The Assassination Option

[ONE]

When he took the Storch off from Eschborn, Cronley had been worried about the flight, although he said nothing to either General Gehlen or Tiny.

For one thing, the weather was iffy, and it gets dark early in Germany in December. If the weather got worse, he’d have to land somewhere short of Munich, which meant at an infantry regiment or artillery battalion airstrip somewhere. As far as the officers there would be concerned, in addition to wondering what he was doing flying a Kraut around in a former Luftwaffe airplane, they would be reluctant to house overnight or, for that matter, feed said seedy-looking Kraut.

Flashing the CIC credentials would overcome those problems, of course, but it would provide those officers with a great barroom story to share with the world.

You won’t believe what flew into the strip yesterday. An ex-Luftwaffe Storch, with Army markings, and carrying two CIC captains and a Kraut. Wouldn’t say what they were doing, of course. Makes you wonder.

And even if he could make it through the weather to Bavaria, by the time they got there, it might be too dark to land on the strip at the Pullach compound. That would mean he would have to go into Schleissheim — the Munich military post airfield — which had runway lights.

But there would be problems at Schleissheim, too. The Storch would attract unwanted attention, and so would General Gehlen. And they would have to ask the Schleissheim duty officer for a car to take them to the Vier Jahreszeiten as the Kapitän was at Kloster Grünau, and Major Wallace was sure to be off somewhere in their only other car, the Opel Admiral.

An hour out of Munich, the answer came: Don’t go to Munich. Go to Kloster Grünau. Have a couple of drinks and a steak. Go to bed. And in the morning, get in the Kapitän and drive to Pullach.

He picked up the intercom microphone.

“General, would you have any problems if we spent the night at the monastery?”

“As far as I know, there’s absolutely nothing waiting for me in Munich.”

“Next stop, Kloster Grünau.”

Technical Sergeant Tedworth, his cavalry-yellow scarf not quite concealing the bandages on his neck, was waiting for them in the ambulance. Cronley was not surprised to see Ostrowski was behind the wheel.

Cronley had something to tell him, and this was as good a time as any.

“Tedworth, Sergeant Hessinger—”

“Sir, he wants you to call him as soon as possible,” Tedworth cut him off. “He says it’s important.”

“Sergeant, it’s not polite to cut your commanding officer off in the middle of a sentence.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Not only impolite, but the wrong thing to do, since what I was going to say had I not been rudely interrupted, was that Sergeant Hessinger has informed me that while I do not have promotion authority in normal circumstances, I do in extraordinary circumstances. I have decided that First Sergeant Dunwiddie, having created a vacant first sergeant position by becoming a commissioned officer, is such an extraordinary circumstance. I was about to tell you I am sure that Captain Dunwiddie will be happy to sell you the first sergeant chevrons he no longer needs at a reasonable price.”

“I’ll be damned,” Tedworth said. “Thank you.”

“You will of course be expected to pay for the intoxicants at your promotion party, which will commence just as soon as we get to the bar.”

“First Sergeant Tedworth,” Tedworth said wonderingly. “I will be damned!”

“You will be aware, I’m sure, First Sergeant Tedworth, that henceforth you will be marching in the footsteps of the superb non-commissioned officer who preceded you and will be expected to conduct yourself accordingly,” Dunwiddie said solemnly.

“Captain Dunwiddie and First Sergeant Tedworth,” Tedworth went on. “Who would have ever thought, Tiny, when we joined Company ‘A’?”

And then he regained control.

“Captain, I think you better call Fat Freddy,” he said. “He said it was really important.”

“Immediately after I take a leak — my back teeth are floating — and I have a stiff drink of Scotland’s finest,” Cronley said.

“Twenty-third CIC, Special Agent Hessinger.”

“And how are you, Freddy, on this miserable December evening?”

“When are you coming here?”

“That’s one of the reasons I called, Freddy, to tell you Captain Dunwiddie and myself — plus two others whose names I would prefer not to say on this line while some FBI numbnuts are listening — will be celebrating First Sergeant Tedworth’s promotion in the country and will not be returning to Munich until tomorrow.”

“I don’t think Colonel Parsons is going to like that.”

“What? What business is it of his?”

“He called here and said General Greene had suggested he and Major Ashley take you to dinner to get to know you. He said he made reservations here in the Vier Jahreszeiten for eight o’clock and he expects to see you there.”

That’s disappointing. I thought Greene was going to maintain complete neutrality. But what he’s obviously doing — or trying to do — is help this bastard Parsons take over Operation Ost for the Pentagon.

Why should that surprise me? Greene, ultimately, is under the Pentagon G2. They don’t like the Directorate of Central Intelligence and they really don’t want Operation Ost being run by a very junior captain. Greene knows on which side of the piece of toast the butter goes.

Wait a minute!

Do I detect the subtle hand of Colonel Robert Mattingly?

Oh, do I!

Mattingly thinks — and with good reason — that he should be chief, DCI-Europe. Instead, I am. But there’s nothing he can do about it. Unless, of course, as a result of my youth and inexperience I get into a scrap with Parsons. Then he can step in — Greene would suggest Mattingly step in — to save something from the wreckage. For the good of the service.

I can see that sonofabitch suggesting to General Greene that Parsons take me to dinner “to get to know me.” I can also see Parsons reasoning that Greene is on his side — otherwise why the “get to know him” suggestion — and interpreting “get to know him” to mean making it clear to the junior captain that this is still the Army, and in the Army, lieutenant colonels tell junior captains what to do, and junior captains say, “Yes, sir.”

But I can’t take orders from a lieutenant colonel whose mission it is to take over Operation Ost.

So what do I do?

“Would you be shocked to hear that I am not thrilled with the prospect of Colonel Parsons buying me dinner?”

“You not being thrilled doesn’t matter. Colonel Mattingly called and said Colonel Parsons would probably call and invite you to dinner, and you had better go. Alone.”

Well, there’s the proof. I can hear Mattingly saying, “Parsons went out of his way, Admiral, to get along with Cronley. He even invited him to a private dinner. Cronley refused to go.”

Making nice to Parsons tonight would be just delaying the inevitable confrontation. Mattingly — or maybe Parsons himself, he’s clever — would make sure there was a confrontation.

Back to what do I do?

What I do is get this over with.

But as the soon-to-be chief, DCI-Europe, not as Junior Captain Cronley.

Which means I take off this Ike jacket with its brand-new captain’s bars and put on the one with the civilian U.S. triangles.

“You know how to get Parsons on the phone, Freddy?”

“He’s here in the hotel.”

