Top Secret

[ONE]

Captain Cronley was shaving when First Sergeant Dunwiddie came into his quarters.

“Gehlen and Mannberg walked into the mess as I walked out,” Dunwiddie announced.

“Thank you for sharing that with me.”

“I thought you should have it in mind when you read this,” Dunwiddie said, holding up a SIGABA printout.

Cronley turned from the mirror and put his hand out for the sheet of paper. His eyes fell to it:

When he had finished reading it, he returned to shaving.

“‘Now solved banking problems’?” Dunwiddie asked.

“I guess Clete had a little trouble getting the money out of the bank.”

“What money out of what bank?”

“I just remembered that the opportunity never presented itself for me to share this with you,” Cronley said, as he examined his chin in the mirror, then took another swipe at it with his razor.

“That would seem to be the case. What’s it all about?”

Cronley picked up a towel and wiped what was left of the shaving cream from his face.

“Gehlen told Clete and me he needs fifty thousand dollars, and now, to send to Russia to grease palms to get Orlovsky’s family out. And Clete needs money to hide Orlovsky in Argentina. The OSS account is empty. Clete can’t use any of his money without the wrong people asking questions. So I’m loaning it to him. To us. To Operation Ost. I’m supposed to get it back when this new Central Intelligence Directorate, or whatever the hell they’re going to call it, is up and running.”

“I was about to say… I will say: I suppose that’s a good example of putting your money where your mouth is. Next question: Where the hell did you get fifty grand? Are you that rich?”

“Actually, I’m loaning Operation Ost two hundred thousand.”

“Jesus Christ! You had that much money in the bank?”

“The former Marjorie Ann Howell, who had been Mrs. James D. Cronley Junior for just over a day at the time of her untimely demise, had that much — and more — in her account. And under the laws of the Sovereign State of Texas, upon her demise all of her property passed to her lawful husband.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Gehlen doesn’t know where the money is coming from, and I don’t want him to know.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I just don’t, okay?”

Dunwiddie held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“What I’ve been trying to talk myself into,” Cronley said, “is that the Squirt wouldn’t mind — might even sort of like — that her money is being used to get somebody’s wife and kids out of Russia and started on a new life in Argentina. Especially if she knew what the alternative scenario is.”

“Jesus Christ, Jim!”

“I’ve also been thinking I’m glad the Squirt didn’t see me in my despicable prick role. That I don’t think she would understand.”

“From what you’ve told me about her, I don’t know if she would or not,” Tiny said, paused, and then went on: “Yeah, I do. She would know you were doing that because it had to be done.”

“‘Then conquer we must,’ right?”

“That stuck in your mind, did it?”

“Do you think it’s time to show Fat Fre— Sergeant Hessinger’s OPPLAN to Gehlen?”

“Are you going to show him that message?”

“Don’t we have to show both messages, the first one, too?”

“If you decide you do, then you might as well show him Hessinger’s plan. You’re going to have to eventually.”

“I like it better when you say ‘we’ instead of ‘you.’”

“Unfair, Jim. I’m marching right beside you down Suicide Row, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I do.” Cronley punched Dunwiddie affectionately on the shoulder. “And I appreciate it.”

[TWO]

Former General Reinhard Gehlen was sitting with former Colonel Ludwig Mannberg when Captain James D. Cronley Jr. and First Sergeant Chauncey L. Dunwiddie walked into the small — one table — room that served as the senior officers’ mess.

Both Germans rose to their feet, and Cronley as quickly gestured for them to remain seated.

I did that with all the practiced élan of my fellow Cavalry officer Colonel Robert Mattingly, but we all know it’s just a little theater.

The four of us know who’s low man on the protocol totem pole. On the totem pole, period.

What is that line? “In the intelligence business, nothing is ever what it seems to be.”

“Guten Morgen,” Cronley said.

“I hope you’re free to join us,” Gehlen replied in German.

“Thank you,” Cronley said, as he and Dunwiddie sat. “We haven’t had our breakfast.”

A German waiter in a starched white jacket appeared immediately. Cronley and Dunwiddie ordered.

