Triumph (1993)

by Ben Bova

  A two-handed Sword four feet in length, crafted in silver with a gold wire grip and a scabbard of the finest Persian lambskin, its pommel was made of clear rock crystal, marked with a gold Rose of England. The blade had been inscribed, in English on one side and Russian on the other, "To the steel-hearted citizens of Stalingrad, the gift of King George VI in token of the homage of the British people."

  Stalin had accepted the bourgeois token with the idea of placing it in the War Museum, and later perhaps sending it to Stalingrad for permanent exhibit there once the war was over and the city had been rebuilt. But his private secretary had flattered him into hanging it in his private office, instead.

  "After all," Gagarin had said, eyes riveted on his master rather than the English ornament, "it is you who directed the defense of Stalingrad, comrade secretary. General Zhukov and the others followed your orders. You are the one who crushed the invaders. The Sword rightfully belongs to you."

  Stalin had admonished the over-eager young man. "The Sword belongs to the State, comrade."

  "Oh, yes, of course. Forgive me, comrade secretary."

  Smiling to show he was not angry, Stalin relented enough to say, "But perhaps it can stay in my office for a while. As a reminder to Zhukov and the other generals."

  The young man had beamed his thanks.

  Gagarin knew the Sword was a murder weapon. He did not know how it would accomplish its task, but he understood that it was intended to assassinate Josef Stalin.

  Chapter 4

  Berlin, 1 April

  Hermann Goering was perspiring as he strode down the long concrete tunnel.

  Strange, he thought, to sweat when one feels the chill of death clamping down on him.

  The Reichsmarschall wore his simplest uniform, the pearl gray of the Luftwaffe, knowing that Hitler detested ostentatious show from his old comrade. He'll see me sweating and think it's fear, Goering grumbled to himself. Or worse: he'll think I'm on the needle again.

  Goering hated the underground bunker that the Führer had created for his headquarters. Better to be out in the open air, in the sunlight, and face the enemy man to man, he thought. But the Führer had burrowed down fifteen meters beneath Berlin's Reichstag basement, hiding out like a badger waiting to strike in the dark. Hitler had spent the whole war indoors, in the various concrete headquarters he had scattered across the greater Reich. The man did not like sunlight; strange for one who laid claim to being an artist.

  Two black-uniformed SS officers led the way through the maze of tunnels, their glossy polished boots cracking like pistol shots against the bare concrete floor with each precise step. Goering tried to cheer himself with the thought that Hitler would be impressed with the weight he had lost. I'm in fighting trim, he told himself. I'm ready for anything. He dug into his tunic pocket for a handful of paracodeine pills and popped them into his mouth, chewing them furiously and swallowing them down before he reached the Führer's situation room.

  He was shocked when the SS guards finally ushered him through the heavy steel door.

  Adolf Hitler looked old, gray, stooped. His eyes were watery. His uniform hung limply on his shrunken frame.

  When he came around the big map table to greet his Reichsmarschall he shambled, lurched like a drunken man. He had to stop and grasp the edge of the map table with his left hand for support.

  My god! Goering thought. He's aged ten years in the few months since I've seen him. He's a shattered man. The burdens of this war have ruined him. Then he remembered the swine who had tried to assassinate the Führer. The bomb blast must have done more physical harm than Goebbels had revealed.

  "My leader!" Goering exclaimed, spreading his arms wide, marshal's baton in his left hand, as he went the final few steps toward Hitler.

  "Goering," acknowledged Hitler. Nothing more. He did not even extend his hand. He kept his right hand jammed in the pocket of his gray army tunic.

  There were four other men in the sunless, low-ceilinged room, and two women stenographers in army uniform.

  Goering recognized the hard-bitten Colonel General Gotthard Heinrici, his boots and red-striped uniform trousers spattered with mud. He must have just arrived here, Goering realized, the same as I.

  The muted thud of explosions shook the bunker. Hitler looked up at the gray ceiling as dust sifted down through the shadows from the swaying overhead lights.

  "The American Air Force again?" he growled.