“Please call him back and tell him you’ve heard from Mister, repeat, Mister Cronley and he, General Gehlen, and Captain Dunwiddie, who had already planned to dine at the Vier Jahreszeiten at eight, would be delighted if he and Major Whatsisname could join us.”

“You heard what I said about Colonel Mattingly saying you should go to dinner alone?”

“Anything else for me, Freddy?”

“Oberst Mannberg asked me when General Gehlen will be back. He says he has something to report.”

“Whatever that might be, I don’t think we want to share it with the FBI, do we?”

“So what do I tell Mannberg?”

“Tell him the general will be in your office just before we go to dinner with Colonel Parsons and Major Whatsisname.”

[TWO]

Former Colonel Ludwig Mannberg was sitting with Sergeant Friedrich Hessinger at the latter’s desk, both of them bent over a chessboard. They both stood when Cronley, followed by Gehlen and Dunwiddie, came into the room.

Mannberg was wearing a well-tailored suit and tie. Fat Freddy was in pinks and greens.

Cronley thought, more objectively than unkindly, Looking at the two of them, you’d think Gehlen was a black marketeer caught dealing in cigarettes and Hershey bars and Mannberg was his lawyer. His English lawyer. I’m going to have to do something about getting the general some decent clothes.

How am I going to do that? “Excuse me, General, but in that ratty suit, you look like an unsuccessful black marketeer.”

“I just had one of my famous inspirations,” Cronley announced. “Freddy, call the dining room and tell them there will be two more at dinner.”

“Who?” Hessinger asked.

“You and Oberst Mannberg.”

“Is that wise, Jim?” Dunwiddie asked. “Mattingly said you were to go alone.”

“I know,” Cronley said. “Do it, Freddy.”

“General,” Mannberg said, “we have heard from Seven-K.”

Who the hell is “Seven-K”?

“And?” Gehlen asked.

“She reports Natalia Likharev and her sons, Sergei and Pavel, do in fact occupy a flat at Nevsky Prospekt 114 in Leningrad. It’s a luxury apartment building reserved for senior officers of the NKGB.”

Seven-K, you soaking-wet-behind-the-ears amateur intelligence officer, is obviously Gehlen’s agent in Russia. If they said his name out loud, someone might hear. She?

“Which means,” Gehlen said, “especially since the NKGB knows Colonel Likharev is now in Argentina, that they are watching them very carefully, and that it’s just a matter of time before she is arrested. Pour encourager les autres.”

To encourage other NKGB officers not to change sides because the penalty is having your wife and kids sent to Siberia. Or shot. Or tortured. Or all of the above.

“Yes, sir,” Mannberg agreed. “She also reports the Underground Railroad is in disarray.”

“She”? That’s twice Mannberg said “she.” Seven-K is a woman?

Jesus, stupid! You should know the Russians have women spies. One of them made a horse’s ass out of you. So why should Gehlen having female agents be such a surprise?

“Underground Railway”? As in the States? Getting slaves out of the South? Mannberg is obviously talking about this woman’s setup to get the Likharevs out of Russia. Interesting that the Russians use a term from American history.

Gehlen said, “Send her ‘Act at your discretion.’”

“Signed?” Mannberg asked.

Gehlen pointed his index finger at his chest.

I wonder what your code name is?

“Jawohl, Herr General,” Mannberg said.

“Why don’t we all go down to the bar and have a drink before we feed the nice men from the Pentagon?” Cronley asked.

“Once again,” Dunwiddie said, “are you sure that’s what you want to do, have us all there?”

“I don’t want to face them all by my lonesome,” Cronley replied.

But that’s not the only reason I want everybody there.

In three days I will become chief, Directorate of Central Intelligence-Europe, which means essentially Operation Ost. I have zero, zilch qualifications to be given such an enormous responsibility. But I will have it, and I am about to compound the problem of the Pentagon’s determination to take over control of Operation Ost from what they correctly believe to be a wholly unqualified — and very junior — officer by shifting into what Colonel Robert Mattingly has often referred to as my “loose-cannon” mode.

Specifically, I am going to apply what I was taught at my alma mater, Texas A&M: The best defense is a good offense.

If I told Tiny and Fat Freddy what I plan to do, they would conclude that I was once again going to do something monumentally stupid — and God knows I have quite a history of doing that. They would possibly, even probably, go along with me out of loyalty, but that’s a two-way street.

If, as is likely, even probable, this blows up in my face, I want both Tiny and Freddy to be able to truthfully tell Mattingly, and/or General Greene — for that matter, Admiral Souers — that they had no idea how I planned to deal with Lieutenant Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley. So I can’t tell them.

The same applies to General Gehlen. While my monumental ego suggests he would probably think it might be a good idea, I don’t know that. So I can’t tell him. If I did, and he suggested ever so politely that I was wrong, I would stop. And I can’t stop, because it’s the only way I can think of to deal with Parsons and Ashley.

[THREE]

Lieutenant Colonel George H. Parsons and Major Warren W. Ashley were not in the dining room when Cronley, Gehlen, Mannberg, Dunwiddie, and Hessinger arrived, but the table was set with places for everyone.

Important people arrive last, right? Screw you, Parsons!

Cronley took the chair at the head of the table.

“General, why don’t you sit here?” Cronley said, pointing to the first side chair. “So that when Colonel Parsons arrives, he can sit across from you.”

Gehlen, his face expressionless, sat where Cronley suggested.

Cronley then pointed to people and chairs and everyone sat where he pointed.

Twenty minutes later, Colonel Parsons — a tall, trim forty-five-year-old — and Major Ashley — a shorter thirty-six-year-old version of Parsons — walked into the dining room. Both were in pinks and greens, and both of them wore the lapel insignia of the General Staff Corps and the shoulder insignia of the Military District of Washington.

Parsons marched on Cronley, who stood up but didn’t put down his whisky glass.

“Glad to see you again, Cronley,” Parsons said. “Sorry to be late. Tied up. Couldn’t be helped.”

“Good evening, Colonel,” Cronley replied. “I was about to introduce you to General Gehlen, but he just told me he thinks you met when he was in Washington.”

“No,” Parsons said.

“My mistake,” Gehlen said. “There was a Colonel Parsons at Fort Hunt, and I thought it might be you. But—”

“I don’t have the pleasure of Herr Gehlen’s acquaintance,” Parsons said, and put out his hand.

“Herr Gehlen”? Okay, Colonel, if you want to go down that route, fine.

