The Assassination Option

[ONE]

“What the hell is that?” Lieutenant Thomas Winters, Artillery, inquired of Captain James D. Cronley as they taxied up to the hangar in the L-5.

“I believe it is a C-47, which is the military version of the Douglas DC-3. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

There was indeed a C-47 sitting in front of Hangar Two. It had the Constabulary insignia on the nose, which surprised Cronley.

“I mean that funny-looking black airplane they’re pushing into the hangar,” Winters said, in exasperation.

“I don’t see a funny-looking black airplane,” Cronley replied. “Possibly because I know that funny-looking black airplanes like that are used only in classified operations I’m not supposed to talk about.”

As Winters parked the L-5 and shut it down, a lieutenant wearing Constabulary insignia and aviator’s wings walked up to it and saluted.

Cronley got out of the Stinson and returned the salute.

“Colonel Wilson’s compliments, gentlemen,” the lieutenant announced. “The colonel would be pleased if you would join him aboard the general’s aircraft.”

“Lieutenant,” Cronley asked, straight-faced, “is that the colonel some people call ‘Hotshot Billy’?”

“Only full colonels or better can do that, sir,” the lieutenant replied. “Anyone of lesser rank who uses that description can expect to die a slow and painful death.”

“Lead on, Lieutenant,” Cronley said.

A nattily turned-out Constabulary corporal, who looked as if he was several months short of his eighteenth birthday, was standing guard at the steps leading to the rear door of the aircraft. He saluted, then went quickly up the steps and opened the door, which was, Cronley noted, a “civilian” passenger door, rather than the much wider cargo door of C-47 aircraft.

The sergeant came down the steps and Cronley, followed by Winters, went up them.

The interior of the aircraft was not the bare-bones, exposed-ribs interior of a standard Gooney Bird. Nor even the insula — tion-covered ribs and rows of seats in the interior of a DC-3 in the service of, say, Eastern Airlines. There were eight leather-upholstered armchairs and two tables in the fuselage, making it look not unlike a living room.

General White was not in his aircraft, but Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson, Major Harold Wallace, and former Oberst Ludwig Mannberg were, sitting in the armchairs.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Cronley said.

“Where the hell have you been?” Wilson demanded.

Cronley saw on Lieutenant Winters’s face that he was now questioning the wisdom of their flight.

“Lieutenant Winters was kind enough to give me a tour of the Thuringian-Hessian border.” He turned to Winters. “I believe you know the colonel, Lieutenant,” he said. “And this officer is Major Harold Wallace of the Twenty-third CIC Detachment, and this gentleman is Herr Ludwig Mannberg of the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation.”

Winters saluted and Wallace and Mannberg offered him their hands.

Wallace ordered Cronley and Winters, who were standing awkwardly on the slanted floor of the airplane, into armchairs with a pointed finger. Wilson waited impatiently until they were seated, and then asked, rather unpleasantly, “Cronley, you’re not suggesting that Winters suggested this aerial tour of the border?”

“No, sir, I’m not. But I took one look at him and I could see that Lieutenant Winters is a fine pilot, a credit to the United States Military Academy and Army Aviation generally, and decided on the spot that I would recruit him for service with DCI-Europe. Then I asked him to give me an aerial tour of the area.”

“You decided to recruit him for DCI?” Wilson asked incredulously.

“He can do it,” Wallace said, smiling. “I think the phrase is ‘drunk with newfound authority.’”

“I mention that now because I wanted you to know you can speak freely in his presence about our current enterprise,” Cronley said. “He knows all about it. Well, maybe not all about it, but a good deal about it.”

“And how much did you tell Colonel Fishburn about our current enterprise?” Wallace asked.

“Essentially nothing, sir. When Captain Dunwiddie and I made our manners to the colonel, he led us to believe that Colonel Wilson had told him that he would explain everything to him when he got here.”

“So you didn’t tell Colonel Fishburn that you wanted Lieutenant Winters to fly you up and down the border?” Wilson asked.

“When we made our manners to Colonel Fishburn, I hadn’t met Lieutenant Winters. We met him at dinner last night.”

“In other words, Colonel Fishburn doesn’t know that you have been using one of his airplanes and one of his pilots to fly the border?”

“As far as I know, sir, he does not.”

“And you didn’t think you should tell him?”

“I thought he might object, and I wanted to make that tour.”

“I will be damned!” Wilson said.

“Why do you want the lieutenant in DCI?” Wallace asked.

“I thought it would be nice if at least one of the pilots in the aviation section of DCI-Europe was a bona fide U.S. Army aviator.”

“I didn’t know there was an aviation section of DCI-Europe,” Wallace said.

“As of today, there is. Or there will be as soon as I can sign the appropriate documents, which by now Fat Freddy and Brunhilde should have prepared.”

“You’re going to have an aviation section for the Storchs, is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m going to have an aviation section in which I can hide the Storchs. There will also be other aircraft, two L-4s or L-5s and, if General Greene can pry one loose from the Air Force, a C-45. I’m going to tell him just as soon as I can get on the SIGABA, which I think should be up and running by now.”

“He’s unbelievable! My God, he’s only a captain!” Colonel Wilson said. “A very young and junior captain! And he’s going to tell a general officer what he wants?”

“What’s that Jewish word, Billy?” Wallace asked.

Cronley saw on Winters’s face that he had picked up on Major Wallace calling Lieutenant Colonel Wilson by the diminutive of his Christian name.

“‘Chutzpah’?” Wallace went on, “Meaning audacity? Isn’t that what Patton was always saying, ‘L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!’?”

“It also means unmitigated effrontery or impudence,” Wilson said.

“I remember when you were a captain, they said the same things about you,” Wallace said. “And I remember your defense: ‘I did what I believed to be the right thing to do.’”

Cronley now saw on Winters’s face his expectation that Major Wallace would now suffer what a major could expect after speaking so disrespectfully to a lieutenant colonel.

“Tom,” Cronley said, “now that you’re in the intelligence business, you’ll have to understand that nothing is ever what it looks like.”

Winters looked at him, but did not reply.

“And look at you now, Billy,” Wallace went on, “the youngest lieutenant colonel in the Army.”

Wilson looked as if he was going to reply, but changed his mind.

