The Assassination Option Part 14

The procession down the ladder and into the terminal building was led by a major general, two brigadier generals, some other bra.s.s. Then came four senior non-coms, and finally a long line of women and children. They were "dependents" joining their husbands, called "sponsors," in the Army of Occupation.

When the dependents came into the terminal, they were emotionally greeted by the sponsors in a touching display of connubial affection.

Cronley's mind filled with the memory of his explaining the system to the Squirt at Camp Holabird the day they were married. The day before the drunken sonofab.i.t.c.h in the eighteen-wheeler ran head-on into her on US-1 in Was.h.i.+ngton.

He forced his mind off the subject.

No one was coming down the stairway.

What did you do, Polo? Miss the G.o.dd.a.m.n plane?

And then Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell Ashton III appeared in the door of the aircraft. In pinks and greens. He was on crutches. His right leg and left arm were in casts.

He stared down the stairs. Then, apparently deciding the crutches would be useless, he threw them down the stairs.

Jesus, he's going to try to hop down the stairs!

"Go get him, Tiny," Cronley ordered. "Before he breaks his other leg."

"They won't let me out there," Dunwiddie protested.

"Show them the G.o.dd.a.m.n CIC badge and go get him!"

"Right."

"And you go with him, and get the crutches," Cronley ordered.

"Yes, sir," Maksymilian Ostrowski said, and headed for the door.

Ostrowski was wearing, as Cronley was, a U.S. Army woolen olive-drab Ike jacket and trousers with "civilian" triangles sewn to the lapels. Dunwiddie was in pinks and greens.

Cronley, after thinking about it overnight, had decided to have Ostrowski fly the second Storch from Kloster Grnau to Rhine-Main to meet Ashton. For one thing, Schrder had reported-not surprisingly, since Ostrowski had been flying Spitfires and Hurricanes-that it had taken less than an hour for him to be convinced the Pole could fly a Storch. For another, Ostrowski spoke "British English" fluently. When he called the Rhine-Main control tower, that would not cause suspicion, as Schrder's heavily German-accented English would.

But the real reason he had ordered Ostrowski to fly the second Storch was to test his theory that he could-DCI-Europe could-get away with not only flying the Storchs that were supposed to be grounded, but having them flown by a German and a Pole, and hiding both behind CIC credentials to which they were not ent.i.tled.

It would either work or it wouldn't. If they suddenly found themselves being detained by outraged Air Force officers-or for that matter, outraged Army officers-calling for somebody's scalp, better to have that happen now, when Ashton was in Germany. A newly promoted lieutenant colonel might not be able to do much against the forces aligned against DCI-Europe, but he would have a lot more clout than a newly promoted captain.

Tiny, flas.h.i.+ng his CIC wallet, and with Ostrowski on his heels, got past the Air Force sergeant keeping people from going onto the tarmac, and without trouble.

The young sergeant might have been dazzled by the CIC credentials, Cronley thought. But it was equally possible that he had been dazzled by an enormous, very black captain he knew he could not physically restrain from going anywhere he wanted to.

As Tiny started up the stairs, two at a time, another man appeared in the airplane door. A stocky, somewhat florid-faced man in his late forties, wearing the uniform of a U.S. Navy lieutenant.

He was somehow familiar.

Jesus Christ! That's El Jefe!

The last time Cronley had seen Lieutenant Oscar J. Schultz, USNR, he had been wearing the full regalia of an Argentine gaucho, a billowing white s.h.i.+rt over billowing black trousers; a gaily printed scarf; a wide-brimmed leather hat; knee-high black leather boots; a wide, silver-coin-adorned leather belt, and, tucked into the belt, the silver scabbard of a horn-handled knife the size of a cavalry saber.

El Jefe had once been Chief Radioman Oscar Schultz of the destroyer USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107, hence the reference El Jefe, the chief. Schultz had been drafted into the OSS by then-Captain Cletus Frade, USMCR, when the Thomas had sailed into Buenos Aires on a friendly visit to the neutral Argentine Republic. And also to surrept.i.tiously put ash.o.r.e a radar set and a SIGABA communications system for the OSS.

Frade thought he needed a highly skilled, Spanish-speaking (El Jefe had done two tours at the U.S. Navy base at Cavite in the Philippines) communications and radar expert more than the Thomas did, and General William Donovan, then head of the OSS, had not only agreed, but had had a word with the chief of naval operations.

Two days later, the Thomas had sailed from Buenos Aires without Chief Schultz. Schultz set up shop on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, Frade's enormous ranch, where Cronley had met him, and where he had quickly acquired both the regalia of a gaucho and a Rubenesque lady friend, who became known as "the other Dorotea," the first being Seora Dorotea Frade.