  "I don't think so," Goering replied hastily. "Russians, more likely." Luftwaffe intelligence had reported to the Reichsmarschall that the U.S. bombers had scratched Berlin from their list of targets. Now it was fair game for the Russians. Besides, Goering thought bleakly, there's hardly anything left that's worth bombing.

  Hitler cast an angry scowl at Goering, with something of the old fire in his eyes. He blames me for the Luftwaffe's failure to defend our skies.

  Before Goering could say anything to exonerate himself.

  Hitler straightened up and announced, "I asked you to come here today to witness the fact that I hereby relieve Himmler of command of Army Group Vistula. General Heinrici will assume command immediately."

  Goering could not help beaming with joy. That weasel Himmler was going to get his comeuppance at last.

  "I myself will personally direct the defense of Berlin,"

  Hitler went on, his voice regaining some strength. "We will turn this city into a deathtrap for the Bolshevik barbarians. Let them come! We will slaughter them by the millions!"

  Goering's joy winked off like a lightbulb shot out by a rifle bullet.

  "My Führer," he said, "I agree that we can turn Berlin into a mass grave for millions of Soviet soldiers. But is it necessary for you to remain here and personally direct the battle? Would it not be safer—better for the Fatherland, that is—for you to come to Bavaria with me? My people are preparing an impregnable fortress in the mountains and—"

  "Never!" Hitler snapped. He pointed at Goering with a trembling right hand. "You can go to Bavaria. I excuse you from the battle! But I will stay here to the end, whatever it may be. Victory or death! That is my destiny. That is the destiny of the German people. Victory or death."

  There can be no victory, Goering said to himself. We have nothing to look forward to except death. Unless I can make a deal with the Americans and the British. That is the only way to save Germany from total annihilation.

  But he kept his thoughts to himself as Hitler spent the next hour ranting against Bolsheviks in general and Stalin in particular. Finally the Führer granted Goering permission to leave. The Reichsmarschall hurried away, leaving his old comrade poring over a map and shouting instructions for moving nonexistent battalions to new defensive positions.

  St. Affrique, southeastern France

  Private First Class Kendall Jarvick pushed through the noisy crowd clustered around the card game and ducked out of the smoky tent, into the chill night air. He pulled a pack of Luckies from his shirt pocket, shook one loose and stuck it between his lips.

  Someone flicked a Zippo lighter and held the small bluish flame to Jarvick's cigarette tip. It was Nick Hollis, the platoon's acting sergeant.

  "Thanks," said Jarvick, puffing the cigarette alight.

  "Tired of the game?" Hollis asked, clicking the lighter shut.

  Jarvick coughed a little. Then, "I was just watching. Acey-deucey isn't my idea of fun."

  "That's 'cause you never gamble. It gets more interesting when you put your money on the blanket."

  "I've got better things to do with my money."

  "Send it home, right?"

  Jarvick nodded. The two soldiers began walking slowly down the company street: a line of big square tents set on the cold bare ground. The night sky glittered above. From somewhere in the shadows came the strains of "Moonlight Serenade" from a radio.

  "I still feel bad about Glenn Miller," Jarvick said, trying to shift the subject.

  "Yeah, that was a shame. But his orchestra's still going strong."
/>   Just like us, thought Jarvick. No matter how many men get killed or wounded, no matter who leaves the outfit for whatever reason, the outfit goes on: squad, platoon, company, battalion, regiment, division—the whole blasted Army, it just goes on and on, no matter what.

  Hollis knew Jarvick's silences. Jarvick was the platoon's intellectual, a guy who had been to college and worked as a newspaper writer before the war. Nick Hollis believed that after the fighting was all finished Jarvick would go back to Iowa and write a book about the war, about their unit: the 101st Airborne. Maybe he'll write something about me, Hollis thought. That'd be funny.

  I wonder how I look to him? The two soldiers had been in the same squad for more than a year now; never close enough to be real buddies, but they had looked out for each other in combat. Then Hollis shrugged to himself. Hell, you look out for everybody in the friggin' squad when you're in combat. You got to. Otherwise nobody lasts long.

