Top Secret

[ONE]

First Sergeant Chauncey Dunwiddie and Technical Sergeant Abraham L. Tedworth had heard the Storch approaching and were waiting next to the former monastery chapel when Cronley taxied up to it.

They spotted Frade and curiosity was all over their faces.

Frade and Cronley climbed down from the airplane.

Dunwiddie softly ordered, “Ten-hut!” Both non-coms popped to attention and crisply raised their hands to their eyebrows.

“Good morning, Colonel,” Dunwiddie barked. “Good morning, Captain. Welcome home.”

Frade and Cronley returned the salute. Dunwiddie and Tedworth crisply lowered their arms and popped to parade rest.

“As you were,” Frade said. “Good morning.”

“Colonel,” Cronley said. “This is First Sergeant Dunwiddie and his field first sergeant, Technical Sergeant Tedworth.”

Frade offered them his hand.

“My name is Frade.”

“Yes, sir,” the two non-coms said in unison.

“Command of Operation Ost has been given to me,” Frade said. “So you now work for me.”

“Yes, sir,” they again said in unison.

“For the moment, Captain Cronley remains in command of the monastery. How long he will retain command depends in large measure on how much damage to our relations with General Gehlen has been caused by his taking over the interrogation of the NKGB agent.

“As you may have surmised from this odd uniform I’m wearing, I’m a Marine. In the Marine Corps, when you want the real story behind what looks like a FUBAR situation — you do know what FUBAR means, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Dunwiddie said.

“Fucked Up Beyond All Repair, sir,” Tedworth helpfully furnished.

“Correct,” Frade said. “What you do is rustle up a couple of senior non-coms and ask them what the hell’s going on, what went wrong, and what they think should be done about it. If you’re lucky, you’ll get the truth as opposed to them telling you what they think you want to hear.”

Frade pointed at Tedworth.

“You first, Sergeant. Be advised I will tolerate no bullshit.”

Tedworth, visibly uncomfortable, looked as if he was carefully considering his reply. Finally, just perceptibly, he gave a fuck it! shrug.

“Colonel, maybe Captain Cronley should have talked it over first with Colonel Mattingly and he probably should have been more tactful with Bischoff when he told him to butt out, but other than that, he was right.”

“Captain Cronley isn’t famous for his tact, is he?” Frade said, and then pointed at Dunwiddie.

“Sir, I agree with Sergeant Tedworth,” Tiny said.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Frade asked. “What is your assessment, Sergeant, of the damage Captain Cronley’s actions have had on his — which are of course our — relations with General Gehlen?”

“Sir, I don’t know.”

“What is your assessment of General Gehlen?”

“Sir, do you mean do I like him?”

“Try that.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“But?”

“He’s a general, sir. And a German. Generals, and maybe especially German generals, don’t like having their decisions, their orders, questioned. Particularly by junior officers.”

“But?”

“That’s it, Colonel.”

“Where is the Russian?”

“In his cell, sir.”

“And General Gehlen?”

“He’s in his office, sir.”

Frade pointed at Tedworth.

“You will take me to the Russian.”

“Yes, sir.”

He pointed to Dunwiddie.

“You will present my compliments to General Gehlen. You will ask him if it will be convenient for him to meet with me in Captain Cronley’s office after I’ve spoken to the Russian.”

“Yes, sir.”

Frade pointed to Cronley.

“You will go to your quarters and await my pleasure.”

“Yes, sir.”

[TWO]

The office was furnished with a desk, on which sat two telephones — an ornate German instrument and a U.S. Army EE-8 field telephone — a typewriter, an ashtray made from a bent Planters peanuts can, a White Owl cigar box, and a box of large wooden matches.

There was a wooden office chair on wheels behind the desk. Two similar chairs without wheels were in front of it.

Former Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen, who had on an ill-fitting, well-worn gray tweed suit, sat in one of the latter. He rose to his feet as Frade walked through the door that Sergeant Tedworth held open for him.

“General Gehlen?” Frade asked.

“I am Gehlen.”

“My name is Frade, General,” he said, offering the slight man his hand. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“I am pleased to finally meet you, Colonel Frade.”

“Sergeant, please rustle up some coffee and maybe a couple of doughnuts for myself and the general, and then leave us alone.”

“Coming right up, sir,” Tedworth said.

Frade went behind the desk and sat down.

“We have a problem, General. But I think before we get into that, I should tell you why I said ‘we.’ For a number of reasons, including credible deniability, it has been decided to transfer command of Operation Ost to me. That’s effective this morning.”

Gehlen nodded but didn’t speak.

An inner door opened. Cronley was standing in it.

“Colonel, I thought I should tell you that when I’m in my quarters I can hear whatever is said in here.”

Frade considered his options for a moment and then said, “Take a seat.”

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said, and then sat in the chair across from Gehlen.

“Guten Morgen, Herr General.”

“Guten Morgen, Jim.”

“One might get the idea from that cordial, informal exchange, General,” Frade said, “that you and Captain Cronley have developed a personal as well as a professional relationship.”

“I think we have,” Gehlen said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Jim?”

Before Cronley could reply, Frade went on: “And that hasn’t changed in the last couple of days?”

“Because of Major Bischoff, you mean?”

“That’s your interrogation expert?”

“Yes.”

“Then because of what happened between Captain Cronley and your major.”

“I think, Colonel, that when I hear Captain Cronley’s version of the dispute, and weigh it against Bischoff’s, Bischoff’s far greater experience in these matters will be evident. But that certainly won’t cause me to dislike Jim.”

“You haven’t heard Cronley’s version?”

“I was going to ask him about it today.”

“Tell the general what you have been thinking, Captain Cronley,” Frade ordered.

“I offered Major Orlovsky a deal, General,” Cronley began.

“Based on his extensive experience in these matters, of course,” Frade said sarcastically. “And his very fertile imagination.”

The appearance of Sergeant Tedworth, carrying two coffee mugs and a plate of doughnuts, caused Cronley, at the last possible split second, not to say what had leapt to his lips.

Thank God!

Telling Clete to go fuck himself would have been really stupid. He couldn’t let me get away with it in front of Gehlen, and Gehlen wouldn’t like it either.