More importantly, he had become an important member of "Team Turtle," the code name for Frade's OSS operation in Argentina. So important that he had been given a direct commission as an officer.

What the h.e.l.l is El Jefe doing here?

Before the question had run through his mind, Cronley knew the answer.

Admiral Souers, knowing that Polo would refuse the a.s.sistance of a nurse, even a male nurse, although he really needed it, had ordered Schultz up from Argentina so that he could a.s.sist and protect Polo while he traveled to Germany and then back to Argentina.

That n.o.ble idea seemed to be destined to become a spectacular disaster.

As Tiny bounded up the stairway, El Jefe, seeing an enormous black man headed for his charge, started bounding down them to defend him.

Cronley recalled Cletus Frade telling him that El Jefe enjoyed the deep respect of the gauchos of the estancia, despite his refusal to get on a horse, because he had become both the undisputed bare-knuckles pugilist of the estancia and the undisputed hand-wrestling champion. Gauchos add spice, Cletus had told him, to their hand-wrestling fun by holding hands over their unsheathed razor-sharp knives.

Captain Dunwiddie and Lieutenant Schultz had a brief conversation near the top of the stairs. Then, suddenly, as if they had practiced the action for months, they had Polo in a "handbasket" between them and were carrying him-like the bridegroom at a Hebrew wedding-down the stairs, across the tarmac, and into the pa.s.senger terminal.

Cronley was surprised that no one seemed to pay much attention.

"Welcome to occupied Germany," Cronley said, as Schultz and Dunwiddie set Ashton on his feet and Ostrowski handed him his crutches. "Please keep in mind that VD walks the streets tonight, and penicillin fails once in seven times."

Ashton shook his head.

"Thanks," he said to Dunwiddie, Schultz, and Ostrowski. "Where's the colonel?"

"Which colonel would that be?"

"Mattingly."

"I don't know. I hope he's far from here."

"The admiral said I should see him as soon as I got here. I've got a letter for him. What do you mean you hope he's far from here?"

A letter? From Souers to Mattingly? Why does that scare me?

"We're going to have to have a little chat before you see him," Cronley said. He gestured toward the door. "Your ambulance awaits."

"I don't need an ambulance."

"You do unless you want to walk all the way across Rhine-Main airfield."

"What's all the way across the field?"

"The Storchs in which we are going to fly to Kloster Grnau-the monastery-to have our little chat."

"How they hanging, kid?" Schultz demanded of Captain Cronley.

"One beside the other. How about yours?"

"I don't have to tell you, do I, about how lousy I feel about what happened to the Squirt?"

"No. But thank you."

"I really liked that little broad," Schultz said. "Mean as a snake, but nice, you know?"

"Yeah," Cronley said.

"You know, Jim, that you have my condolences," Max Ashton said. "Tragic!"

Cronley saw the sympathy, the compa.s.sion, in their eyes.

[TWO].

Kloster Grnau Schollbrunn, Bavaria American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1340 2 January 1946 Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell Ashton III tapped the remnants of his steak on his plate with his knife and fork and then announced, "Not too bad. Not gra.s.s-fed on the pampas, of course, and-not to look the gift horse in the mouth-this red wine frankly does not have the je ne sais quoi of an Estancia Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon. But one must expect to make certain sacrifices when one goes off to battle the Red Menace on foreign sh.o.r.es, mustn't one?"

He got the dutiful chuckles he expected.

"Colonel Frade came to see me shortly before El Jefe and I got on the airplane-" Ashton began to go on.

"In Was.h.i.+ngton?" Cronley interrupted. "Cletus is in Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"He was there briefly en route to Pensacola, Florida, where he will be released from active service in the United States Marine Corps. I appreciate your interest, but I would appreciate even more your permitting me to continue."

"Sorry."

"Colonel Frade was kind enough to offer a few suggestions vis--vis my trip here. He recommended that should Colonel Mattingly not be able to find time in his busy schedule to meet me at Frankfurt, so that I might give him Admiral Souers's letter-"

"Why did he think Mattingly was going to meet you at Rhine-Main?" Cronley interrupted again.

Ashton ignored the interruption and went on, "I should ask whoever met us to take us to the Schlosshotel Kronberg, where we could rest in luxurious accommodations overnight, to recuperate from our journey. Then, the following morning, I could go to the I.G. Farben Building to meet with Colonel Mattingly, deliver the admiral's letter to him, and perhaps meet with General Greene and possibly even General Smith.

"Following that meeting, or meetings, Colonel Frade suggested we then reserve a compartment on a railroad train charmingly ent.i.tled 'the Blue Danube' and travel to Munich to meet with you, Captain Cronley, your staff, and General Gehlen, preferably at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, which he a.s.sured me would provide El Jefe and myself luxury accommodations equal to those of the Schlosshotel Kronberg.

