The Assassination Option

[ONE]

A neat sign on the small snow-covered lawn of the small house identified it as the Military Government Liaison Office.

There were four rooms on the ground floor of the building and a large, single room on the second. The military government liaison officer — which was one of the cover titles Captain Cronley was going to use — lived there. A bathroom had been added to the second floor when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had hastily converted the village of Pullach into the South German Industrial Development Organization Compound.

The original bathroom on the ground floor and the kitchen had been upgraded to American standards at the same time. The main room on the ground floor held office furnishings. A smaller room provided a private office for the military government liaison officer. There was a small dining room next to the kitchen, and a smaller room with a sign reading LIBRARY held a substantial safe and a desk holding a SIGABA system. This was a communications device, the very existence of which was classified Secret. It provided secure, encrypted communication between Pullach, Kloster Grünau, Berlin, Washington, D.C., and Mendoza and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

There were five men in the downstairs office: Major Harold Wallace, a trim thirty-two-year-old wearing “pinks and greens”; James D. Cronley Jr.; First Sergeant Chauncey L. Dunwiddie, who like Cronley was wearing an olive-drab Ike jacket and trousers; Sergeant Friedrich Hessinger, in pinks and greens whose lapels bore small embroidered triangles with the letters US in their centers; and finally, a civilian, a slight, pale-faced forty-three-year-old with a prominent thin nose, piercing eyes, and a receding hairline. His name was Reinhard Gehlen, and he was wearing an ill-fitting, on-the-edge-of ragged suit. As a generalmajor of the Oberkommando of the Wehrmacht, Gehlen had been chief of Abwehr Ost, the German intelligence agency dealing with the “Ost,” which meant the East, and in turn the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Gehlen and Cronley were sitting in upholstered chairs, drinking coffee. Major Wallace and First Sergeant Dunwiddie were seated at one of the desks as Hessinger hovered over them, like a schoolteacher tutoring backward students, as they signed sheafs of forms.

Finally, Hessinger proclaimed, “That’s it. You are now a civilian and can no longer say cruel and unkind things to me.”

He spoke with a thick, somewhat comical German accent. A German Jew, he had escaped Nazi Germany and went to the United States in 1938. Shortly after his graduation, summa cum laude, from Harvard College, he had been drafted. Physically unable to qualify for an officer’s commission, he had been assigned to the Counterintelligence Corps and sent to Germany, where it was believed he would be very useful in running down Nazis and bringing them to trial.

He was now doing something quite different.

“Aw, come on, Fat Freddy, my little dumpling,” Dunwiddie said, skillfully mocking Hessinger’s thick accent, “when have I ever said anything cruel or unkind to you?”

Cronley laughed out loud. Major Wallace and General Gehlen tried, and failed, not to smile.

“Whenever have you not?” Hessinger said. “Now can I trust you to deliver these documents to General Greene’s sergeant? Or am I going to have to send them by courier?”

“Freddy,” Cronley asked, “why couldn’t we have done what you just did tomorrow in the Farben Building? For that matter, why does this civilian have to go to Frankfurt to have Greene pin on his bars?”

“Because you can’t be commissioned the day you get discharged as an enlisted man. That’s what the regulations say. General Greene’s sergeant was very specific about that, and when I checked, he was right. And he said General Greene thought it would be a nice thing for him to do.”

And it will also serve to remind everybody that he’s a general, and I’m a brand-new captain.

“Maybe Colonel Mattingly will be there,” Cronley said. “Maybe we can ask him to pin on your bars. I’d love to see that.”

“Let that go, Jim,” Dunwiddie said. “If it doesn’t bother me, why are you bothered?”

“Because I am a champion of the underdog, and in particular of the retarded underdog.”

“You guys better get down to the bahnhof if you’re going to catch the Blue Danube,” Major Wallace said.

The Blue Danube was the military train that ran daily in each direction between Vienna and Berlin.

“We’re not taking the Blue Danube,” Cronley said.

“Why not?”

“Two reasons. One, I can’t afford to take two days off just so this fat civilian can get his bars pinned on by General Greene.”

“And two?”

“General Gehlen cannot ride the Blue Danube. Americans only.”

“You’re taking General Gehlen?”

“We’re going to drive to Kloster Grünau, where I have some things to do. In the morning, we’re going to fly to Eschborn. There, if I can trust Freddy, we will be met by a vehicle assigned to the 711th Quartermaster Mess Kit Repair Company, which will transport us to the Farben Building. That is set in concrete, right, Freddy?”

“The ambulance will be at Eschborn,” Hessinger confirmed.

“You’re asking for trouble with those mess kit repair bumper markings on those ambulances, Jim,” Major Wallace said.

“The bumpers read MKRC. It’s not spelled out.”

“And if some MP gets first curious and then nasty?”