It would be one more proof for both of them that while Little Jimmy Cronley might be a nice boy, even a bright nice boy, that’s all he is, and thus any ideas he has are beneath the consideration of Frade, Gehlen, Bischoff and Company, the Wise Old Men of Kloster Grünau.

“We’re waiting, Captain Cronley,” Frade said.

Try to sound like a fellow intelligence professional. Use big words.

“When I realized that Major Bischoff’s deprivation of senses and humiliation tactics of interrogation were not working on Major Orlovsky, and actually were counterproductive — Orlovsky has resigned himself to being shot — I decided something else had to be done.

“‘What does this skilled NKGB officer want? What can I give him to get those names?’

“The answer was hope.”

“I don’t understand,” Gehlen said.

“I told him, General, that if he turned, I would move him to Argentina, and once he was there, if he gave us the names of your people that he has turned, I would get you to get his family out of Russia.”

The eyebrows on Gehlen’s normally expressionless face rose.

“I see what you mean about a fertile imagination,” he said.

“I went to see Major Orlovsky just now, General,” Frade said. “I walked into his cell, gave him a moment to wonder who I might be, and then said, ‘Well, Major, have you decided whether or not you want to go to Argentina?’”

“And?” Gehlen asked.

“What would you have expected his reaction to be, General?” Frade asked.

Gehlen considered the question for a moment before replying.

“I would guess that he wouldn’t reply at all,” Gehlen said. “Or that he would appear to play along, to see what he might learn.”

“What he did, General, was lose control. And if he was acting, he’s a better actor than John Barrymore.”

“He lost control?”

“Only for a moment, but in that moment, his chest heaved, he sobbed, and his eyes teared.”

“Interesting,” Gehlen said, softly and thoughtfully.

“He quickly regained control, but for a moment he had lost it.”

“And what did he say?”

“When he thought he had his voice — and himself — under control, he said, ‘Until you walked in here, Colonel, I really thought your young captain was desperately reaching for straws.’”

“Go on, please,” Gehlen said.

“I suppose,” Frade said, “I should’ve walked in there at least considering the possibility that my young captain had actually cracked Orlovsky — but I didn’t. So, I said the only thing I could think of: ‘Answer my question, Major Orlovsky.’”

“And?” Gehlen said softly.

“He said, ‘It is possible, unlikely but possible, that we might be able to work something out.’ To which I cleverly replied, ‘We’ll talk more about working something out,’ and left.”

Gehlen shook his head in disbelief, smiled, and said, “Jim, I underestimated you.”

“It would appear we both did,” Frade said.

“When I tell Konrad Bischoff this — if I tell him — he’ll be devastated,” Gehlen said, smiling. “I’m afraid he was looking happily forward to Jim getting his comeuppance from Colonel Mattingly.”

“You’re saying you think we can strike a deal with Orlovsky?” Frade asked.

“I think we would be foolish not to look very carefully at that possibility, no matter how remote it sounds.”

“General, I happily defer to your greater expertise,” Frade said. “Would you do that for us, sir? Lay it out?”

“Very well,” Gehlen said. “Simply, what we have is a skilled NKGB agent now in possession of information regarding Operation Ost that we cannot permit him to pass on to his superiors. What we want from him are the names of those of my people he’s turned. Now, what are we willing to pay for that information?”

Cronley began, “Sir—”

“Just sit there,” Frade snapped.

“Colonel, may I suggest that Cronley has earned the right to comment?” Gehlen said.

“Make it quick, Jimmy.”

“I was about to suggest that if we can turn him, he’s got more to tell us than the names of the Germans he’s turned.”

“True. But I suggest we’re getting a bit ahead of where we should be,” Gehlen said.

“Go ahead, General, please,” Frade said. “Cronley will hold any further comments he might wish to offer until you’re through.”

Gehlen nodded. “Colonel, can you make good on the promise to take him to Argentina?”

“Qualified answer, General: Yes, but there are problems with that.”

“Let’s proceed with your ability to get him there, and deal with the problems later. The next question is: ‘Would it be worth the risk to my agents in place for them to try to get his family out of Russia?’ The answer to that, too, has to be qualified.

“Simple answer, yes. If we don’t get the names of the people Orlovsky — or perhaps someone else in the NKGB — has turned, they can cause enormous damage. So, if you agree, Colonel Frade, what I suggest we do is accept that the information Orlovsky has is worth his price. You will establish a new life for him in Argentina and I will attempt to get his family out of Russia. What are the problems you see?”

“I hardly know where to begin,” Frade said. “There’s a number of them. Perhaps the greatest of them is that if I went to Admiral Souers with this — you know he’s the ultimate authority?”

Gehlen nodded.

“I don’t think he’d give me permission to do it. So far, he doesn’t even know we have Orlovsky. It almost came out at dinner last night, but the conversation went off at a tangent when Colonel Schumann regaled everyone with his descriptions of Sergeant Dunwiddie and his ferocious fellows, and the subject of NKGB penetration of Kloster Grünau got lost. Fortunately.”

“I’m surprised Colonel Mattingly didn’t bring Orlovsky to everyone’s attention,” Gehlen said. It was a question as well as a statement.

“So was I,” Frade said. “I’m guessing he wanted to dump the problem in my lap. He would have preferred to hang Jimmy out to dry, but right now Admiral Souers — and for that matter, the President — think Cronley can walk on water. So that would be risky.”

“Do you think you could go to Admiral Souers and argue the merits of taking Orlovsky to Argentina?”

“No, I don’t,” Frade said simply. “He would decide the risk to what I’ve got going in Argentina would be too great. And he’d probably be right. Which means that we’re going to have to keep both Mattingly and the admiral in the dark about this operation.”

“One, you’re willing to do that? Two, can you do that? And, three, if you can do it, for how long?”

“I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to protect Operation Ost. As far as keeping how I do that from the admiral and Mattingly, all I can do is hope that when they finally find out — and they will — it will be a done deal.

“Now, for obvious reasons, we can’t just add Orlovsky to our family of refugees in Argentina…”

“Obvious reasons?” Gehlen asked.

“Before this interesting development came up, General, I was going to come see you with this”—he took an envelope from his tunic and handed it to Gehlen—“with the compliments of Oberst Otto Niedermeyer.”

“I’ve been expecting this,” Gehlen said.

“What is it?” Cronley asked.

