Top Secret Part 29

"No, sir. No questions."

"Good. I'm glad that's all cleared up," Souers said.

"I've got one more question, Admiral, that at best may seem ill-mannered," Frade said. "What's this lovely lady doing in here with all of us ugly old men?"

"Ugly old men talking about material cla.s.sified Top SecretLindbergh, you mean?"

"Yes, sir," Frade said.

"We'd planned to get into this later," Souers said. "But since you brought it up, now's as good a time as any. General Greene?"

"Admiral Souers, Colonel Mattingly, and I were talking about needing a cover for Pullach," Greene began. "People are going to wonder about it. What Mattingly and I came up with, and suggested to the admiral, was that we let people think it's an ASA installation hiding under the South German Industrial Development Organization sign. Everybody, including the Soviets, knows we have the ASA, and keep its installations secret and behind barbed wire and armed guards.

"Major Iron Lung McClung, who runs EUCOM ASA, says it'll be no problem at all to move an ASA listening post-with its antennae farm-he already has in the Munich area into the Pullach compound. And-this was a gift from Above-McClung says he can set up some wire recorders he liberated from the Germans to transmit gibberish all the time in case those clever Soviets are listening.

"All the Americans in the compound will start wearing Signal Corps insignia. There's plenty of housing for dependents . . ."

Dependents? Wives and children? What the h.e.l.l?

". . . so with almost no effort-most good ideas are simple ones-we have what we think will be an effective cover."

"And where does this charming lady fit into this effective cover?" Frade asked dubiously.

Jimmy noticed that that earned Clete a forced smile from Colonel Mrs. Schumann.

"It's important, Mattingly and the admiral agreed," General Greene said, "that while I keep abreast of what's going on at Pullach, my going there, except rarely, would draw attention to it. We then considered who, on the other hand, could go there frequently, without it looking suspicious."

Greene looked around and then answered his own question. "My IG is also the IG for ASA. And this charming lady is president of the CIC/ASA Officers' Ladies Club. And sponsor of the CIC/ASA NCOs' Wives Clubs. No one would find anything suspicious in Colonel Schumann visiting Pullach every other week or so. Or that he be accompanied by his wife when he did. Or Mrs. Schumann going to Pullach alone to meet with the ladies."

Cronley looked at Rachel. She met his eyes momentarily.

"Which, I submit, neatly solves the effective liaison problem," Greene said.

"Mrs. Schumann of course has a Top SecretLindbergh clearance?" Frade asked drily.

"Does Mrs. Frade?" Admiral Souers asked.

"No. And I have never told her anything about anything that was cla.s.sified in any way. Cross my heart and hope to die."

Everyone chuckled.

"Boy Scout's Honor," Frade added, making the Scout sign.

That got laughs.

Souers looked at his watch.

"We had better get back in there. We've got a lot to cover."

[ THREE ].

Suite 117 Schlosshotel Kronberg Kronberg im Taunus, Hesse American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1710 1 November 1945 Cletus Frade said, "In that case, forget it," and hung up the telephone.

He turned to Jimmy.

"The management regrets that it will take a half hour for room service."

"I'll go to the bar and get us something. Jack Daniel's?"

Clete went to a soft-sided suitcase, opened the zipper, and came up with a bottle of Dewar's scotch whisky.

"I learned to drink this in Argentina. Okay with you?"

"Anything."

"We don't have to have this conversation now, Jimmy. You want to wait until after dinner?"

"I'd like to pa.s.s on both."

Clete found gla.s.ses, poured whisky into them, then handed one to Cronley.

"You don't have any option about Colonel and Mrs. Schumann's kind invitation to dinner," Clete said. "You will go and smile. I think Schumann will be very useful to you. He obviously likes you . . ."

He wouldn't if he knew I'm s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his wife.

". . . and your only option about our talking is when we do it."

"Let's get it over with."

Clete tapped his gla.s.s to Jimmy's.

"Okay. Bad news first. The Old Man's had a heart attack."

"Jesus!"

"That's the reason I went to Midland. It was what Souers suggested in there, that it was another example of my tendency to act impulsively. I went only after I put everything on the scale and decided, f.u.c.k the OSS, they've just buried the Squirt, the Old Man had a heart attack, my family needs me. Making that decision took me all of two seconds."

