Top Secret

[ONE]

Arriving Passenger Terminal

“Captain,” the sergeant called.

And then he called “Captain!” again, this time a little louder.

Captain James D. Cronley Jr. belatedly realized he was the subject of the sergeant’s interest.

“What?”

“I think that’s yours, and the colonel’s, stuff over there,” the sergeant said, pointing. “You must have been the last people to get on the plane and they didn’t have time to put your stuff in the cargo hold with the other luggage.”

Jimmy looked and saw their luggage against the wall. Until just now, he and Colonel Mattingly had been worried that it had been left behind in Washington.

“That’s it, thanks,” Cronley said, and then raised his voice and called, “Colonel!”

Mattingly was across the huge room, looking at stacks of luggage. When he turned, Cronley pointed. Mattingly nodded and started toward their luggage.

When they had carried their luggage into the main terminal, Mattingly said, “The problem now is how to get you to Munich. In the good old days, one of our puddle jumpers would be waiting here.”

The Piper Cub aircraft, known as the L-4 in the U.S. Army, was universally referred to as a puddle jumper. A dozen of them had been assigned, primarily for personnel transport, to the now out-of-existence organization known as OSS Forward.

Cronley didn’t reply.

“But let me get on the horn and see if I can get a puddle jumper from the United States Constabulary,” Mattingly said.

“From whom?”

“The newly formed police force of the American Zone.”

Mattingly walked to a desk, where he commandeered a telephone. Ten minutes later, he walked back to Cronley.

“You got lucky, Jimmy,” he said. “They loaned me one. You will be spared that long ride down the autobahn to Munich. And I called Tiny and told him to meet you there at the Vier Jahreszeiten.”

The luxury hotel had been requisitioned by the Army. The XXVIIth CIC Detachment had space in the building.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You okay, Jimmy?”

“I’m fine, sir.”

“Forgive me, Captain, for not thinking so.”

“I’m really okay, sir. But thanks for getting me a ride.”

“They said within thirty minutes. We can get a cup of coffee over there”—he pointed to a PX coffee bar—“while we wait.”

“Colonel, you don’t have to wait with me.”

“Captains don’t get to tell colonels what they don’t have to do. And I just realized I have some questions for you.”

“Should I be worried?”

“That would depend on the answers I get.”

Mattingly pointed again toward the coffee bar. They walked to it and ordered coffee and doughnuts — it was all that was available — and sat at a small table.

“When Admiral Souers told me that you had found that stuff everybody was looking for, I naturally wondered how you had found it,” Mattingly began his interrogation. “When I asked him, he said something to the effect that Cletus Frade had told him that after you had come up with a pretty good idea where that vessel was, you and two of our Germans got into Clete’s Fieseler Storch and a Cub, and went looking for it.”

“Yes, sir. The Germans were Willi Grüner — he’s the Luftwaffe buddy of Clete’s buddy von Wachtstein. They found him in Berlin and took him to Argentina — and Kapitän von Dattenberg. He’s the guy who surrendered U-405 to the Argentines. He and the captain of U-234… Sorry. He and the captain of the vessel we were looking for were friends, and Clete thought that might be useful — and it was — if we found what we were looking for.”

Mattingly made a Keep talking gesture with his hands.

“Well, the first thing Clete did when I figured out where U-2… the vessel… probably was, was to take the wings off his Storch and one of his Cubs. Then he had them loaded onto flatbed trucks and trucked them down to a place called Estancia Condor. He sent Grüner along to make sure the mechanics put the wings back on right. And Grüner had a lot of experience flying Storches in Russia.”

“What was that all about?”

“Well, when I say I figured out where the vessel was, I mean that I thought it was way down south, within fifty miles of the mouth of the Magellan Straits. There’s not much but mountains and snow and ice down there. To find anything, we knew we would have to fly low and slow. The only way to do that was with little airplanes — you can’t do that in, say, a Lodestar.”

“Souers said that Commander Ford told him the material was brought to Mendoza, where it was transferred to the Constellation, on a Lodestar.”

“Yes, sir. That’s right.”

“The Lodestar was flown by Cletus?”

“No, sir. If Cletus had left Buenos Aires to fly the Lodestar, the wrong people would have asked questions. So Clete didn’t go down south.”

“Getting to the heart of our little chat, Captain Cronley: If Colonel Frade didn’t fly the Lodestar during this exercise, who did?”

After a long moment, Cronley said, “I did.”

“And you were flying what when you found U-234? It was you who found her. Correct?”

“Yes, sir. I was flying the Cub.”

“I wasn’t aware that you were a pilot.”

Cronley didn’t reply.

“You want to explain this?” Mattingly said.

Again Cronley didn’t reply.

“That was more in the nature of an order for an explanation, Captain, than an idle question.”

“Yes, sir. Clete is like my big brother, Colonel.”

“Would it surprise you to hear I have already come to that conclusion? And… ?”

“I followed him all my life. Into the Cub Scouts. Into the Boy Scouts. Into Texas A&M. I was about to follow him into the Marine Corps when I decided I had had enough of following him.”

“Was this before or after you became a pilot?”

“I’ve been flying since Clete taught me when I was fourteen.”

“So, passing up the glory of becoming a Marine fighter pilot, you joined the Army instead? On behalf of the officer corps of the U.S. Army, let me say how pleased we are that you’re slumming amongst us.”

Jimmy didn’t reply.

“I gather you did not qualify for the Army’s aviator training program? Why not?”

“I never applied for it.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want to spend four years as an aerial taxi driver.”

“Had you applied, would you have been qualified? What sort of a license to fly do you hold? How experienced a pilot are you?”

When Jimmy hesitated, Mattingly said, “That, too, was not a question born of idle curiosity as we wait for your aerial taxi driver to appear, Captain Cronley.”

“I’ve got eleven hundred hours, sir, and hold a commercial ticket, with instrument and multi-engine ratings.”

“This secret talent of yours comes as something of a surprise. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Life is just full of surprises, isn’t it, Colonel?”

Mattingly looked at him for a moment.

“Under the circumstances, Captain,” he said, “I’ll choose not to consider that a smart-ass remark.”

Five minutes later, a first lieutenant whom Cronley could not remember having seen before walked up to their table and saluted. He wore a zippered “Tanker Jacket” to which were sewn Liaison Pilot wings and a shoulder insignia — a circle of Cavalry yellow, in which was the letter “C” with a diagonal lightning bolt through it.

“Sir, Colonel Wilson said you need a ride.”

“Not me,” Mattingly said as he quickly — and Cronley belatedly — returned his salute. “The captain here needs a ride to Munich.”