“Why do I suspect, General Gehlen,” Frade asked, smiling, “that you and Oberst Niedermeyer have a communications link I’m not supposed to know about?”

Gehlen smiled back. “Because you have a naturally suspicious mind. Which is very useful in our line of endeavor.”

“What is that?” Cronley asked again.

And was ignored again.

“And,” Gehlen went on, “possibly because Otto tells me that, for an Anglican, you have an unusually close relationship with a certain Jesuit priest and he told you.”

Frade laughed. “No comment.”

“You’re wondering why Otto sent this with you, rather than using this communications link you suspect us of having?”

“Yeah.”

“Because if he used — what should I say? — the Vatican channel, not only that Jesuit but others would have read it. There are some things we prefer not to share with Holy Mother Church.”

“Shame on you,” Frade said.

Gehlen and Frade were smiling at each other.

Gehlen has smiled more in this room in the last twenty minutes than in all the time I’ve known him.

And cracked jokes.

They just met and they’re already buddies.

Even if Niedermeyer got word to Gehlen that he thinks Clete is a good guy, that wouldn’t have made them pals.

They’re kindred souls… what else could it be?

“What the hell is that?” Cronley asked for the third time.

Gehlen looked at Frade, who nodded his permission.

“Jim, it’s a list of the Nazis who SS-Oberst Niedermeyer thinks would cause us the greatest embarrassment if the Russians could prove they’re here at Kloster Grünau. And a list of my people, some of them here, some in Argentina, who Niedermeyer suspects have already been turned or, in his judgment, are likely to turn if properly approached.”

“What are you going to do about them? The people who have been turned?” Cronley asked.

Gehlen acted as if he had not heard the question.

“I think we’re in agreement that we’re going to have to move all of the people who can embarrass us out of Kloster Grünau as quickly as that can be done,” Gehlen said.

“Mattingly suggested there may be a passport problem,” Frade said. But it was a question.

“Our friends in Rome are very cautious,” Gehlen said. “Perhaps that’s why they have been so successful for so long. In this connection, they dole out passports very sparingly, never more than a dozen at a time.”

“Mattingly told me that. But you have a dozen blanks?”

Gehlen nodded. “But they won’t give us any more until our Jesuit friend in Buenos Aires reports to them that the travelers have passed through Argentine immigration and disappeared. After handing him their Vatican passports, which he has destroyed. I understand their concern, of course — this way no more than a dozen passports are ever at risk of coming to light at one time — but it causes problems.”

“There will be an SAA Constellation here on Saturday,” Frade said. “It will refuel in Frankfurt before flying to Berlin, and will refuel again in Frankfurt on the return trip. That will be on Sunday or Monday. Can you select the dozen people who pose the greatest embarrassment and have their passports ready in that timeframe, so we can load them on the Connie when it refuels in Frankfurt?”

“Two hours after I give the names to Oberst Mannberg, the passports will be ready.”

“Mattingly has done all this before, and his system seems to work,” Frade said. “When I see him in Munich tonight I’ll tell him there are no problems about this.”

“Does he know about Otto’s list?”

“I’ll tell him about it tonight — there was no opportunity at that Schlosshotel.”

“Can I ask what you want me to do,” Cronley said, “or what you’re going to do about the people Colonel Niedermeyer thinks may have been turned?”

When he saw the looks on both men’s faces he knew he had asked a question that he should not have asked. Confirmation came immediately.

“Did you say something, Captain Cronley?” Frade asked.

“It wasn’t important, sir.”

The moment Gehlen has proof that any of his people have been turned, that’s the end of them. I should have known that.

Cletus knows that, and has decided it’s Gehlen’s problem, and Gehlen should deal with it.

But he seems to agree that Orlovsky is our problem, and that our solution should not be turning him over to Gehlen to be shot.

Why? Because he’s a Russian?

And we captured him?

And what would have happened if Orlovsky hadn’t broken down when Clete saw him?

Would Clete have then told me what Mattingly did—“Mind your own fucking business”?

A minute ago, Clete said, “I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to protect Operation Ost.” That would obviously include killing Orlovsky.

Those who suggest I’m naïve or stupid or both are right on the money.

“As I was saying before we got into our theological discussion…” Frade began.

Gehlen smiled and chuckled.

“… we can’t move Orlovsky in with the other immigrants. We’re going to have to get him to a safe house, provide him with bodyguards, et cetera, plus give him a large amount of cash to convince him that once he has given us the names, we won’t betray him. That’s going to be a lot of money.”

“And getting his family out of Russia will cost a great deal of money,” Gehlen said. “U.S. dollars open many doors in Moscow. Fifty thousand comes to mind. Is that going to pose a problem?”

Frade nodded. “For several reasons. The accounts of the former OSS are just about empty. Even if they weren’t, I doubt I could ask for two hundred thousand dollars without offering a good reason. And while I have access to money in Argentina…”

“You mean your own money, right?” Cronley said.

“… and have been using my own money to fund operations there — placing a child-like faith in Admiral Souers’s promise I’ll get it back when the Central Intelligence Directorate is up and running — I couldn’t take another two hundred thousand out of the Anglo-Argentine Bank for unspecified purposes without the wrong people asking the wrong questions. Yes, General, money is going to be a problem. We’re going to have to really think about that.”

“What about documentation for Orlovsky?” Gehlen said. “To get him into Argentina, and then for him to become as invisible as possible once he is?”

“I’m sure our mutual friend the Jesuit can arrange a Vatican passport and a libreta de enrolamiento, the national identity document, for him,” Frade said. “But that means he would have to be told what’s going on.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Not for me,” Frade said, chuckling. “The wily Father Welner already knows all my secrets — well, almost all. But there are two things. The fewer people who know a secret, the longer it can be kept secret. Aside from Welner, I am only going to tell Major Ashton — my deputy, Major Maxwell Ashton the Third — and Master Sergeant Siggie Stein about any of this.”

“Niedermeyer speaks highly of both,” Gehlen said.

“And the only reason I’m going to tell them is that I think I may have to send Ashton over to deal with some people from the Pentagon who will be in Pullach and are very much aware they all outrank Cronley. If that becomes necessary, Stein will have to hold the fort in Argentina.”

“Niedermeyer will have to be told, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah, he will. I didn’t think about it, but sure. Otto will have to be brought in on this.”

