The Assassination Option Part 15

"There are people in Gehlen's organization who are working for the NKGB-"

"You already had figured that out, huh?"

"And we're working on finding out who they are."

"'We're' meaning you and Gehlen, right? Isn't that what's called sending the fox into the chicken coop to see what happened to the hens? Frankly, Jim, I thought you had more sense than that."

"You will be astonished, Colonel, when I tell you how little sense I have had."

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"Shortly after I returned from Argentina, I met a woman. The wife of the CIC-Europe IG. Shortly after that-"

"Wait a minute! You're talking about this woman whose water heater blew up?"

Cronley nodded.

"There has to be a point to this narrative of your s.e.xual exploits."

"I told her about Colonel Sergei Likharev, then known to us as Major Konstantin Orlovsky, about whom she had heard from her husband and was curious. And the night I put him on the plane to Buenos Aires, I told her about that."

"And she ran her mouth?"

"I don't think they call it running the mouth when an NKGB agent reports to her superiors the intelligence she was sent to get."

Ashton looked at Cronley for a long moment.

"You're saying the wife of the CIC IG was an NKGB agent?" he asked incredulously.

"We're saying that both of them, the IG, too, were NKGB agents," Dunwiddie said.

"And the water heater explosion?"

"My orders from Colonel Frade, about finding and dealing with the leak, were to get out of General Gehlen's way when he was dealing with it. I complied with that order."

"And didn't tell Mattingly, or Greene-for that matter, Frade-about your suspicions?"

"They weren't suspicions. The only way the NKGB could have learned about our sending Likharev to Argentina, and when and how, was from my loving Rachel," Cronley said.

"And, as the general pointed out," Dunwiddie said, "a day or two after we caught Likharev sneaking out of here, Colonel Schumann showed up here and demanded to be let in. It took shooting his engine out with a .50 caliber Browning to keep him out. The general suggested Colonel Schumann's interest in Kloster Grnau was because he suspected we had Orlovsky/Likharev."

"My G.o.d!" Ashton said.

"Gehlen further suggested that how Jim planned to deal with the situation wasn't practical."

"He said it was childish," Cronley corrected him.

"And this impractical, childish situation was?" Ashton asked.

"I was going to shoot both of them and then go tell Mattingly why."

"General Gehlen said Jim going to the stockade . . ."

"Or the hangman's noose," Cronley interjected.

". . . made no sense."

"You didn't even consider going to Mattingly and telling him what you suspected? You just-"

"You're going to have to learn that when you tell Mattingly anything . . ." Cronley interrupted.

"I'm going to have to learn?" Ashton interrupted. "I don't think I like you telling me anything I have to do."

". . . Mattingly will look at it through the prism of what's good for Colonel Robert Mattingly," Cronley finished.

"Did you just hear what I said, Captain Cronley?"

"Yeah, Colonel Ashton, I heard. But you better get used to it. That won't be the last time I'll tell you what I think you have to do. Don't get blinded by those silver oak leaves. What the h.e.l.l makes you think you can get off the plane and start telling us what to do? You don't know enough of what's going-"

"Enough," Tiny boomed. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it! Both of you, stop right there!"

He sounded like the first sergeant he had so recently been, counseling two PFCs who were doing something really stupid.

And then, as if he had heard what he said, and was now cognizant that captains cannot talk to lieutenant colonels as if they are PFCs doing something really stupid, he went on jocularly, "In the immortal words of the great lover of our revolutionary era, the revered Benjamin Franklin, 'We must hang together, gentlemen, else, we shall most a.s.suredly hang separately.'"

Ashton glowered at him for a long moment.

Finally he said, "Actually, Jim, I must admit the little fellow has a point."

"Every once in a great while, he's right about something," Cronley said, and then added, "I was out of line. I apologize."

"Apology rejected as absolutely unnecessary," Ashton said.

After a moment, he went on. "So what's next?"

"Before we get to what's next," El Jefe said, "I have a request."

"For what?"

"Is there a .45 around here that I can have?"

"Why do you want a .45?" Dunwiddie asked.

"Well, when people try to kill me, I like to have something to defend myself."

When there was no reply, El Jefe went on.

"This Colonel Mattingly of yours may think a gas leak took out this CIC colonel and his wife, but I don't think the NKGB is swallowing that line. I think they may want to come back here and play t.i.t for tat."

"They already have," Cronley said. "A week ago, Ostrowski killed two of them. They already had a wire garrote around Sergeant Tedworth's neck."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," El Jefe said, "but following that, it was really heads-up around here, right? Double the guard, that sort of thing?"