“Then I will dazzle him with my CIC credentials,” Cronley said. “Which is another reason I’m going to Frankfurt. I want to ask General Greene about not only keeping the credentials after January second but getting more, so I can give them to half a dozen of Tiny’s guys.”

“Does Colonel Mattingly know you’re bringing the general with you?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Cronley said simply. And then went on, “After Tiny becomes an officer, we will all get back in the ambulance, go back to Eschborn, get back in the Storch, and come back here. God willing, and if the creek don’t rise, we should be back before it gets dark.”

When Cronley, Gehlen, and Dunwiddie were in the car — an Opel Kapitän, now painted olive drab and bearing Army markings — Dunwiddie said, “You didn’t tell Major Wallace about what happened at Kloster Grünau.”

“You noticed, huh?”

“You going to tell me why not?”

“First of all, nothing happened at Kloster Grünau. Write that down.”

“You mean two guys we strongly suspect were NKGB agents penetrated Kloster Grünau, tried to kill Tedworth, were killed by Ostrowski, and then buried in unmarked graves, that ‘nothing’?”

“If I had told Wallace about that incident that never happened, he would have felt duty bound to tell Mattingly. Mattingly, to cover his ass, would have brought this to the attention of at least Greene, and maybe the EUCOM G2. A platoon of EUCOM brass, all with Top Secret clearances, all of whom are curious as hell about Kloster Grünau, would descend on our monastery to investigate the incident. It would be both a waste of time and would compromise Operation Ost. As Captain Cronley of the Twenty-third CIC, I can’t tell them to butt out. So I didn’t tell Wallace. Okay?”

“Okay. Incident closed.”

“Not quite. I haven’t figured out what to do with Ostrowski.”

“Meaning?”

“That I haven’t figured out what to do about… or with him.”

“For example?”

“You do hang on like a starving dog does to a bone, don’t you, Mr. Dunwiddie?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Among other things, he could fly one of our Storchs. He used to fly Spitfires.”

“That would mean we would have an ex-Luftwaffe pilot and a Polish DP flying airplanes we’re not supposed to have in the first place. And among what other things?”

“The OSS used to have civilian employees. Maybe the Directorate of Central Intelligence can.”

“Interesting thought,” General Gehlen said. “Ostrowski is an interesting man.”

“With all respect, sir,” Dunwiddie said, “whenever you and Captain Cronley agree on something, I worry.”

[TWO]

Major Thomas J. Derwin, who was thirty-four, five feet ten, weighed 165 pounds, and to whose green tunic lapels were pinned the crossed rifles of Infantry and whose shoulder bore the embroidered insignia of Army Ground Forces, pushed open the door under the sign identifying the suite of offices of the chief, Counterintelligence Corps, European Command.

Derwin was carrying two canvas suitcases, called Valv-Paks. He set them down just inside the door and looked around the office. There were four people in it. One of them, sitting behind a desk, was a Women’s Army Corps — WAC — chief warrant officer, an attractive woman in her late twenties. She was wearing the female version of pinks and greens — a green tunic over a pink skirt.

The three men were wearing OD Ike jackets and trousers. One of them was a stocky, nearly bald master sergeant. He was sitting behind a desk next to the WAC’s desk. Sitting slumped in chairs before the master sergeant’s desk were a captain — a good-looking young guy — and an enormous black man whose uniform was bare of any insignia of rank.

As they rose to their feet, Derwin realized he knew the captain.

Cronley, he thought. James D. Cronley Jr. I had him in a Techniques of Surveillance class at Holabird. They were so short of officers in Germany that they pulled him out of school and sent him over here before he finished. Then I saw him again at the officers’ club at Holabird a couple of months ago. He said he was in the States as an escort officer for some classified material.

And then, immediately, Derwin knew he was wrong.

What the hell. I’ve just spent twenty-six hours flying over here. Brain-wise, I’m not functioning on all six cylinders. Which is not going to help me when I meet my new boss. First impressions do matter. That captain is not Cronley. Cronley’s a second lieutenant. Amazing physical resemblance.

“May I help you, sir?” the master sergeant asked.

“I’m Major Derwin, Sergeant. Reporting for duty.”

“Yes, sir, we’ve been expecting you,” the WAC said. “I’ll let the general know you’re here.”

She went to an interior door and pushed it open.

“General, Major Derwin is here.”

“Captain,” Derwin asked, “has anyone ever told you that you bear a striking resemblance to a second lieutenant named Cronley?”

“Yes, sir,” the captain said, smiling. “I’ve heard that.”

A stocky, forty-three-year-old officer with a crew cut appeared in the inner office door. His olive-drab uniform had the single star of a brigadier general on its epaulets.

That has to be my new boss, Brigadier General H. Paul Greene, chief, Counterintelligence, European Command.

And he looks like the tough sonofabitch everybody says he is.

General Greene looked at the WAC.