  Jarvick puffed silently on his cigarette, thinking that the unit's long rest since Bastogne must be really working. A few weeks ago, if somebody had come up behind me in the dark and suddenly flipped on his lighter I would've jumped out of my skin.

  "How long do you think it's gonna last?" Hollis asked.

  "Huh?"

  "The war. How much longer do you think it's gonna go on?"

  Jarvick shook his head. "I don't know. Can't be much longer. Hitler's beaten, he's just not admitting it."

  "Yeah."

  They walked to the end of the dirt street. It had not rained in days so the ground was firm and dry. Good weather for tanks, Jarvick thought.

  "You gonna go back to your newspaper job after the war?" Hollis asked as they turned around and started back toward their own tent.

  Jarvick nodded, then realized that Hollis probably couldn't see the gesture in the starlit darkness.

  "Yes," he said.

  "You're married, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Any kids?"

  "No. Not yet."

  Jarvick knew it was a mistake to get too close to anyone.

  You shouldn't make friends of men who might get themselves killed a week or a month from now. It was too painful. Despite himself he had become almost fatherly to that big lunkhead Sturgis from Kentucky and the poor hillbilly got it at Bastogne. Jarvick still thought about the big kid with his lopsided grin and that everlasting twang in his voice.

  "What did you do before the war?" he asked Hollis, more to get his mind off Sturgis than any other reason.

  "Me? This and that. I never had much of a steady job."

  "Really?"

  "I did a lot of traveling. On the road almost all the time. Worked when I had to. Chased women, mostly. I was havin' a lot of fun until Uncle Sam caught up with me."

  Jarvick almost smiled. "Nick, you sound like a grasshopper."

  "Me?"

  "You know the old story about the grasshopper and the ant?"

  "Oh, yeah." Hollis laughed aloud. "I guess you're right. That's me, all right. Until I found a home in the Army."

  They were back at their own tent. They could see the silhouettes of the men crouching around the blanket they had spread on the ground, crowding around their card game; their raucous voices almost drowned out the radio's "String of Pearls."

  Jarvick did not want to go back inside. It was shivering cold out here, but he could not bring himself to go back into the smoke-filled tent while the card game was still going on.

  "What are your plans for after the war?" he asked Hollis.

  In the light leaking from the tent, Hollis' face looked almost startled. "After the war? I don't know. Haven't given it much thought. Guess I'll look around for a while. There's still a lot of the States I haven't seen yet."

  Jarvick muttered, "Uh-huh."

  "You're going back to Iowa, you said."

  "Right. Back to Turnersville. Back where I belong."

  "Lived there all your life?"

  Jarvick nodded. "Except for college."

  Hollis grinned at him. "Well, if I'm a grasshopper, you're sure an ant."

  Jarvick grinned back. "I guess I am. I guess I'm happy to be."

  "Yeah. If you can do what you like to do, that's when you're happy."

  The cigarette was down to a butt barely a finger's width long. Jarvick flipped it into the shadows between tents.

  "Yep. All we've got to do is live through the next few weeks and we can go home."

  "You think it'll be over in a few weeks? That soon?"

  "It's got to be," Jarvick said. "The Germans can't have much left to fight with."

  Hollis cocked his head slightly to one side, as if deep in thought. Then he said, "I just hope that the Army can get the job done without needing us in the line again."

  "That would be fine by me," Jarvick agreed. "I've seen enough of this war."

  "Amen, brother!"

  The two men stood uncertainly in front of the tent. They had nothing more to say to one another. Jarvick shifted uneasily. Hollis stamped his booted feet against the night cold.

  "I think I'll go in and get into the game," Hollis said at last. "There oughtta be enough money on the blanket to make it interesting by now."

  "Why don't you clean them all out in a hurry so I can get some sleep?"

  "I'll try."

  "Good luck."

  "Yeah. Thanks."

  Hollis ducked through the tent flap, to be greeted by hoots of derision when he announced he had come to show them how the game should be played.