“And this is Oberst — Colonel — Mannberg, General Gehlen’s deputy,” Cronley said. “And Mr. Hessinger, who is my chief of staff, and Captain Dunwiddie, my deputy.” He paused and then said, “And you’re Major Ashburg, right?”

“Ashley, Captain Cronley, Ashley,” Ashley corrected him.

“Right,” Cronley said. “I’m bad with names. Well, gentlemen, I’m really glad you were free to join us. We’re celebrating Captain Dunwiddie’s commissioning.”

“General Greene mentioned that you had been…” Parsons began.

Cronley interrupted him by calling for a waiter.

“… in Frankfurt,” Parsons went on, “for the promotion ceremony.”

“Yes, we flew up when General Smith let it be known that (a) he would like to participate, and (b) that he wanted a word with General Gehlen.”

“General Smith wanted to participate?” Major Ashley asked, either dubiously or in surprise.

Thank you for that question, Major Ashley.

“It turned out — Dunwiddie never told us — that when he was born — what did General Smith say, Tiny? ‘In the age of the dinosaurs’?—his father’s company commander was Captain Smith.”

“Oh, so you’re from an Army family, Captain?” Parsons asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you, Captain Cronley?”

The waiter appeared, saving Cronley from having to answer. When the waiter had taken their orders, Parsons had a fresh question.

“Let me go off on a tangent,” he said. “You said you flew up to Frankfurt, and presumably flew back. Is there reliable air service between here and Frankfurt? The reason I ask is that it’s a long ride on the train, and I expect that I’ll have to — myself and Major Ashley will have to — go up there often.”

“You’re asking about MATS? The Air Force Military Air Transport Service?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I really have no idea.”

“But you just said you flew back and forth to Frankfurt today. How did you do that?”

“I loaded the general and Dunwiddie into a Storch, wound up the rubber bands, and took off.”

“What’s a Storch?”

“It’s a German airplane. Sort of a super Piper Cub. We have two of them.”

“You’re a pilot? An aviator?”

Cronley nodded.

“I don’t remember seeing pilot’s wings when I saw you in uniform at the Schlosshotel Kronberg,” Parsons said. “And that raises another question in my mind. If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Ask away. Isn’t that what this is all about? Finding out about each other?”

“Why is it you’re not wearing your uniform now? I mean, isn’t that civilian attire?”

“As a special agent of the CIC, I’m allowed to wear ‘civilian attire’ when I think it’s necessary.”

“But you’re not a CIC special agent, are you?”

“Until January second, I am a special agent of the CIC, assigned to the Twenty-third CIC Detachment,” Cronley said, and then indicated Dunwiddie and Hessinger. “We all are.”

“And on January second?”

“Then we will all be transferred to DCI-Europe. I would have thought General Greene or Colonel Mattingly would have explained that.”

“It’s not clear in my mind,” Parsons said.

“And after that, you and the sergeant here will have to wear your uniforms?” Major Ashley asked. His tone of voice made it a challenge.

“Who told you Special Agent Hessinger is a sergeant?”

“You don’t use the term ‘sir’ often, do you, Captain?” Ashley snapped.

“I guess I don’t. Sorry. Blame it on the OSS.”

“‘Blame it on the OSS’?” Ashley parroted sarcastically.

“The OSS was — and I suppose the DCI will be — a little lax about the finer points of military courtesy,” Cronley said. “My question to you, Major, was who told you Special Agent Hessinger is a sergeant?”

“As a matter of fact, it was Colonel Mattingly.”

“I’m surprised. He knows better.”

“My question to you, Captain,” Ashley snapped, “is whether after Two January you will wear the prescribed uniform.”

“After Two January the chief, DCI-Europe, will prescribe what DCI-Europe personnel will wear,” Cronley said. “Right now, I don’t think that will often be a uniform revealing our ranks to the world.”

Ashley opened his mouth to reply. Cronley saw Parsons just perceptibly shake his head, which silenced Ashley.

Two waiters appeared and handed out menus.

They ordered.

“You understand, of course, Mr. Cronley,” Colonel Parsons said, “that Major Ashley was understandably curious.”

“Mister Cronley”? Was that a slip of the tongue?

Or is he being nice?

If he’s being nice, why is he being nice?

“Absolutely,” Cronley said. “Curiosity’s a common affliction of intelligence officers, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” Parsons agreed with a smile. “My wife says, aside from my drinking, it’s my worst character flaw.”

Everyone laughed dutifully.

“Truth to tell, I’m a little curious about what you’re going to do after Two January.”

“Do about what, Colonel?”

“Identifying yourself, yourselves.”

“To whom?”

“Hypothetical situation?”

“Why not?”

“You and Mr. Hessinger and Captain Dunwiddie — in civilian attire — are riding down the super highway here — what’s it called?”

“The autobahn.”

“The autobahn, in that magnificent German automobile Major Wallace drives…”

“The Opel Admiral,” Dunwiddie furnished.

“Thank you. And, deep in conversation about how to repel the Red Threat to all we hold dear, you let the Admiral get a little over the speed limit. The ever-vigilant military police pull you over.”

“Don’t let it get around, Colonel, but your hypothetical situation actually happened several times to Colonel Mattingly.”

“Really?”

“He was driving me from Kloster Grünau to Rhine-Main to catch the plane to Buenos Aires. In his magnificent German automobile, his Horch. Have you ever seen his Horch? That’s a really magnificent car.”

“I don’t think I’d recognize a Horch if one ran over me.”

“Between the monastery and Rhine-Main, the MPs pulled him over three times for speeding. The last citation was for going three times the speed limit.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“No, I am not. Three times the speed limit is a hundred and seventy KPH, or a little over a hundred miles an hour—”

“Cronley,” Major Ashley interrupted him, “why don’t you let the colonel continue with his hypothetical?”

“Sorry,” Cronley said. “Go ahead, Colonel.”

“So there you are, by the side of the road, and the MP says, ‘Sir, let me see your identification, please.’ What are you going to do?”

“Follow the example shown me by Colonel Mattingly,” Cronley replied. “Dazzle him with my CIC special agent credentials. Telling him I am rushing somewhere in the line of duty.”

“But you won’t have CIC credentials after One January,” Ashley said.

“Oh, but I will.”

“No, you won’t,” Ashley snapped. “You’ll then be in the Directorate of Central Intelligence, not the CIC.”

“I’m sure Colonel Parsons has his reasons for not telling you about that,” Cronley said.

“Not telling him what about that?” Parsons asked.

“Now I’m in a spot,” Cronley said. “Maybe this hypothetical wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

“What are you talking about, Cronley?” Parsons asked.

