Robert Conroy

by Red Inferno: 1945: A Novel

  Burke smiled to himself. Natalie had told him of their meeting with Gromyko, and Acheson was at least in part referring to her.

  Truman turned to Biddle. “I agree. Tell Mr. Hoover that he can and should investigate as he sees appropriate. But I do not want anyone jailed or deprived of liberties without due process and without proof that they are acting on behalf of the Soviet government. Mere opinions, beliefs, and personal stupidity will not suffice. I trust that will be satisfactory.”

  Biddle nodded reluctantly.

  “Good,” said Truman, glad to have that matter disposed of, at least for a while.

  In Truman’s unspoken opinion, Hoover was a stubborn prick and would come back to it first chance he got. “Now, what did Mr. Gromyko tell you this morning, Mr. Acheson?”

  Acheson grimaced. “For those who are not aware, I once again met with Ambassador Gromyko to protest the Russian advance across the Elbe. Gromyko blandly handed me a line of pap that said the Russians were acting totally defensively and in reaction to our attack on their forces in Berlin. He said their troops are merely defending themselves.”

  “That is absurd,” snapped Truman, and the others murmured agreement.

  “Sir, Gromyko is a liar,” said Acheson.

  Truman grinned slightly. “Well, that certainly simplifies things. Now, General Marshall, please tell us how that war is going.”

  It was Burke’s cue. He stood and uncovered a large map on an easel. The familiar blue arrows that had been denoting American advances into the heart of the Reich were now countered by a number of red ones.

  “Gentlemen,” Marshall began, “as I mentioned, the Russians have crossed the Elbe at a number of places and have attacked us at some points south of that as well. There have been a number of battles and we have both taken and given casualties. We do not have even rough estimates, but they are not likely to be light. Since we had some notice of the possibility of attack, General Eisenhower decided he would not confront the Russians directly at the Elbe or elsewhere they were gathered in force. Instead, he pulled his troops a few miles back and has begun a fighting withdrawal to the west.”

  “Why?” snapped Truman. A pugnacious man, any form of retreat was anathema to him.

  “Sir, he intends to wear them out and bleed them until their advantage in numbers is eliminated, or at least reduced. He is also aware that it will take some time for their army to cross the Elbe and organize itself in force. However, when done, they will vastly outnumber us on the ground.”

  “And our navy’s useless for this war, isn’t it?” Truman asked.

  “Absolutely,” said Marshall, “except to ensure that supplies reach Europe safely. The news does not get better. The Russian air force is estimated at between fifteen and twenty thousand planes, most of them Yak fighters and Stormovik tank-killing fighter-bombers, although they also have several thousand P-39 Airocobras and Douglas A-20 Havocs that we gave them as war supplies. Ike is reporting some very large air battles currently going on over the armies.

  “Further, the Russians have a very real advantage over us in the area of armor. The T34 tank, which they have in the thousands, is simply the best tank in existence today. The Russians also have large numbers of artillery and like to use them for mass destruction.”

  “Sweet Jesus, General,” Truman murmured. “What can we do to help Ike?”

  “Two things, sir. First, in the short term we have to realize that we have no further army to send him. We have a couple of divisions forming in England and some troops in training that we can scrape together and send, but we will have to win or lose with essentially what we currently have in Europe. I have reviewed possibilities with Admiral King, and there is nothing in the Pacific we can send to Europe in the near future.

  “There are, however, two very important things that must be done. First, every available plane and pilot, both fighters and bombers, must be sent to the European theater, even if that means stripping carriers and land bases that are currently operating against Japan, or taking men and planes from training units in the States. For us to win, we must first control the skies. When that happens, we will be able to attack their massed armor and artillery and destroy it. But they have thousands of planes and, while our planes and our pilots are definitely better, it will take us a long time to win as things currently stand.”

  “General,” said Truman, “you said two things?”

  “Yes, sir. The German question must be resolved. We cannot fight both the Russians and the Germans at the same time and place. We must settle a peace with the Doenitz government.”

  Truman was aghast. “Peace with the Nazis?”

  Acheson took over, and Burke realized this had been planned. He would have an interesting conversation this evening with Natalie.

  “Sir,” said Acheson, “there is a great deal of merit to what the general says. At some point in the not-too-distant future, we will indeed make peace with Germany and a German nation will be resurrected. What the general wants, and I agree, is that this process be expedited so that we can at least identify our enemy.”

  “What about the idea of unconditional surrender?” asked Truman. “We and our allies swore we would never negotiate and that Germany would have to surrender without any conditions.”

  “I think,” Acheson said drily, “the Russian attack on our army has eliminated any obligation we might have had to not enter into a separate peace with Germany. Sir, I propose we explore the possibility of an immediate truce with Germany, and I believe we can have an agreement in principle on a real armistice within a few days.”

  “How?” asked Truman. He was beginning to realize he’d been euchred.

  Acheson smiled. “We have been in indirect contact with representatives of Doenitz’s government. He is sending Albert Speer to London. When he arrives, both he and Churchill will fly to the United States for discussions.”