  Jarvick stayed outside, smoked another cigarette and then another, arms hugging himself for warmth, feeling as alone as a Martian in a strange alien world.

  Chapter 5

  Washington, D.C., 1 April

  Franklin Roosevelt sat in his wheelchair, alone in the White House map room, studying the disposition of the troops across Europe. Churchill had departed for London, still grumbling that the Allies could and should take Berlin.

  "The Germans will fight to the last man against the Russians,"

  Churchill had warned. "They are frightened to death of the Bolsheviks, and they have good cause to fear vengeance, after the havoc they have wreaked in the Soviet Union. But they will surrender willingly to the British and Americans, Franklin. They will be happy to lay down their arms to our troops."

  Perhaps so, Roosevelt thought as he stared at the big wall map. But the Germans fought hard, very hard—until we crossed the Rhine. Now they seem to be disorganized, discouraged.

  "Franklin, are you ever coming to dinner?"

  He turned his head and saw his wife standing in the doorway, with that slightly pained look that she so often wore.

  "In a moment, Eleanor," he said.

  She entered the map room and sat on the chair nearest her husband. "You've been moody ever since Winston left. What's the problem?"

  Eleanor was far from beautiful; newspaper cartoonists exaggerated her large teeth and homely features almost as often as they lampooned Roosevelt's own jaunty grin and long cigarette holder—even though he had not touched a cigarette for more than two years now. Her voice was high and thin and trembling; she had sounded like an old woman when she had been a skinny, spindly teenager. Franklin had not always been faithful to her and she knew it.

  Yet she stayed at his side, a proud woman of high intelligence and higher purpose. More than anyone except his dear departed Mama, Eleanor had recognized the greatness in Franklin and had worked tirelessly to help him achieve his destiny. When polio struck and crippled his legs and he wanted nothing more than to die, it was Eleanor who kindled the fire of resistance in him. Night and day she encouraged, pleaded, cajoled, fought to make him realize that his life was not over, that his political ambitions depended on nothing more than his own will to conquer his handicap.

  She succeeded, and then he succeeded. Once he became President, Eleanor became his eyes and ears, traveling where he could not easily go, listening to voices that would have been too shy or frightened or perplexed to speak to the Preside
nt of the United States himself.

  "Are you all right, Franklin? You look tired."

  He said nothing.

  "What's the problem?" she asked again, more softly.

  Roosevelt wheeled his chair around to face her, putting his back to the map.

  "Berlin," he said, suddenly weary, spent, exhausted by the years of decisions that sent young men to their graves.

  Eleanor guessed, "Winston wants us to take it?"

  "It would mean a great deal more casualties."

  "Would it mean anything more than that?"

  Wishing he had a cigarette, Roosevelt answered, "Of course it would. If we take Berlin, instead of the Russians doing it, we'll be in a much better position after the shooting stops."

  "A better position against whom, Franklin?"

  "Uncle Joe and his Bolsheviks, who else?"

  "But I thought," Eleanor said, "that you got along well with Stalin. You told me you could handle him."

  Roosevelt gave her a glum look. "I may have been exaggerating my powers of persuasion, Eleanor dear. The Communists have taken over Poland and won't allow free elections. I fear they'll be doing that in all the countries they've liberated from the Nazis—Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary. Even Czechoslovakia and Austria, if we allow them to."

  "If we allow them to," Eleanor echoed. Her voice sounded firm and final, despite its tremulous falsetto.

  "It will kill thousands upon thousands of American boys to take Berlin. We could end up fighting each other, the Russians and us. That's what bothers me most; the thought of our troops and the Russians fighting each other."

  "There are the Japanese to consider, too," Eleanor said.

  "We'll still have that war to fight even after Hitler is finished."

  He gave a cheerless nod. "Yes. They fought to the last man on Iwo Jima and now they're sending suicide planes against our fleet at Okinawa. It's going to be the worst bloodbath of them all when we invade their home islands."

  "So you want to save as many lives in Europe as possible."

  "Of course. We're going to need those troops."