When the waiter had left, Cronley told Dunwiddie to close the door, then handed both messages to Gehlen.

“I think you should have a look at these, sir.”

After reading them, Gehlen said, “I have some questions, of course, but before I ask them, have I your permission to show the messages to Mannberg?”

Is he really asking that question, or is he playing me for the fool he thinks I am? The fool I probably am.

What am I supposed to say with Mannberg sitting at the table? “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Or am I being paranoid?

Was the question just courtesy?

Or even more than that, to courteously make the point to me and Mannberg that he recognizes that I’m in charge?

“I’ve assumed all along that Ludwig is in this as deep as we are,” Cronley said. “Isn’t he?”

Where the hell did that come from?

My mouth was on automatic. I heard what I said as it came out.

But I think I just drove the ball into the general’s court. From the look on his face and Mannberg’s, so do they.

Score one for the Boy Intelligence Officer?

“I appreciate your confidence, Captain Cronley,” Mannberg said.

“Let’s get the questions out of the way,” Cronley said. “And then we’d like to get your opinions on something else.”

“How much are you going to tell the Russian about these messages?” Mannberg asked after Cronley had, so to speak, translated the code in both messages and then answered the questions the messages raised for the Germans.

“The Russian,” not “Major Orlovsky.” You don’t give up, Ludwig, do you?

In your mind he’s a Russian and therefore a member of the Untermenschen.

“Dunwiddie and I had Major Orlovsky to dinner last night. He didn’t eat but he did read the first message.”

“You didn’t feed him?” Mannberg said. “I had the impression your theory of interrogation was Christian compassion.”

Well, fuck you!

“No, we didn’t feed him…” Cronley began, wondering how far he could go in telling Mannberg to go fuck himself without forcing Gehlen to come to Mannberg’s aid.

Dunwiddie stepped up to the plate.

“Captain Cronley did a masterful job of introducing God and a Christian’s duty to his wife and children into the conversation. That seemed to kill Major Orlovsky’s appetite.”

“‘Masterful’?” Mannberg parroted, a hair’s-breadth from openly sarcastic.

“Absolutely masterful,” Tiny confirmed. “The proof of that pudding being Major Orlovsky called Captain Cronley a sonofabitch at least four times and damned him to hell at least three.”

Gehlen chuckled.

“That’s progress,” Gehlen said. “The only reaction you and Bischoff could get out of the major was a cold look of Communist disdain. Anything else come out of the dinner?”

“Well, sir,” Tiny said, “we learned that his son is too young to be a Young Pioneer.”

“And that the Czarevich Alexei was a Boy Scout before the Cheka shot him,” Cronley said. “We got him talking, General. Not much, but talking.”

“That’s a step forward,” Gehlen said.

“And you showed him these messages?” Mannberg asked, his tone suggesting he didn’t think doing so was a very good idea.

“I showed him Message One, only,” Cronley said. “I have a suggestion for Message Two, but first I want you to have a look at a proposed Operations Plan I had the chief of my General Staff draw up.”

He motioned for Dunwiddie to produce Hessinger’s plan.

Mannberg stood to look over Gehlen’s shoulder as Gehlen opened the folder.

The waiter appeared. Gehlen quickly closed the folder. The waiter silently placed their breakfast before Cronley and Dunwiddie, then left. Dunwiddie again closed the door. Gehlen opened the folder and Mannberg again rose to read the document over Gehlen’s shoulder.

Cronley and Dunwiddie turned to their breakfast.

“Rather thorough, isn’t it?” Gehlen finally said. “I don’t know who the chief of your General Staff is, but he certainly proves he has the every-detail-counts mentality of a good staff officer.”

“Yes, sir. That was the conclusion First Sergeant Dunwiddie and I reached before we decided we would no longer refer to Sergeant Hessinger as ‘Fat Freddy.’”

“Would you be surprised to hear I’m not surprised?”

“General, nothing you do will ever surprise me.”