"How is he?"

"When your father called me . . . it was the usual lousy connection . . . he said that the Old Man had had a heart attack on his Connie on their way out there, and they diverted to Dallas and rushed him to Parkland Hospital. He said it didn't look good, and that he would keep me posted.

"Hansel was with me. I told him to get out to Jorge Frade and get one of our Connies ready while I found our wives and told them why we would be out of town for a few days.

"That of course didn't work. Argentine women are big on family. When we took off an hour later, my wife and kids and Hansel's wife and kid were aboard. And so were two nannies, two hundred pounds of kiddy supplies, and Gonzalo Delgano-"

"Who?"

"You met him. He's SAA's chief pilot."

Cronley shook his head indicating he didn't remember.

"And another pilot, a radio operator/navigator, and a steward. Gonzo was not about to have the boss go flying in the fragile mental condition he was already in caused by the death of his sister, and further aggravated by the grave illness of his grandfather.

"Actually, I was pretty touched even though I wanted to go alone.

"About twenty-one hours later, we touched down at Midland-Gonzo graciously gave me the left seat for the final leg-and I looked out the window and there's the Old Man leaning on the fender of his Town and Country-you know, that enormous station wagon?"

"I've seen one or two."

"He was waiting for us. With Souers."

"I thought you said he had a heart attack?"

"My grandfather, with a straight face, said he had a little too much to drink on the airplane. Dr. Neiberger, at the Squirt's wake, or viewing, or whatever the h.e.l.l they call it, told me he had had a 'medium to severe' heart attack probably brought on by stress. Aside from a daily aspirin-honest to G.o.d, an aspirin, to thin the blood-and avoiding stress, there wasn't much else that could be done for him. Neiberger also said the only way to keep him in the hospital would have been by force, and that would cause precisely the kind of stress he should avoid."

He paused, then said admiringly, "That Old Man is one tough sonofab.i.t.c.h."

"Yes, he is."

"I suppose you want to hear about the viewing and the interment."

"No, I don't."

Clete did not miss a beat: "The Squirt had a lot of friends and they all showed up, including a delegation of her sorority sisters from Rice. You, surprisingly, have more friends than I would have guessed and they all showed up, including a delegation from A&M who served as Marjie's pallbearers."

Jimmy suddenly felt his chest heave in an enormous sob. His eyes began to water.

"All in all," Clete said-and then his voice broke. After a moment, and with great difficulty, he was able to finish, "It was quite an event."

He picked up the bottle of Dewar's and added to both their gla.s.ses.

"She was buried at Big Foot, of course. On your side."

"What does that mean, my side?"

"Really? I thought you knew. The cemetery, although it's on Big Foot, is jointly owned by the Howells and the Cronleys. The Howells get buried on one side and the Cronleys on the other. They buried the late Mrs. Cronley with her husband's family."

Jimmy looked at him with tears running down his cheeks.

"Actually, as it turns out, Marjie's about ten feet from her father," Clete said. "I don't know if Mom, or your mother, or your dad, set it up that way, but that's where the Squirt'll be from now on. Next to my Uncle Jim."

- Jimmy thought that he hadn't really understood the convoluted family relations of Cletus Frade until he'd gone to Argentina, although he had wondered about them from the time he wore short pants. Starting with, he thought now, wondering why Jim and Martha Howell's "son" was named Frade instead of Howell.

Gradually, he had been able to put some of the pieces together.

Clete's "mom" wasn't his mother but his aunt. Beth and Marjorie-the Squirt-were his cousins, not his sisters. Their father, James Howell, was Clete's uncle. James was one of Cletus Marcus Howell's-the Old Man's-two children, the other being Clete's mother. She had died when Clete was an infant.

Jimmy seldom had heard her name, but the Old Man made it clear that the reason she died was that she had married "a despicable Argentinian sonofab.i.t.c.h." He knew this because that's how Cletus Marcus Howell referred to him on those rare occasions when the subject came up in Jimmy's hearing.

Jimmy had grown up thinking that Clete's father was some sleazy Mexican-type greaseball Casanova who had somehow managed to seduce a wholesome Midland girl, gotten her with child, watched her die-probably of the drugs and alcohol to which he had introduced her-and then abandoned her and their infant offspring. The baby-Clete-had then been taken in by James Howell, his mother's brother, and reared by him and his wife, Martha, as their own.