Cronely put in, “You sound as if you think—”

“Not now, for God’s sake, Jimmy,” Frade shut him off, and then said, “I was wondering how the Vatican would react — maybe will react — when they find out they’ve issued a passport to an NKGB officer. Is that going to cause problems for you, sir?”

“Not if by the time they find out Orlovsky has seen the light and has put godless Communism behind him. But if he goes to Argentina, escapes his bodyguards, and heads for the nearest Russian embassy…”

“General, there’s no Russian embassy in Argentina. Just an NKGB outpost pretending to be a trade mission. General Martín…?”

“The chief of the Argentine Bureau of Internal Security?” Gehlen asked.

Frade nodded.

“Martín keeps a close eye on the tradesmen. But I don’t want him to know about Orlovsky. He’d want to take him over. But that’s not a big problem. I can make sure that Orlovsky doesn’t get within a hundred miles of either him or the trade mission. The problem is the money.”

“Let me get this straight,” Jimmy said. “You sound — the both of you sound — as if you think I had a great idea and the only thing that’s standing in the way of doing it is a couple hundred thousand dollars.”

“So?” Frade asked. “You figured that out, did you, you clever fellow?”

“Yes, you can have it,” Cronley said.

“I can have what?” Frade said, and then, understanding, added, “Oh.”

“What you just figured out, you clever fellow.”

Frade was silent for a long moment, then snapped, “Your automatic mouth is about to get you in more goddamned trouble than you can handle. Do you even realize that?”

“Sorry,” Jimmy said. A moment later, he went on: “I’m really sorry. I just can’t handle being treated like I’m part of this one second, then I’m an idiot second lieutenant the next.”

“Well, you goddamned well better learn,” Frade said icily. And then he chuckled. “You better remember, too, that you’re an ‘idiot captain,’ Captain Cronley.”

Their eyes met for a long moment. “You sure you want to do this, Jimmy?”

Cronley nodded.

“Boltitz will have my power of attorney. You can tell him to give you the money, so that you can take it to Argentina to invest it for me. Nobody would question that. And he wouldn’t have to be told what we’re going to do with it.”

“I don’t understand,” Gehlen said.

Frade ignored him. He said, “I really don’t like taking your money, Jimmy…”

“Would you take it — I prefer ‘borrow’ to ‘take,’ let’s say ‘borrow’ from now on — would you borrow it from the Squirt if she was still around?”

Frade ignored that question, too.

“… but borrowing it would solve more than one problem,” Frade went on. “I have to go to Midland anyway to pick up my wife and kids. If Karl took the money out of your bank in cash, that would solve the problem of getting it to Argentina. And then here to General Gehlen. No cashier’s checks, no transfer wires, just all the cash we need, within a matter of days, and nobody asking questions.”

“Do I understand that Jim is going to provide the funds we’re talking about?” Gehlen asked.

Cronley nodded. “Yes, sir. And all I’m going to ask Colonel Frade to do is unscrew his left arm at the elbow and leave it with me in lieu of collateral.”

Gehlen laughed out loud.

“The only thing missing is Orlovsky actually agreeing to turn,” Frade said.

“If I may make a suggestion?” Gehlen asked.

“You don’t have to ask, General,” Frade said.

“I would suggest it might be a good idea not to seem too eager, to — now that you believe he’s willing — have him worry that we don’t trust him to carry out his end of the bargain. I know Jim doesn’t think that Major Bischoff’s disorientation theories are effective—”

“They weren’t working, General,” Cronley interrupted.

“Let me rephrase that: We know Bischoff’s disorientation tactics did not work. But keeping Orlovsky disoriented until the moment we load him on an airplane might be a good idea.”

“You want to bring Bischoff back into this?” Cronley asked suspiciously.

“I was thinking of doing this myself,” Gehlen said. “If you’re going to Munich, while you’re gone I could chat with Major Orlovsky. We could talk, for example, about mutual acquaintances we have on the faculty of the Felix Dzerzhinsky Federal Security Service Academy and among the members of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. That should get him wondering how many of them I’ve managed to turn.”

“I didn’t want to go to Munich in the first place,” Frade said. “Now I really don’t want to go. I’d love to watch a master of our trade at work.”

“I’m flattered,” Gehlen said.

“But I have to go, and I don’t think I’ll be coming back here. The sooner I can get to the States, the better.”

“I understand,” Gehlen said. “But speaking of my chat with Major Orlovsky: I have found it useful to have someone with me when I’m having chats of that nature.”

“Major Bischoff?” Frade asked.

“Actually, I was thinking of First Sergeant Dunwiddie,” Gehlen said. “Of course, he would have to be made privy to what we’re doing.”

“Jimmy, your call,” Frade said.

“I don’t have any problems with that at all.”

“You can have the sergeant,” Frade said. “But may I ask why?”

“Well, he’s obviously extraordinarily bright. Though another reason I’d like him in the room with me is that Major Orlovsky has had very little contact in Holy Mother Russia with men that size or with skin the color of coal. He finds them disconcerting.”

Frade and Cronley chuckled.

“If that’s the case, General,” Cronley said, “you can have Sergeant Tedworth, too.”

“That might even be better,” Gehlen said. “One final thing. May I bring Colonel Mannberg into this?”

“Of course,” Frade said. He paused, then went on: “That about winds it up for me here. Unless you have something else, General?”

Gehlen shook his head.

“In that case, sir, what I would like to do — if it makes sense to you — is go see Orlovsky, taking Cronley with me. I will tell him we have to leave — hell, I’ll tell him the truth: I’ll tell him I have to get back to the States, and then to Argentina, and that he will be dealing with you and Cronley.”

Gehlen nodded. “I think it important that Jim remain involved.”

“And this time, Captain Cronley, you will heed the sage advice of this expert interrogator no matter what he suggests.”

Cronley nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“And, Jimmy, you and I should get back in the Storch and go to Munich. The sooner I can get a look at Pullach and get to Frankfurt, the better.”

“Taking the Storch may not be a good idea. We better drive.”

“Why?”

“The Air Force doesn’t like Storches.”

Cronley explained the trouble he had had at Eschborn and the trouble he thought they would encounter at the Army airfield outside Munich.

“I don’t want to lose the Storch, Clete. Either of them. I think I’m really going to need them. And losing them’s a real possibility.”

