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.