Not only am I no longer “Mister Cronley,” but he’s using the tone of voice lieutenant colonels use when dealing with junior captains who have done something to annoy them.

“Colonel, I’m just surprised that General Greene — and especially Colonel Mattingly, after all, he did tell you Hessinger is a sergeant — didn’t tell you about this. But they obviously had their reasons. But what the hell, they didn’t ask me not to tell you, so I will.”

Colonel Parsons gave Major Ashley another don’t-say-anything shake of the head, but it was too late.

“Ask you not to tell us what?” Ashley snapped sarcastically.

Three waiters marched up to the table carrying their dinner.

Serving it was an elaborate ceremony, but finally everything was served and the waiters left.

I am now going to pretend I think the hypothetical is closed.

“Do you know the officers’ clubs import this beef from Denmark?” Cronley asked. “It seems they’re leaning over backwards to avoid any suggestion that the clubs are taking the best beef from the Quartermaster—”

“You were saying something, Mr. Cronley,” Colonel Parsons interrupted him, “about General Greene not telling me something?”

“Right,” Cronley said.

He paused before going on: “Oh, what the hell. I don’t want to be stuffy about this — God knows there’s a hell of a lot classified Secret and Top Secret that shouldn’t be classified at all — but this is justifiably classified…”

“Meaning you’re not going to tell us?” Ashley asked, rather nastily.

“No, Major, I’ve decided you have the need to know about this, so I’m going to tell you. But I also have to tell you this is classified Top Secret — Presidential.”

“You are aware, Cronley, are you not, that both Colonel Parsons and myself hold Top Secret — Presidential clearances?” Ashley said, angrily sarcastic. “We’re entitled to know.”

Well, I finally got you to blow up, didn’t I?

And I ain’t through.

“What you and Colonel Parsons are entitled to know about the DCI, about Operation Ost, Major, is what I decide you have the need to know.”

If that doesn’t set Parsons off, nothing will.

Greatly surprising Cronley, it didn’t.

“Warren, Mr. Cronley is right,” Parsons said. “Why don’t we let him tell us what he thinks we should know?”

I’ll be damned.

But why is it that I don’t think I’ve won?

“I’ll tell you what I can, sir, about the DCI and the CIC,” Cronley said. “The basic idea is, as you’re fully aware, to hide Operation Ost from just about everybody who does not have a genuine need to know. Everybody, in this sense, includes the FBI and that part of the CIC engaged in looking for Nazis. As well, of course, as just about everybody else.”

“Admiral Souers explained that to me in some detail,” Parsons said.

“Yes, sir, he told me that he had. But what he didn’t tell you, and what General Greene apparently hasn’t told you — and I really wish he had — and what I’m going to tell you now, is how the admiral decided the concealment could best be accomplished.”

“And how is that?” Ashley demanded.

“Warren,” Colonel Parsons said warningly.

Now Parsons’s on my side?

What the hell is going on?

“When Admiral Souers told me that, at his request, and with the President’s approval, the Army was going to task EUCOM-CIC with the logistical support of DCI-Europe, I suggested to him that I’d like to use EUCOM-CIC for more than that.”

“You suggested that you’d like?” Ashley demanded sarcastically.

“Warren, shut up!” Parsons ordered curtly.

Well, if nothing else, I really have Parsons’s attention.

“I suggested to the admiral that we could conceal a great deal of DCI-Europe within the CIC,” Cronley went on. “For example, if we let people think that the Pullach compound is a CIC installation, and that General Gehlen’s people were being employed by the CIC to track down Nazis…”

“But you’re calling it the South German Industrial Development Organization Compound,” Parsons said.

“Admiral Souers raised the same objection, sir. I suggested that if the Pullach compound was actually being used by the CIC as a Nazi hunting center, they wouldn’t put that on the sign. The sign would say something like the General-Büros Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation.”

“Clever,” Colonel Parsons said thoughtfully. “And, I gather, Admiral Souers and General Greene went along with your ideas?”

“Admiral Souers did. I don’t think General Greene was unhappy with them.”

“And, in any case,” Parsons said, “what General Greene might think is moot, isn’t it?”

“Colonel, I don’t know this, but I think that if General Greene didn’t like any of this, he would have told Admiral Souers, and I know the admiral would have listened. What I’m guessing is that General Greene didn’t have any major objections.”

Parsons considered that for a moment, and then said, “You’re probably right. And now that I think about it, why should he have had problems with what the admiral asked him to do? Your suggestions make a lot of sense.”

Yeah, I immodestly believe they do. But since your basic interest here is to get Operation Ost put under the deputy chief of staff for intelligence, and the only way you’re going to be able to do that is to get me to fuck up royally, I don’t think you’re as pleased with my good suggestions as you’re letting on.

“I find all of this fascinating,” Parsons said. “And I suspect Warren does, too.”

“Sir?”

“Warren and I have spent most of our careers in intelligence, Mr. Cronley, but just about all of it on the analytical side. Isn’t that so, Warren?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As opposed to the operational side is what I mean. What I suppose could be called the nitty-gritty side. So I find all these little operational details fascinating. I never would have thought of hiding a secret operation the way you’re going to do it. A secret operation having absolutely nothing to do with the secret organization in which you’re hiding it. Absolutely fascinating. Brilliant, even!”

Where the hell is he going with this?

“So I’d like to ask a favor of you, Mr. Cronley.”

“Anything I can do for you, Colonel, of course.”

“Cut me a little slack when we start working together.”

“I don’t think I follow you, Colonel.”

“When I said, before, that my wife regards my curiosity as my worst character flaw, she was right on the money. And I know myself well enough to know that when we are working together I’ll come across things that I know are none of my business, but which will cause my curiosity to shift into high gear.

“When that happens, and I ask you — or any of your people — questions that are out of bounds, I want you to feel perfectly free — and tell your people to feel absolutely free — to cut me off at the knees. Just say, ‘That’s none of your business,’ and that will be the end of it. I won’t take offense, and I’ll stop asking questions. How does that sound, Mr. Cronley?”

Actually, you smooth sonofabitch, that’s what I already decided to do if you and ol’ Warren here got too curious. Cut you off at the knees.

“That’s very gracious of you, Colonel,” Cronley said. “Thank you. And I appreciate your understanding that there will be things going on around the Pullach compound that the fewer people know about, the better.”

And I will now wait for the other shoe to drop.

Where’s he going to go from here?

“Well, enough of this,” Parsons said. “Why don’t we change the subject?”

