They chatted for a while, exchanging news about their families and postwar celebrations. After a few minutes of small talk, Ward congratulated Huntington on his appointment and asked how preparations were going. It was the opening the other man had been waiting for.
“It’s going well, Jack. We’re getting a lot of support from all over Europe. The French and Germans are jumping at the chance to attend. They need all the goodwill they can get. I’ve got one problem, though.”
“What’s that?” asked Ward.
“I’ve got a hole on my team, Jack. I don’t have a military advisor. Defense plays a big role in all of Europe’s economies, and if I don’t have someone who can handle that part of the equation, I’m bound for disaster. Will you take it on?”
Even as Huntington continued, thoughts whirled to the front of Ward’s mind. Dealing with dozens of European countries.
“I’d need you for at least a year.”
Trying to build up an accurate military picture of postwar Europe.
“I can’t lie to you. The workload would be awful.”
Defining a new pattern of security relationships for the postwar world.
“I’ll do it,” Ward said. Idleness be damned. His memoirs could wait. He wanted to add a few more chapters.
Glumly, Major Tadeusz Wojcik reviewed his plans for the next series of tactics lectures. It was his unenviable task to make sure they folded smoothly and logically into the regiment’s existing training plan.
He’d been transferred to the training command after the war. It was a rest, they said. He should relax, they said. You need the administrative experience, they said.
Tad missed flying. He maintained proficiency with once-a-week hops, but milk runs weren’t the same as flying with an operational squadron. Sometimes, sitting there at his desk, he could almost hear his arteries hardening.
He heard a rapping and looked up to see one of his staff knocking on the open door. “Major, there’s someone here to see you.” The corporal’s stunned expression did not match his prosaic words. The noncom looked so surprised, in fact, that Tad wondered if the air force’s inspector general had dropped by to rake him over the coals for misfiling some bureaucratic form or another.
The corporal stepped aside, replaced by a man in ill-fitting civilian clothes. He spoke in accented English, which threw Tad off for a moment. He didn’t speak English that much anymore.
The stranger reached forward and enthusiastically pumped Tad’s hand as he rose behind the desk. “Major Wojcik. I am very glad to meet you.” He paused for a moment and smiled. “I am sorry. I am glad to see you again.”
The smile got bigger.
Tad was at a complete loss. The stranger had longish black hair and blue eyes. He was reasonably fit, and seemed just a little younger than Tad himself. They’d met before? When? Where? Who was this guy?
“I’m sorry, I’m afraid…”
The grin widened some more. “Of course.” The man suddenly snapped to attention. “I am Leutnant Dieter Kurtz of the Deutsche Luftwaffe, with Jagdgeschwader Three.”
A German? Tad’s face mirrored his puzzlement. But he’d never met…
Kurtz continued. “I was in a MiG-29 on June 8, near the German-Polish border.”
Recognition dawned on Wojcik’s face. “You tangled with two F-15s. I was in one of them.”
The German nodded. “And you shot me down.”
An image of the dogfight flashed through Tad’s memory. A night intercept that had resulted in a classic two-versus-two engagement, with the maneuvers as clean and well executed as a game between chess champions.
It had not ended quickly, though. Move had followed countermove until Tad had finally taken a chance snapshot with his cannon and scored on the German. It had been his sixth kill and it had firmly cemented his reputation as an ace with the regiment.
Tad remembered the MiG, sparkling in the darkness as his cannon shells struck, then spiraling down into the night, one wing gone and on fire.
At the time, he hadn’t even thought about the other pilot, hadn’t felt anything except a grim joy at the victory. He compared that feeling with the affable stranger standing before him.
Remembering himself, he offered Kurtz a chair, and then sat down himself. “You ejected?” Tad asked.
“Ja, and my back was badly twisted.” The German motioned to show his posture as the ejection seat fired, but winced and quickly straightened himself out.
Wojcik nodded knowingly. Back injuries were almost certain if a pilot’s spine wasn’t perfectly straight when he ejected. It was a common problem, but compared to being a thin red smear on the landscape…
“Unfortunately I landed in Poland. Where your soldiers found me and took me to hospital. Where they put me in a damned big cast. As much to keep me away from the beautiful Polish nurses as to help me, I think.” Kurtz smiled, swinging his arms to show his freedom. “Now that the war is over, they have released me. And I am on my way home.” He paused. “But in the hospital I asked who had shot me down. Natural curiosity, I think.” The German grinned again. “Imagine my surprise when they were actually able to find out. But I was not so surprised to hear that I was downed by an ace — a hot pilot.”
Tad remembered the fierce engagement. “You were pretty good yourself,” he countered.
The German leaned forward. “When you fired your cannon, it was a lucky shot?”
Tad nodded emphatically. “Yes. On your last turn, you slid further down than I expected, and I was pulling up…” His hands automatically came up to show the relative positions of the two fighters, elbows cocked as they moved.
Kurtz interrupted. “I was trying to force you to overshoot. My speed brakes were open and I had cut my throttles.”
“I did overshoot,” Tad agreed. “But only after my snapshot.”
He looked at the work on his desk, then at his watch. It was only two o’clock, but he wanted to know more, about that dogfight and this German pilot, so like himself. He stood up abruptly and picked up his uniform cap. “Come on, let’s get out of here and go over to the O Club. I’m buying.”
The two pilots left, hands already raised as they walked, Eagle and MiG maneuvering once more.
His suit had been carefully chosen to give him the “banker” look. Solid, respectable, not a man to take risks. The only splash of color was a fashionable tie, but Willi von Seelow had needed help with that. Like most soldiers, his civilian clothes were usually badly out of style, because they rarely wore out.
Now Willi, along with his rapidly growing assemblage of aides, supporters, and staffers, stood watching the large-screen television set up along one of the hotel ballroom’s walls.
Their “victory party” had started early, right after the polls closed. Food, beer, and music helped make the interminable waiting more bearable. Although Willi was confident, he believed the outcome was far from certain. His supporters, whose futures depended on his rising star, were of course sure of his victory.
And in the end, they were right. A newsreader, with grave formality, announced, “In the election returns from Berlin, our projections now show that Wilhem von Seelow of the New Democratic Party has defeated his opponent, Ernst Kettering of the Social Democrats, with fifty-five percent of the vote.”
The ballroom erupted in cheers, and in midsong the band suddenly switched to a stirring march. As probable as victory had been, the new party, formed in the weeks since Schraeder’s resignation, was only now meeting its first test, special postwar elections called to form a new, untainted government.