The Man with the Iron Heart

looked like a good idea.

It did to Captain Bokov, anyhow, and to Colonel Shteinberg. Whether it did to Yuri Vlasov…We’ve got to find out, dammit, Bokov told himself.

“I know what the two of you are here for,” Vlasov rasped. “You’re going to try and talk me into sucking the Americans’ cocks.”

“No, Comrade General, no. Nothing like that,” Shteinberg said soothingly. Yes, Comrade General, yes. Just like that, Vladimir Bokov thought fiercely. He wanted to watch Vlasov squirm. Maybe they could have kept the crash from happening if only the miserable bastard had put his ass in gear.

“Don’t bother buttering me up, zhid,” Vlasov said. “Nothing but a waste of time.”

“However you please…sir.” Moisei Shteinberg held his voice under tight control. “My next move, if you keep dicking around with us, is to write to Marshal Beria and let him know how you’re obstructing the struggle against the Heydrichite bandits.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” General Vlasov bellowed.

“Yes, I would. I’ve already done it,” Shteinberg said. “And if anything happens to me, the letter goes to Moscow anyway. I’ve taken care of that, too…sir.”

“Fuck your mother hard!”

“Maybe my father did,” Shteinberg answered calmly. “But at least I know who he was…sir.”

Could looks have killed, Yuri Vlasov would have shouted for men to come and drag two corpses out of his office. Bokov wondered whether the general would try something more direct. He also wondered how much good this move would do him and Shteinberg even if they turned out to be right. He shrugged, with luck invisibly. If it helped the fight against Heydrich’s bandits, he’d worry about everything else later.

“All right. All right.” Vlasov spat the words in Shteinberg’s face. “Take this other kike to the Americans, then. Go ahead. Be my guest. They’ll probably be a bunch of Jews, too. As far as I’m concerned-” He broke off, breathing hard.

“Yes, sir?” Shteinberg’s voice was polite, even curious. Bokov was curious, too. What had Vlasov swallowed? Something like As far as I’m concerned, Hitler knew what he was doing with you people? Bokov wouldn’t have been surprised. Plenty of his fellow-Russians felt that way. He didn’t love Jews himself. But you could damn well count on them to be anti-Fascist.

No matter how much rope Shteinberg fed Vlasov, the NKVD general was too canny to hang himself. “Go on,” he barked. “If you’re going to do it, go do it-and get the devil out of here.”

“If it works, he’ll take the credit,” Bokov warned once they were safely outside NKVD headquarters.

“Oh, sure,” Shteinberg agreed. “But he’d do that anyway.” Bokov laughed, not that his superior was joking-or wrong.

“Aye,” Jerry Duncan said.

“Mr. Duncan votes aye,” Joe Martin intoned, and the Clerk of the House recorded his vote. They weren’t going to be able to override President Truman’s veto of the bill that cut off funds for the U.S. occupation of Germany. They had a solid majority, including most Republicans and the growing number of Democrats who saw that staying on Truman’s side was lucky not to have cost them their jobs in the last election and that it damn well would get them tossed out next time around. A good majority, yes, but not a two-thirds majority. Too bad, Jerry thought.

The roll call droned on. Sure enough, when it finally finished, they fell twenty-two votes short of ramming the budget down the President’s throat. “Mr. Truman has put himself on record as saying he will not sign a War Department appropriation without money for continuing the occupation of Germany,” Speaker Martin said after announcing the results. “I want to put the House of Representatives on record, too. We will not send him an appropriations bill with that item in it.”

Members of the majority, Jerry Duncan loud among them, clapped their hands and cheered. Several Congressmen shouted “Hear! Hear!” as if they belonged to the House of Commons in London. People who’d voted against the override booed. Some of them shook their fists. Jerry couldn’t remember seeing that kind of bad behavior here. Everybody’s temper was frayed. Maybe things had been like this in the runup to the Civil War. The trial of wills over the occupation was tearing the country apart now.

“Order! We will have order!” The Speaker thumped his gavel. “The Sergeant at Arms has the authority to take whatever steps may prove necessary to restore order,” Joe Martin continued. The Democrats-and a handful of pro-occupation Republicans-went on booing. He banged the gavel again. Something like order slowly returned.

Out of it, Sam Rayburn bawled, “Mr. Speaker! Mr. Speaker!”

Had Jerry been up there in the Speaker’s seat, he wouldn’t have recognized the Texas Democrat. When Rayburn was Speaker of the House, he’d made a point of ignoring people whose views he didn’t fancy. That was one of the perquisites the Speaker enjoyed, and few Speakers had enjoyed it more than Rayburn.

But Joe Martin said, “The distinguished gentleman from Texas has the floor.” He clung to courtesy even as it collapsed around him.

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker.” Rayburn could also be courtly when he felt like it-and he could be an iron-assed son of a bitch when he didn’t. He sounded slightly surprised. Had he expected Martin to pretend not to hear him? It looked that way to Jerry Duncan. Any which way, Rayburn went on, “You do realize, Mr. Speaker, that if you refuse to give the War Department the money it needs to keep holding down the Nazis, you will force us out of Germany in spite of the President’s conviction, and the U.S. Army’s, that we need to stay there?”

“Yes, Mr. Rayburn, I realize that. And that is the point, after all. In their wisdom, the framers of the Constitution gave Congress the purse strings. Not the President. Not the U.S. Army. Congress. If the President and the Army prove unwise, as they have here, we have the responsibility to exercise wisdom for them,” Joe Martin said.

“Hear! Hear!” This time, Jerry shouted it at the top of his lungs. He was far from the only Representative who did. Opponents of cutting off funds for the occupation yelled back. People on both sides took off their jackets and tossed them aside, as if expecting they’d be brawling in the aisles any second.

“Order! There will be order!” the Speaker of the House insisted loudly. The microphone made each blow of his gavel sound like a gunshot. After what had happened to poor Gus van Slyke-whom he’d known for years-Jerry wished that comparison hadn’t leaped into his mind, but it was the only one that seemed to fit. Also as if using a gun, Martin aimed a forefinger at Sam Rayburn. “The gentleman from Texas may continue-without, I hope, any undue outbursts this time.”

“I hope the same, Mr. Speaker. And I do thank you for recollecting I had the floor,” Rayburn said. “You say you and those who agree with you aim to stop the President and the Army from acting unwisely.”

“I say just that, sir, and it is the truth,” Joe Martin replied. Jerry Duncan nodded vehemently.

“Okay. Fine. You have-the Congress has-this high and fancy responsibility.” Rayburn waited.

The Speaker of the House waved in agreement. “I say that also, and it too is the truth.”

“All right, then. Here is my question for you: what happens when you exercise that responsibility and it turns out to be the biggest mistake since Eve listened to the serpent in the Garden of Eden?” Sam Rayburn demanded ferociously. “President Truman likes the saying ‘The buck stops here.’ When something goes wrong, he admits it. When the blame lands on you-and it will, Mr. Speaker, it will-when it lands on you, I say, will you be man enough to shoulder it?”

“If that happens, which I do not expect-” Speaker Martin began.

“Fools never do.” Rayburn planted the barb with obvious relish.

Bang! went the gavel. “You are out of order, as you know very well.”

“So is the House-the inmates are taking over the asylum.”

Bang! Bang! “Enough!” Joe Martin snapped. Rayburn sat down, grinning. Business resumed. Jerry wished the Texan hadn’t asked such a prickly question.

XXVI