  “I despise the thought of a peace with the Nazis.” Truman shook his head, and then, having made up his mind, glared defiantly about the room. “But to paraphrase Churchill, if we must deal with the devil in order to win this war, then deal with him we shall.”

  TONY THE TOAD was a little disconcerted by the fact that Anton and Vaslov had brought in two more refugees. Both were emaciated men who wore prison rags and a yellow star that identified them as Jews. Now there were five people in the small house and things were starting to get out of his control.

  For one thing, the stench was unbearable. They had finally gotten rid of the corpses upstairs by dragging them out in the night and leaving them in a nearby street. There were so many bodies around that a couple more would doubtless go unnoticed. As long as the stench lingered, there was no need to find fresh corpses. Their real problem was the lack of water for bathing and for elimination of body waste; very simply, the toilets were overflowing with feces.

  Strangely, there was no real problem with food. They had gotten extremely skillful at rifling abandoned houses and finding small hoards left behind by owners who had either fled or been killed in the bombings.

  “Anton,” Tony said, “we gotta get out of here.”

  The Pole nodded. Both Polish refugees’ English had improved significantly as a result of the constant contact with Tony, and Anton was the acknowledged leader of the others. “But where can we go? East leads to my home, but it also leads to Russia. West will take us to where the fighting is, and your army, but it would be a dangerous journey.”

  Tony agreed in silence. Anton and the other Pole also spoke Russian and had been able to snoop around, and they had found out about the heavy fighting to the west.

  Tony asked. “You wanna go back to Poland?”

  Anton shrugged. “Not while the Russians are there, and I don’t think they’ll be leaving soon. If I know the Russians, they will never leave Poland.”

  “Well, that leaves us exactly two other choices. One, we can stay here in the city and continue to hide out, or, two, we can very carefully head west and find the American
lines. Somehow, I think as a soldier that’s what I am expected to do.”

  They thought it over. Berlin was now a Russian city. The SS troopers who had manned the roadblocks had disappeared. The SS had been responsible for the hundreds of corpses hanging by their necks from telephone poles and wearing the signs that said “Deserter,” or “Enemy of the Reich.” Some of the bodies looked too old or too young to have been deserters or anyone’s enemies. But then, it was common knowledge that the SS just liked to kill and had gone into a murderous frenzy in the last moments of the Reich.

  The Russians were beginning to set up an administration in Berlin. That would mean police, and Tony and Anton both knew their little band would ultimately be discovered.

  Anton smiled grimly. “Sometimes choices are made for us, aren’t they? We must leave here. We shall travel as refugees. Certainly, that is not far from the truth.”

  “Yeah. We go west and try to find my guys. Y’know, I’m gonna need some different clothes. I can’t be a refugee if I’m wearing an American uniform.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Anton, “we will have no trouble finding clothing for you.” He brightened. “Perhaps we will, as we work our way west, find some opportunities to cause inconvenience to the damned Russians?”

  Tony reached into his shirt and squeezed a bug, probably a louse, that was crawling along his chest, looking for a home. “Y’know, a while ago and regardless of what I said, I really didn’t think that screwing with the Russians was the smart thing to do. Now I’m beginning to change my mind.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The furnace room in the basement of Moscow’s Lubyanka prison was unbearably hot. It was a warm spring day, and normally the furnaces would not have been working too hard. But today, the grimy and dour men who kept them burning had them at full blast.

  More than the heat affected the thirty or so men jammed into the small room. Almost all of them were senior army officers and they were in full and heavy uniforms. Many were pale and sweating profusely. Most felt terror and were fighting waves of fear and nausea. They knew what happened in the basement of the Lubyanka. They had been ordered there for a command performance in the price of disloyalty.

  A door opened and the NKVD head, Lavrentii Beria, entered silently. He stood off to the side and looked directly at no one. One of the officers started to whimper and was quickly silenced by a companion. If Beria noticed, he gave no sign. He could have been his own statue.

  The screeching sound of an iron-wheeled cart dragging on the cement floor was heard. The officers looked in the direction of the wide double doors that led to a hallway where the worst or most important prisoners were kept.

  The door opened and two NKVD officers pushed in a hospital-type gurney on which a man was strapped. They stopped in front of Beria and the assembled officers, and unstrapped the man, who began moaning loudly. As he was pulled to a standing position, he screamed from the pain of having to use joints and limbs that had been pulled apart and broken.

  In fascinated horror, the officers stared at the man. He was vaguely familiar to some, but so distorted as to be a caricature of himself. His nose was flattened and there was a dark hole where one eye had been. The man howled in pain, and they could see where the teeth that hadn’t been pulled out had been broken off into stumps. They wondered what other physical horrors his shapeless prison garb hid. They also wondered what he had told his interrogators, who were so obviously through with him, and whether it could come back to threaten them.

  “Korzov,” came the hissed whisper of recognition from the rear. Now they knew the rumors were true. Korzov was the army officer who had betrayed his country while in the United States. Exactly what he had done, they didn’t know. Rumors had said only that he had betrayed a major secret to the Americans. Collectively, they shuddered. Beria did not move and, like a reptilian predator, did not seem to be aware of the heat or the collective scent of fear.

  Korzov looked about the room with his one eye. It looked like he was trying to focus on the rows of faces to figure out what was going on, and what new agony was in store for him.

  The two NKVD men set up a chute that led to one of the furnaces while two furnace operators watched in detachment. They had seen all this before. At a nod from one of the NKVD men, one of the operators opened the furnace doors, and a wave of additional heat surged across the room while the white-hot flames made a roaring sound that buried the collective moan of thirty horrified and terrorized men.

  Puzzled, Korzov turned his head in the direction of the unaccustomed warmth. His nights had been damp and bitter cold. He saw the flames but his mind did not register any particular significance.

  The NKVD men grabbed him and wrapped his arms and legs in straps so he could not move, only wriggle like a worm trapped on a hook. Then they roughly put him on the chute, feet facing the open furnace. When he was set, they lifted the chute, but steadied Korzov, so he could see the furnace and the flames within.

  Now it registered. Korzov’s screams of fear seemed to come from the bowels of hell. Some of the most hardened officers began to tremble. Korzov tried to thrash, disregarding the agony of his broken arms and legs in his effort to flee his fate.

  It was no use. If there was a signal from Beria, no one saw it, but as if on cue, the two NKVD men released Korzov, who began a slow, screaming slide down the chute.

  His legs entered first and his clothing flared, then his torso, and then his head and contorted face. For an instant he held that position. He was visible in the flames as a dancing, writhing specter until finally collapsing and disappearing as the furnace men closed the door on the ghastly show.

  There was silence. Beria walked from the room, a hint of a smile flickering on his face. The lesson had been delivered.

  AFTER KNOCKING SEVERAL times, Steve Burke tried the door to Natalie’s apartment and found it unlocked. Surprised, he entered. Natalie was seated on a chair in her living room, looking out her window.

  “Are you all right?” he said, approaching her quietly.

  She turned and smiled wanly. “I’ve had better days.”

  He knelt before her and took her hand. “Anything you care to share?”

  “Yes, but make me a martini first.” He obeyed, and she saluted him before taking her first sip. “Here’s to new wars.”

  Steve was puzzled. What on earth could have happened? Could she have heard he actually was going to Europe as part of Marshall’s entourage? That was why he had dropped by, to inform her. He didn’t know how she would take the information. Would the fact of his leaving upset her or would she be proud of him?

  Natalie put her glass down. “The FBI was around today. They see Communists and other undesirables everywhere.”

  He was incredulous. “You?”

  “No, at least not seriously. They did question me to reconfirm what they already knew about my past life in Russia and my citizenship. I don’t think I am considered a subversive. But they may label my mother as an undesirable and deport her. God only knows where they would send her. Certainly not to Russia.”

  “What on earth for?”

  Natalie laughed harshly. “Because she was too frank a few years ago when applying for American citizenship. Remember when I told you she sold herself for food and passage to the United States? Well, a few years ago some sanctimonious fool at immigration labeled her a prostitute and rejected her application for citizenship. I knew she had been turned down, but never wondered why. Stupid me. Today they came and informed her that the combination of Russian citizenship and a record as an admitted whore was too much for the puritans in our government and would she mind leaving the country. It didn’t matter that she’d married an American who, unfortunately, died and isn’t around to defend her. My stepfather certainly never thought of her as a whore and he knew full well how she got to America. I’ve spent most of the day trying to straighten out that mess.”

  “Any success?”

  She took a deep breath and swallowed the rest of her d
rink. He took the glass and started to mix another. “I think so. Unfortunately, we won’t know for several weeks. Not everyone who works for the government is an idiot—just most of them.” The irony that both of them were on the government payroll did not escape them.

  “That’s awful,” he said, handing her the drink and taking a seat across from her. Steve had never met her mother but Natalie had told him a great deal about her. It wasn’t fair that someone who had suffered so much should be called upon to suffer again.

  “And things are terrible at work,” she continued. “Once again the iron hand of J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI stormtroopers is at work. They are going through our personnel files and talking to anyone who ever belonged to a left-wing organization, even though some of those so-called memberships might have occurred years or even a decade or more ago, and at a time when the Russian Revolution was thought of as a part of the liberation of oppressed peoples.”

  Or even more recently, Steve thought, since, up until a little while ago, the Soviet Union and the man Roosevelt referred to as “Uncle Joe” were our allies. He knew of the activities of the FBI, but he was not aware they were so extensive or so oppressive. On the other hand, it made sense to him that State would be so heavily investigated. They were the first line of contact with other governments and privy to so many federal secrets.

  “What is happening to the ones they suspect?”

  “Nothing officially,” she answered. “Apparently they are under orders not to arrest anyone without real proof, but they are making life miserable for people who are now under dark clouds of suspicion. Some zealous, perhaps fearful, administrators have placed a few people on administrative leaves of absence until they are cleared. A couple of people have had the misfortune of being both homosexual and leftist, and they are in real trouble. It’s sad. You are legally innocent, but still guilty of something until they prove otherwise.”