“Yes, sir. Not a problem. It’s right on my way. I’m headed to Sonthofen.”

“Be gentle with him, Lieutenant,” Mattingly said. “The captain doesn’t like to fly.”

The lieutenant, looking a little uneasy, said, “Yes, sir. If you’ll come with me, sir?”

Jimmy stood and looked down at Mattingly, wondering if he was supposed to salute.

Mattingly answered the question by getting to his feet and putting out his hand.

“If I somehow forgot to say this earlier, Jimmy, I’m very sorry for your loss and greatly admire the way you’re handling it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

[TWO]

Colonel Robert Mattingly returned the salute of the two natty paratroopers of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment on ceremonial guard at the entrance of the building and entered the lobby. He walked past the sea of red general officers’ personal flags — in the center of which was the red flag with five stars in a circle of General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower — and stepped onto the right of the two devices he thought of as the dumbwaiters.

He had no idea of the proper nomenclature of the devices that moved people up (the right one) and down (the left one) in the largest office building in Europe. They functioned by constantly moving small platforms onto which passengers stepped on and off.

In 1941, I.G. Farben G.m.b.H. had been the fourth largest corporation in the world, after General Motors, U.S. Steel, and Standard Oil of New Jersey. Eisenhower had decided, early on, that he wanted the building as his headquarters. With great difficulty, the enormous structure had been spared damage by the thousand bomber raids that had reduced most of Frankfurt to rubble.

Mattingly, ascending upon what he now idly thought could probably be called the “vertical personnel transport device,” arrived at the fifth floor. It was his intention to call upon Brigadier General H. Paul Greene, chief, Counterintelligence, European Command, whom he hoped to deceive sufficiently to get him off the backs of the XXIIIrd and XXVIIth CIC detachments — and off himself personally.

The last time Mattingly had seen Greene, who was de jure but not de facto his immediate superior, Greene had ordered him to consider himself under arrest for disobedience of a direct order. The one-star released him from arrest only after Mattingly had threatened to bring their disagreement to the personal attention of General Eisenhower.

There was a very good chance, Mattingly understood, that he would again find himself under arrest today. But that chance had to be taken.

He stepped off the dumbwaiter and marched purposefully down the marble-floored corridor to General Greene’s suite of offices.

When he entered the outer office, a major and a master sergeant looked up from their desks. The master sergeant then stood.

“Good morning,” Mattingly said. “I’m here to see General Greene.”

“I’ll see if the general is free, sir,” the major said, and reached for his telephone.

“Just to clear the air between us, Major: That was an announcement of intention. As deputy commander, CIC, I don’t need your permission to see the general. Perhaps you might wish to write that down.”

Mattingly marched to, and through, the doorway to General Greene’s office, then up to his desk. The major hurriedly followed him to the doorway.

Mattingly came to attention and saluted.

General Greene’s face whitened and he glared at Mattingly for a long moment before returning the salute.

“Good morning, General,” Mattingly said.

General Greene did not immediately reply.

“General,” the major began, “he just walked in—”

Mattingly turned to him. “That will be all, thank you, Major. I’m afraid you’re not cleared for the matter the general and I will be discussing.”

The major looked to General Greene for guidance. After a moment, Greene waved his hand, telling him to leave.

“Please close the door tightly, Major,” Mattingly ordered.

When the door was closed, General Greene said, “You better have a good explanation for this, you arrogant sonofabitch!”

“With the general’s permission, I have several documents, classified Top Secret — Presidential, I would like the general to peruse.”

After a moment, still white-faced and tight-lipped, General Greene made another hand gesture—Let’s see them.

Mattingly opened his briefcase, took from it a thin sheath of papers and photographs, and laid them before General Greene.

On top was an eight-by-ten-inch glossy photograph of Captain James D. Cronley Jr. with, on his right, the President of the United States and, on his left, Rear Admiral Sidney William Souers. To their left and right were James D. Cronley Sr., Major General William J. Donovan, and Colonel Robert Mattingly.

“What am I looking at?” General Greene asked, more than a little unpleasantly.

“Forgive me, sir, but I must have your confirmation of your understanding that this material is classified Top Secret — Presidential.”

“I’m not deaf, Mattingly,” Greene snapped. “I heard you the first time.”

“That photograph was taken the day before yesterday, General, immediately after President Truman promoted Captain Cronley to that grade and awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal.”

“Who the hell is he?”

“He’s the officer I placed in charge of the Twenty-third Detachment’s—”

“Twenty-third Detachment?” Greene interrupted. “We don’t have a Twenty-third Detachment!”

“I formed it, sir, under the Twenty-seventh, to run the operation at Kloster Grünau, sir, to further shield it.”

Green stared at him a long moment. “Tell me more about this Captain Cronley.”

“I think you’re asking if he’s the officer who had the misunderstanding with Colonel Schumann at Kloster Grünau. Yes, sir, he is.”

“‘Misunderstanding’? You call blowing the engine out of Tony Schumann’s car with.50 caliber machine gun fire a misunderstanding? Jesus, Mattingly!”

“Sir, that was regrettable. Sir, I have been authorized to make you privy to some of the details of Operation Ost. With the caveat that you are not to share anything I tell you with anyone absent my express permission in each instance. May I have your assurance, General, that you understand?”

Greene glared at him again, but finally said, “You have my assurance, Colonel.”

“Thank you, sir. Sir, the use of deadly force has been authorized if necessary to preserve the security of Operation Ost.”

“You’re telling me that this operation of yours is so important that that young officer could have killed Colonel Schumann to keep him from finding out about it?”

“Yes, sir. That is indeed the case. Colonel Schumann or anyone else posing a threat to the operation. Or anyone who might threaten to compromise the security thereof.”

“Jesus Christ!” Greene said, looking past Mattingly and shaking his head slowly.

Mattingly decided Greene was now convinced he was being told the truth.

Greene then said in a tone of reason: “I would be grateful, Colonel, if you told me as much as you’re able about this operation of yours.”

Mattingly began to do so.

“So those rumors are true,” Greene said five minutes later. “We are sneaking people, Nazis, into Argentina.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Eisenhower knows about this?”

Mattingly did not reply directly.

“General, outside the Twenty-third and Twenty-seventh CIC detachments, there are four people — now that I’ve told you, five — in the European Theatre who are privy to Operation Ost. I am not at liberty to tell you who they are.”

“I can understand why,” Greene said, thinking out loud. “Can you tell me why this Cronley fellow was promoted and given the DSM?”