“Why didn’t you tell me these two were here?”

The captain answered for her.

“We’re waiting for General Gehlen, sir. He said he’d like to be present, and I thought it was a nice gesture on his part, so I brought him along.”

Did he say “General Gehlen”? Not, certainly, Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen?

“And where is General Gehlen?”

“As we tried to sneak in the back door, General Smith’s convoy rolled up,” Captain Cronley replied. “He asked the general if he had a few minutes for him, and of course General Gehlen did.”

General Smith? General Walter Bedell Smith, chief of staff to General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander in chief, European Command?

“And that surprised you?” General Greene said, chuckling.

“No, sir, it did not.”

“You’re Derwin?”

“Yes, sir, I’m Major Derwin.”

The general’s face showed he was thinking.

“Okay, everybody come in,” he said finally. “They call that ‘killing two birds with one stone.’”

He turned and they followed him into the office.

There was an elegantly turned out, handsome colonel of Armor slouched on a couch before a coffee table. He wore a green Ike jacket over pink trousers. His trousers were pulled up high enough to reveal highly polished Tanker boots.

The general went behind his desk.

Derwin marched up to it, came to attention, and saluted.

“Sir, Major Thomas G. Derwin reporting for duty.”

The general returned the salute, said, “You may stand at ease,” then extended his hand. “Welcome to EUCOM CIC, Major. How was the flight?”

The general gestured for the captain to sit, and he did so, in an armchair at one end of the coffee table.

“Long and noisy, sir.”

“I am having symptoms of caffeine deficiency,” the general said, raising his voice.

“Antidote on the way, General,” a female voice called.

A moment later, the WAC chief warrant officer pushed a wheeled tray holding a silver coffee service into the room.

“We can pour our own coffee, Alice — or get Cronley to pour it…”

Did he say Cronley?

“… and then no calls except from the Command Group. When General Gehlen appears, show him in.”

“Yes, sir,” the WAC officer said.

“Cronley, what’s Gehlen doing here?” the Armor colonel asked, somewhat unpleasantly.

“He said that he’d like to be present, so I brought him along.”

“Was that necessary?” the colonel asked.

“I thought it was appropriate,” Cronley replied.

The colonel doesn’t like Captain Cronley. And Cronley — twice — didn’t append “sir” when replying to the colonel’s questions.

But he — and Greene — let him get away with it.

“Bob, this is Major Derwin. Major, this is Colonel Robert Mattingly, my deputy,” the general said.

“Welcome to EUCOM, Major,” Mattingly said, and offered his hand.

“Coffee, Cronley, coffee,” General Greene said.

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said. He stood up and started pouring coffee for everybody.

When he got to Derwin, Derwin asked, “Have we met, Captain?”

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

“At Holabird?”

“Yes, sir.”

The sonofabitch is smiling. What’s so funny?

The master sergeant appeared at the door.

“Sir,” he announced, “Generals Smith and Gehlen.”

General Smith, a tall, trim, erect officer who was in ODs, and General Gehlen walked into the office. Everyone rose and stood to attention.

I’ll be damned, Derwin thought. That is him, Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen, former chief of Abwehr Ost, the intelligence agency of the German high command, dealing with the Ost… which meant the Russians.

What the hell is he doing here?

With General Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’s Number Two?

What’s going on here?

“Rest, gentlemen, please,” Smith said. “General Gehlen just told me what he was doing in Frankfurt, and I invited myself to the ceremony. I hope that’s all right.”

“Yes, sir, of course,” General Greene said, not quite succeeding in concealing his surprise.

General Smith turned to Captain Cronley.

“Cronley, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I had no idea who you were, Captain, just now at the rear entrance. Until General Eisenhower corrected me a few minutes ago, I thought the Captain Cronley who is to be chief, DCI-Europe, was going to be a barnacle-encrusted naval officer formerly on Admiral Souers’s staff.”

General Greene and Colonel Mattingly dutifully chuckled at General Smith’s wit.

Major Derwin wondered,What the hell is DCI-Europe? And who the hell is Admiral Souers?

“No, sir. I’m just a simple, and junior, cavalryman.”

“Well, you may be junior, Captain, but you’re not simple. General Eisenhower also told me the circumstances of your recent promotion. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He offered Cronley his hand.

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

General Smith turned to the enormous black man.

“Now to the second case of mistaken identity,” he said, and then asked, “Son, are you still a first sergeant?”

“Sir, at the moment I’m sort of in limbo. I was discharged yesterday.”

He spoke softly in a very deep voice.

“Then I will call you what I used to call your father,” General Smith said, “when, in the age of the dinosaurs, I was his company commander and your dad was one of my second lieutenants: Tiny.”

“That’s fine with me, sir.”

