Triumph (1993) Page 4

  "Then let Berlin go, if it's not worth the price."

  "That's just it," Roosevelt said, his temples throbbing.

  "I'm not sure if it's worth the price or not. It would be horrible if we beat Hitler to free the people of Europe, only to find that Stalin takes them into his grip."

  Eleanor got to her feet and walked around behind his wheelchair. She started pushing him toward the corridor and the elevator that would take them up to their family quarters and dinner.

  "Franklin, you've had the responsibility for many, many difficult decisions for more than twelve years now. I'm certain that you will make the best decision about this. You always do."

  He shook his head, wishing that he had as much confidence in himself as she did.

  That night, as he sat alone in his bed with an unopened report on his lap, Roosevelt tried to picture what Europe would look like once the fighting ended. Germany devastated.

  Cities bombed and shelled into rubble. Farmlands torn up by the treads of tanks, forests shattered, livestock slaughtered. The rest of Europe much the same; France, Italy, the countries to the east where the Red Army had thundered through. No factories left standing. No food. No coal for heat in the winter.

  According to the plans made at Yalta the Soviets would control half of Germany and Austria and all the nations of Eastern Europe. Stalin had promised to allow free elections but Roosevelt knew how promises can be evaded, postponed, negated by the tide of events.

  Winston fears that Uncle Joe will turn Eastern Europe into a Soviet colony. He's already setting up his own puppet government in Poland. And there are huge Communist parties in Italy and even in France; what's to stop Stalin from moving on them?

  But a countering thought nagged at him. For all Winston's dedication to democracy, the man's highest loyalty is still to the British Empire. He wants to preserve British influence in the Middle East; he wants to maintain Britain's control of India. Winston sees the Russians much as Rudyard Kipling saw them: "Beware the bear that walks like a man."

  Roosevelt realized that Churchill had fought for the British Empire as a cavalry officer while Kipling was still writing about "the white man's burden." He almost smiled, there in his bed.

  But his thoughts sobered him. I must be careful not to allow Winston to draw America into conflict with the Russians merely to save what's left of the British Empire. It's one thing to work for the freedom of the Europeans whom Hitler enslaved. It's quite another thing to work for the salvation of Winston's beloved Empire. I've got to be very careful about this. Very careful indeed.

  But if Uncle Joe really does intend to turn Eastern Europe into a Soviet colony, it will mean war, Roosevelt realized. Sooner or later we'll have to draw a line and try to stop them. The British don't have the strength to do it; their fight against Hitler has drained them dry. There's no one else except us. Us against the Russians.

  What can I do? Roosevelt asked himself. What can I do to save us from this awful predicament? For one of the rare moments in his life Roosevelt felt helpless, lost and alone.

  Eleanor was in her own room. The entire household was asleep. His wheelchair stood empty and worn beside the bed, within arm's reach. He looked down at his crippled legs so frail and thin beneath the bedsheet and wished desperately that there was some way out of the dismal vortex that he foresaw.

  Berlin. If we did take Berlin, would that discourage Stalin from his plans of expansion? Would it show Uncle Joe that we don't intend to allow him a free hand in Eastern Europe?

  Or will it just start us shooting at one another all the sooner?

  In politics, he reminded himself, you seldom have the luxury of a clear-cut choice. You always have to be satisfied with the lesser of two evils.

  He reached for the telephone and dialed General Marshall's home number.

  The phone rang once, then the general's crisp voice said, "Marshall here." As if he had been sitting by the phone all evening, waiting for this call.

  "General," said Roosevelt, his tone instantly brightening when he had an audience other than Eleanor, "I'm sorry to disturb you at this time of night."

  "Mr. President," came Marshall's voice through the phone, tight with expectation.

  "General, your plans people have a contingency plan drawn up for Berlin, don't they?"

  A moment's hesitation. Then, "Yes, sir, we do. It hasn't been updated for several months, however."

  "Well, could you brush it up and let me see it tomorrow or the day after?"

  "Yes, sir, Mr. President. Um—Mr. Stimson should participate in any decisions along this line."

  Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War, would back Marshall to the hilt, Roosevelt knew. Neither of them felt that Berlin was worth the candle.

  "Oh, I don't intend to change any of the decisions we've already made," Roosevelt temporized. "I just want to see how we might go about it—if there should be some reason to. If the situation should suddenly change."

  "I see," said General Marshall.

  "Thank you. General. I'll call Henry now."

  Above the Atlantic, 2 April

  The ponderous flying boat was noisier than a herd of trumpeting elephants and vibrated like a palsied old man. Yet Churchill had slept well in the bunk that had been fitted up for him in the rear cabin, dreaming of friends long since departed.

  He awoke early enough, though, to watch the dawn breaking through the clouds.

  A symbol, perhaps, he thought as he pulled on his silk robe and tied its sash around his portly middle. The aroma of frying bacon and perking coffee wafted into his cubicle.

  That was one thing about the Americans: they never let you go home hungry. The Yanks complained about food rationing, but their daily allotment of meat and milk was more than the average Briton got in a month.

  Stepping through the curtain that screened off his cubicle, Churchill saw that his valet had already prepared his morning whiskey and water. The shaving things were waiting by the porthole, where the sunlight glinted off the steel-gray water below. Across the vibrating aluminum flooring, two Royal Navy ratings were setting a folding table with a white tablecloth and dishes for two.

  A full squadron of P-38 Lightnings had escorted the flying boat from Washington to the full limit of their range.

  Spitfires would greet the plane later in the day, as it approached the home islands. For now, over the middle of the wide ocean, the Sunderland flew alone.

  If only the Luftwaffe knew, Churchill said to himself, a grim smile curling his lips. How happy Hitler would be to shoot me down. Of course, his own fighters do not have the range to reach this far over the ocean. But he has those blasted Fock-Wulf bombers still sneaking around out here.

  What do they call them? The Condor. Yes, that's their name for the plane. Condor. The Nazis love names like that.

  Vultures and Tigers and such. The Eagle's Nest. What is it Hitler calls his headquarters? The Wolfs Lair. The hyena's den, more likely.

  Eden ducked through the hatch that led up to the cockpit, natty as ever in a gray three-piece suit, and saw the breakfast table being prepared by the two seamen. Churchill accepted his morning whiskey from his valet and gestured grandly toward the table.

  As he and Eden sat on the rickety folding chairs, Churchill asked over the bellowing of the plane's engines, "What news?"

  "Nothing that can't wait until after breakfast," Eden replied. He looked tense, though.

  "Broadsword?"

  Eden lowered his voice until it could barely be heard over the roar of the engines. "The order went out last night, as you instructed. We received an acknowledgment from the embassy in Moscow with this morning's radio dispatches."

  "Then the plan is in motion."

  "Yes, it is."

  Churchill ran a hand across his stubbly jaw. "Now it all depends on some Russian we've never seen."

  "It's a shaky scheme, at best, Winston. If Stalin finds out about it, or even his successors, should it be successful. . ."

  "There's nothin
g to suggest that we did it," Churchill said. "They will suspect traitors in their own midst. That's the Russian way."

  "They don't have plutonium," Eden pointed out.

  "Then they won't know what it is, will they?"

  Eden puffed out a nervous sigh. "I must say, Winston, that you seem quite calm about the whole thing."

  Churchill allowed one of the sailors to serve him a large plate of bacon and scrambled eggs while he sipped at his whiskey. The empty tea cups rattled on their saucers like nervous old women.

  "There is only one point that worries me," he said after the man had left their table.

  "What is that?"

  "Will he do it? Will the Russian chap that our embassy people have picked out actually have the nerve to do the job?"

  Chapter 6

  Berne, 2 April

  Clouds of thick gray smoke wafted silently to the high rococo ceiling of the luxurious Swiss hotel room as Allen Dulles puffed reflectively on his pipe. It was the tactic he used when he was unsure of himself, faced with a problem or a person he could not fathom.

  Smoke signals to nowhere.