“I got into a conversation with the sergeant at the Vier Jahreszeiten one day while waiting for Colonel Mattingly. I was not surprised that he was familiar with Helmuth von Moltke the Elder’s ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’ theory.”

“I think they even teach that at Captain Cronley’s alma mater,” Dunwiddie said.

Cronley gave him the finger.

“But I was surprised at Hessinger’s argument that the seeds for it can be found in von Moltke’s book The Russo-Turkish Campaign in Europe, 1828–1829. Are you familiar with that?”

“No, sir,” Cronley and Dunwiddie said on top of each other.

“Ludwig?”

“I know of the book, sir.”

“But you haven’t read it?”

“No, sir.”

“Not many have. Hessinger has. He can quote from it at length. And did so to prove his point. A very welcome addition to our little staff for this operation, I would say.”

“Yes, sir. I fully agree,” Cronley said. “You noticed in his plan that he said we should determine how long it will take to dig the grave?”

Gehlen nodded.

“Makes sense,” he said.

“Well, we’ve done that. And we told Major Orlovsky we did,” Cronley said.

“And showed him the proof,” Dunwiddie said.

“You showed him a grave?” Mannberg asked, incredulously.

“We showed him Staff Sergeant Clark’s painfully blistered hands, and then Sergeant Clark told him how he’d blistered them. I don’t think Major Orlovsky thought we just made that up.”

Gehlen chuckled.

“You said you had a suggestion about the second message?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Cronley replied. “Before we get into what else I think we should do, I thought I would suggest that you take Message Two to das Gasthaus and show it to Major Orlovsky.”

“And what would you advise the general to say to the Russian when he’s showing him what you’re calling Message Two?”

“Herr Mannberg,” Cronley said coldly, “the way this system works is that I go to General Gehlen for advice, not the other way around.”

“No,” Gehlen said. “The way this works, the only way it can work in my judgment, is that we seek each other’s advice. This has to be a cooperative effort, not a competitive one. What do you think I should say to Orlovsky when I show him Message Two?”

Mannberg, ole buddy, the general just handed you your balls.

Cronley said: “Sir, we have a saying, ‘play it by ear.’ I wouldn’t know what to suggest you tell him. I just thought he should see Message Two, and I thought — not from logic, just a gut feeling — that it would be better if you showed it to him. Okay, one reason: I think the major has had about all of me and Dunwiddie that he can handle right now.”

Gehlen nodded, then asked, quoting Cronley, “What else do you think we should do?”

“Some of it’s on Hessinger’s OPPLAN. But he didn’t get all of it, because he didn’t have all the facts.”

“For example?” Mannberg asked.

Cronley ignored him.

“The Pullach compound is just about ready,” Cronley said. “A platoon of Dunwiddie’s men are already on the road down there to both augment the Polish DPs—”

“The who?” Mannberg interrupted.

“The guards. They are former Polish POWs who didn’t want to return to Poland because of the Russians. As I understand it, General Eisenhower was both sympathetic and thought they could be useful. So they’ve been declared Displaced Persons — DPs — formed into companies, issued U.S. Army uniforms dyed black, and lightly armed, mostly with carbines. Sufficiently armed to guard the Pullach compound. No one has told me this, but I suspect the idea is that once Tiny’s people are in place, they’ll be removed. I’d like to keep them. I’m suggesting that Colonel Mattingly and General Greene would pay more attention to that idea if it came from you, instead of me. And I further suggest your recommendation would carry more weight if you began it, ‘When I inspected the Pullach compound…’”

“And when am I going to have the opportunity to inspect the Pullach compound?”

“I was thinking that right after you show Major Orlovsky Message Two, that we fly down there. You and me in one Storch, and Dunwiddie in the other.”

“Flown by Kurt Schröder?” Gehlen asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“May I suggest,” Mannberg said, “that when you land at the Army airfield in Munich, a German flying a Storch is going to draw unwanted attention? I don’t believe Germans are supposed to be flying American Army airplanes.”

His tone suggested that he was trying to explain something very simple to someone who wasn’t very bright.

“He has a point, Jim,” Gehlen said.