“There’s more,” Cronley said. “Freddy did some research on how the OSS operated administratively, and found out they had people working for them they called ‘civilian experts.’”

“So?” Wallace asked.

“So now DCI-Europe has two such civilian experts. They will be paid — I’m quoting what Freddy found out—‘the equivalent of the pay of commissioned officers with similar responsibilities, plus a suitable bonus for voluntarily undertaking assignments involving great personal risk, plus a death benefit of ten thousand dollars should they lose their lives in the performance of their duties.’”

“We had a number of such people,” Wallace confirmed.

Cronley saw in Winters’s expression that he had picked up on the “we.”

“And now DCI-Europe has two of them. Maksymilian Ostrowski, former captain, Free Polish Air Force, and Kurt Schröder, former hauptmann, Luftwaffe.”

“I can’t find fault with that,” Wallace said. “What about you, Colonel?”

“I hate to admit it, but it makes sense.”

“Anything else?”

“A couple of things. When I speak with General Greene, I’m going to ask him to transfer to DCI-Europe not only the six ASA guys he’s loaned me, two of whom I brought here with me, but also to get Second Lieutenant Bruce Moriarty of the Eleventh Constabulary Regiment transferred to me. Us.”

“Not ‘us,’ Cronley,” Wallace said. “Transferred to you, in your role as chief, DCI-Europe. As you know, I have nothing to do with DCI-Europe.”

“Sorry.”

“But since the subject has come up, what’s this all about? Start with the ASA men,” Wallace ordered. “And the last time I looked, Brunhilde is not a guy.”

“Freddy had already arranged for Brunhilde to be transferred to DCI. I’m talking about the radio guys. They’re smart. Freddy told me that at the Reception Center, when they enlisted or get drafted, they all scored at least 110 on the Army General Classification Test and were given their choice of applying for Officer Candidate School or going into the ASA.”

“And these guys didn’t want to be officers?”

“They didn’t want to serve four years if they could get out of the Army after two,” Cronley said. “The point is, they’re smart. That has its ups and downs. Because they’re smart, they do their jobs well. That’s the up. The down is that if somebody else needs them, and Greene transfers them, they’ll walk away knowing too much about DCI-Europe, and that makes me uncomfortable.”

“Okay. Point taken. But how do you know they want to leave the ASA?”

“Because I offered them an immediate one-stripe promotion if they did, and a second three months after that.”

“You can do that?”

“According to Fat Freddy, I can. I promoted him to staff sergeant.”

“Okay. What about the lieutenant? Who is he?”

“An A&M classmate of mine. He’ll be given command of Company C, 203rd Tank Destroyer Battalion and the Polish guards.”

“That’s a lot of responsibility for a second lieutenant,” Wallace said.

“He can handle it. And we need somebody to handle it.”

“Anything else?”

“I told Brunhilde to look for some clerical help among the WACs in ASA. We’re going to need all kinds of help in that department.”

“It looks like you’re building quite an empire, Cronley,” Wilson said. His tone suggested he didn’t approve.

Cronley’s temper flared and his mouth went on automatic, and as usual, he regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth.

“Sir, I’m doing what I believe to be the right thing to do. If my superiors in the DCI decide I’m not doing the right thing, or doing more than I should, they’ll relieve me.”

Not smart. Not smart. Rubbing what Wallace said to him in his face was not smart.

And that “my superiors” crack sounded as if I’m daring Wallace to relieve me. Not smart.

Stupid.

“I’m sure that would happen,” Wallace said.

“We saw one of the black birds as we came in,” Cronley said. “Are they both here?”

“The second came in just before you did. They’re being serviced. I brought the mechanics I gave you with us.”

“I should have thought of that, of servicing the Storchs.”

“Yes, you should have,” Wallace said, “but nobody’s perfect, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do we hear from Seven-K?” Cronley asked.

“We have communication scheduled for noon,” Mannberg said. It was the first time he opened his mouth. “We may get a schedule then.”

“Then there’s time for Winters to take Schröder on a tour of the border,” Cronley said. “I think that’s important. I saw a lot I didn’t see in the photos.”

“As you may have noticed, Tom,” Wilson said, “Captain Cronley has a tendency to volunteer people for things they’d really rather not do. Are you comfortable with what’s happening? Are you sure you want to get involved in something like this?”

“Sir, something like this is obviously more important than dropping bags of flour on M-8 armored cars, which is what I’ve been doing here.”

“Tom, you wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t asked you to make the first tour of the border, the one with a photographer in the backseat. Then Cronley, who is clever at that sort of thing, and knew about that mission, figured out that it was you who flew it, and then cleverly convinced you that flying the border again with him in the backseat was something I would approve, so you flew it. Correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That being the case, I feel that I should say this: Intelligence, and especially black operations like this one, are indeed more exciting and important than dropping flour bags on M-8 armored cars. But there’s a downside for someone like you. You’re a West Pointer, a professional soldier, the son of a general officer. You know there is little love between intelligence types and… the Army Establishment. If you go with Cronley, you will almost certainly be kissing your career goodbye. And any chance of pinning stars on your own epaulets one day. And if your father were here, I know he’d agree with me.”

“Sir, I got the impression I didn’t have any choice in the matter.”

“Well, I’m going to give you that choice. Now, and think your answer over carefully before you reply. Let me add there’s no need for you to fly the mission Captain Cronley suggests. He can fly Schröder down the border as well as you can. Here’s the question: Would you like to just walk out of here and go back to your duties with the Eleventh Constabulary and forget anything like this ever happened? Colonel Fishburn doesn’t know you flew this unauthorized mission, and I can see no reason that he should ever learn about it. Think it over carefully.”

You sonofabitch! Cronley thought, as his mouth went on automatic.

“I’ve got something to say,” he said.

“No, you don’t, Captain Cronley,” Wilson snapped. “This is between Lieutenant Winters and myself.”

“No, Billy, it isn’t,” Wallace said. “Cronley’s involved. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

“It’s none of Cronley’s goddamn business!”

“I disagree,” Wallace said. “Go ahead, Jim.”

