Free The Runner by Christopher Reich

families come from the Fatherland. Why are you so shocked?”
    Seyss clamped his jaw shut, eyeing the Stork as if he were mad. “The Amis have just spent the past three years beating the living shit out of us and you expect them to turn around and give us a kiss on the cheek?”
    Weber coughed once, a rude honk that passed for a laugh in Prussia. “Of course not. We’ll have to give them a kick in the ass first.”
    Exasperated, Seyss raised his hands, then let them fall. “If the German people are to become the Americans’ ally, who’s to be our mutual enemy?”
    The three men found the remark humorous, their conjoined laughs rumbling long and low like distant thunder.
    “Relations between the Americans and the Russians are touchy,” said Weber, when their mirth had been exhausted. “The Red Army has limited the Americans’ and Brits’ access to Berlin, yet the city is to be governed by all three powers. The first American troops will arrive in two days to take up their permanent station. How long before they are at each others’ throats?”
    Schnitzel’s cheeks glowed with excitement. “Stalin has overstepped himself in Poland and Czechoslovakia. He has promised free elections yet he’s seen to it that his puppets are in place in both countries. He has violated the agreement he made with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill at Yalta four months ago. We have it on good authority the Americans aren’t pleased.”
    Seyss shrugged his shoulders. “So? Do you expect Eisenhower to cross the Elbe because Stalin has thrown up a few roadblocks and taken a little more land than agreed upon?”
    “Of course not,” the Stork retorted. “We expect you to give him a much better reason.”
    “Me?”
    “Yes, you,”
hissed Egon, and the room fell silent. “Terminal. It is the Americans’ code name for the conference to be held in Potsdam in a week’s time. There, the provisions governing reparations—measures which will include the settling of our borders and the emasculation of our industrial might—will be settled. The new American president, Truman, will attend, as will Churchill and Stalin. It would be a pity if something should happen to flare the tensions between these three great Allies. Personally, I can think of only one thing. And it is a soldier’s job, not a politician’s.”
    A soldier’s job.
    Seyss stood and paced the room’s perimeter. So there it was: another foray behind enemy lines. He should have known it was something of the kind. Why else single him out? He spoke Russian like a commissar. His English was his mother’s. He’d spent practically the entire war roaming unfriendly territory. Strangely, he felt relieved, the burden of ignorance lifted from his chest at last.
    “What exactly do you have in mind?”
    Egon Bach drew a cigar from his pocket and lit it. “Sooner or later, the flame of democracy will ignite the cradle of communism. We want you to provide the spark.”

CHAPTER
    6
    T HE HEADQUARTERS OF THE United States Army of Occupation, military government of Bavaria, was located in the barracks and classrooms of the former SS academy at Bad Toelz, a sleepy hamlet perched on the banks of the Isar River twenty miles south of Munich. The academy was impressive: a three-story stone edifice painted a rich cream with steep gabled roofs that ran in a continuous square around a parade ground the size of Ebbetts Field. Stands of mature poplars stood sentry at each corner of the parade ground. A flagpole rose from its center, the Stars and Stripes snapping to attention in the warm morning breeze.
    Devlin Judge hopped from the jeep as soon as it had pulled to a halt, and followed his driver into the building. Marching up a few stairs, he came to a wide corridor running in either direction as far as the eye could see. The place was as busy as Grand Central Station. A steady stream of soldiers zipped back and forth as if drawn by a magnetic force. To a man their uniforms were impeccable, their