Top Secret Part 61

He's not supposed to do that, either. But this isn't the time or place to get into that, either.

"How are you, Sergeant Martin?" Gehlen asked. He did not return the salute.

Martin picked up on it.

"Sorry, sir. Captain. It's just that I'm an old soldier and I know the general was a general . . ."

"Try a little harder, and all will be forgiven," Cronley said.

"Yes, sir."

"I was wondering when you planned to start moving my people," Gehlen said.

Martin looked at Cronley. "Tiny . . . First Sergeant Dunwiddie said to tell you, sir, Captain, that you can start sending them anytime."

"I was going to suggest, Captain Cronley, that we send Herr Mannberg to the Pullach compound early on," Gehlen said.

"You're going to go back as soon as you load up, right?" Cronley asked Martin.

"Yes, sir. Taking three more jeeps."

"General Gehlen, please tell Herr Mannberg to pack his bags and that he has a choice between riding in the cab of a truck or in a jeep."

"Which will leave how soon, would you say?"

"Forty-five minutes," Martin furnished.

"And what are your plans to move the families?" Gehlen asked.

"We're down to two ambulances-personnel transport vehicles-now that we sent two to Frankfurt, right?" Cronley asked.

"Six," Martin corrected him. "Tiny had them paint over the red crosses and the b.u.mpers on four more ambulances a couple of days ago."

Proving once again that First Sergeant Dunwiddie, who knows how to plan ahead, should be in command here, not me.

"I didn't know that," Cronley confessed. "Now that I do, what about setting up a convoy to leave in, say, an hour and a half, all the trucks, and all the ambulances and three jeeps? Can your people handle that, General?"

"They'll be ready," Gehlen said. "And I have one more suggestion to make, if I may?"

Cronley nodded.

"I don't think any of my people should leave the Pullach compound until further notice. Mannberg could ensure that they don't."

Gehlen saw the confusion on Cronley's face.

"Leaving the compound," Gehlen clarified, "would afford those of my people who have turned the opportunity to communicate with the NKGB."

"I should have thought about that," Cronley said.

"You've had a lot on your mind," Gehlen said.

That was kind of him.

He knows almost as well as I do, though, that Little Jimmy Cronley is way over his head in running this operation.

- As darkness fell, Cronley thought he saw another proof of his incompetence-or at least his inability to think problems through-within minutes of Dunwiddie's return to Kloster Grnau in the other Storch.

Dunwiddie reported that they had heard from Lieutenant Stratford's sergeant that the two ambulances had arrived at the ASA's relay station outside Frankfurt.

"I told them to leave wherever they are at 0900 for Eschborn. One at 0900 and the other at 0930."

"Why are they going to do that?" Cronley asked.

"So (a) they know how to get to Eschborn, and (b) we know how long it's going to take them. We'll use the longest time as the standard."

"I should have thought of that, too," Cronley confessed.

Dunwiddie looked at him curiously. Cronley explained that he had also not thought about confining the Germans to the Pullach compound so that the turned Germans known to be among them could not communicate with the NKGB.

Dunwiddie's response was much like General Gehlen's.

"You've got a lot on your plate, Jim. Don't worry about it," he said. "Okay, I figure if you leave at first light for Eschborn, you should be back here at, say, half past two."

"Right."

Tiny has a good reason that I should fly to Eschborn. I will pretend I have thought of that good reason, because I don't want to look as incompetent as I am.

Oh. General principles. To be as sure as possible that a plan will work, perform a dry run.

Jesus, I didn't think of even that!

"How's Konstantin?" Dunwiddie asked.

"We-Gehlen, Mannberg, and I-matched wits again with him at lunch. General Gehlen and I are in agreement that we don't know who won. But he did eat his lunch and drink a beer."

"Well, I will examine the subject carefully at supper and then render my expert opinion. But Gehlen said he can't tell who's winning?"

"That's what he said."

Cronley had a sudden epiphany, and blurted it out.

"I can. I do. Orlovsky's winning. Or he thinks he's winning, which is just about the same thing. He thinks that he's got us figured out and that he's smarter than we are. Which is probably true."

"I have the feeling you decided that just now."

"I did. I don't know why I didn't-or Gehlen didn't-figure that out earlier, but that's it. I'm sure of it."

"What didn't you figure out?"

"He was too relaxed. There was no battle of wits, because he wasn't playing that game. Instead of us playing with him, he was playing with us. Now we're back to my examining the subject at dinner."

"Let's go talk to Gehlen."

- "Jim, I don't know," General Gehlen said as Dunwiddie freshened the Haig & Haig scotch whisky in his gla.s.s. "But I did have a thought about Konstantin that I didn't share with anyone."