Cronley and Dunwiddie nodded.

"So I think what these Communists will do is wait until you relax a little, and then try it again. At least that's what the Chinese Communists did."

"The Chinese?" Ashton and Cronley said on top of one another.

"When I was a young sailor, I did two hitches with the Yangtze River Patrol. The Chinese Communists were always trying to kill us. What they did was try. If that failed, they waited patiently until we relaxed a little and then tried again. And again. Most of the time, that worked. We used to say we got double time for retirement because the Navy knew most of us wouldn't live long enough to retire."

"Interesting," Dunwiddie said. "That's how the Apaches operated."

"Two things, Captain Cronley," Ashton said. "When you get Lieutenant Schultz a .45, would you get me one, too?"

"Yes, sir."

"And one last question. If you didn't want to go to Colonel Mattingly with it, why didn't you go to General Greene and tell him what you suspected-all right, knew-about Colonel Whatsisname and his wife?"

Dunwiddie answered for him: "General Gehlen said that the Schumanns were sure to have contingency plans-ranging from denial through disappearing-in case they were exposed. He said he didn't think we could afford to take the chance they were outwitting us. Jim and I agreed with him."

"So you went along with having Gehlen clip them," Ashton said.

"We don't know that Gehlen had them clipped," Cronley said.

"You don't know the sun will come up in the morning, either. But you would agree it's likely, right?"

When Cronley didn't reply, Ashton said, "I suggest, operative word, 'suggest,' that our next step is to meet with General Gehlen."

"I respectfully suggest our next step is getting the .45s," El Jefe said. "Then we can go talk to this general."

"Every once in a great while, the chief's right about something," Ashton said.

[THREE].

Kloster Grnau Schollbrunn, Bavaria American Zone of Occupation, Germany 1520 2 January 1946 CIC Special Agent Friedrich Hessinger and a very large, very black sergeant with a Thompson submachine gun cradled in his arms like a hunter's shotgun walked into the officers' mess.

Captain J. D. Cronley, Captain Chauncey L. Dunwiddie, First Sergeant Abraham Lincoln Tedworth, and a man in a naval officer's uniform were sitting at the bar drinking coffee. A lieutenant colonel sitting in a chair, with his en-casted leg resting on a small table, also held a coffee cup.

The sergeant smiled and, without disturbing the Thompson, saluted.

"Those captain's bars look good on you, Top," he said.

Dunwiddie returned the salute.

"Flattery will get you everywhere," he said. "Thanks, Eustis."

"And these stripes?" Tedworth asked, pointing to his chevrons. "How do they look on me?"

"Every once in a while, the Army makes a really big mistake," the sergeant said.

"That will cost you, Eustis. Sooner or later that will really cost you," Tedworth replied. "Now, get over to the motor pool and tell them to have an ambulance, with a couch, ready in ten minutes. We're going into Munich."

"And then come back here?"

"Wait there until I send for you."

"You got it, Top."

When he had gone, Cronley said, "Good man."

"Yes, he is," Dunwiddie agreed. "When he's told to do something, he does it. Not like some fat Kraut-Americans, like the one I'm looking at."

Hessinger held up both hands, a gesture that meant both that he didn't understand and that he surrendered.

"Captain Cronley, did you, or did you not, tell Fat Freddy to arm himself before driving out here?"

"I recall saying something along those lines to Special Agent Hessinger, yes," Cronley said.

"'Sorry, sir. No excuse, sir' will not be a satisfactory excuse, Sergeant Hessinger," Dunwiddie said.

Hessinger hoisted the skirt of his tunic. The b.u.t.t of a Model 1911A1 .45 ACP pistol became visible above his hip.

"Say 'I apologize' to Freddy," Cronley said, laughing. And then he added, "Come here, Freddy, I want to see that holster."

Hessinger complied.

"Where the h.e.l.l did you get that?"

"I had a shoemaker make half a dozen of them," Hessinger replied. "They call them 'Secret Service High Rise Cross Draw Holsters.' There was a schematic in one of the books on General Greene's sergeant major's shelf."

"Colonel Ashton, Lieutenant Schultz, meet Special Agent Hessinger, sometimes known as 'One Surprise After Another Hessinger,'" Cronley said.

They shook hands.

"Your funny accent," El Jefe said. "What are you, German?"

"I was. Now I am an American."

"Can I have a look at that holster?" Ashton asked.