  Sitting on the oversized wingback chair before him was General Karl Wolff, his bald, round face bearing a small but noticeable dueling scar on his left cheek. Chunky build.

  In a three-piece tweed suit of light brown, his legs crossed, a cigarette pointing straight up in the air between his two fingers and thumb, General Wolff looked relaxed, at ease, almost like a vacationing tourist instead of the commander of the SS in Italy.

  Dulles studied Wolff for long moments as he puffed on his pipe. Head of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in Europe, Dulles looked more like a schoolmaster than a master spy. He too wore a tweed jacket, dark blue, with leather patches on the elbows. His gabardine trousers were darker, navy blue, and he wore a sleeveless vee-neck gray sweater in place of a vest.

  "Let me see if I understand you correctly," said Dulles.

  His voice was thin, soft.

  "It is very simple," General Wolff replied crisply. "General Kesselring will agree to an immediate armistice for all the German forces under his command. That includes the entire Italian theater."

  "What's left of it," Dulles murmured.

  Wolffs light gray eyes flashed, but he went on as if he had not heard the comment. "All German forces will withdraw in good order with their field equipment, food, fuel and ammunition. As part of the agreement we pledge not to fight against the British or American forces still in the field. You will gain all of Italy, right up to the border of Austria, without firing another shot or incurring another casualty."

  Dulles took the pipe from his lips. "And General Kesselring can march his troops to your eastern front to fight the Russians."

  "Precisely so."

  "But the Russians are our allies."

  Wolff forced a smile. "Come now, sir. A pack of barbarians raping and looting their way across Eastern Europe? Your allies?"

  Dulles thought about the way the SS had treated the Russians and Ukrainians and all the others that had fallen into their clutches. The death camps. The slave labor. The extermination of what Hitler called untermensch to give the true Aryan Germans lebensraum, room to live in.

  He asked, "What does Berlin have to say about General Kesselring's proposal?"

  Wolff's smile tightened.

  "Does Hitler approve of giving up what you still hold in Italy?"

  Through clenched teeth, Wolff said, "That is none of your affair. General Kesselring has made a most generous offer. What is your response?"

  Dulles looked down at his pipe, saw that it had gone out.

  He got to his feet and walked across the carpeted floor to the desk. A wonderful prop, he thought. That's what a pipe is. Gives you an excuse for not answering immediately.

  Gives you time to think. Makes you look wise.

  He rapped the pipe sharply on the heavy porcelain ashtray on the desk, knocking out the blackened dottle of ash on the first shot. Let him stew a few moments, Dulles thought to himself. I'm in no hurry. He fished in his jacket pocket for the pouch of tobacco he had brought with him.

  Turning back toward the German and half-sitting on the desk as he dug the pipe into the sweet-smelling blend, he said at last:

  "I can't believe that General Kesselring is acting on his own in this. If this is part of a larger deal that Hitler wants to make, I need to know about it now. However, if General Kesselring is doing this on his own volition, how does he expect to withdraw his troops from Italy against Hitler's express orders to stand and fight? We know what's happened to other generals who tried to go against Hitler's will. Even Rommel." Tamping the tobacco in the pipe's bowl with his thumb, Dulles added, "At least your SS didn't hang him with piano wire, like some of the others."

  Wolff's smile returned, but this time his eyes glittered with a barely repressed anger.

  "My dear Mr. Dulles," he said, slowly, choosing his words carefully, "I have never before heard of a man refusing to accept the withdrawal of an entire army. I assure you. General Kesselring can and will pull his troops peacefully from Italy and will never use them against British or American forces."

  "Never?"

  "Never. Our Fatherland has been invaded by howling barbarian hordes from the east. The very life of Germany is at stake. In all honesty, we need every man and weapon we possess to defend ourselves against the Bolshevik monsters. This has nothing to do with politics. If they— "

  Dulles stopped him with an upraised finger. Crossing the room swiftly to sit before the SS general once more, he asked, "Are you saying that all the German forces facing us are willing to surrender?"

  Wolff stubbed his cigarette on the ashtray standing next to his chair. It was time for him to think carefully before answering.