“You are a lucky man, Captain Cronley,” Frade said. “When you fly back here in your Storch after dropping me off at Rhine-Main tomorrow morning, you will be privileged to witness a genuine expert outwit a Russian NKGB agent. Few people have an opportunity to see something like that. And when we land at this airfield where you think they will try to take away your airplane, you will be privileged to watch a genuine Marine expert outwit difficult Army — or Air Force, as the case may be — bureaucrats in uniform. Few people are privileged to see something like that, either.”

Cronley shook his head.

“Say, ‘yes, sir,’” Frade said.

“Yes, sir.”

General Gehlen laughed and smiled warmly.

Clete offered his hand. Gehlen took it, but what began as a formality turned personal. They wound up hugging each other.

[THREE]

“Schleissheim, Army Seven-Oh-Seven understands Number One to land on Two-four,” Cronley said into his microphone, then moved the switch to INTERCOM and went on, “This is certainly going to be interesting.”

“What?” Frade asked.

“Well, Schleissheim means ‘Home of Strip,’ so I’m hoping we’ll be greeted by two fräuleins in their underwear. But I’m afraid what we’re going to get is some of those officers I told you about, the ones who’ll want to take my plane away from me.”

“Just do what I told you to do. Say, ‘yes, sir.’”

“Yes, sir.”

Jimmy moved the switch back to TRANSMIT and announced, “Seven-Oh-Seven on final.”

A major, two lieutenants, and a sergeant walked up to the Storch as Cronley parked it in front of a building that combined Base Operations with a control tower, a double-door fire station, and what looked like a PX coffee shop.

The sergeant went to the tail and started writing on a clipboard.

“He’s righteously writing down our tail numbers,” Cronley announced.

“Go,” Frade ordered.

Cronley climbed out of the airplane, took his CIC credentials from his pocket, and opened the folder so the major could get a quick look.

“Good afternoon,” Cronley said cheerfully. “We’re going to have to top off my tanks and then put the airplane in a hangar where as few people as possible will see it. Any problems with that?”

Clete was now out of the airplane.

The major saluted.

“Good afternoon,” Clete said, crisply returning it, then addressed Jimmy: “We’re running late. Where’s the car?”

“I don’t know, Colonel,” Cronley said.

“Well, Major?” Frade demanded. “Where is it?”

“Sir, I don’t know anything about a car,” the major said.

“You did know we were coming, correct?”

“No, sir.”

“My God, Mr. MacNamara!” Clete snapped to Jimmy. “Can’t the Army do anything right? Does General Tedworth expect me to walk to the Vier Jahreszeiten? Find a phone somewhere and get General Tedworth on the line. If he’s not available, I’ll talk to General Dunwiddie.”

“Yes, sir,” Cronley said.

The major looked up from his clipboard and quickly said, “Colonel, we can get you a car. No problem.”

“Please do so,” Frade said. “And quickly. You heard me say we’re running late. And when I come back here very early tomorrow morning, I expect my aircraft to be ready to go. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. No problem, Colonel.”

The major’s face showed that he was not going to ask any questions about the Storch. Colonel Frade turned his back to the major and winked at Captain Cronley.

“Take not counsel of your fears,” he announced. “I believe General Patton said that, so you might wish to write it down.”

[FOUR]

Sergeant Friedrich Hessinger, wearing pinks and greens, intercepted Cronley and Frade as they headed for the elevators in the lobby of the hotel.

Elegant as usual, Cronley thought. The only thing missing is the blond — or two blonds — he usually has hanging on to his arms.

“Colonel Mattingly and the others are waiting for you in the bar, Captain Cronley,” he announced.

“Colonel, this is Special Agent Hessinger,” Cronley said. “Freddy, this is Colonel Frade.”

“It is my pleasure, Colonel,” Hessinger said.

His accent was so thick that Frade, without thinking about it, replied in German.

“And mine. Who are the others?”

Hessinger recited: “General and Mrs. Greene, Colonel and Mrs. Schumann, Major and Mrs. McClung, Captain and Mrs. Hall, and Major Wallace, sir.”

“Wonderful!” Frade said sarcastically. “This should be lots of fun!”

Hessinger gave him a strange look.

“Lead on, Herr Hessinger,” Frade ordered.

“Well, everybody’s here,” General Greene greeted them cordially.

“And about time, too,” Mrs. Greene interrupted. “Mr. Hessinger and I want to get to the English Garden before everything is gone.” She smiled at Hessinger. “Don’t we, Mr. Hessinger?”

Hessinger had told Cronley about the English Garden. It was in the famous Munich park that Germans swapped silverware, crystal, paintings, et cetera, with the Americans for cartons of Chesterfields, Hershey bars, and Nescafé. It was officially illegal, but no one seemed to care.

Hessinger, who had apparently been drafted as interpreter for the general’s lady, smiled wanly back.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Everybody knows everybody else, right?” General Greene asked.

Frade did not know Major Wallace. That introduction was made.

Chairs were produced for Frade and Cronley. They sat down.

“We were beginning to worry,” General Greene went on, when they had taken their seats. “I gather you drove from the monastery?”

“No, sir,” Frade said. “We flew. I’m going to have to fly to Frankfurt first thing in the morning, so we came by Storch.”

“Mattingly and I were just discussing those German airplanes, the Storches, clearing up the mystery, so to speak,” Greene said, smiling broadly.

“What mystery is that, sir?” Frade asked.

“It was something right out of an Abbott and Costello routine. You know, ‘Who’s on first?’” Greene said. “I got a call from an Air Force colonel several days ago demanding to know why a stork with Twenty-third CIC painted on its tail had just taken off from Eschborn. I thought maybe he was drunk, so I said if this was one of those ‘Why does a chicken cross the road?’ jokes, I didn’t have the time for it.

“That pissed him off, so he said I would be hearing from someone else in the Air Force. Sure enough, fifteen minutes later an Air Force two-star is on the phone. This one I knew. Tommy Wilkins. Good guy. We were at the War College together.

“‘Paul,’ he says, ‘what’s your version of the encounter you just had with my guy?’

“So I told him, ending that with ‘Tommy, I didn’t even know what the hell he was talking about. A stork with Twenty-third CIC painted on its tail?’

“Whereupon Tommy grows very serious. ‘Hypothetical question. If I asked you why the CIC is flying Storch aircraft around after we’ve grounded them, you couldn’t answer because it’s classified and I’m not cleared for that, right?’

“That was the first I realized his colonel had been talking about an airplane, not that big bird that brings babies…”

Frade and McClung laughed out loud.

“… and the first time I realized he had said Twenty-third CIC had been painted on the tail of the big bird which had just delivered a baby to Eschborn…”

Everyone at the table but Mrs. Greene was now either laughing or giggling.

“… and that suggested our own Colonel Robert Mattingly was involved, so I rose to the occasion and said, ‘Tom, that about sums it up.’

“To which he replied, ‘I thought it had to be something like that. Sorry he bothered you. I’ll turn him off. Your storks are free to fly.’”

“General,” Frade said, “thank you very much. Cronley says he needs the Storches. What they are, sir, is sort of super Piper Cubs. Among other advantages, you can get — actually, stuff — three people in them. You can get only two in a Cub.”

“When can I go to the English Garden?” Mrs. Greene inquired.

“Well, now that Colonel Frade has flown in in his stork,” General Greene said, “we can sort things out. What I suggest, dear, is that Mr. Hessinger drop Major Wallace at the bahnhof, then take you to the English Garden. What’s departure time of the Blue Danube, Wallace?”

“Twenty-twenty, sir.”

“I figured someone should be holding down the shop in the Farben Building, since we’re all here, and Wallace volunteered,” General Greene explained.

“I’m tempted to get on the train with him,” Frade said. “But I really should have a look at Pullach, even in the dark.”

“Not a problem, Colonel,” Major Wallace said. “The engineers are working around the clock. The site is covered with floodlights.”

“How many of you ladies are going with Grace?” Greene asked.

“I’ll pass,” Rachel said. “I’m too tired to do all that walking. Can I go to Pullach?”

“Certainly.”

“And I’ll go with Rachel,” Mrs. McClung announced. “You can find some wonderful things in the English Garden but I want to see Pullach.”

“You can see Pullach in the morning,” Mrs. Greene proclaimed. “Come with me.”

So you, Mrs. McClung, Cronley thought unkindly, can carry whatever she swaps her Chesterfields and Hershey bars for that exceeds Freddy’s carrying capacity.

“What would you like Mary-Beth and me to do, General?” Captain Hall asked.

Mrs. Greene answered for her husband: “You two can come with me. There is safety in numbers.”

“To further complicate things,” Frade said, “I’d hoped to have a private word with you, General, and Colonel Mattingly. When can you fit that into our schedule?”

“Okay,” General Greene said. “Munich Military Post gave me a staff car…”

“Only because I insisted that Captain Hall call down here and get you one,” Mrs. Greene interrupted.

“… a requisitioned old Packard limousine,” Greene went on. “It has a window between the front and back seats. You, Mattingly, and I can have that private chat on our way to Pullach. And back. And there’s a car here, right?”

“Two, sir,” Major Wallace said. “We have a Kapitän and an Admiral.”

“Captain Cronley’s in special agent mode,” Greene said, pointing to the blue U.S. triangles on Cronley’s lapels, “so he can drive the Schumanns in one of them. The Schumanns and Major McClung.” He paused. “Okay? The only question seems to be where are all these cars?”

“Yours is outside, General,” Major Wallace said. “The others are in the basement garage.”

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Greene said. “Otherwise it’ll be midnight before we get to eat. Go get the cars. We’ll meet in front.”

[FIVE]

Cronley pulled up the Opel Kapitän behind the Packard in front of the hotel as a natty sergeant took the cover off a red plate with a silver star in its center mounted on the rear bumper. The sergeant then scurried to the side of the car and opened the door for General Greene, Mattingly, and Frade.

Cronley found the limousine fascinating. He couldn’t identify the year, but guessed it was at least ten years old. It looked like something a movie star would own, and he wondered who it had belonged to, and how it had survived the war looking as if it had just come off the showroom floor.

It was only when the passenger door started to open that he wondered if he was supposed to have jumped out and opened the door as the sergeant had on the Packard. He looked to see who was getting in.

“I’ll ride in front with Jim,” Rachel announced to her husband and Major McClung, “and leave the backseat for you two.”

The Packard moved off. Jimmy followed it.

Rachel’s left hand slid from her lap and into Jimmy’s.

When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she shifted on the seat, looked into the backseat, and innocently asked, “How far is this place?”

“About twenty miles,” Iron Lung McClung boomed.

Rachel’s right hand, searching for what she wanted, found it, arranged it so that she could find it again with her left hand when she had turned back on the seat, and then did so.

Two minutes later, his crotch becoming uncomfortably tight, Jimmy pushed her hand away. She caught his hand and moved it to her knee, then put her hand back on his crotch.

What the hell? Her husband’s three feet away!

If she keeps this up…

As if she had read his mind, she took her hand off him, then pushed his hand away from her knee, and finally folded her hands together in her lap. And then she chuckled.

About a half hour later, the Packard braked so suddenly that Cronley almost ran into it.

“What the hell?” Iron Lung McClung boomed from the backseat.

“We’ve been stopped,” Jimmy reported.

He could see there was a barrier — two-by-fours laced with concertina barbed wire — across the road. Four men armed with U.S. Army.30 caliber carbines had approached the Packard. They appeared to be wearing U.S. Army fatigue uniforms that had been dyed black.

This won’t take long, Cronley decided.

Generals generally get to go wherever they want to go.

Four minutes later — it seemed longer than that — Major McClung boomed again from the backseat: “Cronley, go up there and see what the hell’s going on.”

“Yes, sir.”

When Cronley walked to the nose of the Packard, there were now six men in black-dyed fatigues and a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lieutenant in woolen ODs standing in front of the barrier. Plus General Greene, Colonel Mattingly, and Lieutenant Colonel Frade.

“Absolutely no one, Captain Cronley,” Frade said with amusement in his voice, “gets into the Pullach compound without the specific permission of the Engineer major in charge of this project. He is at supper and has been sent for.”

“On one hand,” Mattingly said, “I have to say I’m impressed with the security but—”

“On the other hand,” General Greene interrupted him, “I’m getting more than a little annoyed standing here in the goddamned road waiting for this goddamned major.”

“You understand, Lieutenant,” Cronley asked, “that this is a highly classified project being built for the Counterintelligence Corps?”

“We have been instructed not to get into that, sir,” the lieutenant said.

Cronley produced his CIC credentials.

The Engineer officer, who looked to be about as old as Cronley, was clearly dazzled.

“I can vouch for these officers,” Cronley said. “Move the roadblock out of the way.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said, and signaled for the men in the dyed-black uniforms to do so.

“I’m starting to like you, Cronley,” General Greene said.

“When the major comes, sir, what do I tell him?” the lieutenant asked.

“Tell him to find us and be prepared to explain to me why this project is not yet finished,” General Greene said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s get this show on the road,” General Greene ordered.

Everyone got back into the cars and they drove past the roadblock.

[SIX]

Two hundred yards down the road they were stopped at another roadblock manned by carbine-armed men wearing dyed-black U.S. Army fatigues.

“Go see,” Major Iron Lung McClung bellowed from the backseat.

As Cronley walked to the old Packard limousine he sensed that McClung had also gotten out of the Kapitän and was walking behind him.

And as they reached the Packard, a jeep came racing toward the barrier.

A lieutenant colonel and a major, both in fatigues, jumped out of the jeep and approached the Packard as General Greene, Colonel Mattingly, and Lieutenant Colonel Frade emerged.

The lieutenant colonel saluted.

“Lieutenant Colonel Bristol, General. There was no heads-up that you were coming, sir.”

“They call that ‘conducting an unscheduled inspection,’ Colonel,” General Greene said. “It has been my experience that you often learn a great deal during unscheduled inspections.”

“Yes, sir. General, if you’d like to come with me to the headquarters building, there’s a plat, a map, of the compound. I could explain what we’re up to.”

“Let’s have a look at it. Lead the way, Colonel.”

They got back in their cars and followed the Engineers’ jeep past another roadblock and to a large two-story, freshly painted villa in the center of the village.

A large, also freshly painted, sign was mounted on the impressive building that was the General Offices of the South German Industrial Development Organization. It read:

What Cronley was seeing now was so distinctly different from what he remembered of “the Pullach compound” that he actually wondered if they were in the same place.

When he had first gone to Kloster Grünau, Dunwiddie had taken him on a fifteen-minute tour of what was to be, he said, “our new home away from home.” Then they had seen no more than a dozen Engineer troops under a sergeant erecting a crude basic fence — barbed wire nailed to two-by-fours — around a block in the center of the village.

Now, that simple fence was gone. In its place were three far more substantial barriers. One was where the simple fence had been, around the center of the village. A second encircled the entire village, and a third was two hundred yards outside that. They had all been constructed of chain-link fencing suspended between ten-foot-tall concrete poles. Concertina barbed wire had been strung both along its top and on the ground.

All of the fences had signs mounted at ten-yard intervals that were stenciled with SÜD-DEUTSCHE INDUSTRIELLE ENTWICKLUNGSORGANISATION and, under that, in large red lettering, ZUTRITT VERBOTEN!

When everyone went into the building, they found that an eight-by-four-foot sheet of plywood on a tripod had been erected in the foyer. On it was a map of the compound.

“This is not what I expected,” General Greene said after taking a quick look. “There’s more here than I thought there would be.”

Mattingly spoke up: “There’s something, General, that I guess I should have told you about sooner.”

“Which is?” Greene said not very pleasantly.

“General Clay sent for me just before I went back to Washington,” Mattingly explained. “When I reported to him, he told me, in confidence, that as of January first, 1946, he was going to be relieved as Eisenhower’s deputy and appointed military governor of the American Zone of Occupied Germany.

“Then he said he was sure that I would understand that as military governor he didn’t want the Russians — he said ‘our esteemed allies the Soviets’—coming to him with some wild accusation that we were hiding Nazis in a monastery in Bavaria. He said that I would also understand that as military governor he would be very interested in German industrial development.

“General Clay then asked me why I still had a reinforced company of Second Armored Division soldiers guarding ‘God only knew what’ in my monastery and why the compound at Pullach, which was being built for the South German Industrial Development Organization, wasn’t finished.

“At this point I decided that someone had made General Clay privy to Operation Ost. I told him the reason the South German Industrial Development Organization was not up and running in Pullach was because the Engineer battalion assigned to Munich Military Post had other projects that were apparently more important than the Pullach compound. I told General Clay I had been reluctant to press the issue because, if I did, Munich Military Post would ask questions about the South German Industrial Development Organization I would not want to answer.

“General Clay then reached for his telephone and asked to be connected with the commanding officer of Munich Military Post. When he came on the line, General Clay said it had come to his attention that the Pullach project was running a little behind schedule and he had been wondering why.

“The post commander apparently replied to the effect that the Pullach compound project was lower on his list of priorities than a gymnasium and a Special Services library that the Engineers were building.

“General Clay replied — and this is just about verbatim—‘Screw your goddamned gymnasium and your goddamned library. Get a goddamned Engineer battalion over to Pullach today and get that goddamned compound built yesterday.’”

“Ouch,” General Greene said.

“General Clay then concluded the conversation by saying something to the effect that ‘the next time the deputy commander of European Command tells you he wants something built, it would behoove you to build it immediately, rather than when you can conveniently fit it into your schedule.’”

“Ouch, again,” General Greene said.

Mattingly turned to Bristol. “Colonel, can you pick up this narrative?”

“Yes, sir. I was at the gymnasium site when the post commander showed up and relayed General Clay’s orders to me. I said, ‘Yes, sir. I’ll go out there first thing in the morning.’

“He said, ‘You will go out there now, Colonel. And I suggest you take a cot and a sleeping bag with you, because you’re not going to leave that site until the project is completed.’ I called my wife, told her I would be out of town for a few days, went by my office and picked up the plans — your plans, I believe, Colonel…?”

Mattingly nodded.

“… and came out here with a handful of my people. By the time we got here, it was too dark to do much of anything but set up the cots, although I did call my headquarters and told them to start moving equipment out here. Then I went to bed.

“I got up at first light and walked around the area, making up my mind what had to be done and when. Then a puddle jumper flew over, twice, and landed on that road out there.” He pointed. “I went out to ask the pilot what the hell he thought he was doing.

“General Clay got out of the L-4, greeted me cheerfully, and said he hoped I had coffee and a couple of doughnuts, as he hadn’t had any breakfast. As we walked here, he said, ‘One of the first things you’re going to have to do is extend that runway. My pilot wasn’t sure he could land on it.’

“I said, ‘Sir, that isn’t a runway.’

“‘It will be,’ he said. ‘And I have a few other little changes to make to Colonel Mattingly’s plans for this place.’ It took him about an hour. I’d forgotten, if I ever knew, that he was Corps of Engineers — you don’t think of general officers as having a branch of service — but he quickly showed he was one hell of an engineer. Anyway, he said, ‘Get me a sheet of plywood. We’ll use it as a plat.’

“And then he sketched the village, freehand, on this”—he pointed to the sheet of plywood—“with a grease pencil, and showed me where he wanted the fences to be, the barracks for the American guards, and the tent city for the Poles… the Polish.”

“Those men in the dyed fatigues?” General Greene asked.

“Yes, sir. They’re former Polish soldiers. They’d been German POWs. He said they didn’t want to go home because the Russians were now running Poland, so Ike had decided he wasn’t going to make them go home. He said they’d make good guards around our installations and to put them to work. General Clay said if you wanted to keep them on, after the compound is open, we could start building barracks for them.”

“Start building, Colonel,” Mattingly said. He turned to Cronley. “What do you think, Cronley?”

“I’m like you, Colonel. I didn’t expect anything like this.”

“Well, I suggest you’d better get used to it. It looks to me as if this place is just about ready for you to move into it, and that’s what you’re going to do, the minute it’s ready.”

“I’d estimate a week, sir, to complete everything,” Colonel Bristol said.

“Colonel,” Major McClung said, “have you been told we’re going to put an ASA listening station in here?”

“No,” Bristol said simply.

“Well, we are,” General Greene said. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“I don’t know what that will entail, sir.”

McClung said, “A building…”

“That should be no problem.”

“… and an antenna farm near the building.”

“I’m back, Major, to I don’t know what that will entail.”

“Why don’t you come back and show him in the morning, McClung?” General Greene ordered. “My stomach is growling and I’ve already seen what I came to see.”

[SEVEN]

Rachel had teased him to erection on the drive back to Munich, but had then withdrawn her hand.

When they reached the hotel, Cronley decided that was the last he would see of her tonight — and for a while. It already was late and after dinner everyone would retire, the Schumanns together. And after he flew Clete to Frankfurt first thing in the morning, he would fly back to Kloster Grünau, not to Munich.

She was now sitting across from him in the alcove off the main dining room, but her foot was out of range of his ankle.

She’s lucky her husband doesn’t show any signs of even suspecting what she was doing to me in the front seat. Correction. I’m lucky… we’re both damned lucky.

“I want to say this while everyone’s here,” Frade announced as they were having their dessert. “I’ve decided to send my deputy, Major Max Ashton, over here to assume command of this end of Operation Ost…”

Shit, Cronley thought. So I am being relieved.

And I had just about decided my half turning of Orlovsky had kept me my job.

“… Not only is the Pullach compound too much for one man to handle, but those Pentagon types — Lieutenant Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley — who are going to be at Pullach for General Magruder worry me.

“As most of us saw, they are very much aware they outrank Captain Cronley. What I’m going to do as we’re flying back to Washington is try to convince General Magruder that Colonel Parsons would be much more valuable sitting at his Pentagon desk than he would be here. If he doesn’t agree — and I don’t think he will, as it’s pretty clear to me that they are very much interested in having Army G-2 take over Operation Ost — then I’m going to go to Admiral Souers and tell him what I’m thinking. I’ll probably lose that battle as the admiral doesn’t need one more fight with the Pentagon. In other words, over my objections, Parsons will probably show up at Pullach.

“If that happens, Colonel Mattingly, I would appreciate it if you would whisper in Parson’s ear that while he might outrank Major Ashton, he doesn’t outrank you.”

“Consider it done,” Mattingly said, smiling.

“Now, as far as who runs Pullach: Cronley dealt with a serious problem out there in the last few days to the complete satisfaction of Colonel Mattingly, General Gehlen, and me.”

To Mattingly’s complete satisfaction? That’s hard to believe.

“What sort of a problem? May I ask?” Colonel Schumann asked.

“You may ask, Colonel, but Colonel Mattingly and I have decided the fewer people who know about it, the better. I’m sure you’ll understand. The point is Cronley has established a close rapport with General Gehlen that I found at first hard to believe. But it’s real, and I am not going to endanger it by telling Gehlen that Major Ashton will now be running things.

“So Cronley will run General Gehlen, so to speak, answering only to me. And Major Ashton will run everything else, answering to both Colonel Mattingly and me.

“I’m well aware this command structure would look very odd on a Table of Organization, but that’s the way it’s going to be.” He paused and smiled. “As they told me on my very first day in the Marine Corps, ‘If you don’t like the way things are run around here, learn to.’”

When that got the chuckles Frade expected, he stood up.

“Say ‘good night’ to the nice people, Captain Cronley. We have to get up with the birds to go flying.”

Cronley showed Frade to his room, two doors down from his, and asked, “What did you tell Mattingly about Orlovsky?”

“I told him that I had made it perfectly clear to you that you were going to let General Gehlen handle it.”

“You’re devious, Colonel.”

“Thank you,” Clete said.

Then he punched Jimmy affectionately on the shoulder and went into his room.

Ten minutes later, as Cronley came out of the shower, there was a knock at the door.

That has to be Rachel. Is she out of her mind?

A moment later, she pushed past him into the room.

“What about your husband?”

“He, the general, and Iron Lung are having a nightcap. We have thirty minutes, maybe a little more.”

“And if we don’t and he goes to your room and you’re not there?”

“I’ll tell him I took a walk.”

By then she was sitting on the bed, removing her shoes.

Their mating didn’t take long, which Cronley decided was probably because of what she had done to him going to Pullach and back.

As she dressed, she asked, “What was that serious problem you dealt with to everybody’s satisfaction, and Colonel Frade didn’t want to talk about?”

“If he doesn’t want to talk about it, that means I can’t.”

She didn’t press the question, and three minutes later she was gone.

But something about her asking it bothered him.

He couldn’t define what bothered him, and decided it was just feminine curiosity.

He took another shower and fell into bed.