“Nor am I supposed to be flying Army airplanes. And we’re not going into the Munich Army airfield. There’s a strip of road inside the compound that General Clay used when he flew there in an L-4, a Piper Cub. If he got a Cub in there, Schröder and I can get Storches in. And while he’s there, Schröder can tell the Engineers what they have to do to make the strip better. Maybe find some building we can use as a hangar, or at least to keep the Storches out of sight.

“So far as anyone asking questions about Schröder flying, I don’t think that’s going to happen, and even if it did, Dunwiddie can use his CIC credentials to keep from answering questions. That’s what I did. It worked.”

Gehlen looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “Well, if there is nothing else, I suggest that I show Major Orlovsky Message Two, and then that I go inspect the Pullach compound.”

[THREE]

Cronley found without trouble the stretch of road he intended to use as a landing strip. But then he made a low pass over it to make sure there was nothing on it to impede his landing. There was.

An enormous Army truck was parked right in the middle. It had mounted on it what to Cronley, who had grown up in the Permian Basin oil fields, looked like an oil well work-over drill.

What the hell?

His passenger quickly assessed the situation and over the interphone calmly inquired, “What are you going to do now?”

“General, I’m going to make another pass over the strip. People will be looking at us. When they do, you and I are going to wave our hands at them, hoping they understand we want them to move that truck.”

Cronley switched to AIR-TO-AIR and with some difficulty managed to relay that order to Kurt Schröder and Tiny Dunwiddie in their Storch.

It all proved to be unnecessary.

When Cronley began what was going to be his hand-and-arm-waving pass over the road, he saw the truck had already been moved off.

He landed. Schröder put his Storch down thirty seconds later.

A jeep rushed up to them. It was being driven by Lieutenant Colonel Bristol, the Engineer officer in charge of the Pullach compound building project. Lieutenant Stratford, the ASA officer sent by Major Iron Lung McClung to install the Collins/SIGABA system, was with him.

Bristol and Stratford got out of their jeep and were standing beside Cronley’s Storch when he climbed out.

“Oh, it’s you,” Bristol said.

“Sir, why do I think you’re disappointed?” Cronley asked.

“Absolutely the contrary,” Bristol said. “When I saw two idiot pilots wanting to land on what is not a landing strip, I was afraid General Clay had come back.”

“General Gehlen, this is Colonel Bristol, the Engineer officer in charge of setting up the compound.”

Bristol, in a Pavlovian reflex to the term “general,” popped to attention and saluted. After a just perceptible hesitation, Gehlen returned it.

“I’ve been hoping I’d get to meet you, sir,” Bristol said.

“Very kind of you, Colonel. But I don’t think we’re supposed to exchange military courtesies.”

“My fault,” Cronley said. “I should have said ‘Herr Gehlen.’ But I have a lot of trouble remembering General Gehlen is no longer a general.”

“Cronley,” Bristol said, “general officers are like the Marines. Once a general, always a general. And especially in this case. When General Clay told me what’s going on here, he referred to the general as General Gehlen, and went out of his way to make sure I understood the general is one of the good guys.”

“Again, that’s very kind of you,” Gehlen said. “And of General Clay.”

“So welcome to your new home, Herr Gehlen. I hope you’ll let me show you around. Perhaps you’ll have a suggestion or two.”

“Since you brought up the subject, Colonel…”

“Yes, sir. What’s your pleasure?”

“Would it be possible to extend this runway a little? Actually, for some distance?”

“Well, that’s on my list, sir. And just now it went to the top of the list.”

“Would it be too much to ask that it be done before we leave? My friend Kurt Schröder”—he pointed at Kurt—“once told me you need more runway to take off than to land.”

“Herr General, wir können hier gut raus,” Schröder said.

Bristol’s eyebrows went up as he looked at Schröder, who was wearing the Constabulary pilot’s zipper jacket that Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson had given Cronley.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he said. “I guess a lot of you CIC guys speak German. I guess you’d have to.”