Cronley was so surprised at the other shoe that he blurted, “To what?”

“Women and politics are supposed to be forbidden subjects,” Parsons said. “Either topic is fine with me.”

He got the dutiful laughter he expected.

Then he grew serious.

“General Greene told me that he went to see General Patton shortly before he died. He said the scene was pretty grim.”

Well, that’s changing the subject, all right.

Where’s he going with this?

“It just goes to show, doesn’t it, that you never know what tomorrow will bring?” Parsons asked.

“Sir?”

“Losing your life, painfully, as a result of what General Greene said was really nothing but a fender-bender. And then your IG… or the CIC’s… IG?”

Cronley felt his stomach tighten.

Jesus Christ, what does he know, what has he heard, about that?

“Sir?”

“The poor chap goes home for lunch, and his hot water heater blows up. Blows him and his wife up.”

“I see what you mean,” Cronley said.

And now where are you going to go?

“Let’s get off those depressing subjects,” Parsons said. “To what? Back to my curiosity, I suppose. I got the feeling, Mr. Cronley, from the way you rattled off ‘General-Büros Süd-Deutsche,’ et cetera, so smoothly that you’re comfortable speaking German?”

“I speak German, Colonel.”

“Fluently?”

“Yes, sir. My mother is a Strasbourgerin. A war bride from the First World War. I got my German from her. Colonel Mannberg tells me I could pass myself off as a Strasbourger.”

“I’m jealous,” Parsons said. “I got what little German I have from West Point, and I was not what you could call a brilliant student of languages. What about you, Captain Dunwiddie? How’s your German?”

“I can get by, sir.”

“You said before you’re from an Army family. Do you also march in the Long Gray Line?”

“No, sir. I’m Norwich.”

“Fine school. Did you know that General White, I.D. White, who commanded the ‘Hell on Wheels’—the Second Armored Division — went to Norwich?”

“Yes, sir,” Dunwiddie said. “I did.”

“Warren, like General George Catlett Marshall, went to VMI,” Parsons said. “That leaves only you, Mr. Hessinger. I’m not sure if I can ask General Gehlen or Colonel Mannberg, or whether that would be none of my business.”

“I never had the privilege of a university education, Colonel,” Gehlen said.

Cronley was surprised, both at that, and also that Gehlen had chosen to reply, to furnish information, however harmless it was, about himself.

“I wasn’t bright enough to earn a scholarship,” Gehlen went on. “My father, who owned a bookstore, couldn’t afford to send me to school. Germany was impoverished after the First World War. So I got what education I could from the books in my father’s store. And then, the day after I turned eighteen, I joined the Reichswehr as a recruit. My father hated the military, but he was glad to see me go. One less mouth to feed.”

What the hell is Gehlen up to? He didn’t deliver that personal history lesson just to be polite.

“The what? You joined the what?” Ashley asked.

“The Reichswehr, Major,” Hessinger furnished, “was the armed forces of the Weimar Republic. It was limited by the Versailles treaty to eighty-five thousand soldiers and fifteen thousand sailors. No aircraft of any kind. It existed from 1919 to 1935, when Hitler absorbed it into the newly founded Wehrmacht.”

Fat Freddy delivered that little lecture because Gehlen delivered his history lesson. Which means he’s figured out why Gehlen suddenly decided to chime in.

Why can’t I?

Because I’m not as smart as either of them, that’s why.

“You seem very familiar with German history, Mr. Hessinger,” Parsons said.

“It is the subject of my — interrupted by the draft — doctoral thesis, Colonel.”

“And you were where when you were drafted?”

“Harvard, sir.”

“But you’re German, right?”

“I am an American citizen, sir, who was born in Germany.”

“And that leaves you, Colonel Mannberg,” Parsons said.

“My university is Philipps-Universität in Marburg an der Lahn, Colonel,” Mannberg said.

“Well, truth being stranger than fiction,” Parsons said, “I know something about your university, Colonel. Are you aware that your school has been training American intelligence officers since our Civil War? Maybe even before our Civil War? And that we plan to resume that just as soon as we can?”

“I didn’t know that you were going to resume that program, Colonel, but I knew about it. When we were at Philipps, your General Seidel and I were in the same Brüderschaft—fraternity.”

Is that what Gehlen’s been up to? Setting the stage for letting Parsons know that Mannberg and Seidel, the EUCOM G2, are old college fraternity buddies?

And how come Mannberg didn’t tell me that?

“How interesting!” Parsons said. “And have you been in touch with General Seidel since the war ended?”

“Yes, I have,” Mannberg said. “Actually, he tasked the CIC to find me. And, of course, they did.”

And now I will sit here with bated breath waiting to see where all this goes.

It went nowhere.

As they talked, they had been eating.

When they had finished eating, they were through talking.

Parsons said something to the effect that while he hated to leave good company, he “and Warren have a lot on our plates for tomorrow” and that they were “reluctantly going to have to call it a night.”

Hands were shaken all around, and thirty seconds later Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley had left.

When they were out of earshot, Gehlen asked, “Jim, would you think that talking this over while it’s still fresh in our minds might be a good idea?”

Cronley nodded.

Gehlen, with his usual courtesy, is going to hand me my ass on a platter.

“Why don’t we go upstairs to my room?” he said.

[FOUR]

Suite 527—an elegantly furnished bedroom, sitting room, bath, and small office — was Cronley’s, although he rarely spent the night in it, or for that matter, used it at all.

He had inherited it, so to speak, from the OSS. When Colonel Robert Mattingly had commanded OSS Forward, he had requisitioned all of the fifth floor’s right wing for the OSS when it had been decided to put — hide — General Gehlen’s people at least temporarily in Kloster Grünau.

Mattingly had no intention of spending his nights on a GI cot in a cold, former, and until very recently, long-deserted former monastery in the middle of nowhere when the five-star Vier Jahreszeiten was available to him.

When the OSS was disbanded, and Mattingly became deputy chief, CIC-Europe, he had put Kloster Grünau under then Second Lieutenant Cronley. And turned Suite 527 over to him. At the time Cronley had thought it was a nice, if misguided, gesture. The very things that made the Vier Jahreszeiten appealing to Mattingly — it was a playground for senior officers and their wives and enforced a strict code of dress and decorum — made it unappealing to a young second lieutenant.

Cronley now believed that it was far less benevolence on Mattingly’s part that gave him access to “the fifth floor” than Mattingly’s desire to distance himself as far as possible from Kloster Grünau and what was going on there. There was a very good chance that Operation Ost was going to blow up in everyone’s face, and Mattingly wanted to be far away when that happened.