“Tiny, I had no idea until just now, when General Gehlen told me, that you were even in the Army, much less what you’ve done and what you’re about to do. Just as soon as things slow down a little, you’re going to have to come to dinner. My wife remembers you as a tiny — well, maybe not tiny — infant.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir.”

“Homer, where the hell is the photographer?”

A full colonel, wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp to a four-star general, stepped into the office.

“Anytime you’re ready for him, General,” he said.

The general waved the photographer, a plump corporal carrying a Speed Graphic press camera, into the room.

“What’s the protocol for this, Homer?” General Smith asked.

“First, the insignia is pinned to his epaulets, sir…”

“General Greene can do the left and I’ll do the right,” General Smith said.

“And then he takes the oath with his hand on a Bible.”

“So then we need a Bible and a copy of the oath,” General Smith said.

“I know the oath, sir,” Dunwiddie said.

“And here’s the Bible,” the WAC officer said, “and the bars.”

“And your role in this, Corporal,” General Smith said, “is to take pictures. You ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Which we will send to your parents, Tiny.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And — I’m glad I thought of this — to General Isaac Davis White, your father’s classmate at Norwich.”

“That’s a marvelous idea, General,” Cronley said.

“Excuse me?”

“I understand, sir, that General White thought Tiny should have been commissioned a long time ago.”

As he spoke, Cronley looked at Colonel Mattingly. Mattingly glared icily at him. Major Derwin picked up on it.

What the hell is that all about?

Flashbulbs exploded as Smith and Greene pinned the twin silver bars of a captain — known as “railroad tracks”—to Dunwiddie’s epaulets.

“Who holds the Bible?” General Smith inquired. “What about that, Homer?”

“That’s not prescribed, sir. Sometimes a wife, or a mother, or even somebody else.”

“Sir,” Dunwiddie asked, “what about Captain Cronley?”

“That’d work.”

CWO Alice McGrory handed the Bible to Captain Cronley. He stood between Generals Smith and Greene and held the Bible up to him.

“Anytime you’re ready, Tiny,” General Smith said.

Dunwiddie laid his left hand on the Bible and raised his right.

“I, Chauncey Luther Dunwiddie,” he boomed in a basso profundo voice, “having been appointed captain…”

He paused just perceptibly, and then continued slowly, pronouncing each syllable, “… in the United States Army, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the office upon which I am about to enter.” He paused a final time, and then proclaimed, “So help me God!”

There was a moment’s silence.

“I must have heard people take that oath a thousand times,” General Smith said. “But never quite like that. Very impressive, Tiny. Moving.” He paused. “Permit me to be first, Captain Dunwiddie, to welcome you into the officer corps of the United States Army.”

He extended his hand, and Dunwiddie took it, said, “Thank you, sir.” Then he asked, “Permission to speak, sir?”

Smith nodded and said, “Granted.”

“Sir, as the general will understand, this moment is of great personal importance to the captain. The captain would very much like to have a memento of General Gehlen being here.”

Smith’s face tensed, and it was a long moment before he replied.

“Frankly, Captain, my initial reaction was to deny that request. But on reflection I realized that a photograph of us with General Gehlen among us ranks pretty low on the list of highly classified material with which you are already entrusted.

“General Gehlen, if you would, please stand here with us,” General Smith went on. Then he turned to the photographer. “Corporal, the photograph you are about to take, the negatives and prints thereof, will be classified Top Secret — Presidential. You will personally develop the negative. You will then make four eight-by-ten-inch prints from the negative. You will then burn the negative. You will see that I get two of those prints, one of which I will send to Admiral Souers, and the other to General White. You will also give two prints to General Greene, who will get them to Captain Dunwiddie. You understand all that, son, or should I go over it again?”

Who the hell, Major Derwin again wondered, is Admiral Souers?

“I understand, sir.”

“And I don’t want you telling the boys in the photo lab anything about this. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, gentlemen,” General Smith said, “stand tall and say, ‘Cheese.’”

Ninety seconds later, General Smith and his entourage were gone.

“Let me add my ‘welcome to the officer corps of the United States Army’ to General Smith’s, Captain Dunwiddie,” General Greene said.

“Thank you, sir.”

“And mine,” Colonel Mattingly said, without much enthusiasm.

“Thank you, sir,” Dunwiddie repeated.

“What I’m going to do now is bring Major Derwin up to speed on what’s going on around here. You’re welcome to stay for that, of course.”

“I think we can pass on that, sir,” Captain Cronley said.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you, General,” Greene said.

“Thank you,” Gehlen said.

Cronley stood to attention.

“Permission to withdraw, sir?”

“Post,” Greene said.

Cronley saluted, did an about-face movement, and started for the door. He waved General Gehlen and Captain Dunwiddie ahead of him and then followed them out of the office.

Colonel Mattingly stood up.

“If you don’t need me, sir?”

“I think it would be best if you stuck around for this, Bob,” Greene said.