An explanation, or a clarification, proved to be unnecessary, as there was an interruption: Dunwiddie, who was wearing his rank-insignia-less CIC uniform, was looking intently at Lieutenant Stratford, and vice versa.

Then Stratford put his hands on his hips and barked, “Well, you miserable rook, don’t just stand there slumped with your mouth open and your fat belly hanging out, come to attention and say, ‘Good morning, sir.’”

Dunwiddie said, “I’ll be goddamned — it is you!”

Stratford walked quickly to Dunwiddie, started to offer his hand, then changed his mind and hugged him. Dunwiddie hugged him back, which caused him to lift Stratford at least eighteen inches off the ground.

“These two, Colonel Bristol,” Cronley said drily, “were once confined to the same reform school in Vermont. The large one is my Number Two.”

Cronley thought: They’re pals. Great!

Stratford is going to be very useful. And not only with the ambulances.

“Be advised, Cronley,” Bristol said sternly, “that I find derogatory references to Norwich University, the nation’s oldest and arguably finest military college, from which Lieutenant Stratford and I are privileged to claim graduation, totally unacceptable.”

Oh, shit!

Bristol’s cold glower turned into a smile.

“Relax,” he said. “Stratford warned me that I should expect — and have to forgive — such behavior from a graduate of Texas Cow College.”

He walked over to Stratford and Dunwiddie with his hand extended.

“Jack Bristol, Dunwiddie. Class of 1940. You’re Alphonse’s little brother, right? We were roommates.”

Oh, am I on a roll!

During the next two hours, while he learned more about Norwich University, its sacred and sometimes odd customs, and its long roster of distinguished graduates, than he really cared to know, Cronley also had reason to believe that he was indeed on a roll.

It took him less than a half hour to conclude that the stories he’d heard that Norwich graduates could give lessons in ring-knocking to graduates of West Point — and for that matter to graduates of Texas A&M, the Citadel, and VMI — were all true. They really took care of each other.

That first came up when Tiny asked Colonel Bristol about the Polish DP guard force. Colonel Bristol told Dunwiddie they had been assigned to him for as long as he thought they’d be necessary. And he immediately asked Dunwiddie if he wished to dispense with their services when the rest of his men arrived.

“No, sir. I’d like to keep them as long as possible,” Tiny replied.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Bristol said without hesitation. “What I’ll do is leave a squad, or maybe a platoon, here to keep the place up. I think General Clay would expect me to do that. And they’ll need the DPs to guard them, of course. That’ll give you a couple of months to figure out a justification to keep them permanently.”

After that, Cronley, who had already decided that the situation required that he bend the Need to Know rules out of shape insofar as Lieutenant Stratford was concerned, decided they were also going to have to be bent almost as far for Colonel Bristol.

The first step there was to explain to Bristol exactly what was going to take place in the South German Industrial Development Organization compound, who was going to be inside it, and then to ask his recommendations about providing the necessary security.

Bristol was happy to sketch out on the plywood map what he thought should be done. His plan essentially required the installation of more chain-link fences. The outer line of fences would surround the whole village. It would be guarded by the Polish DPs. They would be housed in buildings between the outer fence line and the second line of fences.

Anyone driving past the Pullach compound would see only them and the SÜD-DEUTSCHE INDUSTRIELLE ENTWICKLUNGSORGANISATION signs posted on the fence. But not the black American soldiers guarding it with heavy machine guns.

They would be there, of course, but out of sight from the road. They would control passage into the second security area. They would be housed in the area between the second fence and the third. And this area would contain not only the refurbished houses in which they would be housed, but their mess and their service club as well.

As this was being discussed, Cronley was reminded that Mrs. Anthony Schumann handled enlisted morale for the ASA/CIC community. He had quickly dismissed her from his mind. He would deal with her later. Right now, he was on a roll.

Like the first two fences, the third fence, two hundred yards in from Fence Line Two, had already been erected. It, too, would be guarded by Tiny’s Troopers. Colonel Bristol sketched in, with a grease pencil, where he thought additional fences should go. There should be a new, inner compound, housing only the headquarters of the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation and five refurbished houses.