“I don’t know what’s going on at Kloster Grünau. I turned the whole operation over to Cronley. I never went down there. Why, I even gave him my suite in the Vier Jahreszeiten because I never used it.

“Now, as far as FILL IN THE BLANK going so wildly wrong down there under his watch, I certainly don’t want to belittle what Cronley did in Argentina, but the cold fact is that he was made a captain before he even had enough time in grade to be promoted to first lieutenant, and he really didn’t have the qualifications and experience to properly handle something like Kloster Grünau.”

Everyone filed into suite 527 and everyone but Cronley, who leaned against an inner wall, found seats.

The Louis XIV chair under Dunwiddie disappeared under his bulk.

If that collapses, it will add a bit of sorely needed levity to this gathering.

“Gentlemen,” Cronley said in a serious tone, “if Captain Dunwiddie will forgo delivering the speech about the havoc a loose cannon can cause rolling about on a dinner table that he’s been mentally rehearsing for the past hour, we can go directly to seeing if anything at all can be salvaged from that disastrous dinner.”

Dunwiddie and Hessinger shook their heads. Mannberg and Gehlen smiled.

“I will admit, Jim,” Gehlen said, “that if you had told us beforehand how you were going to confront Colonel Parsons, it might have gone a little better than it did. But it wasn’t a disaster, by any means.”

“As you may have noticed, General, I’m a little slow. You don’t think that was a total disaster?”

Gehlen shook his head.

“‘Know thine enemy,’” Hessinger quoted. “Sun Tzu, The Art of War.”

“Precisely,” Gehlen said.

“It looked to me like we gave him a lot of information about us. But what did we learn about him?” Cronley asked.

“We confirmed much of what we presumed about him,” Gehlen said. “Most important, I suggest, we confirmed what I said a few days ago about the greatest danger posed to Operation Ost — that it will come from the Pentagon, not the Russians. And Colonel Parsons is going to be a formidable adversary.”

“You think he’s that smart, that dangerous?” Cronley asked.

“For several reasons, yes, I do. I presumed the Pentagon was going to send a highly intelligent officer as their liaison officer, since his purpose would go beyond a liaison function. His primary mission is to clip the just-born bud of the Directorate of Central Intelligence before it has a chance to blossom, and return it and its functions to where it belongs, under the assistant chief of staff for intelligence in the Pentagon.

“We saw that Parsons is highly intelligent — and I think Ashley, too, is not quite what he would wish us to believe. In other words, I judge him to be far more intelligent and competent — and thus more dangerous — than a well-meaning, if not too bright, subordinate who has to be reined in when his enthusiasm gets the better of him.”

“You think that ‘Shut up, Warren’ business was theater, rehearsed theater, sir?” Dunwiddie asked.

“Theater? Yes. Rehearsed? Not necessarily. I would judge the two of them have worked together before. They didn’t, they thought, have to rehearse much to deal with a junior captain whom they thought would be facing them alone. That didn’t happen. And then the junior captain proved a far more able adversary than they anticipated he would be.”

Does he mean that? Or is he being nice? Or charming, for his own purposes?

“What makes Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley especially dangerous is that they believe passionately in their mission,” Gehlen said. “Almost Mossad-like.”

“Excuse me?” Cronley asked.

“The Zionist intelligence apparatus,” Hessinger said.

“And once again, apparently, Hessinger knows all about something I never heard of,” Cronley said. “Lecture on, professor.”

Gehlen smiled and gestured to Hessinger to continue.

“The Zionists, the Jews,” Hessinger explained, “want their own homeland, their own country, in what is now Palestine. Until they get it, they’ve got sort of a shadow government, à la the British. Including an intelligence service. It has many names, but most commonly, the Mossad.”

“And are you planning to move to Palestine?” Cronley challenged.

“Not me. I’m an American,” Hessinger replied. “I’ll do what I can to help the Zionists, of course, but my plan for the future is to become a professor at Harvard.”

“I’m glad you brought that up, Friedrich,” Gehlen said.

“Sir?”

“‘I’ll do what I can to help, of course,’” Gehlen parroted. “There are two things that make the Mossad so good, Jim. And they are really good. Even better than the Vatican. One is that they really believe in their cause. The second is what Friedrich just said. Jews all over the world are willing to help them, even eager. Even when helping them violates the law.

“The same, I think, is true of Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley. Not only do they really believe Operation Ost, and the entire DCI, should be under the Pentagon, but as Jews all over, like our friend Friedrich here, are willing to help the Mossad, so will just about everybody in the Army support Parsons and Ashley.”

“I got the feeling earlier today that General Smith is on our side,” Cronley said.

“I’m sure he is. But I am not sure about every member of his staff who is in a position to help Colonel Parsons and hurt the DCI.”

“For the good of the service,” Dunwiddie said, drily sarcastic.

“Jesus Christ!” Cronley said. “So what it boils down to is that it’s us against just about everybody.”

“President Truman seems to be on our side. Or vice versa,” Gehlen said.

“Even though we’re the good guys,” Cronley went on, “maybe what we should do is connect somehow with this Mossad. Maybe they could show us where we can get some help. Right now, I feel like Custer at the Little Big Horn. Where did all these Indians come from?”

He expected a chuckle, or at least a smile, from Gehlen and the others. Dunwiddie and Hessinger did in fact smile. But Gehlen’s face was expressionless.

“You’re a Jew, Freddy,” Cronley went on. “How’s chances you can get your co-religionists, the super spies of Mossad, to come galloping to our rescue before we’re scalped?”

Hessinger, smiling, gave him the finger.

“Actually, in a sense, that’s already happening,” Gehlen said.

“Sir?”

What the hell is he talking about?

“Seven-K in Leningrad is a double agent. She’s an NKGB officer and a Mossad agent,” Gehlen said.

“My God!” Cronley said.

Gehlen smiled and nodded, and then went on: “One of the things Mossad is very good at is getting Jews out of Russia. When I realized getting Mrs. Likharev and her children out of Russia was really important, I asked her to help.”

This is surreal. His agent — which means our agent — in Leningrad is an agent — a female agent — of this super Jewish intelligence organization — Mossad — that I never heard of?

“Why would she do that?” Hessinger asked before Cronley could open his mouth to ask the identical question.

“Over the years, we have been helpful to one another,” Gehlen said. “I thought of that when Colonel Parsons told us he has had little experience with the ‘nitty-gritty’ side of intelligence. This is the nitty-gritty side.”

“I’m lost,” Cronley confessed.