"Instead . . . as someone once said, 'the best-laid plans gang aft agley,' which I suspect means get royally f.u.c.ked up . . . Captain Cronley meets us at the airport, tells me he has no idea where Colonel Mattingly is, but that he hopes wherever he is it is far away. He then stuffs me into the really uncomfortable backseat of a little airplane and flies me through every storm cloud he could find to a medieval monastery in the middle of f.u.c.king nowhere."

Cronley smiled, but he recalled seeing-a dozen times, more-Ashton wince with pain as the Storch had been tossed about by turbulence during the flight from Frankfurt.

"Now, one would suspect," Ashton went on, "that, in normal circ.u.mstances, this deviation from the plan would annoy, perhaps even anger, your new commanding officer. These are not normal circ.u.mstances, however.

"I was given the opportunity, first while lying in my bed of pain in Walter Reed, and then whilst flying across the Atlantic, and finally as I flew here from Frankfurt, to consider what the circ.u.mstances really are.

"To start, let me go back to the beginning. The admiral came to see me at Walter Reed. Bearing my new silver oak leaves. He told me they were intended more as an inducement for me to stay on active duty than a recognition of my superior leaders.h.i.+p characteristics.

"I then told him I didn't need an inducement to stay on active duty, as I was determined to get the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who did this to me."

He raised his broken arm.

"He immediately accepted my offer, which I thought surprised him more than a little. Not immediately, but right after he left, I began to wonder why. The cold facts seemed to be that not only was I going to have to hobble around on crutches for the next several months, but-more importantly-I was in fact no more qualified to take over Operation Ost from Colonel Frade than Jim was to handle Operation Ost in Germany.

"Certainly, I reasoned, although I had heard time and again that finding experienced people for the new DCI was going to be difficult, there had to be two or three or four experienced spooks-Colonel Mattinglylike senior spooks-who had joined the ranks of the unemployed when the OSS went out of business, who would be available. And Colonel Frade had made the point over and over that not all members, just an overwhelming majority of officers of the conventional intelligence operations, were unable to find their a.s.ses using both hands.

"I came up with a theory immediately, but dismissed it as really off the wall.

"And then I was given the letter-the carefully sealed letter in the double envelope-to deliver to Colonel Mattingly. 'What,' I wondered, 'does the admiral wish to tell Colonel Mattingly that he doesn't want me to know?'

"When I thought, at length, about this, my initial off-the-wall theory started coming back, and each time it did it made more sense.

"The conclusion I reached, after considering everything, is that Admiral Souers has decided that you and I, Jim-and of course Captain Dunwiddie-are expendable. I have also concluded that Colonel Frade-whatever his limitations are, no one has ever accused him of being slow-is, if not party to this, fully aware of it."

"How do you mean 'expendable,' Colonel?" Dunwiddie asked.

"Available for sacrifice for the greater good," Ashton said. "Consider this, please. To whom does Admiral Souers-with absolute justification-owe his primary loyalty?"

"The President," Cronley said softly. "Oh, Jesus!"

"Who must be protected whatever it takes," Ashton said.

"Why are you telling us this?" Dunwiddie asked.

"Well, after thinking it over, I decided that-as far as I'm concerned-it's all right. What we're doing is important. But I decided that it would be dishonest of me, now that I've figured it out, not to tell you. Before we go further, in other words, I wanted you to have the opportunity to opt out."

"'Before we go further'?" Dunwiddie parroted.

"What I've decided to do is live with the possibility, actually the probability, that Operation Ost is going to blow up in my face, and that when that happens, Souers, as he should, is going to throw me to the wolves to protect the President. And for that matter, Eisenhower and Smith. That's one of the things I've decided."

"And the others?" Cronley asked.

"That if Operation Ost blows up in my face, it's going to be because of a bad decision of mine. Not because Mattingly or General Greene 'suggest' something to me and I dutifully follow their suggestion to do-more importantly, not to do-something and it blows up."

"For instance?" Cronley asked softly.

"For instance, Colonel Frade suggested to me that I should act 'with great caution' in dealing with our traitor. I don't intend to heed that advice. My first priority is going to be finding out who the sonofab.i.t.c.h is, and then putting out his lights. I don't care if he spent three years holding Gehlen's hand on the Russian front, and has Joe Stalin's girlfriend's phone number, he's a dead man."

"By traitor, you mean the man who let the NKGB know we were sending Colonel Likharev to Argentina?" Cronley asked.

"With all the details of when and how," Ashton confirmed. "Gehlen has to be taught that he's working for us, and that our deal with him is to protect his people from the Russians. The deal didn't include protecting his people from us. He has to be taught, right now, that we won't tolerate a loose cannon."