“Yes, sir. Of course,” Colonel Mattingly said, and sat down.

“I suppose the best place to start, Major, is to tell you that what just transpired in here is classified. Twice. Maybe three times. First as Top Secret — Presidential. And as Top Secret — Lindbergh. And of course as simple Top Secret. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All of that also applies to what I’m going to tell you now. And the best place to start that is at the beginning.

“On December twenty-first, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Schumann, who was the inspector general of European Command CIC, and also of the Army Security Agency, Europe — which reports to the ASA in Washington through me, I think I should tell you — went home for lunch. Moments after he arrived, as well as we can put things together, there was an explosion. Apparently, the gas water heater had leaked, filled the house with gas, and something set it off. Maybe Mrs. Schumann lit the stove. We just don’t know. There was a considerable explosion, which totally destroyed his quarters and severely damaged the houses on either side and across the street.”

“My God!” Derwin said.

“And killed Colonel and Mrs. Schumann. Phrased as delicately as possible, there will have to be a closed-casket funeral. Tony Schumann was a fine officer and a close friend. A true tragedy.

“Obviously a replacement was necessary. There were several reasons why I had to go outside EUCOM CIC for a replacement. One is that, as I’m sure you know, we are very short of officers. We are even shorter of officers with the proper security clearances. A Top Secret clearance, dealing with what we’re dealing with here, is as common as a Confidential clearance elsewhere.

“So I appointed Major James B. McClung, the ASA Europe Chief… you know who I mean?”

“Is that ‘Iron Lung’ McClung, sir?”

Greene nodded and went on.

“… to temporarily add the duties of IG to all the other things on his plate. He was — is — the only officer available to me with the Top Secret — Lindbergh and Top Secret — Presidential clearances. Then I called Admiral Souers—”

“Excuse me, sir. Who?”

“Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers,” Greene answered, paused, and then said, “Well, let’s deal with that. Have you heard the rumors that there will be a successor organization to the Office of Strategic Services?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, let me give you the facts. Shortly after the President put the OSS out of business, he reconsidered the wisdom of that decision. There were certain operations of the OSS that had to be kept running, for one thing, and for another, Admiral Souers told me, he came to recognize the nation needed an intelligence organization, with covert and clandestine capabilities, that could not be tied down by putting it under either the Pentagon or the FBI. It had to report directly to him. More precisely, to the President.

“On January first, the President will sign an executive order establishing the Directorate of Central Intelligence, and name Admiral Souers as its director. Admiral Souers has been assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence. But, he’s been more than that. When the President realized that certain clandestine operations started by the OSS and which could not be turned off like a lightbulb needed someone to run them until he decided what to do about them, he turned to Admiral Souers. It is germane to note that the President and the admiral are close personal friends.

“Further, when the President realized there had to be a successor organization to the OSS, and that there were, for him, insurmountable problems in naming General Donovan to be its director, and that he did not want the Pentagon to have its man in that position, or someone who owed his allegiance to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, he again turned to Admiral Souers.

“Colonel Mattingly, would you like to add to, or comment upon, what I just told Major Derwin?”

“No, sir. I think you covered everything.”

“Feel free to interrupt me at any time, Bob.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“As I was saying, when Colonel Schumann… was taken from us, I needed someone who could be given Presidential and Lindbergh clearances, and I needed him right away, so I called Admiral Souers and explained the problem. He said he would take the matter up personally with the G2 of the Army. He called back the next day, told me the G2 had proposed three officers, and given him access to their dossiers, and he felt you best met our requirements. He proposed sending you over here immediately to see if Colonel Mattingly and I agreed.

“Which brings us to Colonel Mattingly. Mattingly was OSS. In the last months of the war, he was chief, OSS Forward. When the OSS was put out of business, he was assigned to me, to EUCOM CIC, as my deputy.”

“And now the colonel will be in this reconstituted OSS, the Directorate of Central Intelligence?”

“No. And please permit me to do the talking, Major,” Greene said. “But since we have started down that road: At Admiral Souers’s request — when he speaks, he speaks with the authority of the President — Headquarters, War Department, has tasked EUCOM CIC with providing the Directorate of Central Intelligence-Europe with whatever support, logistical and other, the chief, DCI-Europe, feels it needs. With me so far, Major?”

“I think so, sir. May I ask a question, sir?”

“Please do.”

“Who will be the chief, DCI-Europe?”

“Captain James D. Cronley Junior. You just met him.”

Major Derwin’s face showed his surprise, or shock.

“There are reasons for this—”

“A couple of months ago he was a second lieutenant at Holabird!” Derwin blurted. “I had him in Techniques of Surveillance.”

“I strongly suspect that as soon as Admiral Souers can find a more senior officer, say a colonel, or perhaps even a senior civilian, to appoint as chief, DCI-Europe, he will do so. But for the moment, it will be Captain Cronley.”

