartment, after Olivia von Sandow had declined his offer of a lift and called a cab.
In truth, Humphrey Forbes was slightly relieved, for he doubted he had the stamina for another sex session with the insatiable brunette.
His car took him home to his family.
In the taxi on the way to the German Embassy, von Sandow relayed all she had learned to her NKVD contact.
1353 hrs, Thursday, 20th February 1947, the Kremlin, Moscow, USSR.
Replacing the phone, having verbally trounced his secretary for interrupting the briefing, Stalin replied to Beria’s summary of the European situation.
“Excellent. We may have an opportunity here. Slow down any further withdrawals until we can assess the situation.”
‘Brrring…Brrring…’
Stalin answered the phone again, not attempting to hide his irritation at the interruption, the second in as many minutes.
“What is it now?”
Beria took the moment to stretch his legs.
“Yes. Very well. Put her through.”
Stalin spoke softly, almost hiding the receiver in his collar.
“It’s the woman, Nazarbayeva. Maybe she can add to what you are saying, eh?”
Beria shrugged a shrug that managed to convey both his doubts and his dislike of the woman.
“Comrade Nazarbayeva, wha
t is it that disturbs my undisturbable meeting?”
Stalin’s face remained the same as he heard nothing that Beria hadn’t already imparted.
He closed his eyes and listened, appearing to almost daydream as the woman told her story.
“Yes, I’m aware of that. Comrade Marshal Beria was just briefing me in on these new developments.”
The dictator’s face changed, something Beria picked up on instantly.
“When?”
The thunderclap of Stalin’s hand slapping the desk made his crony jump.
“Tell me this is a fucking joke, Comrade General!”
By his expression, it clearly wasn’t.
“Confirm all this information immediately. Take the first flight available to Moscow and present the full information to the GKO at once. Contact my secretary. I’ll ensure you have priority. Good day to you, Comrade Nazarbayeva.”
Stalin held onto the handset and stared at it with unforced malevolence.
“Fuck.”
He threw it onto the table as if to throw away the words it had just delivered to his ear.
“The GRU confirm your intelligence on the enemies’ readiness increase, Lavrentiy. She also stated that the enemy has recovered information from our former allies, information that has led them to believe that there are rogue Japanese submarines still at large… and that significant items from their nuclear, biological, and chemical research products were sent to us.”
Beria grimaced.
Moments beforehand he had assured his leader that such information was still secret.
“And the British saw the rocket test in the Black Sea… our fucking sea… where our Navy assured us no enemy vessel would roam. They had a submarine that was trailing our special force. It witnessed everything, so it seems.”
Beria kept his mouth firmly shut.
“So, far from our plan being wholly secret, if the woman’s right, then the bastards suspect what we have and how we’re going to attack them with it.”