It hardly mattered whether the tasks were achievable. The NKVD considered failure as treason. Along with enjoying torturing people, rumor also had it that Beria was fond of small children.

Molotov and Beria waited impassively while Stalin stripped the tobacco from a couple of cigarettes, tamped the shreds into the bowl of an old pipe he habitually used, and lighted it. Each of the two men knew his place. They were Stalin's key advisers, but not trusted ones. Stalin trusted no one. Each knew that one misstep could result in his own personal destruction. They both knew what screaming horrors were in store for those who found themselves the targets of Stalin's wrath, and whose lives ended in the basement of the NKVD's Lubyanka prison. Even Beria, who administered the Lubyanka, knew he was only a word away from dying there.

Stalin blew out a cloud of noxious smoke. "You've read this man Truman's message. What do you think?"

Molotov knew he had to speak first. "Incredible," he said, and Beria nodded.

"Comrade Molotov, I expected more of a response."

Molotov found himself sweating and knew it wasn't the heat. "It is as if it were Churchill speaking and not Truman. With Roosevelt dead, there appears to be a degree of confusion in the White House." Again, Beria nodded.

"Comrade Molotov, do you know Truman?"

"I met him briefly, but I do not know him well at all. Few do. As you know, he came from nowhere, a political nothing."

It was not quite a lie. Molotov had racked his brain and been unable to recall meeting Truman at any time, but concluded that it was prudent to say he must have met the former senator from Missouri who was, until very recently, the almost anonymous vice president of the United States.

Stalin relit his pipe. "Yet I am expected to believe this nonsense? That, in the name of our sacred and fraternal alliance against the Hitlerites, the Americans are going to send two full divisions into Berlin as a favor to us? I suspect the treacherous hand of Churchill in this American action. He has coerced the Americans into taking Berlin from the rear and robbing us of our glory in being the ones to take it from the Hitlerites. I suspect that the American divisions will not only try to liberate Berlin, but will also attempt to liberate Hitler and his coterie of lackeys, and use them for their own purposes. Hitler has tried for so very long to split the alliance and sue for a separate peace, and now it appears he has succeeded."

"But why, Comrade Stalin?" Beria asked. Only his eyes betrayed any sense of nervousness.

Stalin stared at him coldly. "Because Churchill hates us almost as much as he hates the Nazis, perhaps even more. Now that Germany is defeated, he feels he can move to stop us from becoming too powerful, and he has convinced this Truman thing to go along. Do you doubt me?"

"No," they answered in unison.

"It is utter arrogance. We will not let them rob us of our rightful vengeance. It will be stopped."

Stalin rose and looked out the window onto the sunny but empty courtyard. "I will contact Marshals Zhukov and Koniev to discuss the final drive on Berlin. We have waited years for this moment and we will not be denied. We will be the ones to take Berlin and destroy the Hitlerite nest, not the Americans.