Armageddon by Leon Uris Read Free Book Online Page A

nights have I gone to sleep making myself believe that I was in the most important service I could render? How many lies have I told myself after my ass has been burned?
    Just today, Hansen thought ... just today.
    There had been another frustrating experience at Supreme Headquarters as Hansen pleaded with American political commanders to listen to British advice. The invasion of Europe was at hand. Hansen begged them to plan battle tactics ahead within a framework of post-war political settlement. But all those mummies could think of was how to crush the enemy, how many rolls of toilet paper to land in France, how quickly they could all get home and forget the whole ugly mess.
    A. J. Hansen had kept an almost singular watch on the Russians for years. He watched the Russians snatch up eastern Europe without protest, and watched Russia spread its tentacles into American and British spheres in Greece and Italy and into the French Underground. Hansen knew his Russians from firsthand dealings. But his arguments hit a dead end.
    And now, there stood before him a young man unable to reconcile himself to eating similar crow.
    “It takes a rare kind of man to serve his country without the benefit of pyrotechnics or reward and a different kind of courage to keep your mouth shut and go on working and believing when you are positive those around you are wrong. We don’t have enough men of this kind of dedication, Sean ...”
    “That’s only part of it, sir. I’ve tried to stick because I know what you’re up against.”
    “Then what is it, man?”
    “Maybe I long to have a piece of this war like my brother has. I have wished many times I could be as devout as you. But, this work here has never given me that sort of fulfillment.”
    “And maybe you’re looking for an easy way to end it with that woman. Sure ... get yourself transferred. Let the Army settle the affair for you.”
    “That might be part of it too.”
    Hansen stood and turned his back to Sean, stared through the window from his third-floor office down into the vast courtyard of Queen Mother’s Gate. “The General requests,” he said, “that the Captain remain in this command.”
    Hansen nearly choked on his humiliation. He could go no further now. He could not put into words the needing of Sean’s keen mind, the respect of foolhardy pride, or put into words admiration for the kind of loyalty Sean had given him. Nor could he get into that part of it about having three daughters and no sons. From the first bombastic clash almost two years ago there had been that strange sort of devotion that men find for each other in times of war.
    “I’ll give you your piece of this war,” Hansen said. “It will mean staying here at Queen Mother’s Gate, losing more arguments to stupid bastards, eating crow. It will mean that seeing or not seeing that woman remains within your resolve.”
    Sean did not answer.
    “This mission will set up a Pilot G-5 Team to study a German city. This city will be learned so that every street, every citizen, every function is known. We will build a scale model in one of the conference rooms ... fly aerial recon flights over it, know more about it than we have ever known about any piece of territory in Germany. This pilot team will have to have an answer for any possible question ... sewage ... Nazis ... displaced persons ... whorehouses. This is the textbook town from which we will gain insight to learn how to govern Germany. When the invasion comes the pilot team will move into Germany and continue on from theory to actual practice. We will test new laws, ideas there first ...”
    The pilot team for Germany! This was more than the piece of the war he had reckoned on. Sean knew that on an impulse General Hansen had taken another gamble with him. Such a command should go to someone with solid experience in government ... someone not so stubborn.
    “I could let you down very badly, sir.”
    “I don’t see it that way. Do you know anything