“General, may I suggest we get into Operation Ost?” Mattingly said.

“This is the time, isn’t it?” Greene said, and began to tell Major Derwin about Operation Ost.

Five minutes or so later, General Greene concluded the telling by saying, “I’m sure that you can understand, Major, since compromise of Operation Ost would not only be detrimental to the interests of the United States but would embarrass the highest officials of our government, why it behooves all of us to exert our maximum efforts to make sure it is not compromised.”

“Yes, sir, I certainly can,” Major Derwin said.

“And why any officer who does anything, even inadvertently, that causes any such compromise might as well put his head between his knees and kiss his ass goodbye? Because, even if his court-martial doesn’t sentence him to spend twenty years polishing the linoleum in the solitary confinement wing of the Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks, his military career is over.”

“I understand, sir,” Major Derwin said.

“I really hope you do,” General Greene said. “We will now get into your duties with regard to the Pullach compound and Operation Ost. They can be summed up succinctly. They are invisible to you, unless it comes to your attention that someone is showing an unusual interest in them. If that happens, you will bring this immediately to the attention of Colonel Mattingly or myself. Or, of course, and preferably, to Captain Cronley or Captain Dunwiddie. You understand that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any questions, Major?”

“Just one, sir.”

“It is?”

“May I ask about Captain Cronley, sir?”

“What about Captain Cronley?”

“Sir, as I mentioned, two months ago, less, I saw him at Holabird as a second lieutenant—”

“If you are asking how did he become a captain so quickly, Major, I can tell you it was a reward for something he did.”

“May I ask what, sir?”

“No,” General Greene said. “But I can tell you — although his promotion order is classified Secret — that the promotion authority was ‘Verbal Order of the President.’”

“Yes, sir.”

“Unless you have something for Major Derwin, Colonel Mattingly?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what I am going to do now, Major Derwin, is have the sergeant major put you in a car and send you over to see Major McClung. He will get you settled in quarters and then show you where you should begin your duties as inspector general.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That will be all, Major. You are dismissed.”

[THREE]

It took Captains Cronley and Dunwiddie and General Gehlen five minutes to get from General Greene’s office to the “back door” of the huge building, which until the completion of the Pentagon in January 1943 had been the largest office building in the world.

The office of the chief, Counterintelligence Corps, European Command, was in the front of the extreme left wing (of six wings) in the curved five-story structure. The “back door” was in Sub-Level One between Wing Three and Wing Four.

First they had to walk down a long corridor to the connecting passageway between the wings.

There, Cronley and Dunwiddie had to “sign out” at a desk manned by two natty sergeants of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which was charged with both the internal and the external security of the building. The paratroopers wore white pistol belts, holsters, and spare magazine holders, and the white lacings in their glistening boots once had been parachute shroud lines.

The senior of the paratroop sergeants remembered that when the shabby Kraut civilian had passed in through their portal with General Walter Bedell Smith’s entourage, he had wisely not demanded that any of them sign in, or that he be permitted to examine the contents of the briefcases the Kraut and General Smith’s aide-de-camp were carrying.

As a consequence, the sergeant not only passed General Gehlen out without examining the contents of his ancient and battered briefcase, but also gave him a pink slip, as he had given one to Cronley and Dunwiddie, which would permit them to exit the building.

Then the trio walked down the long corridor that connects the wings to the center, where they got on what most inhabitants of the Farben Building called the “dumbwaiter.” Technically it was known as a “paternoster lift.” It was a chain of open compartments, each large enough for two people, that moved slowly and continuously in a circle from Sub-Level Two to Floor Five. Passengers stepped into one of the compartments and rode it until they reached the desired floor, and then stepped off.

Cronley, Dunwiddie, and Gehlen got on the dumbwaiter and were carried down to Sub-Level One, where they got off.

Here there was another paratroop-manned checkpoint. The sergeant in charge here accepted the pink slips they had been given, but signaled to General Gehlen that he wanted to inspect his briefcase.

“Herr Schultz is with me, Sergeant,” Cronley said, showing the sergeant the leather folder holding the ID card and badge that identified him as a special agent of the Counterintelligence Corps. “That won’t be necessary.”

The sergeant considered that a moment, and then said, “Yes, sir,” and motioned that Gehlen could leave the building. He did so, and Cronley followed him.

They were now in a narrow, below-ground-level, open-to-the-sky passageway.

There were three Packard Clippers parked against the wall. The “back door” to the Farben Building was also, so to speak, the VIP entrance. The Packards were the staff cars of Generals Eisenhower, Smith, and Lucius D. Clay, the military governor of the U.S. Occupied Zones. The Packards were, not surprisingly, highly polished.

