Top Secret Part 56

"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 elan 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 a.s.sumed all along that Ludwig is in this as deep as we are," Cronley said. "Isn't he?"

Where the h.e.l.l 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 compa.s.sion."

Well, f.u.c.k you!

"No, we didn't feed him . . ." Cronley began, wondering how far he could go in telling Mannberg to go f.u.c.k himself without forcing Gehlen to come to Mannberg's aid.

Dunwiddie stepped up to the plate.

"Captain Cronley did a masterful job of introducing G.o.d and a Christian's duty to his wife and children into the conversation. That seemed to kill Major Orlovsky's appet.i.te."

"'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 sonofab.i.t.c.h at least four times and d.a.m.ned him to h.e.l.l 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 doc.u.ment 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, 18281829. 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 compet.i.tive 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 b.a.l.l.s.

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 Schrder?" 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, Schrder and I can get Storches in. And while he's there, Schrder 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.