I don’t have a goddamn clue what to say, Cronley thought, and then his mouth went on automatic again:

“The first thing I thought when I heard Colonel Wilson just now was that I wished he would keep his nose out of my business,” Cronley said. “Then, I thought, well, he’s actually a nice guy. Colonel Wallace—”

“Oops!” Wallace interrupted. “Another cow out of the barn. Watch yourself, Jim.”

“—has made that clear, and I know it from personal experience.”

“Why don’t you tell him to keep his nose out of my business?” Wilson asked.

“Pray continue, Captain Cronley,” Wallace said.

“And then I remembered another time Colonel Wilson had wisely counseled a junior officer. The day I met him. He knew that I had been promoted to captain from second lieutenant before I had enough time in grade to be a first lieutenant, and he was kind enough… as the youngest lieutenant colonel in the army… to explain to me what he believed that meant.

“I remember what he said. Word for word. I’ve thought of it a thousand times since then. And I even quoted it, and the source, when Captain Dunwiddie — another professional soldier like you, Tom — was uncomfortable with the direct commission as a captain I asked the admiral to arrange for him.”

“How long do I have to listen to this?” Lieutenant Colonel Wilson protested.

“For however long it takes him to make his point. Put a cork in it, Billy.”

“Quote,” Cronley said, “‘The advantages of getting rank, et cetera, means that you can do things for the good of the service that otherwise you could not do. And that’s what we professional soldiers are supposed to do, isn’t it? Make contributions to the good of the service?’ End quote.

“What I’m suggesting, Tom,” Cronley said, “is that you base your decision, as a professional soldier, on where you can make the greater contribution to the good of the service.”

After a moment, Wallace said, “Colonel Wilson, in the opinion of the senior officer present, Captain Cronley has just nailed your scrotum to the wall.”

“Or I nailed it there myself,” Wilson said.

“Your call, Lieutenant Winters,” Wallace said.

“Two things, sir,” Winters said. “First, Colonel Wilson, sir, I really appreciate your concern. Second, Captain Cronley, sir, is there anything in particular you want me to show the Storch pilot?”

“Welcome to Lunatics Anonymous, Lieutenant,” Wallace said.

“What I think we should do now is make our manners to Colonel Fishburn,” Wilson said.

“Why don’t you do that while I get on the SIGABA and have a chat with the Navy?” Wallace replied.

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Mitchell has problems with the SIGABA?” Cronley asked.

“No,” Wallace said. “According to Dunwiddie, Mitchell has been up and running since about nineteen hundred last night. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been wondering why you didn’t get on the SIGABA as soon as you got here. And why you’re all sitting here in the Gooney Bird. There’s a… I guess you could call it a ‘lounge’ in the building. Complete with a coffee machine.”

“I was dissuaded from doing just that by Colonel Wilson,” Wallace said. “May I tell the captain why, Colonel?”

“Why not? It may add to his professional knowledge.”

“Colonel Wilson thought it was entirely likely that Colonel Fishburn would ask him if he’d seen you. And if he replied in the negative, that Colonel Fishburn would wonder why not.”

“And if that happened,” Wilson said, “and I think it would have, I would have had to tell him you were flying up and down the border in one of his airplanes, which I did not want to do, or profess innocence vis-à-vis knowledge of your whereabouts. Since I am (a) a West Pointer, and (b) not in the intelligence business, I do not knowingly make false statements to senior officers. Now when I make my manners, I can tell him truthfully, repeat, truthfully, that I came to see him immediately after getting off General White’s aircraft. I don’t expect either you or Major Wallace to understand that, but that’s the way it is.”

But deceiving him is okay, right?

“I understand, sir,” Cronley said.

“And if that question is asked,” Wilson said, “and I believe it will be, I can now reply that I had a brief word with you aboard the general’s aircraft.”

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

[TWO]

Technical Sergeant Jerry Mitchell and Sergeant Pete Fortin of the ASA started to rise when Cronley, Wallace, Dunwiddie, Mannberg, Ostrowski, and Schröder filed into what looked like it had once been a control tower and now was the radio room.

“Sit,” Wallace ordered with a smile.

“How we doing?” Cronley said.

“Waiting, sir,” Mitchell said. “They’re usually right on time. We’ve got about nine and a half minutes to wait.”

“Which gives us time to run over what’s going to happen,” Wallace said, “so let’s do that.”

“Yes, sir. Seven-K initiates the contact. They will transmit, three times, a five-number block. Pete’ll type it, and hand it to me. If it matches the number Colonel Mannberg gave us, we will reply with the five-block number he gave us. They’ll check that against their list of numbers. Then we’ll be open. Protocol is that they send, in the clear, a short phrase, a question to verify that Colonel Mannberg is on this end.”

“For example?” Wallace asked.

“Middle name Ludwig,” Mannberg said. “My middle name is Christian, so we would send that, for example.”

“And then,” Mitchell said, “they reply with what they want to send us. We acknowledge, and that’s it.”

“I hate to sound like a smart-ass,” Cronley said.

“Hah!” Wallace said.

“But I think you forgot to turn the SIGABA on.”

“It’s off, Captain. I was afraid that there might be some interference with the eight slash ten from it.”

“With the what?”

Mitchell pointed to three small, battered, black tin boxes. They were connected with cables, and what could be a telegraph key protruded from the side of one of them, and a headset — now on Sergeant Fortin’s head — was plugged into one of the boxes.

“That’s what we’re using,” he said. “It’s German. The SE 108/10 transceiver.”

“Seven-K has one just like it,” Mannberg said. “We used them quite successfully from 1942. The slash ten means it’s Model 10, based on the original model 108.”

“I thought it was something you found in here,” Cronley admitted. “And were fooling around with.”

“No, sir, that’s it. It’s a hell of a little radio,” Sergeant Fortin said. “Puts out ten watts.”

“And that thing with the white button on it sticking out from the side is the telegraph key?” Cronley asked.

“Right,” Fortin said.

“Where’d you get it, from Colonel Mannberg?”

“This one, I think, we got from Iron Lung… Major McClung. But Colonel Mannberg did give us a couple of them.”

Sergeant Fortin, who had been sitting relaxed in his chair before his typewriter, suddenly straightened and began typing. It didn’t take long. He ripped the paper from the machine and handed it to Mitchell as he fed a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter.

Mitchell consulted a sheet of paper in his free hand.