One of these would be for General Gehlen and another for Ludwig Mannberg, and their families. A third would be for visiting VIPs — such as General Greene, Colonel Mattingly, and Lieutenant Colonel Schumann. The fourth would house Lieutenant Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley, the Pentagon’s G-2 representatives, and the fifth the Military Government Liaison Officer. That meant Cronley now and, when Major Ashton arrived from Argentina, Polo and Altarboy.

The Vatican ASA listening station and quarters — all in one refurbished house — would have sort of a compound of its own in the area between Fence Line Two and Fence Line Three.

“Setting those few fences shouldn’t take long,” Colonel Bristol said. “Not with the White Auger.”

“The what, sir?” Cronley asked.

“The White Auger. The truck that we had to move off the strip so you could land.”

Cronley still seemed confused, so Colonel Bristol provided a further explanation.

“That White Model 44 truck. It has an auger mounted. Drills a hole five feet deep in a matter of seconds.” He demonstrated, moving his index finger in a downward stabbing motion and making a ZZZZZ, ZZZZZZ, ZZZZZ sound.

“Yes, sir. The sooner you can get to this, the better.”

“I’ll get right on it. I’ll have all the fences up in two days, tops.”

Colonel Bristol was even more obliging when it came to extending the runway, putting up a shed large enough to get both Storches out of the weather, and doing something about getting them a means to refuel the airplanes.

“I think a jeep-towable regular gas truck would work just fine,” he said. “And I’ve got a couple of them I can spare.”

Things went even better when Bristol was showing Gehlen the house he would occupy. It gave Cronley the chance to take Tiny and Lieutenant Stratford next door to the house that would be occupied by the Military Government liaison officer “to show Dunwiddie where you installed the SIGABA system.”

As soon as they walked into the room, Sergeant Mitchell of the ASA handed Cronley a SIGABA printout.

“This came in not sixty seconds ago, sir,” he said.

Cronley read it:

Cronley handed the message to Dunwiddie, then did some arithmetic aloud: “It’s six thousand miles, give or take, from Midland to Buenos Aires. At three hundred knots, give or take, that’s nineteen hours. Factor in two hours in Caracas for refuel and another two hours for maybe a bad headwind, that’s twenty-three hours. That’ll put them into Jorge Frade at twelve hundred Greenwich — fourteen hundred our time — tomorrow.”

“Thank you for sharing that with us,” Dunwiddie said.

“Which means that twenty-four hours after that, best possible scenario, forty-eight hours after that, worst scenario, or thirty-six hours after that, most likely scenario, Major Ashton will get off a South American Airways Constellation in Frankfurt. To which I say, Hooray!”

“You really want this guy to come, don’t you?” Tiny asked.

“This will probably shock you, Sergeant Dunwiddie, but I am really looking forward to having Major Ashton relieve the unbelievably heavy burden of this command from my weak and inadequate shoulders.”

Cronley turned to Lieutenant Stratford.

“Now, when Major Ashton gets off that Constellation in Frankfurt, we have to get him here without anyone knowing we’re doing so. The way we’re going to do that is meet the airplane with a three-quarter-ton ex-ambulance. The bumpers of that vehicle identify it as having come from the motor pool of the 711th QM MKRC.”

“The what?” Stratford asked.

“The 711th Quartermaster Mess Kit Repair Company.”

“I have the strangest feeling you are not pulling my chain,” Stratford said.

“We’re not,” Dunwiddie said.

Cronley went on: “Sequence of events. We hear, from the SIGABA aboard the Constellation, when it takes off from Lisbon, when it will arrive in Rhine-Main. I then get in one of our Storches and Kurt gets in the other one. We fly to the airfield at Eschborn…”

“I know where it is,” Stratford said.

“… where the ambulance, having been stashed somewhere safe, has gone to meet us—”

“‘Stashed somewhere safe’?”

“That’s where you come in,” Dunwiddie said.

“I get in the ambulance,” Cronley continued. “We drive to Rhine-Main. Major Ashton gets in the ambulance. We drive back to Eschborn. We get back in the Storches and take off. The ambulance then departs for where it had been stashed.”

