Jim McDermott

Siege Works Jim McDermott

Berlin, September 1948: the first great skirmish of the Cold War. Fearing that Washington and London are planning to establish a separate western German state, Stalin has ordered the Red Army to close all land routes into the city from the west in an attempt to force out the Allied administration. The Americans and British organize a massive airlift to feed and fuel the besieged population. As tensions heighten, a bereaved Otto Fischer flies into Berlin but disappears minutes after touching down at Tempelhof airfield. Frantically, his old friend Freddie Holleman mobilizes police resources to find him, with disastrous results. Meanwhile, their old adversary Major Zarubin of Soviet Intelligence is forced to confront a shadowy figure who seems beyond the reach of every agency of state. As their efforts converge, apparently unconnected events - executions in an eastern Berlin suburb, a host of black market transactions that cross the east-west demarcation line unchallenged and an internal struggle for control of the dreaded Fifth Directorate, precursor to the Stasi - pose a question: who wields power in a Germany whose form and nature have yet to be determined?