“Some of it, sir. Using intelligence obtained from General Gehlen, Captain Cronley located the submarine — U-234—in Argentina and recovered the half ton of uranium oxide she was carrying. The operation was not carried out perfectly. SS-Oberführer Horst Lang and a detachment of SS personnel were onboard the U-234 to guard the material. We have reason to believe Lang intended to sell it to the Soviet Union. It was necessary for Captain Cronley to terminate Lang, despite our hope that we would be able to keep him alive for questioning.”

“By ‘terminate’ I presume you mean Cronley had to kill him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know why you have been authorized to bring me into this?”

“Yes, sir. You have a reputation for being very good at what you do. You — and your inspector general — came very close to compromising the security of Operation Ost.”

“And it was decided that I be told what’s going on so that I’ll understand why I’m now to keep my hands off — keep my nose out of — your business?”

“Yes, sir. That and to provide assistance…”

“What kind of assistance?”

“Whatever we might need at some future date.”

“I don’t suppose I’m authorized to tell Schumann about this?”

“No, sir, you are not.”

“Does General Seidel know?”

“I’m not at liberty to answer that, sir. I can only repeat that you are not authorized to — you are forbidden to — tell anyone anything at all about what I have just told you.”

“Can I have that in writing?”

“Sir, the policy is to put nothing on paper.”

“That figures.” He grunted. “Okay. I’ll tell Schumann to back off.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Mattingly, I’m sure you appreciate that when I began to nose around, I was doing what I considered my duty.”

“Yes, sir. I fully understand that.”

“Unaware that you had — how do I say this? — friends in high places and were involved in anything like this, I gave you a hard time when over my objections you were appointed my deputy. And I was prepared when you burst in here just now to double down on giving you a hard time. No hard feelings?”

“Absolutely none, sir.”

“One last question. Who’s that admiral in the picture?”

Mattingly didn’t reply for a long moment. Finally he said, “General, when you hear, sometime in the next few months, that President Truman has established a new organization, working title Central Agency for Intelligence, and has named Rear Admiral Sidney William Souers to be its head, please act very surprised.”

Greene grunted again. He then stood and offered his hand.

“I didn’t hear a word you just said, Colonel. I imagine we’ll be in touch.”

“Yes, sir, we will.”

Mattingly raised his hand to his temple.

“Permission to withdraw, sir?”

Greene returned the salute, far more crisply than he had previously, and said, “Post.”

Mattingly started for the door.

“You forgot your pictures and the general orders,” Greene called after him.

“I thought the general might wish to study them closely before he burns them, sir.”

“Thank you.”

As Mattingly went through the doorway, he thought, He’s not going to burn any of that material. It’s going into his personal safe, in case he needs it later.

That doesn’t matter. Nothing in that stuff touches on Operation Ost.

And I think even Admiral Souers would understand why I thought I had to show it to him.

He had another tangential thought.

I wonder where Hotshot Billy Wilson is on this miserable German morning?

That’s next.

[THREE]

First Sergeant Chauncey L. Dunwiddie and Sergeant Friedrich Hessinger had been waiting for Cronley at the Munich airfield. Both had been wearing uniforms identifying them as civilian employees of the U.S. Army. Dunwiddie wore an olive drab woolen Ike jacket and trousers, with an embroidered insignia — a blue triangle holding the letters “US”—sewn to the lapels. Hessinger was more elegantly attired, in officer’s pinks and greens with similar civilian insignia sewn to its lapels.

Jimmy remembered there were rumors that the pudgy German was making a lot of money somehow dealing in currency.

“Welcome home,” Tiny Dunwiddie had said, as he reached in the Piper Cub and effortlessly grabbed Cronley’s Valv-Pak canvas suitcase from Jimmy’s lap.

Jimmy then climbed out, turned to the pilot, and said, “Thanks for the ride.”

“My pleasure, sir,” the lieutenant said, and saluted.

Neither Tiny nor Freddy had commented on the twin silver bars of a captain pinned to Cronley’s epaulets at the airfield — the reason the puddle-jumper pilot had saluted him — or in their requisitioned Opel Kapitän on the way to the hotel or during lunch in the elegant officers’ mess.

It was only after they had gone upstairs — and into Suite 507, above the door of which hung a small, neatly lettered sign, XXVIITH CIC DET. — that there was any clue that anyone had noticed the insignia.

There, Tiny had produced bottles of Löwenbräu and passed them out. As Freddy was neatly wiping gold-rimmed lager glasses, Tiny said, “When Mattingly called, he said ‘no questions.’ He said you could tell us some of what’s happened to you, or all of it, or none of it. He said he was going to call Major Wallace and tell him the same thing. So it’s your call, Jim. If I can still call you by your first name, Captain, sir.”

Despite Cronley’s clear memory of Admiral Souers giving the Engineer colonel a very hard time for sharing intelligence that should not be shared, he told Tiny and Freddy everything that had happened in Argentina and Washington.

“I’m not surprised that President Truman came to offer his condolences,” Freddy said when he’d finished. “From what I know of him, he is a fine gentleman.”

That came out in such a thick accent that Jimmy had to work hard not to smile. Or giggle.

Tiny said, “Sonofabitch! And the bastards sent you back before you could even go to her goddamned funeral!”

Jimmy was touched by Tiny’s emotional response; it was clear he really shared his grief.

“I stopped at the funeral home on the way to the airport,” Jimmy said softly. “I asked if I could see her. The funeral director guy… whatever the hell they call those people… said ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Fuck you, I want to see her,’ and he said, ‘No, you don’t. The remains were so torn up from the accident that there couldn’t possibly be open casket services, so the coroner didn’t sew the remains up after the autopsy. You don’t want to see her like that, believe me. Remember her as she was when she was alive.’”

“So, what did you do?” Tiny asked.

“I broke down is what I did. Cried like a fucking baby.”

And then, without warning, he broke down and cried like a baby.

Tiny wrapped his massive arms around him and held him until Jimmy managed to control his sobbing and shook himself free of Tiny’s embrace.

When he finally got his eyes to focus he saw that Freddy Hessinger was looking at him through incredibly sad eyes.

“What do you say we get in the Kapitän and go home?” Tiny asked gently.

Cronley nodded, and then followed Dunwiddie out of the room.

[FOUR]

When Cronley and Dunwiddie reached the compound, instead of driving through the gate, Dunwiddie had driven the Kapitän completely around the double barbed wire barriers around the perimeter.

Cronley wondered what that was all about but, before they had completed the round, decided Dunwiddie wanted both to show the troops that their commanding officer now had twin silver bars on his epaulets and to remind them once again that their first sergeant checked the security of the compound frequently and without advance warning.

Cronley had learned that behind his back the troops guarding Kloster Grünau referred to their first sergeant with the motto of the 2nd Armored Division, from which they had come—“Ole Hell on Wheels.”