“Send Seven Zero Two Zero Two,” he ordered. “I repeat, Seven Zero Two Zero Two.”

Fortin put his finger on “the thing with the white button on it” and tapped furiously.

“Seven Zero Two Zero Two sent,” he reported.

Thirty seconds later, Fortin’s fingers flew over his keyboard for a few seconds. He tore the sheet of paper from the machine, handed it to Mitchell, and then fed a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter.

“Peanut dog,” Mitchell said, and then looked at Colonel Mannberg.

“Franz Josef,” Cronley ordered. “Send Franz Josef. I spell.”

He then did so, using the Army phonetic alphabet.

Fortin typed what he had said, but did not put his finger on “the thing with the white button on it,” instead looking at Sergeant Mitchell for guidance. Mitchell, in turn, looked at Mannberg.

“Send Franz Josef,” he ordered.

“Spell again,” Fortin ordered.

Cronley did so.

Fortin put his finger on “the thing” and tapped rapidly.

“Franz Josef sent,” he reported.

And then, almost immediately, he began to type again. It took him a little longer this time, but less than five seconds had passed before he tore the sheet of paper from the machine and handed it to Mitchell.

“Able Seven,” Mitchell read, using the Army phonetic for “A.” Then he said, “Dog Tare Tare Fox One Six Oboe Oboe.”

“Meaning what?” Wallace demanded impatiently.

“Sir, the protocol is coordinates first. So Able Seven is a place. Dog is D. Tare is T, and F is Fox, so DTTF, which means Date and Time To Follow. One Six is the time, 1600. Oboe is O, so OO, which means out.”

“Acknowledge receipt of the message,” Wallace ordered.

“Not necessary. When they sent OO, that meant they were off.”

“Rahil is really clever,” Mannberg said admiringly. “By asking for the dog’s name, she ascertained that Cronley was here — it was very unlikely that anyone else would know the dog’s name — and if Cronley was here, it was very likely that I was, too.”

“And what if I didn’t remember the dog’s name?” Cronley asked.

“Then she would have given us one more opportunity to establish our bona fides. She would have posed another question, a difficult one, the answer to which would be known only to me. And if we didn’t send the correct response to that, we would have had to start from the beginning.”

“What’s this Able Seven?” Wallace said. “How far from here is it? Where’s the maps and the aerial photos?”

“I’ve set them up in the room downstairs, sir,” Dunwiddie said.

“Why not in here?”

“There’s not room for all of them in here, sir,” Dunwiddie said.

“Dumb question,” Wallace said. “Sorry, Tiny.”

[THREE]

“The room downstairs” occupied all of the floor immediately below the radio room/control tower. Dunwiddie had acquired somewhere what looked like a Ping-Pong table, and it was now covered with aerial photographs. Two large maps, one of them topographical, had been taped to the walls.

Wallace first found Able Seven on the topographical map, and then went to the table and started examining the aerial photographs of the site.

Cronley looked at one of the photos and immediately recognized the site. It was a snow-covered field near a thick stand of pine trees. A narrow road ran alongside it.

He then went to the map and, using two fingers as a compass, determined that it was about thirty miles from the Fritzlar Airbase in a straight line, maybe thirty-five miles distant if he flew down the border for most of the way, and then made a ninety-degree turn to the left. Site Able Seven was about a mile, maybe a mile and a half, inside Thuringia.

He sensed that Schröder was looking over his shoulder, and turned and asked, “What do you think?”

“I think I’d like to know what the winds are going to be,” Schröder replied. “If they’re coming from the North, it means we could make a straight-in approach from our side of the border…”

“And if they’re from the South, we’ll have to fly another couple of miles into Thuringia,” Cronley finished for him.

“Precisely.”

“If the winds are from East or West, no problem.”

“Correct.”

“Well, there’s no way we could set up a wind sock in that field. Seven-K is going to come down that road two minutes before, or a minute after, we land. She’s not going to be able to park on that road and wait for us.”

“So we pray for winds from the North,” Schröder said, “will be satisfied with either easterly or westerly, and will hope for the best if they’re from the South.”

“Wait a minute,” Cronley said. “Ludwig, could we get a message to Seven-K, asking her to park her car, or whatever she’s driving, with the nose, the front, facing into the wind?”

Mannberg considered the question a moment.

“So you’ll know the winds on the ground?” he asked. His tone suggested he already knew the answer. “Yes,” he went on. “It’ll… the encryption of the message… will take a little doing. But yes, it can be done. And I think it should. I’ll get right on it. We don’t have much time.”

“How much time do you think we do have?” Cronley asked.

“If I had to guess, which I hate to do, I’d say Seven-K would probably want to make the transfer at first light tomorrow, or just before it gets dark tomorrow. Or — she’s very cautious — at first light the day after tomorrow. Or just before sunset the day after tomorrow.”

“Makes sense. Then, since I have nothing else to do between now and tomorrow morning, I am now going to the O Club and drink the hearty last meal to which condemned men are entitled. Would anyone care to join me?”

“Wrong,” Wallace said.

“I don’t get a hearty, liquid last meal?”

“You have plenty to do between now and tomorrow morning at the earliest.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, presuming you can get Mrs. Likharev and the boys over the border, what are you going to do with them once they are here?”

Cronley actually felt a painful contraction in his stomach, as if he’d been kicked.

“Jesus H. Christ, that never entered my mind. How could I have been so stupid?”

“Because I have been almost that stupid myself, I’m resisting the temptation to say because being stupid comes to you naturally,” Wallace said. “I thought about it, but didn’t recognize how many problems we have until Hessinger started bringing them to my attention.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Cronley repeated.

“You’ve already said that,” Wallace said. “Now, what I suggest we do is send somebody to the PX snack bar for hamburgers, hot dogs, Coke, and potato chips, which we will consume as we sit at the Ping-Pong table and discuss solutions.”

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

“You are appointed Recorder of this meeting, Captain Cronley, which means you will write everything down on a lined pad as we speak. We can’t afford forgetting anything again.”

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

He sat down at the table. Dunwiddie handed him a lined paper tablet and half a dozen pencils.

Wallace, Mannberg, and Dunwiddie sat down. Schröder and Ostrowski looked as if they didn’t know what they should do.