There was also what had begun its military service as an ambulance, a three-quarter-ton 4×4. It was not polished, and the red crosses that had once been painted on the sides and roof had been painted over. Stenciled in white paint on the left of its bumpers was the legend 711 MKRC — which indicated that the vehicle was assigned to the — nonexistent—711th Quartermaster Mess Kit Repair Company — and on the right, the numeral 7, which signified that it was the seventh vehicle of its kind assigned to the 711th.

There were three paratroopers, one of them a sergeant, standing by the right front fender of the former ambulance, arguing with an enormous Negro soldier, a sergeant, who was leaning against the fender, his arms crossed over his chest. Even leaning against the fender, the sergeant towered over the paratroopers.

When the sergeant saw Cronley and the others approaching, he came to attention and saluted. Cronley returned the salute and asked, “Is there some problem?”

“You know about this vehicle, Captain?” the paratroop sergeant asked.

“Didn’t they teach you it is customary for sergeants to salute officers before addressing them, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” the paratroop sergeant said, and saluted. Cronley returned it.

“Herr Schultz, if you’ll get in the back with Captain Dunwiddie?” Cronley said, and then turned to the paratroop sergeant. “Is there a problem with this vehicle?”

“Sir, only the general’s cars are allowed to park here.”

“There are exceptions to every rule, Sergeant,” Cronley said, and produced his CIC credentials. “In this case — it’s an intelligence matter — I ordered the sergeant to wait here for me until I could bring Herr Schultz out. We didn’t want him standing around where he could be seen. Weren’t you here when General Smith passed him into the building?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You did the right thing to question the vehicle, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Carry on, Sergeant,” Cronley ordered crisply. Then he turned to the black sergeant. “Well, Sergeant Phillips, what do you say we get out of here?”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Phillips said. He got behind the wheel and Cronley got in the front seat beside him.

When they were rolling, Cronley said, “Those CIC credentials do come in handy, don’t they?”

“Enjoy them while you can,” Dunwiddie said. “I think we’re about to lose them.”

“I will bring up the subject of keeping them — and getting some more for some of your guys — to General Greene when there’s an opportunity. I didn’t want to do that when Mattingly was there — he can probably come up with a dozen reasons to take them away from us.”

“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that making nice to Colonel Mattingly would be a good idea.”

“I thought about that.”

“And?”

“Mattingly is never going to forgive me for me, not him, being named chief, DCI-Europe,” Cronley replied, “even though I had nothing to do with it. Or forgive you, Captain Dunwiddie, for those new bars on your epaulets.”

“Speaking of which,” Sergeant Phillips said, “they look real good on you, Tiny. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, Tom,” Dunwiddie said.

“Who’s going to be the new Top Kick? Tedworth?” Phillips asked.

“Who else?” Dunwiddie said.

“General, can you tell me what General Smith wanted with you?”

“Of course,” Gehlen said. “Two things. Once it was determined he had the right Captain Cronley — the Army one, not a naval officer — he asked if I ‘was comfortable’ with you being named chief, DCI-Europe. I assured him I was. And then he handed me this to give to you.”

He handed Cronley a business-sized envelope. Cronley’s name and the legend “By Officer Courier” was on it. When he opened it, he saw that it contained a second envelope. This one was addressed:

He tore the second envelope open and read the letter it contained.

Cronley handed the letter to Gehlen.

“Please give it to Captain Dunwiddie when you’ve read it, General,” he said.

When Tiny had read the letter, Cronley said, “My take on that letter is that Truman is afraid of Hoover. Otherwise, he would just tell Hoover to butt out.”

When no one replied, he asked, “Can I interpret the silence to mean you agree with me?”

“You can interpret my silence to mean I am obviously not in a position where I can presume to comment on anything the President of the United States does or does not do,” Gehlen said. “I would, however, suggest that both President Truman and Admiral Souers seem to feel confident that both you and Colonel Ashton can deal with a very difficult situation.”

“Shit,” Cronley said, and looked at Dunwiddie. “And you?”

After a moment, Dunwiddie avoided the question, instead asking, “Lieutenant Colonel Ashton? I thought he was a major, and in Walter Reed with a broken leg?”

“In other words, no comment, right?” Cronley asked.

Dunwiddie said nothing.

“As to your question,” Cronley said. “Applying my Sherlock Holmesian logic to it, I deduce Ashton (a) has been promoted, and (b) that he will shortly appear here, broken leg or not. Obviously, if he was in Walter Reed, we could not share this letter with him.”

“Wiseass,” Dunwiddie said.

Gehlen chuckled.

“I further deduce,” Cronley went on, “that Lieutenant Colonel Ashton is coming over here to familiarize himself with his new underlings.”

“Other than that Otto Niedermeyer speaks highly of him, I don’t know much about Colonel Ashton,” Gehlen said.