When they finally entered the headquarters building — which also housed the officers’ mess and, on the second floor, the American officers and the senior German officer prisoners — General Reinhard Gehlen and Oberst Ludwig Mannberg were sitting in the foyer.

Gehlen was in an ill-fitting civilian suit. Mannberg, previously and now Gehlen’s Number Two, was wearing a superbly tailored Wehrmacht uniform from which all insignia had been removed. Only a wide red stripe down the trouser leg, signifying membership in the General Staff Corps, remained.

Both stood up when they saw Cronley and Dunwiddie.

“Captain,” Gehlen said. “I hope that you will have a few minutes for Mannberg and myself.”

“Certainly, sir,” Cronley said. He gestured toward the door of the mess.

There was no bartender on duty. Tiny went behind the bar, and in perfect German asked, “May I offer the general a scotch?”

“That would be very kind.”

“Oberst Mannberg?”

“The same, thank you.”

“Captain?”

“Jack Daniel’s, please.”

Dunwiddie made the drinks, taking a Haig & Haig for himself, and delivered them.

Gehlen raised his to Cronley.

“In addition to offering our congratulations on your well-deserved promotion,” the general began in a solemn tone, “Mannberg and I would like to offer our condolences on your loss.” He paused, then as if he had read Cronley’s mind, added, “Colonel Mattingly telephoned earlier.”

As everyone took a sip of drink, Cronley thought, That’s not surprising.

But what all did Mattingly tell you, General?

That we had found U-234 and the uranium oxide?

And that I’d been promoted? But not why or by whom?

And that my girl — my wife — had been killed in an auto accident?

Why the hell didn’t Mattingly tell me what he was going to tell you?

Or tell me what I could tell you?

Admiral Souers made it pretty goddamned clear that the Eleventh Commandment is “Thou shalt not share classified material with people who don’t have the Need to Know.”

Technically, you’re both prisoners of war. POWs by definition do not have the Need to Know.

But you’re only technically POWs, as we all know.

And I wouldn’t have found U-234 had it not been for you giving me what intel you had about her.

This is one of those situations where I have to choose between two options, both of which are the wrong one.

So, what do you do, Captain Cronley, you experienced intelligence officer with two whole days in grade?

You follow the rules and tell them nothing. Or as little as possible.

I can’t follow the rules.

In this Through the Looking Glass World we’re in, the jailer has to earn and hold the respect of the prisoners. Or at least these two prisoners.

“Thank you,” Cronley then said. “I’m still trying to get used to both situations. So let me begin by giving you, Oberst Mannberg, the best wishes of Fregattenkapitän Wilhelm von Dattenberg.”

Cronley had spoken in German. He spoke it so well that most Germans thought that he was a Strasbourger, as his mother was.

“It’s good to hear he survived,” Mannberg said.

“He was with me when we found the U-234. He persuaded her captain—”

“That would be Schneider, Alois Schneider?” Mannberg put in.

“Yes, sir.”

I’m being interrogated. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

And I don’t think I’m supposed to call him “sir.”

Oh, what the hell! He was a colonel and I’m a captain who two days ago was a second lieutenant.

Cronley went on: “Schneider was at Philipps University in Marburg an der Lahn with von Dattenberg. And with von Wachtstein, too, come to think of it.”

“That’s correct,” Mannberg said.

“When we got to the U-234, von Dattenberg told Schneider the war was over, and surrender therefore honorable. He just about had him convinced when SS-Oberführer Horst Lang appeared. He pulled a pistol from his pocket and was shot.”

“Von Dattenberg shot him?” General Gehlen asked. “Or Schneider?”

“I shot him,” Cronley said.

He saw Tiny’s eyebrows go up at that, and realized he had left that out when he’d told Tiny and Hessinger what had happened.

“Wounded or killed?” Gehlen asked.

“Killed. I had a Thompson.”

“I’m sorry that was necessary,” Gehlen said.

“I thought it was necessary,” Jimmy said a bit defensively. “There were other SS types, armed with Schmeissers, standing with him. I couldn’t take the risk that things would get out of control.”

“I’m sure it was, Captain Cronley,” Gehlen said. “I regret the death of that swine only because there’s a good deal he could have told us. Is Colonel Mattingly aware of this?”

“I didn’t have the chance to tell Colonel Mattingly. But Colonel Frade knows about it.”

“Well, if there is anything to be learned from the rest of them — either the SS swine or the crew of U-234—Oberst Frade will learn it,” Gehlen said with certainty.

Clete was just complimented by Gehlen, one of the best intelligence officers in the world. I’m sorry he didn’t get to hear that.

“Well, that leaves U-977,” Mannberg said. “Did you get anything on her at all?”

“Von Dattenberg and Schneider seemed to agree there are only two credible scenarios,” Cronley said. “Worst: that, despite what we thought — that she was headed for Argentina or Japan — U-977 either went to Russia directly from Norway, or met a Russian ship on the high seas. Best scenario: that she was sunk while trying to get through the English Channel, or shortly after entering the Atlantic Ocean.”

Gehlen nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve heard nothing — nothing at all — about either scenario, or about U-977 itself from our people in Moscow. That’s not surprising, and I will of course order them to keep trying. But I think we are going to have to presume the Soviets now have the uranium oxide loaded onto U-977.”

He exhaled in disappointment or resignation or both.

“Well, we tried,” Gehlen went on. “And, largely due to your efforts, Captain Cronley, we did better than I expected we would.”

Is Gehlen soft-soaping me, or does he mean that?

Gehlen looked at Tiny. “Would you agree, Dunwiddie, that we should now turn to what has happened here?”

“Yes, sir.”

Gehlen met Cronley’s eyes. “Two nights ago, Dunwiddie’s diligent troops apprehended a man as he attempted to pass outward through the outer barbed wire. He was found to be in possession of a nearly complete roster of my people here in Kloster Grünau, a nearly complete roster of those who have been moved to Argentina, and, finally, an equally nearly complete roster of my people we hope have made it out of the Russian Zone but have not been located yet.”

“Jesus!” Cronley exclaimed. “Who was he?”

“There seems little question that he is an NKGB agent,” Mannberg said.

Dumb question!

Who else would it be? The German census bureau?

My ignorance is showing. And why not? A year ago, I’d never heard of the NKGB.

But now that I am, as of the day before yesterday, a captain, of military intelligence, I of course know that’s the acronym for the People’s Commissariat for State Security, the Soviet secret police, intelligence, and counterintelligence organization.

Am I really sitting here, discussing an NKGB agent with a German general who used to run the German intelligence organization dealing with the NKGB?

And have I just told him that it was “necessary” for me to shoot an SS-Oberführer so that he wouldn’t get in the way of my grabbing a half ton of the dirt from which atom bombs are made?

This would be surreal if I didn’t know it was real.

A year ago, I hadn’t even heard of the atom bomb, and the only thing I knew about the SS was what I learned from the movies.

I wonder if the writers of those Alan Ladd Against the Nazis movies knew that the way it works in real life is that when you shoot a real Nazi sonofabitch you want to throw up when you see the life going out of his eyes and his blood turning the snow red?

What did Major Derwin ask me in the O Club bar at Camp Holabird? “Did you find yourself in over your head?”

Oh, boy, am I in over my head!

“Does Colonel Mattingly know about this?” Cronley asked.

Tiny said, “He asked if I thought we could handle it, and I told him yes. He said, ‘Take care of it, and let me know what happens.’”

“There is a small chance,” Mannberg said, “that we will be able to determine whom the NKGB has turned before the move to Pullach. But we don’t have much time.”

What the hell is he talking about? “Determine whom the NKGB has turned”? Turned how?

Jesus Christ, he’s talking about his own people!

“Turned” means “switched sides.” He knows that there’s a traitor among them.

But then Gehlen has agents in the Kremlin, so why should the Soviets having agents inside Abwehr Ost be so surprising?

“How’s that going?” Cronley asked. “The move to Pullach?”

The U.S. Army Military Government had requisitioned Pullach, a village south of Munich, and moved out all of its occupants. The Corps of Engineers was preparing it for use by what they had been told was the South German Industrial Development Organization.

The engineers had been naturally curious about why a bunch of Krauts who were going to try to restart German industry needed a place surrounded by barbed wire, motion detectors, and guard towers. But when they asked, they were either ignored or told, “Who knows? USFET wants it built, so build it.”

The engineers did not have the Need to Know that when they were finished Operation Ost — now renamed the South German Industrial Development Organization — would move in.

“They’re ahead of schedule,” Dunwiddie answered. “Maybe we better start to think of not moving until we find out more about who the NKGB has in here.”

Cronley looked at Gehlen. “You have no idea who he might be?”

“No,” Gehlen said. “And it might be, almost certainly is, more than one.”

“I’m not sure we can break the Soviet,” Mannberg said. “Obviously we have to continue his interrogation until we know that it’s fruitless.”

Cronley had a quick mental image, from the Alan Ladd movies, of a bare-chested man tied to a chair, his body bloody and bruised, and his face bleeding from multiple cuts inflicted by the riding crop in the hands of a man wearing a black SS uniform.

“With respect, Herr Oberst,” Dunwiddie said, smiling, “I think you may have to reconsider your boiling pot and the beat of drums.”

Gehlen smiled. Mannberg laughed.

“Perhaps later,” Mannberg said. “There’s still time for us to see if the disorientation is working.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Tiny?” Cronley demanded.

“This guy is terrified of Tedworth, Jim,” Dunwiddie said. “I suggested to Colonel Mannberg that we use this.”

“What did Tedworth do to this guy?” Cronley said.

Cronley had another mental image of a bloody and battered man in a chair being beaten, this time by Technical Sergeant Abraham L. Tedworth. Even more massive than Dunwiddie, he was Dunwiddie’s first field sergeant, his Number Two.

“Captain Cronley,” Gehlen explained, smiling, “there are very few Negroes in Russia — very few Russians have ever seen someone of Herr Dunwiddie’s and Stabsfeldwebel Tedworth’s complexion. Or size. When I commented to Dunwiddie that this chap obviously expected to be put in a pot, boiled, and served for dinner, Dunwiddie said he knew there was such a pot — used to process slaughtered pigs — in one of the buildings. He suggested we fill it with water and build a fire under it, let this chap see it, and see if that didn’t produce the cooperation we needed. I told him, ‘Perhaps later, if the disorientation fails.’”

Gehlen, Mannberg, and Dunwiddie chuckled.

Is that what they call torturing a guy in a chair, “disorientation”?

And now that I think about it, I’m sure Tiny heard from his great-grandfathers, the Indian-fighting Buffalo Soldiers, that the Apaches hung their prisoners head-down over a slow fire to get them to talk. Or just for the hell of it. I’m surprised he didn’t suggest that.

Hell, maybe he did. He’s the professional soldier and I’m the amateur.

“Disorientation?” Cronley said.

“Disorientation,” Mannberg confirmed. “We learned over time that causing pain is more often than not counterproductive. Especially with skilled agents, as we believe this fellow has to be. Disorientation, on the other hand, very often produces the information one desires.”

How about pulling out his fingernails? That would certainly disorient somebody.

“What we did here,” Mannberg went on, “was put this fellow in a windowless cell, in the basement of what was the church when this was an active monastery. We took all his clothing except for his underwear, and provided him with a mattress, a very heavy blanket, and two canvas buckets, one filled with water and the other for his bodily waste. And a two-minute candle.” He held fingers apart to show the small size of a two-minute candle. “Then we slammed the door closed and left him.”

“For how long?”

“At first, long enough for the candle to burn out, which left him in total darkness. And then for several hours. Each time, suddenly, his door burst open, and there he could see — momentarily and with difficulty, his eyes trying to adjust to the bright light — Stabsfeldwebel Tedworth. Then the lights — we improvised the lights using jeep headlights — went out and the door slammed closed again.

“The next time the door opened, he was given his dinner. It was time for breakfast, but we served him what the officers were going to have for dinner. And another two-minute candle. By the time his eyes adjusted to the candlelight, it was pretty well exhausted and went out. He had to eat his dinner in absolute darkness and without any utensils. And, pardon the crudity, but can you imagine how difficult it is to void one’s bladder, much less one’s bowels, into a soft-sided canvas bucket while in total darkness? Are you getting the idea, Captain Cronley?”

Cronley nodded. “How long are you going to keep this up?”

“For another twenty-four hours. Perhaps a bit longer.”

“And then?”

“The interrogation will begin.”

“By who?”

“We’re trying to decide whether it should be Dunwiddie or myself. One or the other. Dunwiddie’s Russian isn’t perfect, but on the other hand, he is an enormous black man.”

“Would me getting a look at this guy interfere with your interrogation of him?”

Cronley saw that Mannberg didn’t like the question.

“I’ll keep my mouth shut,” Cronley said. “I just want a look at him.”

Mannberg looked at his watch.

“We’re going to feed him his breakfast in about an hour. That will give you time to have your supper before you have your look.”

“I’ll take you,” Dunwiddie said.

[FIVE]

When he’d gone to bed, Cronley had had a very difficult time falling asleep. His mind insisted on replaying — over and over — everything that had happened in the past ten days. But eventually, at about one in the morning, fatigue had finally taken over.

When the telephone rang, he was in a deep sleep, and he took a long time to awaken and reach for it.

“Twenty-third CIC, Lieutenant Cronley speaking, sir.”

“That’s Captain Cronley, actually,” the voice of Colonel Robert Mattingly informed him. “You might wish to write that down.”

“Sorry, sir. I was really out.”

“Well, rise and shine, Captain Cronley. A new day has dawned. Duty calls.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get dressed, have a shower, a shave, and a cup of coffee. Then go out to the road. Order the jeeps sitting there blocking it to move off the road. Whereupon, the road will now resume its covert role as a landing strip. With me so far, Captain? Or do you wish to find a pencil and paper and write this all down?”

“I’m with you, sir.”

What the hell is going on?

“Within the hour, an aircraft will land on the road. You will get in said aircraft and do whatever Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson, who will be piloting the aircraft, tells you to do. Got it?”

“Yes, sir. What—”

“It would behoove you to treat Colonel Wilson with impeccable military courtesy, Captain Cronley. He has the reputation for being a crotchety Old Regular Army sonofabitch. Speak only when spoken to. Do not ask questions. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

The line went dead.

Forty minutes later, Captain Cronley — having showered, shaved, and donned a fresh uniform — stood at the end of the road that, in a pinch, could be used as a landing strip for light aircraft. The two jeeps, both with pedestal-mounted.50 caliber Browning machine guns, which had had the dual mission of protecting the compound perimeter and blocking the use of the road as a landing strip, were now half in the ditch beside the road.

Cronley heard the sound of an aircraft engine, and just had time to identify it as the Argus 240-hp air-cooled inverted V8 engine of a Fieseler Storch, when a Storch appeared. Not from above, but from below. It had to pull up before the pilot could lower the nose and put his gear down on the road.

Kloster Grünau sat atop a hill in what Cronley had decided were probably the foothills of the Alps.

Jesus, this guy must have been chasing cows around the fields!

The Storch, which had U.S. ARMY painted on the fuselage and the Constabulary insignia on the vertical stabilizer, slowed quickly and stopped just past where Cronley was standing. It turned and taxied back down the “runway” to the end — where the road curved — where it stopped again, turned again, and stood there with the engine idling.

Conley realized that the pilot, the lieutenant colonel whom Colonel Mattingly had described as “a crotchety Old Regular Army sonofabitch,” was waiting for him, and probably impatiently.

He trotted down the road, rehearsing in his mind what he was going to do now: come to attention, salute (holding the salute until it was returned), and bark, “Sir, Captain Cronley, James D., reporting to the colonel as ordered, sir!”

He got as far as coming to attention and raising his hand in salute when he saw the pilot’s face. Cronley instantly concluded that the crotchety Old Regular Army sonofabitch lieutenant colonel wasn’t flying the Storch.

The guy in the front seat had the bright unlined face of a newly commissioned second lieutenant.

He looks younger than me. He has to be a second lieutenant.

Cronley dropped the salute, walked up to the aircraft, put his foot on the step on the main gear, hoisted himself up into the cockpit, and said with a smile, “Hi, where’d you get the Storch?”

The words were out of his mouth before he noticed the three silver oak leaves — one on each shoulder and a third on his collar point — pinned to the uniform of the guy who had the bright unlined face of a newly commissioned second lieutenant.

“Shit!” Cronley said.

“I have been led to believe, Captain,” Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson said, “that you have had some experience with Storch aircraft.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sufficient experience for you to be able to get into the backseat without assistance?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please do so.”

Cronley climbed into the backseat and closed the window-door. He had just located the seat belt and was putting it on when the Storch began to move.

Moments later it was airborne.

Jimmy looked around where he was sitting. The rear seat had the basic controls — stick, rudder pedals, throttle, airspeed indicator, altimeter, and artificial horizon. There was a small panel holding an Army Air Corps radio of a type he had never seen. A headset and a microphone hung to the side.

Suspecting that the colonel was anxious to use the intercom to say a few words about the unusual greeting he had received, Cronley put on the headset.

He rehearsed his reply, drawing on his military courtesy training at Texas A&M. “Sir,” he would say. “Sorry, sir. No excuse, sir.”

Nothing but an electronic hiss came over the earphones for perhaps ten minutes.

Cronley became aware that they were at an altitude of about 2,000 meters, making, according to the airspeed indicator, about sixty knots.

That was cause for concern. In his lengthy flight training in the Storch — almost two hours — Willi Grüner had told him that the Storch tended to stop flying somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five knots.

Unless the colonel watches himself, he’s going to put us into a stall.

The engine coughed and stopped.

Jesus Christ, now what?

The airspeed needle rapidly unwound.

As the Storch stopped flying and went into a stall, the earphones came to life.

“You have the aircraft, Captain,” Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson announced.

Cronley saw that the colonel was demonstrating this by holding both his hands above his head.

“Holy shit!” Cronley said, and then Pavlovian reaction took over.

He shoved the stick forward.

If I can get this sonofabitch back up to sixty, maybe it’ll fly!

When he first felt a little life come into the controls, they were at 500 meters, and the needle was indicating 350 when he felt confident enough to try to pull out of the stall.

He came out of the stall moments later and was desperately looking around for someplace where he could — very quickly — make a dead stick landing when the starter ground, the engine started, and the propeller began to take a bite out of the air.

“Why don’t you pick up a little altitude,” Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson suggested conversationally over the earphones, “and take up a heading of two-seventy?”

Five minutes later, they were indicating 150 knots at 3,000 meters on a heading of 270.

Cronley took the microphone from its hook.

“Sir, may I inquire where we’re going?”

“Sonthofen. It’s about thirty miles. You’ll know we’re close when I get on the radio.”

Sometime thereafter, Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson suggested, “Why don’t you start a gentle descent to five hundred meters?”

Several minutes after that, he announced, “Sonthofen, Army-Seven-Oh-Seven. About three miles out. Request straight-in approach to Twenty-seven.”

“Sonthofen clears Army Seven-Oh-Seven as Number One to land on Two-seven. We have you in sight. Welcome home, Colonel.”

“Tell the man you understand, Captain,” Colonel Wilson ordered.

“I’m supposed to land this thing?”

“Without breaking anything, if possible. Talk to the man.”

Cronley dropped the nose so that he could make out what lay ahead. He saw they were more or less lined up with a runway, around which was a fleet of L-4s, plus two C-47s and some other aircraft Cronley didn’t recognize.

“Sonthofen, Seven-Oh-Seven understands Number One to land on Two-seven,” Cronley then said into the microphone.

“There are two hangars,” Wilson announced. “If you manage to return us to Mother Earth alive, taxi to the one on the right.”

“Yes, sir.”

When Cronley had parked the Storch on the tarmac before the hangar, Lieutenant Colonel Wilson climbed out of the front seat and motioned for Cronley to follow him.

A master sergeant approached them and saluted.

“Say hello to Captain Cronley, Sergeant McNair,” Wilson said. “And then get out the paint and obliterate our beloved insignia that’s on the vertical stabilizer. Our bird has a new master.”

“I hate to see her go,” Sergeant McNair said.

He offered his hand to Cronley and said, “Captain.”

“I am taking some solace in knowing that she has found a new and loving home,” Wilson said, and turned to Cronley. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee. It will take half an hour for the obliteration to dry.”

He led Cronley to an office inside the hangar.

“Close the door, please, Captain,” Wilson said. “I wouldn’t put it past the Air Force to have a spy in here, and we wouldn’t want them to hear what I have to say, would we?”

He added, “Sit,” and walked to a coffeemaker.

There was a framed photograph on the wall, showing an L-4 about to touch down beside the Coliseum in Rome.

Cronley blurted, “I saw that in the newsreels.”

Wilson glanced at the photograph. “Ah, yes. The triumphal entry of General Markus Augustus Clark into the Holy City. I had the honor of being his aerial taxi driver.”

When Wilson saw the look on Cronley’s face, he added, “Oh, yes, Colonel Mattingly told me what you think of Army Aviators. You’re wrong, of course, but young officers often are.”

He let that sink in a moment, and then added, as he handed Cronley a coffee cup on a saucer, “Yes, Captain Cronley, I know a good deal about you — and knew you were out of the mold even before I saw you running up to the Storch in your cowboy boots.”

Shit, I shouldn’t have put my boots on.

After all, Mattingly did warn me he was a crotchety Old Regular Army sonofabitch.

“And while we’re on the subject of being out of uniform,” Wilson said, as he pulled from a metal locker a zippered tanker jacket, to the breast of which were sewn pilot’s wings. “This is one of your prizes for having successfully completed the William W. Wilson course in the operation of the Storch aircraft. The other prizes being two Storches. Treat them kindly, Captain. I have grown very fond of them.”

“Colonel, I’m not entitled to wear those wings.”

“That may be true. On the other hand, as Colonel Mattingly and I discussed, there is very little chance of someone rushing up to you when you land someplace and demanding to see your certificate of graduation from flight school. No one has ever asked me for such proof. And even if the unexpected happened, you could dazzle him with your CIC credentials, couldn’t you, Special Agent Cronley?”

Cronley chuckled.

“Jim — may I call you ‘Jim’?”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“And you may call me ‘sir’ or ‘Colonel,’ whichever comes easiest.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jim, Bob Mattingly and I go back a long ways. We share a mutual admiration for Major General I. D. White, who will shortly return to Germany and assume command of the U.S. Constabulary. When it is activated, I will become Aviation Officer of the U.S. Constabulary.

“The Air Force, always willing to share its superior knowledge with we lesser birdmen, volunteered to have a look at the proposed Table of Organization and Equipment, came to item Number So and So, two each Fieseler Fi 156 Storch aircraft, and promptly wet its panties. They could not in good conscience approve the use of captured enemy aircraft, as the reliability of such aircraft was unknown, and they didn’t want to be responsible for some Army Liaison pilot of limited skills injuring himself.

“Over the years, I’ve provided Bob Mattingly — that is, provided the late and lamented OSS — with all sorts of aircraft. So I mentioned this to him, wondering if he had use for the Storches. His response was he’d love to have them, but would have to look around for a pilot or pilots and that would be a problem.

“Yesterday, he called me. A benevolent Deity had just dropped a pilot in his lap. There was a small problem: Although this chap had a commercial ticket, with multi-engine and instrument ratings, he had not wanted to be an aerial taxi driver and had concealed these ratings from the Army. In spite of that, he had just returned from flying a Storch, a Cub, and a Lodestar around the mouth of the Magellan Strait in connection with some activity Mattingly didn’t wish to share with me but which had caused President Truman to jump him from Second John to Captain and pin the DSM on his manly chest.

“So here we are,” Wilson went on. “That was a nice recovery from the stall, by the way. Most people would have tried — and suffered a possible fatal mistake at that altitude — restarting the engine.”

“Thank you.”

“So, what you get is two Storches, a decent supply of parts, and, if you think they would fit into Kloster Grünau, a former Luftwaffe Storch pilot and three mechanics.”

Cronley’s first reaction was: Great! I barely know how to fly a Storch, and I know zilch about maintaining one.

That was immediately followed by: And what is Major Harold Wallace, not to mention Colonel Robert Mattingly, going to say when they hear I’ve moved four Germans into Kloster Grünau, thereby posing a threat to the secrets of Operation Ost?

And that was immediately followed by: Stop thinking like a second lieutenant, Captain Cronley. You command Kloster Grünau. If Mattingly told Tiny “to handle” the problem of the Russian he caught, and you ask him, “Colonel, what should I do?” he’s going to have one more confirmation of his suspicions that giving you responsibility for Kloster Grünau, considering your youth and inexperience, was one of the dumbest decisions he ever made.

“Colonel, what can you tell me about the Germans?”

“The former Luftwaffe captain — his name is Kurt Schröder — showed up a couple of days after I brought in the Storches. I found them, loaded them on trucks, and brought them here. Schröder said that he had just been released from a POW enclosure, and as he walked home — he lives near here — he saw the Storches being trucked here. He thought we might need someone to work on the planes. And he needed a job to feed his family. He also said he knew where to find the Storch mechanics. So I hired him. Them. They’ve worked out well. Schröder checked me out in the airplane, and his men do a fine job maintaining them. Even Sergeant McNair approves.”

“Sounds great, sir. I’ll take them. Thank you.”

“There are several problems, starting with paying them. The German currency is useless. What Schröder and his people had been working for is food. That isn’t a problem for me here. It’s not hard to find extra food for twenty-odd mouths when Sonthofen is drawing Quartermaster rations for about sixteen hundred people. But how would you handle that at Kloster Grünau?”

“Not a problem, sir.”

Wilson’s eyebrows went up questioningly.

“We draw standard GI rations for our prisoners, sir, as well as for our guard company.”

“Okay,” Wilson said, his tone making it clear that he didn’t believe that was the complete answer.

And it wasn’t.