“You’re aware that middle-to-high-level swine in the Schutzstaffel grew rich by allowing foreign Jews — so-called Ausländer Juden—particularly those in the United States — to buy their relatives and friends out of the death camps and to safety in Argentina or Paraguay?”

“Cletus Frade told me,” Cronley said.

“I hadn’t heard about that,” Dunwiddie said.

“Once the ransom money had been paid, Tiny,” Gehlen explained, “SS officers would go to Dachau or Auschwitz or wherever and remove the prisoners ‘for interrogation.’ They were not questioned, because the camps were run by the SS. Nor were they questioned when they reported the prisoners had died during interrogation. That happened often during SS interrogation.

“What actually happened to the prisoners was that they were taken first to Spain, and then to Portugal, where they boarded vessels of neutral powers for transportation to South America.

“When this came to my attention, I knew I couldn’t stop it. The corruption went right to the top of the Nazi hierarchy. If not to Heinrich Himmler himself, then to those very close to him. But the idea of getting people out of prison camps had a certain fascination for me. I didn’t understand the fascination, but it was there. I told Ludwig here, and Oberst Niedermeyer — you met Otto in Argentina, right, Jim?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I told them to think about it, and Otto came up with Mossad. We knew they had been active in the Soviet Union for a long time. The question then became what did we have that they wanted? And the corollary, what did they have that we wanted?”

“What was the Mossad doing in Russia?” Cronley asked.

“Zion’s business,” Mannberg said. “Somehow that had gone right over my head — and if I may say so, the general’s.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Cronley said.

“What they were interested in was this homeland they want in Palestine. It didn’t really matter to them whether the Soviets won the war, or we did,” Mannberg said, and then clarified, “The Germans did. What they wanted to do was get as many Zionist leaders out of Russia as they could. The Soviets, who didn’t trust them, had jailed many of them, sent them to Siberia, or had them locked up in concentration camps.”

“When Germany moved into Russia,” Gehlen picked up Mannberg’s narrative, “and took over the NKGB prison camps, the SS either killed all the Jews they found in them on the spot, or marched them off to become laborers. And among the people the SS marched off were many of the Zionist leaders Mossad wanted to get out of Russia and to Palestine.

“So, more than a little belatedly, I realized there was common cause between Abwehr Ost and Mossad. They had penetrated the highest levels of the Kremlin, far more successfully than we had. On the other hand, my people, especially those who were in the SS, could get into the SS prison and slave labor systems. And get people out of them with the same ease — actually far more ease — than the SS could take prisoners from the death camps.

“So I arranged to meet with the lady who was to become Seven-K.”

“How did you know with whom to meet?”

“We knew who she was. Her given name is Rahil, by the way.”

“What?”

“Rahil — Russian for Rachel,” Gehlen said.

“Jesus!”

“I thought you would find that interesting,” Gehlen said.

“Interesting?” Dunwiddie asked. “Fascinating! Two spies named Rachel.”

“Fuck you, Tiny!” Cronley flared.

“Temper, temper, Captain, sir,” Dunwiddie said.

“You’re never going to forget that, are you?”

“Probably not, and I’m not going to let you forget Rachel, either.”

“Now I don’t know what anybody’s talking about,” Hessinger said. “Who the hell is Rachel? You’re not talking about Colonel Schumann’s wife… Or are—”

“Private joke, Freddy,” Dunwiddie said. “Sorry.”

“As I was saying,” Gehlen said, “I arranged, with some difficulty, to meet with Seven-K in Vienna. In the Hotel Sacher. Before she met me, I had to turn Ludwig over to some of her people, to guarantee her safe return. But finally we met, and over Sachertorte and coffee—”

“Over what?” Cronley asked.

“A chocolate layer cake for which the Hotel Sacher is famous,” Hessinger furnished. “I had my first when I was eight or nine, and still remember how delicious it was.”

“Ours, unfortunately, was not,” Gehlen said. “It was made with powdered eggs and ersatz sugar, and the coffee was made from acorns, but nevertheless, we struck our first deal.

“If she would get me certain information, I would try to get two people, two Zionists, out of the hands of the SS. She gave me the names, and Ludwig got them out of an SS-run factory in Hungary. I don’t think they were Zionists, but she got me the information I asked for.”

“How could you know it was the right information?”

“The general knew the answers before he posed the question,” Mannberg said.

“You may have noticed, Ludwig, my tendency to ask stupid questions,” Cronley said.

“Now that you mention it, Captain, sir…” Dunwiddie said.

Mannberg chuckled.

“I would suggest to the both of you,” Gehlen said, on the edge of unpleasantness, “that Captain Cronley’s ability to get his mind around all aspects of a statement, to question everything about a situation, not only is useful, but is far greater than your own. Jim, I hope you always ask whatever questions occur to you.”

He let that sink in a moment, and then went on.

“I was impressed with her from the first. Her ability to get from Moscow, where she was then stationed, to Vienna proved that she was high-ranking. It required false identity documents, et cetera, and carried the real risk that it was an Abwehr Ost plan to seize her.

“I don’t know this, but I suspect she told Nikolayevich Merkulov, the commissar of state security, or his deputy, Ivan Serov, that I had made overtures. They had to give her permission to go to Vienna. Why did they do so? For much the same reasons that I authorized Ludwig to meet with Mr. Dulles in Bern, when he first made overtures to me, to see what the head of OSS Europe had in mind.

“But what to keep in mind here is that what Rahil wanted to learn was what she might get from Abwehr Ost that would benefit Mossad, and only secondarily the NKGB.

“What is that phrase, Jim, you so often use? ‘Cutting to the chase’? Cutting to the chase here, very slowly, very carefully, Rahil and I developed mutual trust. I was useful to her, and she was useful to me. Much of what I learned about the plans of the NKGB for Abwehr Ost personnel when they won the war, I learned from Rahil.”

He paused for a moment and then went on.

“And much of what the NKGB initially learned about Mr. Dulles’s postwar plans for Abwehr Ost, they learned from me. It was what you call a ‘tough call,’ but in the end I decided it was necessary to tell her. It further cemented both our relationship with her and hers with her superiors in the NKGB.

“But I was not in contact with her from the time I surrendered to Major Wallace until I decided the importance of getting Mrs. Likharev out of Russia justified the risk. I wasn’t sure, when I told Ludwig to try to reestablish the link, that she was still alive, or more importantly would be willing to reestablish our relationship.

“Fortunately for us, she has apparently decided — and let me restate this — that the good the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation can do for the Mossad justifies the risks entailed in getting the Likharevs out of Russia.”