“All I really know about him is that he’s a Cuban — an American whose family grows sugarcane and makes rum in Cuba — and that Clete likes him. The little I saw of him when I was in Argentina, I liked,” Cronley said. “He’s really… what’s the word? ‘Polished.’ Or maybe ‘suave.’ He can charm the balls off a brass monkey.”

“Now that’s an interesting phrase,” Gehlen said, chuckling.

“I have no idea what it means,” Cronley confessed.

“Would you be surprised to hear it has nothing to do with the testicles of our simian cousins?” Dunwiddie asked.

Tiny has found a way to change the subject.

Well, what did I expect him to say? “I agree it looks like Truman is throwing us off the bus”?

“Pay attention, General,” Cronley said. “Professor Dunwiddie’s lecture is about to start.”

“Until breech-loading rifled-barrel naval cannon came along,” Dunwiddie began, “men-of-war, as warships were then called, fired round iron balls from their smooth-barreled cannon. These balls often contained a black powder charge, with a fuse that was lit just before the ball was rammed down the cannon muzzle. Is this too technical for you, Captain Cronley, sir, or should I continue?”

Gehlen chuckled.

“Carry on, Captain Dunwiddie,” Cronley ordered.

“As you are aware, balls tend to roll around on flat surfaces,” Dunwiddie continued. “They tend to roll around even more on flat surfaces which are themselves moving, as the deck of ships on the high seas tend to do. Since the balls the Navy was using weighed up to one hundred pounds, you can see where this was a problem. The problem was compounded by the explosive shells to which I previously referred.

“Phrased simply, if some of the black powder in the explosive shells came out of the touch hole — that’s where they put the fuse — while it was rolling around on the deck, it made for a highly combustible environment. Even worse was the possibility that glowing embers — debris from previous firing of the cannon — would find the touch hole of the explosive ball as it rolled around the deck crushing feet and breaking ankles. Bang. Big bang.

“A solution had to be found, and one was. A clever sailor, one I like to think claimed my beloved Norwich as his alma mater, although I can’t prove this—”

“General,” Cronley asked, “has Captain Dunwiddie mentioned in passing that he went to Norwich University?”

“Not as often as Sergeant Hessinger has mentioned he went to Harvard, but yes, he has. No more than thirty or forty times,” Gehlen replied.

“As I was saying,” Dunwiddie went on, “a clever nautical person came up with a solution for the problem of cannonballs rolling and sometimes exploding on the deck. The balls, he concluded, had to be in some manner restrained from rolling around, and that the method of restraint had to permit getting the iron cannonballs from where they would be restrained into the mouth of the cannon quickly when that was required. And without causing the sparks which occur when steel and/or iron collide. Said sparks would tend to set off both the barrels of black powder and the explosive cannonballs.

“What he came up with were plates, into which he hammered depressions so that the cannonballs wouldn’t roll around. He made the plates from brass so they wouldn’t spark and set off the black powder. For reasons lost in the fog of history, he called these indented brass plates ‘monkeys.’ When they were getting ready to fight, they put the shells, the balls, on these monkeys until they were needed. Moving the balls, which weighed up to one hundred pounds, off the brass monkey was recognized to be very difficult. Any further questions?”

“Interesting,” Gehlen said. “Now that you’ve brought it up, I remember seeing cannonballs stacked that way, forming sort of a pyramid, on your Old Ironsides in Boston Harbor.” He paused, and corrected himself: “The USS Constitution.”

“You’ve been on the Constitution?” Cronley blurted, in surprise.

“As a young officer,” Gehlen said. “When it seemed that I was destined to serve as an intelligence officer, I was treated to a tour of the United States.”

Sergeant Phillips announced, “We’re here.”

Cronley looked out the window and saw they were approaching the gate to the Eschborn Airfield.

“Great,” Cronley said. “And now that Professor Dunwiddie’s history lesson is over, we can return to our noble duties stemming the Red Tide. Maintaining as we do so an amicable relationship with the FBI.”

He expected a chuckle from General Gehlen, but when he looked at him, he saw a look of concern.

Jesus, what did my automatic mouth blurt out now?

“Sir, if I said something…”

Gehlen shook his head. “No, Jim, you didn’t say anything out of place. What popped back into my mind — I have a tendency to find a black lining in every silver cloud — when you said ‘stemming the Red Tide’ was something I thought when I was with General Smith earlier. You said it mockingly, but in fact — don’t misunderstand me, please, I know you take it as seriously as I do — that’s what we’re trying to do. But there are so very few of us who really understand the problem. And so many clever Russians.”

Cronley’s mouth went on automatic again. He regretted what he was saying as the words came out of his mouth: “Not to worry, General. One of us went to Norwich.”

There was no expression on Gehlen’s face for a long moment, but just as Cronley was trying to frame an appropriate apology, Gehlen smiled and said, “That somehow slipped my mind, but now that you’ve brought it up, it certainly does wonders dispelling my clouds of impending disaster.”