“Please be seated, gentlemen,” Wallace said. Then he turned to Cronley. “The floor is yours, Captain Cronley.”

“Sir, I’d rather you run this. I don’t even know where to start.”

Wallace looked at him, then opened his mouth, and visibly changed his mind about saying what immediately came to him, and then said, “At the beginning would seem to be a good place.

“Presumption One,” he began. “Both planes take off from Thuringia with everybody on board and make it back here.

“Unknowns: Condition of the aircraft and the people on board.

“Worst-case scenario: Airplanes are shot up and there are dead or wounded aboard.

“Medium-case scenario: Airplanes are not shot up and no wounded. But Mrs. Likharev and either or both boys are sedated.

“Best-case scenario: Airplanes are not shot up. Mrs. Likharev and the boys are wide awake.

“Any other scenario suggestions?”

There were none.

“It seems obvious that there should be two ambulances waiting when the planes land,” Wallace said.

“Inside the hangar,” Cronley said. “If they are parked outside, people will be curious.”

“Point taken,” Wallace said. “Recommended solution: We get Colonel Wilson to arrange with Colonel Fishburn for the ambulances and station them inside the hangar. Any objections?”

There were none.

“Comments?”

“Two,” Cronley said.

“One at a time, please.”

“What do we do if there are wounded in the ambulances?”

“They go first to the regimental aid station here for treatment. If they’re in bad shape — where’s the nearest field hospital?”

No one knew.

“Tiny,” Wallace ordered, “get on the phone.”

“And while he’s doing that, what if there are dead on the planes?” Cronley asked.

“You, Max, and Kurt wouldn’t be a problem.”

“That’s nice to know,” Max said sarcastically.

“I meant, you’ve got DCI credentials,” Wallace said. “They’d get you into the hospital, dead or alive.”

“That’s comforting,” Max said.

“The Likharevs don’t have DCI credentials,” Cronley said.

“Army hospitals treat indigenous personnel requiring emergency medical attention,” Wallace said.

“What’s ‘indigenous’ mean?” Cronley asked.

“Native. German.”

“The Likharevs are Russian,” Cronley said.

“So we tell the aid station they’re German,” Wallace said impatiently.

“What if one or more of them are dead?” Cronley asked. “What do we do with the bodies?”

Wallace considered the question.

“More important, what do we tell Colonel Likharev?” Cronley asked.

“Whatever we tell him, he’s not going to believe,” Wallace said.

“We fly the bodies to Kloster Grünau,” Max said. “Where we put them in caskets and bury them with the full rites of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ceremony, and the bodies in the caskets, are photographed. Photographs to be shown to Colonel Likharev.”

“The nearest field hospital is the Fifty-seventh, in Giessen,” Tiny reported. “There is an airstrip.”

“Photographs to be taken to Argentina by Captain Dunwiddie,” Wallace said.

“If Mrs. Likharev, or the oldest boy, survives, Dunwiddie takes her, or him, or both and the photographs of the funeral, to Argentina,” Cronley said.

“Tiny,” Wallace said, “have Colonel Wilson arrange for a Signal Corps photographer to be here from the moment the Storchs take off. When he shows up, put the fear of God in him about running his mouth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Our story to Colonel Likharev,” Cronley said, straight-faced, “would have more credibility if one of us — Max, Kurt, or me — got blown away and Tiny could show the colonel a dozen shots of our bloody, bullet-ridden corpses.”

“You’re insane, Cronley,” Wallace said, but he was smiling.

Ostrowski, shaking his head, but also smiling, gave Cronley the finger.

Kurt Schröder’s face showed he neither understood nor appreciated the humor.

“Moving right along,” Wallace said. “Best scenario, everybody is standing intact on the hangar floor. Objective, to get them to Argentina. Question: How do we do that?”

“Simple answer. Load them in either the Twin Beech or the Gooney Bird, fly them to Rhine-Main, and load them aboard a South American Airways Constellation bound for Buenos Aires,” Cronley said.

“Now let’s break that down,” Wallace said. “What are the problems there?”

“Well, we don’t know when there will be an SAA airplane at Rhine-Main,” Cronley said.

“Tiny, maybe — even probably — Hessinger has the SAA schedule. Find out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Medium-bad scenario,” Wallace went on. “The next SAA flight is not for three days.”

“Can we fly them into Eschborn — and we can, in either airplane, I’ve seen Gooney Birds in there — and stash them at that hotel for the brass — the Schlosshotel Kronberg in Taunus?”

“Yeah,” Wallace said.

“Even if one or more of them is ‘walking wounded’?” Cronley asked.

“And what if Mrs. Likharev is on the edge of hysteria?” Ostrowski asked.

“And that, the walking wounded, and the possibility of Mother being hysterical, raises the question of how do we care for them while they’re en route to either Rhine-Main or Eschborn?” Wallace asked.

“Get a nurse from the aid station here when we get the ambulances,” Cronley said. “No. Get a nurse and a doctor.”

“Why both?”

“Couple of reasons. The nurse, because the presence of a woman is likely to be comforting to Mrs. Likharev if she is hysterical, or looks like she’s about to be, and the doctor to sedate her, or the kids, if that has to be done.”

“I don’t like the idea of taking a doctor — and that’s presuming we can get one — and a nurse to either Rhine-Main or Eschborn,” Wallace said.

No one said anything for a long moment.

“What about having Claudette Colbert go to Frankfurt, or Eschborn?” Dunwiddie asked. “Have her in either place when our plane gets there?”

“Permit me a suggestion,” Ludwig Mannberg said. “Have both a doctor and a nurse in the hangar when the Storchs return, to take care of every contingency. If any of them are seriously injured, he could determine whether it would be safe to take them to the hospital in Giessen, or even to the Army hospital in Frankfurt… what is it?”

“The Ninety-seventh General Hospital,” Dunwiddie furnished.

“Ideally, the latter,” Mannberg went on. “Instead of the Schlosshotel Kronberg. I suggest that if any of the Likharevs require medical attention, the place to do that would be in Frankfurt, where the good offices of Generals Smith and Greene could be enlisted to discourage the curious.