“What good can we do Mossad?” Cronley asked.

“Rahil will think of something,” Gehlen said. “And if she manages to get the Likharevs out, we will be in her debt.”

“Yes, we will,” Cronley thought out loud.

“I don’t think Colonel Parsons even suspects anything about the Likharev situation,” Gehlen said. “And we have to keep it that way. It’s just the sort of thing he’s looking for.”

“I don’t see where that will be a problem,” Cronley said.

“The problems that cause the most trouble are often the ones one doesn’t suspect will happen,” Gehlen said.

No one replied.

“If you don’t have anything else for us, Jim,” Gehlen went on, “may I suggest we’re through here?”

“I’ll drive you to Pullach, General,” Hessinger said. “I’m going to need the Kapitän in the morning.”

“I’ll drive everybody to Pullach,” Cronley said. “I have to go to Kloster Grünau. When do you need the car in the morning?”

“Nine. Nine-thirty. No later than ten.”

“I’ll either have one of Tiny’s guys bring it back tonight, or I’ll bring it back in the morning.”

“You want me to go with you, Jim?”

“No. Thank you, but no.”

“What do you have to do tonight at Kloster Grünau?” Dunwiddie asked.

“There’s a problem with one of the Storchs. I promised Schröder I’d have a look at it.”

“Tonight?”

“I promised him yesterday.”

That’s all bullshit. Schröder didn’t say anything about a problem with a Storch.

What I want to do is have a little time to think, and I won’t have it if I stay in Pullach, and I don’t want to spend the night in the Vier Jahreszeiten.

But I didn’t have to think about coming up with an excuse to go to Kloster Grünau. The excuse — the story, the bullshit, the lie — leapt to my lips.

Why am I surprised?

Everybody in this surreal world I’m now living in lies so often about everything, and I’m so used to that it never even occurred to me to tell the simple truth that I need some time to think.

[FIVE]

The conclusion Cronley reached after thinking all the way to Kloster Grünau was that not only would he be way over his head when he became chief, DCI-Europe, but that Admiral Souers damned well knew it.

So why isn’t there some grizzled full-bird colonel available to do what I’m clearly unqualified to do?

The non-availability of such a grizzled full-bird colonel — and Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell T. “Polo” Ashton would not qualify as even a grizzled lieutenant colonel even if he showed up here, which, considering his broken leg and other infirmities, I now think seems highly unlikely — was not a satisfactory answer to the question.

So what to do?

Face it that Gehlen has taken over Operation Ost.

Not for any political reasons, but because nature abhors a vacuum.

So how do I handle that?

Sit there with my ears open and my mouth shut?

It’s already obvious that he and ol’ Ludwig are only telling me what they think I can be trusted to know.

Not one word about Mata Hari, the super Mossad spy, until tonight.

A/K/A Rachel.

And didn’t Fat Freddy pick up on that?

Does he suspect anything? Fat Freddy is pretty damned smart.

So what do I do about Gehlen not telling me what I should be told?

“See here, General, you and ol’ Ludwig are going to have to tell me everything.”

To which he would say, “Absolutely,” and tell me not one goddamned thing he doesn’t think I should know.

So what should I do?

Admit you don’t have a fucking clue what to do, and place your faith in the truism that God takes care of fools and drunks and you fully qualify as both.

When he drove the Kapitän past the second barrier fence, Cronley saw that floodlights were on in the tent hangar built for the Storchs.

Maybe something is wrong with one of them. Truth being stranger than fiction.

He drove to the hangar.

Kurt Schröder was working on the vertical stabilizer assembly of one of them. And apparently being assisted by Lieutenant Max — whose name Cronley was wholly unsure he could ever pronounce.

Schröder seemed surprised to see him. Maksymilian Ostrowski looked as if he had been caught with his hand in the candy jar.

“We’ve got a frayed cable, not serious, but I thought I’d replace it,” Schröder said.

“And drafted Lieutenant Max to help you?”

“I hope that’s all right, sir,” Ostrowski said.

“Fine with me, if it’s okay with Kurt.”

Cronley’s half-formed wild idea about the Pole popped back into his mind.

Where the hell did that come from?

And now that it’s back and I’m entirely sober, I can see it’s really off the wall.

Or is it?

Why the hell not?

Who’s going to tell me no?

None of us are supposed to be flying the Storchs, so what’s the difference?

“Tell me, Max,” Cronley said, “what’s the name of your guy who served with the Free French?”

“Jaworski, Pawell Jaworski, sir.”

“Could Pawell Jaworski take over the guard detachment?”

Ostrowski thought it over for a long moment.

“Yes, sir. I’m sure he could.”

“Okay. On your way to bed, wake him up and tell him that as of 0600 tomorrow, that’s what he’ll be doing,”

“Yes, sir,” Ostrowski said. “Captain, may I ask what this is about?”

“Oh, I guess I didn’t get into that, did I?”

“No, sir, you did not.”

“Presuming, of course, that Kurt can get that vertical stabilizer assembly back together and working, what he’s going to do at 0600 is start checking you out on the Storch.”

“Checking me out?”

“They didn’t use that term in the Free Polish Air Force?”

“Yes, sir. I know what it means.”

“Try not to bend my airplane, Max. I’ve grown rather fond of it.”

Cronley turned and walked out of the tent hangar.

That was probably a stupid thing to do.

Colonel Mattingly would almost certainly think so.

But since I’ll be running, as of January 2, DCI-Europe, I don’t have to worry about what that bastard thinks.

That’s my plan for the future.

Do whatever the hell I think will be good for Operation Ost, and keep doing it until somebody hands me my ass on a shovel.

Abraham Lincoln Tedworth, his sleeves now adorned with the first sergeant’s chevrons to which he had been entitled since 1700 the previous day, was waiting for him when he walked into the bar.

“This came in about ten minutes ago, Captain.”

He handed Cronley a SIGABA printout.

“Top, I just relieved Lieutenant Max as commander of the Polish Guard,” Cronley announced.

“With all respect, sir, that was a dumb move.”

That’s what they call loyalty downward.

“I deeply appreciate your unfailing confidence in my command decisions, First Sergeant.”

“Well, you better reconsider that one. Max is a damned good man.”

“That’s why I am transferring him to the Operation Ost Air Force. I told Schröder to check him out in a Storch.”

Tedworth thought that over for a minute, and then announced, “Now that, sir, is a fine command decision.”

“I’m glad you approve, First Sergeant,” Cronley said, and then read the SIGABA printout: