Top Secret Part 7

"I think you're asking if he's the officer who had the misunderstanding with Colonel Schumann at Kloster Grnau. 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 a.s.surance, General, that you understand?"

Greene glared at him again, but finally said, "You have my a.s.surance, 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, n.a.z.is, 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-Oberfhrer 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 a.s.sistance . . ."

"What kind of a.s.sistance?"

"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 t.i.tle 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 ].

Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Maximilianstra.s.se 178 Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1215 28 October 1945 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 Kapitn 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 Lwenbru and pa.s.sed them out. As Freddy was neatly wiping gold-rimmed lager gla.s.ses, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton.

"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, "Sonofab.i.t.c.h! And the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds sent you back before you could even go to her G.o.dd.a.m.ned 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 h.e.l.l they call those people . . . said 'No,' and I said, 'f.u.c.k 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 f.u.c.king baby."

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

Tiny wrapped his ma.s.sive 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 Kapitn and go home?" Tiny asked gently.

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

[ FOUR ].

Kloster Grnau Schollbrunn, Bavaria American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1630 28 October 1945 When Cronley and Dunwiddie reached the compound, instead of driving through the gate, Dunwiddie had driven the Kapitn 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 Grnau referred to their first sergeant with the motto of the 2nd Armored Division, from which they had come-"Ole h.e.l.l 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 members.h.i.+p 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?"