“If necessary, the doctor or the nurse or both could go on the airplane with the Likharevs. If their services were not required, they wouldn’t go. I agree with Cronley that the presence of a woman would be a calming influence on Mrs. Likharev, and suggest that Fraulein Colbert could fill that role.”

“I agree with everything he just said,” Cronley said.

“How could you not?” Wallace asked sarcastically. “Okay, we’re in agreement that Brunhilde can make a contribution, right?”

Wallace looked around the table. Everybody nodded.

“My take on that is, if so, why not get her up here right now? How would we do that?”

“Going down that road,” Cronley began, “we get Hotshot Billy to fly her up here.”

[FOUR]

They went down that road, and many others, without interruption — not even to send someone to the PX snack bar for the hot dogs, hamburgers, Cokes, and potato chips Major Wallace had promised — until Sergeant Pete Fortin came into the room.

This stopped their discussion, which was then on how to get photographs of Mrs. Likharev and her sons to former Major Konrad Bischoff in Munich so they could be affixed to the Vatican passports they would need to leave the American Zone of Occupied Germany.

“What is it, Sergeant?” Major Wallace demanded, not very pleasantly.

“Two things, sir. Our next contact is at fifteen hundred…”

Wallace looked at his watch and shook his head in what was almost certainly disbelief that it was already that late.

“… and Sergeant Mitchell says there’s something funny going on at the Constab that maybe you want to have a look at it.”

“Something funny?” Wallace asked. “Okay. We’ll pick this up again just as soon as I finish taking a leak, seeing what’s amusing Sergeant Mitchell, and having our chat with Seven-K.”

He stood up and went directly to the restroom. There he stood in front of one of the two urinals. Captain Dunwiddie shouldered Captain Cronley out of the way and assumed a position in front of the adjacent urinal. Former Colonel Mannberg got in line behind Major Wallace, and Kurt Schröder got in line behind him as Max Ostrowski got behind Captain Cronley.

Minutes later, after climbing the stairs, they filed into the radio room in just about that order.

Cronley looked at where Dunwiddie was pointing, out one of the huge plate-glass windows. He saw what looked like three troops of Constabulary troopers lining up on a grassy area half covered with snow in front of the 11th Constabulary Regiment headquarters.

“Okay, I give up,” Cronley said. “What’s going on?”

“Beats me,” Dunwiddie admitted. “It’s too early for that to be a retreat formation.”

“Jesus, there’s even a band,” Cronley said.

“Regiments don’t have bands,” Dunwiddie said.

“This one does,” Cronley argued.

“Gentlemen, if you’re going to be in the intelligence business, you’re really going to have to remember to always look over your shoulder,” Major Wallace said, and pointed out the plate-glass window to their immediate rear.

The window gave a panoramic view for miles over the countryside, and in particular of the road down a valley and ending at the air base.

And down it was coming a lengthy parade of vehicles. First came a dozen motorcycles, with police-type flashing lights, ridden side by side. Then a half-dozen M-8 armored cars, in line, and also equipped with flashing police-type lights.

The first thing Cronley thought was, having seen an almost identical parade up the road from Eschborn to the Schlosshotel Kronberg, that one carrying the supreme commander, Allied Powers Europe, to a golf game, What the hell is Eisenhower doing in Fritzlar?

Then he saw the car following the M-8s. Eisenhower had a 1942 Packard Clipper as a staff car. What was in line here was a 1939 Cadillac. Not any ’39 Cadillac. A famous one, the one General George S. Patton had been riding in when he had his fatal accident.

“You will recall, I’m sure, Captain Cronley,” Major Wallace said, “that Colonel Wilson said that he would speak to General White about some sort of diversion?”

Both of their heads snapped from the open window to the side of the room, where Sergeant Fortin was furiously pounding his typewriter keyboard.

“Seven-K,” Wallace said. “Right on time.”

Fortin ripped the sheet of paper in the typewriter from it and handed it to Mitchell.

“Jesus Christ!” Mitchell said when he read it.

“Do I acknowledge?” Fortin asked.

“You’re sure this is all? You didn’t miss anything?”

“That’s it.”

“What does it say?”

“One Six Zero Zero, Oboe Nan Easy How Oboe Uncle Roger. Repeat One Six Zero Zero, Oboe Nan Easy How.”

“Sixteen hundred. One hour.” Wallace made the translation.

“Right now?” Cronley asked incredulously. “Today?”

“They sent it twice, Captain,” Fortin said.

“And added One Hour, to make sure we understood she meant today,” Wallace said.

“Holy shit!” Cronley said.

“Do I acknowledge?” Fortin asked again.

“Jim, can you do it?” Wallace asked. “Can you be at Able Seven in an hour? In fifty-eight minutes?”

Cronley thought it over.

“God willing, and if the creek don’t rise,” he said.

“Acknowledge receipt, Sergeant Fortin,” Wallace ordered.

“Nothing’s in place,” Cronley said. “No ambulances, no doctor, no nothing.”

“Nothing at Able Seven to give us the winds on the ground,” Ostrowski said.

“I know,” Wallace said.

“Yeah,” Cronley said.

“Seven-K wouldn’t order this unless she thought she had to,” Oberst Mannberg said.

“They just sent Oboe Oboe,” Sergeant Fortin said. “They’re off.”

“Which means we can’t ask her to reschedule,” Wallace said.

“Kurt,” Cronley said, “I guess we better go wind up the rubber bands.”

Schröder’s face showed he had no idea what Cronley meant.

“Didn’t you have model airplanes when you were a kid?” Cronley asked.

Then he mimed winding the rubber bands in a model airplane by turning the propeller.

Schröder smiled, wanly, and then gestured for Cronley to precede him out the door of the radio room.

[FIVE]

“Well?” Wallace asked, when Cronley finished his walk around his Storch.

“I don’t think anything important fell off,” Cronley said. “Is Tiny in the control tower?”

Wallace nodded.

“Where he has dazzled the Air Force with his DCI credentials,” Wallace said. “When you call, they will clear you — both of you — to taxi from the tarmac outside to Taxiway Two, then to the threshold of Runway One Six for immediate takeoff.”

“I see the pushers are here,” Cronley said, pointing to Tiny’s Troopers, who were prepared to push the Storchs from the hangar. “So I guess I better get in, and then you get the doors open.”