"What kind of a thought?"

"What you and Tiny would probably call a wild hair."

"Let's hear it."

"I don't think Major Konstantin Orlovsky is quite who we think he is."

"I don't think I understand."

"I think he may be further up in the NKGB hierarchy than we think. I suspect he may be at least a colonel, and may even hold higher rank."

"Would the NKGB send a senior officer over a barbed-wire fence?" Dunwiddie asked.

"They wouldn't do so routinely, which is one of the reasons I never mentioned this to anyone."

"What does Mannberg think of your theory?" Cronley asked.

"I never mentioned this to anyone, Jim," Gehlen repeated. There was just the hint of reproof in his tone of voice.

Cronley picked up on it and said, "Sorry, sir."

Gehlen accepted the apology with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Going down this street," Dunwiddie said, "why would the NKGB send a senior officer over a barbed-wire fence?"

"We don't know who gave him those rosters," Gehlen said. "I have been working on the a.s.sumption that it was one of my captains or majors. Now I have to consider the likelihood that it was one of my lieutenant colonels, there are fifteen, or colonels, of whom there are six."

"Including Mannberg?" Tiny asked.

"Including Ludwig Mannberg," Gehlen said. "There aren't many justifications for the NKGB to send a major-much less a lieutenant colonel or a colonel-'over a barbed-wire fence,' as you put it, Tiny."

"What would they be?"

"Short answers: to establish contact with someone of equal rank, or to convince someone fairly senior that the agent who was controlling them was telling them the truth. In other words, that they were indeed dealing with a senior NKGB officer, not just an agent."

"I'm not sure I understand you, General," Dunwiddie said. "Do you think it is likely Orlovsky is more important-a far more senior officer-than we have been thinking? Or that it is possible but unlikely?"

"I wouldn't have brought this up if I believed the latter."

"Supper, now that I know this, should be very interesting," Dunwiddie said.

"We are not going to have the sonofab.i.t.c.h to supper," Cronley said.

"We're not?" Gehlen asked.

"I don't want the b.a.s.t.a.r.d to know we're onto him," Cronley said. "You, General, might-you probably could-be able to hide what you think about him. Dunwiddie and I are amateurs at this and he'd probably sense something."

"Additionally," Gehlen said, "since the basic idea is to keep him off balance, if he's not invited he'll wonder why."

"You think I'm right, sir?" Dunwiddie said.

"I know you are." Gehlen looked at Cronley. "And I say that because I believe it, not because it means I can ask Tiny to pour a bit more of the Haig & Haig into my gla.s.s."

[ FOUR ].

Kloster Grnau Schollbrunn, Bavaria American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1605 6 November 1945 In the Storch, Cronley literally heaved a sigh of relief when he saw the floodlights on the perimeter of Kloster Grnau. "Dicey" had been too inadequate a term to describe his chances of getting home.

The weather had been deteriorating when he had taken off for Eschborn, and all the way to Eschborn he had been very much aware that the smart thing for him to have done would have been aborting the flight and trying later.

But he knew he was running out of time. He had to try.

Both ambulances had been waiting for him when he landed. He learned that it had taken them just about an hour to drive from the ASA Relay Station to the airfield. That meant he would have to allow three hours on "D-Day" for that part of the plan. Half an hour, after he had the ETA of the SAA Constellation at Rhine-Main, to contact the Pullach compound and tell them to radio the Relay Station and send the ambulances to Eschborn. Another hour for the ambulances to drive to Eschborn, and another hour for the ambulances to drive to Rhine-Main. And thirty minutes "just in case."

That sounds very neat and doable.

But what if the weather on D-Day is even worse, absolutely unflyable, than it is today?

Cronley put the Storch down safely on the runway, then taxied to the chapel, where he found the converted ambulance waiting for him.

He was not surprised that no one came out to push the Storch under the tent hangar, or that no one got out of the ambulance. Pounding all around was what the weather people termed "heavy precipitation."

He got out of the Storch, ran through the fat, cold raindrops to the ambulance, and got in the back.

General Gehlen turned from the front seat and handed him a towel.

"Your arrival cost Sergeant Dunwiddie a bottle of whisky," Gehlen said. "It was his belief that if you ever got here, you would be walking. I had more faith."

"I should have walked," Cronley said as he dried his head and face.

"Colonel Frade has been heard from," Gehlen said, and handed him a SIGABA printout. "Bad news."

"Jesus . . ." Cronley said as he looked at the sheet: PRIORITY.

TOP SECRET LINDBERGH.