First Sergeant Chauncey L. Dunwiddie had explained that what was almost certainly a fraud committed daily upon the U.S. Army had begun as a solution to a deadly serious problem concerning the secrecy of Operation Ost. The solution had been proposed by Sergeant Friedrich Hessinger and approved by Colonel Robert Mattingly.

As long as General Gehlen and the members of Abwehr Ost had been prisoners of war, they had been entitled under the Geneva Conventions to the same rations as their U.S. Army captors.

It was important that everybody in Abwehr Ost be run through a De-Nazification Court, declared to be Non-Nazis, and released to civilian life as quickly as possible.

And this was done. All members of Abwehr Ost, including a substantial number of Nazis, were run through De-Nazification Courts, adjudged to be Non-Nazis, and released from POW status.

This permitted Headquarters, European Command, when the Russians demanded to know if EUCOM had in its POW enclosures any former members of Abwehr Ost, whom they wished to interrogate, to truthfully state that they did not.

The problem then became how to draw rations for Gehlen and his men, now that they were not POWs and had been returned to their civilian pursuits.

Sergeant Hessinger’s suggestion, which after serious consideration Colonel Mattingly ordered put into execution, was to have the XXIIIrd CIC Detachment accept the surrender of a number of German officers and soldiers and place them into its POW enclosure at Kloster Grünau. The number of prisoners equaled that of the Abwehr Ost prisoners, plus ten percent as a cushion.

Names of the prisoners were compiled from a copy of the Munich telephone book, and their organizations from the USFET G-2 Order of Battle. Once this compilation had been made, it was checked against the roster of Operation Ost to make sure that no name on the latter appeared on the Roster of Prisoners.

The vetted list was classified Secret and then presented to the U.S. Army Quartermaster Depot in Munich, which accepted it without question — it was signed by the deputy chief, CIC, European Theatre of Operations — and began its daily issue of rations to feed the prisoners.

Sergeant Hessinger had also been tasked by Colonel Mattingly to acquire the “goodies” the XXIIIrd CIC was going to need. Goodies were loosely defined as those things CIC agents needed to bribe people in the acquisition of intelligence.

Money was one such goody. Mattingly — and only a few other senior officers — could acquire U.S. dollars from a U.S. Army Finance Office and then sign a sworn statement that those dollars had been expended in the service of the United States. But as the reichsmark was just about useless — there was nothing to buy — and U.S. Army Occupation Scrip not much better for intelligence purposes, other things — coffee, cigarettes, candy bars, and spirits (the latter being called “Class Six Supplies”) were necessary.

There were two ways to get such supplies out of Army warehouses and into the hands of the XXIIIrd CIC Detachment and thus into the hands of the men of Operation Ost. One was to go through proper channels and request they be issued. This would inevitably result in all sorts of questions that couldn’t be answered without bringing attention to the function of the XXIIIrd CIC Detachment and Operation Ost.

The second way — the one Sergeant Hessinger put into execution — was to prepare two Morning Reports every day. One was bona fide. It was sent upward through channels. It showed the strength of the XXIIIrd CIC Detachment as two officers — Major Wallace and Captain Cronley — and two enlisted men — First Sergeant Dunwiddie and Sergeant Hessinger.

The second Morning Report was shown only to Munich Military Post and the Munich Quartermaster Depot. It showed a personnel strength of eleven officers and forty-three enlisted men — typical CIC detachment strength — physically present at Kloster Grünau.

Hessinger had created a phantom force within the Twenty-third. And because only the deputy commander USFET CIC, Colonel Robert Mattingly, was authorized to visit Kloster Grünau or would be authorized to visit the Pullach facility when that was opened, detection of the deception was very unlikely.

Sergeant Hessinger had further refined his solution for obtaining the necessary goodies. Not only was each member of the phantom force issued a EUCOM PX ration card (which authorized the weekly purchase of, among other things, 1.5 cartons of cigarettes, a pound of coffee, and a box of Hershey bars) but because of its remote location, Kloster Grünau was authorized a “Mini-PX” under the Munich Military Post PX.

One Sergeant F. Hessinger was assigned as Mini-PX manager.

Further, to accommodate the officers and non-commissioned officers of the XXIIIrd CIC and the enlisted men of Company C, 203rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, which guarded Kloster Grünau, both an officers’ open mess and an NCO club were authorized. At the time of the authorization, Second Lieutenant Cronley was appointed officers’ open mess officer and Technical Sergeant Tedworth NCO club manager. The Kloster Grünau officers’ open mess graciously agreed to give the NCO club access to the Class VI Store it would operate.

“There is another problem,” Colonel Wilson went on. “If I try to truck the second Storch, the parts, and Schröder’s mechanics to Kloster Grünau, that would cause the Air Force to wonder what’s going on.”

“But,” Captain Cronley offered, “the Air Force could be run off by my people?”

“Some of your people — Tiny and Sergeant Tedworth come to mind — can run people off by just baring their fangs. Couple that with those dazzling CIC credentials.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if the Air Force gets really curious, Bob Mattingly can cut them off at the Farben Building.”

“As soon as I get back, I’ll send our trucks here.”

“Good. Any questions?”

Cronley’s face showed both that he had one and that he was reluctant to ask it.

“Go ahead.”

“Colonel, can I ask how old you are?”

“Thirty-two,” Wilson said, paused, and then went on: “That’s what I usually tell people who ask. Actually, I’m almost twenty-five. Class of ’forty at the Academy. And you’re ’forty-five at A&M?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Tiny is — or would have been—’forty-five at Norwich. The next time we get together we’ll have to knock rings and sing ‘Army Blue’ and ‘The Aggie War Hymn’ and whatever the hell they sing at Norwich.”

“Tiny didn’t mention you knew each other.”

“Tiny, like you and General White, is Cavalry. I’ve always thought you Horse Soldiers had odd senses of humor.” He paused, and then said, “Your boss is a University of the South — Sewanee — graduate. I think their school song is ‘Jesus Loves Me.’”

Cronley laughed. And then he had a series of thoughts.

He’s now treating me as an equal.

Well, maybe not as an equal.

But as a fellow professional soldier.

What did he say about “knocking our rings”?

Maybe this is what this is all about.

Maybe I am destined to be a professional soldier.

God knows with the Squirt gone — Jesus Christ, she’s probably being buried today! — I can never go back to Midland.

“Well, put your new jacket on, and I’ll get Kurt Schröder in here,” Wilson said.

“My new jacket?” Cronley asked, and then understood. “The jacket with the wings.”

“Affirmative. I don’t want Kurt to think I’m turning the Storches over to someone who can’t fly.”

“Yes, sir.”

I’ll put the jacket on as ordered, but as soon as I get back to Kloster Grünau and can find a razor blade, the wings come off.