“This is the final resting place of the Bull bomber that crashed before it could deliver its cargo of death to Philadelphia, less than thirty miles away,” the reporter said. “None of the eleven Russians who made up the crew survived. Because they perished, all of Philadelphia’s more than two million people still live. America’s third-largest city escaped the tragedy that struck Boston, New York, and Washington.”
The bomber’s tail had broken off from the rest of the fuselage. It stood upright amidst the grass and bushes, almost like a cross marking a grave. The star on the vertical surface looked the same as the ones on U.S. Air Force planes.
“Russian Bulls are modeled after American Superfortresses, and look nearly the same,” the reporter said. “The Russians often paint them in our colors to help fool our air defenses.”
Did B-29s on their way to Moscow or Kiev bear Soviet markings? The reporter said nothing about that. He was a propagandist. If the Reds did it, it was a dirty trick. If the USA did it, it was a ruse of war.
Men wearing gas masks and what looked like rubberized suits were moving about near the wreckage. The reporter did talk about that: “This Bull was carrying an A-bomb. Obviously, it didn’t explode, or I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you now. But it did release a certain amount of radioactivity because of the crash. The authorities have assured me that I am at a safe distance from the crash scene. The experts in the protective clothing are making sure that the bomb is secure and that the radiation is properly contained.”
How much were the authorities’ assurances worth? Aaron wouldn’t have wanted to trust somebody who might not know what the dickens he was talking about-or who might be lying through his teeth. The guy with the mike and his camera crew couldn’t have been more than a couple of hundred yards from the Bull’s wreckage.
They had a job to do. They were doing it. Reporters didn’t face danger as often as soldiers did, but they did face it. Aaron just wanted to do his job, too. So did most of the people in the world. But how could they, if it was going up in radioactive fire around them?
–
Rolf Mehlen scratched himself under his left armpit. It was only an itch. Not six weeks after the last war ended, he’d given a doctor two cartons of Old Golds to cut away the blood-group tattoo every Waffen-SS officer carried there. It hurt like a son of a bitch after the novocaine wore off, but the scar was almost invisible now.
In Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, he’d been a Hauptsturmfuhrer, the SS rank equivalent to captain. In this new, half-assed West German army, he was just a guy named Rolf. A rifleman. A spear carrier. It was better this way. Nobody asked a whole lot of questions about a private. That suited Rolf fine.
He wrapped some oil-soaked cloth around the end of his cleaning rod and pushed it through the barrel of his Springfield. Except for firing a cartridge of different caliber, the American rifle was as near the same as his old Mauser as made no difference.
Sitting across the little fire from him, Max Bachman took care of his own Springfield. Bachman had served in the Wehrmacht, not the Waffen-SS. His politics weren’t just soft. They were squishy. When the Fuhrer was running things, the Gestapo would have had a little talk with him, or maybe not such a little one. Back then, though, he would have been smart enough to keep his big yap shut.
To give him his due, he knew what he was up to when he fought. Anybody who’d lived through a stretch on the Eastern Front had the soldier’s trade burned into him, whether he made social-democratic noises or not. If you didn’t know how, you died. It was that simple.
You might well die even if you did know how. Especially toward the end, there’d just been too goddamn many Russians. Skill gave some defense against numbers, but only some. The way the Ivans used their guns and rockets, you needed luck on your side, too.
Rolf oiled the bolt and checked the Springfield’s action once he had it reassembled. When he was happy, he lit an American Lucky to celebrate.
“Let me have one of those, will you?” Max said.
“Knock yourself out.” Rolf tossed him the pack.
“Thanks.” Max eyed the red circle on the pack with Lucky Strike in black on it. He took a cigarette and got it going. Then he said, “I know some English. ‘Lucky’ is glucklich. From what they’re saying, the Amis’ luck has run out.”
“Just like Gustav’s,” Rolf said.
“Uh-huh. Just like Gustav’s.” Max’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked in smoke. “He was a good guy, Gustav was. Had a nice wife, too. Pretty gal. I hope Luisa’s all right, and my Trudl. Fulda’s been Russian too long now.”
“Everything west of Russia’s been Russian too goddamn long now,” Rolf said. “And so the Americans had some cities hit? Big deal. They’re-what? Ten times as big as we are? Twenty times? Maybe more, I don’t know. They had some places nailed last year, and some more now. They bombed us harder than that themselves a little while ago, and we’re supposed to be on their side.”
Bachman blew a stream of smoke up into the darkness. “You love everybody, don’t you, Rolf?” he said.
“Just like I love you,” Rolf answered sweetly.
Max chuckled. “Christ have mercy on the rest of the poor buggers, then!”
“Let Him worry about that. I sure don’t.” But Rolf got more serious after a moment. “I love Germany. I love the Reich. The rest of the world? I don’t give a shit about the rest of the world. It can goddamn well take care of itself.”
“It can take care of us, too. It can, and it has. This is three times in less than forty years it’s jumped all over us with hobnailed boots,” Max said. “We would’ve been better off if the Kaiser and the Fuhrer never started their wars.”
“How about this last one?” Rolf said. “You gonna blame this one on us, too?”
“Nah. We were just in the way this time,” Bachman replied. “The first two World Wars, we were a great power. This time, we’re chopped in half and the real powers bump into each other where we are. Ever wonder if that ought to tell you something?”
“It tells me we should have won before,” Rolf said.
“If it tells you how we should have, I’m all ears,” Max said. “After Stalingrad, after Kursk, after the Anglo-Americans made it into France, anybody with his eyes open could see we were fucked. But we kept fighting anyway, you and me and all the other fools.”
“What were we going to do? Surrender unconditionally? I don’t think so!” Rolf said irately.
“Well, we wound up doing it whether we wanted to or not. How many more soldiers got killed on account of that? How many more towns got leveled? How many more women got gang-banged?”
Rolf only shrugged. He ground out the cigarette on half a brick. “We didn’t know that would happen. We thought we’d step on the Ivans. They’re like cockroaches. That’s all they deserve.”
As if to say the Red Army had a different opinion, Soviet guns thundered to life. Rolf cocked his head to one side, gauging the reports and the howl of the shells through the air. He had a foxhole only a jump from the fire, in case he needed it. Max had dug one, too. No wonder he’d made it through the last scrap and into this new one. One of the things that helped you get to be an old soldier was digging a hole wherever you were first chance you saw.
He was listening, too. “Those are 155s. They’ve got more of them and fewer 105s than they did before, I think.”
“I think maybe you’re right. More of them self-propelled, too.” Rolf let out a sour laugh. “Guys who’d gone through the Kaiser’s war would have talked the same way, except with them it would have been 105s taking over for 77s or 75s, depending on which side they were on.”