“You want me to stash your ambulance for how long?”

Cronley didn’t answer.

“Phase two,” he said. “Two to four days after that, the Storches fly into Eschborn again. This time they have a passenger. The passenger and I get in the ambulance, which has come from its stash place to meet me. We drive to Rhine-Main. The passenger — who may have a companion, we haven’t decided about that yet — gets on an SAA airplane. The ambulance drives me back to Eschborn and the Storches take off. The ambulance drives off, destination Kloster Grünau.”

“Who’s the passenger?”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“He is not pulling your chain,” Dunwiddie said.

“For how long am I supposed to stash your ambulance?”

“Maybe two ambulances?” Cronley asked. “I am a devout believer in redundancy.”

“Two ambulances.”

“Thank you,” Cronley said. “When I get back to Kloster Grünau, we’ll send them to Frankfurt. In other words, from tomorrow until this is over. At least a week. Maybe ten days.”

“We’ve got a relay station outside Frankfurt, in an ex-German kaserne not far from the 97th General Hospital. I could stash your ambulances there in what used to be stables for horse-drawn artillery.”

“Thank you,” Cronley said again.

When they came out of the building, intending to join Colonel Bristol and General Gehlen, Technical Sergeant Abraham L. Tedworth rolled up in a jeep. He was heading a convoy. Behind him were three canvas-backed GMC 6×6 trucks — each towing a trailer — and three jeeps, also towing trailers and with their.50 caliber Browning machine guns now shrouded by canvas covers.

Sergeant Tedworth got out of his jeep. He put his hands on his hips and bellowed at the 6×6s, “Get your fat asses out of the trucks and fall in!”

Lieutenant Stratford was visibly impressed as forty black men, the smallest of whom was pushing six feet and two hundred pounds, all armed with Thompson submachine guns, poured out of the trucks and, without further orders, formed four ten-man ranks, came to attention, then performed the Dress Right Dress maneuver.

Sergeant Tedworth took up a position in front of them, did a crisp about-face, and then saluted Cronley, who was by then in position, with First Sergeant Dunwiddie standing the prescribed “one pace to the left, one pace behind” him.

“Sir,” Tedworth barked, “First Platoon, Company C, 203rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, reporting for duty, sir.”

Cronley returned the salute.

“Welcome, welcome,” Cronley said. “At ease, men.”

They looked at him curiously.

“I’m sure you all noticed the precision with which First Sergeant Dunwiddie marched up behind me,” Cronley said. “This officer”—he pointed to Stratford—“Lieutenant Stratford is responsible. He taught First Sergeant Dunwiddie all he knows about Close Order Drill.”

This produced looks of confusion.

“I shit you not,” Cronley said solemnly.

This produced smiles.

“And after he did that, Lieutenant Stratford taught Rook Dunwiddie, as he was known in those days, how to tie, as well as shine, his boots and other matters of importance to a brand-new soldier.”

This produced wide smiles and some laughter.

“He will, I am sure, be happy to explain all this to you as he shows you around your new home,” Cronley said. “First Sergeant, take the formation.”

Dunwiddie was unable to restrain a smile as he saluted and barked, “Yes, sir.”

—

Well, that does it, Cronley thought as Dunwiddie started off on what was obviously going to be a familiarization tour of the Pullach compound.

Tiny’s Troops are here. The SIGABA is up and running. Those two bastards from the Pentagon will shortly arrive. The compound is now open for business.

And Major Ashton will soon be here to take the heavy burden of command from my shoulders.

“Very impressive,” Stratford said. “Where did you get them?”

“From General I. D. White,” Cronley said. “They were part of the Second Armored Division. And, yes, Lieutenant Stratford, I do know where General White got his commission.”

A fresh idea came to his mind.

I’ll take Colonel Bristol, General Gehlen, and Lieutenant Stratford to lunch at the Vier Jahreszeiten hotel.

I owe Bristol and Stratford a hell of a lot more than a meal, but it will if nothing else show them how grateful I am.

