Igor knew she was right. The shuffling of officers and party officials was a constant game aimed to prevent the formation of power cliques. In fact, it simply added to a ponderous and wasteful administration. Igor had remained clear of the recalls because he was an engineer with particular skills outside the political and military ring. Yet one day he, too, would leave.
He tucked Lotte in, patted her cheek, and told her to try to sleep. He had never lost that same feeling for this wonderful little imp as the first night he saw her.
As he was driven to Trepovitch’s house, Igor thought about the money he was putting away, a tidy sum he would leave for Lotte. Igor was in a position to do many favors in Berlin and, like most of the Russian staff, took advantage of it, always making certain not to go too far.
He hated himself for the notion, but he knew the money would be safer in a bank in the Western Sector. Daring to put the money in a Western bank was “speculation,” a crime that brought twenty-five years imprisonment, and sometimes death.
After he had returned from the Copenhagen Conference he had impressed Marshal Popov that the Americans and British had a number of engineering capabilities worth studying.
As long as there were areas of cooperation, Igor felt it was common sense to establish Russian missions any place they might benefit. He put people in with the Americans and British in heavy construction, road building, sanitation engineering, and the like. This brought him into contact with Western officers; he became known as the most agreeable of the Russians.
He looked for the proper American or Englishman through whom he could transfer his funds for Lotte, but each time he nearly made the decision he faltered.
The one officer he did trust was Sean O’Sullivan, but friendship with an American was a crime as serious as money speculation and Igor meticulously avoided Sean after his return to Berlin. Any meetings were by chance and the only amenities were exchanges of polite nods. Sean fully understood.
As an Air Force officer, Igor’s own particular pet project was the four-power Air Safety Center. The West was at least a decade ahead of the Soviet Union in matters of traffic control and safety. He was able to have the Americans establish a school to train Russian personnel, and he attended. He was considered the top man in his own command in this field.
Nikolai Trepovitch paddled around in bedroom slippers and a shaggy old robe after a warm greeting to Igor. Igor was concerned for his comrade. In the old days Trepovitch had been a fun-loving, robust fellow. He was now on a strict diet that permitted only mild drinking and no smoking.
“I don’t see how you can stand to sit there for hour after hour in those meetings at the Kommandatura,” Igor said.
“It’s terrible. If only I could return to a combat command. Life was good then. Between Colonel Hazzard and that Englishman, they’ve killed the inside of my stomach, but that’s no reason you shouldn’t have a drink.”
Igor poured a stiff one.
“Tovarich, there is a highly delicate matter you have to attend to in the next forty-eight hours.”
“Yes?”
“Some of the geniuses from Moscow are flying in. You must be prepared to give an opinion on whether or not the Americans and British can supply Berlin by air.”
“It would strain them, but they should be able to get in enough for their own garrisons.”
“No, no, Igor. I mean, supply their sectors of Berlin.”
“Berlin? All the Western Sectors? Food, coal, medicine ...”
Trepovitch nodded.
Igor set his drink down, stunned.
“It is a hard game we must play. They cannot be permitted to remain.”
Igor recovered his bearings. “I must have a great deal of intelligence information.”
Mid-February, 1948
Colonel Igor Karlovy went into Potsdam to a mansion hidden in the woods. The assembled were V. V. Azov, Russian Commandant Nikolai Trepovitch, Marshal Alexei Popov, an Air Force Intelligence colonel from Moscow, a colonel general attached to Stalin, a party member of the Politburo, and a top official of the NKVD. Last, the mysterious emissary, Captain Brusilov.
Igor had committed nothing to paper as he addressed this powerful group.
“Attempts at major air transport of supplies have usually fallen short.” He outlined the attempt to supply Leningrad by air, a situation he knew intimately. It was a primitive operation and a failure.
“In the spring of 1944, Imphal in the state of Manipur in the India-Burma area was supplied from the air by the American Troop Carrier Command to the extent of twenty thousand tons. It is estimated that a combined force of fifty thousand British and Indian troops were sustained for three months. Also, the Luftwaffe backed up the parachute landings on Crete with an air-supply operation. However, these two cases are of a military tactical nature for an immediate objective.
“In the large picture, the German attempt to air-supply Stalingrad ended in fiasco. All they needed, logistically speaking, was three hundred tons of material a day.
“History shows one great air-supply operation which succeeded was by the Americans, again in the India-China Theater. From the Assam Valley, the Bengal Valley, and the Calcutta area their transports flew over the Himalayan Mountains landing in some nine airfields in China in the Chengtu and Kunming areas. They called it jumping the Hump, or some such. This operation, which lasted from the end of 1942 to the end of 1945, achieved notable results with a major cargo of oil and petroleum.”
Igor went into great detail showing that the Hump deposited as much as sixty-five thousand tons of material a month in China which called for brilliant operational and logistical support, skillful and courageous flying.
“However,” he concluded, “this operation does not parallel the problems of supplying a city the size of Western Berlin and its two million civilians.”
The main cargo, Igor rationalized, would have to be coal and no one knows how to fly coal. In the Hump they had nine fields to land on and innumerable choices of routes. Flying the corridor would call for a precision never achieved in aviation history and there was only Tempelhof in Berlin to land on.
A member of the Moscow group spoke. “Comrade Colonel. Is it your opinion it cannot be done?”
“On a purely mathematical basis one would have to say the Americans and British have sufficient equipment, crews, economic reserve, and skills. In theory, mathematical theory, it is possible.”
“Then, Comrade Colonel, it is your opinion they can succeed?”
“Only in theory. There are too many imponderables. I can present you with the mathematical figures and then those things which detract from the figures.”
“Such as?”
“A calculation must be made of American public reaction and determination to go through with such an operation.”
“Determinations of this sort will be made by our political experts,” V. V. Azov said testily, trying to return Igor to the statistical end of the business.
Igor would not be stampeded by the commissar. “You must calculate if the Americans are willing to commit their global air transport power, MATS, into a single operation.”
Marshal Popov, from earlier meetings, knew this was a key question. Would the Americans dare make themselves vulnerable elsewhere?
“The entire strength of the United States,” Igor continued, “must be put behind this effort. As for the British, they may be able to deliver a quarter of the tonnage. They are short of crews, craft, and in a weak economic position. France? They will give speeches about French national honor, but can make no contribution.”
Trepovitch laughed. He had received his fill of lectures on the glory of France from Colonel Jacques Belfort.
Igor got down to bare facts. The minimum requirements for food, coal for industry, and power sustaining the barest level of existence would make this an undertaking unknown in history. It was not merely a question of the number of craft committed, but the number of engines in reserve, the number of trucks on the ground, and the number of crews. He estimated the supply of aviation fuel alone would demand a fleet of oil tankers.