“I need a couple of minutes in private with you, Schröder, and Ostrowski first,” Wallace said.

“What for?”

“Over there,” Wallace said, pointing to a door in the rear wall of the hangar. “Now.”

Oberst Mannberg was already in the room when Cronley, followed by Ostrowski and Schröder, entered. Wallace closed the door.

“If you’re going to deliver some sort of pep talk,” Cronley said, “I’d just as soon skip it, thank you just the same.”

“Shut up for once, Jim,” Wallace said, and then he said, “Okay, everybody extend your right hand, palm up. I’m going to give you something.”

When the three had done so, Wallace dropped what looked like a brown pea into each palm.

“Pay close attention. Cronley, don’t open your mouth before I finish. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Those are L-pills,” Wallace said. “Inside the protective rubber coating is a glass ampoule. When the ampoule is crushed by the molars of the mouth, sufficient potassium cyanide will be released to cause unconsciousness within three seconds, brain death within sixty seconds, and heart stoppage and death within three minutes. That process is irreversible once begun. Any questions?”

No one had any questions.

“I will not insult anyone’s intelligence by asking if you understand the purpose of the L-pills.”

“We had something like this in the East,” Schröder said.

“Almost identical, Kurt,” Mannberg said.

“Is this what Hitler and his mistress used?” Ostrowski asked. “What Magda Goebbels used to kill her children in the Führerbunker?”

Mannberg nodded.

“And what a number of captured agents on both sides chose to use rather than give up what they knew they should not give up,” Wallace said. “Or to avoid interrogation by torture.”

Cronley, Ostrowski, and Schröder looked at the brown peas in their hands, but made no other move.

“Aside from shirt pockets, the most common place to carry one of these is in one’s handkerchief,” Wallace said. “The place of concealment recommended by the OSS, to Jedburghs, was insertion in the anus.”

“Really?” Cronley asked, and then began to laugh.

“What the hell can you possibly find amusing about this, Cronley?” Wallace demanded furiously.

“Excuse me, sir,” Cronley replied, still laughing, as he moved his hand to his shirt pocket and dropped the L-pill in.

“Sometimes I really question your sanity,” Wallace said furiously.

“What I was thinking, sir,” Cronley said, stopped to get his laughter under some control, and then continued, “was that the OSS’s recommendation for concealment of your pill really gave new meaning to the phrase ‘stick it up your ass,’ didn’t it?”

Then he broke out laughing again.

A moment later, Ostrowski joined in. And then Mannberg. Then Wallace was laughing, and finally Schröder.

“You think ‘stick it up your ass’ is funny, huh, Kurt?” Cronley asked. “I finally said something that made you laugh!”

“You are out of your mind!” Schröder said, and then, still laughing, went to Cronley and embraced him.

They walked out of the room with their arms around each other and then got in the Storchs.

[SIX]

“Fritzlar clears Army Seven-Oh-Seven a flight of two aircraft as Number One to take off on One Six on a local flight.”

Cronley shoved the throttle to takeoff power and then answered, “Fritzlar, Seven-Oh-Seven rolling.”

As soon as he was off the ground, Cronley saw that his normal climb-out would take him directly over the three troops of Constabulary soldiers lined up in front of the 11th Constabulary Regiment headquarters.

That would obviously draw the attention of the Constabulary troopers to the two funny-looking black aircraft, which was not a good thing.

On the other hand, it would be a worse thing if he tried to use the amazing flight characteristics of the Storch to make a sharp, low-level turn to the right to avoid flying over the troops and didn’t make it.

He pulled his flaps and flew straight.

As he flew over the troops, he saw General White, Colonel Fishburn, and Lieutenant Colonel Williams looking up at him.

[SEVEN]

There was a small truck on the road.

As Cronley flew closer, he saw that it was an old — ancient — Ford stake body truck, and that red stars were painted on the doors.

He remembered seeing on March of Time newsreel trucks like that driving over the ice of a lake, or a river, to supply Stalingrad.

A stocky man in what looked like a Russian officer’s uniform got out of the cab of the truck…

He’s wearing a skirt?

That’s not a man. That’s Seven-K. Rahil.

… and went quickly to the back.

A boy jumped out of the truck.

Is that the old one, or the young one?

And then a woman.

Mrs. Likharev.

Mrs. Likharev turned and helped a smaller boy get out of the truck.

Seven-K pointed to the approaching Storchs, and then took the woman’s arm and propelled her into the field beside the road.

Cronley signaled to Schröder, who was flying off Cronley’s left wing, to land. Schröder nodded and immediately dropped the nose of his Storch.

Cronley slowed the Storch to just above stall speed so that he could watch Schröder land.

Schröder got his Storch safely on the ground, but watching him put Cronley so far down the field that he knew he couldn’t — even in the Storch — get in. He would have to go around.

By the time he did so, Mrs. Likharev and the boys were standing alone in the field, making no move to go to Schröder’s Storch.

Seven-K was getting into the truck. As soon as she did so, the truck drove off.

Cronley put his Storch on the ground. At the end of his landing roll, he was twenty feet from Schröder’s Storch.

Ostrowski was out of Cronley’s Storch the instant it stopped, and ran to Mrs. Likharev and the boys. He propelled them toward Schröder’s Storch.

Christ, the little one has Franz Josef!

What the hell?

Christ, I’ve got to turn around.

Why the hell didn’t I think about that?

Ostrowski hoisted Mrs. Likharev into Schröder’s airplane, and then handed her the smaller boy and the dog.

Schröder’s engine roared and he started his takeoff roll.

Ostrowski came to Cronley’s Storch, hoisted the larger boy into it, and then got in himself.

Cronley turned the Storch, shoved the throttle to takeoff power, and started to roll.

When he had lifted off, he turned to look at Likharev’s elder son, thinking he would reassure him.

He quickly looked away.

He had never before in his life seen absolute terror in anyone’s eyes. He saw it now.

[EIGHT]

The hangar doors opened as Cronley taxied up to them. He stopped and killed the engine. Before that process was over, half a dozen of Tiny’s Troopers appeared and pushed the Storch into the hangar. Then the doors closed.

Schröder’s Storch was already in the hangar, and its passengers had gotten out of the aircraft.

There were two ambulances in the hangar, and what looked like two doctors and twice that many nurses. And someone Cronley really didn’t expect to see. The general’s wife.

Mrs. White was standing with her arm around Mrs. Likharev. The younger boy was standing beside them with a hot dog in one hand and a Hershey bar in the other. Captain Dunwiddie was holding Franz Josef.

Cronley felt his eyes water and his throat tighten.

“We have a problem with this one,” Max Ostrowski said.

“What?”

“He crapped his pants. He pissed his pants and he crapped his pants. I’m soaked with piss from my navel to my knees.”

Cronley failed to suppress a giggle. And the laughter that followed.

“Fuck you,” Ostrowski said, and then he chuckled, which turned into a giggle.

Cronley put his mouth to the open window and bellowed, “Captain Dunwiddie!”

When Captain Dunwiddie appeared beside the plane, so did Mrs. White and Mrs. Likharev.

“Is there a problem?” Mrs. White inquired.

“Yes, ma’am,” Cronley said. “This young man has had an accident, as my mother used to call it.”

“Big or little?”

“Both. And Captain Ostrowski has suffered collateral damage.”

Mrs. White managed to suppress all but a small giggle.

Then she said, “Captain, I understand you speak Russian?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.”

“Then tell Mrs. Likharev of the problem, and tell her not to worry, Captain Dunwiddie will deal with it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” Dunwiddie asked.

“You’re a Cavalry officer, Chauncey, you’ll think of something,” Mrs. White said.

Captain Dunwiddie stood beside the Storch and told Cronley what he had thought of as a solution to the problem.

“I’ll have my guys form a human shield around Max and the boy as they get out of the plane and then march them across the hangar to where we billeted the ASA guys. And while they’re having a shower, I’ll get them clothing from somewhere.”

“Good thinking, Chauncey,” Cronley said. “You’re a credit to the U.S. Cavalry.”

“Fuck you.”

Cronley stayed in the plane until Max and the boy, shielded by eight very large, very black soldiers, had been marched across the hangar and into the building at the rear.

Then he climbed out of the Storch.

Mrs. White, Mrs. Likharev, the younger boy, and the dachshund were standing near the ambulances. The boy was feeding Franz Josef a piece of his hot dog.

Cronley exhaled.

Well, it’s over. Really, completely over.

Or will be as soon as we get those two some clean clothes.

I feel sorry for the kid. He has to be embarrassed.

For himself.

And for what he did to Max.

And then his mind’s eye was filled with the older kid’s terror-frozen eyes in the airplane right after they’d taken off.

And then he felt a sudden chill.

And threw up. And then dropped to his knees and threw up again. And then once again.

Jesus H. Christ!

He got awkwardly to his feet.

He felt dizzy and another sudden chill.

Oh, no, not again!

He closed his eyes, put his hands on his hips, leaned his head back, and took a deep breath.

And was not nauseous again.

He opened his eyes and found himself looking at Major Harold Wallace.

“I must have eaten something…”

“You all right now, Jim?” Wallace asked.

“I’m fine. A little embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. It happens to all of us.”

“Yes, it does,” Lieutenant Colonel William Wilson said. Cronley hadn’t been aware of his presence until he spoke. “When I picked the colonel up outside Králický Sněžník, he didn’t even wait until we got home. He puked all over the L-4 before we got to two hundred feet.”

“Thank you for sharing that, Billy,” Wallace said.

“I thought I should. I thought Tex here should hear that.”

“And, for once, you’re right,” Wallace said. “Tex, Schröder made it to the latrine just now before he tossed his cookies. But then he has more experience with this sort of thing than you do.”

That’s “Tex” twice.

Have I just been christened?

“So what happens now?”

“Odd that you should ask, Tex,” Wallace said. “As I was just about to tell you.”

[NINE]

“I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow, at the earliest,” Miss Claudette Colbert said to Captain James D. Cronley Jr. when he walked into the office.

“Nice to see you, too, Miss Colbert.”

“Are you going to bring me up to speed, sir?”

“When no one’s around, you can call me ‘Tex,’ Miss Colbert.”

“Tex?”

“I have been so dubbed by Major Wallace. Where’s Freddy?”

“At the bahnhof, meeting General Greene and party.”

“Greene is here? What the hell is that all about?”

“There was an unfortunate accident at the bahnhof yesterday afternoon.”

“What kind of an accident?”

“Major Derwin apparently lost his balance and fell onto the tracks under a freight train as it was passing through. He had just gotten off the Blue Danube from Frankfurt, and was walking down the platform when this happened.”

“Is Major Wallace aware of this?”

“‘Tell Captain Cronley not to even think assassination option,’ end quote.”

“Jesus Christ!” Cronley said, and then asked, “And that’s why Greene is here?”

“‘General Greene is going to meet with the Munich provost marshal to offer the CIC’s assistance in the investigation of this unfortunate accident,’ end quote.”

“What the hell was Derwin doing back here?”

“‘He telephoned Lieutenant Colonel Parsons of the War Department’s liaison mission to DCI-Europe and told him he had information regarding DCI-Europe that he felt Parsons should have’…”

“Jesus!”

“… continuing the quote, ‘which we of course do not know, as that was an ASA telephone intercept.’ End quote.”

“My God!”

“There was another intercept. General Greene called Colonel Parsons and asked him what he knew about what Derwin wanted to tell him. Parsons said he had no idea, that he had never even met Derwin.”

“Is that another quote?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t ask where that came from.”

“Thank you. Your turn, Tex.”

“Okay. You know the Likharevs are in Sonthofen?”

“As guests of General and Mrs. White. And where they will remain until we can get them on the SAA flight to Buenos Aires the day after tomorrow.”

“Right,” Cronley said. “I didn’t know about the day after tomorrow.”

“Mrs. Likharev and the colonel have exchanged brief messages over the SIGABA.”

“I didn’t know that, either. I’m glad.”

“Which resulted in this,” Claudette said, and handed him a SIGABA printout.

“Well, you know what they say,” Cronley said. “Russians sometimes get carried away.”

“You’re crying, Tex,” Claudette said.

He shrugged.

“I know how to cure that,” she said. “But I don’t think this is the place to do it. Why don’t we go to your room?”