I also can introduce all of them to Major Wallace and Fat Freddy. Excuse me, Special Agent Hessinger. There are self-evident advantages to that for the future.

I will call Hessinger and tell him to come out here with the Opel Kapitän.

Hell, I’ll call Hessinger and tell him to come out here in Major Wallace’s Opel Admiral. After all, Bristol is a light bird and Gehlen a former general. Rank hath its privileges, like getting a ride in the biggest car.

The more he thought about it the more it seemed like a good idea, and that it was one more proof he was on a roll.

“I thought we were through in there,” Stratford said when he saw Cronley start back into the Military Government Liaison Office building.

“I’ve got to make a telephone call. Wait here, or come with me.”

“How do these phones work?” Cronley asked Sergeant Mitchell. “Phrased another way, is Munich a long-distance call or can I dial a Munich number?”

“You can dial a Munich number,” Mitchell said, and handed him a mimeographed telephone book.

Cronley found what he was looking for and dialed it.

“Twenty-Third CIC, Agent Hessinger speaking, sir.”

“First let me say how happy I am to find you at your post, and not cavorting shamelessly with some naked blond Fräulein…”

“Don’t tell me where you are,” Hessinger said.

“What? Why not?”

“Because the FBI is here, and if they’re listening to the telephone, and I think they are, they’ll learn where you are and go there.”

“The FBI is in your office?”

“No. Not anymore. They were here. They were here at eight o’clock this morning.”

“Were there?”

“They left. But there’s two of them in the lobby, another in the garage, and I would be surprised if they’re not at Schleissheim Army Airfield. So I wouldn’t go there, either, if I was you.”

“What did they want?”

“You.”

“Did they say why?”

“They told Major Wallace it concerned a matter of national security they were not authorized to share with him.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“He’s not here. After he told them to get the fuck out of his office, and they did, he got in the Admiral and left.”

“Where did he go?”

“If I told you that, the FBI would know, too. You can probably guess where he went.”

One of two places, Cronley thought.

Either Kloster Grünau to warn me. Or the Farben Building to see Mattingly.

Cronley was silent a moment.

“Freddy, if they’ve tapped your phone,” he said, finally, “the FBI will know you’ve told me all this.”

“So what? They can’t do anything about that. If they say anything, they’re admitting they tapped this telephone line. They’re not authorized to tap it, and I know that, and they know that I know that.”

“Under those circumstances, I suppose I could safely say something myself, couldn’t I? Like, ‘FBI agent eavesdropping on this private conversation, go fuck yourself!’”

“That wasn’t very smart,” Hessinger said.

“No. It was, however, satisfying. And on that cheerful note, I will say goodbye, Special Agent Hessinger.”

“No. Not yet. There’s more.”

“What?”

“Mrs. Colonel Schumann wants her Leica camera back.”

“What Leica?”

“The one she says she left in the Kapitän when you took her to the bahnhof to meet her husband the colonel.”

“I know nothing about a Leica.”

“She says you have to have it. She’s so sure you have it that she didn’t go to Frankfurt this morning with the colonel. She says she wants it back before she gets on the train to Frankfurt at four-forty.”

“She’s still at the hotel?”

“Waiting for you to give back her Leica.”

That’s not what she’s waiting for.

“You call Mrs. Schumann, tell her I’m in Berlin, that I don’t have her goddamned Leica, and that I will get in touch with her as soon as possible.”

“I would rather not do that.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.”

“Would it bother you if I told you that sometimes I like you less than I do at other times?”

“Not at all. Goodbye, Special Agent Hessinger.”

—

What I have to do now, obviously, is get General Gehlen back to Kloster Grünau. The one thing I can’t afford is the FBI asking him questions.

Tiny will want to get his people settled, and then Kurt Schröder can fly him home.

No. What I have to do first is let Clete know about the goddamned FBI. Then I can get the hell out of Dodge.

“Sergeant Mitchell, let me at the keyboard, please,” Cronley said, and when Mitchell had, he sent: