Bombs Away

by Harry Turtledove

  Then the Colombian government refused the excavation terms the American government offered. With amazing speed, the free nation of Panama sprang from Teddy Roosevelt’s forehead the way Minerva sprang from Jupiter’s. The United States recognized it almost before it declared its own independence. Colombia’s choice was accepting the inevitable or going to war with the USA.

  Thus the Panama Canal was born. And now, not quite half a century later, the Panama Canal had died. If any young Colombian lieutenants then were old Colombian generals now, they had to be snickering behind their hands.

  A Cadillac convertible drove out onto the runway. “I will take you to the Presidential Palace,” Arias said. “After the luncheon there, we will go the the Canal Zone so you can examine the damage for yourself.”

  Truman didn’t want to go to the Presidential Palace. He didn’t want to have lunch with a bunch of Panamanian big shots. That was all a waste of time. He wanted to get up there and see what the damned Russians had done. But, like it or not, he had to be diplomatic. “Sounds fine, Mr. President,” he lied. “I’m at your service.”

  Secret Service men who’d flown down with Truman and Panamanian soldiers climbed into other cars. They made a small motorcade that wound through the streets of Panama City. A few people stood on the sidewalks waving American and Panamanian flags. If Arias’ henchmen hadn’t got them out there, Truman would have been amazed. That was one of the oldest ward-heeler’s tricks in the world.

  And one of the oldest assassin’s tricks in the world was to attack from a high place. The guards wouldn’t stop a rifleman or someone with a grenade if he popped out of a third-story window in one of the old Spanish-style buildings. Truman knew it but didn’t let it worry him.

  The Presidential Palace lay northeast of Independence Square, and took up a whole block. They’d declared independence in the cathedral in the square. The USA was in the background when they did it, but not very far in the background.

  Big white egrets swaggered across the marble-floored palace lobby. Smiling, President Arias said, “The nickname for the building is Palacio de las Garzas—the Palace of the Herons.”

  Smiling back, President Truman replied, “None of those at the White House. We have lobbyists instead, lobbyists and other vultures.”

  Like Arias himself, the dignitaries he’d invited to eat with Truman were educated men fluent in English. Some of them showed a better understanding of both sides’ strategy in the war than most of the Congressmen Truman had conferred with. The lunch was excellent: lobster chunks simmered in spiced coconut milk and served with rice and beans. Rum flowed freely.

  Not too much later than he’d planned, Truman got back into the Cadillac with Arias for the trip to the blasted lock. The Canal’s geography was confusing; till you studied a map, you weren’t likely to realize that the Caribbean opening lay west of the one on the Pacific.

  A good highway ran from Panama City to Colón. It had gone on to Gatún, but Gatún was no more. Neither was Lake Gatún, some of which had boiled to steam and more of which poured out into the Caribbean after the bomb hidden in the Panathenaikos went off. Every drop that poured through the crater became radioactive as it went. Eventually, the Caribbean would dilute the poison till it didn’t matter any more, but how eventually eventually was, Truman didn’t know. Every alleged expert he talked to gave him a different answer.

  Making sure the Japs didn’t wreck the Panama Canal had been one of America’s worries during World War II. Making sure the Russians didn’t was a high priority this time around. High priority or not, the Russians had done it.

  “My fault,” he told Arnulfo Arias. “We were supposed to defend against this kind of savagery. We were supposed to, but we dropped the ball. I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “I have heard that you are a man who says what is in his heart,” the President of Panama replied. “Now I find for myself that it is so.”

  “And you find that it doesn’t do you one whole hell of a lot of good, hey?” Truman said. “I promise you this, Mr. President: after we’ve won the war, we will put the Panama Canal back together again. It’s too important to leave it like—this.”

  “To the whole world, and to Panama,” Arias said.

  “Yes, and to Panama,” Truman agreed. Without the Canal, Panama might as well go back to being part of Colombia. The only drawback to that was, Colombia probably wouldn’t want it.

  President Arias had other things on his mind. “How long will the war go on before the United States wins it, Mr. President? How much of the world will be left in one piece by the time it ends?”

  Those were both good questions. They were much better questions than Truman wished they were, in fact. “I’m not the only one who has something to say about that, you know, your Excellency,” he said. “Stalin does, too. If the Russians pull out of western Germany and Italy and if the Red Chinese pull out of South Korea, we have nothing left to fight about.”

  “Yes, sir.” Arias studied him with wide, sad eyes. “And what do you think the chances of that are?”

  “Pretty poor,” Truman said. “If he wanted to do that, he would’ve done it by now, and made Mao do it, too. But there is a way to get a man who doesn’t want to do something to do it anyhow. If you keep hitting him, after a while he’ll do what you tell him to do to get you to stop. That’s how we finally made the Nazis and the Japs give up. Sooner or later, we’ll make Stalin quit, too.”

  “Sooner or later, yes.” Arias waved at the crater that marked the ruination of one of the greatest engineering feats mankind had ever brought off. “But in the meantime, Mr. President, Stalin keeps hitting back. He is still trying to make you quit.”

  “Well, it won’t work,” Truman snapped. “Korea won’t go all Red, and if Joe Stalin doesn’t like that, he can stick it in his pipe and smoke it. Western Europe won’t be all Red, either.”

  “He’s hurt you—not just here, but in your own country,” Arias said.

  “We’ve hurt him worse. We’ll go on doing it as long as we have to,” Truman answered. He fanned himself with his Panama hat. It was muggier than even a Missouri man who’d done time in Washington was used to. As an old haberdasher, he knew perfectly well that Panama hats came from Ecuador. He wore one anyhow; names counted, too. He went on, “In the last war, Admiral Halsey said the Japanese language would be spoken only in hell. Japan surrendered before we had to arrange that. If the Soviet Union doesn’t, Satan will get himself a lot of new Russian customers.”

  Arnulfo Arias smiled. The expression slipped as he realized Truman meant it.

  —

  Wilf Davies walked into the Owl and Unicorn and said, “I’ll take a pint of your best bitter, Daisy, if you’d be so kind.”

  “Well, I might have enough left to spare you one,” she said, and winked at the mechanic with the hook where his left hand should have been.

  “Here now, you watch that!” Wilf exclaimed as she worked the tap. “Anybody sees you and tells my missus, she’ll think you’re tryin’ to lure me away from her.”

  The pub had just opened. They were the only ones in the snug. Wilf often stopped in for an early pint. Nobody but the two of them could have seen the wink. Daisy said, “Who knows? I could do worse.”

  “Don’t go puttin’ ideas in my head, dear,” he said as he set money on the bar. They weren’t likely to be practical ideas, not when he was happily married and old enough to be her father. Maybe he got them anyhow.

  The worst of it was, she’d only been half kidding. Some of the RAF and USAF men who came into the Owl and Unicorn reckoned themselves God’s gift to womankind. They acted as if she ought to fall into their arms right there in the snug—never mind wasting time going upstairs to bed.

  You couldn’t even tell those blighters anything that would dent their splendid opinion of themselves. The nicer ones would call you stuck-up if you did. The others would call you things that started with frigid bitch and went downhill from there.
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  Davies took a pull at the pint and smacked his lips. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s mighty good.” He drank again. “I’ve got a question for you, dear.”

  “What kind of question?” Daisy felt a certain small alarm. Was he going to get difficult, after so long being not just a customer but a friend?

  But what he asked was, “Do you know how long a metal part stays radioactive and how dangerous that is?”

  She stared at him. “Why in God’s name d’you think I’d know something like that?”

  “Well…” He looked sheepish, and stared down at his half-empty mug. “You’ve got those Yank officers comin’ in here all the time. I wondered if maybe one of ’em talked about it, or somethin’.” Embarrassment thickened his accent.

  “Not a word,” she said. “Not a single, solitary word. Why would you care about a crazy thing like that, anyhow?” She suddenly pointed a forefinger at him. It wasn’t quite Balzac’s J’accuse!, but it came close. “You’re getting auto parts out of Norwich!”