When Second Lieutenant Cronley had ordered one of Tiny's Troopers to put a couple of rounds from the pedestal-mounted .50 caliber Browning machine gun on his jeep into the engine of Lieutenant Colonel Schumann's staff car to convince the colonel that, IG or not, he was not going to be allowed into Kloster Grnau, he had been entirely within his rights to so.

Cronley had been authorized by Colonel Mattingly to take whatever action was necessary, including the taking of human life, to protect what was going on at Kloster Grnau from becoming known.

But there were ramifications to the shattered engine block. Colonel Schumann had gone to General Greene to report not only the a.s.sault upon his staff car, but to tell Greene that he was convinced the activity at the secluded monastery had a great deal to do with the rumor he had been chasing for some time-that renegade Americans were sneaking n.a.z.is out of Germany to South America.

With great difficulty-as Mattingly had not been then authorized to tell Greene anything about Operation Ost-he had managed to dissuade Greene from sending the 18th Infantry Regiment to seize Kloster Grnau from whoever held it. But Mattingly knew that was a temporary solution at best, and that a very credible scenario was that Greene, after thinking it over, would send the 18th Infantry and tell him about it later.

If that happened, about seventy pounds, literally, of incriminating doc.u.ments at Kloster Grnau would be seized. That simply could not be allowed to happen. Mattingly immediately collected the doc.u.ments and Second Lieutenant Cronley from Kloster Grnau and took them to Rhine-Main airfield in Frankfurt.

There, after ordering Cronley to guard the doc.u.ments with his life until he could place them in the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Frade and no one else, he put both on an SAA Constellation bound for Buenos Aires. Then he put himself on a Military Air Transport Service C-54, which departed Rhine-Main for Was.h.i.+ngton.

He had to convince Admiral Souers, who was presiding over the burial of the OSS, that General Greene and others had to be told of Operation Ost and ordered to support it. Otherwise Operation Ost was going to blow up in everybody's face, and those faces included President Harry S Truman's and General of the Army Dwight David Eisenhower's.

Mattingly's orders to Cronley were that once the doc.u.ments were safely in Frade's hands, he was to catch the next Germany-bound SAA flight and return to Kloster Grnau, where he was to keep his mouth shut, and, if the 18th Infantry showed up, to stall them as long as possible before surrendering.

Cronley had not been able to comply with his orders.

- Cletus Frade had met Jimmy Cronley's SAA aircraft at Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade. He was driving a Horch automobile-very much like Colonel Mattingly's-and had with him his wife, a long-legged blond with a flawless complexion who spoke English like the King.

What Jimmy hoped was discreet questioning produced the information that the airport was named "Frade" because Clete had dedicated it to his father-that despicable Argentinian sonofab.i.t.c.h?-and that the Horch-"Nice car. Where'd you get it?"-had been his father's.

They drove into Buenos Aires, a city that didn't look like anything Mexican, and stopped at a mansion overlooking a horse racetrack. Clete had told him the mansion, built by his Grand-uncle Guillermo, was where Clete and his wife and kids lived because Dorotea thought the "big house" was about as comfortable as a museum.

When they went inside, things immediately became even more complicated.

The Old Man was there. And Martha and Beth and Marjie Howell.

All the Howell women kissed Cronley, which he sort of expected. What he didn't expect was the way the Squirt kissed him. Clete's baby sister wasn't supposed to kiss him that way, and he absolutely wasn't supposed to have the instant physical reaction to it that he did. All he could do was hope that no one happened to be glancing six inches below his belt buckle.

But even that went into the background when Cronley, almost casually, mentioned to Clete that he had been talking with some of Gehlen's people at Kloster Grnau about where a missing submarine, U-234, might have made landfall in Argentina, and they had come up with a very likely answer.

"Jesus Christ, didn't Mattingly tell you?" Clete said.

"What?"

"Apropos of nothing whatever, my last orders from General Donovan were to keep two things going at all costs-Operation Ost and the search for U-234. So tell me, what did you and the boys in the monastery come up with?"

Jimmy's reply had immediately triggered a good deal of frenzied activity adding to the frenzied activity already in progress, which included the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of Colonel Juan D. Peron, whom Clete referred to as his Uncle Juan.