  "I would not use the word 'surrender.'"

  "An armistice, then?" Dulles asked. "All the German forces in Italy and the western front?"

  "I am not empowered to discuss that." Before Dulles could respond, Wolff went on, "However, General Kesselring is very influential among the other field commanders."

  Dulles shook his head. "No, there's more to it than Kesselring. Who's behind this? What's really going on?"

  Wolff leaned back in his chair and took a silver cigarette case from his inside jacket pocket. "As I have said, General Kesselring is very influential. He has many friends and comrades in positions of high command."

  Hunching forward, his pipe still unfit in his hand, Dulles mused aloud, "Kesselring is certainly one of the most respected field commanders from our point of view. And he was a Luftwaff"e general, too, wasn't he? Earlier in the war he . . ."

  Dulles stopped. His brown eyes widened.

  "Goering! Kesselring is acting as a stalking horse for Goering!"

  Wolff said nothing.

  "Goering's behind this, isn't he?" Dulles demanded.

  "He's willing to make an armistice with the Anglo-American forces so that he can shift all the German power to the east, against the Reds!"

  Silently, Wolff lit his fresh cigarette. Then he calmly asked, "Would you like to meet the Reichsmarschall?"

  "Here?"

  "No, no." With a shake of the head, "Der Dicke is far too well known to leave Germany without being observed. He has a castle in Bavaria, however. Near Nuremberg. I could arrange for you to meet with him there."

  Dulles sank back in his chair, mind spinning. Hermann Goering: the number two man in Germany. Highest ranking military officer in the Third Reich. His star has sunk pretty low, true enough. But he's still legally Hitler's heir and successor. He stuck his dead pipe in his teeth and steepled his fingers before his face, thinking furiously.

  The generals had tried to assassinate Hitler the previous July. It didn't work and anyone vaguely suspected of being in on the plot had been executed, horribly. At least they allowed Rommel to take poison.

  Is Goering trying to take over? Push Hitler aside or even assassinate him, in the name of saving Germany from the Russians? Dul
les had to work hard to keep his face from betraying his hopes.

  "Our policy is unconditional surrender," he said at last to Wolff. "You know that. And we could never accept a surrender that does not include our Russian ally."

  "We know your policy very well," Wolff replied stiffly.

  "It is quite unworkable, given the actual military and political situation. I believe that the Reichsmarschall has a plan that will save many British and American lives."

  "And what about Hitler?"

  "That is neither your concern nor mine. Are you willing to meet with the Reichsmarschall or not?"

  "I'll have to get in touch with Washington. I can't do this without higher approval."

  "I understand."

  Dulles ushered the SS general to the door of his hotel suite. Two tall husky blond men in ill-fitting civilian suits stood waiting outside in the corridor, trying their best to look inconspicuous.

  Goering! Dulles thought as he closed the door after bidding Wolff good-bye. We could end the war in a few days, maybe. At least, our part of it.

  He practically pranced to the telephone and ordered a car to take him to the U.S. embassy.

  London. 2 April

  "Why do you ask?"

  Fuchs said it mildly, casually, hiding the sudden stab of fear that his friend's question had stirred in him.

  Powys gave one of his elaborate Welsh shrugs, which involved his shoulders, arms, hands, eyebrows, even his expressive lower lip. "Curiosity, actually. It's rather frustrating being a courier without knowing much about the stuff one's carrying back and forth."

  The two men were sitting in leather armchairs in the reading room of Powys' club, leaning close to one another, speaking in the hushed tones that the club rules demanded.

  They would have been whispering wherever they were, for they were talking about a subject that bore the security classification of TOPMOST SECRET: NEED TO KNOW ONLY.

  Klaus Fuchs was a spare man, with graying hair fast receding from his bulbous forehead. Thick rimless eyeglasses made him appear to be squinting all the time. Before the war a man would have dressed in dinner clothes to come to the club at this time of the evening. But Fuchs was in a rumpled suit that had seen much wear. He seemed awkwardly out of place in the club, unable to relax, a foreigner, a refugee. He was also a scientist. And a spy.