  “Hush!” He held his own forefinger up to his lips. “I’ve done no such illegal thing—not so they can prove it, any road. But I have me some friends who have some friends who can lay their hands on this, that, or the other thing—the kind of stuff what’s hard to come by these days. I ask ’em no questions, and they tell me no lies.”

  Daisy wondered how outraged she should be, and whether she should be outraged at all. Of course scavengers would sneak into Norwich, never mind the Army and Scotland Yard. Autos at the edge of the blast area were more likely to have survived, or at least to be salvageable, than their owners were. You couldn’t put a dead man’s kidney or spleen on the market. A dead Bentley’s pistons or mudguards were a different story.

  “You might get yourself one of those Geiger counters,” Daisy said. “If a part makes it click too much, don’t buy it or don’t use it.”

  “There’s a good notion!” He looked at her admiringly. “I don’t much fancy putting some gears in the gear train and poisoning my customers with ’em. There’s the sort of thing that gives your business a bad name.”

  “Poisoning yourself whilst you’re working on the repairs, too,” Daisy said.

  Wilf blinked. “Hadn’t thought of that. Should have, shouldn’t I?”

  “I daresay!” she answered. Am I killing myself on the job here? would have been the first thing she worried about. She hoped it would, at any rate. She lit a cigarette.

  The mechanic pushed more silver at her. “Have a half on me,” he said. “You might just have saved my bacon there.”

  Daisy didn’t care for beer so early in the day. But Wilf meant it kindly; she knew that. She filled one of the smaller mugs at the tap. Savoring the bitter, she said, “This is a nice barrel, isn’t it?”

  “You’re the publican, sweetheart, so what else are you going to say?” Wilf returned. She made a face at him. He drank again. “I’m not pouring it down the sink myself, you see.”

  “You’d better not,” Daisy said, and then, “Would you like another?”

  He shook his head. “I’d like one fine, but I’ve got work back at the garage. I have a pint, it means naught. I have two pints, I’m liable to be clumsy and stupid and make a hash of what should be simple.”

  “Do what you need to do,” Daisy said. That was her own motto; she could hardly resent it when someone else felt the same way.

  Bruce McNulty came into the pub that evening. It was a noisier, busier, livelier place that it had been earlier in the day. Even so, Daisy asked him about how long metal parts stayed radioactive.

  “That’s a funny question,” the American flyer said.

  “A friend wondered,” she told him.

  “A friend?” he echoed, a certain edge to his voice.

  “From in town,” Daisy said, nodding. Then she realized the edge had to be jealousy. She felt like clomping the Yank over the head with a pint mug. Taking a deep breath instead, she went on, “For one thing, Mr. McNulty, Wilf was born before the turn of the century and came back from the First World War with a hook doing duty for one hand. And for another thing, Mr. McNulty, even if he were our age and handsome as a film star, that would be none of your bloody business.” One more deep breath. “Am I plain enough, or shall I draw you pictures?”

  He turned sunset red. She’d hit him too hard. Naturally, she saw that only after she’d gone and done it. “You’re pretty plain, all right,” he mumbled.

  “Good,” she said. Maybe briskness would help. “Do you know the answer to my friend’s question, then? He wants to be able to use auto parts from, ah, around Norwich, but he doesn’t want to hurt himself or any of the people whose cars they go into.”

  “Black-market parts. Stuff the buzzards bring home in their claws,” McNulty said. To Daisy, a buzzard was a hawk; to the Yank, it seemed to mean vulture. She nodded again anyhow. That was what Wilf was dealing in, sure enough. Bruce McNulty shrugged and spread his hands. “Afraid I can’t tell you—or even your friend.” His mouth quirked. “I just deliver the junk. I don’t know what all it does after it goes kablooie. How radioactive stuff gets, how long it stays that way”—he shrugged once more—“it’s not my department.”

  “Fair enough. Thanks.” After a beat, Daisy added, “I’m sorry I barked at you.”

  “Uh-huh. Listen, let me have one for the road, will you?” McNulty set a couple of shillings on the bar. He waved away change and drained the pint at one long pull. Then he said, “See you around, kiddo. It was…interesting, anyway.” He tipped his cap and walked out into the night.

  Only after he was gone did she understand that he wasn’t coming back. Wherever he did his drinking from now on, it wouldn’t be at the Owl and Unicorn. Well, damn, she thought as she drew another American a pint. She hadn’t meant to offend him. She’d just tried to get an answer for Wilf. Things spiraled out of control from there. He’d had no cause to get jealous. None. But why was she so sorry he was gone?

  SOMEWHERE OUT THERE, Russian tanks were prowling. Gustav Hozzel listened to the filling-shaking rumble of their big diesels. He could hear them, but he couldn’t see them.

  He was as ready for them as he could be when he did see them. Half a dozen Molotov cocktails stood on the floor of the second-story Dortmund flat, under the shattered window. Gasoline and motor oil and some soap flakes, all stirred together, filled the bottles. Each one had a wick. And Gustav had a Zippo. He’d got it from an Ami for some extra grenades. He admired tools that worked all the time. The American lighter qualified.

  He sneaked a look out the window. Still no T-54s in sight. The brick façade of the block of flats across the street had fallen down onto the sidewalk and into the street. He could see into all the apartments over there. That would have been more interesting if fire hadn’t gutted the building.

  One or two 100mm rounds of HE would bring down the façade on this place, too. They might also bring down the rest of the building, and all the defenders in it. Just the same, he didn’t think the Ivans were enjoying themselves in Dortmund, or anywhere else in the Ruhr. Street fighting inside cities melted armies like fat in a hot frying pan. Hitler’d discovered that the hard way in Stalingrad. Now it was Stalin’s turn.

  A heavy machine gun barked. It was a Russian gun, not an American M-2. Some T-54s mounted them on the turret as antiaircraft weapons. And just because they were billed like that didn’t mean they weren’t useful all kinds of other ways. The Soviet machine gun powered its mechanism by gas; the American, by the force of recoil. A soldier hit by a 12.7mm slug from either was unlikely to care about the difference—or anything else, ever again.

  Gustav glanced out once more, just in time to watch a Red Army soldier duck into a doorway. Another Russian stuck his head up from behind a jeep that some explosion had flipped onto its back. He ducked down as Gustav was ducking back. Gustav didn’t think he’d been spotted.

  “They’re coming!” he called. His fellow emergency militiamen swore. Whenever you thought you could re
lax for a little while, the damned Ivans started trying to kill you again.

  Another quick look showed more Russians sliding forward. Gustav was sure men he couldn’t see were moving up with them. Russians disappeared into the woodwork like cockroaches if you gave them half a chance—even a quarter of a chance.

  That diesel growl got louder and came closer, too. He nodded to himself. In the open, tanks trampled and smashed through enemy fieldworks so the foot soldiers could follow. But this wasn’t the open. Dortmund stood at the eastern edge of one of the most heavily built-up areas in the world. The rules changed when you fought in terrain like this.

  Tanks clattering down the streets of Dortmund without infantry guards wouldn’t last five minutes. Somebody would shoot a bazooka round into the thin side armor or throw a grenade through an open hatch. Those Red Army foot sloggers were here to clear away the nasty somebodies so the armor could advance.

  This particular tank took out the corner of a building when it turned on to the street where Gustav waited. The rest of the building fell down, not that the crew cared. The tank wasn’t a T-54 medium. It was a heavy, an IS-3 (the IS stood for Iosef Stalin). It was, in a word, a monster.

  It had much thicker armor than a T-54, sloped even more radically. The damned thing carried a 122mm gun, a piece of artillery that wouldn’t have been out of place on a destroyer. No wonder even Tiger crews had treated Stalin tanks with respect in the last war. Stalins weren’t fast enough to keep up with T-54s in open country, but all that armor gave them extra protection in city fighting like this.

  The commander stood up, head and shoulders out of the open cupola hatch. He wanted to be able to see what was going on. He was a good tank commander, a brave man. Gustav could have potted him with his submachine gun, but held his fire. He was after bigger game.